Is Your Garden Stress-Free?

New Journal columnist Dick Poffenbaugh says there are many conditions can cause stress in your plants and stress in plants (as in people) can cause anything from illness to death.

Common causes of stress include the weather, crowding, soil, light, nutrition, disease and pests. Weather can have a major impact that results in plant stress.

Conditions that may cause stress include drought, too much rainfall, drastic temperature changes, strong winds, storms, etc.

Root vegetables, for instance, are highly sensitive to lack of moisture. If you've got a drought or dry spell to deal with, Mr. Poffenbaugh recommends keeping a 2-inch deep organic mulch over a wide area around each plant.

No too many gardeners avidly enjoy the task of weeding, but crowded plants are stressed plants and should be thinned for optimum growth and yield. In fact, he cites the findings of a comparative study on how much heavily stressed plants yield versus those grown in optimum gardens -- it's pretty eye-opening!

The article abstract is here. You must pay to access the full article.

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Small Trees as Landscaping

Small trees are easy to maintain says Learn2grow.com's Maureen Gilmer, a horticulturist. In her Seattle Times Home & Garden article called Select the Right Tree to Accent Your Garden, she goes on to explain that

much of its canopy is accessible with a ladder, making it easy to prune and care for. Consider an accent tree any species that doesn't exceed about 20 feet in height. Some folks will do some light pruning to keep them even smaller, and to enhance the branching structure for a more beautiful effect during the winter.

If you've got older shrubs on the premises, you may wish to use them as you would accent trees. Ms. Gilmer says that

many old shrubs that reach large proportions can become accent trees if they are pruned to reveal one or more trunks. Good examples of this are lilacs or rhododendrons. In fact, turning an older shrub into an accent tree is the best way to cope with "bare legs" that are revealed when lower leaves are shaded out due to lack of light.

Accent trees can be planted singly or in pairs and can be used in almost any capacity -- from highlighting a hard-to-see front entrance to your home to being a focal point in their own right, flanked by ponds and/or plants of various sizes and colors.

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November Gardening Tips

Sharon Soltzberg, a member of the Board of Directors of the Needham Community Farm, gave some gardening tips for November in the Boston.com Needham column, saying:

• Now is the time to move all unharvested vegetables and fruit from your garden to your compost heap. Damaged or diseased plants should not be put into the compost.
  

• Adjust the pH (acidity) of the soil.

• Tuck your vegetable garden in for winter by planting a cover crop. Pine needles or salt marsh hay can be applied to the paths between the vegetable rows. Another option is to pile some of your decayed or partly-decayed compost on top of the vegetable garden. In spring, earthworms will distribute the compost through the soil.

Read the entire article here.

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Victory Gardens Beat High Costs of Fresh Veggies

Victory Gardens in WWII were grown (in part) to feed troops overseas; these days, many people have taken to growing their own vegetables in response to the general belt-tightening seen during recession and a backlash against the always high prices of fresh veggies.

News Journal columnist, Richard Poffenbaugh, writes that modern-day Victory Gardeners have advantages to those grown some 65 years ago, citing improved practices like raised beds and disease-resistant vegetables. In fact, the development of hybrid vegetables has changed what we plant and eat to a large degree. Mr. Poffenbaugh gives an example, saying:

Twenty years ago, my favorite sweet corn was Silver Queen. But the sugar content changed to starch within 24 hours of picking. The newer sugar-enhanced, supersweet and triplesweet kernels hold sugar content for several days.

One of the best triplesweet varieties is Providence. It has 75 percent sugary enhanced and 25 percent supersweet kernels. It is a gourmet type for sensational eating.

[When compared to] other hybrid vegetables, no improvement has been as great as those with sweet corn.

Read the full article here.

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Community Vegetable Gardens - Food for the Recession

An Ohio college is helping a community hard-hit by the recession to grow vegetables.

When DHL Express closed and put almost 8,000 people out of work in southwest Ohio, Wilmington College started the "Grow Food, Grow Hope" program, setting up 20 plots plus guidance from members of its agricultural program to help those in need to grow their own food.

The wife of the school's president says:

It's not about a handout, it's a hand up. It's teaching them how to supplement their groceries; it's about building a local food system.

The article continues: The families met weekly to plant, weed and finally harvest, with the help of Wilmington teachers and volunteer "master gardeners" from the community. As the first lettuce, green beans and tomatoes ripened, gardening lessons were supplemented by demonstrations on cooking and preserving crops.

Vegetables are expensive, usually much more expensive than junk food. The participants have not only saved money and learned a variety of new skills, but they've actually been eating more healthily.

Read the full article here.

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Low-Maintenance Gardening

Master gardener and author Joe Lamp'l, host of "GardenSMART"on PBS, has "10 ways to minimize your time while creating a beautiful, lower-maintenance yard and garden."

Of them, I think mulching, mowing high and choosing the right plants (and where to plant them) are the most effective time-savers. Joe says a 3-inch layer of mulch works wonders in reducing watering time. He of course advocates using compost to assist in soil quality and says to make sure grass clippings comprise part of your compost (instead of spending the time bagging and discarding).

Mowing high has several benefits for a better-looking and healthier lawn: weeds are shaded and choked out naturally (no weeding for you!); roots grow deeper for a "more drought-tolerant lawn." He says to go native too -- with your choice of plants and trees, that is.

The plants and trees you see growing naturally are the most ideally suited for their local region. The only care they get is when Mother Nature decides to provide irrigation. Native plants are the ultimate in low-maintenance because, once established, they require no significant efforts on our part to keep them growing strong.

For more suggestions on low-maintenance gardneing, read the full article by Joe Lamp'l here.

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Win a copy of "The Well-Designed Mixed Garden"

Garden Detective, Jessica Damiano, is running a contest on her award-winning garden blog. Just tell her what makes you a unique gardener -- and the best response gets a copy of the book The Well-Designed Mixed Garden, the follow-up book to author Tracy DiSabato-Aust's 1998 best-seller, The Well-Tended Perennial Garden.

The amazon.com review calls the book "encyclopedic in scope yet unfailingly attentive to essential details", saying that The Well-Designed Mixed Garden

effectively summarizes an array of basic garden design considerations and fundamentals. There are particularly useful chapters on color theory and on drawing up a plan, with precise instructions on what size plants to purchase and how to space them.

The important subject of plant maintenance is addressed and the author makes good use of photos to show readers how recommended plant combinations actually look.

Now remember, Jessica Damiano is a big fan of the author, Tracy DiSabato-Aust, saying she likes not only DiSabato-Aust's hair, but her unpretentious, no-nonsense style. She continues with:

Her books are chock full of practical tips, useful planting straegies, unusual plant recommendations, and, very importantly, lots of photos, which are mandatory if I'm to consider a plant reference worthy.

Let me know if you win. Send your email to jessica.damiano@newsday.com. I'm off to send mine right now!

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November Gardening Tasks

Master gardener Celeste Lindsay says there's lots of gardening tasks to do in November if you live in a climate like that of Southwest Washington state. Fertilizing lawns, planting bulbs and even garlic should be completed this month.

In her Ask the Gardening Expert column of The Columbian, she says:

• Lawns need another application of fertilizer late this month.
  

• Anytime in fall is a great time to get daffodils, tulips, crocus and hyacinths out of the bags and into the ground [because] these bulbs need at least 12 weeks of winter chill in the ground for best spring bloom.
  

• November through March provides ideal weather for transplanting, installing new plants and generally making garden changes. Plant roots thrive when transplanted in damp, cool weather, and installations of new plants will settle in well. Don’t transplant when the ground is sodden and saturated with water, or when temperatures are below freezing.

• It is garlic-planting season now. Garlic planted by mid-November generally produces more plump, pungent cloves than garlic planted in the spring.

Read the entire article at The Columbian

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All About Seeds

In the Home & Garden section of The Seattle Times, there's an excellent resource article called Seeds, a Favorite Collectible Connects Gardeners. It discusses everything from why people collect and swap seeds (it's not just about saving money anymore) to giving step-by-step how-to instructions with a list of books and sites you might find useful.

Home gardening is growing fast in popularity, and that includes growing plants from seeds. Gardeners list many reasons for taking the time to save seeds from one year and planting them the next, including:

You might want to plant that great-tasting squash again next year, or preserve a hard-to-find plant. You might want to stand up for heirloom or older varieties, which are enjoying a resurgence.

and

You might be a gifted horticulturist . . . who enjoys the challenge of propagating hundreds of plants from seed.

Explicit instructions include general advice like

• Seeds are collected when plants are finished flowering.

• They need to be washed, dried, labeled, and stored in a cool, dark place.

• Depending on the plant, seeds can be started indoors under fluorescent lights in late winter or sown directly into the garden in early spring.

and moves on to plant-specific with "love-in-a-puff (Cardiospermum halicacabum), a fast-growing vine. Its three-sided seed pods look like pumped-up green lanterns; the little round seeds have white hearts on them."

Squeeze the pod and out pop the seeds, which can be started indoors eight weeks before the last frost or sown directly in spring.

Growing plants from seeds is usually thought by newbies to be difficult but professionals insist that "A lot are surprisingly easy to grow", with "three beautiful but underused shrubs — silky dogwood (Cornus amomum), red osier dogwood (Cornus sericea), and sweetshrub (Calycanthus floridus)" cited as examples.

In this case, pot the seeds in sand and sphagnum moss, keep outside in winter under screens, and plant them in spring.

One master gardener

recommends taking cuttings in late spring for "tender perennials," plants that survive year-round in warmer climates but not ours [northwestern US]. This includes scented geraniums, coleus, and angel's trumpet or brugmansia. You can also bring them inside for the winter.

Helpful online sources cited in the article:

• theseedsite.co.uk/seedpods.html
• www.backyardgardener.com/tm.html
• http://tomclothier.hort.net
• www.seedsavers.org
• www.hardyplant.org/

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