Blog grid – Lee Reich

ROT AND FLOWERS

August 11, 2016

Juicy plums just about ready to pick and then . . . yecchhh, brown rot srikes again. Shift gears, plants flowers. Will they help against brown rot?

PESTS, INCLUDING ME(?)

August 4, 2016

0 Comments

I watch out for pests: thousand canker disease of black walnut, chipmunks (not a pest for me), and me (not a pest for strawberries, although it might appear so)

World's Best Fruit? Finally, I reap the fruits of one of my labors. Literally. The fruit is black mulberry, the species, that is Morus nigra, rather than any of the black-colored mulberries that grow all over the place around here. The latter are species and natural hybrids of white and red mulberries (M. alba and M. rubra). Black mulberry, native to the Mediterranean climate of western Asia, is not cold-hardy below temperatures in the ‘teens (Fahrenheit) so definitely not cold-hardy here. I first tasted it at a fruit conference in Davis, California and it wowed me even from among…

FRUIT EXPOLORING

July 24, 2016

0 Comments

TWO DELICIOUS ORBS, ONE BLUE & ONE WHITE

July 21, 2016

2 Comments

I offer a "prescription" for blueberry soil, which is most important for healthy plants and the bowl after bowl heaped high with blueberries here on the farmden all summer long. Then I mosey over to the vegetable garden for some of the best-tasting turnips.

HEAVEN AND(?) SOME HELL

July 15, 2016

10 Comments

I turn off the highway in New Jersey to find my myself in "The Blueberry Capital" of the world, then drive on to taste a number of new and tasty berries. Back, Japanese beetles rear their ugly heads.

GOOD SUMMER BLUES

July 7, 2016

1 Comment

With planning, I got the summer blues -- and I like them. Tall spires of delphinium. Then, looking more at ground level, weeding to keep vegetable garden in good shape for fall crops.

EDEN’S GARDENS

June 30, 2016

0 Comments

G wants his Eden; start with the soil, with the help of the USDA's Soil Web Survey. And then, on to plants: How about Pakistani mulberry? Heavenly, even if it wasn't from Eden.

SMALLER IS BETTER

June 22, 2016

12 Comments

Small is good, sometimes, in gardening. I plant small trees which need only small planting holes and only small amounts of water to establish. Also, renovative (drastic) pruning revisited.