Blueberries, Cherry Hedges and Broccoli

Something fun to talk about for a change.

I had a nice chuckle yesterday. The company Farm Fresh to You knocked on my door to see if I would be interested in having farm fresh, organic produce delivered to my door. I laughed and said, "did ya see the organic garden growing as you walked up the driveway? We grow our own." Ok, maybe it was funnier live and in person.

Thought I'd give you all an update, since you know I am still a horrible gardener. The trellis fencing is working well at keeping out the varmints. The heirloom broccoli I planted last year in abundance (and didn't get far enough this year to grow intentionally from seed), grew some volunteer plants (MY KIND OF GARDENING !!) We just harvested our first two heads of heirloom broccoli.

Heirloom beet has overwintered (the one I put in the freezer didn't make it.) Hopefully it will put out seed this year. The beet root itself is about 12 inches in diameter.

Celery and onions (from the nursery Tree Collard trip) look about ready to harvest, especially the celery

Grapevines look pretty but since we are only in year two, they're not doing much.

Surprisingly, the blueberry stalks have taken root and sprouted leaves in less than 10 days (planted May 22nd.) One's a little slower than the rest, but I'm still heartened. 

Cherry hedge stalks arrived yesterday. At least they're tall so I feel like there's hope!

And the thornless black raspberry stalk looks homesick.

My issues with the fruit stalks stem mostly from lack of experience and education (ha ha, get it? Stem!) I truly thought I would be getting fruit-bearing plants shipped to me. Now I know better. I'm not complaining...I just wish companies would put up a disclaimer like, "hey inexperienced gardeners! You are buying stalks! They won't put out fruit for 3-5 years!" Costco (where I got my grapevines), needs to do the same thing. I'm not saying I would have spent $66 on two fruit bearing blueberry plants at the local nursery, but I likely would have. 

There's another idea: my local nursery should have a sign saying: $33 isn't a lot for a plant which will give you blueberries now. Because I've actually done some research since the blueberry stalks arrived. Did you know you can grow blueberries from cuttings? It's pretty darn cool. So I could have spent $66 on two fruit-bearing blueberry plants, had blueberries this year, created cuttings from this year's plant, and still had the 1-3 year wait off the cuttings that I do now from the stalks. 

Free tree collards forever, free broccoli forever, hopefully free beets forever, and now working on free blueberries forever. I'm getting there :)