Paula came over this afternoon for a masked visit outside. We put down cardboard around the new peach tree and covered it with cedar mulch.
Mulching the peach tree
Data visualization for garden borders
The household welder/chef has begun the process of edging the garden perimeter (Figure 1).
Learning about the best parsnip planting times
My parsnips (“Harris model”) said on the package I could do either spring or fall planting. While researching whether this was true for Oklahoma, I came across a useful post on an Oklahoma gardening forum (expand the featured answer by “macmex” who is located north and east of us, in Talehquah in northeastern Oklahoma) It sounds like you CAN plant them in fall, but as a biennial, they may flower (“bolt”) in the spring before the roots are big enough to be useful. So, we’ll see what happens with my fall-planted ones, but I have just put out a row of them today and I will put out another row each week until the third week of February and see what happens to those.
I also read everywhere about parsnip seeds that they do not keep well. Mine are going on two years old now so I put a lot out to make up for potentially poor germination rates.
Rooting Salvia greggii from cuttings in late winter
One of my front yard Salvia greggii got dug up or knocked over by something last year so I took a few cuttings on Jan. 9. As of Jan. 21 I saw some new growth. Today you can see which ones appear to be surviving. I did multiple because I am not always successful, even though I only need one.
Trimming the onion shoots for root growth
I read recently (but can’t for the life of me remember which book) that when sprouting onion seeds, you should trim them to promote more root growth. I did this to half of my sprouts. This will make sure it doesn’t kill them first. If these turn out okay I’ll do the other half.
New (old) reference book!
Mom found this book for me! Very excited to read it!
Roots shooting up??
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.
Fruit plants in the ground!
I planted the peach tree and currant bush in the front and back yards, respectively.
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.
