How’s Your Garden?

BY LOIS TRIGG CHAPLIN

LEMON JUICE AT HOME

'Tis the season to enjoy citrus. Fortunately, South Alabama is warm enough for satsuma oranges, one of the most cold-hardy citrus trees. However, less hardy citrus such as lemons and limes are typically grown in pots and brought indoors or into a greenhouse for winter protection. Elsewhere in the state even satsumas need a greenhouse or winter protection. After two to three years, a potted lemon tree will bear enough fruit to make its care rewarding. Meyer lemon is a good one to start with because it not always available in the produce section of the store, and it is expensive. Meyer is a milder lemon believed to be a natural cross between an orange and a lemon, so it makes a nice lemonade, too. Our two potted trees yield 40 to 60 lemons, enough to use fresh, freeze a gallon of juice, and make marmalade from the rinds. That’s a sweet deal.

A big citrus harvest means lemon juice in the freezer for future use.

GATHER LEAVES FOR THE SOIL

If your garden soil is less than perfect, now is the time to gather leaves and get out a roll of welded wire to make into bin. Chopped leaves turn into leaf mold, which make a great soil amendment as they decompose. Freshly chopped, they are also a great mulch. Chopping them with a mulching mower or leaf shredder is optional, but it certainly speeds their breakdown.

Using welded wire, make a circular collection bin at least three feet in diameter. Alternate chopped leaves in foot-deep layers with a shovelful of soil to speed their breakdown by immediately introducing soil bacteria and insects to help decomposition. You can even add a little nitrogen to speed the process; do this with a sprinkle of bagged organic fertilizer or cottonseed meal on each layer along with the shovelful of soil, or green grass clippings from fescue or winter rye lawn. Continue making layers until the pile is about four feet tall. Water each layer to introduce moisture. Use the pile as a base for adding coffee grounds or green kitchen scraps and cover with a few leaves each time. The leaves will keep the pile neater looking as well as balance the green nitrogenous materials with carbon-rich materials.

In addition to adding organic matter, a study by Rutgers University, “Plant Nutrients in Municipal Leaves,” indicated that leaves add major and minor elements over time as they break down.

Rolls of frost cloth come in handy for protecting ornamentals such as camellias in bloom, tropical potted plants, and winter vegetables from cold snaps. Our onand-off winters can be hard on plants because one day it may feel like Orlando, and by the next morning it feels like Chicago. Plants that are in bloom, or those in active growth such as vegetables and herbs, can be hurt when the temperature drops 40, 50, 60, or even 70 degrees overnight. Frost cloth doesn’t work all the time---we lost all of our blueberry blooms in the sudden drop last February even though we desperately covered the plants. However, the cool-season crops such as broccoli, lettuce, lamb’s lettuce, spinach, kale, and arugula did fine under a low tunnel covered with two layers of frost cloth. Also called row cover, this spun fabric is easy to find in small pieces, but lengths of 50 feet or more generally come in rolls that range from 3 to 13 feet wide and hundreds of feet long. These are used to blanket over high-value crops such as strawberries in a late freeze, but cutting a length for the garden in mid-winter sure is a lifesaver. Agribon makes several weights that offer from 4 to 8 degrees of protection. Mine lasts several years if I can avoid accidentally ripping it on a stake or other sharp object in the garden. I use bricks or boards to weigh down the edges instead of pins or stakes to avoid puncturing the material. If it’s very dirty by the end of the cold season, it gets laundered on the

GARDEN HOLLIES FOR DECORATIONS

The Christmas holidays often send us out into the landscape with clippers in hand for snipping pieces of holly and other evergreens for decoration. To be sure that the garden is a steady source of greenery, add a few key shrubs to cut on for future boughs. Those with classic berries include shrub hollies such as Burford, Mary Nell, Nellie Stevens, and Needlepoint; also tree hollies such as Foster, Savannah, and East Palatka. Burford hollies produce the largest berries. Whichever holly you choose, be sure to give it the space that it needs to grow to maturing without constant pruning. Plants that are always being pruned will not produce berries because since pruning happens during the growing season, all the fruit will be removed. Read the labels, as holly plants vary greatly in size depending the species or hybrid. Some are very dwarf shrubs, which aren’t typically suited to the kind of cutting needed for holiday decorations. Variegated hollies are not as common; a good one is Golden Oakland from the Southern Living Plant Collection. Beware that English holly is very slow growing, so may test your patience, and many are not well suited to the South.