Meet our newest dwarf citrus --- Washington Navel Orange.  Isn't she cute?


Unfortunately, she is the textbook definition of rootbound.  One large root had literally grown all the way around the perimeter of the pot...although the plant had eschewed the stagnant dirt in the pot's bottom.

When  I asked Mark to buy me a pot, he came up with the absolutely best pot possible.  Notice how shallow and wide this pot is?  No more wasted soil on the bottom of the citrus pot!

I teased the orange's roots out and planted the tree in a mixture of partially decomposed horse manure and storebought compost.  I usually try to use worm castings or stump dirt for repotting, but I'm all out!  If the little orange tree seems to be struggling, I'll pop it back out and hunt down some better soil.

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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