An overnight freeze in late spring brought with it freezing rain and light snowfall. (Reece Alvarez)
Despite Tuesday night’s snow and frozen rain, spring has been on the books for three weeks, and Lewisboro residents can take advantage of this cold start to the season and begin their gardens right on time with a variety of tips from local garden centers. Whether you’re a veteran planter or a beginner in the back yard, advice about edible, sustainable gardening can help you get started this spring.
From the ground up
“The basic thing is that you want good soil; everything starts with good soil,” said Melissa Candela, manager of Gossett Brothers Nursery in South Salem.
Self-evident as that may be, it is often a pitfall for many first-time gardeners — soil quality is the most important aspect of any garden and the top recommendation from professional gardeners around Lewisboro. Vegetable and fruit plants in particular are nutrient-hungry crops, and come with a variety of preferences for soil composition, location and sunlight.
“To create good soil you want to add compost,” Ms. Candela said. “Food crops are very heavy feeders; they need very rich soil that has to be replenished each year.”
James Grant, owner of the Lewisboro Garden Center Inc. in Vista — Lewisboro’s oldest garden center, running for 38 years, according to him — had just one recommendation when it came to soil — Coast of Maine. The authentic organic soil company produces a wide variety of strictly controlled, top-quality soils that Mr. Grant said he stands by wholeheartedly.
The general consensus among local garden centers is that the low temperatures and late frosts have set the early growing season back by two weeks, leaving plenty of time for the procrastinating
hobbyist to get started with cold weather crops.
“We are a little bit late this ear,” Ms. Candela said. “Everything is a little bit late because March was one of the coldest in recent memory. Normally they tell you to put peas in St. Patrick’s Day; this year it was absolutely not possible to do that.”
For those who jumped at the first sign of spring to plant seeds and seedlings and have sprouted lettuces, for example, Ms. Candela said they can still be protected from the cold nights by lightly covering the plants with secured newspaper or other covering to insulate plants from the cold.
Crops and seasons
“For the early crops, the ones you could plant with chance of frost are cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, collards — anything that is a root vegetable like beets, onions, and you start now,” said Yolie Zeller of Evergreen Nurseries Florist in Katonah.
These crops do not like the heat and also take a long time to grow, with harvesting occurring at the end of the summer, in August and September, she said.
Tomatoes, one of the most popular crops, can also be tricky for first-time gardeners eager to seed their gardens. Tomatoes, like peppers, eggplant, string beans, and most herbs, should be planted after Mother’s Day, as there is less chance of frost, and these plants are sensitive to cold, Ms. Zeller said.
Mr. Grant noted that tomato growers are often eager to get ahead of the season and plant early, not knowing that a plant grown in fewer months under better weather will outperform a plant grown longer that experienced the early cold of spring.
Many plants come with preferences for sunlight, moisture and soil composition, and some even produce better when planted alongside certain crops, Ms. Candela said.
She recommends books like Square Foot Gardening and Carrots Love Tomatoes as good reference points, but adds that there is no teacher like experience.
“I think honestly in this case experience is the most important thing,” she said. “The rule of thumb is if you eat them together you can plant them together.”
Ms. Candela added for perspective that she herself is a self-taught gardener and former English professor who jumped the academic ship to work full-time at Gossett’s.
Quoting Barbara Damrosch, author of The Garden Primer, Ms. Candela said the key is to think like a plant.
“Where do cactus grow? They grow in the desert, so we are going to think about the conditions it likes and we are going to treat it that way,” she said.
Design and care
For some, the increased interest in growing locally produced, sustainable and organic foods is a luxury that has little connection to the time-strapped and largely well-off residents of the suburbs, but for Jennifer Cipriano, co-owner of Copia Home and Garden in Vista, it is anything but a flash in the pan, she said.
“A lot of people think it is just a fad or a trend — I don’t think so. The more people are reading about what goes on in their food and they are more concerned about their health, I think it is actually going to continue,” she said. “It is more than just a fad.”
Ms. Cipriano draws on her roots as a Cornell University graduate, and recommends that any new gardener take advantage of the affordable soil tests and support offered by the Cornell University Cooperative Extension (CUCE), which seeks to promote responsible agricultural land use throughout the state.
“They are wonderful. They keep track of the growing degree days, and they can guide you as to what they are seeing in terms of the weather and temperature,” she said. “We will send people there if they want to know what their soil is like, what their pH is and what their nutrient values are in the soil.”
Ms. Cipriano emphasized that for $10 anyone can send CUCE a soil sample which will come back with a thorough analysis and recommendation for improving soil quality.
“It is a great resource and everybody should know about it,” she said.
As with all of the garden centers in town, Ms. Cipriano recommended raised beds for beginners, as that means easier control over the soil quality, as well as starting with seedlings as opposed to seed.
Ms. Candela of Gossett’s added that raised beds are also significantly easier on a gardener’s backs for weeding and reducing pests.
Copia Home and Garden offers a variety of different breeds of chickens, which not only regularly produce eggs, but also make for great pets for children and adults alike, Ms. Cipriano said. (Reece Alvarez)
Both gardeners recommend weeding by hand and avoiding chemical weed killers at all costs. Ms. Candela warned that weeding is also a practice of vigilance, and that gardeners must not allow weeds to propagate, as they will quickly get out of hand.
From posh estate owners to backyard hobbyists, Ms. Cipriano has seen a burgeoning interest in edible gardening and
homesteading, particularly the raising of chickens for eggs, she said.
“Homesteading is a big thing. I think people are trying to get back to the basics,” she said. “They want to know what’s in their food.”
Both Copia and Gossett’s recently held demonstrations about backyard chicken raising, with Copia selling chicks and adolescent chickens right from its store.
“It is a perfect cycle,” Ms. Candela said. “You grow your vegetables, the trimmings go to the chickens, they make the eggs, produce manure, and it goes back in the garden. It is the essence of sustainable living.”
