Pinching Peppers and Eggplants. 3.27.2021

 Some of the peppers are developed to the point where I can pinch out the tops, leaving four good leaves / leaf axils.  I do this so that the plants will be well branched from the outset.  Instead of one growing point, there will be at least four.

Before photo of Banana Pepper seedling.  It's doing nicely, has four good leaves with reasonably separated leaf axils.

Same plant after pinching.  I actually don't "pinch" although that's what it's called.  I use a scissors with a fine tip, to cut at the right point and not crush stem or cause other damage.

Here is an Early Jalapeno that I pinched about a week or two ago.  The branches are starting to grow nicely.  It's interesting that branches may be starting at the cotyledons too, so it's possible there will be six branches instead of four.

In the background someone can be seen watching for cats, considered by someone to be the spawn of Satan :-).  

Some internet writers state this "forces" the plant to produce branches, or "directs energy" to the branches and roots.  In reality, the growing tip produces a plant hormone, auxin, that flows downward in the plant.  The auxin inhibits growth of lower buds.  Without the auxin produced by the growing tip, which is now removed, the buds at those leaf axils are released from dormancy and grow.   That's different from "forcing".  

This year I'm trying the same for at least some of the Japanese eggplants.  They are from the same plant family, and seem to have similar growth habits, as peppers. 

Northpole Apple. Pruned and Ready to Bloom. 3.27.2021

 This is the Northpole apple tree on unknown but aggressive rootstock.  Or, planted to deeply so the scion grew  its own roots.  Twenty or twentyone years old.  I pruned it a couple of weeks ago.  I actually like the odd shape and sturdy trunk, but it's too vigorous for the small garden and less aggressive pruner.  My newer grafts are on less aggressive rootstocks.

Kitchen Garden Seedling Progress Report. 3.24.2021

 They are mostly doing well.  Lots of growth for the up-potted tomatoes, eggplants, and some of the peppers.  Basil is growing nicely.  I also planted some old basil seeds.  The 5 year old seeds had spotty germination.  A pack not labeled by date, maybe a year or two old from Baker Creek, purple leaf basil, germinated very well.   Chinese and regular chives from home saved seeds doing very well.   Lettuce and celery doing well.  Apple seedlings too.

Slicing and Salad Tomato Seedlings

 

Basil, Lettuce, Some Peppers, Marigolds, Celery, and others.

More Tomatoes, Peppers, Eggplants, Kale. 

 

Planting More Seeds for Kitchen Garden. 3.24.2021

 This morning I planted more seeds for the kitchen garden.  With so many seedlings already, it can be a challenge to give them space under the plant lights.  Most of the early ones are tropicals, like tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, but some should be able to go outside soon.  Like lettuce, cilantro, celery, chive seeds.

What I planted:

Two six-packs of Chinese chives.  We use a lot of those for dumplings.  Home-saved seeds from last fall.  We've been growing Chinese chives from our saved seeds for about 20 years.   They are perennial so I don't save and plant every year, or even every other year.  The seem to fail to thrive after four or five years, so it's good to regenerate them now and them.

Two containers of cilantro.  One from new seeds, one from seeds saved last fall. 

Paste tomatoes, experiment.  One batch is Roma II hybrid, one is Amish paste tomato.  One six-pack of each.  I have not tried either.  The best are Ranger hybrid from Territorial Seeds but they are WAY more expensive and their shipping and handling is horrendous.  If the Amish turn out OK, I can save seeds from those for future growing.  If not, there is the Roma II hybrid.  My main challenge with paste tomatoes has been blossom end rot.  I read that calcium spray will prevent that, so ordering that now.  Flavor-wise, it's possible that either the Roma or Amish will be better than Ranger, anyway.

I planted some old parsley seeds.  About 5 years old.

The last batch of cilantro seeds was interesting.  I thought the home saved seeds always did well.  This time, germination has been spotty.  Maybe I'm just too impatient.  Still, there is some.  Today, to do a side-by-side comparison, I planted a pot of new Ferry Morse cilantro seeds, and another pot of home saved seeds.  We can use a bunch of cilantro each week, so they can be planted every week or two.

Photo is cilantro seedlings.  I think this is about 2 weeks old.  It does look like more are germinating.

Update on Potato Seedlings. 3.24.2021

 Today I repotted the potato seedlings.  Germination was actually pretty good. I had planted about 3 seeds per cell.  Germination was about that, or slightly less.  From the 6-pack plus 2 cells, I planted 16 plants, and discarded a couple of runts.

The potatoes still seem delicate, and quite a bit behind the tomatoes and most of the eggplants, and a bit behind most of the peppers.  There is quite a wide range of vigor, and some have different leaf appearance and coloration.  Maybe this up-potting will give them a big boost.

Spreading Wood and Chicken Bone Ashes for Mineral Supplementation. 3.24.2021

 Yesterday I spread a small bucket of woodstove ashes in one of the tomato beds and one of the sweetcorn beds.  I had to pull back the leaf mulch for the tomatoes.   I hand-tilled and turned over the corn bed.  That one is in the footprint of a former raised bed.  The raised bed was one that I had built the first summer here, 2012 or 2013.  I don't know whether being where a raised bed was, is good for the soil or not.  The soil here is low in calcium, good in potassium, low in phosphorus, low in magnesium.  The wood ashes are a combination of trees that grew here that were cut and burned for firewood, and the bones that resulted from making dog food from chicken thighs.  Those will be high in calcium, phosphorus, and trace minerals.  Potassium too from the wood ashes.  It kind of averages out to a decent mineral supplement for those vegetables.  Plus, the soil here is very acidic.  The ashes are alkaline, so moderate that.  I apply a dusting of ashes, and let it mellow for two or three months before using.

Potatoes should not be given alkaline supplements, so I did not apply in potato areas.

The bone fragments are still visible, but after burning them they are soft and fragile like chalk.  They break down very quickly.

After rains, turning the soil and tilling in, the minerals will be pretty evenly dispersed.

 

Plums blooming now. 3.21.2021

 It looks like all of the Asian plums and plum hybrids are blooming now.  They seem to have a lot of overlap.

Hollywood Plum.  I grew this from a cutting, from the Hollywood plum I had in Vancouver. It stays fairly small.

Crimson Pointe (I think), ornamental plum.

The white flowered branch for this plum is Beauty.  The tree also has a graft from a very dark skin and flesh pluot, farmer's market, that I grew from seed.  It has never fruited, but it blooms.  This tree was originally "Ember", a hybrid Asian/American plum that never bore either.  I had grafted it on a Hollywood rootstock, which seems to work fine.

This tree is Methley.  The tree is more than 8 years old - I replanted it from my old front yard in Vancouver, where it had grown for a couple of years.  The pollinating Hollywood (again) branch seems not to be there now.  It also has a branch of Shiro also in bloom.

This is Flavor Supreme Pluot.  I don't know if it bloomed before.  I planted this a couple of years ago in the front orchard.  It's too much trouble to water and weed that area now.  It has continued to grow anyway.

There is also an unknown plum, possibly grown from seed, that was here when we bought the place.  I went crazy grafting other varieties to it - Shiro, Hollywood (of course), Ember, Hanska, La Crescent.  I don't think any of those Hansen plums (Ember, Hanska, LaCrescent) has ever borne a single fruit.  They bloom every year.  Still, it's a pretty tree.  

Nadia plum X cherry hybrid is next to the highly grafted tree.  Nadia is also blooming.

Daffodils. 3.21.2021

 Each fall I plant bags of daffodils and other bulb seeds.  Most bloom the first year, then a lot of them disappear.  Some persist for many years.

And some hyacinths, which are looking nice this year.

Up-potting Tomato Seedlings. 3.21.2021

 I repotted the first dozen tomato seedlings.  There are still some left that I will give Ning.  I have a theory that when their roots start winding around in the container, their growth becomes stunted.  Or maybe its just the seedling medium. Anyway, after up-potting them, they usually take off and grow fast.

I am not a pack rat.  But I do save some things, like some of the plant containers from previous years.  The multi-packs are handy, maximum use of space.

Before repotting.  I don't know where that pink container came from.  Probably flowers last year or the year before.  I like to label each cell, directly instead of with a label I'll probably lose.

The roots are pretty nice looking.  It still amazes me that a tiny seed grows into a nice tomato plant that grows bigger and bigger and makes tomatoes.

Twelve tomato plants, ready for their next step in life.

Vegetable Seedlings. 3.20.2021

 Most are doing very well.  I think the tomatoes are due to repotting into the next larger containers.   Soon.