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I could bet you a thousand Pilea babies that I say this every single year, but September has come and gone in a the swoosh of a hat.
After a cold wet summer, September was gloriously sunny and mild for this neck of the woods. While I enjoyed the unexpected vitamin D, I couldn’t help but feel cheated. What is the garden supposed to do with a mild September when all the plants have either been blighted out or stunted by a cold July and August? Where was the sun then, huh?
September was a great month for picking raspberries off out first (and only) raspberry plant. When we first planted this yellow raspberry back in April, it was only about 20 cm (8 inches) tall. Now it has probably hit 2 meters (7 feet) and gave us a steady supply of raspberry snacks all through the month. I’m so in awe at how fast it grew!
We chose a yellow raspberry variety (Twotimer Sugana ‘Yellow’) because our house is close to the trees that line up the main street that runs through our neighborhood. Where there are trees, there are birds, so we thought we’d have problems with greedy birds eating our red raspberries. It turns out the birds have better things to do in the summer than come to our garden. But I’m still happy we chose the yellow raspberries. They still taste berry-like, but with a hint of floral vanilla.
I don’t know if the Twotimer Sugana is available in the US, since it was bred for a UK climate by a UK company. But if you’re looking for yellow raspberries, you could give these ones a try.
In other garden planning news, this is the first time I’ll be planting bulbs in the Netherlands, so it took me a while to decide where to buy them from. In the end, I chose to buy from Bloemoloog because they’re a small business which sells certified organic flower bulbs.
I want to have a pollinator-friendly garden, so this priority informs my choices every step of the way. I don’t know if you know (I didn’t!) about the damage that conventionally grown bulbs treated with neonicotinoid pesticides*** can have on your local insect population. So I could have bought bulbs from my local supermarkets and the big box garden center thinking I’m planting beneficial flowers for pollinators and have it completely backfire.
Here’s what bulbs I’m planning for next spring:
Allium ‘Azureum’ (10 bulbs)
Muscari ‘Armeniacum’ (10 bulbs)
Narcissus ‘Poeticus’ (10 bulbs)
Tulip ‘Siesta’ (10 bulbs)
Tulip ‘Little Beauty’ (10 bulbs)
Hyacinth ‘Delft Blue’ (5 bulbs)
***The Neonicotinoid class of pesticides has been banned in the EU, but it still remains in the soil for years. In the US, these pesticides are widely used in agriculture and horticulture. They’re very toxic to all insect life and don’t discriminate between pest insects and beneficial insects such as bees, butterflies and ladybugs. You can read more about the problem with plants labeled pollinator-friendly from this source.
I had a technical glitch ordering from Bloemoloog, so I had abandoned the shopping cart mid-purchase because I’d rather enjoy my evening than fiddle with online shopping. The following day, I got an email from them asking if I needed help.
I usually don’t reply to abandoned cart follow-up emails, but in this case I had already spent 30 minutes picking from a variety of bulbs. And my mind was already imagining the different ways I could combine them in my spring beds. So I hit reply and explained the problem I’d had trying to order. What followed was a back-and-forth email chain that required a customized solution. And I was communicating with a real person who didn’t give up and found the best workaround for the tech glitch. All this for a 30-euro order. Which reminded me, again, why I would rather spend my money supporting a small business.
What I read about plants this month:
The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
I debated whether this counts as a book about plants, but in the end I decided to add it to this post because it perfectly describes the perfect storm of factors that led to the devastating Dust Bowl that hit nineteen US states in the 1930s. One of the most significant factors at play was the overcultivation of the Great Plains.
Farmers (both big and small) with little understanding of the ecology of the plains displaced native grasses to make room for crop fields.
Money poured in for a decade marked by prosperity and technological advancement in agriculture. Until the drought came. With no deep-rooted grasses to keep the topsoil in place and trap moisture, the unanchored soil turned to dust – clouds and clouds of dust which smothered everything. Nothing grew. Everything withered. People lost their farms and some even lost their lives.
In a way, this is a story we may be seeing unraveling again in our lifetime. Maybe not with another dust bowl, but there will be other ways in which greed, ignorance, carelessness and the belief that we can tame nature will come back to haunt us. We know better, but will we do better?
The Dog’s Gardener by Patricia Storms
What a lovely little picture book from the point of view of the dog joining its human for a day of gardening. From patiently waiting to playing with the hose to getting all muddy, the dog is a not-so-silent observer of an enjoyable day spent working in the garden.
Shorter reads:
*Plant of the Month: Robusta Coffee >>> this way
A fascinating read on the plant that gave us instant coffee. Coffee was first grown in Arabia between 500 and 900 CE, but with the expansion of colonialism, its story soon became one of European imperialism.
According to coffee historian Stuart McCook, Coffea arabica became popular throughout the world because of its unique genetic makeup which eased commercial cultivation. But this same trait proved detrimental when the coffee leaf rust (a fast-spreading fungus) struck the entire industry. Enter Coffee robusta and the development of freeze-drying technology in the early 1900s. And with it the rise and fall and rise again of instant coffee in the West.
*Wild Yards Project: Wilderness Begins at Home. A short article about the online platform dedicated to inspiring, educating and supporting people who want to rewild their backyards >>> this way
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