Book Review. How to grow perennial vegetables, buy Martin Crawford. 3.17.16

Red mulberry

This week I went to the local library and checked out the book, "How to Grow Perennial Vegetables" by Martin Crawford.  2012.

This book is interesting because growing perennial vegetables allows us to have plants that require minimal maintenance, fit into a permaculture landscape, and puts to work some plants that might otherwise be taken for granted or considered weeds.

The book is well written and interesting.  There is a comprehensive list of plants with descriptions, instructions for how to grow them, and culinary uses.  The format is easy to follow and informative.

Plants that were interesting to me -

Violet

Apple mint -  because I recently saw a video about how to make a tea from apple mint.
Asparagus - which I just planted yesterday, "Millenium".  I don't know how that will do, but it's worth a try.
Chives and Chinese Chives - which we already grow.
Columbine - for the leaves.  Salad greens.  I didn't know that.
Dandelion - multi uses, greens and root.   Planning to experiment with both the weed and improved cultivars.  One application is a sort of "wilted lettuce salad" which involves saute of the leaves.
Daylilies - for the flowers or flower buds.  The unopened buds can be used as a sort of green bean - like vegetable.
Hostas  - eat the young shoots as a fresh vegetable, apparently popular in Korea.
Horseradish - I think I will add some in the orchard row.  That should at least give the moles and voles extra flavors to savor as they tunnel through.
Sedum spectabile - I didn't know that!  Already growing many bunches for bees.  Use leaves as a fresh green.  The book states, "succulent and juicy and ready to add to a salad on a hot summer day"

Linden

Linden - leaves for cooking like spinache, or salad.  I imagine better in spring when fresh and young.
Mulberry - leaves can be used as a cooked green. Also, I imagine better when fresh and young.
Opuntia cacti - for nopales.  I don't know how they will do but I am experimenting with them.
Oca - I found these in a catalog but way too expensive.  If I can find a less expensive source I will try.
Rhubarb - mostly uses as a pseudo-fruit, but can also be savory.
Violets - leaves for soups, have a thickening effect.

The book describes many times more than this list, which other than oca and apple mint, I already grow.  All very interesting and useful

I'm fairly impressed at this list, so many edible plants already in my yard, and quite a few that I have not sampled.  I suspect some are better and some are not so good, but we can be sort of like Euell Gibbons, we can "Stalk the Wild Asparagus", in our own yards.


[All images via public domain website, vintageprintable.com]




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Kitchen Garden Progress Report. 3.17.16

Container Planting of Radish and Spinach Seedlings.  3.17.16

 I did a lot of gardening today.

Large half-barrel size containers with greens and favas are coming along nicely, roughly one month after planting.  Pictured, radish and spinach.  Favas are also growing nicely both in containers and in-ground, and scallions are more than a foot tall - Eqyptian Walking Onions.

Grape cuttings look good, about one month.  I am starting Interlaken and Price.  These will get extra TLC this year to achieve planting size as soon as I can manage.

Grape Cuttings at One Month.  3.17.16

Favas Germinating at one month.  3.17.16

Apple Scion, Fedco.  3.17.16

 Fedco apple scion came yesterday.  I stored in refridgeratore overnight.  Scion includes Milo Gibson, Sweet-16, Baldwin, Newtown Pippin.  Some were very small.  I multigrafted 3 existing trees, and also created one from a one-year plant of semidwarf stock taken from the stump of a prior apple tree.  That last was a rind graft, because the scion was so much smaller than the rootstock.  I used Mil Gibson because it is rare and unique.

The seedling gemetic dwarf peach is blooming at 4 years.  Others at same age and younger are not blooming.  I'm designating these as "gremlin peaches" because the trees are so tiny, suitable for container.  I don't know what they will be like.  They need a designation because it's too much typing to continue stating "seedlings of genetic dwarf peaches".

I planted herb seeds indoors in seed starting soil, in reused, washed seedling 6-packs.  I started seeds for greens in the outdoor half barrels.  As pictured below.

Rind Graft, Milo Gibson Apple on unknown semidwwarf rootstock.  3.17.16

Seedling Gremlin Peach at 4 years.  3.17.16

Seeds planted indoors.  3.17.16

Seeds planted outdoors in large containers for greens.  3.17.16

Genetic Dwarf Peaches. Progress Report. 3.14.16

Genetic Dwarf Peach "Garden Gold"  3.14.16

Genetic Dwarf Peach "Honeybabe".  3.14.16

 All of the genetic dwarf peaches are blooming.  The almost insurmountable challenge with these, is peach leaf curl disease.

There are several ways to address leaf curl.  Among those, sprays, cover the trees for the winter to prevent fungal growth in the buds, or be more creative and intense, growing in containers.  To grow in containers, one can buy  a bare root tree and plant in container, or try growing seedlings from genetic dwarf varieties.

During fall, 2014, I dug up the smallest of my genetic dwarf peach trees, and planted in container.  That required significant loss of very large roots.  Even so, in 2015, that tree was the best of any of my peaches, and the fruit was the most delicious peach crop I've had in years.

Here is a summary of my varieties:

Garden Gold.  White flesh.  Approx 14 years old.  Always blooms well, gets a bad dose of PLC - peach leaf curl disease - loses most of the peaches, recovers, gets a few peaches for fall.

Honeybabe.  Golden flesh.  I like the flavor better than Garden Gold.  However, Honeybabe has worse leaf curl.  This year it looks even worse than usual.  I don't know if it will survive.

Genetic Dwarf Peach "Eldorado".  3.14.16

Seedling from Genetic Dwarf Peach.  4th year.  3.16.14

Eldorado.  As described, excellent small peaches.  PLC was as bad as the other varieties, even though I had it planted under semi-shelter.  Containerized and not exposed to rain during wingter 2014-2015, there was almost no PLC at all, that cleared up quickly, and it made a great crop.

Empress.  I bought this as a bare root tree, winter 2015-2016.  It is planted in container.  No way to know how it will do.

Seedlings.  I have several seedling trees.  Initially, this was unplanned.  The parent varieties are either Garden Gold or Honeybabe.  This winter, the first is starting to bloom, at 4 years old.  I kept it in a shed for much of the winter, then on a deck not exposed to rain.  No way to know yet if it will bear fruit, or what the fruit will be like.

If I was to start over, I would grow these peaches, only in containers.  I would save seeds from the first year or two fruit, to experiment with.  

Container growth requires a lot of attention.  They dry out quickly, so need water on a daily or twice daily basis.  Wrapping the container with foil can reduce soil temp, but they still need daily watering.  Container trees need pruning to keep branches close to the core, to reduce top heaviness and risk of falling over, and broken branches.  Genetic dwarf trees over-set badly - something like 90% of fruit should be removed at pea-size stage.  Fortunately, the trees are small so that does not require ladders.

What's Blooming. Backyard Phenoogy. 3.3.16

Flowering Rootstock Growths from Ornamental Cherry.  3.3.16

El Dorado Peach In Bloom.  3.3.16

Shiro Plum Bloom, Almost Open.  3.3.16

Some of the trees in my old yard in town.  The rootstock for the 50? year old Kwanzaa? cherry has nice ruffled, but single, pink flowers.  Much earlier than the main tree.  I leave those there for the nice flowers.

I grafted both Kwanzaa and rootstock onto separate wild cherry root stocks.  The wild cherry root stocks are probably sweet cherries.

Genetic Dwarf peach in container, north side of house, El Dorado, in bloom.

Hollywood plum is fully open.  Shiro is almost open.

Pink Flowered Ornamental Cherry Rootstock Flowers.  3.3.16

Home Orchard Progress Report. 3.6.16

North View,  Main Orchard.   3.5.16

Charlotte Peach.  3.6.16

Asian Pear Multigraft.  3.6.16

 This is a good moment to assess fruit tree flowers.  Compatible trees that bloom at the same time are candidates for pollinating, either as nearby trees or graft of pollinating branch.

Plums, and hybrid Prunus, blooming at the same time now, include Methley, Sweet treat, Hollywood.  Toka has swelling buds not yet open.

Nadia has open flowers but may not count because I just planted it last month as a bare root tree.

Korean bush cherry is the only cherry that is blooming now.  They are described as self-pollinating.

Most of the Asian pears have swelling buds but no open flowers so far.

Not blooming, but I have cleaned up most of the grape plants in the row of grapes.  I planted two new ones, Black Monukka, and Himrod.  I was unable to find much info about Black Monukka.  Himrod is described as too vigorous in Oregon, but I don't know about here.  I also don't know the conditions for the aggressive growth - if those were near a lawn or farm field, they may have been over fertilized, which for grapes leads to excessive green growth but fewer grapes.

Methley Plum.  3.6.16

Sweet Treat Pluerry, Prunus interspecific hybrid.  3.6.16

Hollywood Plum, 2 years after starting from cutting.  3.6.16

Label, new grape plant "Black Monukka".  3.6.16

Buffalo Grape, swelling buds.   3.6.16

Korean Bush Cherry Flowers.  3.6.16

Kitchen Garden Progress Report. 3.6.16

Germinating Fava.  3.6.16

New Strawberry bed.  3.6.16

 Late winter kitchen garden.

The first favas have emerged.  These are the variety "Windsor".   I think this is about 3 weeks.  They are not pre-soaked.   I did not worry about placing them with hilum down.  The white pellets are Sluggo slug bait.  I read favas are tasty plants, the slug bait is prophylactic.

The strawberries all grew, every plant.  Starks did a nice job with them.

Garlic is growing fast. 

Many of the potatoes that I planted from salvaged, very sprouted saved potatoes, are showing thick green leaves. 

There are also seedlings of spinach, kohlrabi, radishes, and turnips growing at the old place, in wine barrel containers, and the second crop of favas along with snow peas to germinate in the next 2 weeks.

Overwintered Garlic.  3.6.16

Salvaged Potato Sprouts Growing.   3.6.16

Raised Beds - Earlier, Warmer, Easier. Progress Report. 3.4.16

 I completed the newest raised beds.  There are now four.  They are build largely from recycled narrow cement blocks from the old place, used there for a variety of purposes.  I needed some to complete the last two beds.  The blocks are 99 cents each at Home Depot.  Each bed requires 21 blocks, plus one half-block and some bricks due to dimensions that don't match because of shape.

All of my raised beds are built on a chicken wire fencing base, to prevent moles from tunneling up into the beds.

Dimensions are roughly 4 feet by 4 feet by 18 inches high.

The capstones are all re-used from a patio.  They are cobblestone pavers.

Recycled Concrete Block Raised Beds.  3.4.16

I measured the soil temperatures this week.  The base soil was 60F.  In the lower, wooden raised beds, the soil was 62F.  In the concrete raised beds, the soil was 65F.  This time of year, the warmer soil is an advantage.  Mulch may be needed later, to reflect heat.

The pavers add a little height.  My theory is the concrete blocks absorb heat, even though color is not dark, and transmit that heat to the air spaces.  The air is warmed, and the pavers hold the warm air in place.  During the summer, pavers could be removed to allow excape of the warm air, if I think that is an issue.

For senior access and gardening comfort / accessibility, these concrete block raised beds seem ideal.  They are a good sitting height.  The blocks make it possible to sit on the edge of the bed and work soil with hand tools.  They are nearer to visual comfort height, which makes planting seeds and weeding easier.

I planted seeds from old packets, radishes, scorzina, spring greens.  One bed has some overflow scallions, perennial onions.  I want to grow flowers in one bed when / if the spring vegetables and greens are finished.

I also have smaller raised beds - these fall between raised bed and container.  They are made from re-used concrete tree rings, stacked to fit together. 

In this case, the container / bed contains hyacinths - planted deep - and daylilies, planted above the hyacinths.    I have grown other plants in this system - potatoes, perennial onions, annuals.  The height and size is very convenient.  There is no bottom, but I lay down a base of chicken wire fencing to prevent mole infestation and disruption.

What's Blooming. 3.4.16

Anemones.  3.4.16

 It's  been cooler and rainy, but now there are lots of flowers  blooming.  Anemones, many of the narcissus, especially Dutch Master and Jetfire, and some others.  An apricot, grown from seeds, is blooming.  Forsythias are coming into their own.  Flowers are fully open on Crimson Spire plum, starting to open on Hollywood plum, Methley plum, and Toka plum.  Charlotte peach flowers are open.

Daffodils.  3.6.16

Unknown, modern forsythia.  3.4.16

Daffodils, mainly Jetfire.  3.6.16

Prunus Sweet Treat.  3.4.16

Ning with front yard flower bed.  3.4.16

Forsythia, 3 years after transplant.  3/4/16

Propagation Projects, Progress Report. 3.3.16

Pink Ornamental Cherry, whip / tongue 3.3.16

Single Pink Ornamental Cherry, whip / tongue  3.3.16

Ginkgo whip / tongue.  3.3.16

Ginkgo whip / tongue  3.3.16

 These are some of my plant propagation projects.

On the past 2 days, I grafted scion from ornamental cherries onto wild cherry root stock.  The root stocks were volunteers in the yard, likely sweet cherry or descendents from sweet cherries.

It was difficult to identify scion that was not already too far along.  The main tree is an ancient - in suburban terms - double flowered, fringed, pink Japanese cherry.  Very beautiful.    From the rootstock of that tree, are growths that bloom much earlier, pink prolific single flowers.    That one is even more advanced, fully blooming.  There were some 1-year growths that have mildly swelling buds, so I used one of those.

If the flowering cherry scion don't take, I can alllow growth of the wild cherry root stocks from below the grafts, and try T-budding this summer.

I've already posted on the ginkgo tree grfts.  The buds might be swelling a little.  Hard to say.  The trees are no further along.  I tiny patch of green is visible in some  buds.  It takes imagination to see that.

Grape Cuttings.  3.3.16

Genetic Dwarf Peach Seedling.  4th year.  3.4.16

Sedum From Stem Cuttings, Overwintered Outdoors.  3.4.16

Buds are swelling on the grape cuttings.  Those are from February.

The seedling genetic dwarf peach has pink flower buds.  I don't know what will happen.  If the flowers take, then the peaches may be small, due to not being on a vigorous peach rootstock.  If dwarfing rootstocks make for normal size fruit, them maybe own-root peaches are no smaller than their grafted counterparts.  This is an experiment.

The large varietiy sedums from stem cuttings last fall are growing nicely.  I kept a few inside - they dried out and died.  The starts that I kept outside for the winter are growing.

Potatoes and review of book, The Complete Book of Potatoes. 3.1.16

It might seem strange to write an entire book about potatoes, but there are several out there, and websites such as "Potato History", "History of the potato", "How the potato changed world history", and many more.  In past  books, I read about the massive, transformative effect that transporting potatoes from the Andes where they originated, to Europe and China, had on human nutrition and populations.  This book is more about growing potatoes, which also deserves a book

The Complete Book of Potatoes.   by de Jong, Sieczka, de Jong.  2011.  Timber Press, Portland OR.

I got the book at my local library, Fort Vancouver Library in Vancouver, WA..

In other books - I forget which - I've read that per acre, potatoes give more calories and nutrition than any other plant, including rice, corn, and wheat.  That difference is what allowed population explosions among the peasantry in China and Europe.  And monoculture, of just one potato variety in Ireland, was what lead to total dependence on an agricultural house of cards, leading to  disease susceptibility and famine.

Reading the book "The Complete Book of Potatoes" resulted  learning in a  number of things about growing potatoes, I did not know, such as - in no particular order

Each cultivar has its own tuber dormancy period, which has a major effect on how long they can be stored.  Dormancy can be 4 weeks, to more than 3 months.  Growing types with long dormancy period would be good for keeping potatoes.  Growing types with shorter dormancy period would be better for fresh use where storage isn't important.

Yukon Gold and Burbank Russet have long dormancy and good storability.

Day length has a big effect on what variety grows and produces, where.

Potatoes remove a lot of nitrogen and potassium from the soil, so need fertile conditions.   However, too much nitrogen, or late nitrogen, can lead to poor quality potatoes.  Note that Pacific Northwest soils, west of the Cascade Mountains, are often verynhigh in potassium.

Emerging potato sprouts can tolerate chill, 28F ro 32F.  Soil at planting temperature should be at least 45F.

For early harvest, plant early green sprouted potatoes, and use plastic tunnels to keep them warm.

Soil pH under 5.5 pretty much prevents scab.  My soil is acidic, in the 5.03 to 5.5 range.

More nutrients are available at pH 6 to 7, but that promotes scab.

Scab should not be a problem at pH above 7.

French Fries were probably developed in Belgium, not France.  Potato Chips, however, are an American Invention.

Potato species originate in a wide area of South and Central America, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Mexico, Uruguay, and Paraguay, and south Brazil.  It is thought the wild tuber bearing species actually originated in Mexico - I thought it was Peru.  The most primitive variety is epiphytic - grows in trees.

I think this book was very useful and will have an effect on my gardening.  I am better prepared as to cultivar selection, growing, harvesting, and storing this useful and delicious garden crop.  The book also discusses many potato cultuvars, organic and conventional methods, hilling, mulch, and other aspects of growing potatoes.

Based on the information from this book, my planting of sprouted potatoes might not turn out.  It's OK, there was no other purpose for them, and maybe they will do better than expected.

Image Attribution:
(1)  By Henry G. Gilbert Nursery and Seed Trade Catalog Collection.; Peter Henderson & Co. [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.  Date 1872
(2)  By Wiley, Harvey Washington, 1844-1930; United States. Division of Chemistry; United States. Department of Agriculture [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons Date:  1900
(3)  By W.W. Barnard & Co; Henry G. Gilbert Nursery and Seed Trade Catalog Collection [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons  Date:  1914