“No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden.” ― Thomas Jefferson Enthusiasm was blooming! With beautiful sunny day and soft breeze in the air, our 40 plus volunteers were busy bees getting our beautiful garden ready for Grow It Eat it event on May 1. Now, this was really great gardening weather! Garden Reports: Herb and Fragrance Garden: Kathleen Tsai Today the Herb & Fragrance team's first focus was on weeds -- lots and lots of weeds that were dispatched to the composting area. Progress was made, but we fear that next week may reveal how tenacious they really can be. In addition to weeding, an area in front of the cherry laurel was cleared to create a place of honor for a rose rugosa that was donated by Master Gardener Alberta Magzanian. The rose is a "family heirloom" purported to be at least 50 years old. We hope that it will quickly adapt to its new home and thrive for many years to come. Several large hostas were dug up, divided and replanted, and the witch hazel, tansy and russian sage plants trimmed and thinned. Several smaller plants (bee balm, catmint, and catnip) were cleaned up of winter-kill and cut back a bit. The mint vault was replanted with five varieties of mint and the two large containers were readied for planting next week. The weather was perfect and the team had a very productive day. 100 Square Foot Garden: Mary Anne Normile Today we finished planting the spring vegetable garden in the 100 Square Foot Garden. After having lost so many seedlings to the extreme weather of two weeks ago, we were heartened to see tiny first leaves of peas, beets, carrots, and radishes. We re-planted broccoli ('Gypsy'), collards, and spinach ('Japanese Giant'), replaced a few ratty lettuce plants, planted purple bok choy, herbs, and sowed seeds of carrots ('Tendersweet' and 'Danvers Half-Long'), arugula, cilantro ('Caribe', reported to be more bolt-tolerant than even ‘Slo-Bolt’), and spinach ('Bloomsdale'). Engineer Extraordinaire Hope built a teepee for the peas that will be used in the summer for pole beans and turned tulle into a colorful row cover. Next week we will begin building trellises for summer cucumbers, pole beans, and tomatoes. Conservation Garden: Maria Wortman The Conservation Garden is waking up to Spring. Our lovely Trilliums have poked their way through the leaf litter and are blooming in white and pale pink. New, curved fiddleheads of ferns are appearing amid last year's tattered leaves. Shrubs such as hydrangeas are putting forth their achingly tender greenness. The climbing hydrangea at the entrance got badly zapped by the sudden freeze we had not too long ago, but it's coming back with fresh leaves. We are planning to install more ground covers this season, and hope they will survive What a pretty picture was made by the juxtaposition of a creamy-blossomed hellebore, purple ajuga, and the deep pink blossoms of phlox stolinifera 'Home Fires'. Edibles: Erica Smith The potatoes are in! Planted: four different kinds of seed potatoes. Found while digging trenches: one earring, lost at last summer's GIEI event. The earring's owner was a few steps away and claimed it immediately. Wonders will never cease. The Great Brassica Planting continued with a short row of pak choi, and more seedlings going to good garden causes elsewhere. I have a few collards left that will be up for grabs next week. The raised beds were sowed with radishes, beets, carrots, and parsley root. The salad table was planted with lettuce. We've also scattered some mesclun with chard and cress over the garlic bed, hoping to get some salad-y growth there before we harvest garlic in summer. The labeling team worked busily to keep the plants identified, and a bed was cleared for trellis building when we get to it. Previously planted brassica beds were weeded and mulched, the PVC hoops were shortened so the row cover fits better, and many things were thoroughly watered. Next week we'll be concentrating on making the garden pretty for the GIEI event on May 1, and may have a break from planting things. It felt like summer today but cooler weather will undoubtedly return, so it's not time to put in warm-weather plants yet. Keyhole Garden: Robin Ritterhoff We planted seedlings of onions, arugula and lettuce and seeds of carrots and cilantro. Our plan is to harvest much of what we have planted to date by mid/late May to make way for tomatoes, hot and sweet peppers, and other summer crops. Hay Bales: Robin Ritterhoff We were thrilled with the Pond Team’s donation of some very choice pond scum, which we poured on the bales in an impromptu bucket brigade. Surely that will speed the conditioning of the bales to be ready to plant nexct week with vegetable seedlings in preparation for the May 1 Grow It Eat It Open House. We sketched out a plan to keep the bales in shape and more presentable by re-using some pallets reinforced by bamboo and sheepshank knots as low walls. Containers: Robin Ritterhoff Some intrepid interns formed a Containers Team, bringing lots of great ideas for planting containers with herbs used in Italian, Asian and Latin American cuisines, plus a couple of compact tomatoes and hot peppers. Grow It Eat It Open House visitors often ask a lot of questions about how they can best use containers in their own gardens, so these are sure to provide lots of inspiration. Children's Therapeutic Horticulture: Ellen Meyers The children from CSAAC came today for the first time. It seems to be a good: group there are several new students who are higher functioning and doing well. We planted zinnias and marigolds. We planted beets and some more onions. Also spinach and lettuce. The spinach and lettuce we planted last week has not germinated. We also planted another variety of onions. and we WATERED! Ponds Report: Darlene Nicholson We spent most of our time knee deep in pond scum. We completely emptied the preformed pond that is nestled in the Conservation garden. With the use of a long garden hose, pump, and several gardeners with buckets, we were able to recycle pond water to gardens and to give the straw bales a jumpstart. It proved to be a very popular commodity! We replaced and repotted some of the larger plants and returned them into the water. Next week we will add some fish, floaters, and submerged plants to the water. As we are being especially conscious of mosquitos using the still water as a breeding ground, we added a mosquito dunk to the pond until the fish come. They have always done a nice job of dining on any larvae that decide to breed there. Next week we will tackle the liner pond near the Children's garden. BUG REPORT: Darlene Nicholson During the talk that Erica gave Tuesday, she mentioned the Harlequin Bug and the damage that they do in the garden. Here is a page from the Demo Garden Bug Book to help you to familiarize yourself with them. Harlequin bugs, members of the stink bug family, like to feed on plants of the cabbage and mustard families, but lacking these will move on to other vegetables such as tomatoes, eggplants, turnips, and beans. They are also found on ornamentals such as snapdragon and cleome. In large numbers, they can be devastating to the garden. Both adults and nymphs pierce plant foliage and suck fluids, causing stippling, white blotches, and wilting, and eventually killing the plant. The adult, a colorful red- or yellow-and-black insect, having lived over the winter in ground debris and weeds, lays a dozen barrel-shaped eggs, white with 2 black rings, on the underside of plant leaves. There are five instars leading to the adult form.
Shade Garden- Carol Martin- Thursday Apirl 14, 2016 We had a beautiful day in the Shade Garden on Thursday. Weather was wonderful & we were glad to see old friends & greet 3 interns from the class of 2016. So the total of 10 surveyed the garden, got an initial introduction & looked at the projects that we might consider. We set up the bench just to look & talk about placement & renovation of the brick patio. Per the instructions, we determined that it was still too cool to glue the bench together, so it went back into the van for 2 weeks. Did some first sweep cleaning of beds after a snack breakfast of pumpkin bread, hot tea, & fruit. We assured the newbies that this was not standard practice, but it was a nice social introduction. Closing Comments: Lily and Bill The outside storage area was emptied and reorganized. Its work in progress but a huge improvement. Thanks Joslyn and Michel for all the hard work! Thank you Erica for our first “10 minute talk” under the tree. Who knew Brassicas would be so interesting! Please think about what you want to present to the group. We all have some information to share with our fellow gardeners. Next week’s focus will be on aesthetics and cleanup in preparation for the Grow It Eat It Open House on May 1. We will need all hands on deck to be ready! Thank you for all the enthusiasm and hard work this week and for being part of this amazing team!
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AuthorOur weekly reports are a joint effort of all garden leads
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