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.