Battle for Figs: Victory
Some History
I don’t know the score over the years, but this year’s victory is mine. The battles have been with scale insects, both armored scales and their cousins, mealybugs (but rarely both in the same year), on my greenhouse fig plants.
Those fig plants are planted in the ground in a minimally heated greenhouse, where winter temperatures can sink to about 35°F. The oldest of these plants have trunks 8 inches in diameter. They thrived for years without any pest problems, scale of otherwise. A few years ago, the insects made their appearance, sometimes ruining almost the whole crop.
Over the years I fought them in various ways. One year it was spraying the dormant plants with alcohol. Another year it was, more aggressively, scrubbing trunks and stems of dormant plants with a toothbrush dipped in alcohol. Ants herd and protect scale insects, so another year I fenced the ants off the plants with a band of masking tape coated with forever (almost) sticky Tangletrap around the trunk of each plant.
An expensive but short-lived success was the two releases of the predatory ladybird beetle Cryptolaemus montrouzieri and the parasitoid wasp Anagyrus pseudococci.
Mealybug destroyer
These biocontrol helpers ended up valuing each fig at about a dollar, still worth it. I screened all openings in the greenhouse, hoping to perennialize them inside. (It was not effective.)
Battle Plan, Done
So this year I tried a multipronged approach.
The biggest change was, rather than growing the figs as bushy trees, training them as espaliers. Espalier is the training of plants to an orderly, usually two-dimensional form both for beauty and, in the case of fruit plants, for good production of high quality fruit. For my figs, an additional benefit would be that each plant would only have one point of contact — its trunk — with the ground. IA band of masking tape coated with Tangletrap would be a roadblock on the ant highway. (Plus the look of the plants always elicits a “Wow” from visitors.)
The fig plant growing near the greenhouse endwall has a short trunk that, after rising to about 18 inches from ground level, bifurcates into two, self-supporting horizontal arms extending parallel to the wall in opposite directions. At the head of each of the south beds, a fig tree is planted each of whose trunk is terminated by just a single, self-supporting, horizontal arm reaching down the bed to the sidewall. With just a trunk and one or two arms, thoroughly scrubbing down the dormant plant with alcohol is a relatively quick job. Quick enough to prevent 2 or 3 scrubbing before plants resume growth in early spring from becoming tedious.
Another nice feature of this training system is that pruning the plants at the end of the season is a no-brainer. Vertical shoots that rise up from the horizontal arms are thinned to keep neighboring shoots 8 inches apart and helped along in their vertical growth by being trained to pieces of bamboo attached to the greenhouse roof. (Yes, an ant could walk up the wall and across the roof of the greenhouse and then down the bamboo to get at the plants but they are either not that smart or energetic; it hasn’t happened.)
A little later in the early part of the greenhouse growing season I gave the plants some dowsings with neem oil. I’m not sure how effective the neem component is but “horticultural oil” itself is effective in fighting off scale insects.
A ring of cinnamon around the base of each plant provided further disincentive to the ants, who will not cross a cinnamon line. The cinnamon and the Tangletrap did need renewal once per season.
As new fig shoots soared skyward near the greenhouse roof, I used a pole pruner to prune out the top of the growing shoot. Side branches, of course, then grew, and I periodically had to to hack them back also.
Uh Oh, But All Still Good
Everything was copacetic and we were harvesting figs, which formed along the vertical stems at the juncture of almost every leaf. Then, in late August I noticed some mealybugs on one plant. Time for Cryptolaemus montrouzieri again. I released them in early September and we were back in business, harvesting large handfuls of three different varieties of delciously sweet figs — San Piero, Brown Turkey, and Rabbi Samuel — daily.
And then, just today, I noticed armored scales on the plants, and a few ants! I’m not sure how the ants are getting onto the plants, but one possible “benefit” of the armored scales is hardly any mealybugs. Perhaps they can’t coexist.
All the measures I took against mealybugs should also be effective against the armored scales, except for the Cryptolaemus montrouzieri. Their predator Aphytis melinus, also known as the Golden Chalcid, has been effective against armored scales.
I’m not taking action. With less sunlight and cooler temperatures the figs trees have slowed down, running out of new stems on which to hang fruit. No matter; it’s been a good season of fresh figs.
Colorful, Sometimes Tasty, Ground
Lurid Ground
Lurid, violet flowers have sprouted in the wood chip mulch beneath my row of dwarf pear trees. The flowers are autumn crocuses, the first part of the two-part flowery show that takes place each autumn in that piece of ground.
The second part of that flowery show, soon to follow, will be autumn crocuses. “But,” you exclaim, “autumn crocuses were the first part of the show!” Let me explain.
This first show is from a flower called autumn crocus but which is botanically a Colchicum species. It’s not really a crocus, not even related. Colchicum flowers resemble true crocus flowers, on steroids. The second show will be from true crocuses (that is, Crocus species) that happen to bloom in autumn. The Crocus autumn crocuses are dainty and in colors like our spring crocuses.
What’s really unique about the colchicum flowers, and what makes them so striking, is that, first, they emerge from the soil this time of year, and second, that they do so without any leaves, making the contrast between the mulched ground and the flowers all the more dramatic. The color itself is dramatic, the row of bold-colored blossoms painting a wide swath along the ground.
Cochicums, like every other plant, need to photosynthesize, and, like every other plant, need leaves to do so. Those leaves, which are wide, long, and fairly large, appear for awhile in spring and look nothing like true crocus leaves. Not only do the plants not need leaves in autumn, they also don’t need soil. Colchicum bulbs will sprout their lurid violet flowers even if just left sitting on a bench or table!
Green Tastes Good
Aside from spots of bright color, the dominant color in my garden is green. That verdure is especially evident in my vegetable garden, now in its autumn glory – lush and green – and becoming more so every day. I’ve been sowing and planting with almost the same fervor as in spring.
Bed of lettuce and chinese cabbage
A few weeks ago I made my last planting of outdoor lettuce, using transplants that had been growing in seed flats for about a month. The varying textures and colors of the different varieties make a pretty tapestry on the ground, so pretty that it seems almost a shame to pick any of the tender, tasty heads and ruin the picture. I’m not sure how large they’ll grow before stopped or turned to mush by really cold weather. Protection beneath a tunnel of clear plastic with, later, an additional covering of some spun-bonded row cover material, should keep them and me happy into December.
Other beds display yet more shades of green with varying textures. There’s a bed of kale, which has been pumping out deep green leaves for good eating since spring. Another bed has endive – Broad-Leaved Batavian — planted close enough so neighboring plants push each other’s leaves over the loosely forming heads. Shaded from sunlight, those inner leaves become tender and sweet, livened up with just a hint of bitterness.
Green, Not for Eating
Lushest green of all beds in my garden are those that are sprouting oats. Yes, that’s the same oats that we (and horses) eat, except that I didn’t plant these oats for eating. I plant oats as so-called cover crops, which are plants grown to improve and protect the soil.
I can only eat just so much lettuce, endive, kale, and other greens. If I’ve filled this quota for planting and no longer have further use for every bed this season, I plant it with oats. September 30th is my deadline because after this date — here in the lower Hudson Valley, at least — days are too short and weather becomes too cold to expect much growth.
Oats, just one of a number of potential cover crops, thrive in the cool weather of autumn and early winter. Their roots, pushing through the soil, crumble it and latch onto nutrients that might otherwise wash down below the root zone. After the roots die, they enrich the soil with humus and leave behind channels through which air and water can move within the soil. Above ground, the stems and leaves protect the soil surface from being washed around by pounding raindrops.
Most of all, I like the look of that green carpet of grassy oat leaves. Both I and Mother Nature abhor bare ground, which becomes subject to wind and water erosion, and large swings in temperatures through the year.
GOOD LOOKS, GOOD TASTES
Kale’s Delights
I’m lucky enough to have a French window of two big, inward swinging panels out of which I can look over my vegetable garden every morning. Oddly enough, the garden bed that is catching my eyes these mornings for its beauty is the bed of kale plants.
No, it’s not a bed of one of the so-called colorful, ornamental kales, not even a reddish kale such as Russian Red. I mostly grow just plain old Blue Curled Scotch kale, which is no more bluish than any other kale, or any other member of the whole cabbage family for that matter. What catches my eye each morning is the frilliness of the leaves and how neatly they line up along the stalk. It’s pretty.
My vision could be swayed by the fact that kale is such a healthful vegetable, being especially rich in calcium and vitamin A. Or the fact that it’s so easy to grow. I sowed the seeds in March, put out transplants in early May, have been harvesting it since the end of May, and will continue to do so probably well into December. (Another bed of kale, which I seeded right out in the ground at the end of May, is also looking good.)
Kale is unlike other members of the cabbage family. Broccoli is past its prime once buds open into flowers. Cauliflower is over the hill once the florets sidle apart from each other. Cabbage splits if left too long. Brussels sprouts needs sowing in early spring but aren’t ready for eating until touched by frost at the other end of the growing season.
Kale doesn’t have a small window of time for optimum harvest; actually, no window. It just keeps growing taller, with more leaves, still tasting good at all stages.
The only thing kale needs protection from is rabbits and woodchucks, like most vegetables, and from the various cabbage worms. One or two sprays of the biological pesticide Bacillus thurengiensis (sold under such trade names as Thuricide and Dipel) is all that’s needed for the worms, or nothing, especially in a year like this when worms were pretty much absent.
What more could I ask for from a plant: flavor, health, and beauty?
Free Kisses
I take it upon myself to personally promote the revival of an old-fashioned flower: kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate (Polygonum orientale). It’s big, it’s beautiful, and it’s distinctly old-fashioned.
If you know the weed called smartweed, you have a hint of what kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate looks like. Smartweed is a trailing weed whose flowers look like small droplets of pink dew at the ends of its stems. Kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate looks like smartweed on steroids, with “droplets” the size of bb’s. Rather than trailing, the plant rises with robust arching stems to more than seven feet high. It’s just the height and form for growing next to a garden gate, which is where my plants grow.
Kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate is a little hard to get started because the seeds germinate slowly and erratically. My plants thankfully lived up to their reputation of being self-seeding annuals, and those self-seeding plants come up more robustly than the few coddled seedlings I used to plant out each spring.
It’s self-seeding habit is sufficiently restrained for me. All I do each spring now is to weed out the few extra plants, as well as those that stray too far from the garden gate.
Ever Green Onions
For many years, in addition to starting onions from seed (sown in February!), I also went the more conventional route and bought a few “sets” for planting. Sets are those small bulbs that grow first to become scallions, which are mostly leaf, then go on to fatten into bulbs that can be harvested and stored.
This year, instead of planting sets for scallions, I grew bunching onions, yet another type of onion, one that never ever makes fat bulbs. During the growing season, slender new scallions are produced around the bases of older ones. Left outdoors, they will perennialize and multiply by offsets year after year.
I set out transplants back in early summer grown from seeds sown in spring. Even now, these scallions still look like scallions, some larger, some smaller, depending on how crowded they are to each other. No matter their size, they’ve all been flavorful right through summer and on into fall, maintaining all the time their scallion character.
SOW NOW?
Next Year’s ‘Chokes
Ahh, such a leisurely time of year to sow seeds. And for some of them, I don’t care if they don’t sprout for months. You might wonder: Why sow now; why so laid back?
I’ll start with artichoke, from whose seeds I did want to see sprouts soon. And I did. The seeds germinate readily. Right now, a few small seedlings are growing, each in its own “cell” of a seed flat, enjoying the cool, sunny weather.
Artichoke is a perennial whose natural life cycle is (usually) to grow leaves its first year, then edible buds its second year and for a few years hence. Especially in colder regions, artichokes can sometimes grown from seed like annuals, with a wrinkle.
To make that transition from growing only leaves to growing flower buds, the plants need to get vernalized, that is, to experience some winter cold. Except that winter cold here in the Hudson Valley (and everywhere else colder than Hardiness Zone 7) will do the plants in. So we cold-climate gardeners need to trick the plants into feeling like they experienced winter cold, just not our winters’ depth of cold.
When growing artichokes like annuals, from seed sown in spring, you make “winter” by exposing the young, growing seedlings to cool, but not frigid, temperatures (32-50°F) for a couple of weeks. The problem with this method is that the plants are fairly small when they get this signal that “winter” is over. In my experience, these small plants make commensurately small buds for harvest.
I’m lucky enough to have a greenhouse that gets very cool in winter, but not below freezing. My young artichoke plants will continue to grow very large though the very extended “autumn” weather in the greenhouse. In midwinter, they should get plenty of chilling. Come spring, after frost danger is past, I’ll plant out the large plants to, I hope, make large, fat buds.
I got this idea from growing cardoon, which is essentially the same as artichoke, except it’s grown for its large leaf stalks.
Or it’s grown as a flower, in which case it would require the same conditions as artichoke to make flowers. I don’t like cardoon as a vegetable but do like it as a flower, so last year, around now, I sowed cardoon seeds and grew the seedlings in the greenhouse just as I’ve described for artichoke. The result was big, fat, beautiful, blue flowers. I expect the same, except I’ll harvest the artichoke buds before they open.
Actually, I grew two cardoon plants, and for some reason one of them grew only leaves all summer, and is still growing them, the olive-green leaves each rising from ground level in a four-foot-high-whorl.
More Hucks’
A couple of months ago I collected huckleberry seeds from my huckleberry plant and sowed them. As expected, they still haven’t sprouted. They weren’t expected to sprout, at least not until they were “stratified.”
Like artichoke, huckleberry (Gaylussaccia baccata) needs to feel that winter is over, in this case before its seeds will sprout. Stratification, as this cold exposure is called, prevents small seedlings from being killed by winter cold after sprouting in late summer or autumn.
My huckleberry plant in fall
Again, it’s a certain duration of cool (32-50°F) temperatures that do the trick. Under natural conditions, these chilling requirements are fulfilled in late autumn and/or in spring. In this case, colder temperatures would do no harm, but would not put any hours into the “chilling bank.” Once the “chilling bank” has been filled, the seeds await warm enough temperatures to sprout.
(For more details and wrinkles about seed germination, see my latest book, The Ever Curious Gardener: Using a Little Natural Science for a Much Better Garden.)
The pot of huckleberry seeds has been sitting outdoors, covered, since they were sown. If I want earlier sprouting, I’ll bring the pot into the greenhouse in winter.
Ramping Up
I collected seeds from my ramp plants about a month ago with an eye to increasing my holdings. You guessed it: Ramps also need cold. But given mere stratification, the seed will not germinate. The behavior of ramp seeds is a little different from huckleberry seeds in that ramp seeds have a double dormancy.
Roots need to grow before the shoots will sprout. That first stage requires a couple of months or so of warmth. Only after then can the second stage, shoot growth, begin, except that won’t occur until after a stratification period, with cool temperatures, again between 32-50°F.
Under natural conditions, ripe ramp seeds get their warm period before winter sets in and then are ready to sprout in spring. But further north, where seeds ripen later, that first stage, to get root growth underway, is delayed until the summer after the seeds drop. In that case, sprouts don’t poke above ground until their second spring.
I don’t want to wait that long so I sowed my ramp seeds in a seed flat which I’m keeping in a warm place for a couple of months. After that, I’ll move the flat to cooler temperatures. And then, come spring, sprouts — I hope.
My ramps mother plants
TWENTY-TWENTY FORESIGHT
North Vegetable Garden
I’m stepping outside this sunny afternoon for a walk around the farmden, pad and pen in hand to evaluate some of this season’s goings on to make notes for next season. Not that the season is anywhere near over yet. I expect to be out and about with pitchfork, harvest basket, and garden cart at least into December. But no surprises are expected at this point.
Starting in the north vegetable garden: tomatoes. Over the years I’ve honed the number of varieties here from too many to our half-dozen or so favorites.
Valencia tomato
The goal is top-notch flavor and reasonable productivity. San Marzano, which is very productive, might taste like cotton fresh but it’s a must for the best-tasting cooked tomatoes. The San Marzanos get their dedicated canning jars, but also good canned is Blue Beech and, great for fresh eating also, are Amish Paste and Anna Russian.
Three more, mostly for fresh eating next year, are Paul Robeson, Belgian Giant, and Valencia. Valencia has year after year proven to be a very good, very beautiful, and productive tomato. Pretty also, round, smooth, and pale orange. Cherokee Purple hardly produced this year, and hasn’t in years past, so it’s scrapped from the list for next year.
I consider Sungold to be the best-tasting cherry tomato, and it’s still bearing a daily abundance of persimmon-orange fruits. I put in 8 plants; next year, I’ll plant a few more.
That makes a total of only seven tomato varieties — unless someone twists my arm into trying any other variety.
I’ll try for a repeat abundance of peppers next year by again growing Carmen and Sweet Italia.
Sweet Italia peppers
Sweet Italia tastes better but Carmen bears a little better, especially now. The non-hot hot pepper Habenada, is billed as having hot pepper flavor minus the hotness. More like no hotness and no flavor, a no-go for next year.
South Vegetable Garden
Walking over to the “south garden,” the highlights this year were cauliflower, beans, and squash. Cauliflower is allegedly a challenge to grow. I don’t like it so grew it just for the challenge, and because Deb likes it. I was successful, and she can eat it all.
Blue Lake and Kentucky Wonder pole beans keep pumping tender new beans, as pole beans are wont to do. Or is it Blue Lake and Romano? Or Kentucky Wonder and Romano? The row label is buried deep in a wall of foliage so I won’t know until the end of the season. 
I guess two plants per pole, with poles about a foot apart, is too crowded. Next year: one plant per pole.
Pole beans begin bearing late so I also grow bush beans (bush Blue Lake and bush Romano), which peter out after a couple of weeks but yield an early crop for the freezer. I usually put in a second planting also, which is — note for next year — not needed. We didn’t have to harvest any of them because the pole beans kicked in soon enough.
It’s been a banner year for winter squash. I usually plant squash out in the meadow in the cleared strip of land between the dwarf apple trees. And usually, deer or my poultry eat the vines or the fruit so the harvest is usually nil. This year I planted squash in the rich soil along and inside the back fence of the south garden, which backs up to the poultry run. The squash climbed up and over the fence and onto the fenced roof of the run; now there’s plenty to harvest, perhaps too many!
South Vegetable Garden
Two flowers were standouts this year: On a whim I purchased red buckwheat seed from Baker’s Creek (www.rareseeds.com). With no place special in mind about where to plant it, I ended up sprinkling the seed in a bed just outside the north vegetable garden.
For the past couple of months it’s been a 4-foot high cloud of pale red beauty, which, along with how easy it is to grow, earns it a place in next year’s garden. But where?
One other flower stood out also, delphinium. Not a five foot spire of pale blue — I also have them, the Pacific Giant hybrids — but a spire less than two feet tall with dark blue flowers.
It’s Blue Mirror Chinese delphinium (www.reneesgarden.com) and it surprised me by blooming its first year from seed. Let’s see how perennial this perennial turns out to be. Around here, its giant cousins typically die out after a couple of years.
All in all, it’s been an excellent growing season. Spring frost hazard was minor for tree fruits. Rainfall and sunshine were balanced well. Pest problems were minor. Pears are still challenging to harvest at just the right moment so that they can ripen indoors to that delectable window between underripe grassy and overripe sleepy. I did get Concorde at the right moment this year. The ripe fruits are delectable, combining some of the smooth buttery sweetness of Magness pear along with a dash of vanilla.
SOME THINGS FOR SOME SENSES
Visual Delight, and some Aroma
I once grew a rose, Bibi Maizoon, that I considered to be as close to perfection as any rose could be. Its blooms, that is. They were cup-shaped and filled with loosely defined row upon row of pastel pink petals, nothing like the pointed, stiff blossoms of hybrid tea roses. Completing the old-fashioned feel of Bibi Maizoon blossoms is the flowers’ strong, fruity fragrance.
(In case you don’t know who Bibi Maizoon was, she was a member of the royal family of Oman. The Bibi Maizoon rose was bred by British rose breeder David Austin.)
The bush itself was as imperfect as the blossom were perfect. Where to begin? For starters, the thin stems could hardly support the corpulent blossoms. Couldn’t, in fact, so the blossoms usually dangle upside down. Upside down blossoms were not that bad because I considered Bibi best when cut for vases indoors to better appreciate her rare appearances and fragrance.
Top those deficiencies with the fact that Bibi Maizoon was also only borderline cold hardy in my garden and you would rightly guess that I no longer grow this rose.
I haven’t abandoned David Austin roses. I generally like them for their old-fashioned look: the bushes are, well, bushy and full; the blossoms have softer colors than those of traffic-stopping hybrid tea roses; and they are disease resistan and strong-growing.
I’ve previously praised the variety L. D. Braithwaite for its almost nonstop, dark red blossoms, red tinted leaves, and ability to laugh off any amount of cold. Three other varieties — Golden Celebration, Lady of Shallot, and Dame Judi Dench — came into my garden in the last year, their blossoms with varying degrees of yellow, the first a pure golden yellow, the second apricot-yellow, and the third apricot orange. Delicious. They all seem, so far, near-perfect.
Golden Celebration rose
Lady of Shallot rose
Organoleptic Delight, and also Beautiful
Ellison’s Orange is as unknown to most people as is Bibi Maizoon. It’s an apple, an old and very delicious apple, and, oddly enough, ripening right now. Everywhere else I read that this apple is supposed to ripen later in September and on into October, yet every year my Ellison’s Orange fruits ripen about this time of year.
Like Bibi Maizoon, Ellison’s Orange has its good and bad sides. On the plus side, it bears very well and at a young age. It also seems to be somewhat resistant to scab and cedar apple rust diseases, contradicting other sources on this point also. And what a beauty the fruit is, with its orange blush over a yellow background.
For me, the downside of this variety is the absolute necessity to pick it at just the right moment. One day an apple seems puckery underripe; the next day it might be sleepy and soft. If I harvest very carefully, I catch an apple at its delectable best, which is sprightly with an intense flavor that hints of anise seed.
I made my tree from a piece of stem whose cells trace back over a hundred years, to the garden of a Reverend Ellison in Lincolnshire in the east of England. The parents of the reverend’s new apple weren’t lightweights. One parent, Cox’s Orange Pippin, the king of British apples, has an intense flavor that sometimes hints of anise seed. The other parent, Calville Blanc, an old French apple popular in the court of King Louis XIII, has a spicy flavor with just a hint of banana. No wonder Ellison’s Orange tastes so good – as long as I catch it at the right moment.
Another Tasty Delight
If you buy corn at a farmstand or market these days, no need to have boiling water ready, as gardeners did in the past to stop enzymes from starting the conversion of kernels from sugary sweet to starchy bland. Two genes incorporated into modern corn varieties dramatically slow this flavor decline. They also ratchet up the sugars, making modern corns supersweet to begin with.
Call me old-fashioned, but my favorite variety of sweet corn, the only variety that I grow, is the old variety Golden Bantam, which lacks those modern corn genes. Although not nearly as sweet as modern hybrids, Golden Bantam has a very rich corny flavor with – to some tastes — just the right amount of sweetness.
Golden Bantam, a hit since 1906
Golden Bantam was introduced into the seed trade in 1902 by W. Atlee Burpee Company, who got their original 2 quarts of seed from New York farmer William Coy, who had tasted and enjoyed eating some ears at his cousin’s house in Massachusetts. Long story short: Everyone fell in love with Golden Bantam and it became the most popular corn of its day. An article in The Boston Transcript of 1926 states that “In the twenty-four years since [1902] it has made more friends than anyone else could make outside the movies. Which proves that popularity does sometimes follow real merit.” It’s an odd way to compliment but you get the picture.
Golden Bantam pre-dates hybrid varieties, the latter of which, in addition to other characteristics, ripen very uniformly. In a backyard garden, a whole bed of corn ripening at once isn’t necessarily a plus. I want to eat some corn every day, with a little extra each day for freezing.
My four beds of corn, the first planted in mid-May (around the date of our last-killing frost of spring) and the subsequent beds staggered every two weeks, provides just that. We’ve eaten corn almost every day since each mid-August and Golden Bantam shows no signs of slowing down or boring us.
Interesting and Fun
Interesting, But I Could Do Without It
Out doing stuff in the garden, I sometimes wonder: What’s fun about gardening? What’s interesting about gardening?
European hornets are interesting. My first encounter with them — large, intimidating looking hornets with fat, yellow and black striped bodies, was a few years ago when I saw it feeding on kitchen trimmings as I was about to add more to the compost pile.
The thought of a sting from this brute seemed horrendous; I learned, though, that they’re not particularly aggressive and their sting belies their ferocious look. The menacing-looking brute that entered the schoolyard turned out to be a pretty nice guy.
My next significant encounter with European hornets was this week, as I was gazing up into the branches of my plum tree admiring the ripe, red plums, ready for harvest. Reaching up and picking a fruit left me in hand with hardly more than the shell of a fruit that had been eaten out from the inside via a large hole chewed on the far side. In another fruit, I saw the culprit — a European hornet — at work. Lots of plums were being destroyed, as well as near-ripe apples.
How interesting (and unfortunate). Now, what to do. Deb immediately suggested bagging the remaining fruits. I had a stock of “Japanese fruit bags” purchased many years ago and within the hour, all remaining apples a plums were harvested, if sufficiently ripe, or bagged.
As for next year, perhaps European hornets will, as in past years, no longer be troublesome. Perhaps I’ll try trapping them; a research paper showed that they were attracted to funnel traps baited with a mix of equal parts glacial acetic acid and isobutanol. I’ll watch and wait.
Interesting, and Good
Also interesting (and this time fortunate) was the activity of local squirrels this year. Squirrels are particularly fond of peaches and plums, especially early in the season when fruits are dime-size. Not ever here, though. Good. But they are also particularly fond of my hazelnuts. Left to their own devices, they will strip the plants clean.
Over the years I’ve developed a multipronged approach to keeping squirrels at bay, usually, but not always, with success. This year, the hazelnuts were totally spared. Why? Was it my deterrents?
Now that I think of it, birds also acted out of character here this year. They usually strip every fruit from the Illinois Everbearing mulberry tree and the gumi bush. (My blueberry bushes sit within the Blueberry Temple, protected by bird netting.) This year birds again got most of the mulberries but left plenty of gumis for me.
The only time birds left all the gumis and mulberries for me was the back in 2013, the summer of the 17-year cicadas. Birds evidently relish cicadas more than my fruits.
Compost Fun
So what is predictably fun about gardening? Yesterday’s spreading of compost, that’s what.
The first of four beds of sweet corn had been harvested so I prepared the bed for an autumn harvest of “greens.” For starters, I chopped corn stalks off a couple of feet above ground level, then chopped them into smaller pieces in the garden cart. Digging around the base of each hill of plants was enough to sever the largest roots and allow the stalks to be tugged out of the ground and then also to the cart. I lightly raked off any remaining debris from the bed, pulled weeds, and then they went to . . . guess where? All this was added to a bin containing a growing compost pile.
Near that bin was another bin, a “finished” bin of dark, crumbly, and sweet-smelling (well, not sweet, but pleasantly fragrant) compost. Into the cleaned out cart it went.
Back in the garden, I demarcated the edges of the old corn bed with a line of limestone and laid a metal 2 by 4 along each edge as a guide. Into the bed went enough compost for a leveled 1-inch depth. That amount of compost, in addition to smothering small weeds, letting rainfall percolate gently into the soil, maintaining moisture in the soil, and providing food and lodging for beneficial soil life, will provide all the nourishment vegetables in that bed will need for a whole year hence.
I firmed the compost by patting it with the back of my 6-pronged pitchfork creating what I, at least, thought was a nice pattern on the surface, perhaps inspired by a photo I’ve seen of a zen monk raking the gravel garden at the Ryōan-ji monastery in Japan. Final dressing on the bed was lettuce transplants, started about a month ago and ready to pop into the compost-dressed ground.
The toad liked my bed also.
Finally, I stood back and admired my work. What fun, and that bed is (to me) a thing of beauty.
Mmmmmmmm
Genetics, Timely Harvest, and ?
As I led my nephew Jeff, his wife, and their two kids around the garden a couple of days ago, I plucked fruits and vegetables here and there for them to sample. They could compare them with what New York City, where they live, has to offer. They were blown away by the flavors here.
Okay, I cheated a little. They got to sample some of the best of the best: figs so soft they were drooping from their stems, white alpine strawberries, Sungold cherry tomatoes, Golden Bantam sweet corn, and Kentucky Wonder green beans, all picked on the spot and at their peak of perfection. The Golden Bantam corn, you won’t find that offered for sale pretty much anywhere these days although it was the standard of excellence in sweet corn 100 years ago. The white alpine strawberries (Pineapple Crush) are too small and too soft for anyone to market commercially.
But genetics isn’t the whole story. Timely harvest is as important. Commercial considerations aside, it takes a certain skill to know just the right moment to do the deed.
With some plants, especially vegetables, timely harvest is easy. You pick such vegetables as lettuce, beans, and okra as soon as they’re big enough to suit you. You pick tomatoes when they’re red, which is also when I pick sweet peppers; red peppers taste quite different and, to me, a lot better than green peppers.
I haven’t grown eggplants that much over the years. This year they are particularly abundant and I’m still learning how to pick them. Full size? Glossy?
Sweet corn can also be tricky. It took me a few years to get the knack of picking it at its best. I first look for dried up silks and then, taking a tip the vegetable extension specialist at the University of Wisconsin passed on to me many years ago, I wrap my fingers around the ear and feel for fullness. That’s when it’s time to snap the ear down and off the stalk. Gauging that fulness does take practice.
Test for Ripeness
Fruits are a little trickier than vegetables, especially some fruits. Easiest of all are raspberries and blackberries. Tickle the clusters and let the truly ripe ones drop off, as they are wont to do, into the palm of your hand. Too many people tug at blackberries to get them off the plants; flavor suffers. Blueberries are similar to blackberries in that color doesn’t tell of full ripeness; the tickling method does.
I grow a number of varieties of two vining fruits: grapes, of course, and hardy kiwifruits. The kiwifruits, which will begin ripening in a couple of weeks, retain their fresh, green color right through ripeness. What they do do when ripe is to soften. But not all together. Fortunately, when sufficiently mature on the plant, these fruits can finish ripening after harvest. As soon as the first kiwis ripen, I pick them all. They ripen to perfection in a few days at room temperature, longer under refrigeration.
Blue or red grapes seem ripe when they turn their final color. Ripe for commercial purposes perhaps, but not perfectly so. When truly ripe the whole bunch will snap easily from the cane to which it is attached. I sometimes leave the bunches (the ones I enclosed in paper bags in early summer) even longer and, to a point, their flavor just gets better and better.
Most fruits, in fact, taste best if harvested when ready to part with the plant. That’s why for fresh eating, not storage, I sometimes harvest my apples from the ground, daily, the morning they drop. This might not be the best method for all varieties but makes for the very best Macoun apples.
Generally, with tree fruits, I look for a change in color, especially background color, before considering harvesting a fruit. If there’s any green, I let it be. If color tells me that a fruit is potentially ready to be picked, I cup the fruit in hand, then lift and twist. If ripe, the fruit stalk readily separates from the plant. If that doesn’t happen, the fruit needs more time on the plant.
Tricky, for Me at Least
Two fruits whose harvest moment I’m still honing are watermelon and European pears.
I’ve tried all the methods with watermelon: thumping for a sound not too hollow and not to dull (the sound of knocking your knuckles against your chest as opposed to your forehead or stomach); a dried tendril opposite the fruit; a yellow-bellied fruit. They’re all guides but none are the end-all to timely harvest. I never had that problem with my large watermelon crop from my garden in southern Delaware.
Magness pear
European pears ripen from the inside out so become mush if left on the plant to thoroughly ripen. They need to be harvested mature but not yet ripe as indicated by some fruits dropping, a slight change in skin color, and readiness of the fruit stem to part from the branch. Fruits brought indoors to finish ripening are ready to eat when the flesh at the stem end gives with slight finger pressure.
Still, it takes a certain je ne sais quoi. And again, I’m adept at timely harvest of those varieties I’ve grown the longest and of which I have the most.
Climacterics
One reason pears and kiwifruits can ripen to perfection after harvest is because they are climacteric fruits, which undergo a burst of respiration and ethylene (a plant hormone) production as ripening begins. Some of these fruits, which also which include banana, apple, tomato, and avocado can, if sufficiently mature, ripen following harvest. Soon after their climacteric peak, these fruits start their decline.
Citrus, fig, strawberry, plum, and raspberry are examples of non-climacteric fruits, whose ripening proceeds more calmly. Non-climacteric fruits will not ripen at all after they’ve been harvested. They might soften and sweeten as complex carbohydrates break down into simple sugars, but such changes are indicative of incipient rot rather than ripening or flavor enhancement.
For more about flavor, ripening, and climacteric, see my latest book The Ever Curious Gardener: Using a Little Natural Science for a Much Better Garden.
Pests Pesky and Not So
Memories
The tumbled over Red Russian kale seedling brought back old memories. It was like seeing the work of an old friend — or, rather, an old enemy. It’s been so long since I’ve seen a cutworm at work in my garden that I couldn’t even get angry at it.
Cutworm and friend’s broccoli
I scratched around at the base of the plant to try and find the bugger. Too late, fortunately for him or her because its fate would then have been a two-finger crush. The cutworm in a friend’s garden I visited last spring was not so lucky.
The bad thing about cutworms are that they chop down young, tender seedlings. At that age, seedlings’ roots lack the energy to grow new leaves; the plants die. (I wonder how the cutworm benefits from lopping back the seedling; the felled plant usually doesn’t get eaten.)
My kale plant
The good thing about cutworms is that, in my experience, they are few and far between — just one or two every few years.
Also, on a garden scale, they’re easy to control, if needed. They prepare for their meal by wrapping their bodies around the plant stems. When I feared them more, I would cut cardboard rolls at the center of paper towels or toilet tissue into lengths of about 1-1/2 inches long, slit one site, fit it around the seedling, press it into the ground, and tape it back closed. A bit tedious, I must admit.
Then I read that cutworms can be fooled. They only attack soft, young seedlings. A thin stick or toothpick slid partway into the ground next to a seedling makes a cutworm think the plant is a woody plant and, hence, out of its league. Since I didn’t find the culprit in my garden, I slid thin sticks next to nearby seedlings. For my friend’s garden, I returned from her kitchen with a handful of toothpicks and instructed her teenage son what to do with them.
Except for today, I haven’t taken precautionary measures against cutworms for many years. Especially every morning, robins, catbirds, and mourning doves are pecking around the ground in my garden; I suspect that’s one explanation for the lack of cutworms.
A Good Parasite
A week or so ago, I saw another old “friend” in the vegetable garden. I noticed that leaflets had been thoroughly stripped from one region of one tomato plant. Obviously, a tomato hornworm, a voracious and rapid diner, was lurking somewhere amongst the existing foliage. A cause for panic? No!
The culprit, a green, velvety caterpillar with widely spaced, thin white stripes and some rows of black dots, is undoubtedly intimidating.
Besides its voracious appetite — you can hear it chomping away — it is the size of an adult pinky.
Still, not to worry. Like cutworms, tomato hornworms turn up in my garden only every few years. And again, like hornworms, they seem to arrive, or show evidence, solo.
I did not reach out to crush the hornworm when I saw her because her back was riddled with what looked like grains of white rice standing on end. Those “rice kernels” are actually the eggs of a parasite that in short order turns that beautiful body to an ugly mush. It’s a dog eat dog world out there.
A Call for Action with This One
I can’t be so complacent about all pests that can turn up in my vegetable garden. Probably the worst one that causes problems every year is one or more of the caterpillars now, as I write, chewing away on the leaves of cabbage and its kin. The symptoms are quite evident: holy . . . whoops, holey . . . leaves upon which is deposited dark green caterpillar poop.
A close eye is needed on cabbage and its kin because one day there’ll be no damage and next time you look, leaves are riddled with holes and poop.
And then, action is necessary. Hand-picking is one option. I choose to use the biological insecticide B.t., short for Bacillus thurengiensis and commonly sold under such names a Dipel or Thuricide. It should be used with restraint because the insects can — and, in some cases, have — developed resistance to this useful pesticide which is very specific in what it harms and what it leaves alone.
Now that I mention it, excuse me for 10 minutes while I mix up a batch of spray for my cabbages, Brussels sprouts, and kale plants . . .
I’m back. The caterpillars seem to prefer cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and cauliflower over kale, which is fine with me because kale is my favorite of the lot.
Many predators, including certain wasps and beetles, diseases, birds, and bats, keep these caterpillar pests under control. Evidently not enough, though, in my garden.
