Category Archives: vegetables

vegetables

Start your cool season veggies

Leave a comment

Plants and trees know when it’s time to bloom and begin growing for the season.  Driving around our area I’ve seen the huge flowers of the saucer magnolias starting to unfurl. Many plum trees look like pink clouds they have so many blossoms. It’s time to start planning and planting the vegetable garden.
 
Towards the end of this month start your tomato and pepper seeds indoors so they are ready to transplant outdoors in 6-8 weeks. Meanwhile, begin sowing seeds of cool season vegetables outside. Prepare the soil by amending with compost and plant seeds for carrots, peas, spinach, beets, chard and lettuce. You can get a jump on your spring harvest by setting out starts of broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and green onions.

If you don’t want to wait even that long to start eating your own healthy vegetables, try growing micro greens inside your house like houseplants. It’s similar to sprouting alfalfa, cress, sunflower and buckwheat seeds in a jar and eating them before the second set of leaves emerge. Micro greens, however, can be grown in soil, sprinkled on sponges or fine textured fabric. Because they won’t be around long enough to flower or fruit, they don’t need much light. . It takes about 30 days for micro greens to set their first leaves and be ready to harvest. When the first leaves appear they are at the peak of their nutritional concentration.

What do they taste like? Well, carrot greens, after they set their first true leaf, taste exactly like a carrot. Emerging radish leaves are spicy, cabbage is mild, while sunflowers are nutty. The first swiss chard leaf tastes like spinach, beets have an earthy flavor and kale is slightly sweet. The most intense flavor comes when that first leaf opens as they begin to manufacture energy from light.  Think of them as chia pets you can eat.

bare root plants, trees,shrubs,vines,perennials, vegetables

Planting Bare Root

Leave a comment

At first glance,  bare root trees,  shrubs , vines and berries don’t look very inspiring.  It’s hard to imagine that those dormant branches harbor a bounty of fruits, flowers and vegetables.  It can all be yours, however, by planting from bare root stock now available in nurseries.

What exactly are bare root plants and why do they make a good choice when you want to add to your garden?  Bare root plants are carefully dug up at growing grounds  with their roots bare, meaning that most of the dirt around the roots has been removed.   One of the largest growers harvests 2 million bare root plants iSyringa chinensis
n a 30 day period, usually in December.

One of the primary advantages of bare root plants is that they tend to have an extensive, well developed root system as a result of being allowed to develop normally.  When the trees are handled well, the root system is left intact, and the tree, shrub, vine or berry will have a better chance of rooting well and surviving when planted.   Bare roots don’t have to adapt to any differences between container soil and your garden’s.  Bare root trees are also cheaper to ship because the lack of a dirt ball makes them much lighter, and this lightness makes them easier to handle, too.

Shop for your plants in January or February while they are still dormant.  Once leaves emerge or flower buds start to swell your tree or shrub’s roots have already started growing and they won’t do as well.  With this in mind be wary of spring sale bareroot stock.  Also trees or shrubs in packages may have had their roots pruned to fit inside or the packaging material may have dried out or become soggy.  Better to see the roots for yourself before you bring your new addition home.
   
The age of bare root trees and shrubs varies. Generally they are between a two and three years old.  You will not be able to see much when you purchase a bare root plant, as it will be leafless  since it is in a dormant state, but in the spring, it will come to life and transform the garden.

There are several steps to planting bare root trees.  It’s important to plant your new arrival soon after you bring it home to insure the roots do not dry out.  If you’re unable to plant right away, lay it down and cover with moist soil or compost. When you’re ready to plant,  first trim any roots that are broken with sharp pruners.  Broken roots can rot but cleanly cut ones will heal and grow. Then soak the plant in a tub of water for an hour , while you prepare the soil for planting.  Loosen the soil in a wide radius around the area where you plan to plant.  Then, dig a big hole much larger than the root ball of the plant and as deep as needed to accommodate the roots  so that the roots will have room to stretch out, rather than being compressed in the planting process. 

Next, wrangle an assistant if you are planting a large tree, shrub or vine like a wisteria.  While one of you holds the plant in the hole, making sure that if it has a graft this is above the level or the soil.  The other should gently shovel in dirt, trying not to pack it down too hard. You want the soil to be loose enough to filter down among the roots.  Make sure that the assistant holds the tree straight and in such a way that the roots are suspended in the hole, rather than pressed against the bottom. If your soil is extremely sandy or clayey amend it with 20% compost.

As you shovel in soil, make sure that the roots are spread well apart.  Fill the hole halfway, gently shake the plant up and down to let soil sift down, then tamp lightly and fill the rest of the hole. The soil should fill in the air spaces around the roots and when you water it in the first time, use lots of water to eliminate the air pockets and settle the soil.  Making a watering ring around the plant makes watering easier and you’re assured that the root zone is thoroughly watered.  When the planting is finished, mulch the tree, leaving  a few inches of unmulched soil around the trunk.   Don’t water again until the soil is dry an inch or two down.  Winter rains hopefully will  take care of this for you for a long time.  Dormant plants need much less water than actively growing ones and their roots develop poorly in soggy soil.
 
Only stake your new tree if you live in a windy area.  A trunk will attain a larger diameter if it’s allowed to move slighly in the wind.  Usually it’s not necessary to prune a young tree much while it is trying to grow new roots. Trimming a long branch or leader by a third is OK if necessary.  You can start limbing up a shade tree after a couple of years if you wish.

There are many fruiting , flowering and shade trees to choose from.  Also shrubs like roses, lilacs and pussy willows are available bare root.   Wisteria vines are especially easy to plant  bare root as are .  Don’t miss this opportunity to add to your garden’s bounty.    

 

erosion control, gardening tips, organic fertilizers, sustainable gardening, vegetables

Put your Garden to Bed

Leave a comment

 There’s a peaceful quality to this time of year.  Mother Nature is winding down for the season turning deciduous trees ablaze with fall color.  Cool season pansies and violas turn their little faces to catch the sun.  It’s time to put the garden to bed for a greener spring next year. 

 Here are some suggestions, but promise you won’t try to do everything on one weekend.  it’ll just seem like work.  Gardening should be something you enjoy. 

  • Build up your soil by layering the vegetable beds with 2" of leaves newly fallen from your trees.  Soil building worms and organisms will start their work right away.  In the spring, dig what’s left into the soil.  If you want the leaves to break down faster, run over them with a lawn mower, then rake them up for mulch.
  •  Prevent erosion of your precious soil by mulching with straw or bark.  Mulch used around perennials, shrubs and trees will help moisture percolate into the soil instead of running off into storm drains or creeks along with fertilizers.    Mulch also keeps the soil from becoming compacted by winter rains.  If you don’t have enough leaves to use as mulch try layering newspapers and cardboard and cover with straw.  3-4" of mulch around the base of trees and large shrubs will hold weeds down, too.  Be sure to keep mulch a couple of inches away from the base of your plants so trapped moisture doesn’t rot the trunk. 
  • Chop down leftover vegetable plants and spent annuals flowers and layer on the vegetable bed under cardboard to decompose.  Don’t do this with diseases plants such as squash plants with powdery mildew.   These can be put in the curbside yard waste can.  Hot commercial composting systems can kill disease spores.
  • Clean empty pots and store them upside down in a dry location.  That way you’ll keep any soil diseases from being passed on to next year’s plants. 
  •  Store any excess leaves to use next summer if you have a lot of deciduous trees.  They’re like gold.  They make great bedding for a worm bin and next summer you can use them in the compost pile when you have an abundance of nitrogen rich green material but little carbon-based brown stuff to mix with it. 
  • Leave a little debris for wildlife so beneficial ground beetles have a place to live and birds can snack on seeds left on shriveled flowers.  Coneflowers, ornamental grasses and crocosmia all attract birds to their seed heads through the winter. 

The bottom line is to do those fall clean-up jobs as you have the time and energy.  Cleaning up in increments leaves height and interest in the garden and feeds the birds, too.

What you should do first, though, is to bring indoors houseplants that  spent the summer out on the patio. Also bring in any plants too tender to survive the winter outside. Be sure to inspect them for insect pests and wash them off.   Sub-topical plants  like tree ferns and bananas benefit from extra mulch to help them survive the worst of the winter weather.

It’s not too late to reseed thin spots on your lawn or apply a fall fertilizer to an existing one and if you have citrus trees, rhododendrons, azaleas or camellias they’ll benefit from an application of   Citrus use it for flower bud development and fruit sweetness.  Rhodies, azaleas, and camellias need it when flower buds begin to form.  It also improves flowering and root development of any plant and helps plants resist diseases and cold weather damage.