Fall Garlic Planting

I have finally planted my garlic garden. I really like being able to plant a garden in the fall and then watch it pop up in the early spring. It almost feels like it does it all on its own, when I am just getting started on long days digging and planting these little beauties are reaching for the sun.

When I pull the garlic out I start to prepare the garden for the next planting right away. I like to put roughage in the soil to replace the roots and bulbs I removed. I cut the raspberry canes back three years ago I kept the long stalks, cutting them into 6-8” pieces, intending to use them in the composter but finding so many usages for them along the way. Turning sticks, twigs, fall leaves, old garlic stalks into a garden provides compostable materials and an avenue for rain to filter down deep into the soil and opens airspaces up for worms. Worm highways are important in a healthy garden.

Once the soil is prepared I select the larger bulbs from my harvest and break them apart, I poke holes and drop a clove in point up and cover it up. A hole about 2 ½ times the length of the clove so 2–2½“deep is fine. sometimes the cold will pop the clove back up, you will find them poking out of the soil or lying on top, poke a hole in with your finger, or a screwdriver works well, and tuck it back in. A friend uses a piece of doweling with markings for ½”, 1”, 2” and 3” and pokes all his planting holes with that. I find three inches apart works well, it leaves plenty room and a small space can give me lots of garlic.

The best crop is when I cover the garden with mulch.

You can use hay, straw or in the spirit of using what Mother Nature provides, I use grass. I cut long grass from the meadow, this year the seed heads were well over 5ft! I take a handful and with yard scissors or hedge clippers cut a couple inches up from the ground. I take the grass and cut the seed head off so I am not planting grass seed in my garden, I don’t want more than what I already have. Then at the garlic garden I clip the stems into 8 – 12” pieces and spread them and inch or two thick. This will protect the cloves, keep the moisture in and warm the ground early in spring when you will see fresh green shoots poking through the grassy layer as soon as the snow starts to disappear. Long grass can be gathered from the roadside, field or empty lot, when you start to look you will find many great gathering locations close by. When you cut the seed heads off you just might want to keep them in a paper bag for a quick yard fix that I will be posting soon.

I leave the mulch in place until all chance of frost is gone and the sun is reliably warm then I pile it at the end of the garden so I can turn it into the soil after the garlic is out.

I have left the grass in place until harvest and found it suppressed grass and weed growth really well, I just like to turn the grass late spring, early summer or after an unusually wet season to be sure there is no mould or insect issues and let it air out.

So, plant your garlic now and relax until you harvest it, you will have plenty time to gather great garlic recipes and don’t forget about garlic preserves, you will have lots of garlic so make it last. New Garlic recipes have just been posted at naturesfoodrecipes.blogspot.com. ENJOY!!

Safe Way to Remove Fruit Flies

This time of year I find I have unwanted visitors in my kitchen, fruit flies! Fall Harvest and Fruit Flies seem to go hand in hand and they like to stay all winter long. I have just come across this remedy and I am looking forward to giving it a shot.

To get rid of pesky fruit flies, take a small glass, fill it 1/2" with Apple
Cider Vinegar and 2 drops of dish washing liquid; mix well. You will find those
flies drawn to the cup and gone forever!

It won’t be dangerous to my pets and if I spill it, which I probably will at some point, I will not have to decontaminate the area. I am looking forward to giving it a shot, let me know how it works for you.

Serious Fire Hazard in Commom Garden Item

Common products and items used around the outside of your home to enhance the look could be a serious fire hazard.
Though this was a wet cold summer in the Sudbury area both Northern Ontario and Southern Ontario suffered the same lack of sunny days, but, despite the weather it was a summer of home renovations here. One of the projects required the front deck to be removed and we did so, in many, many pieces. It was a large deck with trellis around the bottom to block the three foot opening underneath from animals , leaves and no doubt the urge to store things there. The wood that was not reusable, most of it, was placed on a growing pile of wood scrap. I decided it was time to get rid of the pile. I started a bonfire and being careful no butterflies, moths, mice or snakes were within the armfuls of wood I was taking to the fire I did a great job of reducing the pile. When I took the old trellising and threw it on top of the pyre I was very surprised when flames leapt up as though I had just poured gasoline on it. Trellis, it seems, is extremely flammable. The deck was hardwood and if a fire had started we would have time to grab the fire extinguisher and deal with it but if the fire got to the trellis there would have been no chance at all.
Trellis is great in the garden for climbing plants in an arbor, fan or fence, whether for transplants or starting seeds, but caution should be used when placed near your home, shed or garage. In both Sudbury and Southern Ontario gardens I have often seen trellis very attractively attached to a wall with a vigorous climbing flower covering the whole area and transforming an otherwise bland wall into a spectacular rampage of colour.
You can still have supports for these lovely plants but consider using plastic or metal. Metal strapping or thin tubing may easily be made into a fan shape, ladder or rectangular grid for your climbers. The same effect but so much safer than thin, dry, trellising. When using any kind of tubing outside be sure to plug the holes so they don’t become the favourite hiding and nesting caves of wasps and other unwanted pests.
Whether a northern or southern garden there are many wonderful possibilities to enhance your home, be aware of the hazards and eliminate all that you can.

Fall Fireflies

What a wonderful night. Cool, clear and a wondrous sight down my driveway. All along the side of the driveway in amongst the short mowed grass are fireflies. We have had a few hard frosts and here are fireflies burrowing into the grass and lighting up like micro solar lights. Living in the country there is always something to surprise and intrigue you.

Visit to a Neighbours Garden

A visit to a neighbours garden reminded me, one of the wonderful things about being a gardener, is other gardeners. Gardeners like to share information, tips and plants. Whether you live on the East Coast or the West Coast or, like me, in the Sudbury area the attitude of gardeners is for the most part the same, we share. Information is readily available on the internet from coast to coast to coast to border but getting together with neighbouring or local gardeners creates a special moment. Being a northern gardener I am able to find local information on plant success and, being newer to Northern Ontario, I can gain the history of the area from those who know, the gardeners who live here.

Last month I had the pleasure of visiting the garden of my neighbour, Orest. We share a beginning in Southern Ontario but he has been gardening here for about 20 years now. Orest knows his garden well and spends a lot of time working his garden, weeding, planning different layouts and trellis systems and best of all relaxing in the beauty of his talent.

Gardeners are avid recyclers as they have the ability to reuse many items from barrels and containers for rain water, composting and container growing. I reused an old wire fence that was at the point of take it down or it will do so on its own, for a trellis. The fencing was rolled and fastened into cylinders then placed into the garden for tomatoes, beans, peas and cucumbers (pictured at top) to grow up and through, the openings in the wire fencing was large enough for me to reach through so I could easily pick the harvest tucked inside. At the end of the season they go back into the shed for next year.

In Orest’s garden he utilizes window boxes and an assortment of pails and bucket type containers to start his seeds and he tends to the plants until they are ready, and the weather is ready, for transplanting into the garden.

Some of the seedlings are also kept in a container garden. Even with a garden in place containers can still be used to grow a plant you only want a little of, or one you have in the garden but also in a container to extend the season. Orest has lettuce and peppers both in his garden and in containers, at anytime there is a frost warning the containers can simply be moved to a shed or other frost free location. Great to extend the season for fresh produce towards the end of the year or to protect against those surprise frosty early summer nights. Containers can also be moved into the sun or shade for plants that like the sun but a hot summer day may be just too much.

Orest garden is also a mixed garden. I love a mixed garden where vegetables and berries are grown along with flowers for a lovely restful space at anytime of the year. A border of common evening primrose and ribbon grass is a great structure for young plants. Plants that require partial sun are planted closer to the perennials and those sun lovers are placed in the open spaces.

Growing perennials in the same garden is perfect for small spaces where some think they have to choose between vegetables and flowers. Last year Orest grew an 9’ sunflower with a head that was about 18” across, it was beautiful, he has planted more this year again. I did not have the success with sunflowers that Orest did, mine tended to be about 2’ tall and 6-8” across.

As I said at the beginning, gardeners like to share and I was delighted to bring home a lovely basket of sunflowers and a bean plant. They were all successfully planted and doing well even with this wet and now dry summer. I am hoping Orest’s success with his sunflowers will rub off on me this year.

Meteors and Fireballs!

The Perdeids meteor shower peaks tonight, so, just after dusk gather the lawn chairs and head out for the yearly show. 80 to 100 meteors per hour is the expected peak for any year, but this year we have an added treat. A really interesting time will be about 4am when we slam through a really dense cloud at 150,000 km per hr bringing a spectacular burst of about 200 shooting stars per hour. The shooting stars we see are from a cloud of dust sized particles, a wonderful display from something so small. The dense cloud will also bring fireballs, baseball to basketball sized space rocks entering the atmosphere that can even leave a smoke trail in the clear night sky.
Last night about 2:30am looking out the window I saw a fireball that lasted for about 5 seconds even though the moon was bright enough to walk around the pond without a flashlight. When the moon rises, turn your back to it to block the effect and get ready for a really great night.
Lately it has been cloudy, hazy, humid, and so just in case you do not have a clear view to see the meteor showers, how about listening to them? The USAF Space Surveillance Radar scans the Texas skies, yes, from Roswell, and if you want to LISTEN just click this link.
Whether you watch or listen, tonight will be impressive.

The International Space Station, Blueberries and Fireflies

Tuesday night Northern Ontario had clear skies and, according to spaceweather.com, the International Space Station was to be visible traveling across the night sky about 11:18. Outside at 11:15, away from the house to get the best view, standing and waiting, the mosquitoes were in full force, but, the night sky was perfectly clear. Then, there it was just above the trees, then it was gone, then it was back again… what was going on?? No, that’s not the space station, that’s a firefly, just a bit eager for a view of the station maybe. A little patience and then a great view of the space station traveling above us. It was simply a light in the night sky but knowing what it actually is makes it a wonderfully amazing sight to see. Yesterday, July 24th, a Russian supply ship, Progress 34, was launched from Kazakhstan and can now be seen following the Space Station.
The space weather site is a great place for date and time information on everything from sunspots, aurora alerts, asteroid encounters, satellite tracking, the Space Station and Russian supply ship, and even space weather which, currently, shows the Solar Wind speed at 486.4 km/sec with a density of 1.9 protons/cm3. Want to know what that means? The site will explain that as well. Cool site for those who look up. If you are really, really, into the alignment of planets, geomagnetic storms, meteors, Space Station flybys or when the best aurora’s will be in your area, well, they even have a service that will phone you and tell you so you will never have to miss another one.
From looking up to looking down now, the wild blueberries are coming along well. I picked a 2lt basket last Tuesday in about an hour. Not bad for the backyard, especially since I am a picky picker, I pick the bigger ones and I don’t take all the berries from any area. I leave lots for the wildlife as well as for new plants next year and I am cautious not to pick the unripe or damage a plant, so, needless to say, I take my time. They call for rain for the next 5 days, a few nice sunny days will help to increase the sugar content in the berries. More picking in my future I can assure you.
Looking up, looking down and eating healthy food.

Mulch and Slugs

As great as mulch is as always there is a down side. Mulch is the perfect place for a slug to take up residence since they love damp earth and are mainly night creatures. If you have a slug problem you will have to keep your eye on the mulch.

There are many ways gardeners deal with slugs such as the popular “beer bath”. A shallow dish of beer placed in the garden attracts the slugs and they drown. The down side seems to be beer needs to be replaced daily, after the first night the slugs do not seem to be attracted. If you have had ongoing success with this method let me know.

Other methods, like, a spray bottle half and half water and vinegar sprayed on the slugs will kill them as will a sprinkle of salt. If you don’t mind stalking the slugs those will work. Placing a piece of hard plastic in the garden will create a trap as they will gather there, then you lift the plastic and dispose of the slugs. I have heard of using a shingle for this but I have issues with using shingles due to all the tar and chemicals they are made of.

Diatomaceous earth is sharp and will deter or kill and slug that crawls over it, a circle half-inch deep around any plant is enough. Unfortunately it will also kill any other soft body creature, such as worms. I will not do anything to deter, dislodge or kill worms so I do not use diatomaceous earth or “sharp sand”. Wood ash, lime or cinders is a good replacement.

This is why I like hay, when I lay it down it is in a “slice or leaf” and I can lift it and check under and remove any pest I find. One gardener I know has a recipe he swears by. Early in the season he gathers all the slugs he can find, and then he blends them up into a liquid and sprays the lower stem of the plant and the ground around. He swears he never has a slug infestation though his neighbours do. Personally, that stuff is not going into my blender!!

Any pest control techniques work for you? Share them here.

Mulch, a time saver

I find hay to be a good mulch. A bale separates nicely into layers and can then be laid on the soil between rows, around the plants or as a path so there are no muddy shoes every time you walk the garden. It helps to cut down weeds and if any do sprout, turning the hay over usually dislodges them or a quick pull for the occasional stubborn one. If it is getting thin adding more will usually smother new weed shoots. Mulch is a barrier to water evaporation, always check under the mulch before watering, it may not need it even on those long hot days. When the hay used on a path is well worn by the end of a season more can be added or it can be dug into the garden soil in the fall and new laid down in the spring. Roughage in the soil, like hay, will encourage worms in your garden. In my garden nothing is more important than worms, they aerate the soil and their castings fertilize. The more worms the better and healthier growth of all the plants.
There is an old raspberry patch here that was severely overgrown and not productive. I spent a lot of time the first two hot summers weeding between the tall thorny canes and found many dead twigs and plants. Three years ago half of the canes were cut down to about 12” and the dead material weeded out. I did not want to cut all the canes incase I did it wrong and damaged them, losing the whole patch. The next summer brought a lot of growth and some good berries, but the second summer, last year, was so abundant I actually gave up picking them and left the berries for the bears. This fall the rest of the canes will be cut down and mulched with hay. Mulching the berries helps me gain access to the 10’ x 20’ tight patch, when weeds and grass sprout amongst the canes it can be inaccessible. The year I don’t find the time in the spring to mulch the patch I end up spending long hot days weeding. I have thought of placing a stone path down the middle but am still not sure, since, to really work it may take up too much space.
The second autumn here a bed was prepared for my first planting of garlic; it worked so well I now plant garlic every fall. One year, after the cloves were in, long grass from the field was gathered, the top seed head was cut off, and placed on top 2-3” deep, it gave my best crop ever that spring. The ground warmed fast encouraging growth while protecting the young shoots and no weeds came up even though I used wild grasses. This fall I will cover with hay, then, once the garlic is harvested the hay will be turned into the soil ready for the next planting.
After Halloween there should be bales around and no longer at a premium price. If you do a big yard display for Halloween or have a neighbour or friend who does, ask if you can take the hay bales off their hands!
My problem is remembering to pick up hay in the early fall or I won’t have any for winter protection and spring planting. At least I can always fall back on the field grasses!
Another idea I want to try with hay is to make a nice sized pile, 2 or 3 bales, and plant potatoes in it. It is easy to reach in and check the size of the tuber and only pick the larger ones, leaving the little spuds to grow bigger undisturbed. I’ll let you know how that goes; right now it is in the thinking/planning stage.

Woodcock

American Woodcock

The dusk/nighttime, beezping, trilling, warbling, plumiting, impressive bird.

Gardening is...

Gardening is an amazing experience. I am always amazed when the seeds of an endangered plant break the surface with a tiny touch of tender green.
The rare and endangered plants tend to be very slow to germinate and abundant sowing compensates for a low germination rate. Once the first struggle is successful and the soil parts with a little band of light green they seek to grow within their own personal eco-system preference. Not a lot of information is available or easy to find on individual endangered plant needs, old-time gardeners are my best source. Some gardeners plant in a variety of growing mediums under a variety of growing conditions and document everything.
When I went to a dog breeder to pick a puppy, I sat down amongst them. 21 puppies from 5 weeks to 2 weeks wobbled and waddled and tumbled about. I was enchanted by the mass of furry bodies, all on the move. I saw a variety of size and colour and playfulness, but as soon as I had sat down, one little 3 week old struggled up to me, though I did not see her until I felt her lying on my shoe, she happily kept me company. When I visited the next week the same thing happened. Amongst the bustle and activity of 21 puppies one came up to my shoe and stayed until I picked her up again, then she was happy in my lap. My Ella chose me from the very first moment; she was waiting patiently for me.
I garden the same way. I try not to over analyze, I do not go through great feats to create an environment of utter perfection before each seed is placed to germinate, though I do plan and document what worked and what didn’t. I watch closely and am rarely disappointed. These wonderful rare and endangered seeds peep through to my excited amazement that these plants “chose me” to grow and flourish for.
Gardening is a perplexing experience. I plant some varieties, especially tomatoes, year after year and I have my favourite recipes ready for preserves even before they germinate. Then, along comes a spring when the reliable standards struggle and sometimes are completely unsuccessful; right beside a tray full of healthy endangered seedlings.
Gardening is a humbling experience. As much as I plan, document and prepare, some parts of the environment will not be compatible. An unexpected drop in temperature, electrical outage cutting the essential lights out or simple miscalculations and the garden I plant outside is far different than the garden I expected.
Sometimes in life we choose and plan our path with great thought and attention, sometimes it chooses us and sometimes the most unexpected plan or opportunity emerges to leave us amazed, perplexed and humbled.

Spring, is just the beginning

Spring is emerging, pixie cups are growing amongst the green mosses, pussy willows are starting to bud, Junco’s are back along with the Sandhill Cranes. The frogs grew from two lone spring peepers three nights ago, to dozens last night. All these new sounds are confusing my pup Ella. Born May 10th 2008 the days and nights are all filled with new sounds and experiences for her and she is realizing she is not as alone, way out here, as she thought.
The return of the wildlife is always heartily anticipated. Woodcocks arrived March 31st and I then noticed moths the next night. Foxes that cruised through the backyard a couple times a day, have not been seen for about three weeks. I guess their territory has expanded as the snow has receded. Ella had a very nervous reaction last evening, I think a bear may be sleepily stumbling out back already. Late last summer and early fall she reacted like this when a bear was about. She barks and charges forward to beat a very hasty retreat and always looking at me for assurance. The next rain free day I am going to wander over the rocks and through the trees and see if I can find any tell-tale signs.
Seasons change, wildlife cycles through our yards, plants wake-up, grow, then sleep a long cold dreamless hibernation. When we change with the seasons, different activities, different foods, different plans and goals, we cycle through movement, great growth and times of deep rest. Each cycle dependent on the one before. Each cycle dependent on moving into the one arriving on the doorstep. Without this flow we stagnate with life and energy blocked. Even in times of deep rest there is movement towards the wakening and growth. Hands in the dirt, planting a seed, a little seed filled with Pure Potential, we aid in releasing the energy allowing the seed to become everything it was meant to be.
Earth Day is a once a year celebration to rejoice in the movement, growth and restfulness of nature and life, every day. When a good thought and deed is born through the Earth Day celebration it has the Pure Potential to take root, rush for the sunlight, and cycle through our lives, every day.

the beginning

this blog space is about nature, plants, and all things dirt.