It was a delightful day in the Derwood Demonstration Garden, a welcome break from the extreme heat and humidity that we had been experiencing. At least 40 gardeners gathered to weed, kill bugs, and enjoy the cooler, cloudy day. Thanks to everyone's hard work, the Garden continues to look amazingly beautiful despite the challenging weather conditions. Garden Reports: Compost Central: Kristy Hardy Tuesday was a beautiful day to turn compost. The one pile we had, bin #3 was 125 degrees. I was hoping for a higher temp, but think too many greens and stalky greens at that, impacted decomposition. So as I turned from bin 3 to 4, I added fewer greens to get closer to the 3-1 brown green ratio and took some of the large stalks out and put in the stick pile. Irma came to help turn towards the end of the day and so I was able to start another pile in the county bin. I plan on just moving that to bin #5 this upcoming Tuesday using leaves from our huge leaf pile and trying to use up a lot of the greens that are coming in. Shade Garden: Carol Martin and Sue Schick It was a little muggy on Thursday but not too hot as clouds covered the sun for most of our work session. The usual suspects showed up & we did some pruning, weeding, renovated the large pot at garden entrance, did some assessment of where & when to do new plantings with group suggestions for what to plant. Looking to transplant Oak Leaf Hydrangea w/ deer exclusion. Due to rain in forecast watering was not necessary. Things look good as we head to August. Selection was made of a dark green stain for back walls (shade garden side) of sheds, so we will be moving forward with that in Aug. Herb and Fragrance Garden: Kathy Tsai The herb and fragrance garden team enjoyed the beautiful weather this week. The weeds were running rampant again due, no doubt, to the recent rain we had. So we set to work on them. The low-growing weed that fills in around the bricks was "scalped," since digging it out is too difficult to consider. The chaste tree was given a "buzz cut" because it was encroaching on the small fruits area. We cut back the bee balm and the shasta daisies, both of which had finished blooming. The lovage was also cut because it had become top-heavy and bent from the heavy rains. More general weeding was done along the back fence line and in several other areas. Finally, the mint collection was cut back hard and the mint vault was moved out into the garden bed to give it more sun. Last, we took a few minutes to admire our Arabian jasmine which perfumes the air near the entrance to our area, and also the bay leaf which has done exceedingly well this year. Both will be wintered over at home and hopefully will survive to spend another year in the demo garden. THERAPEUTIC HORTICULTURE REPORT: Bob Loesche and Virginia White-Mahaffey Bolstered by inches of rain over the weekend, the TH beds are in good shape and offer largely the same variety of flowers as last week. Bed 1: The Artemisia in particular enjoyed their long drink and look gorgeous; they would be great as a backdrop in arrangements with more colorful flowers. The cut and come again zinnia have slightly fewer blossoms than last week, but definitely are still available, as are the African blue basil. Bed 2: The Echinacea continue to respond well to regular deadheading and still offer a lot of blossoms. The Achillea are pretty much done, but there are a few flowers heads that may be worth harvesting for accent purposes. Bed 3: This has abundant flowers, with the Gomphrena, Verbena, fennel, Rudbeckia and pinwheel zinnia all blooming robustly--see photo. Please come and use them! Bed 4: The Molucella are starting to fade but blossoms still remain. The Gailliardia continue to flower steadily as they have all summer. The Celosia are starting to flower nicely, as are the Goldquelle Rudbeckia. The Achillea in this bed were planted later than those in Bed 2, and are still holding their white color, but probably won't last a whole lot longer. The Monarda are healthy looking, though the quantity of flowers is a bit limited. Bed 4 1/2: The pink tufted Gomphrena in this bed (at the north end of a tomato bed) are blooming like crazy. SMALL FRUITS REPORT: Gail Ifshin We are enjoying watching the sequential ripening of each small fruit as the season progresses. The latest development is the ripening of the fruit of the beach plum. Please see the picture below. Unfortunately, what you see is about the entire harvest (!). We will explore reasons for the lack of fruit. Excess shade is one possibility. The blackberries continue to ripen, and we enjoy sharing them with the Demo Garden volunteers. And the Concord grapes are beginning to ripen. We try to turn our weeding into a learning experience (got to make the best out of a necessity). The lovely variety of weeds around our Paw Paw trees, and in the strawberry bed keep us turning to the weed book. We also did some selective pruning of overly ambitious vines. Finally, we had to take a picture of the Passionfruit flower in all its crazy and beautiful oddness. CHILDREN'S GARDEN REPORT: Sandy Chernin Pleased to return to the garden and see that all was flourishing! Tasks accomplished today included:
The highlight for today was hosting a few children (and parents) in the garden. Wonderful to see (at least one of) them enjoy crawling through the tunnel, listening to the Pigsqueak (Bergenia), delighting in the fairy garden, and taking home a few mouse melons to taste! BUTTERFLY GARDEN REPORT: Peggy Stanford The garden continues to flourished with flowering perennials and lush foliage. Today we continued thinning overgrowth and de-headed the waning Monarda. We discovered an infestation of Harlequin bugs on the Cleome. We removed the plants, washed off the bugs and fed them to the frogs and gold fish. That's one way of eliminating the problem. 100 SQUARE FOOT GARDEN REPORT: Linda Taveira-dasilva Despite the extreme summer heat having been broken by substantial rain, the garden had the look of "I'm recovering". The vibrant green of spring was replaced with the green of mid-summer stress. The last hold out of the very bolted romaine lettuce stood tall and raggedy. Our covered greens, despite having won last week's war with the bugs looked pooped. Perhaps the war, the whacking (harvesting) and the heat were just too much. Arlington Cemetery is in their future. Our tower of Pisa (bean pole) was SERIOUSLY leaning despite last week's shoring up. Since our architect and head of art dept. (Hope) had been lured away for the week (some beach or other) Bill ( a last resort ) was consulted. The best temporary solution to correct the heavy laden tepee was to braid jute rope and tie one end to the top of the bean pole and secure the rope across the garden to a standing pole in the adjacent garden. If anyone gets strangled, Bill says we have no Obama care plan. Next year we need a wider foot print for the structure. Meanwhile our beets are still plugging along with a great harvest. (The year of the beet). The purple pole and bush beans were picked. We had one squash plant fatality after last weeks surgery but the others have survived with some budding flowers. The cucumbers produced several fat specimens and we had some tomatillo and peppers mature with many more to come. Our tomatoes despite being quite large and many are still quite green. (What are they waiting for----the bugs). We replaced the bolted romaine with radish seeds and Melissa planted bib lettuce which likes summer but with some shade. Finally Heidi (the terminator) delated a number of harlequin eggs off our plants. Hopefully the withering heat will give us all a break Tomato Bed - Dan Ward & Joslyn Read We had surprisingly little damage to the tomato plants from the storms that moved through over the weekend so little work was required to fix problems. There were just 2 of us to work the beds. Allina worked on the bed in the normal garden area and Dan took the "annex" bed. Tomatoes in the "annex" are clearly outperforming the garden bed. There are 2 main reasons; (1) the soil is more conducive to growing them because very little was planted in the annex area for the past few years, and leaf mulch and compost had been regularly added to the beds, and (2), the annex doesn't get the afternoon shade which afflicts the regular garden beds. Much of the day was spent tying up branches and removing affected branches and leaves where fungus is taking its toll. It's not bad right now, but it's becoming more prevalent as the summer heat and humidity wear on. The shade cloth has been up for only a week and we would not expect to see any change for a bit longer. The expected outcome from the cloth is to see increased fruit production on the plants under the cloth. We harvested approximately 15 tomatoes (a mix of cherry, early season, and mid season varieties). It will be a few more weeks before we begin to pick main season varieties. Dan is planning to bring seeds from his open pollinated variety of zucchini to our annual potluck lunch seed exchange. If you grow any open pollinated vegetables and plan to save seeds please bring some to swap with other MG's. It's a lot of fun to see what other MG's grow in their private gardens. MANNA REPORT: Robin Ritterhoff We donated 80 pounds of fresh harvest, bringing our YTD total to 694 pounds. Special Projects: The Carols We always enjoy seeing the volunteer sunflower with its maroon flowers now towering over the strawbales. This morning the bees were flying about, enjoying its nectar and doing their pollinating thing. Straw Bales: We are sad to report that the surgery performed last week on the zucchini plant that was infested with two squash worms was not successful. In fact, there was no sign of the plant! So, actually, there remains an air of mystery about it all. On a happier note, the Cajun Belle Pepper is loaded with peppers. Most are green with a few red ones. There is good and bad news about the Traviata Eggplant. It has produced two small eggplants, but the plant’s leaves are a pale green and were being nibbled by a few potato bugs and lots of flea beetles. We washed the leaves with soapy water and will hope for good results. Some little critter must have figured out how to get up into the bales and pick tomatoes as a few partially nibbled Sun Gold Tomatoes were scattered about. Pallets: Today was a day of planting seeds in the pallets. Two pockets each of Cherry Bell Radishes, and Starburst Radishes were planted today in the front facing pockets to give the portulaca some company. Some Mini Munch Cucumbers were tucked in to two other front pockets. Some Rosy Red Basil seeds were sprinkled across the top pockets. Mixed in with the other herbs there, it should be a pleasant color combination. The Window Box Basil continues to amaze us with its quick, strong growth. Keyholes The big news here was the four large eggplants harvested from the Orient Express Eggplant, with more on the way! We’ve been keeping an eye on our thriving mystery plant. It appears to be from the night shade family. As we don’t know if it is the poisonous kind or not, it was pulled out. Three of the four tomato plants have produced lots of tomatoes. Most are still green. The fourth plant, Sweet Scarlet, has blooms, but no fruit yet. A few browning lower leaves were removed from the tomatoes. Today’s harvest from the Special Projects area included: basil, chives, carrots, eggplants, Cajun Belle Peppers, chard, peppers, and a few tomatoes ( Ramapot 1, Sungold, Big Rainbow). All plants were fertilized today. Thanks to Ada and Ellina for their assistance and to our knowledgeable fellow Master Gardeners for their advice and encouragement. BUG REPORT: Darlene Nicholson If you read last week's report, you will remember that we found several squash borers in 4 squash plants. After removal of the pests, we covered the wounded plant area with soil and hoped for the best. Sadly 2 plants died, but happily 2 plants are alive and well. Just a reminder, the squash borer and the squash bug are two different bugs. Below is a mature squash bug, earlier instars and some squash bug eggs on the stem of a gourd plant. Usually we find the shiny eggs on the underside of leaves, but this squash bug decided to change it up a bit. We squashed many instars of squash bugs this week. On a final note, the Butterfly Garden workers were greeted by many, many Harlequin bugs on Tuesday morning. The infested plants were dunked into plain water (no soap) and then the water added to the pond. The frogs and fish feasted most of the morning. Pictured below, Harlequin bug adult and eggs. VEGETABLE GARDEN REPORT: Erica Smith, Robin Ritterhoff, Mary Ann Normille Sun, a pleasant breeze, and moderate temperatures - perfect for working in the vegetable plot, which is growing well after all that rain. So are the weeds, but we did our best to keep them under control (let's get some loads of leaf mulch down next week!). Here's what we did this week: Harvesting: Several zucchini, one tromboncino, a few small cucumbers, yellow pole beans, purple long beans, lettuce, onions (bulbing and bunching), cipollini onions from the salad table, leeks, carrots, basil, lots of peppers, parsley, Swiss chard, lots of Jalafuego jalapeños, some okra, and 14 pounds of Kennebec and Red Pontiac potatoes, plus a small harvest of Blue Adirondack potatoes from the second fabric pot were harvested. Planting: Malabar spinach seedlings and mouse melon volunteers were planted at the base of the beautiful sturdy Annex trellis that was originally intended to support some tromboncino (which did not survive transplanting). The malabar spinach and mouse melons will be able to use the vertical support, and we'll plant peas there as well within the next couple of weeks. We may also sow a last-minute crop of bush beans in the rest of the bed. Tending: --Removed several dying cucumber plants; had planted new Homemade Pickles seed late last week but no sprouts yet. --Checked various squash plants for squash bugs: removed. Consulted with Darlene on possible squash vine borer attack but she concluded that the damage was old and/or due to other causes. Removed squash bug eggs from plants in the Three Sisters garden. --Encountered many harlequin bugs feeding on cleome plants. Dealt with them in two different ways: 1) popped the entire plant bugs and all into a black plastic garbage bag and left it to solarize; 2) cut branches off the plants and shook them over a bucket of soapy water. Many harlequins vanquished. Cleome is an excellent trap plant. --Removed several harlequins from volunteer holy basil plant in raised bed garden (could be migrants from the removed cleome). As this plant attracts beneficials, we left some of it after checking thoroughly for harlequin bugs. --Picked off potato beetle larvae from the eggplant in the deep raised bed. Flea beetle damage is minimal on these plants, due to row cover used until flowering, and perhaps also due to elevation and fresh soil. --Provided support and tied up determinate tomatoes in the deep raised bed, which are loaded down with lots of green tomatoes. Thanks to Ada for the help! --Covered new seedlings of Swiss chard in raised bed with row cover to keep it from being chewed by whatever has been eating Swiss chard plants elsewhere in the garden. --The new 10" deep raised beds are proving to be a good way to grow root crops. Danvers Half-Long carrots, an heirloom variety, are producing nice-sized, 6-inch long carrots with no splitting or forking. This variety is a good choice for heavy soils. Leeks being harvested from this bed have plenty of edible white root. --Removed green stinkbugs from okra plants. --Checked Three Sisters planting which is working just as expected except that we should have planted the squash a bit earlier so it would spread faster. Beans are climbing corn nicely. Corn should be ready to harvest next week. --Checked last week's sowings of lettuce and basil which have germinated. You may have noticed that a lot of our report is about pest insects! Alas, it's that time of year. Next week, more of the same, and some planning for the placement of fall crops. Closing thoughts: Susan Kirby Our 10 @ 10 presentation was a report on the International Master Gardeners Conference held just this month in Portland, Oregon. Erica Smith, Maria Wortman, Linda Davis, Darlene Nicholson and Lily Bruch all attended; Erica, Maria, and Linda reported on their favorite activities, and Darlene shared some amazing pictures that she had taken (Lily was taking a well-earned vacation at the beach this week). Erica provided us a link to the next Conference that will take place in two years in King of Prussia, PA: https://internationalmastergardener.com. We look forward to the Small Fruit team's 10 at 10 talk next week! Thanks Ram and Gail! Coming attractions in the Garden: August 8 will be our Tomato Tasting that will be combined this year with an Open Garden for all Master Gardeners. Stayed tuned for the details.
See you next week in the Garden, Lily, Bill and Susan
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AuthorOur weekly reports are a joint effort of all garden leads
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