Food and Flowers
If the weeds have gotten ahead of you, the best thing to do is admit it. Then take a grass shears and chop off the flowers – or seedheads, as the case may be. Pile the cuttings in deep shade, where they can decay – or sprout and THEN decay – without causing further problems. The living weeds will rebloom before long, but this does give you some breathing room – and it’s far and away the most efficient use of limited weeding time. The results don’t LOOK as tidy as getting some small corner nicely weed-free, but the payoff in future weed prevention is far larger.
Early bush beans should be slacking off soon. You can just let them peter out, but after all the work it took to prepare the bed, it’s nice to do something else with it. If you have pole beans coming along, might as well cut off the bean plants at ground level and plant some greens (try to leave the bean roots in place to nourish the soil).
If you don’t have more beans on the way, cut the plants down to about 5 inches tall. Water well, then feed with a mixture of fish emulsion and liquid seaweed. In about 2 weeks they’ll be back to full size and ready to make a second crop.
I thought I saw a monarch the other day – orange stained glass sailing through the field – but after it landed on a rosebush it turned out to be a Viceroy.
We keep telling ourselves it’s a good thing the driveway bed is overrun with milkweed. Not only does it smell great, we say, futilely tugging at long ropes of root, we are providing essential host plants for monarch caterpillars. But ever since the population crash of 2001 we’ve scarcely seen any, even though those who follow them closely say they’ve recovered substantially. (For a very great deal more on monarchs, check out www.monarchwatch.org, produced by the University of Kansas.)
Monarchs may be in short supply, but there’s no shortage of swallowtails because we have a large parsley bed and tons of volunteer dill. And the field is full of Queen Anne’s lace, so there’s somewhere to put them if they get too pushy. That’s one more great thing about butterflies – even the ones that have children on your food are fairly easy to control. Each caterpillar tends to stay put, so all you have to do is move it to something else it likes to eat.
Don’t know what that is? Try the Audubon Field Guide to North American Butterflies. Its genus descriptions include brief menus.
No point to complain about hot, so instead I’ll confess that once again I have failed to candy the green sweet cicely seedpods. They’re still tasty, like fennel seeds, but much bigger and sweeter. And they’re still tender enough to stir into the fish stew. But there’s only about 3 days a year when they’re brand new, juicy as well as crunchy – THIS year, there were probably only 2 days, or maybe 2 minutes, – and once again I missed it.
No use crying over spilled cicely when there is so much tying up to do. Even without as much rain as would be good, the heat has forced a lot of explosive growth, perfect for falling down in a thunderstorm. Connecticut Yankee delphiniums, for instance, which in spite of their reputation for sturdiness are just as flop-prone as Pacific Giants. Mine grow in a group of 5, so I can minimize the staked-up-tight look by using slender stakes inside the borders and a cats cradle of supportive string, but…well, just plain old but. Anyone who struggles with delphiniums knows what I’m talking about , and everyone else should grow larkspur instead and not get into this mess.
If you haven’t done it yet, be sure to get out there and thin overgrown clumps of perennials: phlox, coreopsis, monarda and the like, in order to increase air circulation and cut down on the mildew. Remove from a third to a bit over half of the stems, cutting them off at ground level. While you’re in manicure mode, this is also the time to cut back top growth on Shasta daisies, late asters and chrysanthemums, in order to encourage branching. Also don’t forget to keep pinching the basil.
If you’re like me, you’re walking through the garden immersed in a cloud of obligation: oughta weed, oughta prune, oughta mulch, oughta finish planting this ton of stuff that is not planted yet. All true. Nevertheless. This is also the time to garden tour. There is always something to be learned, almost always something to enjoy in other people’s gardens, and if you choose them through the Garden Conservancy’s Open Days Directory, it’s pretty hard to go wrong. The Northeast edition lists dozens of gardens in our area or close enough to be easy day trips. Available wherever good books are sold, or through the conservancy itself: www.gardenconservancy.org.
A little rain is all it takes and bingo – time for the festival of weeds. At our house, it’s endless pulling of creeping Charlie and ladies bedstraw, the weed from hell. On the good side, delicious lambs quarters, briefly steamed, then slowly sautaéed in olive oil with garlic. Mostly we just squeeze lemon on at the end, but sometimes Bill adds his special garnish: chopped oil-cured olives, dried tomatoes, and toasted pine nuts, with a judicious sprinkling of hot pepper flakes.
The wild phlox continues to bloom . pink. purple . white. purple… in the flowerbeds and borders, peeking through the hedges, pushing through cracks in the asphalt drive . years and years ago I invested a lot fantasy time in a small, quite expensive packet of something called hesperis, or Dame’s Rocket, described in the catalog as an old fashioned English cottage garden plant with highly scented flowers. Protected the baby plants from caterpillars, watered them, fed them, weeded around them. Waited for the second year, on account of they are biennials. When they finally bloomed – oh well, I knew it was beautiful all along.
The little bit of rain we’ve had is no-way enough for anything that has been newly planted, especially given the heat ; be sure to water more than you think you need to. Remember to stagger your bush bean plantings, so you don’t get a humongous crop , followed by beanlessness. If you are feeding 4 people or fewer, plant a double 30 inch row now, then the same at the end of June and one more in mid-July. If you plant a lot of tomatoes and stick the labels in the ground, you know how hard it is to find out what’s what after the plants get big. Avoid the problem by writing with a sharpie on a piece of flat green gardener’s tape. Tie the tape around the tomato stake. Stem-branching annuals like cosmos, marigolds, bedding dahlias – and basil all benefit from being pinched back, so the plants will make more branches. It takes fortitude to remove the first flowers, but as a wise gardening friend once remarked: somebody has to be the grownup around here. Do it now and you’ll be glad later.
Now that the narcissi are done and the honeysuckle’s over, the back edge of the property is looking – almost – like someone designed it, someone who is fond of white ( no names, please) : Russian olive and white violets are still going strong; curved hedge of old fashioned bridal wreath is full out. Mock oranges are opening and behind it all there’s a frieze of pure white wild cherry blossoms, thanks to our neighbors’ unkempt swamp.
Memorial day has come and gone, but peony-wise, not much is happening : too dry and too cold for too long. Buds are looking promising, though, and in the meantime FINALLY! – seems like it took forever – we have rhubarb…There’s a reason this stuff is called pie plant, but it’s also a great sauce for lamb and duck and rich fish like shad and mackerel; just make the same stewed rhubarb you’d make to eat for breakfast, except don’t put as much sugar in it and put in a TINY pinch of clove and not-so-tiny pinch of salt.
Those Columbines: Select columbines for spreading by marking the prettiest ones, so you – or the friend you ask for the favor – will remember to let them go to seed. (Just wrap a twist tie around the stem; if you go for a discreet stake at the base, you’re likely to miss it when cleaning up.) They cross freely, so there will be some surprises, but if you start with a preferred color it improves your odds. I’ll put a reminder in when it’s time for seed-harvesting.
Don’t forget to prune the lilacs as soon as they finish: there isn’t much of a window before next year’s flowers start forming. Make sure your loppers are well-sharpened, then get rid of weak growth and bring tall, spindly trunks down to strong young branches. Removing spent blossoms saves energy the plant would otherwise spend making seeds, so it’s worth it when they are still small, but after that it doesn’t do much except help things look tidy.
The same is probably true of rhubarb. Everyone I know, including me, pulls out flowering rhubarb stalks while they are still in bud, in order to prolong the season… and it’s true, the stems DO get stringy when the plant blooms. I’ve been doing this long enough to know that’s mostly coincidence; time and temperature are the main triggers for stringy rhubarb stalks. But what the heck – it only takes a minute ; you feel like you’re doing something useful; and the big stems make gorgeous bouquets for the porch ( bring them into the house at your peril; every one of those tiny flowers drops off when it dies.)
It’s everythingallatonceyesterday time: Plant lilies of the valley bought at church sale, trying not to be envious of neighbor’s huge, established yard full of same. Prune roses, weed, smell viburnum. Mow grass, repair fence, map bulbs in the viburnum bed, inhaling deeply. Put out more suet so poor little woodpeckers have a chance against the everlasting grackles. Wish for rain. Wander over toward the viburnum; two or three more days and that’ll be it until next year.
Also, it’s high time to get the parsley in. Younger is better when it comes to seedlings – old ones often bolt – and as far as seeds are concerned, the old saying has it right: parsley must go to the devil and back 7 times before it comes up.
While waiting, harvest asparagus, always cutting below ground level so there are no stubs left to feed asparagus beetles. Leave a heavy stainless steel knife in the garden, so you don’t dull your good kitchen knives against small stones in the soil. And if you don’t HAVE an asparagus patch – drop all other tasks and get going! Like peonies and rhubarb, asparagus takes a few years to pay off , but once it takes hold it needs little care – and it keeps on giving for decades. Beautiful, too, so you can use it as an ornamental if you’re short on garden space.
It’s everythingallatonceyesterday time: Plant lilies of the valley bought at church sale, trying not to be envious of neighbor’s huge, established yard full of same. Prune roses, weed, smell viburnum. Mow grass, repair fence, map bulbs in the viburnum bed, inhaling deeply. Put out more suet so poor little woodpeckers have a chance against the everlasting grackles. Wish for rain. Wander over toward the viburnum; two or three more days and that’ll be it until next year.
Also, it’s high time to get the parsley in. Younger is better when it comes to seedlings – old ones often bolt – and as far as seeds are concerned, the old saying has it right: parsley must go to the devil and back 7 times before it comes up.
While waiting, harvest asparagus, always cutting below ground level so there are no stubs left to feed asparagus beetles. Leave a heavy stainless steel knife in the garden, so you don’t dull your good kitchen knives against small stones in the soil. And if you don’t HAVE an asparagus patch – drop all other tasks and get going! Like peonies and rhubarb, asparagus takes a few years to pay off , but once it takes hold it needs little care – and it keeps on giving for decades. Beautiful, too, so you can use it as an ornamental if you’re short on garden space.
Frost is predicted for tonight, right on schedule for the mid Hudson Valley, and rather than wishing it were warmer, I’m hoping the heat holds off a while more so we can have maximum spring. It’s been great so far: a noteworthy year in the magnolia department. Tulips are staying gorgeous for weeks, along with the fragrant late daffodils. And the perfumed Mohawk viburnum is opening slowly and sticking around, instead of rushing by in 2 days. Be ok with me if it stayed chilly right through lilac time.
Gardener’s Tip: Do not set foot outside without a set of light pruners. Even a five minute fresh air break gives you enough time to snip dead flowers from hyacinths, daffodils and tulips so they don’t waste energy setting seed. This is also a good time to cut back woody old branches of hardy herbs like sage and thyme; pruned plants will be better looking and you will get more tasty young growth. ( If you are ambitious, save the prunings to throw on the coals when it’s burger-grilling time).
