Bagging Leaves for Leaf Mould. 12.6.22

 The five vegetable raised beds either have something growing in them, or a soil "therapeutic" cover crip (mustard), or will soon (winter onions).   I still want to add leaf compost to them, but this time it will have to be as they do in UK, by making leaf mould.  Leaf mould is made by storing wet leaves in large leaf bags, letting them moulder for a season into something like an intermediate stage between compost and peat moss.  It's a fungal dominated process instead of bacterial (whatever that indicates).  I still have some large areas that need a thick tree leaf mulch but there is also make a bag of leaf mould for each raised bed.

The truckload made five big bags of leaves.  I tied the tops and laid them in an out of the way, out of direct sun.  Various sources state it will take six months to a year to become leaf mould.  I'm in it for the long haul.  One thing that's great about using these leaves, is I don't think they carry any vegetable plant diseases or parasites.  Just healthy humus.

Overwintering Pepper Plants. Update. 11.29.22

 Here are the pepper plants so far.  We are at just over one month now.   No more fungus gnats, aphids, or any other visible insects.  They were becoming noticeably light (dry) so I gave each a cup of water.  Not enough to run out the bottom.

Tabasco.  I'm not aiming for any growth, bit this one has the most and largest new shoots so far.

Serrano.

Early Jalapeño.  A few small new shoots.  Basically dormant.

Cayenne.  Quite a few small shoots.

Banana.  No much going on here.  Still green, which seems like a good thing.

Thai Dragon.  I left the leaves on for ripening peppers.  I thought they might die and fall off.  So far they are still there.  No insect problems, so I'm leaving them alone.

These are all in a south facing window, in a cool (usually 50s F) room.

Nikita's Gift Persimmon. 11.27.22

 This persimmon tree always produces a generous crop of nice persimmons.

Harvesting Horse-Radish. 11.27.22

 I dug up one of the horse-radish clumps.

I cut some of the root into 1/2 inch cubes.  About a cup.

I added 1/2 cup of vinegar, 2 tablespoons of sugar, and 1/4 tsp salt, and ground it all up in the food processor.

Very tasty.  This cleared my sinuses and brought tears to my eyes.

Progress Refurbishing Mini-Orchard. 11.27.22

 I hauled and spread five wheel-barrows of arborist tree chips, for the pathways in the mini-orchard.  I also laid out the general footprint for the planned planter that will have peppers next year.

This view shows Jonathan dwarf apple tree on Geneva 222.  I used the Geneva 222 for this one, instead of Bud-9, because Jonathan has so much less vigor compared to most other apple cultivars.

This view shows Akane on  Bud-9.

I think the right foreground mini-tree is Black Oxford apple on Bud-9.  I need to check.  In front of the raised bed is Porter apple on Bud-9.