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| 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!
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| 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.
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| 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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