A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Plants and Flowers Forum What will you do differently with your garden in 2024?

I'm trying to decide what I want to do on our property next year; it's steadily been getting warmer and I have the equipment for auto watering everything, but I need to actually sit down and give it some thought... I'm leaning to more food harvesting, the kids want tangerines but our last trees didn't pan out very well... I want to do some blueberry plants around the lower retaining wall but have a lot of afternoon shade (the neighbors have 4 giant spruce trees so the back only gets a couple of hours of direct afternoon sun, but several hours of direct sun in the later evening).

What're your plans looking like?

James, do you plant veggies 'in ground' usually or in pots?

Low bush blueberries and gooseberries will grow in partial shade. There are plenty of others as well I assume but I am just used to what grows in our area.

My plan for next year is to move my strawberries into their own garden space...in between the blueberries shrubs that I moved this Fall. That way my garden area will be all for vegetables. I also want to double my pickling cucumber area as well.

The way the world is going, I think anything one plants is a great idea. It would be a dream to live in an area where I could plant citrus. Did the trees die?

James, what is your deer population because I can't keep blueberry bushes, even covered, because of deer.

I don't have new plans for next season except to plant potatoes in a gigantic compost area where I threw what I thought was a dead rosemary bush last summer and the thing overwintered and is now big and beautiful No water, no turning of the compost area, nothing.

Here in Oregon were basically in the forest everywhere, but in our area we don't get too many deer past the freeways other than a couple of miles away, so deer aren't really too much of a hindrance.

We have a giant coyote population all over Oregon though, so much in fact that Portland State University has a Coyote Tracking program (Portland Urban Coyote Project [portlandcoyote.com])... Outdoor pets are really frowned upon as there's coyotes fear no people.

Yes the cutie tree perished, got too dry from the crazy hot winters we've been getting. I can plant directly in the ground if I amend the clay soil or pots, the moles don't really like the clay.

Too bad about your tree. We have coyotes too but so far they haven't bothered my dogs.