The Asparagus Bed



Locust Hill's Asparagus Bed - Summer 1999

I think I’m what you might call a semi-organic gardener. I don’t use pesticides, only organic solutions to get rid of Japanese beetles, slugs, cutworms, moles and other disruptive garden visitors.   I use my well-rotted manure and my compost for fertilizer.

On the other hand, I have no problem buying Super Market meat or vegetables if I haven’t raised them myself. I find no harm in genetically modified foods which are a much faster way to improve plants than selecting the best ones to breed each year.   I don’t believe carbon dioxide is a dangerous pollutant that causes global warming.

 

When I have a garden problem that I can’t find a good organic way to solve it, I am willing to try solutions that might shock a fanatic organic gardener. That is the reason I’ve not written this column before. The photo above clearly illustrates the problem I had. It shows the asparagus bed on Locust Hill which had turned into a bed of quack grass by 2010.

An asparagus bed can live for at least 100 years or more.  For 45 years our bed produced spears each spring to not only be enjoyed almost nightly with dinner each spring, but also provided a nice supply to  freeze for winter eating.

The bed was surrounded by a hay field, and despite sprinkling lots of salt on it to keep down the weeds  (asparagus likes salt), and mulching with grass cuttings from the lawns, we couldn’t seem to get rid of the quack grass, a menace whose roots can easily tunnel four or five feet and send up new plants all along the way. 

It takes many years to establish a successful asparagus bed.  I think we harvested our first crop five years after making the bed on Locust Hill.  If I attempted such a project at my age I’d probably be dead before I ever got to eat a single spear, so what was I to do?

I queried garden experts on the web, Googled “quack grass,”  called the Agriculture Department, all with no success.  Only when I took that quack grass photo to the guys who sell Crossbow, the chemical we use to kill the multiflora roses in our cow pastures, was I offered a possible solution.

This is what they recommended.  “When you’ve cut the dead stalks of asparagus right to the ground this fall,  mow the bed close to the ground with the lawn mower, then spray the entire bed with Round-up.  Do this procedure again a week later.”

I was assured  that the effects of the Round-up would be long gone come spring when the first spears of asparagus pushed out of the ground.  So I had two choices.  Let the quack grass have my bed or try the Round-up solution.

So I bit the bullet and followed directions.  The following spring, 2011, there was very little quack grass and very little asparagus. Almost every day that summer I spent a few minutes, or sometimes as much as an hour, carefully digging up sickly quack grass, pulling gently until I got its entire root.  Every shovel of dirt I lifted included dead quack grass roots.

This spring I’ve been enjoying plenty of fat healthy asparagus from the bed almost every night. Only three of the new roots I’d planted have felt confident enough to send some very thin spears up into the world, but I’m not complaining.  There’s not a sign of quack grass to be seen.

To me, letting quack grass gobble up my asparagus bed would have been a tragedy, so I’m glad I’m not a fanatic organic gardener.   

Your Very First Vegetable Garden



I love  getting emails from my readers.,  It’s the only way I know who’s out there  reading.  I’m always surprised how many of them are not gardeners.  Several people who read my column on garden  dividends wrote to say it has inspired them to try raising their own vegetables. Just imagine how satisfying that made me feel.

Those beginning gardeners  reminded me of the summer that my eldest daughter made her first vegetable garden. Trum has become a fantastic gardener, but back when she was first married, she knew next to nothing about raising vegetables.  All through that first winter she queried me about starting seedlings indoors -- what kind of potting soil to use, how much light to provide, how often to water, how to “harden off” the seedlings. 

When spring  came she asked  me to pick the best location for the garden,  and since I  knew her back yard was way too shady, I suggested the nice sunny meadow across the street.   That land was owned by the power company, but Trum somehow managed to get  permission to use a small section of it for her garden.

I drove up on Memorial Day  weekend to help plant. Trum and Clem  had done all the hard work –rototilling, adding manure from a nearby farm, raking, fencing.. I was delighted to see that the soil was a good loose loam and amazingly free of stones for New England, but we soon discovered that the lack of stones was made up for by a multitude of nearly invisible  red ants who did everything they could to keep us from sitting while we planted.

When Trum began bringing out the flats of seedlings she’d raised in March, my mouth fell open.  Every vegetable she planned to have in her garden had been started indoors! Not just tomatoes and broccoli and onions, but peas, beans, even pumpkins.  With all the questions she’d asked and all the advice I’d given her, we had never once touched on which vegetables needed a head start.

The object of starting seeds indoors is to give them a longer growing season than they would get outside.  Vegetables such as tomatoes and melons need this early start, but vegetables that grow rapidly or tolerate cold weather or are difficult to transplant should all be planted directly in the garden.

The last thing I wanted was to dampen a budding gardener’s enthusiasm however, so we planted all the seedlings in what was quickly dubbed The Instant Garden.  Can you picture it?  We started in the morning with a plot of empty soil and at the end of the day we had eight full rows of greenery.

Knowledgeable gardeners just don’t get that kind of instant success, and in fact they don’t want it.  Obviously I should have spelled out what and why we give certain vegetables a head start.  I have no excuse except the fact that it was 1981, long before I began writing Weeds and Wisdom.

Trum’s bean seedlings had grown so fast indoors that they were about eight inches tall, but as sick and spindly as calves with the scours. Beans grow fast.  We should have tossed those poor seedlings out and planted new seeds right in the garden.

The two flats of carrot seedlings made a pretty row of lacey greens, but when Trum harvested them later on they were so crooked they could have been worn as bracelets.  The peas and spinach went into shock, reviving just in time to be wilted by hot weather. The tomatoes, broccoli and onions survived beautifully, but the pumpkins curled up and died.  Pumpkins should always be planted in their permanent home.

Unfortunately we took no photos of The Instant Garden,  but I found a picture of Trum which is probably how she'll look when she sees it at the top of this column.  Her first garden was not a roaring success, but we had a great many giggles planting it, and we both learned a lot, Trum about seedlings and me about beginning gardeners. 

Renovating a garden



How  I ache to be out in the garden instead of sitting at this computer.  Such a long cold winter! I’m looking out at my dreary dead-looking border buried in brown leaves with not even a daffodil in sight.

I wrote  this column a week ago when Spring had still not shown its warm sunny face,. I'm so happy I did, as  it's supposed to get up to a a blissful 65 degrees today, and I'm headed out to the garden instead of sitting at this computer. 

Last year in March I read a book titled “Gardening for a Lifetime” by Sydney Edison, all about how to make your garden less work. Since I had reached the point where I knew I could no longer keep my 100 foot long border in shape I eagerly read Ms. Edison’s suggestions and then spent most of the summer renovating the border, a monumental project. 

The book was full of wonderful ideas which I described in one of my columns, but because they are such sensible ideas,   they are worth repeating.  I suspect many of my readers no longer have unlimited energy and  probably have forgotten most of the things they read more than a year ago. 

Since Ms. Edison’s first recommendation  “Get some help!” was not one I wanted to pursue, I turned to her second,  “Get rid of the plants that require constant work.”  That included  pruning, staking, dead-heading, self-seeding or spreading to unwanted places.  Well, I had plenty of plants that fit those categories.  I might not want to give up my delphiniums that always require staking, or my irises  which need dead-heading to look their best, but I had plenty of other misbehaving plants.

Phlox was the worst culprit. As you can see, its white or pink blossoms overpowered the August garden.  Because eliminating its stalks each fall requires a clipper, a tedious time-consuming job,  for many years I left them alone until spring when they could be easily broken off by the handful. That solution, however, meant newly self-seeded plants popping up in the wrong places the next April.

I soon discovered that digging up a
large, well-rooted clump of phlox 
was exhausting, and there were at

least a dozen or more in the border.

Fortunately I own a "Nurseryman's

Shovel”  which is hard to describe. 
I was about to take a photo of it when daughter Bridget appeared.  Claiming 
my readers would love my ridiculous pink work pants, she grabbed the camera and took this one. 

That shovel is at least 50 years old, and its long 14 inch blade has the ability to lever almost anything out of the ground.  When I saw one of these marvelous shovels in the Tractor Store last year I bought it.  Unfortunately the first time I tried to pry lose a large stone with it, the blade bent right in two.  I took it back, and once I’d explained the purpose of its long blade and how useless it was if it couldn’t be used to lever something, the salesman agreed and gave me my money back.  A long story, but a necessary warning in case you decide to buy this type of shovel. 

My old shovel is still working well, but what was I to do with all the phlox plants I’d dug up with it? None of my friends seemed to want them, but it turned out that the Douglas Library in Canaan was planning to have a plant sale in May. They were even offering to provide pots to anyone who would fill them with plants for the sale. What an incentive!  I spent the next two back-breaking weeks digging and lugging pots of phlox to the library, but it was a joy knowing they would find new homes.

Ms. Ellison’s book recommended replacing unwanted plants with flowering shrubs, especially those that would grow slowly and not need a lot of pruning.  Since by June the border was full of gaping holes, I realized it was time to go shrub shopping. What a shock!  For someone whose garden was chuck full of hand-me-downs and freebies, I couldn’t believe I would have to spend at least  $40 for each shrub I bought to fill a hole!  

I am not some poverty-stricken old lady, but their price tags made me shudder. I went from nursery to nursery just looking.  Then one day I was thrilled to see a small shrub with a $25. tag on it! Then I saw it’s name – burning bush -  and my excitement vanished, knowing that I already had several of these shrubs in the border which I was planning to get rid of since they needed constant pruning. 

I finally bit the bullet and bought about 6 or 7 shrubs - potentilla, azalea, laurel, hydrangea. By then it was late June and I was in such a hurry to get them planted in those empty holes that I didn’t spend a minute thinking about which color or shape or bloom time any of them had.  I just planted them in the holes, one after another.

This summer I plan to take my time and think about the aesthetics of the border – colors, textures, bloom time, all the aspects of a garden that were not in my head last year

 I hope you’re enjoying this longed-for warm weather as much as I am.   

Garden Dividends





Have you done your taxes yet? April 15^th is just a week away. Most of the people
I know use an accountant or a website like Turbo Tax for this tedious job, but I do
my own and actually got them mailed in March this year.

Way back in  1974 I got a job at  H and R Block. Whenever I  had free time
between customers, I spent it composing poems for a new garden club program
I was putting together. The poem below  already had a melody. 

Sing a song of Swiss chard, pocket full of peas.

Four and twenty vegetables, grow them with ease.

When I plant the garden, I fertilize it well,

Lots of rotted cow manure, and never mind the smell.

When I see the lettuce dancing down the rows,

I forget the sticky sweat that trickles down my nose.

Hubby’s at the office, making lots of money.

I prefer the garden where all is nice and sunny.

I’ve produce by the bushel, and I can just relax

Cuz all my garden dividends the government can’t tax!

Much has changed since 1974, but the greedy government has yet to tax our garden produce.  No tax men come snooping around counting those sweet peas, and delicious tomatoes, the  fresh broccoli and melt-in-your-mouth onions  you harvest each summer from your back yard garden. 

So, yes, this column is going to seriously encourage you to start a vegetable garden this spring, even if it’s just a  decorative row of lettuces in a window box, or a couple of tomato plants in a bucket on the back porch. How about a single zucchini  plant tucked beneath the lilacs by the back door?  Just one plant will produce zucchinis all summer long which can be served up in a dozen different ways.

If you have a full-time job I’m sure you’re shaking your head, but let me just point out some of the advantages of growing your own vegetables.  Obviously they taste better.  Store-bought vegetable are not bred to be tasty, they’re bred to tolerate the agonies of being shipped from the farm thru the various steps involved to finally  reach the supermarket. If you’ve ever wondered why home-grown tomatoes taste so flavorful compared to the store-bought ones, it’s because the varieties we raise are bred for taste and wouldn’t survive all that traveling. 

Lettuce is one of the easiest and most rewarding vegetables to grow.  It matures quickly and causes few problems unless you count the slugs who love lettuce. However,  slimy slugs also like beer, so if they become a problem, just leave a saucer of Budweiser (any brand will do) set level with the soil in the lettuce row. By morning there will be lots of dead drunk slugs in the saucer.

Buttercrunch is my favorite lettuce, but I also buy a seed packet of mixed varieties so I get some smooth, some ruffled, some  red and some green.  Burpee has some nice collections this year, even one called “Heatwave Blend” that should appeal to the global warming environmentalists.  

Another reason to have a vegetable garden is to educate your children or grandchildren about the excitement of watching plants grow, to see a bean seed push up from the soil and turn into a leafy vine that spirals up a pole and eventually drips with clusters of string beans.  Think of the magic a child can produce by pulling up a carrot from the earth or digging down to find  a new potato.

A vegetable garden can also help solve America’s obesity problems.  Kids aren’t crazy about vegetables, but there’s a world of difference between  fresh string beans picked from the garden just before supper and the tired ones bought at the supermarket  And how can a 6 or 7 year-old resist eating those sweet peas he helped Mom plant?

Not only are items like carrots and broccoli and tomatoes more tasty, they provide kids with an alternative to watching TV or playing video games. 

The government is making a lot of new rules to try and limit all those sugary drinks and junk foods that kids eat,  but  I think obesity is primarily caused by lack of exercise.  Instead of being a couch potato glued to the tube, when kids are asked to help keep the vegetable garden up to snuff, they get plenty of exercise --   spreading manure, rototilling, raking, planting, weeding, mulching, thinning, harvesting. 

I happen to love doing all of the above, but I realize there are many people who find such jobs anything but enjoyable. Nowadays almost every town has a summer farm market piled high with home-grown and freshly harvested vegetables., and it’s a fun way to spend a Saturday morning.

Do Plants Have Feelings?



I always like to include a photo or two with my blog posts,  but I couldn’t find a single one that would be appropriate for today’s column.  Since daughter Bridget is a professional artist, I decided to include the painting above which always makes me smile. I hope it makes you smile, too.  

Back in 2008 I wrote a column about how the Swiss had amended their constitution to protect the dignity of plants.  A panel of philosophers, lawyers, geneticists and theologians added a new rule to the law known as the Gene Technology Act, establishing exactly how to prevent humans from humiliating the country’s flora.

Switzerland’s new  rule stated that vegetation has an inherent value and it is immoral to arbitrarily harm it.  Geneticists must consider whether they are disturbing the vital functions or lifestyle of the plants they are tinkering with.

For instance, one scientist, Dr. Keller, who wanted to do a field trial on wheat bred to resist a fungus, had to first explain to the government ethicists why the trial “wouldn’t disturb the wheat” and convince them that "it would not in any way mortify the wheat to be protected from the fungus.”

As long as a plant’s independence, its reproductive and adaptive abilities were insured, however, the rule stated that its dignity would be safeguarded, so Dr. Keller finally got  permission to plant the wheat.  Unfortunately a group opposed to genetic modification of crops invaded the test field and scythed down all the wheat.  How’s that for protecting the dignity of plants?

Since I considered the Swiss rule totally extreme, I went on the Internet yesterday to see if it was still in force.  When I Googled the Gene Technology Act  I found that Australia, France, Tasmania and many other countries have added the Act to their constitution.  There were way too many websites listed for me to read them all, so I never found out  which countries included a rule similar to Switzerland’s. 

Nowadays genetically modified organisms, GMOs,  have been scientifically proven to be environmentally safe, and are promising better, more abundant and cheaper foods, especially in poor countries.  The Swiss rule forces scientists who want to experiment in improve crops to go through just too many hoops to prove their efforts  won’t be breaking the law. 

If plants really have feelings, could you ever lop off the head of a blooming zinnia, or shred a cabbage for coleslaw?  Does it really destroy the dignity of seedless grapes to render them sterile? I'd love to eat a peach that no longer had fuzz, or a watermelon that didn't have seeds. 

There are still many people who are totally against GMO. I’m not one of them. As you readers know, however, I often treat my plants anthropomorphically.  I love talking to them, and like the idea that they have feelings.  I suspect that  corn stalks  who have experienced GMO are happily celebrating the fact that scientists are working to eliminate that ugly corn borer from invading their ears.

I once read  about an experiment performed by the Reverend Franklin Loehr,  a scientist and theologian, who planted flower seeds in two different beds. He gave each bed identical amounts of soil, sunshine and water.  He prayed over one of the beds every day, but left the other bed to the devil.  The church going flowers grew to gigantic proportions while the heretics barely bloomed. 

Now isn’t that what a green thumb is all about?  A love of growing things that communicates itself to the plants being cared for? I hope you fellow  gardeners will enjoy planting your flowers and vegetables this spring and speak kindly to each seedling as you nestle it into the soil.

California Gardens



I know I promised to write about the  gardens my girls and I saw on our week’s vacation in California, but I had no idea what a challenge it would be.  I suspected that Lotusland, 40 acres of rare palm trees, cacti,  euphorbia and other unpronounceable plants, would be difficult to describe, so I was eager to visit the small Buddhist garden in Encinitas first.

By the time we reached this incredibly peaceful place of meditation I was so stressed by driving on a 5 lane highway in bumper to bumper traffic that I fell in love with it. The gnarled, twisted trunks of ancient palm trees vanished among the flowering shrubs at either side of the walkway, all perfectly placed to offer a gentle shadow to the tiny cyclamen blooms that peeked out from the greenery of moss and ivy, or warm sunlight to the  sparkling orange petals of a Bird of Paradise blossom.

Only bird song and the gentle murmur of water disturbed the silence, though many visitors strolled the paths. A tiny stream tumbled over rocks to a pool where golden and white koi swished the water into ripples as they swirled back and forth. Small side paths led up from the dappled shade into sudden brilliant sun and the breath-taking blue of the Pacific ocean far below.

 I took a dozen photos, many included below, before I realized what made this garden so appealing – the smallness of its plantings.  There were no overwhelming masses of bloom, just beautifully placed single flowers set among the moss and ivy, no vast stretches of landscape, merely  a single clump of perfectly place blossoms set among the soft restful greenery of ferns.  Here and there one could find a comfortable bench beside the path offering rest and meditation. 

I assumed I’d find the names of the various plants we saw in the provided brochures, but I was wrong.  They were all about religion  and the “Self-Realization Fellowship.”  

Lotusland is in Santa Barbara so it took us four hours to get there from La Joya, and two hours to cover the vast acres of gardens as our tour guide (required) stopped frequently to tell wonderful stories about their creator, Madame Ganna Walska.  This amazing lady acquired the estate in 1947 and spent close to 50 years planning and designing the gardens and acquiring the vast number of plants and husbands (she had six) during her lifetime. 

I was correct in thinking that Lotusland would be  impossible to describe, and far too enormous to depict in either words or pictures. Since our very knowledgeable guide spoke too fast for this deaf old lady to understand her tales, and the book the girls bought for me was only filled with unpronounceable Latin names and technical information about plant origins,  I’m afraid I missed a lot.

But just walking along the paths was mind-boggling. The trees soared overhead, easily reaching 50 or more feet high, lotus  blossoms were as wide across as dinner plates, an arbor in the citrus garden dripped well over a hundred brilliant yellow lemons above our heads. There were pools shaded by giant palms and ferns, paths lined with rare cacti in every shape and size. 

There’s really no way to describe it all, so if you’re ever in California, you should make reservations in advance and go to Lotusland.  Here are a few pictures.  

           The  palms in this photo are Encephalarios woodi.   They are extinct in the wild.    Madame Walska paid $2500.00 each for these two treasures.  

Somehow we managed to see one more garden, quite near La Joya, which was a total contrast to Lotusland.  It contained many of the same plants, but as single specimens, which made them seem very special instead of being in a group of a 100 which was almost overpowering.  I took just two photos in this botanical garden, the lady at the top of this column, and the strange looking tree below.    Do you know what kind of  tree this is?

                           




                              It's a Fig Tree 

Who's Talking? Just Listen!



This new computer is still giving me grief, but it has one program that is really great.  It’s called Mail Chimp and wheneever I post a new column it let’s me  write a single email to all my readers, then set a date and time for mailing it.  So here I am in California playing tennis with my three daughters, and you’re getting this column. 

It’s just a poem I probably composed thirty years ago, but vegetables don’t change much.  Enjoy.  Hopefully when I get back home I’ll be able to write a column about the fabulous gardens we saw in California.

The vegetables were arguing

Which one of them was best,

Which had the most achievements,

Which was the tastiest.

The beautiful asparagus

Spoke up the first pf all –

“I maybe past my prime, my dears,

But no one grows so tall.”

“Aw, Shucks,” the corn grinned down at her,

“I guess I shouldn’t boast,

But my old stalk can stretch beyond

The highest garden post.”

A ripe tomato shyly spoke,

“I’m fancy and high-bred,

I love the heat, it makes me sweet.”

She blushed a rosy red.

The Swiss chard leaves began to curl

And yodel at the sky.

“Our stems get cut right at the butt,

Yet still we multiply.”

“We’re very fresh and tender, too,”

 the baby onions cried.

“I think you’re fresh and impudent,”

Miss Broccoli replied.

“Such bickering!” Aunt Lettuce sniffed. 

“I think my head will split.

We’ll never figure out who’s best

Til we calm down a bit.”

The mealy-mouthed potato moaned,

“I’ve got the scabs this year. 

I’ve had no starch since early March.”

She shed a milky tear.

“Oh wipe your eyes,” an old beet said,

“At least you’re not too plump.

If I continue gaining weight

They’ll throw me on the dump.”

The cucumber let out a burp,

“My indigestion’s bad.

I guess it must have been that dose

Of garden lime I had.”

“Pipe down!” the red hot radish yelled,

“Pipe down, you silly clods!”

And each young pea laughed out with glee

And nearly split their pods.

  

The carrot plants got all choked up.

It really was absurd.

Their heads were buried in the dirt

So none of them were heard.

Poor Mr. Celery tried to speak,

His skin a sickly white.

His voice was just a whisper ‘cause

His collar was too tight.

Then Grandpa Cauliflower coughed

And shook his snow white head.

“I think we’ve bickered long enough,

Let’s get to work,” he said.

The vegetables all dug right in,

Their argument forgot.

And each long row began to grow

To fill the garden plot.