Mulching Strawberry Beds for the Winter

Mulched strawberry bed

The very last gardening job performed before I can go into my version of winter hibernation is mulching the strawberry bed.  Even though strawberry plants are rated as winter hardy to zone 3, they need some additional protection to bear fruit consistently in any climate where temperatures drop below 20 degrees.

Strawberry flower buds, which produce next year's crop, begin to form in late summer.  If they are left exposed over the winter, the cold temperatures damage the flower buds, leading to poor or no fruit production the following summer.  The crowns of strawberry plants are also susceptible to frost damage if left exposed, which can ultimately kill the plant.   And, finally, with the many freeze and thaw cycles in our winters, mulch protects the plants from actually being "heaved" out of the ground with the expansion and contraction of the soil during freeze and thaw cycles.

Knowing just exactly when to place the mulch on the strawberry bed can be pretty tricky.  You don't want to cover the plants with mulch while they are still actively growing as it can cause mold and rotting to occur.  The strawberry plants should be exposed to cold temperatures long enough to go through a "hardening off" process which makes them less vulnerable to the freeze and thaw cycles of winter and to crown rot.  They should not be exposed to prolonged periods of temperatures below 20 degrees and temperatures in the low teen's can kill the flower buds and even the crown of the plant pretty quickly. 

As a rule of thumb, once the first half inch or so of soil is frozen, or when the temperature is consistently dipping into the mid-20's, it's time to get the mulch out.  Here, this can happen as early as mid October, or as late as early December.  This year, it happened in mid-November.  We had a cold snap that froze the ground and started the actual temps dipping dangerously low.  Fortunately, Mother Nature cooperated and last Saturday provided us with an absolutely beautiful day - sunny and temperatures in the low 40's - to work outside.  We dug out the pitch forks and wheelbarrows and went to work.

Three to four inches of straw will settle to two to three inches.

I use loose, clean straw for my mulch, but you can also use shredded newspapers, coarse sawdust, pine needles, or row cover fabric.  The important thing is to not use anything that will compact and form a mat over the strawberry beds. suffocating the plants.  I prefer straw, because while it settles enough to create a strong, protective blanket, it doesn't mat down into a dense covering.  In the spring, I can rake the straw into the walkways between the strawberry rows and use it for summer mulch to keep the weeds down.  That saves me a lot of removal effort and makes the summer mulching easier, and I am a big fan of anything easier.

The straw should be spread thickly enough so that after settling, there is still a two to three inch covering over the plants.  Raised bed plantings need to have a four to six inch layer of mulch to have adequate protection. If wind is likely to blow the straw around, a piece of chicken wire or other lightweight material can be laid over the top of the straw.

Once the mulch has been placed, the last job of the season is done, and I can go curl up by the fireplace with a good book and a spot of tea.

In honor of Thanksgiving, this will be the only blog article published by Wiese Acres this week.  We will be spending Thanksgiving in my hometown, with my sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, in-laws, and friends.  It will give us time to reconnect with folks we don't see nearly enough in these busy lives of ours, and help us to reflect on and be thankful for our many, many blessings. 

Storing Summer Bulbs, Corms, Rhizomes, and Tubers

I live in a climate where tender bulbs, corms, rhizomes, and tubers do well for summer color but don't survive our chilly winters if left outdoors.  So, each spring, I plant them and each fall I dig them up, bring them in and store them for the winter.  I love the glorious summer blooms of gladiolus, dahlias, cannas, calla lilies, and pineapple lilies, so I'm willing to do the extra work.

It's a pretty easy process, really.  After the fall frosts kill the foliage, but before it gets cold enough to freeze the part of the plant that is below the soil surface, I dig them.  I knock off as much of the soil as possible.  In a dry year, that might be all I need to do.  In a wet year, when our heavy clay soil tends to cling to everything, I toss them in a wheelbarrow, fill it with water, and wash the soil off. 

Once the soil is off, I put the bulbs, corms, rhizomes, or tubers (for ease of writing, from here on, I'll simply refer to them all as "bulbs") in a bucket filled with a 10% bleach solution (1 cup bleach to 10 cups water), and let them soak for 15 minutes or so.  The bleach solution kills any bacteria, fungi and molds the bulbs might have picked up from the soil and  helps preserve them for the next year. 

After the bleach soak, I lay the bulbs out in single layers, on a piece of newspaper and let them dry well.  Once they are fully dry, they are ready to put in their winter beds.  I've found that they overwinter best when stored in peat moss. but sawdust works, too.  They need to be stored in a container that allows air to circulate and doesn't collect moisture.  A paper box will do, but I've had the best luck using a plastic bin that I've drilled air holes into the ends.  The plastic doesn't pick up moisture from the cool air temperatures like carboard can.  It also lasts from year to year, so I don't have to spend time each fall searching for a storage container.

Pack the bin, starting with a layer of peat moss, then a single layer of bulbs, top it with peat moss, place a single layer of newspaper over the top of the peat moss, top the newspaper with more peat moss, add another single layer of bulbs,  and just keep repeating that process until either all the bulbs are stored or until the container is full. 

I use the newspapers to separate the layers because  that way I can keep the various bulbs separated into varieities.  It also makes it easier to  periodically check how things are looking over the winter storage time.

The filled container is then stored in a cold, dark place where it will not freeze.  I store mine under the shelves in our cold storage room, where the temperature stays about 40 degrees all the time, but a temp anywhere between 40 and 50 degrees is fine.

It is important to check your stored bulbs at least monthly during the storage period for any signs of rot or over-drying.  If they appear to be overdrying, you can moisten the peat moss very, very slightly, and make sure that each of the bulbs is fully covered with peat moss.  Over-drying, also known as dessication, can occur if storage temperatures are too high, so if possible, move them to a cooler location.

If signs of rot begin to appear, if it is only a small area, you might be able to trim the bad area off and salvage the rest of the bulb.  Allow the trimmed edge to dry slightly and then store the salvaged bulb separate from the unaffected bulbs.  Do not allow any bulbs showing signs of rot to stay in the bin with healthy bulbs, as the rot can quickly spread and destroy your whole store of bulbs.

Apple Pie Filling

Canned Apple Pie Filling

Now, I know this is a blog about gardening, but part of fruit and vegetable gardening is preserving the bounty.  We had a great crop of apples this year, and it requires some creativity to use all of them.  Apple pie is my husband's favorite and he would be quite happy if every apple was made into pie.  However, eating apple pie three times a day probably isn't the best diet for us, and, besides, my freezer is full to overflowing.  So, I decided to try my hand at canning apple pie filling.

When canning anything that has thickening in it, you need to be sure to use research tested recipes.  I know, I know - our mothers and grandmothers canned using their own recipes for years and years and none of us ever died from them.  Maybe that was luck or maybe it was because we had fewer pathogens being moved around the country back then than now, but either way, I have decided in the last few years not to take chances. 

I found a great recipe from our North Dakota State University Extension service.  It uses Clear-jel for thickening and this is an important factor.  Clear-jel is a special type of cornstarch and is the only type of starchy thickener recommended for canned products.  It can be used for canned fruit pie fillings because the acid in the fruit doesn't cause it to break down.  It also doesn't thicken enough during the processing to interfere with distribution of the heat throughout the product, so that bacteria is killed during canning.   It leaves no aftertaste and the thickened product is nice and clear, without the milky appearance that regular cornstarch can leave.  I've had trouble finding Clear-jel locally, but have found several sources on-line.

Here's the recipe:

Apple Pie Filling

For each quart of pie filling:

3 1/2 cups of fresh, peeled, pared and sliced apples
3/4 cup plus 2 T. sugar
1/4 cup Clear-jel
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 cup cold water
3/4 cup apple juice
2 T. lemon juice

Place sliced apples in an acidic solution to prevent browning.  Drain and drop apple slices in boiling water and heat for one minute after water returns to boiling.  Drain, but keep heated fruit in a covered bowl or pot.  Combine sugar, Clear-jel and cinnamon in a large kettle with water and apple juice.  Cook on medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens and begins to bubble.  Add lemon juice and boil one minute, stirring constantly.  Fold in drained apple slices and fill jars immediately.  Leave one inch of head space.  Wipe rim of jars, tighten lids, and process in boiling water bath for 25 minutes at altitudes of 1000 feet or less; 30 minutes at altitudes of 1001-3000 feet; and 35 minutes at 3001-6000 feet.

When ready to use, pop the lid, scoop into a prepared pie crust, and bake till the crust is done and filling is bubbly.  Enjoy!

Planting Garlic in the Fall

Garlic plant (internet photo)

Since I’m an “instant gratification” kind of gardener, fall planting is not my favorite.  There’s just something about putting things in the ground in the fall,  knowing that you won’t see any signs of that labor until many months later, that doesn’t speak instant gratification.  Having my own fresh garlic straight out of the garden for cooking and pickling makes it worthwhile, though, and planting in the fall assures that I will have an abundant supply by the time pickling season starts.

 Traditionally, garlic in North Dakota is planted on Columbus Day  - sort of like potatoes are planted on Good Friday and corn needs to be knee high by the 4^th of July.  Well, I didn’t get my garlic planted on Columbus Day.  And I didn’t get it planted the week after Columbus Day.  Or even the week after that.  We had 8.75 inches of rain the first part of October.  My garden was a muddy mess.  I’m not too worried about missing the deadline, though.  I’ve never gotten my potatoes in on Good Friday and sometimes my corn just doesn’t make it to knee high by the 4^th of July (whose knees are they talking about anyway?) and I’ve still had good crops.  With fall planting, there is a bit more of a push to really get it done, since the bulbs need enough time with soil temps above 45 degrees to set good roots.  It’s also important not to plant too early, since planting while soil and air temps are too warm will foster tender above ground growth which will be destroyed with freezing temperatures.

 Things were still pretty wet in the garden by the end of October, so I had to alter my garlic plans slightly.  I had planned to plant my crop on the very edge of the big vegetable garden, right next to where I will plant my cucumbers next year.  I was hoping that way, when I finish picking cucumbers, I’d see the garlic and think, “oh, gee, I should take some of that in, too”, rather than remembering that I need garlic after I'm back at the house ready to make pickles.  (As one ages, one has to make accommodations, I guess).   Instead, I planted my garlic in a raised bed that has much better drainage than my garden to be able to get it in the ground in time to have that adequate rooting time.

 Garlic requires soil with high organic matter and good drainage.  Too much moisture will cause the cloves to rot before they begin to grow.  I added about two inches of well composted sheep manure to the raised bed; then sprinkled some 10-10-10 all-purpose fertilizer over the top of the compost, and tilled both into the existing soil.  After tilling, I raked the soil smooth and made planting rows about 16 to 18 inches apart.  The heads of garlic are separated into individual cloves and then the cloves are placed, unpeeled, into the row about every four to six inches.  If planting the larger cloves of elephant garlic, the cloves should be planted about six to nine inches apart.  Cloves are set in the soil with the pointy tip up and then covered with about 1 ½ to 2 inches of soil.  Even though the soil was nice and wet, I watered the area where I planted, to settle the soil around the cloves and get them set for starting root development.

 Garlic is really a wimp when it comes to competing with other nearby plantings and weeds, so it’s important to give it enough space from which to draw nutrients and moisture, and to keep the weed population down.  I’ll spread about six inches of clean straw mulch over the top of the planting when the soil has cooled to the point where mulching won’t create enough heat to start the bulbs’ growth cycles.  That will suppress any brave weeds that might try to grow there yet this fall, and it will protect the garlic bulbs from the freeze and thaw cycles so prevalent in our North Dakota winters.  In the spring, I’ll remove all but about two inches of that mulch.  The rest, I’ll leave in place to continue its weed suppression duties and to help maintain moisture in the bed.

Next year, I’ll provide adequate moisture to keep the soil moist but not wet.  Garlic is actually quite drought tolerant; that is, it won’t die during dry conditions, but it won’t yield nice, large, flavorful heads without adequate moisture.  On the other hand, too much moisture will cause the bulbs to rot in the ground, so adequate drainage and controlled watering is critical. 

Some warm temperatures come spring, plenty of sunshine, the right moisture level, and controlling the weed population should guarantee me a good supply of garlic for cooking and pickling, beginning in about mid-July of next year.

 

 

Garlic for Northern Gardens

Internet photo

Garlic is a member of the onion family.  It is actually a perennial, but is usually grown as an annual.  After all, we grow it to eat.  To eat it, we have to dig the bulb.  When we dig the bulb, well, let's just say the plant is not appreciative and won't continue to grow as a perennnial.  :)  Garlic produces a bulb that is made up of several cloves, sometimes a dozen or more per head or bulb.  Each clove is covered with a thin, papery skin. 

There are two types of garlic – softneck and hardneck.  Hardneck garlic is generally the most productive type of garlic in North Dakota gardens, although both varieties grow here.  Softneck garlic stores better and longer than hardneck, and if you like to braid the stalks for drying or for decoration, you will need to plant softneck.  Softneck garlic doesn’t form flower scapes, so the strap like leaves are easily braided.  This lack of flowering also causes the bulbs to mature more quickly and each bulb produces a large number of cloves.  They are less hardy than hardnecks, however, and might suffer winter kill in a harsh, open winter.

Softneck garlic is sometimes referred to as “artichoke garlic”.  Varieties of softneck garlic that seem to do well in North Dakota are Silverskin, which produces bulbs about two inches in diameter and can be stored for 10 to 12 months at room temperature.  New York White will often have some purple streaking in the bulb.  New York White is a good producer, but does have a tendency to bolt, which greatly diminishes the size of the bulbs.  Red Toch is another variety that is quite attractive, with bulbs that are streaked red and pink.

 Hardneck varieties are hardier than softnecks, so they are usually quite productive in North Dakota, regardless how harsh the winter might have been.  They form fewer cloves per bulb than the softnecks, but the individual cloves are generally larger.  Hardneck varieties include Asiatics, Creoles, Glazed Purple Stripes, Marbled Purple Strips, Porcelains, Purple Stripes, Rocamboles, and Turbans.

Chesnok Red (internet photo)

The hardiest of the hardneck garlics for more northern climates, are the Purple Stripes, which include Chesnok Red.  I’ve had very good luck with Chesnok Red in my garden, with good production, excellent hardiness, a very good garlic flavor, and, it's pretty!  Premium Northern White is a Porcelain variety that has also done quite well for me.  Other Porcelains that thrive in harsh winter climates are Leningrad and Romanian Red.  Marbled Purple Stripe varieties Bogytar, Metechi and Siberian are also said to grow well in northern climates, however, I have not personally tried those in my North Dakota garden.

In my garden, I tend to grow more of the hardneck than softneck varieties because of their hardiness.  Since I use much of my garlic for pickling, the poor storage life of the hardnecks isn’t as much of an issue.  I never know what the North Dakota winter will bring, so I play it safe with the hardier varieties, although, I usually plant a few softnecks – just to say I can.

Each year, I save the biggest and best of my cloves for planting in the fall.   The new garlic plant is essentially a clone of the parent plant, so if it grew nice, large, flavorful cloves one year, it will likely produce the same in following years, provided the growing conditions are favorable.  In the next blog installment, I'll talk about planting garlic.

Trees and Shrubs for Autumn Color

Trees that do well in North Dakota don't often give us the wild mixture of colors that some locations achieve, but that doesn't mean that fall here is boring.  With a little creativity and a mixture of the right shrubs and trees, we can still achieve colorful autumns.

Amur Maple

One of my favorites for fall color is the Amur Maple (Acer ginnala).  The Amur maple can be grown either as a tall multi-stemmed shrub, or it can be pruned to grow as a small tree.  I love the full, rounded look of the shrub growth so I trim only enough to keep the bottom area around the shrub open.  They grow to about 20 feet tall and wide.  They are a handsome shrub in the spring and summer, but they really come into their own in the fall, when they show off brilliant oranges to bright reds and deep burgundies.  Amur maples are used in shelter belts and when they are in their full fall color, it almost looks like a wall of fire on the edges of the fields.

Another colorful family of shrubs are sumacs.  Rhus typhina are also known as the staghorn sumacs.  They grow from 15 to 20 feet tall, with lacy leaves and multiple, crooked branches that grow to resemble stags' horns.  The branches are even covered with "velvet" which make them look even more like stags' horns when the foliage has dropped.  Their fall color is a spectacular blend of yellow, orange and red, all on the same shrub.

Full size trees that do well in North Dakota generally have a yellow fall color.  Some are more golden brown (the poplar family) and others offer a brighter yellow (ash and silver maples).  At Wiese Acres, silver maples make a nice backdrop for the deep purple of ninebarks (Physocarpus), the scarlet reds of barberry (Berberis). 

It's a glorious end to a wonderful growing season!

Pond Winterizing

It's good to have my blog back in operation.  I needed to do some updating to my trusty old computer so it could play nice with Blogger again.  I think we're back on track now!  And I'm still hanging on to my trusty old laptop with my beloved Windows Vista operating system.

We've finished the damage clean-up from the freak storm of early October and have moved on with more normal fall duties. 

One of the fall duties I don't really relish is winterizing the pond.  Timing is critical with the winterizing process because I overwinter my fish and plants right in the pond.  I pull the powerful waterfall pump and replace it with a much smaller pump attached to an aerator that will keep oxygen in the water without introducing as much air-chilled water to the pond as the waterfall pump.  This ideally isn't done until the fish have gone into "hibernation" for the winter.   Pulling the pump while the water is still too warm may decrease the oxygen supply and cause fish die-off.

Speaking of hibernation, though, fish don't really hibernate.  They go into a state of "torpor" where their body temperature decreases, their metabolism slows, and all body functions are on super slow mode.  It is important to stop feeding fish when the water temperature gets this low, as their digestive systems have essentially shut down. Any food they ingest may sit in their stomachs and spoil, causing illness or death.  During this time, they usually don't show any desire to eat and more or less just hang out around the warmest pockets of water in the pond.  This state of torpor or dormancy usually happens when the water temperature is below 50 degrees.  Their slow movements and lack of desire to feed indicate the right time to winterize the pond.

The reason I don't relish the pond winterizing is exactly because it shouldn't be done until the water temperature is 50 degrees or below.  Winterizing involves wading into the pond to cut the plants back to the crown.  If you've never gone wading in 50 degree water, please feel free to take my word for it.  50 degrees is doggone cold!  I'm not very good at working with gloves, not to mention the fact that I always manage to reach beyond the length of the glove, filling the glove with a slosh of icy water, which in turn freezes my hands even more.  I usually resort to just taking the gloves off and reaching down with a sharp scissors to trim the plants as quickly as I can.

After all the trimming and skimming of debris from the pond surface is done, I place the bubbler pump and filter in the center of the pond and anchor the pond de-icer just adjacent to the bubbler.  This will assure that an opening to allow oxygen into the water remains throughout the winter. 

All this moving around in the pond usually makes the water pretty cloudy so I run the waterfall pump for about 24 hours after trimming plants and placing the winter bubbler and heater.  This clears the water and makes it easier for the bubbler to keep the water fresh.  After the water is cleared, the waterfall pump is pulled, rinsed off, taken into the heated garage, and stored in a bucket of water.  It's important to keep these pumps submerged in water all the time to prevent the seals from drying out and failing, which will destroy the pump.

The filters are also pulled from the biofall unit, rinsed, dried, and stored.  Then, I fill the pond to its fullest capacity, and the pond is ready for the winter.  It just needs to be checked periodically to make sure the bubbler is still working.  I don't turn the heater on right away, even though I've placed it in the pond.  I check the pond daily as the temperatures are falling so I know when it is time to turn on the heat.  The heater doesn't need to be started until a significant portion of the pond surface begins to ice over.  If heated too soon, it has the potential to warm the water enough to bring the fish out of dormancy and that isn't desirable.   Once that balance of heat and aeration is established, a weekly or even once every two week check on the pond is all that is necessary over the winter.

In winters with large snowfalls, it might be necessary to sweep some snow off the ice to assure that oxygen and sunlight are available to the fish.  Even though they are dormant, oxygen and light are still critical to their well-being.  I discovered a few winters ago, though, just how tough those fish might be. 

It was a winter with record snowfall.  In November, December, and January, I made my every couple weeks treks to check on the pond.  My last trip in January, I broke through the crust of snow and sank down to my waist.  By the time I managed to wiggle and pull myself out of that predicament, I realized that I couldn't really even tell where the pond was anymore, so I didn't know where to start sweeping.  Furthermore, I didn't know where that heater and bubbler were underneath all that snow and didn't relish falling through the weak ice and taking a mid-winter dip in that part of the pond.  I decided to resign myself to replacing fish come spring.  

More snow fell, but in the spring it did thaw.  As soon as I could, I went to look for the fish I knew would all be dead from lack of oxygen.  My first find was not good - there was one of my big white comets caught between two layers of ice on the edge of the pond.  It was good-bye to him.  I looked and didn't see any other casualties, but didn't see any live fish either.  I checked regularly, and after about two weeks of daily thawing, I came out and found all six of my remaining fish, lazily floating around the deep part of the pond.  Yup, they're tough.  And I'm lucky.

This year, my fish will have a warmer winter.  When the plum tree was broken to pieces in the storm, one branch of it fell into the pond, taking with it a cast iron blue heron statue that normally stands on the edge of the pond.  We pulled by tree out, but getting the heron out required wading into the pond so I opted to wait until I had to wade in for the fall cleaning.  As I pulled the heron out, I realized that its beak had been pushed into the rocks to the bottom, and right through the thick rubber liner of the pond.  When I pulled it out, the pond began to leak at a remarkable rate.  Hmmm.  Now what to do since it was really too cold to start trying to dry and patch at this time of year? 

We decided to take the easy way out.  We filled the 75 gallon rigid liner from the front fountain with water from the pond and then went fishing.  Now, my fish are all safely tucked in their winter home in the garage with their bubbler fountain and filter system.  I realized the first night that I also needed to cover the top of the tank with a net.  Koi will "leap" if they are stuck in a place that they perceive is too small for them.  I came out in the garage to find my largest calico koi lying on the concrete floor beside the tank.  Apparently he thought he deserved a larger home.  He was still alive, so I put him back in the water, swooshed a little water slowly through his gills, then let him go.  He gave me a look of gratitude (all right, this is the point where my husband is really, really convinced I've lost my mind, but I swear that fish was grateful), then swished his tail and swam away.  Not being convinced he was smart enough to not do it again, I covered the tank with a net I usually use to keep leaves out of the pond skimmer in the fall.  So far, they seem to be doing fine.

And I am taking the hole in the pond as the sign that it is time for my dream of having a larger pond to come true.  Next spring...