galinsoga wastes no time

GALINSOGA is also called quickweed; the Rutgers weed database says that’s because the seeds that follow its tiny, daisy-like yellow and white flowers start to germinate on their way to the ground—no waiting, and quick enough to produce multiple generations each growing season.

More than one species are listed in weed books; I have G. quadriradiata, which I actually know as its synonymous name G. ciliata, and I know just where it came from. A friend in New York City shared a desired plant a decade ago, and a gallant soldier was lurking in the pot, a hijacker. (Originally, it’s from South America, but is now widespread in the U.S.)

I recommend pulling this one as soon as it emerges–it thankfully comes out easily when young–or using a hoe to dislodge seedlings, being sure never to let it establish and flower. With repeat weeding or cultivating, I have kept it from becoming a wider issue.

Remember that a shovel with clods of dirt remaining on it, used in an infested bed then used in an infested one, can spread seeds of things like Galinsoga.  Clean tools between uses if you’re working around seedy weeds.

Bad infestation? Maybe do what environmentally conscious farmers sometimes must, and don’t plant the area for a season, instead cultivating repeatedly to disrupt the cycle of germination and establishment of an annual weed such as this.

a weedy spiderwort: commelina communis

FOR YEARS, as mentioned, I’ve half-imagined that bits of a former resident’s spiderwort houseplant had jumped out the window and planted themselves in the garden, but of course that’s not the story.  (If I lived in Florida or another warm zone, a “houseplant” a subtropical Tradescantia might in fact be one of my toughest weeds.) But for me the story is the Asiatic dayflower, Commelina communis, another widespread invader from (you guessed it) Asia. It’s in the same family as Tradescantia, so you, too, may notice a resemblance. This one has small blue flowers.

There’s a native American Commelina species called C. erecta, but we don’t seem to have it hereabouts, according to reference sources on local flora. And besides, this particular pest I’m always pulling around now only appears in semi-shady to shady, cultivated spots in my garden where the soil’s been disturbed and I’ve brought in things from the nursery: classic weed modus operandi. Commelina communis is another common hitchhiker, especially pesky for garden centers. This IowaPlants.com page has a very detailed set of photos of all its parts, if you want to do a closer ID.

Asian dayflower is an introduced annual that reproduces by seed, says the UMass-Amherst Extension, which has good photos of a thick stand of it in flower. I’m happy to have no such photo of my own; that’s a situation I work my best to prevent happening here by pulling or hoeing the emerging seedlings, as with the Galinsoga.

ah, the order of things

I KNOW, you’re probably thinking: Doesn’t she have anything to do with herself but figure out the names of her weeds, poor lonely woman? (That’s clearweed, or Pilea pumila, above.)

No worry; I haven’t completely lost it, or drifted away from civilization. This feels good.

There’s an expression, “A place for everything, and everything in its place.” Well, there is something about naming my weeds, putting one or two more a week into its place in the (dis)order of things, that I’m finding to be a lot like that. Even in the early summer jungle—which is what a garden after so much rain wants to be right now, flexing its unruly muscle at me—it feels comforting, and empowering.

Oh, and I love any excuse to stop all this incessant weeding and go inside, make a cup of tea, and look things up.

some other first-name-basis weeds

• Clearweed, or Pilea pumila (photo just above the previous section)
• A weed I planted, Houttuynia or chameleon plant
• Garlic mustard, Alliaria petiolata
• How to ID your weeds—links to online guides
• Smothering weeds with cardboard and newspaper
• Piling on the mulch for weed suppression and control

Read naming weeds: hello, galinsoga and commelina on A Way to Garden!

Ellen calls herself as a “food artist.” No wonder, because since 1980, when she moved to Zone 4Bish Vermont after studying art in college, she has been making living collages of lettuces April through October, “splashed with dabs of red orach, fronds of chervil and rosettes of claytonia.” You probably know Ellen as co-founder of The Cook’s Garden in 1984, a breakthrough seed catalog at the time (but since sold), and as author of the 2003 cookbook “From the Cook’s Garden.” Last week we spoke about what she calls “a salad-lover’s garden,” more than just your average row or two of lettuce.

prefer the podcast?

GROWING SALAD was the topic of the latest edition of my weekly public-radio program with guest Ellen Ecker Ogden. Listen anywhere, anytime: Locally, in my Hudson Valley (NY)-Berkshires (MA)-Litchfield Hills (CT) region, “A Way to Garden” airs on Robin Hood Radio’s three stations on Monday at 8:30 AM Eastern, with a rerun at 8:30 Saturdays. It is available free on iTunes, the Stitcher app, or streaming from RobinHoodRadio.com or via its RSS feed. The June 17, 2013 show can be streamed here now. Robin Hood is the smallest NPR station in the nation; our garden show marks the start of its fourth year this month, and is syndicated via PRX.

salad-lover’s garden tips from ellen ogden

• Direct sow your salad greens, says Ellen. It’s easier than sowing indoors and transplanting, and “they pop up fast, and are fast to produce—in just a few weeks.”
• Re-sow small amounts right through into August in the North.  “That’s really the key. I start my greens every two weeks–small, short rows of maybe 5 feet long.” Succession sowings can continue slightly longer if salads are grown under cover—and of course in warmer zones, the timing shifts with the later frost dates.
• Be opportunistic. “Stick the rows everywhere,” says Ellen, including between other plants. “Between rows of peas, for instance—and I have cilantro and dill growing between rows of garlic right now.”
• Mix it up! “Herbs, greens, and aromatics are how I think of what I grow,” says Ellen, recommending such must-have salad “extras” as mint and lemon basil, in particular. She grows about 24 kinds of salad greens at any given time, rotating among an even wider palette of possibilities according to the times of the season.
• Think about creating “a tapestry of colors,” not all medium-green greens. The dark red of radicchio with lighter greens of butterhead lettuce are among her essentials, “and always arugula—there’s never too much arugula,” Ellen says.
• Likewise vary the texture. Greens may be oak-like and ruffled or positively frilly, or stiffer and simpler. One of her favorite add-in’s for texture, in the salad bowl and in the garden: the tiny, ferny leaves of chervil, which also adds a licorice-like punch to the salad bowl (start with just a little).
• Purslane, claytonia and more: Speaking of unusual leaf shapes and textures: Ellen recommends golden purslane–with a lemony flavor, and not ground-hugging like the purslane we may know, but upright in its habit. And at the cooler ends of the growing season, she makes room for claytonia, with its tender, small lily-pad shaped leaf, and tiny white flowers at harvest time. It’s too delicate to be a crop for the marketplace, she says.  “It’s the kind of thing you can only grow in your own salad lover’s garden.”
• Can’t you get all of this in a pre-packaged seed mix, or mesclun? Ellen prefers to sow the individual ingredients, since each one grows at a slightly different rate, and then she can mix-and-match herself.
• Don’t forget the edible flowers. “I adore calendulas,” says Ellen, who has a soft spot for borage, too, with its beautiful flowers on a beautiful plant—but admittedly it’s a space hog, and resows itself. She grows lots of violas and pansies, too.
• At harvest time, use your scissors—clipping low on the plant. (Note from Margaret: I have a pair of big but lightweight craft-style scissors—you know, the kind with bright plastic handles—in every one of my garden tool bags. A great tool!)
• Dress it with the right, light vinaigrette–which Ellen customizes (as below) to suit what goes into each particular salad bowl.

ellen’s salad-dressing variations

ELLEN OGDEN learned the basic proportions of vinaigrette years ago from her mother, and her grandmother, and their 3 parts oil, 1 part vinegar wisdom hasn’t really changed. But in the years since, Ellen has been tinkering with the other ingredients to best complement the incredible range of salad greens that she grows. “I like a nice, light vinaigrette,” she says, but the details vary.

“If the leaves are soft and buttery, I’ll substitute lemon for the vinegar,” says Ellen. “A tough romaine warrants bold balsamic vinegar and a teaspoon of Dijon. Spicy blends of salad greens are sweetened with a tablespoon of maple syrup.” And with bitter greens, she adds a little bit of something creamy something–such as yogurt, or crème fraiche.

Get the recipes for three of Ellen’s favorite salad-dressing variations: her lemon vinaigrette, garlic dressing, and hot balsamic vinaigrette. Ellen’s overall approach to homemade salad dressing, plus her maple balsamic vinaigrette recipe are at this link on her website.

Ellen’s recent story on the salad-lover’s garden is at this link.

how to win ‘the complete kitchen garden’ book

ELLEN OGDEN shared two signed copies of her 2011 book “The Complete Kitchen Garden” with me, to in turn share with you. It’s packed with designs for edible gardens, and with 100 of Ellen’s fresh-from-the-garden recipes.

To enter to win one of the books, all you have to do is answer this question:

What “extra” or “extras” beyond lettuce do you crave in your salads, and/or: Do you have a favorite lettuce variety of all?

(Me, I’m arugula-crazy, like Ellen, and also liberally add leaflets of flat-leaf parsley to my salad bowl. As for varieties, I’ve never seen a more beautiful red than ‘Merlox’ from Frank Morton, but I wouldn’t be without tried-and-true oldtime ‘Black Seeded Simpson’ either.)

Feeling shy? Just say, “count me in” or the equivalent, and your entry will count.

Winners will be chosen, and emailed with the news, after entries close at midnight on Monday, June 24. Good luck to all.

(All photos courtesy of Ellen Ecker Ogden; used with permission.)

Read growing a salad-lover’s garden, with ellen ogden (win her book!) on A Way to Garden!

I first saw Acanthopanax, as Eleutherococcus was then known (and still is to those of us who can’t get with all the name changes), in the garden of my friend Marco, who knows that a garden needs “doers,” as he calls reliable types. (Tip: One of his other doers is Aucuba japonica, a broadleaf evergreen with varying degrees of yellow variegation and the apparent ability to grow even in the dark. Great filler—but not hardy for me in Zone 5B; it’s rated as Zones 7-10.)

Eleutherococcus (Zones 4-8 or 9), which is deciduous, has lately been elevated to a position of even deeper reverence at Marco’s place. A pair of plants are espaliered flat against two lengths of wood fencing—each trained shrub pinned and pruned flat into a dramatic, eye-catching fan of white and green.

Which got me thinking about adopting some, if not to train, perhaps, then at least to brighten up a stretch along the roadside, and some other shady spots in particular.

Other details: Technically, Eleutherococcus—a Chinese native of the Aralia family or Araliaceae, along with some of my most beloved shrubs and large perennials in the actual genus Aralia—would flower and set fruit. But you’d need both sexes for the latter, and apparently females are more often what’s sold, I have read. The plant has thorns, is generally arching in its habit, and it also will sucker eventually—keep an eye out and cut or dig them out them at the base.

Ask your local nursery to get you this wonderful creature. Feeling impatient, I got my landscape-sized plants at Broken Arrow; I see that Lazy S’s sells it mail-order, as does Forest Farm and Avant Gardens, when it’s in stock.

more on eleutherococcus

• at Great Plant Picks
• at Missouri Botanical

Read tough beauty: the shrub called eleutherococcus on A Way to Garden!