Coffee

[digitS']

Finished my chopped Bartlett pear in the bowl with the Wheat Chex. Sitting back with the herbal tea.

Many of us garden for the food, don't we? I'm happy with my slices of heirloom tomatoes and cucumbers most evenings. Mozzarella cheese and Homemade salsa sauce on Ritz crackers was especially good last night . I'm missing the sweet corn for dinner and Crenshaw melon for dessert.

The pear this morning absolutely didn't need a microwave treatment. Too late for Bartletts but the basket has one more. DW isn't a cottage cheese person but we used to eat lots of them that way . Lived surrounded by Bartlett pear orchards in southern Oregon. She isn't really an apricot person either but I had a long relationship with an apricot tree that grew in complete neglect in a vacant lot that we turned into our Garden On Other People's Property across the alley from our home then. They thrive darn well like that here. Our peach trees struggle, with good and bad years.

Apples. What 100%? Nah, there are probably several varieties in Santa Cruz that wouldn't do well here. Should have a fig tree like in Oregon! Ah, the produce aisles .

digitS

 

[Dahlia]

Breakfast this morning - coffee, yogurt crepes with butter and homemade blackberry sauce!

 

[flowerbug]

@digitS' i think apricot trees would survive here but i've not looked into it yet. i like them a lot more than peaches or pears.

 

[ducks4you]

I planted garlic today. I go back and forth if I will have a garden next year. I hate to ask for help, but I think I will just order a big load of manure and spread it. Then, maybe in the spring I might have a load of compost delivered. DD wants to have her garden done so bad. DS and I are going to go over and plant her garlic tomorrow and take some of my compost from the barrel and some leaves and call it good. DD's husband might get her boxes moved where she wants so she can plant a few tings about June. The babies will be born in April. I am going to have a very busy winter.

Don't forget to mulch and pile up your leaves for next year's compost!! They make the Very best compost, and Darwin studied how worms used leaves to make soil.

Composting Leaves: How to Achieve Fast Leaf Decay

Let's get real for a second: composting leaves is one of the smartest things you can do for your garden. It's a great way to mulch, fertilize, and

www.epicgardening.com

 

[ducks4you]

@digitS' i think apricot trees would survive here but i've not looked into it yet. i like them a lot more than peaches or pears.

The Top Apricot Trees For Michigan Gardens: Expert Recommendations For Optimal Growth And Fruit Production

how-to-grow.org

Expert Guide: How To Successfully Grow Blenheim Apricot Trees

how-to-grow.org

I think you could grow them if you give them winter protection.
EVEN THOUGH I had read about hybrid magnolia's, the girl series, which is mine and DD's, Magnolia Jane and Magnolia Betty, that they had been developed to grow in Michigan, I Still decided to plant mine on the east side of my house bc I knew that the worst winter winds come due West and that my house would shield my tree, now about 15 ft tall and thriving.
You might set up a winter only wooden fence, the posts being permanent, using maybe landscape timbers for posts bc they are cheap, and then attach a fencing panel or plywood on the west and north sides of your apricot tree.
It's the cold AND the wind that kills trees in the winter.
Just fyi...

 

[Shades-of-Oregon]

I have added a mulcher kit with 2 blades and a deck door that adjusts to open or close on the rider mower. When the deck mulcher door is closed under the deck, the mower blades do not immediately throw out clipped leaves or debris. With the door closed the debris collected in the mower deck where the 2 blades mulch the leaves and debris into tiny pieces right on site. No muss no fuss. Usually by spring the tiny mulched leaves have decomposed.

Yikes, I hope I splained that right. In other words whatever leaves I can mulch stays mulched in the garden as is .. to break down over winter. I usually use the larger tractor front bucket to turn over a pile of larger garden debris deposited in a section of the pasture. Lots of worms and black compost every year in the big pile set up to use for the next season.

 

[Dahlia]

Breakfast today:
Leftover homemade brownies with coffee, bacon n sunny side up eggs, and yogurt with blueberries.

 

[baymule]

Coffee is ready. Unloaded the dishwasher while coffee was brewing. No breakfast yet.
@ducks4you this past spring we had winds so hard that it stripped ALL the leaves off my American persimmon tree. I didn’t know if it would make it, but it sprouted out again. Then this late summer, hurricane Beryl blew it down, severing a large root. I pushed it back up with my tractor bucket, drove T-posts and tied it off with braided hay string. It’s still living. It is next to sheep night pen, in the lot. It provides the only shade, it’s the only tree there. Now we are in drought, no rain for months, I dump water on it from the sheep water buckets. It’s one tough tree. Not surprisingly there is no fruit this fall. Oh, the sheep have shelters I put up for shade and protection from the weather. Thought I’d mention that lest anyone think the tree was all they had. Now my wind damaged, hurricane blown down, tractor propped up, drought damaged tree is facing winter. Poor tree needs a break.

 

[ducks4you]

@baymule, you Need a coffeemaker with a timer!!
The "maid" starts My coffee at 5:45AM Every morning.
Dunno What is the problem with these cherry trees!! Looking at the variables I think it's just the trees themselves, maybe bad stock. Hate to start over, but I am thinking I need to plant another Montmorency Cherry Tree somewhere else on the property and use this area for either grass or additional gardening, that starts After the apples come out and harvesting before the ponies get to graze the Inner Sanctum down.
Maybe melons...

 

[Shades-of-Oregon]

@baymule all your efforts to save your tree is commendable. I hope it will stabilize in time.
Sorry to hear your in a drought, a real issue. As if the hurricanes didn’t cause enough damage, havoc and stress .
Hard to tell if the damaged tree will make it . In some cases here if the major large root of a tree is broken it doesn’t grow back very fast or if at all depending on the tree type.

Your tractor bucket may be a permanent fixture holding up the downed tree. Maybe try to lighten the load for the tree and remove a few heavy crossing . Light trim on a deciduous tree should work out ok. No more than 1/3 should be removed. It may help the tree to recover better. It’s a wait a see sorta of deal. Good luck.
I used my tractor ballast balance weight to tie a tree to hold it up. After a few years it never did stand on it own. So I finally removed it and planted another .

@ducks4you sorry the cherry trees did not fruit. Like you mentioned there are so many variables why a cherry tree aborts fruit. Did your trees produce buds or flowers? My cherry trees occasionally don’t produce fruit.
In a couple of cases a late spring freeze during the buding stage causes the flower buds to fall. That could be one of the reasons for zero fruit.