TOPIC: opening day...

And here is a pic of a Excel sheet I finished this evening... trying to keep track of all the stuff I have planted here on my place (Food Forest related).

I did not list my ginseng... but I planted just short of 10 lbs of stratified seed over the years.. at 7000 seeds per pound that is 70,000 seeds... and I have planted from my seed producing bed, and my wild sim that is producing berries... probably another couple thousand berries.

As you can see I am a little nuts about growing stuff

TNHunter



Note in the "Variety" column, I listed (for most) the vendor that I purchased from for my own records...
And some vendors have proven to provide really good plants, fruit trees... and some have not.

If you see me purcahsing lots of stuff from a vendor, over more than one year... well you know my opinion of them and the quality they provide.

OGW is One Green World
DWN is Dave Wilson Nursery

I think most of the others are spelled out enough above.

Ty Ty is a vendor in GA... and i had a bad experience with them, and since then have read that lots of others have had bad experience with them too... so that is why I mentioned (no more orders) for Ty Ty..

finally got on the river,caught 66 crappie in two days,,,,all my fruit trees were in full bloom, now its going to get below freezing every night for 4 or 5 nights,,there go's the fruit.

Hate to hear that Chief...

We went about 3 years in a row there with no peaches ... until last year and had a good crop.. and looks like we might this year too.

Our 7 day forecast for lows is 39 39 50 48 38 35 38 42.
Just a couple days ago I checked that and there was only one day expected to be down around 38... so they have changed that now.

I hear that small peaches once set are still susceptible to frost but it has to get down around 28 degrees to really harm them.
I have also heard peach growers online saying that open blooms can survive lows near 25 degrees... and that some varieties are more frost hardy than others.

I hope some of yours do make it...

Hey... when I was filling out my add to Food Forest list this year... planting new things.. some things I really looked for were fruits that had these qualities...

1.. no known pest or diseases
2.. bloomed after our late frosts
3.. ripened fruit when I had no other stuff currently ripening fruit (earlier or later).

One that you might consider is the JuJube... They bloom in May per some I have read, and in the OGW catalog they say bloom mid-summer, and fruit ripens late Sept, October.

USDA Zone 5... hardy to -20 degrees or below - grows 8-10' high.

onegreenworld.com/product/shanxi-li-jujube/

I planted to varieties for cross pollination. About 4' apart.

I have two European Plums that I planted last spring (Rosy Gauge and Mt. Royal)... and they are supposed to bloom much later than Japanese Plums (and avoid late frosts)
Both of mine have leaves coming out now, but no blooms so far this spring.

JostaBerry bushes bloom in May-June... I planted 2 last year and they have buds now but no leaves or blooms in sight yet.

I am looking forward to when all the start producing... I expect the JostaBerry to produce this year, and the Euro Plums..
My JuJubes just planted this spring so it may be a year or two before I get fruit. They say some produce some fruit 2nd leaf. By year 4-5 nice crops.

TNHunter

Here is a Pic I wanted to show that suprised me this week...

A few weeks back I posted a link to a youtube vid of a type of dwarf mulberry tree that I had decided to purchase.
This video is what helped me to make the decision to get this specific variety... see below.



He has two video's posted showing that same tree in early May and then later on in June... it was loaded with fruit for nearly 2 months.
In GA he said he started getting ripe fruit at the end of April (which is quite early).. not sure how that will work out here in TN.

But anyway I was impressed with this little mulberry tree... Love the thoughts of being able to pick fresh ripe mulberries for nearly 2 months.
And it does not get too big... 6-7' tall, but kind of bushy.

So.. well I ordered one this spring and planted it... (on my excel sheet above).. Gerardi Dwarf Mulberry (morus macroura) found it at Burnt Ridge Nursery.

The little seedling looked nice when it arrived, had lots of buds, but was only about a foot tall with two branches or shoots with buds.

I have been watching it for the past few weeks as it was budding out nicely... then one day this week I noticed this (see pic below).



It is not only budding out, producing leaves... but it already has the starts of fruit (mulberries) on it.
It is going to produce first year.

Now that is sweet !

TNHunter

fish cleaned this morning ,,that's a 14 incher....

......my weather man is using terms like'hard freeze'...frost warning..polor vortex

Hey Chief, we're getting similar threats and weather here in WV. Last night got down into the 30s and tonight they're saying 30. I bought a few tomato and pepper plants a few weeks ago after our Governor announced the closing of nonessential businesses. I didn't know what that meant at the time so my wife and I went to Lowe's with a long list, enough to keep me remodeling for 2-3 months. I also picked up vegetable seeds and the plants I mentioned above.

A few days ago we had hail stones about twice the size of marbles and they beat up my plants, which are now indoors.

Today was high 40s but breezy enough that it felt cold all day.

All, I checked a few of last year's ginseng plantings and found 1-2 seedlings in most of the plots I checked, about 4-6 plots. I only checked one of my honey-holes and didn't see any older plants emerging yet.

It's good you guys are getting out fishing and stuff during this ordeal. Most of our "city" friends in OR and WA are going crazy since all the bars/restaurants where they live are closed. I hear that because couples have been forced indoors together, divorce filings are high. lol

I spent a few hours in the woods today, Easter Sunday, was the friendliest place I could think of. I collected SD cards from my game cams and checked several of my 2019 plantings and one honey hole.

My planting plots are not spectacular so far, seeing 1-4 seedlings per plot, hopefully it's early still.

Below are two photos, one is of two seedlings that have emerged next to each other. The other is, I believe of a 2-3 prong just emerging. This guy was on a steep slope and I had to kneel way to long (my quads were burning), and extend my arm out as far as possible with the zoom maxed out. This is why it's a bit blurry.

Hope everyone is well.

got a couple of chances of snow this week,the wind speed is higher than our temp. is today..50 mph wind ..temp. is 35...

27 degrees this morning..brrrrr.

Chief... they were saying (Nashville stations) 39 for us last night... but Nashville is 65 miles north of me.

It only got down to 43 here at my house (we are on a ridge top which helps too).

Tonight they are calling for 32 degrees... and I am hoping for more like 36...

Also.. I have the day off tomorrow and may be going fishing... I am going to drive town to the river this evening and check it out, and if not up too much... will be on it about daylight, doing that same run again as I did a few weeks back.

Now down at the river level.. it may be much cooler in the morning...

When i was in my early 20's - while trapping on the river, I ended up in the river up to my neck (with hip waders on) on a day when it was 12 degrees starting off, and they high was 22 that day... Talk about cold. It was a long float too 14 miles, and I got wet early around 7 am.
We had to stop and build a fire a couple hours after i got wet, and dry out my clothes... cost us about a hour of time but it worked. I did not even get sick... when you are young you can do stuff like that... not sure I would want to try that again.

TNHunter