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Re: Garden Log

Posted: Wed May 29, 2019 5:35 am
by tonyedgecombe
I often wonder if we are going to find the optimum is like a pyramid. Lots of low level like walking or gardening, a medium amount of mid level and a small amount of intense workout.

Re: Garden Log

Posted: Sun Jun 09, 2019 1:26 pm
by jennypenny
jennypenny wrote:
Sun May 26, 2019 7:55 am
Well, the garden is mostly a bust this year.
Two weeks of lovely weather and a burst of inspiration and now the garden is looking pretty good. First we focused on what we like to grow, so DH expanded the tomatoes and I put in a lavender bed. We also filled in with some new herbs. Then put in some squash and basil. etc etc etc. It helps that our perennials are doing well -- cherries, peaches, strawberries, blueberries, apples, pears, blackberries, raspberries, chamomile, thyme, sage, oregano -- and we've had several volunteers around the yard. (I think the strawberries would take over my whole yard if I let them.)

Anyway, I didn't set out to do a big garden because I was feeling overwhelmed. I just focused on smaller areas and smaller plantings ... and then suddenly I had a decent garden. I think I've learned two things. First, grand plans are great but you can get as much done (and possibly enjoy it more) if you focus on small garden pockets and let the garden develop organically. Second, perennials will tide you over when you don't put much effort into the garden, and they also provide inspiration and motivation when you just aren't in the mood to garden.

For example, seeing strawberry plants loaded with fruit makes you want to weed them a little. And then a little more. And then you see bare spot between the oregano and thyme and figure you might as well stick some seeds in there. And so on and so on. Then you look around on a Sunday afternoon and realize that your garden looks alive and well-loved ... and it feels really good. :)

Re: Garden Log

Posted: Tue Jun 11, 2019 11:32 am
by jennypenny
It's time to throw the nets over the cherry trees and blueberry bushes, but I don't want to. Last year, a bird got caught in one of the nets and died before we found it. It broke my heart.

Is there anything else I can do besides netting them? We hung old CDs in the trees to scare them off but they aren't working.

Re: Garden Log

Posted: Tue Jun 11, 2019 12:53 pm
by Ego
We used a fake owl to scare away pigeons.

Re: Garden Log

Posted: Wed Jun 12, 2019 6:29 am
by 7Wannabe5
@jennypenny:

Add a carnivorous predator to your eco-system? For better or worse, I have a troupe of homeless city cats semi-occupying my garden and my cherries and berries are unmolested.

My garden is going gang-busters. I am eating mixed mess of greens (mustard, radish, turnip, lamb's quarter, garlic scapes, etc.) on rice for dinner every night lately. Only strawberries on the fruit front thus far, but black currants, sour cherries, and blueberries are coming soon. My apricots bloomed, but did not set fruit. All the bramble berries are doing very well, and so far, so good on the apples. The asparagus bed looks pathetic, with just one solo spear dead center.

I am desperately trying to wrap up moving my mother into new senior apartment with assisted living help available, so that I will no longer be in the ridiculous position of trying to maintain a huge garden located 45 minutes away.

Re: Garden Log

Posted: Wed Jun 12, 2019 7:49 am
by jacob
7Wannabe5 wrote:
Wed Jun 12, 2019 6:29 am
Add a carnivorous predator to your eco-system? For better or worse, I have a troupe of homeless city cats semi-occupying my garden and my cherries and berries are unmolested.
Please don't. Random link https://www.allaboutbirds.org/faq-outdo ... -on-birds/

Re: Garden Log

Posted: Wed Jun 12, 2019 10:17 am
by jacob
Reminder, I still have a ton of permies gift codes from the kickstarter to give away. I plonked in $100 so I have codes up to that level. PM me and let me know which ones you want. You need an account on permies.com to access them.

Re: Garden Log

Posted: Wed Jun 12, 2019 10:56 am
by Lemur
Ego wrote:
Tue Jun 11, 2019 12:53 pm
We used a fake owl to scare away pigeons.
Wondering if this will work for groundhogs....

Re: Garden Log

Posted: Wed Jun 12, 2019 11:50 am
by Ego
@Lumur, it might work. This is the one we purchased.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx2XggUq3-A

If I were spending my own money, I would make one.

Re: Garden Log

Posted: Wed Jun 12, 2019 6:54 pm
by George the original one
The neighbors aggressively feed birds which seems to result in the birds being so full that they leave my fruit alone. Strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and apples all survive unmolested by robins, pigeons, bluejays, crows, starlings, & goldfinches. The crows do eat exposed potatoes during the winter.

Cherries might be a different matter. Before expanding the garden, the existing cherry trees bore hardly any fruit to maturity and I always blamed that on the birds, but can't be certain. Since the trees were in the way of garden expansion, I sacrificed them for firewood years ago. I plan on creating a Belgian fence of cherry trees, but that's still a few years in the future.

Re: Garden Log

Posted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 5:41 pm
by George the original one
What was green has turned red after a couple hot days. First berries of the season!
Image

P.S. Picked the first peas today, too.

Re: Garden Log

Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2019 7:12 pm
by George the original one
Pulling in the apples. Honeycrisp are ripe and Melrose are mostly ripe. Pink Lady and Thompkins-King need more time. I'd like to pull those unripe apples in due to a possible frost this weekend and a few subsequent days, but it just doesn't seem worthwhile to pick green apples, so I'll take my chances.

Re: Garden Log

Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2019 4:29 pm
by George the original one
Noticed one of the espalier posts was leaning today. Giving the post a slight shove, it obviously had rotted and I easily snapped it off. Sigh.

Re: Garden Log

Posted: Fri Jan 17, 2020 4:20 pm
by George the original one
I was a little late planting the garlic this year, think it was about Thanksgiving before the bulbs went into the ground. They're doing nicely now, with the vigorous ones having 4" leaves. Yesterday, on the lone glorious sunny day between snow and rain weeks, I spread a bag of manure/compost on the rows.

Also hacked two of the four original blueberry bushes to the ground in an effort to rejuvenate them since they weren't productive. Probably should have just pruned them correctly, but I couldn't tell which branches should be pruned and they really were getting just too big.

Re: Garden Log

Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2020 4:20 pm
by George the original one
Orchard cleanup day. Appropriately pruned things back. Thinking this year I may get some filberts off the trees planted 4 years ago. Planting peas is on the agenda for this sunny week, but possibly will wait until Thu or Fri since rains arrive for the weekend. Might cover some of the pea seeds a coldframe to see how that affects them.

Another chore is to replace the espalier post that rotted away at the end of last season. And digging out the raspberries that are getting outside their boundary. Hmm, I should have checked on the Columbia Star thornless blackberries to make sure they've come through the winter.

The garlic is looking fantastic.

Re: Garden Log

Posted: Thu Feb 27, 2020 6:06 pm
by George the original one
Skipped planting peas until today. Threw down the walla walla onion seeds, too.

Espalier post was replaced, but haven't restrung the wires yet. Glanced at the Columbia Star thornless blackberries and they didn't look very happy. Worse, though, was evidence that an Oregon brush bunny thought the leaves might be tasty.

Re: Garden Log

Posted: Sun Mar 08, 2020 6:47 pm
by Lucky C
I've got fourteen 5 gallon buckets filled with the Square Foot Gardening Mel's mix. All our own compost and got the buckets for free so I just had to buy peat moss and vermiculite. Actually used perlite for the first half of the buckets since that's all that was available at the time... it is larger and less coarse so it seems inferior to the vermiculite (which was also a bit more expensive) but I am hoping it doesn't make a big difference. I will plant the same plants in each, perlite vs. vermiculite, to see.

Hoping to not have any difficulties buying transplants of tomatoes/eggplant/peppers when the time comes even though COVID-19 is probably going to be widespread by that time. Not a fan of starting those from seed myself. Maybe I'll grab some as soon as they're available even if I have to keep them in smaller interim pots before rotating them into the 5 gallons after harvesting spring greens.

Re: Garden Log

Posted: Mon Mar 16, 2020 4:14 pm
by George the original one
Pea sprouts! I've got pea sprouts!

Just wish the birds would quit pulling up the onions.

Re: Garden Log

Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2020 8:27 am
by enigmaT120
I took out three yellow delicious trees yesterday with my tractor. One more to go. I could count on the fingers of one hand how many yellow delicious trees I need, even if all of the fingers had been amputated. But I still have about 7.

Almost done pruning the fruit trees! First time in a few years, since I had to take over the Salem office and couldn't get any time off. I did 4 grafting experiments, sacrificing 4 yellow delicious trees to try to start one each of Jazz, King, Gravenstein, and Macintosh bark grafts. I put several scions on each stump and will prune if I'm lucky enough to have any live. At worst, 4 fewer yellow delicious trees to prune and not really enjoy the apples. I'm thinking of getting some persimmons to fill in some of the gap, I love fresh fruit in the winter. People grow them down in the Willamette Valley and I'm only at 600 feet up in the coast range.

I'm eager to get all that stuff done so I can get back to thinning my forest!

Re: Garden Log

Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2020 11:05 am
by George the original one
enigmaT120 wrote:
Fri Mar 20, 2020 8:27 am
I did 4 grafting experiments, sacrificing 4 yellow delicious trees to try to start one each of Jazz, King, Gravenstein, and Macintosh bark grafts.
As they grow, remember that King are tip bearing. In the back of my mind, there's something special about Gravenstein, but it's probably its probably to do with pollenization... otherwise I don't know why I didn't plant any.