I planted a cover crop last November for an area of lawn I’m turning into garden space. I used a mix of hairy vetch, crimson clover, daikon radish and Austrian winter peas. Now that we’re trying to avoid trips to the grocery store it has turned into a nice source of greens. Here is a salad made with pea shoots (delicious), daikon leaves and flowers (also a surprising delight), plus a few flowers from the wild violets that show up uninvited in the garden. A few walnuts and some dressing and it was ready. Now I’m not sure I should cut it down to plant other stuff yet.
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Pea shoots are an expensive treat at the grocery store here. They’re great in soups and stir fry too. It makes me happy to see you optimizing your space by farming your front lawn. I planted mine with pawpaw, persimmons, raspberries, and currants since it’s more shady on that side of the house.
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Love those taraxicums!
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This year all my fruit trees bloomed WEEKS ahead of schedule- way earlier than I’d ever seen them bloom before (thanks no doubt to the warm winter/spring). I know many of you had the same thing happen, and all of you may have seen my posts lamenting that I would almost certainly loose all my stone fruit this year. After all, it was just not possible that my trees could bloom in late February (yes, FEBRUARY!!!) and then not be killed by a frost/freeze in March or April. I mean, it wouldn’t even take a late freeze this year to kill my stone fruits since they bloomed so early. But guess what? Those March and April frosts/freezes we always get here in KY/TN never came either. So as it looks now, I’m on track for my best stone fruit season EVER. I’ve got many plums and some peaches that have NEVER fruited before that have fruit this year. Same with pluots and plumcots and cherry plums (nadia) and other fun things I haven’t tasted yet.
Now, I’m not superstitious but I sure hope I’m not jinxing myself here. Most of my stone fruits are somewhere near shuck-split right now so I’ve got a long, long road before harvest and anything can happen. But right now its looking like a Banner year here on the KY/TN line. My closest GrowingFruit. org friend, @zazlev , tells me he has had exactly the same thing happen in his orchard just 35 miles away , so I hope a lot of you are having similar results…at least thus far. Fingers crossed that my/our good luck holds!
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You’ve got some fine old trees there
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Ordered (very very late) from Century Farm Orchards. It was my lucky day I guess - because David Vernon answered the phone - and quickly told me that he was basically all sold out. I said that I was disappointed because I had hoped that he would have 2 southern apples that sounded as though they might have a chance surviving at my place. Aunt Rachel and King David. He laughed and said that he thought he had one Aunt Rachel and might have a King David - in the cooler. He couldn’t believe it - and neither could I !!! What are the chances - out of the many many varieties he offers!
The two little trees arrived just a couple of days later - and we promptly planted them.
They are dwarfs on B-9 and they will need permanent staking. But, for now - my silly bungee method will have to do.
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Got him! Yes, after a week of tracking a porcupine by flashlight after dark in our apple orchard…I finally found him trying to find a way in through the fence around 10:00pm last night. It met its maker. It had damaged one of our Cortland apple trees about 2 weeks ago. I believe it is a holdover from last season. We had eliminated 4 others last year…but I was never able to get this one. I don’t like killing animals…but these guys are just so destructive!
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Great idea with the bungees!
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Yes Sir! And it was great texting with you the other day Kevin!! I have some grafting to do on the plate for this week. So awesome we all may get to try some fruit we have been froze out on year after year. 
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Experimenting with some hardwood cuttings… Two liter bottles just seemed like they would make acceptable “greenhouses”. I also put a bunch in a large clear plastic “tote”. All are in coconut coir and out of direct sun. The unlabeled ones in the tote are M111 cutoffs where I used the roots for interstem grafting. Figured what the heck, lets see if they might grow… Others are all plum and mulberry. First time being fairly serious in an attempt to do this, fingers crossed.
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There’ll be some scattered frost Saturday morning…but at least not a 18 degree freeze sort of event!
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Asparagus making a showing
Duck house and greenhouse being built.
Im going to clear away a bunch of forsythia to make room for 20x9 space for raised beds. Its some of the best sun i have and forsythia is all along the front yard so im takin this back
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Solitary bees showed up this week, and are having at the pussywillow.
And the pawpaw seedlings are finally lifting their heads out of the soil!
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Thank you! I always like the thought that trough every change in agrarian politics there always was a reason to keep them.
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Happy for you Kevin… I hope you have kept your apricot trees, so that you get to try the wonderful, home-grown cots 
!
First daffodil
Honeyberries coming along
!Some new faces in the yard being introduced to the big girls
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Thanks Ahmad! I hope you have a great year as well. Unfortunately, I’ve just had a terrible, awful time with my apricot trees. I’ve not had a similar experience with any other type of trees, but my apricots have almost all died, and all in the same way. They seem to have some kind of wilting disease. In almost every case, they die in the spring right after they start to leaf out. Everything seems to be going well, then suddenly all the newly emerged leaves- not even full sized- suddenly wilt and die. Sometimes its one big limb, other times its the whole tree. The only apricot I have that has survived is one that is in a completely different part of my orchard. This, to me, is further evidence that its wilting disease since its all happened in one area where my apricots are (almost) all planted.
I can count on one hand all the trees in other varieties that have died on me after the first year- it just doesn’t happen except with my apricots and I’ve had about 8 of them die in the last 5 years. I’d love to have your thoughts and those of anyone who reads this about what might be going on, whether it is some kind of wilt, or what it might be.
The one apricot I do have that is alive bloomed a lot this year, and I THINK its self fertile (are all apricots self fertile?) so hopefully I will get to try a homegrown apricot this year!!! You always have some incredible looking apricots, Ahmad, so if all else fails I may have to make a trip to Delaware! haha Good luck this year.
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@thecityman i’m by no means an expert (0 for 2 on apricots)…my thoughts are they dont like wet feet and are susceptible to cambium injury (ex. One of mine got winter sunscald, then canker then perished) and seem very disease susceptible when not in a likable climate (like mine, several warm ups a winter, cold rainy springs,m/falls). Im going to try another couple on a raised berm, with planting circles covered in plastic to prevent rain penetration and i will definitely whitewash and only prune in summer to prevent disease and infection…if that doesn’t work ill just graft branches onto peaches and lop them off as need be. There is one old 40+ year old tree i know of in town so it is possible…i think my winter pruning was the biggest downfall
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It is certainly true that they don’t like wet areas, but this part of my orchard is on a gentle slope and is well drained and the soil is a good soil that promotes drainage. Its certainly a good thing to consider, but it just doesn’t fit my situation. Again, I’m fairly confident that I have Verticillium wilt caused by the fungus Verticillium dahliae but I’m always open to other ideas from other folks here. I know apricots are the most common fruit tree to fall prey to VW, but there are other WIlt fungi and other diseases in general that could be at play here, but I don’t think water is the issue- though I appreciate the suggestion and I do agree that poor drainage can cause similar problems. Hope you get your issues worked out! Thanks.
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Kevin, what you are describing happened to my first Canadian White Blenheim. I lost the entire 3 year old tree in exactly the manner you describe. Last year I lost about 1 foot of branch on my Sugar Pearls. After a lot of research including reading posts on this site, I believe this is caused by Brown Rot Blossom Blight (Monilinia). It can be controlled by spraying fungicide before, during (unfortunately), and at the end of bloom. I just sprayed my trees Sunday right before the blooms opened (today). If it rains during bloom, you are in trouble. @Stan could chime in here as well. He is quite knowledgeable on the subject.
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