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I'm helping out my gardening group with their website. Just a few small modifications and clean-up (that's the plan, anyway).
When I went over last night to the lady who's been doing the 'webadmin' for the last year or two for a handover, though, she mentioned that next gardening meeting they were going to have members talk briefly about tips and advice on something they were good at growing. I commented that I wasn't very good at growing anything at all (except maybe weeds), but then I realised that the things that do SPECTACULARLY WELL on my piece of land are...stone fruit trees.
I have about 8 stone fruit trees on my property:
- 1 dual stonefruit (white peach/yellow nectarine)
- 2 single stonefruit trees planted in a single hole (yellow peach and white nectarine)
- 1 dual plum (mariposa/blood)
- 1 quartet stonefruit (apricot/plum/nectarine/donut peach)
- 1 cherry
- 1 donut peach
- 1 apricot
With the exception of the cherry they're all flowering like there's no tomorrow. Last year, even after crazy dry weather, there was still a lot of fruit. The only reason I didn't manage very good return harvests is because the fruit fly got me like whoa. (And I'm going to have to start taking action soon if I don't want another harvest that goes almost entirely to the fruit flies...
Right now, even the mature apricot that I only put in the soil barely four weeks ago is starting to bud and flower. I mean, I dug out the soil, watered it in, added loads of compost and horse manure, and then watered it in with fish emulsions once a week for a month, but still...I was expecting it to take a little longer to start getting its flowers out! I'm not complaining, I love apricots, and I particularly love fresh ones!
The thing is...I haven't done very much for my stone fruit trees. No special mulches or composts, no particular feeding, mostly just watering. They just thrive in my soil. (Meanwhile, the avocados and the citrus are dying in droves. Don't ask. I seem to have an avocado black thumb, which is DIRE because I LOVE avocados.)
However, talking with neighbours and doing some research around the history of this area, I've learned that the area was once farmland. Specifically, an orchard. Before the suburb became suburbia, it was a stone fruit orchard! So the soil is already leaning towards being good for stone fruits in spite of whatever things have been done to the land in the sixty years since then, and I don't have to do anything to help my stone fruit trees along!
But, see, that's not really something you can give advice on. "Move to my suburb and you can grow nectarines!"
Although I guess it could be a lesson regarding learning about your soil and what's likely to grow there before planting it out, or else how the history of a land can affect the present?
When I went over last night to the lady who's been doing the 'webadmin' for the last year or two for a handover, though, she mentioned that next gardening meeting they were going to have members talk briefly about tips and advice on something they were good at growing. I commented that I wasn't very good at growing anything at all (except maybe weeds), but then I realised that the things that do SPECTACULARLY WELL on my piece of land are...stone fruit trees.
I have about 8 stone fruit trees on my property:
- 1 dual stonefruit (white peach/yellow nectarine)
- 2 single stonefruit trees planted in a single hole (yellow peach and white nectarine)
- 1 dual plum (mariposa/blood)
- 1 quartet stonefruit (apricot/plum/nectarine/donut peach)
- 1 cherry
- 1 donut peach
- 1 apricot
With the exception of the cherry they're all flowering like there's no tomorrow. Last year, even after crazy dry weather, there was still a lot of fruit. The only reason I didn't manage very good return harvests is because the fruit fly got me like whoa. (And I'm going to have to start taking action soon if I don't want another harvest that goes almost entirely to the fruit flies...
Right now, even the mature apricot that I only put in the soil barely four weeks ago is starting to bud and flower. I mean, I dug out the soil, watered it in, added loads of compost and horse manure, and then watered it in with fish emulsions once a week for a month, but still...I was expecting it to take a little longer to start getting its flowers out! I'm not complaining, I love apricots, and I particularly love fresh ones!
The thing is...I haven't done very much for my stone fruit trees. No special mulches or composts, no particular feeding, mostly just watering. They just thrive in my soil. (Meanwhile, the avocados and the citrus are dying in droves. Don't ask. I seem to have an avocado black thumb, which is DIRE because I LOVE avocados.)
However, talking with neighbours and doing some research around the history of this area, I've learned that the area was once farmland. Specifically, an orchard. Before the suburb became suburbia, it was a stone fruit orchard! So the soil is already leaning towards being good for stone fruits in spite of whatever things have been done to the land in the sixty years since then, and I don't have to do anything to help my stone fruit trees along!
But, see, that's not really something you can give advice on. "Move to my suburb and you can grow nectarines!"
Although I guess it could be a lesson regarding learning about your soil and what's likely to grow there before planting it out, or else how the history of a land can affect the present?
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