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Gardeners of the northern hemisphere, how did it go this year?
The growing season here in southeastern Australia is just kicking off, so I'd love to hear (and see!) your successes and failures, what you will repeat and what you want to change, what your future plans are, etc.
Not brilliantly I'll be honest. Sudden heat managed to absolutely nuke my spuds in early July and then squirrels and my neighbours decided that my corn crops were in need of a trim (Seriously, neighbour though they were weeds.)
Next year is looking better. I've got an automated watering system setup. I'm building dedicated raised planters now as well.
What kind of irrigation setup have you got?
Honestly? Nothing uber-sophisticated.
I can't remember the name of the controller at the moment, but essentially I've got 2 x 330L water butts that collect rainwater from my shed. The controller then figures out based on locational weather if it the plants need water. There's three channels that lead to a variety of beds now as well as a few pots. It just spurts water every 30minutes or so during day time.
I'll try and dig out the controller unit name for you.
It's nothing compared to my Father in Laws setup in Rural Aus. That dude collectes every drop of water he can over winter in tanks the size of a small house in the UK.
Please explain to me what a water butt is haha
Rainwater tank.
Alright then I thought it was a typo, thanks š
A water tank used to collect rainwater.
That sounds sophisticated to me! My irrigation is just controlled by a 24-hour timer, but I want to introduce a more complex system with different watering zones.
Honestly, most of the kits here come with the functionality!
Its the plumbing of the water butt's that annoyed me most. This winter I'm putting in 12sq/m of raised beds though. Good depth to them as well for spuds, carrots, peas, beans, corn and other goodies. Going to build some wire racks to put over the top to stop the squirrels getting said goodies.
In the US temperate zone and I just created a new garden this year. 7,000 lb of dirt, the rental of a sod remover, and one new electric tiller later, and this year I've eaten the absolutely most expensive cherry tomatoes that I've ever eaten in my life. š¤£š„ŗš
It's been totally worth it. Getting us outside to tend to the garden, getting the kids engaged and learning how stuff grows, learning how to kill an entire small crop of watermelon... Tons of fun.
We even managed to get some blazingly hot tiny little peppers, Roma tomatoes, and cherry tomatoes.
We have high hopes for next year.
I'm not sure if my little hobby counts as gardening, but I've been growing chili on my window sill the last couple of years and they've been thriving this season plus the season has been longer than the last two years... (I live in Denmark so the summers are usually short and rainy.)
That very much counts! I find plants much more challenging to grow indoors in a container than outside in the ground. What do you do to keep your plants healthy? Have you been getting reasonable yields?
Agreed on indoor plants. I have yet to have an indoor herb garden last long enough to warrant doing regular. Put them outside and they go wild.
I attempted to grow basil from seed starting in late spring... I now have a 75cm tall basil plant! we'll see how well it does indoors over winter, but it's my baby.
I need to speak for the best basil for a moment here.
Iāve been planting basil for probably 25 years, across radically different growing zones and in different conditions. Every last one was an exasperating letdown of a plant that couldnāt decide whether to wilt at the first ray of sun or just bolt straight away.
This year, I happened to pick up an Ajaka or African basil at a plant sale. Iām now in USDA zone 4, which is not exactly your optimum growing zone for basil, or just about any plant with āAfricanā in the name. And this thing is the basil Iāve always wished for.
It grew gigantic and never once tried to go to seed all year. Even when I wasnāt on top of watering, it never wilted. Itās the most gorgeously fragrant, vivid green basil Iāve ever seen. In mid-October, the nights are almost down to freezing, and this plant is still flourishing.
My freezer is filling up with homemade pesto, 95% from this one plant and 5% from the āregularā basil I planted, which was a sad excuse for an herb as usual.
Iāve seen this stuff in specialty online seed stores, but Iād never seen a plant in a store. Iām not sure I even knew before this year that there are basil varieties beyond the crappy kind every home improvement store carries. Iām going to go around recommending this basil to people way too fervently for the next few years.
I ordered my seeds from a seed shop online and didn't really look into what variety it was, but this plant definitely flourished more than the little ones I've bought at the grofery store in the past... although part of that couls be because I actually paid attention to watering/repotting it this time lol
I've had great luck with African (Dire Dawa), Chinese, and Persian basil varieties in humid Zone 6. They're just hardier and more resistant to mildew and diseases than tender Genovese, and less demanding of constant heat than Thai basil. Dire Dawa has incredibly erratic germination, but once it reaches liftoff, the plants grow a meter high and smell amazing.
The exotic basil flavors and aromas are different, though - more pungent and camphoraceous, with notes of cloves or anise. Fresh Persian basil leaves made a delicious salad green. They're not perfect substitutes for Italian or Thai basil, and my spouse actively dislikes Chinese basil as pesto. This year's basil experiments included a variety called "Italian Mountain", which also did very well, has a Genovese-like leaf, and makes terrific pesto.
Ive been growing basil in an aerogarden. I just had to replant, but the previous one was a year old before it died. I didnt realize basil turns treelike as it ages
Oh wow, I have never seen basil get that big! It tops out around 20-30cm for me, and then I collect seeds to grow more.
I have it in a pretty big pot, so I think it's really appreciating the space. I'm honestly surprised it did so well too tbh!
I truly wish you luck with indoor Basil. I've never been able to get them to not go dormant. I've resolved to just harvest everything and start again each year.
I don't mind if it goes dormant over the winter, I mostly just don't want it to die over winter. I di definitely need to make a bunch of pesto soon though, there's a ton to harvest.
We had a scorching june followed by a cool and rainy late summer. Good crop of asparagus, and a record ribes harvest, some of which is turning into redcurrant wine as I write this. Tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers did not like the cool late summer, but we got a decent tomato crop even so. We got lots of apples too, and blackberries. Some grapes. Had a decent run of various leafy greens. The cabbage worms got theirs, as usual. Many a deer helped themselves. We finally defeated the ribes sawflies, which was nice (for us). Wife has PTSD from murdering slugs. Soon it's time to dig up the beets, parsnips, and jerusalem artichokes. I will do some mushroom farming indoors, while we wait for spring.
Wow, it looks like you have a lot going on in your garden. What region are you in? It sounds a lot like the last summer we had here, except that we never got a good scorching; it just went from spring to autumn.
Nordic region. We sometimes joke that we have four seasons: Winter, Still winter, Summer (1 week) and Soon winter. But this year we had a mediterranean june.
Mostly badly, but that's attributable to a couple of things...
The tomatillos survived the heat, deer, and Colorado potato beetles - I'll be pulling in the last ripe ones soon to make and freeze salsa verde, probably 5 - 6 liters. It may look a bit odd because the purple and yellow tomatillo varieties produced better than the green ones.
We did have a good berry harvest, and put up/gave away a few liters of jam.
Basil and other deer-unfriendly herbs thrived - I'll have plenty of pesto and other goodies to share.
Local farmers had a great year for tomatoes, so I'll probably stock up the freezer and can some from the market. A local orchard was also selling bushels of apples for charity because the harvest was so good - we're picking one up to eat fresh, dry, and freeze. Markets are also full of the squash and pumpkins I don't plant for lack of sunny, enclosed space.
I'll probably add soaker hose and watering control to the raised beds for next year, and more regular deer repellent application. Budget, time, and continuing analysis of landscape use probably won't permit installation of a more permanent deer fence yet.
On a climate note, the last few years at 45Ā° N have been deeply disturbing. Historically, this is short growing season territory, with first frost before October and last around end of May. The frost-free growing season is now almost 2 months longer, though the available sun hours aren't comparably greater due to cloud cover. The local winemakers and vintners we're in touch with are crowing about the third year in a row of stellar vintages with cool-climate varieties, but they're starting to experiment with long-season classic varieties and hybrids that can tolerate more heat and humidity.
Oof, I'm sorry to hear about that. Do you have any thoughts about keeping deer away in the future?
I have generally had bad luck when I try to hand water. I can't bring myself to do it as often as I should, so instead I do occasional deep watering. This is great for trees and shrubs, which have deep root systems, but vegetables can really struggle.
I definitely found that my vegetables did a lot better when I introduced automatic watering; I started off with just a soaker house and a tap timer, and it made a really big difference. I have gradually added complexity to my irrigation system since then, but they mostly just serve to make my life easier; the plants are happy either way, so simple is a really great way to start.
I tied the net deer fencing tighter and staked it down at the bottom edges, which ought to keep them out more effectively. Really, I think if we hadn't done a sloppy job assuming it would be very temporary, it would have worked fine. But planting repellent herbs (everything was bordered with basil and marigolds) was not effective.
Not excellent, but in large part caused by my own negligence. I got most of my plants in the ground, but was too busy to tend to them well, or harvest on time.
We had a surprisingly rainy and cool summer where I was, so most plants survived my negligence, though it contributed to some powdery mildew. My tomatoes are always in a race against late blight but the cooler season meant they took longer to ripen, so the harvest wasnt as good as previous years. On the plus side, the rain did do wonders in preventing blossom end rot on my roma-type tomatoes.
I've never had any success with tomatoes when it's cool and wet. Getting any tomatoes at all in those conditions is a big success, to my mind.
Aw, thank you for the supportive words and perspective! I've only had the opportunity to do big outdoor gardens for a couple years, and each year has been a new learning curve on a new set of conditions (different weather patterns, insect pests, animals, diseases, etc.).
That said, I was probably lucky in that my favourite tomatoes (black prince) are somewhat cold tolerant, iirc.
Congratulations on your garden investment - the payout is long, but the joy of eating your own fresh produce is longer.
Advice from the temperate, humid, short-season North...
Fresh ripe tomatoes still warm from the sun are worth the fight.
Start your plants indoors, but take a chance and get them planted outdoors as soon as frost dates permit. You want the flowering tomato plants to still have cool nights for best pollination.
Start looking at tomato varieties that have some resistance to Early or Late Blight (indeterminate tomatoes seem to do better than determinate) and mulch around the plants to keep fungal spores in the soil from splashing on the leaves.
You've also got to rotate your tomato/pepper beds - avoid reusing them for 2 years, if possible. I swap in peas/beans on the beds to improve the soil, then the next year greens/non-solanaceous vegetables, then tomatoes/peppers.
Burn, don't compost, any diseased material. I know, it's painful to torch all that nutrient-bearing green matter, but you can reuse the ash mixed in with regular compost.
Tomatoes love calcium, and I'll throw a tablespoon of bone meal in at the roots of each plant. It's a good slow-release soil additive that helps prevent blossom end rot and cracking during the wet season.
I've discovered that bordering tomato beds with basil does help with insect pests - I had no hornworms this year.
Thanks for these tips! To be honest, in the few years I've been doing this, I've already learned and followed most of this advice. Except the use of disease-resistant varieties, because as much as I know I should, I'm an absolute sucker for 'neat' looking/sounding heirlooms.
Also, thank you for confirming my suspicion about burning material. It's something I've thought about doing but haven't had a lot of time to test out.
This year my lack of success really came down to me being overly stretched / burnt(ish) out by other things in my life (yay work). I'm thinking of leaving my main garden space to (mostly) fallow + build up the soil next year, since I don't really see myself having more time than this past year, and figure it'll probably be healthier for it in the long run. I'll see how I'm feeling in late-winter.
There's a nice list of disease-resistant tomatoes which includes quite a few heirloom varieties.
Black Cherry is one of my favorites, it's blight tolerant, productive, and delicious, if prone to cracking in heavy rain. Bumblebee varieties are also good cherry tomatoes, but the deer got them this year and they didn't recover as well as Black Cherry, Sungold, Paul Robeson, and Roselle. Indigo Rose is a great slicing tomato. Brad's Atomic Grape/Atomic Fusion is another resistant, productive boutique heirloom saladette size that's great for fresh eating and has wild coloration.
This year was not great for my garden, but that was almost entirely my fault. I wasn't trying anything too ambitious - tomatoes, peppers, eggplants (aubergines), squash, and a few beans. Where I live those grow without too much effort, but I made three mistakes:
1 - I tried to grow all my tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants from seed, but I don't have a good system for that. I have to start them indoors and they just didn't get enough sunlight (and I didn't thin them out earlier enough and they were crowded, and I probably should have moved them to larger containers but I didn't). Long story short, they were pale and leggy and scraggly to start with and took a long time to get going. I put in a few plug plants from the local garden center when I saw things weren't going well, and they did the best of all my plants this year. For next year, I think I'll scale back what I try to grow from seed.
2 - I didn't feed them properly. I've only been gardening in my current spot for a couple of years and I'm realizing now that past successes have been thanks to planting in pristine soil that hasn't had all the nutrients sucked out of it by my, frankly, thoughtless approach to gardening. But I've learned my lesson. After the first frost definitively ends the growing season for me, everything is getting cut down (but left where it is), the contents of my compose heap are getting dumped on top of it, and next year I'll give the plants liquid feed regularly (especially the hungry ones like the tomatoes). Other advise for rejuvenating the soil would be appreciated!
3 - I neglected a lot of basic maintenance. I let weeds run rampant before I got my act together, pulled them out, and mulched with straw. I'll be mulching early and often next year. I put off staking up my tomatoes and they started to ramble along the ground before I got them tied up. This gave the wildlife too much opportunity to take bites out of all the biggest green tomatoes (and then decide they didn't like them much and leave them lying around). And, most aggravating of all, I kept my beans fenced in when they were starting out, but unfenced them once they seemed too sturdy to interest the wildlife (and when too many weeds started coming up in the little circles of fence and I was fed up with gingerly fishing them out with my fingertips). During the first night they were unfenced, rabbits mowed the lot down. Next year, my beans will be under high security. And I might be eating rabbit for dinner.
I do most of my own seed starting indoors because the variety selection is pretty poor around here, and I find that you really need a good sunlight-like grow light for it. But even then, I find that my tomato seedlings put out a few true leaves and then hit a wall; they just won't grow any more after that. My other seedlings do fine, so I'm not sure why the tomatoes in particular are unhappy. They're never are good as the tomato plants you can buy. I'm experimenting with fertilisers this year to see if that's the problem.
Another factor, in addition to soil nutrition, could potentially be a build-up of pathogens in the soil. When I worked on a commercial vegetable farm, we did a ton of crop rotation ā and every now and then, we would sow a cover crop (usually fumigating rye). Adding compost to the soil would probably help with this somewhat.
For weeds, another thing to maybe try is solarization. We also did this a lot on the commercial vegetable farm: We ran irrigation across the soil, and then we put clear plastic over it and left it all summer long. The moisture and warmth forced weed seeds to sprout, and then they cooked under the clear plastic. This is a really good way to deplete the seed bank in an area.
I started with a cheap plastic shelving unit strapped up with LED grow lamps, and moved on to a 4' x 3' x 6' cannabis grow tent for seed-starting and winter greens.
One thing to be aware of is that germination soil is not the same thing as good growing soil. I usually use 4" fiber grow bags filled with organic potting mix and a 1/2" layer of seed starting mix on top. Everything seems to do fine with this, and it discourages me from starting way too many plants.
It's reassuring to hear that I'm not the only one who struggles growing tomatoes from seed. I think I'll stick to buying tomato plants (unless I come across something special I can only get as seeds.
Thanks for the tips! You've got a good point about rotating crops. I've been growing tomatoes and peppers in the same spot for a couple of years - it's probably time to move them elsewhere and plant something completely different there.
When you solarized plots, did you leave them fallow for a season and just burn off the weeds, then plant again the next year? Do you recommend doing that when you start cultivating a new area?
At the commercial farm, all plots were tilled annually before seedlings were planted, so all the dead solarized weeds just got mixed back into the soil. Where tilling is not an option, you could mix the soil up with a shovel or a hoe, cover it with compost or mulch, or take the lazy route and just plant amongst the dead weeds (though I would only recommend this if your solarization process was successful and actually killed all the weeds; otherwise, you may need to use a non-residual herbicide first or manually chop out the surviving weeds). I assume burning would work as well, but I have no experience with it.
Solarization probably will not work well if there are already mature plants present. It mostly serves to force weeds seeds out of dormancy and kill them; mature plants are a lot tougher and can probably survive the process. For those, you may want to use an opaque covering or kill them in some other way. Then you can follow up with solarization.
Overall, my garden did fantastic this year!
The good:
The bad:
What is a fabric fence?
Is the shaker fertiliser the same as a slow-release fertiliser? That's what I use, and it's super worth it.
Which tomato varieties had the best yields for you?
I have an allotment in the Netherlands. The cold stayed longer in spring (just like last year) than is normal, delaying growth of young plants. July was particularly bad month (relative cold, lots of rain, little sun) further delaying warm vegetables like pumpkins and courgettes.
But summer did last longer. It is still (record-breaking) warm (yesterday was 21 Ā°C) with plenty of sun. Our february vegetables (pakchoi, spinach, mizuna) is almost ready for harvest. The main enemy is the number of hours of light, which is fastly reducing, now less then 11 hours a day between sunrise and sunset.
Next week a cold snap is expected with single digit (Ā°C) temperatures.
No complaints about harvest, some produce did better than others, e.g. it was a bad carrot but amazing potato and onion year.
Despite the IPCC stating that spring is starting earlier, the past two years, spring has started later. This makes it hard to time when saplings can go in. We lost a lot of plants to late spring frost in both years.
So-so.
Blueberries had 2/3 plants give some fruit.
Peach tree did well in its first year of production. Sadly, it's in the front yard and someone(s) decided to take a huge number of them while we were on vacation.
Dragon fruit are still pending. Though I did finally get a beautiful purple flower from a vine I've had for a few years. Unfortunately, no fruit as it might be self-sterile. Tried using its own pollen but no luck.
Avocado tree decided to take the year off :(
Lemon / orange trees grew like mad
Lime tree started producing fruit, then gave up, but is now starting up again
Blue elderberry had fruit that got scorched. Probably not enough water on my part. First year, though, so I'll adjust for next year.
The rest are new plantings. Golden currant, ice cream bean, lychee, longan, white sapote, black sapote.
I'm a little jealous. My only regret about leaving the subtropical zone for the Northern U.S. is all those wonderful fruits. Sapotes are unlike anything else - we tried getting some shipped last year, and they still weren't quite as good as the ones we grew. If you can plant mangoes, by all means do - fresh, tree-ripe mangoes are amazing.
Yeah, being in a 9b zone is pretty nice. I'm flirting with problems on the black sapote, ice cream bean, and lychee but there's been a few people making them work in 9b. They seem to be a bit better after getting established for a couple years. White sapotes have been here for over 100 years so that shouldn't be too bad.
I've considered mangoes and they were on my original short list of trees to plant but they go uneaten in the house when I get them. We went through a strong mango phase but no one seems too interested in them now. There's one house in the neighborhood with a ~10-15ft tall mango tree so they should work here if things change. Also saw a papaya tree while walking my dog. I've been enjoying Hawaiian papayas so I'll probably plant one of those along with some more passion fruit varieties. Probably a couple more dragon fruit vines, a sapodilla, and possibly a dark Surinam cherry.
If you're tired of mangoes, they keep flavor very well when frozen, and can be pulled out for smoothies and desserts when you feel like having some. We also canned mango chutney, and made an awesome mango barbecue sauce. [Until I developed a severe mango allergy... There are immunogenic chemicals in mango sap/skins similar to those in poison ivy, so bear that in mind if you plant any.]
I was in Zone 10b/11, which was dead easy for the plants you're growing. Any frost at all is a tougher proposition.
Where I am now, hardy figs and pomegranates are just barely in reach, but we've got apples, cherries, blueberries, bramble fruits, elderberries, currants. We've also started a couple of paw paws, but I don't expect to have fruit from them for many years.
Yeah, 10b/11 are fantastic for a lot of this stuff. I'm pushing it with 9b a bit but hopefully it works out. If only I'd known this stuff when buying a house but that was a long time ago.
For mangoes, I'd read up on the similarities to poison ivy / oak. As to the lack of interest. We're going on a few years into the lack of interest at this point so I'm going to leave it. I know I lost interest in apples in my teens and just never gained it again so who knows what'll happen with the family and mangoes.
Oo, I hope you keep us informed on how the garlic goes! I've devoted a whole 1/6th of my vegetable garden to garlic because homegrown garlic bulbs are so fantastic ā and the fresh leaves and scapes are wonderful as well. It's definitely one of my very favorite vegetables to grow.
Apart from garlic and berries (which seem to do well in colder conditions), I've had a terrible garden the last three years because La NiƱa gives us cold summers. But the cold weather has finally broken and I have high hopes for this year for some of the other vegetables I've been missing. I'm trying pumpkins this year, and I really hope I get the success you saw!
Different fruit grow well in different parts of Australia. Where I am, the climate is cool and wet (by Australian standards), and we have rich volcanic soil that is very acidic. The berries that grow best for me are caneberries (like raspberries and blackberries), blueberries, gooseberries, and alpine strawberries.
Do you know which species your wild garlic is? I am trying to grow Allium ursinum this year for the first time (the seeds are currently undergoing cold stratification ā half in my fridge and half in my freezer because I don't know which is better), but I'm not sure how they will go. I only got eight seeds, and they were fairly expensive and the package warns that they are challenging to germinate. If just one survives, though, I will be extremely happy! I have a shady spot under an oak tree for it.
I just have a couple of Boston Ferns in hanging baskets over my balcony. They did surprisingly well over the summer -- I had to pull them in last Friday due the first frost warning of the season. I thought they were getting baked and even burned out there in the Midwest heat, but they look good. Definitely fuller than when I put them out in the spring. I thought one of them wasn't going to make it because last year, I pulled them in too late, after frosts and cold temps had occurred, but it rebounded. In some ways, it even looks better than its "sibling!"
They'll remain inside for the rest of the year and through winter I think. We're in that time of the year where it can be 60-80F (15.5-26.7C) during the day still, but then 40-50F (4.4-10C) at night. So I don't want to have to keep pulling them in and risk forgetting they're out there.
Wow, I have never had any luck with Boston ferns! I can grow most other ferns without trouble, but I just don't have the knack with Bostons. Do you do anything in particular to care for them?
Surprisingly nothing really. I'm pretty "new" with plants. Like I only watered them once a week, and if it was hot, twice a week (usually at night). Maybe give them a little bit of extra water here and there on those scorchers.
I bet if I really knew how to take care of them, they'd look even better. Taller, fuller, and all that But my goal is simply "don't die please!" Which has so far been a success!
Not great actually, I got a fantastic batch of potatoes from my planter, some of my carrots have come in but they're a bit stunted, the heat waves we've had here seem to have really hurt them, the spring onions are the same, they've come in but not as well as hoped.
My greenhouse was a nightmare, we've had some weather extremes this year and the heat waves were baking everything and then we ended up with a horrendous storm and I awoke to my plastic greenhouse in my neighbours garden!
Have now screwed and securely fastened it in to the slabs it sits on but it was too late to replant, managed to salvage some chili peppers which came out alright.
The strawberries were great as always though, enough came in for me and my partner to have a bowl of Eaton Mess.
Carrots can be so finicky. I used to work on a commercial vegetable seed farm, and there were years that the carrots grew so well that we had to massively thin them out, and other years where they were so sparse and sad that we ended up digging them up and replanting them to be closer together (they like having close neighbors).
Who first noticed the greenhouse went for a wander, you or your neighbor? Must have been a bit of a surprise either way!
I've maybe been spoiled by good carrots, had great harvests the last few years so it was a bit disappointing seeing these little stunted thin, things. Got a few decent ones that went into a soup but I had carrots for months last year so I'll do a bit of research over winter and try again next year.
It was my partner actually haha, I was having a nice lie in and she came up to tell me my greenhouse was no longer there. I went to rush downstairs and caught sight of it out the window in my neighbours garden. It had crashed into and destroyed his young sons football goalposts so as well as dragging my poor greenhouse back into my garden I had to fork out money to replace his sons mangled goalposts.
All in all I'd rather just forget gardening year 2023 haha!
At the beginning of the year I was not very optimistic as spring just kept being cold and wet....
But I must say that this year our radish, beans, tomato, lettuce and topinambour plants are still doing well.
Also lots of our flours seem to be having a second bloom (or are still there).
But lets see how the winter is going to treat our lettuce.
And while I like the look and fruit of my labor, I'm a little bit worried that all is still going so well this late in the year.
For next year, I think I'll reintroduce carrots to our mix.
I always love harvesting those but didn't managed to get around planting them this year.
I live in the north of the US, great lakes region, and my bell peppers were the worst crop ever in my decades of growing them. I did nothing different, but I think I only had about five small peppers from each plant. I think it just wasn't hot enough here this year. Ironic, considering everyone else in the country sweltered.
I just have a balcony, but I grow three dwarf fruit trees (cherry, peach, plum) and three bushes (blackberry, currant, raspberry) on it (there's no space for more).
Good:
Unchanged:
The cherry had many beautiful blossoms, but just two cherries were the "harvest". I have that tree for two years, I'll give it a third and last chance next year.
The Blackberry made as many berries as last year: One. As it was just the second year though (I bought it as a three year old plant) it will get more chances
Bad:
The raspberry was almost nothing, just a good handful, compared to last year's nice harvest. However it's a late sort, so I have still hope until end of October to get at least another handful. Similarly with the blackberry, I assume it was just too hot for them. Sun all day with very little wind for weeks in summer with some new temperature records, maybe they burned away.
I got all three of them at the next bigger Obi. My small, old Obi in my hometown doesn't have them, but we have a much bigger and more modern Obi nearby. I didn't even knew these existed until I found them. I did a quick google if this works - and the cherry aside I'm really happy.
I am so impressed with people who can do container gardening. I've tried so hard to grow plants on my balcony, and they just cook.
I wonder if your cherry tree is having pollination problems. Cherries need a partner of a different variety to make fruit. I wonder if you could find a cherry tree that has two compatible varieties grafted to it, or maybe convince a neighbor to grow a compatible cherry tree so you can both get lots of cherries?
I feel soo dumb now. I knew this partner thingy is the case with apples and pears, so I avoided them - but I didn't know it's the same with cherries and just thought I had bad luck.
I think I give it another go next year nevertheless, as in two years I'm going to repot the trees anyway / give them all-new soil, and next year I wouldn't have to do anything in that regard (it's always a mess on a balcony), and the bees love it. Thanks for enlightening me, I wonder why I didn't google it :(
If you donāt have the room for a second tree or donāt need that much fruit, some cherry varieties only grow to 6-8 feet. Theyāre usually marketed as ācherry bushes.ā The pollen works just fine for the full-sized varieties, although I believe cherries, like apples, donāt all blossom at the same time, so you want to get a variety with compatible timing for the one you have. Assuming you know what you have, you can look up compatible varieties online.
Thank you, I'll look into this!
Northerner but tropical, no seasons where I am. First year+ gardening! My apartment corridor container garden is mostly ornamentals, quite densely packed. Thai basil and watercress are growing very well. Sweet basil not doing as well, first round of cuttings were a mixed bag, second round all died, but they seem stable now. Physalis growing too, but none of the fruits have fully ripened and none of their seeds have germinated. One variety of indian borage just growing upupup, I haven't been trimming it to make tea like I planned to. Overwatered another variety, a beautiful variegated one and they're slowly recovering. Mulberry experiencing the same fate.
Wandering jews (tradescantia zebrina and nanouk) are finally growing beautifully. Recently received some dragonbone cactus cuttings from a (not so near) neighbor, not sure if they've rooted yet. Poor bougainvillea has had two major leaf dieoffs no thanks to too much water, but she finally bloomed and the leaves are growing back. Monstera delicosa was growing well but broke off, the original stem is regrowing but the broken off vine doesn't seem to be rooting.
Most of my succulents haven't grown much, except for mother of thousands (thousands!), and echeveria which I've propagated from leaves and given away. Vicks plants are almost a tragedy, the originals suffered repeated stem rot and their cuttings are mostly misshapen.
Air plants don't seem to have grown at all. Pitcher plant successfully rooted, but I took it out of the 99% humidity container to plant without gradually lowering the humidity first. It browned within less than 24 hours and didn't recover.
Pothos and cats whiskers growing well, coleus growing way too well (of course). Jatropha curcas has stopped growing, probably needs a repot. It was cool watching new ZZ shoots slowly unwrap. Raphidophora hayii cuttings finally growing. And a bunch more of my motley crew of plants just cruising along.
I don't have a lot of S P A C E, there's lots of giving away and reorganizing I originally planned to do this month but it's been going very slowly.
I would love to see pictures if you have any! It sounds really beautiful; I love a densely packed garden. Which part of the world are you in?
I'm probably being irrational, but not entirely comfortable sharing my location. Some highlights from my garden in the links below. IMO beautiful in some ways, but also a mess in others (a beautiful mess š). There's still a lot more vertical space I could make use of. Don't know why some of the pics are rotated 90 deg, they were oriented fine on my phone.
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Those are some really healthy looking plants! Especially that last one, haha. Is it a lot of work growing them in containers? I never have any success with that (outside of houseplants).
I've never done gardening on an open plot of land before so can't be sure, but I think container gardening is more work in terms of watering. Most of my pots need water about every other day, some need water daily.
The ones in smaller containers generally seem to have a narrower window between overwatering and underwatering so need more care. (Seem to, I'm still figuring things out and overwatering some of my pots). Guessing because there's less soil to hold water and so buffer against becoming too dry. If that guess is right, by extrapolation it should be easier to keep an open plot or raised bed (which are basically huge containers) properly watered, you can spray more and less frequently.
I've heard from other gardeners that weeds are a problem though. In containers weeds don't spread far (and I usually induct them into the family).
Btw I forgot to mention earlier, and you might have already noticed, but those pics had some comments below them, have to scroll down (if you're on mobile)
The Summer was a bust but the Winter crop was INCREDIBLE!!!! We have a pretty small yard and only 3 raised beds (10x5ft) for veg and we still had trouble going through everything that came up. We had crazy rains here so the vegetables we HUGE! We had cabbages that were over 1 foot wide, an unending supply of chard, kale, and lettuce. Our green beans went insane, like hundreds and hundreds of pods from just 6 plants. 15 artichokes off of one plant that grew up from a previous planting outside of the boxes.
The spring flowers were also incredible. All of the seeds from the previous season went bananas! Our marigolds had gone to seed last season and we had little shurbs pop up all over the garden. Same with the nasturtiums. The ornamental shrubs and trees took off as well. We had a Pride of Madeira that grew about 10x, fig tree that doubled in size, and a few citrus trees that were completely grumpy. Overall the rain made for an incredible winter season.
Wow, that's sounds great!
Do you do anything in particular to keep pests off your cabbage and kale?
Wettest and coldest summer I have ever known and yet my harvests so far have been great. My tomatoes are in the greenhouse though, don't have final harvest weight yet since they're still actively ripening (weirdly late) but suspect in +2-3KG on previous years.
I don't always grow the exact same varieties though so could be expected, space never changes though. Onion harvest was large with good, big bulbs and looks to be about 50-60KG from 4sqm roughly but still curing. I never really weigh them though, I just try to fill large 20KG sacks and I guess 3 or 4 of them, should last us into next year.
Apples etc very productive, peas completely failed and even courgettes suffered from too much rain. Potatoes were small and low quality, too wet.
We had 10 weeks of continuous rain here... it was unreal. Greenhouse temps rarely got over 25c due to all the overcast and drizzly days, started to become concerned about moisture related disease due to being unable to get anything to dry out but the greenhouse tomatoes all seemed to shrug it off despite near constant very high humidity.
Wild raspberries, blackberries, bilberries and lingonberries seemed to love the wet though, absolutely no issues finding them and I brought home many kilograms of fruit every time. More than I could use, lots still in the freezer.
What sort of greenhouse do you have? I've been thinking about getting one maybe.
Did you get any flooding with that much rain?
Sorry for the very slow reply, I've not been on Tildes enough.
It's a lean to greenhouse I built, 2400mm (8ft) x 1524mm (5ft). One wall is shelves, two walls have long deep planters for tomatoes and the other wall has the door.
No flooding, I live high enough up the hill but just terrible crop yields this year, farmers have really struggled due to waterlogged fields. Has been the same in Ireland I hear.
The bad parts: We, uh, kind of forgot fertilization was a thing this year. Most of the plants weren't happy about it. We got three apples and two strawberries, all of which were eaten by wildlife, and two peppers from a plant that I thought was a bell pepper plant but is actually some other much spicier pepper (delicious, but I can't use it for anything I cook because my partner doesn't do spicy food). Chickpeas grew, but I got probably about a single serving over the entire growing season.
The good parts: We did get a couple of months of decent cucumbers, and the yellow pear tomato plants are still spitting tomatoes everywhere. The quarter of a garden bed that's mostly covered in immortal thyme is still thriving. We covered the beds in the heaviest landscaping fabric we could find this year, which has really cut down on the amount of weeds that find their way in there.
Next year we're considering a swarm of praying mantii for insect control (and because we think they're neat). They usually don't eat ants, though, so we'll probably have to do something else in addition. Also maybe little greenhouses over the garden beds?
I think it was a good year for gardening, either that or it was the horse manure and no interruptions in watering for once.
After digging them out of the weeds, which I learned later was american nightshade, I found the Jalapenos were covered with tons of peppers and had to prop them up, the green beans were prolific as usual, cucumbers and zucchini grew well, giant sunflowers grew a good 2 feet longer than normal, but unfortunately toppled over early (soil was too soft) and the cucumbers didn't climb them on their own like I hoped they would, also plenty of tomatoes and small, but tasty strawberries.
I was disappointed the squash plants caught powdery mildew earlier than normal, but that was my fault. I changed up my watering method to a simple soaker hose, but apparently need to lower the pressure so it doesn't spray water on the squash which lead to the mildew issues. I think the soaker hose worked out well for ensuring even water so I'll use a 10psi reducer next year and see how well it does.
Tomatoes were a bit of an issue as I wasn't there to prune and keep them in their cage, one of them practically turned into ground cover, though it was a grape type so not really an issue. I'll have to teach someone to keep those trimmed and trained next year.
This garden is at my sister's and no one there is a gardener... yet. Harvesting is the best they can do for now so it's setup to be low maintenance only needing me to stop by to weed and sometimes adjust the timer. One of the kids shows promise though, should be heavy/strong enough to turn dirt next year too. ^_^
I didn't have the time for my balcony garden this year. Luckily I planted chamomile a few years ago that self plants in all my planters every year so there's chamomile tea at least. :)
Pretty good! I kept things pretty basic this year and had a hard start, initially, as I wasn't watering properly, so the pumpkin I had planted died, but that was all.
My Jalapeno's did great; I harvested a whole bunch of them off of my one plant and pickled most of it, then seeded and froze the rest.
My Bell Peppers also did great, for the first time ever. I got many large fruits and several smaller ones; I also seeded these, chopped them up and froze them.
I'm overwhelmed with cucumbers. My garage fridge is absolutely packed with pickles and I can't give them away fast enough; but I'll be in pickles all through winter. That said, either my soil is bad or the heat cycling and high heat really fucked them up this year, because they were immensely bitter, even taking off the skin. There were several days this summer where the entire plant would just wilt in the afternoon heat; perhaps it needed more water in the morning or I should have given it an afternoon watering?
Cherry tomatoes did great. They're sweet and delicious, the perfect size. I didn't use a cage to keep them upright, so they've kind of sprawled, so a bit of a hassle to pick.
Unfortunately, for the 4th year in a row, I didn't get any asparagus! It finally matured last year, if I remember right, but so far, last year and this year, something has happened where I've been unable to harvest it. This year, my brother in law, who weeded my garden before I planted it, pulled it out as a weed because I forgot to mention it was there. The plant still survives, but I'm disappointed I didn't get to harvest it again.
My Basil has gone crazy and I've been on top of it to keep it from bolting. I've already clipped and rooted several sprigs from it, so I'm intending to get those in a pot sooner or later so I can have basil year round. Next step is to go harvest as much as I can from garden and then dry it out and jar it for seasoning.