My low tunnel

Took a pic of one of my vegetable beds.  This one has a few rows of broccoli and cauliflower.  You can see the low tunnel really helps the broccoli take off.  All plants were around the same size when put in the ground.  To the right you can see the plants that have been stuck outside this cold and dreary April.

Finally some bees

I saw at least one bumble bee, a few honey bees and some other very small bees around the apricots today.  They know how to pollinate a lot better then I do.  First sunny day since Monday.

The peaches are starting to show pink...  Should see open flowers soon.

My back hurts

I re-potted a seedling apple yesterday (I plan on grafting it with several different varieties next year) into a new 15 gallon pot.   I plan on getting very creative with the training of this apple.  I want to form a type of "step over" or two long lateral branches or possible some other shape.  We'll see how it looks in another year or two.

I used a lot of wood chips in my soil mix, so the pot wasn't too heavy.  I topped the soil mix with some wood chips to help conserve moisture when/if it turns hot :)

Another item on my tray is a dozen or so pear seedlings from last year, along with another dozen Seckel seedlings from this year.  I'll probably use the ones above as grafting experiments next year.  They were potted up in 7 gallon pots about 2 weeks ago.  I'll need to order various pear scion next winter. 

My pots arrived

I ordered a few 15 gallon pots for trees. The arrived very quickly having ordered them late last week.

Big box for big pots. Shipping is pricey when they get this big. Finding them locally is pretty much impossible, so I'm stuck forking out the cash.

My son has issues with making a "normal" face when dad is trying to compose a picture. I probably should have bribed him with more then a piece of chocolate.

Just another wet Tuesday

After a cool, but dry weekend, and a beautiful 66F and sunny Monday, Tuesday dawned with heavy rain and thick clouds. Over the past few days the apricots have started flowering, with the Puget Gold and the oldest of the Tomcots flowering first.

By late Monday evening there were a lot of flowers opened on the Puget Gold and a few more on the Tomcot. With all the rain in the forecast, I decided to try hand pollinating with a very fine paint brush. I have no idea if it worked, but I guess we'll find out in a few weeks.

I would guess that the container sweet cherry, and the two container peaches will be the next to flower.

Musser Forests Inc tree purchase

Thought I'd show what an order from Musser Forest looks like.

The order consisted of Balsam Fir, Canadian Hemlock and Norway Spruce. 25 of each.

I was impressed. For the price its a pretty good deal. I guess we'll find out in a few years how they perform. Some had to be potted up because I ran out of room and some are being given away.

Best smelling flowers?

Sweet cherry blossoms smell like heaven.  If you haven't smelled them, give them a sniff sometime. 

You can see the Stella sweet cherry is nearing bloom. 

Here is another sweet cherry (Kristin) that I moved this past fall to a new spot.  This picture was from April 29th, 2009. 

More typical April Wisconsin weather with temps in the 40F's and clouds.  Yippee!

Pink peaches, white popcorn, and an orange pumpkin?

I've been growing peach trees in containers for a few years now. A couple of tips would be to use large pots (at least 15 gallon), fertilizer/water often during the growing season and protect the tree during winter (I move mine into our attached garage). The nice thing by doing this is that you can guarantee yourself fruit every year and not have to deal with dead blossoms, peach leaf curl and bad tasting hardy type peaches (Reliance just isn't a good tasting peach in my book).

Peach bud flower...showing some pink.

Of course we have to have some popcorn (Puget Gold apricot) to go with our peaches.

Pumpkins in April?  Not what you normally see growing this time of year...

Cold, cloudy and the snow still hasn't melted completely

After watching 3 inches of snow fall yesterday, today ended up being not much better. Think we managed 40F or so and maybe 10 minutes of sun. Spring really needs to show up soon.

This picture from a few days ago shows a few different trees.  In front would be the Seckel pear, behind that are two Evan's Bali sour cherries, behind that would be a seed grown apple (small), a McIntosh, Sweet 16 and Cortland are the 3 trees in the far background.  The Seckel, McIntosh and Cortland are all from spring of 2006.  The Seckel has been moved once, so that may have set it back some.  That ghetto metal fence in the backyard needs to go...a new wood fence is planned. 

Here is the Seckel flowering on May 4th, 2009.

I hate snow

Mother nature has other plans for spring this year.  Starting early this morning the snow started falling and it has slowly started building up on grass surfaces.  Give me 70F and sunny any day!

Extended forecast does show a little warmer weather a week from now.  Maybe some 60Fs will be back by then?  Wait and find out.

Snow in the forecast

Did I mention I hate snow?  The forecast doesn't look too appealing.

A late bloom is almost assured now. 

This was what the apricot blossoms looked like yesterday.

Still waiting for the trees to bloom.

A picture from this afternoon of the front yard.  You can see I have a lot packed into a small area.  Plenty of room left.  In the back left you can see 3 sweet cherries.  In the middle is a sour cherry, behind that is various apricots.  To the right is 2 of my plums.  I put in a row of pines (Norway spruce and Balsam fir) a few weeks ago that form an L.  It should look quite different in 2 to 3 weeks if warmer temps show up.

My Hunza apricot for some reason likes to grow straight up.

Still plenty of work to do, but the season is still very young.

First Post!

I've come to the conclusion, years too late, to start a blog to keep track of my triumphs and failures trying to grow fruit, veggies and flowers here in my back and front yard in the driftless area of southwest Wisconsin. 

I first started gardening as a young boy in my childhood home in La Crosse, WI.  I helped mom out often with the tomatoes, green beans and other easy to grow veggies.  It wasn't much and I soon lost interest (middle school/high school), but obviously the idea sat in my subconscious brewing and festering for many, many years.

After finally moving out (at 19), going to college (sort of), and renting several upscale (yikes!) rentals, I took my first step back into the world of agriculture.  Planting a few tomato plants next to the garage at our rental (in containers).  They grew great and tasted great.  From there on I continued to grow mainly tomatoes and peppers for the next few years at various places we lived.  I attempted several other veggies, such as sweet corn and broccoli.

During the late 90's a high school  friend's mom, who grew a wide assortment of fruit, had me over to his house.  There I roamed and tasted several fruits.  These included peaches, pears, apples, hardy kiwi, grapes? and a wide assortment of veggies.  I was amazed that you could grow these things in Wisconsin

When my mom bought a house on the upper northside of La Crosse (2000ish), we noticed a tree loaded with orange orbs (apricots).  I noticed the tree was diseased (it was a large tree with a thick trunk) and learned it was probably canker.  I ended up removing the tree (it only set fruit occasionally due to spring frost killing the blossoms).  This really set things in motion because in the process of identifying this disease I made my first post on the Gardenweb forums and started those little gears in my brain moving in all kinds of different directions.


Over the years I always ran into one obstacle with growing fruit....land!  I was always renting, so no way to plant trees that wouldn't bear for at least a year if not longer.  That lasted until 2005 when we moved into our home (that we live in now) during a November snow storm (I hate snow).  It wasn't until spring of 2006 that I was able to plant several peaches (all Reliance/or so I thought), plums (Superior and Alderman), pear (Seckel) and 2 apples (McIntosh and Cortland). 

Over the years I've cut down all the peaches (winter kill/peaches weren't all Reliance) and now only have a few various seedlings (I have no idea what they are), but still have the pear, plums and apples.  Along with that I've added sour cherries (Meteor/Evans Bali), sweet cherries (Stella, Lapins, BlackGold, Kristin), apricots (Puget Gold, Harogem, Tomcot), pears  (Harrow Sweet and Rescue).  Add in many seedlings in pots, wide assortment of flowers, various pine trees and of course a good selection of veggies and you have the makings of the Quarter Acre Orchard.