It was another beautiful morning in the Garden. Although the Garden is beginning to assume an autumnal look, we had an abundant vegetable harvest for Manna. Peggy Stanford of the Butterfly Garden crew gave a short presentation during 10 @ 10 on the lifecycle and eating habits of butterflies, all while a number of butterflies were flying around us. We also enjoyed the stumps that provided new seating under the maple tree--a special thanks to Parks employees who placed the stumps in the Garden. We are also going to format this report a little differently. A show of hands yesterday at 10 @ 10 indicated that almost everyone reads the weekly report, but we agreed that the announcements would be better placed at the beginning rather than the end. So, with that in mind, here goes. ANNOUNCEMENTS FROM SEPTEMBER 12: 1. After some discussion, the Take It, Make It lunch for next week (September 19) is cancelled. We will have an end of the season lunch on October 31, and it was pointed out by several people that the harvest is getting smaller. We will certainly be thinking about a lunch during next year's growing season. If anyone has ideas or suggestions, please let us know. 2. Our Open Garden for all MG's is rescheduled for Tuesday, October 10, 9-12. The topic for 10 @ 10 that day will be "Absolutely. . . or not so much": reviewing the 2017 growing season. Everyone is invited to give a short (!!!) presentation on what worked and what didn't in their part of the Demonstration Garden. 3. The Harvest Festival is Saturday, October 7. Information and a link to sign up to help at the event can be found in the September edition of the Seed. We will be preparing the Garden for the Harvest Festival over the next couple of weeks. 4. Found on a tree stump: a pair of eyeglasses. Is anyone missing their glasses? Shade Garden: Carol Martin and Sue Schick (Thursdays work day) It was a beautiful day, sunny and mild, and probably a little too wet to work in the Shade garden. So, we took a field trip starting in the demo garden and then proceeding to two local nurseries, Johnson's & Stadler's. The trip was educational, informative and successful. We now have our work cut out for next Thursday to install the five different plants that were purchased. We also looked at some big ticket items and will discuss those when the Shady crew meets. We have also talked to the lead of the conservation garden, (Maria Wortman), about sharing some of the native plants from that area. Conservation Garden Report –Maria Wortman The temperatures have cooled and we can feel hints of autumn coming on. Spring and Summer abound with lovely flowers, but as the end of the growing season approaches, nature puts forth another last glorious burst of color. The Hardy Begonia’s dangling racemes of pink blossoms brighten up a shady spot. They seem so delicate, but looks can be deceiving. This perennial is a tough survivor. You might want to plant it somewhere where you don’t mind its spreading habit. If you’d like a nice groundcover for part to full shade, the White Wood Aster, Eurybia divaricata, would be a great choice. This native produces clouds of delicate white blossoms. It also spreads quickly, but is easy to control. In the sunnier area of the garden, bordering the turf plots, the delicate pink of the sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ sets off the lovely blue color of the Hardy Monch Aster. In keeping with the philosophy of the conservation garden, all of these perennials, once established, will keep performing beautifully with very little upkeep or input of resources. Derwood Vegetable Garden Report: Robin Ritterhoff, Erica Smith, and Mary Ann Normile Harvesting: summer squash (Tromboncino and 'Butta' zucchini), winter squash (Banana Pink Jumbo), beans (close to the last), kale, collards, mustard, Malabar spinach and herbs (from kitchen garden and annex), mouse melons, tomatoes, basil, parsley, beets, Swiss chard, peppers, a few tiny eggplants, okra. Tending:
Planting: Seeds of radishes "French Breakfast" and "Sparkler" in raised beds; Spinach “Regiment” and “Double Choice Hybrid”, plus radishes “Cherry Belle”, “Easter Egg”, and “Helios” in the annex. Educating Ourselves: The late summer beds have offered us a lot to think about. How come the raised bed determinate tomatoes, most newish varieties bred by NCSU for early blight resistance, succumbed to fungal diseases, whereas the dwarf tomatoes grown in the African keyhole beds just 15 feet away continue to thrive. Those keyhole tomatoes were grown from seeds given by tomato expert Craig LeHoullier, and they are all varieties that seem to have potato-type leaves. What’s with the second round of flea beetles that are doing so much damage to previously flourishing eggplants – were they always two generations per season? And the reddish-brown bean beetles & their very abundant larvae that we’ve seen lately: Darlene thinks that they haven’t been around much in recent years, so why are they back? And how can we persuade them to stay away, beyond the rigorous garden clean up we’ll undertake late next month? Fragrance Garden Report: Kathy Tsai Work in the herb and fragrance garden is winding down as summer slowly comes to an end, but certain chores persist. Time was devoted today to thinning out the comfrey and Vietnamese coriander and cutting back the jasmine. Once again, the African blue basil was deadheaded and part if it shored up to get it out of the walkway. Weeding was done around some of the bricks, mostly to remove the larger tufts of grass that have sprung up recently. We also weeded along the back fence, where a bumper crop of ground ivy, or Creeping Charlie as some people call it, had "crept" through the fence. The next few weeks will be spent on some final cleanup and digging up a few tender plants that will be wintered over in a basement or garage. Manna Report: Robin Ritterhoff Our Manna harvest today totaled 124 pounds, bringing our YTD total to 1537 pounds. That's 5 pounds higher than our total donations for 2016. Therapeutic Horticulture: Bob Loesche and Virginia White-Mahaffey Things are pretty much the same this week as last. In Bed 1, the Celosia continue to thrive in vibrant reds and oranges. Virginia found some more orphaned Celosia elsewhere in the garden and moved them into this bed so hopefully we can have these blossoms throughout the growing season. Also looking good in this bed are the cut and come again zinnia and Artemisia. In Bed 2, the queen red lime zinnia continue to flower well. What we thought was a second zinnia has developed lovely orange flower--see photo--but clearly is not a zinnia, as the leaf structure and blossoms are different. Virginia's research reveals that it is a red sunflower or Mexican sunflower, Tithonia rotundifolia. In Bed 3, the red Gomphrena, Chrysanthemums, Tanacetum and Rudbeckia Goldstrum are blooming nicely. I deadheaded many dozen garlic chives that were about to go to seed. In Bed 4, the Celosia are larger than those in Bed 1, and some of the blooms have grown quite large with rather weird shapes. The Rudbeckia Goldquelle continue to dazzle. The Gaillardia are still blooming. The Molucella are completely done so we removed the dead plants from the bed. In Bed 4.5, the pink Gomphrena have straightened up after staking last week and continue to look grand. Cover Crops: Linda Davis Although the weeds got the upper hand in August out in the cover crop plot in the annex, by mid-September we liberated the struggling alfalfa and beat back the weeds advancing from the path into the buckwheat. So what have these plots accomplished? In general the buckwheat seems more effective than the alfalfa in suppressing weeds, since it grew taller and faster and thicker than the alfalfa, and the weeds that did appear were mainly crowding in from the edge. Alfalfa, by contrast, struggled to get going, perhaps partly due to weather since we started it later than the buckwheat. It also seems shorter and finer in texture. We may try re-seeding since the recommendation is to sow in either early spring or late summer. What's the bottom line on these two crops? Both are worth growing for suppressing weeds and adding organic matter to the soil when it is turned under, but alfalfa has an added advantage because it fixes nitrogen. Soon we will be planting winter cover crops such as crimson clover and winter wheat in the main garden as the summer vegetables give up. 100 Square Foot Garden: Linda Taveira-dasilva Tuesday morning was greeted with a sigh of relief. Hurricane Irma had not made landing at the 100 square foot garden after all. Everything still looked pretty much the same as last week. The not leaning- anymore- tower of beans had a modest size harvest. The raggedy tomato plants managed a few nice size pink tomatoes and the collards, kale and chard were plucked. Oregano and rosemary were added into the mix. Unfortunately the newly planted lettuce was mostly harvested by the @#$X chipmunk brothers. Anticipating the end of the season and making way for planting ground cover, the basil and pepper plants were removed. Two of the tomato plants were pulled out of their misery and the dependable tomatillo plant was eyed but spared as she still had a few clinging fruits (an enduring weakness for all things Latin). Our Japanese mustard was having a battle with the harlequin bugs and mixed-up Mexican BEAN beetles were found hiding under the leaves of a PEPPER plant. We did a little tiding up with weeds and mashing bugs. BUG REPORT: Darlene Nicholson We were able to spot not one, but two male Carolina Mantids in different parts of the garden yesterday. There are three kinds of mantids in Maryland. The native Carolina mantis is the smallest (pictured below). We also see the European and Chinese mantids. Read all about them in our own little bug book or on line at http://extension.umd.edu/hgic. Eleanea found this guy under the covers of the collard plants. Since this was a first time ID for this bug, we checked in with HGIC. Here is what they replied. https://www.marylandbiodiversity.com/viewSpecies.php?species=10360 and https://livingwithinsects.wordpress.com/2012/08/22/long-necked-seed-bug/ Folks in the veggie garden also found this incredibly cute tree frog, hanging out on some sweet potato vines. I know, its not a bug, but you just have to see it if you missed seeing the real one. For more information checkout link below. https://www.nwf.org/Wildlife/Wildlife-Library/Amphibians-Reptiles-and-Fish/Tree-Frogs.aspx Tomato Beds: Dan Ward and Joslyn Read Although we did get a decent harvest of tomatoes the plants will likely be pulled either next week or the following week. With the exception of the cherry tomatoes, few fruits remain on the plants. And, those will struggle to ripen in the reduced hours of sunlight. After the plants are out of the ground we will be putting down leaf mulch to prep the soil for next season. Butterfly Garden Report: Peggy Stanford It was a somewhat cloudy day in the Butterfly Garden today. We started our day by removing the dying-back Common Milk weed. It seems that the Monarch caterpillars are feasting well on the younger plants. Our mission today and until to October 7 is to groom the garden for the Harvest Festival. We presented information on Butterflies in our garden at the 10 at 10 education session. This always stimulates interest in what we do to attract and support our butterfly population. We were visited by many skippers and bees today. Children’s Garden Report: Sandy Chernin Today in the Children’s Garden, all energy was focused on making Mrs. MacGregor’s garden as interesting as possible for the anticipated Harvest Festival visitors. Having realized that we missed the window of opportunity some weeks ago to directly sow carrots and lettuce in time for the festival, carrot plants (Little Finger) and some lettuce plants (Allstar Gourmet Mix) were purchased and surreptitiously tucked into two of the raised planter boxes. Between the carrots, radishes and beets, the hope is that in October visiting children will have a nice variety of root vegetables to explore. In other areas of the garden, multiple gourds are ripening on the vines. The cotton plants continue healthy with more and more bolls bursting with cotton. Several peppers, both banana and green, were harvested for MANNA. The peanut plants were uncovered and surveyed: they look healthy; gentle exploration in the soil near one of the pegs showed a very small peanut developing. Row cover was placed back on these plants and the plan is to keep them covered until the day of the festival. Hopefully we will have some fully formed peanuts by then! Elsewhere, the purple hyacinth vines had grown so much that one end of the tunnel was completely blocked. A dramatic trimming took place and the tunnel is now much less scary and ready for action! Special Projects: Carol Conrad and Carol Olsen It's that time of year when one has to make decisions like, "Is it time to pull this out or let it grow a little longer?" Today, the tomato plants in question got the green light to stay, but the Oriental Eggplant in the keyhole got the red light to go. Although it survived an attack by flea beetles earlier on, it did not do as well with their second attack. There are quite a few green tomatoes on the keyhole tomato plants. We again trimmed off any brown/diseased leaves. Although the tomato plants in the straw bales are not as sturdy looking as the ones in the keyholes, they are producing well and have fewer leaves needing removal. All the straw bale tomatoes were fertilized today. In the bales, the Swiss chard and strawberry plants are looking good. We planted a number of seeds today. Although they may not be fully developed by the Fall Harvest Festival, we hope they will be growing well and filling up some currently empty areas. Pallets: lettuce pellets (Lactuca Sativa) and a seed tape of lettuce (green, red and Nita Flash lettuces), plus Bok Choy (White Stem Brassica rapa) Straw bales: Swiss Chard (Lucullus and Bright Lights) Keyhole: more Bok Choy and some Thia Basil cuttings shared with us by Barbara Knapp. Today's harvest included lots of mouse melons, tomatoes, fish peppers, Swiss chard, basil, and beans. Closing remarks. . . .
Thanks for all your hard work this week! See you in the Garden next Tuesday! Lily, Susan, Bill
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