2023 agriculture efforts

[JohnRoberts]

My raised beds are pretty much done for the season. About a week ago a critter tried to eat my one 4" diameter cantaloupe. (s)He abandoned it. I trimmed away the chewed part and sampled it myself. It was not very sweet or cantaloupe like.

Today I also harvested my one puny watermelon.... only 2" diameter but in a pleasant surprise it looked, smelled, and tasted exactly like a watermelon should, only way too small.

Got one ripe fig today, still more coming. At least my figs delivered this season.

JR

 

[JohnRoberts]

Good news/bad news.... The good news is that it is finally pecan season, the bad news is that there aren't many left after the hundreds of premature drops due to heat/water stress.

after shelling I am not getting any fully developed meats, mostly shriveled up partial morsels, but they do taste vaguely like pecans, making me optimistic about next season.

JR

 

[AnalogPackrat]

Good news/bad news.... The good news is that it is finally pecan season, the bad news is that there aren't many left after the hundreds of premature drops due to heat/water stress.

after shelling I am not getting any fully developed meats, mostly shriveled up partial morsels, but they do taste vaguely like pecans, making me optimistic about next season.

JR

I got none. And my Black Walnuts look to have a small crop this year, too. Thankfully we still have both kinds frozen from last year.

 

[JohnRoberts]

It looks like I might lose my granny smith apple tree... it's only about 5 years old.

A few ornamental shrubs around my house are dying, but I don't much care about plants I can't eat...

The good news is that I three viable fig tree up shoots rooted that I can plant for next year. Next year will be better.

JR

 

[gevermil]

Bad year for trees . There is major drought stress in the mid west and lots of mature oaks are dying .
oak wilt , oak blight , two lined chestnut borer , gypsy moth ( now spongy moth ) ect ect . I know there is a climate change happening but I think there is more afoot .

 

[JohnRoberts]

Well it's official my garden is pretty much done for this season. I had one late pepper plant, that sprung to life after I cleared out the finished tomato plants that were stealing its sunlight. I had low expectations but started watering it manually despite already shutting down my drip irrigation system. The weather forecast for tonight is calling for 28' so I figured that would be it, but today when I went out to give it one last water can watering, I noticed all the leaves were withered so apparently last night was cold enough. I only registered 34' low on my thermometer overnight but I will speculate it was colder out in my garden. I harvested 2 1/2 small peppers that I will put on my pizza, planned for this weekend.

I still have one fig on my tree that is refusing to get ripe, and may never get that chance after tonight's hard freeze.

The drought has caused my pecans to not fill out to full sized meats, but still worth the effort to shell. I had a lot of early drops due to water stress but the late (normal) drops are ripe despite the shrinkage.

JR

 

[AnalogPackrat]

Tough year, JR. I harvested 1lb 3.5oz (~550g) of shiitake from my logs the past two days. Over a pound the first day and 2oz the second. I've paid for the cost of the plugs now.



Got three small not quite ripe cayenne a few weeks back.



Bad news is bucks scraping on my apple trees. Didn't get fencing done. I hope the trees will make it despite a good bit of missing bark on one side.

Oh...also gathered three pecks of black walnuts. Haven't had time to hull them yet. Too busy with porch rebuild and tractor (new water pump, hoses, several gaskets, valve lash adjustment, crud scraping, etc.).

 

[JohnRoberts]

I finally grabbed the last fig that refused to ripen and froze in place. The skin was so thick I couldn't easily cut it open. I figured if it was that hard to cut open, why bother.

JR

 

[JohnRoberts]

2024 garden update;;

I am taking my own advice to scale back. This year I will put plants in flower pots sitting on top of my raised garden to be easier to manage. I have scaled back to two flower pots each of Squash, Tomatoes, and Peppers. Already growing well in my greenhouse.
====
This winter I am experimenting with a new strategy to graft better pecan tree branches onto my four primary yard trees. I have discovered two "rescue" pecan trees growing in my far back yard. I have no idea who planted them several decades ago, and they have been covered by other trees stealing their sunlight. These two trees deliver larger than average nuts but are challenged by limited access to sunlight.

Grafting branches from better strains of pecan trees onto mediocre root stock is common industry practice. But grafting branches onto mature trees is not done, certainly no web advice is easily found, unlike copious articles about grafting to young root stock trees.



The first graft image on the left is my attempt to give the grafted branches access to the sub-bark layer. The sticky goo is wax to keep the grafts from drying out. The graft on the right shows a healthy protective callus, grown by the tree to seal off and protect the tree from external fungus and whatever.


My trees were not properly pruned when young. Branches closer than 6' from the ground need to be pruned off of young trees. My yard trees had many lower branches allowed to remain. When I finally pruned these off decades later I exposed the trees to the outside world. You can see the faded residue of prune sealer.

I give these grafts an extremely low probability of success. I guess I'll find out.

JR

 

[JohnRoberts]

Its not spring until I get my heavy zero-turn lawnmower stuck in the mud by my rain ditches...

Well guys, spring came today.

JR

 

[AnalogPackrat]

I'm going to need to mow soon. We had almost 4" of rain a few days ago. Waiting for it to dry out.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I cut grass (weeds and leaves) yesterday because more rain is forecast for today/tomorrow. I walked the soggy sections of my yard and it seemed dry enough.

The good news is that the drought is over, the bad news is my rain ditches are muddy and I can't mow too close to my rain ditch. Yesterday I had already decided that I was on the last cut, to stay a safe distance from the rain ditch, but I wasn't far enough away.

Not my first rodeo so I winched the mower out of the soft mud and up onto dry ground, using my come along and long straps.

JR

PS: Happy Pi day.

 

[AnalogPackrat]

Two for one yesterday. Cut some sweetgum trees to allow adjacent oak and hickory to grow. All trunk sections down to 3" were limbed and cut into 4' lengths for mushroom cultivation.

My neighbor and I will be adding another variety of shiitake and some oyster mushrooms this year. He ordered the plugs this year and I'm providing the logs. They'll need to dry and allow the antifungal sap components to degrade for 2-3 weeks before we innoculate them.



At top center-left you can see my shiitake logs from last year. We're expecting our spring flush in the next few weeks.

 

[JohnRoberts]

The late frost forecast for overnight just barely touched 32'. At 6am it was still 33' outside so I feel lucky.

I see one small green leaf on one of the three fig tree cuttings I planted. My existing fig tree is still looking dormant.

Several fruit trees are blossoming so spring is coming.

JR

 

[AnalogPackrat]

My neighbor reported 26F on his new weather station early this morning. We had winds gusting 25-30 all afternoon and into the evening yesterday. I managed to get moving blankets on my three early blooming blueberry bushes. Hopefully that saved most of the crop. Collected my first shiitake of 2024 from the ligs I started late last Feb.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I put a plastic freezer container over my one fig tree cutting with leaves but it appears that we dodged any hard freeze damage this time. I remain optimistic, compared to... No wait, I'm always optimistic.

I need to spray my pecan trees with neem oil (to kill insect eggs) while they are still dormant. I don't think that they will stay dormant very long. I need it to be warmer and less windy.

JR

 

[jensenmann]

Some stupid animals already had all my salad plants in the glasshouse for dinner :-(
Radish, Arugula, Cabbage Turnip and Broccoli are growing fine, though.
Plum and Mirabelle trees are blooming right now while my cherries are starting today. Apricots are already done blooming while we had a very warm period. Everything is very early this year.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Getting old sucks... Yesterday I decided to spray my pecan trees with dormant oil while they are still dormant... Spring is coming so I need to get it done. That huge marine battery must be 50-60# by itself. The spray tank full of water solution is not exactly light. After a succession of minor repairs I got it spraying again. The plus terminal spade connector corroded in half. The final sprayer hose was leaking at the screw clamp so I cut off the end, and the clean tubing did not leak. At first the pump declined to prime. I found a mud dabber wasp nest inside the tubing adapter that was left open over the winter. I managed to spray some lower branches before the shorty high pressure clear section blew out right at the pump (it is a pretty high pressure pump to reach higher up the tree. By this time I was tired of messing with it for the day so parked it until next week. The bud break is imminent but I should be able to spray as long as I do it before the pollen tassels drop.

I decided to upgrade to a 4 wheel garden cart that won't be so difficult to keep upright. Some assembly required but there weren't that many parts on the parts list. Did I mention getting old sucks?

JR

 

[Youngwhisk]

Can you tow that trailer with your lawn mower?

 

[JohnRoberts]

Can you tow that trailer with your lawn mower?

My 25HP lawn mower could surely pull it but I do not have a tow hitch on my mower (yet).

Right now that does not seem like a priority. The four wheel cart will not tilt over like the wheel barrow seems to want to when the water inside the sprayer tank shifts from side to side.

I'll see... next week.

JR