Plums. Backyard Orchard Culture

Not ripe yet, but getting closer. This is the best crop so far from Hollywood and Shiro.

Shiro. Hard to see in the picture, since the plums are green.  They will show better when they change color to yellow. I love these plums

Hollywood. Ditto - the most I've had from this tree. I like that the leaves are purple, which makes the purple plums less visible to birds and bypassers.I love these plums, too.

These are a yellow wild plum, the size of a sweet cherry. They have a sweet, sprightly flavor. The tree is down the street, and it doesn't look like anyone is eating them. I picked up the plums from the street, cleaned the seeds, and will plant some now in flower pots, to stay moist and germinate over winter or next spring; plant some in the fall in containers an place outside or in the fridge, and give some away. Even though they are small, they ripen with cherries, much earlier than the other plums. They are as big as sweet cherries, so they can be thought of as a "different cherry" to make the small size more acceptable - but they really are plums. Very juicy and sweet.

Here are the cleaned seeds. The seeds on the plaid washcloth are wild cherry seeds. Two years ago I saved some, planted them, then neglected to water the little trees in the hot summer, and they died. I want to try again, using backyard orchard culture methods of dwarfing by summer pruning.

Creating Hybrid Iris

While the irises were blooming, I diligently transferred pollen among varieties. I may have pollinated 30 flowers - lost count. Of those, only 3 flowers "took".  That's all I need - no room for zillions of iris seedlings.

This was Spiced Custard pollinated by Immortality.   I did not bag the flowers, so it's possible there is cross pollinaton with a different variety.  The pods remind me a bit of poppy seed pods.  

This was an un-named purple/blue iris rescue, pollinated by Liaison.  In general, I pollinated blues with blues, and yellows or oranges with yellows or oranges, and anything with white.

Lilies

I've been going around the yard cross pollinating various lilies.  Anything that happens to be in bloom, crossed with anything else that happens to be in bloom. I am sticking with pollinating Asiatics with Asiatics. and Orientals with Orientals. I don't know the names of any of these. They happen to be blooming today.

Backyard Orchard Culture: Stimulate fig crop

This is how you stimulate fig trees to initiate fall crop. It's very easy. If I don't do this, I barely get any fall figs. If I do, the trees are stimulated to make lots of figs - then it's a matter of weather permitting. I think the growing tip produces hormones that prevent figs from growing at the leaf nodes. By snapping off the growing tip, the hormonal inhibition is stopped, and soon a fig will start to form at each leaf node. I do this when the new branches are at 4 or 5 leaves. I try to do it early, so I get figs before the weather is too cool and days too short in the fall to sweeten the figs. I used to use a scissors for this, but they snap so easily, scissors are not necessary. Some references refer to this as pinching", but I don't pinch, I bend the tip and it easily snaps off.

This tree is Hardy Chicago. Almost all of the breba figs fell off. That doesn't bother me too much, because several other fig trees promise a big breba crop this year. Since it's not making figs now, the branches are growing fast, and it's time to plan for the fall crop.

Find the branch growing tips.

The place to snap off the growth is just below the little leaf forming at the end. Just bend over the tip, and it snaps off. No cutting or pinching is needed - just snap.

The tip will ooze white latex sap for a few hours. I don't think that hurts anything. Some people have allergic reactions to the latex, so I wouldn't get carried away until after snapping one or two and waiting a day to see if there is a reaction. I don't worry about it, and have never had a problem, so I snap all of the tips that I see, that have 3 or 4 or 5 leaves. This technique limits tree size, and stimulates compact branching, as well as stimulating a crop. It works for the fall crop (main crop) if snapping is done in early summer. I don't do it for the spring (breba) crop because I don't want figs to form before winter rains and frost.

Iris Final

It's been raining for most of the last week, so the flower forms are not the greatest. These are the last couple to open up.

"Kissed by the Sun" This was a new planting - noted in previous blog entry. I bought it in bud. The timing and size of the flower are probably affected by the fact that I just planted it. This one did better than the companion iris, "American Classic" which had such a puny flower I didn't take a photo. I hope that's a temporary issue due to being freshly planted.

I would like to give it the name "Rescue me" since this is the one Ning rescued from an illegal yard waste pile a few years ago. It didn't bloom as well this year due to weeds. I've been pollinating the pistols with pollen from "Immortality" and "China Moon". We'll see if they take.

No ID variety. I'm not even sure where it came from - maybe a rescue as well. I don't have a record of this one, and it doesn't look like one I would buy.

I've been taking pollen from stamens of blooming iris around the yard, and pollinating other flowers. It's the first time I've done that. If they take, then I'll try to grow them and see what happens. I like Immortality for size and form, and it's pure white, so should mix OK with any of the others. I thought especially interesting if the antique is pollinated by Immortality. They may not all have the same chromosome number, and some may be sterile, so it's just a semi-random experiment.