It’s gold! Lying along the roadways! Littering our yards and gardens! Right on the ground, free for the taking!

I am, of course, talking about leaves.

The more I learn about using leaves in the garden, the more I want. When added to garden beds, leaf mould can double soil’s ability to hold water while cutting in half its need for fertilizer. You can grow seeds in it: you can feed your compost with it. If you mow leaves on your lawn, you will feed the soil, encourage microbial activity, build up a water reserve in the soil and thus help your lawn stay greener next summer.

More reasons for collecting and processing leaves:

• Shredded leaves make a good-looking mulch to protect your plantings over the winter.

• You’ll get the windfall of leaves OFF your plantings so they won’t be smothered.

• When you’re weeding in spring and have bucketfuls of compostable “greens”, you’ll already have a stockpile of “browns” at hand to make up a new compost pile.

So grab your rakes, your mower, and the biggest bags you can find. Let’s go harvest.

How considerate! Somebody at PSE had already windrowed these oak leaves: a few minutes of hand-scooping yielded 1 garbage bag and 3 grocery bags full, and that hardly made a dent in this row.

Processing leaves on a flat lawn or patio

First, find a motherlode. My neighbor was surprised but delighted when I knocked on her door and announced “I want to mow your lawn!” I told her what I really wanted were the leaves under her big maple tree standing solo in the grass.

“Go right ahead,” she said: “We can’t seem to get anybody to do it for pay anyway.” (Moral: they’ll never say No to somebody who wants to be paid in leaves…)

Leaves convey their benefits much faster if you shred them. Mostly made of carbon—as much carbon as cornstalks—they won’t decay quickly on their own. They need contact with soil and a little pre-chewing to work on your lawn, in your beds, and in your compost pile. And of all the tools that chew, a mower works great and I’m guessing you’ve got one.

When there’s nothing but leaves under a tree, the job is sooooo easy: I just rev’d up the mower and ran it over the carpet of leaves. You can pre-rake into windrows to concentrate the leaves before your mower, but don’t make them too high: I found that piles higher than 6″ made my engine sputter. 

The leaves reduce so low you’ll worry there’s nothing left, but a plastic rake with wide tines will coax most of this out of the grass and into those bags or boxes you brought along. I got seven garbage bags full of shredded leaves within 90 minutes: enough to cover a new 100′ perennial bed AND fill a 4′ square wire bin.

Should you decide to bag and bring those leaves home, another good site to run your mower over leaves is a smooth driveway or patio. The shreddings do blow sideways, but it’s easy to broom them up with a dust-pan—quite tidy!

Processing along the road: Be cautious

For mowing through leaves on rough grass—such as the roadside verge I worked this afternoon during a sunbreak in our week’s rain—it’s helpful to have a metal rake with thin tines that can “comb” the shreddings out of the grass. And I did pre-rake leaves off the slope down into windrows my mower could access.

Left: I've started to windrow the roadside maple leaves; Right, after mowing and raking for 90 minutes, eight bags full and one dead truck!

When working along the road, be cautious. First, alert oncoming drivers to your presence. If you can find an orange safety cone, put it on the road’s shoulder between oncoming traffic and you. Make eye-contact with drivers, or pause and stand as they come close. They might not see you anyway: with the sun so low these November afternoons, they might be squinting into the sun and not see you at all.

And use your EARS—that means, leave your noisy leaf-blower at home. Some poor Parks employee working a leaf-blower was hit by a car in Bellevue this week: probably couldn’t hear the approaching car for all the racket his tool was making.

Also, before mowing, sift through the leaves with your feet or your rake’s handle to find any bottles or breakables hiding under the leaves. 

And finally, one would THINK that turning on the emergency flashers would make a good alert system, but with the lights on for 90 minutes, my battery ran dead!  I was only saved from a LOONNNG walk home to hubbie and car #2 by a passing neighbor with jumper cables and the ability to read my “Please stop! Please stop!” mind.

Now you’ve got it, let’s make leaf compost

Rich in carbon, leaves are one of the classic “browns” of composting. Shredding will make them decay faster. Last year when I made my first leaf bin, my intention was to let the leaves sit and moulder for a year or two. But as it sat right next to my always-in-development compost piles, it was toooo easy to dip into the leaves for any “browns” my compost needed. This year, I’m making a second leaf bin just for the hungry compost.

Because they are so dry and carbon-rugged on their own, a pile of leaves needs a year or two to fully decompose. I saw this in my own bin: after the first year, the center had mouldered to a sweet brown duff with no distinquishable leaves, while the outside still showed layers of recognizable leaves. 

Apparently, wintered-over leaves are excellent for tomatoes if you till one-inch-worth into their soil next spring before planting out. A study by Dr. Abigail Maynard at the Connecticut Ag Research Station found that yields increased 25% using either winter-stockpiled leaves that were spring-tilled into the bed, or 2-year-old leaf compost. (Dr. Maynard did numerous studies on growing vegetables with leaf composts: the link is below and it’s fascinating reading if you’re into composting.*)

You can speed up decay by wetting the pile and by sprinkling on nitrogen-rich sources like urea or ammonium nitrate—or okara, that smelly tofu by-product if you dare! Enclose that mixture in a garbage bag and leave it for six months—a few holes poked in for air and drainage—and reports say you’ll have sweet, friable leaf mould by spring.

Why Bother? the Many Benefits of Leaf Mould

Here’s the hearsay: At my mother’s house last fall, I amended her tomato beds by jamming vine maple leaves and old compost into the stiff clay with a shovel. By summer, the soil was open and “wonderful to work.”

Now here’s the science: the university studies I found on the web that tell me how useful leaf compost can be. If you want to read these (they vary from 2-14 pages in pdf form), follow the links. The results of these studies found that: 

• additions of leaf mould can increase your soil’s ability to retain water by 50-250%. (depends on soil type, and also who you read…)*

• Yearly additions of leaf mould can, over specific times for specific crops, provide all the fertilizer your vegetables and flowers need. Increased yields up to 25% can be had by adding a 5-5-5 fertilizer. (Greens will probably need a little nitrogen boost from legume cover crops or blood meal).*

• Additions of leaf mould can double the organic content of your soil over the years.*

• A study at Purdue reassured Grounds-keeper Online readers that mowing even a thick 6″ carpet of leaves over grass would enhance, not deplete, the fertility of their lawns—even increasing soil microbial activity and helping retain water, all while costing 80% less than bagging and hauling away.**

*(Connecticut Ag Research Station, “Compost” study by Abigail Maynard)

** Mulching Tree Leaves: An Alternative to Disposal” from GroundsMaintenance online

So for a little time and exercise (and you want exercise, right?), you’ll provide tons of benefits to your plants, soil, and lawn. Free Gold. There for the taking. Islanders, to your Rakes!

Cathy Fulton sent me word that a local documentary on small farms, “Good Food”, will air tonight on channel 9/PBS at 10pm. (Apparently Vashon makes an appearance.)

Quoting from the PI blog:”  We all need Good Food! Mark Dworkin and Melissa Young, award-winning filmmakers from South Whidbey, have produced another environmental documentary that is spreadin’ the word. It airs on PBS this Thursday, Nov. 12 at 10 PM on KCTS/9 Seattle and KYVE/47 Yakima.

It’s fascinating to see how new life is being breathed into the fields, orchards and pastures of the Pacific Northwest — along with the business community that sustains them.”

Here’s the link to the film web site: www.goodfoodthemovie.org/

I dropped by the Food Bank 11/11 and happened upon the Food Bank gardeners harvesting in time for the Wednesday morning distribution.

Jen Coe harvests rainbow chard at the Food Bank garden 11/11.

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Last spring, the Food Bank decided they wanted to supply their clients with more fresh produce in the off-season. Island gardeners regularly drop off homegrown vegies during the summer, but those contributions decline as quickly as summer gardens do. 

So the Food Bank tapped Jenn Coe to jump-start a vegie patch in the field next to their facility. Rotary Club kicked in the money and muscle for fencing and water-lines. David ( ) collected manures, composted it, and did all the tilling. 

Now the Food Bank gardeners have quite a harvest going. I’ve seen potatoes, beans, tomatoes, leeks, onions, bok choi, chard, and mixed lettuces growing lustily in the many wide beds, plus cover crops to prepare the beds.

Jenn told me “It’s been extremely successful. It’s 100% volunteer run, including a lot of participation from Food Bank clients. They come early  to help weed and harvest for the Wednesday distribution.” All produce goes to the Food Bank.

“Yesterday we harvested chard, kale, lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, radishes, bok choi, and cilantro.  Leaving the leeks for later.”

Thanks to many donations of transplants, they did put in a summer garden. But next year, Jenn would like to focus on a pure fall/winter garden because that’s what the need is. “For instance, right now we have one bed of kale and I’d like to have four, so that we could harvest from one of those beds each week. I’d like that garden to be filled to the brim with cauliflowers, leeks, broccoli, and kale.” 

They’ll have produce to harvest through the winter. Work parties are from 9-11am on Wednesdays, and she invites anybody who wants to come help. “If it’s raining, we just harvest and go home; if not, we stay on and weed until 11.”

You can phone her for information at 384-0973.

Left: Leslie Patheal picks mixed lettuce for the Wednesday morning distribution at the Food Bank, while Jen Coe (right) harvests chard.

Last spring, you were probably as thrilled as I to hear that the White House responded to suggestions to put in a kitchen garden.

Wondering how it went, I googled “White House Kitchen Garden” and, after a bit of searching within the White House web site, I found this video. You can WATCH THE GARDEN GROW in a time-lapse sequence about 5/8ths through this 8-minute video. 

What a hoot to hear the First Lady of the land yelling “hey, there’s a carrot!”

(This video is part of the White House pitch to schools to host tours for schoolkids, if you’re confused by the link.)

Damon, Rebecca and baby Sophia among their Pinot Noir vines

Organic, sustainable practices in a new local vineyard

In this week of thunder and rain, it’s pleasant to think back to a golden haze of a day on November 1, when I drove to the heights of the Dilworth Loop to visit the Alli Lanphear Farm and Vineyard.

Here, on fives acres that were farmed for decades by the Hoshi family, you can see a new beginning. Slopes that had gone over to scotch broom has been cleared, then planted in cover crop or left to grass. A new house now crowns the hill, fronted by flowers, warmed by sun, overlooking row after golden row of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and other trellised wine grapes. 

It’s easy to see this as another of Ron Irvine’s “sunny slopes” endowed with the perfect exposure for growing wine.

Damon Lanphear and Rebecca Alli Lanphear come out of the house to greet me. Little Sophia rides on Mom’s hip. Young couple, new kid, new house, big dreams. But as soon as we walk over to the new half-acre where new vines will go next year, I gather from the talk that farming, to them, is NOT new.

Learning by Doing

Damon is pointing out the cover crop. “We always start with cover crop: This is a, a—”

“Leg/oat,” Rebecca throws in.

“Yes, a legume/oat annual mix.” Damon picks up. “You lose a growing season, but you gain reduced weed pressure from perennial weeds, you break up the sod, you add structure to the soil.”

“We like to learn by doing,” Rebecca told me, “I began as an intern at Hogsback Farm ten years ago and worked there for a year and a half. Damon and I had a personal plot on a portion of their farm, and as we have always been interested in experimenting, we planted spelt, quinoa, amaranth, and a “three sisters” garden.” [That's the Navajo practice of growing beans, corn, and squash together for mutual support: the corn supports the climbing beans, the beans provide nitrogen, the squash shades the ground.]

This is not their only claim to experience: they’ve already made wine, beer, and mead, they’ve joined the Puget Sound Wine Growers Association, and they have gone to workshops through the Washington State Ag Extension office in Mt. Vernon, which serves as a research and education station for Puget Sound viticulture. 

They also toured France’s Burgundy wine country by bike in May 2008, seeing, learning, sitting down with wine growers, tasting their wine and being inspired. And they’ve tasted their way through wines recommended for our region—in some ways, deciding to buck the recommendations and plant for the wines they prefer, such as Chardonnay.

Developing the vines

We walk over to the Chardonnay vines—perhaps the only on Vashon and at eleven rows, definitely the largest planting. As we walk up and down the rows, we talk about spacing, watering, and vine development. 

The vines, “in their third leaf” are on three-foot centers, trellised along twin parallel rows six feet apart. New cover crop bristles in 4-6″ growth underfoot. I’m surprised to see drip-lines tied up to the 2-foot height trellis wire, but Damon explains “that’s both to give more trellis support and to get underneath to weed.”

He talks about “devigoirating the vines. Stressed vines make better wines. When the plant is stressed, it doesn’t grow such a full leaf canopy. When the canopy is open, more sun reaches the fruit, and that sunlight and airflow also protects against powdery mildew and fruit rot.”

I mention sulfur-dusting as a protection against mildew, which prompts Damon to expand upon the difference between organic wines “which among other practices, means no sulfites are used to produce the wine, and organic growing, where you can use sulfur to guard against diseases like powdery mildew.”

Rebecca cut in. “That IS part of our goal: we want to do organic, sustainable practices in the vineyard. 

Developing the soil

Deep in the rows of Pinor Noir, I reach down and scoop up a handful of soil the color of milk chocolate, ask about it. Damon says, “It’s an ‘alderwood-gravelly’ soil, basically a gravelly, sandy loam.” 

“We had a trench for our water-lines cut across the property, running in front of the house, so we could see down six feet, all that way,” says Rebecca. “It was amazing how much it changes, but basically, six feet down, it’s beach sand.”

“You feel how spongy and soft the soil is—like applesauce?” she continues. “That’s the tilling: it leaves the soil without any structure. You have to ‘clean cultivate’ the vineyard its first couple years to prevent any root competition from other plants.”

They started with a cover crop that covered the ground for a full year. In the second year, after turning under that first cover crop, they cleared the ground of all growth and planted the vines. For two growing seasons after that, they kept the soil “clean cultivated” so the roots of the young vines had no competition for nutrients.

At the end of the vine’s third year, the Lanphears planted two kinds of cover crops in alternating rows. In the odd rows is a perennial cover crop, New Zealand White Clover, which doesn’t run like other clovers and can be mown for tractor access to the rows.

In the even rows, the Lanphears have planted an annual cover crop of peas and vetch. These annual rows will be plowed under before the vines break into bud, hopefully with a chisel plow whose parallel tines will pull green matter under without pulverizing the soil’s structure. 

Both cover crops help reestablish a living soil structure that promotes drainage, holds nutrients, and brings oxygen to microbial soil life. 

For the rest of each summer, Damon plans to follow a European practice he saw in Burgundy: after plowing, these rows will be replanted in annual flowers like sunflower, lupine, and poppies to encourage beneficial insects. This is known as Integrated Pest Management, an organic practice standard. “In Europe, the red poppy is now a symbol of organic practices,” he says. “The vineyard should be alive.”

Developing the Farm & Winery

Their ultimate dream, I learn as we sit down around the kitchen table, is to produce 100-200 cases of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and other wines at affordable prices. They also want to develop other value-added products like pickles, vinegar’ed products,  miso and to collaborate with other Vashon food producers to create an alternative, integrated experience  in the same spirit as Sea Breeze Boucherie.”

Right now, they’re in the process of facility design, with plans for a barn, barrel storage, a full winery, a place for people to come try their wines and other local products.

I ask about the presence of Chardonnay, along with the much-adopted Pinot Noir. “We asked ourselves first, do we like it, can we be excited about it. Chardonnay has this troubled history: it’s associated with Napa practices of pushing toward fat, buttery, cloying tastes. This wine has more acids, minerality, a broadness on the palette that has been lost in the ‘message of chardonnay’. We want to become part of that movement to resurrect Chardonnay, of making an interesting white.”

Rebecca says, “We intend to follow organic and sustainable growing practices, but we may not opt to get organically certified. We probably won’t make certified-organic wine due to our use of sulfites and commercial yeast; however, as we progress, we intend to try winemaking without those additions.”

Many projects are ahead of the Lanphears. They’ve learned a lot already, but there’s much still to do, to experiment with and test, to see how well they can produce wine and how the public takes to it. But they seem like good caretakers of a land that once yielded much. Good luck to them.

Sprouting Broccoli on left was planted in soil enriched with biochar

Turn brush and scraps into a useful soil amendment with Biochar.

Biochar is a charcoal fired in a low-oxygen stove at temperatures twice as hot as fuel charcoal, which makes a cleaner product (I rubbed it in my fingers, see photos below). The burn method sequesters carbon instead of releasing it into the atmosphere as does brush-fires, burning the Amazon, or letting brush decay over time.

Creating biochar can make use of scrap wood, bones, woody brush such as blackberry vines and scotch broom. Making bio-char could solve a common disposal problem for Islanders and create a useful amendment for acid soils in the garden.

Biochar makes a long-lasting soil amendment that can raise pH in soils, store water, and create in-soil habitat for soil microbes. It can substitute for liming in acidic soils and has an immediate and long-lasting effect.

At the Sustainable Practices meeting, Art Donnelly of SeaChar.org will talk about bio-char: what it is, what it’s good for, how to use it in the garden and for carbon sequestration. He’ll bring examples plus a couple models of biochar stoves. 

In the “with/without” photo above, Islander Ken Miller shows the difference between sprouting broccoli planted in a bed that contains biochar, and a bed without. He told me the major difference between these beds is the biochar in the bed with the bigger broccoli—even though the other broccoli was planted earlier and in more sunlight. 

I saw Ken demonstrate his biochar stove at the Compost Fest (photos below). His five-gallon metal bucket can, within approx. an hour, render scrap wood like alder or blackberry vines into biochar at temperatures reaching 800°. Similar stoves will be at the Thursday demonstration.

Ken plans on holding a stove-making workshop in January: for a nominal fee of $35-40 (estimated at this time), you will walk away with a biochar stove (see photos of the demonstration below). He says “People should see a demonstration before doing biochar production at home; I’d hate to see somebody go home and light up their garbage can with a bunch of wood in it.”

Here’s a link to a 10-minute video on biochar, showing the burning process and results: www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXMUmby8PpU

For more information, contact Sustainable Practices chair Kyle Cruver at kyle@cruverdesign.com or phone him at 567-4068. Or contact Ken Miller (my source), who demonstrated his biochar stove at the Compost Fest:  islandcanyons@yahoo.com.

Ken Miller shows off his biochar stove at Compost Fest. From upper left: loaded stove with oxygen exposure; the burn begins; stack in position (no burning happening); a clean piece of biochar AFTER I've rubbed it around in my hand.

Plant Spring Now, with bulbs!

I’ve been wanting to suggest this idea to Islanders for a long time: let’s plant more daffodils along our roadways.

Several years ago while driving to the Oregon Coast, I noticed many a roadside verge was blooming with naturalized daffodils. I tell you, on a drizzly day it gladdens the heart to see them.

Since many a Vashon garden is down the driveway, much of our spring bloom is a private, out of sight affair. What a gift it would be to all of us, to see those bright splashes of springtime along our rain-gray roadways!

Siting Daffodils

Plenty of our Island roadsides are of a similar grass-n-ditch variety. On such banked-up verges, daffodils can enjoy good drainage and protection from early spring mowings.

If you plant at least eight feet from the road, your daffs will probably be out of reach of King County mowers. Or you can shelter them at the foot of your mailbox or newspaper tube, where neither the County or you are likely to mow. Daffodil foliage needs to “ripen”—that is, take in sunlight to feed the bulb, after the flower has faded. So you don’t want to cut the foliage until mid-summer, if at all.

Choose a spot with at least half-day sun. Under deciduous trees and shrubs works well: they would be lovely near Indian Plum, that apple-green native shrub with the tiny white blossoms perked up like rabbit ears. Under evergreens, they tend not to last as many years.

Consider that they are heliotropic and will turn toward that part of the sky with the strongest light exposure. You don’t want to place them so they’ve got their backs turned when you’re viewing them!

Here’s a wonderful mass planting of daffodils on 87th, that road that links Tramp Harbor and Cemetary Road (see photo, above) Most are planted in clumps of 10-12, with runs of different colors. That clump has been in place for at least ten years. 

And on Wax Orchard at the Daffodil Barn (photo, top), some flowers still poke their heads above the north meadow from a planting at least 20 years old. The website of the American Daffodil Society claims that older varieties, properly planted, can last 30-50 years.

Getting Daffodils

Country Store has bulbs on the front porch—varieties “Dutch Master” and “Giant Daffodil Mix”— for 70¢ a bulb. The grocery stores have bags in stock, as does True Value. (Kathy’s Corner isn’t carrying bulbs, and DIG is only open on the weekends these days.)

Back in the 80s, I bought my first few hundred (!!) daffodil bulbs from Roozengaarde Bulbs in Mt. Vernon. They’re now the Washington Bulb Company, website: www.tulips.com. At the time, their bulbs were HUGE, multi-nosed creatures that gave a LOT of bloom for the money.

So if your property borders one of our main roads and you’ve got a grassy bank along the road shoulder, consider crowning it with some spring sunshine—daffodils!

After the “wine grapes” story appeared in the Beachcomber on, I’ve since heard from two other vineyard owners: Joe Curiel of Monument Farm and Rebecca Alli of Alli Lanphear Farm and Vineyard. [I posted a blog entry November 7th on the Alli-Lanphear vineyard, with an update today (11/9) of photos from the Monument Farm grape pressing at Vashon Winery. 

2009 Harvest report from Monument Farm

The story of Monument Farm's Pinot Noir, first harvested in 2006 and made into wine by Ron Irvine of Vashon Wintery, was covered by the Beachcomber on May 28, 2008 ("viticultural holy grail").

Since then, the 470 pinot noir vines planted by Joe and his partner Tony Raugust (that's Joe on the left, with Tony) have been on the mend. In 2007 the vines were attacked by powdery mildew and the entire crop was lost. In 2008, the vines yielded a small harvest of 600 lbs—far short of their goal of one ton. (Those are the grapes in the photo above right.)

This year, with an excellent growing season, healthy vines, and an eye out for a weather opening, Joe and Tony reached their goal. On Tuesday, October 20th, they harvested around 2000 lbs of Pinot Noir—that ton of grapes. It took four hours for they and friends to harvest it all—four times as long as the year before—with Ron departing early for the winery with a partial load to crush.

Joe Curiel and Donna Gagner unload grapes into the truck that will take the grapes to be crushed at Vashon Winery.

Joe reports the brix/sugar level was 20.2—less than he wanted, but adequate—and acids were in a good range. He said, “It might have been nice to wait another 4 days to a week or so, but we did not want to risk another round of rain, after the 2 inches that fell the previous weekend. Last year, we harvested on October 26th.”

“We expect and hope to get that much each year, even with some selective fruit dropping to enhance the quality of the harvest.  We dropped about 300 pounds of fruit this year and next year might drop or thin what could amount to about 700 pounds or so.  This allows the grapes that we harvest to be at a higher BRIX and better acid level.  It does not speed up the ripening of the remaining clusters (A good video that Bill Riley has shows this point clearly). 

The photos below are also from Joe, taken of the pressing at Vashon Winery later the evening of the 20th. Their ton of grapes yielded enough to fill three barrels. 

Joe and Tony with their "cake" of pressed grapes.

Update 10/24 on the Compost Fest Recap:

I just got the link to all the signage from Cathy Fulton, who designed and ran the Compost Fest on 10/18. These quick-info pages are a quick How-To on hot composting, slow/cool composting, animal bedding/offal composting, chicken cultivators, bio char in trenches, hugelkulture heaps, sheet mulching (aka lasagna beds), and whipping up a batch of stinging nettle tea (not for YOU to drink—for your soil!).  All these pdfs/signs were created by Cathy Fulton. Here’s the link.

mariposagardens.org/Handouts/Composting/Compost_Festival_Displays.pdf

[11/8/09 follow-up: Rachel wrote me last week and said that after the blog post below on 10/23, half her remaining stock was "adopted" by you kind gardeners. She and I thank YOU! I'm going to insert her care instructions at the end of this post right now. — Karen

 I was walking down 192nd from the Athletic Club yesterday, when I discovered FREE PLANTS.

Farm Candy Nursery is trying to find new homes for a surplus of scented geraniums and pelargoniums (you know: those Martha Washington style geraniums?). So a big sign, “FREE!”, applies to all the plants on her little farm stand’s shelves. Sizes range from in 3″, 4″ and 5.5″ pots, with above-ground sizes from 5″ high to over a foot.

Now I realize that it’s not planting-out time: these geraniums are going to need over-wintering. Since not I, my husband, or my mother have ever successfully over-wintered geraniums, I decided to phone Farm Candy’s Rachel Lydecker to find out how she keeps these popular plants alive.

“The Number One thing is, don’t let their roots freeze,” she told me. “The perfect situation would be sitting at your brightest window in the house, with a little bit of watering every 2-3 weeks and a light feeding mid-winter.”

I didn’t need to press for details: she’s besotted by this plant and even likes them grown large and sculptural, more twisting stems than leaves.

So go get your summer 2010 geraniums and pelargoniums now, for free. And when you long for summer, just go rub a leaf of “True Rose” geranium and enjoy the scent of June.

For more info on Farm Candy Nursery, visit www.farmcandy.strangegarden.com

How to Overwinter Geraniums and Pelargoniums

LIGHT:  put them next to a sunny window indoors. “You can’t give them too much light in the winter.”

HEAT: “not super-warm,” Rachel says. An unheated room in your house would be okay, but not in a shed or garage that’s vulnerable to freezing.

WATER: Not bone-dry, not parched, but not real wet, either. Check the soil. Water maybe every 2-3 weeks. “I suspect that if you put the potted plants on top of a shallow pan of pebbles and water—not IN, but on TOP of—they would like the extra humidity and need less water.”

FEEDING:  After the New Year, give them a light feeding of house-plant food. They would also like a little Epson salts, about a tablespoon per gallon of water. 

PRUNING: They tend to get leggy—you can pinch off the new growth.

IN SPRING: When the temps reach the low 40s, you can start acclimatizing the plants to the outdoors during daylight hours. If they get left out on a cold night, “frost will make them pretty ugly, all the leaves will fall off, but the roots may still be alive.”

MAKING MORE:  You can take cuttings of any new growth and pot them up in sterile potting soil to increase your stock of plants. Cut below a leaf node (where the leaf emerges from the stalk) for a cutting about 2″ long. Stick in damp potting soil. (Don’t try to root in water: these roots are of a different type that aren’t adapted to taking up nutrients from soil, which is where you want your geranium eventually.) The plants will put out new growth when there’s enough light next spring.

[FarmCandy’s Care Instructions: “To keep your pelargonium happy, give it plenty of light, a light feeding every two weeks in summer and every month in winter. If they are in a greenhouse, you may need to protect them from strong light with a light shadecloth. They don’t want to dry out completely, but be careful not to overwater or let water sit in the saucer. Bring them in for the winter.

   To make sachets, cut new growth and dry in an oven set to “warm” or in the microwave at two minutes at a time, letting steam escape in between. When the leaves and stems are crisp, crush them up and put in decorative bags. They make great gifts! 

For more information on pelargoniums and for links and suggested readings, visit us at http://farmcandy.strangegarden.com/ and be sure to email any questions with the words “plant question” in the subject line. Thanks for choosing Farm Candy as your gernium enabler!