https://growingfruit.org/t/2023-garden-plans/50539/3
Shouldn’t these threads be combined.
Anyway, I have been at this lot 18 years this March. I always do a large pumpkin patch (about 600sq feet for pumpkins) and invite all the neighborhood kids to pick Jackolanterns. Tomatoes, cucumbers, zukes, and carrots mainly in the raised beds. My kids never eat the beets. They are more fruit eaters. Plan to do some onions and garlic too. And I also have an 10 yr old asparagus patch behind the raised bed, those ferns can get huge. Asparagus is my favorite veggie. Then I top off the raised beds with a couple of my own cannabis crosses.
I fill every crack of soil between plants with strawberries. It’s my favorite cover crop. I till in the big mamas every spring and keep the lil older plants and runners. I still Cannot grow enough to satiate my children. I sometime wonder if they are going to turn into strawberries.
I am blessed with an original to my home 1980 blueberry grove. It was planted in the flood plane of a small creek that bisects my lot. I wish it had something to do with me; I just enjoy the planting of those before me. They are big and ancient for blueberries. Plenty to freely share with the birds and neighbors as it always surprises me the productivity of those plants. Honestly it is what attracted me to this lot in the first place.
My raspberry grove is 5 years old this season and really put out last year. It’s a blend of red, gold, and black raspberries all growing in the bank of my creek where it exits my lot. To prevent erosion. Raspberries are great at binding loose soil. They seem to really like to fruit there as well.
My lot also came with an old pear tree I suspect was also planted in 1980. It does ok fruiting sweet firm pears. No idea what kind. I would eat 10 apples to 1 pear. But my son likes the pears so it lives.
6 years ago my first tree I planted was a Costco quad graft cherry tree. It shines and is very productive. Fresh cherries is probably my favorite fruit. I lucked out and the cherries seem to ripen consecutively from earliest to latest. Not all at once like my friends tree. Two years later I planted a Costco 4 graft apple tree. One graft died (honeycrisp) so I have to find a scion of that to reattach.
Then I noticed my kids eat a lot of peaches. So I went peach crazy. The same year as the apple tree I ordered 7 different curl resistant peaches and 4 curl resistant nectarines. The baby trees came delivered the next spring. I have high hopes for peach tasting dreams this year. Oh, and for fun I ordered a cosmic crisp apple tree along with the peaches. Why not? The peaches are 4 years old now this spring.
Then my wife said I was crazy and no more trees. (She is more a book worm than a gardener. Nobody is perfect). So I had to sneak in a few trees last year. Like on “double secret probation”. Ha. I got currants, a pineapple guava, Pakistani mullberry, an arborquina olive, and an interlaken grape. Psst, don’t tell my wife. I am good at “I don’t know where that plant came from honey.”
Then this winter I caught a fever really bad. Paw paw fever. I convinced my wife to let me get a couple trees for Christmas. I got a mango and KSU Shenandoah. Then I met a fellow grower in woodinville Wa that had 2 Rebecca’s gold trees that are 20 years old. She gave me 4 2year seedlings and 20 seeds to try myself. I cannot wait for these to grow like all you know. The anticipation anyway. Heck I feel it’s sometimes about the fruit journey than the destination. TBH. And meeting like minded friends has been a blast. Instant common ground no matter how different we are. Plants do that. Sorry for the ramble but I am a stream of consciousness English professor’s worst nightmare.
Moving along, this spring I have a pluerry coming because they sound like heaven. And a replacement for one of my peaches. I lost my Indian free peach so I am giving it another go. It never leafed out after last winter.
I almost forgot about my kiwis. Same year I planted my cherry tree I put in a male and female fuzzy kiwi. They did ok and were starting to set kiwis. But 2 years ago I moved them to pour a slab for a greenhouse. Now I have them climbing some small cottonwoods on the edge of a green belt (not mine) but no one cares. It’s wild there. Roots on my lot vines growing over. It really set them back. They almost died.
The greenhouse is for my citrus. I have a poured slab and footings, and a donated intact 8 foot high greenhouse from an old college roomie that moved out of state. He could not take it with him. But I want to raise it up on a 4’ foundation wall to make it 12’ tall. So I have to wait till the summer to make it happen. I have a key lime, meyers lemon, and a cutie orange. And a 4yr old blue Java banana. They all spend Halloween till march in my garage under led grow lights. It’s their last year there hopefully. That’s all I can think of for now anyway. Happy growing. 