Garlic: You Can Dig It

You should consider yourself rich if you have a garlic plot to harvest right now.  This most flavorful, easy-to-grow member of the Allium family is planted in fall and harvested in high summer.  Master Gardener Nancy Scott, an enthusiastic cultivator of all things vegetable, sent us this report on harvesting the pungent cloves.

 “This year’s theme at the Vegetable Demonstration Garden at the Parker School in North Greenbush was alliums.  Master Gardeners volunteers from Cornell Cooperative Extension of Rensselaer County planted garlic and ornamental alliums last fall.  The garlic bulbs were broken into cloves and planted pointy side up into the prepared beds about 1-2 inches deep and about 6 inches apart.  This allowed the roots to form before the cold weather set in.  Once the warm weather arrived in the spring, the plants sent up their leaves.

Hardneck garlic is a daylight sensitive plant, so when the days began to get shorter again after the end of June, the loss of light signaled to the plant that it was time to mature.  As a result, it was time to start harvesting in late July. Some people like to wait until the leaves are all brown on the plant.  This could bring the harvest into August and at that point, the papery coating on the bulb can begin to break down.  The garlic will still taste fine, but there’s more of a chance of the bulb breaking apart.  It also means some of the garlic will rot and not store as well.

Resist the urge to just pull up the plants.  Use a garden fork to pull away the mulch, and push into the dirt a few inches from where you think the bulb will be.  Some varieties can get pretty large, maybe 5-6 inches in diameter.  Pull down on the fork, and pop the bulb out of the ground.  Knock off as much dirt as possible and gather in bunches of about 6-10 bulbs.  Wrap with rubber bands, or a loop of

twine.  Hang in a cool, airy place for about 2 weeks.  I put mine in the garage, which is not all that cool, but it is airy and shady.  After 2 weeks you can trim the roots off the bottom, brush off any loose dirt, and clip off the stem.  At no point should you wash it off. Store the bulbs in a mesh bag or some other container that will allow good airflow.  Do NOT store in a plastic bag or sealed container, as it will rot.

If some of the cloves break apart or are damaged, use them first.  And if you are lucky enough to have more garlic than you can use in 3-4 months, you can freeze it.  Just break it into cloves and put it in a freezer bag.  Squeeze out the extra air and toss in the freezer.  Once it is defrosted, it will be a little mushy, but just fine and tasty for cooked dishes.  Enjoy!”

A Good Time To Get Dirty

The year 2020 has been like no other, but you can’t keep good gardeners down.  Last Monday, eleven Master Gardeners opened their plots to our in-house Pandemic Garden Tour.  Since our tour for the public had to be cancelled, this members-only event at least got a few friends together, masked and socially-distanced, for the first time since the Pandemic hit in March.  It was nice to see the gardens in their mid-summer glory, and great to see folks I’ve only had a glimpse of on Zoom.  At the end of the day, my heart held a flicker of joy and a spark of hope.

The Master Gardeners agree that the act of gardening has been a lifesaver during these overwhelming days.  Weeding, plucking and pruning allows one to have at least a resemblance of order over a tiny spot in a chaotic country.  Hard work makes one forget about the national news.  There are no restrictions on getting outside in the fresh air and sunshine.  Nurturing a bit of nature releases positive feelings, and even disappointing results are seen in a new light:  next year will be better.  Gardening is often a solo affair – most of the family members disappear when it’s time to spread mulch – so we’ve got that covered, too. 

Master Gardener volunteers take care of a variety of public gardens, and those are being brought back into bloom, too.  Initially, caution cancelled all activities, but eventually we wrote a plan which allows us to work in gardens safely.  Our Demonstration Garden at the Robert C. Parker school is in good shape and open to visitors, but we skipped mulching it this year as that takes a tremendous group effort.  The City of Troy closed all parks, but we were allowed back to the 9/11 Memorial Garden in Lansingburgh in late June, and the Master Gardeners have been busy ever since.  Leslie’s Garden in downtown Troy, cared for by a team involving us, neighborhood volunteers and TAP, Inc., continues as a neat and colorful spot in the city.  We’ll be returning the Hospice Garden soon.  It’s all about keeping our plants, as well as our community partnerships, growing.

Mother Nature hasn’t exactly given us the easiest gardening season, either.  It wasn’t so long ago I was interviewed by an Albany TV station as we all worried about a late frost.  Since then, the temperatures have climbed and we’ve had a few heat waves, too.  Spring rains have given way to summertime dryness, with lawns toasty and corn leaves curling.  We’re officially in a moderate drought now, and I’m awfully glad of the one inch of rain which fell last night.

Anyone shopping at a local garden center discovered another phenomenon – plants and paraphernalia are selling like hotcakes, welcome news for the local economy.  Reports are that Americans are picking up a hoe and getting dirty in record numbers.  Let’s hope this year’s new gardeners, especially those of the youngest sort, stick with the green scene when good times return.  

Held Hostage By Hosta

I once attended a meeting in a church basement.  It went something like this.  A man stood up.  “My name is John, and I am a hosta-a-holic.  It started three years ago when a friend gave me two plants whose names I didn’t even know.  As I started buying hostas in our local nursery, the lawn, then the vegetable garden, gave way.  I have 150 hostas now, and I feel that I need each new leaf color and pattern that comes out.  My life is not my own, but for some reason I am happy.”  He sat down. 

Then a woman spoke.  “Hi John.  I’m Mary.  I’m addicted to internet hosta shopping.  The UPS truck comes to my house twice, three times a day.  I’m in debt to my hostas.  I even tried growing some in my living room over the winter.  Wanna make some trades?” 

Hostas mean different things to different people.  Landscapers plant multiples of odd numbers

of inexpensive hostas in shady spaces.  Gardeners think hostas are great companions for other shade plants, such as epimediums, ferns, and astilbes.  Hostas look good from spring emergence to frost, have few pests (if you either don’t have slugs or can handle them) and require little maintenance.  Older varieties, which have passed the test of time, can be had in the ten to twenty dollar range, and there is little reason to pay over thirty.  

But hostas make a psychic connection to some folks that sets off a collecting gene.  Each variety’s variation in leaf texture, size, shape, or coloration creates a new must-have plant.  A burning desire to grow each novel introduction develops, and with nurseries cranking out dozens offerings each year, the pace to keep up is hectic.  Only when space is limiting (i.e., everything is covered in hostas except where the house sits) will out-of-date types be moved into friends and neighbors yards in favor of incoming purchases.  These can be $50, $100 or more per plant; bidding at a hosta society auction reportedly once topped $1,200, a real Sotheby’s moment.  

Collectors do not tell their spouses how much their hostas cost or share financial statements unless the spouse is also a hosta-a-holic.  They would also rather have one new special plant than three less special ones for the same money.  Needless to say, in the collector’s garden the perfect companion plant for a hosta is another hosta.  

If you are new to hostas or want to see if you have the collecting gene, here are some ways to get started.  Since many hostas look similar, use the ten foot rule:  each hosta you acquire should look distinct from that distance.  Experts estimate there are maybe 500 ten foot hostas, providing plenty to choose from.  Or, seek out the American Hosta Growers Society’s “Hosta Of The Year” (for 2020 it is called ‘Dancing Queen’).  If nothing else plant my old favorites:  ‘Striptease,’ ‘Krossa Regal,’ ‘Sum and Substance’ and ‘Patriot’ will never let you down. 

After the Pandemic, I’ll see you in the basement.

Chestnuts and a Few Imposters

One breezy morning, whilst still home in my pajamas, I could tell the Chinese chestnuts down the road were in bloom.  Although various books call the smell  “noxious,” “unpleasant,” or (most kindly) “heavy,” I rather like getting a whiff of the late June air that signals this annual event.  That’s because not every neighborhood has these interesting trees, and they remind me of the muddle of plants we call chestnuts.

 

So let’s start with the aforementioned stinker, known botanically as Castanea mollisima.  It’s a handsome, broadly rounded tree, growing to perhaps sixty feet, with heavily toothed, elongated leaves (see above) .  The early summer flowers give rise to prickly pods that contain beautiful chestnut-brown chestnuts, an inch or more across, which are edible and prized by those lucky enough to have at them.  The tree is hardy in our area, tough and adaptable.  Best of all is that Chinese chestnut is resistant to the fatal chestnut blight. 

But yo!  Whadda ‘bout dem nuts down in New York?  Many wintertime tourists in Manhattan seek the wares of street vendors who sell a different nut, Castanea sativa, or the Spanish chestnut.  In addition to roasting, chestnuts in general (and this species specifically) has been eaten in breads, cakes and candies for centuries.  Unfortunately, Castanea sativa is neither as hardy nor as blight resistant as the Chinese type, so its cultivation in the eastern U.S. is very limited.  In other words, forgetaboutit.

At one time, the American chestnut (Castanea dentata) was an important food and lumber tree, a key part of the eastern forests.  Tragically, four billion members of this species were decimated in the early twentieth century by the chestnut blight, a fungus imported into New York City on foreign plant material in 1904.  American chestnuts can still be found in the wild, but are extremely rare and often die back from the blight as they reach nut-bearing age.  Scientists, special interest groups including The American Chestnut Foundation and other nut-o-philes are working on Chinese-American hybrids, which promise to be very American yet have the Chinese disease resistance.  Research is ongoing, so stay tuned.

Poking into the more obscure corners of botany, one comes across several other American chestnut species, including the Alleghany chinkapin (Castanea pumila) which is recorded as living on Long Island but is primarily found to our south and west.  How about the “chestnuts” which are not chestnuts at all?  Consider the chestnut oak (Quercus prinus) which has leaves resembling a true chestnut but bears acorns like any other self-respecting Quercus.  More confusing is the common horsechestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum) which features palmately compound leaves and a candelabrum of flowers, nothing like a Castanea.  It does, however, bear a spiny fruit containing large chestnut-like nuts; don’t be tempted to taste them, however, as they are poisonous.  Among this tree’s close kin is my alma mater’s favorite, the Ohio buckeye (A. glabra), subject of state university, football and candy legends.  Also known as fetid buckeye, don’t tell my old college chums this one reeks, too.