Tuesday, March 7, 2017

March 2017


Planters Punchlines
Men’s Garden Club of Wethersfield
March 2017
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Important Tree Diseases of North America."
@ Men’s Garden Club of Wethersfield March Meeting
Monday March 27 @ 7:00 pm in the Pitkin Community Center

Robert Marra, Ph.D. an Associate Scientist/Forest Pathologist at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station will discuss “Important Tree Diseases of North America."  Bring a guest.

Annual Plant Sale is May 6 
What will you donate?
How can you help?

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 – get creative.

Compostable Matter
By Jim Meehan
It Grows As It Goes
Mars and I have lived in "Ye Most Auncient Towne in Connecticut” for the past thirty-nine years, but our plan now is to relocate southwest to Santa Fe, New Mexico, established by Spanish colonists twenty-four years before the birth of Wethersfield – and the self-declared “City Different”.  
             
Even those totally unfamiliar with these two locales could probably identify many dissimilarities between them – Connecticut River Valley vs. high desert; English Colonial houses vs. Spanish adobe dwellings; lots of green vs., lots of tan; 59” annual rainfall vs. 14”; etcetera.  But they also resemble each other in many ways – at least as seen through the eyes of this amateur gardener and lay horticultural historian.
             
The official state motto of New Mexico is “Crescit eundo”.  I suspect that almost no one knows that –or its translation to “It grows as it goes”.   And even less people can explain what the phrase actually means. (It comes from the epic poem De Rerum Natura, “On the Nature of Things”, by the Latin poet Lucretius and refers to a thunderbolt increasing in strength as it moves across the sky – a symbol of dynamic progress.)
             
On the other hand just about every New Mexican can recite the Official State Question and Answer – and probably says it at least once a day.
             
Q. "Red OR Green?"
             
A: "Red AND Green” or “Christmas."
             
And every visitor quickly learns exactly what that means – just as we did twenty-four years ago.  On our first night in the Land of Enchantment we went for dinner at a local restaurant specializing in New Mexican food.  We explained to the waitress that we were new in town, unfamiliar with the food, and (coming from the moderately seasoned New England culinary tradition) pretty much spice-wimps.  After guiding us through some entrée selections she posed “the question.”  And told us how to answer it.
             
Most New Mexican food (including, as I discovered, Tuna Florentine) is served with chile – which in New Mexico means a sauce made from the pungent pods of either red or green chile peppers, not the concoction of spices, meat or beans known in other places as chili con carne.  Sometimes the red sauce is hotter – i.e. higher on the Scoville Scale of capsaicin sensitivity.  Sometimes it is the green.  So THE question with every meal is “red or green”.  And the most appropriate answer is “red and green” or simply “Christmas”.  Usually the sauce smothers the dish.  So, for those of us without asbestos covered taste buds, the waitress said to always ask for it “on the side”.  We did that night.  And a quarter of a century later we still do.  Leaving the sauce dishes 95% full at the end of the meal no longer embarrasses us.
             
Like the ubiquitous chiles in “The Land of Enchantment” the Red Onion is equally ever-present in Connecticut’s oldest village.  Wethersfield has no official question and answer.  But if we did it would probably not be “cash or credit card?” but rather “Can I pay for that with Onions?”  The answer to which would be, “Not since the 18th century.”
             
From 1730 until the mid-1830's the major agricultural activity in Wethersfield was the cultivation of a flat burgundy colored onion that came to be known as the “Wethersfield Red.” – earning the town renown throughout the world, as well as the sardonic sobriquet of “Oniontown.” 
             
Strung together in long “ropes,” (or “skeins”) the onions were shipped all around the world, most importantly to the West Indies where they were used to feed the slaves on the islands’ huge sugar plantations in exchange for sugar, salt, tea, coffee and spices – as well as molasses from which we New Englanders made our own rum.  In 1774, its biggest year, Wethersfield exported about one million of these knotted bundles. In the United States, even President Thomas Jefferson grew “Wethersfield Reds” at Monticello. 
            
In like manner the chile industry may be the only business in which New Mexico is ranked first nationally.  With a direct economic value of more than $57 million in 2009, plus the indirect benefits jobs and tourism, the economic impact of the spicy peppers could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.  No wonder that strings of drying red chiles – called “ristras” – commonly decorate adobe houses throughout the “Land of Enchantment”.       
             
Back here in Wethersfield onions likewise were everywhere.  Ropes of red onions, looking like Christmas ornaments, adorned the rafters and doorways of houses and stores.
             
Onions were even used as medicine – as fictionalized in the children’s novel “Witch of Blackbird Pond”, set in Wethersfield.  And you could actually pay for just about anything with the famous flat, red onions.  In 1764 the town leaders levied taxes to build the First Church of Christ Congregational meetinghouse. Many residents paid their fee in the form of onions, causing the building to be known as “the church that onions built.”   To this day our local historical society symbolically pays its annual rent on an 18th-century warehouse not with money, but with Wethersfield Red Onions – and tee shirts, ties and coffee mugs proudly display the beloved burgundy bulb.
             
From whence the Wethersfield Red?  The first Pilgrims brought their own onion sets with them from England.  And the initial Wethersfield settlers who came down from Watertown, Massachusetts Bay Colony to live and farm likely carried with them some of their own pungent, edible bulbs.  Native Indians also harvested wild varieties. The deep, rich soil along the banks of the Connecticut River was an ideal place for agriculture and the “Wethersfield Red” was developed here by the local onion growers themselves.  Producers such as the Wells Brothers began raising them commercially in the 1780s in heavily fertilized beds that were never rotated – the same technique used in the cepinae of ancient Rome. 
             
The demise of the plantation system in the West Indies and a Civil War-era blight known as pinkroot brought the reign of the red onion to an end.  In New Mexico the end of the chile is a long ways away from being in sight.
             
But even after the decline of the onion trade local seed companies including Comstock Ferre & Co. (still in business here in town under the ownership of the Baker Creek Heritage Seed Company) sold red onion seeds across the country and Europe – but from what I have read not in the desert southwest.  The 1856 Comstock catalog said, "It is the kind mostly grown at Wethersfield. It grows to large size, deep red, thick, approaching to round shape, fine-grained, pleasant flavored, and very productive. It ripens in September, and keeps well."
             
Some accounts assert that cultivated chile peppers were introduced into the U.S. by Captain General Juan de Onate, the founder of Santa Fe, in 1609.  Other historians suggest that they came with the Antonio Espejo Expedition of 1582 – 1583.  In any event, after the Spanish settlement in 1598 the crop spread throughout New Mexico.  Even in New Mexico’s dry climate, distinct regional varieties or “land races” such as Chimayo and espanola peppers have been adapted to their particular environments – and many are still planted today in the same fields in which they were grown centuries ago    
             
Mars and I have never attempted to grow either our local onions or our someday-local chiles.  However when we finally do relocate to the desert southwest I think I would to keep in touch with my east coast roots by trying to cultivate some Wethersfield Reds.  I have instructions on how to grow the eponymous edible bulb in a pot.  And I’m already planning on using one of the large blue glazed containers from Jackalope Pottery in Santa Fe.  The heirloom Comstock Ferre seeds are still available – so I think I have a better than even chance of becoming the first successful New Mexico harvester of what will by then be my former home town’s most beloved symbol
             
After all, Connecticut’s own State Motto does tell us “Qui transtulit sustinet”  – "He who is transplanted still sustains".  It is time for Mars, me, and “Wethersfield Red” to test the New Mexican waters (or lack thereof) – to go, and hopefully to grow.

14 Simple Gardening Tips and Tricks
http://www.hgtv.com
             
From using leftover coffee beans to preventing dirt from getting underneath fingernails, master gardener Paul James shares his top 14 tips and shortcuts to make spring gardening a breeze.
             
Here, the latest tips and tricks from Paul James, host of Gardening by the Yard:
             
1. To remove the salt deposits that form on clay pots, combine equal parts white vinegar, rubbing alcohol and water in a spray bottle. Apply the mixture to the pot and scrub with a plastic brush. Let the pot dry before you plant anything in it.
             
2. To prevent accumulating dirt under your fingernails while you work in the garden, draw your fingernails across a bar of soap and you'll effectively seal the undersides of your nails so dirt can't collect beneath them. Then, after you've finished in the garden, use a nailbrush to remove the soap and your nails will be sparkling clean.
             
3. To prevent the line on your string trimmer from jamming or breaking, treat with a spray vegetable oil before installing it in the trimmer.
             
4. Turn a long-handled tool into a measuring stick! Lay a long-handled garden tool on the ground, and next to it place a tape measure. Using a permanent marker, write inch and foot marks on the handle. When you need to space plants a certain distance apart (from just an inch to several feet) you'll already have a measuring device in your hand.
More Tips and Tricks from Paul 04:28
How can you use bubble wrap to keep your potted plants from stressing out? Find out from gardening expert Paul James.
             
5. To have garden twine handy when you need it, just stick a ball of twine in a small clay pot, pull the end of the twine through the drainage hole, and set the pot upside down in the garden. Do that, and you'll never go looking for twine again.
            
 6. Little clay pots make great cloches for protecting young plants from sudden, overnight frosts and freezes.
             
7. To turn a clay pot into a hose guide, just stab a roughly one-foot length of steel reinforcing bar into the ground at the corner of a bed and slip two clay pots over it: one facing down, the other facing up. The guides will prevent damage to your plants as you drag the hose along the bed.
             
8. To create perfectly natural markers, write the names of plants (using a permanent marker) on the flat faces of stones of various sizes and place them at or near the base of your plants.
             
9. Got aphids? You can control them with a strong blast of water from the hose or with insecticidal soap. But here's another suggestion, one that's a lot more fun; get some tape! Wrap a wide strip of tape around your hand, sticky side out, and pat the leaves of plants infested with aphids. Concentrate on the undersides of leaves, because that's where the little buggers like to hide.
             
10. The next time you boil or steam vegetables, don't pour the water down the drain, use it to water potted patio plants, and you'll be amazed at how the plants respond to the "vegetable soup."
          
11. Use leftover tea and coffee grounds to acidify the soil of acid-loving plants such as azaleas, rhododendrons, camellias, gardenias and even blueberries. A light sprinkling of about one-quarter of an inch applied once a month will keep the pH of the soil on the acidic side.
             
12. Use chamomile tea to control damping-off fungus, which often attacks young seedlings quite suddenly. Just add a spot of tea to the soil around the base of seedlings once a week or use it as a foliar spray.
             
13. If you need an instant table for tea service, look no farther than your collection of clay pots and saucers. Just flip a good-sized pot over, and top it off with a large saucer. And when you've had your share of tea, fill the saucer with water, and your "table" is now a birdbath.
             
14. The quickest way in the world to dry herbs: just lay a sheet of newspaper on the seat of your car, arrange the herbs in a single layer, then roll up the windows and close the doors. Your herbs will be quickly dried to perfection. What's more, your car will smell great.

The 7 Best Strength Exercises For Gardeners
nwedible.com/the-7-best-strength-exercises-for-gardeners/
(For videos of these exercises link to the above website)
             
Here are the 7 Best Exercises to do before gardening season gets going, so you’ll be ready when it does. You can perform these motions at a gym or at home – all you need are a pair of appropriately heavy weights or kettlebells and a little floor or garden space.
             
1. Dumbebell Deadlift
             
Mimics: Bending over to pull a weed, lift a rock or pick up a bag of compost. Really, any time you bend over and pick something up, you are performing a deadlift. Practice dumbbell or barbell deadlifts in the off-season and your lower back and legs will all be stronger when gardening season gets going.
             
Focus on: letting the dumbbells or the bar slide along your legs through the entire motion, and keep your back and shoulders strong so your spine doesn’t round down. As you add weight in the deadlift, you begin to work your grib strength as well, which is important for keeping hold of sledgehammers and heavy buckets.
             
2. Front-Loaded Squat
             
Mimics: Carrying bags of compost, soil amendments, rocks or kids in front of you. Strengthens your butt, thighs, and entire core. The squat and deadlift are, hands-down, the best all-over strength building exercises you can perform.
             
Focus on: keeping your weight in your heels – if necessary point your toes up toward the ceiling to ensure that you are squatting back rather than down. Keep your low back in neutral alignment through the entire motion; don’t let your back round forward towards the ground. Start with very little weight and work up as you get stronger.
             
3. Farmer Carry
             
Mimics: Carrying buckets of water, compost or soil amendments through the garden. If you’ve ever carried a bag of groceries in each hand, you’ve already performed a Farmer Carry. Up the weight you can handle through diligent practice of the farmer carry and you’ll strengthen your grip and forearms substantially and make hauling all those buckets all over the yard a lot easier.
             
Focus on: keeping your abdominal muscles tight and engaged and keeping the weight under control – no big swings. If you don’t have heavy enough weights to make this simple motion a challenge, grab a few large filled water bottles. I keep these 3 gallon bottles filled with emergency water in the garage. Topped up with water, they weigh about 25 pound each.
             
4. Diagonal Wood Chop
             
Mimics: chopping logs, rotating to weed, pull and reach items in the garden, overhead hammering of posts and tree stakes. Wood Chop is a great all-around exercise because it incorporates both strength and stability work. Wood Chop strengthens the entire abdominal girdle, arms, and back stabilizers, which means less fatigue and back pain after a long day in the yard.
             
Focus on: keeping a strong core as you perform a controlled but forceful diagonal lift of a manageable weight from the outside of one knee up and over to above the opposite shoulder and back down. Your torso should rotate but your feet should stay fixed (though it is ok for the active foot to pivot in place). Wood Chop may be performed with varying degrees of squat – I find the amount I squat in the motion is proportional to the weight I am using, with lighter weights requiring less squat at the beginning of the lift.  Performed dynamically, this exercise can quickly become a cardio-conditioner as well. Because of the dynamic torso rotation, be cautious if you are new to the Diagonal Wood Chop.
            
 5. Push-Ups
             
Mimics: pushing wheelbarrow loads and push-mowers through the garden. Push-ups work your entire upper body, including your chest, arms and core. Strength in pushing is important to gardeners because we always need to push something around the yard: compost, yard waste containers, lawn-mowers, etc. If challenges keep you motivated, take the 100 Push-Up Challenge and learn to rock this important upper-body exercise.
             
Focus on: keeping your body in a straight line from toe to head. Don’t let your back arch or sway. Keep your elbows tucked in against your torso to more fully engage the triceps muscle. If a full push-up is too challenging, perform a modified push-up. Remember to shift your weight off your knee-cap and up to the very bottom of your quadriceps (thigh) muscle, and to establish the same strong, straight body line in a modified push-up as you would have in a full push-up.
             
6. Renegade Rows
             

Mimics: raking, pulling-out well-rooted weeds, starting gas lawnmowers. Rows are sort of like inverse push-ups. Everything a push-up does for your chest and pushing ability, rows do for your back and pulling ability. Most people think of yard work as pulling – pulling weeds! But we gardeners pull recalcitrant rocks, re-bar stakes, tagled vines and brambles and more as well. Renegate Rows have the added advantage of working the core stabilizer muscles.
             
Focus on: just-like the push-up, you want to keep your body in as straight a line as possible. Pull your abdominal muscles in alternatively pull your weight up, keeping about a 90-degree bend in your elbow. Kick your feet about shoulder-width apart to make balance easier.
             
7. Lunges
             
Mimics: weeding. The motion you use to get down on one knee and propose, tie a shoelace or pull a weed is a lunge. Lunges work your butt and thighs like nothing else and are great for balance and stabilizer training. Gardeners who get strong in the lunge will avoid the temptation to constantly bend over with an arched back (which leads to a sore back!) when they need to get close to the ground.
            
 Focus on: a smooth down-up motion of the entire torso in the lunge. Try not to lean down and forward as you lunge. Instead, think of a smooth drop and an engaged lift. Don’t let your knee bang the ground; if you cannot control a full depth lunge right away, just don’t drop as deep until you build up your strength.

Zinnias: The Hardest-Working Flower in the Summer Garden
/www.chicagobotanic.org
             
In summer, gardening requires plants with three key qualities: low maintenance (it's hot out there), heat and drought tolerance (ditto), and brilliant color—the brighter the better.  Zinnias fit the bill on all three counts. And more. In fact, they're one of the best flowers that smart gardeners can put to work in their gardens.
            
 Zinnias work fast.  If there's an easier flower to grow, we'd like to know about it. Zinnias are annuals, meaning that they go from seed to flower to seed quickly. Zinnias' pointy seeds, shaped like little arrowheads, require only basic garden prep to sprout: sow them in well-drained soil, where there's full sun and lots of summer heat, and you'll have tiny seedlings in days, with flowers powering up in just a few weeks. No perennial can claim that speed!
             
One gardening friend doesn't even bother to prepare her soil—she simply sprinkles seeds wherever she'd like a few zinnias, waters those spots for a couple of days, and lets zinnias' easy-to-grow nature take its course.
             
Zinnias work wherever you need color.  'Pop Art'. 'Green Envy'. 'Persian Carpet'. 'Candy Cane'. With variety names like that, you know you're in for color. Zinnias come in a preposterous palette of every bright and pastel (except the blues), plus bi-colors, tri-colors, and crazy-quilt mixes designed for cutting, to attract pollinators, etc.
             
Aside from fresh color, many new zinnia series offer height and width options, too.While the tall versions of Zinnia elegans remain the classic choice for the back of the border, shorter series now challenge the low ground once ceded to marigolds and petunias. The Magellan Series stay close to knee high at 14 inches, while the Thumbelina Series of dwarf zinnias peak at 6 to 8 inches.
             
Creeping or spreading Zinnia angustifolia, such as the Crystal Series, are a revelation for the front of the border, raised beds, containers, and even ground covers. This Mexican native is the go-to species for hot spots like sidewalk beds or that no-man's-land beside the garage, since it's even more drought tolerant than common zinnias.
             
Zahara™ zinnias top out at just 8 to 12 inches—and are prized for their resistance to powdery mildew and leaf spot (see below). Zahara Yellow is short but sweet—we paired it with petite sunflowers in the entry beds at the Regenstein Fruit & Vegetable Garden.
             
Zinnias work as cut flowers.  Zinnias have style, in addition to long, strong stems, so they are naturally destined for the vase.
             
Wonderful language gets used when describing zinnia flowers: stars and daisies, dahlias and spiders, buttons and domes, and quill-leaf cactus. Flowers can be "singles," with petals lined up in a row around an open center, or semi-doubles, or doubles. All work marvelously in floral arrangements.
             
Of course, the tall varieties are the zinnias of choice for cutting: 'Benary's Giant' is famous for its three-foot-tall, sturdy stems and large flowers. Cut zinnia stems at an angle just above a bud joint. Zinnias are typically long-lasting in a vase—strip the stems of all but the most visible leaves before setting them in water.
             
Zinnias cut your workload. Zinnias are low maintenance. Since they're fast-growing, they shade out weeds. They don't require much in the way of fertilizing (just an occasional well-balanced mix), and they don't need mulching.
             
Deadheading helps to produce more flowers. No time to deadhead? The Zaharas mentioned in the sidebard are self-cleaning—a real time saver when it comes to a large bed.
             
Like Zaharas, the Profusion Series (hybrids between Z. elegans and Z. angustifolia) are resistant to the scourge of zinnias: powdery mildew.
             
Because zinnias are native to the grasslands of the southwestern states, Mexico, and South America, they know how to handle dry conditions. But wet summers (we've had one so far) can take their toll. And that can lead to powdery mildew and leaf spot. Three suggestions for dealing with wet conditions:
             
1. Water only when needed, and then only at the base of the plants. Wet leaves can promote mildew development, and splashing water can transfer fungus from the ground onto zinnia leaves in an instant.
             
2. Camouflage tall, more mildew-prone varieties with other plants in the foreground.
             
3. Do both #1 and #2 and live with the fact that zinnia leaves (but not flowers) are affected by wet weather—as one horticulturist put it, "Even when zinnias are covered in powdery mildew, they're covered in flowers."
             
Zinnias work year after year.  It's easy to save zinnia seeds. Simply let the flowers dry fully on the stem, then collect the seedheads and lightly crush them in your hand to release next year's seed crop. Store in a cool, dry place as you do other seeds. (And set some aside in a labeled envelope for our Seed Swap next February!)
             
One last reason to plant zinnias year after year: they're butterfly magnets. The bigger-flowered varieties act like landing pads for nectar-seeking butterflies. (Same goes for hummingbirds.) Try tall zinnias with red or hot pink flowers to get the biggest draw.

Horti-Culture Corner
If your knees aren't green by the end of the day, you ought to seriously re-examine your life.  Bill Watterson (Calvin and Hobbes cartoonist)

The Moonlight Garden: A Composition in White (excerpts)
www.chicagobotanic.org
             
At dusk, vibrant flowers—the reds, oranges, blues and purples that were so striking during the day—begin to fade as shimmering white blossoms and silver and white-splashed foliage start to glow. This is the time when the moon garden, or white garden, comes into its own. You can plant a moon garden in a window box or in pots around a door, a gate, or at the head of a path. Silver, white or variegated leaves will work, too.
            
 Here are some favorites.  The jasmine-scented annual tobacco flower,  Moonflower vine (Ipomoea alba), White fall-blooming anemones, (sun lovers) Asclepias 'Ice Ballet', Buddleja 'White Profusion', Cosmos, Dahlias, Daisies, Gypsophila (baby's breath), Hydrangea 'Annabelle', Iris, Lilium 'Casa Blanca', Phlox 'David', Salvia, Snapdragon, Sweet Alyssum, Tuberose, Veronicastrum (Culver's Root), Viburnum, Korean spice, Zinnia, (shade lovers) Actaea 'Hillside Black Beauty' (black snakeroot), Aruncus (goat's beard), Astilbe 'Bridal Veil', Athyrium 'Ghost' (ghost fern), Begonia, Brunnera 'Jack Frost', Caladium, Dicentra 'Alba', Helleborus, Hosta 'Elegans', Tiarella cordifolia (Allegheny foamflower)

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

February 2017

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Planters Punchlines

Men’s Garden Club of Wethersfield

February 2016

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Connecticut’s Historic Gardens"

@ Men’s Garden Club of Wethersfield 
February Meeting

Monday February 27 @ 7:00 pm 
in the Pitkin Community Center



Laurie Masciandaro of Connecticut’s Historic Gardens will provide an introduction to fourteen historic gardens at distinctive historic homes in Connecticut.



Compostable Matter

By Jim Meehan



For the past year or so I was a member of the group that created the town’s new Heritage Trail – 22 markers scattered throughout Old Wethersfield that tell the story of the town from its inception in 1634 to its current incarnation as a Hartford suburb. The following is an edited version of one of my early drafts.

           

Seeding the Nation



When Wethersfield founder John Oldham died in 1636, the town Judicial Court directed that Oldham's "corne" be preserved.  That "corne" had sprung from seeds planted in Wethersfield.  And although the fate of this pre-colonial maize is lost to history, the story of Wethersfield’s role in seeding the nation is not.

            
 In the early 19th century, after the demise of the town’s Red Onion business due to a Civil War-era blight known as pinkroot, Wethersfield entrepreneurs established an industry that supplied seeds from other Wethersfield to farmers and gardeners across New England and beyond.  Serendipitously the emergence of the seed business came at the same time as the development of the railroad connected more of the country.

             
Ten companies dominated Wethersfield’s seed industry – among them Thomas Griswold & Co., Butler Strong & Co., Johnson, Robbins & Co, Meggat & Wolcott, Hart, Welles & Co.).  Two – Comstock, Ferre & Co, and The Charles C. Hart Seed Company – are still major suppliers today.

             
It all began in 1811 when Joseph Belden advertised "New Garden Seeds of the Growth of 1810".  This was followed nine years later by James Belden’s opening of  “Wethersfield Seed Gardens” at 249 Main St. – with gardens, seed houses, and barns stretching along Church Street, all the way to Garden Street.  Many of these outbuildings, plus several houses, were destroyed by fire in 1834 prompting Wethersfield to purchase its first fire engine. 

             
Franklin and William Comstock purchased the seed gardens in 1838. The Comstocks had contact with a Shaker village located in nearby Enfield. And William adopted their idea of packing seed in “papers”– commissioning attractive illustrations for the covers and designing the scroll border that is still used on the company’s herb packets today.  In addition William’s book, “Order of Spring Work”, became the gardener’s manual for its era – telling the home plantsman when to plant, how to store seeds, when to fertilize, and much more.

            
 Large commercial seed gardens grew behind Main Street and Broad Street houses in the town's inner village. And Wethersfield fast became the cradle of American seed companies, remaining a steady supplier to mid-western and western states for the next sixty years.

             
Comstock's traveling seed merchants, traveling by rail, distributed commission boxes of Wethersfield seeds in territories that stretched from the southern states, to the Mississippi River.  At each stop, they picked up last year's boxes and collected payments.  The old containers went back to Wethersfield, and Comstock's sent out additional ones when needed. 

             
In 2010 Jere and Emilee Gettle, owners of Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, purchased the company with the intent of returning it to its heirloom roots, where it all began.

             
The Charles C. Hart Seed Company founded his eponymously named seed company in 1892.  Hart had been connected with the Johnson & Robbins Company for fourteen years and began his own small consignment seed package business in the kitchen of his home – suing the space as a packing room, office, and warehouse.

             
In 1894, Hart took on a partner, Frank J. Welles and formed the Hart, Welles & Co.  They soon purchased the Johnson, Robbins & Co. buildings and, as business increased requiring more space, moved into the building here on Main Street. 

             
The wood frame buildings of the Hart Seed Company were destroyed by a fire in 1943, and replaced with a brick office-warehouse complex at the same location.

             
Today, the company is owned and operated by members of the fifth generation of the Hart family making it the oldest seed company in America still owned by the family that founded it.  The iconic Hart Seed Display Rack, designed in the style of earlier Wethersfield seed commission boxes, is still seen in stores today.

           

"Top 10" Favorite Heirloom Tomatoes for 2017


           

The"Top 10" heirloom tomatoes were selected from the top 10 most popular tomato varieties in 2015 and 2016 from a TomatoFest customer base of more than 21,000 thousand home gardeners and tomato farmers.

             
Our survey results demonstrated that consumers want the maximum of those "old fashioned" robust flavors in choosing what tomato varieties to grow in their home garden. The same with farmers growing for produce markets and restaurants where taste is the priority. This is the essence of the continued popularity of heirloom tomatoes in America.

             
The most popular tomato varieties continue to be the tomato varieties that offer that big burst of old-fashioned, complex, rich tomato flavors that provide a generous amount of acids to balance the sugars resulting in a tang of tartness. The "heirloom tomato classics," the old-time, favorite, red, pink and "black" beefsteak tomatoes, still provide the foundation of loyalty among tomato growers.

             
This is the second year that we surveyed our customers for their "Top 10" favorite tomatoes. The results remain the same, although placement within the "Top 10" has shifted. (The list we provide here is not in order of winning status)

             
Other findings in the TomatoFest survey:

             
In 2016 there was, again, a big increase in first time tomato gardeners. There are more people wanting to grow foods at home in rural AND urban areas. "The upswing in folks becoming new tomato gardeners or choosing to become small commercial farmers of heirloom tomatoes for retailing at farmers markets and distributing to produce retailers has been noticeable the past 7 years," says Ibsen.

             
2016 saw a surge in the popularity of the "black" or "blue" tomatoes, especially the Indigo series of the blackest tomatoes. Even though these tomatoes do not carry the delicious taste qualities most typical of the "blacks," they have aroused a curiosity and their popularity seems to be based more upon the novelty of their blacker color.

             
Many of the new tomato gardeners are patio or container gardeners who either have no land to garden on, or who don't wish the labor required of tilling the earth for their garden. In 2016 there was, again, an increase in seed sales for determinate (shorter tomato plants) and dwarf tomato varieties. Some of this increase in seed sales was from used-to-be-land-gardeners who having retired or downsized there living to condominiums or retirement communities, now only have patios available to continue their gardening in containers. Health conscious milleniums who do not own land for gardening appear to be taking up tomato gardening on roof-tops and patios in containers.

             
In 2016, there was a continued rise in popularity of cherry tomatoes in all colors. Ibsen says, "We saw more customers ordering several kinds of cherry tomatoes along with their selection of larger tomatoes. In past years, many of the same customers were ordering only 1 or 2 varieties of cherry tomatoes but seem they to have been seduced into selecting more diversified cherry varieties by the range of color and taste experiences offered and suitability to containers. There is also a growing popularity for the currant-sized tomatoes by chefs and home gardeners alike.

             
2016 saw a surge in folks ordering 'short season' tomato varieties from cooler regions not typically considered tomato growing regions; cooler coastal regions, cooler northern climates (i.e., Maine, Michigan, even Alaska), and for higher altitude gardens. It appears that more people have come to understand that with the diversity of tomato varieties suitable to more adverse climates they too can enjoy the rewards of home grown tomatoes.

           

"Top 10" Favorite Heirloom Tomatoes



    Black Cherry (purple/black)

    Brandywine, Sudduth Strain (pink beefsteak)

    Chocolate Stripes (red/green striped)

    Blondkopfchen (yellow cherry)

    Black Krim (purple/black beefsteak)

    Brandywine, OTV (red beefsteak)

    Amana Orange (orange beefsteak)

    Azoychka (yellow/orange beefsteak)

    Delicious (red beefsteak)

    Dixie Golden Giant (yellow/orange beefsteak)

           

"Top 10" Favorite Cherry Tomatoes



    Ildi

    Blondkopfchen

    Black Cherry

    Flamme

    Super Snow White

    Camp Joy

    Isis Candy Cherry

    Yellow Gooseberry

    Amy's Suger Gem

    Black Plum







2017 Trends in Garden Design

Garden and landscape designers across the country forecast noteworthy ideas shaping the gardening world in 2017

By Pam Penick - gardendesign.com

           

Dubbed the slowest of the performing arts, gardening can seem trend proof. After all, you can’t hurry an oak’s progress from acorn to shade tree, and making a garden isn’t like buying a new throw rug for your home but rather stitching a few glimmering threads of your own into nature’s rich tapestry. And yet tastes do change in gardening, as your once-obsessed African violet-growing parents or grandparents could tell you. Those who work with the buying public are especially attuned to what’s hot and what’s not. With that in mind, we asked designers and retailers across the country to share the biggest trends they anticipate for 2017. Here are 10 trends they say we’ll be seeing more of.

             
Natural Materials: After years of minimalist dominance in hardscaping materials, furniture, and decor, designers are noticing renewed interest in natural materials and a less geometric style. Designer Julie Blakeslee at Big Red Sun in Austin, Texas, says, “Rather than clean and modern, clients are asking for a more old-fashioned, more DIY look in their gardens. We’ve been using railway ties, free-form decks, smaller outdoor furniture, and swing seating. I think clients are looking for something more authentic and real. The Dwell look has been replicated so many times. People may be yearning for something more organic in their gardens.”

             
Richard Hartlage of Seattle-based Land Morphology also sees a heightened interest in natural, tactile materials like wood and stone for the built elements of a garden. “People are moving away from concrete unless it’s an ultra-modern, minimalist garden,” he says.

             
Color Blocking: A trend in women’s fashion, color blocking is the use of discrete blocks of colors, and it’s making a splash in outdoor living spaces too. Noting the number of color blocked patio walls that she’s seeing on Pinterest and around Los Angeles, Potted co-owner Annette Gutierrez says, “It’s about framing or highlighting a specific plant or area.” A flash of color on a wall, for instance, can frame a row of potted plants or be the artful backdrop to an outdoor sofa. “It’s exhilarating and oh so inexpensive to do!” she adds. And if you don’t have a wall to paint, you can always use a solid-color outdoor rug or porch curtains to create the effect.

             
Hyperlocalism:  “Locally sourced” continues to be a buzzword in many industries, and garden designers too are seeing interest not just in native plants but endemic plants—those native to a very particular ecosystem. Tait Moring, a landscape architect who often designs ranch properties in central Texas, says, “We’re planting more local and endemic plants, not just natives.” These aren’t always readily available in the nursery trade, so he transplants existing plants where he can. Even building materials are sourced hyperlocally. “We use existing rocks and make posts from on-site junipers when possible.”

             
Such hyperlocalism is part of a trend that Susan Cohan, a New Jersey designer, calls a celebration of regionalism. Using native plants and locally sourced materials has been popular for years, she acknowledges. “What’s new,” she says, “is the impact that climate change is having on each region and how that drives design. More rain, drought, increased snowfall, no snowfall, cataclysmic weather events—these are all factors. Add local rules for impervious coverage, chemical runoff, and storm-water retention, and you have the basis for intense regional, even local, design qualities.” The designer's challenge, she says, has always been to find the balance between natural elements and human wants and use. “The answer to that challenge today is regionally focused design.”

             
Lawn Reimagined: Long a symbol of the American dream, the expansive and neatly manicured lawn continues to take a hit, due in part to drought, water shortages, and concerns about the environmental impact of fertilizing, pest-control treatments, and other traditional maintenance. Lawn-like alternatives, however, are hot. “We’re installing a lot more grass mixes that don’t need to be mowed, like Habiturf [a native turfgrass blend for the Southwest], and also taller, prairie-type mixes,” says Moring. While he doesn’t anticipate the end of traditional lawns anytime soon, his clients who do want a lawn are opting for smaller ones than in the past. “These are lawns that will be used as opposed to being just for show,” he says.

             
Despite controversy over its environmental impact, faux grass continues to grow in popularity, thanks to improvements in how natural it looks. “We are still installing a lot of artificial turf,” says Blakeslee in Austin. Designer Sue Goetz of Creative Gardener in Tacoma, Washington, is too, especially in small spaces that clients don’t want the bother of mowing and for pet play areas. “I have had more requests for artificial turf in the last year than ever,” Goetz says of her Washington clients, adding, “I’d always thought it was just a California thing.” She believes it has to do with how far the product has come in the last few years. “It looks and feels real. It also speaks to a desire for low maintenance.

             
Natural Dye Gardens: Backyard homesteading has been going strong for a while, and edible gardens, chicken coops, and beehives are ubiquitous even in urban neighborhoods. The latest addition to the grow-it-yourself movement is natural dye gardens: plants used to make dyes for coloring textiles, yarn, and clothing. “Last year, I put in my first natural dye garden here in Berkeley,” says Leslie C. Bennett, owner of Pine House Edible Gardens in Oakland, California. “It's really beautiful and includes a lot of vegetables, fruit trees, and pollinator-attracting flowers, but we've selected varieties and quantities so that the harvests can be used for natural plant dyes as well.” Multiple recent books including Sasha Duerr’s Natural Color, Kristine Vejar’s The Modern Natural Dyer, and Chris McLaughlin’s A Garden to Dye For also attest to the growing interest in dye gardening.

             
Old and New Mash-Up: Choosing one style and sticking doggedly to it, whether modern or traditional, is passé, designers say. “Mixing old and new, a trend in interiors and architecture, is about to arrive in gardens,” says Hartlage. “It used to not be OK to mix styles, but now it’s acceptable. It’s not about modern or traditional anymore but how you combine the two in a compelling way, either by putting modern elements in a traditional garden or incorporating bold, traditional elements in a modern garden.”

             
Active Play Spaces for All Ages: Playing out in the yard isn’t just for kids anymore, and even for kids it’s different. “I’ve had an uptick in requests for play and entertaining spaces,” says Goetz. “Bocce courts, dog and pet spaces, dining areas, fireplaces, hammocks. People don’t want places they have to weed. They want places where they can relax and play.” Susan Morrison, author and designer at Creative Exteriors Landscape Design in East Bay, California, agrees that game courts for adults and families are popular. “Most of my clients don’t have room for a regulation bocce court,” she says, “but I have done petanque courts and recently got a request for a cornhole court. Yes, there is a regulation size for cornhole!”

            Dwarf Shrubs: American yards are shrinking as houses grow larger on ever-smaller lots. Along with less space for plants, designers are hearing ever more requests for gardens that require little day-to-day maintenance. Dwarf shrubs to the rescue! “Baby boomers are aging, but they still love their gardens,” says Goetz. “We are finding creative ways to get rid of high maintenance, like using evergreen shrubs.”

             
Hartlage agrees. “Shrubs are strong due to their low maintenance needs,” he says, “and dwarf summer-blooming varieties are well suited to smaller gardens, like hydrangea ‘Bobo’ and ‘Little Quick Fire’. If you only need a 2-foot plant, why plant something that’ll grow to 4 feet and then spend the next 20 years clipping it? It’s all about plants that are the appropriate scale for the garden.”

             
Haute Houseplants: Just as bell bottoms are reappearing on runways, a 1970s-style fascination with houseplants is back. Los Angeles designer and author Justina Blakeney’s hugely popular Instagram The Jungalow, for example, showcases rooms lush with potted greenery.  “Bringing nature inside is definitely a trend we are seeing,” says Gillian Mathews, owner of Seattle’s Ravenna Gardens. And it’s not all retro either. “Whether it's a fiddle-leaf fig (the ‘it’ plant at the moment), a hanging kokedama, a Xerographica air plant, or a terrarium, we’re finding new and innovative ways to green up our homes and workplaces,” Mathews says.

             
Sustainability Tech: “It’s amazing what you can do from your smart phone these days,” says Morrison. Ongoing droughts in California and throughout the West have galvanized an embrace of low-water landscaping, and technology advancements in irrigation systems make it easier than ever to control how much water is delivered to plants. “Smart controllers that use weather data to automatically determine correct irrigation amounts have been around for a while now,” Morrison says. “But the newest controllers like Hunter’s Hydrawise can be programmed and monitored from your phone. You can literally check on your irrigation system from your beach chair while you vacation! Some even include flow sensors that send a text alert if they detect a leak in the system and a portal so that your contractor can manage your irrigation remotely if you run into scheduling problems.”



Horti-Culture Corner



"Keep your faith in beautiful things;

in the sun when it is hidden,

in the Spring when it is gone."



-  Roy R. Gibson  



5 Time-Saving Gardening Tools




1 Hori-Hori Knife – If weeds are enemy soldiers of the evil emperor, you are the samurai of the garden when you wield your hori-hori knife. Traditionally used in Japan for digging bonsai trees, hori-hori (digging-digging in Japanese) knives have a straight, sharp blade perfect for many garden tasks, from weeding to cutting roots to planting. Lightweight and ergonomic, with stainless- and carbon-steel options, hori-hori knives are the ultimate do-all garden tool.










2 Ho-Mi – From South Korea comes another versatile garden hand tool that will have you flinging soil like there's no tomorrow. The ho-mi (little ground spear in Korean) has a sharp, curved, scythe-like blade with three different interchangeable blade and handle options. The ho-mi is perfect for many garden tasks, including digging, transplanting, loosening soil around plants, and weeding.


3 Compost and Mulch Fork – Composting and mulching are essential for a great garden. With 10 closely spaced tines, this fork is perfectly suited for turning and flipping—an essential task for any successful compost or mulch. Far from a single-purpose tool, the fork is also effective for picking up larger stones, leaves, wood chips, and more.

 

4 Woodman's Pal – Getting set to clear a patch of your land for a garden, or just have some overgrowth you need to get rid of? The Woodman's Pal is the tool for you. Originally used by the U.S. Army, the Woodman's Pal is like an ax and a machete fused together to form a long, sturdy cutting blade with a hooked blade at the tip for rooting and clearing. Use it to hack through everything from overgrown vegetation to roots and small trees.


5 Lee Valley Power Rake – Take a load off your back while accomplishing a lot of garden work with this tool. At 24 inches wide, with 25 curved tines and a 5-foot handle, this rake can gather leaves, rake soil, and spread mulch, while barely ever being lifted off the ground. When pushed, it glides over leaves or grass, and when pulled, the upward shield curve of the blade keeps whatever you're raking from being lost over the top.






My Stupidest Gardening Mistake - or- We Were Once All Newbies

Excerpts from a forum on gardenweb.com



I could not LIVE without crocus! Just when winter grey is really getting to me...ta dah...there they are all perky and colorful! Just two years ago I planted about 350 of them (I'm not kidding...I mean I NEED crocus!)in my small front lawn. Well, my lawn was full of OPEN holes the next day since the squirrels ate nearly every one of them. I asked everyone I knew WHAT kept squirrels away. I was told kitty litter, dried blood, fox urine and mothballs. So...overdoing it again...I bought ALL FOUR things and mixed up a BIIIIIG batch of this foul smelling concoction. Then I replanted a few hundred MORE crocus but...duhhhh...I didn't know I was supposed to put all this vile stuff ON TOP of the ground to keep away the squirrels so I planted the crocus WITH heaps of the mothballs, etc. right on TOP of them... I think about 12 crocus came up this year in my lawn.  PS Dried blood can be used as a fertilizer...hadda be the mothballs.



I admired Carpet Rose in my favorite nursery for 2 summers. Finally last summer I bought one and put it in a flower bed in front of my house. What a mistake. It was too sprawling, the thorns are killers and flowering was less than spectacular. I plan to yank it this spring.



Was cleaning up the seeds shed by my Dutch Elm tree off the sidewalk. Thinks I to myself, "We don't throw away things that can decompose and turn to dirt." So I throw hundreds and thousands of seed pods onto my rock garden. Spent the entire remainder of the summer pulling little elm tree sproutings out of the garden. Doh!



I have made MANY mistakes but the biggest is.... I have sandy soil and when I bought this lot (blank slate) I was thrilled to get a beautiful yard started. I immediately laid out the beds, went to all the nurseries and started planting like an obsessed woman. After two years of poor growth, gallons of fertilizer, and humongous waterbills, I took a step back. I had to rip out all of my plantings, took a good soil analysis, hauled in truck loads of compost , added greensand and soil conditioner. I've replanted but made a wonderous discovery. Originally I only found an occasional earthworm, during the replanting I found wonderful colonies of big earthworms.



Planted GIANT marigolds that I started from seeds. The bed included many other wonderful flowers that I too had started from seed. They were quickly mauled by the amazon marigold. Finally found the original seed packet and read that it could get up to 4 feet tall! It looked so bad all summer right smack dab in front of my house. YUCK. Moved to a new house this year and I'm just waiting to see what my next mistakes will be. They're always good for a laugh!



Last year another gardener told me if I wanted my plants to get really huge, go to the feed store and get a big bag of nitrogen. So i did. Put it all over my garden. On the leaves, everywhere. Killed about half of everything, particularly some expensive perennials that I started the year before. Won't take advice from this gardener again.