Greensparrow Gardens

Favorite Plants of 2011: Part 2

2012-01-16T07:00:00.000-05:00

Some plants I loved last year. See part one here.

Gladiolus 'Atom'

I love plants that suck me in with glorious, unique flowers, and then win my heart forever by also being tough and carefree. 'Atom' fits the bill perfectly. The flowers are a vivid, shade of red, with each petal edged in the faintest possible line of white, somehow at once brash and elegant. All gladiolus are pretty much trouble-free during the summer, unless they need staking, which this one is thankfully short enough to avoid, but 'Atom' takes that all to another level by also being completely zone 5 hardy. That's right, no digging and storing the bulbs, just plant it and enjoy year after year! Even better, it multiplies pretty quickly, so from one plant you'll soon have a mass to enjoy and plenty to share with friends.

Mint "Sister Julie's Wintergreen"

I talked about these mints when I first purchased them, an amazing array of gourmet mint varieties bred by a chef. After eating my way through the varieties I tried for the summer, I've settled on a clear favorite. Quite unlike the standard mints you might have grown, 'Winter Green' packs an enormous punch of menthol, the compound which stimulates the temperature sensitive nerves in our mouths to create the sensation of cooling, much as chili peppers do to produce the feeling of heat. That makes this mint a perfect counterpoint to intensely spicy dishes, and I love this particular variety in the Indian sauce Raita. It is simple to make – plain yogurt, cucumber, handfuls of fresh mint, and a little salt. Dip some naan in it after a mouthful of fiery curry, or even a tortilla chip after a mouthful of hot, hot salsa. The contrast of hot and cool is wonderful, soothing, and primes your tastebuds for the next hit of heat. I got mine from Richters Herbs

Papaver anomalum 'Album'

I'm a huge poppy fan. There is something about the delicate crinkled texture to the petals that I just adore. I grow many different species, and love them all, but Pavaver anomalum definitely stands out as one of the best. Poppies, in general, are bright but brief. The annuals exploding into bloom in the spring, only to fade with the heat of summer, while the perennial P. orientale varieties quickly go dormant. Not so this one. Clocking in at under one foot, this little gem produced generous numbers of pure, pure white crepe paper blooms all summer long. Even better, the references call it a reliable perennial, so hopefully I'll get to enjoy it for many years to come. I got mine as seed from Gardens North

Primula x pubescens

Like most American gardeners, I've spent most of my life being jealous of England. It seems, with their mild summers and winters, that they can grow everything better than we can. Well, now I've found something for them to be jealous of. Look up Primula x pubescens, the auricula primroses, online or in reference books, and you'll find all sorts of nonsense about how finicky they are and how carefully they must be cultivated. Turns out, all they really want is to be living in Michigan. Plop these babies in anything from full fun to bright shade, and watch them do their thing. Lovely, thick, fleshy leaves all year, topped with incredible clusters of fragrant blooms in the most delicate shades imaginable. I got mine from the always wonderful Arrowhead Alpines

Gazanias

Sometimes the best plants are right under our noses. I'd seen gazanias countless times, and never given the much thought. Little daisies... okay, whatever. But this year, on a whim, I bought a packet of seed and grew out a patch of them, and once I got down and looked closely at the flowers, I was amazed. Each flower is incredibly intricately marked with the most mesmerizing patterns of spots and stripes. Like most mainstream annuals, they bloom profusely all summer, but unlike some, they are also require no pampering whatsoever being wonderful heat and drought tolerant. It is time I explored this group some more and gave this marvelous little blooms the respect they deserve.

Quick link: Plant breeding ain't hard

2012-01-13T09:49:00.003-05:00

I'm always going on about plant breeding. I love it. It is a blast. I'm writing a book about it. It is also sometimes incredibly easy, as easy as letting violas self sow and picking out your favorites as they bloom. To see how much fun (and how lovely) that can be, go check out Faire Garden's gorgeous (and amusing) Viola Beauty Pageant. Anything with some variability that self-sows in your garden -- be they violas, columbine, or even lettuce -- can be treated the same way to create your very own strain. Collect some up, let them get down and dirty together, and pick out your favorites!

Favorite plants of 2011: Part 1

2012-01-10T19:04:00.002-05:00

I try lots of new plants every year. It is one of my favorite things about gardening, so I thought I'd share some of my very favorites of 2011. Not all of them new in my garden this past year, but simply things that made an impression on me.

Beautiful, hardy mums.

I've talked about these before, and I'll keep talking about them because I can't believe so few people grow them. Fully winter hardy, amazing range of forms and colors. Don't think you have to limit yourself to the boring not-very-hardy cushion mums from the big box store, or the few hardy, daisy-form varieties that are more widely available. Sheffield Pink and Will's Wonderful are great, but why stop there when you can ALSO have something like Peach Centerpiece? Get them all from Faribault Growers. Oh, and in my original post I didn't give a great review of 'Matchsticks'. Well, that was because I hadn't been patient enough. Early in their development, the flowers are okay, but once the open fully, they are stunning as seen in the image above.

Kale 'Gulag Stars'

I'm a huge fan of basically all kale, but this beatiful and incredibly diverse mix of kales won my heart. Actually a fascinating hybrid of different brassica species rather than a regular kale, the result is masses of frilly, slightly spicy leaves on robust plants I harvested from constantly the entire summer. Any vegetable that combines easy of growth, great flavor, and beauty is a winner in my book. As far as I know, available exclusively from Adaptive Seeds, which is a crazy cool source for crazy cool veggies you should really check out.

Salvia nutans

Previously mentioned in the blog, I love this plant. So clearly a salvia, and yet so unlike any salvia I've ever grown. This is my first year with if from seed (it was completely easy to germinate and grow, by the way) and it started out as a rosette of gloriously big, bold, textured foliage. Usually, when a plant starts as a rosette, it stretches out dramatically into a big leafy pillar when it flowers, but this one is different. The leaves stay nice and compact at the bottom, and up goes a tall (almost 4 foot), slender, leafless stem topped with an utterly charming upside-down cluster of lavender flowers. I could see this being stunning in the front of a mixed border, the basal leaves looking great at ground level, and the dancing flowers making a wonderful see-through effect like the always great Verbena bonariensis. I got mine from Gardens North.

Crocus speciosus

When it comes to fall blooming crocuses, I'd pretty much written them off several years ago when I tried – and failed spectacularly with -- Crocus sativus, the saffron crocus. It hates my cold, wet garden and promptly died. But in the fall of 2010, I decided to give this group another try, and this time planted Crocus speciosus. It bloomed that first fall, which was nice, but I more-or-less expected it to rot out in the wet of winter and spring. To my surpise, and delight, however, it showed up happy and more numerous in my garden this fall! The large blooms are wonderful, and such a lovely contrast to the red and yellow tones that dominate that time of year. I was also impressed with the length of the bloom season – flower after flower opening for quite a few weeks. I'll certainly be adding more to the garden in future years.

Carex buchananii

I've grown this for several years now, and I love it more every year. People seem to love or hate it – brown is a wonderfully strange color for a grass, and you may dismiss it as looking dead, but I love how it sets off other colors around it so vividly. The real surprise to me on this species is that it is hardy. I'd grown other species of brown sedges as annuals, so when I saw Arrowhead Alpines listing this as hardy here in zone 5 Michigan, I was stunned. They are, as always, totally correct. Sails through every winter without a scratch. For something completely different, tough, and care-free, give it a try.

Impatiens balfourii

Okay, full disclosure: This isn't in my garden yet, though I've got seeds on order. I fell hard for this little beauty at the Indianapolis Museum of Art gardens, where it was self-sowing enthusiastically through a lovely shade garden. I'm not a big fan of they typical Impatiens walleriana, all dumpy little lumps of flowers. This one is a completely different beast: a looser, more natural looking habit between one and two feet, and loaded with marvelously intricate blooms. Everything I've heard and saw in the gardens tells me that it is perhaps an overly enthusiastic self-sower, but the nice thing about impatients is they are soft and easy to uproot where not needed. Hopefully my seeds will germinate without any fuss, and I'll be able to establish them in my garden. I'll keep you updated.

I've got more favorites coming, so stay tuned for the other things I loved last year!

Thoughts on colony collapse disorder

2012-01-07T06:30:00.000-05:00

(source)

In case you missed it, there is new research out on yet another possible cause of Colony Collapse Disorder killing honey bees. This time it is a parasitic fly. Previously, researchers have also found a fungus and a virus that, together, seem to be another major contributing factor. Stress from infections with varoa and tracheal mites may well be increasing susceptibility to these other problems as well.

The picture that is emerging is not of one single cause, but a network of interacting pests and disease that are taking the hives down. And this growing group of bee problems may well have at their root a perennially problematic part of modern agriculture: monoculture.

Virtually all of our food today is grown in giant fields of a single plant variety. Where those plants need bees to pollinate them, that presents a problem. Take almonds for an example. For just a brief time each spring, acres and acres of almond trees are in flower in California, and they all need bees in order to make almonds. All that bloom is a giant bonanza of food for any bee in the area, but all the rest of the year, they are a wasteland, because there are almost no other plants to bloom at different times and support the bees once the almond bloom is over. So bees get shipped in, huge truck loads of them criss-cross the country moving from field to field as different crops come into bloom. All that moving around works very well to effective pollinate the crops, but it makes for a major problem. New pest and disease show up all the time, that is the nature of the world. Pathogens evolve and migrate, and their hosts evolve to tolerate and resist them. We've seen this already with the older mite problems with bees. At first it was devastating, but newer bee strains are more and more resistant thanks to breeding and simple old fashioned natural selection. But when bees move around so much, they move with them all their local pests and diseases. The very pattern of colony collapse disorder – many problems, each individually more or less manageable, but devastating in their sum – is exactly what we would expect from this sort of mass movement of bee hives. Every new problem can become, almost instantly a national, even global problem, and join forces with other pests before the bees have a chance to develop resistance.

What is particularly interesting, and surprisingly rarely mentioned, is that here in the United States all these honey bee problems are a significant economic issue, but not necessarily an ecological one. Honey bees are native to Europe, and are in fact one of the first non-native invasive species Europeans introduced. We have a whole host of native, pollinating species, which are not very closely related to the honey bee, and have radically different life cycles and hive structures, so there is no reason to assume the honey bee problems will translate into bumble bee or wasp problems. In natural areas, or your own diverse backyard, the loss of feral honey bees will probably actually allow your native bees and wasps to thrive, and completely step in to fill the gap left by the honey bees. A gap, after all, the filled for thousands of years before the honey bee arrived. Hopefully, sometime down the line, we'll be able to figure out a economically feasible alternative to monocultures, but until then, expect to periodically pay a lot for almonds, and to hear about the latest devastating problem for honey bee

Not a doctor

2012-01-03T10:00:00.002-05:00

It is all thanks to a little paperwork and a confusion about dates. I thought I had to have stuff submitted by the end of next week. Turns out it was a week or so ago. So. I've not graduated, and in order to do so I'd have to enroll for another semester. When I realized this a few days ago, I was, at first, upset. How could I be so stupid? But almost instantly I also felt happy. I could officially not get the degree after all.

This may sound crazy, given I've spent over 5 years in graduate school, written a dissertation and successfully defended it. But somehow I don't want the letters PhD stuck after my name. I know this may sound irrational, but I'm okay with that. Illogically following what I want and believe is where I want to be right now.

There are several reasons I feel this way. First, I don't believe in the formal education system broadly. I was home schooled from first grade through high school. There are a myriad of different flavors of home schooling, my experience was a roughly John Holt-ian one, based on the idea that people love to learn, you don't have to force them to do it, or reward and punish them with grades, instead simply provide them with opportunities to learn. I grew up learning and exploring what I love and what intrigued me, never stopping to wonder if I was smart or stupid or wishing I could go out and play. Learning was play. Going from that background to college was a bit of a jolt. I got good grades easily, but emotionally, I found it draining. I had to carefully mentally separate the hoops I had to jump through (getting good grades, taking tests) from the learning that I loved, because college tried very hard to make it all work, something unpleasant to be avoided. My diploma isn't hanging on the wall, it is shoved away in some box. I don't like it. It represents all the stuff I hated about getting my bachelors degree. The good stuff is knowledge, people, experiences, which I celebrate every day.

Graduate school happened accidentally for me. I never planned on going, but I wasn't sure what I wanted to do next, and it was a job. It was better than undergrad, more focused on my interests, less emphasis on grades and busy work, but still far from perfect. I had fun the first couple years, but then rapidly became disillusioned. When I started, I had promised myself I could drop out any time I wanted, but once I was there, for reasons beyond my own interests and needs, I felt caught, like I couldn't leave without hurting other people. I kept myself sane telling myself it was just a job. Something to pay the bills while I worked on stuff that genuinely excited me.

Since I've been away from campus, working full time at home on a whole pile of fascinating projects, with no grades or irrational hoops to jump through, I've felt my whole life, my mind, expand. I'm happier, more joyful, more creative, and feel all the greater distaste for the graduate school experience. I don't regret the choice to go, it was a decent day job that paid the bills while I explored, started this blog, and launched many of my own breeding projects, and I did learn quite a bit. But I deeply don't believe in it. I've gotten what I wanted out of my time, the learning, the experiences. I don't want the silly gold star, the “PhD” after my name. So, in a fit of irrational youthful idealism and protest, I'm not going to take it. I'm walking away, and I'm thrilled about it.

Bring on 2012!

2011-12-31T16:04:00.001-05:00

I've kept a journal my entire life, and every new years, I sit down and read over my entries from the past year. It is always interesting to step back and remember everything that happened this year. 2011 was a busy year for me, most notably I finally finished with school, and unexpectedly, thrillingly, signed a book contract.

In the garden, I had the best year of my entire life. Which, frankly, has been true every single year I've been gardening. That's one of my favorite parts about gardening. Every year I learn more, discover new plants, enjoy old plants as they multiply, and seedlings from my myriad breeding projects mature and thrill me with their first bloom. Every year is bigger, fuller, richer, and more exciting than the last.

2012 is poised to be an amazing, revolutionary year for me. With school behind me I'm striking out into the world, ready to explore. I'm going to be selling my house, moving somewhere yet to be determined with more land, and spending a few years living off my savings and exploring breeding, writing, and who knows what other projects full time. After a decade of college, I'm desperately ready for unstructured time to explore, be creative, and focus on serious play. I'm full to the brim with ideas for new projects, most of which make little or no logical sense, but they excite me, and that is what I'm focused on right now. I may well be broke in two years, but who cares. I'm going to live, dance, and make stuff. Crazy, cool, beautiful stuff. Can't wait.

Proper Poinsettias

2011-12-19T20:49:00.000-05:00

I'd never been a big fan of poinsettias, but my first winter here in Michigan, the display at the MSU conservatory changed my mind.

Every year they haul out a huge display of massive, 6-foot poinsettia shrubs in full bloom. Grown like this, they look great. Poinsettias are, after all, big shrubs by nature, and allowed to grow big, they look much more in proportion and attractive than the stubby little things in pots.

My other favorite things about poinsettias are their flowers. The colorful parts, are, of course, not flowers are all, but bracts, modified leaves. Peer down into the center, and you find the actual flowers which are really quite strange looking.

They remind me of funny little one-eyed aliens.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Friday Cartoon: All I want for Christmas

2011-12-16T06:30:00.000-05:00

My own tropical paradise

2011-12-14T13:12:00.003-05:00

For less than $1000, I get to take a vacation from winter just by walking out the back door and into my greenhouse. I only keep it heated to just above freezing, but one days when we have any sun at all, it quickly soars up to 70 or 80 degrees, and I go out, strip down to t-shirt and shorts, and enjoy the warmth and growing things. Even in rainy days like today, it is a soul-soothing respite from all the grey and brown outside.

It is full of a random mix of plants, bunches of not-quite-hardy things I'm over wintering, lots of good things to eat, and just random things to make me happy.

Lettuce couldn't be happier. I've never grown great lettuce in the garden, it always bolts and gets bitter, but the cool temperatures and short days are making this the most beautiful, delicious lettuce I've ever grown, by far.

I'm loving having loads of fresh herbs, including rosemary, parsley, thyme, and this yummy cilantro

And of course, some flowers. Pansies, I think, were meant to be grown in greenhouses. I've got pansies outdoors too, but their flowers are all beaten down into the mud by the rain, while these are pristine, fragrant, and wonderful.

Now I'm wondering why I waited so long to build one... seriously, for less than the cost of a vacation to Florida, you could have this too. Why doesn't everyone have a greenhouse?

Tuesday Treats: Double Chocolate Holiday Spice Brownies

2011-12-06T06:30:00.000-05:00

This is an amped up version of a recipe a friend sent me. I added lots more chocolate and some spices and cranberries to give it a holiday flare. The finished product is dense, chewy, rich, and loaded with flavor. The very last word in absolute decadence.

Double Chocolate Holiday Spice Brownies

16 tbsp. butter
4 oz unsweetened chocolate
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/8 tsp. black pepper
Zest of one orange
1/4 cup cocoa

3/4 cup flour
1 cup dried cranberries (optional, but highly recommended)

Preheat oven to 325 F.

Melt chocolate and butter together in microwave or double boiler
Stir in sugar
Add eggs, salt, vanilla, spices, and orange zest, and mix thoroughly
Add flour, cocoa, and cranberries, and mix thoroughly

Pour batter into 8 x 8 pan lined with parchment paper, and bake at 325 for 1 hour. Let cool completely (they become chewier and fudgier as they cool), then eat slowly on a cold night by a bright fire.

Friday Drawing: Signs of the season (to a gardener...)

2011-12-02T14:43:00.001-05:00

Sciency Answers: How multicolor corn works

2011-11-30T10:24:00.001-05:00

During Thanksgiving, people must have spent some time looking at decorations involving multicolored ears of corn, because I got several questions all essentially asking, What is up with that? How does a single ear can have many different colors on it, while you never see, for example, a single plant producing yellow, red and purple tomatoes? How does corn pull it off?

Corn does it the same way my parents had five kids, ranging from brown-eyed, brown haired me to my blond blue-eyed brother, with a smattering of hazel eyes and light brown/dark blond siblings in between. In other words, when you look at an ear of corn, you are looking at the next generation, and the genetics of each individual seed determines what color it is. With a tomato or any other fruit, what you see is produced by the mother plant, so it looks the same no matter the genetics of the seeds inside, just as my mother's pregnant belly looked the same whether that particular baby was a blond or brunette. But since each kernal of corn is a seed, you get a preview of the next generation.

As a gardener, and enthusiastic backyard plant breeder, I think this is one of the most fun things about corn. You get a little preview of the next generation before you plant the seed. Buy a mixed packet of petunia seeds and they'll all look the same, you have to plant them to find out what color they are. But when I buy different mixes of colored corn, I get to spend a very happy time sorting through them, picking out the colors I like best, so that when I plant them I get a customized mix of colors I like best.

Have a question? Get a sciency answer! Just e-mail me: engeizuki at gmail dot com

Cyber Monday: Greensparrow Cards

2011-11-28T06:30:00.000-05:00

Just in time for the holiday shopping season, I've put together some greeting cards with my photography on Zazzle. So please stop by and purchase a few to help pay the hosting costs of keeping this site up and running!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-24T06:00:00.000-05:00

Tuesday Treats: Crispy Baked Pizza Polenta

2011-11-22T06:30:00.000-05:00

As winter comes on and I can spend less time outside in the garden, I always start cooking a lot more. So I thought I'd start sharing some of the recipes I'm playing with, as a semi-regular Tuesday Treats feature here on the blog.

Lately, I've been obsessed with corn. Not sweet corn, but the dry stuff. I grew a huge amount of it this year, and I've slowly been figuring out what to do with it. Up until now, I've basically never cooked with corn meal, so it has been a fun journey. Inspired by several different recipes, and after a bit of tweaking, this is my current favorite. Corn meal, water, and a few spices makes a flavorful polenta. Spreading that thin and baking it gives it a crispy surface and a soft creamy center. It is beyond easy to make, makes a great snack, and is delightful alongside a bowl of hearty chili and wouldn't be too shabby on a thanksgiving table either. The seasonings here are based on what I think of as pizza flavors, but the options for experimentation are endless.

Crispy Baked Pizza Polenta

1 cup corn meal
2 cups water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 cup tomato sauce
1 oz (or more...) shredded cheese (cheddar, mozzarella, and Parmesan are all amazing)
1 tablespoon olive oil
hot sauce, to taste

Preheat oven to 400 F

Bring the water to a boil on the stove top or microwave, and whisk into the corn meal in a large bowl. When thoroughly blended, set aside for ~5 minutes to let the corn meal absorb the water and become a little thick.

Add all other ingredients, and mix together thoroughly.

Line a small cookie sheet with parchment paper, and spread the polenta mixture in a thin layer over it.

Place in oven, and bake for 40 minutes, until the surface is crispy and browned. Let cool a few minutes, then devour.

Creating New Heirlooms (Plus: Exciting news!)

2011-11-21T07:07:00.000-05:00

Recently, I was telling a friend about my deep and abiding love for Russian tomatoes. I've grown several, and they have a distinctively rich flavor, often a beautiful dark color, and are well adapted for the cool, short summers of Michigan. 'Black Krim' is my favorite of the ones I've tried (though I think it is technically Ukrainian), and whenever I see the words like “heirloom from Russia” in a catalog, I pretty much know I'm going to like it.

That conversation got me thinking. I love Russian (and Ukrainian) tomatoes, but of course tomatoes don't really come from Europe at all. Tomatoes are native to South America, and, like a host of other delicious things (beans, squash, peppers, potatoes, eggplant, corn...) only made it to European gardens and tables after Columbus opened the new world to European explorers. Tomatoes, when they were first arrived in the old world, were a mix of varieties adapted to grow in warm South and Central American climates and selected for use in local food traditions and culture. Once they arrived in Europe, however, local gardeners took them on and made them their own. By saving seeds from varieties that performed well in their local climates and local cuisines, Italians created heat-loving, red, often green-shouldered varieties with a bright, clean taste, while Russians (and their neighbors) perfected cool tolerant, dark fleshed “black” tomatoes with a rich, smokey flavor.

Italian food. Plants from around the world.

As Europeans immigrated to the United States, they brought with them the varieties of tomatoes (and other plants) they grew up with in their home communities, and here they have continued to evolve. Just as Russian and Italian cultures and climate created distinctive tomato types, the melting pot of America brought a whole range of European heirlooms together to create distinctly new varieties, like the famous and wildly popular Brandywine tomatoes which came into being in gardens in Ohio and Tennessee.

It isn't surprising to me that the Brandywines, and other homegrown heirlooms like the Mortgage Lifter varieties, are so popular here in the US. After all, they were created here, the product of our culture, just as different European and Asian cultures have created their own specific takes on tomatoes that reflect their different values, cooking styles, and ways of life. Heirloom varieties are more than simply a crop, they are the result of a long, dynamic partnership between plants and people that has been going on since agriculture began. Weedy grasses give up life in the wild to become wheat and corn, one little plant scientists know as Brassica oleraceae morphed into myriad forms gardeners call broccoli, cabbage, kohlrabi, Brussels sprouts, and cauliflower, and of course, tomatoes sailed around the world to form a perfect partnership with Italian pasta.

Corn, before it teamed up with humans

Unfortunately, many gardeners today have given up their part in this ancient collaboration, ceding their role in the on-going evolution of the plants in their gardens to corporate breeders. Corporation, as they tend to do, have set out to replacing the endlessly diverse, personal forms of heirloom varieties created by and for a local community with new varieties which are efficient, uniform, and score well with focus groups.

This story has been told many times, and many gardeners have turned to growing historic heirloom varieties in response. But that is only half the solution. We've worked hard to preserve what previous generations have created. Now it is time to bring back the very art of that creation itself.

Pollinating tomatoes

Some gardeners are beginning to do this. Heirloom tomatoes came into being when their were fewer people in the world and have huge, sprawling vines that don't fit well in today's small yards or patios. A few years ago, a some gardeners were looking for delicious, beautiful varieties for their small gardens, and decided to do something about it. They got on-line and created the Dwarf Tomato Project, working as a community to breed a new generation of delicious heirloom-style tomatoes for small spaces. I love that, and I want it to spread. It is time we took back our plants, started making varieties for us, created by our friends, in our community, adapted to our local climate, soil, and tastes. It is time we started creating new heirlooms.

Which brings me to the big news of today's post. The working title of my upcoming book for Timber Press is Creating New Heirlooms, and it is going be all about the concepts I just outlined in this post. I'm super excited about it, and hope you are too!

Successfully Defended!

2011-11-17T20:10:00.000-05:00

This morning I had my PhD dissertation defense. I got to compress everything I've accomplished in the past five years into an hour long presentation, then get quizzed on it by the professors on my advisory committee -- they passed me, signed the papers that needed to be signed, and the last hurdle of graduate school has been cleared! (happy dance!) So leave a comment and call me Doctor! (But please don't make a habit of it. That would be kinda weird.)
That news may explain why I've not been posting here very regularly lately -- crunch time, getting everything wrapped up. But now, I'm FREE so expect more regular posts to resume soon.

Friday quote

2011-11-04T08:40:00.000-04:00

Sciency Answers: The great fertilizer debate

2011-11-01T08:08:00.000-04:00

Gary has a question:

Are organic fertilizers such as GardenTone and HollyTone really worthwhile using or is putting compost on your garden beds just as good?

Feeding soil versus feeding plants

Compost provides two things when you put it in your garden. A small amount of fertilizer for plants to take up, and a huge amount of food for all the earthworms, bacteria, fungi, and such in the soil. The fertilizer component is released slowly over time as the compost is degraded by soil life and taken up by plants to use to build leaves and flowers. The soil eating the rest of it improves the texture and structure of the soil making it better at holding water, nutrients, and allowing plant roots to grow through it more easily, so the same amount of fertility is utilized much more effectively.

Fertilizers, on the other hand, just provide nutrients for the plants. Because they are not tied up in the complex structures of compost, they are released quickly in higher concentrations to the plant roots. There really isn't much of a difference between organic and synthetic fertilizers here. The compounds the plant roots actually take up are absolutely identical in either case, and, depended how they are formulated, both synthetic and organic fertilizers will be released fairly quickly in high concentrations. Since both lack the bulky organic matter of compost or mulch, neither are going to do anything to improve soil structure and health in the long term.

More isn't always better

Fertilizers need to be used with caution. I grew up in a rural area where most people's "lawns" were really periodically mowed meadows, never fertilized or watered, and full of as many flowers (what the lawn care companies call "weeds") as actual grass. But we got a new neighbor who had lived in the city, who wanted a green, all grass lawn. They bought a bunch of fertilizer, and dumped it on. Their grass turned a vivid shade of green almost over night. And after the next rain storm, so did the drainage ditch all down the street and a good portion of our stream with a mass of algae spurred into growth by the fertilizer bonanza. Because fertilizers are quite concentrated and release their nutrients quickly, it is easy to over do it. You can harm you plants, but long before you do, you'll harm the more delicate life in the soil, and pollute your local ground water and wetlands as all the extra fertilizer leaches out of your soil.

The bottom line

In my own garden, I rely almost exclusively on compost and mulch to provide fertility. I do use more concentrated fertilizers, but only rarely in my container plantings, and very rarely in new beds that haven't yet been beefed up with enough compost for hungry plants like vegetables. In my ornamental beds, I don't even use compost, just regular mulching, because keeping fertility relatively low there keeps my plants a bit smaller and more compact so I don't have to stake them. When I do buy fertilizer, I frankly don't see much difference between synthetic and organic, so I go with price and convenience, which leads me to a slow-release synthetic fertilizer.

Have a question? Get a sciency answer! E-mail me: engeizuki at gmail dot com

Late autumn goodbye

2011-10-24T07:21:00.000-04:00

I was down in Ohio, visiting my parents this past weekend.

It was a gorgeous late autumn day, and the trees and water in their back yard were breathtaking.

The 12 acres I grew up on back up to Lake County's (poorly named) Hell Hollow Park which is dramatic and beautiful.

We moved to this spot when I was 8 years old, and since I moved out at 19, I don't get back as often as I like.

But every time I do, I step out of the car, hear the waterfalls, smell the cool, moist woodland air, and feel at peace.

My parents are moving in a few weeks down to where they've always wanted to live, in the high country of Western North Carolina. They're selling the land to the park, so more people will be able to enjoy this idyllic spot I spent my childhood running around in.

I'm happy for them, and very happy I'll always be able to come back and visit this place in its new life as part of the park, but it was also a little bittersweet, saying goodbye.

These woods were not just my playground, they were my church, my place to be alone. In special, secret spots, I figured out who I am, what I believe, how I want to live my life. I cried, rejoiced, wrote long, long letters to dear friends.

Standing in those special places this weekend, I looked at myself, and was very happy. I love who I am, how I am living my life, happy knowing that wherever life takes me, I'll always have deep roots reaching back to that rich, woodland soil.

Goodbye.

Got sciency questions? Ask Linda!

2011-10-18T20:11:00.000-04:00

Thought I'd pass this along. The wonderful Linda Chalker-Scott, on The Garden Professors blog (which you should all be reading, by the way. They rock.) is asking for question you might have about how plants work to be included in the book she is working on. So head on over and ask away!

Life in the soil

2011-10-17T11:44:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about beneficial soil life. It is kind of a hot topic these days, from compost tea to various commercial products, and I'd like to share a few basic concepts that inform how I think about the subject.

If there is food, they will come

I am an enthusiastic bread baker, and have been for years. Every now and then, I make my own sour dough starter. It is really ridiculously easy. Mix water and flour, leave it sitting out, and after only a few days wild yeasts and bacteria arrive, and start munching away on it. The yeasts eat some of the flour, producing carbon dioxide, which causes the bread to rise, and alcohol as a by product. The bacteria eat the alcohol from the yeast, converting it into the acids that give sour dough its tart flavor. Adding a sour dough starter speeds up the process by inoculating the dough with those organism, but you don't need it. The air is full of tons of tiny fungi and bacteria floating around, and once they land on something good to eat, they start growing and rapidly take over all the dough. The same thing is true of soil. Even if you completely sterilize your entire garden, if there is food (organic matter) microorganisms are going to arrive to eat it.

Adding more of what you've already got doesn't change anything

To bake bread, you take a little sour dough starter or commercial yeast and add it to a new pile of food (flour). Once that yeast has colonized the dough and started rising, adding more of the same yeast isn't going to do anything at all. It would be like a friend who, when our campfire started dying out, asked if we needed to add more matches to keep it going. This is why I'm skeptical of aerated compost tea. Sure, you can take your compost, and put it in special conditions to help the bacteria in it to reproduce wildly, but they're going to be the exact same bacteria that are already in your soil and compost. Pouring them by the billions over your soil isn't going to increase their numbers long term unless you give them more food – organic matter.

Not all microorganisms are created equal

Each batch of sour dough is a little different, because different yeasts and bacteria arrive and happen to get established first. Some will rise faster, others will taste better. Commercial baking yeasts has been specially selected to dry and store well, and to rise quickly. Just as plant breeders have selected bigger fruits and flowers for our gardens, bakers and brewers have selected superior yeasts for making various breads, beers, and wines. However...

All gardening is local

Travel as a gardener at all and you quickly realize that half the plants you lust after and can't grow are actually a weed somewhere else. Microorganisms are no different. Some sour dough cultures perform best in whole wheat flour, others in white. Wine makers measure the acidity and sugar content of their grapes, and choose the best yeasts for each situation. Soils are vastly more complex and variable than flours and grapes, and I'm sure that most of the organisms in my acidic, clay soil can't even survive in the alkaline, sandy soil in a friend's garden. This reality makes me very skeptical of most commercial soil biota products. Even if what is in that package is an exceptional combination of organisms, what are the chances that they are going to be able to out complete the thousands of locally adapted species already living in my soil? This is also why I'm not surprised that in scientific research on these types of treatments they've only seen beneficial results when adding organisms to sterile potting media. That is a much more uniform, simple setting than the wild diversity of soil, and starting with something sterile, the added organisms don't have to complete against an already established soil community.

But maybe...

This is the completely speculative part of this post. As a plant breeder, I know that you can create significantly better varieties for you garden if you simply grow a diverse variety of plants, pick the ones that perform the best for you, and save seeds from those to grow again next year. Would it be possible to somehow select for superior populations of soil life as well? The idea intrigues me, but I don't quite know how to do it. Carol Deppe, in her brilliant book Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties, says that she is attempting to do this by each year taking soil from around the best performing, disease-free individual plants in her garden and spreading it around the garden to hopefully promote the spread of better soil biota. Does this work? I don't know. Sometimes when I have a spare moment, I dream up wildly complex, completely impractical schemes to “breed” soil biota involving acres and acres of land, soil samples from around the world, and annual soil sterilization for all but my selected plots of soil, but I don't know if I'll ever attempt it. Is anyone else a soil nerd thinking this way? Any ideas, comments?

Some big news

2011-10-14T18:30:00.000-04:00

Yep, folks, it is official. I'm writing a book. Just signed the contract with Timber Press. What is it going to be about, you ask? Well... I think I'll leave that part out for now so I can dribble details out bit by bit, because that sounds like more fun. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go dance wildly around the house giggling with sheer happiness.

Fall is for crocuses

2011-10-10T16:04:00.000-04:00

It is time to plant spring flowering crocuses, of course, but also to enjoy the fall bloomers! I planted a few species for the first time last year, and am delighted to see Crocus speciosus has come back to kick off the fall crocus season!

Friday Garden Cartoon: Plant those bulbs!

2011-10-07T06:25:00.000-04:00

It is that time of year again. Get out there and start planting!

See all my garden cartoons here