Friday, June 22, 2018

A rather late update

June has been so rough even the roses joined a biker gang.

Welcome back to another episode of Lost In The Farmer’s Market, where we take a look into varied topics regarding sustainability, horticulture and organic practices. Before I get into he substance of this episode, I urge that all you regular readers out there put down the pitchforks and torches, the delay in this month’s posts is for a very good reason. I started a new day job at the beginning of June and have been in that normal three-week trial period where most jobs work you like a dog to see if you’ll survive. This meant I had no time for the blog or other things and as such this post is late so the other June post will be up here very soon, literally this weekend if I can manage so sit tight, there will be updates in dolby surround sound!


I don't have a name for this variety yet, but I'm working on it.


First off for this post we have the picture above, those two suggestive fruits are the first two ripe hybrid super-hot peppers off any of the three hybrid peppers that volunteered last year. Based on shape I would say they are a mix of Ghost pepper and Trinidad scorpion, but taste testing will reveal how much burn and what flavors are present. Hopefully the local barbecue restaurant Fowlers will like these and want more for making hot sauce with. I’ve worked pretty hard to get these plants to this status and I am hoping that they produce face-meltingly hot but tasty peppers that pepper-heads of all levels can enjoy.


The main topic of today’s article is a house plant that you may not have heard of even if you are familiar with it’s relatives. The family this house plant is from is called Malvaceae, which means the Mallow family which contains two super-well known members, Cotton ( Gossypium sp. ) and Okra ( Abelmoschus esculentus ), but also contains a common southern garden perennial by the name of Cotton-Rose ( Hibisucus mutabilis ) and an even more common garden shrub called Rose of Sharon ( Hibiscus syriacus ). Another common relative seen on every spring seed rack is the Hollyhock ( Alcea sp. ) and if you’re from the Caribbean you might have heard of False Roselle ( Hibisucus acetosella ) the true roselle ( Hibiscus sabdariffa) is still in the mallow family though. In short, the mallows are a large and diverse family with a common trait in that their leaves are almost always palmate shaped and that their seed pods are sub divided into wedges and the flowers are often disproportionately large.

Meet the member of the Mallows that impersonates a tree.
However, the cousin of this family that I will be offering for sale as a house plant later this year is different, it’s leaves are somewhat palmate and its flowers are not terribly large. In fact, this hibiscus relative’s scientific name isn’t ‘hibiscus’ or ‘mallow’ or similar to any of the listed names above. This mallow’s common name is Flowering Maple and its scientific name is Abutilon species. The Flowering Maple in the southern parts of North Carolina is a semi-perennial though if in doubt I would not plant it in the ground. Like a lot of it’s cousins it responds to fertilizer quickly and requires water in heavy amounts at regular intervals. A Flowering Maple in a twelve-inch diameter pot will easily need a bare minimum of four cups (32 ounces) of water a day and will dramatically wilt when dry. I recommend repotting once per year if not every other year to maintain growth and vigor, though eventually for the obvious reasons this will become impossible to maintain and taking cuttings via air layering or typical methods involving rooting hormone.
 

The image above although not the most symmetrical bloom highlights why you would want a Flowering Maple. The foliage is nice and all but Flowering Maples have flowers in a staggering variety of colors but the bicolor varieties like this one are the most staggering. This variety is called ‘Fireball’ for it’s deep red veins and variable orange petals. Some varieties of Flowering Maple have flowers that dangle, and others have flowers that have more rigid stems similar in form to other members of the family. What makes this plant really nice is that it is really easy to care for and is an excellent starter plant for Bonsai. If you wanted your own Japanese Maple but lacked the space or the climate is all wrong, Flowering Maples can fill that niche, they look like the real thing, they come with awesome blooms and they don’t demand much in return except regular water. With careful pruning Flowering Maples can be used in topiaries and given that they grow fast they can be used as seasonal green screens to hide eyesores. The two down sides to Flowering Maples is that they don’t tolerate long droughts and they are occasionally bothered by scale insects, mealy bugs and aphids. The latter two pests are easy to handle, scale insects require systemic treatment which barring a rare specimen plant may not be cost-effective to apply. Fortunately, as I noted before almost any method of taking cuttings works for flowering maple so it’s not hard to replace a plant that’s being invaded.


For note this is where the advertising starts because it keeps the Test Garden’s supplied and running tests so you don’t have to. If you want to get some GMO-free, Organic vegetables, herbs and fruiting shrubs come on down to the Fayetteville City Market on 325 Maxwell Street in downtown Fayetteville between the Hours of 9:00 am and 1:00 pm on Saturdays. Barring bad weather, I’ll be there selling the following spring offerings while supplies last.

Late Spring Plant Sale: - All 3” Peat pot plants $2.00!

Plants Available Now:
Peppers, Sweet Banana - $2.00
Peppers, Giant Marconi - $2.00
Peppers, Red Peter - $2.00
Peppers, Furious Sunset - $2.00
Peppers, Tobasco - $2.00
Peppers, Ghost – $3.00
Peppers, Aji Limon - $3.00
Peppers, Peporncini - $3.00

Tomato, White Wonder - $2.00 <Low Acid Type>
Tomato, Carolina Golden - $2.00 <Low Acid Type>
Tomato, Radiator Charlie - $2.00
Tomato, Brandywine - $2.00
Tomato, Black Krim - $2.00
Tomato, Golden Jubilee - $2.00 <Low Acid Type>
Tomato, Glacier - $2.00
Tomato, Mountain Spring - $2.00
Tomato, Sungold - $2.00 <Low Acid Type>
Tomato, Sweet 100 - $2.00

Basil, Holy - $ 2.00
Basil, Sweet – $2.00
Basil, Thai - $2.00
Burnet, Salad - $2.00
Oregano, Italian - $2.00

Aloe Vera, Small - $5.00
Aloe Vera, Large - $7.00
Dancing Bones Cactus - $3.00

Coming Soon: (New Items Available July 14th at the latest)
Herbs - Santolina (aka Lavender-Cotton)
Lavender, English
Thyme, English
Rosemary

Ornamental - Milkweed
Ornamental – Coneflower, Pow Wow Berry Mix
Ornamental – Coneflower, Cheyenne Spirit

Houseplants - Flowering Maple
Houseplants - Eve’s Needle Opuntia
Houseplants - Benjamin Fig
Houseplants – Mini Variegated Jade Plant
Houseplants – Shark Tooth Plant
Houseplants – Live Saver Plant
Houseplants – Philodendrons, assorted
Houseplants – Gold Dust Plant

More to be announced as we near the launch date, stay tuned folks!


As another update, after much debate and research into the feasibility of the operation, I have made the decision not to renew the agreement with Leclair’s General store. Simply put, from an economic perspective, it was an agreement that was costing Bordeaux Regional Nurseries a fair amount of income. Given the difficult nature of the weather this year, the rough winter and other factors I decided to end the agreement so that BRN operations could shift to other markets that have greater potential. While working with them for a little over a year has brought great exposure for BRN, I could not allow my operation to continue to absorb a loss.

For those of you who bought a plant at Leclair’s General store I will continue to stand by my exchange policies for the replacement of plants that have died and were sold in Leclair’s General store through the end of 2018 after which the warranties of the plants will be on a case by case basis. These days I am generally at Leclair’s General Store once a week, for the weekly Sustainable Neighbors meeting at 5:30pm through 7:00 pm. If you have questions then I will be there to answer your questions. Since our meetings have an open-door policy you don’t need to sign up for anything or join anything, you can come on in ask for us and join the meetings. If not, you can always send me questions through this blog or visit the farmer’s market or pay attention to what Sustainable Neighbors is doing at the link below.


            This brings to a close the eleventh LITFM post of the new year, stay tuned the next episode which should be posted within a few days.

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