Number 1 thing I’m continuing is focusing on soil health and feeding my soil organisms. Adding aged horse manure in the fall, eliminating tillage, and mulching has done wonders for everything I grow.
Also, I’ll continue on with the use of a couple of foliar fertilizers I used last year. They supply the micronutrients necessary for increased photosynthesis and reproduction, making my veggies and fruit trees the healthiest I’ve ever had. As such I didn’t use any fungicide or insecticide last year, and had no pest or disease damage other than a few Rose Chafer beetles. Beginning this year, I will no longer use any herbicides either.
One change this year will be adding native bees to help with pollination. I’ll be getting both mason and leafcutter bees.
I’m also adding a lot more flowers to both the garden and orchard to keep the beneficial insects happy. I may even try to sell some cut flowers this year, if I can manage to do it without taking much additional effort.
Also going to increase the size of my pumpkin patch. Last year I grew 2 Big Max pumpkins that produced 3 pumpkins each that topped 50 pounds. Got $20 a piece for those pumpkins, so I’m expanding to 15 plants this year.
Lois, the fencing strands don’t have to make a full circle/enclosed loop. These photo’s will show you what I mean, these wires run from one side of the gate, around the garden, and to the other side. It’s the grounding wire that completes the circuit and causes the “shock”. This means you can include a gate without disabling your system. The gate is a potential weak spot where critters could get in, but it’s unlikely they’ll figure that out, and if you keep your gate tight to the ground it should remain effective. Repelling deer - #47 by Bede
You can get plastic handles that you put on the individual wires that act as a gate. Just unhook them and walk through. You can also just unplug the energizer while you are working in the orchard, in which case you can just step over the individual wires, but harder to get over the woven stuff. Just easily untie the end and step through. Squirrels are harder to keep out, but the bottom wire just 2 or 3 inches off the ground helps. Maybe they hit their tails on it or something, but I had no squirrel problems this last summer after I got that bottom wire back in service. Use plastic tent stakes to help keep it in place. That’s no guarantee the squirrels won’t cross, but I think it helps. I heard of someone electrifying a strip of chicken wire to keep out squirrels. Have never tried that.
although I am still focussed on buying apple trees for flavour and disease resistance…I am leaning more toward disease resistance with the varieties I am adding this year…I am backing away from roses that are not fully hardy even if that means not growing the style of roses I like best (Austin)….strawberries and raspberries are probably the most common of berries to be planting…but I haven’t been putting the effort into establishing a proper plot of either…instead ive been focussed on haskaps as they are harder to get off to a start but otherwise trouble free…now that I have a good large plot of haskaps I will turn my attention to the more obvious…I have been adding fruit trees and bushes to this property for …this will be the seventh year…I am turning my attention more to working on what is already planted…or at least that was the plan until I saw the catalogues
Need to change: Probably a lot needs to be done differently…but won’t be .
I’d like to say that I’ll relax and be less obsessive about tidiness. But I love well groomed beds with no weeds and beautiful plants arranged in a mostly ordered fashion (want picture proof? ). So I guess obsession stays in 2019. Maybe next year.
I’d like to say I’ll eat everything I grow, because it is organic and healthy, but I just don’t have the appetite I used to. Growing them is more the pleasure to me than eating - but I’m trying. The G-kids are major consumers, so that adds to the enjoyment.
In the garden, I need to do a better job with irrigation of things in pots. Current irrigation is fed from rain barrels so I just have a gravity feed and don’t have city water pressure to work off of. Needs more thought.
I need to be more aggressive at trapping - my least favorite garden chore. It falls to the bottom of the ‘to do’ list because most everything else is more fun - even shoveling compost! So that needs to go to the top of the list in 2019.
Needs to stay:
Gardening w/o digging/tilling is the way to go for me. Layering amendments (compost, minerals) on top and planting through leaves & wood chips has really made gardening easier and given good results w/less weeds.
Raising plants indoors until garden size has also worked well for me. It is easier for me and I can control the environment for good results. I don’t direct sow anything anymore except carrots and parsnips, well, and potatoes. Even peas and beans sown inside in cells result in nice full and even rows when planted out (satisfies the obsession, LOL.)
I usually have a sheet of paper going to jot down ideas I have or things I want to do the coming (or next) growing seson. Here are some things thus far on my list:
spread wood ashes under Haralson apple tree to help knock down bitter pit problem
put more grafts along branch where I grafted onto an older tree water sprout/upright shoot, instead of cutting branch off
add some soil on last years root grafts - think I didn’t bury deep enough to allow room for own-rooting
Plant everything in gopher baskets and be religious about setting traps as soon as I see gopher activity. (I finally found a trap that works for me with a 100% success rate so far.)
Focus on propagating the plants I already have, rather than on buying new ones.
Won’t do:
Buy any more plants from big box stores or other iffy sources. It is too heartbreaking to put months/years into nurturing a plant, then when it blooms or fruits find out that it isn’t even the variety you wanted.
What I will do, and am doing right now, is noting the places in my yard that receive the most snow cover. These are the places I am going to plant my least hardy plants. Any ground that has not much snow, such as near certain structures, are death traps in a winter such as this.
I will leave well enough alone, and not move anything or prune until I understand more about what needs to be done as opposed to what I want to do.
I will, so help me god, keep up on the weeding. The quack grass gets out of hand especially during mid July when haying starts.
I will plant melons, I got lazy last year and missed them in the fall. I learned actions have consequences I might not like.
I will do more Mason Bees, they were wonderful and fun.
I won’t get carried away in the nurseries buying plants for planters. It is a waste of money, when in July, I realize that planters take way more work than I am willing to give and I should have bought myself an ice cream instead.
Yes it does! But if you can afford to tie up space for a season one trick works in raised beds. We covered a fallow bed with plastic for weeks- the quack grass roots seemed to move to the top of the soil, and then it was easy to lift out when we removed the plastic. From there we were religiously diligent making sure no scraps of roots got a foothold. And now it’s not too hard to keep them from moving in and setting up camp.
Quackgrass surrounds my larger vegetable garden. Even if I do get it cleared from the garden, it eventually works its way back in. For me the battle renews about every 3-4 years.
I don’t recall it taking that long, bit it might have. I will say that once we got it out of the beds it hasn’t been that hard to keep it out. But like AndySmith points out, it’s a never-ending chore. Along with bindweed and some little succulent that’s awfully good at taking root, we have to keep an eye on it all the time.
Sugar Baby would prob. work on a trellis. You can fashion a sling ( or even use an old bra- for comic relief!) out of old towels; shirts; ect. They are similar in size to cantaloupes and honeydews; which I’ve grown sucessfully on a wire panel trellis. If you put a little straw/grass clippings underneath the plants as mulch; there’s less chance of them splitting when ripeness causes them to separate from the vine and fall.
I plan on buying & using fabric rolls of weed- prevention mulch in between my rows of vegetables this year; to cut down on weeding. We go up to our cabin for a month or so in late May/June; after the garden is planted and initially weeded and mulched. It;s so disheartening to come back and find the garden just buried in weeds- It should help to an extent w/ the excavation of the garden rows. Am also going to attempt a planting of artichokes; the Imperial Star that can be grown ( and bears) as an annual- bearing the year planted. Am trying a new var. of bell pepper called Recovery which produces a RED ripe fruit @ 65 days… this would be a profitable item early season @ our farmers mkt. I really like the Yellow Escamillo sweet frying pepper; too. 8 inches long; 1/2 lb.; and delicious.
Bearing in mind the opening verses of Psalm 127: “Unless the Lord builds the house, they who build it labor in vain,” I hope in '19 to:
Try grafting Mt. Royal and Monsieur Hatif to root stock to gain a stone fruit for drying and making jam.
Top work Rambour Franc to Orléans Reinette and Discovery. Top work Geneva 11 to Glockenapfel to replace a mis-labeled tree. Air layer Rosemary Russet now on Bardsey and get it in the ground, so someday I can compare RR on two stocks: Bardsey and Geneva 30. Air layer Tarecap Bitter (thank you Ozzie and John!) now standing on GoldRush (just what was available) and bury that graft union so it can become a standard in a nearby orchard. Try to get my hands on MN 1734 and graft that to Gen 30; & graft two more cider apples for that orchard: Golden Harvey and Dabinett. Graft a columnar apple scion (Mere Pippin) to get another hard & long keeper (thank you Skillcult.) Get two more black currant varieties (Risager & Laxton’s Giant) to see how they compare with what already grows here.
Stay the course:
More diligently add compost, wood ash & mulch to drip lines for shrubs and trees. Build up numbers of garlic and get shallots to plant by trees. Put out squirrel trap while they’re young and inexperienced. Get the swallow nest boxes out as soon as I suspect V-Gr. swallows will come by. Apply orchard socks on Bardsey ASAP once petal drop is complete. Check the trees at the orchard for corrective pruning, and strip 'em if they set fruit this year. MULCH 'EM! Plant more chilies in pots and get 'em into the back porch, where it’s warm at night. Compost and mulch the saffron crocus beds at the first sign of spring (might not come until April).
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). So I guess obsession stays in 2019. Maybe next year.