Orchard update

Another year has passed as has another successful pruning season.  Meanwhile I have learned a great deal from an apple management seminar I took in at the State Fair last fall.   One is that I picked the right two trees for my "mini-orchard" - the Honeycrisp and the Zestar.  Another is that the growth characteristics of these trees is quite different, in ways which made complete sense to me, having observed these trees for the past several years. Turns out could have pruned the Zestar back very hard last year and it would have been fine.   I also learned why the Honeycrisp did not bear last year--it had not been properly thinned the year before.  Honeycrisp is very sensitive to density of fruit, and it needs very active thinning or else it will only bear every other year.   So now I both trees back to the size I want them to be, and there structure is pretty good too.  The two key management activities will be aggressive thinning (especially on the Honeycrisp) and the application of fruit tree spray if I want cleaner more useable fruit.  After a year or two of fairly clean fruit with no spraying, each year we have had lots of blemished fruit, most of which is not useable.

Pruning season

A little over a month ago, on an unseasonably warm weekend, I got out and pruned our two apple trees. I found it to be a very enjoyable activity, as I examined every branch and decided where to make a cut to encourage the sort of growth that would be beneficial in the future. Both trees can be seen in this photo, the one in the foreground being a Honey crisp, and the one in the background a Zestar, both bred in Minnesota by the university.  I was very pleased with the outcome of the Honeycrisp;  the Zestar had become much taller and I was hesitant to take too much off in one season, so I think I will consider this a two season pruning venture.    Both trees were very prolific last year, but they had too many blossoms and set clusters of three or more fruits, which tended to stay small and drop early.  I did some thinning last summer, but not nearly enough, and I need to be more persistent this year if we are to harvest larger apples.   Two years ago we had a good crop, but the squirrels seemed to like to take a chomp out of each one and leave the rest, which attracted hornets and other insects that left much of the fruit unusable.  Last year I put mesh down under the tree, which seemed to keep the squirrels out, but we still had the problem of small malformed fruit.   I think I have the solution to many small fruits (pruning and thinning) and am willing to accept some blemishes if I can avoid spraying.

There are some obvious spiritual analogies to all this--the Gospel of John tells us that Jesus is the vine and we are the branches, and that the Father, the Vinedresser, prunes us that we may bear fruit.  I thought of this quite a lot as I was engaged in the pruning exercise.    I believe that the way God prunes us is through trials, illness, discipline, and setbacks.   We can either accept these things as being from the hand of a loving Father, and thus bear much fruit, or complain and reject these events as being the work of the adversary.    I feel I can come to this conclusion, because the Master Gardener doesn't only just prune, but also waters, feeds, and gives abundant sunshine.  In my experience the Master Gardener is also quite tolerant of the blemished fruit I bear, and for this I am quite grateful, and can learn patience with others from His example.

The blood of the grape

After talking about making wine for quite awhile--probably as long as I have been making beer-- in January of 2013 I put it in my goals for the year to start a batch of wine.  I met my goal-- barely.  On December 27 I started a wine kit by putting three gallons of juice into a big bucket and pitching in some yeast.  On February 27 of this year I bottled my first batch--15 bottles of port I named Grey Havens Port.  You LotR fans will recognize the reference.  It turned out pretty well-- tasting similar to a commercial bottle I opened for comparison.  I chose port for my first batch because I figured it would be more forgiving than a table wine.  I also thought it could be a communion wine, but the kit cost the same as what we use at church, so it definitely is not worth the hassle.  My next batch, which I just started on March 19, is a Riesling Ice wine style.  I expect that will be another sweeter wine with a high probability of turning out well.

Seed order time

Receiving and pouring over a garden seed catalog is always a delight driven task for a gardener.  Since we live in a town with a major seed supplier that fills seed orders for more than one catalog, it has been our habit to go down to their retail store and purchase what we need.  Last year we discarded most of our older seeds and replenished our stocks, so our needs weren't great this year.  I was looking for a variety of green bean that I couldn't find at the retail store, but I found just what I wanted mail order.  Mrs. Gardener and I had been very impressed with a green bean side dish served at a local restaurant, the beans always being thin and tender, not the thicker ones that come out of our garden.  In the course of my research I discovered the " French/filet bean" which are bred to be thin and suited to the French cut which is also my favorite form of canned bean.  I ordered two varieties of the filet style bean, including one that is purple at harvest, and turns green as you cook it.  I also ordered a gerkin style pickle and an English style cucumber (long and thin).  Lastly, flush from our first victory in five years over the local deer herd, I ordered some more Swiss chard seed, the colorful kind.  Mrs. G discovered last year that the deer will lay off the Swiss chard if it has it's own cage.  Swiss chard is the closest thing to candy to a deer.

Garden successes

I don't seem to be very good about keeping up with this gardening blog once the summer gets going.  My last post was midsummer last year.  Well, it is planning time for 2014, so it is time to begin posting again.  I will start out be reflecting on the crops we grow, grow successfully and will repeat.

Garden crops in order of their success and benefit:

1. Raspberries.  A perennial favorite, that generally do well with minimal maintenance.  Last year I implemented a management technique I learned from a commercial grower- to mow down half the patch each year to prevent overgrowth.  So now I have two patches with alternate production years.

2. Potatoes.  We love the Yukon Golds, and we're able to grow enough last year to last until Christmas.  They are fun to dig up, (ok, it's still work) but it is like digging for treasure, and with the new mulch system I am planting them shallower and mounding with mulch.  You will notice two varieties of potatoes in the photo.  These are  Russets that accidentally sneaked into the garden, but we discovered they store so much better, that we plan to grow more this year.

3. Tomatoes.  Not a flashy crop because we use them mostly for sauce, but they contribute all year to our food supply.  We have been growing 8-10 plants for years now.

 

4. Asparagus. Not a big yielder yet, but the pleasure to yield ratio is very high.  I am anticipating a large increase in yield, so the patch is starting to fill in the patch, as I recognized many small plants for either seed or stolons. That was either new or I had been tearing them out with the weeds in previous years.

5. Sweet corn.  Another crop we don't get much in yield - only a few meals a year, but we really enjoy those.  Plus, what would a garden be without sweet corn? It is such an iconic crop.

6. Pumpkins and squash.  Space consuming, but easy to grow enough for a year's worth of pies and squash recipes.  Until we went with the mulch system it was hard to keep weeds down, but last year the plot was clean.

7. Salad fixins.  The first plantings of the year are Snow peas, lettuce and radishes, and these  are also the first harvest of the early summer.  Impossible to grow enough for the year, but like fresh sweet corn and asparagus, is an existential pleasure while it is in season.

8. Dipping veg.  Snap peas, cukes, and Kohlrabi lead the list here.  Great while they last.  The peas and cukes do great when allowed to vine up on chicken wire.  Pictured are Asian Cucumbers.

9. Green beans.  Best fresh, so we don't grow too much of these.  Also grew wax beans last summer, but the rabbits (or deer) liked them preferentially to the greens.  Bush style works best for us.  Would like to find a more slender variety than seems to be available at our local seed store.

10. Cabbage.  I failed at sauerkraut a couple of years ago, so we are back to fresh eating in coleslaw and I like cooked cabbage too.  It is easy to make more slaw than we can eat.  Need to space the plantings out more so we can get a fall crop.  Last year grew three varieties, and one of them (golden -Acres, I believe, split, and was ruined.

11. Herbs - mint, oregano, thyme, basil, parsley, chives, and sage are the regulars.  Low maintenance.

12. Apples. These are our newest addition, and prought great pleasure this fall as we harvest 15-20 big beautiful  Honeycrisps  or Zestars (I am not sure which because  only one flowered, and I have forgotten which was planted where).  It was a perfect year for apples, no disease or bugs despite not spraying.  I don't expect every year to be so productive for apples.  Pruning is a chore best done in the late winter,  so it often gets forgotten, and I lack confidence that I know what I am doing.

13. Peppers, both sweet and chili.  Easy to grow and so colorful!

14. Zucchini.  One plant easily feeds the family for fresh and frozen needs, with plenty of large club like fruits left over at season end.

15. Fall greens.  Swiss chard and kale are more interesting to grow than to eat.  Finally outsmarted the deer and got Swiss chard to maturity by caging the plant.

16. Blueberries.  After 3-4 years, we finally got a dozen or so berries - maybe a trend in the right direction, or maybe just "less total failure".  The jury is still out.

Big Day

Today turned into a tiring but very productive day in the East of Eden garden.   Checked the forecast last night and they were predicting rain showers in the morning, but we rose to sun, mild temps, and very little wind.  This held up throughout the day, and between 8 am and 3 pm we got the rest of the planting and transplanting done.  June  1 is a little later than most years, but 2013 hasn't been most years.  

Far right-Asian radish; center-conventional radish; left-bibb lettuce

We are getting close to our first harvestable item--radishes planted April 27.    I didn't get very good germination on the lettuces due to old  seed, so I had to replant (areas that appear empty).  Hard to see, but I also have an onion or two mixed in there.

As I mentioned in the last post, we are using a new method this year involving wood chips over news paper to eliminate most weeding and retain moisture.   There is a bit of up front work, but we should more than make up for it by having less maintenance through out the season.   It also allows me to plant "no till", I don't turn the soil or rototill except for the little area where I plant; the rest of the garden is covered with a few layers of wet newspaper and topped with 3-4 inches of woodchip mulch we get for free a the city composting facility.

Peppers, kohlrabi, and cabbage transplanted today

Tomatoes transplanted last Saturday

So far we are  very pleased with the system.  The plan is to  extend this to the most of the garden, but we are only about half done.   We like it because it uses mostly free stuff--newspaper and mulch.  The proof is in the pudding, so if we save hours and hours weeding and watering--should be a good deal.   Next year should be a test too, as we see how we like planting into it.  In theory the wood chips should decay providing fertile soil, and over time we expect to keep adding more chips to the top.  It is also a nice surface to walk on--no mud, etc.

Back to East of Eden

I'm back after a long hiatus to attend to....life.  I had the best of intentions to follow through to harvest and even commissioned Mrs. Gardener to take photos of the harvest, but I never tracked the photos down on the old hard drive.  But now it is a new year, and suffice it to say we had a bountiful harvest of many of our veggies, and are back at it again.  April has been very snowy, and the first fit day was yesterday, so I planted   romaine, loose leaf lettuce, bibb lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard, and two kinds of radish (regular and Asian).

We watched a gardening video last night that promoted a philosophy of gardening that has wood mulch at its center piece.  The website, interestingly is "Back to Eden" and features the gardening advice of a fellow by the name of Paul Gautschi who  developed the methods after observing how lush and drought resistant forests were.  Motivated by his observations of nature and principles derived from thoughtful contemplation of (and sometimes creative applications from)  Scripture.   Mr. Gautschi described how he grows all his veggies in soil that is covered by a layer of wood mulch.  The mulch decays and provides nutrients, retains water, controls weeds, and keeps the soil loose and free from compaction.    Wood mulch (the kind made from ground up leaves and branches, not shredded bark) is cheap, plentiful, and readily available.   We have used it with some success in our perennial garden ("the berm") and around bushes but have been afraid to use it in the garden because I thought it would tie up nitrogen or make it hard to hoe.   As long as you don't incorporate it but let it break down from the top, it should be ok, according to the video.  Another advantage is less tillage required; I don't think the Back to Eden method turns the soil at all,   I wonder if the soil warms up and is ready for planting at the same time as traditional methods.

In any event, I think I would like to try it this year.  There are several options for obtaining wood mulch--the free stuff available from the city compost site; from a local tree service (advantage--delivered); or grinding my own from downed branches and tree trimmings (disadvantage--purchasing and maintaining a loud mulcher).