Tan Hua Kai Lei: Night Blooming Cactus Epiphyllum oxypetalum

Looks like it will bloom tonight. Auspicious in Taiwan.

Grown from a cutting - a gift from a colleague. This cactus was more or less neglected last winter in a South window. It was moved to a sheltered north & eastern location outside this Summer. More expert instructions are available.

I'll need to get up at various times tonight to see what happens. Photos to be posted tomorrow if the flowers open.

Hard work day. Bike tomorrow.

I cant say much about work in this blog, since this is public. So, I'll just say it was a long day with a lot of stress. Even though it's Saturday.

Tomorrow I'll bike to work. It's not the same location as my usual work. The setting is bike-friendly. This is the bike locker section of the parking deck - Out of the elements, and roomy locker for each bike, with overflow rack (I haven't seen the overflow rack used. There is a locker room with a shower. Traffic is OK - more than the back streets that I usually use, but there is a bike lane.

Off to bed early.

Grapes are starting to ripen. Brown Turkey fig shows promise.

Canadice Grape. Not quite ripe. These are beautiful when they develop the full red color. Grapes make excellent edible landscaping because:

1. They can be grown over a deck or sidewalk, so their 'yard footprint' is small. Grown on an arbor over a deck, they make cool shade and provide a mediterranian feel. Like a vacation in ancient rome.
2. They dont need any fertilizing (In fact, if they are fertilized, they grow too fast and dont have any grapes).
3. They grow very easily.
5. They are good for you, one of the top 10 antioxidant foods.
6. Home-grown grapes taste much better thean the grocery store grapes.



Price Grape. Nice "Grapey" flavor. The first ripe grapes in our yard.



Brown Turkey Fig. These will probably ripen in September.

Tomatoes. Bike. Figs.

Tomatoes are bearing bowl-fulls daily. Lots of cherries, tart & sweet and juicy and tomatoey.

Gave some Cherokee Purple away. This tomato is amazingly good. People love it so much, it's better to share it & see the response, than to eat it. Almost. Well, not really. But it is very fun to see how people respond to these super delicious tomatoes. I love sharing them. LemonBoy, different flavor, more tropical fruit - but still very juicy and very good. Tomande - wow. But that Cherokee Purple is amazing.

Biked another 22 miles today. Constantly hungry. BP 139/84. On bike days (or rather, nights after bike days), I sleep like the dead. It's great. Very few bikes on the road, but last year it seemed like there would only be one or two per day, now maybe a half dozen.

I finished the breba figs. Vancouver Brunswick had only one breba; Ilet it ripen until there was clearly the beggars robe. This fig was sweet as candy; almost maple sugar. Petite negri had about a dozen brebas; also much better when fully ripe (although each looked like a bird had poked one poke in each fig). Main crop: I counted about 30 on Brown Turkey, about 30 on VB, and about 100 on PN. I'll try not to "count them before they hatch" - oops, already counted. Oh, and Marseilles - one fig. But all I want is to get a taste.

Gratuitous Cat Photo. Bike Statistics. Vitals.

Her name is George W Bush. She kills mice. She tolerates poodles. She was homeless and starving. Now she's not.

Today's bike ride, another 22 miles today. I added a mile each way for safer route and more peaceful ride. That's 66 miles so far this week. Lask week was also 66 miles, also, so 132 since starting after the broken rib incident.

Weight this am 209. BP 129/89 HR 78. This compares to January, 239#, 163/105. No meds.

4 Gingko Photos, Vancouver WA

More Ecola Photos

 

Ecola State Park, coastal Oregon.

Day trip, needed some perspective.  

Raspberries

This raspberry (Summit) is in its 3rd year. It was included in a shipment from Raintree Nursery, starting with a single 1 foot tall cane.

As an "everbearing" it bears 2 crops - one in May-June, one in Aug-Sept. There were about 2 quarts overall earlier this summer; if last year is an indication there will be a bit more this fall.

These never make it into the kitchen. I eat them off the plant.

I have another variety, Fallgold which is also 'everbearing', and has larger, juicier yellow berries. These are very sweet. I dont know which one I like more - probably, the one that I am eating at the time.

I grow this bramble as a shrub, like a rosebush. I don't need a long row - this "shrub" is enough for two people. The garden "footprint" is about 4 square feet (2 feet by 2 feet). Each year, I add a few inches of compost to the soil surface around the bramble. In early Summer a bark chip mulch is added to the soil surface on top of the compost. They don't get any other fertilizer, and no sprays at all. They are surrounded by an edging to hold in the mulch and provide a slightly raised bed, although some canes have spread beyond the edging. These can be easily removed with a pruning shear.

Maintenance is minimal. Once a cane has completed its crop, it is pruned off at the base (I removed the 2nd crop canes last week). In the fall, when bearing stops, the bearing portion of the cane is removed, leaving the lower portion for next year. That's all for the pruning.

Raspberries were eaten in Troy (Western Turkey) by the ancient Greeks. The Romans spread them through Europe. They were enjoyed by European royalty, and byalso native Amercans prior to the presence of Europeans on this continent. There are varieties native to Europe, Asia, and the Americas.

Global Warming

Scary stuff.