Posts from — May 2009

I’m a big fan of mulching with straw. It’s relatively cheap, especially if you shop around at general stores and grain elevators, rather than specialty garden shops. And the number of casual horse owners around where we live make sure that straw is always available since it’s a great bedding material. Note well, I’m not talking about hay which is a feed and which ideally comes with a fair amount of seeds. Straw, at least ideally, has most of the seeds removed since it’s a by-product of growing grain.

But even if most of the seeds are removed, some remain which means that as you spread your mulch, you’re also sowing “weeds.” My utterly pragmatist definition of a weed is any plant growing where you don’t want it. Sometimes you can can get rid of a weed by transplanting it to a more desirable location. For instance, I am notoriously soft-hearted when it comes to “volunteer” tomato plants, even though I can’t vouch for their variety and I’ll usually find somewhere to tuck them in. However with the grain seed sprouted from straw the best thing I’ve found is to yank it up gently by its roots, leave it in the sun for a couple hours then use the stalks elsewhere as more mulch. I find that for the most part, the straw seeds germinate within the layer of straw itself so I can pull them out much easier than if the same plants had rooted in soil.

I’m mentioning all this because today’s twenty-minutes were spent weeding out the asparagus bed. It was a dangerously beautiful day, dangerous because I would have been tempted to spend all day out side and thus end up burned to to a lobster red. With a nicely defined task, however, I was able to get outside, do some meaningful work and get inside again before I incinerated.

Our spirea bushes were absolutely beautiful this year. Their long arched branches were loaded with thousands of small white blossoms spilling down like veils. When we worked in the garden last weekend, Jim weeded along the south side of the house; after he worked under the bushes, he emerged with dozens of tiny, white petals covering his hair and his shoulders, looking ever so much like snowflakes.

It was a banner year for spirea, but you’ll have to take my word for that.
[Read more →]

We covered our tender plants when we heard the frost warning on Sunday night, but in spite of our efforts, some seedlings still got a little nipped by the frost.

Tomato plant with a little frost damage

[Read more →]

We knew we were risking calamity by planting tender annuals this early but the down side seemed so slight, that is, we’d merely replant, and the upside so great, that is, we’d have tomatoes as early as possible. Calamity struck and for the most part, it wasn’t as calamitous as it might have been. The night before last our garden suffered a pretty hard frost. It didn’t freeze deeply enough to kill the kale or the broccoli which was no surprise. And in fact even the squash seemed to pull through without much damage. The most vulnerable plants were the basil and the tomatoes and we spread a little protection over them. The tomatoes in the juice jar cloches were still OK. Over one bed, we made a tent of clear plastic and that kept those tomatoes and basil plants happy. Another area was covered with a plain cotton sheet, a technique that has worked for us in the past. This time, however, we lost nearly all the plants underneath this sheet. I admit when I went out in the morning that sheet was covered in such a thick layer of frost that it nearly crackled as I lifted it. All tolled, it looks like we lost only a half dozen plants, mostly San Marzano Tomatoes.

Recovery won’t be very rough. Tomorrow is the mid-week Farmer’s Market so we can pick up another tray or two and tuck the plants into the gaps. Our favorite weather website suggests a warming trend so maybe that was the last frost we’ll have on this end of the growing season.

If you aren’t growing horseradish, maybe you should reconsider your resistance. Here’s why:

1. Horseradish is super easy to grow.
Horseradish grows from roots that you can purchase at garden stores or online from places like Gurney (where we purchased ours) or many other sites. Roots are planted in holes deep enough to put the root end down and the bud end at ground level. Our horseradish stands about 18 inches tall at its peek.

2. Horseradish is hardy.
In our garden, no predators bother horseradish. No nibblers, no diggers. Since horseradish is a very hardy perennial, you’ll want to make a firm decision about where to plant your horseradish roots– because it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to move later.

3. Horseradish is pretty.
It’s a surprisingly lovely plant. Horseradish is cute when it comes up in the spring, and by summer, our horseradish patch provides a nice dark green camouflage around our rain barrel support.

4. Horseradish is good to eat.
We prepare horseradish by peeling it, grating it, and then mixing it with a small amount of vinegar. Prepared horseradish will keep for 4 to 6 months in the refrigerator. We use our horseradish most often as an accompaniment to meat. We also mix it with mayonnaise to make a creamy horseradish sauce that is good for sandwiches too. I have set a culinary goal for myself this summer to make homemade cocktail sauce using our tomatoes and horseradish. And perhaps chili sauce. I’ll post my recipes later, depending on their success.