Friends and Foes
Today is mostly a pair of creature features – deer vs. daylilies and squirrel counting comin’ right up. But first, a spoonful of recipe rescue at the request of my good friend Sue,
She called the other night in a panic –
“Is there anything you can add to make something less hot? ” Turns out she was making a big deal cioppino for a whole bunch of spice averse friends and she’d overdone the hot pepper flakes.
And this in spite of using far less than the recipe called for. Well, there isn’t anything you can add (except a great deal more of everything else). All she could do was make a quick batch of rice for people to pour their hot hot stew on top of. That and pass a bowl of sour cream, which is a horrible idea from the culinary standpoint but at least could keep people from starving. And please don’t write to say why not pasta – it doesn’t mitigate heat the way rice does.
In future, I suggested, take about a third of a cup of broth out and add the small amount of pepper to that. Then add the seasoned broth to the big pot o’ stuff until you like the result. Pause a moment between additions; it takes a while for the heat to disperse, and be sure to KEEP TASTING! This works for anything that might cause problems yet is added in such small quantities it’s easy to overdo. Truffle oil, for example, the most regrettably overused of yesterday’s trendy seasonings.
On to the deer, since I promised last week I’d give some tips for keeping them out of the daylilies.
Tip A number one is fencing. It was fencing before and it’s still fencing, but putting it on the list is sort of cheating because everybody knows it and everybody keeps hoping there’s something else and getting a dog doesn’t count.
So: repellents. Obviously, those that smell bad before they taste bad are better. Most of them keep smelling bad to deer even after they no longer smell bad to you, but it’s a good idea to try ’em out first – in – as they say of cleaning products – an unobtrusive spot.
A few brands with good reviews include: plantskydd , deer off , deer out, liquid fence, and deer chaser, but there are dozens. Those based on dried blood, garlic , rotten eggs, ammonia salts, peppermint , cinnamon or some combination thereof seem to work better than predator urine, probably because it doesn’t take deer long to figure out that the predator is not in the vicinity.
Choose at least 2 kinds and keep switching. Deer can become habituated to almost anything, so the more you can keep ’em off guard, the better. Start making the area repulsive when the scapes start growing, well before the buds develop, then spray the buds. If you have fragrant daylilies , stop when the buds are about half-swollen.
And although you don’t spray it on, don’t forget good old smelly soap: Dial and Irish Spring are favorites. Just put a few chips in a bag of cheesecloth and use a clothespin to attach the bag to a thin bamboo stake. The soap should be slightly above the lily buds. Other strategies to be posted shortly and meanwhile:
Please send me a squirrel count (ll@leslieland.com). Are you seeing more of ’em? Fewer? The same as usual? We are seeing none at all, though I hesitate to jinx things by mentioning it. Our birdfeeders have been overrun, winter and summer, for 15 years – ever since we came to this house – and this winter there are suddenly none. Zilch. Zero. Nada. Rien. I see them out in the world when I’m driving, so they are clearly still here with us on the planet…
Once it’s too cold to just go outside in whatever you have on, it might as well snow, as far as I’m concerned. From the garden and home design point of view, snow is the great freebie of all time.
For one thing, it’s wonderful insulation, like tiny bubble bubble wrap. A thick layer on the garden keeps soil temperatures even, so you don’t get the freeze-thaw cycles that lift soil and rip roots from the ground. It also protects tender plant crowns from drying sun and wind. And old-timers know your house stays a lot warmer when there’s a good heap of snow all around the foundation. Of course, it will also stay a lot wetter if that foundation has issues.
But enough of practicality! the truly great thing about snow is it’s gorgeous. Even when it isn’t frosting dark tree limbs and setting off the statuary, it’s simplifying the landscape, unifying discordant elements, covering dead weeds and patchy grass like an act of natural forgiveness.
Of course nothing is perfect. There are two ungreat things about snow: one being that the stuff is heavy, the other that you usually have to remove some. Specifics vary but there is one huge big general rule: sooner is better than later, and the wetter the snow the truer that is.
Removing snow from trees and shrubs:
*Start by being sure you have to. Ice is a lot more likely to cause problems; most plants have lots of natural bending capacity, and being whacked is not frozen bark’s idea of a good time. But branches that stay deeply bent for more than a couple of days may never spring back, and if they must bear additional snow they may break under the load.
* When snow-removal is called for, use the brush end of a broom to gently and slowly push branches UPWARD until the snow falls off. The natural inclination is to push down, but of course that means the poor branch is getting hammered double.
* When you get done, consider bundling anything that’s especially vulnerable – arborvitaes, hemlocks and boxwoods, for instance. It only takes a few minutes to apply a loose wrapping of wide-mesh netting and secure it with a few twists of twine.
Removing snow from walkways:
* Even walks that appear to be on level ground often have uphill and downhill sides. Don’t forget to pile the snow on the downhill side, to minimize runoff over the path, and don’t forget to throw that pile well off to the side, so the runoff has somewhere to run. Are there thick shrubs in the way? Make a note on the April calendar to do something about that. I will too, and we can talk about solutions then.
* By now I hope it’s no longer news that using sodium chloride to melt ice is right up there with driving a Hummer for environmental bad behaviour: the stuff corrodes metal, flakes concrete and mortar, damages soil structure, wounds and kills plants, then pollutes both surface and groundwater. Regrettably, alternatives like magnesium chloride and calcium chloride aren’t all that much better. Yet having an icy walkway is also on the anti-social side. What to do?
Two choices – or three, if you’re feeling flush
Choice 1. After shoveling – or even better, before it starts snowing – use a de-icer based on Calcium Magnesium Acetate (CMA to its friends ). It’s still not great for the surface water, but it doesn’t tend to keep seeping down; it’s a lot less corrosive than the chlorides and it seldom damages plants.
Choice 2 : provide traction with coarse gravel, (non-clumping) kitter litter or anything similar. These products are benign outdoors and won’t come in if you keep a stiff bootbrush beside the door. On a somewhat grander scale, most big hardware and building supply stores sell stiff cleated traction mats. You do need to have a place to store them but other than that they’re effortless, and do not require you to nag anybody about entrance etiquette.
Choice 3: go for hot rubber – the electrified rubber mats used by restaurants and stores. At anywhere from 4 to 6 hundred bucks for a 3×5 or 6 foot section they are certainly the expensive spread; they do draw a fair amount of power; and they work best if you turn them on as soon as it starts snowing. But they last a long time, can be left in place all season, and if you love someone who has fragile bones, may well be worth every penny.
* There have been enough cold nights to toughen up late garden stalwarts like parsley, kale, and chard, but even tough stuff has trouble when it goes below the mid-twenties. In some years, these things can hold on until Christmas, but it doesn’t hurt to cover your bets by covering some plants; there’s still quite a bit of warmth in the ground. On the other hand, you can also just pick everything that’s left, give away whatever you can’t use and call it a day until March.
* The onset of cold weather is also a reminder there’s no time to lose in the window-washing department. This loathsome chore doesn’t sound very gardenly, but you’d be surprised how much light you lose when the windows are less than clean. Any houseplants that count on those windows will be very grateful you bothered and of course there will also be a little more light for you.
* If you do decide to cover things, don’t forget that the purpose of covers is twofold: you want to prevent frost from forming on plant parts , and you want to trap the warmth that is stored in the ground. Covers that tent will be more effective than mere umbrellas, and the closer plants are to mother earth, the more protected they will be. In other words, lay those tomato vines on the ground and bend tall raspberry canes so the fruit is down toward the waist of the patch.
* Don’t wait to spray on repellent if that’s your preferred method of deer-deterrence Disgusting them when they take that first bite is the biggest key to success. If you don’t mind chemicals, or a slight veil of white over everything, try Thiram based Chew-nott -a local product, made in Dutchess county. One application lasts all winter. If you prefer familiar ingredients, and don’t mind having the yard smell like a candle store for a few days, try clove and cinnamon based Deer Solution. It’s good for about 2 months, in our experience, and it’s almost local – made in Danbury.
* As you drag the hose around, don’t forget that the compost needs water along with everything else. It won’t die if it gets desiccated, but it won’t decompose either. It can be a low priority if there’s plenty of space to make a new pile ( or piles!) at cleanup time. Otherwise it will be very convenient to have a nice open place to heap the frost-blasted dahlia stems and chopped up autumn leaves. Plus fall plantings benefit from lots of compost, which is often in short supply by the end of the growing season.
* It’s time – past time, really – to sow cover crops in annual and vegetable beds that are starting to fade. The payoff in improved soil health is worth the effort it takes to clean out tired plants and find winter rye seed. If you don’t expect frost for at least 6 more weeks, you can plant tender alternatives like buckwheat or field peas instead. They will still be small when they get killed, so they won’t make as much green manure, but because they will rot down over the winter you won’t have to till them in next spring.
There isn’t much reason to bother with shoes when you’re just darting out to move the hose, especially now that the straw mulch on the paths is all soft and broken in. The problem is that late summer is also when many tall plants have fallen over, laying their flowering stems on said paths. Ms. Sausage-foot is thus able to report that ammonia DOES quickly dull the pain when you’ve gotten the mother of all bee stings, but don’t expect it to do anything about swelling.
A more tidy type would long ago have ripped up the bolted chicory – beautiful blue flowers be damned. And in the old days even I would have tried to do something about the thick cosmos stalks, broken at the base, that are now flowering at ankle height. Self-sown morning glories would have been ripped out – or given something besides the dahlias to climb … No more. The August garden is now a many-leveled thing and none the worse for it.
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.
If you marked some columbines for seed-saving, check the pods for the yellowish color that shows they’re almost ripe. Put a paper bag over them and gently bend the stalks near the base, so the bag is – more or less – right side up. Close the bag with a clothespin. Cut off the stalks when the pods turn brown and start to split and spill seeds. (That’s the reason for the bag routine). Let them dry another few days, then sow them where you want them to grow, pressing them lightly into the soil. Don’t cover; they need light to germinate.
If the Japanese beetles haven’t hit you yet, this should be big rose bouquet time. Don’t forget to cut on an outward facing slant, right above a five-part leaf.
Speaking of Japanese beetles; sigh, I can barely stand to do it. But I’ve had some success fighting them with neem, a botanical insecticide and fungicide – good against a whole range of pests – derived from an Asian tree. It comes as an extract, in two forms. One is a combo of neem and insecticidal soap, which provides quicker knockdown for some soft-bodied insects. The other is just plain neem. The plain stuff discourages insects before killing them and seldom provides that agreeable “DEATH! Right Now!”sensation one often longs for, but it is safer for more plants than the kind with the soap mixed in, so that’s the kind I use.
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.
There are years when April showers bring May rain, mist and clouds and it seems the sun will never shine again. Think what a good year it’ll be for mushrooms and make lemonade out of the flat, even light.
Take pictures – it’s great for photography – and while you’re at it, take a close look at the leaves in the perennial garden. Overcast weather brings out contrasts: between shades of green, rough and smooth, simple and complex. Note deficiencies.If necessary, make some up, so you have an excuse to go shopping …
can’t beat it when being outdoors is unpleasant: no crowds, and the nurseries are very glad to see you. It’s definitiely the time to buy if you need spring flowering shrubs … you can still see what the flowers look like, but they don’t seduce you into ignoring more important things like basic branch structure.
Got slugs? Tired of tried and true organic controls like handpicking at night, putting out beer for them to drown in , messing around with copper foil and diatomaceous earth? The easiest alternative is Sluggo, or Escar–Go , or any other brand of slug death based on iron phosphate. It doesn’t hurt anything but slugs and snails and it’s as easy to apply as the common slug poisons – metaldehyde and methiocarb – which are REALLY poisonous, big time, to just about everything that moves.
Plain old coffee is looking promising, too. Caffeine both repels and kills slugs and snails, but researchers don’t yet know how much is too much; so be cautious if you decide to experiment.
