I cut two of my trees in half

I bought the two trees in the photo as flowering trees about three years ago.  They were just seedlings.  Last year, they were about twenty feet tall, and I noticed in the fall that there was fruit on both trees, but it was way up high where I couldn't get to it.  So, I figured that this year I would cut them down to about five feet and see what happens. If they're going to be fruit trees, then I want to be able to reach the fruit.  I think they are apples, unknown variety.  We shall see.

Spring is fast approaching

I went out the other day and started cleaning up my raised beds for the upcoming spring planting.

Here's one of my beds after getting out all the old dead stuff.  It's waiting for more soil.

My chive square still has chives growing.  Since they survived the winter, more power to 'em.

My lemon balm is sprouting up again too.  Those herbs are tough!

This is a photo of my strawberry patch square.  Can you find it?  There are green strawberry leaves under all that mess.  I've since cleaned it up somewhat, but I'm worried that too much cleaning would damage the plants that are waking up.  There should be lots of strawberries.  I took out the swiss chard and kale that was growing in this bed, to allow for more strawberries to take over.  This whole 4 x 4 square will be strawberries.

The garden is about done for the year

Overall the garden was my best ever.  The square foot method worked quite well.  So did the SIPs (Sub Irrigated Planter)s.  I did learn some lessons though, that will make my garden better next year.  Some of those lessons follow:

1.  Next year I will plant some corn.

2.  Seedlings are way better than seeds, unless you can plant your seeds directly in the garden.  Even then, seedlings seemed to take hold and grow better for me.

3.  Tomatoes in planters are much more susceptible to blossom end rot than tomatoes in the square foot garden, even when the growing medium is the same.  That was my experience, anyway.  I had a grape tomato in a Grow Box and one in a raised bed.  Same variety.  The one in the Grow Box had real problems with BER, and the one in the raised bed had none.  Both produced a lot, but t he Grow Box tomato lost a lot of fruit.  Next year I will mix dolomite lime with the growing medium.

4.  Next year I plan to start my transition to a self-irrigating method of watering as much as I can.  Otherwise I have to get someone to water for me when I go out of town.

5.  Two tomatoes per grow box is almost too many.  They overgrew the staking system and got top heavy, and one of the Grow Boxes tipped over.

6.  I need to improve my staking system for my tomatoes, both in the raised beds and in the planters.  My tomatoes were spreading out all over the place.

7.  My carrots and onions did poorly.  They were a waste of time.

8.  Bugs took over as the summer progressed.  Next year I will treat my plants to keep them away.

9.  I have great herbs, and I seldom cook with them.

10.  Summer heat should be attenuated.  I didn't think it was hurting anything but some of my tomatoes got weird yellow blotches on them as they ripened.

11.  I need to allow more room for the tomatoes.

There are probably more lessons, but that's enough for now.  I got lots of veggies, gave a lot away and used a lot too.  I'm looking forward to next year.

Photo update

Time for a photo update!  The garden is doing well, in spite of the heat.  It's taking a lot of water though.

Global Buckets

Here's a pic of the global buckets.  They are called that because a couple of high school age boys came up with the idea to help third world countries grow more food in arid or poor soil areas.  They are pretty easy to make and seem to work.  I've only had my two for a week or so, so the jury is still out, but looks like they are working as advertised.

My Radishes were a disappointment

I got my radish seeds from Gurney's.  I picked an unusual variety instead of the normal round red ones. They sprouted up fine and grew like crazy, with the stems and leaves getting almost a foot high.  Problem was, every time I pulled one to check on the radish end, it was small and no more than a half inch in diameter.  Huge stalks and leaves, little bitty radishes.  I cleaned one off and tasted it, and it was hot and stringy, not tender at all.

After three tries, I decided to pull them all and toss them in the compost pile.  I replanted the squares with Leeks.  I did that today.  Hopefully I will like the leeks better.  I also got a pack of seeds for the traditional radishes, and planted them in and around some of my cabbage and pepper plants.  If they grow that will be a bonus, if not then I'm out less than two bucks for a pack of seeds.

This past week I also made a couple of SIPs (sub-irrigated planters) from 5 gallon plastic buckets.  You make them by using one as a water reservoir and the second one inserted into the first as the plant container.  There's quite a bit more to it than that, but I won't bore you with it here.  Look up Earth Buckets on line and you can learn all about it.

I'm tempted to try the rain gutter self-watering method, but it's getting late for planting new stuff.  I guess I will just continue with what I have and see how the garden does.

By the way, I am now harvesting kale, beet greens, and strawberries.  My herbs are also available, but I haven't used any just yet.  I also have lettuce, but I didn't plant much, and spinach.  My tomatoes are producing fruit too, as are my snap peas.  My garden is much more productive than it was last year.  The jury is still out on some of my carrots and onions.  They are growing but still young and weak, and the temperatures are getting hotter.

Nuff for now.

The garden is growing well

I've harvested spinach, kale, beet greens, and a few strawberries.  The tomatoes are starting to get some fruit on them.  Here's a photo of one of the Grow Boxes showing the progress of things.  The last post of the same box was on May 15.

The square raised beds are doing well too.

I'm kinda disappointed in my radishes.  they are the huge plants in the middle and right middle.  The tops are really big but if when I pull one the radish is really small.  I won't buy that variety again.

My Kale, Swiss Chard, and strawberries are thriving!

The box below has cabbage and broccoli, and a tomato.  Also some red onions.

This square has peas, dill, basil, red onions, and a pepper.

As you can see in the above picture, I used tomato cages for the peas to attach to.  Seems to work.

One more grow box pic, for comparison to the last blog.

That should be enough for today.  The plants are doing so well that I want more.  I hope I get a huge tomato crop this fall.  I'm starting to see fruit on some of the plants.  It looks like the peppers are starting to fruit too.  I am interested in seeing how they do, because the last few years my peppers have always stayed small and puny.  Maybe this new method will change that.  Bye, everybody!