A permanent state of transition is man's most noble condition. Juan Ramon Jimenez The growing season is slowly coming to an end, at least for the Derwood Demonstration Garden. It has been warm (hot!)and dry, but the signs of autumn are becoming more numerous. Today we weeded and pulled plants that were past their prime, and a number of plots were sowed with cover crops to improve the soil. Announcements for September 26 Although the season is coming to a close, activities have not slowed down. Please check out the following schedule. Tuesday, October 3: 10 @ 10 will feature a talk on spiders by our own bug person, Darlene Nicholson. Saturday, October 7, 11-4: the annual Harvest Festival. If you haven't signed up to help in the Garden or elsewhere, please do so. We will need to get passes to enter as there will be a entry fee for the event. Tuesday, October 10, 9-12: we will hold an Open Garden event for our fellow MG's. The topic for 10 @ 10 will be "Absolutely. . . and not so much: successes and failures in 2017". Everyone is encouraged to give a brief presentation. Tuesday, October 17, 10 at 10 Lisa Berray from Parks will come talk to us about the history of the house and farm. Tuesday October 31- last day of work- Party at 12 noon at Maria Wortman's house. Optional work day. A huge thanks to Millicent for mulching a lot of our paths. The kitchen garden got a lot of needed attention by Maro, MIllicent and Chris! Thank you ladies! It looks beautiful! Thanks to our master of ceremonies, Bill , for giving such an enthusiastic and educational tour to our Ridge school students! They all loved it and want to return in the spring! Vegetable Garden Report: Erica Smith, Robin Ritterhoff, Mary Anne Normile Harvesting: lettuce, kale, collards, mustard, squash (summer and winter), mouse melons, last tomatoes, Swiss chard, baby beets, peppers (including jalapenos from Annex garden), peas, Portuguese kale (aka Tronchuda cabbage) Tending: - Mustard under the large row cover was still infested with aphids. Thanks to Karin for washing it all off! Mustard in other locations is unaffected. - 'Butta' zucchini and crookneck squash is still producing so we haven't pulled it out yet despite powdery mildew. Might take it out next week before the harvest festival. Tromboncino squash had a bumper crop this week - and still going strong! - We will leave the pretzel beans in place until after the harvest festival, and then (given time and volunteers) will shell the dry beans. - Linda and Anne (and perhaps others) did a great job pulling out the tomato plants in the main garden, clearing the soil, and seeding with crimson clover. - Pulled beets which Robin had covered last week, as they continued to be chewed and had almost no greens left. - Swiss chard under cover continued to show heavy insect damage as well as signs of disease that resembled septoria leaf spot (possibly Cercospora Leaf Spot, a fungal disease? See http://extension.umd.edu/growit/cercospora-leaf-spot-vegetables).Removed cover as it was ineffective. Interestingly, Swiss chard in other raised beds showed much less evidence of damage. I did see an empty snail shell in one of the small raised beds near a Swiss chard planting. - Erica rescued the Lacinato kale in the small raised bed from an attack of caterpillars and cabbage worm that had skeletonized several plants, despite being under row cover. Watering: Heavy demand for hoses today, as everything was very dry! We have had no rain for the past two weeks, and according to Accuweather none is predicted for the next few weeks. Watering will be needed to germinate cover crop seed and so that the garden looks its best for the Harvest Festival. If you can help water in between workdays, please sign up at https://www.volunteersignup.org/D4QDR. Note: Next week's emphasis will be on tidying the garden for the harvest festival, especially getting out all those pesky weeds. Thanks to the intrepid team who refreshed the wood chip mulch on the paths! While harvesting next week, consider what we want the garden to look like to visitors, and don't overdo it - everything that's still growing should look full and productive. MANNA: We delivered 104 pounds of food to manna this week. BUG REPORT: Darlene Nicholson The mornings in late summer and early fall are cooler, and it's a good chance to catch bees reacting by being very still until the temps warm up. This close-up of a bumblebee was taken during one of those occasions. Bees have five eyes. On the image below, you can see the two large compound eyes, and three small (simple eyes) eyes (ocelli). They look purplish on the photo but could be reflecting garden light. You can also see the mandibles. Not seen, is the proboscis. Bees have the ability to roll it up and tuck it away until needed. SPECIAL PROJECTS REPORT: Carol Olsen and Carol Conrad There weren't too many tasks to accomplish in our gardens today....just general tidying up, a little watering, and harvesting. The keyhole tomato plants are still looking good, with a good number of tomatoes waiting to ripen. A lots of green peppers are coming along nicely, too. And then there are the marigolds which have done well all season and are still full of blooms. The pallets have a few empty spaces, because very few of the seeds planted over the last two weeks have sprouted. We plan to buy some lettuce plants to fill in. The two cucumber plants looked stronger this week. The last carrot was pulled up from the bales today. The tomato plants are a good and had very few diseased leaves to remove. Those Indigo Blue Berries tomatoes are taking forever to fully ripen! Today's harvest included: tomatoes, basil, a carrot (!), parsley, basil, and a few mouse melons, peppers and beans. THERAPEUTIC HORTICULTURE REPORT: Bob Loesche and Virginia White-Mahaffey Not a lot of new developments in the garden this week. Aside from a small amount of deadheading and weeding, my primary task was thoroughly watering everything in light of the continuing dry weather. In Bed 1 the Celosia continue to be terrific--see photo. The cut and come again zinnia are now more than six feet tall in places, and continue to produce many useable flowers despite a small amount of leaf mold. The Artemisia also still looks good. In Bed 2, both the queen red lime zinnia and Tithonia are flowering modestly but consistently. In Bed 3, the red Gomphrena and Verbena bonariensis continue to be champion bloomers. The Chrysanthemums are beginning to fade but still have many blossoms. The Rudbeckia Goldstrum and pinwheel zinnia are hanging on after my fairly significant pruning last week and there may be a few flowers to use in projects, but these likely are nearing the end of their season. In Bed 4, the Rudbeckia Goldquelle have finally started to fade, the number of blossoms is down significantly; starting next week I will no longer deadhead these to allow seed heads to form. Amazingly, the Celosia and Gaillardia continue to flower well. I completely cleaned out the Mollucella bed and added some leaf compost in anticipation of us next week receiving several dozen gladiolus plants courtesy of Caroline Baker--these should provide a nice addition to our collection. And in Bed 4.5, the pink Gomphrena are still terrific. BUTTERFLY GARDEN REPORT: Peggy Stanford Today we continued our challenge to get the garden ready for the Harvest Festival. That meant more trimming. We also now know what happens to the Monarch caterpillars when they appear to disappear from the garden. Today we discovered a caterpillar in the "J" form hanging from a branch of Canadian Golden Rod. Although we will not be there to see the transformation, this is the beginning of a chrysalis and ultimately the Monarch Butterfly. How cool is that! Ginnie took this video of the cocoon! 100 FOOT SQUARE GARDEN: Linda Taveira-dasilva
It felt like summer but the garden looked like autumn. Gone was the mature green and the vigor of plant growth. Many of the occupants of the neighborhood had already vacated. The ever-leaning but recently straightened bean tower had a modest yield of beans. Surprisingly the replanted lettuce had enough growth to harvest and the tomatillo plant still had enough immature fruit on it to forestall its eviction. We also had a few lingering peppers. Despite the despicable harlequin bugs sitting on the net covering looking in, the kale continued to grow. Never-the less, with kneeling and without kneeling, we began the process of preparing the garden for the end of summer. The bean tower was dismantled and the herb section was cleared out. A few struggling pepper plants were removed. The ground was cleared of debris and smoothed over. Our chosen ground cover, Crimson Clover was liberally sprinkled over the vacant spaces as well as around the remaining plants. We lightly top-dressed the seeds with Derwood brand mulch and watered everybody. The seeds should germinate in about 4-5 days giving us a carpet of green (if the #@%^ Derwood rabbit leaves it alone). When their time comes, the remaining plants will be clipped at ground level rather than pulled out. Their job is to not disturb the growing clover, decompose nicely and support the underground population for good growth in the spring.
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