GroHappy

Forgotten pleasures

Though I spend much of my time with my head in the weeds and hands in the soil, there are many other passive outdoor pleasures that have been forgotten. Early last week we had blistering heat in the Northeast with temperatures in the 80s and a constant dry wind. This weather called me to hang out our laundry, which we often start to do later in the year. This was not the first time this year we hung our cloths outside as mid-March was toasty. But today seemed different with the emerging leaves on the trees more pronounced than a month ago. Spring, and my garments, was in the air.

As I took the laundry outside the winds were whipping about making it more difficult to attach them to the line. A wet shirt slapped me as I stretched its bottom hem along the line while straightening its arms. The damp smell of the detergent was a reminder of my task as I wheeled the line toward the fence and crabapple tree. My jeans were a wet ball that had to be shaken out so they would hang flattened against the wind. Socks were put on a basket to stay in the sun.

The heat on my back contrasted with the coolness being blown toward me from the cloths. I needed only two clothesline spreaders so the laundry wouldn’t drop and touch the grass and emerging lilies. As I stood back and looked at the line, I wondered how many of my neighbors put their clothes out to dry. When I was a child, someone was always in trouble at my house or others when an errant kickball or whiffle ball caused a run into a set of drying garments. The clothesline was always out of bounds.

An elderly neighbor once told my wife that he loved the fact that she hung our laundry out. Particularly the sheets. “It reminds me of my mother when she used to put the laundry out to dry.”  I have the same memory.

A re-bolting situation

Today it is normal. It was in the mid-30s when I woke up and is supposed to reach the 50s later this afternoon. Tomorrow it will snow or rain. Typical for late March. And all my lettuce is bolting.

I thought that I was poised for a good spring harvest of greens. I was feeding my granddaughter Charlotte samples from my garden in early March. I had successfully transplanted everything that survived our very mild winter to my cold frame, fed them with compost and watched them grow.

But before the Ides of March, Nature decided to throw a few curve balls in the guise of not just warm but unbelievably hot weather. Days in the 60s, 70s and even a few in the 80s. Nights in the 50s. This isn't March. This is May or June. And that is exactly what my greens thought. They were growing fast and large, requiring water as the soil was beginning to dry out. Now who in the Northeast waters their garden in March? Well this year it was me.

I had perfect greens for a week. Fast growing and delicious. But soon that was over.

Beyond getting big, my winter greens developed summer-like flowers and blooms. I have never had VIT (Valerianella locusta)  flower and Miner’s lettuce (Claytonia perfoliata) doesn’t flower until mid June. The Asian greens, usually succulent and slightly sweet in early Spring, are bitter and leather-like. I usually eat all of it well before that is possible. Not this year. I am already weeding for chickweed and I have seen a slug or two saunter toward a leaf or two of some seedlings I have planted. This season it seems as I can’t trust anything. And now it looks like snow.

Celebrating the sun

To say that it has been unusual winter in the Northeast is an understatement and the first day of Spring was no different with temperatures in the mid 70s in Fairfield County and every chlorophyll-filled entity thinking it was May. In celebration of the season, we went for a nature walk at Ann’s Place and built sundials from trees and branches that were downed last year during our hurricane and Snotober.

The grounds were accommodating in beginning to show off their potential. A few of the 4,000 daffodils planted in the back started to unveil themselves though most were just awakening. The muscari was emerging along the path, its bunches of tiny grape-like purple blooms poking their spears though the soil appearing among the greening fescue grass.

As we walked the grounds everyone was amazed by how all the buds were swollen and ready to burst. “Here are a couple of things you want to avoid,” I pointed out. I then cut a sprout of Japanese barberry from a plant that had lodged itself in the rocks showing the class the tail tell orange innards as well as the spiky stems. “If you have this in your yard, you want to get rid of it. It may be pretty but it will take over,” I said and then pointed to the wetland area beyond the fence. It was filled with barberry, which was letting little else survive. Some skunk cabbages were making an attempt to show and flower, but they were hard to see under the blanket of greening barberry.

“Here is something else you want to avoid,” as I pointed to an attractive green floret. I attempted to pull it off but snapped off the stem. “This is not what you want to do when you try to get rid of garlic mustard. Pretty soon we will have to start weeding in earnest.”

As we walked around the garden, the sun started poking through the clouds. It was a good time to bring the group back to the front where I had set up an example of what we would be building that afternoon: a sundial.

“This is what all of you will be making today, a sundial. My wife, who is vastly more talented than me, made this one and it is accurate to our longitude and latitude.”

As some of my clients looked at me strangely (a familiar look) I explained. “It is guaranteed that nearly any sundial you purchase will be wrong as it need to be timed, so to speak, to the latitude and longitude where the sundial will reside. For people in the New York City area . . .” I then went on to describe the mathematics of sundials and how they work.  While the class was interested and attentive in how sundials worked it was clear they wanted to start building their own sundials.

Unlike other exercises we have had, building a sundial is much less free form as there are two important things you must consider. The first is transferring hour lines to the correct position on the dial face. The other is to position the gnomon, which casts the shadow on the dial, in the center of the dial so it lays directly above the line for high noon.

In keeping with the horticultural therapy theme, I cut the dials from a locust and black birch trees that fell on my property during the year. The gnomons were cut from Japanese red maple, sugar maple, black birch, and oak. I cut the disks as uniform as I could and then used my table saw to cut each gnomon so that it would lay on the dial at an angle of 41 degrees, which is the latitude of the NYC area. Given these materials, a series of instructions and templates, the group set off to work.

The usual casual chatter was deferred for quiet determination as each client focused on drawing their lines on the slab of their choice accurately. “Remember nothing is wrong until you commit a permanent marker to the wood and even then we can probably sand most anything off.”

Unlike other sessions, this one was filled with purpose and concentration. One of the clients became frustrated early as she was having a hard time working through the transfers of the sundial hour lines to her dial. “Nothing is wrong with what you are doing,” I assured her. “Just determine which direction you want your sundial to point toward and put down the template like this.” I demonstrated how to transfer the information and she became much calmer. A slight smile emerged.

“The fun part of this is how you personalize the sundial and what type of designs you want to consider. Those should be done free hand without transfer paper.”

As the session went on, everyone became more at ease with the task at hand and started to create different and unique designs (which I could not record as the battery on my camera died.) The chatter started slowly and then people were talking and sharing ideas as has been typical. When they were finished, each had a sundial that would tell time in their back yard. All were very happy with their accomplishment.

“I never would have thought about doing something like this,” said one. “But it turned out better than I ever could have imagined.”

When the clients finished their pieces, I sprayed them a few times with a quick drying lacquer to hold up against the elements. “You should consider putting a coat or two of spar varnish on these if you want them to last outside,” I suggested.

I then told them how to set their sundials at night, gave them a instruction sheet to help them remember and then sent them on their way. As I was cleaning up I noticed that the sun was still visible in the sky and my wife’s sundial had been left out still telling time.

Vacation from gardening, sort of

When it is February in Connecticut, there are few gardening tasks at hand as the soil is cold and the only thing that warms the soul is the prospect of new growth pushing through the ground in the next month or so. In the next week I will be starting flats of early greens and other vegetables. Flowers and warm-weather vegetables a few weeks later. As my horticultural activities are in stasis, I thought it was a good time to head down south where I can get a jump on a farmer’s tan and enjoy the already green landscape.

If we were having a spring-like winter up north, the south was experiencing a summer-like winter with temperatures in the mid-80s. The grass was a lush green, trees in full bloom and sun lovers in all manners of undress. The wind off the ocean felt warm with the slightest smell of seaweed.

So like a long dormant perennial I soaked up the sun. I was a plant, not a gardener. This would not last as eventually the siren song of working in a garden would prove to be too enticing.

One morning at my friend Brian’s house in the Florida Key’s, he mentioned that he needed some help cleaning out and cutting down vegetation around his fish pond, which had been depleted of fish by a resident frog and crab.  This sounded like a nice way to spend the morning so naturally I volunteered. At first I thought just a few small trees and bushes would need to be removed. When my friend got out the chain saw I realized that the job would become much larger.

When you live in the north you don’t realize that potentially invasive nature of a Southern garden. Like the ruins of Tikal or Chichén-Itzá if you stop cutting down foliage, it will quickly overrun your space. That is kind of what happened in my friend’s fish pond. He planted a couple of papyrus plants in his pond and within a few years, it had spread and taken over. An agave plant that was taken from a tiny houseplant was now the size of a small elephant with porcupine sharp spikes. Trees that started as sticks a few years back, shot up 10 feet high with tuffs of leaves on their tops shading everything below. And finally a neighbor's tree with spiked bark hung over the fence completing the darkening of this area.

It started simply enough with a few small trees being removed with little problem. It didn’t appear to be too hot and the prospect to work outside was appealing to me with my exposed snow-colored legs reflecting the sun like the White Sands in New Mexico. Soon I was up on a ladder cutting down limbs with a chain saw with sawdust falling in my eyes and beginning to coat my increasingly sweaty shirt. Within an hour my skin was covered with creamy, yellow dust that I hoped that I was not allergic to as it became pasty on my epidermis. You never know in the topics.

With each toppled branch came the opportunity to cut another. And another, And another. Little thorns were sticking in my arm like severed stingers from a swarm of angry bumblebees. Razor-like leaves etched fine lines in my legs and arms: the work of Nature’s tattooist.   I was a stinky, sweaty, bloody mess. It was great! Soon we had cleared out enough brush to fill half of Brian’s back patio area and opened the pond to sun it hadn’t seen in years. Brian was happy with the results and said that he could easily muck out the pond, evicting it of its unwelcome tenants.

Fine by me. I was happy to finish a morning’s gardening. Time for a shower and beer.

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.

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.

Hot, hot, hot

By now there have been all too many stories about the heat that has enveloped the East as well as much of the country. Nature is neither cruel nor kind. It just is. And we have to accept and deal with it. Acceptance has meant determining what we decide to pay attention to in the garden and what must make it on its own. At Green Chimneys this has been a tougher choice as the water pressure in the Children’s Garden is so low only a trickle of water is available at any one time. Irrigation has been ineffective.  So many of the fields have remained parched. The beets, which last year were lush and thick with growth, are just tiny stubs sticking out of the ground. Weeding is a dusty exercise as the roots barely hold on to the dry soil. Last week the temperatures were in the 90s and peaked over 100. We tried to work in the mornings but by noon it was just too hot and we decided to give up any efforts to weed or work in the garden. Better to stay inside with air-conditioned comfort.

At home, I had similar choices to make but decided to fight the elements by watering and weeding. More watering than anything else. The plants that are the most unforgiving in this climate are the flower boxes containing annuals as well as our indoor potted plants that take up residence on our balcony for the summer. They need watering sometimes twice a day, particularly if they are out in the sun. But most plants can take a deep every-other-day watering and get along nicely. The only solace in this type of climate is that the slugs have burrowed deep into the ground, leaving my greens and other plants alone.

I have focused more on the flowering plants and the vegetables as their production (and beauty) are more needy of water than the trees or large bushes like my rhododendrons. These denizens are used to long periods without water and can tolerate it without much fuss. The same cannot be said of the hydrangeas, butterfly bushes, tomatoes and squashes whose blossoms will either droop or drop without the needed hydration.

But I haven’t minded watering too much as it gives me a chance to think about the day ahead (or behind) in a quiet way. I can look carefully at all my different plants to see how they are doing and if they need a nip here or if an errant poison ivy or grape vine plant has taken root somewhere in my yard. Watering was one of the ways I become more enthused about gardening decades ago as it became my balm after difficult and long days in the office. Rather than soak my liver in alcohol or my family with rude comments, I retreated to the garden and relaxed with a watering can and hose. I quickly become human and able to care for my family.

Most days I spend between 60 and 90 minutes watering. Last Wednesday because of some travel, I spent nearly 4 hours getting my plants wet. With a pouring rain last night, the first in weeks, we have finally got a break  as I woke up to a cool temperature of 62 degrees and soaked soil. I don’t have to water for at least a day or two. And now I have some time to harvest. The tomatoes have started to come in, the potatoes are ready to dig out and I need to pull some blueberries off the bushes.

Back to school

I haven't written much about working with students in a while because I haven't been working with students for a while. A combination of wicked weather and personal/business conflicts conspired to stop my involvement in Green Chimneys for months. But I'm now back in the saddle (or compost) with a half dozen students and the ability to start working the soil. We have had a nearly perfect melt in the northeast with almost Goldilocks conditions (with the exception of last weekend where we got nearly 5 inches of rain in a single day.) We have had a steady and slow melt since mid February so that while the soil is a bit saturated it can be walked on rather than act as a quicksand-like quagmire that will swallow a boot with a quick muddy gulp.

Last Thursday was a rainy day with more to come but I am hopeful that we will be able to plant radishes and peas in the garden later this week. I went out to the Children's Garden a few days ago and saw that  the cauliflower, mustard greens and some of the lettuce is coming back from a rough winter. The carrots are intact, nice and sweet ready for harvest. In my garden for the hungry a few kale seeds have sprouted sending up little baby leaves that can be harvested in a month or so.

The garden at this time of year is a bit mysterious as you will soon find out how well you dealt with the weeds of the past year: if you did a good job in the fall your rows will be fallow and empty. Not so well, your rows will be filled with more weeds than you care to count. Some plants, like dill or fennel, go from desired herb to invasive weed as their seed pods and roots are very generous spreading their progeny. 

The children are excited but wary of going out to the garden. It was a raw rainy day; not the best time to be rejoicing in nature. So we are doing some busy work as well as planning our garden. A simple review of seed catalogs open their eyes to the potential of months to come and the different flowers that could come their way. Bill spent over 15 minutes carefully examining a Parks Seed catalog amazed at the different flowers and vegetables he found. "I didn't think peas had so many pretty flowers," he commented.

Such references help us define the season and the jobs to come. It is hard to imagine that just a week ago the only grass that could be seen was covered with snow mold and monuments of dirty snow that distinguished each corner. But now it is time to get ready.

One of my students categorizes all the seed we have received for the season. Another starts a tray of spring flowers. Another re-pots a few overgrown aloe plants. Another whittles a stick. My students are coming out of their dormancy and like the garden almost ready to burst into growth.

The big melt

A big rain storm capping off two weeks of mild weather and a tiny bit of snow has given us hope that winter will end soon and soil will emerge from under the snow. The snow pack has dropped from over three feet to just over one foot in our back yard. But the back and forth thawing and freezing that has occurred over the past month, while great for maple syrup production, has made the yard an icy hard undulating surface.

The rain then isn’t so much going through to melt the snow but is running off the top in little streams along the contour of the back yard. Over the past few weeks and in fast-forward motion today tiny benches, statues and plants are emerging. We haven’t see any of the three large viburnum for months and now their puff ball like skeleton is emerging from the snow. Each hour reveals new branches that fell during the past three months showing us that there is a lot of clean up at hand.

Each of the feeders reveals a mat of frozen seeds that the birds and squirrels never got to during their feedings. All of this makes it hard to think of seeding or starting a new garden. The plethora of seed and gardening catalogs arriving have slowed to a trickle indicating to me that it is time to make a few choices and place a few orders. It still seems fruitless as there is no hint of soil that can be tilled and planted.

So I as well as the outside are in a bit of a fog about nature. My wife loves this excessive effect of evapotranspiration. When the fog clears, so perhaps will most of the snow.