Tomato Patch surprise: Going against the grain

My Cape Cod weeder, tool of choice
to uproot wheat seedlings

I took a shortcut when I mulched my tomatoes with straw this year.  I didn’t put sheets of newspaper under the mulch.  And this week I’ve had to uproot hundreds of bright-green wheat seedlings that were poking up through the beige straw.

Taking care of the seedlings was relatively easy.  I used my Cape Cod weeder (see photo).  Wherever I saw a wheat seedling, I just pushed and pulled the weeder’s angled blade at the soil line under the mulch.  The young wheat plants easily yielded their grip of the garden soil.  As I finished weeding around a tomato plant, I fluffed up the mulch—leaving the Tomato Patch looking “like new.”

Time:  Less than two hours.  I probably would have spent that much time easily if I had put down sheets of newspaper before I put down the straw—so I’ll call time for both approaches a draw.  My only second thought was that putting down paper probably makes for a nicer looking bed and prevents growth of lots of nuisance weeds.  Lesson learned: I think I’ll put down paper again next spring.

A wheat plant growing in the Tomato Patch is a weed, to my way of thinking.  Any plant growing where someone doesn’t want it is, well, a “weed.”  I want white clover to grow in most of our yard—so it’s a welcome ingredient of our turf.  Someone else who wants a “perfect” fescue lawn, of course, would consider white clover—you got it—a “weed.”

But with all the wheat weeds, I’ve been wondering why so many wheat seeds were in the beautiful bales of straw I bought at a local farm.  Was the combine not operating perfectly?  Were the seed heads a day or two too “green” to yield all of their seeds to the machine?  Or was this “not that unusual harvest byproduct”?

I don’t know the answer, but my spring surprise in the Tomato Patch is over.  The uprooted wheat plants shriveled when the sun dried their roots and became part of the mulch protecting my tomato plants from rain-splashed garden soil that may carry a variety of tomato-disease organisms.

Veggie posts are at GIEI blog

Purslane: Leafy Green of the Year?

I have begun posting my veggie gardening articles exclusively on the University of Maryland Extension's Grow It Eat It blog and will not duplicate those postings here.  A few minutes ago I posted a new thought--that perhaps we should abandon vegetable gardening and just grow weeds.  Here's the link.

Tomato Patch: Help Solve My Mulch Problem

My mulched tomatoes, May 31

I have a new problem—living mulch—in the Tomato Patch, and I hope you will tell me how you think I can solve the problem.

I mulched most of my rows of tomato transplants in my usual way—sheets of newspaper covered with a thin layer of straw.  About a third of my plants are mulched just with straw because I ran out of newspaper.

Most years I discover one or two volunteer wheat plants—or maybe they’re barley—in late June or July—from seeds that hitch-hiked in with the straw.  I’ve always pulled those few volunteers without a thought.

'Living mulch,' June 14

This year, however, I have hundreds—no, thousands—of volunteer grain plants—weeds, if you will.  Tomato Patch looks like a newly seeded lawn sprouting in the springtime.  I think some farmer must have harvested his grain before it was fully ripe and much of the grain ended up in bales of straw for sale at a local farm-supply store instead of in a bag of flour or chicken feed.

What should I do?  I can easily hoe the volunteers at the edges of the rows, but how should I attack the living mulch in my rows of tomato plants?  It’s growing on top of the newspaper in places and directly in the garden soil where I hadn’t used newspaper.

Help!  If you have a suggestion, please post a Comment—soon.

I’ll let you know later how I solve this baleful problem—if I do indeed.

Newspaper 'Clippings' about Gardening

Ready to sit back and enjoy recent Washington Post gardening columns?  Here are six you might find interesting:

Become a garden anarchist:  “Call it boot camp, and not all volunteers make it” by Barbara Damrosch, “A Cook’s Column,” March 8, CLICK HERE.

The weed that’s been shooting at you:  “Seedpod with a hair trigger” by Patterson Clark, “Urban Jungle,”  April 10, CLICK HERE.

How to toughen up your veggie seedlings:  “Preparing your little seedlings for the real world” by Barbara Damrosch, “A Cook’s Garden,” April 12, CLICK HERE.

Kale—right and wrong:  “Snow, sleet and kale—a wintry mix” by Barbara Damrosch, “A Cook’s Column,” March 22, CLICK HERE.

What the shouting is about:  “How scientists manipulate the genetics of crops” by Brian Palmer, “How & Why,” March 6, CLICK HERE.

Why flowering pears are sprouting everywhere:  “Pretty tree going rogue” by Patterson Clark, “Urban Jungle,” March 20, CLICK HERE.

Articles titles in the online Post will differ from those from the print edition, but the text will be the same.

Deer Country: What’s Blooming Mid-December?

Heather, the perfect winter flower for Deer Country

Yes, it’s mid-December, we’ve had multiple killing frosts, so our gardens must be dormant—right?
Wrong!  When I walk around our gardens doing winter chores—mostly cleanup and preparation for the next growing year—I see lots of flowers here and a few there.

The “lots of flowers here” is our heather shrub (Erica spp.), after six years about two feet high and five feet across.  Deer don’t browse this tough shrub, which is why it’s in our front yard and unprotected by wire cage or a deer-repellent spray.  The heather started blooming in mid-November and will bloom through the winter and into May.  How nice to pause and admire delicate pink flowers while I’m shoveling snow.

Moss phlox in its cage

Just a few feet from the heather are two kinds of pink blooms—several on moss phlox (Phlox subulata) protected by the wire tent I described in an earlier posting—and a lone dianthus (Dianthus spp.) blossom.  Across the sidewalk, a red Knockout rose (Rosa arbustiva ‘Double Knock Out’) sways gently in the December breeze above its wire cage.  How many more hard frosts can these three survive?

Just around the corner of the garage, a forsythia (Forsythia x intermedia)—probably encouraged by the extra warm fall—sports 10 or so flowers.  A week ago there were more than 20 flowers, so frosty nights are taking a toll.

Dianthus

And about midway between the forsythia and the heather, a weed, common groundsel (Senecio vulgaris), snubs frosty temperatures with green leaves and yellow flowers.  My “weed book,” Weeds of the Northeast (by Uva, Neal, & DiTomaso), warns that groundsel “contains pyrrolizidine alkaloids that cause liver damage in horses and cattle.  Small herbivores, such as sheep, rabbits, and goats are resistant to the toxic effect….”

And humans?  I’m not about to experiment, and perhaps there’s a reason the bambits haven’t sampled the groundsel.   

In addition to groundsel’s toxicity, there’s another reason I must trash this flowering weed.  The weed book notes that “open flowers can develop fully mature seed after plants have been killed by cultivation or herbicides.” Whoa!  Groundsel certainly rates a plastic bag in this gardener’s trash can.

Knockout rose

As days become short, shorter, and shortest in December, I tend to stay indoors more and overlook what’s happening in our garden.  But when I go outside and take a minute to look around, I usually can find some flourishing plant—perhaps even a bloom—to add a positive note to a frigid day.

Forsythia

Groundsel

Winter Crop That Never Fails

Rutabagas ... eaten

Thanksgiving guests have long since departed.  We’ve just about liberated all leftovers from our refrigerator.  It’s now time to turn my attention to our vegetable garden.

Not much that I planted remains to harvest.  I pulled the last of our rutabagas for a simple Thanksgiving side dish—boiled rutabaga mashed with butter and a little salt.  I didn’t have an answer when a guest asked, “Why are your rutabagas so good when the ones I buy at the store are so strong and even bitter?”  I guess I could have answered, “Well, I grew them 20 feet from our kitchen door and pulled them an hour before I cooked them.”

I do have a short row or two of Cylindra beets to pull for another early-winter treat.  I’ll simply boil them and anoint them with a pat or two of butter.  Late-season Red Sails lettuce continues to grow in my “Cheap Greenhouse”—the experiment I’ll report on when this warm fall turns into frigid winter.  Drum roll … How long will the lettuce plants grow before they surrender to the cold?

Winter weeds ... flourishing

Yes, a few vegetables that I planted still are growing.  But other plants that I don’t want are growing larger every day, seemingly doubling in size when the temperatures zip into the 50s and 60s.  Those plants are winter weeds.

Every garden likely has some winter weeds that sprout in late fall and grow rapidly during warm fall and winter days.  I used to ignore them and turn them under on sunny February days, but some, especially chickweed, would be so thick and tangled that it was easier to roll them up like green rugs and toss them over the back fence.

But I’ve found a better way to control winter weeds.  From Thanksgiving until garden soil freezes solid and when I have 15 minutes or a half hour on a sunny day, I take my weeding hoe and make mayhem on winter weeds.  I decapitate them just below soil level, roll most of the soil off any roots with backstrokes of my hoe, and hope the sun dries the roots and kills the weeds.

Weeding hoe ... to the rescue

I don’t stoop and pull weeds, generally, because that gives me an Aching Back.  My goal isn’t a garden without a visible weed.  I hoe the biggest weeds first, especially those that are blooming—and if I miss some, I attack them the next time I hoe.

So my small, hillside veggie plots are not weed free, though some are nearly so.  And each week that passes more will be browner and less green.  When the sun begins to warm in February and the topsoil thaws a bit, I’ll be out there, a few minutes now and then, with my hoe.

This short, periodic hoeing helps me keep weeds under control.  I no longer have to stoop and roll green mats in early spring or struggle to turn the mats under with a shovel.  My Aching Back aches less, and if a few weeds still grow in March, I’ll turn them under with my shovel.

Now that you’re rested up from your Thanksgiving extravaganza, move your weeding hoe from your shed to your garage.  On the next sunny day put on a light jacket or an extra shirt and grab your hoe and do a little winter weeding.  Take a few deep breaths of the cool, crisp air, and hoe, hoe, hoe.

And while you’re working, think through your plans for Veggie Garden 2012—what you might plant and where.  Perhaps you’ll even smile and plan the perfect answer when someone asks you what you’d really like for a holiday gift:  “Well, I’d really like a high-quality, narrow-bladed weeding hoe.” That would be so much better than another necktie or box of chocolates, now wouldn’t it?

Hoe, hoe, hoe.

Extra:  To read Patterson Clark’s “Urban Jungle” feature, “Wrestling with winter’s weeds,” in the Washington Post (Nov. 22), CLICK HERE.

Pulling the Devil's Hair

What's that--a piece of yellow string? 

Have you found any devil’s hair in your garden?

The devil has been primping in our garden. I know because I’ve found devil’s hair. Devil’s hair has other common names that indicate the fear it engenders wherever plants are grown, including devilgut, devil’s ringlet, hell bind, stranglevine, and strangleweed.

This plant isn’t a positive addition to any garden, except, perhaps, one where sulfur fumes waft from brimstone pits and temperatures are significantly higher than those of Mid-Atlantic Summer 2011. Devil’s hair is dodder (Cuscuta spp.), of which 10 of the world’s 150 varieties grow in Maryland, according to USDA maps online.

A tangle of devil's hair

“Grow” somehow doesn’t seem like the best verb to use with this parasitic plant—which has leaves that usually are more like scales, often nearly invisible. It has little or no chlorophyll so must attach itself to a host plant to suck nourishment within a few days of sprouting—or it dies.

“How did that yellow string get into our bed of moss phlox?” I thought when I first saw the parasite. I looked closer and found the string was tightly twined around phlox stems and was blooming, with small white flowers.

This string is not welcome in farm and garden country because its hosts include such food crops as asparagus, beet, carrot, eggplant, garlic, melon, onion, pepper, potato, sweet potato, tomato, plus a wide variety of other plants ranging from chrysanthemums and azaleas to alfalfa, clover, and legumes.

Moss phlox strangled by blooming dodder

Dodder can be a real hell bind in large agricultural settings, but in a relatively small home garden its control usually is relatively simple: hand pulling the devil’s hair before it goes to seed, pruning parts of hosts that it’s strangling, and treating this year’s dodder areas next spring with a pre-emergent herbicide to eliminate a new crop.

I’ve pulled every piece of the blond devil’s hair that I can find, but I suspect I haven’t got it all in the tangled mass of moss phlox. I’ve sprinkled some Preen, a pre-emergent herbicide, in the general area to prevent any remaining seeds from sprouting this year, and I’ll put down more Preen next spring.

I’ve been checking the moss phlox every few days and discovered that the dodder comes back quickly. I’ve learned that “pulling” the dodder doesn’t solve the problem if I leave remnants with roots embedded in the stems of the host plant. I’ve gone back twice with my pruners to cut off regrowth of the dodder an inch or so below where it has a stranglehold on the phlox.

This is the kind of problem that will take vigilance to solve, so whenever I walk by the moss phlox, I’ll pause to inspect to make sure there are no new strands or tangles of devil’s hair.

If you have a minute to look at some fantastic dodder photos, CLICK HERE to access the website of the dodder page of the Biology Department of Swarthmore College.

Damrosch: Don’t Hoe Weeds—Eat Them

Why slave away weeding your garden when you can eat many of those weeds?

In her “A Cook’s Garden” column in today’s Washington Post, Barbara Damrosch lists common weeds that—with a little oil and some seasonings—make for good, tasty eating.

“Growing right under everyone’s noses, all over the world,” Damrosch writes, “are plants that are powerhouses of nutrients, often superior to the cultivated greens that farmers are paid to grow.”

To read Damrosch’s article, CLICK HERE.

How to Kill a Weed Tree without Digging

The problem seedling

How did a squirrel do that—bury a black walnut so close to our prized weigela that when the nut spouted, it grew up through the shrub in a way that digging it out would seriously damage the shrub?

Only a squirrel can answer that question. But I know that when I find a problem seedling here at Meadow Glenn, I put away my digging tools and go “nuke.”

This spring a large black walnut seedling grew rapidly through the edges of our ‘Wine & Roses’ weigela. I thought I had pulled out the seedling last year, but obviously I had left the roots intact. The two-year old walnut seedling would have a tap root a foot or more long. Trying to dig it out could do serious damage to our weigela.

So I adapted a trick I learned several years ago when invasive oriental bittersweet vine intertwined with our sweet autumn clematis.

Ready to paint

First I checked to see how the walnut was growing up through the weigela and figured out a way I could bend it out of the shrub and over the surrounding mulch. Next I stripped off all the lower leaves from the seedling, leaving a bare stem for about a foot from where it emerged from the ground. Then I bent the seedling to the ground and put a stone over the stem to hold it firmly in place. I then used a small, sponge-tipped brush to paint glyphosate concentrate (41%) on the leaves at the top of the seedling and on the leafless stem, being careful not to get any of the herbicide on the nearby weigela.

The job took about 15 minutes. Within hours, the seedling shows signs that it was dying as it absorbed the glyphosate. The photos tell the story. Photo 1 shows the walnut seedling growing up and through the weigela. Photo 2 shows the trimmed and “stoned” seedling. The stone, by the way, prevents the seedling from springing back into the weigela and perhaps seriously damaging the shrub with glyphosate. Four days later, Photo 3 shows the dead and dehydrating plant ready for me to cut to ground level and discard in the trash.

Four days later, the dead seedling

I don’t use much glyphosate, so when I do, I read the directions for use before I begin. And whenever I use any –cide, I put on cotton work gloves over which I put latex gloves. In warm weather my hands sweat profusely when I wear only latex gloves, but the cotton gloves under the latex gloves make them at least bearable.

Got a weed tree seedling that you don’t want to dig out? Paint it—carefully—with glyphosate.

Buckhorn Plantain: Kill It or Eat It?

Buckhorn plantain aka ribwort

To most Americans, buckhorn plantain is just another lawn weed to kill with the next application of Weed-n-Feed, but others stir-fry or boil its leaves for supper.

Since I don’t use 2,4-D on the vast expanses of our lawn, I have thousands of thriving specimens of buckhorn plantain (Plantago lanceolata), also called English plantain, narrowleaf plantain, ribgrass, ribwort, and blackjacks.

Perhaps when you were a kid you picked this plant’s long-stemmed flowerheads, bent the stem around itself, and tried to “shoot” the flowerheads at your buddies. I did. This green weapon always left much to be desired, and I can’t remember our battles lasting more than a few moments. I cannot recall anyone eating plantain leaves.

When you see the artwork of this plant in this week’s “Urban Jungle” column in the Washington Post, you’ll say, “Oh, that!” But do take a minute and read the information Patterson Clark has gathered about this common weed that probably arrived in North American with early colonists who brought it as an herbal remedy.

To read Patterson Clark’s feature, CLICK HERE.

Poison Ivy: Bye, Bye

Leaves of three, let it be!

Birdie, birdie, in the sky,
Dropped a poison-ivy seed in my garden….


For some reason I never memorized epic poetry. But apparently a bird ate a poison ivy seed and deposited it in our garden. I found the new plant growing closely to the trunk of a butterfly bush when I was mulching, but I find them even in my veggie garden at times.


Leaves of three, let it be! Yes, the old folk saying is right on target. Up to 80% of people develop a rash when they come in contact with urushiol, the irritating oil in poison ivy. When I was a kid, I often ran through patches of the noxious weed that grew near Alloway Creek, “down back” from our home on West Main Street in Alloway, N.J. I didn’t get a rash then, but in the last several years I’ve become fairly sensitive and get rashes if I’m exposed.


So the poison ivy had to go—quickly, while it was young and relatively shallow rooted.


Spray it with 2,4-D or glyphosate? No, that would be overkill—and drifting spray might do major damage to nearby plants. I’ll pull it out—which should be relatively easy because the plant is small and mostly free standing.


But I’m super-sensitive, right?


Ok, here’s how I do it.

Put pulling hand in solid plastic bag

I take the narrow plastic bag off the morning’s Washington Post. I put my hand and lower part of my arm into the bag. With the bag between the poison ivy and my hand, I run my hand down the poison ivy, grab its main stem at soil level, and firmly pull the plant straight up and out of its garden bed.

Poison ivy pulled by hand in protective bag

The plant then is in my bag-gloved hand. I next pull the open top of the bag carefully back down my arm and over the poison ivy so the bag ends up inside out with the poison ivy inside the bag. I knot the bag and put it into the trash—not my compost pile or anywhere else where it might re-root.

Poison ivy, bye, bye!

Poison ivy: gone. Bob: no danger of rash. Newspaper bag: recycled in a good cause.


Note: Don’t use a vented plastic bag, such as some veggies and fruit come in. The small vent holes may allow poison ivy’s irritating sap to come into contact with your hand or arm. And if your poison ivy has been growing in place for some time, it may not pull easily, so you may want to consider nuking it with an herbicide labeled to kill poison ivy.


Leaves of three?


Bye, bye.

Mugging the Mugwort

Mugwort plants in blackberry patch

Some weeds are just misplaced flowers, and some are just plain impossible.

One of the impossible weeds at Meadow Glenn is mugwort (Artemisa vulgaris).

Some of mugwort’s common names range from the descriptive to truthful. 

“Chrysanthemum weed” is descriptive. Mugwort’s leaf shape and aroma somewhat resemble those of garden chrysanthemums. “Felon weed,” however, tells the real story. What this weed does to gardens is nothing short of criminal because once it’s established in a garden, it is next to impossible to remove or kill completely.

Mugwort was well established at the south end of our house when we moved here 14 years ago. Knowing nothing about the weed, I cut, hoed, dug, and pulled mugwort during the spring and summer months for several years. In an additional fit of ignorance, I planted a blackberry bed where I had just dug out mugwort. Now, years later I still fight mugwort in our blackberry bed every spring and summer. It’s the weed that just keeps growing.

Mugwort's 'persistent' underground stems

Weeds of the Northeast (1997 edition), the handy reference work by Uva, Neal, and DiTomaso, hints why my past battle plans have failed: “Rhizome fragments [underground stems] can be transported by cultivation or with infested balled and burlapped nursery stock, topsoil, or composted organic matter. … Its persistent rhizomes make mugwort difficult to control in perennial crops. It is also well adapted to mowing and cultivation and is relatively tolerant of most herbicides.”

In the past, every time I tried to dig or hoe mugwort, I broke up the weed’s underground stems or rhizomes. If a plant had four rhizomes and I broke each into three pieces, I likely ended up with 12 new plants.

That’s why a premium crop of mugwort grows in our blackberry patch. But enough is enough, and I’ve decided to get serious about eradicating this plant pest. Mugwort often survives selective, broadleaf herbicides such as 2,4-D. It’s time to use the ultimate weapon, glyphosate, a non-selective herbicide that kills most plants.

The University of Maryland Master Gardener Handbook explains that glyphosate “stops growth by interfering with amino acid synthesis. Growing plants slowly turn yellow and stop growing, and the entire plant eventually turns brown and dies. Glyphosate is quickly bound to organic matter and has no residual activity in the soil….”

Yes, I’m going to use glyphosate on the mugwort, but I’m not going to spray with abandon. One reason is that I don’t want to risk having the herbicide drift onto my blackberry plants. Another is that I try to use a minimal amount of pesticides of any sort.

Weeded bed awaits new mugwort sprouts

On Monday I took my Cape Cod weeder and uprooted all the mugwort I could in our blackberry patch. On the surface, the bed’s looking good now. But as I weeded, I could hear underground stems snapping, so I know that in a week or two, new mugwort plants will be sprouting from each of those fragments. I plan once a week to check for mugwort sprouts and then spray the emerging leaves with glyphosate.

After all these years of battling mugwort, will I finally win the battle in 2011?

That’s my plan.

Kill Those Flowers!

Crocuses

What flowers are blooming in your garden today—crocuses and hairy bittercress?


We usually grab our Canons and fire away at our crocuses—and ignore our hairy bittercress.


But to ignore hairy bittercress is a big mistake!

Hairy bittercress

Hairy bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta) is one of several winter weeds that are blooming right now. Even though the soil was just a tad too damp from the previous rain, I got out my hoe yesterday and started uprooting, decapitating, and otherwise killing the blooming winter weeds in our veggie and flower gardens. To kill them now means eliminating another year’s crop of winter weed seeds that will sprout this fall, winter over, and grow on any late-winter, sunny day.


A week ago I noticed small hairy bittercress plants starting to put up flower stalks. When I attacked them yesterday afternoon with my hoe, they were at least double in height and width and covered with white flowers. Within days they would have begun going to seed. The seeds would have dried in their coiled seed casings ready for me, my hoe, or a passing animal to touch them. The capsules then would “explode,” showering seeds up to nine feet, effectively sowing seeds for the next generation of the weed.

Mouseear chickweed

So I hoed hairy bittercress and other winter weeds, such as mouseear chickweed, trying to knock the still sticky soil off their roots so they would dry and die. It may shower on Saturday, so with hoe in hand I'll have to check in about a week to see if any have tried to re-root.


When it comes to winter weeds, I’d rather spend an hour and a half hoeing them as young plants in mid-March than spending three or four hours hoeing, digging, pulling, and carrying them away as mature plants in April or May.

'Tis the Season to Bundle Up & Hoe, Hoe, Hoe

Repeated heavy frosts have severely damaged the last of my lettuce, as you can see in the photo, so I’ve got to pull it up some windless day soon. But, hey, what are those small green plants growing in the protection of the damaged lettuce? They’re weeds—winter weeds—chickweed and other winter opportunists.

Sometimes it’s hard to imagine that even though nighttime temperatures are dipping into the teens, many weeds continue growing. A less cold day here, a warmer afternoon there, and many weeds will grow to substantial size by late March, when December’s sprouting chickweed will have grown into March’s thick mat.

So I have a choice to make. Am I going to bundle up now and enjoy the bracing weather on some winter day as I hoe winter weeds, uprooting them so their roots dry, freeze, and die? Or am I going to stay snug in my recliner and be faced with deeply rooted and matted weeds next spring?

I’ve decided that I’ll get pull my blue Polartec blanket up under my chin and stay snug in my recliner, and then when the winter wind stops and the weather warms a few degrees, I’ll dash to the garage, grab my hoe, and chop away at my winter weeds.

What long-term vision—weeding in December!
Hoe, hoe, hoe.