Plant of the Week

Butterfly milkweed
Asclepias tuberosa L.
other common names: pleurisy root, butterfly weed, yellow milkweed, orange swallowwort, orangeroot, whiteroot, Indian posy, windroot, Canada tuber, Canada flux, chigger flower
Asclepias: from the name of the Greek god of healing and medicine
Tuberosa: meaning “tuberous,” referring to the tuberous root
Milkweed family: Asclepiadaceae

Photograph by Thomas Rosburg, Wildflowers of the Tallgrass Prairie: The Upper Midwest, Second Edition

An Interview with Carl H. Klaus: Part 2

Do you follow a strict routine for starting seeds? Tell us your secrets for successful germination and transplanting.
My seed-starting routine ordinarily begins in early to mid March, when I fill several plastic six-packs with a moistened germinating mix and then plant the seeds for my early spring garden of arugula, broccoli, cauliflower, and various lettuces. I carefully place 3 to 4 seeds in each slot, cover them lightly with moistened mix, pat down the mix to be sure that seed and soil are closely joined, then place the six-pack in a clear, plastic-covered container to retain the moisture, until the seeds begin to break ground. At that point, I remove the lids, put the tray of six-packs under grow-lights, and let the seedlings develop 2 pair of true leaves, at which point I transplant the individual seedlings into the separate slots of a plastic six-pack, using a moistened growing mix, and let them develop further under the grow lights. Then I gradually acclimate the seedlings to the cooler and windier climate of the outdoors by moving them to a cold-frame-like cellarway entrance and then to a table on my back terrace, allowing approximately 10 days to 2 weeks to harden off the plants. 

Beginning in late March, I use a similar routine to start the seeds for my summer garden of cucumbers, eggplants, peppers, squash, and tomatoes. But I put these seed trays on a radiator or heating pad to give the seeds a quicker and surer start. And I gradually transplant the tomatoes to larger containers to help them develop a large root mass, planting them deeper down each time to encourage roots to form along their stems, a unique property of tomatoes. 

Your garden is both a lesson and an inspiration. What caused you to become such an avid and thoughtful gardener?
My interest in gardening took seed during my childhood years, thanks in part to growing up just a few blocks from Cleveland’s west side market, where I was dazzled every weekend by the vegetables, fruits, and flowers on display in the truck gardeners’ open stands. During that same period, I also remember summer visits to the country garden of a wealthy uncle, who put a little salt shaker in my hand and told me to try a ripe tomato or two. The memory of those fruits bursting in my mouth and the warmth of the sun all around me made me yearn for a garden of my own. I planted my first vegetable garden some 55 years ago, when I was a graduate student at Cornell University. I didn’t know the first thing about gardening back then, but Cornell’s ag school had a sheaf of guides to tell me how. Then by trial and error and reading, I discovered more each year and more still from the wise old gardeners whom I discovered in the Goosetown area of Iowa City where I live. All of which is to say that gardening, like writing, is always a work in progress and thrives on careful revision.  


Carl H. Klaus, Weathering Winter: A Gardener’s Daybook

Midwest Nature Quote of the Week

Birds are arguably Iowa’s most conspicuous and best-known animals. If invertebrates are excluded, birds dominate our state’s wildlife in sheer number and diversity, comprising about 60 percent of all vertebrates known from Iowa. About 150 birds now nest regularly in the state. In all, around 200 species have nested here between 1840 and 2000. Including migrants over 400 bird species have been observed in Iowa—nearly half of the roughly 900 birds known to North America.

Cornelia F. Mutel, The Emerald Horizon: The History of Nature in Iowa

Plant of the Week

Rattlebox
Crotalaria sagittalis L.
other common names: wild pea, locoweed
Crotalaria: from the Greek crotalon, meaning a “rattle,” in reference to the loose seeds inside the inflated pod
Sagittalis: from Latin, meaning “like an arrowhead,” for the shape of the stipules of the upper leaves
Legume family: Fabaceae (Leguminosae)

Photograph by Thomas Rosburg, Wildflowers of the Tallgrass Prairie: The Upper Midwest, Second Edition

The Guide to (Wild)Life

Want to become inspired about nature? Go out, get messy? Check out Terry VanDeWalle's "The Guide to (Wild)Life," where he discusses his two new pocket guides and his adventures in the outdoors.


Turtles in Your Pocket and Frogs and Toads in Your Pocket by Terry VanDeWalle

An Interview with Carl H. Klaus: Part 1

Weathering Winter extends the spring-to-fall narrative that you gave us in My Vegetable Love into the winter months, not traditionally seen as active gardening months. Tell us why it was important to you to write about the winter months.
The put-downs of winter are so legion, I thought it was time to give the season a fair shake—time to challenge Shelley’s dismissive proclamation that “If winter comes, can spring be far behind?” As if winter had nothing to offer in its own right except as a prelude to spring. In other words, I wanted to take stock of its distinctive sights and sounds—the snow falling, the birds flocking at the feeders, the icicles forming and melting. I also wanted to challenge the commonplace notion that a gardener’s life in the Upper Midwest begins in the spring and ends in the fall, as if the itch to grow and tend things depended on a rising or falling thermometer. Gardening, after all, goes on throughout the winter months—under cloth, under straw, under snow, in seed trays, in cold frames, and in greenhouses as well as in the dreams and plans of gardeners galore. 

Seed catalogs are a sign that winter may not last forever. What are some of your favorite catalogs? How do you decide which seeds to order?
The opening sentence of this question exemplifies the habitual tendency to think of winter as a season to be endured rather than enjoyed—and therefore to regard seed catalogs as an aid to endurance rather than a genuine source of information and pleasure. I usually receive about two dozen catalogs and skim through most of them to discover new herb, vegetable, and flower varieties as well as new aids to gardening and sometimes even new gardening techniques. But when it comes time to order, I generally favor a handful of catalogs, namely Johnny’s Selected Seeds (located in Maine), Vermont Bean Seed, Gardener’s Supply (in Vermont), Seed Savers (in Iowa), Jung Seeds (in Wisconsin), and Territorial Seed (in Washington).  My seed-ordering decisions are based largely on past experience—i.e., on records of how individual varieties have performed in my garden and of how they taste to my palate.  So, having gardened in my present spot for more than forty years, I’m inclined to rely mostly on my tried and true favorites, particularly given the idiosyncrasies of my soil and my salivary glands. But I always try a handful of new varieties, just for the pleasure of a surprise and a possible favorite in future years.

Carl H. Klaus, Weathering Winter: A Gardener’s Daybook

This Week in Iowa Nature

Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky, and Orion is a prominent winter constellation.

Jean C. Prior and James Sandrock, The Iowa Nature Calendar