The Yellow Farmhouse Garden

December 28, 2017

Note to self: save materials for Christmas wreaths next summer

Filed under: Related topics,Weeds — bob @ 9:48 am

It’s a lot of fun seeing all of the different kinds of Christmas decoration folks have put together out of natural materials.  Wreaths have evolved way past just a simple circle of evergreen boughs with a red ribbon tied to it, although you still see plenty of those.

As gardeners we have the opportunity to grow or gather together the raw materials for unique Christmas decorations. For example around here at pruning time, we save our grapevine trimmings and roll them up into circles, that’s a common one many people do. But other materials can be used as well. Many flowers, shrubs , stalks even weeds have interesting features that can be quite decorative. Who remembers making Christmas items in elementary school out of milkweed seedpods?

Some materials, such as hydrangea stems,are easier to bend and form when they are fresh.

Some materials, such as hydrangea stems,are easier to bend and form when they are fresh.

You only have to use your imagination a little to come up with something that is really neat and one-of-a-kind. If you’re not the creative type, you can always glean ideas from Pinterest.

Right now, while you’re thinking of it, make a note in your phone’s calendar app to remind yourself next spring and summer to look for raw materials for your 2018 Christmas. Maybe you’ll even come up with something cool enough to post on Pinterst yourself.

Bob

September 19, 2017

Dogbane in wild area

Filed under: Native plants,Weeds — Tags: , , , — bob @ 1:27 pm

When I was aroud ten years old, back when all kids were free-range, I spotted spotted a plant during my wanderings that impressed me so much that I’m intrigued by it to this day. I didn’t know what it was called at the time. It wasn’t until later, when I was in college, that I found out it was called dogbane.

What caught my eye way back then, were the long, thin seed pods. They were hanging from the plant in two’s, connected to each other at the top. What looked weird to me was the fact they weren’t  attached like two green beans. They appeared to be one pod that grew into two parts, separating at the top. I’d never seen anything like that before in my young life.

Distinctive seed pods of dogbane plant.

Distinctive seed pods of dogbane plant.

I’m not sure if dogbane was ever that hard to find but I have noticed however, in the past twenty years, more and more dogbane growing all over our area. That’s probably due to more people leaving space for wild plants to grow for butteries, pollinators and other wildlife

A few years back someone brought me a part of the plant that they had collected asking what the plant was. Recognizing it immediately, I said without hesitating “that’s dogbane”. They looked at me like I was BS-ing them, like I made the name up. I could tell they didn’t believe me when they took their plant and just walked away. The next day they told me they had done research on their own and discovered that indeed the was a plant called dogbane and that yes, their plant really was dogbane.

There’s a spot on my property that I cultivated as a vegetable garden for a few years. I decided it wasn’t a good garden spot so I let it go back wild. Lots of different plants moved in including a single dogbane. That one plant has since expanded into a fairly dense stand. Right now the stand is turning a beautiful gold color.

On farms, dogbane can develop into a fairly serious weed. Since it reproduces by seed and by underground rhizomes is can form stands that out-compete field crops. In most cases farmers keep it under control by herbicides or crop rotation.

Bob

 

 

 

 

 

August 15, 2017

Sunflowers can cause problems in the garden

Filed under: Vegetables,Weeds — Tags: , , , — bob @ 11:16 am

Plants have developed an number of different survival techniques that can give them advantages over other plants competing for the same growing space. For example, some plants have roots that produce chemicals that inhibit the growth of other nearby plants of other species. It’s a process known as allelopathy.

Black walnut trees are probably the most recognized allelopathic plants. Homeowners find that it’s impossible to grow many kinds of plants in the root zone of a black walnut tree. Although they work differently than black walnuts, many farm crops such as alfalfa, buckwheat, winter rye and others are alleopathic plants.

Sunflowers provide a wonderful backdrop in the garden as they tower over a space making them a favorite of many gardeners. What gardeners might not know is sunflowers are also alleopathic plants. Because they have the ability to suppress the growth of weeds, sunflowers and other plants are the subject of on-going research to develop organic herbicides for use in sustainable agriculture. Unfortunately, along with weeds, many kinds of garden plants are affected by sunflowers as well.

These tomatoes are struggling to grow near sunflowers.

These tomatoes are struggling to grow near sunflowers.

 

I’ve noticed tomatoes in particular have difficulty growing near sunflowers. Tomatoes are sensitive to some man-made herbicides too, especially certain broadleaf herbicides such as the common lawn weed killer 2,4-D. That makes the tomato plant a great indicator plant for the presence of herbicides and naturally occurring alleopathic substances, sort of like the canary in the coal mine.

Until you know which of your plants can tolerate growing near sunflowers, the best thing is to grow them in a separate bed away from other garden plants.

Bob

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June 18, 2017

Pruning milkweeds to attract monarch butterflies

Filed under: Insects,Other Organisms,Weeds — Tags: , , , , , — bob @ 6:23 am

I saw my first Monarch butterfly several days ago. I know they were here much earlier because I found a caterpillar on my milkweed plants. That means there had to be a female butterfly around before that.

It didn't take long for this caterpillar to disappear into a chrysalis.

It didn’t take long for this caterpillar to disappear into a chrysalis.

It takes around four days for a Monarch egg to hatch. The caterpillar stage lasts around a week and a half to two weeks. Since my caterpillar was almost fully grown, the female Monarch that laid his eggs arrived nearly two weeks ago. How did she sneak into the yard without me seeing her?

Most of my milkweed plants are on the verge of blooming. The plants are maturing and the leaves and stems are beginning to stiffen and get tougher in order to hold up the flowers and seed pods. Although female Monarchs will lay eggs on any milkweed, they prefer the more tender leaves toward the top of the plant.

Make your cut just above a set of leaves to stimulate secondary leaf buds to grow.

Make your cut just above a set of leaves to stimulate secondary leaf buds to grow.

A gardener I know suggested that I cut back my some of my milkweed plants to stimulate new growth and leaves. Theoretically, those new leaves would make my plants more attractive to the butteries than others in the area. I just snipped off the plant just above the existing leaves. That caused some milkweed sap to ooze out of the cut. That sap is poisonous and irritating so make sure you don’t in your eye.

This is the first time I’ve tried this with milkweeds. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Bob

June 4, 2017

Harvesting wild edible from the garden

Filed under: Weeds — Tags: , , , , , — bob @ 5:48 am

Although the temperatures were fine during mid-May, some untimely rain and prior commitments caused me to fall behind in the garden. Memorial Day weekend was when I was supposed to get caught up but a late season bout with the flu keep me off my feet all holiday weekend and into the next week. Now I’m really behind the eight-ball.

That didn’t stop the weeds from growing, they happily grew while my veggies and flower transplants patiently sat in their flats waiting for me to get them into the ground.  One of my lushest weeds right now is lambsquarters. The pure stands coming up in my beds make it look like I purposely planted them there as a crop.

lambsquartersI didn’t plant them but I sure am using them as if I did. Lambsquarters are the most nutritious plant that grows in the garden. It makes the “super-food” kale look like junk food by comparison. Well maybe not junk food, but it is much more dense in most minerals and vitamins on a gram per gram basis than kale. A serving of lambsquarters has more minerals, by far, than a serving of kale. But to be fair, kale has more vitamin C than lambsquarters.

If you like the textures and tastes of a wide variety of salad greens, you’ll enjoy lambsquarters. It sort of reminds me of chard but it has its own texture and taste profile.

Raw lambsquarters has a small amount of oxalic acid but so does kale, spinach, all berries and many other foods including chocolate.

This morning for breakfast I made myself a frittata with lambsquarters and feta cheese. The blueish green leaves turned a bright green after a few seconds of steaming. When added to my deep-yellow, free-range eggs it made an appetizing color combination. The feta cheese added a tasty balance to the earthy flavor of the lambsquarters. It’s my favorite breakfast ingredient this time of year, right behind bacon, sausage and hash browns.

I’ve written about lambsquarters before and will probably will do so again but that is because such a gift from the garden shouldn’t be over-looked just because it is a weed.

Don’t be lulled into a false sense of security though. It is still a weed, a very aggressive weed that’s easy to control when it’s small but can quickly get out of hand if you let it. In a couple of weeks you’ll be wishing you didn’t save that patch to use as a salad green.  Get rid of it as it appears and don’t worry, more will sprout up through the season.

Bob

 

 

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