Mid-summer in the Flower Garden
Posted on Wednesday, July 11, 2012 · Leave a Comment
I love George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, particularly that song about summertime, when the living is allegedly easy. Fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high, and all that. Well, it’s mid-summer and the gardening is just as busy as ever, the weeds are high and who has time for fishing? But I’m not complaining. I love the garden and the weeds give me an excuse to avoid cleaning the basement. Here are some of the mid-summer tasks I’ve been working on.
Watering: Pots and planters need daily attention. I poke a finger in pots to verify that the soil mix is still lightly moist. I bought a hanging basket full of supertunias at a fundraiser, and it needs watering every day. The basket is filled with a peat-based potting mix, which loses moisture fast. So the leaves shrivel and it looks awful by the end of the day unless I water daily. I give it some liquid fish fertilizer a couple of times a week, as the potting mix is devoid of much in the way of minerals.
New plantings in the ground that are still establishing themselves also need water every day or two, depending on the weather. But mature flowers rarely need watering if they are planted in the right place. I only water if they go limp.
Deadheading roses
Cutting back, pruning. Now is the time to cut off spent flowers. This has been a splendid year for roses, perhaps to compensate for the poor lilac show. Some roses re-bloom, some do not, but cleaning off the dead flowers will improve the looks of the plant. Cut back not just the dead blossom, but all the way back to the next stem that has 5 leaves.
Other plants such as peonies will look better if you cut off the spent flowers, and some (such as and perennial bachelor buttons) will re-bloom. Cut off the flowers and stems of delphinium right to the ground after blooming is done, scratch in some fertilizer, and you should get another stem with blossoms in the fall.
Spring and early-summer blooming shrubs need to have their blossoms cut off now. I recently have worked on forsythia, common ninebark, lilac and spirea. If you cut these back in the fall, you will lose blossoms. Forsythia and ninebark can really grow fast, up to 3 to 4 feet in a season if you let them go at their natural pace, so cut them back before they are totally unmanageable.
After edging
Weeding. Weeds, those sneaky rascals, get discouraged if you keep pulling them out. But left alone now, midsummer? They grow like crazy. Grasses are trying to sneak in to the garden, too. Keep the grasses at bay by digging a trench at the edge of the lawn. Use a shovel or an edging tool to dig a 4-inch deep, V-shaped trench between the lawn and garden beds. Grasses grow to the edge of the trench and don’t know if it is the Grand Canyon or something smaller, so they stay back.
If you see weeds blooming, stop whatever you are doing and pull the weeds. Or, as the Red Queen would say, “Off with their heads!’Snip off the weed flowers before they can set seeds and sprinkle them into your soil. Then deal with the weed when you have time. Don’t throw weeds with flowers into the compost. Some (most?) can morph from flower to seed even after being pulled, and those weed seeds in the compost can come back to trouble you later.
Weeding before edging
Use a good weeding tool when you weed, so that you can get all (or most of) the roots of weeds and grasses. You probably know that my favorite is the CobraHead weeder (www.CobraHead.com). I like the fact that it is so easy to get its single tine under a weed, loosening the soil so that when I tug the weed, it comes out, roots and all.
Mulching. Mulching really reduces weed problems if you weed carefully, and then apply mulch. What to use for mulch? That depends on your budget and your aesthetic sense. Most gardeners use bark mulch of some sort, though many use “color enhanced” wood-based mulch. Not me. I am skeptical of what companies use to enhance the color of their mulch, so I only buy natural, organic mulch.
I also like to use chopped leaves as mulch. Leaves are fantastic sources of organic matter and nutrients that microorganisms can break down and share with our plants. Pine needles, too, are excellent mulch. I know that many gardeners think that pine needles are too acidic to use, but I have never had a problem with them.
Last but not least, this is the time to plant some new daylilies. These are workhorses in the garden. Bugs don’t eat them and they don’t get mildew or blight. They come in different colors, blossom shape, and bloom time. Go to a family-owned garden center or nursery to see what’s in bloom. You just might be amazed.
Henry Homeyer can be reached at P. O. Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 037476 or by e-mail him at henry.homeyer@comcast.net. His Web site is www.Gardening-Guy.com; you can find his past articles there (including the one you missed because someone wrapped up the fish remains in it).
Filed under Article · Tagged with deadheading roses, edging, fish fertilizer, Henry Homeyer, mid-summer garden tasks, mulching plants, peat moss, porgie and bess, pruning roses, watering flowers, weeding, when to plant daylilies
Saving Money in the Flower Garden
Posted on Wednesday, July 4, 2012 · Leave a Comment
My house sits on a couple of acres, most of which is growing something. There is a big vegetable garden, some trees, berry bushes and decorative shrubs, a little lawn and lots of flowers. I could spend a fortune, I suppose, if I bought flowers for every square foot of flowerbed that I have. Over the years, however, I have learned how to transplant small plants that started on their own from seed – “volunteers” – and how to divide existing perennials.
Let’s start with the volunteer plants. The first thing one must do is learn to recognize the young seedlings – and not pull them as weeds. I do this mainly by the color and texture of the leaves, but shape is important, too. And of course, you can’t use bark mulch in the flower beds if you want volunteers. I grow perennials close together so that they shade out weeds, and try to pull any weeds that do grow before the go to seed.
Twenty years ago a neighbor pulled up in front of my house and handed me a cardboard box with 8 candelabra primroses (Primula japonica). I accepted them with pleasure, and went directly to a good reference book to find out what they needed: rich soil, light shade, consistent moisture. I had those conditions under a small grove of wild apple trees, and planted them there.
Primula japonica
Now I have hundreds of candelabra primroses and many other kinds. Once I realized that one primrose would grow there, I tried other species, and all but one (P. vialii) have done well there – and spread. Most spread by seed, and one (P. kisona) by root, like a groundcover. I regularly dig primroses and move them or give them to friends.
Giving excess plants to friends, especially lesser known varieties, is a great way to save money. I find that if you give a person a nice clump of flowers, you are most certainly going to go home with 2 or 3 new plants for your own garden.
Dividing plants is easy, once you get the hang of it. But you have to know what kind of root each perennial has, and that generally means some experimentation. The only book I have found that describes dividing for most common perennials is The Well-Tended Perennial Garden: Planting & Pruning Techniques by Tracy DiSabato-Aust. That’s a book that should be in every gardener’s library because it tells you how to prune, deadhead, get to re-bloom, divide and more. It’s in hardback at $34.95 (Timber Press, 2006) and worth every penny.
It is best to divide most perennials in the spring when the foliage is just 3-6 inches tall. Tough characters like hostas and daylilies can be done anytime, though preferably on a cool cloudy day if doing so now. I recently divided a few hostas and took off a section from a large bugbane or snakeroot (Cimicifuga ramosa), and none showed signs of stress.
Dividing hostas
You can cut out a section of a large hosta or daylily by cutting out a wedge with a spade or even a long knife. I sometimes use a serrated root knife I got from Lee Valley Tools. Tracy DiSabato-Aust prefers a non-serrated knife, so I guess either will work just fine. Get down on your hands and knees and try to see natural division points before you cut.
Alternatively, you can dig up a plant, place it on the ground and then use 2 spading forks to separate it. Just insert them into the middle of the clump, back-to-back, and work the forks back and forth. It’s a lot of work for a big clump of daylilies. I prefer just to cut up a clump with a sharp spade. The spade lets me stand on it with all my weight to slice through the tough roots. I once divided a 4-foot wide clump of Joe Pye weed (Eupatorium maculatum) and ended up using a pick ax to whack it apart. Not a pretty sight, but I was determined to remove and divide it.
Groundcovers send out roots and can be divided anytime. Just dig up a plant, sever the root from the mother plant, and move it to a new location. Easy.
Some plants have fleshy taproots that are easily broken, and these are not good candidates for division. Peonies, Oriental poppies, bleeding heart and pink mallow fit in that category. They should be divided in the fall –though little seedlings move easily, spring or fall. Siberian iris should be divided in fall.
Some plants go downhill and become less vigorous if they are not divided on a regular basis. Have you lost a nice Shasta daisy? If so, please try again – but divide it every 3 years. That allows you to add compost and slow-release organic fertilizer to the soil, which rejuvenates the plants.
The easiest, least expensive method for getting more flowers is just to save seeds and plant them. I plant when the seeds are ripe, just scratching them in where I want more plants next year. I do this with Jack-in-the-pulpit, annual poppies, foxgloves and rose campion, and they generally reward me handsomely.
So don’t spend a fortune. Divide, trade with friends, start things by seed. In no time you’ll have all the plants you need – even if not all the plants you want.
Henry Homeyer is the author of 4 gardening books. His Web site is www.Gardening-Guy.com.
Berries
Posted on Monday, June 25, 2012 · Leave a Comment
By now my vegetable gardens is all planted, annual flowers are in, the weeds are pretty much under control. Time to relax and smell the roses? Well, maybe not. There are always tasks for the gardener. This is a good time to plant some berry bushes.
The first thing to do, if you want a good berry patch, is to test the soil to find out if you need to add specific nutrients. Go to your university extension Web site, or Google “soil testing”. You should be able to download a form and get instructions on how to collect a soil sample, and where to send it. All berry patches will also need some added organic matter such as compost, aged manure, or leaf mold.
Elderberries
Competition from weeds is an important issue for berries. You can’t just use a rototiller to chew up a patch of field or lawn to plant your berries. You really need to dig out the sod – or smother it this year to plant next year. A layer of 4-mil black plastic spread out over a lawn that has been cut short will kill the grass, roots and all, by the end of the summer. Landscape fabric will do the same, but is more expensive. Next spring the dead grass will add organic matter when you mix it in.
If you want to plant this year you have two choices: dig out the sod by hand, or rent a sod lifter – I reject the idea of using chemicals to nuke the grass. The sod lifter is powered by a gas engine; it sends a blade under the sod and along the edges to slice it loose. You still have to pick up the sod and lug it away. And you can’t roll it up like a rug – it’s too heavy. I slice the long strip of sod into 1- or 2-foot sections. Or, for small areas, you can just use a shovel to slice sod into one foot squares to pry out by hand, which is very labor intensive. Ugh.
All berries like sunshine. Six hours per day is the minimum for a good crop. More is always better. Berries do not like root competition, so keep your berry patch away from trees. I planted a rose recently that was more than 50 feet from a Norway maple, and found the soil full of tree roots coming from the maple. So pick a site far from trees if possible.
Raspberries are a great choice for the home gardener: they are expensive at the store and do not keep well. Better to grow your own and eat some every day in season. What are the best varieties? I asked Alicia Jenks, the owner of Green Dragon Farm, a pick-your-own blueberry and raspberry farm in Weathersfield, Vermont. She suggested getting ‘Prelude’ or ‘Killarney’ for an early crop. Then ‘Encore’ or ‘Latham’ for mid-season berries and ‘Heritage’ for late-season berries.
Alicia Jenks suggested planting raspberries 3 feet apart in a staggered double row in a 5 or 6-foot wide bed. Add plenty of compost to the soil and work it in well – a 4-inch layer is a good. She adds Pro-Gro, an organic, slow-release fertilizer to the soil at planting time in each hole. Although you can buy bare root plants early in the spring, most sellers of them are sold out by now. Potted bushes are still readily available at garden centers.
Blueberries are another good choice for every home gardener. The soil requirements for blueberries are very different than for raspberries, however. Paul Franklin of Riverview Farm, a pick-your-own apple, pumpkin
Blueberries
and berry farm in Plainfield, NH, told me that there are just three important things to get right in order to have a good crop: proper pH, proper pH and proper pH. He went on to explain that the soil must be very acidic in order to get a good crop – in the range of 4.0 to 5.5. So get your soil tested and add a soil acidifier such as elemental sulfur to get the soil pH right. Pro-Holly or Holly-Tone (organic acidic fertilizers) are good for blueberries, too, and can be added around existing bushes now.
Blueberries should be spaced about 5 feet apart in rows that are far enough apart to allow mowing. Most commercial growers mulch with woodchips to keep down weeds. The roots grow close to the surface, so you can’t dig out weeds willy-nilly – you may damage roots. So get grasses and weeds out in a 5-foot circle before you plant, and mulch well to keep them out. Weeds will steal the water and nutrients your blueberries need.
Elderberries
Elderberries are an easy crop if you have a moist location on your property. I grow 3 varieties on the bank of a little stream, and they do well. Pollination is better if you have 2 or more different varieties. The white, fragrant flowers form big clusters at the top of the bushes and are decorative right now. In the late summer I harvest elderberries by sniping off clusters of berries; later, in the house, I pull the berries off their stems and freeze them. I like to sprinkle them on hot oatmeal in winter and I also make an elderberry syrup to ward off colds.
So go plant some berries, or more berries, or different kinds of berries. You’ll be glad you did.
Henry Homeyer is a gardening consultant and Master Gardener living in Cornish Flat, NH. Contact him at henry.homeyer@comcast.net. His Web site is www.Gardening-Guy.com.
Gardening in the Rain
Posted on Wednesday, June 20, 2012 · Leave a Comment
I’ve always preferred sunny days, both as a boy and now, as a quasi-geezer. I remember reciting this ditty as a small boy, “Rain, rain, go away, come back some other day!” And it did, eventually – but usually not as quickly as I wanted. Now as a gardener I appreciate the rain for what it does for my plants, but I still think to myself, after a few hours of rain, “Rain, rain, go away …”
Rain Gauge
If you don’t have a rain gauge, you should. It doesn’t have to be one of those fancy electronic ones that sends signals to you from outdoors. A simple $5 device that consists of a cylinder with marks on the side to show each quarter inch of rain is just fine. And, if you really want to be frugal, an empty cat food or tuna can will work. Most of our plants need an inch of rain – or water from your hose – each week.
Plants are generally the most susceptible to death by dehydration right after planting. Their roots have been disturbed and frequently delicate root tips have been broken off. A hot, dry day can wreak havoc on a newly planted seedling. If your plants are growing in potting mix, it is best to submerse the plants in a bucket of water before nestling them into their growing holes. Hold the plants under the water until they stop bubbling. It can be hard to saturate a large root ball by top watering.
Rainy days are much better than sunny days for transplanting. You can minimize shock by preparing the new hole before you dig up the plant so that it can go right to its new home. My grandfather liked to say that you should move enough soil with a transplant that “it will remember where it came from.” Modern soil scientists would probably agree, saying that the soil microbes you move with a plant are important to its future health. After moving a plant, create a ring of soil around your transplant to hold water. Then, using a watering can, gently fill the ring and let water seep in. Repeat several times.
Soil Additive - Fish Fertilizer & SUPERthrive
I add two solutions to my watering can that help to minimize transplant shock. The first is called SUPERthrive. It comes in a little 4oz container but it only takes a quarter of a teaspoon of the solution for a gallon of water to treat plants against transplant shock. It contains vitamins and minerals; in my experience it reduces transplant shock and helps stressed plants (like those 6-packs of annuals I forgot to water on a hot day).
The other solution I use is a liquid fish and seaweed fertilizer. Neptune’s Harvest makes a very nice product, though there are plenty of others. The fish “juice” gives new plants nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium and trace minerals at a time when they need a quick burst of soluble fertilizer.
But back to those rainy days: if you don’t mind working a warm rain, go outside and weed. Weeds pull much more easily when the soil is wet. But avoid a lot of digging in wet soil. I like my CobraHead weeder (www.CobraHead.com), in part, because it is a low-impact tool. I can use its single tine to stir up the soil enough to plant a small lettuce plant or make a furrow for carrot seeds without making a big mess of the soil on a rainy day.
I never walk on beds when they are wet. Wet soil compacts easily, especially soils with a high clay content. Clay that is compacted and then allowed to dry out can be as hard as concrete. And don’t even think of rototilling wet soil. You can ruin the soil texture by doing so.
Most of us have plants in pots on the front stoop or on the deck. Be attentive to them when it rains. If they have drainage holes (as they should), they will collect water in their saucers below. Roots can rot if left sitting in water for days on end. So remove the plants from their saucers in a deluge, or shortly thereafter. If you notice that the runoff is brown, you are probably losing good nutrients. Pour that water in a bucket to use on a dry day to water your plants.
Want an indoor planting project on a rainy day? Get out your potting soil and a few leftover 6-packs from spring planting. Plant some lettuce seeds in those 6-packs for use in the garden once they get to be an inch or two tall. I find that starting lettuce in 6-packs and growing them on the deck is better than direct seeding in the garden – no weeds, and they are easier to monitor for water. I try to remember to plant lettuce every 2 weeks for a good supply all summer. And you can start fall broccoli by seed in mid-July- so mark your calendar today, and do so on a rainy day.
There are times in early summer when I get bone tired from doing so much gardening, day after day. I can’t seem to get it through my thick skull that I’m not a kid anymore. So a rainy day is a good thing. It usually forces me slow down a little. And my plants love them – in moderation.
Henry Homeyer is a life-long organic gardener, a UNH Extension Master Gardener, and a gardening coach. Contact him at henry.homeyer@comcast.net or P.O. Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746.
Lilacs
Posted on Wednesday, June 13, 2012 · Leave a Comment
Chris Wilson loves lilacs. He grows about 200 of them including more than 100 varieties at his home in West Newbury, Vermont. Like many gardeners, he was a little disappointed with the showing of his lilacs this year. There were fewer blossoms, and many were smaller than normal. I recently met with Chris, who works at E.C. Brown’s Nursery in Thetford Center, Vermont to discuss lilacs – and this year’s less than stellar performance.
First, Chris noted that many lilacs tend to follow two-year cycles of abundant bloom. Like apple trees that produce a heavy fruit load, producing a heavy crop of blossoms and seeds draws down on the energy of a lilac; the next year the lilacs tend to be less productive. I understand that phenomenon, but can’t imagine that all lilacs everywhere would be on the same cycle. But it does make me want to cut off the spent flower panicles on my favorite lilacs before they expend all the energy of making seeds.
Lilac
The next possibility that Chris and I discussed was the extreme variations of temperature this spring. The early heat caused buds to swell and prepare for opening. That was followed by several hard frosts. Some of the buds may well have been damaged or made more susceptible to fungal diseases that have also attacked some lilacs this spring. He showed me some blackened stems and buds that were blighted and unproductive.
I have noticed that later-blooming lilacs are doing better than the earlier blooming lilacs did. That would make sense. Later blooming lilacs probably would not have buds that were ready to open during a week of high temperatures. Miss Kim, for example, is a very popular later-blooming lilac that is blooming quite well for me.
But my personal theory, unsubstantiated by any independent tests, is this: Last August was cool and rainy. I have read that lilacs set their spring buds in late summer, which I define as August- though the literature does not specify. I think that since lilacs got less sun than usual, they didn’t set as many buds. Then the hot/cold/hot weather this spring reduced even those numbers. And who knows what the lack of snow meant to lilacs. Gardening is full of unanswerable questions.
Conventional wisdom has it that lilacs need a top-dressing of ashes from the woodstove (or a dose of limestone from your local feed-n-grain store) each March. I disagree. Yes, lilacs do best in neutral or slightly sweet (alkaline) soil. For most of us, that means counteracting our acid rain by applying lime or wood ash once a year. But March? I think the timing has more to do with when farmers of past years were not too busy and had the time to spread some ashes. I believe that any time of year is just fine. It takes time for limestone to be incorporated into the soil. The key is to do it annually. I spread two quarts of wood ashes around a big lilac – whenever I get a chance. Do it now, before you forget. It really will make a difference next year.
Lilacs need annual pruning in order to look good. Most lilacs sucker, or send up new shoots from the roots. If you do not cut some of these back to the ground, the clump will get wider and wider. One way to keep your lilac vigorous is to remove a couple of the older stems each year, allowing the smaller and middle-sized stems to get larger. And unless you want to get on a ladder to cut blooms, you need to control height. Cut back tall stems to a fork, reducing height. The time to do it? Now, after the blossoms have finished.
It is often difficult to prune back stems to the ground as lilac stems grow very close to each other. But if you only cut back a stem to 2 or 3 feet above ground, you are left with stubs that are unsightly and that will sprout new shoots – often several new ones – that will clog up the center of the shrub more than the stem you cut off. My weapon of choice is a folding saw with a pointy end. I get on my knees and work the point into the clump as near the base as possible, and saw through a big stem. It takes time and energy, but is worth it.
After all the standard lilacs have finished blooming comes the show put on by Japanese tree lilacs. These are medium-sized trees, not shrubs. They have white flowers that are quite fragrant. But they may be invasive: the personnel at the Saint Gaudens National Historic Site in Cornish, NH, have found lots of young tree lilacs in the woods, and at the edge of the woods near their site. They have started pulling them as they decided that these visitors from the Far East have the potential to take over the understory. They are not, however, listed on any invasive species lists of prohibited plants.
The standard lilac is a wondrous plant. When I cross-country ski I sometimes see them by cellar holes of homes abandoned a century or more ago. Their flowers are beautiful and fragrant. What more could I we ask for?
Henry Homeyer is the author of 4 gardening books. His Web site is www.Gardening-guy.com.
Potatoes
Posted on Wednesday, June 6, 2012 · Leave a Comment
Why is it that some people use nicknames for their children that are the names of vegetables or flowers? I’m sure you are familiar with “sweet pea” as a loving epithet (even for kids who are not sweet), or “pumpkin” for children who are neither round nor orange. The French, I am told, call their lovers “petit chou” which translates as “little cabbage”. But I have never heard anyone refer to a loved one as a potato. I wonder why, since potatoes are some of the easiest of vegetables to grow. I suggest you plant some now if you haven’t already.
I always wait until June to plant my potatoes, even though I could have done so in early May. I have found that later planting decreases problems with the Colorado potato beetle. That is an observation that I have previously reported here, and other gardeners have told me that when they planted later they, too, had fewer problems. I like to joke that by planting later all the beetles have gone next door.
If you have those nasty potato beetles, what should you do? The first line of defense is hand-picking. Look for the yellowish larvae or striped adults on leaves, and pop them in soapy water. Look for orange eggs on the underside of leaves, too. Check daily as soon as you have leaves on your plants. Don’t let a second generation get started, and you will have fewer problems.
You might also try an organic spray to control beetles. It is called Bt, which stands for Bacterium thuringiensis, a naturally–occurring soil bacterium that is available at garden centers as a powder. Dilute it with water and spray on leaves. When larvae eat leaves with the bacterium, a protein in the bacterium makes them sicken and die. It is not a contact poison, and will not harm us or our critters – nor will it kill adult beetles.
Potatoes are grown from sprouted pieces of last year’s crop. I generally save potatoes from one year to the next for planting. I went 25 years without buying potatoes until we got late blight in 2010. Blight can overwinter in potatoes, so it is not advisable to keep potatoes for planting if you’ve had late blight. If you want to plant potatoes, don’t buy them at the grocery store. Most conventional potatoes are treated to prevent them from sprouting. Buy ”seed potatoes” sold for planting – they are guaranteed disease-free.
Planting Potatoes
I have tried three different planting techniques, and all work just fine. Let’s start with the easiest. Loosen the garden soil with a spading fork and stir in some bagged organic fertilizer and compost to the soil. Place on the soil surface some seed potatoes (or pieces of seed potatoes) with at least two “eyes” (buds). Then cover them with six inches of hay. Add more compost or soil on top of the hay so that no light gets to the chunks of potato. As the plants grow, add more hay and/or soil. The potatoes themselves grow above the seed potato; they need 6 inches of covering to have adequate space to develop.
I have also planted potatoes in a trench 6 inches deep. I loosen the soil in the trench and add some compost and bagged organic fertilizer. I place the seed potatoes 8 to 12 inches apart, push them into the loose soil, and cover them with 2 inches of soil. As they grow I add more soil until the trench is full. Some people hill up the soil over the trench to create even more growing space.
The third way to plant is to use a post hole digger. Dig holes 6 to 9 inches deep, add compost and fertilizer in the bottom of the hole and stir. Place your potato in the hole and cover with 2 inches of soil. As the potato vine grows, it is easy to push a little soil down the hole – in fact, rain often does it for me.
If you mulch your plants with straw or hay it will help keep down the weeds and keep the soil lightly moist. I wait to mulch until plants are a foot tall.
There are many varieties of potatoes available to choose from. One of the most productive is Kennebec, the classic white Maine potato. Also very good is Red Pontiac, which has red skins and a white interior. Both are excellent keepers, staying tasty all winter and into the spring. I also grow purple-skinned potatoes; they are called All Blue or Peruvian Blue, though they are smaller and less productive than some. And I usually grow Yukon Gold, a yellow-fleshed potato that is very tasty and quite productive. Fingerling potatoes are tasty, but much less productive than those listed above.
Harvesting With Grandkids
Harvesting potatoes is one of the high points of my garden year. I start in mid- to late summer, stealing a few by reaching down under a plant and pulling up a potato or two for dinner, but not disturbing the plant. Digging potatoes in the fall is like digging for treasure, and is great to do with kids.
So plant a few potatoes this summer – and start a new trend by calling your loved one your “little potato”. As far as I am concerned, that would be a compliment!
Henry Homeyer is a gardening consultant and the author or 4 gardening books. His Web address is www.Gardening-Guy.com.
Attention Lazy Gardeners: Asparagus is a (Nearly) Free Ride
Posted on Wednesday, May 30, 2012 · Leave a Comment
As I am sure you know, once upon a time there were three little pigs. One built his house of bricks, one of sticks, and the lazy one built a house of straw. I forget the details, but I think the lazy one got eaten by the wolf – a moral for all kids and gardeners. Work hard, survive. But one exception to that rule is the asparagus patch. Each year you can have delicious food relatively work-free.
Okay, I exaggerate. There is considerable work in starting an asparagus patch, and a certain amount of work in keeping it weed-free. But it should come back reliably, year after year. So plant it well and keep it mulched to hold down weeds, and you can garner rewards year after year.
Twenty-five plants is a reasonable number of plants for a family of four, or for two people with my appetite for those sumptuous green spears. Asparagus needs rich soil with lots of nutrients, so have a good supply of compost or aged manure and some slow release organic fertilizer at planting time.
Get a soil test done before you plant, or get at least get a kit that will tell you the pH. Asparagus does best with a near neutral pH, in the range of 6.5 to 7.5. If your pH is less than 6.5 you will need to add limestone to “sweeten” the soil. The test kit will tell you how much limestone you need.
Before planting, dig out all weeds and especially grasses. Rototilling does not kill weeds and grasses, it just hides them. And they will come back to plague you for years. So weed well.
Because asparagus lasts for many years, it is important to enrich the soil more than you would for annual veggies like tomatoes or lettuce. In the old days –back when I was a kid – asparagus beds were dug deep, and manure was worked into the soil down to a depth of 18 inches. Asparagus roots were planted in a trench with the crown (where the roots originate) planted a foot deep and 18 inches apart.
Preparing Asparagus bed
Current thinking is that asparagus still needs good loose soil, but that the crown only need be planted 6 inches below the soil line. Using a hoe or shovel, create a trench 9 to 12 inches deep and 12 to 18 inches wide. Then loosen the soil in the bottom of the trench with a spading fork. Space rows 2 feet or more apart.
Plan on working in 4-6 inches of aged compost into the soil down at the depth where the roots will be, and in the soil you will use for backfilling the trench. Don’t skimp, even if you have good soil. Work the compost in with a spading fork or shovel. A rototiller would also do the job, but can adversely affect soil tilth or texture if done when the soil is too moist. And rototilling disturbs microorganisms and earthworms in the soil.
I also like to broadcast a generous dose of Pro-Gro or other slow-release organic fertilizer everywhere in the planting trench and mix it in. A quart yogurt container of organic fertilizer is fine for a dozen plants. Azomite, a mineral mix that provides micronutrients is a good additive, too. Green sand is an organic source of potassium and micronutrients from the sea. All of the above should be available at your local feed-and-grain store or garden center.
Asparagus roots are now sold that are all male – generally anything that has the word ‘Jersey’ in the name is all male (Is New Jersey a macho state?). ‘Martha Washington’ is the classic asparagus variety, but it has male and female plants, so they produce seeds – and little seedlings. This is not good. You don’t want extra seedlings growing in your patch, as they will compete with your plants for water and nutrients, just like weeds. Of course, you can pull the seedlings growing under Martha, and re-plant them elsewhere, but that sounds like work to me.
Asparagus planting
In the bottom of your trench build mounds of soil/compost mix. Drape the roots over the mounds with the crown sitting on top the mound. If the roots are longer than your trench is wide, swirl the roots around the mound a little. Then gently backfill your trench (or hole, if you did individual holes instead of a trench). Just an inch or two of soil is all that is required at the start. As the season progresses and the sprouts grow, add more soil/compost mix. By the end of the summer your plants should have 6 inches of soil over the crown.
A few recommendations: Have patience. Don’t pick any spears this year. Next year, just take one or two stalks per plant. Each year, take more – but never pick for more than 4 weeks. Taking too many spears will draw down their reserves and weaken the plants.
Keeping your asparagus patch well-weeded is important. Wood sides to an asparagus bed can help keep out creeping grasses, or you can dig a little moat around the bed to keep grasses from creeping in. Mulching with 6 pages of newspaper and 4 inches of straw will help keep down weeds and will hold in moisture.
Even if you are the quintessential third pig when it comes to gardening, don’t be lazy when planting asparagus. A little extra work now getting out weeds and working in healthy soil additives will pay you back many times over. Bon Appétit!
Henry Homeyer is a gardening consultant and author living in Cornish Flat, NH. His Web site is www.Gardening-guy.com.
Spring Forth Into Spring
Posted on Wednesday, May 16, 2012 · Leave a Comment
This is a busy time for all of us in the garden. Not only are weeds up, some of them are already blooming. I try real hard to keep weeds from spreading their seeds in my garden beds, so I am doing my best to pull them now before they bloom and make seeds. And there is so much else to do I’m not sure if I have time to write this column!
Apple sprouts on trunk
Apple and crabapple trees are blooming everywhere, which draws my eyes to them. I can’t help but notice that so many need a little late pruning. What I keep seeing are root sprouts coming up alongside the trunk of these lovely trees, which is a distraction. And it only takes 5 minutes with a pair of loppers or a hand saw to remove those shoots.
While you’re at it, you may wish to take off any little branches that are sprouting from the main trunk below the first scaffold branches (those larger branches that reach out and up, and that have all those blossoms on them). A nice clean trunk is much better than one cluttered with unwanted sprouts.
Then there is the vegetable garden. I know we will still have frost here in Cornish Flat, so all those tomatoes and peppers and squash that I have started by seed inside need to stay in their pots. What I can do now, however, is” harden off” those seedlings. Hardening off is the process of getting seedlings ready for life outdoors.
Each nice day I should (but don’t always) carry all 12 trays of seedlings outdoors so my plants can work on their tan. That’s right, seedlings are like us – they need to start with just a little sunshine and breeze each day. Two hours of morning sun is good for a start, then 4 hours, then 2 hours of afternoon sun, and so on, increasing exposure until their leaves won’t burn or dry out even if they’re in the sun all day. If you buy seedlings it’s good to give them time to get used to the outdoors, too. Greenhouses do shelter seedlings considerably.
Forget Me Not
Right now I have thousands of forget-me-nots (Myosotis sylvatica) blooming everywhere: in garden beds, in the lawn, in the vegetable garden – even on the banks of my little stream (they love water). If you don’t have this fabulous, exuberant flower, you should. I wish I could give every reader a clump, but I bet one of your neighbors will share some with you, as most everyone has it. I rarely see them for sale at nurseries, but a few of the better ones do. Many flower books say they are biennials, but I’m not sure that’s true. Biennials only bloom in their second year, and then die. I have so many, it’s hard to know if they are re-seeding or coming back from their roots. So they may be perennials.
While weeding a patch of daffodils recently, I decided to take advantage of the fact that I had thoroughly loosened the soil surface. I spread my favorite organic fertilizer, Pro-Gro over the soil surface and scratched it in with my favorite weeder, the CobraHead. I had notice that those daffies were not flowering as previous years and decided to give the soil some extra nutrition and get rid of the weeds that were competing with them. Next spring I should have better blossoms.
Some gardeners like to divide big clumps of daffodils, though I generally don’t get around to it. The problem is that by fall I don’t know where those big clumps that need dividing are. The solution? Make some markers now and stick them in the soil. That works for marking places that need more bulbs, too.
It’s past time to rake off that leaf mulch or straw if you covered your vegetable garden with mulch last fall. I just raked mulch off my beds and into the walkways last week. By exposing the soil to the sun I do 2 things: I let the soil warm up and dry out more quickly, and I encourage weed seeds to germinate. I want the weeds to germinate before I plant so that I can hoe them over or pull them out, killing them before I plant. I also have a flame weeder which will burn off dozens of small annual weeds with a single, quick pass. (Available at Johnny’s Seeds or Fedco Seeds). But it does use propane, so is not as eco-friendly as hoeing.
Traditional gardeners grow their carrots, corn and cauliflower in narrow rows on flat ground. I don’t. I have mounded up beds that are 3 feet wide and 6 to 8 inches higher than the walkways. Wide beds produce more planting space in a garden when compared to those with narrow rows because there are fewer walkways. The wide, higher beds allow roots to spread wider and deeper than in traditional beds, and dogs and kids tend to stay out of them.
But if you have a sunny, warm weekend, don’t spend all day pulling weeds or working. Take time to sit and enjoy your flowers – and the butterflies, kids and dogs that love the garden, too.
Henry’s Web site is www.Gardening-Guy.com. It now has a search engine for finding any past columns you might have missed.
Spring Flowers
Posted on Wednesday, May 2, 2012 · Leave a Comment
I love spring. Winter is relatively austere time in the garden so I relish the bounty of spring all the more. Over the years I have tried growing most flowers that will provide color in March, April and May. Below are some of my favorites.
White Trillium
First to bloom are the bulb flowers that begin the spring show in March. I have thousands of snowdrops (Galanathus elwesii), squill (Scilla siberica), glory of the snow (Chionodoxa luciliae). These are followed in April by crocus, daffodils and early tulips. I cut even the smallest blossoms to bring inside and place on the kitchen counter in a vase. Almost all the bulb plants are good cut flowers. I plant bulb plants every fall, and recommend top-dressing them with organic fertilizer after they finish blooming each spring.
Then come the early perennials, starting in April and continuing on into May. One of the first, and easiest to grow, is called lungwort. The unattractive name comes from the leaves, which some unfortunate person decided looked like lungs – complete with spots on most varieties. I prefer to call them by their Latin genus, Pulmonaria, which is more melodious.
Pulmonaria will grow in sun or shade, wet or dry. They spread by root, creating large low-growing colonies. I once had a gardening client who considered them invasive, though I do not. If they overstep their welcome, I find they pull fairly easily with my favorite weeding tool, the CobraHead weeder, which gets under them easily. The small flowers come in shades of blue, pink, peach and white. They don’t do well in a vase, so I don’t pick them.
Hellebore
Another spring favorite of mine is the hellebore, sometimes called the Lenten Rose. Hellebores are among the earliest to send up shoots of flowers and hold those flowers for several weeks. Each flower stalk stands 12 to 15 inches tall and supports new leaves and bell-shaped flowers that are rose to purple in color, or sometimes green and white. Like the Pulmonaria, they do not last well in a vase.
Primroses bloom early, and come in a wide range of species and colors. I have at least 6 different species in bloom now. One of my favorites has no common name, only going by its scientific name, Primula kisoana. Because its species name starts with “kis”, you can call it the kissing primrose – even if no one else does (except me). It has bright magenta-colored flowers that stand just a few inches above the light-green leaves. It is not very well known at nurseries; I found mine at Cider Hill Gardens in Windsor, VT (www.ciderhillgardens.com).
An endearing quality of Primula kisoana is that it spreads by root – but never runs over another plant to establish new territory. Primroses, in general, are form clumps but spread by seed. Some, like the candelabra primrose (Primula japonica) spread very vigorously by seed if the conditions are right for it. That one stands up over two-feet tall, but blooms much later, usually in June. But P. kisoana spreads fast if the soil conditions are right. One plant can grow to cover 1 to 2 square feet in a season. They like rich, dark soil with a slightly acidic pH.
Most primroses grow well in light shade or morning sunshine and prefer moist soil. Primula kisoana, on the other hand, will grow in dry soil, too. I have observed that one of the best places to grow any primrose is under an old apple tree. The soil and light there generally is perfect for primroses.
Although it is contrary to the law to dig up wildflowers and transplant them to your property, many good garden centers are now propagating and selling them. In nature, most spring wildflowers grow in the dappled shade of a hardwood forest. They send up flowers and leaves before the trees have leafed out, and disappear soon after the forest becomes shady. Among my favorites are the trilliums, bloodroot, and hepaticas – though there are dozens of other species.
Bloodroot are so named for the red juice that oozes from the roots if cut. I’ve read that Indians used it for dye. The leaves come up wrapped like a cigar around the flower stalk. Each simple white flower stands 6 inches tall. The blossoms open on warm, sunny days and close up at night or on chilly days. They spread by root to form nice clumps. I also have some double bloodroot – the flowers resemble small white double peonies. The flowers are probably sterile, as they keep on blooming much longer than the singles. Most flowers stop blooming once fertilized, having done their work.
Common Red Trillium
I have three species of trillium: the ordinary maroon one (Trillium erectum), the white one (Trillium grandiflorum) and the yellow one (Trillium luteum). All will grow in light shade or part sun and prefer rich, dark soil. The New England Wildflower Society (www.newfs.org) sells all three – and many other fine wildflowers at their headquarters, The Garden in the Woods in Framingham, MA. I bought my yellow trillium from them. In addition to its flower, it has handsome mottled leaves.
So visit your local garden center soon to see what early spring bloomers they offer, and try something new. You’ll be glad you did.
Henry Homeyer is a gardening consultant and the author of 4 gardening books. His Web site is www.Gardening-Guy.com.
Spring Tasks in the Garden
Posted on Wednesday, April 25, 2012 · Leave a Comment
April has been a busy month for most gardeners because it has been warm and sunny. Our flower gardens and trees have woken up early, allowing us to do tasks we might, in other years, put off until May. Here are some jobs I‘ve been working on – and you should be, too.
Adjustable Rake
Raking the lawn. Always one of my least favorite jobs, it needs to be done if you want a good looking lawn. But really, there are only 2 places where it’s critical: First, remove the piles of sand and gravel dumped along the edge of the driveway by the snowplow. Your lawn will suffer if they aren’t removed. Second, harvest the soil pushed up by moles in the lawn. I collect the soil from those piles and use it as fill dirt. The rest of the lawn? Any dead leaves will be chopped up by the lawnmower and disappear – and add some nice organic matter to your lawn’s soil.
Daffodils
Raking the flowerbeds. This I enjoy. I love seeing what plants have come safely through the winter, what is waking up and sending forth shoots. I rake carefully, so as not to break off the growing tips of peonies or other delicate flowers. I start with a rake to clean up around a clump of shoots, and then bend over to gently “rake” the clump itself with my fingers. I use an expanding lawn rake with a telescopic handle. I can adjust the width of the rake from about 7 inches to about 22 inches, allowing me to rake carefully in-between plants. I found the rake locally at my feed-n-grain store.
Pruning. I’m mostly done with this spring task, but I’m still tweaking apple and pear trees as I walk around the property with a holstered pruner on my hip. Recently I cleaned up lots of root suckers –shoots – coming up around the base of a crab apple tree. And I shaped up my roses, cutting back long, lanky stems to create nicely rounded plants.
I just finished pruning my grapes. They need to be cut back severely each year, as they would get too unruly if I didn’t. They produce grapes on new growth, which is stimulated by pruning. I have a 2-wire system on the south side of my barn and prune back to thicker, older canes and the 6-inch spurs that I allow to grow off them.
Planting. At this time of year my garden soil is usually cold and wet. Not so this year. I have planted seeds for carrots, beets, parsnips, scorzonera, salsify (all are root crops), parsley, spinach and greens. Peas could be planted now, though I have decided to skip them this year. I also have transplanted little lettuce plants and other interesting greens that I started indoors at the end of March, including chicory and mesclun. Some folks I know have already planted potatoes, but I wait until June.
I believe (but cannot prove) that planting potatoes in June helps to reduce problems with potato beetles. I like to say they’ve already gone to my neighbors’ potatoes, so avoid mine. But who knows? I watch for the beetles and pick any I find early on, so (hopefully) few produce a second generation.
That same technique works on slugs: control them early to prevent big outbreaks later on. I use an organic slug control product, Sluggo, which is iron phosphate covered with slug bait. Iron phosphate is a naturally occurring mineral that is said to be safe for pets and wildlife – and approved for organic gardeners.
Last fall I neglected to work on my blackberry patch, so I’ve been cleaning it up now, along with help from my intern, Gordon Moore. He cut out all last year’s fruiting canes (which die after bearing fruit). The patch has gotten to be 10 to 12 feet across, so we created a path down the middle of it by pulling out plants as needed. Then we pinned down a 2-foot wide strip of heavy landscape fabric (using landscape staples) and he covered it with a 2-inch layer of chipped branches I got from an arborist.
I weeded the patch and top dressed it with organic fertilizer and other minerals including green sand and Azomite. Green sand provides extra potassium and micronutrients from the sea. Azomite is a brand- named product that contains a wide array of finely ground rocks to provide micronutrients. After adding those minerals, we spread chipped branches around the plants, too.
To keep the blackberries from flopping over when laden with fruit, I have a 2-wire fence on the outside. The lower strand is 30 inches off the ground, the upper is 60 inches. Gordon and I tightened up the fence, which had gotten floppy. Along the center walkway I tied canes to 5-foot grade stakes as needed. It’s a huge improvement! (There’ll be no more need for blood transfusions after picking berries.)
Merrill Magnolia
Finally, I spend time right now admiring my flowers. My Merrill magnolia tree has been spectacular and fragrant. Shad bushes, a native plant (Amelanchier spp.), are in full bloom now- both the planted ones and those at the edge of the road and field. All my daffodils – early, mid-season and late – bloomed at the same time this year, so I am picking them and bringing inside to enjoy. I hope you will find time, too, to slow down and enjoy your flowers.
Henry Homeyer is a life-long organic gardener and the author of 4 gardening books. His Web site is www.Gardening-Guy.com
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