Orchids. Progress Report. 2.12.14

Green Cymbidium

Dendrobium nobile

Some nice orchid flowers now.  This is the first rebloom for this green flowered Cymbidium.  Pale green with white center.

The Yamamoto Dendrobium nobile is equally nice.

These make February more tolerable.

These had little pampering this year.  I had them outside, east side of the house in Battleground, for the summer and early fall.  I brought them inside as it started to cool off.

I rarely watered them.  When buds started to form, I watered using dilute general purpose plant food.

Grow Your Own Ginger. 2.11.14

I've been reading on growing culinary ginger.  Like other zone-inappropriate plants, growing ginger will require at least part of the project indoors, in containers.

Ginger Farm.  Image source:  Commons.wikimedia.org

Botanical Drawing of Ginger.  Zingiber officinale

Based on info from various websites, it's a doable project. Use grocery store ginger root.

Buy a fresh looking root with multiple growth points. 
Cut so that each section contains several growth points.

If cutting the ginger root, allow it to dry so that the cut end does not rot when planted.

Some websites recommend soaking the ginger root overnight, in water.  Some sites recommend keeping the ginger root in a damp paper bag until it sprouts.  Some web sites recommend planting without pretreatment.   Hortmag.com has a good discussion.

As for planting, some sites recommend planting on the soil surface, while others recommend barely burying the rhizome, or burying it about an inch deep.

The ginger rhizome is planted in well drained potting medium.  Container size, looks like 6 inch to 1 foot diameter plastic pot will work, with 1 foot depth.  Keep lightly moist until the growth commences, then water regularly.

I've read that ginger requires much warmer conditions than we have in Pacific NW.  I'll keep that in mind.  Other tropicals can grow if I keep them in a warm place, especially in containers.  This is a good candidate for the sunroom.  Which is not built yet.  I will keep it in container, as I do with the citrus trees.  Ginger requires 230 to 300 days to mature.  Young ginger roots are juicier, compared to old roots.  Older roots have more concentrated flavor.

Ginger rhizome cluster

There was no fresh ginger root at Fred Meyer yesterday.   I found this rhizome at the Battleground roadside store.  Fat firm rhizome with multiple buds.

I cut it into 2 growth pieces and one to eat.  I will let it dry a few days before planting.

 I use a lot of ginger, to settle my stomach.  It does not have the somnolence and dry mouth side effects that often occur with nausea medications.

Dominick, Carini, Lattarula Fig Cuttings. Progress Report. 2.11.14

Dominick Fig Cutting.  About 6 weeks.

I moved the 2nd Dominick Fig cutting from juice can to slightly larger container.  Nice roots.  The first continues to grow nicely.


I took one cutting to work.  It did well there.  When I took respite vacation 2 weeks ago, I brought it home.  Somehow,that damaged the plant.  The leaves wilted and fell off.  They were the size of a cat's ears.   I am continuing to nurture it.  Doesn't look promising.  This is why I start multiple cuttings.

Dominick Fig Cuttings

 I had additional Dominick fig cuttings in the refrigerator.  These are stored in sealed plastic bag, so they don't dehydrate.  I trimmed them and placed in moist paper towel, plastic bag, to root.  This time no incision or rooting hormone.  It's OK if they take a while.

I did the same with 2 remaining Carini fig cuttings.

Lattarula fig cutting.

I planted this Lattarula cutting in the usual juice can / seed starting medium setup.  It's in a plastic bag for a week to get it settled.  I removed the tiny figs.  Others are almost ready.

Peppers. Progress Report and Planting Seeds. 2.11.14

Peppers planted 2/11/14

Pepper Seeds Planted 2/11/14  Fish Pepper

Peppers Planted 2/11/14 on seed heating mat

 Today I planted more chili and sweet pepper seeds.  These were from orders from early winter.  Varieties as shown and in labels.

These are re-used labels.  The sharpie mark is not permanent.  It washes off with a little scouring, easy.  The scouring also makes the plastic less slippery.  Maybe that will make the sharpie label last longer.  I cut 2 inches from the lower end.  These were too tall.

These are in a packaged peat-based seed medium.  I didn't want peat but that was all I could find this time of year.

Fish Pepper is a traditional variety from African American roots.  Passed from one generation to the next.  Thought to originate from Africa although ultimately all peppers originate from South America.  The plant, and the peppers, are variegated.  Very pretty.  From Southern Exposure Seed Exchange.

Now they are all planted and on the seed warming mat.

Meanwhile last week I replanted the 3 Portugal Red hot peppers, each to its own container.  I didn't plan on 3 but was reluctant to discard any.  All 3 look great.

The fluorescent lights are doing a good job.  These are standard light fixtures.  Not special plant fixtures.  The pepper and figs are not leggy.  The okra isn't so good but maybe it doesn't do well by this method.

Plant Starts from 12/24/13

I checked at Fred Meyer for a replacement light sustem.  A small, special plant growing light system was more than $100 and the larger one was more than $150.  I bought 2 under cabinet lights for $12 each, and used flat bungi cords to install them for tghe top shelf.  These are 17 watt.    Some gardeners use CFLs which might be an option for supplemental light.

I soaked and planted Burgundy Okra seeds 2 days ago.  I don't know if the red leaves will do better or worse in this system.

This setup is in an East window.  Currently  I think there is more light from the artificial lights than from the sun.

Fluorescent Light Garden

Tail end of blizzard. 2.09.14

Raised Bed Garden in Snow

Row Cover did not hold up in snow.

 We were able to get to Battleground today.  Some road challenges but overall OK.

Raised bed garden is blanked in snow.

The repaired low tunnel collapsed again.  I used row cover, thinking that would allow drainage.  I did not account for snow.  So I will need a different plan.

The red twig dogwoods are bright against the snow.

The plum buds look OK.  It's not the snow that concerns me with those, but the harder freeze last week.

Osier Dogwood

Plum buds

More snow! Blizzard Saturday. 2.08.14

Ning walking dogs

Front view

He doesn't like snow on his paws.

Snow! 2.06.14

Front View 2/6/13

First big snow of the winter.  It's been snowing all day.  We could not make it to Battleground today to check on things.  I think it will be ok.

Yesterday felt bitter cold, but was only into 20s.  I am not so rugged any more.

January temperatures. Some more lows predicted for early February

Jan was milder than Dec

This is prediction from WeatherUnderground.com.  It's been mild for most of Jan.  Many trees have small buds.  Some major freezing expected.

Sunday, Feb 2

46 | 30 °F

Partly Cloudy

20%

Monday, Feb 3

41 | 26 °F

Partly Cloudy

20%

Tuesday, Feb 4

33 | 18 °F

Partly Cloudy

10%

Wednesday, Feb 5

30 | 15 °F

Clear

0%

Thursday, Feb 6

32 | 16 °F

Clear 

0%

Friday, Feb 7

36 | 23 °F

Clear

0%

Saturday, Feb 8

33 | 28 °F

Overcast

20%

Sunday, Feb 9

41 | 35 °F

Ice Pellets

80%

Puttering. Noting harvest times on labels. Covered bed didn't work. 1.31.14

Tree Labels Showing Harvest Times.

Plastic Raised Bed Cover Didn't Work.

Each year we lose some apples and pears because I don't know when they are ripe.  Some ripen August, some September, some October.

I don't know why this didn't occur to me before.

I made embossed labels showing the expected ripening time for each variety.  It took some time to look them up.  But now I have that info on the blog, where I can find it, and on the trees, where can also find it.

These labels don't last forever.  They corrode.  But they last a lot longer than Sharpie on plastic.

The raised bed cover collected water and sagged inward, to the ground.  The hoops bent due to the water weight.  I removed the cover, and cut a new one from water-permeable row cover.  The hoops are almost back to their original shape.

I might try again on the narrower bed.  Steeper sides.  Might need better ribs to prevent sagging.

Apple Tree Variety Spreadsheet. 1.30.14

I put together this spreadsheet for my apple varieties.  It takes time to find info about pollen compatibility, disease resistance, heritage.   Sources are mainly raintreenursery.com (RT) and orangepippin.com (OP).  Not the best spreadsheet but the program is free via google (checkmate Microsoft!)

Apple Tree Varieties
Variety	Source	Approx age	Bearing?	Bloom time (RT)	Ripe? (RT)	Potential Pollenizers	Year Introduced	Disease Resistance (OP)	Notes
Liberty	Raintree	10 years	yes	early-mid	Early Oct	sterile triploid	1978	good
Honeycrisp	Raintree	4 years	yes/no	mid-late	Early Oct		1960s	mixed
Jonagold	Raintree	6 years	yes	mid	Mid Oct	sterile triploid	1943	poor
North Pole	Local	12 years	yes	mid	Mid Sept			?	Columnar
Scarlet Sentinel	Local	2 years	no	early - mid	Late Sept		1986	yes (raintree)	Columnar.
Golden Sentinel	Local	2 years	yes	mid	Early Oct		1986	yes (forestfarm)	Columnar.
Esopus Spitzenberg	Grafting class	1 year	no	mid	Late Oct		early 1800s	poor	I grafted 3/2013
Sutton Beauty	Grafting class	1 year	no	?	?			?	I grafted 3/2013
Pristine	Raintree 3-way	0 year	n/a	early-mid	August		1994	mixed	multigraft
Rubinette	Raintree 3-way	0 year	n/a	mid	Early Oct		1964	partial	highly rated
Queen Cox	Raintree 3-way	0 year	n/a	mid-late	Early Sept		1975	partial	multigraft
Jonared	Starks	0 year	n/a	(mid)	Late		1934	poor	Jonathan sport.
Prairie Fire Crab	Home Depot	0 year	n/a	?	n/a	n/a		good	No edible fruit.
Karmijn de Sonnaville	Raintree	3 year	1 apple 2013	mid	Mid Oct	sterile triploid	1949	poor	cox pippin X jonathan

Golden Sentinel is a cross between Wijcik spur MacIntosh and Golden Delicious. 1986. Agriculture; Agri-Food Canada, in Summerland, British Columbia

Scarlet Sentinel is a cross between  Wijcik spur MacIntosh and Golden Delicious. 1986. Agriculture; Agri-Food Canada, in Summerland, British Columbia

Honeycrisp patent is expired.   Honeycrisp was developed at the University of Minnesota, in 1974.  Cross of Macoun x Honeygold.

Jonagold was developed in  1953 as a cross between Jonathan and Golden Delicious.

Pristine was developed in 1975 at Purdue, as part of Purdue / Rutgers / Illinois consortium.  Pristine has in its ancestry Rome Beauty, Golden Delicious, MacIntosh, Starking Delicious, Malus floribunda, and others.

I'm still looking for info about the others.