Planting Winter Seeds. 2.15.17

 I'm being adventurous and planting some winter-starting seeds for the kitchen garden beds.  The first batch, mesclun, arugula, radish blend, lettuce blend.  I used up old radish seeds by mixing them with the newer ones.  If the old ones don't grow, then the plants will be further apart which is good.  I usually overplant seeds.  If they do grow, that's fine, I'll just thin to the appropriate distance.

These seeds went into cement-block

raised beds that are warmer than surrounding ground-level soil.  A week ago, I scattered wood ashes on the soil and mixed thoroughly.  There have been some rains since then to dissolve the minerals.   A longer time would be better but this is what I have.

Last year I planted Fava beans and snow peas about now, and they were very healthy and vigorous and productive.  This time I'm planting them in a standard raised bed that had tomato plants last year.  That bed was given a dose of lime about 2 months ago. 

Onion seedlings. 2.15.17

Onion Seedlings.  2.15..17

So far, so good.  Some of the seedlings succumbed to damping off.  The hybrid "Patterson" and the old historic "Ailsa Craig" seem to be the toughest.  Still a few weeks to go before planting in the kitchen garden.

Blackberry Clearing. 2.15.17

Blackberry Clearing.  2.15.17

Over the past few weeks, I've been spending a few hours on each nice day, clearing blackberry brambles.  This area is the final 1/4 for this patch.  The cleared area is almost the entire photo, bare soil.  It took me about 15 months of work off and on.  I cleared part of it last fall and broadcast grass seeds in early winter.  That is the faintly green part.  The cut-off trees were dead and fallen, intermixed with brambles.  The fencing surrounds the Metasequoia tree that I planted last October.   For the most part, I'll broadcast more grass seed, so the regenerated blackberry vines get mowed down with lawn mowing.  I also added one garden bed, about 6 by 12 feet, and at the edges planted perennials from other parts of the yard.  Also some flowers planted for where I laid Baigou to rest near the Metasequoia.  Behind those standing and leaning trees, about 10 to 15 feet beyond, is a minor ravine and seasonal creek.  I want to plant some more good trees to hold soil.  Closest to the dying Hawthorns I'm planting a row of fast-growing cypress.  In the lawn, I think I'll add a couple of chestnut trees and a native maple seedling.  Those Douglas Hawthorns and native filbert trees don't seem able to stand for that many years.

Onion Seedlings. 1.27.17

Onion Seedlings.  1.27.17

The onion seedlings are looking pretty good.  At first I thought germination was not adequate, but they appear to have filled in over the past 2 weeks.  These are on a seedling mat, and under fluorescent lights.

I am also testing some hot pepper seeds, obtained from a package of dried peppers at the Chinese grocery store.  Those are very hot peppers, variety unknown but of the Thai type.

Home Orchard Chores. Deer and Rabbit protection. 1.19.17

Stone Fruits.  Image via Vintageprintable.com

Today I did some orchard chores.

Last year I planted 3 blackberry cultivars, 5 plants of "Prime-Ark Freedom", a thornless primocane upright blackberry, 3 plants of "Ebony King", a reduced thorn standard upright blackberry, and one plant of "Columbia Star", a new thornless trailing blackberry. Most were in the fig tree row, and were subjected to deer and rabbit foraging. Prime-Ark Freedom was much loved by rabbits, while all of them were chewed, chopped off, and pulled up, by deer.

Yesterday and today I prepped an orchard bed, which consists of the mini-dwarf "Liberty" apple and dwarf "Jonagold" that I moved from Vancouver earlier this winter, and extends to a semidwarf "Winecrisp" apple that I planted bare-root in early 2016. This bed was squashes and tomatoes in 2016. I fenced it off, using 1-inch mesh plastic fencing. This fencing is better to avoid deer browsing, because they cant pull leaves and stems through the mesh, unlike metal 2 x 4 inch fencing.

There was room for a row of the 3 Ebony King blackberries, and separately for the "Columbia Star" blackberry, which will need a trellis. These are not protected from rabbits, who only seemed to like the "Prime-Ark Freedom" variety. In a separate bed, with fencing that should also protect from rabbits, I planted the "Prime-Ark Freedom" plants. Some of these look like they had significant freeze damage.

Persimmons.  Image via Vintageprintable.com

The ground is quite wet. I tried to minimize any tromping, by staying off the garden soil as much as possible and working from the edges.

I also worked on deer fences in the main orchard. Mostly, I now have larger cages for several of the trees, which were subjected to deer browsing via pulling stems through the larger fencing openings. Most got the 1 inch plastic mesh. I have about 5 trees remaining that need some deer cage adjustments, mainly making the cages bigger.

Most of the deer cages are as big as they will ever need to be.  As the trees grow larger, most will be too high for normal deer browsing.   The deer cages are a hassle, and make it more difficult to mulch, weed, prune, and otherwise maintain the area.  Over the next few years, I hope to remove several if not most of the cages, and change to just mowing between trees.