The Yellow Farmhouse Garden

September 26, 2019

Cranbrook art and the potato, kids and plants do the darndest things

Filed under: Events,Related topics,Vegetables — Tags: , , , , , — bob @ 11:04 am

This past weekend my daughter Robin and I visited the Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills. We took in the show entitled “Landlord Colors”. As you would expect from Cranbrook, it was a top notch exhibit.

The museum’s setting is quite impressive too. Rolling terrain is punctuated by gardens, statuary, and water features. We were on a tight schedule but took some time to walk around the area near the museum. In addition to the gardens adjacent to the building, there are hidden surprises along walkways and trails.

This reflecting pool was built in the early 1900’s.

This reflecting pool was built in the early 1900’s.

Cranbrook also has related “Landlord Colors” art installations in Detroit and one of those was on our itinerary for the day. We drove over to a spot near the Chene Park area to see Scott Hocking’s installation “Bone Black”.

Even the building itself was part of the art installation.

Even the building itself was part of the art installation.

Hocking, a Michigan native, often creates large-scale art work, so large in fact that he uses forklifts, cranes and other pieces of industrial equipment to install them. This work, installed in one of the city’s vacated factory buildings, lived up to its promise. It’s comprised of thirty three derelict speed boats suspended from the building’s steel roof-truss structure. Other sundry, industrial cast-offs dot the floor space to complete the effect.

Industrial cast-offs like this cylindrical vent dotted the floor space.

Industrial cast-offs like this cylindrical vent dotted the floor space.

After enjoying the Cranbrook art exhibit and spectacular gardens, absorbing Scott’s oversized art statement was quite a contrast.

In amongst this huge installation, Robin spotted one humble thing that sort of resonated with me — a small potato plant. It was growing inside a five foot cylindrical, roof vent-like assembly that was resting on the factory floor. We had to look down, over the wide edge the cylinder to find the hidden plant. The potato plant had the beginnings of a well-developed root system and a six inch sprout growing from a two inch tuber. Holes in the roof had let in enough rain water for the plant to grow. A thin layer of dirt left over from the factory shut-down provided a substrate for the roots.

A potato inadvertently became part of the art installation.

A potato inadvertently became part of the art installation.

Robin and I asked Scott if the potato was one of his trademark whimsical objects that he often hides in his work. He laughed and said no, it wasn’t him that put it there. He went on to tell us a young family visited the installation a while back. The mom was carrying her baby while walking through the building. As they were leaving, the mom told Scott her baby had tossed a potato into the aforementioned structure and hoped it wouldn’t cause a problem. Scott told her not to worry since it was too far down to reach and nobody would see it there anyway. We all had a good laugh at that story.

On our drive back home Robin and I wondered out loud, what was a baby doing carrying around a potato?

Bob

September 19, 2019

Migrating monarch butterflies

Filed under: Butterflies,Flowers,Insects,Other Organisms — Tags: , , , , — bob @ 10:39 am

In past years, goldenrod has received a bad reputation through no fault of its own. For decades, doctors implied their patient’s allergy symptoms were caused by goldenrod pollen when in fact, the actual culprit was ragweed.

The thinking behind it was ragweed flowers are relatively inconspicuous compared to flowers on other plants. Unless you’re really looking for it, ragweed can be hard to find. Goldenrod on the other hand, with its bright yellow flowers can easily be seen by a man on a fast horse. Since goldenrod blooms when ragweed is shedding pollen, it was simply easier to tell allergy sufferers to expect their symptoms to show up when goldenrod is out. Botanists would call this a phenological event. That’s when something goes on with one species of plant that is a signal for something else.

Goldenrod flowers produce large amounts of nectar so is always eagerly anticipated by beekeepers. A large goldenrod bloom can make the difference between no honey crop or a bountiful one. It is one of the last family of plants to remain blooming after others have stopped for the year.

Honeybees are not the only ones that take advantage of the nectar bounty. It’s an important fall food for wild pollinators and butterflies such as monarchs and other species.

Earlier this week we were sitting on our front porch taking a break and noticed some movement in our wildflowers. Looking closer, we could see over twenty adult monarch butterflies feeding on nectar from the goldenrod growing in our yard.

Look closely, how many monarch butterflies can you see?

Look closely, how many monarch butterflies can you see?

Judging by what is happening in and around my stomping grounds, it looks like a good year for monarch butterflies.

The monarch migration is underway and coincides with the fall bird migration (and Michiganders heading back to Florida).

During our break we also watched a kettle of broad-winged hawks circling high in a thermal updraft. They were on their way south to their winter home. While watching the hawks, way up in the air we could see something passing by in and out of our field of vision through the binoculars. After re-focusing and zooming in on them, we discovered they were monarch butterflies!

More monarchs were flying just over the tree tops. It was a lot of fun watching them fly at those different altitudes instead of fluttering around the garden.

Pair of monarch butterflies mating in mid-September

Pair of monarch butterflies mating in mid-September

There are still quite a few caterpillars feeding on our milkweed plants too. We even spotted a pair of mating adults. That seemed late to me. The eggs will have to hatch; the caterpillars have to pupate; and the adults emerge before the weather gets too inclement for them to fly south. I’m not sure if they’ll have enough time to complete their life cycle this fall.

Bob

 

 

September 12, 2019

Growing buckwheat to improve your garden

Filed under: Cover crops,Weeds — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — bob @ 3:56 pm

I’m a big fan of cover crops both on the farm and in the garden. Cover crops are not harvested, instead they’re used for other purposes such as preventing erosion or improving soil tilth.

One of my favorite cover crops is buckwheat, the same plant that gives us grain for buckwheat pancakes. It is very fast growing, so fast in fact, that it will beat out most weeds in a race to the finish.

For use as a cover crop, buckwheat can be planted any time during the growing season. If planted early, it will mature quick enough that you’ll be able to till it into the soil and grow a second crop if need be. I often grow a late crop of buckwheat that gets tilled into the soil. I then follow that with a crop of winter rye. Growing buckwheat as a grain to harvest is a different story.

This time of the year I’m growing buckwheat for a few reasons. First, it makes a fine placeholder in the garden, a kind of living mulch. If I have a large spot that is not going to be planted, I’ll sow it with buckwheat. It keeps the area from being overrun with weeds by overpowering and smothering them.

Buckwheat helps maintain soil fertility. While it grows, it picks up and holds minerals in its leaves, stems and roots. Later, when the plant is eventually tilled into the soil, those minerals will be released back into the soil for the next crop to use. Plus, plenty of valuable organic material from the roots and tops will improve topsoil.

Buckwheat’s flowers produce an enormous amount of nectar making it a valuable plant for honeybees and other pollinating insects. For example, an acre of buckwheat can provide enough nectar to allow honeybees to produce as much as 150 pounds of honey. Less than a month after planting, buckwheat will begin to flower and not long after, seeds will appear. It will continue producing flowers and seeds until frost. Its flowering habit provides honeybees with a source of food when few other plants are flowering.

Buckwheat produces nectar only in the morning, you won’t see bees in your buckwheat during the afternoon.

Buckwheat produces nectar only in the morning, you won’t see bees in your buckwheat during the afternoon.

 

Seeds are available online and at rural farm supply stores. Plant buckwheat by scattering the seeds over the surface of a freshly tilled area so that the seeds end up being around three or four inches apart. Then rake the area to cover the seeds with soil.

Buckwheat can re-seed itself and sometimes become a minor annoyance the following year. If you find that’s the case in your garden, mow or till it before it produces too many seeds.

Bob

 

 

September 5, 2019

Be careful not to introduce invasive plants into your garden

Filed under: Flowers,Invasive plants,Invasive species,Weeds — Tags: , , , , , — bob @ 3:50 pm

 

It’s surprisingly easy to introduce an invasive plant into your garden. It often happens when gardeners share plants with one another.

We have a few examples of that happening in our garden. One of those is Pinellia tripartita a plant native to China and Japan. I’ve heard it called Japanese jack-in-the-pulpit, although there’s another plant goes by the same name. Crow dipper is another name. One website refers to it as green dragon, another calls it voodoo lily. Botanically speaking, it’s closely related to our native jack-in-the-pulpit.

Pinellia is a smallish plant only eight to twelve inches tall and can grow in a variety of environments as long as the soil is well-drained. In our garden it is growing as a weed in full sun. Actually, it is growing in the shade of taller sun-loving plants, it is flourishing under the peonies that we brought in from another garden.

It was present as a persistent weed in that original garden too. We thought we were very careful to remove any trace of the Pinellia when we dug the peonies – apparently that was not the case. Now six years later we are still fighting it.

Unlike the other weeds we’ve accidentally brought in, these we have been able to keep confined to one relatively small spot in our garden.

Pinellia is very well adapted for reproducing itself and is quite competitive growing among other plants. It produces both tubers and numerous seeds, making it doubly sure it will reproduce one way or another.

You can see the small tuber growing on the root. Each piece of plant will have at least one.

You can see the small tuber growing on the root. Each piece of plant will have at least one.

This past week we re-dug the peonies along with the infested soil they were growing in. The peonies we saved and replanted; the soil we bagged up and set it out for disposal in the landfill. Home composting will not destroy all of the seeds or tubers.

In some parts of the country people are planting it as an ornamental, it really is an unusual looking plant. Either it behaves itself in certain climates or it hasn’t become a big enough problem in those areas. People on gardening chat sites marvel how well it spreads without any effort on their part. In some states it is officially classified as a noxious weed.

Even though you can find reputable plant sources online extolling its virtues, I highly recommend against planting it. People say, “I’m a conscientious gardener and would never let it get out of control”. That may be the case but what happens if you move and sell your house, would the new owners be as vigilant?

There is a purple cultivar of Pinellia tripartita that is supposed to be non-invasive, I would never take a chance on that one either.

Bob

 

 

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