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Tuesday, July 28, 2020

July 28, 2020 the Hopniss is happy


Hi Gardeners

It’s a beautiful day here today with lower humidity and temperatures. Yesterday afternoon we had a nice, soaking rain of about 7/10 inch, which keeps me from having to water for a day or two. My zinnias are finally starting to grow well and bloom. The tropical plants are happy too.  The taro and elephant’s ear are getting huge leaves.

My new Joe Pye weed is in bloom and garden phlox are blooming. Some daylilies are in bloom and the lilies Casa Blanca and orientpet “Debby” are blooming.  Black eyed Susan’s and the shasta daisy are still blooming.  But it looks like I’m about to have that lull in bloom, just as I am expecting visitors to the garden in a week or two.  Isn’t that what always happens?  Of course, the annuals are still going strong, especially after the rain.

I’m starting to see lots of butterflies.  The hummingbirds must have their babies out of the nest and flying because there are little hummingbird battles all around the garden. They fight so fiercely, then they come to the feeders and get chased away by bees.

I was out with the dogs in the old pasture and kept hearing a weird noise. It sounded like a hawk scream, but odd. There were a lot of blue jays flying around and I thought one of them was mimicking a hawk. Then I finally saw him, a young hawk, I think a red-tailed hawk, sitting in a tree.  He was practicing his call, I guess. It was low and kind of muffled.

And after the rain the other day, which was late in the day, I saw a turkey vulture perch in a dead tree and spread his wings out, turned so that they were facing the sun. He sat there until the sun got too low to hit him, drying his wings. I love watching the birds and this time of year there are many to watch.

Oh, the weeding I need to do.  And now I will need to mow again. The grass is green and growing again. But when the days are like this, I still love summer. I am hoping the hot and humid stuff has mostly passed. After all we are a month pass the equinox and the sun is sinking lower each day.  We lose a few minutes of sun every day now.  How time does fly.

Seeds from China

You may have heard this already, but for those who haven’t people in several US states have received packages from China that contain seeds they did not order. These come in little plastic packages that fit in your mailbox. They are often labeled jewelry or electronics, but the inner package contains seeds.  The outer package may have Chinese lettering or say Chinese Post.

If you get one of these packages do not open the seeds.  Save the outer packaging.  Call 1-800-877-3835 or email SITC.Mail@aphis.usda.gov

Or go to this link and find your closest USDA office.

Contact the USDA office and they will tell you if they want the seeds and packaging or not and how to dispose of them.

Do not plant or handle these seeds. The motivation behind the seeds is unknown but packages examined contained mostly weed seeds.  It is thought the seeds may simply be a cheap way to do a scheme called “brushing”.  The packages are sent to people and then fake reviews are put online about a product to give it a good rating and the recipients name and other information is used in the rating. But there could be other motives.

Since the seeds were not inspected before entering the US, they could be a noxious weed, a dangerous plant or infected with plant diseases. And they are illegal to have, and certainly illegal to plant.  If you don’t want to bother with the USDA at least dispose of the seeds by burning the seeds and package.

Since we are talking about Chinese seeds let me repeat a warning about buying seeds on Ebay or Amazon.  There are all kinds of fake seed companies operating on these sites. They offer things like blue strawberry and rainbow rose seeds among other more common seeds. Inexperienced gardeners are often fooled by faked pictures of these plants and lured by low prices.

There are no blue strawberries or rainbow roses and they certainly wouldn’t be grown from seeds. Almost all of the seeds offered on these sites aren’t what they are represented to be. Someone emailed me pictures of strawberry seeds they received. The seeds were large, flat and light brown.  I have no idea what they were from, some weed behind the seller’s house I would imagine. You can see what strawberry seeds look like if you examine a ripe strawberry, they are the tiny black specks on the outside.

Buy seeds from reputable seed companies with a US based company. Seed companies from the UK and Europe usually have US outlets. They are going to cost more and generally charge a shipping fee. But you will actually get what you order. Ebay and Amazon just aren’t good places to buy seeds. By the time you realize you have been fooled it’s too late to get a refund in most cases.  The Chinese and other fake companies make a lot of money from those small, cheap packets of seeds.

Fall webworm (Tentworms)

A lot of people are getting excited and worried over fall webworms, often mistakenly called tent worms. While the “tents” look bad, the worms don’t harm the trees much. Often people damage the trees more with their control methods- like using a blow torch- than the worms damage the tree.  You can safely ignore the tents.


Fall webworms make a web like structure on the ends of branches that encloses leaves inside, which the worms feed on. They occur in mid to late summer. In spring the Eastern tent worm makes tents in the branch crotches and the worms leave the tent to feed on leaves.

Insects often have years when they seem to have a boom in population, and this seems to be a boom year for fall webworms. You know, why not? It’s 2020.

For more information and removal tips read this article.

Side dressing sweet corn

If you are growing sweet corn and it’s starting to tassel, it’s time to apply a side dressing of a high nitrogen fertilizer.  This means sprinkling the fertilizer on the ground between your plants. If you are totally organic there are organic fertilizers, but you could use blood meal, I guess.

Corn is a heavy feeder and unlike some garden plants, needs a lot of nitrogen to produce a good crop.  Nitrogen is the one nutrient in the garden that disappears quickly.  When you fertilize at tasseling time, you’ll have a better chance of getting lots of big ears of corn.

Male flower tassel center top, silks the female flower at the ends of the ears


Sweet Corn pollination information

Corn has two types of flowers on each plant, male and female. The male flowers are at the top of the plant and are called the tassel.  Female flowers are formed in a husk at the junction of leaves and the corn stem. You probably know them as “silk”.  Each strand of silk is a single female flower and produces a single kernel of corn. They’ll still be attached when you shuck the ear to eat it.

Wind shakes a cloud of pollen down on the silks to pollinate them.  Wind can blow pollen to nearby corn plants too. How the wind blows can affect how well your corn ears fill out with kernels.  That’s why it’s good to plant corn in blocks, rather than a single row. Pollen from a single row can just blow away and not get many silks pollinated. When you have ears of corn where only one side has kernels developed, it’s caused by poor pollination.

Corn is the one common garden plant where this year’s pollen can affect the taste or shape of this year’s harvest. That’s why it’s not a good idea to plant sweet corn close to field corn or popcorn. The kernels that develop from cross pollination won’t be as tasty or tender. And popcorn might not pop as well if sweet corn grew nearby. Separate corn types by at least 100 feet.  

You can sometimes grow two types of corn near each other if you carefully plan for when they will be pollinating so that one is far ahead of the other, but that is tricky to do.  Some types of sweet corn need to be isolated from other types of sweet corn for the best taste also.  You’ll see these listed in catalogs with a warning about what types of corn they should be isolated from.  These are usually the more expensive, super sweet varieties.

Hybrid corn is produced by planting rows of different varieties next to each other. Then the tassels are removed from one variety.  The ears from the de-tasseled corn will be hybrid, since they could only have been pollinated by the other variety. This used to be a job that farmers hired high schoolers to do every summer. The hybrid ears are generally used as seed corn for next year.

When corn is pollinating avoid spraying anything on it. Pollen isn’t carried by insects, but it needs to be fluffy and light to be successfully delivered to the silks. Oily insecticides for example, might keep pollen from landing on the silks.

Sweet corn takes a lot of room in the garden but if you have ever had sweet corn just after picking it, you will immediately want to grow corn every year.  There’s just nothing to compare with sweet corn picked at the right stage, brought into the home and cooked immediately and then eaten.

Hanging basket, containers and annual beds in mid- summer

If your hanging baskets, containers and annual beds are starting to look a bit straggly it might be time for two things, a fertilizer boost and a cut back.  If you act now your plants could bounce back and give you many weeks of color until frost comes.

Some people use the fertilize with every watering method of caring for baskets and containers. If you tend to water with the hose though, you may not be doing this. I use a granulated, slow release fertilizer in my baskets and containers when I plant in spring. Then I don’t worry about fertilizing them until right about now. If you used this method in the spring or you haven’t been fertilizing now is the time to do it.

If you want to use a granulated slow release fertilizer simply follow label directions for the amount to use, sprinkle it on top of the planting medium and water it in. If you want to use a liquid fertilizer mix it according to label directions and apply.  Most liquid fertilizers do not last long.  You may not want to use them with every watering but every week or every other week would be a good idea. Those of you already using diluted fertilizer every time you water don’t need additional fertilizer.

Annuals in the ground may not require fertilization, especially if you fertilized when you planted them. If the plants look dark green and full, they may not need fertilizer. However, if they look pale, yellowed or spindly a fertilization may be in order. Granular fertilizers work best for plants in the ground.

Should you trim plants back now? Many annual plants look better and flower better if cut back around this time in summer. Petunias that are straggly and long are a good example. Older varieties are more prone to doing this, newer varieties may stay compact and blooming all season.  Other plants that benefit from a pruning back are lobelia, straggly ivy geraniums, sweet potatoes that have gotten straggly, million bells, osteospermum, nemesia, bacopa, and any of those trailing plants added to containers.

When I do a pruning back, I take off about a third of the plant. They bounce back quickly from this.  If you are going on vacation and don’t mind the plants not blooming for a couple weeks to a month, you could prune back the plant to about half.  Prune off any dead stems, dead flowers and anything that looks really bad.

Other annuals do best with a good deadheading, cutting off dead flowers, but stems should not be cut back. This includes begonias, snapdragons, zinnias, cosmos, marigolds, salvia, most geraniums and any annual plant with a single stem.  Just remove the dead flowers.  Coleus is a kind of in between plant, some varieties that get long and lanky, with lots of bloom stalks might benefit from a prune back, more compact, bushy types can just have flower spikes removed.

I have pruned back plants that like cool weather, like pansies, diascia and calendula, back to an inch or so from the ground, after they have yellowed and start to look bad. In fall with good weather these may perk back up and bloom again.

The common ditch lily dies back in hot weather, if you remove the dead foliage it will probably green up again and look better in cool weather, although it will not bloom again. It is a perennial.

Oriental and Asiatic lilies, canna, dahlias and other bulbs can be trimmed back after the stalks have yellowed. They won’t bloom again this year and are perennial plants. Do leave the stalks to finish maturing and turn yellow if you want bigger, healthier bulbs the next year.

Gladiolus

Want to know about growing the gladiolus for cut flowers?  You may want to read this article.


Hopniss or Groundnut

Apios americana, Hopniss, groundnut
How would you like a vine that’s native, edible, medicinal, and has pretty chocolate colored flowers? I have some growing rampantly in my yard, but I bet most gardeners have never heard of the plant. Hopniss or groundnut, Apios americana, is an unusual plant that more gardeners should try growing. I’m going to call it hopniss because groundnut is also a common name for the peanut.  It’s also called Indian Bean or Indian potato.



There is one other species of hopniss in the US called Price's Groundnut (Apios priceana). It is extremely endangered and found in one small area of Illinois. The flowers of this species are a light pink.  It has one larger tuber instead of many small ones.

Hopniss was a staple in the diet of many Northeastern Native American tribes and may even have been selected for certain traits and grown as a cultivated crop. It’s native from southern Canada to deep in the southern US from the east coast to the Rockies. It is becoming rarer and is listed as endangered in some states.  A few nurseries grow the plant and Louisiana State University has tried to develop hopniss into a commercial crop. Other universities have studied the plant for its medicinal qualities.  There is a small commercial crop grown in Japan.

The native habitat of hopniss is at the edges of moist woodlands and along rivers and streams in moist bottom lands. Hopniss is a vine or it sprawls over the ground if it doesn’t have something to climb. It will climb to 8 feet or more in a good site. The leaves are arranged alternately, pinnately compound, consisting of 5-7 oval leaflets. They remind me somewhat of wisteria leaves. 

Two butterflies use hopniss as a larval food plant, Epargyreus clarus (Silver-spotted Skipper) and Thorybes bathyllus (Southern Cloudywing). Deer feed on the foliage and small animals eat the tubers.

Hopniss flowers are intriguing. Bloom time is mid to late summer, with August being the bloom period in Michigan. The plants produce clusters of “curly” looking milk chocolate colored flowers, with a flared “hood’ consisting of two fused petals, two tiny petals near the bottom and a curious curved tube in the center that protects the pistil and stamens. 

The end of the tube appears to be buried at the top of the hood but if you so much as touch the curved tube it will coil away from the hood wall and the tip will slowly split, first the pistil and then the stamens will poke out.  You can watch it slowly happen.  I imagine that an insect landing on the hood area or the curved tube would also provoke the reaction.  After the flowers curved part has been activated the hood folds around the curved tube and is said to be “tripped”.  

It's not known for sure what pollinates hopniss.  Leaf cutter bees and flies do visit the plants. Leaf cutter bees have been seen to trip the “tube”. Honeybees occasionally visit the flowers, but since honeybees aren’t native, they are not the original pollinator.  However, the subject of pollination may not be important, as many plants do not produce seeds.

Hopniss comes in two strains, a diploid and a triploid. This refers to sets of genes that the plant has. It’s impossible to tell whether hopniss is a diploid or triploid by looking at it. In the north most hopniss is triploid and does not produce seeds.  Reproduction is from the little tubers the roots form.

Farther south and in a distinct region around the Black River in central Ontario,]some stands of hopniss are diploid and produce narrow, bean like, slightly curved pods. The pods have maroon seeds that darken to chocolate brown when dried. The pods split when mature and “shoot” their seeds.

Flowers and seeds of hopniss are edible.  The flowers are used medicinally in the treatment of diabetes. The beans were dried and ground into flour or boiled and eaten by Native Americans.

It’s the little tubers that form along the rhizomatous roots that earn hopniss the name groundnut and that are the primary food product. The tubers form along the roots like knots in a rope.  They are about the size of your thumb or smaller. They are dark brown on the outside and creamy yellow inside.  The texture is much like a potato.

These little tubers have about 3 times as much protein as potatoes and a different type of starch called oligosaccharides.  They also have lectins, a chemical found in raw beans. They are high in iron and calcium. The tubers should always be cooked before they are eaten.  Even so some people who eat the tubers will experience extreme gassiness and bloating and may have diarrhea.  It is said that a sensitivity in some people may build up after consuming it about ten times, causing an allergic reaction.

Native Americans collected hopniss tubers and dried them on mats for winter storage. They were powdered and used as a flour or boiled in soups. Some tubers were sliced and fried as we do potatoes. Hopniss was boiled in maple syrup to produce a type of preserves.  The taste of hopniss is said to be like a nutty potato and quite good.

Hopniss was one of the native foods that the first European settlers had to survive on the first winter after they arrived. It remained a popular winter survival food for many years.  Hopniss tubers were introduced to Europe and other places. Japan embraced them as an edible crop as they were similar to another Japanese crop.

Hopniss is said to be a signal to archeologists that an Amerindian site is nearby, so maybe my yard is located on one. The plants were here when I arrived and this house is over 100 years old.  Henry Thoreau is said to have eaten them when his potato crop failed.  

Hopniss on old fence


Growing hopniss

Hopniss is a perennial plant and if you want to grow it you will probably start with tubers, not seeds. Just plant the tubers on their sides in about 3 inches of soil.  It likes light textured, moist soil in full sun to light shade. The plants fix nitrogen in the soil like soybeans, so they need little fertilization. It can take several years for the vines to grow until there is enough tubers for a harvest. Hopniss is hardy to at least zone 4.

If you grow hopniss for the flowers or for a screening vine, remember that they spread quite quickly in spots they like. They can take over a lot of fence or cover a lot of ground. The vines die back in winter and come back from the ground.  Most flowers in the north will not make seedpods.

Hopniss has few insect or disease problems. They may die back in very hot, dry weather.

Growing hopniss as a crop is tricky because of the perennial nature of the plant and the years needed for a crop. You dig up the vines in early fall after the first frost to collect the tubers. You can’t pull the vines out of the ground; they need to be dug.  Save some tubers to replant, right there after harvest.  Tubers are stored like potatoes, in a dark, cool but above freezing place.

Medicinal uses of hopniss

Hopness flowers are used to lower blood sugar. I believe a tea is made with them. Boiled tubers are used as a poultice on wounds. Eating the tubers is said to lower blood pressure, cholesterol and triglycerides and is being studied for those purposes.

There are chemicals in the tubers that have anticarcinogenic properties and one compound, Genistein-7-O-gentiobioside, is being studied as a treatment for breast cancer. It may also be helpful in colon and prostate cancer.

Hopniss is an interesting native vine with pretty flowers and many edible parts. You may want to include it in your garden.

Sources for tubers


"We might think we are nurturing our garden, but of course it's our garden that is really nurturing us."
-Jenny Uglow


Kim Willis
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