Ning and some notes

Yesterday and today it's been cold. Last night I brought indoors the brugmansia (small buds starting to form), cannas (small sprouts starting to appear), zantedeschias (ditto) and other tender overwintered plants that I previously had on the deck. They'll stay inside until tomorrow. Last night's low here was 34.

On a whim I bought a package of seed potatoes for "gourmet white" at Fred Meyer. The clerk commented that for the price I could have bought 2# of potatoes. True, so I wont say what I paid. I planted them today in the onion bed.

Thursday I turned under the soil in the tomato beds. I scattered about 1# of crushed eggshells and raked those in as well.

I continue to collect coffee grounds at work. Currently I'm adding them to a batch of chicken poop compost, to keep the worms happy.

I pulled another big bucket of dandelions and other weeds and generously gave them to the chickens. Since the chickens have been here, I like pulling dandelions and am starting to feel disappointed that their #s are diminishing. If they all disappear, we may have to find them in other yards!

I fertilized the smaller lilacs, Quincy Chinese Chives, ginkgos, and a few other plants around the yard with fish emulsion. Supposedly, in the cool weather, this does not release much nitrogen. The lilacs were lacluster last year, so maybe this will encourage them to grow larger this spring and summer.

Upgrading Tomato Seedlings

The tomato seedlings are large enought to need new containers. Plus, they need potting soil instead of just seed starting medium. The only seeds that did not grow were the old "celebrity" - and I see one just beginning now.
A closer photo. The Pondorosa Red is the smallest, possibly because I dropped them and repotted the smashed seedlings. They seem to be recovering.
After repotting. I used "Whitney's organic potting soil".

Of the peppers, only now am I seeing any barely beginning to sprout. So far, it's just a cayenne and Ning's old, old kitchen stored seeds. The house is just too cool to germinate peppers. THe containers are getting moldy - we'll see...

Fruit Trees: status report.

Stella cherry. All of the cherries are in bloom.

4-variety pear. This is the first year that all varieties have bloomed.

North Pole Apple. I was concerned that I had removed all of the flowerring buds, but if just one per spur sets fruit, there will be plenty.

For other fruits:

All of the fig trees have at least miniscule buds. Even the new "Desert King", only a foot tall, has 1 or 2 breba embryos and a tiny tuft of leaves at the top. The Lattarula has 1 or 2 brebas, and mostly tiny, approximately 1mm new buds on all branches. The other fig trees have slightly larger buds, the largest being on "Vancouver" with multiple brebas.

The peaches have a major case of leaf curl. My attempts at prevention via multiple sprays of neem were not successful. Some branches appear to be dying. Remind me next fall to COVER the peach trees to prevent leaf curl. The new peaches have bloomed but given that they were just started this year as bare-root trees, Im not sure what I'll do if they set fruit.

The Aprium looks mostly dead after a hard frost. The Chinese apricot, which started blooming later, looks alive but Im not sure about fruit set.

Looks like not a good year for stone fruit.

What's blooming?

This violet was started from my parents' lawn in Illinois. Is's later than the other violets here.

Leukojum. They continue to multiply.

A test of climate zone. These paperwhites have survived 3 years.

The Pink Cherry. This is how I know it's Spring.

First Rhubarb Pie of the Season

Victoria Rhubarb

Canola based crust, organically grown rhubarb. I only used 1 cup of sugar, so it's slightly on the sour side but that's how I like it.


This is "Glaskin's Perpetual". It was started from seeds 3 years ago. This is much slower growing than Victoria. True, the stalks are deeper red, but if it doesnt make majoer stides this year, it'll soon be "Glaskin's compost".