SOMETHINGS FOR THE NOSE, THE EYES, AND THE TASTEBUDS
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Makes a Lot of Scents
Many years ago, at this time of the year, I was hiking in the nearby Shawangunk Mountains, in Minnewaska State Park, when a most delectable, spicy-sweet aroma wafted past my nose. I followed my nose off the trail and into the woods. After stepping over and around fallen stumps in boggy soil and ducking under low-hanging branches, I came upon the source of that aroma: the white flowers of a large swamp azalea (Rhododendron viscosum).
Last night as I lay in the comfort of my bed and was about to drift off to sleep, that very same scent drifted into the open bedroom window.…
FRUITS AND NUTS
After about twenty years of waiting, I happened to look at the ground and see a pine cone. The only pine tree nearby is a Korean pine (Pinus koreanensis) that I planted that many years ago, a tree that liked its new home and has soared, in that time, to fifty feet in height. My problem with the tree is that all it has done is grow; I planted the tree for its pine nuts.
A few years ago I did see a few cones way up near the top of the tree. Would the cones fall, carrying down the nuts, or would the nuts fall out, to be lost in the high grass? Would squirrels make all this moot?
I picked up the…
ROSES AND STRAWBERRIES AND — OH NO! — HONEYBERRIES
Roses, Oh Yes
I bake really good bread, but “man can’t live by bread alone.” Sometimes, you’ve got to “stop to smell the roses.” Enough with the quotations! But back to the roses.
A love of roses has crept up on me over the years, due mostly to changes in kinds of roses available. Up until about 30 years ago, hybrid teas were pretty much the only roses on the block. These plants’ gangly stems are each capped by a vividly colored, fairly stiff, formal blossom whose petals wrap together into a pointy peak. You see where I’m going: hybrid teas are ugly, to me at least.
Also…
Free webinar today, WEEDLESS GARDENING
“WEEDLESS GARDENING” webinar
Are you interested in having a weedless garden this season? Yes? Learn how at my upcoming WEEDLESS GARDENING webinar. The system I’ll describe does more that just deal with weeds. It also lets your garden use water more efficiently, conserves valuable soil organic matter, lets you plant earlier in spring, and does not disrupt beneficial fungi and other friendly soil organisms. Starting a new garden? Here’s the fastest way to get the soil prepared and plants growing.
I’ll cover all this, and more, in the WEEDLESS GARDENING webinar. The webinar is free, at…
GOD’S BEST BERRY?
First Good-Tasting Berries of the Season
Strawberries, the aptly named variety Earliglow, are ripe, which means it’s time to start crawling for fruit. That’s one thing I don’t like about strawberries.
Another thing I don’t like about strawberries is that, although they’re perennial plants, a bed needs replanting after about 5 years. By then, viruses, fungal diseases, weeds, and just plain aging have finally taken their toll. The decline creeps up slowly so is not all that obvious. And no, you shouldn’t replant in the same spot where the now pest-ridden bed was, but in a new…
A BRIGHT FUTURE
As Good As It Gets
You might think that writing about good weather would tempt the fates. I’ll thumb my nose at the fates and go ahead and write that this spring is the best spring, gardenwise, ever in all the decades since I’ve been gardening. The flowers have been more vibrant with color and, it seems, also in greater profusion. The air has been particularly fragrant, especially now with the intoxicating aroma of black locust blooms following closely on the heels of autumn olive’s sweet scent.
My fruit trees are most thankful for this spring’s beneficence. In all the years of growing…
LAST WEEK OF 2021 PLANT SALE
Lee Reich’s 13TH (?) ANNUAL PLANT SALE
(of mostly lesser grown but delectable fruits)
Because of covid, the sale is now online, with scheduled pickups here at the farmden in New Paltz, NY.
Limited quantities of plants are still available (September Sun female kiwiberry, various varieties of fig, Blue Sunset lowbush blueberry, and Pineapple Crush white alpine strawberry). All are truly delectable fruits on truly beautiful planats. So order soon.
To see plant list, order, pay, and -- VERY IMPORTANT -- schedule a pickup time (May 29-31 and June 2, 2021) when you order, go to https://leesann…
GARDENING “HANDWORK”
To Haul or Not to Haul
Hauling manure hardly seems to make sense these days, considering that lugging 500 pounds of horse manure gives plants about the same amount of food as a 50 pound bag of 10-10-10. And the latter for only about ten bucks!
But whereas 10-10-10 supplies only food (and only three of the sixteen needed nutrients at that), manure has other benefits: it aerates the soil; it helps soil capture and cling to water; and it renders nutrients already in the soil more available to plants. Nutrients from synthetic fertilizers are used up or washed out of the soil by the end of a…
PLANT SALE NOW LIVE
Lee Reich’s 13TH (?) ANNUAL PLANT SALE
(of mostly lesser grown but delectable fruits)
Because of covid, the sale is now online, with scheduled pickups here at the farmden in New Paltz, NY.
Note that there are limited quantities of al plants, each available to the first taker. So order soon.
To see plant list, order, pay, and -- VERY IMPORTANT -- schedule a pickup time (May 29-31 and June 2), go to https://leesannualplantsale.squarespace.com
