OF MAPLES AND REDS
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Where'd the Red Go?
Sugar maples (Acer saccharum) are now doing just what I expected of them. But not exactly what I want them to do. Here in New York’s mid-Hudson Valley, at least, this autumn’s leaf show is not quite up to snuff. And it’s also later than in the past. It used to peak here in the middle of October; nowadays, with climate change, the peak has been pushed forward to about now.
Back to the color: This year the local sugar maples are mostly only yellow, lacking the oranges and the reds that, along with some yellow, really ramp up the blaze of landscapes and forests. Let’s…
HARDWOOD CUTTINGS: NOT HARD (TO DO SUCCESSFULLY)
Pros for Hardwood Cuttings
Years ago, I had just one plant of Belaruskaja black currant. Now I have about a dozen plants of this delicious variety, and plenty of black currants for eating. Do you have a favorite tree, shrub, or vine that you would like more of.
Hardwood cuttings are a simple way to multiply plants. This type of cutting is nothing more than a woody shoot that is cut from a plant and stuck into the soil some time after the shoot has dropped its leaves in the fall, but before it grows a new set of leaves in the spring. In the weeks that follow planting, if all goes well, some…
WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT BRUSSELS SPROUTS
Sprout Success
Years ago, a friend referred to Brussels sprouts as “little green balls of death;” that never exactly increased the gustatory appeal of this vegetable for me. The same could be said for “a little boiled to death,” a too common way of preparing the vegetable, and perhaps that’s what the friend had actually said.
Still, I’m always up for a horticultural challenge, even if I had never had success with Brussels sprouts. What does “lack of success” mean with Brussels sprouts? Dime-size sprouts.
Sit tight. This season my Brussels sprouts are a roaring success, and I’m…
FERTILIZING 101
Feed Sooner, Not later
Although shoot growth of woody plants ground to a halt weeks ago, root growth will continue until soil temperatures drop below about 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Root and shoot growth of woody plants and lawn grass are asynchronous, with root growth at a maximum in early spring and fall, and shoot growth at a maximum in summer. So roots aren’t just barely growing this time of year; they’re growing more vigorously than in midsummer.
Remember the song lyrics: "House built on a weak foundation will not stand, no, no"? Well, the same goes for plants. (Plant with a weak root…
A DELECTABLE PEACH
A Time Machine
A few days ago, a fuzzy orb that I held in my hand became a time machine. This time machine was a peach, and time travel took place immediately after I took a bite out of it. There I was, no longer eating the peach on my friend Wendy’s farm — Wendy is a botanical artist, https://drawbotanical.com — but in the backyard of my youth, biting into a peach from our backyard tree. (Our home “orchard” also consisted of two crabapple trees, whose fruit was morphed under the direction of a great aunt into jelly, and a pear tree that I remember bearing only one fruit that I watched…
FOXY GRAPES
A Bad Rap
The word foxy has not been complimentary to grapes. It refers to the dominant flavor in one of our native species, the fox grape (Vitis labrusca). Around 1880, the botanist William Bartram went so far as to suggest that the epithet foxy was applied to this grape because of the "strong, rancid smell of its ripe fruit, very like the effluvia from the body of a fox." (Others more generously suggested the epithet came about because foxes ate the grapes, or because the leaves resembled fox tracks.)
Although native Americans ate this grape, early white settlers, well before the time…
HAVE SOME SYMPATHY
Soil That is Too Good?
I don’t expect to elicit much sympathy from moaning about the problem with my soil here on the farmden; the problem is that it’s too good. Wait! Don’t roll your eyes or, worse, stop reading. Allow me to present my case.
The setting: A valley cut through with a small river (the Wallkill River) in New York’s Hudson Valley. River bottom soil, specifically young alluvial soil, rich in nutrients, a silty clay loam with perfect drainage. Also naturally rich in nutrients. No rocks.
So what’s the problem? One problem is too much growth from plants that I’m not…
COMPOST, LOOKING AHEAD, LOOKING BACK
Spring Readiness
I’m frantically getting ready for spring. A large portion of that readying means making compost. Compost piles assembled now, while temperatures are still relatively warm, have plenty of time to heat up right to their edges, quickly cooking and killing most resident weed seeds, pests, and diseases.
I like to think of my compost pile as a pet (really, many pets, the population of which changes over time as the compost ripens) that needs, as do our ducks, dogs and cat, food, water, and air. Today I’ll feeding my pet — my compost pet — corn stalks, lettuce plants that…
AN ANCIENT FRUIT, STILL POPULAR
You’ve caught me at a good time. I’m just now dipping my toes into figdom, and in the next few days expect to be swimming in a sea of fresh, ripe figs.
You’ve never tasted a fresh, ripe fig? Don’t judge them by what you might buy in the market. Ripe figs are very perishable so for commercial purposes must be harvested slightly underripe. But figs don’t ripen at all after harvest, which is why market figs are but a shadow of the real thing.
Fresh, ripe figs are ubiquitous in California, Florida, and other mild winter regions, so perhaps are ho-hum to those living in those parts. Not…
