Just For Funsies – A Look Up A Turkey Oak

Looking up from the base of a 60′ Turkey Oak.  They usually only grow about 30′, but this one has grown twice as tall.  A Turkey Oak is a red oak.  It is called a Turkey Oak because the leaves look like a turkey’s foot print.

(FYI-Red Oaks have pointed edges on the leaves and White oaks have rounded leaf edges.)

Gogi Berry’s 2nd Season

This is the 2nd season that I have had this Gogi Berry.  I am very pleased that it made it thru it’s first season.  I put the pot in our pantry where it kept from freezing but didn’t have great lighting.

I know that this plant is somewhat happy because it has popped up several straight shoots.  You can see one clearly on the very left side.  I intend to propagate this plant, but not for a few years.

 

(General garden note:  I put pine bark between my raised beds.  Some are big chunks.  I go out into the woods and load up the bark peelings from dead pine trees.  The chunks will break up as I walk on them.)

Raspberries

I have decided to raise Raspberries.  They are not as easy to grow here as they are up north, but it is doable.  These will sit in these pots for a while, maybe even this entire season, until I figure the best place to plant them.

The 5 pots in the lower left are the raspberries.  The one on the very left isn’t looking to great.  Each is a different variety and I’ll see what ones perform the best.  I know Heritage is supposed to be one of the best for this region.  Fortunately I have one.  I didn’t do my homework before I bought them.

Pine Tree Seedlings

I am addicted to propagating plants by cuttings and seeds.  Pine trees abound.  I finally figured out that these are pine seedlings.  Duh!  Now I dig them up when they sprout in a dangerous spot – under foot, in the driveway, or some other place where they won’t be able to grow and survive.

This little guy spent a few weeks adjusting to this pot, but has since taken off.  He (pine trees come male & female but I don’t know what this seedling is so I am just using this pronoun).  This guy has a good 2″ of new growth on him.  I have over 2 dozen little seedlings in my pine tree nursery.

This fall I need to make a special effort to try to gather pine seeds from the pine cones.  I plan to start about a hundred seedlings.  I have seen 2 distinct different seedling types.  I’m sure one is Loblolly, but can’t guess what the other is.  Once they are about 18 inches, I plant them out in our woods.

Chard, Chard, Chard – What To DoWith All This Chard

Time is running out on this chard.  It will probably still be good for another month or so until it gets too hot.  I have been drying 2 batches of chard a day for the past few weeks.  When I cut out the thick stems, it only takes about 2 to 2 and a half hours at lowest temperature – about 105 to 110 degrees – to dry the leaves.

This bed of chard was planted last fall and lived under a plastic greenhouse covering – the gray supports can still be seen (they have since been removed and put up for the summer).  I am now carefully harvesting leaves because I am selecting certain plants to let go to seed.  I am selecting plants that have giant, wrinkled leaves – the kink that I like.

What a beautiful, giant, wrinkly leaf! These leaves all came from a batch of Luculus Chard seeds.

These giant chard leaves are a bit less wrinkled, but still have nice, thick leaves.

I also planted this red stemmed chard, Ruby Red, an heirloom variety. Only 2 plants survived and grew to large plants – possibly because these were 2009 seeds. This variety also has nice wrinkled leaves. I can’t, however, let both varieties go to seed because they will cross and I will have an inbred mess.  Both of these varieties are heirloom.

A few posts back I posted pictures of the food dryer and drying kale.  I will be posting of the dryer full of chard as soon as I get the pics uploaded.  I can crunch up 2 dryer loads and stuff them into one wide mouth quart canning jar.

Bluebonnet Update – Seed Pods

This is an update on the prior Bluebonnet wild flower post.  I have never really had blue bonnets around before so I have never had a chance to observe them live.

Wow – look at those fat seed pods!

I know that Blue Bonnet seeds must go thru a freeze cycle before they will sprout next spring.