Year 6 of Standards in the ground and no flowers to show. None the less I walk the property taking photos of progress and changes each day or every other day. I was doing my rounds today and hurt my neck doing a double take:
That is the sole cluster out of 7 trees. On the upside, there is a good size crab apple in bloom nearby so it’s POSSIBLE I could get an apple out of this yet. So, that’s A THING.
(I should clarify that I haven’t been out there since Tuesday this week due to weather and obligations. Clearly these have been open for a couple days)
Since it’s such a nice day after a lot of rain, we took a trip to our local nursery that has a pyo strawberry patch. We ended up picking 7qt of Honeoye strawbs. They are pretty tart, and not really sweet, but they’re fresh so we’re going to make pies, jams and freeze some.
It’s a nice place, they sell veggies and flowers as well, and are growing tomatoes, taters, corn, etc.
To anyone here who might find him/herself in the Albany NY area, ( I am about 35 miles south of Albany and about 5 miles off the NY State Thruway -Interstate 87 Exit 21), I invite you to visit my orchard. I am usually up at the orchard from Friday thru Sunday.
@warmwxrules, @ltilton , they just started allowing folks to pick them, so I guess they figure they’re not going to get much sweeter. But they did say come back in a few days, so maybe they will? I doubt we’ll be back until another week, it’s about a 25mi one way trip. I think we have enough for now.
My wife was up here in this area teaching yesterday, so she picked 6qt then. They were pretty tart, some were a bit sweet, but like I said, we’re going to make preserves, jelly, freeze some. I don’t know if they’re supposed to be sweeter or not.
I wanted to talk to the owner about his patch, but didn’t really get a chance, they were pretty busy today. Maybe another day.
It’s a gorgeous day here, temps in the 60s and mostly sunny. Hope we’re out of this wet spell, we gotta get stuff planted already. Supposed to be in the 80s most of next week, so think we’re done with frosts.
You are going to be praying for 60Fs when the heat shows up. The dewpoint is in the upper 40Fs so the air is plenty dry. Once the sun sets our temps should easily fall back into the 50Fs…good night to keep the windows open (i can’t stand sleeping in a hot house).
Went to Black Creek Greenhouse in Lancaster area today. Bought all my annual flowers and veggies. Going to harden them off for few days and in the ground after that. Also bought Bonide Fish fertilizer. Anybody uses it?
We make this trip every year. About an hour drive for us. Kids enjoy the drive through Amish country side and watching animals. We stop by at a plant sale, all perennials $2.50/each. Same for raspberry plants. There was a box for people to put money in. No body to watch the sale or give balance. I don’t think that box would’ve lasted 5 min in the city. It was nice to see people stopping by taking what they want and then putting in the money. Hopefully no body cheated
Looks like you had a fun day. Those maters look interesting! I use rebar for mine too. I’m looking for more extras from work. I only have a few that I bent to 24" circles. Thats the perfect stuff for them. Those tomato cages they sell in the stores are way to small. I’ve been wanting to go pick strawberries, but I always end up doing what is part of the do list.
I would like to go back to the nursery and try some of those black tom’s in a few months.
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Let us know how they taste.[quote=“subdood_ky_z6b, post:1277, topic:8428”] Thats whats nice about the rebar mesh is it is 60 " wide or tal the way we would use it.
Yeah, it was fun to get out and enjoy some of the sunshine. After the nursery, we went to visit our niece and her two young boys, who live about a mile away. They were really enjoying being outside, we gave them a quart of the strawbs.
Rebar would be great, but I bet it’s hard to bend into circles, tho. Yeah, we never use tomato cages, our plants turn into 5-7ft monsters, and would just tump over in a cage. We use tobacco stakes, about 4ft tall wooden posts, and lash the tom’s to them.
We’re growing pole beans again, and need a trellis for them. I was thinking of maybe using T posts and running some heavy duty line between them.
I would like to go back to the nursery and try some of those black tom’s in a few months. They look like they had both cherry and Brandywine type blacks.
I’ll take the heat, we need to dry out. It can get muggy here, but that’s the way it is in these parts. It may get pretty warm, but after the sun dips behind the hills behind us, it cools off pretty fast in the evenings. Our summer nights are very comfortable.
Looks great! Our pick your own strawberry field grows the same variety. They are always loaded with berries and so easy to pick. The putple tomatoes are beautiful!
No that square mesh rebar is easy to bend if you stand on it. It’s only 1/8" thick. Look at what the maters are growing on. They have theirs in a straight line tied to iron fence post. It can be a bit hard to cut if you don’t have a big cutting wheel. Cut them six foot long and grab one end while standing on the other and lift it up and push it back down. Best tomato cage ever! It’s used for pouring slab driveways and garages.
Yes, looks great! you must live more North, maybe Canada? It’s nice when it all comes together. Your about two weeks behind me here in north south east, south Mich. I write it like that because were colder than say an hour away.
