What is one to say about June, the time of perfect young summer, the fulfillment of the promise of the earlier months, and with as yet no sign to remind one that its fresh young beauty will ever fade. ~Gertrude Jekyll What a wonderful way to spend the first day of summer with a hardy group of gardeners in a beautiful location! Hats off to all our garden leads. Without you, this report and this garden would not be possible. Thanks for all your garden reports, photos and leadership! We learn from you every week! Garden Reports: Shade Garden: Carol Martin Thursday, June 16 Thursday morning dawned rainy so Shade Garden activity was delayed until about 10 am at which time it had stopped raining at Derwood. A small complement of volunteers did some transplanting, cleaning of beds & pruning. Each member of the crew is excited about the planting of the hillside & the challenges of working on a 45 deg. incline. We now have witch hazel, fringe tree, winter jasmine, Bear's britches, lamium, & feverfew planted on the bank. Some are planted as space holders which can be removed or transplanted at a future time. We are trying to remove invasives to free up an existing crabapple & Russian olive. We have a variegated spurge & a dwarf Joe Pye weed ready for planting next week.The rest of the garden is looking great, & as was observed "It looks different each week!" We could really use a good soaking rain, as the soil layer is thin over a rocky layer & drains & dries out very quickly. Conservation Garden: Maria Wortman Today we continued our activities of weeding and planting ground covers. Hopefully, if we plant enough ground covers, we won’t have to weed very much! At least, that’s the theory. Plus, the ground covers are pretty! In the space next to the pond where we had removed the invasive yellow flag iris, we planted beautiful donated Hakone Grass, a.k.a. variegated Japanese reed grass. Yes, we do plant lots of plants native to this area, but not exclusively. We edged the pond with a sweet little sedum. We think it will look really beautiful when it has all grown in. The pond is doing very well. We even spotted a little frog – they are coming! And the fish seem to be growing. If you have wondered about that Jack-in-the-pulpit with the huge, shiny leaves, it’s (eek!) not native either, but isn’t it spectacular? It’s the Arisaema ringens, or Japanese cobra lily. The various and sundry hydrangeas are blooming wonderfully in their shades of white, cream and pink. As Darlene, Lily, and I (Maria) were preparing to leave the garden, a lovely fritillary butterfly decided to befriend us. It came to each of us and landed on our hands and hair. It showed no inclination to leave us, but kept flitting from one to the other of us. Finally, with the fritillary on my hand, I picked up my bucket and walked down the steps to my car. It remained with me, and I had to go through some contortions to keep it from entering my car and going home with me! The beautiful fritillary brought to our minds thoughts of our lovely departed friend and fellow MG, Mellita Carter, who loved butterflies so and worked to document those in the Demo Garden. She will not be forgotten. Therapeutic Beds: Bob Loesche It's sunrise/sunset time in the TH beds. The Larkspur is in its most beautiful display of the spring, with the flowers their deepest blue yet. But the foliage is rapidly turning brown so these flowers represent the plants' last gasp. But much is yet to come. The Yarrow and Lavender are blooming profusely, and the Salvia, Marigold and some of the Feverfew are flowering sufficiently well that they can be gently picked for TH projects now. Three of the Feverfew were being overshadowed by the Zinnias, so I moved them today to a sunnier location--and no doubt they will appreciate the abundant watering they got this afternoon. The Echinacea and Zinnias are budding out and I predict will be flowering within the week. All else looks great. Butterfly Garden: Peggy Stanford Today was a busy day in the Butterfly Garden. "limbs were a flyin". Bill and his nephew Mckade brought in the chain saw, etc. and seriously trimmed back the Viburnum bushes. Thank you Bill !!This opens up new space to increase our varieties of butterfly attractors. Next week we will begin the process of improving the soil in the new area and planting perennials and annuals which meet our established criteria. Today we saw a Fritillary and a Common Wood Nymph. They were enjoying the Monarda and Swamp milk weed. The garden is very lush this year and will bring us lots of butterflies. Edibles: Erica Smith A hot but productive day in the veggie garden! I decided to pull out most of the spring brassicas, including some Early Jersey Wakefield and Charleston Wakefield cabbages, small but formed into heads. (If you're interested, the latter was bred from the former, which was developed in New Jersey from an English cabbage called just Wakefield.) I'm leaving the Red Acre cabbage until next week. We also pulled the Romanesco broccoli, which continues to be frustrating - hardly any flower development at all, but the leaves make a nice contribution to Manna - and the cauliflower, which might have given us more heads given another week of cooler weather. (Head of Purple of Sicily variety pictured.) We also harvested a few remaining turnips, lettuce, peas, and cilantro. Next week we should have the first beans, plus beets and carrots. Some more bush beans went in to replace the broccoli, among the still standing Tronchuda or Portuguese Kale (now uncovered and already attracting the attention of cabbage butterflies). Winter squash seedlings will replace the cauliflower next week. I also sowed more melon seeds since the first set failed to sprout, and more pole beans where the bitter gourd hasn't emerged. Always have a backup plan! I am continuing to sow seeds in pots at home so that we have seedlings to pop in when things die or don't do well. Soon it will be time to think about sowing those fall brassicas. The solstice is already past and autumn is kind of just around the corner. Even if it doesn't feel like it temperature-wise. :) Small Fruit: Patty Oseroff Today we focused on weeding and mulching around the roots of the paw paws with compost and a layer of newspaper with leaf much one top to enrich the soil and prevent prevent future weeds. The paw paws are doing well and growing. Next week we will plant a cover of buckwheat between the trees. The female Russian kiwi is still struggling a little. We adjusted the irrigating and hopefully that will help There were a few black currants to harvest and maybe next week or two the gooseberry will be ready to harvest. Big thanks for a all the hard work put in today! MANNA: Robin Ritterhoff Our harvest today weighted 48 pounds on Manna’s scale, bringing our year-to-date 2016 deliveries to 302 pounds. Pretty darn good for the first day of summer! KEYHOLE: Robin Ritterhoff We planted some ‘Masai’ bush beans soaked overnight, a second try for us. ‘Masai’ have worked well in conventional beds in past years at Derwood. We also added some volunteer Verbena Bonariensis to the exterior ring where we have planted flowers. The compact cucumbers are showing some signs of nibbling by cucumber beetles; we managed to consign them to the soapy-water-bug-bucket, together with the first stinkbug that we have spotted. We’re questioning the degree to which this technique designed to withstand dry weather will really work for the vegetables that we have planted in the keyhole bed (we decided NOT to ask Joe to install drip irrigation for the bed). We are glad to experiment and see what works at Derwood, and this keyhole bed has surely provided a lot of learning opportunities. Stay tuned! BALES: Robin Ritterhoff We planted more ‘Masai’ bush beans in the bales, and also 3 cowpeas: ‘Big Red Ripper’, which performed extraordinarily well in the bales last year. We also continued to remove suckers from the tomatoes & deadhead the cosmos. Everything is coming along nicely. CONTAINERS: Robin Ritterhoff We harvested some cilantro ready to bolt and tidied up a bit. The white radishes that have bolted have put out lovely little pink flowers, which a few small pollinators were loving. FUNNY LITTLE ORPHAN CORNER OPPOSITE THE FAUCET: Robin Ritterhoff Since nothing much was happening here, except some enormous lambs ears covered with happy bumblebees, we removed weeds & three-quarters of the lambs ears to make space for more of the ‘Big Red Ripper’ cowpeas (black-eyed peas are maybe the best known cowpeas). Ira Wallace’s excellent book, Vegetable Gardening in the Southeast, calls Southern Peas, aka Cowpeas ‘delicious, pest-resistant, drought-tolerant stars of the summer garden in the Southeast.” Joe’s fine drip irrigation does not cover this corner, since we just planted it, so we’ll see how they do with just weekly watering. Tomatoes: Dan Ward The tomatoes continue to grow with nearly all now flowering, with many having fruits. The Sun Gold fruit is nearing ripeness. In keeping the Extension recommendation, we continue to remove the suckers, a never ending job, as well as pruning low hanging limbs and leaves. Because of the growth many plants had to be tied to the supporting twine to help support the ever growing stems and to help keep the limbs from touching the ground (a good pathway for soil borne pathogens to make their way to the leaves and limbs). There didn't appear to be any further evidence of Septoria this week, but we sprayed the plants with the copper based fungicide as a preventative measure. We also sprayed the tomatillos with BT to help manage the tomato worms. Last year those pesky worms reeked havoc on them. 100 Square Foot Garden: Linda Taveira-da Silva The 100 square foot garden ushered in the summer solstice on a typical crappy, hot and humid Washington morning. The current residents all looked surprisingly good for the lack of water in the past week. We harvested collards, onions, mustard and herbs. The germination of last week's seeds so far is a mixed bag. The beets and bush beans have an attitude problem, especially since they have been planted twice. The earlier planted beets are just fine snuggling with the carrots, so we don't know what gives.The pole beans and summer squash seeds and " just in case" cucumbers have all popped their heads up and look very promising. The tomato plants were sprayed with copper and sucker pinched. (Yes, it was them yelling.) The tomatillo plants have recovered nicely from last week's assault with the bugs and the basil and pepper plants are beginning their ascent upward. We have continued to keep the collards covered as the bugs have respected the 'Do not enter sign". We weeded and watered and did some thinning. Compost Central: Denny May Our crew's hard work for the past two months is coming to fruition. We now have two of the large bins (one with food waste, one with garden waste) in the final stages of decomposition, and this week we withdrew another large food waste bin from the charging process and moved it into the final decomposing stage as well. In addition, our two Montgomery County Geobins have also reached the final stage, and we have ceased adding materials to them as they begin the final breakdown. Our hard black plastic bin registered a temperature of 133 degrees this week and is also approaching the final stage, which makes a total of six significant piles of compost having reached the final stages of decomposition in a little over two months of turning, charging and watering. We look forward to reduced effort in turning and charging piles during the hot months of July and August before a final push with new piles at the end of the season. Special thanks to Kristy Hardy for stellar work this week and to Bill Newman's nephew for his contribution as well. Bug Report:: Darlene Nicholson Barbara K. found this Eastern Eyed Click Beetle (Alaus oculatus). It measures about 2 inches and is a member of the Elateridae family. The two large black "false" eyes are there to scare prey. According to research, adults consume nectar and their larva consume the larva of flies, caterpillars and some beetles. Thus, this one is considered a beneficial. Check out UM's Bug Guy, Mike Raupp at: http://www.bugoftheweek.com Archives, July 16, 2012. The second image (extreme close-up) shows another kind of click beetle (Melanotus communis). These larva have a hard shell, and appear as a crop pest. We also have those in our Derwood Demo garden. Their larvae (wire worms) have caused considerable damage to our potato crops. These are much smaller ( 3/4 inch). Wire worms are discussed in our Common Garden Bugs booklet. Both kinds of click beetles are able to flip themselves over with a loud clicking sound, supposedly to scare away prey. However, I find that many humans delight in eliciting this reaction for their own amusement. Closing Comments: Lily and Bill Thanks Joe for our ten at ten on irrigation. Lots of good questions and lots of information. Next week we have Darlene give us a talk on bugs! We had Bill and his nephew take down a lot of the viburnums in the butterfly garden. This complex job included wasp stings, power tools and much more. Looking forward to see what the team will do with the extra space. We collected soil samples with our fancy soil probe! boy, what a busy day! Joe made sure we locked up and mowed the lawn after we finally cleaned up and packed our large Manna food delivery! Don’t forget next week is hat day! Wear your special hats!
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