The beauty of flowers entices many of us to garden. For me, growing hybrid tea roses was my gateway drug into addictive gardening.
I did it ‘right’ back in the ‘80’s. First, in early spring, I built raised beds. Under the area where the beds were going to be located, I double dug soil carefully removing every sliver of grass and weed. I built 4 ft by 8 ft rectangles of pressure treated wood. I filled the boxes with a mix of topsoil and peat moss. I made sure the pH wasn’t overly alkaline.
Once my bare root roses came, I carefully soaked them according to direction and planted them in my new beds. I gave them starter fertilizer then ramped up to some form a blue chemical fertilizer every other week. I poured systemic treatment granules into the soil to help prevent bug damage and fungal disease. I sprayed the nastiest of chemicals onto any bug I saw on their leaves. I did pre-emptive spraying for black spot and rust every other week.
I had beautiful roses. Chemical laden. 
I hated the process of spraying. I’d stress each time I’d mix the stinky stuff for fear of getting it on my skin. I’d try my best to spray when neighbors weren’t home to spare them the smell of the chemicals. I didn’t think about what that poison might be doing to birds or other wildlife. I certainly didn’t think about what I was doing to the soil, the bay and the earth.
“I began to notice the birds disappeared each time I would spray,” said Chris VanCleave, the Redneck Rosarian and competitive rose grower. He now grows roses organically. Like Chris, I’ve moved away from chemicals.
I started experimenting with other blooming plants. I added lilies, daisies, Echinacea, and poppies. I found the reward in growing these plants to be greater than the high maintenance roses. I pulled out rose bushes one at a time to make room for these other plants.
But in recent years, I’ve found that I can enjoy roses without using chemicals. VanCleave has as well.
“If you feed your soil, plants take care of themselves,” said VanCleave.
Since he’s begun feeding his soil organically, he’s watched his roses perform better. Larger blooms with more vibrant color, richer foliage and increased fragrance, can all be attributed to gardening naturally. He’s watched underperforming roses rally. And has observed as much as three times the blooms per plant.
He does this by using composted manure tea and alfalfa meal tea to feed the soil. Specifically, he uses Authentic Haven Brand teas. Roses that are healthy fight fungal diseases more effectively. But it’s still important to take precautions for the best flower and foliage.
Keeping your roses clean and dry is the best way to fight disease. Clean up any leaves at the base of your plants, prune and remove any dead branches, and keep the foliage as dry as possible. VanCleave always waters at the base of the plant. Planting your roses far enough apart to allow for good air circulation is another important part of preventing fungal diseases.
My approach to organic rose growing is similar but maybe a little ordered and less warm and fuzzy.
I compost chicken manure from my coop with other garden and kitchen waste mixed with dried leaves. I top dress all the plants in ornamental beds with this a couple of times a year. That’s all the feeding I generally do, but after talking with Chris, I may try adding some teas next spring.
I manage my roses rather harshly. The bushes that remain in my garden tolerate this. Early in spring, I cut them back to about 6 inches high, cutting the stems above an outward facing leaf scar. They grow rapidly and bloom nicely from May into late-June. In Pennsylvania, Japanese beetles attack in earnest in late June and into July.
Rose leaves and blooms are a delicacy to Japanese beetles. It’s just not pretty to see rose bushes shredded by this little menace. One season, I decided to cover my roses with row covers to try to keep the beetles away. It worked, but row covers draped through out my ornamental beds…. Well… wasn’t very ornamental.
So my current approach is to give up. Once I see the beetles arrive, I hack my plants back down to about a foot tall. This way, they push out new growth and about the time the beetles are gone, they flush out another round of blooms and look healthy, not nearly bald, as they would have if the beetles had their way with them. I leave the second round of growth on the plants during the winter.
Knockout roses and heirloom roses also do well grown organically. But don’t feel like you have to limit yourself to those. You can grow hybrid teas.
“Don’t worry so much about having perfect foliage, “ said VanCleave, “ Enjoy the bloom.”
Summer vegetable harvests – while lovely and rewarding – can be a bit overwhelming. Many of our backyard vegetable garden favorites mature within weeks of each other. One way out to this annual pickle… is to pickle.
Pickling may seem like a frightening black art practiced only by women of yesteryear who are blessed with extraordinary quantities of home economic mojo, but it’s actually much less complex than say, maintaining a quality compost pile. With attention to a couple important things, pickling is easy. It also generates a lot of value. Pickling turns inexpensive vegetables into spendier, crunchy and tangy delights.
There’s a ton of how to info out there – I’ll direct you to some at the bottom – so I’m going to focus on offering up a bit of pickle wisdom that may not be intuitive.
First of all, as with all canning food preservation, it’s important to follow modern, tested recipes. The USDA and others, like the National Center for Food Preservation, tests recipes for their safety. When you meticulously follow these recipes, your preserved food will be safe. Canning is not cooking. When you preserve food, you can’t fiddle with the recipe and be assured of success. This is especially true starting out. Perfect ratios of vinegar to other fluids, spices, and vegetables are crucial to putting food up safely. If you have too little vinegar in your pickles, for example, your pickles could spoil.
Be aware that recipes available on cooking websites might not have been tested and may not be safe. This is also true of grandma’s recipes. Even if you were raised on her pickles, if the recipes haven’t been tested, don’t use them. Food preservation experts recommend using recipes published since 1995. Once you become a pickle pro and perfect a feel for ratios, you can look back at grandma’s recipes and see how they compare.
If uncertain, always err on the side of too much vinegar or acid added to vegetables. Acid is what keeps microorganisms from spoiling food. Also, check your vinegar labels for acidity percentage. Recipes are tested using vinegar with 5 percent acidity. Don’t skimp on the salt and substitute table salt for canning salt. Additives in table salt will cause cloudy brine. Stay away from Kosher salt unless the recipe specifically calls for it. Kosher salt is measured differently and can cause your pickles to be too salty.
Next, your pickles will only be as good as the vegetables you use. Find, or pick, very fresh young cucumbers for pickles. The fresher the cuke, the more natural pectin it contains. This pectin will keep your pickles crisp. There are also products like pickle crisp you can use to help keep the crunch.
. Using an ice bath that many recipes call for, does help preserve crunch. Make sure to cut off the blossom end of the cucumber because it contains enzymes that will soften the pickle.
If you’re purchasing cucumbers, don’t buy any that have been waxed. The wax will interfere with the pickling processes.
Finally, starting out, look for fresh-pack pickling recipes that involve placing fresh cukes or veggies into jars, and covering them with hot brine before processing them in a boiling water bath. This is different than the fermentation method of making pickles. Fermentation is more complex. Also, if you make refrigerator pickles, make sure to use recipes that don’t include marinating at room temperature for longer than thirty minutes and use the refrigerator pickles within three months. Canned pickles can be safely used for a year or more.
The cooking and processing time involved in pickling is less than many other forms of canning. Many types of tomato canning, for example, involve cooking the tomatoes down before cooking them more in a boiling water bath. This can mean cooking and processing for hours. Many pickling recipes only require a boiling water bath for as little as 15 minutes.
To get started with quality recipes, a food preservation bible of sorts is the Ball Blue Book. It’s relatively cheap and has excellent information. Ball and other food processing companies, like Mrs. Wages, have tested recipes on their sites. Other sources of good recipes are the National Center for Home Food Preservation and university agriculture extension sites. Most extension sites share the same USDA information.
My hope is that my cautions about pickling proportions and recipes haven’t enhanced the image of pickling as some lost art. It is actually simple. It’s an accessible way to enjoy your own produce, or local produce you’ve purchased, into the winter while saving money. Store bought pickles are more expensive than cucumbers. As opposed to freezing, canning doesn’t require electricity to keep your food fresh. A green thing to ponder…
Delicate blossoms can be down right bossy. Fancy foliage can tyrannize less rowdy cohorts. Yes, plants can be mean.
We know the biggest bullies. Bamboo has been known to eat small towns. English ivy strangles trees and pulverizes bricks and mortar. Purple Loosestrife storms into waterways bent on domination.
But sometimes, seemingly tame lovelies run riot in your garden. Plants that seem well behaved can be very bad garden tenants. I’m currently hosting several cat fights in my garden. Creeping jenny, Lysimachia nummularia 'aurea' is throwing a hissy fit since Calamintha nepata ‘White Cloud’ is invading Jenny’s territory. Fruit bearing strawberry plants are standing up for themselves against muscular Japanese blood grass. Even coy sweet pea, Lathyrus odoratus, is sneakily attacking from above as she leans over equally sweet but equally passive aggressive Mexican evening primrose, Oenothera speciosa..jpg)
We love plants that are independent and don’t need babying. I personally gravitate toward plants with strong personalities. (And people with strong personalities for the record). I’m not an impartial referee.
I adore Sedum rupestre ‘Angelina’ even as she sows herself in the cracks between my limestone stepping stones. I also love – to the chagrin of my sane gardening friends – horsetail reed, Equisetum hyemale. I completely dig the vertical tines in the landscape and in pots. I enjoy watching high-spirited hardy begonia, Begonia grandis, make herself at home around my toad lilies.
So it’s true. I play favorites in my garden. I ruthlessly yank out delinquent dead nettle, Lamium, in favor of equally gangster Euphorbia, Robbiae.
Plants play nasty in several ways. They can spread underground with stolons. They bulk up and choke out other plants. They can root through their stems. And they can self-seed..jpg)
The biggest menace in my garden this year is a self-seeder. I fell in love with a chartreuse foliage beauty a few years back, Limón talinum, Talinum paniculatum. Lime green foliage is topped off with a loose panicle of tiny purple flowers. I grew it in containers. Now, my garden is a colony under lime foliage occupation. Talinum limon staged a military coup and is ruling like an imperialistic power.
From ten plants spread out through 50 containers in my garden, I now have Talinum limon in the moss between my flagstones, in my vegetable gardens, in sidewalk cracks, in thick colonies mixed in with my strawberries. I am defeated; taken by surprise attack by a voracious self-seeder.
I have a sense of humor about his. Gardens are not static. I love watching wars of the roses… even if not roses. I’d be bored to death if my garden was namby pamby. I have a large dose of spunk. I appreciate plants that do as well. But be warned. If you like obedient plants, do your homework before adding plants to your garden and beware of all the beauties mentioned here. They don’t play nice.
