Okay, so only one fruit in this bed - Hawaiian papaya - but this is what we’ve been up to the last two weeks. Grueling work. a 24’ x 3’ bed on the south side of our house. Up against the family room. It was full of variegated shell ginger that had been growing in the bed for about 10 years. Plus, two huge, ginormous Sticks on Fire that were as tall as our 2nd story window (20’, and have cut down once already). My wonderful, incredible hubby took a pick axe to the bed, divided up the ginger, which was the biggest root system I’ve ever seen, as well as pulled out the root balls of the Sticks on Fire, one about 100 lbs, the other close to 200 lbs. (took both of us to lug it up into our big commercial wheelbarrow). All plants re-homed elsewhere. Wish I had a “before” picture of this bed. But, here’s the “after” photos. We dug a huge big hole for the papaya, backfilled with about 1/2 GrowMulch and 1/2 perlite, some soil sulfur and all moistened then watered in with AgriFos. More AgriFos to be applied in about 2 months, along with mancozeb applied to the trunks of the papayas. And, I’ll apply plastic in the winter, to keep the area dry during winter rains. Hopefully, I can keep my papaya healthy, and free from root rot. So, there are several Hawaiian gingers, including the shampoo ginger, a couple of Helliconia lobster claw plants, a couple of Strelitzia parviflora juncea (Leafless Bird of Paradise), some Ixora coccinea, both ‘Maui Red’ and ‘Maui Sunset’, Lantana ‘Bandana Yellow’, lots of hibiscus (DuPonts and Cajuns, very fancy and pretty), some asclepias, a couple of Cosmos atrosanguineus because they’re cool looking, and some split leaf philodendrons. The Giant Bird of Paradise was left in. Re-planted a lovely Talavera pot I had with a pretty pink bromeliad and some impatiens, both of which just love my yard. This is our nod to Hawaii, which is an area of the world we just adore. It would be my second favorite place to live, right behind where I live right now 
This was backbreaking work, but sure glad it’s over. Now, to enjoy as things fill in, and provide lots of gorgeous color. And, check out the asclepias photo closely. I have a future Monarch in the works, there:
U-pick blueberries near my sister’s place in PA. Late season pickings of Bluecrop, Berkeley, and Coville.
I’ve read that Coville is good flavored,Matt.That’s one of the cutting varieties that Corvallis sent me to propagate. Brady
I knocked off a Nectaplum, still about a week or more away from ripe. I’ll let it sit on the counter.
The plant produces big nectarines, and it’s loaded with them. Maybe 60 or so? Not sure? I got 48 off of Arctic Glo, some were very small though. Tough year! Everything is small except these nectaplums!
Arctic Glo some of the harvest. Harvested August 12th (quite ripe).
So jealous of your Arctic Glo. I bet they were fabulous.
My grafts failed, and I missed them at the farm stands this year. What a great nectarine.
Picked half of my first full harvest after 3, 4 years of trying and replanting! As these berries ripen, the yellow jackets and who knows what flying insects, lots of every kind, were attracted to the vine and buzzed on it like crazy!
Do I have to share with them? Or is there any way to keep them away from the juicy berries?
Yes, excellent as usual. My only complaint is they set the bar high and every other stone fruit fails to reach it except Indian Free.
Yes the yellow jackets are terrible this dry year. I use DE food grade. Just wash off the grapes when harvesting. Here they are on my blackberries. I also have used one day PHI organics with limited success. I use them when it rains and DE is useless.
The fruit looks very clean. Very clean. The Artic go don’t look too small at least average. Very nice work.
Yellow jacket traps also work well. They need to be dumped and re-baited every few weeks. They get a bit disgusting, the trap is basically a digestive system and the dead bug pile smells remarkably similar to a poop pile.
The tree had more smaller ones than pictured.
Thanks! The clean looking fruit is due more to the environment than anything I did! Luckily pest pressure is medium here, not low, but not high either. You can get lucky!
That is probably a much better solution, thanks I’m going to try them also.
Hot pepper harvest as easy as pie this year.
I like to make fresh salsa, and have made a few batches. This year I added purple tomatillos and it gave the salsa a unique flavor. I roast and blend, or just cut them up. The purple ones are mild.
Had some stumps that needed removed. The rental shop was out of the larger hydraulic grinders so I had to rent one of these. It’s OK for a single stump but not cool for doing 12 stumps. I feel like my body has been put through a meat grinder. By back is going to pay for this…
Wow, no kidding. That looks like a killer…!!
What IS that thing?
Drew,
I also planted purple tomatillos this year. Mine are less purple, they are mainly green with some purple strikes and blotches on the sunny sides. I was actually surprised that they were quite sour tasting, well more sour than the green tomatillos I grew last year. Go figure…
If I left them hang they turned all purple. I still didn’t like them. Not saving seed.
It’s a stump grinder. The good ones are self propelled with hydraulic controls. The one I rented was manual controlled and damn near killed me.
Note to self - Don’t even THINK about renting a manual stump grinder - ever.
SWD us horrible. I found some half ripe gold raspberries and they were just full of them. I ended up cutting them all out. I’m done. I have some summer ripening reds and we’ll see how they go.
Hot today after some cool days. The other morning we were down to 52F and i could actually see my breath. Looks like some warm and then some rain this next week and next weekend looks very FALLISH up here. Probably highs in the 60Fs and maybe some 40Fs at night.