Tomato Plants. 4.6.18

The tomato plants are growing quickly under lights.  They are a little spindly.  I'm potting them up into larger containers, with potting soil instead of seed starting medium, and moving them into the sunroom, where they get real sunlight.  There is still about a month to go before I plant them in the garden.

Planting Some Columbine Starts. 4.6.18

I saw these columbine starts at the store, so thought I would try them.  I have not tried to grow them from bare root plants before.

The bare root plants looked fairly sturdy.  I planted them per the package directions, in the woodland border.   Deer sometimes eat plants there, and I have had columbines partly eaten by deer, so we'll see what happens.  They were not too expensive, so no loss if they don't work out.

Planting More Potatoes. 4.6.18

 This year I'm staggering the potato planting over about 6 or 8 weeks.  They are not all the same varieties, so it's not a real test of when is best to plant them.  I just don't want to overdo the garden work by planting them all at one time.

This week I bought another package of Yukon Gold potato sets.  They were already quite sprouted.  I planted all of them today, and didn't bother to cut the sets into pieces.

This year they are all going into trenches.  Last year, I  planted more shallow, and hilled up soil around them.  I think that makes for drier soil in summer, hence need for more water.  In addition, voles got into several of them.  This time, we'll see if planting deeper means less watering and less loss to voles.

I'm digging a trench about 1 foot deep, placing the sets into the trench, then covering with a few inches of soil. As they grow, I'll continue to fill in with soil.

I didn't bother to stand the sprouts upright.  I doubt that it matters.

Grafting Apple Scion. 4.1.18

 It was a somewhat chilly and drizzly day.  I had a packet of scion from Fedco.  Earlier this Spring, I didn't have much chance to collect my own scion, due to events beyond my control, but I still like doing some grafting each Spring.

I've been wanting to add some Honeycrisp to the young Winecrisp (plus Milo Gibson plus Sweet-16) tree, so here it is.  I also haven't liked the Rubinette branch on another multigraft (originally Rubinette + Queen Cox + Pristine, but now with a deer-damaged King David + Dolgo + Goldrush + a puny Hawkeye branch).  Rubinette is reputed to be among the best tasting of all apples, but in my hands the apples are misshapen and disease magnets, while other varieties on the same tree are fine.  So I did some pruning and added Prima, another King David to replace the deer damaged branch, and  Fameuse.  I also had a rootstock taken from an underground sucker off an old semidwarf tree, and grafted Fameuse scion onto that as well.

 Over the years, I've dispensed with using wax or Tree-Kote on apple grafts.  I've seen some videos shoing grafters using ribbons cut from plastic bags, which worked well for me last year.  It takes some practice to stretch them tightly around the graft union without displacing the graft, but once in place the plastic ribbons make a tight bandage for the union to heal nicely.  I also wrap the entire scion, but not as tightly.  I do have to watch for growth, so the plastic does not restrict new growth and expansion.

 For the cut, I use a Felco grafting knife.  A lot of modern grafters like using box-cutter utility knife, which can result in a clean sharp blade each time.  I see the attraction but stick to my old Felco.

I cut tags from roadside beer can discards.  I rinse them with lysol in case the people who generously provide the cans (by throwing them out of their cars) have some sort of communicable disease, then cut with kitchen shears and use a paper punch to cut a hole.  I fassten them to the branch, using a loose zip tie.  I watch the tree so growth is not girdled later when the branch expands.  That's not a problem.  I putter around these trees all of the time.

These labels work as well as any mail order label.  I use a ball point pen to emboss the name of the cultivar and date of the graft.

Prima is a Purdue-Rutgers-Illinois hyrid, originally bred to be scab resistant although scab has evolved past that property; best eaten fresh.  Per Fedco, resistant to Fireblight, cedar apple rust, and mildew.

King David is an older variety, info here is from Fedco:  "thought to be to Jonathan x Arkansas Black... 1893. Intensely flavored... Pineapple, tangerine, lemon, sweet, sour, tart, sharp, aromatic and spicy all rush around simultaneously. The medium-sized roundish fruit is very dark solid maroon—nearly black. The fine juicy flesh is firm yet tender and distinctly yellow."

I already had Honeycrisp on M27 rootstock, which restricts growth so much it's never been more than  2 feet tall and has had, maybe, one apple in 5 years.  So I'm trying it on a larger growing multigraft semi-dwaf size tree.

Fameuse is also known as Snow.   I already have a graft of Fameuse on another tree, but it doesn't amount much yet and I want to give it a good chance.  Fedco describes Fameuse as originating in Quebec before 1700. "The 1865 Department of Agriculture yearbook sums it up: “Flesh remarkably white, tender, juicy"…deliciously pleasant, with a slight perfume… Medium-small roundish ruby-red thin-skinned fruit." and possibly a parent of McIntosh.

Seedlings - tomatoes, peppers, some brassicas, and onions. 3.31.18.

 The tomatoes, peppers, and brassicas germinated nicely.  They are under lights in a West window.

I always plant several seeds per cell.  I thinned to 1 or 2 plants per cell.  When they are a little larger, I may separate some into 2 plants for further growing.

The Brassicas (collard greens and brussels sprouts) are a little leggy.

 I may try again outside.

The onions seedlings that I started 2 months ago didn't do as well.  I was not able to give them the attention that I wanted to then.  Still, they look OK, so I planted them in the garden bed.