Congratulations, Clematis 'Rooguchi'

Congratultions, Clematis 'Rooguchi' for being brave enough to bloom after I so neglected you.

I take it that these two beautiful blooms are a thank you gift to me for finally getting rid of the weeds around you and putting down a nice layer of pine bark mulch. If it is, I thank you!

But it is I who should apologize for the lapse in the first place. I am mending my ways one bag of mulch at a time, one section of the garden at a time.

'Rooguchi', you encourage me to continue my efforts, to discover what might lie beneath those big floppy Ox-eye and Marguerite daisies that I am ripping out instead of cutting back, along with the weeds that think my garden is a good place to settle down in and put down some roots.

I hope that each year as you grow larger I'll see more of these exquisite bell-shaped purple blooms in my garden. I'm sure I will.

You've proven so far to be quite easy to care for, basically requiring no care at all other than a little encouragement to climb up the obelisk I provided for you. I will remember for best bloom to cut you back to about a foot or so in late winter. I promise!

And I'll always remember that it was Kim at A Study in Contrast who featured you in one of her Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day posts, introducing us last July. The minute I saw you, 'Rooguchi', I had to have you in my garden, too.

I wonder what beautiful flower I'll discover in the next round of bloom day posts on July 15th?

Knee High By The Fourth of July

I don't know where the saying "knee high by the fourth of July" came from in regards to corn, but I'd be worried if we arrived at this point of summer and my corn was still just knee high.

But no worries here! My new-to-me corn variety, 'Spring Treat' is way taller than "knee high" and is tasseling now.

I think the whole crop will net me about three ears of corn, based on seeing where there are silks now.

The big question, of course, is if there is enough corn here to ensure good pollination to get ears to form. I hope so! I planted the whole packet of seeds, which was enough for two four-foot long rows, and it has been windy this past week, so that should help, since corn is wind pollinated.

Some gardeners might do a quick ROI analysis on this crop and wonder if it is worth it for three ears of corn. Well, yes, it is worth it to me, to enjoy the sweetest sweet corn I can find. Plus these seeds were sent to me free from Botanical Interests, so my only investment is the space they are taking in the garden and a little bit of time to sow the seeds.

According to the information on the seed packet, this corn should be ready two weeks before most other sweet corn. Last summer, I picked sweet corn on August 9th, so based on that, I should hopefully be picking this corn in a few more weeks. I'll need to be watchful, though, because last summer the raccoons found my corn on August 11th, and that was the end of it for me.

Corn is a member of the Gramineae Poaceae plant family. (I can't believe they changed the name of this plant family since I first learned about it decades ago. Those botanists, it seems, like to change things up a bit.) Anyway, the Poaceae family includes not only corn (Zea mays), but also rice, oats, sorghum, sugarcane, wheat, and rye. What would our diets be like without this plant family?

Bamboo is also in this family. Please don't plant bamboo in your garden unless you get the clumping kind. Don't convince yourself you can control it. You can't! And if you don't heed my warning, don't whine about your bamboo troubles to me!

And of course, turf grasses are in the Poaceae family. I guess that means that the most prevalent plant family in my garden is Poaceae. That's probably always going to be the case, but I did give a big boost to the Liliaceae family today by buying some daylilies (Hemerocallis) at the local daylily farm. More on that in a later post...

In the meantime, have a safe, happy, fun-filled Fourth of July, and be careful with those fireworks, especially if you have a lot of Poa sp. (bluegrass) that is starting to get dry due to lack of rain.

Where Are They?

There are a few things missing from my garden this season, including…

Phlox paniculata ‘Crème de Menthe’. At one time, this was one of my favorite perennials, but it disappeared completely this year. Last year, it was very undersized and I knew it was fading. I probably should have moved it at that time, given it more space and more care, and then I might still have it. I have no idea where I’ll get a replacement plant.

Umbels. Right, we covered them a few days ago, about how my zealous hoeing resulted in the seedlings of dill, carrots, cilantro, and parsnips not having a chance. I still ought to sow a few dill seeds out in the garden and see what comes up.

Mulch. I am a chronic under-mulcher, a late-mulcher. We've had so much rain the past few springs that I get lazy about mulching. Then the rains stop and I see all the dried up beds and all the weeds, and wish I had mulched earlier in the spring. Yes, here is some mulch in the garden, especially in the paths of the vegetable garden but not nearly enough in the flower beds.

I'm also a mulch-experimenter, trying all kinds of mulches, many that are disappointing. Now I have at least found a mulch I like, that I can live with, that doesn’t fuse into solid sheets over time. It’s mini pine bark mulch. I bought 20 three cubic feet bags of it a few weeks ago and started mulching the flower beds this week.

Japanese Beetles. Mind you, I’m not complaining about missing Japanese beetles. I’ve actually seen a few beetles, two on a rose, one at my sister's and five at my nephew's. I've also noticed a bit of damage on some zinnia foliage that is probably caused by these beetles. But by now I should be seeing them all over the grape vine. And I see none. Where are they? They are either very late, or something about the dry summer we had last year or the way the winter was, or who knows what, has perhaps reduced their population? We can only hope, but must remain vigilant.

Rabbits. Where are they? I haven’t seen a rabbit all spring and now it is summer and still no rabbits. Who will be my foe, my worthy opponent in the fight for garden domination? Where in the world did they go? Has my personal war with the rabbits ended?

What’s missing in your garden this season?

My First Tomato That Doesn't Count And Other Tomato Growing Questions Answered

Many novice gardeners are growing the Queen of the Vegetable Garden, tomatoes, for the first time this season, and may have some questions about everything from hornworms to entering the May Dreams Gardens Annual Tomato Contest.

Here are some of the more popular questions and answers:

How will I know if I have tomato hornworms on my tomato plants?

It is generally not a question of if you have hornworms on your tomatoes, it is more a question of how can you can find them before they do too much damage. The best way is to look for the tell-tale signs of caterpillar droppings on the ground – yes, you can see them with the naked eye, the droppings are black and about the size of a broken off pencil lead. Also, look to see if any branches on the plant are suddenly leafless. Once you see those signs, you have to look closely to see the tomato hornworms which will blend in with the plant, even though they can be up to three – four inches long. Don’t give up; keep looking until you find them. If there are droppings and bare branches, they are there!

Once you find a tomato hornworm, if it has white appendages coming off of it, remove it from the plant but don’t kill it because it is being attacked by a parasitic wasp which will kill it for you. That’s a good thing! If it is alone, pick it off or cut it off with the branch it is on and stomp it or squish it.

I had a beautiful tomato but when I looked at the bottom of it, it was all brown and leathery. What happened?

Blossom end rot happened. It generally only happens to the first few tomatoes that ripen but it is very disappointing when it does happen. It is usually a result of the soil getting too dry in between rains or watering. This causes a short term calcium deficiency, but adding more calcium to the soil to prevent it won’t help. The best way to prevent blossom end rot is to water the tomato plants when it doesn’t rain enough.

That reminds me, we haven’t had rain for about a week, I need to water my tomato plants or I’ll be whining big time about blossom end rot.

Should I stake or cage my tomatoes?

Stake them. That’s my preference, but I am willing to consider that those who cage their tomatoes might not be all bad people, especially after I saw that one of my uncles had some good looking tomato plants and they were caged.

Where can I find out how to grow the best tomatoes?

Gardening is local. How you grow tomatoes in places like Austin, Texas, where MSS at Zanthan Gardens is, and how you grow them in my zone 5b garden in Indianapolis, Indiana does vary. A great source of information is your local cooperative extension service. They are likely to have written one or more pamphlets or bulletins on how to grow tomatoes, specific to where you garden, with information on what problems you might encounter and even what varieties do well in your area. And the best part is it’s free information!

Should a tomato from a store bought plant that already had blossoms on it count as the first tomato of the season?

No, I don’t believe so, unless you are only growing store bought tomato plants. As for me, this evening, I picked an ‘Early Girl’ tomato off a plant that I bought with a few blooms on it (pictured above). Now after mostly having all seed-raised plants and recording the date of the first tomato grown on those, it seems quite wrong to record a first tomato on June 30th, nearly three weeks before my previous first tomato picking date. I feel like I cheated! So, this ‘Early Girl’ will be my "my first tomato that doesn't count", FTTDC. I’m going to let it sit out on the counter to continue to ripen for a day or two before I eat it.

Did you know that you can pick tomatoes when they are not quite ripe, and they’ll continue to ripen for a few days after picking? If you are competing with critters like squirrels, rabbits, or possums to get to the ripe tomatoes, you might try to pick those ‘maters a few days early and ripen them inside, where they will be safe.

(By the way, my store bought tomato plant looks terrible compared to my seed-raised tomato plants, even though the seed raised plants were much smaller when I planted them in May.)

What are the rules for this year’s tomato contest sponsored by May Dreams Gardens?

The International Rules Committee for Tomato Growing Contests and Rituals (IRCTGCR) is still giving careful consideration to the rules for the 2009 contest. Unfortunately, developing these rules and ensuring that they are fair and balanced takes time, so it could be several more weeks until they are published in draft form. The rules will not be finalized until I’ve sized up my own tomatoes and determined what kind of contest they might win.

If anyone else has any more tomato questions, just holler out the back door. I’ll be out in the garden looking for hornworm droppings and watering my tomato plants.

The Night Bloomer Blooms!

When the night bloomer blooms, all other activity for the evening comes to a halt or at least slows down enough so that I can run to the sunroom every ten minutes or so to take another picture.

Excuse me, I need to go take the first picture at 7:00 pm.
And I’m back. Where were we? Oh yes, the night blooming cereus, Epiphyllum oxypetalum, is blooming this evening. I noticed the bud was nice and big when I got home from work and determined that this was the night. I changed all my plans to make sure I would not miss a minute of this big event.

Excuse me, I need to go take another picture.
This one is at 8:30 pm EDT.

The night bloomer opens in a few hours beginning shortly after the dinner hour. It doesn’t open so fast that you can sit there and see it happening, but it blooms fast enough that you can see a difference at first every hour and then every fifteen minutes or so.

Excuse me I need to go take another picture.
This is at 8:45 pm EDT.

Once it is really fully open the scent is noticeably strong. It’s exotic and heavy in the air. I’ve described it in the past as like an old lady who has lost her sense of smell and wears way too much perfume. But it is also like the scent of a child who discovers her grandmother’s old-fashioned perfumes and decides to douse herself with a little bit from each bottle.

Excuse me, I need to go take another picture.
This is at 8:55 pm EDT.

As it fully opens, I marvel at how white it is. It seems that every petal, stamen, pistil, sepal is almost a translucent white. It’s clean, pure, waiting for whatever pollinators fly through the night, attracted to its scent.

Excuse me, I need to go take another picture.
This is at 9:08 pm EDT and nearly fully open.

I know where the night bloomer grows outside it can be covered with blooms, and I’m sure that is a spectacular show to see many blooms open in one night. My night bloomer is too big and awkward to move outside in the summertime so it stays inside year around. But it still manages to bloom at least once a summer for me, if not twice.

No pollinators will find it. It only blooms for me, it seems. It blooms to remind me of summer nights long ago when I watched it bloom with my Dad. It blooms to remind me that events of the garden should be celebrated and enjoyed -- that there is more to gardening than weeds, and pests, and how much rain we get or don’t get. It blooms to remind me that sometimes, fortunately, gardening is about a grand and glorious white flower that blooms in one night.

By morning the flower will be faded and limp, all its energy spent. I’ll cut it off and lay it up on a shelf in the sunroom to let it dry out, next to several other dried blooms from previous summers. And I’ll begin the waiting and watching for the next bloom.

Excuse me, but here is one last picture, a close up celebrating the Queen of the Night, my night blooming cereus, Ephiphyllum oxypetalum. It's a great evening when it blooms for me.

Letters to Gardening Friends, June 28, 2009

Dear Dee and Mary Ann and gardening friends everywhere,

Greetings from my back patio where I’m enjoying a beautiful evening listening to birds chirping in the trees and watching the antics of a couple of yellow finches out in the garden. There’s a nice breeze and the high temperatures in the 90’s that we had most of last week are gone now, at least for awhile.

Out in the garden, I finally pulled out the pea vines and the bolted lettuce and weeded and hoed all the beds this morning. Now my garden is officially a summer garden as I wait for the summer crops to ripen. It’s all about green beans, squash, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and corn from here on out.

And I am waiting. For some reason, I have a lot of little squash on the “Eight Ball’ and ‘One Ball’ plants but they don’t seem to be getting bigger. I’m not too happy with the plants in general -- I think they should be larger than they are. It’s definitely a soil fertility issue and not a variety issue because all the squash plants are smaller this year. The beds I planted them in are back along the fence, and I don’t recall adding compost to them earlier this spring. I’ll have to remedy that with a dose of liquid organic fertilizer.

But the green beans look great, and it is just a matter of time before I’m picking them. Honestly, I’ve never had such vigorous plants or seen so many blooms on each plant. I’m really expecting a bumper crop this year.

The peppers are so-so. I’ve had better but given how small the plants were when I planted them out, I’m not going to complain. Plus, as I’ve said before, I don’t really care for peppers, unless they are chopped up small and added to something like salsa, so most of what I grow I give away.

I’m watching the corn closely right now because I’ve got an early variety from Botanical Interests called ‘Spring Treat’ that is tasseling already and I can see the little silks of the ears just forming. The packet of seeds had enough seeds for only two four foot long rows, so I hope that is enough to get good pollination of the ears. The other corn looks good, too, but isn’t as far along. I am growing a spaghetti squash in with the corn, hoping that keeps any raccoons out. I’ll let you know how that goes.

You know how I was worried earlier about my tomato plants being so small? Well, they’ve caught up with and surpassed the one tomato plant I did buy. After all these years of growing vegetables, I should remember how fast tomato plants, and really all the vegetables grow with sun, rain, and good soil. The picture above is of a cluster of ‘Red Currant’ tomatoes starting to ripen. Mary Ann, that’s a hint about this year’s tomato contest, but that is the only hint you get.

Dee, the only reason I was able to sit out on the patio in the evening to write this letter was because I was using the Herbal Insect Repellant from Burt’s Bees that you told me about. Otherwise, I would have had all the blood sucked out of me by voracious mosquitoes by the time I finished this letter. They seem pretty bad this year.

And with that, I think I will finish this letter with wishes for you, and everyone, for a bountiful summer garden.

Flowers and veggies for all,
Carol

P.S. Here are a few pictures of the garden, taken when it was quite sunny, around 5:00 pm.

This is from the usual spot where I stand to take a weekly picture.The sunflowers are finally tall enough to block the view.

So I went to the other end of the garden and tried to take a picture from there.The corn is blocking that view.

Finally, I got out a ladder and climbed it to get a good aerial view.And that's the garden this week! How's your garden growing?

Contratulations, Lorraine Sunshine

Congratulations, Heliopsis helianthoides 'Lorraine Sunshine', you are the flower of the day, of the week, of the side border where you live.

You shine above all others right now, at three feet tall and just as wide with your very variegated foliage and bright yellow flowers. And you are doing this all on your own with very little help from me. No extra water, mulch or pruning! Just a tiny bit of deadheading and a sunny spot in the garden, but that's not too much to ask for. And you are strong and hold up well with no staking. My zone 5 winters and summers are a walk in the park for you, since you'll grow from zone 3 to 9.

In honor of your outstanding achievement this year, 'Lorraine Sunshine', I'm going to stop complaining about all the seedlings you leave that aren't varigated, because just as many are variegated. I'm also going to give you a prize package worth... well, I'll at least give you some of the very best compost from the compost pile.

So, Congratulations, Lorraine Sunshine, you are the flower of the day!

The Mystery of the Old Grub Hoe

What secrets of the garden does this old grub hoe know? What ground has it broken? What roots has it dug out? Who carved that handle, clearly not the original, but definitely hand-hewn? Who has leaned against this hoe, perhaps after hoeing out a long row with it?

And how did they get that hoe head on there?

That's what my cousin and I wondered and asked ourselves as we examined this fine old gardening tool last weekend.

It looked to us like someone had figured out a way to put the hoe head on the handle so that it wouldn't come off at either end. Impossible, right? One end has to be small enough for the hoe head to slide on, and the other end wide enough so it doesn't fall off.

And that is indeed the case with this handle. I examined it more closely this evening and could see where if you slide the hoe head down the handle and turn it just right, you can get it to come completely off.

When my cousin gave me this hoe, in exchange for a donation to her church's building fund, I asked her if she knew the history of it, because an old hoe is more interesting if you know its story, where it came from, who used it, and how old it is.

She said she got it from a priest... and at that moment I decided that forevermore, this hoe shall be called a gardening tool. It does not seem right to talk about getting an old hoe from a priest! (You know how you are all are when I write about hoes. Your minds wander – inappropriately, I might add.)

Anyway, she got this gardening tool from a priest and speculated that perhaps it was once used at a nearby monastery. We will never know for sure.

All we know for sure is that this old gardening tool, with its hand-hewn handle and mysterious past, is now part of my hoe collection. I'll add it to the official hoe collection post once I take a better picture of it.