Bowl of fruit. Hardy Chicago

Multiple stages of ripening. I didn't mind not getting breba figs from this tree, this summer, because I thought this would happen. It's the first ripening main crop (fall crop) for me. Different flavor, more like the dried figs.

Not as big as King or Lattarula but quite a different, very sweet, almost date-like flavor.

Ginkgo pics

Some Ginkgo pics from wikimedia commons.  Anxious to move my 7 ft tall (maybe 8 foot tall) Ginkgo from the front yard to the place in Battleground.  That will leave 2 at home from the seeds my Dad collected 15 years ago.  The one that I plan to move was in a flower pot for several years, so is behind the others in growth and therefore should be movable.  I don't want to kill it.  Will await dormancy or rains or both.  Once it's here in Battleground, the place will feel a lot more like home to me.

According to about.com, the species Ginkgo adiantoides, which is indistinguishable from the modern Ginkgo biloba, "flourished in the early Cretaceous epoch, 140 to 100 million years ago", the ginkgo's "heyday".  They state that the earliest fossils are from the Permian age, 280 million years ago.
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Described as " Fossil of Ginkgo huttoni...   Naturalis museum, Leiden"

Described as "Ginkgo sp. from the Jurassic Cloughton Formation. Locality - Scarborough, Yorkshire, England"

Not much description.

Described as "Miocene ginkgo wood cross section, Ginkgo sp. from the Children's museum of Indianapolis."

Listed as "Ginkgo dissecta. A 5cm wide leaf with typical 4 lobed structuring. Illustrated in Mustoe 2002 as SR 96-09-01. Ypresian, 49 million years old, "Boot Hill", Klondike Mountain Formation, Republic, Washington, USA. Stonerose Interpretive Center Collection   "

Described as "Fossil of Gingko adiantoides, at Fossil Show, Munchen 2011; apparently from North Dakota, paleocene epoch.

Not much description for this one.

Described as "Ginkgo biloba.   Eocene fossil leaf from the Tranquille Shale of MacAbee, British Columbia, Canada"

Described as "A 70mm wide Ginkgo biloba leaf. Klondike Mountain Formation, Republic, Ferry County, Washington, USA, Eocene, Ypresian, 49 million years old. Stonerose "
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According to wikipedia, Ginkgo biloba had a slow rate of evolution of the genus. The authors speculate that "Ginkgo represents a preangiosperm strategy for survival in disturbed streamside environments... evolved in an era before flowering plants, when ferns, cycads, and cycadeoids dominated disturbed streamside environments, forming a low, open, shrubby canopy. Ginkgo's large seeds and habit of "bolting" - growing to a height of 10 m before elongating its side branches - may be adaptions to such an environment."

Not a fossil, just a beautiful pic.  The local gingko "fruits" are still hard and green, and the leaves are still green - but getting closer.  A little more pale.  Also anxious to collect another batch from my source, a pair of female trees in an otherwise male row, in Vancouver WA.  Not sure if the one down the street from me is still there and dropping seeds - I should check.
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It will be fun to start more, and share more.  Will send some to Raymond in Alabama.

Raised Bed. Fall planting onions, garlic, garlic chives

Half full. More trips around the area for mole hills. Several wheel barrows full. Piled in a layer of soil, then a layer of compost, then turned over, then watered, then repeated this routine for more layers until about 2 inches below the upper edge. Raked smooth.

The Starts I brought from home. It was a strange feeling - like getting starts from a friend or neighbor or relative, except they came from me.

Inchellium Red, from containers this year. I separated about 40 cloves, and wound up planting 35 of them. Should be enough, with a few heads to repeat next year if fate allows.

The separated cloves. These are very big.

Heads from Egyptian Walking Onions, sets ready to separate and plant. Most will be for scallions. I'll try to pull scallions to separate plants about 6 inches or a foot apart to repeat this cycle, too. Also for some fresh onions.

Garlic chives. I dug these from around the yard, where seedlings had taken root and grown. One batch is a rescue from my late parents' yard. I remember, I planted them as a boy, thinking they looked nice and not knowing they were edible. They persisted and reseeded, annoying my Dad but he was never able to get rid of them. I'm glad. Now I have this memory plant from my boyhood. It has smaller, more delicate leaves compared to the plants I've been growing. Those came from a seed packet from north China, most likely a commercial variety. They are about 4 generations of saved and replanted seeds, or self-sown. By mixing they 2 types together, maybe the next generation of seedlings will be in between. A little more hefty than my boyhood plants, a little more tender than the Chinese plants. I'm into genetic diversity, regardless.

All arranged. The garlic is about a foot apart, 7 X 5 = 35 cloves. The White Potato Onions are arranged similarly, except 7 X 6 = 42 plants. The Egyptian Walking Onions are in 3 narrowly spaced rows of about 15 per row, thinking most will be used for scallions. The garlic chives are in bunches, making a single wide row about 6 inches wide. They look kind of sad, but I think they will do OK, grow new roots, and generate nice plants for the Spring. I cut off the flower heads, but left the leaves, so they can photosynthesize during the fall and make roots and store energy for next Spring's crop.

All done. Doesn't look like much, but when the garlic and onions germinate, they'll make a nice neat garden bed. The blue tub was what I used last fall for the same purpose - multiple tubs. I planted it with more Egyptian Walking Onions, thinking they will grow faster in dark colored plastic container = warmer in the sun, and give scallions this fall. Experiment.

Raised Beds.

Got up to 100 here today. I expect it Fall to arrive like gangbusters any day. Thought it was here last week. * No rain yet. One drizzle, doesn't count. That's not unusual in my area. Last rain was.... June? Will be glad when the rains start. Watered all of the newly planted trees, after applying a thick compost mulch. Labor of love, and maybe a new generation will benefit from the oxygen, shade, and beauty, some day, so a little water invested now is a good thing. *

(Pic from practicallygreen.com) Today I built a raised bed. For engineering simplicity, I used 2X6s that were 8 feet long. Cut some in half, so the beds are 4ft by 8ft. Somewhat like these from Rodale Institute, with modification. They are 2 timbers high, which makes them a foot deep. On the bottom, I screwed on chicken wire. That's to keep moles from tunneling upward and disrupting the plants. Then bottom liner of cardboard and old cotton factory-made quilt that was about to disintegrate. That's to keep perennial weeds and thistle from growing up through the new soil. Eventually the bottom will degrade, so the beds will be connected to the underlying soil structure, which is good. I think. I filled it half full today. Then wore out. The filler is about 3/4 topsoil and 1/4 yard debris compost. Roughly. I get the compost at a composting center locally, $25 per cubic yard, which is what my truck holds. The dry soil is too hard to dig. I made use of mole hills, filling my wheelbarrow with the tops of mole hills. There are many, many, many, many of those. The moles make the topsoil nice and granular and loose in their hills. I figure they are bringing up minerals too, from the lower layer of soil. Thank you moles. We also had a fence put in, and the post holes were surrounded by the finely ground 'waste' soil, so I used that too. Watered it in, mixed together, watered in, mixed, and raked.

Plan on filling the rest of the bed on Sat or Sun. Then I can plant garlic and heritage onions - white multiplier onions, my favorite. I've been growing the multipliers from just a couple, to now a few dozen. Now there are enough that if next year's crop is generous, I will finally have a lot to eat. So far just eating a rare few, to save and expand the "seed" crop. Sticking mainly with Inchelium Red garlic, which grows so well here I find it hard to believe. Love that garlic. Last year I grew them in barrels which worked great, but the raised beds have more room, and with the larger amount of soil should need less watering. Plus, it's in the countryside and the sun is really brighter there - I hope that makes for bigger and tastier crop. Onions and garlic are considered deer resistant, so I'm not worried about the deer problem with this raised bed.

May put in a row of garlic chives too. Saving seeds from existing plants, and there are some I can move there. Plenty of room in the 4X8 bed, I think. The only fall-planted veg's this time, for me, are the onions and garlic. So that is the only bed that needed "urgent" preparation. The others can be built through the winter. Maybe set one or two up as cold frames? Depends on my energy level.

I'm exhausted and my back hurts. And my knees. All of which is good. There was much to get out of my system. * No pics today. Forgot camera. Except for the Rodale pic, which is attributed, all of these are from wikimedia commons.

Grape time!

Price grapes. My favorite. These have seeds. I don't mind seeds, and have read that grape seed is good for you. Regardless, the flavor is excellent, "grapey", juicy, sweet. Not a big crop this year, but all I need is a few bowls of grapes to make me happy. Next is Venus, then Interlaken, the Canadice. I think.