Family tradition flower: Oriental poppy

This is only a family tradition flower because I remember my grandfather growing them from seeds, so I did as well. However, it's not an actual "heritage" or "heirloom" plant, because I bought the seeds. My father told me that he tried growing opium poppies, Papaver somniferum, without success. This was in a much different era from today, and it was legal to grow opium poppies. For that matter, it might still be legal to grow opium poppies, but I'll stick with the Papaver orientalis.

Last year, I moved these from a less suitable location. I was concerned, due to a reputation for difficult transplantation. They did indeed not prosper last year, but they survived. This year there are many flower buds on this plant, and a few on a second plant. The original location also now has 2 small poppy plants, from root fragments that were broken in the digging up process. Those are accidental root cuttings, or may have grown from seeds that fell from prior flowers. These were grown from seed, which is what makes them "heritage" for me (a family heritage of growing poppies from seed, not that the actual variety is heritage). These poppies grew for several years before blooming, but are now quite prolific and beautiful. These buds are growing fast. I expect full fledged poppies in a month. Even though Papaver orientalis is not a source of opium, it is a source of thebaine, which is used to make oxymorphone - the ingredient in the powerful narcotic, Opana. So far I have not seen people in the yard licking these plants. My suspicion is that, being ornamental varieties, the thebaine is in such a small amount that it would be useless for anyone to try. 'Hey - get out of my yard!"

Kitchen Garden Progress Notes - Container Gardening

The yellow wax bush beans that I planted a 2 weeks ago. There appears to be some slug damage, so I added Worry Free organic slug bait.

Egyptian Walking Onions, multiplier onion, loves this method of growth. I planted these Oct. 29th. We did not eat many scallions this year, so these will go mainly toward eating onions and starts for a larger number for this fall. I don't know why we didn't eat more scallions, I love eating them.

German Garlic from Southern Exposure, also planted Oct 29th. They are also flourishing in the tubs. There should be some great garlic this summer.

Tomatoes I planted in a tub last week. The temp today is 49 - probably too cool, although last week it was in the 70s. The tubs warm up faster, so may be OK. This tub has seedlings from mesclun that should be ready to pull out in a couple of weeks. The sticks are mulberry prunings, an attempt to see if they grow by the "stick it in the ground" method that I use for figs, grapes, and forsythia. And roses.

Backyard Orchard Culture: Progress Notes

Most of the fruit trees are near the end of blossoms. Some of the apples are midway through blooming, and a few blossoms straggle on, on the pears and cherries. Now some of the baby fruits are starting to show, giving me a hint of what to expect this year.

This is Almaden Duke cherry, planted last Spring, so just over a year after planting. Many of the buds took. The tree is about 3 1/2 feet tall. Since I want it to remain dwarfed, I'm going to let the fruits continue. Plus I want to see what they are like. Impressive, really impressive, to get fruit the 2nd year after planting, even if only a hand full or bowl full.

Hollywood plum. A few scattered fruit have taken. I thought it might not have any, due to frost while blooming. These are so good, I'll settle for having just a few.

The peaches that I planted in tubs late this winter. Starting to leaf out. I underplanted one with lettuce and one with cilantro, so as not to waste the soil and space.

Shiro plum. Judging from the number of tiny embryonic plums, I think there will be a bowl full or two. Like the Hollywood, I wondered if I would get any due to frost while blooming. Home-grown Shiro are so good, it's worth the wait and worth the trouble to get even a few.

Surefire Cherry - I'm guessing, about 4 years old now. I planted tart cherries largely because of late blooming, to miss those early frosts. This one is the latest of my many varieties, as far as blooming goes. They should set well, and we should get a pie or two. These have a wonderful flavor, different from the sweet cherries, and when very ripe can be eaten out of hand, sweet and tart at the same time, with red juice.

Fig Progress Notes

Most of the figs have a lot of brebas - little early figs resulting from overwintering buds. They have small tufts of leaves at the ends of branches.

I removed these Desert King saplings from the half-barrel that I had chili pepper plants in last year. I had stuck several King prunings into the growth medium late last winter and gave them no more care during the season than the other plants in the barrel had. Over the winter it looks like about 1/3 of the cuttings died of frost, but several remain. I repotted these two. The one on the left was very long, and I had pushed it in deeply. Most of the roots were at the lowest end of the cutting.

The Desert King fig tree has many many brebas now. I an reluctant to prune until after they ripen, mid to late summer.

Petite negri that I grew from a cutting and basically neglect. It has brebas as well. One of these days I want to find a permanent place in the ground for this tiny tree. It grows slowly - the parent took about 6 years to reach 6 foot tall.

The Sal's fig sapling that I haven't found a place to plant. Even though it was overwintered in an exposed setting, in container, it survived and has some brebas. It's only about a foot tall. It needs a place in the ground as well.

Mulberries

Just returned from 5 days in Chicago. Happy to be home. On inspection, many of the fruit trees are showing baby fruits now. The Illinois Everbearing Mulberry has now begun to leaf out, and there are embryonic mulberries on the branches. Or, those might be male flowers. Im not sure. It's still small, so I don't expect a lot. Since there is not much to photograph here are some public domain botanical illustrations of mulberries.

According to wikipedia mulberries grow easily from large cuttings, so I stuck some prunings into the same large container that now has some tomato plants. That worked well last year for King figs. Since I'm growing this tree by the backyard orchard culture method, pruning to small size, open center, summer pruning, I'm in uncharted territory for this fruit. It will be nice to see how it does this year.

Today, more Spring

Now where is that Cat?  Where is she?

The annual blooming of the pink cherry.

I've been nurturing this yellow violet for several years.  It grew wild.  I've never seen another yellow violet.

The annual dogs and pink cherry photo.

The ginkgo - quite impressive now!  I grew that from a seed?

Quince.

Impulse purchase.  Not sure where to plant.

Apple Blossoms at Hood River Oregon

Today we took a drive to Hood River and viewed the apple orchards.  Miles and miles of apple trees in bloom.

Sping is completely here now.

Pics from today.  I did manage to do a few things around the yard.  The Spring flowers are in the second wave - daffodils are done, and now tulips blooming.  Japanese plums and peaches are done and cherries are in full bloom, with early apples in bloom - North Pole and Liberty.  Euro plum (Stanley) is in bloom.  Grape hyacinths have started blooming, as are violets.  Fig embryos are swelling, but no leaves yet.  Mulberry buds are swelling.  The last tart cherry's buds are starting to swell.The garlic tub is flourishing.  So are the onion tubs.  These were planted last fall.

Grape hyacinths.  They come up all over like weeds.

Hollywood plum.  I don't know yet if it will bear fruit this year. Shiro seems to have some swelling embryonic fruit, but it's way too early to be confident about that.  

North Pole apple.  I did a good pruning job last year, I think.

Stella cherry (white flowers) is amazing this year. It's covered.  I did a good job pruning that one too.  Being self complimentary there.

Violets are spreading, bit by bit.  I need to help them along some more so they fill in and prevent weeds.

Organic weed killer.  Not perfect, but it's implossible to do it all by hand now, and this helps.  Plus, it doesn't disturb the mulch, so prevents more from sprouting.  Plus it smells really good.  It's made from citrus rinds.

Tanglefoot.  I pulled off the old "collars" and put on new ones, mostly made from polyethylene mailers off junk mail, and some zip-lock bags, cut into long strips.  Tie around the tree firmly.  It's stretchy so doesn't interfere with bark growth.  Then apply the tanglefoot.  It helps a lot to keep the ants and aphids off the cherries, and keep the ants out of the figs.  Ants in figs cause spoiling and loss of fruit, as well as giving them a nice crunchy texture.  Ants bring aphids onto cherries, and can damage the crop as well as cause a lot of leaf damage.

Mid April Gardening

This is the result of one of the Onion planters that I started last fall.  This one is Egyptian Walking Onion.  They are growing vigorously.  Somehow there are a few garlic plants with the onions.  These will be my reserve for next year.  There are lots of others around the yard for fresh eating now, including one of the oak barrels.

 Me in front of the earliest sweet cherry to bloom.  All cherry blossoms are within reach.

 Two additional planters.  Again, not sold as planters.  I drilled many holes in the bottoms.  Today I planted bush beans, about 20 seeds per planter.  These are a yellow bean, "Pencil Pod Wax Bush".  Pod, not iPod. The envelope states 59 days to harvest.  I think this is very early to plant them, but the containers will have warmer soil than planting in the ground.  These should be good for several batches of beans, then the chickens can eat the leaves and I can plant a 2nd batch to harvest in the fall.  No weed issues in the containers, or the few weeds that do grow are easily removed.

Ning next to the Victoria rhubarb - it grows very large every year.

April Ruminations

The workload from winter to now was too much for me to do much in the garden.  This week was better, and I have some hope for the weekend.

So...

I'll buy a couple more containers for container gardening, and potting soil for that.  Containers make the most efficient, doable method for many plants.

Last weekend I cleared out an existing container, that last year was used for chilis, strawberries, and garlic.  I topped it off with additional potting soil, and planted seeds for mesclun, lettuce, radishes, and cilantro.  I also planted cilantro seeds around the potted peach trees.

There is not much pruning to do now.

Fruit trees are a perfect garden plant for the overworked but yearning home gardener.  Once planted, they don't need too much care.  Some time is needed for pruning, especially if doing Backyard Orchard Culture (BOC).  That is best in summer, and with long days in summer is doable.  Also enjoyable.  I used the trimmings for mulch last summer, which helps with weeds.

I will need to apply plastic bands around the trees and tanglefoot.  I saw ants on the cherries.  Ants bring aphids, and aphid cause a lot of damage and stunting, and damage fruit. Ditto for the figs, apples, pears.

There aren't a lot of bees this year.  I did see some bumble bees.  That's good.  I went around with a small paintbrush and cross pollinated cherries, ditto for pears.  May not be needed, but not difficult and gives me a chance to get close to my little orchard trees.  This is another advantage of BOC - easy to reach the branches to pollinate by hand.

If there is time this weekend, I will prepare a container for some means, and replant some strawberries that I pulled out for the container discussed above.

That's about all.  No use overwhelming myself.  Pacing is important.