Late Winter / Signs of Spring / Chinese Chives. 2.16.14

Chinese Chives starting to grow - Illinois strain

Chinese Chives 1 year seedlings.  Illinois Strain

 Chinese chives are growing.  These, along with daffodils, some alliums, and onion chives, are among the first early signs of Spring.

The Illinois strain originates from a small cluster of plants I dug from my parents yard about 10 years ago.  I originally planted those when I was a boy, probably more than 45 years ago.  Here they have multiplied vegetatively.  The cluster is several times larger than originally.  I also planted seeds last Spring from flowers late 2012.  Those are finer, but growing nicely now too.

The commercial strain of Chinese chive, grown for a vegetable, is more robust.  This is all seed grown, through several generations of seeds / plants / seeds / plants.  They start growth later than the Illinois strain, but when growing are larger and faster growing.  The Illinois strain is more delicate.  I've been holding off as many harvests of those, wanting to build up a supply.

Chinese Chives.  Commercial strain.

Home Orchard. Progress Report. 2.16.14

Newly moved Karmijn de Sonneville Apple

 As far as I know, this is the last of the movable trees from the Vancouver yard  This is Karmijn de Sonneville apple on M27 rootstock.  From the top, it looks like there might be a large root mass.  Digging it, the rootstock is small, one shovel deep if that.  M27 keeps the tree very small, 5 or 6 foot, and is easy to topple over.  So it always needs a stake for support.   I planted close to the Honeycrisp, also on M27.

I doubt this tree will miss a beat.  Digging, it seemed to have no root damage at all.  I lost one or two buds at most.

It needs a fence.  I can make one in 20 minutes and install today.

Peaches and plums have swelling buds.  It's too early but nothing I can do about it.

First pink, buds of Oregon Curl Free PEach

First Pink.  Buds of Toka Plum

 Charlotte peach.  The same for Q18 and Indian Free.  The fuzzy buds have been visible, with a touch of pink, for a month.  The weather is unpredictable.  If I had more energy and time, I might construct covers for the trees to reduce freeze risk.  But I don't.  So time will tell.

Same for the plums. Toka and Methley are showing a lot of pink.  Less for Satsuma.  None for the European plums.

First Pink. Buds of Methley Plum

Orchids. Progress Report. 2.12.14

Green Cymbidium

Dendrobium nobile

Some nice orchid flowers now.  This is the first rebloom for this green flowered Cymbidium.  Pale green with white center.

The Yamamoto Dendrobium nobile is equally nice.

These make February more tolerable.

These had little pampering this year.  I had them outside, east side of the house in Battleground, for the summer and early fall.  I brought them inside as it started to cool off.

I rarely watered them.  When buds started to form, I watered using dilute general purpose plant food.

Grow Your Own Ginger. 2.11.14

I've been reading on growing culinary ginger.  Like other zone-inappropriate plants, growing ginger will require at least part of the project indoors, in containers.

Ginger Farm.  Image source:  Commons.wikimedia.org

Botanical Drawing of Ginger.  Zingiber officinale

Based on info from various websites, it's a doable project. Use grocery store ginger root.

Buy a fresh looking root with multiple growth points. 
Cut so that each section contains several growth points.

If cutting the ginger root, allow it to dry so that the cut end does not rot when planted.

Some websites recommend soaking the ginger root overnight, in water.  Some sites recommend keeping the ginger root in a damp paper bag until it sprouts.  Some web sites recommend planting without pretreatment.   Hortmag.com has a good discussion.

As for planting, some sites recommend planting on the soil surface, while others recommend barely burying the rhizome, or burying it about an inch deep.

The ginger rhizome is planted in well drained potting medium.  Container size, looks like 6 inch to 1 foot diameter plastic pot will work, with 1 foot depth.  Keep lightly moist until the growth commences, then water regularly.

I've read that ginger requires much warmer conditions than we have in Pacific NW.  I'll keep that in mind.  Other tropicals can grow if I keep them in a warm place, especially in containers.  This is a good candidate for the sunroom.  Which is not built yet.  I will keep it in container, as I do with the citrus trees.  Ginger requires 230 to 300 days to mature.  Young ginger roots are juicier, compared to old roots.  Older roots have more concentrated flavor.

Ginger rhizome cluster

There was no fresh ginger root at Fred Meyer yesterday.   I found this rhizome at the Battleground roadside store.  Fat firm rhizome with multiple buds.

I cut it into 2 growth pieces and one to eat.  I will let it dry a few days before planting.

 I use a lot of ginger, to settle my stomach.  It does not have the somnolence and dry mouth side effects that often occur with nausea medications.

Dominick, Carini, Lattarula Fig Cuttings. Progress Report. 2.11.14

Dominick Fig Cutting.  About 6 weeks.

I moved the 2nd Dominick Fig cutting from juice can to slightly larger container.  Nice roots.  The first continues to grow nicely.


I took one cutting to work.  It did well there.  When I took respite vacation 2 weeks ago, I brought it home.  Somehow,that damaged the plant.  The leaves wilted and fell off.  They were the size of a cat's ears.   I am continuing to nurture it.  Doesn't look promising.  This is why I start multiple cuttings.

Dominick Fig Cuttings

 I had additional Dominick fig cuttings in the refrigerator.  These are stored in sealed plastic bag, so they don't dehydrate.  I trimmed them and placed in moist paper towel, plastic bag, to root.  This time no incision or rooting hormone.  It's OK if they take a while.

I did the same with 2 remaining Carini fig cuttings.

Lattarula fig cutting.

I planted this Lattarula cutting in the usual juice can / seed starting medium setup.  It's in a plastic bag for a week to get it settled.  I removed the tiny figs.  Others are almost ready.