My yard is covered in snow, but I am still composting here in Mammoth Lakes. I am composting my kitchen scraps indoors - with the help of compost worms. Coffee grounds, tea leaves, veggie scraps all go in the compost bins. Vermicompost is the official term for composting with worms. Vermicomposting is sometimes confused with vermiculture which is the process of raising worms.
The most commonly used worms for composting are Eisenia fetida, known as "Red Wigglers" or "Red Worms" that you can find in sporting goods stores to be used as fishing bait. You can buy worms at sporting goods stores, online, or get some from a friend who has a vermicompost setup already.
It's not the most lovely of names for such a helpful creature, but do not fear, these are very skinny little worms! I once saw an adult relative run away from an earthworm on the pavement; that really made me laugh but it also pointed out to me that some people think worms are yucky, or even scary. Compost worms, however, are really useful. Communities have reduced waste going to their landfills through composting efforts incorporating vermicomposting. In addition to reducing waste, the product of worm composting, called castings, is a nutrient rich fertilizer and a great soil conditioner. You can add it to your outdoor plantings and to houseplants. It is also easy to create “worm tea” as a liquid fertilizer. Even if you use an outdoor compost pile, vermicomposting is a great option for processing kitchen scraps.
Housing for worms is surprisingly easy to make and also to maintain. My smallest worm bin was a gift over 25 years ago; it takes up about a square foot of space. I have two other bins, the Taj Mahal of worm bins with multiple trays that I won as a door prize (thank you Master Gardeners), and another I put together as a demonstration project. The demonstration bins I made and still use are from plans for a “Cheap and Easy Worm Bin” available on the Whatcom County Washington State University Extension website http://whatcom.wsu.edu/ag/compost/Easywormbin.htm. This is a very simple homemade worm bin using plastic totes. Be sure to get opaque totes as compost worms are sensitive to light. The Whatcom County Extension website also has simple instructions on starting your worm bin and harvesting castings.
Any search on the internet will bring up many enthusiastic articles related to vermicompost, but please don't get the idea it is complicated or difficult. You can even leave the bin and go off on a three week trip without your worms missing you. They just continue to work over what material is in the bin.
The whole process is surprisingly easy and free. Should I have mentioned free earlier? It's really hard to beat free! Once you have purchased your bin and starter worms, the rest is free and the resulting product is a high quality soil amendment that also reduces waste to our local landfill, your plants will love you for it.
In my next articles on vermicompost, I will cover the particulars of maintaining a compost worm bin, using castings and creating worm tea.
Further information including a list of suppliers can be found at www.calrecycle.ca.gov/Organics/worms/WormFact.htm
Another good resource is: http://www.bae.ncsu.edu/topic/vermicomposting/
For information on our local soils go to the section entitled “Eastern Sierra Gardening Info” in the UCCE Master Gardeners of Inyo and Mono counties' homepage at http://ucanr.edu/sites/mginyomono.
What more appropriate house plant than a String of Hearts to help celebrate Valentine's Day? A generous friend of mine who is a lifelong gardener and also a master gardener in our Inyo-Mono Master Gardener group gave me her plant when I expressed interest in the lovely long trailing stems and heart shaped leaves. They are a succulent leaf about an inch wide, with a wonderful grey pattern providing quite a lot of visual interest. The backs of the leaves have a purple hue. Along the stems, the plant also produces funny little flowers which are about a half an inch long and vase-shaped with purple stamens protruding out of the end of the flower. These small flowers start out white, turning purplish as they age.
The botanical name of String of Hearts is Ceropegia woodii, also classified as Ceropegia linearis subspecies woodii. Like many of our fascinating house and landscape plants it originates in Africa where it is found from Zimbabwe to South Africa. The plant was officially collected in 1881 by John Medly Wood. J.M. Wood had many plants named after him, he was a self-trained botanist and, for a span of about 31 years, was the curator of Durban Botanic Gardens which is still an active botanic garden located just outside of Durban, South Africa. J.M. Wood collected the plant which was hanging from rocks, and as house plants they are wonderful in hanging baskets or looped up and over a frame or trained around a circular frame.
Ceropegia are classified in the Apocynaceae Family, Subfamily Asclepidia, the Milkweeds. All of the Ceropegia , scientific name from keros meaning wax and pege meaning fountain, have similar vase shaped flowers leading to common names like Dutchman's Pipe and Wineglass Flower. In their native habitat, the flowers are commonly pollinated by small flies. Tiny hairs on the inside of the flower trap the flies for a short time, the flies pollinating as they work to get out and emerging with pollen on their bodies. As they are fly pollinated, some of the flowers have an aroma only a fly would love, but on String of Hearts I have not detected any bad odor. Other common names for C. woodii are Sweetheart Vine, Hearts Entangled & Tangle Vine due to its ability to tangle each stem very readily. That is a characteristic I can vouch for. I wanted to see how long each stem was on my gift plant, and had quite a wrangle straightening one stem out to measure. Some websites list the stems as growing to 4 feet, but the stem I measured came to just short of 14 feet.
Ceropegia woodii needs a fast draining potting mix or the tubers and roots may rot. A commercial cactus mix works well, adding more perlite or sand to the mix to help with drainage. Water moderately and let the pot dry out between watering. Be careful not to overwater especially in the winter months. They only thrive outdoors in Subtropical and Tropical areas. In the Owens Valley where temperatures are high in the summer a potted String of Hearts may be taken outside to partial shade, but be careful of night time lows as they do not do well in temperatures lower than 60 degrees. In the house provide bright light for 3 to 4 hours per day in full to partial sun, doing well in normal room temperatures in the 60 degree range up to 75 degrees Fahrenheit. They seem to perform well in a crowded pot, so should not need repotting often. When it is time to repot, it is best done in spring, before they really start growing again. During the growing season, fertilize sparingly with a low nitrogen houseplant fertilizer at half strength of usual dosage, this could be done as much as once a month. Common pests are mealybugs, aphids and scale insects. Also watch for these at the soil line where they may go undetected.
Ceropegia woodii has the reputation of being easy to care for, very accepting of neglect and has a wonderful appeal with its cascade of heart shaped leaves. With common names like Hearts Entangled, Sweetheart Vine and String of Hearts who could resist treating your valentine to such a special plant?
Sources:
Royal Horticultural Society rhs.org.uk
SANBI South African National Biodiversity Institute www.sanbi.org
Plants Rescue www.plantsrescue.com/ceropegia-woodii/
- Author: Dustin Blakey
A recent project that I've been working on has made me aware that there is some confusion about how to use hardiness zones.
First, let's talk a bit about what hardiness zones are. Each plant has inherent resistance to a minimum cold temperature in mid-winter. This, more than almost any other factor, determines which plants can grow in a given climate. For example, lemons are not hardy in the Owens Valley. Nor is papaya. The cold weather kills the plants. Can't grow them here. Period.
To get an idea of how cold each locale gets, we use a system of dividing the USA into a series of zones delineated, at 10 °F intervals, by the average minimum annual low temperature for a 30-year period. This map is derived from weather data and is available here. (And elsewhere.) If you're in Zone 7, the average minimum temperature in a year will be 0 °F. Zone 6 is -10°. Most of California is fairly mild due to coastal influences, but we're quite a bit colder so hardiness is important in the Eastern Sierra.
Because of the important role of hardiness in plant selection, it is the primary criterion for plant for most of the USA and Canada. Since we have lots of data on hardiness both in terms of understanding plant species AND the local climate we often find nurseries and catalogues group plants by their recommended zones. Here's an example: One of the nation's largest nurseries, Monrovia, has a plant selection tool for their product line. On the top row of options to filter the catalogue is "USDA Cold Hardiness." There are dozens of similar resources online for woody plants and perennials that you can find on Google.
Looking at my data, the thing that seems to confuse gardeners most is how to put to use the hardiness descriptions for plants. Most catalogues and reference materials will say something like "USDA Zones 4–8." And that's where the confusion creeps in.
I found this plant description I quickly found on the Internet as an example of what's usually encountered:
Marjoram (Origanum vulgare) Zones 4-8
Culinary and medicinal herb
Marjoram is sometimes used to treat minor ailments like cough and sore throat. It's also used in regional Italian and Greek cuisine. Marjoram is related to oregano.
This means the plant is grown successfully in USDA hardiness zones 4 through 8. Whether you grow it in Zone 4 or Zone 8, it is still a plant hardy in mid-winter to -30 degrees F. The reason there is a range is to guide our plant selection. This plant doesn't just grow in Zone 4. It also grows well in Zone 5, 6, 7 and 8! If plants only grew in one zone, then Lone Pine would have entirely different plants than Bishop. But that's not what we see. Why not 9 and above? Well, maybe it is typically too hot overall there in those warmer zones. There's no telling why, exactly, from this. It's a guide of where the plant is commonly grown.
So when you see a plant description that says "Zones 5 to 8" that means it's hardy to Zone 5 conditions (-20°) but it can be grown in Zones 5, 6, 7, and 8. It doesn't mean there is an average hardiness of Zone 6.5 or that we're not sure but it's somewhere between the two extremes.
Generally the safest bet is to chose plant materials that are suitable for both a colder and warmer zone than your location when a span is listed. So If you live in Zone 6, a plant hardy in Zones 4 — 9 is probably a safe bet in terms of cold and heat tolerance.* If a plant just said "Zone 4" and you planted it in Zone 6 it would still be hardy.
In most of California, resources like the Sunset zones are more useful, but here in the mountains Sunset zones can be overly conservative and we have great differences due to elevation in our two counties.
Instead of Zones it would be more useful to have a statement of "Hardy to -10°F" in plant descriptions, but historically we've used this system because it's easy to convey which plants work, and most states have a more homogeneous climate than California.
Now you should be well armed to choose plants for your landscape.
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*If you really like the idea of climate zones, there is also a Heat Zone Map for you to consider as well.
- Author: Alison Collin
Saffron, that most exotic and expensive of spices can be grown commercially only where the cost of the intense labor needed for harvesting can be provided cheaply enough to make the crop cost effective. Much of the modern supply comes from Iran, India, and Spain, but it has a long history having been cultivated in Crete and ancient Egypt. An English town, Saffron Waldon, was so named because it was the center of cultivation in that country during the 16th century.
However, given the right conditions it can be easily and successfully grown in USA zones 5-8 which covers much of the Owens Valley, but one has to be prepared for the challenge of harvesting which is a tedious business! A local gardener grows them successfully in Bishop Community Garden, and even if you don't use them for saffron the flowers are pretty.
The orange threads of the spice are the stigmas (not the stamens) of Crocus sativus, a Fall blooming crocus with violet flowers and yellow stamens. Three long orange stigmas are held in each flower. The flowers are picked as soon as they are well out and are carefully cut open, which enables the stigmas to be extracted with tweezers. It is recommended that these be placed in a dish or on a paper towel to dry after which they should be kept in an airtight container in a dark place since sunlight degrades them. Apparently they do need to be dried before use. When I grew them I tried using them fresh, and found the flavor lacking.
Many catalogs now offer these corms, which should be planted during the dormant season. It takes 75,000 stigmas to produce one pound of saffron, so it is difficult to recommend how many the home gardener should begin with since it depends on expected usage and space available, but it is generally suggested that one should start with about two dozen corms. Make sure that you buy only Crocus sativus which should not be confused with other fall blooming crocus species, or the autumn-flowering Colchicum which is toxic. The corms are fairly large for a crocus, and are dormant in the summer and then send up flowers and narrow grassy leaves as the weather cools — around the end of September in Bishop. After blooming the leaves continue to grow for a time — they are frost hardy — and the bulbs multiply before the plants die down when temperatures heat up the following year. At this point they should be kept fairly dry because they tend to rot if wet, but occasional irrigation might be warranted in our desert climate.
They prefer sandy soil, and should be planted when dormant, about 4” deep and 4” apart in a spot which receives about 6
Interestingly Crocus sativus is an entirely cultivated species which does not occur in the wild. The corms multiply rapidly under ideal conditions, but it is a triploid so it does not set seed since its chromosomes can't pair up properly.
Not only are the stigmas used as a flavoring, but they are also used as a dye for fabric, for making perfumes, and in some places they are used in herbal medicine.
Why not give it a try?
- Author: Jan Rhoades
Ever since a fellow Master Gardener generously gave me some garlic to plant, assuring me that it was easy, I have been planting garlic every fall. And, she was right about it being easy. For the last 4 years, growing garlic has been the extent of my winter gardening. This year, for some reason, I decided it was time to try overwintering onions, mostly, I think, because I have read that this is the best way to grow Walla Walla Sweet onions – a favorite of mine. So, armed with copious research and three kinds of seeds, I put in onions at the same time I planted my garlic. So, anyone reading this, just know that I am inspired to write this piece not as an expert, but as a newbie to the onion scene and in hopes that others with some experience will chime in.
My garlic bed gets prepared once my sweet corn has been harvested – think late August or early September. That garden plot gets the most winter sun --- an important consideration for both garlic and onions. I amend the soil with compost and chicken manure, turn it deeply to make sure the soil is loose and drains well. Then I form raised beds about one foot wide by six feet long. I chose to direct seed the onions because several of the articles I read mentioned that sweet onions started from seed overwinter better and store better than sets. Also, I have never had much luck with sets and I prefer to direct seed rather than start seeds in flats – quite honestly, never had much luck there either.
The seeds came from a reputable supply catalog, I chose Walla Walla Sweet, Top Keeper (a yellow onion), and Desert Sunrise (a red onion). For overwintering, the recommendation is to purchase varieties that are Short Day or Day Neutral – also called Intermediate. Most sweet onions are short day, meaning that they produce onion bulbs when they receive 11 to 12 hours of daylight. By comparison, long day varieties need 14 to 16 hours of daylight – not enough for winter growing. Intermediate and neutral varieties fall somewhere in between these and will work for our latitude. Bulbing onions depend on day length for bulb production. Once the roots and leaves form, the bulb forms when day and night lengths reach the proper number of hours.
The tiny black seeds are planted no deeper than ¼ of an inch and will germinate in temperatures as chilly as 45 degrees F. Just like garlic, onions don't mind a bit of cold or even frost. I did apply mulch, in the form of straw, to both the garlic and onions. They need to be watered until the ground freezes – then just leave them alone until spring! At least, that's what I read.
So, now I am just waiting and watching. Even though it has been quite cold, the onions have been hanging in there. I can see their green shoots poking through the mulch – not as tall as the garlic, but still green and still there. I do go out and check them pretty much every day, just...because. Anyway, like the garlic, the onions are busy doing their underground thing. In the spring, they will begin to grow in earnest and I plan to thin them to about 6 inches apart, hopefully using the thinnings like scallions. Again, like garlic, when the bulbs are ready to harvest, (probably by May) their leafy tops turn brown and they can be gently pulled and allowed to dry before storage and use. Sweet onions don't store for a long time, which is one reason I planted some other varieties. Also, I plan to eat them pretty quickly because I really enjoy onions and, by May, there should be plenty of other veggies growing to enjoy them with.
Well, that's the adventure so far. I promise to let you know how it goes in the spring. Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy rainbow garden dreams with new seed catalogs – green tomatoes, yellow watermelon, white eggplant, purple carrots, red lettuce and blue corn!