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Friday PhotoEssay
Herb Day is tomorrow, so come on out and buy your herbs for the summer, eat some good food, and attend seminars on herbs and pollinators.
I continue t be amazed by how many strawberries are on the plants this spring. I almost think the plants might have too many berries. We’ll have to make sure to give them a little fertilizer in mid-summer when the fruiting slows down.
The black raspberries are also in the process of blooming. It is really easy to miss the fact that they’re blooming, because the flowers aren’t all that big and showy. They are even smaller than red raspberry flowers. Of course, the fruit tend to be smaller too.
The potatoes in the Family of 4 Garden are growing quite rapidly. It’s not quite a potato jungle yet, but I think it could get there by the time they are full grown.
I know I’ve posted at least one cabbage picture every week now, but the blue-green leaves are so pretty and the pointed heads are just too cool.
The grafted tomatoes are finally big enough that the clips are starting to come off. Can you tell where this plant was grafted? I’m not sure you would notice if you didn’t know to look for it.
These four lettuces are looking great. I really like the contrast of colors and textures.
Have a great weekend!
Late Berry Pruning
We are late getting our berries pruned this year, because I wanted to use them for the workshop last Saturday. I pruned most of the raspberries on Saturday, but we still had to do some cleanup and then prune up the currants and gooseberries.
Pruning and some good old fashioned TLC has done wonders for this black raspberry. 2 years ago, I was determined that it would get one last chance before getting torn out. It had about 6 berries in 2008. With some fertilizer and pruning, it was fairly productive in 2009, and then last year…
Yeah, I can’t wait for summer either! It was definitely vigorous last year, and we had to prune out lots of canes that were trying to root themselves all over the place.
We pruned out all of the old, diseased red raspberry canes, leaving just these new shoots to become this year’s primocanes. Because of the problems last year, if we see any signs of disease this year on these berries, I think we will remove the plants.
We also pruned out some dead canes in the currant and gooseberry bushes. They are already blooming, which is a bit late to be pruning, really. I checked last year, and I took pictures of the currant and gooseberry blooms on April 4th, so we’re apparently running about the same as last year. (I think we might be a hair behind right now, the flowers aren’t open quite as much.)
Fun Fact: Studying the timing of when certain plants bloom, etc from year to year is called phenology.
Thinking About Fruit
We are thinking about putting in a fruit display garden/orchard here at the Extension Office. It’s not a sure thing whether or not we’re going to do it. We are just in the exploration and pre-planning stages.
One of the most important factors is determining if the spot we have available can actually grow fruit! My best estimate right now is that the soil is classified as a Sandy Clay…not exactly what we’re looking for in a fruit garden. We could probably make it better by incorporating a whole bunch of compost, but it still won’t have great drainage like many fruits require. I’ve also taken a soil test from the area to see if the pH is anywhere close to reasonable. (You have no idea how shocked and excited I’ll be if the pH test comes back as anything below 7.5!)
One of the reasons for growing fruit in a small home garden that we discussed during Master Gardener class last week is that you can grow fruits that are unusual or not easy to find in the grocery store.
Of course, I had to bribe everyone to see my point of view by feeding them – Red Currant Scones and this yummy Red Currant Pie. I had frozen 4 cups of currants back in June when the single Red Currant bush in the Demo Garden was loaded. When’s the last time you saw fresh (or even frozen) red currants in a grocery store in Kansas? That’s right…pretty much never!
So, that being said, which fruit would you like to see planted in a fruit display garden?
10 Days Later…
I really did think that I might post something while I was on vacation, but I guess that didn’t happen. Sorry…I was enjoying the less than 80 degree weather!
Since it rained last Tuesday and again this morning, the activity has been pretty slim since I left.
Here’s a few things I found upon my return to the garden this morning:
Surprise, surprise! Left to its own devices, the zucchini is a bit over-sized.
The fall radishes seem to be doing fine and growing quickly. The carrots next to them are also growing well. I’m not sure why the row of radishes on the end is smaller. I suspect that there’s either more clay soil there due to putting in the sign post or that area didn’t get as much water.
I knew there were a couple melons on our ‘Honey Bun’ Cantaloupe when I left, but I was surprised to see that there are now at least 4 melons set! I’m getting more and more impressed with these plants.
On the less-than-happy side, our rapsberries are definitely looking worse. Just when you think they can’t possibly look worse, they do. Most of the green fruit have shriveled up to nothing. I guess we will be planting something else in this spot next year!
After it dries out a bit, I’ll try to go out and harvest some things. I already know there’s at least one tomato that looks tasty! We’ll also get caught up with the Family of 4 Garden.
First Raspberries
Our poor, sickly raspberry plants are suffering through the heat and are beginning to produce a few berries. Even in good health the weather is still just a little bit too hot for really good berries and with the root rot issues it is definitely too hot. The berries are going from under-ripe to over-ripe in the course of several hours. As I got looking at the plants, I discovered that not all of the canes are in terrible shape from the Phytophthora Root Rot. We’ve lost about a dozen canes from the center of the plant, and there are more that aren’t looking too good. But…there are some canes toward the back of the patch that are still pretty healthy!
If you look close, you can see that the berries on the left are about half the size of those on the right. That’s a great example of 2 things. First, the importance of healthy plants. Second, the importance of adequate water getting to the fruit during ripening. That’s the true damage of the disease right now, is that water can’t get all the way to the top of the canes, so the leaves are scorching and the fruit is small.
