Two recently published books to check out provide advice on layouts and amounts. One, “The Backyard Homestead,” edited by Carleen Madigan (Storey, 2009, 367 ppg.) presents a nuts-and-bolts (Mars?) approach. The second, “The Complete Kitchen Garden,” by Ellen Ecker Ogden (Stewart, Tabori, & Chang, 2011, 255 ppg.) takes a more artistic one (Venus?), focusing on the design and culinary aspects of the home garden.
“The Backyard Homestead,” sub-headed “Produce all the food you need on just a quarter acre,” takes us from vegetable gardens, to orcharding, through livestock, to slaughter, with recommendations for one-tenth, one-quarter, and half-acre layouts. Dairying advice and calculating yield from meat animals are among the more technical topics. This volume is drawn from the many practical publications Storey has issued over the years to “encourage personal independence in harmony with the environment.”
“The Complete Kitchen Garden” is a visual treat, profusely illustrated with crisp color photos and beautiful watercolor drawings. It offers 14 gardens, each paired with a plant list, and with a description of how each layout performs. Ogden then follows each garden with recipes themed to its plants. While I have not yet cooked any of them, I certainly intend to.
“The Complete Kitchen Garden’s” garden layouts are, with one exception, compact, the real value of this book. Backyards and spaces available for gardens have grown smaller and smaller. Ms. Ogden has focused on these limitations and has supplied beautiful and useful solutions.
In the Vegetable Garden
Before planting, spread whatever compost, humus, or leaf mold you have accumulated over the top of the ground, along with the recommended amount of fertilizer and soil amendments, as recommended by soil testing. Till in, or — good exercise and no fuel cost — use a broad fork if patch has been previously cultivated.
My vegetable garden, not an early patch, currently has a soil temperature of 55 degrees. Cool weather crops to plant at this stage include onions, peas, sweet peas, lettuce and mesclun mixes, arugula, beets, broccoli and other cole crops such as broccoli raab, collards, kale, cabbage, kohlrabi, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, mustards/mizuna, Chinese cabbage and turnips; cilantro, corn salad (mache), radishes, fennel, parsley, spinach. Radicchio and endive may be planted in cool weather too, but like mustards they bolt very quickly when planted as a spring crop. Early potatoes are planted about six weeks before the last frost; plan on about mid-April. They and dahlia tubers may be sprouted (chitted) first.
After starting seeds indoors, “harden off” the seedlings before planting out in the open garden. This term describes a process of toughening your tiny plants by exposing them gradually to the strong sun, airflow, and temperature extremes they will face when planted in the ground. The flats the seedlings were started in are carried outdoors to a sheltered spot for a few hours, and brought back inside at night. Or, they can go into a cold frame. The lights are opened during the day but closed at night and during bad weather.
Carex and Liriope
The Carexes, grass-like plants in the Cyperaceae, are sedges. They are good plants for shaded or damp spots. It is a huge genus, varied in color, shape, size, and useful in many differing landscape situations. Many cultivated carexes have come to us from New Zealand and Japan, but there are also native North American species. About 32 are found on Martha’s Vineyard.
Garden-worthy carexes range from bluish, to the ‘bronzed’ types with hair-like foliage, to variegated forms practically indistinguishable from variegated liriope (lily turf) or ophiopogon (mondo grass), both of which are in the Convallariaceae.
The bronzed types, from New Zealand, add unique coloring and a contemporary look to gardens and containers, often brought out best in sunny locations. These carexes require moisture-retentive soil and some protection over the winter. Others, such as C. elata ‘Aurea,’ (Bowles golden sedge) make striking accent clumps in shady corners or damp spots and are suitable for water gardening.
The plants in the photo above, Carex morrowii ‘Ice Dance,’ grow under the canopy of mature oaks in the company of hydrangeas, sarcococca (sweet box), cherry laurel, ferns (Polystichum), and hakonechloa. Green and variegated liriope and Ophiopogon japonicus ‘Compactus’ are also nearby. ‘Ice Dance’ spreads slowly by offsets that may be dug and divided in spring and makes a successful groundcover.
Speaking of groundcover, as more gardeners seek to go turf-free, a logical alternative would be groundcovers in portions of the garden or yard. Many know the Stepables, a line of tough, dwarf groundcover plants that may be used in high traffic areas, but did you know there is an entire book devoted to groundcovers? Check out “Perennial Ground Covers,” by David S. MacKenzie (Timber Press paperback, 2003, 379 ppg.) a comprehensive guide plus 300 color plates to the right plant for the right place.
Ornamental garden
Pruning, cleaning, and mulching are upon us. Cut back perovskia, hydrangea, potentilla, Montauk daisy, buddleia, hypericum, roses, santolina and lavender safely now. The above listed plants are “shrubs” that are not quite woody, not quite herbaceous.
Knowing the plant material helps to know how to prune. Blue or pink “mophead” and “lacecap” hydrangea species are usually tipped back to a pair of strong buds, weak or dead canes pruned out at the base, and debris removed. PG hydrangeas are pruned hard, depending upon the size wanted. Hydrangeas such as ‘Annabelle,’ are pruned back hard to about a foot above ground level, as are Rosa rugosa canes. Montauk daisy, buddleia, and perovskia are pruned back hard to several sets of strong buds. Reduce potentilla and hypericum by about a third. With lavender and santolina it is a matter of judgment, but reducing the amount of old woody growth — without killing the plant — is the objective. Wait until after flowering with forsythia.
