Dawn's Garden 2023

[PlainJane]

It’s so much fun to plant fruit trees!

[GoDawgs]

That looks like a great assortment! Have you had any problems with deer "pruning" them?

[Dawn]

That looks like a great assortment! Have you had any problems with deer "pruning" them?

No, I'm in the middle of town, no deer here.

My puppy has been my worst offender . She is mostly over her puppyness, but I found chew marks on the new nectarine tree.

[Dawn]

And just like that, it's tomato planting time! Wednesday will be the day. One bed with dwarf tomatoes, one with heirlooms, and one with some hybrids (Juliet for sure, and maybe something like better boy or big beef), hybrids so that I have something if my heirlooms have another bad year. After 2 crap years in a row, I'll happy eat some better boys .

Beds have been cleared, new grass (or maybe mostly dandelion) clippings added. Old tomato plants have been chopped up into mulch for the herb bed.

I bought a thornless boysenberry plant, without really knowing where it would go. Then I decided that the raised bed closest to the rabbit pen would be good. That bed is the most neglected, and berries don't need to be babied. I think I'll throw potatoes in there, too until the berries start taking it over. The berries will shade the rabbits and they can eat the plants when I thin or prune them.

I also found out that a raspberry plant that struggled for 2 years and I gave up on, Nantahala, is coming back. So many raspberries!

[Dawn]

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My wild plum tree is flowering. I just put it in last year, it's a little bitty thing, but it has a bunch of flowers. I don't know if it needs a pollinator, but if it does, one of my new trees in the back yard should do the trick. I planted it because it is supposed to spread and form a thicket. Hoping to grow a type of living fence as a neighbor-block.

I did a bunch of planting today. Dwarf tomatoes, boysenberry, peppers, and herbs. Also, I screwed up on some tomatoes I bought at the nursery. I meant to buy individual tomatoes, but I bought 4 packs, one of German Johnson, one of supersweet 100. These were for a 3 x 6 bed. I thought about planting 4 and planting the rest elsewhere, but I didn't really want them anywhere else so I just put all 8 in there .

One bed is left for the hybrid tomatoes I have yet to buy

[Dawn]

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My plants for my hybrid tomato bed. Seems weird to dedicate a whole bed, but if it means I have tomatoes if the weather is super weird again, I don't care. I ended up getting them from Walmart because the plants looked nice and they had a good selection.

I ended up with 2 better boy, 2 big beef, 2 early girls, one Sunsugar, one lemon boy.

I haven't found Juliets this year, so these will do. As long as I have something that can go in the freezer for winter time.

[Dawn]

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The boysenberry plant had flower buds when I got it, and now they're opening. I haven't tried them, so I hope I get a few fruit this year.

Everything is planted and looking good.

When I planted my new fruit trees, I used the "grow a little fruit tree" method where you plant the trees, them cut them at knee high, so they branches start low and you can shape the trees for easier picking. You know, that's really hard to do! I was so worried, but it's a standard thing among many fruit tree growers, so I did it. I'm pleased to say they're all getting new growth. The Santa Rosa and pluot have new branches coming from every bud on the trunk. The Elephant Heart from most. The nectarine though, got it's top several inches chewed by my dog, it has new branch buds starting below that, but it's going to be an even shorter tree. They all look good and healthy though.

[Dawn]

Every year, the local gardening club has a plant sale. Last year I got some lemon balm, but the plant failed to thrive. I know it's related to mint, but it's a very good medicinal plant and I've been making herbal tinctures, so I was hoping for a patch of it. This year, I was hoping there'd be some more, but no one brought any. Bummer, I guess I'll have to try growing it from seed again. I did bring home a bee balm, lambs ear, feverfew (very excited about this one), and a globe allium for the bees.

I was happy to see the amount of worms in my soil. There wasn't much in the way of wildlife when I moved here, so I love to see the bugs and worms and birds coming back. It kills me what the neighbors next door have done. They took a property filled with trees and shrubs and flowers and cut the trees down and bulldozed it. Then they put something, not weed fabric, something much thicker, down and covered it with rocks.

[Dawn]

Ok, funny that I was just talking about the neighbors removing all of their vegetation. I just found an apricot seedling near where their old apricot trees were (but on my property). I found a place to plant it, but I should probably stop planting apricot trees now. This is number 3 .

Also, in 2019, when I bought the house, I got some plants from one of those cheap crappy plant sellers. Something Direct, I don't remember. All of the plants pretty much died right away, but one little wild plum hung on. It barely grew. The 3 years, same, just stayed there and was a little stick in the ground with leaves. This year, it's growing. I planted a new wild plum that is being a normal tree. The apricot will be right in a row with those trees, and the 3 will help block the neighbors and their boring rocks .

[Dawn]

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Cute little apricot tree, only 3 or 4 inches tall. I need to get it moved before it gets stepped on by a dog.

I planted the seeds that were going in the fruit yard. Kinda forgot that I was going to do that. I planted all my trailing, vining plants back there. Melons, winter squash, pumpkins, lemon cukes. I had some probably 10 year old delicata squash seed that probably won't germinate, so I put 10 in each hole . If it comes up, I'll have some thinning to do.

I also planted butternut squash to hopefully vine up and over the rabbit pen. That'll make some nice shade if it takes off.

Tomato plants are all looking great.

[Dawn]

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A tomato plant, because this is a tomato forum, not a fruit tree forum.

All of my tomatoes are growing well right from the start. I feel like this is a sign that it'll be a good tomato year. Hopefully. Weather is already doing weird things, but I feel like I'm more prepared this year.

[Dawn]

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Dwarf tomatoes are such cute little plants, I love them. This is Idaho gem, I haven't grown it before

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Boysenberry forming on my new plant. I can't wait to try it.

We've had many thunderstorms this year, and we're getting into the hot weather days, so my plants are growing like weeds (and so are the weeds).

I was a little worried about my catnip, because I have an outdoor semi-feral cat, and I thought she might eat it, but it's still untouched and it's growing very fast.

[Dawn]

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The apricot tree, it's still attached to the pit. It has grown a bunch in the last few days. Now it's planted in its permanent spot.

[Dawn]

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Holy moly, I have apples! I had to send this to an apple growing friend to confirm . I was not expecting apples, because I only have one tree, I guess we have a neighbor with an apple tree.

These are Fuji, my favorite

[Whwoz]

@Dawn, you will find that four of those six will drop off as they have not been pollinated. No problems there, all normal. Two should hang on although if you have a lot of flowers clusters you may want to thin down to one fruit per cluster to maximise fruit size

[Dawn]

Oh, I know there are only the 2 here, that's what made me think they might actually be apples, because if they all looked the same, I'd have just assumed that apple blossoms just looked like that after flowering. There are several on this tree, and I'll thin them. It's a very small tree, so I'll probably always be thinning them a lot. I thought I was buying a regular semi-dwarf apple tree, but after I planted it, I saw a little faded label on the pot that said "ultra dwarf". I moved it the next year to a more suitable spot for a little tree, this is its 3rd year where it's at.

[Dawn]

30, it made 30 little apples . My peach tree set 4 fruit it's first time fruiting, 2 made it to harvest time. Overachiever

[Dawn]

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This year is really looking like it'll be a good tomato year. I haven't had a good tomato year since 2018. 2019 would have been ok, but I was right in the middle of moving, so things were just weird. 2020 my plants kept dying at plant out. Mostly just random late freezes, and partly just covid craziness. I eventually got a decent tomato garden going. 2021 major crazy heat wave that lasted all of June. 2022 very cold spring, then very hot. Stunted everything.

This year, everything looks good. Plants are growing beautifully, tomatoes are setting fruit. Weather is cooperating. We could still get crazy heat, but the tomatoes will have a good start beforehand and I have a better watering system setup. I'm wanting to see if dwarf tomatoes fare better than regular sized plants. I feel like their compact nature and thicker leaves will protect them from heat better. I don't know, but it's been fun growing a whole bed of dwarfs.

I have a few seeds coming up in the back yard fruit yard, some pumpkins and watermelons. Blackberry primocanes are coming up. I planted an upright variety, so they're just growing straight up. I haven't seen any flowers on the floricanes, but I might not get any, the plants were pretty tiny last year. My Boyne raspberry is absolutely loaded with flowers and berries. They were sour last year, I think because of the cold weather. The year before, the plant was a little stunted and didn't produce berries until fall, those ones were delicious. There are raspberries on my Fall Gold plant, too.

[Dawn]

The apple tree seems to be thinning itself pretty well. It's down to about 18 apples. Some are growing very well, some are pretty small still, so I assume it'll drop more and just keep the best ones.

Yesterday, when I was leaving to visit some family, I turned on the water to the tomatoes, peppers, herbs and some of my raspberries. I have a cheap timer that isn't digital, I just turn it to whatever time and it counts down like an egg timer. I set it and left. While I was gone, we had a thunderstorm and an epic downpour that lasted an hour. It was pretty crazy. When I got home, 5 hours later, I heard the water running. The timer had failed. So my plants got super extra watered yesterday .

[eyegrotom]

I have one of those egg type timers that I use on my lawn sprinkler. I only use it while I am at home, I don't trust it.