Considering the local wildlife is one more way to tend your garden

Joshua Siskin provides 5 ideas for improving your garden each week.

Five things to do in the garden this week:

1. Take care of wildlife that’s in the vicinity. Fill bird feeders with sunflower or other oil-rich seeds and suet (fat that surrounds kidneys of cows and sheep) that is abundantly available online or in pet food stores. Drill holes in logs for insect and native, non-colonizing bee hotels. Keep a few shallow bowls of fresh water around for birds and beneficial insects. Refrain from pruning seed-laden flower heads on ornamental grasses and other plants. The seeds might drop and germinate in place but, in any case, will be a source of nourishment for birds. 

2. Take 8-inch hardened stem cuttings from roses. Plant them in well-drained soil or insert them in pots filled with a soil mix recommended for cactus and citrus. Alternatively, make a potting mix consisting of 9 parts perlite and 1 part peat moss and insert hardwood cuttings of roses or any other woody plants in it. To accelerate root formation, dip cuttings in root hormone prior to placing in soil or pots. Stems should be approximately 1/4 inch in diameter and, if rooting powder is used, make holes with a pencil so powder does not rub off on soil while being eased into it.

3. Plant onions. You can plant them from seed or sets (mini-bulbs). Onions are easy to grow and virtually pest-free. A nice feature of onions is that they may be harvested at any stage of growth. Young shoots are known as scallions. Slightly more mature shoots are called green onions. And onion shoots still more mature are given the name of spring onions. In the later stages of shoot harvesting, you begin to see bulbs at the ends of the shoots. Of course, you can just keep your onions in the ground and you will eventually have decent-sized bulbs to harvest. Planted from seed, onions take around four months to form full-fledged bulbs while sets require around three months to become bulbs. Shallots, by the way, although closely related to onions, are an onion subspecies. Shallot bulbs are small, resembling common onion sets in size.

4. Consider ornamental onions for your garden, too. Ornamental globe onion species produce unforgettable flower spheres, some (Allium giganteum) as large as 10 inches across on three-foot tall stems. These will bloom in the spring along with your other fall-planted bulbs. Drumstick ornamental onions, on the other hand, although only one inch in diameter, will bloom into summer. Ornamental onion bulbs produce only one flower each so it is advisable to plant them en masse. They crave well-drained soil and perform best in full-sun locations. You will need to chill your bulbs for at least six weeks prior to planting and chilling them for a longer period of time will not diminish their performance, but may add to it. Expect 1-5 flowers per allium bulb, less than the 8-10 flowers per daffodil, for example, but the larger size of allium flowers makes up for the smaller quantity of blooms, as compared to other bulbs, that they produce.

5. Mustard greens are among the easiest plants to grow and may be planted now. In as little as four weeks, you will be able to harvest these piquant leafy greens. Although eventually reaching 18 inches in height, they are perfect candidates for “cut and come again” harvesting at six inches tall when they can be cut back to within an inch or two of ground level and proceed to grow into the winter and beyond, even until spring. As opposed to cutting them down, you can harvest the outside leaves only. As many as six harvests may be performed before your crop of mustard greens loses its vitality. Mustard greens have a peppery taste and can be mixed with salads or used to liven up soups and stews.

Email questions and comments to joshua@perfectplants.com.