Plants I Like
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From Ancient Egypt
King Tut is alive and well, very well in fact. I’ll cut to the chase: This particular King Tut is a variety of papyrus (Cyperus papyrus) that I planted a year ago in spring. Papyrus doesn’t tolerate temperatures down to freezing, so this far north King Tut is billed as an annual. But rather than let the King die in winter, I was so smitten by him that in autumn I moved him in his pot indoors to a sunny window. There he clung to life and, with warm, sunny weather, got growing again this past spring.
In contrast to regular papyrus, which grows 5 to 9 feet tall, King Tut’s…
In the Wild
Row, Row, Row My Boat, and Then!
Paddling down a creek — Black Creek in Ulster County, New York — yesterday evening, I was again awed at Mother Nature’s skillful hand with plants. The narrow channel through high grasses bordered along water’s edge was pretty enough. The visual transition from spiky grasses to the placid water surface was softened by pickerelweeds’ (Pontederia cordata) wider foliage up through which rose stalks of blue flowers. Where the channel broadened, flat, green pads of yellow water lotus (Nelumbo lutea) floated on the surface. Night’s approach closed the blossoms,…
Watering — in the Rain?
Why Are Pots Thirsty?
With recent rains of more than 3 inches over the last couple of days, you’d think that the last thing on my mind would be having to water anything. But you’d be wrong. Plants in pots — and I have plenty of them, some ornamental and some tropical and subtropical fruits — don’t get the full benefit of all that water.
Potting soils are, and should be, more porous than any garden soil to maintain good aeration within the confines of a pot. About a one inch depth of water is needed if you’re going to thoroughly wet a 12 inch high column of potting soil. If a flower…
For when the weather turns dry, this season, next season, and on.. .
Also on that same date, at the same location, in the morning . . . a presentation on:
THE SCIENCE, ART, FUN, AND TASTY FRUIT OF ESPALIER
Come and explore the theory and the practice behind the pruning and orienting of branches to create an espalier. This decorative form offers high yields of high quality fruit on a plant or plants that can be free-standing, decorating a wall or fence, or even creating the fence itself! Learn which fruit plants work best and the techniques to create and maintain an espalier.
Uncommon But Uncommonly Delicious
Some (Only) Like It Cooked
Before the black currant (Ribes nigrum) season totally winds down, I suggest you try to get a taste of the fresh berries. Do so if you’ve never tasted them. And do so even if you have tasted them and found them bad tasting.
Why taste them if you haven’t? Because if you end up liking them, they’re easy to grow and nutritious — super-rich in vitamin C (2 to 3 times as much as oranges) and other goodies.
Deer don’t particularly like the very aromatic stems and leaves, and birds — even my ducks — ignore the berries. They are among the few berries that…
Future Tense, Present Tense
Past is Present . . . No! . . . Present is Future
Gardening is so much about planning for the future. Dropping seemingly dead, brown specks into a seed flat in spring in anticipation of juicy, red tomatoes in summer is fun and exciting.
But now, in the glory of summer, I don’t particularly like planning, which means thinking forward to the crisp days of autumn that lie ahead. But I must. I know that when that time finally comes, I’ll have had my fill of hot weather. And the cooler weather coupled with shorter days and low-hanging sun will have tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, and other summer…
Heat and Drought Come and Go
(The following is a adapted from my recent book, The Ever Curious Gardener: Using a Little Natural Science for a Much Better Garden, available through the usual outlets as well as, signed, from me at www.leereich.com/books.)
Plants' Dilemma in Beating the Heat
Last week, with a spell of dry weather, I wrote about irrigation; then it rained. As I write, we’re experiencing searingly hot weather; thank me for the cooler weather that will surely follow.
The heat is hard on us humans, but pity plants in the heat of a hot, summer day. While I can jump into some cool water, sit in front of a fan,…
Thirst
Too Much or Too Little?
The current deficit of rainfall reminds me of the importance of watering — whether by hand, with a sprinkler, or drip, drip, drip via drip irrigation — in greening up a thumb.
Not that watering is definitely called for here in the “humid northeast;” historically, cultivated plants have gotten by mostly on natural rainfall. Historically, vegetable gardens also weren’t planted as intensely as they are these days. In one of my three-foot wide beds, for example, brussels sprouts plants at eighteen inches apart are flanked on one side by a row of fully grown turnips…
