Eggplants need plenty of sun to grow well. |
With a growing interest in healthier diets and reducing meat consumption, the lowly eggplant is becoming quite a star. This is great news for gardeners, because it’s stimulating lots of new breeding efforts on the part of seed producers. We're seeing interesting new varieties with better cold tolerance, improved disease- and pest-resistance and higher yields.
Case in point is Hansel, an eggplant that has been honored as one of this year’s 2008 All-American Selections (AAS). More slender than the usual grocery store eggplant, Hansel also has fewer seeds and is less bitter. It produces clusters of three to six fruits that begin ripening just 55 days after transplanting. Fruit can be harvested at finger-size, or can be left on the plant until it's as much as 8” long. Hansel should be available this spring from your local garden center.
Compared with most other garden vegetables, eggplant can be a bit fussy. To produce well, the plants require warm, well-drained soil, at least eight hours of sun each day, consistent moisture (an inch of water a week) and plenty of fertilizer. Being a bit fussy makes them ideal candidates for containers, where it’s much easier to pamper them.
Some varieties of eggplant have purple stems and veins. |
Eggplant are susceptible to the Colorado Potato Beetle. So, if this nasty pest is a problem in your garden, you may want to cover your eggplants with a floating row cover. Row covers also protect eggplant seedlings from flea beetles, which rarely kill the plant but can seriously stunt its growth.
Eggplants are also susceptible to verticillium wilt. The best way to protect your plants from this soil-borne fungus is to provide a compost-rich soil (compost contains lots of naturally-occurring disease inhibitors) and rotate your plantings to different locations in the garden (or for container gardeners, be sure to start each new season with fresh soil).
The fruit of an eggplant can be extremely heavy (especially for a relatively small plant). For this reason, it's smart to use plant supports, such as our veggie ladders. They'll keep fruit off the ground and will also prevent the whole plant from toppling over.
To learn more about growing eggplants, read the Fine Gardening article titled: Growing Eggplant Successfully.
-Kathy LaLiberte, Director of Gardening
After reading all the comments, it's clear that many gardeners are looking for a tall support. At 53 inches, the Tomato Tower is our tallest. |
Our poll has ended and the results are in! Over 3,000 votes were cast, and the Tomato Cage is the preferred tomato support with 59% of the vote. Tomato Ladders came in second (17%), and a lot of people use supports of their own invention. For more on this topic, check out the following:
Sent by Frank H. of Newton, Mass.: “The cherry tomato I grew in my Self-Watering Planter got so big so fast that I had to cobble together this frame support really fast. You can hardly see the framework, which is just as well cause it's pretty ugly. I'll be better prepared this year!” |
Earlier this year, we asked gardeners to vote for their favorite tomato support. Cages, ladders, spirals, old-fashioned stakes or something of your own invention. We've learned that gardeners have some pretty creative techniques for supporting their tomatoes. Just take a look at the comments that follow the original post. Some examples:
- I find that using half-inch electrical conduit pipe is the best way to stake up tomatoes. Buy a 10-foot piece of pipe, cut it into two 5-foot pieces. They are easy to drive in ground. If your plants exceed the top of your pipe, buy a coupling and add a short piece of conduit to the top ....
- We use cages. Then, when the plants grow above the cages, we use metal stakes at the end of each row, string metal wire across them, then support the tomatoes with pieces of old nylon stockings tied to the wire....
- My favorite way to support tomatoes is to espalier them. My hubby built me 6-foot- tall frames with a top crossbar 4 feet wide. I stretched nylon mesh with big holes (4" x 4") so you can reach in and harvest. Air circulates and the sun hits all parts of the plant because there is no shade....
We'd love to see photos of your support structures, so please post them in our album. Or, just take a look at what other folks have created.
Floating waterlily leaves cover the water surface to provide shade for fish and reduce algae growth.
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Lively, sparkling fountain or calm, glassy pool, water completes a garden and brings life to patios and decks. Water gardening has grown in popularity as people discover the tranquil beauty of water plants, colorful fish, and soothing sounds of falling water.
For more than four decades I’ve kept small water gardens and aquariums and shared my hobby with others. That includes coaching and reassuring new enthusiasts when the inevitable pea-soup-green water happens, the fish and plants die, or long strings of algae cover every submerged surface. They’re bewildered by the mess that appeared to be perfectly clear and healthy when they set it up a week or two ago. Looks are deceiving, however, because what’s going in the water—whether it’s a goldfish bowl or pond—is mostly invisible.
A complex web of bacteria, microorganisms, plants, algae and other creatures inhabit pond water. Nitrogen, oxygen, and light also play major roles. Their interactions affect water quality, which influences the pond’s appearance and the health of the fish and plants that live in it. Understanding this web of relationships it is the most important key to water gardening success.
Here’s how it works. As animals live and die, they release ammonia and other waste products. Bacteria and other microorganisms in the water process the ammonia and waste from animals and decaying plants, eventually turning them into harmless forms of nitrogen that plants can absorb. When the number of bacteria is sufficient to process all the available waste and the water contains enough plants to absorb the food, the water is considered “balanced”.
Splashing water adds oxygen that supports fish, plants, and beneficial bacteria. |
Problems develop when any part of the cycle becomes out of balance. Here are a few of the most common scenarios and how to fix them:
- Symptom: dying fish and plants. Cause: not enough bacteria and too much waste, which leads to a build up of toxic ammonia. Common in newly established and recently cleaned water gardens. Solutions: Change 1/3 of the water weekly, add fish gradually, increase the surface area available for bacteria to inhabit, increase the amount of oxygen by adding a fountain, or use ammonia-absorbing products in the filter.
- Symptom: algae grows rapidly, covering surfaces or turning the water green. Cause: too much plant food and light and not enough plants. Solutions: add more submerged plants, decrease the light by adding floating plants or water-darkening dye, vacuum up plant debris and fish waste, manually remove string algae.
To learn more, read a how-to article on water gardening and Barley—the Secret to Clear Water. For products to help keep ponds clear, see the Pond Maintenance department.
-Ann Whitman, Horticulturist
Common garden sorrel (Rumex acetosa) |
Common garden sorrel (Rumex acetosa) is an attractive, long-lived perennial herb that’s unfussy about soil conditions, untroubled by pests or disease and doesn’t spread. It’s always the first edible plant to appear in my garden each spring, and for the first week or two I eat its spinach-like leaves as quickly as they appear.
Throughout the month of May and early June, the plants continue producing fresh, tender leaves. By mid-June the leaves start to get a little tough and invariably there’s something more appealing coming on in the vegetable garden. The sorrel patch gets ignored for the rest of the summer, which seems to suit it just fine.
Over the years I’ve given away lots of plants from my tidy 2’ x 2’ patch, yet it always seems to stay about the same size. There's a different type of sorrel (I know it as sheep's sorrel) that's a weed in my flower garden. The one that's in my herb garden has larger, broader, more succulent leaves and it doesn't seem to spread or self sow.
All that good behavior and flavor, too? Yes indeed. Sorrel leaves have a lemony tang that’s almost as sour as rhubarb. I tear up the fresh young leaves and toss them into salads. The raw leaves are also great tucked into sandwiches or sliced into thin ribbons and then stirred into tabbouleh.
Sorrel retains its flavor well when cooked. I love it in scrambled eggs. Just chop finely, sauté in a little butter and pour in the beaten eggs. It’s delicious added to creamy soups and is a perfect companion for baked or steamed salmon. I also like to mix in a little sorrel when cooking spinach or chard.
Sorrel’s lemony bite comes from the oxalic acid in its leaves, which also turns the leaves a dull olive green when cooked. I’ve read that too much oxalic acid can aggravate rheumatic or kidney conditions, so if you’re concerned about that you might want to consult your doctor. But in most cases, you’ll never be eating more than a handful of leaves at a sitting. High in vitamins A and C, garden sorrel is a healthful, flavorful spring tonic that deserves to be more widely grown and enjoyed.
-Kathy LaLiberte, Director of Gardening
The first time I saw a gladiolus was back in the ’60s at the Minnesota State Fair. At that time, every farm family worth its salt grew them. The fair is at the very end of August when glads are at their prime, so along with dahlias, they were always (and probably still are) the most popular entry in the floral competitions.
My next encounter with gladiolus wasn’t until the late ’80s, when I had a little side business arranging wedding flowers (mostly from my own garden). I had agreed to do the flowers for a woman at work, who was marrying into a local farm family. The mid-August wedding was taking place on the family farm, and the woman’s future mother-in-law asked me to include some flowers from her own garden in the two large arrangements that would flank the couple when they said their vows.
The day before the wedding, I arranged to meet her and pick up the flowers. Imagine my surprise when I saw the flowers she took out of her car: three dozen white gladiolas. She also gave me two white plastic baskets with big round plastic handles that she wanted me to use for the two bouquets. I recognized them immediately as funeral baskets, but she obviously didn’t know that.
My solution was to wrap the handles with grape and clematis vines and balance those stiff and proper glads by surrounding them with stems cut from my Annabelle hydrangea. In the end, the baskets actually looked pretty good, but it was a nail-biter all the way.
Then, a couple years ago, I began growing gladiolus in my own cutting garden. It was the variety Green Star that won me over. They’re an amazing addition to a bouquet of burgundy or purple/blue flowers. I’ve also tried (and like) the lovely soft pink glad Rose Supreme. Not sure I’m ready for the full range of rainbow colors, but it may happen.
If you’re planting gladiolus corms, now’s the time. You may still find some at a local nursery or at Dutch Gardens. To ensure a continuous supply of flowers for cutting, it’s best to plant about a third of the corms as soon as the ground has warmed up, wait two weeks to plant the next third, then plant the rest by the end of June or so. You’ll find everything you need to know about growing glads in this article: The Basics of Growing Gladiolus.
-Kathy LaLiberte, Director of Gardening
Gladiolus growing in my cutting garden. |
Strawberry flowers bloom in spring; the fruit begins ripening in early summer. |
As far back as I can remember, strawberries have been part of my family’s traditions. My grandparents grew a large patch of strawberries to help supplement their income. Grampa peddled the brimming wooden baskets of fruit door-to-door. Other customers stopped by the house and left their payment in the cigar box on the front porch. Family members with June birthdays could count on receiving a basket of strawberries as a gift. Those born later in the year often got jars of strawberry jam instead.
This year I decided to carry on the tradition and started a strawberry patch at home. Choosing which of the dozens of varieties to grow was a challenge. Gramma grew the June-bearing types that ripen all their fruit within two or three weeks in early summer. We decided that spreading out the harvest over several months works better for our family, so we chose the day-neutral, ever-bearing variety, Seascape.
I purchased a bundle of twenty-five dormant plants in March and set them out as soon as we could get into our garden. Strawberries are a perennial crop, so soil preparation is important. We tilled in several inches of compost and mounded up the soil into a flat-topped, 6" high by 2' wide raised bed to ensure good drainage.
I trimmed all but two or three leaves from each plant and set them about 15 inches apart in a staggered double row that looks like connected W’s: WWW. It’s important to plant the crown so that where the topmost root joins the plant is just at soil level. To allow the plants to establish strong roots, I’m pinching off all the flower clusters and runners until July 1. A couple of inches of straw mulch keeps the weeds to a minimum. The runners or daughter plants that grow this summer will produce next summer’s fruit crop. As they grow, I space the runners evenly throughout the row and use a little soil or a stone to hold them in place.
Juicy, fragrant, ripe strawberries are the stars of summer festivals and picnics. |
Birds, chipmunks, and slugs like strawberries just as much as I do. I know from experience that protection will be necessary. The Slug Magic pellets that I use around my hostas work for strawberries, too. As for the birds and four-footed pests, a net-covered hoop tunnel is just the ticket. As an added bonus, the insect netting keeps out tarnished plant bugs that damage the fruit.
We should see our first harvest in late summer this year, just in time to add the big, juicy berries to the ripening peaches, raspberries, and blueberries for homegrown fruit salads and cereal toppings. Next year the harvest will start in June and last until fall. That’s a lot of pleasure from a small investment in time and space. As I anticipate those first fragrant berries, I can understand why my grandparents were the most popular folks in their neighborhood. I hope my little patch will produce enough to share!
For more information about growing fruits and berries in the home garden read these articles:
-Ann Whitman, Horticulturist
“Good things come in small packages” is an apt description of perennial plant expert Stephanie Cohen. She calls herself “vertically challenged” and named her own perennial place Shortwood Gardens in a tongue-in-cheek nod to nearby Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pa.
Often called “Dr. Root” in reference to Dr. Ruth Westheimer, the candid radio and television sex therapist, Stephanie Cohen shares her witty and humorous, tell-it-as-I-see-it style with the gardening world. Stephanie gives her frank advice to garden club and professional audiences who eagerly circle and note the selections on her Best and Worst Perennials list as she clicks through her slides.
High-maintenance plants, those with a short season of interest, perennials that behave like annuals, and thugs that travel unbidden throughout the garden are easy marks for Stephanie’s Hit List. Artemisia ‘Oriental Limelight’,” she begins. “I planted it in my garden and now it’s coming up all over the place. It’s a thug. Use it in containers only!” she admonishes.
About the current coneflower craze, she says, “Echinacea ‘Double Delight’ and ‘Coconut Lime’ are trendy, but they have no staying power. Who cares about them after a year or two? She dismisses the new Coreopsis ‘Sweet Dreams’, commenting, “It flops over and isn’t reliably hardy.”
She’s equally lavish with her praise for good garden performers, though. She enthused about Echinacea ‘Fragrant Angel’ and ‘Harvest Moon’ at the New England Grows conference, and predicted that fragrance will be the next big garden trend. Tiarellas and hardy geraniums also rate among her favorite plants because they flower abundantly and have attractive foliage from spring through fall. As a designer, she values the texture and color of ornamental grasses, hostas, and other foliage plants.
Stephanie has a soft spot for perennials that share her compact stature, readily pointing out dwarf Joe Pye weed (Eupatorium dubium ‘Little Joe’) and 18" tall Baptisia ‘Blue Pearls’ as good alternatives to their taller and more well-known brethren.
Stephanie bases her opinions on plenty of real-world experience. She’s an adjunct professor of horticulture at Temple University and former director of the school’s Landscape Arboretum. An avid gardener herself, she’s an award-winning speaker, writer, designer, and teacher, and has been a fixture in the horticultural world for more than 20 years. Plant hybridizers readily recognize her knowledge and influence and she has plants named in her honor. Dr. Darrel Apps, the daylily breeder who introduced Happy Returns and scores of other fabulous daylilies, named a particularly short new variety Stephanie Returns with her permission.
The Ohio Nursery and Landscape Association laudsthe Shortwood phlox, introduced by Sinclair Adam, as “the only Garden Phlox that has shown absolutely no mildew regardless of weather or crowding.”
If you get a chance to hear Stephanie speak, don’t miss her presentation. You will leave with list of perennials that you can’t wait to plant, and a smile on your face.
-Ann Whitman, Horticulturist
After spreading cocoa mulch, I like to water the area so the tiny hulls will knit together and are less likely to blow around. |
I used to disdain people who spread mulch on their flower beds and shrub borders. I thought, "Are they too lazy to weed?" My own flowerbeds were always mulch-free. I did have to spend a lot of time weeding though, especially during May and June.
However, after many years of landscaping for clients throughout northern Vermont, I've come to see the benefits of mulch. Yes, it does help prevent weeds, but it's not 100 percent effective. You still have to watch for weeds. To me, the main benefit of mulch—as long as it's not spread too thick—is to help the soil retain moisture during dry periods. This is especially clear when you tend gardens for clients who are infrequent weeders.
A couple years ago, I became a convert to cocoa mulch. Oh, it's expensive at about 10 bucks a bag, but I think it's worth the price. The mulch of choice around here is shredded hemlock bark. It's readily available, but getting expensive too: a cubic yard sells for $50 or more. So, even if you only use it in a small area, give cocoa a try. Here's why:
- After a year on the bed, it breaks down and improves the soil. You have to apply the cocoa each year, but the soil benefits make it worth the expense. (For even more soil improvement, sprinkle the beds with shredded leaves in the fall.) When that material gets turned into the soil in spring, the improvement is noticeable.
- Cocoa mulch is easy to spread—especially in jam-packed perennial gardens
- The fine texture is perfect for perennials and annuals, which are often smothered in coarse mulches, such as shredded bark—good for planters, too!
- Though it only lasts a week or so, the chocolatey smell is amazing
- It looks a lot like dirt, so it doesn't draw attention to itself; the plants are still stars of the border
This garden is filled with small, delicate treasures, such as this hepatica. Because of its fine texture, the cocoa mulch doesn't smother the delicate perennials. |
I still use shredded hemlock around trees and shrubs, which are fine with the more coarse material. However, I always look for a double-ground product, which is finer. And, if I'm lucky, I can find some of the partially composted stuff, which is even better. It breaks down more readily and doesn't form an impenetrable, water-shedding crust.
For more on mulching, read Mind Your Mulch; for related products, see our Mulch department.
-David Grist, Online Content Coordinator
Nancy Noble, surrounded by her gardens in southern Utah. |
As a professional biologist, Nancy Noble knows more than the average bear about plants. Though she has fond memories of gardening with her grandmother in Missouri and her parents in Wisconsin, her own passion for gardening didn’t blossom until she was in post-graduate school. Now she says, “I’m just a gardening nut.”
Nancy’s fervor for gardening has spilled over into two separate gardens: one at her condo outside Salt Lake City, and the other at her house in southern Utah. “The condo gardens surround a small patio (20 x 30’) and are intensively planted,” says Nancy. She maximizes her space by growing vertically. The patio is fenced in and Nancy uses the fence to support sweet peas, nine different types of clematis and climbing roses. “Some of my favorite climbing roses are America, Iceberg and Golden Showers,” she says. “We’ve only been here at this house for three years, but the Iceberg rose is already growing right over the 8' fence,” says Nancy.
Daylilies put on a grand display. |
At ground level, Nancy has planted tree roses and perennials, such as Japanese painted ferns, heuchera, daisies, phlox, asters and primroses. She also grows herbs and containers of petunias and gerber daisies. Because she isn’t at the condo all the time, Nancy has set it up to be low-maintenance. “I started by adding lots of compost to the clay soil,” she says. A 1" thick layer of mulch conserves moisture and keeps the weeds out. “Overall, I only have to spend one or two hours a week maintaining this garden.”
Low-maintenance is even more essential at her 90-acre country home because she’s only there 25% of the time. “Gardening in southern Utah is a challenge because we’re located at 7,100 feet and have hot days and cool nights,” says Nancy. To keep the wildlife at bay, she has fenced in a quarter-acre area for 30 fruit trees and a vegetable garden in raised beds. “I used raised bed corners to build eight raised beds and I feel like they’ll last forever,” says Nancy.
Surrounding her vegetable garden is a xeriscape garden where has planted perennial flowers and shrubs that don’t need a lot of maintenance once they get established. These include mugo pines, potentilla, salvia, daylilies, gaillardia and veronica. “I like trying new varieties. This year, my favorite is Fanfare gaillardia,” says Nancy.
Though she’s found creative ways to keep up with gardens in two separate locations, Nancy looks forward to retirement when she’ll move more permanently to the southern Utah location. “It will be nice to really focus on the gardens and feel less rushed about taking care of them,” says Nancy.
To learn more about water-wise gardening, check out my article, 8 Steps to a Water-Wise Garden.
-Kathy LaLiberte, Director of Gardening
Every year, I try to take on one big garden project. A few years ago, the project was a round patio, designed to accommodate a dining table we'd purchased. Our backyard was already set up as a series of outdoor rooms, but adding this new "floor" was transformative. The beautiful stone surface added a sense of permanence to the changing scene.
Last year, we got a set of Champlain Furniture, a kind of outdoor seating that has extra-deep, comfortable cushions—almost like a living room set. The furniture actually transforms the space into a living room, especially when the plants grow tall and enclose the space. But, with two chairs and a coffee table, there was no room for the dining table. Time for another patio, the "big project" for 2007.
I started the project in the fall. The goal was to create a 150-sq. ft. patio using natural stone that comes from the region. I was lucky enough to get some beautiful stone from across the lake in New York state. The site I chose is in a corner of the yard where I had to take out a diseased linden tree. The irregularly shaped patio is sort of oblong, perfect for a dining table.
Using all the available daylight hours on a series of weekends, I excavated the site, hauled away the soil, replaced it with gravel base, and set the final stones in a layer of rock dust. By the time I set the final stones, the ground was beginning to freeze; within days, the patio was covered in two inches of snow.
We're still waiting to have the first dinner on the new patio, but you can be sure we'll be out there on the first fine day of spring.
-David Grist, Online Content Coordinator
Just waiting for spring. |
Products with spinosad offer one more control option for lily leaf beetles. |
Flower gardeners are a peaceful lot—at least until someone comes between them and their favorite blooms. Then, they get mean. At least some of us do.
It was about three years ago that I first heard whisperings in the halls at Gardener's Supply of a new pest: "Something is destroying my Oriental lilies! What can I do?" The unspoken reply: "How far are you willing to go to save your lilies? Will you use chemicals?"
The culprit, the lily-destroyer, the evil insect is Lilioceris lilii, aka: The Lily Leaf Beetle. Oh, these scarlet beauties are striking in the garden. But then they breed and their disgusting offspring take over, devouring the lilies and covering themselves in their own poo.
The devastation brings out bloodlust in some gardeners—even the earth-friendly ones. At first, I tried neem, a relatively harmless spray that does wonders on aphids and controls blackspot on roses. It worked to control the larvae the first year, but I had to spray frequently (every 10 to 15 days). The second year, I couldn't keep the larvae under control. My lily crop was hit hard, and I got few blooms. Last year, I decided to resort to a systemic called imidacloprid. The results were instantaneous and effective. No more poo-covered larvae; no more devastation.
The eggs of the lily leaf beetle are usually found on the underside of the leaves, as shown on this fritillaria. They're smaller than poppy seeds, and usually bright red. If you see these, you've got a problem. |
Still, imidacloprid is not something I can feel good about. Systemic insecticides are harsh. Plus, studies have shown that imidacloprid can be harmful to bees, so I'm giving it up. I need a new approach.
I've been reading about something new, a substance called spinosad, which is made from a soil-dwelling bacterium, Saccharopolyspora spinosa. The sprays are said to control foliage-feeding caterpillars, beetles, borers and other pests. When used carefully (read the label!), it's not supposed to effect beneficial insects. Plus, spinosad has been classified as an organic substance by the USDA National Organics Standards Board. This year, I plan to try Monterey Garden Insect Spray, which is one of the formulations. I'll let you know how it goes. Have you seen lily beetles in your area? Let me know what works for you by posting a comment, below. Already I've had reports from two customers: one infestation on fritillaria and another on Asiatic lilies. Both sites were treated with spinosad.
In the meantime, keep your fingers crossed that researchers will find something that can be used to keep these pests in check. According to David Sims of the North American Lily Society, there is concern that the beetle will wipe out native lily populations. The group has been a sponsor of a study at the University of Rhode Island, where researchers are using predatory wasps to control the beetle. So far, the results have been encouraging.
-David Grist, Online Content Coordinator
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