Exciting news!

Take a look at this! Edible Landscape Design came in at number 21 in this top 100 poll

Is this great or what? :D

My apple tree bloomed today!

This is the first tree I planted in the front yard back in 2007 -- it has survived ice storms, gale force winds and two severe droughts (with water restriction). And today it bloomed for the first time!

Now if I can get another apple tree to survive ... I've planted three others nearby and none have so far. I've ordered tree #4 -- keep your fingers crossed. ;)

Look what I have ....

The second annual Edible Front Yard contest is coming up in June, so I went and got this for the winner to display in their gorgeous front yard!

(click to view larger size)

What do you think?

Improving a bad morning ...

I drove home in what could be politely called a grumpy mood.

Overslept, school was NOT canceled after the winter storm, and on the way to bring my boys to school come to find out that one of my son's teachers is treating him poorly, the last in a long string of bad events from teachers he's had his senior year.

So actually, I was downright angry.

Then I drive up to the house to find this:

I planted these when we first moved here seven years ago, long before I learned about edible landscaping.

They aren't edible (in fact, they'd probably make you sick if you ate one), and I've never done anything to or for them such as dividing or even watering, but they faithfully come up every spring.

And they make me happy.

Re-potting a pineapple plant

Today I decided to re-pot all the plants I've been overwintering in my garage ... which, while unheated, is only at most about ten degrees F cooler than the house because of fairly good insulation and two huge double pane windows that sit on the east side. So it's a great place to keep plants that can't stand freezing.

My favorite plants of all the ones that I keep here over the winter are my pineapples. I start them from pineapple tops that I cut from ripe pineapples that I buy at the grocery store once in a while.

It's been a while since I re-potted them ... and after being somewhere which probably hasn't been their favorite temperature (being tropical and all) ... and since sometimes I forget to water them as often as they would like ... they're looking a bit bedraggled. Here is my biggest one:

 

This looks menacing, and everyone I've asked on how to re-pot it has said, "be careful!" and "wear gloves!" and so of course I ignored them. The leaves turn out to be not that sharp at all, but do be careful as the edges are serrated.

The first thing to do is to take off any dead leaves that have come loose and are just sitting in the pot. I give them to my rabbits, but you can compost them or do whatever with them.

Then dump out the plant, shake off all the dirt, and trim off the dead leaves. Try not to cut anything that's still green. Clippers are fine, but if your clippers aren't sharp enough regular scissors will work as well. 

It should end up looking like this: 

See all those lovely roots?

If your plant has green leaves on top but you don't see any roots, it's okay. If it's making new leaves it should be fine.

Pick a bigger pot than the one you had it in, fill the pot with dirt, and plant your pineapple plant, keeping the plant up near the top of the pot.

I don't use any special dirt for my plants. I keep a big washbasin (you can see the edge of it in the picture above) where I put a variety of dirt-like stuff like the dust sweepings from the garage and driveway (don't do this if your garage floor is oily -- ours is pretty clean dirt that constantly gets blown into the garage), old leaves, worm castings, potting mix from dead plants, dried pulverized eggshells, and so on.

Now I know someone is going to have what my mother-in-law calls a "conniption fit" because I don't use special pineapple soil or something. Oh, well.

This works for me I think because I dump all my dead plants and old potting soil in here (except the really thorny stuff), so if there were germs from a dead tomato it wouldn't bother a pineapple, or germs from a dead basil won't bother a tomato plant, and so on. I wait until any added old soil is completely dry before using it.

And since I use this up pretty fast, it doesn't have time to get a lot of salt in it, which can be a big problem in old potting soil.

In any case, this is how my pineapple looks now!

Yes, my garage is full of stuff. It gets a lot of use. ;)

Happy New Year!

Ornamental allium (onion)

Even though you might not be able to tell from this journal, I actually have gotten something done on my garden in 2012.

The center section of my potager is coming along pretty well, in spite of a lot of neglect and being under snow right now. Besides the cherry tree, I've added some brassicas, including various kinds of cabbage and kale, as well as some garlic and chard. I've marked out the outside boundaries and have planted some cabbages in part of it, but the entire thing isn't finished yet.

I have learned that plants really like rabbit litter, but it doesn't make for nice photos, which is part of the reason I haven't put up any recently. Hopefully I'll have some compost soon to put over everything and make it look a bit nicer.

As far as the front yard is concerned, I planted a row of rainbow chard plants along the walkway forgetting that a. they are not super hardy and b. that they are annuals. I think the snow might have done them in, but they looked really nice there so I'm going to replant the row if they don't come back up.

My little rosemary hedge is coming along well, but something has eaten my hostas around the crazy tree to the ground. I think it's wild rabbits, of which we have many in the area. Once that tree gets taller I think that sort of thing will be deterred, because the buns don't seem to touch anything that's lit up (we have a streetlight across the road), and it's full shade under there when it's in full leaf during the summer.

So how are your gardens? Here's hoping for a very successful 2013.

My trifoliate orange

From Wikipedia:

Trifoliate Orange, Poncirus trifoliata (syn. Citrus trifoliata), is a member of the family Rutaceae, closely related to Citrus, and sometimes included in that genus, being sufficiently closely related to allow it to be used as a rootstock for Citrus. It differs from Citrus in having deciduous, compound leaves, and pubescent (downy) fruit. It is native to northern China and Korea, and is also known as the Chinese Bitter Orange.

The plant is fairly hardy (USDA zone 5) and will tolerate moderate frost and snow, making a large shrub or small tree 4–8 m tall. Because of the relative hardiness of Poncirus, citrus grafted onto it are usually hardier than when grown on their own roots.

I'm in USDA zone 7, and I can attest that my plant (the "Flying Dragon", which is a dwarf variety) is very hardy -- it has done fine through blizzards and ice storms!

I planted this in my front yard 4 or 5 years ago, and this year it has fruit:

If you notice, the branches are "twisty", with long bendable thorns. It's a very interesting-looking plant. I've been waiting until the fruit drops to collect it, and this is what I've gotten so far. It looks like I'll get nine fruits this year.

The fruit is a little bigger than a golf ball (about 3 cm in diameter), fuzzy like a peach, and smells like a pear to me.

There are a lot of seeds inside.

I thought from the way it smelled that this might be a bit like a kumquat, but the rind and pulp taste just like a lemon.

I recommend this for anyone in a zone where you can't plant other citrus.

I decided to save the seeds -- I don't know what they will grow or if they will grow ... but if anyone would like some let me know by commenting here and I'll mail them to you.