Applestar’s 2023 Garden

[Gary350]

I did a quick look and I don’t see availability either.

Hopefully this year’s harvested seeds will become available by the time I need to start them sometime in March or April. But I appreciate the heads up. I’ll be sure to buy those early, just as soon as I start to see new season offerings.

Every year winter comes and it seems like April is 30 months away. Then garden fun seems like it is very short.

[applestar]

Haha you are so right!

[imafan26]

For me April 30th is very far away. My cool season garden is just getting started.

[applestar]

I’m trying to apply what I learned from last year’s failures in fall gardening. For one, I’m definitely feeling the Japanese farmer’s proverb “one fall day is equal to 7 spring days” …meaning you lose 7 days of growth if you delay one day to plant for the fall garden.

Since much of the guiding Youtube videos I watch are based in regions that are Zone 7-9 equivalent, I’m already running late for planting some crops.

Even while trying to implement accelerating planting plans, I had to re-think my priorities this morning and switch crops and planting locations.

Since I’m trying to compensate for the earlier arrival of cooler/colder weather with season extending techniques and structures like black eco-poly mulch, low hoop tunnels, and the high hoophouse, I do have some wiggle room, I think.

— Today, I re-distributed the Komatsuna under the little insect mesh tunnel … this is where some of the garlic is going to be planted later but that won’t be until 3rd week of October~Early November.

— I had originally intended to transplant the Komatsuna in VGC.R1 mint-green insect mesh tunnel with the Korean Cheong Du daikon (thinned/culled to 2 or 3 per hole), but changed direction and planted the two leftover Mini Napa #2 plus transplanted the Minuet napa from the little insect mesh tunnel instead.

VGC.R1 Fall planting completed

— It turned out that a couple of those side holes DID have lettuce and carrots that sprouted. I also planted leftover beets (Touchstone Gold, Detroit Gold, and Bulls Blood mix) in the end holes


— For whatever reason, the Kaho watermelon vines that had lost/harvested fruits decided to go ahead and produce more female blossoms — weather? some kind of fertilizer that I applied? I have no idea. There were 3 female blossoms that I hand pollinated and one insect pollinated that had already set fruit yesterday,

Kaho (3+1)

and there were two more female blossoms today that I hand pollinated.

Kaho (2)

…It’s not likely that any of these will succeed since we’re already past any real chance of overnight temps over 70°F that melons prefer.

weather forecast

But I’ll start by surrounding the watermelon trellis with breathable windbreak — just insect mesh or combined with non-woven cloth on the north side to start with, and later pushing the envelope a bit with vented poly. (Difficulty here is the increased tendency to fungal diseases when airflow is restricted)

…BUT the expected ETA for these are way way too far in the future and later into Fall weather

Pollination Table

Blacktail Mountain

— Thinned/culled this Spiral Garden insect mesh low tunnel of daikon, turnip, beets, carrots today as well. I think most of these are on track for fall harvest (except maybe for carrots— I need to work on my carrot growing techniques )

SG insect mesh low tunnel

…although the house shadow encroaches quickly here and they may not be getting enough sun — if these don’t make it, I think the loss of sun exposure due to lower sun angle would be the most likely bottom line cause.

[applestar]

BTW — in each of the insect mesh tunnel covered beds I dug around in,

(1) earthworms turned up and squirmed away from where I was digging

(2) FINALLY! no sign of small black flies which I think might be leafminer adults — initially came up from the ground then repeatedly life-cycled INSIDE— I had been slapping hands over hoop corners on either end of the insect mesh covered tunnels to kill them, opening the mesh cover to release (get rid of) them, as well as spraying home made insecticidal soap (neem oil infused canola oil, baking soda and liquid soap + hot pepper and garlic infused vinegar) solution through and on the mesh to eliminate them

(3) NO cabbageworms or cabbage moth caterpillars. One small, less than 1”cutworms in two of the beds; one tiny 1/2” black caterpillar found on underside of mini napa seedling leaf that was being eaten.

(4) NO slugs or snails

(5) ground spiders trying to avoid where I was working in the two bigger beds

(6) ONE white cabbage butterfly that came by while I was working with the tunnel mesh off but I made sure it didn’t get on any of the brassicas, and there was none inside when I covered up again

[applestar]

I thought maybe since the garden is starting to wind down, I might cut back to every other day gardening. I used to do that when my health was sub-par.

This year, I’m feeling well enough to push myself to go outside at least, mostly every day, sometimes by assuring myself that I only have to do one or two critical things.

So far, I’ve managed to stick it out and also find additional tasks that needed to get done.

More often than not, there ARE critical tasks every day, including as it turns out, NOT missing a harvesting window that would have made the difference between good quality harvest vs. lesser quality or even loss, or spotting and eradicating a devastating pest, etc… or to provide care to the garden at critical stages in development.

Case in point —

* I’ve been keeping an eye on this big watermelon that has been developing on the Kaho personal (hand) size watermelon trellis. It’s most likely one of the older seeds that surprised me by sprouting (I toss older seeds in among the new when starting them but don’t always keep track). Maybe an Orangeglo?

Trouble is, the tendril still hasn’t dried out (green circle), but it developed a watery spoilage after we had heavy rains. But according to my pollination-fruit set-harvest calculation table, it was estimated to have been at harvest stage between 9/10~9/14 (today).

2.5 gallon bucket for size reference. I’ll cut it open when family is together today to see what it looks like inside and if it’s any good.

NOT Kaho; fall watermelons?

Yellow circles show those 4 female blossoms — one definitely didn’t make it. The blossoms were waterlogged from the rain on the others — I’ll check today to see if they ended up causing the embryo to rot on these as well.

— Top left photo is that daikon and napa tunnel. Looks like they settled nicely. Bottom right shows where I tried planting some beet seedlings along the front edge of VGB cherry tomato bed.

— Sometimes it’s tough to choose between caring/helping grow and develop vs. letting go/culling of struggling summer crop and transitioning to the fall garden.

Meeting and working around the ideal timing to start the fall harvesting crop is critical too, especially since they struggle to get going in the summer heat.

* I might have given up on the big fruited tomatoes, but decided to see which one of them will reset after the worst heat was over and resume growth and production. I think if I’d left it for another day, this Tidwell German tomato that was growing over my head might not have looked as good.

* Country Gentleman corn was trying but had no pollinating tassels left at all, neither here nor in the VGC bed on the other side of the house for me to collect and hand pollinate.

There were half dozen to maybe 8 immature cobs that tried to develop but couldn’t be pollinated AND most of their silks had been chewed off by grass hoppers and katydids.

Time to cut them all down to rebuild the soil in this bed as well as to let more sun reach the squashes and peppers that are being more productive.

Tidwell German; Country Gentleman fail; Fall peas, cabbages, napa (and nemesis), carrots

* Only 4 sugar snap pea vines managed to sprout and grow in the summer heat, but they have started to bloom and are on track for providing some edibles before frost
* Alcosa mini cabbages are estimated to become ready to harvest around beginning of October.
* Some unknown menace was causing critical damage to the seedlings inside the Sunflower Hoophouse, but it revealed itself and made a fatal mistake by wandering around on the black eco poly mulch
* I didn’t think these carrots seedlings would ever sprout

[applestar]

Well, it WASN’T Orangeglo. And to all appearances based on these representative reference photos, this looks like a Kaho. But there’s no way it would have been ripe 25 days ago (when a Kaho is supposed to be ready) even though when cut open on 9/15 after two days in the fridge, it was overripe and watery.

Taking away the added extra 7 days (which accounts for reduced daylight hours and lowered fall temperatures), it’s reasonable to assume it would have been at the better/best harvesting stage a week to 10 days ago, meaning it needed the 50 days post-pollination/flowering for large fruited watermelons.

2C289BCE-6E6D-4D39-9E70-0F69A4441E47.jpeg (81.14 KiB) Viewed 682 times

Even in spite of the waterliness and overripe crumbly texture, it tasted good and sweet, at least as good as what we get from the grocery store. So while I’m bummed about missing the harvest timing — I thought the tendril browning was fool-proof sign — I’m excited to save seeds and try again next year.

[imafan26]

The watery problem may not have been a ripening issue, but a rain issue. If it rains at the wrong time the melons will get watery and even crack.

[applestar]

You’re right about that. I’m sure it would have been a lot less water soaked just one day before… but I really thought the dried tendril had to happen for it to be decently ripe, even though I thought I was seeing other indications that it had reached ripeness.

Re: the above photo series, I’d noticed the colors had started to fade and yellow on Sept. 4, and had been nervously and obsessively checking it, taking pics so I could compare….

The three others I had fell off the vine while a lot smaller (and not ripe). Hopefully, I’ll manage to grow more full sized fruits next year. (Definitely enclosing the fruits and stem attachment in fruit bags.

Since I suspect sucking pest damage on young fruits, actually I’ll probably use tightly woven nylon mesh drawstring produce bags — what I usually use to enclose entire cherry and berry fruit clusters on branches.

[applestar]

From Friday —
- Turmeric is blooming (it needs to be uppotted)
- 2 dead and 4 viable female Kaho blossoms that appear to have set fruit
- view of VGA (Vegetable Gardenbed A and Chicago Hardy fig bush espalier with the windbreak made of fleece on the north side and vented poly on the south side (There’s perceptible difference — warmer — when standing in the cuke-side path inside the fleece windbreak.)
- VGC and VGD

VGA windbreak

Harvest Collage from this week —

Harvest Collage 9/20~9/16

Reliable annual fall perennial crop harvest of figs and persimmons, myoga flowerbuds and raspberries have started, red shiso/perilla … corn from VGC…

9/11, 9/13, and 9/16 — big fruited tomatoes ripening above my head on the trellis in Haybale Row — Caspian Pink, Tidwell German, and George’s Greek Beefsteak PL F4
9/13 Kaho watermelon,

* Same Assasinbug as the ones deployed as eggs among Winter Indoor Garden and outside garden in spring . (It had caught a sweatbee on a pepper in the Spiral Garden … one of the beneficial pollinators and unfortunately not “a small black fly, possibly a leaf miner” as I originally thought, but the Assassinbug doesn’t discriminate….

9/13, 9/16 — small fruit clusters of 2ndary growth elderberries were not receiving attention from wild birds so I claimed them to add to my modest jar of elderberry syrup
9/15 Greek Sweet Red #4 had fallen off and was on the ground … should have tied by neck to the trellis ( It looks like overnight windstorm flapping the big leaves around lifted the vine around and fruit fell out of it’s hammock, dragging the vine down with it. Secured #5 today as precaution. )

9/16 White Marseille fig cuttings to propagate indoors

[applestar]

Weather has cooled down with 50’s nighttime and 70’s daytime temps. And the Autumn rains seem to have arrived.

It’s time to consider pulling the plug on summer crops that are struggling from senility and fungal issues, and either prep the bed for anything that can be planted now, or for overwinter enrichment regimen and early spring planting.

My medium and large fruited tomatoes in Haybale Row (HBR) struggled from the excessive heat over the summer, skipping fruitset on several floral trusses to blossomdrop or barely eeking out stunted runty fruits.

When the weather started to cool around early to mid August, some of them resumed growth and are now ripening fruits at the top of the trellis, over my head.

Others continued to struggle from fungal issues (septoria and early blight), shriveled up and died, and yet others have given up on the upper growths, reset and are starting new and seemingly healthy/fungal resistant new shoots FROM THE BASE OF THE PLANT.

…I’m so conflicted because these are trying their best, but realistically, we’re out of time. This is not the spring 70’s/50’s that will be followed by the summer 80’s~90’s/upper 60’s~70’s that tomatoes favor for maturing and ripening fruits.

On the average, it takes about 45 days from blossom to harvest for large fruited varieties. That’s …end of October~early November when first frost is expected, with accompanying temperatures.

…Maybe if I build a tunnel over them and protect them with fleece and vented poly…

Yeah… No, I don’t think it’s worth trying to keep these going…. Better to yank off this scab and PULL the little ones even though I had pruned the dried up upper stem and wrapped the new young shoots up the strings to support them.

This way, the fruiting ones can be given priority to finish growing the green fruits and ripen them, without competing with the stragglers and also be freed from potential fungal issues emanating from them as well.

[applestar]

For the past couple of years, I haven’t been able to pay attention to taking care of the Prok persimmon tree beyond harvesting — no pruning of heavier branches in winter dormancy, and no culling if excessive summer greenwood growths.

As a result, the tree is overgrown with multiple upward shoots, so much so that I half expected poor fruitset, poor fruit size, and poor harvest this year.

In fact, it really didn’t seem as though there were more than a dozen or so green fruits visible all summer.

Prok

But it seems my concern was needless.

There has been steady, plentiful harvest (9 today, if you’re curious). So far the family has been able to keep up, but I’m going to have to research processing extras into fruit leathers or something within a couple of days, I think.

Hopefully, I’ll be up to making some thinning cuts later this fall after harvest (am already pulling off thinner non-essential branches as I harvest), and maybe I can try to work up the ambition to cut down the highest limbs so I don’t have to be climbing to the top of the ladder after the highest hanging fruits….

~~~

Blacktail Mountain

One of the two Blacktail Mountain watermelons, while runty, has a tendril that has started to brown — it’s the one on a brick. According to my pollination chart, IF this variety follows the Japanese standard for personal size watermelons, one should have been ready two days ago, and the other one’s ETA was today. I think I’ll might go ahead and harvest it tomorrow.

~~~

Update on Kaho

Kaho

~~~

VGC and VGD

It was 51°F this morning, and I’m getting nervous.

* I’ve given the ginger in VGD an “andon lantern” style windbreak. Two of the biggest clumps had sent up floral stalks.

* Cell tray started Beets need to be planted in time, too. I pulled out some more mini carrots from the VG.SIP container and transplanted a few more beet seedlings.

* The daikon/mini napa row in VGC got layered with a vented poly today to push the warmth a bit. These need to be encouraged to maintain rapid growth in the early stages to achieve root bulking and heading stage before temperatures get too cold.

~~~

SG.daikon/turnip tunnel

With the house shadow blocking the lower angle sun, the insect mesh covering the Spiral Garden arc daikon/turnip tunnel needed to be upgraded — I had been using two pieces that were too narrow and compensating by overlapping (which acted to provide just a bit more overhead shade in the late August/early September heatwaves), but now, I want them to get more sunlight when they can.

Culled/harvested while the cover was off, and got a little Tokinashi turnip as well as undeveloped Scarlet Ohno revival turnip and Bora King daikon, etc.

[applestar]

I couldn’t make it outside yesterday even though I knew I really should have, with several days of rain in the forecast.

Ended up in a hooded windbreaker in cold and heavy rain this morning gathering up the harvest including the two runty Blacktail Mountain watermelons since their tendrils had turned brown, the two Nutterbutter butternut squashes since their vines started to dry up, some tomatoes, a handful of figs, and a baker’s dozen of ripe persimmons.

I think there were one or two more pretty high up in the tree, but between the inadvisable prospect of climbing up a wet ladder, and impossibility of aiming and manipulating my DIY bamboo pole + 2L soda bottle persimmon picker by looking up in the rain while wearing glasses — did you know the glasses, already rain spotted and blurry, becomes completely fogged up when you’re trying to peer up through wind whipped branches… apparently due to your steamy eyes? — I gave up.

My iPhone fell out of the windbreaker pocket twice and landed in puddles, giving me mini heart attacks. I had been listening to an audiobook while outside, and, having come back inside soaked and cold, had a momentary panic when the AirPod Pro case wasn’t in the windbreaker pocket I *thought* it was in, thinking I’d dropped it out there somewhere… (It was in another pocket.)

Was kind of wiped out after all that effort all day. Drearily miserable weather didn’t help.

[applestar]

Last week’s harvest collage —

— these beets are almost ready
— Trifoliate Orange ‘Flying Dragon’ starting to color
— Chicago Hardy and White Marseille figs with insect mesh windbreak

[applestar]

Went to go see my mom at her AL today. I always try to take something she might enjoy to eat, special green teas that are not standard offerings from their dining room, etc.

My mom grew up in a rural southwestern part of Japan, and I knew they had fig trees and persimmon trees in their garden.

So I packed some of my Prok persimmons and Chicago Hardy figs for her, as well as some myoga flower buds, ginger roots, sea lsalt preserved wilted red shiso (perilla) leaves and young flower/seed stalks …and 6 kinds of tea (hojicha, kukicha, yuzu bancha, jasmine green, oolong). And added some rice vinegar in a small jar and powdered seasoned broth base made of dried flying fish and powdered soy sauce to make overnight pickle dish with the myoga.

When I told her on the phone that I was bringing persimmons and figs, she was delighted, and said she hadn’t eaten any in several years (not sure if that’s true as I’m pretty sure I’ve shared with her some every fall LOL).

I made sure to explain to her that mine were going to be different from her expectations since I knew the persimmons and figs from where she grew up were the southern varieties and mine are the northern winter hardy varieties. She opened the clear clamshell and ate three figs and two persimmons right away, regretfully touching the others and saying they were still firm and not ready to eat.

She looked like a little girl. It was a good visit.

[applestar]

When I have a (self) mandated activity planned, I have to strictly discipline myself (for minimum the previous day and the day of) to restrict energy expenditure, chemical exposure and food choices that might trigger inflammation and fatigue, to preserve energy reserves above necessary threshold for driving and conduct a successful outing. (My daughters jokingly refer to this as my need to maintain “health points” and “power modules” like a video game.)

So no gardening yesterday morning, but I did find these three ripe fruits among the (zone container ‘Petit Negra’ figs in front of the garage when I came home.

These have thicker skin than ‘Chicago Hardy,’ but are sweeter and more jam-like, and is my DD1’s favorite.

This year, it seems like their fruits are mostly as big as the in-ground ‘Chicago Hardy’ — maybe the summer pruning technique to remove unnecesssry branches/new shoots, and to concentrate energy to the fruits for earlier ripening is helping?

— I’m thinking of propagating ‘White Marseilles’ and overwintering them with these other container figs as alternative attempt to get them fruiting.


…Later, I was tired with more leg and back pain than usual. When I checked my iPhone’s health app, it turned out that I’d walked more — nearly twice as much than I do on the average in the garden — just from having to park at the farthest end of the parking lot, and walking to mom’s apartment at the end of the wing.

In fact, when I’d reached the front portico on my way out and realized I’d forgotten my umbrella — yeah it was drizzling all day yesterday, which I’m sure didn’t help — I had to ask mom (who had walked me to the door) to go back upstairs and get it while I sat in the lobby….

I have to check on the garden, but will be taking it easy today, I think… we’ll see.

[applestar]

So, we had COVID vaccination appointment around lunchtime, and I had to restrain myself, but I did need to get out in the garden and look everything over, harvest, etc. this morning, after missing TWO days.

Right away, something was odd, because the cyan colored coverpot I had placed over the yellow jacket ground nest in the Apple Guild strawberry bed had been knocked over. Approaching closer, I could see it wasn’t an odd gust of wind, etc. — something had been digging both the main entrance as well as from the outside of the heavy fence post border … pretty deep, too.

I saw two yellow jackets that seemed still, but I wasn’t about to get any closer to find out if they were dead or cold due to the 48°F early morning temp.

Raided Yellow Jacket nest

… I took pics and then went on to the Vegetabke Garden area, where I spotted these paw prints in the soft mud.

VG area paw prints

There were some wilted watermelon vines that may mean the critters — raccoons, right? — might have climbed around, though they didn’t touch the 4 baby Kaho fruits — and possible trail in the comfrey patch around the apple tree leading to the back of the property.

I was wondering if this meant I didn’t have to deal with the yellow jacket nest after temps fall down to the 40’s as I had planned, but those two wasps were gone when I passed the raided nest again…. (DD1 suggested taking the opportunity to toss more DE in the two dug up holes so I might go that tomorrow.


When I went to the Side Yard Garden area on the other side if the house, there were more paw prints — and these were larger, clearly opposable thumb’d prints of adult raccoons.

SIDE Yard Garden raccoon prints

…I didn’t really see signs of them having raided anything in the vegetable beds.

There WERE three persimmons on the ground and one was definitely gnawed on, one might have been scratched off the tree…, but 7 more ripe fruits still in the tree for me to climb the ladder and wave my fruit picker around to get at. And I also harvested 9 (CH) + 3 (PN) ripe figs.

Still, now that they had a taste….?

[applestar]

I posted the above with raccoons as being the obvious to have dug up the yellow jacket nest, but this morning, I did a search and it turns out there are many mentions of this, including a number of videos.

They must have thought they’d found a special treat!

[applestar]

Will come back and add more detailed text to explain thes photos later

ETA:

* Greek Sweet Red squashes — there are 4. The double is shown from another view to show one of them is most advanced and turning orange.

* Sweet pepper arc

* Harvested this Scarlet Ohno turnip. It’s was originally a Hokkaido heirloom, so I made an overnight sweet vinegar refrigerator pickles with it, based on a local recipe. I did tweak it to also include white Tokinashi turnip, some sliced myoga, as well as a spotty Kaho watermelon that had to be culled, so premature that it had white soft seeds like a cucumber.
…I just tried some and it is yummy.

* Some pics from the SFHH. The path is waterlogged with soft sucking mud… but the beds are mounded so hopefully not affected. Fungal issues are exploding though.

——
Harvest Collage.
9/25 big cucumber is actually an H-19 Littleleaf. The one I was growing to maturity for seeds, but fell down and broke off the vine. Hoping it’s reached seed maturity. I have it wrapped in paper with the butternuts that had been harvested.

Harvest Collage

* I should have taken nite pics of “Audrey” from different angles. Can you see the resemblance? ( Hint: Little Shop of Horrors reference)

After looking at these pics of White Marseilles fig branches and hoping those bumps are baby figs, but thinking there’s not enough time before frost… I was looking at the container fig photos above, and am thinking the one container that is slowest with hard little green figs might just be White Marseilles….

White Marseilles maybe finally showing nubs of figs development?

—— Sunflower Hoophouse … things are happening

SFHH update

[applestar]

White Marseilles?

[applestar]

I might have harvested the last of the persimmons for this year yesterday. Didn’t see any in the tree today — couldn’t spot any green ones either.

Have cleaned up Kaho watermelon vines after culling the last spotty one yesterday. But these immature fruits with soft white seeds make good sweet vinegar pickles when peeled, so I’m not completely disappointed.

I wanted to sow covercrops in the cleaned up corn beds, but couldn’t find my stash of seeds. So, I tried sowing some storebought organic purple hulless barley grains. Not sure if these will sprout, but at least I got some seeds in the dirt.

Trifoliate Orange ‘Flying Dragon’ fruits have ripened enough to start harvesting.

‘Flying Dragon’

Some of these first fruits are bigger than previous years. Not sure if it’s due to the tree growing or because I really let it go — need to prune and shape.

Some of the anticipated Fall Garden crops

[Gary350]

I might have harvested the last of the persimmons for this year yesterday. Didn’t see any in the tree today — couldn’t spot any green ones either.

Have you had frost already? Do your persimmons get ripe before frost? I wonder if there are several types of persimmon trees? Put them in the freezer they get riper. My grandmother had a wild persimmon tree in the back yard they were only ripe & sweet after a hard frost she picked up all the ripe persimmons off of the soil and never picked any from the tree. Our local college has a very large persimmon tree next to the parking lot when I lived 1 minute from there I use to go pick up persimmons every morning before students stepped on all of them. Wild persimmons get hard as a board when cooked and loose all there flavor. They make very good Jam using the cold recipe.

[applestar]

@Gary350

Most commonly available and familiar Asian persimmons are only hardy to Zone 8 and with some extra hardiness, Zone 7.

For my area in Zone 6 the persimmon I can grow are northern American wild and cultivated persimmons (or hybridized varieties crossed with Siberian varieties)*.

Mine is called ‘Prok’, selected from American species by a botanist researcher in New York state

North Carolina Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox
https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu › plants
Diospyros virginiana 'Prok' (Prok Common Persimmon)
'Prok' is rated as one of the best tasting American persimmons.

A seedling from the Cornell University breeding program grown out by John Gordon of Amherst NY. This early ripening cultivar is recommended for growers on the northern edge of the persimmon growing region. Fruit measures 2.5 to 3", large for an American persimmon.
https://www.treepeony.com › prok-...
Diospyros, 'Prok' American persimmon - Cricket Hill Garden

— it’s said to be larger fruited than the more common ‘Meader’ persimmon, or another variety that was considered called ‘Yates’. and moreover, is able to fruit on one tree and does not require female and male trees — trees that primarily grow female blossoms and primarily grow male blossoms.

Mine has usually one seed per fruit, occasionally as many as 3. I don’t know the explanation. I do know there are wild ‘Meader’ type persimmon trees (flatter, tomato-like fruit shape compares to the more taller than wide fruit shape of ‘Prok’) in the area— maybe about 1/2 mile away, and possibly somewhere in the woods beyond the back of the property but not immediately in the area. So maybe “today is persimmon day!” honeybees have made visits to my tree on same day as those other trees?

I believe ‘Meader’ might the kind you are thinking of — they don’t ripen until frost. But ‘Prok’ ripens earlier and is pretty much done with ripe fruits by first frost… although more accurately, THIS time of the season used to be when we USED to get the first frost… mid-October with occasional surprises in early October.

If the kind your grandmother used to pick were larger than ping pong ball to golf ball sized, then they were probably the Asian type of “shibu” (astringent) persimmons. In Japan, they are inedible unless after frost and/or are processed into frosted/wilted sweet dehydrated fruits by tying on strings and hanging outdoors out of rain but exposed to the winter temperatures.

…
* Oh look. As usual I went to verify my memory and I was wrong— the variety I was thinking of is called ‘Nikita’s Gift’ and here’s a blurb —

One Green World
https://onegreenworld.com › product
Nikita's Gift™ Hybrid Persimmon
Nikita's Gift™ Hybrid Persimmon is from the Nikita Botanic Garden in Yalta, Ukraine

There is apparently another hybrid that has become available as well —

Growing Fruit
https://growingfruit.org › hybrid-pe...
Hybrid persimmon Dar Sofiyivky
Oct 6, 2022 — A new star from Ukraine is called Dar Sofiyivky (Gift of Sofiivka)

[Gary350]

Persimmons on college campus look like this picture. My grandmothers persimmons looked the same. Both are about ping pong ball side with 1 seed. I know nothing about other type persimmons.

In grade school kids would bring unripe persimmons to school then tell kids that don't know better how good persimmons taste to get them to bite down on a persimmon. If you bite down on an unripe persimmon it makes you pucker up so bad you can't spit it out for 15 minutes. That was a mean prank I am glad I knew about persimmons.

[applestar]

Yeah, you HAVE to let them ripen until they are like jam. Prok retains some of the astringency in the very thin skin and in undeveloped seeds, so you don’t want to bite into those. Sure is messy eating, but they sure are yummy.

[applestar]

I squeezed some of the ‘Flying Dragon’ to save the juice.

It’s taken me several tries and failures over the years, but I think I’m finally getting the hang of how to use these fruits.

They are lemony tart. And due to excessive resin, you don’t want to cut into the pithy center. Very seedy, too. So best to cut to just under the skin and circle all around.

None of the citrus reamer type juicing tools work well — they get covered in gummy resin.

I squeezed by hand, pushing the seeds out,
(1) strained the juice and combined with equal weight of cane sugar in a jar. I’m going to keep adding to this jar to make a stock of lemony ‘Flying Dragon’ syrup. Ultimately will be boiled and bottled, but will keep in the fridge for now.

(2) I rinsed the seeds and saved the water, put the rind in a pitcher of cold water and soaked, then poured off the combined water into a sauce pan, added 33% by volume of sugar and simmered until dissolved. This turned out to be excellent “lemonade”.
(3) I put the used up rind in a 1/2 gal canning jar and added white vinegar to extract the remaining citrus essence and some of the astringent resin to use for personal and cleaning products.
(4) I tried to dehydrate the seeds with the toaster oven dehydrate setting, but they haven’t dried. I’ll have to try again tomorrow. I might roast them until black — this makes a Chinese medicine remedy, but not sure if I will.
———
I also made ginger syrup with the previously harvested ginger roots. It’s a very simple recipe — scrub ginger well, slice and toss with equal part cane sugar for 1~1.5 hrs. Add another equal part (so 1:1:1) water, along with some lemon slices, cinnamon stick and cloves, simmer until reduced and shiny, somewhat syrupy. Strain and preserve on sterilized bottle or jar in fridge.

I used ground cinnamon and cloves and strained out with tea strainer. Used ‘Flying Dragon’ juice only.

Dilute with sparkling water to make ginger-ale. It’s yummy!

…Am thinking of trying similar process but substituting sea salt….

——

I went out between raindrops and covered up what I could — mostly the in-ground fall garden — with extra layer of vented poly or with painters drop cloth poly. Moved some plants to more sheltered areas and some into the Patio Hoophouse. Brought the 2 (sad looking) orchids that survived the summer into the house.

Not the ideal for other container plants that were left out, but temps will warm up to lows of 50’s after this, so I really need them to pull through for the next several days….

[applestar]

A runty Blacktail Mountain watermelon — probably only about size of a billiard ball is still hanging on. Not really worth saving since last two that were harvested after the tendril turned brown were ripe but white inner rind is too thick and took up half of the volume. Otome and Kaho have very thin rinds — basically no white part, so it’s all edible and sweet inside the hard outer rind.

The Suyo Long cucumber that was allowed to mature completely for seed saving. I always get a kick out of seeing how big these fruits actually get.

[applestar]

Harvest Collage for last week —

Last of the larger fruited tomatoes, dwindling persimmons, steady figs, start of Trifoluate orange ‘Flying Dragon’ … Garlic Chives (DD2 is starting to like them in scrambled eggs and omelette, pasta sauces, etc.) … prematurely harvested spotty Kaho watermelons, last of in-ground edible cucumbers (a few still left inside the SFHH) … myoga flower buds are continuing to come in

Harvest 10/2~10/7

…10/7 — a sparse harvest due to limited time from impending cold requiring focused attention on protecting the garden, and every day harvesting on prior days, picked but not washed — all my tree fruits get sooty black mold on the surface, but these are only cosmetic — on outer surface of skin — and easily scrubbed off with vegetable brush on hard-skinned fruits like apples or trifoliate orange. Impossible to scrub the persimmons which must not be harvested until squishy soft but only makes the super tender skin somewhat thicker without affecting fruit and harmless. Have only rarely seen figs affected.

[imafan26]

Are you crossing Suyo? It is a parthenocarpic cucumber, and it does make a few male flowers, but usually does not produce a lot of seed. I am curious to know how much seed you get from it. I usually have to buy my parthenocarpic seeds because I don't know what they are crossing with. I do grow multiple varieties of cukes, most are parthenocarpic but some are not.

[applestar]

I hadn’t thought of that @imafan. This was the only Suyo next to three China Jade so they might have crossed….

[applestar]

I got the beds where I intend to plant garlic prepped, including covering with black eco-mulch. But I ran out of steam to get them planted.

I had some doubts about loosening the soil for planting garlic because I’m having some recurring pain in my right leg from hip joint down to shin/calf, depending on the day and conditions — sometimes severe.

But I remembered I have this — it came from my Dad’s collection of gardening tools.



This mostly uses upper body strength and didn’t strain my leg as much as I worried about.

As of now, the expected rain tomorrow isn’t supposed to start until after noon, so I might be able to get them in the planted in ground in the morning….

I’ll check the forecasts again tomorrow before making final decision. If I don’t plant before the rain tomorrow, then it’s rain Sat and Sun, and possibly again on Tues. So may not have opportunity again until Thursday at earliest or Friday, then rain again next Sat-Sun.

I don’t want to delay until end of October because we still had teens and single digits in December last year — I do want them to set down some roots, but we don’t want any more than about 4 inches of top growth max. If THAT happens, I have to put down extra mulch and have to take that extra mulch OFF before early spring — we don’t get enough snow to speak of here, for natural insulation.

At least all the digging for garlic planting is done and all I have to do is poke holes, plant, and then mulch before the ground freezes.

[applestar]

I was hurting too much due to the rainy weather system creeping over us to go out between raindrops….

Puttered around in the kitchen and made a 3 cup batch of ‘Flying Dragon’ custard (lemon curd recipe) — delicious!

Here’s a collage of broccoli and cauliflower harvested from the Sunflower Hoophouse on 10/9 as well as pics of the potatoes in black milk crates and other stuff like mini napa and beets, etc.

[applestar]

Nope still haven’t planted the garlic — hopefully tomorrow.

But I did get a lot done. It’s getting colder so I put up additional season extending covers around the garden and tightened up some of the Sunflower Hoophouse (SFHH) walls to hopefully keep the eggplants and the fall-planted potatoes going, as well as encourage the mini napa’s to grow.

BUT, today was last hurrah for the zucchini and cucumbers in the SFHH.

I was astonished to see that first bunch of saffron crocuses have bloomed — these sometimes bloom just a few days before first frost …though I sincerely hope that’s not what this means. (I’m NOT ready!)

[applestar]

I think we might be looking at chance of frost next Tuesday morning…. Feeling the crunch.

Between other chores to prep for the imminent cold weather, I managed to plant the garlic today. I picked Georgian Crystal and Russian Red to plant this year. I’m not very good at keeping harvested garlic for seed, but maybe I can try to keep these going if they turn out good. (But I have to grow them first!)

I didn’t have the correct size insect mesh fabric for VGC-Row 2 so I ended up using a floating cover. I think this will be OK as long as I don’t put a (vented) poly over it. (I’m sure I do have insect mesh for this tunnel if I need to replace it, though).

I do have to keep out the onion flies to protect the garlic. The floating cover will probably keep this tunnel just a bit more warm/protected going into the frosty weather, so maybe the lettuce will have chance to grow a bit more and maybe it will be enough protection for the beets?

I planted the rest of the garlic in the Spiral Garden, and transplanted the Komatsuna that had been planted earlier in the same arc since the garlic was getting an insect mesh tunnel which can also protect the greens.

I forgot to go get some more of the composted wood shavings I had used for the VGA and VGC garlic, and the structure of this low tunnel was a bit wobbly and will need to be improved, but until the greens grow bigger and the garlic cloves sprout, this will do for now.

[applestar]

You might have noticed sweet potato vines in the bottom-left photo.

I’m trying to keep them going until the very last minute since they were planted late, but I’m not sure how they’ll turn out because these were grown from rooted cuttings and some of last year’s sweet potato vines with no potatoes on their roots that I overwintered.

I had planned to overwinter some rooted vines again in any event, but coincidentally I came across this video — someone else has been experimenting for the past 5 years!


…I was intrigued that she tried different ways to overwinter and found that saving rooted vines worked out best. She mentioned aphids, mites and stinkbugs as problem pests. My worst pest on overwintering sweet potato vines has been mealybugs.

[Gary350]

You might have noticed sweet potato vines in the bottom-left photo.

I’m trying to keep them going until the very last minute since they were planted late, but I’m not sure how they’ll turn out because these were grown from rooted cuttings and some of last year’s sweet potato vines with no potatoes on their roots that I overwintered.

I use to buy 1 grocery store sweet potato about Thanksgiving, put it in a jar of water January until it sprouted roots then make cuttings April to plant in the garden 1 week after last frost about April 25. I can't buy white color sweet potatoes anymore no one sells them. You should get 20 lbs of new potatoes from each plant if plants are getting enough full sun all day. Plants like full sun 100° hot dry weather. Sweet potato plant leaves are good on sandwiched and in salads and stir fry greens. We don't like the flavor of traditional orange color sweet potatoes, never tried eating yellow or purple sweet potatoes. I always let cold weather kill the plant before digging up new potatoes. If you cover sweet potatoes vines with a hand full of soil about every 18" the vine grows roots and a new potato. It is very easy to grow an additional 8 lbs of new potatoes along the length of each vine. The sweet potato plants that I can buy April at the garden store is a vine cut into 12 pieces sold in a bundle of 12 cuttings. I have never tried to cut a vine into pieces to root. You could probably cut off a few pieces of a vine you have now and root it.

[applestar]

Sounds good @Gary350. Now through the holidays is the time to find different varieties of sweet potatoes at the grocery stores. I’m going to be looking for more to try, but my problem is I can only grow early maturing varieties. Some grocery store ones wouldn’t sprout no matter what, but maybe I just need to improve my techniques?

I want to get better at growing sweet potatoes, and I know there is a fine line balancing between trying to grow my own slips and buying those expensive slips from known, well established suppliers (like Sandhill Preservation) that are identified by variety and cultivation characteristics…..

…On the other hand, last time I looked, Sandhill doesn’t start shipping until relatively late (they also sufferer losses from that wind storm last year? 2 years ago?). So I would have to make up my mind and order early to get in line for shipment as soon as they start.

[applestar]

38°F this morning after forecast of 40.

“Warming up” over the weekend but down to forecast of 41°F Mon morning and 37°F Tues morning which — I’m virtually certain — will mean frost.

Gotta get most of the outside prep done today including digging and potting up, and then prep indoor spaces to receive the incoming migration of summer vacationers back into the house for the next 6~7 months !

But some will be covered to push through since we’re still looking at 70°F days after that and to finish “dormanting” (a made up word to mean they will be allowed to go dormant for easier maintenance over the winter. ). Once it really gets colder, the dormanting containers can go into temporary holding/quarantine areas that will stay cold.

And some that are better off going inside at this point will go into the temporary holding area for quarantine over the weekend and on Monday.

[Gary350]

Here is a sweet potato slip growing video, how to grow your own slips. This man grows sweet potatoes in soil. The only reason I grow sweet potatoes in water is because that is how my mother did it. This man is correct growing sweet potatoes in water is very slow, soil is much faster with better results. If this man only gets 2 to 3 lbs of new sweet potatoes from each plant he is doing something wrong. I typically get 20 lbs of new sweet potatoes from each plant. TN is the perfect climate to grow sweet potatoes they love 100° hot blistering full sun dry as desert all summer. Sweet potato plants are crazy plants they don't care if they get water or fertilizer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0igp5IzO21g

[applestar]

Thanks @Gary350

——

…I forgot to post the harvest collage for last week —
Only three days, but you can see ‘Flying Dragon’ have been ripening. I gently twist the fruit and only pick the ones that turn easily and fall off.

10/09 — mature Suyo Long cucumber for seed saving
10/12 — Spotted one last persimmon on the tree. Kabocha stem hadn’t dried completely, but the vine died… maybe I shouldn’t have picked it until it was completely dried out?
10/13 — Those mushrooms are not likely to be edible, but LOOKED so beautiful that I picked some to find out. It turned out to be full of maggots.