Native Plant Garden

October 3, 2013Leave a comment

I came across a couple native plant gardens, while wandering around up on the USU campus. Fun to fine, when on college campuses there tends to be a lot of lawn and mass plantings (necessary for the large-scale nature of the landscape, but still a bit boring).

Chocolate flower (Berlandiera lyrata)…the smell is far better than the appearance, and this one even looks quite nice.

Here is a fun fall combo, rabbit brush,(Chrysothamnus nauseosus) desert 4 o’clock (Mirabilis multiflora), and sunset hyssop (Agastache rupestris).

Rabbit brush,(Chrysothamnus nauseosus) and Zauschneria (Epilobium canum….or Zauschneria latifolia if you don’t care about botanical name changes.)

The Problem is the Solution

September 30, 20132 Comments

I recently went to a Permaculture workshop up at USU It was excellent. If you ever have a chance to hear Joel Glanzberg, don’t miss it. One of the principles we talked about was that the problem is the solution. Here’s two writer who did just that: a gardener started eating the weeds growing in her vegetable garden, and a native-plant enthusiast used her “weedy” driveway as a plant nursery.

Other ways to turn the problem into the solution? Here are a few:

Use fall leaves as mulch. (Or drop them off at my house. It is beyond me why anyone would willingly get rid of their leaves….it is the best form of free mulch.)
Let the clover grow and provide free fertilizer in the lawn
Feed grasshoppers to chicken or other animals
Use the death of a plant to plant something better
Put kitchen gardens close to the house or in the front yard
Use unique native or adapted plants for hard-to-grow areas

Fall Bloom

September 26, 2013Leave a comment

Often mistaken for sagebrush, this rabbitbrush (Chrysothamnus) looks great with a yellow bloom in the fall.

Garden Update

September 24, 2013Leave a comment

The garden is winding down. Here is a quick rundown:

Best Plant: Giant sunflowers. Planted as an afterthought, these guys did great.

Most Disappointing Plant: Blue Hubbard squash. They died midway through the season. The strawberries also never did well, but I didn’t expect much out of them.

Biggest Mistake: The tomatoes supports. The plants are floppy. The method is good, just didn’t keep up with it enough.

Unused Crop: Cabbages and chard. Apparently we don’t really eat either.

Best Idea: Planting sunflowers in with the vining crops. Although some out competed their companions.

No-shows: I seeded in a bunch of flowers and herbs. One flower came up a couple months late.

New crop: Cabbages. A lot of pests eat cabbages, and I don’t. Probably not a repeat.

Early Harvest: The beans surprised me with how quickly they produced a good harvest. I seeded them in after the peas finished.

Most Delicious: Fresh, ripe cantaloupe.

I have just a small patch of potatoes to dig, the tomatoes are still producing, but that’s about it. Not a bad year.

Insects

September 10, 2013Leave a comment

Gardens don’t just grow plants. Here’s a look at some insects I found in my garden the other day:

Ick. I could use a lot less of these grasshoppers. I still don’t have any control methods I’m comfortable with, so I just give these guys glares and kill as many as I can.

Much better. This was a good sized praying mantis, we left him alone.

This guy is (as far as I can tell) a locus borer beetle. We have a lot of locust trees around for the juveniles, but this adult has taken up residence on one of the sunflowers.

Soap box moment: I don’t use insecticides at all, I think it can cause more problems that solutions. It is much more interesting to let insects fight it out. And please, don’t ever spray because you want to prevent an unknown problem. Spray only for known pest as a last result.

Cross-Purpose Varieties

August 31, 20131 Comment

Many current garden trends involve pushing away from a firm dividing line between the ornamental and functional. So instead of having a dedicated kitchen garden separated from the formal front yard, plants are combined for maximum use. A front yard specimen tree can also bear fruit, annual flower beds contain a variety of vegetables and herbs, a shrub border provided habitat for birds and screening. I like this ideal. Mixing uses is more interesting, challenging and economical.

I’m working on an old project, a plant list spread sheet regarding plants in this area. I’m on the tree section, and one thing I’ve noticed is the division of ornamental and functional trees. Plant varieties have been commonly bred for only one purpose. For instance, plums are either bred for a specific fruit variety, or they are bred to not have fruit and look pretty. I can buy fruit that tastes great, or that have unique form or foliage, but hardly ever both. There are ornamental kale, peppers and herbs that blend the boundaries, but I would like to see more. How about a weeping apple tree, that still produces a good fall crop? Or grapes that are bred as much to be an ornamental vine as produce a good crop.

Do you know any good cross-purpose varieties, and what would you like to see?

Playing Garden

August 27, 20133 Comments

The weeds, pests and I have reached a bit of a compromise in the garden. I am not longer to weed or treat (I’ve give up), but they also promise not to get any worse. Well, all except the zucchini are dying. Zucchini are not impenetrable. I’ve actually had quite a few die to wilt disease.

The kids love to play out there. I’ve lost my toddler as he sat in the back of the garden, picking unripe vegetables.

The giant sunflowers are a big hit. I’m still not sure if I’m actually going to harvest the seeds: I might leave the heads out as a natural bird feeder instead.

Right now, I’m getting plenty of cucumbers, tomatoes, beans, and cantaloupe. A few weeks back, I used a batch of cucs to make fermented dill pickles. They were doing great: smelled wonderful. But one day I opened up the bucket and discovered a foul smelling bacteria growing over everything. So the pickles ended up in the compost pile. I did try one: it was crisp and tasted amazing, except of the hint of foul bacteria growth. (I didn’t eat more than one, and I didn’t get sick off of it.) It give me motivation to try again, and I was pleasantly surprised the striped armenianas remained crisp. Next time, I’ll need to check them more, and probably can or refrigerator them earlier.

Here’s another shot of the sunflowers. I love them.

The Garden

August 15, 2013Leave a comment

I should be enjoying a bountiful harvest, planting out fall crops, loving the fruits of the labor in spring.

My harvest is decent, but not great. I’m skipping fall crops, minus the beans that I planted a month ago. And I feel like this garden has just been a battle against pests.

It hasn’t been used or maintained in years, and surrounded by feral waste places, my garden is a breeding ground for pests. This is the list so far:

Slugs
Grasshoppers
Aphids
Spider mites
Blossom end rot
Tomato cracking
Cats scratching up melons
Stink bugs on tomatoes
Cucumber beetles
Wilting of squash (I lost five plants)
And lots of weeds

Many of these pests focus on preventive control. Part of my problem is the furrow irrigation that I do not control. The garden gets pretty flooded at times. I’ve sprayed my plants off occasionlly with water, but otherwise, I haven’t done anything for my list of pests. And I’m not planning to. The cost of any control far exceeds the value of the produce.

But the giant sunflowers do look good. They are probably around 15′ tall.

Garden Tour in Ogden

August 2, 2013Leave a comment

I went to the Ogden Nature Center garden tour. It was pouring rain when I started out. The rain added to my already foul mood, but as soon as I started to walk through the gardens it all dissipated.

Notice the gravel edging

I started out with the best home on the tour. I believe the owner was a retired nurseryman, and it was a gardener’s haven. Even areas that he felt were weedy (I talked to him briefly), were beautiful. I want two acres that I can transform into a plant paradise, like he has.

I love the blue grama grass here

I’m a big fan of grassed planted in rows. It was windy, and the movement they create is beautiful.

Many of the homes were well landscaped, but less than memorable. I have a picture of one and I have no memory of visiting it. There is nothing wrong with the landscape, but there is nothing special about it either.

This next home stood out. It wasn’t a plant haven, but it was unique. The garden was not what you would expect driving in a cookie cutter suburb. The designer said the garden was meant to be a walking meditation, and it was.

Another home I enjoyed worked with natural features instead of excluding them. Much of the landscape was native hackberry trees, sagebrush and beautiful, natural rock.

Unmowed fine fescue blends with natural rock

Nightmares

July 30, 2013Leave a comment

On a ~~dark and stormy night~~ bright and sunny day….even cheery gardens harbor nightmares.

I recently saw this beautiful vine, climbing up the fence at the rear of a small community garden.

At first, I wondered what it was. It was quite striking, with purple flowers and berries of varying shade. And then it hit me. This was poison night shade. Prolifically growing in a community garden.

While monitoring for pests, I noticed something was eating the cabbage and leaving gruesome large holes in the head. I pulled up the plant and found nine snails, huddling underneath the leaves. They were promptly punished by a preschooler with salt.

The next day I found 11 more snails on that same cabbage. The cabbage has been rescued to my fridge, and the snails have been trampled into mush.

Liz Braithwaite

Category: Home and Garden