Farmers Weekly Review

Well, we continue to be riding Mother Nature’s rollercoaster of weather, but all gardeners are itching to get back outside.

For me, there isn’t a day (or night) that I don’t venture outside regardless of weather to survey my postage stamp-sized yard. There is always something to see. But now is not the time to do too much yet. Remember the doctors’ (and gardeners’) creed: First, do no harm.

Some of this is a repeat of my annual checklist, because anxious gardeners are still thinking they are getting ahead, but really some tasks put them way behind.

Above all, do not EVER dig, or worse, rototill wet soil. Our heavy clay soils are the smallest of the three soil particles make up. Sand is the largest (think beachball by comparison), loam (baseball) and clay (the size of rice). Those tiny clay particles when wet are sticky and easily pushed together, creating large clods that can take years to break up. They destroy quality soil structure.

But how do you know when it is too wet? A simple old farmer/gardener trick is to take a handful of soil and squeeze it in your hand. If it seems slimy and gooey and remains glued together — too wet. If, on the other hand, you grab a handful and squeeze it, and it forms a ball that if you poke it breaks into smaller clumps easily, the soil is ready for preparation.

As far as the method of prep is concerned, scientific attitudes have changed over the recent years. Less tilling, more gentle digging. If you are like me and most gardeners, there is nothing that compares to the smell and look of a freshly tilled garden. But too much of a good thing isn’t.

You know us humans, if a little is good, a lot must be better, right? Wrong. Overtilling ruins soil structure and kills many of the beneficial animals that help to make our soil better. Overtilling also can create a “bowl” effect: Where you till the organic matter in the top 8 or so inches, but then you are polishing the heavy grey clay subsoil below, creating a pot without a hole in the ground.

Sometimes gardeners ask me why their garden is ponding water even though they tilled. Because they tilled too much. Better to limit tilling to once per year, preferably in the fall, so you can get planting early, even in wet years.

Another task not to do right now is pruning any spring flowering shrubs like lilac, forsythia, mock orange, and even serviceberries. The blooms for this year are all ready to pop this spring. If you prune them now, you are cutting off this year’s flowers.

The one exception here is if you would like to cut a few stems of these spring beauties to “force” inside. No, that doesn’t mean the branches will fight you not to go inside; rather, you bring some branches inside and trick them into thinking it is spring. Forsythia and quince are particularly easy to force inside.

Cut the branches on a 45-degree angle, and then put them in water out of full sun, but in a warm area. In a few weeks, you will have your own personal springtime, a little early and inside when the flowers on the stems bloom. Be sure to change the water regularly.

As far as other pruning, you are at your last chance to prune oaks of any kind. If not now, you will have to wait until fall dormancy in late November. Oak wilt, a devastating vascular (think blood stream) disease similar to the way Dutch Elm Disease killed the American elms in the 1960s, is thought to be spread through open wounds on the trees. To decrease the likelihood of this, recent research suggests limiting all oak pruning to the dormant season only.

You can also finish pruning your deciduous (plants whose leaves fall off during the winter) trees and shrubs now. If we end up with a super early, spring, some of these plants may “bleed” sap, but there is no concern.

Sure, a few insects might get stuck in the sugary sap, but leave it to the plants themselves to compartmentalize and heal the wounds. It was once suggested to use pruning paint or tar on all wounds, but again, science has learned that the plants have natural hormones that do a better job at sealing the wound and starting the healing over process. So cross pruning paint and tar off your garden shopping list — forever.

Speaking of garden shopping, we often think that when plant materials are on sale, which is the time for application. It is not. If you are a crabgrass preventer, that is fine. But timing is everything.

If you buy and apply either of these products now, chances are a few gully-washing rains will dilute and move away from your application area, down the street to your neighbors. If you walk your property right now and see patches of wide-bladed green grass, that is not crabgrass; is more likely quackgrass. Crabgrass is an annual weed (annual like a zinnia or tomato).

Crabgrass plants die off at the end of the growing season and start from seed the following year. Crabgrass preventer puts down a chemical barrier that prevents those seeds from germinating.

Quackgrass is perennial (like a shrub) and just goes dormant over the winter (if we had a winter) and will green back up soon. This persistent noxious weed is only controlled by total killer herbicides like Roundup or Kleenup (active ingredient: glyphosate).

But remember when you apply, anything green the product touches will kill that plant down to the root, which is a good thing. This time of year, you can take a foam paint brush and some glyphosate in a labelled disposable cup and just “paint” the weed grasses before the desirable grass greens up.

Excellent coverage and almost no chance of getting the herbicide on desirable plants.