Another grafting session

I spent some quality time with my new grafting knife.  After I took my grafting class in Mike Yanny's Nursery School last month, I took some scion cuttings from my neighbor's Golden Delicious tree.  I wrapped them with moist tissue and bagged them in the frig to hold until the time was right for outdoor grafting.  Mike had explained to us that it takes a week of temperatures in the 60's to get a good graft.  The tree or shrub has to have expanding leaves on it (growth has been initiated for the season) as well.  This week provided the temperatures that popped my espalier apple tree this past week.  Saturday morning I went out with the necessary tools and supplies and made my grafts.  I had taken four cuttings, three went on to my Goldencrisp apple which I am trying to turn into an espalier.  The fourth I grafted to my Snowdrift crabapple as an experiement in ornamental to fruiting apple tree.

Besides my new grafting knife, I also had my Felco pruner, grafting paint, masking tape, and an old toothbrush.  I made my cuts like Mike taught us and fixed three grafts at an upper level of my espalier.  Hopefully, two will take on opposites sides to make my life easier.  The grafts are held in place by pressure and tape.  The grafting paint covers the whole scion and I found that the tooth brush worked well for applying it and was disposable besides.  Time will tell now.

In addition to my grafting, I transplanted a bunch of seedlings to trays indoors, seeded a few more things, and set things to order in the yard.  The lawn furniture came out and the snow blowers were drained and put away.  By the end of the day I was tired but pretty happy about what got done.  

Time is running short on seeding indoors.  I will just do my cukes and squash from this point now.  I soaked my sweet peas for my flower trellises so those have to go in today.  The Thunbergia will also have to be transplanted for indoor sprouting.  It is a little late for those, but I will just have to wait a little longer for their bloom.  I guess I better get out and drop those sweet peas in the soil before the day gets away from me.  Happy Mother's Day to the rest of you mothers out there.

A very garden weekend

I think we have finally turned the corner with the weather in Milwaukee.  We had snow flurries in the air on Friday night, which we pretended didn't exist as we were driving home in it.  Saturday morning dawned beautifully and the day was sunny and warmer.  It was an especially beautiful morning as I had been looking forward to a woody plants grafting class.  I won't go into great detail about the whole process as it has so many fine points.  I enjoyed the instructor, Michael Yanny very much.  I have heard him speak at other events, so I knew that it would be a quality class.  It also came very highly praised by other friends who did it last spring.  We got individualized instruction with just four people in each session.  He checked our technique and work to guide us through.  Time will tell how successfully we joined two plants together.  I will be purchasing The Grafter's Handbook by R.J. Garner.  We all went home with six pots that we grafted ourselves.  I was partial to the antique apple varieties we had to choose from.  I also did a lilac, amur cork tree, and witch hazel.

 Plants have started popping after a spring rain (Wednesday/Thursday) and a bit of following sun.  I can see the rhubarb poking through.  The dwarf iris are now blooming along side the snow drops.  I covered over a few things in the vegetable garden with straw in November.  I pulled that off on Saturday afternoon and can see some Swiss chard, kale, radicchio, and I think the late planted baby cabbage plants made it as well.  

 

     

It was the official first day of line-dried clothes day today.  I have been putting out sheets and light weight t-shirts most of the winter, but today was an all out, fill up the lines wash day.  Everything dried on the lines without laying them around on chair backs, so that is what makes it the official first day.  I watched birds coming and going the past couple days which we haven't seen since last fall.  Turkey vultures circled the neighborhood while I stood watch over the grill. It was just such a fine day to be outdoors.

I didn't spend as much time outside as I would have liked today.  Between loads of laundry, I was busy making more cutting of coleus, geraniums, and ibosa vine.  I cleaned out some of the old stock plants to make way for more seeding.  The coleus from the last cutting was well rooted and was put into cell packs for spring planting.  I saved a few stock plants in larger pots, back up for failed cuttings and possible starters in the garden.  I seeded my Tidal Wave Petunias and Purple Tower Petunias as they have 8-10 week start time.  I also put in some Red Acre cabbage and Bonsai Pak Choi for early planting out later.  I already have the Brisk Green Pak Choi and the Baby cabbage ready to go.  I set the plants out with my onion seedlings for a few hours today for hardening off.  There is only two weeks until Easter which is my goal for planting them all.  Welcome back, Spring!