Male Ginkgo Flowers. 4.21.17 |
Friday, April 21, 2017
Tuesday, April 18, 2017
Dawn Redwood Leaves Unfurling. 4.17.17
Dawn Redwood Leaves Unfurling. 4.17.17 |
Dawn Redwood. 4.17.17 |
Labels:
Dawn Redwood,
Metasequoia glyptostroboides
Potatoes Are Growing. Planted Onion Starts.
Potatoes, planted in feb. 4.17.17 |
Collards are starting to bold. They had a good run. Still some leaves to pick and cook.
Onions that I planted last month are beginning to look darker green and stouter. I had enough unplanted seedlings in containers for 4 more 8-foot rows. They look really puny in the rows but maybe they will perk up soon.
Garlic is about a foot tall. This year I grew it in the open beds. I don't think deer or rabbits usually eat garlic plants. They ate some when they first sprouted last fall but all look good now. Weeds are harder to hoe out in those beds, it rained too much for me to hoe and the weeds got out of control. I weeded them yesterday. Looks like we can get a big crop of good garlic this summer.
Overwintered Collards. 4.17.17 |
Onion Plants after One Month. 4.17.17 |
Onion Seedlings. Ailsa Craig and Patterson. 4.17.17 |
Sunday, April 16, 2017
Fruit Tree Blooming Notes. 4.16.17
Gage Plum. 4.16.17 |
Stanley Plum. 4.16.17 |
LaCrescent Plum. 4.16.17 |
Hanska Plum. 4.16.17 |
Ember Plum. 4.16.17 |
Sweetheart Cherry. 4.16.17 |
Vandalay Cherry. 4.16.17 |
Ranier Cherry. 4.16.17 |
Hamese Asian Pear. 4.16.17 |
Hosui Asian Pear. 4.16.17 |
Maxie Asian Pear. Front white flower is graft of unknown Asian Pear. 4.16.17 |
Multigraft Asian Pear, Branches Tied Down for Better Bearing. 4.16.17 |
Shinseiki Asian Pear. 4.16.17 |
By now, the earliest have dropped almost all of their petals, and can be considered done blooming. Those are:
Ornamental Plum Crimson Pointe.
Hollywood Plum.
Sweet Treat Pluerry.
Nadia Plum Cherry Hybrid.
Methley Plum looks done or nearly so.
At peak or slightly past peak:
All of the hybrid Asian/American species plums. These include Toka, Hanska, Ember, Lacrescent.
The unknown Asian plum is also past peak.
Shiro is past peak.
At peak bloom:
Stanley European plum
Green Gage (European) plum.
Vandalay Sweet Cherry.
Sweetheart Sweet Cherry.
Ranier Sweet Cherry.
Asian Pears including Hamese, Shinseiki, Hosui, Mishirasu, and unknown that might be Shinseiki but appears slightly different.
Maxie Hybrid pear is not quite to peak.
I have a graft of Rescue pear on the Maxie tree, which is at peak, but the original Rescue pear has barely begun blooming.
Apples are not blooming yet, but Gravenstein will be the first, with the first pink flowers now almost open. It looks like Liberty and Pristine will be close behind, and maybe Jonared. I don't know which of those I'm anticipating more.
Pawpaws have swelling buds, but I think it will still be a month or so.
Among the peaches, Charlotte is almost done blooming. Same for Mary Jane. Q-1-8 is at peak bloom.
The bottom 3 photos are my main orchard, although I have about as many other trees spread around the 2 acres in various groups. It's nice seeing so many trees blooming, and thinking about watching the potential fruits develop.
a month.
Tulips. 4.16.17
Graft Progress Report. New Grafts and Some Old Ones. 4.16.17
European Plum Yakima, Whip/Tongue. One Month. 4.16.27 |
The European pears here are on what was a new bare-root multigraft. That may not give them the best start, but at least the buds remain viable after one month and are swelling. Yellow Egg already had swelling buds, which may be why the new growths appear damaged. It's wait and see to see if they grow.
European Plum Yellow Egg, Whip/Tongue. One Month. 4.16.27 |
Asian Pear Chojuro One Month. 4.16.17 |
The Nijiseiki was from last year and is on a Hosui Asian pear. It took and grew nicely.
The older grafts are examples of how they look after a few years. With my plum and apple grafts, most of the graft sites are no longer easy to identify. They merged together almost seamlessly.
Asian Pear Hosui. Two Month. 4.16.17 |
Asian Pear Hamese. Two Month. 4.16.17 |
Asian Pear Nijiseiki. One Year. 4.16.17 |
Asian Pear Shinseiki. Cleft Graft. 4 years. 4.16.17 |
The ginkgo grafts barely grew last year when I grafted them, but the buds remained healthy looking. The understock did grow new branches. This winter, I pruned off those new branches. The first one has bud damage - slugs? rabbits? voles? but the second one is looking OK. These are as exciting as any, because they mean that I can keep the ginkgo tree, in a sense, that I grew from seeds that my Dad collected almost 20 years ago. That tree is around 25 feet tall, so obviously I can't transplant it.
Unknown European Pear on Asian Pear. 4 Years. Whip/Tongue. 4.16.17 |
Chocolate Persimmon. Whip Tongue. One Year. 4.16.17 |
Male Ginkgo on Ginkgo Seedling. One Year. 4.16.17 |
Male Ginkgo on Ginkgo Seedling. One Year. 4.16.17 |
Labels:
graft,
pear grafting,
persimmon grafting,
plum grafting,
whip-and-tongue
Thursday, April 13, 2017
Dandelion Greens. 4.12.17
Good time for dandelion greens. High in calcium, iron, minerals, and multiple vitamins. I save the biggest plants for my salad raised bed. Excellent, hardy, very early perennial vegetable. Dandelions have been culinary and herbal stables for centuries in many countries. It's too bad they are not better accepted here. We like them in Spring salads. The chickens love eating them any time.
This plant was in the yard. It was so lush, I intend to dig it up and transplant to my perennial vegetable bed.
This plant was in the yard. It was so lush, I intend to dig it up and transplant to my perennial vegetable bed.
Starting Pepper and Other Seeds, Indoors. 5/12/17
Today I started peppers indoors. It is a little late, but I hope we still get a crop. Our Spring is so chilly and wet, early plants just sulk anyway. Maybe they'll get a better start than last year, when I started them much earlier.
I also started some greens seeds.
I added another batch of tomatillo seeds. According to the catalog, this is a Polish variety better adapted to cooler shorter summers, compared to the Mexican types.Tomatillo Amarylla. 60 days.
I also started some greens seeds.
I added another batch of tomatillo seeds. According to the catalog, this is a Polish variety better adapted to cooler shorter summers, compared to the Mexican types.Tomatillo Amarylla. 60 days.
Tuesday, April 11, 2017
Starting Seeds. 4/11/17
Started seeds today. This is later than I usually do. I'm not sure there is an advantage to the really early start, especially for semi-tropicals like tomatoes. They sit in the cold ground, sulk, and sometimes never have the vigor that later starts have. This year I was not as enthusiastic in March, so here we are. A lot of the packets are old. I don't know about those 10-year old Celebrity tomato seeds. That was my mom's favorite type. No loss if they don't grow.
I usually try some reliable well established varieties that I know will do well, and some experiments. The experiments are tomatoes, San Marzano (Roma type), Beaver Lodge and Glacier (early Northwest types), Longkeeper (one to keep for ripening past the normal potato season), Black Vermisssage, and Atomic.
I also bought some Tomatillo Amaryllo, which might not be suitable for our cool and fairly short summer, but you never know.
My favorite tomato is Better Boy. My favorite cherry tomato is SuperSweet 100.
I had 2 types of collar green seeds, so I'll grow both and see how they do. The collards from last year survived the winter, and the spring leaves are excellent to add to salads. No holes from cabbage moths, they are crisp and mild.
Next to find the pepper seeds.
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