Peaches

In a previous posting I talked about pruning my trees. I have an old peach tree that was planted by my father in law more than twenty years ago. It was over grown and densely limbed. Two years ago I pruned all the dead wood and about one third of the lower limbs. Last winter I pruned inner branches to open up the spaces between branches. Peach trees do best with an "open" shape. They need lots of light.

Last summer I had the first crop of peaches in many years, though there weren't many. I think I picked maybe 15 tennis ball sized peaches. They were tasty, very tasty actually, but bug damaged. After two years of severe pruning I got the first heavy crop of peaches. This year they were between tennis ball and baseball sized, juicy, and delicious. Bugs are still a problem, because I don't spray insecticides. 

Above is one large pot of peaches from this year's crop.  I picked about three times this amount over a three week period. I do have a squirrel problem and of course birds love fresh fruit too. But I got enough for some fresh eating and some pastries.

This winter I will do one more hard pruning to remove the higher branches that I cannot reach anyway. That will have reduced the number of branches the tree has to support by at least 60% and open up the remaining branches to more light and air flow. I am hoping for fewer but larger fruits next summer.

Free Water

Rain is, of course, the best water source. But unfortunately it is rarely reliable.  In past postings I've talked about the minor problems caused by chlorinated city water. Chlorine kills bacteria; a good thing for your drinking water but not so good for your soil. Healthy soil is teeming with micro-organisms. Some people use rain barrels to collect runoff from their roofs but unbelievably that is illegal in some locations. Years ago when I lived in Arizona I saw an alternate method, collecting water generated by the condenser coils of their air conditioner. So I thought I would give it a try at my quarters on Fort Meade.

The air conditioning unit is outside, like usual, and the heat exchanger is in a utility room. The cold coils, that cool the air, also cause moisture in the air to condense, just like on a glass full of ice. There is a collection tray under the cooling coils to collect the water droplets, otherwise you would have a wet floor. The collected water then runs outside or down a drain. In my case, the water runs outside. I placed a three gallon jug under the outlet and believe it or not I can fill it twice a day, that is how humid the air is in Maryland.

This water is pure, with no chemicals at all. It gives me more than enough water for my container garden. 

I will say that my container garden has been disappointing. The pepper plant did very well and I got some nice peppers. The tomato plants never seemed to get pollinated and I only got one fruit. The green beans were doing fine and I got two meals from them. But then a groundhog got into my yard, which is fenced, and greatly damaged all my plants. It ate all the fruits and beans and almost all of the leaves. So my growing season was cut short. But it gave me something to do for most of the summer.

The Importance of Honey

Honey is the only food that never spoils. It does change physically, eventually turning into tasty crystals (I find it tasty, not everyone likes crystallized honey). Honey has many health benefits.  Diverging from my normal practice of not swiping other people's work I am including a great article on the marketing deception going on in the honey business. The bottom line up front? Buy your honey from bee keepers or quality organic retailers instead of from the big stores.

Food Safety Tests of Commercial Honey

My First Container Garden

I have grown plenty of flowers and other plants in pots and other sorts of containers. But I have not tried to grow vegetables in containers before. So this is a learning experience for me as well.  I had a couple old kitchen trash cans in my garage. Sometime in their life the lids either broke or just didn't latch closed anymore. I have quite a few of them since I don't throw out useable things.

I know that a full bin would be quite heavy so I filled them 3/4s full with wood chips and the top 1/4 with a mix of compost, light soil, and store bought potting soil. The bins are only about 15-20 lbs now but as the wood chips absorb water they will get heavier. I put a layer of newspaper between the soil and the wood chips so the soil wouldn't wash down into the bed of chips. I am hoping that the wood chips will hold water, which should wick up into the soil when needed.

I always pinch off the lower branches of the tomato plants and then bury the plant deep in the soil. Tomatoes will put roots out anywhere that it is in contact with soil. The soil is very rich and very well drained. I planted eight inch tall plants three weeks ago and look how big they are already.

I have back against the wall because we were still getting frosts at night when I planted them. This will also protect them for a few weeks in the fall if they survive that long.  They also get some reflected light from the light tan siding. They are on the south side of my house so they are in the shade by 4:00 PM; they need all the sunlight they can get until then.

Both plants already have flower buds on them. I intend to pinch off some so more energy can go to fewer fruits. This will increase the speed at which they mature. I don't need baskets of tomatoes at the end of summer; I want a couple a week for as long as possible.

Under one tomato I planted onion sets. There aren't many but they will also grow fast and the onions will keep some insect and mammal pests away. They will also decrease the impact of water on the soil, keeping it from splashing. Tomatoes are subject to blossom end rot when soil splashed up on the plant.

Under the other tomato I planted radishes for the same reasons. The radishes will mature in 30 days and as I pick them I will plant something else.

I'm using an old recycle bin that was put out for trash as a bin for green beans. I used the same soil over wood chips technique as with the tomatoes. The package says to plant the beans three inches apart in rows that are eighteen inches apart. The 18 inch rows are really for the use of tillers, not because the plant needs that much space. I never plant in long rows, I plant in blocks. I stagger the seeds so that they are the same distance from each other in all directions. Since the planting distance on the package said three inches in rows, I plant them six inches apart in all directions. I explained this technique before and show it below.  These beans should sprout in about ten days. I have a very active squirrel and bird population here so I will have to cover the beans with something when they come up.

 

I missed the pepper plant in the middle, between the tomatoes. That is planted in a standard 12 inch pot but otherwise the same as the tomatoes. It is also doing very well, tripling in size and it is dark green, which is a healthy sign.

31 May 2015 Garden Progress

After yet another dry week I gave the garden a good watering on Saturday and the Sunday, after I left, a torrential rain came through our area. I have no idea if there is any damage to the garden and won't until next weekend. Fingers crossed.

As you can see the spinach has done very well. This is two of the six plants I have growing.  I already picked a bag of spinach leaves from the left plant.  The trick is to take mature leaves from the outermost parts of the plant and new leaves will grow in from the center.  Eventually the plant will "bolt", what they call it when it goes to seed. This usually happens when it gets warmer or when you have removed enough from the plant that it somehow knows to stop growing and start producing seeds. In any case, you will get quite a few salads from each plant.

The tomatoes have more than doubled in size in just a week. I pruned off the lower most branches. I usually try to have a ten inch gap between the lowest branches and the ground. This helps prevent diseases such as blossom end rot from starting. Any water-splash from the ground up to the plant is not good.  There are a few flower buds so tomatoes will start forming in a week or so.  The peas are off to a slow start. I'm not sure what is causing them to grow so slow, perhaps the dryness.

I harvested all the carrots, turned the soil, and planted the area in carrots and parsnips. Normally I wouldn't plant the same crop in the same area but since the original carrot crop was in during the winter and I harvested them a little early, I don't have much fear of any residual disease in the soil. But I will definitely plant something else after this crop matures. If I plant something fast growing I will get three crops from the same space in one year. That is not too bad.

As you can see, I laid out rows 4-5 inches apart. Every other row is carrots and the other is parsnips. What I very often do is scratch in my rows to the depth recommended for the particular seed. In this case it was half an inch. I drop the seed in the row and then cover it with either sand or compost. In this case I used compost. The contrast makes it easier for me to pull tiny weeds without pulling up a tiny seedling. Also, the sand or compost is looser and helps the seed to sprout and for the seedling to emerge. The compost will help feed the seedling with a slow release fertilizer.  I am hoping the down pour did not wash out these seeds. The rain was so heavy that there was localized flooding after only 45 minutes.

I didn't take a picture but the green beans that I planted a week ago are already up. Two of them didn't form properly so I'll replant them next weekend.

All the onions have also sprouted nicely and are starting to grow.

My next posting will be of my container garden that I started three weeks ago at my second house where I work. It is my first try at a container garden so it is all new to me.

16 May 2015 Garden Progress

I wasn't home last weekend and it didn't rain at all in those two weeks so I was a little worried about the state of things. But most everything was mulched and the sun isn't too severe yet so everything was fine; but the soil was very dry.  Grass cutting had to come first though so I didn't get in the garden until Sunday. It takes six hours to cut my yard.

The two tomatoes more than doubled in size and are dark green so I know they are doing fine.  There is no threat of freezing this week so I removed the plastic covers. I'll leave the water-filled bottles for insurance.  In the back are the peas. They aren't growing as fast as I expected they would but it was pretty dry. I gave all the plants a heavy watering so we'll see what they look like next week.

I was taking some stuff down to my compost bin and saw a pile of what I'm guessing are cantaloupe seedlings. They were growing from discarded seeds from sometime ago when my wife ate some cantaloupe. So I thought, "Why not try to transplant them?".  I'm not confident that they will take or survive the many yard rabbits I have. But it costs nothing to try so I planted six groups of seeds; this is the largest. I don't eat cantaloupe myself but my wife does so if I can grow some this year I'll be a hero. I have grown them before in this garden but it has been many years. They take up a lot of room if they sprawl across the ground. I don't normally have the room to spare but this year's garden will be smaller than normal. I usually trellis cucumbers and melons when I do grow them. Keeping them off the ground makes for better fruit with fewer disease and insect (slugs and snails) problems.

The peppers look great; in fact they are ready to blossom. I am going to pinch off the blossoms though because I want the plants to get bigger before they start to set fruit (yes, peppers are fruit). At my local grocery store Saturday, I bought peppers at $1.25 a piece. That is just crazy.  I normally get 4-5 bell peppers from each plant so at that price they are worth $5-$6.25 each.  I paid $2.50 for four plants so I should come out ahead. 

My youngest son and I went hunting quite a bit this past fall and winter and we only got two rabbits.  There just aren't as many around here as there were when I was his age. I used to get my limit several times a season. But my yard has way more than its fair share of rabbits. If you look closely at the spinach plants you will see the amount of damage a rabbit problem can cause.  So I put cages around these four plants. Spinach grows really fast so I will be able to harvest the outer leaves next weekend. The carrots are also just about ready to be dug out. There should be about 20-25 carrots in there and I've eaten a dozen that I pulled out to thin the rows.

 

I pulled the glass off the cold frame and watered everything. There is a spinach plant and two rows of radishes growing in there. I want to plant some more stuff but I was short on time. The radishes will be ready to pick next weekend. The reflective sides and mirrored back makes the best use of limited sunlight in the winter and early growing season.

The strawberries had a rough winter. Between the severe weather, rabbits, and deer, I lost something like half my plants. It is very fertile soil so the ones that do grow should be large and flavorful. I will probably replant this bed next year. I usually pull all the spent plants in the fourth year and grow anything other than strawberries for at least two years to reduce any chances of building up diseases in the soil. This will be a nice raised bed for vegetables during that period.

If you looked at my blog when I showed my raspberry patch after thinning, you might find it hard to believe this is the same place. But it is. One advantage of thinning, and I do it every year without fail, is that it opens up the plot to more sunlight. Most raspberries grow on two year-old canes. In other words, the berries grow on last year's canes. Mine grow on new branches that grow off of last year's canes.  If all goes well, this year's crop will be double what I got last year. I'm looking forward to it. We rarely have any left after fresh eating to get any into the freezer.

Today I planted green beans and onion sets. I'm not planting many, just enough to keep us in fresh beans. I still have beans in the freezer from last year and the year before. We will continue to cook them and make space in the freezer.

The Start of my 2015 Garden

I will try to better document my garden this year. Last year I had some injuries that prevented me from working in my garden as much as I needed to. In my April 14th blog posting I mentioned that I had carrots and spinach already growing, from seeds I planted in the Fall.  Here is what they look like now:

I moved two of the spinach plants to give them more room to grow and I put down a thin dried grass mulch to keep down the weeds and preserve moisture. I also opened up both sides of the enclosure so the sun would not over heat the plants. They are still protected from light frost but if a very cold night came they could be damaged. I'll watch the weather reports to make sure it doesn't get too cold. I have already eaten over a dozen carrots to thin them out a little bit and I should be able to start picking spinach next week.

The other thing I have growing since the fall are hardwood cuttings. I took cuttings from apple, peach, cherry, blueberry, and poplar branches.  I did this later than what would be ideal. I don't think any of the peach or cherry cuttings are rooting but it looks like a few of the other cuttings are taking root. I won't really know until the end of summer. You should be able to see some cuttings are leafing out. I have the planting box shaded since cuttings can't stand too much direct sun.

I enjoy tomatoes from my garden but can't eat a store-bought tomato; they taste horrible. Normally, I plant my tomatoes in early June, as recommended for my area. Then I get my first tomatoes in late August and into September until the first frost. This year I am planting them six weeks earlier and praying for warm nights so they don't get cold burned.  It is a bit of a gamble to be sure. But I am trying to protect them with water bottles to hold some heat and also a plastic cover to hopefully keep any light frosts from burning them.  Only time will tell if this succeeds. 

 

I did more or less the same thing with three pepper plants. Last year rabbits ate half my peppers so this year I am starting them under a cage. I have a double pane glass window panel over them. The glass helps warm up the soil and should keep frost away as well. I also mulched them with dried grass since the sunlight will be concentrated.

The past couple years I have planted peas but they never survive the rabbits and deer. So this year I also put them inside a cage (literally a small dog cage that I found put out for trash). I only planted a few since no one except me will eat them. I love fresh, crisp garden peas.  They are already up out of the soil and look good.

 

The thinned out raspberry patch also looks very good. The harsh winter damaged a lot of canes and the hungry rabbits and deer ate anything sticking out of the snow. So it is a very thin patch this year. That should not be a big problem though. I expect that the extra light that will get through will cause the canes to bear more berries. Last year wasn't a great one for my raspberries but this year should be.

Lastly, I have a visitor in my woodshed. A mourning dove set up her household atop the wood pile. I wanted to do some revisions to the shed this spring but now I will have to put that off until the chicks fledge and find a new place to live.

Once again I will only be home on weekends so I hope I can find the time to maintain my garden. I still have potatoes, onions, green beans, and blueberries from last year though so I guess I am doing okay.

Get out there, grow a garden, and save money on food. You can go back through my blog for lots of gardening tips from the past couple of years.