Pushing the limits 2011

[canadianplant]

Instead of flooding the entire forum with questions and posts, I think Ill be posting all my infor and questions here. Please take a look here if you get a chance, as ill be putting questions, and all my info for this growing season here ( sort of like the last one i did). Im doing this to spare you guys of seeing my name, on almsot every section of the forum, and flooding it LOL.

I think im in a bit over my head this year. 35+ packs of seed, not including the palm seeds and what not i have already waiting to germinate, or not including the 50 Washy F seeds im waiting on. Im quite sure, I will have some palms this year, either some form of trachy Fortunei, or trachy nanus, sabal minor, or a washy. My elephant ears ( colocasia and alocasia), are doing great inside, as well as muy basjoo ( it put out 5 leaves so far, since october and pushed out a nice foot long leaf!!!!)

I do not know hwo things have faired this year. Due to the deep snow, and multching ive done, i should have some great success!!!!!!

Im going to be expanding one bed, as well as possibly creating another, in a werid space. Ill post some pics when i can... i need some insight on this area....

Here is a long list, of things I am going to plant this year. I appoligize for the spelling mistake, i wrote it down quite fast

Start February/march:cyperus glaber
Brug yellow
Chilli glory vine
Begonia snow angels
Passiflora cerulea
Passiflora incarnate
cobea

8 – 10 weeks before last frost
Apricot \
Peach
Plum 10
Apple
Rose
Lily/
Paulownia 8
Chamomile10
Lavatara 8
Echinechea 10
Oregano 8
Lobelia 10
Sage 10
Rosemary 10
Canna 8
Strawberry 10
Honeydew 8

4-8 weeks before
Matshless tomato 4
Snapdragon 6
Rice paper plant
Asst morning glory 8
Mina lobata 8
Morning glory heavenly blue 8
Glacier Tomato 6
Southern belle pepper 8



Outdoors when soil can be worked
Cerry belle radish
Sugar snap peas

Outside after last frost
Dill
4oclock
Aster
Scarlett nate carrot
Golden hedge sunflower
Cilantro
Corn Canadian sweet
Nutri red carrot

Banana:
Balbisina, yunanensis, itinerans (burnese blue), helens hybrid, ensete ventricosum, whie butterfly ginger,
Palm
Washingtonia filerfa

Seeds im waiting on:
Trachy ( nanus, naini tal, fortune), sabal minor, tetrapanax papifera, mango, citrus (bloodorange, lemon, lime), brug, date,

[tropicman]

What will you be doing in your spare time????
What is the latest you might still get snow?
I know someone in Thunder Bay,that sometimes gets snow in May,lasting until June.
Good Luck with your germination rate.
Don

[canadianplant]

It is variable here. Out last frost date, is june 1st, and ive seen it well before that as well. Personaly ive never seen snow past may ( early). But i know it has happened in the past. Usualy, snow is gone by march or april, and the ground can be worked april or early may ( I know im definetly living in the wrong area!!!!)


There are many many times, when the city sees rain, while the country still sees snow. The lake has a moderating effect around 10km inland, the closer tot he lake you are, the warmer youll be in the winter. The country is always 10c colder then the city in the winter, and is always warmer in the summer.

This is my spare time LOL. Ive nbeen off work since october due to a back injury ( im fine though, jsut have to be careful), so i wo nt be working till february, or march. When i do start working again, i bet ill be regretting having 200+ pots of seeds growing, but for now... im killin the time left of winter

[lucky1]

35 seed packs to germinate...holy moly

[canadianplant]

LOL ya..... should be interesting to say the least

[hardyjim]

Good luck Jesse

No better way to keep busy,than doing what you love!

[Cameron_z6a_N.S.]

Canadianplant, did you ever have any luck with the eucalyptus seeds?

[canadianplant]

They are stratifying.... As far as i seen, they all needed to be stratified, except one kind, that i sowed a few weeks ago, nothin yet.
What about you?

[Cameron_z6a_N.S.]

I haven't started germinating most of them yet. When I was getting some seeds ready to send to someone, a few E. neglecta seeds fell on the floor, so I swept them up, threw them in an empty pot, and a few days later there were seedlings! The same thing happened with another Australian species, callistemon pityoides

[TimMAz6]

that's one long list! You'll be busy all spring & summer. The only difference between your list and mine is that 80% of mine will be Yucca hybrids!

[wxman]

Wow, June 1st is late! Last frost date here in SE Wisconsin is April 26th.

[canadianplant]

Damn it cameron.... LOL I have a pot of those actualy, with nothing so far ( a bit of mould i scooped out). Grats on the good luck

Ya tim.... if i had a bigger yard, if have lots more stuff. Then again, i hae a wholepack of agave montana seeds. That i havnt had a chance to pot up yet... You just reminded me

Ya, it isnt usualy that late. Its our average. We usualy have a long time between frosts, or light frosts, then when we let our gurards down BOOM, frost. My climate is close to duluth ( im only 3 hours north up the highway), except the lake moderates the temps alot more. Just 20 minuts from my house was seeing frosts a month before my house ever seen anything. Lots of things are going to be planted im may again ( last frost was may 8th last year and first frost wasnt till a few days before halloween). WX your a good 10 + hours south, suprising how much of a difference that plays on frost dates ( i think even down in southern ontario isnt untill late april or early may).

[canadianplant]

Since barb has got the wheels turning ( she asked me what I meant about "palm edition"), I think i should explain a bit.

im starting to get quite a collection of trachy seeds, as well as other cold hardy types. I of course, crazy as I am want to try to over winter one here. Im hopeing to plant some seedlings, to experiment with this year. Im hoping to have at least one palm to try. Seedlings are a bit easier to protect, but as you all know, arent as hardy as their older counterparts. Then again, plants started directly in your garden are apperantly more hardy then if you planted a potted specimin ( something to do with not restricting root growth). Long story short.... Im going to see what happens.

I very luckily found all our old c9 christmas lights. Ill jsut have to get some replacement bulbs.]]

On top of that, Im hoping to have some eucalyptus, to try and grow as a die back perennial.

Some of you might be wondering why i have so much food. Im trying to create a sort of food forest. IT takes quite a bit of explaining, but it is essentialy nnot gardening by most normal means. ITs permaculture, or a form of sustanable gardening, which gives me toom to have exotics, food, and native wildlife, while making less and less work for myself. No tilling and minimal fetilizing (besides compost and rotted manure, and the soil). This is going to take a few years to take off. I have some hazelnuts in the f ridge, hopefully ready to sprout. Im not going to have a monocropic type garden for my food, the carrots, tomatos and what not will all be interplanted between the ornamentals/non food plants, back planted with tall shrubs, or one or 2 large trees. This creates a forest edge,in which eventualy very little care is needed

[lucky1]

plants started directly in your garden are apperantly more hardy then if you planted a potted specimen

That's why growing palms outdoors is so puzzling to get correct.
They're hardier as they get older, but need to become established first.
An enigma for sure.

You're too young (way too young) to remember Ruth Stout but she was the old lady 30+ years ago who became famous in organic gardening circles for her "no tilling" practices of veggie gardening. She brought in literally tons of spoiled hay to mulch her garden, and created fabulous soil where everything grew to its maximum yield.

Good for you Jesse.
One day we'll read about your interplanting successes.

Barb

[canadianplant]

Actualy barb, ruth was mentioned in a book i read, called gaias garden - a guide to homescale permaculture.... I cant remember the actual infor about her, but i definetly reconise the name.

[lucky1]

You recognize the name (good).
I recognize her.

[canadianplant]

Ny parents always tell me I was born 30 years to late... concidering i listin only their type of music ( pink floyd, alice cooper, zeppelin , black sabbath etc)

[igor.glukhovtsev]

[canadianplant]

I have one brugmensia seedling now!!! mabey 30 more to go!

[canadianplant]

2 brug seedlings have sprouted ( out of 6 splanted)

I checked the stratifying seeds, all the macintosh apple seeds sprouted, some had alredy gone green. I planted the 2 seeds that had small roots, and put them in som,e sun. Peach seeds had mould, tossed. Same with my lily seeds.

My almond has 13 fully formed leaves, with about 4 growin in various stages. Its cool how they twist when they unfurl....

Gonna stratify my passiflora seeds tomorrow, and plant my orange, and trachy seeds.

i have some genovese basil, and tyme are well grown, in the aerogarden, going to be planted outside.

I have quite a few pommegranate seedlings, the best one is already on its 3rd set ( also in the aerogarden). Going to be moved out doors after frost ( ive read many posts and info regarding pommagranate hardiness, lots have had good growth in zone 5, but no flowers.)


The macintosh apple seeds sprouting tells me spring is comming

[Okanagan desert-palms]

How long are you going to keep some of your seedlings in pots before you plant them?

John

[hardyjim]

I think your "palm edition"should look like this-

50 Washy F seeds im waiting on. Im quite sure, I will have some palms this year, either some form of trachy Fortunei, or trachy nanus, sabal minor, or a washy.
I do not know hwo things have faired this year. Due to the deep snow, and multching ive done, i should have some great success!!!!!!

Washingtonia filerfa

Seeds im waiting on:
Trachy ( nanus, naini tal, fortune), sabal minor, date,


I trimmed it down a bit

[canadianplant]

But, im also usin this to ask questions and talk about it, since ill have lots of questions. I dont wanna swamp the board, so id rather post it all here.

its palm edition becasue the palms are going to be one of the major parts of it, even if it seems to be drowned out by other things. Not to mention they are the plants that are really pushing the limits here......

[Jay-Admin]

I moved this to a new section that's related to the contents of this post.

[canadianplant]

Thanks jay...

[Jay-Admin]

You're very welcome.

[lucky1]

macintosh apple seeds sprouting

We used to have a commercial apple orchard ~1100 trees, McIntosh and Spartans mostly.
All stock was grafted to certain rootstocks.
The Mc (or Spartan) canopies were grafted to Transparent (the variety) interstock which was then grafted to super-hardy Antonovka roots.

A sprouted apple seedling won't be true to parentage, generally always small and sickly.

Where are the trees now?
Firewood, none finer than 3-year stacked applewood.

Barb

[canadianplant]

My family in quebec, sell syrup and honey and apples. THey used to have a much bigger orchard, but it seems everyone is moving to wine, in that region. Sounds like they did that in BC too. IS there a certain reason? ( sounds like im talking to the right person ) **** there are quite a few mcintosh apple trees here, especialy in my area.

ID like to take the risk. If worse comes to worse it will be a good polinator for anpother apple tree. I know id have to get 2 (80% of the time depending on species) if i hope to get any apples. Im thinking of getting a "honeycrisp" apple as the secondary tree, or as an experiment, possibly try to graph a few other branches on that tree. Thats probably the best way, seeing as I dont have much space.

I was looking up some hardy trees, and most information reccomented a standard tree in my area. Most graphted apple trees have a hard time here apperantly ( except if they are graphted onto crabapple stocks, which is apperantly how they do it here)..

I couldnt cut down that many trees My inner hippie wont let me LOL. Although they would brobably make some wicked woodchips for smoking

[lucky1]

IS there a certain reason?

In our case, labour became more and more iffy.
Locals weren't interested in picking apples, even on smaller trees that required little ladder work, so we relied on transients to show up year after year.
That dwindled over the years, as well as what packinghouses would pay per pound.
Farmers simply couldn't pay an hourly late to pickers, so it was per bin, because time was of the essence.
Once fruit was ready, it had to be in bins and ready to ship within about a week, or else stored in a cooler to they don't dry up and become unmarketable.
Increasingly, farmers make less than the middleman who simply buys and sells the stuff without having ever seen the product
And retail stores want profit too.

Then there was weather: hail and windstorms, in some years, affected 80% of the crop, rendering apples fit only for juice not the fresh market.
And juice apples didn't even pay pickers' wages. We had crop insurance that would pay in case of hail, giving us some income, but there was the associated premium to pay annually, too!

We also didn't like the necessary application of pesticides...Guthion is the stinky scary one I remember.
So why spray at all? Tough question. A case of you're buggered if you do, and you're buggered if you don't.
Think of a consumer at Safeway spending $1.29 / lb. for apples...they're not going to select any with marks on them. At that price, they want clean/unblemished fruit. So we had to spray for thrips, aphids, codling moth (the "wormy" apples pest...and no, worms weren't the size of earthworms, ha ha...they were very tiny but tunneled in apple flesh), and other bugs I've now forgotten.

As to moving to wine, we considered it, but the orchard renovation would've required considerable costs and labour replanting new stock with trellising, etc.
You get to a point in your life where off-premises jobs pay, and on-premises farming doesn't, so it was an easy choice for us. But folks who do change over are following market trends...estate wineries are tied with tourism marketing, and do very well if they include restaurants and sampling rooms, especially if located on a tourbus route.

As to pollinators...2 types of apple.
You're correct, but I have to laugh, remembering a Horticulturist's instructions when we were planning orchard layout.
We had chosen McIntosh apples as the crop, and he said to order Spartans for pollination. So we did, and Spartans (if I remember accurately) were interspersed every 8th tree, every 3rd row. What the Hort guy didn't tell us--or didn't know-- was that Spartans king blossom (the big one in middle) opened five days LATER than McIntosh king blossom. Pollination in our orchard was a result of the numerous wild bees that seemed to appear out of nowhere at blossom time. Wild bees were the workhorses at our place...the Spartans not so much. Never saw that Hort guy again.

So there it is: more than you ever wanted to know about orcharding

We never did any grafting ourselves, ordered specific stock requirements that were grafted at commercial orchard nursery. But an old Ukrainian neighbour did his own grafting...he had one apple tree that had a different apple variety on every branch. Beautiful at blossom time, pinkish blossoms on some branches, white on others. Stunning! I've seen Grafting course available through the government Agriculture department, but never attended myself.

Re smoking wood...a man arrived one day, wanting apple wood for smoking fish. We gave him some firewood hunks and he was thrilled.
...seems he was going to come back with some smoked fish. Hmmm.

It's always fun to grow something as a family food supply and/or hobby.
But once you ramp up into "real farming", it's a whole different ball of wax requiring unbelievable levels of knowledge and skill, not to mention expensive equipment.

Oh my goodness...my post is an insomnia cure!
Barb

[canadianplant]

LOL wow this post got lost....

I now have soem washys growing, still waitin on some others.

The apple seedlings are already showing variation.. One is taller with less leaves, while the shorter one has more. Even the leaf seration looks different.

Lots of the snow has melted so I can give some updates on somethings. The wisteria, wegelia, all 3 clematis survived the winter. The 3 bamboos ive mentioned in my other post, but I will add, that my pseudosasa Japonica, is uncovered, and other then slight yellowing its perfect. Absolutly perfect. My hibiscus had 2 seeds that stayed on the plant, so I planted those.

My Yucca Filamentosa, is alive. Almost 100% so far. No marks on the leaves or anything. I also unvoveres what i could of the passiflora. ALmost all the cives were hollow and blond, except 5 !! Some of the vines were still light green to very green the closer to the ground. The roots should be fully intact. Im hoping for it to make an apperance this year ( although late, end of june probably).

Ive planted my lobelia, some brocoli. The brugs are doing well, my cobea came up, same with my rosemary and the cyperus glabor. STarting peppers next week, and the first sowing of letuce and spinach a week or so after that. From then on, weekly sowing inside and out. Spring is awsome!.

And, I bought a grape vine today. Since the Himrod Grape failed worse then Oprah on a diet last year, I managed to buy one thats budding. All the other ones had one bud, and dead top growth. This one was the best, with 5 noticable healty buds. Its in my unheated basement in bright light untill I can get it in the ground in 6 - 8 weeks.

[lucky1]

Good everything's growing for you...maybe a bit early to uncover the Passiflora?

We never bought grape plants. Just took 3-foot long cane cuttings from friend's vineyard.
Mark "UP" with a felt pen before you cut in case they bud without roots (just stick them in the ground then)
Put them damp into a plastic bag, tied it and left it in the laundry room for 2 weeks.
Presto! grape cuttings with roots ready to plant.
The only way to get the type of grapes you want.

The sun's higher and warmer.
SPRING is on the way after a long winter for most of us.

Barb

[canadianplant]

The top of the passoflora is dead. Its the roots i was really worried about. Im 95% sure its a Ceurlea ( or some hybrid), which dies back to the ground and comes back ( repotedly in zone 6 and 5). Im not expecting growth from last years vines. Im excited about the green vines becasue that means the roots are good! The temps here wont be enough to do any damage to anything I have in ground ATM.

Im trying to stay away from buying plants now (unless i cant get them another way). The only person I know growing white grapes is my neighbor, who doesnt know the type, and uses the grapes for wine ( old school italian). The grape was 6 bucks, good deal. Its seedless, table grape " which tastes very similar to the grocery store kind in sweetness". My kind of grape!. Not overly productive, but i wont need 20 pounds of grapes. LOL

Yes the sun is nice and toasty!, lows at -9C the lowest usualy around -5C, days ar 2C to about 9C. The snow half melted in 2 days!