Of Worms and Leaves, Here and Beyond
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Unreiking is Good Exercise
For the past few days I’ve been engaged in the esoteric exercise of unreiking. Basically, this involves lifting heavy (or sometimes light) sacks, slitting them with a knife, and then moving my arms back and forth over the spilled contents. Okay, okay, the “sacks” are plastic bags, their contents are autumn leaves, and I’m holding a pitchfork in my hands as I spread out the spilled leaves.
(Unreiking is the reverse of another esoteric exercise, reiking, whereby . . . well, leaves are raked up into plastic bags.)
Some people have too many leaves or…
Greenhouse Happenings, Figs and Lettuce and . . .
Darkness Descending
Plant growth has come screeching (almost) to a halt. Lettuces just sit, hardly growing. No wonder, you are no doubt thinking. It’s getting colder and colder outside. I know that, but I’m writing about lettuces in my greenhouse. The issue isn’t lack of heat. It’s lack of light.
For more evidence that light is the issue, look to good vegetable gardens in southern Europe. In that mild climate, harvest from a well-planned vegetable garden continues year ‘round. But year ‘round harvest there takes planning — lack of light also makes for very slow growth over there…
Winter Prep for Some of my Figs
Fig Abuse?
Anyone watching what I was doing to my fig trees might have called “Fig Protective Services” to have my trees removed to a new home. But figs are tough plants and tolerate a lot of what looks like abuse.
Let me offer some background: Figs are subtropical plants so can’t survive to fruit outdoors around here. I grow a few fig trees in pots that I can put in a protected location for winter (more on that later). Problem is that the trees’ roots eventually fill the pots and exhaust nutrients in the mix.
I could move each tree to a larger pot. Then the branches could grow commensurately…
Mo’ Plants
Cyclamen Addict
I’ll admit to being an addict. But my addiction — to propagating plants — is benign. It pains me to throw away an interesting seed or pruned-off stem; either can grow into a whole new plant, anything from a charming little flower to a towering tree.
Case in point are some cyclamen seeds I collected and sowed a couple of years ago. The mother plant is Cyclamen hederifolium, a species that differs from the large, potted cyclamens you now see offered in garden centers, hardware stores, even supermarkets. Cyclamen hederifolium is cold-hardy here, so comes back year after…
Shaving and Composting
. . . But My Garden is in Order
“Some men there are who never shave (if they are so absurd as ever to shave), except when they go abroad, and who do not take care to wear polished boots in the bosoms of their families. I like a man who shaves (next to one who doesn't shave) to satisfy his own conscience, and not for display, and who dresses as neatly at home as he does anywhere. Such a man will be likely to put his garden in complete order before the snow comes, so that its last days shall not present a scene of melancholy ruin and decay.” So wrote Charles Dudley Warner in his wonderful…
Fiery Colors
Colorful Predictions
As leaves are just starting to color up, the question is, “Will the autumn leaf show be good this year?” First off, whether or not it’s good, global warming has pushed showtime forward a bit each year. Around here, the peak of the show used to be the middle of October; nowadays it’s the third week in October.
Back to predicting how good the show will be this year . . . Throughout summer and into autumn most leaves are, of course, green, which is from chlorophyll. Chlorophyll must be continually synthesized for a leaf to stay green. The shorter days and lowering…
New York Grown Oranges!
Yes, A True Citrus
Oranges? In New York, planted outdoors in the ground? Yes, I have them ripening on the branches now. No matter if they ripen thoroughly or not because, although they are true oranges, delicious flavor is not one of their assets. It’s still a plant well worth growing.
The plant is the aptly named “hardy orange,” actually a true citrus species, Citrus trifoliata. (Previously, hardy orange was a citrus relative; botanists recently moved it to the Citrus genus from the closely related Poncirus genus.)
Mostly I planted hardy orange for its stems, whose show is at the…
Happy “Nose Twist,” Sad Tomatoes
Nasturtium In Its Element
It’s nice to see that at least someone or thing enjoys the current cool, wet weather. My eight ducks, for instance. As I open the door to “duckingham palace,” each duck pads out onto the slurpy ground as happy as a lark (a lark on a sunny day, I assume). Also enjoying this awful weather are the oat cover crops that I’ve sown in some of my vegetable beds. The oats are especially lush and green, as is your and my lawn grass. The same goes for beds I recently planted with lettuce, radishes, arugula, turnips and other cool weather vegetables.
Nasturtium flowers,…
Wild and Cultivated Pleasures
Mythbusting
Before going any further, let me bust a myth that still might be having some traction: Late summer and fall allergies are not caused by goldenrod (Solidago spp.). Goldenrod gets the blame for its showy, yellow blossoms during this allergy season. But the true culprit is ragweed, which goes unnoticed because it bears only small, green flowers.
It makes sense that the pollen of a showy flower would not cause allergies. Showy flowers put on their show to attract insect (and, in some cases, bird or bat) pollinators. Wind can’t carry their heavy, sometimes sticky, pollen.
Pollen that…
