IN THE TIME OF ISOLATION

Written by Keith Kurman

We will still be taking care of our gardens, getting ready for the growing season, a great thing to be doing while 'staying home'. "We must all cultivate our gardens." Photo credit: Keith Kurman

Welcome to shut-down


This COVID-19 quarantine is such a strange phenomenon, something I never really thought would happen in our lifetimes. It all seemed to happen so quickly, though it’s been rolling out over several months, kinda like a car crash, seemingly unfolding slowly, methodically and as if predetermined however over in a matter of seconds. Then there is the aftermath that IS long and arduous, where everything you hadn’t considered has to be dealt with systematically, periodically interrupted by flashbacks and questions as to how we got here and those things that will never be the same.

What do we do now? Here at Vineyard Gardens we are trying to stay calm and carry on.

Over in Landscape Division, just now in our busiest time of the year, we are forced to shut-down, pulling our trucks off jobs sites and laying off newly hired workers. This will be going on at this point for an undermined period of time. Going forward, all our landscape clients will need to understand that schedules are interrupted and when we are able to be back on the roads we will be scrambling to catch up. Please be patient.

At the Nursery/Garden Center we’re a bit “tail over tea kettle” because in nursery growing production “time waits for no one!” There is a very narrow window of time in which plants need to be ready to plant out. One thing we pride ourselves on is Island-Grown! We start most of our dazzling array of plants from seeds, plugs and divisions, to do so planning and timing are everything. Despite this unforeseen ‘cease and desist’ order ALL of our 15 greenhouses are FULL of young plants itching to get in the ground! We’ve had to quickly adapt to the new time frames and modified demand. We will be working to be sure that when the lock-down is over we will have plants ready to go for all your gardening needs.

At home, Nasturtiums are an easy plant to grow from seed and it's delicious and nutritious! Photo credit: Keith Kurman

You won't be seeing this familiar sight around for a while. Photo credit: Keith Kurman

Don't these look delicious! Mustard Greens, Tat-Soi, Red and Leafy Green Lettuces and Frisée we'll be making lots of these this year, ready to go salad garden. Photo credit: Keith Kurman

Luckily sound minds have prevailed and the Garden Center has set-up an on-line ordering and pick-up system that allows customers to place orders for materials and swing by to pick them up. You can find the order form here.

One amazing thing that may come of this is that government officials will come to realize that local nurseries must be classed as “essential services”! Yes,under the circumstances, with this shut down, which may continue for some time, our food delivery chain may be interrupted. We may be forced to “grow our own” where heretofore this was a quaint aphorism now becomes a question of necessity. To do that home farmers will need supplies and materials that can only be gotten at your local nursery. This would include in many cases, compost, tools, fertilizers, pest controls and not in the least, plants and seeds!

We will be following up with posts addressing the questions we will be needing to address as we are forced to shift our priorities and adopt new approaches to thinking and our way of life.

One thing is made clear, gardening may be essential to meeting our survival needs but it is also a living metaphor for our essential natures and our connection to our fragile and generous home, Earth. Gardening is one of the things we can do that completes us and infects no one.

Tools and fertilizers are some of the 'essential services' that your local nurseries provide. Write a letter to the town concil and let them know, thanks! Photo credit: Keith Kurman

Wildflowers are sprouting up all over the place, it's okay during the 'shut down' to walk in the woods, look up, look down, look all around... life is happening. Trillium grandiflorum and Mertensia virginica. Photo credit: Keith Kurman

Potting-up Bulbs Lifted from the Gardens

At Vineyard Gardens nursery, we are in the process of restoring and replanting the display beds on State Road. In the unfolding we’ve had to displace a lot of bulbs. Many were able to go back in the ground but there were leftovers which I decided to pot up for spring. I recalled a post by a gardening expert in England who decided to pot his bulbs deeper because in previous years he’d experienced them getting too tall and falling over. I decided to follow suit and plant deeper than I might otherwise.

Here is my process for potting our “leftover” bulbs:

1) POT AND POTTING MIXTURE. I use Happy Frog Potting Mix, one of the products available at the Vineyard Gardens Garden Center. It’s light and fluffy with good drainage and high organic content.

2) MIXED, UNKNOWN BULB VARIETIES. The bulbs I dug up are already in big clumps so they will have a nice, naturalized effect when they emerge in the spring. Ordinarily when potting up bulbs we use individual, packaged bulbs. These “clumped bulbs” can be handled a little differently when potted-up because the individual bulbs will be placed tighter than they would be in the ground. Usually when we pot bulbs we only get one season out of them so we’re not concerned about spacing for years of growth and development.

3) A WHEELBARROW OF CLEAN, COARSE SAND.

4.jpg

4) ADD BROKEN CROCKERY TO THE BOTTOM OF YOUR POT. This keeps the soil and sand from escaping every time you water yet allows the water to drain out. Standing water, like in a pot with no drainage hole, will rot the bulb. Paperwhites and Hyacinths do survive in standing water but after they flower they are composted.

5) ADD AN INCH OF SAND IN THE BOTTOM.

6) ADD A NICE THICK LAYER OF POTTING SOIL WITH A SPRINKLE OF OSMOCOTE, A TIME-RELEASE FERTILIZER. We have Osmocote for sale at Vineyard Gardens Garden Center. There are a couple of different kinds, one biased for general growth (green label) and another specifically for developing flowers (pink label). We use Osmocote on practically everything we grow at the nursery. Plants burn up fertility, especially in containers. They are stressed and many nutrients are washed out in runoff due to their need for constant watering.

7) ADD ANOTHER THIN LAYER OF SAND. The whole process is a little like making Lasagna, layer upon layer. I add this layer of sand so the bulbs don’t sit directly in the wet soil. It also provides a quick, easy root run as the bulbs are developing their feeding roots over the winter.

8) ADD THE BIG CLUMP OF BULBS JUST AS THEY CAME OUT OF THE GROUND. Peel off any bulbs that got severed by the spade when they were dug out. Feather apart (divide) really big clumps and any loose little bulblets on the outside of the main clump. Nestle the clump down into the soil base. Add any random loose bulbs around the perimeter.

9) ADD ANOTHER LAYER OF POTTING SOIL UP TO THE RIDGE, A COUPLE OF INCHES FROM THE TOP OF THE POT. Scatter any other tiny loose bulb near the top, then press them in an inch or so. Add a thin layer of potting soil to finish it off.

10) GIVE THE WHOLE POT A GOOD SHAKE AND TAMP TO SETTLE EVERYTHING IN.

11) TOP IT OFF WITH SAND. Sand makes a nice even surface for new growth to come up through and acts as a mulch to prevent moisture evaporation. Bulbs need perfect drainage but adequate moisture, so sand is an important material in the process. Ordinarily at this point I would water it but we’re late in the season and I wouldn’t want for the soil to be sodden when we get another hard freeze.

12) FINISHED POT.