What did you do in the garden today?

[TJAnonymous]

Well, I decided to change my main coop around a little bit so I could put the coop brooder at waist height. My body was protesting keeping it at ground level.... And I REALLY want to get the chicks out of the sunroom. They are stinky and awfully messy at this age. They don't quite have all their feathers in yet but close... Maybe 85-90% feathered. I decided NOT to move the heater out there but it shouldn't get below 55-60 degrees so hopefully they will be fine. I also wanted them off the ground because the rats are still not under control and I feel like they are more likely to attack the chicks in the brooder on the ground. Hopefully less likely that they will climb up amongst the adult chickens to get at them. Anyway, I'm temporarily giving up about 4 ft of roost space with the brooder up high. Hopefully it won't cause too much disruption...

 

[Sally PB]

I will cut and pressure can most of the potatoes this year.

I've never canned potatoes, so can you tell me how you do this? Do you cut up them to a certain size? What besides potatoes and water do you put in the jar? Any seasoning?

I'm thinking I should can a bunch of taters, because I just threw out a gob that were shriveled and sprouted. We need to eat more of them! I just planted 48 hills....

 

[jerryse]

Nature hates me. Apparently I'm the last to figure this out...

I have 5 apple trees of various ages:

Mystery Apple - this was labeled a Pink Lady but it's not. It's a yellow-green apple instead of pink. This is the 3rd or 4th year I had it. It's probably 8 ft tall and my most mature tree. I got 3 apples from it last year. It was the first time it produced fruit.

Granny Smith - I purchased this tree locally 2 yrs ago. It's about 6.5 ft tall. It has never flowered or fruited.

Honeycrisp - I purchased this tree locally last year. It's just under 6 ft tall. It was loaded with flowers last year and I used it to hand pollinate the mystery apple tree. This year it produced lots of blooms, even though it really needs to focus on growing bigger. The deer seem to LOVE this tree though and they've nearly killed it this spring by eating over half the branches.

(2) Sugar Bee seedlings that I grew from store bought fruit last year. I put them in the ground this spring. They are doing great but still under 3 ft tall.

So what's the problem??? Well, I tried to hand pollinate the mystery tree and Honeycrisp because I wasn't really seeing any bees around. A few weeks later I noticed baby apples all over both trees. I was delighted but also very annoyed that the Granny Smith is a dud this year. Then the deer struck and wiped out most of the Honeycrisp. And because of all the rain, I didn't get to spray the trees in a timely manner based on bud recommendations. Well the fruit is now about thumbnail size so I decided to go bag it to keep the bugs out. I started with the mystery tree... I was dismayed to discover nearly ALL the fruit dropping the minute I touched it. I did manage to bag TWO apples but only 1 feels solidly attached to give me confidence of reaching harvest. I also noticed a lot of the fallen fruit looks deformed. Lumpy. Then I went to the Honeycrisp tree. It only had about a half dozen baby apples left on it after the deer raid. Same size as the others - thumbnail size. I noticed almost ALL of them were also deformed and lumpy. I picked off all but the best two and bagged them.

So what would cause that? Plum curculio maybe?

Very disappointing

Here is a little-known fact on grafted trees. Scion from a mature bearing age tree makes a tree that blooms at a young age. Scion from a non-bearing tree is still in juvenile stage. Must mature before bearing fruit. Takes longer. Next question. Cut the lumpy fruit open to see if there are many or few seeds. One seed could give lumpy fruit due to poor pollination. Could be insects. Cutting open can reveal insect damage.

 

[jerryse]

Here is an example of mature scion graft. This is a grafted butternut tree I bought 2 years ago. About 5 feet tall and skinny finger size trunk. It has male flowers and has every year. It will bear nuts when it gets bigger. I have a seedling butternut tree I bought 6+ years ago. 15 feet tall and 1 1/2-to-2-inch diameter. Never bloomed. Will need to be 10 to 15 years old to bear nuts.

 

[akroberts1085]

I will try to get more pictures of the chicks but here's 2 of them.

 

[Acre4Me]

I've never canned potatoes, so can you tell me how you do this? Do you cut up them to a certain size? What besides potatoes and water do you put in the jar? Any seasoning?

I'm thinking I should can a bunch of taters, because I just threw out a gob that were shriveled and sprouted. We need to eat more of them! I just planted 48 hills....

This happened to me… they shrivel up. So, we then decided to harvest during the season- pick as many out of the ground as we needed for dinner here and there. Then after harvesting, I canned the rest. I followed the Ball canning directions, peeled, cubed, some salt, boiling water to fill the jars, then pressure canned. It’s great, drain them, use as needed. Already peeled and cooked.

 

[MotherofOrpies]

Finally got around to pruning my plum trees, and some of the peach tree. Need to try to get to that today.

Not sure what to do with my Asian Pear trees. They don’t have the typical shape of my peach and plum trees.

I didn't know peach trees have to be pruned

 

[TJAnonymous]

Here is a little-known fact on grafted trees. Scion from a mature bearing age tree makes a tree that blooms at a young age. Scion from a non-bearing tree is still in juvenile stage. Must mature before bearing fruit. Takes longer. Next question. Cut the lumpy fruit open to see if there are many or few seeds. One seed could give lumpy fruit due to poor pollination. Could be insects. Cutting open can reveal insect damage.

Would they have seeds being so small (thumbnail size)?

 

[jerryse]

Would they have seeds being so small (thumbnail size)?

Yes, soft green and immature.

 

[Wee Farmer Sarah]

I didn't know peach trees have to be pruned

Yes they do or they get huge. When I first started pruning mine I wasn’t cutting enough. My tree is a semi dwarf and it grows a lot every year. Also, you need to prune them so sunlight can get to the developing fruit.