The catbird and me

We have many catbirds in our yard, and they are one of our favorites. They are not shy of humans and quite friendly. When I see one I can't resist talking to it - even if it's only to say "hey catbird, hey catbird!"

The other day I was dismantling an old compost bin to make space for a new compost tumbler. I'd unfastened the nuts and bolts that hold the round plastic bin  together, when a catbird showed up. S/he was only a couple of feet away from me when he started foraging in the remaining compost for insects. I loved the way the bird was completely unafraid, at one point turning around and looking straight at me as if to say, thanks for uncovering all this good stuff for me! After noticing that when the catbird found particularly long juicy insects like centipedes, it would fly off with the insect in its beak, I started to think it was a female, heading over to the nest.

It looks like an ordinary tomato plant, but...

 ...it's actually the new Ketchup and Fries plant, AKA TomTato. It is a tomato grafted onto potato rootstock.

Mine is doing quite well. The potato flowers have bloomed. Several of the cherry tomatoes have ripened and been eaten. (Good, too!) This is before any of my other tomatoes have even begun to turn red. Someone suggested maybe the tomato plants are more vigorous precisely because they are grafted onto a strong rootstock. Seems plausible.

 I called Territorial Seed to find out if the potato part of the plant needed to have more soil piled on once the potatoes started growing. They said yes, that would work, but it would also work just to let everything keep growing as is. I added some soil, and take it on faith that the potatoes are doing well. (Potato leaves are are mostly on the right hand side of the photo near the base of the plant.)

On the verge

What a difference from last year, when the front yard was recovering from the disruption of a sewer pipe replacement. The plants I dug up and replanted last year seem very happy. Many are either starting to bloom or are on the verge.

 Last year I had planted three Liatris spicata after the yard was put back together. Shortly after, I came out to find that all three had been beheaded by some miscreant animal just as they were starting to develop a bloom. This year I'm delighted to see that the plants, (the spiky group on the left side of the photo with the skinny lance-like leaves), have not only returned with vigor but have multiplied. Less delicate and tender than last year, I'm hoping they will be less appealing to munchers.

One loss this year was of my Columbine, which had maintained itself nicely for years in the front bed. This year only a very few of these showed up. Yesterday I planted two in the light shade of a boulder close to the driveway. Hopefully they will thrive and spread themselves around in coming years.

In my last blog post I talked about my "fern nursery" and how I like to transplant the early knobs of ferns into various parts of the yard. Yesterday I tried transplanting a couple of much larger ferns that I feared were becoming too abundant in the vicinity of my Trillium luteum. They seem perfectly happy in a spot just opposite the front door, an area that has been relatively bare.

Fiddleheads announce spring

Finally, something like spring seems to be approaching us in the chilly Mid-Atlantic. I went out to survey what's coming up in the yard and have seen bloodroot, rue anemone, and a few spring beauties blooming.

And there's also my fern nursery. This began as a big planter of ferns, left on the property by the previous owner. The first couple of years I just tried to keep them watered. They seemed to get pretty withered in summer, but came back well in the spring. Knowing little about ferns, I started wondering what kind they were.

I thought at first they were cinnamon ferns, but they never developed the distinctive cinnamon-colored stalk. Now I've identified them as ostrich ferns, Matteuccia struthiopteris. One telling characteristic: the fiddleheads have a groove running down one side of the stalk. A couple of years ago I picked a few fiddleheads and steamed and ate them. Not bad!

But mostly I like to take little clumps of rootstock - they are kind of nobby pieces from which the fiddleheads emerge - and transplant them into the yard. I always leave some rootstock to keep growing in the nursery for next year. The ferns do well in shade or part-shade, though they can take a fair amount of sun if you keep them well watered.

Here they are in a previous year, intermingled with Virginia bluebells.

A giant from the winter garden

Pulled from our new raised bed, this monster Daikon radish got sliced and oven roasted with carrots and red pepper. I was telling a friend how good the dish was, and John was apparently standing behind me shaking his head no while I talked. I'll try again, because he just thought I didn't roast things long enough. All the other Daikon radish look to be about carrot size, and I have rainbow carrots in the same bed that I will pull for the next round. It's nice the root vegetables can sit in the ground for a while, until the ground starts to freeze, anyway.

Yard Recovery

One of the things I love about plants is that they are so resilient. After the big dig for a new sewer line took out most of this native plant bed, the recovery has been amazing. 

These are plants that sat in pots for days, even weeks, waiting patiently to be put back in the ground. The garden bed they went back to was far inferior to the same bed pre-dig The trench dug for the sewer brought up a lot of pure clay, which was then packed firmly down as part of the project's completion. Thorough amendment of the soil was beyond my time and energy. All I managed was light tilling plus scattering some compost on the soil surface and into each planting hole. After the first weeks watering was infrequent.

Voila, a couple of months later and things are looking good, maybe better than before. The plants are certainly less crowded, which I think makes individual species stand out more. Come late fall when the garden is put to bed I will work on seriously improving the soil. For now, I'm thrilled to have my garden back.

Tomatoes BIG and small

Our new raised bed is creating some happy tomatoes. Both of these are heirlooms. The big ones are Brandywines. From the three pictured I made a terrific spaghetti sauce which we ate for two nights. The small ones are Brown Berry, good for snacking.

Yard disruption

It's been a bad year on the home and garden front. A foot and a half of water in the crawl space after torrential rains.  Reseating of the sump pump, digging of a French drain and then a dry well.

Plus a broken sewer line that had to be dug up and replaced. (It was the original line from back in the 1950s, so not too surprising, but the timing was sure bad.) I did some pre-dig plant rescue, and got some things replanted in the post-dig clay. So that's the beginning of the restoration of the front flower bed.

Questions remain: will the dry well work as planned? What to do with the clay from the digging of the well? To be continued...

Figlet

Here's the growing figlet that made it through its very first season, planted out last fall and surviving what proved to be a brutal winter. Time to take off the protective cage until next winter. Go, baby!

Baby fig tree overwintering

This past fall I agonized over how to overwinter my two small fig trees. One I had purchased at a farmer's market. The other I had started as a cutting from my beloved mature fig tree. (See previous 2 posts.)

I finally decided to risk planting out the daughter plant. After planting, I built a chickenwire cage around the tiny tree. I mulched the plant and then filled the cage with leaves for insulation.

The purchased plant I wrapped in burlap and placed the plant, in its pot, inside a larger pot. I insulated the space between the two pots with leaves. This little tree went into a small unheated shed attached to the house. (Thanks to the Garden Web fig forum for ideas on overwintering.)

I knew I was taking the bigger risk with the propagated plant, putting it in the ground when it was so young. But if the risk paid off, I might someday have a majestic, prolific tree like the parent. Then came freezing rain, many snowstorms, and bitter cold, a brutal winter unlike what we normally experience here in the mid-Atlantic.

Yesterday, with some trepidation, I removed the leaves from the enclosure. My tree looked like a dead stick. But as I dug away the last of the compacted leaves, at the very base of that stick was a leaf bud tinged with fresh green. The baby lives! And the other little tree looks to have survived as well, in the dark shed and with only a few sips of water over the winter. Hooray for the vigor of plants!

Fig update

My adorable baby fig tree has grown amazingly in the last 3 months. When I planted the cutting it had 2 tiny leaves at the top of a stem that was less than a foot tall. The tree is now about three feet tall, with large healthy leaves, and some tiny figs. I love this tree!

Now the question is how to get it through the winter. It needs a cold period, so I don't want to bring it in the house. I'm trying to decided whether to keep it in the shed (while dormant it doesn't need light, apparently) or plant it out in the yard. Either way it will need to be well protected. I would love to grow this tree large enough to take cuttings from it should we ever move!

Fig Tales

Mama Fig

A few weeks back we had to have a termite treatment around the perimeter of our house. We were able to get a treatment that involved a chemical with low risk of impacts to non-termite species. Still, we were advised that anything edible growing in the treatment zone should not be consumed. The fruit of my beloved fig tree was now off limits.

Baby Fig

Before the treatment I cut some stems from the tree and brought them inside to try rooting them in water. I stripped all the leaves off, as some websites suggested, stuck them in a jar, and kept the water at a constant level. After a couple of weeks, one stem was showing some nice root growth, beginning right where water met air. I planted my cutting out in a large pot outside, in part shade so it could get acclimated. Within a couple of days, the nubby bit of green at the top of the stem had sprouted 2 tiny leaves

A week later I went to a farmers market and spotted a  beautiful little fig tree, about 4 feet high, with little figs developing.  It was love at first sight. The vendor explained that I could plant the tree, or I could keep it in the pot and overwinter it outdoors by wrapping it well in burlap. The tree had just been repotted, and wouldn't need a bigger pot for a couple of years. The variety is called ‘Chicago’ and is hardier than most figs.

I will always miss the luscious bounty of my mature tree. But as a gardener I am thrilled that I've got a young fig tree and a promising fig start to watch grow!

End of Season

Up until Hurricane Sandy, we were enjoying a bit of Indian summer, with tomatoes still ripening (albeit slowly) on the vine, and some trees showing little color change. Despite high winds and a great deal of rain, we were very fortunate in the DC area to be spared the kind of devastation that happened further north. In our yard, amazingly, we had no damage. But I hope this is the last storm I will sit out wondering if the huge  silver maple in the back yard will come down on our house. I think we will finally get it cut down, despite the cost.

After the storm

The hurricane warnings prompted me to focus on fall cleanup in a way that I don't usually do. Everything that could possibly be picked up by a strong wind went in the shed. And I decided to cut seed heads from as many plants as possible. Every year I intend to do that for the purpose of participating in one or more seed exchanges, but I never quite get to it. This year, I have realized that many of my native plants are prolific spreaders - usually the ones with small light seeds spread by wind.  So the day before the storm I cut and bagged many seed heads and saved a few of each for seed exchange.

Since the storm it has been colder here, and it feels like the time of year it is. Halloween is past, the time changes this weekend, and Thanksgiving is coming right up. Spring is my favorite season, but the end of the gardening season does have its own beauty.

Tomato troubles

It hasn't been a great year for tomatoes, at least in my yard, and in many others, I imagine. As usual, I gave my plants a good start indoors, but was slow to get them hardened off and planted out. For several years I've been planting in big pots in the driveway, which is probably not the ideal environment from a tomato's point of view, but hasn't seemed to hold them back too much.

Tomato leaf curl

Here in the mid-Atlantic region, as in many parts of the country, July was even hotter and dryer than usual. No doubt during those long stretches of 95+ degrees and no rain, I should have been watering the pots twice a day, but other things in my life were taking priority, and a once daily watering was all I could manage. The plants were clearly stressing. All but one developed tomato leaf curl, in which the leaves curl tightly and become quite leathery. Apparently this can result from either insects or environmental stress. Clearly it was stress in the this case; I studied the underside of the leaves and saw no insects.

One plant also developed blossom end rot. I picked those fruits off and discarded. A little later in the season the blossom end rot subsided. One plant developed some kind of wilt where the whole plant withered and died in a matter of a couple of days. Only one plant, the Brown Berry, continued to look completely healthy throughout.


To my pleasant surprise, once we got past the most brutal summer weather my plants began putting out new, healthy shoots. I've harvested a few tomatoes, nothing like the bounty of previous years, but they've been tasty. It speaks to the resilience of plants that they can make a comeback from what appeared to be a near-death experience!

Tomato resurrection

Here comes summer

Our long, mild spring has finally made the leap into summer, with a few suitable scorchers. Funny, somehow I thought we might hang out on the mild side for the whole season!
 
Here's what's happening in my yard right now:  In the front bed, the monarda and the lilies are duking it out to see who will be the tallest.

In the backyard, the blueberries are having a fabulous season. Too bad the blue jays think so too. They don't seem to care if the berries are ripe or not. For awhile I was getting berries from one of my plants that the birds seemed to be ignoring. Now, they're just stripping the bushes of everything. But they are so pretty, I can't get too upset.

Don't think I can't see you in there!

Doug Tallamy on "Biological Corridors: Networks for Life"

The first time I heard entomologist Doug Tallamy speak was at a Master Gardener training day. It was, I think, six years ago, and it was a real “aha” moment for me. I hadn’t had a yard of my own for that long, but I was already an enthusiastic grower of native plants.  I understood some of the benefits of growing plants native to the local area: they were less likely to require a lot of maintenance once established, less likely to become invasive, helped establish a sense of place, helped support wildlife, etc. What hadn’t occurred to me, or to a lot of other people, I think, was the critical importance of native plants as a food source for native insects.

In that talk, and in his subsequently published book Bringing Nature Home:How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens, Tallamy explained that most native insects have evolved to feed on only a small number of native plants. Without these specific plants, the insects can't survive. This in turn impacts the species that depend on insects for food; for example, the vast majority of migratory birds raise their young on insects.

Other animals also rely on insects for some part of their diet. Without native insects, a huge food source disappears; non-native plants are far less productive of insect biomass. These insects, in other words, are a critical part of the food webs on which life depends. The lawns and non-native plants of suburban lawns and gardens do not provide food for native insects – they are basically food deserts. Tallamy thus built a quite compelling case for homeowners and gardeners to incorporate native plants into their yards and as much as possible.

Last week I heard Tallamy speak again at a Master Gardener training day. This time his focus was broader: on the need for biological corridors, which, he said, are not just corridors for animals to pass through, but habitats in themselves. At this point, he maintained, biodiversity cannot be sustained by parks and preserves alone. We must restore land between existing landscape fragments, everywhere. Obvious places to do so are along roadways and power lines. Roadways can be planted with trees; power lines, as they pass through the landscape, are usually mowed and can be good edge habitat. Beyond that, if we turned half of all existing lawn into habitat we would be creating a "Homegrown National Park" of over 20 million acres, which would go a long way toward protecting future biodiversity.

We gardeners are lucky, I think. We can hear and understand the message about loss of biodiversity, which is pretty dire. At the same time, we’re in a position to contribute to a solution, simply by doing something we love, gardening, with  nature instead of in opposition to her. “The landscape challenge of our time,” says Douglas Tallamy, “is, more plants!” That’s something to make any true gardener’s heart beat faster!

The driveway garden and other mid-summer delights

This year I rearranged the driveway garden to look a little more presentable. Instead of clusters of pots in the middle of the driveway, they're all lined up demurely along the retaining wall that separates us from our neighbors. The tomatoes are producing well - no doubt loving this stifling hot weather. We've harvested a perfectly shaped, gorgeous bell pepper that ripened to a brilliant orange; more peppers are on the way. And this year I've planted string beans in a pot - they're just starting to get flower buds.

In the backyard garden, even in the stupefying heat of the last few days, some of the vegetables that prefer cool weather are hanging in. The dinosaur kale looks pretty good, though the curly kale is not so happy. And this year I'm trying to coax brussels sprouts through their long growing season, all the way to fall maturity. (My fallback is to have planted another round of seeds for these indoors, to be planted out by the end of summer.)

A nice surprise:  we cleared out the area where our new shed was to go, which also meant moving our compost piles. Look what seeded in from those piles: a miniature cucumber plant and some squash! Maybe next year I'll plant melons here!

Early summer perennials

I love how the perennial garden is constantly changing. There are seasonal changes, of course, but also changes from year to year, as plants manage to redistribute themselves within a particular bed - more of this, less of that.

My early summer garden this year has acquired an abundance of Asian lilies, mixed in with the natives and cultivars. Although native plants are my passion, I like the way the lilies look mixed in with the red of the bee balm, the orange butterfly weed, and the white swamp milkweed cultivar, 'Ice Princess.' 

I've decided not to begrudge the lilies their place in the yard as long as they don't become too prolific. The lilies won't last much longer anyway, and then I'll cut their thick stems back.  And I'll have my eye on them next year!

The wildflower garden at mid-spring

It's been a nice long cool spring. A bit rainy,  but enough sun. Best of all, the mosquitoes aren't out yet! The wildflowers are thriving.

These were among the plants blooming in my backyard a couple of weeks back:

Granny's bonnet- a  hybrid columbine

Virginia bluebells mixed in with ferns

  

  

Two varieties of trillium

The spring vegetable garden

This year I plan to pay a little more attention to the backyard vegetable garden. This is where my cool season crops grow, as well as those that can use a little protection from summer sun. That translates mostly to greens, although actually the sun-loving perennial herbs do perfectly well here: oregano, thyme, marjoram, sage, rosemary.

We've put up a small fence for a part of the garden, just to ensure there will be at least one rabbit-free zone. Here I'm growing some kale, snow peas, bok choy, and broccoli raab. And volunteer potato plants are coming up! These must be from the remnants of former not so successful attempts to grow potatoes.

We've also discovered that the lettuce we've been growing indoors and that has been harvested several times can be revitalized by being planted out. Those raggedy looking plants have perked up and are ready to be harvested again.

Another surprise is the multiplier onions. These I started from seeds from historic Bartram's Garden several years ago. These perennial onions do indeed multiply. They don't really seem to form bulbs, but look more like giant green onions. I think perhaps I should have been harvesting these right along, as they are quite strong flavored, though if you use the smaller ones, or the part closest to the tip on the larger ones, they are pretty good for both salads and cooking.

A small innovation this year is a new style of trellis - something a little different from the basic tepee. I based it on a design I saw in a book, and hope to have a crop of beautiful sweet peas vining up. I'm hoping the rabbits have so many other succulent treats around the yard that they won't notice until the peas vines are thick and tough enough to be unappealing.