Schlumbergeras in Bloom. 12.6.22

 These are looking nice.  This is such a rewarding plant.  They require very little care, and make such a show at the right time.

Edit - here's another one.  I started this one from cuttings, about a decade ago.

Bagging Leaves for Leaf Mould. 12.6.22

 The five vegetable raised beds either have something growing in them, or a soil "therapeutic" cover crip (mustard), or will soon (winter onions).   I still want to add leaf compost to them, but this time it will have to be as they do in UK, by making leaf mould.  Leaf mould is made by storing wet leaves in large leaf bags, letting them moulder for a season into something like an intermediate stage between compost and peat moss.  It's a fungal dominated process instead of bacterial (whatever that indicates).  I still have some large areas that need a thick tree leaf mulch but there is also make a bag of leaf mould for each raised bed.

The truckload made five big bags of leaves.  I tied the tops and laid them in an out of the way, out of direct sun.  Various sources state it will take six months to a year to become leaf mould.  I'm in it for the long haul.  One thing that's great about using these leaves, is I don't think they carry any vegetable plant diseases or parasites.  Just healthy humus.

Overwintering Pepper Plants. Update. 11.29.22

 Here are the pepper plants so far.  We are at just over one month now.   No more fungus gnats, aphids, or any other visible insects.  They were becoming noticeably light (dry) so I gave each a cup of water.  Not enough to run out the bottom.

Tabasco.  I'm not aiming for any growth, bit this one has the most and largest new shoots so far.

Serrano.

Early Jalapeño.  A few small new shoots.  Basically dormant.

Cayenne.  Quite a few small shoots.

Banana.  No much going on here.  Still green, which seems like a good thing.

Thai Dragon.  I left the leaves on for ripening peppers.  I thought they might die and fall off.  So far they are still there.  No insect problems, so I'm leaving them alone.

These are all in a south facing window, in a cool (usually 50s F) room.

Nikita's Gift Persimmon. 11.27.22

 This persimmon tree always produces a generous crop of nice persimmons.

Harvesting Horse-Radish. 11.27.22

 I dug up one of the horse-radish clumps.

I cut some of the root into 1/2 inch cubes.  About a cup.

I added 1/2 cup of vinegar, 2 tablespoons of sugar, and 1/4 tsp salt, and ground it all up in the food processor.

Very tasty.  This cleared my sinuses and brought tears to my eyes.

Progress Refurbishing Mini-Orchard. 11.27.22

 I hauled and spread five wheel-barrows of arborist tree chips, for the pathways in the mini-orchard.  I also laid out the general footprint for the planned planter that will have peppers next year.

This view shows Jonathan dwarf apple tree on Geneva 222.  I used the Geneva 222 for this one, instead of Bud-9, because Jonathan has so much less vigor compared to most other apple cultivars.

This view shows Akane on  Bud-9.

I think the right foreground mini-tree is Black Oxford apple on Bud-9.  I need to check.  In front of the raised bed is Porter apple on Bud-9.

Nemagon Mustard Cover Crop Germinating. 11.27.22

 It's interesting to watch how this over-winter cover crop is starting to grow.  I wasn't sure it would grow at all.  These are the Nemagon mustard seedlings.  Their purpose is to reduce crop diseases, serve as a winter cover crop to prevent weed growth, and act as a green manure when turned in, in the Spring.  This should help decrease dependence on bringing in materials from off site.  Materials from off site can be contaminated with plant diseases and pests, and even worse, herbicide residues,

I think the mustard will continue growing through the winter, just like weeds do.  I'll chop it and turn it under, when it starts to bloom in the Spring, or at least a few weeks before planting thectonato pkantsvin these beds.

Home Made Apple Tree Hybrid, So Far. Columnar X Red Flesh. 11.25.22

 In Spring, 2020, I manually pollinated some Redlove Calypso flowers with pollen from columnar Golden Sentinel.  Some fruits resulted.  Then I saved the seeds, stratified, and planted.  Three seedlings did well.  One had darker red leaves, one was more greenish red, one was green with red petioles.

That fall (2021), I planted the two red leaf saplings in the mini orchard.  This is the taller of those now.

The tall one is that sapling.  It's about 7 feet tall now.  The shorter one was a little less vigorous, and something chewed the tip, but it's still OK at about 4 or 5 feet tall now.

I don't know if this will bloom next Spring,  The side nubs look a bit like flower spurs but the buds don't look that much like flower buds, so far.

There is also one longer spur.

A few years ago, I read that the first blooms can come when an apple sapling has about 90 leaf nodes, and the first fruits at about 120 nodes.  This tree is at about that 120 node stage now.  It would be fun if it produces.  I can't say for certain, but it seems to be in a columnar shape.  Its sibling also produced only a vertical shoot, instead of multiple spreading branches, when topped. It's still only a guess how these will turn out.

The third sapling is in a differed area and I don't know yet if it survived.

Here are the original seedling of this cross.

Edit.  Wow, I can't believe I found the reference.  Here.  I think their data is based on saplings in containers, which might affect the blooming.  Trees seem to bloom at smaller size, in containers.  And here.  Transition from juvenile to adult vegetative phase is at about 77 internodes, and transition from adult vegetative to adult reproductive phase is at about 122 internodes.  Slightly different from what I remembered, but not too far off.    Re-reading that web page, maybe I can use the Bud-9 rootstocks, obtained by pulling off offshoots, as rootstock and graft the tips onto them. Just thinking.  Bud-9 is known to be precocious.

First Schlumbergera Flowers. 11.25.22

 These were cuttings I made a few years ago.  The mother plants were becoming too large for me to handle.  I had these on a bench, under a tree, all summer.  Minimal care.   I brought them indoors a few weeks ago and started watering them.   I gave them a little bloom food.

Cleaning Up Mini Orchard. 11.25.22

 I've been pulling weeds and putting down tree leaf mulch in the mini orchard.  A few mini trees needed moving to make room for a planned pepper planter.

So far, I removed weeds from the North, East, and West fences / tree rows.  Some of the middle is done as well.  After removing weeds, I lay a thick layer of tree leaf mulch.  The areas that are not cleaned up yet, in the center rows, will have a weed barrier topped with wood chip mulch, for pathways, and thatvplanned pepper planter.

This is one of the minitrees that I moved, SummerRed apple on Bud-9 rootstock.  It had two big shoots emerging from underground, below the graft.

I removed those shoots.  Their connection to the node is brittle.  They just break off.  They will give some rootstock to play with.  They don't have much root, but it doesn't take much. Some of the originals that I bought didn't have much root either.

I planted those temporarily in a raised bed.  

I moved two of the columnar apples on Bud-9, to the duck yard. They didn't have enough room now in the mini orchard, and one was replaced by the SummerRed.  

I had said in a previous comment that most of the columnar on Bud-9 were about three feet tall.  Now that I'm working with them, I have to correct that.  Only one is only about three feet tall.  The others are about 4 1/2 to 7 feet tall.  I think that's about perfect for me at this stage.  Columnar trees on vigorous rootstock grow way to big for my mini-orchard, and it's too challenging to keep them pruned down to seven or eight feet tall.  These will stay shorter.  Some had a few apples this year.  One of these was made from a Golden Sentinel apple tree, the other from a North Pole apple tree.  They are both tasty apple varieties.

The Bud-9 roots are not extensive at all.  I had to prune some due to bad shape or placement, but not as much as bare root trees this size are sold as.

Holiday Bulbs. 11.20.22

 I planted these last week.  A red amaryllis and some paperwhite narcissus.  

Fun to watch them grow.  The potting medium is "coir peat", which I assume is coir processed to be like peat, but could be a mixture of coir and peat.  Since there is no nutrition in that, I watered with dilute bloom food.

Overwintering Hot Pepper Plants. Update. 11.20.22

 This "Early Jalapeño" plant didn't grow large in the garden, so I had left the leaves on it when I dug it up to overwinter.  Even though I had washed the roots pretty thoroughly, I noticed now it had aphids.

After spraying with the Dr Earth herbal spray, I reconsidered and cut off all of the leaves.  There are no peppers on this plant to ripen, so I probably should let it go dormant.

After trimming.

Before trimming.

Meanwhile, the plants I left leaves and peppers on, to ripen, still look pretty good.  No aphids, gnats, or whitefly that I can see.  The two larger plants are Thai Dragon and the smaller on is Tabasco.

It's still early, many months to go.  It's an interesting experiment.  It would be nice to get a jump start on peppers next year.  And also, potentially, more productivity from the overwintered plants.  

More Bulbs. 11.17.22

 Today I was at the hardware store, and saw these bulbs for half price.  So I bought them and planted them.

Overwintering Pepper Plants. Update. 11.17.22

 I check the pepper plants every two days.  They have indoors now for 3 to 4 weeks.  A few are in the sunroom, to ripen remaining peppers (Thai, Tabasco, a Serranno).  The others are in a 50s to 60s cool bright room.

I am moving the rest into the cool, bright room too.  I want them to be dormant.

Here are a Tabasco (left ) and Serrano (right)

They look about the same as when I transplanted them.  The stems are still green.  The peppers are about the same.  That's fine.  I want dormancy, not growth.

The Serrano had tiny fuzzy things on the soil.  I think they are whiteflies.  Not very active in the coolness.

I sprayed the plant and soil with this stuff.

Most of the fuzzy things disappeared immediately.  There were a few remaining, so I sprayed with some old Safer brand neem spray too.

Here are some of the other pepper plants.  Left to Right, Cayenne, Banana, Early Jalapeño.

The Cayenne is pushing a few buds.  So is the Banana.  Not much, but you can tell they are alive.  The stems are still green.  I didn't defoliate the Jalapeño.  It's mostly just sitting there, but the nodes are a little knobby, like some buds want to show.

Closeup of the Cayenne.

So far, so good.  They still have a long way to go.

Saving Cucumber Seeds. 11.17.22

 I kept a mature bush pickle cucumber fruit to save seeds.  It became very large.  To save seeds, the fruit needs to ripen and start to soften, and lose its green color,

While cleaning the garden, I also found a Chinese cucumber.  I didn't know it had any fruits.  The seed was from an old packet, and only one germinated.  These were in an out of the way location in the garden. I will save that seed too.

Both look the same when sliced open.  Despite being over-ripe, the insides had a fresh, pleasant, melon scent. 

The seeds get scooped out, along with some juice and loose flesh.  I place the mixture into a jar with some water, and allow it to ferment a few days.  The fermentation removes the seed casing.  Then they'll be rinsed and allowed to dry. 

Saving Eggplant and Tabasco Pepper Seeds. 11.12.22

 This eggplant was highly productive this year.  I was amazing.  So I saved seeds.

For eggplant, I didn't ferment.  I scooped out as many seeds as I could, and rinsed them off in a sieve with water.  Then I let them dry on a paper towel for a few days, then made a paper envelope to store them in.

I decided to save seeds from my Tabasco pepper plant as well.  This year my Tabascos were only minimally productive.  I'd like to grow enough to make Tabasco sauce.  I cut open a Tabasco pepper and removed the seeds.  They are drying in a bowl and will go into a paper envelope soon.

Leaf Collection #2. 11.12.22

 Today I collected another truckload of maple and liquidamber leaves from a complete stranger's yard.  I had permission.  

I spread these about 6 inches deep, in the meditation garden / border.  The remaining leaves from last year were almost gone.  The did an excellent job keeping weeds away,  The soil there has wonderful tilth from two years so far of thick leaf mulch.  This area has lots of bulbs under ground, a growing forsythia hedge, Itoh peony, lavender, rosemary, sage, thyme, rhubarb, and some other perennials.  Now that area is ready for winter and next year.

I'm estimating I'll need about five more truckloads, based on what it took to cover this area.

Planting More Flower Bulbs. 11.12.22

 These were on sale at Fred Meyer.

I planted the daffodils in the meditation garden.  Who knows how close they are to other buried bulbs.  Does it matter?  About 20% of the daffodil bulbs were dried out and crunchy.  I discarded those.

Tulips are deer and vole favorites.  I planted them in a container that previously held garlic, then cucumber.  Not sure if it is bottomless, but at least it's sheltered from deer.  I mixed the soil with some container soil mix that I'm not certain is the best.  Hope by mixing with native soil, any problems are resolved.   I gave them some organic bulb fertilizer. 

The plan fir next year, is in Maybor June I will plant therapeutic marigolds over the tulips.  The marigolds can bloom and warm the soul, and the foliage and roots can be used for preventive nematocide treatment.

I planted about 1/4 of the crocus bulbs in the garden border.  Probably plant another 1/4 in the border and the rest in the meditation garden.

Daffodils and crocuses seem to survive well here.  Tulips need more TLC.  They are worth it.

Don't Do This. 11.12.22

 The other day, I moved this board to a different area of the garden to use as edging.  I didn't noticecthe nails.  If I saw them, I would have removed them.

The wound is less painful now.  No sign of infection so far.  Thankful for antibiotics and tetanus shots.

The nails are all removed now.  Inspection did not find more.  The blood is cleaned up.

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