Planters
Punchlines
Men’s Garden Club of Wethersfield
April 2015
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Uncover the Weston Rose Garden -
Saturday
April 25 @ 8:00 a.m.
Weed, then weed, then weed some more. Last year we spent
the whole summer fighting the weeds that got a foothold in the spring and never
gave it up.. BYO tools & thorn-proof gloves. Regular maintenance will begin at a date
t/b/d.
Monthly Meeting - Monday April 27 @ 7:00 p.m.
@ Wethersfield Community Center.
John Tycz of Go Organic, LLC will
speak on homeowner organic gardening and
lawn care. Go Organic, LLC is a licensed tri-state landscape contractor and
Mr Tycz is a NOFA certified organic ecological landscape expert with extensive
professional experience in maintenance and conversion of landscape to strict
established organic standards, producing esthetically
and ecologically healthy landscaping. Followed by final planning for the Plant Sale.
Pots and labels for donated plants will be available.
Annual Plant Sale - May 9 (Rain Date May 16)
This is our major fundraiser. CRITICAL NEED - Club members are asked to contribute
“home grown” perennials to the sale.
If you do not have your own
plants to donate – seek them out from friends, or neighbors. Plants being donated should be split and
potted as soon as possible in order to allow them time to develop in the
pot and look good for the sale. Please label all plants. Contact Fred
Odell (860.529.6064) for official
pots, potting soil, and plant labels.
Compostable Matter
By Jim Meehan
Even
though Spring is here we are not yet truly into the full-fledged gardening
season. But if your body can't garden all day yet, your mind certainly can. All
you need is a little imagination and a small amount of inspiration. Like what I
recently found in the Pest & Disease Guide section of the Gardens Alive!
catalog - the latest issue of which fell through my mail slot just the other
day.
Gardens
Alive! offers a wide range of organic gardening products. Some of which, like
lawn food and a compost bins, I have used.
But
there are other items that I am just too terrified to have shipped to me for
fear that the package will arrive damaged and I'll come home to find my front
step under siege from either an army of "Grub-away" parasitic nematodes
($16.75 for a package of five million) or a thousand Chrysoperla carnea, the
"best all-purpose predator".
Or
worse yet, have a couple hundred thousand nematodes escape undetected in my
house, establish a base camp, and attack....something. After all, these are not
submissive little (and I do mean little) guys. These under-sized buggers are
armed, dangerous, and spoiling for a fight.
According
to Gardens Alive! "While other beneficial nematodes wait passively for
their prey, ours move up to 10 times farther and much deeper into the soil.
Grub-Away Nematodes also have a special "tooth" that burrows into
their prey, allowing faster control of pests."
We
keep our house clean and free (as far as we know) from things that would tick
off a nematode. But I can just imagine the rush of testosterone that one
million ready-for-combat nematodes, jam-packed into a tiny, all natural box can
generate.
And
the chaos and carnage that could result when they're dropped into the battle
zone and can't find the enemy that they're looking for. Fortunately, while it
doesn't specifically say so, I think they go about their jobs pretty quietly.
(I mean how much noise can a nematode make?) So whatever bloodshed they wreak
at least won't disturb our sleep.
But
it isn't just the stuff they sell that attracts me to the Gardens Alive!
catalog. It's the picture of the world they create with their product
descriptions and lists. A tiny world fraught with danger and excitement.
Underground hazards and dangers. Exotic, unseen (and virtually unseeable)
killers and assassins. And mostly they do it with just names and minimal
descriptions. The rest is up to us
For
example, there is the Onion Thrip. "Thrips gather in large numbers on
onion leaves, causing wrinkled or ribbony shoots to emerge in place of the
expected smooth ones...Thrips are too small to be readily seen by the naked
eye..." But we don't need to see them - their name tells it all - if you
just listen to it and use your imagination.
We've
all seen enough science fiction movies to picture for ourselves what a Thrip
must look like - four long spindly legs, each leg fifty times longer than the
only slightly fatter body, four eyes with barely a head to attach to below
which is a crooked jack-o-lantern shaped mouth. They are silver colored - like
onions. And mean - they make onions cry.
And
what about the Cabbage Looper with its Spiderman-like lariats that shoot out
from the ends of its twenty-four appendages to lasso and hog-tie even the most
agile cabbage. They probably rush into the garden at daybreak like a band of
Hell's Angels rodeo-ropers using the bright rays of the sun for cover as they
encircle the half asleep cabbages hobbling, tying and branding them before the
dew even has a chance to dry on their curly leaves. The poor vegetables never
have a chance.
Or
the Blister Beetle that seems like it should be fought with Clearasil instead
of Pyola Insecticidal Spray. Enough said about that one.
But
not all of the pest and disease names are off-putting. One in fact (other than
the word virus in its name) sounds positively seductive - Cucurbits or the
Squash Mosaic Virus.
Just
picture the intricately placed, multi-hued pattern decorating the elephant-ear
squash leaves as they provide shade and protection for a totally limp zucchini.
This one might be worth getting - especially since a good portion of my squash
turns up dead anyway.
They
don't advertise the pests and diseases as being for sale but they must have
loads of them in their test kitchens and I'm sure that they would make an
exception for an old loyal customer. I mean, not all of us are fortunate enough
to have such an exotic array of weapons of mass destruction in our very own
backyards.
I
could even use the "Instant Rebate Certificate" on the front cover -
if I could work up the nerve to scratch and win. But truthfully I'm a little
afraid to rub off the protective coating. With this catalog you never know what
might be under it.
How Plants Are Affected by Cold and Winter
and How to Protect Them
By Sandra Mason - Extension Educator,
Horticulture
slmason@illinois.edu
We have all
heard or uttered complaints about winter: dancing on snow packed sidewalks,
scraping icy windshields, Jack frost nipping at our noses and for gardeners
having to hang up our shovels. Complaints overheard from plants at a winter
plant therapy meeting include: being planted in the wrong place, cars and
people throwing salt on them and having shiny things draped over them. Besides
people produced problems, what is it about winter that bothers plants and how
can we protect them?
First of
all, tremendous variability exists within and between plant species in their
tolerance to cold. Otherwise we would have palm trees lining main street. Using
plants that are reliably cold hardy and keeping plants healthy during the
growing season is the first step in protecting plants from cold damage.
Sometimes
it isn't really the cold temperatures that cause problems, but the fluctuations
especially rapid fluctuations between warmth and cold.
Frost injury
The most
common frost injury occurs not in winter but in early spring or late fall.
Impatiens get that cooked spinach look. Homegrown apricots and peaches are
often a dream.
Emerging
flowers and leaves are most prone to frost damage. The best prevention against
frost damage to flowers is to keep buds from opening too soon. For example
plant magnolias on the east or north side of a building so early spring sun
won't fool them into thinking spring has arrived. Select late flowering
magnolias such as lily magnolia. Mulch also keeps soil temperatures cold.
Soil heaving
Perennial
plants are often damaged by soil heaving. Alternate freezing and thawing of the
soil pushes shallow plant roots out of the soil leaving them exposed to cold
and drying winds. Poorly established or shallowly rooted plants such as
strawberries and chrysanthemums are prone to heaving.
Heaving can
be reduced by applying a 2 to 4 inch layer of winter mulch of wood chips or
shredded leaves. As temperatures warm in the spring, be careful to keep mulch
pulled slightly back from the crowns of perennials that are susceptible to rot.
A blanket of several inches of snow (pun intended) is also a good insulation
against heaving.
Freezing injury
Dormant
plants are susceptible to freezing injury. Flower buds are most often affected.
For example forsythia or dogwood may not bloom well after an extremely cold
winter. We'll see what El Nino has to say.
Few plants
in containers can survive winter without some protection. Use a thick pot with
a large soil volume to give better insulation, wrap with insulation material
such as a cylinder of chicken wire filled with straw and place container in a
protected spot such as unheated porch or garage. Use plastic pots or others
that can survive a freeze. Clay pots will break if subjected to freezing
temperatures. Another reliable method is to bury the pots in the ground and
mulch the area.
Freeze cracks/sun scald
Bark on
some trees may split on the southwest side due to rapid temperature changes.
Thin barked trees such as maples, lindens, and cherries are most likely to
crack. Wrapping with tree wrap may give protection against frost cracks.
Winter burn
Broadleaf
evergreens such as holly, boxwood or rhododendrons are especially prone to
winter burn from winter winds. Evergreens continue to lose water through their
leaves even in cold weather. Windy conditions, sun and warm days can speed the
process. Evergreens should enter winter well-watered. Soil moisture can be
conserved by adding a 3 inch layer of mulch after the soil has gotten cold.
Plant broadleaf evergreens where they are protected from winter winds and late
afternoon sun such as the east side of a building. Also anti-desiccants such as
Wilt Pruf can be sprayed on evergreens to reduce the amount of water lost
through leaves.
Bed Preparation - To Till or Not To Till?
thegardenacademy.com
I used to
own a large rear tine tiller, and I used it with pleasure. I tended a large garden, mostly by myself,
and it made short work of a big job.
Through the
years, my own personal gardening journey led me away from the practice of
tilling, but it is a valid technique for many.
I want to discuss it here in sufficient depth for you to make your own
decision. You may decide that tilling is
right for you, and you may decide it is not, and you may also decide on a
"hybrid" method which we will discuss below.
Why do we deeply cultivate the soil? Traditional
agriculture, even on a home or market garden scale, tells us to deeply
cultivate the land to remove existing vegetation and aerate the soil. Plowing is usually used on a commercial or
market scale, and tilling is used on a home garden or truck garden scale.
The
manufacturers of tiller-cultivators will tell you that they can also be used to
deal with weeds between the rows during the growing season, and to turn under
the end-of-season plant residue.
Tilling
equipment, from home garden tillers to large commercial equipment, is also used
to create the hills and furrows common to row cropping. It's become an iconic image in rural America
- the cleanly plowed field and its meticulously spaced furrows.
All of this is true. But......Doesn't plowing improve the soil? There
is no doubt that the plow enabled agricultural pioneering in 18th - 20th
centuries. Heavy plows drawn by draft
animals loosened and aerated the soil and freed the nutrients that had been
stored there for centuries in a way not previously possible. The plow was a large part of western
expansion and the success of colonial and post-colonial America.
But if you
have ever had a chance to observe a plow as compared to modern tilling
machines, you will begin to see why they cannot be compared.
A plow uses
angled blades that dig deeply into the soil and turn it over. The soil is inverted and broken up in the
process, similar to the action of a spade.
A tiller, on the other hand, has L-shaped tines that rotate quickly,
pulverizing and mixing the soil. It is
akin to a food processor or blender.
People who
begin a garden by tilling the soil often see a dramatic surge in growth in the
following season. This abundant
production is the result of improved aeration and the immediate availability of
nutrients made available by the decomposition of the existing vegetation, which
is accelerated by tilling it under.
This short
term positive result convinces them that tilling was the magic ingredient to
their success and they want to hang on to the practice. However, as the seasons pass, repeated
tilling generally begins to start showing its weaknesses when compared to
no-till practices.
Short term benefit, long term problems Frequent
and repeated tilling, such as that done seasonally to prepare the garden, can
do a lot of damage to both the soil structure and to the Soil Food Web;- the
complex biome of macro- and micro-organisms that help maintain healthy soils.
Tilling
kills many macro-organisms such as earthworms and beetles and damages
micro-organisms by shredding fungal hyphae and exposing beneficial fungi and
bacteria to the elements. Time can heal
this wound, but it is a violence to the soil nonetheless.
Tilling at
the same depth season after season can create a compacted layer of soil below
the topsoil called hardpan. Hardpan
forms where the tines strike their lowest depth over and over with each
tilling. Over time this layer can become
so compacted that it impedes drainage and root growth.
Upsetting Nature's Carbon Balance Deep cultivation, that which
results in the physical inversion of the soil, releases a large amount of CO2
quickly. In fact, plowing of virgin lands
releases carbon that has been sequestered there for thousands of years. Undisturbed soils not only retain their
sequestered carbon, they absorb 30% more CO2 than tilled land over time.
People who
know me know that I am not a climate alarmist nor an environmental
extremist. I honor the way the earth was
designed, and am fascinated by the way she works. Carbon is our friend. It is necessary for all life. We must respect the natural cycle it was
intended to have. We have a tendency to
interfere with that and upset the balance, even when we are trying to do good
things. We can easily moderate our
practices.
So, I shouldn't till? At this point,
you need to make the decision about which soil preparation technique is right
for you. Don't let glossy ads in the
back of gardening or homesteading magazines make your decision. And don't let alarmists or absolutists make
it for you either. Make it based on what
is right for you now, and right for your soil in the future.
A hybrid approach While I do feel that
seasonal tilling is generally NOT a healthy practice for soils, a one-time deep
tilling before, or as part of, bed preparation is perfectly fine. This one-time tilling can help to improve
soil drainage, root out perennial weeds, and incorporate organic matter and
amendments into the native soil to provide a good base for future years of
no-till soil practices. This is sort of
a "hybrid" method; tilling once, no-till from that point forward. You
can use your one-time tilling as your sole method of bed preparation, or you
can do this to improve the native soil prior to building a raised bed with
added bed mix on top of the tilled area.
Tilling is not a necessity to raised bed building, but it is an option.
What if I have a large garden? Honestly,
even some farms are moving to no-till practices. This site is devoted to home gardening, so we
are going to leave this topic for another day, but there is a lot of reading
available on this very subject.
Years ago I
thought tilling was the only way to maintain my 1/2 acre vegetable garden. If I was going to do it all over again, I
might have prepped that sandy soil with a tiller (it needed tons of compost
worked in) but I would have maintained it with no-till practices from that
point forward.
A very large
area can be prepped with absolutely no disturbance of the soil - I do it every
year. If you would like to explore that
idea, read about my bed building approach here:
My Bed Prep Story
How to till for bed preparation Mow the
area using a low setting and a mulching mower.
We don't want to lose the organic matter, but we don't want long fibers
tangling up the tines either.
Water the area deeply at least two or
three days before you till. Tilling wet
soil can do such drastic damage that it will take years to recover. Tilling dry gumbo is torture. Find the happy medium.
Make a first pass over the entire area
using the tiller at the shallowest setting possible. The first pass will only barely scuff up the
turf and weeds.
Make another pass without adjusting the
tines lower, but working at 90 degrees to your last pass.
Adjust the tines to the next depth and
repeat 3 & 4. You will do this as
many times are required to eventually get to the full depth of the tines. If at any time the tiller bogs down or kicks,
make a second set of passes without adjusting the tines lower. You cannot rush this process. Heavy clay soils take time to break up.
After this
first tilling, wait a week or two. You
will have brought millions of dormant weed seeds to the surface, and a few
perennial weeds may have survived the tilling process. It is guaranteed that you will have triggered
the survival mechanism of nut-sedge! You
can till this spurt of regrowth under during the next step, incorporating compost
and amendments.
Amending soil properly when tilling Most
urban and suburban vegetable and ornamental gardens start out in what was once
turf. Just consider this a blank slate,
no matter how well it was cared for during its life as a lawn.
Add organic
matter at a rate of about 25-30% by volume of soil. This translates to adding
about 3" - 4" of organic matter on top of the bed and working it into
about 10" - 12" of soil.
There is no
easy short cut and no magic soil amendment that can take the place of good
quality organic matter. Organic matter
helps to improve both the physical and biological properties of soils when
added in sufficient amounts, to sufficient depths, and with sufficient
regularity. Organic matter improves the
structure and aeration of clay soil and improves moisture and nutrient
retention in sandy soil.
Much has
been learned about the importance of the Soil Food Web. Organic matter is imperative to supporting
the SFW in your own soils. There are a
variety of organic materials that can be used depending on availability,
preference and cost. The bottom line is,
don’t short cut this part of bed preparation.
Compost is
the best option overall. I am always
asked about one form of compost or another - composted barks, leaf compost,
mushroom compost, and composted manure.
The best advice I can give you is to use the best you can afford. My preference is generally two-year old leaf
mold compost from Nature's Way Resources.
Steer clear
of working in peat moss. I still see
this listed as a soil amendment, but it is pretty certain that those who
support this have never gardened in clay gumbo soils. All I have to say about that is that clay,
peat moss, and water make a pretty good adobe brick - 'nuff said?
Contrary to
what you may have heard along the line, it is not necessary to add sand or
gypsum. Neither improves the soil as
well as organic matter, and both can cause other problems, so the expense and
labor are not justified. The only time I
suggest gypsum is if you are trying to correct a salinity issue, not for soil
structure.
What else should I add? Since you are doing this one-time tilling
process for bed preparation, you can choose to add nutrients and supplements
now so they can be incorporated with the final tilling passes. If you are tilling as an improved base, and
will be building a raised bed on top of the base, wait to add nutrients and
supplements into the top layer, but be sure to add the compost before you start
building upwards.
The Ten Commandments of Mulch
http://www.gardensalive.com
1. The word "mulch" does not mean
wood chips or shredded bark. "Mulch" is anything that covers the soil
to retain moisture and prevent weeds. Nurseries would LIKE you to think that
wood = mulch because they're often paid to take wood chips and shredded bark
from tree cutters trying to avoid high landfill costs. If they can then sell it
to you as mulch, they get paid twice.
2. There is no better mulch than compost .No,
compost is not acidic and it doesn't harm plants (it's plant FOOD!). But
nurseries have to actually buy compost, so some might tella little…eh, 'fib' to
achieve that higher profit. Did I just say, "fib"? I'm sorry—that's
not fair. I meant to say: "Liar, liar; pants on fire". I apologize
for the error. Anyway, in a groundbreaking study from Iowa and Ohio State
Universities two inches of compost prevented weeds just a swell as two inches
of ground wood mulch. And the compost provided all the food it's plants needed
for the season, while the wood mulch actually increased the plants' need for
food (see #9, below). You gonna believe some guy what wants to sell you wood to
make a bigger profit? Or the published
results of University researchers?
3. Compost is pretty. When I spoke with that
study's lead researcher, Dr.Dan Herms, he observed that the compost mulch was
as black and nice looking as the dyed black wood mulch they were testing it
against. It looked so nice, in fact, that he switched to it personally. Simply
put a mulch of compost provides all the benefits you can get from mulch with
none of the negatives of wood or other troublesome mulches. Other mulches of
high regard include shredded Fall leaves, pine needles and pine straw; and
really cool esoteric local ones like cocoa bean shells and rice hulls.
4. Wood mulch is not nice—especially dyed wood
mulch. It's made by grinding up old pallets and other trash wood, and may
contain arsenic, creosote and other nasty stuff. It is the lowest quality mulch
you can buy. Oh, except for…
5. Rubber mulch is WORSE! You know you have to
pay to throw away your old tires. Do you really think it's a smart idea to buy
them back after somebody grinds them up and calls them mulch? Rubber mulch
leaches zinc and other pollutants; and it STINKS in the summertime. Why does everyone
with a toxic waste disposal problem always have to think," Hey—I'll bet we
can convince people to use this stuff in their garden!"?
6. Thou should not use wood mulch near thy
home. As many hundreds of listeners have told us they learned the hard way, any
kind of wood mulch—like wood chips, so-called triple-premium shredded bark and
those increasingly popular root mulches—can breed a nuisance mold known as'
shotgun' or 'artillery' fungus that will permanently stain homes and cars
within 30 feet of the mulch with impossible to remove fungal spores that look
like little tar balls. Sorry, but the reason University Bulletins don't offer
removal tips is that once they dry, those spores are there for good.
7. Thou should not run ANY mulch right up to
thy home. Everyone in America has subterranean termites in their landscape.
Subterraneans prefer to travel under cover. Mulching right up to the side of
your home with anything—even stone—provides the protection and moisture they
require to find their way RIGHT to your framing. Always leave at least a
six-inch area clear around your home.
8. Never touch a plant with any mulch. Mulches
are for preventing weeds and retaining soil moisture—they are not blankies;
they do not keep plants warm or comfort them. Just the opposite, in fact: ANY
mulch that's piled up against a plant stem or tree trunk provides cover and
traps moisture, inviting pests, disease and rot to destroy that poor plant.
There is no good reason for mulch to ever touch a plant; there are many good
reasons for it not to. Always leave a few inches wide open around the trunk or
stem.
9. Wood mulches starve plants. As we have
often warned, wood is high in carbon. Carbon seeks out nitrogen to help it
break down into soil, just like in a compost pile. Mulch your plants with wood
and the wood will steal their food in its quest to become really nice dirt a
few years from then. When I hear that a plant isn't thriving, my first response
is generally, "get rid of the wood mulch".
10. You CAN use wood mulch! It's great for
smothering unwanted plants and keeping weeds down in walkways far away from
homes and cars.
Horti-Culture Corner
MY VICTORY GARDEN (excerpt) by Ogden Nash
Would you like a
description of my parsley?
I can give it to you
in one word--gharsley!
They're making
playshoes out of my celery,
It's reclaimed
rubber, and purplish yellery,
Something crawly got
into my chives,
My lettuce has
hookworm, my cabbage has hives,
And I mixed the
labels when sowing my carrots;
I planted birdseed--it
came up parrots.
Do you wonder then,
that my arteries harden
Whenever I think of
my Victory Garden?
