August 28, 2006
Native plants bring butterflies and more
This is an odd post to write from Beijing, but I took this photo some weeks ago and have been wanting to tell you about a wonderful result of planting native species: a great increase in insects, including butterflies of different types. And because we now have two types of milkweed, we have been enjoying visits from monarch butterflies. Double-click the photo to see the two types more clearly. The pink flowers at middle and right are swamp milkweed, and the tall plant at left is what I think of as regular milkweed, with just off-white flowers.
They reseed themselves freely, as do the many other native and hardy species we've been planting, so weeding is important--and we have to learn to identify the tiny seedlings so we know what to keep. I was startled this year to find a purple morning glory coming back on its own. These plants--known as bindweed--can be invasive in warmer climates, but I had no idea the seeds would survive a New England winter.
Perhaps by the time I get home from China the pale yellow solidago, or goldenrod, will be blooming in the terrace bed. I've never seen so many tiny bees or flies or whatever they are as this plant attracts. This is all to the good: we need to create habitat for myriad small creatures, because they are part of a healthy local ecosystem. Ideally, you should find a local or regional nursery to get your native plants from. My favorite in our area is the Catskill Native Nursery. And for common plants, just collect seeds or small plants in the wild, from the roadside or a vacant lot. (It's funny to find that plants we consider roadside weeds are grown for their beauty in other countries: English gardens often have goldenrod and sumac, and the bouquet a colleague left for me here at my Beijing hotel has goldenrod in it.)
I'm not a zealot though, as you can see from the photo: I love my hybrid lilies, too!
Posted by Karen Christensen at 7:33 AM | Comments (0)
June 20, 2006
Rethinking sustainability in the garden
Tom's home from college and full of ideas for making our lifeways sustainable.
"Aren't they already?" people ask, thinking that because I've written several books about eco living I must do things perfectly myself. But I'm a working mother and an American to boot, and definitely not perfect. I don't do much driving, but I fly a good deal and that's about as energy-intensive as you can get. I'm an adept vegetarian cook, but I don't cook very much these days--especially in the last month, because I've had a severely sprained ankle.
Our first focus, with Tom here doing some of the preaching (what a nice change!), is the garden. We've put in an immense amount of stuff--tomatoes, beans, peas and potatoes, peppers and squash, and much more--and summer heat is here at last. The key challenge is going to be weeding, and then harvesting. Harvesting takes more time than people realize, and it's easy to lose control with plants that need regular attention in order to be most prolific. There are a few peas now, and we need to pick daily in order to keep the plants flowering and producing.
I have to admit that I am better about picking flowers than about keeping up with the squash. Last year I had huge quantities of sweet peas and I was out every morning picking bouquets. That's where mindset comes in: I cannot buy vasefuls of sweet peas, but it's relatively easy and cheap to buy vegetables. Not, however, the heirloom varieties we're growing. We are also increasingly conscious of the need to develop more self-sufficient ways, for what Tom likes to refer to as the post-oil world.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 7:40 AM | Comments (0)
May 6, 2006
Rain gardens 101
I've been browsing for rainbarrels, thinking of ways we might make it easier to keep all the vegetable and flower beds watered this summer. The barrels themselves seem easy, and reasonably priced, but I'm trying to figure out how to get the water from the barrel to where it needs to be. In the course of my explorations online, I've learned about a different approach, called "rain gardens." This means making a garden where the rainwater already falls, with moisture-loving plants. This page of Rain Garden Tips from Wisconsin explains the benefits.
This doesn't solve the problem of getting rainwater to the rest of the garden, but it's a great concept and a place to start.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 2:52 PM | Comments (0)
March 26, 2006
Sea to shining sea
Second day of spring garden clean-up. I found this a surprising activity when I moved to New England: raking in the springtime? But now I am an old-timer and know that the tide of winter recedes here slowly and leaving much debris behind. Branches and leaves, mostly, but also clumps of sod, thrown up by snow plows, and gravel drifts.
Tom, home from college for two weeks, has become a gardener, and Rachel is full of enthusiasm for seed planting. We were all out this weekend raking and scraping, filling in holes, and pulling out bittersweet (the most beautiful rampant vine we know). I tend to let stalks and leaves lie in the autumn, providing some protection in the flower beds and forming a thick mulch. But in the spring sunlight this can look messy. There is a bag of buckwheat hulls in the barn, which make a civilized and almost ladylike mulch, but I feel guilty about using so much of this bought-in garden material. David and Tom got the little chipping machine out and made mulch of lots of leaves right on the spot where it is needed, and I pulled apart a bale of hay to mulch my shade beds (mulch, by the way, holds moisture in the soil and keeps weeds from sprouting--it's good year round).
As I was tossing the silky clumps of hay I was thinking about garden supplies and global warming: how we can use wonderful natural materials, made from the waste of food processing (like the buckwheat hulls), but there is probably a high energy price tag. Local hay, I thought, isn't as attractive but it is cheap and available right here. Then I caught a whiff of ocean brine and it occurred to me that the silky hay I was spreading was something out of the ordinary. I checked with David, who had bought it to insulate the back of the house (it keeps our downstairs bathroom pipes from freezing). Yes, it's salt hay, something I'd heard of but never seen. Very nice to use, but not exactly the ecological choice I'd imagined, having travelled from the sea coast to the Berkshire Hills.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 12:20 PM | Comments (0)
February 18, 2006
First flowers
I followed one of our cats, Jelly, outside this morning. There's almost no snow left, and we've all been talking about spring this week because it's been so warm (it's going to be painful when winter comes back). I bent to pick up a plastic wrapper from my sunny border, which faces east, and saw the first flowers of the year: lovely tiny bright yellow winter aconite. These grow from bulbs and spread profusely in milder climates, even in nearby New York State. But mine survive and bloom every year, so I'm happy. I have never kept track, but mid-February seems exceptionally early for them. The daffodils are pushing up, too, and I am excited to think that we'll be seeing what comes from the 1,000 new bulbs Rachel and I planted in October. Yes, I am obsessive about bulbs; I'll post photos of the host of daffodils in a couple of months.
Inside, I have yellow flowers, too: branches of forsythia that I cut in the snow and brought inside. So-called "forced" branches are beautiful, cheap, and far more ecologically sound than florist shop flowers. There's still plenty of time to cut them. Anything that blooms will probably work: crab apple branches make a lovely Easter tree, forsythia's grand (choose branches with plenty of buds), and I'm thinking of trying pussy willow, too.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 7:37 AM | Comments (0)
August 28, 2005
Lover of lawns
"I am not a lover of lawns. Rather would I see daisies in their thousands, ground ivy, hawkweed, and even the hated plantain with tall stems, and dandelions with splendid flowers and fairy down, than the too-well-tended lawn." W.H. Hudson, The Book of a Naturalist, 1919.
I am a lover of lawns, in moderation. There's nothing like the green sweep of a cricket ground, and to lie on my back watching the clouds swim gently across the sky was one of the great pleasures of childhood. And you're right: there's no reason I shouldn't still be doing this. But not today. It's raining gently and steadily in Great Barrington. The tomato and cauliflower plants are especially grateful.
And the lawn is grateful, too, I think, because it depends entirely on rain; we wouldn't dream of watering it, as my parents used to water the lawn in front of their California home. It's a mix of crabgrass and clover, with plenty of dandelions and plantain. I'm not sure if it really should count as lawn--it's just a mowed hillside--but it does look quite nice and does just as well as manicured turf for picnics and cloudgazing.
Here's a good book to turn to for advice: Natural Lawn Care, by Dick Raymond. Storey Communications, 1993.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 11:59 AM | Comments (0)
June 25, 2005
Herbal harvest
This is the perfect time to harvest herbs from the garden, but I never think of it because summer seems barely to have arrived. But Rachel happened to ask about mint tea, which inspired me to locate, under some boxes of books, the drying rack I picked up at a tag sale last summer.
We've been pleasantly surprised by just how many things we have to dry, and we'll be pleased next winter when we're using our own herbs instead of buying them in bottles. We have thyme, two kinds of mint, lemon balm, and oregano. There's also a lot of cilantro and dill, which reseed themselves and turn up everywhere in the flower beds now. But cilantro and dill, like basil, don't retain much flavor when they are dried, so I freeze them instead (not nearly so energy efficient).
If you grow herbs, this is the time to pick them, before they flower. Pick the leaves, or tips of branches, early in the morning after the dew has dried. For specifics, here are tips from the University of Illinois Extension (which, by the way, contradict some of the advice I gave above--we don't have any problem drying lemon balm, and I don't like dried dill!).
Posted by Karen Christensen at 5:15 AM | Comments (0)
May 29, 2005
Design with rain in mind
We’re having a party today—-pan-Asian theme—-so of course it’s going to rain. The last two big summer parties we’ve had brought torrential all-day downpours, with fabulous weather the next day!
But there is one thing that no longer troubles us about rain. Our basement stays dry these days, ever since we did some major landscaping that took account of our land’s history. We’re on a hill, a gentle slope from the top corner behind the barn down to the corner, and water used to flood across the lawn. Then we discovered, both from talking to an old resident and looking at maps, that there was once a stream. Like many developed areas, streams have been moved underground (London has underground rivers flowing into the Thames), but their sources, springs and rainfall both, continue to spill water in the old channels.
With the help of a landscaper who specializes in native plants and stone, we recreated the stream, a grassy channel edged with boulders and planted with water-loving plants like yellow flags (irises) and ferns. We also planted shrubs on the higher ground. The result is both beautiful and practical. Instead of worrying about flooding, we’re thrilled to see water in the streambed.
But I’m still hoping the sun will come out today!
Posted by Karen Christensen at 11:12 AM | Comments (0)
May 23, 2005
Wildflower heaven
Though it's supposed to rain here for the next 10 days, all I think about after work is planting. I know I have farming ancestors (actually, so do we all), but there's something more to this compulsion. Gardening is definitely an antidote of a special kind to the pressures of modern business life. It's physical, that's the main thing for me, and wordless. Others no doubt find it satisfying because it's creative, and I do love the textures and colors of the things I'm planting. But my work life is quite creative, too, so it's not just that. Surely it's the fact that working on a computer--even if writing--is bloodless, lifeless. Maybe that's what will keep print books alive for as love as we still have arms strong enough to hold them (looking at some of today's kids, I wonder how long that will be).
On Saturday, I went to the garden day at the Catskill Native Nursery, which has to be the most wonderful nursery in New England. It's a small place, on a little road in an out of the way spot in the Catskills. I know about it only through the good fortune of the fact that my father-in-law has a little house nearby. It's run by people who know their plants, birds, and butterflies, and who have an array of trees, shrubs, and perennials that far outdoes anything available here in Great Barrington (which is becoming, someone told me last week, "the Hamptons with hills).
Posted by Karen Christensen at 7:13 PM | Comments (0)
May 5, 2005
Frosty mornings
I went outside early this morning to fill yet more seed trays with potting soil. Guess what? We'd had a fairly hard frost, and the grass was silver-white, gleaming in the sunshine that brought temperatures up to a balmy sixty degrees.
I've really got the gardening obsession this year, and keep buying more plants and seeds to grow my own tender annuals, exotic tomatoes, and even those gorgeous space-alien Italian cauliflowers, all lime-green spikes and swirls. Here's my plan, though, for doing this economically and ecologically: I am planning a 'pot garden' (that is, plants in pots) for my deck with wonderful things like Four O'Clock and passionflower that will be happy outside in the summer. Then I'll roll them into the house for the winter. I do this with geraniums now, but plan to figure out how to enjoy exotic plants without indulging in disposable gardening. Ideas are welcome!
Posted by Karen Christensen at 10:20 AM | Comments (0)
April 28, 2005
Windowbox gardening
I live in the country but my heart’s in the city, and my one and only children’s book is about a little girl who lives in the city and can’t understand why the flowers she’s given die. I do understand how important every soft turn of green is when you live in the city, and love to hear about my friends’ balcony gardens. I’m no expert, but I also grow plants in pots and thought I’d share a few tips:
--Use the largest containers you can. Small pots dry out at a speed you won’t believe, and either you’ll go mad watering or break your heart over dead plants.
--If you’re in an area with cold winters (yes, like the Berkshires!!), consider putting pots on wheels so they can be brought indoors in the winter. Keep your tender herbs (rosemary, scented geraniums) in pots so you don’t have to buy new plants every year. I’ve tried the plant-‘em-in-the-garden, dig-‘em-up-in-the-fall approach: no good if you’re anything like me, with a few other things going on in your life.
--See this as a way to grow plants that are perennial in warmer climates. They’ll do well outside in the summer, and give you a ready-made indoor garden in the winter. I’m going to indulge my love for plants like bouganvillea and four-o’clock, which grow outside year round in Santa Barbara (where I went to college), but are wildly exotic here.
--Buy nonpeat potting soil—peat is an ecological no-no!—but definitely do buy potting soil for your pots. Plain garden soil does not work well in pots—it’s just too heavy. I know this from sad experience!
--Plant seeds as well as already grown plants—this saves money and is lots of fun. (Let’s face it: growing a plant from a seed is magic, nothing less.) Looking for trailing and dwarf varieties of easy-to-grow flowers like zinnias, marigolds, and nasturtiums. And plain old parsley is both beautiful and useful, a hymn to William Blake. (Soak the seeds overnight and be patient. It’s said they have to go to the devil and back before germinating—and trust me, that’s probably the only gardener’s old wife’s tale you will ever hear from me. Somehow that one stuck in my head.)
Posted by Karen Christensen at 7:36 PM | Comments (0)
April 26, 2005
First plantings
Last week the temperature got up to 80 Fahrenheit, but yesterday we were back to normal Berkshire spring weather, with a rumor of snow in Alford, a nearby town. This means the daffodils will glow for at least another week, and it still doesn't stop me from planting. One of the great revelations about gardening is that there are plants for every clime and season. Just go to the nearer place that sells seeds and read the packets. Many say, "Plant as early in spring as soil can be worked." Even when it's cold, you can put in mustard and other greens, radishes, carrots, and peas. Sweet peas--do choose the highly scented heritage varieties--should be in the ground already. They love cool weather.
It's taken me 10 years to feel like I'm getting the hang of New England gardening. I started gardening as a teenager in California, where you can grow all year round, and then learned a whole new range of plants in England. The Berkshires is completely different, too, though I'm doing my best to recreate some of the things I love best about English gardens, as well as using the raised beds and organic techniques I learned in Palo Alto in the '70s. Tomorrow, I'll list some favorite books and seed sources.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 6:34 AM | Comments (0)
December 19, 2004
Greens in the snow
I'm not a homespun Martha Stewart by a long stretch, but I do exult in minor gardening triumphs like being able to pick food from my garden in December. I learned in London that some greens--like arugula--can survive freezing. This year I planted mesclun (a seed mix) and mustard greens in late August. As you can see, even after a couple of snowfalls, the mustard looks beautiful (and has a sweeter taste, I think). I pick it frozen and after it thaws in the house it's crisp enough for a salad, though it's also good stirfried with a little garlic.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 5:56 AM | Comments (0)
December 4, 2004
Winter Composting
I realized too late that we hadn't dug a hole for the solar compost bin I ordered in June. If there's a thaw, I'll have Tom get out the pickaxe, but it's more likely that we'll have to get by with the regular bins again this year. We trek out in the snow to throw the kitchen scraps into the bin (the challenge is keep a route clear) and when spring comes it'll all thaw and begin the fermenting process that turns it into the soft dark compost we use. Compost chez Christensen is always coarse because I insist on throwing in odd sticks and branches and even old blue jeans (everything rots except the thread!). But the garden soil's getting better and better, and even in December we're eating beautiful mustard greens and arugula, and picking parsley and other herbs.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 6:28 AM | Comments (0)