New Chicken House

The hens will be quite happy with their new house. It's a children's play fortress. There are no children around, so it's a liability. Clever construction, didn't want to waste it. The fortress has a 2nd level, built as a deck. It did not have a roof. The floor was plain dirt. I've added joists and a floor. That will be warmer and easier to clean and keep clean.

Last weekend I added a roof. Nothing elaborate, it's just chickens. We've joked that we may build a ladder inside for the chickens to go to the 2nd level and look over their realm. For this fall we will concentrate on the more practical lower level.

Next comes windows. I have old bathroom cabinet doors left over from a remodel, the right size. Some chicken wire screen, framing, and paint remains to be applied. And a door, with a chicken door. Maybe 2 weekends of work.

Garlic and Onions: Progress report

The German Porcelain garlic has grown rapidly. These were planted 9/27. A few were visible last week. Most are 2 or 3 inches tall. Some of the multipliers (Egyptian Walking) are also about an inch above ground, but most are not.

These are the Yellow Potato Onions that I planted 9/9/12. I think roughly half are growing. Time flies. That's about one month. I'm not concerned about the ones that are not visible yet. Chances are it's too early to think about it. With fall rains starting, no need to water now. Once the plants are clearly visible, I'll weed better. I don't want to injure new sprouts. The Inchelium Red Garlic, planted 2 or 3 weeks earlier, is way behind the German Porcelain Garlic. I see one sprout, about an inch tall. I'll feel antsy until many more of them are visible.

Ginkgo seeds near harvest

My "source" for ginkgo seeds is nearly ready to harvest.  The seed-fruits now have a butyric acid odor, telling me they are starting to ripen.  I picked up a few.  Will pick up more and clean them next week.

This is one of the two female ginkgo trees in a block-long row of ginkgos. I imagine they were originally grafted trees on seedling stock, and the scions didn't make it. Allowing the rootstock to grow, giving the female trees. That's a wild guess. I can't tell, by looking, a female from a male ginkgo tree.

Here is the little ginkgo tree I moved to the Battleground place. A little sunburn on some leaves and remained droopy. It survived the end of the dry season. I think it will do fine. I'll look forward to new green perky growth next year.

More fruit trees for the little orchard.

I bought some fruit trees, mail order, from One Green World. OGW is about a 2 hour drive from here. Not too far. I had them shipped ground freight.  It's fall, cool outside.  Figured they would survive the trip, and they did.

The trees were nicely packaged.

I think they did a great job preparing the trees for shipment.  There is also a male kiwi vine, more on that later.

No injuries that I can see. The jujube trees were smaller than I expected. I guess they will catch up. I also expected them to be bare root. They were container grown. Maybe the web site stated that and I missed it.  Despite small size, they look completely healthy.

I made a "mole basket" from chicken wire. I've learned my lesson. I think the wire will rust away in a couple of years. The openings are big enough for roots, for many years to come. A 10 year old root would fit through the chicken wire. By that time, the wire will be long rusted away.

Planted Jujube.  Mulched with compost.  Good time to plant.  Cool, rained yesterday, and started drizzling after I finished.

I bought 2 varieties: Li and Coco. I've never eaten a jujube. Apparently the fruit is plum sized, sweet, crispy like apples, with interesting flavors.

Jujube "Li", from OGW. There was no photo of "Coco", which was the 2nd one I bought.

According to the catalog, Jujubes grow to 8 to 10 feet tall.  Compact, nice size for a fruit tree. From the web site specialtyproduce.com "Thought to be native to Syria and China... primarily grown in China...ornamental small thorny tree...loves a dry and mild climate....grows in Mediterranean countries and has since biblical times. Chinese gardeners developed the small fruit until it became superior and dessert quality...now cultivated in Japan, Iran and Afghanistan...Other names for this fruit are Chinese date and tsao. "

Chinese Haw "Red Sun". Ning remembers Shan Zha (Chinese Haw) from northeast China, where they are native. Apparently the fruit is between cherry and plum in size. They look like crab apples, in the photo. I've never eaten one. From the OregonLive blog: "grows at a moderate rate to 20 feet tall...10-12 feet wide. Lobed, oaklike leaves...3/4-inch-diameter white flowers explode in May in finger-length trusses, followed by clusters of glossy crimson edible fruit that ripens in mid- to late October." They label Red Sun as "Da Mian Qii") From OneGreenWorld, where I bought the tree:

Chinese Haw "Red Sun" OGW states the tree bears the 2nd year from planting.

Planted. Had a brain spasm and forgot a mole basket for this one. Will probably be OK.

Moving a young, volunteer maple tree

This maple grew up in a border, at my house in Vancouver. No room there. I decided to move it to the place in Battleground.

This takes me back to when I was a boy. Often a neighbor or family member would have a volunteer tree, and give it away to someone who needed a shade tree. It's a nice memory.  People should do that now.  It would be neighborly, and promote successful, locally adapted species and varieties.

I guess most trees now are clones, grafted to seed-grown rootstocks. Then grown in field-nurseries.  Then bare-rooted, shipped, and sold, or bare-rooted, shipped, and sold to big box stores or nurseries, to be resold. Nothing wrong with being a clone, but it means the tree is probably shipped from a distance, the variety or species may not be locally adapted.  I've seen tropical species sold here.  They won't survive.  The lack of genetic diversity gives propensity for widespread disease, and loss of mature specimens, years later. I'm guessing that a tree on its own roots is more vigorous, but I don't know that.

I have also read, starting with a small tree, it will adapt quickly and surpass trees that were planted at much larger size.  This tree is now plated about 25 feet from the red maple, we planted a few weeks ago.  So we can have a "competition".  Will the little tree catch up to the big one?  Not a fair competition.  They are not identical varieties.  This little tree may or may not be a "red maple".  Acer rubrum.  The leaves look more like red maple than Norway maple, Acer platanoides.   There is also Acer macrophllum, the indigenous "Big Leaf" maple.  This does not quite look like those, either.  Time will tell.

As with other trees, I chose a generous distance from the tree and sliced vertically, making a circle around the tree.  This is a small tree, about 3 feet tall.  I think it sprouted from seed last year.

Continuing the circle.  One side is a short, retaining, stone wall about one foot high.  That made digging easier.  I did not have to dig on that side.

Then the trench, dug farther from the tree.  There didn't turn out to be much root.  I don't think any roots were cut or broken.  That will make for easier adjustment to its new environment.  This area has been enriched with lots of compost.  Digging was easy.  It's been dry for most of the summer.

I placed the tree into a plant container for transport.  I was not able to plant it last night.  So I watered it thoroughly.  Holes in the bottom prevented water-logging.  No wilting at all.   Looks as good as it did before digging.

Now in the ground.  I've been reading, it's better to plant trees at slightly above ground level.  That makes for better drainage.    It may be an issue for compacted soils.  This hole drained very quickly so it is not compacted.  I usually plant bought trees at approximately ground level, as close as I can determine.  It can be difficult to judge.  It's not rocket science.   This tree was "happy" choosing it's own level, so that's were I replanted it.

Filled in, watered, mulched with compost.  Now we await fall.

Spider Web

This morning.  The spider is your friend.

Roots, one month later

I planted this little, container-grown pine about one month ago. Already I saw it was a bad choice of location, and moved it.

Lots of little roots, a half inch long. The soil just fell away. I tried to move with a bigger soil clump but it fell off. I don't think the roots were damaged. It's nice to see that they started growing so fast.

Not the same pine as above, but treated in the same way that I treated that one, initially. This is a bush-type pine, mugo pine. I like pine trees a lot. I don't know why. A disadvantage of buying late in the season, is the roots wind around the container. The circle of roots does not allow for spreading into surrounding soil, weakening and potentially killing the tree, some time down the road. When they encircle this much, I make multiple cuts to discourage encircling and allow new root growth in an outward direction, into the new soil.

I pull away roots that are no longer connected to the plant, and gently spread the cut parts to prevent the "pot in soil" effect. I think it will recover and grow just fine.

Onion and Chive update. Raised bed.

Already, the Chinese chives are filling in with new leaves, stout and firm. The smaller, finer "Illinois rescue" garlic chives are filling in faster than the Chang Chun culinary Chinese chives.  The Egyptian Walking Onions have many new shoots as well - some 3 inches tall.  I think about 2/3 have started growing above the soil.  Fast. Both the bulbs and the topsets are growing fast. There are 2 bunches of cilantro that I planted a week or two ago.  Almost ready to eat.

The Yellow Potato Onions are sending up new shoots.  That's about 2 weeks?  No garlic up yet. I'm not greedy, they will grow in their own time.

Moving a big forsythia bush

This bush was in a bad place.  Dry, north side of the house, shaded on 3 sides.  It was droopy and not enough room.  I grew it from a cutting about 7 years ago.  This bush had branches too tall for me to reach the top, so about 9 feet tall.  But all of the leaves were wilted. They have been repeatedly wilter most of the summer. I don't water it enough.

Doesn't look great, but on planting and watering, the few remaining leaves perked up nicely. My theory is that forsythia is so tough, and cuttings root so easily, and it does have a good root mass. So I think it will have a set back, and of course won't bloom next spring. But I think it will establish and be a nice bush by next summer. Pic to add tomorrow after it has the cool night to soak up water. Added the next am:

The forsythia leaves perked up nicely. I think it will do OK.

Moving a 4 year old cherry tree

Rain is predicted for next Saturday. Nights are in the 40s to 50s, days in 70s to 80s. Leaves are beginning to change color and drop. So I thought it would be OK to move this 4 year old Almaden Duke cherry tree from the yard in Vancouver to the yard in Battleground. It was quite a job.

Before digging.   I watered the tree thoroughly 2 days ago.  It wasn't getting watered much this summer.  There was a handful of cherries this year.  good.

Starting to dig.  As with the ginkgo, vertical slices about 2 feet from the trunk.

Then dig further out, making a moat.  Then slicing under the tree.  Slicing the soil, as deep as possible, not prying upward.

Then, as the tree falls to one side,  easing a tarp under it.  I did not lift, but rather wedged the tarp under the tree.  Then pulled on the tarp to move the tree.  At the truck, I lifted using the tarp.  I covered the tree with another tarp, along with a shrub and another smaller tree, tied it all down, and drove it to battleground.  It wasn't as good as it sounds - wind blew under the tarp, resulting in some dehydration of the tree.

Here's the hole.  I hosed down the tree and kept it covered until ready to put into the hole.  There are two mole tunnels into this hole.

I'm tired of moles digging into the newly planted trees.  I don't know if they actually do harm.  I'm also tired of me not doing something about it.  So here is a lining of chicken wire.  It should rust away in a few years.

Cherry planted.  A bit droopy.  I don't know if that's the wind effect, which didn't affect other trees that I moved, or maybe cherries in leaf just don't move well.  After soaking, it's a little less droopy.  Still, it may lose leaves, and I may not know until next year if it survives. Added the next morning:

The leaves did perk up. Not 100%, but much better. I think it will be OK. * The mole screen did seem to annoy and frustrate the mole. He/she built a new mole hill right at he screen, where the tunnel was blocked. I don't mind the moles. They eat grubs, so they have a beneficial role.I just don't want them to damage the young tree roots. It's also annoying when they pile soil on top of the mulch. When the rains start, I'm guessing they will concentrate on the newly moist soil of the lawn, and stay away from my little fruit trees.