Tag: Persimmon

Garden journal – December 2020 part 1

My strawberries have multiplied like crazy this year, which is why they didn’t produce as much. Lesson learned: next year I will make sure they won’t be too crowded. This month I finally had time to split my strawberries plants that I had in 1 container. There were probably 60 or 80 plants and I distributed only 12 strawberries between 2 containers. The other ones I gave them to my fellow members of the local backyard growers group.

I created a potting mix from the old potting mix that I used last year, to which I added bark, garden lime and osmocote.

  • Strawberries in the original container
  • Bark
  • Newly transplanted strawberries
  • Extra strawberries

Because I had so many persimmons, I started to look for creative ways to use them. I used them in smoothies in the past, made cookies, delicious persimmon bread and now I decided to make jam from both varieties. The fuyu persimmons jam was very good, but the one from hachiya persimmons was very disappointing. I think a few of the persimmons were not completely ripe and they ruined the entire jam! The consistency was weird and the taste super astringent. Another lesson learned and proof that not only one bad apple, but also one bad persimmon can ruin the bunch.

  • Fuyu persimmons
  • Fuyu jam

I’m growing potatoes for the first time. I planted them in the second part of November and now they are stating to sprout. Feeling very excited!

Garden journal – October 2020 part 2

The spider mites invaded about half of my eggplants. I removed most of the leaves and I will wait to see if they will recover this late in the season, usually they have no problems regrowing the leaves and producing fruits during the summer and early autumn months.

Below are a few before and after pictures.

  • Eggplants before
  • After
  • Before
  • After

I removed most of the celery plants that were growing between my pepper and eggplants to give them more light now that the days are sorter and the weather gets cooler.

  • Before removing the celery
  • After
  • Celery plants

Another project was to remove the leaves that were attached by the spider mites from my potted tomato plants and spray them with neem oil.

  • Potted tomato plants before
  • After
  • Glacier tomato plant is full of tomatoes and flowers

I removed the papaya plant which dried out and rotted. I was surprised by the look of the roots and how easily they came out of the ground.

  • Rotted papaya plant on the right
  • Papaya roots

Because this year I had a lot of Fuyu persimmons I dried many of them. I cut the fruits in half, then cut them in slices about 1/4 inch thick and dried them for 12 hours at 135 F degrees. My food dehydrator was very busy this year since it was a very good year for fruit trees.

  • Whole persimmons
  • Persimmon slices
  • Dehydrator at work
  • Dried persimmons

This month I also planted my garlic between the cauliflower plants.