Garden Notes: Leaf blowing, again

And it’s time to get your soil tested.

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Day’s end comes slightly later now, with golden tones in the clear weather. February, the month of snows and more daylight, is oncoming. ‘High Fragrance’ camellias scent the greenhouse — ahhh! It is high time to see an increase in hens’ production, and a few colorful witch hazel threads, or snowdrop flowers. Both seem late, by recent years’ standards, its having been a frigid January. Will a frigid winter help the beeches?

A quick walk outdoors reveals the reddening of blueberry and maple twigs, while the flowerbuds of various magnolias, reminiscent of oversize pussy willows, are swelling, even as temperatures are freezing. They know they are readying themselves for spring.

Cultivate your own garden

“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.” —Cicero

With national politics in turmoil, there might be no better time to cultivate one’s own garden, as Voltaire wrote prior to the upheavals of the French Revolution.

If ground thaws enough, take samples for soil testing. Dig from all four corners of the garden, or from all raised beds. Mix them together, and measure out just one cup. Dry this and send to the soil-testing lab of your choice. I recommend UMass Soil Testing Lab, because supporting our state university contributes to its caliber (bit.ly/UMass_SoilTestOrder).

Garden birdlife

The overwintering bird populations need more than well-stocked feeders. The garden furnished with dense shrubbery and evergreens supplies comfort and shelter. These garden allies need this in harsh conditions, while plenty of shrubs and trees with seed capsules and berries — even shriveled ones — supply food.

Meanwhile, the overwinterers are helpfully scavenging plantings, and closely inspecting for insect eggs and larvae: more food. Heated birdbaths sound luxurious, but gardens that have them become magnets for bird life. Site birdbaths near good cover: In the open, the hubbub of activity also becomes a magnet for predators, such as hawks and cats. Plant plenty of hiding places.

Sweet peas and onions

The vegetables with longest lead time for seed sowing include celery/celeriac; leeks/onions; peppers/eggplant; and parsley. “Celery, celeriac, leeks, and parsley are among the first plants to be started, a good 12 weeks before their intended transplant date, which is itself two to four weeks before the last frost,” according to Shepherd Ogden in his “Step by Step Organic Vegetable Gardening.”

Order these seeds now if you have not already, because they need sowing and growing the longest before the first frost-free dates.

Traditional gardeners’ advice, perhaps influenced by British practice, is to start sweet pea seeds indoors at the end of January. They need four to five weeks before setting out. That target date here, mid- to late March, might see an early-arriving spring, or a late blizzard. However, peas and sweet peas can take a light frost.

Start sweet pea seed in deep cells or root trainers, well-covered with soil. Use inoculant. Johnny’s sells one that is formulated for sweet peas: “Exceed pea, sweet pea, vetch, and lentil inoculant.”

Debating whether to soak seed or not? Having done it both ways, I now prefer not to soak, having had slightly better germination results that way. If you have one, a heat mat with thermostat set to 55° or 60° is good to put the deep cells on.

Debate: Leaving the leaves

While leaf blowers are under discussion, these two links explore actions, and reactions, to a confounding topic at greater length than “Garden Notes” permits: bit.ly/GR_FixingTheMeme and bit.ly/GR_NoGardenCleanup.

As a gardener working in landscaper-heavy areas of Edgartown, I cannot understand why employers, and area residents paying hefty taxes, put up with the daily uproar they are subjected to from landscaping efforts. Most days it is unending, and almost deafening.

Noise is a relentless stressor that affects people’s health, such as by raising blood pressure. Last year’s Edgartown annual town meeting vote narrowly rebuffed a noise-abatement bylaw article. Efforts have been made to raise noise-stress awareness, and to effect change. However, the poster child for such articles is noise abatement, leaving equally critical issues, many concerned with health, in the background and unaddressed.

Leaf blowing

Have you thought about the implications of the rest of the problems, the  “equally critical issues”? If leaf blowing were to be made completely noiseless, they would still remain. These include landscaping problems associated with all two-cycle gas-powered equipment; air pollution; the assorted fecal matter, bacteria (e.g., tularemia), fungal spores, and more, made airborne; destruction of insect life (first trophic layer); and health issues for neighbors and last, but not least, for laborers.

This is not a we-versus-them issue. It is about the emotional and physical health of all year-round and seasonal residents.

Woody pruning now

Recent windy conditions have rained down leaf clusters, branchlets, or more. It is helpful to clear plantings of these, should a heavy, wet snow fall, bending branches to the ground. Take a walk around outside to check.

Perform woody plant pruning as soon as possible, especially dogwood, blueberry, maple, grapevines, or any others that bleed sap. Avoid leaving stubs: Place the sharpened edge of the tool, not the blunt one, against the branch to be pruned.

Pruning is best done while the plant is completely dormant; however, the up-and-down, freeze-thaw temperatures mean dormancy may be of shorter duration. Maple sugaring depends upon this phenomenon of upwelling and subsidence of sap, when warmer days and colder nights produce flows of sap of ideal composition for syrup and sugar.

M.V. pollinator pathways study

Matt Pelikan, whose “Wild Side” column shares this page space with “Garden Notes,” along with BiodiversityWorks and cooperating Island farms, studied the role of pollinating insects and pollinator-friendly plants. The goal was to assist and enhance the pollination of Island food crops. Goldenrods and asters, two genera of plants widespread here, were cited as favorite pollinator attractors. Read more here: bit.ly/VG_PollinatorStudy.