H6 Thursday, July 16, 2009
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Gardening
A Cook’s Garden
By Scott Aker
Special to The Washington Post
Digging In
Shade-Loving Shrubs
Q
Can you recommend any shrubs that would thrive in a boggy area with dense shade?
A
Virginia sweetspire or summersweet are two shrubs that can take some shade and
wet conditions. Flowering and fall color are greatly reduced by shade, though, so they should have sun for at least a portion of the day to reach their full potential. If you want a larger shrub, you might want to try buttonbush, Cephalanthus occidentalis, or
spicebush, Lindera benzoin.
Some smaller shrubs function a bit like ground cover. Yellowroot, Xanthorrhiza simplicissima, is one such plant that is a lovely but seldom-used plant for moist shade. It grows no more than two feet tall and has good fall color.
BY ERIC RISBERG — ASSOCIATED PRESS
Unusual shape and coloration in a tomato is often a sign that it is a superior-tasting heirloom.
The Lumpy Wonder of Heirlooms
By Barbara Damrosch
Special to The Washington Post
“Here, take this tomato,” offered Josh
as he was stocking our farm stand. “Nobody’s going to buy it.” It was big, ripe and ready to eat but bulbous and blotched with yellow.
Granted, our customers by noware used to lumpy tomatoes that taste sublime. A quaint form is usually a sign that the fruit is an heirloom, with superior taste. This particular tomatowas a very large, old, bicolored variety called Striped German, in which red flares radiate from the blossom end against a yellow background, with the interior similarly streaked. It looked perfect, just right. “Okay, this one is mine,” I thought, heading back to the kitchen with my prize. Slicing an heirloom tomato can be as intricate as boning a chicken. You remove not only the stem end, but often a few black, scablike patches and lines on the bottom and an occasional small green protuberance. This one had a ribbed top and a convoluted base. While dissecting it I discovered almost no juicy cavities. Its flesh was as smooth and firm as a paste tomato, its flavor rich and low in acid, a common trait with yellow-fleshed tomatoes. What I scattered across my
ON WASHINGTONPOST.COM
Read more about growing your own food at www.
washingtonpost.com/ vegetablegardens.
salad looked exactly like chunks cut from a gorgeous ripe peach.
There are more than 100 orange and red bicolored tomato varieties, according to expert Carolyn Male, and it can be hard to keep them all straight. I’ve seen this one conflated with Old German (similar but not the same, according to Male) and Striped Cavern, a stuffing tomato with empty spaces inside — clearly a different creature altogether. Confusion is natural as gardeners save, collect and swap seeds. Individual strains also emerge, adapted to the growers’ different soils and climates, often improved by the process of selection as seeds are saved from the best fruits on the strongest plants. One of the many positive outcomes of
the growing popularity of heirloom varieties is that seed companies find it profitable to carry them and put effort into identifying and stabilizing certain old varieties. My Striped German tomato came from a packet bought from Johnny’s Selected Seeds (www.johnnyseeds.com),
which 20 years or so ago plucked it out of the “amateur underground,” as the company’s founder Rob Johnston calls it, and introduced it into commercial trade. Johnston says that he tries out many heirlooms and looks for those that taste great, will perform well and are widely adapted to different growing conditions. “We also liked the wild color pattern of this one,” he says.
Heirlooms, let’s face it, are tricky, iffy,
funky. If the weather is going to go against you, heirloom tomatoes are among the first to feel the effects. But for a salad as stunning as that one, they are worthwhile.
Tip of the Week
Save ripening annual poppy seeds by cutting off the pods and placing them in a paper bag. Store them in the refrigerator until early fall, when the pods will have opened or can be crushed to release the seeds. Sow the seeds in desired beds for bloom next year.
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I have a colony of ants living in a sunny perennial bed, the nest now covering about five by three feet. The plants there have suffered drought more severely (many have died) than in other parts of the garden. The ants churn up the soil to such a degree that it holds very little moisture. I cultivated the soil regularly to try to discourage the ants, but to no avail.
This garden is a real pollinator hot spot, and I hate to use anything that will harm the bees and butterflies, not to mention the occasional amphibian that wanders through. What can I do?
You may need to dig deeper to find out what the soil is like. Ants like rocky soil, so you may have to remove stones and debris that are buried. You may have to dig as deep as two feet.
Eliminate food
sources for the ants; this includes the honeydew excreted by aphids that are feeding on your plants. Limit aphids by cutting back on fertilizer and water.
Food waste in nearby trash cans or compost bins might be serving as a food source. If you have an adjacent patio that is used for eating or consuming sugary drinks, spills and crumbs may provide meals for the ant colony. You mention that plants have been killed. Allegheny mound ants inject plants near the colony with formic acid, killing them. This species constructs very large mounds. It can be controlled with insecticides. It is best to scrape the top off the mound to reveal the large tunnels before drenching it with the pesticide.
The ants will attack anything that threatens their home in this way, so tuck your pants into your socks and have a brush ready to sweep them off. You can treat the mound remnants with a residual insecticide. There are several labeled for ants, and you can apply it by mixing the material in a bucket and pouring it on the mound. This will have little or no impact on the pollinators in your garden because you are treating the ground and not spraying plants.
Scott Aker is a horticulturist at the U.S. National Arboretum.
? Have a question about gardening?
Write Digging In, Home Section,
The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071; fax 202-334-5059; or send e-mail to
home@washpost.com.
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