It’s a hazy smoggy day here, smoke from the western wildfires, but much milder than the weekend. I don’t know about your neck of the woods but here in Michigan’s thumb we had a freeze/frost event for 2 nights this weekend. It’s early for that here, but nature does what she wants. Now we are supposed to have a stretch of nicer weather.
It’s National Indoor Plant Week- I think. It’s the third
week in September but we have 5 weeks in this September- or part of weeks. If
it’s supposed to be the third full week, this is it. If you don’t have houseplants shame on you. Go
buy some immediately or get some from friends. Houseplants make you healthier
and happier.
I spent several days bringing in houseplants, and tender tropicals. My house is packed with plants. There are 40
plants in the living room alone and some of those are huge. There are about 20
in the bedroom,16 in my home office, 10 in the kitchen and a few others
scattered here and there. On the porch there are about 20 plants so far, I
still have the hardier stuff outside like geraniums to bring in.
I covered some plants with old sheets this weekend to
protect them from frost. I couldn’t cover the huge taro plants I had, the stems
wouldn’t hold up a sheet and they were 6 feet tall. I hadn’t planned correctly for that, so I was
outside at dark digging them out of their huge tubs and putting them in buckets
to bring inside. The next day I potted them, but they don’t look happy. The
elephant ear I treated the same way, but it seems to have taken the indoor trip
much better.
Some things did get frost bitten, even with a sheet the top
leaves of the sweet potatoes browned. Some dahlia leaves also browned and
wilted. Things like roses and wax begonias survived unscathed. There are still
many things blooming in the garden actually. I am getting to see the blooms on
some new landscape roses I planted this spring, it took all summer to get them
to blooming size. Some dahlias are just starting to bloom too.
The sweet autumn clematis is still covered with blooms, the
asters are a froth of white. I have canna, salvia, zinnias, cosmos, marigolds, woodland
nicotiana, geraniums, petunias, hosta, mums, roses, ligularia, snakeroot, snapdragons,
phlox, sedums, morning glories, and a few other things in bloom.
The Old Farmer’s Almanac is out, (there are several almanac
versions) and it’s calling for a mild, wet winter here, more wet than white
they say. The weather service says we have entered La Nina conditions for the
winter at least and they too predict more precipitation. Temperatures and
moisture can vary across the US, with some seeing warmer and drier in La Nina and
some seeing colder and wetter weather than normal. It’s the reason we have more hurricanes this
season too.
The day is now just over 12 hours long, today is the autumn
equinox (9 :31 am EDT) but here in Michigan we add 9 minutes to “half” the
day. But by Friday we will have lost
those 9 minutes, for the real 12-hour day.
By the end of the month we will have lost another 14 minutes. Daylight
fades fast this time of the year.
About those
potted mums
Fall means chrysanthemums in many areas of the country.
Potted mums in blazing or soothing colors are outside the doors of every store.
Gardeners buy them to pop into beds where annuals have fizzled or have been
killed by frost. They are very affordable and create a vibrant look in the late
fall garden. Potted mums are also one of the best plants for cleaning
pollutants from indoor air, so they may be good indoor decorations too.
There is nothing wrong with using mums as annuals, and not
worrying if they will survive the winter. They will continue blooming with
proper care until a hard freeze or snowfall kills them. You can just leave them
outside until then. Even if the tag says hardy mum, many of the mums you buy in
full bloom in the fall would not survive winter and bloom next year if you
plant them this fall. But there are some tricks that you can use that might
help you save some of these mums to bloom again another year.
First keep the mums well-watered. They are often sold in
small pots that dry out rapidly even in cool weather. Keep them in a sunny spot
on the deck or in bright light inside. Don’t use fertilizer on the plants. They
are primed to bloom by greenhouse techniques and the decreasing daylight and
don’t really need it.
If you are putting them in a garden bed for temporary color,
simply sink the pot in the ground. If you want a chance at them surviving
winter plant the potted mums into the ground as soon as you buy them (without
the pot). But I will tell you from years of experience that only a few will
survive. Mums that sit on the deck or patio all fall are not good candidates
for outside survival, even if planted in the ground late in the fall.
If you do plant a mum in the ground when you buy it don’t
trim back the dead foliage in late fall. Leave it until spring. Mums do best
when the dead foliage is left to protect the crown over winter.
A trick you can try for mum survival
If you have the right space inside, you could try this trick
with potted mums to get them to survive until spring. Planted in the ground in
spring they are more likely to survive and return the following year. I’ve done
this several times.
When a hard freeze or good snowfall is predicted it’s time
to rescue your potted mums. Bring them inside to a cool room with bright light.
This can be a sunny window in an unheated room or under a grow light in the
basement. Mums will even stay healthy at temperatures slightly below freezing
if protected. The best temperature would be between 40- and 60-degrees F. Trim off any dead flowers. Many times, the
plants are still blooming vigorously when brought inside and that’s fine.
While inside you will probably need to water the mums less
frequently. The pot should dry out slightly between watering but don’t let them
wilt. If they do wilt, quickly water them and they may revive. Just don’t let this happen too often. Don’t
fertilize the plants now.
Once blooming slows down or quits cut all of the mum stems
back about one third of their length. If it’s quite cool the mums will enter a
semi-dormant phase. The leaves will remain green but there won’t be much new
growth. That’s a good way to keep them until about March. Even if the leaves brown a bit the plant is
probably still alive. Sometimes the leaves and stems will turn entirely brown
if they get really cold but if you look closely and see green near the base of
stems the plant may recover. In this case cut the dead areas off to about 2
inches from the soil surface.
If you are keeping them a little on the warm side new growth
will appear a few weeks after trimming. Mums can get very lanky and ugly
looking if this growth is allowed to grow unchecked. Instead pinch out the
young tips of new growth after they have reached 2 inches or so. This will keep the plant compact and nice
looking. You may need to do this more than once.
When March comes you can bring the mum into warmer
conditions if you have a place. If the plant is exposed to natural light the lengthening
daylight will cause the mum to come out of dormancy even if it’s still cool in
its area. You can start fertilizing with
a weak fertilizer solution for blooming plants.
The plant will need water more often as it begins to grow.
Keep new growth pinched back to 2-3 inches and give the mum as much light as you can. As soon as temperatures moderate in the spring, the ground is thawed, and no hard freezes are likely move the mum outside. You can plant it in the ground or re-pot it into a slightly larger pot, if you need to keep it in a pot. Use some slow release fertilizer for blooming plants, according to label directions, on the mums.
If you want a compact plant pinch off the tips of those
stems until mid–June. After that quit
pinching to let the flower buds form.
Sometimes a saved mum planted in the ground in the spring will flower a
lot earlier than other hardy mums because it had a bit of a head start. If the
plant is in the ground leave it there the second winter, there’s a good chance
it will return in the spring. Most mums
will get larger and fuller with each passing season.
There are hardy garden mums that will give you years of
color and are really better for the garden that the mums you buy in pots. These
hardy mums are best planted in the spring. You’ll find them being sold as small
plants generally, but they grow rapidly through the summer and should bloom the
first fall.
So, buy those mums if they take your eye outside the grocery
or nursery, but don’t expect them to become perennials in the garden unless you
put some effort into it. It’s ok to use some plants for seasonal interest only,
and you are supporting the greenhouse industry when you do so.
Manure
may contain pesticides harmful to plants
Do you use manure to fertilize your garden because you want
to be organic? Better think again.
Researchers have known for a while that glyphosate and a few other pesticides
applied to crops can accumulate in manure. Animals eat grain or hay that have
had pesticides applied to them and the minute amounts in the plants accumulate
in the animal and are excreted in their manure. Unless the animals are fed organic
hay and grain their manure will have small amounts of pesticides in it.
And those small amounts of pesticides in the manure can
affect your crops as a study done with strawberries at the Biodiversity Unit of
the University of Turku, Finland proved. They fed quail a diet that included
grain that was treated with glyphosate while growing. They then used the quail
manure to fertilize strawberry beds. A
control group of quail received organic feed and their manure was also used on
strawberries.
The strawberries grown with manure from the quail that
consumed feed grown with glyphosate were smaller, had smaller fruit and
produced fewer runners. The researchers also did the study using meadow grass
and found it grew slower and remained smaller than plants grown with “organic”
manure.
Similar research has found that manure and compost often
contain pesticide residues that can harm plants when they are used to fertilize
them. Even manure from grass fed animals can have pesticide residue if the
animals graze on fields treated to control weeds or insects.
The takeaway for gardeners is that manure is not always the
safe, natural way to fertilize the garden. Unless you know the animals the
manure came from were fed organic grain and hay, their manure can contain
pesticides. And even if they were fed organically, if the manure is mixed with bedding
such as straw that wasn’t grown organically, it can contribute pesticides to the
mix. Animals eating commercial feeds are probably consuming small amounts of
pesticides.
These small traces of pesticides like glyphosate are very
unlikely to harm people eating food grown in contaminated manure. However,
it’s important that you realize that the manure may affect plant growth. For
anyone worried about pesticide residue you may be better off using a chemical
fertilizer and making your own compost from plants not treated with pesticides
to furnish organic matter for the garden soil.
More reading
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200918104255.htm
Do
wildflower strips help crops?
Several research studies have found that if farmers add
strips of land planted with wildflowers around crops it will attract beneficial
pollinators. But are these wildflower
strips really helpful in the long run? Current research from Cornell University
finds that they are helpful only in certain circumstances. In some cases, they can even reduce crop
yields.
Wildflower strips attract harmful insects as well as
pollinators. These insects can damage crops or carry diseases to them. If the
wildflower strips are planted in an area where there is some natural land
nearby then generally predators of the harmful insects will also appear to help
control the harmful ones. The optimal natural land area around the crop area is
25-55%. Researchers called it the goldilocks zone.
If the crop is surrounded by fields of other crops, with no
natural areas nearby, the strips of wildflowers do very little good. They attract
pollinators but also too many harmful insects. If the crop is surrounded by
natural land few pollinators are attracted to the wildflower strips because they
have abundant food.
Researchers found that some species of wildflowers are also
more likely to attract pest insects and should be kept out of any wildflower mixes
used to attract pollinators. Fleabane (Erigeron annuus), which has small
daisy like flowers, is one wildflower that attracts more harmful insects than
pollinators. The make up of wildflowers
in these mixes needs to be studied to find which other flowers may actually be
harmful to crops.
The takeaway for gardeners is this; in suburban areas where
there are many gardens you probably don’t need to plant wildflowers- or any
flowers- to attract pollinators for a crop. If you are planting the wildflowers
to simply be able to see pollinators, such as butterflies, be aware that the
wildflowers may also attract less beneficial insects to the garden too.
In the middle of a barren city environment, with little
natural areas nearby, planting wildflowers around garden crops probably won’t
help much either. And planting wildflowers in an area surrounded by natural
lands is also unnecessary for pollination purposes. But if you just like the
idea of wildflowers go ahead and plant them, just remember your garden crops
and ornamental plants may not be helped and may even be harmed. Besides attracting pest insects, many plants
included in wildflower mixes are considered to be weeds in the garden and
spread rapidly. You may be fighting to control them for years.
Here’s another bit of information about mixing “wildflowers”
among garden crops. Some people recommend certain plants as “trap” crops. They
say harmful insects will be attracted to these, and that’s true. But if those
plants are close to your garden, the harmful insects will also eat garden
plants. “Close” would generally be anywhere in the average suburban yard. Trap
plants need to be pulled and destroyed when they are full of harmful insects or
their eggs/larvae. If you aren’t doing that you are just farming harmful
insects.
As far as repelling insects from crops- or from you- most of
the recommendations you read about – such as planting marigolds around gardens
or pots of scented geraniums to repel mosquitoes- are old wives’ tales. African
marigold roots may repel soil nematodes, but that’s about it.
If you like to grow flowers in the vegetable garden, go
ahead and do it. Just don’t expect any miracles from them.
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181015163151.htm
Eating or
drinking the weeds- Cleavers
Cleavers (Galium aparine)- is a common weed found
nearly everywhere. They are also called
bedstraw, or goose grass. The plants are sprawling, floppy things. The stems of
cleavers have tiny prickles and are square. The leaves are small and narrow and
occur in whorls around the stem. The plants will stick to you when you pull
them.
Cleavers is usually found in moist, partially shaded areas. Cleaver flowers are inconspicuous greenish white things. The tiny round two compartment seeds that form have little bristles that cling to fur or clothes much like a bur. My dogs bring them in by the bushel. If you like natural foraging or want to be prepared for all emergency situations that come up you might want to collect the tiny seeds of cleavers when you find them.
Cleaver seeds can be used as a coffee substitute. The small
seeds are washed and rubbed to remove the sticky green pod and then the black
hard seeds are spread on a cookie sheet and toasted at 350 degrees F for about
30 minutes. The roasted seeds can then be ground and brewed like coffee. I don’t
know if it has caffeine, but cleavers is in the same plant family as coffee.
Cleavers leaves can be dried and used for tea too. Leaves
are sometimes “juiced”. That tea/coffee/juice used to be used as a diet aid, probably
because it’s a diuretic. It was also used for kidney and bladder ailments. It
is said to help the lymphatic system.
You can use any left over, cooled cleavers coffee or brew up
an especially strong batch as a deodorant. Simply soak a cotton ball in it and
rub under your arms. You can also use it to wash smelly feet. Cleavers coffee
or tea is also said to be good for skin problems like rashes and minor wounds
and softens the hands if soaked in it.
Cleavers can be used as a cooked green, the prickles soften
when boiled. The roots of cleavers make a red dye and people used to feed birds
cleavers roots to make their bones red.
Why? I don’t know.
So when the dogs come in covered with tiny cleavers burrs I
try to remember how useful this nuisance plant could be.
 |
| Young cleavers plants |
Choosing
the right apple for the job
Its fall and apples are showing up at the farm markets. You
are longing for fresh apples but what apples are right for each purpose? Do you like tart crisp apples or sweet soft
ones? All apples can be eaten or cooked of course, but some apples are better
for some purposes than others. Many
varieties of apples are grown commercially, and the guide below will help you
choose from the 18 top varieties to get the best apple for your purposes.
There are many other varieties of apples, including some
heritage apples, but the guide would be far too long and confusing if all were
listed. Taste is subjective of course, but an attempt has been made to define
the taste also.
Apple varieties are listed in alphabetical order. The color
of apples can vary with growing conditions to some extent. Remember “ugly”
apples can still be useful for cooking.
Braeburn - red-yellow- green apple- sweet, crisp for
cooking or eating.
Cortland- greenish yellow, blushed with red apple -
sweet- good for cooking.
Empire- red and yellow, sweet-tart- crisp- good for
eating and cooking.
Fugi- yellowish with red blush, juicy, sweet-tart-
best for eating.
Gala- early red apple with yellow stripes, soft,
sweet- good for eating or cooking.
Ginger Gold- yellow, round, medium sized, early
apple, sweet-tart, best for eating.
Golden Delicious- bright yellow, oblong, sweet
gingery taste, good for cooking and cider as well as fresh eating.
Ida Red - red with a touch of yellow, tart, firm, juicy
eating apple.
Honeycrisp- red and gold apple, juicy but firm,
sweet- best for fresh eating.
Jonagold- yellow with a red blush, sweet, firm and
juicy, good for eating or cooking.
Jonamac - red and green, rich spicy taste good for
eating and cider.
Jonathan - mostly red - crisp, spicy and tart - good
for eating and cooking, cider.
McIntosh - yellow and red, very white flesh, juicy,
crisp, tart, eating, baking, cider.
Mutsu- red-yellow- sweet yet spicy, good eating or
cooking
Northern Spy- red and yellow- mildly sweet, juicy
good for cooking
Paula Red- yellow blushed red, Michigan’s earliest
apple, sweet-tart- eating or cooking
Red Delicious- bright red, oblong shape - sweet,
crisp, best for eating
Rome- mostly red, mildly tart and juicy, good for
eating or cooking.
Some other things to remember about apples, don’t store them
near potatoes, they make potatoes sprout by giving off a gas. And potatoes make
apples spoil faster by a gas they give off. One bad apple can spoil the whole
bunch- if you let it lay there. Go through stored apples often and remove any
that are getting soft and spoiled. Use bruised or cut apples first.
Store apples in a cool dark place if you can and they will
last for months. Some people wrap each apple in a piece of newspaper or paper
towel but that’s impractical for large amounts.
The fact that I can plant a seed and it becomes a flower,
share a bit of knowledge and it becomes another's, smile at someone and receive
a smile in return, are to me continual spiritual exercises.
-Leo Buscaglia
Kim Willis
All parts of this blog are copyrighted and may not be used without
permission.
And So On….
Find
Michigan garden events/classes here:
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(This
is the Lapeer County Gardeners facebook page)
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