Orchids are exotic beauties that, because of their exorbitant prices in the thousands of dollars, were once the playthings of only the very rich. Now, thanks to the process of micro-cloning — also known as tissue culture — they are available for much more reasonable prices. This allows more people the opportunity to try their hand at growing and blooming them.

      The orchid family of plants is the largest on the planet, with more than 35,000 species and well over 100,000 manmade hybrids. They grow everywhere on Earth except Antarctica, and they range in size from micro-mini plants with minuscule flowers best viewed with a magnifying glass to plants bearing blossoms up to 8 inches wide.

      Some orchids are highly fragrant with delicious odors, while others have extremely obnoxious odors. The scent depends on the type of pollinator the orchid is trying to attract.

      And the colors are mesmerizing. Every color that can be conceived of is available and often highlighted by spots and stripes on the petals. There is something for everyone in the orchid family.

      In their natural state, most orchids that hobbyists grow are epiphytes, although there are some that are terrestrial. Epiphytes grow on tree limbs and rocks, attaching themselves to their host with their roots. Because they do not take any nourishment from their hosts, they are not considered to be parasitic. Most hobbyists grow them in pots or mounted on wood, rocks or tree fern slabs.

      The most commonly seen orchids in the Baton Rouge area are those in the genus Phalanopsis (fail-a-NOP-sis). These can be found everywhere from grocery stores to big-box stores and many places in between. These plants do not require light levels as high as some other varieties, so they make great house plants and are easy to grow and re-bloom. The blooms on these beauties can last up to three months.

      Some orchids require more cold weather than we can provide in the Baton Rouge area, so hobbyists are wise to learn the difference between the ones that need cold and those that thrive in our heat and humidity.

The days are getting longer, and the weather is beginning to warm up. If you haven’t started your warm-season vegetables yet, there is still time to do so. If your transplants are ready to be put in the ground, then consider getting your beds prepared and the vegetables in the garden soon.

Warm-season vegetables include tomatoes, peppers and eggplants, but one of my favorite warm-season vegetables to grow is cucumbers. Whether you prefer them fresh, pickled, in salads or on a sandwich, cucumbers are a great addition to any backyard vegetable garden. You could use your cucumber in all four dishes and still have plenty left over as one plant will typically produce 30 to 40 fruits. Be sure to take this into consideration when deciding how many to plant.

Cucumbers, as well as other members of the cucurbit family, produce separate male and female flowers on the same plant. It is very easy to tell which flower is male and which is female — the female will have an immature fruit attached to the base of the flower.

The male flowers are the first flowers on the vine for the season. So don’t be alarmed when you don’t see any fruit set from the first flowers. Usually the female flowers will begin to appear within 10 day s of the first male flower.

When choosing which variety to plant, consider that there are two general kinds of cucumbers: pickling and slicing. The pickling varieties produce short, blocky fruit with a tender skin that usually has more white coloration than the slicing types. The slicing types, typically used in salads, are long, dark green with a thick, tougher skin.

Many varieties are available on the market, but not all will grow well in the South. A few slicing-type varieties that do well here in the South include Dasher II, Diva, Olympia and Slice. If you are growing for pickles, consider Calypso, Fanipak or Jackson.

Cucumbers can take up a rather large area if left to grow on the ground. However, a common practice of backyard cucumber growers is to trellis the plant or allow it to grow on a chain-link fence. This will not only reduce the amount of area used in the garden but will also help reduce disease that have detrimental effects on your cucumbers.

Cucumbers are relatively heavy feeders, so dig in a generous amount of compost prior to planting. Two to three plants should be more than enough for one household. If you plant more, be prepared, and have neighbor or friend do share with.

If you have been thinking about adding blueberries to your garden, now is the optimum to do so. Planting now in the cool weather will help to encourage success throughout the spring and summer month.

Blueberries fit into any general home landscape design and can serve as hedges, borders or backgrounds. The blueberry’s native adaptation to both the soil and the climate of the Southeast makes it a productive fruit for Louisiana. Blueberries are typically used in the landscape as hedges for screening purposes, but they also can be used in cluster plantings or as single specimen plants.

The Rabbiteye blueberries was inducted into the LSU AgCenter’s Super plant program in the fall of 2014 gaining notoriety. The Louisiana Super Plant program is an educational and marketing campaign that highlights tough and beautiful plants that perform well in Louisiana landscapes. The Rabbiteye Blueberries have a proven track record having gone through several years of university evaluations and observations.

One of the most critical pieces of information to understand about having a successful blueberry crop is that two different varieties of blueberries need to be planted near each other. There are many different varieties to choose from such as Climax, Premier Tiffblue, and Brightwell just to name a few. Each variety has their own individual qualities making them stand out slightly from one another.

Rabbiteye blue berries should be planted 6-8ft part, allowing enough room to pick from all side. On the other hand, if you use Rabbiteye blueberries is a hedge type setting, consider planting slightly closer together a 4-6ft spacing

After selecting two different varieties be sure to plant blueberries in the area that has full sun meaning eight or more hours of sunlight each day. Be sure that the soil is well-drained slightly sandy and has a pH of at least 4.5 to 5.5. If soil is not as acidic as it needs to be, consider adding organic matter at planting. Organic matter can be added to lower the pH includes peat moss or pine bark this will greatly increase the productivity of your blueberry plantings.

During the first year of establishment blueberries do not require very much pruning. As the blueberry plants get older, nearing the fifth or sixth year of establishment is when pruning will need to begin. The primary purpose pruning control and maintain the size of the plan and to encourage new growth. We can do this by selecting and removing older canes from the bush it helps to direct energies into new growth.

One reason why we seen so many blueberry farms around the state is because blueberries are fairly easy to grow they have little insect and disease pressure that homeowners need to worry about. There are still some insects and diseases that could be problematic, such as blueberry Gall midges cranberry fruit worm different types of caterpillars stink bugs scale and flower trips. Diseases to watch out for include botrytis blight, stem canker, and septoria leaf spot, and powdery mildew.

Have you taken a look at the Louisiana vegetable planting guide yet? Jan 15 marks the optimum time to start your tomatoes and peppers seeds for transplant into the vegetable garden for mid-March.
Whether you start your seeds in a greenhouse or indoors, there are many benefits to growing your own transplants. One of the benefits is that it can save you tons of money. If you were to purchase a flat of plants from the nursery, you would be paying for the invested time and money put into those plants by the nurserymen. On the other hand, if you were to incur the time and expense of starting the plants yourself, then there could be a savings upwards of $15 or greater per flat.

One major concern of starting plants indoors for your outdoor landscape is the timing. If you start your plants too early, you run the risk of having them indoors and in the pots too long. This can ultimately lessen some of the quality of the plants. Conversely, if you start your plants too late in the season, you won’t reap the maximum amount of landscape value that that particular plant offers.

The easiest way to determine when to start your seed is to work backwards from the desired planting date. The first step to starting your seeds indoors is to determine when the plants should be planted into the landscape. Second, determine the amount of time needed for the plants to mature from germination to the point where they can be planted into the ground. The last piece of information needed is the germination time. Look on the back of the package to determine how long it will take before the plant germinates.

Now, with those three pieces of information, you will now be able to determine when to start the seed. For example, we plant vinca in late spring or early summer, usually around May. When we start vinca in a 4-inch container, it takes about eight weeks to grow a mature plant that will be ready to be put into the ground. Working backwards, it will also take an additional week for germination. This means we will need a total of nine weeks to grow our plant. Therefore, we would need to start the seed at the beginning of March, either indoors or in a hothouse

If you are not lucky enough to own your own hothouse, a large window or sliding glass door will be just fine. First, get all of your prep work done outside, such as filling containers and planting seed. After determining the area where you will have the seed for next few weeks, lay down plastic or the lid to a storage tub, and put your trays on top of the waterproofing material. The storage tub’s top will help to collect excess water that drains from the bottom of the pots. Keep an inexpensive mist bottle in close proximity to the seed to make sure the soil and plants don’t dry out. Keep a close eye on the size of the plants as they start to reach maturity by checking the root system every few days. Once you are able to pull the plants out of the pot and the soil stays intact because of the amount of roots, your plants are now ready to be planted into the landscape.

This winter, try starting a few flats of your favorite vegetable or flowering annuals. If you have enough space and the desire to learn a little extra about the plants that you use in your landscape, I encourage you to try your hand at this skill. The risk–to-reward ratio is tremendous. A little up-front cost will create an impressive impact in your landscape in the future.

The beginning of each year is great time for businesses, employees, and households to perform a year-in-review. The same can be said for gardeners. Before the chaos of spring comes forth, now is a quiet gardening time to pull out your gardening journal and look back to the past year in your garden.

 If you happen to be of the group which heeds the advice to keep a garden journal from year to year, now is a great time to go back through all your thoughts, ideas, success, and learning opportunities. If you are not a part of this group, and have never kept a gardening journal before, I encourage you this year to make an effort to make this a part of your new year’s resolutions.

There are many reasons why a gardener should be keeping a garden journal. One reason, is that as gardeners we love to experiment with new ideas, trends, and varieties of plant material. Oftentimes we share seed with one another or collect seed out of other’s gardens. We often put a deliberate effort to search out unique, different or rare plant material. Keeping a gardening journal will allow you to record, and more importantly, recall what day you planted a particular plant or seed, it’s germination percentage, the type of soil you used or mixed and the overall appearance or vigor of that plant in your garden over the course of its life.

Having this information will help you to make better gardening decisions in the future. For instance a gardener may plants two or more types of tomato such as ‘Florida 91’ and ‘Bella Rosa’. Each variety will perform differently depending on the soil type and transplant time. They will also have their own individual characteristics which will lead to the quality of its performance. At the end of the growing season, a garden will most likely prefer one variety over the other.  

So, when having to choosing a tomato the following year you want to make you sure you remember not only the variety which was planted, but other controllable characteristics that you can replicate to yield similar results as the previous year.

Another great reason to keep a garden journal is for sketching.  As you sit in the garden and you have a concept swirling around in your head that would like to see come to light in your garden, sketching it out on paper is the first step to fulfilling that idea. Knowing that you’ve captured this piece of your imagination on paper, you can always come back and implement it in the garden later on.

Sketching out your garden after it’s been planted is another great use of a garden journal. Oftentimes we put out tags or labels for varieties of vegetables or flowers and with a doubt, somehow these tags go missing, leading us to mix up varieties. Having a simple sketch of the garden and a list of variety names incorporated into the drawing will help you to call what you planted and where.

Lastly a garden is a place to sit and be inspired. As you sit and let your mind wander throughout this next year I encourage you to jot down some of the ideas that come to you in your backyard oasis.

Remember this garden journal is for you. It doesn’t have to be fancy or expensive Journal. It just needs to be an avenue to record and remember. A garden journal can be as simple as a cheap composition notebook, or as expensive as a leather-bound journal. Whichever you may choose, diligently keeping a record of your garden will greatly enhance your garden enjoyment for many years to come.

C

PHYSICAL CONTROL IN BEDS

Hand weeding of oxalis can be done, when this weed is growing in flower beds. However, this oxalis produces tubers, roots or bulbs that break off and stay in the ground during hand pulling, and the leaves will soon grow back, leaving you right where you started.

To control the oxalis, you must dig up and remove the roots and bulbs attached to the leaves using a trowel or weeding tool. This should be done repeatedly through the cool season when oxalis is in active growth.

Mulches are not effective in controlling this weed. It will simply grow from the rhizomes through the mulch. Weed barriers and landscape fabrics applied over a thoroughly weeded area are more effective at preventing reemergence of this weed. These can be useful, to some degree, when practical for a particular situation.

The use of brown cardboard will give excellent control of oxalis. First you will need to remove all the mulch to the soil surface. Next, lay brown cardboard around desirable plant, trying to not leave to many openings in the cardboard layer. Finally, mulch onto of the cardboard.  The cardboard Will breakdown over time adding additional organic material to the garden.

CHEMICAL CONTROL IN LAWNS

The best lawn herbicide to use to control oxalis in St. Augustine, zoysia and centipede lawns is Atrazine. Make two applications following label directions in late summer or fall when oxalis is noticed in the lawn and temperatures are in the mid-80s or lower. Any spots or small patches of oxalis that are noticed after that should be spot treated by just spaying the spot of oxalis. Do this during mild weather (high in 60s or above) anytime during the winter or spring.

CHEMICAL CONTROL IN BEDS

There are no selective herbicides that will only kill the oxalis and not damage ornamentals if it gets on them.

The nonselective systemic herbicide, glyphosate (KillzAll, Eraser, Roundup, Grass and Weed Killer and other brands), is effective if you are persistent and make several applications as the oxalis reappears (generally, 3 to 5 treatments are required). Use glyphosate carefully as it will damage or kill any plants if it gets on their foliage.

Be sure to shield your plants or protect the foliage of desirable plants with a piece of cardboard during spraying or cover those plants with plastic bags. Or put a funnel-like device on the end of your sprayer to focus the spray only where you direct it. Do not try to spray on windy days. Although we can use glyphosate quite close to desirable plants, it is critical not get glyphosate on their foliage. Spray just enough to thoroughly wet the foliage of the oxalis.

Oxalis often grows in among ornamental plants. In this situation, it is virtually impossible to spray glyphosate and not get the herbicide on the foliage of the desirable plants.

Here is a method for oxalis control in these types of situations with no potential for spray drift injury. It involves applying glyphosate (purchase a product with at least 41% active ingredient) with the rubber glove/cotton glove wipe method and gently wiping the glyphosate carefully and specifically to the foliage of the oxalis.

This method is tedious and is generally only practical for small beds. And, just like when spraying, you will need to make several applications for it to be effective.

Garden enthusiasts love the concept of companion planting. It gives us an excuse to buy more plants (while being Eco-friendly).

Companion planting in gardening and agriculture is the planting of a second crop within the primary either for Pest Control or pollination. The secondary crop could also provide habitats for beneficial insects, help to maximize the use of space in the field or garden, and in some way help to increase the crop productivity.

Companion planting has been around for thousands of years. Some of the earliest recorded concepts of companion planting come from China, where a plant called the mosquito fern was used to help increase the yields of rice production. The mosquito fern is a plant that plays host to a cyanobacteria that fixes nitrogen from the atmosphere. This process is referred to as Bio-fertilization. Because the fern is helping convert the nitrogen to a plant usable form for the rice to use, this is deemed a form of companion planting. The mosquito fern is also used to help block sunlight on the ground floor to prevent weed seeds from germinating that would eventually compete with the rice.

Another popular companion planting combination was developed by the Native Americans called the three sisters. The Native Americans planted corn beans and squash all in the same area. The corn as it grew taller acted as a trellis for the beans to grow on. At the same time the bean were also fixing nitrogen into a plant available form for the corn and squash to use. The squash planted in the three sister combination grew horizontally and shaded out the ground below with its large leaves helping to prevent weeds from encroaching.

If you have the room in your vegetable garden, you can incorporate this concept of the three sisters that the Native Americans used, but chances are you won’t be able to use the mosquito Fern to help out your rice growing abilities as you probably do not have rice paddies in your backyard.

Here are a few examples of companion planting that we can employ in our own vegetable garden for pest repellent. The cabbage looper, as the name implies, is an insect that if present in your vegetable garden will attack your cabbage. But the addition of onions inter-planted with the cabbage will have a repelling effect.

Aphids are deterred by garlic. Any vegetable Gardener can tell you that aphids can become a nuisance very quickly. Inter-planting garlic between plants that aphids like such as cabbage broccoli and cauliflower will help to reduce those populations.

Mint can repel cabbage loopers, flea beetles, squash bugs, and whiteflies. Wild chives can repel aphids and Japanese beetles

Companion planting is an excellent way the grow multiple crops with in the same area to help deter the pests. But one of the most important Concepts to consider is that the plants have to be near one another. Planting garlic 15 feet away from a cabbage plant is not going to repeal a cabbage looper from the cabbage it will simply repel it from the garlic which is 15 feet away.

Is starting a vegetable garden right for you?

Yes! Of course. Vegetable gardening is one of the most rewarding types of gardening a gardener can perform. If you have never tried your hand at vegetable gardening or have had little luck, I highly encourage you to give it a go the New Year. You can find many excellent “how to” books on vegetable gardening, but honestly, you could spend the rest of your day reading and still never gain the knowledge that only comes from firsthand experience.  I believe if you follow my top five vegetable gardening tips, you will be able to jump right in.

Start small — I see this many times a year. A gardener successfully grows one tomato on their patio, next they are ready to sell the house and start a farm. I appreciate the ambition, but leaping from a pot to an acre is huge.  A 4-foot by 8-foot raised bed is a great starting size for new gardeners. It’s just enough room to give you a meaningful harvest but small enough to manage. 

Know where to get the info — You could fill the Library of Congress with all the book, videos, articles and blogs on how to vegetable garden.  I would certainly suggest having a few books on hand and perusing some websites. But one best and most concise pieces of information I suggest and personally use two to three times a week is the “Louisiana Vegetable Planting Guide” found on the website LSUAgCenter.com. Also knowing your parish extension agent’s contact information is another great resource to have in your back pocket.

Where’s the water — Before choosing a location to start your vegetable garden this season, determine where the closest water source is located. There is nothing worse than having to haul pails of water to the garden or needlessly connecting multiple hoses and dragging them across the yard every time you need to water.

Tried and true varieties — Most vegetable are annual crops. This means that coming out with new varieties each year is relatively easy. Just because it is a new variety of tomatoes or peppers does not mean that it is necessarily better, especially for us here in Louisiana. Again, check out the “Louisiana Vegetable Planting Guide.” One great piece of information in here is the varieties the LSU AgCenter has tested in Louisiana and have performed best.

Failure is also a success — I try to emphasize to gardeners at least once a year the importance of keeping a gardening journal. This allows you to record what did well in the garden so you can repeat it the following year. But more importantly, it allows you to keep track of what didn’t do well and what you may need to do some additional research on. Failure is only failure if you don’t learn.

Cool days and chilly nights are just the kind of weather lettuce enjoys. Lettuce is a vegetable that is easy to grow, delicious and so attractive that any gardener — whether you have a vegetable garden, flower garden or even garden in containers on a balcony — should include it in their garden.

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According to references, lettuces were cultivated 3,000 years ago by the Babylonians and possibly earlier by the Chinese. Lettuce seeds were sealed in Egyptian tombs, and lettuces were served to Roman emperors. On European tables during the Middle Ages lettuce was mostly eaten hot. By 1865 seed companies offered 113 kinds to America’s gardeners Today lettuce is so popular, new and interesting varieties of lettuce appear in seed catalogs every year.

Garden lettuces can be divided into three classes based on habit of growth — leaf or loose-leaf types, semi-heading types such as butterhead and romaine (or cos) and heading or crisp-head types. Crisp-head lettuces, such as the iceberg types available in supermarkets, are more of a challenge to grow here, so I recommend that you stay with the leaf and semi heading cultivars. Other than generally avoiding the heading types, feel free to try just about any cultivar that strikes your fancy.

Leaf lettuces are the most decorative, least demanding, and among the most heat- tolerant lettuces we can grow. This type of lettuce grows in a loose rosette of foliage, and the leaves can be smooth or crinkled, pointed, lobed, curled, or ruffled. Foliage color runs from deep ruby red to dark green to pale greenish yellow, with just about every combination in between.. It’s a good idea to plant several crops in succession through the growing season for continued harvests.

The butterhead lettuces, such as Bibb and Buttercrunch, have soft, tender leaves and relatively loose heads. Their fragile leaves make them difficult to ship and pricy at the supermarket. As delicious as they are, butterhead varieties are quite easy to grow.

Romaine, or cos, lettuces are tall, upright, and thick-leaved; their thick midribs and sweet, juicy texture have made them especially prized for salads. They range in size from tiny eight-inch heads to large heads that can reach well over a foot tall. The foliage can be red or green, smooth or ruffled.

Lettuce is wonderful harvested moments before the dressing is applied and the salad is served. Loose-leaf lettuce is best harvested by cropping, butterhead by cropping or cutting the entire plant and romaine is best if the entire plant is harvested when ready. All lettuce should be harvested by early to mid May as high temperatures will cause the lettuce to become increasingly bitter and bolt (send up a flower stalk).

Lettuce transplants of various types are generally available in area nurseries and can be planted now through late March. You will find a much larger selection of cultivars available from seeds, which may be obtained locally in seed racks or from mail order companies.

Plant lettuce seeds into well prepared beds that have been amended by digging in a two-inch layer of organic matter, such as compost or rotted manure, and an all purpose granular fertilizer. Lettuce seeds need light to germinate, so they are simply pressed or lightly raked into the soil surface. Water frequently until they germinate, and once they come up thin the plants to the appropriate spacing. The average spacing is about 10 inches between plants.

Even though lettuce is best grown here in the winter, hard freezes can damage the foliage on occasion. If temperatures in the mid twenties or lower are predicted, throw a layer of pine straw or sheets of fabric over the plants to prevent frost burn.

Its beauty, ease of culture and delicious foliage make lettuce an excellent choice for any gardener. Even you flower gardeners should give it a try you’ll be glad you did.