Winter Planting. Grape Vine and Anemones.

I saw this grape variety at the local "Everything Store". Remembering, Buffalo is considered a Concord-like grape that bears in this cool summer area, unlike Concord. The plant looked OK, so I bought it and planted it today. Other plants in the grape / kiwi row have been harassed by moles, so I planted in a chicken wire basket. WA State extension lists these grapes as potential table grapes for this area:

Buffalo – midseason Concord type, blue
Canadice – early pinkish red (I have Canadice, the grapes are small and I'm not crazy about the taste) Interlaken Seedless – early white, vigorous (I have Interlaken, I like this one)
Jupiter – early, blue, large berries
Lynden Blue – very early blue, seeded
Mars – medium early, blue
Neptune – medium early, white
Reliance – early, red, table and juice
Saturn – medium early, red
Van Buren – blue Concord type, early
Vanessa – early red
Venus – early red (I think this is wrong. I have Venus, it's good but they are blue. I like Concord-type grapes better)
NY 78.836.06 – selection from Geneva, NY breeding program

I also planted these Anemones. I've read that anemones are both deer and rabbit resistant. After reading that Muscari are deer resistant, I planted quite a few this winter. Rabbits have eaten them all off. I'm guessing it's rabbits. We'll see what they think of Anemones. Soaked for 2 hours per label instructions, and planted in the tree circles.

Beehive Kit. Top Bar Hive.

This is the top bar beehive kit from Beethinking.com. I bought the kit at their shop in Portland a few weeks ago.

Nicely made. Much easier to put together than I thought.  Halfway there.

Not in it's final spot. I might apply a finish to the legs, to protect from rot. Otherwise it's all together and ready to go.  Front has a plastic window.  Open the shutter to view the bees and honeycomb.

Open top.  The to bars just sit in the frame, no assembly needed.

Charlie helped throughout.  He's very proud.

Winter Gardening, continued

Planted some seeds in the first "Conastoga" bed. That includes spinach, icicicle radish, napa cabbage, bak choy, seeds from garlic chives.  Pic from Bok Choy, ink and color painting on paper by Wu Changshuo (1844-1927)

I found some unplanted sets for egyptian onions.  I don't need more, but not wanting them to go to waste, so planted them.

Also, in unprotected bed, Laburnum seeds collected last week from Laburnum tree. So those seeds were exposed for winter, and stratified in situ. Those are along one edge of iris bed. Along another edge, Chinese chive, my Illinois strain.

Fig cuttings

These are started 2 to 4 weeks ago.  Depends on the cutting.  The Lattarula is covered on 3 sides with the start of roots.  What fig hobbyists call "root initials".  The Marseille black is not there yet.  I check every other day.  If the paper towel is looking moldy, I rinse the cutting and soak a fresh piece of paper towel to replace the fouled one.  Seems to be working.

Here are 4 cuttings in containers.  The Atreano was making top sprouts, so I potted it up.  It has initials but no roots.  It will need careful nurturing. The Sal's fig was a branch below soil level, that had tiny roots before I pruned it off, and when I removed it from seed starting medium I knocked off most of the roots.  Now it has tiny green buds swelling, so I think it is surviving despite my efforts.  The LSU Tiger cutting had roots about 2mm long, so time to plant that one in seed starting medium.

Today I scratched Plant Success (that again) into the top inch of each of these containers.  I don't think it will hurt.  It might help.

Of these, the Atreano, the LSU Tiger, and the Atreano were sent by generous Fig Forum members.  Response to my sending out cuttings last month.  Nice gardener neighborliness, from a distance..

Winter Gardening for Spring Vegetables

This is a start for gardening for the year.  The raised bed is the standard 4ft by 8ft raised bed that I've been building.  This is the 4th one so far.  The difference now is, I wanted a cover, to warm it up a few degrees.  Pus, protection from deer and rabbits once the cover is in place.

The cover consisted of:
6 2ft rebars.
12 copper brackets with nails
3 10ft long vinyl pipes
2 sections of 4 ft wide chicken wire
row cover.

All but the row cover came from the big orange home improvement store.  The row cover is from Johnny's Selected Seeds.  The chicken wire is held in place by plastic bale twine, recycled.

With row cover in place.  It looks like a conastoga wagon without the wheels.  The row cover wasn't quite wide enough, but I'll get some clothes pins to hold it to the chicken wire.

The rebar is easily removed, in case I don't want to keep this arrangement in place.

The tallest portion of the hoops is about 4 feet tall.  That height will be plenty tall enough for most vegetables, including tomatoes and okra.  But those are for May or June planting.  Here, I planted Oregon Giant snow peas, which grow 3  or 3 1/2 feet tall.  The packet states sow as soon as ground can be worked, so here we are.  Before planting, I sprinkled Plant Success mycorrhyzal inoculant on the surface and worked it in.  Probably more important, I used legume Rhizobium inoculant from Territorial Seeds - made a slurry in water, swirled the seeds around in the slurry, let them soak 10 minutes, then planted and watered in with the rest of the slurry.

Also planted, after adding Plant Success as sort of a "good wishes":
Boston Red Beets 1/2 row
Mini Bok Choy, from New Dimension seeds. 1/2 row
German Giant radish, 1/2 row.
French Breakfast radish, 1/2 row.

There is room for a row of spinach and a row of mesclun.  Room fills up fast.  May need to build a second raised bed for more winter vegetables.

As always this is an experiment.  I don't think it's too early.  I planted radishes and other cold tolerant vegetables in late January, 2011, and they grew nicely.

Hardwood Cuttings

No pics today - forgot camera.

This is an almost-all homework weekend.  However, I did a small amount of garden inspection.

Also applied rooting hormone to some hardwood cuttings.  I didn't expect them to root yet, at all.  And they have not.  I carefully removed the cuttings from the ground, and applied rooting hormone, then carefully placed them back into the ground.


Illustration is Laburnum, from commons.wikimedia.org.   The cuttings I'm experimenting with:  Linden "greenspire", Mulberry "Illinois Everbearing".  I also took 3 small hardwood cuttings from unnamed Laburnum, scratched the bark, and applied rooting hormone before placing them in the same raised bed.  Plus one cutting from Brunswick fig.  Because I can.  The fig cutting did not get rooting hormone.

None of these is "needed".  Just seeing what might happen.  I also collected some laburnum seeds.  Might plant those if I don't forget them.

Ukranian Beekeeping Stamps

From wikimedia commons. 2001  Ukranian stamps

Ukranian beekeeping stamp, 1994 and subsequent issues.

Also this one, 1999.

Honey Bees

"Alfred Dürer, 1514: Eros, Venus and the bees. "Eros stung by a bee, when he inhaled the pleasant fragrance of a rose, went crying to take refuge in the arms of Venus," Dear mother, I die, have mercy on me, a flying snake bit me painfully cheek " Anacreontic singing, 6th c. av. AD " from Launceston Beekeepers blog.


"Anacreontics are verses in a meter used by the Greek poet Anacreon in his poems dealing with love and wine" (wikipedia)


While on the topic of Greek mythology and bees, or honey, "MELISSEUS was the rustic Daimon (Spirit) of honey and the art of beekeeping... closely identified with the Euboian Aristaios, who was also the reputed discoverer of honey...Melisseus may also be related to the Titan-god Astraios (the starry one), for the amber-coloured (êlektron or soukinos) honey-sap (melissa) which bees were believed to collect from flowers and trees was often described as star-fallen (astron). from theoi.com

The herb Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalis) has a lemon scent which is thought to attract bees. Lemongrass oil is used to attract swarming bees to new hives, and a bee phermone is reminiscent of lemon.  Lemon balm grows like a weed for me.  I've been trying to control it in my yard for a decade.  Now I'll replant some near the beehive, when I get that far. Pic from Wikipedia entry for lemon balm.

Ning and his Chickens

The sex-linked pullets are growing fast. I'm convinced they'll be bigger than Turkeys. Maybe ostriches.

Kitchen Garden / Raised Beds

Today I built a raised bed for late winter seed planting.  Prep for Spring keeps me in a good mood.

It's easier to build the raised bed on a flat surface, in a sheltered location.  So I built it in a shed.  The wood is already cut, I planned ahead.  So it's like putting together a kit.  Except I made the kit.

This time I stapled chicken wire to the bottom to protect the bed from moles, but I did not apply cardboard to the bottom.  I've used cardboard ot prevent growth of perennial weeds up through the bed.  I don't think that's required with this depth.  The lining, to protect the wood a bit / slow degradation due to the enriched organic soil, is made from big woven-plastic dog food bags.  Rugged.  Free. Reused.

Filled a bit more than half way with soil I dug in Nov or Dec, and yard waste compost I bought then as well.  Not too muddy.  Next weekend I can mix a little better, and add soil/compost mix to the top.  Will use better quality leaf compost for the top portion.

I also added 5 pounds of coffee grounds.  Feed the soil.  The soil will feed the plants.

This will have a little time to settle, then  ready for radishes, brassicas, spinach, scallions.  Cold weather vegetables.

The garlic is frozen.  Taking a photo is good for reference for next year.  It always looks dead at this time, then revives in a month or two.

Hard to see here, but this is the Ixia experiment.  I noticed they grew a few inches. The question now:  Will they survive freezing.  Maybe.  Maybe not.