A PEAR, 170 YEARS LATER

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A Luscious Fruit in Winter

All fruits did well this past season but it was especially a banner year for pears. Why do I mention this now? Because we’re still eating them and they are delicious. “Them” is actually just one variety — Passe Crassane, not a variety you’d find on a supermarket shelf, but which is available as a tree.Passe Crassane pear sliced
Timely harvest, storage, and ripening of pears melds art and science; since this was my first crop from Passe Crassane, I was wary as I sliced off a taste. It was like slicing through butter, a good omen. The flesh was “white, fine. melting, [sugary], perfumed, and agreeably sprightly,” to quote from The Pears of New York, U. P. Hedrick’s 1921 classic. Delicious.

The seed for this pear was sown, literally, by one Louis Boisbunel in Rouen, France in 1845. Ten years later, the tree showed its worth and the fruit made its debut. Passe Crassane is a winter pear that needs to be harvested mature — here, in early November — and then kept in cold storage for a couple of months to ripen to full flavor. Under ideal storage conditions, fruits keep well for months.

This variety was very popular in its century of origin, and its cultivation spread to Italy, Spain, Germany, and England. Commercially, stems were dipped in a red wax to prevent water loss during storage; those red-tipped stems became a signature of Passe Crassane. By the 20th century, Passe Crassane had fallen out of favor because of its susceptibility to diseases, including dreaded fireblight.

(My tree was struck by what I thought might be fireblight a year and a half ago, so I had drastically lopped it back well below what might have been blighted portions, planning to graft the stump to another variety. Fortunately, one older branch remained below the lopping and that branch, for the first time this past season, bore fruit, heavily. I’ll let the tree re-develop from one of the few watersprouts that shot skyward where the tree was lopped.) Passe Crassane lopped

The Hard Part of Growing Pears

Apple, cherry, and other common tree fruits are usually beset with pest problems that make them hard to grow. Not so for pears. The hard part about growing pears is knowing when to harvest them and then ripening them to perfection.

Yeh, yeh, I’ve read all about various indicators that show pears are ready for harvest: 1) When the fruit stalk separates easily from the stem as you lift and twist; 2) When the skin color lightens slightly; 3) When the small lenticels on the skin turn from white to brown; 4) When the first fruits start to drop. And, my favorite, recording the harvest date, once you get it right, and then harvesting on about that date every year.

Picking Seckel pear

Picking Seckel pear

No matter what the method, a pear should be firm, not at all soft, once ready for harvest. Pears ripen from the inside out. So fruit left on tree to thoroughly ripen is mostly brown mush on the inside by then. 

All those indicators notwithstanding, I am much better at timely harvesting of pear varieties I’ve grown and harvested for a number of years.

So much for harvest; now for storage. On or near freezing is ideal. Cold temperatures slow ripening, and, for all except very early varieties, primes the fruit to begin ripening.

Ethylene, a natural, gaseous plant hormone can unduly speed ripening. Mature pears give off very little ethylene; not so for harvested apples and many other fruits, so keep these other fruits away from the pears unless a whole lot of pears are needed ready for eating soon. (I cover ethylene more thoroughly in my book The Ever Curious Gardener: Using a Little Natural Science for a Much Better Garden.)

Finally, on to ripening, which occurs as fruits are brought into warmth, ideally a cool room, 60-70 degrees F. I press a finger against the stem end of the fruit, and if there is any give at all, the fruit is ready for eating.

All this finickiness with harvest, storage, and ripening is unnecessary with Asian pears, which are different species from European pears. Let Asian varieties ripen thoroughly on the tree, meaning they remove easily with a lift and twist, and are fully colored. Then eat. Or keep them refrigerated, and get them out to eat whenever you’re so inclined.

Asian pear, Korean Giant

Asian pear, Korean Giant

THERE ARE LOTS OF NUTS OUT THERE

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I’ve written recently about how bountiful this past season has been with fruits. Well, botanically, at least, “fruits” includes “nuts.” More on this later.* The nut harvest was also abundant.

Except for last year, just about every year has been a good year for black walnuts. But this year,  it didn’t take long to pick up and fill baskets quickly. After being husked, cleaned, and then left to cure in a squirrel-proof loft, I’ve started cracking them (with my ‘Master Nutcracker’). Large, plum, tasty nutmeats drop free from the shells.Black walnuts and Master Nutcracker

A Surprise Nut

What surprised me most was the harvest of English walnuts, botanically Juglans regia and also known as Persian walnuts. (The moniker “English” may be because of the significant role played by English sailors in distributing the nuts around the world.) Persia, or Eastern Europe is where this plant originated. Early on, humans introduced it to other parts of the world, including England, where Romans brought them 2,000 years ago. In the seventeenth century, the nuts and the wood of these trees was held in such high esteem in parts of Europe that a certificate of having planted a certain number of trees was needed before a man was allowed to marry.

Walnuts arrived in my garden in 2006, from seed from cold-hardy trees handed out at the Saratoga, New York meeting of the New York Nut Growers Association. I planted six of the walnut seeds. Because I have limited space and did not have high hopes for success, I arranged them in two stations of three plants each, with about 30 feet between the stations. In contrast to plants propagated asexually, such as by grafting or cuttings, plants grown from seed have some genetic diversity, in the same way you and your siblings are diverse from each other. I figured that eventually I would remove all but the one best tree at each station.

Despite the threat of frost killing blossoms in spring, walnut blight, defoliation by anthracnose disease in summer, and squirrels robbing all the nuts in fall, I was able to harvest plenty. Earlier in the season, I did notice that not all trees were bearing, or bearing well, so I cut down two of the slackers, one from each station.

English walnut trees, 15 years ol

English walnut trees, 15 years ol

As far as differences in the nuts from tree to tree, it’s hard to say for sure at this point except to say the nuts on one of the trees may have been smaller. I’ll take a more quantitative look next year.

Walnut trees are known to be slow to come into bearing. There’s a Flanders folk saying that goes, “By the time the tree is big, the planter surely will be dead.” Well, I planted the trees from seed, they have borne and grown fairly big, and I’m not dead.

Still Waiting

Two nut trees whose first fruits I’m eagerly awaiting are both shellbark hickories (Carya laciniosa). Shagbark hickory (C. ovata) is very common around here and throughout eastern U.S., and is notable for its — duh! — very shaggy bark and tasty but small and hard to crack nuts. Shagbark hickoryShellbark hickory’s native range doesn’t extend as far east and south as shagbark’s. It’s found mostly along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, and bordering regions; nowhere, though, is it common. Also, the bark is less shaggy. The clincher is that shellbark nuts are much larger, around two inches long, and with thinner shells, so you get more bang for your buck with each nut you crack.

I planted the varieties Simpson and Grainger, both of which were selected for easy shelling. (Nut alert! I have since learned that Grainger is, in fact, a shagbark hickory, albeit a variety selected for large shells that crack out well.)

But how about some nuts! Simpson was planted in 2014 and Grainger in 2015, and both grow very slowly, about twelve inches per year. Bearing age is reputedly only a few years with a grafted trees, which, being named varieties, both were. 

Nuts or no nuts, the trees are beautiful, their leaves turning a rich, golden yellow in autumn and, in winter, the stout branches punctuated and capped by fat buds.Shellbark hickory buds

Botanical Nuts, and Not

*Back to fruits: A fruit, botanically, is any seed-bearing structure of a flowering plant formed from a ripened ovary along with seeds and other structures. A nut is a kind of fruit, in this case with a kernel surrounded by a hard nutshell. A nut’s shell does not open to release the kernel. So all nuts are fruits but all fruits aren’t nuts. Botanically speaking.

Some fruits commonly called nuts, such as almond, pistachio, Brazil nut, walnut, pecan, and macadamia, are not true nuts; they are dry drupes (which doesn’t sound very complimentary, does it?). A nut is a dry drupe whose kernel is enclosed within a stony pit surrounded by flesh and a skin. Think of a peach. That’s a (non)dry drupe.

Chestnut, hazelnut, oak, and birch are examples of true nuts.

That’s all botany. Out on the street, we call lots of things nuts. Peanuts, for example, which are actually legumes, just like peas and beans.

STUFFED

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Breadcrumb Seeds?

Who’s getting stuffed for Thanksgiving this year, you or your turkey, or your tofurkey? A good stuffing (of the real or faux bird) is good enough to eat sans bird. And, for best quality, you can grow it yourself. Not by dropping seeds of a “stuffing plant” in the soil, but by planting all the ingredients you need.

The bread and butter of any stuffing is some starchy food, often bread and butter itself, the bread usually as crumbs. There’s no breadcrumb plant, so forget about growing breadcrumbs. Not that you couldn’t buy some wheat berries, plant them next spring, harvest the grain when the plants dry down, thresh and winnow out the berries, grind them into flour, make the flour into bread, then let the bread go stale and pound it into bread crumbs. Whew! Most of us are not going to do this. 

“The Bread Tree”

As an alternative to bread crumbs, might I suggest chestnuts (Castanea spp.)? Chestnut falling from its burrThey’re often billed as the “bread tree” because in contrast to other nuts, which are high in fats and protein, chestnuts are high in starch. Obviously, you’re not going to be eating home-grown chestnut stuffing this year, or next, or the next; it takes awhile for a chestnut tree to start bearing. Not that long though. I’ve had plants grown from seed begin to bear within six years, and a grafted tree from a nursery should bear even sooner than that.

(Although their nuts look similar, chestnuts should not be confused with horse chestnuts, Hippocastanum spp.. The latter are toxic. Horse chestnuts have compound leaves, very showy flowers, and their nuts are encased in a spiky capsule. Edible chestnuts have simple leaves, nonshowy flowers, and the nuts are encased in a cupule riddled with very sharp spines.)

The North American, native and majestic American chestnut (C. dentata) has been decimated by chestnut blight but there are, fortunately other species that resist the blight. A good choice for nut production would be species or hybrids of Chinese chestnut (C. mollisima). Two different varieties are needed for cross-pollination.Chestnuts in a basket

The only caution in planting chestnut trees is to avoid planting them near where people frequently walk. Each fall the ground beneath the trees is littered with the opened, spiny cupules.
Chestnut tree in summer
Chestnut tree in autumn

More Crumby Alternatives

While you are waiting to harvest chestnuts, make stuffing based on one of the more quickly grown starchy vegetables. Potatoes, for instance. The best potatoes for making stuffing will be those that are dry and mealy, russet varieties such as Goldrush, Burbank, and Idaho. 

“Dry and mealy” is also the mantra to use when choosing a winter squash variety to grow as a base for stuffing. The phrase “squash stuffing” has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? My recommendation for a dry, mealy squash is a buttercup type called Chestnut or Sweet Mama. 

If you really want a truly authentic starchy base for stuffing, the plant to grow is nu nu, a golfball-sized, starchy tuber also called makoosit or groundnut (Apios americana). Groundnut tubersNative Americans harvested and ate nu nu, and this was one of the foods crucial in helping the Pilgrims survive their first winters in Massachusetts.

Be careful planting nu nu because it can spread like a weed to give you more stuff for stuffing than you would ever need. I planted it in a perennial flower bed decades ago. That was the wrong place for it, and I’ve spent decades trying to weed it out, unsuccessfully.

On the plus side, the plants do sport decorative and sweetly fragrant, lilac colored flowers, so it is worth growing where it can be regimented. Nu nu tubers grow attached a few inches apart along underground stems.Groundnut flowers

Seasonal Seasonings

Stuffing isn’t only about the bread-y ingredient. It also needs some seasoning. Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme, summer savory, sweet marjoram — they’re all very easy to grow. Sage and thyme are perennials, each also available in designer flavors. Pineapple sage, caraway thyme, and lemon thyme, for instance.

Potted rosemary tree in winter

Rosemary is also a perennial, cold hardy to zone 7, possibly even zone 6. It’s is not hardy here but I grow it as a “standard” (trained as a small tree) in a pot that summers outdoors and lives indoors at a sunny kitchen window in winter to provide pretty greenery, piney fragrance, and savory snippings.

Some vegetables from the garden round out and make more interesting a stuffing. Onion, celery, and carrots are mainstays, but vegetables such as parsnips and garlic can make special — and powerful — flavor contributions. 

Have a happy and healthy Thanksgiving!

PREPARING FIGS FOR A COLD WINTER

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They’re Not Tropical

Too many people think fig trees are tropical plants. They’re not. They’re subtropical plants and that’s one reason those of us living in cold winter climates can harvest fresh, ripe figs. In fact, fig trees like that little rest that cold weather offers them.Fig fruits in plate

Here in Zone 5 (average winter lows of minus 10 to minus 20° F), I grow figs a number of ways. Figs are cold hardy to the low ‘teens, too cold for even subtropical plants to grow outdoors in the ground, their stems splayed to cold winter air like my apples and pears. Their roots, especially if mulched, generally will survive winters here in the relatively warmer temperatures underground. But then new shoot growth must originate at ground level, and the growing season isn’t long enough for figs that develop on those shoots to ripen.

Potted

  Some of my figs, like many of yours, are in pots.

With nighttime temperatures now often below freezing, there’s an urge to grab the potted fig and carry it indoors. Don’t! As I wrote, fig trees like a little cold weather. Experiencing some cold weather also toughens them to be more able to withstand even colder weather. My goal is to get these potted plants into a deep sleep, and to maintain that state as long as possible through winter, ideally until they’re ready to be carried outdoors again in spring.

My friend Sara's fig

My friend Sara’s fig last summer

If temperatures are going to be super cold, below the low ‘teens, move the plant to a temporary, but cool, location such as an unheated garage or mudroom, or garden shed.

Plants might still sport some leaves this time of year. Perhaps some of those leaves have been frosted. Not to worry.

 

Eventually, a potted fig needs to be moved to a winter home. Around here, at least, not yet. Typically, I leave my potted fig trees outside — in a slightly sheltered spot near a wall of my home where temperatures are modulated — until sometime in December. A fully dormant fig tree sheds its leaves so won’t need light in winter. If any of my plants are still holding onto their leaves, I just pull them off before the plants move to their winter home.

The winter home should be cold, but not frigid, ideally 30 to 45°F. That previously mentioned unheated garage or mudroom, or garden shed might be suitable. A minimum-maximum thermometer is an inexpensive way to know just how cold a site gets during winter even when you’re not in there or looking — at 2 AM, for example. 

Some of my potted figs retire to my basement for winter, where winter temperatures are usually 40 to 45°F.

Fig trees stored in cold basement

Kadota fig stored in cold basement

More recently, I’ve set up an insulated, walk-in cooler, mostly for storing fruits and vegetables. There’s also plenty of space for some potted fig trees. The cooler, which needs a little heat in the dead of winter, maintains a pretty consistent temperature of 39° F.

To help the plants remain asleep, I keep them on the dry side, perhaps watering them once or twice during this period.

To a point, the more stem growth on a fig tree, the more fruit it bears. So a potted fig can only bear so much fruit. I want more figs from some of my trees.

Innovations for Greater Yields

Years ago, I built a greenhouse in which to grow cool-weather-loving salad stuff and greens such as lettuce, celery, kale, chard, arugula, mustard, mâche, and claytonia through winter. I soon realized that the hot summers and the cool (never below about 35°F) winters in the greenhouse mimicked the Mediterranean climate that figs call home. So I planted four fig trees right in the ground in the greenhouse. The vegetables don’t mind their figgy neighbors because they’re leafless in winter.

Those fig trees are more than just leafless in winter; they’re also pretty much stemless. Each tree is trained to have a short trunk off which grows one or two permanent, horizontal arms. (This method of training is called espalier.) Espalier fig tree

Fig trees in greenhouse

Fig fruits on branchesFruits are borne on shoots that grow vertically from these arms. Tomorrow I’ll lop all those vertical shoots back to the arms. Next year, new shoots will bear fruits and be cut back next fall, and the year after that, new shoots . . . and so on.Pruned greenhouse fig

I’ve even used this method, this time with the horizontal arm trained just a few inches above ground level, for a fig tree I have growing outside. That low-growing arm is easily covered with a blanket of leaves, straw, or some other insulating material, how much depends on the depth of wither cold expected.Espalier fig outdoors

Once again, I’ll delay covering the plant until colder temperatures arrive so that the plant is hardened more against cold and goes into winter as dormant as possible.

Over the years, other figs of mine have weathered cold winters also by such methods as being bent over and covered to keep them warm and outdoors, by being grown in pots sunk into the ground then lifted, before the arrival of frigid weather. etc., etc. You want to harvest fresh figs in summer? There are many paths to this mountaintop.

The takeaway today is: Don’t protect your fig tree from too much cold too soon. Let the plant experience and benefit from the sleep-inducing and hardiness that some exposure brings.

And if you want to know more about growing figs in cold climate — varieties, method details, pruning,  accelerating ripening, potting mixes, and more — see my book with the eponymous title GROWING FIGS IN COLD CLIMATES (available from the usual sources as well as, signed, from my website).Here’s a very short video I made back in October about some methods of growing figs in cold climates and my new book: Fig video

CATS ON A COOL, GREEN ROOF

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Why and How to Build

I’ve got to learn to look up more, you know, the way tourists do; natives generally fix their gazes straight ahead to a destination or downwards, in thought. I am reminded of this when a visitor (a “tourist” in this context) walks up my front path, smiles, and tells me, “I like your green roof.” So then I (the “native” in this context) look up and join in the appreciation.Two cats on my green roof

My green roof was born about twenty years ago. After fumbling too many times with packages or keys in the rain at the front door, the time had come build protection from the elements. Rather than cover just the area around the door, this cover would extend over a small patio. And rather than just shingle the roof, why not make it a planted roof, a “green roof?”

So my friend Bill and I built a sturdy, shallowly sloped roof supported on three corners by the walls of my house, and by an 8 x 8 white oak post in its fourth corner.Roof, ledger up The roof had enough slope so plants could be seen from the path, yet not so steep that a hard rain would wash the soil away.Roof completed

To keep the wooden structure dry, it was covered with EPDM roofing material and flashed with copper. A two-inch high lip of copper flashing along the low edge keeps plants and soil from sliding down off the roof. To prevent water from puddling at this lower end, I drilled holes and soldered short lengths of copper tubing at intervals into the lip, figuring that excess water would stream decoratively from each tube during rains. Roof drains(It streamed, but not so decoratively, because some tubes kept getting clogged and the bottom edge of the roof was not exactly horizontal so the flow burden was taken up by only a few tubes.)

How and What to Plant

Next was the gardening part of the roof. To keep the weight down, for low fertility to suppress weeds, and for good moisture retention I made a planting mix of equal parts peat moss and calcined montmorillonite clay (often sold as kitty litter).

The root environment on the roof was going to be harsh for plants. Only a two-inch depth of root run. And, in contrast to the moderated temperatures within soil out in open ground, roots on this shallow roof would experience mad swings in temperature that would closely mirror that of the air. And even though peat moss sucks up and holds moisture, there’s not much peat moss moisture to draw from in 2 inches of rooting.

The plant choice, given the conditions, became obvious: some kind of hardy, succulent plant. I chose hens-and-chicks. After filling enough 24 x 10 inch planting trays with the planting mix, I plugged in hens-and-chicks plants every 4 inches in each direction. Hens-and-chicks in traysAll this planting took place almost a year before the roof was readied for the plants, important so the hen-and-chicks could make enough “chicks” to spread and pretty much cover the planting trays, which otherwise would have left too much planting mix exposed to washing from rainfall.

Up the trays eventually went on sloping roof, laid down like tiles on a tile floor. Everything looked very neat and trim.Green roof, early on

Nature Collaborates

Despite very little intervention from me, the years have brought some changes to that green roof. This was not a garden area that I ever planned to weed, and I stuck to my plan. I figured that a green roof with a weed-free planting mix, sheltered on two sides by walls, and eight to ten feet off the ground would not harbor weeds.

I was wrong. Some weeds have moved in. Well, not weeds per se, because a “weed” is plant in the wrong place, and the roof is welcome to pretty much any plant.

Gazing up on my roof now, I see, in addition to the original hens-and-chicks, plenty of foxtail grass, quite decorative through the year with green shoots in spring and tawny, fuzzy foxtails in fall and winter. Also a single cedar tree about two feet high.Roof with weeds
More weeds on roof

I had a hand in introducing another sedum, Angelina. This sedum has borne small, yellow flowers and, just as decorative, its fleshy leaves turn a deep red color in winter. Angelina started out as a single plant I set in a nearby stone wall; over time a few plants of it appeared up on the roof. Angelina on roof

Angelina floweringShe looked good up there, especially when draped over the front lip. She also multiplied rapidly both on the wall and on the roof. To further encourage her, I grab bunches wherever in excess on the wall and toss them up on the roof to root.

One year I also planted oats left over from cover cropping in the vegetable garden. Oats’ extensive roots would be good to further knit together the rooting mix and lessen chances of rain washing it down. Planting involved nothing more than grabbing handfuls of oat seed, tossing them up on the roof, then waiting for rain.

Writing about my green roof has encouraged me to more frequently look up at it. It does bring a smile. Is that because there’s something anomalous about an aerial garden?

Brooklyn Grange

Urban farm high in the sky at Brooklyn Grange

OF MAPLES AND REDS

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Where’d the Red Go?

Sugar maples (Acer saccharum) are now doing just what I expected of them. But not exactly what I want them to do. Here in New York’s mid-Hudson Valley, at least, this autumn’s leaf show is not quite up to snuff. And it’s also later than in the past. It used to peak here in the middle of October; nowadays, with climate change, the peak has been pushed forward to about now.Autmn view of the 'Gunks mountains

Back to the color: This year the local sugar maples are mostly only yellow, lacking the oranges and the reds that, along with some yellow, really ramp up the blaze of landscapes and forests. Let’s blame that more subdued show on the weather. To know why, let’s backtrack to summer when, quoting from a section in my recent book The Ever Curious Gardener, Using a Little Natural Science for a Much Better Garden:

Green is from chlorophyll, most welcome in spring and through summer, but not what interests me in fall. Chlorophyll must be continually synthesized for a leaf to stay green. The shorter days and lowering sun of waning summer are what trigger leaves to stop producing it, unmasking other pigments lurking there.

Leaves’ yellow and orange colors are aways present, thanks to carotenoid pigments, which help chlorophyll do its job of harvesting sunlight to convert into plant energy. I offer thanks to carotenoids for the warm, yellow glow they give to gingko, aspen, hickory, and birch leaves.

Sugar maple

Sugar maple (not this year)

Tannins are another pigment, actually metabolic wastes, that, all summer, are hidden by chlorophyll. Their contribution to the fall palette are the season’s subdued browns, notable in some oaks and enriching the yellow of beeches.

Because leaves harbor carotenoids and tannins all summer long, nothing particular about autumn weather should either intensify or subdue their autumn show. The only glitch could be an early, hard freeze that occurs while leaves are still chock full of chlorophyll. In that case, cell workings come abruptly to a halt and all we’re left with is frozen, green leaves that eventually drop without any fanfare.

Autumn color also spills out reds and purples, most evident in red maples and some sugar maples, scarlet oak, sourwood, blueberry, and winged euonymous. Those reds and purples come from yet another pigment, anthocyanins. Except for trees like ‘Purple Fountain’ beech and ‘Royal Purple’ smokebush, whose leaves unfold dusky red right from the get go in spring, and remain so all season long, in most leaves anthocyanins do not begin to develop until autumn.Japanese maple

Anthocyanin formation requires sugars so anything that I or the weather does to promote sugar accumulation in autumn will increase anthocyanin levels in leaves. The weather’s role is to offer warm, sunny days to maximize photosynthesis, and cool, but not frigid, nights to minimize nighttime burning up of accumulated sugars. A cloudy, rainy autumn means less red because less anthocyanin is formed, and any that does form is diluted.

As I write this, it’s cloudy and rainy, as it has been so many days this autumn.

Other Reds

I was recently visiting my daughter in Pennsylvania. As we looked around her neighborhood I admired the rich, red, autumn color of the trees lining the streets. Red?! How can that be? What about what I wrote about this autumn’s weather and anthocyanin and red leaves in autumn?

Ah, but science takes care of that, too. Those trees in the Pennsylvania landscape weren’t sugar maples; they were a variety of Freeman maple (Acer × freemanii). Freeman maples are natural and deliberate hybrids of silver maples (Acer saccharinum) and red maples (Acer rubrum), the silver maple contributing fast growth to the hybrids and the red maples contributing strong branches and red leaf color in autumn. Freeman maple

Trees vary, both as to species and locations, in the amounts of pigments found at various times in their leaves. Red maples, as the name implies, have significant amounts of anthocyanins. In these trees, this anthocyanin is present not only in autumn as the chlorophyll fades, but throughout the growing season. Depending on the amount and kind of anthocyanin, its redness would be more or less masked by chlorophyll during the growing season. Some varieties of red maple, and many varieties of Japanese maple, are red or purplish all summer long.

The million dollar question is why a tree would have anthocyanin in its leaves all season long. Various theories have been floated. Anthocyanins do offer protection against excess sunlight, which is why young leaves emerge reddish on some plants.

Seedling red maples

Seedling red maples

(This characteristic does not correlate with the degree of red in leaves in autumn.) It’s also possible that anthocyanins could ward off pests.

Whatever the reason, red or orange or yellow leaves, I’m not complaining. Autumn is still a beautiful season here in the Hudson Valley. 

 

SENSUAL THINGS, AND WATER

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Heady Nights

It’s difficult to work outside in the garden these days, especially in early evening. No, not because of the heat. Not because of mosquitos either. The difficulty comes from the intoxicating aroma that wafts into the air each evening from the row of lilies just outside the east side of my vegetable garden.
cat and lilies
These aren’t daylilies, which are mildly and pleasantly fragrant. Wild, orange daylilies are common along roadways and yellow and hybrid daylilies, often yellow, are common in mall parking lots. (That’s not at all a dis’; the plants are tough and beautiful, and I’ve planted them also.) They’re also not tiger lilies, which lack aroma and sport downward turned, dark red speckled orange flowers with recurved petals. 

My fragrant lilies are so-called oriental hybrid lilies, which are notable for their large flowers and strong fragrance. My favorite among those I grow is Casa Blanca. The flowers are large and lily white (what’d you expect?) except for the threadlike, pale green stamens emerging from their centers, with dark red anthers capping their ends.

Casa Blanca would be worth growing just for the look of the flowers; the fragrance, very sweet and very heady make this bulb a must-grow. Not for everyone, though. A few people dislike this fragrance. For some people it’s more than just stinkiness, the aroma causing nausea, dizziness, or congestion.
Casablanca lily in the garden
Casa Blanca’s stems can rise to about four feet tall, their upper portions circled with almost a dozen of those large blossoms in various stages of ripening. Some years, staked, persimmon orange, Sungold tomatoes grow in that bed, and the tomato and lily plants looked very pretty mingling together. (Tomatoes were, after all, once grown as ornamentals.) 

This year I’m growing kale in that bed which, besides good eating, provides a frilly base from which the lily stems rise.

In Good Taste

Turning to another of the senses . . . taste. Blueberries. They are among my most successful fruits and, as usual, the plants’ stems are bowing to the ground under a heavy load of berries this time of year.
Blueberries galore
Not to brag, but the average yield of a blueberry bush is 3 to 5 quarts. My blueberry bible, Blueberry Culture (1966), states that “proper cultural practices can increase the yield to as much as 25 pints per bush.” I average about 18 pints per bush, with some bushes yielding as much as 24 pints. Organically grown, of course.

I credit my good yield to periodic additions of sulfur to maintain acidity of pH 4.0-5.5, timely watering with drip irrigation especially the plants’ first few years, topping up of existing wood chip, wood shavings, or leafy mulch each fall with an additional 3 inch depth of any organic, weed-free mulch, and pruning every spring. 
Bunch of blueberries
In year’s passed, I also added soybean meal for extra nitrogen to fuel stem growth. Blueberry flower buds develop along growing stems, with flowers open along those stems the following spring. More stem growth means more blueberries, to a point. For many years I have foregone soybean meal because the the plants were overly vigorous, creating a dense jungle that makes getting to the berries too difficult.

One other key to success and topnotch flavor is a net during the summer to fend off birds and — for best flavor — careful picking of only dead ripe fruits.

Water, Too Much or Too Little

So far, the growing season here in the Northeast has been one with both dry spells and wet spells, more than usual of each. Some recent thunderstorms fool many a gardener into thinking that the soil has been thoroughly wetted. But such rains are often only a drop in the bucket.

The only way to know for sure if enough rain has fallen for plants to really slurp up water is to check the soil or measure the actual amount of rainfall. A friend tells me he waters his plants every day. Every day! How much? It could be too much or too little, and probably is one or the other. I like to quantitate things so I measure rainfall or watering, as well as soil moisture, in a few different ways.

First, measuring water added to the soil: The ideal is about a 1 inch depth of water per week, which is equivalent to about a half a gallon per square foot of surface area. For hand watering a young tree, with an estimated root spread of only a couple of square feet, I fill the watering can with a gallon of water and sprinkle it on.
Rain gauge
Rainfall, or the water from a sprinkler, could be measured with a straight-sided container. I use a rain gauge whose tapered body can break down the measurement into tenths of an inch, readable from indoors.

Digital moisture probe.

Digital moisture probe.

I usually measure the actual moisture in the soil with a handy little meter attached to a probe that slides a half a foot down into the soil. As expected, the meter told me today that the soil is very wet. Not surprising after 3 inches of rainfall, as measure in the rain gauge, two nights ago. 

(There’s more about blueberries and water in my books Grow Fruit Naturally and The Ever Curious Gardener.)

Free webinar today, WEEDLESS GARDENING

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“WEEDLESS GARDENING” webinar

Are you interested in having a weedless garden this season? Yes? Learn how at my upcoming WEEDLESS GARDENING webinar. The system I’ll describe does more that just deal with weeds. It also lets your garden use water more efficiently, conserves valuable soil organic matter, lets you plant earlier in spring, and does not disrupt beneficial fungi and other friendly soil organisms. Starting a new garden? Here’s the fastest way to get the soil prepared and plants growing.

I’ll cover all this, and more, in the WEEDLESS GARDENING webinar. The webinar is free, at 2 pm EST on Sunday, June 6, 2021.

This webinar is sponsored by Inniswood Garden Society. To register for this program, please visit: www.bit.ly/AnnualMtgRegister

PLANT SALE NOW LIVE

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Lee Reich’s 13TH (?) ANNUAL PLANT SALE
(of mostly lesser grown but delectable fruits)

Because of covid, the sale is now online, with scheduled pickups here at the farmden in New Paltz, NY.

Note that there are limited quantities of al plants, each available to the first taker. So order soon.

To see plant list, order, pay, and — VERY IMPORTANT — schedule a pickup time (May 29-31 and June 2), go to https://leesannualplantsale.squarespace.com

CALLING ALL VOLUNTEERS

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A Returning Beauty

I have some of the nicest volunteers in my garden. Some of them have been people, many of them are plants, and one of my favorites – among the plants, that is – is columbine. Years ago, I planted some native columbines, those dainty plants whose orange and yellow flowers hover on thin stalks above their ferny foliage. Since being planted, these wildings self-seed – volunteer, that is — every year in various nooks and crannies around my yard, such as in the thin crevice of soil between my bluestone front path and the adjacent stone wall.
       Native columbine
I once also planted cultivated columbines, the common McKana Giants, and their offspring have been volunteering around the yard as well. Flowers and foliage of these more cultivated sorts are similar to the natives, just bigger in all respects, which is not necessarily better. Or worse. Just different.
Cultivated columbine
Colors of these larger columbines are different from that of the natives. My original McKana Giants sported various colored bracts and petals. Seedlings of these plants, 20 years later, have segregated out into just a few solid colors, and the cool thing is that each year’s colors are a bit different from the previous years’.

Columbine and trumpet honeysuckle

The once “high-bred” columbines back by my vegetable garden have mostly soft pinks flowers, a color that marries well with the scarlet of the trumpet honeysuckles behind them.
Right near my front door, poking through cracks between the bluestone patio and my home’s brick wall, is a big, beautiful columbine with dusky, purple flowers.

I do help out these volunteers by weeding out those in excess or interloping where they shouldn’t.
volunteer columbine

Greenhouse Volunteers

Not all my volunteers are beauties. Some are only practical.

For instance, in the greenhouse, I once planted claytonia, also known as miner’s lettuce. It’s one of many lesser known “greens” that thrive in cool weather so are good for adding variety to salads once fresh cucumbers and tomatoes are just a memory.

Since that first planting, late every fall claytonia shows up all over the place in the greenhouse with no help from me. “All over the place” usually applies to a weed, but when I grab a whorl of claytonia leaves and lift gently, the plant gives in and lifts, hardly disturbing the soil.
Claytonia in greenhouse
This past winter was relatively mild and, for the first time, I see a few claytonia plants out in the garden. Uh-oh.
Claytonia in garden
Years ago, I would sow celery seeds in flats in February for transplanting in May; the seeds take a long time to sprout and then the seedlings grow very slowly. No more. I once grew celery for winter in the greenhouse and, in spring, when seed stalks started pushing up from the plants’ middles, I decided to let the plants do their thing. They self-seeded, so all I need to do these days is weed out excess. Some of those excess can also be potted up for transplanting into the garden.

Some greenhouse volunteers — mâche and cilantro — help out both in the greenhouse and in the garden. That’s nice of them because then I get the early crop in the greenhouse and the later crop outdoors.

Mâche show up in winter in the greenhouse, again in early spring and then again in late summer. The early spring crop is from plants that overwintered; mâche, though delicate in texture and flavor, is perhaps the most cold-hardy and among my favorite of all fresh salad greens. In spring, plants go to seed and the seeds slumber in the ground until cool weather coaxes them to sprout.

Mache

Mache

Cilantro, in contrast, only sprouts in late winter in the greenhouse and mid-spring out in the garden. It does so profusely. Like claytonia it never segues over into the category of “weed” because any excess is easily removed.

Sacrilege and Hope

One volunteer that shows up only outside, in the garden, is garlic. This may sound like sacrilege, but I don’t grow garlic. Many years ago I did, and then decided to devote the garden space to vegetables whose garden-fresh flavor is truly better than anything I could buy. And anyway, I don’t use that much garlic. So I stopped planting it.

Garlic did not go away, though. It’s been propagating by the little offsets it produces atop its flower stalk to the point where it’s everywhere among the leaf-mulched berry plants adjacent to my garden. (It’s not allowed in my garden.) The mostly grassy plants hardly ever yield bulbs worth saving but the tender, grassy stalks are useful. If I call this a weed in my garden, the parts of my garden where I grow it are indeed very weedy.
Naturalized garlic
At the other extreme is one volunteer that once liked it here, but evidently no longer does. That’s dill, which used to self-seed in just the right amount, and usually would confine itself to the same corner of my vegetable garden.

A couple of years ago, only one or two plants showed up, and last year none. I’m not sure why. I want it to come back so I bought some seeds for this year. I’m hoping it comes back as a volunteer again in future years.