First published May 22, 2008

In my mother’s autobiography, I’ll Never Marry A Farmer, she wrote, “I hate to see people go hungry. It hurts, especially when there’s no need for it. We are rich enough to feed everyone, and yet, somehow, we’re not quite smart enough or fair enough to do it.”

No truer words have been spoken. But perhaps there is a solution in our communities. There’s a brilliantly simple program called Plant A Row, Grow A Row that’s designed to reduce the number of incidences of people going hungry in our society.

The premise behind Plant A Row, Grow A Row is to encourage gardeners with a bit of extra garden to dedicate a little space to growing some fruits and vegetables for the food banks. And therein lies the beauty of the program: one doesn’t need to convert an entire yard to vegetable production to make an impact on hunger. All it takes is some collective spirit. If a lot of people dedicate a small corner of their gardens to a few hills of potatoes or to a small row of carrots, it translates into a lot of vegetables that can feed a lot of people.

If you want to give Plant A Row, Grow A Row a try but are wondering what to plant, my suggestion is root vegetables. The reason is simple: they store well.

There is no doubt that many recipients of food hampers would love nothing better than to sink their teeth into a ripe, fresh tomato, but the odds of that tomato becoming tomato paste while it’s stored at the food bank are high. Root vegetables such as carrots, parsnips, rutabaga, onions, potatoes and cabbage (a wannabe root vegetable in my books) will last for several months in reasonable storage facilities. In fact, stored at a low, single-digit temperature, onions and cabbage can easily last nine months.
Two important factors to keep in mind when growing vegetables for the food bank are category and variety. For example, if you are growing an extra row of carrots, choose a variety such as ‘Red Cored Chantenay’ rather than one of the Nantes types. Nantes are sweet and juicy and definitely the best choice for fresh eating, but the Chantenay and Danvers types are more resistant to breakage and store better. The same principle applies to cabbage. Early maturing cabbage varieties tend to be rather loose, split easily and don’t store well. Main season cabbage varieties, such as ‘Blue Thunder,’ are much more dense and rarely split, thus making far better choices for food banks. Similarly, rutabaga (the orange-fleshed winter keeper “turnip”) stores better than true turnip, which is white fleshed.

Regardless of what vegetables you choose to grow, keep in mind that they all do best in a sunny location. It really is that simple. In fact, growing a few extra vegetables doesn’t even require garden space. Pots are excellent for growing carrots, beets and even potatoes. Using soilless potting mix eliminates weeds and yields nice clean vegetables. Soil-free vegetables are not a necessity, but I’m sure they’d be a welcome bonus for the food banks.

Plant a row; grow a row. It just makes good sense. Years ago, I remember Mom saying, “I wish I had all the answers, but I don’t. I try, in my own way, to accept people for what they are and help wherever I can. I just know that we can’t afford to simply throw our hands up in the air and lament that there’s nothing we can do.”

I can’t say with certainty that Mom was referring to feeding those who were hungry, but I’m sure she would have agreed that instead of throwing our hands up in the air, a more intelligent strategy might be to put our hands in the ground and plant a few vegetables. Many hands, they say, make light work, and I couldn’t agree more.

Collectively we have tremendous power. Let’s make this the summer we prove it.

Hits & Misses: Herbs & rebels
Question of the Week: How do I deal with cedar apple rust?
Science & Technology: Free rides

One of the classic mistakes we all make from time to time is not being able to resist a “deal.” You know, like the cedars that your neighbour bought from a parking lot outside a grocery store for a good “deal.” On occasion, these water-stressed, grown-in-too-small-a-pot, half-starved cedars will manage to survive and adapt to your neighbour’s yard, but the odds are that said evergreen will become “everbrown” and need to be removed from the yard sooner than later. Now I can somewhat understand the deal part of the equation, but it’s the rest of the equation that baffles me. Anyone who plants a bad cedar puts zero value on the gas it took to pick the cedar up, zero value on the time and energy it took to plant the bad cedar and then rip it out, and zero value on the time wasted looking at a dead tree. Deal? No deal.

Hits & Misses
Hit: Herbs
Lately I’ve been encouraged by the trend of flower gardeners growing ornamental edibles (such as attractive vegetables) among their prize plants, but I’ve been a bit neglectful of reminding people that herbs, too, are very appealing, not to mention useful in the kitchen. One of my favourite ways to grow herbs and edible blooms is in containers or raised beds placed strategically next to the kitchen door. And planting them in places where their roots are confined means I can enjoy tenacious spreaders like mint without fear of an invasion. I also really like the idea of growing herbs according to their intended use. For example, a pot of lasagne herbs (oregano, basil, sage and thyme), or a Thai pot (lemon grass, cilantro, Thai basil) makes seasoning a snap.

Greek oregano in a decorative container just outside my brother’s kitchen door.

Miss: Rebels
Sweetunia is a series of vegetative petunia that is supposed to be an excellent trailing type for hanging baskets. And for the most part, it is. But just one basket of them has decided to grow straight up rather than down. We’ve kept it in the greenhouse as a bit of a novelty plant and also to see if it will change it ways and straighten itself…down.

Question of the Week
How do I deal with cedar apple rust?

This past week we have been inundated with calls from gardeners about the strange orange “horns” they’re finding on their cedars and junipers. As soon as I hear the words “strange,” “horns” and “junipers” used in the same sentence, I can say with utmost certainty that a disease called cedar apple rust (Gymnosporangium) is to blame. This bizarre disease is a fungus that requires both a member of the juniper family and a member of the apple family to complete its reproductive life cycle. The recent rains we have experienced have created the perfect conditions for the rust that resides on juniper branches to swell to the size of small apples that resemble pompoms with a jelly-like texture. The best treatment to control cedar apple rust is to remove the gelatinous pompoms and to throw them in the garbage (rather than into the compost) to interrupt the spread of the rust spores to apple trees.

Science & Technology
Free Rides
Don’t move firewood! That’s the message I received via mail from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency a few days ago. The reason for the declaration is quite simple. Some serious insect pests reside in wood, and when wood is moved, so to are the pests. One of the bad ones that has reared its ugly head is the emerald ash borer (Agrilus planipennis), a pest that has destroyed millions of ash trees in Ontario and the northern U.S. Restricting its spread begins with not tossing wood into your car or truck and moving it about the countryside. One “innocent” relocation of an infested ash log can result in the death of countless ash trees in a county or region.

Trend Spotting

Judging by the popularity of these huggable topiaries (shaped from moss false cypress), it seems gardeners have remembered that summer is about having fun.

Did You Know?
The marsh marigold (Caltha palustris) produces a colour known as “bee’s purple,” which is invisible to the human eye but irresistible to those of a bee.

“What potent blood hath May.”
–Ralph W. Emerson

Bill Hole’s State of the Industry

I read a recent article that emphasized that women are still the most important consumers of gardening products. I don’t disagree, but I do believe that men enjoy gardening—just in a different way. For example, every year we have a fellow who comes to our greenhouse to buy a potted hot pepper plant for his secret salsa recipe. And every year, he brags about how great his homemade salsa is and how he makes a couple of different batches: one for the heat wimps and one for the asbestos-mouthed gourmets. I love hearing this story. It reminds me that any product can appeal to a consumer when it has a cool factor. My mother often told me about an executive she knew in downtown Toronto, who drove a very exotic car, worked in a high-rise office building and bragged about the tomatoes he grew in his office—how many he got off his plant, how big they were and how often he’d offer his gardening advice to visitors. For him it was cool to brag about his tomato. I wonder what kind of car he drove…

The new Lois Hole Library in Edmonton is due to open this summer and a video tour of the almost completed facility can now be found on youtube.

first published May 15, 2008

Do yourself a favour and take a two-week vacation. No, I’m not suggesting you hop on a plane and leave the country, although I’m sure many of you would jump at the chance. What I’m talking about is seeking out areas of the city that are loaded with spring-flowering trees and shrubs and making a two-week habit of walking around and enjoying their beauty and fragrance.

Spring-flowering trees and shrubs have the same floral development pattern no matter where you find them in the world. The buds burst open in the summer and desperately try to attract pollinating insects before the petals deteriorate and fall to the ground. The display is incredible, but ephemeral, and lasts only a few weeks. But like vacations that are never quite long enough, spring blooms are another short-lived indulgence that you just wouldn’t want to give up.

There are a couple of fundamental differences between trees and shrubs that flower in the spring and those that flower in the summer. Spring bloomers develop their flowerbuds in the summer and fall prior to the spring blooming season. For example, flowering plums develop mature flowerbuds by midsummer but require several months of winter and a few weeks of warm weather the following spring before they will burst into flower. Summer-flowering trees and shrubs develop their flowerbuds on the current season’s growth. For example, the rose flowers that develop in spring of 2008 were grown from scratch on the leafy shoots that emerged from the canes in 2008. Because it takes summer-flowering plants several weeks in late spring to develop leafy shoots and then a bud, they typically bloom after June 20th, whereas spring-flowering shrubs bloom prior to June 20th.

Even though spring-flowering trees and shrubs are at their peak for only a few weeks, you can maximize the duration of the spring blooming season by choosing plants that bloom at different times—some in early spring, some in midspring, some in late spring. If you like the idea of planting successive spring-bloomers, here are a few that should provide you with a blooming continuum from May and right through to the third week of June.

Forsythia

One of the earliest blooming shrubs on the prairies, producing a spectacular display of bright-yellow flowers that emerge prior to leaf formation. Plant in a sheltered site to prevent harsh winter weather from killing the flower buds. It’s a true harbinger of spring. Height: 2–3 m; width: 2–3 m.

Muckle Plum

The extravagant, rosy-pink floral display of this short, slow-growing shrub comes hot on the heels of forsythia. Muckle plums are available as large shrubs or as small trees, making them a great choice for any sized yard. It is also sterile and, therefore, won’t produce fruit. Height: 3–4 m; width: 3–3.5 m.

Double Flowering Plum
Irresistible in full bloom. One of the first shrubs to bloom in spring, its leafless branches are covered with showy rose-pink, double blooms, each nearly 4 cm across. Does not bear fruit, making it a tidy choice for along walkways or decks. Height: 2 m; width: 2 m.

Ornamental Flowering Crabapple
These trees are simply breathtaking in full bloom. Grown for their decorative (rather than edible) fruit, ornamental crabapples are all about blossoms, form and foliage. ‘Spring Snow’ is a particularly nice, midspring blooming variety, producing bright-white, fragrant blossoms but no fruit, making it a perfect choice for planting near a deck or patio. Height: 8 m; width: 6 m.

Hawthorn
Hawthorns are beautiful, compact trees with fragrant flowers, bright-green leaves and sparse red fruit—a perfect choice for a small space. ‘Toba’ has fragrant, double white blooms in midspring that age to rose pink. Height: 6 m; width: 6 m

Dwarf Korean Lilac

This is the consummate spring flowering shrub in our region. It blooms dependably and boldly and has outstanding fragrance. Dwarf Korean lilac has red-purple buds that open to pink in late spring. Makes a great small hedge plant. Height: 1–2 m; width: 1.5–2 m.

The rules for planting spring-flowering trees and shrubs are simple. Choose a sheltered spot that receives full sun, and dig a $100 hole. In other words, you’ve spent money on the tree, so make the planting hole worthy of it. For optimum root growth, make the hole the same height and three times as wide as the rootball, and ensure that the backfill soil is a good-quality loam.

If you don’t have any spring-flowering shrubs or trees in your yard and don’t plan on growing any, my suggestion is to invest in a good pair of shoes and find the spots in your city that are bursting with blooms. Take my word for it; it will be the most inexpensive holiday that you’ll ever take and likely one of the best.

Hits & Misses: Top stock & lanky begonias
Question of the Week: I have thin grass under my spruce tree. Is it possible to thicken it up?
Science & Technology: Golden rice

Who would have thought that a rock legend could also have been an avid gardener? Recently a garden at the Chelsea Flower Show in Britain was dedicated to George Harrison, the late and great guitarist/composer with the Beatles. Apparently, Harrison had an equal passion for both music and gardening and spent a great deal of time tending to his plants between performances and recordings. But, really, being surprised that Harrison loved gardening is giving into a stereotype that should have disappeared long ago. Two of the biggest, toughest guys on my old University of Alberta football team love nothing better than working in their gardens. One of the guys was an all-star lineman in pro ball and is now a corrections officer, while the other is a physician. Gardening, guitars and gridiron? Seems like a good fit to me.

Hits & Misses
Hit: Top Stock
This year’s roses are double the size they were in past years. The secret to monster roses is to start with the best-quality stock, trim as few roots as possible, soak the roots for 24 hours prior to transplanting, and grow them in a large pot with plenty of high-quality soilless mix. The take-home message is this: the roses that are hacked to fit into boxes and bags for transportation to various stores across this continent are nothing short of a travesty. Avoid them at all costs.

Olympiad rose

Miss: Lanky Begonias
Begonias tend to get pretty soft and stretchy if they spend a bit too much time in a greenhouse. Due to a late spring, that was the case for some of ours. As a result we were forced to give a few lanky ones the old heave-ho and introduce them to the compost bin. Fortunately, there are still plenty that look just about perfect.

Question of the Week
I have thin grass under my spruce tree. Is it possible to thicken it up?
The reason the grass doesn’t grow under a spruce is primarily due to the fact that there is too little light reaching the grass. Grass requires full sun, so as the amount of sunlight that the grass receives diminishes, so too diminishes the grasses’ vigour. No amount of water or fertilizer can make up for the lack of sunlight, so the best solution is to either put a layer of mulch around the tree’s base or to grow some shade-loving plants beneath the tree’s canopy.

Science & Technology
Golden Rice
The latest issue of Science magazine has a special section on plant genomes. One interesting story was about Dr. Potrykus, a plant biotechnologist who spent his career developing something called golden rice. Golden rice is a genetically modified rice that had two daffodil genes spliced into its genome so that the normally vitamin A deficient rice becomes vitamin A rich, golden rice. Each year thousands of Third World children become blind from vitamin A deficient diets, and Dr. Potrykus’ dream was that his GMO would bring some relief. But although golden rice was successful biotechnologically speaking, it has failed politically. The anti GMO lobby proved more powerful than expected, and nearly 10 years later, golden rice sits on the scientist’s shelf. The World Health Organization estimates that between 250,000 and 500,000 children go blind each year from vitamin A deficiency and that half of those die within 12 months. Something is wrong here.

Did You Know?
The “white windows” on the leaves of calla lilies exist to reflect dappled sunlight onto the green parts of the leaves.

“A doctor can bury his mistakes but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines.”
–Frank Lloyd Wright

Bill Hole’s State of the Industry
I hate the idea that corn is being used for fueling our vehicles. I have never been able to justify the costs, and the inevitable effects on our food supply just don’t make sense to me. When I was at university studying agriculture economics, it was very clear to me that edible crops, such as corn, weren’t the best choice for bio-fuels, either economically or culturally. When farmers begin growing crops not to feed the world but to feed our need for energy, we are on a slippery slope. The primary use for food crops should always be to feed the people on this planet—not to transport them. Corn requires enormous amounts of water and nutrients, such as nitrogen. There are many other plants that have potential as bio-fuels but corn, in my opinion, is not one of them. In the inevitable battle between food and fuel, I am concerned that the energy giants will win.

first published May 8, 2008

There’s been a lot in the news lately about “traditional” pesticides, “organic” pesticides, “eco” pesticides and even “cosmetic” pesticides. When pesticides were first discovered, they held the exalted position of protecting humankind’s interests, but very quickly, and largely through misuse, they became vilified. Today the pervasive attitude in society is that there is mixed bag of pesticides, some good, some bad, which explains why we have so many ways of describing them.

Separating the good pesticides from the bad is a worthwhile exercise, but not a simple one. And arbitrary categories like traditional and cosmetic do little to enlighten gardeners about what their best choices are. For example, you may think you have a clear understanding of what cosmetic is, but is “cosmetic” defined by what it is or by what it kills? For example, both 2,4-D and acetic acid (the chemical that gives vinegar its sour taste and pungent smell) will kill certain types of weeds, but I’m willing to bet that 2,4-D is labeled as a cosmetic pesticide (meaning it controls aesthetic pests, like dandelions), while vinegar isn’t.

To my way of thinking, its best to take a step back from the pesticide categories and define what a pesticide is in the first place. Quite simply, a pesticide is nothing more than any product that kills what we humans deem to be pests. Chemically speaking, pesticides cover a lot of territory. I remember sitting through many university lectures on pesticides and finding it fascinating how incredibly diverse their chemical structures were. Historically, and even today to a certain degree, a pesticide’s destiny was not preordained. Sometimes it just happened to pass the bug-killing screening test in the lab, and after years of efficacy and safety testing, officially became labeled as a pesticide.

Now, as I jockeyed about the definition of a pesticide, a slightly twisted thought came to mind. If there is such a thing as cosmetic pesticides, then could there also be such a thing as pesticides made from cosmetics? To test that theory, I headed to a local drugstore and gathered up some perfume and nail-polish remover to see if cosmetics and pesticides had anything in common.

My test subject was Bergenia (a broad-leafed perennial, commonly called elephant’s ear) that was loaded with aphids. Now because I am a certified pesticide applicator for both greenhouse and landscape and I was keeping an open mind about what constitutes a pesticide, I decided to treat the bottles of cosmetics no differently than I would any registered pesticide. Therefore, my first step was to read the label.

The eau de toilette spray (on sale for $7.49 a bottle!) had a rather long list of “active ingredients,” thirty-seven in total. I have to admit I found the task of investigating the safety data of each ingredient a bit tedious; however, since the spray contained benzyl alcohol, which according to my material safety data sheets is harmful if swallowed or inhaled, I donned my NIOSH (National Institute of Occupational Health and Safety) approved mask before I sprayed the test plant with perfume.

The irony of the gas mask was matched quite nicely with the irony that some of the cosmetic pesticides that I’ve sprayed over the years have fewer toxic ingredients than what was contained in the perfume.

The results of applying the perfume were quite impressive. Aphid mortality was 100 per cent after 24 hours. On the negative side, however, the Bergenia looked like it might die along with the pests. The nail-polish remover’s results were equivalent to the perfume in aphid mortality, but its powerful solvents wreaked even more havoc with the plant’s glossy foliage than the perfume.

Now, as you’ve probably guessed, I’m being more than a bit facetious about using cosmetics as pesticides and would never actually suggest using cosmetics for anything other than personal grooming. But the fact that the two disparate categories of chemicals share some common ground is interesting.

Obviously, cosmetics have been thoroughly tested for human safety, and the fact that they kill some bugs doesn’t imply that they have any adverse affects on people. But the point is that corporate spin-doctors can make one product look good and another bad without much scientific justification.

The important thing to remember with pesticides is that whether they are cosmetic, eco or any other category, talking to trained people about what your options are for pest control is still the best first step. I can guarantee that I could walk down virtually any aisle of any hardware or drugstore and find products that aren’t registered as pesticides but that are “pesticides” nonetheless.

So when it comes purchasing any type of pesticide, its important to find personnel trained in the field of pest control and then to ask the right questions. But then, why wouldn’t we? Scrutiny should transcend all categories.

Hits & Misses: Sweet promises & blotchy nuisances
Question of the Week: Is it too late to prune my apple tree?
The Business: Clothing and Textiles Collection

I am one of the official judges for Western Living magazine’s 2008 Western Designer of the Year Awards. It is truly an honour to see the outstanding portfolios submitted by this year’s finalists. Not surprisingly, there seems to be an eco-friendly slant to all of the submissions, yet none of the designs appear to have been aesthetically compromised. More proof that we can have our cake and eat it too.

Hits & Misses
Hit: Sweet Promises

The popularity of tomato transplants never ceases to amaze me. Year in, year out through heat, cold, rain and even snow, gardeners buy transplants for the promise of that first bite into a juicy, sweet, homegrown tomato. It just goes to show that regardless of how much effort goes into developing tomato varieties for commercial sales in grocery stores, the humble homegrown tomato will always have a place in our gardens.

Miss: Blotchy Nuisances
Some of our passion vines recently developed a strange case of the measles. Yellow blotches began showing up on the foliage several weeks ago, and we received confirmation from the lab that the cause was a virus called potyvirus. Fortunately, the virus doesn’t spread from vine to vine, and it has proven to be more of a nuisance than anything.

Question of the Week
Is it too late to prune my apple tree?

The best time to prune fruit trees is in the very early spring before the buds begin to swell. But the reality is that many commercial apple growers prune throughout the growing season, so removing the odd branch now is not a big deal. However, the key question to ask before you begin is why you are you pruning? If the answer is that you just bought a new pair of loppers and you want to cut something—anything—then I would say test them out on a fallen tree branch. But if you have an apple tree branch that is growing through the fence, by all means cut if off now.

The Business
Clothing and Textiles Collection
Garments of our mother’s that were donated to the University of Alberta’s Clothing and Textiles Collection have been selected to appear in the upcoming exhibition “Marijke’s Choice.” A particular item of interest selected by the retiring collections manger, Marijke Kerkhoven, was Mom’s gardening boots. The exhibition will be on display in the lobby of the Human Ecology Building from May 15 to August 3, 2008.

Trend Spotting

Just because you don’t have a yard doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy a garden. Container gardens, such as this hanging ‘Tumbler’ tomato basket, are more popular than ever. And why wouldn’t they be? Just one of these baskets produces hundreds of sweet, cherry-type tomatoes.

Did You Know?
Only 0 .1% of the sun’s energy is trapped by living organisms. And trees trap 50% of the 0.1%!

“You can’t be suspicious of a tree, or accuse a bird or a squirrel of subversion, or challenge the ideology of a violet.”
–Hal Borland

Bill Hole’s State of the Industry

Every year it’s the same thing. Good plants arrive at chain stores, are placed in bad locations and end up looking ugly. When will the buyers for these stores learn that you can’t treat plants like bags of potato chips? A few weeks ago, one of the grocery stores we shop at received pansies. As is often the case in Alberta, the weather turned and the pansies sat in a warm, low-light area—the worst possible environment. Two weeks later, most of those plants were still there but in much worse shape, having become stretched and soft. When taken home, many of these pansies will die or take weeks to recover from the poor conditions in the store. And this problem is not just relegated to pansies; it happens with many plants sold in stores with inadequate holding facilities.

The solution? There are two: buyers for grocery stores need to stop purchasing plants they can’t take care of, and consumers need to stop buying these plants no matter how cheap they may be. In the long run, it just costs more.