And now there are six. The two new apricots, including the one that was just a little curl coming out of the ground last night, already have their second leaves.

But there was a squash sprouting whose root was growing down the side of the plug against the plastic tray and never got the memo to get inside and it tried for a few days to be rooty enough–and then the whole thing died.

So tonight when I found an Anya was starting off its root at the edge like that I took another plug, put it up against it there, and wedged them together outside of the tray. Not too hard. We’ll see how it goes.

Note to self and to anyone who hasn’t planted theirs yet: point the pointy part of the kernel towards the center of the plug. I didn’t on all of them.

Meantime, courtesy of Anne, a physicist vs a squirrel. Whee!

Sunday I checked a set of apricot kernels that didn’t seem to be doing too much yet and, actually, one of them had a thick taproot coming out the bottom that hadn’t been visible the day before–not only that, the tip was starting to look darker–it needed a place to grow to, fast, so the plug went into a larger jiffy pot as a bit of a stalling tactic: I’ll go to Yamagami’s for bags of soil after we get our covid shots.

Twenty four hours later I had a new sprout.

Twenty hours after that, it is on its way.

—

Okay, I wrote that, and then I stumbled across a conversation with a guy who’d not only saved but had grown about 40 Anya kernels and at their fifth year wrote up the characteristics of what he had. Every one of them was really good, some closer to the original Anya than others but every one at least double the brix of your average grocery store apricots. (Explanation of brix here.)

It’s not just the sweetness, though: it’s the depth and nuances of flavor.

It made me feel really good about all those kernels I sent out. Nobody’s going to get a clunker, they’re all going to be great.

Our house had a yellow front door when our kids were little. It was not a color either of us would ever have picked.

When the invasive white flies were taking over and killing our ash trees, we had no idea that yellow meant food to them. We found ourselves with a blanket of small white gnats plastered against that door constantly, a whoosh of them inside every time we opened it, and at last we gave up and repainted the darn thing and they went away.

That and the scientists released a tiny non-stinging wasp from where they’d come from that ate them.

Since then I’ve found the idea of painting your whole house that color unfathomable. Pavlov would say I have issues.

And yet there’s this house. Actually, I know someone with a house like that: he’s a CEO and has to be able to entertain big, and does, and that’s fine. So:

One stovetop, two trash compactors (but one might be for recyclables?), five? no three ovens plus (checks description) one convection oven and a microwave. Don’t miss the faux columns being held up by the granite countertop on so wide an island that us mere 5’5″ types would have to leap halfway across the top of it to pass the dish to an outstretched hand on the other side.

And yet for all that, the kitchen cabinets alternate wood stains like a self-striping yarn knit sideways.

Gotta say, the library with the sliding ladders is a nice touch in that certain Disneyed Beauty and the Beast way.

But a pool in all that perfectly good fruit tree growing area. Nope. Deal’s off.

Ellen was wondering how best to plant her newly-arrived Anya apricot kernels at the very moment I was scrolling through my phone, got distracted, and butt-dialed her. She FaceTimed right back and we both had a good laugh. The answer is, I don’t know what the precise depth one should plant those is but I do know I had to tear the top of the Root Riot to get a kernel in–they’re latex and peat moss if I remember right, kind of an odd combination–so I didn’t put mine in very deep, afraid they would have a hard time fighting their way out.

As they swelled to sprout the kernels kind of worked their way upwards slightly and the seedlings have the split-open sides angling upwards from the surface like flower petals.

And it worked just fine.

Plant and root both will be growing from the pointy end of the seed.

Stretches and back exercises and ice packs and we’re both doing better today than either of us expected to, which is a relief.

Meantime, I took a closer look at this one apricot at front left of the Jiffy pots; it hasn’t been shooting up like the other two planted at the same time. Turns out it has three side branches, each with its own tiny cluster of new leaves, and the stem is thicker than on the biggest plant. If I wanted a more dwarf tree, this looks like a good bet so far. Here, let me get you a closeup.

And new growth at the top of the stem isn’t red, either. It’s definitely different.

All three in such varying sizes had their roots make it through the bottoms of the Jiffy pots for the first time today, the smallest, branching one the most so. Curious.

I’ve mailed out eight packages of three kernels and rooting plugs each at this point and I thought I’d mention to those trying this at home: most apricots don’t need a pollinator, but since there’s no way to be absolutely sure, and if you want to keep yours small, one thing mentioned by one wholesale grower is to plant two fruit trees of the same rootstock type in one hole, side by side, maybe a foot apart. They’ll pollinate each other and by competing for root space they’ll keep each other small.

And, in this case, for if you want to hedge your bets on how their eventual fruit tastes. You could always try your hand at grafting branches from a great one onto the less great should one fall short.

Mine are going to stay in large pots for at least this first year to try to keep them up and out of reach of wild rabbits and snails while they’re at their most vulnerable. My hope is to keep them happy in them for long enough to be able to choose the best.

There is an onramp to an overpass nearby that certainly has room and sun for an extra tree to be snuck in among the others there (given how many more of these I’ve now planted) –the only thing that stops the thought is, how would I get away with watering my guerrilla gardening? And you have to in our rainless summers. But there are so many people who need that fruit.

I have four kernels left in the fridge, the smallest and most shriveled ones. Which doesn’t mean a thing as to their character as far as I know. In case there’s anyone else out there who’d like to give a seed from an Anya a try. Last call.

One to five and a half inches. Three were started at the same time, the littlest later and popped up last week.

So I celebrated by planting some of my sister’s Lebanon White squash seeds she sent me, a variety I know absolutely nothing about other than that she likes them, and some zucchini, along with a pepper that one of my friends reacted to the idea last year with, Oh, that’s cool!

And another with, Then what’s the point?

Heatless Habaneros: all of the flavor, none of the pain. Last time I tried they were plantless seeds and a moot point. This time I have those rooting-hormone plugs on my side. The seeds are a year older, but so were the butternut squash and four out of six of those came up.

I still have another two dozen kernels from the exquisite Anya apricots, if anyone else would like to try growing a few; my plan is to go to the post office Monday and after that wait to go out again till after the vaccines we’ll be eligible for in two weeks. Plunk’em in a plug. Get your head start now.

The leaves are getting bigger.

Four inches. Curious. At 1/4″ a day if it keeps that up it would be six feet tall by the time it drops its leaves for the winter.

Except that it would be pruned and shaped before that point and all the side branching will take up energy, too. Still. It’s feeling pretty good right now, watching it take off like this.

That one apricot seedling I kept last year possibly got overwatered and stopped growing and I’m waiting to see if it will leaf out at all this year, so it feels all the better to have a vigorous, healthy plant. Last year I gave away the vigorous one, thinking I’d have a more dwarf variant because the other grew slower.

Until it didn’t at all.

Meantime, someone tried to teach a machine how to write knitting patterns. “And it even began to give its patterns names, including Spinches Bottom Up, Squig Dyity, and Owls Punch.”

Interweave warned its readers, Don’t swatch this at home.

I’ve been trying to take progress pictures from the same angle and against that narrow line on the basket where the wood end sticks out like a belt loop between the apricot seedlings. The taller one is now 3 3/4″.

Not bad for something planted January 11; last year it took till April just for them to sprout. Which is why I’m so taken with the plugs infused with rooting hormone that I tried this year–I’m getting a two month head start on my future fruit bearing while hoping that ends up cutting off a year of waiting to see how they’ll turn out.

Meantime, Lillian wanted to know what happened to that white snow stuff and where did this water come from.

Anya+? apricot seedlings Thursday, and the earliest and so far most vigorous one on the left there again on Friday 24 hours later.

One of my kids asked me about a year ago why I was so caught up in watching my fruit trees grow and I told him, I raised each of you for eighteen years and then I needed something else to nurture and watch grow and develop across a timespan like that.

He hadn’t ever thought of it that way before but yeah, he could definitely see that.

There’s the picture from my old slow iPhone. They like this being in the sun stuff–the one that’s only halfway out of the sides of the kernel is already green down in there. They’ll grow faster later in the warmth of the spring, but meantime, they’ve got a two month head start over last year’s attempts.

Signs of summer Alphonsos to come.

I seem to have interrupted a bird that thought that tree a great place to set up a nest–which has never happened before, and I had wondered if they didn’t like the smell of the latex in the sap or something? Or more likely that of the Sunbubble. The squirrels didn’t, so far anyway, which makes it all the better a place for a baby bird to be hidden away in. A cat or a hawk would have a hard time harassing them and our songbirds need all such spaces they can get.

The third apricot cotyledon uncurved its head today and stretched out its new leaves as if to proclaim, Tadaah! Tomorrow the fourth will finish emerging from its seed.

I put them out under the awning during the day for a little extra sunlight. Not too much yet. Just enough.

The desert cottontail put in the first appearance all winter. Rats. I’d hoped it was gone. My baby trees are going to have to be kept up high for awhile.

I planted the first three apricots I think three weeks ago? The others this week.

I checked tonight and the roots of those three had outgrown the plugs during the course of the day and one big root was starting back up along the other side of the plastic tray. It needed somewhere to head to that matched gravity.

So I just replanted those three inside a large Jiffy pot to hold them for a few days. I want to definitely be past any frost before they go out.

I still can’t get over how much healthier and more vigorous they already look than last year’s.

Edited to add, I just found a tap root on one of the newly-planted ones. I guess they didn’t need time but rather just a few warmer days–and they did all start out in the damp paper towel thing at the same time.

Being able to putter around, checking on my seedlings, doing laundry, making a lemon almond cake just because the daughter wished out loud for one, making a spinach souffle with vegan parmesan (for her dairy allergy) and bacon bits that turned out surprisingly good: vegan cheeses aren’t great on their own but it turns out they do pretty well in recipes.

After yesterday, it was a day of just being really happy about all the little things. It’s raining and cold? Have a second mug of cocoa. Why not. He loved it.

I have Anya apricots starting to sprout again and a bunch more kernels still in the fridge.

Last year I followed instructions online that said that after the required cold months, soak them overnight–and had a 70% rotting rate. This year I followed instructions that said for the next stage put them in a wet paper towel in a ziplock in the fridge, did that for a few weeks and I have eleven that are looking good so far and one that rotted. I put them in Root Riot plugs that have rooting hormone added, and the roots that are just starting look much bigger and healthier than anything I ever saw last year.

Probably you should just stick them straight in the Root Riots out of the fridge without the whole paper towel nonsense.

So I have a question for you all: does anyone want some of those saved dry kernels? You cannot buy the trees anywhere, they’re not on the market, period, and the developer’s orchard of them has been ripped out and replaced with almonds. If you want to taste these you’ll probably have to grow your own.

I bought Anya apricots at Andy’s Orchard last summer: so at least one parent is an Anya. Andy only grows what tastes good. The other parent might be one of John Driver’s other two varieties that Andy grows, it could be a Blenheim or something, there’s no way to know.

It should take three to five years before you have fruit.

But then oh what fruit. Anyas are what apricots were always meant to taste like and never could be.

Yours for the asking and the willingness to take care of them.

It was a day. More tomorrow.

Quick, more peach flowers! 

The August Pride peach gave us the first blossoms of the year.