GETTING BLOOD FROM A STONE

Posted 10/22/2024

Within soil, there is a “dead” organic component, a living biological component, and the most plentiful, a mineral component. And the important pores in-between, of course. The most commonly known basic process that goes on in this mix called soil is decomposition, wherein the dead organic matter is broken down by microbes and the end result is a release of nutrients (called mineralization) that are used by plants along with the liberation of other organic products that improve the soil in many and various other ways. It’s a process familiar to almost every gardener.

But there is a vast array of other processes, much less familiar to gardeners, most of which also lead to improved soil health and thus better plants. That is, at least when the soil is maintained in a healthy way.

One of these other processes is something called “solubilization.” Put simply, it’s dissolving the mineral component of the soil. Plant nutrients (certain elements) within the soil minerals are insoluble — they cannot go into a solution that can be taken up by plants (directly via roots or, more commonly, indirectly via various soil microbes).

It takes specialized microbes (part of the oh-so-important biological living component) to do the dissolving, thereby extracting elemental nutrients and putting them into solution. Hundreds of species of microbes provide dozens of different nutrients to plants that plant roots can’t absorb by themselves. At least 25 of these species, having been identified with this capacity, are now regarded as potential “biological fertilizers,” to be used as inoculants in suitable soils.

To put this into some perspective, I’ll start with the popular “N-P-K” narrative. When it comes to plant nutrients, this three-letter initialism (an unpronounceable anagram), is where most gardeners start AND STOP when it comes to feeding plants.

The “N” is for nitrogen, the nutrient that, simply put, makes the green stuff grow. To be clear, nitrogen doesn’t come from mineral and it’s not part of any solubilization process; but it’s the nutrient most commonly added as a “fertilizer” to home gardens and I want to make the point that in addition to the “blood from a stone” idea here, nature gives us free “fertilizer” in other ways. Nitrogen is a nutrient that comes from organic matter, not mineral. A specific group of soil microbes, called diazotrophs, put nitrogen into the soil by taking it from the air and converting it into a plant-friendly consumable form.

One of these diazotrophs (nitrogen-fixing bacteria), Thiobacillus, also converts sulfides (common in minerals but largely unavailable to plants) via solubilization into sulfates, a form that plants can use. These sulfates are particularly important in dropping the pH of overly alkaline soils.

Phosphorus, the “P” and another limiting nutrient for plant growth, is usually plentiful in soil, but is almost always found in forms that plants can’t readily use. Again, soil microorganisms release organic acids and, in this case, phosphotases (singular enzymes), to break apart stuck-together phosphorous-based molecules into plant-available forms. Bacteria such as Pseudomonas putida, Azospirillum fluorescens, and Azospirillum lipoferum are the rock bleeders here.

Other bacteria within the rhizosphere (the community around the roots), produce organic acids that break apart non-available forms of potassium (the “K;” from the neo-Latin “kalium”). Once solubilized, part of this newly-available potassium will be held for the long-term upon soil particles (particularly clay), part will go into the soil’s water solution (in the pore spaces), and part will be taken to the roots by mycorrhizal fungi. Strains of Pantoea agglomerans, Microbacterium laevaniformans, and Pseudomonas putida are highly efficient insoluble phosphate solubilizers. Species and strains of Burkholderia, too, do a decent job of pulling out the K.

Beyond the NPK, another wide range of microbes reduces iron and sulfur within minerals and puts those now-available forms into solution; the processors here include, among many others, a few diazotrophs who offer it up as a “bonus” to their nitrogen-adding activities. At least one bacteria, Bacillus megaterium, draws zinc from mineral.

Among home gardeners, solubilization just might be the least known and most misunderstood major process within the soil. As already said, almost every gardener thinks that organic matter is the one and only source of nutrients and once organic matter is gone or “broken down,” there are no more nutrients left to feed the plants. Solubilization is certainly slower than mineralization but it provides different yet still significant nutrients and it does so over a more dependable and longer time. Bottom line: healthy soil microbes provide, in one way or another, virtually every known major and minor nutrient needed for plant health. And then some.

As always, the “fix” to an unhealthy (in this case, nutrient-low) soil, is to put roots in the ground and leave them there, supply organic matter as a mulch or topdressing, and, especially in this case, encourage a diversity of microbes with a diversity of roots and a diversity of organic matter.

The “root” part of the fix seems to be key. It turns out, not unexpectedly in such complex interactive systems, that organic sugars that ooze from plant roots along with the breakdown of organic matter could be the kick-starters for the initiation, then growth and maintenance, of these mineral-dissolving microbes.

A BETTER “POLLINATOR GARDEN”

Posted 9/19/2024

There’s value in putting out plants that will attract “pollinators.” There’s the gardener-centric objective that such pollinators will move their pollen-doodling talents over to the fruit trees and vegetable garden. Then there’s the more important objective of building and conserving populations of native pollinators.

Laying out a small plot of selected plants in a designated "pollinator garden" is certainly a gateway practice to actually creating a haven for native pollinators; but it’s not the optimum way. Putting clusters of flowers for pollinators shoulder-to-shoulder with one’s vegetable plants is another way to attract pollinators; but that, too, isn’t efficient and is usually a waste of space, with that space being better filled with more vegetables, herbs, etc.

FLOWERS

It doesn’t take much to attract pollinators. Just plant flowers. Everywhere in the landscape.

For maximizing pollination should there be an orchard or vegetable plot, the smart way to do this is two-fold:

(1) plant early-blooming native plants around the periphery of your garden to attract the awakening native pollinators. Plan to have plants flowering as much throughout the pollinators’ flight season as possible. Especially note when the native pollinators just begin to appear (or are scheduled to appear) and make sure there are plenty of flowers for them upon their arrival.

(2) plant spring-into-summer bloomers somewhat closer to the plants that would benefit from added pollination. No need to plant pollinator plants in amongst your fruiting veggies, shoulder to shoulder, though; that’s valuable real estate and is better given to the veggies themselves. A UC Davis study showed pollinators and other beneficial insects easily travel 80 to 100 feet to do their jobs; bumblebees much farther. Of course, planting flowers anywhere on the property is good for pollinators, albeit not so efficient for orchards and small vegetable gardens somewhere within, say, a ten-acre property.

Avoid using only one kind of flower that blooms for but one short season. Concentrating a pollinator in one area for a short period of time can lead to disease outbreaks. The more "double" the flower, the less nectar is available to pollinators and other beneficial insects.

It boils down to just planting flowers. Oddly, most gardeners already do that. Almost any kind of flower is helpful but native plants provide the flowers that their evolutionary companions have been co-evolving with for millions of years. The plants can be trees, shrubs, vines, herbaceous perennials, biennials, and/or annuals.

There’s a very special group of plants. Sunflowers and almost the entire sunflower family (asters, coreopsis, rudbeckia, calendula, goldenrod, and any of hundreds of “daisies”) have pollen with spiny shells and that spininess somehow reduces a bumblebee’s susceptibility to Crithidia bombi, a deadly disease, by more than 80 percent.

Throughout the process of creating such a garden, it’s important to develop biodiversity, which in itself benefits a garden in many ways. Mother Nature works, despite its outwardly messy and chaotic workings, because of biodiversity. Biodiversity is a system of checks and balances, an insurance policy, the converse of “putting all your eggs into one basket,” and a compilation of “I-got-your-backs.” Biodiversity stabilizes an environment, particularly the soil environment. If one species dies, another (or others) will take its place and will continue the processes of the system. Bottom line, it yields greater ecosystem resilience. The human’s ecosystem, the garden or landscape, benefits in the same way. Biodiversity is our best “tool” to encourage and maintain a healthy refuge for pollinators and beneficial life in general.

Add more species of plants, in variety. Plan for more complex planting schemes. Avoid mono-cultural planting (lawns are the poster child of such; clover lawns aren’t much better). Mix up the vegetable garden. Plant bulbs, annuals, and small groundcovers within your rose garden. Don't mulch the entire garden between plants; plant it instead with plants, especially those that attract the native birds, bees, butterflies, and pollinators. Consider, too, the native moths. The big bonus: a more diverse plant population better supports a greater diversity of edaphon (the living entities of the soil).

Start learning who your native pollinator species are and what native plants match. Native plants not only attract native birds, pollinators, predatory insects, and parasitoid beneficial insects, they also provide resources to a host of native tiny creatures, from small invertebrates to the microscopic members of the phyllosphere and the rhizosphere. The natural biodiversity.

BESIDES THE FLOWERS

Stay away from pesticides. In current news, there are the neonicotinoids, commonly called simply “neonics.” These chemicals are partially to blame for the decline in honey bees (the prevalent news) as well as, more tragically, the decline in native pollinators (the other bees, as well as certain pollinating flies, beetles, even butterflies and moths). Neonicotinoids are found in virtually every “systemic” insecticide product, including those commonly used for pest “prevention” on roses. The most commonly used neonicotinoids are imidacloprid, clothianidin, thiamethoxam, acetamiprid and dinotefuran (as of 2020). These are the chemical names you’ll find on the back of the bottle.

Even one of the most popular “safe” pesticides, neem oil, needs to be reconsidered. In its complete form, with its active ingredient azadirachtin, neem oil works in four different ways. As an oil, it blocks the breathing holes (spiracles) of mostly small soft-bodied insects such as aphids and mealybugs, effectively suffocating them. It has a strong, odd odor that possibly repels some insects, although it should not be used as a general “preventative” spray. It is an anti-feedant that reduces the appetite of those bugs that ingest it, causing them to then literally starve to death. It should NOT, however, be used on plants when and where beneficial insects are visiting the flowers.

Btw, complete neem oil also has disease-inhibiting properties, but that, too, is good news and bad news — in addition to suppressing disease organisms, it also reduces the beneficial microbes of the phyllosphere (the microbiome on the leaves and stems of plants).

The full-blown version of neem oil, the form that contains azadirachtin, is no longer available in typical retail forms for home gardeners. That might be a good thing. What’s now commonly sold is a version called “clarified hydrophobic extract of neem oil.” It still smothers small insects.

Eliminate herbicides, too. The most commonly used herbicide in the world works by inhibiting an enzyme in plants; that same process also affects fungi and some bacteria. A recent study provides a new surprise: the most popular herbicide impacts the development of young bumblebees in their nests, presumably by damaging the bumblebees’ external and/or internal biomes (yes, they have one, too).

Even some “biological control products” such as Mediterranean and Chinese mantids (the common egg masses sold) are not to be used when trying to encourage pollinators (or used at all). As are all mantids, they are indiscriminate generalist feeders, preying upon any and all pollinators, as well as other “good guys” (including others of their own species and other species of mantids); they’ll even eat butterflies (including Monarch butterflies and their caterpillars). They compete with our native mantids species for habitat and food.

Another pollinator-threatening pesticide category are the broad-spectrum microbiologicals (also called biopesticides). The most common of these is the beneficial fungus Beauveria bassiana, which is used to manage most soft-bodied pests as well as ants, grasshoppers, certain caterpillars and beetles, and various fly species. But it can be a problem when sprayed while pollinators, or any beneficial insects, are out and about.

Besides pesticides and their ilk, pollinators are reduced by too much wind and/or too little sunlight. Although windy sites can lead to the iconic picturesque wind-swept tree, more often a gardener ends up with lack of pollinators, who’d rather flit about more easily in the calmer areas. Site critical gardens away from the wind or provide at least temporary windbreaks during critical times. Of course, there’s the trade-off: although windbreaks of any kind can help encourage and protect pollinators, cutting down on air circulation can allow certain pest and disease organisms to take hold.

The vast majority of pollinators are insects and hence they are poikilotherms — usually referred to as “cold-blooded” but more accurately described as those whose internal temperatures match the external environment’s temperature. They require sunlight for the heat needed to keep moving. Reduced sunlight leads to reduced temperatures; the more shade, the fewer the pollinators. By the way, several species of bats, the nectar feeders, are valuable pollinators. Bats are homeotherms (more commonly called “warm-blooded,” having the ability to keep their internal temperatures at a constant level). Flying at night (no sunshine whatsoever) is a breeze for them.

Looking at the bigger picture, it makes a big difference to “tie the islands” together. That is, coordinate planted and/or natural green spaces where you can between neighbors’ landscapes and gardens or in communal and commercial areas. Develop “pollinator corridors” or safe havens for native pollinators. The larger the area of plants, the more opportunities for beneficial insects of all kinds, birds, and wildlife in general to survive. Again, biodiversity.

“SAVE THE [RIGHT] BEES”

Make sure you’re saving the bees (and other pollinators) that actually need to be saved. Honey bees (Apis mellifera) don’t need a gardener’s help; the thought of saving honey bees is akin to saving chickens because someone said “save the birds.” Apiarists (professional and amateur beekeepers) take care of honey bees and they do it not because of “biodiversity,” but rather because their financial livelihoods or desired foodstuff depend on these domesticated creatures.

This sacred cow of the beneficial insect world is an introduced and domesticated species in North America. It’s used for very controlled pollination of large-scale monocultures such as fruit orchards as well as it being used in a less organized fashion for honey production. Honey bees, native to most of Eurasia, are quite common in gardens — because most ornamental and edible garden plants are also indigenous to Eurasia and these bees and these plants have evolved together. They’ve also gone feral in most of the U.S. and issues are just coming to light. Is it really beneficial in the bigger scheme of things? Several very recent studies — looking at the impact introduced honey bee hives, especially in urban areas, have had on native wild bees — have found these issues:

— ineffective pollination of wild native plants; honey bee visits on pollination is negligible, and, if anything, negative. Some honey bees have learned how to circumvent the pollen-laden anthers and the pollen-grabbing stigmas by chewing a hole at the base of the flowers to get directly to the nectaries.
— fewer and lower-quality seeds in flowers; possibly because honeybees spend more time buzzing between flowers of the same plant than other pollinators and they put more of the plant’s own pollen back on itself; this leads to more inbred seeds.
— reduction of nectar and pollen availability leading to fewer visits from more effective native bees, hence a significant decrease in wild native bee abundance. Smaller solitary bees were affected the most with generalist bumblebee species being less affected.
— risks to native plant communities; with a significant depletion in pollen grain abundance, honey bees restructure the plant-pollinator network in natural areas leaving many plants with no ability to set seed.
— interference with pollination network dynamics, loss of abundance, richness, interaction patterns, specialization, and robustness. The networks became more specialized and more prone to species extinctions.
— aggressive and indirect displacement of other pollinator species from floral hosts and, consequently, a reduction in foraging efficiency of native species resulting in impaired pollination services.
— disease transmission; honey bees can transmit diseases to many species of native bees, including bumblebees, where they interact at shared flowers.

Adding honey bee hives to one’s property may effectively provide rewards of honey but it is not the appropriate way to “Save the Bees.” Turns out, it’s just the contrary.

Just to make sure I don’t get slammed more than I expect already, I am not advocating for disturbing honey bees and I’m I’m certainly not suggesting killing them. I just want to make sure that a gardener’s needs are met most effectively and that nature gets taken care of in the process.

GOOD GUY, BAD GUY? FRIEND OR FOE?

Posted 5/6/2024

Argiope aurantia lunching on a monarch butterfly.

If one can have a romantic notion of spiders and toads in the garden, it’s that they eat plenty of bad pesty bugs. And, indeed, they do.

But it’s also true that such general predators eat pretty much anything that moves and looks like it would fit into their mouths. Toads eat slugs, sure, but they also feed on earthworms. Snakes eat rodents but they also eat toads (and frogs). In addition to eating pestiferous bugs, spiders eat bees, butterflies, syrphid flies, lacewings, and more. Moles who eat root-chewing grubs beneath a lawn or garden also eat earthworms, all while bringing up weed seeds and hoisting whole plants from the ground in their tunneling process.

Don’t get trapped by the common and divisive question of “friend or foe?” It’s definitely not black and white. There are too many critters with eating habits so enigmatic, some gardeners scream at them as pests while still other gardeners praise them for some environmentally beneficial work done.

The mole is particularly difficult to classify as good or bad. It certainly eats its share of grubs and other garden nasties. But it also eats a good many earthworms and, in many gardens, earthworms outnumber grubs. Making that last statement more confusing is the fact that earthworms aren’t native to a good part of the U.S. and they can, in fact, be a pest themselves. Oh, and let’s not forget that moles damage plant roots and push plenty of plants out of the ground in the process of searching for lunch.

One friend/foe in current news is the earwig. They can be both a garden pest and, as recently discovered, a helper in the same garden. As predators, they can eat the pesties such as aphids, mites, some detrimental soil nematodes, as well as other insect larvae. They’re also omnivores, feeding mostly on decaying organic matter as well as those pest insects. They’re opportunists, too, and as such, earwigs will also eat ornamental and vegetable plants, particularly seedlings. They’ll even snack on the silks of sweet corn. On balance, earwigs (and so many others mentioned here) are best not described as “beneficial.”

I need to throw another wrench into the machinations of this issue of good guy versus bad guy. Our gardens are filled with introduced species (not native to American soils), including most of the aforementioned earwigs. Although many of them do some beneficial work, they are invasive species, the “weeds” of the animal world. In the Pacific Northwest, for example, all but one of the fifteen major aphid, mealybug, and scale pests in gardens, farms, and timberlands are introduced. Many claim that they are “food for the ladybugs or lacewings” or “a critical part of the food web.” This suggests they are necessary to the ecosystem. More common is declaring caterpillars, of all and any sorts, “food for the birds.” It’s suggested we leave some pests on our plants so that birds, or whoever, can have something to eat. But it's better to let nature create the balance rather than having introduced pests feed on what are probably non-native plants.

There is also the sacred cow of the so-called beneficial insect world: the honeybee. It’s an introduced and domesticated species in North America. It’s used for very controlled pollination of large-scale monocultures such as fruit orchards as well as used in a less organized fashion by amateurs for honey production. Honeybees have gone feral in most of the U.S. and issues are just coming to light. Is it really beneficial in the bigger scheme of things? Several very recent studies that looked at the impact introduced honeybee hives, especially in urban areas, have had on native wild bees have found these issues:

— ineffective pollination of wild native plants.
— fewer and lower-quality seeds in flowers they’ve visited.
— reduction of nectar and pollen availability leading to fewer visits from more effective native bees.
— interference with pollination network dynamics with networks becoming more specialized and more prone to species extinctions.
— aggressive and indirect displacement of other pollinator species from floral hosts.
— disease transmission; honeybees can transmit diseases to many species of native bees, including bumblebees.

Adding honeybee hives to one’s property may effectively provide rewards of honey, but it is not the appropriate way to “Save the Bees.” Turns out, it’s probably just the contrary.

Introduced species of many kinds have almost always pushed out native species or, in the case where they “have filled the void” left by native species that were pushed out by other factors, they hinder re-establishment of the natives.

“Good guy, bad guy? Friend or foe?” In nature, it’s neither. In the garden, it just might be a foe with bad tendencies. Or maybe not. If it’s an introduced species, though, it’s “not part of nature” and that’s bad. So maybe "good guy, bad guy" boils down to the origin of the critter.

There’s an important garden care process called Integrated Pest Management or IPM for short. Its overall steps are: 1. Prevention, 2. Monitoring, 3. IDENTIFICATION, 4. Determination of acceptable injury level, and 5. Management strategies. As a way to seriously reduce garden pest problems and potential pest problems, I’m big on the first step, Prevention. As a way to make some important decisions when you do need to move forward, go with IDENTIFICATION. And then in a search focused on university sites, Google the hell out of what you actually have.

GARDENING ON THE CHEAP

Posted 4/30/2024

Gardening can be an expensive hobby. But it doesn’t have to be and everyone should have the opportunity to garden if they want, regardless of their economic situation. Fortunately, there are a great many ways to reduce expenses within this hobby and maybe even eliminate them. Yes, there is free stuff.

What’s truly beautiful about most of the following guidelines is that they are not just money savers, they are, in the end, the best way to create a rewarding, successful garden, period.

1. Design it yourself. Make a plan, a real plan, an on-paper plan. Gardening is not about “trial and error.” There are already so many ways things can go sideways with gardening; no need to add to that. If you consider “trial and error” a synonym of “experimenting,” do a Google search for “six steps of the scientific method.” As for the cost of “trial and error,” you really need a big wallet or purse. Check out the “Designing Your Landscape” slide show in the LEARNING CHANNEL section of the RESOURCES page.

2. Grow from seeds, not starts. Growing your own plants from seed is the cheapest method to produce a lot of plants. Besides that, it generally requires the fewest skills, fewest specialized equipment or facilities, and is thus the easiest method. And “easy” = low cost.

3. Find a “Seed Library.” The good news is that they are popping up everywhere. Don’t forget to give back when you can.

4. Find your local “seed swap/exchange.” A more socialized version of a seed library; and that comes with hidden financial benefits.

5. Save your own seed. Fairly easy to do but it comes with guidelines. Stick to “O.P.” (open pollinated) seeds versus F1 (hybrid) seeds. A great many books and blogs on the subject.

6. Stay away from Amazon, Etsy, eBay. Wayyyy too many scams therein and – poof – there goes your money.

7. Some inexpensive seed companies with integrity (based on third party surveys):

99Heirlooms (heirlooms and more)
Dollar Seed (basic flowers and vegetables)
Generic Seeds (herb and vegetable seeds)
Hudson Valley Seed Library (seeds, seedlings, bulbs, seed potatoes)
Nikitovka Seeds (Ukraine; specialty heirloom vegetables)
Pinetree Seed
Seeds of Italy (aka Franchi; Italian varieties, of course)
Swallowtail Seeds
Both Park Seed and Burpee Seed (top seed companies) have a discounted seed section in each of their catalogs.

5. Take cuttings, clippings, divisions; from your own and others

6. Avoid annual flowers (aside from direct sowing of seed). They are not “sustainable.”

7. Repurpose and upcycle. Be creative with organic, natural products. If you do find non-reuseable plastic things in your life, take them to a recycle center (hoping they actually recycle it) rather than putting it in your garden. Plastic microparticles and nanoparticles are dangerous (a forthcoming blog article).

8. Forage for your gardening supplies. Garage sales, online swaps and for-nothing groups.

9. Make your own soil amendments – COMPOST (the verb). It’s easier than you think. There’s a pdf file, "Composting How-To" in the RESOURCES (link) page here.

10. Avail yourself to free compost and mulch. If and when you can’t make it or make enough of it, check out community and local government entity sites for give-aways.

11. Learn to use cover crops (= more inexpensive compost! = for the price of the seed). See the articles on COVER CROPS starting with part 1 (of 3) HERE.

12. Don’t buy topsoil; fix your native soil (yes, even urban non-soil). There are problems with “topsoil.” Making and maintaining healthy soil may take a while but it’s all about the long-term investment. “Convenience” on the other hand, will cost you.

13. Become a “free list” warrior: Craigslist “Free” ads, Facebook free/trade groups.

14. Grow organically/sustainably/regeneratively. There just happens to be a great book that covers these very subjects: amazon link

15. Water deeply and infrequently. One of my three gardening mantras. Watering deeply and infrequently (relative to the plant’s size, size, type, of course) produces a more deeply rooted plant, hence a more drought-tolerant plant. Will cost you much less in the long run.

16. Collect rainwater. Everything from re-grading parts of the garden to channel the water to water-needy other parts of the garden to roof collecting and rain barrels. And more.

17. No lawn. Or at least the very minimum lawn. Young children and dogs need a place to play and/or “do their business” and the natural surface that holds up best to that is a grass lawn. But there’s no other reason to have a lawn that can’t be subbed with another type of plant that does the job better and for less time and money. Half of a household’s water is used for the landscape/garden and half of that, on a national average, is used for a lawn.

18. Go native, avoid invasives. In most cases a native plant (one adapted to the specific environment), will provide cost less on maintenance. “Invasive” is a term given by agencies to describe plants that invade natural habitats and compromise the biodiversity. That also means they want to take over your garden and that will cost you time, money, and effort (and your effort is worth some).

19. You don’t need a lot of tools. You need a spade for digging hole, a rake for grading or collecting leaves and trash, a hand trowel also for digging holes, a pruning shears and maybe a pruning saw for pruning, and a hoe for shaving off weeds. Those are the basics and a few more may fit into your gardening toolbox, including some specialty tools but most gardeners will get by very nicely with those basics.

20. Buy good quality tools. As always, you get what you pay for. If you don’t have money for the good tool today, borrow that tool; it’s a good way to discover which brand and model of tool fits you and your needs best. Keep borrowing until you have the money for the PRACTICAL best (not the gold-plated model). You deserve it.

21. Take care of your tools. It really matters in the life of the tool. Clean, oil, adjust, and whatever else it takes to keep the tools in top condition.

22. Salvage lumber. It’s almost everywhere; keep an eye out.

23. Carry a wish list. Rather than give in to impulse buying (yeah, it’s expensive), carry a list of your desperately wanted/needed gardening plants and items with you. It can refresh your memory at the right moment (something on sale?) and it can be the curb-your-habit reminder when you need such an angel on your shoulder when confronted with that impulse item.

24. Read lots (library!). Yes, I like books; I’ve even written a few. Buried within so many volumes of knowledge on the experiences of so many gardeners, a good gardening book is the antidote to “trial and error.” As well as a glorious inspiration for all manner of grand garden design.

25. Friends, family, neighbors. They probably have what you need.

26. Always be resourceful. Forage, salvage, find it and use it creatively somehow.

27. Right plant, right place (avoids trashing plants that don’t fit). Ever bought a plant on impulse and didn’t know where to put it? Ever “didn’t know where to put it” for so long, it died? Ever put a plant in the wrong place only to discover too many years later it was too big, wrong color, or otherwise “not what you had in mind?” Ever plant a plant that struggled where you planted it for too long; and worse, blamed it on the nursery, the mail-order catalog, the neighbor’s cat, or even the latest poster child of what’s wrong with gardening, “climate change?” If you’ve been reading my blogs, you know this, too, is one of my three gardening mantras not-so-much for saving money but rather for growing a better garden, period.

28. Be a minimalist. Stick to the science-backed basics of gardening. Don’t get caught up in buying the latest device or the trendy products for wildlife and bees. Your property probably already has everything you need.

Finally, as I said under "tools" but it applies to any “product” in the gardening world, I’m a big believer in “you get what you pay for.” There are many great seed, bulb, and plant mail-order companies and retail garden centers with high-quality, dependable product and service. Research in advance, ask questions when buying, and follow up with the seeds, plants, or other products using the appropriate planting and maintenance methodologies.

© Copyright Joe Seals, 2024

DOES VINEGAR + EPSOM SALTS + DISH SOAP = NATURAL HERBICIDE?

Posted 4/23/2024

This weed-killing recipe pops up constantly on social media pages devoted to gardening. There’s some logic behind the concoction. The acid of the vinegar can, when applied at the right concentration (“horticultural grade”), burn plants. The dish soap, as a surfactant, helps the vinegar stick. The Epsom salts, well, hmmm.

“Agricultural/horticultural vinegar” has about four times the acetic acid of the vinegar we use in the kitchen. At 20 percent acetic acid, “horticultural vinegar” is dangerous enough that users are cautioned to wear long sleeves, gloves, and goggles to protect themselves from burns and splashes. It is corrosive, damaging to the skin, and an irritant to eyes, nose and throat (the smell is, to say the least, unpleasant). At its worst, repeated exposure may cause dermatitis, chronic bronchitis, and erosion of teeth. Hence why most states require registration for use of acetic acid as a pesticide.

At this concentration, by the way, it is no longer “vinegar” in the sense that we know it. For commercial use, acetic acid (also known as ethanoic acid) is almost always produced synthetically (carbonylation of methanol), rather than by bacterial fermentation, the natural process.

It’s not registered for home use on weeds (nor on salads), hence not legally sold nor recommended for such. Household vinegar (as illustrated) and any acetic acids of 8 percent or less inert ingredient are exempt from registration by the EPA as a pesticide.

Equipment used to spray such “vinegar” must be cleaned after application, particularly metal equipment. Equipment with metal working parts, such as metal spray lines or metal nozzles, are particularly vulnerable to corrosion. Also vulnerable: reactive metals such as aluminum, tin, iron, and items such as fencing or lawn furniture; and masonry sidewalks and structures (subject to staining, mottling, or etching.

As with other heavy-duty herbicides, drifting acetic acid spray may damage desirable plants.

Although it contains hydrogen and carbon atoms (the definition of “organic”), horticultural vinegar is not an “organic” product in the sense of gardening as such. Many chemists have said horticultural vinegar (a chemical) is more toxic to humans than common weedkillers. Maybe most importantly, this concentration of acid does damage soil life.

Although the dish soap helps spread the other ingredients better (it’s a surfactant that breaks down the surface tension of the water droplets) and it does dry out the leaves of the plant (the soap dissolves the protective waxy cuticle on the leaves), the dish soap product commonly recommended is not organic in any sense nor, like any non-selective herbicide, does it distinguish between good plants and bad plants. It is also not registered for use as an herbicide (unlike the better “soap” sprays such as Safer’s Soap™ for plants). Some of the ingredients that are found in the most commonly suggested dish soap include methylisothiazolinone, specially denatured alcohol, sodium chloride, sodium laureth sulfate, and magnesium chloride. A side note: this same dish soap is recommended for spraying house plants and outdoor plants for aphids and other such critters; and yes, it has the same waxy cuticle dissolving capability on plant leaves in those instances, too.

Soaps such as Castile™ are at one end of the pH scale (in this case, alkaline, 8 to 10-ish) and vinegar is at the other (acidic, 2 to -3ish). If you mix the two of them together, it drives the pH toward neutral (in the middle of the scale), defeating the purpose of the vinegar’s acidity. Separately, both are fantastic cleaners (if that’s what you’re looking to do) but they create a dilemma when mixed for spraying on plants.

What about that Epsom salts? Well, it’s not an actual salt, so it doesn’t act as a salt would in drying up plants and their roots. It wasn’t long ago that this weed-killing formula included actual salt (as illustrated), which does, indeed, kill weeds. Along with your soil. Someone at some time decided to replace real salt with Epsom salts to make it “safer” and less controversial. But Epsom salt does nothing to kill weeds nor in any way becomes synergistic with the other ingredients. Epsom salts is magnesium and sulfur. If your soil is lacking magnesium (which you can accurately tell only with a commercial soil test) or is too alkaline (also requiring a good soil test; sulfur counteracts alkalinity), Epsom salt MAY help feed the plants, which means it would also feed the weeds.

Bottom line: this formula, because of the soap + vinegar, knocks down the foliage. It works most satisfactorily on small weeds (no older than within 2 weeks of germination). If the plant is an older perennial, it will come back. If the plant is an older annual, it probably won’t come back (although large annual plants may) but a continual barrage of new seeds in the soil or carried on the wind will find the barren spots of your yard. With this formula, you may get some dieback but you still haven’t done anything to prevent further weeds; and preventative weed management is what you need to be thinking about from the get-go.

THINGS GARDENING NEWBIES WOULD DO WELL TO KNOW

Posted 4/16/2024

New gardeners certainly have a lot they can learn about this favorite of all hobbies. At their disposal: thousands of books on the subject with dozens of new ones coming out each year (including some of my own). Most specialize in any of the many “arts” of gardening, others cover a single practice (e.g., pruning, composting, propagation), and a few cover the whole of gardening, usually organized alphabetically or in terms of seasonal needs (and rarely actually the “whole”).

None, however, help a beginning gardener know what’s most important in gardening. Sure, gardeners have certain subjects they want to learn about (hence, their “importance”), whether it’s growing roses, gardening in containers, or planting out a veggie garden. But what almost all of them miss are the real basics of gardening. (Yeah, I wrote a book on it.)

[At this point, I’ll just say that information on-line is even less inclined to help with the real basics.]

I have a set of priorities, of course, based on decades of teaching gardening students and the idea of “what do I know now that would I have told myself when I just got started gardening.”

The simple act of planting requires simple skills. But you need to know those skills for success.

Let me start with “The Top Three” (my gardening mantras):

1. Feed the edaphon (the living community of the soil).
2. Right plant, right place. Define the place and find the plant for that place.
3. Water deeply and infrequently. Relatively speaking.

Then there’s a whole bunch more, in no particular order but all important:

Soil structure is more important than organic matter actually in the soil. Gardeners have become obsessed with the idea that soils should be “fluffy.”
“N-P-K” is a bad treadmill. It’s the edaphon that feeds the soil naturally.
Don’t use peat moss. Lots of cons.
Don’t till the soil. Breaks down the structure, suppresses the edaphon/
Don’t pull weeds. Good thing there are better ways.
Cover the soil. Mostly with plants. Mother nature abhors a vacuum.
“Topsoil” ain’t that good. What’s sold as such is artificial and quickly collapses upon itself.
You might need a cover crop. The best way to “cover the soil” in vegetable beds, to add nutrition to the soil (in many ways), and to suppress weeds.
Compost – do it, make it. The gardening ultimate in recycling. Use it as a mulch or topdressing
Prevent pest and disease issues rather than use a bottle, bag, box of something when you have the problem.
Buy good-quality tools. You only need a few. Take really good care of them.
Know your climate zone. There’s USDA and the Sunset Western Garden Book zoning.
Time your plantings based on your zone.
Don’t plant overly easy, aggressive growers. Beware of gift plants that come from someone who “has plenty.”
Plant during the right season. But if you have a plant in hand, plant it no matter what the season.
Nope, phases of the moon don’t help.
Buy quality plants. “You get your money’s worth.”
Don’t amend the soil. It breaks down structure and you don’t need the “fluffy.”
B1 does diddly-squat.
Good drainage is critical. If your soil doesn’t drain, fix the underlying cause.
Very little of “companion planting” is supported by science. Don’t get caught up in it.
Plant flowers and plants for the native bees, pollinators, butterflies, and birds of your area. Plant them throughout the property, not just in token “gardens.”
Regularly look at your garden. Inspect it regularly, closely, and thoroughly for potential problems.
Don’t buy brick-and-mortar store ladybugs or praying mantids.
Leave roots in the ground. Except for the BIG tree roots. Don’t yank those “finished” veggies; cut them off at ground level.
Landscape fabric is a big no-no.
For plants that need such, prune or pinch regularly, at least once annually and with some, throughout the growing season. Don't wait for some magical "pruning time."
Know your plants – their full names, their sizes, their needs, and their placement in your garden.
Grow something from seed. Grow LOTS of things from seed.
Learn botanical names. It really isn’t that hard. Ignore the “Latin Police.”
PLAN. It’s a lot cheaper, easier, and more rewarding than not planning. There’s way too many references and resources to help avoid mistakes. Hundreds of thousands of gardeners have already made those mistakes so you don’t need to. Gardening is no more about “trial and error” than learning to drive a car is. And many mistakes are bound to happen; don’t make it worse.
Have fun.

What am I missing? If you're a beginner, what do you think you really need to know to be a better gardener? That, of course, may be a tricky question -- few of us know what we don't know. As for you experts and advanced gardening masters, what info would you take back in time to your younger gardening self? Comment.
© Copyright Joe Seals, 2024

EASY PLANTS (?)

Posted 4/9/2024

With more and more people getting into gardening, demand has grown for easy (or easier) plants. Per the all-things-gardening prognosticators, this rise is one of the top trends for 2024.

And yet easy is not so easy.

Sure, there are a few plants that will tolerate various soil types, various sun exposures, various watering regimes. And some will even take the occasional knock on the head. But they are, as said, few. And although they seem to fit fine in boring commercial landscapes, they aren’t among the popular kinds of plants home gardeners want in their gardens.

Complicating the matter is that I’ve bumped into many gardeners who’ve killed plants that were sold to them or recommended for them as “unkillable.” I’ve done my share of recommending such plants when pressed.

Too many gardeners tend to think that any plant can grow anywhere and any plant can take whatever the gardener throws at it. Turns out, though, every plant has its wants and needs (huge books have been written on the subject); even the so-called “easy” plants.

That idea — “Right Plant, Right Place” — is one of my three gardening mantras*. Understanding this axiom is the way to having truly “easy” plants in one’s garden or landscape. If gardeners followed only one big rule of gardening, this is the one that will result in easy, easier, easiest gardening.

Let me add at this point, though, that many gardeners indulge themselves in the “challenges” of gardening. They push the zones, they look for the plants that few others (any?) have grown, and/or they want to see what and how a shade-loving plant will do in the sun. Despite the fact that thousands of gardeners before them have run those experiments and failed. Methods used in such challenges are anything but easy. But experimenters should have at it.

For the rest of the gardening population, including and especially beginners, gardening really isn’t about “trial and error” and it doesn’t have to be a non-stop experiment. For those who do want easy or just easier, here’s what right plant, right place means.

To me, almost all gardeners have their plant selection process backwards. They select a plant and then try to find the right place in the garden for it. Or worse, they select a plant and then change the environment to fit the plant (hence why whole books are written on the idea of “how to make that garden spot better for the plant”).

The more rewarding way to select plants to end up with an easier garden in the long run: define the environment first and then choose a plant that fits that environment.

What criteria define the garden environment? Here are the key considerations.

The climate. It’s the big picture. Using a gardening climate zone map such as the USDA formula or the Sunset Western Garden Book formula is a good starting point. The USDA zone map, although the more popular and the most commonly used in the Eastern US, it has its limitations. The Sunset WGB map is more refined, more encompassing of environmental factors but it, too, its limited: it works for those gardeners Colorado and New Mexico and west.

Sun. Yes, no, in-between? Putting shade-loving plants into a sunny location makes their life less easy. Putting sun-loving plants into the shade has the same effective: more health issues. Knowing which is which and, equally so, what the in-between situations are, is key to less maintenance.

Moisture. Wet, dry, seasonal? Yep, some plants like it dry, some wet, and some like long wet periods followed by long dry periods.

Space — “The Final Frontier?” Don’t think that once a ten-foot-wide plant, which has been planted in a space that only allows two feet each way, reaches the given boundaries can be “pruned to keep it in place” is easy.

Pest pressures?! Does the garden environment struggle with deer, rabbits, pocket gophers, voles, or heaven forbid, the dreaded gahmboo?

Here’s an interesting dilemma: some plants can be “too easy.” At least as far as the plant is concerned. Such plants like the gardener’s climate and soil too much. So much so that they can quickly get out of hand — either from vegetatively spreading themselves about or from dropping loads of seeds. Gardeners call them weeds, thugs (politically incorrect), assertive, aggressive, and even “invasive” (a term usually limited to plants which have gone beyond the garden and have “invaded” nature). These are the plants that neighbors give away freely (“misery loves company?”) and that are sold frequently at hobby club sales.

Besides right plant, right place, how else can you make a plant “easy?” Selecting the “right plant” is, of course, only part of the formula to easy and successful, albeit the most important part. There’s also proper planting (hint: it doesn’t involve “amending”) and proper maintenance (yes, it’s easier maintenance). Some tips (nowadays called “hacks”):

Start small. The smaller the plant, the more quickly and easily it adapts to the new environment. I like trees planted from pots no bigger than 5-gallon; shrubs from 1- or 5-gallon; and perennials from 4-inch pots or as bare-root. Where the environment has undue stresses (grazing/browsing animals, for instance), sometimes it works better to go with another size up.

Proactively manage weeds. Get the weeds under control BEFORE you plant. Weeding becomes more difficult around growing small plants.

Plant properly. Make the hole twice as wide and only the slightest smidgen deeper. Backfill with native soil. Water as you go. Build a berm. Water again. Provide a coarse mulch of something organic. No fertilizer, no B1, no magic potions.

Water regularly to get started and water deeply and infrequently once started (or, if the plant is guaranteed drought-tolerant, don’t water once established.)

Are native plants generally easy? Sure — IF they match the site. Check out a fairly recent article already in the archives here for more on this subject. ("Native Plants -- the Good, the Bad, and the Smart")

Interesting closing thoughts:

What you can grow well might be a tough one for me and vice versa. Is it mismatched energy between plant and person?

Or is it maybe, probably, that garden conditions and soil et al are different from garden to garden?

Be a positive gardener, because no one really has a “black thumb.”

If you expect failure, it will most likely be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Pay attention and be mindful during your time in the garden.

Sing or talk to your plants to focus your time with each plant. George Washington Carver did. Your plants will respond positively even if you’re a little off key.

Bottom line: easy isn't a plant; easy is a plant-place match.

* Just in case you were wondering, my other two gardening mantras:

“Feed the Edaphon,” and
“Water Deeply and Infrequently.”

There’s much more information on the edaphon in the book “Back to the NEW Basics” and bits of that subject can be found within the SUBSCRIBERS page.

“Water Deeply and Infrequently” was covered in "Using Less Water; The Basic Rules of Watering"

And yeah, the plant in the photo is plastic.

SOME BOTANICAL NAMES MAY BE HARD TO PRONOUNCE, BUT…

Posted 3/31/2024

Whether you are a backyard gardener, a nursery professional, or a florist, eventually you will have to deal with botanical plant names. The use of these names makes communication between widely scattered gardeners and plantspeople more precise.

Common names have several short-comings:

Different languages use different names. Sure, your neighbor is American, just as you are, but their heritage isn’t necessarily the same as yours and the plant names they grew up learning aren’t always the same as yours..
Many plants have more than one “common” name. The plant Caltha palustris, for instance, has 60 French names, 90 local British names, and 140 German vernacular names! Even in North America, where the plant is usually called "marsh marigold," it also goes by “kingcup” and “cowslip.” Yellow cedar is also known as yellow cypress, Alaska cedar, and Nootka cypress but yes, they are all the same plant. Such diversity of names varies from region to region within the US.
They change with time (e.g., Douglas-fir used to be Douglas spruce; Hydrangea used to be mopheads and hortensia).
They are ambiguous. Many names are used for different unrelated species, especially "pine" and "cedar" among our conifers (e.g., white cedar, yellow cedar, and red cedar aren't really “cedars”).
The use of such common names has created real, practical issues for gardeners. For instance, “morning glory,” a term properly used for ornamental vines, mostly annual species or tender perennial species used as annuals, is often applied to weedy species of the same family (Convolvulaceae), such as Hedge Bindweed and Field Bindweed. The gardeners’ questions then become “Should I keep the bindweed because it’s a beautiful morning glory?” or “Should I dispose of my morning glory because it’s a pernicious weed?”
Many species of plants don't have common names. Believe it or not. Many.

* Carl Linnaeus (aka Carl von Linné, Carolus Linnæus, and Carolus a Linné), father of binomial nomenclature.

On the other hand…

Advantages of botanical names:

Each species has a single name. The name is unique to that one species.
They are formalized by international convention at Botanical Congresses held since 1864.
Scientific Latin is spoken throughout the world. Such names are “Latinized” but not exactly Latin. They are not “Latin names.”
They don't change. In theory at least. The fact is botanical names have had their fair share of renovation. Botanists have worked hard to find the original naming or find the most accurate relationships of plants. The new science of DNA, especially, has shed new light on plant relationships. The goal of the science behind nomenclature is to standardize naming using a variety of “tools” and peer consensus. Essentially, to make distinctive scientific names more “common.”
When searching for information about a plant using on-line sources, using a botanical name will get you more information, more accurate information, and many more relevant photos. A side story: as a breeder of Amaryllis belladonna (not Hippeastrum) and bigeneric hybrids thereof, I know it would be unwise to suggest entering the common name for this plant in the search field when looking for photographs. Amaryllis belladonna goes by the common name of “Naked Ladies.”

Let me stop you from throwing up a mental block before you even start down the pronunciation road. You’re already using plenty of botanical names as common names and you have no problem (most of you anyway) with saying them. Think about Asparagus, Begonia, Bougainvillea (maybe a little tricky), Canna, Chrysanthemum, Cosmos, Eucalyptus, Fuchsia, Gardenia, Hibiscus, Hydrangea, Impatiens, Iris, Magnolia, Penstemon, Petunia, Sequoia, and Verbena. Yes, they’re all botanical names. This is, of course, but a tiny sampling.

William Thomas Stearn in his seminal book “Botanical Latin” says “Botanical Latin is essentially a written language, but the scientific names of plants often occur in speech. How they are pronounced really matters little provided they sound pleasant and are understood by all.”

A.W. Smith in “A Gardener's Handbook of Plant Names” concurs with Stearn with “Within reasonable limits, nobody need be too disturbed about pronunciation.”

Liberty Hyde Bailey, Jr. (world renown plantsman, botanist, taxonomist, horticulturist, writer, cofounder of the American Society for Horticultural Science, and “America’s Father of Modern Horticulture”) said: “There is no standard agreement on rules for the pronunciation of botanical binomials*. Even in the best practice, there may be variations in pronunciation of a given word; this is unavoidable, and no more to be regretted than similar variations in pronouncing many English words. The particular sound to be given the vowels (within the categories ‘long’ and ‘short’) rests with the individual.”

Keep in mind, too, that Botanical Latin is not classical Latin. There is therefore little need to utilize strictly classical Latin pronunciation.

It may seem simplistic but what sounds right is often the best standard by which to decide how to pronounce botanical names. Just use the English sounds for vowels and consonants.

HOW TO PREVENT LEGGY SEEDLINGS

Posted 3/24/2024

(Or, if you’re already at that point, here’s why it happened and maybe how to fix it…)

It’s that time of year when a young gardener’s fancy turns to the miracle of seed germination and growth. And with that often comes a lesson in “etiolation,” the process in plants grown in partial or, heaven forbid, complete absence of light. The collective signs of etiolation: long, weak stems; smaller leaves, longer internodes (the spaces between the “joints”); and a lack of rich green color (the chlorophyl). When seedlings are grown in low light (called “skotomorphogenesis,” a good word to throw around at fun parties), it leads to etiolated — stretched — seedlings. In nature, such stretching is a survival mode, a way to get to wherever the sunlight is (or might be) in a quicker manner. In the home seed-growing set-up, such seedlings are weak, prone to diseases and physical breakage, and generally hard to handle.

Insufficient light is the primary reason for etiolation. It should be noted, though, that the lighting is for the seedlings, not so much for the seeds. Very few seeds need light to germinate (it’s the very tiniest of seeds that do and those are the ones which are pressed against the soil surface but not covered; all other seeds must be covered at least lightly).

It’s the seedlings, immediately upon germinating, which need the light. They need strong light, they need it in the right wavelengths, and they need it for a long period. “Strong light” is comparable to full, noonday sun outdoors. But since you’re not growing your seedlings outdoors (at least not most seedlings), you’ll need artificial lighting that comes close. In reality, even the strongest bulbs can’t match outdoor lighting, but we do what we can. South-facing, sunny windows come close to strong outdoor light but they, too, fall a bit short and there’s the danger of tender seedlings sitting in a frosty window.

There’s a ton of info out there about which is the best type of bulb/lamp to use for the “right wavelengths.” And too much of it is old info, complicated and confusing info, even contradictory info. So, I’ll keep it simple; I personally like “T5 HO.” There are several brands.

To make sure the seedlings get the “strongest light” possible, the bulbs must be set REALLY close to said baby plantlets. REALLY close, as in just 3 to 4 inches above the seedlings. As the seedlings grow, the bulb/lamp is raised. Hence why seed starting gardeners resourcefully devise all manner of lifting contraptions. See photo below.

Again, the seeds (with exceptions) don’t need the light; it’s the seedlings which do. So, the bulbs must be on after the seeds have germinated. How much is that “long period?” 14 to 16 hours per day. Use a timer.

Insufficient lighting is almost always the one and sometimes only reason given for etiolated seedlings. But there are other reasons, usually as a complex in addition to poor lighting, that lead to stretched, weak plants.

One of these secondary reasons is inadequate air circulation. When the air around them moves, seedlings develop cellular material which supports them better. It’s easy to set up an oscillating fan nearby. Nearby, not in the poor seedlings’ faces. As a bonus, good air circulation also helps to keep down the dreaded “damping off” disease complex (whereby seedlings turn dark at their bases and then flop over).

Another reason is too much fertilizer. Most seeds will produce seedlings which can grow quite a bit without supplemental feeding. And most commercial seedling mixes contain built-in fertilizer to help seedlings survive a few weeks into their growth. If you make your own seedling-growing mix from scratch and you’re not using a good homemade compost as the organic component, you’ll need to add the oomph for the slow-growing sorts. Also, if you are producing the kinds of plants which are really slow to get going — that is, they take their time getting to a transplantable stage — you will need to supplement. But aside from such exceptions, seedlings are fine without additional fertilizer until they are transplanted and when they are transplanted, it’s almost always into a medium which already contains a bit of fertilizer (or simply good compost).

Fourth, temperatures for the seedlings may be too high. A heating mat is a great way to get seeds to germinate. That’s when you have it set for somewhere between 65°F and 80°F-ish, a good temperature for the soil mix. But once the seeds have germinated and seedlings are actually growing, it’s the air temperature that is more important. Turn the heating mat off (or at least down) and do what you can to keep the air temperature around the plants at no more than 65°F to 70°F for the heat lovers and 60°F to 65°F for the cool stuff.

A fifth reason for tall, skinny seedlings — too many seeds in too little space, which leads to overcrowding. Germination of commodity packet seeds is very high, usually in the 90-95% range (it’s marked on the packet somewhere). Even at 70-80% germination, there’s no need to plop a gob of seed into a tiny potlet or tray cell. Use a tweezers or seed-sowing device (there are many cheap ones available) and put but two or three seeds per tiny pot or cell. If sowing tiny in rows, mix the seed with a bit of light-colored sand and sprinkle carefully.

When the seedlings have shown you they really want to grow and there is a clump (more than one), thin them out. The practice of thinning is not the same as transplanting. This is not the time to divide a clump; this is the time to “cull” out the extra. That means taking a small, sharp scissors and cutting off all but the strongest single seedling. I know it’s tempting to SAVE every single baby plant (after all, it’s a life, right?) but seeds are cheap (relative to gardening in general) and you almost always get more seed than you can use (hence why so many “seed trades” on social media platforms).

Finally (whew), leaving seedlings in their trays, cells, pots too long under artificial conditions will eventually lead to disproportionately tall plants, regardless of whether the other preventative measures were employed. Time your plant production to coincide with appropriate “planting out” dates for your area (including an essential “hardening off” period) and/or make sure you have the pots and potting soil to “move up” continually and the room to do it.

Transplant beginning with when the youngest seedlings are ready — when they’ve developed their first “true leaves” (the ones that look like actual plant leaves; versus the first “umbrella” of faux-leaves, which are technically cotyledons and not true leaves). (Caution: even after development of “true leaves,” some seedlings are still too tiny to handle easily. Let them grow a bit more.) Subsequent transplantings are made just as the seedling/little plant has filled its pot, whether you’ve planned on “moving up” or you haven’t planned it but the seedlings have decided to fill their little pots and it’s still too soon to put them out.

Proper lighting and light height.

MAGICAL ORGANIC MATTER AND HOMEMADE “FERTILIZER”

Posted 3/17/2024

Gardening is loaded with plenty of gimmicks, “hacks,” down-home tips, and quick solutions. Few have little if any special value as used. Fortunately, aside from wasting time, money, and effort, they are relatively harmless (with exceptions as noted). At the risk of coming off as the cliché “You’re doing it wrong” clickbait, I’d like to offer some science behind the uses of very common materials popularly used in the garden.

These are the organic goodies and non-organic household products that have been hyped to almost magical heights.

Coffee grounds. Coffee beans contain caffeine and caffeine can be allelopathic. In addition to slowing germination of some seeds, it can stall growth in young plants. They also have antibacterial properties which means they can kill beneficial bacteria in garden soil. Coffee grounds do not make any significant difference in soil pH, neither up nor down. When the grounds are simply sprinkled on the top of the soil, especially in a pot, the grounds can cake and become putrid. Coffee grounds possess less basic elements and minor elements than most other forms of organic matter. If you have them, throw them into the compost pile.

Eggshells, another popular garden dump, are 97 percent calcium carbonate (lime). Garden soils are rarely lacking in calcium and it would take 25 to 100 pounds of eggshells to raise a pH reading of 5.5 to 6.5, if that’s your intent, on 1,000 square feet of garden. And that change would be very short-term. The eggshell also has a very thin, non-calcium membrane on the inside; it’s made up of an interesting protein that is a good source of nitrogen. The problem with that, too, is its insignificant volume (super-fractionally less than the shell itself). Then there’s boiled egg water (what’s left in the pot when you’ve pulled the hard-cooked eggs out); the measurable calcium in the water verges on being homeopathic. An aside: are eggshells an effective snail and slug repellent? Short answer: No.

Bananas. There’s nothing nutritionally unique about banana peels. Even as a source of potassium, there are lots of fruits and vegetables that have as much or more potassium than bananas (per gram). Avocados are one example. But that potassium, along with several other plant nutrients, are locked up in plant cells that need to be broken down (decomposed, as in a compost pile) before it becomes available to the living organisms of the soil which, in turn, make it available to the plants. Soaking banana peels in water to produce “banana tea” isn’t going to break down or dissolve those nutrients, either; that tea doesn’t do anything special for your garden. There’s also nothing to support the idea that tossing banana peels in your planting holes gives plants a boost. It will attract primary detrivores. Plus, the bulk of the peel is going to create an undesirable air pocket around the plant roots. Banana peels are slow to decompose, so even if there was some benefit from the nutrients, they are not going to be available any time soon.

Beer.  There is no evidence that shows beer is a good fertilizer. Most beers contain alcohol and alcohol is bad for plants. Beer has been shown to increase bacterial growth, but beer doesn’t dictate what kind of bacteria it proliferates. It sometimes encourages good bacteria (the beneficial edaphon community) but it also encourages the detrimental soil bacteria (root rots, anaerobic fermenters, and the like).

Special category: Don’t add sugar, baking soda, or an egg to a planting hole for tomatoes. It does not make the fruit any sweeter nor does it make the plant grow any better.

If you do have coffee grounds, eggshells, and/or banana peels, throw them into the compost pile rather than somehow directly into or onto the garden soil. The eggshells won’t “decompose,” at least not in the way everything else does so it’s a good idea to crush it up into itsy-bitsy crumbs so the garden doesn’t look like a chicken coop warzone. If you have banana peels, I’ll assume you are putting your kitchen waste into the compost pile; nothing wrong with that as long as you keep the carbon (dry stuff) and nitrogen (moist stuff) ratio very high on the carbon side.

As for the beer, drink it.

  Along these same lines, it’s a good idea to also avoid using non-organic household products as garden fertilizers. In every case here, the results are nil or insignificant and the costs are much greater than simply using homemade compost or sowing seeds for a seasonal cover crop.

Ammonia: Ammonia, the compound, is comprised primarily of nitrogen and as such it does, indeed, provide nitrogen in a form that plants can use. What’s labeled in a bottle as ammonia, however, is in fact only 3 to 10 percent actual ammonia; there are many other things in the household cleaner that aren’t good for your plants. Most household ammonias can be toxic to plants, containing aqueous ammonia instead of the helpful ammonia ions. Another snag to this widespread suggestion is that when ammonia is combined with water, it’s an unpredictable finished product based on the pH level of the water and the soil. The pH level will impact how much ammonia is absorbed.

Sugary sodas: Soft drinks are essentially carbonated water with lots of added sugar. The carbonated water all by itself might be good for the plants in some instances but sugar (of any kind) is not. Sugar can pull water from plant roots (reverse osmosis). Sugar is broken down by bacteria and fungi, of course, but it’s usually not the beneficial kinds that do that.

Antacids: they are, indeed, a source of available calcium. But not a lot and it takes several tabs to provide enough calcium to even potted plants. An expensive scheme. These over-the-counter medicines are not the answer to blossom end rot in tomatoes.

Epsom salts: It contains an insignificant amount of magnesium and sulfur. No calcium. Soils almost always contain these elements and plants require extraordinarily little of such elements. Although many rose growers swear by it for enhancing flower color, there is no evidence that shows its worth for other plants, for other purposes and in most soils. Magnesium, in fact and if in excess, lessens soil aggregation; aggregation is turning individual soil particles into crumbs, which is a good thing and lessening that is not a good thing. Essentially, this reduces soil structure, and soil structure is more important than organic matter in the soil. Excess magnesium also reduces calcium and potassium uptake. Excess magnesium can be “toxic;” the signs include foliage bronzing. Magnesium deficiency is uncommon. Magnesium is available in organic forms and inorganic forms that are much less expensive than using Epsom salts, should there be an actual need for it.

If any “fertilizer” is needed in the garden at all, use an organic product, of course.

NATIVE PLANTS — THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE SMART

Posted 3/13/2024

Part 2 (of 2): HOT TOPIC: The Birds and the Bees and Native Plants

I am not a purist when it comes to what plants I put in my garden or what I suggest for clients’ gardens. Gardens are not nature; they are an emulation of nature, a construct of the human mind, an ever-changing progression toward a more nature-like design without the flaws of nature. Otherwise, why not let nature have the property back completely and without correction or even slight modification?

But a controversy swirls around the topic of native versus non-native and I’d like to offer my input, at least as much as I can in this short article to start. That controversy starts with the simple question, “Do non-native garden plants attract as many bees (or birds or butterflies or whatever) as do native plants?” This growing debate is what prompted me to offer up these bigger thoughts on native plants.

The biological aspects of bug-and-plant relationships are complex. Insects and plants have co-evolved with each other and because of each other for hundreds of millions of years. The native plants of a region have not only developed unique connections with the native insects of the region, they've also bonded with hundreds (thousands?!) of other life forms, from the largest vertebrates to the smallest invertebrates to the microscopic and near-microscopic life, particularly the life within the soil, literally joining with the latter. The insects and other life forms have adjusted along the way, finding better physical traits and processes to more efficiently and effectively coexist with the plants and benefit from the relationship. This is true mutualism, or symbiosis, and has led to a natural synergy as expected.

Most of the insects, the animals, and the microbes in these associations have evolved to be specialists, surviving on or in specific flowers, leaves, stems, or roots. So specific, in fact, that some critters live their whole lives dependent on but one species of plant. These species often need certain plants that in turn have evolved to grow in certain climates, with certain rainfalls or dry spells, or soil types.

A good example of a specialist is the monarch butterfly, the poster child for “planting for wildlife.” Although the adult monarch will find nectar from the flowers of dozens of unrelated species of plants, its caterpillar can survive only on species of Asclepias (milkweed) and a few other closely related plants (in the U.S., that includes Cynanchum laeve and Funastrum clausum). And the only butterflies to feed on Asclepias and relatives are the monarch butterfly and its two cousins, the Queen and the Tropical Queen.

One estimate is that about 90 percent of insects are specialists (the gourmets); only ten percent are generalists (the gourmands). But the gourmands don’t have carte blanche — even the most generalized insects, at least the U.S. natives, can eat only 10 to 20 percent of the plant species available to them. That means these gourmands can’t live on 80 to 90 percent of the plants available. Even the most gourmand-y of our native insects can’t switch easily from eating native plants to eating plants from other continents.

Gardeners who fill their gardens with the continentals are left to deal with the great array of introduced species of insects, the ones that feed on the broccoli, the roses, the roots of pretty much any and every houseplant, and/or the baby plants of almost every kind that have just popped their heads above ground. Think Japanese beetle or brown marmorated stink bug. In most areas, especially in urban and suburban gardens, most of the better known “pests” — the aphids, mites, mealybugs, and vegetable-eating caterpillars — are introduced species with no particular natural role in the grand scheme of things. Gardeners have figured out that widespread cultivation and naturalization of non-native plants favors such generalists but haven’t yet come to appreciate the fact that it’s at the expense of the specialists.

So, it’s not surprising to see so many “pollinators” on non-native garden plants. Pretty much anything with a flower will attract pollinators. In the garden, unfortunately, almost all of those pollinators are generalists, the gourmands.

Back to the question “Do non-native garden plants attract as many bees (or birds or butterflies or whatever) as do native plants?” I suggest there’s a better question: “Do non-native garden plants connect with as many entities of the natural environment and develop the same complex and beneficial relationships as do native plants?”

Native plants are part of the grand scheme of things called the “web of life.” The big picture here is natural biodiversity. We shouldn’t focus on any particular single plant species that attracts one particular species or one particular category of collaborative insect (bees, for instance, or worse, honeybees). This current focus on fashionable pollinators is limiting. It doesn’t address the entire environment and its machinations; it doesn’t even address a wide-ranging part of it.

Pollination is just part of the ecological equation. Native insects — the larvae of butterflies and moths, the grasshoppers, and the ants that are important food sources for birds and other small animals — need plants to eat and such plants are not necessarily the same as the ones the pollinators visit. Even among the pollinators, most are tiny solitary bees, wasps, and flies — the often unnoticed and/or discounted, the less glamorous pollinators. Many of these tiny pollinators are exceptionally important as predators of caterpillars, aphids, and other small insects that would otherwise become pests. It could very well be that their food plants don't have the showy flowers or foliage gardeners want or those plants just may be weedy looking. Not qualities that attract a gardener’s attention.

There is an even bigger plant-and-other-living-organisms relationship very few gardening books and articles cover. It’s just as important as pollinators and plant eaters and probably more so. That relationship is the one plants have with microscopic life, particularly that of the soil microbiome (a part of the “edaphon”; to be spelled out in April’s SUBSCRIBERS article). Herein lies a plant’s connections to the life that, in brief:

puts nutrients – of every kind – into the soil and carries nutrients directly to the plants,
gives structure (“crumb,” “tilth,” “friability”) to the soil,
tempers pH,
helps plants tolerate stresses,
kills/suppresses soil diseases and inoculates plants against other diseases,
kills soil pests,
reduces soil toxins,
produces seed-germinating and root-enhancing substances, and
sequesters carbon.

Most of these microbes are specialists and most of the plants connect with specific microbes.

Especially with these last connections in mind, it’s critical to evaluate a plant’s ecosystem interfaces just as much as its origins.

If a “more-like-Mother-Nature” approach to gardening is your goal, it’s important to begin by emphasizing native plants where possible, particularly plants native to the immediate surrounding natural habitat. How much emphasis? Doug Tallamy, entomologist and author of “Nature’s Best Hope,” suggests 70% of what we grow should be native and those natives should preferably be what he calls “keystone species.”

For heightened genetic biodiversity, stick with seed-propagated native species rather than vegetatively-propagated cultivars (“nativars”) and man-made hybrids. Yes, most cultivars of native plants were, indeed, native to somewhere; someone found them in the wild, took cuttings, further propagated them, licensed them, and made sure they ended up in retail markets. These cultivars will attract the same insects and microbes as the rest, but they don’t help perpetuate the diverse gene pool necessary to enhance nearby wild populations.

If the gardener has started with a property already growing with established native plants, it’s a good idea to retain some to most of it.

We cannot pretend that a suburban yard is anything resembling a natural ecosystem. An urban garden less so. But if you want to attract insects and other wildlife of any kind, you have to plant a garden. Any kind of garden. Even with just a few native plants, you will begin to see insects and other life you have never seen. You may find a wasp that eats the grubs of Japanese beetles.

Michael Pollan may have said it best in “The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals:” “The single greatest lesson the garden teaches is that our relationship to the planet need not be zero-sum, and that as long as the sun still shines and people still can plan and plant, think and do, we can, if we bother to try, find ways to provide for ourselves without diminishing the world.”

Sounds an awful lot like “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.” Thank you to the Lorax and Dr. Seuss.

NATIVE PLANTS — THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE SMART

Posted 3/5/2024

Landscapes composed of native plants can be as beautiful and lush as those designed with familiar introduced ornamentals.

And they are certainly more earth-friendly.

Part 1 (of 2)

When it comes to the practice of “Right Plant, Right Place,” native plants are often the “rightest” plant for the place. After all, they are indigenous to the “place.” Although I strongly encourage at least considering native plants for garden use, it’s not as simple as it seems. At least as far as the popular definition of “native” goes.

“Native” has come to describe a plant that grows naturally in the wild (not introduced) and usually within a specified state. The “state” being an area surrounded by political boundaries. Unfortunately, this doesn’t recognize the many natural conditions that make up the various natural plant communities within any one state.

There are plenty of technical definitions of “native plant.” I like this one, from the University of Maryland Extension: “Native to the eco-region where it has evolved naturally in concert with soils, climate, fauna and other members of the plant community. This process of adaptation and evolution is ongoing and helps to perpetuate species even as conditions change. Even within its home eco-region, a species is native to specific sets of conditions.” Those last few words, “specific sets of conditions,” are the key.

Ecologists have defined nearly 200 major “habitats” throughout the world, each characterized by a near-distinct collection of plants (and animals) shaped by the geography and weather of the area. Within the United States, there are at least 30 such habitats.

Even these habitats can be further divided into smaller sub-habitats (ecosystems). California is a good example of multiple and varied plant ecosystems (naturally occurring communities defined by a particular mix of flora), probably more than any other state. Within that state, plants can come from national record-heat and record-dryness deserts to frozen mountain caps, from coastal sandy grasslands to dense forests of near-perpetual rain or fog, and much more. Plus, there are what might be called “micro-habitats,” “mini plant communities,” or, technically speaking, niches, which provide the environmental conditions for plants more precise in their needs. These niches might include the added moisture of creeks and streams, the heavier shade directly under a single tree, or the well-drained “soil” of a rocky hillside. Such conditions must be matched within a garden to have success with these “natives.” Consider this idea analogous to the often-talked-about concept of “microclimates.”

It’s more about matching the “niche” than it is about matching the political boundaries. If a garden of native plants is the goal, make sure the natives fit the specific environment and not just the state. If an all-native garden isn’t mandatory, using plants from similar environments from other parts of the world works better than state natives that aren’t niche complements.

Taking this to a scientifically optimal level, a gardener might select what biologists would consider in habitat restoration: using neighboring “ecotypes.” These are the plants growing in an identical habitat within a short distance from the habitat to be planted.

When you’ve made the decision to go native, choose the right natives as the right plants to fill the right places. There really is no such thing as an easy plant. Not even natives are easy. The success formula must include matching the site; only when given the right conditions can a plant develop into its expectations, easily.

THE UGLY: Are invasives the new “native?” (as one writer proposes)

Many non-native species have been introduced through human activities, intentionally and accidentally. While many non-natives have been identified as disruptive in an ecosystem, many have yet to be determined as such.

Native plants have been competing with other native plants within any given ecosystem for tens of thousands to millions of years. They have come to what might be called a “cold war” truce. On the other hand, invasive plants have been here but 200 to 300 hundred years at most and they’ve come without the natural enemies that keep them in check in their native ecosystems. The battle between invasives and native plants has just started and it will be hundreds and thousands of generations before a truce is called, if at all, and before we can rightfully determine just what “positive” may come of it. What’s obvious right now is that the invasives have the advantage, with many of these introduced ruderal (pioneering) species already seriously impacting native populations and their associated ecosystems.

There’s more to it than just plant versus plant, too. In almost all cases, introduced plants provide less nourishment than native plants for native wildlife (from the tiniest insects to the largest herbivores). In many natural ecosystems, a few species of invasives — including plants, animals, and microscopic pathogens — have reduced the numbers of many native species of plants and animals. That’s a decline in natural biodiversity and reducing biodiversity diminishes an ecosystem’s complex working capacity (“functioning ability”) and, in the long term, its survivability.

We’re allowing invasive species to do more damage faster than any “new evolution” can happen. Never mind the almost non-stop continuing introduction of potentially invasive species of plants and animals.

Look at eradicating invasives as the first step in gardening closer to nature and planting natives as building up a working base to getting even closer. Then there’s the maintenance. But that’s another story.

NEXT WEEK: HOT TOPIC — The Birds and the Bees and Native Plants

© Copyright Joe Seals, 2024

WELLNESS IN THE GARDEN

Posted 2/26/2024

For centuries, gardeners have found happiness in the garden. For many reasons, some identifiable and some not.

Today, that happiness, in all its forms, is more popularly expressed as “wellness.” It comes with the physical exercise required of a garden as well as its opposite, the physical, mental, and emotional relaxation a garden allows. It’s been only recently, though, that the biology of the garden itself has been identified and, more importantly, appreciated as a key factor behind this wellness. That's good for me -- the psychology of it was and is beyond me but I can put some fingers on the biology part.

The best-known biological entity produces a natural antidepressant in soil. Mycobacterium vaccae is a common soil bacterium that produces a fatty acid called 10(Z)-hexadecenoic acid. This acid by itself or as part of a “special sauce” of compounds, appears to block receptors that get inflamed during stressful times. It’s been found to mirror the effect on neurons that drugs such as Prozac™ have. The bacterium sauce may stimulate serotonin production, which makes you relaxed and happier. Lack of serotonin has been linked to depression, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder and bipolar problems. Mycobacterium antidepressant microbes in soil are also being investigated for improving cognitive function, Crohn’s disease, and even rheumatoid arthritis.

The fatty-acid antidepressant has no adverse health effects and may be as easy to use as just “playing in the dirt.” Gardeners inhale the bacteria, have topical contact with it, and/or get it into their bloodstreams when there is a cut or other pathway for incursion. The natural effects can be felt for up to 3 weeks if experiments with rats are any indication. Could be, research findings are bringing us one step closer to developing a microbe-based “stress vaccine.”

In addition to Mycobacterium vaccae and its fatty acid, there are several other compounds in the air of forests as well as in our gardens.

Specific doses of verrucarin A, a secondary metabolite produced by another fungus Myrothecium, reduces the amounts of both amyloid β 40 and 42 peptides, pathogenic factors possibly responsible for Alzheimer’s disease.

One other very common complex of metabolites, one now part of everyday gardening conversation, is “petrichor.” Petrichor, a mostly “earthy” smell, is what the nose commonly picks up after a brief rain on dry ground. It’s a combination of geosmin, a metabolite of various soil microorganisms and some plants, and certain plant oils.

Many animals are sensitive to petrichor, but human beings are extremely sensitive to it. In fact, the human olfactory system is so sensitive that it is able to detect petrichor at concentrations as low as 5 parts per trillion. It seems to be an evolutionary relic, possibly a mechanism to smell the coming of rainwater. Ancient ancestors probably relied on rainy weather for survival. City folk, though, are more likely to smell chlorine, concrete, as well as asphalt and its soup of motor oils after a quick rain, unfortunately. They will, however, pick up the fragrance of geosmin in beets and catfish along with contaminated water albeit without any association with soil.

Some plants secrete oils when it rains, especially after a dry period. These include volatile fatty acids such as stearic acid and palmitic acid, both adding a pleasing earthy note to the smell of rain.

Rain or not, many other plants offer up fragrances, often mixing with the metabolites of microorganisms. These plant-produced phytoncides (one of many groups of phytochemicals) are substances that have an influence on other organisms. Phytoncides are the natural oils within a plant and they’re part of the plant’s defense system against bacteria, insects, and fungi (include decay and rotting organisms). These chemicals differ from forest to forest and from season to season. Phytoncides are olfaction-related elements ─ considered to be associated with instinct, emotion, and preference, and to have a greater influence on physiological change than stimuli for other senses.

One of the major components of wood scent, for instance, is α-pinene. It has been associated with an increase in prefrontal activity. Even a weak smell of α-pinene induces a relaxed physiological state; to be thorough, a relatively strong smell of α-pinene induces a stress state.

Limonene is another common phytoncide of wood. As well as being the very familiar fragrance of citrus peel, it is found in many common trees such as maples, cottonwoods, sumac, spruce, pines, firs, junipers, and even Cannabis. Limonene suppresses sympathetic nervous activity and blood pressure starts to decrease after inhalation; hence why it was evaluated as being “slightly comfortable” and “slightly soothing.”

Cedrol, a compound that occurs in cedar extract, significantly decreases the heart rate, systolic blood pressure, diastolic pressure, and respiratory frequency.

Freshly cut grass produces a host of different volatile chemicals, some of which are acetone, formaldehyde, and methanol. These are the husky components, but the actual “grassy smell” comes from such compounds as aldehydes and esters, two categories of organic compounds that give nature and the garden many of its sweet and fruity smells.

The aldehyde Cis-3-hexenal along with other, related molecules such as hexanols and hexanals contribute significantly to the grassy smell. Cis-3-hexenal and kin seem to be everywhere. They give strawberries their sweet smell and another gives part of the taste to apple juice. They’re also found in olives, spices, certain types of alcohol, ripe tomatoes, and other fruits and vegetables.

Another “grass smell” is jasmonic acid (yes, first discovered from jasmine plants). Turns out, the essence of this acid is a signal to parasitic wasps; when volatized (as in what happens when a blade of grass is cut), it sends a message to wasps a la “Somebody’s chewing on my leaves.”

The smell of fresh-cut grass acts on the sympathetic nervous system, specifically the amygdala and the hippocampus areas of the brain, the areas responsible for memory and emotions. In essence, the chemicals behind the smell of the fresh grass regulates the release of stress hormones from the sympathetic nervous system. (Just in case you’re wondering, I don’t recommend planting a lawn for the aldehydes and esters.)

Almost all these phytochemicals are being researched for direct medical use, both preventative and after-the-fact.

Add to the above subtle and surreptitious scents the more powerful fragrances of flowers, as yet unstudied for their influence on our senses. At the very least, especially those chosen for our gardens, they trigger the best kinds of nostalgia.

Of course, there's much more in this psychological component to the happiness of gardening. But that’s not my field of expertise so I won’t get into such aspects.

Almost every avid gardener will tell you their garden is their “happy place” and the fact there is some biological science behind it now adds additional credibility to these gardening addicts’ claims. More and more, homeowners are designing their gardens for privacy and escape, they’re creating more “rooms” for just sitting, and they’re making their landscapes bolder, more colorful, more “joyful.” Per surveys, gardeners are spending more time in their happy place: the garden.

USING LESS WATER

Posted 2/19/2024

This is part 2 of 2 parts. If you haven’t read part one, which was posted last week, you might want to take a look: THE BASIC RULES OF WATERING. [click here]

BEYOND THE BASICS…

Start with the concept of RIGHT PLANT, RIGHT PLACE. No matter what the climate, what the sun, or what the soil, there is a plant that will grow there with minimal to zero supplemental water. Find those less thirsty plants. By the way, this is a BASIC of landscape and garden design.
Focus on “drought-tolerant” plants but do make sure they are drought-tolerant (and appropriate) in your area.
Use the area’s natural water (rainfall) — and little else. The concept of “right plant, right place” starts with matching the climate. That includes matching plants with natural rainfall amounts and patterns. Some plants will take little water all year while others like water at key times of the year but are totally un-thirsty during other times.
Minimize or eliminate the lawn. This is the big one. On average, about half of the water used in a single-family home goes into the landscape. And half of that landscape water goes onto a lawn.
If you must have a lawn (yes, there are some very good reason), set mower blades to 3 to 4 inches high; longer grass means less evaporation. We’re talking saving 500 to 1,500 gallons each month.
Develop and maintain soil structure, especially at the friable surface. Click here for a good explanation of that.
Plant densely to cover the ground. Group plants as tightly as their “recommended spacing” allows. Where but one species is used, grouping them more closely than “recommended spacing” is even better.
Consider groundcovers (ornamental plants) and cover crops (not so ornamental but very beneficial) as living mulches. They not only provide pretty much the same benefits as a mulch (including preventing soil moisture evaporation), they also help build soil structure and a good soil structure holds moisture better.
Eliminate weeds. Just don’t pull them (yes, there are better ways).
Don’t continually till the soil. Tilling breaks down soil structure and hence a soil’s ability to hold water. Click here for WHY NOT TILL THE SOIL.
Keep sprinkler systems in top condition; check entire systems twice per year. This includes hoses.
Don't water the sidewalks, driveways, or gutters. Adjust sprinklers so that water lands on the garden where it belongs — and only there. This could save up to 500 gallons per month.
Use a broom instead of a hose to clean driveways and sidewalks. This could save more than 600 gallons a month.
If there is an evaporative air conditioner, direct the water drain line to a flower bed or tree base.
Terrace slopes. Terraces created by “cut and fill” certainly disrupt the edaphon but it comes back quickly if grading is kept to a minimum and terraces are subtle. Small slopes may be fixed with manual digging and hand placed rocks. Larger slopes will require heavy excavation and may use large rocks or retaining walls. Creating a structural wall on the downslope face can slow down excess runoff.
Some terraces may even need runaway channels or underground drains to help move the water once the area is saturated. That water can and should be collected elsewhere for use in the landscape.
Plant plants to slow or stop runoff from slopes.
Capture tap water. While waiting for hot water to come down the pipes, catch the flow in a watering can, which can be used later on house plants or the garden. This is another 200 to 300 gallons per month saved.
Stop unnatural water runoff. In many landscapes, the most serious cause of run-off is impervious paving such as concrete, hard tile, some bricks and blocks, and most stone. Where hardscape is needed (e.g., walkways, patios, courtyards, paved trails), there are plenty of alternatives to traditional hard coverings, including pervious asphalt, pervious concrete, gap-graded concrete, enhanced porosity concrete, interlocking pavers, and plastic grid pavers. These allow percolation or infiltration of rainfall (and sloppy irrigation) through the surface paving into the soil below where the water is not only prevented from running off, it is filtered through underlying layers of soil, gravel, and/or aggregate stones. Such permeability also allows filtering and removal of pollutants that often accumulate on such surfaces and then end up in nearby storm drains and finally into streams and lakes.
Use rain barrels to collect the rainwater from the roofs on the property, no matter how small the building(s) may be. If you can’t collect water, at least provide a system that allows the water to recycle into the immediate property.
“Gray water?" Check with your State and/or County for regulations.
In the case of vegetable gardens, vineyards, and orchards — the gardens within the garden that typically need more water — necessary adjustments could involve saving water from rainfall that hits the property (“water harvesting”) and collecting and redirecting that rainwater.
In really dry areas where runoff is clean and isn’t overtly excessive, build swales to collect or hold water in prime landscape areas, vegetable gardens, and orchards. Dams and overflow channels should be installed to make sure multiple days of rain don’t drown the landscape or orchard.
As much as anything, building the soil — read: enhancing the edaphon — goes a long way toward creating a truly water conserving garden and landscape. As a reminder, “building the soil” is no longer a matter of digging in organic matter or other such “amendments.” Science tells us it’s primarily a matter of putting that organic matter on top. That’s a mulch or, in some cases, a topdressing (essentially a lighter, thinner mulch). And ideally, it’s homemade compost.

USING LESS WATER

Posted 2/12/2024

Part 1 of 2

WATERING BASICS

THE BASIC RULES OF WATERING

Regardless of what “system” you use to apply water, follow these basic rules:

Always check your soil for moisture and look at your plants before you water. To check the soil around new transplants and in vegetable and flower beds, dig down a few inches with your fingers or a trowel; if the top 1 to 2 inches are dry, you probably need to water. Around established trees and shrubs, use a soil sampling tube. Leaves also can tell you when it’s time to water. Most will look dull or roll in at the edges just before they wilt. Don’t invest in inexpensive hand-held moisture meters — they are at the whim of too many variables within soil to make them accurate.
Water deeply and infrequently rather than shallowly and frequently. Frequent, light waterings promote shallow rooting, causing most plants to suffer more severely during dry periods. Frequent watering also encourages weed seed germination. Thorough watering, on the other hand, encourages roots to grow deeply. Watering “deeply” is relative, of course. To water “deeply” means to provide enough water so that the vast majority of the soil pores around the existing roots are filled and that will, of course, depend on the size/age of the plant.
Apply enough water to soak the entire root zone and then some. Ideally, the plant’s root ball should get a full soaking. To encourage a growing root ball, moreover, you must give enough water so that there is a reservoir of water around the root ball (to the sides and below); the plant’s roots will expand into this reservoir. Thorough watering occurs just before a puddle appears on the surface of the soil and does not soak in. The “drip line” is a good indication of where the root ball’s lateral expansion would be; the depth of the root system is theoretically as far down as the plant is high (certainly a rule of thumb with exceptions). In mature woody plants, the spread of the root system is often two to three times the width of the plant’s crown. Fortunately, many such mature plants have become drought tolerant.

The volume of water that eventually does move sideways is dependent on the texture and structure of the soil. As mentioned early in this chapter, in coarse, sandy, or otherwise fast-draining soils, there is little horizontal capillary movement. This is critically important to note when designing and installing an irrigation system (or watering by hand). Avoid an irrigation method that tends to put water in a small space.
Stop watering when runoff starts. Soils high in clay accept water slowly, often as little as ¼ inch per hour. Same with compacted soils. If water starts to pool or run off, stop irrigating, let the water soak in, and then start watering again. Repeat on/off cycles until you apply enough water to wet the soil to the appropriate depth. This may take a number of cycles.
“Apply one inch of water per week” is an old rule of thumb. It was meant, however, for only a few monoculture farmers in a specific part of the US. As already explained in the first points, plants vary widely in their water needs. The amount of water a plant needs depends on a number of factors. And the formulas for applying “one inch of water” are many and varied. Rather than relying on a schedule or some simplified mathematical formula, water plants when they need it.
Water in the morning. At this time (5am to 9am-ish), there is less water lost to evaporation than during the heat — or wind — of the day. Also, when watered in the morning, the garden has the entire day to lose its surface moisture, both from the ground and from the plants. Excessive surface moisture going into the evening leads to high humidity, the condition that leads to several leaf diseases. Plus, snails and slugs find it easier to travel a wet garden. If you must water during the day, don’t worry about getting water on the leaves of the plants. In fact, just a good hard spraying of the foliage of many plants minimizes such leaf diseases powdery mildew. It also reduces certain pests, including aphids and mites.
Don’t keep the soil wet for long periods. Over-watering (watering “too often,” which is different from “too much”) in the garden causes more harm than under-watering. If the soil gets saturated, it has less space for critical oxygen and when that saturation goes on for too long, anaerobic conditions take place. Anaerobic conditions lead to the growth of anaerobic bacteria and fungi, including the types that cause what are collectively known as “root rot.” Root rots may initiate during wet weather/irrigation periods but often do not show their symptoms (primarily “wilt”) until the weather warms. Wet soil even makes it difficult for oxygen to enter the soil. Take a long enough break between irrigation cycles to allow the free water to be absorbed and oxygen to move back into the soil. The term “overwatering” does not mean pouring on too much water in one application; it means continuous watering that does not allow for a replenishment of oxygen into the soil — the pore spaces are always filled with water.

I define “too often” as watering so frequently that key layers of the soil retain water in their pore spaces unremittingly, with no chance to refresh oxygen. “Too much,” on the other hand, implies that a quantity of water applied to the soil oversaturates it, maybe to the point of “overflowing.” “Too much,” can, indeed, happen with a single watering application in poorly drained or non-draining soil, in which case water pools. But in well-drained soil, a single application of water cannot be “too much” because any “excess” simply drains through the soil to the layers below any root zone.

Finally,
When in doubt, DON’T water. Plants wilt when water becomes scarce, but they respond gratefully when water is applied. Sometimes they lose a few leaves. On the other hand, when plant roots are saturated, without oxygen in the pore spaces for any length of time, the conditions lead to root rots. Root rots are insidious and persistent diseases that thrive with anaerobic (no oxygen) conditions and aren’t easily remedied when you stop watering so often. Root rots in their early stages have an interesting symptom: wilt — the same thing we see with a plant when the soil goes too dry. When wilting from too frequent watering happens, the gardener almost always adds still more water, thinking the plant needs it. At the extreme, a soil that is kept wet for too long will smell sour from the waste product of the anaerobic root rot organisms. So, if you’ve looked at all the variables and signs and you’re still not sure if you should water, the simple answer is “don’t.”

In addition to overwatering, anything that damages plant roots can cause wilting. Damage to stems can also cause wilting. Some diseases and insects (especially borers) prevent water distribution throughout the plant, causing some or all of it to wilt. The only way to tell if lack of water is causing wilting is to check soil moisture.

Instead of the question “Can you give a plant ‘too much’ water?” The question should be “Can you keep a plant wet for too long?”

Part 2 — “Beyond the Basics” — next week.

© Copyright Joe Seals, 2024

Many parts of the US have dealt with water shortages, at the least temporary ones, off and on for several decades. But now, a changing climate threatens to exacerbate the frequency and severity of such dry spells, particularly in some parts of the US. Today, maybe more than ever, gardeners (and even those who do not garden but have a landscape) are keen to use less water and to more effectively and efficiently use what water they do apply. Even in areas that don’t seem to be facing water shortages, it’s smart to apply water wisely — for the soil’s and the plant’s sake.

In two parts, I’ll present with this first part the ways to be more frugal with water and use it more wisely. I’ll cover some “beyond the basics” technologies, methodologies, and ideas next week.

PUTTING DOWN ROOTS

Posted 2/5/2024

Part 2 of 2
PRACTICAL MATTERS

Plant roots hold the plant in place, hold the soil in place, and help the plant take up water and nutrients. Beyond these well-known abilities and to recap the last blog, plant roots also:

store carbon,
connect with certain members of the edaphon (the life of the soil), primarily the mycorrhizal fungi, which makes the roots more efficient in absorbing that water and those nutrients,
help build soil structure,
release carbon-rich liquid sugars into the soil and directly to the mycorrhizal fungi, and
become a carbon source to other edaphon members in their dying to dead stages of decomposition and beyond.

Putting plant roots in the ground has more benefits than a layer of organic material on top of the soil (although both in some combination or timing is sometimes best). One recently discovered but not unexpected interaction in such complex systems is that organic sugars that ooze from plant roots, along with the breakdown of organic matter, could be the kick-starters for the initiation, then growth and maintenance of mineral-dissolving soil microbes. These microbes are the ones that help make nutrients such as iron, zinc, sulfur, phosphorous, and potassium — those already in the soil but “locked up” — available to the plants.

Cover Crops

Cover crops are plants sown from seed and are intended to cover the ground en masse. There are the more common seasonal cover crops that are annual plants which grow for a particular part of the year only and there are perennial cover crops that grow all year, year after year. The seasonal cover crops are grown primarily in seasonal vegetable beds and almost always part of a “rotation” program. The perennial cover crops, on the other hand, are usually grown as a ground covering for orchards but are useful to cover property that is intended for planting at a future, albeit not too soon, date.

Annual cover crops are used because seasonal beds (whether raised or ground-level) should never be left without roots and should never be left bare (“fallow”). (Nor should they be covered with tarp, plastic, or even cardboard as a winter cover.) For those who don’t produce a vegetable garden through the winter, a winter cover crop is the “fifth group/season” in a typical rotation system. Ideally, a winter cover will grow through winter to be cut down in spring. A “kill down” cover crop, that which is killed completely by hard freezes, at the least does the primary jobs: it provides an adequate cover and, to the point of this article, produces roots. Don’t cut off a knocked down winter cover crop too soon; sometimes a winter cover crop will appear to be dead but will revive with warmer weather.

Cover crops such as grasses and grains may be the best at putting down roots. As well as being particularly adept at absorbing and using nutrients from the soil that might otherwise be lost through leaching (what frequently happens in “fallow” soils), their extensive root systems, which grow deeply and widely, grab soil particles and bind them into the crumbs we call soil structure. Grasses have a ‘fibrous’ root system—made of numerous fine roots spreading out from the base of the plant. These roots also release compounds that help gather and hold soil particles between the roots. Additionally, their wide-ranging root system produces structure-building “biopores,” the hollows and channels between the solid components that improve drainage and otherwise aerate the soil for the further benefit of the edaphon. Typical grains used for this purpose include oats, wheats, and rye.

Another group of cover crops, the legumes, have a well-known benefit of hosting nitrogen-fixing bacteria. What isn’t well known is that they, too, are pretty darn good at binding soil particles and releasing nutrients from soil particles. They also produce polysaccharides, one of the soil glues that hold soil particles together in crumbs. These polysaccharides decompose in a matter of months, unfortunately, but good in the short run, nonetheless. After “harvest” and as they decompose, the bacteria in the roots release chemicals that can free the bound-up nutrients in the soil’s mineral and organic components. Field peas, various clovers, and fava beans are commonly used legumes.

Perennial cover crops aren’t strictly for planted orchards. When there are no immediate plans for a large piece of property, it’s best to at least sow a perennial, albeit temporary, cover crop.

When the seasonal vegetable garden or flower bed is bare and there are no pressing plans for filling the void, sow an annual cover crop. Some cover crops are particularly good looking. Again, when the crop or show is finished, cut them off at ground level and leave the roots in the ground. You can plant or sow the next crop directly into the roots.

CREATE A DIVERSITY OF ROOTS

A variety of roots, by their living makeup and processes, encourages a diversity of soil life. This root mix also provides an assortment of organic matter when it dies, which in turn further builds up the soil life. With that increase in soil diversity overall, there’s then an increase in the edaphon members that feed on others; altogether, there’s a more stable and more efficient closed cycle of nutrients at the root zone of plants. Such living (and dying) diversity doesn’t just help develop soil structure, it comes with an abundance of benefits (another story).

Root exudates and root organic matter become a major part of humus. In turn, humic substances can make changes in what a plant exudes from its roots, including influencing the number of exudates that attract a population of synergistically beneficial microbes. And round and round it goes.

There are some plant species capable of putting chemicals into the ground that are toxic to certain members of the edaphon. Such plants are termed allelopathic. This concept isn’t new, but it’s still hindered by some confusion. Walnut trees, for instance, were once thought to be seriously allelopathic to nearby plants as well as to soil life. The claim was based on laboratory trials but has yet to be duplicated in landscape settings. On the other hand, various brassicas (cabbage, kale, mustards, and their kin) have been shown to be useful in use as cover crops to clear the soil of various soil disease organisms. They also happen to hinder the growth of delicate plants such as lettuce.

Something else to think hard about before using (if actually needed): gypsum, a common additive used to relieve electrochemically compacted soils (such as saline/alkali soils), can have negative effects on mycorrhizal inoculation of roots.

LEAVE ROOTS IN THE GROUND

Once we plant trees, shrubs, perennials, vines, and groundcovers, we generally expect to leave them in the ground, roots and all, forever. What gardeners don’t expect to do or usually don’t do, however, is to leave the roots of seasonal flowers and vegetables in the ground. When we harvest the tomatoes, the whole plant gets yanked out of the ground, ROOTS AND ALL. The same with peppers, melons, pansies, marigolds, etc. Instead, leave those roots there. Cut the plant off at soil level. Then sow seed or plant young plants for the coming growing season.

Especially with leguminous cover crops, it’s critical to leave the roots in the ground. As the legume plants grow, the bulk of the nitrogen produced by the root bacteria goes into the plant above ground and not to any plants nearby. At the end of the legume’s life cycle when the plants are dying or when they’ve been chopped off, the bacteria in the roots begin to die off or are eaten by other edaphon organisms. THIS is when they release their nitrogen. The roots are to be left in place after snipping off or chopping down the plant itself so that the nitrogen-fixers can release their captured nitrogen. Or the chopped plant can be used to “fuel” a new compost pile.

If the plant to be removed has had a root disease, it doesn’t matter whether you yank it, roots and all, or not. The root disease is caused by a soil-borne organisms (bacteria or fungus) that lives, without host, in the soil from season to season.

While you’re at it, don’t even pull weeds. Do get rid of weeds — just don’t pull them. Yes, weeds are a problem, including the fact that not all weeds make appropriate edaphon connections and some weeds are actually toxic (allelopathic) to some edaphon. Hoe the weeds off instead. Now that I’ve opened that door, I promise to post a bit on weed management at a later date.

What gardeners can do to make sure all of this happens effectively can be summed up in one line: Plant a bunch of different kinds of roots and leave them in the ground. The details:

PLANT PLANTS

This is the first and, of course, obvious step. It’s not just a matter of planting a few plants here and there. The idea is to cover the ground completely. Such cover can include trees, shrubs, groundcovers (the very nearly forgotten landscape element), perennials, and even annual flowers and annual vegetables.

Maximize year-round living plant cover to provide maximum root distribution in the ground. Plant every square inch of your landscape/garden with plants (if not hardscape). When you create your landscape plan/design, cover every square of the paper with a plant symbol (or hardscaping). Plant the annual flowers and seasonal vegetables, if you include them, densely. Keep in mind, though, that some plants need good air circulation to minimize certain pests and diseases (whitefly and powdery mildew, for instance).

Part 1 of 2
THE ECOLOGY OF PLANT ROOTS

Pretty much every gardener knows the value of organic matter in the soil. What few know, though, is the amount of organic matter that it takes to make a “good” soil (“good” being defined by soil scientists some years ago) and, just as importantly, what role plant roots play in that component.

A “good” soil is composed of 50 to 60 percent pore space (air and water) and 40 to 50 percent solids. Of those solids, about 42 percent (of the soil total) is mineral and under 3 percent is bio-organic substances. That’s on average. That’s for “good” soil, an optimal, viable soil that sustains plant life.

The 3 percent that is bio-organic is 2.5 percent humus and decomposing organic matter including, especially, dead roots (in various stages but not yet humus); 0.15 percent living organisms (the edaphon including the soil microbiome); and, to the main point of this article, 0.3 percent living roots.

That 0.3 percent, albeit seemingly miniscule, is important — in more ways than gardeners imagine. What’s well-known is that roots absorb water and nutrients. But there is so much more than that. Roots also:

store carbon,
connect with certain members of the edaphon (the life of the soil), primarily the mycorrhizal fungi, which makes the roots more efficient in absorbing that water and those nutrients,
help build soil structure,
release carbon-rich liquid sugars into the soil and directly to the mycorrhizal fungi,
become a carbon source to other edaphon members in their dying to dead stages of decomposition and beyond.

CARBON STORING

Roots are organic matter and all organic matter, by definition, begins with carbon molecules (in which other atoms are bonded onto the carbon atom).
In a mature healthy landscape, more than 6 percent of the carbon is stored in plant roots, whether dead or alive.

Additionally, roots release significant quantities of liquid forms of carbon (see “ROOT EXUDATES, below) and some of that carbon transforms into long-term stored forms. This is the other end of the bigger process that involves the mycorrhizal fungi who move this carbon into the soil and part of that carbon (plus dead and dying roots) runs through a complex process called humification to eventually form molecules that are too complex and too large for any soil organisms to further decompose completely. This mostly stabilized matter, the humus, is protected inside soil crumbs (more soil structure).

ROOT-FUNGI CONNECTION

The mycorrhizal fungi are, in some ways, the most important members of the edaphon. These networking fungi provide the “wiring” between plant root and mineral, root and pore space solution, and/or root and organic matter. They function with one end of their structure inserted into plant roots or wrapped around the root tips and the other end connecting to the mineral and organic components of the soil.

If you use the human gut microbiome as an analogy, it’s not too far off to deem the mycorrhizal fungi (and the other edaphon) the “probiotics of the soil” and the organic matter including exudates from plant roots, the “prebiotics.”

SOIL STRUCTURE

Soil structure (the clumping of soil particles into aggregates, usually called crumbs or clusters), a very important factor in “good soil,” is developed via several entities and processes, the last two of which are root-guided:

Electrochemically, whereby certain positively-charged ions bind the finer particles, such as those of clay, together.
The physical forces of weathering — rain, freezing, thawing — push particles and clusters together.
Bioturbators, living organisms, in the soil push together soil particles, sometimes on a big scale (not desirable in the garden) and sometimes on a small to almost-microscopic scale (very desirable).
Mycorrhizal mycelia/filaments (“fungal fibers”) envelop soil particles (mineral and organic).
Organic “glues” including what oozes from plant roots (see next) plus the various by-products of soil bacteria, yeasts, and fungi, all binding mineral and organic particles together for the short and long terms. And, of course,
Roots physically grab soil particles (both mineral and organic) and hold them together.

Why good soil structure is important:

Less erosion (from wind, water).
Less surface runoff.
Resists compaction.
Increased water infiltration.
Increased water and nutrient retention.
Better physical environment for root systems.
Increased edaphon populations.
All equals better plant growth.
And, for the gardener, it’s easier to “work.”

ROOT EXUDATES

Roots help feed the mycorrhizal fungi. This is little known yet is one of the biggest principles in gardening. Plants pull carbon dioxide out of the air and convert that, using photo synthesis as energy, into the carbon sugars they use to fuel themselves. Some of this carbon (along with bits of other elements) goes to the roots and a portion of that (along with sloughed-off root cells) then escapes the roots, in somewhat liquid form, into the soil or directly to mycorrhizal connections (or other members of the soil’s living community). This is an important carbon source for the microscopic life and an almost exclusive source for some.

The soil life, in turn, offers up nutrients, antibiotics, growth hormones, and plenty of other beneficial molecules “in trade.” In fact, in healthy soil, plants get upwards of 90 percent of their nutrients they need during this carbon exchange with the edaphon. Remember “probiotics” and “prebiotics?” Well, this wealth of beneficial byproducts (plus the “glues”), have been named “postbiotics.”

There’s a very complex synergy here. The fungi also regulate the release of those nutrient-rich exudates from the plants’ roots. With back and forth chemical signals within the “wiring,” they can influence the plant’s genetic makeup, altering root metabolism and cell permeability and increasing or decreasing outflow.

CARBON SOURCE WHEN DYING OR DEAD

Roots being organic matter and as such also being decomposable, they become a carbon source to other edaphon members in their dying to dead stages. Even when you harvest your seasonal vegetables and leave their roots behind (excluding carrots, potatoes, and other “root” crops, of course), the soil’s beneficial bacteria and fungi make use of that.

Part 2 of 2, next week, will cover how gardeners can make use of this knowledge in practical ways.

© Copyright Joe Seals, 2024

PUTTING DOWN ROOTS

Posted 1/29/2024

BIODIVERSITY

Posted 1/21/2024

“The homey foraging ground is not only for us: we set something in motion, enriching our surroundings with biodiversity, creating environments for the birds and insects to occupy, so that the niche takes on a life of its own.” ~~ Dr. Sue Stuart-Smith (Psychiatrist, Psychotherapist), from “The Well-Gardened Mind”

Let’s start with a good definition of this word that seems to be flying around social media right now: In short, “biodiversity” is the variety (“diversity”) of life (“bio”) on Earth, in all its forms and all its interactions.

Yep, deliberately and maybe mind-numbingly broad-stroked. I guess it has to be. It’s the most complex feature of our one and only earth. No one to date has offered a viable short lecture on the subject. And yet, this feature, this idea, this science is the most crucial to human survival. That includes garden survival.

How crucial? Per Professor David Macdonald, Director of the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit at the at University of Oxford: “Without biodiversity, there is no future for humanity.”

Okay, somewhat scary tactics aside, let’s bring it down to the home garden level. Biodiversity is that vast mixture plants, animals (including “bugs”), mosses, fungi, and bacteria (and more classes of life constituting too long a list to delineate here) that makes up a garden. Or, more importantly, that should make up a garden. On top of that, it’s the variety of roles each of them plays that makes for an earth-friendly, working collaboration.

Biodiversity is a system of checks and balances, an insurance policy, the converse of “putting all your eggs into one basket,” and a compilation of “I-got-your-back” entities. Biodiversity stabilizes an environment, particularly the soil environment. If one species dies, another (or others) will take its place and will continue the processes of the system. Bottom line, it yields greater ecosystem resilience. Your ecosystem, the garden or landscape, benefits in such a way. Biodiversity is our best “tool” to defy and even help reverse a changing climate.

Bottom line, biodiversity is all about stability within and of a biological system. The less biodiversity, the more easily a system collapses when stressed. The greater the biodiversity, the better chance some species will survive the stresses and maintain the basic functions. The more life intermixing in a garden, the fewer failures from the point of view of the gardener. The bonus of “biodiversity” as seen in the gardener’s eyes are the many sub-trends in gardening today: more butterflies, more bumblebees and other pollinators, more birds, and more beneficial insects such as ladybugs.

The cliché poster child of a landscape bereft of biodiversity is the lawn. Ordinarily, this entity comes with its own array of issues and needs beyond most of the garden. And almost always, it’s a biodiversity desert. Okay, dead horse beaten.

HOW DOES THE GARDENER ACHIEVE TRUE BIODIVERSITY?

Overall gardening practices have, over many decades, been categorized (if at all) as conventional, organic, or sustainable. In the tiniest of nutshells:

Conventional is, unfortunately, the most common; it includes using a mishmash of products of all kinds that blast away, slightly or intensely, at the life within a garden with the thought that it kills the "bad guys" and only the bad guys.

Organic gardening avoids those blast-all products while using other products, sometimes safe, sometimes not. Organic gardening has included and still commonly includes such methodologies as tilling the soil and amending the soil, both shown to be possibly the worst when it comes to the life, the biodiversity, of the soil.

Sustainable gardening eliminates the soil damage. It sustains whatever life might be in the soil at a particular starting point. Whatever that starting point is. Still no way to actively move forward.

Regenerative gardening, a very new concept, is the way to achieve biodiversity. It dynamically encourages life — it regenerates life from whatever reduced state the garden was probably in.

Regenerative gardening has three goals: improve soil health (not just “sustain”), increase biodiversity, and sequester carbon (leading to “carbon neutral”). Note that all three — improve soil health, increase biodiversity, and sequester carbon — are factors primarily involving the soil’s living community. Rather than continuing the practices that further reduce a natural balance, it’s about respecting and appreciating the natural cycles that keep our gardens and, indeed, us alive.

First and foremost, one must reinforce and conserve the edaphon (the collective term for all life within the soil, including the “microbiome”). A biologically diverse edaphon is the most important part of a healthy garden. Encouraging, enhancing, and conserving the edaphon can be summarized thusly:

Put roots into the ground and leave them there.
Supply organic matter — as a mulch or topdressing; NOT as an “amendment.”
Encourage a DIVERSITY of microbes with a diversity of roots and a diversity of organic matter.

I believe the now-popular trend in gardening for the birds or bees or pollinators is a gateway practice to gardening for the edaphon. The life of the soil has always taken a backseat to the conspicuously visible creatures we can touch (phobias aside). This is the time to change that. With that being said, you’ll have to forgive me for opening this door because I’m going to leave this part about edaphon without expanding on those three tips and jump ahead to the rest. Edaphon deserves its own detailed article, indeed, multiple articles and they will come in future installments. A tease, a cliffhanger?

Aside from addressing the edaphon (THE priority), to enhance biodiversity, the gardener can and should:

Add more species of plants, in variety.
Plan for more complex planting schemes.
Avoid mono-cultural planting (especially lawns).
Mix up the vegetable garden.
Plant bulbs, annuals, and small groundcovers within your rose garden.
Don't mulch the entire garden between plants; plant it instead with plants, especially those that attract the native birds, bees, butterflies, and pollinators.

Remember that a more diverse plant population better supports a greater diversity of edaphon. Oops, I did it again.

Emphasize native plants where possible, particularly plants native to the immediate surrounding natural habitat. For enhanced genetic biodiversity encouragement, stick with seed-propagated native species rather than vegetatively propagated cultivars (“nativars”) and man-made hybrids.

Many experts suggest gardeners plant particular native species that attract many species of their own pests, particularly caterpillars with the intent that native birds can then dine on the caterpillars (and other critters). The most “pest-laden” species among these are called “keystone species” and they are the ones with the biggest interactive impact on the ecosystem. This concept is the extreme antithesis to the core beliefs of the common gardener who grows with the intent of producing a pest-free specimen in a pest-free garden. Maybe this is not so far-fetched though: many gardeners plant milkweed specifically for monarchs to lay their eggs upon and then to devour the plant.

Native plants not only attract native birds, pollinators, predatory beneficial insects, and parasitoid beneficial insects, they also provide resources to a host of many other native tiny creatures, from small invertebrates to the microscopic members of the phyllosphere (the surface of plant foliage) and the rhizosphere (the community immediately around the roots). Ah, there’s that edaphon again.

If the gardener has started with a property already growing with established native plants, it’s a good idea to retain some to most of it. Or ALL of it?!

Provide plants for the native birds, native bees, and native butterflies. These smaller critters are a good, recognizable indicator of biodiversity (second to the not-so-recognizable edaphon, of course).

Encourage pollinators and insect eaters (the “beneficials”). Make sure you’re saving the right bees — honeybees don’t need a gardener’s help; the thought of saving honeybees is akin to saving chickens because someone said, “save the birds.” Apiarists (professional and amateur beekeepers) take care of their honeybees and they do it not because of “biodiversity,” but rather because their financial livelihoods depend on these domesticated creatures.

Consider, too, the native moths; almost all species are important pollinators.

All of this is about building a garden “more like Mother Nature.” The above are certainly the finer points of doing so. Maintaining this is equally important so I suppose that’s the next article.

GARDEN TRENDS FOR 2024

It’s a new year and it’s time when those in the know talk about upcoming “trends” for the new gardening year, 2024.

Posted to Blog 1/11/2024

But I’m not going to; at least not in exactly the same way. That’s because the word “trend” bothers me. Makes me think of “fashion” in that it comes and goes and I’ve been through many “comes and goes.” Yes, I know, that makes me sound like the old curmudgeon, the “been-there-done-that” cynic and skeptic. I’m going to try to be positive, though.

There were/are too many forecast trends to expand on in this one posting. Just so you know, though, my plan is to elaborate — in positive detail — on each of these main topics in the next many blog posts. If nothing else, this has given me an outline, a schedule of subjects to flesh out with my own thoughts, ideas, and practical proposals — some things to fill out this new webpage of mine.

To construct the list that follows, I read three dozen or so “trends for 2024” articles. And a gazillion Facebook gardening group posts (yes, they are telling). I may have also thrown a handful of interpretations or extrapolations into this list, but I avoided throwing in my own blatant predictions (that’s another post, maybe). Very few surprises. In fact, these projected “trends” have been in place for all of 2023 and most, I’m sure, before that (then there’s the “been-there-done-that” of many years ago). I suppose to many trend forecasters, a "trend-to-be" is something that is already trending and should continue to trend. Sure, “trends” can also circle around again, kind of like fashions, occurring in the way past and returning to fashion, much as with bellbottoms(!).

Among these trends are ideas, practices, and strategies that I HOPE not only continue for the coming year and for many years to come but also grow in strength. That will be my focus.

Consider this, then, an outline, a “table of contents” for blogs to follow.

ENVIRONMENT

Embracing the value of wildness
More sustainable
Eco-friendly, eco-conscious
Add “Right Purpose” to “Right Plant, Right Place”
Pollinators (lots of flowers) especially Monarch butterflies
Native bugs
Creating “habitats” for wildlife
Biodiversity (linked to article on this website)
Native plants
Right plant, right place
Mushrooms
No lawn; at least less lawn
Meadows instead of lawns; “rewilding”
Less manicured (one forecaster suggested "more manicured")
More naturalistic planting (not every garden needs to be a meadow or prairie, though)
Leave the leaves
Less (no) gas
Less (no) plastics
Less (no) peat
Less (no) chemicals
Waterwise
Rain gardens
Appropriate drainage systems
“Sustainable”
Lower maintenance
Repurposing, re-using

SOIL HEALTH

No till (linked to article on this website)
Perennials, including and especially perennial vegetables
Composting and mulching

CLIMATE CHANGE (if only this was just a “trend;” a very real impact that will last a long time, if not forever)

New USDA map (linked to map; article to follow)
Heat tolerant plants
Drought tolerant plants (“xeriscaping”)

PANDEMIC (not a “trend,” of course)

Healthy and fun
Wellness via the garden
What’s your motivation?
Simpler, more wholesome garden
Staying put, remote and hybrid working
Privacy, escape
“Shoffice”
More time in the garden
Multi-functional outdoor spaces
Sitting rooms
Hardscapes (environmentally-friendly, of course)
Gardening more

STYLE (fashion)

Cottage garden
Foliage
Ornamental grasses
Jungly-Tropical
“Victorian gothic”/ Goth (moody)
Dark plants
Night gardens
Biophilic design
Terrariums
Houseplants
More color
Stumperies, ferneries
More naturalistic
Color of the year: “Peach fuzz”
Cut-flower garden
Bold, joyful

BEGINNING GARDENERS

Container gardening
Balcony gardening
Easier plants
Easier gardening
Finding reliable resources

EDIBLES

Food gardens, “grow your own”
“Ornamedibles,” “Edimentals”
Perennial vegetables
Tea gardens
Mushrooms
Front yard redesign (“taking back your property”)
Fruit trees
Kitchen and cooking (I’ll even offer up some recipe booklets)
Community gardens
Herbs
Seed saving

NOSTALGIA

Romance
Heirlooms

TECH

Rechargeable battery-operated power tools
Zoom
Vloggers/videos
Social media!!!
Home garden solar power generators
Home garden wind power generators
AI
Automation
Or not

Sure, many of these subjects have been written about in the past. Some, in fact, have been beaten by computer keyboards to near death. But just wait — I have more info, updates, and, of course, my spin.

RESOLUTIONS FOR GARDENERS

Posted 1/9/2024

· Make non-stinky compost. No bin required.

· Clean out the shed.

· Build a shoffice.

· Plant more groundcovers. Lose the chips.

· Stop racing from project to project — slow down.

· Celebrate lacewings.

· Put more effort into regenerating the soil life. Much more effort.

· Plant a bird food plant. Maybe two. Maybe many.

· Make an espalier. Out in the open.

· Grow many more plants from seed.

· Reject plastics.

· Ask the grandparents what they grew in their gardens.

· One word: biodiversity.

· Dig a hole, buy a plant. Not buy a plant, find a hole.

· Ask for help when you need it.

· Take a gardening class. Or two. Or many. We’re all still learning.

· Take a cooking class. Yeah, it’s related.

· Read a book. Yeah, remember those?

· Grow fungi. The mycorrhizae and the edible kind.

· Plant more flowers throughout the garden. Not a small “Pollinator Garden.”

· Eat outside as often as possible.

· Don’t plant everyone else’s favorite plants. Plant the “right plants” (for the place).

· Grow something different than what friends grow.

· Share the veggie, fruit, and flower harvest with the neighbors. ALL the neighbors.

· Give plants as gifts all year long.

· Buy a really good — expensive — tool.

· Get the kids into the garden.

· Take photos. LOTS of photos. Especially before-and-afters. Share them.

· Plan things. “Trial and error” doesn’t work for learning to garden just as it doesn’t work for learning to drive.

· Make gardening as much work as you want it to be. No more, no less.

· Be patient.

· Not a gardener? Become one.

· Make sure the garden makes you absolutely, positively, undeniably HAPPY.

For 2024

Resolutions may not be for everyone (in fact, only about 3 in 10 people make resolutions for the coming year) but for those who do, it can help make things happen.

Resolutions make us more self-aware and they contribute to a more positive outlook. Biologically: setting goals triggers the release of dopamine — and THAT can get you off your ass.

The statistics aren’t encouraging, though; only 10-15 percent of those who make resolutions stick with them. If it’s any consolation, the primary reason fo failure is that such goals made are unachievable or idealistic or there are too many. In other words, get real.

An attempt at the bigger picture. Kept pretty general so fudging is allowed.

Joe Seals 5/28/19 Joe Seals 5/28/19

WHY WE SHOULDN’T TILL

It all begins with an idea.

Posted 1/8/2024

Nature has its own ways of “turning the soil” — through the processes of a group of members of the edaphon (the soil’s living community) called “bioturbators,” the microscopic, the tiny and the not-so-tiny organisms that move about in the soil, moving mineral, organic, and gaseous bits from place to place. Although the balances of nature are sustained over the long haul in this manner, it is a mostly crude and messy process, certainly not a “gardening” method and not for short-term expectations.

Don't Till the Soil — *Tilling garden soil should be a thing of the past. Among the issues caused:*
*disrupts/kills the edaphon (the soil’s community of life)*
*degrades soil structure*
*brings up weed seeds*
*damages roots of nearby plants*
*speeds decomposition, releasing needed nitrogen and carbon into the air.*

The gardening routine of repeatedly turning the soil (tilling, double trenching, “prepping the garden,” etc.) almost always has the opposite effect of what we expect. Even the innocent conventional acts of amending the soil and pulling weeds do more damage than any expected benefits. There are ways to streamline nature’s effects, some require a bit of patience and others are faster yet worthwhile.

Gardeners have practiced rototilling or otherwise turning up the soil for many centuries. Farmers have probably done it, as a routine practice, much longer. It’s a widespread practice but not universal.

For almost as long as gardeners and farmers have been whipping up the soil, there’s been a smaller band of growers, amateur and professional, who have followed an approach that has become known as “no-till.” The no-tillers found benefits in doing so and knew some reasons why it worked but most hadn’t (haven’t?) yet discovered the bigger picture of why tilling is “bad” and why not tilling is “good.”

The most important reason why tilling is no longer recommended is because it damages the edaphon – that living component of the soil, the thousands of species of very visible, barely-visible, and microscopic entities that make soil “work.” In a natural ecosystem, it’s this living "machine" that allows plants to grow without the help of farmers or gardeners. Yes, including the messy bioturbators (among the not-so-messy bioturbators).

In properly nurtured garden soils, this underground multitude performs the most amazing array of tasks: they decompose organic matter; they aerate the soil; they make nutrients from organic and mineral matter available to plants; they create one specific key nutrient, nitrogen, “from thin air;” they prevent nutrients from leaching away; they detoxify pollutants; they produce essential plant hormones; they induce drought- and stress-tolerance; they put carbon into the ground (sequestration); they increase plants’ water and nutrient absorbing capacities; they build soil structure; they kill pests; they suppress diseases; and they just might allow plants to “talk” to each other. And, yes, more.

The edaphon occurs in several layers (or “levels”) and in several “modules” (or volumes) of the soil. Each layer or module has its own distinct community of species. Starting with directly on the soil surface, possibly the most important layer as far as gardeners are concerned, these are the species that focus on decomposing any organic matter that falls onto the soil either naturally or by human practice. This is why mulching is so important and why it must be done correctly. This is the “mulch-soil interface.”

In this uppermost subsurface layer of the edaphon are mostly “seasonal” types, doing the jobs of further decomposition, processing mineral and organic nutrients, and making connections among the shallow-rooted plant species. Various mycorrhizal fungi species make their connections all the way down into the deepest layers of actual soil. Many biologists consider this zone the archetypical, true biological “topsoil,” also called the “A-Horizon.” [“Topsoil” is natural and is not to be confused with what a gardener can buy from a “soil” making company.]

While biological activity is greatest at this subsurface level, the edaphon extends at least as deep into the soil profile as do the plant roots. With the commonly occurring variation in soil strata, there are wide ranges of moisture and oxygen levels, pH, and organic and mineral nutrient levels. These differences support soil microbial diversity that may be upwards of 1,000-fold greater than in any aboveground or aquatic ecosystems. Scientists have even found microorganisms deeper than plant roots, sometimes much deeper.

These layers take time developing the right population formula. The edaphon works in a balance, with different species, different types working together and toward a synergy that best suits the entire soil community, which includes the plants that grow on top of the soil. Such a balance takes time, often many years from a damaged soil. As with all of nature, when the edaphon is diverse and complex, it is healthier and it will do more to benefit the garden.

Turning the soil disrupts this layering, balance, and diversity. It has a serious impact on the fungal populations and, when frequently repeated, it can drop the bacterial population. Tilling particularly dislocates and damages those very important top two layers — the mulch-soil interface and the topsoil just below that.

Beyond this biological demolition, tilling has other undesirable effects on the soil.

Repeated tilling degrades the soil structure — the “crumb,” the “tilth” — the critical piece that provides enhanced moisture retention and movement, an arrangement conducive to best root growth and the all-important environment that best suits the edaphon. When farmers constantly till the soil, especially when the tilling or digging is to the same depth, they often create an area of serious compaction known in farmers' parlance as “plow pan.” Soil structure, by the way, is much more important to plant life than loads of organic matter. (Something to think about.)

Tilling also brings up buried weed seeds — the ones you thought couldn’t possibly germinate after ten or more years of being six inches down. These seeds now come to the disturbed (an essential environmental factor for weed seeds) surface where it’s also warmer and usually moister and, boom, off they go.

There’s often collateral damage, too, to the roots of permanent/perennial, desired plants nearby.

Regular tillage stimulates the growth of decomposing bacteria, hence speeding decomposition and mineralization which releases some of the soil’s valuable stores of nitrogen and carbon (as CO2) into the air. While at the same time, tilling exposes and kills other microorganisms leading to even more carbon and nitrogen release.

When the tilling is done to incorporate organic matter into the soil ("amending"), there are additional problems. A surprise to most gardeners: adding organic matter INTO the soil isn’t necessary to get the benefits of organic matter. Bulk quantities of organic matter buried in the soil can lead to water movement issues; in some conditions, the burial of organics can develop into a restricted biolayer limiting drainage. When green leaves (or fresh kitchen waste) with waxy leaf coatings are added, this wax coats individual soil particles and restrict or, in some cases, completely impede water movement. The waxes particularly attach to sands and other coarse-grained soils, causeing affected soils to become “hydrophobic” (water repellent) at the soil surface.

When an abundance of organic matter is incorporated into the soil, including too much compost that still contains a lot of un-composted organic matter, the resulting population explosion of decomposers will rapidly use up the oxygen and the soil will go anaerobic for at least a short time. With reduced oxygen, anaerobic species take over and this then becomes anaerobic decomposition or, more properly, fermentation. Fermentation is usually accompanied by disagreeable odors of hydrogen sulfide and reduced organic compounds that contain sulfur, such as mercaptans (any sulfur-containing organic compound). Also included is lactic acid and alcohol, two chemicals that are toxic to plant roots. During fermentation (“anaerobic decomposition”), much less heat is generated than in aerobic decomposition and this lack of heat means a slower process. It’s more efficient and effective to use such organic matters to make compost (another blog post to come), which has its own array of special, beneficial by-products.

These various issues, from the serious reduction in edaphon and the increased release of CO2 to the maybe-minor stinkiness, almost always lead gardeners to rely more on fertilizers, additional water, pesticides, herbicides, and special potions to help their plants survive in a diminished soil. All of it becomes a treadmill, including tilling itself — the more one tills, the more one needs to till, and water, and fertilize, and....

Despite these problems associated with tilling the soil and amending the soil, these two very common practices remain the biggest sacred cows of the gardening world.

Of course, there are times when we must disturb the soil. We must plant a plant, remove a plant, transplant a plant. We must dig up our potatoes and carrots and turnips (raise your hand if you love turnips). We are committed to raking in preparation for a new seedbed. In a sense, the whole of “gardening” is a disturbance of the soil and the natural environment. But it all can and should be minimized. Gardeners can encourage, conserve, and take advantage of the natural and more subtle bioturbators in home garden soils, the native earthworms, the native ants, and even plant roots.

We don’t need to “till” the soil and we shouldn’t till the soil. In the garden, we can get the many benefits of organic matter and in a much more efficient and effective way by using a coarse mulch for the large spaces of the landscape and by making compost and using that compost as a mulch (in this case, better called “topdressing”) between plants and in hard-working gardens such as vegetable beds. Additionally, there’s the structure-fixing benefits of putting plant roots into the ground and leaving them there. The roots will help pull the soil particles into clusters to further develop structure (versus the un-clustering result from tilling) and the roots will help feed the mycorrhizal fungi (instead of breaking up this fungal network by tilling). If not a mulch, cover with seasonal cover crops for cover and for the roots.

Tilling doesn’t work and yet it is fervently defended by many, particularly those who preface it with “We do it this way because we’ve always done it this way, and I’m comfortable with that” or, its more popular incarnation, “It works for me.” That comfort zone is important. And I suspect my myth demystifying has caused many a reader to dig in heels even further.

Those who insist “they’ve done it this way for 50 years and it’s always worked for them,” have probably never made side-by-side comparisons with a control entity. The insistent gardener has no idea if it’s doing any better with it versus without it, especially in the long term. These claims of success are strictly anecdotal and generally pretty hard to prove. And because it’s “worked” for them, these gardeners assume it does or will work for others (which, of course, it doesn’t).

In the home garden, the area most commonly tilled on a regular basis is the vegetable plot. Farmers tilled (and most still till) their vegetable acreages for many reasons, most having nothing to do with why gardeners till their small plots. Many farmers till to turn under excessive crop residue, to level out rutted soil, for weed control, for getting the soil thawed and warmed up in earliest spring, for economic reasons, and/or because it’s easier than sowing a cover crop. Most, if not all, of these reasons, by the way, can be replaced with more earth-friendly practices.

This constant cultivation and tillage of the veggie plot physically severs the hyphae of important fungi within the edaphon and exposes much of it to the drying sun. Although the fungal network (“mycorrhizae”) can rebuild itself, continual tilling prevents it from allowing the whole system to function. When the fungi decline, bacteria become dominant and although they have their own way of managing soil functions, they do not do it as extensively or as thoroughly as fungi do. Frequent or deep tilling suppresses even the bacteria.

To compensate for this loss of natural functionality, the gardener resorts to more water, more fertilize, etc., as mentioned earlier. THIS added effort and expense is the reason behind the “success” of a tilled plot, not the tilling. (Another complexity: the added water, fertilizer, pesticides, et al, also degrade the edaphon.)

When gardeners consider one season of good growth or abundant yield, they don’t know (or care?) about the damage they may have caused to obtain the growth or yield. When a gardener asks “If it can’t hurt, why not?,” sometimes only the gardener can answer. Most often the hurt isn’t so obvious, at least not immediately. Gardeners are prone to judge only what they can see. If something is damaged in the process of their bad practice(s) and they can't see it, it doesn’t concern them. But tilling does hurt, as delineated herein. The big hurt in this case is the edaphon. This then becomes a long-term issue and not just for the garden and gardener.

In addition to this greater damage, in almost every case, the answer may be that it’s probably a waste of money, it’s probably a waste of time, and a gardener’s time and money could be better spent on practices that do work. There are so very many productive and rewarding things that can be done in the garden. If you’re already planting posies for the bees, butterflies, and pollinators, why not create a garden that benefits the edaphon?

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