Fruits and veggies?

[WaterWitchin]

Hmmmmm.... Maybe I should try blueberries again!

[Keysguy]

I just have a small garden at my condo in New Hampshire. It's above a grade retaining wall in the woods behind my unit. If it wasn't for the bagged soil and compost I've added over the past 5 years it would be nothing but bank run gravel and staghorn sumac.

It barely gets 5 hours of sun a day (morning) so is pretty limited in what I can grow. This year I have 20 tomato plants of various varieties, a dozen green bell pepper plants and I have room for 3 small plantings of string bush beans.

Mostly it serves as something for me to do while I worry about my orchids.

[kvet]

Had a very late start this year, but, should actually work in my favor because weather in my part of coastal southern california remains good until about Thanksgiving, so I'm hoping for a longer season. Additionally, this year we seem to have much more sun than last, not as much may gray and june gloom.

Last year, despite all the work, everything turned out AWFUL, even the in-ground stuff at the parental units' house that I worked so hard for. This year I'm skipping their house and letting the parents do what they want.

At my house, I'm giving the rain-gutter self-watering system a try. Ignore the pipes sticking out in the background buckets, those are there because they were originally double buckets while I build the rain gutter supports, and I didn't want to mess up the roots. So far there are 5 cucumbers, 3 calabrian peppers from last year, and 10 tomatoes. I still have 16 more to plant out - mixture of peppers and eggplants. Not sure where they will go.
I also have to finish the string trellis system for these, I've got a few weeks time to do that. Fun stuff!

[Dusty Ol' Man]

The figs are ripe!

[estación seca]

I have a Conadria green fig, a variety that does well in our extreme heat. It is slightly less sweet than some other varieties so the fruit doesn't rot on the tree in hot weather. If anybody wants a cutting of this let me know; the time to take and mail cuttings will be in late December through early January.

Unfortunately birds peck them before they're ripe. I tried covering the entire tree with shade cloth but the birds ripped holes in that. I'm going to need to prune it back hard, build a low stem wall of concrete block around it and put a superstructure with wire hardware cloth around the entire tree.

Every January our Arizona branch of the California Rare Fruit Growers hosts a scion and cutting exchange. I brought home cuttings of figs Nixon in China, Panache and Violette de Bordeaux. All three rooted. I'll plant them out this fall after they drop their leaves. I will put them in the same orchard space as the Conadria so they will eventually be intertwined and enclosed.

I may keep the Violette in a very large pot since it's a dwarf plant and I will be able to more easily cover it against the birds. Here is my Violette cutting:

[kvet]

Behold from my suburban garden.. megasparagus! I'm taking every opportunity to show this thing off.

[WaterWitchin]

Is that Purple Passion? I have a lot of it, and it IS beastly compared to some other varieties. But you're just now getting asparagus? Harvesting here is a distant memory until next spring....

Last year's tomato crop was a huge disappointment. This year... WhooooBooooy.... I can't keep up. San Marzano are ridiculously prolific this year. Still loves my Purple Cherokee. New second favorite is officially Pineapple. I'm growing Arkansas Traveler for the first time this year. They're good, they're huge tomatoes, but the vines are on steroids. They will need their own separate space if I grow them again.

[kvet]

Yes, Purple Passion, purchased feb 2021. I misread your instructions and thought "one crown per person", not 10-12 crowns per person. It's planted in a tiny little area, and gives me one shoot every couple weeks. It's become a novelty

My tomatoes continue to be a complete train wreck now year four. I'm on the verge of throwing in the towel, and considering growing just things that have have some success including peppers, eggplants, and onions. Bah.

[Roberta]

I just have fruit trees, no crops. But this has been a really weird year. "Summer" at my house didn't even start to happen until mid July or so, and nights and mornings are still fairly cool. The figs on my tree normally start to ripen around mid-July and are done the end of July or very beginning of August. This year, the're mostly still green, just starting to ripen and quite a few aren't ripening fully at all (looking nice and dark but all woody fiber inside) Avocado tree bloomed when it was still chilly, and few bees were about. Should have had a few hundred this year, will be more like a couple dozen. <sigh>

On the other hand, a lot of the orchids have been really happy, and pleasant for humans too.

[camille1585]

I've had a weird year as well. Spring started ridiculously late, we had a couple good weeks, then hot/dry drought conditions in May-June, a couple good weeks, and the past couple weeks have been cold and rainy.

I got the potatoes in late due to low temps, and with the drought I ended up harvesting very little. Peas were eaten by jays, cabbage by rodents, and a deer came in and ate my entire crop of lettuce, beets, carrots, chards... (deer in gardens are unheard of here, and it's the first time in my 15 years here that I've had deer issues). Sweet corn was eaten by birds. This season I've put in a lot of work for not much reward (3 heads of lettuce, a couple tomatoes and some zucchini). I'm hoping to have better luck with the fall crops that are going in this in the coming week.