Sunday, September 14, 2014

Getting Dirty

As you know, I am a firm believer in getting outside, working in the garden and getting dirty. There are just so many things that make it right. It makes me feel good on many levels.
Most people think the exercise thing first. While I know exercise is good for you, it is definitely not on my top ten things to do.
I will agree with the, "I like to watch things grow, create my own food and make a prettier place to live" group.
Then there is the, I just like being outside in the fresh air. I actually get depressed if I am stuck inside for too long. Anybody that has ever gardened knows this feeling.
Well, now there is some scientific proof that we gardeners are not crazy! Well, never mind that last sentence, most of us are. There is some interesting scientific news that might be able to give us more reasons to be outside. Yea, that is better!
Getting your hands dirty and making contact with soil AND a specific soil bacteria, Mycobacterium vaccae, triggers the release of serotonin in our brain according to research. Serotonin is a happy chemical, a natural anti-depressant and it  strengthens the immune system. Lack of serotonin in the brain causes depression.
It all came about when a Mary O’Brien, an oncologist at Royal Marsden Hospital in London, started inoculating cancer patients with a strain of the soil bacteria to see if any of their symptoms improved. Not only did they improve, they seemed happier and even their cognitive functions got better.
After hearing about this, Dr. Chris Lowry, at Bristol University, decided to go another step and wanted to see if the body’s immune response to the bacterium was what causes the brain to produce seratonin.
His experiments were done on mice. He found that cytokine levels rose, cytokines are part of a chain reaction, the end result of which is the release of seratonin.
There is much more testing going on. It has even been surmised that Seratonin is also thought to play a role in learning. Does it make sense now why so many of our older generations, think farmers, were so smart?
Something else to think about. Some researchers have proposed that the sharp rise in asthma and allergy cases over the past century stems, unexpectedly, from living too clean. I am going to borrow a sentence from a blogger in Australia that put it EXACTLY how I have been trying to say this to people for years: "In our hyper-hygienic, germicidal, protective clothing, obsessive health-and-safety society, there’s been a lot of interesting research emerging in recent years regarding how good dirt is for us, and dirt-deficiency in childhood is implicated in contributing to quite a spectrum of illnesses including allergies, asthma and mental disorders".
I could really get on my high horse and blame the hand sanitizing craziness that I see, but I will let you think about it for yourself. I am in my late 40's, so if you are the same age, or older, think back to your childhood. Do you remember as many peanut allergies, asthma, and other respiratory problems as you see now? I sure don't!!
This is a little different of an article than I usually write and I am going to go way off track here for a minute. I AM all about education and this has something to do with the lack of it. I love the idea of research going on to get people more outdoors, maybe they will see some health benefits from it eventually. But,  I am also scared of what kind of people we are bringing up today, due to the LACK of gardening skills. There are children that think that milk comes from "Publix" and have no idea that it first came from a cow. There are people that have no idea how to plant a seed and get a crop from it.
I am an advocate for having some kind of gardening class or classes taught in school. Get them started early, teach them that a peanut does NOT grow on a tree and that Coco Puffs are made from a grain, that grows in the ground.
My mother taught me gardening when I was very young. I helped her in her garden and had a little one myself, probably by the age of 6. Comparatively, I feel I am a better, healthier person because of this. Let's get these kids off of FarmTown on the computer and into real farms. They will all be happier, healthier, and better able to adapt to the real world.
Thank You for following my little rant, we will resume next time with some good gardening information. As usual, if you have any questions or comments about any of my writings, please feel free to ask.
Happy growing!
Darren
Mary O’Brien, an oncologist at Royal Marsden Hospital in London, first stumbled upon these findings while inoculating lung cancer patients with a strain of M. vaccae (pronounced “emm vah-kay”) to see if their symptoms improved. She noticed that in addition to fewer cancer symptoms, patients also demonstrated an improvement in emotional health, vitality, and even cognitive function. - See more at: http://www.hortmag.com/blogs/gardening-blog/dirt-can-make-you-happy#sthash.R5GEzJqg.dpuf
Mary O’Brien, an oncologist at Royal Marsden Hospital in London, first stumbled upon these findings while inoculating lung cancer patients with a strain of M. vaccae (pronounced “emm vah-kay”) to see if their symptoms improved. She noticed that in addition to fewer cancer symptoms, patients also demonstrated an improvement in emotional health, vitality, and even cognitive function. - See more at: http://www.hortmag.com/blogs/gardening-blog/dirt-can-make-you-happy#sthash.R5GEzJqg.dpuf
Mary O’Brien, an oncologist at Royal Marsden Hospital in London, first stumbled upon these findings while inoculating lung cancer patients with a strain of M. vaccae (pronounced “emm vah-kay”) to see if their symptoms improved. She noticed that in addition to fewer cancer symptoms, patients also demonstrated an improvement in emotional health, vitality, and even cognitive function. - See more at: http://www.hortmag.com/blogs/gardening-blog/dirt-can-make-you-happy#sthash.R5GEzJqg.dpuf

Sunday, September 7, 2014

Plant Tough Love

There are many reasons to grow Camellias. As a shrub, it is evergreen and looks great all year round. It is a relatively carefree plant, it actually seems to do better with a little neglect. Then of course, there are the flowers. Depending on which species and cultivars you grow, theoretically you can start having flowers as early as late September, all the way through April and even into May. This article is not going to go into how to grow these beauties, I will save that for another time. I am going to discuss what many people feel is tough love towards the plants.
Anybody that knows me, knows that I am a competitive person. I love a good contest and the camellia show season fills the bill perfectly. So how does tough love fit in?
I rip the flower buds right off the plant!!
I know, "WAIT!? I thought you competed in flower shows?"
I do.
I don't rip them all off, just most. It is called disbudding. A camellia will set many flower buds and they (most) will open okay, sometimes smaller, sometimes mishappen. The theory behind disbudding is to send all of that flower energy to fewer buds. The flowers will be bigger and will be able to open wider without it bumping heads with its neighbor.
September is the time to start really doing this, of course there are the early season bloomers that will start showing buds sooner, you can start whenever you start to see the buds. With that being said, you do not want to start too early! The plant will actually produce a second set of buds which will not only take more energy to produce, you have to go through the plant again removing them. I start disbudding about September first and will continue on until the shows I want to compete in are over, then they are free to bloom their little hearts out. I have usually pretty much got them all done by then, but don't tell the plants that.
Let me show you how it is done.
You want to check out your camellia plant for something that looks like this:






Notice the two buds together? Somebody has to go.


I chose the top one. There are a number of ways to decide which one has to go.
First, you need to think about spacing. Is there room for the flower to open completely?
Second, rain, frost and condensation are a flowers enemy. You really don't want them settling onto the flower itself, so, if the flower is facing down, as seen above, that is the one to save. The moisture will run off the back of the bloom, like water off of a ducks back, and not set foot on the inside.
I go through all of my camellias doing this. I know for a fact that I take more flowers off than I leave on, that is why I have to do this when my wife is not looking.
When it comes to the miniature flowers, I may take a few off, but you can actually lose some points if the flower is bigger than the "standard" size. This is only for the miniatures, everything else, the bigger the better. I am also in the camp of taking all of the lateral buds (buds up and down the length of the stem) off and just leaving the terminal bud (the one on the very end of the stem) on.
The easiest, and safest, for the other blooms is to use your thumbnail. Place it on the tip of the bud to remove and depending on which way it is growing, bend it in that direction. It should pop right off. This sounds easy, but, it took me a little while to get used to popping the flowers off. 
Mind you, this is mainly for the competitive circuit. If you want a mass of color, completely disregard anything that you have just read. Camellia sasanqua, the fall blooming Camellia is not usually shown as often, mostly because they are considered more of a landscape and rootstock type of camellia. Now before I get all kinds of e-mails, yes, I know that some shows have a sasanqua or species category. Yes, I have some very pretty ones in my own yard, namely Pink Serenade and Yuletide that I love. I also have some 150+ japonicas and reticulatas that are for competing. So I know how pretty the sasanquas are, I just like the show bloomers.
Matter of fact, here is the Pink Serenade......see all the buds I haven't touched yet?






This what the final product usually looks like:



Anyway, like I said earlier, it takes some getting used to ripping those flowers off. It is kind of along the same lines as pruning, it is hard to do and it will benefit the plant, or the flowers, in the long run.
Isn't that what tough love is all about!?!?
If you have any questions about this or any other articles I have written, please let me know. I also would love for you to come check out my The Citrus Guy public figure Facebook page, give me a like and follow me more on my horticultural activities.
Happy Growing!
Darren