This is my first post on lemmy!
I’m new to this whole gardening thing. I got clean off hard stuff about a year ago, and have been adding to my “farm” in the yard. My SO is super happy in the dirt too, she’s realizing how green her thumb is, and it’s extremely therapeutic for both of us.
So far I have 4 apple trees. Golden delicious, 2 granny Smith, 1 honey crisp. Two of them are new this year. The other two I planted in a drug induced haze 😅. They had rust and wooly aphids last year, but after some preventative measures this year I’m all good besides the few aphids. Luckily there’s an abundance of lady bugs here, and neem oil seems to do the trick.
The raised beds I put in over the course of this past week. It’s just a top soil/compost mix. Right now I just have grape tomatoes in there. We have carrots, broccoli, spinach, romaine, cat nip, and kale all sprouting from seeds were gonna place in there as well.
Besides those things we have some potted fruits: blueberry, raspberry, grape, strawberry as well as potatoes all growing really well right now.
My next step is to map out the raised beds and plant the sprouts. Then I’ll see about maybe transferring some of the potted stuff in there as well. We definitely have to figure out a more permanent fencing solution too, and something for over top cause the birds have been eating each berry one by one right when it ripens. Lol oh well.
I’d also like to get some more local plants, especially pollinators, elsewhere in the yard, along the tree line, everywhere. I live in NE PA if you have any reccs!
Just realized we have a spotted lantern fly nymph issue on the raspberry. Sucks, they are new to the area /: but neem oil, dawn, apple cider vinegar all kill on contact iirc.
Thanks for reading my attempt at adding more content to lemmy! (:
If you have any tricks of the trade, please, I’m all ears!
Congratulations getting clean and finding a new passion! It’s definitely worth checking in with your extension office to see if there are any plant sales that the state nursery does, and to get information about gardening events in your area.
I’m a big proponent of planting lots of species fairly densely in perennial gardens, so a fruit tree might have a few berry bushes planted around it along with some tall herbaceous individuals and runners all around and between them all. When you do move things out of their pots, try to correct any circling or girdling root issues. Treesaregood.org has some really great resources for maintaining your trees as well.
Think about what you’d like in the areas long term, and what you can do in the short term to move those spaces towards your goals. One thing we did early in was get a giant printout of our property and move scale pieces of paper to represent different things like annual gardens, a greenhouse, orchard/food forest space, a chicken coop, and the like. Obviously those can be whatever aspects you’d like to have where you are. Once you know what the longest-term areas and buildings are, what can you do to grow things while prepping those spaces for their long term? Can you use grow bags or temporary raised beds where your bushes will go later, just to get rid of the grass underneath so your new berry patch is easier to establish? Can you set up a small composting system in between the gardens and house so you can make use of scraps from the kitchen and the gardens without needing to make extra trips?
Play around with ideas on paper with your partner, discuss what might be an issue and might be beneficial, and try a small scale experiment to test the placement before going whole hog. Having those plants in pots seems like a good opportunity to try out a few different designs before digging them in and practice some iterative designing.
Wow lots of great info! I really appreciate it. I’m probably gonna do all those things…or try. I do have a bunch of grow bags going, pretty much all the pots are bags until we figure it out. We have our compost going pretty good at this point, and we’re setting up a rain barrel this week. I’m gonna bookmark your comment for sure. I appreciate your wisdom and kind words.
It’s genuinely my pleasure! Just like recovery, you can’t do all the steps at once - it’s important to build on your successes and personal growth while respecting yourself for what’s not perfect. I’m excited to see how you and your space grow, so I hope you’ll keep posting!
Yes OP! Think of your zones and consider how the sun sits. You want to match your plants to the right spot for them. No good having a beautiful looking layout if nothing is growing where it wants to.
Wow youve got heap growing, congrats on your garden!
Oof i got lantern fly last year and it was rough. I’ll be paying a lot closer attention to my berry patch this year to keep them under control. Decimated my raspberries and boysenberries. The blackberries did okay.
I use old willow branches with nets draped over the top to keep the birds out. You can create wee netted tunnels with polypipe and stitcks as well! I’m about to add some to my brassicas as the cabbage fly is getting to them.
Looks like your seedlings are a bit leggy. Is this intentional? If not try moving them closer to your light source. It also helps to have a bit of a breeze for them to strengthen their stems 😊
**Also i see your image has changed and is loading sideways. I have this problem too. Resave it as a new image (i use a 3rd party photo app like adobe) and upload again. For some reason pictures taken with a phone often read as horizontal even if they are vertical. Someone smarter than me will figure it out I’m sure😅
This is the first time I ever tried seedlings, so no its not lol. I will open the window and move light closer. I appreciate the advice. My SO is fussing over them as we speak 😀
I have some nets on the way! Birds took about 5 little apples so far /: I consider it the cost of learning haha.
The lantern flies are nuts, one day nothing, the next I got about 15 or 16 of them on two baby raspberries.
I’m still figuring out how much water everything likes etc. Hell I’m still figuring out everything. I had blackberries but they died, though there is a new sprout in the pot! I moved them to a better location and the babies seem to he doing alright.
Thanks again for the tips.
Edit: ya I noticed that. Ugh. I suck at technology but I’ll try to fix it.
Really hope you can get the lantern fly under control. I water based on soil feel. Another great way to keep even moisture is with ollas. Then the soil can wick moisture as needed as long as you keep them topped up. Now if you have very wet clay heavy soils you might want to amend them. Can’t go wrong with adding more organic matter!
Yea where I planted the apple trees I dug a larger hole, and mixed top soil and compost in with the loose dirt from the whole, so I guess I sort of amended it for the trees. Lol. I’ll have to look more into the process.
The flies are definitely a bit discouraging, specially cause I don’t see them too too often in my immediate area. I’ll just try to be proactive. I read you can make a dawn/acv solution and they’ll be drawn to it to drink and end up dead. Whether or not that’s effective is a different matter lol.
Wow, so beautiful! You should be proud of your hard work.
I don’t live in PA anymore and I miss the apples, especially. Supposedly my new location is better for produce, but I can’t get anything to grow without getting eaten by bugs or sunburnt… Anyway, I’m jealous! Gorgeous
Thanks! Yea I’ve lived in PA my whole life besides a short west coast stint. I am a city boy though, moved out here like 5 yrs ago and I’m finally able to take advantage of my situation. I will say the mosquitoes and ticks are absolutely CRAZY this year.
