Gardening - Hipster Homesteaders

5 Deer Repellants to Protect Your Garden (and Which Work)

Although we live in the city, our house is found on a hill with a decent number of trees and other weeds within our neighborhood which, naturally, is often home to several families of deer.

For the most part, the deer had left our little garden plot alone. But every now and again, they come in with a vengeance and decimate our crops. Fruit trees, kiwi vines, hops, you name it, they ate it.

So much like our tests for keeping a raccoon off our deck we tried several things to keep deer out of our garden!

Although this one wasn't as black and white with the results, we do have some thoughts on each of the products we tried. That said, keep in mind you may need to try more than one!

Oh, fruit tree pests, sometimes you're the bane of my existence.

For a few years, I tried treating my fruit tree pests with spray bottles of Neem, insecticidal soap, and horticultural oil, with mixed results. I'd spray, see a slight reduction in pests (notably aphids, mealybugs, and scale). But wait a short period of time, and the bugs would come back with a vengeance, causing particular damage when my citrus trees were brought inside during the winter months.

After going through bottle after bottle of the sprays, which can run north of $10 per bottle for a pre-mixed solution, I went apoplectic on one plant one day that had a mealybug infestation. Squirt after squirt (after squirt), I sprayed them as much as I possibly could, using most of a single bottle, and something interesting happened- I noticed a bigger reduction in the pests than I had before.

It was here that I had a lightbulb moment- it wasn't the sprays themselves that were the problem, but rather that I was likely not applying them nearly liberally enough (or possibly even frequently enough) to make a dent on the pests.

So I tossed the squirt bottles aside, upgraded to an industrial pump sprayer, bought some Neem and horticulture oil concentrates, and really blasted my trees with a good dousing.

The pest population dropped dramatically.

So in this one, let's talk about why squirt bottles may not be getting you all the way there and why upgrading to a proper sprayer is a better option- both for effectiveness and cost.

As frequent travelers, one issue we've had with growing potted fruit trees is figuring out a watering plan for when we are away.

These plants are notoriously fickle with water, needing deep waterings with dry periods in between. Despite that, we found that while going away for a few days was often quite fine, being gone for 10 days or longer presented a challenge. No matter if the plants were indoors or out, we needed to water them, and leaving our watering up to others always poised a bit of an issue- namely, we don't like to be a bother to our family and neighbors for as much as we travel.

It wasn't until a friend recommended we pick up some self-watering stakes that we started to see a path forward. Water applied to our plants over time while we are away? We were in, and picked up a batch right away with some pretty encouraging results.

But, that being said, we had a few lessons learned when using these that we wanted to highlight to make sure you get the most out of your self-watering stakes.

When I wanted to expand my planted fruit tree garden on our hillside, I was limited on space relative to the sheer number of trees I wished I could plant. So, naturally, my first instinct was to look at combination fruit trees to get a little creative.

Combination fruit trees go by many names, and may be referred to as a fruit cocktail tree (with different species of fruit like lemons and limes) or a 3-in-1, 4-in-1, or even 5-in-1 fruit tree, typically with multiple varieties of the same fruit (like five different kinds of peaches).

There are many cons to these kinds of trees, I am not going to lie, but I took the risk on them for a 5-in-1 peach tree and a 4-in-1 cherry tree to help get more varieties in our limited space. In my research and acquisition, these are some important things you should consider before buying a combination fruit tree!

Looking to pick up a new tree? Check out Fast Growing Trees, where we buy our trees from!

Ever since buying a number of tropical and citrus fruit trees to grow in pots, I've struggled with figuring out an ideal watering frequency. Part of this is because they live indoors half the year and outside half the year, meaning they experience an array of conditions, but also because I have found that conventional advice may end one step too soon.

Sometimes I water my trees per recommended standards, and they hold water for a long time. Other times, they dry out almost immediately and start showing underwatering conditions. It wasn't until I really started to pay attention that I made a few more crucial observations that helped me get my watering frequency under control.

Before diving into this one, I want to make two important caveats. First, the following is based only on observations for my own potted tropical fruit trees, which include several types of lemon, lime, mango, longan, guava, blood orange, kumquat, and more. They spend half the year indoors under grow lights and south-facing windows, and half the year outdoors. Second, commentary here is just a theory based on what I've noticed with my trees. Your mileage will vary.

So, with that in mind, let's jump into some observations we've seen over the years!

I had always known that growing wasabi would be incredibly difficult, with a low rate of success if you're not in the perfect climate (which we're not). But I did not expect every single one of my cuttings to die within a week or so after purchasing them!

As it turns out, this one is a really, really finicky plant to root. So let's talk about that, and we'll share some tips that may help if you're in the same boat.

Note: I do not consider these tips to be foolproof. It is just that after numerous trial and error, it seems to be a recurring them that might help. That said, even in the best case, we expect a lot of loss- especially if you are buying non-rooted cuttings for our starting point.

In our quest to fill our home and garden with amazing fruit trees, we've had to take a leap of faith and order from nurseries online as local stores simply did not offer the products we were looking for.

As such, we had to do some research into which stores were the best for our needs.

One problem we noted when researching plants online is that most nurseries don't actually have listed photos of the exact plant you are going to buy. They have stock images, sure, but not the plant that is going to arrive at your doorstep. You generally just get a listed size measurement (either height or pot size in gallons) and that's that. So we have ordered on faith, held our breath, and hoped for the best.

As it turns out, many of the nurseries we've ordered from have turned out to be quite wonderful and exceeded our expectations all around. So in this one, we thought we'd make a running list of all of the nurseries we've ordered from online in case you need some peace of mind when making your next purchase!

Note: We tend to only buy fruiting species online, such as citrus trees, vines, bushes, etc. We are unable to make any statements of quality for other plant types. It does seem like some of these companies could possibly source from several nurseries around the country, depending on plant type, so your mileage will vary.

When we bought our dragonfruit cactus, we were pretty pleased that it came already at a sufficient size. At about 18″ tall with a few vertical shoots, we were well ahead of the growing curve by months if not a year compared to buying a smaller cutting or growing from seed.

So, naturally, our next question was simply “how long will it take for the dragonfruit cactus to flower?”

As it turns out, the answer was another 1 1/2 years, where we'd estimate our cactus was about 2 1/2 years old, if not a bit older.

But throwing out a date range for this one is a bit hard, as age may not be the only indicator of bloom. So in this one, we thought we'd tackle some of the prevailing theories on how (and when) a dragonfruit blooms to help provide more details you need to keep in mind- how you train your dragonfruit may matter too!

If you're getting into container gardening, at some point you'll have to deal with a pest infestation. If you've landed on this article, then the odds are good you are already experiencing an issue.

Pests in your garden, particularly in citrus trees grown in containers, can be incredibly tricky to deal with. When the trees are outside, you have numerous options such as waiting for a good soaking from the rain, strong winds, a hot day to dry the soil out, or even the ability to apply large-scale insecticide applications.

Indoors, not so much.

Over the years, we've had numerous infestations of our plants once we brought them indoors including gnats, spider mites, mealy bugs, and other soil-based insects. So in this one, we thought we'd share some of the things we have tried to manage each of the populations, and identify which ones we think have (so far at least) worked the best!

Whenever we have a good piece of fruit, I often stop and wonder if I should collect the seeds to try and grow them in future seasons.

That curiosity got the better of me, and I did just that- taking seeds from all manner of fruit (namely fruit grown on trees), saving them in our fridge for cold dormancy, and planting them the following season. Some have been a success (so far), many have failed outright, and the experiment into growing fruit from seed is, admittedly, still ongoing.

But before doing this yourself, you need to stop and think about your plan here, because there are some very good reasons why you shouldn't grow fruit from seed and others why you should.

So if you're okay doing some careful research, finding the right type, and being patient, you may be able to make it all work. So let's break down the pros and cons in this one!

5 Deer Repellants to Protect Your Garden (and Which Work)

Insecticide Spray Not Working? You May Need a Better Sprayer

5 Tips for Getting the Most Out of Self-Watering Stakes

5 Things to Keep in Mind When Buying Combination Fruit Trees

How We Avoid Over and Underwatering Our Potted Citrus Trees

5 Tips on How to Successfully Root Wasabi Plant Starts

5 Excellent Nurseries We Buy Plants From Online

How Long Does it Take a Dragonfruit Cactus to Flower?

How to Deal With Pests in Potted Citrus Trees Indoors

3 Reasons Not to Grow Fruit from Seed (and 3 Why You Should)