My sister gave us a tip last year that you should never cut off more than a third of the tree,

I've heard this too. In fact, Dennis grew up in the Niagara region, which is hugely prolific in fruit-bearing trees, and they regularly pruned their cherry (both sweet and sour), peach, and apple trees every year, to very good success. (That's oddly funny about your tree responding the opposite way, DiGs.)

I will be pruning back my beautiful hibiscus tree later this spring, and the info I have recommends cutting it back to only four or five branches (I probably have double that now). I always find pruning hard, because you're cutting off perfectly good branches and even blooms sometimes, but ... it's for the betterment of the plant in the long run.

Wasn't there mention here about the difference between snow peas and sugar snap peas? I was studying both types at the grocery store this morning, and see the former are very flat, while the latter are more plump, but with neither do you have to shell them. Snow peas are awesome in stir fry, but to eat them raw, I find them stringy, and prefer sugar snaps, or, even better, garden pod peas. ♥

I really hope to get some rudimentary gardening done this weekend. At the very least, I'd like to get the garden cleared of last year's skeletons. It all depends on how much rain we get (and when). It's a gorgeous day today with temps in the upper 60's, but if it's going to rain for the rest of the weekend I won't be able to accomplish my REAL goal, which is to get the garden tilled, and to get some spring veggies in the ground!!!

I got out my Fruit Growing book, and it did say in there that if you overprune, the tree will put all its energy into new growth instead of fruit production. So there's a possibility of what happened to your trees DiGs.

The good news, except for two Anaheim pepper plants, I'm now officially covered on providing everybody with plants that requested them from me.

The bad news, while I have enough pepper plants to cover everyone that's requested some from me, I don't have enough for myself. This is the last year I'm planting from Poblanos from seed. I just do not have good luck with them. (Current sprout rate: 31% )

The good news, everything that's growing looks really really good right now. The sudden spring temperatures is going to propel everything into growth overdrive.

The bad news, SOMETHING is occasionally scissoring off a plant. I don't know what it is. My best guess is ants, but if that's what it is, they've never done it before and I've always had loads of ants in the greenhouse. I'm stumped, and a couple of my baby plants are even more so.

The good news, I think I see blueberries growing!!! EEEEEEEEEE!!!!!! So excited.

The bad news, I'm out of bad news, so that's actually good news.

The weather here is glorious, we've been getting lots of rain and sun intermittently, as well as warm temps, so I've been outside a lot lately. Yesterday I cut all of the dead stuff out of the herb garden. What a difference that makes. It looks so much better now. Today I'm tackling the front flower bed (I have some lemon balm and lavender, as well as a few perennials that need to be cleaned up) and I also need to move a plant.

Oh and my rhubarb is up.

Next on the docket, finish pruning all of my trees, finish planting peas, plant potatoes.

I may have missed this, FK, but what variety of potatoes are you planting? Do you clone your potatoes, or do you start from seeds? I'm going to try to do some red potatoes this year (I know they're supposed to be in the ground by St. Patrick's Day. . . but see my above post ).

It sounds like Kansas and Ohio are experiencing similar weather patterns right now. I was walking across campus to get some lunch today and saw a tree with LEAVES coming out. The daffodils (or jonquils as they're sometimes called) are blooming as are the crocuses and snowdrops. Tulips are starting to come up.

Earth is coming back to life. (Even though it barely died this winter )

You didn't miss it cause I just bought my seed potatoes a couple days ago.
I got Yukon Gold, Russets, and Dark Red Norland. The last one is new to me. I was gonna get Red La Sodas again cause they did so well last year, but the store I get my potatoes from didn't have those, so I got the Norlands instead.

As you're using "seed potatoes" I'm going to conclude that you do clonal growth .

Any advice on potatoes? I've heard that you make them into mounds like one does with cucumbers. Are they fragile plants, or can they take a bit of abuse?

As you're using "seed potatoes" I'm going to conclude that you do clonal growth

You are correct. That's one area of gardening that I've never gotten into, and I probably ought to cause I grow a fair number of heirlooms.

Any advice on potatoes?

I've never once looked into the proper way you're supposed to plant potatoes. The way I do it is the way my grandpa did it when I was little, and it worked for him, and it works for me too.
No mounds. I plant potatoes in rows, 1'-1.5' apart. My husband usually helps me so he sticks just a regular spade shovel in the ground, pushes the earth aside, I stick in a potato with the eyes pointed up, and he pulls the shovel back out and releases the dirt (making sure the potato doesn't get turned over). That's it. It goes really fast when there are two people.
And potatoes seem to prefer less water, as I learned last year during our drought. We ended up having the best crop of potatoes I'd ever seen.

And potatoes seem to prefer less water, as I learned last year during our drought. We ended up having the best crop of potatoes I'd ever seen.

That'll be good! I think Ohio is supposed to have drought like conditions this summer. It almost seems like we've swapped weather for the year, eh FK?

But a few other questions:

1. You may not be able to answer this one living in the sweat-box called Kansas, but can potatoes take a little bit of cold? We could very easily still have frost by the time they sprout, and I'd hate for them to die off.

2. Are the plants themselves fragile (as in cucumbers, where if you breathe on the vines too hard, they snap and the whole thing dies) or are they pretty sturdy.

1. I assume they can take some frost as even around here you plant them around St. Patricks Day. Our last frost day is like.... April 9th. Don't be deceived, even though Kansas is a sweat-box during the summer, our winters are normally pretty cold in Jan and Feb. Just not this year... (Most normal people around here don't start gardening til next month. )

2. No, they're pretty sturdy. Maybe if you tripped over one it might snap off, but even then I don't know that that would kill it. If the potato you plant has more than one eye it'll put up a number of shoots, sooo... yeah.

Let me know how potatoes do for you DiGs, I'm gonna be curious as I know you have trouble with other root vegetables that I can grow just fine here. We need to figure out a way to swap onions for broccoli or something.

We need to figure out a way to swap onions for broccoli or something.

Tell me about it! My broccoli and cabbage all grow so quickly that it's impossible for me to work it all up! We give away as much as our neighbours can take, but the deer end up getting a good deal of it!

I'm also going to try radishes this year, (another root ) mainly because one of the veterinarian friends of mine loves them. I figured they'd be a nice way of saying thanks . Any suggestions on those? Can they handle the cold as well?

I would think Radishes would do well for you, if for no other reason than they mature super quickly. (28 days til harvest on my packet of seeds.) Yes, they can handle the cold.

Great! Then the stuff I'd like to put in the ground ASAP include:

Potatoes
Radishes
Peas
Lettuce/Spinach

SOMETHING is occasionally scissoring off a plant. I don't know what it is.

I do believe I discovered the culprit last night. Or culprits to be more specific. I realized as I was looking closely there were several teeny tiny little grasshoppers hanging out on my plants. That won't do. I caught as many as I could last night and chucked them out of the greenhouse. I'll probably be doing the same thing every day for several days to come. Stinkin little things.

if you overprune, the tree will put all its energy into new growth instead of fruit production.

Ah, that makes sense. *takes note*

about the scissoring and about the blueberry growth!

The bad news, I'm out of bad news, so that's actually good news.

This struck me quite funny.

Yep, DiGs, we have a few pokes of tulips coming out of the soil already—very early for us here. When it gets colder again towards the end of next week, the spring bulbs are going to be all mixed up. Even the Canadian Geese seem discombobulated these days.

*makes another note of how fk (and her grandpa) plants potatoes* I've never tried them (and we all love 'em), but want to someday. Looks like a simple process, particularly with the two-people method.

Oh, DiGs, we've done radishes before, and they turned out lovely. They were a trouble-free root vegetable to grow, and soooo good!

Aha, so the little imps are grasshoppers. Well, well, well. Good success with ridding your greenhouse of them, fk!

Well I cleared my garden today. The ground is ready to till. I've got a brush pile about five feet tall and about four feet in diameter . Now just waiting on our neighbour to come and till it. We have a roto-tiller, but it would take me about 2 hours to do that. The neighbour has a tiller attachment on his John Deere and can do it in about five minutes

My gardening book (the one I told you about, FK) came in the mail today, and I've pretty much been keeping my nose thoroughly buried in it since it arrived . I'm getting tons of good ideas from it.

FK, any advice on what types of radishes I should buy?