Food gardening

I pruned the shit out of the 3 in 1 apple trees. Hit em with some fresh compost containing manure. They got the dreaded cedar apple rust pretty bad this spring, weren't looking tops. They were above and pretty much growing out of the cages before pruning. I probably should have waited another few weeks for summer pruning so they would not produce new growth that could get damaged this winter, or better yet waited until winter dormancy. Live and learn. They were starting to scrape the sides of the cage, and way too gangly to support fruit next spring. Either they die, I come around to my will. I have about $500 or more in those 2 trees, although it's not about the money I do attempt to be a good steward of resources. Pruned to form more compact will make it easier to spray a fungicide in the spring, several. times. every. spring. for the rest of. their/my. life. Assuming they live, easier to harvest as well.

The good news, the Fruit Cocktail Tree, stone fruit, it seems to be doing great. Any further growth and I'll have to cut the cage off for risk of damage. I'm sure it should be pruned, maybe this winter dormancy when I can see better the structure. I do have to remove the cage at some point. I fear the deer are looking forward to that day.

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Serendipity Records said:
Yes...

But I must say -- beautiful garden you got there!
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Thank you, sir. It's been a fair bit of work, but enjoyable.

The tomatoes are doing, okay. Been pruning suckers and such, and have them growing up twine attached to a 7 1/2' trellis. Indeterminate varieties other than I think Juliet plum. Trying to not so much grow leaves as I am tomatoes. Getting tomatoes off other vines I stuck in the ground earlier. The Cherokee Purples are delicious. Full size bell peppers as well, probably will allow them to ripe to red.

Cucumbers we have coming out our ears. Just did a bush variety this year, picking small, about 4-5 inches. Thought about starting another variety as well, perhaps glad I didn't unless powdery mildew takes the vines I currently have planted. When/if watering, watering at the base and keeping the leaves dry as possible, even at that it's a real possibility, powdery mildew. Squash could get it as well. I will start more squash this week, and preparing for a fall crop of other things.

I did just acquire a pressure canner setup with all the sundries. Big boy. Will be mighty useful when the tomatoes come in mass. First, navigating the learning curve, will make pickles. Maybe Chow Chow with green tomatoes, peppers and onions, maybe cabbage, or a hot mix pickle cukes and peppers.
 
As I said, I will be expanding, out another 10' or so, maybe more, and about 8' on each side. I think what I am going to do is break the ground, till, preliminarily remove the bigger rocks I see, and throw out a Buckwheat cover crop, maybe some Blackeye Peas. It'll keeps the weeds from taking over, and once tilled in before it goes to seed will add organic matter and nitrogen to the soil. I do have some charred wood from a burn, might do a test area of bio-char. Gotta load up the char with nutrients in order for it to work. Could perhaps alter the soil in a positive way, for the long haul, or change the PH such that shit won't grow. A different problem altogether, but reversible. Hopefully.

I want to expand outside the garden fence, here, there, and everywhere. Once the hundred or so Tree of Heaven are down I will be building fencing, and let the dogs run. But deer don't give a damn about 4' fencing, and the dogs are pretty much house dogs that will come in at night. There are sometimes 4, 5, 6 or more deer out there, hardly bat an eyelash when they see you. A nice looking young buck among them. Yeah, I got my eye on his ass.
 
watering when allowed. Golden berries surviving and producing except the one on the end.
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Blueberries one left. Producing and thriving.
Strawberries hangers are doing interesting things. No telling what thats going to do.
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Not much of a gardener. Feels like Im taking responsibility for something.
 
LazerBeakShiek said:
watering when allowed. Golden berries surviving and producing except the one on the end.
View attachment 131634View attachment 131637
Blueberries one left. Producing and thriving.
Strawberries hangers are doing interesting things. No telling what thats going to do.
View attachment 131640
Not much of a gardener. Feels like Im taking responsibility for something.
Click to expand...

Looks good, man. You're doing well. Reality is, you're going to win some, you're going to lose some. Take it in stride.

To my shame I allowed my Arapahoe Blackberry to sit in the pot all winter and freeze to death. I was hoping it would live, it didn't. I was indecisive about a permanent location. I'm not going to beat myself up over it, although I will purchase another and probably more once I know exactly where I want them. One thing I am learning, hopes and dreams don't mean shit without execution. A good plan and following through no matter the time and labor required. Realistic goals. A fair bit of research and the gathering of knowledge is a huge plus. Hell, I never knew there was such a thing as cedar apple rust. Now I do, and I'll move forward with that knowledge. I'm not going to cut down all the cedars within a 10 mile radius, impossible. So I'll move forward with spraying in the spring, or if I determine it is too laborious or a pain in the ass I won't, or I'll quit and plant apples that are resistant. Sure, there will be disappointments, but it's all part of the deal, part of the fun, the adventure...the gaining of knowledge....and applying that knowledge.
 
LazerBeakShiek said:
watering when allowed. Golden berries surviving and producing except the one on the end.
View attachment 131634View attachment 131637
Blueberries one left. Producing and thriving.
Strawberries hangers are doing interesting things. No telling what thats going to do.
View attachment 131640
Not much of a gardener. Feels like Im taking responsibility for something.
Click to expand...

Blueberries.

To my understanding, which isn't huge, blueberries require a certain PH dissimilar than more commonly desired by most plants we plant for food. They won't do well, possibly perish. Check it out, amend the soil as required with a top dressing.
 
There are some berries similar to blueberries that some opt for on account of the Ph thing. Not exactly blueberries, but similar. Word is some prefer the flavor to blueberries.
 
I noticed that nothing that I purchased and planted I can leave be. Everything must be watered. If the soil starts to crack, everything dies..Water.

My utlilty bill for period is $160. I dont feel comfortable going wetter, but it would help.
 
Okay, I'm not telling you to do any of this, do your own research...

A soil test is the only sure way to get an idea about the pH of your soil, soil samples from multiple locations on your property. A local cooperative can test for you, a slight fee, not much.

Lime can raise the pH making it sweeter, more alkaline, higher pH. Elemental sulphur can lower the pH, making it more acidic. The correct pH or desired pH for a specific plant allows the plant to take up nutrients from the soil. Nutrients can be available but the plant can't access them without the desired pH. Blueberries require acidic soil. To make the soil more acidic you add elemental sulfur. But it takes time to work, several months, and if the plant is already in the ground is it possible to amend the soil by lowering the ph with a top dressing? Or are there other options to using sulphur, if so can it work as a top dressing?

Find out. Research. By spring you might be good to go. However, if your blueberry is close to other plants that do not prefer acidic soil, that might be a problem.

Science!
 
LazerBeakShiek said:
I noticed that nothing that I purchased and planted I can leave be. Everything must be watered. If the soil starts to crack, everything dies..Water.

My utlilty bill for period is $160. I dont feel comfortable going wetter, but it would help.
Click to expand...

Okay, you have an amendment to acidify your soil.

Mulch to preserve water, to keep the ground from drying and cracking...to retain moisture. Peat will acidify the soil slightly, probably/maybe not a problem for your blueberries. Buy a mulch with a balanced mixture of peat and cow manure, spread about half to an inch around your blueberry plants. Peat can help retain moisture and manure can feed. Aged manure is a pretty low feed, mixed with peat I think it's only about 2 2 2. Take care, soon your plants will be deciding to prepare for winter dormancy. Any new growth from fertilizer could confuse the issue and cause new tender growth that could be damaged by the coming freeze.

That's all I got. I'm not an expert so take it for what it's worth and do your own due diligence.

Post some pics of your walnuts!

(okay, that didn't sound right)

Keep it clean!...this is a family site and we have a new mod on the prowl.
 
Once your blueberry is more established it may adjust to less watering, maybe. The others died? The one left is the only the strong survive. Treat it as such, maybe. Perhaps teach it to learn to live with the amount of water mother nature provides, and you occasionally supplement. Might work, might not. These are the risks we take, I reckon. As far as watering, tomatoes are one thing, an annual. You want tomatoes you might have to water from time to time, for a fixed amoint of time. Blueberries are a perennial, forever, or unless it dies. If it wants to live there, maybe you have to challenge it to live there. If it does die treat it as an opportunity to replace it with a berry of less high maintenance, an opportunity.
 
My chestnuts are coming in. The tree was here when I got here. I kept an eye on it. It had these long feather type things on it.
I thought somehow thew would be the nuts. They fell off the tree. I kept looking for the start of the chestnuts but missed it. Yesterday
I saw the tree was full of them. Now I still don't know how they develop. I guess it's off to youtube.
 
LazerBeakShiek said:
I noticed that nothing that I purchased and planted I can leave be. Everything must be watered. If the soil starts to crack, everything dies..Water.

My utlilty bill for period is $160. I dont feel comfortable going wetter, but it would help.
Click to expand...
I don't know your circumstances. I found two 55 gallon plastic drums with spigots on the bottom. I have an old barn up in the field. I put a gutter
on the barn and ran it into one of the barrels. From that barrel I ran a 100 foot hose down to the garden into the other barrel. The one barrel gravity feeds the other.
I now usually have a hundred gallons of water on hand most of the time. I could add more barrels. Next year I have to get some PVC pipes and
make an irrigation system run off the barrels so all I have to do is turn a valve to water the garden. I could put another gutter on the other side of
the barn and up my capacity. I have another smaller outbuilding I am turning into a greenhouse I could do the same with. As it stands I can gravity
feed water to the "greenhouse" from either barrel.
 
dogooder said:
My chestnuts are coming in. The tree was here when I got here. I kept an eye on it. It had these long feather type things on it.
I thought somehow thew would be the nuts. They fell off the tree. I kept looking for the start of the chestnuts but missed it. Yesterday
I saw the tree was full of them. Now I still don't know how they develop. I guess it's off to youtube.
Click to expand...

That's innerstin.

When I was a kid, a young punk and way too young to drink, we all would go behind my friend's house to "the coal shed" and drink MD 2020, and then once we discovered Tequila and could find someone to buy it for us drink that, get drunk as hell, pass out in the yard rolling around in them spiney chestnut hulls. Good thing we was drunk or that might have hurt something fierce.

That's not why it's interesting. Chestnut trees were once abundant in your neck of the woods, and across the south. Besides the chestnuts, good for all sorts of things. Floors, furniture, all sorts of things that could be of quite a value if still around today. Then the trees were practically totally killed off by a blight during the early 20th century to the point that they are quite rare. I don't have a huge piece of property, but part of my dream if I ever did was to plant the shit out of them all over the place. Of course I'd never see them come to maturity, but that's not really the point.

You know the television series The Waltons? It was actually a spin off from a Christmas special, a TV movie called The Homecoming. Depression era. Things were rough. Daddy had to take a job away from Walton's Mountain in Raleigh, NC, and for some reason had not returned home Christmas Eve. Hadn't done any hunting to put a holiday bird on the table for the family. Charlie Snead, a local good guy but part time scoundrel friend of John Walton had done the Robinhood act, made off with a car load of hams, turkeys, and canned good from the J&B market warehouse, leaving them on porches of the in need all across Walton's mountain. He dropped by the Walton place to say hello to John and gift a bird for the holiday table. Of course John had not returned from Raleigh on that snowy Christmas Eve. Everyone was quite worried. Charlie pulls out from behind his back a big fat(domestically raised) turkey and plops in onto the table. "I knew John wouldn't be doing any huntin' this Christmas season so I brought y'all this here bird!" Grandma Walton wasn't buying it, "It don't look like any wild bird to me." Fat and clean, no birdshot or nuthin. "I shot him sitting on a branch, straight through the head", Charlie says. "A sittin' bird? You shot a sittin bird?", Grandma objects. Charlie defiantly leans in to press the point, "I shot him at 20 paces off the limb of a dead Chestnut tree."

I don't know, most people I don't reckon would get it, but I appreciate the historical reference, and ode to what was once a treasure on the landscape in the Southern United States.

Oh, I do tend to ramble, don't I?
 
Back in February, I picked up some seeds for Beefsteak tomatoes. According to the package, they're big and meaty, and one slice will cover a sandwich! GREAT!

I had a large crop growing, nice strong plants. They are now climbing over the 48" cages, and one was so heavy that I had to put a piece of 1/2" copper pipe next to the cage because it was falling over from the weight and wind. There were bunches of blooms, and soon fruits began to appear.

To my surprise, they got to about an inch in size, and started turning yellow, then red! I've got the most wonderful crop of cherry tomatoes you've ever seen! Cover a sandwich? Only if you're eating finger sandwiches at the ladies' bridge party!

Beefsteaks.jpg

I've had to content myself with tossing 4 or 5 on the plate to eat with my burger. There are a dozen on the counter that I've picked over the past 2 days. I've seen a chipmunk scampering across the patio with a green one in his mouth. A squirrel stops by regularly to shop for produce!

The chipmunks are a problem. They have set up residence by burrowing under my neighbor's front step and sidewalk, so yesterday, I found my HaveAHart trap, put some peanut butter on the flap, and set it out by the tomatoes. About 3pm, I looked out and one was going nuts bouncing around in the trap. I enrolled him in a relocation program by a creek about 1/2 mile from the house. Hoping to get his girlfriend later today.

The ghost pepper plants that I saved over the winter have rebounded nicely. I've already picked 5 peppers and with the heat and sun, there are about a half dozen more turning red. I'll need to get them before the cardinals start eating them. The two plants probably have 30 or more peppers on them. The ones that I planted from seed are still blooming and have another dozen or so. I had two green pepper plants, each with a nice big pepper. I went out one day and the whole side of one pepper was gone, nothing but a big hole! The second is still there, but I'll probably pick that in a day or so.
 
I used to have to fight the squirrels, chipmunks, and groundhogs all the time in Upstate N.Y. Since I have moved to Southwest Va. in the
countryside on six acres, I have seen one chipmunk and one squirrel, now my third summer. I do have some groundhogs but they haven't
invaded the garden. I see very few deer and very few turkeys. I have heard coyotes but have not seen them. I am pretty sure I found two
bear scats on the property, one in the back yard. I looked them up and can't imagine what else they could be.
 
dogooder said:
I used to have to fight the squirrels, chipmunks, and groundhogs all the time in Upstate N.Y. Since I have moved to Southwest Va. in the
countryside on six acres, I have seen one chipmunk and one squirrel, now my third summer. I do have some groundhogs but they haven't
invaded the garden. I see very few deer and very few turkeys. I have heard coyotes but have not seen them. I am pretty sure I found two
bear scats on the property, one in the back yard. I looked them up and can't imagine what else they could be.
Click to expand...

One indication it might be bear scat, it could possibly be soupy, or runny. Tree huggers and the random hiker can be a tad hard on the digestive system.
 
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