Grafts Progress Notes. Apples and Chestnuts. 4.16.2021

 Grafts look OK so far.  It's early to see much growth, but the buds are swelling.  These are the top tiers for the espaliers.

These are the new chestnut grafts..  So far so good.

 

Planting Tomato Plants and Potato Tubers. 4.16.21

 It's an unusually warm, even hot Spring.  Days into the 80s, but nights into high 30s to low 40s.  I decided to plant out the rest of the first group of tomato plants.  I am covering them on the coldest nights.

No photos of the potatoes.   They were from Fedco in Maine.  Varieties Algonquin (Early variety), Envol ("The earliest of the early"), Kennebec (my favorite, a very good baker) mid season, and Russet Burbank (Always good) late season.  

This is about the earliest that I have planted tomatoes, and the latest I have planted potatoes.

The Clancy potato seedlings have been doing OK.  There were some freezes, and there are a few frosted leaves, but they seem to be growing well.  I covered them on those freezing nights for protection.

Disappearing Nine Patch Quilt. Progress Notes. 4.10.2021

 All of the squares are cut now.  I started sewing together the nine patches.  It will take a while to complete them, and there is no hurry.

This photo is from when I started cutting them.  There are now about 49 piles of each color pair, 12 squares per color.

Here are some of the second hand men's shirts that will go into the spare bed quilt.  They are shades of blue and grey.  I want to add some brown, tan, khaki type colors.  A few more should do it.   My current thought is either 5 X 5 squares or 5 X 10 squares.  Maybe do the latter and if there are not enough, change to 5 X 5.

Tomato Seedlings. 4.10.2021

 Here are the slicing and cherry tomato seedlings now.  They are all growing nicely.  In order to slow them down a little, I'm not fertilizing, and I move them outside where it's cooler, during the day.  They just need to hold on a couple more weeks for better weather.

The varieties include favorite hybrids (Better Boy and Lemon Boy), hybrids I haven't tried before (Braveheart, Early Goliath), Russian heirloom types (Golden King of Siberia, Moscovich, Purple Russian),  heirloom Classic Beefsteak, a cherries Braveheart, Sugar Rush, and Unicorn, and a yellow volunteer cherry tomato that came up volunteer from last year, probably descended from Sungold.hybrid.

Now that I have the Water Tube plant enclosures set up, I can plant six of these outside in a few days.  That will give the soil inside time to warm up.  I measured the soil temp, it's about 46 in am and 50s in afternoon, maybe 10 or more degrees warmer than ambient temperature.  I'm thinking, maybe the three Russian varieties and  classic Beefsteak, Better Boy and Lemon boy.

These were formerly called "Wall'o'Water" but now called "Season Starter".  I bought three more via Amazon and set them up yesterday.  They hold about 4 gallons of water.

Here they are this morning.  No plants in them yet.

Apple Seedlings. 4.6.2021

 So far these apple seedlings are continuing to look pretty happy.  The green leaf seedling has about the same number of leaves as the burgundy leaf seedlings.  It's the interstems that are longer, making for a taller plant.