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January 22, 2021January 22, 2021

Sedums for terrible rocky pile of old roots

These are not native or edible, but they sure will be useful to keep other plants out and shade the soil for my nearby strawberries and mealy blue sage. I planted some out near the curb last fall and today finally planted some rooted stems in a nook by our porch. There was a big sweetgum tree there lifting the foundation that we had to remove. This has left a weird combination of rotting roots, and probably several past owners’ worth of decorative pebbles AND wood mulch. A real great growing environment as you might guess.

That long silver thing is my stainless steel coated hose. This is necessary because the dog is so obsessed with the water hose that she punctured several heavy duty rubber ones while attempting to get them to be fun again. Thank you to Judy for these beautiful sedums!

January 22, 2021January 22, 2021

Fruit plants in the ground!

I planted the peach tree and currant bush in the front and back yards, respectively.

Briar supervised. We have no fence in the front yard but she likes to hang out and watch. The peach tree is hard to see but has the lighter colored bamboo stake next to it. I believe this dwarf tree is a genetic dwarf, not grafted onto a dwarf rootstock, so while I looked for soil line on the tree for planting I didn’t have to watch for keeping the graft above the soil.

Another underwhelming stick picture! The Crandall black currant is a native North American currant. Both this and the peach I made sure to water deeply per instructions. I put this currant on the northeastern corner of my “currant patch” (three others planted last year) just because it’s where there was room.

January 22, 2021January 22, 2021

Peach and currant planting

Well it’s my day off so it’s time to plant yesterday’s new arrivals. I secured them out of the way from box- and stick- interested supervisors Gram and Briar.

Peach and currant bare roots showing packaging — Ison’s vineyard packaged these with a nice bamboo support stake for the peach, some sort of water retaining goo/slush, and tied them together gently with a thick baling twine. I will save the baling twine to tie the peach to its stake.

This nursery’s instructions didn’t specify a pre-planting soak for the roots, but Stark Bros does and I’ve seen it in several books now. So, these new friends are getting a drink while I walk the dog (most important) and then dig holes (possibly more relevant to their interests).

January 22, 2021January 22, 2021

Onion success in a dish

I haven’t had much success getting onion seeds to sprout the last few years. This time I tried making sure there was constant moisture by putting the seeds in a sealed dish with a clear lid (lid not shown). Now that the seedlings are taller I have removed the lid.