Holiday Gifts for the Gardener
Posted on Wednesday, November 28, 2012 · Leave a Comment
When I was a boy we made lots of our own Christmas gifts. I remember making a wooden whale for my dad that held pencils – it had little holes just the diameter of pencils I drilled into it. I must have been 8 or 9 when I made it, and I have no idea how I was able to do it without his help. Maybe it was a Cub Scout project. Not elegant, but there was lots of love in it.
As gardeners, we can make presents, too – if we have extra produce that we have put up. Dried tomatoes, pickles, even a frozen bag of blueberries or elderberries would be much appreciated, I’m sure – though putting frozen berries under the tree might not work well. And then there are heirloom seeds. I grow certain tomatoes and peppers that are not commercially available. I save seeds each year, and share with friends. These are all good presents that cost nothing.
Although seed catalogs used to come in the mail in mid-winter, now most seeds are available on-line before Christmas. A few packages of seeds are nice low-budget gift. I get many of my seeds from Johnny’s Select Seeds in Maine (www.johnnyseeds.com), High Mowing Seeds of Vermont (www.highmowingseeds.com) or Hudson Valley Seed Library (www.seedlibrary.org), which is a non-profit with nice heirloom seeds.
From Johnny’s this year I got two kinds of tomato seeds that are fairly resistant to late blight. First there was the Defiant F-1which produced well early on, but then died off when other fungal diseases took over. Then there was Mountain Magic, a small salad-type tomato that was very disease resistant and productive for me. All of the High Mowing seeds are organic, which I like.
Also in the cheap (or shall we say the ‘frugal’) category is a gift certificate for an hour or two of weeding. That’s a gift anyone would really appreciate. And feel free to send me one! Weeding is a pleasant enough task, but is always more fun if done with a friend.
Holiday Gifts
Before going on to more conventional gardening presents, let me point out that most things I will mention are available locally at your garden center, feed-and-grain or hardware store. I firmly believe that it is better to buy locally than on line, as that keeps our family-owned businesses healthy. And they are the ones that support our teams, schools and charities.
Gardening gloves are always useful. The Atlas Glove company now makes a thin, tough nitrile gardening glove that is sold for under $10. Stretchy nylon coated with waterproof nitrile. Buy them locally, or from Gardener’s Supply Company (www.gardeners.com) in a variety of pretty colors.
Also from Gardener’s Supply is a nice expandable bamboo trellis. A friend gave me one, and I used it for growing my peas. Instead of letting it touch the soil, I tied it onto posts so the bottom was 6 inches off the ground, to minimize rot. Cost? $20-$25, depending on size.
Holiday Gifts
On the high end of the spectrum would be a new wheelbarrow. The best I have found is the Muller’s Smart Cart (www. mullerscarts.com). It is a 7 (or 12) cubic foot polyethylene bin that pops in (or out) of an aluminum frame. I have the 7-ft model and have used it hard to over 10 years, yet have never had a flat tire or any other problem with it. The fact that the barrow part is removable allows me to use it to wash the dog in it or carry manure in the back of my sedan. They cost $350, with free shipping. I chose the wide tires, not the bike tires, and find them great, even in soggy conditions. This is a very high quality wheelbarrow that is rated to carry up to 600 lbs.
Every year I recommend my favorite weeding tool, the CobraHead weeder (www.CobraHead.com). This tool is great for getting under weeds, teasing out roots, stirring compost or fertilizer into planting holes, planting bulbs and more. You should be able to find it locally. Cost? About $25.
A gardening magazine subscription would be nice, too. I get Fine Gardening magazine (www.finegardening.com). The magazine has a nice balance of growing information and design ideas. Excellent color photography. $29.95.
I’ve fallen in love with TubTrugs. These are brightly colored flexible buckets I use for carrying weeds, compost and even water. From 3 Gallons to 10 gallons, their flexible handles make them easy to carry. Found locally or from Gardeners Supply in a variety of sizes and colors, around $10.
Gardening books are good gifts, but look for quality info, not necessarily glossy pictures. My website, www.Gardening-guy.com, lists about 25 good ones. Just click on the “Gardener’s Basic Library” on the top bar.
So enjoy the holidays, but remember that Santa’s elves make lots of presents. Get creative and be an elf your self!
Henry Homeyer’s new book is for children ages 8 and up. It’s called Wobar and the Quest for the Magic Calumet, and is a fantasy-adventure about a boy with a mustache – and a cougar who is his best friend. Go to www.henryhomeyer.com to learn more.
Slow Food, Local Food, Healthy food for the Holidays
Posted on Wednesday, November 21, 2012 · Leave a Comment
Although I‘ve never seen statistics on how much we eat over the holidays, I’d hazard a guess that Americans eat more per capita from now until the New Year than in any other comparable time period. Family gatherings, office parties and celebrations of all kinds incite us to eat more than is good for us. I’d like to suggest that we all think about offering healthier foods for the holidays, that we slow down and really enjoy the food, and that we try to serve as much local food as possible.
As a gardener, I store and preserve much of my own food for winter. My freezers are full of beans, broccoli, kale, leeks, peas, peppers, tomatoes and more. In cool, dry storage I have winter squash, onions and garlic. In a second fridge I have potatoes, carrots, rutabagas, kohlrabi and beets. In the garden I still am picking Brussels sprouts, carrots, late lettuce and kale. I have homemade pickles in the pantry. If invited to a pot luck dinner, I have plenty to choose from that will make a healthy and tasty dish.
Terra Madre Market
If you haven’t put up food for the winter, think about supporting local farmers. Winter farmers markets are all the rage, and for good reason. I believe that local potatoes and carrots taste better than those shipped to the Mega-Monster Food Emporium at the mall. Yes, they may cost a little more, but not much more. Going local is about a mindset. One must plan ahead and make a commitment to do so – just as most of us have committed to recycling for the good of the planet. Buying local food eliminates all those miles in a diesel-powered refrigerator truck, carrying California to us. And buying local foods supports the farmers in our community.
I recently sat down with Robert Meyers, co-owner of Three Tomatoes Trattoria in Lebanon, NH to talk about the Slow Food movement, and about an event called Terra Madre he attended earlier this fall in Turin, Italy. Terra Madre is an event held every other year to allow farmers, consumers, educators and activists from 150 countries to meet, eat and talk together. The Slow Food Movement is an international organization that promotes eating “good, clean, fair” food.
At Terra Madre there are numerous workshops by food producers and cooks. There is second event, Salone del Gusto, held concurrently that allows attendees to sample foods from all over the world. Want to try fried bugs from Burkino Faso? There were representatives there who, if they did not bring bugs this year, advocate for eating local insects. Might be worth trying. Deep fried Japanese beetles anyone?
African bean plants at Terra Madre
And to me, the Slow Food movement is about slowing down to really enjoy food, family and friends. It is the opposite of fast food, which we all know about – and which I avoid as much as possible. We gardeners grow our own food – slowly. We should share it, and eat it slowly, too.
So as we head toward the end of the year, what can we do? We can buy fair trade coffee, chocolate and bananas. The Fair Trade label guarantees a minimum fair price to Third World farmers. Most food coops are still selling local produce including potatoes, carrots, onions, beets and much more. The big supermarkets generally don’t bother with local farmers. And instead of bananas and avocados, we can eat local apples and kohlrabi.
We can pay attention to where our meat comes from. I don’t buy meat that was produced in mass quantity on a chicken ranch or cattle feed lot. I don’t want to ingest the hormones and antibiotics that many meat animals are fed. I buy directly from farmers, and I interview them about their techniques raising their animals before I buy. I don’t insist on organic, but I do want humane – and no antibiotics or hormones, thank you.
That means that my Thanksgiving and Christmas turkeys cost me a lot more than frozen supermarket birds, but the difference in flavor is remarkable. Instead of looking only at the price tag, I think about the price per serving. If I am going to feed a dozen people and eat leftovers for days afterwards, the cost per person per meal is very reasonable.
As you plan your garden for 2013, focus on crops you know always do well for you. If you’ve had bad luck with tomatoes recently, think about expanding your plantings of beans or broccoli if you did well with them last year. They are both pretty easy crops to grow, have few pests (at least in my garden) and freeze well. Think about planting and re-planting more lettuce – a crop that does well for most gardeners.
And what about those elusive, blight-plagued tomatoes we all love? There are people who grow them well, generally in plastic high tunnels (greenhouses). Many fungal diseases are soil-borne, and spread when it rains due to splash-up. Some spores are wind-borne; a greenhouse helps to keep them off the plants, too. Maybe we should just buy some of our tomatoes in season from local growers.
So do some planning this winter about what you can realistically expect to be able to grow – and store. Think about letting go of crops that are a frustration – after all, gardening is supposed to be fun. And check out Slow Food International (www.slowfood.com). As they say, it’s an idea, a way of living and a way of eating.
Henry Homeyer has a new children’s book: Wobar and the Quest for the Magic Calumet. For more info go to www.henryhomeyer.com.
Pruning Shrubs and Hardwoods
Posted on Wednesday, November 14, 2012 · Leave a Comment
Winter is upon us. Several nights the temperatures have gone to 20 or colder at my house, and snow is in the forecast. Is it time to hibernate? Not for me, or at least not yet. I still have pruning to do. Pruning of shrubs and hardwoods like maples and oaks is best done after leaf drop when one can really see form and structure without the clutter of leaves.
Early spring blooming shrubs like forsythia, lilac, rhododendron, common ninebark and azaleas have already formed buds for next spring, and pruning will remove some. They are best pruned right after blooming, but if you didn’t do it then, you can do it now – I have been. Most hydrangeas, summersweet clethra and other late-summer bloomers will form buds next spring for blooming later on. To me it is more important to have trees and shrubs that look good all winter than to get every last blossom.
When pruning, remember that trees and shrubs do best when sunshine can reach every leaf. So thinning out branches is generally good. You should remove dead branches, and anything that is rubbing another branch. I like to remove the lower branches of most shrubs, and to take out any sprouts starting up from the roots in the vicinity of main stems. Branches aiming in toward the center of a shrub will just clutter it up, so, as the Red Queen said, “Off with their heads!”
I grow five or more kinds of willows. Willows do best in moist soil and full sun, but are very adaptable and will grow almost anywhere. They grow fast and are interesting, primarily, for their foliage. Only the pussywillow has flowers that matter, those great fuzzy things that sing “Spring is on the way!”
I’ve recently been pruning two kinds of willows: the rosemary willow (Salix elaeagnos) and a Japanese variegated willow, a cultivar of Salix integra called ‘Hakuru Nashiki’. In each case the willows stay shrubby, but tend to get a bit too tall for me. I like to keep them at a height of 8 feet or so, and that requires a trim every year or two. Other forms of willows will develop into trees 30 feet tall or more, such as the weeping willow. Most willows have relatively weak wood, meaning that their branches break easily in wind or ice storms.
Hakurua Nashiki willows in June
I grow my Hakuru Nashiki willows across the stream from my vegetable garden. A small plant will get to be 10 feet tall in 3 to 5 years. They can have very dense foliage with lots of branches starting near the ground, but I like to see some bare stem, so I prune off all the branches up to a height of 5 feet or so. You could prune them into a lollipop shape by removing all but one stem, and shaping the top into a globe, though I haven’t done that. Not yet, anyway.
By pruning the willows now I am making them pleasing to my eye, but also opening them up so that they will not hold a large snow mass. Any densely-growing shrub will hold snow and is more likely to lose branches if we get a heavy, wet snow.
I remember arriving in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, on an April day in 1982 that just happened to be a national holiday, the celebration of the Cyrillic alphabet that featured a large parade downtown. Afterwards old women dressed in black came out with twig brooms and swept the streets and sidewalks of every cigarette butt and candy wrapper dropped by the crowds. I liked those brooms – they seemed right out of a fairy tale. This year I decided to use my willow prunings to make my own twig broom.
I had an old broom so cut off the head and re-used the handle, though I could have used a sapling instead. I collected small branches from the pile I had pruned from the willows, each about 30 inches long and about the thickness of a pencil. I arranged them around the handle, overlapping the handle by a foot.
Willow broom
Making a twig broom really is a 2-person project, so I asked Cindy Heath to help me attach the wires. I had bought a small coil of #18 copper wire at the hardware store and cut 2 four-foot sections for fastening the twigs onto the handle. I have large hands, so it wasn’t hard to hold the twigs firmly in place while Cindy wrapped wire around them. When the wire was tightly wrapped 4 or 5 times around the handle, she twisted the two ends together tightly. Then we did it again farther down the handle, near the end of the twigs.
I like the broom for sweeping the front walk- it gets the leaves as well as bits of sand and gravel; so far it seems sturdy and I like the way it looks. So do some pruning, and if you have enough small branches, try making yourself a broom.
Visit Henry’s website (www.henryhomeyer.com) to learn about his new children’s book, Wobar and the Quest for the Magic Calumet.
Uh-Oh: Plant Diseases and Insect Pests on the Horizon
Posted on Monday, November 5, 2012 · Leave a Comment
I hate to be a bearer of ill tidings, but I learned recently that one of America’s favorite bedding plants is in trouble. Impatiens is one of those plants that everyone loves: it blooms constantly all summer, it does fine in shady places, and it sheds its flowers after blooming so that you don’t need to take off the spent blossoms. The flowers themselves come in a variety of wonderful colors. There are single and double flower. All in all, a great flower. But some growers and garden centers will not be offering it for sale next summer, or will have reduced offerings.
The problem is a fungal disease called impatiens downy mildew. The disease is not new, but its prevalence is. Here in New England the disease has come up from warmer places as spores riding on the wind, much as late blight has come to our tomatoes. The bad news is this: if you had the disease this year you might not have recognized it – I didn’t at first – and once it hits your gardens, it will come back again and again. It seems to survive easily in Zone 5 (minus 20) and may even survive in Zone 4 where temperatures can reach minus 30 F.
For the past few years I have been installing impatiens in a garden on the Mall in Lebanon, NH. The garden is a mixture of sun and shade. The impatiens has done well there – until this year. The season started out well: we planted waves of small plants in berms (mounds of soil) in June. They grew and bloomed. Then the leaves started thinning out, and the plants looked a bit spindly by the end of July. There is serious root competition in these beds, so I attributed the less than stellar growth to the trees sucking up the water and nutrients.
Impatiens Downy Mildew
By the end of the summer the plants were, essentially, bare stems. All the leaves and flowers had fallen off. At first I thought it might be insect damage, or perhaps slugs. But I shrugged and figured that whatever the problem was, fall was just around the corner – and next year we’d do better. I should have sent a sample to the plant diagnostic lab at UNH. Then, recently, I got an email from an alert reader, a grower who had encountered impatiens downy mildew and decided not to grow them again.
I called Dr. Cheryl Smith, UNH Extension Plant Health Specialist (unhpdl.org), who confirmed my suspicions: what I had seen in Lebanon was most likely impatiens downy mildew. I went on the Web and saw pictures and good descriptions of the disease.
Dr. Smith explained that if plants at a location had downy mildew once, it would most likely recur. She suggested carefully cleaning up flower beds that had been infected. Dig the roots out, collect all stems and leaves and bag them. That would minimize the spread of spores. Do not place the plants (or the remains of infected plants) in the compost pile, but put in household trash or burn them. Alternatively, Dr. Smith said you could bury the plants away from the garden in a site that will not be rototilled next spring.
I need to find another plant for those shady beds. New Guinea impatiens is a possible substitute, though more expensive to buy. It is not often sold in 6-packs for covering lots of territory. Coleus and begonias will often grow under the same conditions as impatiens, and are not affected by the disease. But again, they are more expensive.
Also on the horizon is an insect pest that can devastate small berries. When I called Anne Hazelrigg at UVM Cooperative Extension to learn if the problem with impatiens occurred in Vermont last summer (it did), she told me about an insect called the spotted winged drosophila. This is a fruit fly that is a new species, one that has a saw-toothed ovipositor (egg-laying device) that can wipe out fall raspberries, blueberries and even some decorative berries such as those on yews or serviceberries.
Unlike other fruit flies that only eat damaged fruit, this fly can slice open fruit to lay eggs, and the larvae then cause fruit to collapse and the white larvae to make the fruit inedible. Each fly is only about one tenth of an inch long, has red eyes, and the males have a dark spot on each wing. It became a problem first on the West Coast, got to the East Coast in Florida in 2010, and probably rode Hurricane Irene to New England. It is not easily controlled, even for those who use chemicals, and it can reproduce every eight days. There is good information on this pest on the UNH Cooperative Extension website.
Gardening sure does have its challenges. What we really need, I think, is a very cold winter. I once saw a bumper sticker that read, “30 Below Keeps Out the Riff-Raff”. We need 30 below to help control pests and diseases, so let’s hope for a good, cold winter.
Henry’s new book is out! Wobar and the Quest for the Magic Calumet is a children’s fantasy-adventure about a boy and a cougar. See www.henryhomeyer.com for more information.
Forcing Bulbs for Spring
Posted on Wednesday, October 31, 2012 · Leave a Comment
Winters can be hard on many gardeners: short dark days, icy roads and little to do in the garden. Yes, I like to snow shoe and cross country ski, but it doesn’t replace gardening. I water my houseplants (and occasionally talk to them), but they are weak substitutes for the real thing. By the time mud season comes in March, I want blooming flowers to brighten my life.
I get early blossoms in two ways: First, I have early bulb plants outdoors, including hundreds of snowdrops that bloom in March. And second, I force bulbs to bloom early indoors. Now is the time to plant bulbs so that they will bloom when we need them the most – a month or two before they bloom outdoors.
In order to prepare bulbs for early blooming indoors, you will need a place to store them that is cold, but not as cold as the outdoors. Despite global warming, I still see minus 20 every winter, even if for only a few days. Bulbs planted in the ground have some protection against the cold, but if you were to plant bulbs in pots and leave them outside, the extreme temperatures would kill most. Bulbs left in a cool basement or garage will do just fine.
Ideally temperatures for bulbs used for forcing will be between 33 and 50, though a few days of below freezing temperatures is not be a problem (my basement often goes a below freezing). Left in a warm location, the bulbs will grow green tops – but not blossoms.
Bulbs can be planted for forcing in pots or window boxes. Good drainage is important to avoid rotting the bulbs, so don’t plant them in ordinary garden soil. I think an ideal mix is one that has half compost and half potting mix. I want the mix to be lightly moist at planting time, but not soggy. Once a month I check the pots to make sure the soil is not bone dry; if it is, I water lightly.
Forcing Bulbs
When planting daffodils or tulips outdoors, I plant them 6-8 inches deep but that is not necessary when planting bulbs in pots. Depending on the type of container I use, the pointy tips of my bulbs may be just an inch or two below the soil surface. And I plant them shoulder-to-shoulder, crowding in as many bulbs as possible in the container. After they finish blooming in the spring I will plant the bulbs outside, but for now they have everything they need to bloom inside the house.
Timing is key to success with forced bulbs. Little bulbs like crocus need just 8-10 weeks of dormancy, but daffodils need 12 weeks, and tulips do better with more, up to 16 weeks. Choose bulbs that are marked “Good for Forcing” or that are listed as “early” rather than mid-season or late. If you are selecting bulbs now, make sure that they are still firm, not papery and dried out. And if you see them with long green sprouts, pass them by.
Beware of mice. If you have mice, they will eat your tulips unless you exclude them somehow – with wire mesh screening, for example. Daffodils are lightly poisonous, so mice don’t eat them.
You can maximize blooming by planting two layers of bulbs. I often use those 8-inch pots that perennials come in for forcing. They are not elegant, but can be dressed up with wrapping paper or baskets when displayed on the table. I put in an inch of gravel, an inch or two of soil mix, then daffodils or tulips. I cover them with soil, and then add a second layer of bulbs. The small bulbs like crocus work well for a second layer. Leave a little space at the top of the pot for watering.
Forcing Bulbs
When planting two layers of bulbs I used to worry about the big bulbs coming up and pushing the little ones aside like playground bullies. So I carefully placed the little ones above the spaces between daffodils. I even used broom straws to show me where to plant. But one year I just put them in without worrying about crowding and every bulb did fine. Plants know more than we give them credit for, I think.
When you take your plants out of their cold resting spot, most will begin to grow almost immediately. I generally start mine off in a cool location in the house, and once they have fully woken up I put them on a sunny, warm windowsill. A trick for prolonging their blooms (which also works with cut flowers from the florist) is to move the flowers into a cold mudroom or entryway at night. Cool temperatures prolong the life of your flowers.
So go to your local feed-and-grain store, garden center or food coop; get some bulbs and prepare them for forcing. Come March you’ll be ready for spring, and will have some flowers ready to perform their annual dance before their cousins outside do.
Henry Homeyer has a new children’s chapter book that just came out: Wobar and the Quest for the Magic Calumet. Read about it at www.henryhomeyer.com.
Labyrinths
Posted on Wednesday, October 24, 2012 · Leave a Comment
Despite my jokes to the contrary, I know that you gardeners won’t really turn to a life of crime now that gardening is over for the summer. But you might go into a decline, wasting time watching afternoon television or reading trashy novels. Don’t. Please don’t. There are always possibilities for projects outside, even after flowers and vegetables are through for the season. One such project to consider is building a labyrinth.
Harmony Farm Labyrinth
I recently visited a labyrinth at Harmony Farm, a non-profit nature-based education center, open to the public at 28 Bowers Rd, Hartland, VT. (www.harmonyfarmvt.com). They have built a 55- foot diameter labyrinth in memory of Derek Cooper, a young worker at the farm who is now deceased. It is a simple, though time-consuming project that, once completed can be very spiritual in nature.
Labyrinths are sometimes confused with mazes. Both involve walking a path in an area usually defined by a circle. But a maze is a puzzle with many choices about which way to go. A labyrinth has no choices. The pathway winds around, turns corners, and seems to go to the center of the labyrinth – only to turn and lead back to the outside. Eventually you reach the center after walking every step of 7 or more concentric circles.
Labyrinth
History is unclear about the origin of labyrinths. Labyrinths appeared in Crete and Egypt over 2,000 years ago. They were introduced inside Catholic cathedrals in Italy in the 12th century and in France in the 13th. Worshippers walked them as a way of calming the mind and becoming at one with God. Some crawled on their knees while praying. Some walked labyrinths instead of going on a pilgrimage. Famous labyrinths are at the Cathedrals in Chartres, Reims and Amiens in northern France, but now they can be seen outdoors all over the world.
Knox Johnson, one of a family of farmers and gardeners living and working at Harmony Farm, introduced me to their labyrinth and explained how it was created. The first step in creating a labyrinth was to find a relatively open, flat space for it. Barbara Johnson recommends getting someone to dowse the site to find just the right spot, using either crystal dowsing, or rods.
Once the spot was identified, Knox tilled the soil late in the summer of 2011. He allowed the weeds and wild grasses to come back for a few weeks and then tilled it again, getting rid of most of them. He added lime to improve the soil pH. He raked the area, smoothing out the surface and finally seeded it with a seed mix called “Eco Blend with Clover” from North Country Organics (www.norganics.com).
Clover is good in a seed mix because clover plants fix nitrogen from the air, turning it into useful nitrogen and enriching the soil. Unfortunately, many seed companies no longer include clover seed in their mixes because “weed-n-feed” treatments have herbicides that kill clover. So clover has been declared a weed.
This summer the real work began. Once the grass was well established, Knox and a friend laid out the pattern. He used a device that holds a can of spray paint to mark out the lines. He used a long light-weight cable to define the circles. The spray paint in its holder was attached to one end of the cable, while the other end was looped over a stake in the center of the labyrinth.
Paint for Labyrinth
Knox sprayed white paint while keeping the cable taut. The center of the labyrinth is a 4-foot space which eventually was surrounded by seven concentric circles, each 31 inches apart from the next. He had a design copied from the cathedral in Bayeux, France, and used stakes to mark turns in the walkway. He told me it really on took an hour or two to mark the lines.
Because of all twists and turns, that path to the center of the labyrinth is about 1,000 feet from the entrance. That amounts to a lot of stones needed to line the path. They used smallish stones, so 4 or 5 were used in every foot. But if you create your labyrinth you can use whatever size you want.
Universalist Church Labyrinth
Knox directed me to the Universalist Church in Hartland, VT, just half a mile from the labyrinth at harmony farm. Bryce Lloyd, a Boy Scout, built a lovely labyrinth near the church as his Eagle Scout project. Bryce used larger stones, and installed gravel instead of allowing grass to grow. I assume that landscape fabric was put down beneath the gravel to keep weeds out – though some weeds will persist no matter what, I fear.
Walking a full-sized labyrinth like the one at Harmony Farm takes 5 minutes or so. I find that walking one is an easy way to clear the mind and to forget for a few minutes the deadlines and worries of life. One moves forward, one turns back, one concentrates on the journey. I find walking a labyrinth very relaxing. I don’t think I will build one myself, but they are nice to visit and are more common than you might think.
Henry’s new book is out: Wobar and the Quest for the Magic Calumet from Bunker Hill Publishing. It is a chapter book for kids, a fantasy-adventure about a boy born with a mustache and a magical ability to speak to animals and understand them. Learn more at www.Gardening-Guy.com.
My Vegetable Garden Report
Posted on Wednesday, October 17, 2012 · Leave a Comment
Remember when we had to write reports about our summer vacations for school? Well, this is my report on my summer in the vegetable garden: what worked, what didn’t.
Asparagus Patch
Overall, it was a great growing season. We had lots of sunshine and my garden got about an inch of rain a week, just what most plants need. My tomatoes suffered a bit from a variety of early blights – the leaves browned and dried up, starting at the bottom. This has been increasingly the case in recent years, and next year I intend to try a bio-fungicide called Serenade, which contains live bacteria that destroy fungi. Still, I put up lots of tomatoes and ate them 2 or 3 times a day from early August until the end of September.
Of the new varieties of tomatoes I tried this year I liked best a small red one called Mountain Magic, a full sized yellow called Valencia and an oversized plum tomato called Linguisa. The first two are from Johnny’s Seeds, the last from Hudson Valley Seed Library. All 3 were quite disease resistant.
At the end of September I saw what appeared to be the dreaded late blight so I sent a sample to the UNH plant pathology lab, and it was diagnosed as late blight. Fortunately, late blight does not survive our winters except, occasionally, in potato tubers.
Broccoli Side Shoots
What did well for me? It was a great year for onions, beets, carrots, broccoli and leaf crops from lettuce to kale. My most surprising success was my new asparagus patch. I planted roots in June, and each plant is now 6-12 bushy stems. Many of the plants sent up stems thicker than a pencil, but I restrained myself and did not eat any. I used a “Jersey” cultivar of asparagus which produces all-male plants and no seeds, which is good. Seeds yield too many little plants and these compete for water and nutrients. If you have older plants with seeds, cut them down now.
I always try a few new things in the garden if I can, and this year I got some peanuts for planting from Burpee Seeds. I planted some in cell-packs indoors since peanuts are a southern crop, and I wanted to give them an early start. I also tried direct planting once the soil was fully warmed in early July. Direct seeding didn’t work, and the transplants only produced a few peanuts each. Peanuts bloom down low, and then a “peg” develops
Peanuts
which contains the flower stem and peanut embryo. The peg grows into the soil, and produces a peanut. I only got 3 or 4 pegs per plant, so they are not worth the bother, I think.
I also tried scorzonera, a European root crop also called black oyster plant, serpent root, viper’s herb, viper’s grass and black salsify. I harvested one recently – but with some difficulty. I tried to pull it like a carrot, only to have the top break off. I used a trowel to loosen what I thought was pretty loose soil in my wood-sided raised bed. I got my hand down around the root some 6 inches below the surface and tugged. Slowly I lifted it out. Much to my surprise, the root was 12 inches long, black, and nearly perfectly cylindrical, though only ¾ of an inch across!
I also planted salsify, a similar root crop, though white. It is a slow-growing root crop. If you do try it, be advised that the young plants look like grass, so don’t weed them out. I enjoyed the flavor of both salsify and scorzonera, though I liked the latter better – it has a somewhat nutty flavor when sautéed in olive oil.
Purple Cauliflower
I planted purple cauliflower this summer, and it was very tasty. The variety I tried, from Franchi Sementi seeds promised that it would develop side shoots like broccoli, and I have seen a few little ones starting in October. The primary heads took until mid- to late-September to develop fully. Broccoli has been fabulous this year, producing side shoots into October. The variety that did best this year is ‘Arcadia’, and I will do it again next year. Very productive.
Usually I have no deer problems, but one rogue 4-point buck came around often. He ate my pole beans late in the season and several summer and winter squashes. Dang! I hope he doesn’t start a family here! My dogs aren’t keeping him away – I may have to reduce their dog biscuits quota to keep them on their toes.
Another new effort was growing ground cherries. These resemble tomatillos with paper skins, but with a sweet fruit inside. Very tasty, but they didn’t ripen until late September- if then. I learned they are called ground cherries because they fall on the ground when ripe.
Gardening is always somewhat a mystery. Sometimes one vegetable does well, other times it can be a complete bust. But I keep on experimenting with new things – that’s part of the fun of it.
Henry’s new book is out: Wobar and the Quest for the Magic Calumet from Bunker Hill Publishing. It is a chapter book for kids, a fantasy-adventure about a boy born with a mustache and a magical ability to speak to animals and understand them. Learn more at www.Gardening-Guy.com.
Garlic
Posted on Wednesday, October 10, 2012 · Leave a Comment
If you’ve harvested everything but the kale and Brussels sprouts in the garden, pulled the weeds and shaped your raised beds in anticipation of spring, you may think that you’re all done. But unless you‘ve planted at least a little garlic, you are not. If you love Italian or French food as I do, you simply must plant some garlic. It’s the simplest, easiest crop I grow.
First, unless you have saved garlic from your harvest in July, you need to buy garlic. Do not just buy garlic at the grocery store. Much garlic sold is “soft neck” garlic grown either in California or (shudder) China. It is not as hardy as the “hard neck” garlic we grow here in New England. I’ve read that garlic at the supermarket has been chemically treated to prevent sprouting, too. I, personally, will not eat anything imported from China as their regulations about the use of chemicals are much less stringent than ours.
Hardneck Garlic
There are two basic types of garlic. The hard neck garlic I grow has a stiff stem in the middle, around which the cloves of garlic grow. It is plenty hardy in our climate, going through the winter unscathed. Soft neck is the type that is braided and hung in restaurants and kitchens. It last longer, but is not as hardy in the winter, and is less pungent than hard neck. I think hard neck garlic tastes better.
Go to your local farm stand to buy locally grown garlic, preferably organic garlic. Tell them that you are buying it to plant, and ask if they have more than one variety. Try 2 or 3 varieties, and label the garlic as you plant it. Each bulb has from 4-8 cloves, so buy enough to meet your needs in the kitchen – if stored properly it should last all year. One clove a day does not seem like much – but it would be 50 bulbs or more, depending on the number of cloves per bulb. I plant a hundred or more each year, as I also save garlic for planting the following year.
If you can’t get garlic at the farm stand, try your garden center. As a last resort, go to a seed company or search on-line. I like to buy locally, not only to support our farmers, but also because the garlic is best adapted to our local climate.
Mid October is the proper time for planting. It will grow roots and get established before the ground freezes. Some years it will also send up green shoots that will die back when winter comes, but that’s not a problem.
Planting Garlic
Here is what to do. First, inspect your garlic and reject any damaged or discolored cloves. Crack open a bulb and pay attention to the shape of the cloves. The rooting end is flatter, the growing tip is more pointy. You should plant the pointy end up, though planting it upside down wouldn’t kill it – just wastes energy.
Prepare the bed by working in 4 inches or more of compost if you have it. Garlic grows best in rich, dark, well-drained soil that also holds moisture. If you have sandy soil it will dry quickly in summer, so adding compost or chopped leaves will help to hold moisture. Garlic should not be grown in soggy, wet soil either. Clay soils hold water; if you have clay, amend it with compost and shape up the soil into raised beds for better drainage.
Next I take my favorite hand tool, the CobraHead weeder, and mark straight lines in the soil with its single finger-like steel tip, creating furrows. I sprinkle some Pro-Gro organic fertilizer into the furrows, and then run the CobraHead through it again, loosening soil to a depth of 4 to 6 inches and mixing in the fertilizer. In general, I plant 3 rows down a raised bed that is 30 inches wide.
Then the fun part: planting. Just push the cloves of garlic into the soft soil. The pointy tip should be a couple of inches deep. I plant cloves about a hands-width (5 inches) apart. I don’t cover the cloves until I have finished a row, so I can see my spacing as I go along. Then I gently cover the row and firm the soil in place by patting it gently.
The last part of the planting is to cover the soil with a thick layer of straw or mulch hay. I put on 6 inches or more, and the winter snows pack it down so that it becomes a 2-3 inch layer. Garlic sprouts will push right through the hay in spring, but most weeds will not germinate and compete. Garlic, like most plants, does best without weeds.
So that’s all you have to do. In June the garlic scapes, or flower stems, will be tall and curly. Great for use in stir fries. I also use them in flower arrangements as they are very interesting to look at, swooping around in curves and loops. Then in late July or early August I harvest the garlic. Store it in a cool dry place. I just wish growing tomatoes was as easy as growing garlic. Sigh. But that would be too easy!
Henry’s new book is in bookstores! Wobar and the Quest for the Magic Calumet is a fantasy-adventure for children 8-12 about a boy and a cougar. For more, go to www.Gardening-Guy.com.
Planting Bulbs
Posted on Wednesday, October 3, 2012 · Leave a Comment
Daffodils
One of my very favorite gardening activities is planting bulbs on a sunny, crisp fall afternoon with Monarch butterflies flitting around and colorful leaves swirling in the air. Each year I plant anywhere between 50 and 300 bulbs and have done so for decades.
I accept that not every bulb I buy is going to last forever. I buy 50 to 100 tulips most years, and consider them annuals because they lose vigor each year, most disappearing after just a few years. I was at a garden center recently and bought 50 mixed tulips for $22. I planted them in one big clump, shoulder-to-shoulder, and will delight in them when they appear. I like tulips as cut flowers and give them away to friends who need a pick-me-up.
Hole ready for planting bulbs
Yes, I know that rodents and deer like tulips. In my experience, squirrels dig up bulbs in the fall right after you plant them. They see the fresh, soft earth and say to themselves, Oh Boy! Treats! You can help to keep them from digging up the bulbs by laying chicken wire over the bed, and then covering with chipped branches or mulch of some sort. Not that a determined squirrel couldn’t get to them, it’s just my belief that squirrels are relatively lazy, and there’s plenty of other stuff to eat.
Back at the end of the Clinton era at the White House I got to interview the White House gardener. Gardeners there were busy planting hundreds – perhaps thousands – of a yellow tulip that someone thought Mr. Bush (elected, but not in office at the time) would enjoy. It was called the Hilary Rodham Clinton tulip, and I have never found it for sale, but I like the idea: gardening with giggles.
Anyhow, the Rose Garden is full of big fat gray squirrels. I asked Dale Haney, the gardener, how they dealt with the squirrels, and he told me about the chicken wire technique and one other. Your tax dollars are (or were then) at work buying 50 lb bags of corn. That’s right, they feed the squirrels, keeping them fat and happy, and the squirrels pretty much leave the gardens alone. If you try that approach, please don’t sue me if that only serves to invite all the neighbor squirrels to your yard. It just might.
Deer can be a problem when tulips are ready to bloom. You can repel them by using repellents made for the purpose, available at garden centers. Bobex is one particularly nasty smelling one that they hate. I have sprayed it on shrubs, but if you want to bring tulips into the house, I wouldn’t spray it on the flowers themselves, but around them. It loses its disgusting rotten egg-based smell after 2 to 3 days for us, but lasts much longer for deer.
Planting bulbs
Bulbs do best in rich, well drained soil. If you have heavy clay, it will stay wet and may rot some of your bulbs. If that is the case, dig a little deeper hole, and put a two-inch layer of compost in the bottom. I never plant bulbs one at a time. I always dig a hole big enough to hold at least a dozen bulbs, and plant them in a mass. It is much more dramatic, come spring.
According to the International Daffodil Register, there are 12 divisions (classifications) of daffodils based on physical looks and genetic background, and one last division based on botanical names only. All are mildly toxic if eaten, so rodents and deer leave them alone. The range of colors and flower type is truly mind-boggling. Go to your local feed-and-grain store or garden center to check out what is available. If you really want the unusual daffies, you may have to go on-line to a company like Brent and Becky’s or McClure and Zimmerman.
I like to plant early, mid-season and late-blooming daffodils, and read the labels carefully when buying to see their bloom season. One trick to keep in mind next spring is this: cut the spent flowers off after blooming, so the plants do not waste energy making seeds. But don’t cut back the foliage until it turns brown. The leaves are “re-charging” the bulbs. I like to plant clumps of daffies between clumps of hostas – the hosta leaves hide the daffodil foliage after blooming.
Snow drops in April
Get adventurous when you plant this year. A great early summer bloomer is giant snowflake (Leucojum aestivum) which looks like a snowdrop on steroids. These lovelies are 12 or more inches tall and are nice cut flowers. Snowdrops, of course, are essential to any garden. If you plant them on a south-facing hillside, you should get blossoms in early March unless they are planted where snow slides off the roof.
So get outdoors and plant bulbs. You’ll be rewarded with blossoms just when you need them most – after the dreariness of winter.
Glory of the snow
Web Extra: Other great bulb plants include Scilla and glory of the snow, both very early blooming. Both are blue to purple, and quite short – 4 inches tall or so. Scilla blossoms look down, while glory of the snow looks up and shows it white and yellow throat. Don’t dismiss them as cut flowers just because they are short – they are available when other things are not.
Winter aconite is lovely, too. This is an early yellow flower that is low to the ground. It has 5 or 6 petals that look up, as bright as any daffodil. It is marginally hardy in my Zone 4 garden, and I seem to lose them some times, but I consider them worth re-planting to keep a small supply going.
Henry’s new book, Wobar and the Quest for the Magic Calumet will be in bookstores October 15. For information about it go to Henry’s Web site, www.Gardening-Guy.com.
Apples!
Posted on Wednesday, September 26, 2012 · Leave a Comment
I read my first piece of propaganda when I was eight, maybe nine years old. It was a biography of Johnny Appleseed. It was one of a series of library books, all with orange covers, large print, and just a few simple drawings. They were fascinating, every one of them. Johnny, I learned, was a happy-go-lucky sort who walked around America giving away apple seeds. Not so. Johnny was a businessman who sold apple seeds and seedlings so frontier folk could make hard cider and its distilled companion, applejack. Most of the apple trees back then were what we would call wild apples – those that we wouldn’t consider good eating apples.
Here’s my quick course on apples: any named apple variey today is genetically identical to all others of the same name. That’s right. All Macs or Cortlands are the same, genetically, as all other Macs and Cortlands. Before you buy a tree, someone has grafted scions (living twigs) onto root stock to produce a tree that will give you tasty apples of a named variety. Some nurseries even sell trees with 3 or 4 different varieties grafted onto one tree.
The roots affect whether your tree is full sized, mid-sized or dwarf. Most new apple varieties – Macouns, for example – are hybrids developed by apple researchers, tested and then propagated by grafting – not by seed. So don’t plant seeds from your favorite apple thinking the tree will be like the mother apple.
Apple trees are easy to grow – you should have one, or perhaps more. Not only that, one can grow good eating apples without using toxic chemicals, although most orchards use some chemicals to control apple scab and sometimes insect pests. Americans have grown very fussy about their food, demanding perfect fruit, unblemished by even a spot of blight, which makes the orchards spray. The home grower can eat organic fruit with a few small brown spots, or cut them out.
Apple Picking Basket
I recently visited Paul Franklin at his farm, Riverview Orchard, in Plainfield, NH; he has been growing apples for sale for over 25 years, and is a wealth of knowledge. One of my first questions to Paul was this: how do you know when an apple tree is ready to pick? It’s easy, he said. Just cut open an apple and look at the seeds. If they are tan to dark brown, the apple is ready. Paul added that some apples resist coming off the tree, even when they are fully ripe while others are easy to pick even when still green.
What about that film often seen on apples? It’s not a pesticide, Paul said, but Mother Nature at her best. It is a thin film of wax, which protects the apple. Polish it a bit, and the apple shines. Some apples have more wax than others.
This past spring many apple blossoms were damaged by a period of unusual warmth that was followed by a hard frost. The frost damaged the opening buds, so many of us lost all or most of our apples. I live in a cold spot and lost all mine. Paul Franklin’s orchard is near the Connecticut River, so the little bit of heat released by the water minimized his losses. If you are choosing a site to plant apples, remember that near the top a hillside is a good spot. Cold air is dense, and tends to slide down hill. Often only a degree or two can make the difference between success and failure.
I asked Paul about his favorite apples. He said that Cortland and Honey Crisps are two of his favorites. Honey Crisp is tasty and somewhat resistant to apple scab. Cortlands are great apples for both eating and making pies. Honey Crisp are great keepers – a customer of his picks a bushel of them, then stores them in a spare fridge for up to a year. If you do that, don’t store other vegetables in the fridge because apples give off ethylene gas, which prompts other veggies to age and go past their prime.
If you planted an apple tree recently be sure to protect the bark with a collar of quarter-inch hardware cloth (metal screening). An 18 inch square can be used to wrap around the base to keep meadow voles (voracious mouse-like creatures) from nibbling the bark in winter. If a vole eats bark all the way around a trunk it will kill the tree. Dig the screen in an inch to keep them from going under it. After 5-7 years the bark is thick enough that the hardware cloth is not needed.
Apple Scab
What else can you do for your apple trees now? In order to minimize apple scab and other diseases, rake up the leaves under your trees. Scab overwinters on leaves. Mowing under trees helps, too – chopping up the leaves and helping them to break down. Young trees benefit by a little slow release organic fertilizer in the fall, but older trees do not need it.
So go pick some apples on a warm sunny fall day. Eat plenty, make a pie, save some for winter. And thank Johnny Appleseed – if you believe in the propaganda.
Henry Homeyer’s Web site is www.Gardening-guy.com. Henry’s upcoming kid’s fictional chapter book, Wobar and the Quest for the Magic Calumet, is just out. Check for Wobar at your local bookstore or go to henryhomeyer.com to learn more.
Filed under Article · Tagged with apple genetics, apples, cortland apples, grafting apple trees, Henry Homeyer, honey crisp apples, macoun apples, Paul Franklin, picking apples, plainfield nh, Riverview Farm
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