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Hard Freeze

By mid spring in New Hampshire most trees and shrubs have begun leafing out. Flowers and low plants are well underway with their growth. Frosts can still occur here even as late as the end of May but most plants can tolerate the frost. Things start being a little more problematic if a hard freeze occurs.

Frosts usually happen when temperatures hover or dip below the freezing mark, 32 degrees Fahrenheit or 0 degrees Celsius. But a hard freeze happens when cold air pushes in, dropping temperatures down into the mid 20s fahrenheit. Many plants can tolerate even these frigid blasts but not all can.

Just over a week ago, a freeze warning was put out by the weather service for our area and that night the thermometer dropped to the mid-twenties. Fortunately most of my plants were still in pots so they could be moved inside the garage for protection. What was in the garden already had not yet sprouted and so were protected by the soil. Still many plants were challenged by these icy conditions and not all fared well.

My bleeding heart plant, in the process of blossoming, was bitten badly. The flowers were destroyed but leaves at the base of the plant survived, so I am hopeful the plant will make a full recovery. Tiger Lilies suffered damage with smaller plants getting the worst of it. Many do not look like they will make it. Larger plants, already several feet tall, looked really beat and for a while I wondered if they would pull through. Lower leaves wilted but the tops recovered. It remains to be seen if they will produce flowers.

Many trees and shrubs shrugged off the arctic blast but a few species got hit hard. Oak trees and one or two other species I’m not familiar with got the worst of it.

At this time of year, oaks are just starting to leaf out. The freeze destroyed the new growth, leaving behind withered brown vegetation. When they are touched, they are dry, crumbling under my fingers, so these will not be coming back.

Will trees be able to survive a hit like this? Looking about, I see many larger oak trees with their leaves blasted. Many smaller trees have been devastated as well though a few twigs here and there managed to make it through. As it is so early in the season, chances are good that the trees (many of whom surely have gone through this before) will be able to put out new growth. How acorn production will be affected by this remains to be seen. I have not been able to locate any information online which might tell me this. Many animals rely on acorns, eating them to fatten up for the winter or storing them away for lean times. Bears, turkeys, squirrels, chipmunks and others will all be affected by this if the acorn crop fails.

But nature is nothing, if not resilient. Natural selection will weed out those who cannot tolerate climate extremes, leaving behind the toughest and the hardiest. Northern New Hampshire is a good place for that. Like the old saying; If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute.

Autumn Observations For 2022

On the eve of Halloween, we are half way between the beginning of fall and the beginning of winter. The weather so far has been reasonably benign with enough rain to bring an end to the drought conditions which afflicted my area this past summer. Minor frosts have gnawed away the tender vegetation, though as yet no deep freezes to harden the ground.

The brilliant fall foliage which made an excellent display this year has dropped away, literally, giving me an opportunity for aerobic exercise in the yard. I do not use those noisy abominations called leaf blowers. A conventional rake is my tool of choice along with an old beat-up plastic garbage barrel for collecting the leaves. The leaf litter gets deposited in a variety of spots around the house including as mulch for my gardens. All will rot down eventually, returning the nutrients they contain back into the soil for future trees and plants to take up in their turn.

The hawthorn trees in my front yard have dropped a percentage of their leaves, revealing bright orange-red berries. The berries reputedly have medicinal properties, being a source of antioxidants, anti-inflammatory substances, and may lower blood pressure and cholesterol. I haven’t tried them out, but the lovely glossy color does make it tempting.

They are popular with squirrels, turkeys and robins though my hope is that they will attract other berry-loving birds such as mockingbirds, cedar waxwings or the ultimate Holy Grail; ruffed grouse or bluebirds.

Turkeys have been trekking through the neighborhood recently. The flock I saw a few days ago numbered about fourteen. I couldn’t get close enough to determine if they were males or females, as in the fall turkeys will congregate in gender segregated groups, toms with other males and hens with their female offspring in their own group. The turkeys I photographed on my front lawn several weeks ago appeared to be females.

The usual fall invasion of mice into the house brought out my mouse traps. I show no mercy to these little rodents as they gnaw incessantly, can damage wiring and spread disease to boot. With a good crop of acorns this year, their population has boomed along with that of gray squirrels and chipmunks. Good pickings for the red fox I have seen occasionally short-cutting through the woods in back of the house. I can usually tell when he’s about by the shrieking crows which follow him as he goes.

Another predator of mice and rodents showed up recently in my garage. As I was returning from a walk and stepped into the garage, something scooted rapidly by near my feet. I caught a glimpse of a reddish back and assumed at first it was a red squirrel. But the movements weren’t right so I retreated back outside to see what would pop up.

Turned out it was a short-tailed weasel, a long lean creature, still in his summer colors. Attempts to capture a picture of this ferocious little beast for my blog were futile as he moved so fast, all I got was pictures of a blurry brown smear. So I had to cheat and download a little picture from the Internet.

I had wondered where the chipmunks disappeared to and I guess this answers my question. Weasels are relentless hunters, generally devouring anything smaller than themselves and, if they can, anything larger they feel they can tackle. They are the bane of chicken farmers everywhere as once inside a coop, they will kill any bird they can grab, often eating only a few internal organs or perhaps the brains, leaving the rest for the unhappy farmer to curse over. But if he will clean out the mice, I won’t begrudge him a few chickens (I don’t own chickens anyway).

That’s all for now. Until next month. Happy Halloween!

Halloween pumpkin with dancing cat and owl

Summer’s End

Labor day is almost upon us. Although summer still officially lasts for about three more weeks, Labor Day makes it seem like it’s the end of the season and the start of fall.

It’s been an abnormally dry season though some relief in the form of rain has begun arriving in the past few weeks to help the sweet corn along for the farmer’s market. There was a population boom of bumblebees in contrast to the scarcity of the insect last summer. Fire flies made a tentative reappearance though June bugs still seem to be in short supply.

It was a good summer for babies. A pair of Canada geese has been raising a brood in the tiny nature preserve near where I live. My sister-in-law took this adorable photo of a baby merganser goose-stepping across the road following his mother.

I’ve seen fledgling robins and heard young chickadees, nuthatches and chipping sparrows pursuing their parents begging for a last few morsels of food before they will have to fend for themselves.

Although the weather was on the dry side, a number of plants did well for themselves. The Black eyed Susans in my garden have bloomed prolifically.

The recent rains brought out a small mushroom nestled among the roots of a white pine.

My Jack-In-The-Pulpit bloomed its characteristic ‘jack’ and is now forming a berry cluster which will turn bright red.

While on a morning walk in late July, I encountered a Monarch butterfly feeding in a patch of milkweed on the corner of a parking lot.

It was a thrill to see this badly endangered butterfly still hanging in there. Now the milkweed has produced pods and if they can escape getting weed-wacked, I hope to collect a few when they ripen and try getting them to grow on the bank in back of my home.

Hope you had a happy summer.

Gardening in 2022

The raised beds are planted and have started growing. I still have a few more rows of waxed beans to put in but otherwise everything is in. Now all that remains is keeping the local wildlife from chowing down on what’s coming up. Lately I’ve spotted a red fox on occasion short-cutting it across my lawn. With any luck he’ll keep the population of garden chompers such as woodchucks, squirrels etc down to a minimum.

Along with the tried and true peas, lettuce, carrots and potatoes, I’ve put in a row of beets and swiss chard and will watch what they do. Last year I tried some onions but apparently have no talent for growing them as they stayed the same size through the whole summer, never growing an inch. I’ve put a bush cucumber in a pot and covered it with mesh wiring to ward off hungry critters.

For flowers, I’ve planted the usual petunias and pansies. I also bought a packet of an old-fashioned climbing petunia seeds as well as some black velvet nasturtiums which I’ve sprinkled around in various corners.

Weeding is always a trick as some weeds such as goutweed, bermuda grass and zagreb coreopsis (this last one is my fault, it looked so pretty at the greenhouse but now it’s trying to eat my flower garden alive!) send out runners and propagate like crazy. If I can, I try to dig up the whole plant but if it’s mixed in with other plants I do want, then I trim back the greenery rather than risk disturbing the roots of the good plants. I allow most of the clippings to fall back into place and dump any roots I pull up underneath the pine trees.

Bumblebees which have been very scarce for at least the past five years have suddenly re-surged. I’ve been seeing the plump queens all over the place this past spring far more than I’ve encountered in quite a while, so I’m guessing last year’s nestings must have been very successful. Being sensitive to insect stings I find myself dodging a lot but it is nice to see these important pollinators returning.

As always, I keep my fingers crossed when gardening, hoping for a good year.

Memorial day parage — **Memorial Day 2022**

Starting Seeds

Nearing the end of April, crocuses and daffodils are popping up and forsythia bushes are in full bloom. You’d never know it was spring with the two inches of snow I woke up to this morning.

Thankfully it melted away by midday. This is the time of year when I pull out the old packages of seeds I bought last year (and before) to see if they will still sprout. Since I have small raised beds rather than large fields, it’s inevitable that I will have seed packets with a generous amount of seeds still left in them.

So how long do seeds remain viable? It varies, of course, depending on the species and how the seeds are stored over the winter. A cool dry place is often recommended. Most seed companies will have dates printed on the packages and on rare occasions how long the seeds will remain viable. Otherwise, it might be a good idea to write the date of purchase on the package.

When it comes to annual flowers, they are generally good from one to three years. Perennials, slightly longer, at two to four years. There’s plenty of info on the Net about vegetable seeds:

Bush & pole beans – 2 years

Broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower (along with most brassicas) – 3 to 5 five years

Carrots – 3 years

Sweet corn – 1 year

Cucumbers – 3 years

Leeks, onions – 2 to 3 years

Lettuce – 3 years

Melons – 3 years

Oriental greens – 3 years

Parsley – 2 years

Parsnips – 1 year

Peas – 2 years

Peppers – two years

Radishes – 4 years

Spinach – 1 season

Squashes – 3 to 4 years

Swiss Chard and beets – 2 years

Tomatoes – 3 years

Turnips – 4 years

These are averages and you will likely find some of your favorite seeds either don’t last as long or else far exceed the average given above.

This leads one to wonder what the oldest seed ever sprouted was. So far, it’s been a 2000 year old date palm seed found in the Middle East. Older plant material has been recovered and viable plants grown but not from their seeds, rather from genetic material recovered from inside the seeds, preserved in the permafrost in Siberia for around 31,000 years. Pretty impressive!

With the list above I know when it’s best to toss the old seed and buy new ones. Saving seed from the plants you grow is tricky. This is because many seeds offered in catalogs are F1 hybrids or first generation hybrid. This is nothing new. Farmers and plant breeders have been hybridizing flowers and vegetables long before genetic engineering came about. Crossing two different breeds of the same plant (such as tomatoes) will produce a new plant with characteristics which are combinations of the parent plants and often are more vigorous. The down side of course is that they do not breed true and seeds collected from the hybrid will revert back to one of the grandparent plants which may not have the traits you’re looking for in your favorite veggie. If you want plants which breed true, you need to purchase seed listed as ‘open pollinated’ in seed catalogs.

If you’re only interesting in growing tasty food or attractive flowers, it doesn’t really matter whether you grow F1 hybrids or open pollinated varieties. But if you’re into seed saving then you’re going to have to go with the open pollinated. As concerns about food security grow, there has been an increase in interest on how to save seed, ensuring unique varieties are preserved for future generations of growers.

Whichever choice you make, have fun growing your own fresh flowers and vegetables. Once it’s done snowing of course.

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