GroHappy

Potting up, young and old

While the days begin to lengthen, January is still a month where there is little to do in the garden save catalog the catalogs that arrive on a nearly daily basis promising seeds, plants and new growth in the months ahead. But there are a few things that I can still do in this increasingly cold month. Potting up.

Amaryllis is sold and pushed as a Christmas bulb, but for me it is one that sustains me after Christmas. Though I buy new bulbs every few years, most of my blooms are from bulbs I keep and let sleep in the basement after the have flowered and summered in my backyard. They have done quite well and increase in size year to year. My challenge has always been to get them to bloom at Christmas; last year I stopped trying and said that I will just pot up a few every other week so that I have big blossoms late January through early April. 

I also noticed that the soil for my Christmas cacti had become calcified and also needed refreshment. So I had a big potting job in front of me and I thought that the best helper I could get to mix the soil would be my granddaughter Charlotte.

Charlotte has been helping me to make bread ever since she was 5 months old. She loves to stick her hands into the dough picking out little chunks for a forbidden snack. Her kneading skills would come in handy when I hydrated the soil before potting up.

I have learned the hard way that you always wet your soil first before potting up so that your carefully placed seeds and plants stay where you placed them rather than float up or tilt badly. For Charlotte, this was fine as it offered her the opportunity to get her hands good and muddy.

I gave her a small spoon as a mixing tool but Charlotte, like many of the children I have worked with over the years, preferred to use both her hands to squeeze and squish the soil. When water was added, so much the better as she started grab chunks of soil breaking them up and creating muddy balls that she smiled and giggled over. More than a few times my wife needed to remind Charlotte that soil was for mixing, not for eating.

After we got the mix right I tried to get her to help me put soil in the pots but she was too interested in embedding her arms in the soil to care. Soon she was covered hand to elbow and enjoyed the fact that we let her stick her arm deep into a watering can to remove this new layer of topsoil coating both arms.

Potting up took little time. I’m looking forward to the Spring and Summer when I can show Charlotte the fruits of her labor. Though I think for her it’s all about the mixing.

Timberrr!!!!!!

As I have mentioned in a prior post, one of the large challenges my vegetable garden faces is its exposure or its lack of one. Though its raised beds are situated on a greenhouse foundation, the combination of northern exposure and tree cover, which wasn’t there when the greenhouse was built, makes for light light (particularly in the Spring and Fall.) But last year my neighbor, Donna, agreed to let me have the trees taken down in the space between our properties so that the greenhouse (and my garden) would get the sun my vegetables actively crave.

This area between our properties has been a no-man’s-land of opportunity as maple, locust, cherry, hickory, oak and ash have fought for dominance by spreading their branches and leaders in every direction save straight up. Besides their leaves, these trees were clothed with a spreading dress of grape vine and poison ivy. 

The consecutive storms of the late summer and fall took down some trees and crushed much of the undergrowth. A  locust came through my fence landing in the small 10 foot space between the corner of my greenhouse and that of the garage. Another leaned on a cherry that had its top broken off. Other trees also had broken and hanging branches. So it seemed that now was the time for a clear cut as there were few trees that were not either damaged, leaning too close to my house or somehow damaged by the storms.

Unfortunately after all the trees were removed neither my wife nor neighbor (and me to some degree) were ready for the stark barrenness of the newly denuded landscape. It is perhaps made worse by the fact that no refurbishment or plantings can be attempted for at least two and a half months. Instead of an overgrown patch we had mountains of wood chips and crummy looking undergrowth. I spent the better part of two days trying to clean up and make the area look a bit better. 

As I cut back the broken, overgrown and deformed undergrowth of grape and poison ivy vines I started to discover some real gems: a rhododendron that had been overgrown with grape vine and forsythia, beaten down heirloom roses and tangled masses of raspberries. A pile of vines revealed a fledgling three foot fir that was attempting to make a go of it.

The chips proffered a more muscular exercise with a large and extended pile that was shot across the back area. However, I was able to fill in some very large depressions in the property and grade the area for a nice set of spring plantings. Its consistent and light patina contrasted with the darker leaf litter surrounding it. In a year, however, all would appear the same. And now that I can see what is already there and what can planted in a few months, I’m looking forward to the spring.

Happy new Spring?

Yesterday I was outside clearing some brush when I quickly noticed that my trusty Carthartt jacket was way too warm as was my scarf and cap. By 10 am I was stripped down to my turtleneck working up a good sweat as I piled up brush to be later chipped; by noon I was a complete sweaty mess as the temperature hit the mid 50s.

I was not the only one confused. The forsythia was beginning to bud out as well as lots of other bushes. My cold frame was beginning to develop some early signs of mold from the hot and damp environment it was finding itself in. A once dormant tick tried to crawl up my leg. The daffodils were beginning to emerge from the leaf litter in the back.

While I am not complaining about this uncharacteristic warm spell I have to wonder what the plants must be thinking and reacting to. In the past 10 days we have had temperature swings of nearly 50 degrees vacillating between Artic-like cold and wind and Spring-like warmth and growth. None of this can be helpful and in all my years as a gardener I have never had this type of experience. I can’t even guess to figure out how this will effect the plants this Spring.

Will the buds of my American Beautyberry (Callicarpa Americana) explode when they are refrozen in the weeks to come? Or will they winter over nicely? I’m not too worried about the daffodil bulbs as they are often fooled and have a premature growth before quieting down, waiting for a more permanent warming trend.

My hellebores (Christmas rose) are budding out looking as if they will flower in the next few weeks. Only in the past few years have my hellebores reached their potential by providing lovely cupped shaped flowers in the early Spring. The foxgloves are all looking fresh albeit not tasty to the deer or anything that hasn’t developed a taste for digitalis. 

This warm weather has created a sense of (perhaps) false security as I haven’t felt pressed to continue splitting wood. I have probably only a bit more of a cord of wood split, which will not get me through the winter if it returns with a passion. Perhaps its time I start swinging a maul.

Solstice salad

Going out for the newspaper a few mornings ago, I was greeted by a warm 50 degree breeze and sunny skies. Normally, such weather is more appropriate for the Spring Equinox than the Winter Solstice. But this has been a year of unusual weather so I shrugged off the morning breeze as yet another aberration in a year full of such occurrences. Splitting wood a few weeks ago, I was attacked by a swarm of mosquitoes and gnats. I continue to pull ticks off the cats when they come into the house from the outside. Buds on the bushes look as if they are about to burst into bloom. It doesn’t seem as if we are in Connecticut anymore.

On of the happy byproducts of this mildness are the salads we have been able to harvest every other day from the cold frame. Depending upon what is more up we have combinations of space spinach; sylvetta arugula; winterbor kale; romaine, red-tinged winter, and slow-bolt lettuce; claytonia; tatsoi; mache and parsley. Given the mild weather it has been easy to harvest continuously though one evening when the temperature was down to 26 degrees I made the mistake of trying to get a few leafs for a sandwich I was making. Upon opening the frame I noticed that the glass was glazed with frozen mist dripping with ice. Each leaf was preserved solid and cracked as I broke a leaf off a few stems. I made the mistake of trying to defrost my greens in cold water, which transformed icy greens to brown mush.

Few believed that I could produce greens almost year round but this year my efforts let us grow greens between mid April to the end of December. Next year I hope to extend that time even further; I’m beginning to figure out how to crack this. But a few days ago, as I looked at my greens, I could tell that my harvesting days were coming to an end. This is the season of harvesting, not of growth as the days are cold and the nights dark and long. I have, perhaps, only a few more harvests left so I cut most of the greens this Thursday so Juana and I could enjoy a large salad still from my garden. It was delicious, an early Christmas gift.

Therapy on hold

It’s been too long since I have last posted, which has been due to a combination of events out of my control. The first, and perhaps most relevant, is that I am between horticultural therapy programs. I am no longer working at Green Chimneys as a volunteer, as my mentor has moved on to other jobs and situations. I have missed working with the children but at the same time excited about starting up a new program in February at Ann’s Place in Danbury to help those whose lives have been touched by cancer.

So my activities have been around putting the finishing touches on different therapeutic spaces at my new facility in Danbury as well cleaning up after all the storms we have experienced.

At Ann’s Place I just finished planting 3,400 alliums and daffodils in the front of the facility. While that seems like a daunting number of bulbs it provides only the most basic of foliage and flowers when all emerge from the ground. I planted the bulbs in three different layers: Daffodils eight inches down, medium-sized alliums four inches down and tiny allium bulbs 2 inches below the surface. The hope is that they will spring up between April and August giving clients and staff a nice display as they enter our facility.

We have also installed nearly 200 ferns as well as hemlocks and American hollies around a picnic area with benches and a table. I am hoping that staff as well as clients can use this area for reflection and support. I planted many Christmas ferns around one holly as a holiday focal point. Hopefully next year it will be in full bloom.

Walkways and winter rye have finished the job for this season so I can focus on building a program this winter.

Working around the garden at home has been another story; it’s been more work than therapy. I have always tried to approach garden work with a Zen-like serenity and enjoy the moment. This year, unfortunately, that has not always been the case as combinations of illness, accidents and natural gotcha’s have delayed and added to the many garden tasks.

This last month was focused on getting ready for winter. As I burned up nearly one-quarter of my split wood supply keeping the house warm in early November, I spent quite a few days splitting more wood to just replenish my supply. Every day for a week and a half, I would go out to split oak and ash for an hour or so. Splitting wood has a rhythm that I enjoy. The picking up and splitting again and again of the same piece has a calming effect while I listen to the music of my back yard.

But I felt more stressed than relaxed as I felt that the weather could turn to the worse at any moment. Ironically, that was the furthest from the truth as this past November has been the mildest I can remember. There were quite a few days where my skinny bleached white legs exposed themselves to passers by. The lack of consistent hard frosts manifested itself through my cats picking up tick after tick during their outdoor forages. Gnats, mosquitoes and other flying vermin swarmed around my face and arms. For Thanksgiving I had more bug bites than servings of my favorite dessert.

The warm weather, however, permitted me to repair over 100 feet of fencing that had been damaged or downed by the two storms we have had this fall. It was warm enough to replace and set in concrete 10 new posts as well as reset existing posts that had not been felled. My local arborist dropped nearly 20 yards of wood chips for me to distribute and I spent the better of a week wheelbarrowing the chips to all the different beds needed to be refreshed. As I started the task, wisps of warm composting smoke rose from the top of the pile and continued until I knocked down its mass a bit.

Through all this I have been able to harvest salads nearly every other day as my cold frame and Agribon hoop house has kept the lettuces and Swiss Chard all the ready to eat. Even though the temperature hit a low of 22 degrees this week, all the different plants are doing well.

Now that I have finished all of my autumnal chores (with just days to spare to winter) I can now concentrate on the few things you can still do in the garden like harvest the remaining (and surviving greens), splitting wood as it gets used and starting to review the catalogs that start to come this time of year in preparation for the spring.

Recalling a blackout and October snow

Writing by candlelight and fire evokes images of Abe Lincoln or Ben Franklin recording their thoughts at the end of a long day. But there is little else I was able to do after days without power finding myself alone tending a fire to keep the house warm and the pets fed. This trip back to an off- (or non-existent) grid New England was caused by a freak October snow storm that dumped nearly 18 inches of snow on my back yard. Only now, have I had the chance to post after more than a week of cleaning and catching up.

Initially pretty with large fluffy flecks covering the ground and plants, the snow became more and more menacing as the trees and bushes started to groan and sag against the weight of the snow. By 4:30 in the afternoon nearly 10 inches had dropped in a little over 4 hours and with it many a branch. The progression was fairly consistent: a slow and constant drop of a limb until it stopped moving downward. Nothing save more snow. It then became a waiting game. Could or would the tree be able to hold its own against the snow? Would the snow stop soon? How much would break or crack off?

Sometimes the branch released its cargo with a whoosh and thump like flour from a bag. It then shot upward to catch more snow and start its slow, downward movement again. Other times the snow was liberated only after a branch snapped with a large crack followed by a thud. This spectacle was repeated all evening until the morning when all was white and silent. Everything was broken and we were without power for nearly an entire week.

The butterfly bushes were crushed and laid over on their sides. The hydrangea snapped into pieces with their dried flowers smashed and spread all over. The Montauk daisies were crushed. The ornamentals fared the worse, particularly the Japanese maples.

All of the maples save one lost large chunks of their upper canopies. Like so many toothpicks the branches were scattered with jagged edges some hanging by a thin sliver of bark or wood. One of the trees split into three parts; one for each main leader that rose near the ground from a common base. It was splayed helpless among the pachysandra resting between a concrete Buddha and a crescent of azaleas. It seemed hopeless.

But the next week brought rapidly melting snow (though there is still a small pile in my yard) and progress. The damage forced me to cut back bushes and trees much sooner than I would have. Remarkably I was able to cable the trisected maple together with the base fitting neatly and cleanly together.  I started to split wood every day as I burned through 1/3rd a cord in just a week. With each exhausting day came repair and the a view that this natural pruning process was not as bad as it could have been.

 

One surprise was how well my fall greens held up. Covered with Agribon and glass, my cold frames withheld the weight of the snow and saved the lettuces as well as the Swiss chard. My carrots emerged from the snow with tops still green and looking well. Even the herb garden suffered little damage save a few burnt leaves.

Last week I harvested a salad to have with my dinner. It was delicious.

Building a program—Part 2: Finishing the back

Putting up a deer fence was both an end and starting point. It was the end of the carnage by the deer. If the snow didn’t save them from deer last winter, any remaining plants got chewed up in the spring or died during the rainless July this summer. But now we can start anew. Out of the 70 or so plants we put in last year, 45 were gone and needed to be replaced. Then another 40 needed to be put in around the building and walls now that work was finished.

So many of the plants we had installed last year had been reduced to dead twigs. Because hay instead of straw had been put down to control erosion, we had a big crop of rye grass and associated weeds, which was not the fescue we needed to plant for the back yard.

A backhoe was brought in to remove the sod and grade the area so that water would run away from the building and into a trench leading to the wetlands. Two knee walls were constructed earlier to ensure that the run off would not drain into a patio area.

Mark, the operator, had a wonderfully light touch as he delicately scraped the old sod away and replaced it with new topsoil. He was able to just pull away the right amount of soil with a huge steel arm as a child would run her fingers through the sand. Within a few hours, the area was ready for seeding.

While Mark was working on getting the back ready for a lawn, I with a bunch of landscapers started to plant all the different trees and bushes: American Cranberry, Inkberry, Winterberry, Swamp Azalea, Mountain Laurel, High and Low Bush blueberry, Elderberry, Gray and Red-Osier Dogwood and Spirea were just the beginning. Planting was bittersweet as for almost every plant I positioned another needed to be yanked and discarded. I now understand why professional landscapers around here choose such large specimens: more survival chances against man and beast. In a few cases, I needed to direct the laborers not to step on Witch Hazel saplings, indicating that they were not sticks but rather living plants.

Soon the lawn was ready for seeding. I have had 100 pounds of fescue seed in my basement for 5 months waiting for this moment. Ironically this was the last possible day (October 12) that I could plant: the next week or so looked warm so that the seeds would have the needed sun and temperatures for germination. Rain looked imminent so we worked quickly smoothing out the soil, broadcasting the seed and then spreading shredded straw over the area to hold the seed and erosion. We had just enough seed and straw to finish the job.

As we started to put away the tools it began to rain. Not heavy, but a steady soft rain that would moisten the soil and give the grass, transplanted trees and bushes a good start. I thanked all the people who helped me, loaded my shovels, pick ax and rakes into the car happy that we had finally finished the back area before the bad weather hits. 

Building a program—Part 1: Fighting the deer

Over the past 4 months or so I have been spending a lot of time at Ann’s Place working to build a series of therapeutic gardens. The first phase of this project is almost done after a series of delays that have been caused by the crummy weather we have had this past summer. In the early summer, we started work with the idea that we would be done by Labor Day. Not so much.

The first project was started last year when we tried to get a jump start on the season by planting 4000 daffodils, creating a nature path and planting two-thirds of our native bushes and trees that was part of a mitigation garden required by the town. It looked great in the fall when we planted it; not so much in the spring after the ungulate version of the Taliban decided to lay waste. Between them and the very dry July we had, over half of the plantings were killed and the other half severely pruned.

But as we discovered this, we were able to reclaim some of the surrounding landscape. Like much of Connecticut, the property was ringed with stone walls that had fallen into disrepair; the prior state of neatly stacked stones appeared more as piles of rubble. Fortunately we had a group of volunteer executives from one of our corporate sponsors that hungered for some heavy duty physical effort. We obliged them.

They were amazing as they did not work as executives often do, sitting down at a conference table munching a Danish while listening to a PowerPoint presentation. Rather they were hauling, prying, moving, wheel barrowing, grunting their way to move the rocks back into place that time, nature and people have moved about.

Within six hours they reclaimed over 400 feet of wall and must have moved 10 tons or more of stone. Not bad for free help.

There was another contingent that was less aggressive in their desires, which was great as I needed a group to weed and plant. I had to be careful with instructions for weeding as the site has a lot of Jack-in-the-pulpit planted as well as other wild flowers. But after a few mis-weeds, they followed instructions well and rid the path and site of crabgrass, garlic mustard and other invasives.

Those who didn’t weed helped plant up 80 ferns and 300 Blue Flag irises, which I used to stabilize a hill and fill in an area that is often wet.

But then came the rainy August and September, which stopped us in our tracks (and that of our outdoor contractors.) With over 25 inches of rain over 60 days if it wasn’t raining, it was drying out. Last week we were able to start anew.

We started by deciding to install over 400 feet of deer fence to create a Green Zone against the deer. Amazingly we were able to use existing trees and dig holes that avoided the vast amount of rock that exists around the site. I was worried that the black steel poles and plastic fencing would detract our view into the woods where a few winterberry and grey dogwoods among the barberry escaped the fate of hungry deer.

But once it was done, like the deer it was blocking, it minimized into the background with notice only when the sun shimmered on its profile. We now needed to start the grading and finish planting the rest of the trees. But most important, all the things we were about to plant would get at least a fighting chance from the deer.

The sweet smell of students

 

A new semester recently started at Green Chimneys and with that a new group of students. Coming back after a month’s absence (a two week vacation and two hurricanes) its time to get into the fall chores and get to learn about a new group of students. This fall’s group will be bittersweet, like the season, as I will only be working with them through Thanksgiving. After that I will be taking a break until the spring and then hopefully back with the kids.

But until then there is lots to do in the garden. Today should be spent taking down the tomato plants, which have given up the ghost to leaf spot and weather conditions that vacillated between desert and flood. One of my new charges, Ben, was happy to have gotten the job and wanted to be a good worker.

“I will be a good worker for you, Mr. Keller. That way I can earn my money.”

So we started slow, cutting the stalks off the diseased plants. I showed Ben two different examples of tomatoes: one that had a healthy vine and the other with one that was diseased. At first he couldn’t articulate the differences but a bit of prodding got him on the right track.

My next student, Bill, was more observant but he told me he had never eaten a tomato before. “Bill you must have eaten tomatoes before in some form. Do you like Italian food?”

“I love spaghetti,” he replied. “Well tomatoes are often used in the sauce,” I said. I then picked up a basil leaf that we plant in between the tomato plants and rubbed the basil under his nose. “Do you know this smell?”

“I think so but I don’t know from where,” he said. “How about pizza?” I then told him to rub the basil under his nose and eat a cherry tomato at the same time. He looked at me strangely but then ate the fruit. He started to smile and agreed that it tasted like pizza and the tomatoes were really good. (I felt as if I was having a “Green Eggs and Ham,” moment with him.") I told Bill that he could eat as many of the cherry tomatoes that he wanted to. With that incentive he started to prune with greater urgency, taking a tomato every time he cut off a stalk and placed it into a garbage bag (we throw out all diseased plants rather than put them into the compost heap.)

My next student was off at a special meeting so I walked back to the garden. When I got there a pack of pre-schoolers were walking around with their teachers looking at the garden. I asked them if they would like to do something special and they all said yes.

I walked them around one of the corners of the herb garden by our large patch of wooly thyme. I then told them to take both of their hands, rub the thyme and then smell their fingers. They first couldn’t get enough of rubbing as the soft, wool-like plant tickled their fingers. Then they smelled their fingers and started to giggle.

Next to the wooly thyme is our mint patch so I broke off a stem and gave a leaf to each child and told them to smell it. “It smells like gum,” said one. “Yeah, can we eat it?” asked another.

I told them that they could and then I broke off a small branch and started to tickle each of their noses. “Tickle my nose again!” insisted a small, bespeckled girl.  I have never had such a receptive audience. I then showed them sunflowers, one that was pollinated and the other that was not, and explained how seeds were make. I cut open each flower showing them the difference between the two.

“You see each of these holes? Each used to hold a seed as was a little bed. Each seed could grow into a plant that was this tall, “ I said pointing as some of our sunflowers that were 10 feet high. The children were amazed that such a tiny seed could grow into a much larger plant. I gave each child a seed and told them to put it into the ground next spring. Each held out a tiny hand wanting a seed. I placed one in each hand and hoped that it was not the only seed that would bear fruit in the future.

A teddy becomes a grizzly

One of the nicest (and sometimes the most frustrating) things about gardening is the unexpected. In the garden, one of the more pleasant experiences that can manifest itself is an opportunistic crop or plant. For instance, this year an ornamental squash started in my bed where I planted Swiss chard in the spring. So far it has delivered 15 squash with at least another 6 on the way in the next few days. At Green Chimneys this year our opportunistic plant is not squash but sunflowers.

Three years ago we planted three different types of sunflowers: Moulin Rogue (all red), Gigantuous (big and yellow) and Ring of Fire (red in the center, yellow on the edges.) But since then we have not planted a single sunflower but we keep getting more and more sunflowers in the garden with each year. This year they were as thick as chickweed and we needed to pull out a lot more than we would have liked to.

But the interesting thing about these sunflowers is that only a few bear any resemblance to their elderly relatives. We have many different shades and configurations of red and yellow sunflowers in the garden because they have been cross-pollinated with a different cultivars for three years running. So a wild variety of flowers has bloomed with different heights, colors and flower configurations.

We have a couple of sunflowers in the garden that are over 12 feet high with a single defiant spike daring the squirrels to climb and eat (like the one to the right). Others have formed big clumps with small, but tall flowers.

But perhaps the strangest was the mutant Teddy Bear sunflower that appeared a few weeks ago. At the top of one of the large clumps, about 8 feet in the air was a Teddy Bear sunflower blossom about the size of a small seedless watermelon.  Teddy Bear sunflowers grow to a maximum height of two feet, with a smallish flower. This was not your typical teddy bear: it’s a grizzly.

“This must have cross pollinated with a Teddy Bear that was planted in the barrels down by the administration building [about a half mile away],” said Tracy. “It’s pretty cool looking.” Tracy and I agreed to try and save the seed of this big flower so that we could see what its offspring will look like next year.