September 2016

Planters Punchlines

Men’s Garden Club of Wethersfield

September 2016

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Garden Club Kicks off 2016-17 Season

Monday Sept. 26 @ 7:00 p.m. Pitkin Community Center

Nigel Palmer from the Institute Of Sustainable Nutrition to speak to us on: Introduction to Sustainable Gardening and Amendment Practices. The talk is free and open to the public.   Spread the word.

2016-2017 Club Officers

President:                    Tony Sanders               

Vice President:            Howard Becker          

Secretary:                    James Sulzen                

Treasurer:                    Richard Prentice

Compostable Matter

By Jim Meehan

Unfortunately the best times for me to work in our sunflower gardens are the same periods in the day when the neighborhood bees decide to sop up their daily supply of nectar and pollen.

             

Luckily for me thus far, none of these members of the Apidae family have chosen to defend their dining areas by planting their powerful stings in any of the exposed parts of my body.

             

Mars has however not been that blessed.  We have three varieties of sunflowers, among them Maximilian (Helianthus maximiliani Schrad, aka michaelmas-daisy), which she and I surreptitiously spirited across country on Southwest Airlines from their original home in northern New Mexico.  According to wildflower.org “It was named for the naturalist Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied, Germany, who led an expedition into the American West in the 1830s.”  We do not actually know what the other two are.  If left to their own devices all three will grow to an elevation of about ten feet.  So when they get to about two-thirds of that height in early June we lop of the top three-quarters so that by season’s end the Maxes have maxed out at about my size – a few inches over six feet.

             

By then of course the yellow flowers are blooming and the bees are buzzing.  The nature of our work necessitates us getting into the midst of the plants, and the bees.  So, although Mars had on her hands protected by her pink leather garden gloves, she did not have any covering around her neck – on the back of which she “just felt a bite.”  Mars does not actually recall that part of the story but, either way, I remember seeing the aposematically coloured, orange and black pollen collector writhing on her nape and me saying,  “You’ve been stung.”

             

We both have been similarly pricked at prior times in our lives with no serious side effects (i.e. no anaphylaxis or death).  But still somehow even a non-lethal stinger lodged in the top of the spinal column didn’t seem like something to be ignored. Had we known then what we know now we would have bought a gross of Epipens, maybe used one or two, and saved the rest as a retirement investment – another case of woulda, coulda, shoulda.  Instead we put on some ice to reduce the potential swelling and went into a state of what the medical profession likes to call ‘watchful waiting” – with no negative results.  And Mars returned to her work with no further incidents.

             

My own gardening experiences with bee stings are twofold – neither involving sunflowers.

             

On one occasion I was home alone and decided to undertake my semi-annual task of pulling back the ivy from the foundation and siding of the house – something that I used to do without gloves in order to be able to better distinguish the roots of the groundcover from other objects such as stray cable connections, etc.  I stuck my right hand into a mass of ivy, felt the sharp piercing pain, saw the tiny black object in my finger and realized what had happened.  This was probably my first such occurrence since boyhood and being by myself I rushed into the house trying to remember if it was Adolph’s Meat Tenderizer, or Gravy Master, or what, that was the natural home remedy for bee stings.  We had neither.  I decided against driving to the nearest Chinese cookery and shouting “Yes MSG!” in favor of the same frozen water and calm patience that years later worked so well for Mars’ wound.  And it did then also.

             

My other bee adventure actually was a wasp attack, which I touched off by attempting to retrieve, for the first time that season, some of fermenting compost from by uncovered compost bin.  Before I could say “oh s***, I’m being attacked”, the ground wasps, which had happily adopted my rotting pile of vegetable scraps, grass and leaves as their subterranean condo were after me like the combat airships in Star Wars.   I like to think my lightning fast reflexes and Usain Bolt like speed outran them but I suspect in reality I simply had gotten myself out of their relatively small protective zone, at which point they lost all interest in the chase.

            

 Following the advice of a compost expert at a lecture I attended shorty thereafter I sealed the entire bin in plastic and let the vicious little varmints cook to death over the long, hot summer.  And next year my compost supply was once again good-to-go – and perhaps ever better thanks to its hothouse conditions.

             

Outside our family room window we have a small bed of phlox, each of which attract the largest, slowest, and most diligent bees either of us has ever seen.  These “hinden-bees” arrive early and stay late every day – beginning as large, becoming larger, and going home morbidly obese at eventide.

             

Neither Mars nor I have any interest in any kind of gardening involving the phlox.

  

It's a Good Year for Monarchs, 

But More Butterflies Are On the Brink (excerpt)

By Jason Bittel – nationalgeographic.com (March 14, 2016)

             

Fortunately, the monarch butterfly is plentiful from North America to Africa, Europe, and Australia. Only its unique migration is endangered.

             

But many other species aren’t so lucky. So today, in honor of National Learn About Butterflies Day, let’s look at four other species that have quietly been marching toward extinction.

             

Schaus’ Swallowtail

             

Three years ago, when researchers went looking for Schaus’s swallowtail butterflies (Heraclides aristodemus ponceanus) in the Florida Keys, they turned up fewer than half a dozen individuals.

             

“Everyone thought that would be the end of it,” says Andy Warren, a moth and butterfly scientist and collections manager at the McGuire Center for Lepidoptera & Biodiversity at the Florida Museum of Natural History.

             

With wingspans up to 5 inches (about 13 centimeters), Warren calls swallowtails “big, showy things” that anyone can be trained to identify. However, these insects live in the tiniest of habitats—essentially just a few tropical hardwood sites in South Florida and the Keys.

             

But then, just as scientists were sounding the alarm that the Schaus’ swallowtail butterfly was about to go extinct, they emerged the next year in relative abundance.

             

Where did they come from? Warren says the species appears to be capable of spending multiple years as pupae—the stage of life between caterpillar and butterfly—likely as a way to wait for optimal conditions. This means that it’s extremely difficult to say exactly how many Schaus’ swallowtails are left at any given time. (See "How Your Backyard Can Save Butterflies.")

             

Even still, the Keys are a notoriously extreme environment, prone to rapid changes in vegetation, drought, fire, and hurricanes. The insects are currently considered endangered by both the state of Florida and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

             

Wolkberg Zulu Butterfly

             

 

At about the size of a U.S. quarter (26 millimeters), the Wolkberg Zulu butterfly (Alaena margaritacea) of South Africa can be difficult to spot. Making matters worse, the insects only take flight for three weeks out of the year, a span that just so happens to fall right in the middle of the rainy season.

             

Oh, and one other thing—since 1929, no one had ever seen a Wolkberg Zulu butterfly anywhere else in the world except for one small town near Kruger National Park.

             

In 2013, when a botanist came across a specimen that appeared to be a Wolkberg Zulu in an area outside its known range, the Lepidopterists’ Society of Africa dispatched an expedition to see if they could verify the sighting. On the first day, the experts found just one butterfly—and it was dead, frozen on a leaf.

             

However, the next day the scientists discovered several more butterflies floating to and fro and declared that, for the first time ever, the Wolkberg Zulu butterfly had a new home.

             

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature classifies the insects as vulnerable to extinction.

             

Island Marble Butterfly

             

The island marble butterfly (Euchloe ausonides insulanus) was thought to have gone extinct around 1908. But almost a hundred years later, the fuzzy green-and-white butterflies popped back up on San Juan Islands just south of Vancouver, Canada. The discovery marked the first time the species had ever been sighted on U.S. soil. (See "Why Do Butterflies Have Such Vibrant Colors and Patterns?")

             

No one knows quite where the marbles have been all this time, or how they have escaped notice, but scientists are working to make sure they don’t disappear again.

             

For starters, it seems the butterflies have taken a liking to nonnative mustard plants on the islands. As the National Park Service looks to restore prairie habitats—which would typically involve removing nonnative species—they'll need to determine whether the butterflies can also survive on native mustard plants.

             

Saint Francis Satyr

             

Some butterflies are threatened by pesticide use. Others are declining due to lack of host plants or too many parasites. But the Saint Francis satyr (Neonympha mitchellii francisci) suffers from too few beavers, which create ponds that in turn create meadow habitat for Saint Francis satyr larvae.

             

Unfortunately for the Saint Francis satyr, beavers have mostly disappeared from its native range in North Carolina. The butterfly now only exists within the confines of a military base called Fort Bragg, where military exercises like bombing create wildfires that make way for the meadows the butterflies require. (See "Butterflies Can Evolve New Colors Amazingly Fast.")

             

There are currently only thought to be something like a thousand Saint Francis satyrs left on earth, inhabiting a range of just 20 acres (about 8 hectares)—smaller than the average U.S. shopping mall.

Fall Planting PLANTS for Next Season’s Butterflies

by Tony Gomez – http://monarchbutterflygarden.net

            

4 Big Benefits to Fall Planting Butterfly Plants

             

(1) Less Mud than in the melting snow and rains of Spring. If you live in a region that gets snow, spring is potentially the messiest time of year in the butterfly garden.

           

(2) Easy Digging. Depending on spring temperatures, planting can get delayed by a frozen ground. That means you’ll have to wait to belt out Disney’s classic ♪Let it Grow!♪

             

(3) Reap the benefits with flowering plants the very next next season. Most perennials you plant in spring won’t yield nectar-filled blooms until next season. By planting just a few months earlier, you’ll see some plants in full glory a year sooner!

             

(4)Transplanting will also reap rewards next season. If your plants weren’t happy in their spot this season, what have you got to lose by attempting to move them? That’s right…unhappy plants!

             

What fall planting ideas could have you reaping butterfly rewards as soon as next season?

            

 Milkweed is the lifeblood of Monarch Butterflies and not having enough will keep garden visits at a minimum and cut your raising adventures short.

If you're concerned about running out of milkweed for munching monarch caterpillars, try planting plants in fall to increase your milkweed supply next season.

             

1. Milkweed Plants: Try fall planting any variety that can survive winter temps in your region. You can check out some of your milkweed options here

             

Autumn is also prime time for transplanting unhappy native milkweed varieties. The cool temperatures of fall put less stain on transplants. As long as you dig up most of the root system and keep them sufficiently watered, milkweed transplants can be successful. Swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) is easier to transplant without a rhizomatous root system.

             

If transplants aren’t an option, find plants at local nurseries.

             

While milkweed continues the monarch circle of life, nectar flowers give the adults the energy to continue that strenuous cycle.  Fall Planting Liatris ligulistylis plants will bring you a bounty of butterflies the very next monarch season.

             

2. Stiff Goldenrod (Solidago rigida): Yellow clusters of flowers are a late season treat for many pollinators and a favorite of migrating monarchs.           

            

3. Meadow Blazingstar (Liatris ligulistylis): Last fall I added 4 plants, and this season we had four flowering stalks from those plants. If we would have planted this spring, not one purple flower would have bloomed. Fall is also a good time for dividing, which in turn will multiply your plants! Fall division gives the liatris roots time to get acclimated before ground freeze.

             

4. Joe Pye Weed (Eutrochium spp.): One of the best perennials for late-season monarchs. We already have the ‘gateway’ variety (Eutrochium maculatum), and this fall we are adding ‘sweet Joe Pye’ (Eutrochium purpureum)  to the mix. Try a eutrochium species native to your region.

             

Planting bulbs can also yield big benefits the next season when compared to seeds…

             

5. Allium Bulbs or Division

             

a. Garlic Chives (Allium tuberosum) have showy white flowers that are a great nectar source for late season bees and migrating monarchs.  I was so excited to see the only viceroy of the season recently with wings spread wide in a complementary vision of beauty. When I returned the viceroy had been secretly replaced by a monarch…still a lovely vision!

             

b. Chives (Allium schoenoprasum): Chives provide nectar to spring monarchs returning from Mexico and have beautiful purple blooms. In the northern plains, these are usually finished blooming by the time we see monarchs but they are a great nectar source for early arriving pollinators.

             

c. Ornamental Onions (Allium angulosum ‘summer beauty’)

Horti-Culture Corner

It's September (excerpt) - Poem by Edgar Albert Guest

It's September, and the orchards are afire with red and gold,

And the nights with dew are heavy, and the morning's sharp with cold;

Now the garden's at its gayest with the salvia blazing red

And the good old-fashioned asters laughing at us from their bed;

Once again in shoes and stockings are the children's little feet,

And the dog now does his snoozing on the bright side of the street.

A Few Essential Tools for Your Sustainable Garden

Excerpted from Sustainable Gardening For Dummies (http://www.dummies.com)

             

To create your sustainable garden, some things are just too good to pass up.

             

A compost heap or bin: Mature compost ends up as a delightful humus to use as a soil conditioner in your sustainable garden, or, for the bokashi method, a delicious pickle your plants love.

             

An insectary: A garden plot, or even a series of pots on a balcony, with at least seven different plant species of varying heights attracts various beneficial bugs to your sustainable garden. Good candidates to plant include amaranthus, coriander, cosmos, dill, lemon balm, parsley, tansy and yarrow.

             

Mulch: To help keep in precious moisture, cover the soil around your plants with the finished humus from your compost or an organic mulch, such as matured manure, pea straw, pine bark, seaweed or sugar cane. Inorganic mulch, such as pebbles or granitic sand, should be use sparingly in a sustainable garden.

             

Worms: You can buy or build a worm farm or simply attract earthworms to your soil. Either way, worms produce a fantastic by-product, commonly known as worm castings, or vermicasts, that attracts microorganisms, such as good bacteria and fungi, to your soil so your plants thrive. If you have a worm farm, the worm wee, actually the liquid that accumulates at the bottom, is an added bonus for your garden.

Please don’t EVER plant running bamboo in your yard…

Pieceofpita.com

            

 I fell in love with the beautiful bamboo growing in the side yard at the Old Saybrook beach house. The tall green stalks had been planted by the previous homeowner, but I was so thrilled we would be able to enjoy them for years to come.  A perfect tranquil addition to any landscaping, or so I thought. If only I knew then what

I know now!

             

I remember showing off the bamboo to first time visitors. It provided such a unique backdrop to the stone patio and tiki bar in our little slice of beach paradise. I heard many friends say they had no idea bamboo could grow in our climate. Hell, I had no idea either but here was living proof. They wanted to plant some in their yards. My landscaper even took a few pieces to tried to start his own crop. Thankfully, for his sake, it didn’t work.

             

For two summers, I watched the bamboo grow from a small five-foot wide patch in front of the white fencing to a deep, dark and thick 15-foot patch. I was so excited the bamboo was filling in so nicely. Even the neighbors over the fence loved how it looked from their side. When they sway in the breeze, the leaves have such a peaceful and tranquil sound. And the stalks stay hearty and green all year long. Seeing sprigs of green amidst the snow was always a nice treat.

             

This spring, I noticed many new asparagus-like stalks appearing all over the yard. They were no longer contained just along the white fence. They began to pierce their way through plants and planters in other gardens in the yard. They appeared around and under the playscape. They began to wind themselves through the exposed roots of the 100-year old tree in the side yard.

             

And then I got an alarming letter from the neighbors. They didn’t want to upset me, but they, too, had noticed a surprising amount of new sprouts on their side of the fence. They did some bamboo research only to discover how terribly invasive and damaging it can be to structures, flooring, porches, septic systems and gas lines, especially if it is the yellow (running) bamboo variety like ours.

             

The bamboo we have in our yards is running wildly underground. Literally!! Running bamboo starts with one root and spirals out through the ground creating a network of vines in the Earth. It pierces through everything in its way because it has amazing strength. The sprouts of the bamboo emerge from the roots. You can literally watch the stalks grow before your eyes at a pace of three inches a day — 30 inches in 10 days during its growing season, which is RIGHT NOW!!!

             

Not only do we need to have the bamboo completely removed from both of our properties, which is a massive undertaking, but I am also committed to help educate homeowners in Connecticut about its dangers.

            

 I have joined the bamboo crusade along with Caryn Rickel, who heads up the Institute for Invasive Bamboo and has had her Seymour property invaded by her neighbors’ bamboo plants. A new law restricting the planting of bamboo within 40 feet of property lines has recently been enacted and signed by Governor Malloy (click to watch the video from Channel 3). But so much more needs to be done to educate homeowners on the harmful effects of this devastating root system. It is extremely difficult to contain. And it is even harder to remove.

             

The entire side and back yard of our home in Old Saybrook will have to be excavated. The bamboo will have to be “chased” out. That’s what Dennis, the bamboo excavator, calls it. All the vinyl fencing will have to be taken down to bring in the proper equipment, including a backhoe, and then replaced. We may lose the precious 100-year old tree that provides irreplaceable shade cover in the summer. But I am working with a few experts, including a tree whisperer, to save the tree.

             

Bottom line my friends…do not EVER plant YELLOW bamboo in your yard!!! It will be more pain than you could ever imagine.

How The Taste Of Tomatoes Went Bad (And Kept On Going)

Dan Charles @ npr.org

             

The tomato is the vegetable (or fruit, if you must) that we love to hate. We know how good it can be and how bad it usually is. And everybody just wants to know: How did it get that way?

             

Today, scientists revealed a small but intriguing chapter in that story: a genetic mutation that seemed like a real improvement in the tomato's quality, but which actually undermined its taste.

             

Before we get to the mutation, though, let's start with the old tomatoes — the varieties that people grew a century or more ago.

             

Thanks to enthusiastic seed savers and heirloom tomato enthusiasts, you can still find many of them. Eric Rice, owner of Country Pleasures Farm near Middletown, Md., first encountered heirloom tomatoes when he was a graduate student in North Carolina.

             

"I decided I really liked them," he says. He liked the vivid taste and the unusual colors, from orange to purple. These tomatoes also have great names: Cherokee Purple, Dr. Wyche's, Mortgage Lifter.

             

Rice now grows these tomatoes to sell at a farmers market in Washington, D.C. But he admits that all that tomato personality can make heirlooms harder to grow and sell. "Heirloom tomatoes don't ship very well because they're softer. And frankly, they're all different shapes and sizes." This makes them more difficult to pack.

             

There's something else you'll notice as these tomatoes start to get ripe — something central to this story. The part of the tomato near the stem — what's called the shoulder of the fruit — stays green longer.

             

"I think it is an issue for the consumer," says Rice, "because people do buy with their eyes. And green shoulders also mean it's not entirely ripe or not as soft and tasty there."

             

Those green shoulders turn out to be more significant than you might think. In this week's issue of the journal Science, scientists report that when they disappeared from modern tomatoes, some of the tomato's taste went with them.

            

 Here's how. Sometime before 1930, somewhere in America, a tomato grower noticed a plant that was producing distinctive fruit. These fruit turned red from stem to tip in a uniform way. They didn't have any of those bothersome green shoulders.

             

It was a new mutation, and plant breeders saw it as the next big thing.

             

They called it the "uniform ripening" trait. In 1930, the agricultural experiment station in Fargo, N.D., released a new tomato variety containing this mutation. The variety was called All Red.

             

Ann Powell, a researcher at the University of California, Davis, says it spread through the entire tomato industry. "It's a little hard to find a variety in modern production that doesn't have it," she says.

             

Powell is one of the scientists who now has discovered the genetic change responsible for "uniform ripening."

             

She was studying some genetically engineered tomato plants for another reason when she noticed that one of the added genes resulted in green tomatoes that were really dark green. It struck her as odd. "The leaves were not dark green. It was only the fruit that were dark green," she recalls.

             

Since this foreign gene had interesting effects on the ripening of fruit, Powell and her colleagues started looking for a similar gene that occurs naturally in tomatoes. They found it — and by coincidence, so did another research team on the other side of the country, at Cornell University.

             

The researchers discovered that this natural tomato gene, when it works properly, produces those green shoulders on tomatoes. The darker green color comes from the chlorophyll in plant structures called chloroplasts, which is what converts sunlight into sugars for the plant. In fact, those dark green shoulders were making those old tomatoes sweeter and creating more flavor.

             

The uniform-ripening mutation disabled this gene.

             

"We find out that, oh my goodness, this is one of the factors that led to the deterioration of flavor in the commercial tomato," says Harry Klee, a professor of horticulture at the University of Florida.

             

Klee has been exploring the chemistry and genetics of tomato taste. He says tomato breeders made a lot of compromises like this over the years as they created tomato plants that produce more fruit and are also rugged enough to hold up under rough handling.

            

 Now, Klee says, with some of this new science, we have a chance to undo some of those decisions. "What I tell people is, we can have 100 percent of the flavor [of heirloom varieties] with 80 percent of the agricultural performance of the modern varieties, with very little work."

             

Breeders can start with some of the best heirlooms, then bring in some of the disease-resistance genes that modern varieties have. They should also be able to increase yields somewhat, he says.

             

But consumers may have to change their expectations, Klee says. "They're going to have to go in and say, 'That one's got that little discoloration at the top; that means it must be good!"

             

And, the only way they're likely to show up in your local grocery store is if consumers can recognize them and are willing to pay a bit more for them.

            
Still, for the best flavor, you might want to grow your own.