Today I created the 2019 What’s happening post 
We can move over here now…
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Waiting (not) patiently for these guys to finish ripening 
Some gradually ripening unhappy Alpine strawberries.
The wonderful everbearing Meyer lemons.
Happy Mexican Limes.
And a (offtopic) Giant Bird Of Paradise wondering where the heat has gone?
(upload://2In5hoL7kzEHo3nWIn6ZpeopLvN.jpeg)
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can’t even find ground around here. only 6ft. snow drifts!
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Need advice about blueberries. When I got my soil samples I found I had soil pH of 5.6 and 5.7. Will that grow blueberries without amendments? Rabbit eyes are what grow best in the area so just wondering if I could seriously consider planting some.
Katy
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Yes plant some, no the soil is not right for them so it will need to be acidified.
Krewer, Titan, and Vernon are good possibilities if you are interested in some variety names.
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That’s fairly low and from what I’ve read about Rabbiteyes,they aren’t as particular about pH as Northern Highbush.
Mixing a bunch of Peat moss in will most likely lower it.bb
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Hi Kate, where I live we have sandy, ph 7 soil. Been growing blueberries since 2012 and they’re doing well and giving nice crops. I just spread a handful of sulphur around the plants once or twice a year. By the way, have any good fig recommendations for your area? My brother lives not too far from you in Longview and I was hoping to gift him a couple fig trees this spring.
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Another planet
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Been doing a lot of reading and peat would probably do the job with the pH but we have a lot of clay so I’m not sure we could keep the soils loose enough. Our soil above the clay is kind of a sandy clay loam. It’s mushy when wet but will set up rock hard when dry. We are usually feast or famine on rainfall having wet springs and very dry summers. Water for irrigation would have to be tap water and I don’t know if that would be adequate. Need to check with the water company I guess.
I have a brown turkey fig tree that grows well but I don’t think the figs are super great quality figs (open eye and sours easily when it rains—I’ve lost my whole crop before in a very rainy year). The fruit is very large and it makes a breba crop and a main crop and the breba crop are actually the better figs IMO. As big as it is it still gets a bit of winter damage some years but it grows to 10-12 foot bushy tree. The figs are really large and the production is prolific but it’s a very mild fig taste. I have a young Celeste fig that is better eating—smaller but good fig flavor. I’m not sure how it’s going to fare in the winters yet but I expect it to be compatible in ground here. It does not produce a breba crop. I’ve not tasted a lot of different fig varieties. I’ve got a VdB in a pot that has fantastic figs but I’m afraid to plant it out… any of the Chicago hardy types should do well here. We try to plant them on the south or west side of a building for a little extra protection but they do pretty well in ground.
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Apple trees in their frost cages at high noon. Days getting longer and sun getting higher…maybe a teensy little bit.
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My Meyer lemon and key lime are officially dead. Down to one blood orange. I only have pictures of pies and lemon bars for memories
Diseases?
love the look of hoar frost in the morning sun! looks a lot like my yard this morning w/ 3ft more snow. 
those cattle panels work good for protecting the trees from moose. luckily I’m surrounded by open fields so i don’t see them much here. had a set of twin yearlings eat my everbearing raspberries a few years ago. at least they were dormant so there was no damage. got lucky my other plants didn’t get chewed on.
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Sounds like you get lots more snow than we do. A two foot accumulation would be an uncommonly big snow year for me.
freeze?
From what?
I’m sorry to hear you lost your citrus. I would like an orange tree but I just have to many plants in the house with little light.
I have three lemons just starting to turn yellow on mine. It takes so long to ripen them in the winter with a eastern exposure. I have three more little ones the size of a quarter that will ripen outside this summer.
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My trees spend the summer out of doors on the back terrace. House is for sale with a lot of showings. We had a lot of wind this summer. You leave your house when people come to see it. I would come home to the wind knocking over my trees, to a point where they would be knocked out of their very large pots. They couldn’t handle the bad, thoughtless treatment, neither did I. They were healthy as could be. So sad.
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I planted a row of rabbiteyes into heavy clay soil over 10 years ago with about that pH, and they’ve done well. I added some sand and peat moss when I planted them, but those are the only amendments I’ve added besides mulching with pine straw. Despite the heavy clay, I think the soil where my bushes are is pretty well drained, though. I’ve had terrible results trying to grow NHB’s or SHB’s even in lighter soils with the same kind of pH, but I started grafting some NHB’s on rabbiteye last year (mostly in order to try to get an earlier start to the blueberry season than the earliest rabbiteyes) and that’s looking very promising so far.
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