Wednesday, December 05, 2012

First Seed Orders for 2013 Season.

I've been thinking about it for too long, so went ahead and ordered most of the seeds for next season. It's not so far away. Some cold tolerant plants may be planted in Feb or March. I concentrated on plants that were as short-season as possible. I wanted ones that I could save seeds from for the future, so they need to be open pollinated, nonhybrid varieties. Where possible, I chose plants that have high likelihood to grow with cool summer nights and short summer season.

 Here's my list from Seedsavers.org:
 Watermelon, Petite Yellow to plant in May or June. Small fruits, 65-80 days.
Pepper, Santa Fe Grande, 75-85 days. May use row cover tunnel.
Pepper, Hot Portugal, 65-75 days. I usually get a few peppers each year. May use row cover tunnel. Lettuce, Tennis Ball, 50 days.
Pea, Asparagus, 60-75 days. Something new to try.
Tomato, Dester OG, 70-80 days. This looks a bit like the pink Ponderosas I grew as a boy.
Tomato, Japanese Trifele Black, 70-80 days.
Tomato, Earliana, 60-70 days
Swiss Chard, Five Color Silverbee, 50-60 days. I don't know if we'll like it. Probably. Otherwise, there's the chickens to feed.
Radish, Cincinnati Market, 25-30 days
Radish, French Breakfast, 20-30 days
Watermelon, Blacktail Mountain. 65-75 days, regionally adapted (N. Idaho),
Melon, Minnesota Midget, 60-75 days. Early, North adapted, small size melons.
Salsify, Mammoth Sandwich Island, 120 days. Long season. Something different.
Okra, Clemson Spineless, 50-64 days. Needs warm. May use row cover tunnel.
Carrot, Scarlet Nantes, 65-75 days.
Carrot, Paris Market, 50-68 days. Round balls, like radishes.
Beet, Detroit Dark Red, 60-65 days.

I forgot to order Butternut squash and a couple of other things, but this is most of my planned kitchen garden.

I also ordered a few items from Sustainableseeds.com
Parisian Carrot Seeds - oops, duplicate
Chamomile, Roman, experiment, for edging kitchen garden beds
Chamomile, German Herb, experiment, for edging kitchen garden beds.
True Lavender Seeds, ditto. We may want to grow a lot more lavender - bees love it, it's dry tolerant, and smells great.
White Dutch Clover, mix into grass in my little orchard.
Organic Purple Top White Globe Turnip, heirloom, at least back to 1881. 57 days.

In my seed collection I have Roma bush beans, a dwarf Snowpea (forget the name). Also saved seeds for yellow wax pencil bush beans. And lots of various pepper and tomato varieties.  Those may be too old. I'll need to check them for germination.

From Territorial Seeds, I ordered Rhizobium inoculum for beans and peas. I'll probably add a few items, not much. This looks like a lot but the planting will go fast.

Tuesday, December 04, 2012

Kitchen Garden Plan

This is the plan for the kitchen garden for next year.  I used a high-tech method called "writing on an old mailing envelope using a pen".  Bio-powered system.
The three beds on the eastern side are planted as noted. When the alliums are done, in July, I can prep those beds for crop rotation, adding in compost and start fall-planted radishes, cabbages, turnips, mesclun. Another option is late-planted bush beans. I'll build the two late-winter beds next. That will give the coli/compost/supplement mix a chance to settle and "cure" before planting. Probably late feb. Those are fast growing. When they are done, the warm-requiring solanums (eggplant, chilis, tomatoes) and Okra can go in. The taller ones will go to the back. I can build the other beds through the winter and prep them in early Spring, March and April, before they need to be planted in May or June. By then I'll be tired of building raised beds and, especially, hauling soil to them. The soil hauling is heavy work.

One great thing about planning on paper is, I can continue changing it as I think of better choices.

The raised beds now. The soil pile and compost pile are in approx locations for two of the beds. I hope people don't think someone is buried there.
It's great to have company, even if they are sleeping.

Mycorhizal Inoculant

I've been reading up on the soil "world wide web" of fungal mycelia. These organisms benefit plants and trees in many ways, and connect plants to one another. They transfer nutrition between plants and trees, bring nutrition from otherwise unavailable sources in the soil, improve root growth, stimulate top growth, improve drought resistance, and improve disease resistance. Apparently, disturbance of soil can reduce or eliminate some mycorrhizal mycelial webs, which take a long time to regenerate. Those disturbance include plowing, tilling, soil compaction, fertilizing, and pesticides. The marketing argument for inoculants is, they replenish the mycelial web at the place where it is most needed, the plant root. Technically, once inoculum is added, it should not be needed again.
Plant Success mycorrhizal inoculant list of species. I bought via Amazon.  The advantage is the variety of species.  Different plants benefit from different fungal species, with a lot of overlap.  By providing a variety of species, the thinking is that the ones that can become symbionts with the particular garden plant, will grow, and the others wont hurt anything.  Some plants can use multiple species.  Some mycorrhiza associate with certain plants and not others.

In order to apply at the roots, inoculant is best used at time of planting.  The granules are sprinkled on the plant roots, or in the soil that is then applied to the plant roots.   The alternative is to dig small holes around the plant and sprinkle inoculant into the holes, with the expectation that once against the roots, the mycelium will spread from root to root.
Mykos mycorrhizal inoculant.  I did not see a list of species.  I also could not find that on the website.  From other sites on the internet, it looks like Mykos is one species, Globus intraradices TRI 801, 80 spores per gram.  Reading on mycorhiza, Globus intraradices  is not so likely to benefit woody trees like this hazelnut.  I should have used Plant Success for this.  A lot of other plants should be happy with the G. intraradices so I will use up the package for them.  The main issue is that G. intraradices is an "endo" mycorrhiza, which lives within the root.  Many plants benefit from endo, but apparently a lot of woody trees benefit from "ecto" myorrhiza, which live surrounding the root.
Mushrooms.  I am not adventurous enough to eat them.  This part of the yard has a number of old, nearly decomposed, tree stumps.  There are mushrooms throughout the yard.  There appear to be multiple varieties.

Mushrooms are the fruiting structures of a mature mycorrhizal mycelium, responding to weather or other stimuli to grow and produce spores.  There are thousands of species.
This is one mushroom, near a spruce tree.  There are more of the same type, near other spruce trees.  Which leads me to suspect some species specificity.  Big mushroom.

Seeing mushrooms around the yard, makes me wonder if adding mycorrhizal inoculant is like taking coals to Newcastle.  Maybe.  The raised beds are, by definition, highly disturbed soils.  The first two were filled largely with granular soil from the hundreds of molehills that had baked in the sun.  That was easy to handle and they needed to be removed so mowing would not cause big dust-bowl quality clouds of soil.  So no active mycelia, I'm sure, but maybe lots of spores.   Even though about 1/4 of the volume of those beds was compost, I don't know the mycorrhizal content of the compost.  I suspect this compost's population is mainly bacterial and actinomycete, not mycorrhizal fungi.  No way for me to know, and I don't think anything is hurt by adding some inoculant.

Another argument could be made that the most adapted, most likely to survive and flourish, mycorhiza are the ones that were already growing here.  Valid argument.  I view adding inoculant as a boost for newly planted trees, shrubs, and garden plants.  Since I use lots of mulch and add lots of organic matter, this will be a "one time" effort.

I suspect that some (much?) of the market for mycorrhizal inoculant is in the home production of certain herbal products that I have no interest in growing and don't want to know about.   All I want from it is better trees, shrubs, flowers, and vegetables.

Moving a 10 year old Rose of Sharon

It needed room.  I had it in too small location.  This is a durable shrub, blooms well when other plants are wearing out.

I used the same approach as usual, so just posting pic of the shrub out of the ground, pruned and root pruned.  It lost a lot of roots, so I pruned the top back heavily as well.

Hard to see here, but the trunk is about 6 inches in diameter.  I've been pruning to keep it compact for all of it's life.  I suppose if I had not, it would be a tree now.

Not posting as a "how to" so much as a record for future reference.  I want to see if it survives.  I think it will be fine, but next year a but less vigorous due to root pruning.

Even without moving a shrub or tree from one place to another, root pruning is a legitimate technique to reduce vigor.  Not as extreme as this but I think it has adequate root to survive, and there is fall and early Spring to regenerate feeder roots before top growth commences.  The shrub will restrict its top growth based on the available feeder roots, so it be much more likely to survive than if I had done this while leafy.

Sunday, December 02, 2012

Moving a 10 year old Brunswick Fig Tree

This was as big as I can handle.  I grew this tree from a cutting in 2001.  It came from a NoID tree in a vacant lot.  I have been calling it "Vancouver" because I don't have a solid ID.  I'm fairly sure the variety is Brunswick = Dalmatica = Magnolia = Madonna.  The figs are big, juicy, and sweet, but I lose most of the crop every year due to lateness.  Most of the figs fail to ripen in the cool wet late October weather.  I debated cutting it down.  Instead, I moved it to the Battleground place.  There, it ill have more sun, and maybe a little brighter sun.  Maybe that will ripen the figs a little sooner.
This location was becoming unkept, and so was the tree. First I pruned the suckers and pruned the top to make it easier to handle.  I pruned a bit more aggressively than I usually do.  It will lose all breba (summer figs).  That's OK.  Almost all of the breba crop falls off anyway.  That might make it produce more and earlier main crop (fall figs).  Or not.
I'm thinking that with the digging, I'll lose a fair amount of root, so the top also needed to be reduced. Figs have a very fibrous root system that spreads laterally, but doesn't seem to extend very deep. I think the top should regenerate OK. I was happy with the open center shape that I gave the tree with years of careful pruning.

I also pruned back all of the suckers.  I want to keep the open center structure, and have a single trunk.  The single trunk is easier to wrap with Tanglefoot to keep ants out of the figs.
It takes a lot of digging to move such a big tree. I started about 2 feet from the trunk.  after digging an 18n inch deep trench, it took more than an hour of slicing under the tree with the shovel, to free it from the underlying soil. Not a lot of roots going deeper. I had to prune 3 or 4, finger sized roots. That's my fat fingers, not dainty fingers. But still not a lot of big root was lost.
With heavy trees and shrubs, it helps to work a tarp under the root ball, and pull it around by the tarp. Less damage to tree and roots. It also helps to have a plank to slide the tree up onto the truck, and back down to the ground. Much easier on the back.
Now at the Battleground place.  There was a break in the rain.  The soil is a bit wetter than I like to dig in.  Wet makes it heavier and higher risk for compaction.  I was careful to keep it from compacting.

I'm always surprised, after digging under trees, to see that  most of the roots don't go deeper.  In my imagination, the roots are a deep as the tree is tall.  That is not the case.
Torn and broken branches and roots tidied up, with cleaner pruning slices.
Most of the weight was the accompanying soil. I'm guessing 200 pounds. This was heavy, hard work. Words were said. I dug an ample hole, planted, settled the tree in, and applied a donut of straw mulch. A little more trimming, cut the suckers closer to the trunk, and the branches to outward facing buds.  It's ready for winter, and then  next year.  We'll know then if I killed it.  I don't think I did.

Romeo Iris blooming in December

Here is Romeo, produced by Millet et Fils in 1912. I bought it mail order this summer. Having run out of room, I planted it in a container. A few weeks ago the raised bed was ready to plant, but this one had a flower shoot. So I placed it in a cool room, sunny window. Here it is today
The American Iris Society has a nice photo of this iris as it should look, as well as its history.

 I don't know if winter blooming can be done intentionally. This was unplanned. Romeo is a diploid bearded iris. Most of the flashy, big, ruffled modern bearded irises are tetraploid. During the year this iris was first sold, Woodrow Wilson won the presidency of the US, with 42% of the vote. Teddy Roosevelt was shot that year. The Titanic sank in 1912. Each new growth of an iris is a rhizome branch from the prior year's growth. So, in effect, this is the same flower that may have sprouted from seed in 1909 or 1910.

It doesn't look a lot like photos of Romeo. Maybe it's the odd timing, or the odd situation, or the growth medium. It's in a used potting soil. It may need May sunshine and warmth for true colors to develop.  Maybe it's mislabeled. I like it better than than the linked site. The colors have a sepia tone, like an old Kodachrome photo in a family album. Bought at an estate sale.


Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Moving a pair of HazelNut Trees

Squirrels were getting all of the nuts. I misjudged how much room these 2 hazelnut trees would need. They are too big for the space. They get lots of nuts at that size.  But without a raptor perched in the branches to feast on squirrels, there is no chance of me getting nuts. I wanted to cut them down. With more room, I moved them to the Battleground place. Even if the squirrels still get the nuts, the trees will give some privacy from the road. Plus, there actually is a raptor in the nearby trees.

I like hazelnuts.  It would be great if I get to eat some!  Come on squirrels, leave me just one!  According to wikipedia, "The Celts believed hazelnuts gave one wisdom and inspiration." also "The Hazel Branch, from Grimm's Fairy Tales, claims that hazel branches offer the greatest protection from snakes and other things that creep on the earth."  


It's hard to tell here.  There are 2 trees.  Each is about 8 or 9 feet tall.  The trunks are about 2 inches diameter.  These are 2 varieties of grafted hazelnut tree.  There are many sub-trunks sprouted from below the graft.
First, I removed all of the sub-trunks.  They did not have catkins.  I don't know if they would have produced nuts in a few years.  I wanted to stick with the named varieties.  This removes about 10 or 20% of the growth.  Which makes up for much of the root that will be lost in digging.
The branches are tied up to make it easier to dig and manipulate the trees.  I find that trees are quite fearful of being dug up, and tend to lash out at me with their branches.  Firm but gentle tying keeps them calm, and keeps my face free of lacerations.
The usual circular trench, with a twist because these trees are one foot apart.  That was a Backyard Orchard Culture technique.  I was stretching the technique by applying to hazelnut trees.  But for the squirrel issue, however, I think it worked.
This is a bit like separating conjoined tree twins.  Rather than causing more root trauma individually unraveling intertwined roots, I sliced between them with the shovel.  They didn't have as much root mass as I suspected.  As bare-root trees, I think the roots were compact at the beginning, and had not extended as far as a seed-grown tree might have extended.
I slid them up a board, covered with a well-tied tarp for protection.
My "thing" at the moment is mycorrhizal innoculant.  This is "Mykos".  Sprinkled on the roots for promotion of better root mass and drought resistance. I don't know if that really works.  I sprinkled about a quarter cup, guessing, throughout the root mass.  I pruned broken or torn roots to a clean cut.
Planted.  Charlie was such a help.  I left branches with catkins in place.  Since I removed a fair amount of below-the-graft growth, I think the roots can support making some nuts next year.  Minimal touch-up pruning was needed.  A few broken twigs, a couple of crossed branches.  I tipped the highest branches to outward facing buds, to encourage spread.
I also moved a Cotinus coggygria 'Royal Purple' Smoke tree from the house in Vancouver. I really misjudged. I thought it would be a bush, at most 5 feet tall. It was 8 foot this year. So I pruned it back to help move it, and moved it to this location too. I don't know why I didn't look it up when I bought it - they can be 15 or 20 feet tall. This will be a better spot.  I'll keep it as multi-trunk.  It will be nice to look out the window at this tree.

The root mass was small.  It's about 3 years old.  It was very easy to dig up and move.  I read that deer don't like them.  The deer will let me know if that's true.
My other helper. He mostly helps by running off and barking at falling leaves. When siting here, he looks so noble.
This bush has maroon leaves through the summer and brilliant leaves in the fall. This photo was Oct 10.

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Iris Raised Bed.

Here is the raised bed I prepared for irises. I scratched in Mycorhizal inoculant around the better looking iris plants, and left the sad looking ones alone. I also added some compost around the better looking ones, not enough to cover the rhizomes. In the spots reserved for next April or May shipment of heritage irises, I also pre-inoculated with Mycorhizal inoculant. I don't know if it does any good.
Toward the back are the better looking plants, including Helen Collingwood which is reputed to be very tough, and Sunny Disposition. Loreley is droopy. The newly purchased ones don't look like much at all. I wouldn't expect them to, this time of year. Front left is Diety, which I saved from bacterial rot. It actually looks perky. Interesting.

Raised beds. Progress Report.

These are the onion and garlic raised beds. They look vulnerable to freezing. I am reminding myself that I think that every year and they make it through the winter fine. That's true for both the garlic and the multiplier onions. I think the onions and German Porcelain garlic are way ahead of previous years. I hope that doesn't mean the freeze will kill them. Every year is a new lesson to learn.
The front is German Porcelain garlic. Germination was 100%. One had mottled leaves which had me concerned about viral infection so I pulled it out. Not sure that makes a difference. This bed also has rescue garlic, unnamed from the yard. And one row of Inchelium Red. The rescue garlic and Inchelium red were much slower. That may not matter next year. We'll see. Germination for those was 100%. The Holland shallots germinated 100%. Today I pulled the innumerable small weeds. Then I mulched with leaf compost. The chinese chives leaves are dead. The sprouted chinese chives seedlings look delicate, about 2 inches tall.
All but one of the Inchelium Red garlic germinated. So that's 34/35. Maybe the last is just pokey. I pulled out weeds and mulched with leaf compost. After that I remembered the mycorhizal inoculant, which I spread around the multiplier onions and chinese chives, which I also weeded. Weeds were about 2 inches tall. I used a kitchen fork. That sounds difficult but it was easy in the raised beds. The small tool gave me control around the delicate plants. Then I scratched in the inoculant and added compost.

Sunday, November 18, 2012

A few garden chores / Progress report.

Planted the rest of the ginkgo seeds in the iris raised bed.  That's about 20 seedlings if they grow.  Lots to give away then.  By planting outside now, they get the winter cold for stratification.

Moved one grape vine from the house in Vancouver to the Battleground place.  I don't know the variety; green when ripe, with seeds.  I recall them as excellent flavor, but it was in a shady spot under an old cherry tree, next to a fence.  About 9 years old.  The vine would grow to the top of the tree, 25 feet in a year.  I pulled off lots of leaves for the chickens.  I cut it back to about 4 feet tall, with a couple of recent canes.  I shortened those canes to 3 or 4 nodes.  Digging it up, it wasn't possible to get a big root mass.  I think grape roots are long and rangy, like the vines.  Even so, since it's easy to grow grapes from cuttings, I think the severely pruned-back vine should grow.  It will be a head start over starting a new cutting.  In its new location, I can prune more formally as a 4-arm Kniffen, which is sort of like espalier for grapes.  Much easier to take care of that way.

The soil is moist down to at least 2 feet now.  That's how deep I dug for the grape vine.

35 of the 40 Inchelium Red garlic plantings have germinated.  So they were just a bit slower than the German Porcelain Garlic.

None of the Safeway shallots has germinated.  100% (only 10 plants) of the Holland Shallots have germinated.  So there must be germination inhibitor on the Safeway shallots.  I planted a row of ginkgo seeds in the safeway shallot row, so as not to waste the space.

Very few leaves remaining on the trees.  Buds look fat and happy.  No freeze yet.

To do list for moving trees and shrubs:

2 hazelnut trees.  These are about 2-inch diameter trunks, about 8 feet tall.  Squirrels have taken every nut - not leaving even one for me.  Damn squirrels.  The top and roots will need a lot of pruning - too much for me to dig fully intact.

Brunswick fig.  Similar size to the Hazel nut trees.  Not very productive.  It's time to either move it or cut it down.  Maybe it will produce better in a more open setting.  Sever top and root pruning will be needed to get it out of the current location.

A large camelia.  2 smalll trees, one a Japanese maple and one a weeping birch.

I planted a dozen lily bulbs in the location where I dug out one of the cherry trees last month.  Late, but they should do OK.