With all the snow that’s already fallen this winter, the foods that birds can scavenge on their own are mostly covered.  You can help them out by filling your bird feeder with purchased seed, but it’s more fun to make homemade bird treats.  Some of these make great gifts for bird lovers as well.

      The easiest treat is made by smearing peanut butter on a pine cone and rolling the cone in bird seed.  Hang the cone on a tree branch or tuck it in the crook where two branches come together.

      Suet, which is the fat trimmed from meat, can be purchased in the meat department at grocery stores.  If you don’t see it out for sale, ask at the meat counter.  Suet needs to be melted in a double boiler or slow cooker until it is mostly liquid for the following recipes.

      *    Use a cookie cutter to cut bell shapes from pieces of stale white bread.  Dip the bells in melted suet, and then press them into birdseed.  Poke a hole in the tops of the bells and push a cord through for hangers.  When they harden hang them outside from a tree or shrub branch.

      *    Melt 1 cup suet and stir in 1 cup each of peanut butter, oats and cornmeal until evenly combined.  Use a knife to press the mixture into the creases of a pine cone and then roll the cone in birdseed to cover evenly.  Place the cone on a piece of wax paper until it hardens and then hang it outside.

      *    Cook 3 ½ cups of oatmeal.  Stir in 1 lb. melted suet, and 18 oz. peanut butter.  Add 3 ½ cups each cornmeal and cream of wheat.  When cooled enough to hold together, shape into balls.  Let harden and place the balls in a mesh onion bag and hang the bag in a tree. 

      *    Use the same recipe as above, but use cookie cutters as molds.  Place cookie cutters on a baking sheet lined with wax paper.  Spoon the mixture into the molds, lay a looped string into the mixture and press evenly down.  Place in the refrigerator for several hours to harden before hanging outdoors.

      *    To make birdseed wreaths, grease 3 four-inch mini bundt pans.  Boil 6 T. water in a microwave.  Pour 2 T. cold water in a large mixing bowl and add a ¼ oz. package of unflavored gelatin.  Allow it to stand for one minute and then add the boiling water.  Stir until gelatin is completely dissolved.  Stir 2 cups bird seed into the mixture and combine thoroughly.  Spoon the mixture into the bundt pans and refrigerate for at least five hours.  Pop the wreaths out of the pans and tie them onto branches.

      Birds may not immediately flock to your treats.  Sometimes it takes them a few days to get accustomed to a new area before they feel it is safe to come close enough to sample your new offerings.

Take the time now to prepare your yard and garden for winter.  When spring comes you’ll be glad you did.

      Cut the grass short to discourage voles and mice from making nests below the snow.  Rake leaves out of areas where they pile up and shred them with the lawn mower for free lawn fertilizer.  They will decompose to feed the soil and will be gone by spring.

      An exception to this is the leaves of fruit trees or grapes.  They should be raked and removed from the area so that leaf diseases aren’t encouraged to stay around for next year.

      If there isn’t sufficient rain, water evergreen plants deeply before the ground freezes.  Evergreens continue to transpire water from their needles all winter and this last chance for a good drink is it until the ground thaws in spring.

      After the ground is frozen, place a winter mulch such as pine needles, pine boughs, shredded leaves, straw or other light material around all young perennials.  Also mulch around any tree, shrub or perennial where the winter sun shines directly on the root zone.  The point of the mulch is to prevent the soil from repeated freezing and thawing which damages the roots.  Do not put mulch down before the ground freezes because that’s like putting a welcome sign out for mice to come and build their winter homes.  They’ll enjoy snacking on the stems or bark of your plants as well.

      There are sprays you can buy to repel rabbits from your plants, but if you truly value a certain plant, fencing is the only sure thing.  Chicken wire is relatively inexpensive and is easy to cut and place around trunks or stems of vulnerable plants.  In spring it can be removed and rolled up to be used again in future years.

      The trunks of young trees, especially fruit trees, should be wrapped so the low winter sun doesn’t scald the bark.  Inexpensive brown paper tape is available at garden centers for this purpose.

      Wait until January or February to prune fruit trees or vines.  Pruning is a growth-promoting process and a week of warm weather in December could jump start growth that will be killed by cold weather to follow.

      After the ground freezes, pile fresh top soil 8-10 inches high around rose bush stems.  For even more protection, surround the mounded soil with chicken wire and stuff the inside with leaves, hay or straw.  If you decide to protect your roses with styrofoam rose cones, puncture several 1-inch holes around the top so that air can circulate inside.  You must remember to remove the cones on warm spring days or the roses will cook inside them.  Be ready to put them back on, however, if a cold snap is in the forecast.

      It was late summer and I just wanted to grow something, anything.  It was too late to plant seeds outdoors.  I’d been thinking about growing alfalfa sprouts for years, but thought it was too complicated.  It turns out it is easy, fun and best of all, fast.

      Sprouts can be grown on your kitchen counter top in a quart canning jar with a mesh screen or even a piece of pantyhose stretched across the top.  Use a canning screw top or a thick rubber band to hold the mesh in place.  The point is to be able to drain water out of the jar, but keep the seeds inside.

      If you want to spend more money on the project, all manner of sprout growing equipment can be found on the internet. 

      Seeds for sprouting can be purchased at most health food stores, by mail order from garden seed companies or over the internet.  I bought a pound of seed the first time, and that is going to last for a very long time!  

      Some of the kinds of sprout seeds available are alfalfa, clover, radish, broccoli, sunflower, mustard, onion, mung bean, soy bean, and lentil.  For my first time, I bought a mix of several kinds of seed.

      Here’s what to do.  Put two tablespoons of seed in a quart jar and fill the jar about half full of water.  Soak the seed for 8–12 hours.  Drain the water out through the screen top.  Every 8–12 hours for five or six days, rinse the seed by running water into the jar and swishing it around before draining it out again.  To keep the seed from clumping together, roll the jar a bit so the seeds cling to the jar sides. 

      The sprouts will germinate by the end of the second day and get bigger each day.  It is not necessary for the jar to be in the sun or even bright light.  On the last day, though, set the jar in the sun for 15-30 minutes so the sprouts green up.  If the sprouts are clumped tightly together, loosen them with a fork or your fingers before setting them in the sun so the light can reach more of them.  Refrigerate the sprouts after the sun treatment.

      Ideal growing temperature is 70 degrees, but my house isn’t that warm and they grow just fine.  Lower temps result in slower growing sprouts while higher temps make them grow faster.  When the room temperature is very warm, be sure to rinse the sprouts every eight hours.  Warm air and the heat produced by the growing sprouts themselves can encourage the growth of disease organisms.   If you smell an “off” odor, discard the batch and start over in a clean jar.

      Sprouts are highly nutritious.  They provide vitamins A, B, C, E and K, calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, zinc, carotene, chlorophyll, amino acids, trace elements and protein.

      You may be ready to hang up your gardening tools for the year, but there is one more task to complete yet this year if you want a beautiful early spring garden.  Mid-October is bulb-planting time. 

      Flowers like tulips, daffodils, crocuses, muscari, hyacinths, alliums and scilla all grow from bulbs.  They can be planted in and around established flower beds or comprise their very own spring flowering bed. 

      As in any flower bed, the taller bulb plants go in the back and the shorter ones in the front.  In the back you might place alliums, daffodils and tulips, while hyacinths fill in the middle and crocuses and snowdrops line the front.  Most of the bulb plants, except allium, bloom early in spring and will be up before any of the other perennials in the flower bed. 

      After bloom, the foliage from bulb plants must be left in place to die down so the leaves can produce food to nourish the bulb for the next year, so plant them in back of another perennial or behind where you plan to plant some annual flowers.  The later growing plants will hide the dying foliage.

      Unless you have an extremely formal landscape, avoid planting the bulbs in straight rows.  They look more natural planted in drifts, or at least in groups of five to seven plants. 

      Crocuses bloom first, followed by daffodils and then tulips.  Each of these plants has early, middle and late blooming varieties.  With a little planning you can have an extended overlapping season of bloom.  Read the package, or the catalog description if you are mail-ordering, for bloom time.

      For a natural effect on your lawn, take a handful of bulbs and toss them gently on the grass.  Plant each bulb where it falls.  Although this works with any of the bulbs, crocuses and muscari are best for this technique as most people begin cutting their lawns long before the foliage of tulips and daffodils dies down.

      When shopping for bulbs, look for firm healthy looking ones.  Don’t buy them if they have soft spots or rot.  It’s okay if the papery outer layer falls off or peels away.  Even though the bulbs are dormant, they are living things, so handle them gently.

      Plant bulbs pointy-side up with the point about 2 ½ times as deep as the bulb is tall.  For example, a 2” tall bulb would be planted so its growing tip is 5” below ground.  There are tools at the garden center for individual bulb planting, but it is easier to dig a large hole and set five or more bulbs firmly around on the bottom.  Toss in a handful of bulb food or bonemeal.  Refill with soil, water well and wait for spring!

      Its name is rather off-putting for someone who wants to grow a nice plant, but dead nettle is a pretty solution for the oft-asked question, “What can I grow under my trees in the shade where grass won’t grow?” 

      Nettle implies something prickly or spiny, and dead, well dead implies dead.  Dead nettle is neither prickly nor dried-up dead.  Although the leaves have a superficial resemblance to other nettles, the “dead” part of its name refers to the fact that there are no spines or prickles.  Maybe they ran out of good names by the time they got to this one!  In any case, the Latin name is Lamium pronounced “LAY-mee-um.”

      Silvery or gray-leaved plants are useful in the garden.  Their neutral colors can balance and unify many different colors and provide a sense of cohesiveness.  There are very few silvery or gray-leaved plants that thrive in the shade, but there are some dead nettle cultivars whose silvery leaves provide a spark of brightness to shady areas.     ‘Herman’s Pride’ has green leaves with heavy streaks of silver and small yellow flowers.  Leaves of ‘White Nancy’ and ‘Beacon Silver’ are silver with a thin green border.  ‘Nancy’s flowers are white and ‘Silver’s are pink.  ‘Chequers’ has green leaves with a wide silver stripe down the center and purplish pink flowers.  ‘Pink Pewter’ has pink flowers as does ‘Aureum’ whose leaves are variegated with yellow instead of silver.

      Dead nettle thrives in spots where nothing else will grow.  It competes well with tree and shrubs roots so it is good for those dry shady spots.  It also does well along the north side of buildings, even in poor post-construction soil.  Dead nettle is a ground cover that grows 8 – 18” tall and spreads slowly but indefinitely.  Most dead nettles, except for ‘Herman’s Pride’ are on the shorter end of that range.

      Propagation is easily done by division in spring or fall.  No need to be careful; these are tough plants.  Just dig up a piece with some roots attached and move it to where you want it.  Stick it in the ground, give it a good watering and watch it grow. 

      Dead nettles are in the mint family so they can become invasive in moist, fertile soil.  They pull out easily, however, if they happen to grow where you don’t want them. 

      Dead nettle dies to the ground each winter and comes back again in spring.  The leaves of the young plants are edible and can be used in salads or stir-fries.

      Alan Jackson sings, “If money grew on hackberry trees . . . that’d be all right.”  Ever wonder what a hackberry tree looks like?

      Hackbery (Celtis occidentalis) is one of the most versatile shade trees.  It is related to the elm and in fact grows in the vase form of the elm, but just a little wider.  Hackberries grow fast and tall in the Midwest.  The record-holder tree is 94 feet tall and more than six feet in diameter.  Hackberries on poorer soil grow 40 to 60 feet tall.  They are very tolerant of drought, air pollution and short-term flooding, but these factors make them grow more slowly.

      The most notable feature of the hackberry is the bark – it has grooved and corky warty bumps over a smooth gray background. 

      The leaves look like those of stinging nettle and turn a variable greenish yellow in the fall.  Spring brings inconspicuous greenish flowers.  Small fruits follow the flowers and turn orange-brown and then purplish black in late summer, reaching the size of a garden pea.  The thin, leathery layer of flesh that surrounds the hard seed has a raisin-like taste that birds love.  Butterflies are also attracted to hackberries.

      Hackberries will adjust to almost any site, but ideal conditions are rich, deep soils with a neutral to basic pH, adequate moisture and sun.  Seeds (from the fruits) can be sown in fall.  Hackberries transplant easily but will take a year or two to recover.

      There are few problems with hackberries.  They are subject to leaf galls and mosaic diseases but neither is serious.  Some species are allelopathic, like black walnuts are, meaning their roots give off compounds that inhibit germination or seedling growth of other plants, so some other plants may not flourish in hackberry root zones.

      The most important problem is susceptibility to decay which begins after damage from storms or improper pruning.  Learning proper pruning techniques and making sure to prune off any storm damaged branches should take care of this problem. 

      There are just a few cultivars to choose from.  The ones most resistant to storm damage are ‘Prairie Pride,’ ‘Chicagoland,’ and ‘Windy City.’  All were developed in Illinois.  There is also a dwarf variety called Celtis tenuifola.  It is a good specimen for a small yard or terrace and is one of the most suitable decorative trees for raised planters or large containers.

      Hackberry trees are often mentioned as one of the best food and shelter trees for wildlife.

Make next year’s garden great by getting ready now

      Now is the time to make plans for next year’s garden.  There are many things you can do in fall in ensure that your next garden is the best ever.

*    Find a source of cow or horse manure and spread it on the garden this fall.  Manure should be aged at least six months before planting.

ü      If you have or plan on planting acid-loving plants like azaleas, blueberries or pines, add peat moss to your soil this fall.  Peat moss acidifies soil but it needs some time to work so it is best to add it well ahead of planting.

ü      Leaves that fall from your trees can be chopped with a lawn mower or leaf shredder or placed in a large garbage can and shredded with a string trimmer.  Leave them on the lawn as a free source of nitrogen or till them into the garden to add nitrogen and organic matter.

ü      If you plan on adding any garden structures like a compost bin, pathway, pergola, raised beds, or bench, install them now.  It is easier to place them properly when all the plants are growing in fall than to guess where they should go in spring.  You’ll always underestimate how big nearby plants will get. 

ü      If you had problems with blossom end rot on your tomatoes this year, your soil is calcium deficient.  Save your eggshells over the winter and place them in the planting holes next spring.  Just rinse the shells, let them dry and crush them.  Keep them in a zip-loc bag or Tupperware container until spring.

ü      Buy hay or straw bales now.  Use them for fall yard displays and save them for mulching around plants next year.

ü      Rake and fill garbage bags with long pine needles.  Use them next spring for mulch around plants or on garden paths.

ü      If your spring garden was kind of blah, plant bulbs of tulips, daffodils, hyacinths and other spring bloomers around October 15.

ü      Water all evergreen plants well every week until the ground freezes.  Evergreens transpire (water evaporates from the needles) all winter long.  With the lack of rain this past month, soil moisture is very low so the plants need to be hydrated as much as possible.

ü      Make notes of changes you want to make for next year, plants you want to divide or move, new plants you want to add and landscaping ideas.  Winter is long and you really will forget some of your great plans by next spring!

      It’s hard to have missed the news articles over the past several years on the many health benefits of flaxseed oil.  The omega-3 fatty acids in flaxseed oil help lower cholesterol and blood pressure.  Other parts of the plant are also useful – the fibers are used to make linen cloth, high quality paper and rope.  The seed produces linseed oil which is used as a drying agent in paint and varnish and in making linoleum floors. 

      Flax is also a wonderful plant for the perennial flower garden.  The inch-wide five-petaled flowers are sky blue streaked with darker blue lines and float above stiff, wiry two-foot tall stems with needle-like leaves.  The flowers bloom from May to September and even into October or November if the fall is mild.  Each flower lasts only one day, but there are so many stems that there is never a day without flowers. 

      Flax is a tough, long-lived plant.  It grows in pretty much any well-drained soil in full sun or light shade.  The plants don’t require division and need watering only in extreme drought.  Once established, flax needs very little care other than cutting it down in fall, which is easily done with a hedge clippers.

      You could transplant a clump of flax from a friend in early spring, but it is just as easy to grow from seed.  Don’t waste your money buying a half teaspoon or so of seed in a packet and paying a couple dollars for it.  Instead, buy flax seed in bulk at the grocery store for about $1.59 for a whole pound.  Yes, this is the same flax seed you buy for using in baking or sprinkling on your yogurt. 

      In spring, broadcast the seed on the soil and cover it with about a quarter inch of fine soil.  Keep moist until it germinates.  You should have flowers in about 100 days.  Seed can also be planted in fall and left over winter to germinate the following spring.

      The flowers produce many seeds and the plant self seeds freely.  Any plants growing where you don’t want them are easy to pull up when they are small.

      Flax is prettier in a large patch rather than as individual plants.  Flax interplanted with red or pink poppies would be gorgeous.  Another lovely combination is flax with alliums, lupines and wild geraniums.

      Plant flax and beginning just before the peonies and roses bloom in June, you’ll have your own little piece of blooming sky.

      Remember the story of Squanto teaching the pilgrims how to fertilize their crops by planting a fish head under each hill of corn?  It turns out that Squanto really knew what he was talking about.

      Fish and seaweed from our lakes, rivers and oceans make excellent fertilizers for annuals, perennials, vegetables and even potted plants.  This time of year, you don’t want to hit your perennials with a whopping dose of standard fertilizer that will cause the plants to put on quick new growth that won’t be hardened off by winter.  But a little pick-me-up from a bottle of fish emulsion won’t hurt.  Annuals that need a little perking up or vegetables that aren’t producing as abundantly as you’d like them to will also benefit. 

      Fish emulsion, liquid seaweed, fish meal and kelp meal can be purchased at most garden centers.  The meals are mixed in with soil, usually before planting.  The liquids are diluted with water and either sprayed on the leaves as a foliar feed or used to water the plants.  Take note though:  this stuff really stinks!  Even worse than dead fish!

      There are benefits to both methods of application.  Foliar feeding makes the nutrients immediately available to the plants, but watering with diluted liquid products stimulates soil bacteria which in turn increases fertility through humus formation, aeration and moisture retention.

      Fish and kelp products provide small amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, the NPK you find on fertilizer labels.  More importantly though, they provide up to 60 trace elements that are necessary for healthy plant growth, along with growth promoting hormones and enzymes. 

      It isn’t fully understood how these elements work to help plants, but it is believed that they improve the plant’s growing conditions so they are better able to withstand pests and diseases.  Even the awful smell of the fish emulsion helps by confusing plant pests for a day or two and allowing the plant to become strong enough to withstand them or to progress to a stage in growth where it is no longer attractive to the pests. 

      The growth hormones in liquid seaweed are called cytokinins.  They increase the efficiency of photosynthesis and the synthesis of protein.  Plants produce these hormones themselves in their roots, but when under stress for any reason, they stop producing them, making themselves more vulnerable to pests and disease.  Providing them through an application of liquid seaweed is like giving plants a dose of vitamins.

      You may have free access to your own fish or seaweed fertilizer.  When you clean out your aquarium, use the old water to water your plants.  Spread the algae from your pond between rows of vegetables or add it to your compost bin.  If you are a fisherman, take a lesson from Squanto and bury those fish scraps in the garden.

Do tomatoes need pruning?  Garden experts disagree.  The bottom line is that tomatoes will do just fine without pruning . . . but there are some good reasons to prune.

      Pruned tomatoes take up less space than unpruned ones and are less likely to become top-heavy and topple their support cages.  There will be fewer fruits but individual tomatoes will be bigger since the plant has more energy to put into each one.  Pruning opens up the plant so that air can circulate better, which helps leaves to dry faster and prevents disease.  The big benefit is that they are likely to set fruit up to two weeks earlier than they otherwise would.

      Late season pruning allows more warmth and sunlight to get to the tomatoes to help them ripen faster.  At this point, new growth on the plant itself won’t have time to produce more tomatoes anyway.

      The parts of the tomato that are pruned, if you choose to do so, are the suckers.  These are little stems that sprout in the crotches of main branches.  They can easily be snapped off with your fingers.  If you need a scissors or pruning shears to do the job, you’ve waited too long.  Too heavy pruning may cause the leaves to roll.  It won’t hurt the plants, but take note and back off a bit next time.

      If allowed to grow, each of the suckers will become another big stem with its own branches, blossoms, fruits and even suckers. 

      If the plants are in a very hot sunny area, pruning is probably best left undone.  The fruits need some shade to avoid sunscald.  At first, a yellowish-white patch appears on the side of the tomato facing the sun.  The area gets larger as the fruit ripens and becomes grayish-white.  An alternative is to let the suckers develop a few leaves to shade the fruits, and then pinch out the tops to stop the growth.

      While pruning is a matter of gardener’s choice, mulching is always recommended.  To avoid the many fungal diseases that splash up onto tomato plants from the soil, lay down a mulch under each plant, being careful not to let it touch the stems.  The mulch also keeps tomatoes that are touching the ground clean.  Some mulch possibilities are untreated grass clippings, shredded leaves, pine needles, hay or straw. 

      Fungal diseases usually start at the bottom of the plant and work their way up.  You’ll notice yellow leaves or yellow, red or brown spots on the leaves, which eventually dry up and fall off.  Remove any diseased leaves from the area and do not compost them.  Tomatoes that ripen on the diseased plant are fine to use, but at the end of the season, pull up and destroy the entire plant.  Next year, put your mulch in place earlier.