Category: The Gardening Guy

Grow basil, eat pesto, let the kids help out

I love to cook, and I love to eat. I got started gardening in the vegetable garden more than 70 years ago, in part, because everyone I knew loved to eat homegrown vegetables — raw in the garden, fresh in the kitchen or cooked for dinner. I’d pull a carrot and rinse it off with a hose — or just wipe off the dirt on my shirt. My mother didn’t care if I ate some fresh (organic) soil with my carrot; she was just glad I liked carrots.

This is the season for pesto, a dish that is heavenly — and simple to make. It has just four basic ingredients: fresh basil, garlic, Romano or Parmesan cheese, olive oil and nuts (and salt and pepper to taste). I used to use pine nuts, but when their price went north of $20 a pound I switched to walnuts. They taste great, too.

We grow a lot of basil each year — 20 plants or more this year. You can grow it in big pots if you don’t have space for a vegetable garden. But this year, if you didn’t grow basil, visit your local farm stand and get a couple of big bunches. For my recipe you will need 2 cups of basil leaves packed down in a 2-cup measure.

If you grew your own basil, hopefully it has not started to bolt — get tall and flower. It will still be usable even if it has, but it is tastier before that happens. Throw away any flowers that have appeared — and snip off flowers on other plants that you are not harvesting today. Blossoming makes the basil a bit bitter.

Wash the basil, then spin dry in a salad spinner if you have one. Remove the leaves from the stems and then pat the leaves dry with a cloth towel. You need enough basil to fill a 2-cup measuring cup with leaves packed down firmly, which is a lot of leaves.

Place leaves in a food processor and add 1/3 to 1/2 cup of roasted walnuts or pine nuts and pulse a few times. I brown the raw nuts in a cast-iron fry pan at medium heat. They brown better if you lightly oil the pan. But be careful: They can easily be burned, so stay right there, stirring constantly until they just brown. I find roasting improves the flavor considerably.

Next, prepare the garlic. You can use a lot or a little, depending on your love of raw garlic. I crush three large or six small cloves of garlic in a garlic press, add to the blender and pulse. I grow my own garlic but you can buy it if you don’t. Har-neck garlic is more flavorful than soft-neck — ask for it at a farm stand, as grocery stores don’t tend to sell it.

Add 1/3 to 1/2 cup of olive oil slowly with the food processor running. Blend the ingredients until the leaves, nuts and garlic are totally blended. Finally add half a cup of grated Parmesan or Romano cheese and pulse until well mixed in. Taste immediately on a toasted baguette or an English muffin. This is heaven.
This has not been a stellar year for tomatoes. All the rain and the paucity of sun has caused many tomatoes to get overwhelmed by fungal diseases. Fortunately, one of my favorites has done well. It’s called Sun Gold. It’s a cherry tomato that is not only delicious but also relatively productive and disease-resistant. I grow a dozen plants each year and each plant gives me 100 tomatoes or more. They grow in clusters of 10 to 20, producing from early to late in the season.

I dehydrate most of my Sun Golds, but also love them fresh in salads, in sandwiches, or cut in half and mixed with pesto. When I put them in a food dryer, I cut them in half with the cut side up. They turn into little nuggets of summer I use all winter in soups and stews.

Pesto is also good with boiled homegrown potatoes. I serve it as a potato salad with fresh tomatoes and a little celery. Yes, after giving up on celery years ago, I grew it this year and it has done well with all the rain. Although in the past it was tough and stringy and attracted slugs, this year it has been a pleasure to grow. I don’t harvest it all at once, but go down to the garden and cut what I need for that day. The stems are much smaller than commercial celery, but I’m glad I grew it.

I think the world would be a better place if every child learned to garden and learned the joy of eating fresh vegetables. You can teach your kids or grandchildren to love gardening the way my family did: Welcome kids to the garden, offer them meaningful jobs that are easy and fun, and never leave them alone to pull weeds. Let little ones ride in a wheelbarrow on top of a pile of weeds you pulled.

One of my first jobs in the garden was to stir the “tea” my Grampy brewed in a wooden barrel full of rain water and hen manure. I stood on an apple crate and stirred it with a long stick. It was a messy job, and a bit stinky, but it seemed like real work to a 3-year-old. Eventually I was allowed to dip out the tea in a metal frozen orange juice can, and give each tomato plant one full can. I’ve been hooked on gardening ever since.

Gardening really should be for everyone, so get your little people to spend time with you in the garden, even if they only search for toads and bugs or push trucks around.

Henry is a lifetime organic gardener living in Cornish, N.H. He presents at garden clubs and libraries around the region, and is the author of four gardening books. Reach him at [email protected].

Featured photo by Henry Homeyer.

Choose the variety that works best for your garden

Unlike the games of chance at our local fair, you always win when you buy a hydrangea. They generally bloom their fool heads off every year, even if you have poor soil and a poor track record in the garden. When I was a boy I noticed that every cemetery had hydrangeas, so I called them cemetery bushes (my parents knew few names of plants). Now is the time they are blooming, so it is time to go to your local, family-owned garden center and buy one — or more than one.

If you want a tall plant with instant curb appeal, buy what is called a hydrangea “standard.” A standard is a shrub that has been grafted onto a tall stem, usually about 5 feet tall. Hydrangeas start out low and often wide, but if you get a standard, you get something that looks a bit like a lollipop — or an instant small tree.

I have six different hydrangeas, each differing in bloom time, color, size of blossom and shape of blossom. Two of mine are standards and are about 25 years old. Each is 15 to 20 feet tall and wide.

The first standard I planted is what’s called a “PeeGee” hydrangea. PeeGee is shortened from the Latin name, Hydrangea paniculata grandiflora (which means large flower head). This is the classic cemetery plant, one that has been around since it was imported from Japan in 1862.

My PeeGee hydrangea has blossoms of various sizes, from 5 inches across to 8 inches or more across. Most blossoms are roughly globular, but some are a bit elongated, especially toward the top of the plant. The panicles are a mixture of fertile and showy infertile florets. The blossoms start out a green-tinged white, transforming to white, then pinkish and finally brown after frost. If you pick the blossoms before frost and put them in a dry vase, they will stay looking pinkish all winter and beyond.

I love my “Pink Diamond” hydrangea; it is also a H. paniculata grandiflora, and lives up to its name even better than a PeeGee. Its uppermost flower panicles can reach 12 inches long and 8 inches wide. The woody stems are thicker and stronger than on most hydrangeas, so they do not flop the way some others do when wet from rain. The pink panicles are a delight to behold.

There is one native hydrangea, called smooth hydrangea (Hydrangea arborescens). It stays small, only 3 to 6 feet tall and wide. It does well in partial shade but is intolerant of dry soils. It will tolerate full sun only if the soil stays moist. ‘Annabelle’ is commonly sold in the nursery trade but I can’t imagine why. Yes, it does have huge panicles, but it has flimsy stems so the panicles droop or flop onto the ground.

According to the Mt. Cuba research station, the best hydrangea for pollinators is the smooth hydrangea called ‘Haas Halo,’ a native one. I planted several for a client one fall and they were immediately consumed by deer. But they came back the following spring and I surrounded them with wire fencing to keep the deer away. In Year 3 they are blooming nicely. The center of each flat flower head is full of small, fertile flowers surrounded by larger white flat, infertile florets.

Another favorite of mine is called ‘Quick Fire.’ Now in Year 5 for me, it is a shrub about 4 feet tall and wide; it is loaded with 4- to 5-inch flower heads. It opens greenish white, then turns white, then pink. The pink color comes on earlier than most others, hence the name. What I like about it is that it keeps a nice mix of white and pink panicles. I am now pruning it yearly to keep it at its current size. It blooms on new wood, so I won’t lose any blossoms if I prune it now or even in the early spring.

Many New England gardeners would like to be able to grow blue hydrangeas, so they buy them and find they really only perform well for one year. A variety called ‘Endless Summer’ came out in the ’90s with much fanfare, claiming it would do as well here as it does in the mid-Atlantic region. But it didn’t do well. Most buds are set the year before, and winter tends to kill them.

Readers often write me asking how to get the numerous blue panicles in years 2, 3 and beyond. I tell them to treat them as expensive annuals. Dig them up and throw them on the compost if they don’t succeed. Instead of Endless Summer, I call them Endless Disappointment. There are now other blue hydrangeas sold, and some may be OK for our climate.

My favorite hydrangea is the climbing hydrangea, H. anomola subspecies petiolaris. Climbing hydrangea is usually sold as a small vine in a one-gallon pot. It takes a long time to get to blooming size — often five or six years. Then it takes off and grows rapidly. The great thing about this vine is that it will bloom in full shade — I have it on the north side of my barn. It will attach to stone or brick surfaces but not wood, though it can climb trees. As it started growing it up my barn I attached it to the barn with a special plastic chain designed for staking young trees. Then later it grew through cracks in the boards and now needs no support — and usually blooms inside my barn! Like all hydrangeas, its flowers stay on and look interesting most of the winter.

So if you like the look of hydrangeas, go get one. I think most are wonderful.

You may email Henry at [email protected]. He is a garden consultant and the author of four gardening books. He lives in Cornish, N.H.

Featured photo: My PeeGee Hydrangea always puts on a good show. Photo by Henry Homeyer.

Give a flat garden some height with these perennials

If Jack, of Beanstalk fame, were to visit my garden, I think he would be impressed. I’m not sure how tall his beanstalk grew, but I got out my 10-foot tripod Hasegawa pruning ladder and took a picture of a flower blossom while standing on the top step. The flower, a black-eyed susan, stood 111 inches tall on a thick stem that has withstood the wind and rains of recent weeks without any staking. It is truly a Goliath.

But this is no ordinary black-eyed susan. Its Latin name, Rudbeckia maxima, gives you a clue about its inclinations. It wants to be bigger and better than any other in the same genus, or family group. Its common name is large coneflower, which is appropriate as the flower does have a large black cone surrounded by yellow petals. I’ve read that it commonly grows 6 to 8 feet tall, but this year it has exceeded that and may still be growing. The leaves are few but large and blue-green in color. Quite interesting. The leaves are mostly clustered toward the bottom of the stalk.

Large coneflower is not commonly sold in nurseries. But if you find one — or better yet, three — plant it where it can strut its stuff. It does well in full sun and average, moist soil. Perhaps because my soil is above average (it is rich, black and fluffy), my plants are taller than average. A few words of warning: Rudbeckia maxima hates to be moved and can take a couple of years to recover from transplanting, or at least mine did.

Another tall, lanky plant I love is a meadow rue called Thalictrum rochebrunianum ‘Lavender Mist.’ My go-to flower book is Manual of Herbaceous Ornamental Plants by Steven M. Still. This is an 800-page text that tells me most everything I need to know about any flower I want to grow: where a plant will grow best, zone hardiness, flower description, how best utilized, related species and much more. Still’s book says ‘Lavender Mist’ commonly grows 4 to 6 feet tall with delicate lavender sepals, no petals, and “primrose-yellow stamens.’ Like the Rudbeckia mentioned above, mine gets tall, often 8 feet or perhaps more, and has large parts of the stem bare of leaves. The finely cut leaves are on a few side branches along the tall stem. This one does need staking sometimes to keep it erect in rainstorms. It is a splendid cut flower, very dramatic in a tall vase. ‘Lavender Mist’ does well in part shade and rich soil. Half a day of sun is fine.

Some years ago at a garden-design competition in the Loire Valley of France I happened upon a Culver’s root (Veronicastrum virginicum) called ‘Fascination.’ It is a tall plant, 6 to 7 feet tall for me. The flowers are lilac-rose-colored spikes and quite striking. But no one had them for sale in the States until I finally found one for sale at a mom-and-pop roadside corn and tomato stand that also sold marigolds and geraniums. Huh. How did it get there? I don’t know, but I bought it and still have it 20 years later.

‘Fascination’ flops in rainy weather and needs to be surrounded by three strong stakes and a barrier of string. But if I remember to cut back the stems by half in mid to late June, it does not flop and produces many more flower spikes. Instead of one per stem, it produces six or so smaller ones, and a bit later in the summer. Mine is blooming now.

I’ve come to love the common white Culver’s root even better than ‘Fascination.’ It only gets to be 4 feet or so tall but needs no staking. Bees and wasps love it, too.

While visiting a farmer in Ohio I spotted a fascinating big plant called teasel, growing in his corn field. I was told that teasel (Dipsacus spp.) was a horrible weed, and that I was crazy to collect seed from it (though I did anyway). It is biennial with a spiny stalk and leaves and sculptural blossoms that are not like any other I have seen. Hard to describe; see the photo with this article.

Each spring I pull out all but two or three first-year teasel plants so they do not take over my garden. I have three this year, and one is easily 8 feet tall. The flowers are fabulous in an arrangement and can be used dry all winter. Outdoors the stems stand up in wind, snow and ice and are endlessly fascinating to me.

Another favorite tall native plant of mine is called snakeroot, bugbane or black cohosh. Its scientific genus used to be Cimicifuga, but now it has been changed to Actaea. I grow two species, Actaea racemosa and A. ramosa. They bloom starting in August and are a great treat for pollinators, especially bees of all sizes and types. They bloom in alphabetical order, A. racemose first, then A. ramosa. They can have a very strong scent, which I like as much as the bees do.

Snakeroot is a native woodland plant but will do well in full sun or part shade so long as there is plenty of moisture. There are also named cultivars such as ‘Hillside Black Beauty’ that have leaves that are deep purple to almost black and are very striking in the garden. This spring I had ‘Hillside Black Beauty’ growing next to a Rodgersia with big almost orange leaves, and the combination was breathtaking. Later those orange-tinted leaves turn green.

If you garden on a flat area, think about growing some tall perennial plants to give your garden a more interesting look. And mix in some shrubs or small trees to give you height in winter. But that’s an article for another day.

You may email Henry at [email protected]. He is a garden consultant and the author of four gardening books. He lives in Cornish, N.H.

Featured photo: Native Culvers root is delicate looking, but strong. Photo by Henry Homeyer.

Did you know those little styrofoam-looking beads in potting soil are actually volcanic glass?

You may not have the time and energy to weed and maintain lovely perennial flower beds, or even to grow a few tomatoes, carrots and beans. But if you love flowers you can have a window box or a big pot of flowers on your deck. They can add a punch of color all summer long. And it’s not too late to start now.

Before you get too excited about planting flowers at this time of year, visit your local garden center, farm stand or other source for plants. Some places sell out by the end of June. Others keep nice annual flowers coming all summer long. And some are already selling chrysanthemums and fall asters, which will provide nice color for the weeks ahead.

I recently visited Caroline Storrs of Cornish, New Hampshire, to look at her window boxes as she told me hers were in their full glory now. Her husband, Peter, is a retired building contractor who built her window boxes for her. He used a synthetic material made from PVC plastic for the window boxes. That material is more expensive than wood but does not rot, warp or splinter. There are several brands available, and from what I can see synthetic wood costs from $10 to $15 per square foot of material.

Caroline explained that their window boxes were made wider and deeper than most commercially made window boxes. She said the more space there is available to the plant roots, the bigger the plants will grow, whether in pots or window boxes. She also pointed out that window boxes should be mounted so that there is an air space behind the boxes to prevent rotting of the wood siding or clapboards.

The potting mix is also important. Caroline’s boxes run all the way across the garage beneath upstairs windows — for perhaps 30 feet. They are about 10 inches deep and 8 inches across, which means that a huge amount of potting mix is needed to fill them all. She makes her own potting mix instead of buying it in bags, which would be more expensive.

Caroline makes a planting mix of one third peat moss, one third perlite and one third compost (which she gets by the pickup truck load), mixing it in a big wheelbarrow. She also adds a slow-release fertilizer as the basic ingredients of the mix do not provide enough of the needed nutrients to sustain the plants all summer.

Not all annuals do well with high-nitrogen mixes, as they can grow tall but delay flowering. Plants grown for their foliage do well with lots of nitrogen but may need pinching back to control size. If you do not use a slow-release fertilizer, you may need to use a liquid fertilizer every week or two to keep your plants happy.

Perlite is the white fluffy stuff in potting mixes that looks like bits of Styrofoam but is actually volcanic glass that is superheated until it pops like popcorn. It helps keep a planting mix from compacting. And although it does retain some water in its nooks and crannies, it does not absorb water.

Vermiculite is another material used in some potting mixes, and this does absorb water and holds it much better than perlite. It holds on to minerals, too, which perlite does not do. That’s important if you use liquid fertilizers, which can wash away quickly.

I’ve read that too much vermiculite can lead to a constantly wet mix, leading to root rot. From my experience a mix of perlite and vermiculite is good, particularly in dry summers. Perhaps one part vermiculite and two parts perlite would be good. Vermiculite is mica that has been heated to a high temperature. Both products have a neutral pH.

In each window box Caroline planted geraniums, chartreuse-colored sweet potato vines and coleus, a foliage plant. Coleus now comes in both sun and shade varieties, and some that will grow in either sun or shade. It does not appear to bloom but has multi-colored leaves that can be striking. The sweet potato vine hangs down and out of the box, while the coleus grows up and the geraniums add bold color in the middle of each box. She repeated the pattern all the way across the front of the garage to great effect.

Watering is important. Because her plants are so big and leafy, they require lots of water. Caroline told me that she waters every day — which means they do not travel in the summer. Peter told me that he drilled lots of holes in the bottom of the boxes to prevent the soil mix from staying soggy in rainy times. The holes can leak soil mix, so it is important to put landscape fabric or screen in the bottom.

I built a cedar window box more than 20 years ago and although it is starting to show its age it is still sturdy. I did not treat it with anything. I recently made another similar box also using 6-inch-wide cedar boards.

My new planting box is made for morning glories. I have a blank wall to which I attached a nice wood trellis and wanted to break up the tedium of the wall. And although 6-inch boards do not provide the depth of Caroline’s boxes, the vines have already reached the top of the 6-foot trellis.

Gardening really is for everybody, even those with limited time, energy and space. Grow a few flowers in a window box or pot and they will reward you with their beauty — and that of the butterflies they attract.

Featured photo: This small cedar window box is fine for a few morning glories. Photo by Henry Homeyer.

Start with the garlic, have patience with potatoes

Those of us who grow vegetables are faced with many questions each year: Will there be a late frost that will harm our tomatoes and peppers if we plant them on Memorial Day weekend? Is it time to harvest garlic now, since they produced their scapes early this year? When should we harvest broccoli — now, with heads still fairly small, or wait till they get bigger? Will the sun finally prevail and give all our veggies a big boost after all this rain?

We have seen more rain than usual — much more. Even a quick shower results in standing water in the walkways between my mounded raised beds. But in addition to the excess water, plants aren’t getting their usual allotment of sunshine. They need sun — strong, bright sun — to grow and produce fruits and leaves. The lack of sunshine is what is causing smaller veggies, yellowed leaves and later ripening.

Is it time to harvest garlic yet? After the plants send up those curly stems we call “scapes,” it is generally fine to harvest garlic. Traditionally I pull mine in mid to late August. But it’s important to pull them at the right time, not sooner or later than needed.

Here’s what I do: I start by groping my garlic. I slip my hand into the soil and feel how big the bulbs are. I don’t pull them if they’re tiny. But to be on the safe side, I pull a few and look at the skin over the cloves. I want the skins to be strong and tight for good storage. If they are breaking down (due to all the rain), I pull my garlic. If not, I let them keep growing, but check them often.

What about potatoes? My advice is to wait. Yes, you will have some small potatoes as soon as they have blossomed. But I wait much longer than that to harvest mine, as I want big spuds. When leaves start to yellow and die back, then I dig them all. In the meantime, I slip my hand into the soil (without disturbing the plants) and grab a few “new” potatoes for a special treat.

Even though a healthy broccoli plant will produce more food from its side shoots than the main head, some of my plants are small and yellowed from lack of sun. I am pulling the feeble ones and planting a late crop of lettuce by seed in the space.

My Brussels sprouts plants are also much smaller than normal this year. Fortunately, they will continue to grow until the end of October or even later. If we get sunshine soon, they should recover. My normal advice is to cut the tops of the plants off on Labor Day weekend so that the plants don’t keep growing taller but instead send their energy into producing big “sprouts.” This year I’ll be lucky if they have stalks at all. So I will wait and see — and I accept that my harvest might be small or non-existent.

Carrots love the rain and are growing nicely. We thinned them in early July and are keeping them well-weeded. Still, little sunshine means they can’t bulk up as they would in a normal year.

Onions are ready to harvest when their tops flop over. Pull the onions, even if small, and allow them to dry for a week or so in a shady, breezy spot.

One bright spot in the garden this year is celery. I don’t usually grow it, as in the past mine has been tough to chew and a magnet for snails and slugs. This year I planted six plants, and although the stalks are not yet thick, the plants are big and so far have not seemed to attract pests. I ate a stalk, and it is tougher than store-bought. But tasty.

I usually grow celeriac instead of celery, and I did start some from seed indoors. Celeriac is also called celery root and has a big bulb that grows above the soil surface. It keeps in the refrigerator for up to six months, and when added in a soup or stew it has the same celery flavor. This year, with little sun? The bulbs are not showing yet.

All this rain inspired me to grow watercress! I got seeds, and the packet says plant in wet soil, preferably in a shady area. I have that. I only did that recently, but the plants have sprouted and seem happy.

The Cornish Fair is always on the third weekend of August and has competitions for everything: who can throw an ax most accurately, who can produce the best strawberry jam — and much more. For me it is a time to compete in the vegetable and flower categories in the gym of the school. Tomatoes generally are ripe by then, but this year — who knows?

Even though I have been picking off the many yellowed leaves on my tomato plants, they are still far behind their usual selves. Do pick off the yellow leaves — they will only spread fungal disease. But only do so when the leaves are dry — if they ever are!

I heard that a study at Harvard found that people who eat a cup of ice cream every day live longer than those that do not. I couldn’t find this study online, but I have my own theory: People who are happy live longer. If eating ice cream makes you happy, have some! Me? I think the study should have been focused on home-grown tomatoes and potatoes and garlic fresh from the garden. I know they keep me happy — and probably living longer than most!

Featured photo: This vegetable garden is soggy at best. Photo by Henry Homeyer.

Pick berries, make pie

Have you ever wondered what would happen after a story ends? I have. The children’s book Blueberries for Sal came out in 1948 and has been a hit for 75 years. If Sal was 4 years old in the book, she must be pushing 80. I imagine she went to the University of Maine and got a degree in teaching. She probably married her college sweetie at age 24, and taught for six years before deciding to start a family. I bet she makes a mean blueberry pie.

The key to a great blueberry pie, in my opinion, is to let the blueberries dominate the flavors, not sugar. Pick a recipe, and mix the ingredients using less sugar than recommended. Maybe half, if it seems like a lot. Or if your recipe uses just a half a cup for six cups of berries, it’s probably fine. Add cinnamon, but more is not better. Sometimes I like a little cardamom.

The best berries for a pie are those you picked yourself. Even better are those you grew yourself. I’m picking blueberries now, and have some tips on how to get a good crop.

Paul Franklin and his wife, Nancy, own Riverbend Farm, a self-pick orchard with apples, pears, pumpkins and 1,600 blueberry plants in Plainfield, N.H. Paul once told me that there are just three things to get right if you want lots of blueberries: proper soil pH, proper soil pH and proper soil pH. That’s right: If you don’t have very acidic soil for your berries, you can still have nice bushes, but without proper soil pH, you will only get a few.

For most of us, a simple soil test done with a kit you buy at the garden center or hardware store will show that our soil is around 6.0 or 6.5 if not adjusted. But blueberries want a pH of 4.5 to 5.5 which is much, much more acidic than that. The scale is logarithmic, meaning each change in a number multiplies the acidity 10-fold. So a pH of 5.5 is 10 times more acidic than a pH of 6.5 and 4.5 is 100 times more acidic.

How do you adjust pH? Buy soil acidifier or agricultural sulfur and sprinkle it on the surface of the soil. If you have a thick layer of mulch to keep down the weeds, pull it back, then add your acidifier. Follow the directions on the bag as to how much to add once you know your soil pH. It may take two to three years to drop the soil pH to the proper level. And doing it now won’t affect this year’s crop.

What else should you do? Give your bushes room to grow. I did a single row and spaced the bushes 6 to 7 feet apart. But they are a little crowded now, 20-some years later. If I were doing it again, I’d space them farther apart. It’s best to run your row east-west rather than north-south to avoid one plant shading another. Full sun is best, but six hours of sun is adequate.

Blueberries like moisture, but don’t plant them in soggy soil. Also avoid the top of a sunny, sandy hillside. I have mine not far from my brook, and they have done very well. When planting, mix in some duff from under evergreen trees because it will help acidify the soil and will also add fungi that encourage good growth. Pine needles make a great mulch if you have some.

Blueberries do not like weeds, so do a good job of pulling out the grasses and weeds in the place you plant your berries — before you plant. And then add a good thick layer of wood chips around the plants to discourage weeds in the future.

Blueberries are pollinated by bees. And although some varieties are labeled “self-pollinating” it’s always best to plant several bushes and at least two different varieties.

There is a terrible pest that has arrived in most parts of New England, the spotted-winged drosophila. This is an Asian fruit fly that lays eggs in good fruit, as opposed to other fruit flies that only attack overripe fruit. In a matter of days, blueberries can go from healthy to mushy and full of larvae. If you cut open a berry that has been infected, you will see the small larvae. At present there is no organic method for controlling them other than covering your bushes with a fine mesh that the fruit flies can’t reach through.

If you are planting blueberries now, choose bushes that produce their fruit early in the season and avoid plants that mature later in the summer. Why? Some growers are finding that the fruit flies don’t show up early in the summer, so they are getting crops of early blueberries before the pest shows up. And buy the biggest bushes you can find — or afford. Blueberries are relatively slow-growing in our climate.

Birds can be a problem, too. I no longer cover my bushes with netting — I found too many birds got caught in the mesh, so now we just share. And unless you get a flock of cedar waxwings (which are voracious berry eaters), most birds don’t seem to be greedy. Last summer I enjoyed watching bluebirds feeding their second set of chicks with my berries.

I bet Sal (who had a close encounter with a mother bear in that wonderful book) had three kids, two girls and a boy. By now those kids would range in age 43 to 48, so her grandkids are either teenagers or in college. But I bet they all visit her in blueberry season for her wonderful pie. Her mother’s recipe, no doubt. Pie is always a good lure for grandkids, especially blueberry pie.

Henry is the author of four gardening books and is a lifelong organic gardener. Reach him by e-mail at [email protected].

Featured photo: Not all berries ripen at once, even in a cluster. Photo by Henry Homeyer.