Myth Busting

Drought tolerant doesn’t mean don’t water

Steven Fry claims that 50% of facts today turn out to be untrue after a few years. He might be right, or that might be proved to be wrong soon too.

It wasn’t that long ago that it was thought fact that the continents were static. Recent enough for my brother to be wrapped on the knuckles with a ruler at school for suggesting that they were probably joined up in the distant past - That is was healthy to smoke , alcohol is “cooked out of food” or that white chocolate is actually “chocolate”

I have found that myths have always been prevalent in the gardening world as well and there’s always someone advising us to do different things to the plants and soil. There have been a few myths following me around for years though and I thought it was about time to dispel them.

Adding rich compost when planting

The first think I want to look at is the myth about tree and shrub planting. When planting a new tree or shrub we are told to replace the soil in the planting hole with organic material such as compost. The problem is when the new roots reach the edge of the planting hole and get to the native soil. They will actually turn and circle back into the organic material at great detriment to the plant.  Moisture will also be drawn away from the added compost.  So use the original soil removed to backfill after planting. Your trees and shrubs will do much better.

Organic material is always good

It depends where organic material comes from.  The problem is that some compost can harbour pesticide residue or heavy metals. These contaminates are also sometimes found in some manures from chickens and cattle. If compost contaminated with these products were to be used in a vegetable garden the harvested veggies could contain the chemicals. If you compost your garden waste, use only chemical free materials. Do not compost grass clippings that have been chemically treated.

Epsom Salts

“Add Epsom salts to the soil for healthier plants.” I don’t think so! Research shows it is only warranted in large-scale farming operations where the soil has a proven magnesium deficiency. Home garden use of Epsom salt (magnesium sulfate) can be seen as irresponsible when the actual soil condition hasn’t been tested.

Sugar or Baking Soda for Sweeter Tomatoes

The sweetness of a tomato is determined primarily by the type of tomato and photosynthesis. They cannot acquire sweetness from soil. Save your baking soda for cleaning the house and the sugar for baking.

Egg Shells for Calcium

Egg shells are great for enriching compost but take a long time to break down. Crush them into bits to help speed up the process, but don’t expect them to transform a plant in a single season, it’ll take years.

Egg Shells for Discouraging Slugs

No they don’t! I’ve seen many a slug and snail crawl over a pile of crushed shells. Save them for the compost bin to slowly break down and add calcium to the soil (It’ll take years but it’s a better use of them, after all would you want to put shells around every plant in the garden)

Coins or Copper for Discouraging Slugs

If this did work the slugs would just move to another plant, the same goes for beer traps and grapefruit, these will attract the slugs but chances are you will need to go out there and finish the job. Bucket of water at the ready if you don’t have hens.

Coffee Grounds

This is one of the few popular myths where we could actually find some evidence to substantiate it. Yes, coffee grounds are good for the garden but all the talk of changing the pH of the soil (it’s a complex topic and requires proper analysis) and miraculous growth spurts is really overstating it. Coffee grounds provide beneficial nitrogen, but you need a variety of things for healthy compost and soil. Add your coffee grounds to the compost pile and keep it balanced with a mixture of other green and brown items.

And just before I finish this week , here are a few more to think about, but remember if what Stephen Fry says is true, most of these will be proved wrong in 10 years time!

• Knock the tops of onions over to make larger bulbs.-This actually stops the bulbs forming.
• Plant peas and potatoes on St. Patrick’s day.-There are no specific calendar dates suited to all gardening zones: the best timing depends on your growing zone and soil warmth.
• Pinch blooms off annuals before planting. -  I don’t think so. All you get then is time to wait for new blooms to form.
• If a plant is under stress, it should be fed. -Fertilizer is not the answer for many plant stresses (compacted roots, poor drainage, overwatering, and so on). Determine the cause of the problem and then resolve it. Poor nutrition is often not the cause.
• Add sand to loosen heavy, clay soil. - It actually causes more problems. So does double digging. Been there, double dug that.
• Drought-tolerant plants don’t need to be watered.- They’re tolerant, not dead. Yes, they need water.

You're Coming Along

It’s week 3 of my Hypertufa pot making experiments and I have a very large wheelie bin full of rejects. I’m working on the basis that I will find the right mix but it’s costing me a fortune in peat, cement and perlite. If a room full of monkeys using typewrites will eventually write a classic novel then there’s hope for me yet.

I am thinking that some of the pots will grow moss and algae after painting them with live yogurt. This will give me a worn look.  This effect isn’t for everyone though and I can imagine that there are a lot of green pots and containers on patios that might need a good clean.

If you do get scrubbing then it might be an idea to check paths as well, some of them are getting very slippery in this wet weather. 

Keep off

I’ve been keeping off the soil this month. It’s very wet and walking on it will compact it, not to mention it sticking to my boots. Nature seems to be doing a great job of clearing any leftover greenery in time for the spring plantings. I left the bamboo poles in place this winter and they have proved to be an endless source of entertainment for the dogs. They have mastered the art of pulling them up and ripping them to bits. One day I caught them poking holes in the tunnel as they fought over an old bean pole. It makes a change from the magpies putting holes in the plastic as they attempt to attack reflections of themselves. 

January Planting

The tunnel is holding up well in the winds. I put it in a sheltered spot which has helped.  It’s a bit bunged up with the tufa pots at the moment but what is planted in there is starting to grow. Spinach, peas and lettuce are all doing well and it’s reminding me that we will soon be looking for seeds to sow.  January is time to plant peas, beans aubergines, salad leaf crops and also tomatoes. I’m going to contact Klaus at greenvegetableseeds.com this year and buy seeds that Klaus recommends for the Irish weather. I might as well benefit from his ten years of growing, propagating and research. 

Bulbs

My bulbs are coming up well in the pots I planted up just three weeks ago. They were on special offer and I got loads of daffs, tulips and hyacinths for a few euro. It’s amazing how quickly they are shooting up, I have them in the tunnel too which might help to move them on a bit.

Forcing rhubarb

When I was young I used to venture out at the weekends in summer to a piece of waste ground where I knew rhubarb grey wild. I didn’t go empty handed though as I took with me a small brown paper bag of sugar to dip the stalks into. On its own rhubarb is very bitter so the sugar made it far more palatable. It’s used in medicine as a laxative, but I don’t remember anything about that bit. I realize that I don’t have any in our new garden; I forgot to bring some with me. The plants can be divided easily to produce new plants so I’ll keep my eyes peeled for a fresh supply. I’d miss it in the garden; not only for the stalks but the leaves make an excellent spray to kill unwanted pests. It’s amazing that this poisonous leaf was actually recommended as a food supplement in the First World War -there were a lot of people poisoned! 

The roots are pretty useful as a dye, resembling the colour obtained from walnut husks...just in case you were thinking of dying your own clothes.   The reason I mention rhubarb is that you can force young shoots to grow early under pots. It’s just a case of cutting out the light so they grow quickly looking for light. You can get the stalks all year in supermarkets and these are grown in a similar way to having them under a bucket, but they are forced in massive tunnels with no light in much the same way that mushrooms are grown. It’s said that to keep the stalks sweet and juicy they are harvested by candlelight in Yorkshire tunnels. This might be the case but then again it might be a bit of a romantic tale in much the same way that I remember picking the stalks myself and dipping them into the sugar bag. I probably just ate the sugar after the first dip if truth be known.

The Ringweeder...What's it all about then?

Ringweeder Review

My Ringweeder arrived through the post the other day from Vincent Suozzi in America and it wasn’t long before it was adorning my index finger. The Ringweeder is a simple device invented by Vincent and resembles a two pronged fork that fits like a ring onto your finger to help weeding in small, awkward spaces and I have been eager to give it a test run after since seeing in on the Kickstarter website earlier last year. The Kickstarter project, gives members of the public the ability to invest in new innovations such as this and raised the funding to perfect the design and start production. 

The finished piece is a single, high quality plastic tool which looks to have no weak spots so common in a lot of gardening tools. 

Vincent has spent a lot of time perfecting his new tool and his idea has come a long way since he first fastened a large nail to a steel ring.   The Ringweeder comes in two sizes to suit most hands.

The Test

Finding an area of weeds in my garden to test the device wasn’t difficult!  Having the Ringweeder on my finger was comfortable and it wasn’t long before I was getting stuck in removing even long tap roots. It made me realise that for years I have weeded with my index finger intuitively and worn holes in hundreds of pairs of gloves as well as getting frustrated at not getting the weeds up effectively when I stick my finger into the hard ground. 

The Ringweeder really works. I used it for a good half an hour and it made working in awkward places in between plants very easy. If you were weeding for a long time the gloves supplied come in very useful for reducing the friction between the plastic and the skin.

 

There are a lot of devices put on the markets every year for making life a little easier in the garden, most of them disappear quickly. The Ringweeder seems different. Vincent has actually seen a real gardening problem and found a solution. It was a gardening problem which I didn’t even know existed!

The Ringweeder will also be extremely useful for people with disabilities as no gripping is needed unlike trowels and other hand tools.

I think this simple device has the ability to be a regular ‘must have’ tool in the garden, it doesn’t require fuel to use, needs no maintenance, doesn’t take up any room and can be bought for less than six euro. Check out theringweeder.com

Hypertufa Obsession

Tufa Obsession

Since last week I have spent an obsessively long time attempting to perfect my Hypertufa plant pot mix.  I started off by making the sample pots from just peat, cement and pearlite. All seemed well but when the dried out I found they were lightweight but also too fragile for any real use. They would be good for planting into the ground complete with a young plant but that’s not what I am looking for, I want a pot that can stand up to the rigors of everyday use.  

So it was time to roll my sleeves up and play with different types of mixes. I used less peat, more cement and also added some sand. One review I read about making tufa commented that the best way to get a strong plant pot was to not use peat!  To me that defeated the object of producing tufa pots but I did do one or two without it.  The results were strong but did look like miniature concrete council road bollards, again, not what I was looking for.

One to One

The tunnel is now full of pots of various sizes and consistencies. I am having a bit more success with a 1x1x1x1 mix of sand, peat, pearlite and cement but my biggest problem was getting the set pots out of the molds. I started off by filling a larger pot and then pushing a smaller pot into this to make the recess. All seemed well until the mix set – the pots are stuck in!  The only ones I could get out were the plastic pots as they have a bit of flexibility but not the aesthetic values of the terracotta pots I am also using. 

I therefore had to think of a way to keep the shape of the terracotta pots but have the flexibility of the plastic ones. 

My solution is this. I got some very large pots and filled them with expandable foam then placed a terracotta pot inside this and let it dry.  The resulting hard mold is light and flexible. For good measure I have also made some molds out of sections of cut drainpipe with slits in them fastended by cable ties. These can be pulled open when the mix has set.

It’s still early days with the new methods but I am optimistic I will 

have a product that will look good on the dining table as well as in the garden. Again, I’ll keep you posted.