More Fruit Trees! Asian Pear, Peach, and Apricot

 

This past weekend I planted three new fruit trees. This brings me up to nine different fruit trees with seven different kinds of fruit. I am really excited to have this variety in my zone 4 yard. For those of you curious, I have three apple, cherry, plum, pear, asian pear, peach, and apricot.

The first photo is of the new Tawara Asian pear and the photo above is of a Polly Peach. I bought both locally at Gertens for a very fair price. They are good sized trees and look very healthy. They also come with a one year warranty should anything go wrong.

The final tree is an apricot purchased locally in highland park. It is the most expensive tree in my yard now. I think it was worth it because apricots seem rather rare at the different nurseries I have visited.

We planted them by digging a hole twice as big as the container. We filled the hole with finished compost. The grass and old poor quality soil was put into the compost heap. We covered the area with cardboard and then a heavy layer of woodchip mulch.

To help with nitrogen in the area, I planted a combination of hairy vetch and clovers. The cherry and plum tree are surrounded by clover and doing much better than the apple trees without. I spread it around to my existing trees as well. I just hope the squirrels don’t eat all the seeds before they germinate.

For my existing pear tree, I added some perennial flowers including mums, cone flowers, black-eyed susans, and garlic chives near the area to add some color, visual interest, and extra food for my honeybees.

These are the two very ripe plums from my mount royal plum tree. I planted the tree last fall and was super surprised to see it flower this spring and produce these delicious plums. They were the best plums I have ever eaten. I can’t wait to more next year!

I have room for a couple more fruit trees, so I am still on the lookout for varieties hardy enough to survive a zone 4 Minnesota winter. I would love a pluot tree.

Garden Flowers

New flowers seem to be blooming all over the yard and garden. Above are some cosmos. I planted a few, and at least three plants are very healthy and blooming.

The milkweed is just beginning to bloom. This Monarch was nice enough to pose for a photo.

I’m letting some of the Arugula go to seed, so I have some seeds for later. They are blooming as well.

I have a shady spot right by my front door, so I planted some perennial dead nettles. They have tiny little pink flowers. They are establishing themselves nicely in their full shade spot.

Milkweed blooming. I have been trying to keep them weed free and mulched slightly to encourage them to take over the area. I am hoping I can get this area as a milkweed nursery, so I can plant more around the yard in the future.

Some volunteer cilantro is already going to seed. The plants are pretty small, so I won’t be collecting the seeds. I plant to put a new raised bed over the top of this area. The bees and other insects are enjoying the blooms in the meantime.

 

Laura captured some of these photos with my camera, and I edited them. I think they turned out pretty great.

Insects in the Garden

With the large diversity of plants and flowers in the garden there is a great selection of insects. I don’t know what they are all called. Here is a yellow wasp hanging out on a kale leaf.

An iridescent green fly.

Little white moth with brown spots.

Of course my honeybees in their top bar hive.

Tiny grasshopper on arugula flowers.

Black wasp enjoying the milkweed.

Monarch butterfly also enjoying the milkweed.

A little red bug.

The monarch again.

There have been a few others, but they aren’t so nice to sit and pose like the above. There are a couple other butterflies and beetles running around. We will keep trying to make photos of them.

Laura captured these photos with my camera, and I edited them. I think they turned out pretty great.

Jostaberry, Cherries, and Currants

I was so excited to see my Jostaberry bush finally producing earlier this Spring. There was ONE berry on it. I have been watching it for what feels like months hoping it would ripen and I would get to taste my first jostaberry. I hoped the birds, squirrels, and rabbits would leave it alone. The bush had a tough Spring as the rabbits decided the leaves tasted good. It persevered.I finally got my berry. It was good. It tasted like a tart/sweet berry. Almost like a cherry meets a raspberry? I look forward to eating more next year! 

We harvested the last bowl of northstar cherries from the tree. They are so good. Nice and tart. I am amazed and grateful to get so many cherries from a tree I planted less than one year ago.

We also picked the rest of the black and red currants. If you look carefully, they are hiding under the cherries in the picture. My friend liked the black currants best. After eating more, I think I like the red ones more. I think more samples will be needed to form a more complete opinion!

Garden Flowers, New Elderberry, and New Blueberries

More flowers in the garden are blooming. Above is a Cosmos. This is the first year I’ve grown them. I started them from seed and had a hard time getting them to germinate and grow. I was excited to see this one blooming today!

My orange Lilies are in full bloom now. There is a bed about twenty feet long and they start blooming from one end until the other. I really like the orange-red color they have. The tallest ones are over five feet tall.

A couple small patches of clover have been blooming for a while. I have been mowing around them, so the bees can enjoy them while they last. These are only a few inches tall.  also bought some clover seeds for much taller purple clover. I haven’t planted them yet.

This is an Elderberry I recently planted. It started blooming just after I bought it. It is a “ranch” variety. It has two small suckers starting already. When they get bigger, I may move them to another part of the yard.

Last but not least, this is a pink lemonade blueberry. It doesn’t have any flowers yet. I bought it to perhaps, finally get some blueberries. The other three different varieties I planted a few seasons ago are barely growing. I am starting to think I need to move them to another part of the yard. I tried giving them an organic soil acidifier last spring, but it hasn’t seemed to help. Perhaps a soil test is in order before I make any more changes.

Garden Update–June 5, 2015

The garden has been growing and growing with a lot of success.

The above was taken today, and the below was taken just two weeks ago. Amazing the growth in such a short amount of time. You can see the sunchokes in the background really taking off. The cabbage and collards have been proving nice salads and now the cabbage is producing small heads.

A small harvest of honeyberries today. I have been enjoying small harvests most days for over a week now. Yum! I really appreciate getting to finally eat some since I planted them three seasons ago. I like them and look forward to more! They taste like a cross between a blueberry and a raspberry.

My chives are blooming nicely. I am excited for this plant to spread a bit to add some more color and diversity to the yard.

All the peonies are blooming now. Red, white, and pink. They look and smell nice. The ants are really enjoying crawling all over them.

One set of the irises in the backyard is done and now this set is nearly done as well. They are really large flowers. Great to look at and completely surrounded by garlic chives.

The lilies in the front are starting to bloom as well. The petals will add some nice color to our salads.

Finally, the front yard has been hit pretty hard by a new rabbit population. I’ve had strawberries in the front for a few years now, but this is the first year they have been chewed down. I think it will severely hamper the harvest. I hope they can bounce back soon. The poor sunflowers are another story. They are just green sticks right now. The rabbits chewed off all the leaves. I started them nearly two months ago, and was really looking forward to the silly 12 foot tall plants. I have started some more seeds, but I am not sure they will have enough time to mature now.

To address the furry pest problem, I have ordered some narcissus bulbs. The flowers will look great and they should keep the deer, rabbits, and squirrels away. I also planted some perennial onions in with some of the beds. I will move some garlic chives into the area as well. All three should do a nice job keeping the critters back and they are all perennial, so low maintenance. My backyard has a sturdy fence, so I haven’t had a lot of pest issues in the past.

Plants plants and more plants! Garden Update

I have been spending a lot of time this year trying to make my yard look nicer and to convert grass and weeds into something useful, tasty, beautiful, or all three.

The raised beds in the backyard and full of life and starting to supply a small amount of food in the form of collards, cilantro, and garlic chives.

The hostas I planted last year were finally seriously mulched and ringed with some free rocks from a friend’s house. I think they are looking really nice. I am glad they all came back. I can’t wait to see how they look at the end of the year all filled in.

My friend Lisa gave me some mint. I planted it on the side yard. I made a rhizome barrier with part of an old piece of edging to keep it from spreading and taking over the entire yard. It was tempting not to put it in. Mowing the yard and smelling mint would be nice. I decided to keep it contained, so it doesn’t choke out the neighboring plants. I mulched them with some cut grass.

She also gave me a couple clematis. I am hoping they will grow up and cover up the fence. *fingers crossed*

A new combination of hostas, lilies of the valley, and some catnip all mulched and edged with extra wood.

I was happy to see my arctic kiwis coming back. I hope they take over the fence this year. They have been slow growing so far. I planted a chive plant in the middle to add some color in the mean time. The kiwis used to be in their own small beds, but I combined them into one big one. There is cardboard under the woodchips to help suppress weeds and grass. Sheet mulching FTW!

One of my hostas in the backyard was getting to big and blocking the new path. I cut it into ten pieces and spread it along one of the fences. I used some more logs and woodchips to make them look nicer.

How is your garden doing?

Spring Flowers–The Edibles are Blooming!

I was excited to come home from work today and find a multitude of plants blooming that weren’t doing so yesterday. Spring is such a fun time because the plants are changing and growing so much! It is a joy to find new things emerging or blooming each day.

Yea, ok, the above photo isn’t an edible perennial; it is the part of the bulb gardens I planted late last fall with a friend. The crocus already bloomed, and now we appear to be in hyacinth season. They are quite pretty. I love the strong purple color. I also planted some white ones, but those haven’t come up yet. On to the edibles!

Truly the most exciting thing tonight was to see my northstar cherry tree blooming! I hope the bees do their thing and pollinate it. My new honeybees won’t be here for another week or two.

The pear tree next to the cherry also started blooming today which is amazing since it has almost no leaves. It only had a few blossoms where the cherry has at least a hundred. 

The next surprise is the jostaberry peeking out a few little flowers. Exciting!

The new black currant I planted is also starting to bloom.

The chokeberries have flower buds, but no flowers yet. Soon.

The little sand cherries also have a couple buds.

The serviceberry I planted last weekend is also blooming. It’s not quite a full bloom, it is quite pretty covered in white buds.

While not an edible, this siberian bugloss is blooming with the pretty little blue flowers.

I have dozens of tulips, but only this one is blooming so far. It great to look at during the day when it opens up all the way.

Ok, so this isn’t a flower, and it’s kinda blurry, but it’s one of the new sunchokes I planted not even two weeks ago! The honeyberries are also still blooming. I’m having a lot of fun each day wandering around the yard looking at all the changes.

What’s blooming in your yard?