Wind Plays Havoc on Tender Young Plants

What a lot of windy weather we have been having and the impact on plants can be disastrous. Newly planted seedlings can easily be damaged or snapped right off even in a stiff breeze. When plants are hardened off they are mainly acclimating to sun and a little breeze, when the wind starts to rise we bring the tender seedlings inside to protect them. Whenever a plant is transplanted to the garden they should always be staked. You don’t need to use big bamboo stakes even something as thin as a skewer, $1 for a pack of 100 at the dollar store or 36 really thick skewers. Even short plants need a little support while starting out and these are the ones usually overlooked. I always utilize a fan while growing seedlings to help strengthen the stem and get them used to light winds but I do stake all plants until they are established or if they need long term support the small stake is exchanged for a full bamboo stake that will last until harvest.

Protecting tender plants early will help to ensure a healthy plant and a productive harvest.

Checking Soil Composition Before Planting

Planning on digging a garden this spring? This would be a great time to check your soil composition. Whether your soil is mainly clay, sand, silt or a perfect blend will determine what you need to do to build your soil to grow the plants you would like. Here is an easy method to let you know what you are in for. Take a clean glass jar and fill about half way with your soil and then fill it with water. Shake the jar like crazy to completely break down the soil and blend it with the water, you don’t want chunks. Place the jar in a location where it will not be disturbed for at least 24 hours. If the water is still very cloudy let it sit longer, fine clay particles can take a while to settle. The soil will settle in the water in layers according to the weight of the particles. Sand will be on the bottom of the jar with a layer of silt next and finally a layer of clay on top. Perfect soil composition is equal amounts in each layer. The humus content of your sample will be left floating on top.

If you are growing plants requiring very good drainage and drier conditions you would need a larger sand content layer in the jar, or add sand to your plot.

This is a good measurement to take before you begin to dig a new garden or to check on the progress of an established garden plot.

Gardening from the ground up.

Stop Weeds WIth Newspaper

A great way to stop weeds around your plants is with newspaper. Rip the newspaper into strips and soak in clean water.
Dig the hole for your plant and work in any compost or nutrients you would usually incorporate into your soil and plant your plants. Once they are planted and covered with good soil take the newspaper strips and layer, overlapping them around the plant. Top off with a good mulch. The newspaper and mulch will help to retain water and keep the soil and roots moist. By overlapping the paper you form a barrier that will block out weeds.
An easy way to cut down on weeds and save you time in the garden and now is a great time to save newspapers. Just use the black and white print pages, do not use any pages with colour on them.

What better way to spend time during these cold winter days than planning your spring planting with the help of gardening events. A great event that occurs across Canada every year is Seedy Sunday. Sudbury will host its second Seedy Sunday on February 20th 10 – 4 at the Market Square, sponsored by Seeds of Diversity Canada and Sudbury Food Connects Network (Foodshed Project). Seedy Sundays are wonderful opportunities to find local vegetable and flower seeds grown in your own zone. There are seed swaps and sales with local garden enthusiasts manning the booths able to answer questions and perk your curiosity. Booths on green programs, green energy, clean up events, landscaping information and ideas, organic growing information and so much more than you may have thought was available in your community. The speakers corner has a wide variety of local experts, master gardeners, eco information, guaranteed something for everyone.
These events are worth having community support, bringing together an amazing group of diverse people and information. In Ontario, Toronto’s Seedy Sunday will be on February 13th at Hart House, Sault Ste. Marie February 19th at Sault College cafeteria, B wing West, Hamilton on February 26 at the Royal Botanical Gardens and so many more. To find a location in your area simply go to the Seeds of Diversity Canada web site to find Seedy Sundays from coast to coast.
There are also Garden Festivals in many communities. The Sudbury Garden Festival will be on May 28th & 29th at the Market Square with speakers on Orchids, Shoreline Gardening, Gardening with Native Plants, Alternatives to Pesticides, Trees and Shrubs, Gardening with Arthritis, Perennials and I will be there talking about heirloom vegetables and the importance and ease of sustainable vegetable gardens.
Search for local gardening events and if you are fortunate to have a Farmers Market check there for winter and spring events to give you the best seeds, tools, products and information and warm your mind to make your 2011 gardening season the best and most relaxing yet.

How To Decide What To Plant

Having a hard time deciding what to plant this year? Open up your cookbook!

Go over your favourite recipes, look for the common ingredients and write your growing wish list like you would your shopping list. If you like to cook Italian recipes plant tomatoes, peppers, oregano, parsley, onion and chives. If stir-fries are big part of your meal planning grow snow peas, peppers, onions, carrots, celery, tomatoes. Look forward to spicy dinners then try hot peppers, tomatoes, beans. Once you have your basic ingredients fill in the garden space with other types of interesting vegetables. Beans and peas are easy to grow and are good fresh or cooked and are so easy to freeze. Didn’t pick all of them off the vines? That’s alright let them dry out and you have not only dried peas and beans for soups and stews but the seeds for next year’s plants are ready. Plan your garden so shade loving plants are beside peas, beans or tomatoes to use their height as a barrier for sun or wind.

Choose what you like to eat most then look for varieties compatible with your growing zone and are dependable for a good yield. Look for different varieties within your vegetable of choice and fill in the extra garden space with other vegetables, aromatic herbs and flowers. Your garden will be a relaxing beautiful space in no time while your plants mature and provide you with seemingly endless food.

Have a hard time bending to weed and plant? A 12 inch raised bed makes a great place to sit while you weed, water, harvest and enjoy the garden.

Short Cuts: Planting with Easy Compost for Small Spaces

Gardening is forgiving, if a plant is not growing well in one area you can move it to another, but to have time to relax and enjoy your garden nothing beats a little planning and organization.

When you are thinking of adding a tree or shrub to a garden preparing the area in advance will make the transplanting go smoothly, lowering the trauma to the plant and yourself. It takes time and attention to add larger varieties successfully; this is the time to make sure the mature plant and the location are a good match, for both the plant and you.

Compost is so beneficial to transplants. Having a good nutritious hole to pop it into will save you a lot of work later on. Compost in the bottom of the planting hole will help to maintain moisture as well as provide vital nutrients to the new root mass. Many people do not have a compost pile in their yard to access for transplants but that does not mean you have to go out and buy it by the bag.

The summer or fall before you plant, pick the location for the new addition keeping in mind light and space requirements of the variety you have chosen when mature. Dig the hole. Make it larger than it will need to be, this will be your new in ground compost pile. Layer the bottom of the hole with composting materials: vegetable kitchen scraps layered with grass clippings, fall leaves, soil, sticks and twigs broken up small, any “brown” composting materials, water to keep damp but not soggy. You do not have to maintain a huge composting deposit, just enough for 12” – 18” of materials so they will compost down to a good 6”-10” for the spring planting. If you have pets who may be too interested in the new lovely scented hole, place a wire screen and couple baseball size rocks on top of the compost pile, you don’t want to squash the contents or block the air, just enough to be a bother to animals. This usually deters inquisitive creatures since the compost is in a pit and they can’t move the rocks or screen out of the hole to get down to the kitchen scraps. Late fall give it a good final mix and turn to aerate, make sure it is damp, then top with a layer of leaves or grasses and your screen and rocks again. If you have clover in your yard grass clippings this is especially good for the compost as it is high in nitrogen and wonderful for plants. Leave it over the winter, but plan on turning the contents when you are able to as spring approaches. No need to add more to the contents as you want these to be fully broken down to friable soil for your new addition.

When you are ready for your lovely anticipated tree or shrub, the hole is already dug with wonderful nutrient rich compost in the bottom. This also has given you time to assess the location. You live with the hole for a while so you can be sure of its placement, if not, dig another in a better location, shovel the compost out of the original hole and into the new. It is a lot easier to do it at this stage than relocating later.

Another tip for tree or large shrub planting: place the tree on a large piece of burlap. Some plants take two or three people to maneuver them into place, when it is on burlap you can pull it around or lift it with less trauma to the plant, and yourself. Next: fill the hole with water before you pop it in. If you put the tree in a dry hole it stays where it’s put, float it in water & you can give it a quick spin. So often I find a plant in a great location but the “better” side is facing the fence!

Some jobs are big but with planning they can go smoothly. A job is well done when you have time to sit and enjoy your work.

Happy planting.

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!!