It isn\u2019t technically winter until next week, but we have had frost for two weeks now. \u00a0This has slowed the garden down appropriately.<\/p>\n
Leon raked up the leaves on the lawn just in time for me to stuff leaves around the pots of forcing bulbs in the coldframe. \u00a0Hopefully, it was enough insulation so their new white roots didn\u2019t freeze.<\/p>\n
Since the fruit trees in the orchard garden fruited so poorly this year (the cherry, apples and plum), I wonder if chill hours were the culprit. \u00a0I am not clear on chill hour science, so I\u2019ll explore it now\/here.<\/p>\n
Here is what Raintree Nursery<\/a> (where most of my fruit trees came from) has to say:<\/p>\n \u201cChill hours are roughly the number of hours between the temperatures of 32-45 degrees fahrenheit. Winter hours above 60 degrees are subtracted from the totals.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n The idea is that a deciduous plant goes dormant in the cold winter to protect itself from the cold. The plant needs to stay dormant while the weather is freezing and then know how soon after it gets above freezing it can safely start growing. It must do it late enough so it doesn\u2019t get frozen back by a late frost but early enough so it can get a full season of growth and fruiting in before it must go dormant for the next year. The plant has a process, refined over millennia\u00a0of evolution that tells it when to start growing in the spring and that process accounts for the amount of above freezing temperature (chilling hours) it needs. <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Of course when we play with mother nature and grow plants in climates where they are not native, we run into lots of problems and this is one of them.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n And here is a list they provide of approximate chill hour requirements:<\/p>\n \u201cCHILL REQUIREMENTS One site I found says that Seattle averages 3,000 chill hours, so no reason that the fruit trees, given the numbers above, would have been ill-chill affected. \u00a0I guess it must have been something else.<\/p>\n Brother Tim and I took a late November trek through the Washington Park Arboretum. \u00a0A few hundred seeds found their way into the house soon after. \u00a0I put them in plastic bags with moist soil and popped them in the fridge to stratify. \u00a0Normally, I plant them in pots right outside, but I thought I\u2019d give this method a try for once and see how it works.<\/p>\n Seed catalogs have landed and I\u2019ve done some shopping and organizing. \u00a0 My goal for this weekend is to clear out all the Phalaenopsis orchids in the guest room and replace them with a seed tray. \u00a0I plan to try a lot of older seeds that I have left over of various bulbs, succulents and cacti. \u00a0I don\u2019t expect much success, but need to get them started soon so they can transfer to the greenhouse when the weather warms.<\/p>\n I bought seeds from\u00a0Seeds \u2018n Such<\/a>\u00a0and some unusual vegetable seeds from Baker Creek<\/a>.<\/p>\n One goal for next year is to really focus on producing some vegetables. \u00a0I struggle every year with this and I know it shouldn\u2019t be this hard!<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It isn\u2019t technically winter until next week, but we have had frost for two weeks now. \u00a0This has slowed the garden down appropriately. Leon raked up the leaves on the lawn just in time for me to stuff leaves around the pots of forcing bulbs in the coldframe. \u00a0Hopefully, it was enough insulation so their … Continue reading Winter Chill<\/span>
\nTYPE OF FRUIT CHILL HOURS<\/em><\/span>
\nAlmond 500-600
\nApple 400-1000 (Low chill varieties are less)
\nApricot 500-600
\nJapanese Pear 400-500
\nBlackberry 200-500
\nBlueberry (Northern) 800
\nChestnut 400-500
\nCherry 700-800
\nCitrus 0
\nCurrant 800-1000
\nEuropean Pear 600-800
\nEuropean plum 800-900
\nFig 100-200
\nFilbert 800
\nGooseberry 800-1000
\nGrape 100+
\nJapanese Plum 300-500
\nKiwi 600-800
\nMulberry 400
\nPeach 600-800
\nPersimmon 200-400
\nPlum Cot 400
\nPomegranate 100-200
\nQuince 300-500
\nStrawberry 200-300
\nRaspberries 700-800
\nWalnut 600-700\u2033<\/strong><\/p>\n