This is the Northpole apple tree on unknown but aggressive rootstock. Or, planted to deeply so the scion grew its own roots. Twenty or twentyone years old. I pruned it a couple of weeks ago. I actually like the odd shape and sturdy trunk, but it's too vigorous for the small garden and less aggressive pruner. My newer grafts are on less aggressive rootstocks.
They are mostly doing well. Lots of growth for the up-potted tomatoes, eggplants, and some of the peppers. Basil is growing nicely. I also planted some old basil seeds. The 5 year old seeds had spotty germination. A pack not labeled by date, maybe a year or two old from Baker Creek, purple leaf basil, germinated very well. Chinese and regular chives from home saved seeds doing very well. Lettuce and celery doing well. Apple seedlings too.
Slicing and Salad Tomato Seedlings
This morning I planted more seeds for the kitchen garden. With so many seedlings already, it can be a challenge to give them space under the plant lights. Most of the early ones are tropicals, like tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, but some should be able to go outside soon. Like lettuce, cilantro, celery, chive seeds.
What I planted:
Two six-packs of Chinese chives. We use a lot of those for dumplings. Home-saved seeds from last fall. We've been growing Chinese chives from our saved seeds for about 20 years. They are perennial so I don't save and plant every year, or even every other year. The seem to fail to thrive after four or five years, so it's good to regenerate them now and them.
Two containers of cilantro. One from new seeds, one from seeds saved last fall.
Paste tomatoes, experiment. One batch is Roma II hybrid, one is Amish paste tomato. One six-pack of each. I have not tried either. The best are Ranger hybrid from Territorial Seeds but they are WAY more expensive and their shipping and handling is horrendous. If the Amish turn out OK, I can save seeds from those for future growing. If not, there is the Roma II hybrid. My main challenge with paste tomatoes has been blossom end rot. I read that calcium spray will prevent that, so ordering that now. Flavor-wise, it's possible that either the Roma or Amish will be better than Ranger, anyway.
I planted some old parsley seeds. About 5 years old.
The last batch of cilantro seeds was interesting. I thought the home saved seeds always did well. This time, germination has been spotty. Maybe I'm just too impatient. Still, there is some. Today, to do a side-by-side comparison, I planted a pot of new Ferry Morse cilantro seeds, and another pot of home saved seeds. We can use a bunch of cilantro each week, so they can be planted every week or two.
Photo is cilantro seedlings. I think this is about 2 weeks old. It does look like more are germinating.
Today I repotted the potato seedlings. Germination was actually pretty good. I had planted about 3 seeds per cell. Germination was about that, or slightly less. From the 6-pack plus 2 cells, I planted 16 plants, and discarded a couple of runts.
The potatoes still seem delicate, and quite a bit behind the tomatoes and most of the eggplants, and a bit behind most of the peppers. There is quite a wide range of vigor, and some have different leaf appearance and coloration. Maybe this up-potting will give them a big boost.
Yesterday I spread a small bucket of woodstove ashes in one of the tomato beds and one of the sweetcorn beds. I had to pull back the leaf mulch for the tomatoes. I hand-tilled and turned over the corn bed. That one is in the footprint of a former raised bed. The raised bed was one that I had built the first summer here, 2012 or 2013. I don't know whether being where a raised bed was, is good for the soil or not. The soil here is low in calcium, good in potassium, low in phosphorus, low in magnesium. The wood ashes are a combination of trees that grew here that were cut and burned for firewood, and the bones that resulted from making dog food from chicken thighs. Those will be high in calcium, phosphorus, and trace minerals. Potassium too from the wood ashes. It kind of averages out to a decent mineral supplement for those vegetables. Plus, the soil here is very acidic. The ashes are alkaline, so moderate that. I apply a dusting of ashes, and let it mellow for two or three months before using.
Potatoes should not be given alkaline supplements, so I did not apply in potato areas.
The bone fragments are still visible, but after burning them they are soft and fragile like chalk. They break down very quickly.
After rains, turning the soil and tilling in, the minerals will be pretty evenly dispersed.
