今年の４月12日に練馬の園芸店で見つけたフィンガーライムの小苗。購入当日の状態で左から、ニューイエロー、パープルブリス、ダラムズエメラルド。
I bought these 3 little plants on 12th April this year. This is how they looked then. From left to right, New Yellow, Purple Bliss and Durham's Emerald.
鉢増しして、今はこの状態です。写真の撮り方の関係で、まるで苗が大して成長していないように見えますが、実際は順調に枝葉が育っています。
And now, they look like these. Due to the way I took the picture, they may not seem much different but they have grown significantly.
This is New Yellow with 7 young fruits. Since the colour of the young fruits is almost the same as that of the leaves, it is difficult to find them even for me. I have to stare at the plant every time I try to count the growing fruits.
パープルブリスは更に数が多いので、数えていません。新芽は続々と出始めているけど十分な栄養を提供できなければ、そのうち生理落果があるでしょう。
Purple Bliss has even more fruits than New Yellow, so I do not bother to count. New branches have started to come out but, if they cannot provide sufficient nutrition to the fruits, I may lose them, anyway.
パープルブリスの実は随分と細長くなるようです。
Such an elongated shape of the fruit.
ダラムズエメラルドは実着きの悪い品種なのかなぁ、と思い始めています。以前育てていた苗は大枚はたいて買った大苗でしたが、1個も生らないうちに枯れてしまいました。この苗も、多花性だった他の２品種とは対照的に、ほんの数輪しか咲かず、実はかろうじて１個が確認できていますが、いつ落ちるかわかりません。
Durham's Emerald had only a few flowers, unlike the other two varieties. I used to grow this variety and it was a large and mature plant which cost a lot of money. Sadly, it never had more than 5 or 6 flowers every year and never produced any fruit, before it died. I am beginning to think that this is not a very productive variety.
その貴重な１個がこれ↓。他の品種とは異なり、かなり小さいです。
This is the only fruit and it is very small - it may drop off any day.
以前からある苗のうち、白実の実生苗。なぜか２個だけ突出して成長が速かった。花は今も咲き続けているので、小さな実があちこちについていますが、葉っぱよりも小さい段階なので写真に撮れないほど。
The white fleshed seedling had an abundance of flowers this spring. For some reason, these two fruits started to grow much faster than others. The plant continues to flower even today, and it has lots of tiny fruits as well. Those other fruits are smaller than the leaves and not easily recognisable in a photo.
ミアローズは肥大がストップしてしまいましたが、完熟のタイミングが分からないので、自然落果を待ちます。この実はたぶん室内越冬中に花が咲いたのだと思います。春になって無数に開花したものからの幼果は、白実実生苗のと同様、まだ葉っぱよりも小さくて写真に写らないほどです。
これら２個は夏のうちに利用できそうです。夏はキウリの塩漬けをよく作るので、食べる直前にフィンガーライムを混ぜると爽やかな風味が加わります。
These two fruits may mature during the summer. I can think of a few ways to use them - salads, pickles, and in desserts.
Mia Rose must have flowered during winter when I kept this plant indoors, and this is the fruit that I noticed at the end of winter. This plant had lots of flowers in spring, too. However, they are still too tiny, as in the case of the seedling tree above.
