Tereza Okava

it is indeed a pretty interesting idea. I don't know about the feasibility of grafting into mature trees, compared to grafting into younger trees-- you may need to consider overall health and longevity, if these trees are old they will have a natural lifetime that will need to be considered. Likewise their overall health (or maybe external issues like water availability)-- have you determined why this orchard is for sale?
Another concern I would have is soil quality and contamination. Crete may not have this problem but where I live orchards and vineyards often have buildup of copper from bourdeaux mix, which is considered an organic anti-fungal, but it accumulates and can cause problems. But this is mostly a due diligence problem.

I did a quickie search about survival in grafting to mature trees and Perplexity said this:
Grafting new varieties onto mature citrus trees, known as topworking or reworking, is a realistic and established practice with success rates often exceeding 75-90% when done correctly. Healthy trees benefit from their established root systems, enabling rapid regrowth and fruit production in 3-5 years. However, success depends on proper technique, timing, and health management.
​
Success Factors
Techniques like bark grafting, wedge grafting, and cleft grafting work well on limbs under 150 mm in diameter, performed during late winter to spring when bark slips easily. Use disease-free scion wood from compatible varieties, such as oranges or mandarins on trifoliate rootstocks, to avoid incompatibility or virus issues like exocortis. Nurse branches left on the tree aid sap flow and protect grafts from sun and wind.
​
Risks and Challenges
Unhealthy or old trees yield poor results, and large pruning wounds near the ground risk heart rot or pathogen entry in citrus. Lemons and grapefruit reworking is less successful due to virus transmission. Post-graft care includes bagging grafts, monitoring pests, and adjusting irrigation to prevent failure.
​
Practical Outcomes
Mature scions can fruit within 1-3 years, with real-world examples showing multiple grafts taking on stumps and producing fruit in 18 months. Full production returns quickly, though professional help may be needed for large-scale efforts.
--​

I suspect you would do better keeping a part of the valencias and cutting/replacing with other species. You'll need to be very alert to water needs, I suppose. Might be able to intersperse with grapes, blackberries/raspberries, pomegranates, and maybe even nuts (not sure what kind works with your climate).

Phil Stevens wrote:This is one of the greens I'd like to eat more of but always gives me that irritation in my throat that I associate with oxalates. I suppose cooking it would fix that problem.

Yes, around here it is our least favorite spinach-type green because of that, and even cooking doesn't get rid of that scratchiness. My kid likes it but to put it in food we basically have to blend it and mix it with something else to get rid of that feeling.

for the size of the pot, i'd say your plant looks about right. i have a garden full of this. the few yellow leaves are all old, at the bottom of the stems. they're going to fall off.
It does very well in clay soil, I would also put it in the ground. it looks like it's very leggy (straining towards light)... it can do fine in full sun. I'd pinch off a few branches and let it focus its growth on the remainder.
it also looks like your plant is full of buds, so it may be focusing more on reproduction. another reason to remove a few branches. most people i know who grow these regularly prune them and they tend to bush out.

Ulla Bisgaard wrote:It’s hard to see, but to me it looks like mites since it looks like spider webs, and the eggs have the right color for it.

I agree it looks like some kind of bug- webs, eggs, etc.
Generally I find that powdery mildew starts on the underside of leaves before it gets bad enough to be on the top side, and it affects all the leaves of the same age, leaving only the newer ones unaffected. i have never seen mildew affect succulent-type leaves like aloe, pereskia, succulents, or purslane (and where I live is so humid and the mildew is so bad we have several distinct types...)

i just put my foot down and set some limits for Christmas with the extended family.
I'm not getting sucked into little dramas and posturing and I literally do not care what anyone thinks about it.
I'm not bending over backwards and moving heaven and earth, except maybe when my mother in law is concerned (because I love her and she deserves it). all the rest of the extended relatives can figure out their own crap, their own food, their own arrangements and their own problems.
I feel about ten pounds lighter.

i also ad-libbed to use thinner yarn (much thinner, almost bakery twine type weight, it was what the yarn store had on sale) and crocheted. The first one took some experimentation but came along pretty easily-- they're just slightly larger than finger puppet size.
they're on my tree again this year, as i didn't get my act together to make anything this year and we're not doing much for the holiday in terms of visits or parties.

About 7 or 8 years ago I was a "heavy user" of facebook. I owned several very active local community groups and adminned a few others. It was useful for me professionally (profile, and keeping up on training) as well as personally (as a person who moves a lot, for keeping track of friends abroad, particularly). Then came our local election season, which was so politically divisive that everyone I knew had someone in their family that either wasn't talking to them or they weren't talking to-- including my own family.
I have never been shy about my persuasions and this caught the attention of some cyberbully, who sent me a private message detailing what sort of torture my daughter and I deserved for being "uppity women" with the nerve to have political opinions. Mentioned knowing our addresses and where the kid studies (all rather obvious for anyone who can use the internet) but then started spamming my husband's business with 1-star reviews.
I decided I was done with facebook and shut down my account within the week after I found new owners for the groups. A few people simply cannot communicate any other way, and I have lost touch with them. The rest, we have migrated to whatsapp or telegram or linkedin (which has become the new facebook for a lot of people). I do miss the local groups, which were a big part of my life, but I also spent ridiculous amounts of time on facebook. Now that gets poured into my business or garden instead.
I do think sometimes that a Facebook presence would be better for my business. On the other hand, I think I can count on two hands the number of jobs I got through facebook over all those years-- in terms of return on time invested, it was definitely a loss.

And Jay-- I recently applied for a job that asked for my accounts for various social media. No option for leaving blank. so much for that!

Burra Maluca wrote: I think we'll be having it again as it's the best way I've ever had feijão frade as they are known here.

this is interesting to know!! these are the cheapest beans we can get here, and for years i tried to make them in some way that the family would eat them. to this day the only success has been blended up to use in falafel or acarajé (a fried patty akin to a falafel, usually stuffed with shrimp or something interesting), otherwise they refuse the taste. maybe time to try again, with chili type tastes.

i am going away for a few days and realized i have a produce problem! so last night was a cleanout...

eggplant and peppers with sweet miso sauce
cucumber and wakame salad
some beautiful bok choy, blanched with some oyster/garlic sauce on top
Chicken with ginger and miso in shiso leaves (which sounds lovely but was actually disappointingly bland... new recipe  :-(

and someone gave me a bunch of small corn that was too much hassle for them to cook with, the runts of the litter. it is not the same as north american sweet corn, it is more like what i grew up calling "cow corn", needs to be cooked. so i sliced it off the cobs and cooked it with rice in the rice cooker, with a bit of sake and soy sauce (and the cobs on top), then tossed with black pepper and a touch of butter when it was done.

tonight the cleanout continues.... i have a broccoli that needs to go, and a cauliflower that i'll probably do chinese style with some pork belly i picked up.
I may make some steamed bread with a bit of cornmeal, as i'm so tired of pasta (we've had a lot of pasta lately) and my daughter called dibs on the leftover corn/rice. we'll do a japanese quick garlic/cabbage salad as a side (yamitsuki) and maybe a quick egg/tomato soup, since it's inexplicably freezing again today.

I got stuck trying to bring a friend to the airport in Syracuse one year, driving my 81 Datsun/Nissan (which was already an antique). Snow at least a meter high, and off the road i went and there was no getting out. Then this wave of plow trucks shows up, clears the road, the tow truck close behind, and I spent probably no more than 10 minutes in the snowbank. it was ridiculous! (they towed me straight to the cash machine)

that was the fun story. the memory that made me shudder when I read this topic was when I was in my last year of college and they called a snow day and sent me home from my internship. This in upstate New York at a school that had not called a snow day in recent history- there was already about a foot on the ground and a blizzard warning. All the people who grew up around there all immediately went home, do not stop and get milk/bread/eggs, they were serious. That was the first sign I missed.
It was still relatively early in the day, my last year was hellish and I never had any free time to do anything I liked, and I thought heck, I'm going to go hiking in the snow. I had gear, I had snowshoes and boots that were broken in, and I decided to go hiking up near campus through the arboretum and along the trails I used to run on in the summer. Not remote, not far, no mountains, not unfamiliar. Heck, for one summer I lived right around there. I would go along the same route I ran, maybe 7 miles or so.
It was gorgeous. I had a really wonderful, beautiful hike until-- of course--I got disoriented in the blizzard and lost my way. Worse, everyone (grad students, hikers, bikers, dog walkers, etc) who usually would be all over this well-trafficked area were all hunkered down at home and the buses were shut down, so the roads were empty. The snow was really heavy and I had no idea where the heck I was. At a certain point I came to a river and thought that campus was back in that direction and I'd have to cross, and I remember stopping and thinking, if I get my feet wet I am going to freeze to death, this is the point of no return where I get into big trouble. I was well-covered, not at risk of frostbite, but at this point it was getting close to nightfall and I was tired and I couldn't keep walking in circles forever.
I decided there had to be something I was missing and decided to track back to avoid the river. And not ten steps from where I was, where I had gone several times before, turned out the be the road, and a BUS went by. I don't think I was ever so happy to see a bus! I was not five minutes from the edge of campus, but I swear, I was really thinking I was at the end of the line. I don't think I ever went out hiking/snowshoeing again after that.
(yes, poor preparation, etc etc. i was a college student and poor decisions were part and parcel.... live and learn)