GroHappy

Slug time

As I went to harvest some rhubarb the other day, I noticed a few slugs making their way up a stalk to start chomping on a leaf. There are few creatures that will eat a rhubarb leaf as its inclusion of  oxalic acid often makes its ingestion toxic. But slugs don’t seem to care as they make their way up, leaving a slime trail behind and a soon-to-be shredded leaf ahead.

Like my hostas, the slug community has come out in full glory over the past 10 days given the foot of rain we have received in that much time. On Memorial Day there were few invaders as I could only find tiny, infrequent slugs no larger than a grain of rice. With each collection of greens, they washed out in the salad spinner, squirming as they found themselves separated from their leafy perches. Now, I need to look at each leaf as I pull them from the garden sometimes cocking my index finger against my thumb in preparation of launching a fat slug into the compost heap or away into the either.

Given the invasion every year of these pests, I need to be extra careful when bringing food into the house. One of my worst moments came years ago when I swore that I had thoroughly washed the greens (I lied) and a big fat green slug started to crawl out of one of the salad bowls I had just served. Since then it’s always triple wash with a dash of salt on the first try. The salt is not for seasoning but rather to help separate the slugs from the leafs they grab on to. Extra salt is not just bad for us humans but it is deadly to slugs as the laws of osmosis are amply demonstrated when salt meets slug.

When we had one of our first gardens in Long Island, my daughters and I would stalk slugs on the concrete patio after a good rain with salt shakers in hand. A liberal dusting makes any slug shiver and change composition. Fat ones express a tiny pop of fluid and then convulse in a white foam caused by the reaction between the salt and their viscous bodies. Small ones just appear to wither away. Others, the big ones, shed their outer skin as would a snake and slither away to recover unless you douse them again. And again. One summer evening after a particularly heavy and warm rain, our house was attacked by monster slugs that covered walkways, siding, chairs, etc. We were living in a George Romero remake of “The Night of the Living Dead,” except that we were surrounded by slugs rather than zombies. We went nuclear in using over a box of Morton Salt to dissolve this invasion. Unfortunately, the morning revealed a Battle of Gettysburg aftermath in corpse slime, which required hours of hosing and scrubbing.

Based on that experience, we usually holster our salt opting instead for thick straw in the strawberry patch, iron phosphate pellets for other areas of the garden and the occasional tuna fish tin of cheap beer. The beer is usually a good draw for slugs as they fall into it as would many a high-school boy into a keg party when given the chance. A tidy tin of bloated drowned slugs is easy to throw out and helps keep the population in check; the same cannot be said of high-school boys.

The real challenge is attempting to start any small greens or tender plants in the garden between June and September. Rows of emerging carrots, lettuce and other plants stand little chance against a three-inch spotted Limax maximus or great grey slug. This year I am trying to thwart them a bit by starting greens in cell packs and transplanting them only when they get to a critical size.  Too early to tell if that will work.

Birds, 0; Slugs, 0; Grandparents, 0; Charlotte, 10 and counting

I took extra pains this year to minimize the carnage to my strawberry crop trying to anticipate every pest that could strip my plants clean of the berries we so much covet this time of year. I cleaned the beds of all detritus in the early spring to minimize any fungal diseases. I then sprinkled iron phosphate pellets, which act as a stomach poison for slugs and snails by damaging their digestive tracts eventually causing their death. I then put straw around the strawberry plants so that the berries would not rot on the damp soil. Finally I encircled the bed with bird netting so that even a tiny finch could not find its way into the area.  The gate’s latch and slats have been fixed so either a skinny Peter Rabbit or fat woodchuck would be thwarted.

But I never considered Charlotte.

Charlotte has become my trusty garden helper coming every day to water, weed and harvest when needed. One of her first stops in the vegetable garden has historically been my thriving sorrel patch. She walks over, grabs a few leaves with her tiny hands and then shoves the mass into her open jaw. A plump mouth full of Rumex acetosa is worked as would a baseball player a gob of chewing tobacco and then swallowed (unlike a baseball player); she often goes back for seconds. But now her attentions have turned toward another area of my garden: the strawberry patch.

Charlotte didn’t realize what tasty treasures were growing under the veil of netting until we found the first strawberry of the season around a week ago. It was a tiny orange heirloom sample that was barely ripe but perfect in all other ways. I asked Charlotte if she wanted to get it.

“Charlotte want to eat strawberry,” was her assertive reply.

And with that first but tiny offering our little strawberry monster was born.

Now every day we need to check the garden at least twice to see if any new berries have ripened. Charlotte is a much better berry spotter than I as I need to bend down and try to look through the leaves to spot the red berries. I’m not very good and I miss a lot. Charlotte, on the other hand, can easily look through the stems with the precision of a trained berry picker or as a young Superman would with X-ray vision.

“Pompi, strawberry there,” she says pointing out where she spots her next snack.

“Where Charlotte? I can’t see it?”

“There Pompi,” she replies pointing her right index finger toward the soon to be grabbed fruit.

And she is always right. Behind the leaves is a nice red strawberry.

While Charlotte often helps me with harvests, when it comes to strawberries, she is more apt to help herself. Her tiny hands can fit under the netting in ways a chipmunk can not. And the tiniest berries can be extracted through the netting with her delicate little fingers. She misses nothing in the strawberry patch. These little harvests are popped into her mouth quickly while larger specimens have a slightly greater chance to be sampled by either Juana or myself if we can get a bite in before she clamps her teeth on the remaining morsel.

It’s early days in the strawberry patch but I think this will be another year where Juana and I will get less than our full share. But this time it doesn’t matter as much.

Catching up with opportunities

Today’s downpour courteous Tropical Storm Andrea is yet another example of the unexpected typical weather patterns we have had this year. Over the past week the temperatures have varied from the low 40s to the mid 90s. We went from no rain for 10 days to 6 inches in one. It continues to amaze me how well the plants cope with these changes, though in New England you need to be a bit of a daredevil to plant anything that is finicky. The only plant we have that somewhat falls into that category is a fig tree I planted for Juana last year. After unwrapping it in late April, it sat barren of leaves or buds looking as if it would remain in skeleton form for the remainder of the season.

With the warmer and wetter weather of a few weeks ago it started to bud and leaf out showing perhaps enough life to give us at least the dozen or so figs we harvested last year.  This reflection comes after a week of intense catch up where I must have sweated off five pounds while working in 90 degree plus weather. Today is raining and in the low 50s; I’m temped to build a fire. This year’s gardening has come in fits and starts as extreme swings in moisture and temperature have made working in the yard a purely opportunistic rather than a lifestyle exercise.

In the last week I transplanted over 200 flowers and vegetables, designed a series of raised bed herbal gardens for Ann’s Place, picked up and ordered herbs for this month’s classes and activities, netted my blueberry, blackberry and strawberry plants, watered all gardens, weeded the back 40, re-graveled one of the gardens with nearly a yard of stone, mowed and week whacked the lawn and grounds, deadheaded the tulips and daffodils, removed and transplanted buckets of day lilies, etc.

It’s been a busy week.

This isn’t the way I prefer to garden as it is something I like to fall into daily. After  I wake up, I prefer to  figure out what I want to do in the garden; this spring it has been more of waking up and deciding what I need to do before the next weather event hits as would a farmer or someone who makes his or her living at horticulture. This year, my first crop of radishes failed miserably as alternating hot and cold, dry and wet weather eliminated any possibility of germination. Good thing Stop & Shop sells radishes. The second crop came in like gangbusters and we have just finished the last radish and expect to harvest the next crop in the next week or two. Last year I waited too long to net the blueberries, so I lost at least half the crop to hungry birds; this year I shouldn’t have that kind of loss.

This work and rain, however, has given us a lush garden to enjoy. I need to replace some fencing but have put off that chore as vines and ferns have enveloped sections of the fence creating a thick tapestry that needs to be hacked away or die off.

I think I’ll wait for it to die.

New batch of seedlings

As I watch my garden emerging from its winter slumber, a new batch of seedlings has made their way into my care. One is a student who is pursuing her degree in horticultural therapy from the New York Botanical Gardens and the other is a group of special-needs young adults from an organization called Ability Beyond Disability. They both share many characteristics in that they have a lot to learn, want to spend as much time with plants as possible and hope to develop good work habits and skills to become productive in their chosen fields. But as does a cactus and Venus fly trap, they have very different care requirements.

My intern from NYBG looks to learn about the craft of horticultural therapy and has been participating at my classes for months. Unlike my clients she scribbles down notes frenetically between exercises and activities recording my steps (and missteps). We chat before and after our sessions so that I can pick tips up from her (to improve) and she can ask me questions about why I did what I did during the class. Her learning is mostly via osmosis.

My other charges have a different challenge as they are attempting to become attentive, good workers. This is much harder for both of us as I am taxed to make things interesting for them as well as give them lessons that will sink in. Unlike my NYBG intern whose care is constant and regular, my ABD students have vastly different needs that can change within minutes.

“Let’s remove all of these types of plants from this area,” I say to one young woman showing her the plant I want her to remove. She nods but I’m not sure if it takes and while she starts working well within minutes she becomes distracted and tired of her weeding activity.

“What’s the problem,” I ask. “This is boring and I’m tired,” she replies.

“Well I know but we need to weed. How about you weed over in the shade and I will do it in the sun. And then when we are finished, I’ll let you mow the lawn with the lawn mower.”

“That would be great, let’s start,” she said.

I have found that these students do not absorb my lessons readily but rather require multiple catalysts and re-directions to become engaged in an activity. I also find that if I interrupt the activities with different lessons or observations it helps them remain focused on their respective tasks. I have shown them fiddlehead ferns, eatable weeds, toads, groundhog holes and other discoveries to break the potential boredom.

I pull a spent daffodil seed pod and cut it open revealing a tiny seed factory holding collections of little seeds in concentric rows. “You want to cut these pods off so that all the energy of the plant goes into feeding the bulb making it bigger so that it will give bigger flowers next year and possibly divide to produce more plants.”

The students from ABD look at the dissected pod with wonder. “That’s so cool, why does that happen?” I then discuss how flowers are fertilized and soon we are back removing weeds.

It’s that sense of wonder and surprise that I tell my NYBG intern is really important to impart on a class. “One of the things I always try to do is to surprise and even shock clients. Remember that everyone wants to have fun. Think of it as a joke: you always want to deliver a good punch line.” So for a class where we were making grassheads, I gave everyone Groucho glasses as a whimsical add-on. In other classes, I withhold a key piece of the activity so that become surprised or fooled about the activity they are about to take on.

“So that’s why you hid all the material for the grassheads,” she said. “You’re right it did make a difference.”

It’s good when your sprouts take.

We need a little Christmas

As we continue with another drought-ridden Spring, the desire to plant is tempered against the need to water what we have planted. But there are always commitments that we make in advance and that is what I did back in mid-March when I decided to buy Christmas tree seedlings from Musser Forests and start my own little farm. I had done this a few years ago with disastrous results as I bought fir trees that were beautiful in theory and delicious (to deer) in practice. This year I hope I have smartened up a bit by purchasing slightly larger Norway and Siberian spruce trees that the deer will turn a blind eye to and be less appetizing.

Over the past decade we have harvested three trees that planted themselves in different parts of our property. They were far from nursery perfect but they were grown on our back forty with little care or maintenance. In that sense they were special and when Juana decorated them they created a special feeling within the house.  I am hoping to repeat those unintended successes in about 3-5 years with the eight or so trees I have planted. I imagine Juana and I going out on a cold December day to pick the tree to cut down and to topple our Taunembaum together. Some Decembers may be a little different as she might decide to direct me via our kitchen window which tree to dispatch. Cold often trumps nostalgia.

Before those dreams can be realized I needed to pick a spot to plant the trees. After over 20 years of gardening, our property has become a bit plant-dense and every new addition has an increasingly difficult placement. Ironically, these trees were easy to spot as we set them up configured as an L-shaped  wind screen near our graveled parking area. They will never get large enough to break the wind from the house but will act as a nice visual barrier and a place for birds to wait their turns at our feeders.

In digging the holes for the trees, I was reminded of the density and weight of our clay-ridden soil. A thin layer of top soil is all that covers rocks and clay on much of our property. To give the trees a fighting chance I amend the soil with manure and compost. But as there are lots of 75-foot-plus conifers just across the street, I’m sure that they will do just fine as long as I water them.

The roots of these trees are nearly as long as the tree is tall, which sets my mind thinking about the depth and breath of the roots of its neighbors. Hurricane Sandy gave us some insights last fall as trees toppled as their root mass pulled up big balls of soil. I don’t think that these will ever get as large. If they do it will be a chore to get them up the stairs.

Bringing up baby

You can never tell what will grab the imagination of a client. An activity that you consider silly others will embrace as essential. Such has been the case with the grassheads exercise I did a few weeks back at Ann’s Place. While everyone happily took their bald babies home, I had no idea that a few would bring them back like proud parents to show them off to an admiring crowd.

One client had her babies on her cellphone to show off to us as well as her grandchildren. “Nobody thought they would grow so quickly.” Another brought her babies in nestled in their new homes with Eraserhead-like hair. The rye has done a good job taking off like new plants do when given a chance to grow.

“There is hair growing all places it shouldn’t,” said one client. “That means you made an old man, just like me,” I said pointing to my ears which had a few unwanted growths emerging.

Everyone giggled and it put us all into a good mood to start today’s exercise, which was pounding flowers. It seemed an interesting counterpoint to last week’s exercise in growth in that we would be pounding the life out of a delicate flower.

Gardening head cases

“It’s hard to make the glasses fit. You have quite a big head.”

Silence. Oops. Then laughter.

Let me start from the beginning.

Spring has been coming in with a whimper in New England with temperatures 15 degrees less than normal accompanied by a wicked north wind. While a few snowdrops, crocuses and hellebore flowers have sprouted everything else is staying put not wanting to get wind burn (like me.) So our first April class, which was to start with a nature walk, would be short as there was not too much to see outside that could not have been seen for the last month.

Some daffodils were attempting to raise their heads, a few buds were swelling on the dogwoods and witch hazel, and a few of the grasses were beginning to green up. We didn’t linger too much as the wind was chilling and the sights of little difference. There were a few signs of future warmth though. One of the mints that is in a sunny spot was advancing ahead of the rest as it had tiny shoots emerging from its crown. I snipped off a few sprigs and passed them around. My clients took in the scent with a long flourish as if they were awakened from a sensory slumber. I also pulled my first garlic mustard of the season imploring my clients to see if they could pick out this invasive smell.

Once inside we got to the business of making grassheads, which are a home-made version of a Chia pet. I never know how silly crafts will go over so I sometimes take chances to get everyone in the mood. As I started to explain the craft, I removed my glasses and replaced them with a faux Groucho set and started to pass out pairs to everyone.

“You need to wear these glasses to get into the proper mood and inspiration,” I said. “Look across the table at friends for models if you don’t have a good idea of what type of head you want to make.” As everyone struggled with their glasses, giggles and smiles emerged around the table. I had three sample to show people that were made by Juana, my granddaughter Charlotte and me. Charlotte’s was actually the most interesting of the three as it expressed a post-impressionist, Cubist design with eyes and facial features askew.    I then gave a demonstration of how you make a grasshead.

It’s quite simple. A stocking, some grass seed, soil, a few rubber bands, fake eyes, pom-poms, pipe cleaners, felt, glue gun and you have everything you need to create a grasshead. I told everyone that they could make as many as they desired; everyone created a pair. The trick to starting is to get a pot and stretch the stocking around it so it can be filled with grass seed and soil. It’s one of those dumb skills like knowing how to remove the top of a washing machine or dryer that once you know it, they pop right off but if you don’t you could wind up destroying the machine.

“How do these look,” asked one client. “They are perfect. You gave one angry eyes.” Another client used felt to create eyebrows. A few sprinkled grass seeds around the ears so an old-man look would be effected.

It often surprises me how versatile and creative clients become when you give them a variety of things to work with. Each head emerged with a different personality and style. There wasn’t too much talking as everyone was concentrating on their heads.  By the end of the class, everyone was proud of their creations. The silly exercise had worked. It was now time for a group picture.

Spring blisters

Last weekend was the first where it was evident that spring has arrived. Warm winds had melted the remaining snow of Easter and my raised beds were no longer caked with a permafrost layer binding the soil in a frozen, unworkable mass. The gardens could now have their blanket of remains removed.

The first rake of the season is bittersweet as it reveals what didn’t make it through the winter while exposing that which did. Tops of light green iris shoots that have yet to be exposed to the sun show themselves. The hollowed out stems of $2.99 mums that didn’t survive get pulled into the straw and leaves that have been bedded down for the last five months. As the rake passes over the ground, dust flies bringing with it a pre-hay-season sneeze.

The flower beds require a careful rake with large and small tools to work around and through the emerging perennials. You poke and pull lightly with an uneven rhythm. The lawn requires the opposite approach to liberate the thatch and remind the sleeping grass that it is time to wake. You lean heavy on the rake and pull with hard and short stokes so the tines can scrape the soil and pull the detritus away. Piles of ephemeral fluff form a line waiting to be put into the compost pile. You can’t leave too much out for too long as either the dog or wind will disrupt the neatness of your line.

Just as you begin to see the difference in the raked lawn and its untouched counterpart, you start to notice the change in your hands. There is a small sensitivity near the space between your thumb and index finger and someplace on your palm. You don’t think about it until you notice at a break that it is raw and red. It doesn’t matter if you wear gloves or not. Sooner or later the fact that you have not grabbed a rake for nearly half a year will take its payment on your hands. If you are lucky, only one or two small blisters will greet you at the end of the day.

These abrasions and associated sore muscles are a small price to pay for the promise of fresh growth. The yard is poised to explode with a bit a water and warmth. You can’t wait so you keep working, looking to finish so the season can continue. The emerging green is just one of April’s sensory clues. The compost pile has started to warm giving off a festering smell of transformation. The touch of newly raked soil has a moist newness that is ready to feed any seed or plant. Early sorrel is more lemony than bitter and then there are the sounds. Unlike many of my neighbors, I don’t attach myself to an electronic appendage to drown out the surroundings. Instead I key into woodpecker’s rattle, the scrape of the rake against the ground and quiet rustle of last seasons remains being dropped into a pail for removal. 

Colors of spring

You wouldn’t know that it has changed seasons in New England as we keep getting “snow events,” a few times a week. The last one occurred a few days before Spring leading the vast majority of my clients to cancel out on me due to the inclement weather. The weather of the past few months have been a tease as a slow melt down to grass and soil is quickly followed by a coating of snow and the cycle repeats itself. Snowdrops and hellebores have poked out but little else. The backdrop is white with little differentiation save the skeletons of trees sending their shadows across the landscape.

At this time of year I try to brighten the mood of clients and focus on living and bright things. I put together a session of pressed flower arrangement so that at least half of that desire could be met. As it was, four clients decided to make the trek as the severity of the weather abated a bit and made driving fairly safe. I had acquired quite a few different dried flowers and laid them on the table for clients to start to think about what and how they would create their designs

“Last year we were outside building sundials and walking the grounds. This year we needed to pick something a bit more indoors,” I started off the class with. “But the good news is that in a few months we can all start saving flowers and drying them for use in more inclement times.” And with that I showed everyone my flower press with samples from last summer.

“How did you do that? Are we going to build a flower press,” asked one client. “Yes, but we will wait until the summer so we can press flowers from our garden here.”

“Why did some of your flowers lose their color,” asked another. “Some flowers keep their colors better than others and there are more complex techniques than what I do that help and make a difference.”

I could see that my clients were more interested in starting to make their designs so I got into the nitty-gritty of how to proceed. I suggested that everyone lay out a design first on a separate piece of paper before gluing things together. I also gave everyone tweezers so they could more easily select a flower.

With a few more details, everyone started to make a picture of pressed flowers. While there was a bit of cross talk, all the clients seemed absorbed in the design and selection of paper, flowers and frame. Their gaze vacillated between the packets of flowers and their emerging creations. As they started to fasten their flowers to the paper and each other, the room became silent as they were concentrating as would a precision craftsman working with a delicate creation.

When the frame was placed on each picture, they all expressed amazement on how well their picture turned out as well as that of others in the class. It was a good looking and happy group. Time to take a picture.

Growing up

You can never tell how well (or badly) a horticultural therapy will be received. My last session on growing an early kitchen spring garden maxed out with a baker’s dozen of clients who crammed around the table. It appeared that some just came not expecting what to get out of the day, but the idea of a spring garden in early March was enough to fill the room.

“While many of you may think it too early to start a garden, I have to tell you I have been late in starting my greens for early spring planting. If you have a window that gets a good amount of light during the day, you can start a garden today that should start giving you enough for a simple salad by mid-April. In fact, some of the radish seeds I have picked out for you today mature in less than 1 month.”  We then got into a discussion and back and forth of how seeds grow and the different types of things you can easily grow at this time of year.

“How deep should I plant the seeds,” asked one woman. “Great question. The easiest way to consider it is by the size of the seed. Tiny seeds like lettuce should be covered with 1/8 to 1/4 inch of soil, while larger ones like squash can go as deep as 1 inch. The reason for this is that a seed has only so much energy before it needs to tap the nutrients in the soil and light. If you plant a small seed too deep, then it may die out because it used all the energy in the seed before it could tap the power of the sun.”

“Can we plant peppers and tomatoes now,” asked another. “Not for what we are doing. Those plants require higher temperatures and more light than you get at this time of year. It will be at least another month before you want to start tomatoes.”

“When can we place our boxes outside,” said another client. “It depends. If we have nice sunny days when the temperature will get into the low 50s, it’s a good idea to put the box outside for as long as it is warm and then bring the box back in when it cools down. It won’t be until late March or early April when you could leave these boxes outside all the time.”

After we cleared the air of questions I then got down to some of the tricks of planting seeds, “How do you think, you can plant some of these seeds,” I asked as I passed around packets and lettuce and claytonia seeds, both of which are very tiny. As my clients strained to see the seeds, I saw that doubts started to creep in their minds as to how easy the task would prove to be. I then showed them a hand seed sower that I got at Johnny’s that would make the chore a snap. A collective sigh.

We then got started. We needed to wet and mix the soil before planting because if you don’t the seeds will float around as the mixture attempts to absorb the water. I always find that groups vary between mud lovers who will mix the soil and water with bare hands to those who will only work with gloves and a trowel. People paired off naturally and made nice mixes in buckets. We then used electrical wire that we attached to the insides of the boxes as a hoop that would support plastic to create a warm greenhouse-like environment for the seedlings once they emerged.

Even though we had a pretty tight fit in the room, the trepidation somewhat expressed initially gave way to hopeful enthusiasm for the emergence of salad greens and a radish or two.