Summer of 2022 is a serious drought in Massachusetts. Lots of people and organizations are providing lots of good information about how to help plants survive drought conditions, but few are talking about soil health to combat drought, so I’d like to provide a bit of information to folks about it.
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The day finally arrived – garlic was harvested this morning. Today is also super hot, so we quick harvested and then fast prepped the bed so we can plant carrots tomorrow morning before it rains. In 90 minutes we’d harvested the garlic and done all the prep. Here is a bit of how.
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Norway Maple trees are the trees nobody wants, for good reasons.
Norway Maples on the MA list of species prohibited from sale or propagation, but they reproduce on their own in such great numbers that the idea anyone might buy one seems silly. Go to most people’s yards in the Boston area and you can have dozens for free.
They grow fast, shading out the competition. They also spread roots near the surface in such a thick mat that it can be difficult to dig through with a shovel, let alone for a plant to get a healthy start. And it isn’t just under the drip line. In the photo to the right you can see a 1″ root 26′ away from the tree. At that diameter, the root is certain to go several feet further with dozens of side branches coming off the root and contributing to the dense mat underneath these plants.
Continue readingMy first experience with drip irrigation was as a teenager living on a kibbutz in Israel. I think it was controlled by some sort of DOS based system running on a computer in a hut at the edge of the date fields. Each irrigation line had to frequently be unclogged, the system required constant maintenance and the whole thing seemed confusing and cumbersome.
That’s not the case anymore, especially for home gardens.
Farewell, nasturtium. Our time together has been peppery sweet.
Frost is forecast – here is a quick list of you NEED to do and what you SHOULD do.
What you NEED to do:
Now the longer list of what you probably SHOULD do: