Plant Propagation: The Basics July/Aug 2016

Well, that smile makes up for bright sun squint. Quite an artist there! Very imaginative! Hope your day was a success! Seems the flowers were obliging.

LOL ! Great Birthday shirt , Looked like a Beautiful day Keith , Interesting walkway and step design ,
Not much doing here , too hot for much , More contemplating , doing some with plants that take the Hot Weather well , Odds and ends ,, as I always say ,

Hi Keith , I wish I could visit your garden , it's beautiful .Maybe when hubby and I drive up to Ottawa we will visit you . lOl . Hubby will ask me if he is crazy to do all that driving . We make Ottawa in 8 hrs ,the truck will never make it up to you, At least I have wishful thinking. Happy Birthday and enjoy many more . I am planting lots of perennials now since I am a Senior , so it will be easier for me to upkeep. Hats off to the 87 year old couple , I am taking a page out of their book.

The King and Queen have much to be smiling about, they have built and continue to maintain a beautiful Kingdom. It's such a shame to be so far...far away.

Love the shirt. We've got a radio talk show host here in MI that always ends his program with, "You can't leave, all the plants are going to die" (my favorite part of the program).

Thanks for all the comments guys. It was a real fun day yesterday. Today we shifted gears. Time for the Queen to rule. Wendy got to do her thing today. We went picking wild chanterelle mushrooms and did exceptionally well. We got up about 6:30 and drove to the bush, picked 89 pounds of shrooms and just finished cleaning and boxing them. Most of them will be shipped to Thunder Bay where a friend of hers will sell them at a farmers market. Whatever he doesn't take will go to Kenora where daughter #2 lives( Chevonne). Kenora is a big tourist town so they sell good there. Depending on the breakdown of what goes where we will have earned between 800 and 900 dollars today. Not bad for a days playing in the bush hey. So are you seeing the pattern here? Wendy likes to make money and I like to spend it. Haha.

She's definitely a keeper Keith!

Mushrooms are yummy ,, spendables are good also , lol

How did you clean them Keith?

Happy birthday and those mushrooms look good.

Those mushrooms would go good with these garlic chives and butter.

So to answer the question first. We dump a pail at a time on the kitchen table and we each have our own dry paint brush and we brush the debris off one mushroom at a time and put them into a bowl on the kitchen scales until we have 3 pounds then put them into a paper lined cardboard box for shipping. The large debris just gets left on the table and swept away. I don't know if you people would be familiar with where they grow? They grow under stands of Jack Pine that are probably 20-30 years old. These stands would be growing on sand flats and have very little underbrush. Mostly you find them in white crunchy moss and occasionally green moss. Some of the moss ends up growing right into seems on the caps becoming quite difficult to get out. Believe me the picking is way more fun than the cleaning.
We used to eat lots of them before we discovered that they could be sold and make such quick cash. Now we seldom keep any. Like most garden vegetables we didn't care for freezing them but instead we would preserve them in jars in a light salty brine and give the jars a hot water bath. They are good fried with a steak which we don't eat much of any more. We also would make a wild rice casserole with them, wild rice soup that was deliscious or put them on pizza. The garlic chives and butter sounded good with a steak

Thanks for the detailed answer, I wasn't familiar at all with how they grow until you painted me the mental picture. The 'white crunchy moss' could be lichen. I hope Wendy had a great day and got to keep some of those Chanterelles to eat as a non-monetary reward. Yum!

Never had a Chanterelle- do love Portabellas. Wild rice casserole for me, please. My eyes are still bigger than my appetite, but my daughter discovered pre slicing the steaks uses less steak at our house, me and SIL saute onions and munchrooms, but everyone else makes funny noises at us...

Not sure about the white, crunchy stuff Robin. Kind of wanted to call it lichen because of the texture however I usually think of lichen as growing on rock not sand???

Already some areas out shining tour day. There is never THE PERFECT TIME. Something is always waning and new stars being born in the garden.
1,2). Solar flare echinacea
3). Queen of the Prairie now in full splendour
4). Tiger Eye Gold Rudbeckia looking better every day
5). Japanese Iris near peak

Lichens do grow on sand. http://www.borealforest.org/lichens/lichen3.htm
I love your new born stars in the garden!

Really nice Blooms Keith

interesting info Robin ,

A few days I will show a few more blooms
Saw this Today ,
A Giant Swallowtail sitting in the Vines ,, Cynachum , Milkweed Vine , North prairie Kudzu ,,,lol

Robin. If lichen grows on sand that is definitely what the shrooms are growing in.
Ju. Awesome timing on the post of the giant swallowtail. Kira and I have been discussing the identity of a dried butterfly she collected from the grill of a vehicle her dad was working on. I told her I thought it was a swallowtail. It looks very like your post however yours has more black. Do you think Kira's is a swallowtail? She has hers mounted on an entry she is making for the fall fair
Keith

Keith Looks like an Eastern Swallowtail
Papilio glaucus - Butterflies and Moths of North America | collecting ...
www.butterfliesandmoths.org/species/Papilio-glaucus

Ground Hog ran past me today , those things ,

Keith? Could be a male female difference, we call em Tiger Swallowtails too

Awesome. Thanks Ju.

Aw! Look for Papilio canadensis Keith! You may have one of those

Lot of Swallowtails , Only gave a place to look ,
Even if it would have to be typed in

Tiger Swallow tail. Here is a giant swallowtail on Texas Star Hibiscus.

darn hit send without photo. next post and have to run

This message was edited Jul 26, 2016 2:01 PM

Giant Swallowtail I think, on texas star hibiscus

That's one huge butterfly Gypsi!

I saw it out the kitchen window and ran out there with a camera, he's pretty big Those blooms are 6 inches across, most of them.

Some of the Monarchs and Swallowtails look like birds they are so big. Its awesome to see them when you do. Beautiful butterflies, everyone.

Butterflies are Fun , Great pics all ,,

Got this at lunchtime ,, A pair of Eastern Tiger Swallowtails ,, Mating Dance ,.

It was a good lunch for all of us Ju!

Beautiful shot Ju. I have a lot of propagation to do tomorrow. Did computer work today

That was the kind of photo that encourages me and makes the photo fun , really fun ,,
It is great you all enjoyed that with me , delightful !!!
I am still trying to get the same seeds that germinated overnight before to sprout this time ,, 3 days and counting , my patience hurts ,, lol

HEY GUYS! NO TIME FOR SLEEPING. ITS PRIME TIME!

Oriental lilies
Elephant ears
Rudbeckia Tiger Eye Gold, Petunia Tidal Wave Red, Cardoon
Monks Hood
Update of wagon planting

Keith

Sorry guys, order screwed up but I think you can figure it out. Picture shuffle drives me crazy!

That looks Fantastic Kieth , !!! I can at least tell the difference of Elephant ear and Monkshood ,,lol

Bloom head of Candy Cane Zinnia . is the best I have to show .

Love those pics! I can offer only a 'leftover'

Did that to meself, I did...sorry. Anyone ever germinated asparagus seed? Think I am going to try these seeds I snagged in Rochelle. The summer storms were short but hard south of St Louis today

I like the Swallowtail Kitt , Mucky day here ..

Keith, thanks for the pick-me-up...those are beautiful blooms, I'd even say gorgeous! So is your Candy Cane Ju! I was thinking everybody has bee outside working their little hearts out and no time to post.

Is your Swallowtail dead Kitt? Looks like a good storm. My Asparagus have always self seeded so I'd so in place now.

Awe. Good to know you are still out there. Nice zinnia Ju. And Kitt, what more can we expect when you are on the road. Haven't tried to grow asparagus from seed. I get some self seeding in my patch. I have them in a slightly raised bed and unfortunately more seed gets blown outside the box rather than dropping in it. Also I think I have it too close to the bush line and it may be too shaded. We get very healthy shoots but not a lot of them. Sure love what we do get though. Steamed with a bit of butter and lemon pepper.