Category: Gardening

March 24, 2020 – Cabin fever… remodel your yard

March 24, 2020 /

This may not work for everyone, depending on your climate. I know that mine is pretty iffy on nice days in March. I suppose die hards could get-r-done in the wet and cold, but if you pick and choose your timing, a soft wet ground is to your benefit for digging and shrub removal. A caveat to these post is that this applies to my USDA zone.

I mentioned in January that it was time to think about pruning. Well now it is time to think about wrapping most of that up. I still have a week or so, but almost everything is budding or about to bud. Some flowering plants like the Camelias that set buds for next year would be better to wait until after they bloom or in some cases, the fall.

If you hate weeds and like chemicals, get your pre-emergents out because the weeds have yet to take hold. This is a good time to overseed grass and do you soil adjustments if you participate. Don’t forget that grass is starting to wake up from the winter slumber and mowing can almost be done twice a week.

I know several people that have built fire pits in the last week. I built mine about five years ago using landscape pavers from Home Depot. Forty-two pavers, three rows of 14 make a nice looking fire pit about three feet in diameter. That cost me about $75 compared o the $300 and up kits that are sold. Make sure it is level to start and use a bead of construction adhesive to hold the courses together.

The Fire Pit

Tool maintenance anyone? Clean and sharpen your clippers and cutting tools using a file, stones and grinder. Knock the rust off steel with a wire brush and oil with a lubricant like WD-40. Oil your wood handles with linseed oil or other suitable wood protective. Change the oil and tune up your gas powered equipment with spark plugs and filter changes. Mind you I would recommend doing this in the fall before your store everything, but hey we are fighting cabin fever here.

This is a great time to start working on the wood pile if you use firewood. Wet (green) wood takes one full summer to season (dry) properly. It is also a good thing to do when thinking about pruning and tree removal. I find splitting is easier when the wood is green as well. So, clean up and remove trees before they leaf out and create a much bigger mess with leaves and needles.

This last weekend, we removed a whole bunch shrubs that we were just tired of. They were flowering dogwoods that had been haphazardly shaped over the years and just out grew their space. They also did very little other than flower for a few weeks a year.

Brush removal carnage

There is still time to plant summer bulbs. Landscaping plants can still be put into the ground or moved. More permanent irrigation can be designed and installed even though it is not necessary at this time.

So many things in the yard – from junk removal to planting and this is the prime time to do a lot of this, in the next couple of weeks. It is a good family activity as well providing 1) something to do 2) physical activity 3) exposure to the outdoors 4) learning opportunities and skill building.

March 23, 2020 – Cabin fever… start a ‘Victory Garden’

March 23, 2020 /

If you are new to this, then there is a lot more than just putting seeds in the ground. I am going to approach this from a very basic level in case you need those details. If not, skip this and get started.

From Wikipedia: “Victory gardens, also called war gardens or food gardens for defense, were vegetable, fruit, and herb gardens planted at private residences and public parks in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Germany[1][2] during World War I and World War II. In the war time governments encouraged people to plant victory gardens not only to supplement their rations but also to boost morale.[3] George Washington Carver wrote an agricultural tract and promoted the idea of what he called a “Victory Garden”.[4] They were used along with Rationing Stamps and Cards to reduce pressure on the public food supply. Besides indirectly aiding the war effort, these gardens were also considered a civil “morale booster” in that gardeners could feel empowered by their contribution of labor and rewarded by the produce grown. This made victory gardens a part of daily life on the home front.”

Location: Use the space that you have available. If you live in an apartment, you can still grow in a pot or a window-sill. I have even planted along the landscape buffer next to the house because I have really good south and west exposure. I also grow some things in the front yard because we rarely use that space.

If it is outside, it needs to be in a location that you are going to frequent maybe not every time you leave the house, but you need to be able to see it. Ideally, you are going to have sunlight at least 12 hours a day from mid-spring to late summer, the prime growing season. You should also have access water for irrigation. I know the temptation to do it tomorrow is strong and tomorrow turns into a week.

Conditions: The experts would say that the ideal soil is 1/3 clay, 1/3 sand and 1/3 organic material. I would wager that there is no place on earth with this combination. So, start where you are at. Maybe not every plant will work, but this is how we learn.

I probably cannot help here if you live on a sandy beach or gravel bar, but even there some things will grow. As an alternative, I have seen elevated planters that you fill with potting soil, raised beds are an option to mitigate poor native soil.

It is helpful to add compost to the place that you are going to garden if you have access or the ability to do so. Add as much as practical or possible because it breaks down over time and plants will grow in nearly straight compost. My first year, the beds were 85% and every couple of years I refresh them.

Plant/Seed Selection: Not everything is going to do well everywhere. Things that are considered easy are things that grow to harvest quickly like greens, radishes and summer squash like zucchini.

Even those things can suffer from pest and disease so be prepared to roll with the punches. Chemical treatments can be helpful if you know what you are doing, have access and are willing to use them. I typically do not.

Some items are best to start in the ground directly and others you need a head start. Check your average annual frost dates, read your seeds average date to maturity and back calculate to today’s date to determine whether you should plant seed in the ground or make starts.

My seed starting operation

My average annual frost date is mid-April so I am starting some things by seed namely tomatoes and peppers. You can get a head start on more frost hearty crops like cabbage if you like too.

If you lack the facilities or equipment to start seeds, you may be able to buy starts at a nursery or box store, if you can get out or your stores are open. You are going to pay between $1-$4 per plant vs. the same cost per seed packet. Seed packets will yield thirty to 100 plants and are sold by weight.

If you cant and only have seeds just do that. Your enemy may be time but try anyway. If you don’t have seeds, maybe you can get some from somebody locally; ask on Nextdoor or Facebook. You can also order them by mail order.

Heirloom vs Hybrid: Practically speaking, heirloom means that the seeds of that plant will grow true to type. Hybrid may or may not, it is a gamble. Starting from store bought stock should yield no appreciable difference in taste, disease resistance, vigor etc. However, if you save seeds from plants year over year, you can conceivable achieve a significant yield improvement by taking seeds from plants that display traits that you are most interested in and adapted to your specific garden.

Plan for yield, prepare for failure: When I am planting things, I am thinking about what happens if it does really well. Meaning if I put in 20 cabbages, can I handle that. Will I be able to use it or give it away? There is nothing worse than putting in hundreds of hours to see it go to waste.

I usually start 50% more seeds than I want. I try to give away the starts after I plant what I want. If I cant, I might stick them in the ground or I might just toss them depending on the response.

I really hope that this is not your only hope for survival, unless you already know how to do all of this. This is meant to teach and develop a skill. You learn what does well based on climate, conditions and location of the garden. Year over year, you plant more of what you like and prospers and then you try more experiments and techniques to improve your failures.

Harvest Time: Learn to cook and preserve. I enjoy the challenge of trying to handle bounty. Also take time to document the season and develop plans for next season. Hopefully, you will learn to do something good for you and enjoy it as well as a way to eliminate cabin fever.

January 17, 2020 – Ready for Fall Bounty?

January 17, 2020 /

Believe it or not, what you do matters for the quantity or quality of fall harvest. Now is the time to not only start thinking about it but actually doing something about it.

Like what you may ask. For instance, it is time to start pruning, spraying (if you are into that), and seed starting for minimum cost and optimum diversity.

Pruned and trained Concord Grape vine

The grape vine I have pictured above I am training to cover the fence. It makes a great screen when it starts growing. Grapes need to be pruned to a bearing nodule. All fruiting will happen on new growth.

Remove water shoots for long term health and productivity

For fruit trees like apples, all water shoots (last years growth), damaged and diseased branches should be removed. This tree was neglected for several years before we moved in and the water shoots got multiple years growth. That creates exposure to heart wood which will eventually rot if not covered, so stay on top of it. This tree also has a fungus problem, but I don’t spray, I just cut out the bad parts of the apple. Now would be the time to treat. It takes several applications of dormant spray throughout the winter.

Lest we forget our flowery friends, Roses should be pruned to one or two main stems as well. Grafted roses can and will start shoots from the root stock causing an errant red rose belonging to the root stock to appear with your desired variety. Conventional wisdom in this part of the world is to prune around Presidents day, but I usually do it when I am pruning other things.

Seed starting is probably a whole additional topic. Suffice to say for this post, start calculating days back from your annual frost date to determine when seeds need to get started for your garden. Consider things that are difficult, expensive or exotic to grow because even at $1.99/lb for organic celery there isn’t a lot of return on investment unless you are going to do some specific preserving.

Have a great weekend and good luck with your harvest.