Plant sorrel, start seeds, time to prune
1 Plant sorrel: In neglected residential yards and barren open spaces, especially on slopes, you may have noticed a mass of yellow flowers covering foliage that, upon close examination, reminds you of shamrocks. However, while shamrocks are classically associated with clover, a ground cover that makes its own nitrogen through the presence of symbiotic bacteria living in its roots, this creeping plant is Oxalis pescaprae, a perennial that most consider a weed but others welcome for its buttery blooms in late winter or early spring. Oxalis is popularly known as sorrel, a word derived from “sour,” and references the oxalic acid that gives the leaves a tart, citrusy taste that makes them a substitute for salad dressing. However, the same compound that provides oxalis with its distinctive flavor can be damaging if consumed in large quantities since the calcium it contains can form harmful crystals or even kidney stones. Keep in mind that many vegetables contain potentially toxic concentrations of oxalic acid if heavily consumed and include spinach, kale, Swiss chard, sweet potatoes, beets and potato skins. Certain oxalis species are among the most durable flower selections for half-sun to shady exposures. The most widely seen is pink wood-sorrel (Oxalis crassipes), a South African mounding type that appears seemingly out of nowhere after it vanishes in summer heat and winter cold, but endures from one year to the next due to its rhizomes. Purple shamrock (Oxalis triangularis), with its unmistakable deep violet, triangular leaflets, is as durable a plant for either shade garden or houseplant use as you will ever find. I have never seen a purple shamrock die; the worst that happens is a brief dormancy period every now and then, but the persistence of this plant, which grows from corms, is legendary. Another sorrel that may persist for years is the Zinfandel variety of Oxalis versicolor, with its yellow flowers and wine-colored foliage. Incidentally, French sorrel (Rumex species) is unrelated, although it too contains oxalic acid and so provides a similar taste to salads.
2 Start your seeds: You can start to plant seeds for your vegetable garden now. It is preferable to do this indoors so your seedlings can grow large and robust enough to survive capricious weather changes once planted outdoors. Enter “seed starter kit” into your Internet search engine for products that ease the process of germinating seeds. A YOUNGEL kit includes 80cells for sprouting seeds (or rooting cuttings). A tray catches water that drains through the cells, and a plastic dome overhead conserves moisture and increases humidity that can be adjusted by opening or closing its eight vents. Embedded in the dome are LED lights whose brightness can be adjusted with a controller that comes with the unit, whose total cost is $26.99. When lifting seedlings, never do so by holding the stem. Hold the seedling by its root you extract from each cell. For protection from cutworms (larvae of certain moths) after planting, circle each seedling with a 4-inch-tall strip of aluminum foil or cardboard pressed into the soil. Other measures for cutworm protection include cultivation prior to planting and sprinkling diatomaceous earth on the soil surface. Finally, there is some evidence that a mulch of oak leaves acts as a cutworm deterrent. Seedlings especially susceptible to cutworm predations include lettuce, bean, corn, asparagus, carrot, cabbage, celery, pea, pepper, potato and tomato.
3 Snip snip: When you’re pruning fruit trees, the growth habit and sensitivities of each need to be considered before taking pole pruner and loppers in hand. The easiest trees to prune, since they need no pruning, per se, are tropical evergreens such as avocado and every type of citrus. These trees are pruned principally for the purpose of keeping them at a manageable height for harvesting or for the removal of dead shoots and branches. You can keep your avocado tree at a height of 8, 10or 12feet by pruning once a year between February and April. This time frame is also appropriate for pruning citrus. With citrus, you want to be careful not to open up the tree, since doing so may result in sunburn in the interior branches. If you have ever seen a citrus orchard pruned, you will notice this is done with a large mechanized hedge trimmer. In this manner, tree height is lowered for easier harvest while the interior of the tree stays intact and leafy to protect branches from scalding by the sun. As for deciduous fruit trees, pruning is also advisable to keep them at a reasonable size, around 6-10feet tall for peaches, nectarines, plums, apricots and apples. It’s best to prune deciduous fruit trees before they flower and leaf out, so it might be a little late to prune some of them. Be advised that while peaches and nectarines yield fruit on year-old shoots — so older shoots need to be removed — plums and apricots produce on short spurs that are 1-3years old. A spur grows laterally from a shoot and may elongate by as little as 1inch a year. Apples may grow exclusively on spurs, on shoot terminals or both, depending on the variety.
4 Mulch and more mulch: On the ground around your fruit trees, maintain a mulch several inches thick of tree trimmers’ wood chips and shredded leaves, and you will never need to apply fertilizer to produce a large crop of fruit. Regarding vegetables, if you annually sow a green manure crop such as clover and, just before it flowers, incorporate it into the earth, ideally a month ahead of planting vegetables, you will not need to fertilize your vegetables either. Or, if you have a compost pile, taking finished compost from it and digging it into your plot prior to vegetable planting may also obviate the need for packaged fertilizer products. Ruth Stout, the legendary Connecticut vegetable gardener, never fertilized her plots put kept them full of rotting hay, providing both mulch and a constant fertilizer feed. Do you grow edibles without conventional fertilizers, neither synthetic nor organic? If so, please provide details of your growing practices.
5 Blooming easy: Some flowers grow so easily from seed that it’s a shame not to plant them each spring. First on the list would be sweet peas. Their large size makes them easy to handle and put into the earth. As they begin to vine, plants will need the support of a trellis or chain link fence, but once they start climbing, you will realize the wisdom to have planted them. They will flower approximately three months after planting. Bachelor’s buttons or cornflowers, although they are usually seen in white, pink and every shade of blue, also bloom in burgundy. Zinnias are also easy to sprout from seed and appear in every version of red, pink, yellow and orange. It’s advisable to plant zinnias now since, although they flower in the summer, they are more susceptible to powdery mildew in hot weather. It takes two months of growth for flowers on bachelor’s buttons and zinnias to start to form. While these two flowers last for a week in vase arrangements, sweet peas may only look good in a vase for threefive days. However, compensation for this shorter vase time will come in the form of the fragrance that they provide. Keep in mind that some growers presoak sweet pea seeds prior to planting and some scrupulously avoid this practice. Experiment both ways and see which works best for you.