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)
