Category: Propagation

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Garlic spray deployed!

Today I filtered the garlic spray twice so chunks won’t clog the sprayer.
Then I spritzed all over inside the mini greenhouse hoops area as well as directly on a few test chamomiles indoors. I think the neem oil may have made a few baby peppers and tomatoes wilt so hopefully this spray is less angering.
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Warm day garden activities

We’re watering and fertilizing two straw bales to become potato growing sites.  The one that we’ve watered and covered with plastic to keep warm is growing straw. At least it’s not got herbicides on it!!
We trimmed the Salvia greggii back for bushiness and spring flowering. We also did the winter pruning for both new and old fruit trees but I forgot to take before and after pictures.
Several seeds are sprouting in the hoops.  If you can zoom in, you may see the two oil traps for earwigs.  It is leftover fryer oil so it should excite their senses. We also planted two varieties of lettuce seeds we forgot before, and sprinkled leaves from the Salvia branches on the idea they might repulse earwigs. Finally, a few seeds are already up: purple lady bok choy, lacinato/dinosaur kale, Scotch blue curled kale, and French breakfast radish.
The daffodils I moved from along the metal edging to among the Salvias are coming up! Hopefully the trim will also make these more visible if they end up blooming. They were previously overcrowded and in the shade, so maybe out here they’ll actually bloom.
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Survival both short term and long term

The Mexican plum dug from Mom and Dad’s yard last summer is budding! (The metal across it is the flag I have to not lose it.)
The prairie parsley also from home is still alive.
Ditto for the whitlow-wort. It’s an annual, but I hope it will reseed.
The smaller whitlow-wort is growing through its mud.
This is something just sprouting. I have a label nearby that says greeneyes. Mom does this have the right leaves?? I also do have a lot of ironweed in this area.
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Dwarf fruit grove additions

Quality assurance inspector
Paula found a loofah deep underground while digging one hole. How?? Why????
Four new trees all dwarf or semi dwarf: Liberty apple, Seckel pear, Kieffer Pear, and McIntosh Apple. We’re supposed to be on the edge of conditions for those apple varieties but with three other well adapted types already planted last year, I figured why not try. I really love McIntosh and they’re so rare around here.
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Transplant successes from earlier

Rudbeckia lacinata from Abby.
Viola bicolor is an annual, but I moved some last year from the front yard (where I am gradually removing the lawn but I want to rescue the few native plants) to the backyard in hopes they’d seed. They did!
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Tiny greenhouse

A little centipede in the garden dirt. Hopefully it’s an earwig predator.
Hoops in!
Seeds planted, cover on! We put lots of extra and smelly plants like cilantro and parsley among the carrots and bok choy and beets in hopes of earwig distraction.
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Earwigs indoors 😤

We mixed up neem oil concentrate with water according to the directions (~0.4 g oil per 2 oz water ie the size of our little glass spritzer bottles), and spritzed all the baby plants. We’ve seen three earwigs inside near the plants since repotting last night and several tomatillos, peppers, and chamomile look a bit worse for the wear.

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Indoor repotting

We got almost an inch of sleet today.
Briar’s toes provide excellent grip.
Squirrel tree in our neighborhood.
This evening we repotted baby tomatoes and peppers. Mid last week I forgot some other repotted tomatoes outside and they froze. So those three varieties are being germinated again. But meanwhile these babies needed new pots.
One dwarf tomato is thriving and fruiting; the other is drying up and has spider mites. Paula bought a basil and is keeping it alive. The indoor peppers have a good head start for spring but I doubt will fully fruit by then.