Monday, February 23, 2015

Harvest Monday, 23 February, 2015

The greens are still holding out. It won't be long though before my stores of greens are gone. I've started eying what they have at the grocery store. I have a feeling I'll be eating a lot of broccoli because I love it so much.

Over the last couple of weeks I've been making more purchases. The first are the seeds. I decided to trial a couple of C. moschata. That is the only kind of squash that will grow here with the squash vine borers. It isn't that I can't get another kind to set fruit, but it is rare that they have the time to ripen it before the plants die. The two types are Thai Rai Kaw Tok and Upper Ground Sweet Potato Squash. Both of those are a mouthful to say. Why can't seed breeders come up with something shorter? I just hope they do well in the garden this year. Then I would love them no matter what they are called. I got them from Baker Creek, which has the best selection of C. moschata squash I've seen anywhere. The total was $9.50. Shipping adds so much to little orders.

Also for the vegetable garden I bought some more netting. I decided to get two bolts as I probably won't have to buy any next year. Though I have an eye on it for using more up (sady), which I'll talk about later. Total $71.65.

The other purchase are some more fruit trees. My figs are never going to produce enough to make them worth it. If I loved figs a lot, it would be worth it. But I just like them. So I'm going to rip them out. In addition my Green Gage plum tree is very unhappy. Every year it looks sick. Then the aphids attack. It grows, but I think it will never do well. I'm going to try another variety of plum. Or more to the point two varieties on one tree. This one has Shiro and Redheart on it. From what I hear the Shiro will grow like crazy to start so I'll have to keep it a bit under control until the Redheart catches up. Or I can just have a really unbalanced tree for a while.

I thought about another plum tree, but to be honest plums are sometimes bearers around here with the plum curculio so I didn't want to plant more than one more unless I knew it could produce constantly. I already have one in the vegetable garden, but it is more of an ornamental than a really good producer. I could use the fruit of more than one as plums are my tomato substitute (I can't eat tomatoes).

So instead I decided to add a persimmon. I wanted it to be short to fit in the rock wall so I picked Itchy. Really it is Ichi-Ki-Kei-Jiro, but it is another one of the huge too long names. Why oh why can't people pick short names. Redheart and Shiro are both great names. So I'm sticking with Itchy. This one gets 8-10' tall. The double plum gets 12-15' tall, but I'm going to endeavor to keep both to 6' so they are harvestable. After several years of pruning my other trees small, I have more confidence that I can do this. If not, well I'll either have to let it go, which wouldn't be so good in its spot, or I'll have to replace it with something other than a plum.

The last tree that I'm going to put in is a Pink Lady apple. I wanted a Jazz apple, but no one sells them. Basically I'm going with a good eating apple and we already have a Honey Crisp and a Ginger Gold in the yard. My other espaliered trees are all applesauce apples. So I figured a late eating apple would be nice. If I get too many, I can make any apple into applesauce for my husband. This will be espaliered just like my other apples in the rock wall garden. Though it will be smaller as the spot is only 5' wide, not 8'. These trees add $103.92 to my fruit tally. I continue to spend money every year on fruit. I wonder if some year I'll just stop and start making the tally positive instead of negative.

  • Fruit Tally
  • This week: -103.92
  • This year: -113.92
  • Total all years: -943.89

  • Vegetable Tally
  • Baker Creek: -9.50
  • Netting: -71.65
  • This weeks total: -81.15
  • Yearly Total: -292.62

I've got a lot of negatives. Last year was the first year the yearly fruit tally was positive. I hope production makes up for my spending again this year. But I have a long way to go before my orchard pays for itself. The veggie garden pays for itself every year. In fact usually I'm down at the beginning of the year about $400-$500 and up a $1000 at the end of the year. But a lot of my long term big items had their amortization time run out. The costs are all upfront though, so it looks so bad even though this year seems a bit better. Not that I've finished spending yet.

Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to show off, add your name and link to Mr Linky below.

21 comments:

  1. Looking forward to reading about your Ichi-Ki-Kei-Jiro persimmon, I have been thinking about planting a persimmon tree for a while but not sure if it will grow well and produce in my area or which variety to grow.

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  2. Baker Creek does have a great selection of the C. moschata types, for that matter they have a lot of winter squash period. I hope the Thai squash does well for you there. I wish I knew what 'Rai Kaw Tok' meant but I haven't been able to find out.

    I planted an astringent type persimmon last fall, Saijo. It is hardy to zone 6, but we've had a winter closer to zone 5, so it will be interesting to see if it survives its first winter!

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  3. Hey Daphne, stop worrying about positive or negative balances in a strictly financial manner! Consider too the health benefits and therapeutic benefits of the ownership of those fruit trees. They'll give you hours of satisfaction (aka work) for years to come, not to mention edible fruit (we hope!)

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  4. We really need to get to the ploy for some fresh veg but Martyn isn't well so haven't managed a visit again, Have you tried a wash on your gages as it keeps aphids at bay on ours? We use us over winter which may be a bit tricky for you with all that snow. I love Pink Lady apples and persimmons. I wonder whether persimmons would grow here?

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    1. I have sprayed them with insecticidal soap. It never seems to help much. It helps with my apple trees, but the poor plum is not healthy to start with. I'm not sure what is wrong with it. I think it is some kind of deficiency, but not sure. Other things will grow there though. I've been told that European plums (which is the plum that is there) don't do as well here. So I'm switching to the Japanese types that are supposed to do better there. Hopefully they won't have as much of a problem as the other.

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  5. I think that spring can't come soon enough for you. It must be depressing to have to buy vegetables. It sounds like some good fruit tree selections, I hope the investment pays off.

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  6. We put in 5 new fruit trees last year, so we are not in the waiting stage for a few years as they mature and start to produce! Fun to look to the future. FYI I love the way you keep track of costs and income from your garden. That's something I should have done when we started our new garden.

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  7. Lucky You! Pink Lady's are one of our favourite apples but we are one zone shy of being able to grow them. We are however, only a few km from what is considered zone 6, so who knows - climate zones don't follow a street map. I have flirted with giving them a go, perhaps near an expanse of west-facing brick wall which may moderate the temps a bit, but think I will stick with known hardy varieties for now - we love Honey Crisp just as much.

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    1. Hmm I bought the tree from Stark and they say Pink Lady is hardy to zone 5. They might do well for you.

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    2. Oops - I should have mentioned I am in zone 5 (bordering on zone 6) based on Canadian hardiness zones, which are generally one zone higher than in the US - so our zone 5 is *usually* the same as zone 4 in the US. Guess I should have looked at those hardiness maps before we moved ;)

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  8. It always looks bad at the beginning of the year...and then the harvests roll in and you blow everyone away! Enjoy your purchases...there's so much hope in each of them :-)

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  9. Oh Daphne... It breaks my heart to hear that you are ripping out the figs and plum. I would LOVE to take them off your hands. I have 3 figs that produce well here, and a plum that flowers insanely but never produces. Maybe I could beg you to send me a few scions of the plum? I can send postage and the box!

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    1. Tell me how to do it. And email me your info (daphne@alum.mit.edu)

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  10. I planted a persimmon tree two years ago, it's not producing fruit yet, in fact it's not growing as well as it should, my hunch is that the roots from our neighbor's tree is competing for nutrients and water.

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  11. Glad to see some apples amongst your new trees. It's a tough decision to take out existing fruit trees but it sounds like you've got good reasons.

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  12. Nice greens. My fig plant only about 10-12 figs or a little less than that I had gotten. I never got over dozen yet but I keep it in doors during winter.

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  13. Envious of your greens, I'm down to one bag of chard. So wonderful that you store/freeze enough to get you this far! Such a shame that you are pulling the figs ... I now have a 3 year old fig tree which has never bore a fruit and I would LOVE some! But I know what you mean, if you prefer something else. I'm sure some people would love my crabapples but I don't really like them (i'm just joking,does anyone love crabapple?).

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  14. I am so envious of all your fruit trees, we only have room for a lime and a grapefruit. And how do you cook your little pots of pumpkin (squash)?

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    1. I think next week I'll have to do a recipe post about it. It is my favorite way of eating squash and I get a lot of questions about it.

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  15. I love Pink Lady apples. It's interesting how some varieties are more popular in some countries than others but they seem popular everywhere.

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  16. I hope your fruit trees all survived this cold winter.

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