What'd you do in your garden today?

[garden5]

HG and RG, thanks for the explanation. Do people grow them mainly for the floral aspect or for the edible aspect?

DDF, thanks for the link.

Darn it, Soil! You are making me hungry. All of those berry plants you have sound delicious! I'm sure you have blueberries, as well, don't you?

I was going to ask why you potted the strawberry runners when you were just going to plant them in the garden, but then it occurred to me that you probably want them in a certain area.

From your last post, I'm assuming that the time to propagate berry plants is late fall? Of course, I get snow by Dec., so it may be different for me.

I really want to do strawberries next year, so I'm trying to glean all the info I can about them right now (as you've probably noticed).

[tedln]

I spent the day collecting all the potting soil my wife grows flowers in. I put all of it into one large container, add organic fertilizer and other organic materials to replace nutrients and minerals depleted during the summer. I let the pile age and stabilize over the winter and use it again next year. I do it every year and the flowers my wife grows love it.

I also started placing paving stones between my garden beds. I get tired of walking in mud during rainy periods as I work on my beds.

Ted

[applestar]

Paving stone pathways -- I wonder if that will result in

>> MULCHING EFFECT=Cooler and moisture retention in soil in the paths -- benefit the plants in the raised beds?
>> More heat reflecting up?
>> Warming up earlier in spring due to thermal mass?
>> Sustained heat during the summer?

[soil]

Darn it, Soil! You are making me hungry. All of those berry plants you have sound delicious! I'm sure you have blueberries, as well, don't you?

haha yea 4 varieties. each finishing at a different time so eat blueberries for breakfast for weeks on end.

I was going to ask why you potted the strawberry runners when you were just going to plant them in the garden, but then it occurred to me that you probably want them in a certain area.

both. if every runner rooted the area would become quite congested, eventually the patch can get so thick the fruit gets this moldy rot. so i root the runners, plant them where i want more strawberries, give them away, or sell them. when the plants have space they produce a lot better imo. i get them about 8-10 inches apart, but i have various other things growing in that space like chamomile for example.

From your last post, I'm assuming that the time to propagate berry plants is late fall? Of course, I get snow by Dec., so it may be different for me.

you could probably still do it, though i suspect for heavy snowfall the fall would be best, but spring is an option. the only problem with that is that you don't have established plants to plant in the spring(though fall planting is smart) you just bend over a branch that just fruited, take the leaves off the tip, stick it in a pot. in a few weeks itl root. let it get a nice root system then cut it from the mother at the base of the cane. plant in spring or fall for more delicious berries.

[tedln]

Applestar,

The paving stones don't have any scientific basis. They just keep the wife from getting mad at me when I track mud into the house. When she asks me why I paved the area around the beds, I will give her the technical reasons you provided. Thank You!

Ted

[jal_ut]

when the plants have space they produce a lot better imo.

I have been preaching that forever regarding all plants. I am glad someone agrees with me.

Just to keep this on topic, today I went out and looked at my garden. It has been a bit warmer for a few days and the snow is melting. I actually have a bit of bare ground. Alas, still almost 4 months before I can plant.

[Sani]

my tomato plants are getting taller so I tied the top stems to the bamboo stake after watering.

[!potatoes!]

as of saturday:

last harvest: dug my oca, my chufa, and my two last yacon plants. another year of experimentation with perennial rootcrops comes to a close.

[Sani]

up-potted 10 tomato plants and 10 basils, also pruned and staked accordingly.

[tedln]

as of saturday:

last harvest: dug my oca, my chufa, and my two last yacon plants. another year of experimentation with perennial rootcrops comes to a close.

t

What do you do with the Chufa? I'm only familiar with it as an attractant crop for wild turkeys which dig and eat it's tubers.

Ted

[!potatoes!]

this will give ammunition to my wife's suggestion that I'm a turkey, but i dig and eat the tubers. they're awful hard fresh, but soften with cooking (texture is still crunchy/kinda crystalline, flavor is sweet and mild)...I'm told that the original recipe for horchata used these 'tiger nuts'...though i haven't used them for that. mostly as an ingredient in soups or casseroles (also stuffing for thanksgiving - but i think that counts as a casserole)...

just something I'm looking at as i diversify my perennial food options. this was the first year i grew them. never had a problem with wild turkeys getting into them, either, though there's lots of the big birds around here. will likely do five times as much next year. they do taste good, and are not quite as much a pain to clean as i had been led to believe.

[Odd Duck]

as of saturday:

last harvest: dug my oca, my chufa, and my two last yacon plants. another year of experimentation with perennial rootcrops comes to a close.

Dang it! Now there's MORE stuff I've just got to try!

It sounds like the oca isn't going to like my heat, though, so that leaves the chufa and the yacon. Do you have varieties you can recommend? I'm reading that it's hard to find anything but the white yacon in the USA.

I'm also reading about the larger, Spanish varieties of chufa, but I'm having trouble finding anything to purchase but the smaller, native chufa.

Where did you get yours, what varieties have you tried (if you found more than one) and which would you recommend (if you've had a chance to find more than one)?

[soil]

dug three 15' swales and a 15' hugelkultur bed. im beat! bring on the rain now.

[thanrose]

While I didn't actually do anything, I surveyed the freeze damage we Floridians have been complaining about. My edible ginger hung on forever this year, the leaf tips had just started yellowing when the couple hours of freeze hit. The thing is, if I trim away all the wilted greenery, and we get another freeze, it will damage the ginger rhizomes or the base of the impatiens and crossandra. So I leave the dead, prostrate stems and greenery to shroud the roots. I've had the same freaking impatiens for the last five years. Maybe 3-4 freezes last winter, and a few over the previous years.

My malanga is wilted to the ground, but I expect the corms to be just fine. Not eating them this year. I just like growing them, but will probably eat some next fall. The freeze is nothing like the hard freezes you northerners get. It wouldn't occur to anyone here that the ground could actually freeze solid for a few inches. Mud season is completely unfathomable once you've lived here for a while. Hibiscus next to the house is producing tiny blooms, maybe two inches across, one every other week or so. It froze to the ground last winter. Mosquitoes are definitely snowbirds. Stiff and slow, and they whine with a New York accent. (Probably hatched in my lanai's aquarium. My bad.)

Oh, I cut some cedar and arborvitae for Christmas, in a pot with sprays of scrub pine cones at my front step. I hate bringing my potted poinsettia in during the holidays. It just starts to put on great bracts and now it's too cold for it to sit outside overnight.

[Francis Barnswallow]

I took the sheets off my garden today. Not much freeze damage.