PAWPAW TALK & GLICKSTER VISIT
/9 Comments/in Gardening/by Lee A. Reich
Let’s cut right to the chase: Barry’s deepest affections go to one genus, Helleborus. And hellebores, as they are commonly called, were everywhere. (The plants are also called Christmas rose or Lenten rose although the blossoms do not really resemble roses and the plants do not necessarily bloom at Christmas or Lent.) Steep slopes beneath towering maples and oaks were blanketed with verdant carpets of thousands of hellebore plants. Many of these plants were seed plants for Barry’s breeding program. In addition to selling thousands of hellebores, Barry also has developed some new varieties.

One particularly attractive tree that I found impossible to identify was a mature sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua). Rather than sweetgum’s characteristic, five-pointed, star-shaped leaves, Barry’s tree, the variety ‘Rotundifolia’, had leaves with friendly-looking, rounded lobes. This variety is sterile, so also couldn’t be identified by the species rounded, spikey fruits commonly known by such names as “gumballs,” “burr balls”, “bommyknockers”, or “conkleberrys.”
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We can’t just leave hellebores hanging a few paragraphs back. I also am a big fan of most of this genus, and am the proud grower, for 8 years now, of some of Barry’s creations. One asset of hellebores, mentioned previously, is their verdant foliage; I didn’t mention, though, that the leaves stay green all winter. This far north, I value anything green in our mostly achromatic winter landscape.

While the flowers do not look like rose blossoms, they are beautiful, in colors from white to white suffused with purple to purple, and sometimes pale green.Wait, that’s not all! The flowers start blooming very early in spring, typically in March in my garden, and then continue to bloom for weeks and weeks.
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Most tropical is the flesh itself of this cold-hardy, native fruit. Pawpaw flesh is creamy and yellow, like banana. What’s more, it has flavor that also is similar to banana along with some mango, pineapple, and avocado mixed in; or vanilla custard; or creme brulee.
Pawpaw trees shed their tropical aspirations in autumn, about now, when the leaves turn a clear, bright yellow and then drop. That’s also when the fruit ripens; I’m presently inundated with this easy-to-grow “tropical” fruit.
(I devote a whole chapter to pawpaw in my book Uncommon Fruits for Every Garden.)
GOODBYE TOMATOES, HELLO NASHI
/1 Comment/in Gardening/by Lee A. Reich
For many years now, killing frosts have arrived late, so much so that cool weather and short days sap the vitality from summer vegetables before frost arrives. The plants peter out so I have no qualms about clearing them out of the garden before they are dead. As a matter of fact, they look so forlorn that I’m anxious to clear them away and neaten up the garden.

Just to make sure that pest problems are minimized next year, and to enrich and protect the ground, I cover each bed with an inch depth of finished compost from piles built last year. Disease spores can’t get up through the compost blanket. And then, to further limit pest problems, next year’s tomatoes go in a different bed than this year’s tomatoes.
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Even with the declining tomatoes and other summer vegetables, the garden generally doesn’t look forlorn. Beds of late green beans, sweet corn, and squash that were cleared, cleaned, and composted over the past few weeks look neat and weed-free. To me, something like the zen gardens at Ryōan-ji, except with compost and straight lines instead of neatly raked gravel. Grassy blades of oats are sprouting with all the youthful exuberance of spring in beds that were readied before the end of September. And long before summer vegetables started to wane, I snuck autumn vegetables into the garden, so some beds are now lush with radishes, arugula, lettuce, cabbage, and other greenery that thoroughly enjoys this cool, wet weather.
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Butterscotch on a tree, that’s what Chojuro pear tastes like. Juicy butterscotch, because an explosion of juice fills your mouth with each bite,

My pears were planted 10 years ago, actually not planted but grafted on existing rootstocks to replace other, less satisfactory varieties. The rootstocks are dwarfing and the plan was to train them as a row of espaliers en arcure, that is with successive tiers of branches gently arching in curves to meet those of neighboring pear plants, all sitting in a row atop a low wall. But deer soon discovered the plants, which became a smorgasbord for which the deer didn’t even have to bend down to enjoy.

Asian pears differ from the more common European pears in a number of ways. They are generally easier to grow. With large, healthy leaves, they tend to be more decorative. They bear more heavily and at a younger age, so much so that you have to be careful not to let plants on dwarfing rootstocks bear too much too young and runt out. And while European pears must be harvested before they are ripe, then ripened off the trees, Asian pears don’t taste at their best until they are dead ripe on the tree.
Even then, they don’t taste at their very best if the trees overbear, which they are wont to do. So beginning in June, and a few more times through summer, I kept pinching off enough fruits so that eventually remaining fruits were a couple of inches apart. It was worth it for the crunchy, juice-laden, butterscotch-flavored Chojuros.
SQUIRREL BATTLES BUT FIGS ARE FINE
/10 Comments/in Gardening/by Lee A. ReichIt’s a tied score, 1 for the squirrels, 1 for me. At least since I started counting, which was last year. I had some squirrel issues in previous years, but last year is when all out war started. They cleaned out the raspberries and the gooseberries early in the season, and then started eyeing the blueberries. Anyone who reads “A Gardener’s Notebook” knows how I feel about blueberries, and the squirrels evidently picked up those vibes (with some ballistic coaxing) and left the blueberries alone. Not that they kept to their nearby forest homes; they scurried across the field in late summer to strip the hazelnut bushes of every single nut.
This year is different, very different. The squirrels didn’t eat even one raspberry or gooseberry, didn’t even eye the blueberries. And my harvest of hazelnuts is secure in bushel baskets.
In fact, I only saw a couple of squirrels the whole season. They were two young ones gamboling in the tree tops, taunting me in full view from the back window of my bedroom.
A multifaceted approach is responsible for this year’s victory. Two excellent cats are one line of defense, although I can’t imagine how cats could keep squirrels at bay. Perhaps the squirrels also saw me practicing my marksmanship. And finally, I let the field in which I planted the hazelnuts grow up into an overgrown meadow. I’ve never seen squirrels in high grass and other herbaceous vegetation, probably because it slows them down too much. (Then again, perhaps I’ve never seen squirrels in unmown meadow because I can’t see them in unmown meadow.)
To reduce competition for water and nutrients to the hazelnut plants from the meadow, I kept vegetation scythed down in a circle around each hazelnut bush and accessed the plants via a mowed path that originates only 50 feet across mowed lawn from my deck. My two dogs, Leila and Scooter, spend a lot of time sleeping on that sunny deck, so it would take a bold squirrel indeed to make the journey across the lawn and then down that no-exit, mowed path in overgrown meadow.
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As for anyone who pooh-poohs my obsession with squirrels, mark my words: In a few years you’ll consider them much, much worse problems than deer. Some people tell me that squirrels are even eating their tomatoes. Fencing is, obviously, useless against squirrels.
Squirrels have never eaten my tomatoes. I’ve never even seen them in my vegetable gardens although black walnut seedlings that sometimes pop up here and there are evidence of their occasional trespass.
I wonder if squirrels eat lettuce; I hope not, because I have some nice heads developing in the garden and in seed flats. This is the time of year that takes advance planning with lettuce because, although the plants enjoy the cooler weather, it, along with shorter days, drastically slows growth.
I aim to grow enough lettuce for salads all winter so must have enough plants started to slowly mature in the weeks and months ahead. If the plants are too small, they won’t size up when it’s their turn to be eaten. If the plants are too large, they bolt, that is, make seedstalks and turn bitter. Right now, I have two rows of mature heads in the garden and over 150 seedlings of various sizes. All those seedlings take up only about 4 square feet of space. The smaller seedlings will get transplanted into the greenhouse sometime soon.
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Greenhouse lettuce can tolerate a little shade right now, but not in a few weeks. That works out perfectly, because right now the greenhouse is shaded by 3 large fig trees growing within. They are three different varieties, each loaded with fruit.
Kadota is the best-tasting of the three, with a sweet, rich flavor held in a chewy skin. The problem is that Kadota likes dry weather, as do all figs, to some degree. With the current humid weather and incessant rain, many of the Kadota fruits rot just as they are about to ripen.

The best of the lot, in terms of flavor (not as good as Kadota but, still, very good) is Green Ischia, also known as Verte. This variety bears fruits on stems that grew last year as well as, like my other two varieties, stems that started growing this year. Green Ischia’s earliest figs ripen in July on last year’s stems, followed by more fruits, beginning in September, on this year’ stems. The figs are sweet and very large and juicy, so much so that they begin to burst open if harvest is delayed too long. My Green Ischia, by the way, is probably not Green Ischia; figs are notorious for having multiple names and for being mislabeled, as I think mine was in the nursery.
The fig crop will end in a few weeks, the plants’ leaves will fall, and I’ll cut back all stems, except for a few on Green Ischia for next year’s early crop, down to about 4 feet high. Greenhouse lettuce can then bask freely in whatever sunlight autumn and winter sun offers.