Search...
Home Subscribe
Pie
Home Subscribe
Recent topics Flagged topics Hot topics Best topics
Search...
Search within gardening for beginners Search permies
Advanced search Google search
Register / Login
gift
My PEP Badge Tracker: An easier way to track your PEP Badge Progress
will be released to subscribers in: soon!
click here for details
  • Post Reply Bookmark Topic Watch Topic
  • New Topic
permaculture forums growies critters building homesteading energy monies kitchen purity ungarbage community wilderness fiber arts art permaculture artisans regional education skip experiences global resources cider press projects digital market permies.com pie forums private forums all forums
2023 Permac Adventure bundle permaculture bootcamp sketch with tools Green Living Book Free heat movie Better wood heat kitty blue
this forum made possible by our volunteer staff, including ...
master stewards:
  • Carla Burke
  • Anne Miller
  • Nancy Reading
  • John F Dean
  • r ransom
  • paul wheaton
  • Timothy Norton
stewards:
  • Jay Angler
  • Pearl Sutton
  • Andrés Bernal
master gardeners:
  • Christopher Weeks
gardeners:
  • M Ljin
  • Thekla McDaniels
  • May Lotito

well - there's a surprise!

 
Nancy Reading
steward and tree herder
Posts: 15048
Location: Isle of Skye, Scotland. Nearly 70 inches rain a year
8661
6
I like...
transportation dog forest garden foraging trees books food preservation woodworking wood heat rocket stoves ungarbage
posted 3 weeks ago
  • Likes 25
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
    Send
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
I was taking the dogs for their regular patrol this week and noticed something strange. On the ground were some red berries. I thought initially they were rose hips, and that the birds had dropped them whilst sitting in the tree above. However, when I looked at them (and the tree!) I realised that one of my American haws has fruited pretty well this year! The fruit had blown off after a bit of a storm in the week.
It's a bit of a surprise as we've had a rubbish summer, so I really didn't expect any fruit at all. These have quite a nice rose hippy sort of tropical flavour to them, although with quite a large central seed cluster, so I'm not sure whether I'll pick them or leave them for the birds!

Have you had a plant surprise you this year?
IMG_20261021_145335.jpg
Crataegus arnoldana - ripe haws on Skye
Crataegus arnoldana - ripe haws on Skye

How Permies works: https://permies.com/wiki/34193/permies-works-links-threads
My projects on Skye: The tree field, Growing and landracing, perennial polycultures, "Don't dream it - be it! "

 
Anne Miller
master steward
Posts: 19966
Location: USDA Zone 8a
5006
I like...
dog hunting food preservation cooking bee greening the desert
posted 3 weeks ago
  • Likes 11
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
    Send
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
I can see that my vitex tree/plant has survived a couple of drought years and is about a foot or more tall now.

Invasive plants are Earth's way of insisting we notice her medicines. Stephen Herrod Buhner
Everyone learns what works by learning what doesn't work. Stephen Herrod Buhner

 
Joao Winckler
pollinator
Posts: 584
Location: UK
196
I like...
kids urban seed
posted 3 weeks ago
  • Likes 9
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
    Send
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Ha, always a nice surprise when something fruits without any effort on your part. I had a quince do similar a couple years back, convinced it was never going to amount to anything and then just covered in fruit one autumn. Rubbish summers sometimes seem to push them into it, like the stress tips them over the edge.

Leaftide - garden planner w/ 1228 plant types. Need permaculture testers for fruit trees & perennials. Free Pro month for detailed feedback, even just suggesting plants

 
Thom Bri
master pollinator
Posts: 1189
Location: Illinois
301
posted 3 weeks ago
  • Likes 1
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
    Send
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
I eat mine in mid-winter, after some freeze. Wonderful, tart.
 
M Ljin
gardener
Posts: 3265
Location: Zone 4b/5a
2034
I like...
ancestral skills forest garden foraging composting toilet fiber arts bike medical herbs seed writing ungarbage
posted 3 weeks ago
  • Likes 8
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
    Send
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator

Joao Winckler wrote:Ha, always a nice surprise when something fruits without any effort on your part. I had a quince do similar a couple years back, convinced it was never going to amount to anything and then just covered in fruit one autumn. Rubbish summers sometimes seem to push them into it, like the stress tips them over the edge.



Ooh! I have wondered why the (red flowering) quinces would never ever fruit. Maybe the summers are actually too hot here?

About springtime, they make a big flowering and then they all drop off and nothing happens. But I have a friend who knows some reliable spots. I am not sure what the difference is. It could be higher or lower in elevation. But I did know someone higher up who had some good harvests on their quinces.

One can never be too kind to oneself or others.
Never our fault, always our responsibility

 
Riona Abhainn
pollinator
Posts: 1753
Location: Milwaukie Oregon, USA zone 8b
228
posted 2 weeks ago
  • Likes 8
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
    Send
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
In July I noticed that surprise tomatoes were growing, in two different places!  I didn't know what type they'd be or anything, I knew them by their smell, I love that smell.  They're cherry tomatoes!  And we continue to enjoy snacking on them as they continue to grow.  I love happy surprises.  Often our surprises are more along the lines of dandylions, mallow, well those are always around so maybe they're not really surprises haha.  

Celtic/fantasy/folk/shanty singing at Renaissance faires, fantasy festivals, and other events in OR and WA, USA.
RionaTheSinger on youtube.
Pop-up garden/vintage+ yard stand owner.

 
Burra Maluca
out to pasture
Posts: 13518
Location: Portugal
4805
I like...
goat dog duck forest garden foraging wofati composting toilet bee solar rocket stoves greening the desert
posted 2 weeks ago
  • Likes 15
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
    Send
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Yesterday, growing in among the patch of pretty flowers that were planted by the previous owner as ground cover, I found some ripe grapes. Not only that they were purple muscat grapes. Which are my favourite.

This confuses me no end because we've been here for nearly seven years and the only muscat grapes were white ones growing in front of the house. I spent cold, hard cash buying in a purple muscat grapevine which I planted the far end of the garden (so I can eat them all, because I'm the only one who likes them and also the only one who goes that end of the garden - they are my little private indulgence...). So I have no idea how this 'new' grapevine got there. Maybe it was there all along but just swamped by a great big ancient white grapevine which we cut back a year or two ago?

One of this morning's jobs is to extract the 'new' grapevine from the mass of overgrown flowers that it's growing through, find where it's growing from, and train it up into something I can look after and harvest properly. I was very restrained and left a couple of grapes on it so I can identify it. That may change later though, once I've located the main stem...

How permies.com works
What is a Mother Tree ?

 
Burra Maluca
out to pasture
Posts: 13518
Location: Portugal
4805
I like...
goat dog duck forest garden foraging wofati composting toilet bee solar rocket stoves greening the desert
posted 2 weeks ago
  • Likes 17
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
    Send
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Found it!

First I found the bit of stray grapevine I'd found yesterday, then I noted there were at least two visible vines growing nearby which I'd always assumed were off-shoots of the mega white grapevine that we'd cut back recently.

I went to have a look at the one growing behind prickly pear. It's a seed-grown one that hasn't flowered yet so I don't know what sort of fruit it will give, but that area is a bit shaded by the ginormous orange tree and also got overgrown with brambles this year.



And on closer inspection there were two juicy little purple grapes, which turned out to be sweet and musky, just the way I like them best.



I think I need to do a lot of bramble clearing. And maybe cut the orange tree down to size to let a bit of sunlight through. Or then, maybe having grapes in late October because of the shade makes up for it. I've already taken a cutting from the mystery prickly pear and planted it up on the next terrace in full brutal sunlight so maybe that will give me fruit then I can have a nice shady area for plants that don't like our brutal August sun.

How permies.com works
What is a Mother Tree ?

 
Nancy Reading
steward and tree herder
Posts: 15048
Location: Isle of Skye, Scotland. Nearly 70 inches rain a year
8661
6
I like...
transportation dog forest garden foraging trees books food preservation woodworking wood heat rocket stoves ungarbage
posted 2 weeks ago
  • Likes 8
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
    Send
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
That is a nice surprise Burra! I guess the grape that is fruiting must have been there last year, maybe it is also seed grown? and a nice microclimate too

How Permies works: https://permies.com/wiki/34193/permies-works-links-threads
My projects on Skye: The tree field, Growing and landracing, perennial polycultures, "Don't dream it - be it! "

 
Clairey Allen
Posts: 9
Location: SE England
4
I like...
forest garden cooking fiber arts
posted 2 weeks ago
  • Likes 14
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
    Send
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
The other day at the allotment, I noticed that some onions I’d completely given up on had reappeared, or at least had sent up some leaves. And we had some delicious self-seeded tomatoes this year in the polytunnel. We have to take the small wins, don’t we 😊
 
Ac Baker
pioneer
Posts: 605
176
I like...
cat trees urban
posted 2 weeks ago
  • Likes 11
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
    Send
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Lovely surprises here!

Our best cropping tomatoes by far, self-starter from the partly rotted compost we trenched the scarlet runner beans with.

I'm also trying mounding up our purple potato volunteers around the plot.  We've got new seed purple potatoes on order too.  But it will be interesting to see what we can do with the volunteers too ..

--
"Whitewashed Hope: A Message from 10+ Indigenous Leaders and Organizations"
https://www.culturalsurvival.org/news/whitewashed-hope-message-10-indigenous-leaders-and-organizations

 
John Weiland
pollinator
Posts: 3073
Location: RRV of da Nort, USA
1036
posted 2 weeks ago
  • Likes 9
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
    Send
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
I've tried making hawthorne jam before, but was disappointed with the outcome....the flavor seemed to decline from the processing.  As you noted, the seeds are pretty large and the pulp a bit like an over-ripe apple.  But they grow very well here so I'm glad to see them bear fruit in any year!

“The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe.”― Albert Einstein

 
Nynke Muller
pollinator
Posts: 111
Location: Haarlem, The Netherlands
87
I like...
forest garden fungi trees urban writing ungarbage
posted 2 weeks ago
  • Likes 10
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
    Send
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
For tree years in a row I put the kernels of all avocados that I eat, in the ground. They are not completely suitable for my climate, but there are some examples of avocado trees growing far out of their proper climate zone. The winter of the first two years everything died off, not sad, because this was to be expected. I experiment with location and winterprotection etcetera. Last winter killed 6 out of 8 avocados. The two remaing looked bad, but made it in the end.

My surprise: Yesterday I found an avocado plant resprouting from the roots, on a location where I only planted kernels or plants 3 years ago and I have never seen it since that summer.

"If you've never failed, you have not tried enough new things"

 
Jay Angler
steward
Posts: 16525
Location: Pacific Wet Coast
11085
I like...
duck books chicken cooking food preservation ungarbage
posted 1 week ago
  • Likes 13
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
    Send
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator

Nynke Muller wrote: My surprise: Yesterday I found an avocado plant resprouting from the roots, on a location where I only planted kernels or plants 3 years ago and I have never seen it since that summer.


Avocado seeds seem to have two sides to them, so yes, if one side dies back, the second side may come up. I have noticed this at least twice with avocado pits that I've planted.

It's very iffy in my ecosystem too. Apparently there are some "Mountain" avocados in Mexico that tolerate cold better, but since I'm planting grocery store pits, I have not idea whether I'll get lucky or not. For this winter, I've brought them inside. Not sure they'll even survive that way. Time will tell...

Visit Redhawk's soil series: https://permies.com/wiki/redhawk-soil
How permies.com works: https://permies.com/wiki/34193/permies-works-links-threads

 
I agree. Here's the link: http://stoves2.com
reply
reply
    Bookmark Topic Watch Topic
  • New Topic
Boost this thread!
Similar Threads
More...