watering African Violet

REVEALED

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Only for Gray-Haired Ladies?

I’m coming out. Today. Let me explain.

Decades ago, when just starting getting my hands in the dirt, I — perhaps other people, perhaps it was even true — thought it was only gray-haired ladies who grew African violets. As it turns out, a number of years after I had started gardening, I was offered an African violet plant (by a gray-haired lady). Back then, before I had accumulated too many plants, I was less discriminating than I am these days. I accepted.

I figured I could provide the special conditions African violets demand, according to what I read in numerous publications. “Proper watering and soil moisture is critical to your success,” I was told by one publication. I could provide the needed consistently moist soil with a potting mix especially rich in peat, compost, or some other organic material. I could monitor the plants thirst by lifting the pot to feel its weight or by periodic probing its soil with my electronic moisture meter. watering African VioletI could of course be careful to avoid leaf spotting by not spilling any water, especially cold water, on the leaves. Watering from below would do the trick, with periodic leaching from above to prevent buildup of salts. They also like high humidity.Pebble tray of African violets

Other requirements of African violets that were and are stated are temperatures 70-90 degrees (F) by day and 65-70  degrees at night. I was also admonished to keep an eye out for pests, including aphids, cyclamen mites, and mealybugs, and symptoms of disease. Root rot, for example.

Oh, and regular feeding should be administered except when resting (to the plants, not me).

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IN WHICH A SMALL GAS MOLECULE HAS A BIG EFFECT

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It’s a Gas

Ethylene is so simple. It’s a gas made up of merely two atoms of carbon and four atoms of hydrogen. Simple gases are generally not the kinds of molecules that make plant hormones which, like human hormones, are generally complex molecules with dramatic effects at extremely low concentrations. Nonetheless, ethylene is a plant hormone. I thought of ethylene as I sunk my teeth into the last garden-fresh peppers of the season a couple of weeks ago. Note that I wrote “fresh,” not “fresh-picked.” 

Those peppers were picked week or two before being eaten. I picked any green peppers showing the slightest hints of red, then spread them out on a tray. Many gardeners do this with tomatoes. I like peppers a lot more than tomatoes so only occasionally try to prolonging the season of fresh tomatoes.Peppers, ripening indoors

It’s ethylene that’s responsible for the transformations from unripe to ripe. Ethylene is produced naturally in ripening fruits, and its very presence — even at concentrations as low as 0.001 percent — stimulates, in turn, further ripening. The ethylene given off by ripe apples can be used to hurry along ripening of peppers or tomatoes, by placing an apple in a closed bag with them.
Ethylene structure
If the fruits are left too long in the bag, ethylene will stimulate ripening which will stimulate more ethylene which will stimulate even more ripening which will stimulate more ethylene which will stimulate still more ripening, ad infinitum, until what is left is a bag of mushy, rotten fruit. Apples can do this to each other, so one rotten apple really can spoil a whole barrel of them. 

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MY NEW BOOK IS OUT!!

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My newly published Fruit: From the USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection (Abbeville Press, 2022), now available here as well as from the usual sources, is a fusion of art, science and history in a 4.4” x 4.7” hardcover volume of 288 pages.Tiny Folio book cover The pocket-sized folio is like a miniature coffee table book, a celebration of fruit-growing in an earlier America with a wealth of historical context and scientific information. The first half of the book is devoted to a range of apple varieties, many with unfamiliar and quaint names; most of these cultivars now lost to time. Subsequent chapters cover pears and other pomes, stone fruits, citrus, berries and miscellaneous fruits such as avocados, pomegranates, persimmons and nuts.

Here are some details:

Between 1886 and 1942, the US Department of Agriculture employed a total of 20 artists, mostly women, to paint watercolors of various fruit varieties. The seventy-five hundred luscious watercolors were used for educational and promotional purposes. And they are beautiful.

I selected 250 of the watercolors for their beauty, historical interest, and/or quaintness, and compiled them into this tiny folio. Would you reach for a Peasgood Nonesuch or Peck’s Pleasant apple, a Neva Myss peach, or (dare one say it?) a Nun’s Thigh pear from a supermarket shelf? 

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A DIFFICULT NUT TO GET TO, BUT WORTH IT (IMHO)

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Free Eats, and Delicious

After last year’s bumper crop of black walnuts, filberts, and acorns, I didn’t expect much this year, nutwise. As I looked up into the few black walnut trees bordering the farmden, my low expectations seemed justified. In desperation of securing my annual supply of black walnuts, I gave a shoutout to the local community for black walnuts. I got good feedback — of trees, trees that, as the nut season approached, proved to be barren.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I noticed a few black walnuts on the ground beneath a couple of my favorite trees right here. A few days later, the ground was littered with nuts, perhaps not as much as in previous years, but still plenty. So it was time to get to work (details a few paragraphs ahead).

Walnuts in tree

Too many people have never tasted a black walnut. That’s too bad. The nuts are distinctively delicious (if you like them). I much prefer them to English walnuts, the nut usually referred to when anyone says“walnut.” Black walnut trees grow and bear relatively quickly, casting a pleasant dappled shade beneath their limbs. Just don’t plant one or allow one to grow where tennis ball size fruits littering the ground each fall would be objectionable.

Black walnut trees are abundant over much of central and eastern North America. The nuts are free for the picking, and usually yield more than enough to satisfy humans and squirrels alike. Many a homeowner who’d like to get rid of the nuts strewn over their front lawn will let you come and pick them up. A homeowner once even gathered them up for me!

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AN AUTUMN VEGETABLE FROM FRANCE, FROM BELGIUM, OR IS IT BATAVIA?

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Saying It is Easy; Naming It, Not so Easy

Pinch your nose with your fingers and say “on.” Follow that with a long, drawn out, “d-e-e-e-e-v,” your mouth in a smile to get emphasis on the e’s. Endive. I once considered endive to be lackluster in flavor, so needed to be offset with this highfalutin pronunciation. After many years of growing endive, I’ve come to recognize a more distinct flavor, nutty and just slightly bitter.

Endive, frisee & escarole

Endive, frisee & escarole

(This is the first time I’ve used “nutty” to describe a flavor, having recently figured out what it means. Nut-like. Duh. Hints of nuttiness are found in the flavors of many foods, including seeds, wines, beans oils, cheeses, fish, and, of course, almonds, hazelnuts, and other actual nuts. Since writing the above description of endive flavor, I learned that others have also described its flavor as nutty. QED)

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BEST GARDEN EVER, DROUGHT NOTWITHSTANDING

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Go Drip!

This summer has been one of the hottest and driest ever — and it’s been one of the best ever in the vegetable garden. Baskets of red, ripe tomatoes and peppers sit on the kitchen floor awaiting metamorphosis into sauces and salsas, dehydration, or just plain being eaten.Dog Sammy and garden beds

What about water? My garden plants are plump with water thanks to drip irrigation. In addition to benefits to the plant, drip is also good for the environment, typically using only about 40 percent of the amount of water used by sprinkling. That’s because the more pinpointed water avoids wasting water in paths and other places it’s not needed. Also because little water is lost to evaporation.Dripline with beans

The “drip” in drip irrigation tells you that water is applied at a very slow rate, which is especially appealing to those of us whose water comes from a well. With drip, the well has plenty of time to recharge between waterings.

Drip is also better for plants. Leaves stay dry, lessening the chance for disease. And rather than flooding the ground, which a sprinkler does at each watering, drip keep soil moisture within that happy window when larger pores remain filled with air, and water is held within smaller pores so that roots can both breathe and draw in water. (This is one reason for the more efficient water use of drip irrigation.)

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HEAT? DROUGHT? NO PROBLEM.

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Physiological Workaround

Portulaca is a genus that gives us a vegetable, a weed, and a flower. All flourish undaunted by heat or drought, a comforting thought as I drag the hose or lug a watering can around to keep beebalm, an Edelweiss grapevine, and some marigolds and zinnias — all planted within the last couple of weeks — alive.

Portulaca employ a special trick for dealing with hot, dry weather, which presents most plants with a conundrum. On the one hand, should a plant open the pores of its leaves to let  water escape to cool the plant, as well as take in carbon dioxide which, along with sunlight, is needed for photosynthesis. On the other hand, the soil might not be sufficiently moist or the pores might end up jettisoning water faster than roots can drink it in, in which case closing the pores would be the ticket.

Portulaca gets around this conundrum by working the night shift, opening its pores only in darkness, when little water is lost, and latching onto carbon dioxide at night by incorporating it into malic acid, which is stored until the next day. Come daylight, the pores close up, conserving water, and malic acid comes apart to release carbon dioxide within the plant. I describe this specialized type of metabolism in my book The Ever Curious Gardener: Using a Little Natural Science for a Much Better Garden.

From the Pampas to my Garden

Let’s start with the flower Portulaca, P. grandiflora, which goes either by a common name that is the same as the generic name, or by the name “moss rose.” In truth, the plant is neither a moss nor a rose. But the tufts of lanceolate leaves do bear some resemblance to moss, a very large moss. And portulaca’s flowers, which are an inch across, with single or double rows of petals in colors from white to yellow to rose, scarlet, and deep red, are definitely rose-like. The plant grows to a half-foot-wide mound, with stems that are just barely able to pull themselves up off the ground under the weight of their fleshy leaves.Moss rose

Moss rose is native to sunny, dry foothills that rise up along the western boundary of the South American pampas. As might be inferred from its native habitat, this plant not only tolerates, but absolutely requires, full sun and well-drained soil. Such requirements, and low stature, make the plant ideal for dry rock gardens and for edging.

Moss rose is easy to grow from seeds sown at their final home, or started in flats for transplanting. Some gardeners mix the extremely fine seed with dry sand before sowing, to ensure uniform distribution.

Once blossoming begins, it continues nonstop until plants are snuffed out by frost. Moss rose is an annual, but sometimes will seed itself the next season. However, double varieties (plants with double rows of petals) grown this year will self-seed single varieties (plants with a row of petals) “volunteers” next year.

Plant It or Not, It Will Be There

The vegetable and the weedy Portulaca can be dealt with together; they are one and the same plant, P. oleracea. Somewhere in your garden now, you surely have this plant, whose succulent, reddish stems and succulent, spoon-shaped leaves hug the ground and creep outward in an ever-enlarging circle.

The common name is purslane, though it has many aliases, including pussley, Indian cress, and the descriptive Malawi moniker of “the buttocks of the wife of a chief.”

Tenacity to life and fecundity accord purslane weed status. Pull out a plant and toss it on the ground, and it will retain turgidity long enough to re-root. Chop the stems with a hoe, and each piece will take root. Even without roots, the inconspicuous flowers stay alive long enough to make and spread seeds.Purslane

My one consolation with having this weed in my garden is that it’s easy to remove, robs little nutrients or water from surrounding plants, and, being low-growing, casts little or no shade. Perhaps it even protects the soil surface from sun beating down on it or pounding raindrops from washing away soil. On the other hand, left unattended, it could take over a garden this time of year.

You Could Eat It

What about purslane, the vegetable? Take a bite. The young stems and leaves are tender and juicy, with a slight, yet refreshing, tartness. Purslane is delicious (to some people, admittedly not to me) raw or cooked, and is much appreciated as a vegetable in many places around the world besides its native India.

I have actually tasted the result of the plant’s specialized metabolism in summer by nibbling a leaf of purslane at night and then another one in the afternoon. Malic acid makes the night-harvested purslane more tart than the one harvested in daylight.purslane close-up

There are cultivated varieties of purslane for planting(!) in the vegetable garden. These varieties have yellowish leaves and a more upright growth habit than the wild forms. Wild or cultivated, the plants can be grown from seed or, of course, by rooting cuttings from established plants.

As far as actually planting purslane in my garden, I agree with the view of another garden writer who said “it is a reckless gardener who would plant purslane.” That does not mean that I do not grow purslane, though, for plenty keeps appearing despite my weeding.

Every once in a while, I again try eating it. I have enjoyed it in salads in restaurants to such accompaniments (or taste and texture disguisers) as feta cheese, olive oil, vinegar, and other strong flavors.

If you do opt to plant purslane, you must replant it yearly. Like the moss rose, purslane is an annual plant. Once established in the spring, both purslane and moss rose need no further care. Now, if only moss rose were a bit more weedy . . .

TWO DISAPPOINTING FAILURES, TWO DELICIOUS SUCCESSES

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Help!!

As flaming red petals drop to the ground beneath my pomegranate bush, I’m not hopeful. Sure, the flowers are beautiful, but the plant is here to give me fruit.

To survive winters here in New York’s mid-Hudson Valley (Zone 5), my plant’s home is in a large flowerpot which I cart into cold storage in late December and back outdoors or into the greenhouse in late winter or early spring. Even my cold-hardy variety, Salatavski, from western Asia, would die to ground level if planted outdoors. The roots would survive that much cold because of moderated below ground temperatures, but new stems that would rise from ground level would need to be more than a year old before flowering.

Potted pomegranate, but NOT mine

Potted pomegranate, but NOT mine

Growing in a pot, my pomegranate (and other potted fruit plants) need regular pruning and repotting. To prune the pomegranate, I snip off young suckers growing from ground level, shorten lanky stems, and thin out stems where congested. I repot the plant every 2 or 3 years, cutting off roots and potting soil from around the root ball to make room for new potting soil.

When flowers do appear, which they do over the course of a few weeks, I dab their faces with an artists’ brush. Going from flower to flower spreads the pollen from male flowers to the female parts (stigmas) of the  hermaphroditic flowers.

Male pomegranate flowers

Male pomegranate flowers

Hermaphroditic pomegranate flower

Hermaphroditic pomegranate flower

Then I wait, my eyes concentrating on each flower and hoping to see the base swelling. Problem is most, some year all, the flowers open and then drop. Occasionally, in past years, a flower or two has swelled into a mini-pomegranate. Then also dropped.

Swelling pomegranate fruitlet

Swelling pomegranate fruitlet

I’ve ministered to this plant for years and it has never rewarded me with a single fruit. Help! Any suggestions?

Not So Idle Threats

Every summer, as my pomegranate drops its last flowers, I’ve threatened it with the same fate I wrought upon another of my subtropical fruit plants, pineapple guava. Beneath the thin, green skin of this torpedo-shaped fruit lies a gelatinous center with a minty pineapple flavor.

Pollinating pineapple guava

Pollinating pineapple guava

Over the course of growing this fruit for many years, I did harvest a few, small fruits from this plant, but not enough to keep me from reincarnating it as compost. (The flowers, however, reliably produced, sport the most delicious, fleshy petals of any that I’ve taste, with a strong, sweet minty flavor.)

A Most Delicious Fruit

Not all has been failure with my growing subtropical fruits. 

My most recent success has been with Pakistani mulberry, Morus macroura, native to Tibet, the Himalayas, and mountainous regions of Indochina. I first tasted this fruit a few years ago at a nursery in Washington State and was swept away by the delicious flavor, sweet with enough tartness to make it interesting, and a strong berry undertone. (Yes, mulberry does have “berry” in its name, but botanically, it’s not a berry; it’s a “multiple fruit.”)

Besides having great flavor, Pakistani fruit is also notable for its enormous size, each one elongating, when ripe, to between three and five inches!Pakistani mulberry fruit

Pakistani mulberry is easy to grow and needs no particular coaxing to bear plenty of fruit, which it does over the course of a few weeks. Mine grows in a pot measuring a little over a foot wide, with the tree rising about four feet high. Fruits are borne on new shoots that grow off older stems, which keeps the tree very manageable. Shortening those older stems each year makes it easier to muscle the plant through doorways to move it indoors for winter and then back outdoors when weather warms a little.

Very Easy, Very Successful, Very Delicious

My longest term and greatest success with subtropical plants has been, of course, with figs. (I write “of course” because I’ve written a whole book whose content is described by its title, Growing Figs in Cold Climates, and now is available as a video of a webinar I have presented on that topic.)Fig book cover

Like mulberries, to which they are related, figs — most varieties — can bear fruit on new shoots that grow off older branches. Figlets on new shootSo, like mulberry, the plants can be pruned back some so they’re more manageable to be protected from bitter winter cold. An in-ground plant, then, could be protected from bitter winter cold by being swaddled upright or lowered to the ground, even trained to grow along the ground; a potted plant is more easily maneuvered into a garage, unheated basement, or other cool location for its winter rest.

Right now, there’s nothing for me to do with my figs except watch them grow. Small figlets now sit in the plants’ leaf nodes. They’ll just sit there, doing nothing, for a seemingly long time. Once ripening time draws near, the figs suddenly puff up, becoming soft and juicy and developing a honey sweet, rich flavor.Bowl of figs

RAISING BASIL(S)

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Continuing Education

“No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, & no culture comparable to that of the garden. Such a variety of subjects, some one always coming to perfection, the failure of one thing repaired by the success of another, & instead of one harvest a continued one thro’ the year. Under a total want of demand except for our family table I am still devoted to the garden. But tho’ an old man, I am but a young gardener.”

That’s what Thomas Jefferson wrote to Charles Willson Peal on August 20, 1811. Mr. Jefferson had it right. One thing, among many other, that makes gardening so rewarding for me is that there’s always something new to learn about plants and their cultivation. Basil plant

Take basil, for instance, which I, like many of you, have grown for many years. I’ve always been satisfied with a good harvest, enough for adding pizazz to summer salads and for preserving — dried, or frozen as pesto — for winter. But basil growing became more involved some years ago after a seed company sent me sample packets of a few varieties of basil, and then I spoke with some commercial herb growers.

The Lineup

In spring, I planted short rows of all the varieties I had, with a plastic tag at the head of each row. The tags were unnecessary, for no two varieties looked alike and I could have deduced the variety names by the catalogue descriptions. Potted basils

Flavor has always been my reason for growing basil, and I wondered just how different each variety would taste from its neighbor one row over. So I picked leaves of each variety and nibbled them. I rubbed their leaves between my palms, then inhaled deeply their aromas. I invited visitors to sample each variety, and as they sampled I badgered them with questions and jotted down notes. A pasta dinner was needed so we could evaluate each type of basil made into a pesto sauce. What torture!

There actually were differences in taste between the basils. The variety called Sweet lived up to its name with a mild flavor. The similarly mild flavor of Napolitano had the slightest hint of licorice; that of Spicy Globe, the slightest suggestion of mint. Progressively stronger in flavor were Lettuce Leaf, then Fino Verde. The taste of Genova was strong, bordering on acrid. Syracusa was one of the best — strongly aromatic, yet smooth to the palate.

I also grew some of the newer varieties resistant to downy mildew disease. Basil downy mildew is a relatively newcomer here, making itself seen by causing a slight yellowing of the leaves, with purple fungal spores on leaf undersides.

Basil downy mildew, top of leaf

Basil downy mildew, top of leaf

Basil downy mildew, leaf underside

Basil downy mildew, leaf underside

I’ve got little more to say about those varieties because none of their flavors were notably better or as good as the non-resistant varieties, because the disease rarely shows up here, and because it can be controlled with abundant sunlight and good air circulation, and by avoiding infected plants, leaves, or seeds. What’s more, disease resistance is a matter of degree, and various degrees might also exist among the varieties not bred as such.

So, Which to Grow

Honestly, though, the differences in flavor among the tasty varieties were not dramatic; rather, they were subtle nuances of the familiar basil flavor. And tasting a few varieties does put objectivity on shaky ground. Maybe even the order of tasting is important.

So which is the best variety of basil? This brings us back to the striking difference in appearance between the varieties. Since the differences in taste were not that great, I usually choose a basil variety on the basis of plant size, and the size, color, shape, and texture of its leaves. If I want a basil with a very large leaf — perhaps large enough to wrap around a piece of fish to bake — I’ll grow Mammoth.Basil leaves

For drying or pesto, I like a variety with a lot of leaf and a minimum of stem. (The dried stems are useless; they’re basil-flavored twigs.) So any variety except small-leaved Fino Verde or Spicy Globe would be suitable for pesto.

For eating fresh in salads, even the small-leaved varieties are okay, since the fresh, young stems are tender. One of the purple-leaved varieties could be used fresh to add a splash of color in salads.

I might grow some basils just for decoration, even if they had no culinary use.  Spicy Globe basil, planted close together, makes soft, green mounds resembling a miniature boxwood hedge — a nice border for a terrace or a flower garden. The deep purple color of Dark Opal would contrast nicely with bright yellow and orange zinnias in a sunny flower border. Purple Ruffles could be used for a more frilly effect. The large-leaved, green basils make an island of lime-green if massed together, with a texture dictated by the leaves of the variety chosen: smooth and shiny, wrinkled, or ruffled.

And who knows, maybe I’ll grow certain basil varieties just for the musical sounds of their names. When someone innocently asks, “What kind of basil is that?” I might gesticulate and sing, “Genova Profumatissima,” “Syracusa,” or “Fino Verde Compatto.”

WISE AND NOT SO WISE

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A lot about this year’s vegetable garden warrants my patting myself on my back; other things warrant a nuggy (virtually impossible unless I was double-jointed). Let’s start with the pat-worthy stuff. Perhaps you’ll find some of it useful in your vegetable garden. Perhaps you’ll want to comment on it.

Good Moves

Sweet corn is one of my favorite vegetables, both fresh in summer, and frozen in winter. Evidently, chipmunks are also fans. I plant sweet corn — the old variety Golden Bantam — in hills (clumps) of three stalks per hill, the hills eighteen inches apart in the row, with two rows running the length of each three-foot-wide bed. I spread out the harvest with four plantings, the first on about the average date of the last frost, mid-May, and the last planting the end of June.

With a variation on traditional corn planting — “one for the rook, one for the crow, one to rot, and one to grow” goes the old saw — I drop five rather than four seeds per hole. Corn sprouting among lettucesSeed is cheap. Unfortunately, those extra seeds merely gave chipmunks more to eat in that first planting. So . . .

For subsequent plantings I sprinkled a mixture of cayenne pepper and cinnamon over the seeds in each planting hole. Although birds can eat hot pepper, furry animals generally, my dog Daisy excepted, cannot. I figured the chipmunks wouldn’t like the taste of cinnamon and/or it would mask any aroma from the corn seeds. The result: success.

Pests threatening my onions and leeks arrived here on the farmden just a few years ago. Leek moth is one of them and thrips possibly another. Leek moth flies to lay its eggs in early spring, and thrips overwinter in debris. Another pest severely stunted last year’s onions, but neither I nor a university vegetable specialist could find anything odd about the roots, tiny bulbs, or leaves on which to lay blame.

Thoroughly cleaning up debris, which I do for all beds anyway, and covering the bed with fine mesh should keep leek moth, thrips, and possibly other pests at bay. A wire frame to support a large piece of organza fabric, with the organza clothespinned tightly near ground level did the trick. The leeks and onions look healthy and vigorous.Onion and leek, netted

A Successful Makeover

The need for a bold makeover of my south vegetable garden is embarrassing, but I’ll come clean. For some reason I oriented beds in that garden, created in 1997, east and west. I should have know better. It was a more favorable location for the two gates, but that’s not a good excuse. Tall plants in east-west beds shade shorter plants in those and nearby beds throughout the day. So whenever possible, north-south, or nearly north-south, beds are best.

Last fall, with some help from friends, I raked soil in the beds and wood chipped paths as level as possible. (My beds aren’t raised beds, but they do slowly rise after decades of annual slatherings of an inch or more of compost.) South garden makeover1We rolled out gray resin paper to suppress weeds sure to sprout in the newly disturbed soil, then topped the paper with compost in the beds and wood chips in the paths.South garden makeover2

It’s a young garden again! Sort of. When planting, I can feel the difference in the ground from where a bed crosses regions that were once paths versus those that were beds. But the soil will get better every year, and the beds now run the better direction. Only one garden gate now, though.

Everything Not Always Rosy

Not all is always rosy down here on the farmden. Flea beetles, as expected, attacked my eggplants. I could have netted the eggplants also, but I was foolishly banking on hope.Fleabeetles on eggplant I’ll admit to spraying the organic pesticide Pyganic while waiting for the eggplants to outgrow the damage.

The other pest here is a weed, creeping woodsorrel (Oxalis corniculata). The straight species grows tall and is very easy to weed out. No problem.
The problem child is the purple-leaved variety (Oxalis corniculata var. atropurpurea) which blends in with the soil and hugs the ground in spreading mats. Oxalis weedIt responds favorably (for me, not it) to sprays of household strength vinegar or any of the other organic herbicides whose active ingredient is ammonium nonanoate, such as Ortho® GroundClear® Weed & Grass Killer or the more benign sounding BioSafe Weed & Grass Killer.

And finally, we come to drip irrigation, a watering technique on which I’ve heaped tons of praise for saving water, for limiting weeds, for healthier plants, and for being easily automated. This last quality can cause a problem. A few years ago I thought a spring had sprung it my field; it was an old main line that was still in line and spewing out water below ground. Another year plants in a couple of beds seemed to languish as drier weather moved in; the underground connection of some drip lines had disconnect from the main line. Yet another time, water was pouring out of an unplugged end of a drip line. Or, last year the battery died on one of the timers; most affected were two small rosemary plants, trained as small trees, many of whose leaves and stems dried up, dead.

This spring, it was, first, the main water source, which is from a shallow well, clogging the filter. And then, a piece of hose running from the well pump to the main line developing a kink.

All these irrigation glitches were easily fixed once I noticed them. And there’s the key. My very smart phone now reminds me to spend the few minutes required to check the drip irrigation system every Monday.