Liberated Gardener

Spring Garden Tips

A few things to help get spring good and rolling:

* If you didn't spread mulch over the winter, get it done now before the summer heat sweeps you indoors. A layer of organic mulch--shredded leaves, shredded bark--keeps the sun from drying out the soil, reduces the number of weeds, provides food for earthworms, provides nutrients for plants and just looks better. From the mid-Atlantic south, about 2"-3" will last a year or so. If you get a late start, only apply about an inch, that way you can apply some more this winter and get on a better schedule. 

* If you have new plantings, put a soaker hose around them (see earlier post about soaker hoses), cover the soaker hose and bed with mulch, connect the soaker to a garden hose, connect the garden hose to a timer and connect the timer to your spigot. Then when you go to work you can cut on the timer/spigot and go to work knowing that the water will turn itself off and your plants won''t be toasted during a heat wave. 

* If you haven't applied lime to your fescue lawn, you can do so now. Really you can do so anytime. It takes about 6 months for the lime to have any effect. 

* Pull weeds before they can set seed. Keeping the number of weed seeds down will reduce your weed population over time. 

* Even if you don't eat them, plant dill and fennel. Their wide clusters of tiny flowers will attract tiny wasps that don't sting people and lay eggs that attack garden pests, like tomato hornworms. 

* From the mid-Atlantic south, even if you planted in April, there are still vegetable crops that can be planted in May and June: sweet potatoes, okra, watermelons, pumpkins, corn, new potatoes, cucumbers and winter squash as well as any mid spring crops that had setbacks, such as tomatoes, peppers, etc. It's a long enough season for late spring/early summer plantings to do well. 

* If any leaves show signs of disease--early blight on tomatoes, rust on iris, for example--pull those leaves and throw them away. Any rain or overhead irrigation that hits those leaves will splash the disease onto other leaves on other plants. 

* Any perennials that grew too tall and flopped over last summer can be cut back hard now. That will force them to grow more stems that are shorter and more stable. 

* Deadhead flowers that seed in more than you like or just to keep them from putting energy into seed production at  the expense of next year's flowers. 

 

Blogging from Provence and Paris

For the month of May, you'll be seeing photos and posts with the Liberated Gardener's take on Provence and Paris--gardens, farms, Roman ruins, markets, landscapes of wild-growing herbs like lavender and thyme, biking, narrow-gauge trains, interesting people and of course, good food and wine. My wife Chris and I will be celebrating our fifth anniversary with this trip and we look forward to sharing some of the highlights

Check out the new post below; leave me a question or a comment--thanks! 

And learn more about my work at www.frankhyman.com

Blogging from Provence and Paris

For the month of May, you'll be seeing photos and posts with the Liberated Gardener's take on Provence and Paris--gardens, farms, Roman ruins, markets, landscapes of wild-growing herbs like lavender and thyme, biking, riding narrow-gauge trains, interesting people and of course, good food and wine. My wife Chris and I will be celebrating our fifth anniversary with this trip and we look forward to sharing some of the highlights. Stay tuned. 

And learn more about my work at www.frankhyman.com

Making a Trellis for Peas and Beans from Bamboo

Peas can grow on the ground, which might be good if you're a kid, but I find I like to bend over less than I used to. Picking peas and beans from a trellis keeps them cleaner and saves time and strain in the picking.

I harvested some 2" bamboo from the overgrown alley at my old house in the Burch Ave. neighborhood and cut it to about 8' long to get it home in the truck. The peas were already planted and had grown about 12" high and were waving around searching for something to climb. 

As you can see in the picture, I set a pair of bamboo at each end of the 4'x4' raised bed and used tie-wire (twine would work fine too--I just used what was handy) to make an "A" frame. Just cut a piece of wire long enough (about 16" or so, length of wire will depend on size of bamboo) and wrap around once and twist the ends together.

An advantage of tie-wire is that you can then use a wrench to grab the twisted ends and twist them tighter to snug up the pieces of bamboo. I then used a third bamboo to hold an "A" up temporarily by leaning them together ( a helper can be useful to hold things in place while you tie them, but if you're handy and take your time to think out your steps, you can do this alone if need be).

Another piece of bamboo that reached from the bottom of one "A" to the crossing point of the other "A" was tie-wired (and tightened with pliers). A diagonal like this is necessary to keep the whole thing from falling over. The final piece of bamboo (cut with a saw to the right length) straddled the top of each "A" horizontally and was tied and tightened.

With the bamboo frame in place, I just needed something to drape on it for the peas to climb on. I had a short section of galvanized fence left over from a project that fit in both dimensions. Any kind of netting would work or you could use jute twine to weave your own netting. I've seen one gardener use twine to weave a netting that looked like a big spider's web--so there is no law that the netting has be be composed of a series of rectangles or parallel lines. The peas won't notice.

In fact you could use a tangle of branches laid against the bamboo if you've been doing some pruning. Peas and other vines evolved clambering up twigs and branches anyway,  so they'll be right at home.

And then if you've planted Sugar Snap peas you and your sweetheart can stuff your faces with the green candy in May/June while sitting on the porch admiring your handiwork.

Mission Accomplished: We Sold Out of Plants at the Sale

For a while I was worried that  we didn't have a strong selection of plants. And some of them had come up slowly due to the long winter and didn't look their best, such as the Blue Star. And nothing we had for sale was in bloom. We had a lot of strikes against us.

But by noon we had sold everything, except one flat of about a dozen plants--mostly Blue Spruce sedums--and they were the best, fattest, fullest plants we came with! Don't know why people passed them over. But by the end of the sale, at 2 pm we had sold half of those and the rest will go into Chris' window boxes with some single-flower portulaca. (Both plants are very drought hardy and highly compatible in containers. )

We figure we sold enough plants to pay for a weeks worth of dinners at nice restaurants in Paris. Thanks Duke Gardens, garden volunteers and all you shoppers/gardeners !  :-)

Next year at the Plant Sale, we'll have a lot of these big, strong, fast white bearded iris in the pic below of our front yard. Also the purple, non-suckering raspberry, maybe some Solomon Seal, Violette de Bordeaux fig, other edibles and natives and maybe I'll figure out how to propagate our old-fashioned lilac. Hmmm....

My Herb Bed near the Farmer's Market gets a mention in the New York Times

Recent story in the New York Times about the terrific food scene in Durham, NC, my hometown. And a quote in the story mentions the garden I take care of in SEEDs' Garden of Eatin' next to the Farmer's Market:

“One of our farmers said that at this point, it would make more sense for us to list the things on the menu that aren’t local,” said Drew Brown, a chef-owner of Piedmont, a restaurant a few steps from Durham’s farmer’s market and right next door to the city’s public herb garden.

The chefs at Piedmont have been harvesting the chives, rosemary and other herbs I've planted at "the city's public herb garden" as well as snipping the growing tips off of the Austrian winter pea that I planted as an edible cover crop. The theme of the garden is that every plant is edible. In addition to the pea cover crop , I also planted a wavy "S" curve of winter rye grain that is flowering now and looks fabulous. 

Others who donate their time to sustain the Garden of Eatin' are Kevin Svara, who built the cedar arbor/bench, Bountiful Backyards, who planted the blueberries and fruit trees, Michele DeRose, wh0 cares for  the ornamental vegetable garden, Rebecca Wellborn and Jonathon Nyborg who tend the medicinal plant garden. And I manage the culinary herb garden with the permanent mulch of purple gravel at the corner of Foster and Hunt as well as keeping the edible cover crops going and the burlap coffee bean bag mulch. 

 

Great Plants Available at Duke Gardens on Sat.

Perfect weather and lots of great plants. Saw someone with an oakleaf hydrangea, some huge yarrow and a wide selection of ornamental trees at one vendor called Specialty Ornamentals, I think. 

And we sold about a quarter of our stock in 2 hours, so I'm happy. The surprise big seller was the Farfugium japoncum "Crispatum" and there were lots of people with dry, shady areas that wanted the Woods Aster that thrives in those conditions (how many plants can say that? and it's native). 

And I almost didn't bring my favorite plant in this year's batch--the Blue Stars--as they have been slow coming up due to the long winter. But they got a good reception due to their many great qualities: deer resistant, native, drought hardy and the furry-looking leaves turns a striking yellow in the fall. 

The Duke Garden Plant and Craft Sale is open 4/24 from 9 am to 2 pm. There's a vendor with hot dogs and drinks. Experienced shoppers bring something to carry plants in--a cart, wheelbarrow, or at least a box. Hope to see you there. 

Farfugium japonicum "Crispatum", likes shade, evergreen great wavy leaves.  

We're at the Duke Gardens Plant Sale Today and Tomorrow

You  can find us at the Duke Gardens Plant and Craft Sale, today (4/23) from 4-6 pm (must be a member) and tomorrow/Saturday from 9 am-2 pm. Lots of great growers there, such as the Duke Gardens volunteers and Niche Gardens. Chris and I will be selling plants we propagated out of our cottage garden; drought-hardy garden survivors like Blue Star, Lenten Rose, Sedum ‘Blue Spruce”, Mountain Mint, Rose Campion, Woodland Aster and an unusual plant called Farfugium japonicum “Crispatum”. (Sorry, don't have any of the heirloom purple raspberries this year--will have them next spring. Read my story in the Independent Weekly to learn more) 

We've priced the plants lower than last year for two reasons: the cold weather kept them from growing as much over the winter so some are smaller than they were last year and also because Chris and I won’t be here to water them in May, so we want to sell out! Come help us empty the nursery ! Look for our green market umbrella.

At last year's sale, Duke Gardens staffer, Orla Swift, shot a video of me (on caffeine) talking about keeping birds out of your fruiting plants. Hope to see you there. 

A Betterbud

So you’re looking for a small shade tree for your back-yard patio, one that blossoms with fabulous spring flowers, holds its poise through the heat of summer, bears vivid fall colors and takes a dignified form in winter. Oh, and you want drought-hardiness and pest-resistance so you’ wont’ have to fuss over it. How about an Oklahoma redbud? Knock-‘em dead magenta flowers in March that are richer than an eastern redbud's, glossy dark green leaves in summer, a clear yellow glow in fall and a compact habit of about 15 feet. The Oklahoma redbud evolved in the harsh weather of the plains, so North Carolina weather is cake.

Everlasting Tomato Cages

For years I promoted using concrete reinforcing wire to make the best tomato cages. These cages (trellises) need no staking, no tying up the tomatoes, they're tall enough (5'x18") to handle a healthy indeterminate tomato vine,  they have a lovely patina of rust,  they last almost forever and can live outdoors in the off-season. These things are real timesavers in the garden and they are so superior to those dinky, galvanized cages that most garden centers and big box stores sell. 

But few people used them. Then it dawned on me that not every gardener had a truck that could haul an 80 lb. roll of wire or had a set of bolt cutters that it takes to cut this heavy-gauge wire. And since you can get about 25 cages from one roll, most gardeners aren't going to want to spend $100 or so on a roll, when they only need a few cages to trellis their tomatoes. 

So last spring I put the word out that I would sell tomato cages for $12 each (and put the money in our Travel Fund). And sold about 100 of them over the course of a week. 

This spring, we're a bit busier, so I didn't market them as much and due to the recession, I cut the price back to $10 each and still sold about 50 of them this weekend (April 10/11). 

Have had some conversations with garden centers about selling them on consignment. May not get to it this year--we're leaving town for a month on April 29th. Maybe next spring. 

Below is a pic of a young tomato plant getting started inside a cage. I used to stake the cages (with tent stakes) but that was a pain and then it struck me that simply setting 3 or 4 of the cages cheek-by-jowl and tying the tops together with a bit of twine would create a big enough foot print so they wouldn't topple over even in a storm. 

Creating these would be a good project for a community garden. All you need is someone with a truck to pick up the wire, a set of bolt cutters and a space to work in and you're good to go. 

Instructions:

1) Use the bolt cutters to remove any clips holding the roll together. 

2) Use some weights (such as a couple of cinderblocks--I put them in a couple of milk crates to have handles) to hold down the wire so you can cut it. The ends of the wire are sharp and it's springy. It wants to bite you, so use the weights to hold the wire on the ground. 

3) Count out 10 squares (they are 6"x6"--big enough to pull out a one pound tomato with your hand) and then cut the end of the wires on the 11th square. 

4) CAREFULLY remove the weights one at a time. 

5) Pull the edges of the cage together and bend over the cut ends to hold the cage together in a circle. 

6) Plant and mulch your tomatoes on 18" centers in a square or triangular pattern and put the cages over them such that each cage is touching two other cages. 

7) Tie the tops of each cage to 2 other cages with hemp or jute twine (although zip ties or tie wire would be fine too). 

8) Enjoy the time you Don't spend staking and tying up your tomatoes.