Cold Rules

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Water Freezes. Why Don’t Plants?

(The following is adapted from my book, The Ever Curious Gardener: Using a Little Natural Science for a Much Better Garden, available wherever fine books are sold, and my website.)

Not being able to don gloves and a scarf, or shiver, to keep warm, it’s a wonder that trees and shrubs don’t freeze to death from winter cold. They can’t stomp their limbs or do jumping jacks to get their sap moving and warm up. The sap has no warmth anyway.Trellis and snow

Sometimes, of course, plants do succumb to winter cold. But usually that happens to garden and landscape plants pushed to their cold limits, not to native plants in their natural habitats or to well adapted exotic plants. 

Think about it: water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit—not a particularly cold temperature for a winter night—and plants contain an abundance of water. Water is unique among liquids in that it expands when it freezes, so you can imagine the havoc that could be wreaked as water-filled plant cells freeze and burst. Yet plants that must stand tall all winter do, of course, deal with frigid weather. 

A Helping Hand for Herbaceous Plants

Herbaceous perennials (non-woody plants) opt for the easiest survival route.Their roots are perennial but their tops die back to the ground each year. Anticipate cold weather, these plants start pumping reserve nutrients to their roots in late summer. That’s why asparagus, cone flowers, delphiniums, and peonies are reduced, in autumn, to nothing more than a few dry stalks. Mulched garden bed

What’s left of these plants spends a mild winter underground. Five feet down, the earth’s temperature hovers around a relatively balmy 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

Practical Rule #1: A thick blanket of some fluffy, organic material—leaves, straw, or wood chips, for example—further limits cold penetration.

Also for Woody Creepers

Low-growing, woody plants have it almost as good, with their stems shielded from the full brunt of cold winter winds. If Nature decides to throw down a powdery, white insulating blanket, so much the better: those leaves and low stems are protected even more. Lingonberry under snow

Practical Rule #2: In case Mother Nature is distracted with other activities, I provide my own low blanket for low-growing, woody or evergreen perennials—again, that fluffy cover of straw, leaves, or wood chips. Waiting to cover these plants until the weather turns relatively cold (soil frozen an inch deep is a good rule of thumb) lets plants acclimate to cold, and their stems and leaves have no chance of rotting beneath mulch that is still moist and too warm.

Tricks and Tips for Trees and Large Shrubs

What about trees and shrubs whose stems are fully exposed. One way they protect themselves from freezing is by shedding those parts most likely to freeze—their leaves.Blueberries and snow

Which introduces Practical Rule #3: I help plants along with their leaf shedding by letting plants naturally slow down and begin to reallocate their energy resources beginning in late summer. No water, fertilizer, or pruning at that time. 

Of course, their stems still have to stand up and face the cold. Their living cells are filled with water. If this water freezes, the cells either dehydrate or suffer physical damage from ice crystals. 

Water, whether in a plant cell or a glass, does not necessarily freeze as soon as the temperature drops below 32 degrees Fahrenheit. To freeze, water molecules need something to group around to form ice crystals, a so-called nucleating agent. Otherwise it “supercools,” remaining liquid down to about minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit, at which point ice forms whether or not a nucleating agent is present. 

All sorts of things can serve as nucleating agents—bacteria, for instance—so plants may not be protected all the way down to minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit by having their water supercool. But winter temperatures don’t plummet that low everywhere, so just a bit of supercooling may be all a plant needs to survive winter cold. 

Another trick, effective well below that minimum supercooling temperature, is for a plant to gradually move water out of its cells into spaces between the cells. As temperatures drop, ice crystals outside plant cells grow with the water they draw out of the cells; plants then are threatened by dehydration than by freezing. Plants toughest to cold are those that are best at reabsorbing the water outside their cells when temperatures warm. Kiwivines covered with ice

One other mechanism at work “freezing point depression,” which is why antifreeze keeps the water in your car radiator from freezing. Dissolving anything in water lowers the freezing point, more so the more that’s dissolved. As liquid in plant cells lose water, remaining water becomes more and more concentrated in sugars and minerals, its freezing point keeps falling. 

Plants actively prepare for cold, with cell walls increasingly strong and and permeable. Light supplies needed energy for all this, making Practical Rule #4 to make sure to site and prune plants for adequate light.

Unfortunately, all this fiddling with a plant to help it through winter palls in the face of genetics. The very most that I can do to help plants face winter is to plant those that naturally tolerate the coldest temperatures winter is apt to serve up.

Dry, Wet, Bad, Good?

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Some Bad

Wow! What a gardening year this has been. Looking back on 2018, it’s been the oddest year ever in terms of weather, insects, and disease.

After starting off the season parched, seemingly ready to go into drought, the weather in July did an about face. The rains began. Average precipitation here in the Northeast is about 4 inches per month. July ended up with about 6 inches, August saw 5 inches, September 8 inches(!), October 5 inches, and November 8 inches(!!).

All that rainfall brought humidity, which might have been responsible for my celeriac plants hardly growing, then rotting.

Celeriac in new home

Celeriac, early in the growing season, before the rains

(Perhaps not, because this was my third growing season of failure with celeriac.) I’m taking this as a celeriac challenge. Perhaps next year I’ll try them in a large tub where I can have more control over soil composition and moisture.

The humidity also had too many figs morph into fuzzy, gray balls as they softened and sweetened.

Tomatoes this year tasted very good, as usual, but yield was way down and too many showed some rotting areas. (In my experience, growing tomatoes under variable soil and weather at various locations around the country, their flavor is mostly a matter of genetics; a good variety tastes good everywhere.) Particularly irking was anthracnose disease, which often isn’t noticeable when fruits are harvested, but quickly shows up as round, sunken areas.

Onions suffered this season. Mostly they were stunted, and I’m not sure why.

Zucchini was a bust because the plants petered out from powdery mildew and vine borers just after midsummer. I usually circumvent these common problems with multiple plantings, starting new zucchini plants in early summer to replace the decrepit ones. I forgot to replant this summer (probably because I don’t like zucchini all that much anyway).

Medlar is an uncommon, very old-fashioned fruit that I’ve grown for many years. Although it’s gotten a bad rap for it’s ugly — to some people — appearance, the flavor is delicious, the soft flesh creamy smooth like apple butter with a similar flavor livened with vinous overtones. Medlar fruit in handUsually the plant is pest-free but a few years ago something, perhaps a fungus, perhaps an insect, started attacking it, leaving the flesh dry and crumbly. I have yet to identify the culprit so that appropriate action can be taken.Medlar pest damage

Some Good

Not that this past growing season was bad. I won the battle against soft scale insects (mealybugs) on my greenhouse figs, although their ecological niche was filled by just-as-bad armored scale insects. A close eye and an occasional spray of Neem oil kept flea beetles at bay from eggplants.

A couple of the same Neem sprays beginning in mid-September may have kept a new pest in the area, Allium leafminer (ALM, Phytomyza gymnostoma) at bay. Last year each of my near perfect-looking leeks revealed a rotted stalk as I lifted them out of the ground.

Allium leafminer

Allium leafminer

Then again, I did plant this past season’s leeks far from where the previous season’s leeks grew. Then again, the ALM flies can fly. Then again, maybe they weren’t here this year; perhaps the weather was not to their liking.

Nice leeks

This past season’s leeks

There was also no sign this past season of the white flies that decimated my kale the previous season.

Spotted wing drosophila (SWD), a species of fruit fly that has invaded the country relatively recently, did mostly ruin autumn ripening yellow and black raspberries. But little damage was suffered by my favorite (and perennially most successful) fruit, blueberries, probably thanks to some experimental traps developed by Peter Jentsch of Cornell University.

SWD trap

SWD trap

Peppers were even more of a success than usual, mostly due to my staking the plants. The only fault of Sweet Italia, my favorite variety for its early ripening, for its flavor, and for its good yields, is that the fruit-laden plants flop over under their own weight. Eventually, the small bamboo stakes I used proved only partially adequate; next year they’ll get the stakes they deserve.

I treated a few beds in spring to a relatively new method for weed control: tarping. Laying a sunlight-blocking tarp down on the ground for a couple of weeks or more in spring warms the soil beneath, stimulating germination of any weed seeds lurking there. The sprouting seeds are disappointed by the incessant darkness. They die. Timing, temperature, sunlight, and duration of tarping all play a role in this techniques effectiveness.

(Tarping is very different from using black plastic mulches. The latter are kept in place all season long, with garden plants growing in holes or slits in the plastic. Soil beneath the plastic can suffer from lack of air or, if not drip irrigated, lack of water. Also, the tarp — mine came from www.billboardtarps.com — can be folded up and re-used for many seasons.)

And finally, we were happy to find some assassin bugs and anchor stink bugs, Stiretrus anchorago, in the garden. Both are beneficial insects — yes even that particular stink bug.

Immature beneficial stink bug

Immature beneficial stink bug

Good Overall

All in all, it was a good season — as always. The secret is to grow many different kinds of plants. No season, no matter what the weather or pests, has ever been bad for all plants.

 

Of Worms and Leaves, Here and Beyond

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Unreiking is Good Exercise

For the past few days I’ve been engaged in the esoteric exercise of unreiking. Basically, this involves lifting heavy (or sometimes light) sacks, slitting them with a knife, and then moving my arms back and forth over the spilled contents. Okay, okay, the “sacks” are plastic bags, their contents are autumn leaves, and I’m holding a pitchfork in my hands as I spread out the spilled leaves.

Leaf bags with pawpaws

Sammy is looking forward to this leafy mattress

(Unreiking is the reverse of another esoteric exercise, reiking, whereby  . . .  well, leaves are raked up into plastic bags.)

Some people have too many leaves or otherwise don’t want them around. I have too few leaves and have use for them. By unreiking, the leaves get spread beneath my berry bushes, grape vines, and pear trees. These leaves feed bacteria, fungi, and other soil microbes, which slowly rot down the leaves to enrich the ground with nutrients and add organic matter that helps the soil hold both moisture and air.

Sammy also likes the mulch

Ahhhhhh

After doing this autumn after autumn for many years, the ground beneath these plants is as good as any agriculture soil in the world.

A Gardener’s, Farmdener’s, and Farmer’s Friend, Reconsidered

Our forest soils are similarly enriched, though to a lesser degree, with each autumn’s leaf drop. But change is under way, and the culprit is the earthworm.

Backtrack to about 12,000 years ago; that’s when the last glacier receded from the northern parts of the U.S. The glacier froze, compacted, churned and moved soil everywhere north of New Jersey, the upper parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and parts of Wisconsin and South Dakota. Most of North Dakota was also enveloped by the the glacier, as well as, moving further west, the northern parts of the northern most states. In so doing, it killed off any native earthworms.

The still existing native earthworms to the south could have migrated back up here, but they move very slowly. Earthworms’ top speed is estimated at less than 6 yards per year.

Here, north of that line of glaciation, you and I do see earthworms in our soil. They’re not native; they arrived here nestled within pots of soil and organic debris, and as discarded soil ballast in ships, beginning in about the 17th century, with European colonists. And they liked it here.

More recently, those European immigrants — the worms, that is — were joined by worms from Asia.

Both species of non-native earthworms continue to spread in the soil of potted plants, in compost and leaf mulches, in home composting kits, and in discarded fishing bait (“nightcrawlers”).

Problem is that a few species of these non-native earthworms are very good a decomposing the leafy mulch that blankets forest floors. The blueberry, mountain laurel, rhododendron and other shrubs and ground covers in our forests thrive in that leafy mulch. The action of these non-native earthworms threatens to change the character of our forests.

Eek, A Snake Worm!

A number of years ago, my friend Sandy told me of strange happenings in her garden, of the abundance of worms and worm castings to the extent that the soil became so loose that her plants were flopping over. I pooh-poohed this report until a bit of research revealed this invasive worm issue.

I couldn’t offer Sandy any advice on what to do and, in fact, there’s no recommended way to deal with invasive worms. Discarding fishing bait at the end of a fishing day is one way these worms spread. (Sandy’s husband does fish.) They also can be spread in potted plants and in composts that were insufficiently heated and in mulches. (Uh oh; what about all my leaf hauling?)

For all the compost I make and spread, and all the leaves and other organic materials I haul here to the farmden, I come upon surprisingly few worms. One did catch my eye the other day, something about the way it moved and its robustness.

A crazy snake worm

Crazy snake worm?

Could it be the European Lumbricus terrestris? Could it be the Asian “crazy snake worm”(probably Amynthas agrestis or A. tokioensis). Judging from the crazy way it moved and the pale collar (clitellum) circling its body completely, I’m guessing it’s one of the crazy snake worms.

Earthworms have always been a friend of gardener and farmer. Charles Darwin was a notable champion of them. After spending a lot of time on his belly in observation of these creatures, he wrote up his observations in a book, The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms. Darwin calculated that earthworms (probably Lumbricus terrestris) brought 18 tons of nutrient-rich castings to the surface per acre per year, in so doing tilling and aerating the soil while rendering nutrients more accessible for plant use. He wrote that “worms played a more important role in the history of the world than most persons would at first suppose.”

In our forests, European and Asian earthworms can eliminate leaf litter and change the soil composition to create conditions that favor non-native plants, decrease native plant biodiversity, and result in less understory vegetation. To the gardener and farmer, earthworms are a friend.

Shaving and Composting

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 . . . But My Garden is in Order

“Some men there are who never shave (if they are so absurd as ever to shave), except when they go abroad, and who do not take care to wear polished boots in the bosoms of their families. I like a man who shaves (next to one who doesn’t shave) to satisfy his own conscience, and not for display, and who dresses as neatly at home as he does anywhere. Such a man will be likely to put his garden in complete order before the snow comes, so that its last days shall not present a scene of melancholy ruin and decay.” So wrote Charles Dudley Warner in his wonderful little book (much more than a gardening book) My Summer in a Garden (1898). I gave up shaving a few months ago, but I am putting my garden in order for autumn.

The scene is quite pretty as I look out my upstairs bedroom window upon my garden — my vegetable garden — each morning. Garden view, autumnWeeds have been removed from the paths and the beds, and spent plants have been cleared away. What remains of crops is a bed with some tall stalks of kale that were planted back in spring. Yet another bed is home to various varieties of lettuce interplanted with endive, all of which went in as transplants after an early crop of green beans had been cleared and the bed was weeded, then covered with an inch depth of compost. Also still lush green is a bed previously home to edamame, which was subsequently weeded, composted, and then seeded with turnips and winter radishes back in August.

From my window, the remaining eight beds in the garden present mostly grasses in various states of lushness. The “grass” in this case is oats, sown in any bed no longer needed for vegetables at the end of this season. I had cleared such beds of spent plants and weeds, sprinkled oat seeds (whole “feed oats” from Agway), watered, and then, as with the other beds, covered them with an inch depth of compost. One bed was finished for the season except for six floppy cabbage plants. I staked those plants up tall and out of the way, and then gave the bed the same treatment around the cabbages’ ankles.Cover crop, 3 beds with cabbage

Ready for Spring

That’s it: It all looks fresh, green, and neat — but more than that, what I did is also good for next year’s garden. Cleaning up weeds this year makes for less self-seeding of annual weeds and seeding and establishment of perennial weeds. Cleaning up spent plants takes any pest-ridden plant parts off-site, reducing chances for future pest problems.

Dense growth of oats protects the soil surface from pounding rain so water percolates in rather than skittles off the surface, promoting erosion. Cover crops, 2 bedsBelow ground, oat roots pull up nutrients that rain and snow might otherwise leach away into the groundwater.

And finally, that inch depth of compost that each bed gets helps support the many beneficial fungi, bacteria, actinomycetes, and other soil microorganisms that make up the soil food web. In so doing, it will provide ALL the nutrition my vegetable plants, even intensively planted vegetables, need until this time next year.

Mr. Warner, I think, would approve. Even my non-shaving; I do trim my beard regularly.

Add Water, Conveniently

A lot of compost is needed to cover all those vegetable beds. For all the beds in my two vegetable gardens, as well as those in my greenhouse, I estimate my annual needs at almost 5 cubic yards per year.

My compost is made from hay I scythe from my small field, kitchen scraps, spent vegetable plants and weeds from my garden, some horse manure in wood shavings, and, for fun, old cotton or woolen clothing, and leather gloves and shoes. 

Yes, I’ve read about striking a balance between feedstuffs high in carbon and those high in nitrogen in order to get a compost pile chugging along. As important is good aeration and moisture. Most compost piles that I see suffer from thirst.

A lot of water is required to wet the inner layers of a compost pile, and applying it requires more patience than I have. So I no longer do it manually.

I purchased a small sprinkler which I connected with 1/2” black plastic tubing (the same as I use for drip irrigation mainlines) along with some L connectors to lead the water line from the top center of a pile neatly down to ground level. Water pressure is variable from my well so I also put a pressure reducer, to 15 psi, in the line; a valve needing just one-time adjustment keeps the sprinkler wetting only the top of the pile. A U-shaped metal pin keeps the sprinkler firmly in place in the center of the pile.Compost sprinkler

All that’s needed after adding a batch of material to the pile is to set up the sprinkler, turn on the spigot, and set a timer for about 20 minutes. The droplets cover the pile right to the edges and in a day or two temperatures soar to 140° or more.

Next year at this time, this year’s piles will be ready to do their part in putting my garden neat and in order.

Making My Bed(s); The “Best” Tomato

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Buckwheat Beds

About a month ago the greenhouse was looking messy as oxalis, grasses, chickweed, and other weeds were starting to carpet the mostly bare ground.  An unacceptable situation, considering that a month hence — now — I would need the space for planting in preparation for fall and winter.

The first step back in August was, obviously, to clear away the weeds, pulling almost each and every one out, roots and all. As long as weeds aren’t too overgrown or too abundant, the job is pleasantly satisfying. Moist soil also helps.

Pulling out weeds differs from the usual approach of preparing the soil by tilling it to discombobulate and bury weeds. I avoid tillage because it exposes buried weed seeds to light, which is just what new weeds need to germinate and grow. Tillage also burns up valuable humus and discombobulates not only the soil, but also resident fungi, earthworms, and other beneficial organisms.

I wasn’t ready to plant anything in some of those greenhouse beds a month ago, yet I hate to look at bare soil. (Mother Nature is equally repulsed by bare soil; she clothes it with weeds.) So I planted buckwheat, sprinkling the seeds thickly over the beds.Buckwheat sprouting in greenhouse Buckwheat provides a quick and temporary cover of the bare ground. Sprinkling it with water assured its getting off to a quick start.

Finally, I covered the ground with an inch-thick layer of compost. That amount of compost will nourish whatever’s growing in the beds for a whole year. It also provides cover to hold moisture around the buckwheat.

Only a few days later, buckwheat sprouts were already peeking up through the compost blanket. They went on to grow quickly in the heat of the season. Aboveground the dense foliage was, I hoped, doing its job of shading out any new weeds trying sprout, something for which buckwheat is famous. Buckwheat growing in greenhouseBelow ground, the roots were latching onto nutrients that might otherwise leach away, bringing them up into the roots, stems, and leaves.

By the first week in September, buckwheat stems were flopping down onto the ground. Anyway, it was time to remove them to make way for planting the greenhouse. I was anxious to see what kind of new weed growth, if any, presented itself beneath the buckwheat.

The goal was to remove the buckwheat without disrupting the soil. My fingers easily raked off the tops which detached themselves from the roots that were left intact in the soil.

Buckwheat lived up to its reputation: I could hardly find a weed anywhere!

Oat Beds

Outdoor beds in the vegetable garden have been receiving similar treatment, with some wrinkles. Those beds that are finished for the season, not needed for autumn harvest, get cover crops of oats rather than buckwheat. Buckwheat doesn’t like cool weather and is killed by the slightest frost.

The advantage of oats over buckwheat is that oats enjoy cool weather, growing lush and green, and even tolerate quite a bit of cold weather. Oat cover crop sproutingSo any bed no longer needed for autumn vegetables and cleared before about the end of September gets oats (and compost). After the end of September, short days don’t provide enough light for the oats to grow enough to warrant planting.

One benefit of oats, buckwheat, and any other cover crop is that they keep up appearances. Oat cover cropWhile I have great respect for soil, it’s not pretty to look at — and being bared isn’t good for the soil or the plants growing in it. I’d much rather look at a uniform, green carpet than bare, brown soil.

The Best(!!!!) Tomato

No need to rush summer vegetables out the door quite yet. I had the opportunity to try out a new tomato this season, Garden Gem, which has received a lot of fanfare.

Time travel back to 1995, when tomato breeder Harry Klee of the University of Florida, began to suss out what makes a great-tasting tomato using heirloom varieties, gas chromatography, and tasting panels. Then fast-forward to 2011, a field in Florida, where Harry tastes the result of his effort to breed a great-tasting tomato that is disease resistant and productive, and stands shipping. And so was born Garden Gem, the offspring of the luscious heirloom variety Maglia Rosa and the variety Fla. 8059, excellent in all characteristics except flavor.

Garden Gem scored as high as the heirloom parent for flavor.Garden Gem tomatoAs it turns out, even taste is a matter of taste: To me, Garden Gem is not a great-tasting tomato; not even a good-tasting tomato. It lacked any sweetness or richness to smooth out the acidity, which is basically all I tasted.

(The “perfect supermarket tomato,” as it was billed, was also a commercial flop, for now at least. It’s reported that Garden Gem too large for a small tomato and too small for a large tomato and, anyway, that consumers don’t really care about flavor.)

Some You Win, Some You Lose. Why?

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Mo’ Better Berries

Because I’ve grown a number of varieties of blueberries for a long time, I’m often asked what variety I would recommend planting. Or whether you need to plant two varieties for cross-pollination in order to get fruit.

The answers to both questions are intertwined. First of all, blueberries are partially self-fertile so one variety will bear fruit all by itself.
Large blueberries
But — and this is important — berries will be both more plentiful and larger if two different varieties cross-pollinate each other. (Apples, in contrast, are self-sterile so, with few exceptions, won’t bear any fruit at all without cross-pollination.)

Benefits of cross-pollination aside, why plant just one variety of blueberry? Different varieties ripen their fruits at different times during the blueberry harvest season. With a good selection of varieties, that season can be very long.

Here on the farmden, the season opens with Duke and Earliblue, both usually ready for picking (in Zone 5) at the end of June. The season moves on, with Blueray, Berkeley, and Bluecrop ripening in July, and Jersey, Toro, and Nelson in August.Blueberries galore As I write, in September, the variety Elliot is still bearing ripe berries.

So if you’re going to plant blueberries, which I highly recommend doing, plant more than one variety, and choose the varieties that let you enjoy berries with your morning cereal or your after dinner ice cream over a long season.

Soil Matters

I pay special attention to the soil when I plant blueberries, and it pays off. Blueberries have rather unique soil requirements among cultivated plants, demanding those that are very acidic, high in organic matter, low in nutrients, and consistently moist and well-aerated. (Most cultivated plants like soils that are only slightly acidic and have moderate to high fertility.) No matter if a soil is not naturally to blueberry’s liking; it can be made so.

The soil where I planted my blueberries drains well. If it did not, I would either choose a better location or else create mounds on which to plant.

Next in importance is soil acidity; I test it before planting. If it’s not at the required pH of 4 to 5.5, I spread pelletized sulfur, a naturally mined mineral, over the ground. (Pelletizing the sulfur makes it less dusty to work with.) Mulched blueberry planting
The amount of sulfur, per 100 square feet, needed to lower the pH by one unit would be a pound in a sandy soil and three pounds in a clay soil. My clay loam’s initial pH was about 6.5, so I needed 3 pounds of sulfur per hundred square feet to lower that pH to 5.5, that upper limit enjoyed by blueberries.

Now, for planting. I mix a bucketful of peat moss with the soil in each planting hole and then tuck the plants and soil into the hole, setting the plants slightly deeper than they stood in the nursery. Peat moss is a long-lasting source of organic matter, unique among organic matters in also being low in nutrients.

Right after planting, I spread a 2 to 3 inch depth of some weed-free, fluffy organic material, such as wood shavings, wood chips, straw, pine needles, or autumn leaves, as mulch. The mulch snuffs out weeds, which are more adept than blueberry at soaking up water and nutrients, and keeps the soil cool and moist, just as it is in blueberry’s natural habitats.

With regular watering, as needed, pruning, and annual mulching and attention to soil acidity, blueberry leaves should maintain a healthy, green color, and stems should grow a couple of feet or so each year. My planting of 16 plants yields almost 200 quarts per year of delicious, organic blueberries.

Celeriac Failure, Again

Blueberries have been a great success; now for a failure. Celeriac, a celery relative that puts that flavor  into its softball-sized, white root, isn’t well-known as a vegetable, but I’d like to grow it. I’ve tried, for the past couple of years, without success. The problem is some sort of celery blight that kills the top growth so there’s no greenery to feed the root.

Both early blight and late blight, fungal diseases, could cause problems. They arrived in gardens on infected celery seed and/or infected celery debris from the previous cropping season. Celery bacterial blightLast fall I thoroughly cleaned up diseased plants, even planted some celeriac this year in the greenhouse. Failure occurred both outdoors and in the greenhouse, although lots of rain and heat could have helped (the fungi or bacteria, not me).

I’m not giving up. Perhaps the seed is the problem. Seed can harbor the disease, but can be “cleaned” up with a heat treatment: 30 minutes at 118°F. As a last resort, I could spray an organic fungicide such as one of the organically approved materials based on copper or hydrogen peroxide. Perhaps this time next year I’ll be eating celeriac.

Watering — in the Rain?

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Why Are Pots Thirsty?

With recent rains of more than 3 inches over the last couple of days, you’d think that the last thing on my mind would be having to water anything. But you’d be wrong. Plants in pots — and I have plenty of them, some ornamental and some tropical and subtropical fruits — don’t get the full benefit of all that water.

Potting soils are, and should be, more porous than any garden soil to maintain good aeration within the confines of a pot. About a one inch depth of water is needed if you’re going to thoroughly wet a 12 inch high column of potting soil. If a flower pot is, for example, only 6 inches high, only 1/2 inch depth of water would be needed; and so on.

A lot of my potted plants didn’t drink in that 3 inches of rain that fell over the past couple of days. Some of the plants are shielded from the sky by overhanging house eaves. And the leaves of other plants — excepting amaryllis and calla lily which have strappy, upright leaves — deflect water that could have fallen into the pot.

If you don’t believe me, tip a potted plant out of its pot following a heavy rain, and check how dry the soil is down deep within the pot. Even easier, purchase an inexpensive moisture meter whose metal probe, when slid into the soil, reports moisture deep down.

(Sort of) High Tech Solution

When I first started gardening, I knew I would eventually move from the cottage I was renting. My mini-orchard was in pots and travel-ready. I kept that “orchard” watered by hand, which wasn’t so bad. The problem was that in the heat of summer, some plants needed their thirst quenched twice a day, which kept me from leaving my home for more than a few hours.

These days, technology has come to the rescue.

The first techno-solution has been drip irrigation. A simple, battery-operated timer at a spigot sends out water on a twice daily schedule to banks of potted plants. Also at the spigot, following the water line right after the timer, are a filter and a pressure reducer. automatic watering, potsThe fittings for wending water through tubes around corners and up into pots are low pressure fittings; the pressure lowers water pressure to a mere 20 psi.

Once the 1/2 inch main line makes its way to a group of potted plants, a 1/4 inch plastic line, plugged into the main line with, of course, a low pressure fitting, carries the water up to the ground surface of each pot.

If the water merely exited at this point, pots closer to the water source would be under higher pressure and so get more water than those more distant. And pots that were shorter or at lower elevation would likewise get more water. So I slid an emitter, that reliably puts out 1/2 gallon of water per hour, no matter what the incoming water pressure, on the end of each 1/4 inch line.

Capillarity to the Rescue

I have a number of lowbush blueberry, lingonberry, hollyhock, carnation, and blazing star plants growing in pots 4-inches and smaller. I’ll eventually plant them out in the garden. Until then, the plants need regular watering Snaking 1/4 inch tubes to all these pots would create a tangled nightmare.

Enter capillary mat watering. All these smaller pots sit on a mat of absorbent fabric spread over a tray held a couple of inches above a pan of water. Irrigation, capillary matPart of the capillary mat dips into the reservoir of water, which gets sucked up into the mat and then sucked up into the potting soil through the drainage holes in each flat-bottomed plant pot.

I periodically have to remember to add water to the reservoirs. Or, rather, “had to” because I ran a few of those drip tubes into the reservoirs, enough to keep them topped up with water to keep pace with plant use.

And a Presentation of Interest

I’ll be doing a presentation on August 18th on THE SCIENCE, ART, FUN, AND TASTY FRUIT OF ESPALIER in Copake Falls, NY. The presentation will explore the theory and the practice behind the pruning and orienting of branches to create an espalier. This decorative, usually 2-dimensional form, offers high yields of high quality fruit on a plant or plants that can be free-standing, decorating a wall or fence, or even creating the fence itself! I’ll go over which fruit plants work best and the branch pruning and orienting techniques that create and maintain espaliers that look good and yield especially delectable fruit. For more information, go to https://awaytogarden.com/8-18-open-day-plant-sale-lee-reich-espalier-talk-drip-irrigation-workshop/Asian pear espalier flowering

Upcoming workshop

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Drip workshop ad, 2018

Thirst

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Too Much or Too Little?

The current deficit of rainfall reminds me of the importance of watering — whether by hand, with a sprinkler, or drip, drip, drip via drip irrigation — in greening up a thumb.

Not that watering is definitely called for here in the “humid northeast;” historically, cultivated plants have gotten by mostly on natural rainfall. Historically, vegetable gardens also weren’t planted as intensely as they are these days. In one of my three-foot wide beds, for example, brussels sprouts plants at eighteen inches apart are flanked on one side by a row of fully grown turnips and on the other side by radishes. Five rows of onions run up and down another bed.

The rule of thumb I use for watering is that plants need the equivalent of one inch depth of water once a week.

Finger in soil to test for moisture

Finger in soil to test for moisture

This approximation doesn’t take into account the fact that my bed of sweet corn is thirstier than is my bed of onions, that my plants drew less water up from the soil during a recent calm, cloudy day than they will with today’s bright sunlight and breezes, and that warmer temperatures speed water loss. Still, an inch a week is a good approximation, one very workable around here where periodic rain allow some wiggle room in watering. Not so in parts of California and similar climates that remain reliably bone dry all summer.

A sprinkler, or a hand-held hose with a spray rose for small areas, and some randomly placed straight-sided cans to catch water are an easy way to tell how long to leave the spigot on to get that inch depth of water. Hand wateringUsually, about an hour, once a week, is what it takes. (That’s a long time to stand still holding a hose.) Unless it rains. Then less might be needed.

A rain gauge is an inexpensive way to know whether what seems like a soaking rain is really so. Or monitor soil moisture directly. Dig a hole, poke your finger into the soil, or, even better, purchase a “moisture meter” for less than $15; plunge the metal probe a few inches into the ground and read on the dial whether the ground down there is “dry,” “moist,” or “wet.” You want it moist.

Digital moisture probe.

Digital moisture probe.

Thirst Quenching a Drip at a Time

My vegetable plants get their thirst quenched with drip irrigation rather than a sprinkler. The idea of a drip system is to drip water into the soil at about the rate which plants are removing it. That doesn’t occur once a week, but every bright day, all day long.

That one inch per week rate translates to about three-quarters of a gallon per square foot. Dripline with beansMy drip system is on a timer, and the time needed to apply this amount depends on the rate of flow from each emitter as well as the spacing of emitters.

After a lot of calculations and approximations (many years ago), I determined that dripping for one-half hour per day would be about right. But, as I wrote, plants drink all day long, not just once a day. My drip timer can turn on and off at three specified times per day, so the plants get their thirst quenched three times spaced out during daylight hours at ten minutes per session. My old timer offered six sessions per day; then, plants got six waterings of 5 minutes each.Drip timer

Done. All I have to do is check every once in a while that all systems are go, which is one reason my drip lines run above ground. I can watch the dripping.

I do have to get out the watering can for the lettuce seedlings, the third planting of the season, that are soon to be set out, as well as for the recently planted row of carrot seeds and other recent seedings and transplants. Supplemental watering until roots of new plants stretch down into the region of the drip line’s wetting front, which spreads with the shape of an ice cream cone downward beneath each spot of dripping water.

(I’ll be leading a hands-on workshop on drip irrigation August 18th at the garden of Margaret Roach in Copake Falls. For more information, go to Margaret’s website, and type my name in the “search” box.)

Engineered Orifices

Note that I haven’t mentioned “soaker hoses.” Although the water oozes out from these porous hoses, they are not really “drip irrigation.” Sure, the water just oozes out slowly. But they’re inconsistent in output not only with water pressure and elevation, but also with time. And roots can grow inside buried soaker hoses, further muddying the water.

A real drip line has water emitters spaced six to twelve inches apart along their length, and those emitters aren’t mere holes punched in tubing. They are engineered orifices, designed to be relatively consistent in output with changes in incoming water pressure and changes in elevation along the line. They also are self-cleaning in case debris gets into the line.

And Now, A Word About Fireflies

Fun fact: Fireflies (which I knew as “lightning bugs” in my youth) are more than whimsy on a summer night; they’re also a gardener’s friend, feeding on, among other creatures, slugs.

My Dog and I Have Odd Tastes

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In My Opinion . . .

Note: The following editorial comments represent the opinions of the writer and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the publisher.

I don’t understand the current — decades long, now — infatuation with the “stinking rose,” as garlic used to be called. Not to reveal my age, but I don’t remember ever seeing, smelling, or tasting garlic in my youth. Not that I didn’t; I just don’t remember it if I did. At any rate, in my family circle, at least, it would not have generated the undue enthusiasm it does these days. Whole festivals, for instance!

I don’t dislike garlic. Mostly, when I’ve used it, it’s flavor is lost when cooked. Except when roasting turns the texture satiny and the flavor bite-less; then it’s quite delicious spread on bread or baked potato, or mixed with vegetables. Mmmmm.

But still not worth planting. It’s my belief that many gardeners devote all too much space to growing garlic. Is home-grown garlic really that tasty, tastier than what you can pick off a supermarket shelf or from a bin at the farmers’ market?

I’ve seen very small vegetable gardens in which a third of the area was devoted to the stinking rose. For my money, I’d rather be picking fresh lettuce, asparagus, or peas — all of which taste significantly different and better within minutes of harvest than when bought from any market, farm or otherwise. Or peppers, tomatoes, sweet corn, or green beans, because I can choose the best tasting (to me) varieties to plant in my garden.

As you might guess, I don’t grow garlic — not in my vegetable garden, at least. Why devote even a square foot of space in that compost-rich, drip irrigated, sun-drenched ground to  such a thankless vegetable?

I do sometimes grow garlic in various patches of open ground in the large patch of gooseberries, grapes, and a miscellany of other plants behind my garden. The only improvement that soil experiences is annual mulching with autumn leaves, which has enriched the ground below with humus. But no irrigation, which the garlic, planted in early autumn and then harvested the following summer, hardly needs because it can run on rainfall that falls in autumn through spring.

Garlic doesn’t seem to get the hint that I don’t particularly want to grow it. Enough bulbils that form at the tops of scapes touch down each year to make new garlic plants. Most are spindly, giving rise to Lilliputian cloves. Garlic volunteer plantsBut if I want some garlic flavor in spring, I can pull stalks out of the ground, peel off the outer covered of leaf sheath, and chop up the ivory white lower portion for use. Many I just pull out and toss into the compost pile; the garlic is getting weedy.

Okay, you garlic lovers, go ahead and pelt me with tomatoes. But hold the garlic.

Sammy Stalking

My dog Sammy has grown very fond of stalks. Asparagus stalks. Why can’t he channel that stalky affection to the garlic sprouting behind my garden? Perhaps some culinary magic with garlic poured over his dog food and guided walks over to some of the growing clumps could bring him around.

I planted asparagus outside the fenced vegetable garden with the knowledge (ha!) that no furry animals would dine on it. Sammy has plowed his way through or gracefully leapt over the temporary chickenwire enclosure meant to keep him asparagus-free. A recently purchased electric fence should keep him at bay — also from the persimmons, another of his favorites, later in summer. Sammy & electric fence

Of Mulch Importance

On a more serious note, now, with recent rains maintaining good soil moisture, is an ideal time to mulch. Earlier this season, mulch would also have been good, except that it would have delayed soil warming and, hence, seed germination, planting and growth of annual vegetables and flowers.

Mulch spread atop dry soil has to be wetted before letting water percolate down into the ground below. Mulching chestnutsIf spreading mulch is delayed until the soil turns dry, all the more water will be required to give the soil below a good drenching.

A large pile of wood chips sits on the far side of my wood pile, compliments of local arborists. Day by day, I’m spreading it for an attractive, soil enriching, moisture sealing blanket over my soil — even around my volunteer garlic plants.