Grafting Tomatoes: update
Did you think this would go super-perfect? HA! Did I? Actually, admittedly, I did. Turns out, other plans were in store! Ok here’s the best pic I can come up with: So the success rate on the grafts is exactly 50%. LAME. What happened, you ask? I’ll tell you. The rootstocks failed in that they […]
An afternoon on Wichita Avenue
One of my very best friends lives about a mile from me on Wichita Ave. Her property is large, about 1/3 acre, and it’s more than she can manage so I help her… I better do some sort of introduction. I wish it was June when everything looks amazing but, well, now is now. I’ll […]
Grafting Tomatoes
Ok as promised, I’m documenting the process of grafting tomatoes. I started these from seed on February 4th. The instruction handout from Territorial (my seed source for all of ’em) said to do the grafting when they have two true leaves and the stems are between 1.5 and 2 mm. Well, I’m not sure if […]
February 2018 Post-Snowstorm Report
A rather unexpected late-February snowstorm! 5″ of snow and a low of 24F. I have little to report from my own garden. In fact, so little that I was considering not posting at all, but since this blog is supposed to serve as a record (at least to myself) of my garden, I figure I […]
Palm Springs, Part 3: Joshua Tree
Fun facts about Joshua Tree National Park! U2’s album photographs were not from Joshua Tree National Park, but rather the band found this lone Yucca brevifolia out near Darwin, CA along Route 190, which is some 250 miles north of the park. The nearly 800,000-acre National Park is larger than the state of Rhode Island. […]
Wednesday Vignette: Dripping
Befitting a drippy rainy day (after so many days of relative dry), I present you with this (slightly blurry; it was raining) lovely sedum which appears to have dripped itself right off the top of this rock wall and into the soil below at the base. I was struck by the idea that this little […]
Palm Springs, Part 2 of 3
On Thursday morning in Palm Springs, we took a tour of Moorten’s Desert Land Botanical Garden. It was either that or Sunnyland, and after perusing a few photos online of both places, I opted for the messier and crazier botanical garden. I can appreciate the serenity in a highly orderly formal landscape, but if you […]
Signs of Spring
It’s only natural that after a few days out of town one must inspect one’s garden. Happily, I found lots of signs of spring! Ok, ok, the daffodils aren’t in my garden – they’re across the street from the place where I get my coffee beans in downtown Milwaukie. By the way a big part […]
Palm Springs, Part 1 of 3
This week I got a rare opportunity to leave my house and actually get on an airplane! I’ll confess that before we got there, I expected that I wouldn’t be all that interested in a bunch of southern California plants that I can’t grow. I was dead wrong about that, as you will see. The […]
Winter Vegetable Garden, February 2018
The vegetable garden is always a year-round affair for me. That doesn’t mean I actually harvest and eat things every month, but there is always activity. I started these on January 18. There are Walla Walla onions, two or three varieties of storage onions, two varieties of lettuce, leeks, and shallots. There are also a […]