Rhubarb, berries, pear tree, broad bean landrace and comfrey

I've made another video taking note of things that I've not recorded, or have visibly changed. This will be quite helpful in keeping track of things like having a visual record of which pear is which on the double-grafted one.  You can't trust the nurseries and orchards and should check these things yourself, I've had several instances where they've botched things.  And also noting the traits of individual varieties of broad bean in the landrace as they cross-pollinate from year to year.

It's another foggy Spring morning. The fog actually lifted earlier, and the sun was so low I almost had to close the blinds so I could work. The grass and dock have taken off in the past two weeks, as has the rhubarb.  I'm going to have to clear the grass before making movies, or taking photos, as it is quite hard to see some things that are growing amongst grass.

I increased the quality the phone camera was recording, and used a weight to try and stablise the camera from shaking.  In this case I basically sat the phone sideways on the rock and held it there, carrying it around.  It seemed to make a difference, but wasn't perfect.

Planting out blackcurrant cuttings

A lot of my existing blackcurrant cuttings I've planted out, are of unknown varieties.  The reason for this is that any way where a name or date is written on plastic, results in faded unreadable plastic within several months to a year.  After that, it comes down to where whatever it was, was planted.  And how reliably the notes are, if there are any.

In this case, I must have started my new tagging regime.  This involves taking segments of coke cans, and inscribing the variety name on them with a sharp implement.  So I am almost certain these are Cotswold Cross blackcurrant cuttings.

And here they are planted out in the paddock.  The ground is still damp from the rain last night, but I watered them in anyway.  The stones are to prevent the chickens from scratching them out of the ground, as has happened before.

All of these have the coke can labels around them, and are labeled on an orchard map.  I'll still need to confirm they are the variety I think they are, based on written and internet descriptions.  But I'll need to do that for all my fruit, as more than a few have turned out to be other than described by whoever they were sourced from.

Rooting Cuttings

I planted out half of one of the backyard raised beds with cuttings. I even recycled old plastic bags I had tucked away, and made it look nice and tidy.

Part was chilean guava cuttings.

Part was box hedge cuttings.

Unfortunately, the chickens have recently taken to scratching out this bed. The black plastic is in disarray and the cuttings are all dislodged and strewn everywhere. Never trust anyone who tells you that the chickens will magically not get anywhere you don't want them, and will listen when you tell them to scoot and stay away from something! Lies! Even if you rolled your eyes and didn't believe them, you still should have put netting over whatever it was. Two words: chicken enchiladas.

Planting & Rooting

This is a collection of recent things I have either planted out, or planted out to root for later transplanting.

Two fruit plants were donated to me, as they were not growing well in town. This is a Fantasia nectarine tree, a variety I already have one of. At worst, it's a backup tree, should the other cark it. It could also be used for grafting.

The other donation, was this blueberry. It's planted out alongside my other two varieties, one of which is Climax, and the other is Powder Blue. This variety of this new plant has been mislaid and will never be known.

I also traded a lot of cuttings and seeds online, and got two varieties of gooseberry. These were from plants themselves raised from cuttings, where the cuttings were from old farms or gold fields, in another part of the country. They should be older varieties, where most of the modern plants available are Pax and Invicta. I've got one Invicta out in my berry orchard. These are sitting in front of my north bed, which the elephant garlic cloves were planted out in.

Last year, I took cuttings from someone else's currant prunings. These I dipped in rooting hormone, and planted in a garden bed. And this year, given they grew roots in the garden bed, I transplanted them out in the field beside my purchased Magnus plant. I've also got a Cotswold Cross, an unknown red currant and a white currant. It just goes to show how easy it is to make your own plants, if you're willing to wait a year and have a source for genetic material to work from.

This year, I've got some gooseberry cuttings and black currant cuttings, which I've taken from someone else's prunings. The gooseberry are a thornless variety, and haven't had a problem with mildew. So not Invicta. The currants are likely Magnus again. Something I read, likely a fruit book I bought, recommended the black plastic to keep weeds down.

I also took two cuttings off my white currant, and have planted them out. But not photo. With a bit of luck, this will give me two more white currant plants next year. I should go out and see if I can get cuttings off the red currant. And for that matter, the Chilean cranberry. Hmm.

Garlic and blackcurrant mistakes

In a previous post, I mentioned digging up my garlic and moving it because it was supposed to be bad to grow alongside my broad beans. And in another previous post, I covered taking cuttings from gifted pruned blackcurrant branches.

On the bright side, when I took this photo, one blackcurrant cutting had started showing green growth. And since then, maybe one or two more have also started showing their own. But on the not so bright side, I had been planting the cuttings wrong. I should not have been trimming off all the buds.

Green appearing on a cutting.

One later cutting I made, the only one I did not trim the buds from, pretty much started showing green growth a week or two after being planted. And I've not been able to locate any source of information which says to take the buds off.

The garlic is not so bad. The following picture shows the well filled row of transplanted garlic on the right, and an occasional garlic shoot on the left alongside the bean plants. It turns out that transplanting the garlic did no harm at all, and that I also missed transplanting some.

Lost garlic growing.

I should note the sticks alongside the right hand row of garlic were just marking where the cloves were buried, and are not cuttings.

Growing cuttings

Plants are not that expensive, but the cost adds up.  A blackcurrant bush costs around $12NZ I think, and I can get a range of other berry plants for around the same price.  But if I had access to existing plants, I would be able to take cuttings and grow more.  In this case, I've managed to acquire cuttings for black currant, black grapes with seeds and some apple trees that grow up as columns.  I don't know the names of any of the varieties.

Blackcurrant, grape and apple cuttings.

There's rules to this sort of thing apparently.  But at worst, these are free new plants.  Maybe I'll have a hedge of dwarf apple trees later on.

So, on to my unruly approach.  The long cuttings at the back are the apple cuttings, and are apparently cut wrong.  I need to make them shorter and perhaps snip off the top, I am told.  The grape cuttings in front of the apple cuttings (hard to see, I know) have been moved around between different garden locations. This doesn't seem to have done any harm - unlike the garlic cloves in the next bed, which have likely suffered from their move.  The blackcurrant cuttings, of which there are many, follow the rules.  What those rules were, and where I found them, I don't know!  But I do remember something along the lines of removing all but around three buds on each cutting.  I really need to be taking better notes.

Things are looking promising too, I was out there in the rain the other day, and I am pretty sure the currants and grapes are budding up.