Another thing to consider with raised beds is that with heavy rains some of your nutrients wash out. That might be why some plants aren’t as dark green and growing as they should. I do additional fertilizer 4-6 weeks after planting. I like an organic pelletized fertilizer.
do a lot of research - fruit trees are generally pretty high maintenance if you want decent fruit production, and they can be problematic as many of them have lots of pests and diseases you might need to treat for.. Your local county extension office should have information about plants and trees for your area of Vermont. --If your county does not have info, look up info on the Vermont university site. There should be some information there. Love the gardning videos!
Took a while for my wife and I to learn to garden down here in zone 9b, given that we both grey up in 4b/5a, much like your zone in Vermont (we were in MN). Winter gardening down here is all about greens, and it's wet, so I can pass on some suggestions for slug control. The old "beer in a tin" suggestion doesn't work that well with modern cheap bear, because the yeast that attracts the slugs has been filtered out. Easy enough to make your own slug bait with yeast and a little flour, in water. Put it in shallow plastic yogurt or hummus containers, embedded into the surface of the garden bed. For extra fanciness, you can cut "windows" in the sides of the container, and leave the top on so rain doesn't swamp them. Embed to the windows being level with the soil, and fill it right up with the yeast/flour/water mix. The slugs and snails will slide right in and drown. It doesn't get them all, but you can knock back the local population quite a bit, and help your little plants get big enough to survive. Need to replace the bait mix every couple days, depending on temperature: it can get pretty smelly, especially if there's a lot of "bodies". I just dump them on our compost bed, rinse, and refill.
I'll bet this year will be even better. Good for you. I love home grown food; you know exactly what's in it and can control when its picked in order to maximize nutrients.
Your hazelnuts should already be flowering now, but the female flowers are really hard to see (they consist of three or four very short red spikes on the end of the flower bud ...they're probably less than 1mm long -- one of natures less than impressive flowers). The male "cat-tail" flowers appear at the end of the year and gradually turn yellowish in early spring. The trees are pollinated by the wind, so they should be less than 20M away from each other. If you can find any in your area, a red hazelnut makes a really nice contrast in the garden. The leaves are red in the spring and gradually turn green towards the middle of summer (almost the opposite of most other trees). Hazelnuts can be cut right back to ground level and will grow back again (I'm not suggesting you should do this normally, but if you get a bad infestation of stem borer beetles, you can cut and burn the infested branches and the tree will survive and grow new stems the following year). Where we are, the winters regularly get down to -15C and sometimes -20C and our persimmons survive just fine, but they are "shibu-gaki", an exceptionally astringent fruit which needs to be sun-dried before becoming edible ...they freeze very well though, so we get a winter's worth of fruit. Check to see whether paw-paws are viable in your area. They are a very pest and disease resistant fruit tree (so low maintenance). They survive our winter lows with no problem, but you do need a hot summer to produce good fruit (they are a very late starter in the spring). Susquehanna or Potomac produce big fruit with a really nice flavour.
Did yall save any seeds, especially the amish paste? It's surprisingly rewarding to save seeds and then plant them later. And on top of that, you don't have to buy them. You get a lot of seeds from just one tomato, pepper, etc.
Another thing to consider with raised beds is that with heavy rains some of your nutrients wash out. That might be why some plants aren’t as dark green and growing as they should. I do additional fertilizer 4-6 weeks after planting. I like an organic pelletized fertilizer.
do a lot of research - fruit trees are generally pretty high maintenance if you want decent fruit production, and they can be problematic as many of them have lots of pests and diseases you might need to treat for.. Your local county extension office should have information about plants and trees for your area of Vermont. --If your county does not have info, look up info on the Vermont university site. There should be some information there. Love the gardning videos!
Took a while for my wife and I to learn to garden down here in zone 9b, given that we both grey up in 4b/5a, much like your zone in Vermont (we were in MN). Winter gardening down here is all about greens, and it's wet, so I can pass on some suggestions for slug control. The old "beer in a tin" suggestion doesn't work that well with modern cheap bear, because the yeast that attracts the slugs has been filtered out. Easy enough to make your own slug bait with yeast and a little flour, in water. Put it in shallow plastic yogurt or hummus containers, embedded into the surface of the garden bed. For extra fanciness, you can cut "windows" in the sides of the container, and leave the top on so rain doesn't swamp them. Embed to the windows being level with the soil, and fill it right up with the yeast/flour/water mix. The slugs and snails will slide right in and drown. It doesn't get them all, but you can knock back the local population quite a bit, and help your little plants get big enough to survive. Need to replace the bait mix every couple days, depending on temperature: it can get pretty smelly, especially if there's a lot of "bodies". I just dump them on our compost bed, rinse, and refill.
czcams.com/video/31kJSA8dm6U/video.htmlsi=F4QY6ERbPwFdxcNu
I'll bet this year will be even better. Good for you. I love home grown food; you know exactly what's in it and can control when its picked in order to maximize nutrients.
We will be busy with construction, so I won't expand the garden further this year, but hopefully I will still learn new things.
Rosemary is a warm weather perennial. I could not get them to come back in PA
Your hazelnuts should already be flowering now, but the female flowers are really hard to see (they consist of three or four very short red spikes on the end of the flower bud ...they're probably less than 1mm long -- one of natures less than impressive flowers). The male "cat-tail" flowers appear at the end of the year and gradually turn yellowish in early spring. The trees are pollinated by the wind, so they should be less than 20M away from each other. If you can find any in your area, a red hazelnut makes a really nice contrast in the garden. The leaves are red in the spring and gradually turn green towards the middle of summer (almost the opposite of most other trees). Hazelnuts can be cut right back to ground level and will grow back again (I'm not suggesting you should do this normally, but if you get a bad infestation of stem borer beetles, you can cut and burn the infested branches and the tree will survive and grow new stems the following year).
Where we are, the winters regularly get down to -15C and sometimes -20C and our persimmons survive just fine, but they are "shibu-gaki", an exceptionally astringent fruit which needs to be sun-dried before becoming edible ...they freeze very well though, so we get a winter's worth of fruit.
Check to see whether paw-paws are viable in your area. They are a very pest and disease resistant fruit tree (so low maintenance). They survive our winter lows with no problem, but you do need a hot summer to produce good fruit (they are a very late starter in the spring). Susquehanna or Potomac produce big fruit with a really nice flavour.
Did yall save any seeds, especially the amish paste? It's surprisingly rewarding to save seeds and then plant them later. And on top of that, you don't have to buy them. You get a lot of seeds from just one tomato, pepper, etc.
I only saved green peas for seeds and have planted them this year. Hopefully they germinate! I will try saving tomato seeds this year.
You guys Rock ! Good Work...
Haha, thanks!