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No rain for a week and a little spare time last night was spent tilling. I put about 16 yards of last year's oak leaf harvest into the strip in the left. The one on the right got that same treatment last year and I can see the difference in the soil composition being less clumping of clay.
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Ward Chillington said:
No rain for a week and a little spare time last night was spent tilling. I put about 16 yards of last year's oak leaf harvest into the strip in the left. The one on the right got that same treatment last year and I can see the difference in the soil composition being less clumping of clay.View attachment 29227
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I didn’t think oak leaves were good mulch in a garden, or so I’ve been told all my life. Maybe that’s dependent on the oak species. Water oaks drive the soil pH so low that it takes a lot of lime to offset the effects. A water oak gives pretty good shade in summer but NOTHING will grow under them and nothing eats the acorns which are about as round and the same size as marbles. Fun stuff on a little slope in the autumn. MILLIONS of little oak trees everywhere you don’t want them in the spring. They drop crap year round. I usually pick up the last of the leaves (biweekly cleanup) just before they start budding in early spring. Very annoying trees, but very welcome shade in summer.
 
Squirrels eat all the acorns in my yard. They leave the shell remnants all over. The drive gets covered with them and a bit of rain and leaves brown spots.
I also thought they were acidic.
 
west1m said:
Squirrels eat all the acorns in my yard. They leave the shell remnants all over. The drive gets covered with them and a bit of rain and leaves brown spots.
I also thought they were acidic.
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We apparently have picky squirrels. They will walk past water oak acorns and climb up in an engine bay to find some oily plastic to chew on. Weirdos.
 
RoadRoach said:
I didn’t think oak leaves were good mulch in a garden,
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They are actually pretty neutral from what I've measured via the "put some soil in a known pH water then measure again to see which way things move" method. These are white and red oaks on my property. It's great since I have so many of them...they gotta go somewhere!
 
west1m said:
Squirrels eat all the acorns in my yard. They leave the shell remnants all over. The drive gets covered with them and a bit of rain and leaves brown spots.
I also thought they were acidic.
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We apparently have picky squirrels. They will walk past water oak acorns and climb up in an engine bay to find some oily plastic to chew on. Weirdos. The blooms from the oaks stain the driveway nearly as bad as the crushed acorns. I have to bleach and pressure wash my driveway every spring or black algae and mold will cover it feeding on the pollen and oils from the acorns. I can get by with one wash each year, though. I have a big erosion ditch out back that I dump all the leaf litter in. Apparently earthworms don’t mind the acidity because Ive found some that looked like small snakes in the humus. I put some of that in some holes in the
Ward Chillington said:
They are actually pretty neutral from what I've measured via the "put some soil in a known pH water then measure again to see which way things move" method. These are white and red oaks on my property. It's great since I have so many of them...they gotta go somewhere!
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Ah, big leaves, big sweet acorns. Water oaks aren’t quite so user friendly.
 
Hey, don't knock the flavor of under – hood plastics until you've tried them.
 
Water Oak? Never heard of that species...have to look it up
 
Sunfire96 said:
Nice! How long until you get fig fruits?
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They are 3 years old, so slightly possible this year, more likely next, and almost certain the year after.

These are black figs, cold hardy to about 10F. If colder temps are expected, I have to protect them by wrapping them.
 
Donoroto said:
These are black figs, cold hardy to about 10F. If colder temps are expected, I have to protect them by wrapping them.
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Obviously in the spring? They’re not likely to bear after September. Angle of the sun has a lot to do with when they bear. We have a 3 year old bush in a big flower pot that had figs on it the first year after our neighbor gave it to us (he rooted it the previous summer). Cuttings from a mature tree may bear sooner than new sprouts. Ours froze this year but can’t tell it now. This thing grows at least a foot every year.
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Bloody squirrels bring pecans from across the street and plant them in our raised beds and flower pots. That’s what the small plant is. Might transplant it, but im not sure I’ll be around by the time it bears.
 
RoadRoach said:
Obviously in the spring? They’re not likely to bear after September. Angle of the sun has a lot to do with when they bear. We have a 3 year old bush in a big flower pot that had figs on it the first year after our neighbor gave it to us (he rooted it the previous summer). Cuttings from a mature tree may bear sooner than new sprouts. Ours froze this year but can’t tell it now. This thing grows at least a foot every year. View attachment 29331
Bloody squirrels bring pecans from across the street and plant them in our raised beds and flower pots. That’s what the small plant is. Might transplant it, but im not sure I’ll be around by the time it bears.
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I dunno, you should ve around in 10 years. That's how long it takes for a pecan seedling to start bearing
 
Donoroto said:
I dunno, you should ve around in 10 years. That's how long it takes for a pecan seedling to start bearing
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Yeah, maybe Ill be around, but not quite likely to be nimble enough to pick up pecans. That’s backbreaking work for young folk, and pretty much impossible for folks with lumbar problems.
 
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