small horticulture garden

cute geoge

Settling into middle age this is something thats I am hoping to start up.I would hope to get a few things in the ground this year and progress in the coming years .I was going to start off with a few cooking apple trees ,a few blueberry bushes,strawberries maybe .I am in a bleek west coastal location 1 mile from the atlantic ,in good soil i am think of a grenadier cooking apple tree, 1 year bareroot with rootstock mm106 or m26 .What does this mean ,what other apple tree would compliment this.Is there a difference between blueberry and honeyberry fruit bushes ,does either grow easily other recomaditions welcome

looksee

I don't know much about apple growing, but M26 is a description of the rootstock, whether it is dwarf or full size etc. Honeyberries are lonicera, members of the honeysuckle family - usually not for eating/toxic - but these are edible. No relation to blueberry.

macraignil

Here is a link to a page that lists pollination partners suitable for Grenadier apple trees. I tried a small honey berry plant in my own garden a few years back but it failed to get established. I found blue berry worked much more easily but they are said to benefit from acidic soil and the soil I have is slightly acidic naturally. The yield of fruit from blueberry plants are much better when there are two varieties or more to allow for better cross pollination. Currants and gooseberry are also good ones to try that seem to produce good crops without much interference.

Happy gardening!

MacDanger

Only new to rootstocks but my understanding is that M26 is a medium-small rootstock (3-4m height I think) and M106 is a medium rootstock (4-5m height)

cute geoge

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058287574/small-horticulture-garden

Typically I got busy with work in spring and with poor weather made a poor enough start with my plans .Anyway I sat 4 blueberry bushes and 6 rhubarb plants .The blueberry bushes have not really taken off yet but are still hanging in there ,rhubarb flying but did not use any ..The garden is overgrown with scutch with a thick scraw .For the coming year what would be best plan to break down scraw .I am thinking of just covering with polythene for 6 months .would this break down the scraw and make ground workable.

macraignil

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120882663#Comment_120882663

I can't say for sure how long it takes to use polythene mulch to break down the sod in an area on its own but I was working on a garden with someone familiar with using it to prepare ground for vegetable growing and he said a couple of months would get a lot of the unwanted plants dead from just forcing them to try to grow with no light and then he would use a harrow to break up the sods and leave it uncovered for a week to get weed seeds to sprout and cover again for a couple of months and then the second time harrowing would leave it ready for planting. When working on this with him it also required pulling out roots of some more persistent weeds like stinging nettle that were not killed by the initial mulch cover.

I don't like the way slugs seem to congregate on plastic in the garden and think it provides too good a place for them to hide so would not use it as a mulch myself. Would it not be better just to put down a layer of cardboard (making sure it overlaps so invasive weeds like scotch grass and buttercups can't grow through to the surface) and add your mulch, compost or manure on top of that? By the time the cardboard decomposes and the manure/compost matures the sod should be dead underneath it. I did something similar with just a thick layer of farm yard manure myself and it seemed to work well with a few videos tracking the progress of the project here.

Happy gardening!

cute geoge

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120882663#Comment_120882663

Just checked ,it seems the the slugs are attacking the leaves of my rhubarb ,will this knock back the growth .My bluberry bushes seem to be no futher along then when they were planted last year but stil hanging in there .Is there much that I can do for them to give them a boost

looksee

Six rhubarbs is a lot of rhubarb, you might try forcing (covering to make them grow in the dark) a couple of plants next year though, get rhubarb early. (I haven't done this so can't offer any useful advice). Don't harvest it this year, wait till next spring to start picking it. I have one rhubarb plant that I completely ignore and it produces massive amounts of stalks. The slugs will not harm the leaves but they can crawl on the stalks and munch them a bit, making them less appealing for eating.

macraignil

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122099148#Comment_122099148

Good advice from Looksee already. I will just add that I have seen a big difference in how productive rhubarb is when it gets good supplies of nutrients. It needs to be kept clear of competing vegetation with my parent's plants not doing well as they allow grass and other weeds grow around them. I give my own rhubarb a few barrows of used horse bedding each winter so to give it a boost I think you should throw on a lot of compost or manure to break down over winter where it is planted and feed the soil so it has the nutrients available for strong growth in the spring. If the soil is wet you could even add some now as a mulch around the plants. Same advice should help boost growth of your blueberry but to be honest I have not done much with mine other than pull out some competing weeds and they are doing fine. Shrubs do usually take some time to settle before growing strongly.

Happy gardening!