WORD LISTS

Dirty Words: The Language of Gardening

Mon May 18 13:36:10 EDT 2020
By Vocabulary.com (NY)Visual Thesaurus Moderator
Do you have a green thumb? Whether you live on a farm or have a pot of herbs on your kitchen windowsill, dig in to this list of grow-cabulary and see what sprouts!
aerate
The creatures are among the most abundant and diverse species on the planet and play key roles, from aerating the soil to pollination and recycling of nutrients.
annual
Annual means "yearly," and in the case of plants it refers to those that die every fall and need to be started again from seed in the spring.
Horticultural staff in late May and early June will plant around 50,000 annuals and a few thousand perennials and replacement trees.
beneficial
Ladybugs are a type of beneficial insect in the garden. They eat aphids and other pests that can damage crops.
Weak and moderate atmospheric rivers bring mostly beneficial rain and typically do not cause much damage.
broadcast
People mostly use broadcast when talking about media like TV and radio — the word podcast is a play on that — but the origin of the word is agricultural. When a farmer tosses handfuls of seed out into a field, that's broadcasting.
Broadcast seeding is of particular use in establishing dense plant spacing, as for cover crops and lawns.
compost
Compost is decomposed plant matter, turned back into nutrient-rich soil by bacteria and fungi. Many gardeners have a compost pile where they put kitchen scraps and garden waste to break down, adding it back to the soil the following year. In Old French, composter is the verb for treating fields with manure to fertilize them.
Google Trends shows a doubling of worldwide online searches for compost and seeds compared with a year ago.
determinate
It is determinate, meaning that all the fruit ripens over a two-week period with compact growth, perfect for a container.
fertilizer
The Latin fertilis became the French fertile. Something which makes soil more fertile, adding essential nutrients for plants to grow, is a fertilizer.
The practice, which does not use chemical fertilizers or pesticides, builds soils that are richer in carbon, which in turn boosts crop and livestock yields.
graft
Feb. 1 Fruit-tree grafting demonstrations and scion exchange sponsored by the California Rare Fruit Growers, Foothill chapter.
hardiness
Plants are often rated on a hardiness scale, showing how tolerant they are to frost and freezing. The USDA has maps showing what temperature zone each region is in, which is based on the average coldest temperature every winter.
Grow managers will sample them for hardiness, taste and smell.
horticulture
Horticultura is Latin for "the cultivation of a garden." Hortus means "garden" and cultura, "culture," refers to tilling the soil to grow plants, as in agriculture.
"Pests and diseases are among the main challenges we face as climate change affects our gardens and horticulture more widely," he said.
irrigation
The easiest technique is a drip irrigation system that waters automatically two to three times a week.
loam
An Old English word, Loam refers to soil that's a mixture of clay, sand, and decomposed organic matter (see compost above) that's ideal for growing crops.
Beneath the loam sat 3½ feet of hard red clay, and below that was the remnant of a petrified forest.
mulch
If you've ever seen a ring of shredded bark or wood chips around a recently planted tree, that's mulch. It helps the soil retain moisture and suppresses weeds.
But if you’re lazy or don’t trust yourself to build good mulch or do a proper compost, National Cocoa Shell’s mulch should suit your needs.
organic
Organic farming refers to agriculture that doesn't use any synthetic pesticides or herbicides.
Mr. Litvin works for 80 Acres Farms, a company that grows organic produce including cucumbers, leafy greens and herbs at giant indoor farms where controlled environments allow for year-round harvesting.
perennial
The opposite of annual, perennial plants come back year after year.
Smith’s idea – the tapestry lawn – was to plant squares of different hardy, perennial flowering plants.
propagate
Emma propagated her succulents and so needed more shelf space, and went to the garage to do some carpentry.
prune
From the same Anglo-Norman root as preen, prune originally meant that: the action of a bird grooming itself. Now it refers to cutting and trimming the branches of a tree to help it maintain a particular shape or to encourage new growth.
So workers took to the fields sooner than usual to begin tending the vines and pruning while wearing masks and maintaining social-distancing rules.
sow
One reason to sow seeds too thickly is to anticipate a poor germination rate.
swale
Swales are long, low areas, like rounded ditches, dug to collect rainwater and prevent erosion. The opposite of a swale is a berm, a long low mound of earth.
The corn follows the topography, rising and falling with the swells and swales in the landscape.
till
Driving through freshly tilled fields in rural Indiana a few years back, I was struck by how low points retained rich, black earth, yet on the hilltops, the khaki subsoil was completely exposed.

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