#autumn raspberry

Sooooooo waiting on my black currant collection. No one knows where it is and with the weather, no one but me cares. Rather disappointed in the plants I did received. Of the 12 autumn raspberry (Yellow/ Ann) only two had buds, one was just a lanky piece of root and most of all the roots were dried out but a few tips. Hoping they will kick out as I gave them a nice soak to try to re hydrate. The nanking cherries (3), only one looks viable. The other two are sub par and not even second grade plants -- if they break dormancy and grow even a little, I will be surprised. The portabella spores came in compressed wood brick, which wasn’t what I expected nor ordered ... they sold them as spores to sprinkle around the garden for Autumn harvest. Not going to happen unless I take the axe to the block and then ‘sprinkle’ isn’t a word I would associate with placement. Anyway, Plants healed in; spore block taking up big space in fridge until I can deal with it.

Collected 3 eggs. I suspect all girls are now done with their winter rest and back to work. They all three squatted for me today when I brought in treats so I am assuming all three are laying. Its been so miserable out I just make mad dashes out to give them snacks/treats a couple of times a day. I do have to muck out the twigage as that they have now mixed it with the straw and part of the sand from under the coop so its going to start creating a packed sponge/mess thing that they can’t turn.

Because of the weather, it just hasn’t been a pleasant time to even survey the garden with the icy wind, filled rain, driving parallel to the ground and sky. I did have the post put in before this last blow in but they were placed on the neighbor’s property (even after my animated talk with hands waving and placing my body at intervals where I wanted post) so they all have to come up which puts me further behind because now I have to have them come back at their convenience, with orchard ladders and place the post. Once that is done, can move brush and get straw bales for growing other mushrooms in Africa (hopefully getting rain that will totally soak and keep them sodden). Still haven’t seen nor heard from the basket maker so I think she is still hiding from covid. No one has seen her so maybe she has moved.

All the early Spring things are doing their Spring bloom thing. The yellow cherry plum is blooming but not the Burbank plum. I still have to prune a couple of more apples.

Decided against the D.O. and going with lime and other soil amendments. See if I can focus on their nutritional health to kick out the problems that are developing. IDK. Soil test was inconclusive (I think it was past its shelf life).

New crop of worms going. Later in April I am going to change up their accommodations in anticipation of moving them out of my little grow closet space. They are not appreciative of the opaque walls of the bins nor the closet space. I also want a drain/spout so I don’‘t have the suction issue of moving every bin to get to the worm tea.

Since I am going into a phase of guerilla gardening (think of it as forest gardening theory if you want to be civilized about it) so haven’t lent much thought as to the when and where things are going and if I am even going to do starts! I do need to start some toms soon. My new obsession is a Japanese heirloom squash/pumpkin called Black Futzu / Black Futsu. I was given several fruits and saved the seeds. People call it ‘rare’ but do any online search and you will find everyone and their mother is selling the seed! It is suppose to produce abundantly in 105 days so we will give it a whirl. I hope it is successful as that I greatly enjoy the flavour and texture. Even my fussy eater doesn’t mind this and it holds up well in storage.