2023 Food Garden!

Wow! Thanks a lot for all the info :+1:

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I had an apricot tree at our last house. Every year it bloomed and set a million fruit, not a single one of which ever made it even close to ripe. I planted it before I knew about chill hour requirements and had bought it at Target. I love apricots, and haven’t had a good one from the store in decades. Is Blenheim a good variety for low chill hour locations? You’ve said that our climates tend to be similar.

I don’t know if it’s described that way, but when this area was mostly orchards it was very popular. I think a late frost at the wrong time can be a problem. Of course most of the orchards have since been replaced with houses, they are hard to ship, and are said to be best eaten soon after picking, so of course I had to have one! :grin:
I grow mine in a very large container which I think it’s outgrown, so I don’t know how much longer it will last.

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June!

DH’s strawberry project, about which I posted earlier, paid off in spades. We tried thinning the berries this year - cutting off small and deformed berries early - with good results. The elevated containers meant didn’t have to break our backs to bend over and pick. Win-win!

Our lettuce is done, but we’re still getting peas, scallions, kale and broccolini. In the not-to-distant future are carrots, cukes, zuccs and blueberries. The tomatoes are setting, but have a long way to go.

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Those are beautiful @MunchkinRedux !

I was more “intentional” about my grape pruning, and I may get more than one bunch! I’m sure the rain and the cool spring helped too.

More tomatoes. I love how striped tomatoes look before they are ripe.



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Something ate a lot of our grapes last year. Not as violent a scenario as @Sasha posted about last year, but each day we could see more and more had gone missing, until almost nothing was left. These are behind a fence. We’re thinking it was bats. We were all set to bag the grapes this year, but it’s looking like a thin grape year for us.

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:anguished: I thought they were good guys! I will definitely plan (hah hah! ) to put organza bags on the grapes.

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Agreed. In the US, fruit eating bats are pretty uncommon. A few migrate and feed on nectar and there’s a fruit eater, I think, in the Keys. In the PNW, rodents, raccoons, and since foolish introductions out west, opossums are all likely fruit thieves. Chipmunks love fruit. All of these mammals have no problem climbing a fence. Raccoons may rip fruit bags off vines, if they know fruit is inside. We have to tie trashcans shut with strong cordage in this area, or the “trash pandas” will get into them and scatter trash everywhere. Raccoons are the #1 fruit thieves here.

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These are so beautiful!

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Todays pick. Imperator carrots and Alcosa cabbage.

The Alcosa is becomming my cabbage of choice. Fairly consistant, and the 6" savoy heads keep well.

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Up in Jungleland.


Sungold doing its thing.

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It is amazing to me that you can grow indeterminate tomatoes on your balcony! I think it’s a balcony.

It is indeed a balcony, and this year I am very lucky because my next door neighbor started composting. Does she have any use for compost? She does not. But guess who does. It’s been a learning curve of what works and what doesn’t, tomato-wise. Sungolds are the only ones I can count on year after year, but Black Krims and Bloody Butchers often do well, too. I stubbornly keep trying to grow peppers, which are mocking me this year by dropping their flowers and breaking my heart.

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I’m watching an episode of Gardeners’ World 2023 and there’s a part about a lady’s garden on her balcony oon the upper west side.

Diagonally across town from me! It’s probably more spacious than mine.

She said it was 15×4, but she also uses the roof.



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Oh, about the same size! Looks like she just grows flowers, though. That’s H’s thing. I don’t see the point in growing something I can’t eat. :smile:

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Some peppers are getting pretty big (bottom right)

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And more tomatoes!

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Our garden is absolute crap this year thanks to cool temps, too much rain and too damn much smoke. Thanks, Canada :wink:

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It was at least 105 here today. Car thermometer was reading up to 109. We have had an amazingly cool spring but it looks like we are back to business as usual.

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