Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Garden Updates

This is how our front yard  round beds look around 2 of our young apple trees. Growing here: Rugen Alpine Strawberries, regular Strawberries(I forget what the variety name was), Sweet Alyssum, Pansies, Romaine and Redleaf lettuces. You can see the small trunk of the apple tree protected by mesh wire (cat's were using the poor trees as scratching posts!)

 News! We planted our Haas Avocado tree in the front too! (pictures to come)
Our lovely neighbor gave us a seedling peach tree just because we offered them our lettuces that we were drowning in. Their peaches are very delicious too, and they told us the seedling was an offspring of that tree that gave us yummy summer bliss. (seedling pictures to come)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a great idea. I'm having trouble getting my strawberries to produce. I may consider doing this. I think it may be too shady under our apple tree but are you going to do the same under your avocado tree? We have ours out front and I could see doing this there.

Sandy

AJK said...

Hi Sandy, thanks for coming by!
We're doing this for now, until the apple trees get too big and the strawberries get overshadowed. (although the Rugen Alpine do prefer a little shade so we might keep those and the lettuces, which like some shade. Regular Strawberries love lots of sun, mulch to keep the soil moist (and berries dry), rich compost and a some well aged manure.

We will not be doing the same for the Avocado. I learned a hard lesson at my other home, nearly killing an old avocado tree with verticillium wilt that transferred from the tomatoes we planted right under the avocado roots. Strawberries also can carry the verticillium fungus so I'd stay WAY clear of the avocado tree! I think under the avocado we will stick with some shade loving flowers, maybe some columbines... Here's a link to all the plants susceptible and not to the fungus:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verticillium_wilt

Happy Gardening!
Janice