Màche in winter

FRESH, WINTER CORN SALAD

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A Welcome Weed

I am happy and proud to admit that I have firmly established a weed in my garden. That weed is corn salad (Valerianella olitoria). Not that it took a lot of effort on my part; this plant is after all a weed, one that got its name for the way it invades European corn fields — “corn,” in the Queen’s English, being any grain except for corn, which is “maize.” I can still call it a weed because a definition of a “weed” is any plant that shows up where it’s not desired; much of corn salad here comes up where I don’t want it to.

Màche, the weed

Corn salad, the weed

The second part of this weed’s name, “salad,” explains why I nonetheless want it in my garden. Read more

UPS AND DOWNS AND UPS WITH CHESTNUTS

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The Best of Them, No More

Of all species of chestnuts, none is finer than the American chestnut. This majestic tree towered to 100 feet high in America’s virgin forests and yielded a wood that was used in musical instruments, molding, fenceposts, barrel staves, even telephone poles. The nuts of American chestnut are deliciously sweet and flavorful. Or, so I have read and been told, having never tasted one myself.Old photo of giant American chestnut

But the sturdy chestnut had its Achille’s heel — chestnut blight. The disease, accidentally introduced from Asia, was first noted at New York’s Bronx Zoo in 1906. It spread 25 to 50 miles a year and within 50 years had left 7 million acres of Appalachian forests with dead or dying chestnut trees.

The American chestnut is not gone, though. Trees cling tenaciously to life. Read more

Garden in October

AUTUMN’S LUSHNESS

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Preparation

How green is your vegetable garden? Mine is very. Summer long gone and frost in the air doesn’t have to bring on a scene of browned and ragged leaves clinging to withered stems.

My garden is green, having arrived at its present state of enthusiasm by, first, my keeping one step ahead of weeds. Especially after midsummer, some gardeners relax their grips on weed control, letting heat loving annuals like lamb’s-quarters, purslane, and pigweed take hold. And then cooler weather brings quackgrass and creeping charlie stealthily trying to . . . well, creep . . . in at the garden’s edges.Garden in October

Regular weeding forays through summer and early fall took but a few minutes of my time — much less than the heroic effort firmly established weeds would have required. Read more

Dr. Elwyn Meader

GILDED BERRIES

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Making a Good Impression

When I really want to impress some visitor to my garden, I offer a taste of Fallgold raspberries. Here is a fruit that is truly unique in a number of ways.

First, of course, is the flavor. Many raspberries taste good, especially when picked dead ripe and popped right into your mouth, but Fallgold is perhaps the tenderest and sweetest raspberry around. Here’s a berry that you’ll never find on a supermarket shelf; it’s too fragile to travel much further than arm’s length. Good for fresh eating but not freezing or processing. A university publication, while admitting that there’s currently limited commercial use for this variety, it could become a “gourmet item on the fresh market.”

Raspberry kin

Raspberry kin

Fallgold berries also have a unique appearance. The pale yellow, blushed orange color of the berries seems to speak out their sweetness and tenderness. Read more

Deep container for long tapped rooted persimmon tree

TREES & SHRUBS FOR ALL

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Taking Root

Fall is my favorite time to plant trees and shrubs — it’s the best time, in fact, for most of them. Here in cold hardiness Zone 5 of New York’s Hudson Valley, the specific date is October 17th. No, no, just kidding. Anytime around the middle of fall is good.

And that’s one reason I like fall planting. With plant growth ground to a halt and the soil generally in good condition for planting, fall planting is a relaxed affair. In spring, plants are raring to grow so want their roots nestled in their permanent home as soon as possible.

But enough about timing. Let’s see what form trees and shrubs, whether in fall or spring and whether purchased through the mail or locally, are available. You can buy trees and shrubs in one of three different ways.Tree at nursery

Read more

Yellowjacket

A GARDEN PEST OF HUMANS

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Yellowjacket Frenemies

Not all garden pests attack plants. One pest, not of plants, that especially bugs me around this time most years is yellowjackets. Yellowjackets can be worse than irksome; they can be deadly to people allergic to their sting.

Whether deadly or just irksome, yellowjackets are amongst the orneriest of creatures. They are aggressive and, unlike honeybees, don’t have to stop after one sting. Burying its stinger in your arm has no effect on a yellowjacket’s mortality, so it can do it again if it so pleases or go on to seek out other victims.Yellowjacket

As with all of Mother Nature’s creatures, yellowjackets are not all bad — even from the biased viewpoint of us humans. Read more

Eating a fig

FIG SEASON

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(This post is adapted from my book Growing Figs in Cold Climates)

Figs for All

For cold-climate fig growers, the harvest season is upon us. (Fig growers in warmer climates have been harvesting fresh figs for weeks.) But even here in the north, the harvest could continue for weeks to come since the so-called “main crop” fig fruits keep forming and ripening as long as the weather and sunlight keeps stems growing.

Some people might say, “Why go through the trouble of caring for a fig plant when you could buy fresh figs in the market? The fragile skin and the perishability of the fresh fruit doesn’t lend itself to commercial handling, which is why commercial figs, when you do find them in the market, have been harvested while still underripe and firm.” Then the claim could be, “Just let those market fruits sit out for a few days to sweeten up.” Nix on that also. A fig fruit will not further ripen once harvested. It might soften and sweeten a bit, but what’s taking place is more incipient rot — microorganisms degrading cell walls and changing starches to sugars — than ripening.Figs ripening on stem

In fact, caring for a fig tree is very little trouble. Even in cold climates, where special techniques are needed for this subtropical plant. Fig plants are relatively pest-free. And, they can be grown in pots, even small ones, although the larger the pot the larger the harvest. Their main requirement is to bathe in six or more hours of daily summer sunshine. Read more

Meadow with monarda

A WILD AND CULTIVATED BALM

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Taming a Wild One

Bee-balm is one of those plants I once long admired in the wild and contemplated planting in my garden. Especially in midsummer when these flowers brighten the dappled shade of woodland borders and paint meadows with their pale lavender heads, perched high atop four-foot stems.Meadow with monarda

The plants’ desire to spread put me off planting them. Not that they’re an invasive plant in the general sense, but in a well managed garden they do require regular attention. Read more

THE VERY BEST TOMATOES

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Variety. Variety

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times, “Home grown tomatoes are NOT the best tasting ones.” Not necessarily, at least.

No, I’m not advocating tossing in your trowel and doing your tomato harvesting into a shopping cart. What I am saying is that choosing the best variety is all important to being able to bite into into the best tasting tomato. Grow an Early Girl tomato to perfection, harvest it at its peak of flavor, then take a bite out of it, and you’ll taste a good tomato. But not — in my opinion — a great tomato.

Heirloom tomatoes on plate

Heirloom tomatoes on plate

A tomato that has been handled carefully keeps pretty well for a couple of days, so you could actually purchase a great tasting tomato from a store or farm stand. But only if — I’ll say it again — that tomato is a great tasting variety. Read more

Goldenrod in meadow

EASIER MEADOW PREP

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Genesis

In my previous blog post, I described various ways to prepare the ground for a meadow. With that said, I admit to not following any of what I wrote about ground preparation for the meadow here on the farmden. Not that my instructions were wrong. As the old Chinese proverb goes, “There are many paths to the top of the mountain, but the view is always the same.” Meadows also.Goldenrod in meadow

Last week’s meadow prep is geared to the meadow steward who wants to be presented with a riot of color for as long as possible. That view necessitates the killing of existing vegetation and sowing seeds or setting out small plants of desired species.

My own meadow began life under the ownership of my elderly neighbor who, with two riding lawnmowers helmed by her granddaughter Read more