New Fruits for 2011

I've been cleaning up the front border, basically a renovation after a couple of years of neglect. In the process I'm moving towards less ornamental and lower maintenance. I'm putting in edging to keep grass invasion limited (a challenge and the biggest weed problem), and mulching with a medium bark nugget for decreased cat digging - seems to be working so far.

I cut down a Golden Delicious apple tree that has been in place for 8 years without bearing a single edible apple. Each year it blooms then disease strikes. It's not good for my garden/climate and time to get over it. Plus, I cut down a volunteer Japanese maple, nothing special, and taking "forever" to make a nice size. A fruit tree would be perfect in that spot, would look better, bloom nicely, be the perfect size, and provide sustainance. I've calculated that there is space for 3 eventually well-pruned fruit trees as a result of this cleanup.

Among the challenges here in my Portland Oregon - area yard, mild winter combined with late frost leads to some of the biggest fruit-growing disappointments. Sweet cherries bloom early, and last year the frost took a lot of them. Even so, we had several big bowls-full. Sour cherries have great flavor, and bloom later. I have added a "Sure-fire" sour cherry that looks like it will have a good year this year (3rd season) and now will add another variety.

This is Almaden Duke from Raintree Nursery. I'm hoping for a sort of wild-cherry flavor. It's on Gisela-5 dwarfing rootstock. After placing the order, I've been looking online for this variety and it isn't discussed much. I'm suspicious it's more in the sweet than tart cherry category, but I don't know what that will mean about bloom time.

This is Beauty Plum. The pic is from Dave Wilson Nurseries. I hope that my Shiro and Hollywood both bear this year. Last year (2nd or 3rd year, I forget) the HOllywood had one and the Shiro had none. It's probably their youth, but reading about pollination I get very conflicting data. Shiro is either self pollinating, or partial, or not at all, depending on the website. Same for Hollywood. Plus they don't pollinate each other. So, I'm adding Beauty, which Raintree Nursery states pollinates both Shiro and Hollywood, and is very precicious, bearing in the nursery row. So probably at least blooming in the first year and more likely second year, to provide pollen for the other varieties. Plus of course they claim wonderful flavor.

Raintree lists Beauty as one of its earliest ripening plums, Shiro in mid-season, and Hollywood as late. That should provide a spread of harvest as well as color and flavor. (Arggh, just now, looking at Raintree, Beauty won't pollinate Shiro. I can't win!) Here is a site (Wolcott Garden Treasures) claiming that Shiro can be pollinated by Hollywood and Beauty, and vice versa. WSU Extension lists Shiro, Hollywood, and Beauty as good for Western Washington.

The Peach-leaf-curl has also been a source of disappointment. This Indian Free peach is reported as resistant. I think I don't really need a genetic dwarf variety if I prune carefully. Also from Raintree. Needs a pollinizer; other peaches are nearby. Here's a website with a gorgeous pic of this peach; amazing. This peach is very well-regarded on the Dave Wilson nursery website as well, although being a commercial site, I doubt that they wouyld describe any peach negatively. " For some tasters, the unique white (and red!) peach ‘Indian Free’ (or Indian Blood Free - origin obscure) is still unsurpassed among the white fruits. The intense aroma and tart-sweet flavor of a fully tree-ripe Indian Free has to be experienced to be believed. " Apparently the "Indian Free" and "Indian Cling" are different varieties, and my be referred to as "Indian blood" as well. Not self fertile, but apparently many have been grown from seed, which would mean they are genetically diverse.

Interesting article about the history of Peaches in the American colonies of the SouthEast here: "Historians believe that peach trees were first introduced into the colonial settlements of the United States by the French explorers in 1562 at territories along the Gulf coastal region near Mobile, Alabama, then by the Spaniards who established Saint Augustine, Florida in 1565 on the Atlantic seaboard. The peach trees were planted from peach seed imported from Europe in an effort to establish a self sustaining, agricultural. fruit tree product to feed the colonists. American Indians spread the planting of the peach trees throughout vast territories by transporting the peach seed to other tribes that lived in the interior regions. This new crop of fruit was fast growing, producing a delicious peach two or three years from planting. The trees were so productive and vigorous that sometimes, widespread impenetrable thickets became established from the peach seeds that fell to the ground from fruit unharvested. The illusion was formed by settlers after 1600 that the peach trees were native to the United States, since they were so widely spread and grew so vigorously everywhere. " also "In December of 1795, Jefferson planted 1151, peach trees after he had experimented with planting in 1807, the "black plumb peach of Georgia," (Indian Blood Cling Peach). This naturalized peach wonder had been planted throughout the State of Georgia by the Indians and was a dark-red velvety color with tiger-like striping. This fragrant peach was extremely desirable because of its rich coloring and taste... Jefferson believed that this Indian cling blood peach was a cross between naturalized peach trees and a French cultivar peach, "Sanguinole."

Finally, the strawberry borders are invaded by grasses. I've learned that I like having a harvest spread out, not all at once. So I am adding Seascape Strawberry, also from Raintree. These will be in containers. As it happens, I left containerized cannas outside this winter and they froze, so will have a convenient place to plant the new strawberries. It's hard to find a reasonably unbiased review of strawberry varieties - here's a comparison on growingstrawberriesguide.com; they seem to like Seascape. Of course it's all person- and locality-dependent, but most of the other "reviews" that I could find were really just ads. I may also try a local source of another variety, to compare and increase my odds of getting some good berries.

Cymbidium in full bloom

People who grow orchids might be a little crazy. I'm very pleased about this Cymbidium now in full bloom, so here's another pair of pictures.

Winter Kitchen Garden Chores.

Nice place to build a nest. Even the most dedicated kitty cat can't get through the mess of rose thorns. The roses will need pruning but that's not urgent yet. The nest will go then - I think they build a new one each year.

This was Jan 1st before I started cleaning up the rose & fruit bed. I felt bad about letting it become such a mess last year.
Looking at this, I wondered if I could get it cleaned up. What a mess.
Over the past couple of weeks, I've pruned all of the roses (mainly on Jan 1st) and raked out the weeds. Charlie may not approve. He likes messes. But he tolerates my idiosyncrasies. Then this weekend, a layer of bark nuggets except the area around the raspberries.
Behind the apple tree, the " yellow everbearing raspberry "Fallgold" was still a mess. These are great raspberries. They started as a small grocery store bare root start. Now they are starting to take over their neighborhood.
My photo is bad. I trimmed off the tops at about the top of the photo. Removed one clump and moved it to a better spot on the opposite side, more in the direction where I wanted them to grow. Pulled up about half of the canes, concentrating on pulling up the scrawniest ones. These are "ever bearing". They bear early summer on the canes that grew last summer and fall. I shortened these a little because they bore at the tips last summer, an once a node has produced fruit, it's done. Below that level, they'll grow branches at each node, and those branches will bear fruit. Once they have done the second fruiting, they are done. So I also removed all of the spent canes from last year. Much tidier now. Now to head off to the bark mulch place and finish this garden bed, so it's ready for Spring. I feel a bit better now.

More:
I hauled another 3/4 yard of medium bark nuggets, spread them on the rest of the middle mini-orchard/rose bed, one side border, and some under a fig tree that I cleaned underneath first. This is already a better and earlier start than next year. Still lots to do however.

For the container gardens, I cleaned up the surface on 2 additional barrels. I planted seeds, a mini-ball shaped carrot ("Parisian Market"), more mesclun, lettuce mix ("Bon Vivant Blend"), a Chinese greens mix. They may not grow, because the seeds were old (1 to 3 years) and because, after all, it's only January. On the other hand, some seeds can last for years (I've blogged on that before, and tested some last year), and it doesn't matter if they take a month or more to come up. Plus, they may be hardier for being planted in the winter and allowed to grow with the weather. Plenty of weeds are already sprouting, and some greens are just a few steps removed from "weed". If they don't sprout in, say, a month, I'll buy some new seeds and try again.

My First Home Grown Cymbidium Flower

At long last, I've re bloomed a Cymbidium. This is on growth that occurred in my care, starting from new growth last winter, and that I re potted at that time. I kept it mostly in full sun for the summer, fall, and early winter. I let it stay outside until freezing seemed imminent, then brought it inside. The flowers last year were darker, almost brown, with a Burgundy accent on the lip. I don't know if this lighter is due to the flowers just being one day old; less sun; or some other aspect of my care. Doesn't matter, I'm excited to have raised one to the point of blooming.

So to celebrate, I get another one? What's up with that? Still, it's more compact, one of the most compact I've seen here. The flower colors are great. Unfortunately, when I removed it from the plastic-lined, basket cache-pot, there was about an inch of water in the pot. Will that mean loss of roots? Early demise? Loss of flowers? So far it looks fine, but I won't really know until the flowers fall off and it's time to re pot.

Really love the coloration. Quite beautiful.

Late January Gardening

It's that "Late January so it's warming up so the buds open then it freezes and destroys the flowers and possibly kills the tree" weather. It's in the 40s and 50s during the day. Inspecting, quite a number of roses have buds at about 1/4 inch long; peaches have buds swelling; daffodils are starting to peak out of the soil. The daffodils won't be bothered by even a hard freeze, but the peaches might. Some observations:

1. Peaches have quite a bit of what looks like freeze-kill on new growth, but overall look OK. Not sure why, but they did still have green leaves at the time of the first freeze. Most of the newest growth is stout and healthy appearing, and buds are swelling. I sprayed with copper micro-cop spray a 2nd time, hoping to have some effect on the leaf curl. I don't know if it will help at this late stage.

2. There was left over spray. Since the apples had a fair amount of fungal or bacterial disease last year, I sprayed them as well. No significant bud swelling on them.

3. Ditto for figs, so I sprayed them and used up the spray. I'm concerned that there is some freeze-kill on branch tips and brebas. Only the coming of spring will tell.

4. Some Chinese Chives are starting to grow, poking up through the soil.

5. I bought a truckload of medium bark nuggets, and spread them on areas that I have cleared so far. The theory this year is that kitty cat won't like it and will leave it alone. My theories are often disproved.

6. The grapes also appear to have some freeze-kill. If there is significant damage, this will be the first year for them to be damaged by a freeze.

What a waste. These great home-grown organic gourmet potatoes and I forgot them until they sprouted and shriveled. I set aside four of the "gourmet white" which had some stout short sprout in addition to the lanky ones, and threw the rest into the compost bin.

It may be too early to try the potato barrels, but not much to lose. I planted them deep, then covered the sprouts completely with potting mix. This time I was less greedy. I think 4 plants is enough for this small size of barrel. So that's all I planted.

Then a screen for the feline beastie so she doesn't use this for litter.

This barrel contained peppers last year, and some mesclun and greens and radishes last winter. These vegetables are limited not by freezing weather, but but gummy soil too cold to work. That's not an issue in the barrels. I pulled out the remaining pepper roots and stems, loosened the soil, and planted:

Radish, French Breakfast
Radish, Cherry Belle
Mesclun, Gourmet Blend. All of these seeds are from "Ed Hume Seeds".
Onion, Evergreen White Bunching. These take a lot longer, but have fresh scallions when the other varieties are not usable.

So there they are, 4 little rows. In a few weeks, I may plant a second barrel. I plan to wait for these seeds to sprout, first.