The crickets felt it was their duty to warn everybody that summertime cannot last for ever. Even on the most beautiful days in the whole year – the days when summer is changing into autumn – the crickets spread the rumor of sadness and change.” ―E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web On this last day of summer, we had a group of our dedicated volunteers join us in harvesting, weeding and pruning the garden. Plants are showing their age, and are ready to end the season just like some of us are ready for fall and the end of the gardening season. We had a few visitors this week. A mom/son team who we met at “Oasis Farm” for autistic adults, and were very interested in learning more about our demonstration garden. They helped us harvest and enjoyed many areas of the garden. They were fascinated with the humming birds and the cardinal vine in the children’s garden. We also had a photographer with a huge beautiful camera- spend a lot of time taking photos of birds, flowers and bugs. Several MG were seen harvesting flowers from the therapeutic horticultural beds as well as enjoying our beautiful gardens. Thanks Bob for sending weekly reports to the therapeutic list serve so more mg’s are aware of what is available. Many thanks to Joe Ginther who is always helping out with many different tasks in the garden. He’s either looking into benches, fixing leaks in the irrigation system, helping to keep grass mowed, keeping tools in shape, helping us keep the sheds fixed.. The list goes on and on. This garden would not be what it is without his assistance. Thanks Joe! Next Tuesday is the last week we have to prepare the garden for Harvest Festival, Saturday October 1. All hands on deck next Tuesday! We are going to decorate the garden with a scarecrow! Please bring any material you have available for this task! We will also have our luncheon next Tuesday! Busy day! Garden Reports: Compost Central: Kristy Hardy Marlow and I turned 2 of the compost piles. Marlow turned the bin from the county that started at a temp of around 120 and added what was in the black backyard composting bin. He thinks that should heat up nicely. I moved pile 2 into pile 1, along with Marlow's help. I added some more greens today and the pile looks high enough today that I expect it to start heating up by next Tuesday. Jim, from the Park Service cleared up a pile of woody plants at the end of the compost central near the bamboo section and took a pile of woody materials from the pile that we use. It wasn't so hot, so it was a nice day. Conservation Garden: Maria Wortman It was a cool, comfortable morning for working in the garden. Some weeding was done as well as some planting. Three tiny donated seedlings of Callicarpa dichomata ‘Alba’ were planted near the pond area. These will bear pure white berries that we expect will brighten up that area of the garden. It’s so nice to have some things blooming at this time of year. The Hardy Begonia, Begonia grandis, is a very impressive plant. It is bearing its lovely, prolific pink blossoms above its heart-shaped green leaves with deep red undersides. It will die down to the ground in winter but will come back with a vengeance in the spring. It’s a vigorous spreader, but we’ve been able to control it without a great deal of effort. It is so easy to grow and will tolerate lots of shade and very dry conditions. Photo: Maria Wortman- Begonia Grandis The White Wood Aster is showing off its pretty, little, white blossoms right now. It’s another very reliable easy-to-grow perennial that tolerates a great deal of shade and drought. It’s a native of the Eastern United States and usually grows about 1 to 2 feet tall, but in our garden it seems to prefer spreading and sprawling about, which makes it a great ground cover. Photo: Maria Wortman- White Wood Aster Another aster which is blooming now in the Conservation Garden is the Hardy Monch Aster, Aster x frikartii ‘Monch’, commonly known as New York Aster. It bears lavender, star-shaped flowers. It needs to be in a sunnier spot in order to do its best. In its shaded spot, it has become leggy and open even though it was cut back by about ½ early in the summer. Perhaps we’ll find a place for it in a sunnier location. Photo: Maria Wortman- Monch Aster One of our favorite plants in this garden is the Viburnum nudum ‘Winterthur’, commonly called possumhaw viburnum or smooth witherod. It sports pretty-flat-topped clusters of white flowers in the summer, but at this time, the attraction is the fat clusters of berries which range from whitish to light pink, deep pink, and dark purple. For best pollination and more berry production, we should have more than one plant. Maybe we’ll work on that. Photo: Maria Wortman- Virburnum Nudum Container Garden: Carol Olson The marigolds continue to add a bright splash of color to the container garden area, and the lemon grass is thriving. Some brown leaves were removed from the tomato plants, but no tomatoes were ready for picking....hopefully next week. Probably should fertilize the pots then, too. Photo: Robin Ritterhoff Herb Garden: Kathy Tsai This was a leisurely day in the Herb and Fragrance garden. Plants were trimmed back, particularly the African blue basil, which just keeps flowering and attracting loads of bees. The heliotrope was also trimmed of flower heads that were past their prime, as were the other basils we have. The nasturtiums were dispatched to the compost area and a number of harlequin bugs were fed to the frogs in the pond. Some weeding was done, but even the weeds are winding down toward fall. It's hard to believe that another season is almost over; soon, we will remove all the annual plants and ready the rest of the garden for the coming winter. Children’s Garden: Susan Kirby As can be seen from the pictures, we have a hummingbird who loves to hang out around the cardinal vine teepee. We also saw a rabbit hanging out around the vegetable garden. We can't say that the rabbit was a welcome guest! Photos: Susan Kirby Children’s Therapeutic Horticulture: Ellen Meyerson Our regular crew of four boys with their aides and the director came to the Garden today. We did some cleanup we even had enough beans for them too have a meal. One of the young boys who is our most enthusiastic gardener likes to take some flowers home to his mother so he took some zinnias. Repeat some okra and radishes. We planted some spinach some more radishes and did some weeding. And even though we had some rain the boys enjoy their weekly watering tasks. Next week I expect that we will do major cleanup to remove the spent tomato plants and the pole beans. Cotton starting to open in the Children’s Therapeutic garden Therapeutic Horticulture Beds: Bob Loesche To use fancy-schmancy lawyer talk, it's status quo ante in the TH beds. All the plants that have been in bloom for the last several weeks are still going strong. The Zinnias are slowing down a little bit, but there are still blooms available. The Lavender is also showing off. While the plants are not in flower, their foliage has deepened into a beautiful silver hue, which could be very useful for TH projects. Harvesting of our beautiful flowers! Small Fruits: Patti Oseroff Not much to report besides the removal of the broken beach plum and the pruning of the blackberries and weeding of course. Photo: Darlene Nicholson- Baby fig Kiwi 100 Square foot Garden: Susan Wexler It was a cloudy and cool morning. After the recent heavy rain the soil was nice and damp. The overall look of the garden was, sadly, bedraggled. Weeds, molding leaves under the plants and a lot of insect damage on all the bean plants. Basil was harvested and continues to grow, although some leaves are yellowing. The back left section was weeded around the kale plants, which have not grown much, but look healthy. Jalapeno plant is bushy and looks great; we harvested a big bag of nice size peppers and many more are coming along . Swiss chard was knocking it's head against the row cover so we harvested the tallest leaves and cleaned up the other leaves that had been damaged by some (?) insect. Lettuce around base of bean pole was thinned. Bean plants at left front and back right beds were in terrible shape. Harvested just a few beans and many Mexican Bean Beetles, both grown beetles and their larva ( bright yellow and soft - all the easier to squish!) Didn't pull the plants so that we don't have bare spots during the Harvest Festival. Also harvested some oregano that was trying to escape it's confines and make us into the 105 square foot garden. We need to get our plant labels in shape : properly placed and accurate, before the Harvest Festival. We did not water because the ground was still quite damp. Edibles: Erica Smith Today's harvest: lettuce, kale, okra, mouse melons, peppers, tomatoes (the last few!), squash. Photo: Erica Smith- Okra Last week's sowing of forage radish cover crop has come up, and was followed by another in the area vacated by tomatoes. We also planted a mixed cover crop of Austrian winter peas and crimson clover in the space where the tall bean trellis used to be, after much valiant weeding and fence line mulching. Next week: more weeding and spreading of wood chips on paths. The cauliflower planting fell victim to harlequin bugs despite the row cover. We also found harlequins on the kale inside another row cover, so will check that area (plus the others) again next week. Soapy water buckets to the rescue again! Photo: Erica Smith- Scarlet runner bean flowers Tomato beds MANNA: Robin Ritterhoff 60 pounds donated to Manna today; YTD total: 1226 pounds KEYHOLE & BALES: Robin Ritterhoff We spruced up the bales and keyhole considerably today. The keyhole’s tomatoes have perked up in response to cooler weather and a bit of rain. We added arugula and chard seedlings to the keyhole, and chives and thyme to the bales. We’re hoping that these will be spurned by our four-footed competitors who compete with us for our crops. Photo: Robin Ritterhoff- Welcome back Karin! We missed you Photo: Robin Ritterhoff: Edith watering African Keyhole BUG REPORT: Darlene Nicholson I noticed that one item of reporting on the main list serv this week was a picture of aphids eating milkweed. The butterfly garden was also experiencing this, as we do just about every year this time. Here is a close-up image of our milkweed being eaten. The yellow forms are Oleander aphids. The black markings on them are a combination of 6 legs, 2 antennae, and 2 cornicles. The white items laying about are the cast skins that aphids shed as they grow larger. The black aphids amid the yellow ones are most likely aphid mummies. These are regular aphids that have been parasitized by two wasp species. We usually just let the lady beetles dine on them. If they cause too much damage to the plant, a good spray of water will get them off quickly. The second image is that of a tiny jumping spider enjoying a meal of what looks like a rather common fly. By the time I got there, the spider was in the process of finishing the head. Perhaps a tasty gourmet treat if you are a spider. BTW, the spider's eyes are not the dots on the abdomen but are located on the front segment called the cephalothorax, and there can be 6 or 8 eyes on many spiders. (Just in case you were wondering) Closing Comments: Lily and Bill Please join us for our pot luck lunch- harvest lunch- next Tuesday at 11:30 in the multipurpose room. Bring any food to share. Harvest from the demo garden if you wish to do so. During lunch, we will have a tomato seed exchange if you would like to participate. Please bring your tomato seeds. We will also try to do a pepper tasting. If you still have any peppers left, please bring them- label hot/ sweet- and name of pepper. Don’t forget to give me your expenses as we try to finish up the year. See you all next week! Photo: Robin Ritterhoff- Bill glaring at a volunteer morning glory- new way to weed
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