Gardening Without Work
Posted on Sunday, February 23, 2020 · Leave a Comment
Ruth Stout, born in Topeka, Kansas in 1884, lived to the ripe old age of 96. She was an early proponent of organic gardening and was also (as seen from her writing) a sweet, funny, intelligent and common-sense person. I recently read her book, Gardening without Work: for the aging, the busy, and the indolent from cover to cover in an afternoon. I had heard much about her, but had never actually read this book before, or her most famous one, How to Have a Green Thumb without an Aching Back.
Ruth Stout’s Book
Ruth Stout made a name for herself largely by writing about mulching. Hay was her main form of mulch because it was cheap and plentiful. She got hay that had been spoiled (as animal food) by rain and applied it in thick layers. But she also used leaves, food scraps and any organic matter to enrich her soil as it broke down. She touted the ability of mulch to smother weeds and hold in moisture.
In the 1950’s and ‘60’s, “modern” gardeners and farmers were using DDT to kill insects and chemical fertilizers to push growth. She avoided all chemicals and got great results. She was not trained as a scientist, but depended on common sense and good observation skills to succeed in her garden. Below are some of the things she said in her book.
“My simple way is to simply keep a thick mulch of any vegetable matter that rots on both my vegetable and flower garden all year round. As it decays and enriches the soil, I add more.”
“I never plow, spade, sow a cover crop, harrow, hoe, cultivate, weed, water, irrigate or spray. I use just one fertilizer (cotton seed or soy bean meal), and I don’t go through the tortuous business of building a compost pile.”
Mulching with hay
How often did she mulch? “Whenever you see a spot that needs it.” How deep is her mulch? Eight inches, on average. “Use all the leaves around. Utilize your garbage, tops of perennials, any tall vegetable matter that rots.”
Ruth Stout loved asparagus, and planted plenty. She said the mulch slows soil warming in the spring, so she raked the mulch off part of the patch to get early crop of asparagus, then left some mulch on for late asparagus. That’s good common sense.
She sowed corn and immediately applied a thin layer of mulch, allowing the corn to push up through it. The mulch deceived the crows, which love to eat newly germinated seeds. I once lost two 50-foot rows of corn to crows, who ate it up in one day as soon as it germinated! And peas? She raked off mulch a few weeks before planting to allow the early spring soil to warm up.
What else did Ruth Stout promote? Diagram your garden in winter. Take time to measure and plan before ordering your seeds. Order seeds early, before the best varieties run out. (I agree. I bought Sun Gold tomato seeds this week, as I have had trouble finding them in April, when I start tomatoes in the house). I like her observation that seed catalogs are to gardeners like “catnip to a cat.”
Witch grass, or Johnson grass, a grass that spreads quickly by root, was not a problem for her. She mulched, and added more mulch if it pushed through the mulch. She also used newspapers under the mulch hay for witch grass, which I have found very helpful.
All soils benefit from year-round mulch. She noted that during the dust bowl of the 1930’s, soil was blown away in huge quantities. That was due, in part, to the fact that soil was left bare after harvest, and blown away in dry times. She emphasized the need to always have your soil covered with mulch.
Ruth Stout developed lots of good tricks during her many years as a gardener. One I liked had to do with planting small seeds like lettuce or carrots. She said you can get fairly good spacing by taking a pinch of seed and then dropping it from waist high. As the seeds drop, they spread out. Not for a windy day, of course, but I will try it, come spring.
The first step of mulching as I do it is to put down newspaper
She wrote that one need not buy a chipper to break up leaves for use as mulch. Just rake them onto the driveway. Then after cars run over them a few times, rake them up and use them. Clever. Me? I use my lawnmower to chop up leaves, blowing them all in the direction, creating a windrow. Then I put them into my garden cart or onto a big blue plastic tarp to take them away.
Ruth Stout froze lots of garden vegetables for winter use, including whole ripe tomatoes. I freeze tomatoes since it is the easiest, fastest way to preserve them. But I have only used them in stews and soups. She went one step further: she let them thaw a bit, and ate them with a spoon. So I tried it after reading her book, and agree that although they don’t have the right consistency for sandwiches, they taste good!
I am a fervent proponent of mulching everywhere and believe it works. I suggest you read one of her books this winter, and give it a try.
Henry has been a UNH Master Gardener for more than 20 years. He is the author of 4 gardening books. Reach him at
henry.homeyer@comcast.net.
Can Gardening Save the World?
Posted on Sunday, February 16, 2020 · Leave a Comment
There is much talk these days about global warming. It’s easy to feel hopeless and to think there is nothing we can do. But if we all take a few small steps, it can add up to a big difference.
Organic fertilizers contain more healthy minerals than chemical fertilizers
So what can a gardener do to help the environment? Start by growing lots of plants and using no chemicals to do so. There is no doubt that green plants help the environment. The basic process of photosynthesis removes carbon dioxide (which contributes to global warming) from the air, combines it with water and produces sugars that are building blocks for the complex carbohydrates that create the stems, roots, flowers and fruits.
Growing trees is especially good for the environment. They hold onto carbon, a process called sequestering. Of course when plants die and decay or are burned, the carbon dioxide they made goes back to the atmosphere. My wood stove, for example, pumps carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere all winter long. But burning oil in my furnace does, too, and has other contaminants from the oil that go into the atmosphere. Everything is a trade off.
If you grow your own vegetables, or some of them, you can reduce pollution from trucks bringing groceries across the country. The average fruit or vegetable travels 1500 miles to get to you, some much farther. I won’t buy veggies from out of the country for that reason, and because I don’t know if they were grown with toxic chemicals. Truth in advertising: I do eat avocados and sometimes artichokes that come from California.
Chemical fertilizer is made using an energy-intensive manufacturing process to heat, compress and cool gases to turn nitrogen from the air into the nitrogen in fertilizer. The basic feedstock for this is natural gas. A 50-lb bag of 10-10-10 uses the energy equivalent of a gallon and a half of fuel oil. Given that there are tens of millions of gardeners, that petrochemical cost is significant. If each of us just says “No!” to chemical fertilizer this year, and every year, we can have an impact. There are plenty of organic fertilizers that are fine to use. These are made from agricultural by-products and naturally occurring ingredients from things like oyster shells and seaweed.
Conventional farmers also use pesticides including fungicides and herbicides. Some are surface sprays to kill bugs when they eat their lettuce or corn. These wash off with rain, or when you wash them.
There are also pesticides that are “systemic”: Chemicals that are sprayed on seeds or the ground and taken up by the roots of plants, and distributed to every cell in the plant, leaf and fruit alike. These systemic poisons are easier to use and are not washed off by rain, or in your sink. Every bite a bug takes, gives it some slow-acting poison. That is true for you, too. Unfortunately, systemic pesticides are readily available at your local hardware store or gardening center. Just look on the aisle labeled “Death Row” (or perhaps they call it “Pesticides”).
Chemical fungicides are also readily available, and these can be very toxic. I remember interviewing a potato farmer in Idaho that showed me what he did: 4 ounces of fungicide “protected” 30 acres of potatoes that he irrigated with an overhead pivot-style watering system. A human error could easily turn a dose into a calamity. That’s why I eat organic food whenever I can, and grow much of my own.
Black plastic used to grow seed potatoes goes to the landfill -not a good practice
What else can gardeners do, besides avoiding chemicals in the garden? Minimize the use of plastics. Yes, black plastic can keep down weeds. But most plastic breaks down in the intense summer sun. Even if you use it for 2 years, you are left with a mass of cracked and ripped plastic that ends up in the landfill for the next few hundred years.
Paper is an alternative to plastic. I read my local daily, and buy the Sunday NY Times on occasion. I spread newspapers in my vegetable garden, and sometimes in flower beds. I cover the paper with straw, hay, leaves or chipped branches according to the location.
Mulching with newspaper and straw works well
Formerly newspapers used inks with toxic heavy metals, but now they use soy-based inks that are non-toxic. Earthworms love newspaper, and in the course of 12 months they eat most of the paper I lay down. I often use mulch hay over the papers even though they contain some grass seeds because the newspapers keep most of the seeds out of the soil.
Mulching your garden is also a way to reduce water needs of your plants, as the mulch minimizes evaporation. Even if you have a good water supply, it makes sense to use the least water you can. Water is not an unlimited resource, something I often don’t think about as I have not only a good artesian well, but a small stream to available for water, too. Using well water draws down the aquifer that may take eons to replenish.
Anthropologist Margret Mead is credited for saying, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” I agree.
Henry is a UNH Master Gardener and the author of 4 gardening books. You may reach Henry at
henry.homeyer@comcast.net or P.O. Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746.
It’s Time to Order Seeds
Posted on Sunday, February 9, 2020 · Leave a Comment
Ground Hog’s Day has come and gone. The big, fat rodent has made his or her proclamation about the arrival of spring. And of course, I paid no attention. I think the birds are better about announcing spring, but so far the cardinals are not singing their spring songs, and the red-winged blackbirds have not shown up. So I know I have time to purchase seeds.
It’s time to sort through your seeds to see what you need
Most seeds are good for three years, and most packets have a lot more seeds than I can use in a year. I store them in loosely closed zipper bags in a cool closet – with the date I bought them clearly marked on the packages. I have a hard time throwing out seeds that are old and should be tossed. But I know they lose vigor with time, so about now I will go through them all and toss out the older ones, and figure out what I need to buy. I once found a packet of seeds of my mother’s that were 50 years old. I had to try germinating them, but none grew.
Not all seeds last three years: parsnips and onion seeds are good for just one year. Leeks, in the onion family, I have successfully used in year two or even three. Parsley is good for just one or two years, but is always hard to germinate. If using older seeds, I plant more seeds as some will germinate and others will not.
Corn seed is usually considered to have 2-year viability, as are peas. I, for one, will not grow corn again. I can go years without ever seeing a sign or footprint of a raccoon,n but if I grow corn, raccoons will show up to pick my corn before I do. I am not willing to invest in an electric fence to keep them out, and don’t believe that playing an all-night talk radio station will deter them, as some claim. Plant corn, the raccoons will come. Forget about it!
Of the paper catalogs I get each year, Johnny’s Selected Seeds, Burpee’s and Fedco are my favorites. Why? They each have such a range of seeds, and lots of good planting information. Farmers I have asked about their seed suppliers tend to mention Johnny’s first, which is a good recommendation. Others I like include Fruition Seeds, Hudson Valley Seed Company, Renee’s Garden Seeds, and High Mowing Seeds, which only sells organic seeds.
Fedco is a seed cooperative that many food coops join up with – providing catalogs and then putting together bulk orders to get discounted prices. They are located in Maine, and have a clear policy of encouraging gardeners to save and share seeds. Fedco does not generally sell patented or trademarked seeds. Fedco also does not sell any GMO seeds (no one does, they are only available to farmers) or seeds treated with fungicides. About 30% of the seeds they sell are organic.
Onions plants from Johnny’s Seeds ready to plant
You may wonder if organic seeds are any better than conventional seeds. They cost a little more, as producing seeds organically is more labor intensive. For example, many conventional farmers use herbicides to kill weeds, but organic farmers must hoe or cultivate the rows with a tractor to kill weeds. This means fewer chemicals added to the soil. So I like to order organic seeds when I can get them, but not everything is available as organic seeds. And of course, buying organic seeds supports organic farmers.
If you are just buying a packet of carrot seeds and some flowers, think about getting your seeds from your local garden center or feed and grain store. That way you don’t have to pay shipping costs. I order 20 packs of seeds or more each year, so the shipping cost is minimal per packet, and I have more varieties to choose from when ordering from a seed company. I like to share seeds with gardening friends, and sometimes we combine our orders. Some garden clubs have seed swaps, too.
New to gardening? You might like to know the things to start in the ground by seed, and those which need to be started indoors in early spring or purchased as plants at a garden center. By seed? All the root crops (carrots, beets, parsnips, etc.). Also peas, beans, corn, spinach, lettuce and other greens.
Seed catalogs are designed to entice gardeners
Potatoes are started from chunks of “seed potatoes” bought at the garden center, or saved from last year’s crop. Onions are planted as little bulbs, or as plants, or started early by seed indoors. All the vine crops (cukes, squash, pumpkins) can be purchased as six-packs, or started by seeds outdoors. Tomatoes, eggplants, Brussels sprouts, kale, broccoli and cauliflower are generally planted as seedlings.
So start checking out the seed catalogs, either on-line or in hand. I have to admit it is quicker to use the search engine at a website to find a specific type of seeds than it is to find it in a paper catalog. But there is something to be said for thumbing through a catalog sitting by the wood stove on a snowy day.
Henry can reached at PO Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746 or by e-mail at
henry.homeyer@comcast.net. Consider joining Henry on a Viking River Cruise from Paris to Normandy in June, 2021. Contact him for more info.
Upcoming Spring Flower Shows
Posted on Tuesday, January 28, 2020 · Leave a Comment
In Lewis Carroll’s poem, The Jabberwocky, the hero exalts, after killing the ferocious mythical beast, “O frabjulous day! Callooh! Callay!” That’s the way I feel when I think about the upcoming spring flowers shows. Thinking about the shows I am known to exclaim, “Oh Boy!” at random moments, such as while cooking dinner. I know I’ll get to one or more events, and suggest you do, too.
The first of the New England shows this year is in Hartford, Connecticut at the Connecticut Convention Center on February 20 to 23. The show is vast: nearly 3 acres of displays with 300 booths selling fresh flowers, plants, herbs, bulbs, seeds, gardening books, garden equipment and more. There are competitions for flower arranging and potted plants, as well.
The theme this year is “Connecticut Springs into Earth Day”. Many fine gardens are built for the show. In addition to that, there are over 80 hours of workshops, slide shows and lectures where you can learn useful information for your own garden.
The Philadelphia Show, a bit of travel for New Englanders, is one of the most impressive. As always it is at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, held this year from February 29 to March 8. The theme this year is Riviera Holiday.
With about 10 acres of floor space, the show is hard to view all in one day. I recommend going mid-week when there are smaller crowds, and getting there early. It’s an expensive show – adult tickets are $42 in advance, $48 at the door – so you may want to try to pack it all in during one day, or relax and do it in two. Doors open at 10am most days, and the show closes at 9pm most days.
The next show is Boston, March 11 to 15, another big one. I have gotten a number of reports from attendees last year that the show has gotten very commercial, but it has been a few years since I’ve gone to it. All the shows have a big commercial presence, but that’s the nature of the game, and I enjoy all the gardening stuff that is for sale, especially seeds and tools.
The Boston show has plenty of lectures and presentations throughout most of the day. I’d like to attend one on Ikebana, or Japanese flower arranging. There are also lectures on kokedama, or growing plants indoors in moss (and soil) balls, often suspended in air. I see another by Petra Page-Mann of Fruition Seeds on companion planting. She is a live wire, so I will attend if I can.
The Maine Flower Show in Portland, Maine, takes place March 26 to 29 at Thompson’s Point. Parking is off-site and shuttles are easy, they say. See their website. There will be 14 display gardens, 115 exhibits of plants, hardscape, arbor and garden supplies, and all things related to outdoor yard-scaping and living. This year’s theme is A Cascade of Color. Tickets for adults are just $20 and kids under 12 are free.
Next is New Hampshire’s modest show, the Seacoast Home Show in Durham, NH on March 28 and 29. It more of a home show than a garden show, but it’s an inexpensive weekend outing.
Likewise the Rhode Island Home Show on April 2 to 5 in Providence includes the Flower and Garden Show in it, covering 10,000 square feet of the 100,000 feet of the Home Show. But it will have 9 complete garden displays, competitions organized by the Federated Garden Clubs and gardening vendors. I haven’t been to the show since the management of the Providence Show changed a few years ago.
My partner, Cindy Heath, and I went to the Chelsea Flower Show in London a few years ago, and it was a chance of a life time. This year it will be held May 19 to 23. It’s expensive and crowded, but join the Royal Horticulture Society in advance as you can get in early and get less expensive tickets. Most of it is outdoors, so full-sized trees are brought in to make displays. It is truly an extravaganza! And be sure to visit Kew Garden while in London. Plan on a full day there, too.
Planning on visiting Uncle Ralph and Aunt Matilda this spring? Maybe you can visit one of the shows below. The only one I’ve attended was the San Francisco show, but that was 20 years ago.
The Great Big Home and Garden Show, Cleveland, OH January 31 to February 9
Northwest Flower and Garden Show, Seattle, WA February 26 to March 1
Southern Spring Home and Garden Show, Charlotte, NC February 28 to March 1
Canada Blooms, Toronto, Ontario, March 13 to 22
Chicago Flower and Garden Show, March 18 to 22
San Francisco-Northern California Flower and Garden Show, Sacramento, April 2 to 5
So have fun, go to a flower show. Smell fresh flowers, fresh soil. And before we know it, it will be spring!
You may reach Henry at P.O. Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746. Please include a SASE if you wish a reply. His e-mail address is
henry.homeyer@comcast.net.
Getting Rid of Invasives
Posted on Tuesday, January 21, 2020 · Leave a Comment
My mother used to say, “The road to hades is paved with good intentions.” That is particularly true for gardeners and plant collectors. Most of those nasty invasive plants we struggle to eliminate from our landscape were brought here from abroad by people who didn’t know better. They thought the plants would be a useful addition to their landscape. Plants such as barberry, Japanese knotweed and burning bush looked great to them. What they didn’t bring, of course, were the insects that eat them and keep their numbers under control in their native environments.
January is down time in the garden, generally. We can’t plant anything, and often the snow is deep. But if the January thaw has melted away the snow and ice where you are, this is a time when you could work on getting rid of some invasive trees and shrubs.
Actually, what I have I mind is helping to reduce the vigor and number of mature plants by cutting them down. That won’t kill them, but will keep them from producing seeds next year or even longer. Most invasives have roots that will send up new sprouts, come spring. And winter is not a time when you can dig up or pull out roots. But cutting them down and burning them is a chore you can do now.
The first task you have in this effort is to learn to identify the plants. For me, the most common invasive plants in the woods around my home are bush honeysuckle and barberry.
Invasive bush honeysuckle can get to be 10 to 15 feet tall and wide. It has fragrant white blossoms in June and oval-shaped leaves that are opposite each other on small twigs. In winter the bark is distinctive – slightly shaggy with distinctive ridges. If you cut a stem, there is a hollow spot in the center of the stem, though it might only be the diameter of a pencil lead. The shrub produces red or orange berries.
Japanese barberry is a tough plant that I have seen in deep woods, far from homes or roads. In full sun it produces massive quantities of red berries that birds eat and then drop the seeds all over. The bush has small green or purple leaves and is dense with thorns. I visited a barberry hedge recently, and it was still loaded with berries. The best solution? Cut it down now, and dig out the roots in the spring.
Burning bush ( Euonymus a) is on invasive species lists throughout New England, even though I rarely see seedlings in the woods, and have none on my property. It is best identified in the fall, when its scarlet leaves are noticeable. It is more of a problem in Rhode Island, Connecticut and Massachusetts. I once saw a bumper sticker that said, “30 Below Keeps Out the Riff-Raff. I assume it was talking about plants like burning bush which survives here, but doesn’t spread as fast as it does in warmer climes.
Buckthorns are small trees or large shrubs that are very difficult to eliminate. If you cut one down, the root system will send up many, many new shoots, come spring.
There are two different species of buckthorn common in New England: common buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica) and glossy buckthorn (Rhamnus frangula), a smaller version with pretty shiny leaves. Both produce berries that turn a deep purple and are the size of blueberries, put with a pit in the middle like a cherry.
You can kill these two by double girdling the trunks with a hand saw, cutting through the bark and green cambium layer while avoiding the dense heartwood. By double girdling, I mean cutting two lines all the way around the stem a foot apart or so. If you do it now, the plants will leaf out and grow normally this year, and perhaps even next year, but then they will die – without sending up new shoots. I have done this.
By cutting through the cambium layer, no nutrients will be sent to the roots, and the roots eventually starve. Common buckthorn is often multi-stemmed with stems close together, so getting a saw in around each stem can be difficult.
Why bother with all this? First, although birds may eat the berries of invasive plants and distribute their seeds, they did not evolve with the plants and often do not benefit much from what they eat. The invasives also out-compete many of our own native plants. They leaf out earlier in the spring and drop leaves later in the fall than our natives. They often shade out or disrupt the growth of wild flowers, too.
Invasive trees and shrubs may be less attractive to the caterpillars that feed on our native trees and shrubs, and which are such an important food source for baby birds. Butterflies and moths lay their eggs on the leaves of native woody plants so that their caterpillar babies will eat well. Those caterpillars make up the vast majority of food for nestlings, even those species that develop into seed eaters. So avoid growing invasives.
Take advantage of the January thaw – or a thaw anytime this winter – and remove some invasive plants. Get a burn permit, some marshmallows and do your woods some good. And have fun!
Henry is the author of 4 gardening books. You can email him at henry.homeyer@comcast.net.
A Gardener’s Cookbook
Posted on Tuesday, January 14, 2020 · Leave a Comment
I can’t wait till spring. Don’t get me wrong: I love winter. But I look forward to trying a recipe I just found for pea, leek and sorrel soup while reading Deborah Madison’s fabulous cookbook, Vegetable Literacy (10-Speed Press, 2013, $40). And sorrel, a leafy perennial, is one of my first vegetables ready for eating in the spring.
I have grown sorrel for many years but have never found a good use for it. Yes, it has an interesting lemony taste, but it cooks down to almost nothing – even more so than spinach. And I have added it to salads, but it never made tickled my taste buds enough to remember to pick some regularly.
Ms. Madison’s recipe is simple: chop 5 ounces of leeks and cook with butter and a cup of water for 10 minutes. Add 1.5 cups of peas (fresh or frozen) and 3 cups of water. Simmer till peas are cooked, then turn off the heat and stir in the sorrel leaves but not stems. Then puree the soup in a blender until very smooth and add a little cream or yogurt on top. Simple and easy.
One of the great things about Vegetable Literacy is that Deborah Madison is a very knowledgeable gardener as well as a great cook. She not only includes tips about how to grow veggies (plant lettuce under the shade of big plants like tomatoes in the heat of summer), she generally lists names of good varieties and what makes each special. And she includes nutrition tips, as well (cooked carrots have more nutritional value than raw ones, for example).
Brussels sprouts are a favorite of mine, but avoided by many. Deborah Madison’s theory is that they are often overcooked and mushy. Her solution? Cut them into 3 or 4 pieces so that the center is cooked, but the outer leaves are not overdone, a common problem. She likes to pair them with bacon, smoked paprika, roasted peanuts walnuts or chestnuts. I never would have thought of those pairings, having just used butter or seasoned rice wine vinegar (something I use often of brassicas in place of butter).
I have never grown Belgian endive nor known how to use it, but she explains both. Europe, she notes, grows 70,000 acres of it annually, but we grow only 400 acres. It is quite a complicated procedure that can take a full year from seed to table. A related, but much easier plant is radicchio, which I plan to grow this year. She notes that you can get seeds from
www.gourmetseeds.com, a company I don’t know, but looks good on-line. It is also available from Johnny’s Selected Seeds in Maine where I buy many of my seeds, and Fedco, a seed cooperative I like.
I love cauliflower, but rarely grow it because it’s so fussy. It won’t produce a head if it is too hot or too cold, too wet or too dry. This book taught me that you can also eat the stem, which is delicious peeled and then sliced or diced and steamed. The leaves are also edible and tasty. That’s a bonus for a plant that, unlike its cousin broccoli, only produces one set of florets. She also notes that cauliflower is loaded with vitamins and nutrients that contain cancer-fighting compounds that are not diminished by steaming (but are by boiling).
In the chapter of squashes, Deborah Madison notes that winter squash “have been found effective in the remediation of chemically contaminated soils, the plants pulling up all sorts of unwanted contaminants, thus this is another vegetable where you are better off to choose organic over conventional.” Or grow your own where no sprays are used.
Tomatoes, for me, are the queens of the garden: juicy, flavorful, sweet and delicious. Deborah Madison also explains that in addition to vitamins, tomatoes are rich in lycopene. Lycopene is an antioxidant “that quite possibly protects against different cancers and lowers the risk of heart disease, of eye diseases such as cataracts and macular degeneration, and more.” She goes on to say, “The good news is that these benefits are not undone when a tomato is cooked.” Given how many I grow and eat annually, I should live to be 100!
We all know parsley, and most of us grow it. But Vegetable Literacy reminded me that a lesser known cousin of parsley is parsley root, a different species. It is an intense flavor, and great to add to soups. Not sold by most seed companies, I found it at Johnny’s Selected Seeds with the name Arat. They say it takes 14 to 30 days to germinate, and should be planted directly in soil outdoors.
This lovely book with fabulous photos is organized by plant families. Deborah Madison explains in the beginning that she believes plants in the same family go well together in recipes. Thus in the carrot family we also find parsley, fennel, cilantro and anise – and all cook well together. She has divided all her ingredients into 12 plant families according to their taxonomic grouping.
Deborah Madison has written about a dozen cookbooks, most with a vegetarian bent. This one is not strictly vegetarian, but most recipes are. She writes with ease and clarity that makes reading this cookbook a joy. I look forward to trying many of her recipes.
Tips for Making Winter Arrangements
Posted on Tuesday, January 7, 2020 · Leave a Comment
Finding things to place in vases, now, in winter, is not easy. It takes some imagination, but there really are some nice stems available.
Before the snow flew I went outside and picked stems of pachysandra, a green vine that is mostly used in shade, though also grows in part sun. It does well in a vase all winter, and usually sends out roots so that, come spring it can be planted outdoors. Although it has no blossoms now, it is green and lush and easy to care for. I use it as the base in flower arrangements. You could probably pick some during a January thaw.
For color in a vase in winter, one of my stalwarts is winterberry (Ilex verticillata). Winterberry grows in wet places in the wild, though it will also grow in normal garden soil if planted there. It is loaded with bright red berries now, though later outdoors the berries will fall off or be eaten by birds
Winterberry is dioecious, meaning that there are male and female plants. Both bloom, but only the females have berries. If you are buying these shrubs, which stand six to ten feet tall and wide, one male cultivar is needed for about every 5 females.
Unlike many hollies, winterberry does not have glassy dark green leaves that stay on all winter. American holly ( Ilex opaca), Japanese holly (I. crenata) and the Meserve hybrids like ‘Blue Boy’ and ‘China Girl’ do keep their leaves and produce nice berries. Unfortunately most are Zone 5 plants only good to minus 20, and I live in a colder zone, so I have no personal experience with them.
Also red, and also not a flower, are the stems of red-twigged dogwood (Cornus sericea). They also look great in a vase. And like the winterberries, they do best in moist soil. In order to get the brightest color possible, you should buy a named cultivar. And you need to cut back the stems every year or two, as it is the new growth that looks so bright in winter.
Staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina) is a native small tree that produces nice berries that look good all winter, and that do fine indoors in a vase. I picked some over 2 months ago, and they have shown no signs of fatigue. The berries are up high, but are easy to pick with a pole pruner – the stems, though thick, are soft and easy to cut.
Sumac berries are enjoyed by returning robins (and other birds) in the spring. Birds are a bit like teenagers – they love greasy food. So berries with a high fat content get eaten right away while berries like those on the sumac, which have little fat, are ignored until hungry times. Those early birds who can’t get a worm will wolf down sumac berries. It’s all part of having a diverse source of food for our wild friends.
Two invasive plants, Japanese barberry (Berberis thunbergii) and winged euonymus (Euonymus alatus) are also displaying bright berries at this time of year. And although I recommend pulling out both from your landscape, cutting branches now to put in a vase will reduce the number of berries available for birds. And it is the birds that distribute seeds into the woods, spreading those invasive plants.
If you are looking for green to add to a vase, white pine, balsam fir and blue spruce all do well. Canadian hemlock (the one that has short, soft needles) is said to be not as good as the others, tending to drop needles sooner than the others. But for my purposes, I find it just fine.
In summer we want pink, white and purple flowers in our vases, but in winter browns can be nice in a vase, too. Beech trees are still holding their leaves, or at least the young trees do. Many oaks still have leaves, too. If you put them in a vase, don’t bother with water. Add other dry flowers or grasses.
My peegee hydrangea is still displaying blossoms, and I might pick a few more to use indoors. Each year I pick the pink blossoms before frost, and they keep their color quite well. Now they are brownish, but still better than nothing. Again, no water in the vase.
Dry grasses are good to appreciate outdoors in winter, swaying gently in the wind. But indoors they are just as handsome. I like my fountain grass (Miscanthus sinensis) ‘Morning Light’. It is a tall grass, but can be cut to fit in with other items of any height.
A walk through a field can yield lots of dry flowers from goldenrod and Joe Pye weed to field spirea and willow stems. Making a winter arrangement is different than a summer arrangement, and you may have to adjust your attitude a little bit about what you expect. Enjoy whatever you can find!
A Time to Nestle in with a Good Book
Posted on Tuesday, December 31, 2019 · Leave a Comment
It’s cold outside, and nothing is happening in my garden. Well, I guess deep beneath the soil surface there are microbes and worms and moles alive and doing whatever they do in winter. But I am doing nothing in the garden, so this is a time to read about gardening.
At a gardener’s dinner I asked my friends to bring me good books to read about gardening. The first one I picked up is Gardens of the High Line: Elevating the Nature of Modern Landscapes by Piet Oudolf and Rick Darke (Timber Press, 2017). I have visited the High Line in New York: a mile and a half of gardens growing on what was an elevated railroad bed that fell into disuse until it was re-purposed as a fabulous outdoor space in the heart of the city.
The book if full of fabulous pictures of the gardens, along with ideas about how gardens can be designed. None of us can do what they did there, but we can get ideas from the designers. Piet Oudolf, a Dutch landscape architect, was one of the primary design forces for the garden. I interviewed him at his home in Holland back in 2007.
A quote I liked from Oudolf was this: “The one tool I can’t be without are my eyes. Sometimes you need a spade, sometimes pruners, but when you are gardening you really have to look.” It’s for that very reason that I can’t design a garden on paper. I have to have to be in a garden, and have plants to work with before I can figure out where they’re going to go.
Yes, I know some basic design principles. For example, create mystery or tension by obscuring part of the garden with plants (or hardscape), thus leading viewers into the next portion of the garden along a path. Or create waves of color, masses of color instead of sprinkling little bits of color in the garden. Enjoy seasonality. Let one portion of a garden be special in spring, another in fall. All this really becomes possible for me when I have plants in hand and I can see – and then imagine them in a year, in five years, in ten. Eyes are the key, along with the imagination.
Another design principle used heavily at the High Line is this: borrow a view. Create your garden in such a way that visitors see not only your plants, but the view of a mountain, a river, or in New York, buildings. The High Line is surrounded by, and towered over by, buildings. Interesting architecture, filigreed steel of the bridges over city streets, for example. The gardens encourage visitors to stop and view the surrounding cityscape, day or night.
The plant palette is an important part of the success of the gardens. According to the book there are nearly 400 species of plants at the High Line, about half natives, half from other continents. The important thing for a tough location like the High Line is to get plants that will survive, thrive, and move. Yes, the book explains that the gardens are dynamic: plants get to pick, to a certain degree, where they will grow. Garden staff and let “volunteers” (self-sown plants) to spread in the gardens.
Obviously the small trees growing there were planted in a location, and stay there. But some do spread by root, and do wander a bit. For example, the designers used sumac in some places for its interesting branching and splendid fall color, and it does spread by root.
I remember seeing a grove of sumac adjacent to a lawn in Wilder, Vermont years ago. The sumac had sent underground stolons (roots) to a sandbox in the middle of the lawn, and new shoots were popping up in the sandbox – the lawn mower had only controlled those that appeared in the lawn. Concrete walkways and old railroad ties and rails on the High Line do inhibit spread to a degree.
A book like this one is great if you want to expand your plant palette at home. It has common and Latin names of the plants in the photos, so you can make notes in your notebook with a wish list. I found myself seeing interesting plants in the photos and not being sure which was which, but in this day of Google, it is easy enough to find out.
Not all the plants are easily found, however. I saw mention in the book of Dale Hendricks, a fellow I interviewed a decade or so ago when he was running North Creek Nurseries in Pennsylvania, a wholesale nursery, which he has since sold to others. Dale built up a huge inventory of native species, including named cultivars of specialty goldenrods, for example. I gave him a call recently, and got some plants he likes for hot, tough places.
Dale Hendricks said he likes Hyssop-leaf thoroughwort (Eupatorium hyssopifolia), a late summer bloomer that is related to Joe-Pye weed and boneset, but that is quite diminutive. It has attractive white blossoms in meadows with good drainage and full sun. Growing with it often is little blue stem, a native grass. ‘The Blues’ is a named, non-patented variety he developed.
Other tough plants Dale likes? Poppy mallow (Callirhoe involucrata), bluestar ammsonia (Ammsonia hubrechtii), butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa), prickly pear cactus (Opuntia spp.) and a blazing star called Liatris microcephala.
So do some reading this winter, and make plans for new summer plantings. You may have to ask your local nursery to order in some of the less common plants I mentioned above, but they might be in stock.
Looking Back on 2019
Posted on Monday, December 23, 2019 · Leave a Comment
This past year was, overall, a good one in the garden. It started off cold and wet in early summer, but then turned hot and dry. Most vegetables and perennial flowers did fine for me. I finally splurged and got an Itoh hybrid peony, one called ‘Garden Treasure’ and it bloomed gloriously. It is a cross between a perennial peony and a tree peony.
Carrots and onions, however, were a bust for me this year. Granted I had them in a place where they got more shade than ideal. Still, my carrots were pathetic. Very small. I accept that each year something will under-perform. Fortunately there are good organic farmers who have anything I need. I bought half a bushel of organic onions at the Norwich Farmer’s Market, something I had never needed to do before. Oh well. And good carrots are always available.
My tomatoes did all right. I tried hard to pick off diseased leaves, which always helps. I regularly sprayed an anti-fungal solution called Serenade that contains a bacterium said to combat fungi. I didn’t spray a couple of plants to see if there was a difference, but didn’t notice much difference. It may have delayed the onset of disease, but basically the only way I can get enough tomatoes is to have lots of plants.
Last summer I wrote about a farmer in Pennsylvania who said that staking tomatoes was a waste of time and energy. I said that I would test his theory and report back to you. The results? Staked tomatoes did better for me.
During that dry time in August I installed some drip irrigation in a garden for a client, and found it very helpful for new installations. Gardeners Supply Company (
www.gardeners.com) sells a “Snip and Drip” system that installs easily and delivers water just to the places that need it. I encircled new trees and shrubs with sections of soaker hoses that “leak” when the water is turned on. I found an daily was fine, and used a timer to control it.
Magnolias in my part of the world bloomed deliciously this year. My ‘Merrill’ magnolia bloomed a little late this year, just barely blooming for my birthday in late April, but holding its blossoms well into May. I met a new (to me) magnolia this year, a yellow one called the cucumber tree magnolia (Magnolia acuminata). I am looking for a space to plant one, perhaps this year.
Two years ago I planted a catalpa tree, a 10-foot specimen, in the middle of a section of lawn. I had fallen in love with the blossoms on a neighbor’s tree. The blossoms are creamy white with purple-red stripes inside, and are fragrant. It bloomed after its first winter, but not this past year. But the tree showed no winter kill, and I imagine next summer it will blossom dramatically.
Not all trees bloom every year, and weather has a lot to do with that, I think. So as I nestle in here near the woodstove, I dream of catalpa blossoms in 2020. Maybe gardeners live longer, in part, because we so want to see our plants perform.
Grapes produced huge quantities for most everyone this year. I made over 5 gallons of juice and froze it in half-gallon plastic jugs. I used a NorPro brand “Steamer/Juicer” for this, and it was very easy. The grapes were purple Concord type, and produced juice with a very intense flavor.
Each year it gets harder for me to find space to plant more spring bulbs, but each year I find some. This year we planted 300 or more bulbs at our home here in Cornish Flat. I can’t wait to see them bloom, and to see the others I’ve been planting for decades.
What else happened in 2019? My life partner, Cindy Heath, finally moved in with me in Cornish Flat. We had lived 6 miles apart for the last 10 years, but this May we joined forces here. She is an avid gardener who loves to weed, which really helps a lot! Life is good.
In August I broke a bone in my ankle while pruning a tall apple tree when my ladder slipped off the branch it was on, and I hit the ladder with my ankle when I landed. The fracture was not serious, but it kept me from doing as much as I’d like. It is only now that I am fully healed.
Fortunately, I met and made friends with Jim Spinner, a retired fellow who wanted to learn to garden and who has lots of energy. He helped me a lot, as did Cindy, and by the end of October our gardens were in great shape. I managed to help them despite wearing a big plastic boot much of the time.
And in 2019 two of my good buddies, Jerry Cashion and Brian Steinwand, passed away. I had known them for a total of over 80 years, and miss them a lot. We had all worked in Africa together. But I find that gardening is a fix for almost any sadness. Get out, dig in the dirt, plant a flower or pick a tomato and life seems a little bit better.
I wish you all a wonderful 2020. I hope you will start thinking about the garden now: dream, read gardening books, make lists, and learn about trees or flowers you want to try this coming year. That’s how I make it through the winter.
Reflections on a Gardener’s Life
Posted on Tuesday, December 17, 2019 · Leave a Comment
During the holidays I try to take time from the humdrum of festivities to sit quietly and reflect on how happy and grateful I am for my life here in rural New England. Much of what I appreciate is linked to a life that allows me to spend time in my garden, raising some of the food I eat and growing flowers that bless me with their beauty.
The summer of 2020 will mark the fiftieth anniversary of buying a ramshackle old butter factory built in 1888, The Cornish Creamery. I still live in it today, though I have improved its condition considerably. I was just two years out of college when I bought it and had the energy and motivation to learn how to make most improvements myself.
When I bought the Creamery, it had little space for gardens. The building sat on just an acre of land, and most of that was dominated by trees, with just a little lawn surrounding the house. I cut down a few small trees to create my vegetable garden that first summer. If I recall correctly, I had just a couple of tomato plants, lettuce, perhaps some squash. I was busy fixing up the house and had little time to garden. The garden was too shady and not a big success.
Later I was able to buy an adjoining acre or more, a field behind the house that was dominated by brambles, alders and a small brook. I cleared the land by hand using a brush hook my father gave me. The tool, with a sharp curved blade on an ax handle, did well for clearing. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen one for sale in modern times.
After clearing the land and digging out many roots I used a second-hand rotary mower to discourage re-growth of golden rod and weeds. Eventually I hired a farmer to come with a plow to turn the soil for a huge vegetable garden. The land around it I mowed, and that eventually turned into lawn and flower gardens. It was in full sun with rich alluvial soil deposited by the brook. It produced fabulously, and I was hooked.
My grandfather, John Lenat (1885-1967) was an organic gardener. He subscribed to a little newsprint magazine called Organic Gardening and Farming, which was always on his kitchen table. He believed in using compost and feeding the soil with manure tea. Earthworms were plentiful in his soil and his tomatoes were perfect.
Although Grampy probably only had a grade school education in the old country, Germany, he spoke 5 languages and understood how to make plants grow. He knew he didn’t need chemicals to “fight” bugs or diseases. He handpicked beetles and encouraged birds to visit. He fed his family and shared food with his neighbors. Grampy rarely told me how to do things but I learned by watching him in his garden.
I am grateful that Grampy grew flowers, too. I learned to appreciate their beauty and to know that life is more than just producing food. In the 1980’s I started to get serious about flower gardening.
My boy Josh and I built an 80-foot stone retaining wall to create a terrace for fruit trees and flowers. The stone came from our own property, or from tumble-down stone walls that a neighbor let us pick through. It was back breaking work, but oh so satisfying. Thirty-plus years later the wall is still there, albeit somewhat decrepit. Still, it makes me happy when I reflect on that project.
In the late nineties I started gardening and designing gardens for others. At that time I was an electrician, and getting bored with it. But creating flower gardens and beautiful landscapes made me intensely happy. So I largely gardened in the summer and wired houses in the winter.
I am happy and grateful that I was able to start writing a gardening column over 21 years ago, and still have a group of newspapers and websites that use my weekly column. It also pushes me to keep trying new plants, new tools, and new approaches to gardening. I like sharing all that with you, my readers.
I started my professional life as an elementary school teacher after college. Now, more than 50 years later, I still enjoy teaching. Most of that is done right here in this column.
Gardening has been good to me. I believe it will help keep me healthy for another decade or two. And my thanks to all of you, too. Enjoy the holidays – and I hope you find time to count your blessings.
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