Memoirs of an Incompetent Gardener.
I previously mentioned about my apricot tree dying. I have had issues with a fungal infection, but was hoping that I could cut out the older wood as new growth was looking promising to replace it. Suddenly, this year it's just completely died on me. I was still rather puzzled, because when parts of the tree have died before, it was just a case of them not returning after winter. The other day, I realised that the neighbour's plum tree, which is right next to our apricot, has also suddenly up and died. Even odder as it has previously shown no signs of issues. Knowing that the neighbours' landlords have been removing all the trees on their property over the last couple of years, I'm now wondering if they poisoned it. If they have, the chances are the roots of the two trees touch one another anyway, so this could be why our apricot has died with it.
Ah the joys of neighbours when you're trying to grow a garden. They have young kids and they seem to like throwing their rubbish onto our driveway and over the fence. I suspect they also like using our driveway as a ramp for their bikes and scooters, because the plants I have alongside it have been damaged and ripped up at various times. I know their parents would do something if they saw it, but they don't always supervise them playing out. I'm tempted to start lining the driveway with really spiky bushes...
The grapes aren't looking great. Initially I wondered if those late spring hail showers caused some damage, but now I'm wondering if it's black rot.
With the root knot still not under control I'm feeling like the most useless gardener ever at the moment. Do you want to know what else I have killed this year? One lime, two finger limes, the lemon is nearly there and the mandarin is surviving on a prayer!
Okay, I'm going to attempt to try and look at successes. I have some volunteer tomato plants that I've moved to a, hopefully, root knot free zone. Some are flowering and setting the first fruits of the year. Yes, I know, everyone else in the gardening forums locally are already getting ripe tomatoes, so they're way ahead of me. Mine aren't dead, though, so surely I can get some credit for that!
After hand pollinating and with a little getup forum the bees, I do seem to have a few more apples growing this year, but not lots.
The first butternut squash/pumpkin plant has reached the top of the makeshift curcubit arch. Now I just need some male flowers to pollinate the females that keep coming.
I also have some cucumber plants that aren't dead. Admittedly, I did have four, but one got chomped at the base of its stem earlier on. No signs of any fruit yet, unlike those show offs on the forums and @riverflows in Melbourne with her abundant, productive garden!
I have oranges on my orange tree and admittedly scale insects that I keep trying to remove from it.
I also have carrots again! Check out this pretty thing I was choping up the other day:
I really need to see if I have any more carrot seeds to sow. I'm so disorganised...
My Easter Eggers are over 5 months old, so I really should get them sold. I'm just a bit nervous of getting the sex wrong, because out of 13, I only seem to have 3 roosters and that's just too lucky to be true. Maybe there are some late developers. One of the three pullets my parents took has started laying, so they can't be that late in developing, surely?
Mamma Red has her chicks up roosting. That's the joys of having a hen raising chicks. The 5+ month olds still hide under the nest boxes most of the time. Probably because the big hens are bullies and peck them if they go on the roosts.
Those looks that say, "do you mind, we're trying to sleep!"
Now I should probably go and actually get on with gardening instead of writing about it. Maybe that's why nothing gets done...
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Ah some years just seem to fizzle despite your plans. It's bloody hard work. I feel like I've got a handle on it now and lots of systems and microclimates but to be honest I still don't know what I'm doing haha.
That's such a bugger about the neighbours. I remember Dad throwing buckets of leaves back and forth over the fence with his neighbour in the early 80s before we moved to an acre on.the coast. It was amusing watching two grown men be so ridiculous. Poison is far worse. Wtf is wrong with people..
Love those chookies!!!!! I've not ever seen that sort
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I wish I had a handle on it!
Leaf warfare! I'd have kept the leaves! 😂 I guess it could have been worse. Our old neighbours in England had issues with the neighbours on the other side due to their cats spraying her plants and crapping in her garden. The neighbour ended up with a pile of cat poo on the doorstep when she went away for a couple of days. Collected from the gardens of two neighbours I believe.
The chookies are Easter Eggers. A cross between araucanas and light Sussex in this case. They should lay blue to green eggs.
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I love gardening and look forward to Spring when I get back to my house and start my seedlings and plan for the coming Summer. Gardening will ALWAYS have failure, it's part of the package. The one thing I have always felt so important that Gardening teaches us is both Patience and the acceptance of inevitable failure (both important lessons in life) and then to learn and grow from those failures.
You have some lovely chickens there. I usually keep chickens as well, but have been wanting to get a hybrid that will forage and do okay on their own, as I am away from my house for 4-6 months a year and instead of giving them to a farm each year, I'd love to see if they could go off into our woods and make it on their own. Probably a pretty big pipe dream, but still curious to give it a go one year.
So true, gardening does teach us so much. I feel it's pertinent to share those failures too. At the moment they are rather overwhelming me, but then my focus has been elsewhere of late.
I have heard that there are foraging breeds which do well with little input. I wonder if you would be collecting eggs from the woods if they make themselves at home there after 4-6 months! :D It would certainly be an interesting experiment.
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Relaxing and great to read... I have never done much gardening or planting as a youth. We live in a city in Africa and we have no garden to ourselves here. However, there are lots of farmlands in my hometown, I just don't get around there often. I did own a coop a couple of years back and we had a sizable number then. Including 2 big Roosters i named Tic and Tac. They were a menace to the smaller ones. lol...
Lol... Kids.
At least we've got the Tomatoes, Apples, Pumpkins and Carrots going for us. That's worth counting as success, indeed.
Great read.
Roosters and kids! Both can be such pains, but we can't help but love them! You've got to love that the kids are playing outside instead of in on computer games.
I agree. a lot of real-life communication is lost to the internet lately, even among kids.
We'll let them have fun!
EDIT: Congratulations on your Curie
Full marks for disorganised. So many use unorganised, or even worse, unorganized.
I didn't know poison spread through the roots as well. Is there a chance both trees have the same disease? Is there any real advantage to poisoning a tree before cutting it down?
Haha! Thats not one I've picked up on before. Don't you just love our growing language? Soon we won't know the difference! 😆
I think it would have only affected my apricot if they gotten it onto the soil as the roots would have easily have been where their tree is. I wouldn't have thought of it being poisoned, except that there is a bush a bit further into the garden which has also died and the fungal disease in my tree may possibly have affected theirs (it seems to be more apricot and peach though), but not the shrub. It's also entirely possible that it's accidental poisoning on their part as I've just realised they've been trying to get rid of a climbing rose next to the plum tree, but roses are pretty good at growing back from anything left behind. The rose has gone now though. It's on the corner of 4 properties, so I'm wondering now if anything on the back two gardens has been affected. I might investigate.
Not that it matters. What's done is done and I'll move on. They're not a bad family.
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There are very few genuinely bad neighbours.
Most full blown meltdowns come about by letting little niggles fester, unaddressed for a decade.
A decade! Most of ours rent, so they don't stick around that long.
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Things seem to be doing OK at the @minismallholding. Trees sometimes do weird things like die when they shouldn't.
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Sometimes?! That's why I'm concerned. It seems to be a regular thing for me! Lol
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We just have them in self watering pots. They seem to love it
We just have them in self watering pots. They seem to love it. I can't grow water cress... That keeps dying on me. We all have something that doesn't love us
The problem with pots is that they need repotting periodically. I ain't got time for that! 😉😆
That's interesting about the water cress. I'm assuming you grow it in the aquaponics, so I'm surprised you haven't had success with it.
There are days when I wonder if I should just fill the garden with cacti and forget about it. It should deter the local children. 🤔
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Our finger lines are in their 3rd year in their pot.
As for water cress. I've tried it in aquaponics, pots, tubs, even given it remedial massages but no luck
It didn't even respond to the massage?! That's a tough cookie to crack. 😉
Maybe it was waiting for a happy ending...
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Despite the dying trees, your apple and grapes really a nice relieve @minismallholding 😉 blood and tears always a part of gardening, right? Why is your carrot so pretty?
The carrot seeds were a rainbow pack, so there are orange, red, white and purple. This was a red, but I wasn't expecting it to be so pretty inside! Previous to this I only knew of orange and purple carrots.
I only knew the orange one 😊 the common carrot I think. How's the taste.. is it different based on its colours? Did it needs special media to grow too?
They all taste the same and grow no differently. I find the purple carrots actually manage our harsh climate better than the orange ones.
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I can't really agree that you're an incompetent gardener, I think you are doing great with your gardening project. I certainly enjoyed reading your gardening progress, both the successes and the failed attempts.
Congratulations for your curie vote ^_^.
Thank you and thank you. 😁
It's probably good to get all perspectives.
Great post, im envious of those grapes they look fab, id say far from incompetent you should see some of the disasters i had this year 😅 thanks for sharing
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They don't look to bad in the photo. Closer up, many of them have black spots. I'll have to see what I can do to salvage things.
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Hi minismallholding,
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