Growing with Kids
Posted on Wednesday, June 12, 2013 · Leave a Comment
By all rights, I never should have turned out to be a gardener. I tell parents that if they want their children to be gardeners when they grow up, that they should never make them pull weeds. My parents made me pull weeds. We had a vegetable garden and we all worked in it. Gardening was considered a duty, not a learning experience. They had lived through the Depression of the 1930’s and had a deep fear that the economy would collapse once again. Growing vegetables was a hedge against hunger. My grandfather saved the day by making gardening fun when I visited him.
If you want to encourage children to love gardening, I’d like to suggest that you give each child a piece of earth that is theirs to use as they see fit – to grow carrots or flowers, or even to use with toy trucks. The right size plot is probably, for smaller children, as big as they are – their height by their arm span. For little ones, that’s three or four feet square. It could be a wood-sided bed, or just a corner of the garden marked off by string.
Seed potatoes with sprouts
Help your kids pick things to grow that are easy and tasty. I think most kids will eat cherry tomatoes right off the bush. Sun Gold is the name of my favorite – it’s delicious and highly productive. Buy a seedling and help your child plant it. These tomato plants get big and tall and will need some support. I recommend using a tomato cage made of heavy wire. Pick the biggest cage you can – 54 inches tall and with 4 legs, not 3. Later, you may have to add a tall wooden stake to help keep the plant from tipping over anyway, cage and all.
There really is magic in starting plants from seeds. Kids are fascinated by the idea of planting a seemingly inert speck and getting fresh tomatoes or carrots some months later. But they need guidance, and a certain amount of help. Carrots seeds, for example, are tiny and hard for small fingers to plant one by one. The solution? Buy pelleted seeds if you can find them. These are seeds that are coated with a layer of clay, turning a tiny seed into something almost the size of a BB. I had pelleted seeds for my grandkids to use this year, and it made a frustrating job fun. I ordered pelleted carrot seeds from Johnny’s Selected Seeds (877-564-6697 or www.johnnyseeds.com).
Radishes, beets and beans are bigger seeds and easy to handle, but not necessarily tops on the list of favorite veggies for kids. I love green beans now, but as a kid I only ate them under duress. Corn is easy to plant, but requires more space than you might want to dedicate to it, and is a magnet for corn worms which can be off-putting.
If you are working with kids, you surely do not want to use any chemicals in their little gardens. Not chemical fertilizer, not weed killer, not bug killer. Their systems are much more sensitive to chemicals than ours. Chemical fertilizers are not poisonous, but can be harsh on young fingers and the dust should never be inhaled.
In my experience, nothing is better to plant with kids than potatoes. They are easy to handle at planting time, and the excitement when harvesting is remarkable. And I’ve never met a kid that didn’t like eating freshly cooked mashed potatoes that they grew.
If you’ve never grown potatoes before, they’re easy. Start potatoes from sprouted potatoes that are sold as seed potatoes at your local feed-n-grain store or garden center. Don’t try growing potatoes from grocery store spuds because many of those have been treated with chemicals to keep them from sprouting. You can plant whole small potatoes, or cut larger ones into 2 or 3 pieces, so long as each has two “eyes” that are starting to sprout.
For best results, each piece of potato needs to be placed in loose, rich soil that has been amended with some compost.. The roots of your plants will grow down, and the new potatoes will be formed above the seed potato. Loosen the soil well and place your seed potatoes 3 or 4 inches beneath the soil surface and a foot apart in the row. Cover with a thin layer of soil – an inch is fine. Then, after the spuds have sent up leaves, you can fill in the hold or the trench you have planted in. That’s called “hilling” the potatoes.
Potatoes are remarkably productive. Each piece you plant will produce from one to five pounds of potatoes. And they come in a variety of colors – which kids find fascinating: get some purple ones or red-skinned ones to plant if you can. The variety called Kennebec is an all white potato that is, in my experience, the most productive of all. Yukon Gold is another good producer, as is Red Pontiac, one of my favorites for flavor.
Maybe I became a gardener because, like my parents, I feared that calamity would strike and I’d need to depend on my garden for food. It is true that I eat something that came from my garden nearly every day of the year – garlic, for example, or veggies from my freezer. And I don’t mind weeding – I even enjoy it in moderation. So try to get your kids gardening. It’s not too late to start, and I think you’ll all have fun.
Henry Homeyer is a grampy and former school teacher. His children’s book, Wobar and the Quest for the Magic Calumet, is a fantasy-adventure for all elementary school kids. His web site for that book is www.henryhomeyer.com.
Shade Annuals
Posted on Wednesday, June 5, 2013 · Leave a Comment
Last fall a reader alerted me to the fungal disease that has devastated that wonderful shade annual, impatiens, throughout much of New England. The disease, called impatiens downy mildew, will be a problem again for most gardeners this year. Any garden that had the disease last year will have it again this year – even our coldest winters will not cleanse the soil of it. I wish I had known about it sooner, as prompt removal of affected plants may stop the spread of the disease. So if you did not have the disease last year, watch your plants carefully this year and bag and dispose of any diseased plants promptly.
Impatiens downy mildew symptoms are these: yellowing of leaves, then a limp appearance, as if it needs to be watered. Next comes a downy white fungal growth on the undersides of leaves. Then leaves and flowers drop, leaving just a stem with a few leaves on top – as if slugs had eaten the leaves. I have read that if you don’t plant impatiens in a site that has had the disease for a year or two, the soil may become free of disease. But I wouldn’t count on it.
There are two related plants that will thrive in shade or part shade and that are not susceptible to the mildew: New Guinea impatiens and SunPatiens, which is a trademarked hybrid. SunPatiens is advertised as good for part sun to sun – but not deep shade. But it is being marketed as a replacement of impatiens. I wonder if it will be able to bloom as vigorously as our old favorite in full shade. Both are generally sold in individual pots for around $5, quite an upgrade from a six-pack for $3.50 or so that I was accustomed to paying for impatiens in past years.
Torenia
Another plant that is being touted as a replacement for impatiens is Torenia. I spoke to two landscapers who have used Torenia in past years and say that it is nice enough, but it will not satisfy impatiens-lovers. I’ve heard that it does not have as many blossoms per plant, generally, and is often available in just a few colors – shades of blue and purple, and in white. However, I have found it for sale in multi-packs in a few places and did find one nursery with 4-packs that listed rose, magenta, lemon drops and white as colors available.
I have used bedding lobelia as a nice shade annual, though in my experience it wants a little sun or filtered sun. I love the intense blue that it often displays, though it is available in other colors, too. I started seeds indoors back on April 17, a mix called ‘Cascade of Color’ that promised blue, blue with a white eye, lilac, red, ruby and white.
Right now my lobelia seedlings are only 2 inches tall but I assume they will take right off when I separate them and get them in the ground. The only problem with a mix like that is that one cannot determine what color any given seedling will be – unless you wait for them to bloom in the pot. And, when I read the seed packet (from Botanical Interests) just now, I see that this variety is advertised for full sun. I have plenty, so I’ll try some in shade, too.
European Wild Ginger
So what else can we do to provide color in shade? Try some perennials. Granted, most only bloom for 1 to 3 weeks, but if you select plants with good foliage they can be a joy all summer. I love European wild ginger (Asarum europaeum) for its very glossy dark green leaves. It forms a nice expanding clump, even in dry shade with competition from tree roots. The blossoms are hidden beneath the foliage, but it doesn’t matter to me. This is a great shade plant. I plant them in clumps of three about 18 inches from center to center.
Then there is bigroot geranium (Geranium macrorhizum). Not to be confused with your mom’s red geraniums (which are technically not geraniums at all), this is a nice spreading plant that thrives in full shade and blooms with pink, magenta or white flowers in late May or early June. The leaves look good all summer, each plant a spreading mound 12 to 18 inches tall and 15 inches wide. I use it as a groundcover. I have read that it will do well in sun, too, and that it tolerates a wide range of soil and pH conditions. If it wanders too far? It pulls easily, and you can give the roots to someone who doesn’t have it.
I have never tried either the geranium or the ginger in a pot, but will this year and grow them on my north-facing, shady deck. I’ll give them a 50-50 mix of standard potting soil and compost, and I bet they look just fine.
It seems that every year there is a new bug or a new disease that threatens some plant in our garden. I guess we will have to keep on adapting and changing – just like the pests do. Good luck!
Henry Homeyer is the author of 4 gardening books and a children’s fantasy-adventure called Wobar and the Quest for the Magic Calumet. You may reach him at PO Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746 or henry.homeyer@comcast.net.\
Growing Some Lesser Known Vegetables
Posted on Wednesday, May 29, 2013 · Leave a Comment
This year as you plan your garden, why not choose some lesser known veggies to see how they do for you? You might just be surprised how easy it is to grow kohlrabi or rutabagas – and how tasty they are. I grow those, and several other kinds of vegetables that you might not have tried. Most are not terribly hard to grow. You could be the first on your block to grow artichokes!
Let’s start with sweet potatoes. Most New England gardeners don’t generally grow this vegetable, thinking that it’s a southern crop. It is, but you can grow it. The trick is to grow it under black plastic, which increases the heat. It needs good rich soil, liberally amended with compost or aged cow manure. Start plants from little plants called slips, available from catalogs such as Johnny’s Selected Seeds (www.johnnyseeds.com).
Adequate moisture is key for growing sweet potatoes. Even if you leave an opening in the plastic for the plant, rain water probably won’t soak the soil enough. Run a section of soaker hose under the plastic and give it some water any time the soil seems dry. Soaker hoses are available at garden centers and are basically special hoses that ooze water very slowly, soaking the soil.
Rutabagas, like Rodney Dangerfield, don’t get the respect they deserve. They are easy to grow, rarely bothered by pests or diseases, and can substitute for potatoes in the kitchen. They look a bit like turnips (which do have a strong flavor) but rutabagas are mild. I find they are great in stews- they don’t get mushy the way potatoes do when you re-heat the stew several times.
Plant rutabagas by seed in mid-June about 2 inches apart and thin to 6 inches apart for maximum production. Rutabagas can get big –a pound each or more, but do not get tough or less tasty even when they get big. They grow best in soil that is near neutral on the pH scale and is rich in compost.
Celeriac with carrots & Brussels sprouts
As far as I am concerned, growing celery is best left to the professionals. When I’ve tried growing it, the slugs loved it and the stalks were dry and stringy. But you can have that same celery flavor in your soups, stuffing and stews by growing celeriac, also known as celery root. I start celeriac by seed in the house in late March or early April, but some better garden centers will offer plants already started. Celeriac loves moisture, so add compost to the soil to hold water, and water during dry times. Plant about 6 inches apart.
Salsify and scorzonera are long, thin root crops with a somewhat nutty flavor. They need deep, loose soil as they can grow 8-12 inches long. But each is only an inch or less in diameter, so they don’t produce much food per plant (compared to carrots or rutabagas, for example). Plant directly in the garden, and wait. They are slow growing, so plant early and harvest late in the fall. Great in turkey stuffing.
Artichokes are beautiful plants that look good in a flower garden, too. In California they are perennials, producing year after year in deep black soil rich with moisture. I have started them from seed, but one must start them early in March for best results. But some garden centers sell them in small pots, so most years I buy them.
Allow a 2-foot by 2-foot space or more for each artichoke plant. You will get one artichoke (which is really a flower bud) at the top of the plant, then side shoots with smaller artichokes after that, up to 5 more. None will be as big as the grocery store version. Be sure to pick them before they turn dry and open up.
My favorite of the odd ducks of the vegetable world is kohlrabi, which looks a little like a space alien: a round fat “root crop” that sits in the soil surface and has stems popping out of it like arms –and then leaves, of course. The vegetable is almost perfectly round and is actually a thickened stem. It comes in purple and green varieties. Eaten fresh in salads it tastes something like a cucumber crossed with a radish. But they are good in stir fries or stews, too.
Plant kohlrabi seeds directly in the garden about 3 inches apart and thin to 6 inches. It is in the cabbage family (Brassica) and grows fast, ready for harvest in as little as 8 weeks. Last year I grew a variety called “Kossak’ that is an 80-day variety, but it gets to be huge (8” or more) and stores well – Johnny’s Selected Seeds, the developer of the seed – says it will store for 4 months! It needs plenty of moisture, and like most veggies, plenty of compost in the soil.
Of the salad/cooking greens, think of trying orach. Seeds are hard to find – Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds is the only place I’ve found that has them (www.rareseeds.com). This is a gorgeous purple-leafed plant that gets to be three feet tall, and is in the goosefoot family which includes many varieties of weeds – but also spinach, beets and quinoa. If you let a few plants flower and go to seed, you will always have some volunteer plants in the garden, year after year. It has no special growing needs; it’s almost a weed, after all.
Gardening is supposed to be fun. For me that means trying more than the usual veggies. So this year, get adventurous. Try kohlrabi, rutabagas or even an artichoke! You’ll be glad you did.
Henry Homeyer’s Web site is www.Gardening-Guy.com. You may reach him at henry.homeyer@comcast.net.
Selecting and Training Flowering Trees
Posted on Thursday, May 23, 2013 · Leave a Comment
This has been a great year for flowering trees and shrubs. My Merrill magnolia had many hundreds of white blossoms in late April.
The crabapples everywhere put on a spectacular display this year. My fothergilla (a shrub with great fall leaf color) is in bloom now with its tidy white bottle-brush flowers. My ‘Olga Mezitt’ rhododendron (one of the parents of the popular PJM rhodie) is looking great and my wild azaleas are getting ready to bloom. And now the lilacs are blooming for me and I am overwhelmed with the large purple, blue, white and pink panicles (clusters of flowers). Spring has definitely sprung.
Fothergilla
All these blooms this year will certainly encourage many gardeners to buy trees and shrubs and plant them. That’s a fine idea, but if you plant now, please remember that you must keep watering them all summer if we don’t get an inch or more of rain per week. When August comes around it will be easy to have your new tree dehydrate if you get lazy or forgetful.
New trees and shrubs need a year or more to grow roots sufficient for their needs if we get hot, dry weather. So if you are forgetful or will be doing lots of traveling, you might want to hold off on planting a new tree until fall, which is also a good time for planting. Fall is cooler and more likely to be rainy.
I like to buy flowering trees and shrubs when they’re in bloom. That allows me to see the color and check out the fragrance. But there is more than just the flowers to consider when selecting a good crabapple or magnolia. Let’s start with size and price. Bigger
Nicely pruned apple tree
is not necessarily better. If you are on life support and don’t expect to be around in 5 years, sure, buy the biggest tree you can afford. But be aware that a bigger tree is not only more expensive – it is also harder to plant and takes more water and care. A bigger tree may have a smaller proportion of its root system intact after being dug up and put in a pot than a small tree. I like to buy smaller specimens and then train them to be a nice shape. That’s harder to do on a larger tree.
I recently visited a nice new nursery run by Henderson’s Tree Service on Rte 14 in Hartford, Vermont. There I chatted with my friend Sylvia Provost who is co-owner of the business. I asked Sylvia what she would look for if purchasing a crabapple for herself. Without a moment’s hesitation she responded. “Structure,” she said.
What Sylvia was talking about is the shape of the tree and the placement of the branches. Fruit trees produce best on branches that leave the trunk at a right angle or are aiming just slightly upward. Branches that shoot straight up are not usually good fruit and blossom producers.
Changing the angle of a branch
And although Sylvia noted that you can train a tree to be the shape you want, it is easier to start with something that is closer to your ideal before you start training. So, for example, Sylvia said that if you have a swimming pool some distance from your patio, you should choose a tree that has an open format, one that you can see through – and see what is happening at the pool. Conversely, if you have nosy neighbors and want to screen their view of your patio, you might select a tree that has a full, dense arrangement of branches.
Generally, pruning a tree should begin in the second year of its life at your home. I often see apple and crabapple trees that have very low branches. I like to prune off those low branches to make it easy to mow around, and to have a nicer look. And if two branches are both striving to be the “leader” or the dominant, tallest stem, I remove one. And although most books say you should prune fruit trees in March or April, you can safely make a few judicious cuts now to train your tree.
You may train branches to grow at different angles by weighing them down – if you do so soon. This is an activity for spring, starting before the new layer of cambium growth has occurred. You can drive a stake into the ground and tie a branch to it for the next 2 months. A branch the diameter of a finger can weighed down by hanging a plastic pop bottle on it, then filling it with water until it bends to the correct angle.
Chris Wilson of the EC Brown Nursery in Thetford, Vermont suggested that when buying a tree, look at leaf color – leaves should be green, not tinged with yellow. He also suggested making sure the tree has branches on all sides, and that the bark has not been damaged.
So if you’ve delighted in the flowers on trees in your neighborhood this year, go get one or more. Study several specimens to find the best one. And just remember to water all summer long!
Henry Homeyer is a gardener and garden designer living in Cornish flat, NH. His Web site is www.Gardening-Guy.com.
Filed under Article · Tagged with EC Brown Nursery, flower crabapple tree, fothergilla, gardening guy, growing fruit trees, Henderson's Fine Gardening, Henry Homeyer, how to prune a tree, how to purchase fruit trees, hydrangeas, merrill magnolia, Olga Mezitt rhododendron, pruning trees, training tree branches
Spring Flowers
Posted on Wednesday, May 15, 2013 · Leave a Comment
Like most gardeners, I rejoice in spring. New leaves on trees have a special hue; the grass is finally green; flowers of every persuasion are in bloom. The air is warm, the black flies haven’t arrived, life is good. So we trundle off to the garden center and buy flowers and plant them. Here are some flowers I am enjoying in May, including a few you might not have in your garden.
I know most of you don’t like Latin names of flowers, but they are useful for precisely naming flowers, and for showing relationships. The scientific genus Dicentra is in its full glory now: D. spectabalis, D. exemia, D. cucularia are three species in bloom for me.
Bleeding Heart
The first one (D. spectabalis ) is spectacular, as its Latin name indicates. I have some plants that stand up to 3 feet tall and wide, and it can have dozens of flower stems at once. You probably call it bleeding heart – though some call it “a living Valentine”, which is appropriate since the strands of pink flowers are shaped like cut-out hearts with little appendages hanging down, perhaps drops of blood from a broken heart. It also comes in a pure white variety, a sub-species with the epithet ‘alba’ appended to its name.
Bleeding hearts will grow in full sun, but do better in part sun or dappled shade and rich, lightly moist soil. Full afternoon sun will make them run through the bloom cycle more quickly and the foliage to turn yellow well before autumn.
Fringed bleeding heart (D. exemia) is shorter and less showy. It is a shade plant that will bloom on and off all summer, which is unusual for a perennial. The flowers come in shades of pink to reddish, and there is also a white variety. Although it is often called wild bleeding heart, I have only seen it in the woods a few times. Its foliage is very nice – it is highly incised and frilly.
The last of the three, D. cucularia, is commonly known as Dutchman’s breeches for the white flowers which resemble pants hanging on a clothesline. It is a true wildflower, but is sold at a few good nurseries. It is what is called a spring ephemeral: it comes up, blooms, and the foliage disappears after a few weeks. I pronounce its species name cuckoo-laria, which to me is a humorous name for a flower. “Cuckoo, cuckoo” I call out to it when I see it blooming. (See, aren’t you liking Latin better? It can be fun to use.) Mine grows in the shade of an old apple tree in damp, rich black soil.
Primula Kosoana
If you have a mature apple tree, it is a great place for growing primroses. In mid-May I have several species growing under mine, including a fabulous magenta-colored one that has no common name, so you will have to ask for it by its Latin name, Primula kisoana. Or you can call it the kissing primrose, I suppose, since the species name starts off with “kiss”. (Kiss-o-ana). But at the garden center they will not know it by that name, only the Latin. I got mine at Cider Hill Gardens in Windsor, VT.
Primroses are low plants that grow in clumps that I have in all colors except blue. Most do best in shade or part shade, and many will grow in dry shade – though moist soil is better for most. Coming along soon I will have the candelabra primroses (Primula japonica), which indicates they were introduced from Japan). These are the tallest of my primroses, reaching up to 18 inches or so. They have three tiers of blossoms sticking out off a tall straight stem sort of like the spokes of a wagon wheel, and come in at least 3 colors – white, pink, deep red.
Pulmonaria Longifolia
For the past 6 weeks or more I’ve had various colors of lungwort (Pulmonaria longifolia) blooming. Lungwort is a dreadful name for a lovely flower, so I call it by its Latin genus, Pulmonaria (pronounced Pull-mon-aria) . It starts very early and blooms for a long time; it comes in a variety of colors: blue, peach, pink and combinations of those. It spreads by root, filling in dark, shady places that many flowers would eschew. It does fine in crummy dry soil.
You know the common bulb plants: daffodils, tulips, crocus. If you’ve planned well – selecting early, mid- and late-season varieties – you have examples of those blooming much of the spring. But do you have summer (or giant) snowflake (Leucojum aestivum)? It is wonderful! I’ve had a clump for 15 years or more, and it just gets bigger and better every year. It reminds me of snowdrops on steroids. White nodding blossoms on tall green stems and lots of foliage. Mine are 18-24 inches tall, even though my reference text on bulbs (Taylor’s Guide to Bulbs) says it should be only 9-12 inches tall.
One last thought: take pictures of your flowers on a weekly basis. These will help you do planning next winter when you are trying to see what times of the year need more color. Your digital camera will keep track of the dates of blooming, too.
Henry Homeyer is a garden designer and public speaker on gardening. Contact him at henry.homeyer@comcast.net, PO Box 364 , Cornish Flat, NH 03746 or 603-543-1307.
Getting Started in the Vegetable Garden
Posted on Wednesday, May 8, 2013 · Leave a Comment
After a few hot spring days many of us are more than ready to plant vegetables in the garden. It’s important, however, not to jump the gun. There are things you can plant now, but others still have to wait – tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, cukes and squashes, among others. My garden will surely see frost again, and the ground is not as warm as many plants need to do their best.
I have planted my peas, and I would say it’s safe for anyone in New England, even the cold spots, to plant them now. That said, let me warn that pea seeds can rot if planted in cold, wet soil. I have a relatively wet vegetable garden because it is near a stream and the water table is high. To fix that problem I grow my veggies in wide raised beds.
Most of my beds are just mounds of soil that are six inches taller than the walkways and about 30-36 inches wide. When making the beds I loosened the soil, then raked soil from walkways into the beds, which raised them up. I also add wheelbarrows of compost each year and work it into the top few inches of my raised beds – making them even taller. Now they drain well, which is important in spring or during long periods of rainy weather.
Onion Sets Ready to Plant
I have planted my onions, too. Some years I plant onions by seed indoors in early March. Other years I buy onion plants. These are always bigger and fatter plants than the onions I start from seed. Maybe they start growing them in January – but I don’t want to have to baby plants along for such a long time.
Most gardeners buy onion sets, which look like little bulbs, though I rarely do so now. These are tiny onions that are already a year old – they’ve been grown so close together that they never developed any size and are used to start new plants. They certainly do work, and are much less expensive than buying onion plants. But I feel they are less vigorous than the plants.
What else have I planted outdoors by seed? Spinach, lettuce, carrots, kohlrabi and beets. Spinach is the hardiest of those – frost is not generally a problem, even for young plants. The others are somewhat frost hardy but can benefit by some protection if the weather is forecast to drop into the mid- to low-twenties. Row cover or Reemay is a spun synthetic fabric that works well to provide a little frost protection.
Row Cover on Wire Hoops
There are different thicknesses of row cover available, including one called the GardenQuilt Cover, which claims frost protection to 24 degrees F. When I use that, I keep it on only at night – light passes through it, but it reduces the strength of the light considerably. Others, the thinner ones, only provide a degree or two of protection, but can stay on all the time, keeping insects like flea beetles from getting to your plants.
Young plants are much less frost hardy than older plants. Kale, for example, will survive very cold temperatures when mature, but can be damaged when young by moderate frost. I have harvested kale in December when covered by snow. I start my kale plants indoors in April and then plant them outside in mid-to late- May.
Any plant that has been started indoors needs to be hardened off before going into the ground. This is also true for plants purchased from garden centers. You should ask when you buy seedlings of annual flowers and vegetables if they have been hardened off. If they are on display on tables in the sun, they probably will be fine. But things grown indoors or in greenhouses have tender leaves that can literally get sunburned or wind burned.
I harden off my seedlings over a 5 to 7 day period. I start by carrying flats of seedlings outdoors and giving them morning sun in a place where the house blocks the wind. Then the go to a spot where they get a couple of hours of afternoon sun for a couple of days. Finally they get all day sun and are ready after a day to go in the ground.
Watering is key for small plants. They don’t have a big root system yet, so they can dry out quickly. I check seedlings growing in pots or 6-packs at least twice a day (when outdoors, or once if indoors) to see if they need watering. Bigger seedlings, those that have been growing for several weeks, get a little dilute fish or seaweed fertilizer as they have used up the nutrition found in potting mix (which is relatively void of minerals).
Once in the ground seedlings still need daily watering. I like to use a watering can as it is gentler than a hose. I water seeds that have not germinated daily (or check to see if they need any), too.
Spring is the time when the garden makes its most urgent demands. Fortunately, most of us are eager to spend time outside now, too. Enjoy!
In addition to being an avid home gardener, Henry Homeyer is a gardening consultant and a specialist in fruit tree pruning. Contact him at henry.homeyer@comcast.net. His Web site is www.Gardening-Guy.com.
Spring Lawn Care
Posted on Wednesday, May 1, 2013 · Leave a Comment
It’s time for a little lawn care. I’m not obsessive about my lawn, but I like a nice green swath between the flower beds that is suitable for badminton, croquet or general lounging. It need not be Kentucky bluegrass, and certainly should have some dandelions, those cheerful harbingers of warm days and blue skies. For me, if it’s green and I can mow it, it’s a lawn.
Winter damaged lawn
Right now my lawn is not all green. Not by a long stretch. My household includes 3 dogs, and they have killed a fair amount of grass right outside the front door. And then there are the moles out back that have been excavating their own Big Dig much of the winter.
Dead spots and thin spots need to be seeded, and the ground is warm enough now to do that. I use a “conservation mix” because it is full of good tough varieties that can take a beating more than one that is largely Kentucky bluegrass. And diversity is good for minimizing disease problems.
For large dead spots I take a short-tined garden rake and rake the dead grass out, roots and all. Then I spread half an inch of good compost over the area and scratch it into the top inch or so with a rake. I broadcast a fairly dense sprinkle of seed (by hand), then use a lawn rake to mix the seed into the top quarter inch. I do this by flipping over the rake and dragging the long tines over the soil – upside down. That lightly buries the seed, though there is always still seed visible. Grass seed doesn’t need much soil cover, if any. Lastly, I spread a little mulch hay or straw over the top – just enough to shade the soil and keep it from drying out.
After raking out dead graass
In some areas the grass is growing but is sparse, or contains some dead grass. There I briskly rake the lawn using a bamboo or metal awn rake to remove the dead grass as much as possible. Next I spread some compost with a shovel and even it out with my rake. Then I “overseed” the lawn with seed, just sprinkling it by hand (though I suppose you could do it with a seed spreader). I don’t spread straw on the overseeded places, as there is enough existing grass to provide shade. Generally the soil stays damp at this time of year, too.
You may have noticed that I did not mention adding fertilizer to the lawn. My soil is pretty good because I don’t collect my grass clippings when I cut the lawn, and I do not add any herbicides or insecticides to kill weeds or bugs. Chemicals of any sort, even chemical fertilizer, inhibit the growth of beneficial bacteria and fungi in the soil. My “lazy” way of dealing with the lawn helps me to have biologically active soil, one rich with microorganisms that break down grass clippings, enriching the soil. Earthworms are a big help, too, aerating the soil and fertilizing the soil with their castings.
Light layer of hay over re-planted lawn
If you feel you must add fertilizer to the soil, choose an organic one. Instead of chemical salts that can harm beneficial microorganisms, an organic fertilizer has naturally occurring ingredients like ground oyster shells and peanut hulls, chicken manure and seaweed. Chemical fertilizers can dissolve and disappear in a week of rain, but the ingredients of organic fertilizers won’t.
Want to minimize crab grass? Corn gluten contains a protein that reduces germination of weed and crabgrass seeds in the lawn. It is usually sold at feed-and-grain stores or garden centers in 50-pound bags. You can’t apply it when you seed your lawn, as it would affect good grass seeds, too. But it’s not a miracle. It will reduce germination, but it doesn’t kill weeds or their seeds.
I’m told that corn gluten works best when applied 3 years in a row. And one last benefit: it also acts as an organic fertilizer that contains about 10% nitrogen by weight, breaking down and releasing the goodness slowly. This is the time of year to spread corn gluten – though I must admit, I never have.
About those moles: they seem to do most of their excavation in the fall and winter, leaving piles of nice soil on the lawn. I just rake that soil onto a wide shovel, collect it in my wheelbarrow, and then add it to raise beds elsewhere, or to fill in depressions.
Moles can be repelled with castor-oil based solutions. I used to make my own, but all castor oil at the pharmacy seems to be the new, better, more modern “good tasting” kind. But garden centers still sell mole repellents made with castor oil, and though I haven’t tried them, they should work just fine.
And what about moss? I ignore it. It generally grows in shady areas that are acidic. If you don’t like it, rake it out and plant seed designated for shady areas. But first add some limestone and compost to sweeten the soil and improve the soil. On-line I read about a moss killer that promises “one application will kill moss for a year”. That makes me shudder when I think about my dogs walking on that soil, were I to apply it – which I will not!
So go out and enjoy the sun. And remember that setting the blades of your lawnmower to 3 inches will help your grass have more energy and will help to shade out crabgrass and weeds.
Henry’s Web site is www.Gardening-guy.com. See past columns there or search for answers to gardening questions.
Getting Ready for Summer: Lilacs and Grapes and Blackberries, Oh My!
Posted on Wednesday, April 24, 2013 · Leave a Comment
I love spring. It brings warm weather and plenty of excuses to stop working on the computer and get outside. Here are some of my chores for this week and next: 1) Prune the grape vines while still dormant. 2) Clear out last summer’s fruiting canes from the blackberry patch. 3) Give some limestone to the lilacs. 4) Fertilize the bulb flowers.
Grapes bloom and produce fruit on new shoots. That means that you can prune them now, and not lose any grapes later on. In fact, if you do not prune them now, you will get less fruit- and a jumble of vines. Pruning stimulates new growth – and better yields.
Old grape cane showing shaggy bark (center)
Many people avoid pruning their grapes because the task seems daunting. Here is the key: this year’s fruit grows on new shoots, or canes, that grow on last year’s canes, not older wood. Last year’s canes are smooth and tan, while older wood is darker and has shaggy bark.
Each of last year’s canes needs to be shortened up so that there are just a few buds that will produce new canes this year. Buds are obvious if you look carefully: small protuberances on last year’s growth. Some grapes have buds close together near the base of last year’s canes. Others have them well spaced out, say a foot apart. In either case, you only need a few buds to produce this year’s fruiting canes. So in the first instance, you prune back hard, leaving just a short spur with a few buds. In the second, you need to leave last year’s cane longer in order to have an adequate number of buds (and hence, new fruiting canes).
First year grape cane with bud
My friend Lewis Hill (1924-2008) wrote a nice book about pruning : Pruning Simplified. In it he warned that if you have an overgrown grape vine that has not been pruned in many years, you should spread out the work over a few years. The goal is to “get the vine back to a single trunk with four strong, well-spaced branches.”
Last year I worked hard at reducing the size of my blackberry patch and creating a pathway down the middle of the patch. It’s time now to do so again because blackberries are very vigorous and spread by root. A single row of plants can easily become 10 feet wide and virtually impenetrable unless worked on every year.
Blackberries produce fruit on canes that grew last year. Last year’s fruiting canes are dead, and need to be removed. Look carefully and it will become obvious what’s what. Last year’s canes are light brown and lifeless. This year’s fruiting canes are darker colored and covered with buds at this time of year. Your job is to cut off the dead ones at the base and remove them.
I use a pole pruner (an ARS brand) to cut off the canes, and then by gently squeezing the grips on the pruner, I use it to pull out the cut cane. This keeps me out of the blackberry patch – and without cuts or scrapes from the sharp thorns.
I use my lawnmower to control the spread of my blackberries. New shoots pop up in all directions, and each will grow into a new plant if allowed to grow. I have a row of blueberries 5 feet or more from the blackberries, and shoots regularly pop up amongst them. I put on heavy leather gloves and try to pull them up, roots and all. I put down a thick layer of wood chips on my walkway up the middle of my patch.
Conventional wisdom has it that March is the time to give lilacs some wood ashes or limestone to keep the surrounding soil near neutral. I disagree. You can do that any time of the year. March is just when of the past farmers cleaned out their wood furnaces and had the time to spread ashes. But now is a good time to do so if you haven’t already done so.
Lilacs do not flower well in highly acidic soil. Because we get acid rain, our soil tends to get more acidic each year unless we add something to counteract that acidity. I should note that I don’t add limestone or wood ashes to my vegetable garden because it is very high in organic matter, and is very biologically active. The microorganisms help keep the soil near neutral.
I sprinkle wood ashes around a mature lilac at the rate of 1-2 quarts per plant using a one-quart yogurt container or coffee can. I don’t bother stirring the ashes into the soil as the first rain will wash it in. Correcting the soil pH will not affect this year’s blooming, but will help next year. This year’s buds are already there and ready to bloom.
My last job this week is to sprinkle some organic slow-release fertilizer around my bulbs plants like daffodils. This will slowly enrich the soil and provide needed minerals to the bulbs so they will remain vigorous in years to come. I like to do it now because I can see where the bulbs are growing – in the fall the foliage will be long gone.
So get outside and get to work. We gardeners don’t get any time off now – or for that matter, until next winter. It’s what keeps us young!
Henry Homeyer may be reached at henry.homeyer@comcast.net. His Web site is www.Gardening-guy.com. Henry lives and gardens in Cornish Flat, NH.
Hastening Spring
Posted on Wednesday, April 17, 2013 · Leave a Comment
I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of cold, raw, rainy days. And I really don’t want any more snow or slush. We’ve had some good warm and sunny days, but I know I shouldn’t expect them consistently yet. There are things I do to make me feel like spring and summer are on the way, even when it’s sleeting outside.
Forsythia
A couple of weeks ago I picked some stems of forsythia, that old fashioned shrub that displays mounds of bright yellow flowers long before most other shrubs bloom. By now these seemingly lifeless branches are loaded with flowers in full bloom on a sunny windowsill in my house.
The key to forcing forsythia is to pick twigs that grew last year – young, vigorous stems – that are loaded with pointy buds about a quarter of an inch long. These are the flowers buds. Cut stems 18-24 inches long and put in a vase on a sunny windowsill. It took less than a week for mine to bloom.
I pick flowers now, too. Right now I only have two things in bloom outdoors: snowdrops and glory of the snow. Snow drops are demure, understated white flowers that only grow 4-8 inches tall, and tend to stay on the shorter end of that range. I have a thousand or more in bloom now because I started transplanting them from my parents’ gardens back in the 1980’s and they have naturalized and spread by seed. They have spread out into my lawn, blossoming in clumps of a dozen or so.
Glory of the snow (Chionodaxa spp.) is another great early spring bloomer. I have the classic blue/purple ones as well as some less common pink ones. These diminutive beauties look up, showing their open throats, which are white and contrast nicely with their blue petals. Many gardeners ignore the small bulb plants, focusing on daffodils and tulips which are more dramatic when they bloom. But I like early blossoms, and have planted plenty of these small wonders, too. The time to plant is in the fall, September and October.
Snow Drops & Glory of the Snow
Now is the time to order spring bulbs – I know where the holes are in my planting space, and I know what I need to order. So I called Becky Heath, co-owner of Brent and Becky’s Bulbs in Gloucester, VA to order up more spring bulbs to plant next fall (www.brentandbeckysbulbs.com or 804-693-3966). I asked for the very earliest of crocus, as I mostly have late-blooming ones. Becky suggested ‘Blue Pearl’ and “Blue Bird’ (both varieties of Crocus crysanthus) as good early bloomers, and a species called Crocus tommassinianus.
I gave Becky my credit card info and asked her to fill up a $50 order with anything nice that is early. Later that day she emailed the details of the order which included some winter aconite (Eranthis spp.), a nice low yellow flower, and 2 species of Scilla, great deep purple flowers. I have both, but not enough. They will ship bulbs in September, but for now I will just mark the spaces where they should go with tags. Brent and Becky’s is one of the few remaining family-owned bulbs companies, and I like to support any family-run business that I can.
Pussy willows are starting to appear along my stream, and I will go pick some this week. The gray furry “pussies” are actually the flowers of a type of willow. If you pick them when still closed up, put them in water to get them to open. If they look fine when you pick them, just place them in a dry vase. They will not change in appearance if you keep them dry. In water they will go through their life cycle, producing yellow pollen and dropping it on your table.
If you planted tulips last fall, the foliage should be showing by now. Deer love tulips, and some of my gardening friends have given up on them because of the deer. My suggestion? Put chicken wire teepees around clumps of tulips now, and keep them in place until after they have blossomed. And pick the blossoms when they are just about to open up. Most of us spend more time in the house than in the garden, so having cut flowers indoors makes sense to me.
When I shopped for groceries recently a got a nice slump of daffodils in bud, 10 stems for $3.99. I have daffies coming along outside, but I want some now. But store daffodils can be iffy. Sometimes they don’t open up, or appear dehydrated and wrinkly. You are always sure to get good flowers from a florist, or from a store with a good floral department. In my experience, big grocery stores don’t always have great ones. It is always important to cut off ¾ of an inch of stem and put in water as soon as you get home.
Parsnips
Lastly, I know summer is coming when I eat my first fresh garden vegetables. This year that was on April 11, when I dug some parsnips. Parsnips look like big white carrots, and are delicious after a winter in the ground, getting sweeter. I boil them, then serve with new maple syrup, raisins and walnuts. Spring is on the way!
Henry’s website is www.Gardening-guy.com. You can reach him at henry.homeyer@comcast.net or P.O. Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746.
Growing Windowsill Greens
Posted on Saturday, April 13, 2013 · Leave a Comment
I grow a lot of my own food and strive to be as self-sufficient at possible. So I store, freeze, can and dehydrate lots of garden produce each summer and fall. I hate buying produce at a store if I can grow it myself, but so far I’ve never been able to produce winter greens or tomatoes. Not until recently, however, when I read Peter Burke’s wonderful new book, Indoor Gardening: Seed to Salad in Seven Days .And although I still can’t produce my own tomatoes indoors, I’ve grown edible greens on the windowsill. It’s easy.
Harvesting Sprouts
Here’s the basic plan: you can grow sprouts of peas, broccoli, radish, buckwheat, sunflower or just about anything edible without lights or special equipment. You need a source of organic seeds, some soil-less potting soil, a little compost and some kelp meal, and some shallow containers (without holes in the bottom). I used “disposable” aluminum bread pans, the kind you would use to make a loaf of zucchini bread to give away, 4” wide and 8” long. Oh yes, and a windowsill, but it need not even be terribly bright.
I followed Peter Burke’s directions and soaked seeds overnight before using. A 4-by-8 inch container needs 2 tablespoons of large seeds like beans or sunflowers, or 2 teaspoons of small seeds like broccoli or radish. If you use the 3-by-6 inch size baking tin, you need only half that amount.
Meanwhile, I measured out a gallon of soilless potting mix into a plastic zipper bag and added 3 ½ cups of water. You need to do this ahead of time as the peat moss in the soilless mix is usually very dry, and it takes time to absorb the water. Peter recommends using a juice pitcher for measuring and pouring the mix. He starts sprouts every day, so he makes up lots of bags of mix at once.
The seeds are going to be placed on the surface of the “soil”, not planted in it. Their roots will go straight to the bottom of the container, so that is where the book says to place your “fertilizer” – 2 tablespoons of compost and 1 teaspoon of dried kelp (he pre-moistens it, though I didn’t). Add the moistened seed starting mix on top of that, leaving half an inch or so of space near the lip of the container.
After soaking the seeds for 6-24 hours, drain them by pouring them into a kitchen sieve, and rinse. Then spoon the seeds over the soil surface and use the back of the spoon to move them around, distributing them evenly. These seeds then need 4days or more to germinate and start growing. They should be in the dark for that phase. Peter Burke explains that folding a piece of newspaper so it is 6 layers thick and then soaking it will make a good cover to help keep out light and keep seeds lightly moist.
You need a warm, dark place to keep the containers during the next phase. I stored mine in a cool cupboard that was only 55 degrees, and they did not germinate in the 4 days that Peter suggested was to be expected. So I added some heat by putting an electric heat mat (the kind I use for starting seeds in flats) in the cupboard. That way I quickly got the temperature up to 65 degrees or more and they germinated in a couple of days. I left them in the dark for another day or two, as recommended, and the sprouts pushed the newspaper cover up and got 2 inches tall.
Then comes the fun part. I removed the newspaper and put the baking pans on the windowsill. The sprouts greened up almost immediately and started a growth spurt. Each day I marveled at this bright green food source growing on my windowsill, and gave a daily watering to keep the soil mix from drying out. Within 4 days they were 4 inches tall and ready for harvesting. Peter Burke explains in his book that you should harvest when sprouts are 4-7 inches tall and before they develop a second set of leaves, which can be bitter.
I gather that Peter Burke eats salads made entirely of sprouts, all kinds of sprouts. I mixed mine with some early spring lettuce mix from the store, and added cucumber and other standard salad ingredients. I like the flavor of the sprouts, and like watching them grow.
To learn more or to see plenty of very good color photos of the process, go to Peter Burke’s web site, www.thedailygardener.com and order his book. It’s available from him for $35 at P.O. Box 13, Calais, VT 05648.
As a grandfather and a former school teacher, I am always thinking of ways to get kids interested in growing things. Growing windowsill greens would seem to be a perfect Science Fair project, or a way to kids to like growing – and eating – healthy vegetables. And for the rest of us? Growing good food made quick and easy.
Henry Homeyer is the author of 4 gardening books, and a new children’s novel called Wobar and the Quest for the Magic Calumet. Learn more at www.henryhomeyer.com.
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If you’ve never grown potatoes before, they’re easy. Start potatoes from sprouted potatoes that are sold as seed potatoes at your local feed-n-grain store or garden center. Don’t try growing potatoes from grocery store spuds because many of those have been treated with chemicals to keep them from sprouting. You can plant whole small potatoes, or cut larger ones into 2 or 3 pieces, so long as each has two “eyes” that are starting to sprout.
