Friday, May 16, 2008

Status on Garden

I have planted the largest garden I have ever planted and things are looking great. I have an excellent crop of peaches and anticipate them getting ripe the week of July 14th. I have finished the asparagus and I am picking strawberries along with English peas and kale now. I have never tried kale in the spring but somebody gave me the plants so I stuck them in. I picked the first set of leaves and fried them like you would cabbage. (No boiling ahead of time like we do on many greens.) Wonderful method of cooking them. During the first dry spell I had some of the tomatillos to die because they were not established plus the fact they were such large transplants. Most are growing very well.

Fruit Class at Daniel Stowe Botanical Gardens

List of species and varieties recommended for planting
http://www4.ncsu.edu/~djgofort/Fruit23.htm
Home Orchard Spray Guide
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/pp/notes/Fruit/fdin002/fdin002.htm
HIL's
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/consumer/hortinfo.html#fruit
List of links.
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/consumer/hortinternet/fruitandnuts.html

Monday, May 5, 2008

Native Pink Dogwoods


I have only seen two pink dogwoods in nature. Neither one is very good but the best one happens to be along the edge of my driveway. I didn't see the other one this spring so it may not have survived recent years. Years ago there was a naturally pink dogwood visible from Hwy 49 near Asheboro. Rick Hamiliton mentioned it to me but I never saw it. This is a great year for tis one. It isn't in the best of locations with a full canopy on the south side.