New leaves indoors

The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

New leaves indoors

Gooseberry sprout Even though my fig cuttings kicked the bucket, things are starting to grow inside. I went ahead and planted my tip-rooted gooseberry, but have been saving Mom's and Sarah's until I remember to bring their little plants to their new homes. The seemingly-dead gooseberry cuttings have been sitting in a sunny window, and I just noticed that this little one is starting to leaf out! That means it will have to wait to go into the ground until after the frost-free date, but also that it will probably have more roots and will bear sooner than if I had stuck it outside last fall.

Next door, another pot of sticks is sprouting leaves. A kind reader (T) sent me some tindora --- tropical, perennial cucumbers --- to try out, and warm weather this past weekend tempted one to put out leaves. I'm very curious New tindora leaf to see whether this cucurbit will be worth babying over the winter in future years, but it sounds promising, with recipes available for baby fruits, ripe fruits, and leaves.

T explained that he developed this variety by crossing an all-male, ornamental variety with a female plant on his neighbor's fence. The result was a sterile variety that he reports is non-astringent, with cucumber-like, small, green fruit that become soft, sweet, red fruits when fully ripe. "In the summer, I cut it down in huge swaths to feed to the goats and birds," he wrote, adding that this variety of tindora "could become a really good forage for homesteaders and their livestock." We're excited to try it!