Hardening off the early plants

It is that time of year.  Time to start putting out those early plants to get them ready for the brutality of life in the garden.  Some of the things I will do an early start on are onions, lettuce, spinach, kale, cabbage... the cold weather crops.  You can start them indoors like I do with onion seeds for my storage onions, or start them in the ground like I do for green onions and peas.
If you start plants indoors they have the best of growing conditions.  Perfect water, perfect light...the good life.  Outdoors it is windy and cold.  The full sun is more than they are used to.  Taking plants out means doing it in slow steps.  First days are just for a few hours, out of the wind, indirect light.  Lengthen the time out, increase the light exposure, get them used to the breezes then bring them back in at night.  If you have an unexpected snow storm or cold snap into the teens and 20's, keep them in.  Within a couple of weeks they are spending the whole day outside from sun up to sun down.  The leaves feel thicker, stronger than the tender plants you started with.
The cold tolerant plants will be ready for planting out in the garden as long as the soil is workable.  If you have to chip away the ice, it's too early.  If the soil feels like a wet sponge, it's too early.  It should turn easily and hold together without water dripping out when you squeeze it in your hand.  You can use floating row covers to add some protection or a heavier frost cover if some colder weather sets in after planting.  It is surprising what cold weather crops can handle.  They are not talking very favorable conditions for my planned planting on Easter weekend, but I am going to start making my plans anyway.

A very garden weekend

I think we have finally turned the corner with the weather in Milwaukee.  We had snow flurries in the air on Friday night, which we pretended didn't exist as we were driving home in it.  Saturday morning dawned beautifully and the day was sunny and warmer.  It was an especially beautiful morning as I had been looking forward to a woody plants grafting class.  I won't go into great detail about the whole process as it has so many fine points.  I enjoyed the instructor, Michael Yanny very much.  I have heard him speak at other events, so I knew that it would be a quality class.  It also came very highly praised by other friends who did it last spring.  We got individualized instruction with just four people in each session.  He checked our technique and work to guide us through.  Time will tell how successfully we joined two plants together.  I will be purchasing The Grafter's Handbook by R.J. Garner.  We all went home with six pots that we grafted ourselves.  I was partial to the antique apple varieties we had to choose from.  I also did a lilac, amur cork tree, and witch hazel.

 Plants have started popping after a spring rain (Wednesday/Thursday) and a bit of following sun.  I can see the rhubarb poking through.  The dwarf iris are now blooming along side the snow drops.  I covered over a few things in the vegetable garden with straw in November.  I pulled that off on Saturday afternoon and can see some Swiss chard, kale, radicchio, and I think the late planted baby cabbage plants made it as well.  

 

     

It was the official first day of line-dried clothes day today.  I have been putting out sheets and light weight t-shirts most of the winter, but today was an all out, fill up the lines wash day.  Everything dried on the lines without laying them around on chair backs, so that is what makes it the official first day.  I watched birds coming and going the past couple days which we haven't seen since last fall.  Turkey vultures circled the neighborhood while I stood watch over the grill. It was just such a fine day to be outdoors.

I didn't spend as much time outside as I would have liked today.  Between loads of laundry, I was busy making more cutting of coleus, geraniums, and ibosa vine.  I cleaned out some of the old stock plants to make way for more seeding.  The coleus from the last cutting was well rooted and was put into cell packs for spring planting.  I saved a few stock plants in larger pots, back up for failed cuttings and possible starters in the garden.  I seeded my Tidal Wave Petunias and Purple Tower Petunias as they have 8-10 week start time.  I also put in some Red Acre cabbage and Bonsai Pak Choi for early planting out later.  I already have the Brisk Green Pak Choi and the Baby cabbage ready to go.  I set the plants out with my onion seedlings for a few hours today for hardening off.  There is only two weeks until Easter which is my goal for planting them all.  Welcome back, Spring!

Spring Clean Up in the Garden

The garden after spring cleaning

With a pruner and pocket and rake in hand I made my way into the garden Sunday afternoon.  It was a beautiful day in Milwaukee!  It was warm (50's) and dry with a light breeze.  The first real day of spring weather.
I got out early enough this year to prune back some of my woody perennials.  The lavender and sage were both in need of some cleaning out and sheering back this year.  No new growth yet, so I gave them both a much needed pruning.  I also cleaned out some of the dead stems of the perennials in the rain garden as I raked through section by section.  I found lots of maple seeds and horse chestnuts had gotten in among the ground covers.  I would much rather rake out seeds than to pull out rooted seedlings one by one.
The ground is still frozen so the bulbs have not popped out yet with the exception of the snow drops.  I look forward to their bloom this year without all the debris to pick out around their tender stems.
The snow cover we got this winter seems to have done a good job of insulating some of the more tender plants.  I did some moving around last fall and these plants also seem to have come through well.  I hope it didn't protect the nasty bugs as well as the plants, but I bet they enjoyed the snow blanket also.
Get out there soon and clean out the garden beds before the thaw comes and the rains turn the soil to mud.  I know I am ready for spring!

Snowdrops

Pruning trees

Many people do not realize that winter is an excellent time to prune trees.  I had a crab apple that was getting too close to the front of the house and a Ginko that hadn't been pruned since it was planted over a decade ago.  The Ginko had been very stunted by poor soil conditions in the nursery and hadn't grown much before or the first few years after planting.  A bit of compost and better drainage finally helped it take off.  The poor Ginko was over-run by a weedy mulberry and half of it didn't develop because of shading on the south side of the tree.  I gave it a year to recover and find the light before climbing up there tonight and giving it balance.  So much of the tree was over the yard and all the energy was heading north and west.  I watched it this summer and determined what was going to need work come winter.
After a little bit of ground work of deciding what should stay and what should go, I climbed up into the tree with my ARS saw and Felco pruner.  These are two of the best pruning tools I have ever owned professionally and for home.  My goal was to get a central leader going in the tree again and provide balance to the long shaded crown.

Starting from the top of the picture, I established a new leader on the tree.  I noted this summer what was dead up there and what my best option was to go with. The next several cuts were to remove branches where multiple branches were coming from the same point on the trunk.  I was also choosing to remove branches that were reaching up to my new leader and competing with it for top position in the crown.  The third type of cuts I made were to head back some of the other competing branches that were somewhat smaller but also competing.  There were too many branches to remove completely for competition reasons, so heading them back to an outward bound side branch will buy me some time while the tree reestablishes the new central leader.  The lowest cuts were to provide clearance over the shed.  I also cut off any inner branches growing straight up into the tree and crossing with other branches.

When I was done, you can now look up into the tree and see that the branches now balance out over the entire circumference of the trunk.  Number one was my heading cut to establish a new leader.  2 and 4 are cuts to remove the excess number of branches originating for the same point. (#2 is a cut which I should have taken back a bit more to reduce the stub effect you can see).  #3 is a heading cut which is on a side branch to keep it from competing with my new leader.  #5 is the cut which raised the lowest branch up from the shed.
Ginko trees tend to have more branches at a whorl (a point at the same height on the trunk, think Christmas trees) so eliminating the multiple branch cluster is not the ultimate goal.  Directional pruning to encourage outward growth is a plus with them as they can have kind of twisted branches which want to head up through the center.  Get to know your trees by species so you know what to expect when pruning.  


Here is the best diagram you can have to understand the proper pruning cuts.  Doing a 3 step cut will help keep you from tearing bark down the trunk when taking off heavier branches.  It is a good practice for ones you may also consider small branches.  Never make flush cuts!  These will not heal well because you have removed the branch collar which helps the branch cut close over the pruning wound.  Study up on pruning before you take the saw outdoors and start hacking away.  

Coutesy of West Texas Forestry Council

I will end the Pruning 101 session here as there can be more said than time allows.  I am a gardener, but I am an Urban Forester first.  If you are not up to pruning your own trees or don't have the equipment to do it, hire a trained arborist.  There are plenty of people with a chain saw and truck that can give you a bid on pruning.  It is the trained arborist that will know what needs to be done and the best way to do it.  Certified arborist can be found through the International Society of Arboriculture.  One job you should NEVER do on your own is anything around electrical wires including cable and phone.  Always call your local power company first.

Nature's fertilizer

The rabbits leave my flowering kale alone all summer and fall (it was suggested that they cannot digest highly cruciferous vegetation).  Once the weather gets deathly cold and the plants have been frozen for a couple months, they start to nibble away at them.  This spring I will have a flower bed full of rabbit droppings to turn in as the kale filled this bed last fall.  I hope rabbit droppings are good for tomato plants headed here this summer.

A quick Google search and I have my answer.  Rabbit manure is good in the garden.  How nice to have a tool that my grandmother never even dreamed of while she did her own farm garden.  Although, I bet grandma could have told me that from experience.

Grandma in her rocking chair in the old log house-thanks to my cousin, Lynn for sharing!

Spring is gearing up in the basement greenhouse.

It was time to get busy with my plants in the basement again.  Some of the stock plants were up to the lights and ready for cutting.  Others were pot bound and needed a bigger home for their roots. Others were ready for a good cleaning again.  A few of them needed some insect control (white flies on the Lantana again).  The bench was ready for a good shuffling around and cleaning out of all the trays.  Everything was swept up and taken out to the compost pile if it was no long attached to a plant.
The Canna rhizomes were hadn't been cleaned and potted yet and it is getting a little late in the winter if I want good sized plants to put in the garden in June.  I also put my favorite yellow begonia tuber in a pot for the umpteenth time.  I never have successfully gained more than one plant from year to year, but it is such a sunny spot in the shade.  Promises to myself to buy more each year go unfulfilled. 

I divided plants again as I had last year so my Mandevilla vine is up to four.  I have not propagated it by cuttings, just divided the original pot each year as the four cutting became bigger and stronger plants each season.  It was fun to pull them apart and see what is going on in the pot.  The roots reminded me of dividing asparagus ferns when I worked in the greenhouse with their swollen, watery root nodules.  I also divided my Pennisetum grass into four.  All the dividing and new seeding means it was time to set up more areas for plants.  Some of them are in a sunny south facing window on the second floor.  I have never set up a table here before, but it was handy and easy to set up.  The small room is cramped for space now, but it is so pleasant to sit and look at all those plants and think about spring.

I also had to add the power cord to my kitchen window light and add the boot trays for catching the water from the cuttings and seedlings.  I have my second round of coleus rooting in jars and have moved my seedlings under the light as well.  I left the micro-greens in the basement since their was still room for them yet.  It is a nice problem to have when the space is getting tight.  For me it means that spring is just around the corner.  My next round of seeding is the first weekend of April for some of the early crops and longer season varieties.  It was good to sit down and get it all in order so I can see at a glance what is coming up.  Knowing that seeding is close meant looking at my supply of clean plastic trays and inserts.  I was low on some and had to run a bucket of hot bleach water to sterilize pots today, so some inserts also went into the soaking bucket for 10 minutes of sanitation time.

With the wedding last fall I did not clean up pots with my fall clean up last year as I did in  2012.  As a result, I have a shelf full of dirty pots, trays, and liners in my garage that I will have to deal with soon.  It is nice to not have to think about cleaning pots every time I want to do some upgrading or pricking out of seedlings.  My store shelves are empty and will have to be replenished.  Unfortunately, my garden gnomes have not been much help in this area.  I found a warm spot on the south side of the house and got busy cleaning a small batch to get me started.  The snow has melted here, but you can see in the background that there is plenty of white on the yards yet.  I am still looking at getting that cold frame put together so I can use this nice, warm patch of ground for an early crop of lettuce.  Maybe next weekend.

The Hope of Spring to Come

This was the scene just yesterday looking towards downtown Milwaukee.  The ice is thick on the water this year.  The Great Lakes are frozen over the most in over a decade.  Ice fishermen are having to use extensions on their augers to get through ice over 3 feet thick.  It is a good thing as our lake level will go up instead of down this year due to the evaporation loss being lower this winter.  The added snow will also help increase lake levels which is also a good thing.  It is just so hard being a gardener and waiting, waiting for spring to show us that it will come.
I heard the broad wing hawks out in the back yard trees calling back and forth today.  There is some snow melt and temperatures are into the 40's again.  We have a weather system moving in tonight but it is a promise of rain rather than white stuff.  It may freeze, but temperatures are going up.
I have much to do in my indoor green space.  I want to get some micro-greens going this weekend.  I have my seeding schedule all laid out, but not on my calendar to make sure I do it on time.  It is also time to make some cuttings and start pitching the old plants soon.  Spring will come, in small, quiet steps.  We turn to look and it disappears, but it is there.
I am looking forward to my annual Art in Bloom held at the Milwaukee Art Museum.  I am taking my oldest daughter for her first time this year.  I have a bonus day this year to spend with a college friend coming into town for the event.  This is such a wonderful time to take in beautiful art work, floral arrangements, and see a world class building.
Spring will come, we just have to go and find it under the snow banks this year.