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Holiday Gifts for the Gardener
When I was a boy we made lots of our own Christmas gifts. I remember making a wooden whale for my dad that held pencils – it had little holes just the diameter of pencils I drilled into it. I must have been 8 or 9 when I made it, and I have no idea how I was able to do it without his help. Maybe it was a Cub Scout project. Not elegant, but there was lots of love in it.
As gardeners, we can make presents, too – if we have extra produce that we have put up. Dried tomatoes, pickles, even a frozen bag of blueberries or elderberries would be much appreciated, I’m sure – though putting frozen berries under the tree might not work well. And then there are heirloom seeds. I grow certain tomatoes and peppers that are not commercially available. I save seeds each year, and share with friends. These are all good presents that cost nothing.
Although seed catalogs used to come in the mail in mid-winter, now most seeds are available on-line before Christmas. A few packages of seeds are nice low-budget gift. I get many of my seeds from Johnny’s Select Seeds in Maine (www.johnnyseeds.com), High Mowing Seeds of Vermont (www.highmowingseeds.com) or Hudson Valley Seed Library (www.seedlibrary.org), which is a non-profit with nice heirloom seeds.
From Johnny’s this year I got two kinds of tomato seeds that are fairly resistant to late blight. First there was the Defiant F-1which produced well early on, but then died off when other fungal diseases took over. Then there was Mountain Magic, a small salad-type tomato that was very disease resistant and productive for me. All of the High Mowing seeds are organic, which I like.
Also in the cheap (or shall we say the ‘frugal’) category is a gift certificate for an hour or two of weeding. That’s a gift anyone would really appreciate. And feel free to send me one! Weeding is a pleasant enough task, but is always more fun if done with a friend.
Holiday Gifts
Before going on to more conventional gardening presents, let me point out that most things I will mention are available locally at your garden center, feed-and-grain or hardware store. I firmly believe that it is better to buy locally than on line, as that keeps our family-owned businesses healthy. And they are the ones that support our teams, schools and charities.
Gardening gloves are always useful. The Atlas Glove company now makes a thin, tough nitrile gardening glove that is sold for under $10. Stretchy nylon coated with waterproof nitrile. Buy them locally, or from Gardener’s Supply Company (www.gardeners.com) in a variety of pretty colors.
Also from Gardener’s Supply is a nice expandable bamboo trellis. A friend gave me one, and I used it for growing my peas. Instead of letting it touch the soil, I tied it onto posts so the bottom was 6 inches off the ground, to minimize rot. Cost? $20-$25, depending on size.
Holiday Gifts
On the high end of the spectrum would be a new wheelbarrow. The best I have found is the Muller’s Smart Cart (www. mullerscarts.com). It is a 7 (or 12) cubic foot polyethylene bin that pops in (or out) of an aluminum frame. I have the 7-ft model and have used it hard to over 10 years, yet have never had a flat tire or any other problem with it. The fact that the barrow part is removable allows me to use it to wash the dog in it or carry manure in the back of my sedan. They cost $350, with free shipping. I chose the wide tires, not the bike tires, and find them great, even in soggy conditions. This is a very high quality wheelbarrow that is rated to carry up to 600 lbs.
Every year I recommend my favorite weeding tool, the CobraHead weeder (www.CobraHead.com). This tool is great for getting under weeds, teasing out roots, stirring compost or fertilizer into planting holes, planting bulbs and more. You should be able to find it locally. Cost? About $25.
A gardening magazine subscription would be nice, too. I get Fine Gardening magazine (www.finegardening.com). The magazine has a nice balance of growing information and design ideas. Excellent color photography. $29.95.
I’ve fallen in love with TubTrugs. These are brightly colored flexible buckets I use for carrying weeds, compost and even water. From 3 Gallons to 10 gallons, their flexible handles make them easy to carry. Found locally or from Gardeners Supply in a variety of sizes and colors, around $10.
Gardening books are good gifts, but look for quality info, not necessarily glossy pictures. My website, www.Gardening-guy.com, lists about 25 good ones. Just click on the “Gardener’s Basic Library” on the top bar.
So enjoy the holidays, but remember that Santa’s elves make lots of presents. Get creative and be an elf your self!
Henry Homeyer’s new book is for children ages 8 and up. It’s called Wobar and the Quest for the Magic Calumet, and is a fantasy-adventure about a boy with a mustache – and a cougar who is his best friend. Go to www.henryhomeyer.com to learn more.
Slow Food, Local Food, Healthy food for the Holidays
Although I‘ve never seen statistics on how much we eat over the holidays, I’d hazard a guess that Americans eat more per capita from now until the New Year than in any other comparable time period. Family gatherings, office parties and celebrations of all kinds incite us to eat more than is good for us. I’d like to suggest that we all think about offering healthier foods for the holidays, that we slow down and really enjoy the food, and that we try to serve as much local food as possible.
As a gardener, I store and preserve much of my own food for winter. My freezers are full of beans, broccoli, kale, leeks, peas, peppers, tomatoes and more. In cool, dry storage I have winter squash, onions and garlic. In a second fridge I have potatoes, carrots, rutabagas, kohlrabi and beets. In the garden I still am picking Brussels sprouts, carrots, late lettuce and kale. I have homemade pickles in the pantry. If invited to a pot luck dinner, I have plenty to choose from that will make a healthy and tasty dish.
Terra Madre Market
If you haven’t put up food for the winter, think about supporting local farmers. Winter farmers markets are all the rage, and for good reason. I believe that local potatoes and carrots taste better than those shipped to the Mega-Monster Food Emporium at the mall. Yes, they may cost a little more, but not much more. Going local is about a mindset. One must plan ahead and make a commitment to do so – just as most of us have committed to recycling for the good of the planet. Buying local food eliminates all those miles in a diesel-powered refrigerator truck, carrying California to us. And buying local foods supports the farmers in our community.
I recently sat down with Robert Meyers, co-owner of Three Tomatoes Trattoria in Lebanon, NH to talk about the Slow Food movement, and about an event called Terra Madre he attended earlier this fall in Turin, Italy. Terra Madre is an event held every other year to allow farmers, consumers, educators and activists from 150 countries to meet, eat and talk together. The Slow Food Movement is an international organization that promotes eating “good, clean, fair” food.
At Terra Madre there are numerous workshops by food producers and cooks. There is second event, Salone del Gusto, held concurrently that allows attendees to sample foods from all over the world. Want to try fried bugs from Burkino Faso? There were representatives there who, if they did not bring bugs this year, advocate for eating local insects. Might be worth trying. Deep fried Japanese beetles anyone?
African bean plants at Terra Madre
And to me, the Slow Food movement is about slowing down to really enjoy food, family and friends. It is the opposite of fast food, which we all know about – and which I avoid as much as possible. We gardeners grow our own food – slowly. We should share it, and eat it slowly, too.
So as we head toward the end of the year, what can we do? We can buy fair trade coffee, chocolate and bananas. The Fair Trade label guarantees a minimum fair price to Third World farmers. Most food coops are still selling local produce including potatoes, carrots, onions, beets and much more. The big supermarkets generally don’t bother with local farmers. And instead of bananas and avocados, we can eat local apples and kohlrabi.
We can pay attention to where our meat comes from. I don’t buy meat that was produced in mass quantity on a chicken ranch or cattle feed lot. I don’t want to ingest the hormones and antibiotics that many meat animals are fed. I buy directly from farmers, and I interview them about their techniques raising their animals before I buy. I don’t insist on organic, but I do want humane – and no antibiotics or hormones, thank you.
That means that my Thanksgiving and Christmas turkeys cost me a lot more than frozen supermarket birds, but the difference in flavor is remarkable. Instead of looking only at the price tag, I think about the price per serving. If I am going to feed a dozen people and eat leftovers for days afterwards, the cost per person per meal is very reasonable.
As you plan your garden for 2013, focus on crops you know always do well for you. If you’ve had bad luck with tomatoes recently, think about expanding your plantings of beans or broccoli if you did well with them last year. They are both pretty easy crops to grow, have few pests (at least in my garden) and freeze well. Think about planting and re-planting more lettuce – a crop that does well for most gardeners.
And what about those elusive, blight-plagued tomatoes we all love? There are people who grow them well, generally in plastic high tunnels (greenhouses). Many fungal diseases are soil-borne, and spread when it rains due to splash-up. Some spores are wind-borne; a greenhouse helps to keep them off the plants, too. Maybe we should just buy some of our tomatoes in season from local growers.
So do some planning this winter about what you can realistically expect to be able to grow – and store. Think about letting go of crops that are a frustration – after all, gardening is supposed to be fun. And check out Slow Food International (www.slowfood.com). As they say, it’s an idea, a way of living and a way of eating.
Henry Homeyer has a new children’s book: Wobar and the Quest for the Magic Calumet. For more info go to www.henryhomeyer.com.
Pruning Shrubs and Hardwoods
Winter is upon us. Several nights the temperatures have gone to 20 or colder at my house, and snow is in the forecast. Is it time to hibernate? Not for me, or at least not yet. I still have pruning to do. Pruning of shrubs and hardwoods like maples and oaks is best done after leaf drop when one can really see form and structure without the clutter of leaves.
Early spring blooming shrubs like forsythia, lilac, rhododendron, common ninebark and azaleas have already formed buds for next spring, and pruning will remove some. They are best pruned right after blooming, but if you didn’t do it then, you can do it now – I have been. Most hydrangeas, summersweet clethra and other late-summer bloomers will form buds next spring for blooming later on. To me it is more important to have trees and shrubs that look good all winter than to get every last blossom.
When pruning, remember that trees and shrubs do best when sunshine can reach every leaf. So thinning out branches is generally good. You should remove dead branches, and anything that is rubbing another branch. I like to remove the lower branches of most shrubs, and to take out any sprouts starting up from the roots in the vicinity of main stems. Branches aiming in toward the center of a shrub will just clutter it up, so, as the Red Queen said, “Off with their heads!”
I grow five or more kinds of willows. Willows do best in moist soil and full sun, but are very adaptable and will grow almost anywhere. They grow fast and are interesting, primarily, for their foliage. Only the pussywillow has flowers that matter, those great fuzzy things that sing “Spring is on the way!”
I’ve recently been pruning two kinds of willows: the rosemary willow (Salix elaeagnos) and a Japanese variegated willow, a cultivar of Salix integra called ‘Hakuru Nashiki’. In each case the willows stay shrubby, but tend to get a bit too tall for me. I like to keep them at a height of 8 feet or so, and that requires a trim every year or two. Other forms of willows will develop into trees 30 feet tall or more, such as the weeping willow. Most willows have relatively weak wood, meaning that their branches break easily in wind or ice storms.
Hakurua Nashiki willows in June
I grow my Hakuru Nashiki willows across the stream from my vegetable garden. A small plant will get to be 10 feet tall in 3 to 5 years. They can have very dense foliage with lots of branches starting near the ground, but I like to see some bare stem, so I prune off all the branches up to a height of 5 feet or so. You could prune them into a lollipop shape by removing all but one stem, and shaping the top into a globe, though I haven’t done that. Not yet, anyway.
By pruning the willows now I am making them pleasing to my eye, but also opening them up so that they will not hold a large snow mass. Any densely-growing shrub will hold snow and is more likely to lose branches if we get a heavy, wet snow.
I remember arriving in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, on an April day in 1982 that just happened to be a national holiday, the celebration of the Cyrillic alphabet that featured a large parade downtown. Afterwards old women dressed in black came out with twig brooms and swept the streets and sidewalks of every cigarette butt and candy wrapper dropped by the crowds. I liked those brooms – they seemed right out of a fairy tale. This year I decided to use my willow prunings to make my own twig broom.
I had an old broom so cut off the head and re-used the handle, though I could have used a sapling instead. I collected small branches from the pile I had pruned from the willows, each about 30 inches long and about the thickness of a pencil. I arranged them around the handle, overlapping the handle by a foot.
Willow broom
Making a twig broom really is a 2-person project, so I asked Cindy Heath to help me attach the wires. I had bought a small coil of #18 copper wire at the hardware store and cut 2 four-foot sections for fastening the twigs onto the handle. I have large hands, so it wasn’t hard to hold the twigs firmly in place while Cindy wrapped wire around them. When the wire was tightly wrapped 4 or 5 times around the handle, she twisted the two ends together tightly. Then we did it again farther down the handle, near the end of the twigs.
I like the broom for sweeping the front walk- it gets the leaves as well as bits of sand and gravel; so far it seems sturdy and I like the way it looks. So do some pruning, and if you have enough small branches, try making yourself a broom.
Visit Henry’s website (www.henryhomeyer.com) to learn about his new children’s book, Wobar and the Quest for the Magic Calumet.
Uh-Oh: Plant Diseases and Insect Pests on the Horizon
I hate to be a bearer of ill tidings, but I learned recently that one of America’s favorite bedding plants is in trouble. Impatiens is one of those plants that everyone loves: it blooms constantly all summer, it does fine in shady places, and it sheds its flowers after blooming so that you don’t need to take off the spent blossoms. The flowers themselves come in a variety of wonderful colors. There are single and double flower. All in all, a great flower. But some growers and garden centers will not be offering it for sale next summer, or will have reduced offerings.
The problem is a fungal disease called impatiens downy mildew. The disease is not new, but its prevalence is. Here in New England the disease has come up from warmer places as spores riding on the wind, much as late blight has come to our tomatoes. The bad news is this: if you had the disease this year you might not have recognized it – I didn’t at first – and once it hits your gardens, it will come back again and again. It seems to survive easily in Zone 5 (minus 20) and may even survive in Zone 4 where temperatures can reach minus 30 F.
For the past few years I have been installing impatiens in a garden on the Mall in Lebanon, NH. The garden is a mixture of sun and shade. The impatiens has done well there – until this year. The season started out well: we planted waves of small plants in berms (mounds of soil) in June. They grew and bloomed. Then the leaves started thinning out, and the plants looked a bit spindly by the end of July. There is serious root competition in these beds, so I attributed the less than stellar growth to the trees sucking up the water and nutrients.
Impatiens Downy Mildew
By the end of the summer the plants were, essentially, bare stems. All the leaves and flowers had fallen off. At first I thought it might be insect damage, or perhaps slugs. But I shrugged and figured that whatever the problem was, fall was just around the corner – and next year we’d do better. I should have sent a sample to the plant diagnostic lab at UNH. Then, recently, I got an email from an alert reader, a grower who had encountered impatiens downy mildew and decided not to grow them again.
I called Dr. Cheryl Smith, UNH Extension Plant Health Specialist (unhpdl.org), who confirmed my suspicions: what I had seen in Lebanon was most likely impatiens downy mildew. I went on the Web and saw pictures and good descriptions of the disease.
Dr. Smith explained that if plants at a location had downy mildew once, it would most likely recur. She suggested carefully cleaning up flower beds that had been infected. Dig the roots out, collect all stems and leaves and bag them. That would minimize the spread of spores. Do not place the plants (or the remains of infected plants) in the compost pile, but put in household trash or burn them. Alternatively, Dr. Smith said you could bury the plants away from the garden in a site that will not be rototilled next spring.
I need to find another plant for those shady beds. New Guinea impatiens is a possible substitute, though more expensive to buy. It is not often sold in 6-packs for covering lots of territory. Coleus and begonias will often grow under the same conditions as impatiens, and are not affected by the disease. But again, they are more expensive.
Also on the horizon is an insect pest that can devastate small berries. When I called Anne Hazelrigg at UVM Cooperative Extension to learn if the problem with impatiens occurred in Vermont last summer (it did), she told me about an insect called the spotted winged drosophila. This is a fruit fly that is a new species, one that has a saw-toothed ovipositor (egg-laying device) that can wipe out fall raspberries, blueberries and even some decorative berries such as those on yews or serviceberries.
Unlike other fruit flies that only eat damaged fruit, this fly can slice open fruit to lay eggs, and the larvae then cause fruit to collapse and the white larvae to make the fruit inedible. Each fly is only about one tenth of an inch long, has red eyes, and the males have a dark spot on each wing. It became a problem first on the West Coast, got to the East Coast in Florida in 2010, and probably rode Hurricane Irene to New England. It is not easily controlled, even for those who use chemicals, and it can reproduce every eight days. There is good information on this pest on the UNH Cooperative Extension website.
Gardening sure does have its challenges. What we really need, I think, is a very cold winter. I once saw a bumper sticker that read, “30 Below Keeps Out the Riff-Raff”. We need 30 below to help control pests and diseases, so let’s hope for a good, cold winter.
Henry’s new book is out! Wobar and the Quest for the Magic Calumet is a children’s fantasy-adventure about a boy and a cougar. See www.henryhomeyer.com for more information.