Tag Archives: persimmon

Garden Update – May 7, 2023

My oldest fruit trees along the west side are finally producing fruit! I wish I would have been on top of spraying them for insects though. I lost 7 young fruit trees from last summer’s heat and transplanted the 4 figs that survived in pots last summer.

A few of the blackberries are already starting to ripen. I’m surprised by the number of blackberry plants that have died off. Only the thornless varieties have died, the native thorned variety I have is multiplying faster than I can keep it trimmed. A wasp was occupying the fruit I was photographing.

The raised beds in the front are all doing great. The squash and cucumbers I planted a few weeks ago are all popping up and I’ve already thinned them out. I added a layer of old tree leaves as mulch. We need to hurry up and harvest the broccoli before it bolts. Onions are almost ready to harvest. The peas are putting out fruit faster than we can keep it picked.

In the back in-ground row-garden, all the mellons, corn, okra, and cover crop is starting to come up. I thinned out the melons today and tried to transplant some of them. We should have enough melons to supply the grocery store if these do well.

We planted 4 tomato plants in the raised bed in front of our house. This bed is usually just out-of-control mint. I’m happy to see the start of delicious tomatoes well on their way! We are having a hard time keeping the chickens out of this bed though. The love to hang out and dig around.

tomato
tomato

Swale Updates

My new swale did a good job slowing down water runoff and promoting water insoak, but it needed to be tweaked a little to transform it from just a ditch to a gentle slope that we can take care of with the riding mower. I used a box blade on the tractor to even everything out. We also buried a 4-inch drain pipe and covered it with crushed rock. I’ll encourage grass to grow on top of the rock. All the trees I’ve transplanted seem to be doing great.

Hachiya and Honan Red Persimmon Trees Planted

I planted 2 bare-rooted persimmon trees that I bought from Trees of Antiquity in California. One of the trees is Hachiya, which someone said was their favorite flavor, and the other is a Honan Red. I put them in the same swale where I have my fig trees on the east side of the house. See the interactive map for the location.

Pear, Pawpaw, Cherry, Persimmon, Pluerry, Pomegranate Trees Planted

Over the past 2 days, I’ve planted 8 more fruit trees.

13) Asian Pear w/ grafts of:  Hosui (12), 20th Century (3), Chojuro (6), Shenseiki (9)
14) Fuyu Japanese Persimmon
15) Sweet Treat Pluerry
16) Wonderful Pomegranate
17) Cherry w/ grafts of: Stella (2), Black Tartarian (4), Bing (7), Rainier (10) *
18) empty space
19) Pennsylvania Golden PawPaw (Grafted)
20) Sunflower Pawpaw (Grafted)
21) Mango Pawpaw (Grafted)
(graft positions given w/ North = 12 o’clock)
* = yes, I realize cherry trees won’t set fruit here because of our lack of cooling hours, but I wanted to try it anyway   Continue reading