Author: Henry Homeyer

How many gardeners does it take to plant a garlic bulb?

For some of us, planting time is long past — but not for me. I am always busy in the fall, planting everything I can. It is almost time to plant garlic, which is my easiest crop of all. And I’ll soon be planting spring bulbs, both in the ground and in pots for forcing.

Garlic is by far my least labor-intensive vegetable crop. I start by weeding out one of my wide mounded beds and loosening the soil well. I use my CobraHead Weeder to loosen the soil and to make shallow furrows 8 to 12 inches apart. I sprinkle some granular organic fertilizer in the furrow, and run my hand tool through the soil again to work in the fertilizer.

Each garlic bulb has four to eight cloves, which need to be separated for planting. Plant them 3 to 4 inches apart and about 3 inches deep. Cover and press down the soil over them, watering if the soil is dry. Lastly mulch with a thick layer of straw or mulch hay. I use 8 to 12 inches of loose straw, which gets packed down to 4 inches by the winter snows. Garlic will grow up through the mulch, but most weeds will not.

I also plant a lot of spring-blooming bulb flowers in pots for early blossoms indoors and as gifts to friends. I mix used planting mix from summer pots with good compost and plant daffodils and tulips in planters and my window box. You can pack the bulbs close together in pots, and they need only a couple of inches of soil mix above and below them. Store them in a cool, dark place — 35 to 50 degrees is best. But even a cold garage will work if they can establish roots early and then snooze a little if the soil freezes.

Daffodils take about 12 weeks of dormancy before they should be brought into the warmth of the house, but tulips do better with 16 weeks. Little things like crocus can be forced in 8 to 10 weeks. Be sure to label them with the date planted and variety. Water lightly once a month. My favorites are Tête-à-Tête daffodils — small early daffodils in bright yellow. I pack four bulbs into a 4-inch pot and share them in February and March when friends need a pick-me-up.

This is also the time to plant bulbs outdoors for spring. Most bulbs like a sunny location with well-drained soil, but you can also plant bulbs under deciduous trees if they get enough sun filtered through them, or before they leaf out. If you have a site with good sun but moist soil, there are a few bulbs that will work. “Thalia” is a white blossomed, late-blooming daffodil that does well even in fairly wet soil.

Camassia is a bulb plant that prefers damp soil. It produces blue to purple flowers on tall stems — up to 3 feet tall with hundreds of small blossoms. A good sandy loam is best, but it will do fine in any sunny soil that stays moist during the bloom season. It is not of interest to deer, and will keep coming back for years if happy where you plant it.

Tulips, on the other hand, are delicious to deer as flowers, and to rodents as bulbs. To foil the deer I plant 100 tulips in my vegetable garden most years and surround and cover the bed with chicken wire. I grow them as annuals, pulling the bulbs after they bloom.

Over the years I have planted hundreds, nay, thousands of daffodil bulbs. Most survive and thrive — nothing eats them. I have a patch of daffies from bulbs I dug up at my boyhood home in the early 1970s — some 50 years ago. To keep them producing well it’s good to top-dress the soil with “bulb booster” or a good slow-release organic fertilizer either now or in the spring.

To plant 25 daffodils I dig a hole about 6 inches deep, a couple of feet long and about 18 inches across. I loosen up the soil in the bottom with my CobraHead Weeder, a single-tine cultivator. I sprinkle a cup or so of organic fertilizer in the bottom and work it in, working in a bucket of compost too. Then I plant the bulbs, pointy end up. I tend to plant them 3 or 4 inches apart. If it is sandy or full of clay, I mix the soil I use to refill the hole with a 50-50 mix of good compost and soil.

So take a sunny afternoon and go plant bulbs — either outdoors, or in pots for forcing. It’ll be something to look forward to all winter.

Featured photo: Seeds and roots of dock, a big weed. Photo by Henry Homeyer.

Yes, that is a squash in the spare bedroom

It seems to me that summer has been zooming by. Of course, I did plant many vegetables two to three weeks earlier than usual and crossed my fingers that Demon Frost would not appear. It didn’t. We’ve had a very sunny summer, and my garden is thriving.

I planted 35 tomato plants this year. Why so many? I eat tomatoes three meals a day when they are available and like to have enough to share with friends and neighbors. But most importantly, I freeze them to use for the rest of the year. I eat stews with a tomato base all winter, and love having tomatoes that I know are organic and picked at their peak of perfection.

If you have a big vegetable garden, you probably should have a freezer. I have two. I cook with frozen vegetables from last year until this year’s crop comes ready.

You can freeze whole tomatoes in freezer-grade zip-close bags. Make sure the tomatoes are clean and have no bad spots. Close the bag right up to a straw that you place in the corner of the bag and suck out the air. Quickly pull the straw out and finish closing the bag. Put several bags in a single layer on a cookie sheet and put in the freezer. Nine medium tomatoes will fill a quart bag.

When you need some for a soup or stew, just take a few out, rinse them under hot tap water and the skins will rub right off. Put them on a chopping board for a few minutes and you can dice them.

I grow eight to 10 Sun Gold cherry tomato plants each year. They are a delight popped in the mouth right there in the sunshine, but I usually dehydrate most of them. I cut clean, ripe Sun Gold cherry tomatoes in half and place them cut-side up on the tray of a food dehydrator. I start the process at high heat — say 150 degrees — for 30 minutes, then drop the temp to 125 or 130 so that I don’t damage the vitamins in the tomatoes. You can take them out when brittle, or earlier when they are leather-like. They store well in a dark cupboard, in the fridge, or in a freezer.

I love kale fresh or frozen. It is great in winter stews, smoothies or colcannon, an Irish kale and potato dish. I blanch kale and other brassicas by dropping the chopped leaves into boiling water for a minute, then removing them and dropping in cold water in the sink. I drain, spin dry in a salad spinner, and spread out the kale on a cotton tea towel and blot dry. This process is easy if you have a blanching pot with an inner pot that has drainage holes so you can pull all the leaves out quickly.

Most green vegetables need blanching to store well in the freezer. This includes Brussels sprouts, broccoli, beans and squash. The quick boiling kills the enzymes that cause aging, making for a better product. I don’t blanch tomatoes, peppers, fruit or leeks. But for best results it is good to eat frozen foods in Year 1, not Year 4 or 5.

The easiest way to keep food for eating all winter is to store it in a cool location. I have a cold basement and a cool area in the entry area of my house. Potatoes, carrots, kohlrabi, rutabagas store well in the basement with high humidity and temperatures in the 33-to-50-degrees range. Cabbages store well there, too, but a fridge is better for long-term storage.

Other veggies need low humidity and cool temperatures. Those include onions, shallots, garlic and winter squash. I keep them on a wooden rack I got from Gardener’s Supply, their “orchard rack.” I have that in the main part of the house where I have a woodstove — hence low humidity. But I keep them near the mudroom, which is unheated. You can also keep squash under the bed upstairs in a spare bedroom with the heat off and the door closed.

When picking vegetables or fruit for later use, it’s important to pick when ripe — which is not always easy. Apples are easy. Pick one, slice it open and look at the seeds. If white or green, not ready. If the seeds are black or brown, they are ready to pick. They dry well for snacks all year.

Winter squash and pumpkins are trickier. You should use pruners to leave some stem when you pick, and that should be dry and a bit brittle. The outer skin thickens and toughens up more, the longer they stay on the vine. I recently ate a butternut squash that I’d stored on a shelf since last fall, and it was delicious.

Green beans get tough if you don’t pick them when ready. If you start to see the individual seeds as prominent lumps, they are probably over the hill. Cook some up and you may still find them edible, even if not perfect. Some varieties, such as “Kwintus,” are tasty even when big.

Garlic? When the leaves start to dry up at the base of the plant, you can pull them. I’ve been told to cure them in a cool, dry place before cutting off the stems. They are said to absorb some nutrients from the stalks into the bulbs.

The bigger your garden, the more you can store for winter. But you can also support your local farm stand and buy some produce in bulk for storage. I recommend it.

Featured photo: A straw used to remove air from a bag of cherry tomatoes. Photo by Henry Homeyer.

Creating a better environment for us and our animal friends

There is much gloom and doom spread in the news and on social media. Many people believe that our ecosystem is irreparable — climate change is bringing death and destruction to many of the animals that we share the Earth with. But some gardeners believe that although the climate is changing, they can still plant many species of plants that will sustain our birds, butterflies, bees, moths and all the little animals that we share our space with. I am one of those optimistic ones.

If you want to help save our ecosystem, here are some suggestions:

Start by reducing the size of your lawn. Yes, keep space for badminton and a grill, if you like. But think of the lawn as an area rug, not wall-to-wall carpeting. Most Americans inherited a large lawn when they bought their house. I’ve read that American lawns cover an area as large as New England. We can all do with less. Perhaps you can develop a five-year plan to reduce the lawn and add trees, shrubs and perennials.

This is not a quick fix, nor an inexpensive one. But you need not plant large trees. In fact, small trees are less shocked at transplant time, and take off and grow like crazy while bigger trees often stall and sulk.

Choose your trees wisely: Plant trees and shrubs that are native to New England, not Japan or China. Why? Native trees co-evolved with our pollinators. Bees, butterflies and moths look for plants that they instinctively recognize. Plants that will benefit them. We all know that monarchs rely on milkweed, but most pollinators have similar habits — they eat what their ancestors ate.

According to Ph.D. entomologist Doug Tallamy, author of Nature’s Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation That Starts in Your Yard, oaks are the best trees to plant to support pollinators and birds. They are followed by other keystone trees: willows, birches, poplar and elm. Most maples, ash and beech are good, too.

You may wonder why native trees are so important. Dr. Tallamy explains in his book that all baby birds are fed caterpillars — even young hummingbirds. Using a game camera, he determined that a nest of chickadees needs between 6,000 and 9,000 caterpillars between hatching and fledging. Amazing! We don’t often see those caterpillars or the feeding they do on our trees, but they are there if we have native plants.

Birds need food, water, safe places for nesting and places to stay out of the wind in winter. A well thought-out garden can address all those needs. Yes, it is nice to offer seeds in feeders in winter, but birds need insects or seeds to eat all year. Native trees and shrubs can help significantly, particularly if all your neighbors plant well, too.

Plant trees in clumps — three, five or seven in a small grove. This way their roots will mingle, and if a storm with ferocious rain and high winds comes along they will be much less likely to get blown over.

Instead of surrounding your new trees with lawn, think about planting native perennials, wildflowers or ground covers under them. When a caterpillar is ready to pupate and transform itself into a moth or butterfly, it will drop off the tree it has been feeding on. On a lawn compacted by heavy riding mowers, it will probably not survive. They need leaves to hide under, or soft earth they can burrow into. Autumn leaves make a great mulch, either chopped or whole.

As part of your planting efforts, remove all invasives. All New England states have laws naming the invasives to that state. These include, but are not limited to, burning bush, barberry, Norway maple, oriental bittersweet, autumn olive, buckthorn, privet, honeysuckle and multiflora rose. Go online and educate yourself as to what these plants look like. Some can be dug out, but older specimens can be difficult to remove.

Apparently 82 percent of Americans live in cities or large towns. But city dwellers can make a difference, too. In Tallamy’s book he writes about a woman in Chicago with just a tenth of an acre of yard — right next to O’Hare airport. Over time she planted 60 species of native plants in her yard — and over time she identified 103 species of birds that visited her yard. Having water available, especially if it bubbles, is good. It also attracts migrating birds. Native plants provide food for migrating birds, too — insects and seeds that they need for their long flight.

Instead of just lawn, build rooms using native trees and shrubs where you and your family can relax — and observe nature. No, you will not see cougars in your garden, but seeing monarchs and bluebirds can give great joy. Build natural areas using 90 percent natives and start learning the names of the creatures that come.

Teach your grandchildren to watch nature with you, start them young to love the outdoors — and gardening. My grandfather started me gardening when I was just a little tyke, and now, some 75 years later, I get great joy from my garden every day of the year.

Henry lives and gardens in Cornish, N.H. Send questions to him at PO Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746 or by e-mail at [email protected].

Carnival rides, a skillet toss and music

By Zachary Lewis
[email protected]

The Hillsboro Summer Festival has been trucking along for over 35 years and is exactly what you want from a summer festival filled with events and activities you might never have imagined.

Admission is free but parking is $10 per carload. The event is hosted with the Lions Club and the Fire Association in Hillsboro and has raised tens of thousands of dollars for various nonprofits.

The festival starts on the evening of Thursday, July 11, at 6 p.m.

“It’s just smack-dab in the middle of the summer; it’s something unique in New Hampshire … we’re incredibly affordable,” said Katherine Charrette, the Creative Director and Co-Chair of the Hillsboro Summer Festival.

For Thursday, “it’s more like a local intro,” Charrette said. That’s the first of three wristband days, which means for only $25 participants can purchase a wristband that allows for unlimited rides like the classic Zipper, Merry-Go-Round, Tilt-a-Whirl and more.

If you are unfamiliar with the Zipper, “it looks like a zipper. Imagine all of the pieces turn into a little roller coaster that spins … that’s the ride kids will go on eight times in a row,” Charette said.

A special Thursday-only bonus is extended to active military families, who will receive half-price admission with ID at the administration table.

The beer tent opens at 6 p.m. Thursday. Beers on tap include Bud, Bud Light, Founders IPA, Arnold Palmer’s Tea/Lemonade, Bud Light Seltzer and Downeast Craft Cider, according to the website, and all drinks will be $5 each.

Besides carnival rides and beer, there will be trivia from 7 to 10 p.m. on the main stage.

On Friday, July 12, the festival starts at 5 p.m. and goes until 11 p.m.; Friday is another wristband day. At 6 p.m., Hillsboro Police will have their K-9 Unit show, which involves an agility course, and at 6:30 p.m. there will be an obstacle course at Entertainment Field where the Hillsboro Police Department, firefighters and EMS will be competing. Also 6:30 p.m. brings the start of the Angus Lea Golf Course 5K Road Race (pre-registration is $20 and day-of registration is $25). Music will blast from Nick’s Other Band as attendees marinate in the fun from 7 to 10:30 p.m.

Then on Saturday, July 13, the festival opens at noon but attendees will need to wait until 4 p.m. for the beer tent to open. Wristbands for unlimited rides are not available Saturday, but there will be plenty of entertainment. The famed Women’s Skillet Toss will take place from 5 to 6:30 p.m, which is exactly as it sounds.

“It’s women only, a real old-time tradition but we do it for women’s heart health and we raise quite a bit of money for that,” Charrette said. “You take a skillet and you have to heave it underhand, you can try overhand if you want to, and you have to throw it as far as you can.”

Music on Saturday night will be performed by Lonesome Train and at 10 p.m. a huge fireworks display will paint the night sky after a performance of the national anthem by Faith Daley. “People come from all over for that … we put a lot of effort into it,” Charrette said.

For the last day, the Festival opens on Sunday, July 14, at noon and will feature a parade that starts at the school and ends at Grimes Field. The theme this year for the parade is Mythical Creatures.

“People go all out for the floats. It really has grown into quite a competitive parade. Very eclectic, colorful, Sunday is a really fun day,” Charrette said. On Sunday participants can acquire an unlimited ride wristband and the beer tent opens at 1 p.m. Also at 1 p.m. is the kids’ cupcake eating contest for little ones under the age of 10; it’s parsed into different age groups, “as young as 1 year old all the way to 10 years old, and they take it very seriously,” Charrette said. “It’s probably 60 kids just looking and waiting to eat more cupcakes than the other ones. You can’t see that anywhere else. It’s very entertaining.”

This event will be followed by a pie eating contest for the grown-ups at 1:30 p.m. The Festival closes at 5 p.m.

“It is a lot of fun packed into a full weekend,” Charrette said. “The atmosphere is just a really fun time, it’s a good-sized crowd but not overcrowded and … it’s just a lot to do that’s eclectic and affordable for families.”

Hillsboro Summer Festival
Where: 29 Preston St., Hillsboro
When: Thursday, July 11, from 6 to 10 p.m.; Friday, July 12, from 5 to 11 p.m.;
Saturday, July 13, from noon to 11 p.m., with fireworks at 10 p.m.; Sunday, July 14, from noon to 5 p.m.
Admission: free
Parking: $10 per carload
Wristbands: $25 for unlimited rides on Thursday, Friday and Sunday
More: hillsborosummerfest.com, 464-0377
No smoking. No outside alcohol. No animals allowed except for working service dogs. Free fountain water provided by The Hillsborough Solid Waste Advisory Board.

For roses, a weekly soak beats a daily sprinkle

June is, traditionally, the month for weddings. It is also the time when old-fashioned roses bloom, along with peonies, iris and many other great garden flowers. Is that coincidence? Perhaps. But maybe the two are linked. Let’s look at some great June flowers you can grow, and how to succeed with them.

My mom was an organic gardener who loved her roses. And although she is no longer with us to deny it, I think she may have cheated when it came to her roses. Back in the 1950s and ’60s roses were much fussier than they are now. They suffered from all kinds of fungal diseases and were eaten by ferocious Japanese beetles that made mincemeat of leaves and blooms. I think she used chemicals to kill the beetles and subdue the fungi.

Now we no longer have to resort to chemicals to have nice roses. Breeders have worked hard to develop roses that stay healthy and avoid predation from hungry beetles. The beetles were easy: they bred roses without scent to attract them. I don’t know how they developed roses resistant to diseases, but they have. I never see rose diseases, and I never spray.

My favorite roses are part of the “Knockout” series of roses, though I know others who really like the “Easy Elegance” series. They do not grow blossoms on long stems, but have multiple blossoms per stem. My “Knockouts” start blooming in June and bloom all summer and up until hard frost, or even later.

Roses love full sun but will grow in part shade. But the more sun they get, the better they do. Six hours of sunshine is considered full sun by most authorities. Afternoon sun is more potent than morning sun, so the west side of the house is better than the east.

Roses need good, rich soil. If you have sandy soil or a heavy clay, you will need to improve it in order to succeed. What does that mean? Mix in lots of compost when you plant, and add some organic fertilizer. Dig a hole that is at least three times as wide as the pot it was in when you purchased it. Mix the soil for the hole 50-50 with good compost, either your own or a good bagged compost. I like Moo Doo or Coast of Maine brands.

Roses need more water than most other things, but do not want to sit in soggy soil. They should get an inch of water per week from rain, or a good dousing from your watering can applied slowly so it can soak in. A deep watering once a week is better than a little sprinkle every day.

Soil pH is important, too. The pH is a measure of the acidity or alkalinity of your soil. You can buy an inexpensive kit to test it, or send a sample out to be tested for pH and soil quality at your state Extension Service. Roses do best in slightly acidic soil, in the range of 6.0 to 6.8. If your soil has a lower number, you should add limestone and mix it in. But don’t add too much. A test should tell you how much to add.

Many roses are grafted onto rootstock. The bud union — a scar — should be buried in the soil. The scar is obvious on bare-root roses but is probably buried if you buy a rose in a pot. The colder the climate, the deeper that graft line or bud union should be. For Zone 4, it should be about 4 inches below the final soil line. Zone 5? 3 inches. Zone 6? 2 inches.

Want more blossoms? Roses do better if they get some fertilizer a few times during the course of the summer. An organic, slow-release bagged fertilizer called Rose Tone is designed just for roses, but I use Pro-Gro, my go-to organic fertilizer, and sometimes use liquid fish and seaweed fertilizers made by Neptune’s Harvest. I add half a cup of Pro-Gro to the hole when I plant.

Other June flowers suitable for a wedding are peonies and iris. Peonies live forever if planted right — deep rich soil amended with plenty of organic matter. I have one from my grandmother, and she died in 1953. If you planted one that never blooms, you have probably planted it too deep. The “nibs” or growing points under the soil surface for next year’s growth should be no deeper than three quarters of an inch. You can feel them by poking around in the soil with your fingers. Pull away some soil if they are too deep, and it should bloom next year.

Siberian iris only bloom for a few days but are magnificent. They come in a variety of blues and purples. Old patches tend to develop a dead spot in the middle because the plants have used up all the soil nutrients. Divide in the fall and re-plant, or add some organic fertilizer now.

There are too many gorgeous flowers to mention them all. But if you are planning a wedding, be advised that flowers do not bloom on an absolute calendar. Your favorite peony may bloom on June 15 this year — and June 21 or June 3 next year. Your best bet is to have a good florist as a backup.

As the saying goes, “spring has sprung.” In my garden, daffodils are blooming and tulips are on the way. My peas are planted. But how do you know when to plant your veggies and tender annual flowers? It’s not just about the last frost of the spring. You need to think about which plants can survive and thrive in cold, wet soil and which would rather wait to get planted until late May or even mid-June.

In the vegetable garden, tomatoes, peppers and eggplants are the prima donnas. I generally wait until June 10 at 9 a.m. to plant them. Or something like that. I shape up my wide raised beds well before I plant, allowing the soil to dry out and get warmed up. I rake off the straw or leaves I used to protect the soil from erosion over the winter. I like to work in aged compost well before planting time.

Peas and spinach are very cold-hardy and can survive frosts. Root crops like carrots, beets, onions and potatoes prefer warm soil for growing but will tolerate cool soils and won’t get killed by a late frost even if their leaves are up. But in my opinion almost any plant would prefer to grow in soil that is at least 50 degrees.

Whether you start your tomato seedlings indoors or buy plants from a garden center, you should “harden them off.” They need to be introduced to sun and wind in small doses at first so they don’t get sunburned or dehydrated after being pampered for weeks in a greenhouse or on a kitchen windowsill. This process will take five days or so, but if you don’t do it you will either kill your baby peppers or stunt their growth for two weeks or more while they recover.

Start by putting your plants outside in a place protected from the wind that only gets morning sun. Give them two hours of morning sun the first day, then bring them back inside or well out of the sun’s rays. Increase the time outside each day and by Day 3 give them some afternoon sun too. On Day 5 they should be OK outside all day, and after that you can plant them.

What about fertilizer? I generally don’t give annual flowers like cosmos or zinnias any at all. Soluble nitrogen found in chemical fertilizers will make them grow tall but delay flowering. Of the vegetables, only peppers need no fertilizer, but in my opinion no vegetables should get chemicals of any kind, including fertilizer and pesticides.

Newly planted seedlings and seeds need to be kept in lightly moist soil. A seedling that cracks open its husk to send up a shoot may not make it to the soil surface if the soil is too dry. So check your garden every day. And if your tomato starts to look limp or drooping, water immediately — even if it means going to work late. Just email me; I’ll send an excuse to your boss to keep you out of trouble.

There are many ways to keep your plants lightly moist in the vegetable or flower garden. One way is to set up a drip irrigation system. I’ve had good luck installing soaker hoses — rubber hoses that leak slowly through pores. I’ve bought the “Snip and Drip” system from Gardener’s Supply.

The basic kit comes with the hose and T-junctions and fittings to install it. Then, if you buy a watering timer the system will come on a schedule you determine. I’ve used many types of timers during my time as a garden designer and installer. My advice? Get the simplest one you can get.

What about rototillers? Should you rent or buy one, or not? I used one for years until someone more knowledgeable than me explained why he didn’t: Rototillers seriously disturb the microbes in the soil. They break up useful fungal networks that support your plants. They make a bed clean and neat, but in fact have only sliced up the weeds and buried them. One invasive root becomes multiple roots and can move them farther from their initial location. I have a friend who rototilled a small patch of horseradish and turned the bed into a large bed full of horseradish he could never eliminate.

So how do I prepare my soil? I use a five-tined old-fashioned potato rake that loosens the soil as I pull it through the soil. Or you can use an ordinary garden fork to loosen the soil if it is a heavy clay, and then finish it off at planting time with a good hand tool like a CobraHead weeder. You can use a hoe to pull soil from the walkways up to form mounded beds. And as you improve your soil with compost each year it will get easier to prepare nice, fluffy beds rich in organic matter.

Gardening is fun. It is rewarding, too: Tomatoes and lettuce taste better when eaten the day they were picked. The exercise will make you healthy, too. Just don’t work so hard you get blisters and sunburn. Ease yourself into gardening — just like you harden off your plants.

Henry is an organic gardener who has been fussing around in gardens for about 75 years. He is the author of four gardening books. His email is [email protected].

Featured photo: This kale was started indoors on Feb. 22 and needs to be hardened off before going in the ground in early May. Photo by Henry Homeyer.