Spring makes its own statement, so loud and clear that the gardener seems to be only one of the instruments, not the composer. ~Geoffrey B. Charlesworth Our first official day of work at our Derwood Demonstration garden started out with rain, but by the time our new interns were starting their orientation, the sun was shining and it was just beautiful! We missed you Derwood Gardens! All in all, we were about 50 mg's making sure the gardens are ready for the Grow It Eat It event on April 29th! The garden was in surprisingly good shape despite having been abandoned since early November. Lots of weeding, pruning and clipping dead branches was done through out the garden. Garden Reports: Conservation Garden: Maria Wortman On our first work day, we spent most of our time doing spring cleaning by cutting down the stalks of last year’s coneflowers, sedum, aster and others and pulling weeds such as purple deadnettle and chickweed that had grown up over the winter. Though some people may think it looks a trifle messy, it’s a good practice to let the dried stalks of perennials stay on them during the winter and to wait to clean them up until the spring. The dried seed heads provide food for birds and other animals. The dried vegetation protects the living crown of the plant. Some solitary bees actually overwinter in hollow, pithy stems, such as hydrangeas. It’s exciting to see the tips of trillium just starting to peek up out of the soil. There isn’t too much color yet, but the small, cheerful, yellow flowers of the Waldsteinia, barren strawberry, let us know that it is spring. Tomato beds: Joslyn Read and Dan Ward It was great to be officially open for the 2017 growing season. It's so good to renew friendships and welcome the interns to Derwood. This promises to be an exciting season in the tomato bed. In fact, for the interns, we are a demonstration garden so we try to use many techniques in tomato growing. Please bring your ideas to add to our knowledge base. So, if you have heard of a technique that you've always wanted to try bring it up on a Tuesday and let's discuss it. Although the bed might look a bit smaller than last year we still have a good amount of space to work with (15' X 15'). One of the newest techniques we are introducing is using a 30% shade cloth. Experiments have shown that this amount shade helps reduce some of the negative effects of our hot, humid weather. Tomatoes stop, or slow down significantly, flowering when the temperatures rise into the 90's. Tomatoes absolutely love temperatures in the mid 80's, something in short supply for mid and main season varieties. The extension service has found this percentage of shade produces the best results. Anything less has negligible help, and anything more stops too much sunlight. Since we have enough space we will try to grow a few varieties where we grow those same varieties under the shade cloth and outside of the shade cloth so a valid comparison can be done. Today was spent prepping the bed, and planting spring crops which will be out of the ground when the tomato growth is in earnest. The individual varieties are too many list here, but we started seeds for: 1. Peas 2. Spinach 3. Lettuce 4. Scallions 5. Radishes Therapeutic Horticulture Beds: Virginia White-Mahaffey We welcomed the interns touring the garden, waved at other MGs we have missed over the winter, and weeded. And weeded some more. We recaptured some achillea that had wandered afield and replanted it in fair approximations of lines. Patty (Still here but won't be for long) Neame graciously donated her weeding efforts after doing same in another area. The achillea, artemisia, larkspur, and lavender are looking healthy and will be useable in a few months. We never even touched the third bed. Compost Central: Kristy Hardy Compost central started with a beautiful day, a 5 person working team and several interns visiting, asking questions and showing interest. Susan gave Marlowe and myself clear marching orders, explaining that the two piles left from the fall were mostly ready to be used and so we used the top half of piles 1 and 4 and used them as an activator as we started new piles in bins 2 and 3. She had already filled 3 of our trashbins with weeds that could be put in our piles and explained that most of the weeds in the garden at this time had not gone to seed, so therefore could be added. With leaves from the leaf pile, some manure brought in and cleanup from the Demo garden, we were able to fill bins 2and 3 and Marlowe moved the bottom half of bin 4 into bin 6 for garden usage. We plan on putting thermometers in the two piles created Tuesday when we come back this Tuesday. After the rain, it was a glorious day and I so appreciated all the cheerful people and support of our leads as Marlowe and I do not feel like experts. Herb and Fragrance Garden: Kathy Tsai Opening day in the herb and fragrance garden was spent primarily in digging weeds. Apparently the weeds enjoyed a mild winter in the garden beds and were there to greet us in abundance!! All four team members tackled them and made great progress, although we suspect they will make a comeback by next week. We also cut back on some perennial plants such as the rue, pulled out last year's African blue basils and heliotropes, and readied some of the containers, which will be started anew in the next few weeks. Team leaders spoke to several groups of interns that came through, explaining what we showcase in that part of the demonstration garden and encouraging them to return and join us in the future. Last but not least, the purple martin house was lowered and readjusted. We are hoping to have tenants this year. Next week we will spend part of our time developing our plant list and plan for this season. Butterfly Garden- Peggy Stanford We couldn't help but contrast today's opening day to last so spring like(light drizzle, clouds, warm sun and light winds) and of course weeds. We cleaned out all the dead wood, saw our first Harlequin bug, enjoyed our "new" bench, and our continuous comradery. We were joined by David intern 2017 and serenaded by the frogs in the pond next door. Thanks Team Leads for the bench. Ponds: Darlene Nicholson and Rich Dieckhans The front pond was pumped out after removing fish and plants, which all survived the winter successfully. Since we weren't able to net it last fall it was quite full of decaying leaves. It was then refilled and residents returned. Special thanks to Rich and Amy for doing the brunt of the work today! Below are two images that show some of the many, many toad eggs found in the back pond. We know these are toad eggs because they laid are in long strips. Some are white, some are gray, and some black. The white ones are most newly laid, the gray getting ready to turn into tadpoles and the black are actually morphing into them. Notice how the black ones are changing from their round shapes. In a couple of days they will grow into their tadpole bodies and break apart from the strip. We noticed some frogs sitting around the pond and one would think they may have deposited these strips there, but frog eggs are laid in jelly-like masses. It is reported that fish love to eat the frog eggs, but not the toad eggs. Hmmm, it makes you wonder if the frogs are waiting to use all of the toad eggs as a diversion before they lay theirs? I certainly don't know this for a fact, but Mother Nature is pretty amazing. Oh and by the way, we won't be able to clean this pond out until these youngsters are grown up or eaten. Special Projects: The Carols Our three garden projects are off to a great start, thanks to many helping hands! Keyhole gardens: The two kits have been assembled and some hardware cloth put down in an attempt to discourage critters from nesting. Next the composting layers added to the planting areas. Next week we will add the top layer of topsoil/Leafgro, plus some additional Perlite and begin planting the beds. We really appreciate the volunteers who have contributed kitchen scraps for the two center compost baskets. Straw bales: This year we were fortunate to find some HT (heat treated) wooden crates to house some of the bales. They look so neat and tidy! The crates were lined with hardware cloth to discourage nesting critters. Two other bales are sitting on the ground. We are currently treating the bales for the next 12 days (keeping them wet and adding Milorganite) before planting them. Pallets: We are working on creating the planting areas for 2 pallet gardens. Today we made planting pockets for one pallet by stapling landscape cloth to the openings. That turned out to be more of a job than expected! Next week we will finish the 2nd pallet by creating one large pocket. That should be easier! Planting the pockets will begin next week. It will be interesting to see if one style does better than the other. Small Fruits: Ram Narula and Gail Ifshin What We did First, we did a short orientation to a few interns who showed some interest in working with the small fruit team. We walked all the small fruit patches to assess the overall situation. By and large all the plants looked fine as we did not see any significant winter damage. It was too early to tell if our fig survived the winter. It looked fine. We did some pruning on Goji berries and other berries and bushes. We removed some seed and will continue that next week. We walked the Paw Paw areas and found couple of missing tags. What we plan to so next week We will assess the overall maintenance needs and continue with weed removal. The strawberry path will be roped off as they are being unintentionally trodden as they are partially covered by leaf mulch. We will continue work on the small fruit pruning guidelines and eventually have laminated cards. Edibles: Robin Ritterhoff Derwood's vegetable gardeners took advantage of what turned out to be a beautiful day, and got us off to a great start: - Dan and Joslyn organized the future tomato planting area and put in seeds for peas, radishes, lettuce, spinach, and arugula. - Linda Davis installed the trellises for cucurbit planting, weeded the area, and started planting some pea/oat mix cover crop. - Barbara dug a potato trench and planted potatoes, discovering and disposing of a number of wireworms along the way. - Donna filled one section of the salad table and planted lettuce and spinach. (We'll do the rest next week but will need a lot more potting soil!) - Erica and Robin planted cabbages and broccoli, and covered the hoops with a floating row cover. - Mary Anne continued work on the raised beds, leveling the wooden frames built last week with the carpentry wizardry of Joe Ginther & John Reilly. She added compost to one of the two small 39" raised beds, so it was ready for direct seeding with some early spring vegetables. Mary Anne & Mohammed and Mary Anne planted cilantro, Guardsman bunching onions, French breakfast radishes, and Bull's Blood beets. Children's Garden: Sandy Chernin The Children's Garden is awakening slowly but surely. Special thanks to whomever planted the yellow daffodils by the tunnel ready to greet us. Today was spent weeding, pulling out the old cardinal and purple bean hyacinth vines from their trellises, and more and more weeding! Mr. McGregor's garden should be ready for starting spring vegetables next week. Old cotton plants were left in today for "show and tell" with the new interns. The section of "animal plants" shows much promise: Solomon's Seal peeking out, Pigsqueak (bergenia) that tolerated a nice pruning of winter burned leaves, hens and chicks , lamb's ear and ponytail grass in survival mode. Lots of space for plants that will soon be tucked in: lion's ear and white tiger (thank-you for obtaining Lily!). Interns: please consider joining us in the Children's garden to experience a fun mix of vegetable, annual and perennial gardening! 100 Square Foot Garden: Linda Taveira At first glance the old neighborhood looked pretty quiet and deserted. All the old tenants had been gentrified. We looked around , only seeing trash bags and tarp. However "people were saying" that there was stuff going on. Maybe "new" tenants? Cautiously we pulled back those bags and tarp and found underneath those "other tenants"! There they were living right under our noses, dancing in the dirt, eating the cut clover, scooting in and out of holes, wriggling around each other. There were so many that they couldn't be documented!! Considering we didn't have the manpower (ICE) to send them all "back" and we wanted to revitalize the neighborhood, Hope and I decided to hire them. After making negotiations that stipulated that they stay and continue to turn the dirt over and make lots of holes for our new plants and seeds we hired them cheap. We set about gerrymandering our boundaries and marking off new squares for spaces. Like good capitalists were are looking to squeeze in more for less. Hope built a new tower (teepee), magnificent really, for the peas. They were especially happy the yellow pansies moved in next to them as as they like the color gold. We leased squares to parsley, thyme, rosemary, marjoram and oregano plants. Fennel seeds were planted. Some onions, kale and collards also signed leases, promising to bring the rest of their families next week, but only if the proper coverings would be ready otherwise they aren't moving to the garden until the end of the year. Ida in the kitchen garden welcomed interns and explained the idea of a kitchen garden. Children's therapeutic horticulture beds were weeded and salad tables were cleaned up. The children did not come to work today. Shade Garden: Sue Schick The weather improved for the interns to take tours of the Shade Garden on Tuesday. The early Bloodroot flowers were beautiful, with the bluebells and wood poppies coming soon. If you haven't seen our garden yet, stop in after the meeting on Thursday! As you can see, the Shade Garden is just beautiful right now. Hope you have a chance to visit.
We had a great start to the gardening season. Welcome all new volunteers! See you all next Tuesday at 8 am! Lily, Bill and Susan
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AuthorOur weekly reports are a joint effort of all garden leads
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