Fish Emulsion and Citrus Grower's Blend

 I'm still trying to use the fish emulsion repeatedly on the fruit trees, so I did that again today. I also applied Citrus Grower's Blend for the first time to the citrus trees. Also, I used a general, slow release fertilizer on some landscape plants and flowers.

Fish Emulsion to Fruit Trees

 The soil around the citrus dried out. We turned off the water to the citrus trees for a couple weeks, and we've had some dry weather. Now, the water is back on. Today, I watered each of the fruit trees with some fish emulsion, hoping to give them a shot of nitrogen to spur growth. The leaves and blossoms are starting the bud out on the apple tree, so I'm hoping it is a good time. Maybe I'll repeat some this spring. I'd like to help the newer citrus trees get well established. I recall the most successful and fastest citrus to establish for me were 2 houses ago, about 8 miles from here. It could have been the location, obviously, but at the time I used a lot of fish emulsion in my gardening. So, I'm trying to replicate that. 

Gro-Power and Soil Sulfer to Trees

 Some of the smaller citrus trees are getting some yellowed leaves like mine frequently do in winter with rains. I've added some soil sulfur and a Gro-Power humic acid product. I'm hoping that along with less rain will help fix this. Only the citrus trees got the sulfer, but all fruit trees got Gro-Power.

I recall that several homes ago, my citrus would get similar issues. Gro-Power and sometimes a foliar spray of seaweed emulsion would help. I don't have any seaweed emulsion at the moment, so hopefully this will help.

Compost to fruit trees

 We still compost both in the worm bin and in a normal compost bin. I've not been adding to the normal bin for a month or so, allowing it to finish. Today, we sifted it and put it at the base of all the fruit trees. The sifting step is not necessary, but we like to get out the sticks and some bits that are taking longer to compost before using it. We throw those items back in the bin so they're broken down for next time. Our current compost has quite a few worms in it, too, as it hasn't been heated very hot for a while. 

If anyone reading this does not yet compost, I'm a big advocate and think you all should do it, too. 😊 It can be as easy or as involved as you want it to be. We keep a lot of our waste out of the landfill by composting, rarely having more than a couple small bags in the trash can each week. But on a daily basis, I empty kitchen scraps into the compost bin. Between that and the recycle bin, that's where most of our waste goes. 

Blood meal to fruit trees

 My friendly guardian angel/master gardener was concerned about the fruit trees and the steer manure. While normally I use 2 parts chicken and 1 part steer manure, this year when I went to buy them they were out of the chicken manure. I just got the steer, which is a poor substitute. It is too high in salt and low in nitrogen. The timing of putting out the steer manure before so much rain is good in that it will wash the salt away from the tree roots. To address the low nitrogen, I spread blood meal on the fruit trees. I'm considering repeating this in a month or two or perhaps using fish emulsion. I really would like to see some growth in some of the newer trees (like 5 years old - I'd have to look that up to know exactly). I'll also try to remember to only use chicken manure in the future, adding no steer manure at all. 

Worm castings and composted steer manure

Our worm bin was full, so we harvested the castings and switched the tiers. There are tons of happy worms in there! We spread the castings, along with the composted steer manure I bought months ago, on the fruit trees. There's been plenty of rain this week and more is in the forecast. Hopefully, that will help soak these into the soil, not wash them away.

Our tiny Gold Nugget Mandarin tree has ripe fruit now that we're enjoying. I love the fruit, but I'd like to see this tree grow more this coming year.

Happy New Year 2022 is almost here. Hang in there everyone. 

Cleared community garden plot of tomatoes and zucchini, planted parsley seeds

 This past weekend we cleared all of the remaining tomato and squash plants from the community garden bed. It is always hard to decide to pull out the tomatoes because so many green ones remain, but they just stop ripening. We will put down composted manure (this time only steer, as the garden center was out of chicken) and plant more soon.

Here's the last tomato harvest of the year (except some cherry gold tomatoes at home in a pot that are still producing).

Also the final overgrown zucchini-ish squash and some zoodles I made from them. I'm getting sick of zoodles. I think I need to make a LOT more zucchini bread.

At home, I planted some parsley seeds in a pot. They're pretty old, so I'm curious if they will grow.