The basic premise of organic gardening is that healthy soil will grow healthy plants.  Rather than feeding plants by adding chemical fertilizers to soil, which kills important soil microorganisms and makes the soil nothing more than something to hold the plants up, you need to make the soil itself healthy so the soil can feed the plants.

      Plants that grow in a good healthy organic soil are better able to withstand insect pests, diseases and water shortages.

      There are four things you can do to create healthy soil. 

      The first is to compost.  You can build or buy an elaborate compost bin but that isn’t necessary.  Just pile everything in a back corner of the garden or yard and use a pitchfork to turn the pile occasionally.   Or dig holes in the garden, throw everything in, and fill it back up with soil.  Compost all fruit and vegetable kitchen scraps as well as egg shells.  Also compost yard waste, which means weeds, leaves, grass clippings and plants you pull up from the garden in fall.  Never compost any diseased plant or grass clippings that have been treated with pesticide.  Do not compost meat or bones or manure from any meat eating animal.  Horse, cow, chicken and rabbit manure or okay, but cat and dog droppings are not.

      The second way to create healthy soil is to mulch.  Besides conserving moisture and suppressing weeds, mulch provides a food source for soil microorganisms and earthworms.  The wastes from these soil organisms are better than any fertilizer you can buy.

      Aerating the soil is important for its health.  If you are able, turning the soil over with a spade is the best way to go.  I do this in fall after everything is out of the garden.  I leave the soil in big clumps so the shredded leaves I add later and the winter snows can get deep into the soil.  Before planting in spring I turn the soil again. 

      Using a tiller is fine, but repeated tilling can damage the soil structure and kill a lot of earthworms.  This is why I prefer the gentler method of doing it with a spade.

      The final method used to create healthy soil is to grow cover crops, a.k.a. green manure.  These are crops planted in any space where there is open soil.

      When cover crops are turned into the soil they add crucial organic matter.  Some good cover crops are alfalfa, various clovers, vetch, soybeans, ryegrass, buckwheat, oats and winter rye. 

      Some people plant a cover crop between every row in a vegetable garden to make a green pathway.  I keep a large bag of vetch seeds on hand all year and whenever a crop is harvested I plant the vetch in the space.  The cover crop should be tilled into the soil before it goes to seed. 

      By mid-July in my garden, every inch of soil is covered, either with growing plants, mulch or a cover crop.  The objective is to have no bare soil.  If an area is not being used to grow plants, you should be improving that area with mulch or a cover crop.

      Many people are unsure exactly what is meant by organic gardening. 

      Although it wasn’t labeled as such, organic gardening was practiced way back when the Pilgrims came to Plymouth Rock.  Remember the story of the Indians teaching the Pilgrims to bury dead fish between the corn rows to help the corn grow better? 

      Organic gardening and farming was a way of life until the early 1900s when artificial fertilizers and synthetic pesticides were first produced.  Following World War II, much of the technology developed for use in the war was brought home and applied to farming methods.  After the war, chemical farming became the predominant method used in North America and Europe.

      However, a few people began to realize that when a chemical short-cut is used to achieve a gardening goal, you get a short-term solution carrying with it a bunch of negative side effects.  When Rachel Carson published Silent Spring in 1962 many more people became aware of the horrible things they were doing to the earth and to themselves by using chemicals on their farms and in their gardens.  Yet forty years later, people are still dissolving boxes of blue chemicals in water and sprinkling poison on their gardens.

      People seem to know more about what organic gardeners don’t do than what they do do.  Organic gardeners don’t use chemical pesticides or fertilizers.  They do try to emulate what Mother Nature does in the natural ecosystem of a meadow or forest.  They realize that nature’s cycle of growth, death and decay is continuous.  As plants and animals die, earthworms, insects and microscopic soil creatures consume them and nutrients are released to feed the next generation of plants.  This is called composting.

      Organic gardeners keep an eye on their gardens so that if a pest or disease problem develops it can be taken care of before it becomes severe.  They also realize that all the bugs they see in the garden are not their enemies.  There are many good bugs that eat bad bugs.  Organic gardeners learn to grow plants to attract the good bugs.

      If you are not yet an organic gardener but would like to be one, it may seem like a lot of work and learning is ahead.  But it really is quite easy and you don’t have to do it all at once.

      First, take your bags, bottles and cans of synthetic yard and garden chemicals to the Hazardous Waste collection site in your county.  Then, rake up this year’s leaves, shred them with your mower, and spread them on your garden beds.  If they haven’t decomposed entirely by spring, dig them into the beds.

      You don’t have to mix up your own potions to be an organic gardener, and don’t even have to make your own compost, although all that can be fun.  You can buy just as many bottles and bags of organic fixes as you used to buy synthetic ones from Gardens Alive (www.gardensalive.com). 

      Organic Gardening (www.organicgardening.com) is an easy-to-read and educational magazine to which you can subscribe to learn more.

      October is bulb planting month.  As hard as it is to think ahead over the long winter to come, you’ll be glad you did in spring when you see the first shoots of the bulbs you plant now poking out of the soil.

      Bulbs should be planted 2 ½ times as deep as they are tall.  For example, if a bulb is an inch tall, dig the hole so that when the bulb is placed in the bottom, the top of the bulb is about 2 ½ inches from the soil line.  Look carefully at the bulb to determine which end is up.  There will be tiny roots or little knobby bumps at one end; the other end will be more pointy.  The pointy end goes up.  If you can’t tell which end is which, lay the bulb on its side in the hole and it will figure out for itself which way is up when it starts to grow. 

      There are many options for spring bulbs besides tulips, daffodils and crocuses. 

      Hyacinths are extremely fragrant spring flowers which come in white, pink, red, yellow, orange, blue, purple and every color in between.  They are very formal looking and are good for the front of a border.

      Grape Hyacinths, or Muscari, are a variation and resemble upside down clusters of grapes.  They come in white, blue and purple and are good for naturalizing, for borders, or for highlighting other spring flowering bulbs.

      The Wood Hyacinth, also called Spanish Bluebells, has clusters of delicate bell-shaped flowers in pink, blue and white.  They are a little looser or less formal than a traditional hyacinth.  Wood Hyacinths grow 8–12 inches tall and are excellent for borders, naturalizing and rock gardens.

      Indian Hyacinths are American natives that have blue or violet flower spikes set with starry blossoms.  They grow 12-24 inches tall and do well in moist, partially shaded locations making them ideal for naturalizing by ponds or in light woodlands.

      Possibly the first bulbs to bloom in spring are Snowdrops.  They sometimes appear even before the snow has melted.  White butterfly-shaped blooms ignore the cold and nod on 4-6 inch stems.

      Another early bloomer is Glory of the Snow.  Sparkling sky blue flowers with white centers are produced in profusion in March and April, with 6-12 starry flowers to a stem.  They multiply freely year after year.  Glory of the Snow grows only 4-8 inches tall and does well in sun or partial shade.

      If you miss the snow in late spring, plant Summer Snowflakes.  These clump-forming plants produce a profusion of 12-20 inch stems that each bear several faintly chocolate-scented inch-long white bells accented with green tips.  They should be planted in full sun or light shade.

      Nothing compares to drifts of bright blue scilla for early spring color.  They naturalize beautifully making them ideal for mass plantings and edgings.  The foliage is grass-like and unobtrusive and they grow 6-8 inches tall. 

            Many of the above descriptions say the bulbs naturalize well.  This means that they will divide and reproduce themselves and spread.  Many people plant these bulbs right into their lawns as they flower before the grass needs cutting in the spring

      The zinnias that grow in my garden are the grandchildren of those that grew in my mother’s garden forty years ago.  She saves seeds every year to plant the next year and when I planted my first garden eighteen years ago she gave me some zinnia seeds to get me started.  I have continued to save zinnia seeds each year to replant the next. 

      Saving seeds is an enjoyable autumn activity that can be done right up until the first hard frost.  Seeds can be saved from many flowers, fruits, vegetables and grasses.  Some seeds are more difficult to collect than others but the rewards of collecting your own seed and growing them the following year are well worth the effort.

      Seeds should be collected only from vigorous, healthy plants.  It’s a good idea to mark the plants from which you wish to save seed when they are at their peak earlier in the season by putting a twist tie or string on the stem.  This ensures that you won’t accidentally pick that perfect flower for a bouquet and that you’ll remember to rescue a tomato or two before the rest go in canning jars.

      Seeds should be saved only from self-pollinated plants.  These include most flowers, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, beans, peas and lettuce.  Seeds from plants like pumpkins, zucchini, squash, cucumbers, melons, gourds, corn, radishes, kohlrabi and broccoli cross pollinate and the plants grown from saved seeds won’t be exactly like the parent plant and will probably be inferior.

      Seeds should be allowed to dry on the plant before collecting.  In most cases this is easy.  Just cut or snap off the seed head or pod after it turns brown.  However, some plants have seed pods that burst when they become ripe or have very small seeds.  For those plants, tie a paper, nylon or muslin bag upside down securely around the stem when the seeds are just starting to dry.  When dry, cut the stem and shake the seeds into the bag.  This method is necessary for many wildflowers and native plants

      After collection, spread the seeds out on a newspaper for a week or two for further drying.  Tomato seeds need a bit more preparation.  They are covered with a gelatinous material which must be removed before storage.  Place the tomato seeds in a jar of water and let them ferment for 2 – 3 days.  Shake the jar a couple times a day.  On the third day, add more water and shake again.  The good seeds will sink to the bottom and the scum will rise to the top.  Remove the good seeds and dry them on a screen for about a week before storage.

      After dry, seeds should be stored in Ziploc bags or glycine envelopes and labeled with the name of the seed and year of collection.  A cool dry environment is best for storage.  If there is room in the refrigerator, place the seed bags in a jar or ice cream bucket and store it in the back until spring.

      The appearance of peonies marks the transition from spring blooming perennials to those of early summer.  The fragrant pink, white, and now yellow, blooms begin their show in early June and it continues into early July.  The end of summer, however, is when peonies should be planted, divided or moved. 

      The timing is providential since it is easier to find the perfect spot for peonies in late summer when surrounding plants have grown to their full size.  Even experienced gardeners underestimate how big plants will actually get when planting or dividing in spring when all there is to look at is little shoots or buds.

      Before planting, dividing or moving peonies, take a walk around your yard to determine the best spot for them.  They do best in full sun, but will do okay with light afternoon shade.  They need a lot of space – they should be centered at least three feet in every direction from other plants.  Peonies need a fertile, well-drained, but not dry, soil. 

      The thick, fleshy roots of peonies will have pointed pinkish new shoots, or eyes, on them in late summer.  Dig a hole 8-10 inches deep and plant with the shoots no more than two inches below the soil surface.  Water well and make sure that the roots haven’t sunk too deeply into the loose soil.  If they have, lift them up and reset them at the correct depth.  Planting too deeply is the most common reason for failure to bloom. 

      Peonies will grow well for many decades, but if blooms get sparse, the plants may need dividing or moving.  Possibly the roots have become too crowded, or maybe the landscape has grown up around them and they are in too much shade.  Lift the plants in late summer and cut the roots into sections with 4-5 eyes each.  Replant as described above.

      The first winter after planting, cover the area with a mulch such as pine boughs or straw to prevent frost heaving. 

      New plants may take several years to bloom, and after dividing or moving a plant, it may not bloom for a year or two.  Be patient and you will eventually be rewarded with huge blooms.

      The price of peonies ranges widely.  Jung sells several varieties for $6.95 each.  The most expensive peony Jung sells is a yellow one for $69.95. 

      When purchasing peonies, there are two variables to consider:  appearance and fragrance.  Peonies are grouped into categories called single, semi-double, and double. Single peonies have a ring of five or more petals around a central ring of stamens; semi-doubles have several rings of petals around the stamens; and doubles have many concentric rings of petals and no visible stamens.  Looking at pictures of peonies is sufficient to determine which you prefer.  As for fragrance, if the plant description doesn’t mention fragrance, you can assume that it really isn’t worth mentioning.  If you’ve ever inhaled the sweet scent of a June peony, you probably won’t want to buy a plant whose description doesn’t mention fragrance.

My first, and still favorite, gardening book, Wisconsin Garden Guide, by Jerry Minnich, devotes a full page to preparing your garden so you can have a worry-free vacation and return home to find your garden doing just fine.

      With just a few hours of preparation before leaving on vacation you can avoid coming home to find zucchini the size of watermelon, broccoli and lettuce gone to seed, and weeds overgrowing everything.       

      First, remove all spring crops from the garden.  Those are peas, lettuce, radishes and spinach and other salad greens.  A short hot spell will render them worthless anyway.  As soon as you return home you can use the space to plant beans, carrots or late cabbage.

      Next, pick all the blossoms from beans, zucchini and cucumbers.  While you are gone, the plants will be revitalized and send out more blossoms than before and will produce a crop just as large at a time when you are home to gather the harvest.

      If tomatoes are starting to ripen, pick them and wrap them in newspaper.  Store them in the refrigerator and when you return, take them out to ripen on the windowsill.  If left on the plant, they will become overripe and slow the development of younger fruit.

      If there are heads, even small ones, on broccoli and cauliflower, cut them off and freeze them for later use.  Broccoli will form lateral heads that will be ready when you return from vacation.  If you leave the main head on the plant before you leave, it will probably go into full blossom while you’re gone, rendering the plant totally worthless.

      Don’t worry about root crops such as onions, potatoes, carrots and turnips.  The exception is spring beets which may bolt to seed, ruining the texture of the root.  The beets should be picked and stored in the refrigerator.

      Next, go through the garden and remove any plants or plant parts that look diseased.  Plant diseases can spread quickly and by removing affected leaves and stems you lessen the possibility of a catastrophe occurring while you’re away.

      Remove all the weeds.  Ha!  You knew that one was coming didn’t you?  Do a good job, getting up the entire weed, roots and all.  Then mulch the garden, covering any area where there is bare soil.  For this you can use grass clippings, pine needles, hay, straw or any purchased mulch.

      Finally, if the garden is dry, soak it thoroughly just before you leave, giving it more than the normal amount of water.  If you have been mulching all along, you probably won’t have to water at all.

      I’ve been talking about vegetable gardens so far, but many of the same methods can be used to keep your flower gardens happy while you’re gone.  Weeding, deadheading and a thorough watering are a must.  Any plants in containers should be moved to the coolest spot you can find in full shade and out of the wind.

      Having a friendly gardening neighbor to keep an eye on things for you is a good idea too!

There is more to watering your flowers and vegetables than sprinkling a little water on the leaves.  For healthy growth, most plants need about one inch of water per week and they need that water at root level.

      You must use a rain gauge to determine if your plants are getting the required amount of water.  Don’t rely on what the weatherman says or what you read in the paper.  Rain amounts can vary greatly over just a short distance.  Make sure your rain gauge isn’t under a tree or in the rain shadow of a building or tall plants.  For an accurate reading, the gauge must be out in the open.

      If you need to supplement the rainfall, apply water slowly, deeply and uniformly.  Watering to a depth of five or six inches encourages the growth of deep roots, enabling the plants to seek out water at different levels in the soil.  Deep roots also make the plant more stable and resistant to wind.  For this reason, it is much better to water deeply and less often versus light frequent waterings.  Once every five to seven days should be sufficient if no rain falls.

      You can find out if you’ve watered deeply enough by digging down with a shovel in different parts of the garden to see how far down the soil is moist.

      Another benefit of the deep root systems that develop from deep watering is that if no rain falls while you are gone on vacation, the plants will be better able to survive without supplemental watering.

      It is best to water when the air is still.  Wind will blow away some of the water before it even hits the soil as well as cause quick evaporation of water in the top few inches of soil. 

      The best time of day to water is in the morning when humidity is highest and temperatures are lowest.  A lot of water is sacrificed to evaporation when watering mid-day.  If you can’t water in the morning, the second best time is late afternoon.  Watering in the evening may promote the growth of fungal diseases.      

      Signs that your plants aren’t getting enough water are wilting, curling leaves, stunted growth and retarded fruit development.  Tomatoes suffer blossom-end rot and peppers drop their blossoms if the soil becomes too dry.  Some plants, especially beans and peppers, will wilt in mid-afternoon heat because they are giving off more water than they can absorb.  Don’t worry unless they don’t perk up by again the next morning.  If they don’t, water them immediately.

      There are many watering methods.  Some people set a lawn sprinkler in the garden, others use a hand-held hose or watering can, still others use the most efficient method, a drip or trickle irrigation system.  These consist of soaker hoses full of tiny pin holes and are set on the ground next to the plants.  They allow water to trickle out slowly right where it is most needed with very little lost to evaporation.

      Near the end of June, most all the planting has been done. Besides weeding, the primary garden activity for the coming month is deadheading.

      Deadheading is a not very pretty name for a very pleasant activity.  It means to remove spent flowers from plants before they have time to form seeds. 

      Deadheading is a form of pruning that stimulates the formation of new flower buds.  Plants do their darndest to propagate themselves and when someone comes along and removes the flower before it goes to seed, the plant responds by making more flowers with the hope of having better luck next time. 

      Deadheading is a way of refreshing the plant and lengthening the bloom season.  It also keeps aggressive self-sowers from sowing themselves all over the garden, saving you the effort of weeding them out when the seeds sprout.

      Some annual flowers such as begonias, impatiens, coleus, alyssum, ageratum, lobelia, vinca and salvia do their own deadheading.  The flowers fall cleanly from the plant after fading and do not need to be removed by hand.  Others, such as marigolds, geraniums, zinnias, calendula, cosmos and dahlias need their faded flowers removed by hand.  Perennials that require deadheading include roses, irises, lilies, azaleas, peonies and veronica. 

      Deadheading can be performed with a sharp scissors, a pruning shears, or in some cases with the fingers, depending on the plant. 

      Roses should be cut with a scissors or hand pruning tool just above the last leaf with five or seven leaflets.  Spent daylilies are easily snapped off by hand.  When there are no other unopened buds on the daylily stem, cut the stem at its base. Azaleas and rhododendrons need to be carefully deadheaded by removing the truss of spent flowers immediately after blooming, being careful not to disturb the new bud forming just under the flowers.

      Deadheading roses should be discontinued in early August.  The new growth stimulated by deadheading won’t be tough enough to survive the cold winter, so let the petals fall and allow rose hips to develop.  Rose hips are the round “fruits” that develop when the pollinated flower is left on the bush.  In many cases they turn a bright red or orange in fall.  They are a good source of vitamin C and many people use them to make rose hip tea or jelly.

      If you plan to save seeds from annuals like zinnias, marigolds, calendula and cosmos, stop deadheading around mid-August and let the seeds form.  On cosmos, watch the seed heads carefully and remove them before the seeds get dry enough to fall to the soil or you’ll have a whole lot of cosmos growing in that area next year.

      I usually take go around the yard and garden to deadhead every other day in June and July.  I carry a sharp scissors and an old dishpan to catch the deadheaded flower tops.  By the time I’ve finished the dishpan is brimming with a potpourri of beautiful petals which I then sprinkle onto the top of my compost pile to make it look like a prettily frosted birthday cake.

There’s no doubt that August and September were drought months in our area.  With global warming, there are likely to be more years like this in the future.  As Master Gardeners we need to educate ourselves as to how to help our plants through drought conditions as well as learn what plants are best suited for dry times and then use those plants in planning new or changing landscapes.

      Using mulch is one of the best drought defenses.  A one or two inch layer of wood chips, pine needles, grass clippings, hay or straw will conserve soil moisture for much longer than you would think. 

      When watering, water deeply and less often.  Water evaporates quickly from the top couple inches of soil and most of it will not reach the roots.  If you water a little every day, much of the water is lost to evaporation and there is none left deep in the soil for the plants to draw from.

      Most native plants will do well in times of drought.  They were growing on their own without supplemental water from humans long before we arrived.  There are some native plants that won’t be able to adapt to changing climate conditions as quickly as the changes happen, but as a whole, they will do much better than any other plants.

      This year in Rosemary’s Tree ID class, we have seen many trees very stressed by the drought.  Many of them will not live over the winter or will bud out next spring and then die.  I took the Tree ID class four years ago and when Rosemary said that a tree was drought-tolerant, it was just two more words I wrote in my notebook.  This year, the words have much more significance.

This is a good time to observe which trees are doing well in drought conditions and use those types of trees in your future landscape plans.

      Along with observing the trees, take a walk around your yard and notice which plants are doing well and which you have to water every few days.  Make it a point to include the drought tolerant plants in your future plans.

      Two good books that deal with this subject are Dry-Land Gardening by Jennifer Bennett and Xeriscape Plant Guide by Denver Water and American Water Works Association.  Dry Land Gardening has chapters on Lawns, Grasses and Groundcovers, Bulbs, Perennials and Vines, Vegetables and Annual Flowers, Herbs, Roses and Shrubs.  Xeriscape Plant Guide chapters include Trees and Shrubs, Perennials and Vines, Ground Covers and Grasses, Annuals and Shade Plants.  While neither book is a native plant guide, most plants included are, not coincidentally, native.

      This October, make sure your perennials and trees, especially evergreens, are well hydrated before cold weather comes.  Water continues to evaporate from evergreen needles the entire winter so it is important that they are watered very well before the ground freezes and they are unable to draw up more water through their roots.