New Test Fruits for 2011

I have some spots for new fruits. Golden Delicious has to go - no apples for 7 years; 2010 was the most promising but succumbed to disease. There is no room for consistent non performers. In addition, Chinese Mormon Apricot died last year. And finally, the Hazel nuts produced, and the squirrels got every nut. I don't think I can protect them from squirrels, and if I do it will be too much effort. So I think the hazel nut trees, will go, even though they look like they'll have a lot of nuts this year.

I need to re-think the peaches, too. The genetic dwarfs actually look beautiful, bloom like crazy, but require a lot of effort to cover from the rain to prevent leaf curl. I didn't have time this year. I may spray with copper this week, if I get a chance. Not sure how that will work if it is freezing.

Here are the selections I am thinking about from Raintree.

I did research on late-blooming (to avoid frost), leaf-curl-resistant peaches. There isn't enough information to choose one over the others - if I could, I would pick the latest-blooming, most leaf-curl-resistant. However, it looks like the old variety, Indian Free, has a good record in the Northwest (taking that with a grain of salt). The down side is it needs a pollinator, but I currently have 3 genetic dwarf peaches and one peach-plum hybrid, so I hope that at least one of those will suffice. Raintree states: "Said to be one of the all-time highest rated fruits at taste tests, this heirloom variety was grown at Monticello by Thomas Jefferson, who prized it for its rich color, flavor and size. Naturally resistant to peach leaf curl, the tree produces heavy crops of large, aromatic cling stone peaches that have red skin and white flesh marbled with crimson stripes. When fully ripe in mid to late season, the rich, sweet, distinctive flavor is excellent both eaten fresh." and David Wilson nurseries states this peach wins their taste test. I feel frustrated about the genetic dwarfs, they are really beautiful small trees and I invested a lot of time and effort, and space, to them, but to (potentially) lose a year's crop because I didn't have time to do leaf curl prevention in November/December is frustrating. And it takes several years to bring a new tree into production.

Cherries have been doing well, but the challenges are early bloom, resulting in loss of a lot of cherries to frost, and splitting when there is a late rain. Two years ago I added a tart cherry, Sure-Fire. It had its first few cherries last year, and I hope for a larger crop this year, although it is still young. Tart cherries do not nead a pollinator. Many, but not all, sweet cherries do, and it's complicated because some will not pollinate others. Raintree Nursery (source of these pictures) has pollinator information. I chose this variety, Almaden Duke, as a self-fertile variety, hoping they are sweet enough to eat out of hand and will bloom later. We'll see.

Finally, I want to re-think strawberries. I usually get too many in June, and they become a mess of runners. I would like to try an ever bearing variety in barrels or raised beds, for easier maintenance. I have a couple of barrels to use, so plan on trying that. I chose Seascape Ever bearing to test due to good reviews on the internet.

The change for strawberries will mean much less maintenance. The barrels are very easy to maintain. And I hope an extended season with fewer berries at any given time. This is in keeping with my goals of 2011. The cherry is easy to maintain at small size by backyard orchard culture methods (see label link), and the peach should be easy as well - so genetic dwarf may not even be necessary.

More New Year's + 1 Pruning

Today I pruned the rest of the grape vines. I pruned them back to 2 to 3 nodes of last year's growth, then thinned out a few of those as well. This leaves about 15 to 20 nodes per vine. If each node gives one bunch of grapes, that's about 65 to 80 bunches of grapes. More than enough for some eating grapes. There was a lot of winter kill, so they may not all bear. That's OK.

I also pruned the columnar apple, North Pole, shortening spurs to keep the columnar shape.

Then I pruned about half of the back yard roses. Some of the David Austin roses were at least twice my height, so about 12 feet tall. Wow! Too tall and too messy, cut them back to about 2 feet. They should come back fine. This is counter to conventional wisdom, that they should be pruned when danger of frost is past. However, they start growing before then even if unpruned, and my neighbors prune midwinter and have good growth, so they should be OK.

The Illinois Everbearing Mulberry got a couple of snips but is too puny to call that pruning. Just enough to guide shaping of the young tree. Last year was it's first and it had it's first "two" mulberries. So this year there may be a few more.

I freel a little better about the yard. It's starting to look more groomed / less messy. That's a good part about winter cleanup.

The brush pile is growing quickly.

New Year's Day Pruning

Today I pruned the grape vines (overhead arbor), and most of the fig trees.

Changes:

Grapes - last year I had more grapes than I could use. A lot went to waste. Plus, the vines were a bit overgrown, and many grapes were undersize. I pruned more heavily, leaving fewer buds. That will reduce # of grapes a little, but I hope means less maintenence requirement and therefore better quality grapes that I enjoy more. Less waste.

There are still 2 more grape vines to prune. Maybe tomorrow or next week. But the New Year's tradition of pruning grapes was kept. Cold day pruning means no bleeding. Waiting for warmer weather means the vines bleed a lot.

Figs = Not much pruning. Removed dead figs that never ripened. Cut taller branches from the centers of the trees, to maintain a "bowl" shape and shorten the trees. Removed badly placed brances. Cut suckers from the bases. Even though I stated "not much pruning", I filled a wheel barrow with the prunings. I haven't pruned Desert King yet - as a 100% breba (early summer crop) variety, I'll just remove the biggest branches, to maintain small size without losing brebas. Brebas form on growth from previous summer, so most pruning should be after the brebas are harvested. Thought about leaving suckers in place, for a bush shape. However, I wrap the tree trunks with a strip of plastic and apply Tanglefoot, to keep ants out of the figs. It works, but takes time and effort. A 3-trunk fig bush means 3-trunks to wrap, so more work. Plus, more difficult to weed around the tree. So I'll keep them as compact small trees instead.

2010 is over. 2011 has begun.

On New Year's day, I like to reflect a bit and think about what to change in the year ahead.

2010 sucked, for the most part. My Dad became increasingly frail, had a number of medical crises, and died. It's been hard trying to know what to think about it. We all die some time, and we all lose our loved ones, and for most of us our relationships are not perfect. Over the past 2 years or so, there were many times I thought he would die, and basically did my grieving mostly before he actually died. But now he's gone, and I'm done worring about doing the right thing, or saying the right thing, or taking care of him, or keeping him from suffering too much. It's done. Except the times I worry about whether I was a good son. I tried.

This is a blog on the internet, so I can't talk about my job. All I'll say, is I did a lot of soul searching and, well, I can't say more. I'm still employed - better than the alternative.

I had a very rough year.

Working so hard, the garden went to pot. No, not THAT pot - please, the most exciting thing in my garden is the chili peppers and tomatoes. That being said, the peppers were the best I ever grew, but I worked so hard I never got out to harvest many, and a lot went to waste. So did a lot of tomatoes, apples, and grapes. And strawberries. And beans dammit. And (oh the horror!) some of the figs went un-picked. It started out good, but when things ripened, I just didn't have a chance to get out there and get them. Much of the front went to weeds, which will take some time to clear out.

I didn't have a chance to cover the peaches for the winter, so expect to lose next year's crop to peach leaf curl. We'll see.

New Years' Resolutions. These are not things that I promise myself, they are how I hope to make improvements and have a better year.

At work, I took a huge pay cut, in hopes of working fewer hours. It's not win/win (mostly it's lose/lose) but we have to do what we have to do. I hope living is a little better for it this year.

This year I'll finish the final bathroom. Not that big of a project, really, and it's the basement bathroom, so it's not sitting there staring at me like the master bath did for 2 years. No pressure, just a little at a time.

I'll cut back some on the garden. The front mini-orchard will have grass instead of mulch, except a couple of feet surrounding each tree. Grass doesn't get as weedy and is easier to maintain. I already spread grass seed this fall, so this resolution is already under way.

I discovered an organic weed killer made from citrus oil (I think - It's "Worry Free Weed And Grass Killer" and contains a citrus extract, d-limonene as the herbicidal compound). I can spray that in places where weeding is a big hassle. Such as on the mulch around the fruit trees, where the kitty cat digs it up and creates nice fertile miniEdens for weeds. I tried it this fall on some of the irises, which are very difficult to weed by hand, especially when infiltrated with that &@^#*%! Aegopodium podagraria (bishopweed) and I think it worked, without killing the irises. Anything that kills Aegopodium can't be all bad, even plutonium. I bet the *$&#^* Aegopodium is growing around Chernobl. Anyway, if the Avenge is effective, that will reduce labor a lot. I've been trying to kill of the damn bishopweed for 9 years, but it got ahead of me again in 2010 and a lot of ground was lost. So I'll try it next year, including the rose bed and under the fruit trees, when weeds infiltrate the mulch. I wonder it kitty cat will like the smell?

Raised beds and barrels are definitely the way to go, when possible. I'll add a couple, and definitely reuse the ones I have. Here, the extra warmth gives a head start, and weeds are a non-issue in the potting mix.

I may remove a couple of non-performers. That's hard for me to do. "Just one more chance". I have an apple and a fig in mind. And one grape vine, although it's not performing due to location. Maybe I'll take a cutting and plant it in a different spot - that grape is a tasty variety.

I will be less of a purist about "sustainability" - for example, when I get a big pile of prunings, I'll take them to the recycle center, for them to grind and compost them, instead of me chopping them into mulch. And while there, I'll get a truckload of compost for the return trip. That will save a lot of time and effort. That's also the issue with grass in the "mini-orchard" - although since I let the lawn go dry in the summer and almost never fertilize, the only energy input is into mowing, and much of that is with a handpowered push mower. Well, maybe the grass is not less sustainable than the mulch.... (Thinking as I write).

So that's about it. 2011 will be more about cutting back, lower expectations, and compromise. And maybe a chance to smell the roses. But it will still be about lots of fruits, vegetables, and flowers. Especially since so many are already established, so most of the work is done, and just need a little trimming and cleaning up.

Repotting a cymbidium

I like this cymbidium a lot. Here it is at its peak. The compact size can be misleading - cymbidiums have a lot of roots compared to other orchids. They're like Clivias or Daylilies in the shape of the leaves and the mass of roots compared to their tops. I have one cymbidium in the state of almost-rebloom, so I hope that means I'm able to grow them and they're worth the effort.

Here is was just before repotting. I thought about leaving it until the bitter end, but instead of being fresh and joyful, it looks sad now. Time to accept that and clean it up.

It came out of the pot easily. This was about a 1 quart pot. The original mix looks like a medium grade bark.

I love the mass of roots, like a handful of night crawlers. Massive amount of roots. At this point I also cut off the old flower spikes, to get them out of the way, and trimmed off any dead or broken looking roots with a sharp sterile pruner. There were not many bad or damaged roots. At the center was a tightly packed mass of sphagnum - probably what the plant was started in. I removed it. My theory is that it can be a source of rot when the plant is in my hands, as opposed to in a tiny starting pot in the hands of the original grower.

I wanted to use a pot about the same size, but with so much root mass, I moved it up instead. Some authors recommend cutting off the roots. I don't know what's best, but this is how I did the last one and it did very well and is about to rebloom soon.

Here's the mix I've been using for all of my orchids. Medium grade fir bark, some perlite, some oyster shell calcium.

Now I've added the bark medium, with lots of tapping and shaking and holding the plant in place. It was interesting that even with the mass of roots, when I poured the old medium back into the old pot, it filled it to within 2 inches of the top. The dead leaf tips are also pruned back. I sprayed it with neem oil, which I hope makes it more disease and insect resistant, and also gives the leaves a nice shine.

Before potting, I wrote a description of the plant and the date on the inside rim, using a Sharpie. That way I know what's what, but in an unobtrusive way.