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Saturday, July 20, 2019
July 20 kitchen garden and orchard video tour
It's hot but the garden and orchard are doing well -- here's a video tour from today:
Wednesday, May 22, 2019
May 22 garden and orchard tour
Here's the first video tour of 2019-- featuring fewer vegetables and lots of new fruit trees, shrubs and vines:
Tuesday, March 26, 2019
Better home-grown strawberries in 2019!
This year I'm really getting honest with myself about growing strawberries. In the past I've thrown a few plants into the ground, got a year of large, delicious fruit, then spotty, diminishing production in subsequent years until I give up, rip them out and start again. Even in good seasons I had problems with mold and with critters eating the fruit. Overall, strawberries have been disappointing in my garden.
It was during a NOFA RI tour of Sweet Berry Farm in Middletown Rhode Island this summer that I faced the truth -- my strawberry crop was inconsistent or bad because I'd been lazy.
I looked out across the neatly spaced rows of berry plants surrounded by straw and vowed to do better.
Here is a pic of the bed in December:
The three key tasks for maintaining my berry patch are: cleaning up old foliage and creating spaced rows, transplanting runners, and mulching for air flow and raising the berries off the ground.
Yesterday I began my renovation by trimming and raking a wheelbarrow load of old foliage and stems out of the patch. I should have done the cleaning in late fall, but spring is ok as long as it's early.
I ruthlessly dug out runners (baby plants still connected to their parents) to create three rows of crowns about a foot apart. I learned this summer that thinning actually leads to more fruit, as the remaining plants have room to grow and the better airflow between plants reduces the chances of disease.
Next I sorted the runners, discarding those with mostly old dead roots. Then I planted three rows of runners in a new bed. These are for next year- I'll pinch off any flowers this season to let them concentrate on strong growth that will produce lots of berries in 2020. I was careful to position the crowns of the runners flush with the soil level-- too high or too low can result in struggling, unproductive plants.
Here's the bed after all this work:
Next year I'll pull out the plants that fruited this year (they get less productive after 2 or 3 years), add compost to the bed, and replant with runners. To have good productivity in the home garden really takes two or three beds of strawberries in rotation.
I fertilized both beds with 10-10-10, but did not add any lime or wood ash. My soil PH is a consistent 6, perfect for strawberries, which like a PH between 5.5-6.5.
Next I'm going to chop up some dead and yellowed top growth ( excluding flower heads) from my bed of tall grasses, and put this straw in the aisles and under the foliage as mulch to suppress weeds and (again) maintain good air flow. If I don't have enough I'll buy some straw.
And I vow to keep the beds weeded! Grasses are the main weed pest of my strawberry beds. Left unchecked they steal much needed water from growing berries.
What about the critters eating the berries? I plan to use bird netting on low hoops over the bed, starting before the berries are red. This will deter most of the birds. I'll still lose some berries to chipmunks, but with greater productivity that shouldn't be a big problem.
I've also had issues with rabbits eating strawberry foliage in the past, but only plants in the ground rather than in raised beds. The foliage seems to be an opportunistic rather than a preferred crop, and the bunnies don't bother to try to climb into the raised beds to eat the berry foliage.
All that work yesterday only took about an hour. It's really not much to do in exchange for sweet home grown berries, so much better than store bought!
It was during a NOFA RI tour of Sweet Berry Farm in Middletown Rhode Island this summer that I faced the truth -- my strawberry crop was inconsistent or bad because I'd been lazy.
I looked out across the neatly spaced rows of berry plants surrounded by straw and vowed to do better.
Here is a pic of the bed in December:
The three key tasks for maintaining my berry patch are: cleaning up old foliage and creating spaced rows, transplanting runners, and mulching for air flow and raising the berries off the ground.
Yesterday I began my renovation by trimming and raking a wheelbarrow load of old foliage and stems out of the patch. I should have done the cleaning in late fall, but spring is ok as long as it's early.
I ruthlessly dug out runners (baby plants still connected to their parents) to create three rows of crowns about a foot apart. I learned this summer that thinning actually leads to more fruit, as the remaining plants have room to grow and the better airflow between plants reduces the chances of disease.
Next I sorted the runners, discarding those with mostly old dead roots. Then I planted three rows of runners in a new bed. These are for next year- I'll pinch off any flowers this season to let them concentrate on strong growth that will produce lots of berries in 2020. I was careful to position the crowns of the runners flush with the soil level-- too high or too low can result in struggling, unproductive plants.
Here's the bed after all this work:
Next year I'll pull out the plants that fruited this year (they get less productive after 2 or 3 years), add compost to the bed, and replant with runners. To have good productivity in the home garden really takes two or three beds of strawberries in rotation.
I fertilized both beds with 10-10-10, but did not add any lime or wood ash. My soil PH is a consistent 6, perfect for strawberries, which like a PH between 5.5-6.5.
Next I'm going to chop up some dead and yellowed top growth ( excluding flower heads) from my bed of tall grasses, and put this straw in the aisles and under the foliage as mulch to suppress weeds and (again) maintain good air flow. If I don't have enough I'll buy some straw.
And I vow to keep the beds weeded! Grasses are the main weed pest of my strawberry beds. Left unchecked they steal much needed water from growing berries.
What about the critters eating the berries? I plan to use bird netting on low hoops over the bed, starting before the berries are red. This will deter most of the birds. I'll still lose some berries to chipmunks, but with greater productivity that shouldn't be a big problem.
I've also had issues with rabbits eating strawberry foliage in the past, but only plants in the ground rather than in raised beds. The foliage seems to be an opportunistic rather than a preferred crop, and the bunnies don't bother to try to climb into the raised beds to eat the berry foliage.
All that work yesterday only took about an hour. It's really not much to do in exchange for sweet home grown berries, so much better than store bought!
Thursday, February 21, 2019
2019 orders for the orchard
Here are the details of my spring orders for the orchard:
One Green World 2019 order:
One Green World 2019 order:
- Autumn Beauty Jujube Tree
- Black Sea Jujube Tree
- Crandall Black Currant
- Flowercloud Male Hardy Kiwi
- Anna Hardy Kiwi
- Marron Medlar Fruit Tree
- Pasha Male Arctic Beauty Kiwi
- September Sun Arctic Beauty Kiwi
Stark Brothers 2019 order:
- Starking® Hardy GiantTM Asian Pear Dwarf
- New Century Asian Pear Dwarf
- Pennsylvania Golden PawPaw (Grafted)
- Sunflower Pawpaw (Grafted)
- Carmine JewelTM Bush Cherry Dwarf (2)
- Prok American Persimmon (Grafted)
Fruit and nuts and perennial food crops, oh my!
We bought our house and the surrounding acre of property in September, 1992.
The following April I was delighted to see hundreds of daffodils blooming in the overgrown beds that flanked the backyard stone patio. Later emerging gifts from the past included peonies, iris, and two mature dogwoods flanking the front of the house. Other remnants of the original garden were not as welcome, including dying ornamental cherry trees and a scruffy forsythia hedge.
Over time I created a hybrid ornamental garden featuring the best of the existing plants, trees and shrubs with my own choices- mostly native shrubs and perennials. A new septic system mound became a mass planting of grasses and blueberries where the cherry trees had been. And every year I either divided old clumps of daffodils or added more varieties.
I have always planted a few vegetables, but did not become a vegetable gardener on a larger scale until the economic downturn of the early 2000’s, when growing food became something of a necessity — perhaps more of a psychological than economic one. I soon discovered that I enjoy the idea of having control over my food, but I also love the calm oasis of a well designed ornamental garden.
For the last ten years or so, I’ve been working to integrate those two needs by creating a kitchen garden full of vegetables and colorful, often self-seeding annual flowers.
So now my garden is evolving again, into something less physically taxing but still food productive.
I already had a mature peach tree, two pears, blueberries, blackberries and a large bed of raspberries.
.
Last year I added a mulberry, dwarf self-fertile cherry, persimmon and paw-paw, and even some nuts -- American hazelnuts!
This spring I'll be adding much more. Pics and details to come.
I’ve chosen species that don’t have a lot of insect or disease problems, but are not commercially grown because they aren’t easy to harvest with machines or do not ship well. I’m also expanding my plantings of other perennial crops, including asparagus, rhubarb, fiddleheads, Egyptian onions, ramps and shitake mushrooms.
Eventually I hope to have a garden that will showcase a wide range of wonderful but less commonly grown fruits, nuts and perennial crops, produce food that I can eat fresh and process for winter use, and require less heavy lifting and digging. I’m looking forward to the journey to that goal!
Wednesday, August 8, 2018
Saturday, June 23, 2018
Thursday, May 24, 2018
Mother's day (May 13, 2018) video tour of my Bay State kitchen garden
Here's a video I shot a couple of weeks ago-- sorry it took so long to post!
Saturday, March 24, 2018
Planting my American Hazelnut trees
The Latin name of the American Hazelnut is Corylus americana. It's a long lived tree or shrub (depending on how you prune it) that will produce lots of tasty nuts (a bit smaller than the European Hazelnut) for up to 80 years once established! So why aren't they in more gardens?
The answer is Eastern Filbert Blight, a disease similar to the blight that destroyed most Chestnut trees in the US. While no European Hazelnuts have been bred that can resist this native disease, a breeding program with americana has produced resistant cultivars. I bought two of these, 'Yamhill' and 'Jefferson' from Territorial Seed Company last fall, and my plants arrived a couple of weeks ago.
I was really impressed by the roots on the plants! Here's a pic:
I soaked the roots in water for 4 hours, then planted them eight feet apart (they need to be close enough for cross-pollination) in the bed by the back fence, then gave them each about five gallons of water. The next day I mulched with the pile of hardwood mulch next to them.
It's been two weeks of wild weather, with temps down to zero, and lots of snow and rain, but the buds on the Hazelnuts are getting bigger and they are definitely alive! If all goes well I'll be fighting the squirrels for nuts in two or three years.
More on other tree plantings soon.
The answer is Eastern Filbert Blight, a disease similar to the blight that destroyed most Chestnut trees in the US. While no European Hazelnuts have been bred that can resist this native disease, a breeding program with americana has produced resistant cultivars. I bought two of these, 'Yamhill' and 'Jefferson' from Territorial Seed Company last fall, and my plants arrived a couple of weeks ago.
I was really impressed by the roots on the plants! Here's a pic:
I soaked the roots in water for 4 hours, then planted them eight feet apart (they need to be close enough for cross-pollination) in the bed by the back fence, then gave them each about five gallons of water. The next day I mulched with the pile of hardwood mulch next to them.
It's been two weeks of wild weather, with temps down to zero, and lots of snow and rain, but the buds on the Hazelnuts are getting bigger and they are definitely alive! If all goes well I'll be fighting the squirrels for nuts in two or three years.
More on other tree plantings soon.
Friday, February 23, 2018
Expanding my home orchard
When we moved here 25 years ago one of the selling points of the property was the hayfield visible from our back deck. Now a house is to be built there this spring. Because we did not own the field I always know this might happen some day. I'm sad, but also appreciate the years of memories of deer, coyotes and turkeys we watched in the grassy space out back.
But I'm not one to mope around and decry my loss. I'm putting up a six foot fence along the property line and planting fruit trees in front of it. I'll soon have a new view of flowers, fruit, and dancing leaves. The trees will also draw more birds for me to watch as they sip nectar, hunt insects, and share the fruit.
So what will be in my orchard? Well, not apples, for several reasons. Apples are tough fruits that travel well and are grown in large numbers in New England and nearby New York. That means I can buy lots of local apples at good prices all fall and winter. Apples are also not a prime fruit for preserving, one of the chief ways I intend to save my crops.
Peaches, apricots, persimmons and cherries all make delicious jam or preserves, and I hope to eventually have a pantry full of jars to feed us through the winter. They also freeze and dehydrate well. Finally, they are all more popular with the birds I enjoy sharing the garden with, especially the cherries! My plan is to keep my dwarf trees covered (and or sprayed with grape koolaid) until I harvest about three quarters of the crops, and then to let the birds have the rest. This strategy has worked well with my blueberry crop. I already have a five year old Redhaven peach, and two pears planted last fall. The cherry, persimmon and apricot trees are coming in the mail shortly.
Now I have to plant the new trees and keep them healthy until they fruit. This should take between 2 and 5 years. But that's ok- one of the things I love about gardening is that it takes time, that the gardener grows and learns as the crop grows. This orchard will be a new adventure, and I'm ready for it, up and downs and all.
Like the branch that broke on my peach tree last summer because I was greedy and did not thin the fruit:
Sigh-- one lesson learned. I'm now signed up to take a monthly class on home orchard care from April to October.
But I'm not one to mope around and decry my loss. I'm putting up a six foot fence along the property line and planting fruit trees in front of it. I'll soon have a new view of flowers, fruit, and dancing leaves. The trees will also draw more birds for me to watch as they sip nectar, hunt insects, and share the fruit.
So what will be in my orchard? Well, not apples, for several reasons. Apples are tough fruits that travel well and are grown in large numbers in New England and nearby New York. That means I can buy lots of local apples at good prices all fall and winter. Apples are also not a prime fruit for preserving, one of the chief ways I intend to save my crops.
Peaches, apricots, persimmons and cherries all make delicious jam or preserves, and I hope to eventually have a pantry full of jars to feed us through the winter. They also freeze and dehydrate well. Finally, they are all more popular with the birds I enjoy sharing the garden with, especially the cherries! My plan is to keep my dwarf trees covered (and or sprayed with grape koolaid) until I harvest about three quarters of the crops, and then to let the birds have the rest. This strategy has worked well with my blueberry crop. I already have a five year old Redhaven peach, and two pears planted last fall. The cherry, persimmon and apricot trees are coming in the mail shortly.
Now I have to plant the new trees and keep them healthy until they fruit. This should take between 2 and 5 years. But that's ok- one of the things I love about gardening is that it takes time, that the gardener grows and learns as the crop grows. This orchard will be a new adventure, and I'm ready for it, up and downs and all.
Like the branch that broke on my peach tree last summer because I was greedy and did not thin the fruit:
Sigh-- one lesson learned. I'm now signed up to take a monthly class on home orchard care from April to October.
Sunday, February 4, 2018
Pruning my blueberry bushes
It's February, but there's still some summer in my freezer and cabinets in the form of frozen blueberries and blueberry jam. After several years of diminished crops due to the depredations of winter moth, 2017 was one of the most productive blueberry seasons in the 20 years I've been growing them. A big thanks to the folks from U Mass. and the USDA who released a predatory insect that targets winter moth in my neighborhood!
I was also able to harvest more berries because of the grape koolaid spray I used to deter the birds ( I got this great hack from a U Mass. newsletter. One packet unsweetened grape powder to one quart of water, spray to dripping, repeat after rain).
Picking all those berries was not easy, largely because I have neglected winter pruning my oldest bushes for at least 5 years. This led to shrubs so tall I had to stand on the top rung of a 5 foot ladder to pick some of the biggest, juiciest berries, as well as so tangled with growth lower down that reaching through them for fruit in the back was difficult and left me scratched or my clothes ripped. I promised myself in July that I'd clean up the bushes this winter, and this week I followed through.
Pruning older blueberry bushes should be done between January and March, when they are dormant. I pruned half of my main crop (12 bushes of classic New England selections, including Patriot and Bluecrop) last Monday.
First I broke off all the dead twiggy bits by hand. Next I tackled the older, thick branches, removing about 25%, selecting any that were crossed and rubbing, then those branches that seemed least vigorous (had the fewest fat buds). Finally I cut the tallest branches down to about five feet.
To finish up I spread about a cup of 10-10-10 fertilizer around the root area of each shrub, then mulched over the fertilizer with an inch of fresh wood mulch, courtesy of a neighbor who culled some trees this winter.
Here are some pictures:
Berries ripening in July!
The brush pile from pruning 6 plants.
After pruning.
Unpruned Bushes -- to do next week!
I was also able to harvest more berries because of the grape koolaid spray I used to deter the birds ( I got this great hack from a U Mass. newsletter. One packet unsweetened grape powder to one quart of water, spray to dripping, repeat after rain).
Picking all those berries was not easy, largely because I have neglected winter pruning my oldest bushes for at least 5 years. This led to shrubs so tall I had to stand on the top rung of a 5 foot ladder to pick some of the biggest, juiciest berries, as well as so tangled with growth lower down that reaching through them for fruit in the back was difficult and left me scratched or my clothes ripped. I promised myself in July that I'd clean up the bushes this winter, and this week I followed through.
Pruning older blueberry bushes should be done between January and March, when they are dormant. I pruned half of my main crop (12 bushes of classic New England selections, including Patriot and Bluecrop) last Monday.
First I broke off all the dead twiggy bits by hand. Next I tackled the older, thick branches, removing about 25%, selecting any that were crossed and rubbing, then those branches that seemed least vigorous (had the fewest fat buds). Finally I cut the tallest branches down to about five feet.
To finish up I spread about a cup of 10-10-10 fertilizer around the root area of each shrub, then mulched over the fertilizer with an inch of fresh wood mulch, courtesy of a neighbor who culled some trees this winter.
Here are some pictures:
The brush pile from pruning 6 plants.
After pruning.
Unpruned Bushes -- to do next week!
Sunday, August 27, 2017
Tuesday, July 4, 2017
July 4, 2017 Video Tour -- including perennial garden
I didn't make a June video-- but I'll try to do two in July!
Thursday, May 25, 2017
May 2017 Video Tour
It's been a long wet spring-- and it is raining as I write. But I prefer this to last fall's drought!
Here's a tour of the garden from a few days ago:
Here's a tour of the garden from a few days ago:
Thursday, September 22, 2016
September 2016 Video tour
Here's a video tour of the garden from a couple weeks ago. it's still dry, but I'm coping. Love my rain barrel!
Sunday, July 31, 2016
Saturday, June 25, 2016
Monday, May 23, 2016
May 2016 video tour!
It's been a while, but I'm back on the blog!
Here's a tour from yesterday:
I'll try my best to at least post monthly tours through the 2016 growing season.
Here's a tour from yesterday:
Sunday, September 20, 2015
Mid- September Video Tour
The garden is still doing well, but it's dry!
Here's a video tour from last week:
Here's a video tour from last week:
Sunday, August 23, 2015
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