Category: Outdoors

A key step toward successful gardening

This is a good time to beat the rush and get your soil tested so that you can improve your soil before you begin planting.

Most New England states have soil testing labs available to gardeners. Finding one is as simple as searching for “Soil testing lab near me” in your browser. Your first choice should probably be one run by the state university extension service. Most offer a variety of options as to what is tested, and their websites will explain your options, what each costs, and how to collect a sample. Most tests require one or two cups of air-dried soil free of roots and rocks.

Most state labs are very busy in spring, and a 14- to 21-day wait is typical. If you are in a rush to get your soil test results, you might try Logan Labs, a commercial lab in Ohio. They can usually email test results in a few days and also have a soil scientist available to talk to you (for a fee) to make recommendations.

Unless you live where there are natural limestone or marble deposits — parts of Vermont, for example — your soil is probably acidic. Why? Coal-fired power plants send sulfur into the air, and it reacts with water to form sulfuric acid that is dropped by the rain. Most plants do best with a soil pH between 6.0 and 6.8. A pH of 7.0 is neutral, and above that is alkaline. Soils rich in organic matter and microorganisms tend to buffer the soil pH, making it less acidic.

Soils are composed of three things, basically: ground up rock is about 45 percent, air is about 50 percent and organic matter about 5 percent. The particle size of the rock component is what determines soil texture: big particles are in sand, medium particles in silt, and very fine particles make up clay. A good soil has particles of all three sizes, but is mostly silt.

You can see what is in your soil by filling a quart jar half full of water, and adding a couple of cups of soil, and then shaking it well. Sand will drop to the bottom pretty much immediately, and silt will drop next. Finally, after 24 hours or so, your clay will form a layer. Each will probably be a different color and quite obvious. Organic matter often floats on the surface, but generally mixes with the silt layer.

Clay holds on to soil minerals and moisture the best, but it can stay soggy and also get compacted. Sand particles are not electrically charged, so they don’t hold on to minerals like clay or silty soils, but the sand helps with drainage. You can get a feel for your soil by rubbing it between your thumb and a finger after wetting it. Clay soil is sticky. You can feel the grains in a sandy soil.

If your soil has a pH of 6.0 or less, you should add some garden lime or wood ashes to “sweeten it.” If you get a soil test, it should tell you how many pounds of lime to add as expressed in pounds per 100 square feet — a 10 foot by 10 foot area. I weighed a quart of garden lime in a yogurt container and it weighs a little over 3 pounds. Wood ashes are about equivalent in what they do. But this isn’t rocket science — you don’t have to be precise.

Lime is ground limestone and is sold in bags at the garden center. It comes as powdered lime or pelletized lime, which is less messy. If you buy powdered lime, wear a mask when spreading it so you don’t inhale it.

All fertilizers add nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K). The amount of each is expressed as a number that is the percentage of the active ingredient by weight. A 10-10-10 fertilizer has 10 percent of each, and 70 percent filler. The minerals in chemical fertilizers are in the form of salts, and using too much can damage roots. The salts in chemical fertilizer are water-soluble and can be dissolved and washed away in heavy rains.

Organic fertilizers, on the other hand, are made from natural ingredients and minerals from ground rocks. My favorite organic fertilizer, Pro-Gro, is made in Vermont and has things such as peanut meal, cottonseed meal, ground oyster shells, feather meal, crab meal, dried blood (for nitrogen) and rock phosphate. I like to compare it to a seven-course meal for plants.

The ingredients of an organic fertilizer mostly need to be digested by microorganisms found in the soil and then shared with green plants. They are gentler, and slow to release their goodies. The mineral content of Pro-Gro is listed as 5-3-4, which is lower than most chemical fertilizer, but offers all those micronutrients not found in chemical fertilizers.

Of course you can go the old-fashioned way and add animal manures to improve your soil. They work, but some may also introduce weed seeds. I don’t recommend using fresh horse or cow manure because of that, but manure that is a year or two old has fewer seeds. Rabbit, sheep and goat manure has fewer weed seeds, and they add plenty of organic matter that helps with texture and tilth.

If you add compost to your garden and work it in, it will become more biologically active — full of beneficial microorganisms. It will drain much better but hold moisture better, too.

Having good soil is one of the keys to being a good gardener. Perhaps testing and improving your soil will help you to have that elusive green thumb. It’s worth trying.

Featured photo: Add fertilizer and compost to hole, and stir in before planting. Courtesy photo.

How to not kill your fruit tree

Traditionally, farmers pruned their fruit trees and put wood ashes around their lilacs in March. And although this is a good time for both, you can do either earlier or later. I believe that because farmers couldn’t plant or work the soil in March, they did other tasks to fill up their days — such as pruning.

If you plan on pruning now, please be aware of the danger of compacting the soil. Compacted soil has few air spaces — and plants get their oxygen from their roots, not their leaves. Roots from trees can extend well beyond their dripline and can be damaged by your footsteps if the soil is soggy.

If the soil is still thawing and is wet, it’s better to stay off it for now. If you have light, sandy soil that drains well, then you are fine. Clay soils are most at risk for compaction. Once you compact the soil, it is less able to drain away excess water, too. Just remember that the soil can freeze deeply — two feet or more, depending on snow cover — and a layer of frozen soil is like a layer of concrete. If you leave footprints in the soil, don’t walk on it.

Don’t be afraid to prune, even if you have never done it before. Fruit trees grow vigorously when pruned, and even if you remove a branch and then wish you hadn’t, other branches will grow and fill in the space. You can safely remove about 25 percent of your branches and leaves; your tree will still have plenty left to grow fruit and feed the roots.

Use a sharp pruning saw. You will rarely have to remove anything more than a 2- or 3-inch branch, so a folding tri-cut saw will be fine and can be purchased for around $25. Bow saws are not able to get in tight places, so are not recommended. A chainsaw is rarely needed, and can easily remove too much wood too fast!

What should you remove? First, remove any dead branches. How do you know if the branch is dead, since there are no leaves? The bark will be flaky and a different color from healthy branches. For smaller branches, scrape the bark with your thumbnail. If it does not show green, it is dead.

Ideally, sunshine can reach every leaf of the tree. Leaves shaded by others do little to feed the tree. So if you have branches layered closely, one above the other, the lower branch is being shaded. Either remove it, or remove the one above it.

Often branches grow back toward the middle of the tree. These will create problems as they get larger, often rubbing existing branches and shading out others. So follow them back to their point of origin to remove them. Remove any branches that are rubbing or touching. Decide which is the better branch, and leave it.

Where should you make your cuts when removing a branch? Look carefully and you will see the “branch collar.” You will want to leave the collar as this is where the cut will heal. It is a swollen area where the branch and the trunk or a larger branch are joined. Often the collar has wrinkles in it. Cut just past the swollen, wrinkled area and remove the offending branch where it is circular in cross-section.

Many fruit trees send up water sprouts — vigorous new shoots. In their first year they grow straight up and are the thickness of pencils. They should be removed every year. If you cut a bigger branch, you might get several water sprouts surrounding the cut that year — but remove them all next year. Water sprouts are a tree’s attempt to increase food production by making more leaves. Some trees do it vigorously each year, others respond to heavy pruning this spring by growing many this summer. Water sprouts rarely produce fruit — ever.

When I prune fruit trees, I pay attention to the fruit spurs that actually produce the fruit. When choosing which of two branches to remove, I leave the one that will be producing the most fruit. Fruit spurs are 2- to 5-inch branches that have buds on them. Fruit spurs produce both leaves and flowers, and need to be at least two years old for the trees to produce fruit, sometimes longer.

I often get complaints from readers about the fact that their young apple tree has not produced any fruit. Be patient, I say. Each variety of tree has its own schedule — dwarf or semi-dwarf trees produce fruit sooner than full-size trees. A newly planted tree can take two to six years before the first fruits grow. I once had a plum tree that took 20 years to flower and produce fruit, and only did so when I threatened to cut it down if it didn’t produce fruit the next year!

Lastly, know that pruning your tree well will increase the size and improve the flavor of the fruit. It takes a lot of energy to produce fruit, so a tree that only grows 100 apples is better able to feed the fruit and grow the sugars that make it tasty than a tree that grows 1,000 apples. And really, how many apples can you eat?

As to that other March chore, improving the pH of the soil around your lilacs? Two dry quarts of wood ashes or garden lime will sweeten the soil if spread around your lilac. Lilacs do not flower as well in acidic soil, which is what most New Englanders have. It won’t affect this year’s blossoming, but should by next year.

So get outside on a sunny day and get to work. I always find something to do, and pruning is one of my favorite March activities.

Featured photo: Apples are worth pruning and do not need pesticides to grow well. Courtesy photo.

Skunk cabbage, witch hazel and more

Here in Cornish Flat, New Hampshire, we recently had our first day that shouted, “Spring is here!” After a night of cool rain, the sun came out and temperatures climbed into the 50s. Now all we need are spring flowers. Me? I solved that problem by potting up bulbs last November and storing them in my cool basement. They rested, grew roots, and now my windowsills are crammed with pots of daffodils and crocus, some blooming, others on the way. They will help to keep my spirits up when we get, as I know we will, day after day of gray drizzle before summer gets here.

Of the outdoor bulbs, the first to bloom are snowdrops. They push up through frozen earth on south-facing hillsides starting in late February. I imagine they can do this by the process of “thermogenesis.” That’s a process whereby a plant can produce a chemical reaction that produces heat. Few can do it, but those that do can get pollinated before anything else.

The poster child for thermogenesis is skunk cabbage. This is a plant I remember well from my boyhood home in Woodbridge, Connecticut. We had a small brook behind the house, and some wet areas along the banks in a woody area. Aside from being the first green plant to sprout, skunk cabbage had the ability to produce a noxious odor that was endlessly fascinating to young boys. I discovered that if I disturbed them they produced a skunky odor that my sister did not like.

Skunk cabbage is related to the common Jack-in-the-pulpit we all know and love. Like Jack, its flower is hidden inside a spathe, or outer leafy jacket. I bought a skunk cabbage plant at Garden in the Woods, a native plant sanctuary in Framingham, Mass., about 25 years ago.

What I did not know was that skunk cabbage is very slow growing and does not spread at all quickly, at least this far north. Only in recent years has it bloomed, though every year the leaves have gotten bigger. Now I know when buying plants to buy at least three in order to make a statement in a reasonable amount of time. Skunk cabbage produces big green leaves and a barely noticeable flower.

Of the native woody plants, spring witch hazel is the earliest that I know. In southern New England it can bloom in January, and here in New Hampshire it can bloom in March. I bought one last summer, and look forward to seeing the blossoms soon. I have several fall witch hazel that bloom in October and November. The blossoms vary from yellow to brownish red and are spidery in form. Small, but plentiful right near the stems.

Forsythia is a nice yellow-blossomed shrub originally from Asia and eastern Europe. Michael Dirr, my woody plant guru, describes it this way: “Rank-growing, deciduous shrub, differentially developing upright and arching canes which give it the appearance that the roots were stuck in an electric socket; always needs grooming, one of the most overrated and overused shrubs; will sucker (slowly) to form large colonies.” That from his “Manual of Woody Landscape Plants,” my favorite text on trees and shrubs.

His remarks notwithstanding, I grew up with it and like it. It is a burst of yellow at a time of the year — April, here — when not much else has bloomed or even leafed out. My gardening Grampy had a large patch of it that had suckered and created a bed 10 feet wide, 50 feet long and 8 feet high or more. My sister Ruth Anne and I would crawl inside the patch of forsythia in the heat of summer for a cool respite — and to hide from grownups.

The trick to managing forsythia is to prune it hard and often. Keep the tips of branches off the ground as they will root in if touching the soil. One can keep it as a nice vase-shaped shrub, and it really does not take much work to do so. Cold-hardy varieties that will bloom in Zone 4 include New Hampshire Gold, Vermont Sun and Meadowlark, among others. Ask at your local independent nursery.

Forsythia forces easily. Cut some stems with flower buds now and place them in a vase, and place it in a sunny window. I shall cut some today and get them blooming in a couple of weeks or less. The key is to recognize the flower buds: they are pointy and often appear on clusters without stalks, right on the stems. Straight young stems that grew last year rarely have flower buds.

In contrast to the flamboyant forsythia is a nice native, leatherwood. This understated plant blooms just as it leafs out in March, April or early May, depending on where you are. It does best in full shade. Although Dirr’s book says it prefers a moist, dark soil, I have it in a dry location and it does just fine. The blossoms are pale to bright yellow, small, but plentiful. The bark is a handsome gray. But it is hard to find in a plant nursery. I bought one several years ago and have looked for others, but have not found another nicely shaped specimen. Look for it. Slow growing, it requires little or no care.

T.S. Eliot wrote in his poem “The Wasteland” that April is the cruelest month. I disagree; I think March is. Muddy roads and gray skies predominate. Flowers are scarce. We have April to look forward to, but if you pot up some daffodils next November for forcing, you can at least have some indoor blossoms now, in March.

Featured photo: Skunk cabbage has big leaves and grows in moist shade. Courtesy photo.