A Green Mountain spring evening

Daffodils, English primroses and Virginia Bluebells

Early May is  green-up time in  New England.

Spring is this fleeting season that passes all to quickly. We watch as, ever so gradually the fresh green veil begins to clothe both our forests and our gardens.

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In the woods ephemeral wild flowers cover the forest floor and, in our gardens, the daffodils, primroses and bluebells are a sight to behold.

In Vermont the first Saturday in May is  also the official state Green-up Day. This is when an estimated 15,000 people fan out along our roadsides to gather up a winter’s accumulation of trash, bottles and cans into special green bags.

And the trash we find sometimes takes on peculiar forms. Not long ago, when walking through the forest, I spied a mysterious crimson object off in the distance. It was resting on the ground among an expanse of  yellow trout lilies. Upon closer inspection I discovered it was a Mylar balloon, presumably launched four months earlier as part somebody’s New Year’s celebrations. the balloon must have made a very long journey in both time and space before descending into our softly greening spring woods.

The Gardener’s New Year

Balloon in hand, I felt inspired to list of my gardening resolutions for the coming season. After all, up here in the north country, May is surely the gardener’s New Year,  a time when when we anticipate the coming bounty of summer and also think about everything that needs to be done outdoors more immediately.

Here are my resolutions for this year in my garden:

This bed is not quite as pristine as it seems. Pesky grasses have crept in over the years and i need to get to work to remove them

• I will scour the flower beds for wayward grasses that are over-running my perennials. I know from past experience that merely pulling the grass will leave plenty of roots to re-sprout. So instead I resolve to carefully lift each perennial root mass and soak it in a bucket of water for a few hours, which will enable me to tease out  those pesky grass roots.  I will then take my trusty garden fork, loosen the soil in the bed and chase down any remaining white roots, after which I will  divide and replant my perennials to better fill the flower beds.
• Using my soil knife (a very important tool in my tool bucket),  I will dig out the dandelions that seem to have arrived in the flower beds from nowhere (I am sure they were not there last fall!!), all the way  right down to the bottom of their incredibly long tap root. I know that if I just pull and break the root, three more will dandelions will soon return to haunt me.
• As soon as they have finished flowering, I will carefully dig the excess daffodils that have multiplied beyond all expectations in my flower beds. I will replant them, ‘in the green’— bulbs, leaves and all, in the bank along the edge of our road. Here they can multiply to their heart’s content and  provide springtime pleasure for passers-by for decades to come.
  

  Daffodils multiply over the years. But they are easy to relocate 'in the green' to the edge of the garden

• This year I will plant additional  kale and chard, both excellent nutritional foods that also grow really well in our mountain summers. I will freeze the excess at easy intervals throughout the summer, rather than, like last year, waiting until winter is imminent when I was overwhelmed in the kitchen by mountains of green.
• I will grow more cherry tomato plants, since I know that, up here at our elevation, the larger varieties of tomato do not ripen until September—when summer’s salad season is almost past. Tossed in a little olive oil and garlic, I will roast up all the excess cherry tomatoes.  I will then freeze them for winter treats—last January I discovered they were beyond delicious, thawed and served with pasta and little Parmesan cheese.

And my most important resolution of all…

• I will stop worrying about perfection in the garden, as I know there is no such thing. I will enjoy the pleasures of each and every season as it comes around, as if it were my last.
  

  Flowering serviceberries, one of spring's most treasured treats, welcome me into the garden

Wild turkeys in search of crabapples

Last Monday, just four days ago now, the old snow on the trails around here was thoroughly pock-marked by humans.

But on my daily walk with our three-legged dog Bruno around the little mountain behind our house, in addition to the human footprints, I would also note the tracks of many four-legged creatures, as well those of a couple of wild turkeys, demonstrating that we are not alone in the forest.

As they walk, turkeys place one foot directly in front of the other, slightly dragging a toe as they go.  So a single bird leaves a track in the snow that resembles a row of arrowheads strung along by a slender thread.

Fresh snow is transformational

But, by Tuesday morning, several inches of fresh snow had completely obliterated all  yesterday’s tracks. As I set out with Bruno to walk once more around the mountain, this time under a brilliant blue sky it was like a new world.

No people had marked the snow.  But, crossing the trail, a few tracks told of animals who had been out and about in the past twelve hours.

There were tiny tracks, like pairs of little prick marks in the snow with a line down the middle—field-mice no doubt, scurrying to and from their homes at the base of the trees. I also saw some smallish footprints, possibly a bob-cat, and larger tracks, most likely a fox.

Turkeys on the march

And then, around the backside of the mountain, I came across an amazing sight: the very recent tracks from a stampede of birds, that completely filled the ten-foot wide ski trail. A large flock of turkeys, probably about twenty birds in all, had apparently come up the hill out of the ravine to my right, and for about fifty yards along the ski trail had marched together, seemingly in lock-step. Then, bird by bird, they peeled off the trail and back down into the shelter of the ravine.

Turkeys love crabapples

The fruit on our Snowdrift crabapple lasts well into the winter, luring wild turkeys into the garden

So I know it won’t be long before turkeys appear in the garden in search of a winter treat from our crabapple trees.

Just outside the kitchen door a diminutive Sargent Crab apple (Malus sargentii) grows in the center of the herb garden.

Its branches are just a few feet up off the ground and any turkey, standing tall and stretching its out neck, can easily reach most of its persistent fruit.

A few year’s back we took the top picture of these very regular visitors to our back door.

Our Snowdrift crabapple by the pond also attracts the turkeys with its yummy winter fruit. This is a larger tree and its branches cannot be reached from the ground by a turkey. However as winter wears on, its fruit will eventually drop off, and is quickly eaten by the birds below.

And it is always fun to watch the most daring turkeys fly up into the branches where, ever so precariously, they stretch their necks out as far as they can to reach every last morsel, even right to the tips of the branches.

The holly of my youth was the ‘Christmas card’ holly— spiny, evergreen leaves and fat red berries.  I can still remember the huge holly bushes in my parent’s garden—presumably they were the English Holly, Ilex aquifolium.  As a child I felt they exuded a somewhat gloomy look and I disliked the prickly dead leaves that collected beneath them.

Most evergreen hollies— including smaller varieties like China Girl (and its counterpart China Boy) and the Blue Holly (Ilex meserveae)— are not hardy in much of northern New England.  And in Zone 5—the limit of their hardiness—they need a sheltered spot to avoid winter burn.

But New England’s Winterberry is different

Winterberries and black eyed Susans make nice fall companions

The winterberry, (Ilex verticillata), is also member of the Ilex family. It is native to New England and, with its bright red berries, makes a great addition to our winter gardens.

Unlike other Ilex species,  Winterberries are deciduous…

…which means, as a defense against our much colder winters, in early November, all winterberry bushes drop their leaves, leaving each branch decorated with an amazingly abundant crop of berries.

The berries are a rich source of food for the birds, and surely a wonderful symbol of the season for us humans.

A thicket of wild winterberries thrives in a boggy spot beside the road

Wild winterberries

At this time of year I slow down at the sight of the huge colony of wild winterberries—also known as Black Alder—growing in a boggy spot at the side of Vermont Route 73, just east of Brandon.

Black alder grow in damp spots throughout New England.  Most of the year they are just a tangled jumble of nondescript-looking bushes, but in November and December they become laden with bright red berries.

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Winterberries in the garden against the first snow of the season

Taming the jumble:

winterberries in the garden

Winterberries also make beautiful garden plants, although we probably would not want such messy-looking jumble as you see along the road in anything but the wildest corner of our gardens.

So plant breeders have worked to develop a range of elegant garden-sized cultivars.

Winterberries are slow growing…but eventually most cultivars will spread to 8 foot high and wide or more…so space your plants accordingly!!

And it is important to remember that most species of Ilex are dioecious, meaning that the male and female flowers are borne on different plants. So, for your female bushes to set fruit, you need a compatible male variety that flowers at the same time.

A winterberry hedge

Winterberries as an informal hedge

I wanted to create an informal hedge around the corner of the driveway where we park our cars. So,  ten years ago now, I planted six ‘Winter Red’ female plants, eight feet apart, as an L-shaped hedge.

‘Winter Red’ flowers in June, and in the angle between the two sides, I added a single compatible male plant, ‘Southern Gentleman’, that also flowers in June.

Today the bushes take up plenty of space. They have spread out, low to the ground, in a wide vase shape about ten feet across, and stand about eight feet tall in the center.

For a small garden the cultivar ‘Red Sprite’—which grows about three feet high and wide—is an excellent choice. But I feel a single ‘Red Sprite’ on its own looks somewhat puny, so I plant them in groups, along with one compatible male, which in this case is ‘Jim Dandy’.

The controlling gardener!

Most gardening is, to a greater or lesser extent, about exerting partial control over nature. I generally like things to be a bit orderly and tidy and, even though I may want my gardens to be ‘wildlife friendly’, I sometimes resent wild creatures helping themselves to all the fruits of my labors.

Pruning shows off their spreading vase shape

Shapely shrubs…

a gardener’s delight

I love to see attractive shapes in the garden. So I select shrubs that will have simple silhouettes and further enhance them with careful pruning.

Most winterberry cultivars are inherently more elegant and shapely, and less inclined to put out myriad suckers, than the plants growing in the wild along the side of the road.

And their basic shapes can be further enhanced by careful pruning and removing unwanted suckers.

I still enjoy this sight of the arching silhouettes of our winterberry bushes in late winter, even though the berries are gone.

Red against the January snow is a special sight

The battle of the robins

But nothing beats the picture of the brilliant red winterberry fruit against the snow.

Thus I feel especially protective of the berries on the bushes closest to the house.

Unfortunately, in early November, the robins gather in large flocks, eager to fill their bellies in preparation for their coming migration.

Many years a flock of robins will discover my winterberries and, over the course of five days, strip the bushes clean.

The robins are more than welcome to partake of winterberries growing near our pond, but I draw the line at those around the house.

However, scaring off a crowd of determined thieving robins can be a quite challenge, and over the years I have tried a number of different approaches:

I started by tying paper plates —with round ‘eyes’ painted in the middle– to the bushes.

Then I set fake owl on a post in the middle of the bushes.

After that I floated  ‘Evil Eye‘ balloons above the bushes.

Nothing worked.

So this year we turned to NOISE MAKERS.

Chasing the robins

Banging a yogurt container against a garbage can lid certainly sent the robins flying….but I still had to run outside each time they returned.

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And then Dick had the brilliant idea of activating the car horn remotely from the house!!

AND FINALLY SUCCESS….

The car horn is now our remote-controlled bird scarer.

And I get to feel like the ultimate control freak!!!

Even though we had several inches of snow last week, the temperatures were mild.

Kale is a most excellent garden crop for places…like Vermont…where we have cool summers and a short growing season. Kale matures in about 55 days from the time when seedlings are put in the ground, it does not require copious heat to grow well, and it is relatively pest free.
And, best of all, kale is extremely good for you.

...and after the snow receded the kale was still smiling!

The flavor of kale actually improves after a frost, and the plants will keep on smiling even after being inundated by snow. So, providing you do not anticipate nighttime temperatures dipping below about 20°F, you can leave your kale in the garden to ‘cut and come again’ as you need.

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Kale is versatile in the kitchen…

…and it freezes well too.

After washing the leaves, removing the stems and chopping it coarsely, I like to blanch a good amount of kale at one time.  Put it in a sealed container, and it will last for several days in the fridge, and any excess stores well the freezer.
In addition to making a whole dish out of the kale (see below) I will pop a smaller amount into soups and stews a few minutes before serving, and I like to add it to gratins and pasta dishes.

Braised mushrooms and kale

Here is a favorite way to prepare kale for two people…with many thanks to Martha Rose Shulman for the genesis of this recipe.

• 1 tablespoon oil (canola and/or olive)
• 1/4 onion finely chopped
• 3-4 ounces of mushrooms, coarsely chopped
• 1 apple, peeled, cored and coarsely chopped
• Optionally: 1 apple, peeled and cored
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 leaves of fresh sage, chopped
• 3- 4 ounces of blanched kale
• 1 0unce of sun-dried tomatoes, sliced
• 1 ounce of raisins
• Optionally: 1 ounce of walnuts, chopped
• 1/4 cup dry white wine
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 2 ounces of feta or goat cheese, crumbled

Red Russian kale in late November

In a medium-sized frying-pan, saute the onion until translucent. Add the mushrooms and apple. Continue cooking, stirring from time to time, over a medium heat until the mushrooms start to brown and the apple is soft.

Add the garlic and sage, raisins and nuts, sun-dried tomatoes, salt and pepper.  Stir over a low heat until fragrant. Add the white wine and simmer until most of the liquid is evaporated.

Add the kale (and a small amount of water if needed)  and let everything cook gently for about 10 minutes.

Stir in the goat cheese. Serve over pasta or polenta and sprinkle with a little Parmesan cheese.

Varieties of kale

Lacinato kale in my garden in November

Over the years I have grown three basic types of kale: curly, lacinato and Red Russian, a smooth variety with big leaves. The first two are common in the markets, but the red Russian less so.  And since Dick is less fond of the curly kinds, for the past two years I have grown just the lacinato and Russian red types in the garden.

And of these two I find the Red Russian carries on later in the colder weather, and caterpillars seem to like it less.

And Russian kale is a good-looking plant in the garden too. I have seen it grown among flowers to great effect. So if you like the idea of mixing a few veggies among your flowers here is one to start you off.

If I had to limit myself to a single variety, it would definitely be the Red Russian. In the spring seedlings can often be found at local garden centers and farmer’s market. And, for the grow-it-yourself-from-scratch gardener, Johnny’s Seeds of Maine, carries seeds

‘EAT MORE KALE’ and Bo Muller-Moore

Just as I had finished writing this post i heard about Bo Muller-Moore who lives in Montpelier, Vermont. From his home he runs the ultimate small business, creating hand-silk-screened,  T-Shirts from organic cotton, which he sells through the Internet.  He is man after my own heart, since his signature design simply proclaims  EAT MORE KALE.

But.unbelievable as it may sound, Bo is currently being hounded by a big bully of a company from Atlanta that sells fast-food chicken and claims that he is infringing on their copyrighted phrase of Eat Mor Chikin. However, like many other people, I fail to see any connection between fast-food chicken and wholesome kale. And now even Governor Shumlin has come to his defense, in a move which has been heard around the world.

Check it out Bo’s website and maybe you will feel moved to support him by buying some of his T-shirts as a gift for your ‘favorite somebody’ this season.

I harvested this basket of kale and leeks on Nov 27th...Climate change is happening.

It is the last week in November and yet, in a sputtering sort of way, the gardening season continues on.

For me, winter has really arrived when the ground freezes solid and stays that way until next April.

So far this year we have had a couple of cold spells, where the temperatures dropped to about 20° F and the ground froze down a few inches, only to have this long run of ‘unseasonably warm’ weather into late November where everything has softened up again.

In all the time we have lived in Vermont (16 years) I do not remember the ground being still soft at the end of November.  Last year it was fully frozen by mid-November and in prior years by the first week in November. Climate change is surely coming, and as gardeners we will need to adapt many of our long-term strategies.

However, looking to the short term, for the past six weeks I have continued to harvest the remainder of this year’s crops and been able  to ready the garden for the year to come….my version of ‘making hay while the sun shines‘!

The garden is mulched, while some crops continue in the cold frames

In the vegetable garden…

…the kale and leeks are still growing directly in the ground, plus there are carrots and spinach in the cold frames, producing fresh vegetables for the kitchen.

The remaining beds are weeded and covered with newspaper and hay, in preparation for spring planting.

The ever-bearing raspberries are pruned, leave some of the thickest canes to make fruit next summer's

The fall-bearing raspberry plants are pruned.

For fall bearing raspberries I remove the smaller canes all the way to the ground,  but I prune just the top third from the stoutest canes. These will provide fruit during the summer next year, even as the plants put out new canes that will bear fruit later in the season.

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Spreading manure: a fall chore

Manure is spread under the fruit bushes

I was delighted to pick up some nicely-aged manure—a welcome gift from my neighbor  Kinna Öhman and her menagerie of cows, sheep and lama—and spread around it under all the fruit bushes in the long perimeter bed.

This manure should help next year's fruit production

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Indoors…

… leaves from the sage, rosemary and bay-laurel plants, now wintering in the greenhouse, brighten our everyday soups and stews. And, down in the basement, squash and garlic await their destiny in the kitchen.

And in the flower beds…

…I have been taking full advantage of the warm weather, cutting back perennials, weeding and generally re-arranging things in preparation for next spring.

Reflections

The weather have had in Vermont this November is actually the way I remember winters in England as a child.

There, despite the short, dark and oftentimes rainy days, the weather for gardeners was actually quite benign.  And my father, like other proper English gardeners, would continue working outdoors for much of the winter, weeding his beds and nurturing his beloved roses, most especially pruning them and spreading manure around their roots. He would be so happy to see my fruit bushes!

But now my family back in England is fretting about the way their climate is changing before their eyes. They tell me that the weather in both summer and winter is becoming positively ‘Mediterranean’.

And certainly gardeners may enjoy the idea of extending the gardening season. But warmer winters are ushering other less benign changes into New England…such as the northerly spread of  Lyme disease ticks and certain plant destroying insects….certainly not something that any of us would desire.

Gardens are built on the past. In large part, the garden we enjoy today is determined by what we did months or even years ago. And likewise:

what we do in the garden today sets the table for the garden of the tomorrow.

With this in mind I would like to suggest that:

Late fall is the perfect time to ready your kitchen garden for spring.

A rite of fall: adding compost

I well know that if I miss this opportunity in October and November, I must wait until the ground is both unfrozen and warm enough to work in spring…usually about mid-May in the mountains.

And, come May, all too often I find reality thwarts my best intentions.

In Vermont the weather in May can be quite chilly, sometimes raining for days on end.  And on the days when the sun is out I am off helping clients with THEIR gardens.  So by the time June arrives all the weeds are growing mightily and definitely winning the war.

Last fall (2010) we were blessed with a long spell of mild weather that lasted until Thanksgiving, and to my great satisfaction I was able to prepare my entire vegetable garden.

And this past summer (2011) my efforts were rewarded with the most wonderfully productive and essentially weed-free garden.

My ‘fall clean-up recipe’ for the kitchen garden

In my four-square kitchen garden I like to work on one bed at a time. I always start with the four center beds where I will be growing my annual crops. As time permits I move on to the perimeter bed and maybe even prune the fruit bushes while I am at it.

Early October: The back bed, iwith a hay mulch in place, is all set for winter. Thre is spinach in the coldframes, which should yield an early spring crop.

Here is my recipe. And what you don’t complete this fall can be finished off next spring.

Gather your ingredients:

• Compost (from your compost pile or elsewhere), reasonably well aged and mixed
• A big stack of  old newspapers (NO colored sections)
• Mulch hay…I find 8 bales of hay will cover my four center beds (approximately 500 square feet)

And follow these simple steps:

1. Cut and remove any ANNUAL weeds that are setting seed. (You can leave any that do not have seed heads)
2. Remove ALL PERENNIAL weeds…dandelions, field grasses and the like.  Do this carefully, being sure to get out the whole root system; otherwise next summer the offending weed will surely return to haunt you.
3. Spread up to four inches of  compost over the whole surface of the bed.
4. Using a garden fork, gently incorporate the compost into the top few inches of soil and rake it smooth.
5. Cover the whole bed with six layers of newspaper…overlapping the sections somewhat.  If you use boards for a path, tuck the newspaper under them too.  If the wind insists on blowing the newspaper about, douse it with water to keep it in place.
6. Cover the bed with several inches of hay .

Hay as mulch??

Hay is readily available from the farms around here and many of us use it as a mulch for our veggie gardens. But I do like to check that hay I am getting was cut young enough so that it does not contain visible seed heads from field grasses or other undesirables.

Why the newspaper??

The purpose of the newsprint, which will still be reasonably intact next summer, is to keep the LIGHT away from the soil and prevent the ANNUAL weed seeds that live in the soil from germinating.

Next spring: reap the benefits!

If you follow this late fall ritual, a bed can sit without any further attention until YOU are ready to plant it out. No more worrying about the race against time and the weeds.

Select the time that is just right for any particular crop…. for instance: peas in April, salad greens and spinach in early May, beans, tomatoes and squash on Memorial Day!

To plant individual seedlings: where you will be planting just pull the hay back a little,  cut a hole through the newspaper and plop your seedling into the nice fluffy soil beneath. Water well and reposition the mulch around it.

To plant a row of seeds: first  pull the hay back a few inches along the entire length of the row. Now cut a slot in the newspaper and plant your seeds.

For the heat-lovers: If you are concerned that the mulch is preventing the soil from warming up enough for crops like tomatoes, just pull the entire mulch sandwich to one side for a week or so to expose the soil to the sun.  After you actually get around to planting, pull everything all back around your plants to stop the annual weeds from getting a foothold.

What could be easier??!!

Spring planting time in my new four-square kitchen garden

Always a vegetable garden

Everywhere I have lived I have made a vegetable garden …typically rectangular and sized to match whatever space was both sunny and near the house. The vegetables were delicious, but I always craved more.

So when we moved to Vermont I decided the old potato field to the south of the barn would be perfect for a real country kitchen garden. It is not too far from the kitchen and offers excellent southern exposure, while the barn provides ample storage for tools, poles, fertilizer and more.

I started out with ‘yet another rectangle’, this one an ample sixty feet long by forty feet wide, giving me fifteen or so rows, each forty feet long, (a total of about 600 square feet of growing space) and oriented in an ideal east-west direction.

Why not a rectangle?

But I soon discovered the entire space was daunting, and my rectangle was neither efficient nor attractive!!

After a full morning of weeding and planting, I would complete a couple of rows (at most), while the remainder looked both ugly and messy.  Not very pretty!

I was also weeding all that space between the rows just for me to walk on. What a waste!

And the overall space did not lend itself particularly well to crop rotation, nor to permanent plantings like fruit bushes.

So, being human, each spring I would gradually favor the flower beds that were visible from the house and before long the veggie garden became an ‘out-of sight and out-of-mind’ mess.  And the weedier it got, the less I wanted to work in it…a vicious cycle indeed!

A garden to match my personality

After about six years of this I decided to do an entire make-over of the whole space, combining my personal predilections, lessons learned from past gardens, and ideas gleaned from others.

I came up with a wish list for my kitchen garden:

• It had to be both FUN and FUNCTIONAL.
• It must be ATTRACTIVE and VISUALLY INTERESTING
• It should be SIMPLE  and UNFUSSY, as I have neither the time nor the inclination to create an intricate ‘potager’ style veggie garden that seems to be in currently vogue
• Its design should be FLEXIBLE enough that I can modify my crop choices…who knows, maybe next year I will want to grow potatoes
• It must foster a ‘DIVIDE AND CONQUER’ approach, whereby I can complete a portion of the garden without having a huge guilt complex about the remainder.

Here is how it came out:

A Four-Square Kitchen Garden

I decided upon a simplified version of a Four-Square garden design dating back to both Old England and to American colonial times.

Four beds for annual crops

At the heart of the garden are four slightly raised beds for annual vegetables. Each bed is twelve-foot square and bisected by a single east-west path (made of left-over lumber), providing a total of about 500 square feet of growing space. (And for a smaller garden, four eight-foot beds square will provide 225 square feet of growing space.)

Each bed is large enough to grow either one or two crops a season…salad greens, chard, squash, kale, beans, tomatoes etc.  I use attractive trellises for climbing crops like edible-podded peas, pole beans and cucumbers.

I rotate the contents of the squares annually in a clock-wise direction. This all makes for a nice tidy rotation system, while still allowing for minor adjustments in the space allocated to a particular crop to reflect our changing desires.

To keep the wild creatures at bay…

the entire space is enclosed by a four-foot high wire fence with a cedar cap, and a single gate at the north end.  Moose won’t walk through a visible fence.  And so far the deer have not tried to jump inside, I assume because the interior space appears too confining.  If they ever do decide to jump, my back-up plan is to run wires decorated with colored flags above the fence. Once a woodchuck came visiting, so we dosed the entrance with urine….either that or the presence of our dog were deterrent enough…and  we never saw him again.

Fruit bushes

Inside the fence there is also a three-foot deep perimeter bed. Along its east, south and west sides I grow different kinds of fruit…rhubarb, raspberries, black-currants, red-currants and gooseberries.  On the north side, I use the two halves, flanked by the gate, for tomatoes and summer squash (on alternating sides each year). To give these heat loving crops  an extra boost of sun and warmth we attach reflective foil panels to the fence.

Five-foot wide grass paths…

separate all the beds. These are wide enough to move around a good-sized garden cart comfortably throughout the garden.

The results…

have been immensely gratifying. The garden is sized about right, both for our needs and for my ability to manage. We grow most of our summer vegetables, plus additional to put by for the months ahead.

And certainly on a warm summer evening, nothing beats going up to the garden to harvest supper.

Taking stock

As the season draws to a close  this is the perfect time to consider what has worked well versus what could stand improvement in future. Decide whether you want a few raised beds to give you summer salads and tomatoes,  or an extensive plot to fill your tummy in summer and your freezer for winter…or perhaps something in between.

Speaking personally,  I need to remind myself:

More is not necessarily better!!

Here are some questions to guide your garden plans for the coming season:

• Is your current garden too big…or too small? How much growing area will meet your needs?
• Does your appetite for gardening match the demands of your garden?
• What produce does your family really enjoy?  Do you need more…or less…of some crops?
• Could your garden layout be more efficient…and more attractive?
• Do you want to invest in raised beds or a surrounding fence?

Jot down the answers now, while your memories are fresh.  Then in January, as the catalog avalanche begins, make plans for the new season with your eyes open.

It is October 14th, and a plate of freshly picked raspberries makes a special treat

Freshly picked raspberries in October?? Just as the garden is shutting down for the season, along comes this truly delicious treat for the fruit-lover.

I have a dense row (some twenty feet long and three feet wide) of ‘ever-bearing raspberries’…the offspring of half a dozen plants given to me some four years ago as a much appreciated gift from a friend and fellow-gardener (along with some June-bearing raspberries that I grow on the opposite corner of the vegetable garden).

Just six weeks ago Hurricane Irene whipped through the plants and tore the leaves to shreds. But the immature fruit, clustered at the tops of the canes, miraculously survived. And now, a month later, we are enjoying the ripening fruit each evening.

And I have discovered that the taste of fresh or lightly cooked raspberries combines superbly with the rhubarb sauce I made a few days back. This is a taste combo that is every bit as delicious as the classic strawberry-rhubarb pie.

And ever-bearing raspberries will fruit in the summer too!

Late in the season, ever-bearing raspberries produce a heavy crop of fruit close to the top of this year’s new canes. (Hence they are sometimes called fall raspberries).   Iinitially I was told that, to encourage them to produce new canes for next year’s crop, I should cut the entire patch right down to the ground in November.

That certainly works.  But with a little research on the Internet I discovered I could induce this year’s canes to fruit again next summer.

Here’s how: in November I will choose the strongest canes and prune them back by one-third. I will then remove all the other canes right to the ground. The canes that I leave to over-winter will then reward me with additional fruit…a secondary crop…borne on side shoots, that will gradually ripen over a period of six weeks in July and August.

While the secondary crop is not as prolific as the fall crop, it certainly fills the gap between the June-bearing raspberries across the garden, and the main fall crop in this bed.

And of course by then, next-year’s new canes—with lots of green leaves—will be dominating the bed. So it takes a bit searching to find the luscious red fruit hiding among the leaves on the shorter stems. But for this raspberry-lover it is definitely worth the effort!

Ever-bearing raspberries for north country gardens

At this latitude (43°) and elevation (1700 feet) our growing season is short.  And I find my ever-bearing raspberries are producing their main crop of fruit so late in the season that some of it never ripens before the weather turns really cold.

The solution to this problem is to look for a variety where the main crop ripens a bit earlier. After checking the University of Maine website I plan to start a new raspberry bed in yet another corner of the vegetable garden with an ever-bearing raspberry called Autumn Bliss that should produce its main crop in September.

And after all one can never have too many raspberries in the garden!

It's mid October and here are three pounds of fresh rhubarb from the garden; all ready for cooking up into a delicious sauce

Yesterday, I was just starting the ritual fall clean up of the veggie garden, when…surprise…surprise… I noticed my rhubarb plants still had great looking leaves.

I know that any day now they will succumb to a hard frost, and the plants have no more need of photosynthesis this year. So I quickly harvested every last pink stem….about three pounds in all.  (The leaves are toxic and are always discarded).  And this morning I cooked up a batch of  delicious rhubarb sauce.

I think of rhubarb as a spring fruit (yes… I know that technically it is a vegetable but we all use it as a fruit…right!),  something that is traditionally combined with  June strawberries. So it was a bit of a jolt to have it as a fall delicacy.

Rhubarb is always really acidic, which in turn leads people to add a huge quantity of sugar to the cooking. For instance the recipe on Wikepedia calls for 4 to 6 ounces of sugar for one pound of rhubarb…which in my book is an awful lot of sugar.

So some years back…recalling chemistry lessons relating to buffered solutions somewhere in my distant past …I tried adding a tiny pinch of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) to partially neutralize the acid in my cooked rhubarb. It worked like a charm, and I found I could slash the amount for sugar needed to make the dish enjoyable.

A downside is that this may also remove some of the Vitamin C, but these days I am more concerned with too much sugar in my diet.  It seems that so often life is about making trade-offs!

To cook 1 pound of rhubarb:

• Remove the rhubarb leaves. Clean the stalks and cut into 2 inch length.
• Cook in about a inch of water till soft.
• Add a tiny pinch of baking soda.
• First you will see lots of bubbles frothing up…let everything cook a little bit more until the bubbles subside.
• Now stir in about 2-3 ounces of sugar. I use either demerara or raw sugar.  Check the taste and add a bit more sugar if necessary.

The result:

A nice fruit sauce that uses about a quarter the amount of sugar than a conventional rhubarb sauce, to combine with our evening yogurt, .

William Cullen Bryant (1794 – 1878)

This picture was taken in mid-September. The garden has a long way to go before winter comes!!

One day in early September a friend remarked “Well, I suppose your garden is all gone by now”.

Not at all!!  While the exuberance of summer may be past,  in its own way the garden in autumn is every bit as lovely. Summer stalwarts– like Shasta daisies and Echinacea— may be past their prime. But others…like rudbeckia, sedums, anemones and asters—are just coming into their own. The colors of our flowers are more mellow in autumn, in harmony with the tawny colors in the forest around us.

Of course it is that way all through the year. As early flowers fade, others enter the spotlight. Flowers are like actors waiting for their cues to take center stage for a few weeks of glory.

Autumn belongs to perennials like rosy sedums, golden Rudbeckias, lavender Asters…and more! And they will flower until the middle of October, even though the time remaining for them to get fertilized and set seed before the cold weather seems impossibly short! Now it is the first week of October, and the asters are still abuzz with the humming of late season bees, so clearly pollination is happening!!

Here, in no particular order, are six great perennials plus a noteworthy annual for the fall garden. Double click on any picture to see an enlargement.

Black-Eyed Susans

It works well to combine black-eyed Susans with a contrasting flower...as here with the white Hydrangea 'Tardiva'

Everyone is familiar with Black Eyed Susans, Rudbeckia fulgida, and, like everyone else, I have lots in my garden. When we moved to Vermont  back in 1994 I brought a couple of plants of the supposedly more floriferous cultivar Goldsturm from my old garden, which I had purchased from White Flower Farms around 1990.
Now there are enormous patches of sunny gold daisies all around the place.  They began blooming in early August and two months later they are only just now losing their petals.  They are pest-free and they flourish in part shade as well as full sun. What more could one ask?

The tall Rudbeckia looks good with fall grasses, such as this Miscanthus 'Malepartus'

From a design perspective the gold of Black-eyed Susans sometimes seems a bit brash. So I like to pair them up with other flowers, such as purple or lavender asters, or set in front of a fall hydrangea Tardiva as in the picture above.

I also love the their much taller cousin…the six foot high Rudbeckia ‘Herbstronne’.  This is one big plant that makes a bold statement, but even even in the smallest garden there is probably a place for it.

And resist any temptation to cut and compost either rudbeckia at this time of year.  If you leave them standing through the winter their skeletons will look lovely against the snow and the seed-heads provide winter food for the chickadees and goldfinch who, miraculously, remain with us throughout the winter.

Japanese Anemones

The Grapeleaf Japenese Anemone

Japanese anemones have a charming way of weaving themselves among shrubs and sometimes popping up in the most unexpected places. In my New Jersey garden they could be a little too rambunctious, but here in Vermont, towards the edge of their hardiness range, they behave beautifully.

The Grapeleaf Anemone looks splendid weaving its way around the Purple-leaved Smokebush 'Grace'

I have two kinds in my Vermont garden.

The  single pink Grapeleaf Anemone, (A. tomentosa ‘Robustissima’) starts to flower in August, and looks spectacular against the dusky colored leaves of the smokebush cultivar Cotinus‘Grace’.

The white Japanese anemone 'Honorine Jobert'

And then there is a pure white hybrid, (A. Honorine ‘Jobert’) which is a real standout next to a large blue pot on our shady barn slope.

However I feel very white flowers of the Honorine Jobert Anemone would look nicer without having to compete with the creamy white flowers of the Canadian Burnett. So in November I plan to replace it with the pink flowered Japanese Burnet, and relocate the Canadian burnet to the pond bed. Musical chairs…it seems there there will always be a few things in the garden that need modifying  to get the best effect.

Sedums

Autumn Joy Sedum may be common but nevertheless a wonderful garden plant.

Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’  is a delightful and dependable old stand-by, and every garden could use some.  In the summer months it has interesting leaves, in September its flat rosy-pink flower heads are a standout, eventually morphing to a bronze color in October.  And finally in the winter the spent flower-heads of Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ look great under little hats of snow.

There are also some smaller sedums that  wait until September to flower…in my garden most notably Sedum cauticola, which has crimson pink flowers against gray leaves, and faces off a group of the amazing annual (but self-seeding) Salvia hominium. Everybody who comes to the garden at this time of year raves about both plants.

Asters

The Aromatic Aster 'October Skies' looks perfect with "Royal Purple' smokebush

By the time the asters put on their show we know the season is coming to a close.  I love the wild asters that grow around here, in open fields and in swampy areas, and even in the woods. They come in colors of white, lilac and lavender, with names such as Heart-leaved Aster, Flat-topped Aster and Purple-stemmed Aster.  And at lower altitudes even from the windows of your car you can spot the well-known New England Aster, with its larger, deeper colored flower, growing along at the side of the road.

According to Wikipedia all our ‘New World’ Asters are about to be be reclassified into a different genus called Symphyotrichum, which seems like a horrible mouthful. So, for the time being at least, I will continue to call them all Asters!

For many years in the garden I have grown a number of cultivars of our native New England Aster.  I am especially fond of the dwarf cultivar  ‘Purple Dome’ near the front of the bed.

The Italian aster is a great addition to the fall garden

But I am gradually switching my negligence to some of the other species of the Aster clan. For me, New England Asters have two problems. Typically the leaves on their thick lower stems shrivel to brown as the flowers are starting, resulting in ‘ugly legs’ which I attempt to camouflage with Black-eyed Susans.  I also find, with our shortened growing season at this altitude, that cultivars like Harringtons Pink,  Hella Lacy and Alma Potschke’ are coming into flower just as the frost is shuttering the garden down, and therefore not worth the space I had accorded them on the garden.

This coming November, when I do my post-fall garden clean-up, I am resolved to completely remove all the new England Aster ‘Harrington’s Pink’, replacing it with the Canadian Burnet from the barn slope. ‘Harrington’s Pink’ was a small plant that I purchased some years back which it has now grown into an enormous clump in the pond bed,  but it rewards me with… at best… a week ‘s worth of flowers in mid-October.  It is not worth the space!

I am very fond of some European Asters, Aster amellus (which I grew from seed in a mix of colors a few years back) as well as the dwarf New England Aster cultivar ‘Woods Purple’.  And  I have recently added Aster oblongifolius ‘October Skies’ to my fall  garden mix. It is a beautiful delicate lilac color, starting about the third week in September.  And I also have several clumps of the wild heart-leaved aster I find growing in the meadows around here.

Geranium ‘Rozanne’

The geranium 'Rozanne' looks good with a yellow heather

Rozanne is not just any old geranium. In my gardening world she is one small miracle!

I think of geraniums as early summer flowers, and very useful plants they are for that.  But Rozanne is unique among geraniums. In my garden she only really gets going in July… but once started she flowers non-stop until cut down in mid-October by the first heavy frost.  She also keeps spreading outwards, so by the time September comes, a single plant is making quite a statement in the garden.

Rozanne also has an interesting history. About 20 years ago Donald and Rozanne Waterer noticed some interesting and long-flowering geraniums in their garden in Somerset, England.  From these plants, Alan Bloom, owner of  ‘Blooms of Bressingham, developed the patented Rozanne hybrid via tissue culture, and introduced her to the plant world in 2000.

Geranium 'Rozanne' with the apples of fall

Listed as hardy to Zone 5, I was skeptical that I could grow Rozanne successfully in my Zone 4 garden. But I acquired three plants that have all come through multiple winters.  And despite that really cold snap last winter (when the temperature here dropped to -25℉) my  plants have done better than ever this year. But then again, perhaps that was because they were so well protected under last winter’s excellent snow-cover.  Anyway I am delighted to have this violet-blue  flowered geranium gracing my garden again this fall.

Chrysanthemums

The hardy 'mum' Mary Stoker' contrasts nicely with dwarf evergreens

Hardy ‘mums’  help north country gardeners finish the gardening year in style. While most so-called ‘hardy mums’ …the double-flowered types you buy at the garden center at this time of year…will not prove hardy in our climate, I can vouch for two of the single daisy types of chrysanthemums as true perennials in my Vermont garden.

The Chrysanthemum ‘Clara Curtis’, with rosy-pink flowers and yellow centers, blooms first. She is quite pretty and very easy to grow, but tends to flop a bit. Every fall I tell myself that, come next spring, I will create an elegant bamboo frame to support her…. but that has yet to happen.

The second ‘mum’ I grow is Chrysanthemum ‘Mary Stoker’.  While this one waits until in mid-September before coming into flower, she will still be gracing the garden in mid-October.  Mary Stoker is a pretty buttery-yellow and always stands perfectly upright, even in winter.

And finally…an annual salvia that blends with our autumn colors

It is late September in this picture. Marble Arch salvias and Rozanne geranium are still going strong, and the blueberry bushes are starting to turn bronze.

Visitors to my garden invariably ask ‘What is that lovely plant?’ as they admire the purple and pink colors of my Marble Arch Salvia, Salvia hominium, which flowers from July to October

They are usually quite surprised when I tell them is an annual, since most people think annual salvias will be fire-engine red.

However the Marble Arch mix is different.  The attractive bracts come in colors pinks, purples and sometimes a greenish white, with interesting veining that makes them delightful to see up close too.

It is quite easy to grow from seed. And what is more it usually obligingly self seeds in the garden. So, providing I am not too careless with my spring weeding, plants will re-appear next year, behaving for the gardener almost  like a perennial!

Don’t say its over

This is the first week of October and the garden has that typical fall look…the blueberry bushes have a wonderful bronze color, the sweet autumn clematis on the arch is in full flower, and still the aromatic asters, Autumn Joy sedum, the Marble Arch salvia, Rozanne geranium and Mary Stoker ‘mums’ are flowering like there is no tomorrow.

As with life, it is up to us to enjoy the garden in every season!