Carol from May Dreams Gardens (Zone 5), Mary Ann from Gardens of the Wild, Wild West (Zone 6) and I decided, last year, to exchange letters from our vegetable gardens. We had so much fun we’re continuing the tradition this spring and summer. We hope to give everyone an idea of how gardens grow in three different USDA hardiness zones. I garden in Zone 7a, where it’s surprisingly chilly.
Hi girls!!!
It’s been a wonderful week in the garden, and I can’t tell you how much different this spring is from last year’s. All the flowers are going gangbusters, and the fruits and veggies are right on schedule.
In the potager and veggie garden, I was worried the irrigation guys had really buried my seeds when they dug up the soil. So, I replanted some of the basil, green beans and squash. A couple of days ago I noticed my seeds were still right on target. So, I’ll need to do some thinning soon.
Let’s talk fruit. The strawberry patch is the best ever. I already have green berries hanging from the plants and loads of blooms. This is good because we love strawberries. To grow strawberries isn’t difficult, but I’ve found that they like oak leaves. Mine are planted beneath an oak tree in partial shade, and the leaves fall into the bed every Autumn. I just let them lie there until spring, and then I move them aside leaving them between the plants. Now, the interesting this is I always heard strawberries should be grown in full sun. Like many plants in Oklahoma, full sun is like baking them in a 375 degree oven for days and days at a time. Mine, in the back garden, get some morning sun, but then take a rest in the afternoon shade. I always tell people if they want a good strawberry patch, they must pick off the blooms the first year and give the plants plenty of time to establish and then send out runner babies.
For the first time in years, the peach trees have fuzzy green globes hanging from the branches, and I’m doing a happy dance. Last spring, I lost the entire peach crop to a freeze. This summer, I will not lose the peaches to the freakin’ deer. Hear that, deer? I will use a deer deterrent like I did one summer. I will. In a few weeks, I’ll also remove some the fruit to give others a chance to grow larger. Plus, it’s time to lay some old chicken manure at the drip line of the trees.
I also have little green apples. Apple trees are funny creatures. They don’t really like Oklahoma, but they suffer through our heat. I need to keep an eye on these, and, once again, keep the deer away.
Did you know I also have a cherry tree? It’s a sour cherry I planted about eighteen years ago. On a good year, with bird netting firmly in place, I get enough cherries to bake a pie. The best you ever tasted. There is nothing like fresh food to make the heart glad. Normally, cherry trees don’t like our soil and extreme weather patterns, but sour cherries do better in our climate.
Our weather the last couple of days has been cooler than normal, and we had to turn the heat on last night. It is 41F this morning, not our norm for late April. In fact, on Facebook, I joked with Margaret at A Way to Garden that we’d traded springs. Hers is warm and dry. All of the lettuces are responding beautifully to the cooler temperatures, but the green beans are struggling to get up out of the ground. I did plant four rows of corn in the potager. I’ll probably need a step ladder to harvest the ears.
When the irrigation guys came and tore up the potager, I was worried about my squash and bean seeds, but I shouldn’t have. I replanted, and now, everything is coming up. Even the tiny basil seeds. I should have plenty of basil and eggplant for my Thai food. When it gets hot though, basil bolts, and I’ll be spending all my time pinching off the blooms. I could also plant more seed, but will that happen? Uhm, no.
If you’re wondering how to keep critters from eating all your handiwork, head on over to the Lowe’s Garden Grow Along blog where I and seven other garden writers explain what we do to ward off the beasties.
Meanwhile, the iris are blooming, and I’m wearing long sleeves and a jacket.
Bye for now,
“There is nothing like fresh food to make the heart glad.”
You said it, Dee. I wish we could share a homegrown, home-cooked meal in each other’s kitchens. You bring that cherry pie, please.
I am not sure who needs to apologize for the “spring swap” — it is very beautiful here with your spring in my garden, but also very mercurial/chaotic. 50 mph winds now; 32ish tonight; 80 Saturday…and so on. But so many blooms!
We are nuts to love this “hobby,” and also blessed.
.-= Margaret Roach´s last blog ..doodle by andre: oh my aching garden-asana! =-.
Margaret, if ever you’re close by, stop in, and I’ll bake you a cherry pie.~~Dee
It’s so encouraging to read a fellow Okie’s struggle with the “oven-baked” aspect of our summers. Great tip on a partial shade planting. I am slowly convincing my better half to let me garden an entire side yard and finally have my first fruit tree. Cherry is my very favorite pie, so your post now has me on a quest for the Montmorency. 🙂
.-= Linda´s last blog ..Handmade Glycerin Soaps and a Necklace =-.
You have a lovely blog, I am envious of your warm zone 6 climate. zone 8 in Seattle, WA is just not very interesting yet. It becomes quite lovely towards the end of may, but things are still just barely stirring in the garden, and the trees are still red with the new growth of early spring. It’s a 50degree high today.
Dee, that was a really wonderful post to read. Informative, [I never knew you could grow peaches there] and interesting.
Oak leaves for strawberries, hmmmmm. I will have to go and find some this fall. Oak trees are not really plentiful around the city, but I will look.
We too, have a ever changing spring weather. Some days it feels like summer, then it feels like winter.
Jen
.-= Jen ~ Muddy Boot Dreams´s last blog ..Hot TUNA and other garden disasters =-.
Thanks, Jen. I think straw will also help for strawberries, and yes, Oklahoma actually has a peach festival in Stratford every year.~~Dee
My strawberries are doing very well this spring, too. Big plants, lots of blooms, little berries starting to form. You do seem to have someone else’s spring… cool, rainy, slow going. Isn’t it nice?
.-= Carol, May Dreams Gardens´s last blog ..When A Flower Blooms That You Just Don’t Like =-.
Carol, it is very nice, but I find I’m impatient because I’m used to it being different.~~Dee
Wow, Dee, there will be plenty of good eating at your house in the months to come! Yet another reason I want to come visit 🙂
.-= Cindy, MCOK´s last blog ..Through The Garden Gate 2010: #3 =-.
Cindy, anytime you come this way, I would love to sit and have a chat.~~Dee
Odd spring indeed. We had a frost advisory for this morning but none formed. Had things covered just in case including myself. Brr.
Glad you didn’t have frost.~~Dee
I’m very excited too that we have hundreds of tiny, fuzzy peaches on our tree! Just wondering about your comment that you will thin yours down a little. Hoping you might elaborate on that. Thanks. YAY SPRING!
Hi Melanie, my peach trees are dwarf so I just go up to them and start pulling off peaches. They tend to grow in bunches, so I thin them to one or two in a bunch. That way, the energy goes to that peach. You can also cover them with paper bags to stop worms, only removing them when the fruit begins to ripen. People do that with apples too I think. I probably won’t. I’ll be doing good to get the repellent on there.~~Dee
The sour cherries do better in our climate, too. They must be made of hardier stock than the sweet ones. When you wrote “lay some old chicken manure at the drip line of the trees” I read that as chicken wire, because I’ve heard that deer don’t like to step on unsteady surfaces such as chicken wire laid on the ground. The problem is if you leave it there long enough for grass to grow through it, the person mowing the lawn might forget it’s there!
.-= Kathy from Cold Climate Gardening´s last blog ..The Perennial Care Manual: Book Review =-.
Yes, we’ve already started mowing, so I don’t think that would work here.~~Dee