The Unknown Known

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   To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, defense secretary under W, there are the known knowns, the known unknowns, and the unknown unknowns. Donald, you forgot about the unknown knowns. Lets talk about gardening, not war, and the knowns that need to be better known.
Visitors to my garden (actually workshop attendees) were oohing and ahing over some 18-inch-high stalks each capped with a crown of leaves beneath which dangled a circle of red blossoms. Aptly named crown imperial, Fritillaria imperialis, deserves to be more widely known. No one seemed put off by the skunky aroma that suffuses the air even feet away from the plant; I like it.
Perhaps crown imperial would be better known if the bulbs didn’t go for more than 10 dollars each. My gardens’ profusion of crown imperial stalks is more an indication of my green thumb than my wealth. They all arose from a single bulb my father gifted me more than 20 years ago. I learned to propagate them by bulb scaling, which involves digging down into the ground to remove scales from the bulb, then mixing the scales with barely moist potting soil. After a couple of months storage at warm temperatures followed by a couple of months storage at cool temperatures, the scales can be potted up to be nursed for a season before planting out.
Every year I make new crown imperial plants. Will I ever have too many?
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F. michailovskyi
Crown imperial also has some unknown known kin. You have to see Persian lily, Fritillaria persica, to appreciate it. A written description — foot-high stalks lined with nodding, small, plum purple to gray green flowers — doesn’t do justice to the beauty of this bulb. I hope to start multiplying this one also. Another unknown known is Fritillaria michailovskyi, this one with nodding, bell-shaped flowers with yellow-tipped, purple petals.
F. persica
F. meleagris
Among crown imperial’s kin is also a known known: Guinea hen flower, F. meleagris, with large, nodding, checkered flowers. Even White Flower Farm sells these bulbs for less than a dollar each. No wonder they are better known.
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Let’s segue over to unknown knowns among fruits. 
Right now, a billowing wave of white blossoms lines my driveway, the blossoms of Nanking cherry (Prunus tomentosum), a shrub that can grow 8 feet high and wide. The show matches that of any other flowering tree or shrub.
What do other flowering trees and shrubs — forsythia, lilac, flowering cherries, and the like — offer after their flower shows subsides? Nothing, nada, zip. Nanking cherry, though, goes on to bear oodles of small red cherries with a flavor somewhere between that of sweet and tart cherries.

And what does it take to get a decent crop of sweet or tart cherries? Pruning, perhaps spraying and bird control. What does it take to get a crop of Nanking cherries? Nothing, nada, zip. The plants bear heavily with little or no care, and bear enough to satisfy birds, squirrels, and humans.
Okay, every rose has it’s thorns. Nanking cherries are small, one-half to five-eighths of an inch in diameter. The smallness is more than offset by plant’s beauty, its profusion of fruits, and its low maintenance .
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And one more unknown known: gooseberries (both gooseberries and Nanking cherries warrant a whole chapter in my book Uncommon Fruits for Every Garden).
Many people imagine all gooseberries to be small, green, and tart, suitable mostly for cooking. Not so! There are over a hundred varieties of gooseberry in various colors and sizes, and a whole category of them, what the Brits call “dessert varieties,” are for fresh eating. Good flavor is what should warrant gooseberries known known status among fruits.
Most important in growing gooseberries is to choose a good variety, both for taste and for resistance to disease powdery mildew. Don’t plant Pixwell; the berries are small, green, and tart. Do plant varieties such as Poorman, Chief, Hinonmakis Yellow, Red Jacket, Captivator, and Glendale. They’re all tasty and disease resistant.
If you want even better flavor and you’re willing to deal with powdery mildew, plant varieties such as Colossal, Whitesmith, Achilles, and Webster. Dealing with powdery mildew involves spraying, but it could be something relatively benign, such as horticultural oil, sulfur, baking soda, soap, or horticultural oil plus baking soda (1-1∕2 tablespoons baking soda plus 3 tablespoons oil in 1 gallon water).
Right about now, gooseberries can experience one more pest, the imported currantworm, which strips plants of their leaves, beginning at ground level. The leaves will grow back but the plant is left weakened. A spray just as soon as chewing begins will stop this insect in its tracks and, again, benign products such as insecticidal soap or horticultural oil should be effective. I’m training some of my plants as 3-foot-high trees, which might also thwart the worm because there’ll be no leaves near ground level on which the insects can begin their feast.
If all this seems like too much potential trouble for gooseberries, it’s not. The best dessert varieties have flavors that might be compared to that of grape, plum, or apricot, and have a “cracking” texture, a crisp flesh that explodes with ambrosial juice when you bite into them. A writer of the last century characterized gooseberries as “the fruit par excellence for ambulant consumption.” I agree, and you might also if they become a known known in your garden.

Plant Sale!

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Of Nuts & Mice

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  How could I resist? Road crews that had been trimming trees along power lines were finishing up work almost right in front of my house with a whole truckload of wood chips. Spreading chips had not been on my “to do” list; now it was, right after the crew graciously dumped contents of the truck in a space between my chestnut trees.
Chestnuts are trees of the forest. Mine, like many of those deliberately planted, have grass at their feet. The wood chips, I reasoned, would make the ground more home-like for the trees. Forest soils are typically overlaid with a layer of organic (that is, living or once living) materials: fallen leaves, twigs, limbs. These organic materials rot, in the process releasing nutrients as well as putting nutrients already in the soil in forms more readily accessible to plants. The organic feast encourages fungi, bacteria, and other soil life, all of which generally keep insect pests and diseases at bay.
In addition to nutritional and biological goodness, any organic material also brings physical goodness. Rainwater more easily percolates into the ground and, once within, the water is retained by the spongy, decomposed organic matter. At the same time, soil aeration is improved. It’s the best of of both worlds: more moisture plus more air at root level. No wonder I couldn’t resist.
People sometimes ask if I care what kind of chips I am getting. The answer is “no.” People sometimes ask if I’m worried about termites in the chips. Again, “no.” Termites require intact wood for their tunnels. What about “nitrogen tie-up,” which temporarily starves plants for nitrogen when high-carbon materials, such as wood chips, are added to the soil and microorganisms, which are better at garnering soil nitrogen than are plants, go to work. Again, I’m not concerned. Nitrogen tie-up only occurs if chips are mixed INTO the soil, promoting rapid decomposition.
Some people believe in using gourmet chips, also known as ramial chips, which means , according to chip aficionadas, wood chips made from branches no larger than 2-3/4 inches in diameter, and preferably from deciduous trees. So before I had my load of chips dumped I had the road crew climb into their truck to separate out the good from the bad chips — just kidding! There’s not much, actually nothing at all, to support chip aficionadas’ claims. I’ll take and took any and all chips.
Come autumn, perhaps I’ll round out the soil diet with a load of leaves.
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I am a big fan of black walnuts. Last autumn’s harvest has been cracked, shelled and squirreled away to enjoy in the months ahead. The latest buzz on black walnuts, though, is about their sap, which reputedly boils down into a tasty syrup, similar to maple syrup.
Almost all parts of walnut trees contain a compound, juglone, that is toxic or growth-stunting to many types of plants. This makes me wary about ingesting the sap, especially after it has been concentrated into a syrup.
Still, curiosity got the upper hand so I put a tap into a black walnut tree a few weeks ago, gathered sap, and then boiled it down into a syrup of similar consistency to maple syrup.
My report: Very good flavor, slightly different from maple sugar, perhaps with a hint of black walnut flavoring. (The latter could be my imagination.) And I’m still alive.
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One of the last legacies of winter are the “bare ankles” at the bases of some trees and shrubs. Bare because they have no bark.
Those bare ankles are the handiwork of mice. Snuggled beneath the snow, warm and safe from aerial predators, mice could munch away to their heart’s content on bark. The problem is that the bark layer is where nutrients and water are conducted up from the roots and down from the leaves.
Stripped stems will likely die, which could mean death for the whole plant if it’s a tree, it’s young, and it was weak. Or if it’s a species that does not sprout readily when cut back. Otherwise, new sprouts will grow from below the stripped region. If the plant is a tree, the most vigorous of the new sprouts can be trained as a new trunk. If the plant is a shrub, new sprouts will fill in.
No need to sit back and bemoan the damage. Bridge grafting, whereby lengths of stem are grafted below and above the stripped area, will repair damage. And a good cat will avert it in the first place.

Books to Forage By, or Not

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   I’m more of a cultivated-food type guy than a wild-food type guy. I like to be able to go right out my back door to grab a tomato from a row of tomato plants than have to hike into the woods for a few nibbles of American black currants.
With that said, plenty of overlooked foods — wild plants — grow right at our feet. Plenty of chickweed makes its way in among my early spring lettuces, and more purslane than I could possibly eat insinuates itself at the feet of my corn plants. Black raspberries grow in a semi-cultivated state along the edge of woods here. And when I do head for a walk in field or forest, how nice to come upon wineberries and other refreshing, wild treats. And not everyone has a garden (shudder the thought!).
If, for one reason or another, you’re hankering for some wildness on your plate and you’re at a loss of what purslane, chickweed, or wineberry is, or what to do with them, help is on the way in the form of two books: Foraging & Feasting, by local herbalist Dina Falconi, and Foraged Flavor, by wild-food-to-NYC-restaurants-purveyor Tama Matsuoka Wong. The best thing about both these books is that they really use foraged food as . . .  well, food. Not a nibble here, a nibble there. Dina’s “Creamed Wild Greens” packs in 1/2 pound of chopped greens such as nettle, amaranth, and lamb’s quarter. Toma’s “Chilled Mango Soup with Sweet Spruce Tips” is flavored with 1/4 cup of spruce tips. Both books are a great leap forward from the Euell Gibbon’s 1970s classic Stalking the Wild Asparagus, in which it seemed that every wild plant was made palatable with a large dollop of bacon fat. (Then again, Toma’s soup is sweetened with 1/4 cup of sugar and Dina’s wild greens with 1/4 cup of your choice of butter, lard, chicken fat, olive oil, coconut oil, or tallow.)
Both books start out introducing the plants. Toma does it with a clear photograph of each. Dina’s does it with the beautiful, botanical colored-pencil drawings of Wendy Hollender, each page with details and notes on particular features of a plant as well as something about their habitat, life cycle, means of reproduction, size, and various culinary uses. Also, any cautionary notes, such as the note that comfrey can cause liver damage or cancer. (Dina, on the basis of comfrey’s long use and her moderate consumption of it, pooh-poohs the danger, although I personally would not take anecdotal evidence as my guide.) Getting into the recipes, Toma’s book is arranged seasonally, Dina’s according to use, such as soup, condiment, dessert, etc.
So which is the book to buy for a good book about foraging? Both! The recipes are quite different. The approaches are quite different. Even the wild plants are somewhat different. Toma makes no mention of American black currant; Dina makes no mention of wineberry. But then, wild fruits are my favorite wild edibles, once I venture beyond my garden gates.
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Let’s flip the coin and rather than going mostly afield, bring some wildness into the garden. Into Michael Judd’s garden, in Frederick, MD, as described in his book Edible Landscaping with a Permaculture Twist. This is a fun book, in its writing, in its photographs (one case in point is the cover photo of a berry-smeared, happy little boy holding a bowlful of berries), and in its illustrations. It’s also got good, solid information. My only beef with this book is the lack of an index.
I find many permaculture books ponderous. Not Michael’s, as evidenced by the “twist” in the title. I have been accused of practicing permaculture but contend that my farmden is, at best, permaculturesque. (For more on my permaculture perspective, see http://leereich.blogspot.com/2010/09/looking-around-at-my-fruit-trees-and.html.) Edible Landscaping with a Permaculture Twist is a good introduction to a lot of arenas: rainwater harvesting, gardening, building an earthen oven, growing mushrooms, making wine. In the permaculture tradition of integrating various components of a homestead, here’s part of Michael’s instructions for building an earth oven: “ . . . buy a case of really good microbrew in bottles and empty them, preferably down your gullet. These empty bottles are going to be part of your base-floor insulation.” He goes on, “I’ve found Flying Dog varieties to work really well,” hoping, he states, for “some sponsorship.”
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Not all plants in the field, forest, farm, farmden, or garden are friendly. Enter Poisonous and Psychoactive Plants, a short, illustrated guide by Jim Meuninck.
Plants can’t always be neatly placed in either the edible, the poisonous, or the psychoactive box. Pokeweed, for example, is listed in the “Poisonous Wild Plants” chapter but, as the author points out, it is edible if picked at the right time and prepared properly. (Neither Dina nor Toma include pokeweed in their books.) Interestingly, Aloe vera, used for so many skin ailments, is said to cause contact dermatitus in sensitive people. Similarly, some people are allergic to hops. Jimson weed is listed as both a poisonous plant and as a (dangerous) psychoactive plant. The book, with telling photos for all of the plants, is, of course, replete with the usual suspects: poison hemlock, foxglove, angel’s trumpet, oleander, and others.
First aid is listed for all plants in the book, although part of that listed for marijuana is suspect: “Physical and emotional support will carry the day. Keep in mind that the individual may not be able to rise for a restroom excursion.”
All four books can carry you further afield to expand your palette, and keep you from going too far afield.

Winter’s Legacy and Spring Forward

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This winter’s cold is most evident on bamboo. Clumps of tawny, dead leaves, still attached to the canes, stare out from among the trunks and stems of dormant trees and shrubs. I hadn’t realized that bamboo was so widely planted. The depth of cold isn’t what killed the canes and leaves; it was the duration of cold. Seventy miles south of here, leaves of yellow groove bamboo, Phyllostachys aureosulcata, among the most cold hardy of the thick-caned bamboos, typically stay green and fresh all winter, but even they’ve been killed.
My bamboo, before pruning
No, the plants aren’t dead; just their canes and leaves. Warm weather will coax new shoots from the roots, shoots that will push skyward rapidly. I’ve measured as much as 6 inches of elongation per day. The record for bamboo growth, not around here, of course, is almost 3 feet in one day!  (That little tidbit comes from Bamboo, by Susanne Lucas, a beautiful, new book — in its binding, photographs, and clear writing — that provides an introduction to the culture, horticulture, and myriad uses of bamboo. Read it and you also will want to grow bamboo. For even more in-depth information on bamboo botany, culture, and uses, I turn to the no-frills book, The Book of Bamboo, by David Farrelly. )
Once bamboo shoots stop their skyward ascent, the walls of the canes begin to thicken. Canes that survive winter with green leaves intact don’t grow any taller in subsequent years. Cane diameters remain constant as they thicken within, in so doing becoming more useful for stakes, fencing, gates, and structures in the garden and beyond. Eventually, whether winter temperatures are frigid or mild, a cane dies.
Bamboo, after pruning almost all of it down to the ground
Dead canes, weather from age or from winter cold, eventually need to be removed to keep a grove looking spry. For my planting, I decided on the dramatic approach, cutting virtually the whole planting to the ground.  I used a lopper, attacking canes one at a time, then a machete to remove side shoots with leaves from canes worth saving — not an easy job but one that yielded an abundance of useful canes. Now, what to do with my stockpile?
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As winter freezes have segued into capricious spring frosts, seedlings need to be readied for the great outdoors. In a greenhouse, on a windowsill, or beneath fluorescent lights, these plants lead a coddled life. Outside, life is tougher: temperatures swing 50 degrees in a 24 hour period, winds whip tender leaves, and intense sunlight beats down.
What these plants need is a couple of weeks of acclimatization — “hardening off.” Not too quickly and not too severely, though, or leaves could burn or flowers could appear prematurely; a plant could even die from shock. The thing to do is to find some cozy spot outdoors for the transplants, a spot that is sheltered from wind and receives sun for only part of the day, or else dappled sun all day. After about a week, the plants are ready to me moved to a more exposed location, one that just takes the edge off gusty winds and broiling sun. A week at this second location and plants are ready to be planted out in their permanent homes.
Seedlings getting ready of the great outdoors
The kinds of changes that hardening off induces in coddled seedlings depends on the nature of the seedlings themselves. Seedlings of cabbage, lettuce, snapdragons, pansies, and other plants that can eventually laugh off cold even below freezing develop a tolerance for cold by building up sugars in their cells. Gradual exposure to more intense light also thickens cell walls, fibers, and cuticles on both existing and new leaves. With increasing light exposure, chloroplasts, the green, light-trapping energy factories in leaves, move around and align themselves in such a way that the leaves turn darker green. And the leaves’ stomatal pores, through which water is lost and carbon dioxide and oxygen are exchanged, become more quickly able to open and close in response to changing conditions.
Cold-tender plants such as tomatoes, marigolds, and zinnias suffer at temperatures even above freezing. With these plants, chilling injury causes changes in plant membranes that interfere with photosynthesis and damaging toxins build up in leaves. Hardening off makes these plants better able to repair and prevent such damage. But temperatures that still drop below freezing mean that it’s still too early to begin hardening off cold-tender plants. Anyway, they’re still too small. Wait a month.

During the two weeks of hardening off any plant, growth slows and the plant becomes stockier. This is good; it indicates that a transplant is ready to face the world.  
Whip graft close up

Graft, The Good Kind & Tomatoes Galore

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Reminders:
PRUNING NUT TREES lecture and demonstration, April 26th, at New York Nut Growers meeting. http://www.nynga.org for more information.

GRAFTING WORKSHOP, here at the farmden, on May 3rd. Theory, demonstration, and graft and take home your own pear tree. Contact me for more information.
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  Pest problems, due mostly to having a poor site and living east of the Rocky Mountains, have made me give up on growing apples — almost. Last year’s cicadas and this winter’s deer took their toll also. One problem, I realized, is that my trees are super-efficient, super-dwarfs that I made by grafting chosen varieties on special rootstocks. The problem is that super-efficient, super-dwarfs are also super-finicky about growing conditions. So I decided, instead, to try semi-dwarf trees that would be more tolerant of a less than perfect environment.
Long story short: I’m going to replant with five varieties of great-tasting apples — Macoun, Pitmaston Pineapple, Hudson’s Golden Gem, Ashmead’s Kernel, and Liberty — on G.30 rootstock. Unfortunately, such trees are not available anywhere, not even from Cummins Nursery (http://cumminsnursery.com), which specializes in high quality trees of a range of varieties on a range of rootstocks. They do have those varieties (on other rootstocks), though, and they do have G.30 rootstocks, which I bought and received last week.
And so I set about making new trees, by grafting. The graft of choice was a whip graft, an easy graft to make, especially with apple. Grafts done this time of year are called “bench grafts” because they can be done at a bench or table, indoors, at a time when it’s still too early to plant outdoors. As is usual with bench grafts, my rootstocks were bare-root, nothing more than a 18-inch-long, pencil-thick stems with some roots at their bottom ends. Perfect.
Now for the grafts. Step one was to cut through near the top of the rootstock and near the bottom of the scion with a smooth, sloping cut. Step two was to match the cut faces of the two sloping cuts. Step three was to bind them together; I used grafting rubbers but cut rubber bands work equally well. Step four was to prevent moisture loss from the graft. I covered the graft with either Tree-Kote or Parafilm, the latter a stretchy, waxy material.
Step five is aftercare. The completed grafts could be kept in cold storage until ready to plant out. Even better is to expose the graft to warm temperatures for a week or two to promote callousing, which is a proliferation of undifferentiated cells that mark the first step in joining of stock and scion tissue. I potted my grafts up and put them in the greenhouse for good callousing and to spur the beginnings of new root growth from rootstocks.
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Whip grafting is easy; still, certain requirements must be met for success. The rootstock and especially the scion (the stem of the variety for grafting) must still be in their winter sleep, or nearly so. Check. The rootstock and the scion must be sufficiently close botanical kin. Check; G.30 and the various scion varieties are the same species. The cambia, the layer just beneath the bark, of stock and scion must be touching or at least close. Check; I accounted for different diameters of rootstock and scion stems by lining up one side of their sloping cuts.
The grafts will need to be nursed along this year. With good growing conditions, they’ll be ready for planting out next spring. With luck, a sufficiently green thumb, good weather, and three clicks together of the heels of my red slippers, I’ll be biting into a Macoun apple here in four years.
Graft union, after a few years
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I realize today that it’s as much fun to sample varieties of tomatoes as it is pleasurable to eat homegrown tomatoes. That’s one rationale, at least, for my sowing seed of 21 varieties for planting this season.
Why so many, when probably growing 5 varieties would satisfy all my Lycopersicum esculentum needs? That would be Sungold for the best cherry tomato, San Marzano for the best — or one of the best — canning tomatoes, Amish Paste and Anna Russian as excellent eating and canning tomatoes, Belgian Giant for its unique, delectable flavor, and Carmello for good flavor and earliness from a full-size, smooth and almost perfectly round tomato. Okay, 6 varieties.
After last summer’s tomato taste-off, I could not help but also grow Lillian’s Golden, the winner. And Blue Beech, which, besides good eating, makes a uniquely flavored sauce. Brandywine is a top contender in any best tomato taste-off, so I’m trying Black Brandywine. Perhaps its my imagination, but “black” tomatoes all seem to have a rich, tangy flavor. That’s why I also sowed seeds of Cherokee Purple. German Giant and Paul Robeson got good reviews. Valencia is a pretty and flavorful orange tomato. Nepal is very good.
I’m generally averse to planting any new varieties of cherry tomato because Sungold is so far ahead of the pack. (One year I tried 20 new cherry tomato varieties; 18 weren’t worth eating.) Still, the mother of a reader of this column insisted that she grows a very productive cherry tomato with a delectable flavor; I’m trying it, merely labeling it “Cherry Tomato.” I’m also growing Gardener’s Delight cherry tomato, a variety I grew and enjoyed decades ago, and which disappointed me last year. This year’s Gardener’s Delight, from a different source, might taste different. I’m also growing Ping Pong cherry tomato, which I enjoyed — but can’t remember why — when visiting Hudson Valley Seed Library (http://www.seedlibrary.org) last summer.
I also can’t remember why I ordered seed of Weisnicht’s Ukrainian tomato, but I’m growing it.

CICADAS THREW A MONKEY WRENCH INTO MY PRUNING

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UPCOMING EVENTS SCHEDULE

April 26th, 2014: “Pruning Nuts”, New York Nut Growers Association spring meeting at the Cornell University Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County, 423 Griffing Avenue, Riverhead, NY, on Saturday, April 26, 2014 from 9:30 until 3:00, http://www.nynga.org.

April 27th, 2014: 2-5:30, “Pruning workshop” with Lee Reich, at my farmden in New Paltz, NY. Contact me for more information. This hands-on (my hands) workshop will cover: The best time to prune; the “tools of the trade”; Plant response to various kinds of pruning cuts; pruning demonstrations. Contact me for registration and more information. 

May 3rd, 2014: 2-5:30, Make your own trees at the “Grafting workshop, at my New Paltz, NY farmden. The how, why, and when of grafting; demonstration of 2 easy kinds of grafts; and then make your own pear tree to take home. Contact me for registration and more information.

May 10th, 2014: “Weed-less Gardening”, in conjunction with Garden Conservancy Open Day at Margaaret Roach’s garden in Copake Falls, NY, 11 am, http://awaytogarden.com/my-2014-events/may-10-open-garden-plant-sale-plus-weed-less-gardening-talk-lee-reich/

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And now, on to the post . . .

  Are the 6,000 acres of forest preserve behind my farmden mocking me? Almost every day, weather permitting, I grab pruning shears, a lopper, and a pruning saw, and head outdoors to snip, lop, or saw at least some stems or limbs from my trees, shrubs, and vines. Up there in the forest, no one is doing any pruning yet everything seems copacetic.
Let the forest laugh. My efforts here aren’t for naught. If a large limb crashes down from a forest tree, the forest as a whole is none the worse for wear. If a limb cracks off the honeylocust that is supposed to shade my deck . . . well, that’s not good for the deck, for the health of the tree, or for the desired shade. Similarly, a forest doesn’t feel the loss of one tree to pests or diseases. Not so for the stately crabapple gracing a front lawn.

So I prune to help keep my trees healthy. A tree with good form is stronger, less likely to lose a limb. And if a limb does surrender to the weight of snow, a crisp pruning cut of the frayed stub leads to quick healing of the wound. I prune off any tarry, black growths on my plum trees so that they can’t further the spread of black knot disease. I prune my kiwi and grape vines so that each remaining stem can bathe in the sunlight and air that is inimical to the spread of fungal diseases.
As gardeners, farmdeners, and farmers, we demand more from our plants in terms of flowers, fruit, and/or form that a forest does from its individual trees. Pruning, in removing some potential buds, directs a plant’s energy into fewer buds, making for more spectacular blossoms and more luscious fruits.
I prune also because it’s fun. Gardening is more than just good food, pretty plants, and a chance to “work” outside with the sun warming my back. It’s also, for me at least, about watching plants respond to my ministrations, rewarding me if the response is positive, and providing a learning experience if the response is negative.
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 Last year’s invasion of cicadas has thrown a monkey wrench into my usual pruning. Cicadas didn’t feed on stems, but use them as a nursery in which to lay eggs. Ms. Cicada prefers 1/3-1/2” inch thick stems which is, unfortunately, the thickness of many stems on my fruit trees, most of which show at least some damage. The slits weaken the stems so they are more likely to break off and have less energy for new growth so can support less fruit, physically and physiologically.
Mostly, I’m going to wait to prune these plants to see what they have planned in terms of flowers. If they flower heavily, which is doubtful, I’ll shorten stems enough so that they don’t break under their weight of fruit. I’ll also reduce the number of fruits to the number I estimate the weakened plants can support.

I’ll go ahead more or less with my normal pruning on stems or trees that don’t flower. Probably a little less severely than usual so that the plants can put all their energy into growing as much as possible to build up their energy reserves.
In either case, good soil enriched with plenty of compost, mulching, and timely watering will provide good growing conditions to put injured plants on the road to recovery.
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What of the future? Those slitted stems no longer house eggs. The eggs hatched last summer a month and a half after being laid, and then, the nymphs dropped to the ground. After burrowing in the soil, the next 16 years will be spent growing and feeding on roots.
Roots! My poor trees. Perhaps I should have cut off all the slitted stems last year and burned them before the eggs hatched. But that would have severely debilitated the plants. Oh well, nothing’s to be done except give the plants good growing conditions and hope for the best. As always, Mother Nature has the upper hand.
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A lot of gardeners sow their tomato seeds too early and the result is spindly plants. The time to sow the seeds is about 6 weeks before the average date of the last killing frost, which, around here, is April 1st. No joke.

Fuzzy Buds and Snow Removal; Where’s the White Cat?

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Did the cheery looking box of “Mickey Mouse” adhesive bandages my friend Bill handed me actually contain adhesive bandages? No. Instead, fuzzy green buds spilled out. An illicit drug? No, again. Those “buds” were sweet fern seeds, which Bill suggested planting.
Sweet fern (Comptonia peregrina) is a native plant, one of my favorites, valued for its resinous aroma. That aroma always transports me in time back to summer days hiking in the White Mountains along sunny, dirt roads lined with sweet fern when I was nine years old. Poor  (but well drained) soil and hot afternoon sun bring out the best in sweet fern. The plant makes do in poor soil by getting its nitrogen from the air with the help of a symbiotic microorganism.
Sweet fern is attractive even if it lacks the flamboyance of showy flowers or colorful leaves. Picture clumps of 3-foot-high stems clothed in dark green fern-like leaves. “Fern-like” because sweet fern is not, in fact, a fern but a member of the Myrtle family, along with bayberry.
So, yes Bill, I would like to grow sweet fern. But I have reservations about starting it from seed. The seed retains its viability for decades but sprouts only after jumping through a few hoops. Old seeds that have been lying dormant in the soil, perhaps for decades, sprout readily. Over time, their seed coats have been softened, chemical inhibitors have been leached away, and a spate of cool weather has reassured them that winter is past and it’s safe to sprout.
To get seeds to sprout in a more reasonable time, the seed coats need to be scarified, or made permeable. Nicking the seed with a wire cutter, rubbing it with sandpaper, or soaking it in sulfuric acid will do the trick but care must be taken to avoid damage. Mixing the seeds with moist potting soil  and refrigerating it for a month or two gives it the chilling required. After that, greatest success in germination comes with soaking the seed in a solution of gibberellic acid, a plant hormone.
You know what? I’m not going to bother with the seeds. Sweet fern is easily propagated from rhizome (root-like subterranean stem) cuttings — as long as I can find someone with sweet fern who will let me take a few cuttings. All that’s needed is to dig up some of the shallow, horizontal rhizomes, cut them into 2 to 4 inch lengths (the longer pieces for the thinner rhizomes), and set them 1/2” deep in a mix of equal parts peat and sand or peat and perlite or just vermiculite. New roots and shoots will develop and, this summer I could imagine that I am again walking along again in my white T-shirt with a pack on my back, canteen at my side, and Ked’s sneakers on my feet, wafting in that delicious aroma from along a sun-parched road.
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Much, much easier to grow from seeds than sweet ferns are peas. If I can only get out in the garden to plant them! The time to sow peas around here is April 1st but — as I write this on March 19th — night temperatures are in the ‘teens and the garden sleeps beneath a blanket of snow.
(St. Patricks Day, contrary to popular notion, is not the right time to sow peas around here, or in many other places. It depends where you garden. That’s probably the right date for sowing peas in Ireland and in South Carolina, but it’s too late in Florida and too early here.)

The reason to rush peas into the ground as soon as possible is because the bearing plants don’t like hot weather. The earlier they get into the ground, the sooner they begin to bear. Once weather turns torrid, I pull the peas out and plant bush beans, fall cabbage, or some other vegetable where they stood.
The reason I don’t plant peas on St. Patrick’s day is because, first of all, it would be hard to plant in usually frozen ground. Also, peas don’t germinate until soil temperatures hit 40°F. If they just sit in cold, moist soil without sprouting, they’re apt to rot.
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No need to twiddle my thumbs waiting for the soil to warm. Sprinkling some wood ash on the garden should hasten soil warming. The ashes hasten disappearance of the snowy blanket both from a “salt” effect (from the mineral salts, not sodium chloride, in the wood ash) and from their dark color.
Wood ash also helps nourish garden soils, making the soil less acidic and adding potassium and a slew of micronutrients. But restraint is needed to avoid too much of a good thing. Excess potassium or alkalinity ends up feeding plants an imbalance of nutrients.
The mere dusting I spread a few days ago began its work quickly, soon pitting the surface to look like a miniature range of jagged mountain peaks.

(Update: The snow, since I initially wrote the above, has thoroughly melted except in a few shaded areas. Nothing like a few 50 degree days to make spring’s presence finally known.
Pink rock orchid

Of Orchids and Oil

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Over the past few weeks, excitement was steadily mounting on the windowsill. First came the stalk that poked up from the bases of whorls of leathery leaves. Then, buds started fattening up along the stalks. Finally, after a half a decade of growing Dendrobium kingianum, the pink rock orchid, it looked like the plant might finally reward me with some blossoms. Which it did, a couple of days ago.
The actual blossoming was somewhat anticlimactic. No flamboyant shapes or colors, just small, white blossoms. And no particularly green thumb was required to get this orchid to blossom, just time.
Pink rock orchid is known to be a tough plant. While many orchids are native to lush, tropical jungles, the conditions of which are hard to  even approach, indoors except in a hothouse, this orchid is native to rocky environments of Australia. It tolerates cold below freezing and hot temperatures over 100°F., and does not demand an inordinate amount of light. I water whenever the potting mix seems dry.

The problem is that “orchid flowering” conjures up both a greater challenge and blossoms more spectacular than are offered by pink rock orchid. So I’m now just going to look upon it as an attractive houseplant with an attractive flower. It even has a pleasant, slight scent.
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I’ve waxed enthusiastic about the handfuls of ripe figs I gather up in late summer and into fall from my greenhouse. And about heads of lettuce and mâche, celery stalks, and sprigs of parsley that fill salad bowls all winter. Yet all is not always so Eden-like within the greenhouse. Last year scale insects began to attack a couple of fig trees. Innocuous-looking, small bumps on the bark — dormant scale insects — threaten to wake up in a larger outbreak this year. Action is needed. Now.
Last year at this time my weapon was an old toothbrush and a solution of soapy water. The brute force method of scrubbing the insects from the bark was effective — to a point — but tedious.
This year I’m smothering the buggers. My weapon of choice is oil, not any old oil but a specially refined oil that minimizes damage to plants while leaving insects gasping for air. It also contains an emulsifier so it readily mixes with water. Spray oil comes in two “flavors:” dormant oil and summer oil. Plants are more likely to be damaged by oil when they are in leaf and growing, so summer oils are more refined; summer oils mixed at higher concentrations can be used as dormant oils. (Summer oils are also called “horticultural oils,” “stylet oils,” or “ultrafine oils.”)
Oil sprays have been around for a long time — commercially for over a hundred years — and have the advantages of causing little harm to beneficial organisms and being relatively safe for birds, humans, and other mammals. Insects and mites (which oils also control) have little likelihood of developing resistance to oil sprays. The oils might be petroleum-, plant-, or fish-based.

So what’s not to like about oil sprays? Most importantly, they can damage plants. To avoid damage, sprays must be applied when temperatures are above freezing but not too, too hot, say above 90°F. Also, some plants, such as Japanese maple, redbud, azalea, hibiscus, and sugar maple, are readily damaged by oil; and oil will strip the blue, waxy coating from Colorado blue spruce, turning the needles green. The longer any plant is coated with oil, the more chance for damage; low humidity hastens its evaporation.  
Spray oils work by direct contact, which is advantageous unless you have a pest whose eggs are resistant to oil and keep hatching over time. Or if the pest flies in from elsewhere. Many gardeners routinely spray their fruit trees in spring with oil, with little effect because the most significant pests of fruit trees generally do not hang out on the stems or fruits for long enough for a direct hit by an oil spray.
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Back to the fig trees in my greenhouse. They’re getting weekly sprays of dormant strength summer oil until the leaves begin to unfold. Once that happens, I may mix up a batch of summer strength oil. The goal is to reduce populations drastically because, despite the innocuousness of oil sprays, I’d rather not spray anything once fruits begin to develop.
My other tack to keep scale insects at bay is to wrap the trunk with a band of masking tape coated with sticky Tangletrap, providing a Maginot line to stop ants from climbing the trees. (Hopefully, more effective than the real Maginot line.) Ants enjoy the sweet honeydew exuded by the scale insects and, in return, herd them, protecting them from predators.
Spraying and banding may seem like a lot of effort. But fresh figs are worth it. And with snow still on the ground, there’s not that much else to do, gardenwise, yet this time of year.

Pruning workshop

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