November 2021 | Montgomery Botanical Gardens

How Does Your Garden Grow?

December 20, 2021November 29, 2021 by Amye King

Protecting your plants against frost.

Fruit Trees

When it comes to a fruit tree, the hardiness level of its buds greatly depends on the developmental stage the buds are in. Generally speaking, if a fruit tree has flowered and set its fruit, it should be safe from a light frost. At this stage of development, research has shown that 10 percent of fruit will be killed when temperatures reach 28 °F.

Garden Vegetables

When it comes to garden vegetables, cool-season plants generally handle colder temperatures well. Cool-season plants include vegetables such as peas, lettuce, broccoli, cabbage, onions, carrots, and many others. Some of them can withstand temperatures between 26 and 31°F for a limited amount of time without receiving notable damage.

Warm-season garden vegetables, however, are not as hardy as their cool-season counterparts. Many of these vegetables can start to see foliar damage at 33 °F. These vegetables include ones such as peppers, tomatoes, squash, corn, okra, and others.

Protecting Plants from Frost Damage

There are several things that people can do to protect their plants from frost damage. People may have to get a little creative to protect their plants from cold weather.

A commonly used method is loosely covering the plants with some sort of lightweight fabric, such as a bed sheet. This can add 3 to 5 degrees to the ambient air temperature, which can make all the difference. Cloth material is more effective than using a plastic covering because plastic will transfer more heat. Also, foliage may freeze if it comes in contact with a plastic covering.

When using this method, remember that the goal is to trap the heat from the ground, not from the plant. The following are several tips to follow to protect your plants from a threat of frost:

Weigh down the material used to cover the plants to prevent the wind from blowing it off the plants. Make sure there are no openings for heat to escape from.
Make sure the plants are well watered. Plants that are lacking water are more vulnerable to frost damage. Also, wet soil retains heat longer and will slowly release it during a frost.
For small, vulnerable plants – such as tomato and pepper plants – people can cover them with a bucket, newspaper, or gallon milk carton to protect them. Under extreme circumstances, recently-planted transplants can be dug up, brought inside, and then replanted once the threat has passed.

It is extremely important for people to remove the covering off of plants each morning and temperatures increase. Keeping a cover on a plant that is in direct sunlight can cause heat damage to any new growth.

Information gathered from Alabama Cooperative Extension System

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Backyard Composting

November 15, 2021November 15, 2021 by Amye King

Information gathered from Alabama Cooperative Extension System

In Alabama, a family of four generates an average of 2.5 tons of garbage per year—nearly a half ton of which is yard refuse and kitchen waste that can be composted. Learn everything from how to construct your compost pile in layers to how to manage the carbon/nitrogen ratio and regulate temperature, as well as how to use finished compost for adding nutrients to your soil, conserving moisture, and suppressing weeds.

According to the EPA, Americans recycle and compost about 33 percent of their total daily trash generated. However, roughly 75 percent of all municipal waste is material that could be recycled. The magnitude of solid waste production is presenting disposal problems in sanitary landfills. Many landfills have been forced to close as a result of being full or environmentally unsound.

You can have an impact on decreasing the volume of trash in our landfills and add a benefit to your yard at the same time. Recycle leaves and other yard waste and most kitchen scraps to make your own compost. It gives benefit to both sandy and clay soils. Why buy this amendment when you can make it yourself?

The key to composting in the home landscape is to regulate the conditions under which microbial decomposition takes place for greater efficiency.

Keep in mind that smart yard composting is merely speeding up a natural process. On the forest floor, it could take several years for humus (or compost) to form, but with attention to detail, we can shorten this to mere weeks.

Any number of systems may be used to contain and manage compost. But any compost system that you choose should be determined by how well you will be able to manage the compost process. Whether using a cage, a pile, or a turning unit, the following sequence should be followed to properly build and manage the compost.

Construct a compost pile in layers. Alternate different types of yard waste with a nitrogen source and a sprinkling of soil or finished compost. The soil and finished compost provide an inoculum of micro-organisms. Begin with a 6-inch layer of coarse materials such as small twigs or branches (this adds air). Then place finer materials such as leaves or grass clippings in a layer about 6 to 8 inches deep. If wood chips or other higher-carbon materials are placed in this layer instead of leaves or grass clippings, add about 1 cup of a nitrogen fertilizer or a manure. The final layer consists of soil or finished compost 1 to 2 inches deep.

This sequence of layers is repeated with the exception that the coarser material is omitted with subsequent layers. Just about any plant waste can be added to the compost pile. Kitchen scraps, such as vegetable and fruit scraps, egg shells, and coffee grounds, can be added to the pile, but make sure they are buried in the pile to avoid odor. Do not add meat scraps, bones, or fats to the compost pile because they will attract unwanted animal and insect pests.

Turn to mix the compost periodically, ideally after the temperature in the middle of the pile has reached 140°F, to encourage uniform aeration of the pile. Add water if the pile dries out. Compost can be ready to use in as soon as a month or as long as a year, depending on the kinds of materials added and how the compost pile is managed. Finished compost should look like a uniform potting soil with little distinguishable evidence remaining of what materials were originally added to the pile.

Compost can be used to improve soil aeration and structure, add nutrients to garden soil, and hold water and nutrients in sandy soils. Compost can also be used as a mulch to conserve soil moisture, suppress weeds, prevent crusting of the soil surface, and buffer soil temperatures.

Composting is an inexpensive and ecologically sound way to recycle yard and garden wastes, improve your soil, cut down on waste disposal costs, and save considerable space in our bulging landfills.

Composting Info, Do’s and Don’ts

Water is needed for the micro-organisms that decompose waste to grow and multiply. A handful of compost should feel like a wrung-out sponge. Squeeze it and no more than a drop or two should come out.
The 130°F to 150°F temperatures generated in the core of a compost pile are adequate to kill most weed seeds and many pathogenic organisms.
Compost tilled into a sandy soil improves the soil’s capacity to hold water and nutrients. Added to a heavy clay soil, compost increases the air spaces between clay particles, which improves drainage and increases soil aeration. In either soil extreme, plants benefit.
Composting tools are designed to penetrate the pile and open up a passage for air and moisture when withdrawn. Tools are available from seed and garden product suppliers.
Alabama Smart Yards make compost. Most yard waste could be composted for on-site use, but 65-plus percent of it usually goes to a landfill.
A 1,000-square-foot area of lawn can generate up to 500 pounds of grass clippings in a single season.
Compost is finished or stable—ready to use—when most of the original plant materials are no longer recognizable. Finished compost is dark colored, crumbly, and looks and feels like soil.
Sawdust will decompose very slowly unless nitrogen is added. Add 3.5 pounds of actual nitrogen to each cubic yard of wood chips. That’s 8 pounds of urea.
Finished compost contains nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, although the amount of each element varies. Most of the nitrogen and phosphorus are present in an organic form, and they are released gradually. That makes compost a good slow-release fertilizer for trees and shrubs. Generally, additional fertilizer will have to be added for vegetables and bedding plants.
DO compost kitchen scraps, including apples, cabbage, carrots, celery, coffee grounds, egg shells, grapefruit, lettuce, onions, oranges, pears, pineapple, potatoes, pumpkins, squash, tomatoes, turnips—just about any vegetable waste.
DON’T compost fats, butter, bones, cheese, chicken, fish, lard, mayonnaise, meat, milk, peanut butter, salad dressing, sour cream, vegetable oil, yogurt, etc.
Aeration—contact with air by turning—provides oxygen to the microbes doing the work.
Biodegradability—the potential for being converted into simpler structures.
Leachate—liquid that drains from the mix of fresh organic matter.
Pathogen—any disease-producing micro-organism.
Yard wastes—grass clippings, leaves, weeds, and branches less than 6 inches in diameter.

Support the Montgomery Botanical Gardens when you shop on Amazon and a portion of your purchase will go to improve the Gardens.

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2. Click the ‘Start Shopping’ button

3. Shop as usual.