Gardeners in Winter

What do gardeners do during the winter months? Well, I'll tell you what the don't do... hibernate! Winter is the time to plan changes and new projects. While the garden snoozes through the colder months it is a great time to take a good look at it. Just looking out the window over the cold landscape you can see if you might want to add different shrubs, bushes, trees or items to make you wintering garden as interesting as the summer. Bushes with berries or interesting seed pods and twig structure can add an artistic element as well as a place for birds to eat and rest if you have a feeder. A bench seat or stone pile adds an interesting element in all seasons as is the choice of materials to define the garden area whether raised beds or borders.

Now is a good time to get a head start on preparing for any repotting you will be doing or seed starting. Old plant pots are a treasure to have tucked away for future use as one plant our grows its space and is transplanted into a new one or a newly germinated seedling is potted to grow safely until the frost has past. This is a very rewarding project but it does take some preparing. Previously used pots need to be scrubbed clean in hot soapy water with a little bleach added to kill any unwanted organism or bug that may have been in the original soil or found a home in the pot since. Many repotted plants do not survive because of unknown contamination. While the winter is still upon us clean plant pots and gardening tools and organize everything so it is ready to use. The first day the warm spring sun warms your gardening fingers you will be very glad your tools and supplies are ready to begin another gardening adventure.

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.