Visiting the Baker Creek Petaluma Seed Bank. 1.5.18

Petaluma Seed Bank, Baker Creek Seeds.  1.6.18

 Last weekend I was in Petaluma, CA, and remembered the Baker Creek Seed Bank store is there.  So we visited.  What a cool place!  It's like the catalog, but in person.  Very helpful staff.  I left with another dozen packets of seeds for this year's kitchen garden.

Petaluma Seed Bank, Baker Creek Seeds.  1.6.18

Petaluma Seed Bank, Baker Creek Seeds.  1.6.18

Using Bone Ashes in the Garden. 12.9.18

I was thinking about what to do with the beef bones after Rufus is done with them. Most people would throw them into the trash or bury them, but I like to see if things are useful. Since I do much of the heating with a wood stove, I wondered if I could mineralize the bones and spread that in the garden along with the wood ashes. It appears the answer is yes.

First, bone ash is considered an organic fertilizer and is mostly calcium and phosphorous. In my soil tests, calcium was very low, and phosphorus was somewhat low. So at least in the small amounts that I use, these are needed mineral nutrients. The wood ashes are also mostly calcium, so it's kind of more of the same thing, similar to adding lime. Except wood ashes are also high in potassium and there are some other nutrients.

Here is a link to someone who wanted to use human ashes in their garden. I imagine those are mostly from bone, with the other parts going up in smoke. The problem with using some human ashes in gardening, is they might contain lead or mercury.  I'm not interested in getting any of those.

I added a couple of Rufus's beef leg bone chunks to the wood stove, as I fed more logs, and just let them burn along with the wood.  It turns out, the very small chunks that survived the fire were much more brittle and flaky, than the original bone.  Most of the bone had disintegrated. So I just put the intact pieces back into the woodstove for the next go-round.  As for the rest, it will just be part of the mineral supplement that I add to the gardens during this winter, to replenish what is removed in the process of growing plants and removing their products.

At an atomic level, next year when I admire the bearded irises, or eat some figs, I'll ponder these cycles of life, and imagine that some of the atoms in those flowers and fruits, last resided in some Bessie the cow, or were trees on the back woodlot, collecting sunshine for 45 years (I counted the rings), before warming my sore joints in the woodstove.  This gives me a nice feeling, about the continuous process of renewal.

Collecting scion. And a Graft failure. 12.4.18

 Today I collected some scion for late winter grafting.  In this case, it was Pristine apple.  Pristine is an excellent PRI (Purdue Rutgers Illinois) disease-resistant apple, early season, really delicious with a delightful flavor. 

Unfortunately, this branch basically fell off the tree this summer.  It managed to hang on by a small amount of bark on one side, apparently living bark.

Today I removed some scion to try

 grafting late winter, onto another tree.  It appears viable.   I wrap in foil, then place into zip-lock bag and refrigerate until some time in March.

 I will remove this branch some time this winter.  There isn't much holding it onto the tree.

From the wound, it's obvious that there was never much connection.

There will be some more scion to collect.  I also want to collect some from North Pole apple.

A graft failure.  "Pristine" apple.  Unknown Semidwarfing Rootstock.  12.4.18

More Visitors. 12.4.18

Today a family of deer - three - was hanging out in the kitchen garden / orchard area.  They are skittish, and too far away for a decent I-phone photo. So I only caught this one "on film".

I think I have most of the browsing under control and can enjoy them better as a result. 

This was the first time that i really got a good look at their tails.  They are definitely  black tailed deer.

So far, only slight buck damage to one cypress tree.  I'm watching regularly.  Any further damage, and I'll want to do some protective fencing trees on some of the trunks.

Garden Visitors. 12.2.18

 These two rascals were watching me yesterday.  They were cautious.  I don't know if they are feral or domestic.  They look so clean and healthy, I suspect they are someone's cats.

We have moles, voles, mice, rats, and rabbits, in high numbers.  I won't argue about wild cats' role in bird population declines.  Other things that affect bird populations are urbanization / suburbinization, habitat loss, and maybe climate change.   Some of the lost species are raptors and other predators, too.  So maybe cats fill in a space where other predators have been lost, and some day there will be a new ecological balance.

Meanwhile, I'm hoping these two will concentrate on rodents.  There is a neighbor who traps cats and takes them to the humane society, to protect birds.  Another neighbor feeds the cats.  Apparently, the local raccoons kill and eat the cat litters, as well.  I will stay out of that battle.

I'm not crazy about these cats leaving spoor on the top of the ground in the garden beds.   Some cats carry parasites.  I bury that when I see it.

I wonder if they visit because of the catnip I plant around the yard?  There are several bunches.  In past years, some of the catnip was destroyed, I assume by loose cats.

But I will also thank them if there is no vole damage this year.