Planting a Mail Order Rose. 3.11.22

I bought this "Tropical Lightning" climbing rose from a mail order catalog. It came today. Overall, it looks very good but I wonder if the pale wood on the rootstock means the bark is rubbed off. That would be bad. I planted it. Now we'll see if it survives.

Testing Flint Corn Seeds For Germination. 3.11.22

With chicken feed prices rising, I thought it might help to grow some feed corn. We'll also try growing sunflowers, millet, and sorghum to see if any of those is worthwhile. I thought about doing that in the past, both regular yellow field corn and Indian corn. We did grow Indian corn 4 years ago and I still had seeds. I had yellow field corn seeds from last year or the year before, but never planted it. The books state that sweetcorn seeds only last one year. I wondered if flint corn might last longer, since it has a much harder and thicker shell. To test these seeds, I placed six seeds of each variety into folded, wet paper towels, then into zipper plastic bags, kept them warm on the seed warming mat. Here is the result.

Here are the original packets.

Within five days, five of six seeds of each variety germinated. That's more than good enough for me to plant both packets.

Mushroom Log Hashtag. 3.11.22

Somewhere between Delta and Omicron I included an order for mushroom spawn with an early seed order. I've never grown mushrooms so it will be an experiment. I bought two types, "Chicken of the Woods" and "Shiitake". According to the instructions, the spawn can be kept in the fridge for up to a year. I had them there for about three months. Mushrooms grow from fungal filamemts that are grown in labs on wooden dowels. To make a mushroom log, drill about 5 holes into a fresh tree log, use a hammer to drive the dowels into the holes, and seal it all with paraffin. Then the log needs to be kept cool and damp for nine months to a year, while the filaments permeate the log, then it will grow mushrooms. Supposedly. According to the instructions, once the logs start bearing mushrooms, they continue producing crops for three to five years. Here is what the mushroom filament saturated dowels look like.

Here is what the logs look like after the dowels have been pounded in and holes and ends sealed with wax.

That took me about two hours. Now I just need to keep them in the dark and moist for 9 to 12 mo ths.

Comparing Dwarf and Nondwarf Tomato Seedlings. 3.10.22

I planted all of these tomato varieties at the same time. Most germinated at the same time, although Reisentraube was a day or two behind the others.

Of the varieties I planted, Non-Dwarf were Sungold, Early Girl Bush, Bush Early Boy, Honey Bee, Ukraine Purple, and Reisentraube. The Early Girl Bush and Bush Early Boy are not "Dwarf", they are determinate, which means they reach a certain size then the stems end in flower clusters. Dwarf varieties were Dwarf Johnson Cherry, Dwarf CC McGee, Dwarf BrandyFred, Dwarf Livingston Stone, Dwarf Champion Improved, New Big Dwarf, and Extreme Bush. I think Extreme Bush is both determinate and dwarf. It seems pretty apparent to me that, with one exception, all of the nondwarf seedlings show more vigor at this stage, only a couple of days after germination. Only Reisentraube is small. I wonder if it will get a growth spurt and pass the dwarf types in size soon - it may just be small because it was behind the others in germinating. In the photographs, a couple that are labeled dwarf seem to have larger seedlings too, but those are the nondwarf varieties in the cells behind them.

Cedar Planter Box Is Built. 3.10.22

That went pretty fast. I did spend the day working on it. Here is the completed planter box.

Inside the box, I'll have ten extra large "Grow Bags".

My original thought was to just have the "Grow Bags" sitting out without support. Then I thought about it, and they look kind of junky. Plus I was concerned they might get floppy, so I wanted them contained. Then I had the pallets to get rid of - the cement blocks for the earlier beds were delivered on them. So I sat the bags on those, which wasn't any better but I liked raising the bags higher. So I built the planter to hold the bags. Each bag will hold about the same number of plants as a 4 foot row in a 4 x 8 foot raised bed. Maybe a little less since I space most rows a foot apart so 8 rows per bed, whereas this is ten "Grow Bags" in a similar space. If I can, I'll build platform about four to six inches higher, to bring the bags up nearer to the edge of the sides. I think I'll scrub the wood and stain it, this summer. The wood is very nice. Here is a cut through one of the boards.