Almonds and Guavas and Figs

Posted on January 21, 2013 by

It’s been quiet out in the garden and the food forest.  In the words of Ben Lee, a lot goes on but nothing happens.  This winter has been an unusual one, with weeks and weeks of clear, bitterly cold days and frost-filled nights, and most recently spring-like warmth, and still not much precipitation (though the Sierra snowpack is reportedly just fine, given early storms in November and December).  Winter chores are the order of the day, and I’ve pruned and taken cuttings from the blueberry patch, weeded and cleaned up the asparagus patch, and done some propagation work, scattering rhubarb seeds and potting up cuttings I took from a wild grape in Folsom.

I also planted a Black Jack fig, and another pineapple guava (Acca sellowiana), and was happy to discover the multiplier onions I planted in late October popping up.

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A week or two ago I planted an All-In-One almond in the food forest, to join the Chandler walnut I planted last spring, all in the service of a quest to grow protein.  The walnut, incidentally, is not doing well, and the grafted branch is slowly dieing back, though it will hopefully stop at some point before the graft union, and push new growth in the coming spring.  Cross your fingers.

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O Mandarin

Posted on December 15, 2012 by

Your branches green delight us!  Earlier this year, I planted a mandarin.  The past few days have been filled with frost and air temps in the mid and low 30s, and a few leaves were damaged.  Just a bit ago, it started snowing, and the overnight low is expected to be somewhere south of 30, so I created a structure around the mandarin using t-posts, upon which I strung outdoor lights.

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Ordinarily, I wouldn’t fuss this much over a plant, but this is its first winter, and I REALLY want mandarins! Once it’s really well established, perhaps next year, I’ll leave it to fend for itself, but for now, i’ll baby it a bit.

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Pruning and Propagating and Hoping…

Posted on December 8, 2012 by

Last year was a good year for grape propagation, and so I spent the day pruning the grapes, which have gone dormant, and potting up cuttings thus:

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I’ve been gang potting cuttings lately, as it saves time and materials, and it’s not so difficult to tease apart the roots and plant the cuttings separately once they strike.

I grow three kinds of table grapes: Flame Seedless, Black Monukka, and Ladyfinger. Of the three, only the flame seedless produces much in the way of fruit, which I most often crush for juice. The Ladyfinger has produced a few clusters, and the Black Monukka none, though I hold out hope, as is necessary when gardening.  Perhaps this year with be the year.  I can’t locate the photo I took a month or two ago, but one of the goji berry plants I put in years and years ago finally threw a flower this year.

There isn’t a whole lot of actual gardening to be done here in the winter, and so attention turns to planning for spring.  For instance, a number of potted pants in the nursery, including pomegranate, pecan, Chinese hackberry, and blue-berried honeysuckle, will be ready for the ground in March or April, and the seed catalogs all need attention.  I also need to take cuttings from some wild plants.  Just yesterday, I noticed a huge fig growing along the side of the road out in a rural part of Sacramento county, a fig so big it can be seen from space.  There are lots of big California wild grape (I think) plants near the college where I work that have just about lost their leaves, so I plan to take cuttings of these as well.  They seem to thrive without summer water, even in the brutal heat that sometimes hangs on for weeks in Folsom, CA, and are also employed as rootstocks for other grapes, so perhaps I’ll use them to practice grafting techniques.

In other news, this discarded bit of onion is growing in the compost, the wrong way up:

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It’s sending roots up and over and down into the soil, and I don’t have the heart to move it – it’s trying so hard.  Here’s to hope.

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A Tale of Two Cherries

Posted on November 14, 2012 by

Wandering in the garden this morning, I took a picture of this healthy bush, a Nanking Cherry I planted in the spring.
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I planted it in a mound under which I had buried a 50 lb. sack of horse food, creating a kind of a hügelkultur/ posthole compost hybrid planting technique, not premeditated, but because I found a bag of horse food on the highway.  In any case, though there have been several frosty mornings and we’ve had our first snow, this cherry bush has yet to yellow or drop its leaves.

In contrast, here is a picture of a Nanking Cherry planted on the very same day, from the same nursery order, perhaps 15 yards away, with similar exposure:

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Only a few leaves left on this one, although up until just a few weeks ago, it was seemingly as vigorous and green as its litter mate. Individual variation? Sun and soil factors?  Without a control, the scientist in my won’t let me believe that the horse food is the critical variable, but the empiricist tells me it probably is.  Among gardeners, alfalfa tea is purported to stimulate plant growth, and is often applied as a foliar feed.  Alfalfa (and beeswax, I discovered) contains 1-Triacontanol, which can act as a powerful plant growth stimulant.

There’s a point in the life of a plant, post transplant shock, often several weeks or months later when a plant “finds its roots.”  It presents as vigorous – greens seem suddenly more green, new leaves and shoots are strong, and the plant just looks happy.  Based on the fact that the horse-food-planted cherry has maintained this look for months, I plan to experiment with using alfalfa tea on other plants in the spring.

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Mathematical Onions

Posted on October 28, 2012 by

Multiplier Onions
The multiplier onions I mentioned here arrived last week, and I planted them today. Also known as potato onions, multiplier onions are a variety of Allium cepa in the aggregatum group. Similar to shallots, but rather larger, each plant produces clusters of bulbs.

Over the past year or so, I’ve scattered all kinds of seeds – carrots, radishes, onions, Persian cress, assorted mustards – and probably others I’ve forgotten.  While out in the forest this afternoon, I noticed hundreds of little seedlings emerging, the result of recent rains followed by a few days of warm weather.  Hopefully these little volunteers (onions or perhaps leeks are pictured below) will find their roots before the real weather hits in a month or so.

Onion Seedlings

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Putting the Annual Garden to Bed

Posted on October 23, 2012 by

Putting the Garden to Bed

The weather is changing quickly here, with relatively heavy, early rains yesterday and today.  Spent the weekend harvesting the last of the summer crops, putting the garden to bed, and planting the last of the fall/winter vegetables.  Pulled the soaker hoses, piled up the bedraggled tomato, bean and peppers plants, and harvested the last of the peppers, which around here hang on longer than most (all?) other annual vegetables.  Pictured above are the last of the lovely purira peppers, hot and delicious.  Planted fava beans, garlic, shallots, and Egyptian walking onions – multiplier onions are ordered and in the mail.

I also finished up fencing for phase one of the food forest.  Long-term, I have this idea that I’ll create a hedgerow using jujube or some other sharp plants, but in the interim, I need to shield the young shrubs from herds of hungry deer. Fortunately, over the years I’ve accumulated enough t-posts and miscellaneous scraps of fencing to weave together a credible barrier, sufficient to protect the riot of mustards, legumes, alliums, sorrel, asparagus, carrots, radishes, epazote, shiso, and countless seeds I’ve scattered and forgotten that will hopefully emerge in the spring.

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Red Roselle Recipe

Posted on September 30, 2012 by

Fall is here, though it’s still quite hot, and probably will be for the next few weeks. Puttering in the garden today, I decided to harvest the Thai Roselle flowers – I’ve written about them here and here.  I’ve been somewhat surprised at the abundance of flowers, given their somewhat sluggish start.  The plants are beautiful, and I harvested perhaps six cups of flowers.

Bowl O' RoselleI peeled away the fleshy sepals and calyces, rinsed them, and set aside the fruits, some of which had already mostly dried out – I’ll dry the rest and save the seeds for next year.  I made a syrup by boiling 2 cups of roselle in 2 cups of water for about 8 minutes, then adding 1/3 of a cup of agave nectar.  The resulting syrup is thick – there seems to be a great deal of pectin in roselle.  1 or 2 tablespoons in a tall glass of ice and soda water (courtesy of the Sodastream) makes a subtly sweet/sour, fruity, beautifully red refreshing drink.

Calyces and Sepals Peeled

I may dry the rest of the roselle, or perhaps turn it all into syrup and freeze it.  I definitely plan to plant this plant again. Though it’s a perennial, I’m almost certain it won’t overwinter in the ground, so I’ll pot up one or two and see if I can overwinter them in the greenhouse.  If the transplants don’t survive, I’ve got tons of seeds to plant in the spring.

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Patience and Pomegranates

Posted on August 26, 2012 by

Pomegranate FruitThis year is the year- after about 5 seasons in the ground, the pomegranate held onto perhaps a third of its flowers, and is in the process of ripening seven or so decent-sized pomegranates!

Pomegranate CuttingsIt’s great when perennials finally start to bear, and it’s great to know that pomegranates seem to root readily from cuttings.  Of the seven cuttings I took in the spring – five I potted up, and two I stuck in the ground – seven rooted.  My plan is to create a hedgerow out at the border of the food forest – does anyone have a good resource for the ancient art of hedge laying?

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Flowers Known and Unknown

Posted on July 24, 2012 by

Thai Red RoselleI love volunteers in the garden.  This year, as always, sunflowers are appearing all over the place, though perhaps in smaller numbers than in previous years.  Years ago I planted all sorts, orange and red, small and large, and over the years, the volunteers have drifted back to a sort of small-flowered, small seeded yellow variety, reminding me that I need to add some diversity back into the breeding pool.

Pictured here is the Thai Red Roselle that I wrote about months ago.  It got off to a rough start, seemingly unhappy when transplanted to the garden from the greenhouse, but lately, it’s become robust, and perhaps most importantly, has flowered.  The fleshy calyces of these flowers are the main reason I planted these, and with any luck, they’ll continue to develop.  Even if not, they’re beautiful, and I’m happy that they are growing.

Unknown WeedI have no idea who this volunteer is, and neither did I realize that an insect photobombed me until just this minute! 🙂  In form, the plant resembles a sunflower in some ways.  It’s tall, and the leaves are arranged similarly.  The flowers, however, are quite small when they open.  I half expect this plant to seed prolifically and choke out the garden, but that’s the risk one takes in letting volunteers…er…volunteer.

Is there anyone that can ease my mind with a positive ID of this beauty?

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Huge Blueberries

Posted on July 8, 2012 by

blueberries_are_hugeMany years ago – maybe 8? – I planted blueberries, lingonberries, huckleberries and cranberries (all members of the genus Vaccinium) in a patch perhaps 15 feet by 9 or so feet.  I’ve written about them here and here.  These being mature shrubs, the past few years have been excellent for blueberries.

Today was the first harvest, and the plants yielded about 4 cups (more or less a liter) of delicious berries.  One plant in particular – I think I have about 9 blueberry plants in this particular patch, with perhaps 4 varieties – produces huge blueberries.  The largest this year are about as big around as a U.S. quarter, and they have a wonderful flavor, not quite as blueberry-e as some of the smaller ones, but with a nice acid to balance the sweetness.  Here’s another photo to give you a sense of scale:

blueberries_to_scaleFortunately, the plant that bears these monster blueberries roots quite readily from cuttings, and so I’ve got a number of clones in various states of rooting, and some that have already been planted out in the food forest.

 

In other news, it looks like this year will be a good one for tomatoes – haven’t had a good tomato season in maybe 4 years – and the pomegranate has perhaps a dozen flowers.  Cross your fingers that at least a few of them will develop into delicious fruits!

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