Category: Outdoors

Easy to grow and trouble-free

Every year you probably plant tomatoes. Wouldn’t it be great if they would come back every year without the bother of preparing the soil, starting seedlings in April and setting them out? Well, that’s what nut and fruit trees and berry bushes do: Once planted (and mature), they produce food every year. To me, there is a definite allure to plants requiring less work.

I recently was sent a review copy of a wonderful book by Allyson Levy and Scott Serrano: Cold-Hardy Fruits and Nuts: 50 Easy-to-Grow Plants for the Organic Home Garden or Landscape printed by Chelsea Green Publishing. When I got it I could barely pull myself away from it because it has so much to teach me.

Each of the species included has five or six pages devoted to it and at least five excellent photos. The information starts with “Growth Difficulty Rating” — how hard is it to grow? Most are easy. It includes taste profile and uses, pollination requirements (is it self-pollinating?), site and soil conditions, zone hardiness, good cultivars to look for, and a paragraph on pests and problems, and more.

I called the authors and asked about their experience growing this diverse group of plants. They live in Stone Ridge, New York, a town about 100 miles north of NYC and 10 miles or so from the Hudson River. They are in Zone 6, where winter temperatures only go a little below zero most winters.

They are both artists, and originally started growing plants to use in their art. About 20 years ago they bought 8 acres across the street from them and started their own arboretum, later adding another 10 acres. Their arboretum is Hortus Arboretum and Botanical Garden and is a Level II arboretum according to the Morton Arboretum.

I asked them what they would recommend for fruit if someone had none and wanted to start with winners. Scott suggested blueberries and blackberries. Both are easy and tasty. Elderberries are good, too, they said, although you need to cook the berries to make them palatable. Elderberries, honey and lemon juice make a nice syrup, which I use to help prevent colds in winter.

We talked about honeyberries. It’s a fruit I will definitely plant this year. Although the fruit looks a little like a big oblong blueberry, it is actually in the genus with honeysuckle. It is native to the northern U.S., Canada and Siberia. A friend gave us a few to taste last summer, and I like the flavor.

According to the book, honeyberry is the first fruit to ripen here, a couple of weeks before strawberries. But it is a couple of weeks after they turn blue and look ripe that they actually lose their astringency and turn sweet. This is the kind of information that most books or plant tags don’t have, and only comes from someone who grows and knows the plant. Allyson said she discovered that lots of berries are hidden under the leaves. The fruit gets better every year, apparently.

Another fruit in the book is pawpaw, a somewhat tropical-flavored tree fruit (banana crossed with mango flavor?). As the book explains, you need two different trees (not clones) to get pollination and fruit. I am growing it, but started out with only clones, so I have not gotten fruit yet.

Of the nuts, they recommend hazelnuts. These produce nuts as much younger plants than things like black walnut or pecans, which are tall trees that require years to produce nuts. You need to have two or more hazelnuts as they are not self-fertile. Scott pointed out that the native species has smaller nuts than some of the named varieties.

Pecans are discussed in the book. The biggest difficulty is not growing the tree, but having a growing season long enough for the nuts to ripen. They need 150 to 180 days. But as the climate changes, perhaps this will not be a problem in 25 years. They note that you must have two compatible grafted varieties to get nuts, as the trees are not self-fertile. These are big, handsome trees and should be grown in full sun and rich soil if possible.

A tree that is not native but produces a lot of food for deer is the Korean stone pine. The pine nuts we use for pesto are most often from these trees grown in Asia. The cones open up in winter and drop their seeds, which are rich in oil and high in calories. Scott said in Siberia tigers indirectly depend on the stone pine because they feed the deer and boar the tigers need to survive.

The Hortus Arboretum and Garden is open from Mother’s Day in May until the end of October, Friday to Sunday. Admission is by donation. Because of Covid, they have been scheduling visitors online during the season at their website, hortusgardens.org.

This book is terrifically useful to anyone interested in growing fruit and nuts. I should note that it does not cover apples, plums and peaches because those fruits are well-covered by other writers, and, as they say, much prone to pests and diseases. The plants discussed are generally easy to grow and trouble-free. Just what we all want!

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

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.