DON’T DECLARE “TOO HOT FOR VEGETABLES” around the Dominican Sisters of Houston. Their community garden last year donated 1,339 lbs of vegetables & fruits to those-in-need. They expect to top that this year!
Urban Harvest (Mecca for Greater Houston areas’s now hundreds of community gardens) was still just a gleam in co-founder BOB RANDALL‘s eye decades ago when he first met with with like-minded souls including (in 1994- 95) the Dominican Sisters of Houston. Two Urban Harvest Awards have since honored their efforts: Donation Garden Honor (2007) and in 2012, U.H.’s Nutgrass Roots Award (for being as “tenacious as nutgrass“!
SURE IT’S HOT at their Almeda/Holcombe area site. But despite this year’s torridity, and recent freezes, hurricanes, Covid, and other good excuses for quitting, the Sisters’ garden donations to Star of Hope have weighed out as high as 1,700 lbs, even when Covid was still a raging challenge to volunteering and the Sisters enclave literally went into lockdown.
DEBBIE LEFLAR now directs with her handful of faithful volunteers) SR. HELOISE CUZAT now serves as Community Liaison.
EVEN ST. FRANCIS may find growth from his influence is overpowering his own presence as butterfly- and other pollinator- attracting plants like cosmos also are thriving despite the heat!
Only once, following Hurricane Ike, have their annual donation tallies failed to top the 1,000 lbs marker, tho’ they came close. Since then, the garden’s annual food donations have continually risen, consistently topping 1,300 lbs. And still they continue planting, harvesting, donating and coping with alll climate changes we fellow area gardeners know only too well!
More volunteers are always needed. Interested?
Contact me and I’ll pass your info on: lazygardenerbrenda@gmail.com .
(Acknowledgement: I admit I’m partial to Dominican Sisters who inspired/empowered me elementary-through-high school (especially Sr. Heloise) and continue to do so throughout my life with their far-reaching love of, and dedication to, helping underdogs of this world of ours.)
SPEAKING OF . . .
DR. BOB RANDALL & ANTICIPATING WORSENING WEATHER
AHEAD . . . his website “yearroundgardening.me/” is THE place to find incredible, free and now more timely-updated: “Vegetable Planting Schedules for Southeast Texas in a Time of Climate Change.” Given his decades of helping to foster now 200+ community gardens, better listen when Bob points out we don’t need any more evidence than the past two years to realize the need for “dynamic vegetable planting schedules that are adjustable as times change. As Bob declares: “Our schedules should be easy to change as our climate does.”
AND . . . OF COMMUNITY GARDENS
. . land is always needed. PLANT IT FORWARD is looking for folks with large tracks of unused land that could help refugees-turned-farmers and Houston’s local food system. Learn more (tax benefits!) at PIF’s Making Land Available for Agriculture Workshop August 5, at Houston Botanic Garden, 1 Botanic Lane. Click links for details.
Potpourri
WHY BECOME A TEXAS MASTER GARDENER? In our Spotlight
article below, SANDRA GRAY, Fort Bend County Master Gardener, gives a great broad view of just a few of the many opportunities this wonderful program offers. Following Sandra’s report, FBCMG’s KAREN KZURAWSKI has generously researched for you readers all 8 Greater Houston County Master Gardeners’ training programs to come.
FLOWER FOLLOWUP FROM LIZ VAN DER LAAG, who wisely pointed out that previous column observations — of plants blooming beautifully in spite of this heat — should not be applied to newly-set-in plants. All new plants need regular watering, especially right now to ensure strong root development if you expect them to join more hardened cousins in future!
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Brenda Beust Smith’s column is based on her 40+ years
as Houston Chronicle’s Lazy Gardener Email: lazygardenerbrenda@gmail.com
— Note: This column’s gardening advice focuses ONLY on
the Greater Houston area. Personal reports MUST include your area.
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* BRENDA’S LAZY GARDENER GUIDE is no longer sold. However, free pdf copies available upon request at lazygardenerbrenda@gmail.com
Some of you may have heard the term Master Gardener (MG) and not known exactly what it means. Perhaps, you think it is like a master electrician who has higher fees, but we are volunteers and don’t charge for our services. Each MG commits to performing a number of volunteer hours each year.
You might think it is like a Master’s Degree with advanced training and, while it’s true that we undergo special training, it starts with a minimum of 50 class- hours and requires continuing education each year to remain an MG. Being an MG is closer to being a master key because of all the doors it opens. From fellowship with other gardeners to avenues for deeper learning, there are many ways being an MG can enhance your life and love of gardening.
So, what do MGs do? Our mission is to provide research-based horticultural information to our community. This can take many forms. Some MGs speak publicly to groups about horticultural topics; some work in demonstration gardens where people can learn about different plants, gardens and gardening techniques; some write articles for magazines or social media; and others work at help desks answering individual questions. MGs may also pursue advanced training in specialized topics, such as composting, vegetable gardening, greenhouse management, and much more.
So, why might you want to become an MG? MGs help educate their communities while indulging their love of gardening. We also perform other services. For example, the fruits and vegetables grown in our demonstration gardens might be donated to local food banks.
Being an MG won’t give you all the answers to your plant questions but it will help you learn where to find the answers. It also won’t keep you from killing plants but it will help you learn why a plant died and how to avoid it in the future. Also, many MGs meet lifelong friends in their MG organization.
EDITOR’ NOTE: To learn more about becoming a Texas MG, check below. (Or check in mastergardener.tamu.edu/become/.)
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. . . Next step: Sign up!
TIP O’ THE TROWEL TO KAREN KZURAWSKI, Fort Bend County Master Gardener, who complied this list of Greater Houston Area Master Gardener Programs and how to reach them for more information! MG classes fill up quickly. If you missed or can’t attend upcoming classes, be sure to find out now when reservations for the next class in your county will open.
AUSTIN COUNTY: Taking names of people interested in its next class starting in 2024. Visit txmg.org/bluebonnet/join-us-2 to get on the list BRAZORIA COUNTY: Applications will be available online in early November. Call 979-864-1558 or email: jean.godwin@ag.tamu.edu FORT BEND COUNTY: Has set a 2 p.m. July 21 deadline to apply for the 2024 class which will begin Sept. 7. Go tofbmg.org/become-a- master-gardener/ to apply and for information.
GALVESTON COUNTY: Master Gardener classes will start in mid to late January. Visit txmg.org/galveston/master-gardener-training/ to fill out an interest form for the class.
HARRIS COUNTY: Add your name to the list for the2024 class by visiting harris.agrilife.org/2018/03/09/master-gardener-volunteer-training– program/
LIBERTY COUNTY: /liberty.agrilife.org/horticulture/mga/ MONTGOMERY COUNTY: Sept. 7 Orientation, 9 am. at office, 9020 Airport Road, Conroe, for people interested in the program. They then have two weeks to apply. Class size is limited. The 2024 class will start Jan. 9. 936-539-7824 or MCMGA9020@gmail.com.
WALLER COUNTY: Its next Master Gardener class will be in the spring. No date has been set yet. Go to txmg.org/wallermg/
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EDITOR’S NOTE: Information is correct as of this printing. However, organizational dates are always subject to unexpected, often last minute, changes. Check in with your county for an information updates.
NEWS FROM THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF SOIL AND PLANTS # 249
I have been spending a lot of time at my farmnear La Grange this summer as my retirement home is being built.
I have many ancient very large Live Oaks on the property where the limbs stretch and touch the ground, the temperature is near 100 degrees and I walk under the canopy of the Oaks and suddenly it is 10 degrees cooler or more.
Or when I am driving around in my ATV and I drive into a bottom that is heavily forested and suddenly the temperature feels 15 degrees cooler or more.
This experience has me thinking about the importance of planting trees. So, I want to share a little of what I have learned about planting trees in Fayette County.
The pastures of the property were severely degraded when my wife and I purchased it eight years ago. I have been busy planting trees as part of the ecological habitat restoration. There are five distinct soil types on the property that allows for a variety of species. These soils range from sandy loam to heavy clay to limestone rock. To date I have planted a total of 2,400 trees and shrubs of 174 species, each with a purpose (121 trees and 54 shrub species).
Originally the property had some Bastrop Pines growing on it as it is on the edge of the Lost Pines area. The pines were clear cut for buildings in the 1800’s and the rest cleared to grow cotton. I love pines and the benefits they provide hence I started there.
{Humorous Side Note: In year one I purchased 1,000 pine seedlings and had a commercial company plant them. As a new landowner, I wanted the agricultural exemption for tax purposes. I was told that donkeys qualified for the exemption and I was given seven donkeys. I discovered later that it was only in some counties and not in Fayette County where I was.
I also planted over twenty 10-gallon Bastrop pine trees near where the future home site was. Within two weeks the donkeys had eaten every one of them, even the big trees with 1.5-inch dimeter trunks were chewed to the ground! I found out that pine trees have many times more vitamin-C in them that an orange hence a nutritious food snack for the donkeys. They ate everything else I planted also. Hence, I quickly found them a new home in South Texas where they were used to protect sheep from coyotes.}
When I was in college my parents had a piece of property in East Texas. I could plant trees there without doing anything and they grew fine. Like Brenda, I am basically a Lazy Gardener. I quickly learned that growing trees on the Eastern edge of the Hill Country was a different experience from East Texas.
Thus, in year two I started over and I participated in the Texas Forest Service’s reforestation program. I purchased 2,000 bare root Bastrop Pine seedlings that had an 8-inch-long root ball, and were about 15 inches tall. I used a battery powered soil drill to create the planting hole that I could drop the seedling into and quickly plant them in a few seconds.
Of those trees that survived, some are almost 20 feet tall and some are still only 2-3 feet tall. This is due to different soil types, nutritional density, and quality of the soil. Deer have also killed over 1,000 of the pine trees along with other trees by rubbing the bark off them.
There were also two years of extreme drought during the eight years. My lake went down over 10 feet and I had three hypoxia events that killed all my fish.
My small pond went dry. Then as Nature compensated for the drought, we had over 16 inches of rain in one day creating a massive amount of flooding. The soil and weather conditions have made gardening tough. I have yet to have the theoretical or mythical “Normal” weather.
Planting trees – What I have learned
Lesson 1: After the experience with the donkeys, all the other tree species were planted in cages or had brush barricades around them to keep the deer away.
Lesson 2: At first, I only used mulch around the tree as part of the planting process. As an experiment I used the mulch from the county’s recycling center (about 20 cubic yards) and compared it to using aged native mulch from Nature’s Way Resources.
For example, I would purchase 10 trees of the same species. Half were planted with the recycled mulch and the other half were with the good aged native mulch. Almost all the plants with the mulch from the recycling center died while those with the aged native mulch, survival jumped to around 50% despite the drought (little or zero supplemental watering). Good quality mulch makes a big difference.
Lesson 3: Next, I started adding a good organic fertilizer (MicrolifeTM) to the backfill mix and around the tree on the surface before I mulched. Results improved; however, animals would dig up the plants to eat the fertilizer.
On a suggestion from Mike Serant the owner of MicrolifeTM, I switched from the regular Microlife (green bag) to the Microlife Ultimate (blue bag) which has humates in it. The animals do not like the smell of humates hence they leave it alone. As a result, I started seeing improved growth and survival but not good.
Lesson 4: After reading a research paper on how mycorrhizal fungi help plants survive drought, I started adding mycorrhizal spores to the root ball and backfill mix. Again, survival and growth improved some more.
Lesson 5: Since the property was cotton-farmed for many decades, until the soil was extremely worn out and would no longer grow cotton, I surmised that it was deficient in minor and micronutrients since cotton is a heavy feeder. So, I started adding Re-mineralizer in the bottom of the planting hole, to the back fill mix and on the surface around the tree before mulching. Again, I saw additional improvements in growth and establishment.
Lesson 6: The soils were very low in organic matter (almost zero) due to the years of farming. So, I started experimenting with adding a 25% compost (I used both the leaf mold and fungal composts and they performed equally well) to the backfill mix in addition to the re-mineralizer, mycorrhizal spores, and fertilizer. I used a 15-gallon metal bucket to break up the soil clods, remove root fragments, and mix in the compost and other ingredients by rolling it till evenly mixed. Survival and growth have both increased again despite another heat wave and drought that we are currently experiencing. Growth rates have significantly increased and survival is approaching 90% of trees planted.
I know that it was not a good time to plant trees but I thought I would experiment. At the end of April, I planted five Desert Willows (cultivar “Bubba”) using the techniques above and they are thriving and have already started blooming, just laughing off the heat and drought.
It has become obvious, that by not being lazy and cutting corners, and by performing the planting techniques above, I could have success in a very difficult environment.
Most of the species that died due to deer or climate have been replaced and using the complete methods above are doing fine.
I now have Willows, Black cherries, Black Locust, Texas Mulberries and more that I planted that are near twenty feet tall. There are five different species of wild plums (multiple plants each) that have begun to sucker and form thickets and many other pleasant surprises from the Buckeyes (both yellow and red) to Redbuds (Eastern, Texas, and Mexican) and Mexican plums that are doing well.
It has been a fascinating journey in learning what works and what does not.
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ABOUT US
BRENDA BEUST SMITH WE KNOW HER BEST AS THE LAZY GARDENER . . . but Brenda Beust Smith is also:
- a national award-winning writer & editor
- a nationally-published writer & photographer
- a national horticultural speaker
- a former Houston Chronicle reporter
When the Chronicle discontinued Brenda’s 45-year-old Lazy Gardener” print column — started in the early ’70s as a fun side-project to reporting, it then ranked as the longestrunning, continuously-published local newspaper column in the Greater Houston area. The name, she says, is not just fun, it’s true. Brenda’s gradual sideways step from reporter into gardening writing led first to an 18-year series of when-to-do-what Lazy Gardener Calendars, then to her Lazy Gardener’s Guide book which morphed into her Lazy Gardener’s Guide on CD, which she now emails free upon request. Brenda became a Harris County Master Gardener and, over the years, served on theboards of many Greater Houston area horticulture organizations. She hosted local radio and TV shows, most notably a 10+-year Lazy Gardener specialty shows on HoustonPBS (Ch. 8) and her call-in “EcoGardening” show on KPFT-FM. For over three decades, Brenda served as Assistant Production Manager of the GARDEN CLUB OF AMERICA’S “BULLETIN” magazine. Although still an active broad-based freelance writer, Brenda’s main focus now is THE LAZY GARDENER & FRIENDS HOUSTON GARDEN NEWSLETTER with John Ferguson and Pablo Hernandez of Nature’s Way Resources. A native of New Orleans and graduate of St. Agnes Academy and the University of Houston, Brenda lives in Humble, TX, and is married to the retired Aldine High School Coach Bill Smith. They have one son, Blake. Regarding this newsletter, Brenda is the lead writer, originator of it and the daily inspiration for it. We so appreciate the way she has made gardening such a fun way to celebrate life together for such a long time.
JOHN FERGUSON John is a native Houstonian and has over 27 years of business experience. He owns Nature’s Way Resources, a composting company that specializes in high quality compost, mulch, and soil mixes. He holds a MS degree in Physics and Geology and is a licensed Soil Scientist in Texas. John has won many awards in horticulture and environmental issues. He represents the composting industry on the Houston-Galveston Area Council for solid waste. His personal garden has been featured in several horticultural books and “Better Homes and Gardens” magazine. His business has been recognized in the Wall Street Journal for the quality and value of their products. He is a member of the Physics Honor Society and many other professional societies. John is is the co-author of the book Organic Management for the Professional. For this newsletter, John contributes articles regularly and is responsible for publishing it.
PABLO HERNANDEZ Pablo Hernandez is the special projects coordinator for Nature’s Way Resources. His realm of responsibilities include: serving as a webmaster, IT support, technical problem solving/troubleshooting, metrics management and quality control. Pablo helps this newsletter happen from a technical support standpoint.
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