[gardeners] Thursday in the garden - sort of
George Shirley (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Thu, 12 Jun 2003 18:50:54 -0500
Left for work about 0630 this morning and by 0700 a tremendous
thunderstorm with high, straight line winds blew through the area.
Dumped almost two inches of rain in about one hour and blew our fig tree
over. We needed the rain and the fig tree has been blown over before.
Fig trees tend to grow leaning in one direction unless heavily pruned
into a semi-upright tree. This one will get pruned back after it
finishes bearing and two leaders on one side will get the pruning saw.
Figs have very shallow roots anyway and are easy to knock or blow over.
That's one of the reasons extension agents in hot areas recommend a six
inch deep mulch out to the tree line. They also require a minimum of 35
gallons of water per week per diameter inch of the main trunk. In our
case only three inches as it has been frozen to the ground at least
twice. Take a lot of care around here do fig trees but the fruit they
bear is worth it to us. Visions of fig preserves, fig jam, fig conserve,
fig syrup, maybe even fig wine dance in our dreams. B-)
Garden is producing well, getting a couple of quarts of green beans
about every other day and more cukes than we can eat on a daily basis.
The pickling cukes are coming in now and I'm looking forward to a big
mess of sweet pickles and making sweet pickle relish. The hot chiles are
producing rapidly and starting to ripen while the mild ones are
producing huges chiles and the sweet ones (bell type) are just now
blooming. Eggplant is almost a daily occurence and yesterday I used a
couple of small zukes from the store, some 1015 sweet onion, two Ichiban
eggplant, and a bag of frozen tomatoes from last year to make a nice
ratatouille. Today we had green beans, leftover ratatouille and
barbecued pork ribs for our dinner and are lying around enjoying the
greenery viewed through the patio door.
Life is good.
George