(good king henry, black walnut, spruce pruning)

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One thing that I like about gardening is that you get so much for your efforts; that said, it’s sometimes nice to get something for no effort. And that’s one thing I like about Good King Henry, a vegetable much like spinach. I’ve grown Good King Henry, which few people know or grow, for over 20 years. I hardly grow it, though. It’s a perennial. I planted it from seed in a back corner of my garden and it’s come back reliably year after year. It’s a close relative of the weed lamb’s-quarters (both in genus Chenopodium) so I was afraid it might spread and threaten takeover.…
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[surround, grnhs ladybugs, nematodes}

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This evening my apple trees were suddenly shrouded in a ghost-like pallor. It was all my doing and all for their own good. The transformation was the result of my spraying the trees with a suspension of white, kaolin clay. That clay is a commercial product, marketed as Surround and made for organic control of various pests. The pest that I’m targeting is a cute but devastating little creature called the plum curculio. As you might guess from its name, plum curculios also attack plums, as well as peaches, nectarines, apricots, and cherries. Do nothing to thwart the ‘curc’, and,…
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[phenology, organic foods, tomato varieties]

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I believe I have earned the title of “phenologist.” No, I haven’t been measuring skulls to assess character, which is the realm of phrenology. Phenology, which I have been practicing, is the study of climate as reflected in the natural cycles of plants and animals. For the past 28 years, I have recorded the dates on which various plants have blossomed or ripened their fruits. My interest was horticultural: In spring, plants blossom after experiencing a certain accumulation of warm temperatures; fruit ripening reflects, to a lesser degree, further accumulation of warmth. The amount of warmth…
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[ducks, damping off, sprouter]

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You’d think my chickens and ducks would be more thankful. Ratty, old straw bedding and manure have now been replace by fresh, new straw. But no, the chickens were nonchalant as usual, hardly noticing my work. And the ducks decided to spend the night out – not a wise choice, but then ducks aren’t know for their intelligence. The drake wouldn’t know about the housekeeping anyway because he has chosen or been directed to keep out of the house nights since the female ducks began laying a few weeks ago. He sits nearby from dusk till dawn. Cleaning out the chicken and duck house…
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Up until a few years ago, I couldn’t get sufficiently empathetic to other gardener’s Japanese beetle woes. That, despite the fact that Japanese beetles are not picky eaters and descend upon gardens almost everywhere. The problem – the empathy problem, that is – was that never more than a few beetles ever made their appearance in my garden. That situation changed – bad for my garden, good for my empathy – around 2005, when beetle numbers started increasing. Nowadays my garden has annual, full-blown outbreaks of the beetles. Last summer’s rain was good for the beetles’ egg-laying,…
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(weeds from wet last summer)

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  As the writer of the book Weedless Gardening, I would have expected my own vegetable garden to be more weedless. I see weeds in my garden, more than in springs past. Last summer’s wet weather has something to do with the present weed situation. In a normal summer, with its periods of dryness, drip irrigation (part of my “weedless” gardening system) pinpoints water to my garden plants without promoting weed growth in paths and between widely spaced plants. Incessant rain kept promoting lush growth everywhere. The clear plastic tunnels that I put up to extend the harvest season of endive,…
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(rosemary and gardenia failures)

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A reader, in telling me how much he enjoyed reading this “gardener’s notebook,” went on to say that he especially liked – perhaps he said “found interesting” – my failures. Well, here you are Alan: Looks like I’ve done in another rosemary plant. I went to water it and was presented with leaves that were a bit more needle-like than normal rosemary leaves, and drier. I soon realized I’d killed another rosemary plant. Except for periodically dying, rosemaries generally have been ideal herbal houseplants for me. Each leaf packs a lot of flavor, so it’s a plant you can…
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[mandevilla, cottony cushion scale]

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Mandevilla Crimson, the vine about which I wrote and raved a couple of months ago, has become a horticultural Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde. Can this plant really be the same one that was compact and drenched, nonstop, in crimson, flowering funnels such a short while ago? Winter light – that is, the lack of light -- has made all the difference. Neither a flower nor the inklings of a flower bud are to be seen anywhere on the plant. And from the once compact mass of foliage has sprung 3 and 4 foot long shoots that are reaching out and grabbing onto a nearby rosemary plant, a lamp, anything…
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[indoor shiitake,snow on tunnels, endive in tunnels

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The 3-foot-long logs resting against the wall near my front door are not for firewood; they’re for eating. Not the logs themselves, of course, but what’s growing inside of them. As I write and as you read, thread-like fungal mycelia are spreading within, digesting wood and growing bigger and stronger. Sometime next fall, delicious shiitake mushrooms should start popping out of the bark. Any old rotting log will not produce delicious, or even edible, mushrooms. A couple of weeks ago, I inoculated these logs with spawn of selected strains of shiitake mushrooms. The spawn originally came…
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