Apple Scion Order for 2021. 10.24.2020

I ordered Apple Scion, and a Pear Scion for next year.  None of these will be new trees.  I like trying them on multigrafts.  That way they bear sooner, I get a taste sooner, and I don't have to devote space, effort, and cost to entirely new trees.  I think I will retire a few less desirable branches and replace them with these.  Some may go onto the espaliers that I am growing.  I also changed my mind about a couple of the minigrafts, which I will overgraft with a couple or few of these.

Honeycrisp.  Everyone knows this one.  I have tried it before.  It is not easy.  It will go on one of the minidwarfs that I decided to overgraft.

 Gala.  A relatively modern apple (1934 if that is modern) with an excellent flavor originally from New Zealand.  Ripens in Winter and is a keeping apple.  Gala is a cross of Kidd's Orange Red and Golden Delicious.  Kidd's Orange Red is a cross of Cox's Orange Pippin and Delicious.  Cox is the classic English apple that gives some of its descendants a more tropical, aromatic flavor.  I don't know if that "Delicious" is "Red Delicious" - I read it is not "Golden Delicious", anyway. 

 Duchess of Oldenberg.  A historic apple, originally from Russia.  Ripens late Summer.

Otterson.  A smaller, tart, highly red flesh juice apple with some astringency.  This apple is for coloring apple juices red by increasing the anthocyanin content.  Ripens in Fall, per Fedco.  Probably late 20th century.

William's Pride.  Modern PRI disease resistant apple.  Ripens in early August.  (Fall, per Fedco).   Williams Pride has a complex lineage, with the only grandparent that I recognize as Jonathan.  Five generations back there is Rome and Malus floribunda 821, the source of its scab resistance.  The pollination event that created William's Pride was in 1973 at the University of Illinois in Urbana, IL.  Described as a Summer dessert apple.

Opalescent.  Historic apple.  Ripens in Fall per Fedco.

Dana Hovey Pear - a winter pear.  This is my first knowledge of "winter pears".  Will it be easier to know when they are ripe?  An Experiment.

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Of these apples, only Opalescent and Duchess of Oldenburg are historic variety (more than 100 years old).  This is an image of Opalescent from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Pomological Watercolor Collection. Rare and Special Collections, National Agricultural Library, Beltsville, MD 20705 (attribution required by the web site)

I edited this image slightly to increase contrast and color resolution, and edited some of the margins to make the image more visible.  

According to Apples of North America, by Tom Burford, Opalescent originated in 1880 when George Hudson found the seedling while digging out stumps in Barry County, Michigan.  It stores well.  It has susceptibility to apple diseases.  I have a small branch of Opalescent on a dwarf multigraft.  I like the apple, nice sweet  flavor.    I decided to include this in my scion order because I'm not confident that if I take a cutting from my multigraft, that it will be the right one.  According to Trees of Antiquity, Opalescent was once widely grown in New England.

Duchess of Oldenberg, from the same USDA Pomological Website as above.  According to Fedco, Duchess of Oldenburg was imported in 1835 along with other Russian apples.  It was named for the sister of Czar Alexander, Catherine Pavlovna.  Described as scab resistant, which is good in my garden.  Considered one of the best for pies and sauce.  As quoted from Apples of New York in Trees of Antiquity, these apples "Kept up the hope of prairie orchardists in times of great discouragement".   According to Wikipedia, Duchess of Oldenburg dates to the era of 1750 - 1799.

 

 

More Apple Harvest. 10.24.2020

 Almost all of the apples are harvested.   Some are a little too late, and no longer full flavor.  I didn't get much of an early variety harvest this year, and missed some of the ones that did.  The thing about gardening is, each living thing has it's own time and season.  While there is flexibility, you have to read the signals that nature provides.

Anyway, there are still lots of apples.  This is from the columnar type, Scarlet Sentinel.  These are certainly not "Scarlet" apples, just a blush of red.  They may not be fully ripe yet.  They have a nice flavor, mildly sweet, not  much sourness.  Nice apples, no scab at all.  This tree had no care other than pruning lower branches out of deer range, and no watering  at a this year.

Mixed apples from the front yard.  The Greenish ones are GoldRush.  They are late ripening, known for keeping a long time.  The others are a mix of what remained, some Rubinette, Queen Cox, and a couple of others.  The basket is from the Jonathan / Jonared / Others apple tree.

This is a mixed box.  The scabby ones are Airlie Red Flesh.  The others are a mix of Baldwin, Opalescent, Sutton Beauty, and a few others.

Deer Fence. 10.16.2020

This year's new deer fence worked out wonderfully.  Other than the recent tragedy last week when I left the gate open for just a single night.  Just one night.  

Fortunately, that was after almost all of the veggies have been harvested for the year.  I hope the mini apple trees will survive and come back.  We'll see...  in April.

 This photo was in Nov, shortly after the fence was built. This year, having a good fenced garden was a life saver.  It gave a better crop of plants that in previous years didn't grow at all due to deer and, sometimes, rabbits.  It was far easier to manage that my previous make-shift fencing.  I was able to branch out and grow a few things that I wanted to try, and the animals always destroyed before, like beans and peas.  Even the supposedly deer-resistant plants, like onions and garlic, did better.

It was wonderful not having to think of my vegetable garden as a battleground against deer, and also rabbits.  It was the best, most diverse, most productive garden that I have ever had.

Space is at a premium.  Last winter I didn't have room elsewhere for potatoes, which don't need that protection.   Next year they'll go where I currently have sweetcorn and old raised beds. That will free up some additional space.  Also, I won't plant so many snow peas, which can spread too much for the amount that I want.  I might move some squash outside of the fence, although that can be a iffy prospect because deer like some varieties and leave others alone.  On the other hand, raised beds and fruit trees will take up more room than this year, so I need to plan carefully.

 

 

Red Oak Seedling at One Year Old. 10.24.2020

 Here is a red oak tree that I grew from an acorn.  It's one of the few that deer missed on their dinner night out in my garden.  Now it has brilliant red leaves.  Some of the others were a nice red too, but this one is incredible.  I fond a nice location for it and planted in the ground, with some fencing for protection.  Red oaks grow faster than while oaks, so it has potential to reach at least "tree size" during my lifetime

I imagine that the other deer marauding victims will recover and grow next year.  There are a couple that I would like to save.  I also noted that while the red oaks were de-leafed, the white oaks were left untouched.  Tougher, smaller leaves?  Or just not noticed?

Remodeling a Plant Stand. 10.15.2020

 This has been my plant stand for starting vegetable seeds, for about 20 years.  Most of it is metal, but the tabletop was particle board with some sort of plastic or contact paper to look like faux wood, sort of.

The metal parts are in fairly good shape.  They can be cleaned of with steel wool and given a couple of coats of Rust-oleum.  I'm leaning towards a bronze look, which matches other furniture in the sun room.

I found a plank a little more than twice as long as the table top, and a bit more than half as wide.  I cut two pieces, and edge glued them, along with three braces on the underside which I glued into place and "clamped" with drywall screws.  I also found some 1 x 2 trim in the shed and cut to make a trim all around.  After installing that, using wood glue and 1 1/2 inch nails, I have the general look that I want.

Since this will be a plant stand, I'd like for it to be a bit more water tolerant.  I might finish the top using vinyl plank flooring left over from a bedroom remodel.  I could paint the trim either the same bronze, or black.   I'm not sure yet.  The wood is nothing special at all, but I could do a dark stain and apply a few coats of polyurethane.

Plant stand before starting.  You can't tell, but that fake wood grain plastic coating just peeled off like badly sunburned skin.

 

It disassembled fairly easily.  This is one of those assemble-with-an-allen-wrench types of furniture.  That metal frame is nice and sturdy.  

I sat the cut pieces of wood on the bottom section to look at them for a while.

After gluing and fastening the two planks together, same for braces on underside, and installing edging.

There is still a front piece to install, but this is most of the construction.  I don't want to install the drawers again.  They are just ugly and useless.  The front piece will somewhat hide the lights that I want to install under the table top.   The new top is almost interesting enough to apply some sort of whitewash type finish, if there is something water-proof that I could use for a seal.  I still think I'm most likely to pain the trim black, or dark grey, and install vinyl flooring as the top surface.  It's just more practical for a plant starting station.

I like this enough so far, I might make a similar wide shelf for the lower part to start vegetable plants under LED plant lights.  The current shelf is narrow metal.  I'm sure there are more wood planks in the shed.  I guess I should finish this part before embellishing it with something more.

Now to wait for Amazon to deliver the wood fillers and Rust-oleum.  I'm not into going to Home Depot for a viral version of Russian Roulette just yet.