I got a question on our facebook page from John about planting fruit trees in the Anoka Sand Plain.  My answer got too long so I am putting it here:

John I can tell you what I have done and plan to do.  take it with a grain of salt because we just moved here and just planted fruit trees this year…

compost:  i priced out compost from plaisted and the price was quite a bit higher than the municipal place in coon rapids. that might change if you were ordering larger quantities than i did.  if you go with them i’d ask plaisted if they have tested their compost and can send you the report. i also bought some greensand for micronutrients and water retention and rock phosphate for phosphorus.  I’m pretty sure fruit trees in the rose family like their phosphorus.

fruit trees:  from what i’ve read its not a good idea to get dwarfs in the cold windy sandy area we live in.  we ordered semi-dwarfs.  i had trouble finding the varieties i wanted locally, but getting them from a good local nursery would be ideal (if they have some brand name tag on them i assume they were brought in by the nursery and in that case I’d ask them where they were grown).  make sure to get disease resistant varieties.  our crabapple trees had some nasty apple scab this year.  i got one late ripening keeper and one early variety.

i wanted to get rid of the grass around our fruit trees.  it competes with their roots.   after mowing low around the area for a couple weeks i sheet mulched with compost, leaves, wood chips and cardboard this fall, but ideally this would be done along with planting.  i made sure not to mulch too high trees don’t like that, but keep in mind if sheet mulching it should shrink quite a bit over time.

this year we will plant nutrient accumulators, nitrogen fixing cover crops and beneficial insect attracting herbs and flowers under the fruit trees.  i will not be spraying our trees except for a an oily solution early in the spring (i found the recipe in The New Self-Sufficient Gardener).  the plants in the understory of the trees will be the pest management.  not sure if you have heard of this before it is based on the idea of apple tree guilds.

hope that helps – thanks!

I raided the tomato plants in the front yard, filling up my entire stovetop with green and pink tomatoes this afternoon. Tomorrow it’s the back yard. I smell indian dishes and green tomato pie in the forecast…

The weather man says that we may get snow on Tuesday night, and that Wednesday will be in the 30s. Alas, it’s time to start taking apart the garden. I pulled some tomato plants out today, and the eggplants, beans, cukes, etc. are still to come. Tip for next year: Wear gloves when pulling out tomato plants, as your hands turn yellow and stain everything you touch yellow as well!

Here’s what an eggplant flower looks like. Our eggplants are loaded with flowers and buds; right now, they look like one of the most promising plants we put in! The potted eggplants grew much more quickly, but the ones in the front yard were quicker to flower – I’ll have to keep track and see which ones produce more.

Our summer squash and pumpkins have all been invaded by squash vine borers. I remember seeing the moths earlier this year around the pumpkins, and asking Chris what they were. We should have looked them up rather than assuming that they were some kind of harmless bug. Anyway, it’s pretty serious and every vine is infested. This morning we performed “surgery” on the plants by slitting open the stems and taking out the worms. We piled dirt over a lot of the stems, hoping that they will send off more roots.

I’m not too optimistic, and I’m sure most of them will die. Since it’s such a small garden, I don’t see any “survival of the fittest” pulling through. We’ll see.

Tip for next year: Apparently, buttercup squash are somewhat resistant to the borer. It takes many years of close watching, crop rotation, deep tilling, and removal of larvae before you can get rid of the problem – and that’s only if your neighbors aren’t growing squash as well. We could try a solid-stemmed zucchini (zucchetta rampicante) to see if that has better results. Otherwise… starting the summer squash really, really early inside and hoping they produce a lot before the larve hatch would guarantee at least some squash next year.

Part of the problem was that we trellised everything. I thought that trellising would mean greater yields, since we only have a city yard to work with. If the plants could have vined along the ground, they probably would have put down more roots!

At least we’ll have two okras from our one surviving plant this year. Maybe these would haved worked better in pots, like the eggplant? If we want to save any, we’ll need a lot more plants next year. I planted the Star of David variety – I think maybe I just chose the wrong variety to plant in Minnesota.

Tip for next year: Start in mid-April, and keep the soil very, very warm. Don’t transplant the seedlings until they are ready to go outside – wait at least until the first week in June to put them out. Try a variety that grows well in northern areas – Clemson Spineless and Burgundy are supposed to be better for cooler climates.

Pretty little thing, isn’t she?

Sure, think that now. But here’s what she did to our cabbage before she got wings:

Originally, I was only going to post the cabbage picture and title it something like, “What has gone wrong!?” But after reading about cabbage-eating insects, seeing pictures of the cabbage white butterfly, and realizing that I had taken a picture of a very similar butterfly on our pumpkins this morning, I decided to compare pictures and, sure enough, this is a cabbage white butterfly. (Here are some pictures from other people: Link 1, Link 2, Link 3, and the larve who ate our cabbages: Link 4.

Chris pulled off tons of green worms from the cabbages every day. They were also infested with aphids. We did get some neem oil to spray on them, but it looks like the cabbages may be doomed anyway.

Tip for next year: Plan for a fall harvest of cabbages. This may not prevent the aphids, but most of the caterpillars will have turned to butterflies by mid-summer. Also, putting up a barrier around the base of the cabbage (like a tin can) may help keep new caterpillars from finding the delicious cabbage. Also, I’ve read that red cabbages don’t have as strong as a smell as green cabbages – this may incline the moths to lay their eggs elsewhere. Interplanting dill and other strong-smelling herbs may also help.

Oh no! A lot of our tomatoes have giant brown spots on the bottom. I did quite a bit of reading and searching the Internet, and it looks like we have Blossom End Rot, which is not a disease but a calcium deficiency. Because it’s been so hot, the tomatoes haven’t been able to take up enough calcium through their roots, and when it doesn’t reach the ends of the fruits, they simply stop developing and rot.

Fortunately, this isn’t a fungus or a disease – but having weak tomatoes like these on the plants can attract insects and fungus so we’ve been pulling them off. I quickly got some hydrated lime, diluted it in water, and added it to the tomatoes. Hopefully this will help prevent more blossom end rot from developing.

Tip for next year: Get the soil tested. BER can also be caused by too much nitrogen or too much of something else – if the tomato takes up too much nitrogen, it may not be able to get as much calcium it needs. Add hydrated lime if the pH is too acidic; an addition of rock phosphate may also help.

Our eggplant seedlings are finally coming through. We replanted them on March 15th, and they finally started to sprout at the very begging of April. We transplanted the seedlings to individual pots on April 7th, and we’ve been watering them on and off with Kelp Tea and PlanTea.

Tip for next year: Eggplants, okra, and peppers need to be started before the tomatoes. The eggplants and okra will need lots of heat to germinate – most of the seed packages say 80-90F! Placing a heating pad under small sprouting trays may just do the trick.