Garden talk
Garden talk: grow an ornamental red maple
Our ornamental maple is just three years old, about 15" tall, and a veritable charmer in the garden, well on her way to being a crown jewel of a tree with gently weeping red leaves and diminutive stature. It's hard to believe it started life as a cast-off seed found in a shopping mall parking lot (read more).
Pea sprouts, from seed to salad
Fresh peas are back in season, but the peas from our local store were terrible: astringent, mealy, and very expensive! I knew they wouldn't taste much better cooked and, not wanting to waste them, it was an easy decision to try my hand at sprouting. (read more)
Starting a garden in early winter
… we had thousands of weeds, no top soil, and erosion after every heavy rain. It was time to begin our vegetable garden in early winter (read more).
New purpose — Plant trays from inexpensive plastic shelving
Our annuals, some of which are teenaged begonias and geraniums, bloom rapturously every summer since they began spending winters on trays which are shelves assembled UPSIDE DOWN to form water-holding storage. (read more)
Cheerful posies —
Essential oils of herbs lift spirits as the seasons change
Molecules from the essential oils of herbs and flowers will quickly enter your blood stream, raise energies and lighten moods, soon after they are touched an inhaled. (read more)
Mini greenhouses from storage boxes
Cold hardy herbs can survive much longer through winter if given a little protection. Last winter I kept parsley going all year in my zone 7 garden with an impromptu mini-greenhouse made of a clear plastic storage box. (read more)
Prep the ground early for a living Christmas tree
Fall is a great time to prepare the planting hole, if you want a living tree. You'll be ready before the ground freezes into a giant ice cube. (read more)
Autumn green tomato roundup
Bringing in green tomatoes before the first frost is a must in my Zone 7 garden. The fruit may take quite a while to ripen and remain rather pale, but the the flavor will far outshine any store-bought tomato. (read more)
Making a meadow, part 3
Our backyard is Cinderella, wanting to be be dressed in lace and flowers … but today still wearing a petticoat of weed-blocking cardboard and straw. (read more)
Potatoes, and fingerlings grown from grocery store sprouts
Yes, you can grow potatoes from grocery store sprouts. Our October harvest comparing grocery-salvaged potatoes to mail-order seed potatoes. (read more)
How to make a flower meadow, part 2
Autumn gardening
Late summer, early autumn, is the time to gather wildflower seeds for your home garden—before winter weather can take its toll. Seeds gathered from stalks after weeks of winter weather can be devoid of life.
I've been gathering Queen Anne's Lace while the weather is still fair. It only takes a few minutes to gather seeds during a walk.
The Queen Anne's Lace flowers dry to charming bird's nest type shapes.
You can scatter your seeds in a garden right away or save them to scatter on top of snow where you want them to grow. Freezing in, or on, the soil helps many perennial seeds germinate.
Although many do not transplant well, we've had some success with planting seeds in pots and leaving them outside to sprout in the spring. Covering them with plastic can speed early growth when the weather warms. I always save more seeds to direct sow on the ground, in case the pot method fails.
Our seeds are being scattered on ground that is mostly bare, but dressed with a blanket of straw.
Make a flower meadow, part 1, Autumn
Begin a meadow this season! Our shortcut is to start with bales of golden straw.
Where to get straw? Check local directories for farm supply stores and make sure to bring a drop cloth if you are using a car for transport. We buy straw in small amounts throughout the years to replenish the ground, suppress weeds, and expand the meadow. (read more)
Better tomato harvests, September update
Late summer brings the occasional perfect tomato: a luscious beefsteak shaped like a heart, mellow golds, sweet black cherry clusters, and jewel like mini-plums to dry on trays for winter. But all is not Eden in my tomato patch.
Slugs make holes at night, rain splits tender skins, fruit flies invade, and wilt eventually catches up to even the most resistant vines. Nevertheless, I keep trying to improve my harvests. Here are my harvest-boosting strategies.
- Restake overgrown vines late in the season. Some vines may make break as you lift them, but they can easily self-heal in a day or two. I tied my jungle of vines to a repurposed swingset, painted grass green, and it's a lovely bower of rainbow cherry tomatoes as I write this.
- Try to move fruit higher on supports to protect from slugs.
- Make fruit fly traps of rotted fruit, banana peels, or apple cider vinegar. The flies will be drawn to traps instead of your tomatoes. I made my traps of plastic produce boxes, covered with plastic wrap, punched with lots of holes so the flies would go in, but not come out. This worked very well, and the holes were too small for bees.
- Save mesh bags from garlic and onions to put over clusters to help protect them while ripening.
- Removing wilted foliage may improve the look of your tomato patch initially, but will encourage the disease to move ever further up the vine. Sometimes it's better to leave yellow foliage at the bottom as a kind of barrier to the upper branches.
- Even the most passionate gardener can let plants fall into a state of neglect on busy days—I know first hand. But when I get my second wind, I always remove rotten and moldy fruit which is a much better environment for the remaining harvest.
- To save damaged, unripe fruit from fruit flies and rot, pick early, rinse, and dry. Place on paper towel on a plate and cover with a plastic bag to ripen a bit more. Cherries can be kept in a covered glass bowl. When ripe, you can use damaged fruit for making broth.
- Cover your tomatoes as soon as you bring them indoors to protect from fruit flies.
- Checking the weather every evening beginning in late summer, to find out when to expect frost. You can cover your plants with sheets or plastic on cold nights to lengthen the season a bit.
- Just before frost, bring in all green fruit still attached to their vines. I keep mine in cardboard boxes and check them every day, removing anything that looks like rot. They can take up to a month to ripen this way. Fruit may be a bit pale, but the flavor is a sparkling reminder of summer and far better than store bought.