First Bloom. 1.24.22

 A few buds are opened on a flowering cherry in the chicken yard.

The variety is "unknown".  Several years ago, I grafted a bloom spike from a flowering cherry tree in Vancouver, onto a volunteer wild cherry seedling.  This is the result.

Planting More Seeds. 1.24.22

 I gave up on the first Echinacea seeds.  From my reading, they don't maintain viability long at all, maybe a year at best.  I planted fresh seeds for those.  I found an old packet of dwarf carnation seeds dated 2014.  I don't recall ever growing them.  Eight years is a big stretch, but if I don't plant them, I won't know.  So I planted them too.

I also planted some Gloriosa Daisy seeds.  They are described as perennial Rudbeckia hirta, but some sources state that early planting can give same - year flowers.  Growing perennials from seeds can be very rewarding.  All of the mystery is taken out.  It shows one doesn't have to buy a potted plant for ten bucks, a three dollar seed packet will produce an entire row.   There is a sense if accomplishment, "I did that'" instead of "I bought it".  Even more if the seeds are home saved, but you have to start somewhere.

Of the peppers I planted earlier, only the Jalapeños and Serranos have germinated so far.  I'm trying a new packet of Thai Dragon, plus a planting with more Tabasco pepper seeds.  And a Hontaka Cayenne from the Chili Pepper Institute at the University of New Mexico.  I also decided to play with miniature tomato varieties, Micro Tom Tomato and  Red Robin Tomato  The plants grow the size of small pepper plants.  If they grow, I can see how they do under LEDs.  And last, starting some wild-type Coreopsis for the "will the damn deer eat them?" flower bed. I haven't planted a couple varieties in the photo, yet.

 

Seed Viability Testing. Capitano Beans. 1.24.22

 Here is the conclusion for the Capitano bean viability test.

Roughly 5 or 6 seeds appear to be viable,  Some are already rotting and others are questionable.  I think what I'll do is, plant all of the packet thickly. If enough grow to get a crop, I'll see if I like them and save seeds.  If they don't grow at all, that's OK,    Beans get planted when it's warm, maybe May or June so it will be a while.

Testing Bean Seeds For Viability. 1.18.22

 I was sorting old seed packets and found this one.  I don't know how old it is.  Five years?  Two?  Ten?  I don't recall ever harvesting this variety.  The packet was opened so I must have planted some.  It's a mystery, sort of like where did they bury Jimmy Hoffa.

I looked these up. They are a yellow pod Roma type bean. Why would I buy that? Well, there are the seeds. I decided to test them for viability. If they don't grow, the whole packet becomes chicken feed. If they do, I can eat the sprouts and, when it's warm and the air is perfumed by apple blossoms, I can plant the remaining seeds in the kitchen garden. Or maybe when the air is perfumed by rose blossoms. Apples might be too early. Count out 15 beans. Place them on a wet paper towel and fold it over twice.

Place them into a generic zipper sandwich bag, then onto the seed starting mat.

Now I can sit back and watch them grow.

Planting Peach Seeds. 1.18.22

 These are seeds that I stratified in the refrigerator.  The source peaches were from a tree that I also grew from a seed, that one from the variety "Oregon Curl Free".  The original tree died from canker but was not bothered by Peach Leaf Curl, the "leprosy" that usually kills most peach trees here.  Those peaches are delicious, nice size, yellow clingstone, great fresh, in pie, or canned.  The tree is highly productive and never bothered by peach leaf curl.

It might seem like it would take a long time for a seedling peach tree to produce fruit.  However in my experience, it takes about three or four years.  Almost as fast as a bought tree but no issues with the rootstock possibly being a problem (such as susceptibility to canker or carrying a nursery-borne virus).

The peaches ripened mid August.  I scrubbed some pits, wrapped in wet newspaper, and kept them in a closed jar in the refrigerator until a week ago. 

The pits are hard as rocks (maybe that's why they're called "stones" ha ha). I know peaches can be grown by planting the whole pit, but maybe they benefit by splitting the pit and removing the seed (see below).  That's what I did before. I used a hammer, tapping with some force on the pit edge against the concrete garage floor. A couple of seeds got smashed. Here are some nice looking ones.

To my eyes, these look nice and firm and viable. I planted six in seed starting medium in a seedling six pack.

Cover with more seed starting medium, water, label, place on seed warming mat.  The label is important.  Sometimes I think my mind is a sieve.

Will they grow? Who knows. I think, maybe.

[On removing hard shell from the seed.  Long ago when mastodons and wooly camels bellowed their forlorn songs across the frozen Pleistocene Savannas, I read an article in the Rodale era Organic Gardening and Farming Magazine describing how much better some seedlings grow if their outer coats are removed before planting the seeds.  The rationale was that the sprouts consume considerable energy breaking open the hard coat.  If the coat is removed, that energy goes into a burst of growth.  Why would I remember that after all these decades?]