![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Excitement in the last week, i finally made a dish of Sochan or cutleaf coneflower. I had a plant show up a few years ago from seed, identified it as Rudbeckia laciniata, found out about its edibility, moved it to the garden plot, let it get established -- and now i've eaten it. I'm delighted. I want a huge patch -- or several patches -- of it. It's attractive and it tastes good. I like brassica greens (less mustard, more the others), but sochan is probably more attractive -- less bitter. And, they are the size of brassica greens, not fiddly like picking violet greens. Perennial greens, yippee!
The green wall of trees in leaf is going up quickly, leaves blocking almost all view of sky from where i sit here in the house. Just a few days ago i was anticipating. In a few more days bare trees will be more rare than ones leafed out.
The bright dapples of dogwood delight me.[1] I found another redbud sprout to relocate: i think the deer eat them before they can grow in the woods. The red bud trees all seem so old, i want to get some young ones established as these age off.
The one serviceberry i know of is so close to the driveway it's easy to monitor (and makes me wonder how many hide deeper in). It's bloomed beautifully, but it's so tall it's hard to see the blossoms. The cherry trees also hide their blossoms from ground dwellers but petals fell with the rain. And -- i may have mentioned before -- the small tree i pollarded three years ago has set flowers in reach. Wild cherries this June! And then next February the mystery of pruning.
And in mysteries of pruning, the old apple tree is blooming, but mainly high in the less pruned branches. Fie. The lower blossoms are at the tips of long spindly stems. I don't think there's any chance the young apples will bloom. I believe the trees are still being "trained." I read all i can about pruning but with the apples it's a complete mystery still.
A selected clone (Guthrie) of the native chickasaw plum came available Friday night. By the time i saw the email just three were left, and i bought them all (my sister wanted two). I won't count them until i see them. My sister has a species seedling plum that is sending up plenty of sprouts, so i will get a pollinator from her this fall. I still hope to get more selections: good genetics for fruit production.
The thicket bean -- a native, edible relative of the kidney bean -- has re-sprouted. So exciting! It may not be a voluminous producer, but if i have one reliable plant, i can spread its seeds around. I imagine planting it in the woods and protecting it with dead fall. Some saved seeds from last year will go along the orchard fence in a shadier section where the runner beans failed. (And it is still to be seen if the runner beans return this year. Only one saved seed from them where i can get my hands on it.) Other saved thicket beans will join the parent around the sunchokes (Jerusalem artichokes). I am hoping they will play nicely with each other. I can't seem to get rid of the sunchokes (which i would replace with a selection.)
I feel like i barely got anything done yesterday, but it's probably better than that. Weeded more of the north berm. Stupid aggressive mock strawberry. I planted purchased golden plants: a lupine that will not handle the heat well, i'm sure (Westcountry™ Terracotta), an Ecinacea called "Julia", and a Agastache, 'Sunrise® Orange' Hyssop. I also planted out tiny tiny seedlings of pansies (dubious that they'll grow enough to bloom) and selected California poppies. The poppies i had wanted to line up on a little terrace i made. Marlowe has decided it's a lounging place as she delights in throwing clods off the berm. I tried to protect them by putting rocks around them. Some of the seedlings had dried up and died: this depressed me a little.
[1] I do hope more don't die of whatever it is that is killing them here. I suppose it could be old age, but i suspect anthracnose. Appalachian Spring is resistant - and it looks like it's going to be a challenge to track it down.
The green wall of trees in leaf is going up quickly, leaves blocking almost all view of sky from where i sit here in the house. Just a few days ago i was anticipating. In a few more days bare trees will be more rare than ones leafed out.
The bright dapples of dogwood delight me.[1] I found another redbud sprout to relocate: i think the deer eat them before they can grow in the woods. The red bud trees all seem so old, i want to get some young ones established as these age off.
The one serviceberry i know of is so close to the driveway it's easy to monitor (and makes me wonder how many hide deeper in). It's bloomed beautifully, but it's so tall it's hard to see the blossoms. The cherry trees also hide their blossoms from ground dwellers but petals fell with the rain. And -- i may have mentioned before -- the small tree i pollarded three years ago has set flowers in reach. Wild cherries this June! And then next February the mystery of pruning.
And in mysteries of pruning, the old apple tree is blooming, but mainly high in the less pruned branches. Fie. The lower blossoms are at the tips of long spindly stems. I don't think there's any chance the young apples will bloom. I believe the trees are still being "trained." I read all i can about pruning but with the apples it's a complete mystery still.
A selected clone (Guthrie) of the native chickasaw plum came available Friday night. By the time i saw the email just three were left, and i bought them all (my sister wanted two). I won't count them until i see them. My sister has a species seedling plum that is sending up plenty of sprouts, so i will get a pollinator from her this fall. I still hope to get more selections: good genetics for fruit production.
The thicket bean -- a native, edible relative of the kidney bean -- has re-sprouted. So exciting! It may not be a voluminous producer, but if i have one reliable plant, i can spread its seeds around. I imagine planting it in the woods and protecting it with dead fall. Some saved seeds from last year will go along the orchard fence in a shadier section where the runner beans failed. (And it is still to be seen if the runner beans return this year. Only one saved seed from them where i can get my hands on it.) Other saved thicket beans will join the parent around the sunchokes (Jerusalem artichokes). I am hoping they will play nicely with each other. I can't seem to get rid of the sunchokes (which i would replace with a selection.)
I feel like i barely got anything done yesterday, but it's probably better than that. Weeded more of the north berm. Stupid aggressive mock strawberry. I planted purchased golden plants: a lupine that will not handle the heat well, i'm sure (Westcountry™ Terracotta), an Ecinacea called "Julia", and a Agastache, 'Sunrise® Orange' Hyssop. I also planted out tiny tiny seedlings of pansies (dubious that they'll grow enough to bloom) and selected California poppies. The poppies i had wanted to line up on a little terrace i made. Marlowe has decided it's a lounging place as she delights in throwing clods off the berm. I tried to protect them by putting rocks around them. Some of the seedlings had dried up and died: this depressed me a little.
[1] I do hope more don't die of whatever it is that is killing them here. I suppose it could be old age, but i suspect anthracnose. Appalachian Spring is resistant - and it looks like it's going to be a challenge to track it down.
Tags: