Christopher McIntosh

Diane Colboch wrote:Unless you are growing fruits that grow well here you will probably have to be on a pet and desease spray schedule. I removed my apple trees years ago because I hate spraying.  Honey berries are barely hanging on.  They prefer cooler weather.  It has taken over 10 years of me thinking I can grow anything here to realize I can't.   Now I grow 9 varieties of figs,  3 varieties of jujube, 2 pawpaw, etc.  I did enjoying all the years of figuring it out.  

Yeah I think I’m still in that process now. Unfortunately I’ve some five year old fruit trees like peach, plum and cherry that I don’t think I’ll ever see fruit because of our late frosts. Do you have any cultivars of fig or jujube that you recommend?? Or really any other fruit trees that do well in our area. Currently I have a brown turkey fig, few pawpaws, and a Russian pomegranate that seems to do pretty well here.

Hey there, I’m in East TN, 7a w/ a food forest style garden and it’s been a rough year! I haven’t tended much to the garden at all this year so it’s gotten a little out of hand and one thing I’ve noticed is a lot of plants look like the ones in these photos, dried or covered in black sections. A lot of things seem to completely defoliate afterwards also, like our honeyberries,  currants and some of the fruit trees also. I’m not sure if it was just because of a period of drought or if I have some kinda disease spreading all over, which is potentially everywhere because I’m a big chop and dropper. I hope if it’s a disease there’s some sort of non spray remedy. Maybe starting to think our area might not be great for fruit trees. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

My partner and I just recently purchased a travel trailer, and we’re planning on living in it full time for at least a few months out of the year, and with that I’m wondering how to best upkeep the garden while we’re gone.

I’ve been building a decent sized garden in our backyard for about five years now that consists of a few raised beds, in ground, hugels and a food forest section. The yard is Bermuda grass which is what I’m mostly worried about since it’s a constant battle to keep it from encroaching into the garden space.

I’m obviously not trying to grow any annuals at this time, but I’m wondering would be best for keeping things as well protected as possible during long periods of not growing anything intentionally. Cover crops just left in the beds? Covering the beds w a deep deep mulch? What do you guys think??

Dennis Bangham wrote:I thought I lost a black Mission Fig in Zone 7a/b.  A friend noticed leaves coming out of the root system.  But the top of the tree was dead (no green).

That’s what I was originally worried about but I didn’t see it sprouted from the bottom. I have had that happen w Russian pomegranates though.

But oddly enough the damn fig started sprouting the day I posted this so I’m guessing all is going well. I’m still not sure why it took so long though!

Hey y’all. I have a brown turkey fig tree that I’ve had in the ground for about two or three years now. It’s usually sprouting new leaves but way earlier than this and I’m worried if something’s wrong with it. I’ve done the scratch test and there’s plenty of green all along the tree, and it doesn’t feel brittle at all, still very flexible like a living tree so I’m not sure that’s it’s really dead. But is there anything I can do to help it along? It’s being watered regularly and was topped with compost earlier in the winter. At what point do I assume it’s dead and look to replace it? Thank you so much for your advice!

Tereza Okava wrote:Hi there-
I have a similar setup but put barriers between my beds and my now-grassy-again walkways. In my case, I used old ceramic roofing tiles, which extend maybe 5-6 inches into the ground.
It makes it harder for the grass to re-enter the beds, and I only have to weed every so often.
I do have some internal paths within the beds, and I dump chipped residue, old used wood pellets from my kid`s rats, or wood chips directly on the paths- this makes the grass have to grow on top of this stuff, which makes it looser and easier to pull out.
I think if I were you the question is- can you mow often enough to keep up with the grass? For me (remembering that I live in a year-round-gardening place), the answer is a definite no.
In your position I`d do just what you said, cover your walkways with wood chips, do spot weeding, eventually add new chips. I wouldn`t do the weed fabric, as I`ve always had that turn into a disaster (breakdown into pieces, mostly, although I`ve seen it get caught by the mower too)-- maybe again put down cardboard and put down more chips.

Hey thanks a lot for the response. The trick about using the old roofing tiles as a barrier for roots moving into the beds is a great idea. I think I’ll definitely try to find something like that soon.

I could easily keep up with the mowing, so maybe with the mowing and the tile barrier that would be enough.

I’ve used weed fabric a few times and like you said it never really goes very well. It always disintegrates and the bermuda just grows through it. But I was thinking maybe something heavier, I was even thinking of using a plastic tarp, although even w the wood chips I would be worried about watering pooling up. With my area, it takes a few cubic yards of chips to cover the pathways and since it’s only about a year or so before the Bermuda moves back into the the cardboarded wood chipped area, it would have to be a pretty continuous process of adding chips which I’m not too fond of haha. So this coming season I might just try to keep it mowed w the barriers like you mentioned. Thanks again for the help!  

Hey y’all. I am in need of some help dealing with Bermuda grass in the walkways of our garden patch. I know similar questions have been asked before about this but I do feel like I have specific questions that haven’t been answered yet at least from what my searching has given me, so I would appreciate any advice! Also this might be a little long winded so thanks to anyone for sticking w me.

About four years ago, I converted a section of our Bermuda yard to a garden, some in ground beds, some raised beds, hugels etc. I cardboarded pretty heavily the grass, then wood chipped it about six inches. As all of that broke down, the Bermuda started growing in the pathways where the wood chips were, I kept on weeding for about a year or two and continued covering w wood chips but I spent more time weeding the pathways instead of the beds so I got to a point where I just started mowing the pathways instead, which did seem to work, and of course now almost all of the paths are completely Bermuda again!

The Bermuda has stayed for the most part out of the beds, creeping up only a little on the edges where the soil might be a little lower. And also a large section of the garden isn’t really affected by the Bermuda, just the areas closest to the original yard. So my idea was that if I could keep the Bermuda from creeping in, I might be able to slowly eradicate it from the garden and since no new Bermuda will get in, it would eventually be free of it. So I planted a hedgerow of comfrey around the entire thing and I was thinking of getting some heavy duty weed fabric that I could use for the paths, cover w wood chips (mostly for aesthetic reasons) and every year or so, as the wood chips break down, clear them out and use them elsewhere and replace w fresh wood chips, making sure the fabric is still intact, laborious but less so than constantly weeding the paths.

OR I could just continue to mow the paths, and pray that it doesn’t invade the beds and eventually take over everything which I assume it will do.

Please any advice would be so helpful!