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(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.)

Grapes are a relatively fast maturing plant as far as fruit production (compared to trees) but even for them the vines that bear fruit grow off of last year’s vines. Unless you are already growing or purchase “primacane” variety berries, most of them are the same way. Asparagus and rhubarb need to be established a year or two before they can be harvested. You have time to deal with that year of start up time now, so take advantage of it.

Established fruit trees and plants can produce excessive amounts of fruit. New trees don’t. Plant now.

Pay attention to the varietals you are planting. It matters. Choose ones that match your growing season, climate, and challenges. If you have a shorter growing season, choose early harvest varietals. With a longer season, you might be able to fit in two harvests. Disease resistance, number of frost hours required, etc all can be important factors to plant survival and production. Outside of the plant and growing characteristics, fruit type matters too. If you are planning on making sauce from tomatoes, cherry tomatoes may not be the best for you! Are you choosing heirloom varietals?

Not to contradict myself, but while varietals matter, local knowledge and plant stock also matter. Don’t reinvent the wheel. If your neighbor has amazing fruit trees or a great garden, go talk to them. See what they are growing. See how often they water them. See what their fertilizer regimen is. Learn what you can. There is no need to repeat mistakes someone else has already learned from! Some gardeners don’t like to give up secrets, but most will help a neighbor out, especially if the interest is genuine. We have had good luck, not coming empty-handed. If they have iris growing somewhere, we have brought a few bulbs of a different color flower and a dozen eggs from the hens to help break the ice. In our neck of the woods, people are not only neighborly but happy to help and have other self-sufficient families around. When we run into them later, we have always made it a point to tell them how the garden was doing and let them know that their advice paid off.

Our berry cuttings came from a nearby farm. The owners were out by the fence one day and we stopped to ask them about the huge blackberry thicket they had growing on a creek drainage. An hour of conversation later, we had new friends and permission to make cuttings from the berries when we wanted. They had no idea what varietal they were but the berries love the local climate and you can’t argue with that. This may not always be possible, but take advantage of local plants when you can. If your garden zone is supposed to grow apples and peaches, but no one is growing peaches, ask around! There may be a good reason why not!

Our garden has a gradual slope, so that the northeast corner is the highest and the southwest corner is the lowest. One of the things we noticed was that we tended to have water drainage towards the western fence, and then south. Because of the natural water flow, this was where we established our berries. They love it.

Try to take advantage of the natural layout of your garden. We have made a habit of tossing a few seeds of whatever is left in any area that has water drainage after watering and the plants have almost always done well. Pay attention to what direction your sun comes from and don’t put tall plants in front of short plants. Likewise, If you have grapes, hops, or other plants of a similar vine form, plant them on the furthest fence from the sun (North for us), not the nearest, so the sun isn’t blocked. Plan the garden so things with a similar watering schedule are near each other. Make your life easier.

Try not to mix annuals and perennials in the same bed. This helps with prep for next year, as well as watering. We have a bed of rhubarb, asparagus, and all of our perennial herbs. This way, we aren’t trying to dig around established plants to prep the rest of the bed for planting. Let your garden be your guide. Work with what your garden wants to do, not against it. One side of our orchard gradually becomes more rocky and clay. The trees on that side of the yard didn’t drain and died. We replaced them with blueberries that do great in the spot. Likewise with the blackberries in the drainage, taking advantage of the natural run off.Continue reading“Garden Lessons – Part 2, by Greenthumb in the West”

There is an old saying:

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today.”

We had this proverb in mind when we bought our retreat property five years ago, and started work on the garden and orchard immediately, even before we started on the house. The past five years have been a steep learning curve of lessons in taking raw land to (semi!)-productive land. We have had the blessing of not needing to rely on our garden for sustenance during this time.

I wanted to pass on what we’ve learned and purchased along the way in the hope you can benefit during this time of plenty when mistakes and lessons learned are not life-threatening. If you think the #10 can of magic survival seeds that you stored will just need to be sprinkled in the dirt for instant food, you are mistaken.

For some background, we were not new to gardening. In our hometown, there is a community garden named after my grandmother. We moved from a warmer climate where we had numerous citrus and avocado trees, as well as yearly vegetable gardens. My grandmother and mother ran a mail-order iris business in the pre-Internet days. I tell you this so you understand we had fair reason to believe we knew what we were doing. Like many others reading this, to us, a garden and orchard are a cornerstone of our long-term plan for success and survival — both every day and post-SHTF. Here, in no particular order, are some of the lessons we learned:

One of the most important things is to learn and write down your frost dates, both latest and earliest, as well as your garden climate zone. Our latest frost date is May 27th. Our earliest is October 11th. We are around 5,200-foot elevation. After having two gardens freeze in two years from Memorial Day weekend frosts, we learned our lesson and now respect this. Both of those years, the weather was perfect, skies were blue, and days were warm. The cottonwoods on the nearby creek had greened out, which was a long time local guide to planting dates. We were wrong, and it cost us another few days of work, seed, and plants. Luckily we had all to spare.

Now, we are more strategic about planting. Some plants are more frost resistant than others. Those go in before the frost dates, usually mid to late March. All the rest wait till after the frost date.

Keep in mind, your micro-climate will be unique depending on exposure and the layout of your property. Our garden and orchard are fairly exposed to maximize sunlight. The trade-off for the sun exposure is that frost hits us hard. Our nearest neighbor keeps a smaller, more protected garden that’s sheltered fairly well between two buildings. He has weathered some frosts much better than we did. Keep this in mind when deciding where to plant.Continue reading“Garden Lessons – Part 1, by Greenthumb in the West”