ORGANIC FOODS FOR YOUR PLANTS
Where to Feed, With an Exception
To get the most out of any organic fertilizer, keep in mind how plants feed and how these fertilizers act in the soil. The bulk of plants’ feeder roots — whether the plants are midget marigolds or mighty oaks — lie just beneath the surface, so generally there is no need to dig fertilizer deep into the soil. And anyway, low oxygen levels there would retard the microbial growth necessary to unlock nutrients from most organic fertilizers.
FIG UPRISING
Up From the Ground
Raising my figs last week got me as excited as, I imagine, opening a kiln does for a potter. What would this spring’s disinterment — “kiln opening” — hold?
In an effort to grow figs outdoors here, despite winter temperatures regularly dipping below zero degrees Fahrenheit (-18° F. this past winter) I buried two plants last fall. Actually, those plants were put in the ground two years ago, but a combination of mice and insufficient cold protection prevented their making successful emergence each spring. Figs are resourceful plants, though, and new shoots sprouted each year from the roots. Read more
NATURE’S DESSERT
What Do I Hear?
Every morning I can hear especially one group of plants crying out to be pruned. It’s the fruit trees. They demand annual and careful pruning. I’m almost finished pruning them, but not quite.
Taste the sweetness of a perfectly ripe pear: that sweetness represents energy, the result of pruning so all limbs bask in energy-generating sunshine. Pruning also helps these trees strike a balance between shoot growth and fruit production. Pruning removes some potential fruits so that more of the plant’s energy can be funneled into the fewer fruits that remain, fewer but larger and more flavorful fruits.
I started off regular pruning of Read more
