A Hard Stop

We had a hard stop for our growing season this year.  The bitter cold that rushed down dropped us to 9ºF with a few more nights in the teens. 

The day before the front arrived I ran around covering tender plants with tarps, blankets, leaves, and leaf cages. A week later they seem to have made it through just fine, but plants I didn’t cover were not so fortunate. The landscape looks bleached. The vegetable patch is done, save for the carrots, but they now need to be dug before the delicious sugars start being redirected into regenerating top growth.  I picked what I could of the cabbage, broccoli, and kale before the cold arrived.  They are all now turning to mush. 

I suppose that the story the landscape is telling this year decided it was time for a chapter break instead of a comma. I do love to extend the season and keep it going, but it does feel refreshing to have a bare slate garden for the new year.  

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I’m reflecting back on 2022, a year that has been good to us.  We have lived here in our log cabin for five years now, and I now know this place better than I ever have. I can predict how the light will move and irradiate a certain group of plants through a gap in the trees. I see how the water runs and where currents can be an issue.  I remember where the first frost will settle and the first spring beauty will bloom. And, I have built a hefty list of plants that do well in our little valley. There is a peace that comes from knowing a spot of earth and guiding it towards a better future.

And, now looking forward to 2023, I’m planning what comes next.  I see many peers in the creative community going through their end of the year reviews.  What went well? What didn’t go well and can be made better? We in the green industry can do the same. But, where to start? There have been several moons and many more sleeps since the clock struck midnight 364 days ago.

I have tried to get better at capturing ideas this year to remember and reflect. I used to walk around with a Field Notes in my back pocket, jotting down ideas and sketches, but now I find my phone more convenient.  I can take photographs of beds, circle and scribble notes on them using the edit function, and save them in an album for later. 

I use the iPhone’s Reminders to track what needs to be done in the garden.  I will either walk around with it open and type as needed or tell Siri to create a reminder for my garden list, and then dictate whatever needs to be done.  Once inside I can filter through them and move those with more importance to the top.  And, I can set deadlines or due dates so that when I need to pull those seeds out of the fridge from stratifying in 1 month and 11 days it pops up on my phone when needed. 

For capturing ideas that I see online I have a few options.  Day One journal app is great for not only documenting what happened in the garden that day but also screenshotting ideas that I find like a surprising plant combination or adding plants to a wish list. I think it is now a monthly subscription as I subscribed early on and got grandfathered in. Other options include the free apps Evernote, Trello, Google Docs, and Notion for capture. Each can be used in endless ways from tracking seeds and cultivars to storing notes and research about plants.  Notion is my current favorite for its quick sync across multiple devices and its customizability.

Of course, it can be overwhelming to see so many items on a to do list but remember, small steps. One or two things done a day or a week can move you forward faster than you think on a gardening project or goal. There’s also the grace of the short days of winter.  We are inside more starting the new year and planning what needs to come next.

Sometimes I feel like E.B. White who listed a plethora of tasks in his 1941 essay “Memorandum” with most sentences starting with “Today I should…” or “I ought to finish.…”

I suppose he was employing the Getting Things Done methodology before it was vogue, this idea of emptying your mind of all that has to be done because how can you have ideas when your brain is too busy trying to hold them?  He jumps from task to task to task, each one leading him to another thing he has remembered needs to be completed. Just one example, he must rake the brush that was left in the field, and today would be good to burn it since it rained recently, but before he burns it he needs to research is it better or burn or let rot into compost. I chuckle and think how often my mind goes in these items in a series loops, too.

Of course, it is a bit tongue in cheek because there’s no way he can get all the things done that he needs to today.  But, listing them is a good first step. 

He closes with “I’ve been spending a lot of time here typing, and I see it is four o’clock already and almost dark, so I had better get going.” 

I should, too.

On Pruning a Peach

I spied a solitary bloom on our peach tree in the orchard, and I knew it was time to prune.  Removing branches from fruit trees in the south is typically a fall or winter task.  However, after losing a couple of small peach trees last year from the extreme cold, I erred on the side of caution and waited until the last possible moment to correct the tree’s architecture.  That moment had arrived.    

I scurried inside to review the art of pruning as if the minuscule time I saved meant less sap flowing toward the soon-to-be-removed buds.  Pruning is a commitment, like promising to cook a once-a-year meal for the family.  It is good to refresh the mind on technique. The last thing one wants is regret for years to come from a simple mistake, whether it be a bad cut or a burnt dish.   

I pulled The Holistic Orchard by Michael Phelps off the shelf and flipped through the pages.  Many things I knew. Prune for an open center, check.  Prune out branches that grow back inside the tree, check.  Prune above the bud that you want to grow outward, check.  

It was good to read again how light needs to penetrate into the tree and to imagine how the radiant energy would hit branches.  “Be the bud,” I am told not once but twice.  I chuckled at advice he received from a Vermont farmer in the book, “You done [sic] a good job at pruning if afterward you can take the family cow and fling her between the branches.”  

I don’t have a cow, and I wanted a second perspective. Therefore, I pulled up Dr. Mike Parker’s extension videos on pruning peaches.  I never had Mike for a class, but I considered him a friendly colleague while going through grad school at NC State. Since my tree was a couple years old, I opted to watch the video on pruning two-year old specimens. His discussion on heading cuts and scaffolding was helpful to think about maintaining good architecture.

Back outside, I grabbed my loppers.  My pruners were already in the holster I wear on my belt.  I would need both for the different sized branches.

I pruned the easy twigs first—the thin whips that grew into the center and on the bottom of the branches.  I next set about heading back branches to remove apical dominance and encourage them to strengthen and become more bushy in habit.  Then came the hard part—to reduce the upright growths down to nubs.  I should have pruned them last year, but I’m just so used to encouraging vertical growth in trees that it feels weird to make such cuts. The branches rose a good 10-12 feet up in the sky, and in a moment of, “Here we go,” one swift chop reduced the growth by half to stubs.  I felt like an accomplice to crape murder.  

Hatrack, anyone?

I always feel bad after a harsh pruning.   But, I know it’s better for the fruit tree—to encourage outward growth, an open center, and denser branches that can actually bear the load of the fruit.  And, having a well-pruned peach tree is better for me and my summertime cravings for cobbler.

Another benefit to pruning is the beauty I could bring inside afterwards.  Since I waited so late, the the buds were all primed to burst open.  I went through the clippings and chose the best I could to force indoors.  They have slowly opened over the past week becoming a beautiful sweet pink.  Now, I can’t wait for our trees to start bearing.  

The thinnings of ‘Tropic Beauty’ gain a second life with forcing. These peach blossoms are such a welcome sight after the buds pop open.

Constructing a Cold Frame

This weekend, I built a cold frame.  The project has been on my wish list for a while.  I’ve had issues with getting seeds started with our couple-times-a-year gully washers.  This simple structure will provide me with protection from rain to start perennial and cool-season annuals with the added bonus of a couple degrees of extra warmth at night.

I had in mind what I was trying to construct since I built them as a teenager back in Tennessee based on Eliot Coleman’s designs.  A walk around the hardware store, and I was able to piece together my project.  I decided on a smaller size (3 × 6 ft) than my usual 4 × 8 ft because that 18 sq ft was the largest pane of plexiglass I could find.  I also chose pine as my wood. There’s a cedar lumberyard about an hour away, and for future frames I’ll use that wood. But, I was in a hurry to get it built before the semester started, and it will work well for a few years.

First step before building the box was to build the wooden frame to the piece of plexiglass to create a light, the name of the pane of glass on a cold frame. You want to make sure that the light fits the box snug.

Here’s the light constructed with the plexiglass attached to the wooden frame. I used braces on the joints to make sure it stays sturdy. I used a PVC-rated drill bit and drilled slowly into the plexiglass. The guy at the hardware store told me to leave the protective coating of plastic on the glass to help drill through it. If the protective layers are absent, he said a piece of tape would help to protect the glass from shattering when drilled.

A bolt and washer hold the plexiglass on the wooden frame, and to the right is a handle for the light.

I constructed the box out of two ten-foot long 2 × 12’s cut into two pieces—6 ft long for the front and back and 3 ft long for the sides. To create a slope on the top of the box to maximize sun exposure, I cut 4 in off one of the 6 ft boards to make it 8 in tall, and for the side boards, I cut a slant (1.3 in drop per 1 ft board length). Once constructed on the ground, the cold frame is turned over so that the front and back boards have a slight slant in one direction and so that the top is flush with the light. Notches made in the middle front and back allow the installation of a support beam.

With the ground cleared, a nice mulch of leaves will help to keep weeds down and support the trays to keep them from sitting on the ground.

Finished product!

It was a quick project and only took me 3 hours to make. The total cost of supplies was around $160 to cover 18 square feet (~8.90 per square foot), which is cheaper from most of the models on the market. If I could do it over again, I would try to figure out a way to reduce the size of the cross beams across the light that block some of the solar radiation. Soon, I’ll also add strips along the bottom of the frame to help protect the wood from rotting, which is another suggestion from Eliot Coleman’s design. I also want to attach the light to the box and cut a notched piece of wood to open the frame to the desired height during the day.

But, overall I’m pleased with how it turned out, and I look forward to having better success growing plants.

Dyeing to Learn

During the Perennial Plant Association's symposium this year, we visited Chatfield Farms, a beautiful extension of the Denver Botanic Gardens with an agricultural twist.  Here in the farm's productive, flat fields surrounded by towering mountains, we learned about agricultural education and food production that occurs in the greater Denver area.  I was inspired by seeing the short grass prairie and other perennials planted, but one section of the garden really impressed me because it was different than anything I've ever seen in a garden.  

Eventually we came to an area surrounded by a fence.  I didn't know exactly what was inside, but from the table set up outside and the colorful cloths displayed, I quickly put two and two together.  It was a demonstration garden for educating people about how fabrics are dyed.  

The Chatfield Farms dye garden featured a variety of common garden plants that can be used to color-change clothes.

I immediately fell in love with it!  The whole concept.  I'm always looking for new ways to connect people to horticulture, and right now plants fulfilling utilitarian purposes are a gateway for reaching people who aren't horticulturists or gardeners.  Also, kids these days seem to change their hair color every time they wash it, and the link between dyeing your locks and dyeing your socks could could be another connection with young people.  

Using plants as dyes is always something that I've know can be done.  Colors have come from plants and been used for thousands of years, but to see it so eleqantly displayed was engaging.  

The carpeting Coreopsis matches the drapes.  Simple scraps of cloth hung near each color's source offers a teachable moment.  

A sphere made from dyed strips of wood demonstrates that the craft isn't just limited to cloth.  

A close-up of the colorful wood slivers.  

A variety of threads dyed from a plethora of plant pigments.

Indigo. Cerulean. Salmon. Russet.  The blue- and pink- colored threads were my favorites, and I was amazed to realize that all these colors can come from nature.  

The educational aspect of the garden really enchanted me.  As a professor of horticulture at an agricultural college, it made me ask how can we replicate this approach throughout the gardening and natural world because the experience left me dyeing to learn more.