1 week Ago By Jodi Cahillane
Brrr. I am cold. Again.
Although it is chilly, I have faith that spring will still arrive for more than 24 hours at a time.It was too cold to spend much time outdoors last weekend, but I filtered the compost that has been resting since last fall into a wheelbarrow and rolled it to my raised beds for vegetables anyway. I spread about one inch of compost over each section and then hustled back inside to warm my hands.
The compost will enrich the soil with organics slowly as the spring rain and snow pelt down.I am very pleased with my raised-bed vegetable gardens. They drain well, and if I can handle being out in the cold, the beds are ready for lettuce, kale, peas, and carrots.
The soil holds moisture but breaks apart easily. By adding compost every year, I will continue to improve the tilth and moisture. Things look good but can still look better.
Clumps of soil in the raised beds stick together and fall apart easily. The dark soil to the right is the compost layer freshly applied for spring planting.As I pulled out a few dandelions and other opportunist plants from the raised beds, I also found a few grubs and cutworms.
These I removed and placed where birds might find them. Earthworms I returned to the beds, and I ignored centipedes and pillbugs. These will all continue to break down the organic material in the compost and make nutrients available to my vegetables.
Not all insects and worms are pests!Cold weather does not affect spring bulbs, hellebore, or spring ephemerals. Start to seek those ephemerals in the area woods or in your gardens.It is native ramp season.
These green shoots of wild onions in the foreground can be foraged for a mild onion-flavored pesto or a quick veggie side. That green wave in the background is a full bed of ramps that exists because of selective foraging. Don’t forage anything from the wild if you aren’t sure what it is.
Cut, don’t pull up the roots, and don’t trespass! Not sure? Local markets with locally foraged foods will offer ramps in season.I love Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) for its bright-white daisy-like flowers. The stems are up in my garden.
Leaves are still curled tight. Not strictly an ephemeral, bloodroot leaves will persist as an attractive groundcover in the garden if growing in a summer-shaded, moist location.Bloodroots act like spring ephemerals, but their leaves persist for months in the right growing locations.
Here they are starting to emerge with gray-green leaves curled around the pink stems ending in white buds. These plants receive eastern light until the Potentilla overhead gets its leaves and provides shade.It may be cold, but deer ticks are starting to emerge.
They have evolved (and have survived) by seizing the daylight and the newly active spring mammals. Prepare yourself every time you venture out into tick territory. I recently had a refresher course from Paul Killinger of TickReport, Tick Surveillance Laboratory, an independent pathogen lab in Amherst, Mass.
Bitten by a tick? Capture it and send to the lab so you can learn more about what pathogens it may be carrying. Send it to analysts at TickReport.com.
A few tricks Paul shared:Recognize where ticks are most likely to hang out. They position themselves along frequent mammalian “highways.” These are often tall grass areas abutting dense woods.
Human hikers who keep to cleared paths are less likely to pick up the tick hitchhikers. But we wander and our pets wander.Be cautious if you venture into tick territory.
Tuck pants into your socks and spray clothing with permethrin (a synthetic pesticide derived from naturally poisonous chrysanthemum). Once dry, the permethrin will not affect you or your pets but will kill the ticks. Deet or picaridin repel the ticks by irritating their feet, and lighter concentrations can be used on your exposed skin (but are also useful on clothing).
Other repellents that rely on essential oils have less testing or regulation to confirm the efficacy and may cause skin irritation.Ticks walk up. By layering from the ground up—by tucking pant legs into socks, and shirts into pants—you prevent these pests from finding their way to your folds of skin where they intend to latch on for a meal.
Light-colored clothing is ideal because you can see the tick as it crawls, making it easier to capture.Pants in socks are no laughing matter. Enjoy the outdoors, but protect yourself.
Deer ticks carry the most pathogens and are most active now into June and again in September through November. Be diligent. Remove any tick that has latched on, plop into isopropyl alcohol, and send to TickReport.
com. They analyze the tick for pathogens. The earlier the detection, the better chance you have of treating whatever the tick has “shared.
”I asked Paul about TickTubes, which were effective before in my landscape. These tubes have a cotton batting soaked in permethrin. By placing the tubes in vole or field mouse habitat, we encourage the rodents to bring the fluffy nesting material to their den where the permethrin will kill the ticks.
He said, “Sure! All works great unless your landscape has other competing nesting material—like fluffy tops of phragmites, cattails, or abundant clumps of cottonwood.” So keep that in mind! Also, my dog was curious eventually and ran around with the tubes as her great discovery! Overall, they do work to reduce tick populations.Another good tip: Position bird feeders out in the open far from where mice can find cover.
If you encourage a mouse colony by positioning feeders in your flower beds, the ticks will show up, too. Tick habitat has three ideal features: an insulating layer of leaf litter next to or below tall grasses or brush (12 to 30 inches) along frequent animal paths like edges of shrub borders or woods. Eliminate one of these three ideal features and you will reduce the tick activity in your landscape.
More to-dosI wouldn’t start tomatoes for another week. This spring has been cold, and the garden won’t be ready for them until early June.Keep watching the weather.
You will want to vent cold frames on warm sunny days or else your new plants will wilt in the heat.Create a grass-free zone around trees in lawn areas. Add three inches of mulch over that zone once you have removed the weeds.
Check naturalized garden areas and remove sprouted weed seeds (like garlic mustard). After the beds are clear, mulch to help prevent more annual weeds from sprouting and to keep spring moisture in the ground.Divide crowded snowdrops and replant “in the green” now so they can get established right away.
Scout your evergreens (spruce, fir, and arborvitae) for spider mites. If tips of these plants have dried out and you don’t believe it could be salt or wind damage, spider mites may be the culprit. Hold a piece of white paper under a branch and gently tap the branch.
Brown specks that land on the paper may be bits of dirt, but if they start to move, you will know your plant has spider mites. Plan a regimen of horticultural oil by following the directions on the package.Before the flower buds have opened is a good time to apply horticultural oil to apple and pear trees.
A thorough coating will kill scale and other overwintering pests on these trees. If you miss this window and trees are blooming, wait until flower petals have fallen before applying the oil.We didn’t apply oil to our trees last weekend (too windy, rainy, and cold), but we did some selective pruning of our old apple trees.
It is not too late!I call myself the Lazy Berkshire Gardener because I don’t want to work too hard in my gardens. I want to enjoy them. I find it easier to observe my landscape and let the compost happen, the water pool up, or daisies to self-sow.
I look for ways to do the minimum task for the biggest impact. For example, mulching is better than spraying and much better than weeding all season. I look for beautiful, low-maintenance plants that thrive in or at least tolerate my garden conditions.
Plus, I am willing to live with the consequences if I miss something..
