Good morning all you Steemians
The old hawgwild and my ancient father started planting the garden with plenty of coffee grounds last week.
The ancient one having his siesta while I work of course.
If you recall in our last gardening article (It Is Finally Spring 2.0). I mentioned planting and procedure of this weird method. Also I mentioned some pics of the area, that many of you won't believe it is in Central BC Can. 1900 km (1100mi.) north of central California.
This is south view of the valley and garden 1 of 2 past the grape vine and fence is our neighbor cherry trees.
Looking to the northeast above
And to the northwest
Last summer at the corner of garden 2 of 2, looking northwest. Well I thought you may doubt me so check it out on google maps and street view of Thompson/ Okanagan area of BC around Kamloops, Kelowna,Vernon and Merritt BC. You can see for yourself this is mostly on the 50th parallel north. It may look like Nevada or Califonia but the winters are longer and colder than most places south of the 49th parallel. In fact in Feb this year we were convinced global warming quit or took a vacation.
Garden 2 of 2, early last July (2018).
These are the ancient ones carefully culture black petunias he started saving and planting some seed a friend brought him about three years ago. He discovered that they are derived from purple petunia seed and sometimes they grow back to standard purple flowers and sometimes they are so deep purple they appear black like these. Father is trying to study the affects Male and female plants have to do with the colour when pollinating, so far he mixed his seed pouches up and marked the pouches incorrectly. I guess at 90 plus his memory isn't quite what it used to be, although we have deep purple (black), white, red, pink and purple petunias it will be a surprise when they start to blossom. Thats cool I love suprises.
This batch was started in late Feb. 2019. Soon the studies continue even though the experiment was some what of a failure, things are getting colourful now. If there is one thing I've learned from my father is that trail and error works and perfection may never be obtained and don't quit trying to fail you will learn more because it looks just as beautiful in the summer.
Next is the cherries the top pic is a Variety called Vann and is always a week to two weeks ahead of the Byng tree in the bottom pic.
We usually spray our own fruit trees with enviromentally compatible sprays we would like not using any chemicals on our fruit but the trade off, is a 90% crop of fruit down to a 35% crop of bug and worm infested fruit. Its a no brainer. We also experiment with enviro freindly dishwashing soap and two drops of white vinager in the sprayer which appeared to help a little last season instead of full doses of commerial (hasher) chemicals. We cannot advertise any organic produce in this valley because herbisides were only banned by by-law in our city as of 2013.
Over the years we can only look for alternative organic fertilizers and sprays and improve the planets purity. It seems the damage has been done but again don't give up hope we can still learn from error probably without increasing pollution and corruption of our valued planet.
To be continued as the garden grows.
Thank you for reading and best of luck in life and gardening.