2020 Garden Journal - March 2020

Dear Grandchildren,

I planned to keep a garden journal this year, I really did, but I have a hard time remembering where I put the book. I do like to blog, so I thought I would journal online. I have a lot of my mother's journals and I like leafing through then although most seem to be weather reports -- the hazards of being a farmer's daughter and wife.

Pepper starts; there are still some on the heat mat waiting to germinate.

To this date, I have started a few things that are either heat-lovers that need a long growing season, (an heirloom cotton), slow germinating heat-lovers (four types of peppers), and some cool-weather crops (two different bok choy, broccoli, cauliflower and a lettuce mix.)

The first two are different varieties of culinary sage, one with fatter leaves than the other, and the one down on the end is silver sage. The three in the middle were pushing the envelope for my zone (tri-color, golden, and variegated) so I covered them with straw, but they still don't seem to have made it. They are a beautiful addition so I will probably continue to purchase them annually, or perhaps root cuttings. 

I also have transplanted my sage collection into a raised bed on the end of the black-topped driveway thinking it will do well in the dry and heat because I don't always remember to water things out back (plus I added some crushed limestone from my pile delivered a couple years ago from the local quarry) because it originates from the Mediterranean area, and I think it would be happier there than the compost-rich loamy soil where I did have it. At least it's worked well for my lavender.

Late-planted garlic, like just a couple weeks ago actually, and different sizes of horseradish in the background.

I also dug up my three year old horseradish and moved it out to my garden (my how it as replicated!!) and went ahead and planted some garlic. It will multiply a little, but not into big cloves like it would have I gotten around to it last fall. I will try to do an update this fall when I harvest.

Never be afraid to experiment, kidos. If I had the room and were much younger, I would experiment with planting apple trees from seed. Apples do not replicated from seed, they are grafted clones of a parent tree. This is not evil, so don't be afraid of it. It will, however, take years to fruit unless you graft it to dwarf root stock for testing the fruit, otherwise it will be years testing it on a full-size tree.

I did get my orchard started. I have all kinds of fruit trees and three apple trees that are supposed to be resistant to cedar rust. My favorite place to purchase from (Stark Bros.) were out of their cherry special (a sweet and a sour cherry combo) so I will check back with them next year. The best advice I have for you in getting trees through the mail, is to plant them when you can dig the soil, but before they have leaves. That way, they haven't broken dormancy yet and don't know they've been moved.

I hope. They all look really, really good so I'm excited.

Remind me to tell you the story of Adam and the Apple Tree, the guy that was our ancestor and lived in Shelby County [Ohio].

 

My first try a propagating elderberry. My bush was at the east side of a wooded area and I didn't have too many branches to choose from. The one of the left is from larger cuttings and the one in the white pan is from very fresh cuttings. The latter was much more successful!

Last fall, I tagged what appears to be my only elderberry bush so I could experiment with propagating elderberry cuttings.  Elderberry was quite the thing last year but the dehydrated berries are expensive so I'd see what I could do.

I am very happy with the results. I put the in a jar of water for a couple weeks, then because I happened to have a container of rooting compound, I dipped the in that, then stuck each one in it's own peat pot. I love peat pots, they have tremendously increased my success rate! Anyway, I ordered the really tall ones for the bigger cuttings and used my regular 35mm ones for the tiny freshly grown ends and they rooted at a much higher success rate! Now to figure out where to plant them :-)

Till next month - Love ya!
Grandma Debbie