Winter is Coming... Again

Okay, I do remember this blog exists, I swear!

Its just that there isn't a whole lot going on that isn't a retread of things we've already gone over, so haven't felt as compelled to give blow by blow updates of things that are basically just reposts of existing material.

That said, its been getting colder and I've chopped the Reaper down for it's second year of overwintering.

As you can see, its alive and well.  Although it didn't grow up as big as I had really hoped it would during the summer, we still got some nice thickening on the roots all the same.

We did lose a lot of the roots in the mouth, but some are still holding on.  Most of the root development was on the sides, as you can see at least one really big thick root on either side of the skull.

All in all, a good year with some good progress.  We're well into actual bonsai territory now, where growth is slow and incremental now that the initial shaping is complete.  Its still going lightning fast compared to traditional bonsai though.  This would be a good 5-10 years worth of growth for a normal bonsai tree, and we've accomplished it in less than 2.

Less noticeable but even better for subtle realism, the skull now has been buried for one season and left exposed for one season through wind, rain, and sun.  Its taking on a very nice natural grime and weathered look.  You can fake that to some extent, but the real thing just looks so much nicer!

Watching Grass Grow... Bondage Grass

Sorry for the lack of regular updates, its just not a whole lot going on that makes for any interesting posts.

A few weeks ago I did actually do some tie downs to spread the canopy out (that I completely forgot to share):

Still using the same aluminum camping tent stakes as last year, and just looping twine over the branches.

Nothing fancy, no complicated bonsai style branch wiring, just a simple loop to pull the branches down.

And here's where its at now:

Been really dry out here the past month, month and a half.  Been keeping it (and everything else) watered from a rain barrel (mostly, that even went dry a time or two), but we're still chugging along!  Just nothing dramatic.

Back to Basics

So, still not a whole lot going on of interest.

Ignore the garlic and the weeds I didn't pull yet.

As we can see it has fully leafed back out from that last chop.  Just going to let it grow as large and bushy as it wants this season.

Only real issue we had was this branch in the back.  It didn't survive the chop.  Luckily it was a secondary branch that I didn't really like anyway, so I had no qualms in cutting it off at the base.  Was leaving it hoping it would help give a bushier canopy, but screw it.  Dead is dead, and couldn't leave it on as its a potential point for infection, had to go.  So back to the original 3 branches it is.

Little secret: To help keep the soil directly around the pepper healthy, I like to take any worms I find while moving containers around and put them directly into the skull's mouth.

Yes folks, I feed the skull a steady diet of worms.  Its kinda cool watching them squirm out over and between the teeth.  I should try to remember to get pictures next time I do it.

Whew, I didn't screw it up! I mean... Season 2 Begins!

As per the post title, WHEW!

It was two weeks ago that I gave the project reaper it's super hard chop to get rid of the second round of aphids and clean out the entirely too dense branches that had developed over the winter from the previous chops, and a week since I put it out in the raised bed.

Was starting to get a little worried that it was too hard of a chop followed by too cool of weather (it dipped down into the 40's a time or two), but checking it today reveals:

See 'em?  See the little green leaf buds?  ITS ALIVE!

Okay, I didn't kill it.  Its warm (its actually 85 out there now), and we should be all good.  WHEW!

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Ahem, composure regained, lets get back to some actual update news.

As you can see in the above picture, I buried the plant back up to the base of the skull again.  I had several issues with the neck, namely a lack of stability and several important face roots keeping a rather tenuous grasp on the soil.  Decided that it was worth a shot, but that I'd rather stick to a good looking version of the original design than keep pushing the neck that might end up ruining the entire thing.

This season should be a good one for it.  Without the constant pulling down of soil, the plant itself should be much less stressed, which means it should get a lot more growth.

Now, while I will be continuing to selectively prune off new growth in areas I don't want (like down on the base trunk or too low down on the limbs), I intend to let it grow however it wants above a certain line.  I want it to grow big, tall, bushy, and set lots and lots of pods.

Why?  Because that is how we will thicken the trunk, the limbs, and the roots up to truly gnarly proportions!

You see, the roots and the trunk will only grow thick enough to support the current amount of foliage.  If I were to keep it pruned down to proper bonchi size now, the trunk and roots would essentially stop developing.  Sure, they'd grow a little bit, but its the constant pruning that stops a bonchi (and bonsai in general) from getting bigger.  But to get them up to size, you want them to grow lots of leaves so that there is a constant demand for ever increasing amounts of support.  Same for the roots, the greater the demand for nutrients, the more root development we get.

So, by letting it grow big and bushy (note to self, get a tomato cage to put over this one so the extra growth has some support and the lower limbs don't break) we should thicken the trunk and limbs up, and especially setting pods will put a lot of demand for nutrients on the planet, which should turn our spindly roots into a real gnarled mess, which will be great.

Season Starting Chop Back

Okay, the various plants (including the project reaper here) have spent the last week outside in the relatively warm weather, and either the ladybugs just aren't out yet, or they didn't find these guys, as the aphids were getting bad again when I inspected today.

I also noticed that the last couple of aphid chops I had made left too many small stems in place, and the growth nodes had become very crowded, leading to vegetation that was WAY too thick and close together.  Not only do aphids love that, but it creates pockets of moist air that can harbor disease and fungus growth, definitely not what we want.  Unfortunately, I didn't think to get pictures of how dense it was under there until just now while typing, but oh well.  The answer was another HARD chop.

Zombie Reaper got a hard chop back as well, for the same reasons.  It had a few aphids on it, but not nearly as bad as the project reaper.  I know from experience though that you leave one spot with aphids in it, and they just come right back.  So both of them got whacked.

Now, that might seem a little extreme with warm weather and being ready to set it out in the raised bed again for the season being just around the corner, but there is a reason to my madness beyond simply the aphids.

Namely, sunburn.

I've been hardening things off, but there is only so much hardening you can do.  This way, I can avoid sunburn entirely by placing them out in direct sunlight from now on instead of partial shade, and any new growth will be good to go.

Last frost date here is the 18th, and we've got a single night of 35 degrees coming this Saturday, but after that its solid 70/50, I think it should be safe to actually put stuff out this Sunday.  That'll give them a few days in the soft grow cabinet to recover from the chop, then out they go!

I also have sprouted some kind of large heirloom sweet pepper, I have no idea what kind.  Family member basically gushed "I found the best sweet pepper at the farmer's market, it was delicious!  They said it was heirloom, so I saved the seeds, grow this for me!"  So I sprouted half a dozen or so of them.

They seem to be naturally leggy, or at least more so than the nuclears I've been growing.  Same tray with a couple new reapers, and the sweets were really stretching out while the reaper was staying short and squat, so I decided to use that legginess to my advantage.

I picked two of the lankier ones that already happened to have some natural bends in the trunks, and made sure not to water them for a while.  When they started wilting a bit, the stems became soft and pliable so I repotted them together and braided them into each other.  Watered, and now they're pretty well locked together like this without the need for any kind of bands or tape (though I may end up tying them together later anyway if I need to).

Never tried this kind of twist tie grafting before, but they *SHOULD* fuse together into a single cool twisted trunk as they get bigger.  Least I've seen other people who have pulled it off, so I'm giving it a try.

I usually wind up with nice thick tree like trunks on my peppers with only one plant, so kind of interested to see how this one turns out.

Long Time No See

Hey everyone, long time no update but thats been mostly due to there being nothing to update about.  Aphids continued to be a problem after I brought a different plant in during a hard freeze that re-infected everybody.  Didn't feel like chopping it back again, so just been constantly treating them with neem.  Figured it was close enough to spring that I could just wait it out and let the ladybugs do the job for me when the weather warmed up.

As you can see, the Project Reaper overwintered just fine, despite the constant battle with the aphids, and has lots of nice green foliage and is raring to go.  We still are getting nights where its dipping down into the 30's (thats roughly the 1-5 degree Celsius range for our metric readers), so for now everybody just gets to sit on the covered front porch hardening off where I can bring them back in when I need to.

Remember, when you've overwintered, the foliage on your plants is weak.  You can't just set it back outside in the sun or you'll sunburn them, and possibly kill them.  A week or two of morning sun, wind, and cooler night time temperatures will help toughen them up so that when it starts staying warm all the time they can be put back out permanently.

Not really a must have shot, but I do like the morning light, it makes the skull look really cool. :)

Other sprouts are doing well.  Some sweet peppers, a couple more reapers to give away (remember I overwintered the best producer from last season as well as the project reaper, so I don't need any fresh ones this year for myself), some new tea plants sprouted from seeds produced by my established tea bushes (those things are notoriously difficult to germinate, I'm happy), and I'm going to try growing a banana plant this year (thats it in the second picture, small black container above the dragonfruit cutting).  Not really relevant to the blog, but don't be surprised if you see them start sneaking into the backgrounds of pictures.

Steven, your neck! You have one!

Okay, I was going to be happy with just the skull sitting on the forest floor, but that image of the roots making a neck the last time I repotted it have stuck with me, and today was incredibly warm (almost hit 70... in late January), so I decided to push it a little further.  I decided to give the main project a neck.

As you can see, he currently has a rope around his neck.  Its to make sure the roots pull in close together under the skull to make a proper neck and not just have it be a pile of roots with the head on top of it.

As you can see, its pulled tight enough to even give him a chin!

Only weak spot that I've seen so far is in the back where it doesn't really have the root density to support itself in the proper position right now.  I'm hoping that much like the roots on the face the neck roots will thicken and toughen up enough to lock it into place, but in the mean time he gets more soil under the back of his head to make sure it doesn't lean over at an odd angle.

Wish I had some vertebrae I could stick in there to make a spine to hold him up, but alas.

Next time!

Aphid Free!

The good news is that everybody is growing back nice and healthy after the defoliation and extreme spray down to get rid of the aphids once and for all.  Which worked, btw, haven't seen a single one since I went crazy on them.

Now that they're leafed back out in new growth, I can go back in and take off the older, damaged leaves from the Time of Aphids.  Had to leave some on to make sure I didn't hurt the plant (don't wanna strip one 100% bare when you do that if you can help it), but they don't look very pretty compared to the flawless new growth.  So, time to take them off here soon.

And yes, that was ice in the corner of the grow cabinet you saw in that first picture.  Its been kind of, you know, cold here in winter, and my rain water was frozen rather solid.  Still wanted nice soft water for starting new seeds with though, so I just tossed some rain water ice chunks on top of the starter trays full of soil and left them to melt overnight.

Once melted, I just stuck a heating mat under the catch tray to warm things up and planted half a dozen mystery pepper seeds for a family member.  Not quite sure what they are, they just told me that it had been the best sweet pepper they ever got from a farmer's market that said it was heirloom, and they gave me the seeds from it.  So, I'll give it a go at growing them, see what it comes up as.

Still debating on if I want to bother with ornamentals or not this year.  Can't really eat 'em, and they don't make good root bonsai because they're so small they don't get impressive root systems.  Can't eat 'em, can't display 'em, what good are they?  Eh, I suppose if I kept one going for several years it would end up looking pretty good... they're just not as much of a case of instant gratification as the big peppers are.

I think I'll give the Cumari another go at least, it was an interesting little pepper, even if it didn't do well as a root over rocks.  I'm sure I can find something interesting to do with it.