Another award-winning perennial, Magnus took the prize in 1998. It’s also named in Dr. Stevens’ Prarie Bloom collection for Kansas. The purple coneflower is another plant native to Kansas, but in an improved variety. This performed great over the summer.

I got two expensive gallon pots from a big nursery and three less expensive gallon pots […]

The soil in the raised bed I reserved for strawberries was incredibly friable and had almost a fluffy texture to it. Great to work with. I unbundled the sparkle strawberries first, and I was a little disappointed with how dessicated and runty they looked, but the roots seemed decent. We’ll see soon enough. The earliglows […]

The last of my mail order nursery stock arrived today–four rhubarb and 50 strawberry plants (glad I got that raised bed ready in time). I can practically taste the pie already.

The two rhubarb varieties are crimson red and Chipman’s Canada red, both of which were recommended by the KSU extension library for Kansas growing. My […]

Last night’s rainfall was a little under a half inch, so it’s a muddy mess out there today. I’m glad I cleaned up the drylot Saturday.

When I ordered my bush cherries from a catalog, I got a bundle that was to include two packs of three bushes, but they shorted me one Nanking cherry bush. To their credit, they (Gurney’s in case you wondered, my first order from there) shipped me a replacement promptly with minimal fuss.

But when it […]

I got 12 plants from Costco, each four-pack was 15 bucks, so I spent 45 dollars on my row of raspberries. The varieties are Latham and Jewel. I wasn’t nuts about the characterization of “acceptable flavor” in the Small- and Tree-Fruit Cultivars [pdf] publication from KSU. I guess we’ll see how they taste next […]

PICT1140

Originally uploaded by linear1.

Here’s a little pollinator looking for a blossom.

The plan is for lots of “small fruit,” which are fruits that don’t grow on trees. Yesterday I finished planting the blueberry bushes I bought from Waters Blueberry farm. two each of Duke, Bluecrop, and Elliot. That’s early- mid- and late-season fruiting, giving me six weeks of harvesting blueberries, or maybe a bit longer.

I bought […]