Sugaring Season Has Arrived

Buckets for Maple Sap

Maple syrup begins with maple sap

For more Wordlessness this Wednesday click here.

Sunday Night – Drama, Delicious, Drama

Jupiter, Moon, Venus

Liz and Lilin

Dumplings AKA jiaozi

Lilin stirring jiazo, jiaozi - delicious

Oscar

More drama!

Seeds: Heritage, Hybrid, GMO

Seed Savers Exchange catalog

The Native Seeds/SEARCH catalog arrived in my mailbox this past week. This company located in Tucson is new to me, and so is the term native seeds.

Included with the catalog that offers a variety of open pollinated seed from amaranth to watermelon was a tiny separate chart listing the best ways to choose seed. They say “Whenever possible, source your seeds first from the area where you live. Seed libraries, seed exchanges and local seed companies that actually grow the seeds they sell are ideal choices.” I was confused to receive this catalog here in Massachusetts because the company touting local seed is located in Tucson, Arizona, and the names of the varieties offered like Escondida chile, Guarijio sweet corn, Calabaza Mexicana squash and Hopi Red watermelon indicate that they are native to the southwest. If I were to plant these seeds I would be disobeying what seems to be the first tenet of this seed company.

There is a lot of concern about seeds in the farm and garden world these days. As more and more large farms use Genetically Modified Seed (GMO) for commodity crops like corn, soybeans and wheat, there is a countervailing interest in open pollinated seed, which is seed that produces plants exactly like the original seed.

The Seed Saver’s Exchange was the first group that I was aware of that was actively working to preserve the open pollinated seeds of vegetables and flowers grown by gardeners and farmers all over the country. Since 1975 this non-profit organization has been making it possible for seed savers to exchange seed with each other. At the same time they have a farm where they can also keep rare and unusual seeds going. The SSE now has its own catalog, paper and online, so that gardeners can order what are now often called heritage seeds.

An advantage that heritage seeds have is that the crops they produce are often specially adapted to certain areas, thriving in a certain kind of soil, with a particular type of weather. When you look at all those thousands of varieties you have a wide and deep gene pool that can be used when scientists prepare to create a new hybrid that will meet a particular situation.

Johnny's Selected Seeds catalog

I buy some of my seeds from Johnny’s Selected Seeds in Maine. This is partly a sentimental choice because I met Johnny when we were living in Maine in 1975. The company was very new and I was fascinated by the idea of a seed farm, something I had never considered before. I also think seeds of plants grown in Maine should be right at home here in Heath.

Johnny’s, like Native Seeds/SEARCH and their Tucson Seeds, sees a benefit in being a local source. Unlike Native Seeds he includes hybrids in his catalog. I like knowing that Dunja, a new variety of zucchini is disease resistant and has higher yields. I guess I can hear people saying who needs a higher yielding zucchini – but I can bring my extras to the Center for Self Reliance!

Hybrids have been around for centuries because plants do cross pollinate naturally, sometimes resulting in an improvement, or sometimes not. I am happy that scientists can cross one squash with another to make a variety that is more disease resistant in this natural way so that my harvests can be a bit more dependable.

I do not like the idea of GMO seeds that have had genes of a different organism put into my soybean (or whatever) plant. I can understand that big farmers like to get rid of weeds with  Round-Up, but don’t like killing their crops with Round-Up. Finding the answer to this dilemma by developing a GMO soybean that won’t be killed by Round-Up might sound like a good idea, but we all know that living organisms can become resistant to threat. We are now urged not to use antibiotics unless absolutely necessary because germs become stronger and resistant to the antibiotics. It seems to me there is a danger in GMO crops also becoming resistant. I fear the damage to the soil, and indeed to people who eat these crops.

I know GMOs are controversial, and I don’t claim to understand all the ramifications, but I try to avoid GMO products when I can. GMOs are not readily available for home garden crops, so that is one worry I don’t have in my own garden.

High Mowing Organic Seeds catalog

I do like the idea of supporting companies like Johnny’s that grow their seeds more locally than Tucson. I have also been buying native seeds from High Mowing Organic Seeds which is located in Vermont. Even here I have a sentimental attachment because I spent some years of my childhood on a Vermont dairy farm.

Others may also like buying seeds from High Mowing because they are a local(ish) company, but also because every seed in their catalog has been grown organically. They offer heirloom varieties as well as hybrids that promise disease resistance or some other benefit. They even note which lettuce varieties like Gaviota, and Sula, are good for eating at the baby leaf stage, but not at full size.

Have you been thinking about seeds? Where to buy them? Whether you like heritage varieties or hybrids? Do you have a variety you must have in your garden every year? Let me know your thoughts by emailing me at commonweeder.com and I’ll share your comments.

Between the Rows  February 18, 2012

Surprise Forgotten Under Bedroom Bookshelves

If your housekeeping regime is anything like mine, there are bound to be surprises from time to time. Last week I shuffled the bins of knitting yarns slightly from where they had been pushed in front of the bedroom bookshelves. There under the shelves was a pot of bulbs that I had forced on top of the shelves last spring. And once again I had to cry Life Will Not Be Denied! The potting soil was dry and so was the old foliage, but there were little green shoots.

Mystery Bulbs

I cut off the dead foliage, gave the pot a watering and put it in the sun.  I thought the shoots might really shoot up, but after a week they only look a little different. Not every bulb is alive, and the bulbs that have sent up shoots may not be too strong or vital. Still, there is nothing to be lost by keeping them watered and in the sun. I might even give them a light cocktail of fish emulsion. What do you think are the odds of getting blossoms?

And what blossoms might they be?  I suspect I put miniature daffodills in this pot, but I’m not sure.

Why Does Snow Melt the Way It Does?

Snow melts in mysterious ways. Any ideas why?

For more Wordlessness on Wednesday click here.

Cellulose to Paper, Plants to Everything

The Sunday New York Times did a fascinating story yesterday about Timothy Barrett, a man they call the Cellulose Hero and the work he has done with paper, and preserving important of historic paper documents. I read all this with pleasure in the paper edition of the New York Times.

In addition to talking about Barrett’s important work, there was a brief history of paper, invented by the Chinese more than about 2000 years ago. Before that those lucky enough to be literate had to read and write on stone, wood blocks, battered papyrus, clay tablets, and wax tablets.

When we were living in China we became very familiar with rice paper, but I don’t know if that is the first plant the Chinese turned into paper. Paper can be created by soaking, mashing and transforming any number of plants into paper.

The story made me think of all the unnoticed ways plants appear in our life every day. We wear cotton and linen but don’t spend much time thinking about the plants our clothing comes from. The news talks about the problems of low quality coal and the necessity for ‘clean’ coal, but do any of us think about the plants that rotted and were turned into coal by heat and pressure – and time?

Herbal remedies have been around for centuries, but plants play an important part in medicine even today. We have a botanist friend who went on a plant hunting expedition searching for varieties of yew that would be a good source of taxol, a compound that is being used to treat cancer.

Who thinks about turpentine coming from pine trees when they are cleaning their paint brushes?

Who thinks about tropical trees when they buy a spool of jute twine, or a length of jute rope, or a jute rug?

Of course, I live in a wooden house heated with wood. I have wooden furniture made from a variety of trees. But even those of us who live in a New York City steel canyon cannot escape the vital presence of plants in our life every day.

Ellen Sousa’s Green Garden

Ellen Sousa now lives in Spencer on a small farm with animals, veggies, and many native plants that have earned it certification as a Wildlife Habitat and Monarch Waystation. But it was not always so.

As a child Sousa tramped the woods with her father and read Who Really Killed Cock Robin, an environmental mystery by Jean Craighead George. My daughter Betsy also read this book in sixth grade and she determined at that moment to become an environmentalist. Betsy now has a PhD and works as a scientist for the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority.

It took Sousa a little longer to find her passion in the natural world, although the seeds had been planted. About ten years ago Sousa and her husband Robert were living in a house on a suburban corner lot on a busy road. To create some privacy she began planting shrubs and flower beds. She was lucky in her planting choices because “ . . . almost immediately had hummingbirds, butterflies and birds come in to visit. When we had a nesting chipping sparrow AND mockingbird in our shrubbery in one year, I became fascinated and started learning all I could about what was drawing them in,” she said.

She never used pesticides while improving her soil and quickly noticed how well her plants grew and that she was not only attracting birds, but beneficial insects that came to feed on plant pests. “I was hooked,” she said.

When she moved to Turkey Hill Brook Farm and began a new career as a writer, she continued doing the gardening research she had begun “as an antidote to my stressful corporate job, and finally realized that the book that I was looking for (about “beneficial” gardening in New England) did not exist,” she said. That corporate job is now just a memory. For the past few years she has been writing, working as a garden coach to new gardeners, and gardeners who want their gardens to be ‘green’ in every respect. Ellen’s book, The Green Garden: A New England Guide to Planning, Planting, and Maintaining the Eco-Friendly Habitat Garden, was published last fall by Bunker Hill Publishing. This is the book she wished she had found to help her along her path earlier on.

In The Green Garden Sousa explains the many ways we can create habitat that will support the web of life. “By creating habitat in your backyard, you can help repair the damage being done to our web of life and start to offset the damage already done. You can make a difference.”

The chapters on planning, rethinking the lawn, and adding water to your backyard show that you can make a difference even if you live on a suburban street. Sousa lists plants for shade, and sun. She reminds you of vines that can climb and give your garden an extra dimension. Native trees and shrubs can add habitat for wildlife. A browse through the final section of the book, Best Plants for New England Gardens, will show that a garden rich in native plants, one that welcomes birds, butterflies and beneficial insects can be as beautiful a garden as anyone could imagine.
Our End of the Road Farm is no longer a real farm, but we do have a mixed woodland that attracts many kinds of birds, even if I have never learned to identify many of them. Our open fields feed and protect ruffed grouse, and feed many other birds and butterflies. In the cultivated spaces I have planted bee balm, yarrow, asters, echinacea, Queen of the Prairie, garden phlox, and high bush cranberry. I planted a small group of blueberries just for the birds, while the old apple trees also provide food and shelter for wildlife. Our pond, built by former owners as a fire pond, is full of frogs and other reptiles, waterbugs and dragonflies. Of course it also attracts deer, and right now a beaver family has built a lodge on the bank. This is unusual, but not unheard of.

Last spring we planted the beginnings of a windbreak to the northwest of our house. We transplanted some white pines from our woods, and bought some small red cedar, balsam and American red pine seedlings which we knew would take time to provide the wind protection we sought. In the meantime these native trees will supply shelter for the birds.

On the leeward side of the windbreak we planted a shadblow and five each of elderberry and winterberry. We also splurged on a native pagoda dogwood from Nasami Farm. These small trees were chosen to supply us with a pretty view in the spring as well as food for the birds in the summer and fall.

Because of last summer’s rains I know some of these small trees did not even survive the season. I can tell you the dogwood quickly attracted deer who made a good snack of the young foliage, but it appeared to make a good recovery.

Sousa has done all the research, and made lists of plants appropriate to every situation from dry sun, to damp shade and bog so that everyone who wants to welcome birdsong and butterflies, those flowers of the air, to their garden, large or small, will know how to begin and how to carry on.

I’d love to hear from readers about the plants they have found most welcoming to wildlife. Email me at commonweeder@gmail.com and I’ll share your experiences in a column soon.

Between the Rows  February 11, 2012

The Curious and Sometimes Lascivious History of Vegetables

How Carrots Won the Trojan War

According to the historical record the soldiers inside the Trojan horse gorged themselves on carrots to ‘bind their bowels’ an important precaution, but other records tell of the emperor Caligula “who had a fun-loving streak, once fed the entire Roman Senate a feast of carrots in hopes of watching them run sexually amok.”

Carrots have fascinated more modern characters like Henry Ford who was anti-milk, and anti-meat, but crazy about vegetables, especially the carrot. At one point he was the guest of honor at a 12 course dinner, in which every course featured the carrot, from carrot soup to carrot ice cream, all washed down with carrot juice.

My husband insists on his daily raw carrot, and I cook up a pot of carrots at least once a week – and I’d like it to be known that cooked carrots are much more nutritious than raw carrots.

Rebecca Rupp’s fascination takes us way beyond the carrot as she leads us on a historical , and very funny, tour of the development, history and benefits of a host of vegetables. This amusing book promises and delivers a grocery bag full of Curious (but true) Stories of Common Vegetables like Beans Beat Back the Dark Ages; Corn Creates Vampires; Lettuce Puts Insomniacs to Sleep; and Radishes Identify Witches. I just love weird and wonderful stories about anything and Rebecca has given me more stories than I could ever carry home from the farmer’s market.

Rebecca Rupp is a noted children’s book writer, but I can see myself at a cocktail party dropping odd tidbits like Milton, in Paradise Lost, saying eggplants were the Apples of Sodom that Lucifer fed the fallen angels., that Thoreau grew giant pumpkins, and that George Washington was nearly killed by a dish of poisoned peas.

This weird and wonderful history of vegetables will entertain – and give you a good dose of real history. This was a perfect gift to receive on a snowy afternoon!

Bloom Day – February 2012

On this second Bloom Day of 2012 I have very little to show. There is this white supermarket cyclamen that I bought in November that has more than seen me through the holidays, and the Wolf Moon. The wonderful thing about cyclamen is its long long winter bloom period.

Superbells 'Grape Punch' from Proven Winners

On February 4th I attended a Garden Writers Meeting in Boston, where we not only got  invigorating information and inspiration from Mary Kate  Mackey, but gifts from various vendors like this container of Superbells ‘Grape Punch’ from Proven Winners. It is very healthy and floriferous. Yummy color.

'Octoraro' tiarella from Plants Nouveau

I also got three little pots of this great native groundcover, tiarella ‘Octoraro’ from Plants Nouveau that is promised to cover 24 inches of ground.  I have just the spot. Now all I have to do is keep these seedlings alive until  they can be planted in the garden.

To see what else is blooming visit Carol, the brilliant inventor of Bloom Day, at May Dreams Gardens.

Flowers – A Secret Language of Love

Roses always speak of love, I think.

The Victorians had a secret language of love – flowers. I don’t know who decided that the peach blossom said, “I am your captive” or who then decided sending back a bunch of daisies meant, “I share your sentiments.” I do know that a century ago Kate Greenaway compiled and illustrated a volume called The Language of Flowers that listed hundreds of plants and flowers and translated their messages.

If a gentleman wished to compliment a lady, he could send a white camellia and testify to her “perfected loveliness” while a white hyacinth whispered of “unobtrusive loveliness.”

The Bridge of Flowers is all about love - for the community

A bouquet of red tulips would be a “declaration of love,” but we all know that the course of true love never runs smooth. Flowers don’t tell only of virtue, devotion or constancy. A modern lover might be surprised to have the florist deliver an armful of thornapple, but would surely suspect that a negative statement was being made. Greenaway’s hidden message is “deceitful charms”.

Inspired by Kate I’ve come up with my own possibilities for sweet whispered messages.

Cut flowers are wonderful, of course, but a living plant speaks even more eloquently of a green and growing affection that will not wither. Think of a pot of forced white tulips glowing in the candlelight saying, “You light up my life.”

Sunny roses for sunny loving days

Parma violets are one of the most romantic flowers. Fragrant nosegays of them litter the pages of sentimental novels and are presented to divas by ardent admirers. But if I set out a potted Prince of Wales, one of those faithful blue violets, my beloved should understand I consider him my own noble prince.

If my sweetie is even more than a prince, more than an ace, I would present him with a rex begonia, noted for its large handsome leaves in deep royal hues, which declare, “My King!”

Or, in a gentler mood I would set out a delicate angel wing begonia with pale pendant blooms blushing in the candlelight, “My guardian, my angel!” (You will notice that in the throes of a romantic message, there is no such thing as too much soppiness.)

Love has inspired countless volumes of poetry, and romantic rhymes have been uttered behind the palms at a ball and over the French fries at McDonald’s. I wish I were capable of poetry, or at least of reading a roundel or sonnet to my beloved. Surely my spouse would immediately understand that when I set out a bonsai landscape, an artistically windswept miniature tree on a mossy bank, that I am referring to the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

“Here with a loaf of bread beneath the bough,

A flask of wine, a book of verse – and thou

Beside me singing in the wilderness.”

I will supply the wine, bake the bread, and even roast the beast for my love to consume and enjoy.

Juniper bonsai

If I come home with a blooming passionflower, its twining, clinging tendrils and passionately purple flowers would leave little to the imagination about the sweet nothings I’d like to be whispering.

More subtle would be a pot of oxalis, often sold as lucky four-leaf clovers, but the leaf segments are somewhat heart-shaped and in my book their message is, “You are my good fortune.”

We women know that there is no better place for a heart-to-heart than over a lovingly prepared meal. I could set out a centerpiece of potted herbs. In a look back I could take a leaf out of Kate Greenaway’s book and choose peppermint for warmth of feeling, and sage for domestic virtue. Or, thinking of the song, “You’re the cream in my coffee. . .” my modern message might be, “You are the flavor and savor in my life.”

Love, like many plants, is tolerant of occasional forgetful carelessness, but routine observation and thoughtful tenderness will make it flourish like a green bay tree.

A rambler rose, but true love rambles no more.