Fall planting

It is fall, almost officially by now, and the solemn promise I made to not buy plants over the summer has ended. I more or less followed that promise. I did buy a "Brandy" rose, the only rose I really wanted for my garden and a Hibiscus called "Midnight Marvel" with purple foliage and red flowers. otherwise I resisted with all my might.  Once September rolled around my personal ban ended and this also coincides with end of season sales at the local nurseries. Perennials, shrubs, and trees on sale, yes please! Fall is also a great time to plant, the roots can get a little established before winter rolls around and the plants are less stressed the next spring. Here is a great guide from Michigan no less, about fall planting. 10 Tips for planting trees and shrubs in the fall

 My crowning jewel for this fall is a Shagbark Maple. the more commonly used name is Paperbark Maple but I love saying shagbark, it is a much more fun name. The scientific name is Acer griseum and it has a fantastic cinnamon colored peeling bark with a clear red fall color.

Oh, how I love that bark!

 I have been waiting all summer to pick up one of these, holding out until the fall sales, when this beauty went from being $125 to $75. I wanted to buy one last year at the same sale but I didn't like the shape of the trees they had. They looked more like shrubs and I wanted to make sure that I got one that would need very little training or pruning.

The other must get this year was a clematis called "Sweet Summer Love". Some great info on it here Sweet Summer Love Clematis.  It is a late blooming purple clematis that is also fragrant. This plant is right up my alley. There is a person living nearby with a white late blooming fragrant clematis and after seeing that one I hunted down this fabulous hybrid. it will also serve the purpose of covering up a gap in my neighbors chain link fence that my dogs can fit through.

I also scored some half off asters, red lupines, Hot Lips Salvia, Balloon flower, ice plant, and delphinium. The asters may have to be temporarily planted since they are to be planted on the outside of a fence that does not yet exist. The balloon flower may go up in the front in a bed I am hoping to work on in a couple weeks. Everything else, well, I haven't decided yet but I'm sure I will find space somewhere

Some more of my goodies

Veggie update, or what to do with all the zucchini

The veggie garden is cruising along, the tomatoes are finally turning, the green beans are producing nicely, and the zucchini is under control. There is no other way of describing how my zucchini plant is politely producing two fruits a week. My plant also had an aphid infestation while I was away(more on that another day), so it is a little slow for a zucchini plant. Though my plant is under producing this year, I have a growing stockpile of interesting recipes to use zucchini. Zucchini bread is the classic but honestly, I've never been big on it. I'd rather do banana bread or rhubarb bread and let the zucchini get used in something a little less expected. Here is a list of my favorite recipes along with links, not necessarily the same that I use, but as close as I can get.

Lebanese Egg Fritters- eggy and delicious. As an added bonus these are a good way to use up some fresh mint

Zucchini and Sweet Pepper Refrigerator Pickles- quick pickles without needing cucumbers is a win. These are great on sandwiches or burgers.

Zucchini Mock Apple Pie-  Tastes like apple pie but with only zucchini. A great thing to take to a potluck to blow peoples minds.

Calabacitas con Elote  With tomatoes in my family, without tomatoes for my hubby. Either way it makes a nice side dish for chicken and things

Summer Squash Pizza Granted, this one I've only made once, but it was really good and goes through a lot of zucchini. I will be making it again

I have also heard of people drying out zucchini and using it as firewood. I cannot find any sources that talk about doing this so maybe this is an old wives tale.

Pollinator gardens

I know that I am a small voice in a very large chorus calling for providing more food and habitat for pollinators in the garden. At this point most gardeners are very concerned about colony collapse of honey bees and about planting milkweed for butterflies. Gardeners are also very aware of the shrinking habitats of many other beneficial insects. In my own yard and even neighborhood I see very few flying insects. Living in an urban/suburban where everyone has a yard nearly full of grass, there isn't enough for insects to eat and few places for them to nest.  The other part of it is though there is a lot of press in the USA about the disappearance of honey bees, honey bees aren't native to the new world. They were brought over from Europe centuries ago. There are lots of native bees to the United States, thousands of different types that live all over North America. Here is a great list of some of them Native Bees of North America, they like different flowers and a lot of them are solitary. My favorites are the solitary bumblebees that are ground nesting and squash bees. Squash bees are adorable, sometimes I find them sleeping in squash flowers in the morning, waiting for the sun to warm them back up. Solitary bumblebees are also adorable, though I usually find them after scaring them awake.
I will be making my yard more insect friendly. This benefits myself, by making my fruit trees and vegetable garden more productive. It is also good for the environment. Here are the vows I am making to make my yard a more diverse ecosystem.
1. I vow to leave my yard a little higher and not try to remove all the weeds from it. Part of me would be totally fine with never mowing my yard but I think I can be ticketed by the city if I don't. When I mow my yard a little on the long side, I keep more of the clover flowers. In fact I think I am going to seed more clover into my yard, I love seeing the flowers all summer and of course, the flowers are frequented by bees. Leaving it a little taller also makes it stay green a little longer into summer. It is a pretty common practice to not water lawns in my city during the dry summers. taller grass also eaves more places for insects to hang out, like spiders and ants.  By not trying to take out all the dandelions, early emerging bees, like mason bees, get something to snack on in my yard. If they come for the dandelions, they might stay for cherry trees that are blooming about the same time. In the summer, nipplewort throws up their flowers and can lure more bees in my yard.
2. Next year I am getting mason bees and making a bee hotel.  There are 150 types of Mason bees in North America. They vary by region but all are solitary and they all nest in tunnels. You can buy mason bee larva to release into your yard and they can find their own places to nest, however, they may not settle down nearby. So building a bee hotel for them is a good idea. Most mason bees are active early in the year so I must make sure there are things to eat in early spring. I have that partially covered by early blooming fruit trees and dandelions but I will need to look into it more. They also need mud to repack their tunnels so a bare patch in the yard will be a good plan. Here is a good page on making and managing places for mason bees Attract Mason Bees.
3. Plant some native plants to bring native insects to my yard. The Xerces Society has some amazing lists broken down by narrow regions through the US here Pollinator Plant Lists. I fully recommend these lists since they are really detailed. I already know I want goldenrod and asters, the combination late in the year is really pretty. I also have my eye on some vine maple cultivars, as mentioned in a previous post.  Planting natives in my yard is already in my mind because I work with native plants currently so I can see how they look in combination and get ideas for plantings. Plus I know where to get the native plants I like, which nursery gets and grows what plants. There are advantages to working in the plant industry when planning and designing gardens.
4. Encourage my neighbors to do similar things. No pollinator garden is an island and making a great garden in only my yard will be good, but it can get better. Getting a few of my neighbors to plant some bee friendly flowers will give the bees more places to live. Some of this will be by talking to them directly about what I am doing and why. A majority of the work will be showing how pretty and vibrant my yard will be. Nothing encourages gardening activity like having a really nice garden in the neighborhood. Maybe it is jealousy, maybe it is a curb appeal thing but, one really nice flower filled yard can encourage other people to garden too. Plus, I will be able to divide out plants and gift them around the block. It may be a little devious but preaching at people about the importance of pollinator habitat can backfire. nobody likes being lectured at, most people like free low maintenance plants.
5. Using a minimal amount of herbicide/pesticides in my yard. I garden mostly organically anyway so this will be easy for me. I only use herbicide when there is no other way of controlling the weed.  Pesticides are saved for when I see damage that is beyond what I can stand. Even then I follow all the guidelines for the herbicide/pesticide and use the appropriate herbicide/pesticide for the job.
I know that this will not all happen overnight. This will be a multiyear process that I will be committing to. I will be celebrating my victories through extra garden bounty and by watching the increase in activity in my yard.

Slugs, for serious

slugs are a nuisance and last year I managed not to have any major damage from them. I lucked out last year and they really didn't attack anything in my yard until pretty late in the summer. Even then, the slugs really only went after some of the tomatoes. This spring they have shown up in the planter box from last year pretty frequently. The puzzling thing is that other than starting off by eating down one of the lettuces, they've really ignored their usual food sources. For some reason I still don't understand, they are eating my baby squash plants.

my poor suffering Butternut

 Squash leaves are rough and bristly exactly the kind of leaf slugs don't like. The extra confounding part, there is a lettuce 6" away from the butternut squash. The slugs have barely touched it.

The lettuce is right there, why do they keep eating the squash? Why?!

 I've decided on a multifaceted attack on the slugs.
Beer- I have a collection of beers that I don't like very much. Beer is the age old go to for slug killing, put some in a shallow dish, bury a can of beer, or just leave a half filled bottle tucked next to the plants. The slugs crawl in, get drunk, and drown. This way they die happy and I have a use for all the beer that I don't really like.
Diatomaceous earth- This is fossilized plankton for lack of a better description. It is a very fine powder that can be sprinkled around plants. The fossils have a high silica content which makes them very sharp on a microscopic level. It is very uncomfortable for slugs to go across and had the advantage of discouraging other pests too. It does need to be reapplied every few weeks be careful about  breathing it in. Here is a full article on it's uses in the garden http://www.gardeningknowhow.com/plant-problems/pests/pesticides/diatomaceous-earth-insect-control.htm
Picking them off- If I get outside early enough in the morning, I have been pulling the little buggers off my plants and depositing them in the beer. I do throw some out in the street in the hopes they are run over or they go away. I'm sure they just head back toward those sweet sweet squash plants they seem to like so much.

I'm hoping that in a couple of weeks the squash plants will be big enough and bristly enough the slugs will no longer be interested in them. Of course by then the beans will be out of the ground so the slugs might turn their attention that way. This should be interesting.

2016 veggie round up

Mother's Day has come, and slightly gone and for most of the northern US. this means vegetable planting time. Last year I had one raised bed for veggies and this year I added a second planter. I am not however, doubling the amount of plants. I overcrowded the one planter last year which made harvesting things like green beans very difficult. I also had some problems with powdery mildew that I want to avoid this year. I basically took the things I planted in the one planter last year and spread it out amongst the two planters.

Things from last year that I am not replanting

Lemon cucumber- epicenter of my powdery mildew issues. Also as it turns out, my S.O. doesn't really like them so growing the Lemon cucumbers is a waste of time. If I did retry them, I would put the cucs further from the tomato to help prevent the powdery mildew.
San Marzano tomato- They are huge tomatoes but took forever to ripen and had blossom rot issues all summer long. This is partly on me, my watering early season was a little sporadic.
Poblano/Ancho chile pepper- These are never as big as what I can get in stores or from farmer's markets. I have tried these several different times and they never work out the way I want.
Kale- grew well but I also had collard greens and the collard greens were eaten more often. I may wait a year and grow these again, once I work up a good go to kale recipe.

Things I am growing again this year

Juliet tomato- this was a champ last year, a champ. It produced lots of fruits, somewhere between large cherry tomatoes or small plum style tomatoes. I slow roasted a lot of them using this recipe http://www.rachaelraymag.com/recipes/rachael-ray-magazine-recipe-search/side-dish-recipes/roasted-tomatoes and froze them for winter use. They were also great in salads.

"Juliet" tomato- my favorite from last year

Habanero pepper- I got them to ripen and that is all the encouragement I need to grow them again this year. Plus, we do eat a lot of spicy food and these do get used.
Satan's Kiss pepper- the name is awesome and the peppers are tasty, double win.
Rosa Bianca eggplant- I adore the purple and white Italian eggplants, they are never bitter and also never grow to manageable sizes. This was a great one for me last year, and in years past I have also liked the Listada de Gandia, though I have not been able to find starts of that one.
Collard greens- Prolific and a great easy saute side dish, they lived all winter but were getting tough towards February. The only real difference from last year is that these were planted on the north side of the house. The north side of my house still gets a good amount of sun.
Zucchini/Acorn squash- other than dealing with the spread of the powdery mildew both of these squashes did well, we ate bunches of flowers and got a decent amount of fruit off each plant.
lettuces- I don't really remember what I bought last year, I think romaine and something else. Anyway, I figured out that I can plant lettuces really close to the tomatoes and squashes and when the lettuces bolt and are done for the season, it times up pretty well with when the squashes and tomatoes explode in growth. Pull the lettuces and then there is more room for the other plants.
Silver Rose garlic- this year I planted the garlic around the edges so I can actually find them. last year, the garlic was an afterthought and was tucked under and around other veggies. When harvest time for the garlic rolled around, I couldn't find most of it. In fact, most of the garlic for this year is last years crop divided.

Garlic in an easy to find location

New plants to try this year

Seattle's Best Tomato- if the variety has a region specific name, I consider this a good sign. It is a slicer tomato and is indeterminate so it will keep growing and producing. I am intrigued.
Viva Italia Tomato- determinate paste tomato, I am hoping to get a good batch of tomato sauce from this guy, fingers crossed.
Purple Cayenne pepper- I am such a sucker for a purple vegetable, plus the whole plant has a purple tint to it, I am very excited
Hungarian orange carrot pepper- slightly spicy and apparently good for pickling.
Topcrop bush beans- not one I've seen before, thought it would be worth a whirl.
Danver carrots- I have had some iffy luck with carrots, they rarely grow for me. I know to most people that is crazy, carrots are supposed to be really reliable. These seem somewhat foolproof, we'll see.

Crossing my fingers for these

Butternut squash- I eat a lot of squash and buy enough butternut to justify growing my own. I wish I found a bush/semibush type, but instead I think I will train this up a trellis of some kind.

Let the season begin, I'm ready, at least I think so.

Touch

A truly great garden encompasses all the senses. At least that's something that is written over and over again in garden design books. It's easy to make a garden nice to look, and having an emphasis on fragrance is pretty simple too. There are whole books devoted to edible gardening as that has become trendy again in the last few years. The sense of touch however rarely gets much of a shout out in garden design other than in the context of texture. This is kind of a shame because there are a lot of plants that are fun to reach out and pet. I am a very tactile person in general and I have a habit of trying to touch everything when shopping. I am only slightly more restrained when I am at garden centers, just on the off chance what I am reaching out to pet is really delicate or a skin irritant. So far, so good, I haven't broken any plants nor have I discovered anything unpleasantly irritating. I would like to share a few of my favorites, plants to think about including in your own space to make sure you really hit all the senses

Rhododendron yakushimanum- The underside of the leaves for this rhody are soft and velvety which makes it an irresistible plant for me. There are many hybrids of this plant so keep an eye and hand out for the ones that are pink flowered, those are the softest. I have introduced many people to the underside of the leaf and little kids always get a kick out of how fuzzy it is. As an added bonus the indumentum (the fuzz) on the underside of the leaf makes it more resistant to bugs.

Deciduous Larch- the new needles for deciduous Larches are silky and smooth and soft.  I used to stalk one particularly lovely larch every spring, running my hands through the branchlets outside some ones house on my way to work.If it was a long day at work, I would walk by the tree on my way home too. There are a lot of forms of Larch, from 35 foot tall, to small pendulous forms. that means there is one for every yard size.

Mexican feather grass-The name shays it all, this grass is irresistibly feathery. When I worked at a nursery I ran my hands over and through the gallon sized pots all the time. Buyer be forewarned though, this grass is best kept contained in a pot. It is an aggressive runner and can take over a garden. However a nice planter filled with it next to a hammock or lounge chair is an excellent choice. Close enough to reach over and touch but not allowed to run rampant.

Trumpet vine - This is not much of a texture plant but like I love popping open the flowers. They are like bubble wrap. There is a popping sound and it doesn't harm the plants any just opens the flower up. 

Yarrow- I hate the smell of yarrow. That said, it is a fun plant to touch. The foliage is really soft and feathery and the flowers make a bumpy cluster. I just keep my nose away from the plant.

Allium "Globemaster"- Try not to tap this flower, I dare you. There are several different Alliums that are equally satisfying to gently hit but this is the biggest and best known one.

These area few of my favorite plants for touching in the garden, here is another article with a longer list. http://www.finegardening.com/fuzzy-prickly-and-tickly-touch  I know there are more fun to touch plants out there so keep your eyes and hands out for them

Arborist chips- A love note

As it is February, the month of love, I thought I'd share one of my own loves, arborist chips. Arborist chips are different from the mulch you buy in bags (or by the yard) from your local hardware store. The bark mulch you buy from the store is processed, usually from a single tree type and sometimes dyed to give a uniform color. Arborist chips are ground up trees, a by product of tree trimming or removal. It is made up of whatever went through the chipper that day. I adore the stuff. Let me count the ways
1. It's free, or at least, really really cheap. as it is a by product of tree work, Arborists have to figure out how to get rid of the chipped trees. If they don't have someplace to store them or a way to reuse the chips themselves, they may have to pay to dump them. So as a favor to them, you, the gardener, can offer to take the chips off their hands. You can try cold calling arborists in the area, or if you see a tree service truck in your neighborhood, ask to take the chips then. There are many municipalities around the US that offer out free mulch, usually after big windstorms. Craigslist is a good place to check for chips too. There is also a website, Chip Drop (www.chipdrop.in) , that you can use to request chips. The only draw back with Chip Drop is That it doesn't give a range of places it services, so it may be a hit or miss depending on where you live.
2. It is good for the soil. Putting down arborist chips is like having a very slow release compost/fertilizer on your garden beds. The chips will help soil drainage as they break down. And they will break down. After a couple years very little of the chip material will be left. Not a grand tragedy, just remember the first reason why Ilove Arborist chips so much, they are usually free. I know a few people that have continuously added chips as mulch over the years, and their soil was lovely. Dark, full of life, and with good drainage. I could go on but the WSU extension has a great info sheet on Arborist chips here- http://cru.cahe.wsu.edu/CEPublications/FS160E/FS160E.pdf
3. It looks nice. Arborist chips dress up a bed, making gardens look tidier and allowing the plants stand out more. Like any other top dressing for a bed, Arborist chips is used to smother out weeds. I am using chips around the foundation of my house right now to smother out the grass and everything else so I can plant there this spring. Very little has managed to grow up through the six inches of chips. The few weeds that have made it I can pop out of the ground easily.
A few notes on things people don't like about Arborist chips. They aren't uniform. each time I get arborist chips they are going to look different. Different trees, possibly from different arborists, the color of the chips as well as the size will vary. For some people that is a no go and I get that. I figure that if I pack a garden bed with interesting enough plants, no one will notice the chips. They also can come from diseased trees. There is back and forth research on whether or not Arborist chips can carry plant diseases. The WSU extension pamphlet talks about this. I worry a little about verticillium wilt coming in with the chips, my only real safeguard is to look through the chips to see if there is any maple and if there is, to look for the staining from verticillium wilt.
 That is arborist chips in a nutshell, I love using them and will continue for as long as i garden. They are economical, great for the garden beds, and just make things look pretty.