Holiday Gifts for the Gardener
Posted on Thursday, March 13, 2025 · Leave a Comment
Barbara Damrosch’s new book is a good read.
I am a bit embarrassed to admit this, but I believed in Santa Claus longer than anyone I have ever met. Fifth grade, maybe sixth. To this day, some 70 years later, I still believe in the mystery and joy of giving wonderful gifts that suit the receiver, things that will surprise and delight the recipient – just as Santa always did for me. Let’s look at some great gifts you might consider for your loved ones this holiday season.
Books are always wonderful gifts. My favorite new book is by Barbara Damrosch, author of the fabulous “Garden Primer”. It is called “A Life in the Garden: Tales and Tips for Growing Food in Every Season”. It imparts lots of information from a lifetime of gardening and farming in Maine, alongside her husband, author Eliot Coleman. Along with good information, it has delightful snippets about her life and views. I learned that I can plant rows of carrots just 2 or 3 inches apart – each carrot needs just 4 square inches. I’ve been wasting space! Reading it is like sitting down with a knowledgeable Auntie and listening to stories and tips. Unlike most gardening books, it made laugh outloud, too. Hardback $40.
Another favorite this year is “Plants for the Winter Garden. Perennials, Grasses, Shrubs, and Trees to Add Interest in the Cold and Snow” by Warren Leach. Since we have 5 months or more of cold, this book is very useful. Leach is a prize-winning garden designer, and his book is nicely illustrated with lots of photos and useful information. Hardback $40.
This is a reprint of Henry’s 2011 book.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that I have re-printed my book, “Organic Gardening (not just) in the Northeast: A Hands-On Month-by-Month Guide. It is a collection of my articles gleaned from 10 years of this column. Each of the 12 chapters has eight articles relevant to a month in the garden. Get a signed copy by sending $24 To Henry Homeyer, PO Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746.
It’s not just regular visits to the
garden that make a good
gardener: it’s also tools. Good tools make
gardening more efficient, less work and more fun. Every year I mention my favorite weeding tool: the CobraHead weeder (
www.CobraHead.com). It is a curved single-tine weeder that easily gets under weeds and allows you to tease out all the roots. Mine is a steel extension of my hand, and I use it for planting, weeding, and more.
This bedding fork is auseeful tool.
New to me this year is the 10-tine bedding fork. The one I use is made by Ames and comes with a sturdy wooden handle (which is better than fiberglass, I believe). Originally made for cleaning manure out of stalls, it is perfect for moving mulch, wood chips, straw and compost. It can also be used to smooth out the mulch after spreading it.
Watering cans are often a disappointment. I no longer will buy plastic ones – the material often breaks down in the sun after just a few years. But good galvanized metal watering cans can be expensive, and are not often sold at your local garden center or hardware store. Here’s what to look for: get one with a handle that runs from the front to the back of the can. This allows you to easily carry it and to water with one hand. Handles going from side to side require two hands. Size is important. I like big: 2.5 gallons. Smaller people may want smaller cans. Water weighs 8 lbs per gallon. Make sure the rose (nozzle) is removable for cleaning out leaves. Mine is antique, and you might find a good one in a second-hand store.
A metal watering can is better than plastic ones
Seeds are good stocking stuffers and offer friends new varieties to try. I started cardoon seeds indoor under lights this year, starting in early February. At maturity, the plants stood up to 3-feet tall with handsome gray-green leaves. Best of all, the ribs of the leaves, when cooked properly, taste just like their relative, artichoke – and provide much more food. Got a favorite winter squash? Give a packet of seeds. Kohlrabi is another lesser-known veggie with seeds you might give to a friend to try.
Heirloom, self-harvested tomato seeds you saved can also be shared if your recipient is willing to start seedlings indoors. Or give seeds from your favorite annual poppies or morning glories.
This bread bag is an alternative to plastic for home made bread.
My wife Cindy and I are committed to minimizing our use of plastic – both for the environment and for our health. Plastic is a petroleum product and has been found to exude micro-particles of plastic that we ingest. If you agree, think about buying glass containers for left overs and store purchases. I get all my deli meats wrapped in paper and transfer them to glass containers when I get home. I recently solved the problem of how to keep bread fresh from the bakery without using a plastic bag for storage: King Arthur Flour makes a cloth bags with an inner bag of waxed fabric. It really works!
Fend Off: Deer and Rabbit Repellent is another good gift. A package contains 25 small cylinders with a close pin attachments. They contain garlic oil and last all winter! These really work for me.
A gift certificate to your local, family-run gardening center is another great choice. It helps them make it through the winter, and it provides choice for your loved one.
Final Garden Chores to Do Before Winter
Posted on Thursday, March 13, 2025 · Leave a Comment
Winter is fast upon us. The shortest days of the year are ahead, but gardening is done for most of us. That being said, I still have flowers in bloom outside: my witch-hazel trees are showing gorgeous, twisty-petaled yellow flowers, even after a light snow and several hard frosts. And I still have a few blossoms on one of my ‘Knockout’ roses.
If you planted any trees or shrubs this year, make sure they go into the winter well-watered. We’ve had dry times this summer and fall, so a slow, deep watering is needed now. A woody plant’s roots are still growing now – even after leaf drop, and until the ground freezes around them.
I’m not sure why, but I saw very few Asian jumping worms this summer – perhaps the hot, dry weather inhibited their spread. I think I only have them on one portion of my property, but I am being careful about the possibility of spreading egg cases. I like to chop up my fall leaves and save them for use in the garden, but I don’t do that with leaves in the area where I’ve seen those dreaded worms. Instead I just use them for mulching beds already infected with the invasive worms.
Witch hazel is blooming now, in November
This is the time of year to think about protecting our woody plants from deer predation. I can’t afford to encircle our 2.5 acres of gardens with an 8-foot tall fence, the best way to protect plants. And Rowan, our 4-year old Golden/Irish Setter mix helps discourage deer but he lives indoors and sleeps by the fire all night – just when hungry deer are marauding. Winter is when they want to munch your rhododendrons and other yummy things.
There are several ways to discourage deer. I have found that garlic clips attached to branches about 3 feet off the ground are good. I buy some called “Fend Off Deer and Rabbit Odor Clips”. These are little green plastic cylinders that contain garlic oil. They repel deer for up to 5 months. Unlike sprays that wash off after a hard rain, these really do a great job. I’ve seen footprints of deer that approached tasty shrubs, sniffed and walked away.
If you have had deer eat the lower branches of you yews, a favorite evergreen for deer, you can also protect your plants by wrapping them with burlap. Yes, tedious, but it is 100% effective. I have done it for years for a client.
Hardware cloth to protect apple tree from voles 003
Voles, chubby rodents with short tails, are common everywhere and love to nibble on the bark of young trees, particularly fruit trees. You can protect your trees by placing a cylinder of quarter inch “hardware cloth” around them. It comes in 18-inch rolls, which you can cut with tin snips. Wear gloves, it’s razor sharp when cut. But don’t let your tree engulf the wire – which it can do in 3 years or so.
I know that March is traditionally the time for pruning fruit trees, but November is fine, too. And you shouldn’t have to wade through deep snow to do so. A quick reminder of how to do this: Start by removing any dead or damaged branches. Next evaluate the overall form of the tree: Is it a handsome plant? Can sunshine get to every branch? Is there clutter that should be removed? If so, get to those branches next. Evaluate the future of any branch in question: what will it be like in 5 years?
Branches on the outside of the tree that are headed back to the center of the tree should be removed. And of course, remove those pencil-thick upward racing water sprouts before they become big. Rubbing or crossing branches? “Off with their heads”, as the Red Queen would say in Alice in Wonderland.
It is not too late to plant spring bulbs. Selection in stores and on-line may be limited, but there is no such thing as a terrible tulip or disgusting daffodil. Daffodils are, generally, more successful than tulips as they are slightly toxic and not eaten by deer or rodents. But next spring you can surround or cover your tulip beds with chicken wire to keep deer from eating them. I generally plant 100 tulips inn my vegetable garden each year to use as cut flowers and as gifts or friends and the elderly. I treat them as annuals, pulling the bulbs to make room for tomatoes or lettuce in summer.
A simple plywood A frame will protect a shrub from snow and ice coming off the roof
If the previous owners of your house planted shrubs around the house, snow from roof may slide off and break branches, particularly if you now have a steel roof. You can save them by making little plywood A-frames. Do this by screwing legs made of strapping or hardwood stakes onto lightweight plywood. Drill holes at the tops of the legs allowing you to connect front and back with a piece of wire so you can spread the A-frame out as needed, and fold it up to put away in spring.
Be sure to drain your hoses and put them away before winter.
Thanksgiving is coming. I celebrate the harvest, as well as my good health, good friends and family, and living in a safe part of the world. I make a point of celebrating by serving vegetables that I have grown myself. This year I have, from my garden, potatoes, carrots, Brussels sprouts, Swiss chard, kale, Italian dandelion greens and garlic. And we’ll make extra applesauce to give to our guests.
So do a little more work in the garden now. It will help dispel the winter doldrums.
Henry lives and
gardens in Cornish Flat, NH. E-mail him at
henry.homeyer@comcast.net or write him at PO Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746.
Planting in October
Posted on Thursday, March 13, 2025 · Leave a Comment
For some of us, planting time is long past – but not for me. I am always busy in the fall, planting everything I can. It is almost time to plant garlic, which is my easiest crop of all. And I’ll soon be planting spring bulbs, both in the ground and in pots for forcing. Now is the time to purchase bulbs and seed garlic if you don’t have any garlic of your own to plant.
Cure garlic in a shady breezy location under covers.
Garlic is by far my least labor-intensive vegetable crop. I start by weeding out one of my wide, mounded beds and loosening the soil well. I use my CobraHead Weeder to loosen the soil and to make shallow furrows 8 to 12 inches apart. I sprinkle some granular organic fertilizer in the furrow, and run my hand tool through the soil again to work in the fertilizer.
Each garlic bulb has 4 to 8 cloves, which need to be separated for planting. Plant them 3- to 4-inches apart and about 3-inches deep. Cover and press down the soil over them, watering if the soil is dry. Lastly mulch with a thick layer of straw or mulch hay. I use 8 to 12 inches of loose straw which gets packed down to 4 inches by the winter snows. Garlic will grow up through the mulch, but most weeds will not.
To learn more about garlic, you might want to read “The Garlic Companion: Recipes, Crafts, Preservation Techniques and Simple Ways to Grow Your Own” by Kristin Graves. (Storey Publishing, 2024). A nice book, it taught me few things and has recipes I will try. Kristin is a Canadian farmer who grows 75,000 bulbs of garlic each year, so she knows her stuff!
Camassia is a lesser known bulb plant that blooms in May for me.
I also plant a lot of spring-blooming bulb flowers in pots for early blossoms indoors and as gifts to friends. I mix used planting mix from summer pots with good compost and plant daffodils and tulips in planters and my window box. You can pack the bulbs close together in pots – and they need only a couple of inches of soil mix above and below them. Store them in a cool, dark place – 35 to 50 degrees is best. But even a cold garage will work if they can establish roots early and then snooze a little if the soil freezes.
Daffodils take about 12 weeks of dormancy before they should be brought into the warmth of the house, but tulips do better with 16 weeks. Little things like crocus can be forced in 8 to 10 weeks. Be sure to label them with the date planted and variety. Water lightly once a month. My favorites are Tête-à-Tête daffodils – small early daffodils in bright yellow. I pack 4 bulbs into a 4-inch pot and share them in February and March when friends need a pick-me-up.
This is also the time to plant bulbs outdoors for spring. Most bulbs like a sunny location with well-drained soil, but you can also plant bulbs under deciduous trees if they get enough sun filtered through them, or before they leaf out. If you have a site with good sun but moist soil, there a few bulbs that will work. “Thalia” is a white blossomed, late-blooming daffodil that does well even in fairly wet soil.
Camassia is a bulb plant that prefers damp soil. It produces blue to purple flowers on tall stems – up to 3 feet tall with hundreds of small blossoms. A good sandy loam is best, but it will do fine in any sunny soil that stays moist during the bloom season. It is not of interest to deer, and will keep coming back for years if happy where you plant it.
Tulips used as annuals and protected with chicken wire to keep deer out.
Tulips, on the other hand are delicious to deer as flowers, and to rodents as bulbs. During World War II some Dutch bulb growers avoided starvation by eating their tulip bulbs, though I have never been that hungry! To foil the deer I plant 100 tulips in my vegetable garden most years and surround and cover the bed with chicken wire. I grow them as annuals, pulling the bulbs after they bloom.
Planting 100 bulbs of the same kind means they all bloom at about the same time. So I cut them and put flowers in quart jars and deliver to friends, neighbors, the elderly and the infirm. It is so much fun to do so! Try it.
Over the years I have planted hundreds, nay, thousands of daffodil bulbs. Most survive and thrive – nothing eats them. I have a patch of daffies from bulbs I dug up at my boyhood home in the early 1970’s – some 50 years ago. To keep them producing well it’s good to top-dress the soil with ‘”bulb booster” or a good slow-release organic fertilizer- either now, or in the spring.
To plant 25 daffodils I dig a hole about 6 inches deep, a couple of feet long and about 18-inches across. I loosen up the soil in the bottom with my CobraHead Weeder, a single-tine cultivator. I sprinkle a cup or so of organic fertilizer in the bottom, and work it in, working in a bucket of compost, too. Then I plant the bulbs, pointy end up. The directions may tell you to plant daffodils 6-inches apart, but I tend to plant them 3- or 4-inches apart and they do fine. I press them down into the loose soil.
Lastly, I refill the hole. If the soil is full of rocks, I remove them. If it is sandy or full of clay, I mix the soil I use to refill the hole with a 50-50 mix of good compost and soil.
So take a sunny afternoon and go plant bulbs – either outdoors, or in pots for forcing. It’ll be something to look forward to all winter.
Henry is writing just one article per month. You can reach him at henry.homeyer@comcast.net
Fall Gardening Chores
Posted on Thursday, March 13, 2025 · Leave a Comment
Despite some hot sunny days, fall is fast approaching and it’s time to start thinking about cleaning up the garden and putting it to bed. No, I not suggesting you cut back all your perennials or pull all your vegetable plants. But October, the time most gardeners put the garden to bed, may be cold and rainy. We even got 5 inches of wet snow one October. So get started!
Let’s look at the most neglected area: the vegetable garden. By October many gardeners are sick of weeding, so they pick their peppers, pull the carrots, and quit. I recommend cleaning up each bed as soon as all the food has been harvested. So far I have pulled my garlic and dug my potatoes. Each time I took half an hour or so to weed the bed, cover it with old newspapers (4 to 6 pages) and then covered that with 4 to 6 inches of straw. That way, next spring, weeds and grasses won’t take over beds while the soil is still too cold and wet for planting vegetables.
This potato bed is weed free and ready to cover with newspaperws and straw.
The leaves and stems of any vegetable that showed signs of blight should be treated with care: instead of putting the diseased plants in the regular compost pile, put them in a separate pile – one that will not be used to produce compost. Spores are the “seeds” of disease, and can survive most composting. Squash family plants often have fungal diseases, as do tomatoes and potatoes.
Your flower beds need weeding, too. If you don’t use an edging tool to create an impenetrable canyon around your flower beds, it is important to pull creeping grasses and vines like ‘Creeping Charlie’ that have probably been sneaking in all summer. Use a good weeding tool to go down deep when you weed. I like the CobraHead weeder best. (
www.cobrahead.com. It is a curved single-tine cultivator that can get below weeds so you can pull from below as you tug on the tops. It can tease out long roots of things like goutweed.
Once Jack Frost visits, you can cut back any annuals to the ground. If you pull them, you leave a bare spot for wind-borne weed seeds to settle in and wait for spring. And on slopes leaving loose soil exposed is likely to allow hard rains to wash away some of your good soil. You can pull the roots of those annuals when you plant more next summer.
This mature perennial bed is so densely planted weeds are shaded out.
I use three methods for minimizing weeding each year in my perennial beds. The best is to just fill every square foot of each bed with plants you love. Groundcovers like barren strawberry or foam flower will spread and fill in around the peonies and coneflowers – even if they are shaded by them. With time, most perennials create bigger clumps until weeds are shaded out and new airborne seeds don’t easily find a place to thrive.
The next alternative is to mulch those bare spots around existing plants with chopped autumn leaves. Chopped leaves break down more quickly than chopped branches or bark mulch. They provide organic matter to feed the soil organisms, enriching the soil. They also provide a soft landing and good places to hide for caterpillars that are ready to make their cocoons that become butterflies and moths. This fall think about running your lawnmower over the leaves on the lawn and either using a bagger, or raking them up. You can spread them this fall, or save in a pile to use in the spring.
Since I rarely have enough leaves, the third alternative for keeping down weeds is to buy finely ground bark mulch in bulk. For big gardens like ours it would be expensive to buy mulch in bags – but for around $50 a scoop of a front end loader, I can get a pickup truck load from my local sawmill or garden center.
I recommend buying a natural-colored bark mulch. The orange or black mulch has been dyed with chemicals, and I don’t want them in my garden. Hemlock and cedar are probably the longest-lasting bark mulches but hardwood mulch may be better for your plants and the soil. Never apply more than a couple of inches of bark mulch on your beds – otherwise moisture from short rains will not seep through to water your plants. And NEVER make “mulch volcanoes” around your trees – they will rot the bark and eventually kill the trees.
When your perennials look bedraggled it’s time to cut them back. But I leave flower stalks with seeds that birds can eat in winter. These include purple cone flower, black-eyed Susans, Joe Pye weed, sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ and anything else that would feed the birds.
This harvest knife is great for cutting back perennials.
You can cut back your perennials with your hand pruners, but I find it slow and tedious. I prefer to use a harvest sickle or even a serrated steak knife. These allow me to grab a handful of stems, and slice right through them all. You can use a string trimmer to work even faster, or even a lawn mower, I suppose.
By the way, if you haven’t cut the tops off your Brussel sprouts yet, do so today. This will keep the plants from getting taller, and they will instead make them produce big, fat “sprouts”. I did it much earlier than usual this year, and I am already getting nice big sprouts. Kale is very frost hardy, so I will leave mine alone, just harvesting what I need for smoothies or soups. It can last until Christmas in the garden.
So enjoy the warm and sunny days of September to get a jump start on your fall cleanup. And read a good book by the woodstove on those cold, gray, drizzly of October.
August in the Garden and Kitchen
Posted on Thursday, March 13, 2025 · Leave a Comment
It seems to me that summer has been zooming by. Of course, I did plant many vegetables two to three weeks earlier than usual and crossed my fingers that Demon Frost would not appear. It didn’t. We’ve had a very sunny summer, and my garden is thriving.
I planted 35 tomato plants this year. Why so many? I eat tomatoes 3 meals a day when they are available and like to have enough to share with friends and neighbors. But most importantly, I freeze them to use for the rest of the year. I eat stews with a tomato base all winter, and love having tomatoes that I know are organic and picked at their peak of perfection.
If you have a big vegetable garden, you probably should have a freezer. I have two. I cook with frozen vegetables from last year until this year’s crop comes ready.
A straw used to remove air from a bag of cherry tomatoes
You can freeze whole tomatoes in freezer-grade Ziplock bags. Make sure the tomatoes are clean and have no bad spots. Close the bag right up to a straw that you place in the corner of the bag and suck out the air. Quickly pull the straw out and finish closing the bag. Put several bags in a single layer on a cookie sheet and put in the freezer. Nine medium tomatoes will fill a quart bag.
When you need some for a soup or stew, just take a few out, rinse them under hot tap water and the skins will rub right off. Put them on a chopping board for a few minutes and you can dice them.
I grow 8-10 ‘Sun Gold’ Cherry tomato plants each year. They are a delight popped in the mouth right there in the sunshine, but I usually dehydrate most of them. I cut clean, ripe Sun Gold cherry tomatoes in half and place them cut-side up on the tray of a food dehydrator. I start the process at high heat – say 150 degrees – for 30 minutes, then drop the temp to 125 or 130 so that I don’t damage the vitamins in the tomatoes. You can take them out when brittle, or earlier when they are leather-like. They store well in a dark cupboard, in the fridge, or in a freezer.
I love kale fresh or frozen. It is great in winter stews, smoothies or Colcannon, an Irish kale and potato dish. I blanch kale and other brassicas by dropping the chopped leaves into boiling water for a minute, then removing them and dropping in cold water in the sink. I drain, spin dry in a salad spinner, and spread out the kale on a cotton tea towel and blot dry. This process is easy if you have a blanching pot with an inner pot that has drainage holes so you can pull all the leaves out quickly.
Most green vegetables need blanching to store well in the freezer. This includes Brussels sprouts, broccoli, beans and squash. The quick boiling kills the enzymes that cause aging, making for a better product. I don’t blanch tomatoes, peppers, fruit or leeks. But for best results it is good to eat frozen foods in year one, not year four or five.
Let potatoes dry out for a few days before storing
The easiest way to keep food for eating all winter is to store it in a cool location. I have a cold basement and a cool area in the entry area of my house. Potatoes, carrots, kohlrabi, rutabagas store well in the basement with high humidity and temperatures in the 33 to 50 degree range. Cabbages store well there, too, but a fridge is better for long term storage.
Other veggies need low humidity and cool temperatures. Those include onions, shallots, garlic and winter squash. I keep them on a wooden rack I got from Gardeners Supply, their “orchard rack”. I have that in the main part of the house where I have a woodstove – hence low humidity. But I keep them near the mudroom, which is unheated. You can also keep squash under the bed upstairs in a spare bedroom with the heat off and the door closed.
When picking vegetables or fruit for later use, it’s important to pick when ripe – which is not always easy. Apples are easy. Pick one, slice it open and look at the seeds. If white or green, not ready. If the seeds are black or brown, they are ready to pick. They dry well for snacks all year.
Blanching pots come in various sizes
Winter squash and pumpkins are trickier. You should use pruners to leave some stem when you pick, and that should be dry and a bit brittle. The outer skin thickens and toughens up more, the longer they stay on the vine. I recently ate a butternut squash that I’d stored on a shelf since last fall, and it was delicious.
Green beans get tough if you don’t pick them when ready. If you start to see the individual seeds as prominent lumps, they are probably over the hill. Cook some up and you may still find them edible, even if not perfect. Some varieties, such as ‘Kwintus’, are tasty even when big.
Garlic? When the leaves start to dry up at the base of the plant, you can pull them. I’ve been told to cure them in a cool, dry place before cutting off the stems. They are said to absorb some nutrients from the stalks into the bulbs.
The bigger your garden, the more you can store for winter. But you can also support your local farm stand and buy some produce in bulk for storage. I recommend it.
Creating a Better Environment For Us And Our Animal Friends
Posted on Thursday, March 13, 2025 · Leave a Comment
Fall leaves are used here under an oak leafed hydrangea and other native plants.
There is much gloom and doom spread in the news and on social media. Many people believe that our ecosystem is irreparable – climate change is bringing death and destruction to many of the animals that we share the earth with. But some gardeners believe that although the climate is changing, they can still plant many species of plants that will sustain our birds, butterflies, bees, moths and all the little animals that we share our space with. I am one of those optimistic ones.
If you want to help save our ecosystem, here are some suggestions:
Start by reducing the size of your lawn. Yes, keep space for badminton and a grill, if you like. But think of lawn as an area rug, not wall-to-wall carpeting. Most Americans inherited a large lawn when they bought their house. I’ve read that American lawns cover an area as large as New England. We can all do with less. Perhaps you can develop a five-year plan to reduce the lawn and add trees, shrubs and perennials.
This is not a quick fix, nor an inexpensive one. But you need not plant large trees. In fact, small trees are less shocked at transplant time, and take off and grow like crazy while bigger trees often stall and sulk.
Choose your trees wisely: plant trees and shrubs that are native to New England, not Japan or China. Why? Native trees co-evolved with our pollinators. Bees, butterflies and moths look for plants that they instinctively recognize. Plants that will benefit them. We all know that Monarchs rely on milkweed, but most pollinators have similar habits – they eat what their ancestors ate.
Common milkweed flowers are used by many insect, not just Monarch butterflies. The plants also spread by root.
According to PhD entomologist Doug Tallamy, author of Nature’s Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation That Starts in Your Yard, oaks are the best trees to plant to support pollinators and birds. They are followed by other keystone trees: willows, birches, poplar and elm. Most maples, ash and beech are good, too.
You may wonder why native trees are so important. Dr. Tallamy explains in his book that all baby birds are fed caterpillars- even young hummingbirds. Using a game camera, he determined that a nest of chickadees needs between 6,000 and 9,000 caterpillars between hatching and fledging. Amazing! We don’t often see those caterpillars or the feeding they do on our trees, but they are there if we have native plants.
Birds need food, water, safe places for nesting and places to stay out of the wind in winter. A well thought-out garden can address all those needs. Yes, it is nice to offer seeds in feeders in winter, but birds need insects or seeds to eat all year. Native trees and shrubs can help significantly, particularly if all your neighbors plant well, too.
Plant trees in clumps – three, five or seven in a small grove. This way their roots will mingle, and if a storm with ferocious rain and high winds comes along, they will be much less likely to get blown over.
Instead of surrounding your new trees with lawn, think about planting native perennials, wildflowers or ground covers under them. When a caterpillar is ready to pupate and transform itself into a moth or butterfly, it will drop off the tree it has been feeding on. On a lawn compacted by heavy riding mowers, it will probably not survive. They need leaves to hide under, or soft earth they can burrow into. Autumn leaves make a great mulch, either chopped or whole.
Norway maple ‘Crimson King’ is pretty, but invasive. Seedlings are not ususally purple-leafed.
As part of your planting efforts, remove all invasives. All New England states have laws naming the invasives to your state. These include, but are not limited to burning bush, barberry, Norway maple, oriental bittersweet, autumn olive, buckthorn, privet, honeysuckle and multiflora rose. Go on-line and educate yourself as to what these plants look like. Some can be dug out, but older specimens can be difficult to remove.
Apparently 82% of Americans live in cities or large towns. But city dwellers can make a difference, too. In Tallamy’s book he writes about a woman in Chicago with just a tenth of an acre of yard – right next to O’Hare airport. Over time she planted 60 species of native plants in her yard – and over time she identified 103 species of birds that visited her yard. Having water available, especially if it bubbles, is good. It also attracts migrating birds. Native plants provide food for migrating birds, too – insects and seeds that they need for their long flight.
Instead of just lawn, build rooms using native trees and shrubs where you and your family can relax – and observe nature. No, you will not see cougars in your garden, but seeing monarchs and bluebirds can give great joy. Build natural areas using 90% natives and start learning the names of the creatures that come.
Teach your grandchildren to watch nature with you, start them young to be love the outdoors – and gardening. My grandfather started me gardening when I was just a little tyke, and now, some 75 years later, I get great joy from my garden every day of the year.
Henry lives and
gardens in Cornish, NH. Send questions to him at PO Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746 or by e-mail at
henry.homeyer@comcast.net.
Growing Roses and More
Posted on Thursday, March 13, 2025 · Leave a Comment
June is, traditionally, the month for weddings. It is also the time when old fashioned roses bloom, along with peonies, iris and many other great garden flowers. Is that coincidence? Perhaps. But maybe the two are linked. Let’s look at some great June flowers you can grow, and how to succeed with them.
My mom was an organic gardener who loved her roses. And although she is no longer with us to deny it, I think she may have cheated when it came to her roses. Back in the fifties and sixties roses were much fussier than they are now. They suffered from all kinds of fungal diseases and were eaten by ferocious Japanese beetles that made mincemeat of leaves and blooms. I think she used chemicals to kill the beetles and subdue the fungi.
Now we no longer have to resort to chemicals to have nice roses. Breeders have worked hard to develop roses that stay healthy and avoid predation from hungry beetles. The beetles were easy: they bred roses without scent to attract them. I don’t know how they developed roses resistant to diseases, but they have. I never see rose diseases, and I never spray.
Knock out roses are reliable bloomers
My favorite roses are part of the “Knockout” series of roses, though I know others who really like the “Easy Elegance” series. They do not grow blossoms on long stems, but have multiple blossoms per stem. My “Knockouts” start blooming in June, bloom all summer, and up until hard frost – or even later.
Roses love full sun, but will grow in part shade. But the more sun they get, the better they do. Six hours of sunshine is considered full sun by most authorities. Afternoon sun is more potent than morning sun, so the west side of the house is better than the east.
Roses need good, rich soil. If you have sandy soil or a heavy clay, you will need to improve it in order to succeed. What does that mean? Mix in lots of compost when you plant, and add some organic fertilizer. Dig a hole that is at least 3 times as wide as the pot it was in when you purchased it. Mix the soil for the hole 50-50 with good compost- either your own, or a good bagged compost. I like Moo Doo or Coast of Maine brands.
Roses need more water than most other things, but do not want to sit in soggy soil. They should get an inch of water per week from rain, or a good dousing from your watering can applied slowly so it can soak in. A deep watering once a week is better than a little sprinkle every day.
Soil pH I important, too. The pH is a measure of the acidity or alkalinity of your soil. You can buy an inexpensive kit to test it, or send a sample out to be tested for pH and soil quality at your state Extension Service. Roses do best in slightly acidic soil – in the range of 6.0 to 6.8. If you soil has a lower number, you should add limestone and mix it in. But don’t add too much. A test should tell you how much to add.
Many roses are grafted onto rootstock. The bud union – a scar – should be buried in the soil. The scar is obvious on bare root roses, but is probably buried if you buy a rose in a pot. The colder the climate, the deeper that graft line or bud union should be. For Zone 4, it should be about 4 inches below the final soil line. Zone 5? 3 inches. Zone 6? 2 inches.
Peony ‘Festiva maxima’ that my grandmother grew
Want more blossoms? Roses do better if they get some fertilizer a few times during the course of the summer. An organic, slow-release bagged fertilizer called Rose Tone is designed just for roses, but I use Pro-Gro, my go-to organic fertilizer and sometimes use liquid fish and seaweed fertilizers made by Neptune’s Harvest. I add half a cup of Pro-Gro to the hole when I plant.
Other June flowers suitable for a wedding are peonies and iris. Peonies live forever if planted right – deep rich soil amended with plenty of organic matter. I have one from my grandmother, and she died in 1953. If you planted one that never blooms, you have probably planted it too deep. The “nibs” or growing points under the soil surface for next year’s growth should be no deeper than three quarters of an inch. You can feel them by poking around in the soil with your fingers. Pull away some soil if they are too deep, and it should bloom next year.
Siberian iris are tall and elegant
Siberian iris only bloom for a few days, but are magnificent. They come in a variety of blues and purples. Old patches tend to develop a dead spot in the middle because the plants have used up all the soil nutrients. Divide in the fall and re-plant, or add some organic fertilizer now.
There are too many gorgeous flowers to mention them all. But if you are planning a wedding, be advised that flowers do not bloom on an absolute calendar. Your favorite peony may bloom on June 15 this year – and June 21 or June 3 next year. You best bet is to have a good florist as a backup.
Henry is enjoying more time in his
garden, now that he only writes a column once a month. Feel free to send questions to him at
henry.homeyer@comcaset.net or PO Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03736. Please include a SASE if you wish an answer by regular mail.
Getting the Garden Ready
Posted on Thursday, March 13, 2025 · Leave a Comment
As the saying goes, “Spring has sprung.” In my garden, daffodils are blooming and tulips are on the way. My peas are planted. But how do you know when to plant your veggies and tender annual flowers? It’s not just about the last frost of the spring, you need to think about which plants can survive and thrive in cold, wet soil and which would rather wait to get planted until late May – or even mid-June.
In the vegetable garden, tomatoes, peppers and eggplants are the prima donnas. I generally wait until June 10 at 9 AM to plant them. Or something like that. I shape up my wide, raised beds well before I plant, allowing the soil to dry out and get warmed up. I rake off the straw or leaves I used to protect the soil from erosion over the winter. I like to work in aged compost well before planting time.
This potato rake is great for preparing soil for planting
Peas and spinach are very cold hardy and can survive frosts. Root crop like carrots, beets, onions and potatoes prefer warm soil for growing, but will tolerate cool soils and won’t get killed by a late frost even if their leaves are up. But in my opinion, almost any plant would prefer to grow in soil that is at least 50 degrees.
Whether you start your tomato seedlings indoors or buy plants from a garden center, you should “harden them off.” They need to be introduced to sun and wind in small doses at first so they don’t get sunburned or dehydrated after being pampered for weeks in a greenhouse or on a kitchen windowsill. This process will take 5 days or so, but if you don’t do it, you will either kill your baby peppers or stunt their growth for 2 weeks or more while they recover.
Start by putting your plants outside in a place protected from the wind that only gets morning sun. Give them two hours of morning sun the first day, then bring them back inside or well out of the sun’ rays. Increase the time outside each day and by day 3 give them some afternoon sun, too. On day 5 they should be okay outside all day, and after that you can plant them.
What about fertilizer? I generally don’t give annual flowers like cosmos or zinnias any at all. Soluble nitrogen found in chemical fertilizers will make them grow tall, but delay flowering. Of the vegetables, only peppers need no fertilizer, but in my opinion no vegetables should get chemicals of any kind – including fertilizer and pesticides.
This kale was started indoors on Feb. 22 and needs to be hardened off before going in the ground in early May
Newly planted seedlings and seeds need to be kept in lightly moist soil, A seedling that cracks open its husk to send up a shoot may not make it to the soil surface if the soil is too dry. So check your garden every day. And if your tomato starts look limp or drooping, water immediately – even if it means going to work late. Just email me, I’ll send an excuse to your boss to keep you out of trouble.
There are many ways to keep your plants lightly moist – either in the vegetable or flower garden. One way is to set up a drip irrigation system. I’ve had good luck installing soaker hoses – rubber hoses that leak slowly though pores. I’ve bought the “Snip and Drip” system from Gardeners Supply.
The basic kit comes with the hose and T-junctions and fittings to install it. Then, if you buy a watering timer the system will come on a schedule you determine. I’ve used many types of timers during my time as a garden designer and installer. My advice? Get the simplest one you can get.
I no longer recommend rototillers
What about rototillers? Should you rent or buy one, or not? I used one for years until someone more knowledgeable than me explained why he didn’t: rototillers seriously disturb the microbes in the soil. They break up useful fungal networks that support your plants. They make a bed clean and neat, but in fact, have only sliced up the weeds and buried them. One invasive root becomes multiple roots and can move them further from their initial location. I have a friend who rototilled a small patch of horseradish and turned the bed into a large bed full of horseradish he could never eliminate.
So how do I prepare my soil? I use a 5-tined old fashioned potato rake that loosens the soil as I pull it through the soil. Or you can use an ordinary garden fork to loosen the soil if it is a heavy clay, and then finish it off at planting time with a good hand tool like a CobraHead weeder. You can use a hoe to pull soil from the walkways up to form mounded beds. And as you improve your soil with compost each year it will get easier to prepare nice, fluffy beds rich in organic matter.
Gardening is fun. It is rewarding, too: tomatoes and lettuce taste better when eaten the day they were picked. The exercise will make you healthy, too. Just don’t work so hard you get blisters and sunburn. Ease yourself into gardening – just like you harden off your plants.
Henry is an organic
gardener who has been fussing around in
gardens for about 75 years. He is the author of 4
gardening books. His email is
henry.homeyer@comcast.net.
Ten Tips for Planning a Successful Garden
Posted on Thursday, March 13, 2025 · Leave a Comment
Despite late snow storms that dumped deep snow over much of New England, spring is right around the corner. Let’s take a look at some keys to a successful year in the vegetable garden.
- Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Yes, I grow about 40 tomato plants each year, but most folks don’t want to can or to put up many pounds in the freezer. A well-tended small garden is better than a huge weedy one. Select plants that you love, and just plant a few. Don’t crowd them. You don’t have to start everything from seed – most garden centers have plants for sale in six-packs, and a good selection of varieties.
- Don’t use any chemicals in the garden. Mother Nature doesn’t, and you shouldn’t either. A chemical fertilizer is largely made
Raised beds are easier to weed and harvest
of salts of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. Too much of these salts can kill the microorganisms that work with the roots of your plants to feed them. A bag of 10-10-10 is 70% filler, and the content of this portion is not specified – it’s a “trade secret”.
- Compost if your best friend in the garden. Unlike chemical fertilizers, it provides most or all of the micronutrients needed by plants, things like magnesium, calcium and sulfur. And it contains living organisms, the bacteria and fungi that work with your plant roots to provide nutrients to your plants. Mycorrhizal fungi coat the roots of plants. They produce acids that dissolve minerals and share them with your plants. The plants pay the fungi with excess sugars they produce on sunny days.
- Build up mounds of soil and compost to create raised beds, or build wood-sided ones. You can hoe soil from the walkways into your raised beds, and maybe buy a pick-up truck load of compost to mix in and enrich your soil. Most landscapers will deliver compost. Raised beds provide nice loose soil and discourage kids and dogs from walking through them. And in a rainy summer like the last one, raised beds drain well,
Enrich your soil with organic fertilizers like Pro-Gro and Plant Tone. They are made from things like ground peanut hulls, soybean meal, seaweed and oyster shells, with a few natural-occurring minerals. They are broken down in the soil and released slowly – just a small amount is water-soluble. They are a big help in poor soils, but don’t overdo these either.- Make a habit of walking through your garden every day. Look for problems: are your newly transplanted tomatoes looking limp? If so, they probably need water. Are there potato beetles? The Colorado potato bug can be a real problem. But if you watch for orange egg masses under the leaves and scrape them off, and pick larvae and beetles every day, you can control the problem in a home garden. One adult lays many eggs that can produce new adults in 30 days or so.
- Don’t let weeds blossom and produce seeds. Ever. Make 10 minutes of weeding every day a part of your daily ritual, just like you brush your teeth every day. Use a good weeding tool – I really like the CobraHead Weeder because it easily gets under weeds, and can be used to tease out long roots. Some weeds spread by root, so getting out entire roots is important. A scrap of root from many grasses will survive and produce new plants.
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Watering wands get lots of water where you want it
Water judiciously. Those flip-flop overhead watering devices may be good for a newly planted lawn, but waste a lot of water in your vegetable garden. Water with watering can, or attach a watering wand to your hose. A good watering want allows you to water around your plants, but not your walkways or empty places. Too busy to water, or off to the beach? Use a water timer and soaker hoses. They can do the job for you.
- Why weed your walkways and around your tomatoes many times in a season if you can prevent it? I put down 4 to 6 layers of newspaper, then a layer of straw or mulch hay to keep it in place and help hold in moisture. Most weeds won’t grow though the newspaper, and earthworms will eat it up by the end of the season. Inks in newspapers now are soy-based, but I avoid the colored sections.
- Don’t get discouraged, no matter what. Last summer we had lots of rain and not so much sunshine, and many vegetables did not perform well for me – or anybody. Your garden will do better in times of drought or persistent rain if the soil is rich in organic matter and biologically active. Regularly re-plant some things you know how to grow, perhaps lettuce, and rejoice in fresh salads. And remember, there is never a good reason to spray chemicals on your plants – after all, if it kills the Japanese beetles, it can’t be good for you. Good luck!
Henry eats something from his
garden every day of the year by storing and freezing things from his not-so-small
garden. Send him questions or comments by e-mail at
henry.homeyer@comast.net, by mail at PO Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746. Please include SASE if you wish a response by mail. He will be writing just one
article a month henceforth.
Pruning Fruit Trees: Now is a Good Time
Posted on Thursday, March 13, 2025 · Leave a Comment
March, April and May are good months to prune your fruit trees. Traditionally farmers pruned their fruit trees in March. I think they did so because they had less other work they could do at this time of year – it was too early to plant, weed or harvest. You can prune fruit trees any time of year without harming the trees, but since the snow is gone now, pruning on a sunny afternoon will give you a good excuse to be outside. Let’s take a look at how to do it.
Tools for pruning
First, you need good sharp tools: hand pruners, a pair of loppers, and a pruning saw. A pole pruner is also helpful, and you may want to use a 4- or 5-foot stepladder. Don’t buy cheap tools: they will not do a good job for long. Buy the best you can afford, and take good care of them. Pruners and loppers can be sharpened with a simple and inexpensive diamond-studded sharpener, but most pruning saws are not suitable for sharpening.
Pruning fruit trees is not complicated. Your goal is to thin out branches that clutter up the tree and shade out other branches. Every leaf should get direct direct sun at some point during the day. My pruning mentor told me that a robin should be able to fly through a mature apple tree without getting hurt.
The biggest culprits, and the most commonly ignored, are the water sprouts that pop up vertically from bigger branches. They are, by far, the most numerous new branches each year; they shoot straight up and new ones are just the thickness of a pencil. But ignored for a few years, they gain mass and produce lots of leaves. Get rid of them.
Water sprouts are partly a tree’s response to a need for more food for the roots. Trees that haven’t been pruned in years have many of these. After a heavy pruning, a tree may produce lots of water sprouts to replace food-producing branches that have been removed.
I’d remove the two smaller branches here
It is important to know where to make your cuts. Each branch has a “collar” at its base, a swollen area where it attaches to the trunk or a bigger branch. This is where the tree heals best and it should not be removed. Cut just past the collar. But if you cut too far out the branch being removed, you will be leaving a stub that can take years to rot away. Once the stub has rotted and fallen off, it can properly heal – but in the meantime it is a place where infections can occur.
I like to begin work on a tree by walking around it a few times and really looking at it: are there dead branches? Are there big vertical branches that once were water sprouts? Do some branches head into the center of the tree? All of those culprits need to be removed.
I generally take out the dead branches first. I look for dry, flaking bark. Try bending the branch. A dead branch will crack and break instead of bending. For small branches you can scrape the bark with your thumbnail. If it shows green, it is alive; if not, it’s dead.
Then I look at the overall branching of the tree. It is quicker and easier to remove larger branches first, rather than making 50 small cuts on that same branch.
You should not remove more than 25% of the leaves on a tree in any given year. Leaves are the engine of the tree: they make the sugars that feed the roots and the beneficial microorganisms in the soil. They provide the energy that allows the tree to make flowers, fruit and seeds. I once pruned a mature apple with just three cuts. I removed three large problem branches, and each would have had hundreds of leaves, come spring. I had reached my 25% limit. The next year I was able to remove lots of smaller branches.
This apple tree is not cluttered with extra branches
Pruning every year, or at least checking each tree each year, is a good plan. It is much easier to remove a small branch than one that is 5-inches thick. If you do need to remove a big branch, take steps to prevent it from falling prematurely and tearing the bark of the trunk. Do this by first making an under-cut a couple of feet from the trunk, but just go part way through the branch. Then, just past that cut, cut from the top all the way through. Most of the weight of the branch will fall to the ground, allowing you to make a cut through the branch just past the branch collar without risk of tearing the bark.
Other branches that need to be removed? Any branch that heads back through the middle of the tree. If two branches form a tight “V”, remove one of them. Otherwise they will grow together and “include” bark that will rot, and can rot the wood. If two branches parallel each other, one shades the other, so remove the least desirable branch.
Learn to identify “fruit spurs” on fruit trees. These are 2- to 6-inch spurs (branches) with buds on their tips. Each bud should produce several flowers and eventually fruit. Vertical branches have few fruit spurs, branches at a 45-degree angle to the trunk should produce many, at least when the tree is old enough to bear fruit. Newly planted trees might wait 5 years before producing fruit, so be patient!
Pruning is good for trees. Don’t think of it like surgery that removes an arm or a leg. Think of pruning as creating art: a beautifully pruned tree is work of art, pleasing to the eye all year, especially in winter. Some fruit trees, like pears, will require lots of work every year if you want them to produce fruit low enough to reach from the ground. But all fruit trees will benefit from least a little trim every year. Learn to enjoy this work, and the benefits it offers.
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