I understand why many gardeners shop on Death Row. That’s what I call the pesticide aisle at the garden center. Insecticides, fungicides, herbicides are sold in cheerful colorful bags, often with pictures of blooming flowers on the bag. I don’t shop there and try to avoid even walking down the aisle because the smell of death – poison – is often in the air.
Gardeners shop on Death Row because something is threatening their roses or their broccoli. Flea beetles making holes in the cabbage? Nuke ‘em. Japanese beetles? Gotta kill ‘em. I get the urge, too. But there are alternatives.
Let’s start with something easy: I drape a light-weight gauzy film of agricultural fabric over plants to keep bugs from physically getting to my plants. This cloth allows sun and rain to pass through, but not bugs. It’s called row cover or by trade names like Reemay and Agribon. There are other brand names, too.
Row cover comes in different weights, and some heavier types can be used to keep in a little heat at night, holding off frost. But its best use is to keep plants bug-free. I use it over my vine crops like cucumbers and squash as they are very vulnerable to a pest called the striped cucumber beetle.
Row cover is not perfect: striped cucumber beetles live in the soil, and sometimes will appear under the row cover, but mostly it prevents them from getting to the plants. To be on the safe side, I start cukes and squash inside the house 3 weeks or more before planting time (or buy a 6-pack of starts). That gives me good-sized plants that can survive some beetle attack.
Generally I just drape the row cover over the cucumber plants and pin down the edges with special staples sold for the purpose. It is light enough that it will just float on top. But since vine crops are insect pollinated, I need to take it off once the plants start to bloom.
Hoops are sold to support row cover, too. Five foot sections of #10 wire are sold for the purpose. Just poke one end into the soil, bend it, and poke in the other end. This is great for keeping flea beetles and cabbage moths of broccoli, cabbage and related plants.
Repellents can help to keep insects off plants. Liquid fish fertilizer has worked for me to reduce the number of Japanese beetles on roses and other decorative plants, though I wouldn’t use it on vegetables. Garlic Barrier is product made from garlic and citric acid that can be diluted and spread on plants to repel insects. It is rated for use on vegetables, and has no flavor once it has dried. In any case, you must get the repellents sprayed before the insects show up, and need to re-apply regularly. It is fine for use by organic gardeners.
Traps sound good, but generally are not. Japanese beetle traps use a sex hormone to attract the beetles, but unfortunately they attract many more beetles than they catch. And those pesky beetles like to have a snack before investigating the scent of sex. Give them to your neighbors, perhaps, but don’t use them!
Hand-picking bugs really does work, particularly if you are diligent when they first appear. Pick potato beetles every day as soon as you see them (or their larvae). Look under the leaves for orange egg masses, too. Don’t let a second generation get started! Get them early, and avoid trouble later on.
Keep these points in mind if you want have a good garden and healthy plants:
1) Healthy plants growing in favorable conditions (such as the right amount of sun, and moisture in the soil) are less susceptible to diseases.
2) Select disease-resistant cultivars when possible. Modern hybrids are often bred for disease resistance.
3) Don’t over-fertilize. Too much nitrogen gives fast green growth, but promotes weak tissue that is more susceptible to diseases.
4) Try to keep leaves dry when watering. Moisture on leaves, particularly at night, helps some fungal diseases to get established. A hand-held watering wand can direct water to the roots; overhead sprinklers get everything wet.
5) Prune off diseased leaves and dispose of them in the trash. Never let diseased plants over-winter in the garden. Keep your garden clean. Clean up in fall and spring to remove diseased plant matter.
6) Lastly, don’t overreact. Most fungal diseases won’t kill a healthy plant that is well planted in good soil. Don’t rush to spray chemicals. Once a leaf is infected, you can’t fix it, only live with it or cut it off.
As an organic gardener I accept that sometimes bugs or diseases win. I no longer grow Oriental or Asiatic lilies because of a beautiful red beetle that attacks them. I can’t control the pest by hand picking. That’s okay, I grow angel’s trumpet (Datura spp.), a lily-like flower that is even better – it blooms for many weeks with gorgeous big white flowers). And it doesn’t need chemical poisons to thrive.
Read my blog twice weekly at www.dailyUV.com. You can sign up to get the blog post sent to you be email.
Some gardeners grow flowers for their beauty in the garden. Others for their magnificence in a vase. A few select species largely for their scent. My friend Nelia Sargent of Claremont is in this third category, largely because she is blind. I called her recently to see what flowering shrubs she likes best.
Nelia loves shrubs because they pack so many flowers in a small space. And, unlike most perennial flowers, have they their blossoms close to nose level. Who needs to bend over to sniff a peony if you have old fashioned shrub roses standing up 3 or 4 feet tall? Here are some of her favorites along with a few of mine –roughly in sequence of their blossoms.
First for her, in late March or early April, is a witchhazel hybrid (Hamamelis x intermedia) called ‘Arnold’s Promise’ This flowers heavily with yellow strap-like petals an inch long originating at a reddish calyx cup. Although this bush can get large – up to 20 feet tall and wide, I have never seen one half that size, here in the North Country. I have our native witchhazel which blooms in late fall, but this hybrid is a great plant and one I should get. It’s very fragrant.
At the same time (or soon thereafter) is February Daphne, a tidy pink shrub that is very highly fragrant. I love this one so much I named my corgi after it. I’ve had mine for a dozen years and never had to prune it, which is a plus. I’ve seen it growing wild by the side of the road, which makes me wonder if it will be invasive sometime in the next 50 years. But since I’ve not gotten one seedling and it grows slowly, I’m not too worried.
Nelia Sargent then listed a number of viburnums that are fragrant and lovely. Three that she mentioned are Viburnum juddii, V. carlessii, and V. burkwoodii. Don’t be put off by the Latin names. Just pronounce the species names like juddii with an E-I sound at the end. All three species were named after horticulturists.
Viburnum juddii gets to be 6 to 8 feet tall tall, with blossoms about 3 inches across. V. carlessii, also called Koreanspice viburnum, gets to be 4 to 5 feet tall and wide, with 2 to 3 inch semi-snowball flowers. The Burkwood viburnum can get 8 to 10 feet tall with spread about 2/3’s its height; like the others, its flowers are pink in bud, opening to white and highly fragrant.
In recent years there has been an invasive beetle that has terrorized many viburnum owners. Cornell University has listed viburnums according to their susceptibility. Burkwood viburnum was listed as moderately susceptible to defoliation, but V. carlessii and V. juddiiwere in the group least attractive to the beetle. You can see the entire list athttp://www.hort.cornell.edu/
After the viburnums bloom, and overlapping with them, are the lilacs. Nelia Sargent noted that there are early, mid-season and late lilacs, so one can have fragrant lilacs for at least 5 weeks. First for her comes one called Sister Justina, a white one that stays tidy and does not send up root suckers. ‘Gertrude Lesley’, a double white is also early and nicely fragrant. The common lilac, Syringa vulgaris, has 800 or 900 named varieties. Most are mid-season and nicely fragrant. These spread by root, sending up suckers that will create a hedge if you are not attentive.
Fragrant late season lilacs include Miss Kim (a cultivar of Syringa patula), a slow-growing variety that is (mistakenly) sometimes called a miniature. Mine is now over 8 feet tall, definitely not a dwarf! Another late beauty is ‘Donald Wyman’ (Syringa x prestoniae ‘Donald Wyman’) which is hardy to Zone 2 (minus 50 Fahrenheit) and will thrive despite pollution and compaction in wet or dry soils! One tough plant.
The final shrub on Nelia’s list is mockorange (Philadelphus coronarius). Not related to oranges, this 10 to 12 foot shrub has white blossoms that are sweetly fragrant. That said, be advised that not all cultivars are fragrant, so buy one in bloom. It is an old fashioned flower and not particular to soil type.
Roses can be lovely and fragrant, but many of the modern hybrids have little or no scent. The Knockout roses are fabulous disease-resistant roses that bloom most of the summer, but I’ve only encountered one that was fragrant. On the other hand, rugosa roses are highly fragrant, as are many of the old fashioned roses. I recommend buying them when in bloom if fragrance is important.
I agree with Nelia Sargent: shrubs with fragrant blossoms are a good addition to the landscape. And they are often great for our native pollinators, too.
Read Henry’s garden blog at https://dailyuv.com/
Butterflies are the poster children of the environmental movement. Everybody loves them, and wants to see them thrive. But do you know what you can do to help? It’s quite simple, really. For starters, make sure that your environment includes a wide variety of plants that supply nectar and pollen. And even city dwellers can help.
Let’s say you don’t have a garden, or that you have limited time and/or space. Or you just have a lawn. You can start by planting some annual flowers in a pot, or buying a hanging planter at the garden center. Most planters sold are full of gorgeous flowers that will bloom all summer. All you have to do is water them.
If watering is too much trouble, transfer your purchased plants into a “self-watering” container. These are pots that have a water reservoir in the base that will allow water to wick up to the plants in the container. Get one about the same size as your purchased planter, along with some potting soil. The potting soil should fill in extra space if your self-watering container is larger than the hanging pot. Once you have it set up, you will just need to fill the reservoir once a week.
Another thing that anyone can do is buy a bird bath. Yes, a bird bath can be useful for butterflies, too. They need a regular source of water. Butterflies love the minerals found in water in mud puddles, so you could dig a little hole and keep it full for them. Maybe your dog, if she’s like mine, will wallow in it, too. Hmmm…
I have a bird bath that is never used by birds, even after I put stones in the middle for them to perch on. Why? Someone finally pointed out to me that I have a stream just 50 feet from the bath, which is more inviting for the birds. But I like the looks of the blue ceramic bird bath, which I now call my ”butterfly bath”.
What else can you do? Start by swearing off pesticides. I know it’s easy to spray Japanese beetles or potato beetles, but chemicals that kill one kind of bug will kill others, including butterflies and the caterpillars that become butterflies. So hand pick your pests, or agree to let them live. Many insect pests have a short life span and aren’t really as bad as you might think.
Hiking through France I have often been struck by the number and variety of birds, butterflies and pollinators along the trail. I attribute that to the fact that farmers in France allow hedgerows to separate farm fields. Flowering plants like hawthorns, blackberries and wild cherries are not mowed down, but allowed to grow – and provide space for birds and insects to nest in and thrive.
Here in America President Nixon’s Secretary of Agriculture, Earl Butz, told farmers to “get big or get out”, encouraging them to plant commodity crops every square inch, “fencerow to fencerow”. That policy has affected our birds and butterflies over the years. But on a small scale, we can allow native plants to grow and blossom along our property lines. Leave wild spaces wherever you can.
If you want more butterflies, think first about the caterpillars that will become butterflies. What do they like? Dill and fennel are among the best plants for many species. Hollyhocks, lupine, milkweed and butterfly weed, thistles and willows are all good for caterpillars of various sorts.
Then, for nectar and pollen, think about creating a garden that blooms from early spring to late fall. Annual flowers are great because most will do just that. Alyssum, calendula, cosmos, marigolds, nasturtiums, pansies, verbenas and zinnias are some that are especially good.
Of the perennial flowers, here are some good ones: asters, bee balm, daylilies, delphinium, dianthus, globe thistle, hollyhocks, Joe Pye weed, lavender, liatris (gayfeather), oregano, phlox, purple coneflower, sage, scabiosa, sedums, Shasta daisy and yarrow.
Weeds are good for butterflies, too. You know milkweed is beloved by monarchs. Queen Anne’s lace is loved by many. Towards fall I often see goldenrod just full of bees and butterflies. And not all goldenrod is 5 feet tall and aggressive. You can actually purchase tidy ones like‘Fireworks’ (a variety of Solidago rugosa), or a small shade-loving one, Solidago caesia. Talk to your local nursery – they can get them from North Creek Nursery in Landenberg, Pennsylvania (wholesale only).
The very best plant for butterflies is probably butterfly bush (Buddleia davidii). This is a shrub that is generally hardy only to Zone 5, meaning that temperatures colder than minus 20 will kill it. In warmer zones it can spread aggressively and even be considered an invasive pest. But is great for butterflies, and often will survive in Zone 4, just dying back to the ground each year, but blooming late in the summer. It can be a large shrub, but there are smaller varieties, too.
Remember: butterflies and bees need nectar or pollen – from spring dandelions to late fall-blooming witchhazel. You can do your part – and enjoy seeing both your flowers and the butterflies, too.
To learn about bumblebees – all of them you see right now are queens – go to Henry’s blog: https://dailyuv.com/news/
This year Mother Nature, if she were a middle school student, would be at best a tease, and at worst a bully. Or maybe the Wicked Witch of the West. She gives us warm and sunny – then threats of snow or hail. Come on, Spring, let’s get with the program. We have veggies we want to plant!
Recently I wrote a column that promised tips on growing vegetables “A to Z: Artichoke to Zucchini” – but didn’t finish the B’s and skipped to zucchini. Huh. Today I’ll be less ambitious: The last of the B’s and most of the C’s. There really are a lot of great veggies we can grow.
Beets are best started outdoors once the soil temperature has warmed to 60 degrees or even warmer. Yes, they grow well in cool temperatures, but are slow to germinate in cold soil. Plant 2 to 3 inches apart, and be prepared to thin them in a month to 3 to 4 inches apart. Each “seed” is actually a seed capsule containing 2 to 6 seeds. They like soil that is near neutral in pH, so if you have acidic soil, add a little limestone. And they are deep rooted, so plant in fluffy soil for best results.
Hoping to jump the gun this year, I planted some beets in flats indoors on April 10. I started them on an electric seed warming mat but only got 20 percent germination, and the plants have long stems and are flopping over – even with bright fluorescent lights over them. I won’t do it again. I’ll plant mine outdoors this week.
Carrots also want fluffy light soil – and few if any stones. Comb through the soil carefully to get out rocks – I use a CobraHead weeder for that. Add lots of compost and some bagged organic fertilizer at planting time and again in early July.
Carrot seeds are tiny, but it’s worth your time to plant them individually, or nearly so. It will save a lot of time thinning them later on. Put seeds in the palm of one hand, and push one away from the rest with a pencil or pocket knife. Pick it up, plant it, and repeat. Tedious, yes. I like to plant them about an inch and a half apart, and thin to 3 inches when the thinnings are big enough to be worth eating.
Cauliflower is fussy. If it gets too hot or too cold it will “button” and not form a proper head. And unlike broccoli, cauliflower makes no side shoots (with rare exceptions). There is a purple one that I have grown, gorgeous in the garden but it turns gray when cooked.
Likewise, I don’t grow celery. It attracts slugs, gets woody and tough if the soil dries out, and is generally unsatisfactory. But I’m a serious cook and often need that celery flavor. Instead, I grow celeriac, also known as celery root. This is a great root crop that is pest free and stores for a long time. It’s funny looking with lots of roots that I cut off the bulb. Then I chop or grate it.
Celeriac, unfortunately, is not often sold in 6-packs at the garden centers. But it’s worth asking for it as the seeds germinate slowly and take a long time to get big. I planted mine on April 10 and they are just an inch tall 5 weeks later. Still, it will grow well into the fall so you could try planting seeds. Celeriac needs soil with plenty of moisture all summer.
I avoided growing corn for decades, instead I bought just a couple of ears at a time. I’m a bit like a raccoon: I tend to glut on it when there’s plenty in the garden ‘cause it’s so darn tasty! But for the past 2 years I have grown it. Here’s what I have discovered: you do need to plant it in blocks of 4 rows to get good pollination. And it needs plenty of supplemental nitrogen to do well. Last year I ran out of fertilizer and thought that since the soil was good, it would do fine. But corn in that section was short and spindly.
Fencing is probably the best to keep out coons, but I also used some solar powered blinking red lights that are said to scare them off (www.niteguard.com). Those are touted as deer repellents, too. I had some raccoon damage, but I probably needed more of them as the corn patch was very long. You need a minimum of 4 units to point in every direction.
Cucumbers are a summer favorite of mine, and I’ve already started some seeds indoors. They’ll go outside in mid-June after frost and when the soil is nice and warm, say 65 degrees. I used to plant seeds outdoors, but the plants were often killed by striped cucumber beetles that would strip off all leaves in a single night. Now I plant them when they have vines 6 to 12 inches long with some nice big leaves.
If you have had trouble with beetles but want to direct-seed your vine crops, you can cover the hills with row cover, also called Reemay. It is a thin agricultural fabric that breathes and lets sunshine and rain through. But sometimes the beetles, which emerge from the soil, are already waiting for you before you put it down. Be sure to rotate your planting sites for vine crops like cukes.
Mother Nature, if you’re listening: I’ve had it with this weather. Don’t make me release the flying monkeys.
Henry is now blogging twice a week. See the blog at https://dailyuv.com/
Is your lettuce lagging? Your spring greens tired of cold, gray days? You can make a self-heating “hot box” in your garden using a cold frame, some fresh horse manure and some hard work. Lots of hard work, actually. But your lettuce and spinach will reward you sooner rather than later.
A month ago I got a cold frame from Gardener’s Supply Company (www.gardeners.com) in Burlington, Vermont. It is a nifty 8-foot by 2-foot cedar box with a slanting sides and a clear polycarbonate top that is designed to capture the sun’s heat and warm the soil inside. It assembles in an hour with just a screwdriver or screw gun. I placed it in my garden facing southwest for maximum solar gain.
Inside the cold frame I put a radio-frequency thermometer that sends the temperature to me inside my house. I found that on sunny days, with the top panels closed, that the temperature easily hit 100 degrees, or even more. It has a prop stick for each of the two opening doors on top, allowing one to vent the heat on warm days. Or you can open the top completely for hot days. It did a great job of warming the top inch or two of soil.
Lettuce and spinach can take some frost, so it didn’t matter much that at night the cold frame only kept the air temperature 3 or 4 degrees warmer than the outside air, which occasionally dropped into the mid-twenties. But I wanted an even warmer environment for my small greens.
Back during WWII when folks really grew much of their own food, people made not only cold frames, but also “hot boxes”. And I had tried it, too, some 20 years ago. The principle is easy: bury fermenting horse manure beneath a cold frame, and the heat will rise, warming the soil and air above it. I forgot just how much work that entailed.
The first challenge was to find horse manure that was not mostly bedding. Harrumph! Horses tend to be pampered these days. But I found a horse breeder who had some good fresh manure that was not full of hay or shavings. He loaded a scoop into the back of my aging pick-up truck, though that was more than I really needed. Four or five wheelbarrows is plenty.
Next I dug pit a foot deep and the size of the cold frame. That took an hour or so of hard work. I set the good top soil to one side, the subsoil to the other. Then I lined the pit with 2-inch thick Styrofoam (blueboard) insulation. Why? To keep the cold soil from cooling down my fermenting manure. I wanted the manure to stay hot so it would keep fermenting. The temperature of the manure I unloaded from my truck was in the mid-fifties, but the next day, when I was ready for my project, it had heated up to the mid-eighties. Yes!
For compost to heat up, I knew, one needs both nitrogen and carbon-based materials. Manure has plenty of nitrogen, hay and leaves are rich in carbon. So in the bottom of the pit I tossed in a layer of old hay, then I added 4-inches of manure, then a layer of hay and leaves, then another 4 inches of manure. Finally, using the good top soil I’d set aside when digging the pit, I filled up the pit.
Did it work? You bet! When the air outside is 40 degrees inside my “hot box” it is 55 degrees. At night my box keeps the air 10 to 15 degrees warmer than outside air.
Into this deluxe new domain for plants I planted 5 red cabbage starts, a dozen lettuce plants, 3 clumps of watercress, a few Swiss chard plants and 3 cilantro. All of those I’d started indoors a month earlier. I have room for some spinach that I will start by seed.
Bottom heat is good for quick germination and growth, so I imagine fresh salads tomorrow! Oh, okay, not that fast, but certainly much sooner than I would have them if I was depending on Mother Nature to warm the soil and air.
The only worry I have is that some morning I will leave the house for the day and forget to prop open the lids of the frame. If the sun comes out it could get lethally hot. But as a dedicated gardening guy, I guess I just need to put a reminder with my car keys! That should prevent any “heat emergencies”.
On another note, tulips are coming into blossom for me. I protect mine from the deer with a makeshift fence and some garlic spikes. The garlic spikes are small plastic cylinders with a clip to attach to a twig or fence and food-grade garlic oil inside. A barrier requires you to activate them by puncturing the seal with a little tool they provide. Once opened, they are stinky! Available at garden centers or on-line (www.plantprotec.com). They claim to provide protection for 6 months or more, though a fence is your best protection if there are a lot of hungry deer around.
Read Henry’s twice-weekly blog posts at www.dailyUV/henryhomeyer. Read his article there about preventing Lyme disease (https://dailyuv.com/news/
Some gardeners grow flowers for their beauty in the garden. Others for their magnificence in a vase. A few select species largely for their scent. My friend Nelia Sargent of Claremont is in this third category, largely because she is blind. I called her recently to see what flowering shrubs she likes best.
Nelia loves shrubs because they pack so many flowers in a small space. And, unlike most perennial flowers, they have their blossoms close to nose level. Who needs to bend over to sniff a peony if you have old fashioned shrub roses standing up 3 or 4 feet tall? Here are some of her favorites along with a few of mine –roughly in sequence of their blossoms.
First for her, in late March or early April, is a witchhazel hybrid (Hamamelis x intermedia) called ‘Arnold’s Promise’. This flowers heavily with yellow strap-like petals an inch long originating at a reddish calyx cup. Although this bush can get large – up to 20 feet tall and wide, I have never seen one half that size, here in the North Country. I have our native witchhazel which blooms in late fall, but this hybrid is a great plant and one I should get. It’s very fragrant.
At the same time (or soon thereafter) is February Daphne, a tidy pink shrub that is very highly fragrant. I love this one so much I named my corgi after it. I’ve had mine for a dozen years and never had to prune it, which is a plus. I’ve seen it growing wild by the side of the road, which makes me wonder if it will be invasive sometime in the next 50 years. But since I’ve not gotten one seedling and it grows slowly, I’m not too worried.
Nelia Sargent then listed a number of viburnums that are fragrant and lovely. Three that she mentioned are Viburnum juddii, V. carlessii, and V. burkwoodii. Don’t be put off by the Latin names. Just pronounce the species names like juddii with an E-I sound at the end. All three species were named after horticulturists.
Viburnum juddii gets to be 6 to 8 feet tall tall, with blossoms about 3 inches across. V. carlessii, also called Koreanspice viburnum, gets to be 4 to 5 feet tall and wide, with 2 to 3 inch semi-snowball flowers. The Burkwood viburnum can get 8 to 10 feet tall with spread about 2/3’s its height; like the others, its flowers are pink in bud, opening to white and highly fragrant.
In recent years there has been an invasive beetle that has terrorized many viburnum owners. Cornell University has listed viburnums according to their susceptibility. Burkwood viburnum was listed as moderately susceptible to defoliation, but V. carlessiiand V. juddii were in the group least attractive to the beetle. You can see the entire list at http://www.hort.cornell.edu/
After the viburnums bloom, and overlapping with them, are the lilacs. Nelia Sargent noted that there are early, mid-season and late lilacs, so one can have fragrant lilacs for at least 5 weeks. First for her comes one called Sister Justina, a white one that stays tidy and does not send up root suckers. ‘Gertrude Lesley’, a double white is also early and nicely fragrant. The common lilac,Syringa vulgaris, has 800 or 900 named varieties. Most are mid-season and nicely fragrant. These spread by root, sending up suckers that will create a hedge if you are not attentive.
Fragrant late season lilacs include Miss Kim (a cultivar of Syringa patula), a slow-growing variety that is (mistakenly) sometimes called a miniature. Mine is now over 8 feet tall, definitely not a dwarf! Another late beauty is ‘Donald Wyman’ (Syringa x prestoniae ‘Donald Wyman’) which is hardy to Zone 2 (minus 50 Fahrenheit) and will thrive despite pollution and compaction in wet or dry soils! One tough plant.
The final shrub on Nelia’s list is mockorange (Philadelphus coronarius). Not related to oranges, this 10 to 12 foot shrub has white blossoms that are sweetly fragrant. That said, be advised that not all cultivars are fragrant, so buy one in bloom. It is an old fashioned flower and not particular to soil type.
Roses can be lovely and fragrant, but many of the modern hybrids have little or no scent. The Knockout roses are fabulous disease-resistant roses that bloom most of the summer, but I’ve only encountered one that was fragrant. On the other hand, rugosa roses are highly fragrant, as are many of the old fashioned roses. I recommend buying them when in bloom if fragrance is important.
I agree with Nelia Sargent: shrubs with fragrant blossoms are a good addition to the landscape. And they are often great for our native pollinators, too.
Read Henry’s garden blog at https://dailyuv.com/