A Cardinal And A Jewel

/8 Comments/in , /by

And This Year’s Winner Is . . .

Organizations annually tout their “plant of the year.” There’s the Perennial Plant Association’s 2017 plant of the year butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa); Proven Winners 2017 Landscape Plant of the Year is Yuki Cherry Blossom Deutzia; American Conifer Society Collectors’ Conifer of the Year is Primo Eastern Arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis ‘IslPrim’); Assembly magazine’s 2016 Plant of the Year is Bosch Rexroth . . . whoops, the last is an assembly plant (hydraulic motors and pumps). Anyway, you get the picture.

How about a new category, the Weed of the Year? Here on my farmden, I nominate and elect jewelweed (Impatiens capensis). This weed is all over the place this year, even far from where it’s been in the past. For this weed, being all over the place is its only flaw.

On the positive side, jewelweed is a pretty plant with very succulent stems sporting orange, sometimes yellow flowers. jewelweed blossomIt’s also been called touch-me-not for the way its seed capsules burst open with the slightest touch to project their seeds many feet — a useful characteristic for helping a weed spread although it doesn’t explain jewelweed’s spreading here in one season over a hundred feet and to the other side of my house. It’s close relative, the widely planted annual flower, impatiens, does the same thing without becoming weedy; both plants also enjoy and flower in either sun or deep shade.

Jewelweed often grows as a neighbor to poison ivy, which perhaps by some odd reasoning (to me) gave it a reputation for use as a treatment for poison ivy. My friend Bob, usually a clear thinker and very susceptible to poison ivy, decided to treat his rash, one year with jewelweed. He reported a success, as an afterthought mentioning that he applied it in conjunction with cortisone. (I’ll expect a lot of feedback, testimonials for jewelweed.)

Jewelweed’s main asset is how easy it is to remove. Even large stalks lift easily out of the ground, roots intact, with minimal soil disturbance. A machete or scythe slices easily through the stalks without the slightest resistance to decapitate the plants.

Each year in the garden is different. Jewelweed’s plans for next year won’t be evident until next June.

Red In The Shade!

Cardinal flower I planted

Cardinal flower I planted

Slicing through a stand of jewelweed with my scythe in the deep shade along the seasonal, small stream (a ditch) in front of my property, I was taken aback by a 3-foot-high spike of fire engine red flowers. More scything, and then another spike appeared. I thought back to spring, and remembered planting cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis) along the stream/ditch this past spring.

Cardinal flower never ceases to take my breath away. Deep shade is not usually home to lots of showy flowers, and especially not flowers in traffic stopping colors. Only a few times in my life have I come upon cardinal flowers in the wild, and — you guessed it — each time they took my breath away.

Wild cardinal flower

Wild cardinal flower

Each time they were also in deep shade alongside water. Hence my choice of site for last spring’s planting.

Cardinal flowers are easily grown from seed, and no need to have a lot of them for bold effect. The plant to grow is the species, not one of the “improved” varieties. Many varieties have been bred or selected, including Alba (white flowers), Heather Pink, Angel Song (salmon and cream flowers), Ruby Slippers, and Twilight Zone (pink flowers). Color of the straight species is usually red, a very pure red, untainted by a hint of blue as are so many other red flowers.

Two Weeds(?)

Jewelweed and cardinal flower have much in common: both are native, both grow in shade, and both are pretty plants. Jewelweed is a self-seeding annual.

Cardinal flower is a perennial, unfortunately a short-lived perennial. It does self-seed to some degree for new plants to replace dead ones, but not enough for my needs. I grew my originals from seed, which is not at all difficult, and intend to do so again. If only cardinal flower could learn some reproductive habits from its neighbor in the shade.

Savin’ Seeds, Killin’ Weeds

/3 Comments/in , , , /by

 

Bolting Plants

Last week I was admiring a vegetable garden where just about every lettuce plant was reaching skyward, with flower buds about to cap the tops of the spires. Isn’t that the wrong way to grow lettuce?

Bolting lettuce plantsLettuce that flowers — “goes to seed” — becomes bitter and tough. In my own garden, I aspire to have no lettuce spires by sowing lettuce seeds every couple of weeks for a regular harvest of mild-flavored, succulent leaves or heads. The plants don’t have time to bolt.

Those bolting lettuces I was admiring were in a garden in Iowa, one of the gardens at the Seed Savers Exchange (www.seedsavers.org), an organization that every gardener should know about and a garden that I should have not waited so long to visit. The mission of Seed Savers Exchange is to save and preserve heirloom seeds, which are varieties that have been passed on down among generations of farmers and gardeners. Taste some heirloom tomatoes and it’s understandable why these varieties have been saved and passed on. Belgian Giant tomato may not have the smooth, round shape of a modern Big Boy tomato, but this heirloom is well worth growing for its complex, sweet-tart flavor.

One way that Seed Savers fulfills their mission is by growing and saving many varieties of seed. Hence the bolting lettuces I saw there. Some varieties of vegetables, such as most squashes, tomatoes, and cucumbers, spread their pollen too freely. To keep these varieties seed “true,” contamination from foreign pollen is prevented by growing all plants of a particular variety in fine-mesh, insect-proof enclosures.Seed growing at SeedsaversNetted enclosure to prevent cross-pollination

The Seed Saver mission is also fulfilled by so-called “participatory preservation.” An over 13,000 member network of gardeners grow seeds and share them — to the tune of over 23,000 varieties — through an online seed exchange. Anyone can browse the listings but only members can request the seeds.

Not that non-members don’t have access to any of these seeds. Every year, Seed Savers Exchange publishes a seed catalog, from which anyone can order seeds. The names of the old varieties themselves make some of the seeds irresistible: Tolli’s Sweet Italia pepper (better name than flavor), Green Arrow Pea (excellent flavor and high yielding), Jelly Melon cucumber (very interesting name and appearance, but I have yet to try it).

What To Do With Weeds

Ten days absence from my garden, with warm, sunny weather interspersed with rainy days adding up to two inches of rainfall, wrought big changes. Sweet corn and polenta corn reached well over 5 feet in height, flopping stems of staked tomatoes were in desperate need of tying, blueberry stems bowed down with their weight of plump, ripe berries, and  . . . weeds were abundant.

Ninety percent of the weeds were Canadian thistle, crabgrass, purslane, Purslanepigweed, common yellow wood sorrel (Oxalis sricta) and — my worst weed —  creeping woodsorrel (Oxalis corniculata). I’m jerking each thistle out with a gloved hand. Yes, roots left in the ground will resprout. I’ll just keep jerking them out until they expend all their stored fuel and before new shoots can start pumping new fuel down to the roots, and the plants will die. I poke my hori-hori knife right at the roots of crabgrass and toss the severed tops into the compost bucket.

Yellow wood sorrel is easy, and sort of fun, to remove; pull the plant and the whole thing comes out easily. Creeping woodsorrel is another story: With brittle stems that creep just below ground level and dirt-colored leaves, it’s hard to see and hard to remove. Most effective is a spray of household vinegar, repeated each time new stems grow.

The way to remove purslane and pigweed is to harvest it — yes, for eating. Unfortunately, I don’t like purslane, so I weed it. But pigweed is a delicious cooked green. I wish I had more of this weed; it cooks down a lot and the harvest was over after two dinners.

Bye, Bye Black Currants

Belaruskaja black currants

Belaruskaja black currants

I mourn the passing — okay, “mourn” is a bit too strong — of fresh blackcurrants. The harvest was bountiful and long lasting,  but now is over. Over twenty quarts of them are in the freezer but those are for eating through the winter. 

COMPOST TEA: SNAKE OIL OR ELIXIR? BLACK CURRANTS…

/17 Comments/in , , /by

 

Tea For Plants?

Has your garden had its tea this morning? Tea is all the rage for plants and soils these days. Compost tea. And not just any old compost tea, but tea you steep in water that’s aerated just like an aquarium.

Compost tea steeped the old way, by hanging a burlap sack of compost in a bucket of water for a few days, was one way to provide a liquid feed to plants. The liquid feed wasn’t particularly rich but did provide a wide range of nutrients that leached from the compost, and was convenient for feeding potted plants.COMPOST TEA MAKING

The new, aerated compost teas are billed as an efficient way to transfer beneficial microorganisms from compost into the soil or onto plant leaves. After all, spraying a little tea is less work than pitchforking tons of compost. In the soil, the little guys can spread their goodness, fighting off plant diseases and generally making plants healthier. Or so goes the logic and the promotional material.

Aerated compost tea (ACT) is big business these days, with people selling compost tea, compost tea brewers, and services for testing compost teas. Compost tea is more than big business; it’s bordering on religion (as anyone who criticizes compost tea soon finds out).

In fact, aerated compost tea is not the panacea it’s trumped up to be. Many independent studies have found the tea to be of no benefit, or even detrimental. Occasionally, human pathogens have been found lurking in compost tea.

In The Interest Of Science

I have a friend who believes in compost tea, so in the interest of science I agreed, on his urging, to try it out. To make sure any lack of efficacy could not be blamed on the tea itself, he sent me some compost, a brewer, and instructions for brewing and application. Interestingly, he told me not to try it out in my vegetable garden, because my garden was “too organic”(!)

Long story short: I applied tea to my lawn and to some vegetables in a relatively poor soil at a local farm, and the result was . . . (drum roll) . . . nothing, nada, rien, zip.

Tea Doesn’t Make Sense

All the buzz about compost tea bypasses the fundamental question of why compost tea would limit plant disease when sprayed on plant leaves? The theory goes that the good microorganisms colonize leaves to displace and/or fight off the bad guys.

Compost tea contains some of the microorganisms from the compost that made the tea. These microorganisms are normally found in soils and, of course, composts. But why, evolutionarily speaking, would these microorganisms provide any benefit on plant leaves, for disease control or any other purpose? Furthermore, these microorganisms evolved in a dark, nutrient and moisture rich environment. Why would they survive on a sunny, dry, nutrient poor leaf? The same goes for soils: If the soil has the right environment for a particular set of microorganisms, they generally are there; apply microorganisms to a soil lacking the needed environment and those microorganisms cannot survive.

Occasional research papers report positive effects of compost tea for thwarting plant diseases. I contend that if you spray just about anything on a plant leaf and measure enough plants closely enough, you’ll turn up some measurable response to the spray. That response might be very transitory and very small, but, with the right equipment or instrumentation, you’ll measure some effect. Whether that effect is of biological or practical significance is another story.

With that, I suggest someone begin a series of experiments to see the effect on plant diseases of spraying — say — milk solutions on plant leaves. Wait! A web search tells me that milk sprays have been tested and are, in fact, effective in controlling plant viruses, powdery mildew, and other diseases. In contrast to compost tea, which provides microorganisms but little of the food they need to survive, milk provides a smorgasbord of nutrients to whatever microorganisms tag along for the ride.

On the basis of the evidence, I’d go with milk rather than tea for my plants. And I’ll take my milk without tea.

Black Currants, Mmmmm

Moving on to something noncontroversial, my first black currants of the season ripened June 26th this year. Come to think of it, black currants may not be noncontroversial. Black currants have a strong, very

Belaruskaja black currants

Belaruskaja black currants

distinctive flavor, loved by some people, abhorred by others. The flavor starts out refreshingly tart as your teeth break the skin and then becomes sweeter and cooling, with a rich, resiny flavor, as you continue.

I count myself among the lovers of black currants, right up there

 with blueberries in my book. Black currants earned a whole chapter in my book, Uncommon Fruits for Every Garden. Although humans are divided on whether or not they enjoy fresh black currants, pretty much everyone loves the fruit concocted into jams and baked goods. They also flavor the liqueur cassis, I’ve used them to flavor beer.Black currant & Forget-me-not

Let’s be clear about the fruit in question. Black currants are not the same fruit as “dried currants.” Those currants are raisins made from dried Black Corinthe grapes, a name which was bastardized to “black currant.”

Black currants are borne on medium-sized bushes whose leaves, when brushed against, emit a strong, also resiny aroma. The leaves are sometimes brewed into tea — for humans, not plants.

GOOD FUNGI, BAD WEEDS

/6 Comments/in , , , /by

 

Myco . . . What?

There’s a fungus among us. Actually, fungi, all over the place. Right now, though, I’m focussed on a special group of fungi, a group that, as I look out the window on my garden, the meadow, and the forest, has infected almost every plant I see. Like so many microorganisms — most, in fact — these fungi are beneficial.

The fungi are called mycorrhizal fungi; they have a symbiotic relationship with plants. (“Mycorrhizae” comes from the Greek “myco,” meaning fungus, and “rhiza,” meaning root.) The plant and the fungus have an agreement: The plant offers the fungus carbohydrates which it makes from sunlight, carbon dioxide, and water; in exchange, the fungus infects plant roots and then spreads the other ends of its thread-like hyphae throughout the soil to act to be virtual extensions of the roots. The plant ends up garnering more mineral nutrients from the soil. The fungus also helps offer protection against pests and drought. It’s an arrangement that has worked for eons.

Except for where soil has been doused with heavy doses of pesticides or discombobulated by land excavation, mycorrhizae are everywhere. Only a few plant families get along without this symbiosis. Some more familiar, nonmycorrhizal plants include cabbage and its kin, carnations, lamb’s-quarters, and sedums. Other plants can grow without mycorrhizae, but then miss out on some of the benefits and don’t make most efficient use of minerals soil has to offer.

Why mention mycorrhiza at this moment of time? Two books on mycorrhiza were published this year; either one, but not both, are worth reading. Both cover the kinds of mycorrhizae, their effects, their nurturing, and probably everything else you might want to know about this symbiosis.

Michael Phillips’ Mycorrhizal Planet will appeal more to the hip gardener, the one who burns wood for biochar for their soil, builds hugelkultur mounds (look it up), and spritzes plants with herbal extracts to boost their immune function. He’s mostly right when writing about mycorrhizae but often enters the land of woo-woo when venturing off-track. For instance, he writes, and then runs with, “many species of insects lack the digestive enzymes needed to break down complete proteins.” Not true.

The other book about mycorrhizae, Jeff Lowenfels’ Teaming with Fungi, presents a similar overview to mycorrhizal fungi, and their application, to that presented in Mycorrhizal Planet, with one notable difference. Teaming with Fungi details straightforward methods how you or I can actually grow our own mycorrhizae with which to inoculate plants to get them off to the best possible start.

The two books differ dramatically in their writing style. I eventually tired of Phillips’ overly flowery style and anthropomorphizing. “The synergy that unfolds as a result of outrageous diversity in the orchard delights me to no end . . . .The root systems of fast-growing tree with relatively pliable wood make barter possible between AM [arbuscular mycorrhize] and EM [ectomycorrhizae] fungi.” Lowenfels’ Teaming with Fungi is more firmly grounded in real science and application than Mycorrhizal Planet. I found Lowenfels’ writing more straightforward and engaging: “Some trees form AM, but others have evolved over time and are hosts to EM. Some trees are hosts to both forms of mycorrhizae, though usually at different periods in their lives.” (Different strokes for different folks.)

The mycorrhizal symbiosis was first studied and described in the latter half of the 19th century. Less long ago, but still long ago, I studied them as part of my doctoral work, specifically the ericoid mycorrhizae that are specific to blueberry plants and their kin. With the increased appreciation of the diversity, extent, and effect of the living world within the soil in recent years, mycorrhizae have moved into the spotlight. Read about them, nurture them, and make use of them.

And Weeds Among Us

Rising now to see what’s going on aboveground, I see that the garden has moved mostly into its maintenance phase for the season. That entails mowing, scything, making compost, keeping an eye out for pests and taking action, if necessary. 

And, of course, weeding. My weeding weapons of choice are my hands, for larger interlopers, and either the winged weeder hoe or wire hoe for small ones. Called into action weekly, either of the two hoes easily slice through the top quarter inch of soil surface to do in small weeds that haven’t even yet poked their heads above ground. Wire weeder, winged weederAll the better to forestall the appearance of large weeds, which are much harder to kill and also threaten to spread seeds or grow strong roots. Regular hoeing also keeps the soil surface loose to better absorb rainfall.

Early July seems to be when true gardeners part ways with other gardeners. Regular weeding  and other garden maintenance keeps the garden in good shape for the fall garden which, with good maintenance and planning, is like having a whole other garden, providing vegetables and flowers well into fall.

OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW

/4 Comments/in , /by

In Which I Emulate George Washington

It’s about 10 years since I planted the cherry tree, a sweet, self-pollinating variety called Stella, on  dwarfing rootstock. During that time, the trunk swelled to about 7 inches in diameter and the branches shot skyward to 20 feet.

Stella is now gone, and it was all my doing. She took ten years to grow but only about an hour to cut down (with my new Stihl cordless electric chain saw, which I highly recommend). Afterlife of her trunk is as firewood, her branches as chipped mulch.

I warned Stella, who never bore one cherry, that this was her last chance. Finally, this spring she was loaded with blossoms, for the first time, followed by a good crop of developing cherries. A couple of weeks later, all the cherries were gone, except for two green ones I noticed on a cut branch. The weather could not have been at fault, nor birds at this early stage in the game. My guess is either an insect, probably plum curculio, or that the tree from the nursery was mislabeled, and it wasn’t Stella. Most varieties of sweet cherry need another variety nearby to set fruit.

She was pretty, but not pretty enough to grow as a strictly ornamental plant.

Oranges, Outdoors, In New York!

Waiting to replace Stella was a citrus(!) tree, a tree I could not have planted even a couple or years ago. 

One reason I couldn’t have planted this tree is because it wasn’t a citrus tree back then. It’s a plant called hardy orange, previously assigned the genus and species Poncirus trifoliata. It’s always been a close relative of citrus, even used as a rootstock on which to graft commercial citrus trees. Only recently has it been fully welcomed into the fold and re-assigned the botanical name Citrus trifoliate. So previously I would have been planting a Poncirus but now I planted a Citrus. Same plant, different name.Citrus, Flying Dragon

The other reason I couldn’t have — or shouldn’t have — planted hardy orange under any name previously is because it’s only just barely winter hardy here. Winters of a few years ago were consistently colder and would have killed the plant down to the ground.

With stems cut back from cold, the plant would never have borne flowers, which have the look and delicious fragrance of other citrus flowers, or fruits, which look just like golfball-sized oranges. The flavor of the fruit is nothing to rave about, citrus-y yes, but also very sour, bitter, and not very juicy. Used with restraint, though, the fruits can be used for home-grown citrus flavoring.Hardy orange fruit

The stems themselves, and their ominous thorns are hardy orange’s selling points here. The plant is evergreen, not because it holds onto its leaves through winter but because the stems are bright green year ‘round. My hardy orange is the variety Flying Dragon, whose twisting and turning stems are lined with ominously large, recurved — and also green — thorns.

Flying Dragon is a very interestingly attractive plant that can be used as flavoring, which is more that could have been said for my Stella.

Gumi Good

Except for Stella cherries, this year is shaping up to be an excellent year for fruits, even apples, plums, and other tree fruits, which are always chancy on my farmden, which is a naturally poor site for fruit growing.

Among many other fruits in the offing is a bumper crop of bright red, gold-flecked gumi fruits (Eleaegnus multiflora). The fruits followed sweet-smelling blossoms that perfumed the air earlier in the season and are an ornamental adjunct to the silvery leaves. Plus, the fruits have good flavor if picked thoroughly ripe.

The birds are having a field day with the gumis, so I only get to eat the fruits in their puckery stage when just that hint of good flavor can be detected in the background.

I’ve hung old CD’s among gumi’s branches, also among my mulberries’ branches, hoping the flashes of reflected light will scare birds away. It probably won’t because visual deterrents, when they are effective, are so mostly against flocking birds. The gumis are being enjoyed mostly by robins and catbirds.Gumi, with CD

Let the birds have their fun. Black currants, which birds ignore, are also now ripe. And blueberries — my favorite — are ripening, and safe from birds enclosed in the netted “blueberry temple.” 

THE GOOD OL’ DAYS

/1 Comment/in , , , , /by

Corn Made Even easier

I can understand why corn was so popular a crop early on in the settlement of our country by Europeans. Sure, it tastes good popped, ground and cooked, and, while immature, fresh from the cob. Mostly, though, corn was easy to grow in the rough soil left from recently cleared forest.

Most of my corn grows in my two vegetable gardens where the soil is crumbly and weed-free, watered gently by drip irrigation, and nourished annually with an inch depth of compost.

Highly cultivated sweet corn

Highly cultivated sweet corn

The south garden is home, every year, to a couple of beds (about 60 square feet) of popcorn, and the north garden to 4 beds (about 215 square feet) of sweet corn. Those two gardens provide us with all the sweet corn and popcorn we eat for a year.

Separate gardens are needed because if sweet and popcorn cross-pollinate, the sweet corn will be less sweet and the popcorn won’t pop as well.

I also grow polenta corn, an heirloom Italian variety called Otto File. But I only have two vegetable gardens. So this corn goes out in the field into the weedy soil between my dwarf apple trees. Conditions there aren’t as rough as cornfields wrought from forests in colonial times, but out there the corn must deal with weeds, grasses, rabbits, and drink only water that falls from the sky.

I did not use colonial methods to ready the soil for planting. Instead, I mowed all vegetation to the ground, and covered the planting areas, 2 beds each about 3 feet wide for a total of about 100 square feet of planting, with gray resin paper. (Sometimes called building paper, gray resin paper is used in construction, usually as underlayment under flooring and siding.) I topped the paper with an inch or so of compost, then made two rows in each bed, in each row poking holes 2 feet apart into each of which I dropped 6 Otto File seeds followed by a sprinkling of water.

The seedlings are up and looking strong, so I thinned them out to 3 or 4 plants per hole, pulling out a few weeds as I thinned. I’ll weed one or two more times and then leave the plants to themselves. Weeds will grow, but the then-tall corn plants should shade some into submission and hold their own against the more aggressive ones.Otto File planted in field

For authenticity, yes, I could have buried some fish in the ground at each planting hole. But that would be more work, and I’m interested in production with minimal effort from that planting. Each year those beds have provided a year’s supply of polenta corn.

Apple Threats

Apple trees flanking the Otto File beds are loaded with a hopeful crop of cherry-sized fruits. The dreaded plum curculio, which is as happy to ruin a crop of apples, peaches, nectarines, or cherries as well as plums, should have ceased their egg-laying by now, and burrowed into the soil to prepare for next year’s onslaught. (Surround® is an organically approved spray of specially formulated kaolin clay that controls curculios.)

Just because the nascent fruits have come along this far does not mean I’m home free. Apple maggot reliably makes its appearance just as the curculios vanish. This pest doesn’t usually make the fruit drop, as do curculios, but it riddles the fruit with so many tunnels that you can’t even eat around them.

Maggot & curculio scars

Maggot & curculio scars

Fortunately, non-chemical control of apple maggot is easy. In the 1980s, Dr. Ron Prokopy, at the University of Massachusetts, discovered that Ms. Maggot was attracted to the reddest apples, so he tried  hanging croquet balls painted Tartarian Red and coated with forever-sticky Tangletrap® in apple trees. Maggots tried to lay eggs in the ersartz apples, where they expired, their mission unfulfilled. The spheres offer as good control as do chemical sprays.

In the last few years, I’ve used Tangletrap® coated, real Red Delicious apples as traps. They are very red and very apple-like. Hung in the branches, one per dwarf apple tree, they last almost the whole season and, when the season ends, can be composted rather than scraped clean for use the following year.Red Delicious maggot trap

Apple maggot isn’t the only remaining threat to my apples. There’s also the codling moth (the classic worm in the apple), apple scab (that’s what it looks like), and various summer rots.

Once Upon A Time

Oh, for the good ol’ days when the grass was greener, the corn was sweeter, and apple trees took care of themselves. Mostly, the good ol’ days weren’t the various “-ers.” But one exception was the apple maggot. Two hundred years ago, Ms. Maggots didn’t look twice at apples. This native insect was happy to attack our native hawthorns, which are related to apples.

When apples were introduced to this part of the world, some apple maggot flies tried them out. Over time, some began to favor apples over hawthorns, so much so that the maggots evolved into two tribes, one favoring hawthorn and the other apples. Oh well.

I’M AN INGRATE, AND RUTHLESS WITH FRUITLETS

/7 Comments/in , , , /by

Great Asparagus Does Not Require A Green Thumb

Not to be an ingrate or a braggart, but the asparagus some friends recently brought over for our shared dinner didn’t compare with my home-grown asparagus. Not that the friends’ asparagus wasn’t good. Theirs came from a local farm, so I assume harvest was within the previous 24 hours. Asparagus harvestBut the stalks of my asparagus are snapped off the plants within 100 feet of the kitchen door, clocking in at anywhere from a few minutes to an hour of time before they’re eaten. It’s not my green thumb that makes my asparagus taste so good. It’s the fact that I can harvest it within 100 feet of my kitchen door.

But don’t take my word for it. Research has shown that asparagus spears begin to age as soon as they’re picked, the stalks toughening and sugars disappearing, and bitterness, sourness, and off-flavors beginning to develop. Yum.

Taste is just one of the many reasons to plant asparagus. Here’s more: Deer and other wildlife leave it alone so it doesn’t need to be corralled within a fence; the ferny foliage that needs to be let grow after harvest ends in early July makes a soft green backdrop for colorful flowers; a planting can pump out stalks from the end of April till the end of June (around here) for decades.Asparagus in August

Asparagus’s two potential problems are relatively minor. The first is asparagus beetle, a beetle whose eggs, which look like black specks on the stalks, hatch into slug-like young that feed on the stalks. I keep this bugger in check by picking every single stalk — even spindly, inedible ones — every time the bed is harvested. The beetle, then, has nowhere to lay her eggs. (Not in my bed, least; she can seek out some wild asparagus here and there.) And then, at the end of the season, I cut down all the browned, ferny foliage and cart it over to the compost pile, in whose depths the adults, some of which overwinter in the old stalks, meet their demise.

No pesticides, organic or otherwise, have ever been sprayed on my asparagus, so natural predators also can do their share of making asparagus beetles a non-issue. Hand-picking beetles and larvae, which I’ve never had to resort to, is another way to keep the beetles in check. (My ducks may have a “hand” in that.)

Weeds are the other potential problem in an asparagus bed. One of the worst weeds in any bed is  . . . asparagus! Each red berry dangling from the stems of a female asparagus plant houses a number of seeds that, once they hit ground level, can sprout to make new plants. The cure is to plant an all male variety of asparagus, such as Jersey Giant or Jersey Prince.

Unfortunately, a package of an all male variety can contain a few females. So, in addition to planting an all male variety, the cure for weeds is straightforward: Weed! I keep my bed regularly weeded during harvest season, then only occasionally weeded once fronds start to make the bed almost impenetrable.

Off With The Fruitlets (Some, At Least)

The slow but steadily increasing warmth this spring has been ideal for tree fruits (not so much the rainy weather). A bumper crop of fruitlets perch on branches of my apple and pear trees. It’s time to remove most of them.

These plants are genetically programmed to set more fruits than they could possibly have the energy to ripen. Spring presents many hazards to those blossoms, including killing freezes and insect pests. So, come June, when some of these threats have passed, fruit trees naturally shed excess developing fruitlets. But not enough.

The trees’ goals are to make seeds to make new trees. The seeds are enclosed within fruits that appeal to wildlife, who then help disperse the seeds. Those fruits might be good enough for wildlife, but not for you and me. For larger and more flavorful fruits, even more need to be removed than are shed by the “June drop.” Only 5 to 10 percent of apple blossoms need to set fruit for a full crop.

So I’m spending some time pinching or snipping off excess fruitlets, saving those that are largest and most free from blemishes, with a few inches between those that are left.Thinning apples

Fruit thinning is not only for flavor. A large crop one year bodes for a small crop the following; fruit thinning evens out any feast and famine cycle. The thinning also reduces some pest problems caused by fruits hanging too close to each other.

Pros And Cons Of Bad Weather (For Humans)

The recent spate of rainy weather has been accompanied by cool temperatures, which some plants enjoy and others wait out. Peas, cabbage, kale, and radishes are having a grand old time; sweet corn and beans wait out the cool weather. Flowering alliumsThe most dramatic response has been in the delphiniums, dames rockets, and giant alliums. With cool temperatures, their colorful displays go on and on.

Asparagus doesn’t mind hot or cool weather. The cool weather does slow down spear production, which made for insufficient harvest to share the day my friends came to dinner.Delphinium at back of garden

PERENNIAL VEGGIES AND A DEAD AVOCADO

/11 Comments/in , , /by

 

King Henry Was, And Is, Good

The good king has gone to seed. Good King Henry, that is. A plant. But no matter about that going to seed. The leaves still taste good, steamed or boiled just like spinach.

The taste similarity with spinach isn’t surprising because both plants are in the same botanical family, the Chenopodiaceae, or, more recently, the Amaranthaceae. Spinach and Good King Henry didn’t change families; their family was just taken in by, and made into a subfamily of, the Amaranthaceae.Good King Henry

Whatever its name — and it’s also paraded under such common names as poor man’s asparagus and Lincolnshire spinach — Good King Henry is a vegetable that’s been eaten for hundreds of years, except hardly ever nowadays. While spinach, beet, and some of its other kin have been improved by breeding and selection over the years, Good King Henry was neglected.

But the Good King, besides having good flavor, has a few things going for it lacking in spinach. It’s a perennial plant, it’s edible all season long, and it has no pests problems worth mentioning. This Mediterranean native made its way to my garden over 20 years ago, from seed I purchased and sowed. I haven’t had to replant it since then.

Which brings me to one possible downside of Good King Henry: It keeps trying to spread beyond the far corner of the garden where I originally planted it. Every spring I yank out errant plants, and eat them.

One of my favorite things about Good King Henry is its species name, bonus-henricus, making its whole botanical name Chenopodium bonus-henricus.

Another Perennial Oldie

Another perennial vegetable that I’ve enjoyed this spring is seakale (Crambe maritima), a relative of cabbage, broccoli, and kale. This also is an old-timey vegetable, one whose popularity peaked in the 18th century; Thomas Jefferson was a fan.

The origin of the name may trace to the leaves (kale-like) being pickled to bring aboard ships (the “sea” part of the name) to prevent scurvy.

Seakale, though perennial, does not spread. I started my plants from seed a few years ago, which is tricky only because the seeds have a low germination percentage. I’ve seen a few seedlings pop up a foot or so from the mother plant, which I welcome as an easy way to multiply my holdings.Seakale, blanched

Seakale tastes very good either cooked or raw, something like a mild cabbage with a refreshing touch of bitterness. Either way, blanching is needed to make it tasty, and that entails nothing more than covering it for a couple weeks or so, more or less depending on the weather (more warmth, less time), to keep out light and make the shoots more mild and tender.  I invert a clay flowerpot over the whole plant, with a stone or saucer over the drainage hole to keep light from wending its way in. Like asparagus, new leaves eventually need to be set free to bask in the sun to fuel the roots for the next year’s early shoots.

One more plus for seakale is that the plant is a beauty, so much so that it’s sometimes planted as an ornamental. The wavy, pale bluish green leaves have a silvery pallor reminiscent of the British seascape to which they are native. Later in the season, a seafoam of white blossoms rises from the whorl of leaves.Seakale in flower

I Give Up

Now for an about face, from European plants enjoying cool weather and sometimes dry conditions, to a tropical American plant. Awhile back I wrote about my efforts to grow avocados here in New York’s Hudson Valley. Not on a large scale; just one or two plants from which I could harvest a few fruits of some special variety.

I grew two plants from seeds I saved from locally purchased avocado fruits, and grafted onto those seedlings the stems of two varieties a gardening buddy sent up from Florida. Ungrafted, the seedling plants would bear fruit of unknown quality, if they bore at all. Grafted plants would give me improved, named varieties that would bear quickly.Avocado grafts

avocado about to flower

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I failed. Only one graft took, yet two varieties are needed for fruiting. As expected, the grafted stem on the successfully grafted plant flowered within a year of grafting. For days I tried to get the pollen from the male to pollinate the female parts of the flower — to no avail. And then, for some reason, the grafted stem started to darken and turn black, and died back.Avocado with dead graft

I give up on trying to grow an indoor-outdoor avocado plant — for fruit — in a pot.

PERMACULTURAL GLITCHES

/6 Comments/in , , , , /by

Imperfect Lawn

I’m no devotee of the perfect lawn, but I did recently suggest, for the bare palette of ground on which W wanted to plan for a variety of fruits, a patch of lawn. W protested that she hated mowing and wanted a “permaculture planting” that would take little care.

Visitors to my garden have occasionally complimented me on my lawn. The only care I give it is mowing with a mulching mower that lets clippings rain back down. By not cutting the lawn I avoid “mining” the soil for nutrients by repeated harvest of clippings. The clippings also enrich the ground with humus.

Pawpaw tree in my cousin's lawn

Pawpaw tree in my cousin’s lawn

Still, I’d rather grow trees, shrubs, vines, especially fruiting ones, and vegetables and flowers, than lawngrass. But I have plenty of ground devoted to these plants. And the easiest way to care for a plot of ground, short of sealing it in asphalt or just letting weeds grow (some of which would undoubtedly be edible or attractive) is by mowing. Visually, lawngrass also provide a calm backdrop for the scene out my back and front door. Plus, it’s nice to walk and play on.

A lawn need not be the environmental disaster inadvertently promoted by purveyors of fertilizers, and pesticides. As stated above, by letting clippings fall where they may, ground is not drained of its fertility, so fertilizer may not be needed. Especially if you let a little clover invade the lawn to add nitrogen, the most evanescent of plant nutrients.

That nitrogen highlights another approach to an easier lawn: Not striving for the uniform look of artificial turf. My lawn has its share of dandelions and clover and, later in the season, crabgrass, especially if the weather turns dry. I tolerate all this, with a refocussing of my aesthetic lens to celebrate a certain amount of diversity in the lawn.

Lawn care is even more environmentally sound these days with cordless electric lawnmowers not spewing noise, carbon dioxide, and other byproducts of gasoline consumption into the air. Periodic scything is a very pleasant way to get by with less mowing and sheep may be a way to get by with no mowing (but you do have to fence and do whatever else is necessary to care for the sheep).

Eco-mowers

Eco-mowers: Fiskars push, Stihl battery, and Scythe Supply Co. mowers

Fruits To (And Not To) Grow

Now for W’s permaculture fruit trees, shrubs, and vines — with some lawn, of course. (I think I convinced her.) For starters, I suggested steering clear of apples, peaches, plums, cherries, nectarines, and apricots. All are relatively high maintenance and, even with all that maintenance, still are iffy crops in this part of the world because of our extreme and variable climate and the plants’ susceptibilities to insects and diseases.

Nanking cherry hedge

Nanking cherry hedge

So what’s there left to grow??!! Berries, for one. Most berries don’t stand up well to commercial handling so are picked underripe even though they don’t ripen at all once harvested — all the more reason to grow berries in the backyard where the best tasting varieties can be planted and the harvest need not be shipped much further than arms’ length.

Redcurrant espalier

Redcurrant espalier

Summer's berries

Raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, and strawberries are all easy to grow without much care beyond pruning, which is very important for keeping the plants disease free and convenient to harvest.

And no need to restrict the berry bowl to these most common berries. Also easy to grow are seaberries, elderberries, lingonberries, mulberries, and hardy kiwifruit (which are, botanically, berries). An added plus for these latter berries, as well as the aforementioned blueberries, is that the plants are also ornamental.

There is one common tree fruit that’s easy to grow: pears.  And even easier than European pears, such as Bartlett, Anjou, and Bosc, are Asian pears, such as Chojuro, Yoinashi, Hosui, and scores of other varieties. Asian pears also bear more quickly and prolifically, and are a little more decorative than the also decorative European pears.

Asian pear, comfrey, and lawn

Asian pear, comfrey, and lawn

Avoiding Nightmares

The main problem that I’ve seen with many permaculture plantings is that they look great on paper as well as when first planted. Mouths water at the prospects of all those ornamental, fruiting plants cozied together, fruit on creeping plants beneath trees whose branches strain downward with their weight of fruit. And perhaps a nearby grape or kiwifruit plant insinuating its berried vines in among the trees’ branches.

I’ve seen such plans and such plantings. What a nightmare of management they are or will be, mostly because of the need for relentless, extensive, judicious pruning to keep some plants from overtaking the landscape and starving others for nutrients or light. The result is less fruit of lower quality and difficulty in finding the fruit and getting to it.

A little lawn is good to give the fruiting plants some elbow room and to make them easier to care for.

—————————————-

Don’t wait for dry weather to learn about an easy and better (for you and plants) way to water. On June 24, 1-4:30 pm, I’ll be holding DRIP IRRIGATION WORKSHOP at the garden of Margaret Roach in Copake Falls, NY.  Learn how to design a system, and participate in a hands-on installation. For more information and registration, www.leereich.com/workshops.

AWESOME BLOSSOMS & RATIONALITY

/1 Comment/in , , , /by

 

Wow!!

With blossoms spent on forsythias, lilacs, fruit trees, and clove currants, spring’s flamboyant flower show had subsided – or so I thought. Pulling into my driveway, I was pleasantly startled by the profusion of orchid-like blossoms on the Chinese yellowhorn tree (Xanthoceras sorbifolium). And I again let out an audible “Wow” as I stepped onto my terrace, when three fat, red blossoms, each the size of a dinner plate, stared back at me from my tree peony.

Tree peony blossoms

Both plants originate in Asia. Both plants are easy to grow. Both plants have an unfortunate short bloom period, more or less depending on the weather. Fortunately, both plants also are attractive, though more sedately, even after their blossoms fade.

The tree peonies have such a weird growth habit. I had read that they were very slow to grow so was quite pleased, years ago, when each of the branches on my new plant extended its reach more than a foot by the end of its first growing season. Tree peony is a small shrub; at that rate mine would be full size within a very few years. Or so I imagined.

The tree peony still grows that much every year. But every year many stems also die back about a foot, more following cold winters. No matter, though, because every May giant silky, red flowers unfold from the remaining fat buds along the stem.Yellowhorn blossoms

I originally planted Chinese yellowhorn not for its flowers but for the fruits that follow the flowers. Each fruit is a dry capsule that later in summer starts to split open to reveal within a clutch of shiny, brown, macadamia-sized nuts. Yellowhorn frequently makes it onto permaculture plant lists, with the edible nuts billed as having macadamia-like flavor also. Not true. I’ve tried them raw and roasted. Roasting does change the flavor, but raw or roasted, the flavor is bad.Yellowhorn tree

Still, those blossoms make yellowhorn well worth growing. And after the blossoms fade, this small tree is adorned with shiny, lacy leaves. Much like the tree peony, yellowhorn grows many new stems each year, and many of the stems die back, not necessarily from winter cold but because they’re seemingly deciduous. I tidied the tree up last week by pruning off all the dead stems.

Out With You-All

Today, May 25th, with temperatures around 90 degrees F., I may not be able to restrain myself. It’s hard to imagine that temperatures could still plummet below freezing at least one night sometime in the next week or so. I’ve already ignored that “should” and a few days ago moved houseplants outdoors.

Why the rush? First of all, houseplants enjoy growing outdoors more than growing indoors. Outside, breezes rustling leaves and stems make for stronger, stockier growth and rain showering the leaves washes off a winter’s accumulation of dirt and grime.

After a winter indoors, the plants do need to acclimate to these conditions, which is why they start their outdoor vacation on the terrace on the north side of the house, which blocks wind and, for part of the day, sunlight.

I also urged the plants outdoors because populations of aphid and scale insects were outgrowing the appetites of the ladybugs crawling up and down the stems. Outside, natural predators keep pests in check and, if necessary, I can spritz the plants down to knock off pests and spray soap or summer oil to kill them without worrying about getting spray or oil on windows, walls, or furniture.

The Rush On Sweet CornCorn planting

Even tender seeds, such as corn, squash , and beans, can be sown now. The earth has warmed enough for decent germination, and by the time the plants are up, warm weather will have settled in for the season.

Tomorrow I plant sweet corn. Kinky as it sounds, I’m anxious to sink my teeth into a freshly picked ear.

Upcoming Workshop

June 24, 1-4:30 pm, DRIP IRRIGATION WORKSHOP at the garden of Margaret Roach in Copake Falls, NY. Don’t wait for dry weather to learn about this easy and better (for you and plants) way to water, including participation in hands-on installation. For more information and registration, www.leereich.com/workshops.