Planting Garlic Bulbils. 9.25.2020

 This year I let a couple of the garlic scapes make bulbils.  I think these are the variety "Musik" but I'm not certain.  The bulbils were really tiny, like rice  I don't know if they will grow, but it's not a big deal if they don't.  

Here is one of the scape heads with bulbils.  It was raining, so they are wet.

I planted them about 1/2 inch deep, an inch apart.  It's roughly 50 per 4 foot row, so about 100 altogether. 

Now it's just a matter of keeping weeds out and seeing what they do.  I don't expect to see any growth this fall, but you never know.

Crazy Potato from Compost Pile. 9.25.2020

 Yesterday when I was collecting compost for the new raised bed, I discovered these crazy potatoes in the bin.  They grew without added water or other benefits, just what came from the composting plants.  Potatoes tend to pop up all over, since I put the plant tops into compost and plant the potatoes in a different location each year.

These were Russets.  They made for some nice air fried French fries.

Apple Harvest So Far. 9.25.2020

 I picked some of the early fall ripening apples.  This year the Liberty apples are some of the first.  I think my approach of grating multiple varieties to each tree had some merit.  Not only does that help with pollination, but there are different varieties in the same space, and they ripen at different times, spreading out the harvest.  I label the Liberty apples for Ning.  They are his favorite.  I like them too.

This year a King David apple graft, a heritage cultivar first grown in Arkansas, had its first apples.  It's not very vigorous, and needed about 4 or 5 years.  They turned out to be quite tasty, good texture, nice in every way.  Small, which is fine.  I don't care for giant size apples.

The King David apples.

Some of the Liberty apples.

This year I'm storing them in a shed, where they should be cooler than when I stored them in the garage.  I'm also putting them on newspaper and trying to avoid stacking them.

 

I found some King David apples on the USDA pomological watercolor website.  As with other images, I edited a little for size and clarity.

This is the description for King David on orange pippin website  "one of the lesser-known apples that were promoted by the famous Stark Brothers nursery at the end of the 19th century... discovered as a chance seedling...but most authorities agree that Jonathan is one of the parents, and it has the aromatic qualities associated with that variety.  The other parent is believed to be Winesap or Arkansas Black, and visually it has a resemblance to the latter."  I usually like any apple with Jonathan genes.  They have a flavor that stands out very nicely.

These are really good.  Maybe I will graft a scion from this graft, onto some super dwarfing scion for my miniature fruit tree mini orchard.

Dahlias. 9.25.2020

 These dahlias have been blooming and blooming since mid summer.  I just planted them in the vegetable garden where I found space.  Next year they deserve a better location and tying up.  The question now is, do I leave the tubers in the ground or dig them up and store them in the garage for the winter.

The Last Batches of Sauce Tomatoes And Better Boys. 25 Sept 2020.

 Yesterday I harvested the rest of the Ranger sauce tomatoes and the Better Boy slicing tomatoes.  I left the Bodaceous and cherry tomatoes on the plant for today.  It's raining, so there is done splitting.

Even though some catalogs claim that determinates, like these sauce tomatoes, don't need staking, the plants really did much better in cage support structures.  Back burner project for this winter, make some better cages.  Two plants fell over and were touching the ground.  Those plants were much more worse for the wear, with badly damaged tomatoes and rotting leaves.  Even so, with the plants looking as bad as they did, the crop was very nice.  I have enough for some more cooking up into whatever I want for another week or so.  The round ones with the sauce tomatoes are Early Girl Bush.  Those were good for slicing too.

There are also enough Better Boy for a couple of weeks if they keep that long.

I also picked Jalapenos.  The plants remain healthy looking and vigorous.  I should let a couple of them ripen and save the seeds.  This was a good variety and I forget which one it is.  

With this year being one bad news after another, I did not know if these crops would make it to the result.  Growing them is more about the doing than the getting.  Yet here they are, lots of beautiful and delicious, nutritious garden grown vegetables.   It's very good for the soul.