Plant Rescue 101

      The cloning experiments written about earlier were mostly failures.  Those folks who suggested compost would hold too much water were absolutely correct.  Most stuff turned to mush, yet the good news is that the compost is still usable.  None of the pieces of thick stem chinese mustard rooted.  Even the stem of savoy cabbage expired, though probably aided greatly in death by sap sucking aphids.
      On the positive side, cuttings of Malabar Spinach have rooted, and some of those were repotted today.  New to plant rescue today were four mustard plants dug from a common path at the park:

Rescued and transplanted mustard greens, 12/31/11

Who can name it greens?    12/28/11

      These greens were growing at the park in a dump area where gardeners throw their weeds and discarded plants.  Interesting volunteers can often be found in such spots.  These little greens hopefully are a cos lettuce, but the little striations on the leaves leads me to think they are probably a chicory, much less exciting in my opinion.  But they were put in cell packs anyway, so as to develop a good root system before being planted in a cold frame:

Cos or chicory?

       There was a nice little bunch of beet volunteers growing in this spoils area.  Upon closer inspection, they were leafed out from beets that were partially eaten by voles rather than being beets from seed.  They still might grow on to provide beet tops in the early spring.  Which would be a great freebee.

Sprouting beets, 12/28/11

Rescued beets, 12/31/11

      Note particularly the two beets on the right that have been chewed on by voles.  Yet the beets are trying to regrow.  Next I timmed them up a bit:

Beet plugs for potting, 12/31/11

      These trimmed up beet plugs were potted in cell packs, and will move on to the cool porch to get some strong roots started.  Then they will go in a cold frame.  But don't give up on the beets.  They were repotted in good garden soil to see if they will start even more sprouts.  I just find it fun to see what will happen.

Beet roots repotted, 12/31/11