October 6, 2020 blue moons and red leaves

Hi gardeners

Anise hyssop

It’s hard to believe it’s October already. Today it’s overcast to partly sunny here and the temps are in the mid 60’s.  But we have had temps in the low 30’s over the past few days. There was some light frost but most of the garden seems to have escaped the death blow as of today. 

The wax begonias, landscape roses and Autumn joy sedum are the stars in the garden right now. But there are still some mums, petunias, salvia, cleome, dahlias, marigolds, calendula and Jerusalem artichokes in bloom.  I have a canna blooming again and there are some violas that came up from seed blooming in the lawn.

I am really disappointed in my anemones this year. Usually the white variety Honorine Jobert is tall and wide and filled with pretty white flowers this time of the year. But it got hit by the late freeze we had in the spring and never seemed to recover. I planted a pink variety this spring and it’s only about 6 inches high with small flowers. Turns out this anemone, ‘Jasmine’ is supposed to be a ground cover type, so it was my mistake on that.  I may have to move it because it’s buried behind taller plants.

I talked to a friend who gardens yesterday- socially distant and outside of course- and discovered something odd we both have in common. We have misplaced pots of amaryllis. We both move them outside for the summer. I had a huge pot of nice large bulbs and I put it outside somewhere this spring and now I can’t find it. I found a smaller pot of amaryllis and I thought I had put them close together.

Usually in the summer they grow leaves, then die back around fall and go through a dormant period and then bloom around Christmas. The pot I found had leaves. The missing pot should not be hard to spot even if the leaves are gone because the bulbs were large, and their shoulders were above the soil line.  But I can’t find it.  I’ve searched several times.

My friend is experiencing the same thing. Maybe it is because we are both growing old. I still have to dismantle the area around my decorative pond to remove a few pots of canna, crocosmia and pineapple lilies. It’s possible it’s buried beneath the sweet potato vines in that area. When I mentioned that to my friend she suddenly remembered where her pot might be- by her pond. Life can be strange.

 October Almanac

There are two full moons in October this year, one occurred on the 1^st which is commonly called the harvest moon. The second full moon is on the 31^st, Halloween. This full moon is called the Hunters moon, Dying Grass moon or Traveling moon as Native Americans often moved to winter grounds during this time. The Hunters moon is named such because at this time of year the moon rises early in the evening and stays bright until almost dawn, letting hunters easily track animals in the night. (It’s now illegal to hunt most game animals after the sun goes down.

The second full moon is also called a blue moon.  It’s not as rare as some headlines would have you believe as they happen every 2-3 years. But a full moon on October 31^st is much rarer. The last time any area of the US had a full moon on Halloween was technically 2001, but most areas of the country have not had a full moon on Halloween since 1944. It won’t occur again until 2039. And by the way, the moon won’t be colored blue on the blue moon.

Some people also call the third full moon in a season with 4 full moons (- like fall, the period between the autumn equinox and winter solstice) is a blue moon. Most seasons are 3 months long and have three full moons.  They only started calling it that recently, I guess because every two years wasn’t soon enough.  Let’s not complicate things and just drop this idea.

There are two moon apogees this month, on the 3^rd and on the 30^th. The moon’s perigee occurs on the 16^th.    

If you like sky gazing, you may want to look for the Draconid meteors which will be at their peak Oct 9^th.  This meteor shower isn’t as frequent or showy as others but who knows what you might see.  Look for the meteors in the northwest sky just after dark. Later in the month the Orionid meteor shower peaks around October 20-21^st. Good viewing times for this meteor shower are around midnight.  These meteors can be seen in all parts of the sky.  The meteors are debris from the tail of Halley’s Comet.

October’s birthstones are the Tourmaline and Opal. October’s birth flower was the calendula originally, but now is listed as marigold. Calendulas were the “marigold” before the African plant we now call marigold was discovered. So now either calendula or marigolds is considered correct. The meaning in flower language is warm, undying and contented love.

October is National popcorn popping month, vegetarian month, seafood month, cookie month, pizza month, and applejack month.  If you are not into food holidays it’s also National Diabetes month, National Adopt a Shelter Dog month, National Domestic Violence Awareness month and of course the most used and abused “cause” of all, Breast Cancer awareness month. (I’m not against breast cancer awareness just the commercialization of it.)

Holidays of note in October include the 10^th –World Egg Day – National Dessert day, 21^st –Sweetest Day, 17^th, National Pumpkin Cheesecake day, 22^nd – National Nut Day, 24^th –and then there’s two of the world’s favorite holidays, 30^th -Devils night and 31^st - Halloween.

October gardening

For gardeners in many parts of the country October brings a new period of activity in the garden.  It’s time to plant bulbs and start the garden clean up. There is always a debate among gardeners whether or not to clean up the garden in the fall or spring. Frankly it boils down to being a personal decision for the flower beds anyway, but there are some things to consider before making the decision.

Flower bed cleanup in fall can be done if you like a neat look going into winter. Many gardeners do fall clean up. But leaving the cleanup- or at least most of it until spring does have some advantages. Birds and beneficial insects can use the seeds and plant parts left behind over winter. Seed heads, stalks and stems, and grass clumps can provide winter interest in a bland environment.

But the most compelling reason to leave cleanup until spring is that it is the way nature does it. The dying foliage protects the crowns and roots of plants and traps snow, which also protects plant parts. The decomposing foliage returns nutrients to the soil. One plant to certainly leave alone until spring is the chrysanthemum. Removing stems in fall often removes buds for next year’s foliage at their base. You can carefully cut dead stems back to about 6 inches but don’t remove stems.

If you want to collect seeds of various plants get it done soon. Some seeds of various flowers can be sown in fall for spring germination. To read more about seed storage and fall sowing you can go to this page; http://gardeninggrannysgardenpages.blogspot.com/p/seeds-germination.html

Before a freeze you need to dig up summer bulbs such as glads, dahlias, canna, and so on if you want them for next year. Pick a stretch of sunny days so that after you dig them you can let them cure in the sun for a day or two. Make sure they won’t freeze outside at night; you may have to bring them in at night.

Shake off the soil after it dries but don’t wash the bulbs/tubers.  After a day or two of curing you can cut off any foliage and pack the bulbs/tubers in slightly dampened wood shavings and store them in a cool, (above freezing) dry, dark spot.  

Vegetable gardens

The vegetable garden should be cleaned in fall if possible. This helps prevent insects and disease over wintering in the garden. Remove all plant debris to the compost pile. Add manure and compost to beds. I would suggest waiting until a hard freeze or two before adding amendments. That’s because the freeze may kill insect eggs and disease spores on the soil surface.  Adding manure or compost before a freeze may protect them.

It’s time to put away the tomato cages, stakes, sprinklers and other equipment. Take nozzles off hoses when you’ve ended the garden season and drain hoses.

If you need to harvest anything like carrots or potatoes, it’s time to get it done. Yes, you can cover the carrots with straw bales and then go out and shovel a path to the garden, move the heavy soaked bales and dig up some carrots in winter and then move the heavy bales back over the patch. But that’s not a really practical solution is it? Carrots can be stored in a more accessible space indoors for a long time.

It’s time to get bulbs for spring blooming plants planted. They can be planted from the time the soil starts to cool down until it freezes but don’t leave this until the last minute. I’ve been writing about bulbs in the last few blogs and there’s an article below on the actual planting process.

Don’t prune roses, shrubs and trees until they have gone dormant.  Pruning some plants before dormancy will cause them to put out new growth, which takes energy best conserved for spring growth. The new growth will probably be winter killed also.  After a few hard freezes and the loss of their leaves, roses, shrubs and trees can be pruned.  Spring flowering shrubs like forsythia and lilac, may not bloom in the spring if you prune them now, however.

You may still need to mow through October. Grass should not be too long when it gets covered with snow. Grass naturally starts growing slower as the day length gets shorter, but it will grow until the ground freezes.  In most of the country, zones 7 and below, it’s too late now to seed and fertilize the lawn.

Get those bird feeders filled.  You can use just black oil sunflower seed and suet cakes and attract most birds without a lot of waste. Add thistle seed and a very small amount of cracked corn, maybe some chopped peanuts and you will have pleased just about every bird species that visits feeders.  Most wild bird feed is filled with things like milo, red millet, oats and other seeds most birds really aren’t fond of.  It gets wasted below the feeder.

There is concern among conservationists that bird species are vanishing, and bird populations are down in numbers.  Feeding birds in winter does help them and it is a pleasant thing to sit and watch the birds in the winter. Put your feeder just outside a window so you can sit and watch the birds.

Want to save time this fall? Don’t rake leaves unless you are collecting them for composting or covering plants. Mow over leaves and let the small pieces fertilize the lawn. A thick layer of dead leaves could harm the grass but a light layer or chopped leaves won’t. Putting leaves in plastic bags or any bags and sending them to a landfill is blasphemy for a gardener. You are wasting a valuable resource. Leaves are natures fertilizer and mulch.

Don’t get me started on leaf blowers.  Gardeners do not need a leaf blower, which uses fossil fuels, pollutes the atmosphere and causes noise pollution. There might be some limited value in leaf blowers for those who need to clear off lots of paved areas in commercial settings, but a home gardener does not need a leaf blower. To use such an environmentally unfriendly machine to blow around a valuable garden resource is just nuts.

One thing to make sure you do this October is to get some time outside.  It’s a beautiful time of year but it’s fleeting.  Enjoy it while you can.

 

Are cultivars of native plants harmful to ecosystems?

First there was the big push to get people to plant more native plants, then there was the shaming of people to get them to plant ONLY native plants in their gardens. Now there is a movement to plant only natives that were locally sourced and adapted and not to plant any cultivars of native plants. Things are getting a little too extreme.

Joe Pye weed 

If you have been persuaded that you need to plant natives because they are the only plants that can save pollinators or because people have told you that native plants don’t require much work,(they do require work), then you now have to face another dilemma. Should you plant cultivars of native plants or only wild type plants?

First let’s define cultivar and nativar.  A cultivar is a human selected variety of a plant. It corresponds to a breed of animal.  The rose ‘Peace’ is a cultivar of rose. In plants cultivars can be grown from seeds, they often come from two varieties of plants that have been crossed and are also called hybrids. Plant cultivars can also be reproduced from cloning, which means they are started by cuttings or other asexual means.

Selected varieties or cultivars of native plants are sometimes called nativars. Many nativars are pretty much like their wild ancestors, maybe just tweaked a bit to be more compact, flower longer or more vigorous than the wild form. But some native plants have been turned into cultivar factories, humans have selected hundreds of varieties of them. One of the ones that comes quickly to mind is echinacea, a native plant that has spawned hundreds of cultivars. Some of these cultivars vary widely from the original wild type.

Wild type or wild form plants are, according to purists, those plants that were sourced from nearby areas and have not been altered by human selection.

So, the burning question is are nativars and cultivars just as good for the ecological system as “wild form” native plants? The answer is, from what few studies have been done, is it depends on the nativar or cultivar. It also depends on what you expect of them. Some nativars and native plant cultivars are every bit as good as the wild form, and in some cases better, for the “ecological system as wild forms.

For most people being good for the ecological system means providing food for pollinators and other beneficial insects. Some consideration is given to plants good for birds and other animals. And a tiny bit of concern goes toward choosing plants that help other plants.

Genetic mixing concerns

Many native purists are worried that genes from nativars in gardens will contaminate nearby wild plants and change the genetic diversity either through pollinators or the wind carrying pollen to wild plants. But this isn’t always a bad thing. In general, genetic diversity is beneficial to any species, as it allows them to adapt to changes in the environment.

Some native plant pushers are really alarmed about genes from clones- nativars that are propagated from cuttings. They believe that genes escaping from garden clones will somehow dominate wild populations and reduce genetic diversity. That just doesn’t make sense.

Many plants propagated from clones are propagated that way because the plant doesn’t come true from seed. If the pollen from those cloned nativars reaches the stigmas of wild plants and produces seeds, they are going to introduce new genes into the wild population. But since the results from those seeds will vary, especially when crossed with wild plants, how will that limit diversity?

Plants that are propagated from cuttings generation after generation do tend to get less vigorous because they have less genetic diversity to enable adaptation to environmental change. But that would only affect that nativar clone, which would be confined to gardens. And it’s common for new nativars to be introduced over time so even if insects were depending on only garden plants, a sudden loss of one nativar probably would have little effect in the broad scheme of things.

Even if you planted these cloned nativars among wild populations their genes would be combined with wild genes in the random fashion of any sexual reproduction. So, the offspring of such crosses would have more genetic diversity not less.

I have read and heard people say that “weak” genes from nativars are going to get into wild populations and cause such havoc that the species will be lost. That’s just nonsense and it isn’t the way natural selection and genetics work.

In both plants and animals the introduction of new genes into a stable population can cause some changes at first, but over time the tendency is for the species to revert back to wild type, especially if that wild type is well suited for the environment.

If the local wild species isn’t well suited for the environment anymore, as in the case of climate change, or the new genes give some plants an advantage, natural selection will favor changes that help the species. And that isn’t a bad thing.

Pollinator concerns

Many adult pollinators are generalists, they will feed on a wide variety of flowers, wild or exotic, that provide nectar or pollen. They may never have seen the flower before but if they explore it and find something they like they will certainly come back for more. I have tropical plants in my garden that attract pollinators, although they would never find these plants in the wild.

Even specialist pollinators rely on many clues to find their favorites and they do explore flower options too. So, a pollinator seeing a nativar flower with a different color won’t be fooled long.  If you are considering a nativar/cultivar that provides just as much pollen or nectar – or more pollen and nectar- than the wild type then it shouldn’t be a problem to plant that nativar.

A nativar of Culvers Root, Veronicastrum virginicum called ‘Lavendelturm’ is actually more attractive and more beneficial to pollinators because it has more nectar and blooms longer than the wild form. It’s also prettier in the garden, a win-win. Phlox nativars ‘Jeana’ and ‘Lavelle’ are more attractive to pollinators than the wild species Phlox paniculata.

While some cultivars of echinacea are not as beneficial to the ecosystem as the wild Echinacea purpurea, some are just as good. ‘White Swan’, ‘Magnus’ and many older, single flowered cultivars of echinacea have been found to equal the wild form in value to the ecosystem. The problem is that most cultivars of echinacea have not been tested to see how they compare with wild types.

Echinacea 

In general flower color is not as important as flower shape in determining if a nativar is a good choice for pollinators. If the shape of the flower stays the same, pollinators will probably ignore color changes, although some insect species are more picky. But nativars with double flowers for example, make it harder or impossible for pollinators to find the nectar and pollen.

If your concern is helping pollinators then avoid nativars with doubled flowers, reduced or absent pollen, (usually labeled sterile or seedless) or nativars where the flower has a longer nectar tube or other changes to the flower shape. 

If your concern is contamination of wild types with “escaped” genes, then sterile nativars are a good choice.  But they won’t benefit pollinators very much.

If a nativar has less fragrant flowers, then it may attract fewer pollinators. In many cases less scent is correlated with less nectar. In reverse, if a nativar is more fragrant than the wild type it may attract more insects and have more to offer them as a reward.

Foliage color and insect feeding

Insects may be more specific in what plants are needed for egg laying and larval feeding. The colors in a leaf are caused by different plant chemicals and when the foliage color is changed in a nativar, it changes the chemical composition of the leaf. This may not be good for larvae feeding on the foliage. This seems to be most true when foliage color is changed from green in the wild type to red or purple tones in nativars. Insects may avoid laying eggs on these plants and larvae may be weak or die from feeding on them.

Plants that have golden or white variegation seem to affect larvae feeding less and insects seem to be just as likely to lay eggs on them as on wild types. If we are trying to help pollinators, we might avoid using nativars with red or purple foliage. But if you want a garden specimen that resists insect damage then a nativar with dark foliage may be a good choice.

Plant size and form

In many cases native wild type plants are just too large at maturity to be useful in smaller gardens. The good news is that nativars which alter the size of the plant are generally just as good for the ecosystem as the larger wild type. A plant that comes to mind is Joe Pye Weed. Wild type plants can get 8 feet or more high and wide. Nativars like ‘Little Joe’ are much smaller and allow people with smaller gardens to enjoy this late summer bloomer.

Pollinators and insects that need certain host plants for egg laying generally do not care if the plant is shorter or more compact than the wild type. Once again if the genes from the smaller nativars “escape” to contaminate wild types it will not significantly alter the wild populations size, as natural selection will tend to pull the population back to the wild type and shape.

Most smaller nativars don’t have flowers that are much different than the wild type in size and shape. As long as the foliage color is the same as the wild type, gardeners should not worry about choosing compact or shorter nativars of wild plants.

Joe Pye weed nativar

Insect damage, disease, vigor concerns

If a native plant has been improved by selective breeding or selection to resist disease or insect attacks or to be more vigorous in changing climate conditions, then that nativar should be preferred over the wild type. If we don’t modify some plant species in these ways, then we may lose the whole species. Good examples of plants that need selective breeding to survive as a species are elms and American chestnuts. In this case you probably won’t find wild type plants offered for sale, only nativars or hybrids with other species.

It is true that some nativars selected for insect resistance will impact certain native insects. I suppose it depends on you whether you want to preserve certain insects or preserve the plants. Insect resistance doesn’t include those precious pollinators, because pollinators aren’t harmful to the plant.

One thing to consider though, in selecting nativars is hardiness. If a nativar was selected in a southern region and grown there for sale, it may not be as cold hardy as the same nativar selected and grown in a colder region. Heat and drought tolerance may also vary from one region of the country to another. In some cases, introducing genes for heat or drought tolerance to a northern region may actually be a good thing to combat climate change.

But when it comes to cold tolerance gardeners should check the hardiness rating of a nativar and not assume that if a species grows in their area that all nativars of it will be hardy in their planting zone.

As far as vigor goes, there is a small chance that some nativars may have been selected for such vigorous growth characteristics that if they escape to wild areas they may bully many other species of plants into oblivion, unlike their local wild brethren. Switch grass nativars, such as ‘Shelter’, are notorious for this. Any mention of extreme vigor, fast or aggressive spreading, in a nativars description should put you on alert for this.

Short summary

For gardens, nativars that are selected with a little care are not harmful to the ecosystem. In some cases, nativars will be much better for gardens than wild types. Just keep these points in mind.

            Avoid nativars with different colored foliage than wild types.

Avoid nativars with doubled flowers or flowers whose shape is different than wild type plants.

Use sterile, (seedless, pollenless) nativars if you are worried about gene “escape”.

Check vigor and hardiness traits when selecting nativars.

Don’t worry about nativars that are smaller or more compact than wild types. They are just as good for the environment as larger wild types.

Disease and insect resistance in nativars is usually a good thing.

Gene exchange between nativars and wild populations is usually more beneficial than harmful.

 

If you are “restoring” a large area meant for wildlife, then the use of locally sourced, wild type plants is preferrable rather than nativars. However, in the garden setting nativars can be good choices. Many non-native plants are also not harmful and can even be beneficial.

I have never been convinced that only native plants are beneficial to the ecosystem. People have been planting non-native plants in gardens for centuries. A garden cultivated by humans is an altered environment.  You can build a beautiful ecological system in that environment using all non-native plants, nativars, or a mixture of native and non-native plants or all native plants.

Would you have people remove most types of fruit trees, all the wheat and soybean fields because they are not native plants?  How about banning honeybees and earthworms? They aren’t native either. Sure, there are some non-native plants and even some nativars that could harm the local ecosystem. We won’t discuss that here because of space limitations. But by and large most plants you put in your garden are not going to harm anything but your bank account.

Don’t let people shame you into only planting a limited selection of natives if that type of garden really doesn’t appeal to you.

 

More reading

https://extension.umd.edu/hgic/topics/cultivars-native-plants

https://www.nwf.org/Magazines/National-Wildlife/2016/JuneJuly/Gardening/Cultivars

https://extension.illinois.edu/blogs/garden-scoop/2019-12-28-native-vs-nativar

Wild Grapes

 Wild grapes are often spotted in the fall, when they are loaded with small purple, sour grapes. Birds and small animals feast on the bounty and there are seldom any left for the winter. Humans sometimes collect the small but perfectly edible grapes to make jelly, juice and wine.

Grapes are native to several parts of the world. North America has several species of native grapes, the most common being the Fox grape, Vitus labrusca or Frost Grape, Vitus vulpina. Both have 3 lobed leaves, the Fox grape has more rounded lobes and the Frost grape has a more deeply serrated edge. Both grapes have leaves that are lighter and somewhat fuzzy on the underside.

Grapes form vines that climb into trees and may climb to the very top- 60 feet or more of a large tree. They also cover thickets and fences. Grapes climb by using tendrils, small, modified stems that wrap around things like a green wire. Wild grapes should be removed from landscape trees as they can overwhelm them and cause stunting or death.

Grapes develop woody stems as they age and some very old vines may have stems a foot or more wide. The bark on older stems is composed of shaggy, loose strips. Wild grapes are very long-lived, with vines living to be a 100 or more years old.

Grapes flower in early summer and the small greenish white flower clusters have a pleasant aroma. Clusters of small green fruit develop that ripen into blue- black or purple-red grapes. Wild grapes are said to be sweeter after a frost, but many are gone long before that. Grapes can be found growing in the sun or shade, in many kinds of soil.

Grape leaves are used in cooking and a grape leaf in a jar of pickles you are canning will help keep them crisp. Grape vines are used in many types of crafts. For craft use pull the vines out to long lengths before cutting them.  Then let the vines dry a bit in a sunny place until the leaves fall off. 

Grapes are also used medicinally- (not for just wine!)- as a laxative, and for liver and kidney problems. Grape leaves have been used on wounds to stop bleeding. Oil can be pressed from grape seed, but it takes an awful lot of grape seeds to make a little oil.

 

Wild grapes

Canning pumpkin

 

The easiest way to have cooked pumpkin on hand for recipes is to can it.  This allows you the convenience of having cooked pumpkin for recipes throughout the year. You will need a pressure canner to can pumpkin. When you can pumpkin at home you are making good use of a local and seasonal food source.

It is not safe to can mashed pumpkin as its too dense to allow proper heating in the center of jar. Leave the mashing to when you open the can to use it. It will be soft and easy to mash. Also add spices just before using the pumpkin for best flavor.

 You will need 18-20 pounds of whole pumpkin to make 7 quarts of canned pumpkin.

• Wash the pumpkin well under clean, running water.
• Cut the pumpkin in half. Scoop out the stringy goop and seeds in the center of the pumpkin.  Save the seeds for roasting if you want.
• Scrape the inner side of the pumpkin with the blade of a spoon until all the stringy matter is gone.
• Cut the pumpkin into 1 inch chunks.
• Stand each chunk on end and slice off the rind or skin with a sharp knife. There is a color change between the hard rind and the fleshy part. Discard the rind.
• Clean 7 quart jars, rims and lids in hot water and keep warm.
• Place the pumpkin chunks in a large pot and add water to cover them. 
• Bring the pot to a boil and then boil for 3 minutes.  The pieces should still feel firm. Save the cooking water and keep it hot.
• With tongs remove chunks of pumpkin and pack your jars with them to 1 inch from the top.  Do not mash the pumpkin.
• Ladle the hot, saved cooking water over the pumpkin pieces, leave one inch of space at the top.
• Run a bubble stick through the jars to remove bubbles, wipe the rim and add the lid and screw band.
• Place the jars in a pressure canner and process for 90 minutes.  Set pressure on a dial gauge at 11 pounds at up to 2,000 feet altitude, 2000-4000 feet at 12 pounds, 4000-6000 at 13 pounds and above 6000 feet altitude at 14 pounds. For weighted gauges set them at 10 pounds up to 2000 feet altitude and 15 pounds above 2,000 feet altitude.
• Remove jars and allow them to cool.  Check seals and label before storage.

  

The trees are in their autumn beauty, The woodland paths are dry, Under the October twilight the water Mirrors a still sky.     

-William Butler Yeats

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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 I write this because I love to share with other gardeners some of the things I come across in my research each week. It keeps me engaged with people and horticulture. It’s a hobby, basically. I hope you enjoy it. If you are on my mailing list and at any time you don’t wish to receive these emails just let me know. If you know anyone who would like to receive a notification by email when a new blog is published have them send their email address to me.  KimWillis151@gmail.com

 

September 29, 2020, spots and pots

 Hi Gardeners

Well it looks like true fall weather has arrived. After a relatively warm week it’s now cool and a bit gloomy here. We had some rain yesterday and it was needed. The trees are starting to turn, the Virginia creeper is red, and the soy fields across from me have turned golden. They’ll be harvested soon. My oak tree is shedding leaves like crazy.

Colchicum

I have almost all the plants that need to be inside moved inside. I moved most of the geraniums inside this weekend. I have decided to let the cannas and dahlias go until frost kills them. Then I will dig and store them dormant. I also have crocosmia, peacock lilies and eucomis to dig.

I have dug cannas and potted them to bring inside some years.  They will grow and even bloom indoors in winter. But I just don’t have the room this year. The dahlias are so late blooming I decided to just let them bloom until they die. Some were killed by our frost two weeks ago, but others are still going.

New things are actually blooming in the garden, toad lilies and a few anemones. The colchicum or autumn crocus is blooming. The roses like the cool weather and are blooming well. Mums and asters are still blooming as is the black snakeroot. Many annuals are still going strong. Some purple nicotiana that came up from seed dropped last year is finally blooming.

I have begun cutting back and cleaning up in some places. Usually I wait until spring. But we are having the house reroofed in a couple weeks and it will be a mess. I need to be able to see where the things I want to protect are. I have been dreading the roof project but it has to be done.

I’m evaluating what did well in the garden and what did not this year and making notes. I hope you are doing that too. It will help you later this winter when you are looking at all those seed catalogs and online nurseries. I am pretty sure this is the last year I will plant sweet corn.  I love it but it’s just too much trouble. And 3 tomato plants seem to be perfect for our use anymore.

I’m going to get new dahlias next year.  I lost quite a few this spring. And more lilies too. See, I am already planning for next year!

Seed collecting and drying

Many gardeners are concerned that there won’t be seeds for sale next year, I don’t think that will be a problem. But if you want to save seeds for next year remember two things- seeds saved from hybrid plants will not give you plants like the parents and seeds must be mature before you take them from the plant.

For example, tomatoes should be ripe to the point of rotting before seeds are collected. Peppers should be their mature color, in sweet peppers that usually isn’t green. Beans should be in dry, brown pods. Cucumbers will be yellow-orange. Summer squash/ zucchini will need to mature past the point where you normally eat them. Let them stay on the plants until mature.

Cleome seed pod splitting

For flowers it’s always best to let seeds remain on the plant as long as possible. If you must cut seed pods/heads before they are brown and ripe place them in paper bags in small bunches and let them dry further in a warm, dry location.

Once seed pods open or seed heads are very dry you can remove the individual seeds from them. Some of these seeds may be ready to store as is. If they feel at all moist, they need further drying.

Once fleshy fruits like tomatoes and cucumbers are ripe seeds can also be removed from them. This can be a messy task. The seeds require drying before storage.

The best way to dry a small amount of seeds is to spread them in a single layer in the sun or in a warm inside location. If the seeds are fleshy or still wet put them on a piece of screen instead of paper so they won’t stick to the paper as they dry. Protect drying seeds from birds and animals. You can dry seeds in a dehydrator too.  Don’t use high heat on any seeds you are saving to plant or you will damage the plant embryo. But a dehydrator can help if your weather is wet and cold.

Do not microwave seeds or heat seeds in the oven if you want to plant them. However, if the seeds are for eating, you could use these devices.

Large seeds like beans, nuts and acorns can be stored in baskets or other containers to dry. Containers that allow airflow like wicker baskets or crates with gaps are best. It will take longer to dry these. Remove the hulls from walnuts and hickories before storage. When dry nutmeats will be firm and dry in texture, not milky or soft.

After seeds are very dry store them in paper envelopes, properly labeled. These paper envelopes can go into glass or plastic jars. Twist a bit of dry milk or some white rice in a piece of paper towel and store in the seed storage container. It helps remove moisture that can cause mold. Store seeds in a cool dark place.

Most vegetable garden seeds don’t require any special treatment before planting. But many flower seeds need a period of cold stratification before they will germinate. This means they need to be stored moist and cold for a while before planting. For more information on seeds and their needs see this page; http://gardeninggrannysgardenpages.blogspot.com/p/seeds-germination.html

Jewelweed seed pods

 Repotting plants- tips

In fall many people are repotting plants they are bringing inside or that have been growing all summer and look like they need more room. It used to be that people were very reluctant to repot a plant. I used to hold demonstrations on how to do it and often had to encourage people to take the step. But it seems now that the pendulum has swung the other way and people are constantly repotting their plants.

Repotting a plant too often is stressful for the plant and repotting a plant incorrectly can be a death sentence. Plants don’t change location and the soil they are in very often in nature. And when we keep plants in pots we should be mindful that changing the soil and the location plants are in is not a pleasant experience for them.

Kalanchoe calandiva that needs a new pot

Tip one: Use potting medium not garden soil or compost in pots, especially those in the house. It’s lighter, retains water better, and generally does not carry insects and disease if you use fresh medium. Potting mediums vary in what they are made of, even the same brand, from area to area.  But despite all the social media brand bashing there’s not much difference in how they perform for plants.

Only a few types of plants require special potting mediums. Orchids and cacti are two that are most in need of specialized soil. Many potting mediums contain fertilizer now.  Make sure you check the bag; it has to be labeled if it has fertilizer. These fertilizers are generally good for several months and you shouldn’t add additional fertilizer during this time.

Potting medium must always be moistened before it’s put in pots. Add water slowly to the potting mix in a large container, a little at a time. Mix with your hands or trowel thoroughly after each addition. Some potting mediums are shipped drier than others. The correct soil texture for potting is moist and clinging together, not dry and crumbly or so wet it doesn’t cling together at all or looks like sludge.

Tip two- all containers MUST have drainage holes. Improper watering is the number 1 cause of houseplant death and pots without drainage simply compound the risk. Putting rocks or other things in the bottom of the pot does not compensate for lack of drainage. These things just raise the wet zone at the bottom – called the perched water level- and keep the soil from drying out. Some plants need the soil in the pot to dry out between watering. All plants need soil that is not waterlogged so the roots can get oxygen.

The proper way to water a plant is to water until water drains from the bottom of the pot. You can’t do this unless the pot has drainage holes. People think they can carefully water a plant and avoid having drainage holes but almost inevitably this causes a problem, plants are either too dry or too wet.

Of course, you will need something under pots to catch the draining water. Pots that are very dry may have water move right through the soil and out the drainage holes. The water will slowly be absorbed back into the soil as the plant sits in the tray of water. But water should be dumped from these trays if it sits there for more than an hour.

If you have a nice ceramic pot you don’t want to drill holes in use it in place of a pot saucer. Find a pot with drainage holes slightly smaller than the ceramic pot and plant the plant in it. Then put the pot in the ceramic container. You may need to dump water out of the ceramic pot so make sure you can easily lift the pot with the plant out of it.

Tip three; Know when your plant actually needs repotting and avoid unnecessary repotting.

If your plant looks droopy, has brown leaves, isn’t growing or you don’t like the pot the plant is in does not mean you should repot the plant.  People are far too quick to repot plants now. Repotting a plant is stressful to it and if the plant is already ailing it can kill it. Some plants are fussier than others and really resent repotting.

In rare cases repotting a houseplant may help get rid of insect pests or disease, but generally it doesn’t help much in these cases. If roots are rotting because you overwatered repotting may or may not help. It depends on how much damage has been done. Sometimes simply allowing the pot to dry out – or adding missing drainage holes- may be enough.

When the root ball of a plant has completely filled a pot and there is not much soil left to absorb water it is usually time to repot. When a plant is so large that it is top heavy and the proportion of roots to top is extreme, it may be time to repot, but you would be surprised at what size root ball can support a large plant under proper care.

If something toxic has been spilled in the pot you need to repot the plant. If too much fertilizer or pesticides have been applied, it may be necessary to repot. Cats using the pot as a litter box or someone using the pot as a urinal may necessitate repotting with fresh potting medium.

Most houseplants should not be repotted more than once a year. Very fast-growing plants, especially when they are young, may need repotting every 6 months. Some plants will not need repotting for years. Just because a plant seems to have filled its pot does not mean it needs repotting in all cases. Some plants like sanseveria and certain sedums actually do well with tight roots. If a plant looks healthy and continues to grow its probably fine.

It is tempting to repot a new plant as soon as you get it home. Unless you have strong suspicions there are pests in the pot, like hitchhiking mice or ant colonies, it would be better to let the plant acclimate to it’s new surroundings, give it thirty days or so, before repotting it. If plants have been outside in the summer and need a larger pot before going inside, try to repot them a few weeks before the move.

Tip four- Don’t move plants into pots that are too large.  It may seem logical to put a tiny plant into a much larger pot, so you won’t have to repot it too soon. But this is one of the most common mistakes people make when repotting plants. It often results in poor growth or dead plants.

The potting medium and pot interact with plant roots. When you water a plant, it takes up water from it’s roots and moves it up to the top parts of the plant. The water evaporates off the plant leaves, and this process removes water from the potting medium. Oxygen replaces the water removed, aerating the soil.

If you give a plant too much water for the tiny root system to move up and into the air, the roots may rot from being in damp, poorly oxygenated medium. If you give the plant too little water gravity moves it down deep in the pot where the small plant root system can’t reach it, drying out the plant.

It is extremely difficult to correctly water a plant that’s in too large of a pot for its root system. When repotting a plant use a pot only 1-2 inches wider and 3-4 inches deeper than the old pot. If the plant is extremely out of proportion for what size pot it is in and hasn’t been repotted in years, a slightly larger size could be used.  A plant that’s properly sized for the pot also looks nicer.

Some miscellaneous tips

Potting medium does break down over time and the plant will sink in the pot. Rather than completely repotting the plant you can gently lift the plant out of the pot and add a couple inches of moist new soil to the bottom of the pot. Try not to disturb the plant root ball. When you replace the plant in the pot the surface of the root ball should be about an inch from the pot rim.

If the pot tapered from larger to smaller diameter there may be a gap between the root ball and pot sides now. Push some moist soil down in this gap. Never add new soil to the top of the root ball to fill the pot. This will kill or damage many plants.

A plant that seems straggly, yellowed or weak may need fertilization rather than new potting soil. Try that first. Make sure to follow label instructions for houseplants or potted plants and don’t use too much fertilizer. Over time as you water nutrients are flushed from the potting medium, so most houseplants can appreciate at least a yearly fertilization. Plants do make most of their own food however from light, and many can go a long time without supplemental fertilizer.

If a white or yellowish crust builds up on the surface of the potting medium or on the pot, there may be too many salts in the pot. Salts come from fertilizers and sometimes your water. The cure for this is to flush the soil with pure water.  Do this by sitting the pot in a tub or sink and letting water slowly drip on the soil surface for about an hour. If that isn’t possible[KW1] , pour water on the plant letting it drain and dumping the plant tray several times.

Mold or moss on the surface of the soil means you are overwatering.  Remove it and correct your watering.  

Fungus gnats look like fruit flies. They develop in potting medium and soil.  When you have them you are usually keeping your potting medium too wet. Repotting plants before you have controlled the infestation usually doesn’t work too well. The most effective control is a product called Gnatrol, a safe biological pesticide. For more information about dealing with fungus gnats see this article https://gardeninggrannysgardenpages.blogspot.com/p/fungus-gnats-inhouseplants-in-winter.html

Should you wash the roots of houseplants when repotting them? Unless you are trying to get rid of a toxin or disease the answer is no. Washing the roots of trees and shrubs before planting is very popular now.  It’s done to find circling roots and other problems before planting. It’s hard to dig up and examine trees and shrubs for root problems once they start growing. But for houseplants there isn’t much benefit compared to the harm done by disturbing and breaking the roots while washing them.

Repot houseplants only when they clearly need it. There are times when plants do need repotting but houseplants that are frequently repotted often grow poorly compared to ones that are repotted less frequently. Every time you repot you damage roots. Plants are not designed for frequent changes of soil conditions or being moved to new environments. Repotting is not the answer for most houseplant problems.

Maple Leaf tar spot

People are asking about the large black spots on their maple tree leaves that look like someone splashed paint or tar on them. Don’t worry, it’s not your neighbors trying to kill your tree or kids playing a trick, it’s a tree fungal disease. Maple Leaf Tar Spot is caused by at least two types of fungus in the genius Rhytisma. In late summer Maple tree leaves develop large black spots with yellow edges. The raised spots resemble paint or tar.

Maple leaf tar spot

This disease causes little damage to trees and no control is needed now. The leaves may drop off a bit early, but that’s ok too. Maple leaf tar spot doesn’t happen every year but can happen several years in a row. It affects only maple trees.

If you want to help break the cycle remove all the fallen leaves from beneath the maple tree and compost them, or at least move them away from any maple trees. The fungus overwinters on the fallen leaves. It’s fine if the affected leaves are moved to a spot by other tree species.

If you have a specimen maple you want to be cosmetically perfect you can try spraying the tree with a fungicide in the spring, just as the leaf buds break. Trees get infected in spring, but the disease doesn’t show up until late summer. The trees need spraying every 7-10 days until the leaves are of mature size. After the tree is infected fungal sprays will not be of any use.

Since the disease doesn’t significantly damage the tree and only becomes apparent late in the season most people simply ignore the spots. If your tree was heavily infected, it can benefit from deep watering if you have a dry fall and after a hard freeze the trees can be fertilized. Root growth still takes place for many weeks after a hard freeze when trees appear dormant.  

Apply about 3 pounds of a tree fertilizer per 1,000 square feet of root zone. The root zone is measured from the trunk to about three feet beyond the drip line of the tree, all around the tree.  For maple trees look for a fertilizer that contains iron and manganese. Fertilizers formulated as 18-6-12 or 12-4-4 or something similar is best.  

Watch those polyunsaturated fats

 Since the 1960’s Americans have been urged to eat less saturated fat and more polyunsaturated fats.  Vegetables oils largely replaced fats from animals.  And also, since the 1960’s, the rate of obesity in Americans has skyrocketed. But in the last 60 years or so we learned a lot more about fats in our diet and what “proper” nutrition should consist of.

Many researchers now believe the type of fat isn’t as important as we once thought. Dietary fat does not cause body fat, carbohydrates do. Many researchers now feel that saturated or animal fat, isn’t harmful.  But the ratio of what types of fat we eat might be a clue as to why obesity is more common today than it was before we became so concerned with fat intake.

Some recent research published in Communications Biology, on August 28 found that animals that were fed an unbalanced ratio of fatty acids while pregnant produced offspring that were likely to overeat and become obese.  The animals were fed more Omega 6 fatty acids than Omega 3 fatty acids. 

The American diet is high in Omega 6 fatty acids since we stopped consuming saturated fats. These Omega 6 fats come from soy oil, corn oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil and seeds, and pumpkin seeds. Omega 3 fatty acids come from foods such as fatty fish, walnuts, flax seed, and chia seeds. Americans eat an average of 10 times as much Omega 6 fatty acids as Omega 3, with soy oil the major player.

Researchers believe that the uneven ratio of fatty acids affects dopamine production, a hormone that regulates appetite. The change occurs in fetuses during pregnancies where moms ate an unbalanced diet.  Generations of pregnancies on this diet may have increased the effects.

Most researchers urge people not to give up polyunsaturated fats, but to make sure they keep Omega 6 and Omega 3 fatty acids in balance.  Pregnant women may want to decrease how much soy oil they consume- it’s in everything- and eat more fish and walnuts. Adding saturated fats like butter and eggs to the diet could also reduce the ratio of Omega 6 fatty acids.

Soy oil has also been found to increase metabolic syndrome, a condition that often leads to obesity and diabetes. There are many good reasons to avoid it, pregnant or not.

More reading

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200904092934.htm

https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/no-need-to-avoid-healthy-omega-6-fats

 Green Tomato Pie

 If you don’t want to store your green tomatoes and let them ripen when frost threatens, you could turn them into pie.  This recipe makes one pie, which tastes a lot like apple pie.

Ingredients

3 cups chopped green tomatoes

¾  cup brown sugar

2 tablespoons vinegar

3 tablespoons melted butter

½ cup chopped raisins

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon cinnamon

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

1 double pie crust

 

Line a pie pan with the bottom crust. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Place the green tomatoes in a pan and add just enough water to barely cover them.

Bring the tomatoes just to a boil.  Turn off heat and drain off water through a colander or strainer.

Put the tomatoes and all the other ingredients, except top crust, and toss to mix well.

Put the tomato mixture into the pie pan and add the top crust, crimping the top edge together. Poke the top crust with a fork in several places.

Bake about 40 minutes, until the crust is golden

 

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Kim Willis

All parts of this blog are copyrighted and may not be used without permission.

 

And So On….

 

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 [KW1]

September 22, 2020 And Autumn Begins

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.

 

One window in my house

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.

 More reading

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.

                                                                           Cleavers seeds

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

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And So On….

 

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