by Umbra Fisk
Dearest readers,
Ah, spring is in the air. Well, sort of. We’re still
technically about three weeks out, but our unusually unwintry weather here at Grist
HQ seems to be duping buds into bloom and setting off an outbreak of early onset
spring fever, which has, in turn, caused mulch, seedlings, watering, and
weeding to infiltrate my thoughts. How I adore digging in the dirt—so much
so that I dug through the archives for some especially delicious gardening
advice from Ask Umbra columns past. Enjoy, and let me know what you’ll be
planting in your spring garden in the comments section below.
An urbivore’s dilemma.
For ye urban container gardeners, don’t
sweat long-term soil buildup of city-dwelling airborne toxins so much as having them land
on your plants. Three solutions proposed by the Cornell Horticulture program
(and others) are: Locate your garden away from a heavily trafficked street,
erect a fence or hedge as a shield, and wash vegetables. But in what, we all
would like to know? In a 1 percent vinegar solution or a 0.5 percent
dishwashing liquid solution (regular old vinegar, regular old dishwashing
liquid). Get the full Ask
Umbra answer.
Smother them
with kindness.
Embrace mulching to suppress weeds, improve
the soil, and/or make an aesthetic statement around trees, shrubs, and other
plants. You can mulch with wood chips, compost, bark, newspaper, straw,
recently weeded plants, all sorts of handy matter. (Note, however, that mulches
do vary in their nutritive properties.) Get the full Ask Umbra answer.
Weed out
the worst ones.
When it comes to weeds, the best defense is
a good offense. All plants, including grass, have places where they thrive
naturally—but lawns made purely of mowable grass are unnatural in most of
the U.S. Plants growing in compacted soil and in unnatural conditions are
unhealthy, and unhealthy plants are the first to be attacked by pests and
weeds. The best prevention is natural lawn care: soil improvement, thatch
removal, overseeding with locally appropriate grass, and appropriate watering. And
if the weeds have already moved in, skip the toxic chemical herbicides to get
rid of them and try this new-fangled technique: weeding! Get the full Ask Umbra answer.
What’s
bugging you?
Got pests? Step one is to figure out what
kind of pest you’re dealing with. Look closely at the plant—you may actually
see the pest in action. If not, note where the damage is happening—on all
leaves, on the oldest leaves, on the stem, etc. Next, onto the web to
investigate your plant’s condition. Then opt for a series of less-toxic
interventions. These include habitat modification (killing the host plant,
removing the places where pests nap, etc.), mechanical control (this includes
squishing and picking off), barrier techniques (deer fence is an example), and
less-toxic pest controls (ladybugs, for instance). Last resort would be the
toxic interventions. Get the full
Ask Umbra answer.
Psycho grass killer. Qu’est-ce que c’est?
Live in a dryer climate and/or don’t want to
deal with the hassle and waste of a large lawn? Kill it! Or more technically,
xeriscape it. For befuddled readers, a xeriscape is a water-saving garden. Ditch
the grass by digging it up with a garden fork, patiently waiting for sheet
mulching to do the trick, or rototilling it like nobody’s business (getting a
pretty hefty workout in the process). Get the full Ask Umbra
answer.
Fertilely,
Umbra
Related Links:
Ask Umbra on down comforters, soapy gray water, and canned tomatoes
Garden Girl TV: indoor gardening, part two
Garden Girl TV: Indoor gardening, part one
