Long time readers of this blog will I know that for years and years I have wanted a Weeping Blue Atlas Cedar, Paul James had one on his property and it showed up often in his TV show and I wanted it bad. Unfortunately, they aren’t quite hardy here. I eventually got a different cedar, an upright version, that was hardy, but I was still missing that architectural interest of the weeper.

Then I discovered larches. They are hardy here, hardy to zone 4, not the zone 6 of the atlas cedar. They have very similar needles (short, soft), and while they are a deciduous conifer, I don’t mind that. So, today I bought one.

Often you will see these grown in an overgrown, mop head, or dreadlock-y fashion, where the plant looks like some swamp thing reaching out of the ground with tendril-like branches draping it from head to toe. I didn’t want this. I wanted to show off the interesting growth habit, and an interesting trunk. So I bought a tree that emphasized the trunk, and then I did some additional pruning to expose more of the trunk to view.

Untrained, these trees will grow along the ground, so you have to train them to grow upright, and if you have to train them anyways, you might as well train them to grow in an interesting way, like you would with a bonsai.

So this tree is very very similar in shape and form to a nice bonsai you might buy, only it is 6 or 7 feet tall. Check out that contorted trunk. Of course, to get a bonsai this big or old you’d pay a fortune, tens of thousands of dollars. Whereas this tree was only $200ish, I call that a bargain. Check out that cortorted trunk.

Good for me the needles even are slightly blue, though not as blue as the atlas cedar. Still, compared to the bald cypress needles (which is growing behind it) it looks quite blue. The cypress will grow formal and upright, so this will be a nice contrast, and good garden design is all about contrast. I’m really excited about this new tree.

A North American native it can be found growing wild in the south, but it has been hybridized and many beautiful cultivars are available for the entire country. It is related to the tropical hibiscus but is hardy and has much larger flowers. These flowers can get to a foot across, a full 12 inches, outside of dahlias, which are a huge labor to grow, what else gets so big?

Kopper King

These plants are fairly carefree. They need sun, and water, that is about it. I’ve given some to my Mom and while deer eat most other things I’ve given her, the deer near her house (and she has a lot of deer) have never touched these. Maybe, because they’re native, they evolved with deer and so have defenses.

They get a late start in Spring, I often worry they have died (and I sometimes protect them with a styrofoam cone to allow them to get an earlier start, but they don’t need it), by late May they’re growing, reaching as high as 4 feet by late summer, then the blooms come. Mostly in shades of white, red, and pink. The plant also has a very pleasing golden fall color to the leaves.

Kopper King Fall Color

Standard hardy hibiscus have heart shaped leaves like other members of the mallow family. However some hybridizations have occured for leaf interest as well. My favorite of the lot is called ‘Pinot Noir’ it has very deep cut foliage remisicent of a Japanese maple, the leaves are also mottled green and purple, though the purple is very subtle. There is also ‘Kopper King’ which has three lobed leaves like a standard maple that feature a bronze or burgundy sheen. I also grow a variety called ‘Turn of the Century’ that has green leaves otherwise deeply cut like ‘Pinot Noir’ or maybe even more so. ‘Turn of the Century’ also features striped red and white blooms that look like peppermints. Finally I grow a white one that I’m unsure the cultivar of.

Pinot Noir

Of the four I grow ‘Pinor Noir’ my favorite for it’s deep red blooms and colorful leaves, is also the hardiest, and the best grower for me (though perhaps that is my fertilization bias). We had a spat of cold weather about 10 days ago with our first frost. It affected the other ones slightly, but ‘Pinot Noir’ is still sitting pretty like we’re in mid August.

In the Spring or early Winter after you’ve had some hard freezes you should prune back the growth to the ground, those canes are dead and you don’t need to keep them (this isn’t a hydrangea).

Make sure the plant gets plenty of water when growing, and they should grow well, with plant and bloom size being related to soil fertility. I also have anecdotal evidence they like banana peels, I toss a few into my garden daily, and the plants really seem to respond to that potassium.

All told I can’t recommend the plant enough. It is easy to grow, carefree, and provides showstopping blooms. It is also very easy to start from seed, every year one or two volunteers crop up in my garden (enough to be a bonus, way too few to be invasive). After blooming small seed clusters develop which eventually turn brown and crack open, harvest the seeds then and try planting them, maybe you’ll discover a new color! Or perhaps, you’ll just get free plants.

Highway medians, roadsides, parks, but mostly, front yards.

Some backwards and oppressive cities have ordinances requiring you to have x percentage of front yard as perfectly green lawn, and if you try to put in garden beds, xeriscaping, or just don’t remember to water, they fine you.

Garden beds require less fertilizer, less water, and less labor than lawn, and can make you money when used right. Sure, kids can’t play in gardens like they can on lawns, but unless you live on a very low traffic street, you want them playing in the back yard anyways. On my street, which is 4 lanes, I put in a new super secure gate as soon as my son learned to walk just to make sure he can never go into the front yard.

So, assuming you don’t live in a third reich city and can plant your front yard as you wish, why not get rid of the grass and put in planter beds? On a side note, I think it is funny the same sort of people who put in the stupid lawn ordinances are the types who act like chicken littles about food shortages.

My front yard is full of planting beds and I add a new one or two every year (it is almost an addiction for me).

I grow a mix of ornamentals and edibles in my front yard, I’m too much of a landscape artist to fully commit to just utilitarian gardening like I showed in this blog post on growing your own food. Plus, I want to sell this house one day (probably in about 5 years) so I have to be cognizant of resale value.

Right now, in addition to the sweet potatoes, apple trees, pawpaw tree, and herbs I am growing in my front yard, I’ve got a ginormous 15′x15′ mound of butternut squash. My wife calls it “The Blob” and we always see people walking by scoping it out. A few years ago squirrels told me where to plant my squash and so I did so this year. Butternut squash are versatile in the kitchen, and fairly easy to grow. A little supplemental watering if there is a drought, and that is it. They can be affected by powdering mildew, so a fungicide can be helpful, but they are one of few squash varieties resistant to squash vine borer.

I’m letting the blob grow all it wants, I’ll just mow around it (not that I’ve had to mow, we’ve had a drought lately, hence the wilty leaves). I’ll probably get 60 pounds of squash off of these plants, all for the price of a pack of seeds. It might not be the most attractive thing in the world, but a squash vine is not a permanent landscape feature, it can be removed at any time. So to grow it or another vine (such as watermellon) in your front yard all you need is a small planting hole/mound (with improved soil please), and then let it spill over onto the grass, and mow around it. Unlike a crop like say corn, you don’t have to commit a large portion of your yard to permanent garden if you don’t want to. You could also grow pumpkins this way as a project for the kids.

For most squash you don’t even need to start them until June (or even later if you have a longer growing season than we do in Michigan), and they take a little while to get going, so it isn’t as if it’ll cover your yard for the entire summer either.

My first plant of the year has arrived, a ‘Goldcot’ Apricot Dwarf from Stark Bros, and I need to sing their praises.

I’ve talked up Stark Bros before, mentioning them as my favorite place to get fruit trees, but they beat themselves in quality this time. This dwarf apricot was around 4 feet tall, and nicely branched already. Considering it is a dwarf, that is a really nice size to get. The branching is important as well. Often you’ll get trees that aren’t much more than a trunk, and since fruit comes off tertiary branches that typically means three years of growth. With primary branches already perfectly in place (this is what I mean by nicely branched, Stark’s employees perfectly pruned the branches to create well spaced and angled primary scaffolds), it could fruit sooner. The yield won’t be large, but it’ll be something.

The tree also had really nice sized roots, and judging by the condition, it looks as if the tree had been dug and the soil washed off mere hours before delivery, obviously, thats not possible, but it looked so good I’m sure that almost no time passed between when they dug it at their nursery and when they had it sent out. This is important. Some places might dig weeks before sending, which can really hurt a plant (or kill it), so Stark’s seemingly super-quick time is a huge benefit.

If you need a specialty fruit tree, I highly recommend Stark’s as a place to shop.

Now, about the tree. Apricots are one fruit that really really benefits from allowing to ripen on the tree. They are picked, pretty immaturely, to be shipped to supermarkets because once ripe they have very little shelf life. By growing your own you can let them ripen and get a much superior fruit (actually, most fruit benefits from this IMO). I picked a dwarf variety because I didn’t want a big tree, I picked the ‘Goldcot’ one because it was bred here in Michigan so I knew it could take the winter. I also got the tree for my wife (yes, by the way, I am a man, I saw myself quoted on another blog today and I was referred to as “she”), I think apricots are alright, but she really loves them, and I’m a good husband, so I bought her a tree.

I also turned the process of planting into a how-to tutorial: How to Plant a Bareroot Tree.

There can be no discussion, the Japanese iris is superior, in fact, I think I hate bearded irises now, and they used to be my favorite flower.

Bearded Irises, Falling Down on the Job

So, seriously, what kind of slob falls down on the job? The bearded iris, thats who! These beautiful flowers used to be my favorite flower when I was a novice gardener, they were big, interesting, flowers, and I liked big, interesting, flowers. But when I became more experienced and discriminating I realized all the shortcomings these plants have.

The tall bearded irises that are so popular cannot stand up to wind or rain, their scapes cannot support their flowers and any outward pressure will permanently damage the plant to the point where the flowers will adorn the ground.

They also don’t have the longest bloom time, big flowers are nice, but they could stick around longer. They also are finicky bloomers, sometimes they can just quit blooming until you divide them.

They also have ugly as sin foliage. Seriously, tall bearded irises have some of the most ugly foliage of any garden perennial. They look find when young, but as they age (where most plants improve) they get ugly. Big bald spots in the middle of a clump, so ugly. Yes, you dig and divide and try to give away the extras to family and friends who run in horror from yet-another-iris. This doesn’t excuse the fact that an iris put in the ground merely 3 years ago is going to be ugly this year.

Now, don’t get me wrong, the foliage is a nice bluish color, but it is just too sparse.

Japanese Irises, Fixin’ Whats Broken

Now lets compare with the Japanese irises. They have very tall (3-4 foot) clumping foliage that stays in a clump, looking like gladiolus, a bigger siberian iris, or a daylily on steroids. The foliage is attractive, and works really well at the back of a border. Additionally, there are variegated varieties.

The flowers of a Japanese iris are big, perhaps bigger than a tall bearded iris, they don’t really have much in the way of standards, but they have huge falls, they also in my experience last a little longer. Finally, they bloom later, around the same time as lilies, which is great. Lilies lack a strong purple color, and irises have that in loads. They’re of a height with lilies as well. So you can plant some purple Japanese irises next to some red lilies and have a really nice combination.

Did I mention they’re sturdy? Perhaps it is the clumping action that adds stability, but I’ve never had one fall over.

There isn’t as much variety available in the Japanese iris, but perhaps that is because they’re not as common, as people request them more, which they should, more varieties may be introduced.

In anycase, I can’t see a situation in the future where I would put a new bearded iris in my garden, and in fact will probably tear out more of the ones that are there currently. In contrast, I fully intend to plant more Japanese irises.

As I sit here eating an amazing pear from my garden (despite recent wounds to my pear tree) my advice to you is to plant fruit.

It isn’t just because fruit trees save you money in the long run with free produce. But you simply get a better quality item than what you buy in the store. See, for many types of fruit, letting it ripen on the tree makes it infinitely better. Fully ripe fruit though spoils quickly and bruises easily and so doesn’t ship well, meaning, you can’t get it at the supermarket.

I leave my pears on my tree until they’ve turned a little yellow, and most importantly, their flesh gives when I poke a finger at them. At this point they’re perfectly ripe, and a dream to eat. They’ll last at most a day or two on the counter before they are overripe, but man are they good. Canned pears are of course good because they are seeped in heavy syrup. Imagine if you will, a pear that has that syrup on the inside, that is what you get when you leave them to ripen on the tree.

Pears are of course not the only fruit (or veggies for that matter) that tastes better when left to ripen on the tree or plant. Most fruits become sweeter this way, for particulars I’ve heard very good things about apricots.

Now, you don’t need a big yard or a big wallet to plant a fruit tree. I remember a conversation with my Dad a couple years ago where he said he thought fruit trees cost $200 each, no, they don’t. I was just at Home Depot and they had them for $12.99, and these are 5-6 feet tall, and could likely bear lots fruit in 3 years (my pear tree originally came from Lowes, I paid like $18 for it, I planted it in the Spring of 2004. In 2005 I got like 1 pear, in 2006 like 5, this year I got like 40). Some will tell you to pick immature fruit off younger trees to help them grow bigger, this is true if you’re running a commercial orchard. For the backyard gardener though, you don’t necessarily want your tree to grow brigger, and so let those fruits ripen and eat them.

And yes, you can keep a fruit tree small. Now your Lowes or Home Depot or even typical garden centers may not have a huge selection of dwarf or semi-dwarf hybrids, but they’re out there. My favorite source for fruit trees is StarkBros.com they have a huge variety, they send good plants, and most importantly, they have dwarves and semi-dwarves of nearly every type of fruit. If you have four square feet of garden you can grow a dwarf fruit tree believe it or not. They really don’t require a lot of room.

Another complaint is that fruit trees are messy, well, yes, they drop bad fruit, much of which will be destroyed by critters and inedible. Get yourself a compost tumbler or compost bin for all that extra stuff, or just feed it to the wildlife. We have a big old fat groundhog that lives under our shed and eats our pears. Which is fine by me, better him than something else. He’ll grab a pear and it it like a human eats corn on the cob, its amusing to watch.

For the record, I have a relatively small yard, and I have… 1 pear tree, 1 apple tree, 1 cherry tree, 2 grape vines, 2 hardy kiwi vines, a raspberry patch, a strawberry patch, a blueberry patch, and an asparagus patch (thats just in and around my ornamentals, that doesn’t even count my vegetable garden). Plus, I’ve ordered a dwarf apricot from Stark’s for planting next Spring. You don’t need a lot of room for these.

First, a little bragging. This picture was taken like the second week in July. I picked my first raspberry on July 5th and within a week I was harvesting a quarter pound a day or more from this 8′x4′ patch. What I want to show off though is the height. Look at those canes. That one big one in the middle has to be 8 feet tall atleast, and it has grown more since I took this picture. I’ll need a ladder to harvest.

Anyways, as you can see in my other blog posts linked to below, I grow my raspberries in a raised bed. This is because they spread with underground runners. This is both a good and a bad thing. They spread so rapidly that you can get a large planting in no time, and you can dig up the runners and give them to friends. On the other hand, they can take over and start growing in areas they do not belong. So, I put them in raised beds, now I’ve got pipe culverts buried slightly into the soil (click the link, those are the same exact plants, 2 years early, crazy huh? also, my hardy kiwi on the fence behind them has grown a lot as well), and I had those for a year, then I got the plastic faux rock raised bed stuff to put around them to make them look nicer (the culverts are still there, just hidden), and I backfilled with lava rock. This keeps them well enough contained so I don’t get runners going into nearby areas (though sometimes a fallen berry still germinates).

Many places I’ve seen say raspberries product only on new wood and to cut them back every year. This makes no sense to me, all mine produce on both new and old wood. One year old canes start producing in July, new growth canes start producing in August usually, that is for me here in Zone 5. If I cut them back every year I’d have to wait until August to get any berries, and would miss a whole month of .25 or .5 pounds per day of harvests.

Now, the 1 year old canes are slightly less productive their second year, but they still produce, and that is kinda crazy if you think about it. The volume of berries I’m getting now is so high.. and since it is all 1 year old canes it isn’t even peak yet.

Two year old canes always die for me, so ya, cut those back. You’ll be able to well in fall or very early spring which ones are dead and need removal.

Raspberries are expensive at the store because they do not ship well and so they’re one of the most money saving crops you can grow at home. They are relatively carefree, will take drought and poor soils fine. The berries are prone to rot in damp conditions though so they may not be appropriate for areas with heavy rainfall. Full sun is best, but part sun will work. The only pest I’ve ever noticed on them is japanese beetles, which are easy to control once you identify them as your problem. If they need water they’ll let you know with slightly droopy leaves, but that rarely happens thanks to their well established perennial bush root system. As for fertilizer, I started mine off with good soil, but I don’t fertilize them at all. The thorns also keep all but the most desperately hungry deer or rabbits away.

Raspberries are extremely healthy to eat, put them in cereal, smoothies, make sauces and jams and jellies and crisps and pies. I’m canning this year for the first time simply because of the volume of berries I have.

Raspberries are so healthy, so hardy, so easy, in fact that I think they should be grown in vacant lots in inner cities to provide a source of fresh fruit to needy families. Why not? The land is there. Stick them on road medians, anywhere, everywhere, feed America, one berry at the time. You can even make a tea out of the leaves.

So, maybe I’m a little crazy about them, but they are the best food crop I’ve ever grown.

Posts, poles, supports, columns, whatever you want to call them, we all have them, we all need them. They hold things up. In my case, a large bird house. Why not pretty them up a little bit and grow things on them?

Rather than buying an expensive (comparatively) trellis from the “trellis section” at the Home Depot, or going the more permanent option of pounding dozens of nails into the post to act as supports, you can simply get a trusty pair of tin snips and snip off a (for a 4×4 post) 18 inch or so section of fencing. You may need two 18 inch sections depending on the height of the fence and the post area you want to cover (stacking them on top of each other) then simply wrap it around the post and secure it with the loose wire ends created when you made your cuts. Voila, a cheapo trellis that will soon be invisible behind a mountain of flowers and foliage. Then, if you ever tire of it, you simply remove it, and the post is no worse for wear.

I do this with clematis, as you can see in the picture. The vine is simply planted at the base of the pole and climbs it mostly by itself, I only have to do a little guiding, and that is usually limited to just tucking wayward stems into a section of the wire frame. The vine you see in the picture is just 1 year old, so not yet at full coverage, plus, it is still May here in zone 5, we had frost last night (grrrrr), so the growth it has is really impressive considering. I expect it to achieve full coverage by the end of the season.

You can also do this with morning glory readily, as well as any other flowing vine that doesn’t get too woody or large. For instance, I wouldn’t do this with trumpet vine or wisteria, think smaller, those both get too big.

Oil & Ethanol

First, why are food prices going up? Two reasons, oil and ethanol. Oil prices reached $130 a barrel today on the back of demand from developing countries, weakening supply, and speculation. Everything that is transported by truck has mirrored oil in price increases. It costs more to transport the food from the farm to the market, it costs more to farm the food because tractors run on gas, and so the food goes up in price.

The second reason is a woefully misguided ethanol policy pushed on us by Democrats and most Republicans in Washington, and this is such an important issue I am going to talk about it a little. From President Bush to Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama, most politicians have caved to big agribusiness lobbying and supported corn ethanol mandates and subsidies. Only a few people such as Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) and of course John McCain have been vocal against it, going way back. McCain to the point of ceding the Iowa Primary to his competitors rather than pander to big agribusiness. Even if you disagree with his other policy positions, you have to give him props for being the only presidential hopeful from either party to go to Iowa and say that he doesn’t support corn ethanol subsidies and mandates.

The problem with corn based ethanol is that it is a waste of time, money, and increases food prices. Seriously. Consumer Reports did a comparison with one of those flex fuel cars that can take gasoline or E85 Ethanol. Since ethanol has less potential energy than gasoline they got fewer miles per gallon with it. To the point of about 30%. So, 10 gallons of gasoline will get you 30% farther than 10 gallons of E85. Or, with E85, you use 30% more fuel to go the same distance.

Then, corn is an extremely labor intensive and resource intensive crop to grow. With high fertilizer needs and complex machinery you only get about 1.3 gallons of ethanol for every 1 gallon of gas spent harvesting it. So combine the two issues together and you’ve got about 0 in fuel savings.

So we’re spending all this money on subsidies and having a government mandate that doesn’t actually result in better, cheaper, or cleaner fuel. But, what we are getting, is more demand for fertilizer, which increases the price of fertilizer, more demand for arable land, which increases the price of arable land, and more demand among the land for ethanol corn plantings, which increases the premium other plantings (ie food) need to achieve, and all of that results in higher food prices.

The really scary thing, none of this is recent news. I was reading articles on ethanol’s problems as a “solution” back in 05. I wish congress had read the same ones. Also, I don’t mean to say all ethanol, ethanol made from switchgrass for instance (which grows like a weed) gets something like 5-8 gallons for every gallon spent, much, much, better than 1.3 from corn, and yet we’ve got this corn mandate. Fishy? You bet.

So write your representatives in Washington and tell them to kick the corn ethanol habit.

So, what to plant?

In the meantime, back to gardening, so you want to plant food to save money, good idea, even people with small yards can plant enough to save a few hundred dollars a year at the grocery store, and with medium yards you can easily put that into 4 figures at current ridiculous prices (oh yes, this week I spent $2 for a single zucchini).

When evaluating what plants to grow for money savings you need to consider a few different issues. How easy is the plant to grow? How much does the food you get from the plant cost at the store? How well does the food product keep? How much of the food can your family eat? How much space do the plant needs? Do you get significantly better quality when growing it yourself? And finally, what grows best in your area?

How easy is the plant to grow?

Time is money, water is money, fertilizer is money. If you’re gardening as a hobby some of these things do not matter, but if you expect to save money by gardening they do, and so how easy a plant is to grow matters. This includes planting, harvesting, watering, fertilizing, soil requirements, etc.

How much does it cost at the store?

This should be obvious, you get better value growing more expensive things. If you have a 10 sq/ft plot and can grow two plants that will yield say 20 pounds total, then it is better to grow the plant that costs $3 per pound at the store than the plant that costs $2 per.

How well does the food keep?

Foods that go bad quickly require expedited shipping to reach the market, which is more expensive, so they tend to be priced at a premium at the store. On the other hand, if the food goes bad quickly it may be hard for your family to eat it all when the harvest comes due, so consider that when deciding how much of a food to plant.

How much can your family eat?

This ties into the previous one. There is no point planting an acre of eggplants if your family doesn’t eat them or can’t eat that many. When you buy a packet of seeds and there are 100 seeds in there, it doesn’t mean you need to plant all 100, plant 2 or 3 and save the rest for the next year, that way you’ll have the room to plant a larger variety of plants.

How much space do the plants need?

We don’t all have full fields in our backyards, when you’re limited on room veggies that can be planted densely will tend to provide a greater value than those that need more space.

Do you get better quality when growing at home?

Many plants are picked before fully ripe to be sent to the store, and so they never get as sweet as they can be. Or, some plants once picked instantly start converting sugars to starch, and so are never as sweet at the market as they are when just picked. This isn’t really a money saving issue, but can factor into your decision of what to plant.

What grows best in your area?

Hot peppers are expensive at the store, but I wouldn’t think of planting them up here in Michigan, they need hot weather to grow and we don’t have a lot of it. If I plant something that tolerates cooler temperatures I could get two, maybe even 3, harvests in a year. Many veggies you can harvest after 50 or 60 days, so if April and September are warm I could get 3 plantings in. Likewise, a plant that requires lots of water shouldn’t be planted in the southwest as you’ll be spending to water it throughout the year.

Some planting ideas

My favorite money saving plant is raspberries. Raspberries are expensive at the store because they do not keep or ship well. They produce for months and months all summer, and keep producing until October usually for me. My 4×8 mature raspberry patch probably makes me around $5 a day during the peak of the summer in free fruit. They are perennial bushes so you only need to plant them once and they will grow forever. They also spread like mad so if you want them to cover a larger area you can buy fewer plants originally. Berries are also extremely good for you, high in antioxidants and vitamins, fiber, etc. If you have too many, you can easily make jam and can them, once canned they’ll keep for a year. Raspberries handle drought, poor soils, do not need fertilizer, and produce tons of fruit. Blueberries have very particular growing requirements. Strawberries, because of their short stature, do not give you as much food per sq/ft. Raspberries are the superior berry for the home garden.

Another favorite of mine is asparagus. Asparagus is one of the very few perennial vegetables, plant it once and harvest it for decades, so it doesn’t require a lot of time commitment. It is also fairly expensive at the store, and it is one of those that is best when first picked, because once it is picked it starts converting sugars into starch and fiber. Corn is also best when first picked for the same reason. However corn does take more work, and space, and fertilizer, and so isn’t going to be a good choice for everyone (but if you have the room, maybe give it a try).

Any food you can get from a tree is going to end up being cheap in the long run, if you can be patient. $20 for a tree now and in 5 years you may start getting some food from it, in 10-20 years you’ll be feeding yourself and all your neighbors, but that is long term. Nuts of all types are of course expensive at the store, and most of the country can grow walnuts and pecans, but fruit too can be a good option. Dwarf apple, pear, or cherry trees can fit in even the smallest yards, and letting those fruits ripen on the tree makes them very sweet.
Leafy green veggies such as chard or mesclun mixes can be good to grow. They don’t keep well so they’re expensive at the store, they can be grown in cooler in weather, and they can be harvested repeatedly. When you want a salad, you go out and cut enough just for that salad, the leaves grow back, and the next time you want a salad, you have more to harvest.

Onions can be a great crop to grow for a few reasons. The big ones are now around $2 each at the store, whereas you can buy a bag of 100 onion sets for $2. So, plant them all, and you’ll make around $200, not bad. Onions, being bulbs, can handle cold weather, you can get them started early in the year, or plant them later. Onions, also because they’re bulbs can be planted close together, 4-6 inches apart. You can literally tuck them in any free nooks in your garden. You can also grow them in containers. Right now I’ve got 4 or 6 big pots full of onions because it is still too early to plant annuals or other tender plants in them, but I’ll be harvesting those onions in June at which point I will be able to plant something else in those places.

My final pick is hard squash, butternut or spaghetti. I used to hate squash, but all I knew of it was some horrid dishes passed at a relative’s thanksgiving. After learning different recipes, ways to prepare it, spices that compliment it, I like it. Squash does take a bit of room, but you can’t beat the storage. Keep it in a cool, dry, and dark place and hard squashes will keep for a year, I’ve even heard of longer than that. They’re also very healthy, high in beta carotene and fiber. So there is no worry about being stuck with a huge harvest you cannot eat, that one harvest can be eaten over the course of a year.

Succession Planting

My final tip to the home gardener looking to save money by growing their own food is to make use of succession planting. This means planting in stages, over the course of weeks, so that you’re also able to harvest in stages, over the course of weeks. By making sure all your food doesn’t need to be harvested at the same time you make it easier to ensure that you have time to eat it all when it is ready to be harvested.

The main advertised benefit of colored mulches is that they keep their color and so you don’t need to replace them as often. Personally, that doesn’t fly with me. I don’t lay down new mulch for coloring reasons, I do it to maintain a good thickness of 2-3 inches.

I do, however, use colored mulches sometimes in some places. I use them for their colors, as just another design element. You might plant a purple smokebush around some golden variegated hostas and it would look good with the foliage colors contrasting. You can achieve the same thing, and do more, by adding colored much into the area. So now you can contrast the plants against each other, and the mulch.

You can also contrast mulch with itself. My raised asparagus beds are covered in red mulch, and the ground level beds surrounding them are covered in gold mulch. It works.

This post though, this post is about black mulch, the post title I’m sure seems impossible. How could someone as dark as black brighten up a shady area? But what have I been discussing so far? Contrast. So, lets discuss contrast and shade.

Most flowering plants that do well in shady environments produce lackluster flowers, or atleast those that cannot compete with their sun loving cousins. In contrast (ahem), the foliage of plants that do well in shady areas tends to be spectacularly colorful with shades of golds and reds and blues, and of course greens.

However, foliage rarely rivals flowers for color, so make it pop, you need contrast. The most popular way to get contrast is to put clashing plants next to each other. A red-green plant looks crimson when planted next to a yellow-green plant (which itself ends up looking bright). Contrast helps to highlight the differences between the plants, making both look brighter and more vibrant.

So, since black is the ultimate contrast creator, adding black mulch to your shady areas might just brighten them up when paired with lighter colored plants.

Give it a try. I did, and as you can see in the picture (which by the way is Hosta ‘Great Expectations’ underneath my red laceleaf Japanese maple), I think it works.