THANKS
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I’d like to highlight, today, what makes this blog possible.
First of all, it’s you, readers. The positive feedback I get is very rewarding. I’ve had great opportunities — academically and “in the field” — to learn about growing plants and caring for the soil, and have put all this into practice for decades. My hope is that in entertaining you with all this, your tomatoes, apples, zinnias, and all the rest grow healthier and tastier or prettier. I appreciate the positive (even the sometimes negative) comments from you all.
Second, if you’ll look at the bottom right corner of…
TELLING SNOW
I Grow Taller
“Make hay while the sun shines” is fine advice in its season. For winter, how about? “Prune while the snow is high and firm.”
My apple and pear trees are semi-dwarf, presently ranging from seven to eleven feet tall. Even though I have a pole pruner and various long-reach pruning tools, I still carry my three-legged orchard ladder out to the trees with me to work on their upper branches. Sometimes you have to get your eyes and arms and hands right up near where you’re actually cutting.
A few years ago, as I was looking out the window and admiring the foot or of snow…
GET YOUR DUCKS IN ORDER FOR SPRING
WEEDLESS GARDENING WORKSHOP/WEBINAR
Presentation by Lee Reich (MS, PhD, researcher in soil and plants for the USDA and Cornell University, decade-long composter, and farmdener*)
Introducing a novel way of caring for the soil, a 4-part system that minimizes weed problems and maintains healthy plants and soil. Learn how to apply this system to establish new plantings as well as to maintain existing plantings. The principles and practices are rooted in the latest agricultural research and are also applicable to sustainable, small farm systems.
Success comes from emulating rather than fighting…
FROM GROCERS’ SHELVES TO MY FLOWER POTS
Exotic, tropical fruits are turning up more and more frequently on grocers’ shelves these days: dates, papayas, guavas, and others. I look upon these fruits opportunistically, because within each lies dormant seeds that can be coaxed to become exotic, if not beautiful, indoor plants that might even provide a delicious fruit harvest. Such plants provide a break from the humdrum of spider plants, philodendrons, and Swedish ivies.
Seeds of tropical fruits usually germinate best if planted as soon as the fruits are eaten. Cold-climate fruits, in contrast, have innate inhibitors that prevent seed…
MYCO-WHAT?
It's Greek To Me (and You)
This far north, there’s only a little to do garden-wise this time of year, so let’s sit back and ponder the wonders of plant life. Mycorrhiza, to be specific. Wait! Don't stop reading! Sure, the word "mycorrhiza" appears intimidating. But mycorrhiza are important in your garden, in the forest, to your trees and shrubs, maybe even to your houseplants.
First, the pronunciation. Say: my-ko-RY-za. It sounds nicer than it looks.
Now let's take the word apart to see what it means. "Myco" comes from the Greek word meaning "fungus" and "rhiza" from the word meaning "root."…
MY VINES GET IN ORDER
Pruning vs. Training?
A long time ago, when I first started growing fruit trees and vines, I read a lot about the all-important pruning and training they require. But I couldn’t get clear on my head what exactly the difference was between “pruning” and “training.” I went on to learn that and a whole lot more about pruning (through books, as an ag researcher for Cornell University, and with practical experience), and eventually wrote my own book about pruning, hoping to present the techniques with more clarity and completeness than all the books I had read. Perhaps my book, The Pruning…
LOOK BEYOND POINSETTIA GLITZ
A Harem of Males
Phew, what a year 2020 was! Well, it’s over and, at least at this writing, things look hopeful for the future, at least from my perspective. Except if you live in a tropical or subtropical climate, there’s not much distraction from anything gardenwise, for now, so let’s take a close look at a plant no doubt sitting on many coffee tables and windowsills. Poinsettia. I’m not a big fan of their appearance, but I do like them as botanical curiosities.
Let’s share some botanical lore of this plant by setting your holiday poinsettia on a table in good light for a close…
ALMOST LIKE SUMMER
Fresh Veggies
When I was a child, it seemed that winter vegetables were mostly peas and diced carrots, conveniently poured frozen out of plastic bags into pots of boiling water. Yuk! Winter notwithstanding, my backyard garden still offers plenty of fresh winter vegetables. Let’s have a look. Kale, of course, looks unfazed by snow and plummeting temperatures. Not only does it look unfazed; it also tastes very delicious.
More surprising is the endive that I planted back in August, then covered beneath a “tunnel” of clear plastic and slightly insulating row cover held aloft by metal hoops…
SNOW’S COME AND SO HAS FRUIT
Free and Attractive Mulch
Beautiful. Floating down from the sky. A white blanket of “poor man’s manure.” That’s what gardeners and farmers have called snow.
In fact, snow does take some nitrogen from the air and bring it down to ground level for plant use in spring. Not that much, though. Just a few shovelfuls of real manure could supply the same amount of nitrogen as a blanket of snow.
Mostly, what I like about the 15 inch deep fluffy whiteness now on the ground is the way it insulates what’s beneath it. Fluctuating winter temperatures wreak havoc on plants, coaxing them awake…
