Dawn's Garden 2023

[Dawn]

Not quite 2023 yet, but I'm planning now. I'll start some plants, peppers and dwarf tomatoes in January. I'm going to try again for a plant sale, but I'm not going to use a greenhouse this year, but clear plastic tubs again. They just work better for me. Big clear tubs with clear lids, they go out during the day, come in at night, until it's warm enough to stay out at night. The last time I tried a plant sale, I started a bunch of random seeds that I had, some varieties only had a few, and it was a bit disorganized. This time, I got new packs of seeds that will have the variety people want, but names that they might recognize (Cherokee purple, Brandywine, green zebra, pineapple, etc). I plan to plant 20+ of 10 to 15 varieties.

For my personal garden, I decided to plant one bed with all dwarfs. Should be fun. Another bed will be only Juliet and Anna's Multiflora, since these 2 are my workhorses. If nothing else grows, these ones always will. And both instead of just one because Anna's Multiflora is better for fresh eating, and Juliet is better for sauce. One of my 3 x 6 beds will have a few plants of some bigger tomatoes, Stump of the world, Midnight Sun, a green probably.

Another bed that's pretty shady will have some kale and cabbage. Sunniest bed will have some peppers. I have Lesya and a few others. Maybe a zucchini, too. And that leaves one bed in the front where I'll attempt to grow sweet potatoes for the first time.

The back yard fruit yard is coming along. It's about a third of the whole yard that's fenced off from the dogs. In there is a donut peach, 2 tiny apricot seedlings that came up last year, Boyne raspberries, fall gold raspberries, triple crown blackberries and Ouachita blackberries. This year, I'm going to plant squash and melons, maybe some lemon cucumbers, to ramble about and try and shade the ground a bit. It doesn't look like much yet, but one day, I think it'll look pretty nice, when the trees are bigger and the berries have filled in.

Right now, the ground is frozen solid under a deep layer of snow.

[PlainJane]

Dawn, that sounds like a great plan. Do you have a composting area or bin?

[GoDawgs]

Good plans! I'll be interested in seeing how it all comes together.

Merry Christmas and wishing you great gardens in 2023!

[Dawn]

Dawn, that sounds like a great plan. Do you have a composting area or bin?

I have a compost tumbler. Not the best option, I know, but when the neighbor moved out, his mice came to my house . I'm trying to minimize anything that encourages them to stick around.

[Dawn]

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7 types of dwarf tomatoes, they'll have their own bed

Amber Keyes, which wouldn't germinate last year, so I planted all 8 that I had left, and figured I'd see if anything happens

Lesya and cayenne for peppers, one sweet, one hot

Garlic chives, thyme, catnip, and oregano. These refuse to grow from direct sowing for me, so I'm trying starts.

[Dawn]

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I have baby plants now. All of the tomatoes are starting to come up except for Amber Keyes, but I'm not really expecting that one to germinate, I think I got bad seeds.

It was sunny and warm enough this morning to get the greenhouse bin started. With the lid on, the bin got up to 80 degrees inside, it's 40 (f) outside. I have the lid cracked now and it's maintaining about 75 to 77.

I'll start regular tomatoes in a couple weeks.

I'm looking very forward to this growing season, with lots of new plans.

[Dawn]

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I'm going to go ahead and call my Amber Keyes seeds duds

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Everyone got planted in 2 of these big bins, 40 plants in each. 34 tomatoes and 6 peppers in here. I'm not wanting to start more seeds, so I'm just going to have these dwarf tomato plants and buy starts later on. There is a pretty good nursery nearby. I started growing tomatoes after that nursery shut down and my only option was Walmart. It was bought by new owners, and it's very nice. They had a good selection last year, so I'm going to go that route.

[Dawn]

Happy to see things happening in my yard this spring. I did a walk thru in the back yard fruit yard. Raspberry bushes are getting buds, peach tree too. The tiny apricot seedlings are still alive, so they should be ok. Blackberries didn't get very big last year (their first year), but they're all alive this year and I'm hoping I'll get some berries. If nothing else, they'll get a chance to grow up some more and I'll get berries next year.

One thing I didn't expect. I put walking onion bulbils between the plants last year, on the drip line, and they didn't do anything, I figured they died. Nope, they're all coming up this year.

[Dawn]

I bought 2 new raspberry varieties, Brandywine and Heritage, I already have Boyne, Fall Gold, and an unknown red summer bearing variety. I wanted a couple more everbearing. I love raspberries, they might be my favorite fruit.

I think I'll buy a plum and a pluot tree this year. My last couple plum-types died because I'm not good at watering the back yard. Now I have a watering system on a timer, so it's better now. And my puppy is 3 now, so I feel safer planting outside of the fruit yard.

[Dawn]

So I've narrowed down my "1 plum and 1 pluot" selection to 1 pluot, 2 plum, and a nectarine

Actually, I started reading again about keeping fruit trees small, and realized I had more room than I thought I did. I would rather have many small trees of different kinds than one huge one. Going by the selections at the local nursery, I've decided I'll get a Flavor King pluot, Satsuma Plum, Elephant Heart plum, and probably Sunglo nectarine, but he indicated in the company's Facebook page that those were in short supply, so maybe another kind.

I have some sprinklers coming this week, and I'll get that all set up to make sure it works, then get the trees on Saturday.

[Whwoz]

Just make sure that your plums are in the same pollination group and are compatible with each other

[Dawn]

Yeah, I wasn't sure about that because on the listing for the fruit trees, they all said "Requires pollinator: Santa Rosa". I suppose I'll watch them for a couple years and see how they bloom. I can throw a Santa Rosa in the mix later on, if needed.

[Dawn]

Well, I decided to do some more research, I'm not used to growing trees that need pollinators, I thought any plums would pollinate each other. Seems like the plums would be ok, but the pluot would possibly need something else.

Anyway, I've decided to swap the satsuma for a Santa Rosa to cover all my bases.

[PlainJane]

It gets tricky with pluots, mainly I think because of slightly different bloom times, not pollen incompatibility.
I use Dave Wilson’s site to check on cross-pollination info.

[Dawn]

As far as I can tell, Santa Rosa will work. I'm more interested in the pluots and nectarines than the plums anyway. My sister likes plums better, and the back yard needs more vegetation, so I thought I'd grow a couple.

Editing, cause I thought while writing this, why have 2 plums, when I prefer pluots? Pluots will pollinate each other (according to most things I've read). So perhaps a Flavor King, Flavor Queen, Elephant Heart plum, and a nectarine. My sister also likes pluots, she's just not big on peaches and nectarines.

The nectarine just has to be a yellow nectarine, because I like to can them, and both my peaches are white peaches, so no canning for them. I'd like one variety that I can can. My dad has a nectarine tree, but he's a terrible gardener . He doesn't prune or thin the nectarines, so his are tiny and not in very nice shape, I'd like to grow my own.

[Dawn]

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Decided on Elephant Heart plum, Santa Rosa plum, Flavor King pluot, and Red Gold Nectarine.

They'll be planted today with some companion plants in a permaculture guild style.

[Dawn]

I went out today and checked my blackberries. Last year, I bought 12 Ouachita blackberry plants from Stark Bros. They remained very small, so I was expecting to lose some over the winter. I only lost 2, so I'm happy with that. 10 blackberry plants is a lot. I also have a Triple Crown plant that should fruit this year. One of my unnamed red raspberry plants that was a tiny plant last year put out a whole bunch of new plants from the roots. My other raspberries haven't done that yet, but this one is in a warmer spot, so maybe they still will. I put 2 in the area last year, hoping they'd fill up that spot. It adjoins the rabbit pen, so that'll be a natural stopping point (rabbits love raspberry leaves).

Another thing I did was dig up a bunch of my Jerusalem artichokes for replanting. I planted a bunch along the back fence in my backyard. I'm hoping they'll create a light barrier in the summer. I have one dumb neighbor with a floodlight in their small backyard, it blinds us if we walk out there at night. The new trees will hopeful block it eventually.

I tried to take a picture of one of my apricot seedlings but my phone only wanted to focus on the ground around it. Both seedlings are very healthy plants. A big part of me thought planting them was a bad idea because my neighbor had about a dozen apricot trees, and the parent to these trees is still alive and accessible (it's a huge tree that grows out by the airport that I've been picking apricots from since I was a kid). Then last year, neighbor's house sold, and the first thing the new buyers did was remove every single tree. There were so many .

Next up, plant the newest raspberries and a small forsythia I picked up, and get the new watering system set up for the front yard garden.

[Dawn]

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My tomato family. They're actually a little leggy, even though they don't look it, but they're dwarfs, so they just look like regular seedlings. We had a couple weeks of no sun and too cold to go outside in the bins without the sun there to warm them. They're ok though, they're bouncing back already. Plant out is end of April, beginning of May.

[MarkAndre]

I went out today and checked my blackberries. Last year, I bought 12 Ouachita blackberry plants from Stark Bros. They remained very small, so I was expecting to lose some over the winter. I only lost 2, so I'm happy with that. 10 blackberry plants is a lot. I also have a Triple Crown plant that should fruit this year. One of my unnamed red raspberry plants that was a tiny plant last year put out a whole bunch of new plants from the roots. My other raspberries haven't done that yet, but this one is in a warmer spot, so maybe they still will. I put 2 in the area last year, hoping they'd fill up that spot. It adjoins the rabbit pen, so that'll be a natural stopping point (rabbits love raspberry leaves).

Another thing I did was dig up a bunch of my Jerusalem artichokes for replanting. I planted a bunch along the back fence in my backyard. I'm hoping they'll create a light barrier in the summer. I have one dumb neighbor with a floodlight in their small backyard, it blinds us if we walk out there at night. The new trees will hopeful block it eventually.

I tried to take a picture of one of my apricot seedlings but my phone only wanted to focus on the ground around it. Both seedlings are very healthy plants. A big part of me thought planting them was a bad idea because my neighbor had about a dozen apricot trees, and the parent to these trees is still alive and accessible (it's a huge tree that grows out by the airport that I've been picking apricots from since I was a kid). Then last year, neighbor's house sold, and the first thing the new buyers did was remove every single tree. There were so many .

Next up, plant the newest raspberries and a small forsythia I picked up, and get the new watering system set up for the front yard garden.

We grew up with an enormous apricot tree in our backyard. That is something I would always like to have in my yard.

[Dawn]

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My tiny perfect little apricot tree. That's a walking onion growing up next to it. These came up last year in a raised bed that I'd started by throwing food scraps and half-done compost the year before. The seeds were in the compost. I planted them in the back yard.

When I moved here, 4 years ago, there was nothing. Weedy grass, a couple tiny shrubs and some daylillies. I've always wanted to grow a bunch of fruit trees and bushes, but I've always rented in the past. I still feel like I don't have that much, because everything is so young, but I have 11 fruit trees, lots of blackberries and raspberries, gooseberries. They're just so young, I've gotten a handful of raspberries and 2 white peaches. In a few years though, I can't even imagine. It's going to be wonderful!