The Big Experiment
As gardeners, we are no strangers to experimentation. I put the blame squarely on the plant world for this. With all the amazing flora available to fill our gardens, we are exposed to constant temptation each time we set foot in a garden centre.
How can one possibly resist a new plant, when staring at gorgeous foliage or stunning flowers? It’s hard to block out that instant to-the-core feeling that makes you want to jump up and down like a kid in a candy store and scream ‘I need that!’
We all know how this all-too-common scenario unfolds…
You spot ‘the plant’. You stop dead in your tracks and stare at this new found beauty. (Is that a single beam of sunlight shining down only on that plant? You can almost hear a voice whispering from above, saying “buy the plant!!”. It must be a sign…) You look at the plant tag to get a sense of how big this ‘potted beauty’ will grow, as well as the conditions required for it to flourish…
“Hmm…requires full sun (6+ hours of direct sun)…deep rich soil, moderate moisture… OK. I have dry shade…”
It seems painfully obvious that you just need to put the plant down and back away. But the internal dialogue continues….
”…but I get a bit of sun in the back corner, I can put it there… I’ll amend the soil… I promise to water religiously…”
The plant ends up in your garden (so much for the information on that plant tag!) and guess what happens next?
“🎸Dum, dum, dum… another one bites the dust…🎸” You know that voice you heard? Turns out Freddie Mercury wanted the plant too.
My ‘OMG must have moment’ of the week. Full sun? Well…. the front yard receives almost 6 hours.
With all that said, not all garden experiments end with an earworm; experimenting in the garden can be rewarding too. Pushing the rules and boundaries can help a gardener learn just how much they can get away with, when it comes to the care of certain plants- which is really valuable information!
So this is why I have kicked off my own experiment this year: a food garden. This might seem like an outrageous statement coming from a landscape gardener but there are a few factors at play that make this a not-so-straightforward gardening project and one that falls more into the ‘experimental’ range.
First of all, I am predominantly an ornamental gardener- my food gardening experience is limited and, while the principals of growing food and growing ornamentals are the same, I am not schooled in the nuances of the ‘edible plant’ palette .
My yard is shady- technically part shade (3-6 hours of sun) where the raised bed is located. While some ‘crops’ can tolerate these light conditions, many do not, so I need to make my plant selections carefully.
The newly founded ‘farm’ is within the dripline of a butternut tree (the point on the ground to which the branches extend overhead). This tree (along with other Juglans and Carya species) produces a chemical called juglone which inhibits the growth of other plants beneath it. Different plants have varying sensitivities to juglone, so I must choose crop plants that can not only tolerate shade, but also have some tolerance to this chemical. Fortunately, butternut trees do not produce the same concentrations of juglone as black walnut trees (Juglans nigra)- good news for my edibles!
Gazing up at the butternut (Juglans cinerea) canopy. Is that the afternoon sun trying to peek through?
Despite these three factors, I am always up for a challenge and I have decided that the theme in my garden this year is “partial shade food gardening beneath a butternut”.
Wish me luck! It should be a good little experiment; and it has already become a true experiment. After being unsatisfied with the limited selection of plants tolerant to both shade and juglone (beets, beans, parsnip and squash), I decided to add cucumber, lettuce, spinach, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower and eggplant to the mix… just to see what happens. If the results are good, you will read about them in future posts; if they are bad, we will forget this post ever happened (just kidding- I’ll post the failures too, after all we can learn a lot from them)!
Happy experimenting!