Planters
Punchlines
Men’s Garden Club of Wethersfield
September 2015
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Garden Club
Kicks off 2015-16 Season
Monday Sept.
28 @ 7:00 p.m. Pitkin Community Center
Master Gardener and Club Vice
President Howard Becker will discuss "Invasive Plants in CT". He will cover what makes a plant invasive,
the damage done to habitats, identifying the most common invasives, methods of
controlling them, and available internet resources. The talk is free and open to the public. Spread the word.
2015-2016 Club Officers
President: Tony Sanders
Vice President: Howard Becker
Vice President: Howard Becker
Secretary: James Sulzen
Treasurer: Richard Prentice
Treasurer: Richard Prentice
Compostable Matter
By Jim Meehan
Most of Mars
and my lawn is the color and consistency of straw. Bees roughly the size of the MetLife “Snoopy”
Blimp are all over my sedum. Our
uninvited but prolific pokeweed is pumping out fruit at a rate just barely fast
enough to keep the block-long line of berry-seeking birds moving along. And our many-headed Helianthus sunflower is
as high as an elephant’s eye. It is
September 2015 in Wethersfield.
(Actually,
according to “Yahoo Answers”, the median height of an elephant’s eye is 8 feet
two inches putting Mars’ and my helianthus at least 24 inches above and beyond
– but anyway, you get the point.)
The last
rain we had here was somewhere around the time of the Garden Club’s June
picnic. Beginning early July I actually
began watering my lawn (something that I basically never do) – but even that
early in the season it was too little, too late. There was no way to rescue the fescue. I haven’t mowed certain parts of the yard at all
in over two months. Meanwhile other
sections act like they are deeply rooted in an overflowing, infinitely
nourishing aquifer. These scattered areas
are really, really, GREEN! Unfortunately
their growing cycles seemed to peak smack-dab in the middle of each of the
series of weekly heat waves that we’ve suffered through this summer. Fortunately I actually like to mow.
The
poke weed first appeared several years ago during the involuntary conversion of
one part of our yard from a heavy shade garden to a full-on sun baked
flowerbed. The poke weed was one of the
new bushes that we did not plant – along with the Roses of Sharon whose count
is now up to somewhere in the high eighties.
It is colorful. It feeds the
birds. We like it.
The sedum
on the edge of our next-to-the-garage garden has become a bee magnet
extraordinary in the past few weeks. I’m
not an apiarist but there seems to be several varieties. And there are a lot of them – hordes – way
more than the total number of teeth in the front row of a professional wresting
match. The sedum also appears to be
taller and fuller than in previous years.
Even though we have to brush against the pink star-shaped florets in
order to enter our back yard, we are led to believe, these stinging insects are
good for our garden – and horticulture in general. An African friend of mine once told me, “If
you want the butterflies, then you have to have the bees.” We are still waiting for the butterflies.
But the
hands-down hit of the season is our ten foot and still growing sunflower that
towers over pretty much everything except one or two oak trees on our property.
Unlike last year’s slightly smaller plant which, Mars and I believe, most
likely arose from some seeds we received in the mail, and which she randomly scattered
in the tomato ghetto that is nestled within our garage-side perennial flowerbed
– this years prize-worthy Helianthus and its lesser brethren are totally the
byproduct of our resident squirrels food-storage and/or digestive system.
At last
count the plant had produced thirty-some-odd flowers. (Actually, since a sunflower is a composite
flower, i.e. several hundred smaller flowers combine together to create the
illusion of one massive flower; we may have millions and millions of
flowers.) Whatever the number I have
been cutting the mega-blossoms off of the plant when the yellow petals start
drying up and leaving them on the ground at the base of our principal feeder –
from whence they came originally.
Usually
within an hour the food offerings have disappeared – presumably into one of the
squirrel dreys in the immediate vicinity.
Where else? Maybe squirrel wives
like it when their husbands surprise them with flowers. Perhaps they are insulating the nest for the
upcoming cold weather.
Or they
could be transplanting them somewhere else on our property. If so I hope it is in the dead parts of our
lawn. A windblown field of Helianthus
surrounded by pockets of neatly mowed green grass would make a might nice looking
landscape for next September – rain or no rain.
Can Be Deadly But Oh So Delicious: Poke weed (excerpt)
From earthweeds.com
Poke weed
will challenge your commitment to foraging.
It is not
the most commonly eaten food from a poisonous source. Tapioca or cashews would
probably take that prize. But poke weed’s in the running. If prepared
incorrectly or carelessly it can make you quite ill, or worse, put a ‘k’ in
front of ill as in kill you. But when
picked and prepared properly, as millions have done over the centuries, it is
perhaps the most delicious pot herb of all, one that makes you look forward to
next season.
Phytolacca
americana (fy-toe-LAK-ah am-er-i-KAY-na)
is native to the eastern United States. Americana means of America. Phytolacca
is an international construct combining phyton (Greek for plant) and Lac
(French for a dark red pigment.) The
word “poke” comes from the Virginia Algonquian (Indian) word “pakon” or
“pucone” first recorded in 1708. Pakon refers to a plant used for dye or
staining, and indeed a red coloring from the poke weed’s berries has been used
as a dye for centuries. Indians used the juice to color feathers, arrow shafts,
garments, even their horses. Berry juice was also used at one time to color
wine, but that practice has been discontinued. In a modern twist, red dye from
poke berries doubles the efficiency of certain solar cells.
While
coloring foods with poke berry juice has been banned, because it is reportedly
poisonous, Dr. Julia Morton says on page 51 of her “Wild Plants for Survival In
South Florida” 1982 edition, “The
strained juice of ripe fruits may be safely used for coloring foods.” During
her lifetime, Professor Morton was the most authoritative source in Florida on
toxic plants and her works still the main references. In theory the juice could
be made into jelly. While the berries are the least poisonous part of the
plant, never eat the seeds or the root. Accidental poisoning have happened by
people getting a little root with the shoot. And never eat a mature poke weed.
What’s mature? For safety, I would consider any poke weed over 7 inches mature
and off limits. And, or, any poke weed with deep red stems no matter how short
it is.
Poke weed
grew a good reputation centuries ago despite its dangerous side because it’s
one of the first edible greens in spring, at a time when folks have been living
on non-greens for several winter months. Many attempts were made to move the
weed into the mainstream vegetable market — as it is in parts of Europe — but it just never took off in North America.
However, the demand for it was enough to keep two companies canning it up into
the 1990’s. That southern tradition ended in the spring of 2000. In April that year the Allen Canning Company
of Siloam Springs, Arkansas, canned its last batch of poke sallet. The reason
why they stopped canning poke weed was there were not enough people interested
in picking it for them. So, if you want poke weed you really do have to pick it
yourself or order it through Wild Pantry.Com.
A third
alternative I’ve heard of which I haven’t tried because I live in Florida —
where houses don’t have basements — is dig up a poke weed root and bury it in a
sand box in a lightless area of your basement. In the spring it will send out
white shoots which some say only need to be boiled once. While that may be
theoretically possible, it would take a lot of roots to get enough shoots for
even one meal. You’re better off harvesting it or collecting the seeds and
growing your own. More on that in a moment.
When I go
collecting poke weed, I take a ruler with me. It’s called my hand. From the tip
of my middle finger to my wrist is about six inches. If the shoot is six inches
or under, into the pot it will go, taller I leave it be. The second rule is
pick nothing with red stems but that’s not so hard and fast because even
two-inch shoots can sometimes be pink to red. And when I gather it I don’t pull
it up, I cut it to avoid the possibility of getting any root. And do not handle
raw poke weed if you have any cuts or abrasion on your hands. It has mitogens which I will explain later.
Three
historical notes: James Polk was a dark-horse candidate for president in the
1840’s. In one of the first PR gimmicks, his supporters wore poke leaves on
their lapels. He became the 11th president of the United States. That’s Poke
Power. And when the Constitution was written Tom Jefferson wrote it with ink
made from poke berries on hemp paper… still legible after all these years. And
during the US Civil War many a letter
was written home with a bird feather and poke berry juice. These letters, too,
are extant for us to read because an herb called poke weed was valued not
eradicated.
To make ink
remember those ripe berries you brought home to rot for the seeds. You crush
the berries, strain out the seeds, and let the rest ferment for a couple of
weeks. There is natural yeast on the
berries or you can add a little wine or bread yeast. Then strain the liquid,
once or twice depending on the thickness. You now have ink worthy of a
constitution. You can mix fresh, filtered juice with vinegar to make a purple
ink but it will fade. Fermenting turns the ink brown but sets it.
Lastly, I
am doubtful about the presumed history of poke weed consumption. Poke weed
certainly has been eaten for a few hundred years and that adds up to a lot of
people. But I’m not sure about its use before the Europeans arrived in North
America, that is, how the Native Americans used poke weed.
Consider:
The Alabama Indians referred to Europeans as “those who eat poke weed.” That
sounds as if the Alabama Indians did not. In fact, of the dozens of tribes we
only know of four that used poke weed as a food, and those uses seem to break
down into pre- and post metal pots. Also consider that boiling was a difficult
task before the introduction of metal pots, particularly for a green that has
far less nutrition than say a rat. I’ve got a suspicion that poke weed was
medicinal (worth the difficulty of boiling) but not a food until it became easy
to boil poke weed in changes of water in metal pots. In their different uses
you can read pre- and post-metal pot use.
The
Cherokee crushed the berries and sour grapes together, strained, mixed that
with cornmeal and sugar to make a beverage. Leaves were gathered into a bundle
and dried for future use. Those two uses do not require cooking. Crushed
berries were used to add color to canned fruit. Young shoots, leaves and stems
were parboiled, rinsed, and cooked alone or mixed with other greens and eggs.
Peeled stalks cut lengthwise, parboiled, dipped in egg, rolled in cornmeal,
fried like fish. Those require cooking. The Iroquopis, Malecite and Mohegans
also ate poke but how was not recorded.
That’s not a lot of ethnobotanical evidence that native were eating a
lot of poke weed long before Europe discovered America. I personally know two
people who swallow one berry whole (no chewing) to treat arthritis. Beyound
personal testimony I have no idea if it works or not.
Poison “Volunteer” Squash: Be Warned!
Well, we
had an interesting experience with squash this past weekend…. We got poisoned!
Here is our story….. I usually rototill up the garden at the end of the year
and invariably there are a few extra dried-up, overgrown squashes that get
mashed into the soil. This spring a “volunteer” squash plant appeared
presumably from these left over squash seeds. Even though this squash plant
came up in the middle of a row (very inconvenient for weeding), I thought it
would be fun to let it grow and see what it produced.
This
volunteer plant started putting out copious amounts of light green squash in
the shape of a straight-neck summer squash (the variety I planted back in
2013).
All seemed
well.. so far. This weekend, we picked a ton of squash and included one of
these seemingly innocuous little green squash as well. The squash was sectioned
and boiled all together in a medley along with some onions. It looked
delicious. But the first bite soon gave a different impression. This squash
side dish was extremely bitter.. to the point of being completely inedible. A
few folks choked down a bite or two… and they were rewarded with stomach pains
and explosive diarrhea later in the evening! Yours truly spit out the squash
immediately and was spared any gastrointestinal distress…. I think I lucked out
and bit into a “green squash” where the intense bitter flavor made it
absolutely impossible to eat. Perhaps the others got a bite of a normal squash
with only the juices of the poison squash mixed in. This made the taste
somewhat more palatable.. and thus edible (but barely).
A bit of
internet research pointed me to the fact that hybridized squash will sometime
revert to a more “wild type” and produce copious quantities of a bitter
compound called “cucurbitacin E.” I also read that some “normal” squashes will
produce this if water stressed. Curcubitacin E is bitter, and poisonous with the
symptoms of ingesting being… stomach cramps and diarrhea. I am convinced this
is what happened! So to all those with a garden out there… let this be a
warning! Do not eat squash from “volunteer” plants and be very careful if you
save seeds from curcurbits… unless of course you enjoy spending all evening on
the toilet.
Horti-Culture Corner
by Carl Sandburg
Hydrangeas
Dragoons, I tell you
the white hydrangeas
turn rust and go
soon.
Already mid September
a line of brown runs
over them.
One sunset after another
tracks the faces, the
petals.
Waiting, they look
over the fence for what
way they go.
The 10 Stages of Clueless Gardening
By Jayme Metzgar - Thefederalist.com
If society
ever collapses to where my family has to depend on my gardening skills, we’re
in serious trouble.
A few years
ago, I decided it would be a good idea to learn to grow vegetables. As a
slightly-crunchy mom of four, I was on board with the idea of serving my kids
fresh, organic produce, but the cost seemed prohibitive. Why not grow my own?
Plus, it fit nicely with my overall “save-money-by-doing-everything-yourself”
life theme, which I’ve also applied to cooking, family haircuts, and my kids’
education.
I confess
that my desire to learn gardening had some political underpinnings as well. As
a libertarian-leaning conservative who cares about economic issues, I’ve
watched the country’s fiscal health rapidly decline from “middle-aged and
overweight” level to “chain-smoking, 500-pound diabetic” level. So I’ve become
more interested in hobbies that might help my family live through the
undesirable event of a total economic meltdown.
No
pressure, right?
Well, I’m
happy to report that I am now in my fifth year of organic vegetable gardening,
and I am more committed to our nation’s economic success than ever before.
Because if society ever collapses to the point where my family has to depend on
my gardening skills, we’re in serious trouble.
But
although gardening’s perceived value as a survival skill has waned, I still
keep going back out to the garden every year. I’ve learned that gardening
is—and probably always will be—a continual cycle of defeats and triumphs, ups
and downs. In fact, I’ve made a few discoveries that I’d like to share here as
a benefit to other clueless gardeners like myself. (Not actual tips on growing
organic vegetables. There are about a million better sources on the Internets
for that.)
No, I’m
talking about something I call the 10 Stages of Clueless Organic Gardening,
which I’ve identified after my four-and-a-half years of extensive, hands-on
research. Much like Kübler-Ross’s five stages of grief, I believe that being
able to recognize these 10 stages of gardening can bring perspective, hope, and
sanity to your fledgling attempts to grow your own food.
Stage 1: The Audacity of Hope
It’s early
spring, and heck, you’re in a great mood just being outside. Plus, you’ve
learned from your failures of last year and have been faithfully reading your
big organic gardening manual, so you’re pretty sure you’re going to kill it
this year. And let’s just be clear, by “kill it,” we mean “keep it alive.”
Stage 2: Expenditures
This is the
part where you buy compost, soil amendment, seeds, and a few plants (having
previously learned you don’t have the knack of starting tomatoes indoors). It’s
a bit painful to see the money going the wrong way, i.e. out of your wallet,
but it will all be okay in the long run, because these bad boys will give you a
great return on investment once you’re harvesting your own vegetables instead of
buying them at the grocery store. Booyah.
Stage 3: Agnosticism
You spend
an exhausting, sweaty day preparing the beds and putting the seeds in the
ground. You stand back to admire your handiwork, and you see . . . dirt.
Really. It looks pretty much the same as it did before. With the exception of
the tomato bed, there is not a lot of visual gratification going on. You start
to doubt whether you really even did anything at all. Over the ensuing days,
you go out frequently to spray expensive town water on the beds of dirt. Your
doubt grows. Is anything even happening out there? Does life exist under the
dirt? Does anyone really know?
Stage 4: Childlike Wonder
Your seeds
have sprouted into beautiful seedlings! Yes, even the carrots! (At least, you
think those are carrots; there’s a slight possibility they’re tiny weeds.) But
the point is: wow! Life is miraculous. Seeds are miraculous. Nature is
miraculous. You lavish more expensive water on the miracle.
Stage 5: Martha Stewart
You just
made a salad using hand-picked lettuce from your quaint kitchen garden. While
picking lettuce, you pulled the few stray weeds that were marring the aesthetic
wonder of your neat, orderly beds. The children wander through the walkways,
picking early vegetables to eat al fresco as they play. Tomorrow you will
collect the first crop of sugar snap peas. You will put them in a white bowl,
snap a photo of them in natural sunlight, and post them on social media,
because a garden is a source of nourishment for the soul as well as the body.
Stage 6: General William Tecumseh Sherman
You just
saw a squash bug on your zucchini plant. Yes. Somehow the enemy has infiltrated
the carefully-sealed tulle barricade you constructed to protect your squash
plants this year. Gingerly unsealing the netting, you check the underside of
every leaf. Your jaw tightens. There it is: that little tell-tale, v-shaped
bunch of eggs clinging to one leaf, a sight you came to know so well that
terrible year you tried to grow pumpkins. Looking more closely, your jaw
clenches even more tightly. (You’re starting to resemble a tetanus patient at
this point.) The tell-tale entry point of a vine borer larva is clearly visible
near the bottom of the stem. Your zucchini are under a double-pronged assault.
Things look
dire, but you refuse to let this six-legged enemy prevail. You shall grind them
into the dust. You shall mercilessly wield your duct tape (for egg removal),
your deadly jar of soapy water, and your knife (for vine-borer surgery),
hunting down the rebels and all their cohorts wherever they may be found. You
shall grant no quarter and shall relent for nothing less than unconditional
surrender.
Stage 7: Bargaining
“All
right,” you say, “you bugs can have the zucchini, but just leave me the yellow
squash, for the love of Pete.”
Stage 8: Depression
Gardening
sucks. It’s not even worth it go out there and see your beloved plants, once so
full of life and promise, baking in the 95-degree weather and serving as a
thriving bed and breakfast for pests. You’re just trying to forget the garden
exists at this point.
Stage 9: Darwinism
You finally
go back out there and see that your green beans are doing pretty well,
actually. You can probably get enough to serve with supper. You also find a
couple decent cucumbers and a few tomatoes that haven’t been sucked dry by
stink bugs. The squash? You pull them all up and end their misery. And you feel
remarkably better. Survival of the fittest, baby. If a plant can live through
the onslaughts of nature without your constant attention and still produce
something edible, it can stay. If not, buh-bye.
Stage 10: Historical Revisionism
Winter
approaches. The season’s first late-October frost has finally killed off the
last few garden plants, and there is something eerily peaceful about their
shriveled forms. Before cleaning up the beds for the winter, you walk through
the garden one last time. You fondly remember all the good times, the weeks of
lettuce and peas, the strawberries the slugs didn’t eat, the green beans, the
faithful basil, the small but edible crop of carrots, the six jars of diced
tomatoes you managed to can for the winter (well, they should last through
November at least). Thanks to these humble beds of earth, your children were
sustained by fresh, nutrient-rich foods. You have grown your own food on your
own land, and by doing so, you have connected in a deeply primal way with the
independent, pioneer spirit of America. As for the struggles and setbacks, they
were just opportunities to grow. To better yourself. To go into next spring
armed with knowledge and ready to triumph.
Cross-pollination making you cross?
The Garden Professors
Science-based garden information
No, your
cucumbers have not hybridized with your melons.
I’ve been
fielding different versions of the same question a LOT lately.
Three different people have sent pictures of “cucumelons”
telling me they planted cucumbers next to their melons, and now the cucumbers
look strange, so they’re concerned that they have cross pollinated with the
melons. One person planted what was supposed to be a red raspberry next to
their yellow raspberry, but the new plant is producing yellow fruit, so they
think that it must be cross pollinating with their yellow plant, causing the
fruits to turn yellow. Not to mention similar queries about tomatoes, peppers,
and watermelons. It seems like every time a piece of produce turns out looking
differently than what people expect, they blame pollen from the plant next to
it.
I’m sure
the highly educated readers of The Garden Professors know this already, but to
clarify, there is a very simple reason why you don’t need to worry about one
plant pollinating another plant and changing the quality of your produce UNLESS
you are planning on saving seeds to grow for the next year.
When a
flower is pollinated and starts developing into a fruit full of seeds, it is
only the seeds themselves that combine the genetics of the two parents to
develop into something new. Everything else – the flesh of a tomato, or
cucumber or melon or raspberry – is produced solely by the mother plant, and
the daddy of those seeds inside doesn’t matter a bit. Think about when a woman
is pregnant… the identity of the father of the child inside her doesn’t change
the character of the skin of her belly.
If you want
to save seeds of your plant for next year, it is another matter, and you should
be sure to isolate or (better yet) hand pollinate different varieties of the
same species from each other to make sure they don’t hybridize unintentionally.
You still don’t need to worry about your cucumbers and melons, however – they
won’t hybridize by chance in your garden. If a plant doesn’t produce the right
colored fruit or flower, most likely it was just mislabeled at the nursery.
Grow a strange looking cucumber, chances are it was left on the plant too long.
Cucumbers are harvested and eaten when young and immature, leave them too long
and they get… strange looking. No need to blame it on the melons next to them.
There IS
one exception to this, one common plant in the garden where the source of
pollen makes a huge difference in what you harvest: Corn. Corn is the exception
because what we’re eating is the seed itself, not the fruit produced by the
mother plant surrounding the seed. That’s why if your sweet corn gets a dose of
pollen from the field corn the farmer is grown next door, it comes out starchy
and not sweet.
