This is part 2 of my September Garden Update, in which I'll show you what else I have growing in the backyard, starting with these beautiful sunflowers that just started blooming.
More Lesser-Known Veggies And Fruits
Yesterday I posted part 1 of my September garden update, in which I showed you how some of the lesser known veggies in my backyard were doing.
If you missed that post, you can still read it here:
๐บ September Gardening - It's Definitely Different (Part 1)
But because the post was turning out pretty long, I decided to split up the content and show you the other part of the backyard today.
Afterwards, I'll be showing you my greenhouse and the frontyard garden too, but that will have to wait a little longer.
So, let's go. I'll just start where I left off yesterday.
Cherimoya
When I got my hands on a couple of Cherimoya seeds last spring, I coudn't have been happier.
If you start reading about Cherimoya fruit, the reviews are amazing. Mark Twaine once called it
the most delicious fruit known to men
On Wikipedia, you can read:
Some characterize the fruit flavor as a blend of banana, pineapple, papaya, peach, and strawberry
and
"The pineapple, the mangosteen, and the cherimoya", wrote the botanist Berthold Carl Seemann, "are considered the finest fruits in the world, and I have tasted them in those localities where they are supposed to attain their highest perfection โ the pineapple in Guayaquil, the mangosteen in the Indian Archipelago, and the cherimoya on the slopes of the Andes, and if I were asked which would be the best fruit, I would choose without hesitation, cherimoya. Its taste, indeed, surpasses that of every other fruit, and Haenke was quite right when he called it the masterpiece of Nature.
Source
I guess you can understand that, although I've never seen one, let alone tasted it, I completely fell in love.
Because this tree is native to the high altitudes of countries in Mid- and South-America, the chances of me succeeding in growing my own cherimoya fruits are very small.
Still I wanted to give it a try, and guess what? The seed I planted has actually grown into a real little plant.
Click image to enlarge
It has been quite a job, because all summer long we had to take it inside the greenhouse when it was a little colder, and bring him outside again, because it can't stand temperatures that are too high either.
Yet, it is still alive and growing. If I can make it survive 4 or 5 more years, there's a very tiny chance it will grow fruits. But it just as well may not, lol. In any case, you can't say I'm not trying.
(For some reason, Cherimoyas are hard to ship to the other side of the world. So if I ever want to taste one, this experiment simply can't fail - or I have another reason to visit you in Mexico, @lynncoyle1).
Cabbages
It has been a very weird year for the cabbages.
Early in the season we were able to harvest a couple of oxheart cabbages and red cabbages.
The broccoli however, seems to be going nowhere. It's a beautiful plant, but it looks like it just keeps growing new leaves. There's still no sign of any broccoli. It makes me wonder if I labeled it wrong when I planted it. Still, I don't have a clue what else it could be.
Click image to enlarge
The same is going on for the purple variety: leaves, but not a broccoli in sight. And from this one I'm sure it is broccoli.
Our Brussels sprouts aren't doing vey well either. My mistake. I didn't expect the broccoli without broccoli to grow so big that the Brussels Sprouts I planted behind it would suffer from lack of light. As a result, they are still way smaller than they should be.
The savoy cabbage, however, is ready to harvest. I think it would be a shame to pull it out of the ground - it's such a beautiful cabbage. We haven't figured out what to do with it, since it's really, really small.
I planted some more cabbages as a second crop - to fill up the empty spots that appeared after harvesting, but I'm starting to think that wasn't the brightest idea I ever had.
What I didn't count on was that we're in the middle of catterpillar season. So every day I go out and pick those hungry, destructive caterpillars off my cabbages, one by one. I really need to remember this towards next year, because to be honest, it is not the most pleasant job around.
Click image to enlargeKiwiberry
Kiwiberies are basically very small kiwis that can be eaten without having to get peeled first.
It took a while before the seeedling I bought showed any signs of growth, but right now it is growing faster that I could have ever expected.
Since this is a perennial, it's about time we remove it from the growing bag it is growing in now and put it in the ground somewhere. The only problem is that we don't really have an appropriate spot left.
I'm trying to convince my girfriend to get rid of the fig tree - we both don't like figs, so I think the tree is a waste of space - and replace it with the kiwiberry. She's not convinced yet, but we are getting there :0)
This the kiwiberry's first year, so we'll definitely have to wait at least 2 more years before it will actually start growing fruits.
Strawberry Tree
The story of the strawberry tree is not very different: the poor little plant is still in the same planter as when I got it. It's a real shame, because it has grown much too big for it.
Click image to enlargeThe original idea was to plant it in the soil somewhere, but after I've read that the taste of the berries isn't that spectacular, I'm in doubt whether I want to plant the bush somewhere or not.
As a result, the little bush is still in its small planter, because as long as it is alive and kicking, I can't just throw it away... I'll need to figure it out what I want to do with it soon.
Jerusalem Artichokes
When you experiment with veggies that are unknown to you, there's always a chance you handle it wrong.
If I had done some research before, I would have know that it wasn't a very good idea to plant the Jerusalem Artichokes in large containers, and then placed them on a concrete floor.
No other plants in the garden have suffered more than these poor guys. The soil in the containers couldn't soak up enough water to last them through the day. Every evening, they were completely dehydrated and looked like they had died already. Watering them every night appeared to be only just enough to make sure they survived.
Meanwhile, I'm not even sure the plants have survived, since the greens just don't look very healthy...
I did like the tiny, yellow flowers they grew for a couple of days.
Click image to enlarge
Sunflowers
We had planted a bunch of sunflowers rather early in the season. Sunflowers give your garden such a pleasant look.
But it took them ages to grow, and we had to wait until September to see them bloom. But it was sure worth the wait! Simply take a look at the picture at the top of this post, and I'm sure you'll agree with me. :0)
More To Come!
Now there's a lot more to tell about my september garden - remember the greenhouse with 9 different tomato varieties and a lot more?
But I will keep that story for another time, because there is a whole lot to tell about everything inside that greenhouse.
Be sure not to miss it.
Stay tuned and keep an eye out for my next posts!!
YOU CAN STILL JOIN THE GARDENING JOURNAL CHALLENGE FOR SEPTEMBER! DON'T MISS OUT! JOIN HERE
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Most impressive garden!!! Well done @simplymike!
/FF
Thanks, @friendly-fenix. It's not that very impressive in real life, you know. It's a big mess and weeds are overgrowing everything. But of course I'm only showing you the good looking/impressive parts :0)
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I like gardening, but I never really got a
"positive" "ROI" from doing it, ha ha,
but I love it, it makes me feel good...You are smart @simplymike!!!
/FF
I'm fortunate enough that I can consider this to be a hobby, and that I don't rely on it to be able to eat. It's just for fun.๐
@simplymike
I like gardening, but yeah, Im not sure if I would survive doing only farming/homesteading, (even if I would like to think so in my mind)...
Hey by the way @cheetah commented on my latest post even though it was normal short blog post (that I wrote) with only a quote from a website and a link under the quote... Should I flag @cheetah?
The text on that site is "Creative Commons 4.0 Attribution License"... Irritating...
/FF
Amazing garden and amazing picture.
Thanks
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I hear you with that broccoli! I planted this cauliflower when it was about two inches high and now it is about three foot high and no sign of a single cauliflower (it is supposed to have eight-ten tennis ball size cauliflowers). I've been watering it and staking it and talking to it for months and it's now just producing branches and more leaves.
The broccoli now, on the other side of the steps, keeps on keeping on, in spite of every slug in the district thinking it is the best restaurant in town.
But, in fairness, I think both of them are late winter plants, the broccoli maybe even March-April. I didn't think about it when I planted them, but another time, I'll put them further towards the back of the garden.
Glad to hear it's not just me. I think you have the summer version and the winter version of both crops. Maybe we both have the wrong version for this season....
Sorry to hear your broccoli gets eaten by slugs. I spray mine with a garlic-based spray, and it seemsto work to keep slugs away. Of course, because of the extreme drought this summer we haven't had as many as usual...
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I love the passion you invest in gardening and would love to do the same.
The main reason I don't: our garden is very small and the dog loves to play in the small grass field we have.
Upstairs we have a terrace where we have some vegetables growing - but not as many as I would like to.
Great posts - lots of information.
Thanks for sharing @simplymike!
You never get to grow as many as you would like to, believe me, lol.
With some creativity you can grow quite some veggies on a terrace, I think
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I always want to grow a garden like this, but I donโt have enough space in my yard ๐ธ
What a lovely sunflower. Btw, In Jogjakarta, Indonesia, near the new airport, people are started to plant some sunflower seeds. It is lovely to see the flower blooms. And they make it as a selfie spot (one of the most favorite for local tourist nowadays)... hehehe
I think it's a great idea to plant more flowers everywhere. And how nice that it turned into a selfie--spot :0)
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So much care... your post is a reflection of it.
I'd love to see how the Strawberry Tree turns out and I hope you don't give up on it. Anyhow to my knowledge, more soil means more roots, less soil more growth... ;) Thank You for sharing!
You're probaby right: because the roots have no more room to grow, the plant itself grows.
Maybe I will end up planting him somewhere in the front yard. But I keep wondering: why would I want to plant a bush with berries that aren't tasteful, while I could just as well use that spot for something delicious...Thanks, @lady-idra.
Maybe I can give it away to one of my friends who have a large garden. Have it adopted... ;0)
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Very nice post, I like seeds flowers, we have a lot of them in Russia. โบ
Thanks. I'm not sure what you mean with seeds flowers...
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I'm sorry, I meant sun flower. But we eat a lot of those seeds in Russia, it's a kind of snacks.โบ
People do that here too. I've never tried it, though.
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TrufflePigWhat a yummy selection in your garden @simplymike. Sorry to hear the caterpillars also think so! I can't believe your lovely brussels sprouts. Wish I could get some to grow here. I love them. I missed your first part, going to have a peep. I LOVE sunflowers. Such happy flowers. What a picture they must be among your veggies.
Thanks, @buckaroo. We had too many Brussels sprouts last year, so it won't hurt to do a year without them (if I want some, I can always go out and buy some, of course).
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Always wanted to have a big yard to do my gardening. Good job!Oh yea, mind to share where do you find those beautiful plants separator ? And how to do the markdown to arrange pictures to the left and right? Thank you~
Thanks.
I honestly don't remember whereI found the dividers.
You can find a good tutorial and examples on aligning images here: https://steemit.com/steemit-help/@krnel/how-to-align-images-in-steemit-posts-left-right-and-center
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Aww kindly tag me if you found it in future. ๐ Thank you for your sharing!
You're welcome.
If you search SteemIt for 'Markdown code align images' you get a lot of different tutorials.
Thank you @simplymike! Keep up your good work. #lovegardening
You're welcome, @fruityexplorer
What fun to look at other people's gardens! :D
Did you get the Issai kiwi? I think it's the only self-fertile kiwi. That's what I bought this year. It's still pretty small. I'm going to plant it at the front of the front deck and run wire rope for it to grow on. I figure that way we can enjoy the fruit while on the front deck and I'll remember to keep them picked for dehydrating and such.
It is indeed the Issai kiwi. It's the only one that produces fruits when there is no other plant around. But apparently it would grow more fruits if there would be another plant near.
I originally bought two other varieties. Every variety grows fruit at a different time of the year. And I wanted to have plants that would grow fruits by November.
Unfortunately, they didn't wake up again after winter, so I went back to the store where I got them and they gave me this Isaai instead.
I wonder how long it will take before he will start growing fruit...
We should really make some space to put him in the ground somewhere before winter comes...
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This is from a well known nursery in my area, so I trust them...
https://www.starkbros.com/growing-guide/how-to-grow/berry-plants/kiwi-berry-vines/harvesting
Start harvesting 2nd or 3rd year!
Woohoo we both might have a few for #GardenJournal2019...
Up to 100 pounds of fruit/year, so I don't think I'll worry about a pollinator to increase that! haha
They also say 8-12 feet tall and 8-12 feet wide. Wow that's huge!
Mine came in a small pot, so I put it in a bit bigger pot, and hope to get it in the ground sometime this month or early next..
Cool site.
Harvesting in the second or third year. That's always nice, because I don't do patience very well. We were very fortunate with ouur raspberryy bush, our fig tree and grapevine: they all grew fruin in the second year. Even our plum tree did: he grew exactly 1 plum. It was the most delicious one I ever had :0)
I've almost convinced my girlfriend to give up the fig tree for adoption (a friend really wanted it, and we dln't like figs, so why keep it?). Once it is gone, we can plant the kiwiberry in that spot.
He'll be growing against a wall there. If we can attach some kind of structure to that wall so he can climb, it would be perfect. One thing, though: we're probably gonna need a ladder to be able to pick the fruits ;0)
Can't wait!
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Looks like a great year of gardening!
Actually it wasn't. A lot of things didn't work out. Except for the tomatoes, lol. Our entire freezer is filled withe tomatoes... :0)
So it will be a tomato soup season for you this winter ๐
yep! tomato sauce and tomato soup. Two of the most delicious dishes in the world :0)
Gee, that's some garden you've got going on there!
I planted some strawberry plants, cherry tomatoes, and cucumbers as a way to start teaching my three year old traits such as responsibility, patience, and commitment. Funnily enough, when we got some tomatoes, he wasn't interested at all. We managed to harvest 3 strawberries, which he did enjoy, so it was worth it for that. The cucumbers did nothing. Not sure why - I tend to be more of a brown thumb than a green thumb - most things I plant don't survive! Except weeds. They thrive funnily enough!!