A Midsummer Night's Management

Long summer days are here motivating the summer garden to fulfill its promise. Sunflowers are about to pop open, peppers have grown almost big enough to pick, and tomato plants are flush with green tomatoes. But before the promise is realized, we gardeners usually have a few more chores to do. As if tilling, planting, and fertilizing isn't enough--now we have to weed, stake, prune, thin and water.

Giant Sunflower getting ready to bloom.

Peppers filling out.

Weeding 

Although there are a number of  weeds in my garden that try to take over, Clover is my nemesis. White Clover originated in Europe and has become one of the most wide-spread legumes in the world. It used to be grown for animal feed, but the tricky little devils escaped to the urban landscape. In my  garden this persistent intruder is a real pain in the ass. Once clover makes its debut, it establishes itself in perpetuity, spreads like wildfire, and is pretty much impossible to eradicate without drastic (read 'chemical') measures. White clover grows from a main bulb hiding underground, surrounded by numerous tiny bulblets. Tugging the clover stems upward causes the many bulblets to come apart and spill back into the earth. One thing is sure:  it takes a lot of time to keep clover under control, again and again and again throughout the season.

White clover has bulblets that fall from the main bulb.

Two intrusive clovers:  White Clover (Trifolium repens) and Wood Sorrel (Oxalis corniculata)

Staking

Vegetable plants that produce heavy fruit (cukes, tomatoes, melons), and vining plants (peas, pole and fava beans) need to be supported in some way. A trellis or cage can keep the vegetables off the ground so that crawling insect pests (like slugs) and fungus are less likely to cause them harm. Really heavy fruit like melons can be supported by a cut -off piece of pantyhose tied to a trellis. I can't think of a better use for pantyhose than that. . .

A baby cuke supported by a string trellis.

Pruning--Tweaking

Pruning is too strong a word for this activity, rather it should be called 'tweaking'. At this time of year I cut off some of the bigger leaves on the tomato plants. This increases the amount of sunlight that reaches the flowers and fruit. Sunlight speeds up the fruit's growth rate as well as its sugar production. Similarly, pinching off the extra shoots that sprout up at leaf nodes on indeterminate tomato varieties helps the plant to focus energy on producing fruit. Three or four main branches are sufficient to get a good crop of tomatoes--and they will be bigger and ripen ripen weeks earlier than a plant with multitudes of sub-branches.

Indeterminate tomato varieties produce sprouts at leaf nodes.

Pinching back Basil will make a stronger and fuller plant.

Thinning

I hesitate to thin out vegetables that aren't worth eating when immature. It seems a waste. Carrots for instance are pretty worthless before they have some meat to them. But when vegetables grow too close together they compete with one another for nutrients and water. In the long view it's best to give veggies the room they need to grow, even if it means sacrificing some of their siblings.

Thinning beets

Watering

It's pretty obvious that plants need water, especially those in the process of producing vegetables and fruits. It's not always clear how much water is enough. Usually these plants need more than a summer rain shower can produce. I water the vegetable garden almost every night. While watering I try to visualize the moisture soaking all the way down to the bottom roots. If you are in doubt about whether you've watered enough, dig down a couple of inches. If it's dry, keep on watering.

It'll be worth it

As the long days fade to twilight, while lugging a heavy pail of weeds to the yard debris can, staking the cucumber, pinching back the tomatoes, pulling the excess carrots, or trying to see how much more watering is needed, I promise myself,  'All this will be worth it when the tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, garlic and basil are simmering on the stove making the best possible dinner on earth right from my garden.'

Extreme Pruning

Caring for a mature landscape is a learning experience for me. Eleven years ago I moved into my 100 year old house and started working on landscaping the yard. There wasn't anything exotic growing on the property, only a few trees and shrubs and grass. Over the years I've gotten rid of most of the lawn, the ungainly laurels, the sickly cherry tree, boxwood shrubs that smelled like cat pee, spider-mite infested arborvitae, and 2 topped blue Junipers. The 'original' plants that have been allowed to live on are the gangly but lovely lilacs, the old pear tree that when in bloom reminds me of a van Gogh painting, and the biggest Daphne odora I've ever seen. It was in full bloom the first time I walked into the back yard, and I swear it was the reason I bought the house.

Every spring my Daphne perfumes the neighborhood. And every year it has grown bigger and bigger. Most years I've trimmed it back a little here and there, but today I decided to get up close and personal and take care of needed business. It looks bedraggled now, but it will be a healthy bloomer next spring.

After the Daphne rejuvenation project, my afternoon was packed with pruning all over the backyard. As I worked on one patient my eye would find the next one that needed attention. All of the trees and shrubs that I added to the yard were small when they were planted. But they didn't stay that way. Leaves and branches had grown too close together, obstructing air circulation and potentially attracting fungi. Dead and diseased plant material had accumulated on the ground providing perfect habitats for insect pests. And some had gotten just too big, shading out other plants that needed more sunlight. This was major. This called for extreme pruning.

Onward I went, loppers in one hand, pruning saw in the other, and pruners ready in the holster. I thinned and shaped the Chinese Elm (Ulmus parvifolia), cut back the contorted mulberry (Unryu morus), and pruned off the water sprouts on the apple tree. My yard debris cans overflowed.

The day wasn't long enough to get it all done. The grape vine still needs to be thinned out and cut back before it takes over the old pear tree. In the front yard the Chinese Dogwood needs limbing up, the voraciously growing Black-leaf Elderberry (Sambucus nigra 'Black Beauty') must be hacked back, and it's time to deadhead the roses.

Cherries!

When I was a kid, right around this time of year, I spent many happy hours climbing the 5 cherry trees in our backyard and gorging on the luscious red ripe fruit. Now as I write this post I'm munching on the cherries I picked this afternoon from my tree. This year there's a bumper crop, but I'll need to get to them before the birds do.

My tree is a Tehranivee, a cross between Van and Stella cherries. It was developed by Canadian researcher Gus Tehrani. The cherries are large, sweet and juicy.

 Mmmm-mmmm good.

Sewers and Garden Therapy

It's been a stressful, dirty week. Dirty as relates to sewage--ewww, that's right, sewage. It all started on Thursday when the elegantly named 'Sewage Specialists' sent a little camera down the sewer pipe in my basement. When it wouldn't go all the way through they inserted a snake with a chopper on its end that would cut away the roots of the Dogwood tree growing atop the pipe's route to the street. They assured me that this was the problem-- but not to worry, they were positive that the chopper would clear the way. Didn't work. Camera still couldn't get through. More extreme measures were called for to dislodge those tree roots. They'd be back on Friday to dig a hole outside, closer to the tree--oh and by the way they warned me not to use the sewer system.

On Friday around noon, only 3 hours after they were scheduled to start work, a crew of three sturdy guys took turns cutting out the concrete walkway to my front door and digging a 4' deep pit down to the pipe.

3 sturdy Sewer Specialists

At this stage my frustration and anxiety had grown to an intolerable level. I needed a distraction. Then I remembered that the Yew needed a little pruning. I dragged out my ladders, loppers and pruners and started hacking.

Poor old Yew needed a little haircut. . .

Once the sewer pipe was unearthed the guys punched a hole in it and inserted the snake chopper to cut out the roots that they were certain were causing the impasse. Didn't work. Camera still wouldn't go through to the main connection.

Yup, that's my sewer pipe.

Maybe it's too big for this spot?

By this time the yew branches I had lopped off filled up two yard debris cans and a wheelbarrow.

In search of a sewer pipe

As the afternoon wore on things were getting serious. The crew grew to 6 guys who jack-hammered up the sidewalk at the end of my driveway and dug a 5' deep hole down to the pipe. I kept pruning, some might say 'madly', for by this time the Yew was looking rather bedraggled. I began thinking that the old Yew was really too big for that spot, and maybe I'd take out the whole tree.

Around 4:30 on Friday afternoon the gang of 6 discovered I have a PARTY SEWER. This means my neighbor Jane and I share a lateral connection to the city's main sewer which is not acceptable to city code. Sooo, because the pipe's Y connection sits under Jane's property I am the lucky homeowner to install a whole new lateral connection.

At this point, and luckily for the Yew, I was too exhausted to do any more pruning. The sewage hustlers got my system 'flowing', covered the 2 stinking pits with plywood, and took off for the weekend.

Yesterday a work session was scheduled at Brooklyn Community Garden. Although a bit stiff from extreme pruning (hey, that could be the next reality show!), I was still feeling stressful about my sewer situation and looked forward to massacring a bunch of weeds. At the community garden a friend told me that the day before he had gotten some bad news, and to alleviate his frustration he'd thrown himself into weed demolition and pathway construction. I rejoiced in knowing that it isn't just me who finds gardening to be a terrific stress management solution. The segue from stress to gardening was the link that I'd been searching for to write about this experience.

Those weeds really took a beating.

Haven't decided whether to remove the Yew yet, but the sewer work is scheduled for this next week.

Slug Fest 2013

Warm, rainy weather has arrived. This is the usual weather for this time of year in this part of the country. And as usual, the slugs are pigging out in my garden.

Baby slugs nursing on my Napa cabbage.

Slugs are terrestrial mollusks that wreak havoc on tender seedlings and leafy greens, leaving a film of slime in their wake. For those of us who don't use chemicals in our gardens getting rid of slugs presents a challenge. A beer-bait trap works to a certain extent as the slugs are drawn to the fermentation, then fall in and drown. The yucky part is dumping the gross slimy mess once the container is full. A beer trap will kill slugs, but it may draw additional slugs to your garden that otherwise might be headed for your neighbor's yard.

Some gardeners swear that spraying a blender-made mix of slugs and  cayenne pepper on and around the garden will act as a slug deterrent. Personally I can't stomach the thought of collecting live slugs and putting them into a blender.

My favorite method is to ruthlessly slice slugs in half using my garden snips for the little buggers and my pruners for the big thugs. The most successful strategy for this tactic is to wait until dark, put on a head lantern and launch into the garden with pruners as your own personal weapon of mass destruction. I may not kill them all but it's great therapy.

Overall the best way to keep slug damage to a minimum is to use a combination of tactics  known as Integrated Pest Management or IPM. IPM for slug control includes the following recommendations.  Remove objects that serve as hiding and breeding places such as garden debris, weeds, wooden planks, stones, etc. Spread rough edged substances such as diatomaceous earth, crushed oyster or clam shells, etc. around seedlings. Place 4" tall copper barriers around tender plants. Iron phosphate baits (such as Sluggo) work as a deterrent and are safe around children and animals, but need to be reapplied after a rain. And for instant gratification get out there and slice up the freeloaders with your pruners.

Yacon--an unusual plant for the edible garden 

I get excited about growing new varieties of plants, and super psyched about growing a plant I know nothing about--especially one that can be eaten. A couple of weeks ago I was wandering around a local farmers market and came across 4" starters of a plant I'd never heard of--Smallanthis sonchifolius commonly known as Yacon and also called the Peruvian ground apple. This was a plant I couldn't resist . . .

Yacon or Peruvian ground apple in my spring garden.

According to what I've learned from the grower at the farmers market and from online research, this plant is traditionally grown in the Northern and Central Andes. Yacon produces edible tubers that supposedly taste like a cross between an apple and a sweet potato, with a texture similar to jicama. Sunflowers and Jerusalem artichokes are close relatives. Harvesting the tubers should happen in fall after a frost, and after the upper branches and leaves die back. Also, the rhizomes can be dug up and stored for planting the next season.

Tubers and rhizomes

Yacon's edible tubers contain a natural sweetener called fructooligosaccharides. The sweet properties of the tubers pass unmetabolized through the body, and have a pre-biotic effect. Yacon can be eaten fresh, cooked and made into a sweet syrup. 

Stay tuned for a post season evaluation of this one.

I'd Rather Be Outside. . .

Technical difficulties known as a computer virus kept me indoors most of today. If I had to be inside this actually wasn't too bad a day for it. Bursts of cold rain intermittently blew in from somewhere. But as the day wore on, and virus scan after fruitless virus scan, anti-virus download after worthless anti-virus download, I just knew it would be much nicer if I was outside completely drenched, with wet hair, muddy feet and cold hands. The rain always looks worse when you're inside looking out. But when I'm struggling to fix a computer problem, the rain looks mighty good to me from inside too.

This is what I felt like all day. 

Unfortunately it's not getting fixed for a while because Jason, my computer consultant guru, is off to an annual bacchanal celebration tomorrow for the Memorial Day Weekend. He tried his best to advise me remotely while he was at work through Google chat. Although I think we identified the evil files (password protected so they can't be deleted easily), the machine will remain quarantined until after he returns. In the interim I will have to tough it out with my netbook. I'll try for a more upbeat post tomorrow.