Spring Kitchen Garden Log: Starting a new season

Lots of activity this week and weekend. Yesterday temp in the 60s, today in the 70s. I spent most of the day cleaning up the main tomato patch, pulling weeds, turning soil, reining in renegade strawberries, replanted a few Chinese chives.

Rhubarb, ready for a pie if I get the ambition.

Here's the end result of the tomato patch work. Afterwards, I was too tired and sore to move. It felt very good. The best of puttering meditation.

Cherries almost ready to bloom

Very impressed this year, with this peach tree. I don't know if it will bear, but this is the most that it's bloomed. Covering with plastic for the winter, to prevent leaf curl, doesn't appear to have hurt anything. It will be a few weeks before we see if leaf curl sets in anyway.

Ready for the first batch of dumplings. Yum. This is backyard. The front yard, which is on the north side of the house, has a chive barrel that is barely getting started. Makes for a longer season. The in-ground chives are a mess - bermuda grass grew into the chives, and it's difficult to separate. I had to dig them up and pull out each grass section by hand. The barrels have a big advantage in keeping out most weeds, especially grasses.

Planted tomato seeds. This is about 2 weeks later than I planted in the past. I suspect that the ground temperature is more important than the 2 weeks wait to start seeds, so I don't anticipate any problem from the wait. I usually start too early. No time to buy new seeds, so most are from last year. Varieties: Old seeds, Supersweet100, Lemon Boy, Black from Tula, Better Boy. New seeds from the grocery store: Cherokee Purple, Gold Nugget. At least it's not like we came here in a covered wagon and if they don't grow, I don't get any. If they don't grow, I'll settle for buying some plants.


One of the apple grafts from my Dad's tree, probably red delicious. Too early to know if it 'took', but at least it hasn't dried out and turned black.

Some breba embryos on Lattarula. Keeping my fingers crossed that at last, this year, I'll get to taste some. last year I may have pruned too much, and only late crop developed; with the late Spring, I didn't get much of that. This year. I barely pruned, hoping for early (breba) crop.

Quince with Chickadee

Picture is today - The chickadees like to hang out in this quince bush, and individually head to the feeder for their seeds. They take turns politely.

Fig Grafting. More from Eisen's 1901 book.

Additional information from Eisen's book, available from Google online here. I was interested due to the grafting information. In the Gardenweb Fig Forum, contributers state that grafting is difficult or can't be done. It's exciting to see that the method used successfully in the 19th century are what I recently tried. Who knows if they will take, still too early.

My copies & editing are awkward, but get the point across.


Interesting - here, thought not to be difficult! Cool!

Close to how I cut scions, so I have some hope that's a good sign.

I grafted scions onto small rootstock. It could be that mature branches are needed. However, the intent is different. I'm not topworking a mature tree.

Here's a mature tree that resulted from topworking.

Fig Cuttings. Eisen's 1901 Illustrations.

From a scanned book from Google's project, accessible here.. This is public domain, not copyright protected, so OK to post here.

Title page from Gustav Eisen's book

I haven't seen this before. This illustration shows split view of cutting. The claim is that cutting should not be cut exposing the pith.


Various cutting methods.

Amazing, learning new concepts from a book that is over 100 years old.

I can't help it. Had to post.

Nothing to do with being green, gardening, chickens, or biking. But too funny to pass up

Ugliest Dog Candidate @ Yahoo! Video

Easily Entertained

Baigou is not the smartest dog around. Not Rin Tin Tin. Not Lassie. Not Benjy. Not Big Yeller. He has his qualities. I found him here, today, watching the washing machine. He can do that for cycle after cycle.

Buds: Phenological photos.

Phenology - keeping track of natural progression of plant growth and other events, in an effort to know when to plan agricultural activities. See other entries by clicking on labels. Here are some events in my yard currently, especially flower buds, leaves unfolding, and growth beginning for various plants.

Pear flower bud, almost open.

Lilac flower bud. This is the first to show little purple 'grapes' within the bud.

The smallest daffodils are blooming.

The first violets are blooming.

Backyard tree peony.

Peach blossoms, only a few open but already they look so beautiful.

Chinese chives, about 6 inches tall. I hear them saying, quietly, "make me into dumplings".

Rhubarb leaves continuing to open. This is "Victoria".

Japanese Pieris. Full bloom

Spring Garden Chores

Today (Saturday), I...

Weeded the rose bed. This bed now has almost as many fruit trees, brambles, and plants, as roses, but still contains about 10 rose bushes. I had moved one rose bush to accomodate the new Surefire cherry, and today moved a second one a little further from that new tree. I also moved a David Austin rose from the front yard, and a peony as well. It looks like I butchered the thick peony roots, even though I thought I was digging a wide distance from the stems. We'll see if it grows. It's interesting how few roots the roses seem to have - surprising that they survive moving. I pruned the tops further back to balance the reduced root mass.

Mulched the rose bed with bark mulch. It's now basically ready for Spring and Summer. I did not add compust to most of it this year, because the roses were too rampant last year and I don't want to overstimulate the fruits and roses. I did give some chicken manure to the roses that I moved.

Sprayed most of the fruit trees and roses with Neem oil. Not the peaches - the flowers are opening.

Moved one Orchard Mason Bee house to the front yard, since there are many fruit trees there as well.

Turned over the soil in the tomato patch.

Pruned the remaining rose bushes.

Stood around and stared at the results of my labors.

Grafted 3 fig scions onto the petite negri tree. Just to see if I can. According to most references, it can't be done. I hope they are wrong.

This time I used rubber bands to tie, and used plastic tape to cover and protect. The plastic tape was made by slicing a ziplock sandwich bag. Also used petroleum jelly as an antidessicant, as I did with the apple grafts. It's not just stubbornness - I really would like to see if they grow.

Added some petroleum jelly to the apple grafts - forgot to do that earlier, purpose is to serve as antidessicant.

Also mulched around this red-bark Japanese maple, that I moved to this location a few days ago. It was a seedling in the rose bed, among many others. I had never got around to pulling it up, and now will see how it does as a specimen tree.

More on grafting - another you tube video

Harbingers of Spring. Two New Fruit Trees. Phenology.

The small narcissus are always first. I think that some were lost last year - I remember more. Still, great to see them blooming.

The Aprium is one of the first trees to bloom in my yard - right there with the peaches. I think this stage is called "First Pink"

And here are the early peach buds. The bags at least didnt kill the tree. Now to see what happens with our nemesis, leaf curl.

The first of the 2 newest additions, "Surefire" sour cherry. Arrived Tuesday, kept in a cool place overnight, and planted when I came home from work Wednesday (last night). This might have been the only rain-free window of time for a week, so it worked out perfectly.

The other of the 2 newest additions, the multigraft asian pair. I STILL don't know which of the 4 potential varieties are represented on the 3 grafts. The label states "Varieties from bottom to top: Shinseiki, Yonashi, Hamese, Mishirasu". I studied the grafts and decided that one bud did not take, second from bottom, which would be Yonashi. That would leave the 2 smaller, yellow, sweet varieties, one for early aug and one for late Aug, and the large russeted Mishirasu, a September bearing variety. Any combination would be fine. Probably 3 years to know for sure.