North Pole Weather 7/9/12

The sun rose at 3:35 this morning and will set at 12:15 tomorrow morning for 20 hours 40 minutes of daylight. We’re now losing about 6 minutes a day, and while the sun is still more than 45° above the horizon at noon, it’s dropping lower by about a tenth of a degree per day. It’s still generally warm by our standards (high 70’s) though we had a couple of days last week that didn’t quite make 70. No heavy rain, but quite a few light showers.

Two bean beds, and you can just see the peas climbing the trellis in the background.

The garden has gone from each bean and strawberry being a cause for celebration to wondering how I can keep up with it without turning vegetarian. I picked a zucchini yesterday that was over a foot long and weighed well over a pound. Thanks to the rapid growth our long days promote, it was still tender and tasty. But it is clear that I have to start checking the squash plants daily—they are already starting to shade out the lettuce in the holes around them. Peas have finally started blooming, and have shot up to the point that I need to raise the pea fence.

The squash is about to shade out the lettuce.

The delphiniums are now topping the 7’ lattice, and the first flowers are open. Still no flowers on the lilies or lynchis, but the buds have appeared on the lynchis, and two varieties of rugosa roses are in bloom. I wish sometimes that the Summer Arts Festival were sometime other than summer, but I’ve signed up again for the creative writing class. I think I’m going to have to find some neighbors who would like produce!

How Long is your Night?

Finding varieties of spinach and beets that won’t bolt. Watching the leaves turn color, even when there hasn’t yet been a frost. Trying to get last year’s Christmas cactus or poinsettia to bloom. Solving the mystery of who spilled the perfume in the meteorology lab. What do they have in common? The answer is a phenomenon called photoperiodism, which helps plants keep track of when it’s time to bloom.

Night Blooming Jasmine, right, and Kalanchoe, left.

Many plants seem to “know” how long the day is. Depending on the variety, they may refuse to bloom unless the length of day is to their liking. For varieties bred at lower latitudes, this may pose problems for Alaskans, since plants such as spinach and beets often take our long summer days as a signal that they must bloom at once rather than grow the leaves and roots we want. Similar problems arise in late summer with imported perennials, shrubs, and trees, which refuse to prepare for winter dormancy while the days are still as long as they are here in early September. But how do eyeless, clockless, plants know how long the day is?

The answer is found in a chemical, called phytochrome, produced by plants. Phytochrome changes form when red light shines on it, and slowly changes back to its original form when it is in the dark. The plant “counts” the hours of darkness by how much of the phytochrome has changed back to its dark form before it is changed again by light. The chemical’s reaction to light is very fast, so that even a short burst of light may turn all the plant’s phytochrome back to the light form, and the plant will start all over again timing how long the night is. So a plant that blooms when days are long, like spinach, is really responding to short nights, while winter-blooming plants such as poinsettias, kalanchoes, and Christmas cactus are responding to long nights. A single minute of light in the middle of the dark period is enough to “reset the clock” in some of these plants and make them think they have had two short nights (long days) instead of one long one.

Some long-night plants will bloom just as well if they are given cold nights. Many Christmas cactus are in this group. Others, like kalanchoes, will only be satisfied with long, uninterrupted, nights, which may be difficult to supply in our lighted homes. A trick that works with soybeans (and might work with winter-blooming house plants) is to place a black envelope over a single leaf near the growing point for 16 hours a day. The covered leaf makes enough of the night form of phytochrome to convince the whole plant that winter has come. If you try this with a poinsettia or kalanchoe, let me know if it works.

Some plants are even trickier in their requirements, and one of these led to the “spilled perfume” mystery. I had a night-blooming jasmine in the meteorology lab that blooms on long nights when they follow short nights. It normally has a major burst of bloom in October or November, but if someone comes in during a winter night and turns on the lights just once, that single pair of “short nights” convinces it that another summer has gone by and it blooms again about 6 weeks afterwards. The flowers are inconspicuous but have a powerful jasmine odor when they open at night. When it bloomed last year, nobody thought to mention to me that they were puzzled by the odor. It took several days before anyone could figure out where the perfume was coming from!

Author’s note: this post is recycled from one that was on the Alaska Science Forum when I was writing it in the late 80’s. I’m having a busy weekend — concert, horse show, public reading and writers’ group, and I just didn’t have time to write a new science article..

Salpiglossis (Painted Tongue)

I don’t know why salpiglossis isn’t more widely used. It’s easy to transplant, blooms freely, and comes in a medley of rich colors. In shape it is an embossed trumpet, with the embossing being most noticeable in the yellow and chocolate colors, which are nearly self-color. Red, purple and blue have more veining, and the color variations tend to overwhelm the embossing. I can generally find it at one local greenhouse, and this year they had it in a new color, Kew Blue, but I can’t seem to find the more exotic colors.

Of course here in Alaska it tends to be relatively cool in the summer, which is something it likes. Wikipedia says it comes from southern Chile, which can be quite cool. Think Tierra del Fuego!

It’s one of the few flowers to have all three primary colors: red, blue and yellow. The flowers are funnel-shaped and fairly large. I use it in boxes and in the holes of my raised beds. I’ve tried bringing it in for the winter, but it does not do well indoors. Whether it’s because the humidity is too low or there’s not enough light I’m not sure.

At any rate I have to admit this post is mostly an excuse to show pictures!

North Pole weather 7/2/12

The sun rose this morning at 3:15 am, and will set tomorrow morning at 12:33 for 21 hours 18 minutes of daylight. Noontime solar elevation (48° tomorrow) is declining by about a tenth of a degree per day, and we’re losing daylight at about 4 minutes a day.

Weather the past week has mostly been cooler, with some showers – highs are now in the low 70’s for the most part. Beautiful gardening weather, if it weren’t for the mosquitoes.

Yellow beans, about ready for the first picking

I’m going to skip #Writemotivation this time – the Summer Arts Festival is coming up, and I’ve signed up (again) for creative writing. Class runs from 9 to 4:30 5 days a week for the last two weeks of July so even the blog’s going to be a problem, though I’m planning to give a short review of each day’s class and assignments. More on that July 12.

The garden is ahead of just about any previous year I can remember. I had Italian beans for supper Saturday – first time I’ve ever harvested beans in June, and I’d better plan on the first picking of the yellows tonight. Saturday’s pick was far more that I expected – close to half a pound from a 10’ row. (If you’re interested, these are bush beans, very early, Gina for the Italian type and Rocdor for the yellows. Both do very well for me in Alaska.) Yesterday was the first serious picking of chard and a huge lettuce. Strawberries are showing red, too – I might pick some for dessert. And the tomatoes have shown up at the farmers market.

The delphiniums are budded and well above head height – the tallest is about even with the 7’ lattice. Daylilies, columbine and spirea are in full bloom, as are most annuals. Even the few roses I can grow here (mostly rugosas and spinnosissimas) are budded or blooming.

I love summer in Alaska.

Flowers and Sex

No, not the “flowers as symbols of love” trope.

Flowers are quite literally the sex organs of plants. A complete flower has male parts (stamens) and female parts (pistils.) In the daylily photo the stamens are the thin stalks (filaments) ending in the fluffy-looking things (anthers), while the part of the pistil visible is the slightly curved stalk below them.

The anthers release pollen (analogous to sperm cells in animals) which, when if falls on the sticky end of the pistil (the stigma) grows a tube to the ovaries, fertilizing the ovules within it, which can then grow into seeds. Those notorious birds and bees often assist in the process by transporting the pollen from one flower to another. In fact the colors and smells of flowers probably evolved to lure these pollinators, as did the nectar our honeybees make into honey.

The ovary, which can be above or below the base of the petals, is what grows into the fruit—the sometimes-edible part surrounding the seeds. As it happens, the ovary in the daylily is above the petal base and hidden by the petals; that on the squash we’ll discuss later is below the petal base.

Female zucchini flower, showing small squash as stem. Male flower stem visible in background.

Now plant sex is a good deal more varied than animal sex. Some plants have both stamens and pistil in the same flower, like the daylily. In extreme cases, the flower doesn’t even open, and the plant pollinates itself, but this is rare and seen mostly in some members of the legume and viola families. At the other extreme, the whole plant is male or female, and two plants are needed for pollination. Some plants cannot be fertilized by their own pollen, and two varieties must be planted in order for them to set fruit. And in some there are two distinct kinds of flower, male and female, on the same plant. The male flower has stamens and produces pollen, but never produces seed or fruit. The female flower is the only one that produces the fruit.

If you’ve been reading this blog, you’ve no doubt noticed that I’ve been referring to male and female squash flowers. I grow zucchini, and they produce male flowers first, and then female flowers. Only the female flowers actually produce squash, so those are the ones I watch for.

How do I tell? Well, I could look inside the flowers, which are large enough to see the difference. But with zucchini, there’s a simpler way. In squash, the ovary is below the base of the petals, which means that if you look at the “stem” of a female flower, most of what you see is what will grow into a squash. Slender, smooth stems indicate male flowers (lots of those right now) which will never produce squash themselves. Fat stems, or yellow ones in the case of yellow zucchini, indicate female flowers and squash to come.

I don’t think the squash pictured will be ready to eat before next week, though they can grow remarkably fast from this size – the photo was taken June 28. But I fully expect to have my first zucchini by the end of next week. (I’d better remember to add parmesan cheese to the grocery list, as I prefer zucchini braised in olive oil with oregano and sprinkled with cheese and garlic salt.)

North Pole Weather 6/25/12

I don’t know whether to be happy or sad that solstice has passed. It’s nice that it’s officially summer, but we’re already losing daylight. On the solstice we had 21 hours and 50 minutes; we’re already down to 21 hours 44 minutes, and the loss will accelerate from here on. I shouldn’t complain; we still have light all night.

The sun rose this morning at 3:01 and will set tomorrow morning at 12:45. It’s been

One of the bean rows, 6/24/12

hot lately, at least by Fairbanks standards, and the showers aren’t really bringing much rain. I was chased in yesterday by the heat and the mosquitoes without getting much done but the watering.

The garden loves it – at least when I remember to water! Once of the squash plants actually has its first female flower, and at the rate they’re growing, the beans may be ready for the first picking by the end of June. If so, it will be the earliest ever. The lettuce seed is germinating – just in time, as it won’t be more than a few more weeks until the squash has shaded out the lettuce I transplanted into the holes in the cement blocks that make up the raised beds.

The day lilies are starting to bloom.

Daylilies are starting to bloom, as are the domesticated roses, though the wild roses are almost through for the season. Quite a few of the transplanted annuals are blooming, though it will be a while before the Asiatic lilies and the Maltese cross show their flowers. The begonias are going strong, as usual. At least it’s supposed to cool off some today, though not rain.

Too bad that the peak of the garden produce overlaps the Fairbanks Summer Arts  Festival.

North Pole Weather 6/18/12

For scale, the top of the lattice is 7′ above the ground.

The sun rose at 2:58 this morning and will set at 12:47 tomorrow morning for a total of 21 hours 49 minutes of daylight. Day-to-day change this close to the solstice, which will occur at 3:08 PM June 20 our time, is less than a minute, and the sun at noon is at its highest for the year at 48.6° above the horizon. It is quite light at night now. Luckily I’ve lived up here long enough that I have no problem sleeping in full daylight.

The first beginnings of beans

Weather has been mixed, with sunshine, clouds, showers and the occasional thunderstorm. Not enough water for the garden, though; I had to water yesterday. It might make 80 today – I think I’ll get the garden work done early, while it’s still cool!

The yellow beets come up in clusters. The reds are a 1 seed = 1 plant variety.

The white iris are in full bloom, and the wild roses and dwarf columbines are a little past their peak. The day lilies are budded, though not blooming yet, and the delphiniums are chin-high. The Maltese cross, Asiatic lilies and tall columbines are up, but not showing buds yet.

On a more practical note, the beans are in full bloom and are starting to show tiny bean pods, and the strawberries are also showing the first tiny green fruits. The beets had reached the point where they needed thinning, and I got to that yesterday. Beet thinnings braised in a little olive oil — yum! The squash is budded, but so far only male flowers. Herbs are thriving, and the two that are perennial, chives and a local mint, are doing their best to take over the garden. The first lettuce transplants are actually starting to bolt. Sad to say, the weeds are thriving too.

Lettuce starting to bolt.

Notice the new badge on the upper right of my site? I’m participating in the Blog Hop June 22, with a post about summer solstice on a planet with a really large axial tilt — like Uranus. The prize for this site will be a pdf of one of my books — your choice.  To enter the drawing just comment on the June 22 post, but be sure I have a way of contacting you! Note that if you comment on my post you will automatically be entered for the grand prize.

Hello there!

On Friday 22nd June (Pacific Time) the SFR Brigade will be holding its first ever Blog Hop to celebrate Midsummer. 36 fabulous science fiction romance authors will be telling you mystical or scientific stories related to the event, and they’ll each be giving away a prize – books, gift cards, swag bags…and lots more!

Plus there’s TWO GRAND PRIZES!

1st Prize – a Kindle Touch or Nook Touch
2nd Prize -a library of science fiction romance titles from over 20 authors (these will be mostly ebooks with one print anthology), and an Anabanana Gift Card.

All you need to do to enter is pop along to the blogs listed below and comment on as many as you want (only ONE comment per site will count as an entry). Each time you comment at a stop, you’ll earn one entry into the grand prize – so the more sites you visit, the greater your chances of winning. The winners will be drawn at random on the 24th June and announced on this site. The list of participating authors can be found here. Spread the news!

North Pole Weather 6/11/12

The beans are close to blooming already.

The sun rose this morning at 3:06, and will set tomorrow morning at 12:37 for 21 hours 31 minutes of daylight. The gain has slowed down a little, to 4 minutes a day, and the noontime solar altitude is nearly constant around 48°. Darkness is now controlled more by cloud cover than by whether the sun is above the horizon.

We’ve had thunder several days this month, with hail a week ago and a storm that knocked out power for an hour or so last Friday. So far the garden is fine. The

The outer leaves of the lettuce in holes edging the raised bed are ready to cut.

first small buds are showing on the squash and beans, and the lettuce and herbs have reached cutting size. This time last year, I was still planting bean seeds! Strawberries and wild roses are in full bloom.

Highs are in the 70’s when it’s clear, and we reached 79 last Friday (which is probably where the energy for the storm came from.) Next week looks like more of the same – highs in the 70’s, intermittent showers. I’m not even having to water much, though it would be nice to have more sunshine.

P.S. later in the morning: the first bean blossom has opened, and I also have flowers on my “Sweet Pea” tomato.

Strawberries are blooming, though it’s hard to tell them from the white violets.

A Love Affair with Begonias

This spring’s boxes, just planted.

One of my favorite summer flowers is the non-stop begonia. They like my part of Alaska, for one thing. I’m not sure whether it’s the cool temperatures, the long periods of light, the relatively mild sun (never much more that 45° above the horizon) or the low humidity, but they thrive here.

One of this year’s, just transplanted. The trumpet behind it is a monkey flower.

Then there are the colors. They come in every shade of red, white, pink, orange, yellow, apricot, salmon, blush — everything but blue. The colors are clear and brilliant, and glow against the dark green foliage.

Yellow begonia, just transplanted.

I normally pair them with the blue and white bicolor lobelia, “Regatta Blue Splash.” The combination is ideal on the north side of the house, where both plants are happy.

This one, from a previous year, does a better job of showing the lobelia.

I’ve been tempted to start them from seed. But the seeds are dust-fine, which means the seedlings are tiny and it takes months to grow them to flowering size. Since they’re widely available as plants, and my plant room in spring is invariably infested with bugs, why bother?

Last year’s boxes along the north side of the house.

And I absolutely cannot resist photographing them.

I even use begonias in tubs to hold down the tarp covering my potting soil.

North Pole Weather 6/4/12

The sun rose this morning at 3:22, and it will set tomorrow morning at 12:19 for 20 hours 57 minutes of daylight. The rest is twilight, but a fairly bright twilight with sunset/rise colors never fading (if the clouds break up a little.) Noon solar altitude is now 47.7°, and the day length is still increasing by about 6 minutes a day.

3/4 of the vegetable garden as of May 1. The “empty” holes are seeded.

Weather has been showery but relatively warm; enough rain to make long trike rides problematic; not enough total rain to help much with the plants. Of course every time I water, it does rain!

The vegetable garden is ahead of where it’s ever been before by the end of May. All raised beds are planted, and all but one row of the holes along the edge. I think I’ll use the remaining holes for a second seeding of lettuce. (I’ve had good luck seeding beets in the holes, and most of the “empty” holes in the photos are in fact seeded.) I transplanted the lettuce plants into the holes along the outside of the squash bed, planning to harvest them before the squash leaves shade them out.

Dwarf columbines, June 1. They not only are hardy and bloom early, they self-seed with abandon.

The dwarf columbine, strawberries and white violets are in full bloom, as is the spirea. So is the white iris nearest the house, and I spotted the first wild rose last night. I planted most of the flower boxes, tubs and hanging baskets last weekend.

#WriteMotivation final check in:

1. Get the garden going. Given the earlier springs up here lately, I’ll try to get the beans started indoors by April 25 and the squash by April 30; plant outdoors before Memorial Day. Get seeds in before Memorial Day if possible. This will involve getting the hoops to support plastic covers up on all three raised beds.

I didn’t quite get it all in before Memorial Day, but I did get the raised beds dug and the vegetable transplants in Memorial Day weekend. Just about everything else is now taken care of — far earlier than usual.

Spirea, photographed from my emergency exit 6/3/12.

2. Keep up daily blogging using my existing schedule: Alaska weather Monday, review Tuesday, quotation context Wednesday, wild card Thursday, Jarn’s Journal (back history on my sf novels) Friday, Science/technology/health Saturday, and Six Sentence Sunday Sunday.

Done.

3. Keep up Context? Tweets daily @sueannbowling

Done.

4. Put at least two interesting science links a day on Homecoming’s page https://www.facebook.com/pages/Homecoming/109303925759274

11:15 last night. The colors intensified later, though the sun had still not set at midnight.

Done.

5. Get outdoors for at least a couple of hours a day when the weather cooperates, either gardening or tricycle riding.

Done.

6. Read over entire trilogy for flow; put bits on Six Sentence Sunday; find a beta reader or two if possible.

I’d still like a second beta reader, but otherwise done.

5:20 pm, 6/4/12

P.S. it hailed about 5 this afternoon. Most unusual for Alaska–we just don’t have the kind of storms here that I grew up with in Kansas.