Photo: Julie Mangin “Hope never dies within a true gardener’s heart”- Author unknown ”Green fingers are the extension of a verdant heart” -Russell Page ”Plants give us oxygen for the lungs and the soul”- Linda Solegato Another beautiful day at our amazing gardens. It delights us to have visitors. This week we had a trio who was very involved with therapeutic work with kids and hospice. They loved the activities we do with the children/adults in our Children’s therapeutic garden and loved the herb and fragrance garden...They left after trying to recruit one of our gardeners to their hospice chorus singing “ Maria, Maria....” We had a couple who came later in the day, wanting information about our kitchen garden and how to donate to our organization so we can continue to do our volunteer work! Our numbers were low as we had a field trip to Water’s orchard scheduled at the same time. Lots of harvesting, weeding and watering.. Plants are starting to let us know that fall/winter is right around the corner. Garden Reports: Shade Garden: Carol Martin- Thursday September 8 I am forwarding these stunning photos taken by Joyce Dubow of the fruiting body of our Jack in the pulpit, Arisaema triphyllum, in the Shade Garden last Thursday. We continued working on clearing the hillside. We will be purchasing stain & 'painting' the backs of the two sheds. Several of the plant labels that had been placed in the bucket were placed w/ appropriate plants & the Shady crew will be working on a complete inventory over the next few weeks. If there is no significant rainfall Friday or Saturday, watering is planned for Sunday. An intern called me today looking for hours, so she is willing to help with that. It is always good to see the usual & new faces in the garden. Photo: Joyce Dubow Herb and Fragrance Garden: Kathy Tsai It was a rather short work day in the Herb and Fragrance garden. Activities included watering first thing, and then removing some unwanted, and unidentifiable, weeds. The apple mint and the lemon balm were cut back, dahlias were dead-headed, and the African blue basil was trimmed of older flowers. They are like the Ever-Ready bunny: they just keep going and going .... The Shasta daisies were cut back to the ground, where the newest growth will live through the winter. We provided a sumptuous breakfast of harlequin bugs to our resident frogs. They seemed to enjoy the treats! Finally, we were glad to see another bloom on the heirloom rose that had been donated several months ago. It continues to thrive and we hope it will survive the coming cold weather. Therapeutic Children’s Garden: Ellen Meyerson This week the children from CSAAC spent a short time in the garden picking a few vegetables and so they then came indoors to receive the ribbons the won at the County Fair. Their smiles were infectious. Not only do they win ribbons and other awards but their winning entries also have a monetary value. We also cooked the potatoes we had harvested earlier in the summer and added some of our own onions and basil and rosemary along with some purchased celery and made a potato salad which we served with some of the garden's tomatoes and either water or lemonade. After the food was finished the children and counselors departed and Sandy, Gretchen and I returned to the garden for some weeding and harvesting. We didn't think that there were many pole beans but when we really looked carefully we ended up with a substantial amount for Manna. The pole beans seem to have a way of disappearing into the leaves whenever we approach! We also gave Manna 3 zucchini, more than we had harvested on any other day this summer. We are getting some germination of our carrots and chard but no germination of the spinach or snap peas. We don't know if it is the weather or the fact that some of the seeds may have been old. The radishes have also germinated well. We ended up by watering well and are looking forward to cooler fall weather to finish up the year Cotton plant- see the white popping out- that’s cotton! Therapeutic Horticulture Beds: Bob Loesche Things are much the same in the TH beds. Patty-I'm-still-here-Neame and Virginia White-Mahaffey joined me today and helped with deadheading, weeding, and cutting back over-exuberant plants. Generally, we have the same things in bloom as in previous weeks. Continuing to flower strongly are Celosia, Zinnias, Marigolds, Ageratum, Gomphrena, Anis Hyssop and Fennel. The new Mums are really kicking in and should be ready for use. The Salvia are also still blooming well, though I gather there is not a lot of interest in them for TH projects. Patty had to substantially thin out the Garlic Chives because they were starting to go to seed, but there are still a few usable plants available. Photo: Bob Loesche Children’s Garden: Susan Kirby Despite an absence of rain, things continue to look good in the Children's Garden. Thanks to all who are watering throughout the week! After cutting away at our over-active hyacinth bean plants (one of the entrances to the tunnel had filled in completely in a week), it seemed to be a good time to think about successes and failures this year. Not too many failures, but it is always good to think about new planting possibilities. The area along the fence where we tried to grow sunflowers is the biggest challenge, not to mention trying to figure out a way to keep a popcorn plant from being removed. Photo: Susan Kirby Butterfly Garden: Peggy Stanford and Julie Mangin Today was a beautiful day in the garden. In addition to our usual chore of trimming, de-heading and watering, we had quite a show of butterflies and caterpillars. We also took the opportunity to visit the Shade Garden to evaluate benches that might be suitable for our garden. We are actively moving toward a new bench for the Butterfly Garden. Good times in the butterfly garden. We saw several caterpillars on the milkweed, and monarchs and other butterflies soaring about. There was a fiery skipper, Peck's skipper, tiger swallowtail, red spotted purple, sachems, monarchs, buckeyes, and the usual suspects (cabbage whites). Interesting to see a buckeye that was in terrible shape (see photo) but is still carrying on his duties as a butterfly. Edibles: Erica Smith Today we planted a flat of lettuce seedlings in the salad table and the back raised bed (where beets have failed to germinate). Lettuce was harvested, too! Pretty good for this time of year. Other harvested crops include tomatoes, peppers, beans, okra, squash, mouse melons, perilla, basil (now infected with downy mildew, but much later than last year). The bean trellis was cleared and removed, since having been in the ground several years was starting to fall apart. Forage radish seed was planted under the cucumber trellis, in hopes of "biodrilling" that unproductive soil. If it doesn't look better in the spring, we'll construct a raised bed there. Spare a glance in back of the tomato bed for the bright flowers of scarlet runner beans, coming into their own now with the cooler nights. Further down we've also got a volunteer hyacinth bean (purple flowers) crawling onto the tomato supports and mixing with the passionflower Photo: Robin Ritterhoff- Soldier bean flower Photo: Robin Ritterhoff- Passion fruit flower Small Fruits: Patti Oseroff Today we met Utaw and his father Washington at Waters Orchard in Germantown, down the road from Butlers Orchard. It's a beautiful 10 acre apple orchard featuring 16 different varieties of apples and a few rows of cider apple and some pears as well. The orchard is only 4 years old, the trees range from 1-4 years old. The Waters apples are on dwarf root stock. Mr. Waters explained to us that they order the root stock and start planting cover crops 3 years in advance to prepare the soil for the trees. The first two years tilling under buckwheat, clover, vetch and rye the third year they will use forage radish to break up the soil, all the while using soil tests and amending with fertilizer if needed. In the spring the trees are planted and trained vertically on wire. As laterals emerge they are pulled down onto the horizontal wires. This tells the tree to slow down and those horizontal branches will stay shorter, the term for this is "calming". As the summer progresses there might be some tipping of the laterals that are longer than 18" until July. The blooms are removed the following Spring so that the tree puts it's energy into it's roots. In following years the trees continue to be trained. If the tree grows too tall it is pruned back to a weaker leader. The goal is to keep the trees as small and productive as possible with apples within reach for children. They expect the trees to be productive for about 20 years. As you can see the orchard is breathtaking. Some of the challenges they've encountered are rootstock that does not "like" the clay soil, disease and insects. Summer heat over 85 degrees can affect the trees so several times over the season they will spray Kaolin to discourage bugs and use as sunscreen for the trees and fruits. Kaolin will bring the temperature of the tree down 10-15 degrees. The Waters never use herbicides but do use fertilizer, IPM, and if necessary insecticide. Mr. Waters spends approx 10 hrs. a day 7 days a week maintaining his orchard. The property is enclosed with an 8ft deer fence and that seems to be enough to keep the orchard safe from deer. The InternationalFruit Tree Association, http://www.ifruittree.org/ is a good website to check out for state of the art information and educational opportunities. So, if you were wondering when to pick your apples, they are ripe and delicious and NOW is the time. Waters Orchard is located at 22529 Wildcat Road, Germantown, MD. Open 12-5 Friday if you want to beat the weekend crowd, 9-5 weekends and 9-5 Columbus day. Enjoy! Photos: Patti Oseroff MANNA:Robin Ritterhoff We delivered 68 pounds to Manna today, for a year to date total of 1166 pounds. A Manna client who received a tromboncino squash that we had harvested this morning was so completely pleased with it; she loves to garden, asked me all about the variety, and is planning to save the seeds to plant in her own small yard next spring. Photo:Robin Ritterhoff- Claude with Purple Shiso KEYHOLE & BALES: Robin Ritterhoff We spruced up both the keyhole garden and the bales, and considered how to beautify them still further before the Oct 1 Harvest Festival. The cherry tomatoes and hot peppers in the bales continue to produce well, and the chard in the keyhole is holding its own. Since the fauna that share the space may not like alliums, we are considering planting some chives that will come from volunteers’ gardens, and other sharply flavored herbs. Photo: Robin Ritterhoff Container Garden: Claude Allen The containers continue to do well even with the severe heat. The marigolds are showing off in full bloom. The tomatoes, while coming to the end, still have quite a few fruit ripening on the vine. Downy mildew has hit the basil late in the season. The peppers have some blight on them as well. I cut back the basil, harvested the basil and peppers, and gathered 3 bags of herbs and veggies for Manna. 100 Square Foot Garden: Linda Taveira-dasilva After weeks of shaming and cajoling the leaning tower of Pisa (stubborn pole beans) they finally came through with 3 big bags of beans!! (harassing and guilt at work). Now the sassy tomatillos are in a funk with lots of tomatillos but too immature to pick this week ,"el contraire" to the jalapenos who can't quit! The assaulted collards from last weeks bug infestation begged to die ,so we granted their wish and replaced them with Southern Great Curled Mustard and Lacinato Rainbow kale. We covered them with a micro mesh cover, a new weapon in our war chest against the bugs. The curfew on the freckle lettuce was lifted (shade cloth was removed) as it is growing nicely into adulthood. We also added to the baby lettuce from last week, a planting of Four Season lettuce in the circle. Additional French breakfast radishes were also started. Little baby cilantro ( unplanned surprise !) was spotted among the covered mustard. (Of course we accepted them). In addition to the beans and jalapenos we sent a ton (2 bags) of unblemished basil, oregano and garlic chives to Manna. No the tomatoes didn't contribute a thing. Of course we weeded and watered but.................Winter is coming. Photo: Mary Anne Normile- Leaning tower of beans with a little support from its friends Tomato Bed - Dan Ward & Joslyn Read I want to thank Linda for covering the garden 2 weeks ago. Neither Joslyn nor myself were able to make it so Linda jumped in and did the work. The past few weeks have shown the tomatoes in a state of decline, which is to be expected for this time of year. The amount of sunlight is down by more than 3 hours a day providing less energy to sustain growing activity. Several plants had to be removed because they either have no leaves (or too few) for fruit growth or maturity, or there is no more fruit on the vines. For you home growers you have to make the decision whether it is productive to leave the plants in the ground or not. Thanks for your great article last week, Darlene. Very informative! POND REPORT: Darlene Nicholson Briefly, the ponds and all the pond critters are having a wonderful year. Algae is at a minimum. We see about 6 to 8 frogs in and around both pond areas when we visit and we have many more young fish in the butterfly garden pond. The frogs seem to particularly enjoy eating Harlequin bugs, so if you have some in your garden, take a minute to catch them and throw them in either pond. The frogs are really funny to watch catching them. BUG REPORT: Darlene Nicholson Last week I reported on the Fritillary Chrysalis I found in my yard. It looked like this. I hung it in a terrarium I had at my house and after about a week, it started to look like this, alerting me to be ready for more changes to take place quickly. So I checked and checked and decided to sit on the sofa in the other room where I feel asleep for about 20 minutes. I awoke and walked in the other room to check on it and this is what I saw. Looking through the glass I saw a butterfly outside an empty chrysalis! I missed it. How do they know when you're not looking??? I carefully removed it from the temporary string that held it in place. (Excuse my fingernails. I AM a gardener). I carried it in cupped hands to the outside, where it flew a couple of inches to a leaf to sit and dry for about 30 minutes. After that it flew about 3 feet to a higher leaf and sat another 30 minutes. Then, when it was ready, It flew a long very confident looking flight around the house and out of sight. This is what it looked like. I have since seen a small butterfly that looked a lot like the one I released, fluttering around my back yard doing butterfly things. What's left of the chrysalis OTHER BUG NEWS A new sighting had us stumped, but with a little research it was found to be a variety of tree cricket. There is one that looks exactly like the image below on page 57 of Whitney Cranshaw. ..."Although tree crickets may feed on leaves, they do little damage. Plants are injured primarily during late summer when eggs are laid. Females insert eggs into stems and canes which may result in rough calloused areas around the wound, increased susceptibility to stem breakage, the entry of canker-producing fungi into the plant." Closing Comments: Bill and Lily Appreciate all the hard work that goes into having a garden like ours. Thank you all for this gift we give to our community. If you have receipts, please get them to me soon, as we are trying to wrap up the year. September 27 will be our harvest lunch- 11:30 so that we have time to tidy up the garden for harvest festival. Harvest Festival- Saturday October 1. Please let me know if you are planning on volunteering for this. Last day of work will be Tuesday October 25, and a final pot luck party at Maria’s on November 1st.
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