The Natural Gardener: February Gardening

          February in Grants Pass is when the garden and the gardener really start to wake up.  January has its snowdrops, but we don’t really care; it is too cold and dreary to draw us outside.  In February, sunny days get warm enough to make cold weather gear too warm by afternoon, and coax crocuses and daffodils to bloom.

Daffodils in oak leaf mulch for weed control.

February is the time to kill annual springweeds like bitter cress, heron’s bill, groundsel, foxtail and cheat before they bloom and spread; it has been since October, when they started to grow and some started to bloom.  Cut any annual weed under the crown and it will be gone; you can clear a lot of them quickly with gardening scissors or a knife. 

Winter is also time to cut and dig rampant perennials like violets that are in stasis until this month, when they will start to bloom in earnest, set seed and make the matter more urgent.  Cut blackberries back and dig out their crowns.  Dig excess raspberries, transplant them, and prune out dead canes.  You still have time to transplant trees, shrubs and perennials while roots grow before spring top growth begins.  Winter is the best time to do heavy tree pruning with a saw, but lopper work is better done in midsummer.  "Crown" your roses when their buds start to grow, cutting them to the hard crown at the base to stop black spot until fall.

It is also time to start new gardening beds with compost, edging the beds with 6-12” boulders, choosing rocks with flat bottoms from the pile at Copeland.  Leaves can be used in the fall, several inches to a foot thick.  But new beds can be started at any time of year with compost.  One can build compost beds in the heat of summer for summer vegetables and fall perennials, or in the depths of winter for winter and spring planting.  Two inches is good for ornamentals, but six inches will give them a better start and grow great vegetables. 

Compost needs to be covered with coarse mulch like walk-on fir or nugget bark to protect it, roots and seedlings from rain, wind, and drying sun.  Avoid using fine bark, which kills soil with its natural preservatives. 

Blueberries and azaleas don’t even like to be planted into plain soil; they do better set on top of the ground and surrounded by compost covering their roots; their fine, spongy roots will sink into the soil as the compost is worked in by worms.  The more general rule is that #1 pots and larger need to be planted in soil, or they will be left high and dry as the compost is worked in and rots, while 4” and smaller pots will sink into soil with the compost.

          Paths need to be controlled too.  Two inches of wood chips, walk-on fir or ¾ inch nugget bark, will stop most weeds for a season, but need to be refreshed yearly.  4 x 8 sand, ¼-1/8 inch sifted river sand available at Copeland, laid one inch deep, covers mud and makes it easy to hula-hoe and rake young weeds as the sand brings them up.  (It also is good for starting a lawn and covering its mud.)  It is also easy to clean 4 x 8 sand by blowing and raking the tree trash into the beds for mulch.  Some trees, like mimosa, demand it, as they drop sticky flowers half the summer, leaves in the fall, and seed pods all winter, none of which are easy to clean off bark or chips.

         

Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener          541-955-9040        rycke@gardener.com

Weekly Weeder: Start stopping spring weeds now

Groundsel has yellow, nodding flowers and bitter cress has tiny white, erect flowers.

          Fall has barely started, but spring weeds are already growing.  Now through spring is the best time to kill them.  Cheat, foxtail, heron’s bill, groundsel, bitter cress, cleavers and many others can most easily be killed in the months before they start blooming.  The earlier you get to them, the easier it is.

Heron's Bill, starting to bloom in the spring.  It takes a lot of mulch to smother it at this point.

          You can kill them three ways: by smothering with mulch, preferably leaves; by pulling them out; or by cutting them below the crown, the point from which roots and leaves grow.

          Smothering with mulch saves you the most work in the long run, in the places where you can mulch.  Leaves, when spread 2” or more deep, can stop weeds that haven’t even started yet and those too small or too crowded to be worth individual attention.  Tiny seedlings can grow through a few layers of light fluffy weeds, but more than that can make them run out of food before they find the light.  Blocking sunlight on soil can stop seeds that need sun on soil from sprouting at all.  And leaves make a lousy seed bed for seeds that fall on top of them because they dry out quickly.

Leaves covered with pine needles, which hold them in place.

          But not all leaves are created equal.  Some are eaten by worms before fall is even over, some by spring, some stick around until midsummer, and some have to lie around decomposing for a year before even crazy snake worms will touch them.  (If you have no soil life because fine bark has killed it all, it may take a year or more for even soft leaves to go away, but that’s a subject for another column.) 

Fallen red maple leaves stopping groundsel and other weeds 

          Hard leaves, like oak, sycamore, sweet gum and magnolia, tend to be stiff and fluffy and take a few more layers to stop weeds from growing through.  Many medium and soft leaves lie flat and can stop weeds from sprouting with only a single layer, but will be gone before summer weed seeds start flying.   A mix of hard and soft leaves 2 inches or more deep will stop most small seeds and plants from growing, and feed and soften the soil to easily pull the ones that get through.  2 inches of leaves in the fall is enough to keep flowers and shrubs fed and happy, with loose, easy-to-weed soil that is protected from rain and sun.

A foot or more of leaves will grow big vegetables as they decompose.  For small seeds, spread an inch of compost on top and plant on it.  Large seeds and starts can be planted into the leaves without compost, allowing the leaves to stop weeds from sprouting on top. 

Cheat, blooming en masse, at the point when the roots are shrinking and it is again fairly easy to pull.

Annual grasses, large and small, are most easily pulled from 3 to 6 inches tall.  The longer they grow, the more roots they hold the soil with and the harder they are to pull.  Annuals cheat and foxtail are a lighter green and have a softer texture than perennial grasses, are often fuzzy, and grow in clumps, without runner roots.  As they send up seed stalks in the spring, they use up their roots and are more easily pulled, but time is then short to pull them all.

Most taproots are more easily pulled when the ground is wet, but some in rocky or very hard soil, or with soft stems, won’t pull and must be cut under the crowns.  This will stop most annual weeds and many perennials, but some perennial taproots, like dandelion, dock, and creeping oxalis, need the soil to be loosened with a tool and pulled eventually.  Some, like oriental poppies, can grow back from a root tip deep in the soil and take several years to get rid of completely.

                             

Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener          541-955-9040        rycke@gardener.com

The Weekly Weeder -- Fox tail and Cheat: Stickery fire hazards

Ripening fox tails

          Cheat and foxtails are drying out and dropping seed, but you can still reduce the number of seeds of these annual grasses infesting your landscape with quick action.  Both of these grasses have seeds that stick into socks and animal fur with barbs that make them hard to pull out the way they went in.  If nothing else, you should cut them and rake up as many seeds as you can, because they are a great fire hazard.

Fox tails dropping seeds into permeable pavement 

        Foxtails are well-known as a hazard to animals with fur, standing up straight up to about 12-15 inches with their tight brush of seeds at the top that fall off the stalk in joined pairs.  They not only stick into fur and socks; they get tracked into the house from the lawn, sticking in carpet. 

Mowed fox tails in Bermuda grass

Mowed foxtails keep growing until they seed out under the mower blades, with at least a dozen seeds per head, about half the size of unmowed foxtail seeds, an unsightly nuisance as they turn blond against the green lawn.  They stick hard into the ground with tough roots even after they dry, but can more easily be pulled out of damp ground, another good reason to water your yard.

Dry "nodding" cheat, a fire hazard next to the sidewalk

Cheat is less obvious, and many people don’t realize the source of the inch-long stickers in their socks or their pet: a tall grass, with a very loose seed head.  There are two varieties of cheat: a tall blond one with the thick stalk that stands a good three feet tall, very straight, that leaves empty shells hanging on the stalk after dropping its seeds, and a shorter, brown “nodding” variety on thin stalks that bend nearly to the ground under the weight of its very sharp seeds, hard to see against the background of other plants, and not leaving any hanging shells when the seeds fall off. 

Mass of tall dry cheat, Westholm Park

The former is the bigger fire hazard; the latter is most likely to grow in forest and to end up in your socks.  Cheat pulls relatively easily once it has begun to bloom, its one saving grace.   When mowed or in very poor soil, it can set as little as a single seed per stalk, keeping its numbers steady.

Green nodding cheat, in dry bitter cress

Foxtails and cheat start growing in fall.  The seeds are large enough to grow through several inches of mulch, but once they sprout, they can be smothered with 2” or more of compost or leaves.  They can also be easily pulled when very young.  Their color is lighter than perennial grasses.  They start blooming in April, showing which kind of grass they are, and should be pulled at that point, before they set seed and dry out.  They pull more easily when blooming than just before it.

A single dry nodding cheat

Weed control is seed control, and our city nuisance code tells up exactly when a weed becomes a nuisance: it forbids allowing weeds to mature or set seed.  Cutting these weeds before they ripen seed can reduce their seed numbers, a lot in the case of cheat; less so with foxtails, but you have to cut them repeatedly until they dry out.  Pulling plants before they drop seed is the better seed control.  It can be done more quickly than you might think. 

But if you have a lot of fox tail or cheat, your best bet may be to cut them; rake up as much as you can, and mulch them over in the fall after they sprout with 2” or more of leaves or compost, pulling any that come up through the mulch later, and plant good perennial grass in the spring, reseeding again in the fall.  It is easy to tell the annual grass from perennial by the light color and wider leaves of the annuals. Be sure to pull them young and later any that show their seed heads.

Grow Bigger Tomato and Pepper Plants

Tomato in leaves covered with pine needles and "gabion" river rocks

Tomato plants start appearing in the markets in April, usually large, blooming plants in 6” pots first.  They are there to tempt the ignorant into planting too big, too old, and too early.  If the soil is not warm enough, they just sit and get eaten by bugs until it warms up to 70 degrees.  If that happens, replant when it is warmer.

The first step to growing a big tomato or pepper plant is to buy a small one that is not yet blooming or even budding.  Examine the tips carefully for buds.  Buds or blooms on a plant in a pot are a sign that it is root bound and has moved from growing mode to trying to make seed while it still can. 

It is getting harder to find good tomatoes and pepper plants in the markets.  You can take a budding plant and cut the roots down each side of the root ball to make them grow into the soil.  You can pinch off the flowers and fruit until the plants are a good two feet tall and get excellent results thereafter.

Peppers planted in gabion rocks. 

It pays to wait until June for peppers.  They prefer warmer soil.  Nights colder than 50 degrees will stunt them.  In recent years, I have had a hard time finding pepper plants even in 4-inch pots that are not showing buds.  4- and 6-packs are scarce.  I’ve started growing my own pepper seeds from store-bought peppers.  The seeds are fresh, sprout easily, and are unlikely to be cross bred, as they are grown in large fields of the same plant.  Tomato seeds must be fermented to sprout, which is why they volunteer so easily in your garden.

Spread compost 4-6 inches deep where you want them to grow unless the soil there is already rich.  If you spread 6-12 inches of leaves on the soil in the fall, an inch of compost will help warm and rot the leaves and the plants will root in the rotting leaves. Afternoon shade is good for tomatoes; peppers want full sun.  Crowding pepper plants about a foot apart can protect their fruit from sunburn, as the leaves form a canopy. 

Tomato in leaves with large rocks for warmth, maybe two weeks after planting. 

The sand in the foreground is the path cover.

Plant your starts into compost or soil no deeper than they were in their pots.  There is no need to cover the lower stem on root-bound plants to grow more roots.  Doing so just puts them that much deeper into cold soil that will slow their growth and closer to the pill bugs, slugs and snails who will eat them.

Place rounded river rock, AKA "gabion rock," available at Copeland Landscape Supply, around your starts to absorb heat and transfer it to the soil and roots.  They should be easy to pick up with one hand, but thick enough to hold heat well into the night.  Night warmth is critical to good root growth.

One year, I tried small gravel for starting plants in the ground.  We had a cloudburst on a hot afternoon, and my little seedlings boiled.  Warming rocks should be at least an inch thick, preferably two or three inches.

                               

Revised 8-25-23, published at GardenGrantsPass.blogspot.com.

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Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener          541-955-9040        rycke@gardener.com

Grow Big Blueberries in Grants Pass

Southern and Northern blueberries at Bimart.  Note the old leaves on the Southern.

Our local stores and nurseries stock two kinds of blueberries.  Northern blueberries have large leaves, thick, stiff stems, and are deciduous; their leaves turn bright red in the fall and then fall off.  Southern Rabbiteye blueberries have thinner, more arching growth, and smaller leaves that turn various colors in winter but are semi-evergreen, holding most of their leaves through the winter in this area.  

South and North together in my garden.  The old leaves on the Southern bush didn't get cold enough to turn color.  Both plants were transplanted a few years ago; the Southern is several years older.

They don’t like to be planted into plain soil, unless it is exceedingly light and rich, like potting soil. Indeed, they grow remarkably well in potting soil in wide, large pots.  Otherwise, rather than planting them in plain dirt, it is better to set the plant on top of the ground and surround it with enough compost to surround and cover the roots, if your plant is in a #1 (6”) or smaller pot.  Young blueberries grow a sponge of roots only 4-6 inches deep in their pots, putting down a deep taproot only after 4-5 years.  Six inches of compost makes rich, light soil after worms work it in..

Unlike most other shrubs and perennials, blueberries at this size will sink into the soil as the compost is worked in by worms; most other 6” potted plants will sit on top of the soil as the compost is worked in and are left high and dry.  If your plant is in a larger pot, dig a shallow dish hole, break up the soil below and around the hole, and then surround it with a level area of compost to just cover its roots.  Having level compost is vital; a rounded mound will shed water and be dry. Blueberries love their water.

Cover that compost with coarse mulch like ¾” nugget bark, walk-on fir bark, or pine needles or straw, to keep it from drying out and keep the roots cool and moist.  An evergreen ground cover like creeping jenny or clover can keep them cool as the mulch disappears.  Two inches of soft leaves in the fall are probably the best mulch to maintain organic matter in the soil, but I like to scatter our copious coffee and tea grounds into the mulch or ground cover after the leaves are eaten.  It is vital to not let the compost be exposed to sun; they like their roots cool.  Bark protects soil when the leaves have been eaten by worms.

A standing mister. These put out a finer mist than emitters bought to attach to irrigation line.

          Southern Oregon has hot, dry summers, not the best conditions for growing blueberries, which like their heads in the sun and their roots cool and moist, but don’t like a lot of heat or dryness at any time.  Most garden plants prefer a little less heat and a lot more humidity than we have in Grants Pass. 

            Fast growth and big berries on young plants can be achieved by keeping misters running nearby through the heat of the summer days.  Leaving them on at night spreads moisture a lot farther.  Misters help many plants grow over a wide area of the garden.  Misting with well water can mineralize the soil, reducing acidity; humic acid or worm castings can counter that.  

An incident shows how vital misting is here.  A customer forgot to turn on one mister for a week near an isolated plant that had just started producing big, tasty berries.  The remaining berries all stopped growing and immediately ripened, producing little berries that were not juicy or flavorful.

                               

Revised August 2023, online at GardenGrantsPass.blogspot.com.  Like Garden Grants Pass on Facebook.

Gardening is easy if you do it naturally.  Litter is tagging, marking the territory of the disorderly.

Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener          541-955-9040        rycke@gardener.com

Weeding never ends in Grants Pass

 Blooming groundsel, center, and bitter cress surrounding

I saw a groundsel plant in full bloom right after New Year’s Day, down at the Greenwood Dog Park.  I thought it was earlier than I’d ever seen it, but checking last year’s article, it is, if anything, a little later than last year.

Young bitter cress, 2" wide

Likewise, bitter cress has been starting to grow and bloom in December, but not as fast as last year, likely due to all the cold rain we’ve been having, slowing its growth.  But I’ve been weeding the bitter cress and groundsel this year before it starts to bloom, so as not to have to do so much just before they start spreading seed.  I’ve been seeing dandelions blooming like last year, and wild lettuce is growing large faster than last year.

Over the last few years, weeding season has not ended; it has only been slowed down in late fall and early winter enough to concentrate on other things, like leaf cleaning and spreading.  Spreading of extra leaves over flower beds, shrub borders, and vegetable patches smothers young weeds so they don’t have to be weeded out, while seeds that later land on top cannot easily grow in leaves that dry out on top when the rain stops.

Seeded bitter cress

The main problem with groundsel and bitter cress is that they are ugly after they seed out, by which time it is too late to prevent the next crop.  Bitter cress is a small mustard that grows from 2 inches to 18 inches tall with little white flowers.  These form green pods that are nearly invisible until they pop dozens to hundreds of seeds about 18 inches in all directions and turn cream colored and ugly.  They come up in thick stands the following season, masking the loveliness of your garden.  Before it flowers, it is a good hot, bitter green for salads, but then it must be pulled or it will take over.

Seeding groundsel

Groundsel is a small relative of wild lettuce, with crenellated leaves and small, nodding yellow flowers that never completely open.  As the seed heads ripen, they grow erect and open to send their small fluffy seeds flying on the breeze to plague your neighbors like other wild lettuces. 

Both of these weeds can be readily pulled when young and the soil is wet, or they can be cut beneath the crown when flowering and will not grow back.  Like most annuals, they put all their root energy into growing a stalk and flowers.  

Wild lettuce putting up seed stalks, surrounded by seeded bitter cress, with cheat grass seeding behind it

Wild lettuce is harder to pull, but cutting under the crown will kill it.  It is bitter once it starts to put up a flower stalk.

Dandelions, on the other hand, are perennials that grow from thick, deep tap roots that do not die, and have to be dug out.  It is very bitter once flower buds have even started to form in the base.  Slide a shovel or a weeding knife beside the root and pop it out by leaning the tool away from the plant.  Repeat as necessary, any time you seem them.

January 2016 issue, published online at GardenGrantsPass.blogspot.com  

Gardening is easy if you do it naturally.  Litter is tagging, marking the territory of the disorderly.

Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener          541-955-9040        rycke@gardener.com

Grow Big Blueberries in Southern Oregon

We are coming into the season for buying young blueberry plants in the market or by mail, though the prime planting season in our area is late fall.  Still, you can plant them into the ground in the spring and expect them to grow well if you provide the right conditions.   

You can also plant a #1potted plant or mail-order bare root into a larger pot and let them grow twice as large over the summer before planting in the fall.  BiMart has #1 potted blueberries in the spring, some of which are Southern Rabbiteye, which are semi-evergreen, turn colors in the winter, and take our hot summers better than Northern varieties, but they don’t tell you which are which.  OneGreenWorld.com is a nursery near Molalla that sells both Southern and Northern varieties, where you can find out which ones are Southern varieties online.  Buying local is always better if they are available, as you’ll get larger plants at a lower price.

          They don’t like to be planted into plain soil, unless it is exceedingly light and rich, like potting soil.  Rather than planting them in the ground, it is better to set the plant on top of the ground and surround it with enough compost to surround and cover the roots.  Young blueberries grow a sponge of roots only 4-6 inches deep in their pots, putting down a deep taproot only after 4-5 years.  Four to six inches is a great depth for spreading compost to make rich, light soil after it is worked in by worms.  Unlike other shrubs and perennials, blueberries roots will sink into the soil as the compost is worked in by worms; other potted plants will sit on top of the soil as the compost is worked in, and be left high and dry.

          Cover that compost with coarse mulch like ¾” nugget bark, walk-on fir, or pine needles, to keep it from drying out and keep the roots cool and moist.  2 inches of leaves in the fall are probably the best mulch to maintain organic matter in the soil, but I like to scatter our copious coffee and tea grounds into the bark after the leaves are eaten.  It is vital to not let the soil be exposed to sun.  Bark protects it when the leaves have been pulled into the soil.

Southern Oregon has hot, dry summers, not the best conditions for growing blueberries, which like their heads in the sun and their roots cool and moist, but don’t like a lot of heat or dryness.  Indeed, most garden plants prefer a little less heat and a lot more humidity than we have here. 

          The key to getting fast growth and big berries is keeping a mister running nearby through the heat of the summer, particularly from blooming to after harvest.  24/7 is best, as it simulates coastal fog.  It does not cause fungal infections, and helps plants grow over a wide area of the garden.

Last year, an incident showed how vital this is.  A customer turned off one mister for a week near an isolated plant that had been producing big, tasty berries.  The remaining berries all stopped growing and immediately ripened, producing little berries that were not juicy and flavorful.      

                               

February 2015 issue, online at GardenGrantsPass.blogspot.com and at the Mail Center, 305 NE 6^th

Gardening is easy if you do it naturally.  Litter is tagging, marking the territory of the disorderly.

Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener          541-955-9040        rycke@gardener.com

Don’t till; mulch and plant in it

 Late spring, tomato planted in leaves with rocks for warmth; pepper foreground, planted in leaves, compost and 4 x 8 top mulch with rocks for more warmth and predator shelter; 4 x 8 path between 

This is the season when people start thinking about tilling their vegetable garden areas, but it is too wet to work the soil.  It’s a good time to start building mulch beds that you can immediately plant seeds and starts in.  You can do this anywhere you grow other plants as well; vegetables don’t need to grow in their own mini-farm in your yard; they just need good sun.  They can be worked into your landscape.

          Another good reason to mulch rather than tilling in compost is that tilling brings weed seeds to the surface where they can grow; kills many earthworms and soil predators; and mixes air into the soil that decomposes organic matter faster, causing nutrient loss from leaching and evaporation.  Letting worms work in nutritious mulch captures its nutrients in worm castings that release nutrients slowly and have lighter, better texture than uneaten soil, while coarse top mulch provides a home for predators like ground beetles, centipedes, and soldier beetles while protecting soil.

Fall: a compost pile of layered leaves and garden plants, about 2 feet high, built for growing watermelons, a small yellow Red Hot Poker on one side, a large growing area behind, about 8" deep in leaves.

 February: the pile has settled about 6 inches.

February: compost is added to speed decomposition.  The compost will be covered with 4 x 8 sand before planting the watermelons, with large rocks in the center to plant the seeds around.  Naked leaves will keep weed seeds from landing and sprouting around the watermelons.

        You can build beds with leaves, mainly available in the fall, a foot of which will grow huge vegetables.  For winter vegetables and small seeds, you can put an inch of compost on top, covered with an inch of coarse mulch like pine needles or shredded or nugget.  Scatter small seeds on the surface and plant starts and large seeds into the leaves.  Compost keeps the leaves wet and provides nutrients to help them rot faster; coarse mulch keeps it from drying out.  You can plant summer starts and large seeds into leaves alone for best weed control, as dry surface leaves make a poor seed bed for weeds.  This is just one reason why leaves make the best mulch for maintenance.

A potato popping up in February

          Leaves being not so available in spring, you can build beds with straight compost.  Six inches is equivalent to a foot of leaves and is ready to grow plants right away.  Two inches is good for ornamental shrubs and flowers.  This compost also needs to be protected from sun by coarse mulch, which is also needed for shelter by predators that keep pests under control.

          Paths also have to be mulched, to keep weeds from growing.  Like the beds, weeds have to be pulled when they grow anyways.  2 inches of coarse mulch like wood chips, chipped trimmings, or coarse bark can keep weeds down for a year and has to be renewed yearly.  An inch of 4 x 8 sand, river sand sifted to 1/4-1/8 inch, can be weeded with a hula hoe (AKA stirrup  hoe or scuffle hoe) when the weeds are small, and the weeds raked up, saving bending for each weed.  It is cleaner than organic mulch paths, easily blowing clean, while raking sifts dirt to below the sand.  It's also good for mulching over compost, heating the soil for fast growth.

          Beds made of leaves or mulch will spread into the paths from feet and birds and squirrels seeking food unless they are edged with something solid.  Cobble rock about 6 inches high, can be laid in curving lines for beauty and smooth lines of travel, end to end.  Brick can be used, but is more exacting to lay.  Wood lends itself only to straight lines and eventually falls apart.

February 2015 issue, online at GardenGrantsPass.blogspot.com and at the Mail Center, 305 NE 6^th

Follow @AnRycke on Twitter; GP Gardener on Facebook; check out GPgardener.com for blogs

Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener          541-955-9040        rycke@gardener.com

Bitter Cress and Groundsel are already seeding

Groundsel and bitter cress, blooming together

Bitter cress and groundsel are blooming and groundsel is seeding all over our valley about 2 months early, in January, indeed, before Christmas.  They usually start seeding in March.  You won’t get a better chance to eliminate them from your yard than the next few weeks—though a few plants can sprout and bloom all summer, right up to late fall. 

Young bitter cress, close up, abut 2 inches wide

While bitter cress is blooming, it is relatively easy to see by its tiny white four-petal flowers, though the smallest plants are not obvious; some are as tiny as a half-inch wide and 1.5 inches tall, fully seeded out.  The largest are 6” wide across the basal leaves with numerous stalks up to 18 inches tall seeded out.  They are easiest to pull when they have started to develop seed pods.

Just before they bloom, the larger plants are good to eat as a hot, bitter mustard green.  They are small, but softer and juicier than most mustards, good in a salad.  But don’t let them seed out; they are a nuisance.

Seeded bitter cress, popped out and ugly.

They become a nearly invisible green mist when all the flowers are finished, but as they turn yellow and dry, they become an eyesore, and pop their seeds up to three feet in all directions at the slightest disturbance of the pods.  By this time, seed control is impossible; all one can do is pull the dry stalks and resolve to do better next year. 

Groundsel, blooming and seeding in a ditch

Groundsel is also blooming right now, quickly blowing out and spreading to your neighbors’ yards or from them.  It is a miniature wild lettuce and not pretty, up to a foot tall, with squared-off leaves; the flowers are yellow, do not open fully, bending over while they are in bloom, straightening as they make seed.  It is the first blowing weed of the season, blooming in yards and empty lots all over town.  It’s often easy to pull, but like other wild lettuce, sticks hard in hard ground.  Cutting it under its crown, in the soil beneath where the leaves grow, will kill it.

Dandelions are also blooming and seeding about 2 months early.  A famous gardener once said that if dandelions were rare and hard to grow, they would be a prized flower.  Their dead-heads don’t even look bad, and they can be tasty greens before they bloom—but once buds even start to form in the base, they turn quite bitter. 

Dandelions are equally hard to pull before and after blooming:  not easy at all unless your soil is loose from generous mulching with compost or leaves.  With big perennial tap roots like these, it’s best to stick a shovel in next to the root, loosen, and pull. 

Gardening is growing plants where you want them to grow, not where they happen to land.  Many a pretty flower or edible plant shows itself to be a weed unless kept under tight control, and that goes double for flowers that cast their seeds to the wind.

Revised Jan-Feb 2015 issue, online at GardenGrantsPass.blogspot.com and at the Mail Center, 305 NE 6^th

Gardening is easy if you do it naturally.  Litter is tagging, marking the territory of the disorderly.

Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener          541-955-9040        rycke@gardener.com

Leave leaves on your lawn

Just enough leaves on a lawn to stop weeds but not good grass

People are way too afraid of leaves on lawns.  Perennial grass is stronger than you might think.  A pile of leaves will leave a hole in a lawn.  Two inches or more will allow grass to grow through only here and there.  But a few layers will not stop perennial grasses from jumping right up in the spring.  They have enough food in their roots to push through light layers of leaves.  Leaves keep the soil warmer than no leaves and make it more fertile as the worms eat them through the winter, so grasses grow stronger in the spring.

Leaves not only feed soil and keep it warmer to grow grass better, but they stop small seeds like crabgrass; annual rye; Bermuda grass, nut sedge; dandelions; wild lettuce; and groundsel, the first of the wind-blown weeds to bloom in the spring, by keeping sun off the soil.  They also stop mosses, which like these weeds, need sun on bare soil to germinate.  Large annual grass seeds, like cheat and foxtails, can push through a few layers of leaves and need to be pulled.  You can tell them from perennial grass sprouts by their color, which is a lighter green with wider blades than perennial grass, or by their seed stalks later in the spring.  Crab grass, which sprouts in late spring, are very fat even when very short, and are best pulled small.

The weakest perennial grass is probably perennial rye sod, which most lawns on new construction are built with.  It is not a true sod grass; it is a clumping grass held together by plastic net.  Its roots are short for cutting off its clay soil base and transplanting, so it only lasts about 5 years before being invaded by stronger grasses.  Clumping grasses don’t spread by rhizomes, underground stems, but depend on reseeding to refill bare spots that form when clumps die, so it pays to reseed it in the fall before allowing leaves to cover, or rake it into the leaves in spring.  Its seeds are large enough to push through a few layers of leaves when they are ready to grow.  Perennial rye seed grows deeper roots than rye sod, and can create a stronger lawn as the sod grass dies out if it is reseeded yearly. 

Perennial grasses prefer to grow longer north of California, as the sun is lower and they need to be taller to catch the sunlight.  Two inches tall is good in summer, but 3-4 inches is better in winter.  Not cutting grass too short in summer or winter also helps keep sun off soil to prevent weeds and moss. 

A mulching mower can break up the leaves and help them to lie heavy enough between the grasses to keep small weed seeds from sprouting, but whole leaves will not stop the good grass from growing from roots or seed if they are not too thick.

Use leaves to stop weeds

Oak leaves covered with pine needles to keep them in place

Leaves are starting to fall, and they are way too useful to just rake up and put on the curb for pickup.  It’s also a lot of work to rake them out of your shrubbery and flower beds.  Leaves are natural mulch that feed soil and stop weeds, and the thicker they lie, the better they do it.  A foot of mixed leaves can grow great vegetables. They belong on bare soil and mulched beds. 

Leaves laid thick for growing vegetables

Leaves need to be removed from buildings, pavements and paths.   They should not lie too thick on lawns, where they can smother grass, but even there, they can suppress crab grass and other small seeds, while stronger perennial grasses like fine and tall fescues, can grow right through several inches as the soil warms in the spring; they are encouraged by the fertility.  Larger annual grasses, like cheat and fox tails, need a good two inches to stop them.
Most small seeds need a touch of sunlight to allow them to germinate, lest they sprout too deep and are unable to grow out from under their cover.  The larger the seed, the more food it has to grow through soil or leaf cover.  But the smaller the seeds, the more there are to sprout.  Once larger seeds have sprouted, it can be easier to smother them with mulch, if they are covered before they put a lot of food in their roots.

Naturally fallen Red Maple leaves stopping bitter cress and annual rye

Leaves vary in their ability to stop weeds from sprouting.  Very soft light leaves, like box elder, can be eaten by worms, pill bugs, earwigs, and other detritus eaters before fall is even over, and are good for feeding soil, but are fairly useless for stopping weeds in the spring.  Not-so-soft leaves, like red maple, will make it through the winter and stop early spring weeds like groundsel and bitter cress.  Tougher leaves, like oak, sweet gum, and magnolia, stick around all summer, and prevent the germination of later-flying wild lettuce and dandelions and tracked-in crab grass.

Non-broadleaf evergreens also vary in their ability to stop weeds.  Pine needles and needle-type true cedars are tough and take a long time to decompose, but their shape allows seeds to grow through unless they are over an inch thick.  Flatter evergreens, like fir and local cedars, decompose more quickly, but seem to stop weeds fairly well anyways.

One kind of soft leaf can stop weed seeds smaller than a maple nut all summer, even after they are gone: black walnut.  They have juglone, a natural pre-emergent herbicide.  They are not a problem for established perennials, but they stop smaller seeds even after the soil is bare.  Spread under a tree where birds perch, they can stop blackberries and other berry seeds from sprouting where they are laid at least an inch deep.

Use leaves; don’t lose them.  They can save you a lot of work.

October issue, online at GardenGrantsPass.blogspot.com, sold at the Mail Center, 305 NE 6^th St. 

Gardening is easy if you do it naturally.  Litter is tagging, marking the territory of the disorderly.

Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener                 541-955-9040                 rycke@gardener.com