Kitchen Garden Update. 5.11.2020

 Here are some photos of my current kitchen garden (potager).  About half is newly worked soil, formerly sod, which I treated during the winter with a cover of black plastic to kill the grass, then added dolomite lime, some compost, and eggshells.  That is not the tomato / eggplant / peppers / squashes / bean area.

The greens and snowpeas are in what was tomatoes last year.  There is mesclun from old seed packets, swiss chard and radishes, collard greens and turnips.  There were all 3 to 8 year old seeds.  The snowpeas were 6 to 8 year old seeds.

I now have a seven foot chain link fence, to keep rabbits and deer out.  I don't know if that will work.

 I set out the fresh eating tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants yesterday.  Also bush cucumbers in a raised bed, for pickles.

This strawberry pot is doing better than I expected.  Last month, I transplanted these strawberries from a raised bed, where they appeared to be dying off.  At least not thriving.  I wanted the space for cucumbers this year.  In the strawberry pots, they need better attention to watering. but I have them in fresh potting soil with some added osmocote.  They perked up almost immediately and started blooming..

 This bed is fresh-eating tomatoes, slicers and cherry tomatoes.  Down the center I planted radish seeds, which should not take up much room and will be done before the tomato plants reach much size.  Along one edge, I also planted a row of Roma II bush beans.

 This view shows the sauce tomatoes.  I gave all of the tomates some osmocote when I planted them, about 1 1/2 tablespoon per hole.

 These squashes may not have enough room.  Space is at a premium.  I may be able to direct the vines of the long vining types, into spare locations as other crops such as potatoes are done in midsummer.

Same comment as for squashes above.  This batch is in ground that was sod last year.

The soil temp is 74F at 10 am.  I've had readings as high as 80F and in early am, as low as 65F.  I think this is high enough for the squashes, tomatoes, peppers, to be planted.  Not sure about sweetcorn and bean seeds, but doing a trail of them now.  May 15th is my usual target date for that.  I also wonder about the eggplants, which need warm conditions.

These are the first three rows of sweetcorn.  They are outside the fenced area.  I have the seed rows covered with screening to keep birds from eating the seeds.

These are the bush cucumbers I planted the seeds a few weeks ago inside.  Now they are in the former strawberry bed, along with some dolomite lime and compost treatment.  I also have a row of dill seeds planted, now germinated, in there, and some cilantro from seeds saved several years ago.

 These are the grafted fruit trees, and oak seedlings.  The fruit trees appear to be taking nicely.  These are on the north side of the raised bed, to shade the pots a little.  I stratified the oak seedlings by planting acorns into these containers last fall.  There are white oak, from a magnificent tree in my neighborhood, and some other white oak from a location in Salmon Creek, and some red oak.  I'm not sure where I will plant them when they are bigger.

Back on Blogger

After nine months on Wordpress, I decided to return to my original garden diary here on Blogger.  There are some nice flashy things on Wordpress, but it takes forever to load and often does not load.  So, Here I am on Blogger again.  I may transfer some posts here from the past 9 months, for continuity.  In addition, I might make some format changes, including the title line. That will better describe this blog.

Transfer to a new blog hosting website.

After long consideration, I decided to transfer this blog to the Wordpress blog host. The name will be different:

I don't know how that will work out.  Changing to a new host will mean a different look and feel to the website, and some time for me to get used to how it works.  

the URL will be:  nwgarden.wordpress.com

The title of the blog will be:  Growing A Pacific NorthWest Garden

Bearded Iris Summer Care and Planting Some New Ones. 7.21.19

New Bearded Iris Rhizomes.  7.21.19

Bearded Iris Garden.  7.21.19

Bearded Iris Garden.  7.21.19

 Mid summer is a good time for some bearded iris garden maintenance and updating.  I don't think they are completely dormant, because I have kept them watered, as well as gave them a dose of low nitrogen fertilizer after they finished blooming.  Most of the clumps are much more robust than they were this time last year.  The leaves are larger and thicker, and the rhizomes look thick and sturdy.

I certainly don't need more varieties, but it's fun to  test new ones.  Those came in the mail two days ago.  My mistake, two are duplicates of ones I thought were lost, but then found.  So there are only four new ones.  I planted the duplicates next to clumps of the same cultivars.

I discarded several big clumps of varieties I consider underwhelming, or have too many duplicates.  I also moved some clumps to new raised beds in the old Vancouver yard.  I also divided several clumps, and refreshed some overgrown clumps by removing the old dead rhizomes and too-small offshoots, keeping the vigorous young ones. In particular, I divided "Immortality" and wound up with 4 clumps, one of which went to Vancouver and one to an "overstock"bed, to give away if someone wants it.  That bed also ot a big established clump of "Accent" as well as a smaller clump of "Sunny Disposition".

Some clumps were too close together.  I had underestimated their vigor.  I moved them further apart, so now the space that had 12  clumps, only has six, evenly spaced.

In the main iris bed, there are two very big clumps that did not bloom  this Spring.  I left them in place for one final chance next Spring.  For all I know, they may be more uglies, or duplicates of others.  Or they my be something nice.

From the "recovery" beds I discarded clumps of two ugly and one that was too many of that cultivar, and moved 3 clumps that I liked into the main iris garden.

Bearded Iris Garden.  7.21.19

As for cutting back the leaves, for the most part I did not.  I was careful to avoid too much root trauma,  so I didn't think that I needed to remove leaves to balance for root loss.  Leaves mean photosynthesis, which sends sugars for storage to the rhizomes for strong growth and bloom next year.  I am progressively cutting off all old leaves that look dry or very droopy.

Other than minor weeding, cultivating with stirrup hoe (shallow), and removing dead leaves, there isn't much more to do.  I might water the new ones, and the reblooming varieties, once a week until fall.  I'll cut back the leaves in late fall too.

Columnar Apple Tree Progress Report. 7.14.19

Columnar Apple NorthPole, Transplanted Fall 2017.  7.14.19

New Columnar Apple Golden Treat.  7.14.19

 Here are some of the columnar apple trees.  As I age and become less able, I think they will be a great way to have home grown apples, easy to care for, prune, and harvest fruit.  They are also easy to grow in a fenced in bed, for protection from deer.

Some day I'll summarize my findings and experiences with columnar apple trees.  I've grown NorthPole for nearly 20 years.  Northpole is descended from excellent parents, one being MacIntosh, and has great flavor for fresh eating, pies, and apple sauce.  It's no novelty.  The main problem is it seems to bear in alternate years, if apples are not properly thinned each year.

The 2 NorthPole apple trees in my fenced bed are my own grafts, from unknown ("dwarf" or "semidwarf") rootstock that I obtained from suckers off a tree that had been removed.  That's not a good way to know what is happening.  Those trees are growing well.  I transplanted one at a large size - more than 6 feet tall - in fall, 2017, and one at about the same size in fall 2018.  Both have a few apples.  I don't expect much one to two years after transplanting.  I also transplanted the Golden Sentinel, much larger tree and much smaller rootstock, last fall.  It has no apples but is growing very nicely.  This year I added to sapling size trees, Tasty Red and Golden Treat, which have settled in and are growing nicely.  They probably wont bear for a few years.

To make up for my random rootstock experimentation, this year I grafted NorthPole onto Bud-9 rootstocks.  I also grafted Golden Sentinel and Scarlet Sentinel, which as far as I can tell from a long time searching patent literature, have never been patented in the USA.  Ditto for NorthPole, which as far as I can tell is past its patent or was not patented in the USA.    I'm growing four of those in containers - one did not take, and died.  I also have three in the soil, near two other apple trees, protected by fencing.  Those are also growing nicely.

Columnar Apple "Golden Sentinel" Transplanted 10/2018.  7.14.19

The goal with trying Bud-9 is to see if I can make a reliably compact, early bearing, either container size or garden bed size columnar apple tree from these varieties.  Since the grafts took for 7 of these trees, I have enough to play with during the coming years.

I need to add photos of the other trees, including the 19 year old NorthPole on unknown rootstock - maybe not dwarfing? - which is a handsome tree, and which I now have ideas about keeping relatively compact and suitable for a suburban yard. 

Healing Whip and Tongue Graft, NorthPole apple on Bud-9 Dwarfing Rootstock.  7.14.19

Columnar Apple Trees Grafted to Bud-9 Dwarfing Rootstock.  7.14.19