December 3, 2019 dreary days and dreams

Hi gardeners

It’s another gloomy day in Michigan. Michigan is one of the cloudiest states in winter because we are surrounded by the Great Lakes. Cold air moving over warmer water makes clouds. I can take the cold when it’s sunny, but I hate all the gloom. December and January are the worse, it seems like every day is dreary.

We didn’t get the worse of the storm that passed through and for that I am grateful. I prepared for an ice storm but the glazing we got was light and didn’t do much damage. Ice does so much damage to the trees, especially the white pines around here. 

There’s certainly nothing blooming outside right now, even the pansies have given up. Inside I have plenty of blooms and birds singing so it makes it a bit better. Create your own sunny day, that’s the best plan.

It’s the time of year that gardeners start dreaming about next years garden. Everyone does things online now but if you haven’t experienced the joys of garden catalogs in your hands on a cold winter day you should try some. The catalogs are already filling my mailbox and I’m “making my lists and checking them twice”. 

Some nurseries don’t put out print catalogs anymore, but many still do and will send them if you request them. Some catalogs are valuable resources for information on care and selection of plants.  On the right of this blog there’s a list of pages and there’s one for a huge list of garden catalogs.  I am going to be checking this page in the next couple weeks to add to it and remove any links that aren’t valid.  If you know of a catalog or online site I haven’t listed let me know- kimwillis151@gmail.com

Keep your trees from being stolen

You may have heard that there is a shortage of fresh Christmas trees in some areas. If you have nice landscape evergreens you may want to keep a close eye on them. Every year people have beautiful trees stolen from their property and this year it could get worse. Even city trees get stolen.

Nothing looks worse than an evergreen with it’s top cut off or an ugly tree stump left in the lawn.  A larger evergreen is a valuable part of your landscaping and costs money and time to replace. Trees close to the road are targeted more often, but I have heard stories where people drove off the road with a car or snowmobile or walked some distance to cut trees. And sometimes it’s not a single tree, but several trees that get taken at the same time.

Mark your property with no trespassing signs for a start. That helps if you catch someone and want to prosecute.  Then you may want to add signs to nice evergreens saying; “Warning, this tree has been sprayed with a toxic substance” or similar wording.  Buy some of those “pee” scents sold in sporting goods stores for hunting, mix with water and spray the tree. They wash off in a few weeks.

I have heard of people mixing eggs with water, letting it rot and spraying trees. If the tree is in a more isolated area you can even spray paint an X on two sides to destroy its looks for a Christmas tree. That too washes off in time but may not be the best solution for trees you look at every day. I know one guy whose trees are mainly for wildlife who just cuts random branches out of the tree to make them undesirable.

Trail and other cameras can help you find a thief but if they aren’t being monitored the tree may be cut down anyway. Motion detector alarms could be used if they can be heard inside the house.  In some cases, you may be able to chain the tree to a post or fence until after the holidays.

If you look at your trees and can see a nice Christmas tree or trees there, it pays to monitor your property closely before the holidays. Let your neighbors know that if they see someone on your property looking at trees, they should notify you. Make it as hard as possible for people to get on your property unnoticed as you can. Your trees will thank you.

These would make good Christmas trees  

What are the best evergreen species for Christmas trees?

Best is subjective of course, and usually best means the type of tree you have always had through the years. But if you haven’t had a fresh cut tree before you may want some tips. The most common Christmas tree species sold are balsam, fraiser and concolor firs, douglas fir, scotch pine, blue spruce, white spruce and white pine. Different species may be popular in different areas of the country and easier to find than others. 

This year a shortage of all Christmas trees is reported, but firs seem to be the species with the worst shortage.  If you like firs get yours early. The firs all smell nice, the very essence of Christmas, but have a more open shape and don’t take heavy ornaments that well. The needles aren’t scratchy but drop fairly quickly inside.

Scotch pines are dense and pleasing in shape, hold heavy ornaments and smell pretty good. They are prickly but hold their needles a long time inside.  They are often the least expensive tree.

Blue spruce and other spruces have good shapes, are dense and strong but their smell is not pleasant. They are also scratchy when decorating. Most spruce hold their needles a long time. They are generally more expensive than other trees.

White pines that have been pruned for a denser shape make pretty good Christmas trees but are more open than pines or spruce and don’t take heavy ornaments well. They smell nice, but not strongly. They retain needles well and are said to be the least allergenic of the Christmas tree species.

An important tip in choosing fresh trees is to examine the trunk to make sure the bottom of the trunk is straight and not too large for your tree stand.  Shake a tree you are looking at lightly to see how many needles it loses. They will all lose some, but if a great many needles fall you may want to skip that one.

A fresh tree should not spend more than 10 days inside so if you buy early store it outside in a cool, shady place. If it’s above freezing it’s a good idea to stand the tree in a bucket of water.  Make sure the deer and pets can’t get to it.

Thinking about Christmas presents for gardeners?

It’s that time of year when we are desperately racking our brains for the perfect gift for someone in our life.  If that someone likes plants we often think of gardening gifts.  Here’s some ideas.

Gift baskets

Gift baskets are always a good choice for the gardener in your life, if you know a bit about gardening yourself and can make wise choices.  Start with a nice reusable basket, maybe a “trug” to carry veggies. A nice flowerpot, a garden cart, or even a wheelbarrow can also be containers.

Add things like tools, decorative plant tags, a garden apron, garden clogs, hats, t-shirts, garden gloves, windchimes, kneeling pads, and garden books to your basket. Grow lights and seed starting equipment could be added.  Mugs with garden sayings, water bottles, even bug spray and poison ivy soap can be added.  A big bag of expensive potting mix might help fill those larger “baskets”. 

If you buy quality seeds and not left-over seeds or seeds that come from China, you could add seeds.  I would skip live plants but a gift certificate to a store or catalog is a great addition.

A garden gift basket for kids is a good way to get a child interested in gardening.  Use child size gloves and tools and maybe some children’s garden books in the basket.  In this case some good seeds, small pots and some potting medium might be a great addition.

Spinners and solar lights

Wind spinners are still a big craze in gardens.  If you are going to give one as a gift, make sure it’s a quality one and that it fits the size of the recipient’s garden. It’s a good idea to see if the gardener already has wind spinners because you can definitely have too many.

Solar lights have come a long way and there are some beautiful solar sculptures out there. Try not to buy a cheap plastic or resin thing, but a nice metal or glass sculpture with lighted elements.  Strands of tiny solar lights shaped like lanterns, dragonflies and other whimsical objects make good gifts. Some gardeners may appreciate solar stakes to light garden paths.

Hydroponic set ups and grow lights

Hydroponic systems (growing plants in water) are very popular and range from small countertop units to huge units in tents of their own. If someone you know is going to be growing their own legal marihuana you may want to gift them with one of the larger set ups. But if the gardener you are thinking of just wants to grow some herbs inside, a countertop unit may work well.

Do be advised that there are limits to the small units. Despite advertising hype, you can’t grow all the veggies or herbs your family wants to eat in a single unit, unless your family hates herbs and vegetables. And these units must include a grow light if they are to be successful. Shop carefully, pay attention to things like light wattages, and dimensions of the units. Prices vary widely and you get what you pay for certainly pertains here.

Even if they aren’t growing marihuana grow lights make things much easier for indoor gardeners. If someone you know has a garden hobby that has outgrown the window space they have available, grow lights are a great gift. Grow lights are much safer and use less electricity than they did a few years ago. They are less expensive too. You can use them for plants growing in soil as well as water and for starting seeds they are almost necessary.

Humorous gifts

I usually don’t recommend garden art as gifts unless you know the gardeners taste very well. Plastic and resin figurines, fake steppingstones and cutesy signs aren’t everyone’s favorite additions to the garden.  Many gardeners are gifted with them and don’t quite know what to do with them.  But humorous elements that don’t cost a lot can be appreciated and may find a place somewhere in the garden.

And sometimes you may just want to give a gift that sparks a laugh. That’s the case with these little finger attachments I am showing you here.  Supposedly they have a practical application, but I wouldn’t be able to gift them with a straight face.  Humorous gifts may not be that practical, but they can be fun.

You are supposed to slip these "tools" over a finger.  Imagine
giving them as a garden gift. LOL

Gifts I don’t recommend

Seed kits are everywhere online and most of them are worthless. They often contain seeds of plants that are very difficult to grow from seed, seed that is old and seed that is of dubious quality. Many of these kits come from China.  They promise herb gardens, wildflower gardens, complete vegetable gardens and so on. The premise and promise are ridiculous.

These kits are garbage and very overpriced for what they contain. You could put together your own seed kit with quality seeds for less. It’s tempting to buy them when you can’t think of anything else but try hard to avoid the temptation. A gift certificate to a seed catalog would be a far better gift.  

Plant of the month gifts don’t usually work out as planned and I have known few people who were satisfied with them. The plants are often not what was promised, not shipped because of weather, small and weak for the price or damaged in shipping.  They are often quite expensive, and you could buy all the plants listed at the same size cheaper somewhere close to home with better results. It seems like a good idea, but it doesn’t translate from idea to reality well.

 

This is a stupid idea, you won't grow good berries from this and for the $23 plus it costs depending on seller .
you could buy plants. 

Second Nature- a Gardener’s Education, Michael Pollan

Book review

You may have read Pollan’s Botany of Desire or the Omnivores Dilemma and if you liked those you will probably like Second Nature.  In fact, this book was Michael Pollan’s first book, published nearly 30 years ago.  Although I had read many of Pollan’s books this one escaped me until recently. I am so glad I didn’t let the 30 years ago thing keep me from reading it. Even though things change over time, the way people think about gardening seems to remain constant.

This is not a how to garden book, rather it’s a book about the philosophy of gardening. It explores ideas about gardening, set in the background of the author working on his first real gardens on an abandoned New England farm. If you ever debated what a weed is or how much you should interfere with nature, you’ll understand Pollan very well.

Pollan tells about how his grandfather gardened and how his father didn’t.  Indeed, after a complaint from neighbors about his unmowed lawn, Pollan’s father mowed his initials in the lawn and left it. Pollan’s grandfather, a relatively well to do man, had a huge vegetable garden and delighted in giving away baskets of produce.  He also had an immaculate lawn and extensive rose garden.

I wonder if the desire to garden skips a generation sometimes, as this is my own experience, and I have been heard the stories about grandparents instilling a love of gardening in people many times.  Both sets of my grandparents were avid gardeners, but my parents weren’t into gardening.  My mother dabbled a bit in gardening as she got older and my father grew a few tomato plants after his father quit growing them, but I learned about gardening from my grandparents.

When Pollan finally has a place of his own and has to tame the wilderness, so to speak, he gets all kinds of advice, which he ruminates on.  I thought the native plants thing was a pretty recent fad, but it seems it had reared its head even thirty years ago, although it maybe wasn’t such a cultish thing as it is now. Pollan struggles with his grandfather’s style of gardening and the back to nature style of gardening until he finds his own style of gardening.  I think many readers will relate to that struggle.

The book is divided into seasons, a good way to go about ordering a garden book because how and what we think about and do in the garden is generally seasonal for most of us. In winter Pollans thoughts are on planning his next garden, as are most gardeners.  He talks about seed catalogs, and most older gardeners will recognize the names of the catalogs he talks about. Even now, in the age of online stores many of those catalogs still exist. 

Pollan speaks of White Flower Farm and Wayside Farm as being the top tier of catalogs, catalogs for discriminating gardeners not afraid to spend money.  White Flower Farm is for the snooty New England gardeners who adhere to the English way of gardening, with a certain distain for newer hybrids.  Wayside is the somewhat more flamboyant but still aristocratic southern gardeners wish book.

Gurneys and certain other catalogs Pollen classified as middle class catalogs, are ones that tend to empathize the new and “improved, the biggest, the sweetest and so on, and which specialize in bargains and deals. Then there are the “hippy” 70’s style catalogs such as Vermont Bean and Pinetree, which specialize in open pollinated, organic, and heritage type plants. And then there are the specialty catalogs such as Cooks Garden, which feature exotic, foreign vegetables for gastronomic pleasure.  

Pollan notes that there is much information and advice given in these seed and nursery catalogs and that they are inspiration for many of the gardens we make. Sitting in winter pouring over those garden catalogs before we all became internet shoppers was as much an education for gardeners as any classes they could take.  I do wish more new gardeners would spend time with the “book in hand” catalogs and not looking at internet ads and flashy online catalogs.

Spring, summer and fall sections of the book all have interesting and somewhat humorous garden musings too. I identified strongly with much of what Pollan writes about gardening. If you read the book, I am sure you’ll find much to agree with and chuckle over too. You can buy Second Nature on Amazon and in many bookstores.

December Almanac

This month’s full moon is called the Full Cold, Oak Moon or Long Nights moon and it occurs on December 12^th. The moon will be high in the sky and cast a lot of shadows. If snow is on the ground and the skies clear it will be a very bright night. Moon perigee is the 18^th and moon apogee is the 4^th. 

On Tuesday December 10^th Venus will pass Saturn. Just after sunset look toward the southwest and you’ll see a very bright Venus (if the clouds allow) and a pretty bright Saturn very close together. You won’t actually see them pass each other.

There are two meteor displays that may be visible in December.  On the 14^th, at 2 am there is the peak of the best regular meteor event, the Geminids meteor shower. The nearly full moon will be a problem to seeing the meteors this year, but some will be visible. Some meteors may be visible from the Geminids from the 4^th through the 17^th. But on the peak day around 120 meteors or shooting stars may be seen per hour. The best viewing is after midnight, to about 2 am. Look toward the northwest.

On December 22^nd – 23^rd will be the peak of a lesser meteor shower, the Ursids meteor shower, which typically produces about 20 meteors per hour at its peak. The night of the 22^nd with a crescent moon, should provide excellent viewing from midnight to dawn. This will be especially nice if you are having a solstice bonfire.

Sunday, December 22, 2017 is the winter solstice. It marks the longest night of the year, the end of the celestial year and the beginning of winter.  On winter solstice the sun is at its farthest point in the southern sky and lowest point on the horizon. (For an interesting site that will show you where the sun and moon are in the sky at the exact time you access the site go to this site and choose your closest city.)

http://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/usa/

You’ll notice that the earliest sunset and the shortest day are not the same.  The earliest sunset occurs December 5^th when the sun sets at 5 pm (in the Flint, MI. area).  And the sun will set at that time until December 14th – when it gains a minute. It’s the time of sunrise that makes the difference in day length. On the solstice the sun rises at 8:03 am and sets at 5:03pm in the Flint, Mi. area. Your area may have slightly different sunrise and sunset times.

December’s traditional birthstone is turquoise. If cold December gave you birth, The month of snow and ice and mirth, Place on your hand a Turquoise blue, Success will bless whate'er you do. – old folk saying.  However, since it is the month of buying, modern jewelers want you to have lots of choices and they added zircon and tanzanite to the birthstone list. 

The December birth flower is oddly enough the narcissus.  This may be because it was associated with death, (its poisonous) by the ancient Romans and Greeks but now it is often used as a symbol of hope.  We are entering the time of the death of the old year but still, it seems odd as a flower choice.  In flower “language” narcissus is said to mean “you are the only one” or alternatively faithfulness, respect and modesty.

Recently holly has been favored to replace narcissus as the December birth flower and to me seems more appropriate.  Holly is a symbol of domestic happiness in flower language. Orchids are also listed as the December flower in some places.

Things to celebrate in December besides the solstice and Christmas include National Mutt day the 2^nd, Pearl Harbor Day- the 7^th and the 12^th is Poinsettia day, Gingerbread house day and National cocoa day, National Bake Cookies day is the 18^th ( or roast a suckling pig, your choice) , Look for Evergreens day is on the 19^th.  Besides being Christmas Eve the 24^th is National Chocolate day and National Egg Nog day. December 31^st is World Peace/ Meditation Day as well as New Year’s Eve.

December is National Bingo month, National AIDS awareness month, National Buckwheat month and Universal Human Rights month.

Buttermilk bread

Winter is the time for baking and I just made some buttermilk bread the other day. When you make bread, you get the house warm and full of good smells and then you get to eat hot bread with butter. It doesn’t get much better on a gloomy day. This buttermilk bread is simple but has a soft cakelike texture and tastes wonderful. The recipe makes two medium loaves.

Ingredients

3½ cups unbleached flour plus maybe a ½ cup more for dusting the bread board

1½ cups buttermilk

3 tablespoons butter, you may need a bit more if you butter the bread top before baking

2 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 package of fast rising yeast (2 tablespoons)

Dried Rosemary (optional)

Directions

Preheat your oven at 200 degrees F for 5-10 minutes, then shut it off, leaving the door closed.

Warm a ½ cup of buttermilk and a pinch of sugar in a small bowl until it feels barely warm. Make sure it doesn’t get too warm, if it’s too hot the yeast will die. Sprinkle the yeast on the warm milk and set it aside for 5-10 minutes.  After that time, the mixture should look a little foamy.

Melt 2 tablespoons of the butter in a large bowl and stir in the sugar and salt. Add the rest of the buttermilk and blend well.

Add the yeast mixture to the bowl and stir gently.

Next add the flour a cup at a time, stirring well after each addition. As the dough gets stiffer you may need to dust your hands with flour and work the flour into dough with your hands.

Turn the dough out on a floured surface and knead for 5 minutes or until you get a nice elastic feeling, slightly shiny dough. 

Melt the rest of the butter and lightly coat a large bowl with it. Save unused butter. Place the dough in the bowl, turn it over once, and cover it lightly with a paper towel.

Put the bowl in the oven you warmed, leaving it turned off. The oven shouldn’t feel too warm, you want it around 100 degrees. Let the dough rise for 1-2 hours, until it doubles in size.

Take the dough out of the bowl and put it on your floured surface again.  Punch it down and knead it lightly for a couple minutes. Divide the dough into two even portions.

Lightly butter two bread pans. Form your dough into two loaves and put them in the pans.  Turn dough over once in pan to butter the top. Cover with paper towels and let the dough sit for 45 minutes to an hour, until it has doubled in size.

Heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Brush the tops of the loaves with melted butter and sprinkle on some dried rosemary if you like. Put the bread in the oven and bake about 35 minutes, or until it is lightly browned and pulling away from the sides of the pan.

Turn hot bread out on a plate or rack. Let it cool 10 minutes before trying to cut it.  (You should wait because it cuts better if it cools a bit, but chances are good you’ll be dying to taste it and cut it immediately.)

Wrap bread tightly after it cools to store it.  It freezes well.

How did it get so late so soon? Its night before its afternoon. December is here before its June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?

-Dr. Seuss-

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:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/118847598146598/

(This is the Lapeer County Gardeners facebook page)

Newsletter/blog information

If you have a comment or opinion you’d like to share, send it to me or you can comment directly on the blog. Please state that you want to have the item published in my weekly blog if you email me. You must give your full name and what you say must be polite and not attack any individual. I am very open to ideas and opinions that don’t match mine, but I do reserve the right to publish what I want. Contact me at KimWillis151@gmail.com

November 26, 2019 trees and turkeys

This time of year, the weather can be very variable.  We have had mild weather in the 50’s the last few days and are supposed to get thunderstorms tonight. Then by the weekend we are back to snow.  Everyone who is going to be traveling this Thanksgiving holiday needs to keep a close eye of the weather forecast.

I went out walking yesterday with my dogs and the grass was so green it looked like spring. I saw dandelions in bloom and also found some snapdragons and pansies still blooming. I noticed the willows, the chestnut and some maples still had dead leaves clinging to them. Many people are talking about this, trees with dead leaves still clinging to them. The regular abscission process was cut short by the cold and snow we had earlier so that’s why some leaves are still clinging. They will drop soon and it’s not a problem for the tree.

In weather that smells and looks like spring my mind starts jumping ahead to that wonderful season. Seed and plant catalogs are filling my mailbox. I am already looking at pictures of my garden in July and August and trying to decide where I can put new plants in the spring. I hope you take pictures of your garden beds so you can enjoy them deep in winter.

I spend some dreary winter days sorting through my pictures, choosing the best and deleting the rest, so to speak. (It’s hard for me to delete.) I take a lot of plant pictures, sometimes I look at a picture I took this year of a beautiful lily in sunlight for example, and then find out I took the almost exact same picture the year before. Even then I spend many minutes deciding which picture to keep.

Some day after I am gone someone will look at all the pictures I took of flowers and wonder why I did it. I hope someone will appreciate them as much as I do. In previous times it was harder and much more expensive to take a lot of pictures. You had to think about whether a shot you wanted to take was worth wasting film on and you only had so many pictures on each roll of film.  Now you just click and shoot, sometimes taking many, many shots of the same thing, hoping to get that perfect angle.  You simply delete the ones you don’t want to keep. Well you should delete some of the shots anyway.  I always wonder if I am keeping the best one, second guessing my own judgement so I keep 2 or 3.  I just checked, and I have over 13,000 picture files in 98 folders. I need to really start deleting.

Don’t get me wrong, I have pictures of family and pets, but a lot of my pictures are of plants and gardens. I think of someone looking at my pictures after I’m gone and saying, “why would anyone want 30 pictures of the same tulips”?  Or “why was she taking pictures of spotted tomatoes and dead grass?” (I take pictures of plant problems for writing purposes). And undoubtedly they will delete most of them. But for now, I take pleasure in sitting and looking at moments of time captured.

I have boxes of slides my father and uncle took and boxes of pictures I took before the digital age. Many of those I have scanned into digital files to preserve them but even so, they had deteriorated over time in storage and aren’t as clear and colorful as they once were.  I hope the digital files I make now and I that I made of their pictures last longer in better condition than slides and paper photos. I put the files I make on flash drives and in cloud storage so maybe they’ll outlast me.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Christmas tree shortage and how to get an inexpensive tree

Because of weather in previous years, the 2012 drought for example, and weather this year, your choice of a live Christmas tree could be curtailed this year. Some Christmas tree farmers are also turning to easier, faster maturing crops like hemp. Across the nation a shortage of Christmas trees, especially larger ones, is predicted.

Most Christmas trees for retail sale have already been harvested, so as soon as you see them at lots and stores in your area you may want to buy one.  You can expect that prices will be higher than last year. You can wait until prices go down just before Christmas but this year you may be left with a very poor selection of small trees if you delay purchase. If you like cutting down your own tree you may want to do that early this year too.

If you don’t want to set up the tree yet- and really, you shouldn’t, you can store it outside in a cool area.  If it’s above freezing, you may want to store it with the trunk in a bucket of water.  Make a fresh cut across the stump about 2 inches wide before putting it in the bucket.  Keep the bucket filled.

Store Christmas trees where dogs and cats can’t pee on them and deer can’t munch on them.  Deer usually avoid spruce, but may eat pines and firs. It’s best not to bring trees inside until 10 days before Christmas.

How to get a low-cost Christmas tree

If you live near a National Forest, you may be able to cut a Christmas tree down free or for a small fee for personal use.  You must visit the nearest National Forest Service office and get a permit and tree tag first. You will need a park passport to be in the park and those of course cost money, prices vary. If you already have a recreation passport you are all set. The park office will issue you maps to areas approved for cutting and give you additional guidelines or rules for that area.

Tip- if you have a fourth grade/ 10-year-old child they may be able to get a special park passport for free, that you can use to get into the national forest. Check with the park or a public school 4^th grade teacher. Also, senior citizen (over 62) park passports are less expensive than others.

Tag prices and rules vary from park to park.  In the Huron-Manistee National forest near me tags cost $5 and each household may purchase up to three tags. You need a tag for each tree you remove. I have seen other National Forests charge different fees. You cannot sell any tree you cut from a National Forest. (By the way, most National Forests will also sell you permits to cut/gather firewood. These are separate from Christmas tree permits.)

You will be responsible for finding a tree in the cutting area and bringing supplies to cut the tree down and transport it to your car. Most parks require the trees be cut at least 200 feet from a road.  It can be hard work to get through deep snow and transport a tree back to your car.

Here’s a link to a map of National Forest Areas.  Click on the park nearest you and it will take you to a page where you can find out about tree permits for that park and where to go to get them. 

https://www.fs.fed.us/ivm/index.html

Those “Christmas” cacti

About this time of year stores everywhere will be putting out the Christmas plants and one of the first to appear is what we fondly call “Thanksgiving or Christmas” cacti.  There is so much confusing and even false information given out at this time of year about their care that I’d like to take a moment to share some information.

First, the leaf segments on these cacti don’t really determine when they will bloom, despite the charts people like to point to. The cacti commonly called Thanksgiving or Christmas cacti are easily manipulated to be in bloom when growers want them to be.  While there are two common species; Schlumbergera bridgesii, (or Schlumbergera russelliana), and Schlumbergera truncate, these species are often hybridized and will have blooming habits intermediate between the species.

 

Notice the smooth edges on the leaf segments? 
This one blooms around Thanksgiving and not later in the year, contrary to popular lore.

There are now dozens of Schlumbergera hybrid varieties on the market. Most often the cacti you buy in stores will not be labeled by species or even the variety name. You can buy them by the variety name in specialty nurseries and catalogs.

Even in your home under natural conditions these cacti may bloom at various times not necessarily coordinated with the shape of the leaf segments. While leaf segments with sharper points and jagged sides tend to bloom first, it’s not a hard and fast rule.  Growing conditions, cool nights and shortening daylight affect bloom time. Each home has different conditions, the same cacti in different homes will bloom at different times. These cacti should really be named Holiday cacti.

(Easter cacti, Rhipsalidopsis gaertneri, do bloom much later in spring and have much more rounded leaf segments but they also aren’t as common in the market as the other two species. Sometimes the other holiday cacti are manipulated so that they bloom at Easter also.)

Second, while they are in the cacti family these Schlumbergera cacti are not from a desert, they are from cool rainforests in Brazil. They should not be treated like other cacti. One of the biggest mistakes new gardeners make with these plants is to let them get too dry. They also need a decent amount of humidity to keep their buds.

For an article on caring for these forest cacti please go here;

http://gardeninggrannysgardenpages.blogspot.com/p/christmas-thanksgiving-and-easter-cacti.html

I love the holiday cacti and I have several color varieties.  They are in bloom in my house from early November way into spring.  I strongly recommend them to new gardeners, but make sure you learn the right way to care for them.

This one blooms around Christmas and has pointed edges on leaf segments.

Light pollution and what you can do

I like to look at the radar pictures from GOES EAST, which shows the country in real time, and in real color.  (You can see it by going to the National Weather Service:

https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES/conus.php?sat=G16) 

It’s fascinating to see the lights at night around areas of the country from space. Some areas, like along the east and west coast and around Chicago, are lit up brightly all night long. As darkness sweeps from east to west you can watch the lights come on across the country. Even in the dead of night the lights shine brightly in many places.

Science has confirmed that lighting at night disrupts the natural cycles of life in almost every species from man to maple trees. Every species, including plants, needs darkness in its life.  Every species has a preferred cycle of light and dark, a rhythm that sets the internal clock and regulates metabolism. 

Light pollution is contributing to the decline of many species. It can directly kill, like the insects killed when they are attracted to a light or birds and sea turtles lured off their migration tracks dying from exhaustion. Or it can indirectly kill, when hormones and life cycles are disrupted with night lighting. Even animals that are active at night prefer the night be dark and they need that distinction between day and night.

There are many things that we can’t do a lot about, but we can do our part to reduce light pollution. And when we cut down on lighting the night, we can also cut down on energy production, which is another way to help the planet. There are several things everyone can do.

First, we can reduce outdoor lighting to what is really needed. Instead of a porch light left on all night, use a motion detector to turn on lights when they are needed. Use shades on light bulbs to focus the light downward or directly on the spot it’s needed. The shape of a bare light bulb mimics the moon and stars and can be confusing for birds and insects. Light scattered to the sky is wasted.

Eliminate unnecessary lights. Using a high sodium vapor light on a pole to light up the yard all night isn’t a good use of light. Remote switches to turn on lights if needed are better than leaving lights on all night. Timers on lights could also be used. Reflectors at the edge of driveways may be better than lights.

Second, we need to rethink things like lighting statues and flags at night. Your garden fountain doesn’t need night lighting. We should stop lighting signs that aren’t vital and billboards.  Empty parking lots should not be lit up.  People relate light to safety, in some cases that’s true but in other cases it has dubious value. Wherever there is no great increase in safety we should eliminate lights at night.

The color and intensity of light can also make a difference to the preservation of species. Humans and many other species have their health affected by blue light on at night. Intense white light is also more harmful than other light. Green light has also been shown to be harmful to many species at night. Amber and red light seem to have the least effect on health for most species.  Bats will show few behavioral effects from red light on at night for example. 

If you must use outdoor lighting at night, use amber or yellow lights. Many cities are switching their white/blue tone streetlights to amber toned lights. Research has proven that white or blue light does not lead to better vision or safety than amber light. Many people already know that few insects are attracted to yellow light at night.

Use the lowest intensity of light that is effective. A small dim light can be quite effective in many situations. Less is better when it comes to light at night.

While Christmas lights are pretty, our use of them is wasteful and harmful to the environment, plants and animals.  I can hear people howling about this, but it may be time to limit the amount of Christmas lights and the hours people can use them. Certainly no one needs to leave Christmas lights on all night, and they don’t need to be lit up more than a couple weeks around the holiday, a few hours an evening. And no one needs thousands of lights.

Darkness is needed at night for every living thing. Do your part.  Keep the night dark.

Turkey tips

Did you know you can cook a frozen turkey safely?  If you didn’t get it defrosted, you can still have your turkey as long as you have plenty of time on Thanksgiving Day.  Depending on how frozen the turkey is it can take twice as long or longer to cook it than if it was defrosted. Unless you have a really small turkey it’s going to take 8 hours or more so get up early.

Put a frozen turkey, breast up, on a shallow tray instead of a deep roasting pan.  A broiler pan can work. Remove all the plastic wrapper of course. If you can get the giblet package and neck out of the turkey do so, but if you can’t get them out now, you can do it later. Tent the turkey loosely with foil.  Put in the oven at 350 degrees.

After an hour or so check to see if you can remove the giblet package and neck yet if you didn’t get them out. Butter or oil the turkey skin.  Continue cooking at 350 degrees for at least 3 more hours. 

After 4 hours you could transfer the turkey to a roasting pan. You could put stuffing around it but don’t stuff the cavity. Baste the turkey with juices or broth or melted butter or olive oil.  Add your favorite spices. Tent with foil or cover the pan and continue cooking until the turkey tests done. This can take another 3-5 hours depending on the turkey size. During the last hour of cooking remove the foil tent or cover to let the turkey brown.

If you started with a frozen turkey don’t rely on a pop-up timer to tell when the turkey is done. Instead use a meat thermometer. The correct internal temperature to ensure a safely cooked turkey is 165 degrees. Place a meat thermometer in the thickest part of the breast to test but don’t let the thermometer touch bone.  Also test the turkey at the thickest point of the inner side of a thigh. There are thermometers that can be left in place while the bird is cooking but most are inserted to take the temperature and then removed.  When the temperature is 165 degrees the turkey is done.

If you added stuffing, it’s a good idea to stick your meat thermometer into the center of the stuffing and see if it has reached 165 degrees.  If not and the turkey is done, heat the stuffing in a pan in the oven until it reaches 165 degrees.

If you don’t have a meat thermometer the other way to tell if a turkey is done is to poke the center of the breast with a knife or meat fork.  If the juices are clear instead of pink, it’s probably done. The legs will fall away from the sides easily. A slice cut down by the breastbone will show no signs of pink flesh and the flesh will be white and firm.

Let the turkey sit 15 minutes before you try to carve it. Leftover turkey should be cut off the bone and placed in tightly sealed bags or containers.   Refrigerate or freeze the meat. Use unfrozen meat with a week.

Turkey tip two

The day before Thanksgiving arrange all the empty pans for cooking your side dishes with the empty turkey roaster to get a feel for how many items can cook in your oven at the same time. To cook correctly pans need a little space around them for air to circulate.  You may have to cook side dishes and desserts in shifts or after the turkey is removed.

If oven space is tight, you could partially cook the side dishes in the microwave, then finish cooking them in the oven when the turkey is removed. You should have about 15-20 minutes after removing the turkey since turkeys should be “rested” about 15 minutes before carving. Or you can cook some side dishes the day before and just reheat them.  Pies and cakes, bread, rolls and biscuits, sweet potatoes, green bean cassorole and stuffing are dishes that reheat well.

Here are two of my favorite biscuit recipes if you want to serve biscuits at your holiday meal.

Beer Biscuits

These biscuits, made with beer, have a yeasty flavor like good homemade bread. They can become your signature side dish. They are quick and easy to make. Serve them with jam or honey or add some sausage gravy for a yummy breakfast. They freeze well so make a batch or two on the weekends for school day breakfast during the week.

        3 cups flour

        3 teaspoons baking powder

        1-1/2 teaspoon salt

        3 Tablespoons sugar

        1 cup beer, any kind

Grease a cookie sheet.  Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Mix all the ingredients together, kneading with floured hands right in the pan until the dough feels smooth.

Pick out a small ball of dough and flatten it on the greased pan.   The size can be any biscuit size that appeals to you.   The recipe will make about 18 medium biscuits.

Bake at 375 degrees until golden brown.

Cheddar and onion biscuits

These are a more traditional biscuit with a flavor kick.  Use chopped frozen onion for the best results.  These are a great dinner biscuit and will be gobbled right up. Just right for serving with turkey, steak, baked chicken or fish.  Makes 12-18 biscuits.

        2 cups Bisquick or other baking mix

        2/3 cup milk

        1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

        1/2 cup finely chopped onion

        1/2 cup melted butter or margarine

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Mix all ingredients together except butter.  Dough will be sticky. 

Drop by spoonfuls on a ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake for about 10 minutes, until golden brown.

Remove from oven and brush with melted butter.  Serve warm.

"May the stars carry your sadness away, may the flowers fill your heart with beauty, may hope forever wipe away your tears, and, above all, may silence make you strong."

- Chief Dan George, Tsleil-Waututh Nation

Kim Willis

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