Wow. You are blessed with so many fruit and nut trees. We don’t have the space for that many and a decent sized garden at our current home. We’ve got 6 apple trees, 3 crab apples (that don’t make, just for show), a pecan tree or two, 2 pear trees, and 5 hazlenuts that are kind of sulling so far. I’d like to have room for more big fruiting sort of trees and we may look into some dwarf varieties next spring.
What we do have space for are blueberry bushes. I landscape with those like most people do with plain old shrubs. We’ve probably got 30-40 of those counting shoots they sent up this year.
8 apache blackberries to start and I found 3 more shoots this week that we’ll be transplanting those later this fall.
Hubby got me 3 Dorman Red raspberries last year for mothers day that have gone completely nuts. Supposedly they were bred to be happy in the heat and humidity we have down here. They’re not ‘fresh’ eating ones but they make great jam and spread. I got seventeen new plants from those original 3 this spring from where the original canes tip layered. We put the 3 mother plants up in old tomato cages to confine them and dang if they didn’t ‘escape’ and tip layer some more. I’ve probably got 10 more baby plants this fall. We’ve given a lot away from the spring batch and hubby and I will probably extend our raspberry bed this fall to include the strays we can’t give away.
I wish I could grow French Tarragon. I’ve killed 2 plants so far. I think it might be the heat but if you’ve managed to keep a plant this summer it might just be ME killing them *chuckle*. My goal this fall when it cools off is to start an herb bed somewhere in my yard. And plant a bunch of tansy and pennyroyal around my doors.
My blighty tomatoes are still hanging in there. We had a couple cool nights this week and they’ve set a whole bunch of new baby tomatoes.
Monday we’ll plant some fall zucchini, cucumbers and maybe a last batch of basil. I’ve got a bunch of zucchini seeds that make in 50 days or less so we’ll see. Hopefully we’re past the vine borer stage. I plan to make zucchini powder, maybe some pickles and cucumber powder. Around labor day I’ll plant some cabbages, broccoli, peas, broad beans and other fall stuff. IF the bad old bunny rabbits predate, they WILL end up as Hassenpfeffer! Ditto Bambis! My kids loooove bambi cooked in the crock pot.
I may start a flat or two of leeks this week too. I’ve got the seeds and we love the leeks. They’re something else I’ve seen dehydrated successfully.
We’ve had the rain a lot of people have been missing this summer. Since early July it’s been VERY unusually damp and rainy down here. We haven’t had enough to drown the garden in about a month but we get rain nearly every other day. Which is it’s own set of problems...
Peppers, beans, summer peas and sweet potatoes are a bust. Sweet potatoes were completely defoliated with an accompanying pile or two of rabbit pellets. Grrrrr...
And my strawberry beds really NEEEED to be reset and cardboard/mulched too. If only I had a tribe of garden fairies to help!
Well, that number includes our blueberry bushes, black berry etc. We bought two half acre lots when we built our house, so we do have quite a bit of space.
We have zero luck with raspberries, but a bunch of wild black berries. I managed to get several cobblers and canned 7 pints before the heat zapped them. The walnut, butternut, and persimmon trees have dropped all the fruit.
We did plant an orchard of dwarf fruit trees in 2010, and we are happy with their progress. We hope to get some fruit next year, if the heat isn’t so bad.
I planted my tarragon in a raised bed with mels mix where it gets afternoon shade. So far so good. I also water it daily, since this mix dries out quicker than regular soil.