PLANTING GUIDE

THE SEASONS
Boston has a minimum average winter temperature of – 10 degrees F. The latest estimated spring frost is April 15. The earliest estimated fall frost is October 15.

From mid-March to mid-October, there ‘s always something that can be planted for this season’s harvest or for next. For ideas, check flower catalogs, available online or through the mail. They are a great education source!

There are two kinds of frosts: light frosts and killing frosts. May hardy annual flowers andcold-weather vegetables thrive in a light frost (30- 32 degrees F for a brief time). In a killing frost (below 30 degrees F for a sustained time, plant foliage blackens, and the plant dies.

PLANT CHOICES
Avoid nuisance plants: Many useful and attractive plants, like mint, grow and spread so quickly that they are best grown in pots, not directly in the garden soil. But even so, these plants can seed quickly. So if you are not prone to actively dead-head a seeding mint plant, you should refrain from selecting this plant and others like it. It will eventually be a nuisance to you and neighboring gardeners who become unwilling benefactors of airborne seeds.

Some “ground cover” plants become as troublesome as the weeds they were intended to smother. Many herbs, like comfy and horseradish grow unusually large, with spreading root systems that are almost impossible to remove. Please avoid these plants – and don’t be surprised if your neighbors require that you move them away from borders.

Other nuisance plants to avoid are (please post suggestions on the Bulletin Board!)

Annuals: Most vegetables, kitchen herbs, and many flowers grow, profusely produce, set seed, and die in one season. You could say they were “programmed” for only a few months of life. They are the easiest, quickest, and least expensive plants to grow. Since they are pulled up in the fall, you can then improve your soil by planting a winter “green manure” to cover crop or by turning in organic matter.

Perennials: All fruit, many flowers, asparagus, and a few onions survive for a few or many years. These are not “perpetual plants;” only a few are long-lived. The leaves and stems of herbaceous types die back after flowering or are killed by frost. The root system survives the winters and sends up new shoots each spring. Both the roots and the above-ground branches of woody types survive the winter.

On the negative side, Perennials usually have a very brief flowering or fruiting season (2-4 weeks). While a few are quick and easy to grow, generally they are relatively expensive, have more “finicky” soil needs, require greater soil preparation, specific planting depths/times, and specialized maintenance practices. They can rarely be grown from seed to flowering in one year. Once planted, they limit your options for improving the soil without moving the plants.

Spring flowering bulbs and corms: These can be purchased and planted in the fall. Some, like daffodils, are long-lived. Others, like late tulips, may prosper for only tow seasons before flowering quality is diminished. Careful soil preparation, fertilization at planting time, and fertilization during the growing season influence their longevity. If the foliage is cut with the flower, the bulb will not produce well again as the foliage nourishes the bulb. Therefore, it is a good idea to dead-head these flowers, and neatly tie their foliage together to keep your garden from looking messy as it “dies back”.

The bulbs bloom for 7-14 days in the spring. The foliage must be allowed to die back completely (4-8) weeks before shallow-rooted annuals can be planted over them for continued use of the soil in the summer and fall.

Summer flowering bulbs, tubers, and corms: These plants may be purchased and planted in the spring for summer flowering. The lily is the only reliably perennial summer-flowering bulb. Others must be lifted and stored over winter, or purchased each season as annuals. Some, like dahlias, are profuse, long-season bloomers. Others, like gladiolas, are short-season bloomers, usually planted in small quantities every few weeks (“in succession”) to extend blooming

Biannuals: A few herbs and flowers, such as parsley, pansies, and sweet William, are started from seed in early summer to acquire, some green growth in the first season. They are transplanted into desired garden locations in the early fall. Their root system survives the winter and sends up new shoots that bloom the following spring or in early summer. They set seed and dies, allowing the process to repeat itself they can be purchased as annual transplants for same-season flowering.

Seeds: Probably the most widely available source of all garden vegetables, most flowers, and herbs, seeds are popular with first-time gardeners – often with mixed results. Check the seed packet carefully for easy-to-grow-from-seed varieties. Perennial plants are usually multi-year projects then grown from seed.

Seeds can be slower to grow than transplants and more vulnerable to weed competition. “Days to harvest” forecast on the seed package are based on optimum growing conditions, especially “sun days.” Boston’s maritime spring is often cloudy and overcast. Actual days required for germination or harvest in the Victory Gardens are often double the time described on the package.

The restless first-season gardener is probably wise to experiment with seeds in combination with transplants for faster, surer results. Good quality seeds are often available at discount stores.

FERTILIZING
Fertility refers to the soil’s nutrient content, making it capable of supporting plants. Plants use up to 16 different nutrients, most in very small quantities already present in most soils.

Plants use only three major elements in “hefty doses”: nitrogen for fast stem and leaf growth, potassium for root development, and phosphorus, for fruiting and flowering.

The numbers on the fertilizer bag refer to the percentage, by weight, of these three elements in the package. The first number refers to nitrogen, the second to potassium, and the third to phosphorus.

Plants vary in their fertilizing requirements – type, amount, and time of application. Some are “heavy feeders,” others thrive in average or poor soil. Follow the package instructions carefully. Over time, you will learn the different needs of your specific plantings.

Fertilizer is a two-edged sword. Plants will not grow or produce well unless they have a consistently adequate supply of nutrients. However, too much fertilizer will cause as many difficulties as too little. Soil pH, soil texture, or composition, watering, and garden hygiene practices all influence the availability to plants of nutrients held in fertile soil.

Fertilizing guidelines: Average planting space in a single plot totals 350 square feet. A 10- 15- pound bag of granular fertilizer is usually enough for a full gardening season.

A wide variety of natural, organic, and synthetic fertilizers is commercially available in granular and water-soluble forms.

FGS Purchased manure: Each spring, membership funds are used to purchase aged, well-rotted manure. This can be immediately turned into the soil or spread as a “side-dress fertilizer” on top of the beds.

Large supplies of aged manure are difficult to acquire and expensive to deliver. Because we can arrange only estimated delivery dates, it is important to observe your fair share, which will be posted in your Victory Garden news and this site.

The purchase is not sufficient for use as “fill” to raise planting beds, as a general soil conditioner (sphagnum peat moss is excellent and widely available for this purpose), or as the sole source of soil fertility.

OUR WILDLIFE
Guess who’s coming to dinner? Birds, muskrats, squirrels, and Norway rats feed, nest, and breed in the Victory Gardens.

They eat spring flowering bulbs (especially tulips and crocuses), newly planted seed beds, and berries before they ripen. Greatest plant damage occurs during the food-scarce months of early spring.

Field rats winter and nest under compost piles and garden refuse.
• Practice careful garden hygiene; continually remove debris and weeds.
• Do not make compost in your garden. You are encouraging disaster.
• Harvest promptly, minimize loss by picking just before ripe.
• Avoid large plantings of bulbs and vulnerable crops until you are familiar with wildlife activity in your area.
• Speak with your Area Director and fellow gardeners about the signs of rodent nests and animal patterns in your area.

Unproven, but popular, methods to discourage wildlife are:
• Use superphosphate instead of bonemeal around bulbs.
• Surround bulbs with daffodils.
• Surround bulbs with onions.

Please respect and protect the wide variety of wildlife that share the parkland with gardeners and visitors. Do not use chemical herbicides or pesticides as part of your routine gardening practices. They are dangerous to birds, waterfowl, and visiting domestic animals. “Wind drift” from these products can injure your neighbor’s plantings, and run-off after a heavy rain will further pollute the Muddy River.

WEEDS!
Controlling weed growth can be frustrating – but it is not time-consuming, back-breaking, or boring. In fact, it’s a simple, easy way to regularly “shake hands” with your soil. You should expect to spend about one hour a week preventing and removing weeds.

Meet the kings of the garden:
• Weeds grow faster than almost all cultivated vegetables, flowers, herbs, or ground covers.
• Left on their own, these sturdy growers will take on the lion’s share of available light, water, soil, nutrients, and fertilizer – leaving your seeds and plants waning in their shadows.
• Some weeds can produce up to 200,000 seeds per plant when only one inch tall! The seeds are viable for 3-40 years and spring to life whenever the soil is turned.

The key to weed control is constancy. Stay ahead of it – ten minutes a day, or twenty minutes three time each week. Consider mentally dividing the plot into three or four sections and make a few minutes of cultivating or weeding your first gardening chore.

Marathon weeding sessions don’t work. You will run into trouble if you attempt to control weeds with infrequent “marathon” weeding sessions. A plot cleared several times a season and overrun with weeds the rest of the time is not consistent with the Guidelines and Regulations for plot maintenance. Also, going for long periods without weeding allows weeds to form a root system that makes your weed challenges greater and greater over time.

Annual weeds – the easy ones. Annual weeds are plants that grow from seed in a single season. They die after they set thousands of seeds that are carried by the wind and the birds to germinate next year in your (or neighbor’s) garden. They thrive in cool weather, and keep trying to grow and produce seed, no matter how early or late in the season.

Annual weeds common in the Victory Gardens include chickweed, purslane, splurge, lamb’s quarters, and they are easy to control:
• Cultivate (shallow raking or disturbing) the top _ inch soil several times a week, wherever you have not planted seeds, and around all plant roots. A variety of rakes, “cultivators,” and hoes can be used. Shallow cultivation will disrupt and kill many germinating seeds and tiny weeds. When you apply a summer mulch, stop cultivating.
• Apply a mulch in late spring or early summer. This will suffocate many weeds by depriving them of the light they need to grow. Those that do are weakened and easy to remove by hand weeding.
• Weed (pull out by hand) before they flower any weeds that survive cultivation or mulching. They can also be removed with a hand cultivator by slicing off the plant from the root (just below the soil or mulch line). They are easiest to pull when the soil is wet.

Perennial weeds – the tough ones
Perennial weeds are plants whose roots survive from year to year – some say forever! They multiply both by underground stems and root parts, and by setting seed.

Even a bit of root left in the soil will have enough energy to send up a new shoot. At only one-half inch tall, the new shoot can replenish and strengthen the spreading root system – now off and running right through your planting beds.

There are two persistent perennial weeds and one troublesome biannual weed in the Victory Gardens:
• “Witch” or “Quack” grass – this weed hasa tough, white underground root system that spreads or many feet. Its grass-like shoots can also set seed.
• Multiflora rootstock – a vigorous plant onto which most garden-variety roses are grafted in order to survive the winter. The rootstock “takes over” when a bush is left untended for years, or if a rose bush is pulled up and some root remains. Its stems and under-ground root system is covered with tiny, prickly spines, making it difficult to pull up when it invades other plantings.
• Bindweed, or wild morning glory – a pretty vining biannual weed that actually strangles nearby plantings in its rush to grow and set thousands of seeds. It emerges late – in early June – and quickly wraps itself around growing plants, so its heart-shaped leave are barely noticed – until it’s neighboring plant is half-dead.
If morning glories are one of your favorite plants, consider purchasing the STERILE hybrid, “Heavenly Blue.” It is available as seed, and in mid-May as a transplant.

How to control perennial weeds
Cultivation will reduce the number of bindweed and witchgrass seeds. Mulch will weaken growth and make it easier to dig the weeds out. However, cultivation and mulch will not control perennial weeds.

You have three choices: try to smother them; dig them out; cut them back.

Smothering isn’t easy but it can be a good choice for paths or a section of the plot that is free of bulbs and existing plantings.

Heavy, black plastic mulch, covered with wood chips and left for at least a full year, will eliminate most of them.

A thick sowing of three successive “green manure smother crops” (i.e. alfalfa, buck-wheat, and annual ryegrass) in early spring, mid-summer, and fall will eliminate most weeds. CAUTION: The “smother crops” must be turned into your soil to prevent their setting seed. When they go to seed, you have another kind of overwhelming weed problem.

Digging weeds out also works. After a season or tow, you will have very few left – and those will be small and easy to pull out.

It is not enough to pull out perennial weeds by hand – you need to find and pull up the entire root system with the aid of a trowel, shovel, or weeding tool. Many can be removed at soil preparation, but only persistent digging out throughout the season well reduce their numbers.

Cutting back is a quick, “buying time” technique to limit seed setting when weeds have overrun a section of your plot. Take a big scissors and cut the stalks down to the ground. Return as soon as possible to cultivate, dig-out, mulch, and so on. Cutting back does not reduce your weed problem. It just protects you and your neighbors from acquiring more weed seeds.

Happy weeding!