GRAPE and NUTS

Long-term Grapes

About a month ago, I picked a bunch of grapes as I was walking around the farmden with a friend, and handed it to him to taste. “Wow,” he exclaimed, eyes lighting up, “that really has taste.” That was the variety Brianna, one of many I grow that are otherwise not well-known, surely not to anyone who doesn’t grow grapes. My friend and I went on to agree that store-bought grapes are, “at best, nothing more than little sacks of sugary water.”

All that’s history now. Over the past month, most of the remaining grapes have either been harvested, eaten by birds or insects, or rotted, although a few very tasty berries can be salvaged here and there from some ugly bunches still hanging.

But are those grape-ful days gone yet? Years ago I read about how, over a century ago in France, fresh grapes were sometimes preserved by cutting off bunches along with a length of stem, the bottom of which was slid into a narrow-mouthed, water filled bottle. These bottles were then placed in a rack on shelves in cold storage which, where outdoor temperatures rarely dipped below freezing, was nothing more than a slightly insulated, outdoor room.

Grapes, stems in bottles, fresh picked

Grapes, fresh picked

A month ago, I emulated those French grape growers of yore, in this case using Corona beer bottles, three of them, three grape varieties, and my refrigerator — very decorative looking.

Grapes, after 1 month storage

Grapes, after 1 month storage

For a modern version, another bunch of grapes went into the refrigerator in a sealed freezer bag. Grapes in freezer bagIf any of this worked out, the plan was to use either the old-fashioned or modern method with a whole bunch of bunches in my walk-in, insulated and with some cooling or heating, as needed, fruit and vegetable storage room.

Back in the olden days, storing fresh grapes was not so rare even on this side of the Atlantic. Professor Frank Waugh, in his 1901 book Fruit Harvesting Storing, Marketing, wrote “An acquaintance of mine from the grape-growing district wrote me the other day (March 12th), ‘A neighbor of mine has one hundred tons of Catawbas still in storage.’” Probably not as single bunches on stems in bottles of water!

Anyway . . . drum roll . . . yesterday it was time to taste my stored grapes. One variety, Glenora, didn’t hold up well. The other two, Lorelei and Brianna, were very good. “Bottled” bunches were very slightly shriveled, but tasted quite good. Perhaps they would do better in the more humid atmosphere of the walk-in cold storage room. The bagged bunch, Brianna, was plump and also tasty.

Admittedly, none of the stored bunches had the crisp texture or fresh flavor of the few berries hanging on ugly bunches still outside. But all were better than any fresh grapes I can buy.

Walnuts at the Car Wash

Storage of nuts, also abundant this time of year, is more straightforward. You pick them up from the ground, let them cure in a cool place away from squirrels, then crack and eat them at your leisure.

With black walnuts, the green husks must be removed and the nuts within cleaned up. Leaving the husks to soften and darken a little makes them very easy, although tedious, to remove. Of the many suggested methods, twisting them off with two rubber-gloved hands seems most effective.

As far as cleaning up the hulled nuts, an old fashioned washing machined, earmarked only for this purpose, would work well. I don’t have one, so came up with an effective alternative.

After spreading out all the husked nuts into eight black plastic vegetable harvest boxes, I loaded them in the back of my truck. And then it was off to the car wash. A couple of rounds with the high pressure water spray did the trick. It was a messy job that I was prepared for with rain coat and pants, boots, hat, and face shield. The truck needed a washing anyway.

Spreading out the trays on the deck exposed for a few days to bright sunlight had them all clean and dry. Squirrels would normally be a threat but the deck is also where Sammy and Daisy, my dogs, spend much of their days.

Previous generation watchdogs on deck

Previous generation watchdogs, Leila and Scooter, on deck

Finally, the nuts were put into five half-bushel baskets for cracking beginning towards the end of December, which is about when last year’s nuts will be finished up.

Harvest Tragedy

I was never that hopeful for English walnuts here (also called Persian or White walnuts). This species is not all that cold-hardy, their blossoms are susceptible to late frosts, which are common here on the farmden, their leaves are susceptible to anthracnose disease, and the only place I had for them was near the road, along the squirrel highway (telephone, cable, and electric wires).

Still, I couldn’t resist, back in 2006, an offer of seeds for some “hardy” varieties. I planted two groups of three trees each, planning to cull out any weaker ones in each group.

All the trees grew well, and I eagerly awaited blossoms which, finally, this year, appeared in abundance. That abundance was followed by an abundance of nuts, and everything looked healthy. Then disaster, in the form of squirrels, struck. Every single nut was stripped from the trees.

Well, not every single nut. One nut was left, which I harvested, easily popped out of its husk, and let sit — cure — on the kitchen table for a couple of weeks. Then, with great fanfare, it was cracked open and eaten.

This year's English walnut harvest

This year’s English walnut harvest

As luck would have it, I also had a bag of store-bought English walnuts with which to compare in taste. No contest. Store-bought tasted rancid in comparison.

Next year, in enough time before the nuts start to ripen, I plan to spray all the trees with a hot pepper spray.

Any other suggestions would be most welcome.

COMPOSTING, A DIDACTIC & A PERSONAL VIEW

Start With The Carbs

A bit of chemistry might be good for your compost. Just a bit. Actually, we mostly need to deal with only two familiar elements of the 100 plus known ones. These two elements are carbon and nitrogen, and they are the ones for which the “bugs” that do the work of making compost are most hungry.

“Work” is too strong a word, though, because these composting bugs do nothing more than eat. Nonetheless, a balanced diet — one balanced mostly with respect to carbon and nitrogen — does these bugs, the composting microorganisms, good.

This time of year, the microorganisms’ smorgasbord is set with an especially wide array and abundance of carbon-rich foods. You can identify these foods because they are old plants or plant parts. As such, they are mostly brown and mostly dry. Autumn leaves, for example. Other carbon-rich foods include wood chips, straw, sawdust, hay, and even paper, made — after all — from wood pulp or other old, dry plant material.
Haystacks and compost piles

By far the bulk of high carbon — carbohydrate — foods for my compost organisms this time of year is hay that I scythe from odd corners here and there in my meadow. (Most of the meadow gets mowed by tractor once a year.) The hay is a mix of a wide variety of plants, mostly various species of grasses and goldenrods, but also, depending on where I cut, loosestrife, asters, New York ironweed, Joe Pye weed, and others. That varied mix is good for a compost pile; those microorganisms, like us, thrive on a varied diet which provides a slew of macro- and micronutrients which then end up in the finished compost and then my vegetables.

Next, Some Proteins

Just as we humans cannot live on bread and pasta alone (carbon-rich foods), so it is with composting microorganisms. So let’s now peruse the smorgasbord for some nitrogen-rich fare. This would include green stuff: young, succulent plants and plant parts. There’s not a whole lot of this stuff around this time of year, but there is some, including grass clippings, kitchen scraps, and microbial fare such as old, spent tomato, broccoli, pepper and other garden plants.

My scythed hay also provides some nitrogen-rich food — early in the season when its lush and green and only a foot or two high. But it has to be used in moderation because there’s not a whole lot of carbon-rich foods early in the season. Except that is, for the previous autumn’s fallen leaves and arborist wood chips that I stockpile. I also make some haystacks to save late-season hay for use in winter and early in the growing season.

Meadow with cartful of scythed hay

Early season scythings

When there’s insufficient nitrogen foods to balance out all the carbon foods you could now find for your compost, it’s time for dietary supplements. Nitrogen-rich supplements for the compost pile include manures and nitrogen fertilizers. Manures usually also add some carbon food, in the form of the straw, wood shavings, or whatever else the animal was bedded in.

No need to get out the chemistry set to analyze how rich a food is in carbon or nitrogen so that you can get them in exact balance (which, if you must know, is a ratio of 20:1). Just keep in mind that the younger the plant part, the richer it is in nitrogen. Also that rabbit manure is richer in nitrogen than is chicken manure, which is richer than, going down the line, sheep, horse, duck, cow, and, finally, pig manure. Nitrogen fertilizers are very concentrated sources of nitrogen.

If I need to supplement the compost diet with extra nitrogen, from fertilizer, I use something that acts organically in the soil, such as soybean meal, which is readily available from feed stores. Its nitrogen is released as various microorganisms feed on it.

Pile It In, and Monitor

So pile anything and everything that was once or is living into your compost bin, balancing carbon-rich foods with nitrogen-rich ones. After garden and backyard cleanup is finished for the season, the scale tips the other way as vegetable scraps become the most significant additions to your compost pile. Balance the food value of this nitrogen-rich material with an occasional cover of wood chips or hay from a pile you keep handy next to your compost bin.

The most important thing in making compost is a good bin. A “good” bin will keep scavengers at bay, be a barrier to weed seeds that might waft into the finished compost, is convenient to fill and empty, and maintains moisture and warmth within. It also keeps everything neat, looking like a compost pile rather than a garbage pile.

If you want to see how you’re doing as a compost “bug” dietician, monitor the goings on within your pile with a long-probed thermometer and your nose. If the materials are moist and outdoor temperatures not frigid, the well-fed pile will be decidedly warm — 120 degrees F., or more. Lack of heat reflects an excess of carbon-rich foods or insufficient water; odors are the result of excess nitrogen or too much water.
Compost thermometer

I take care of my pile’s water needs in two ways. First, when I build the pile I add materials of various texture so that the mix drains well — but not too well so that it can’t cling to sufficient moisture. A lot of water is needed to really wet the innards of pile. Add a lot of material to a compost pile at one sitting and you’d have to stand there, hose in hand, for a long time to really wet it. I’m not that patient, so the second way I take care of the pile’s watering needs is to hook up a small, static sprinkler to a hose along with a valve for adjusting the width of the spray to only cover the top of the pile. About 20 minutes of watering does the trick. (I periodically check moisture deep within the pile with a long-probed moisture meter.)

Keeping records of what you add to your compost pile and how it responds helps you remember what you did right and wrong. But “wrong” is too strong a word, because the material you put in your compost bin

Compost happens bumper sticker

will always turn to compost. As my bumper sticker reads, “COMPOST HAPPENS,” even if the process takes longer or becomes “aromatic” along the way.

For me, making and spreading compost is as rewarding and enjoyable as is gardening per se.

(For more about making compost, using it most effectively, and buying compost, see my book Weedless Gardening.)
Composted garden beds, S garden

FRUITS UNLAWFUL AND LAWFUL

Interloper, Not Welcome by Everyone

As I was coming down a hill on a recent hike in the woods, I came upon an open area where the path was lined with clumps of shrubs whose leaves shimmered in the early fall sunshine. The leaves — green on their topsides and hoary underneath — were coming alive as breezes made them first show one side, then the other.
Autumn olive along trail
The plants’ beauty was further highlighted by the abundant clusters of pea-size, silver flecked red (rarely, yellow) berries lined up along the stems. I know this plant and, as I always do this time of year, popped some of the berries into my mouth. The timing was right; they were delicious.

Many people hate this plant, which I’m sure a lot of readers recognized from my description as autumn olive (Elaeagnus umbellata). What’s to hate? The plant is considered invasive (and banned) in many states in northeast and midwest U.S. “It threatens native ecosystems by out-competing and displacing native plant species, creating dense shade and interfering with natural plant succession and nutrient cycling.”
Flowers of autumn olive
But there is a lot to love about this plant, in addition to its beauty. In spring, about the middle of May around here, the plant perfumes the air with a deliciously sweet fragrance. And poor soil is no problem. An actinobacteria (Frankia) at its roots takes nitrogen from the air and converts it into a form that plants can use.

That ability to make its own fertilizer is just one reason this plant was loved before it was hated. Native to Asia (where the plant is not considered invasive), autumn olive was introduced into the U.S. and the U.K. about 200 years

Autumn olive fruit

 ago for their beauty and to provide shelter and food for birds, deer, bees, racoons, and other wildlife. The plant isn’t stingy with its garnered fertility. The soil near plants becomes richer, all to the benefit of nearby other plant species. As such, autumn olive has been planted to, for instance, reclaim soils of mine tailings, and, as interplants, to spur growth of black walnut plantations (by over 100 percent).

 

But let’s get back to me — and you — eating the berries. The berries are high in lycopene and other goodies so most sources tout the health and healing benefits, after admitting that the berries are astringent and tart.
Yellow and red autumn olive fruits

But, for most autumn olive plants, that’s only if they’re eaten underripe. Right now around here, some plants are offering their dead ripe berries that are neither tart nor astringent, but sweet. Don’t mind the single seed inside each berry. Just eat them also; they’re soft. That window of good flavor is fleeting, lasting only a couple of weeks.

And eating the berries, seed and all, will slow the plants’ spread, pleasing invasive plant people.

So Bad(?) Yet So Good

Are invasive plants really bad? Or just bad for us? Planet Earth likes plant growth. Plants take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen, sequestering carbon, blanket the ground to limit soil and water erosion, and help support micro and macro communities of organisms.

Natural landscapes and their associated natural communities aren’t static. They change as they evolve. No doubt, humans have altered many natural successions. That might spell disaster for our aesthetic or economic sensibilities, but is not “better” or “worse” for our planet.

Scandinavian Dreams

Noncontroversial is another red berry that I am now picking and enjoying. That’s lingonberries (Vaccinium vitis-idaea). If you are Scandinavian, you probably just smiled and a dreamy look came into your eyes.Each year, thousands and thousands of tons of lingonberries are harvested from the wild throughLingonberry fruitsout Scandinavia, destined for sauce, juice, jam, wine, and baked goods. A fair number of these berries are, of course, just popped into appreciative mouths. Most everyone else only knows this fruit as a jam sold by Ikea.

I grow this fruit and am now enjoying the fruits of my labors. I planted it both for its good looks and its good flavor, which got it a chapter in my book Landscaping with Fruit. (Autumn olive also made it in.) Let’s start in spring, when cute, little urn-shaped blossoms dangle singly or in clusters near the ends of the thin, semi-woody stems rising less than a foot high. These urns hang upside down (upside down for an urn, that is) and are white, blushed with pink. They’re not going to stop traffic from the street, but are best appreciated when plants are grown where they can be looked at frequently and up close—such as in the bed at the front of my house.

Lingonberry flowers

4-44-P14

If you miss the spring floral show, you get another chance because lingonberries blossom twice each season. This second show, appearing in mid- to late summer on young stems, bore the fruits I am now enjoying.

Lingonberry sports evergreen leaves, the size of mouse ears and having the same green gloss as those of holly. Like holly, they retain their lush, green color right through winter. New shoots sprout above the spreading roots and stolons to so plants eventually make an attractive and edible groundcover. 

The fruits that follow the flower shows couple just enough sweetness with a rich, unique aroma so they are, if picked dead ripe, delicious plucked right off the plants into your mouth or mixed with, say, your morning cereal. They are pea-sized and somewhat of a show in themselves. The bright red berries hang on the plants for a long time, well into winter, making a perfect Christmas decoration in situ.
Lingonberry fruit on plant
Lingonberry is native to colder regions throughout the northern hemisphere. This fruit is the Preiselbeere of the Germans, the kokemomo of the Japanese, the puolukka of the Finns, the wisakimin of the Cree, the airelle rouge of the French, the keepmingyuk of the Inuit—and the lingon of the Swedes. In English, the plant parades under a number of monikers, including partridgeberry (Newfoundland), cowberry (Britain), foxberry (Nova Scotia), mountain cranberry, and rock cranberry.

If you grow lingonberry, give it the same soil conditions as its relatives, blueberries, mountain laurels, and rhododendrons. To whit: Well-drained soil that is high in organic matter, very acidic, and not too fertile.

WINTER READINESS

For anyone who missed my recent 90 minute webinar on GOURMET COMPOST, the webinar has been recorded and is available for $35 on-demand from Oct. 1st, 2020 until Oct. 8th for $35. The webinar covers options for compost bins, feeding your compost “pets, monitoring progress, what can go wrong and how to right it, when is compost “finished,” and making the best use of your compost. Click below to pay almost by any of a number of ways. Thank you.

Putting Summer in Jars

I’m hunkering down for winter, which includes capturing what I can of summer’s bounty in jars and dried and frozen garden produce. With this year’s hot, sunny weather, tomato plants yielded plenty of fruit — until cut short with a few nights of freezing temperatures about a week ago. Still, I have over two dozen shiny quart jars lined up on a shelf in the basement.

This year, San Marzano, which I (and most of Italy, where San Marzano canned tomatoes are labeled as such) consider to be the best-tasting canned tomato, got segregated into a number of jars all by itself. Other pluses for San Marzano is that it’s an heirloom variety, so I can save my own seed from ripe fruits, and it bears heavily over a long season on healthy, stocky vines.

A past neighbor of mine used to begin his process of canning tomatoes by alternating layers of tomatoes with salt in tall, half-bushel baskets. Other gardeners begin by peeling, perhaps seeding, their tomatoes.

Me? I opt for the quickest method possible, which is: Cut off any bad spots and drop the tomatoes into a large pot with just a half inch of water in the bottom. After being brought to a boil, the tomatoes get simmered until the volume is reduced by one-half, with less reduction for San Marzano’s because of their low water content. Then, a thorough blending with an immersion blender.

New guidelines call for keeping the acidity of canned tomatoes below pH 4.6 to prevent growth of Clostridium botulinum, aka botulis bacteria, by adding 2 tablespoons of lemon juice or 1/2 teaspoon of citric acid per quart. This is because of lower acidity of some modern tomatoes. I do so just to make sure even though my tomatoes’ acidity measured below 4.6. Finally, the canning jars go into the pressure canner for processing for 10 minutes at 15 pounds pressure.

I figure that I can chop up and sprinkle in any flavorings for sauces or soups later, in winter, when I have more time and I know the jar’s end use.

(House) Plants on the Move

I’m a little late this year in readying my houseplants for winter. I know from seasons past that when they come indoors, so do occasional pests. The pests that are most troublesome, the only ones about which I need to do something, are scale insects.

Scale insects aren’t always in evidence now but I know they are there on my citrus, bay laurel, orchid, and staghorn fern plants. By early winter, the pest becomes more obvious as occasional, small brown nodules on stems and leaves. That’s the protective “scale,” beneath which the scale insect is happily sucking away plant sap. 

Scale insects have never killed my plants but do weaken them and – perhaps worse – exude a sugary “honeydew” as they suck sap. This sticky honeydew gets all over floors, furniture, or whatever is beneath the plant. And then a fungus arrives to feed on that honeydew, giving leaves a dark, smoky, haze.

Hard-shell scale on staghorn fern

Hard-shell scale on staghorn fern

My tack for scale insects is to line susceptible plants up in my driveway, then spray them with some relatively benign insecticide such as Ced-o-flora, horticultural oil, neem oil, or pyganic. I’ve been doing that for the past few weeks in an effort to get the young scales before they find shelter beneath their protective shells.

With the last spray finished, in come all my houseplants. Windows are still open at least some days so indoor air is not too different from outdoor air, easing the environmental transition for the plants.

Squirreling Away

Black walnuts are one of my favorite nuts and they’re conveniently abundant and free for the picking, at least around here. Perhaps too abundant. Once there are a couple trees, they beget more and more as squirrels start “planting” them everywhere. My vegetable garden, with it’s soft, rich soil is a favorite spot.

Admittedly, the nuts aren’s so convenient to eat. Their messy husks need to be removed. Then the nuts have to be cured in a dry, cool or cold, squirrel-proof space until around New Year’s Day, And finally, the very tough nuts need cracking. I recommend the ‘Master Nut Cracker’, in my opinion the best nut cracker for those tough shells.

Last year black walnuts were raining down all over the place here and in town. This year, probably because of last year’s overabundance, the crop is light everywhere. How are the walnuts doing where you are?

I’m lucky. One tree here on the farmden that provided most of our nuts in years past, is bearing heavily. Up to a few years ago it was useless, bearing nuts whose innards were almost always spoiled or shriveled. That  might have been because of hurricane Irene back in 2011, when the nearby Wallkill River flooded its banks to wash over here and rise about four feet up that tree’s trunk.
black walnuts in jar
I cracked a few of the nuts this year to see how the nutmeats look. They’re well-filled and a nice, white color inside. But not edible, as I wrote, until they’re cured. Until January, we can enjoy what’s left of last year’s nuts.

CREATURES LARGE AND SMALL

Identity Crisis?

For the past couple of months, I’m not so sure that my duck knows that she’s a duck. She and another female duck once shared a drake, and they all lived together in their own “duckingham palace.”

  Sometime after the other female and the drake were taken by a predator, probably a fox or coyote, I thought our remaining female might enjoy some company at night. So I coaxed her to take up nightly residence with our three chickens — a rooster and two hens — who have their own house (“chickingham palace?,” actually more palatial than duckingham palace).
Chicken & duck, off to work
Not only has Ms. Duck moved in with the chickens at night but she also wanders around with the flock by day. Her special companion is the rooster, especially since the two chicken hens decided to spend much of their days sitting on imaginary eggs. Neither hen has laid a real egg for over a month. So the female duck and the rooster stroll together each day, gobbling up insects, weed seeds, and some vegetation, except, of course, within the fenced confines of the vegetable gardens. I’ve even caught them in flagrante delicto.

  The duck, being a duck, enjoys water. Her idea of a pond is the 3-foot-diameter children’s sandbox repurposed with water that we’ve provided for her bathing pleasure. During the bath, the rooster stands nearby, watching and seemingly trying to figure out what’s going on with his water-loving belle.

Beetles and Vespids

This season has seen both an abundance and a lack of some other, smaller creatures here on the farmden. In July, I saw a few Japanese beetles and braced for an onslaught, ready to repel them with a spray of neem extract or kaolin clay if things got ugly. Although I heard about the beetles descending in hordes on some other gardens near and far, I’ve hardly seen any all summer since then.
Japanese beetles
This beetle-less trend has been going on here for a few years. I’m not sure exactly why. Japanese beetles do have some natural predators and diseases, including beneficial nematodes. Whatever’s helping out, I’m thankful that they’re doing their job.

  Making up for a lack of Japanese beetles has been an abundance of yellowjackets, reflecting, perhaps, good weather conditions, for them, in spring. In contrast to honeybees, yellowjacket colonies do not overwinter; only the queens do. But the bigger the colony this summer, the more young queens develop to fly off and find winter quarters to build up colonies next summer. These insects start out the season feasting on high protein foods but have now shifted to sweets.

European hornets are also in abundance, with their large size looking more frightening than the yellowjackets but, in fact, not nearly so aggressive. They do have a bigger appetite for fruits, though, often hollowing out whole apples to leave nothing but most of the skin, intact.
Apple being damaged by European hornet
Yellowjackets and European hornets have made me more cautious when berry-picking. The insects are capable of breaking through thin skins so are actually robbing a significant part of the late summer raspberries. A close eye is needed to avoid harvesting an angry yellowjacket along with a berry. Early in the morning, they are especially grumpy when wakened from their resident berry. 
Yellow jacket on raspberry
Yellowjackets and European hornets are also a problem on compost piles in progress. Fresh additions to the pile, especially sweet ones such as melon rinds, quickly need covering with a layer of hay or manure. This hides the food and gets it composting.

  Although yellow jackets are beneficial in the garden for eating plant pests, their present habits mostly outweigh the good, for me, at least. (I’m allergic to their stings.) I destroy any nests I happen upon with torch or insecticide. Insecticides with mint as their active ingredients are very effective.

A Bag for Protection

  Grapes have tougher skins than raspberries, skins that can resist yellowjackets. That is, until a bird takes a peck or a couple of diseased berries split open.

  In anticipation of problems with yellowjackets, European hornets, honeybees, birds, insects, and diseases, earlier this summer we enclosed 100 bunches of grapes in white delicatessen bags. Not that all unbagged grapes get attacked. But the bagged bunches can be left hanging the longest to develop fullest flavor. Most of the time, we tear open the bags to reveal perfect bunches of grapes.
Bagged vs unbagged grapes
For the first time, this year, I enclosed some grape bunches in organza bags. (Organza is a fine mesh fabric often used to enclose such items as wedding favors.) These bags were working really well until the European hornets got hungry enough to poke feeding holes in them. This ruined some of the berries and allowed access to fruit flies.
Organza bagged grapesThe first grapes of the season, Somerset Seedless and Glenora, started ripening towards the end of August. The first of these varieties is one of many bred by the late Wisconsin dairy farmer cum grape breeder Elmer Swenson. The fruits of his labors literally run the gamut from varieties, such as Edelweiss, having strong, foxy flavor (the characteristic flavor component of Concord grapes and many American-type grapes) to those with mild, fruity flavor reminiscent of European-type grapes. Somerset Seedless is more toward the latter end of the spectrum and, of course, it’s seedless. Swenson red and Briana, which are ripe as you read this, are more in the middle of the spectrum.

  As you might guess from Elmer’s location, all the varieties that he bred are very cold-hardy.

Thanks, Elmer.

GOURMET COMPOST WORKSHOP/WEBINAR

WEBINAR: GOURMET COMPOST FOR YOUR PLANTS   

Learn the why and the how of making a compost that grows healthy and nutritious plants, everything from designing an enclosure to what to add (and what not to add) to what can go wrong (and how to right it). Don’t bother stuffing old tomato stalks, grass clippings, and leaves into plastic bags; just compost them! The same goes for kitchen waste. Learn what free materials are available for composting.

Smelling compostAlso covered will be the best ways to use your “gourmet compost.” Good compost is fundamental to good gardening; it put the “organic” into organic gardening, making healthy soil and healthy plants. Plus a segue into compost tea.

Whether your interest is to produce a material that’s good for your garden or to recycle kitchen and garden waste, this workshop will teach you all you need to know to make good compost.

Bring your questions.

Date: September 23, 2020 
Time: 7-8:30 pm EST
Cost: $35

Register for this webinar at:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_XmctJm_9QLWlKmW4hK1Lhg

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

COMPOST, KALE, A FLOWER, AND AN ODD ONION

Ins and Outs of Compost

Mostly, what I’m doing in the garden these days is making or spreading compost. Lots of good stuff — old vegetable plants, hay, weeds, rotted fruits — is available to feed my compost “pets.” And compost spread now has the ground ready for planting in spring.

Do you have any questions about composting? Want to know how to make best use of cocompost pile being wateredmpost? Interested in details about how to make gourmet compost? This is a reminder that on Wednesday, September 23, 2020 from 7-8:30pm EST, I’ll be hosting a webinar about composting. For more information and registration, go to https://leereich.com/workshops.

A recording of the webinar will be available for a limited time period to anyone who registers but can’t make it to the live presentation.

Kale, You’re More than Beautiful

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 mostly of kale plants.

No, it’s not a bed of colorful, ornamental kale, not even a reddish kale such as Russian Red. I 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 way the curly leaves flow together like an undulating wave of verdant frilliness.
Kale, from upstairs window
My vision could be swayed by my knowing 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 early March, set out transplants out 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.) 

Unlike broccoli, whose prime is past once buds open into flowers, or cabbage, which splits if left too long, kale doesn’t need to be harvested at just the right moment. It just keeps growing taller, with more leaves, if left alone.

The only thing kale needs protection from is rabbits and woodchucks, like most vegetables, and from cabbage worms. A fence and two dogs keep rabbits at bay. One or two sprays of the biological pesticide Bacillus thurengiensis, sold commercially under such trade names as Thuricide and Dipel, is all that’s needed for the worms (they’re actually caterpillars, not worms). Or nothing. Some years, damage is light enough so that no control is necessary.

What more could I ask for from a plant: good looks, good health, and good flavor?
Row of kale

Kiss Me Over the Garden Gate

I take it upon myself to personally promote the revival of an old-fashioned flower: kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate (Persicaria orientalis). 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, usually no more than a foot or so high, with what look like small droplets of pink dew at the ends of its stems.

Kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate looks like smartweed on steroids, the “droplets” the size of bb’s and, rather than trailing, the plant rises with robust arching stems to more than seven feet high. It’s just the right height and form for growing next to a garden gate, which is where my plants sometimes grow.
kiss me over the garden gate
Kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate is a little hard to get started because the seeds germinate slowly and erratically. My plants thankfully live up to their reputation of being self-seeding annuals. The self-seeding plants come up more robustly than the coddled few seedlings I used to transplant each year.

Kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate’s self-seeding habit is restrained enough to keep it from being frightening. All I do each spring is weed out the few extra plants, as well as those that stray too far from my garden’s gate.

Evergreen Onions

For many years, in addition to starting onions from seed, sown in February, I also would go 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.

Nowadays, instead of planting sets for scallions, I grow bunching onions, yet another type of onion, one that never ever makes fat bulbs. I’ve sown them in February for later transplanting, or directly in the garden. They always remain scallions, never bulbing up, and multiply by growing new baby plants at their bases.
Evergreen onion
The variety I grow, Evergreen Hardy White, can allegedly live through winters here. Come spring, the plants can be divided to make more scallions for eating and for growing. (I’ve always eaten them all; this year I’ll leave some to challenge their winter hardiness.)

Tops of my bulbing onions dried down and were harvested weeks ago, but these bunching onions never cease to maintain their fresh, green scallion-y character.

I’M NO MICHELANGELO, BUT . . .

Lawn Nouveau

I’m taking up sculpture. Not in bronze, Carrara marble, or granite, but with plants.

My easiest sculpture is one I’ve been doing for years. I can’t really say “working on for years” because every year it vanishes, to be started anew each spring. It’s “lawn nouveau,” as I call it in my book, The Pruning Book, and then go on to describe the technique as “two tiers of grassy growth . . . the low grass is just like any other lawn, and kept that way with a lawnmower. The taller portions are mowed infrequently – one to three times a year, depending on the desired look (and my need for hay) — with a scythe or tractor.” The sharp, defining line between the high grass and the low grass is integral to the design.
Meadow in September
I’m lucky to have a meadow bathed in sunlight bordering the south side of my property. But even a small yard might be able to accommodate lawn nouveau. My three-quarter of an acre yard did before the meadow shifted to my care. (Previous owners had maintained it as very large lawn with weekly or biweekly mowing.)

This sculpture has many pieces to it.

One is how I manage it with mowing the whole meadow either at the end or the beginning of the growing season, a necessary task or the meadow will naturally revert over time to forest. Even a once a year mowing might be insufficient, as I realized a couple of years ago with the increasing encroachment of woody shrubs and vines such as poison ivy, grape, and multiflora rose.

Repeated mowing during one season brought the meadow back in order, mostly with grasses. Over time I expect and hope for a resurgence also of more goldenrods, bee balms, and other herbaceous, flowering plants.
Meadow of an autumn passed
The look of the meadow is also influenced by a season’s weather. And by the progress of the season, the meadow’s appearance being very different as grasses morph from succulent green leaves in spring to late summer’s tawny shoots and seed heads. Late summer also brings on showy flowers.
Meadow in spring
Even the time of day; it’s early morning appearance is quite different than its appearance at various times throughout the day, all dependent also, of course, on what’s happening up in the sky. All this making for a very interesting sight of varying beauty.

A lot of this is either beyond my control or very unpredictable. What is neither is my mowing during the growing season. Each spring I lay out a path, maintained by mowing with my tractor, that wends its way through the meadow.
Meadow path
The goal is to make it inviting and practical. Practical because it carries you to the end of the meadow into a bosk of maples, river birches, and one large buartnut tree, and then on to a studio building.
Path leading to bosk
Meadow, looking north
This year I decided to also sculpt more edges of the meadow, cutting the high grass with a scythe to a pattern that matches the flow of the path within. One of my favorite views of the meadow is from an upstairs window, its height allowing me to visually swallow the whole view.

A Head for Yew

Another plant sculpture here is a large yew that I’m carving to become a fifteen foot high head. This one is easy enough because I’m merely copying one of a series of such heads living in a public garden in Britain.

The bush is old, 40 years at least, and has always been pruned to a cone shape with slightly rounded rather than straight sides.

Creating the facial features has involved some deep pruning down into the center of the bush. Yew is a forgiving plant, readily resprouting from even old wood. Problem is that some of those interior stems are old and dead.
Yew head
The challenge, then, is time, to be patient for sprouts to grow where light now is penetrating. And then to trim those sprouts so that all levels of the sculpture present green surfaces.

Cloudy Aspirations

And finally, my most difficult sculpture, one for which I each year claim improvement, but not success. The plants: yews again. In this case, there are four of them, all maintained four to five feet high so as not to block the windows of the wall they front.

Originally, they were pruned as a standard yew-along-house-foundation hedge. A few years ago, I morphed them into something more interesting and humorous, a giant caterpillar, with some success. (My inspiration here was the work of Keith Buesing, topiarist extraordinaire of Gardiner, New York.)
caterpillar yew
More recently for these plants, I decided to try a method of pruning known as okarikomi, a technique that originated in Japan. In this case, a group of shrubs, rather than maintaining their individual identity, are pruned to flow together to create a scene reminiscent of billowing clouds or a distant, rolling landscape.
Okarikomi yew
Thus far, I’m not pleased with my pruning. But every year I make some changes and it looks better than it did the previous year.

Plants are very forgiving. Every year, even during each growing season, I have opportunity to change my sculptures according to my whims or what looks nicer to me. What will the meadow, the yew head, and the okarikomi yews look like next year?

And Composting

In case you didn’t notice my previous post, I will be holding a composting workshop/webinar Wednesday, September 23, 2020 at 7 PM. For more information, go to www.leereich.com/workshops.

COMPOSTING WORKSHOP/WEBINAR

COMPOSTING WORKSHOP/WEBINAR

Presentation by Lee Reich (MS, PhD, researcher in soil and plants for the USDA and Cornell University, decades-long composter, and farmdener*):

Learn the why and the how of making a compost that grows healthy and nutritious plants, everything from designing an enclosure to what to add (and what not to add) to what can go wrong (and how to right it). Don’t bother stuffing old tomato stalks, grass clippings, and leaves into plastic bags; just compost them! The same goes for kitchen waste. Learn what free materials are available for composting. “Bring” your questions about this important topic. 
Compost bin
Also covered will be the best ways to use your gourmet compost. Good compost is fundamental to good gardening; it put the “organic” into organic gardening, making healthy soil and healthy plants.

Whether your interest is to produce a material that’s good for your garden or to recycle kitchen and garden waste, this workshop will teach you all you need to know to make good compost.

Space for this workshop/webinar is limited so registration is necessary. Sign up soon to assure yourself a space.

Date: September 23, 2020
Time: 7-8:30 pm EST
Cost: $35

Register for this webinar at:

https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_XmctJm_9QLWlKmW4hK1Lhg

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

*A farmdener is more than a gardener and less than a farmer.

DAILY GRAPES

As The World Turns…

Over the years, gardening has made me more and more aware of our planet’s annual track around the sun. How quaint. It gives me a certain kinship with the peasants at work in the 15th century painting for the month of September of Les Très Riches Heures de Duc de Berry.

Picking grapes, 15th and 21st century

Picking grapes, 15th and 21st century

As with those peasants, September is a month when I have abundant fruits for harvest. Like the peasants, I’m harvesting grapes; it’s been a bumper year. Unlike the peasants, my grapes are destined for fresh eating rather than being sullied by fermentation into wine. (Okay, okay, just kidding, although I am not a fan of drinking wine.)

First to ripen here were the varieties Somerset Seedless and Alden. With an abundance of varieties and fruits, I can afford to be picky, so this will be the last season here for Somerset Seedless. It’s too prone to pest problems and the fruit never loses enough of its tannin-y taste for my palate.

Alden grape

Alden grape

Alden is also threatened with my saw and shovel because it bears lightly and is also plagued with pest problems. But excellent taste and texture make it worth keeping.

Following on the heals of those earlier varieties are Swenson Red, Lorelei, Glenora, and Vanessa. The latter two are very good but would not be worth keeping if they weren’t seedless. In my experience, the most flavorful grapes are those with seeds. Swenson’s Red is a variety that pretty much everyone loves. They’d also love Lorelei if they got to taste this not very common variety.

Finally come Edelweiss, Wapanuka, Brianna, and, bearing for the first time, Cayuga White. The first three are not yet quite ripe. Even at this stage, they are delectable. Cayuga White is still proving itself, or not.

Edelweiss grape

Edelweiss

Looking to the future, newly planted Bluebell, Alpenglow, and Dr. Goode should yield a few berries next year. Also an unknown variety that I propagated from an old vine growing at a friend’s Orchard.

With their bold flavors, you’re not likely to find any of the varieties I mentioned at a supermarket, possibly even a farmer’s market. Plant them!

Variety Choices

A few caveats: The Wallkill River Valley, site of my farmden, is far from ideal for fruit growing. As a valley, it’s colder than surrounding land (zone 5) and is laden with damper air that encourages disease. An abundance of wild grapevines in the bordering 6000 acres of forest provides a place for insects and disease to get their start.

Nonetheless, I get good crops without resorting to sprays. This is possible by providing a sunny site with good air circulation and making the best of it with trellises, and — very important — annual pruning. Also by choosing varieties to plant based on pest, disease, and cold resistance. 

Many grape varieties are hybrids of European and American species, the Europeans chosen for their flavor (flavor, that is, from a Eurocentric perspective), the Americans for their toughness to pests and more rigorous growing conditions. American varieties have a unique flavor, called foxiness and typified by that of Concord, as well as a slip skin. European varieties are sweet with a crunchy texture.

As far as flavor and texture, varieties span the spectrum from those that are more like European grapes to those more like American grapes. My final, but very important, consideration in choosing a variety is flavor, and I mostly prefer the flavors of varieties toward the American end of the spectrum.

Of course, the choice widens for grape enthusiasts in more Mediterranean climates, where European varieties can also be grown, and in the Southeast, where the native muscadine grapes grow wild and are cultivated.

Bagging, for Pests

Many birds and insects, especially yellow jackets and European hornets, also enjoy my grapes. They leave plenty for me, but crucial to harvesting the best of the best tasting grapes here is bagging.

Years ago I figured that the longer a bunch of grapes hangs on the plant, the tastier it gets (to a point), but also the more chance of attack by insects and birds. So I bought 1000 bakery bags that happened to have “Wholesome Fresh Delicious Baked Goods” printed on them. Paper bagged grapesPerhaps the label made the bags even less attractive to grape-hungry birds and insects; at any rate, they worked very well, usually yielding almost 100 late harvest, delectably sweet and flavorful, perfect bunches of bagged grapes each year.

This year, I thought organza bags might work well. Bagged grapes, organzaOrganza is an open weave fabric often made from synthetic fiber. Small organza bags typically enclose wedding favors; the bags come in many sizes. Organza bags have the advantage over paper bags of letting in more light. A mere pull of the two drawstrings makes bagging the fruit very easy; paper bags involve cutting, folding, and stapling. Organza bags also re-usable. (The bags also work well with apples which, in contrast to grapes, require sunlight to color up.)

In the15th century painting, peasants just pile bunches of their grapes into large, wooden tubs. I gently set only enough bunches for immediate consumption into a woven basket. Different methods, but we’re all tuned to the progress of our planet around its sun.

More details about growing grapes — and lots of other fruits — in my book Grow Fruit Naturally.Apples, bagged with organza