Fred's photos from Wheaton Labs

You have a really good eye, Fred. I really like that picture you took of the downy woodpecker on the mullein. Whenever I see that one now, it reminds me of when you, the Bride and I were delivering some of my fruit and saplings to the Ants.

Can we get some icicle pictures?  Snow?  I know,  FIRE!!

Fred Tyler wrote:Black raspberries

Are these worth the prickles? How do they compare to normal raspberries, thornless blackberries?
Are they spikier, bear more fruit?
I have a small plant and am not sure whether to let it out of the pot.

Hans Quistorff wrote:If they are like the ones I have, silver/gray canes, they are extremely thorny.  There are cultivars that are much better producers.

Brilliant thanks

These are some really awesome photos! Keep it up man

I've been long neglecting this thread. Sorry. I have many photos to post, but haven't been making time to figure out what's in the photos and post them.

Thanks for the tracking ID's Jennifer!

Janet, I guess there are many varieties of black raspberries. The ones i have definitely have thorns, but i wouldn't say they are terrible. The berries are juicy and the flavor is much more intense than a red raspberry. These tops will touch the ground often and spread vigorously. I'll take some photos when the ones i planted on my plot come out of dormancy.

All this snow has me anxious for the growing, so here's some photos from last spring.

First is Little Larkspur (Delphinium bicolor). Nice purple flowers were some of the first. Found these on the eastern slope of the Volcano. Poisonous to cattle and sheep, but the deer will eat them occasionally.

Second is the Saskatoon (Amelanchier alnifolia). These were swarming with little pollinators (i count four in this photo). They will turn in to delicious fruit in early summer. (Not as good as the juneberries i had in Minnesota, but much closer.)

Third is the leaf from an umbel we never identified. I don't think i ever got a good picture of the flowers. I'll try again this spring.

Here are three photos of a bluebell. I never knew there were so many kinds of bluebells. I think these are Long-flower Bluebells (Mertensia longiflora). Though these seem a bit hairier that most of the photos i saw. The descriptions i found said they could have a varying amount of hair.

The flowers and leaves are edible raw or cooked. Though, the leaves are said to be better cooked because of hairiness. Some parts of the other bluebells were used medicinally to treat measles, and smallpox, or to increase milk flow after childbirth.

I guess i'll do like Kai and post some of the old photos mixed in with the more recent stuff. Have you seen Kai's thread? He is creating poetry.

There still plenty of snow of the ground, but that isn't stopping a few hardy plants. Here are a couple of shots of some garlic (Allium sativum) on my plot. These were poking up under some douglas fir trees whose thick branches reduced the amount of snow hitting the ground. It has probably snowed another foot since these photos were taken, so the garlic's growth may have slowed a bit.

The last picture is of some "mountain spinach" orach (Atriplex hortensis) sprouts. They couldn't wait for spring. They couldn't even wait to hit the ground. They were sprouting on the stalk in their little paper husks at basecamp.