Category: The Gardening Guy

Enjoy paperwhites and amaryllis indoors

As winter drags along, I long for warm sun and green plants surrounding me outdoors. It’s much too early to start spring seeds (even indoors), but I can plant some flower bulbs. I love paperwhites and amaryllis, and both are readily available for planting now — and they will bloom indoors while it snows outside.

Paperwhites are a type of daffodil specifically for forcing indoors now. Most grocery stores sell them, as do garden centers and feed-and-grain stores. They usually cost about a buck a bulb, and will produce flowers in four to six weeks. They are not hardy in New England, so don’t bother saving the bulbs to plant outdoors. Just enjoy them, and accept that they are a one-shot deal.

I should warn you that paperwhites have strong scents, and not everyone is enthralled with their smell. But I like the scent, which I can smell once I walk into a room with freshly blooming paperwhites. If you don’t like strong-smelling musky scents, there is one variety that is barely fragrant: Grand Soleil d’Or. Instead of the traditional white blossoms these bulbs produce gold or yellow blossoms.

If you are in a hurry for blossoms and can select your bulbs from a bin, select those that already have started to grow. They are just aching to grow. Select a nice bowl or pot that will hold water, and get some small stones — three quarters of an inch to an inch is a good size. Garden centers sell white marble chips for this, but you can pick up stones from your driveway or garden, too. Just rinse off any stones before using them.

Arrange the three to five bulbs on a layer of stones, then fill in around the bulbs with more stones. The stems and flowers will get up to 18 inches tall, so they may tip over if not firmly seated and surrounded with stones.

Next, add water until it just kisses the bottom of the bulbs. You do not want the bulbs to sit in water. Those dry roots will quickly wake up and extend into the pool of water around the stones. Top up the water as needed, but try not to let it go dry.

Some people wait until the bulbs have grown an inch or two, drain off the water, and replace it with a 7-to-1 dilution of gin or vodka. This will, I am told, produce shorter, sturdier stems that will not flop. Or use rubbing alcohol and dilute a bit more, 11 to 1.

A more expensive but more dramatic flower for forcing is amaryllis. This is a tropical flower originally from South Africa — and many are still imported from there each year. Properly cared for, your investment in an amaryllis bulb will produce a plant that will last for up to 75 years, blooming every year

Amaryllis bulbs are big: They are anywhere from 2 to 4 inches across. They are often sold with a kit that includes an appropriate-sized plastic pot, the bulb, and enough potting soil to plant it in.

Smaller amaryllis bulbs are younger and less expensive, but you get what you pay for: A $5 amaryllis at a Big Box Store will probably produce one stem with three or four large blossoms. A $12 bulb will be bigger and should produce two stems with eight or more blossoms. In time, your small bulb will get bigger if you care for it properly.

Planting an amaryllis is easy. You should plant it in a good potting soil, not soil from the garden, which may stay too wet and get compacted. It is important that the bulb not be buried in soil. It may rot if you do that. The shoulders of the bulb should stick up above the soil line, up to one third of the bulb. The potting soil should be lightly moist, not dry or soggy when you plant it.

Place your amaryllis in a sunny window and wait. Sometimes when you buy an amaryllis it will have already started to grow in the box. I like that, as it means that my amaryllis will start growing for me right away.

Other times an amaryllis will sulk for weeks, doing nothing. There is nothing I know of to encourage it to grow, though maybe whispering encouragement to it will help. Only do that, however, when you are the only person in the room!

Amaryllis stems tend to lean toward the light, so rotating the pot every few days will help to keep it growing straight up (and give you something to do). You may need to insert one or more thin bamboo sticks and tie with yarn to help keep the heavy blossoms — up to 4 inches across — from pulling the stem over.

After the first stem has bloomed you may get a second stem. You can cut off the first stem after it is finished blooming. Sometimes the first and second stems grow at the same time, which leads to a little pushing and shoving in the pot, much like teenagers. Once a stem is finished blooming, you can cut it off.

After blooming, keep it in the pot, and put it outside in a sunny location all summer, but bring it inside by Oct. 1. Remove from the pot and let it dry out. Cut off the leaves and place it in a paper bag and keep in a cool, dark place for five or six weeks. Then pot it up, and it will bloom again.

So if you miss gardening, get an amaryllis or some paperwhites. And spring will be along in no time!

Featured photo: 5 paperwhite bulbs fit into this soupbowl with gravel. Courtesy photo.

Why the misunderstood veggie is a hero

Like Rodney Dangerfield, kale doesn’t get enough respect. I’ve been told that it only became a commonly grown vegetable in the 1970s when salad bars ordered it to use as the bed upon which other edibles like tomatoes, carrots and cukes slept in nearly ordered arrangements. No one actually ate kale. But that has changed, at least with the Birkenstock crowd. Like me, for one.

Kale became the carpet for other veggies because it is a deep, rich green and seemingly never wilts. It is the toupee of veggies, always looking neat and presentable. I often pick a few leaves and place the stems in a jar of water on the kitchen counter to remind me to include it in soups, stews, scrambled eggs and more. And to admire.

On a recent raw December morning I took our new dog out for a walk. Rowan is a 1-year-old Irish setter/golden retriever mix we adopted just before Thanksgiving. As he zoomed around the property I stopped to see how our kale was doing. Still healthy, despite occasional temps down to 15 degrees, and covered with wet snow. I picked a few leaves and brought them up to include in a soup or salad.

Kale is crunchy. In a salad I cut it finely, blending it in with lettuce, although my wife, Cindy, recently made a kale salad. She also used walnuts, crispy rice and dried cranberries — and it was delicious. She massaged the fine-cut leaves with olive oil for a couple of minutes first to help make it less crunchy.

It is one of the more nutritious greens. Compared to iceberg lettuce, it has two and a half times more fiber. It has more thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, pantothenic acid, vitamin B6 and folate than iceberg lettuce. It is a great source of vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin K, calcium and potassium. It has twice the calories of iceberg lettuce, but neither is a high-calorie food. You can eat all the kale you want and not gain an ounce of fat.

One of my favorite ways to eat kale is in a green smoothie for breakfast. I use about 2 cups of kale removed from the center rib, a banana, half an avocado (if I have one), half a cup of orange juice and a cup and a half of water. Oh, and I squeeze half a lime into the mix, and grate in some fresh ginger if I have it. I chop the kale very, very finely because my older blender doesn’t liquefy it, even though the dial says “Liquefy.” I don’t want to have to chew my smoothie.

Sometimes I add frozen blueberries or raspberries to the mix, or if I want a cold smoothie I substitute ice cubes for some of the water. In summer when I have lots of greens I try to add four or more leaves of other greens — lettuce, Swiss chard or whatever looks good. Spinach is good, and very nutritious. It freezes well after a brief blanching.

Growing kale is easy. I rarely find the leaves eaten by insects, though some readers have written me about flea beetles (or something) eating holes in the leaves. You can stymie most bugs by covering the plants with a layer of “row cover.” Row cover is a spun agricultural fabric that looks like those dryer sheets available to reduce static and add fragrance to laundry. But this stuff comes in long 60-inch-wide pieces. Wires are sold to form hoops over small plants, but you can drape it right on bigger plants. It is great for keeping potato beetles away from your spuds, too.

Kale is a big plant. I grow it 18 inches apart in a wide, raised bed. It grows best in full sun, but if sun is at a premium in your garden, it will do fine in part shade. Hot afternoon sun and dry soil is not ideal for kale. I recommend adding plenty of compost in the planting hole, and some slow-release organic fertilizer.

Sometimes I start kale from seed indoors six weeks before planting it outside, but if I’m too busy I just buy some started plants from my favorite farm stand. If you start your own kale indoors, you may get tall, lanky plants — due to not enough light inside. No problem. Bury some of the stem. Just pinch off some lower leaves, and plant the kale deep in the soil so it is not flopping over when it goes in the ground.

I make a great winter stew using kale and other garden vegetables that I have either stored or frozen. It can be either vegetarian or not. It is loosely based on a Portuguese stew I ate years ago on Cape Cod. I don’t think you need a step-by-step recipe, nor do I know the exact proportions, but I share with you my carnivore version and you can make your own according to your preferences — and what you have available.

I start by slicing a pound of linguica Portuguese sausage into smallish cubes and browning in olive oil with onions and/or leeks (which I always have in the freezer). If you don’t find linguica, substitute any spicy sausage like andouille cajun sausage.

Then I add water and tomatoes. I freeze tomatoes whole in September, so I use those, chopped up, but you could use a 28-ounce can of diced tomatoes. Into the stew goes a couple of cups of chopped kale. Then I add herbs: parsley, fennel seed, oregano and marjoram. And carrots, for sweetness.

Lastly I add something to give the stew rib-sticking goodness: either potatoes, winter squash or cooked dry beans. I let the stew simmer until hunger overwhelms me, but I always make plenty as it is good warmed up for days.

So remember to plant plenty of kale next spring. It won’t disappoint you.

Featured photo: December kale with Rowan, our new dog. Courtesy photo.

How to make them a little brighter

This is the darkest time of the year: Not only are the days short, but clouds obscure the sun much of the time. Many of us find the gloom oppressive, especially when there is neither enough snow to ski nor ice to skate on. And for gardeners, there is little we can (or wish to) do outside. So what do I do?

First, I go to my local grocery store or florist and buy cut flowers or potted plants. For $10 or $15 I can brighten my outlook considerably. The most economical to buy are potted plants. They will, with a minimum of care and forethought, bloom for weeks or even for months. Here are a few of my favorites:

Christmas cactus. It should be called a Thanksgiving cactus, really, because they usually bloom well before Christmas. Buy one in full bloom or that has a mix of blossoms and buds. They need moderate light indoors, but not hot afternoon sun. Temperatures of 60 to 70 degrees are best for success. They should not be allowed to dry out completely, but neither do they want to be kept soggy. They like humidity, so place them in a saucer of small stones and add water. Never let the pot sit in water.

Cyclamen. Another low-light plant. This one is suited for even less light than Christmas cactus. If you give it any direct sunshine, an hour or two of morning sun is plenty, but indirect light is better.

Water your cyclamen only when dry, which depends on the temperature and relative humidity. I find picking up the pot tells me a lot: If dry, it weighs very little; when moist, it is heavier. If you go too long, the flowers will flop as if to say, “Look at me, I’m dying of thirst!” But they recover quickly. Place your plant in a saucer of water and let it suck up water. But don’t let it sit in water for long.

My mother loved African violets and did well with them. I remember doing an experiment with my new Chemistry Set for Young Scientists when I was in the fourth grade. I made a solution of tannic acid and put a drop on a leaf. Overnight, it burned a perfect hole! Great experiment until my mother asked me if I had done something to her plant.

I have not had great luck with African violets here in New Hampshire (they may have heard about my experiment, way back when). I largely heat with a wood stove, and keep the house warm, but quite cool at night. I finally read an article that said one should never let the temperature in the room they are in drop below 70 degrees. So I no longer try, though I have recently read that temps down to 60 degrees are OK.

If you want to grow them, keep them consistently warm in a bright room but not in direct sunshine. They like high humidity (hence do not like woodstoves) but do not tolerate soggy roots. Water from the bottom, but water once a month from above (to flush out any fertilizer salts). Never let water get on the leaves. Pinch off spent blossoms or yellowed leaves.

My absolute favorite house plant is an orchid called phalaenopsis or moth orchid. Buy them in bloom, and they will bloom for many weeks. Direct sunlight can scorch the leaves, but they need a bright room. These are tropical orchids so like warm temperatures. But cool nights are good, down to 55 degrees.

Moth orchids in their native environment grow in trees. So the soil mix they come in is generally a special orchid mix made of bark chips, and perhaps a little perlite or vermiculite. This mix allows water to run right through it. If it comes with an inner pot and an outer pot, be sure to pour out water after watering from the outer pot, which normally has no drainage. Or just lift the inner pot and run water through in your sink. Otherwise you will kill your orchid. Water once a week, or if exposed roots turn silvery white.

According to the experts, tree orchids such as these do best with good air circulation. Me? I find that in a room with people coming and going there is enough air movement to keep them healthy. I grow them over a saucer of pebbles and water to increase humidity, and grow them in the bathroom, where steam from the shower helps.

But if you have no patience with house plants, or believe you cannot grow them, buy flowers for a vase. Most cut flowers will last a week; many will last longer. Most stems cost between $1.50 and $3. Buy an odd number of stems: three, five, seven or 11, depending on your budget.

The vase for displaying cut flowers should be about half as tall as the stems are long (or a little less). But that rule is not firm. If the arrangement looks good to your eye, it is fine.

Cut flowers generally come with a little packet of white powder. Use it. It helps to keep the water from getting full of bacteria or fungus that will clog the stem, keeping it from taking up water. Pull off any leaves that would otherwise go in the water. You can also use a teaspoon of Clorox in a quart of water. Never put cut flowers near a radiator or wood stove.

Henry’s book Organic Gardening (not just) in the Northeast is available from him for $19 at gardening-guy.com.

Gifts for gardeners
Henry Homeyer recommended gifts for the gardener in your life in the Dec. 2 issue of the Hippo. Find the e-edition at hippopress.com; the story is on page 20.

Featured photo: Cyclamen really are not fussy, and bloom for weeks. Photo by Henry Homeyer.

Gifts for the gardener

Ready to shop! Every time I turn on the radio or open a newspaper, there are articles about supply chain issues. Even the reliable old U.S. Postal Service is saying deliveries may well be delayed. So share some garden produce this year or shop at a local, family-owned business when you can.

Food is a great gift. You don’t need fancy fruit shipped from Oregon if you made plenty of tomato sauce or quince jelly this year. Share the harvest. A quart of dried cherry tomatoes contains a lot of love and work. You had to grow, harvest, wash and dehydrate. Only people dear to my heart will rate such a gift.

My dream gift? A friend, loved one or reader sending me a nice card, along with a homemade certificate for four hours of weeding in my garden. Or two hours. Working in the garden with a friend or relative can be a great way to strengthen a friendship. Politics don’t matter in the garden. I might suspect my brother-in-law didn’t vote the way I did in the last election. But if he will bring his chainsaw and help me take down and cut up a 12-inch-diameter box elder I want removed, send me the gift certificate!

Books are great gifts, and books printed in the United States should be readily available at your local bookstore. My first choice for a book to give? Doug Tallamy’s Nature’s Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation That Starts in Your Yard. It explains how what we plant can affect the planet, especially our pollinators and birds. And all of us, really.

I’ve re-printed my last gardening book and will be selling it at a discount directly to you, signed. It’s a collection of my best articles organized around the calendar year. It’s titled Organic Gardening (not just) in the Northeast: A Hands-On, Month-by-Month Guide. Signed and mailed to you for just $19. Send a check to Henry Homeyer at PO Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746. I will try to figure out how to reduce the price on my website, Gardening-Guy.com where it is currently for sale at $21 if you want to use PayPal.

What else at the bookstore? Essential Native Trees and Shrubs for the Eastern United States by Tony Dove and Ginger Woolridge is a great companion for Doug Tallamy’s book. Michael Dirr has written lots of great tree books. He is informative and opinionated. Allan Armitage is just as opinionated and thorough about flowers as Dirr is about trees. Or get a gift certificate and let your gardener pick her own books at the local bookstore.

If deer are a problem in the garden of your loved one, I find nothing better than Fend Off Deer and Rabbit Repellent Odor Clips, available at Gardener’s Supply and other retailers. A package of 25 sells for about $20. I use one or two per shrub to keep deer away all winter. They clip on with a clothespin-style attachment. They contain just garlic and soy oil, no chemicals.

I recently wrote about using hardware cloth (wire screening) to keep voles from chewing off bark and killing young trees. Since then I have used plastic spiral tree guards that are easy to install and will protect against sun scald in winter, too. They are inexpensive and can be reused (I will remove them in the spring). They are sold as Rainbow Professional LTD White Spiral Tree Guards at OESCOinc.com or by calling them at 413-469-4335. They sent my order out the very day I called.

Also available from OESCO are some pruners that I like a lot. OESCO is a small company based in Conway, Massachusetts, catering to orchard professionals. The pruners are made by a German company, Löwe (not to be confused with the American retailer Lowe’s). The pruners are of the anvil type, designed and manufactured well. They sell a size nice for small hands (Löwe 5.107) and a larger size, too. OESCO sells replacement blades and parts.

Of course every gardener needs a good weeding tool. The CobraHead is my favorite and has been for years. They now have a mini-Cobrahead designed for smaller hands. Available from CobraHead.com or 866-962-6272 or at your local garden center. It has a single curved tine like a steel finger that will tease out roots from below while you tug a weed from above. I emailed the owner, Noel Valdes, who told me there are plenty in stock.

I found a wonderful shovel for digging in tough areas with lots of roots. It’s called the Root Slayer and is available from Gardener’s Supply and a few other retailers. I’ve used mine all summer and love it! Great for cutting though sod, too. It has a sharp blade and teeth along the sides for slicing roots.

Lastly, think about a gift certificate at your local nursery or garden center for plant purchases in the spring. Plants are always good.

Featured photo: Gardening books make great presents. Courtesy photo.

Intensify the flavors of garden produce

One of the reasons I garden is that I love to cook and to create wonderful, flavorful dishes that I might not get elsewhere. I think many gardeners share that inclination. One of the techniques I have not used much is roasting vegetables, but I recently did some roasting and will do some more. I find it sweetens and intensifies flavors.

It all started when I was baking some potatoes. I had the oven at 425 and decided to make some kale chips at the same time. I ran down to the garden and picked some leaves. I took four of them, sliced the leafy part off the stems, and chopped coarsely to one- to two-inch squares. Then I sprinkled them with olive oil, tossed them well and dusted them with salt. I put them on a cookie sheet and roasted until crisp — 10 minutes seemed just right.

I’ve made kale chips before but was never enamored of them. This kale had been hit by frost several times, which made the leaves sweeter. And I cooked them at a higher temperature than I’ve done before. I also made a small batch: Cindy and I ate them all before dinner. In the past I have stored kale chips in a well-sealed glass jar, but they got soggy anyway. Still got kale in the garden? Give it a try.

Baked potatoes are a classic dish and easy to make. A few tips: Grow some russets next year — they are best for baking — and brush them with a little melted butter or olive oil to help crisp up the skins. But plan ahead, because it takes 45 to 65 minutes at 400 degrees to bake a potato. The bigger the spud, the longer it takes. You should be able to poke a fork or knife in easily when cooked. Oh, and don’t forget to poke some holes in the skin when you start — I’m told they can explode if you don’t.

I usually freeze fresh bell peppers in the fall. I find they are great for cooking and can be tossed in a salad, too. No blanching: I just wash and wipe dry, then seed and slice them and freeze in a zipper bag. I decided to try roasting frozen peppers now to see how they would do.

I spread out a couple of cups of frozen sliced peppers on a clean cloth towel on the counter, while preheating the oven to 450 degrees. They thawed quickly, and I patted them dry. I put them in a bowl and tossed them with some olive oil. Then I removed one half and put on the cookie sheet for cooking; the other half I sprinkled with dried oregano flakes and a little salt before spreading on the pan. Put down parchment paper or aluminum foil to simplify cleanup.

The peppers needed 25 to 30 minutes until they were soft and slightly charred. I did not remove the skins, though people who roast them whole tend to do that. If you are roasting peppers as a side dish, be aware that roasting them reduces the size considerably — a cup of sliced peppers doesn’t make much of a dish.

A few days later I got a nice pork roast and cooked it at 350 degrees for over an hour. This gave me a medium-hot oven just begging to roast veggies. I roasted beets, carrots, onions and tomatoes, and all were delicious!

The beets were medium-sized, 2 inches in diameter or so, and took an hour or a little more to feel well-cooked. I wrapped them loosely in aluminum foil after cutting off the leaves. I left the tails (roots) on the beets, and an inch or so of the stem and leaves. Cut beets tend to bleed, and I didn’t want that.

The carrots I just tossed into the roasting pan after I cleaned them well and cut off the stems and tips. If you have small carrots they don’t take as long as beets, so you can put them in later in the cooking process. Onions I peeled and roasted whole. While roasting they caramelized, turning sweeter. Good used cold in sandwiches!

I tried roasting my tomatoes by cutting tomatoes into half-inch slices and also just cutting them in half. I found the halves were easier to serve — the sliced tomatoes tended to fall apart. Later, when roasting peppers, I also roasted three more fresh tomatoes at 450 degrees after sprinkling them with dry basil. Even at 450 it takes an hour or so to get them to collapse and brown up.

Roasting tomatoes does give them a very nice, intense tomato flavor. Years ago I roasted quite a few with the idea of storing the results in the freezer. It worked well. I roasted them longer than I did just now: I roasted them until almost all the moisture was out, probably at a lower temperature. Then I put them in zipper bags and froze them for use in winter sandwiches. I took the frozen tomato pieces and thawed them in a toaster oven.

Each year I grow some winter squash. My favorite is the Waltham butternut. It is a light-brown squash with a bulbous, seed-filled distal end, and a narrower section with no seeds that extends to the attachment point on the vine. Mostly I peel them, remove the seeds and chop into cubes to include in stews and stir-fries.

Recently I roasted a butternut squash and was delighted not only by the flavor but also by the fact that I did not have to peel the skin. When serving (after an hour at 350 degrees) I scooped the cooked meat out of the skin. But later I tried a bite of the skin, and it was soft and delicious. Vegetable skins generally are full of vitamins and minerals, so I shall plan on eating squash skins from now on (with the exception of Blue Hubbard skins, which are so thick and leathery).

So as you plan your garden for next year, think about growing veggies you can roast. They are perfect comfort food for long winter nights.

Featured photo: Roasted tomatoes with basil. Courtesy photo.