These weekly garden notes are written by Kim Willis,
unless another author is noted, and the opinions expressed in these notes are
her opinions and do not represent any other individual, group or organizations
opinions.
Hi Gardeners
Only 72 days until spring, just keep saying that. I am beginning to believe we are at the mercy
of some evil scientist who is sending these artic vortexes down at us. I waded through snow over my knees yesterday
morning to get to the barn – to my thighs where it drifted. We had 18 inches of snow here. I managed to get a one shovel width path dug
to the barn later in the day. I have to
do it in bits and pieces and thank God it isn’t too far.
We still haven’t got our driveway plowed. The snow plow has gone through on our road
and the pile at the edge of the driveway is shoulder high. I know when I was younger we had winters like
this but I want some more global warming please. I am too old for this mess.
The only good thing I can say about the snow is that it covered up many
plants completely and insulated them against this bitter cold. All of us who pushed the “zone” a bit with
our plant selections will probably regret it this spring. But we just may get lucky with the deep snow
cover.
This weekend we get a warm up – and I am calling 35 degrees a warm
up. But there is a scary mention of a
wintery mix in the forecast. I can’t
imagine rain on top of this and if we get ice….oh well spring is 72 days away.
January almanac
January’s full moon, which occurs January 15th , is called
the Wolf Moon or Old Moon. If you can
stand to be outside on the night of the full moon you may want to see what the
full moon of the first month looks like.
Folklore says that if the full moon is clear and bright we will have
plenty of rain and a good harvest this year.
If the moon is reddish or hazy it will be a dry year with a poor
harvest.
If you should be somewhere where you can plant things ( maybe a greenhouse)
good planting days this month for above ground crops are 5, 6, 14, 15 and below
ground crops 11,12, 20-22. If you are willing to brave the ice the best days
for fishing are from now to the 15th and again on the 30th
.
The January birth flower is the carnation. In the language of flowers the carnation is
supposed to portray love, fascination and distinction. If you send a striped carnation
to someone it means your regret that the love isn’t shared. A white carnation
means pure love, a red carnation “carnal” love.
A pink carnation means friendship and a yellow one means rejection. An
alternative birth flower is the snowdrop.
It has a lot less colors to worry about. The birthstone is the garnet.
 |
| 2014 is the year of the horse |
January is National Blood Donor month, National Hot Tea month, National
Oatmeal Month, and National Soup Month to name a few. The 10th is Houseplant Appreciation
day, the 15th is National Hat day, the 13th is
International Skeptics day, the 18th is Winnie the Pooh Day, the 19th
is National Popcorn day, the 20th is Martin Luther King Day as well
as Penguin Awareness day and National Buttercrunch Day. The 22nd is National Blond Brownie
day and the 23rd is National Pie day. The 27th is National Chocolate
Cake Day and the 28th is Fun at Work Day. The 31st is Backward day and
Inspire Your Heart with Art day. It is
also Chinese New Year, beginning the year of the horse.
Tomatoes and
breast cancer
New research published in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical
Endocrinology & Metabolism suggests that post-menopausal (and
pre-menopausal too) women should try to eat tomatoes frequently. Tomatoes and tomato products like tomato
sauce contain lycopene and researchers found that eating 25 milligrams of
lycopene a day increased adiponectin, a hormone involved in regulating blood sugar
and fat levels, by 9 percent. This
helped older women maintain a healthy weight and reduced their risk of breast
cancer.
Because Japanese women have low levels of breast cancer and a high level
of soy products in their diet researchers also tested soy for beneficial
effects on blood sugar and fat levels.
They found that high soy levels actually decreased adiponectin, the
beneficial hormone, and therefore probably did little to prevent breast cancer,
although women of Japanese heritage were not tested and it’s possible they may
obtain some advantage from soy.
Since tomatoes are so easy to include in the diet they are probably the
best source of lycopene but remember other fruits and vegetables may contain
lycopene too. Sundried tomatoes have the
highest amount of lycopene with cooked tomatoes next, followed by raw tomatoes. Guava, red grapefruit, watermelon, red
cabbage, chili powder, dried parsley and basil, asparagus and persimmons also
contain good amounts of lycopene. Rose hips and autumn olive berries are wild
sources of lycopene. And a source of lycopene that you probably wouldn’t guess
is chicken liver. I’ll leave it up to
you to devise a recipe involving chicken liver and sundried tomatoes.
 |
| Tomatoes and watermelon are good sources of lycopene. |
Spiders eat pollen
Most gardeners have seen the huge webs of orb spiders stretched across
the garden. Orb spiders are those big
fat spiders that scare people to death.
They are often brightly colored and patterned. Scientists, Dr Dirk
Sanders of the University of Exeter and Benjamin Eggs from the University of
Bern, found a surprising fact about Orb spiders when they investigated the
feeding habits of juvenile Orb spiders.
They knew that Orb spiders regularly eat their webs to recycle the
proteins in them and construct new webs.
Because airborne pollen gets caught in webs as well as insects they
thought web recycling might account for the pollen they found in spider
guts. But as the research progressed
they found that Orb spiders regularly eat pollen trapped in the web even if
there were plenty of insects and the web wasn’t being recycled.
Pollen contains fat and protein and young spiders fed pollen grew better
and faster than those whose diets were restricted to insects. The researchers found that in a natural
setting about 25% of an Orb spider’s diet consisted of pollen and that they
chose to eat it even when insects were available. The research suggests that Orb spiders at
least, should be classified as omnivores and not carnivores.
Minnesota’s top
annuals
I published the results of MSU’s annual trials a month or so ago. The University of Minnesota has published the
list of the best annuals in their trial gardens. Since what grows well in Minnesota will probably
do well here I am publishing their results.
Begonia boliviensis Santa Cruz Sunset, Big Falls Dark Blue Bacopa, Coleus
Mastermind, Geranium Inter-specific Boldly Dark Red (Ivy/Zonal geranium cross),
Petunia Burgundy Star-light, Portulaca Purslane Soleil Yellow, Scaevola Paper
Doll Top Model, Thunbergia Lemon A-Peel, Verbena Temari Cherry Red, Vinca Cora
Cascade Strawberry.
Restoring
Michigan’s wetlands
Michigan is a gem in the success story of the Great Lakes Restoration
Initiative, a conservation program aimed at restoring coastal wetlands. Wetlands are vitally important for filtering
and cleaning water, providing homes and food for hundreds of animal and plant
species and helping prevent floods and erosion of valuable land. However they have been relentlessly filled in,
dredged out or otherwise destroyed over the centuries.
The Great Lakes region, an area stretching from eastern Minnesota to
western New York, was the only part of the country where wetland acreage
actually increased over the last five years. Other areas of the US continue to
lose wetlands. Many of the large successful
wetland restoration projects were in Michigan.
 |
| Yellow flag iris, a wetland plant. |
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation
Service worked with landowners to revive over 40,000 wetland acres in Michigan. Soon dozens of acres along a 48 mile stretch
of the Detroit River and Lake Erie will be flooded to create a wildlife
refuge. Ducks Unlimited and Nature
Conservancy worked with the government to create Erie Marsh, a large refuge
along the North Maumee Bay of Lake Erie.
Michigan still faces pressure to develop wetland areas along its coasts
but the recent success in wetland restoration prove that we “get it”. We are doing our best to protect wildlife and
keep our water clean.
Do you have your
seed catalogs yet?
How can anyone survive these awful winter days without garden catalogs
to look at? Some catalogs are almost reference
books as well as a source of beautiful pictures. Yes you can now see plants and order on line
but sitting down with a stack of garden catalogs is still a pleasure for
me. I order on line but I need the
catalogs to go over the selections again and again, comparing prices, deciding
on cultivars to best suit my needs and re-figuring my list from time to time to
match my budget.
I have found that mail ordering seeds, bulbs and small potted plants is
the best bet, leaving the larger shrubs and trees to be purchased locally. You can often find a plant 3 x bigger than
the ones offered in catalogs for the same price locally. However there are some exceptions- fruit
trees for example, purchased bare root, are generally a better bargain purchased
by mail than locally. And some varieties
of shrubs and trees cannot be found locally, and you will need to order them by
mail.
Most companies will send you a catalog if you request it. Here’s a hint. Some catalog companies charge for a paper
catalog if you write or phone your request to them but if you request the
catalog from a web site you get it free.
Here’s an article with a list of links for catalogs I published last
year. http://www.examiner.com/article/free-garden-catalogs-for-snowbound-gardeners
Stay warm out there, please be careful if you must travel.
Kim Willis
“He who has a garden and a library wants for nothing” ― Cicero
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