Firstly, please let me Welcome everyone to my diary and this Saturday garden series. Please comment, share pictures, ask questions. We love chatting all things gardening, landscaping and houseplants. And trees, succulents, snake plants and veggies.
I chose this date for a diary on purpose, sure I would have some colorful flower pictures by now. Gotta keep up with our greened-up southern friends, dontcha know. I predicted back in February that the prairie spring would arrive early for the upper Midwest. Not the worst bet, after all climate change has really thrown weather prediction off track.
Well, it was a bad bet on my part. Some hope arrived the week before last, with hot temperatures in Sioux Falls breaking April records. We hit 90 degrees. I was outside, getting my tan on, getting my hands into the soil for the first time. I got the patio cushions out and I fired up the grill. I finally nailed the recipe for the Guava BBQ Sauce that was once served at my once favorite, now closed restaurant. Wasn’t even hard, turned out.
I was HAPPY.
Then last Saturday, two days after 90 degrees, it snowed. Not much. Melted right away, but dammit it SNOWED and I was not about any of it. Or as we say in my house, it s***ed. White crap all over my lawn. As I edit this a few days later, Friday, it is snowing again. Low tonight is 25 degrees and Saturday night 22 degrees. Now wondering if I should cover my tulips. They have not bloomed just yet, but are close to doing so.
Anyone here from Nebraska? Because I think that is where any excessive weather should go. Or since there are two Dakotas, and we are the good one, maybe North Dakota? They love snow.
I have been educating myself on fruit trees. I found a very informative site Growing Fruit.ORG.
Garden Answer on youtube is friendly and informative, one of my favorite youtubers. She mentioned her spray schedule for fruit trees, in the fall and in the spring, before the trees break dormancy. This was all news to me.
So off to research I went, hoppity hop, just like the bark-lust rabbits that chewed my apple trees to a likely death. Motivated to consume.
I poked around the Growing Fruit site, and checked in on some actual tree people who do fruit tree stuff for a living, and mixed myself up some dormant oil.
Neem oil (without azadirachtin), Bonide Copper fungicide, and some dish-soap went into a gallon sprayer; applied to all my fruit trees. At which point I discovered THAT on my Rainier cherry tree.
Hoppity hop back to the interwebs, hunting for experts, horticulturists and arborists. One cherry tree owner said they had this lichen, it comes in spring and goes away and tree is fine every year. Everyone else says that lichen (or whatever other fungus this might be) is a sign that the tree is sick.
As last year I noticed some brown sap, and one minor branch is dead, I think I have a problem.
I sprayed the tree with my homemade dormant oil, and that, perhaps combined with lower humidity, cleared up about half of the lichen/fungus/infection within a couple of days. The cherry tree is currently covered with healthy buds in the "silver tip" stage and looks good for now.
There are multiple bud stages of fruits trees, and as that is critical information for spraying, I’ve learned quite a bit.
Cornell Bud Stage Info
So if you need to know bud things too, see link.
While the cherry tree is currently budding out, I am making a plan to chop it down and replace it, depending how it performs this year. I'd love another Rainier, but Rainier is a spendy cherry tree, even for a little whip.
My other cherry tree is a Bing, the perfect pollinator for a Rainier.
An important note for those of us with fruit trees. See map below, the temperature forecast for April 23-27.
That cold weather means the possibility of damaged blooms, and no fruit-set, which happened to my cherry trees last year.
As far as gardening chores, I have completed many.
USDA Zone 4/5 Chore List for Next 2 Weeks.
Most critical chore in April has been hardening off. Many gardeners are most concerned with the sun exposure, yet my main goal is to acclimate my plants to the prairie winds. This April has been challenging as the winds are worse than usual, as well the month being colder than normal (with the exception of four days) is not helping.
Sure, there is no harm taking double the time for hardening, I just want to get the plants on the deck fulltime and reclaim my house. Looking at the forecast for this weekend, hardening off will be temporarily suspended, as well the intended planting of onions, peas and brassica plants. I am hoping to plant them outside in the gardens late this coming week.
Otherwise my plants look healthy. Good thing, as they are currently scattered everywhere in my living space, under all available lights. Veggie seedlings are fantastic décor, thankfully, yet outside is better. True sunlight, acclimating to our winds and the reduction of fungus gnats and edema in tomato stems has me quite motivated to get all my plants outside full time.
Take a look at the Sully Project tomato plants, don't they look fantastic? Pictured are the Sully Plum seedlings. I am helping our own DHM with the Sully Plum and Dwarf tomato project. I potted up the Sully Plum tomatoes today (Friday) and will pot up the Sully Dwarf tomatoes next week. I started with twelve seedlings, and culled down to seven of each, which will be planted in my garden around May 10-15th.
Some good news. Been about three weeks now, and still no sign of Squirrel. Or S*******. Destroying the squirrel nest (no babies) and annoying it with my presence drove it away. For now.
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Cool sidenote. I have been trying out Spoutible (twitter alternative) and so far a loving it. Not run by foreign entities, almost identical in user-friendliness to twitter, and very Blue Friendly. Racism in any form is not tolerated. Not affiliated in any way, I just dig it.
It's so NICE there. I know they are working on an app, to release soon. Spoutible launched in February, so it's still very new. I feel like I've finally found a suitable alternative for social media. I haven’t had a FB page in many years and I think it’s been a year or two since I’ve had twitter. MaddowBlog is on Spoutible now so it’s def getting noticed.
For your own research:
Spoutible Mission Statement
If anyone here is there, let us know in the comments or message me, and I'll give you a follow.
My Spoutible Page
I'm very intentional about building a garden community anywhere I am, and I'd love for anyone to join me.
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Below is the final damage photograph of my double apple tree. Honey Crisp and Sweet Sixteen are the varieties. The black sections on the trunk are Tree Wound salve I put on the tree after the first round of damage. The rabbit ate the bark from the graft line to the underside of the canopy, at least three ft of damage. I just...UGH.
Tell us about what is happening in your world, and what you have recently learned about growing or would like to know more about. Happy gardening!