Mother Nature Wins

[fteter]

I have to laugh...

I've spent the past 8 years fighting a losing battle with Mother Nature. Ever since I left the sprawl that is the greater Los Angeles area for Northern Utah, I've been attempting to include fruits in my garden. Strawberries, peaches, and pears for the most part. And because an incredibly short growing season hasn't been enough of a challenge, I'm living on the bench of the Oquirrh Mountains - incredibly lousy dirt.

In the course of my battle, I've tried many different tactics: growing in containers, growing in raised planting beds, supplementing the soil, cold frames, frost covers, different fertilizers, fish heads when I plant ...the list goes on and on. The bottom line is that the yields are low and nothing survives for multiple seasons regardless of what I do to preserve the plants and trees.

After my latest failure (too much rain this spring, so all my newly-planted peach trees died from root fungus and black leaf despite my efforts to save them), I pulled out pencil and paper to do some figuring. And I figured out that after all the time and money I've spent fighting Mother Nature's crazy weather in this region, I'd be better off to buy my fruit at the local market and preserve it via pressure canning (my better half and I are pretty good at the canning thing). You would think I would have figured that out long before know. Yeah, sometimes being bull-headed works against me.

Long story short, I'm now shifting my gardening strategy to focusing on root and hardier veggies: carrots, potatoes, zucchini, squash, watermelons. I'm buying my fruits at the local markets, canning them up, then stacking them high and deep.

Why am I sharing this story? Two reasons: 1) I figured y'all might get a laugh, or at least a smile, out of my thick-headed stubbornness, and 2) maybe somebody out there needs the takeaway that you sometimes have to accept your limitations and adapt.

Anybody else brave enough to share similar gardening failures?

 

[Cnsper]

You could try things like Nan King Cherries and the North American Plum. Something more suitable to the climate.

 

[WVDragonlady]

Does your state or county have an Extension Service? They're there to help you with these problems. They can tell you what names of trees and bushes and vegetables work in your area and soil.
I mean, if you can buy fruit and veggies at the local market then they know what types of plants grow in the area, so you should be able to also

 

[angie_nrs]

Mother Nature Wins

I love your thread title. Mother nature alwasys wins!

Yes, I have figured it out the hard way too. I have way too many natural trees on my property and therefore too much shade. My lilacs like the sun, so they never bloom. The deer love my apple trees, so my apple trees are toast. However, my wild blackberries do great (if I can beat the birds to them) and I also planted a drarf cherry tree this spring that already has fruit on it, so all is not lost. Hopefully the blueberry bushes will take off too.....but at this point, it's too early to tell.

Sometimes mother nature rewards persistence. But in the end, it really is all up to her.

 

[backlash]

I have an apricot tree that I never get fruit from. Either it freezes, the wind blows the apricots off the tree or the birds get them, or all 3. This year it froze.

 

[fteter]

Does your state or county have an Extension Service? They're there to help you with these problems. They can tell you what names of trees and bushes and vegetables work in your area and soil.
I mean, if you can buy fruit and veggies at the local market then they know what types of plants grow in the area, so you should be able to also

Yes, one of the area universities has an extension service to help with growing thing. The county also sponsors a conservation garden, where provide examples and classes on growing native plants. I've recently made contact with the extension service and I'm stopping by the conservation garden Saturday.

 

[GrannyG]

 

[WVDragonlady]

I have an apricot tree that I never get fruit from. Either it freezes, the wind blows the apricots off the tree or the birds get them, or all 3. This year it froze.

Yea this year high sustained winds took almost all the blossoms off my cherry trees. I left what was left for the birds

 

[LadyLocust]

@fteter I just moved the other direction- from high elevation to low. Up the mountain, my tomatoes would be about knee high or a little taller and would pray for ripe fruit before a freeze. Right now my tomatoes are as tall as me and loaded, just beginning to ripen. I'm used to low yields so I'm in a bit of a garden culture shock here. (Next year I will plant things farther apart too!)

 

[Weedygarden]

@fteter I just moved the other direction- from high elevation to low. Up the mountain, my tomatoes would be about knee high or a little taller and would pray for ripe fruit before a freeze. Right now my tomatoes are as tall as me and loaded, just beginning to ripen. I'm used to low yields so I'm in a bit of a garden culture shock here. (Next year I will plant things farther apart too!)

I am house sitting. There are 4 metal tanks used for planters on the south side of the garage, with gravel on the ground. The tomatoes are going crazy! I was here a couple weeks ago and I think they have grown a foot since then. They are getting lots of sun and heat, and little wind. I have never had tomatoes do well and certainly nothing like this.

 

[backlash]

@fteter I just moved the other direction- from high elevation to low. Up the mountain, my tomatoes would be about knee high or a little taller and would pray for ripe fruit before a freeze. Right now my tomatoes are as tall as me and loaded, just beginning to ripen. I'm used to low yields so I'm in a bit of a garden culture shock here. (Next year I will plant things farther apart too!)

I hear you about planting farther apart. I thought the everything was plenty far enough apart. Wrong, everything is growing crazy big. Biggest plants I have ever had. My fertilizer injector is doing a bang up job of feeding the plants. The tomatoes plants are full of tomatoes and we hope to be eating fresh tomatoes in the next couple weeks. My corn on the other hand is really short. I only planted it so my wife can have Thanksgiving decorations. A local place has the absolute best sweet corn ever and it's usually 10 for a dollar so why grow it. My biggest surprise is I actually have tiny little watermelons. Last year I had about 2 watermelons and they both went bad because the weeds had won and taken over my garden and I didn't find them soon enough. This year I am winning the weed battle so far.