I have a mulberry tree in my backyard. I've yet to ever remember to pick the fruit. It seems to have a very short fruiting season. Or maybe I suck at it. It was here when I moved in

As someone who grew up eating mulberries, I find them to be way too sweet, with no acid element.

Personally I would plant any other tree before a mulberry (plus so many wild ones here).

They do, however, attract so many different types of wildlife, it may be worth it for that, if you're into that sort of thing.

My parents have one on their property that I affectionately refer to it as the supermarket tree, since all of the animals come out to eat under it (Deer, raccoon, squirrels, migratory birds, and often coyotes).

Putting on old clothes and going picking mulberries and gorging on them at the same time is one of my favourite memories of childhood but unfortunately I just don't think I have the room for one. I will be putting in strawberries at the end of winter, maybe beginning of spring. Definitely will be getting a couple of different types. Alpine strawberries are something I'd like to get going, at my last house they just grew up in the cracks of the concrete and they were delicious!

With my raised beds I did have two of them surrounded by that green plastic trellis stuff as I had tomatoes and other things that needed support. I took them down when I was planting my spinach and stuff. Today Mr Rexx was out admiring my efforts(bare dirt can still look awesome people!) when he starts laughing. I wander over to see what he is laughing at and our dog is right in the middle of one of the beds having a good old sniff! I shout at him to get off outraged at this gardening breach of protocol and he just saunters up to me wagging his tail like butter wouldn't melt. Needless to say the green trellis stuff has been put back in place. It's funny I've never seen him on the beds before or seen his big paw prints and he has no interest in the bed with the established silverbeet and herbs in it. In retrospect I wish I had run and got my phone to snap a pic as it was pretty funny

Under the plant and aquarium lights -



After about a week of hardening off -



Oh **** -


Always good to have a plan -





Plan coming together -

Nice job, what grow lights are you using?

how's everybody's stuff looking? i got a couple zucchinis off my plants but they were being so temperamental, so full of powder mildew, and taking up so much space/generally being a nuisance that i just ripped them out of the ground recently. cucumbers are still coming in regularly and we've picked a few early green tomatoes the past couple weeks. gf made caprese yesterday with the first ripe one and some of our basil. fried green tomato BLTs with spicy mayo are elite tho





^first of the jalapenos, not very big but it's a start. looks like we'll get a bunch more coming in soon. gonna be making some salsa in a couple days

also, it is SO ****ing hot and humid here, despite very little rain. watering is near daily now

Apparently I'm just growing food for the damn squirrels. Anyone got any non-lethal tips on how to protect crops from those bastards?

I've got a ton of green cherry and Roma tomatoes. I see some start to turn red but the squirrels get them first. I've beat them to a few of my figs and those were damn good. One of my fig trees is small enough for me to put a little screen around. Look at this ****er trying to get in:







So far nothing is eating my egg plant or peppers:





This starting growing in my compost pile so I let it go



And its producing this (butternut squash?):



Tomaters:

My growing season seems < other peoples' growing season. First fruit just started appearing this week.



A couple of my larger plants are threatening to overgrow the fence they're tied to. I guess I'll try bending them over and training them along the top rail if I can.

yim, nice bonus squash. Squirrels ate my first batch of tomatoes last year. I ended up putting 3' chicken-wire fence around them with bird netting on top clothes-pinned to the chicken wire and they couldn't get in anymore. It was a PITA to harvest and care for the plants, but at least I got to eat my tomatoes. I had to "tent" the netting higher than the chicken wire since the cherry tomato plants grow to about 5', but the slicer tomato plants didn't get much about 3'.

zik, I've harvested snap peas and cherries. I have some smaller green tomatoes but they're probably 2-3 weeks away from being ready, and nothing else even has blossoms yet.

My neighbor had a raccoon living in his attic earlier this year, which wrecked his brand new gable vent trying to escape the exterminator. To prevent a repeat he's been squirting coyote piss all over the place. Haven't seen a squirrel or woodchuck in my yard in months.

Maybe actual coyote piss works, but I've tried every brand of urine- and capsaicin-based pest-repellent pellets and sprays for the garden and the squirrels and rabbits will sit right on top of it eating my flowers.

Yimyammer, rep, zikzak:

Awesome plants. That's almost enough to get me to move to a warmer climate. But we still have 90 days until frost in Denver.

re: squirrels, pets are super useful for that. our yard is fenced in and we have a cat and two dogs that spend a lot of time outside, peeing and prowling everywhere, so the squirrels arent very bold in my backyard. i mistakenly thought they were getting into my strawberries before we made one of our indoor cats an indoor/outdoor, but it turned out to be birds doing the swiping. that stopped real quickly once the cat started going outside tho.

Thats what my neighbor has and what I'll build soon, there's too many squirrels to fight.

One thing attempting to garden has taught me is that I'd starve to death if I had to live off what I grow, then again if it was life and death at stake, I'd be eating lots of squirrel

thats sick, i used to live in denver. i absolutely love it there, but left for a girl, hopefully only temporarily. in fact, most of my stuff is still sitting in storage in littleton.

obv 95% of the weed grows are indoor, but i imagine you can get a pretty decent outdoor season for veggies and the like

i wouldn't recommend moving to SC, just fwiw

+1 to one or more cats

may or may not be lethal

I've been visiting lots of commercial weed grows recently including indoor, greenhouse, and outdoor. So far the happiest plants have appeared to be in a 45000 square foot greenhouse I visited. I chalk that up to husbandry more than anything. Really a greenhouse grow saves on light in summer and loses on heat in winter. Probably cheaper per canopy area than indoor, all in. I haven't seen any of the large players' 200000 sqft indoor operations yet. Hope to see one soon.

I don't grow weed at home due to having kids, it seems like a ton of work really.

Hope there won't be too many critters interested in my harvest, since there doesn't seem to be too much bounty to begin with

Beefsteak Tomatoes

Jalapenos

May have made the beginner mistake of trying to plant in too shady a spot Wound up moving these jalapenos and tomatoes to planters on the patio, and they seem to be doing much better now. Guess they're a bit behind - but with two full months of summer left, hopefully there's still time for more than two tomatoes and a japaleno (one serving of salsa)?

Edit: Happy 4th of July!

Errybody got bigger tomatoes than me

Nice looking gardens. I usually start tomatoes and peppers indoors in the spring and get good results in MN area but was busy this spring and didn't get store bought plants in until Memorial Day weekend. I have one early girl tomato that has small tomatoes on it and the rest are just flowering. Peppers flowering also. Rabbits are eating my peas, lettuce, and pepper leaves. Have an owl arriving tomorrow. Unfortunately not a live one. Will post pics of garden.

Has anyone had much experience with push reel mowers? We are buying a new mower and are thinking of converting our backyard fully to vegies/fruit trees/natives and wood chips. That would mean we only have the front yard and nature strip to mow. A push reel mower seems good in theory but I have no experience with them.

Mid season looking pretty great so far

Artichokes


Jalapeños (feat. Field bindweed)


Potatoes


Grapes


Zucchini


Herb garden



No pumpkins have formed yet but I have plenty of blossoms. The lettuce, cole crops and spinach have run their courses and gone to seed. Jalapeños can start coming off the plant soon.

Snails ate all of my kale. My tomatoes are now a giant bush. My kholrabi are 4 feet high but I'm probably just going to keep them intact and purdy. Not my best growing season.