Genetic Dwarf Peaches. Progress Report. 3.14.16

Genetic Dwarf Peach "Garden Gold"  3.14.16

Genetic Dwarf Peach "Honeybabe".  3.14.16

 All of the genetic dwarf peaches are blooming.  The almost insurmountable challenge with these, is peach leaf curl disease.

There are several ways to address leaf curl.  Among those, sprays, cover the trees for the winter to prevent fungal growth in the buds, or be more creative and intense, growing in containers.  To grow in containers, one can buy  a bare root tree and plant in container, or try growing seedlings from genetic dwarf varieties.

During fall, 2014, I dug up the smallest of my genetic dwarf peach trees, and planted in container.  That required significant loss of very large roots.  Even so, in 2015, that tree was the best of any of my peaches, and the fruit was the most delicious peach crop I've had in years.

Here is a summary of my varieties:

Garden Gold.  White flesh.  Approx 14 years old.  Always blooms well, gets a bad dose of PLC - peach leaf curl disease - loses most of the peaches, recovers, gets a few peaches for fall.

Honeybabe.  Golden flesh.  I like the flavor better than Garden Gold.  However, Honeybabe has worse leaf curl.  This year it looks even worse than usual.  I don't know if it will survive.

Genetic Dwarf Peach "Eldorado".  3.14.16

Seedling from Genetic Dwarf Peach.  4th year.  3.16.14

Eldorado.  As described, excellent small peaches.  PLC was as bad as the other varieties, even though I had it planted under semi-shelter.  Containerized and not exposed to rain during wingter 2014-2015, there was almost no PLC at all, that cleared up quickly, and it made a great crop.

Empress.  I bought this as a bare root tree, winter 2015-2016.  It is planted in container.  No way to know how it will do.

Seedlings.  I have several seedling trees.  Initially, this was unplanned.  The parent varieties are either Garden Gold or Honeybabe.  This winter, the first is starting to bloom, at 4 years old.  I kept it in a shed for much of the winter, then on a deck not exposed to rain.  No way to know yet if it will bear fruit, or what the fruit will be like.

If I was to start over, I would grow these peaches, only in containers.  I would save seeds from the first year or two fruit, to experiment with.  

Container growth requires a lot of attention.  They dry out quickly, so need water on a daily or twice daily basis.  Wrapping the container with foil can reduce soil temp, but they still need daily watering.  Container trees need pruning to keep branches close to the core, to reduce top heaviness and risk of falling over, and broken branches.  Genetic dwarf trees over-set badly - something like 90% of fruit should be removed at pea-size stage.  Fortunately, the trees are small so that does not require ladders.

What's Blooming. Backyard Phenoogy. 3.3.16

Flowering Rootstock Growths from Ornamental Cherry.  3.3.16

El Dorado Peach In Bloom.  3.3.16

Shiro Plum Bloom, Almost Open.  3.3.16

Some of the trees in my old yard in town.  The rootstock for the 50? year old Kwanzaa? cherry has nice ruffled, but single, pink flowers.  Much earlier than the main tree.  I leave those there for the nice flowers.

I grafted both Kwanzaa and rootstock onto separate wild cherry root stocks.  The wild cherry root stocks are probably sweet cherries.

Genetic Dwarf peach in container, north side of house, El Dorado, in bloom.

Hollywood plum is fully open.  Shiro is almost open.

Pink Flowered Ornamental Cherry Rootstock Flowers.  3.3.16

Home Orchard Progress Report. 3.6.16

North View,  Main Orchard.   3.5.16

Charlotte Peach.  3.6.16

Asian Pear Multigraft.  3.6.16

 This is a good moment to assess fruit tree flowers.  Compatible trees that bloom at the same time are candidates for pollinating, either as nearby trees or graft of pollinating branch.

Plums, and hybrid Prunus, blooming at the same time now, include Methley, Sweet treat, Hollywood.  Toka has swelling buds not yet open.

Nadia has open flowers but may not count because I just planted it last month as a bare root tree.

Korean bush cherry is the only cherry that is blooming now.  They are described as self-pollinating.

Most of the Asian pears have swelling buds but no open flowers so far.

Not blooming, but I have cleaned up most of the grape plants in the row of grapes.  I planted two new ones, Black Monukka, and Himrod.  I was unable to find much info about Black Monukka.  Himrod is described as too vigorous in Oregon, but I don't know about here.  I also don't know the conditions for the aggressive growth - if those were near a lawn or farm field, they may have been over fertilized, which for grapes leads to excessive green growth but fewer grapes.

Methley Plum.  3.6.16

Sweet Treat Pluerry, Prunus interspecific hybrid.  3.6.16

Hollywood Plum, 2 years after starting from cutting.  3.6.16

Label, new grape plant "Black Monukka".  3.6.16

Buffalo Grape, swelling buds.   3.6.16

Korean Bush Cherry Flowers.  3.6.16

Kitchen Garden Progress Report. 3.6.16

Germinating Fava.  3.6.16

New Strawberry bed.  3.6.16

 Late winter kitchen garden.

The first favas have emerged.  These are the variety "Windsor".   I think this is about 3 weeks.  They are not pre-soaked.   I did not worry about placing them with hilum down.  The white pellets are Sluggo slug bait.  I read favas are tasty plants, the slug bait is prophylactic.

The strawberries all grew, every plant.  Starks did a nice job with them.

Garlic is growing fast. 

Many of the potatoes that I planted from salvaged, very sprouted saved potatoes, are showing thick green leaves. 

There are also seedlings of spinach, kohlrabi, radishes, and turnips growing at the old place, in wine barrel containers, and the second crop of favas along with snow peas to germinate in the next 2 weeks.

Overwintered Garlic.  3.6.16

Salvaged Potato Sprouts Growing.   3.6.16

Raised Beds - Earlier, Warmer, Easier. Progress Report. 3.4.16

 I completed the newest raised beds.  There are now four.  They are build largely from recycled narrow cement blocks from the old place, used there for a variety of purposes.  I needed some to complete the last two beds.  The blocks are 99 cents each at Home Depot.  Each bed requires 21 blocks, plus one half-block and some bricks due to dimensions that don't match because of shape.

All of my raised beds are built on a chicken wire fencing base, to prevent moles from tunneling up into the beds.

Dimensions are roughly 4 feet by 4 feet by 18 inches high.

The capstones are all re-used from a patio.  They are cobblestone pavers.

Recycled Concrete Block Raised Beds.  3.4.16

I measured the soil temperatures this week.  The base soil was 60F.  In the lower, wooden raised beds, the soil was 62F.  In the concrete raised beds, the soil was 65F.  This time of year, the warmer soil is an advantage.  Mulch may be needed later, to reflect heat.

The pavers add a little height.  My theory is the concrete blocks absorb heat, even though color is not dark, and transmit that heat to the air spaces.  The air is warmed, and the pavers hold the warm air in place.  During the summer, pavers could be removed to allow excape of the warm air, if I think that is an issue.

For senior access and gardening comfort / accessibility, these concrete block raised beds seem ideal.  They are a good sitting height.  The blocks make it possible to sit on the edge of the bed and work soil with hand tools.  They are nearer to visual comfort height, which makes planting seeds and weeding easier.

I planted seeds from old packets, radishes, scorzina, spring greens.  One bed has some overflow scallions, perennial onions.  I want to grow flowers in one bed when / if the spring vegetables and greens are finished.

I also have smaller raised beds - these fall between raised bed and container.  They are made from re-used concrete tree rings, stacked to fit together. 

In this case, the container / bed contains hyacinths - planted deep - and daylilies, planted above the hyacinths.    I have grown other plants in this system - potatoes, perennial onions, annuals.  The height and size is very convenient.  There is no bottom, but I lay down a base of chicken wire fencing to prevent mole infestation and disruption.