Five things to do in the garden this week:
Tree crops: Now is a good time to plant a macadamia tree. You will probably have to plant two varieties to get a crop since the trees are often self-sterile, meaning they need to be pollinated by another variety to produce nuts. The trees are evergreen and grow to around 30 feet tall. It is best to locate container-grown varieties of trees that are known to cross-pollinate one another. You can try planting a macadamia tree from a seed (the nut we consume), but you would have to wait 10 years or more before it flowered and you could expect a crop.
Vegetables: This is prime time for planting your fall vegetable garden. Plant the following vegetables from seed: bulb onions, shallots, leeks, chives, garlic, peas, radishes, beets, spinach, lettuce, chard, fava beans, celery, cabbage, kohlrabi and kale. This is also the time to transplant baby specimens of the following, many of which you will find in the nursery at this time or can receive through online vendors: artichokes, asparagus, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, parsley, and a large variety of herbs.
Plant lovage (Leviticus official): This is a Mediterranean beauty that may reach up to six feet tall with attractively lobed leaves that can grow two feet long. Stems that develop from the leaves are topped with yellowish-green floral clusters. This plant has a long history of culinary use with seeds that have the taste of celery, to which it is related. Leaves are used to flavor salads and soups. It grows in a clump and thus lends itself to propagation by division.
Ornamentals: Not only is the Japanese anemone (Anemone x hybrida) a reliable perennial bloomer in the fall; it also blooms in the shade, needs little water to grow and has a clumping growth habit thanks to tuberous roots, allowing it to gradually spread throughout the shady spots in your garden. Picture salmon-pink flowers that resemble porcelain daisies and leaves that look like they belong on a grapevine. The flowers have a waxy gloss and appear to be suspended in mid-air, blooming in clusters at the ends of thin 3-to-5-foot-long stems. After planting your Japanese anemone, be prepared to wait two years until it flowers.
Break with convention: The author of “Growing Bulbs in the Natural Garden” disparages conventional bulb planters, calling them “wretched things: tubular slightly conical objects with a handle on top” Instead, she recommends using “a trowel with a sharp point” or “a long, semicylindrical blade with a sharp curved edge at the bottom.”
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