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Post by chrysanthemum on Jul 24, 2021 6:24:35 GMT -6
Moving to Texas Hill Country from Virginia was definitely a change for me climate-wise (and not really one that I wanted). We’ve decided to take advantage of it, though, and grow plants that we wouldn’t have been able to have outdoors year-round in Virginia. It’s funny, though, because we spend a lot more time protecting plants down here than we ever did up there because we’re pushing the envelope more. I’ve got to get outside to do work this morning while it’s cool enough, but I think I’ll try to start a different thread later about pomegranates, citrus, and olives.
Bon, I checked the supposed hardiness of my pomegranate, and some sources say zone 6. It would be a long time to wait, but if my little bushes ever flower and fruit, I’ll seed you seeds.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 24, 2021 7:43:08 GMT -6
Very kind of you!
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jul 24, 2021 8:05:14 GMT -6
I've always wanted to grow a fig tree here, but every time I attempt that, it gets whacked by a freak, once in a lifetime cold spell that seems to reoccur about everytime I decide to plant fig tree. If I lived in Texas, I think I'd definitely have to plant one of those.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 24, 2021 23:47:19 GMT -6
Ron, that's like me and new cars. New car? Instant hail storm. ha
My grandparents in Arkansas had a fig tree and my grandmother would can them. They were so good.
BUT I've never had a fig like those grown in the middle east (early 90s).
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Post by john on Jul 26, 2021 5:51:16 GMT -6
Chrysanthemum you are right. Nut sedge is notorious for coming in the top soil that people buy and spread out when seeding a new lawn or landscaping. The little nutlike tubers aren't screened out when they run the loam through a sieve. That stuff is really hard to kill, but I would be shocked if any could make it through the armor you have set up to eradicate it. Pulling the stuff is just a temporary fix as that also leaves a little tuber "nut" behind.
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Post by john on Jul 26, 2021 6:02:31 GMT -6
Microclimate and proper siting is everything if trying to push the limits of hardiness (Either cold or heat). We are in zone 6 here and I have seen fig trees survive and fruit if sited in very protected spots. Out of the wind and winter sun against a house in a little alcove etc. If you are willing to experiment you never know what you will discover. For example my wife and I moved into our new house in March of 2019 late that spring I had Canna lillies and Calla lilies as well as gladiolas emerging from some of the beds around the house. They come up every year. Those are zone 7 plants and can't stand being frozen in the soil. For some reason the soil stays warm enough in those locations. I planted a fig there too. So far so good. Winter sun late in the afternoon is one of the worst situations for evergreens. On a cold winter day the sun may warm up the leaf surface to an above freezing level and then as soon as the sun is gone the temperature will swing drastically to whatever the real outdoor temp is. The evergreens will most likely develop some type of sunscald from those conditions.
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Post by john on Jul 26, 2021 6:05:31 GMT -6
Hardiness zones are a funny indicator as too what will grow etc. For example Pecan trees will grow just fine here in CT, but the season is not long enough nor hot enough to usually get a mature crop of nuts.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jul 26, 2021 12:33:56 GMT -6
Here where I live in Northeast Oklahoma, nutgrass abounds. It seems the rougher you treat it, the more it likes to grow. For example, the road bed leading to my garden has two visible 'ruts' of nothing but nutgrass, one continous patch of it for each trail where truck tires have trodden the bermuda and crabgrass away. For some reason the nutgrass doesn't extend beyond the roadway and the bermuda doesn't extent beyond the edge of the pasture leading up to the roadway. Both are mown with the same regularity. The only difference is the heavy traffic. Oddly enough, my geese seem to prefer nutgrass for grazing purposes when it is young and tender. They'll linger there and graze it to the ground. But when it gets older, like it is this time of year, they'll walk right by it to graze crabgrass instead.
Pecan trees are so common arond here that people in Wagoner and Tulsa Counties cut them along the rivers for sawmill lumber. I've bought sawmill pecan slabs as wide as 21" inches in Wagoner at the old sawmill. However, getting a pecan nut harvest is just hit or miss around here. The snow that we had here on April 20th this year whacked all our pecan, walnut, and hickory flowers. Last year was very similar, but in 2019, we had a bumper crop locally.
George has somehow kept a Japanese Fiber Banana alive in Tahlequah through all the cold weather. I imagine a fig tree would probably survive in the same location? I don't know that for a fact though. Fiber bananas are fairly hardy, even though mine was killed this year during the February freeze when the temperatures dipped to 15 below zero overnight, it had survived quite a few bad winters before that. It would freeze back to the ground each winter, then sprout back from the root, so it never 'prospered' here but it survived for a fairly long time considering it prefers the tropics.
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Post by macmex on Jul 26, 2021 14:27:41 GMT -6
Largest tree on our farm is a pecan, a wild one. I've harvested more squirrels from it than nuts though. I've tried figs twice and flopped both times. Need to try again. Location is everything.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 27, 2021 2:06:09 GMT -6
We have an excellent food bank in Stillwater. This is actually a full scope non profit with massive volunteers and devoid of corruption. Highly unusual. I say all this because it's rare. They also have a remarkable garden grown by an expert from OSU Ag or something like that. He has all raised beds of CMU block, clear ground is covered with the local free woodchips and a massive drip tape irrigation system, a red wood pergola rests among the beds carrying some type of grape vine there are numerous cattle panel trellises installed throughout the year. Meanwhile, all are welcome, at any time, to pick ripe food. Most of it is gleaned by volunteers and placed into their grocery store for client selection. I picked up a stalk of brussels the last time I was there. Isn't that awesome?
I walk the garden when I'm there, not just for food but to see his work. He is growing raspberries successfully. They are planted in a space enclosed by buildings on 3 sides. The plants are about 5 foot away from the walls of the building on each side. I don't know the orientation exactly, but the morning and afternoon sun are blocked but they receive probably about 8 hours of sun as it rises over the buildings. I can tell that the position of the sun in winter would hit them remarkably well, directly onto the opening of this area and flying overhead all day.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Jul 27, 2021 6:17:28 GMT -6
Chrysanthemum you are right. Nut sedge is notorious for coming in the top soil that people buy and spread out when seeding a new lawn or landscaping. The little nutlike tubers aren't screened out when they run the loam through a sieve. That stuff is really hard to kill, but I would be shocked if any could make it through the armor you have set up to eradicate it. Pulling the stuff is just a temporary fix as that also leaves a little tuber "nut" behind. It does seem to be only in areas that were landscaped in some fashion by the previous owners, so my guess is that it was brought in in some sort of topsoil. The barriers are holding it at bay for the moment, but I need to do more work to cover uncovered areas. We have used cardboard and mulch in these areas before, though, and it has grown through. We didn’t know what it was then, and we weren’t being vigilant enough. I have a feeling this will be a years-long project.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Jul 27, 2021 6:26:26 GMT -6
I've always wanted to grow a fig tree here, but every time I attempt that, it gets whacked by a freak, once in a lifetime cold spell that seems to reoccur about everytime I decide to plant fig tree. If I lived in Texas, I think I'd definitely have to plant one of those. My mother has grown figs outside in central Virginia (zone 7a) for as long as I can remember (well over 40 years). Her tree/shrub is located on the southern side of her wood shed and gets lots of sun and stored heat. In my recollection it has frozen back most years, especially in my younger days, but it comes up again from the roots and grows as a multi-stemmed shrub. My next door neighbors here in Texas used to have a beautiful single-trunk fig in front of their house (eastern exposure), but it froze during the February single-digits (whereas my mom’s tree didn’t actually freeze this winter). It did put up lots of root suckers this spring, though, and my neighbors dug them up and are rooting them. They plan to give me some to transplant in the fall once we fence off an area for them. (It’s frustrating to me that I have all sorts of land but really can’t use it without some pretty drastic fencing because of the deer pressure here.). I think we’ll put them on the south side of our house (where there is some shade, though) where there used to be a huge rosemary patch, mostly of which also froze in February. We’ve talked for years about trying a grapefruit there, but we had been unsure whether it would survive in our zone even before our crazy week in February.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Jul 27, 2021 6:31:22 GMT -6
We have an excellent food bank in Stillwater. This is actually a full scope non profit with massive volunteers and devoid of corruption. Highly unusual. I say all this because it's rare. They also have a remarkable garden grown by an expert from OSU Ag or something like that. He has all raised beds of CMU block, clear ground is covered with the local free woodchips and a massive drip tape irrigation system, a red wood pergola rests among the beds carrying some type of grape vine there are numerous cattle panel trellises installed throughout the year. Meanwhile, all are welcome, at any time, to pick ripe food. Most of it is gleaned by volunteers and placed into their grocery store for client selection. I picked up a stalk of brussels the last time I was there. Isn't that awesome?
I walk the garden when I'm there, not just for food but to see his work. He is growing raspberries successfully. They are planted in a space enclosed by buildings on 3 sides. The plants are about 5 foot away from the walls of the building on each side. I don't know the orientation exactly, but the morning and afternoon sun are blocked but they receive probably about 8 hours of sun as it rises over the buildings. I can tell that the position of the sun in winter would hit them remarkably well, directly onto the opening of this area and flying overhead all day. Bon, that’s awesome that there’s a garden associated with the food bank. I believe that there is something like that in San Antonio, but I don’t know of anything closer to our area. I’ve been having such an abundance of cucumbers that I was looking in to local options to donate some, but I couldn’t find anything that accepted perishables.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jul 28, 2021 19:29:45 GMT -6
Whenever I have surplus at the Farmers Market, I stop by to donate it to local nursing homes in the area. One of them has a garden on site, where residents can walk along with a grocery cart to get veggies to take back to their rooms. I leave paper bags of veggies out on the table in the shade there, so they can 'shop' for groceries as they walk by.
Bon,
I've grow rasberries here, but only on the North side of a shed, where no direct sunlight could hit it. It grew about 6 or 8 feet tall and produced berries every year until we moved away back in 2004.
I haven't tried them in our new location, but the old house was only 20 miles away, so I'm sure they'd be okay here as well. I don't know what variety the old plants were, but they were black in color.
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