Spring Bulbs, Flowers and Irises. Progress Report. 3.7.14

Sedum sarmentosum in iris bed

Allium spring growth

Unknown bulb sprouting.

 With the warm days, many bulbs are growing rapidly.  A few daffodils are blooming.

Sedum sarmentosum ("Cemetery moss") survives the winter and growing nicely in the bearded iris raised bed.  I planted this fro starts taken from my previous garden.   Sedum sarmentosum grows easily.  I've seen some web information that it's invasive.  I've grown it for many years.  It grows and spreads easily, but also pulls out easily and does not self seed.  This plant is not invasive.  One reviewer didn't like this plant because they observed it attracts bees.  To me that's a plus.

Ornamental alliums are several inches tall.  Fortunately I labeled a couple, so I knew they were alliums.

A few will have to bloom so I know what they are.  One especially large sprouting bulb could be an allium.  I'm guessing it's a Camassia.

 Anemone blanda is blooming around the yard.  They are only a few inches tall.  Nice cheerful flowers.  Rabbits ate most of the De Caen anemones, although there is a chance some might bloom.  I planted them specifically  because they are described as rabbit and deer resistant.

I bought some hollyhock starts.  Hollyhocks are considered a short lived perennial.  If they survive and grow, they should bloom this year.  They are a long shot.  The roots don't look like much, and the root ends were ragged.  I trimmed them more cleanly and planted in a somewhat protected spot.  Hollyhocks are considered deer susceptible.  The spot is close to the house, surrounded by other plants.

I plated seeds for Four O'Clocks in containers.

Irises and bulbs.  Early Spring Growth.

Anemone blanda

Hollyhock Starts

Kitchen Garden Progress Report. Potatoes. Vegetables. 3.7.14

Potato Well.  Pontiac Red

Potato Well.  White Superior

Today the  temperature was in the mid 50s.  It's still early  to plant potatoes.  I planted some in the "Wells" that I built from tree surround rings.  The wells are dark brick-like material.  They should absorb heat from the sun.  That will warm the soil further.

If a frost is predicted, I can cover the wells to protect the potato plants.

Planted in soil:compost 50:50 mix.

Scallions are growing rapidly.

I planted some additional spinach seeds.

I planted some snow peas in small flower pots.

That's about all.

Kitchen Garden / Raised Bed Garden. Progress Report. 3.6.14

Chinese Chives, rejuvenation project

Garlic Inchelium Red and others

Cilantro, Yellow Potato Onion, and some iris starts

 Haven't done much, due to illness.  It only takes a small effort to do some things in the yard and garden.

Garlic Chives.  These are the ones I dug out of half-barrel bed in Vancouver and planted in raised bed at Battleground.  I've added a row cover to the bed, although it's off today to let in rain.  Probably due to warming effect of row cover, they are more vigorous than other rows of Chinese chives that I established last year.  Here they have more room, and a real local soil/compost mix instead of potting soil.  I hope they will rejuvenate and provide significantly more vegetable.

Garlic bed.  The Inchelium Red looks like corn.  It's big and vigorous.  The German Porcelain is doing pretty well too.  A few plants did not make it through the winter but most are sturdy and healthy appearing.  The row of unknown is a rescue variety.  The starts were smaller and later, so not a fair comparison.

The overwintering cilantro is growing nicely.  I didn't know until now that cilantro could be fall planted.  Good lesson to learn.  The Yellow Potato Onion is less vigorous this year.  I don't know why.  It seems to be growing now, including bulbs that did not germinate before winter started.

Egyptian Walking Onions

 The Egyptian Walking Onions are growing nicely.  Whatever was eating them seems to be leaving them alone now.  We should  have fresh scallions from these in 2 or 3 weeks.  We could now, if we will settle for small ones.  As apparent in the photo, on the left I replanted bulbs that I kept from full grown plants.  On the right are small topsets.  The bulbs have much larger, sturdier plants.  This difference should mean an extended window for harvesting scallions.

Raining - several inches in past few days.  Having prepared raised beds during the winter, no digging is needed to start some seeds.  I planted a row of cilantro, a row of spinach, and a row of Cincinnati Market Radish, a long carrot-like variety.   The spinach and radishes may need protection from animals.  Cilantro does not need protection.

Seeds Planted 3.6.14,  Radishes, Spinach, Cilantro

Not shown, the low tunnel bed has nice onion starts, about 2 inches tall.  The radishes, turnips, and mesclun are nice little rows, with big cotyledons but no adult leaves yet.  I don't know if the cover is protecting from animals - mice/voles - but so far so good.  Rabbits and deer can't get in, I think.

Peas haven't come up yet.  I will plant some in containers.

Overall I am very pleased.  Even though I don't know what I am doing sometimes, some useful and fun vegetables made it through a winter with historic freezes, and are growing earlier than the soil can be worked for Spring gardening.

Creating a Bouquet Lilac Bush. 3.2.14

Three of the freshly grafted lilacs.

First steps of Bouguet Lilac.   First graft onto original sucker.

Bouguet Lilac.  Fall of 1st year & Spring of year 2.

 Here is my thought about how to develop a Bouquet lilac.

Step 1.  Spring of year 1.  Graft first new variety onto suckers of a parent lilac bush.  Leave in place at least first Spring and Summer, so the new plant can draw nutrients from the parent bush.

Step 2.  Fall of year 1.  The connecting stolon can be severed and the new little bush planted in a garden bed.

Step 3.  Spring of year 2.  Lilacs have buds in pairs.  Assuming the first 2 pairs of buds made adequate stems, graft new varieties on to each of the new stems.  Graft them above the first 2 pairs of buds, which will be allowed to grow.

If a bud or 2 grew from the rootstock, which itself is a nice lilac, then allow that to grow as well.  At this point, if all grafts take and all varieties grow, there would be 4 varieties.

Step 4.  Spring of year 3.  Additional varieties can be grafted.  I depicted grafts onto the new grafts from Step 3.  It depends on whether the grafts take, and which is the most vigorous. 

I think, if the new shrub produces suckers, those would need to be removed.  If not, the original rootstock variety may take over with more vigor, and overtake the grafted varieties.

I don't know if this will work.  It will be an interesting project to work on.  It takes a certain amount of confidence in the future, to plan a 3-year grafting project.  Then again, so does growing almost any tree or shrub.

This also assumes that my grafts take.  I've read that lilacs can be grafted.  I don't know if my technique will be good enough.

Bouquet Lilac.  Spring of year #3

The big lilac bush is an "OK" variety.  Not very fragrant, and not as lavish as some.  It must be pretty rugged, to have survived here and grown as large as it is.

Moving established bulb clumps. 3.1.14

Moving established clumps of bulbs.

I dug a few clumps of Hyacinthoides hispanica and a clump of daffodils from the lawn at the Vancouver place and planted at the Battleground place.  They are big enough to readily identify them, and small enough that they are not too floppy to move.  I take a big soil mass so as not to disturb them too much.  I did this last year and the bulbs that I moved grew and bloomed without missing a beat, and are growing again this year.

Transplanted and Established Bulbs

Deer and rabbits eat all of the tulips and all of the muscari.  The seem to leave daffodils alone, for the most part.  They also seem to leave the Hyacinthoides alone.  There might be an animal digging up some of the Hyacinthoides bulbs.  Or a mole that pushed them out of the ground by accident. But most of them seem intact.

Moving big clusters of bulbs, the result looks like they have been growing in place for a while.  Planting individual bulbs in the fall, they look less robust, and take a few years to make nice clumps.

Grafting Apple and Lilacs. 3.1.14

Grafting supplies, rootstock, and scion wood.

 Today I did some more grafting.

First, I identified a sucker growing from below the graft of a dwarf apple tree.  The tree is a nonpatented Jonagold.  The rootstock is nonlabeled.

I carefully removed soil between the sucker and the original tree.  Then I used pruning shears to cut through the sucker base between the stem and the tree, close to the tree.

This rootstock was the result.  The original stem was about 3 feet.  I pruned it back to about 1 foot before cutting for the whip and tongue graft.

This method is much easier for me now.  It just took practice, a very sharp knife, and learning how to brace myself and cut carefully and mindfully to avoid slips and lacerations.

Whip and Tongue Graft.

 This side looks good.  The other side was not as good.  I've done a number of grafts where only one side matched up, and they worked fine.

I make sure to place the prepared scion in water until I've cut the rootstock.  I also get that wet.  My thought is it will slide together better with water as lubricant, and there won't be dry surfaces that might impede joining together.

There was a 2nd stem, a little branch.  I cut that off.   That wound is also covered to avoid dehydration, until healing begins.

Wrapped with polyethylene tape.  The wrap goes from bottom to top with generous overlap each wrap around.  That way rain water drains outside instead of trailing into the wrapping.

I did not cut the top off this time.  I don't know if lower buds are viable.  That might result in the graft not taking. 

Graft wrapped in polyethylene tape.

 The 2nd to last photo shows the well-rooted rootstock.  The cut is large.  I don't think that will matter.  It should heal over.

I potted the new little tree in potting soil, in a one gallon pot.  I plan to return it home, and keep on the deck with TLC care for the first year.

I also grafted lilacs.  At the battleground place is a large, very old lilac bush with many suckers.  I expect the suckers have viable roots.  Instead of removing them from the mother bush, I grafted with them in place.  If they take, I can dig them out in the fall.

Scion wood was obtained from 2 non-suckering varieties at the Vancouver house.  They are un-named varieties.  If the grafts take, there are some choices about what I do with the result.  I could keep them as single-stem tree-like shrubs.   I could plant deeply, so that the scion will form its own roots, then later cut off the original rootstock.

Rootstock with roots.

Completed graft.

I could consider these a multi-year project.  The first year, allow 2 stems to grow from scion.  The 2nd year, graft again, leaving one or two nodes to grow out below the 2nd level of scion.  At that point, it could be a 3-variety shrub.  Repeating a 3rd year, could make for a multi-variety shrub with 6 or more varieties.  Sort of a bouquet tree.  That will be interesting.  The first step is see if the first grafts take.

The lilacs clearly have viable buds low on the scion, so I did cut them back to one node, containing 2 buds.  Then sealed the cut tips with tree-kote.

Fruit Tree Grafting. 2.25.14

I've been watching the Calendar for grafting time.  I think this is grafting season now for apples and pears.  About the same time as I did last year, which was successful.

Today I added a pollinator variety to the little Honeycrisp, another to the one year old Sutton's Beauty, and one to the one year old Esopus Spitzenberg.  The pollinator varieties are old varieties.

I also added 3 varieties of Asian pear to the 2 year old Hosui, and 2 unknown varieties of European pear to the unknown variety of Asian pear.  This is for pollination.  Also I want to keep those varieties, if we move to the Battleground place.  I prefer more varieties, on the trees already there, than adding more trees.  We don't need a tree-full of each cultivar.  Just a branch for a couple bowls of fruit when each ripens.

Graafting Supplies and Scion Wood

Last year I did cleft grafting on existing trees.  I thought I was too uncoordinated to safely do whip & tongue grafting.  This time I did do whip & tongue grafting.  The saddle grafts all took, and some grew surprisingly fast.  But a cleft graft exposes open wound on each side, which dies and needs to be overgrown by new wood.   The whip & tongue graft does not leave exposed edges, so is potentially healthier.  In theory, all exposed scion cambium is matched with rootstock or branchstock cambium.  That's if the cuts are skillfully done.

I found that sharpening the knife between each graft, the wood cut very steadily.  I steadied my hand against my chest and mad the cuts very slowly, slicing along the blade. The biggest  concern with this method is it is hazardous to the fingers of the grafter.  I did get a small thumb laceration.  It only needed a bandaid.

Whip and Tongue Graft on Asian Pear

I used polyethylene wrap and treekote.  Looks nice and they seem like strongly splinted grafts.

Photo is blurred but still better than my sketch.  I found I had overlap of cut edge over bark.  So I carefully exposed cambium by shaving that section of bark.  Then it matched.

They are a little bent.  They came together with the wrapping.  I dipped in water so cut surfaces would not be dry.

Labels state variety name, expected ripening time, and on the back, graft date.

Wrapped snugly with polyethylene, and labeled.

Some references state polyethlene wrapping does not need external sealer.  Other references state sealer is needed.  A key to success is prevention of dessication, so I sealed.  Treekote is easy to apply.  Messy and not easy to get off the fingers.

Altogether today I did 3 grafts on Hosui pear, 3 grafts on unknown Asian pear, and one each on 3 small apple trees.  Then I wanted to do more but I had homework and a doctor's appointment so I quit.

Lessons learned today.
1.  Grafting is not as hard as I thought.  It takes practice.

Sealed with Treekote

2.  A very sharp knife is essential.  I used a grafting knife, and a hunting knife sharpener from Fred Meyer.
3.  Apply bandaid to thumb before starting.
4.  Work slowly, carefully.  Don't try to slice quickly.
5.  The whip and tongue stays together nicely and does not leave exposed surfaces.
6. Prepare labels ahead of time, with variety name, date of graft, and expected ripening time.  Label each graft as it is completed.
7.  Polyethylene tape is easier than wide rubber bands.  It can be cut from freezer bags, although I got mine via Amazon.
8.  The Treekote is easy to apply too.  That was also via Amazon.

Maybe this weekend I'll graft some plums and cherries.  They are considered more difficult.  The grafting season is short, so I might as well do it now instead of waiting to see how the others do.

Kitchen Garden / Winter Gardening / Raised Beds. Progress Report. 2.23.14

Today in the raised beds I planted:

Parisian Market Carrot seeds.  These are in raised bed which I will use for peppers in May or June.  If not ready by then, any in the way will go to the chickens.  These are a short round carrot, sort of like an orange radish.

Moss Curled Parsley seeds.  Same raised bed.  Ditto for the peppers will take priority.

Snow Peas "Norli".  This bed will go for Tomatoes later.  The peas should be fully done by then.  If not, the tomatoes take priority.  Chickens will like pea shoots.

For vermin control, the first two have a dusting blood / hot pepper.  Same for the Snow Peas, which are also covered by chicken wire, and are in a bed that already has a chicken wire fence.  Last year most of the pea seeds just vanished - I don't know what ate them.  So more attention this year.

 This took all of about 30 minutes.  Most of the day goes for homework.

According to the Park's website, Norli... "French mangetout...Won England's...Award of Garden Merit from the Royal Horticulture Society...ultra-sweet and unbelievably tender...Harvest these peas @ 2 inches long...Entirely stringless...arise very, very heavily on vigorous plants 20 inches high... semi-bush habit...resistance to fusarium wilt"

Apparently "mangetout"is French for edible pod pea.  Park's is always super effusive about everything they sell.   I don't know if I've had fusarium wilt.  I don't think so.

Kitchen Garden / Winter Gardening / Raised Bed. Progress Report. 2.22.14

Covered Tunnel Version 3.  Step 1.

Covered Tunnel Version 3.  Step 2.

Topset Onions Germinated

Radishes and Turnips Germinated

I removed the row cover from the winter vegetable bed.  This bed was planted 1.28.14 so is just under one month after planting.

I originally used polyethylene cover.  That collected rain and collapsed.  I replaced that with permeable row cover.  That collected snow and collapsed.

Meanwhile, there were freezes into the 20s, and a blizzard.

When I removed the row cover, I saw the radish seeds and turnip seeds had germinated.  A few spinach seeds germinated.  Chinese mesclun germinated nicely.  I did not see any cabbage plants.  The topsets from Egyptian Walking Onions were about an inch tall.  Those were unusually small sets I had in the garage.

I didn't weed this time although it could use weeding.  One of the main challenges is vermin, including slugs, voles, rabbits, mice, and others.  So far these seedlings were not eaten.  Although maybe the cabbage seeds germinated and were eaten.

I watered with diluted fish emulsion as a vermin repellent.  Then I applied a dusting of hot pepper / dried blood for the same reason.  Then I added organic slug bait.

The mouse traps were not set off, but mouse traps in the garage had 3 of 4 traps with mice.  So I moved those to the garage.

I went back to a polyethylene row cover.  This time I used wire fencing as a support.  That will prevent pooling of water / collapse.  I should get a larger sheet so I can weigh down the sides with bricks.  Wind might otherwise catch it.  I changed to the polyethylene again because I think it will hold in more heat, and maybe it is more light permeable as well.  It will stay more dry, which is probably good although it might wind up needing some watering.

Bearded Irises. Progress Report. 2.22.14

Selected Irises 2.22.14

Selected Irises 2.22.14

There is a clear difference in the bearded irises.  They have progressed from winter decline into sturdy early growth.  All have made progress.  Some have growth from underground, unexpected.  I thought Flavescens was nearly died out, but there are some new leaves. 

Daffodils are also growing with flower buds showing.  They are there partly as an animal deterrent, and also as the earliest of spring flowers.

I wondered of the Los Angeles rhizome would survive.  It appears to be making more growth now  The Pallida Dalmatica has more growth than I expected.

So far, so good.

I gave them all some organic slug bait.  Slugs start to make damage, this time of year.