Drip Irrigation | Wow What A Difference!

I wouldn't call them Bonzai's! lol
3 Varieties of Plums, Pineapple Pears, Asian Pears, Peach, Avocado, Lemons, Blood Orange, Guava and Nectarines.
Also Have Blue Berries, Grapevines, Passion Fruit, Coffee, Mango's and Papaya's. I will keep them down around 10' tall. Too old to be climbing after the fruit. With the variety of stuff I got planted , I should have a different fruit ready all year.
I'm getting the Video Camera charged right now, should be able to let you see what I got by tomorrow.

 

My dad had dwarf cherry and pear trees, blueberry bushes, and a grape arbor and strawberry bed for just that reason. No climbing needed to harvest anything.

 

I'm only 3' tall!!!
The proper term is little tree's you hater!!

 

I will probably have to cull them out eventually, but you never know how many will survive and thrive, till they do.
So far they have all come back from the fist winter. I got them at the swap meet last year as spikes 5 for $18.
That was an awesome price, so I bought as many as I thought I could fit out there.
Lost 3 right out the gate but all the rest are coming in great. I started My initial Bowl Pruning a couple days ago on most of them, a couple of them I think I'll let grow another season before I get too aggressive with them. New Plums are not setting fruit from the initial bloom so, no harm in letting them freak this summer. Pears can get out of hand real quick as they reach for outer space so I topped them at 8'. from what I have seen on YOUTUBE they don't seem to be a tree I can get to grow out instead of up, what do you think? Any experience with pears?

 

I remember the dwarf pear trees could split their own limbs if they got too heavy with fruit. We added supports under the limbs to prevent that. Only lost the one, I think.

 

Sagging limbs usually indicates that the flowers were not pruned in a trimly manner.

 

Working the Video Now! Having great success with my garden so far, zucchinis have fruit on them already, only an inch long but there 8 on one plant! I have 20 plants!
Last year I had more zuc., Mustard,.... and squash than I could process or use. Giving it to the poorer neighbors, unfortunately there are more and more of them these days.(So much for our booming economy)

 

I am going to have that issue with my apricot trees soon enough. I hate trimming off fruit but do not want to ruin the tree.
This year am going to try drip in the garden, have not installed a drip system in years

 

Lol the zucchini bread delima I can see it coming =). Unless you know how to make great zucchini bread I don't want any. Just saying
Aug Gratz!

 

My daily confirmation that good people still exist.
@Gopherman

 

They can also be pickled like cucumbers. I blanch them, then freeze them on cookie sheets, then put them into seal- a-meal baggies.
We eat them fried or in stir fry a lot. My wife eats them raw, I do not share her enthusiasm for that!
My plants got about 4 feet high and 6 feet wide last year, then just died. They blew up with fruit for 6 weeks and that was plenty, but, I was watering the with a sprinkler system and it cased powdery mildew and the standing water caused stem rot.This drip system might help, I'm anxious to see!
Root Knot Nematodes are another thing we fight with here. They love this sandy soil. The compost tea is supposed to add the beneficial ones that eat the sub-terrainian bugs and bad nematodes.
Cucumbers die from them just about the time they start to produce.
Growing stuff is here in this heat is tricky, but Youtube helps troubleshoot a lot.

 

Pickled zuch's what a great idea... I've been slicing and drying with flavoring for chips...

 

I loved this post from top to bottom. My land however is so different. I have to dry my ground out instead of watering it because it lays very close to our lake. However your use of growers mat is going to be a winner here for sure. I will roto till between the rows of mat to dry out those strips leaving the moisture under the mats. W e have been mulching with grass clippings from the mower and it is labor intensive and takes a lot of gas to cut all this lawn. What type of mat are you buying? I am assuming it is reusable year after year. KF

 

I bought it at a nursery supply place. It was $40 for 300 feet of 3" wide that's 1200 sq ft. 300 linear feet of vegetables is a freaky lot of Produce!

 

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You might want to use raised beds. Pressure treated wood is pretty cheap,12' 2x12's work great I have some 12' 2x8's and they work well also. I have different soil in each of the beds
#1 is black cow,
#2 is composted soil that we dug from our yard and supplemented with Rabbit Pooh
#3 is 50% Sawdust, 25% rabbit, and 25% Mir. Grow Potting soil, and 1 bag of black cow
#4 is 100% rabbit Pooh
All beds have produced well with 1 and 4 doing the best. Bed 2 struggles so this year I put 2 wheel barrels full of rabbit droppings.Bed 4 is new this year and I had trouble with magic mushrooms (Hundreds of them).I sprayed a fungicide on it, now that problem is solved, and the plants are thriving. No weeds at all, and it hold water better than any of the others, I'm encouraged by this mixture. My pepper starts love it. The Rabbit compost Tea is working Miracles, I have a Zucchini that is about a month old from a seed, and already has fruit and 5" diameter flowers on it. That usually doesn't happen til the leaves are 16" long.

 

I have milky mildew issues also. Watering only in the morning helps, the water will be off the leaves by the time the sun goes down. I had read somewhere to mist the leaves with water and milk to combat the mildew, it was a waste of time.

 

once a plant gets it bad its too late, unless you spot it early and remove the infected leaves.I find iy soothing to walk the property every day and inspect all my plants and animals.It's not only food for the family, its food for my soul!

 

Isn't pressure treated wood was unsafe to use for raised beds ?