Return After a Long Absence
Dear readers: My sincerest apologies for my long absence. My present employment occupied more time than I had anticipated, so my writing was the first to suffer. The second casualty was my vegetable and herb garden at the farm. Fortunately, I salvaged just enough time to maintain my experimental garden in the front yard along with the small orchard I am building at the farm.
It was brought to my attention that a reader from Lethbridge had questions regarding hazelnuts. I am growing both the beaked hazelnut (Corylus cornuta) as well as the European filbert (Corylus avellana). Both overwinter well here. The beaked hazelnuts grow wild in the poplar forest here, and as far north as Grand Prairie and Fort McMurray. They are browsed by moose, who are mostly interested in the tender young growth at the top, so the bushes often have an appearance of having been shorn off at the top. The young twigs frequently have a brick-like pattern etched into the bark, and the doubly dentate leaves are somewhat fuzzy and are a couple of shades lighter in color than the alders that may be growing next to them. In the early spring, before the leaves unfold, the male catkins distribute their pollen via the wind, and it usually takes the whole growing season for the female flowers to develop into nuts. It is difficult to collect them in the wild because the squirrels are usually faster than I am at monitoring their palatability.
The beaked hazelnuts in my garden are four years old, and the European hazelnuts are three years old. Despite this difference, the European hazelnuts are a few inches taller. I suspect that this is because the European filberts came from domesticated stock and were selected for their larger size. I hope this answers any questions.
Bird-wise, I am happy to report that the redpolls are back at our feeders. It has been an exceptional seed year for the native white spruce trees, and I think they may have drawn the little guys to our area. Before Christmas I had a couple of sightings of snow buntings on the highway between Drayton Valley and Leduc. The downy woodpeckers at our peanut and peanut butter feeders are becoming steady customers, and our heated pet dish of liquid water is becoming more and more popular all the time.
Always experimenting, I had cross pollinated two different colors of Christmas cactus in November 2006. By November 2007 the fruits had fully matured to a firm texture and a startlingly bright magenta pink color. I harvested these fruits, and they came off fairly easily, which was not the case when they were still developing. When I got them home from my sister’s office, I sliced them open to find the one of the seeds had started sprouting in the fruit. I took the seeds from that one fruit and spread them on a moistened paper towel, folded the towel in half, and laid it inside a clean empty glass salsa jar which I laid on its side in front of the window. I had it positioned so that the bottom of the paper towel barely touched the water standing in the jar, and the seeds were higher up. The paper towel then wicked the water up to the seeds and kept them evenly moist. Today I opened up the towel to find the majority of the seeds had sprouted, so I transferred them to a sheet of clean moist toilet paper in a clean jar. My thinking is that the toilet paper might be easier for the young cacti to break through. I also mixed up an extremely weak fertilizer solution and gave them a drink. Hopefully some will survive my rough handling. Well, that’s all for now.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Monday, June 11, 2007
Hail and Hummingbird
Devastating Hail and a Visit from a Hummingbird.
My grapes are blooming and sending out new branches like crazy! The flowers are minute inconspicuous and greenish, but because they are in a cluster, they are more visible than if they were to be bourn individually.
We had a seriously bad hailstorm here yesterday afternoon. I missed the event, but observed the drifts of hailstones and the damage afterwards. Several cars had their windows smashed and their bodies dented, and buildings with older shingles had the shingles beaten off. There was also a short spell of flooding in some of the older homes as the subsequent downpour was quite intense and the soil was already wet from previous rains. I am sad to report that a lot of fruit was beaten off of my nanking cherry trees.
Yesterday I spent most of the day out at the farm transplanting beaked hazelnut seedlings into the permanent orchard and weeding. I did a quick scan to check for forest tent caterpillars and there weren’t any more, which proves that Dr. Evans was right about squishing them with a broom. The horse chestnut is absolutely loaded with flower spikes! I have never seen it this full of flowers, so I spent a couple of minutes enjoying watching the insects attending to the flowers and was pleased to see that not only ants were collecting nectar, but real honey bees! That made my day, so I set about some serious weeding as Equisetum or horse tail had made definite inroads in the west end of the garden. I had only been weeding for a few minutes when I heard the distinctive sound of a hummingbird: sure enough I was able to watch as the ruby throated hummingbird checked out several flower clusters before flying off northward.
The blue camas was almost finished blooming: by next weekend there should only be seedpods forming. The mariposa lilies and osha root are blooming. I am sorry to report that I forgot to bring a camera. Next weekend I hope my memory won’t fail me in this respect, so I can share some pictures with you.
The starling chicks in the back yard are almost ready to leave the nest. My neighbors to the north appear to have killed a baby crow as there was one lying on my boulevard right next to their drive way. The house wren is still nesting in the purple martin house in the front yard; happily greeting each day with its bubbling song. There is something in that particular song that is so very cheerful and uplifting that it is the very essence of the happy side of spring. Hope to have more time for pictures next week. Good gardening. MM.
My grapes are blooming and sending out new branches like crazy! The flowers are minute inconspicuous and greenish, but because they are in a cluster, they are more visible than if they were to be bourn individually.
We had a seriously bad hailstorm here yesterday afternoon. I missed the event, but observed the drifts of hailstones and the damage afterwards. Several cars had their windows smashed and their bodies dented, and buildings with older shingles had the shingles beaten off. There was also a short spell of flooding in some of the older homes as the subsequent downpour was quite intense and the soil was already wet from previous rains. I am sad to report that a lot of fruit was beaten off of my nanking cherry trees.
Yesterday I spent most of the day out at the farm transplanting beaked hazelnut seedlings into the permanent orchard and weeding. I did a quick scan to check for forest tent caterpillars and there weren’t any more, which proves that Dr. Evans was right about squishing them with a broom. The horse chestnut is absolutely loaded with flower spikes! I have never seen it this full of flowers, so I spent a couple of minutes enjoying watching the insects attending to the flowers and was pleased to see that not only ants were collecting nectar, but real honey bees! That made my day, so I set about some serious weeding as Equisetum or horse tail had made definite inroads in the west end of the garden. I had only been weeding for a few minutes when I heard the distinctive sound of a hummingbird: sure enough I was able to watch as the ruby throated hummingbird checked out several flower clusters before flying off northward.
The blue camas was almost finished blooming: by next weekend there should only be seedpods forming. The mariposa lilies and osha root are blooming. I am sorry to report that I forgot to bring a camera. Next weekend I hope my memory won’t fail me in this respect, so I can share some pictures with you.
The starling chicks in the back yard are almost ready to leave the nest. My neighbors to the north appear to have killed a baby crow as there was one lying on my boulevard right next to their drive way. The house wren is still nesting in the purple martin house in the front yard; happily greeting each day with its bubbling song. There is something in that particular song that is so very cheerful and uplifting that it is the very essence of the happy side of spring. Hope to have more time for pictures next week. Good gardening. MM.
Sunday, June 3, 2007
Seeds sprouting in threes.
Good Things Happen In Threes
Yesterday I cut the grass in my little experimental orchard out at the farm. I am happy to report that my apricot from McFayden nursery in Manitoba finished blooming. A plum tree and two of the three apple varieties also from them are in full flower. There is also a little apple tree out there that I grew from seed, and it is also blooming. As I was cutting the grass I observed forest tent caterpillars on one of the apple trees I had started from seed. Remembering the wise words of my forest entomology professor, Dr. Evans, I found a whiskbroom and proceeded to brush them off and crush them. I know it sounds messy, but they are softer than the broom, and the broom is not going to harm the tree, so there is no need for toxic, life-threatening chemicals.
This morning I trimmed the spruce, and pine in the conifer hedge along the north side of the yard in town. The tamaracks hadn’t grown enough to warrant pruning.
Most of the rest of the day was spent weeding the big garden at the farm. New things were popping out of the soil: plums, apricots, beaked hazelnuts, horse chestnuts, and the usual amure maples, Manitoba maples, nanking cherries, green ash, etc. Most of the larger seeded species had sprouted in sets of three. I was especially proud of the horse chestnuts, as these seeds were from trees that I had grown from seed that my brother brought me from British Columbia. I had the second largest size of spencer-lemar containers filled with sandy soil and dug in flush with the external soil level. In this I had planted the horse chestnut seeds in the fall. The tree that the seeds came from is absolutely loaded with flower spikes. Weather permitting, I anticipate a bumper crop of horse chestnuts this fall.
The blue camas is half way through flowering. By next weekend I anticipate very few stragglers will still have blossoms. The mariposa lilies already have flower buds, and may start blooming in about a week. The fritillary lilies are forming seedpods. They bloomed during a spate of exceptionally cold weather, and I am observing a variation in more than just a few seedpods: usually the pods are three-chambered, whereas stress has occasionally produced four-chambered pods in my plants. True to my nature I have been separating out all the four-chambered pods and planting them in my little experimental plot to see what strange mutants will emerge – I will keep you posted!
My European hazelnuts seem to finally be acclimatized and are rapidly catching up to the beaked hazelnuts that are a year older. I am excited to get these babies down into the experimental orchard. Good gardening! MM.
Yesterday I cut the grass in my little experimental orchard out at the farm. I am happy to report that my apricot from McFayden nursery in Manitoba finished blooming. A plum tree and two of the three apple varieties also from them are in full flower. There is also a little apple tree out there that I grew from seed, and it is also blooming. As I was cutting the grass I observed forest tent caterpillars on one of the apple trees I had started from seed. Remembering the wise words of my forest entomology professor, Dr. Evans, I found a whiskbroom and proceeded to brush them off and crush them. I know it sounds messy, but they are softer than the broom, and the broom is not going to harm the tree, so there is no need for toxic, life-threatening chemicals.
This morning I trimmed the spruce, and pine in the conifer hedge along the north side of the yard in town. The tamaracks hadn’t grown enough to warrant pruning.
Most of the rest of the day was spent weeding the big garden at the farm. New things were popping out of the soil: plums, apricots, beaked hazelnuts, horse chestnuts, and the usual amure maples, Manitoba maples, nanking cherries, green ash, etc. Most of the larger seeded species had sprouted in sets of three. I was especially proud of the horse chestnuts, as these seeds were from trees that I had grown from seed that my brother brought me from British Columbia. I had the second largest size of spencer-lemar containers filled with sandy soil and dug in flush with the external soil level. In this I had planted the horse chestnut seeds in the fall. The tree that the seeds came from is absolutely loaded with flower spikes. Weather permitting, I anticipate a bumper crop of horse chestnuts this fall.
The blue camas is half way through flowering. By next weekend I anticipate very few stragglers will still have blossoms. The mariposa lilies already have flower buds, and may start blooming in about a week. The fritillary lilies are forming seedpods. They bloomed during a spate of exceptionally cold weather, and I am observing a variation in more than just a few seedpods: usually the pods are three-chambered, whereas stress has occasionally produced four-chambered pods in my plants. True to my nature I have been separating out all the four-chambered pods and planting them in my little experimental plot to see what strange mutants will emerge – I will keep you posted!
My European hazelnuts seem to finally be acclimatized and are rapidly catching up to the beaked hazelnuts that are a year older. I am excited to get these babies down into the experimental orchard. Good gardening! MM.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Insectivorous Plants and Mid-Spring Flowers
Insectivorous Plants and Mid-Spring Flowers
Yesterday I was out weeding the big garden in the country and I am happy to report that the Prisepia sinensis bushes are in full bloom. Also, the first blue camas flower started opening. I remember reading that Prinsepias are native to North America. They have sharp, narrow thorns, narrow leaves, and graceful arching stems. The flowers have five petals and the fruit is a flattened drupe with a single seed that looks like a bumpy smarty. I think the seeds would make a good substitute for buttons if someone were to drill holes in them for the thread. There is not a great deal of pulp in the fruit, however it does make a delicious jam tasting of both peach and apricot.
Although their growth is somewhat slow, they do not suffer from cold damage here in our zone two climate. It takes me from three to five years to bring one of these guys from seed to flower (without fertilizer). I have also observed that buried branch tips tend to root, and roots near the surface tend to sprout leaves, so these plants might also be propagated asexually. The bush’s growth form is somewhat mushroom-shaped. With the profusion of sharp thorns I think this is an ideal plant in areas plagued with deer, moose, and other browsing herbivores. It would also make a great hedge as nothing would want to press up against those formidable thorns.
Blue camas or Camasia quamash is a perennial in the lily family. Indigenous people of North America used to slowly roast the roots in the coals of the fire in order to caramelize them – a treat in an area lacking in sweet foods. The blossoms are startlingly indigo blue and catch your eye from a great distance. Everyone asks me what that incredibly blue flower is. When I tell them it’s a camas, the next thing they say is, “Oh, so it’s poisonous then.” No, it isn’t. Although they share the same family, blue camas belongs to a different genus than the green, white, or death camases (Zygadenus). They make a wonderful addition to any bulb bed, but will require about three years to make it from seed to flower.
My crabapples are blooming and my butterworts and sundews are finally up. I was certain that the butterworts would over winter in the structure I described for you several weeks back, but I only had the plants for less than a year. I am still anxiously waiting for the pitcher plant and sundew seeds to germinate. I will keep you informed. MM.
Yesterday I was out weeding the big garden in the country and I am happy to report that the Prisepia sinensis bushes are in full bloom. Also, the first blue camas flower started opening. I remember reading that Prinsepias are native to North America. They have sharp, narrow thorns, narrow leaves, and graceful arching stems. The flowers have five petals and the fruit is a flattened drupe with a single seed that looks like a bumpy smarty. I think the seeds would make a good substitute for buttons if someone were to drill holes in them for the thread. There is not a great deal of pulp in the fruit, however it does make a delicious jam tasting of both peach and apricot.
Although their growth is somewhat slow, they do not suffer from cold damage here in our zone two climate. It takes me from three to five years to bring one of these guys from seed to flower (without fertilizer). I have also observed that buried branch tips tend to root, and roots near the surface tend to sprout leaves, so these plants might also be propagated asexually. The bush’s growth form is somewhat mushroom-shaped. With the profusion of sharp thorns I think this is an ideal plant in areas plagued with deer, moose, and other browsing herbivores. It would also make a great hedge as nothing would want to press up against those formidable thorns.
Blue camas or Camasia quamash is a perennial in the lily family. Indigenous people of North America used to slowly roast the roots in the coals of the fire in order to caramelize them – a treat in an area lacking in sweet foods. The blossoms are startlingly indigo blue and catch your eye from a great distance. Everyone asks me what that incredibly blue flower is. When I tell them it’s a camas, the next thing they say is, “Oh, so it’s poisonous then.” No, it isn’t. Although they share the same family, blue camas belongs to a different genus than the green, white, or death camases (Zygadenus). They make a wonderful addition to any bulb bed, but will require about three years to make it from seed to flower.
My crabapples are blooming and my butterworts and sundews are finally up. I was certain that the butterworts would over winter in the structure I described for you several weeks back, but I only had the plants for less than a year. I am still anxiously waiting for the pitcher plant and sundew seeds to germinate. I will keep you informed. MM.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Grape Blosom Buds and Giant Sequoias
Grape Blosom Buds and Giant Sequoias
This morning I actually had time enough to stick my nose in the front yard to discover that most of the Sequoiadendron giganteum seeds had sprouted. The five-year-old grape vines are finally showing the first traces of flower buds as are the may apples, giant forget-me-nots, spanish thrift and squill. The princepia bushes and pentstemon flowers are in full bloom.
Several of the Nicotiana rustica seeds have sprouted. I saved them from plants that I grew last year. So far they have a much higher germination rate than the seeds that I got from Richters. Over several years I have had the repeated experience that seeds purchased from them are not viable, or only marginally so. I do not know the specifics, as to whether they were either poor in quality to begin with or whether they were just old or stored improperly by them.
A number of months ago we bought several types of papaya at the grocery store; washed saved and planted the seed. Today I noticed some of the seeds had sprouted. This is the first time I have been able to get any papaya seeds to germinate. I am very excited.
The American gold finches arrived back yesterday: today there were four adult males at our various feeders. I also heard the house wren today: it always has such a cheerful and bubbling call. I hope to keep you updated next week. MM.
This morning I actually had time enough to stick my nose in the front yard to discover that most of the Sequoiadendron giganteum seeds had sprouted. The five-year-old grape vines are finally showing the first traces of flower buds as are the may apples, giant forget-me-nots, spanish thrift and squill. The princepia bushes and pentstemon flowers are in full bloom.
Several of the Nicotiana rustica seeds have sprouted. I saved them from plants that I grew last year. So far they have a much higher germination rate than the seeds that I got from Richters. Over several years I have had the repeated experience that seeds purchased from them are not viable, or only marginally so. I do not know the specifics, as to whether they were either poor in quality to begin with or whether they were just old or stored improperly by them.
A number of months ago we bought several types of papaya at the grocery store; washed saved and planted the seed. Today I noticed some of the seeds had sprouted. This is the first time I have been able to get any papaya seeds to germinate. I am very excited.
The American gold finches arrived back yesterday: today there were four adult males at our various feeders. I also heard the house wren today: it always has such a cheerful and bubbling call. I hope to keep you updated next week. MM.
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