Maggie's Farm

I hate invasive species, and I have read all about foreign earthworms. However, I am not askeered of European Nightcrawlers because they seem not to be able to handle certain sorts of winters, and they will not travel far.

So every couple of years I order 2500 of these rapid breeders. If you have decent soil, to a decent depth, regularly replenished with good mulch and fallen leaves, these guys will do a good job for your borders and other gardens while feeding the worm-eaters. 

All of my shrub, lawn, and vegetable gardens have been carefully prepared. No pesticides, etc, with good deep loam fortified with maure, etc. I let grass clippings lie, and fallen leaves too (until autumn). Feed the worms!

How can you tell whether your soil is lousy?  If you dig up a shovel full of earth and do not find 5 or 6 wigglers, it's either not very good or it's been a rough winter for them.

Brief good ideas. 

St. Patrick's Day is a traditional time to plant peas around here. Sometimes you have to scrape snow off the garden.  Sometimes the seeds never germinate. Still, tradition. I'll try to do it today if 1/2 inch of soil is soft.

I don't grow them for the peas.  I grow them for the early sweet and crunchy pea-pods.  We just eat them raw usually, while checking out the garden.

It's the time of year when people begin forcing bulbs indoors, especially Paperwhite narcissus but other bulbs too.

The trick we learned but keep forgetting from my garden club Mom was to regularly give those forced bulbs a shot of cheap vodka or gin.

Paperwhites and Amaryllis benefit most from some booze.  I don't know how it works, but they grow stouter, somewhat less tall and tippy stalks that way. No effect on the blooms.

We rarely have hard booze in the house, but I'll pick up some cheap vodka to keep the bulbs happy and strong. 

Here's how. 

Here.

And if you are out there in your gardens, now is a good time, and the last chance, to shear back the late summer and fall-blooming perennials that you don't want to grow too tall and scraggly, eg Asters, Daisies, and Seaside Daisies.

It's been a cold Spring in New England. Tomato plants aren't growing vigorously. New England is marginal for tomato compared to New Jersey or South Carolina, but home-growns are so tasty that we persist anyway. We really only get a crop in July-Sept while in south Jersey they can be harvesting garden tomatoes June-October. Unless you have a greenhouse. Some days, like today, I wish I had one. But naw, not really. Who wants the hassle?

For many purposes, I prefer these things to wheelbarrows - even to two-wheeled wheelbarrows. I have the smaller one.

Over the years, I have kept the wood waterproof because I store it outdoors. 

Because they have narrow tires, they are not suitable for loads of rocks or heavy loads of dirt, but great for most outdoor purposes.  At rural lodges etc. they are commonly used to bring luggage from boat docks, etc.

Carts Vermont 

Every time I cut back my roses I get a puncture or two. Usually it's a nothing, but sometimes they become nasty.

Here is why. 

Mints will invade everything. My Mom would just let it loose in a meadow. When the meadow was mowed, wow. Great smell. When you needed some for lemonade, it was out there.

Same goes for beautiful flowering vines like Trumpet Vine and Wisteria. Their desires to spread and metastasize via underground roots are relentless and close to impossible to prevent. My advice is not to plant them anywhere they cannot be mowed around.

Bamboo. Unless you have a good local Panda population, you will be sorry you even planted it. Agent Orange is one approach.

What sorts of garden plants have you had difficulty controlling?

No, you probably ought not to, and they are bitter anyway. Birds love them which is the main reason I have planted them.

They are known to like damp habitats or stream edges, but they grow well, and spread, almost anywhere. They like sun. I have found them very easy to grow, and highly productive of fruit in Sept/Oct.

What are they good for? Jam and pies. I have never had Elderberry Wine, and most likely neither have you. Why bother?

People use their flowers for flavoring things. 

A friend has a patch of Castor plants, self-seeding in the garden. 5-6' tall, dramatic foliage. 

Shade plants, annuals in northern climates.  They are the source of castor oil, also of the poison ricin. However, many garden plants are poisonous (eg daffodils).

I have a shady spot for a patch of these. 

A few years ago I posted a photo of a garden shrub that I see occasionally thriving on the Outer Cape. Many of our readers concluded that it was Mexican Sage. It is not. I wasted some money buying a couple of Mexican Sages online, and they will not survive my winter.

I finally got to the bottom of it today. It is Vitex (aka Monk's Pepper, or Chaste Tree). The leaves look like marijuana leaves.

Vitex can grow into a small tree or, if pruned, can remain a small shrublike perennial. In northern climes, it tends to die back to the ground in cold winters (like buddleia) but comes right back up in spring. 

This site sells a dwarf version which is exactly what I have been seeking. 

Give it a try in a perennial bed as a bushy perennial. Butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds like it. It blooms all summer.

Lazybeds are the original raised-bed farming. On the Isle of Harris, where almost nobody bothers to farm or garden anymore since the Medieval Warm Period, remnants of old lazybed "farming" - more like heavy subsistence gardening - are often seen where there is enough soil to plant. There is not very much soil for planting, and peat bogs can not be gardened. However, raised beds with good drainage (always sloping how towards the sea), enhanced with seaweed as fertilizer, could grow enough peas and potatoes for a crofter (who also had some sheep and cattle). Maybe some oats or barley, but not much.

Like Ridge-and Furrow farming, Lazybeds date back at least to Roman times in the rough parts of the British Isles. 

Today, on the islands, wool is the cash crop. The sheep just run wild until shearing time which is why so much of the landscape looks like a putting green. In fact, sheep originated putting greens. (The "rough" was, more likely than not, heather - which is very rough indeed.)

Below the fold, somebody in the Hebrides is still using lazybeds - and a view of what looks like a golf course with natural water hazard and sand traps

I can't locate my past post on garden cancers. I am not talking about evil weeds like Porcelainberry. I am talking about things we plant on purpose which have the power to take over and destroy a planting area.

Such things should only be planted where they can be mowed around because they spread underground, or just spread, to the point of overwhelming everything in their vicinity:

Wisteria
Bamboo
Trumpet Vine
Members of the Mint family (best let to go wild in a meadow)
English Ivy
Pachysandra

I had a few more on my list, but I can't remember right now.

Our friend Francis posted a photo of his wife's charming country garden (they also have a charming city garden). Along that garden path she has a wall of peonies and a row of nepeta. I wonder what they have for summer bloom.

I guess his photo gives me a little peony envy.  We could use some peonies, but I don't know where I would put them.

Here is  Planting Peonies

Baptisia is an excellent 3+-ft. high border perennial. It's a late-spring/early-summer bloomer, likes full sun to half-day sun but can get leggy without enough sun.

It's a tough and vigorous perennial - once it is established.  It grows deep roots, so it can unfortunately take a couple of years to reach its full effect.

The three new ones I planted in the fall are pathetic now, but next Spring they should be ready to show some vigor and bloom.

Many good things need patience. For instant color, go with annuals.

In New England, with our relatively brief growing season, it is difficult to have a crop of tropical and subtropical fruits like tomatoes for more than several weeks - mainly August-mid-September. Unless you are on the coast, it is hardly worth bothering to grow tomatoes  (other than cherry tomatoes which ripen quickly) from mid- Massachusetts, north.

Some people, with more drive than I have, construct polyurethane tents, like greenhouses, to give their tomatoes a head start on the season.  It is of minimal effectiveness. Why?

Because tomato plants do not like to grow until nighttime temperatures are consistently above 60 degrees F. They might make an effort, but without vigor. Raise the night temperature and they grow like weeds.

That's why putting them in early doesn't make sense unless it's your only chance to get them in at all. Experienced gardeners around here aim for putting them in around Memorial Day and their crops are generally more productive than those who try to jump the season.

The domestic tomato was bred, probably by Aztecs in Central America, into a useful food (as they did with the tomatillo). A brief History of Tomatoes. The wild version of tomato seems to be the Currant Tomato, a perennial vine with berry-like green fruit. By now, that plant has so widely cross-bred with man-made tomato that the wild type may be extinct. All of the modern colors, including bright red, are relatively recent genetic inventions. Every tomato today (including "heritage") is a testament to GMO - the slow kind achieved by the Aztecs up through the 20th century.

Few shade garden plants are as sweet, subtle, and sentimental to me as the diminutive Lily of the Valley.

A clump of 20 in a dry shady corner or under a shrub will spread a bit via rhizomes, and, like Bluebells, create a patch of cheer in early May.

"Rare heritage" corn. That's called marketing. I'd call this Krazy Korn.

Sort of cool, though. Seeds via Amazon of course. 

If I could only have one herb, it would be Thyme. Not Tarragon, not Rosemary. Certainly not Parsley which is pretty but has too little flavor.  Thyme has the richest, earthiest, deepest flavor (technically, fragrance) of them all.

It's a Mediterranean plant (Thymus vulgaris) but the Romans spread it around and it can now be found growing wild in the US. At the Farm, it grows wild in dry, nutrition-deprived meadows and makes a soft and fragrant footing as long as you avoid the bees. Wild Thyme and garden Thyme are the same things. Around here, there is Creeping Thyme (good for between flagstones) and regular Thyme. It's evergreen, and has no problem with rough winters.  All Thyme wants is bad soil.

There is no need to harvest Thyme except when you need some. Even in winter, it stays fresh and fragrant under the snow. I usually use whole twigs in a recipe, not leaves. You can pull the twigs out later.

This year I am growing more herbs amongst the perennial flowers as they do in Spain. I have figgered out how to help Sage survive feet of snow.  

Spring is on the horizon up here. Snow piles are melting. Thoughts about the gardens appear. 

I have always had a vegetable garden, as did my parents, as did my Grandpas. It's a guy thing mostly, symbolic providers only since WW2.

I had a couple of reasons for adding this hassle to my life: family tradition, tomatoes, and to teach and show my kids where food comes from. It is rewarding for kids to go out and pick a couple of cucumbers or peppers or summer squash, or a basket of beans to bring to the kitchen.

Except for tomatoes, in my view home gardening makes no sense unless you value your time at zero, which makes it pure hobby. Home-grown stuff, for the month or two it is available up here, may be marginally better, but truly marginally and often worse. And there are the bugs that eat everything.  

If I were rational, I would stick with my fruit trees, tomatoes, figs, herbs, and rhubarb and forget the rest. Almost forgot my Mouse melons - they are cool. I gave up on raspberries because the birds ate them all. I gave up on the native blueberries too because they never thrived. 

I have a pal who has a huge fenced and irrigated vegetable garden. Definitely one of his hobbies. He leaves bags of chard, peppers, and eggplants on my front porch. Much appreciated but I do not know where he finds the time.

With kids, definitely good to show them how to grow things, though. Kids love to dig and love to pick stuff. That's why I always grow some pumpkins.

With the inspiration of Mrs. BD (and my Mom), I have become more interested in flowering borders in recent years. Very rewarding and challenging without being edible, the bugs are no problem, and the hummingbirds and butterflies are good fun.

Do you enjoy weeding? I don't, but I enjoy the (fleeting) results. I use Preen on the flower beds, and it sort-of works for a while. I would rather take a long hike with Mrs. BD, or go to the city, or go fishing, or to the gym, than spend half a weekend day growing something I can pick up at the market for 99 cents.

Go ahead and argue with me - 

Photo is a Rhubarb patch. I love rhubarb. You can even munch the stalks raw, and it never fails to come up strong. You often find a cute snake curled up in there, which makes it fun. It's a crop you can count on and do not have to do anything for other than throw a little manure or fertilizer on it in April. Do not bite into the Garter Snake because it will piss him off.

Plant geneticists are using GMO techniques to return the flavor to supermarket tomatoes

As Insty would say, "Faster please."  It's not just the flavor though - it's the texture. Supermarket tomatoes are tasteless and rubbery.

Mrs. BD thought you might like to see some of her snaps from the annual Philadelphia Flower Show (since 1836) this week. This is a show put on by professionals, not amateurs.

An annual treat for Mrs. BD and her pals. 

More pics below the fold -