Today's pictures

The rain is producing tremendous growth on the Blue Honeysuckle plants this spring. It helps that there is cool weather as well since they trigger to stop growing (It seems mostly) from high temperature and the change of day length. This is something that needs better study as it would be good to encourage strong new growth on seedlings to get them taller and fuller so controlling either the temperature or the day length is likely the key. I found the first two ever volunteer seedlings this year (Every seed that fell from any fruit plant seems to be growing!).

This one was in the area where most of the plants are Russian heritage and there was also one in the area where I have my Japanese (var. emphyllocalyx) selections. The last one got hoed out before I realized what it was. These are the first volunteers I have heard of.
It is inevitable wherever the birds get into these fruit that eventually with the right spring conditions they will sprout up.

Fruit set looks very good as well but is going to be hidden by the plant growth so picking may be a bit tough. With the rain we have had so far (about 2.5 inches) there should be very good sizing up of the berries. June will be the definite tell tale time. The lower picture is the fruit on Cinderella which tends here to be quite long and slim and ripens very early.

Generally the health of all plants is very good. One thing that intrigues me is that the branch with variegated leaves has not shown up this year which is a disappointment. I was looking forward to trying to get some cuttings started and maybe have discovered a good ornamental. It may still show up!
Here are some views of plants in pots and the Japanese are growing very well. So nice to see. And the rain has helped even out the watering process.

Survey Results

Well we are in the midst of the second bout of rain in the past week. Last weekend we got 1.5 inches of very cold rain. Today it is again cold and rain coming down. When the heat hits growth will be phenomenal! So I have put together the results of the little Survey on Survey Monkey. You can see the results here. The thing I found quite interesting is the number of people who say they are not near a good nursery/garden center. This is not surprising in the countryside but I would expect the cities to be different. What I do find is that many folks working at garden centers or nurseries really have a limited knowledge of plants and the things they sell. And so many treat customers as if they are totally dumb. Enough complaining.
Blue honeysuckle are loading up with fruit even in this cold weather and I will post some pics as soon as this rain stops. Thanks to Daryl from Saskatoon who came and helped pot up about 80 new seedlings yesterday. So new plants are in the 150 range and look good. I was somewhat disappointed in some germinations but on the other hand this is probably all I can handle.

The fruit should be very good size if this moisture holds till they are fully developed.

One more person needed for my little fruit survey

Thanks to the 19 folks who have done the survey so far. I will post the data here shortly.
Survey

Everything is growing very well but I am noticing that the Blue Honeysuckle that I recently transplanted are expressing the polyphenols  which give red/blue coloring in the leaves quite strongly. This is due to some very cold nights as far as I know. Many more to transplant later this week and next week. Right now it is garden planting time.
Here is a look at some flowering.

May starts out cold, wet and windy

Well its been some time since I posted here and so I need to catch up a little. The main news is the bad weather for the last several weeks. Snow cover (see my home blog), cold, cold wind and wet rain has brought a lot of things to a really slow growth speed. It has not stopped but many fruit shrubs were near blossom break when this weather started and they have just begun to pop at the end of this week. The EBH (Edible Blue Honeysuckle) are no exception. The last 2 days when the temperatures have been in the plus range and the sun shone have changed all that.
The big bloomers in the honeysuckle are Berry Blue and Cinderella followed by Blue Belle and then a number of Russian seedlings. The second one here is a Blue Velvet open pollinated seedling.

I am surprised to see it blooming even this much as they are normally a few days later. All in all the survival rate of seedlings has been excellent although I am suspecting some of the repotted plants may have been extra stressed by the cold and may have died. Time will tell.
Some of the new seedlings from January planting are doing very well. Here are some samples. These are from seed planted in January. They are already about 12 inches tall although they are not reaching up to stand tall at this point.

The seedlings are from seed of my Kitoy River selection, Morena, and Nimfa. The rest of the seedlings are doing fairly well but I am coming to the conclusion that when growing from seed you should take the first group that germinate well and discard the rest as there seems to be a very distinct difference in Hybrid vigor. It is nearly time for them to move on to bigger pots or into the ground if I can find a place to plant them.

Last fall I planted fall rye with a fertilizer spreader between the rows as much as I could and yesterday late afternoon I cut the fall rye with the lawn mower. This I hope is going to give me weed control and some ground cover as well as the green manure from the cutting.

What is a concern from all this poor weather is the lack of pollinator insects. I did meet a wild bumblebee last night on my walk through the orchard so that is a good sign. With about 300 plants in various stages of bloom though, it would be nice to see many more.

More transplanting

Well it was time to take a coffee break (coffee direct from Cuba) and share a little bit of how my transplanting is going.
Yesterday I started into potting up (IE; bigger pots) last years left overs which are still in pots. I am trying something new and it may be a good thing as the prediction for rainfall is not good. So I will either move the pots between my present rows and be able to water everything at once or I will haul these to where the water is. New pots are 3 gal so it takes a little more potting soil but that's ok! I use Sunshine Mix #4 as it seems to have good water retention but also will drain and not build up mineral deposits or loose the air holding capacity. All these are important in potted materials.

In the basement I am potting up the seedlings started in peat pellets. They are in so many different stages but all started at the same time. Today I am working on seedlings from my Kitoy River (Siberia) project. There are huge differences in the seed vitality/vigor as evidenced by the size of one of the plants compared to the rest. Germination has not been the best but there are a number of factors to consider, damage at extraction, earliness of harvest, and dormancy could all be factors. I did try to select good seed but they are small and you can miss details quite easily. Here are some pictures.

Everything looks quite healthy and even the ones I have moved out to the greenhouse are recovering from the shock!

Transplanting has begun

Tonight I thought I would begin the process of transplanting my new seedlings. I start them in peat pellets and once they are growing well I like to transplant them into 3.5 inch black pots (I am buying by the case now if I need them) and into Sunshine #4 soiless mix. Here are some pictures. The toothpicks mark the first 50 % to germinate. I am trying to track this but don't know if it is significant or not.

This last picture is of a plant from seed from the Irkutsk/Kitoy River area of Siberia. The seed did not germinate very well but the plants which did come are quite healthy looking.
More to do in the next week as there are about 175 plants from germinated seed. Not as good as I would have expected but some populations just did not do well.

New use for Blue Honeysuckle jelly!

So our son is getting married May first and they are having cupcakes instead of a wedding cake. They decided they wanted the cupcake folks to try an injection of Blue Honeysuckle jelly into the cupcake. She would like something with baklava as she is Greek. Who kows what they will figure out! So here are the cupcakes.

They also had a chocolate sample but they felt the chocolate cut into the flavour too much. Another place for Blue Honeysuckles.