Leave the leaves? Not good gardening advice

TPP has seen three articles already (but failed to note their sources) that tell people to leave the leaves on their lawn rather than rake them.  This only works if you have very few leaves or want to transition your lawn to a woodland.  This is being done in our gardens in at least two places, purposely, and a lot of woodland plants occupy what passes for our lawn.  A thick layer of leaves, whole or chopped, would kill what little grass remains. The leaves in our lawns are confluent; they form a continuous layer inches deep, and more in some places.  So many leaves that a leaf gathering fence and a leaf capturing net are put up to keep tons of leaves out of our lily pond.  All the leaves are raked out of most of the gardens, and then vacuumed up and shredded, and reapplied if mulching is wanted.  This used to be done by yours truly with a machine called a Billy Goat; it was a beast, hard to pull start, and used about an 8 cubic foot bag, which was quite heavy.  And it was pricey to rent!  The right shoulder would complain the next day, and it was justified. Then Mrs. Phactor found a lawn service guy, who would do all that leaf work and it only cost $40-50 more than just the Billy Goat.  This did not take a lot of thought.  Except this year the leaves have been snowed on, and rained on, to keep them wet and matted down.  Fortunately the net was pulled off the pond and emptied of several cubic feet of water logged leaves before this latest wintery episode.  This takes the entire Phactor gardening squad, both of us, and then it was almost too heavy for the net.  But neither of us fell in, so that was good.  The next task will be to put fencing around all the young trees and shrubs to keep the rabbits from browsing on them.  Hopefully the weather will produce a couple of warmer days before the end of November.

No equitable rainfall

TPP hates to hear about the Carolinas drowning in hurricane rain water, and truly TPP feels bad for my many inlaws that live there.  Too bad they can't share a couple of inches.  Our area is bone dry (again) and no good opportunities for rain are in the offing.  Systems have passed to our west, our north or our south, sort of missing  us all the way around.  Farmers are getting a good dry jump on maize and soybean harvesting (the clouds of dust arise in all directions).  But winter is more about drought and dry conditions than it is about cold, so this gardeners advise is keep watering all those new plantings or they will die by dehydration over the winter.

Joys of gardening - late fall edition

It's late October here in Lincolnland, and lots of trees are still green because this has been a late fall. The low temps have only flirted with a frost, and petunias in the window boxes are still flowering. TPP thought that he had finally triumphed by catching a wary groundhog that had been living under the garden pavilion all summer (the second one). Fencing had been installed around the base of the pavilion, except in one area, which was exploited, and a second small breach.  After the relocation of the groundhog, the fencing was fixed and completed to prevent or minimize future colonization. However much to his dismay, there is now new evidence of another egress! Groundhog number 3?  This was not pleasing news, and to add insult to injury, TPP got a few new chigger bites.  Never had them remain this late in the season before, which promises more good things to come from climate change. Hope some rain last night and today is enough to ameliorate the mild October drought.  Farmers have really loved the dry weather and most of the maize and soybean fields are harvested; good yields should yield lower prices emphasizing the you-can't-win nature of modern farming. Finally decided to start bringing the tropical plants (orchids, cacti, bromeliads, gesneriads, a croton, the bonsai trees, etc.) inside.  Everything appears to have done well this year.

Water, water everything

This time of year is tricky for gardening especially when mild warm weather predominates, but things aren't growing so much. Gardens just don't look like it's the end of September out there, and it's easy to get lulled into complacency. So here's the thing: keep those newly planted trees and shrubs, especially conifers, well watered. Remember winter survival is more about desiccation than it is about cold. Deciduous plants drop all those water-wasting leaves, but most conifers are evergreen, and while their leaves have relatively small areas and correspondingly less water loss, as the air gets colder it gets drier and when the soil freezes water is really "hard" to take up. So it's easy to lose track of rainfall and let plants dry out too much before the cold really sets in. TPP is now certain that his prize conifer died during the winter not because of cold but because of the severe drought the summer before.  And that combined with less well established roots was a deadly combination. Remember, half an inch of water a week is needed at a minimum to keep things growing well, and water those newly planted trees and shrubs deeply.   

Fall crops for the kitchen garden

Here's a practical advice posting for all of you not so experienced kitchen gardeners out there.  Gardens are not almost done!  Now is the time to plant some fall crops.  Mostly these are like spring crops, but planted now.  TPP's favorite fall crops are salad greens, especially mesclun, a mixture of lettuces & mustards, spinach, bok choi and other Chinese cabbages.   These will all grow well in cool weather and the shorter days of fall.  They mature rapidly (less than 50 days) so you still have time, but get going on this.  Bok choi and cabbages are really tough and they have remained in my garden sometimes until late November if given just a little protection.  If you have limited space then the champion has to be baby (dwarf) bok choi (image).  You can even grow them and the salad greens in containers (window boxes are a good choice) which are easy to move to more protected locations if necessary.  Since these are all leafy vegetables, giving them a dose of fertilizer early on is a good idea especially if they are being grown in an area vacated by other crops.  For nice heads of leafy lettuce follow this simple rule based on the fundamental understanding that everyone plants small seeds too densely.  Once the seeds have germinated, pinch out enough such that their spacing is at least 1 inch.  By the time the seedlings are 2" tall, thin them to 2" apart.  Eat the thinnings.  You know how much they get for baby greens?  By the time the seedlings are 4" tall, thin them to 4" between plants (keep eating).  Then continue thinning as the plants grow to 8" or so in spread.  The baby bok choi doesn't need quite so much thinning; they do OK at 4-6" between plants.  The biggest problem is that early on you need to gently water them because the surface soil tends to dry quickly this time of year and you want these crops to get going.  The bigger cabbages need more thinning.  Row covers, a fine netting work well at keeping insects at bay, but slugs can be a problem.  Put out slug traps, shallow pans, baited with some disgusting light beer that you would never drink anyways, to control the slug population.  Slugs are no more discriminating than the acquaintance who brought and left the light beer for your enjoyment. 

Weekend Fun!

Here were the main activities of the weekend for our household.

1. A virus, how annoying.  Not TPP, his trusty PC.  It has been a good long time since it has contracted an infection, and you get rather complacent, but fortunately most software has automatic updates although no anti-viral or anti-malware installed saw this one coming.  And from where?  It was the usual scanning for science news and recipes type of morning.  Should you be ever suspicious of squash soup recipes?  And for all my years on the internet, and it is many, what is the creator of such malicious software gets out of it.  It’s like breaking windows.  Other than a delight in sheer destruction of something not so difficult to break, a feeble victory at best, and annoying people you don’t even know, where is the payoff? 

2. Leaves.  Just as the fall color really begins to appear a 24-hr windy front moves through the area and reduces tree crowns by 50%.  On the good news side, a newly planted tupelo is showing real potential for outstanding fall color.  On the other hand, drought damage has greatly reduced the fall color of the witchhazels.  And of course, all the leaves in the world seem to end up in the lily pond.

3. Rain.  After a brief effort, maybe about 150 bulbs got planted.  Probably 1.5-2 inches in total. So the default activity was house cleaning, an activity largely ignored during gardening season.  Why clean a house if you’re only going to be in it to sleep?  Somehow quite a layer of dust and cat fuzzies had managed to accumulate, and we do expect a foreign house guest later this week.

4. Garden cleanup.  Time to ditch the summer garden plants; nothing more to come from tomatoes (3 cherry tomatoes eaten on the spot), peppers, beans, eggplant, okra.  At least when your garden is close to a total flop you don’t have much to clean up.  Only the cold frame greens remain.  Made a totally dynamite spicy pork and bok choi stir fry, and it was fairly easy and delivered a Thai flavor.  Definitely a keeper recipe, one of those sleeper recipes that you turn past in a cookbook because it never quite captures your imagination until you have a bunch of bok choi and some frozen coconut milk to use and  your pragmatism turns to discovery. 

5. Bonsai trees.  Several of TPP’s bonsai trees are pretty tough and seem to do better is given some fall cool weather, but there is a limit so the indoor migration began.  The Pittosporum needed repotting, and that was completed just before the next big squall came through and TPP had to help the neighbors secure their garden shed (plastic on tubular framework) that had gotten blown over by a sudden gust.  The limb cleanup will result in a substantial pile for composting as it always does.

November - Garden activity

November is a funny month here in the upper midwest; it can be pretty mild or it can be miserable. So far it's been a bit of both. Today was a lovely, sunny mid-50s, so lots of activity in the garden. Where did all the bulbs come from and where will they all go? A couple of hundred were put in the ground today promising a more colorful spring. The kitchen garden was cleaned up and some baby bok choi (oh, you should grow this) was harvested for our dinner. Time to put fencing around young trees and tasty shrubs to prevent rabbit browsing over the winter. Wonder what will get pruned by bunnies this year? It's a late fall. Tree color developed late, and officially no frost as yet, so petunias in window boxes are still covered in blooms on the 5th of November! Totally nasty 2 days ago, cold, terribly windy, but the front delivered 2 inches of rain. Still the soil seems too dry, but newly planted trees really needed the water. Absent a frost, the rain didn't bring down as many leaves as you would expect this time of year. Leaf clean up is going to take awhile yet; some trees have yet to drop a leaf, but the big maples are done. Got tired of yard work so took the mighty hunter cat out for a walk and let her harrass some squirrels; it was so tiring, so exciting, nothing left to do by nap the evening away in a rocking chair dreaming of squirrels.

Mini-summer in October

A week of 80 degree highs in October is a rare event, and the Phactor wonders if this is the beginning of a new pattern with such weather becoming common? The weather in mid-October is often warm, and dry, not as parched dry as this year, but dry, and the 2nd or 3d week in October is reliably some of the best weather of the year and when the Missouri Botanical Garden looks its best. When deciding when to host a weekend systematics symposium, the ever pragmatic and empirical former director, Peter Raven, had his staff do a century of weather research and match that with peak display times at the garden, and mid-October was the solution. The estate is looking fairly colorful, but the display will be both less vivid, and short-lived because of the dryness. Lots of leaves are parched at their margins, and even our great big sugar maple will be not so orange as usual. This weekend we attempted to apple up, no not in honor the late Steve Jobs, but to stock up on apples for the winter, especially to seek some Northern Spies, our favorite. Our local source didn't have any, so another great old variety, the Red Pippin, was purchased instead. Then a lovely friend arrived back from a quickie trip to Michigan for football something or other, and delivered us a bag of spies. Oh, that is the measure of a friend. Unfortunately this is a bit early for spies in Michigan and indeed they are a bit underripe and their full complex flavor has not yet developed. In the usual domino effect, the pond renovation has drawn attention to a long neglected hedgerow and Mrs. Phactor declared death sentences upon the old, over-grown shrubs and left yours truly to carry out the sentences. Basal pruning is the usual method of execution, although some ancient forsythias and an old flowering crab were given reprieves on the condition that they grow back attractively. The new Japanese maples were planted and now the area can be sized up for additional landscaping. Then, as if on command, a large box of bulbs arrived via UPS indicating that this was not going to be a watch football weekend, and the joggers pranced by while real exercise was accomplishing something. Stop by if you want and drag some shrub corpses to the street. It's great exercise!

Great/Awful Fall Weather

The weather for the past 5 weeks has been both great and awful at the same time; great temperatures, warm days, cool nights, no frosts yet, sunny, beautiful, glorious, but the near complete absence of rain has produced a mini drought, and people who did not faithfully water shallow-rooted and/or newly installed plants will find come spring a lot of "winter kill". Farmers have been overjoyed with these weather conditions and the crop harvest has been going very well indeed. Yesterday it was obvious a front was moving in, and the morning dawned dreary and over cast, and now some rain has come, not too heavy, not too light, and maybe if we are lucky it will keep up all day and all night and all of tomorrow. After 5 weeks of essentially no rain, the ground is parched and it will take a lot of rain to soak in deeply. If the area only gets a half inch or so, it will fool the amateurs, who will now have an excuse to not water. And already the weather goof balls are saying "maybe the rain won't last too long" as if this were a bad thing. Strangely it seems that weather people are never garden people. Rain is just what the bok choi needs. This late Indian summer will push the cool weather fall chores way into November, and this isn't good because it's only one month before the Phactor heads out to Costa Rica with my rainforest ecology class. Too little time and too many things to do!

Deciduous trees

Here in the temperate zone most of our woody plants are deciduous; they drop their leaves seasonally. This poses a gardening challenge for those of us with large, shady yards because if the leaves are not removed from lawn areas and some garden areas the entire area begins converting back into a woodland. Without my intervention this would only take a few years, and in fact it was well on its way when team Phactor acquired this property. And so seasonally, with the aid of a very large leaf mulching vacuum, a rental bargain, leaf removal and relocation only takes a few weeks, or so it seems. Fortunately several gardens of woodland plants are ready to receive their annual mulching of leaves. This image shows a small section, about one-fourth, of the problem, with only a fraction of the leaf fall complete, and this is all behind a quite adequately large set of lawns and gardens surrounding our abode. This way the Phactor's scientific field work smoothly transitions into gardening field work, and not a moment is lost watching football or baseball. The sugar maple, a 110 foot tall giant, always looks a bit depressed this time of year.