My soil test results contradict everything a gardener is told to do. As promised, I received a letter in the mail less than two weeks after submitting the soil samples to the lab detailing the shortcomings. As it turns out, both areas are pretty similar despite the fact that one is an established garden, the other hardly touched except for the tricolor beech and two Techny arborvitae that are no bigger than a minute. But there's one significant difference and it's a game changer. The redbud garden, which is no longer home to a redbud on account of verticillium wilt, was one of the first gardens I dug almost 20 years ago. It's seen a lot of compost which explains why it tested "very high" for organic matter. A whopping 10.0! Too much organic matter can be a bad thing. Ummm, wait, what? ...
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No Planting Yet, Get a Soil Test First!
I have a confession to make. My garden hasn't had a soil test in 10 years. There are plenty of things in the garden, like the chlorosis on the little lime hydrangea and the groundcovers that never seem to cover any ground, that have been telling me now's the time. I'm finally prepared to listen and only wish I'd done it a whole lot sooner. But with the new side yard bed I told you about last week, I'm determined to do things right. And while I'm at it, I'm going to sample the bed that used to contain my beautiful redbud. It bit the dust last year and nothing in that area, aside from the hosta and solomon seal which could probably survive Chernobyl, is thriving. So I'm double dipping, so to speak. Most states have a university extension office that you can call or look up online for ...
Verticillium Wilt: The Soilborne Disease Claiming Victim(s)
For nearly 17 years, my garden flew under the radar of disease until last year when it was obvious something was wrong with my redbud tree (Cercis canadensis). One of the main branches didn't flower or leaf out. While I remained hopeful, the reality was that I sort of knew what was happening but didn't want to admit it to myself. It was kind of like saying Beetlejuice! three times. Only this was even harder, this was real and attacking my favorite tree. I sawed out the affected branch and waited for another spring, hoping it might bounce back but it didn't. It got worse. Verticillium wilt has consumed two-thirds of the tree and right now, only the branch closest to the gate has flowers. The rest is dead. So I'm enjoying that last branch while at the same time lamenting the loss of the ...
Save Precious Topsoil When Removing Grass
So here's the thing about winter. It creates plenty of time to think up ways to add more plants to the garden. But the only way to do that is to dig out more grass. SSHHH...don't tell my husband. Guys and their grass. I find it's better for marital harmony if I dig a new bed while he's at work rather than discuss it with him first and hear a litany of reasons why he needs that area. Especially since he's prone to complaining about having to cut it in the first place! The way I see it, I'm doing him a giant favor while at the same time, assuaging my addiction. It's a win-win. You have three options for grass removal: Cover the area with cardboard and allow the grass and weeds to die, which takes far longer than I care to wait. Spray the heck out of it with turf killer. That's ...
Picking a Cover Crop for the Raised Beds
Over the years, I've grown all kinds of crops in my raised beds. The glass gem corn (pictured above) is my most recent experiment. To me, everything in the garden is an experiment because nothing in gardening is a sure thing (unless we're talking about mint). Oftentimes, I've taken the soil for granted with the yearly expectation that the soil will continue to churn out the most delicious produce my family and me wait all year to relish. So this fall, for the very first time in my 20-plus years of gardening, the veg plot is getting a cover crop. Perhaps the relative success in the veg garden can be attributed to the modest amount of compost that I add every year from my small compost bin, as well as the organic fertilizers the plants receive both at planting time and throughout the ...
Treating Chlorosis Is Like Locating Toilet Paper in a Pandemic
Chlorosis is pretty. I wish those dark green veins and yellow margins were an interesting attribute instead of a window into one of the affects of alkaline soil on an acid loving plant. Apparently, I'm not the only one having trouble locating the soil amendment I need to fix my chlorosis problems. June is the month for it. Iron-tone as well as several other products for treating it are flying off the shelves. I never thought I'd write something like that. Then again, I never would have predicted toilet paper's rise in popularity last year either. Who knew a pandemic could inspire such a movement? Until now, soil amendments have been pretty easy to come by. But I'm happy to report I finally found Iron-tone. With the price of gas rising by the hour, the phone was the only way to handle ...
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