Saturday, April 5, 2014

Garden Update

Just a quick notation of Spring progress in the garden.
The Pink Lemonade Sunshine Blue blueberries are developing nicely.  These are in a pot so it's much easier to keep the soil acidic.  Netting to combat those thieving birds needs to be put in place this weekend.
Thornless boysenberries (6 plants) are producing well.  Once the petals have matured a bit more, bird netting will be installed here as well.  It's a lot more difficult than with the blueberries.
O'Henry blossoms have faded giving way to developing peaches.  This summer I will try to correct some pruning neglect from last year.  More on that in a later post.
Granny Smith apples are coming along beautifully.  I don't thin out the fruit.  Nature will drop the weak ones in most all cases.
Celebrity tomatoes (6) all have multiple blossoms and are thriving amongst the onions.  I suspect that when the heat turns up this week (95 by Wednesday), these plants will be going bonkers.  In the meantime, I'm loving this cool, overcast Saturday.
I picked up a little lavender plant that needs to be potted. It's already developed buds.  No doubt it will enjoy the heat next week and be in full bloom.

That's a quick peek at what's going on in the garden.

7 comments:

Sue said...

Lovely as always. So nice to see such healthy growing plants. Have you tried those blueberries before? I'm curious about the taste....

daisy g said...

Ooooooooh, peaches, apples and lavender! So many lovely gifts. I'll have to remember to containerize the blueberries. So much easier to keep the birds away! I hope you'll share this Tuesday on The Maple Hill Hop!

dorothy said...

Those blueberries look yummy! I haven't used netting yet. Would it keep the squirrels out or would they just get tangled up? I see that the temp here on Tues is supposed to be 92º. I'm not ready for that kind of weather in early April!

Erin said...

Get the curser to the right of the picture to delete (this can take a few good pushes on the ipad screen to get the curser on the right side) and then just hit the backspace key.
Erin

MAYBELLINE said...

Sue - thanks. This is the 2nd year for the blueberries. Last year, i was able to sample a few before the birds took over. They tasted great to me. This year looks like more for me. However, the berries do turn from pink to blue. Perhaps these were mislabeled.

Daisy g - I have no idea what the Maple Hill Hop is.

Dorothy - this coming week is going to be brutal.

Erin - you're a treasure. I was able to remove the duplicate photo from this post. Calgary?! I'm envious.

David said...

Maybelline, your garden is so far ahead of us here in Nebraska. We are close to starting the garden year. I've been prepping the beds but the temperatures are still dropping down in the lower 20s at night. Not quite favorable even for the cold weather plants just yet. I think I'll replant the cabbages this next week and cover them at night to protect them. The five that I planted about three weeks ago are surviving but are pretty sad looking. I covered them too but after five or six nights in a row of hard freezing temperature even the toughest of cabbages would be affected.

On the bright side the crocus will be in full bloom in a couple days. The tulips, daffodils, and Iris look strong and are about four inches high with a very healthy look. Soon the yards in the neighborhood will be alive with blooms and foliar beauty.

Have a great plant protecting day.

Bill Bird said...

Garden looks great! My O'Henry blossomed so prolifically that I've been culling fruit nearly every day. When one, single branch holds 40 or more peaches? It's time to thin them out. It's either that or broken branches. The crop on the June Pride is a little light this year and I deliberately culled my 5-in-1 Pride peach tree (May, June, July, August and September Prides) because I want the tree to focus on growth in its second year. I can wait on production. And with three peach trees -- and five varieties of peaches on just one of them -- I have a feeling that I'm going to be awash in peaches one day soon. My pluot tree really produced an outstanding crop as did the boysenberries and blackberries, but the cherry crops (for some reason) are surprisingly light. Oh well -- can't have everything I guess. Glad the blight isn't hitting you like it hit me this year!