Apricot-sized peaches
Friday July 16th 2021, 10:11 pm
Filed under: Food,Friends,Garden

Anne stopped by yesterday and got a tour of the trees. We both noted a couple of chewed peaches on the ground–so much for the critters being good about staying away.

I ended up sending her off with a Baby Crawford and an August Pride to let ripen at home; that’s when she was here and even if they weren’t absolutely as perfect as they could be it was definitely better her than the squirrels. She sniffed them and exclaimed over the peachy smell.

That was a good reminder to me to appreciate rather than wish for more. I needed that, and I should have given her more. They just didn’t quite seem to have bragging rights in them yet and I allowed that to hold me back.

But in truth, the Baby Crawfords were already sweet and the yellow was coming in and if it were a commercial orchard they’d have been picking them. Richard and I decided last night that the right thing to do would be to pick all of those in the morning, because once the critters start going after your fruit it disappears fast.

I missed three, it turns out, but I got the rest. (I’m giving the less-ripe tree next to it a little more time.) Stem side down after I snapped this picture and a paper towel over them for ripening, as one does, but it only seems to take a day or two on the few I’d already tried and they were surprisingly good.

But at that size they weren’t going to last us very long–and more importantly, I owed a box of Andy’s peaches to the friend who drove us to the airport two weeks ago at an hour when he would have preferred to have still been asleep.

And so I did, I have boxes now from Andy’s: his big peaches to give our friends and to last us past the weekend, and an older box with mine in it looking cute. Cut them in half to share and they’re a bite each. But a good bite.



Buddy, you’ve got a long wait ahead of you if you want that fruit
Thursday July 15th 2021, 9:46 pm
Filed under: Life,Wildlife

Trouble is, he’d be happy to munch the plant away long before then.

A small Anya seedling.

Guess who showed up yesterday morning to take a sniff at it? I took that picture right before it stood up and reached its head over.

Until last fall, we hadn’t seen a rabbit in our yard for thirty-three years of living here. Since then it’s been popping up from time to time, but it had been gone long enough now that I’d half-convinced myself an owl or something had gotten it.

Nope.

Guess who opened the box with a new set of NuVue bird netting tents for that seedling and my squashes  immediately after snapping these pictures and scaring it away. Just the right size for protecting a large pot. All I’d needed was a little incentive. Yes it can chew through it if it wants to badly enough but trying to get into a cage is just not high on most wildlife’s list.

The good part is that the new version has–and it’s not in Amazon’s picture–small bright red ribbons hanging down from the top that blow in the wind and startle birds and rodents, and there was no sign of that cottontail today.



Small world
Wednesday July 14th 2021, 10:57 pm
Filed under: Friends,Garden,Life

I was looking for this page comparing Anya seedling characteristics vs their fruit and somehow ended up instead at the gardening forum page that had the link that I’d originally found it from. For a heartbeat I was disappointed. Then I decided to re-read it anyway.

Only, this time, while recognizing that familiar thread, I did a sudden doubletake because, wait, if that internet name is the guy’s initials and his unusual last name–!!! and I squinted at the tiny photo–it IS! That’s Cassie’s husband!

Yay for photos on Facebook, because I’ve never met the man, only my friend who married him after she moved away from here a dozen years or so ago.

So I sent her a note. I said, He wrote that two years ago but that has to be him and I have no idea if both of you have any interest whatsoever but if you seriously do, I’ve got some seeds and you’re welcome to a few.

She wrote back quoting her stunned husband: “Those are like GOLD!” He’d so wanted to try, but the four hour drive each way to Andy’s to buy apricots while raising kids and running a small business, there was just no way, he’d finally given up on the idea because it was never going to happen.

And then Google gave me a page that was not the page I was looking for but was the one where he needed me to be to find him and actually see him this time. I don’t have a lot of kernels, because Anya season overlapped with our going out of town, but a few are coming their way.

If I gave you some for this growing season and they didn’t make it, you’re not the only one and it’s okay and let me know so you can have a do-over if you want it.



Bamboozled
Tuesday July 13th 2021, 9:46 pm
Filed under: Garden,Life

From Drew51, writing on a garden forum six years ago:

“Reminds me of the fact that Bamboo flower about every 120 years. 95% die after flowering. About 10 years ago a very popular bamboo hit that 120 mark, and thousands of clones throughout the United states flowered and died. Young plants, small plants, big plants, old plants. All the clones flowered, the wood knew its age!”

Me: Given that bamboo requires solid concrete poured 18″x24″ wide and deep to keep it from punching through, say, the floor of your garage if it’s growing next to the house, maybe a do-over on the landscaping like that is not so bad.

Meantime, I found a spot on my scalp a bit forward of my skin cancer scar and got it seen today. The doctor declared it early enough and not a problem enough that she simply froze it.

My head has gone cryogenic.



Cheating on their vegan diet
Monday July 12th 2021, 10:25 pm
Filed under: Garden,Wildlife

I put two tiny squash seedlings to a 15″ pot when none of them were growing at all, figuring it was better to give them a chance than tossing them all straight out, and a month later two plants suddenly finally took off–both in the same pot, of course.

The one that’s dominant is (finally a female flower today after all the males, showing that it’s almost certainly) a zucchini; the smaller one at bottom has yet to announce itself and may get yanked out because you only need one zucchini plant and you’re not supposed to have them that mushed together, are you?

And then there’s this other pot. A squash sown at the same time, transplanted at the same time, treated the same way. Might be a butternut, might be my sister’s Italian white zucchini, might be another green zucchini. All carefully labeled, once upon a time. But it is definitely a bit silly, and I continue to debate trying to somehow get the littler guy in that other pot over into this one before it gets crowded out entirely.

Clearly, planting them inside in the winter did not get any of them the least bit ahead and they got so root bound in their 4″ squares that they couldn’t cope. Or at least I think that’s why.

Anyway. At 23″, apricot 2021 seedling #1 has grown an inch and a half since Friday. I understand now why that other guy said he was able to harvest his first fruit off his tall ones on the third year. Nice.

And on a random note, just because it’s so strange: white-tailed deer caught on camera. (link deleted later due to spamming)

Eating birds. And eggs.

Deer. I’m trying to grok this. Eating the adult nesting birds, their young, and their eggs. They tested by putting out quail eggs and the deer said why thank you very much! It says elk have been caught eating endangered sage grouse and whatever’s in their nests, too.

Foxes, raccoons, and–deer. Who knew?



Unto the littlest of these thy brethren
Sunday July 11th 2021, 9:37 pm
Filed under: History,Life

Another possible way of tackling covid-19: a novel application of an older treatment for something entirely different that looks like it will decrease covid sickness markedly. That would be great.

We attended church today, noting that there were fewer people there in person than our last time and more on Zoom and I didn’t see any small children at all–and the majority of adults were not wearing masks. I don’t know what they announced last week while we were out of town but clearly others got the message. It felt so strange.

And then someone said to me, I see you’re still wearing a mask.

I explained that someone in my lupus group had been fully vaccinated and then tested–and her antibody level to the virus was a flat zero. I’m not on the chemo drug she’s on but even fully vaccinated, I can’t risk transmitting anything.

My friend certainly understood that, leaving me thinking, so then why aren’t you… I mean, you live in the world that has such people too and did you know there was a cancer patient on that side of the room? She hasn’t lost her hair yet (and you’d likely never know if she did because that’s one person who’d get a wig no matter what the heat waves say.)

I mentioned it to Richard and his immediate response was the obvious, “When everyone under twelve is vaccinated I’ll take my mask off but not before.”

Yes. Exactly.

Now, if that new treatment that has so few side effects turns out to work for covid illness, that would be wonderful.

But nobody’s been absolved of responsibility towards their fellow man. We’re not done with this virus yet.



Stone fruit from fruit stones
Saturday July 10th 2021, 10:14 pm
Filed under: Food,Garden

Better photos: 2020’s plant, above, started slow and pale and short like that little one and one side branch and the top of the original trunk died by the end of the summer. And yet it survived my overwatering and look at it now.

Two from 2021, below. The taller one grew over half an inch in today’s heat. It’s going to outgrow the cage I have over it when I’m not taking pictures and it’s too fragile for the birds to perch on it yet so let me figure that one out.

I had a trio of mockingbirds, probably newly fledged teenagers, horsing around on the apricot and tomato cages today and over on that peach tree when I wasn’t looking.

By the way, if anyone wants some, I have some new Anya kernels now. They of course haven’t gone through the necessary three months of refrigeration yet before they can germinate.

Five got promised to someone today. I have some set aside for my sister, and the rest I’ll either try to sprout or if anyone reading this wants to try (or try again) let me know and I’m happy to share.

Meantime, a still-cute-sized August Pride peach got rescued from the mockingbirds. And then I zapped the ground around the trunk with an update of the grape Koolaid solution to say hey no guys those are mine.

 



Island
Friday July 09th 2021, 10:23 pm
Filed under: Garden,History

Anya apricot seedling planted in January, 21.5″ high now. Picture taken when it was too bright for the upper side branches to show up well but they’re there. It’s taller than the one on its second year and much much taller than the others planted this year, one of which is still stuck at about 5″ high. Clearly, planting this one in a mix that was mostly that Quoddy blend of composted lobster shells was successful; it’s the only one that was, but then, I chose the best-looking specimen for that in the first place. I wanted to try something totally different from what last year’s baby tree got.

Clearly, the older one should be repotted in the good stuff too come the winter.

Today this one got voted most likely to end up planted permanently in the yard. Helped by the fact that someone else said the fastest and tallest of his was the one whose fruit came out most like the hoped-for Anya parent.

(Don’t mind me, I’m trying to keep a record of what worked where I’ll know where to find it.)

Meantime, this woman was a kick to read about. I’d never heard this WWII story from the Channel Islands. It was the upper-crust Germans who were sent to that post during her island’s occupation, and because they were who they were it was they who were able to be cowed again and again before someone who so outranked them socially–a weapon she was happy to put to use at a time when there was no other available to her.

The rent for her fief to the Queen has not been updated since, apparently, 1565, at 1.79 pounds. I assume there were no late fees for any interruption caused by the war.



Cool cat
Thursday July 08th 2021, 10:18 pm
Filed under: Family

There’s a warning out that the Pacific Northwest is about to have another extreme heat wave.

Eve the (formerly) super fluffy longhaired grandcat is ready for that one, too. Continuing chin scritches welcomed.

(p.s. That 5.9 quake on the CA/Nevada border today? Didn’t feel a thing. With the Californian in me wanting to add,  …Yet…)



From the trip
Wednesday July 07th 2021, 10:07 pm
Filed under: Family

Mathias working on a puzzle with his mom.

Meantime, the toddler anthem of “Mine!” and the adult sized (that was a mistake) airplane-knit hat went on Lillian’s head because I’d just made one for her brother and had run out of time to finish the one she didn’t know was going to be hers so it only seemed fair.

She danced around with her new toy–what toddler doesn’t love a hat (unless you’re trying to make them wear one) and it went back on her head a number of times. Sometimes she could even see with it on, if someone helped her. And helped her again after she tugged on it. Or after she put Mathias’s hat on top of it.

The tree fairy ring out back, with a smaller one behind it and a smaller one behind that.

A chance to read a book with Grammy.



We brought our San Francisco weather with us
Tuesday July 06th 2021, 10:20 pm
Filed under: Family

And we are home from Washington State and the first visit with grandkids since Covid hit. The flight was late, we’re tired, but I wanted to check in. We are so glad we got to go.



Tree geodes
Thursday July 01st 2021, 10:04 pm
Filed under: Food,Friends,Garden,Knit

Dani, whose cheerleading enticed the planting of my mango tree, grew up with two Alphonsos in his yard in India.

They died a few years ago and he told me his mother was devastated.

When I said in a conversation yesterday that we had to get her a new one he said an unseen seed had survived and is now growing back and she was quite happy about that–and I am, too.

That got me to go look. Here’s what you get when you do that. Mangoes come in two types, monoembryonic and polyembryonic. Polyembryonic seeds produce multiple seedlings out of one seed and all will be clones of the parent–except one, and it will be visibly weaker or stronger than the others depending on whose experiences you’re reading on the ‘net. But mostly you get to straight-up replant what you’ve already got and experiment with the outlier. Turns out citrus do that, too.

Alphonsos are monoembryonic. You know what one of the parents is, you know how good it is, but there are no guarantees.

The nearest mango tree to mine that I know of is in Fremont and I’m sure there are no bees making that grand leap across the San Francisco Bay to my yard way over here–I’m pretty darn sure my sweet little Alphonso is a virgin. Still, it apparently means that whatever could sprout from its single-plant seeds could be anything from the tree’s genetic history.

His mom’s seedling is almost old enough now to fruit and soon she’ll find out. I’m really hoping she gets a great one.

Mine tried to fruit in December, lost them to the cold, but bloomed some more and persevered and now it’s covered with them. It takes months longer for them to ripen here than in their native climate but they’re getting there.

But darn if I’m not sitting here after all these back and forth emails wondering what kind of seedlings I might get, too. To find out, I could grow one in a pot, on the patio, on wheels to pull it out from under the awning to full-on sun and back again against the house at night, you know, what I’d originally envisioned as a way of managing a tropical here before Dani insisted I must, must let it grow in the ground and allow it to become what it’s meant to be.

We were both right. It’s much more of a tree and far more prolific that way. Mangoes are deep-taproot types.

So–if I kept and planted an Alphonso seed (space-wise, one would be enough) I could do it planter-on-wheels style, and then gift the tree away once I know the fruit is good. Because by then I’ll be more than happy to give away the impossible amount of excess from my own tree as it is. Hopefully.

Since our rainy/dry seasons are reversed, I asked Dani about watering it, I mean, I’d been doing it once a week all this time so I must be doing something right? He asked his mom.

Oh okay. Twice a week for the summer it is, then. Maybe that’s part of why it took them so long to ripen.