Hi

[edwin]

Hi people!

Been looking for the Goldilocks garden blog - not too big, not too small. I think that this one looks just about right.

Have started gardening as a serious hobby for about 3 years. Been mostly interested in vegetables and fruits - if you can't eat it... (just don't tell Ferdzy).

We do a 4 year rotation. We have about 30 beds that are 120 sq ft each. 24 for vegetables and 6 for perennials. Our property is below the Niagara Escarpment - at the mid north end near Owen Sound. We are in a micro climate zone 5b (b for wishful thinking perhaps). At the top of the escarpment - 5 minutes away it is probably zone 4b.

We are old lake bottom - about 5 feet of sand over clay for most of our garden, and a small section about 5 feet down a grade directly in clay - very wet - including sedge.

We also have 8 very old apple trees + some more that are being smothered by new growth forest, as well as some plums that are seriously affected by black knot.

I'm enjoying looking up the history of all the plants and am just dipping my toes into saving seeds and breading.

Just don't get me going on politics.

;D

[stratcat]

Hi, Edwin. Welcome!

[bunkie]

welcome aboard edwin!

[johninfla]

Hi Edwin,

I'm new here too but have found it to be a very welcoming place. This is the first time I have really joined a online community.....(we don't do facebook or twitter or any of that stuff) and I've found it to be a fantastically intelligent, and generous bunch of people.

I won't get you started on politics, BUT I just finished Joel Salatin's new book FOLKS THIS AINT NORMAL! and I agreed with just about every word he wrote!

Welcome,
John

[davida]

Mar 1, 2012 7:36:45 GMT -5 johninfla said:

BUT I just finished Joel Salatin's new book FOLKS THIS AINT NORMAL! and I agreed with just about every word he wrote!

Welcome,
John

First, Hi, Edwin. Welcome.

John,

I have not read Joel's latest books but have really enjoyed his earlier books. I appreciate that he has been able to take a farm that his parents could not make a full time living and make a very good living. I appreciate that he is improving the quality of his land and not destroying it. I appreciate that he has been able to keep his kids and grand kids on the farm and that he thinks all of them should earn what he deems a fair wage ($25 per hour for adult labor). I appreciate that he takes the bad (processing the stinking chickens) with the good because it is an integral part of the rotation. He is a marketing genius and the marketing of the farm products and of himself has made his farm profitable. Marketing is the key. The last I read, he had to purchase the processing plant to keep selling his pork and beef. So it is a great system but hard to duplicate and it probably helped that he started with over 500 acres of family land. On the other hand, his books should be required reading to understand the craziness of our present food system.

David

[raymondo]

Welcome Edwin. I think you'll like it here.

[12540dumont]

Hi Edwin, Tell us more about your old apples!

[MikeH]

Welcome Edwin,

Meaford area? I'm just south of Hastings. Same zone as you. With that sand and clay, are your beds raised? Are you getting any fruit from the apples and plums? Are any worth saving?

Regards,
Mike

[edwin]

Plums two trees 6-7 years old? - I took a saw to the plum trees and cut all black knot (and burned) I could find. It was extensive. There was not a lot of tree left, but they are living. We have not seen any fruit from them.

Apple trees. I would love to verify the varieties. I will post pics this year. I suspect we have three varieties Northern Spy, Mackintosh, and something else.

They haven't been pruned in a long time. I am going to give it a go this spring and see what I can do. This will be my first time pruning trees so I am a bit nervous.


All of our apples have heavy scab to the point where it pits the apples. The apples are small as well. We collected about 2 1/2 bushels and turned them into apple sauce. We purchased another 2 bushels form local farmers. The difference in processing time for good apples vs ours was probably more than 2:1.

We have a number of wild apple trees on the property. Most are spitters. We have an interesting Golden delicious cross in a very bad location. I've seen 2 apples on it in total. It is being crowded out by forest. I may try to clone it. We have a very nice crab apple that was damaged when we had deer fence put up. It makes a wonderful crab apple jelly and apple sauce but is a lot of work. The crab apple and the cross both have good quality apples on them with no visible disease problems. There is also some dwarf cherries on the property - maybe 5 years old. When it comes to picking the fruit, the birds win.

We have planted pawpaw's (perhaps wishful thinking though it did survive the first winter), apricot, mulberry, blueberry, raspberry, blackberry, strawberry, and nut trees. We are planning to plant:

Asian Pear Taylor Apple
Asian Pear Kenko
Asian Pear Shinseiki
Apricot Golden
Peach Harry Beauth
Peach Harrow Diamond
Cherry Mongolian
Cherry Nanking
Cherry Cerise de I'sle
Aprium
Damson Plum
Shipova
Kiwi Arguta
Kiwi Kolomikta
Blueberry Bluetta, Brunswick, Northsky, Polaris, Wildblue, Haskap

As far as trees go - there isn't going to be much space left after that unless we can come up with something that likes almost swamp, or can out compete in a forest setting.

Our soil is not quite where it should be for blueberries, but it is definitely on the acidic side.

===============

Our beds are edged 5x24 feet. I place 1' long 2" abs pipe every 4'. The tubes make it easy to take up and take down hoop houses and trellises. We occasionally also put up patio umbrellas for shading. Next time we have a backyard filled with patio umbrellas I should take a pic. We put about 4" of organic elk manure on each bed. They are not quite raised, and not quite not raised I guess. Originally, there were no worms in the beds. What a difference one year made. They aren't jammed packed with worms, but they are now there.

[ferdzy]

Well I WAS going to introduce myself down here, honest, but Edwin (otherwise known as Mr. Ferdzy) got here first. Anyway, everything he said about his garden applies to my garden, seeing as they're the same damn garden.

Things he didn't mention: we are surrounded by commercial apple orchards, which is why a) we have apple trees (final remnants of ancient orchard) and b) we have so many wild apples around the edge of the property and c) there is so much disease pressure.

Edwin has a passion for the bush and tree fruits, as you might be able to tell. I am getting very interested in melons. Tomatoes are a big thing for us. We can and dry as much as we can for the winter. Potatoes grow really well for us. I'm very interested in onions but we are still figuring out how to do them and ran out of them by the beginning of January. But I think we'll do better next year. As for carrots, we have just figured out that we really can't put ANY manure on their beds, so as you can see we have a lot to learn about growing them. But progress is still being made. Brassicas just frustrate the hell out of us. Oh, and we seem to be growing lots of peas and beans too.

I write a blog about local food, the link is below. I post about the garden there and if anyone wants to see pictures they should go to the index on the side, and select "A Note from the Garden" which will show all the posts I've done about the garden, huh. Also "A Varietal Report" will show all the posts I've done about specific varieties, most of which we have grown (but not all).

seasonalontariofood.blogspot.com/

[MikeH]

Mar 4, 2012 8:49:30 GMT -5 edwin said:

They haven't been pruned in a long time. I am going to give it a go this spring and see what I can do. This will be my first time pruning trees so I am a bit nervous.

There are probably folks here with more first hand experience than mine but I'll share the little experience that I have. We've got wild apples in our woods. I came across one that wasn't a spitter. I wanted scion wood from it but there's little growth on unpruned apples so I had to do some pruning to stimulate water sprouts. The tree was growing heavily in one direction because of an ash, now cut out, that was crowding it. So I needed to prune to re-balance the tree growth. I'd read that the rule of thumb when pruning a tree that needs a lot of pruning is to split the pruning into 3 different years. That seemed very complicated to me so I pruned out all the branches that were rubbing, cut back to half any really long branches that had the potential to break, and then a bit of pruning of branches that were growing towards the center of the tree. That was two years ago. I got lots of water sprouts and the tree is still alive although I'm sure someone who knew what they were doing would be shaking their head and muttering loudly.

We have planted pawpaw's (perhaps wishful thinking though it did survive the first winter)

That's encouraging to hear since this was our pawpaw's first winter.

apricot, mulberry

Varieties??

and nut trees.

Varieties?

We are planning to plant:

Asian pears and shipova sounds like Green Barn. Some of his stuff is unique in Canada but not all. For example, T&T Seeds sell 10 Nanking cherries for 25.95 vs Green Barn's 1 for $35. All of his shrub cherries are available elsewhere at much cheaper prices. And his haskap is definitely cheaper elsewhere. In fact, knowing first hand how easy it is to propagate haskap and honeyberry, his prices are theft. PM me about the haskap varieties you are getting and I may have some that I can send you.

They are not quite raised, and not quite not raised I guess. Originally, there were no worms in the beds. What a difference one year made. They aren't jammed packed with worms, but they are now there.

We went to raised beds because of clay and the fact that the gardens were at the bottom of a hill which meant they collected lots of water that didn't drain when it rained. We only use green manure, mostly because that's what we have easy access to but it's amazing how quickly the worms move in.

Regards,
Mike

[12540dumont]

Ferdzy, & Edwin,
Have you guys thought about cranberries or wild rice for that bog?

[edwin]

Apricots are seedlings from a local tree.

Mullberry - grafted ivory

Nut Trees: We have a series of red and brown hazlenuts all fairly young that came with the property and hence we have no idea what they are. They are probably 5-7 years old. They aren't flowering. 4 of each

We have heartnut grafted: imshu, simcoe
hickory grafted: Fayette Shellbark, Weschcke Shagbark (sterile), Grainger shagbark
Pecan grafted: snap, carlson

Quince: Cook's Jumbo

Thanks for the head's up on pricing. I'll pm you.

[ferdzy]

Holly, it's only a part-time bog. We have thought about cranberries and will probably try a few at some time. I think it's probably too dry for wild rice, although I could certainly be wrong about that. And finally, that area is mostly outside of the main garden, which we have fenced to keep out deer, so we wouldn't be keeping out deer... our biggest pests in more ways than one.

[richardw]

Hi Edwin,welcome.

Sounds like you are a bit of grower of all sorts just like myself

Holly are you talking about wanting to grow the North American cranberry??