Dried Flowers and Pods

When I clear out the garden beds in the spring, I always get side-tracked by all of the cool seed pods and dried flowers. In many ways they are just as lovely as the flower in bloom, but in a different way. They are a kind of graphic art form.

I can’t help but think of printmaker Angie Lewin’s work when I see dried pods and flowers because her art is so inspired by them.

Some plants I purposefully let go in the fall. For instance, the purple coneflowers are a favorite of the goldfinches, so I leave them so they get fed in the fall and so I can enjoy watching them. 

Once all seeds are plucked from the coneflower, they look kind of like a girl in a grass skirt.

I usually cut back the Raspberry Wine Monarda in the fall, but a few were found here and there as I cleared out the beds. When you see the flower dried like this you understand why they are a favorite of the hummingbirds with their tubular shape. The shape seems more pronounced in its dried form.

This hydrangea flower has such an interesting skeletal look.

One of my absolute favorite seed pods is the Siberian Iris. What a fantastic shape and texture these pods have. You would never guess this was an Iris in the summer.

I like to gather some of the pods and use them as filler in floral arrangements or put them in vases by themselves. That way I get to really enjoy and appreciate their beauty.

Planning and Prepping the Kitchen Garden

April is crazy-time. It is the busiest month of the year for this gardener. Clearing out garden beds, weeding, pruning shrubs and roses, planning the Kitchen Garden, buying seeds, adding compost to the raised beds, and planting seeds in the greenhouse and under the row covers in the Kitchen Garden, just to name a few chores. This also was a busy month for me outside of the garden this year – working overtime, running weekly meetings, and reading a book for a weekly book club at work, plus taking the last of my classes for my web design certificate, doing reading for that, and working on my final project, which was due last Thursday. (After two years of night classes and homework, I officially get my web design certificate this Thursday – wahoo!) Needless to say, I am running behind on my April garden chores.

I was sketching out, erasing, sketching out again, my Kitchen Garden map for 2015. I often show the end result of this map, but never how it starts. Below is how it begins: I print out a map of the shape of the beds (top part is spring, bottom part is fall) and using a pencil and eraser I start fleshing it out. I write notes about what I need to buy, what I already have, use symbols for perennial or annual, write down the plant height, and indicate what I will plant as seeds and what will be plants that I buy. What does the chopstick have to do with anything, you ask? I mark a chopstick with 1/4", 1/2", 3/4", and an inch and use that to poke holes in the soil at the correct depth, or use it to score a row in the soil at the write depth. I have plenty of extra chopsticks from all of my take-out sushi nights (mmmm....sushi...).

This year I went mostly with organic seeds. I figure that I garden organically, so organic seeds probably have the best chance in my beds. Plus, it just feels right using organic. The bulk of my seeds are from Hudson Valley Seed Library and Seeds of Change. I really like what these two companies are all about and it feels good supporting them. I’m often a Burpee girl, but only one from them this year – the Alaska Nasturtium that did so well last year.

I keep my seeds in a plastic container. I separate them out by what I need to start indoors and what I can plant outdoors under my row covers, and this year I also had one that needed cold stratification (milkweed). They get put in baggies that are marked with the year and where they get started.

Some seedlings in the greenhouse include Doe Hill Pepper and Starflower, both from Hudson Valley Seed Library. The milkweed is also in the greenhouse since it has finished its three weeks of cold stratification in the fridge. Now sprouts on that yet, though. I use APS systems from Gardener’s Supply Company for growing my greenhouse seeds, as well as their organic seed mix. I just have an ordinary florescent overhead light that I use. I have plans to go more “professional,” or at least less amateurish, at some point, just haven’t gotten around to it yet. This system seems to work ok, though.

I planted my seeds under the row covers in the Kitchen Garden this past weekend – one to two weeks later than usual. In my defense, it has been a very cold spring making it tough to get started on things too early. But if I was to be really honest, I was behind with it due to my hectic schedule.

Spinach that I had planted last fall miraculously survived the bitter cold winter and is thriving (even more so now than in this photo I took a couple of weeks ago). I planned around the spinach.

The Sorrel is also looking great right now. It is a perennial and seems to like the chilly spring weather. I absolutely love the flavor of Sorrel. Really nice added in a salad.

For the seeds under the row covers, all I need to do at this point is keep them watered. Nature takes care of the rest. I won’t remove the covers until Mother’s Day weekend. We sometimes get frost up until that weekend, so that has become my annual indicator that it is time to uncover what will be seedlings or small plants by then. Can’t wait to be able to harvest some things! Although first I need to use up some of that Spinach and Sorrel!

Milkweed for the Monarchs

I have posted several times about monarchs and the need to do what we can to help protect them and provide a habitat for them. I added milkweed to my garden last year and my garden is a certified Monarch Waystation. More milkweed is needed, though, so I started some seeds a few weeks ago.

My seeds are Asciepias syriaca from Hudson Valley Seed Library. Cold stratification is required for these seeds. That means they need cold, moist conditions in order to encourage germination. To achieve this, you could plant the seeds outside in the fall or early winter, or if you are busy like me and tend to have too much fall clean-up to do to plant much, you can wait until spring and do artificial cold stratification. Got a fridge? Then you can do artificial cold stratification.

The instructions call for deep pots, so I actually used some plastic cups and punched holes in the bottom. I use Gardener’s Supply Germinating Mix for all of my seeds. I have had a lot of success with their mix. I mixed it a tubtrug with water until it was damp. I use chopsticks to poke holes in the soil and mark the chopsticks with measurements so that I plant at the correct depth. The plastic cups are placed inside a baking dish that is lined with a wet paper towel. Every so often I pour more water into the dish to keep it damp. The cups are covered with plastic wrap that is held on with rubber bands. (To be honest, I just made up this process and assume it will work.)

This has been living in my refrigerator for almost three weeks now.

On Monday I will take them out and move them to the greenhouse. Then, assuming they do well, I can move them outside after the last frost date. Fingers crossed I get some nice milkweed plants this year. Gotta help those magnificent monarchs!

Spooky Spider

About a week ago I spotted this really spooky spider on one of my plants in the greenhouse. I literally screamed when I saw it. From the tip of its top leg to the tip of its bottom leg it was at least 4 inches long, if not more.

Notice how it has these things protruding from its head?!?! Eeek! And such an odd-shaped body with enormously long legs. My first thought was, I hope this isn’t poisonous. My second though was, where the heck did this thing come from?! I have never seen a spider like this before in my yard or in my greenhouse.

My co-worker  Doug, does a lot of magical macro photography of insects and has an affinity for spiders. Check out his instagram and his flickr page. Seriously gorgeous stuff there. I thought maybe he could identify this spider, but he couldn’t. I asked him to come photograph it and take it home with him, but he didn’t think it had an interesting enough face. :o) I said I was worried it was poisonous and he said he doubted it and to let it stay in the greenhouse to take care of any bad insects that might be in there. Good idea, Doug. So that’s what I did. I decided if he was going to stick around, he needed a name. I named him Sid because his long, spiky legs made me think of the spiky hair of Sid Vicious.

Admittedly, ever since I first spotted Sid, I kept an eye out for him because he really creeped me out. I would look for him every night when I went into the greenhouse to check on my seeds. He stuck to the same plant for a couple of days, then I couldn’t find him. Did he crawl his way over to some other plant? Did he die? What is the life span of a spider anyway? I still look for him every time I go in there. Sid, I think I kinda miss you. If you did die, I hope you had a nice life in my greenhouse.

The Xerces Society’s Bring Back the Pollinators Campaign and Bumble Bee Watch

Last year my garden qualified as an official Monarch Waystation. This year I am working to help even more of our pollinator friends. Many pollinator populations are in decline, including bees and monarchs. You can help the Xerces Society’s “Bring Back the Pollinators” campaign by signing their Pollinator Protection Pledge. The Xerces Society is “a nonprofit organization that protects wildlife through the conservation of invertebrates and their habitat.” By signing this pledge you are committing yourself to doing the following things:

1. Grow a variety of bee-friendly flowers that bloom from spring through fall.
2. Protect and provide bee nests and caterpillar host plants.
3. Avoid using pesticides, especially insecticides.
4. Talk to my neighbors about the importance of pollinators and their habitat.

I signed the pledge today. I already do most of these things. The one thing I am lacking in is providing nesting for bees. That is something I will work on this year. 

I also signed up for a Citizen Science project called Bumble Bee Watch, which is a collaborative effort to track and conserve North America’s bumble bees. It’s easy to become involved: just sign up online, then take photos of a bee, upload them, use their key to help identify it, and note the location where you saw the bee. I already take lots of bee photos every year, so now I can use those photos for a good cause. 

Book: “Nomads of the Wind” by Ingo Arndt, Claus-Peter Lieckfeld, and Peter Huemer

The full title of this book is “Nomads of the Wind: The Migration of the Monarch Butterfly and Other Wonders of the Butterfly World.” The copyright is 2008 and I’m not sure it is still in print, however, you can find it through Amazon or Barnes and Nobles’ affiliates on their websites.

I learned about this book when I went to the monarch tagging demo as part of the Monarch Monitoring Project in Cape May. (See my blog post about the demo.) During the talk and demo, they were showing photos from this book. I just had to have it.

You may be tempted to keep this as a coffee table book, but that would be an injustice. This book reads like a butterfly adventure story, taking you through the life of Monarch 148 and then 148a and 148b, helping the reader to understand the magical life cycle and amazing migration of the monarchs. The timeline along the left of each spread helps you to follow along the butterfly’s journey. Along this journey, you learn fascinating facts about monarch butterflies. The glorious photography of Ingo Arndt bring to life the long trek and perils along the way.

The book begins with Monarch 148 emerging from her chrysalis in the Richard Bong State Recreation Area, south of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 148 faces many obstacles along her southern migration to Mexico: spiderwebs, rain, hungry birds, lack of food (nectar) make it a struggle to survive. Why go on this perilous journey? Monarchs can’t survive cold winters. Other butterflies can overwinter as larvae, pupae, or even as adults, but monarchs must fly south, like many birds. They are the only butterfly known to make a two-way migration.

These small insects are more hardy then they look. They fly hundreds of miles to reach their winter destination in Mexico. One thing that helps the monarch survive on this long trek is their orange color. This color means danger or poison to many predators. Monarch caterpillars feed only on milkweed leaves and therefore are impregnated with Cardenolides, so predators should heed that warning.   

How do these butterflies know where to go? There is much debate about that, however the earth’s magnetic field may play a roll. Millions of monarchs end up in the Transvolcanic Mountains of Michoacán in central Mexico every year. Why this particular place? And why specifically on Oyamel firs? That is still relatively a mystery.

In 1992, almost the entire population of one of the largest monarch colonies was killed by a cold front. Masses of butterflies lay dead at the feet of the Oyamel firs. 

As spring arrives and their bodies are warmed by the sun, the monarchs head back north, following a different route than when they flew south. Their purpose is to mate and find millkweed to lay their eggs. Just milkweed. No other plant will do. As mentioned before, milkweed is what makes them toxic to predators. They lay one egg per leaf and not more than a few on each plant, so several milkweed plants are needed.

Monarch 148 does manage to lay her eggs before meeting her demise. I will not spoil it by telling you how she dies. Monarch 148 never makes it all the way back up north. It is up to her offspring to do that.

148a is born as a black, white and yellow caterpillar. The main goal of the caterpillar is to eat fast and furious.

Once the monarch caterpillar gets big enough, he starts to molt. That is the sign to stop feeding and to find a place to attach himself to form his chrysalis. This is where the magic happens. This worm-like creature with mouth-eating parts turns into a winged beauty with a proboscis for drinking its nourishment.

When he emerges his goal is to finish the return trip north-east that his mother didn’t finish. It is the same goal for all other monarchs of his generation. He will mate along the way and 148b will be born. And so on and so on. What is truly amazing is this same flight plan south in winter and north in spring is an ingrained part of every monarch’s life.

The last few pages of the book are about other butterfly wonders. Some interesting photos and info there, but really the bulk of this book is about the monarchs.

I loved this book. Not only are the photographs incredible, but it’s a fun read. It gives a real glimpse into the life of monarch butterflies and is not a story you will soon forget. It is a reminder of how remarkable these little creatures are.

Monarchs are important pollinators, and like bees, their numbers are in decline. They are close to being on the endangered list and we need to do what we can to help. One easy way to help is to plant a garden, and in particular, plant milkweed. This is a photo of milkweed pods that I took when I was in Cape May last summer...

I planted milkweed in my yard last year and plan to plant more this year. As mentioned above, the monarchs really depend on more than one milkweed plant for laying their eggs.

If you want to learn more about the amazing migration of monarchs, check out the Nova video “The Incredible Journey of the Butterflies.” Beautiful footage and great to watch while reading “Nomads of the Wind” book.

To learn more about monarchs and what you can do to help:
MonarchWatch.org
Monarch Joint Venture
US Fish & Wildlife: Save the Monarch Butterfly

Kitchen Garden in 2014

I am not normally a meticulous record-keeper or planner when it comes to my garden, however, I am when it comes to the Kitchen Garden. I only have a few established perennials, so most of it is planted as seeds or plants each year. As I started working on my plan for this year, I realized I never updated my map and notes from last year.

Here is my map of the Kitchen Garden from last year. Red indicates what I planted as plants, blue indicates what was planted as seeds, and black is perennials.

I know that map is really hard to read, but I think if you click on it you can see it at least a little larger. Here is a copy of the notes at the bottom of the maps.

Spring notes:

Things that did well:
Red Rubin Basil, Sweet Basil, Sorrel, Garlic Chives, Bright Lights Swiss Chard, Alaska Nasturtium, Curly Parsley, Cut & Come Again Zinnias, Radishes, Pink Gomphrena, Turnips, Sugar Crunch Cucumbers, Arugula, Caesar’s Favorite, Gourmet Leaf Mix, Sunchocola Tomato, Cilantro

Things that did NOT do as well:
Sweet Tweety Pepper (got 1-2 peppers), Mariachi Pepper, Cherokee Purple Tomato (got a few late in the season, but had split on bottom), Beets, Ground Cherry (got a small plant or two), Merlot Lettuce did ok but not great, Spinach, Mammoth Dill, Love in a Mist (got a few, but not much), Artichoke

Late Summer/Fall notes:

Things that did well:  Bright Lights Swiss Chard, Alaska Nasturtium, Red Rubin Basil, Sweet Basil, Curly Parsley,  Cut & Come Again Zinnias, Spinach, Pink Gomphrena,  Kale Redbor, Joi Choi Pak Choi, Escarole

Things that did NOT do as well:
Leeks, Graffiti Cauliflower, Superdukat Dill, Sweet Tweety Pepper (got 1-2 peppers), Mariachi Pepper, Cherokee Purple Tomato (got a few late in the season, but had split on bottom), Ground Cherry (got a small plant or two), Artichoke

Now that I finally updated my notes and maps from this year, I can start mapping out for this year.