I went outside this morning and found Hunter and Scrappy on the wrong side of the garden fence.

Hunter was happily sitting right beside the crushed watermelon plants, so I’m going to blame her for sitting on them.

There might be one that will make it – I certainly hope so.

I didn’t see any other damage, although I didn’t get up close and personal with the strawberries.

The plants there were 50% off, and I looked, and looked, and looked, and didn’t find anything.

I have trouble making up my mind.

Jeff came out, and found two more of the Tiger Eye Cutleaf Sumacs, which are my favorites, right away!

This was the first time we’d seen them at Fleet Farm this year, and although they were a little straggly, for $5 each, I decided to risk it, because I love them so much. Plus Fleet Farm does guarantee their trees.

Our original Tiger Eyes did worry us a bit when we first got them.

I didn’t realize that they dropped all of their branches each year, so we thought the dogs were knocking all of the branches off before winter, and we were getting pretty upset at the dogs.

I really wasn’t sure they were going to make it that first year, and I was so happy when they did.

After Spring came and we started making the nursery rounds, we saw a few that looked just like ours and realized that it was normal.

This year some of the top of one of our trees died back, so I’m waiting to see what happens with that.

It still leafed out, although a little later than the original, and it looks beautiful, it’s just not as tall.

Seeing these trees, which we’ve had for two years, compared to the new trees makes it hard to believe that our trees were ever that small.

I can’t believe how much they’ve grown.

The original two Tiger Eye Sumacs were planted on either side of our Moon Valley swing, which I love, love, love, it’s my favorite thing in the back yard.

We decided to move the swing last summer though, so we just planted the new trees in that space.

It worked out really nice,and I was so excited that I found two more of the trees that I called up everyone to tell them what my wonderful husband had found for me.

Isn’t that sweet?

What are your favorite trees?

Have you found anything amazing for your garden this year?

Issai Kiwi

The Issai Kiwi doen’t require a male kiwi vine for pollination, although I’ve heard that it will produce more fruit, which is larger if it does have a male plant nearby.

The Issai can also produce fruit earlier than most other kiwi’s, which can take up to 4 years to get established and produce fruit.

This is a hardy kiwi, and it’s supposed to be smaller, and less fuzzy than store bought kiwi’s.

Supposedly you can eat them right from the vine.

There are a few fruits on our vine, so hopefully we’ll get to taste one this year.

Since I am in zone 3-4 the tag said to plant it in a confined space.

Hopefully it will do ok, I’ve been looking for a kiwi for awhile.

Valiant Grape

I’ve been toying with the ideas of a grape, but with the way I’ve been feeling lately I wasn’t too sure about burying the grape vines, which I’ve heard that we should do here.

After seeing my Uncle’s grape vines, however, I wanted some grapes.

Plus we’re putting up a metal shed, and I wanted a vine to screen the shed a little, and what better way to do it than with edibiles?

After I did some research on the Valiant (which was of course, after I bought it – you can get enough information from the tag, right?) I read that they are hardy up to -70 and can survive in Canada without winter protection.

The valiant is a purple grape, and it’s supposed to be good for red wine, jelly, and eating fresh, which was the most important to me.

We ended up buying some black metal trellises for the grape and the kiwi.

I hope they will be strong enough to support the vines, if they aren’t I guess we’ll deal with that when the time comes.

If you have experience with growing either of these in MN or other Zone 3-4 or colder climates I’d love to hear about it.

I’d especially love to know what your kiwi’s or any kind of grapes or growing on.

Hopefully they’ll be up and working soon, so stop by and say hi, tell us about your garden, or see if anyone has any plants you’d like to trade for – or offer up your extras.

Ok – the forums are back up, and better than ever I hope!

All new members will have their first 3 posts moderated, I hope this will help prevent spam.

If you notice anything funny let me know.

Thanks.

After we left we realized that we forgot to show the pet sitter how to fill up the Aerogarden, so I was really worried about it.

When we came home it was completely out of water, but I added some more, and it seems to be doing ok.

Of course, I just realized that I didn’t really check the pump, but it’s not making funny noises or anything.

Since we were gone for so long our pet sitters decided that they should cut the grass in the front yard, and ended up cutting down all of our tulips except for one. I was so disappointed I could have cried when I found out.

Two of them were blooming when we left, and three or four more had blooms coming.

I really wanted to see what color they were!

I also know that the leaves are supposed to stay on the plants until they turn brown, so they can store energy for the bulb, so I’m really hoping that the tulips will survive after being so mistreated.

Our asparagus still isn’t up, although we have about 5 strawberry blossoms on one of our strawberry plants.

The alpine strawberry planter was a little dried out, but I’m sure the rain today took care of that.

The blueberry bush that we just planted also looked a little dry, but it is doing better than I thought it would – it looked a little dry when we planted it, and I haven’t put mulch around it yet.

I should have got some NC pine straw since I hear that pine straw helps provide the acidity the plants need.

Our Snowsweet apple, raspberries, and Carmine Jewel bush cherry are doing really well, although they don’t have blossoms.

I really want to taste a Snowsweet apple because I want another fruit tree, but I don’t want another Snowsweet one if I don’t like the taste of the fruit – I’m an apple snob, what can I say?

I want one that I can eat fresh, because while pies and cobblers are delicious, they aren’t the healthiest things in the world.

The Carmine Jewel cherry grew a lot. I’m surprised at how big the leaves are.

I’m so excited to taste them too.

They are supposed to be sour, but still sweet enough to eat off of the bush, so we’ll see.

Two of the lilacs, the Miss Canada lilac and the Yankee Doodle lilac are also blooming.

Yankee Doodle just had a tiny batch of purple flowers on the side of the bush near the fence, but the Miss Canada had enough flowers so that we could see the pink blossoms from the windows. I was surprised when we went out to look and realized that most of them weren’t all the way open yet. I can’t wait to see them when they are.

How is your garden growing?