Monday, April 13, 2020

A Short Tree Quiz and Garden Design Considerations


Hello Gardeners!

Here’s another very short quiz about trees. Since National Arbor Day is April 24th, I thought I’d focus on trees this month.  This is a true/false question so you have a 50-50 chance of getting it right.

Can trees communicate with each other?
True or False

If this question stumps you, check out this: Plants and the Internet
Or check out this: Plant Talk?

You may think your trees are just quietly standing in your yard, growing in a lazy oblivion of other plants, but actually it is more like a juicy drama you could watch on TV. Trees are involved with great struggles of life and death every day. They depend on interactions and friend and family networks, similar to people. Mother trees feed saplings and young upstarts wait for the old monarchs to fall so they can take their place in the sun. It’s who you know, not what you know that can spell life or death to a tree.

Now you’re shaking your head and thinking I have never heard a tree talk even in a language I don’t know. But trees and other plants do communicate albeit in a language we cannot hear and at such slow speeds that it would make your internet communication seem like light-year fast.

You need to get past the concept that the only ways to communicate are ways people invented. I’m sure you’ve heard animals communicate by sound or action or at least seen them do that on some nature show on TV, but plants communicate as well. We humans like to think we are above all creatures; animals and plants, but are we?

For those of you who want a quick overview, here’s a less than 3 minute video about plant communication.

I’ll leave you with a quote from one of my favorite books, The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben:

“A tree’s most important means of staying connected to other trees is a ‘woodwide web’ of soil fungi that connects vegetation in an intimate network that allows the sharing of an enormous amount of information and goods. Scientific research aimed at understanding the astonishing abilities of this partnership between fungi and plant has only just begun. The reason trees share food and communicate is that they need each other. It takes a forest to create a microclimate suitable for tree growth and sustenance. So it’s not surprising that isolated trees have far shorter lives than those living connected together in forests.”


April 24th is National Arbor day—Plant a Tree!

Onto the topic intended for the Seed Talk tonight, How to Design a Garden.
You can easily search the internet on how to design a garden and I encourage you to do so. One of my favorite sites for gardening is by Joe Lamp’l’s called Joe Gardener. He has podcasts, video and more. But I selected a few others that may help you.

1. Figure out what you want to grow.
Vegetables, flowers, natives? Once you decide on what you want to grow, look up those plants and find out what type of soil, sun and moisture they require.

2. Where do you want a garden?
Where you place your garden will define the sun, soil and moisture levels you have to work with. When deciding on the location, keep in mind other activities you do in your yard such as recreation activities and outdoor eating. Do you want to see your garden from a window inside your house?
How much work are you willing to invest? It’s always better to start small so you don’t feel overwhelmed come the hot days of summer. Try Ten steps to starting a garden

3. Know your soil.
Is your soil mostly sand, clay or silt? How much organic matter is in your soil? What is the pH of your soil? All good questions when you want to grow vegetables or flowers. To get a soil test see U of MN soil test
No matter the type of your soil, it will always benefit from adding compost.

4. Know how much light your garden will receive.
Most vegetables need full sun, which is 8 or more hours of sun a day. Flowers range from shade to full sun. Placing a tomato plant on the north side of your house won’t kill the plant but you may not get any tomatoes. Planting shade loving hostas in the full sun will result in sun burnt and shriveled leaves. A fun way to map the sun in your yard.
If you’re planting rows of vegetables consider the orientation of the rows to maximize the sun.

5. After you draw up a plan, it’s time to dig and plant. Soon you can be proud of the flowers and vegetables you grew yourself! Remember to keep your plan where you can find it again, so you can practice crop rotation for future seasons.

Seed Distribution

I started up the seed distribution again. The next pickup date is Friday April 17th, from 4-5pm at the White Bear Lake library’s parking lot. I think growing your own vegetables is an essential activity as you are providing food for your family. There are also annual, perennial and native plant seeds available. I will run it the same as I did in March except if you want, I can put your bag of seeds in your trunk when you arrive. An updated list of available seeds is on the blog site. You must pre-order your seeds by sending me an email with your list of seeds by April 17th at noon, wblseedlibrary@gmail.com. You can read the details at the blog site WBL blog site.

I will have another seed pickup on Saturday April 25 from 9-10 am at the White Bear Lake library’s parking lot. To pick up seeds on this date you must have your order in by Friday April 24 at 7pm.

 A note about the Seed Library’s blog site, WBL Seed Library. As it is a blog site the most recent post will be first or the most visible. Previous posts will be under ‘Archive’ on the far right. To find information of the seed distribution and the lists of seeds available you need to look under the ‘Archive’ heading.

 Please consider planting an extra row or plant or two for the seed library! We will especially need pea, bean and lettuce seeds for the next season.
 
Seed talks

Seed talk on April 14, 6:30 pm, How to Design Your Garden
Cancelled. I was not able to get Zoom to work on my computer, but I included some information in this posting.
 
Seed talk, May 12, 6:30 pm, How to Grow Tomatoes with two Master Gardeners
Cancelled, but I will provide some tips for growing tomatoes.

Happy Planting!
Pam

Contact info for the Seed Library:
Blog site: WBL Seed Library


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