Greenhouse Disaster

I can describe this only after seeing signs of recovery on most of the victims. We had a relay fail in the greenhouse. The exhaust fan is powered through a relay, and the relay operates with a signal from the climate controller. The controller was sending a signal but the relay failed to close and the exhaust fan didn't come on for a couple of days. This happened to correspond to a day on which I didn't water because clouds and rain were expected but which turned out sunny. Basically everything in the greenhouse got put under the broiler. It took me 10 minutes to fix it but the damage was done. 

I moved everything possible out of the greenhouse and under some shade. The garcinias, now about 10 years old and grown from see from PR, died back variable degrees - one back all the way to the lowest lateral branch. I took the opportunity to repot some of them and I'm happy to say that the cherimoyas, sapodillas, sugar apples, and lychees look no worse for the wear. There is new vertical growth on the garcinias. I'll post some new pictures when everything goes back inside this fall. 

Greenhouse Rebuild

 Several pieces of the raised beds in the greenhouse rotted over the last few years. The would used was treated, but 18 years of water and humidity take their toll.

So with my friend Shawn here for the Memorial Day weekend and willing to tackle a project, we finally took care of this longstanding issue. Many of the screws could not be backed out so we just broke them off. We had to move some dirt around as well. But the project probably went as well as could be expected. I still have 10 bags of topsoil with which to top up the beds. 

Grey Day Greenhousing

There is more work to do in the greenhouse than one would expect in November. Lisa and I spent the morning cleaning up, dividing, and propagating. 

Allison has developed a house plant problem so we potted up divisions of Alocasia 'California.' We divided Bilbergia 'Domingo Martin' hoping both Adam and Allison would try it. I also took cuttings of the various Hoyas; Allie claims she doesn't like Hoyas but we'll see if we can get her interested. 

We're preparing another shipment of plants to Adam in Florida. We've got the Alocasia, Globba 'Mauve Dancing Girl,' Heloconia 'Dwarf Jamaican,' and others. 

Fence Repair

The greenhouse was built in around 2004 and the fence behind the greenhouse was re-installed shortly thereafter. Lisa and I built it, but we reused some of the posts from the original back fence. In one spot of the fence, four of those posts had rotted at the ground line. The repair made a nice fall project. 

Half-round fence posts are difficult to come by around here. Last time we did fence repair we found them at a Rural King store in Warrenton. Fortunately I had 4 left so we didn't have to make another trip. 

Other than the posts, we reused existing boards. It's not perfect but it's good enough. 

Sunrise in the fall can be pretty nice.

A Greenhouse Record

The normal fall sequence of events is we wait until frost is imminent in early October, scramble to push everything inside and back into the greenhouse. But because a single layer of tempered glass doesn't keep it warm enough for tropical plants through a Missouri winter, an extra layer of poly film is needed. When it gets really cold in November, we painstakingly wrestle with ladders and wrangle the extra poly film over and around all of the plants, usually with plenty of swearing. Often, tall children are employed. 

This year we're trying something different. Nothing has gone back into the greenhouse yet. Arguably some plants should, as we've had lows in the upper 40s a couple of nights now. But this weekend we decided to try getting the poly up early. This has the advantage of allowing better movement of people and ladders. It worked well. In fact, no children were used in the application of the 2020 poly film, and it's up earlier than ever. 

2020 June Week 3

I'd been losing all of my rainwater. It turns out I had a bad connection between the rain barrels. Of course now that it is fixed, we have no rain. 

We repotted some plants, including figs. Lisa is attempting to start a couple more from cuttings. In the past they have proven easy to root. 

We bought gooseberries at the Farmer's Market last weekend and they (over) ripened over the past week, so we made a gooseberry cobbler, supplemented with some jostaberries. I didn't get a pic coming out of the oven. 

Plumerias are happy

Putting the LOG in Blog

Optimistically I'm committing to a new weekly post of the happenings around the house, wine cellar, kitchen, and greenhouse.

Spring is a good time to do this because there is plenty to do. We've cut down the Harry Lauder's Walking Stick and dug out the stump, replacing it with Dwarf Japanese White Pine 'Yatsubusa'.

The boxwoods are gone, replaced with oakleaf hydrangea 'Munchkin'.

We added to our Cercis collection with a nice one called 'Ace of Hearts'.

Grapes are growing fairly well. I lost a couple of the Vidal I installed last year, but I have two ready to be planted. If I'm lucky I can still get them planted in the next couple of weeks and fill in some holes. 

The greenhouse plastic came down yesterday, and the shade cloth is back up. Most of the plants are out, including the plumeria, jabos, mangoes, sago palms, and others. 

The poolhouse is ready for summer. I fixed a leak in the water softener, but the portable softener seems to be the way to go. The pool heater has the temp to 82 and with warm weather on the way I suspect we won't need it again until fall.

It's a good time to post some pictures of my favorite tree. This is a Kentucky Coffeetree which I planted as a seedling. I posted about this little guy four years ago, and it just continues to grow very slowly and bloom like crazy. If anyone out there knows how to determine if this is my retirement plan, please contact me. 

Spring has Sprung, 2020 Version

Let's start with the yard. We had plenty of help with the mulch this year and it's all down by the first week of April, thanks to Hunter.

Epimediums

This little loader was not sufficient. Bucket was too small and it didn't easily clear the edge of the truck. We made it work but next year we'll use a real loader again. The grasses are mowed, pre-emergent down, beautyberries and other shrubs pruned. We're seeing 100% survival of the transplanted hellebores in the woodland area, and the epimediums are starting to poke through.

In the greenhouse, most plants look good. We have strawberry guava and grumichama fruit set. Pitomba is flowering as never before. We lost a calamondin, and a couple of the other citrus trees don't look great. The star apples have some marginal leaf necrosis, I wonder if they didn't like so much fertilizer. Hopefully we get them outside soon and they perk up. I took some fall cuttings of grapes, and some of them are pushing leaves.

Frontenac Gris

Speaking of grapes, we have the vineyard pruned. The Chardonel look like a complete loss. They didn't look great last fall but we got 3 gallons of wine from them. It may be the last Chardonel wine we make. My plan is to replace these with Frontenac Gris from cuttings. Aside from the Norton losses to crown gall, we're otherwise in good shape. Foch broke bud 4/9. We replaced some of the Norton with 10 Itasca vines. Itasca is described as having "aromas of pear, quince, violet, melon, minerals along with faint notes of honey." It broke bud already on 4/10. Another 10 Norton were replaced with La Crescent. This grape is used to make off-dry to sweeter wines and is known for "aromas are primarily apricot, peach and citrus." I'm linking the Stark Brothers page here because after the crown gall trouble on the vines from AA Vineyards, I found a new source. Our Frontenac, Vidal and Traminette look strong and I see bud swell on at least 9 Nortons. 

Itasca foreground, row 1; La Crescent row 2

Foch and Traminette

Jake and Taylor were in town for a few weeks after being sidelines due to the pandemic. Jake fished at every opportunity (thanks to Dave, Jane, Betsy, Jorgen, Tom, Jamie). 

Too Much Nice Weather

Last weekend we visited Adam. In the spirit of a budding tropical fruit fanatic, he added a mango and Barbados Cherry, and this weekend he followed up with jaboticaba and avocado. A winter storm forced us to stay an extra day, so we went fishing with Bryan of Southern Thunder Fishing Charters.

Today it's sunny and 55F, the day after the winter solstice. Lisa and I took to the greenhouse in T-shirts for a day of cleanup, repotting, and the remainder of the greenhouse winter insulation.

Jake and I put the film up on the roof at Thanksgiving. It was so difficult that I almost resolved that this would be my last greenhouse winter. But I have a new idea, one that will not require this tiresome effort every year. Stay tuned in the spring for an update.

For now we're going with 0.7mil film again. We finally got the north and south ends sealed up today and it's a better job that the last couple of years, with less infiltration.

The citrus are generally doing well. One lime is in intensive care, but we have good crops of Persian lime, kumquat, calamondin, and satsuma.

I fired up the heat map for a few of the plants which aren't thriving.

Kari didn't do well in the pot over the summer and hasn't done any better in the greenhouse. So we moved it into the ground in the center bed and gave it a couple of good shovels worth of tasty compost.

Loquat is blooming, and a couple of the mangoes look like they are about to bloom as well.

Our forecast is for highs in the 50s to 60s the next several days. I have some wine work to do ahead of the KC Cellarmasters Annual Wine Classic, it will be tough to hide out in the basement when it is so nice outside.

Packing the Greenhouse

Winter approaches, and once again everything must come inside or get left behind. This year, we say goodbye to Plumeria pudica. The plant makes very fragrant white flowers, but it refuses to solidly root in the pot and as a result it constantly tips over and grow awkwardly. We made some interesting plumeria wine from its flowers but said wine ruined us on Traminette. So long, P. pudica.

We also bid adieu to Psidium myrtoides, purple guava. I grew two trees from seeds brought from Puerto Rico. I managed with great difficulty to prune and stake these into a tree-like form, and they got to around 5 feet. But theses trees also refused to firmly root in the pot and required constant staking. Worse, the marble-sized fruit were not worthy of wine or anything else. The smell reminded me of something between motor oil and skunk, and they taste was bitter. 

Some of the plants in the south window did not handle the transition well. The loquat and one of the sapodillas will lose some leaves. I walked in Thursday morning to find one contributing cause - no heat. It was 46F inside. I didn't have time to troubleshoot until Saturday, and finally found the culprits.

A replacement thermocouple

What you can find on Amazon for $9 is $36 at the local hardware store. I coughed up the money for the only one in stock, and I had the north furnace going in about 10 minutes. The second one is coming from Amazon in a week, we'll get by until then with one furnace.

There were a couple of nice fruit this week. We brought home the largest guava to date, this one nearly baseball sized. Noel's Big Red sugar apple was sweet and tasty, even if small and seedy.

A tour:

Fruit is Coming!

Normally by this time of the summer we are dragging hose and just trying to keep enough water on plants to keep them alive. But so far this year we've stayed wet enough to keep plants looking good and rain barrels in the greenhouse topped up. Growing degree days started accumulating late and despite some really warm temps over the past week, haven't really caught up too much. We're at 1842 since April 16 (average bud break). Also, climate change:

Despite two trips out of town, we largely stayed ahead of the beetle damage so far. We have veraison on Foch and Frontenac, but not Chambourcin:

 

Speaking of trips, we spent a few days at the Chalet. Bob and Sharon visited, and the weather and company was great.

Upon our return, we had water issues in the greenhouse. The point of failure with my demand pump is the pressure switch. The diagnosis was easy, as this has happened before. Feeling clever, I ordered not one, but three replacement switches. I didn't feel that clever when, after receiving my shipment, I found 2 more extra switches from my order the last time it failed. 

The GFCI outlet the pump uses also failed. In the process of fixing that, I fixed a stripped screw hole in the cover, making it watertight for the first time in a couple of years. The repairs were more satisfying that one would imagine.

This time of year lots of stuff fruits. Not only are grapes coming on, but we've finally got enough jaboticaba for a batch of wine. 

First time ever for a Second crop of Grumichama

Lemondrop Mangosteen

Dragonfruit

Not pictured are blackberries, because I'm embarrassed by the fact that the patch is completely overgrown. More pawpaws again this year, but I suspect it will be another month before they are ripe. 

Some of the Nortons are still struggling but we haven't lost any more vines. And in some really exciting news, we have about 5 of the cuttings take root.

Lisa and I had to work all week, but Allie and Joe were here and got some work done as well. We really enjoyed the visit, hope they did too!