I forgot about that thread
Garden 2024!
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Is that your personal greenhouse/garden?
So cute. She’s doing a good job.
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Garden yes, greenhouses, no. I buy plants to set out, cabbage etc. Those folks have 2 dozen big greenhouses. It's the best place in town for spring plants.
Got 10lbs of potatoes planted yesterday before the storms... a whopping .05 inches of rain! Got all the lettuce set out today along with about half the cabbages.
Apple seeds in refrigerator were sprouting to my surprise. I told yall i had a bunch...well after putting them all in ground i bet it was close to 100 seeds. All had not sprouted.....if they do and live and grow i think i might have a true project going on...lol...in over my head...lol...more fruit trees is a better thing for the world.
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You are all over the apples this year. The seeds are interesting. But I can't wait to see the results of the grafting
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I am very interested in grafting. I am sure you know the following. I am sharing for those that don't.
Not to be a Debbie Downer...
The disease resistant properties of apple trees is in part dependent on the root stock. Growing trees from seeds of good fruit, may not yield healthy trees. Good for practice! Rolling the dice on healthy trees.
But have fun and keep us updated.
Ben
Well I just ordered an olive tree. My grammy would be so proud of me 
. Olives are zones 8-10 and we are in zone 7 so I might have to build a Frank Lloyd Wright house so I can have an indoor tree 
. I’m excited.
. Olives are zones 8-10 and we are in zone 7 so I might have to build a Frank Lloyd Wright house so I can have an indoor tree . I’m excited.
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I have 3 English Walnut trees and have yet to harvest a single nut. 
But that doesn't stop me from hoping.
The tricky part of English walnut is they don't self pollinate. So a pair is needed that aren't clones. One of my walnut trees that I transplanted to the orchard on The Ridge lost it's partner to the local deer (I can't blame the deer. The smell of walnut fresh leaves is amazing! It reminds me of the incense up in R. Catholic high ceremonies) I need another walnut. So...
I have a pot full of walnut cuttings in a pot and hoping that at least one of the cuttings root for me.
Ben
But that doesn't stop me from hoping.The tricky part of English walnut is they don't self pollinate. So a pair is needed that aren't clones. One of my walnut trees that I transplanted to the orchard on The Ridge lost it's partner to the local deer (I can't blame the deer. The smell of walnut fresh leaves is amazing! It reminds me of the incense up in R. Catholic high ceremonies) I need another walnut. So...
I have a pot full of walnut cuttings in a pot and hoping that at least one of the cuttings root for me.
Ben
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Congratulations on your purchase of a problem child.Well I just ordered an olive tree. My grammy would be so proud of me
I have been trying my hand at an olive tree and "it ain't dead yet."
The first riddle I had to figure out is they don't like wet feet. I was over watering it.
The second lesson I am learning now. The olive tree grew then stopped. It was terrible root bound. Transplanted into a big pot and there is signs it may recover. Not sure.
Share your experience please. The Princess is counting on olive oil from it.
Ben
Will do. The variety I ordered is a green olive like my Gma and great Gma used to make and is not very good for oil production. It is also drought tolerant so wet feet would be bad. How tall is yours? Thanks for the heads up on the roots. I will keep a closer watch.Congratulations on your purchase of a problem child.
I have been trying my hand at an olive tree and "it ain't dead yet."
The first riddle I had to figure out is they don't like wet feet. I was over watering it.
The second lesson I am learning now. The olive tree grew then stopped. It was terrible root bound. Transplanted into a big pot and there is signs it may recover. Not sure.
Share your experience please. The Princess is counting on olive oil from it.
Ben
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It is about 3 ft above ground level. It is almost 2 ft off the floor in it's pot.
Ben
Can you wrap it with sheets?
My weird peach tree that always blooms at inappropriate times is FULL of peaches, pics tomorrow!!
"Can you wrap it with sheets?"
Got some Potting Soil Bags that I will put inside each other and then put Blanket over them with Poles going up and inside to keep them from touching those buds... Have plastic/rubber squeeze Clamps to close up the opening in the bottom so cold won't get in...!!! Clamps are Steelton Tools Spring Clamps 6pc Set :
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0695/6181/1249/files/dcc144a4aa02bb756a1921b7647c20f2edd68d47.jpg
Like those ^^^ but Black with Yellow Tabs...
Got some Potting Soil Bags that I will put inside each other and then put Blanket over them with Poles going up and inside to keep them from touching those buds... Have plastic/rubber squeeze Clamps to close up the opening in the bottom so cold won't get in...!!! Clamps are Steelton Tools Spring Clamps 6pc Set :
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0695/6181/1249/files/dcc144a4aa02bb756a1921b7647c20f2edd68d47.jpg
Like those ^^^ but Black with Yellow Tabs...
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I have planted white potatoes on 2/14/ & made a good crop.
This year I planted middle of March & the buds have just broke the surface of the ground this week.
After over fifty years of growing fruit, vegetables & ornamental plants, the only thing Good Friday does is save the plants from frost here in SC.
I planted only seventy five hills this year.
Have no Idea what Happened There ^^^My Peach Tree Lost it's Flowers and there is just a bare spot on the branch...My weird peach tree that always blooms at inappropriate times is FULL of peaches, pics tomorrow!!
Well i understand...but...skillcult is proving many things said and done the last bit completely wrong as far as fruit trees go..especially apple trees. He is getting such high successes rates of outstanding fruit varieties with growing from seed since apple does NOT reproduce true to type from seed..its unreal..its where these new varieties are coming from as of late.it just takes time and space to grow them out.Its interesting that Albert Etter was growing out these same type apples back in the day...one thing to is most of these trees as far as root system go are of Russian origin and many root stocks are Russian in origin in type as well.I will have to ask him his opinion about this..but he is very much about much of current wisdom and teaching may not be as set in stone as we think...that being said..i have even thought about ordering some extra root stock and setting them out where i want trees and letting grow up and as they get larger just snip back and put grafts on them in place..just to see how that works.
You may find this of interest..everyone now teaches and talks winter time pruning..well my old book from back in the day...talks about summer time pruning as well.
all this said skillcult says with the amount of seeds he is selling and amount of pollen he sales and more...theres going to be 100's and 1000's of new varieties showing up.johnny apple seed was putting trees out on land back in the day to improve that land to make it for sale in future as homesteads with fruit sold for more money and more. he died still owning some crazy amount of acreage..like a 1000 acres..anyway point being he was grafting just growing from seed.we still have at least one tree he planted alive today.
one thing i am thinking of doing is gathering apples from the oldest and best apples on very very old original homesteads here in my area and planting those seeds out to see what i get. one of best apples and most reliant is yellow transparent....its a russian apple too i found out in origin.
blah blah...i find this all fascinating !
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts...-applesand-booze-american-frontier-180953263/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Appleseed
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something else brought to my attention lately...skillcult was talking about sometimes certain trees reject grafts.even though they are same species they wont take graft. it got me to thinking..last year i put 4 grafts on one tree and they all failed...why? i admit to not being the best and very new to this..but did i really do 4 grafts wrong....when right beside i done 7 grafts on 2 trees and only 1 failed?
this year i took same cultivar scion and grafted it on another tree in hopes of getting success of that particular cultivar..also the tree that failed to take grafts i grafted a few different types on it just to see if these grafts take...just for information the tree i was grafting to was a fuji tree. we shall see if it takes grafts this year. and vice versa if grafts i tried on it that failed will take on another type tree...i have grafts on flowering crab apple as experiment and they took.
this year i took same cultivar scion and grafted it on another tree in hopes of getting success of that particular cultivar..also the tree that failed to take grafts i grafted a few different types on it just to see if these grafts take...just for information the tree i was grafting to was a fuji tree. we shall see if it takes grafts this year. and vice versa if grafts i tried on it that failed will take on another type tree...i have grafts on flowering crab apple as experiment and they took.
Elk you must have a heck of a notebook going to keep track of all those types
I mentioned somewhere about planting difficulties for farmers here and in Britain - this in the news today - the photo is taken in a county with great soil and drainage normally
February and March are usually the times for planting potatoes, but only a tiny fraction of the 21,000 acre crop is in the ground at present.
The situation has been compounded by the continuing wet weather with no end in sight at present. Met Éireann is predicting that rainfall levels will be between two and five times higher than normal across the State in the coming week, with the wettest conditions expected in the West and southwest.
Met Éireann says soil conditions are likely to deteriorate further. All poorly-drained and some moderately-drained soils will be waterlogged and well-drained soils will become saturated.
This year’s difficulty follow on from a poor harvest last year caused by the wet autumn which made it difficult for machinery to access potato drills. Planting of this year’s crop has been delayed across northern Europe because of the bad weather.
Irish Farmers Association (IFA) national potato chairman Sean Ryan said normally between 60 and 70 per cent of the crop would be in the ground by now. Even in the best case scenario it will not be possible to plant potato seed for at least 10 days, even if it were to dry up tomorrow. He anticipated that there will be potato shortages from early summer on when the first crop would normally be harvested.
Mr Ryan said the lengthy period of wet weather stretching back to last July is the worst he has seen in his lifetime. “Even if we get a bad autumn, we often get a decent spring, but there’s been no take-up at all.”
Shortages of potatoes will become acute in August and September, when new potatoes normally end up on supermarket shelves. “There is a lot of ifs and buts about it, but there are definitely going be empty shelves,” he warned. Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue has asked his department to pause farm inspections not specifically required to support payments until 22nd April because of the bad weather. He has also asked Teagasc to establish a system for co-ordinating advisory supports to help farmers maximise existing fodder stocks and provide a basis for those with surpluses to engage with those who are struggling.
A meeting of the National Fodder and Feed Security Committee last week concluded that there is sufficient fodder in the country, but it needs to be better distributed.
Mr McConalogue called on banks to show forbearance with farmers who are struggling with cash flow problems because of the bad weather.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture Martin Hayden said “nothing is off the table as the situation develops” as far as helping farmers is concerned.
“I understand the stress that they’re under and everything remains on the table. So that’s as clear as I can be as we monitor and as we work with farmers and farm organisations, with industry, with feed merchants and the co-operatives. And obviously, the likes of Teagasc who have a key role to play in terms of advising farmers as to what is a really difficult period,” he said.
The Minister of State acknowledged that farmers had experienced “a double whammy” as it had been a “really challenging period” before Christmas in terms of sowing winter crops. There were also challenges in later sowing around control of disease.
“This has been an unprecedented winter. From September to April there hasn’t been a break. No farmer has caught a break here at all. It is impacting them. We do farm very differently than we did even five or 10 years ago, and we continue to adapt. But right now, when we are in this, this moment of severe pressure on our farmers, it is right the Government stands up and supports them.”
Wet weather: major potato shortage looms due to persistent rainfall
Minister says ‘nothing is off the table’ in terms of support following heavy rainfall in March
A major potato shortage is looming next autumn because of the persistent wet weather this spring.February and March are usually the times for planting potatoes, but only a tiny fraction of the 21,000 acre crop is in the ground at present.
The situation has been compounded by the continuing wet weather with no end in sight at present. Met Éireann is predicting that rainfall levels will be between two and five times higher than normal across the State in the coming week, with the wettest conditions expected in the West and southwest.
Met Éireann says soil conditions are likely to deteriorate further. All poorly-drained and some moderately-drained soils will be waterlogged and well-drained soils will become saturated.
This year’s difficulty follow on from a poor harvest last year caused by the wet autumn which made it difficult for machinery to access potato drills. Planting of this year’s crop has been delayed across northern Europe because of the bad weather.
Irish Farmers Association (IFA) national potato chairman Sean Ryan said normally between 60 and 70 per cent of the crop would be in the ground by now. Even in the best case scenario it will not be possible to plant potato seed for at least 10 days, even if it were to dry up tomorrow. He anticipated that there will be potato shortages from early summer on when the first crop would normally be harvested.
Mr Ryan said the lengthy period of wet weather stretching back to last July is the worst he has seen in his lifetime. “Even if we get a bad autumn, we often get a decent spring, but there’s been no take-up at all.”
Shortages of potatoes will become acute in August and September, when new potatoes normally end up on supermarket shelves. “There is a lot of ifs and buts about it, but there are definitely going be empty shelves,” he warned. Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue has asked his department to pause farm inspections not specifically required to support payments until 22nd April because of the bad weather. He has also asked Teagasc to establish a system for co-ordinating advisory supports to help farmers maximise existing fodder stocks and provide a basis for those with surpluses to engage with those who are struggling.
A meeting of the National Fodder and Feed Security Committee last week concluded that there is sufficient fodder in the country, but it needs to be better distributed.
Mr McConalogue called on banks to show forbearance with farmers who are struggling with cash flow problems because of the bad weather.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture Martin Hayden said “nothing is off the table as the situation develops” as far as helping farmers is concerned.
“I understand the stress that they’re under and everything remains on the table. So that’s as clear as I can be as we monitor and as we work with farmers and farm organisations, with industry, with feed merchants and the co-operatives. And obviously, the likes of Teagasc who have a key role to play in terms of advising farmers as to what is a really difficult period,” he said.
The Minister of State acknowledged that farmers had experienced “a double whammy” as it had been a “really challenging period” before Christmas in terms of sowing winter crops. There were also challenges in later sowing around control of disease.
“This has been an unprecedented winter. From September to April there hasn’t been a break. No farmer has caught a break here at all. It is impacting them. We do farm very differently than we did even five or 10 years ago, and we continue to adapt. But right now, when we are in this, this moment of severe pressure on our farmers, it is right the Government stands up and supports them.”
No notebook...it would be to confusing and not match up..i have tried keeping a 'map' and that sorta works but its still not the best as trees die and are replaced and things change.
i do write things down in a little black pocket note thingy..but its truly temporary...i had to go the route and advice of skillcult...metal tags..i repeat...METAL TAGS for identification in orchard....even that can be not 100% thing....he loses tags off trees and branches and i have to....i mean can you believe the wind has blown so hard last few days it blew a tag off a limb i grafted last year that had more than tripled in size...length....i seen it was gone and just happened to see it about 15ft from tree and nothing else was missing so knew it was it...but now i am getting on up in varieties now on very few trees. years ago i had set a goal of 200 apple trees..i planted and planted..they all died..because of root stock....for me i want standard or close to standard stock for roots....i pointed out to martin longseth that the only trees that i had living at one point were trees that i had planted deep or close enough that graft sent out roots and became full size standard tree basically and that the root stock had died....why...droughts and some type of boring bug/worm things...these small root stock cant survive....after that go around i decided not to plant anything dwarf or semi dwarf even..i want as close to standard tree as i can get...thats when dr. jim cummins(he ran new york experimental station in geneva,new york and started the cummins nursery in 1994) told me that if i couldnt get trees i wantd on standard stock to just plant graft below soil so it would send out roots from trunk and become a standard tree.
i dont have that many trees but have wide variety of cultivars....skillcult has over 150 cultivars on one tree he calls frankentree.
i just started this go around with apple trees again 2020 so my trees are small. i have at most 7 types on a single tree as of now.
It’s almost feeling like spring, saw my first bumblebee of the season on the peach blossoms. The pasque lily is blooming. And we had a thunderstorm. Just another month until I can plant the starts in the garden, and I will get the potatoes and other cool liking stuff out this weekend
oh my oh my....i done lost my mind...more root stock on the way....!!
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Do you grow Citrus plants/trees?
I am about ready to harvest a fresh crop of snow, again
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Pop some ice crystals in a non- frost free freezer so you have seed stock for next year.
They go bad in frost free freezers.
Ben
no
