What's Growing in the Garden

djg said:
I thought it was harder on a tree to prune it when it wasn't dormant. So I guess I just did it at the wrong time? Each cut? Wow. How do you sterilize them; just dip in IPA? Or do you flame them before the alcohol evaporates?

And if spores are always present, do I need some type of curative spray?
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Rubbing alcohol in a spray bottle works well. This way, the tool is not touched. The dip method is a bit older, (we used it on utters) the down fall is that you often touch the plants with the pruning tool in more places than just the cutting edges. These often brush the container you dip into, thus cross contaminating. Spray bottle allows you to mist the entire tool along with your gloves and hands if need be.

Dry gas fuel treatment and rubbing alcohol are the two I used, depending which was cheaper. that day. Denatured is better.
 
I watched the weather today and noticed Sunday and Monday nights, the overnight temps are going to be below freezing. I sprayed my peach trees with Daconil on Wednesday before the overnight rain. I noticed there were blossom buds (proper word) on the trees, but they were not opened. I hope I didn't spray too late and hurt the blossoms.

Main point is the weather. If the buds (flower) aren't open, will the low temps hurt the blooms? Would covering the trees with a tarp help?
 
djg said:
I watched the weather today and noticed Sunday and Monday nights, the overnight temps are going to be below freezing. I sprayed my peach trees with Daconil on Wednesday before the overnight rain. I noticed there were blossom buds (proper word) on the trees, but they were not opened. I hope I didn't spray too late and hurt the blossoms.

Main point is the weather. If the buds (flower) aren't open, will the low temps hurt the blooms? Would covering the trees with a tarp help?
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I'm out running errands right now, but later today I'll dig up a chart I have on frost temps and developmental stages of fruit trees. Short answer is if buds aren't open yet they are much more tolerant of below freezing temps. As to covering, I prefer old sheets as they are lighter and won't damage the trees as much. The "experts" say any covering should reach the ground to capture ground heat, but that's not usually possible with trees. I've found anything you use to cover will be better than nothing.
 
As much as I love a tree ripe peach to eat, I got such bad results because of late freezes, I cut them down. Our late winters are warm-cold-warm-cold. The warm was enough, early enough that the buds would open or even have fruit forming when we would get a late hard freeze. Even covering did not help. To stop my crying, I just did away with them and buy peaches at the store. I think my success was about 1 year outta 7, I would have a crop. I have much better success with my figs and japanese persimmons. If we didn't get warm early, it would not be as much of a problem, but I could not find one at the time that would stay dormant longer. I've seen some "hardy" avocado that I really, really want to try, but too much shade until I've had so many trees fall or have had to cut some down, I probably have room now.
 
Enough is enough. Cut massive amounts off this winesap, but it still needs more. At least it won't look like a weeping tree when it fruits. Needs more thinning cuts on laterals, and a little more off the top, but that's all for this year. Maybe some summer pruning.

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I'm making plans for an electric fence around my garden this Spring. I'm completely ignorant to what's needed so youtube is somewhat helpful. Some videos make a point of having 3 ground rods driven 4 feet into the ground. Yet I see on Amazon that they sell 18" rods as ground rods for electric fences? Adequate?

My garden is approximately only a 70' x 90' rectangle. I'll try to get photos or a drawing tomorrow. I plan on one strand of galvanized 17 Ga wire all the way around the garden and peach trees 3' high? to keep the deer out. Wire both ends together? Then just around the peach trees, I'll have another strand 6" off the ground to keep the squirrels away. I don't want this strand all the way around the garden as I have outdoor cats that like to supervise when when I'm in the garden. Plus, they should take care of the few rabbits that are around.
 
djg said:
I'm making plans for an electric fence around my garden this Spring. I'm completely ignorant to what's needed so youtube is somewhat helpful. Some videos make a point of having 3 ground rods driven 4 feet into the ground. Yet I see on Amazon that they sell 18" rods as ground rods for electric fences? Adequate?

My garden is approximately only a 70' x 90' rectangle. I'll try to get photos or a drawing tomorrow. I plan on one strand of galvanized 17 Ga wire all the way around the garden and peach trees 3' high? to keep the deer out. Wire both ends together? Then just around the peach trees, I'll have another strand 6" off the ground to keep the squirrels away. I don't want this strand all the way around the garden as I have outdoor cats that like to supervise when when I'm in the garden. Plus, they should take care of the few rabbits that are around.
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As to ground rods, I use one 8' ground rod because we had an old one sitting around. It all depends on your soil type and moisture throughout the year. Don't know the prices of ground rods, but I'd opt for a single deep one vs multiple really shallow rods.

As to your configuration, what you have planned sounds good to me. Don't know what you have for posts, but I use T-posts in corners and use the rebar posts in between to prevent sagging. Rather than trying to make use a single continuous wire around the whole garden, I prefer to cut the wire and attach at each corner with extra wire at each end. That way when you have a break, you can just loosen the wire at a corner, splice it together and then restretch back at the single corner.

One other thing to do when you first put it up. Take squares of aluminum foil and put a dab of peanut butter in the middle. Fold it over the fence in several places so the deer come up and sniff, then get a jolt. Trains them to stay away, and prevents them from just running through it before they know it's there. You definitely want to energize it the same day you stretch the wire or they might just run through it before realizing it.
 
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djg said:
I'm making plans for an electric fence around my garden this Spring. I'm completely ignorant to what's needed so youtube is somewhat helpful. Some videos make a point of having 3 ground rods driven 4 feet into the ground. Yet I see on Amazon that they sell 18" rods as ground rods for electric fences? Adequate?

My garden is approximately only a 70' x 90' rectangle. I'll try to get photos or a drawing tomorrow. I plan on one strand of galvanized 17 Ga wire all the way around the garden and peach trees 3' high? to keep the deer out. Wire both ends together? Then just around the peach trees, I'll have another strand 6" off the ground to keep the squirrels away. I don't want this strand all the way around the garden as I have outdoor cats that like to supervise when when I'm in the garden. Plus, they should take care of the few rabbits that are around.
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I'd hang about 2 dozen pie pans on the upper line. Deer density comes into play as well. Here, we need a 12'-14' high fence for deer as anything up to 10 is an easy jump. If they have other food sources, bait them away to them.... In our area, a lot of 10'x10' kennel gardens. To small of an area to jump into, so they don't.
 
Today, my peach trees are in the Red Calyx stage, but there are some First Pink blossoms on them. (I think)

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After thinking about it, I honestly don't know I can drape a tarp over the tree; they are 12' tall now. Here, Sunday night is suppose to drop down to 23 deg; Monday 17 deg. Pushing the total loss temps. Still there are a lot of blooms so maybe a few will survive.

I've got four posts 4-1/2' out of the ground around each tree. Some screen wire gets wired on with the top about 6' high. I've got stiff plastic tubing I could make hoops with to afix the tarps to. I don't know if my jury rigging will work. Some branches would touch plastic.
 
At those temps, anything might help. I wouldn't worry about branches touching tarps as long as it isn't breaking them.
 
The peppers are up and doing well, some of the herbs are popping up, and I got 100 tomato seeds planted today. I've planted at least 10 times the amounts that I need, I've got a young friend who is trying to get into market gardening. He has a great location and did quite well last season, he purchased most of my extra produce. He doesn't have a great place to start seedlings yet so I'm doing that and he will take them when they are ready to transplant into larger cells.

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Just saw this.... those Aggies, you never know what they're up to next...

"Fortunately, researchers from the University of Texas at Austin, working in collaboration with Texas A&M University, recently succeeded in growing chickpeas in lunar soil, or regolith. " I can hear the phone call now "Hello, NASA, this is TA&M Ag Dept. Do we have a deal for you. You send us a few cubic feet of moon dirt and we'll grow some stuff in it. So, what'd'ya say?"

But I'm suspicious because this article says they were working in collaboration with UT Austin and we all know that would never happen.
 
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Hey, that's nothing. Didn't you see that Matt Damon grew potatoes on Mars? In the movie "The Martian".
 
trc65 said:
Hey, that's nothing. Didn't you see that Matt Damon grew potatoes on Mars? In the movie "The Martian".
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But that's Hollywood, they can fake anything. I recently learned that most of the Star Trek movies were filmed on earth to save the expense of real outer space filming.
 
DLJeffs said:
Just saw this.... those Aggies, you never know what they're up to next...

"Fortunately, researchers from the University of Texas at Austin, working in collaboration with Texas A&M University, recently succeeded in growing chickpeas in lunar soil, or regolith. " I can hear the phone call now "Hello, NASA, this is TA&M Ag Dept. Do we have a deal for you. You send us a few cubic feet of moon dirt and we'll grow some stuff in it. So, what'd'ya say?"

But I'm suspicious because this article says they were working in collaboration with UT Austin and we all know that would never happen.
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I think it was "simulated" moon dirt. Don't know what to think about that. Aggies can pay a bunch of $$ to football coaches and players, but can't buy "real" moon dirt! - I might be ashamed!
 
Spent the afternoon taking the top off the first of two standard pear trees. Took 8-10 ft off the top of this one, thinned it out and headed back most of the large branches. This tree has always produced lots of pears, but they've always been small. Six ft step ladder for reference.

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Tried to work in the garden pruning and training the tame blackberries (kind of late). Need to dig up and transplant wild raspberries but was too warm to work much.
 
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