This little harvest may be nothing to you, but harvesting these summer squash is everything to me right now. I haven’t grown summer squash during the spring or summer for the past five years because I hate dealing with the squash vine borer. But I said I was going to do things differently this year, and I decided to try growing squash again and check it out. I’m harvesting squash every other day from all the plants around my garden.
I planted two citrus trees last fall, but only one survived our Texas “winter.” Ha, can I even call it winter? The one that survived is an Owari satsuma. I always plant this variety because my dad had one in our backyard as a kid. We used to get so much fruit that I would hand people Albertsons plastic bags full of fruit—the good old days.
Water sprouts or suckers grow from below the graft union on fruit trees. They are branches that develop from the rootstock of the grafted tree. It is best to remove them because they will take water and nutrients from the tree, not to mention that they are usually covered with thorns. So, if you see weird-looking branches that don’t match the rest of the tree, it is best to cut them off and remove them.
Now go and plant some fruit trees.
The most productive gardens I ever had, I regularly feed them compost tea, comfrey tea, or castings tea every other week. I will get back to that this year, but before I can start, I need to build my vortex brewer.
Now, you will hear many different thoughts about brewing compost teas. Some people will say aerobic is better than anaerobic and vice versa. I’m not here to tell you one is better than the other because I have had highly productive gardens using both methods. I’m just here to tell you that your garden and wallet will thank you if you start feeding it different garden teas.
Comfrey is one of the most valuable plants you can grow in your garden. Comfrey has many benefits, and all pollinators love its purple flowers. Still, more importantly, they can help cut down on your gardening costs because you can use the leaves to make your natural fertilizer. Comfrey is a dynamic accumulator, which means it absorbs nutrients from deep in the soil and stores these nutrients in its leaves. When you soak the leaves to make your liquid fertilizer, you extract the nutrients from the leaves.
I like to plant comfrey around my fruit trees, but you can grow it anywhere in your garden. Just be careful with your plant variety because some tend to spread. I am growing Bocking 14 from @marco_is_growing
If you’re an urban gardener like myself or you’re just short on growing space, one of the best ways to maximize your yield and get the most from your growing spaces is by growing vertically.
Here are a few plants that can be grown vertically
*Squash
*Cucumbers
*Watermelon
*Peas
*Beans
*Tomatoes
*Cantaloupe
This year, I’m making sure to use all of the space within my garden. Man, it feels good putting the first tomatoes of the season in the ground.
This backflow preventer has been broken since a freeze in January. Now that it’s warming up outside, I guess it’s time to fix it.
I wish this bonnet were not made of plastic because this is the third time that I’ve fixed this exact piece. You figure I would’ve learned my lesson by now and made sure I drained my sprinkler system before the freeze, but nope, here I am again for the third time changing the same piece.
Hey, at least it works now. I love using my @hoselinkusa to water my garden, but the hotter it gets, the less I want to hand-water it.
I try not to apply fertilizer until after the fruit tree flowers, or I see new growth.
Once I see the flowers or new growth, I know that the fruit tree has used the remaining nutrients from the previous winter. So, waiting until I see these signs to apply fertilizer helps ensure that the fruit trees consistently have the nutrients they need to reward me with bushels of fruit.
I like to use a mix of organic granular fertilizer followed by a liquid fertilizer to drench the soil. This way, the liquid fertilizer can quickly supply the fruit tree with the necessary nutrients, and the organic granular fertilizer can break down and slowly feed the tree for the next few months.
Go plant that tree!
I forget to plant my potatoes on time every year, but not this year. This year, I put a reminder in my phone to ensure I got these in the ground. I’m not growing these in the ground. I’m growing potatoes in @vego_garden 30” raised beds.
Shout out to @qualityfeed_and_garden for always stocking the best seed potatoes.
Let’s see how many pounds of potatoes grow from these 4 pounds of seed potatoes.
#growyourown #growingpotatoes #urbangardening #justgrowit
Since rosemary is one of the few things I have growing in my garden right now I have to make sure I use it. Today that meant rosemary bread.
It’s been raining all day here and, I like to eat soup on rainy days. I thought this bread would go well with the soup.
My kids really enjoyed the bread. They ate everything with no complaints. If you have kids you know that means it is a good night 👍🏾
#urbangardening #urbangarden #houstongarden #zone9b #gardentotable #herbgarden #gardenerlife #menwhocook
To successfully grow fruit trees, it is vital to understand chill hours. If you mistake and select a fruit tree variety without understanding chill hours, you will waste your time with poor harvests.
Chill hours are defined as any temperature below 45°F and are required for most fruit trees to break dormancy and flower before fruiting.
Chill hours are as important as the location when selecting a fruit tree for your garden. If you don’t, you can waste time and money. You will be disappointed if you live in an area that only receives 400 chill hours but buy a tree that needs 800 chill hours.
When you begin to look at the fruit trees, you see there are different varieties of high chill and low chill. Low chill needs less than 300, and high chill requires more than 500 chill hours. There are low chill requirements for many of the most common fruits. Careful, though, do not be tempted to plant a low chill variety in an area with high chill hours.
Although it seems like a gardening hack, you risk the plant breaking dormancy too early. There is always a catch. The flowers or blooms will fall off if your plant breaks dormancy too soon. No flowers mean no fruit.
Are you planting any fruit trees this winter?
I don’t know what to call it, but I haven’t been on social media consistently in a long time. For some reason, I had no desire to garden. I would avoid going outside and keep putting off all my plans for another time.
I recently realized a few things that reminded me why I even started doing this in the first place. It was never about having the most followers or getting the most deals. It was to have a good time and talk about gardening. I started building a gardening community and forgot all about the community part.
Anyway, I have had plans about what I wanted to do with BCG for a while but have never acted on them. This year, I’m going to put everything into motion. Why? Because I want to, I have always made it a point to do what I want. So that’s what I’m going to do ✌🏾
I know I said I wouldn’t plant citrus trees again, but it’s just hard to say no to them. Who can say no to the smell of citrus blossoms? So, yeah, I decided to add a couple to the front garden.
This is the easiest way to make sure you have the perfect-sized hole to plant your fruit trees.
•Place the fruit tree, still in the container, at your desired depth
•Backfill the hole with soil.
•Remove the potted container from the middle, and you will be left with the perfect planting hole.
Don't forget to mulch @heirloomsoils
These new 30” wide raised beds from @vego_garden are perfect for fruit trees in an urban garden.
I have been waiting for this moment.
The best part about growing in raised beds is the ability to control the soil. Shoutout to @heirloomsoils for making the best soil in the city.
I can’t wait to get this garden planted and growing.
It's time to set up the new @vego_garden raised beds in the front yard garden. I added
•4 30” circular beds which will house fruit trees
•2 9 in 1 beds for annuals
•And all of the new in-ground beds space for perennials.
I'm excited because my front yard gets more sun than the backyard. I can't wait to see if the tomatoes grow better up here vs the backyard.
Trellising blackberries is a great way to help increase your yield by improving airflow and keeping the canes and fruit off the ground.
To create this easy DIY trellis, I used:
• 2 leftover 4 x 4
•16 gauge wire
•4 screw eyes
•2 turnbuckles
I concreted the post into the ground because I needed to reattach the @hoselinkusa to one of the posts.
Now that the trellis is complete, I need to find one more thornless variety before I sit back and let them do their thing.
I’m looking forward to a summer with homegrown berries!
I love blackberries, and I'm tired of buying them at the store.
So, I guess it's time to plant some blackberries. The internet says you need 20 blackberry plants to supply a family of 4. Well, I'm starting with these 4 thornless varieties and will add as many as possible to this bed over the next few months. I think I can fit about 10 blackberry plants in here.
Next, I will build a trellis to keep the vines off the ground and figure out what to interplant in the same bed. I'm thinking about growing garlic in this same bed
The next step is irrigation.
While automatic irrigation is not necessary for gardens, it sure does help a lot when that summer heat rolls around.
This Bart Scott interview is one of the best post-game interviews in history.
The older I get, the less desire I have for excessive physical labor.
So rather than dig up all the grass, I worked smarter, not harder, and used a technique known as solarization.
Solarization is the process of covering an area with a tarp and using the heat from the sun to kill the vegetation. The tarp blocks water from reaching the grass, helping to kill the vegetation.
I used a black tarp, but supposedly, a clear tarp works better.
How long you leave the grassy area covered depends on the temperature outside. During the summer, this process can take as little as two weeks. But if you start this process in the fall or winter, be prepared to wait months for your desired results.
I may have found a new top-five favorite crop to grow.
This is my first time growing perennial onions, and they are quickly becoming a favorite of mine. They are extremely easy to grow and have a strong onion flavor that tastes great and everything that I’ve added them to so far.
When planting, dig a hole slightly deeper than the size of the bulb, drop the bulb in the hole, and cover it with soil and mulch. And don’t forget to water them with your favorite hose like the @hoselinkusa
These sprouted in three days, and I began harvesting within a week.
Do you grow perennial onions?
This year, I'm making sure I get my garlic in the ground at the right time. I don't want to repeat what I did last year, which led me to have a disappointing harvest.
Also, this year, I am going to experiment. I will see if there's a difference in yields between the bulbs I kept in the fridge for 40 days vs. the ones I planted directly into the ground.
Shoutout to my new favorite garden in the city, @alabamagardens
