Category Archives: Compost

Advice, Compost, Fertilizer, Planting, Soil, Websites

Regenerative Agriculture and the Garden

January 10, 2022 peterboroughmastergardeners Leave a comment

By Marilyn Homewood, Master Gardener

Regenerative Agriculture describes soil management practices that help to reverse climate change while rebuilding soil organic matter and restoring degraded soil. Through photosynthesis, plants remove carbon from the atmosphere and sequester it in the soil. In addition to carbon sequestration, practices that increase soil organic matter also increase biodiversity both above and below the soil surface, while increasing water holding capacity and improving soil structure helping to reverse soil loss.

Carbon cycle diagram with nature farm landscape illustration

While the movement was initially geared towards farmers, more and more gardeners, particularly those involved with the growing of annual crops, have adopted some of these principles recognizing the benefit for both the garden and the environment. In fact, many of the practices have been employed by gardeners for years without realizing how the benefits for the environment.

Regenerative Agriculture aims to:

generate/build soils, increase soil fertility and health;
increase water percolation and water retention;
increase biodiversity, ecosystem health and plant resiliency;
increase carbon sequestration thereby helping to cleanse the atmosphere of excess CO2.

Specific Practices include:

No-till/minimum tillage. Tillage breaks up soil and destroys soil structure. Tillage greatly increases soil erosion and releases carbon sequestered in the soil. A secondary effect is soil capping and slaking that can plug soil spaces reducing water percolation creating more water runoff and soil loss.

Conversely, no-till/minimum tillage, enhances soil aggregation, water infiltration and retention, and carbon sequestration. Some soils benefit from interim ripping to break apart hardpans which can increase root zones, improved soil structure and carbon sequestration. At a low level, chiseling in some beds may have similar positive effects. Cracking the soil slightly allows amendments such as compost to infiltrate the soil without damaging it. A broadfork can be a very effective tool here.

Lasagna gardening or Charles Dowding’s No Till Gardening Methods are good examples of these practices. One can put away the roto-tiller and get a broadfork instead.

Fall garden after upper stalks have been removed leaving plant crowns and roots

2. Increase soil fertility biologically through application of cover crops,crop rotations, compost, and animal manures. These increase the soil organic matter and restore the plant/soil biome which promotes the cycling of essential soil nutrients. Increased organic matter (OM) enhances soil structure, increases porosity which increases water infiltration and drainage. Increased OM also stores and supplies micronutrients and enhances soil microbial populations. A tip for annual beds; When removing the plant in the fall, only remove the portion above ground. Leave the root ball in the ground to decompose over winter.

3. Build biological ecosystem diversity with inoculation of soils with composts or compost extracts to restore soil microbial community population and functionality. Restore soil system energy through full-time planting of inter- crop plantings, multispecies cover crops, and borders planted for bee habitat and other beneficial insects.

Increased organic matter means more friable soil. Friable soil means deep roots; increased biological activity mean more nutrients released for plant use and microbial diversity means less disease. The result is healthy, vigorous plants that need less watering, less additional feeding/supplementation and less treatment for disease while sequestering carbon at the same time. That is a win win!

“Earth is what we all have in common” Wendell Berry

Resources:

https://www.csuchico.edu/regenerativeagriculture/ra101-section/ra101-definitions.shtml

The Science

HOME

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20211020-carbon-farming-a-better-use-for-half-earths-land

Compost, Native Plants, Seeds, Websites

Seed Saving and Bombing

September 20, 2021 peterboroughmastergardeners 2 Comments

By Anica James, Master Gardener in Training

With the autumn equinox right around the corner, this is the perfect time of year to be collecting seeds. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I find seed collecting both rewarding and therapeutic. There is something about spending an intimate amount of time with different plant species, getting to know them and discover how the plant truly grew. It’s amazing that something as tall and beautiful as a Foxglove grows from the tiniest of seeds. Whether you are collecting seeds from fruits and vegetables, wildflowers, ornamental flowers, grasses or trees, you will notice that each seed has various characteristics that make it unique.

A homemade seed saving library that was installed in East City

I always carry a pen for labeling, a big stack of envelopes, usually a pair of secateurs or snips, and sometimes paper lunch bags for larger seeds. I go for a meditative walk through the woods or around my yard, carefully collecting my stash, labeling the envelopes or bags, and bringing them home for extra drying time. For some seeds I use a sieve to take off any chaff that is still clinging on, and then I weigh everything out on my scale and divide certain seeds up into packages I make out of old scraps of paper (vintage National Geographic magazines are my favourite to use). Before the pandemic started, there was an annual Seedy Sunday event held every March in Peterborough; keep your eyes and ears peeled for future dates because this is a great place to meet other seed collectors and swap findings.

Insects love to hang out amongst the pods. Always be sure to clean your seeds.

I encourage you to go for a walk around your property or nearby country road and collect your own seeds because not only is it a fun and free way to help you grow different plants on your own, but you can also share or sell any leftover seeds you have. Some of my favourite native varieties to collect are:

Aquilegia canadensis, wild columbine

Asclepsias tuberosa, butterfly weed

Aster novae-angliae, New England aster

Coreopsis lanceolata, lanceleaf coreopsis

Dalea purpurea, purple prairie clover

Monarda fistulosa, wild bergamot

Rudbeckia hirta, black-eyed Susan

Symphyotrichum oblongifolium, aromatic aster

Another thing that I like to do is create seed bombs that I can use for guerilla gardening projects. Seed bombs are a great activity to do with kids and it encourages them to get messy and add to the beauty of this world. I personally like to “bomb” public areas around commercial properties and newly built subdivisions with wildflower seeds, anything to bring some life back into the beige-grey landscape.

Basic envelopes that I use when I am collecting seeds. Once I have everything at home I sort and clean them and put them in new labeled envelopes.

Materials you will need:

Wildflower seeds or seeds collected from the garden
Water
Peat-free compost.
Powdered clay (found in craft shops); some people also use cat litter
A bowl to mix everything in
A tray to dry the seed bombs on

How to build your bombs:

In a bowl, mix together 1 cup of seeds with 5 cups of compost and 2-3 cups of clay powder.
Slowly mix in water with your hands until everything sticks together. It should have the same texture and consistency as muffin batter (kids love this because it’s like making slime)
Roll the mixture into firm, even balls and then leave the balls to dry in a sunny or warm spot
Once they are dry, plant your seed bombs by throwing them at bare parts of the garden or land and wait to see what pops up! (I usually like to time my guerrilla plantings with the rain).

If you are interested in learning more about seed saving locally, Jill Bishop from Nourish has some great reference material and sometimes offers workshops, especially to those who are members of local community gardens. https://nourishproject.ca/basics-seed-saving

Seeds of Diversity is another great resource https://seeds.ca/

Coriander seeds which I save and collect every year for culinary purposes.

Advice, Compost, Information, Tools

What You Cannot Live Without In Your Garden

July 19, 2021 peterboroughmastergardeners 1 Comment

By Suzanne Seryck, Master Gardener

I realized after downsizing my garden a few years ago, that there are certain features in a garden that I cannot live without, no matter the size of the garden. I’m not talking about plants, as that is another blog, but rather structures, elements or features, something that for me makes gardening less work and more rewarding.

The first structure would be my own shed. I did try to share my husband’s workshop for a year, but I find that I like order. Organizing my gardening tools on a peg board, brings me calm, and knowing I can go into my workshop blindfold and find the tool I want brings me a sense of peace.

I don’t necessarily need a big shed, but if I have to spend a long time trying to find a tool, I end up forgetting why I needed the tool in the first place, a sure sign I am getting older. Now as you can see my husband has painted the handles of a few of my tools red, in the hope that it will help me find them when I lose them (I say when and not if). For me that doesn’t work as I tend to lay them down flat when I’m finished as opposed to sticking them in the ground handle up. I think I am now on my fourth or fifth hori hori knife and who knows how many pruners!Rain barrels, the more the better. We currently only have 4 hooked up, but are planning on installing another 4, next to these. They are located close to the vegetable garden, to make it more efficient when I water the vegetables. However, I also need a couple closer to the house for the pots and baskets on the patios, here’s hoping my husband will read this blog.

Rain water is better for the plants, not only is it warmer and softer than tap water, but it is does not contain chlorine, and for me living in Lindsay where I pay for my water usage, it saves me money. Me and my husband had a long discussion when we set these up, as he was looking at hooking them all up together and just having one tap, whilst I preferred them all to have their owns taps, so I can just put 4 watering cans, 1 under each barrel and turn them all on, saving me more time. He has attached a piece of hose to each tap, so that they reach into my watering cans.

A nursery bed. I did not realize quite how much I needed this until the second year in my current garden, when I dug up seedlings as I always do and had nowhere to put them. In my last house I had a nursery bed situated close to the vegetable garden, in my current garden it is located behind the shed, with a shade structure over the top, keeping it partly shaded. I love growing plants from seeds, finding it very fulfilling, and let most of my plants self-seed. When the seedlings come up or I see something I don’t recognize, I tend to move them to the nursery. There is nothing so rewarding when you have a space in your garden to be able to take a plant from your nursery bed, saves me money and makes me happy.

I currently have delphiniums that I was able to grow from seed, verbascum and quite a few gas plant and coneflowers. I tend to always put the coneflower seedlings in this bed (with the exception of the purple or white varieties, which normally come true from seed) as I am never sure what colour they will turn out.

And finally an area for a leaf composter. Within 2 months of moving into my garden we had setup a leaf composter just in time for fall. The one below is about 4’ by 8’, which seems to work well in this garden. I fill with leaves in the fall, and then add green waste during the spring and summer, turning regularly. The compost is then ready to use in later summer, before I fill it up with leaves again and start over.

*The most important structure in author’s garden*

After moving to a new garden, you may know immediately what features and structures you need, or it may take some time to realize how important that ‘nursery bed’ was in your last garden. If you take a few minutes to think about your garden what are the most important features that make gardening more enjoyable for you?

Advice, Compost, Garden Design, Vegetable Gardening, Websites

Growing Vegetables

July 5, 2021 peterboroughmastergardeners 1 Comment

By Cheryl Harrison, Master Gardener

I am not a vegetable gardener but I love eating fresh vegetables so … I am a vegetable gardener. I learned how not to grow vegetables from my wonderful Dad. He liked to grow veggies in rows and hand weed those rows. This meant that my sister and I were tasked with hand weeding those never ending rows. Despite Dad’s best efforts, this was not “fun”.

I first learned about growing vegetables in raised beds from a fellow Master Gardener. Gardens that have few weeds, are up off the ground to help save my back and look neat and orderly and even kind of pretty … what more can you ask for? And the best part, the plants are edible! Since then we have installed several raised beds close to our house for easy access to watering and harvesting. They are made of 2” X 8’ untreated spruce lumber. Some of my beds are 5 years old and the lumber is still going strong. We staple chicken wire around the beds to keep out the rabbits. The beds were filled with a combination of perlite, to minimize soil compaction, peat moss, to help retain water, and soil. Note that peat moss is a non-renewable resource so I would rethink it’s use for the next time. My composters are in the middle of the garden to make it easy to annually add the finished compost to the beds. Soil needs to have organic matter replenished regularly in order to feed your plants.

We use straw in between the beds to keep the weeds down and to create clean walkways. Hay tends to be full of weed seeds. Shredded bark mulch is used to mulch the vegetables although straw would work for this as well.

Grow what you eat but try something new each year too!

Beans – using an old ladder as a trellis. Author’s garden.

Some Basics

Most vegetables prefer full sun – 6-8 hours/day, regular water – 1” of moisture per week and heat. The necessary nutrients are pulled in through water absorbed by the plant’s roots from the soil.

Most years, we grow cucumbers, squash, kale, beets, spinach, lettuce, garlic, parsnips, brussels sprouts and onions. We are usually successful but not always. New to us, this year, is turnips. Sometimes nature throws out a challenge like an unexpected late frost or an insect pest which can quickly destroy or damage your crop. Try to visit your garden each day to stay on top of problems and to harvest those ripe veggies.

For more info on growing veggies in Ontario check here. Also check the Peterborough & Area Master Gardeners resources page here for fact sheets on growing lots of different kinds of vegetables.

I am not a vegetable gardener but I have learned how to grow vegetables because I love to eat them. Have fun and enjoy your vegetables!

Tomatoes – cages in raised bed with shredded bark mulch. Straw used in walkways.
Author’s garden.

Climate Change, Compost, Information, Websites

Peat Moss

June 28, 2021 peterboroughmastergardeners 2 Comments

By Sharleen Pratt, Master Gardener

Peat Moss use has become a highly contentious issue, especially in Britain. The U.K. government plans to ban peat use among amateur gardeners by 2024. With the proposed ban and a pledge to restore 35,000 hectares (86,000 acres) of peatland across the county by 2025, retailers can no longer delay the transition to peat-free compost.

A Peat Bog is layer upon layer of vegetation and it acts like a sponge that holds 20 times its own weight in water. It is a life support for biodiversity. It increases by 1mm per year. Twelve metres of peat dates back to the last ice age. Peatlands support all types of natural wildlife and native plants.

In the last 2 centuries, peat bogs have decreased by 94%, mainly in Scotland and England. It is not an environmentally sustainable product. It used to be a major land cover in the United Kingdom. Because of many, many years of the use of peat moss for our gardens and for fuel, less than 1% of the national peatlands remain in places like Scotland and England.

The peatlands are a wonderful natural ecosystem. They protect our climate, accumulate carbon and protect endangered species. Professor Dave Goulson, from the University of Sussex said: “Globally, peatlands store half a trillion tons of carbon, twice as much as the world’s forests. Unearthing this precious store of carbon is a needless ecological disaster.” They are absolutely critical in helping with flood and climate control and the protection of this unique ecosystem.

Even in Canada peatlands are carbon and climate champs! We have about 25% of the world’s peatlands and they cover about 12% of the nation’s surface area. They are very delicate, slow-growing ecosystems, composed of semi-decayed biomass that has accumulated for many thousands of years. They take in so much more carbon than our forests and grasslands. We emit the carbon back into the air when we put the peat moss into our gardens.

It is a nice light-weight substrate and hangs on to nutrients and is perfect for growing plants when mixed with perlite. It is the mainstay of potting soils here and beyond and for years has been a big part of the gardening industry. Peat has long been a popular product in the Horticultural Industry as it is cheap, acts like a sponge to hold moisture and is a very good growing medium. Fifty percent of peat moss is used by gardeners!

The Horticultural Industry are now hearing the concerns with the use of peat moss. However, there are very few alternatives for them on the market. Some are trying a switch to Coconut Coir, a material in the husk of the coconut. It retains water well, up to 10 times its weight by volume. It also contains no fungal contaminants, deters fungus gnats and doesn’t burn, which can be an issue with peat moss. Compost is ideal but not everyone has the space to make their own and it is definitely heavier than peat moss. Another product known as Charged Carbon acts like a sponge, removing contaminants that can prevent strong and healthy plant growth. It is a material that comes from bamboo or feed stock. It is heated and you are left with a carbon skeleton. Both Coconut Coir and Charged Carbon are dramatically more efficient and environmentally responsible than the use of peat moss, however, their availability is limited and the cost of these products is much higher. Compost is more widely available as well as other products such as leaf mold, perlite, vermiculite, and bagged manures.

Some of the industries are making simple changes, but this could take several years. It involves understanding how the plants react to the different products, how they maintain water and watching for different growth habits.

Paul Short, President of the Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss Association says that “they have invested a lot in restoring peat lands after harvesting”, however, research has shown that peat lands take hundreds of years to be restored back to their original condition.

We could be on the same trajectory as the U.K. if we do not look after our peatlands. They are harvested not just for horticulture. We also have oil and gas infrastructure and fire management infrastructure running through our Canadian peatlands.

Think twice about buying that low-cost bag of planting material that contains peat. Help by encouraging our government to support the larger companies in their efforts to phase out its use. Look at your labels, consider the use of alternatives, if possible create your own compost and be aware of what we can do to help to preserve these amazing lands.

To learn more, read this interesting article put out by Plantlife.

From a Canadian perspective, check this article from The Canadian Wildlife Federation.

Advice, Annuals, Compost, Garden Design, Information, New Gardens, Websites

Keeping This Gardener Humble

May 10, 2021 peterboroughmastergardeners Leave a comment

By Marilyn Homewood, Master Gardener in Training

Gardeners learn as much from their setbacks as from their successes. By now, I should have a prepared cutting garden partially planted with frost hardy annuals. These are plants that prefer cooler growing conditions and can withstand a light frost allowing them to be planted early in the season. The group includes snapdragons, bachelor buttons, foxglove, scabiosa and sweet peas. However, instead of plants on their way to producing beautiful blooms, I have a 40 foot trench in my lawn.

The only cut flowers from this gardener so far

This garden was an end-of-year decision which meant a spring bed preparation, something I rarely do as the weather is not reliable and soil can be too wet to work. Working wet soil destroys the soil structure and porosity as well as wreaking havoc on soil microbial populations.

Not to be deterred, I had the sod removed both to see what I had to deal with (this part of the yard had not been turned since 1964, if then!) and to allow the area to dry more readily when the sun returns. When the soil does become workable, I intend to use a modified version of the “no till” method popularized by Charles Dowding to create the bed. A fork (or broadfork) will be inserted into the bed at close intervals and gently pried up. This will permit some aeration, rock removal and opportunities for soil amendment (compost). The amendments will be folded into the topsoil and the bed topped off with approximately 4 inches of compost. The portion of the bed slated for the hardy annuals may be planted while the remainder can continue to warm until it is time to plant the warm season varieties such as zinnia and dahlia. Lastly, a thin layer (1”) of shredded cedar mulch will protect the bed from incoming weed seed as well as help to keep the soil cool and retain moisture in the heat of the summer.

Ever hopeful, I have started to harden off plants. This is a gradual process over about a week that exposes tender plants to the outdoors and results in a thickening of the cuticle on the leaves. A thicker cuticle allows plants to retain moisture when exposed to the elements and helps to prevent transplant shock. As my seedlings are grown “cold and slow” indoors (at 55 degrees), they seem to hardened off more readily.

T posts will be placed every 8 feet along both sides of the garden and will be used to suspend the flower netting horizontally. The netting is a 6 inch square grid in plastic that will be positioned tautly about 18 inches above the ground keeping long stemmed flowers erect and preventing them from being blown over by wind and rain. Heavy, tall, floriferous plants will require a second layer of netting about 12 inches above the first.

The ranunculus will be planted using 6 inch spacings and Chantilly snapdragons will have 9 inch spacings. The delay in planting will mean limited or no bloom as these plants go dormant with the summer heat. However, the ranunculus corms can be dried and saved for next year and there are 2 other varieties of snapdragons started that tolerate the heat of summer.

Once in the ground, plants will be hooped with temporary PVC hoops so that frost cloth can be used at night in case of frost or wind and to protect the young plants from deer and rabbits.

A wise gardener remembers that Mother Nature always bats last.

“it’s never too late to start anything, except maybe being a ballerina” Wendy Liebman

References

Cool Flowers, Lisa Mason Ziegler, St. Lyons Press, 2014

https://charlesdowding.co.uk

https://antoniovalenteflowers.com/blogs/gardening/growing-ranunculus-anemones

Hardening off/delay planting

https://extension.unh.edu/blog/using-row-covers-garden

Advice, Compost, Fertilizer, Information, Perennials, Pruning, Websites

Ode to the Clematophile!

May 3, 2021 peterboroughmastergardeners 1 Comment

By Cheryl Harrison, Master Gardener

I can not claim to be a clematophile (Clematis expert) but I do like Clematis! Clematis are wonderful perennial flowering plants … many grow as vines, some are more like small shrubs, some are evergreen and some are herbaceous so die back to the ground each winter. Their flowers come as bell-like or more star-like shapes with sepals that are single or double; some are scented. And the colours! They range from white or yellow to pink or red to purple or blue … pale to deep and some are even striped. Some flowers grow as large as 25 cm (10in) across! The beautiful clematis blooms are followed by eye-catching fuzzy seed heads. There are lots of choices in the genus Clematis.

Clematis grow in zones ranging from 3-11. If you are not sure which zone you are in, check here. Choose a plant from a reputable dealer. Look for those that have strong stems and are at least 2 years old so that their root structure is well developed. Most Clematis prefer sun or part shade but like their roots kept cool so mulch or plant another perennial close by to shade the roots. Plant your Clematis in moist but well drained soil with lots of well-rotted, organic matter (eg. finished compost) added. Plant the ripened stem (brown, no longer green) about 16 cm (6 in) below the final soil level. Clematis prefer neutral to slightly alkaline soil. All new plants need to be watered regularly until they are established and during dry conditions. Fertilize with an all purpose organic fertilizer monthly but stop when flower buds are ready to bloom in order to prolong bloom time. You may start fertilizing again after flowering has ended but stop feeding in late summer early autumn.

Pruning your Clematis for the best blooms may seem complicated. The confusing part for me was that some references refer to groups 1,2,3 and others use group A, B, C while others will use the species names. What is important is knowing what you have and then you can determine how to prune. Read your plant label for pruning directions or if you do not know which Clematis you have:

When does your Clematis flower?

*flowers on old (previous year) wood in early to late spring, early summer.
*does not need regular pruning – prune to remove damaged stems or to keep your plant tidy and growing within it’s allocated space. Prune after the flowering period has ended.
*flowers early on old (previous year) wood and again in late summer on new current year’s growth.
*prune to remove damaged or weak stems and the early flower shoots (encourages the second period of flowering) immediately after the early flowering period.
* flowers on current year’s growth in mid to late summer.
* prune back all of the previous year’s stems to the lowest pair of live buds in early spring.

Clematis growing through shrub, author’s garden

Clematis may suffer from snails, slugs, aphids or mildew. Clematis wilt is a fungal disease that may result in the sudden collapse of a previously healthy plant. Cut back affected part of the plant, even right to the ground if necessary, if fungus wilt occurs. I have to say that I have only ever experienced the odd slug-chewed clematis leaf in my garden just east of Peterborough.

Clematis will grow on a trellis and in a container, through the branches of another shrub or even up into trees. It may be used as a ground cover and the shrub types look great in the perennial border. Clematis flowers are lovely and will attract pollinators and provide them with pollen and nectar.

Read plant labels, talk to garden nursery staff and other gardeners in your area and/or google to ensure that you purchase the clematis that is right for you. We may not all become clematophiles but we can still have some of these wonderful plants in our gardens!

For more information check out:

Clearview Horticultural Products – Clematis and Vine Guide

International Clematis Society

Timber Press Pocket Guide to Clematis by Mary Toomey with Everett Leeds and Charles Chesshire, ISBN-13:978-0-88192-814-3

Clematis ‘Stand by Me’, bush type, author’s garden

Advice, Birds, Compost, Holidays

Recycling Live Christmas Trees

December 21, 2020 peterboroughmastergardeners Leave a comment

By Mary-Jane Pilgrim, Master Gardener

Don’t throw out the tree after the holidays — put it to work. Here are some ways to recycle a live Christmas tree.

Mulch tender plants with recycled Christmas tree boughs.
Gardeners know how important mulch, like straw, hay or crisp oak leaves, is for protecting plants through a harsh winter. But evergreen branches add a little extra punch to your plants’ protection. Just lay the branches in a crisscross pattern over tender perennial plants. Weave the stems together to keep them from blowing away on a windy day.

The branches will moderate the soil temperature, keeping everything nice and cold until it’s really time to warm up. Piled on top of other mulch such as leaves, they’ll prevent the bottom layer of mulch from blowing away. And branches catch and hold snow, which is a good insulator. Place evergreen branches over your garden anytime the ground is frozen, from late November to midwinter, after you’re done enjoying your Christmas tree indoors. Pick them up when it starts to warm up in spring.

Repurpose your live Christmas tree in the garden by leaving it out for the birds.
Your old Christmas tree is the perfect winter gift for your feathered friends. Anchor the tree securely in a deep bucket of sand. The branches are enough to provide cover from the winter weather, but if you want to add treats, strings of popcorn will be popular with birds. Hang the treats on the branches, but push them toward the middle of the tree so birds won’t be frightened by any swinging ornaments that move with the wind.
Simmer some pine needle potpourri.
You can keep enjoying that piney scent with a simmering potpourri. The idea is similar to mulling spices on the back burner during the holidays. Add water, lemon and orange rinds, a cinnamon stick, whole cloves and other spices. Cover them with water and simmer for hours to scent your home and drive away the January blues.
Make coasters and trivets.
This is a particularly nice project for young kids who are having a hard time saying goodbye to the tree and the Christmas season. Cut thin slabs off the trunk, sand them smooth and apply a thin coat of polyurethane to keep the sap off tables and glassware.
Donate it to the zoo.
If you live in an area with a zoo, see if they need discarded Christmas trees for the animals to play with and eat. Same goes for local nature centers, which often use the trees as shelter for birds or even fish. Note that our Peterborough Zoo has accepted leftover christmas trees from vendors in the past.
Add needles to the compost.
You can finally quit worrying about needles falling on the carpet and make use of your tree’s tendency to shed. Place the tree on a tarp until it’s done shedding and then pour the brown needles into the compost to enrich your soil for next year. As the needles are quite dry, layer them with wetter materials for faster decomposition.

Advice, Compost, Drought, Information, Invasive, Perennials, Propagation, Vegetable Gardening

Year in review: part 1

November 16, 2020 peterboroughmastergardeners Leave a comment

By Suzanne Seryck, Master Gardener

It is a beautiful fall day as I’m writing this blog, blue sky and temperature around 20 degrees. I have just finished the last jobs before putting my garden to bed for the winter. The last of my 30 or so bags of leaves have been mulched and put onto the gardens, apple trees have all been wrapped to prevent rabbits and squirrels from eating the bark off of them, and I have emptied the rain barrels onto the trees, shrubs and fruit bushes.

Time for both a well earned rest and for me to put together my garden review list for this year. All season long I jot down notes of anything that is working, not working or something that I need to concentrate on or remember for next year and then I compile it into one list. This year I’m going to share my list in this blog, although the list is a little long for just 1 blog so I’ll split it in 2 parts.

I don’t plant many annuals in my garden–a couple of urns out front with 2 hanging baskets, and some large pots at the back. I love the colour that annuals provide all season, but they typically need more watering than I like to do, and I find them expensive. Last year I overwintered some cuttings I took from both my coleus and sweet potato vines as well as overwintering the purple fountain grass. All the cuttings worked great, and in the spring after hardening off I was able to plant them into my pots and urns; they grew really lush and full. The green potato vine was much stronger and more robust all season than either the purple or copper plants, however the purple fountain grass grew back very slowly never really getting the vibrant purple colour back. This year I’ve taken even more cuttings from my coleus along with the green and purple sweet potato vine. However, I decided that I would rather spend the money on new fountain plants each spring.

I have 2 large compost piles that I use all year, filling to the top with leaves and then burying food scraps the rest of the year. This year I religiously turned the one pile every couple of weeks starting as early as I could and was rewarded with compost all gardening season. In the second pile though, a couple of errant zucchini plants started growing producing lush growth and lots of flowers and I thought ‘why not leave them?’. I’m sure you can guess the rest, not a single zucchini and I was not able to use any of the compost all season. Note to myself if anything accidentally grows out of the compost next year, turn it back in.

For the first time this season I grew Sicilian zucchini, now I didn’t actually realize I had bought this variety until it started growing up the espaliered tree fence and growing 2-3 foot long zucchinis. I’m definitely going to grow them again next year, although in a different location. When the frost finally killed off the plants and we pulled them off the fence, the wires were no longer taut and needed some tightening. Another point to note is that the zucchinis were consistently eaten throughout August and September when they were barely an inch or two longer. I’m not sure why that only happened later in the summer, maybe the squirrel or rabbit population doubled when I wasn’t looking. I’m thinking of placing bags over the fruit as it is growing, hoping by the time it gets to a foot or more it won’t be quite so attractive to predators.

I tend to leave my perennials to self seed as I love growing plants from seed; it is probably one of my favourite things to do in the garden. I have set aside a nursery plot and any seedlings I find in the garden I move into the nursery. Unfortunately this year I noticed a definite increase in the number of swamp milkweed, verbascum and New England asters seedlings. Now I love these plants, but they are taking over both my garden and my garden paths. I grow Verbascum nigrum which is a beautiful stately plant with either yellow or white flowers. It tends to be a short lived perennial but as it grows profusely from seed, I always have a few plants in my garden. Swamp milkweed is a host for the monarch butterfly; in my garden I have both pink and white flowering plants. They prefer moist to wet soil and because my soil is dry, they are also short-lived. Not so the New England aster; this is a native aster which grows 4 to 5 foot with beautiful purple blue flowers, however it can get very large in just a couple of years. Next year I have to dead head these plants, leaving only a couple to go to seed, which I can then harvest and plant in a specific area of the nursery.

Verbascum in author’s garden; this one plant bloomed all summer.

On the positive side, I was surprised by an abundance of aquilegia (commonly known as columbine) in my front garden that I was not expecting. I had left the seedlings thinking from a distance they were meadow rue, only to be surprised by this showing:

Aquilegia are one of my favourite plants, but I tend not to grow them as I find in my garden they are eaten by slugs. One day I have a beautiful plant in full flower, and the next day just a few stems still standing. I’ve slowly been replacing them by meadow rue, which for me has a similar lacy look, which I like when paired with hostas and brunnera. Slugs don’t seem to like meadow rue, but for some unknown reason this year, they also left the aquilegia alone. Based on this I have since ordered some seeds from the native aquilegia, Aquilegia Canadensis, which has beautiful red and yellow flowers and also likes sun to part-shade.

And finally the dreaded creeping charlie in my lawn. I have a small lawn which I have been overseeding with clover in my attempt to make the lawn healthier and more low maintenance. Clover has a lot of great benefits in a law including growing in poor soils. Clover is a nitrogen fixing legume, so it will improve the health of the soil and the surrounding grass, needs less watering and mowing, attracts beneficial insects, and crowds out weeds. Unfortunately though it does not crowd out the creeping charlie and actually seems to co-exist with it harmoniously. The recommended solution in a lawn is to hand pull the creeping charlie and because it grows by rhizomes which then root into the soil, removing all parts of the plant can be very time consuming. I have heard that it is easier if you soak the ground first or weed after it has rained. Note to myself, recruit an army to help me after each rainfall in the spring, either that or learn to love it!

Compost, Information, Perennials, Uncategorized, Websites

Chrysanthemums: perennials?

October 26, 2020 peterboroughmastergardeners 1 Comment

By Judy Bernard, Master Gardener

One of the early signs that summer is coming to a close is the proliferation of potted mums. These beautiful fall flowers come in a range of colours from white to yellow to burgundy and almost everything in between. They disappear when flowering is done, only for new ones to appear next year all potted up and blooming profusely again. Although they are perennial (zone 5-9), one doesn’t usually find them in the flower bed, but instead they are displayed in wonderful potted arrangements.

At the end of the season, rather than putting them in the compost, why not try planting them?

There are a few things one can do to try to help your mums survive the winter in the ground:

Choose plants whose buds haven’t started to open. Plant them in a larger pot with fresh potting soil for display purposes, then, at the end of the season plant them directly in the ground.
Mums need full sun 5-6 hours daily.
Mums need rich well drained soil, so add compost to the soil when planting.
After blooming is finished cut the plant back to about 10cm from the ground. (Or wait and do this in the spring )
Mums have shallow roots, so it’s important to mulch them well with several inches of mulch to keep the roots from heaving through the freeze thaw cycles of winter. If you see that they have heaved, just push them back into the ground.
They also need lots of water, so keep them well watered in the pots as well when you put them in the ground

If you’ve been successful and the mums survive the winter, the operative word here is “if” as they have been forced into the wonderful growth we see. So, if they survive:

As they are susceptible to mildew, they need plenty of air circulation, and morning sun to dry the dew from the leaves. Don’t plant them where they will be boxed in.
Once they have reached a height of 15cm pinch the new growth back to encourage side shoots and more fall flowering. This can be done a few times until mid to late June.
Keep the plants well-watered and fertilized with a 5-10-10 fertilizer.
Enjoy another burst of colour from these amazing plants the next fall.

You may also want to keep an eye out at the garden centres in the spring for perennial Chrysanthemums that you can grow in your garden. There are many beautiful cultivars in a wide range of colours and sizes that will keep your fall flower bed looking spectacular.