I'm rather at the other end of "difficulty growing tarragon" (Zone 4)
but I do generally keep some going. Lost it all a year ago and reaped
the rewards of being generous with it - got some back from a friend I
had split some off to. It's marginal to make through the winter, so I
try to maintain it in many different spots so that I have better odds of
at least one making it - and it wants to be split regularly anyway lest
it gets rootbound, so that works. Despite being rather harsh, this
winter didn't finish off the returned splits. AFAIK it's French - both
the original label and the lack of flowers concur on that point. Major
pest is foaming aphids.

Harvest-wise we've got nothing going yet other than a FEW Asparagus.
(and the bumper crop of weeds, including the crop-weed catnip) but
various things are coming along. I planted garlic WAY late for me
(December, I think) and it actually did the textbook thing of not really
sprouting until spring, where I usually have 6" high garlic sticking out
of the snow. The result of last year's experiment with cutting/leaving
scapes has put me in the cutting scapes camp for now. I've got the head
of heirloom (someone's Grandma's) garlic I was given two years ago up to
34 plants, and am growing 50 Spanish Roja, with a few survivors of last
year's flood that took out the mutt-garlic (unknown non-scaping) bed
coming back up there, but I'm leaning towards giving up on the
mutt-garlic, as it's been dwindling on me, which was why I got the SR
three years back.


Strawberries took a major hit either from the winter or from the
side-effects of the winter (I don't know if they were killed or eaten,
that is.) Raspberries and blueberries look good, cherries & plums look
good now but usually find a way to disappoint me before it's eating
time, hops need more room to grow. Grapes are somewhat in there with the
cherries and plums - more than usual dieback, I did get them pruned in
the winter, they look good now, on the rare occasion they make much
fruit the raccoons usually take it. I'm pretty sure I need to do more
management during the growing season, but I'm also pretty sure they'd
simply like more sun and I'm not seeing a way I can do that.

One of the Filazels took a big hit from EF Blight (I'd guess) last year,
but it's not all dead, and the others look fine, though the squirrels
get nearly all of those. Two shallots (from the food supply side of
things) that were sprouting got planted and are growing - they are
throwing scapes or flowers - should I cut those off, or not? My "Hybrid
'shallots' from seed" experiment of a year or two ago was pretty
disappointing, so I'm hoping for better luck from these "appear to be
actual shallots."

--
Cats, coffee, chocolate...vices to live by
Please don't feed the trolls. Killfile and ignore them so they will go away.

Ecnerwal wrote:
....
Strawberries took a major hit either from the winter or from the
side-effects of the winter (I don't know if they were killed or eaten,
that is.)

what type of soil are they in? i've
not had problems here and we have had
mixed weather the past few winters to
show that strawberries are pretty hardy
when it comes to cold. most of the
trouble i've heard with them dying off
is when they are in fairly sandy soil
without much mulch or cover for the
winter. then they can get frost heaved
and dried out.


songbird

In article ,
songbird wrote:

Ecnerwal wrote:
...
Strawberries took a major hit either from the winter or from the
side-effects of the winter (I don't know if they were killed or eaten,
that is.)

what type of soil are they in? i've
not had problems here and we have had
mixed weather the past few winters to
show that strawberries are pretty hardy
when it comes to cold. most of the
trouble i've heard with them dying off
is when they are in fairly sandy soil
without much mulch or cover for the
winter. then they can get frost heaved
and dried out.

Normally they laugh off the winters, frequently having green foliage
throughout, so this was a surprising departure from the norm. They are
in horse manure (to be picky, composted HM - essentially anything
resembling dirt in my garden is composted HM from 1-20 years old with a
bit of other compost making up an insignificant proportion, and "soil"
being essentially non-existent) - on top of clay - dig a few feet down
and you can make pots out of it. Mulched with lots of pine needles. I
think I have 4 out of 9 in one patch, of which one is somewhat normal
and the rest have obviously suffered, and 1 out of 15 in the other.

--
Cats, coffee, chocolate...vices to live by
Please don't feed the trolls. Killfile and ignore them so they will go away.

Ecnerwal wrote:
....
Normally they laugh off the winters, frequently having green foliage
throughout, so this was a surprising departure from the norm. They are
in horse manure (to be picky, composted HM - essentially anything
resembling dirt in my garden is composted HM from 1-20 years old with a
bit of other compost making up an insignificant proportion, and "soil"
being essentially non-existent) - on top of clay - dig a few feet down
and you can make pots out of it. Mulched with lots of pine needles. I
think I have 4 out of 9 in one patch, of which one is somewhat normal
and the rest have obviously suffered, and 1 out of 15 in the other.

we've got mostly clay soil here too and
this past winter was ok, didn't notice any
major loss of plants. a thick mulch could
be a potential problem with all the snow
cover we had. i do mulch some plants, but
none of them heavily, just a light mulch
layer so that the soil is covered to help
keep down frost heaving.


songbird

On 6/8/2014 11:38 AM, Ecnerwal wrote:
In article ,
songbird wrote:

Ecnerwal wrote:
...
Strawberries took a major hit either from the winter or from the
side-effects of the winter (I don't know if they were killed or eaten,
that is.)

what type of soil are they in? i've
not had problems here and we have had
mixed weather the past few winters to
show that strawberries are pretty hardy
when it comes to cold. most of the
trouble i've heard with them dying off
is when they are in fairly sandy soil
without much mulch or cover for the
winter. then they can get frost heaved
and dried out.

Normally they laugh off the winters, frequently having green foliage
throughout, so this was a surprising departure from the norm. They are
in horse manure (to be picky, composted HM - essentially anything
resembling dirt in my garden is composted HM from 1-20 years old with a
bit of other compost making up an insignificant proportion, and "soil"
being essentially non-existent) - on top of clay - dig a few feet down
and you can make pots out of it. Mulched with lots of pine needles. I
think I have 4 out of 9 in one patch, of which one is somewhat normal
and the rest have obviously suffered, and 1 out of 15 in the other.

Heh! We live in Harris Cty, TX, there's five feet of Houston gumbo under
this house with about two inches of sand on top. We actually found some
white clay while digging a hole to plant the Meiwa kumquat. Wife is an
artist and kept it in case I ever set up her kiln again.