Another perfect day at Derwood! We could not have asked for more! Recipe for the week: What do you get when you mix experience, hope, knowledge and willingness to try anything? Your Derwood Demo garden! At the demo garden one can find all kinds of interesting plants among them our very own grafted tomato (thanks to Darlene) and many different ways of gardening (African Key Hole, bales). Thank you all for all the hard work you put in making the garden what it is today! Garden Reports Therapeutic Horticulture: Bob Loesche Things have been popping in the TH beds this week. All the plants have been thriving on the warm temperatures and regular rainfall and we're starting to see some beautiful flowers as a result. The Larkspur is in full, glorious bloom (photos attached), and the adjacent Lavender, though more subtle, is just as much in flower. Yellow and pink yarrow blossoms have emerged with abundant buds promising more to come in the next few days. The zinnia seedlings have seemingly tripled in size over the last week, and we even have one hardy bloom. The Artemesia is looking gorgeous. Immediately next to it is very similar looking Lamb's Ear of uncertain origins--we didn't plant it--but it's in flower. The Anise Hyssop and Fennel are bushing out beautifully, promising great blooms in future weeks. Everything else is still on the small side, but all look healthy and robust. Small Fruit: Judy Bradley Denise and I walked through all of the small fruit beds and found the following: The white currant looks like it did not survive, no new growth as yet. We tucked in the grapevine as it was reaching into the beach plum and the currant. That bed needs weeding but we didn't get to that today. We pulled the blackberries out of the fence and trimmed back some dead vines in the black raspberries. Harvested and shared rhubarb and pulled it away from the red beauty Kiwi. The Issai kiwi is doing quite well and we trained it up some strings so that it will reach the wires. Denise also trimmed back the gooseberry because it was too close to the Kiwi. She only trimmed it back to the point where there was fruit on the branch. Weeding and watering was done in the strawberries and around the Kiwis rhubarb and berries. Denise's recommendation about the Paw paw trees is that we need to make their cages larger so that the deer cannot eat the leaves. Lily suggested we double up and use the extra tomato cages, but we will need more help to do that. Also the persimmon planted near the Paw Paws died back but is coming back from the root, So Lily took a picture of that and will contact edible landscaping to find out what the rootstock was. It may need to be replaced entirely. The chokeberries both seem to be doing fine as well as the bush Cherries, although the Joy Bush Cherry has much less fruit than the Joel bush cherry. The gooseberry is loaded with berries but we still do not see anything on the Goji Berry. If anybody has any ideas to help us prepare for the year of small fruits in 2017 we would love to have suggestions, particularly something that worked well and would be easy for the home garden. Compost Central: Larry Himelfarb We had a great team of compost builders and turners today---Kristy, Marlowe, Denise and Larry who turned and energized most of the county and fixed bins. One surprise was the temperature of the black enclosed bin that Susan Eisendrath had built last week with leaves, food waste and coffee grounds. Today it registered 132 degrees, despite the fact that the size and volume of this bin is quite small, but it does demonstrate that food waste and the right amount of moisture can achieve notable temps. The bin that we began to build with food waste in April is now close to retirement. Even though its temperature was 130 last week and still 120 today, the material is very decomposed and there are no traces of food inside. We did not add any new feedstock to it, but just turned and watered it. Once the temps decrease a bit more then it will be ready for a week or two of curing. In all there are seven bins in operation and it takes a dedicated team to manage them all. Herb Garden: Kathleen Tsai What a beautiful day to garden! Today was a slow-paced one, with opportunities to admire how things are growing. Now that a lot of the larkspur has been thinned, the coreopsis has really taken off, along with the butterfly weed and one "volunteer" Asian lily. Last week we removed a very vigorous "mystery plant" that had taken over the area on one side of the gazebo (no one asked could identify what it was), and as a result the Shasta daisies are growing much better. Anyone who visits the garden, whether you're a Demo Garden worker or visitor, should come into the Herb and Fragrance section and marvel at the seven-foot tall Lovage. It is a monster plant with stems that rival the size of bamboo. Our guess is that it liked the rainy, cool spring we had. Last but not least, our three chocolate-scented daisies are growing ... ever so slowly. Hopefully, they too will soon "take off" with the warmer and sunnier days Edibles: Erica Smith For some reason I thought there wouldn't be much to do in the vegetable garden today, but it turned out to be a busy day after all - calm enough to be able to enjoy the great weather, though. Summer plants are loving the warmth and the intermittent downpours. Spring plants are hanging on, though we took out the remainder of the Chinese cabbages and the radishes today, along with harvesting lots of lettuce, Tronchuda cabbage leaves, and some turnips. Basil and Malabar spinach seedlings went into the ground, along with seeds of melon, squash, watermelon and okra, and a couple more sweet potato slips. Lots of weeding and thinning happened, pleasing the compost team in their search for nitrogen sources. We're still finding wireworms in the potato bed, unfortunately, and some damage has been done to plants here and there (possibly by three-lined potato beetles or four-lined plant bugs or perhaps five-lined, I don't know, slugs) but so far we are not wielding the soapy water buckets. Photo: our intrepid irrigation team, Joe and Claude, inspect connections in the middle of the cucurbit trellises built by the intrepid Jesse. Cucumbers and Tromboncino squash are already up and will be climbing soon - and watered! Container Garden: Claude Allen The Container Garden is looking great and producing a lot of veggies for Manna, now that the temperature has heated up and dried out the rain. This week we harvested more lettuce, radishes, herbs. The radishes have begun to bolt in the heat. So, we'll need to think about what to plant next as we come to the end of the cool weather veggie season. The tomatoes are looking wonderful and are producing some nice fruits. Carole and I fed the tomato plants and pinched off the sucker shoots to encourage more robust growth. Last week, Joe install the drip irrigation lines in the containers so we'll be able to keep everything nice and watered. I will continue to visit on Thursdays to check the Container and other garden areas. Next week, I hope to add some marigolds and other edible flowers to some of the containers for pest control and color. African Keyhole Garden: Sandy Chernin Cilantro and Monte Carlo lettuce harvested for Manna. This area of the garden was then raised with a mixture of soil and compost. Same mix of soil and compost also added around the tomato plants, maintaining a nice gradient from the center compost bin to the edges of the garden. No signs of life from beans planted last week in the outside perimeter; area was well watered and we hope to see some sprouting next week. Planted basil, parsley, Swiss chard, and snapdragons. We continue to layer our kitchen scraps with cardboard or leaf mold. As a result, center compost cone definitely less smelly this week! Bales: Sandy Chernin We found spots in the garden to add some herbs, Swiss chard and cosmos. Many of the plants were sinking and we gave them a surround of compost as a boost. Tomato plants generally looking healthy and vigorous. Some new tomato supports were built and new plant growth secured to stakes. We miss Robin and look forward to having her back next week with stories of Rome! Butterfly Garden: Peggy Stanford We had a "whacking good time" in the Butterfly Garden today. The weather was perfect for gardening. The team seriously trimmed back the ever growing Elderberry to allow for the sun to provide a better growing environment for our sun loving annuals. We planted Blue Salvia, more Lantanas, and planned for even more colorful pollinators and Butterfly attractors. The photos attached represent just how lush the garden is this year and a hint of the colors to come. 100 Foot Square Garden: Linda Taveira-dasilva Thanks to the recent weather the garden looked fresh and full of growing greens. Next week's May forecast, in June, will probably give us one more week of fabulous spring growth. Therefore the plan of the day called for heavily harvesting the lettuce but selecting only some of the plants to be pulled. In these spaces we planted beets. Next week we will pull the rest of the lettuce and plant more beets in their place, cashing in on the additional lettuce but trying to get a start on summer crops. (Susan our intern has some good suggestions). We also harvested and then "booted" a few broccoli plants to make way for 2 new Sweet Scarlett dwarf tomato plants, planted vining cucumbers and added a Salad cucumber plant which is supposed to know where it grows and stay there. Stay tuned on this one. Swiss chard also got the eviction notice and 4 pepper plants moved in. The wacky weather created some disruption in our orginal plans as the peas have mushroomed but are just starting with flowers. We anticipate peas only next week. Therefore Melissa and I are soaking beans at home, planting them in cells, hopefully germinating by next week and transplanting pole and bush beans into the garden so as to be on time . The rabbit is waiting. Therapeutic Children’s Garden: Ellen Meyerson The weather was glorious. How great it was to be in the garden. The children came and helped us harvest radishes, plant more radishes beans and squash. The pole beans we planted last week had almost 100% germination! We tied on string for them to climb on the bean poles. The bush beans have germinated well, too. Out peas look a bit sad, we may have planted them too late for much of a harvest but we hope to get a few for the children to taste. The cotton plants which looked a bit sad last week look much healthier this week as does the cucumber and basil. The tomatoes are caged and in some cased tied to supports. The sungold has several little tomatoes growing. The spinach in the salad table did not germinate well but some are growing. We planted some more under the table hoping that they will be a bit cooler. The swiss chard is doing well and we hope to begin harvesting next week. As the final activity the children enjoyed watering - I think it is their favorite part of the morning.We had one very small zucchini and the patty pan squash have germinated well as have the pumpkins. Conservation Garden: Maria Wortman The Conservation Garden is shaping up nicely. We continued to clean up and mulched around desirable plants with leaf mold to keep down any new weeds. Several comet fish as well as mosquitofish, Gambusia affinis, were installed in the pond to help control any mosquito larvae. On the theory that if we put in enough ground cover plants they will crowd out the unwanted weeds and invasives, we are always on the lookout for more ground covers. If you have any ground covers (preferably native) in your garden that you can share, please let Maria Wortman or Linda Davis know. We planted several clumps of Waldsteinia fragarioides, a low-growing native ground cover also known as barren strawberry, which should form a mat and bear bright yellow blossoms in the spring. Not a ground cover, but a very lovely plant, several donated lobelias were planted in a sunnier corner of the garden. A couple of very nice shrubs are blooming now. The Aruncus, or goat’s beard, native to eastern North America, is sporting its large, feathery, white blooms. A very lovely and perhaps underrated shrub is also blooming at this time. It’s the Viburnum nudum, also known as possumhaw or smooth witherod viburnum. What’s not to like about this beauty? Its flat-topped clusters of creamy white blossoms are putting on a show now, but that’s just the first act. Later, light pink berries will appear, and as time goes on they will change to darker pink, to blue, to purplish-black. There are often berries of several colors in the same cluster as this takes place. The show doesn’t stop there, though, as the foliage turns dark red to purplish in the fall. Supposedly, two or more should be planted in order to cross-pollinate and form fruit, but this one has fruited alone. Perhaps it would do even better with a companion. Some quite beautiful yellow flag iris, Iris pseudacorus, a native of Europe, had been planted next to the pond and had formed quite a large clump. Unfortunately, we have learned that this iris is now categorized as extremely invasive. Much thanks to the hardy helpers who, with some effort, dug it all out. It spreads by rhizomes, so we expect that we will have to be on our guard to pull out any new sprouts that may come up. BUG REPORT: Darlene Nicholson This young earwig was spotted in the butterfly garden. They dine on plants and on insect larvae and aphids. Don't be tempted to pick them up bare-handed as the pincer-like appendages do indeed work. Generally their population is low and since they are also predators, we let them be. You can find more info in the bug booklet. Although spiders conjure up feelings of alarm and horror in lots of people, most are hard working predators in our gardens and we should indeed work around them. This is a female Wolf spider toting an egg sac behind her. When they hatch, she will carry all of them on her back for a short time. ( shown in second image taken about 3 years ago in the fragrance garden) Probably the time they are most aggressive is when they are toting that egg sac about. Barbara spotted this one in the potato patch. POND REPORT: Darlene Nicholson Both ponds are doing well. There always seems to be a lily blooming in the butterfly garden pond. So far this year, we don't here are they???? Thanks to the Reilly 's for donating a sweet flag/bitterroot bog plant that they picked at the MG plant swap this year. We added about 8 new fish to the Conservation garden pond, including Goldfish, and Gambusia (Mosquitofish). The latter is a small grayish fish with a relatively large feeding capacity. They are difficult to spot due to their small size and gray coloring. Our fish population have done a very thorough job of eating mosquito larvae over the last few years. Due to the Zika concerns, we have added mosquito dunks as an extra precautionary measure this year. Closing Comments: Lily and Bill
We missed our ten at ten, but will try to do better next week. Steve obtained for us a super special soil probe for our soil test. You will see us running around the garden gathering our samples next week! Thanks to Joe for setting up our irrigation system. All much appreciated! See you all next week!
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