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The root of the matter
Jun. 23rd, 2015 07:56 pmThe pace is really picking up in the garden. On Sunday I spent the morning harvesting 5 pints of cherries. I also managed to pick my one plum before the squirrels could get it (I think they were distracted by the figs); it was so sweet, it tasted like it had been dipped in honey. I hope the tree produces more in future years. I started picking the first couple of blackberries, though most of them are still green yet. I even found my first cucumber of the season, which turned out to be okay, but slightly on the bitter side.
The Yukon Gem potatoes are dying down, which means they should be ready to harvest in about another week, maybe two. I got a handful of ground cherries from the volunteer plant in the front yard, which is much happier this year than the previous ones I tried growing in pots. The beans are continuing to climb up their stakes and cages.
One of my biggest concerns this year has been that my sakura tree isn't doing well. It never flowered in the spring, and it has a lot of dry, scraggly branches with only a few tufts of leaves here and there. I would have blamed the drought, except all the other stone fruit trees (cherry, plum, ume) are doing fine. The main difference between the other trees and the sakura is that I planted all the other ones, while the sakura was planted by a professional company because it was so big.
When a large tree is planted, it is generally inserted into a pit so that water will collect around the roots and help it become established. Over time, the edges of the pit wear away, and the ground becomes mostly level again. I suspected that as the edges of the pit wore down, they actually washed down into the pit, burying the base of the tree trunk. Trees are only supposed to be in soil up to where the base of the trunk flares out into the roots; if the soil rises any higher, it is detrimental to the tree's health. I dug around at the base of the tree, and sure enough, I found that the actual base of the trunk had been buried about three inches underneath the surface of the soil.
I excavated all around the trunk of the tree to get the soil level back down to where it should be. I don't know for certain whether that was the cause of the sakura's lack of vigor, but if so, I hope it will start to recover. I probably won't know for sure until next year.
In the evening, I went with my neighbors and their friends to eat out at a posh place in San Francisco before attending a showing of The Book of Mormon. I keep thinking I need to do more things in the city, since I live so close, but it's hard to make plans when so many other tasks need doing.
Monday I spent about three hours pitting and freezing all the cherries. My freezer is now full. I will need to do something about that before the blackberries start rolling in. (I suspect this will involve eating a lot of ice cream...) I also spent several hours weeding. Now that it's the dry season, the weeds aren't actively growing, so it's starting to look a little less like a jungle out there.
The Yukon Gem potatoes are dying down, which means they should be ready to harvest in about another week, maybe two. I got a handful of ground cherries from the volunteer plant in the front yard, which is much happier this year than the previous ones I tried growing in pots. The beans are continuing to climb up their stakes and cages.
One of my biggest concerns this year has been that my sakura tree isn't doing well. It never flowered in the spring, and it has a lot of dry, scraggly branches with only a few tufts of leaves here and there. I would have blamed the drought, except all the other stone fruit trees (cherry, plum, ume) are doing fine. The main difference between the other trees and the sakura is that I planted all the other ones, while the sakura was planted by a professional company because it was so big.
When a large tree is planted, it is generally inserted into a pit so that water will collect around the roots and help it become established. Over time, the edges of the pit wear away, and the ground becomes mostly level again. I suspected that as the edges of the pit wore down, they actually washed down into the pit, burying the base of the tree trunk. Trees are only supposed to be in soil up to where the base of the trunk flares out into the roots; if the soil rises any higher, it is detrimental to the tree's health. I dug around at the base of the tree, and sure enough, I found that the actual base of the trunk had been buried about three inches underneath the surface of the soil.
I excavated all around the trunk of the tree to get the soil level back down to where it should be. I don't know for certain whether that was the cause of the sakura's lack of vigor, but if so, I hope it will start to recover. I probably won't know for sure until next year.
In the evening, I went with my neighbors and their friends to eat out at a posh place in San Francisco before attending a showing of The Book of Mormon. I keep thinking I need to do more things in the city, since I live so close, but it's hard to make plans when so many other tasks need doing.
Monday I spent about three hours pitting and freezing all the cherries. My freezer is now full. I will need to do something about that before the blackberries start rolling in. (I suspect this will involve eating a lot of ice cream...) I also spent several hours weeding. Now that it's the dry season, the weeds aren't actively growing, so it's starting to look a little less like a jungle out there.
