My work garden and orchard in development

[Kelby]

I took a picture of my work garden/orchard in development the other morning, thought some of you may be interested. I work at a private golf club as a horticulturist, part of my job is growing produce for the kitchen to use. When I started this spring it was just the fenced in area, full of hard to kill perennial weeds. Grew lots of vegetables, fought many battles with rodents, earned many blisters killing weeds.

Since late summer I've been clearing the meadow outside the fenced area to expand into perennial crops. If you never have to clear a meadow full of thistle, blackberry, and goldenrod you are lucky! I have on order for spring planting some rhubarb, 300 asparagus, 50 raspberries, and 50 strawberries. I will also be rooting 20-25 fig trees over the winter to plant as early as possible to get them well established. Last of all, kind of hard to see in the picture, I planted 4 apple trees, a pear, and a kaki persimmon closest to the back.

I also grow pretty flowers, but those are boring

[cjccmc]

Looks like a nice place to spend gardening time. I'd gladly trade some of my "cubicle farm" hours to be here

[Kelby]

Usually it's good. But the other day but was 40F and raining. That's no fun!

[COGardener]

I can't wait to see it come spring Kelby.

[figgrower]

It looks beautiful;neat and organized.

[Kelby]

Thanks

[Wisner]

Looks really nice.

[Kelby]

Thanks!

[Sas]

Any suggestions for clearing poison ivy? It grows like peppermint on my property in certain spots.

[Kelby]

Not a good one, I got lots of it doing this job. If you mix your own Roundup, make it 2-3x more concentrated than normal, that kills it. The stems and roots can still give you rashes, though.

[figgrower]

Goats?

[Kelby]

Just found out that the sod for the aisles is coming Tuesday. That will make it look like something!

[mountainfigs]

If you have a mulch budget, or can arrange free truckload dumpings, bury the whole thing under wood chips, no? I would think that would solve a lot of problems right there and create great advantages. Pretty flowers are not boring especially when on deep-rooted companion plants (and brilliant six foot tall cosmos). The bushy deep green comfrey leaves here shook off last night's freeze like it was nothing. Most everything else was zapped.

[Kelby]

I do have access to woodchips, but it is a large area (100' x 70') and growing. Grass aisles are nicer looking, too, since it is on the course path and highly visible. Woodchips will be used to mulch the beds, though.

[growcrazie]

that looks really nice Kelby. it gives me some ideas for a new section i am going to put in. is thhat deer fence or regular wire fence

[Kelby]

It's plastic deer fencing that isn't really tall enough to stop a deer (6-7'). It was there when I started working there. The bottom has a hodge podge of chicken wire, rabbit fencing, and so forth as rabbits and groundhogs have repeatedly made holes.

[growcrazie]

thanks. I have a 7 1/2' fence around my orchard and they do not get in there

[Kelby]

Put down sod today, sort of looks like something now!

[Kelby]

After hemming and hawing, I decided to go ahead with putting in a blueberry patch. Tilled up 100'x6', heavily amended, and mulching with leaves and woodchips. 25 plants to be delivered in April, I'll have to get the pH retested in March.

[cis4elk]

Looks good, a whole lot of fun! I'm not sure what the native pH of your soil is, but if it is a good deal of adjusting...here is another option, which also depends on how much pine chip/mulch/duff you have available. Pen over in Bulgaria plants his blueberry farm in raised rows or berms of pine/forest debris. He has some videos of it on Facebook which somehow you are able to view without being a FB member(I'm not) and youtube, even though it's not in English you can still glean a good amount of info just observing. Penandpike is his member name here as well as the name of his blueberry farm.

[Kelby]

I didn't know Pen did blueberries too, I'll have to check out his videos! Native pH is 6, so lots of sulfur, peat moss, and fertilizer with ammonium sulfate. I also added several yards of a 60-40 sand- compost mix and aged woodchips (with supplemental nitrogen). It has essentially become a raised bed with everything added and tilled in. At planting time I'll probably topdress around each plant with some more peat moss.

Not too fun though.. skid loader lost a tire, so I'm shoveling everything by hand. Keeps me warm when in the 20s though!

[cis4elk]

Mine are or were in a raised bed and a planter. Native pH around here is mid to upper 7 give or take a few decimal points. The first couple plants I put in I worked the crap out of the soil by amending it and adding pine needles/bark, and peat moss. They grew okay. After watching Pen's videos and asking him some questions, my next plants were in a raised bed/planter. I started by working the soil similar to the first bed and then dug out some of the soil and put down a 10" high planter. I then got quite a few wheelbarrows of pine duff from under a neighbors Blue Spruce and added a couple bales of peat, and a wheel barrow or two of pine bark chip that I use for fig potting mix, some Hollytone and maybe a few other nutrient goodies as well as more acid and the reserved soil mix(soil mix probably comprised 30% or less of the total planter volume) and tilled/mixed it in the planter. After I planted my bushes I added a 2-3" layer of medium to large pine bark chunks on top. Those bushes grew very well. We sold our house the next spring, however I did dig up my bushes and have them in pots awaiting a new bed hopefully this coming spring. I also dug out all my awesome blueberry planter mix and the planter and moved it. The planter mix is in a double tarp waiting to be used again. My new yard is much bigger so I plan on cutting the planter and making it 4x longer, but I need to do a good deal of site prep first which I haven't had the time for. The up side is we had a couple of giant blue spruce removed to add on to the house and garage. I kept all the chip from the branches, so it's been sitting out back in a huge pile getting better and better, waiting for it's day to become a nice big blueberry bed.

[Kelby]

pH above 7 is really hard bring down to blueberry range, your doing the best thing to basically create new soil for everything to grow in. Lots of work!

[cis4elk]

I should also add a couple more things which are important.
This pertains to when I planted my first bushes. After I did all the soil amending I let the bed rest for a month or so(I know..it was all the time I had to give it) I dug out a fairly large planting hole maybe 18-20" wide by 14-16" deep. For the back fill I use moistened peat mixed with amended soil about 80/20.

Fast forward 5 years to when I dug them up. The 80/20 mix in the planting hole was a thick root mat, beyond that the roots quickly decreased. The soil outside of the hole had been amended and tilled, so it was compacted or hard to penetrate in any way. It just wasn't favored.
The one year old plants in the planter bed, I didn't dig much of planting hole but did use a little more peat in the back fill. The planter soil was totally different than the original bed. When I dug up the bushes that were in the planter for a year, their root mass had grown out equally in all directions with no evidence of any sort of boundary.

So, just saying from my experience the more pine and peat the better if your native soil is so-so.

[Kelby]

Ground is still workable here, so I'm moving forward with installing a large trellis system. For my purposes this has 2 main benefits: increased planting space by growing vining crops up and reducing crop loss due to rodents (they ate all my canteloupe and watermelon this year!). When complete, there will be 110' of 7' tall trellis. Pretty cheap, too. The trellis is concrete remesh with 4" openings. It comes in 150' long by 5' wide rolls for just over $100. 7'x5' panels are also sold at hardware stores. The posts are metal conduit, around $3/each.

I am also working on some small berms to plant in to help with drainage problems that seem to happen every spring. Fertilizer, sand and woodchips are being tilled into native soil.

I'll be growing small melons, winter squash, cucumbers, and beans on these trellises. I'm ordering seeds for smaller fruited varieties that shouldn't need extra support for the fruit, but I'll see how that works out. If they need support, guess I'll get some pantyhose or mesh produce bags.

[don_sanders]

I'm not sure how wearing pantyhose is going to help support the fruit but I guess I'll give it a try.

Looks like things are coming along nicely. Good job.

[Kelby]

Thanks, Don. Maybe I'll plant some pawpaws from those seeds you sent last winter!

[Kelby]

Is there anything as nice as freshly tilled rows? Spread a load of manure (OK, many loads), now to wait impatiently.

[lilfiggy]

I want that little john deere thing. that is some beautious spread.

[Kelby]

When it works...

[WillsC]

You are busy Looks great.

[Kelby]

Thanks Wills

[bamafig]

Ive read to add battery acid to your drip irrigation lines if you have them to lower your P.H.

[lilfiggy]

hmm I thought John Deere was the best. Some kids have little atvs that look like that they ride them around the neighborhood and some ole poops in here are always raising hell I dont thank they drive too fast of course these poops don't like the wild pigs to be trapped or the aligators to be taken out of the ponds not enough to keep them busy

[Kelby]

Well, this one gets used very hard and is pretty old.

[lilfiggy]

ah I see makes you appreciate all those old tractors at the fair and in the fields on the farms in my area. Just keep chugging along

[cis4elk]

Look'n really good in there.

[Gina]

Your new garden area is coming along so nicely. I hope the golfers appreciate it.

[Kelby]

Thanks!

[Kelby]

Let's add some blackberries, why not! Triple Crown and Prime Ark Freedom (plus a Prime Ark 45 because they messed up my order). Also a couple gooseberries.

[Kelby]

And then I planted a little bit of lavender.