EdibleYard

The Poor Man’s Blueberry Propogation

David — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 18:40:54 +0000

I have a hedge of evergreen blueberries that line my drive. Unfortunately, there are some gaps that I have been wanting to fill in, but while currently unemployed and having time to work on it, I don’t have the money needed to buy new blueberry plants. So, I am resorting to a method of propagating blueberries that I once heard of and thought sounded like a great idea.

What I’ve done is select some of the longer branches, dug down below the beauty bark I have under my blueberries for weed control, and covered the branch with dirt. I’ve then used a rock to weigh the branches down.

The idea is that the branch will grow roots and later in the season I will snip the branch from the main plant and have a brand new independent blueberry bush that I can transplant to fill in any gaps I have in my hedge.

Associated Content Article - Elephant Garlic – An Over-Wintered Garden Plant

David — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 21:53:43 +0000

As an experiment, I have started publishing some content on the Associated Content site.

This is the article I just submitted:

Elephant Garlic – An Over-Wintered Garden Plant

In temperate climates it is possible to have a year round garden. Of course, some plants work better for this than others. One such plant is elephant garlic. Like most other over-wintered plants, it is best planted in the fall, allowed to grow primarily roots and maybe a little top growth over the winter, and then harvest later in the following summer.Elephant garlic, or more technically Allium Ampeloprasum, is actually not real garlic, but more closely related to leaks. It gets its name from the size of the bulbs, which are usually between a baseball and a softball in size when fully grown and look a lot like giant garlic bulbs. The taste is milder and sweeter than normal garlic.

In the summer, some people use the young unopened flowering heads as a vegetable, though most use only the cloves. The elephant garlic cloves can be great in pot roasts, tin foil dinners, soups, and other dishes that a mild garlic flavor would be appropriate. Due to its milder flavor, it is not often used as a substitute for garlic. It can be used sliced and raw in salads or fried with a little butter.

The plant, if left alone, will spread into a clump with many flowering heads. As with other plants in the alliums or onion family, these can be left in flower gardens to discourage pests, though the plants have an appearance kind of like corn stalks, which might not be very ornamental to many people’s landscaping tastes.

Elephant garlic is more perishable than normal garlic, so don’t plan on keeping it for very long.

This picture is a southern facing hill that I terraced into rows of garden beds. I use boards as movable walkways that I can change to different levels from year to year as part of my plant rotation.

The Elephant garlic stalks are growing in a level above the regular garlic, so you can see a comparison in the size of the plants.

Weed Reduction Strategies

David — Thu, 28 May 2009 04:32:46 +0000

One of my goals in gardening is to make things as easy to maintain as possible, which is a necessity for me since my whole yard of half an acre is planted as an edible botanical garden. One of the biggest maintenance chores I have in maintaining a beautiful yard and garden is weeding. Here are some of the strategies I am using to minimize weeds and to make the chore of weeding easier.

I try to pull weeds early, especially before they go to seed and spread more. This means pretty constant vigilance on my part.
As I walk around my yard, while admiring various plants or harvesting, I weed at the same time. I’ve come to recognize various weeds in their earliest stages, so I am able to pull them when they are still really small, when it is easier to remove them and long before they get to a stage of spreading new seeds.
I believe that a few minutes a day of weeding things early means a whole lot of saved time later. It is much more pleasant to weed in the early spring when temperatures are cool, rather than in the heat of the summer when weeds have sunk their roots deep and are spreading their seeds for the following year.
I try to reduce ways that new weed seeds can get into my planting beds.
When possible, I use natural barriers to separate my plant beds from weed sources, such as gravel pathways, rock borders, fences, elevating the planting beds, and eliminating all weeds in nearby locations.
I minimize soil compaction in my planting beds.
This not only helps my plants, but also makes it a lot easier to pull weeds out. I try to keep my planting beds to a width that I can reach in to them from one side or another, or I put stepping stones in places to increase access without needing to walk on the planting bed’s soil. I’ve taught my kids to stay out of the garden beds and to use stepping stones. They still sometimes need reminders, but have been really great about respecting this.
I try to reduce exposed dirt, where weeds can find a foothold to grow.
In landscape beds with long-term perennials, I use wood chips or beauty bark in areas that my groundcover plants haven’t filled in yet. My goal is to have a living edible ground cover that stops weeds from being able to get much of a foothold. In my vegetable and herb beds I try to use intensive square foot gardening, shutting out room for weeds to get in.
I try to pull the whole weed out, in particular the root.
Some weeds have a real knack for coming back from the roots. The ones I struggle the most with are blackberries, sorrel, and dandelions, all of which easily come back from root.
Organic Pre-emergent Weed Control
If I am really desperate, and I know I won’t be planting anything by seed in an area for at least a few months, A pre-emergent works by not letting new seeds germinate in the area it is applied. I have a strong preference for using non-toxic things in my yard, since myself, my kids, and my pets regularly eat things we grow throughout the landscape. I use a pre-emergent weed control that is an extract from corn, which is non-toxic. I get my pre-emergent from GardensAlive, which is known as their WOW Plus or WOW Supreme products. It is considered organic, non-toxic, and completely safe for kids and pets, which is very important to me. My dog and cat have a tendency to snack on it if I am sloppy and leave any around for them to get into. My pets have had no ill affect by doing so. I guess this means I have unintentionally run this through animal testing.