Unknown Soldier

Whatever happened to the folksy "do it yourself" gardening shows?

These are my curmudgeonly thoughts today.

I can remember gardening shows on radio and TV, that were really about gardening. I just did a web search on "Doc and Katie Abraham" who had a show in the 70s, and came up with essentially zilch. As I remember (at this much later, I can't promise an accurate memory), their show was really about gardening - how to improve the soil, making compost, propagating the plants, dividing, taking cuttings, pruning, starting seeds, planting.

There was also Crockett's Victory Garden, in the same era. This was more sophisticated, but was still really about gardening - all of the above, and maybe more, like cooking your garden produce, and visiting gardens, and traveling to gardens in other countries. I'm not the only one who feels this way, of course - here is a related thread from the gardenweb.

Of course, the old "Organic gardening and farming" magazine was pretty much the same thing, pre-counter-culture, with a greater gardening aspect. But if you wanted to learn how to grow aspargus, or graft your apple tree, or get a start from your Dad's 50 year old grape vines, you could find it there.

What do we have now? HGTV, with all kinds of garden make-overs, curb appeal, ,'garden rooms' , landscaping, hardscaping, and lots of stuff to buy, of course. There probably is something that I dont know about, but it seems like it's all marketing and consumer oriented, instead of true gardening oriented.

Of course, there's the GardenWeb, where everyone can sign on and discuss their gardening, and all of the how to and success and failures. Maybe that's the 21st century answer to those old garden shows. And of course, some blogs.....

I would still like to turn on the TV, some time, and watch someone walking through their back yard and pull a grub off a leaf and talk about it. Dirty fingernails, and shirt tail half out, and all.

Apple grafting. Reworked tree.

This is the tree before reworking it. This is a "miniature" Golden Delicious. It's about 5 years old. All of the others have been bearing at this point, and this one had grown larger than the others (probably due to lack of fruit). It set a couple of fruit last year, but they were deformed and did not ripen properly. I'm not a proficient grafter - we'll see if any of them take!

I chose to do wedge grafting, similar to the demonstration in this web page.

This is the source tree. The owner "pruned" their side of the tree, basically topping it, but left many of the branches overhanging the fence. Apples that have fallen into our yard have been somewhat small, but with good flavor. I'm hoping that on a tree that is properly cared for, they might be larger and taste just as good. Plus, they'll be in reach and easy to pick on a small tree.

Here are the scions. I placed them in water while working.

It took multiple tries, but finally I started cutting smoothly with one fast cut.

Example of scion wood. As above, this isnt the best example but it's the one that came out in the photo. Again, after multiple tries, I learned how to hold the scion wood properly, and cut each side with one slice.

After completing the work, I counted fingers. There were 5 on each hand, and no bleeding.

Reworked tree when completed. I did not follow all of the grafting instructions perfectly. Without grafting wax, I tried melting actual candle wax and mixed with parafin, but that was still hard at room temp let alone outside. Finally, I just used petroleum jelly, which at today's temperature was thick and gooey, so it might work OK. Then, I wrapped with plumbers' silicone tape, which is soft, stretchy and flexible. Some grafts were held closed with dental floss before applying the petroleum jelly.

Microorganism that makes fuel from CO2?

Had to comment. This yahoo article claims that an organism is being created to make CO2 into methane.

How interesting. Methanogens have been growing in rumens and colons for, say, a few hundred million years?

Of course, methane is more of a greenhouse gas than CO2. A better approach is to learn to use less fuel, period. Live closer to work, fewer commutes, fewer vehicles used for commutes, would be both greener and healthier, compared to finding a new wonder fuel.

Im sure that he's doing interesting things with them genetically, but this looks more like self promotion than innovation.

clivia seed

Looks like it could not wait to sprout. This is Clivia "Sahin's Yellow". The seed is sprouting on the plant. The blossom was last year. I got these out of "dry dormant" storage last week, and noted this plant is responding as it is supposed to respond by sending up a flower shoot. The others did not, so unclear if that is coincidence or they are not mature yet.

Click on photo for close-upo. The largest fruit definitely has a root emerging.

These seeds will need to be planted. Here is one method (from a clip on gardenweb.com):



More detailed instructions for sprouting Clivia seeds can be found here.

For prior Clivia posts, click on clivia label below.

Sort of related, here's a link with lots of cool Clivia photos (courtesy Clivia forum on GardenWeb).