What did you do in the garden today?

[CapricornFarm]

We have a ton of oaks, hickory and pecan trees. I am wiping out the ones that get in my garden.

Pecan trees? Ooh! I can send you a paw paw tree for a pecan tree!

 

[CapricornFarm]

So today I thought I’d take down my trellis of wild blackberries. Nope, that won’t happen till they stop fruiting in the summer, then I’ll chop almost to the ground and neaten up the canes that regrow. I did however end up pulling up all the starts where the canes touched the ground over the winter, over 80 starts. I’m going to need a bigger trellis! 80 starts from four plants, not bad! Maybe berry production will be as good.
The trellis. (With tarp behind it to see better.) The ones on the left are an early wild variety, they’ve got flower buds already. That’s just four plants on that side. The ones on the the right are a later variety that starts ripening just as the first stops producing. I mulched them with all the bedding from the duck coop last year, took it out of the coop and put it right on the blackberries, they went crazy! They grew at least 24ft last year, I cut off 6ft canes about three or four times last year (fed those to the goats) and they’re still about 8ft long
View attachment 1263146

Starts.
View attachment 1263147

Also, the strawberries and apples think the groundhog is wrong. Hopefully it won’t freeze again cause the apples are LOADED with blossoms. Last year they bloomed and set about 100-150 apples on each of my two trees and then we had a late frost, I got about 10.
View attachment 1263144
View attachment 1263145
View attachment 1263148
View attachment 1263161
View attachment 1263162
View attachment 1263163

What state are you in Dan?

 

[dan26552]

What state are you in Dan?

AL

 

[CapricornFarm]

AL

Your plants look really happy.

 

[dan26552]

Your plants look really happy.

Thanks.

 

[PouleChick]

Wow you guys are so good, I've talked about planting seeds but not managed any since I last posted, I did get over 100 different bulbs in though which I'm hoping work as most of them said to plant by December (I was away in Australia until end of November so never had time).
I have hung a cute insect hotel on my barn wall and built a chicken feeder and dust bath!

Hopefully it won’t freeze again cause the apples are LOADED with blossoms. Last year they bloomed and set about 100-150 apples on each of my two trees and then we had a late frost, I got about 10.

We had the same thing happen here - quite a hard frost in April and we lost so many of our walnuts, peaches, apples and figs (which was fabulous as we had a nice reasonable harvest LOL).

 

[chickadoodles]

Pecan trees? Ooh! I can send you a paw paw tree for a pecan tree!

Cap I can't get to the branches of these pecan trees. They are way to talk and no lower branches.
Or I would happily send you some cuttings. I looked at them several years ago and could not understand why the branches we're all up so high.
But they are mixed in with pines and cedar trees. The ones across the road are the same way. No lower branches. You would need a bucket truck to reach the branches.

 

[dan26552]

Wow Dan your plants look beautiful!
We have blackberry's scattered all over the pasture. The cows keep them fertilzed. Lol
My few apples last year got end rot.
I don't know why.
If it dries up I need to spray them with some dormant oil.
I need to re-plant my strawberries I got something in the soil that ate nearly all my berries last year. I am going to use a mollasses wash on the soil this year. It's suppose to keep the nematode's from eating them.
If you have ant pointers I would appreciate it.
You have such a green thumb.

Thanks I think the duck manure made them really happy, I’ve never seen blackberries grow so insanely. Nice, lol.
That stinks, I didn’t get a lot of end rot last year thankfully.
I don’t think it’s going to dry
Best of luck, I’ve got around 150 in the ground now, I need to thin them out some still and figure out where to put them all Interesting, I’ll have to try that myself. Nope, I’ve tried about everything on ants with little succes.

Dan, your blackberry cultivars are VERY different than the ones we have up here!

Well our climates are very different.

 

[chickadoodles]

With ants I spent a couple years in my last house driving them off. I switched up ant granuels as I used them up. It won't kill them but you can drive them off your place. I put a barrier of granuels around my house then treated every ant pile with a barrier to keep them from moving closer.
My neighbor across the road was not happy. I told him he could do the same.
He told me he watched them tunnel across the road to his house. Lol
And they did. To my neighbors on all three sides of my house. But I didn't have any more. Lol

 

[dan26552]

I'll keep that in mind. Lol!