We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
I've been given an education this week on classic, old-timey flower styles via Mrs. BD. I always like to learn new things and I like purty flowers. Who doesn't? Flower design is just ephemeral sculpture and I like seeing and smelling them around the olde HQ. Any old cabin like ours is enlivened by floral productions.
Since I learned this week that talking about gardening is racist and classist (but is it sexist too?), I need to do more of it to offend our sensitive readers.
We must be stupid. Year after year, we invest gardening effort to produce delicious home-grown varieties - and, if we're lucky, get to eat them for maybe 6 weeks. And part of that time, you are elsewhere.
Does that make sense? No, but it makes hobby-sense in the same way that trout-fishing does. Hobbies are not economic - which is why we term them hobbies. Do the math.
All that those good garden tomatoes do, for a few weeks from August to September, is to make you hate store-bought cardboard ones and restaurant ones for the rest of the year. Nobody in my large gardening family has harvested a single tomato yet this summer (OK, it's been a cold summer due to climate change), not even a single cherry tomato.
There are lots of vegetable crops one can grow successfully up here, and harvest sometime between June/July to frost in October: rhubarb, peas, beans, summer squash, winter squash and pumpkin, greens of all sorts, fruit trees of course and grapes, berries, root crops, onions, cucumber, corn, etc. Why bother with all that when those things are dirt-cheap at the store? What we really grow best in our gardens are fat deer, fat chipmunks, fat rabbits, and fat woodchucks.
Tomatoes? Not a one yet. I love a tomato sandwich: white bread, mayo, salt and pepper, and fat slices of tomato hot from the garden.
Why do we persist? I think it's about the power of intermittent positive reinforcement from a few of those tomato sandwiches. That's how fishing and hunting work, too.
We New England Yankees may have no sense, but we have our traditions and our seasonal habits which are the fabric of our lives, rational or not. Well, not rational at all if you value your free time above zero.
One tip for those in my situation: Buy big fat beefsteak tomatoes at the supermarket and grill them, sautee them, or bake them. Some flavor appears. Better than nothing.
A cool plant for those of us who live north of regular southern Hibiscus-land. It is aka Rose Mallow.
They produce large, dramatic, July-Oct blooms, die back in the winter and return slowly - then quickly - from their large, deep, and study roots in Spring. Full sun, and water. If you like cottage-door (biennial) Hollyhocks, these are similar but reliably perennial, and just as popular with butterflies and hummingbirds.
Some varietals grow 3-4' high in a bushy way, others 5-7' high in a hollyhock style.
(This is not to disparage Hollyhock-lovers. I do understand. Everybody's grandma had them at the back door and they are a sentimental favorite, same as Delphiniums.)
A northern shrub, Rose of Sharon, has similar-looking blossoms, but it's a real shrub, not a "flower".
Mint is a weed if you let it loose in your garden. It needs to be grown in pots, or out loose in a field but it is also one of the most pleasant flavorings which exist.
In the eastern Med, it's a major herb. In Turkey and environs, they mix it with yoghurt for a sauce for roast meat and fish. In Sicily, they served boiled taters with chopped mint. Quite pleasant, and an improvement on parsley. No recipe needed.
An occasional Mint Julep is pleasant, too, and I like to dry the leaves coated with sugar for treats on top of ice cream. Have to give those arabs credit for what they added to Med cuisine - but even more credit to the food explorers of the Americas: tomato, potato, squash, maize, avocado, peppers, beans, cocoa, etc., etc. These things were worth more than the gold, in the end, from a culinary standpoint. What the heck did they eat without those things?
Re-posted because I failed to follow my own instructions and my rhubarb patch bolted. Dealt with it today - a bit too late.
I am a fan of Rhubarb. It's tangy. Best rhubarb dish? Rhubarb cobbler with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Rhubarb won't grow much in the southern US. It requires cold winters and does not enjoy long, hot summers. A good thing about the plants is that they are perennial and last for many years. In fact, a rhubarb patch will last forever if you divide the plants every few years. They are fairly heavy feeders and like a good dose of manure regularly. The leaves are so dense that a patch doesn't really grow weeds.
When I was a kid, my Mom had the rhubarb patch right outside the horse barn, and she would routinely toss some horse poop on it. The fresh poop did not seem to bother the rhubarb.
The only problem I have had with growing rhubarb is its bolting and rapidly going to seed. That needs to be prevented by cutting off the flowering stalks promptly before they grow tall.
Among other talents, Mrs. BD does flowers for parties. Not for pay, but for the challenge of it. This is a haul from NYC's flower district. Wander around there for fun if you're in NY, but they usually sell out their nighttime shipments by 9 am. Serious flower people are there by 6 or 7 am.
There is an interesting story behind the Metasequoia,the fast-growing, water-loving redwood from China which is now a common landscaping plant in the US.
This was my Mom's bird bath, now in its new home in our little entry garden. An heirloom of sorts.
It's big and deep enough to give a kid a bath in it. easily holds 8-10 gallons. Cast iron, too heavy for me to lift even the top alone, much less to seat it into its slots. It has a drain plug in it, and it's decorated with three dragons. The base has a bit of rust damage to the surface. I had to power wash it, spray it with Rustoleum and then with a coat or two of black. A delicate sand-blasting might have been better, but I thought that might be too much for the detailed ornamentation of the base.
It could have been forest green (and maybe used to be), but I went with black to be safe.
Like my Mom, Mrs. BD understands the structural requirements of garden design. Focal points, structured areas, plantings for interest each season, etc. We do gardens.
It's time to flip through our Miller Nurseries and Musser Forests catalogues. In fact, it's almost too late but not quite.
I have used both of them quite a bit for wildlife plantings at the farm. Berries, nut trees, apples, cherries, chestnuts, pines, etc. I just let nature deal with them. Some live, some die, and some are eaten by the beavers or deer. Wire fencing around them when they are small doesn't hurt, but still...
I also re-seed our pastures and meadows with clovers every few years. I simply spray-spread the seed on top early in the spring, and hope for the best. Seems to work OK, but clovers do not have a long life-span. Worn-out New England hillside meadows need some nitrogen from the clovers, especially if they are not nourished by enough cow or Moose or bear poo. The flood plains do just fine on their own, as long as they get flooded regularly.
Non-stop rain in New England for a few days, converting the entire countryside to a wetland swamp. It brings drains to mind. French Drains aren't French. They are named after Mr. Henry Flagg French of Massachusetts, a judge and a drainage expert. Good concept.
This fellow build a good one. I like the fact that the word "tile" is still used for PVC pipe.
Glad I do not need any of them, though. In 1824, farmers did not build their houses where they would get flooded, where there was an underground spring, where there was poor drainage, or where they would have wet cellars. They checked first.
They did not consider every piece of land to be a building site. Nobody builds on a flood plain, a beach, or on a hilltop. It's just stupid.
Photo on right is a shallow French drain. Holes down, of course. (Dummies are known to install them with the perforations facing up.) You can rent one of those mini-backhoes, have a load of gravel delivered, and make one yourself. A plain old-fashioned ditch or swale works too.
Photo below is a constructed swale. Man-made or natural, a swale is just a pleasant drainage ditch or depression. A small vale, you might say.
In all likelihood, making these today probably violates some federal laws. After all, the EPA now claims to regulate ditches. At the farm, we have plenty of man-made ditches and swales, but none made recently.
Lawns are not natural, and they are a pain in the ass. However, they are needed for kid play, croquet, and summer cocktail parties. They can also look gracious and neat, when healthy and when surrounded by good plantings.They are really just one sort of garden, or part of a garden.Grassy garden paths are fine things.
Around here, most years you can overseed a thin lawn area in April (although the best time is early Fall). When I overseed an area in Spring, I follow it by raking in a thin top-dressing of my own concoction - a mix of sand, compost, rotted manure, a little peat moss.
What about crabgrass prevention? Crabgrass preventers need to be put down around the time the Forsythias bloom, or slightly before that. The problem is that it cannot be used when seeding a lawn - it will prevent germination of your grass seed. That's why overseeding is best done in the Fall.
What exactly is Crabgrass? It's an annual grass, Digitaria. It's not native to the US. It likes dry and compacted soil where it feels free to smother your lawn grass. Irrigated lawns tend not to grow much crabgrass, but lawn irrigation is for the 1%. Grasses are meant to go dormant in mid-summer.
What about lawn aeration? Heavily-used lawns (by people, dogs, wheelbarrows, lawn-mowers, etc) benefit from it annually. In Spring, you can do it after the third mowing. Not good to do it in mid-summer when the soil is too dry and the plugging tines cannot penetrate. I always go over an area a few times, not just once. It's a good work-out. Those plugs disintegrate quickly.
Heavy towable aerators are made for pastures, sports fields, and golf courses. Some do plugging, some do slicing, but I think deep plugging is best. 3" is the bare minimum because healthy grass roots are deeper than that.
A side-benefit of lawn aeration (and top-dressing) is earthworms. Earthworms cannot live in compacted soil, but they can happily aerate a soft and healthy turf themselves during all of the warm months. Besides aeration, they need food: your top dressing, grass clippings and mower-chopped leaves.
Thanks to AGW, looks like we're in for two days of soaking rain. That's perfect timing, because I did all of my Spring fertilizing this weekend: lawn, perennial gardens, shrubs, Raspberries - and Holly-Tone for the Rhodies, azaleas, hollies, etc. (I also put down Preen on most of the flower gardens. It saves a lot of trouble to put it down before the first weed seeds germinate.)
It makes sense to fertilize before things green up, because the roots wake up hungry and begin growing many weeks before anything green emerges. Early Spring is when roots do most of their growing.
My grass should be happy this year because I plugged it last year. Big power plugger, a bitch of a machine to handle. I went over all of it twice. The plugs disappear fast.
I should have linked this article when I posted on the topic recently.
Another good one, which makes the point that over-fertilizing can be destructive.
I fertilized most of my shrubs and perennial gardens today, with Hollytone for the evergreens. In some spots, I had to put it down on ice but I wanted to get it done.
I informed our readers recently that it's a good idea just to toss a little bleach into your vases of cut flowers.
Here's another tip (also via Mrs. BD's garden club). When you force Paperwhite bulbs, always throw in a shot or two of vodka or gin into their water once they sprout up a few inches. It stunts their growth just enough to prevent them from getting leggy and falling over. It has no impact on the bloom - or the scent.
One might like to imagine that it cheers them up, too. Grey Goose, of course.
When to Put Crabgrass Preventer Down. In the northeast US, crabgrass thrives in dry lawn with full sun. These are also the areas where regular lawn grass naturally goes dormant in the summer - unless irrigated. I only apply it in the full-sun hot areas.
When to put Preen on flower beds? Anytime. Just don't put it on bulb areas or on lilies.
In the northern hemisphere, it's time to prune the heck out of your paniculata types of Hydrangeas (but not macrophyllas or oakleafs - prune them in late July or early August because they bloom on old wood). If you have hydrangeas, it's important to know what general types they are, if you want blooms. There are only three basic types, macrophylla, paniculata, and oakleaf. It's not rocket science.
St. Patrick's Day is the traditional time to plant snow peas around here. It's coming on March 17, and my bags of seeds are ready along with the inoculant.
As has been happening in recent years, due to the crisis of global cooling, this year it may require a snow shovel and maybe a blow torch to melt the soil to get those seeds in the ground.
It looks like one more year when the peas will be late.
I know, I know. If you're from New York City and you hear Iowa mentioned, you think it stands for Idiots Out Walking Around. But Maggie's Farmers know the value of a good Farmall driver, and farmers in Iowa can square dance with their tractors. Ain't that America?
Tractor Square Dancing Is Real, And It's Spectacular.
I spent several hours this weekend wrestling with a rented Bluebird Aerator.
I did about an acre of lawn. The machine is not as effective as the kind you tow, but it produces pretty good cores as long as the soil is not too dry and hard. Some heavily-used areas seemed to want to be done twice and some needed to be done thrice where most of the walking and wheelbarrowing is done, but I ran out of steam. It is said that the cores should be every 6 inches or so, but that is difficult to accomplish. The wrestling is because it's a heavy and top-heavy machine, tricky on slopes, and tough to turn without tearing your turf to shreds. After the plugging, I fertilized it all and overseeded the patchy spots. The results should be evident in early May.
Soil gets compressed by foot traffic, lawn mowing, wheelbarrows, etc. You can put a lawn on life support with extensive fertilization and irrigation, but it won't be healthy. Lawns that are walked on should be aerated each year, late Spring or Fall. Athletic fields are typically aerated twice a year and top-dressed once a year with a very thin layer of topsoil/sand mix.
Earthworms are excellent aerators too, but they won't live in compressed soil.
Seckel Pears, aka Sugar Pears, or Dessert Pears. One of my Dad's Seckel trees had a great crop this fall but it was a bit far north for them to ripen by September. More likely ripe on the tree by mid-late October.
Seckels are about 1/3 the size of regular Bartlett or Bosc Pears, and far sweeter. Like most pears, you need a couple of different pear varieties near by to ensure fertilization.
It's tree-planting season now here, late Oct and early November, for every sort of tree and shrub. It's the right time for transplanting things too.
Miller Nurseries has Seckels, also Stark Bros. I recommend the dwarf trees which grow up to about 10'. I only will plant standard trees for the birds and animals out on the edges. Cherry, apple, etc. Let them grow and ignore them.
Right now is the perfect time to plug or aerate your lawn and/or fields, in the northern US.
Heavily used or walked-on lawns need it once a year. Do it now, then spread some fall lawn fertilizer on it, and over-seed where needed. You can rent the aeration or plugging machines for cheap, for a day or two, from any tool rental place, or Home Depot. Plugging is better than aeration, but either one is better than nothing.
When Spring comes, you'll see a big difference. Remember that lawns are not natural. They are grass gardens - or sheep meadows. If you want them green all the time, try astroturf or write a big check for lawn irrigation. My lawns are too large to afford that.
An 
We must be stupid. Year after year, we invest gardening effort to produce delicious home-grown varieties - and, if we're lucky, get to eat them for maybe 6 weeks. And part of that time, you are elsewhere.
A 
Mint is a weed if you let it loose in your garden. It needs to be grown in pots, or out loose in a field but it is also one of the most pleasant flavorings which exist.
There is an interesting story behind the 
It's time to flip through our 
Non-stop rain in New England for a few days, converting the entire countryside to a 
I informed our readers recently that it's a good idea just to toss a little bleach into your vases of cut flowers.
St. Patrick's Day is the traditional time to plant snow peas around here. It's coming on March 17, and my bags of seeds are ready along with the
Seckel Pears, aka Sugar Pears, or Dessert Pears. One of my Dad's Seckel trees had a great crop this fall but it was a bit far north for them to ripen by September. More likely ripe on the tree by mid-late October.