This and that

Nicotiana seedlings starting to show up.

Romaine Lettuce seedlings.

I am using the bottom half of gallon milk-jugs to germinate my seeds. I found that I can make a much tidier cut with a pair of scissors than I can cutting them with a utility knife. The seeds don't care but the "pots" are a little nicer to work with.

The seedlings will be transplanted to multi-cell planting trays.

I started the tomato and green onion seeds yesterday. If the rain holds off, I will till Mrs ERJ's kitchen garden plot today.  ---Note: Just walk around her garden. The soil is too damp to till.---

A change of pace

We have a few days where we will not be watching Quicksilver.

Mrs ERJ suggested that this will be a good time to do some things inside the house that might otherwise be difficult with a little-one underfoot or napping. 

One of those tasks involves drywall and a ceiling. Oh boy!!! Fun!

Walnut tolerance

A review of Juglone (toxic material exuded from walnut roots and husks) tolerance on scholar.google.com suggests that there is little agreement regarding Juglone tolerance of plant species/genus among  peer-reviewed papers.

Most lists on the internet are unreviewed repetitions of prior, field-observation based lists. Attempts to replicate the lists in the lab have been very mixed.

The authors hand-wave the variable results by claiming that there are multiple soil/bacteria/walnut exudate interactions. One class of bacteria convert the exudate to toxic chemical. Other classes of bacteria decompose the toxic chemicals. The toxic chemicals bind to clay particles with initially slows the spread but later may prolong the toxic effect.

The scientists nearly always use sterile potting material to produce seedlings (which are a convenient size for experimentation and cheap enough for multiple replicates) and then use a tea brewed from ground up roots or husks to challenge the seedlings.

Sterile potting material means almost no bacteria and very, very little clay.

This affects me because the orchards at The Property are surrounded by Black Walnut tree. I have permission to cut some of them but there are others that I am not permitted to remove.

The literature, flawed as it is, uniformly claims apples (Malus) are susceptible. The claims are scanty with regards to pears (Pyrus) but they might be less susceptible than Malus. The literature tends to imply that cherries/plums (Prunus) are relatively immune. The literature also gives good grades to Persimmons (Diospyros) and Pawpaws (Asimina).

It was not part of my original plan, but I have some peach rootstock coming this spring. I may plant the "extras" where they will be stressed by Juglone and we will see what happens. Having a surplus of peaches is a bonus and is much better than having a bunch of runty-dying apple trees.