New isn't always better, especially when it comes to choosing reliably productive perennial fruits for our yards and gardens, but "the new" certainly is appealing. Here in North Georgia, we are able to grow many kinds of fruits, and some of those need very little care, but the list can feel limiting to the more adventuresome gardener.
Our little-care list of reliably productive fruits includes blackberries of many varieties, Heritage red raspberries (and Dormanred, but those are not great to eat), Rabbiteye-type blueberries, mulberries, June berries (aka: service berries), muscadine & scuppernong grapes, some varieties of plums (Methley is an old-reliable, and Auburn has developed several good varieties for the South), some pears (the old "sand pears" and a few others are quite hardy), persimmons (both American and Asian), the tart cherries like Northstar (sweet cherries don't do as well here), strawberries, and probably a few more (pawpaws, for example, would make the list if I knew of any that were very productive).
Showing posts with label berries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label berries. Show all posts
Monday, June 29, 2015
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
Beans, Berries, and Cukes
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| Sunday's harvest. |
Saturday it was beans, berries and cukes. Sunday it was beans, berries and cukes. Yesterday it was beans, berries, and cukes, and I am guessing that the pattern will hold for several more days.
On Sunday, I did pull the onions and lay them out on the porch to dry, along with most of the garlic. The potatoes are nearly ready, but not quite yet. Leaves are turning yellow and falling over, but I like to see a higher percentage of them looking absolutely done before digging up the spuds.
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| 140 pots of basil seedlings. |
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| Monday's harvest. |
It's been several years since I've planted wax beans, and I had forgotten how great it is to actually be able to find the beans in all the foliage. The bright yellow beans almost glow against the background of green leaves.
The other photo is of a whole lot of basil seedlings. My workplace will be celebrating Horticulture week, July 7-11, and part of the celebration will include giving away basil seedlings to people who stop by the office that week. If anyone is worried about the crowded condition of the little plants - it may help to know that I plan to thin them to ~2 seedlings per pot sometime in the next few days.
Hope the harvests in other gardens are going well!
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
How the Garden Grows...
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| Multiplying onions approaching harvest time. |
We are bringing in a few strawberries most days, and I have been grazing on raspberries, which means I haven't been bringing them in to weigh. I don't think they would add much to the yearly total, but I just am not ever going to know; it's too hard to see them and NOT eat them right away!
The green beans have been making it to the kitchen, which makes me pretty happy. Many other local gardeners have been begun to harvest zucchini and yellow squash, cucumbers, and peppers. We've been getting those out at the farm where we volunteer on the weekends, but in my own yard those are not yet ready. I was late getting them planted. When it got right down to priorities, planting at the farm, which feeds lots of people, was a more valuable use of time.
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| Still getting strawberries! |
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| Popcorn crop making progress. |
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| Tomatoes looking good. |
Another use of my time in the past week or so was writing a blog post about growing peanuts in the home garden for the National Peanut Board. I am happy to be able to say that the post is up! It is called (not too surprisingly) "How to grow peanuts in your own garden."
You can see my seedling peanuts in the nearly-bare ground in front of my popcorn. The two rows have come up, and the little plants look great!
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| I really should have thinned the Asiatic lilies... |
Hope all the other gardens out there are growing well!
Monday, May 5, 2014
The Future of Supper
Spring is finally warming up, and in a big way. I've brought in a lot of the lettuce to store in the fridge, because the upcoming several-days-in-a-row of above 85 degrees F weather is likely to make what's left in the garden turn bitter.
Some of the other crops, though, are approaching their most shining time in the garden. One of those crops is the peas, which are beginning to make actual peas in the several areas where they are planted.
Two of those patches will be left to make food for humans, the rest will be cut down -- some to feed to my pet bunnies (who love pea shoots), and some to turn into the soil to feed the microscopic critters underground.
The foliage on the potatoes is looking good, too. The little flowers indicate that potatoes are beginning to form underground.
Over the weekend, I added more compost around the leafy stems, partly to keep the soil as cool as possible for as long as possible, and partly to add a little more depth around the stems.
In general, potatoes are more productive when soil is "hilled" around the stems of the plants. The close spacing in these beds doesn't leave much room for hilling up the nearby soil, but adding more to the top of the bed should have the same effect. At least, that's the dream!
I brought in the spinach over the weekend, too. It looked like a lot of food when I packed it all into the basket to bring inside, but that whole load of leaves cooked down to only about three cups.
We divided the cooked leaves into three portions and put them in the freezer for future meals.
Joe and I had been talking last week about our version of Shepherd's Pie; when the potatoes are ready to harvest, we are going to want this spinach to make some.
The strawberries are starting to add their bright color and flavor to meals (we had some last night). Straight from the garden, they taste like spring!
Other berries in the yard are in flower, but it will be a few more weeks before any of the brambleberries are ready for eating.
As the days have begun to warm, the cilantro has decided that it's time to finish its life cycle and put out flowers and seeds. No one is especially happy about this development (it seems early), but I will be planting seeds for more, soon.
Meanwhile, we will all just enjoy what we have. Joe and I will be using some of the larger leaves from closer to the base of each plant in some guacamole tonight, and our bunnies will be eating some of the taller flowering stems that have bolted up from the base.
There is a little trellis behind the cilantro patch that I've planted a few "Greasy Beans" underneath. When the cilantro is finally in sad enough shape that I pull it up, there will be beans twining up from behind to fill that space. In my mind, it is already beautiful.
And this last picture isn't of plants (or supper), it is of two Best Friends, Holstein and Darwin -- two of my pet bunnies. Holstein is less symmetrical than she used to be. Her face is a little lopsided, and she lists to the right when she walks. The vet said she'd had a "neurological event," which I'm interpreting to mean that she'd had a stroke. She and Darwin are usually pressed right up together, even when they are eating their bunny salad. They are happy to eat the good food that is growing in our garden!
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| Peas beginning to form. |
Some of the other crops, though, are approaching their most shining time in the garden. One of those crops is the peas, which are beginning to make actual peas in the several areas where they are planted.
Two of those patches will be left to make food for humans, the rest will be cut down -- some to feed to my pet bunnies (who love pea shoots), and some to turn into the soil to feed the microscopic critters underground.
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| Potato foliage in the foreground, Allium family crops in the back. |
The foliage on the potatoes is looking good, too. The little flowers indicate that potatoes are beginning to form underground.
Over the weekend, I added more compost around the leafy stems, partly to keep the soil as cool as possible for as long as possible, and partly to add a little more depth around the stems.
In general, potatoes are more productive when soil is "hilled" around the stems of the plants. The close spacing in these beds doesn't leave much room for hilling up the nearby soil, but adding more to the top of the bed should have the same effect. At least, that's the dream!
T |
| Big basket of spinach, that cooked down to about three cups. |
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| Strawberries under netting. |
We divided the cooked leaves into three portions and put them in the freezer for future meals.
Joe and I had been talking last week about our version of Shepherd's Pie; when the potatoes are ready to harvest, we are going to want this spinach to make some.
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| Cilantro bolting to flower in the warmer days of May. |
The strawberries are starting to add their bright color and flavor to meals (we had some last night). Straight from the garden, they taste like spring!
Other berries in the yard are in flower, but it will be a few more weeks before any of the brambleberries are ready for eating.
As the days have begun to warm, the cilantro has decided that it's time to finish its life cycle and put out flowers and seeds. No one is especially happy about this development (it seems early), but I will be planting seeds for more, soon.
Meanwhile, we will all just enjoy what we have. Joe and I will be using some of the larger leaves from closer to the base of each plant in some guacamole tonight, and our bunnies will be eating some of the taller flowering stems that have bolted up from the base.
There is a little trellis behind the cilantro patch that I've planted a few "Greasy Beans" underneath. When the cilantro is finally in sad enough shape that I pull it up, there will be beans twining up from behind to fill that space. In my mind, it is already beautiful.
And this last picture isn't of plants (or supper), it is of two Best Friends, Holstein and Darwin -- two of my pet bunnies. Holstein is less symmetrical than she used to be. Her face is a little lopsided, and she lists to the right when she walks. The vet said she'd had a "neurological event," which I'm interpreting to mean that she'd had a stroke. She and Darwin are usually pressed right up together, even when they are eating their bunny salad. They are happy to eat the good food that is growing in our garden!
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| Holstein and Darwin think everything grown in the garden is for them. |
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Adventures in eHow
Several weeks ago I spent part of one day working with a video guy who produced educational films for Demand Media Studios, which had a deal to post them in eHow. In about five hours we made 17 little films about various gardening topics.
He got paid, but I didn’t, even though I worked hard, too. However, it was a very interesting experience. I had wondered about the whole eHow thing, and now I know a bit more about how it works.
The topics had to be chosen from a list provided by Demand Media Studios, and the wording wasn’t allowed to vary. For example, if the topic had the phrase “blueberry tree” in it, those exact words had to be in the introduction to the video. At first, this seemed a little weird to me, but it turns out to be a way to reach the audience where it is in terms of gardening knowledge, and the audience is full of people who might not yet know that blueberries grow on bushes rather than trees.
The experience also helped me understand why some eHow videos seem incomplete. We were given a pretty tight time limit for each video. There was only enough time for the "bare bones" of each topic, which meant that I had to leave out some potentially useful information. Also, because the filmmaker/videographer needed to have at least 15 little films lined up to make his trip out to my garden at all profitable, and because we had to choose from a somewhat eclectic list of topics, we were not quite “in season” for all the topics being filmed.
The good news is that the list included enough topics for which I had actual, real-life experience that we were able to pull the project together. Here is one example from the set:
When I started this blog, one main motivation was to share information - that might actually be helpful - about growing food in gardens here in the South. The Atlanta area in particular is packed with people who are not originally from here. I’m a perfect example: grew up in Oklahoma, but previously gardened in other states, including the Eastern Shore of Virginia, where growing food was super easy.
It would be pretty safe to bet that I am not the only person who has found gardening here a bit more of a challenge than it was in my previous yard.
I don’t know yet whether making eHow videos is at all helpful to gardeners who are new either to this area or to gardening itself, so I don't know whether I'll be making more of these, but I am happy to have been able to participate in this little project.
(Note: The videos are on an assortment of topics, including raspberries, blueberries, fertilizers, transplanting, plant propagation, and soil preparation; hence, the long list of "Labels" attached to this blog post.)
He got paid, but I didn’t, even though I worked hard, too. However, it was a very interesting experience. I had wondered about the whole eHow thing, and now I know a bit more about how it works.
The topics had to be chosen from a list provided by Demand Media Studios, and the wording wasn’t allowed to vary. For example, if the topic had the phrase “blueberry tree” in it, those exact words had to be in the introduction to the video. At first, this seemed a little weird to me, but it turns out to be a way to reach the audience where it is in terms of gardening knowledge, and the audience is full of people who might not yet know that blueberries grow on bushes rather than trees.
The experience also helped me understand why some eHow videos seem incomplete. We were given a pretty tight time limit for each video. There was only enough time for the "bare bones" of each topic, which meant that I had to leave out some potentially useful information. Also, because the filmmaker/videographer needed to have at least 15 little films lined up to make his trip out to my garden at all profitable, and because we had to choose from a somewhat eclectic list of topics, we were not quite “in season” for all the topics being filmed.
The good news is that the list included enough topics for which I had actual, real-life experience that we were able to pull the project together. Here is one example from the set:
When I started this blog, one main motivation was to share information - that might actually be helpful - about growing food in gardens here in the South. The Atlanta area in particular is packed with people who are not originally from here. I’m a perfect example: grew up in Oklahoma, but previously gardened in other states, including the Eastern Shore of Virginia, where growing food was super easy.
It would be pretty safe to bet that I am not the only person who has found gardening here a bit more of a challenge than it was in my previous yard.
I don’t know yet whether making eHow videos is at all helpful to gardeners who are new either to this area or to gardening itself, so I don't know whether I'll be making more of these, but I am happy to have been able to participate in this little project.
(Note: The videos are on an assortment of topics, including raspberries, blueberries, fertilizers, transplanting, plant propagation, and soil preparation; hence, the long list of "Labels" attached to this blog post.)
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Raspberries in the South
I grow two kinds of raspberries in my yard, and in both cases I am flirting with the edge of their hardiness zones. Mostly, it gets way too hot and humid here for raspberries, and diseases (that should have killed them off) abound. It’s probably a minor miracle that I have enjoyed as much fruit from these plants as I have so far.
The Heritage red raspberries have been in the same bed in the backyard for about 20 years. They were among the first perennial food-crops we planted when we moved here 22 years ago. The Jewel black raspberries have been in the front yard for only three (or maybe four) years.
Heritage is an erect, primocane type, which means that the moderately prickly canes typically grow to only about four feet high and stay (mostly) upright, and that they produce fruit in late summer on canes that first appeared just that previous spring – on canes that are only several months old. You can plant Heritage in spring and expect fruit in the late summer of that very first year. Those same canes can also produce fruit in the following spring if they are left in place over the winter.
Jewel, a trailing, floricane type, has crazy long thorny canes that fall all over the place if left unchecked, and it produces fruit in spring on canes that first appeared the previous spring, a full year later. In other words, the first fruit on a new plant will be produced the second year that the plant is in the ground.
Neither of these varieties is recommended by UGA as being good-to-grow in most of Georgia. The UGA publication “Home Garden Raspberries and Blackberries” does mention that Heritage (plus Redwing, Carolina, Nantahala, and Latham) produces well in the mountain and upper Piedmont areas, but the publication focuses mostly on blackberries and the trailing red raspberry variety called Dormanred.
The hilariously unappealing information offered about Dormanred is this: “Fruit must be very ripe to be sweet; good producer statewide; better cooked than fresh…” The North Carolina State University publication “Raspberries in the Home Garden” echoes the faint praise by saying that Dormanred fruits are “glossy red, fair quality.” In other words, if we want to eat good, fresh raspberries, most Southerners will need to hop in the car and drive north - or way uphill - to find them.
In cooler regions, raspberries are grown in full sun to get the best production from the plants. Here in my yard, the raspberries are in partial shade. The Heritage bed in the backyard gets full sun for only about 5 or 6 hours, and those are not late-afternoon hours. I think this has helped the plants’ longevity, even though it means that the productivity isn’t very high.
When I was thinking about where to plant the black raspberries, I remembered that – when we used to live on the Eastern Shore of Virginia – I had seen wild black raspberries on woodland edges where they got morning rather than afternoon sun. I didn’t have a spot exactly like that, but I do have a spot that's on the north edge of a tree/shrub area that also has a very small tree blocking part of the late-afternoon sun, and Jewel seems to be doing well enough in that place.
We also are growing the invasive Wineberry, because it, like the other two, produces delicious berries.
I'm thinking about raspberries now because some of the Jewel canes have tip-rooted, and the babies, which are in very inconvenient places, need to be moved. I've already moved a couple of the babies into pots, and the rest will be dug up soon. There's also some pruning to do - removing the older, second-year canes before insects and diseases find them and move in.
The Heritage red raspberries have been in the same bed in the backyard for about 20 years. They were among the first perennial food-crops we planted when we moved here 22 years ago. The Jewel black raspberries have been in the front yard for only three (or maybe four) years.
Heritage is an erect, primocane type, which means that the moderately prickly canes typically grow to only about four feet high and stay (mostly) upright, and that they produce fruit in late summer on canes that first appeared just that previous spring – on canes that are only several months old. You can plant Heritage in spring and expect fruit in the late summer of that very first year. Those same canes can also produce fruit in the following spring if they are left in place over the winter.
Jewel, a trailing, floricane type, has crazy long thorny canes that fall all over the place if left unchecked, and it produces fruit in spring on canes that first appeared the previous spring, a full year later. In other words, the first fruit on a new plant will be produced the second year that the plant is in the ground.
Neither of these varieties is recommended by UGA as being good-to-grow in most of Georgia. The UGA publication “Home Garden Raspberries and Blackberries” does mention that Heritage (plus Redwing, Carolina, Nantahala, and Latham) produces well in the mountain and upper Piedmont areas, but the publication focuses mostly on blackberries and the trailing red raspberry variety called Dormanred.
The hilariously unappealing information offered about Dormanred is this: “Fruit must be very ripe to be sweet; good producer statewide; better cooked than fresh…” The North Carolina State University publication “Raspberries in the Home Garden” echoes the faint praise by saying that Dormanred fruits are “glossy red, fair quality.” In other words, if we want to eat good, fresh raspberries, most Southerners will need to hop in the car and drive north - or way uphill - to find them.
In cooler regions, raspberries are grown in full sun to get the best production from the plants. Here in my yard, the raspberries are in partial shade. The Heritage bed in the backyard gets full sun for only about 5 or 6 hours, and those are not late-afternoon hours. I think this has helped the plants’ longevity, even though it means that the productivity isn’t very high.
When I was thinking about where to plant the black raspberries, I remembered that – when we used to live on the Eastern Shore of Virginia – I had seen wild black raspberries on woodland edges where they got morning rather than afternoon sun. I didn’t have a spot exactly like that, but I do have a spot that's on the north edge of a tree/shrub area that also has a very small tree blocking part of the late-afternoon sun, and Jewel seems to be doing well enough in that place.
We also are growing the invasive Wineberry, because it, like the other two, produces delicious berries.
I'm thinking about raspberries now because some of the Jewel canes have tip-rooted, and the babies, which are in very inconvenient places, need to be moved. I've already moved a couple of the babies into pots, and the rest will be dug up soon. There's also some pruning to do - removing the older, second-year canes before insects and diseases find them and move in.
Monday, June 18, 2012
Not an Avanlanche of Food, but Close Enough
This might be my best "zucchini year" ever. We have brought zucchini, sometimes two or three squashes at a time, to the kitchen almost every day for a few weeks now. Some of it went into the freezer this past weekend, and some went into the freezer the weekend before this one.
Our green beans have produced enough for current meals, but we have harvested more at the garden/farm where we volunteer on Saturday mornings. This weekend, we not only managed to get a lot of our own zucchini into the freezer, but my husband canned 16 pints of green beans, we made a batch of blackberry jam, made a blackberry pie, and we put a couple of quarts of blueberries into the dehydrator. Not exactly an avalanche of food, but it was a very busy weekend!
The raspberries and blackberries in our yard are never quite so abundant as the blueberries, and they have passed their peak of production. However, the berries have really brightened up our breakfasts. Most of the blackberries that went into this past weekend's jam were from our Saturday work. The berries below are from our yard.
The peppers are doing pretty well, and the cucumbers are now producing "eatin' size" fruits.
The bad news is that the day-flying moths of the squash vine borers that I saw awhile back did exactly as expected; they laid eggs on my zucchini plants. The hole in the big petiole below is a sign that the eggs have hatched and the larvae already have bored into my plants. It is likely that, in a few days, I will need to pull these plants from the garden.
In the better-news category, the cucumbers are about to provide a lot more food. We had a cucumber salad tonight with our potato/zucchini soup, and if all goes well (I have heard some sad tales of downy mildew recently) we should have plenty of cucumber salads ahead of us.
Our green beans have produced enough for current meals, but we have harvested more at the garden/farm where we volunteer on Saturday mornings. This weekend, we not only managed to get a lot of our own zucchini into the freezer, but my husband canned 16 pints of green beans, we made a batch of blackberry jam, made a blackberry pie, and we put a couple of quarts of blueberries into the dehydrator. Not exactly an avalanche of food, but it was a very busy weekend!
The raspberries and blackberries in our yard are never quite so abundant as the blueberries, and they have passed their peak of production. However, the berries have really brightened up our breakfasts. Most of the blackberries that went into this past weekend's jam were from our Saturday work. The berries below are from our yard.
The peppers are doing pretty well, and the cucumbers are now producing "eatin' size" fruits.
Monday, July 5, 2010
Small Fruits
A great thing about this time of year is that we have plenty of fruit to eat without going to the store. This quart container heaped with (mostly) blueberries, Yellow Marble cherry tomatoes, blackberries, and three tiny plums is from this evening's walk through the yard after work.
In the last two-to-three weeks, we have had berries made into syrup for pancakes, berries by the handful as snacks throughout the day, berries packed into little containers for the freezer, and berries in the dehydrator to use like raisins in recipes later in the year. I take little yellow tomatoes in my lunchbox to eat at work. I am guessing that, currently, none of us is in danger of developing scurvy.
In the last two-to-three weeks, we have had berries made into syrup for pancakes, berries by the handful as snacks throughout the day, berries packed into little containers for the freezer, and berries in the dehydrator to use like raisins in recipes later in the year. I take little yellow tomatoes in my lunchbox to eat at work. I am guessing that, currently, none of us is in danger of developing scurvy.
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