2019 Garden Thread

[begreen]

’d love to see pictures of your trees if you have some handy. What do you do for heat in the greenhouse when you need it?

Well, they are chilling out right now as a cold freeze has hit. The lemon tree is about 5 yrs old and the olive is new this year. I have tried olives (arbequena) outdoors, but a good cold snap killed them. This one is in a pot. I even fired up the Jotul in the greenhouse today. Normally we have a small electric heater that will cover it but temps dropped down to 35º so I fired up the little Jotul stove to bring the greenhouse up to 55º.

Here is a picture of the lemon. It's in a big tub planter. I move it into the greenhouse in the winter.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

Well, they are chilling out right now as a cold freeze has hit. The lemon tree is about 5 yrs old and the olive is new this year. I have tried olives (arbequena) outdoors, but a good cold snap killed them. This one is in a pot. I even fired up the Jotul in the greenhouse today. Normally we have a small electric heater that will cover it but temps dropped down to 35º so I fired up the little Jotul stove to bring the greenhouse up to 55º.

Here is a picture of the lemon. It's in a big tub planter. I move it into the greenhouse in the winter.
View attachment 240241

Thanks for the picture. You’ve probably been needing that Jotul a lot this week. When I looked at weather up your way, I saw snow and wind. The weather’s been strange down here. I awoke the night before last to sleet hitting the roof and windows. There were periods of sleet off and on throughout the day, but it remained above freezing. It dropped down to freezing overnight, and then I was awakened in the middle of the night by thunderstorms. The cardboard boxes will probably need to retire after their valiant service protecting new lime leaves and lemon buds. They’ll be turned into a sheet mulch project in an abandoned bed in the backyard.

My seedlings have been doing well inside. I think all the peppers have sprouted at this point (I don’t plant in large numbers), and the tomatoes have been working on their seed leaves. It’s been a rough week here with sick kids, but those have been a bright spot for us (a special treat for the six year old who helped me plant them who was struggling with asthma again this week).

 

[AlbergSteve]

NOT planting anything here anytime soon...


It's pretty for a couple of days but the novelty wears of pretty quickly!

 

[begreen]

Normally at this time of year I would have several trays of starts planted. Not this year. On the good side, the lemon tree is holding its own so far. Hoping it will make it.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

@begreen and @AlbergSteve, you two have certainly had winter at last up there. At least your apples have got all their chill hours, right?

Kudos to my husband who dropped a cedar tree today just where it needed to go. It wasn’t a big tree (maybe 8” DBH), but it had limited good positions for landing. The power lines looked to be its somewhat natural inclination, so it had to be coaxed to the side. He did it carefully and beautifully without damaging the big live oak or the lovely mountain laurel which were in that direction. That was the tree that needed to come out in order to get the new garden space fenced. Next step is to move the fencing that worked last year to exclude the deer to the new spot now that it won’t be in the way of felling escape routes.

I also need to pot up some tomato seedlings as the are growing by leaps and bounds. I wanted to do it today but had to go directly from tree felling (I was the brush clearer as there was tons from other tree trimming that had to be moved and chainsaw sharpener) to other family responsibilities. Looking at thee plants tonight, though, they can’t wait much longer. Maybe I can get it done right now.

 

[Seasoned Oak]

I gave up trying to protect the Lime trees from the cold on the sun porch overnight. I put em in my warm basement under some LED grow lights. The kind that grows POT Plants. Seems to be working out fine. No POT but plenty of LIMES!

 

[EatenByLimestone]

It's time to start thinking about the garden again!

I want to put in some apple trees this year.

I'm thinking about Northern spy and Baldwin if I can find it.

 

[AlbergSteve]

We've got a list for our spring order going in this week: Gravenstein, Karamijn de Sonnaville, King, Liberty, Mutsu, Belle de Boskoop, Cox Mendocino, Esopus Spitzenberg, Gold Rush, and Rhode Island Greening. Don't want them here too soon, still got 14 inches of snow on the ground!

 

[EatenByLimestone]

We're supposed to get 8" tonight and tomorrow.

That's quite a lot of trees! Make sure you remember which trees are which!

I want to get the late blooming, late harvesting varieties so they come in as I'm finishing up for the year.

 

[Chimney Smoke]

I got my habenero seeds in the mail Friday. In the next week or so it'll be time to start them here in Maine. I also ordered a peach tree to add to my mini-orchard I'm trying to get started. Right now I have 2 pears, 2 plums, 8 apples, 3 cherries and 5 high bush blueberries. I also got 50 starwberry starts.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I started strawberries last year. I guess I'll find out how well they made it through the winter this spring.

I got to the local nursery and put my name on the list for the trees. They'll call me when they come in so I can pick them out, and I'll take them home after the frost risk ends. I'll pay a bit more, but they're local and the trees come in a pot. I hate bare root.

 

[Chimney Smoke]

I started strawberries last year. I guess I'll find out how well they made it through the winter this spring.

I got to the local nursery and put my name on the list for the trees. They'll call me when they come in so I can pick them out, and I'll take them home after the frost risk ends. I'll pay a bit more, but they're local and the trees come in a pot. I hate bare root.

I get my trees from FEDCO here in Maine. They're local to me and they have a great mail order catalog. All their stuff is bare root and I've never had any issues with them.

 

[begreen]

Gonna be a slow start here this year. It's as if the east coast sent its cold weather back west. February is running about 8º below average so far.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I get my trees from FEDCO here in Maine. They're local to me and they have a great mail order catalog. All their stuff is bare root and I've never had any issues with them.

Lots of people don't have an issue. I had one with a meyer lemon and it turned me from the practice. It might have just been bad luck. I'll pay more for riots in soil hapily.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

Lots of people don't have an issue. I had one with a meyer lemon and it turned me from the practice. It might have just been bad luck. I'll pay more for riots in soil hapily.

I know it was just a typo or auto correct, but I think about those “riots in soil” whenever I tend my plants these days. They have given me some smiles recently. I potted up my tomatoes a couple weekends ago and did the peppers in the middle of this week. I have some cucumbers sprouting now, and their roots are already long.
I hope to get them in the ground before the full-fledged riots break out.

We’ve had mild weather for a few weeks (or all winter, perhaps), but we have a “norther” blowing in now. It’s supposed to be well below freezing for the next few nights. My husband and I spent some time yesterday putting support arches over the young lime and Meyer Lemons (all nicely budded with lots of new growth) and wrapping them in double frost cloth. I was a bit stressed about the blueberries, as they are mostly blooming, but my husband just moved them into the garage for me since we grow them in containers (they wouldn’t like our limestone soil).

Our garden area is finally clear, and we’ve moved the fencing panels to the new location. I have hopes that we’ll finish mulching the area (My two year old has been doing valiant service with his toy trucks moving mulch onto cardboard for me) and then put up raised beds this coming Saturday.

In disappointing news, I identified a new weed on the property recently: poison hemlock. I don’t believe I saw it last year, and so I wonder if the unusual fall rains brought it out of dormancy. An abandoned bed in our backyard was simply full of lush growth, but it’s popping up in numerous places. The backyard area has been mowed down and covered in cardboard and rocks, and I think we’ll perhaps plant it with purple prairie cotton to try to outcompete the invader. I have to give credit to my eleven-year-old daughter who had mentioned to me a few weeks ago a toxic plant that looks like parsley. When I went to identify this one, I asked her what she’d been referring to, and she told me the name. Our plant matches the description to a T.

The winds are roaring a bit right now. I’m glad for lots of easily accessible rocks to hold the frost cloth in place at the bottom.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I'm glad you caught the hemlock!


I trimmed the peach tree. I finished it before 8am yesterday. Couldn't sleep, lol.

I need to start my tomatoes. I've been trying to hoard milk jugs for the seedlings.

 

[AlbergSteve]

NOT planting anything here just yet...

There's garlic under here somewhere!

 

[EatenByLimestone]

We've had about 10" of new white stuff fall in the last week. The sun's getting higher, itll be gone soon!

 

[AlbergSteve]

I'm not complaining too much, this is highly unusual for us and only happens about every ten years. Family in Nova Scotia expecting rain, freezing rain, ice pellets(not sure what the difference is) and 12 inches of snow tonight.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Never heard of ice pellets either.

Rain
Freezing rain
Sleet
Hail
Snow

I think that covers water falling from the sky as I've seen it.

Then there's this...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_of_animals

 

[DuaeGuttae]

I'm glad you caught the hemlock!


I trimmed the peach tree. I finished it before 8am yesterday. Couldn't sleep, lol.

I need to start my tomatoes. I've been trying to hoard milk jugs for the seedlings.

Our peach tree looks the worse for wear after our freezes earlier this week. It had already set fruit, but we didn’t have the means to protect the sprawling branches. The lemons look like they came out of their frost protection unscathed. The lime had some damage on the very young growth since the wind managed to open up a gap in our enclosure the first night.

Do you use milk jugs for a winter sowing technique or just as a form of recycled pot? I’ve been considering moving some of my tomato seedlings into some as we always have milk jugs around, and they’re getting pretty big.

Yesterday I just started the hardening off process since it was mild but cloudy. I didn’t realize quite how windy it was (it is always breezy on our hill) until I saw the seedlings getting blown about. They survived their afternoon and are back outside for a longer stretch today.

My husband is off today, so the plan is for us to work on the garden area this afternoon.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

For my zucchini I just use it as a fairly deep, disposable pot. It startds off fully filled.

For tomatoes I slowly fill them with soil as they grow. It helps build a real healthy root system. And after im done, Into the recycle bin it goes!

 

[DuaeGuttae]

One blossom open on the Meyer Lemon today!

The garden area is progressing (fenced), but there’s more work to do. We’re covering the whole inside of the enclosure with cardboard and chipped cedar. My husband bought me better loppers (Fiskars Powergear) today so that I could help ready branches for the chipper They made a world of difference.

We also did fill one long bed today. The others aren’t in place yet, awaiting final mulching. We’ll work more on it at the end of next week. (The work goes a bit slower than we’d like as we also have to spend time with and constructively involve our young children. The two year old is a mulch warrior but sometimes that undoes rather than advances my work. He did at least understand that he wasn’t allowed to use his shovel in the garden box. I figure he can move the mulch if it stays in the enclosure, and smoothing it back isn’t too hard.)

The seedlings got to spend the whole day outside today, still protected by the shade of an oak tree. Even I had to stay in the shade while lopping. It got up to 85 today. Thankfully we’ll cool down tomorrow.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

Some of the tomatoes needed more space, so we had a family project day as our first day of spring break (inspired by @EatenByLimestone ‘s use of milk jugs). I cut the tops off, but my son helped with the drainage holes. All three non-toddlers did the painting and repotting. I would have liked some of the stems where we removed leaves to be buried a bit more deeply, but I had a good time teaching the kids about potting up, and I made a few adjustments after I snapped this picture.

Tonight is the first night that I plan to leave the plants outside. The temperature will only drop a few degrees from the daytime high, and there may be some showers. (It was cloudy and moist all day but no significant accumulation.) Tomorrow night or Wednesday morning may bring more severe weather, so I’ll have to figure out what to do. They may have to have some time in the garage. I was aiming possibly to plant in mid-March, but nights are turning cooler at the end of the week, so I decided bigger pots would give me more time.

Please pardon the leaf mess in the picture. We do clean up in fall. This is what live oaks do in March when their new leaves grow in. I was laughing with my kids about how here in Texas we had all four seasons in one day on Saturday: winter because of the date, spring because of trees blooming, summer because of the heat (that day was 85*), and fall because leaves are piling up everywhere.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

They look great! I have 5 "Sweety" tomatoes brewing at the moment. They haven't sprouted yet. I can't find my San Marzano seeds. I may have to order new ones.

We had 40 degrees today, and are supposed to get up to 60 Friday! That should get the garlic up!