Some mouse damage

 There is some damage in my Edible Blue Honeysuckle seedlings from the mice. Thankfully not a lot. Waiting for the snow to go and the water to disappear.

Planting and growing

So today I planted a few seeds again to set in a different environment to see if they will germinate better. The plants which have grown look very nice. Here's a look.

Note the growth of moss on the peat pellets. This is one of the problems of using peat under lights. There is just too much life left in some of the material. I started using plastic spoons (cheapest you can find) as they have a good space and the cupping helps to keep the water and light from fading the ink.

Germinations are slow!

I am quite disappointed at the germinations so far. They are very slow and few. Seedlings continue to pop up but not at the rate I would have expected. These little Kitoy River seedlings are very healthy. Note how hairy they are.

There have been a number of requests for seed come my way and some I will be able to provide a few seeds to to try. If you are dropping by and you got seeds from me, please leave a note to say if you have planted and how they are doing.

Seeds are germinating

So the first seeds to germinate are the oldest! I replanted seeds of my collected seed from the Kitoy River area in Siberia. More to come for sure.

Liquer on the way

A very small batch of Edible Blue Honeysuckle liquer is on the way.....nearly 3 months away. It gets turned every day to dissolve the sugar and it is interesting to see the intense color!

I think I will need to mash the hulls of the berries sometime in this next week or so but I was thinking it might stay less tart if left it alone. There is lots of juice. The color is quite red in my pictures but the liquid is more blue than red. The flash probably washed out the color.
One of the sources of seed for this winters planting comes from native Edible Blue Honeysuckles growing in Nova Scotia. I am very curious about these plants and how they will do in our climate. The rest of the seeding will be from my own plants this time as well as a few more seeds of Russian source. The Russian source seeds produced very tall slim seedlings so they will also be interesting to follow.

The new year begins with..............

Well there has not been much going on since the snow fell and covered the ground. All the Blue Honeysuckles are in their places and waiting for spring! So last evening I took out the last of the berries I had saved for seed and put them out to thaw. This is a very interesting process as it became evident right away that of the 9 or so types, there was a real difference in skin breakdown and leakage. By morning most of the samples had given their juices up to the baggies but several show go holding power. Interesting to watch!

 Number 31

 Number 29

 

Note that number 7, 8 and number 31 did not essentially melt away.

Numbers 11 and 51 are plants from which I have been able to share some seeds. They are the best of the Lonicera caerulea kamchatika and Lonicera caerulea edulis respectively. From this present group I have saved seeds of 29, 31 and 42 to try a few plants of each. My favourite is 29 as it looks like a banana and I think it could be encouraged to grow even longer and thicker with good management. Very easy to pick.

The remaining berries went into a small batch of liqueur as a trial. Reports I have heard so far do not seem to indicate this will be a success but we will see after 3 months. I found this group of  recipes on GardenWeb Forum Far North under Conversations..

On another note, we had Bernis from Northwood Garden News drop in and bought an arm load of jams and jellies and the last of our frozen berries. Nice. You can find her Blue Honeysuckle blog here.

Nearly time to start seeding but I am waiting for more of my lilies to finish blooming and then I can clear the shelves.

Just for fun

Well most of the honeysuckles are in the ground but the 2 year olds in pots will have to stay there for the winter and we will see what lives.
So far we are having a great fall and still planted lily bulbs last week. This is very unusual for us.
Thought some of you might find this little journalism project by a CBC French network reporter interesting. Click on the link and then when  on the 12th of October date. When the video loads pull the time bar to 34 minutes and the video should start about Edible Blue Honeysuckle. This was a project by a CBC person who is starting out as a journalist and spent about 5-6 hours here and I do not know how long with Bob Bors at the U of S. All for this short 4 minutes or so. It was fun and I really appreciated his effort and his coaches conversations with us.
Check this link.


I am not sure how long it will be up so just be aware that I have no control over them.