Sunday, March 23, 2014

Signs and portents be damned


I'll just mention one sign – wandering around a few of the big box stores, looking for rabbit fencing and stuff of that sort, I am struck by huge piles of various flavors of Roundup. And no or very few rain gauges.

But I'm not going on about that or any other Bad News. For now just want to show you some photos taken in the last week or so. Most of the pink stuff is redbud blossoms. They have very delicately sweet nectar. They are very small, so take your time. The blueberries and apples are for later. We planted eight blueberry plants – two each of Woodard, Becki Blue, Climax, and Premier. You need different varieties to get adequate pollination. The apple tree in the photo is a Golden Delicious. You probably wonder why GD, eh? The two other apples we planted are a Fuji and a Gala. Getting apple pollination right is apparently something of a puzzle, and the authorities offer differing recommendations. No local nurseries offer semi-dwarf trees, and we did not want to plant full-size 30+ foot trees. And did not want to buy from a Big Box store. So we're limited to what we can find on the net. Stark Bros says their Gala will pollinate Fuji, but maybe not vice versa. Crabapples supposedly will pollinate all apple varieties; but Golden Delicious comes in second as a universal pollinator. We hope. Maybe it will make good applesauce too.