Putting The Garden To Bed
Posted on Wednesday, September 19, 2012 · Leave a Comment
Just last week that I was planting tomato and pepper seedlings – or so it seems. But now the big yellow buses are out there each morning, delivering the next generation of gardeners to school, and there is a definite nip to the air when I go to get my newspaper out of the box in the morning. Where has the summer gone? It’s time to start thinking about putting the garden to bed.
This is the time of year that weeds take advantage of us. Most of us tend to be lackadaisical about weeds now that our vegetables have produced, our flowers have bloomed, and our attention has turned elsewhere (school, football, presidential debates). But if you want to reduce your work next year, pay attention to those weeds that have snuck into the garden: they are producing seeds that will lie in wait for the spring, ready to grow before we get the good plants established.
I hereby resolve to spend a minimum of 20 minutes every day weeding for the rest of September. If I do that, I shall save myself much aggravation next spring. Here are a few things to consider when you weed. First, weed when the soil is moist – you are much more likely to get out the entire root system. That is very important for perennials weeds like dandelions or witch grass because a scrap of their roots will regenerate new weeds.
Annual weeds pull more easily, and it’s less important to get the entire root. They reproduce by seed, and often produce hundreds, even thousands of seeds per plant – and those seeds can stay viable for years. When weeding things loaded with seeds, be careful not to shake off the seeds when you pull the weeds. It means that you can’t shake off all the topsoil that comes out with the roots, but I’d rather avoid dumping seeds into my garden soil- even if I lose some.
I also try to place seed-bearing weeds in a compost pile that I will not use any time soon. In fact, I have compost piles where I dumped problem weeds decades ago. I let it turn into soil and use it for fill dirt– but not in my vegetable garden. After all, I heard that King Tut’s tomb had weed seeds that were still able to germinate, though that may be just a myth.
I am also conscious of erosion when weeding and removing annual plants in the fall. I think it’s better to cut off the stem of big zinnias, for example, than yank them now. That way I am not opening up the soil, making it vulnerable to erosion or providing a nice resting spot for air-borne weed seeds. Many weed seeds are tiny and can blow in from your lazy next-door neighbor’s garden. I can always dig out roots in the spring when I plant something else, and they may decay and add some organic matter to the soil in the meantime.
Get rid of diseased leaves
In the vegetable garden it is important to get rid of diseased or insect-infested plants. You shouldn’t put them in the compost, either. Put them on the burn pile if you’ll be burning brush this winter, in the household trash, or in a pile far from the vegetable garden. This will help to minimize the recurrence of problems. That goes for moldy phlox or other flowers that get diseases, too.
If you have an asparagus patch, look to see if your plant are loaded with those little “berries”, their seeds. If you see seeds, cut down the stems before winter. Some of those seeds will settle in and start more asparagus plants, but you really don’t want more plants – they will fight for moisture and minerals just as weeds do. Most asparagus plants sold now are in the “Jersey” series and are all male, so they bloom but do not produce seeds. But one of the 25 plants I put in this year was a female, so take a look at yours now and cut down any with berries. And for best production, get out any weeds this fall.
I like to prepare my vegetable beds in the fall. After weeding them, I re-shape my mounded raised beds and add some compost or aged manure. Then I cover them with chopped fall leaves and grass that I rake up after mowing. This stuff does not blow away as you might imagine – one good rain storm and it settles down for a long winter’s nap.
Fall is a good time to spread some limestone on the lawn, or to your vegetable and flower gardens if your soil pH is acidic. Most things grow best at a relatively neutral pH, say 6.2 to 6.8, but what with acid rain, many of us have soil that is pretty acidic. This is a good time to get a soil test done and make adjustments as needed. It takes time to adjust soil pH, so working on that now will make the soil better next spring.
There is so much to do in the garden, week after week. It’s important not to just throw up your hands and say, “I’m done!” Yes, fall is here. But don’t stop gardening – everything you do now will help make next year’s garden even better.
Henry Homeyer is the author of four gardening books and a new children’s book just out called “Wobar and the Quest for the Magic Calumet”. Check for Wobar in your local bookstore or go online to henryhomeyer.com to learn more about the book.
Saving the Harvest
Posted on Wednesday, September 12, 2012 · Leave a Comment
Tomatoes are an important part of my diet. I cook with them year round, and eat them more than once every day in season. My grandmother used to can them, and I still do on occasion, but the easiest thing to do with them is to freeze them whole. No blanching required. Just put clean, dry tomatoes in gallon zipper bags and freeze. Then, when you need tomatoes to cook with, take out a few and run them under hot water in the kitchen sink. Rub and the skins come off. Allow them to sit for a few minutes and they soften enough to chop and use.
I do make tomato sauce, but generally freeze it instead of canning it. I core the tomatoes and squeeze out some of the seeds and water, then puree them in the Cuisinart. I cook the tomatoes with onions, garlic, basil leaves, fennel seed, salt, pepper and whatever other spices appeal to me the day I make it. Sometimes I cheat and stretch my tomatoes by adding pureed zucchini to the sauce. The trick is to cook it enough so that the sauce is rich and thick. A little sugar (or maple syrup) is sometimes needed if the tomatoes are not dead ripe.
I also make tomato paste by cooking down pureed tomatoes until I can stand up a spoon in the mixture. I freeze the paste in ice cube trays, and then transfer it to Ziplock bags.
Dehydrator
I dry tomatoes in a dehydrator, making little nuggets of pure tomato flavor for use in winter stews. Although you can use any size tomato, I generally just dry cherry tomatoes. I cut them in half and place on a try, cut side up. It takes about 24 hours to fully dehydrate a batch of cherry tomatoes – but I get about 75 of them on each tray and dry 6 trays or more each batch. Afterwards I put them in zipper bags and store in my freezer. I have plenty of freezer space, but if you don’t, they will store well in the fridge or even in the pantry. I also dry apples, pears and hot peppers most years. I grind my hot peppers in a coffee grinder after they are dry enough to be brittle. Making pepper powder allows me to add just the right amount of zing to a sauce.
My potato harvest was smaller this year than I would have liked, but I have enough for a few months. Potatoes store best between 33 and 50 degrees, with high humidity. An attached garage, bulkhead or unheated mudroom might have the proper temperature. Mice love them, so store them in plastic buckets or storage bins covered with hardware cloth (quarter-inch mesh screening) to keep mice out while allowing good air circulation.
Carrots, beets, rutabagas and celery root (celeriac) store well under the same conditions as potatoes: high humidity and cool temps. All root crops can be stored in the fridge (I keep a spare fridge in the basement), but tend to dry out unless in a drawer. You can leave root crops in the ground until it gets cold outside – although rodents may nibble on them. So if you leave root crops in the ground, check to make sure they are not being eaten.
Carrots store well in the ground. Just cover them with a layer of hay or straw , and then a layer fall leaves. Be sure to place a tall stake in the ground at each end of the row so that you can find the carrots even if we get 3 feet of snow. I’ve stored carrots that way, but found that in years of little snow the ground freezes, making digging difficult. Still, cold temperatures make carrots sweeter. I leave my parsnips in the ground and eat them in the early spring.
Orchard rack
Cool dry storage is appropriate for winter squash, onions and garlic. Fifty degrees is about right, with low humidity. An upstairs bedroom with the heat turned off is usually good. I have an “orchard rack” from Gardeners Supply that works very well for storing those items. It is made of wood, with slats to allow good air circulation. It is always good to cure or dry onions and winter squash a bit before you put them in their final resting place. I spread them out on the deck in the shade, where they only get morning sun, but get good breezes. That allows them to lose a little water and to harden up a little on the outside.
Freezing veggies is one of the best ways of keeping them. Leafy greens, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, beans and summer squash need to be blanched. That means dropping them into boiling water just long enough to kill the aging enzymes that make them tough and tasteless. Sixty seconds is enough for most things – or until the color changes. Don’t blanch so long your veggies are cooked or mushy. Drop them into a sink of cold water to stop the cooking process as soon as you take them off the stove. I recommend investing in a blanching pot, which has an inner pot with holes, allowing you drain out the water as you lift them out of the bath.
Blanching pot
Once your veggies are cool, spin them dry in a salad spinner and then pat dry with cloth towels. Put them in freezer-grade Ziplock bags, and suck the air out with a straw before closing the zipper all the way. No need to blanch tomatoes, leeks, berries or peppers.
I get great satisfaction from eating my own homegrown food. It takes work at this season, but for me it’s worth it.
A correction: A helpful reader let me know that the moth of the hornworm is not the hummingbird moth. Hornworm moths are as large as hummingbirds, but look different and have different habits. So don’t harm those hummingbird moths!
Henry Homeyer is the author of 4 gardening books. His e-mail is henry.homeyer@comcast.net and his web site is www.Gardening-Guy. com.
How Long Does it Take to Create a Mature Garden?
Posted on Wednesday, September 5, 2012 · Leave a Comment
Several years ago I interviewed the late Tasha Tudor, the reclusive illustrator and author, at her garden in southern Vermont. One question I asked her was, “How long does it take to create a garden?” Her answer, as reported in my book Organic Gardening (not just) in the Northeast, was succinct. “It takes twelve years to make a garden. Everything takes time that’s worthwhile.” I find that fascinating in light of recent visits to the gardens of Susan Weeks, of Lebanon, NH. Her lovely mature gardens were started around the year 2000 – some 12 years ago. And although Susan says they are still a work in progress, hers would make most gardeners ready to sit back and just admire them.
Patrinia
Susan moved into her house in 1995 with the idea that it was her final move: “I knew this was going to be my last home – the canvas I was going to be working on for the next 40 years – or until they drag me out of here.” When she moved in, her landscape consisted of a modern white house on a green lawn with just a few trees – a small blue spruce, a white pine and a rug of juniper on either side of the front door. It took her awhile to decide what to do, but by 2002 she decided to start planting some trees.
Susan decided to spend her money on trees that were already of fair size – at least 2 inches in caliper (diameter). She knew that she could cut corners and buy from a big box store, but doesn’t think it makes sense to do so. “I believe in buying local. They (locals) know what works here. It might be more expensive, but it works out better for everyone,” she told me. Over a few years she had a crab apple, two sugar maples, a Japanese tree lilac and a Japanese red maple installed. She kept them watered, made sure the lawnmower stayed away, and now these trees provide shade and beauty.
Great Blue Lobelia
A mature woman of relatively small stature, Susan knew that these trees would best be installed by someone else, so she hired E.C. Brown Nursery of Thetford, Vermont to supply the trees and plant them. “As you get older, if you have some heavy work that needs to be done, it makes sense to get somebody it to do it for you.” That allowed her to work on the perennial gardens that she has developed over the past 10 years.
Gardening should be fun, and should be consistent with a gardener’s value system. Susan has two adorable old dogs that have grown up in her gardens, and she decided from day one that no chemicals would be used in her gardens – she didn’t want to risk harming Zoe and Maggie, her dogs. She fenced in part of the yard so the dogs would have a nice place to lounge around, and trained them to respect the flower beds while allowing them places to dig holes to lie in on hot days. Over the years she has expanded the fencing 3 times (as her budget allowed, I suppose) and the 4-foot tall white picket fence now encloses just about all of her property. There is a buffer zone, also planted, between the fence and the street.
Susan started planting perennials, adding the more each year. She has plenty of common flowers: bee balm, hostas, daylilies, iris, and black-eyed Susans. But after awhile, she took a four-evening class on gardening and started to get more confidence. She craved more interesting and unusual plants.
Canadian burnet
She tried Canadian burnet (Sanguisorba canadensis), great blue lobelia and ligularia. She got things with no common name like Persicaria superbum. Right now she has a tall shade-loving plant with bright yellow flowers that I’d never seen before, one she got from Cider Hill Gardens in Windsor, Vermont. It’s a Patrinia (no common name) and it’s not clear if it is a P. triloba or a P. gibbosa. I must get one.
At some point Susan decided she needed a small water feature, and created a little pond about 8 feet long and 3 to 4 feet wide with a pump that shoots a gentle stream of water into the air. She dug the hole herself, lined it with a special rubber liner, and covered the edges with flat stones. “A weekend project,” she said. She put in goldfish – and moved them indoors each winter to keep them alive. She told me that the sound of the bubbler is good for attracting birds. She loves the birds – another good reason for using all organic products.
Crabapple tree planted
Over time Susan has introduced flowering shrubs to her landscape, saying that as one gets older it’s important to have lower-maintenance plants. She is moving away from perennials that need to be dug and divided on a regular basis. Among the shrubs she has planted are weigela, hydrangeas, lilacs, ninebark, fothergilla; blueberry (for fall foliage); beauty bush; viburnum, daphne, Clethra, butterfly bush and others. She has a dog-eared copy of Taylor’s Guide to Shrubs, and each time she plants a new shrub she ticks it off in the book and writes the date planted.
And although Susan says she is cutting back, slowing down, I noticed that she had just excavated a new bed outside her fence. And she is eyeing a bit of lawn by the street. “Grass – it’s just one big perennial. It’s okay to dig some up for other perennials.” I can’t wait to see what happens in her gardens after she retires from her job in a few years.
Henry Homeyer’s upcoming kid’s book, Wobar and the Quest for the Magic Calumet, will be on shelves in October.
Filed under Article · Tagged with beauty bush, blueberries for fall foliage, butterfly bush, Canadian burnet (Sanguisorba canadensis), Clethra, daphne, fothergilla, great blue lobel, hydrangeas, ligularia, lilacs, mature gardens, ninebark, patrinia, tasha tudor, viburnum, weigela
Tomato Hornworms and Other Late Summer Pests
Posted on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 · Leave a Comment
Sometimes it’s easy to get discouraged about the garden: Early in the spring there are seeds that don’t germinate well in cold, wet soil. Then the weeds germinate too well and try to take over the garden when things warm up. Next Colorado potato beetles attack the potatoes. By mid-summer early blight and other diseases start killing leaves and slowing growth on tomatoes, and now the tomato hornworms come along to browse the tomatoes and their vines. Gee whiz, is there no mercy for gardeners? I thought gardening was supposed to be easy!
But there is some good news. Mother Nature is doing her best to control some pests, tomato hornworms among them. Tomato hornworms are green larvae that get huge (up to 3-5 inches long), and have voracious appetites. Bad infestations can defoliate tomato plants in just a day or two. Because of their green color and markings, they are often very hard to notice, too. This year they seem worse than normal, according to some of my readers – though not in my garden. This is the season when they are most prevalent.
If you seen a tomato hornworm with little white attachments something like small grains of uncooked rice, do not kill the hornworm as it is being attacked by the larvae of a parasitic wasp. These white projections are cocoons containing the pupae of a braconid wasp. They indicate that the good bugs have found the bad bugs, and will destroy them.
Hornworm with cocoons attached
I watched a hornworm that was covered with these tiny white cocoons, and over a 24 hour period it ate nothing. It was slowly dying, and appeared to have no appetite. I called Dr. Alan Eaton, NH State Entomologist, who told me that the wasps kill their prey slowly, allowing the larvae to feed long enough to develop. At a certain point, he said, the hornworms stop feeding. When he encounters a hornworm with parasitic wasp cocoons, he takes no chances – he moves it to another location away from his tomatoes where the braconid wasps can develop.
If you’ve seen a moth that resembles a hummingbird, that is the adult form of the tomato hornworm. According to Dr. Eaton, an adult moth of the tomato hornworm is about the same size as a ruby throated hummingbird. They are very strong fliers, and actually overwinter in the places where they can survive without freezing. Then they fly north in the spring, finding new feeding and mating territories.
One last hornworm tidbit: according to Dr. Eaton, there are 2 species, the tomato hornworm and the tobacco hornworm, and the tobacco hornworm is much more prevalent. So if you have been cussing out those nasty tomato hornworms, maybe they’re laughing and saying, “We’re actually tobacco hornworms!”
According to Dr. Eaton – and several readers who have sent me questions – this is a bad year for green stinkbugs. These triangular-shaped green bugs are feeding on everything from grasses and veggies to peaches and apples. Perhaps the mild winter resulted in higher numbers of them. They stink if crushed, so Dr. Eaton recommends picking them and dropping them into soapy water. The brown marmorated stinkbug is often a pest, but the green one is not usually as prevalent as it is this year.
This is also the season that fall webworms appear. You may call them tent caterpillars, but they are of a different species of pest. The tent caterpillars form webs, or tents in crotches of trees early in the summer, but the webworms create their nests near the tips of branches now, and into the fall. With time, the nests get bigger, enclosing more and more leaves as they grow. If the tent is down low you can physically remove the teeming mass of caterpillars by clipping off the branch and dropping it into a bucket of soapy water.
Fall Webworm
If the fall webworms are close enough to the ground that you can spray the leaves near them, you can apply a biological control. There is a product called Dipel, which contains a bacterium (Bt kurstaki) that will kill the worms if they eat leaves sprayed with it. This bacterium will not hurt us, our pets, fish or birds. It is specific to caterpillars. And Dipel lasts for years in the container, so you can invest in a package of it and know that it will be good in the future.
I understand the urge to “nuke” the bad bugs. Hornworms eating my tomatoes? Nuke ‘em. But I don’t. And since I let the braconid wasps feed on the hornworms years ago, I rarely see one of those bad boys. Chemical pesticides change the garden environment. It may please you in the short run, but in the long run, let Mother Nature – and your fingers – take control. Pick’em, don’t nuke ‘em.
Henry Homeyer’s new children’s book, a fantasy-adventure for 8-12 year-olds called Wobar and the Quest for the Magic Calumet, is coming out in October. His Web site is www.Gardening-Guy.com; his e-mail is henry.homeyer@comcast.net.
Uninvited Visitors: the Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
Posted on Wednesday, August 22, 2012 · Leave a Comment
Years ago my sister had a friend in New York who would arrive at my house once or twice a year, unannounced – and always at dinner time. He always stayed until we invited him for dinner but never brought anything to contribute. He had good stories to tell of his times in Africa, so we fed him and excused his unannounced arrivals and large appetite. I‘ve had other visitors who also arrived without an invitation, some of whom wanted to stay for days and who left wet towels on the bathroom floor. There are similarities in the plant world, too: some plants arrive unannounced and shouldn’t be allowed to stay, while others welcomed.
Decades ago a handsome flower arrived in my garden on its own. It was a bellflower, one called, in scientific parlance, Campanula glomerata. This is a nice cut flower with a bright bluish-purple blossom. Never having seen one, I thought I had discovered a new plant, or perhaps a fabulous wildflower had arrived in my garden. I soon learned its name, and that it spread by root, but flopped over, and was, though nice, not as nice as I had first thought. Where did it come from? Who knows? Seeds, I suppose, perhaps in a pot containing other flowers, or carried by a bird.
Goutweed
Not all uninvited visitors are nice. Goutweed (Aegopodium podagraria) and bishop’s weed (the variegated form of goutweed), is the bane of many a gardener’s existence. This invasive was introduced from Japan as a groundcover that could grow in sun or shade, wet or dry. The all-green form, goutweed, will take over a flowerbed in no time, smothering less persistent plants. It is nearly impossible to weed out, as even a small section of root will produce a plant – and more roots. For the organic gardener, the only way to control it is to smother it with plastic and a thick layer of bark mulch. I got some many years ago with a gift of iris – their roots were intertwined. Bishops weed, with its green and white leaves, is less invasive, but sometimes it reverts to the all green form and takes over. So beware!
Great blue lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica) is a fine, upstanding blue-flowered plant that comes and goes in my garden as it pleases. I let it pick its own location, seldom weeding it out, as I know it will never be a problem. It forms small clumps of a dozen plants or less, each spike standing 18-24 inches tall. I’ve known it to travel over 100 yards from one year to the next, and I don’t recall that I ever purchased a plant.
Last winter was virtually snowless, so roots of plants got colder than normal (snow is an excellent insulator). I lost most of my hollyhocks, but I assume that seeds are in the ground and that they will return. Many books list hollyhocks as biennials, but I have had some plants that persisted, growing from the same roots for several years – especially if I cut down the stems right after flowering. Hollyhocks have moved around my gardens at will, seeds traveling downhill on rainy days, as near as I could tell. I had to transplant some as they became very well established in my vegetable garden.
Lady’s Thumb
I recently installed a small garden for a client in Wilder, Vermont, who would not let me remove some of her weeds! She had one that stood nearly 3 feet tall and was covered with small white flowers. It looked to be related to flowers in the genus Persicaria. The weed, deemed a wildflower, is on a Brandeis University web site, http://www.bio.brandeis.edu/fieldbio/leeci_unet/. It’s called lady’s thumb, with the scientific name Polygonum persicaria. That name indicates that the plant looks like a Persicaria, but is in the buckwheat family. So it continues to thrive in her garden – as a wildflower. And now that I know it is a wildflower, not a weed, I like it better. Isn’t that silly? I guess I fear that weeds will take over a space, but know that most wildflowers will not.
That same client also requested that I leave a creeping weed called purslane (Portulaca oleracea). It has glossy, fat leaves and can lay flat against the soil, or stand up as tall as 6 inches. Hers was a low-growing type, and makes a good groundcover – and a nice meal. Yes, I’ve eaten it by sautéing it in olive oil with a little garlic. If you wish to try some, please be sure to get positive identification of it from a knowledgeable person. Most plants are not poisonous, but I’d hate for you to get sick from trying something you should not eat.
Another client told me that she weeded out rose campion (Lychnis coronaria or Silene coronaria) because it jumped up all over the garden. I love it, and let it choose to grow wherever it chooses. It is a biennial with slightly fuzzy gray leaves that has a 4-petaled magenta flower in its second year. But if you want your garden to be ordered and organized in a specific way, perhaps it is not for you.
We all have different tolerances for uninvited visitors, both flowers and people. I think the important thing for me is to know that, if I choose, I can get rid of them without too much trouble.
Henry’s new children’s book, a fantasy-adventure about a boy and a cougar, will be out soon: Wobar and the Quest for the Magic Calumet from Bunker Hill Publishing. His Web site is www.Gardening-Guy.com.
Filed under Article · Tagged with bellflower, biennial plants, cooking pursalane, goutweed, great blue lobelia, hollyhocks, lady's thumb, organic control of weeds, pursalane, weeds in the garden, weeds or wildflowers? henry homeyer
Garlic
Posted on Wednesday, August 15, 2012 · Leave a Comment
Everything has its season; for me, this is garlic season. In early to mid-August each year I harvest 60-100 garlic plants, each bulb or head with 6 to 8 cloves. I tie them in bundles of 10 and hang them in a cool dry location, whole plants including the tops. A month later I trim off the tops, but I’ve been told that curing them with their tops on allows certain nutrients to flow back into the cloves from the foliage. If you haven’t picked your garlic, you should. If you wait too late the outer skin of the garlic will break down and the garlic will not store as well.
Garlic ready to cure
And what, you might fairly ask, does one do with 100 heads of garlic? For starters, I will save the best 15 heads or more for re-planting. I don’t buy seed garlic, I use my own, year after year. Planting time is not until October, but I select the best garlic and set it aside for planting. That means, over time, that I am developing strains that are best for my soil and climate. Now, after 25 generations of doing so, I grow garlic that is well adapted to my specific conditions.
Then there is pesto. I planted a bed of basil about 4 feet square this spring from plants I started indoors. Recently I cut most of that basil about 8 inches from the soil line and processed it all at once for pesto – the plants will grow new leaves for other uses later. I’ve tried a lot of recipes, and have decided this one, below, is the best. I used pine nuts for it, instead of walnuts or almonds, even though those nuts cost me $22/pound. But 6 batches of pesto only used 3 cups of pine nuts, which translates to about $8 for the nuts. This is a treat, and will last for months if spaced out between meals and not consumed on toast with tomatoes for breakfast, which is what I did the day after making pesto.
Henry’s Pesto Supremo
2 cups basil, well packed down in the measuring cup
1/3 cup pine nuts, roasted
3-6 large cloves of garlic according to your taste
1/3 to ½ cup olive oil
½ cup grated Romano cheese (or Parmesan if you prefer)
salt and pepper to taste
I began by browning the raw pine nuts in a cast iron fry pan at medium heat. The pan had been oiled and then wiped with a paper towel to remove the excess. I find roasting improves the flavor considerably.
Remove basil from stems, wash, spin dry and then pat the leaves dry with a cloth towel. You need enough basil to fill a 2 cup measuring cup with leaves packed down firmly, which is a lot of leaves.
Pesto Frozen in Ice Cube Trays
Place leaves in a food processor and add 1/3 cup of pine nuts and pulse a few times. Mince the garlic in a garlic press, add to blender and then pulse. Add oil slowly with the processor running. Finally add the cheese and pulse a few times. Taste immediately on toast!
Looking for other ideas I called Bill Howard, Executive chef at Three Tomatoes Trattoria (my favorite Italian restaurant) which is located in downtown Lebanon. He started by reminding me that different strains of garlic have different flavors, some with lots of “bite”, others quite mild.
Bill likes a mild strain called “Music.” He roasts it in a 350 degree oven for an hour or so, caramelizing the sugars in it and making it suitable for spreading on toast. I’ve done this in the past by putting whole heads of garlic (skins on) in a small, oven-safe baking dish with a little olive oil. When the garlic is roasted I let it cool, take scissors to snip off the tops, and then squeeze out the soft inner mush onto toasted bread. Sometimes I first lather the toast with a soft goat cheese and then spread the roasted garlic and top with a slice of fresh tomato. Oh boy!
Bill Howard also told me that sometimes when using garlic that has a lot of bite he slices it, and then poaches it in milk, which mellows it out. That seems truly bizarre to me, but I’ve never eaten one of his dishes I didn’t like. Not only does he use the garlic, he makes a garlic-infused béchamel (white sauce) sauce using the milk, butter and flour.
Garlic keeps best in a cool location with low humidity. I keep garlic on an “orchard rack” in the mudroom, a place that stays cool. I got the rack a few years ago from Gardeners Supply (www.gardeners.com) and use it for winter squash and onions, too. It is made from hardwood slats, so there is good air circulation. If you just have a few heads of garlic I suppose you could keep it in a basket in the kitchen, or perhaps in the fridge.
Garlic is believed to cure or prevent all manner of ailments. I learned from herbalist Nancy Phillips (author of The Village Herbalist) that one should mince or chop garlic and then let it sit for 10 minutes before cooking with it. She says this allows certain anti-cancer compounds to develop full potency before use. I have been doing it for years – it can’t hurt.
I do know that garlic adds great flavor to almost any dish. And who knows, I might poach some in milk and use the milk on my cereal. That would be an interesting way to start the day!
Henry Homeyer’s new children’s book will be available in September. Look for Wobar and the Quest for the Magic Calumet from Bunker Hill Publishing.
Filed under Article, Uncategorized · Tagged with best pesto recipe, Chef Bill Howard, freezing pesto, garlic, growing garlic, growing great garlic, Henry Homeyer, nancy philips, the village herbalist, Three Tomatoes Restaurant
Keeping Hedges Looking Good
Posted on Saturday, August 11, 2012 · Leave a Comment
If you haven’t gotten your hedge clippers out yet this season, it’s not too late to do some work on hedges. And even if you have done some trimming, this is a good time for a tune-up. You can keep hedges to a constant size, but it requires some work once or twice a year – every year.
I recently worked on a barberry hedge that had been given a buzz cut with electric clippers last summer, and again this spring. The job last summer was to bring down the height of the hedge by a foot or more, which meant that most foliage was cut off. It looked pretty gawky, like a teenage boy in shorts, all leg. But I knew that would not seriously harm a barberry. Barberries are tough as nails, almost impossible to kill. They are also on the invasive species list in most states.
Old Fashioned Hedge Clippers
I decided to use old fashioned hedge clippers, the manual kind, to work on this hedge. I like them because, unlike the powered ones, you can’t do much damage, or at least not quickly. These look like big scissors with 14-inch blades. My goal was to snip off the 6 to 8-inch new shoots that had popped up erratically since its last pruning in May or early June. I wanted to contain the hedge, not change its basic size or shape.
One of the first things I did was to cut out dead branches. These were most prevalent down low, branches that had been shaded out. Then I looked it over to see what kinds of other things had invaded the hedge since its planting. Hedges are great places for birds to rest and nest, away from hungry cats and foxes. That means that birds also drop seeds near hedges, seeds that go through their digestive systems unharmed – and start new plants.
There is an invasive introduced rose called the multiflora rose. These were introduced by highway departments back in the 1950’s, before people understood their potential to take over the understory. Sure enough, there was a multiflora rose that had grown 3 feet above the top of the hedge – in just a couple of months! I crawled into the hedge and cut it off at the base. If I’d been more courageous I would have dug the roots out, too, but that barberry is a pretty prickly customer.
Barberry Hedge in Need of Tune Up
Then I snipped off all new growth that had grown up since its last haircut. I like a hedge that is quite even, so in low spots along the top or holes along the sides I let new growth remain, or trimmed it lightly to encourage it to branch out.
Experts tell us that a hedge is healthiest if it is tapered: it should be narrowest at the top and spread wider as it gets to the ground. That way all the branches get sunshine, even the lowest ones. But most people don’t trim their hedges that shape, so the lower branches die out from lack of sunshine. Hedges spread out at the top, so that before long they are shaped like a “V” – unless you really work at preventing that.
I called Cal Felicetti, a consulting arborist who works for Chippers, Inc in Lebanon, NH and asked him how much a hedge needs to taper. He said an 8-foot tall hemlock hedge should be about a foot wider at the bottom than it is at the top. That way, not only do all branches get sunshine, the hedge sheds snow better – particularly if the top of the hedge is gently rounded. Stand at the end and look down the hedge, he said. The taper should be obvious, and the lines straight.
Cal also said that if you have a tall hedge, consider investing in a good orchard ladder. These ladders have a hinged leg that you can plunk right into the hedge, allowing you to get to the top of the hedge and do a good job of shearing it. A standard step ladder puts you far away from the top of the hedge, encouraging you to take risks leaning over to reach it – or to just give up.
Cal’s last bit of advice was to buy good tools and keep them sharp. I agree. If you buy good tools they’ll last a life time, and longer. Pruning tools need regular sharpening, but once you learn how to do it, it’s easy.
If you like a formal looking hedge, prune now or even later. Hedges are pretty much done growing until next spring, so they’ll stay smooth and even. If you like a more informal look, prune earlier next year and allow your hedges to get fuzzy all over. The main thing is consistency- you can’t afford to skip a year or two, and hope to catch up later. And remember to taper those hedges, they need to be widest at the base.
Henry Homeyer is the author of 4 gardening books. His Web site is www.Gardening-guy.com.
Garden Wimsy
Posted on Wednesday, August 1, 2012 · Leave a Comment
If you ask my grandchildren, they would probably tell you that “Silly” is my middle name. George may remember the time Grampy showed up at his house wearing one red high-top sneaker, one purple. Or Casey might tell you about the Superman cape on the scarecrow that is currently in my garden. So they were not surprised to see that, with some help, I have put together a full-sized representation of the story of the Three Little Pigs, complete with pigs and a wolf. I love garden whimsy, and encourage you to think about creating outdoor art for your own garden. It doesn’t take great skills to create something fun.
Brick house
This particular whimsy is on public display in Woodstock, Vermont at the Vermont Land Trust offices on Hunt Farm Rd, off Rose Hill Rd. It is part of an event called Bookstock – a one day event that has already passed by. But the Poet’s Trail, which is under the auspices of Bookstock, will continue into the fall, overlapping with Sculpture Fest which is held nearby. It features poems by Mary Oliver selected by Woodstock High School students that are posted along the trail, and lots of fabulous sculpture along the trail, in the fields, and around the old farmhouse. There’s a little whimsy, too.
At the farm there is a tiny old brick building (just 5 feet square and 6 feet tall) built long ago to store ashes, presumably for making soap. Charlet Davenport, the organizer of the Poet’s Trail event, told me she thought the brick house would be great as part of the Three Pigs story, but needed someone to build a straw house and a stick house. I agreed to do so.
I built the houses with the help of my summer intern, Gordon Moore. They are circular and 6 feet in diameter at the base. The straw house has a rounded top and the stick house is built like a teepee.
Framework for straw house with Gordon
The houses are made with freshly cut saplings, each an inch or two in diameter and 8 feet long. We stripped off side branches and leaves, and then dug 6-inch deep holes for each sapling. After placing the sticks in the holes we tied them together at the top using copper wire that we stripped out of scrap #14 building wire that I had left over from the days when I was an electrician.
For the straw house we bent over opposing sticks, overlapping them and tying them together for a foot or more, creating a domed top. For the stick house we tied 3 together as if we were building a teepee, then added 3 more in between the first three. Once that was done, we filled the holes in the ground with soil and some gravel to firm it up and keep each stick in place – just in case a wolf wanted to huff and puff at our pig homes.
Straw house with pig and Daphne, the writer’s dog
Then the real work began. We took small diameter sticks (half to quarter-inch) and tied them around the outside of the houses with wire. We did 5 or 6 concentric circles descending around the outside of our little pig houses. That provided stability and places for us to tie on bundles of straw (actually, we used hay, not straw, nearly 2 bales of it) or clumps of twigs with the leaves left on. We needed to create something that enclosed our structure but was not so solid as to deter the mythological wolf.
For the straw house we tied more than 150 clumps of hay. We used ordinary 3-stranded garden twine, which was strong enough to tie our bundles together without breaking when we cinched them together. For the stick house we made similar bundles, using the side branches, leaves and all, that we had cut off our saplings that we used for the framework. The stick house was easier – we could make 2-foot long bundles that quickly covered the exterior of the stick house. I found that using a knot I learned in Boy Scouts, a clove hitch, to tie the bundles together worked best.
Three Little Pigs
I had a nice pig watering can (made of plastic) and a ceramic piggy bank, but needed a good-sized pig for the straw house. My partner, Cindy Heath, sketched out the face and front legs of a pig onto a piece of quarter-inch birch plywood, and I cut it out with a jig saw. Then we made the back end of the pig, and I screwed each end onto a short pine log about 6 inches in diameter. We painted it pink, Cindy painted on eyes, and I attached a tuna can for a snout. It looked great – and undoubtedly tasty to passing wolves.
I called the former mayor of Hanover, Marilyn “Willy” Black to ask if I might borrow a wolf. She is a chainsaw artist, and agreed to lend me the original wolf she made many years ago. She re-painted it, and I installed it in a menacing pose behind the houses. Beware, pigs!
All together Gordon and I spent about 15 hours each making the 2 houses, and Cindy and I spent another hour each on the pig.
Detail, frame of stick hous
One could look at this as a colossal waste of time, or perhaps as a worthy endeavor – given that this exhibit will create plenty of smiles and a few giggles from my grandkids. Think about creating something fun (or silly) for your own garden – especially if you have kids or grandchildren.
Henry’ Homeyer lives and works in Cornish Flat, NH. You may write him at P.O. Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746 or henry.homeyer@comcast.net.
What to do in Hot, Dry Weather
Posted on Wednesday, July 25, 2012 · Leave a Comment
We New Englanders are pretty lucky. Much of the country is saddled with a hot dry spell reminiscent of the dust bowl era of the 1930’s. I’ve seen pictures in the paper of wizened corn and unhappy farmers scratching their heads and looking up at a cloudless, unforgiving sky. We’ve had more than our fair share of hot days – in the high nineties, even – but so far I’ve had at least a thunderstorm once a week. Each week vegetables (and many flowers) need one inch of water –either from the sky, or from your watering can – but we don’t always get that.
Recently I went to water the garden of a friend who was away for a week. The soil was as dry as powder. She had planted pole beans before she left, and they should have sprouted, but had not. I watered the bean plot, but water from the hose wouldn’t penetrate the soil. It just ran off. So I scratched the surface to loosen up the crust on top, and re-watered a few times using a watering can, giving it a slow sprinkle. Finally it worked: when I poked a finger into the soil it was dark and moist for at least 2 inches. Then I spread a light layer of straw over the soil to shade it.
Imagine yourself marooned on a desert island. No shade? You bake. Add a palm tree or two, and you survive nicely. Same for your lettuce and tomatoes. The plants love the sun, but their roots need some shade in hot, dry times.
In the vegetable garden I favor a layer of newspapers – 4 to 6 sheets thick – covered with straw, hay or leaves. I keep the newspapers away a little from the stem of each plant, as I want moisture from light rains to reach the soil. Straw comes from grain crops that have been threshed, so it is not supposed to have seeds (though it always has a few). Mulch hay always has seeds; it is grass grown for fodder for cows and sometimes it gets spoiled as feed (by rain) and sold cheaply to gardeners. The price difference is considerable – $3 for hay versus $10 or more for straw, so I generally use hay. The newspapers help to keep seeds out of the soil.
Soaker hose in flower garden in fall after clean up
What kind of watering device is best? I’ve tried plenty of them, most recently soaker hoses. Soaker hoses are designed to leak. They are a rubber-like substance that is somewhat porous. They ooze water their entire length, and that water spreads out for about 6 inches around each hose. I installed a pressure regulator and a filter to keep particles from the water source (a pond) from clogging the pores of the soaker hose. Still, some rows – or sections of a row- got more water than others – and not in a predictable way. So some plants got little or no water, some got too much; a few rows had perfectly even distribution.
I also installed a timer, which allowed my client to go away and know her beets or tomatoes were being watered in her absence. Timers work, but get the simplest kind possible. I have installed some that you have to program, and find those can be aggravating. I like a simple one that comes on every day at the same time, but allows you to set how long the hose will run. Test it well – before you go on vacation.
While working as a WWOOFer on a willow farm in France a few years ago I set up an emitter watering system; it worked a lot better than the soaker hoses. (WWOOF stands for Willing Workers on Organic Farms; see www.WWOOF.org for details). The system ran three quarter-inch plastic feeder lines down the rows of plants. I used a special tool to punch holes in the feeder line and inserted barbed connectors that attached to quarter-inch lines. Each small line went to an emitter that delivered a measured amount of water per hour, depending on plant needs. Some emitters just oozed water, other types sent out a spray to cover 2 square feet or so.
One nice thing about an emitter system is that you don’t end up watering the weeds: if you put an emitter at each tomato plant, for example, the space between plants is not watered the way it is with a soaker hose. And you can see (and replace) an emitter that gets clogged and does not deliver water. I can’t figure out why most garden centers on the East coast don’t sell these systems –every hardware store in California does.
Lawns in August can look pretty brown if a watering ban is put in place – especially if you only use chemicals on your lawn. Lawns that are given compost every year and have biologically active soil seem to do much better at staying green in dry times. It also helps to keep the grass longer in August – taller grass helps to shade the soil, like those palm trees mentioned above.
We’re all largely dependent on the heavens to provide our lawns and gardens with rain. But if we treat our soil well and provide plenty of organic matter, everything does better in times of stress – including the gardener.
Henry Homeyer is a garden designer and the author of 4 gardening books. His Web site is www.Gardening-guy.com.
Mid-Summer in the Vegetable Garden
Posted on Wednesday, July 18, 2012 · Leave a Comment
Romanesco Zucchini
Summer squash of all sorts are ripening up nicely, so I know it’s mid-summer in the vegetable garden. Soon gardeners will be dropping off bags of squash in unlocked cars, on porches, and, occasionally, on seats of buses and in public libraries. When you’re not distributing the booty in creative ways, here are some suggestions for tasks in your vegetable garden now.
If you see lower leaves of tomato plants browning up, snip them off with a sharp pair of scissors and dispose of them in your trash, not the compost. It’s a good year for tomatoes, so far. No late blight, not much early blight for most of us. On a recent tour of my 32 tomato plants, I only found a few that had any discolored leaves at all. This may be due to the fact that when I installed tomato cages in June, I cut off lower leaves that might touch the ground. Most leaf diseases are soil-borne and spread by splash-up. So removing lower leaves, even now, is a good practice. Mulching with leaves, straw, hay, pine needles or grass clippings helps prevent disease, too.
I’m eating edible-pod peas and freezing some for the winter. I blanch them briefly – about 60 seconds- and drop them into cold water before patting them dry on cotton towels, and then freezing them in zipper bags. Once the crop is finished I’ll have a nice 10-foot section of wide raised garden bed for planting late season veggies. Here are some possibilities of ways to use that bed:
1. Fall radishes. I buy seeds for one called ‘Red Meat’ in the Johnny’s Seeds catalog that I love. It only works if you plant it in mid-to late-summer. It is very mild, and pretty on a plate. Pink centers are surrounded with a band of white, then green – just like a watermelon. It is tasty even if grown 3 to 4 inches in diameter. I serve it with a vinaigrette sauce. At the Cornish General Store I found seeds by Agway for a fall radish called Chinese White Winter; the packet says to plant after August 15. It grows to 5 inches long or more, stores well, and is mild. I shall try it.
Broccoli Starts
2. Late season broccoli. Start some by seed now in cell packs, transplant into the garden when they are 2-3 inches tall. You’ll have full sized heads in 55-65 days. Or buy seedlings now if you can find them. Broccoli produces well into the fall as it is very frost hardy.
3. Bush Beans. I have 2 plantings already, but I could do a third planting for the freezer. ‘Provider’, a reliable variety, takes just 50 days from planting to harvest, and will produce for 3 weeks or more. If you plant today, you should be able to harvest plenty before frost.
4. Lettuce. Fall lettuce is crisp and tasty. Plant directly in the soil, or if you have no space now, plant in cell-packs, and plant when you have space.
Other tasks now? Scratch in a little rock powder or wood ashes around pepper plants. Peppers produce late in the summer, and can be stimulated to be more fruitful, sooner, with a dose of rock powder now – a quarter cup per plant. For more information on rock powders, see my latest book (Organic Gardening (not just) in the Northeast: A Hands-On, Month-by-Month Guide), which should be available at your local library or bookstore. Azomite is the name of one commercially available rock powder.
Your asparagus patch should not be ignored, just because the season is over. Make sure grasses and weeds don’t take over the bed, and water weekly in dry times. I mulched mine with ground branches I got from a local arborist. The chips keep down weeds and hold in moisture.
Make pesto. Basil is more productive if you keep picking leaves or even cutting off the top third of the plant. There is only so much basil you can put in a salad or on a sandwich, so make some pesto and freeze it for the winter when we all crave green things from the garden. The basic recipe contains basil, garlic (lots), parmesan cheese, olive oil and pine nuts. In recent years, pine nut prices have peaked over $20/pound, so I have been using walnuts or hazel nuts, both of which taste just fine.
Garlic Scapes
My garlic is getting mature earlier than usual this year. When the tops, called scapes, curl around in loops it is time to harvest those scapes and use in stir fries. Chop and sauté in olive oil to add to other vegetable dishes. The heads, or bulbs, will continue getting bigger for a few more weeks- but I have already nabbed a couple to use now. When you do harvest your garlic, it is best to let it cure for a couple of weeks in a shady, breezy location before you cut off the tops.
It’s easy to get lackadaisical in the heat of the summer, but weeding is still important if you want your best production. It is also important to keep weed seeds out of the soil to minimize your work next year. So keep weeding, but at the end of the day settle into an Adirondack chair near the garden and admire your handiwork as the sun goes down.
Henry Homeyer is a garden consultant, teacher, coach and the author of 4 gardening books. His web site is www.Gardening-Guy.com.
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