“‘Heat, ma’am!’ I said; ‘it was so dreadful here, that I found there was nothing left for it but to take off my flesh and sit in my bones.” » Sydney Smith Another scorcher of a day! What a success our tomato tasting was this week! We have a better idea of what tomatoes we want to grow in our home gardens! Thanks for all who made it happen! It takes a lot of coordination for things to go as smoothly as they did! A lot of planning was going on at the gardens today! Looking forward to changing seasons as fall approaches as well as plans for the following year! Keep the imagination going! We can make this an even more exciting place to visit! Fun to see one of our MG’s working with their grandchild. How fun watching him engaged in the garden. We love visitors, so if you have family visiting, drop by and show off your garden! Photo: Robin Ritterhoff Garden Reports: Shade Garden Report - Thursday, 8/11/16 Well, 5 hardy souls showed up for a warm one in the Shade Garden. Though few in number we all jumped in & accomplished quite a bit -- pruning, digging & placing rocks at our 'overlook', creating access path to that spot, doing some down slope clean up, top dressing & watering. Due to the heat & humidity we called it a day around 11:15. We will be updating our plant inventory, lists & signage over the next months. Garden co-leader, Sue Schick, has been working on interpretive language which will give visitors some information about what a shade garden is & the beauty and serenity found there. Next week as the heat seems to continue in the forecast, we will be working on chipping the paths. We will be bringing a week's worth of newspaper to line the paths & will use chips as far as they will go. Conservation Garden: Linda Davis With the expert help of Dan Ward, John Reilly, and Joslyn Read we did some significant pruning of the sugar maple by the front gate in order to increase the light for plants in the conservation garden. Don't be afraid to come back from Greece, Maria, the situation is much improved! We will clean it up in coming weeks by cutting the amputated limb back to the trunk. Photo: Maria Wortman- Naked ladies Herb Garden: Kathy Tsai Today's chores for the Herb and Fragrance garden team consisted primarily of trimming back and thinning out. The African blue basils were cut back and thinned substantially. They were getting top heavy from all the blooms and the weight of all the pollinators that just love to visit them. Several other basils were more lightly trimmed back, including the cinnamon basil and the Thai basil. Several of the anise hyssop were removed so that our heirloom rose can get more light and air circulation. The chaste tree was trimmed and several dahlias were staked up and other dahlias deadheaded. We had substantial rain the night before, so watering was not needed except for the mint vault, which is protected by the gazebo and consequently did not get much of the rain. Good thing mints are so tough, as they were extremely wilted. If they haven't bounced back by next week, they will be cut back to rejuvenate them. The last task of the day was to weed along the fence line where copious amounts of ground ivy and thistle were growing. The day ended early due to the heat, but next Tuesday is forecast to be one of those almost-perfect late summer days. Butterfly Garden: Julie Mangin. Two monarchs were seen chasing each other around the demo garden, particularly around the zinnias in the therapeutic horticulture area. There were plenty of silver-spotted skippers, a Zabulon skipper, buckeyes, and variegated fritillaries. Also sighted was a dark phase female tiger swallowtail butterfly. It looks like other black swallowtails, but the markings on the wings indicate that it's a tiger. Photo: Julie Mangin - Dark Phase tiger swallowtail Photo: Julie Mangin – Monarch The butterfly garden may have sustained a little bit of damage due to Monday night's thunderstorm. Several common milkweed plants were bent over to the ground. We'll see if they right themselves on their own. If not, some staking and/or trimming will need to be done. Next week, I see a lot of dead-heading in store for the butterfly garden team. Therapeutic Beds: Bob Loesche No major changes in the TH beds since last week. The only maintenance work required was some deadheading and putting up twine to keep the overly enthusiastic Zinnia and Fennel from spilling out into the paths. Continuing to flower nicely and available for cutting are Ageratum (only blue now), Zinnia (lots of it!), Thai Basil, Artemesia (I forgot to mention those two last week), Marigold, Gomphrena (lots of it), Anise Hyssop, Fennel, Salvia, and Garlic Chives. The Celosia are also flowering well, but on close inspection I see that many of the blooms are not yet fully formed and they should get significantly larger in the coming weeks. I would urge TH'ers to be selective in picking these flowers for now. The other plants in the beds are definitely done for the season. Small Fruits: Patti Oseroff Today we weeded and had a meeting. We discussed ways to enhance the small fruit section of the garden. We have come up with the following tasks that we would like to accomplish this fall and the following is a proposed schedule for getting it done. If you have been thinking about getting involved in the small fruits section now is the time, we have a lot to do! August 23 and 30, Remove the bamboo poles facing west and south from the "fruit room". Weed and think about where the new plants might go. Think more about how we can best communicate what we have done and why to the visiting public. Brainstorm about how to protect the kiwi and figs from winter damage. September 6. Map out the design for the fruit sections to incorporate new fruit, ground covers and ornamental flowers that are nitrogen fixers or edible flower to demonstrate incorporating small fruit into a landscape. September 13th. Demo gardeners! Field trip to Waters Orchard at 22529 Wildcat Road, Germantown, Maryland, We are meeting there at 9:30 sharp to take a tour of their productive orchard where they have pruned their trees with an espalier twist. They can accommodate about 35 people so please let us know if you plan to come. September 20. Renovate the blueberry bed and install edging. Plant the replacement female kiwi. September 27. Edging the pawpaw area. We want to install a barrier between the field and the pawpaws because the grass keeps creeping in and our goal is to have MINIMAL weeding chores next year. October 4. renovate the strawberries, remove the old and replace with the new runners October 11. Install a short fence between the pawpaws and the wood chips to keep the woodchips from spilling into the pawpaws. October 18 and 15. Review what we have done so far and work on whatever has come up in the meantime November 1. Pruning of the blackberries and the black raspberries, Learn from our berry pro Denise. November 8. Protect the kiwi and figs Edibles: Erica Smith A short but productive day in the garden - good to finish up the tasks and get away before it got even hotter! Mostly we just got the harvest in: tomatoes of course, and also peppers, basil, squash (including four massive Tromboncinos), carrots, parsley root, Malabar spinach, sweet potato greens, tomatillos, okra, onions and a few potatoes from Denise's wire potato tower. We also picked some beans, and left quite a few on the trellis because they were overripe and will be harvested for seed later (please don't disturb them!). Next week we hope for cooler temperatures to plant some more fall greens (but those planted last week were doing just fine under their row cover, and the new lettuce in the salad table had germinated). We'll also put in peas on the cucumber trellises where, alas, we never really got any cucumbers. The peas will be a good final test of the soil in that bed - but I think next year we'll install a raised bed demo there, since nothing has been productive in that area in the last several seasons. A couple of volunteers took on spoiling the harlequin bug party that was happening on the big cleome (one of the bug's favorite plants when they can't get cabbage family snacks) by dunking them in soapy water or feeding them to the frogs. We'll keep an eye out for more visitors - cleome is a good trap crop! We didn't have time to look out for other insects, but I did spot a few stink bugs and we'll need to check for squash bugs again next time. And there are lots of weeds awaiting our attention too. 100 Square Foot Garden: Linda Taveira dasilva The " Dog Days of August" are upon us. (My cat doesn't agree.) Mother Nature viciously watered the garden the night before. Being in a crabby mood, she threw our bean pole teepee down, alas ripping out some of the plants roots. Of course we had to console our poor plant, up righting it, speaking soothingly to it, adding more soil to stabilize it and softly "there, there she really didn't mean it "as we gently tugged on the beans. Seeing the wrath of Mother Nature, the rest of the plants were on their best behavior. Those lazy tomatoes actually had some blossoms, in addition to producing tomatoes and the cucumbers made sure we found their offspring. The pepper plants were waving to us to "see, come get some jalapenos and fish peppers". Even our nervous scotch bonnet plant managed growth with peppers and the summer squash offered up a nicely colored miniature bowling pin. But not everyone was brave. We had to put a row cover over the chard, giving assurances that better days were ahead. Of course the always well behaved tomatillo and basil plants had their usual fare for us and even the oregano plant had something to contribute to our bounty. The lettuce, safely ensconced under the row cover, promised one more week of growth and those stalwart kale and collard plants continued to stick out their tongues (leaves) to the harlequin beetles siting on top of the netting looking in. That brat vole is still running around eating here and there (where ARE his parents?) Waiting for Mother Nature to cool herself down, we again decided to put off for another week planting new babies. Container Garden: Carol Olsen All the container gardens were fertilized with slow release granular fertilizers and fish emulsion. Water was emptied from one of the self-watering containers as the level seemed a bit high. The tomatoes were still on the green side...just beginning to turn red, so none were picked. The mint in the "Drink" container has lost most of its leaves and the stems are brown. It really looks like it is on its way out. As it appeared fine last Tuesday, I'm wondering if it got waterlogged with recent rains, or perhaps it could be mint rust. Tomato Bed Report - Dan Ward & Joslyn Read
The harvest this week was smaller than last week, but still pretty good. The Juliet's are doing the best. Darlene's grafted tomato still shows marvelous foliage, and many cherry size fruit. But, nothing has yet ripened for picking. The majority of our time was spent working the tomato testing event for the Demo Garden. Many MG's brought in tomatoes from their home gardens which were most welcome. We believe we had around 20+ varieties, but we forgot to count specifically! Winners in our informal tasting was: Best Tasting Red/Pink Tomato: 1st - Pink Bumblebee, 2nd - Dester, 3rd - Black Ruffles Best Tasting Yellow/Gold Tomato: 1st - Summer Sunrise (runaway winner!), 2nd: Sungold (cherry type), 3rd - Amy's Apricot (cherry type) All in all it was a fun time with a lot of great tasting tomatoes. Thanks to Annie who helped chop, and also to those who brought in tables, knives, cutting boards and table cloths. The tasting would not have happened without everyone's support! We are thinking about having a tomato seed exchange this fall (around end October). Please start saving (and importantly labeling) seeds from any open-pollinated tomatoes that you would like to share. They can be either heirloom (many definitions include before WWI, available for at least 50 years, or grown in community or family plots for many years) or more recently developed open-pollinated tomatoes, but cannot be from hybrid tomatoes. There are many online resources for how to save tomato seeds: https://www.mastergardeners.org/pdf/import/SGM/files/Saving_Tomato_Seeds.pdf http://www.sunset.com/garden/fruits-veggies/harvesting-tomato-seeds-slideshow http://blog.seedsavers.org/blog/heirloom-tomato-seedsaving There is another very easy way to save seeds that has also been shared by one of our MGs: Select the ripe OP tomato for seeds, slice them on a clean cutting board, and smear the seeds well on a thick paper towel. Label and date the paper towel and let dry on the kitchen counter or other dry location until very dry. Fold and store in a cool dry place in a labeled envelope. When ready to plant, simply peel off the seeds or rip off a piece of the paper towel and plant in your seedling pots. This is also explained in the second part of the article below: https://www.growveg.com/guides/three-ways-to-save-tomato-seeds/
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorOur weekly reports are a joint effort of all garden leads
|