Click here for a map to the plant sale

In “The Waste Land,” T.S. Eliot wrote:

April is the cruelest month, breeding

Lilacs come in several forms (bush, tree, miniature) and colors, usually in shades of pink, white, and purple, although yellow lilacs are available.

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

Winter kept us warm, covering

Earth in forgetful snow, feeding

A little life with dried tubers.

But if you want to see lilac flowers in April (or more likely, May, here in Southcentral PA), take steps now (in late winter–February) to make sure your lilac bushes are in top shape.

Lilacs are one of the easiest, most trouble-free flowering shrubs you can grow. They like slightly sweet soil (pH 6.0 to 7.0), but will tolerate just about anything except wet feet; these are not plants for marshy areas. They also require full sun; if you plant them too near a wall or shady trees, they’ll tend to lean out in search of light and their flowering will not be as profuse. With their deep, heavy roots, lilacs are extremely drought-tolerant once established. New plants should be watered regularly for the first summer, but once they’re growing well, a couple inches of moisture-conserving mulch will hold them through all but the very driest weather.

Begin your annual late-winter lilac care with a thorough clean up. Remove weeds and vines. Japanese honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica) is a real pest here, and it can smother a lilac in a couple of years. Even a small vine will be competition enough to reduce bloom.

Next, remove dead wood. You’ll very likely find quite a few long, slender, whiplike stems (called watersprouts) coming up from the base of the bush or along the main branches, and a number of these will be dried up and dead. Snap or cut them off; their loss is no big deal. If you see tiny holes in any of the biggest trunks, your lilac has borers. More a nuisance than a disaster, saw out and burn (don’t compost) affected trunks. Lilac borers only attack the oldest wood, and since it’s good practice to remove a few of the oldest stems every couple of years to keep the bush vigorous, these borers aren’t usually much of a problem.

Thin out the bush a bit, removing one or two of the very biggest stems (if you have a tree lilac, don’t touch the main trunks, but do try to remove a couple of the biggest, oldest branches). If your bush has a lot of live, vigorous sprouts (called suckers) coming up around the base, either cut some of these back to ground level or dig them out to replant as new little lilac bushes.

If you did not remove the dead flowers from last year’s bloom, do that now. Removing the spent blooms forces the energy that would have gone into seed (useless for most purposes) back into forming next year’s flowers. Make a habit of removing as many spent lilac blooms as you can every year, after the bush is through flowering. (Another good reason to gather lilacs into bouquets to bring indoors and give as gifts!)

Once you’ve finished pruning, spread wood ashes thinly around the base of the lilac, extending out as far as the drip line (the outermost reach of the branches). Sprinkle on a little ground limestone and as much compost or well-rotted manure as you can spare. Spread mulch: wood chips, ground leaves, and “beauty bark” are fine mulches for lilacs; avoid grass clippings and fresh manures—the excess nitrogen they add to the soil may produce a big flush of leaves and new growth, at the expense of flowers.

Lilacs usually bloom at about the same time as mid-season tulips, and they look fantastic with white, pink, or purple tulips to pick up their colors, and with yellow or red tulips as an accent.

The worst disease of lilacs is powdery mildew, which, when severe, can defoliate a shrub, although it rarely kills. It is unsightly, though, coating the dark green leaves with a floury white.

Treat it by mixing a half-cup of cultured buttermilk milk with a gallon of water and spraying the entire bush. (If you can’t find cultured buttermilk, substitute yogurt instead.) The slight acidity of the milk, as well as the live acidophilus culture in the milk/yogurt, will be enough to knock back the growth of the mildew.

When planting lilacs, site the bush near a porch, patio, deck, window or doorway, so that, on a warm spring evening, you can enjoy the heady fragrance as you watch the sunset.

Happy Groundhog Day!  February 2nd is a date that’s got a lot of folk wisdom and tradition associated with it.  Besides being Groundhog Day here in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, it’s also Candlemas in the Roman Catholic calendar, and Imbolc, or the First Day of Spring, according to the old Celtic calendar.

Groundhogs are native to North America. They can be real pests in the garden, but good fencing will keep them out.

Groundhog Day is an old Pennsylvania German/Dutch custom.  According to legend, if a groundhog sees his shadow at sunrise on this day, we’re in for 6 more weeks of winter weather.  If not, then we’ll see an early spring.  The early settlers to our region brought the custom with them from their European homes, where a badger was the “prognosticator,” since Groundhogs are native only to North America.  Punxatawney, Pennsylvania, is the most well-known of the Grundsow Lodges (Groundhog Lodges) celebrating this holiday.

(In reality, groundhogs usually don’t wake up from their winter hibernation until well into March, when the first green grass is available for them to eat.)

Candlemas was celebrated as the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Mother by the Catholic Church. It marks the day that, according to the New Testament, the infant Jesus was taken into the Jewish Temple for the first time, to be accepted as a member of the Jewish faith, and his mother Mary was admitted for a rite of purification, traditionally held for women about 6 weeks after giving birth.  Candlemas occurs 40 days after Christmas.

When I was a child (in the days before Vatican II),  this was a really wonderful celebration in the Polish Roman Catholic Church. The celebration started very late at night and at dawn on the 2nd, boxes of beeswax candles would be brought into the church to be blessed.  These blessed candles were then distributed to the congregation, so that they could be burned in the home for blessings and also–and most importantly–to be on hand in cases where the sacrament of Extreme Unction (Last Anointing) might be needed.

Imbolc, a very ancient Celtic holiday, marks the beginning of the spring season.  Although today we accept the first day of spring to begin at the Spring Equinox on March 20-21, logically, the equinox marks the midpoint of the spring season, just as June 20-21 (traditionally called Midsummer’s Day) marks the middle of summer, not its start. 

For gardeners and nature lovers, you’ll note that trees and shrubs are showing fat and swelling buds, birds are becoming much more active at feeders, and houseplants are starting to perk up.  All this because the days are getting longer and the sun is getting stronger…despite those cold temps and the snow!  If you keep chickens (as I do), and you don’t keep them under artificial light during the winter, you’ll notice that your hens begin to lay eggs again around this date.

Sweet Potato Pie

Sweet potato pie is a traditional southern treat.

With a flavor similar to pumpkin pie, but with a buttery sweetness all its own, this traditional Sweet Potato Pie recipe will be a big hit. You can serve it topped with whipped cream and  a cup of strong, dark Cafe du Monde coffee for a real southern treat.

1 pound raw sweet potatoes

1/2 cup butter, softened

3/4 cup white sugar

1 tablespoon molasses

1/2 cup milk

2 eggs, beaten

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 (9 inch) unbaked pie crust

Wash and peel sweet potatoes. Boil in water until tender, about 30 minutes.

In a large mixing bowl, mash sweet potatoes with butter. Using a mixer or byhand, stir in sugar, molasses, milk, eggs, nutmeg, cinammon, and vanilla until smooth and creamy.

Pour filling into an unbaked pie crust.

Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 55–60 minutes, or until knife inserted in center comes out clean.

January and February are great months to prune many of your shrubs and small trees.  Contrary to what you might read, pruning isn’t rocket science.  If you follow a few simple guidelines, you can prune just about anything in your garden.  (Late winter is not the time to prune spring-blooming shrubs like forsythia, rhododendron, or azalea…if you trim them now, you risk cutting off the buds that produce this spring’s flowers.  Wait until late May or June to prune those.)

Read the rest of this entry »

In an effort to save a little money, a lot of gardeners save their own seeds.  Sometimes this works, sometimes not.  The trick is to know the difference between “open pollinated” varieties and “hybrids.” 

There’s a popular misconception about hybrids.  A lot of folks think there’s something “unnatural” about them and steer clear, opting instead for more old-fashioned varieties. That’s too bad, because naturally hybridized plants help gardeners grow bigger, better fruits and flowers with less fertilizers and pesticides.  They are the organic gardener’s best friends.  Read the rest of this entry »

If you garden in Zone 5 or warmer, you can grow your own sweet potatoes and—once you get started—you can have a bigger and better patch every year without spending a dime!

Home-grown sweet potatoes.

Sweet potatoes (Ipomoea batatas) are members of the Morning Glory family.  They are sometimes incorrectly called yams, but yams are another vegetable altogether (Dioscorea batatas), although the two can sometimes be used interchangeably.

To start your never-ending sweet potato patch, you’ve got two choices: either buy sweet potatoes at your grocery store sometime between November and January and start your own plants, or wait until spring and buy plants at a nursery.  I think starting your own plants is more fun (and cheaper!), so that’s what we’ll cover here.

1.  Look for firm, clean sweet potatoes at the local grocery store. It’s not common, but sometimes vegetables are irradiated to prevent them from sprouting, so you might want to ask.  Size doesn’t matter.

2. At home, fill a container with good quality, sterile, moist potting soil. Depending on how many plants you want to start, use either individual small pots or one really big pot.  A windowbox type planter works well too.

The tiny dark red or brown "eyes" will sprout.

3. Each sweet has a “sprouting” end that has very tiny little bumps or “eyes.”  Cut off about 2 inches of this end. (You can plant very small sweets whole.) Set the cut ends on a piece of newspaper to dry for a day. This prevents them from rotting.   Cook up what’s left for supper!

4. Plant the cut ends by setting them cut side down on a few inches of potting soil. Cover with more soil, so that the tips are about a 1/4 inch below the surface.  Water lightly.  Keep the soil just barely moist until the sweets sprout; never let it dry out completely, but make sure the starts don’t sit in wet soil or they will rot.

5. Cover the planted pots with clear plastic and set them in a warm, lighted place.  The kitchen table will do just fine.  If you see a lot of condensation on the plastic, lift it every few days to let the soil dry out a bit. 

6. Wait patiently.  It can take several months for supermarket sweets to sprout.    Check on them every so often, to make sure the soil is still nice and moist and that the planted pieces are still firm.  If any seem soft, rotten, or smelly, toss them.  The first sign of sprouting is a  swelling of the tiny reddish eyes. The earliest leaves are deep red or reddish green. 

Treat sprouted sweet potato starts as you would any houseplant.

 7. Once leaves appear, take off the plastic wrap and treat your sweet starts as you would any houseplant.  Once they’re growing well, cut back on water and allow the soil to dry out a bit between watering. They’ll do best in a brightly lit window, away from cold and drafts.  Keep an eye out for the usual houseplant bugs, like whitefly or aphids, and spray with soapy water if you spot any pests.

8. Once all danger of frost has past, and as early as you can,  plant your starts into the garden. Set them 2 to 3 feet apart, in full sun.  Water them for the first week or two if you don’t get adequate rainfall, but don’t overdo it; sweets thrive on hot, dry summer weather.  Weed until the vines spread to form a thick mat—and they will spread, so don’t situate your sweet potato patch close to small, delicate veggies like carrots or lettuce.  I plant mine near sweet corn or pole beans. 

9. Sweets require a long growing season; here in southcentral Pennsylvania (zone 6)  I usually wait until mid to late October to harvest. They can tolerate a light frost, but its best to cover them when the nights get really cold, but there’s still promise of warm Indian summer weather ahead. You want to keep them in the ground and growing for as long as possible.  The biggest and best tubers will form as the days shorten in August and September.

10.  Harvest your sweets.  As you dig them up, you’ll find long skinny orange roots and small sweets, with bits of green vine and little roots attached.   These are next year’s starts. I usually keep pots with a mix of compost and garden soil right there with me as I harvest.  As you find these little “skinnies,” pot them up.

"Skinnies" are small sweets and underdeveloped roots that will provide next year's starts.

11. Haul in your harvest and next year’s starts.  Store sweet potatoes in a dark, fairly warm spot, like an unheated basement or root cellar.  The potted-up skinnies go upstairs,  where they’ll resume growth almost immediately.  Treat them as you would houseplants, overwintering them in a warm, well-lit spot. 

12.  In the spring, plant your starts in the garden—and there you have it: a never-ending sweet potato patch, one that can get bigger and better every year.

Another 3 inches of the white stuff fell overnight. Our weather reports say to expect warming temps and possibly rain later today, so I’m out to enjoy this beautiful snow while it lasts.  This has been the snowiest winter in our area in many years. I’m beginning to think that I should buy some extra hay for Percy the Sheep… Although, getting him to actually eat it may be a chore. He’s very old and very spoiled and only wants my hand cut, homemade hay. None of that mechanically baled stuff for him, thank you very much!

Zinnia ‘Zahara Starlight Rose’.  Remember those tall, spindly zinnias your mom used to grow? The ones that got that awful white mildew on the leaves just about the time the flowers were in full bloom? The ones with the carnival colors that really didn’t go with anything, but at least they grew in that patch of hot, dry, sunny dirt near the driveway?  Well forget all that: ‘Zahara Starlight Rose’ (don’t you just love that name?) is a brand new zinnia Read the rest of this entry »

After all that snow, we’re experiencing a slightly early “January thaw.”  Like “Indian summer” this spell of relatively mild weather following a really cold snowy period is a movable feast.  It’s a welcome little break from the cold, sometimes enough to trigger a few early blooming snowdrops into flower.