“Hot enough for you?”
That used to be a summer joke, right? I haven’t heard it in a while. We all know it’s way too hot out there. This time of year, with the heat and humidity and bugs and weeds, it’s a challenge even to step into the garden and do what needs to be done. But if we ignore our garden tasks they just get more overwhelming. I’m overwhelmed myself, but let me try to give you a few hints on making summer in the vegetable garden more bearable.
Happy New Year! At the beginning of January we typically think through what we plan to do better in the coming twelve months in all aspects of our lives, whether that’s reading more books or committing to a fitness program or eating healthy. Of course we don’t always follow through, but it’s still worth considering what might make our lives better–including our gardening lives! Here’s just a snippet of what I’m focusing on in 2020. Continue reading
Planning, preparation, timing, and flexibility are becoming more important for food gardeners trying to adapt to climate change. For example, some gardeners are planting more late crops and reaping larger and longer harvests of leafy greens in the fall. But severe cold snaps can punctuate long periods of mild weather and injure plants, so being prepared to cover and protect those crops with a floating row cover is still essential.
Similarly, HGIC receives questions each year from gardeners about protecting figs from cold winter weather. If climate change is giving us milder winters do we still need to protect fig plants over the winter? The answer is yes, for most Maryland gardeners, because severe cold snaps will kill aboveground wood even if the average winter temperature is rising. Bending stems as close to horizontal as possible and covering the plant with a tarp or other insulating material is a time-honored technique:
Planting cover crops in late summer/early fall is a great way to improve and protect soils. Some vegetable gardeners had tomato, pepper, cucumber and other crops going strong into October and asked us if they could plant cover crop seed past the recommended end date of October 1st. Mild conditions and sufficiently high soil and air temperatures allowed for successful late planting well into October. But if you don’t carefully monitor the 7-10 forecasts you can end up wasting time and money.
This cover crop was sown on November 3rd in Central MD and included winter rye, crimson clover, and hairy vetch. The temperature cooled considerably from the previous week, dropping to a record low of 25⁰ on Nov. 9th:
The availability of tree leaves in fall gives gardeners some flexibility and another option for soil improvement. Leaves can be spread out over the soil to prevent erosion, improve soil health, and provide a nice mulch for next year’s garden plants. Climate change is forcing us to be better planners and to act quickly when dealing with extreme and unstable weather.
More fig and cover crop information:
https://extension.umd.edu/resource/growing-figs-maryland
https://extension.umd.edu/hgic/topics/cover-crops-protect-and-improve-your-soil
By Jon Traunfeld, Extension Specialist
The end of the spring lettuce and spinach harvest doesn’t mean we have to wait until fall to enjoy home-grown leafy greens. In addition to the kales and collards we know and love there is a world of heat tolerant leafy green crops that grow well in Maryland. These plants tend to grow rapidly and quickly fill their allotted space. They can all be eaten fresh or cooked and can help you introduce new textures, flavors, and culinary accents to your kitchen table.
Find local and online seed sources for these crops and follow planting instructions on seed packets and on seed company websites. Most of the leafy greens below can be treated as cut-and-come-again crops: they put on new growth below each harvesting cut.
Leafy green vegetables are some of the easiest and most nutritious crops our garden can produce. Of course, with any new crop it may take several years of growing and experimenting to decide if it will work for you and the people who eat from your garden. Continue reading
Q: Our backyard has very low spots where the water ends up after heavy rains. How do I deal with this? I would like to plant a garden of shrubs and perennials but don’t think many can take that much water. Red maples and birch seem happy, but the hydrangeas I planted last year all died. It gets quite a bit of sun.
Answer: Most plants will not tolerate sitting in standing water or saturated, soggy soil for long periods. You may be able to add one to two inches of soil to fill in low spots or raise the grade enough so that water will run off better or at least not accumulate there. A steep grade is not necessary or desirable because in dry years you do want the water to sink into the soil and down to plant roots.
You may have a good location for a rain garden. Many plants love this environment — some stunning natives in particular, such as button bush and clethra. (Both are also butterfly magnets!) Take a look at the University of Maryland Extension webpage on stormwater practices.
Don’t get bogged down (no pun intended!) with details. Just plant what likes “wet feet.” Native plants are the best. For more plant choices, look at the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s excellent publication, “Native Plants for Wildlife Habitat and Conservation Landscaping: Chesapeake Bay Watershed.” In the lists, ‘Plants for Freshwater Wetlands and Other Wet Sites’ should be helpful. (There is also the equivalent online database, http://www.nativeplantcenter.net/.).
You may not have standing water continuously in the future. However, it is predicted that we can expect a lot more wet years and extreme weather ahead because of climate change. A rain garden is a smart way to handle this, as long as this spot does not hold water all summer (and breed mosquitoes). When you install a rain garden, the plant roots will be pulling in the water and drying up the low area, too.
By Ellen Nibali, Horticulturist, University of Maryland Extension Home and Garden Information Center. Ellen writes the Garden Q&A for The Baltimore Sun.
Have a plant or insect question? University of Maryland Extension’s experts have answers! Send your questions and photos to Ask Extension.
Maryland temperatures are predicted to increase 5⁰ F to 11⁰ F by 2100. Higher temperatures will cause native plants to experience more heat-related stress, a situation that will be made worse by longer droughts. Warmer temperatures will cause earlier leaf out and bloom times, de-synchronizing relationships between plants and their pollinators. Invasive plants will become even more aggressive because higher atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels preferentially promote the growth of invasive plants.
Some species will adapt to the changing climate, allowing them to maintain or even expand their natural ranges. Native species that still thrive in your region, for example, have adapted to all the climate change that has occurred so far. City native plants have also adapted to all the warming associated with the urban heat island effect, and they have done so in just a few decades.
As the climate warms, the temperature conditions with which a species co-evolved will move north or to higher elevations. But plants can’t just get up and migrate the way some animals do. Plants migrate through seed dispersal. For northward migration to work there must be large, contiguous blocks of natural area. Species that are adapted to life on Maryland mountaintops are in peril because there are no higher elevations to migrate to.
Plants in tidal habitats must also cope with sea level rise. As of 2018, around the Chesapeake Bay, sea level is rising at a rate of ¾”to 1” every 5 years. Additionally, tidal environments are being pounded by more intense storms. Unfortunately, upslope migration is often blocked by hardened shorelines.
There are several things you can do to make your native garden plants more resilient to climate change. For example, don’t plant natives in conditions that are too sunny or too dry for them, and avoid species that are near the southern end of their natural range. Gardeners can also help protect wild native plants by helping to preserve natural area corridors that species need for migration. You can get more detail on these topics by visiting our Native Plants and Climate Change webpage.
By Sara Tangren, Ph. D., Senior Agent Associate, Sustainable Horticulture and Native Plants, University of Maryland Extension, Home & Garden Information Center (HGIC)
More than 63 inches of rain has fallen so far this year on the Baltimore/Washington region, breaking a 129 year record. Gardeners are more often in the habit of hoping and praying for rain during hot, dry spells. This year we shook our heads in wonder as buckets of rain repeatedly pelted our gardens.
Climate change has already begun to increase yearly rainfall in Maryland. The NOAA State Climate Report (data through 2014) shows that “annual precipitation has been above average for the last two decades. The annual number of extreme precipitation events (days with more than 2 inches) averaged 2.5 days per year during 2005-2014 compared to 1.8 days per year during 1950-2004.” Scientists expect a 5-10% increase in Maryland’s annual precipitation by 2050.
(where water replaces air in pore spaces). Photo credit: Wisconsin Horticulture
Resiliency is defined as “the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.” Farmers, gardeners, and researchers are looking for practices and strategies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help us adapt food production to the rapidly changing environment. What makes this so challenging is that in addition to rising average temperature and precipitation we will have more unusual weather and extreme events, including drought! So what can gardeners do to improve garden resiliency in the face of excess rainfall? Continue reading
