Blog of an Ancient Gardener

Deer Country: Why Deer Don’t Eat Ornamental Grasses

2012-02-25T19:50:00.000-05:00

Fountain grass in summer

In my recent posting, “Deer Country: Bib Jeans, New Trimmer, 26 Flat Tops” [Feb. 15], I commented, “Best of all, deer don’t eat fountain grass—and most other ornamental grasses. I suppose the reason is that the grass is too tough for them to easily bite off and then chew.”

Bettye Ames, a Howard County Master Gardener, emailed me a more enlightened reason why deer don’t eat ornamental grasses: “The stems and leaves of ornamental grasses contain silica (read ‘glass’), which can cut the mouths of grazers. This same silica may cut our dear gardening hands and arms if we forget to put on gloves and long sleeves while cutting our ornamental grasses.”

I knew ornamental grasses can be tough. I knew my old electric trimmer sometimes mangled tough fountain-grass rather than cutting it cleanly. I knew it was easier to cut stems than to pull them off. But I didn’t know about the silica.

An Internet search quickly confirmed Bettye’s explanation. Both Wikipedia and Pediaview contain identical sentences: “The leaf blades of many grasses are hardened with silica phytoliths, which helps discourage grazing animals. In some grasses (such as sword grass), this makes the edges of the grass blades sharp enough to cut human skin.”

Fountain grass in fall

Another website mentioned that some grasses contain sufficient amounts of silica to dull cutting blades. Several sites used bamboo as an example of a grass containing so much silica that its stems are rigid.

As I read, I involuntary shuddered, and hair on the back of my head stood up. I remembered visiting Hugo, a school mate, about 65 years ago. We thought it was fun to explore the remains of the nearby, abandoned slaughter house that had burned several years earlier. At some point we explored a nearby patch of tall grass and thought we would pull enough to make a hiding place. I grabbed a handful of grass and pulled, and as it slid between my right palm and index finger, I felt the grass slice through my flesh.

I screamed and, dripping blood, ran to Hugo’s house. I don’t remember all the details today, but I do remember someone holding my bloody hand under a gushing stream of cold water as someone else pumped vigorously. Soon the bleeding stopped and my wound was taped shut. A faint scar by the second joint on the inside of my index finger reminds me of that day. I suppose the old pump at Hugo’s house has long since disappeared and the site remains undesignated as a national historic site, despite the blood shed there.

Thank you, Bettye, for widening our knowledge about ornamental grasses and why deer usually avoid them and for the reminder to wear gloves when we work with the tough ornamental grasses.

Deer Country: Freeing our trees

2012-02-21T21:45:00.000-05:00

Buck rubbing tree with 24" protector
(galvanized hardware cloth)

I’ve been freeing many of our young trees when weather permits, which has been frequently this balmy winter. Readers of this blog know that deer abound at Meadow Glenn and to grow trees requires that I cage them in their early years with metal stakes and welded wire.

I make the cages with two iron fence posts and a circle of 36”-wide welded wire that’s about two feet in diameter.

Many of the trees I’ve planted over the last six years were four- to five-feet tall, so most of their leaves were at a perfect height for deer browsing. That’s why I began building cages—to separate leaves of young trees from mouths of hungry bambits.

As the trees have grown, I‘ve pruned their lower limbs so the lowest now are above the “browse line,” the imaginary line about five feet from the ground above which deer seldom browse. It’s time to remove the cages, which, frankly, as landscape accents never will be featured in Fine Gardening magazine.

Sumac that snapped
when buck rubbed it

Though browsing deer are no longer a major problem, rubbing deer are. Rubbing deer are bucks in the fall—generally October or November—that wants to rub off the dead velvet that covered their growing antlers and then to polish their new racks. Bucks prefer young, springy trees and shrubs for that purpose and generally rub vigorously about a foot or two from the ground. Points of their antlers can damage the trees, even kill them if the rubbing severely damages the bark around the whole tree trunk.

Bucks here at Meadow Glenn seem to prefer to rub trunks up to two inches in diameter. Local favorites are sumac, maple, and oak. Small maples and oaks usually are tough enough to survive most damage, but sumacs often snap a few inches from the ground.

Because of the rubbing problem, when I remove cages from our trees, I still must protect their trunks. After trying a variety of trunk-protecting materials—including 24-inch galvanized hardware cloth and 36-inch welded wire (2”x3” grid)—I’ve settled on 36-inch plastic hardware cloth (1/2” grid). The plastic hardware cloth is easier to cut with wire cutters and to handle, and bucks often adjusted to the 24-inch size by rubbing just above it.

Plastic hardware cloth
and bag of cable ties

I cut the 36-inch plastic hardware cloth in lengths that make a circle that’s between four and five inches in diameter, which leaves room for the trunks to grow for several years. I secure each protector in place with two eight-inch cable ties, one about six inches from each end of the protector once I’ve wrapped it around a tree.

I haven’t found rigid trunk protectors locally, but several varieties are available on the Internet. Search: “tree trunk protectors.” Some are short to protect bark from string trimmers. Others range up to four feet in height.

I checked prices today at Home Depot to see what the raw materials currently cost. A 15-foot roll of 36-inch “Black Plastic Hardware Cloth” (1/2-inch mesh) sells for $16.44. A bag of 100 eight-inch black cable ties costs $5.99. A roll that long would make 13 protectors four inches in diameter. Cost would be just over $1.30 for each protector and two ties. That’s about a $5.00 saving on each from Internet prices (plus shipping) of comparable products.

Do I hear a Frugal Gardener shouting, “Yes! I can save a few bucks— some serious dough—if I make my own!”

Plastic protectors in place
in Deer Country

Deer Country puns aside, I’ve already removed cages from more than 20 young native trees that I’ve planted since 2006—red maples, tulip poplars, American dogwoods, American redbuds, and black gums. Maybe in another five years I’ll be able to remove the trunk protectors too.

That’s all the excitement I can report from Meadow Glenn, where I cage the trees and the deer run free.

Deer Country: Bib Jeans, New Trimmer, 26 Flat Tops

2012-02-15T16:59:00.000-05:00

Fountain grass needs cutting back

What a beautiful February day—bright sunshine, temperature hovering just below 50°F, slight breeze. I put on my new pair of bib jeans, unboxed my new 17” electric hedge trimmer, grabbed a 100’ extension cord and a pitchfork, and went to work cutting back our perennial fountain grass.

Fountain grass (Pennisetum alopecuroides) is a great landscape plant for Deer Country. It has character—bright green in spring and early summer, grows nearly 3’ tall, is light golden brown in fall, and attracts birds that seem to savor its seeds well into winter.

Best of all, deer don’t eat fountain grass—and most other ornamental grasses. I suppose the reason is that the grass is too tough for them to easily bite off and then chew.

We have 26 clumps of fountain grass. Four in a front yard island bed help another deer unfavorite, boxwood (Buxus x ‘Green Mountain’), hide the vent of our septic system. The remainder are in our backyard, most on the outside of our fence where they help dissuade local nimble bambits from jumping the 4’ split rail and wire fence by widening the jumping obstacle.

Without the fountain grass, the fence is about six inches wide. With the fountain grass, the hurdle, at least from a deer perspective, is about five feet wide, a width our bambits so far have refused to jump.

Fountain grass with flat-top cuts

Every February or early March, though, before the fountain grass begins its spring growth, I cut back the previous year’s grass. I call it giving the clumps their annual flat-top haircuts.

That’s what I did this morning. The job took less than two hours, including stacking the cuttings with my pitchfork for easy moving to our compost heap when my Kubota tractor returns from its annual winter service appointment.

Oh, my Aching Back, I thought, as I finished bending and cutting and stacking. Yes, my back ached—and also my left ankle and knee and right shoulder. Why don’t young gardeners ache, I often ask? Do pains of age only begin at three score and ten?

And then, as I looked at the stack of hay I’d piled on the side of the hill and felt the warming winter sun soothing my aching muscles and joints, I thought of the ancient nursery rhyme, at least as best as I could recollect:

Ancient Gardener Blue,
Come raise an alarm,
The squirrel’s on the birdfeeder,
The deer are eating the corn.
Where is that gardener
Who keeps away the deer?
On the haystack
Fast asleep!
Will you wake him?
Oh no, not I!

And guess what I did right then and there—as warming winter sun soothed my aches and pains?

Yes, I really did

Super Bowl Sacrifice

2012-02-05T20:29:00.002-05:00

Red Sails lettuce in mini-greenhouse, Feb. 5

Ellen and I were assembling ingredients for our Super Bowl treat—a six-layer dip.

Guacamole—yes!

Refried beans—yes!

Shredded cheddar—yes!

Chopped tomatoes—yes!

Tzatziki—yes!

Lettuce—lettuce?

“Did you bring it in yet?” Ellen asked.

It was time for our Super Bowl Sacrifice. It was time for me to cut one of the three Red Sails lettuce plants that have been growing in my cheap mini-greenhouse during the winter months.

The beautiful Super Bowl sacrifice

Well, when it’s time, it’s time. I took my garden scissors off their hook in the garage by the kitchen door, and Ellen and I walked to the mini-greenhouse. I wanted her to witness the sacrifice.

I unsnapped the fasteners and took off the lid. The three Red Sails lettuces were beautiful. I took my scissors, raised the lower leaves of the left Red Sails lettuce a bit, slid in the scissors, and … our Super Bowl Sacrifice was complete.

The head of lettuce was beautiful—despite the two small slugs that had managed to burrow their way into the bottomless mini-greenhouse in their quest for a lettuce meal.

Soon our six-layer dip was complete, and we nibbled away as the Giants took an early lead in Super Bowl XLVI, and then the Patriots tool the lead.

Good game, so far. Good six-layer dip. Good Red Sails lettuce fresh from meager winter garden.

Let the eating begin!

This is my round-about way of saying the mini-greenhouse is working well in this warm winter.
One Red Sails lettuce sacrificed. Two Red Sails lettuces growing beautifully still.

If you missed my earlier postings about my mini-greenhouse experiment, CLICK HERE.

P.S. Final score: New England Patriots 17, New York Giants 21, Red Sails Lettuce 24.

Stink Bugs: New Research Findings

2012-01-30T16:23:00.000-05:00

Stink bugs devastating two of our tomatoes

What have scientists learned during the last year in studies of the brown marmorated stink bug, the East Asian invader that is threatening many of our garden and field crops?

Last week I found on the Internet two new research papers, “Summary of Brown Marmorated Stink Bug Infestations of Maryland Crops” and “2011 Insecticide Trails to Evaluate Control of Brown Marmorated Stink Bug,” by three University of Maryland researchers, Galen Dively, Cerruti Hooks, and Terry Patton.

I’m going to tell you several of the research findings that I find fascinating, but I do not claim to be a scientist, so this posting is merely one gardener’s report about what he read in the two papers. I assume the two reports will be two of many building blocks on which experts will build future research projects and from which they will draft, hopefully, recommendations for both commercial food growers and backyard gardeners for the 2012 growing season.

The first paper covers the impact of the brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB) on a variety of crops: small grains; field corn; soybeans; apples, grapes, and peaches; raspberries; pumpkins; tomatoes; peppers; summer squash; sweet corn; green beans; eggplant; okra; spring/fall cabbage, spring/fall broccoli, kale, bok choi, onion, beets, cantaloupe, cucumber, watermelon, sweet potato, and white potato. Since most readers of this blog are backyard gardeners, I’ll focus on typical garden vegetables. The second paper covers the effect of various insecticides on BMSBs.

Here are highpoints plus an occasional comment, which I will label as such:

Stink bugs on our young raspberries

Research methodology: “Field studies to investigate BMSB population dynamics and feeding injury in selected crops were conducted in 2011 at three UM research farms … where significant infestations were present. Key field, fruit and vegetable crops were grown according to recommended commercial practices and not treated with insecticides, unless otherwise indicated. All crops were in close proximity with each other and close to woodlots. Whole fields, orchard blocks, or small plots, depending on the crop, were sampled weekly to assess population densities of BMSB adults, egg masses, and nymphs…. Vegetable crops were also harvested to measure and characterize cumulative fruit injury over the crop cycle. To monitor BMSB activity, pheromone and blacklight traps were operated at five research farms from May to late September and serviced either daily or three times a week.”

Number of stink bugs: Numbers were significantly less than in 2010 at the western Maryland site but 2.5 to 3 times more at other locations. Comment: This confirms anecdotal reports from other gardeners, that there seemed to be “fewer stink bugs overall” in 2011, but perhaps just as many or more in our gardens.

Peak population: “Peak captures at Beltsville and Upper Marlboro exceeded 400 per night during the 3rd week of July,” but peaks on some crops came in August. Comment: Early July was when I surrendered and began using a pyrethroid spray in our vegetable and fruit gardens.

Pheromone traps: “Both types of pheromone traps failed to capture stink bugs during the peak period. Only a few adults and nymphs were captured later in the summer.”

Stink bugs on our lilac

Host plants: “Clearly, this introduced tree [Paulownia], along with the Tree of Heaven, is a major reproductive host….” Comment: Brown marmorated stink bugs are natives of China and other East Asia countries, as are Paulownia and Tree of Heaven. Stink bugs probably are attracted by plants from “back home,” so to speak. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised to see hundreds of stink bugs on our lilacs, another East Asia native.

Proximity to woods and buildings: Scattered through the papers are indications that stink bug numbers are higher on crops near woods or buildings and on crops at the edges of fields. Comment: Backyard gardeners may have the worst exposure to stink bug damage because gardens often are close to buildings, trees, and shrubs. Also, gardens often are not large enough to have “edges” and “centers” sufficiently distant to affect the level of stink bug damage.

Apples, grapes, and peaches: “Infestations were relatively low compared to the two previous years because these crops were treated with combinations of insecticides plus Surround on a 10-day schedule.”

Raspberries: “Adults colonized plants during mid-June and sustained high populations to early September…. Feeding caused severe fruit damage, rendering the crop unmarketable. Raspberries were undoubtedly a favorable food source for adult BMSB, but relatively few nymphs were present….”

Pumpkins: “No adults or nymphs were present.” Another casual inspection “revealed no evidence of feeding injury or nymphal development.”

Tomatoes: Stink bug activity seemed to begin when fruit began to ripen, though relatively few adults and nymphs were found. “It is possible that stinkbug adults move in and out of tomatoes following a diurnal pattern, since numbers detected did not account for the fruit injury which ranged from 32 to 48% of the total number of fruit harvested.”

Peppers: Tests include a variety of peppers, including bell, banana, and hot jalapenos. Depending on variety, damage ranged up to 86% of the crop. “Two hot types … were less susceptible to fruit injury, and, unexpectedly, a black bell variety … showed no evidence over the entire crop cycle.” Comment: The paper names all varieties tested.

Summer squash: “If more attractive crops are available, squash will likely not be a preferred host plant.” Comment: Stink bugs destroyed all young fruit of my zucchini plants.

Sweet corn: On the Eastern Shore, stink bug populations haven’t reached damaging levels. However, at other locations, significant “kernel injury (average range of 4 to 26 collapsed kernels per ear), and incomplete kernel fill were recorded on 95 to 100% of the mature ears….”

Green beans: “Green beans harbored the second highest population density of BMSB per unit area…. Later plantings of green beans and lima beans that developed pods in September and October experienced less BMSB activity and no pod damage. Like late-planted sweet corn, these plantings possibly avoided injury because of the more attractive soybeans grown nearby.”

Eggplant: “Eggplant harbored the third highest population density of BMSB per unit area.” “BMSB may have a minor impact on eggplant quality; however, feeding on stems and fruiting bodies could cause abnormal abortion of buds and young fruit, thus reducing yields.”

Okra: “BMSB seasonal activity and infestation levels were similar to that of eggplant.”

Cabbage, broccoli, kale, bok choi, onion, beets, cantaloupe, cucumber, watermelon, sweet potato, and white potato: “Intensive sampling for other insect pests and periodic inspections produced no evidence of BMSB activity and feeding injury. However, these crops may be more attractive and susceptible to stink bug feeding if isolated and not grown close to more preferred host plants.”

Here’s a typical conclusion from the second paper’s bell pepper section on the effectiveness of several insecticides on stink bugs: “All 12 insecticide treatments provided significant reductions (61-96%) of stink bug numbers,” though only some insecticides reduced the level of fruit injury significantly. There were some suggestions of “the possibility that some adults may have recovered after certain treatments.” Comment: Though insecticides are named in the paper, they should not be used until they have been approved by appropriate government review agencies.

I’m happy to read that researchers are making progress in their stink-bug studies, and I look forward to future application of research findings from these researchers and others that will benefit those of us who grow crops, whether by hundreds of acres or in our backyard gardens.

If you want to review the research papers, CLICK HERE. The two papers appear together at that link. The first paper includes photos of damaged vegetables. The second includes charts detailing effectiveness of insecticides used in the studies.

Frugal Gardener: Seed Catalog(s) Revelation!

2012-01-27T16:38:00.001-05:00

The puzzle pieces fit

Does the Frugal Gardener in you get irritated when you see five packets of seeds you want to buy in one catalog but the sixth packet you want is in another catalog—and you aren’t about to pay a second shipping and handling fee to get that one extra packet?

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve discovered that several seed catalogs come from the same source and that you can place one order from several catalogs and pay just one shipping and handling fee, provided, of course, that you wish to purchase from the cooperating catalogs.

When I was reviewing catalogs earlier this month, I noticed in passing that the mailing addresses of two catalogs, Totally Tomatoes and Shumway’s, were in the same city. Then, when I compiled my “must order” seed list recently, I jotted down catalog abbreviations, page numbers, SKU numbers (product identifiers), and prices and realized the SKU numbers were the same in the two catalogs. For example, the SKU for Amish Paste tomato seeds in both catalogs is #00029.

When I finished my list, I went to the Totally Tomatoes website and entered my selections. Before final check out, however, I had an idea. Why not add a SKU number for the last packet on my list—rutabaga seed, which is listed in Shumway’s but not Totally Tomatoes, and see what happens? I did and bong! —the site wouldn’t accept it.

Still later, after I had checked out of the Totally Tomatoes site, I had another idea. I sent an email to Customer Service at Totally Tomato and said I’d noticed that the addresses are the same and would they please add a packet of Shumway rutabaga seed to my order.

After we had exchanged several emails, Customer Service said for business and accounting reasons they could not mix orders from the two companies but that there is a website, egardenersplace, where you can order from “all our catalogs.”

I hastened to the website and found eight catalogs listed. Four contain vegetable seeds: Totally Tomatoes, Shumway’s, Jung, and Vermont Bean. Four sell flower seeds, roots, and/or plants: McClure & Zimmerman, Roots & Rhizomes, Edmund’s Roses, and Seymour’s. I haven’t ordered from egardenersplace because I’ve already made my 2012 seed purchases, but I have checked the veggie-seed catalogs, and the SKU for Amish Paste tomato is the same in all.

The egardenersplace homepage shows the covers of the eight catalogs and says readers can order from all catalogs and just pay one shipping and handling fee, which appears to be $6.00 for orders under $60.00. At the site, you click on a catalog, search or leaf through, select packets, and then go to another catalog, if you wish, to make more selections. Check-out procedure is like that at most websites.

This Frugal Gardener likes the idea of buying from several catalogs and paying just one shipping and handling fee. Now I wonder whether I should recommend that Vermont Bean change its name to Wisconsin Bean.

And a final finding that made Frugal Gardener smile: Though packets for the same seed variety have the same SKU numbers, prices occasionally differ. In the two catalogs that I used to make my buy list, I found 5¢ and 10¢ differences in two packet prices. Frugal Gardener, though, doesn’t see such massive savings reason sufficient to buy from one catalog and not the other. If he did, though, perhaps he should start calling himself Pinchpenny Gardener.

If you’d like to take a look at the eight catalogs on the egardenersplace website, CLICK HERE.

Notes: (1) You can order all eight print catalogs through the egardenersplace website. (2) Mention of specific products, brands, or companies is not intended as an endorsement by the University of Maryland. (3) I do not receive consideration of any kind for mentioning products, brands, or companies in my postings. The seed catalogs I review are those from sellers from which I have previously bought seeds.

Wintertime Garden Cleanup

2012-01-24T16:35:00.000-05:00

In less than an hour...

The last of the weekend’s ice-coated inch of snow melted last night, and after the sun came out this morning and the temperature gradually rose to 54°, I grabbed a pair of gloves, a bucket, and in 45 minutes finished the last of the cleanup of our backyard gardens. Here are four reasons why I give two thumbs-up to cleaning up the gardens now rather than in the spring.

First, wintertime garden work gets me out of the house and, obviously, into the fresh, invigorating air. Inhale deeply, Bob. Smile. Enjoy life on the cool side of the windows for an hour or so. Bend a little. Lift a little. Get what Ancient Gardeners call “a little exercise.”

Second, working when the temperature is in the 50s takes a lot less energy and causes a lot less sweat than when the temperature is in the 60s or even 70s.

Debris of dormant daylilies is easy to clean up

Third, cleaning up the garden during the winter takes less time than during spring. Our many perennials for the most part are dormant, and I can pull off last fall’s seed stalks and dead leaves quickly because I don’t have to be careful of fragile springtime growth.

Fourth, cleaning up the garden for only an hour at a time means fewer aches and pains in joints and muscles of this Ancient Gardener. I don’t think I’ll have any painful reminders tomorrow that I worked in the yard today, but if I had worked four or five hours, tomorrow I would be creaking and moaning about the house.

Bottom line: 45 minutes, 10 large buckets of dead perennial leaves and seed stalks, and one heaping wheelbarrow of last year’s dead plant matter to deposit on our recycling pile at the bottom of our hill at the edge of our woods.

And as I pushed the empty wheelbarrow back up the hill, a couple of questions flitted through my brain: Why do empty wheelbarrows seem to get harder to push every year? Why does the same hill seem to get just a bit steeper every winter?

If you are an Ancient Gardener, you know the answers.

Frugal Gardener: Free Coffee-Shop Garden Kits

2012-01-22T11:04:00.000-05:00

Free garden kits begin at your favorite coffee shop

Hey, Frugal Gardeners, when you next shell out a buck or two for a morning coffee at your favorite coffee shop, drink your coffee but save the cup, the top, the cardboard insulator, and the wooden stirrer to help start your Garden 2012.

The coffee, of course, will cost you something. But after you’ve enjoyed the hot java recycle make a coffee-shop garden kit out of your “trash.” Here’s how this Frugal Gardener recycles these throwaways, but you may be even more creative:

Cup: Punch two holes in the bottom with a Phillips screwdriver and use as a starter cup for vegetable, herb, or flower seeds. I prefer cardboard cups because they decompose over time—in a landfill after I’ve used them to start plants. I prefer standard 12-ounce cups to the Starbucks “tall” cup—which is taller by comparison but narrower too—because I think the slightly shorter but wider cups accommodate multiple plants better.

Recycle your "trash"

Top: I cut a pie-slice wedge out of a plastic top and use it as a divider to make two starter cells as I add sterile starting soil to a cup. When it’s time to transplant into the garden, the plastic wedges make it easy for me to gently pull the two plants apart with minimal root damage. Sometimes I make the wedges from plastic clamshell containers supermarket berries come in.

Stirrer: I mark an abbreviation on a stirrer and use it in a cup to indicate the seed variety in the cup. For example, CELE means Celebrity tomato and RS means Red Sails lettuce. I could use stirrers to mark the ends of rows in the garden if I didn’t use branches cut from our forsythia bushes.

Insulator: Most cardboard insulators have a row of perforations that make it easy to divide each insulator into two equal pieces. I wrap each piece around the stem of a tomato transplant, with half the insulator above ground, half below, to keep cutworms from chainsawing the young plants just above soil level.

Those four “gardening kit” parts come with your order at most coffee shops, but one shop has a policy of doing more. That shop is Starbucks, which requires its baristas to prepare bags of free coffee grounds for gardeners to use to amend their soil.

Look for the brown barrel
with the silver packages

The baristas at the Starbucks in our local Giant Foods store said bagging grounds is part of their job description—and they do it when their other work assignments permit. If there’s a line of customers, for example, grounds don’t get bagged. That Starbucks kiosk has a short, brown “barrel” near the pick-up counter where the baristas put the silver-colored bags labeled, “Grounds for Your Garden.” The heavy-gauge plastic bags of grounds each originally held five pounds of beans.

I’d had gardeners mention they’ve never been able to get a bag of Starbucks grounds. The baristas advised that a disappointed gardener should stop and ask about the best time to find bags available. They also said sometimes a gardener takes every available bag. Yes, sometimes I find the barrel empty.

One barista gave me a valuable tip: Take a bag that seems full but relatively light. The grounds in that bag probably are from the espresso machine and are “dry” compared to the “wet” ones from the regular brewing machines, so the bag contains more grounds, less moisture. And I’ve noticed that sometimes the bags are only a quarter full, which may indicate that perhaps some baristas aren’t exactly excited about bagging grounds.

Even though your local coffee shop doesn’t have a comprehensive recycling program like Starbuck’s, perhaps staffers there would save you a bucket of grounds. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, so smile and inquire about possibilities.

Over the last couple of months I’ve been saving parts of coffee shop “garden kits” for springtime use—and I’ve added a dozen bags or more of Starbucks “Grounds for Your Garden” to our garden soil—all for free—well, free if you don’t count the cost of the coffee you’ve enjoyed.

Please post a Comment telling how you recycle everyday throwaways by using them in your garden.

Deer Country: They’re Back!

2012-01-20T16:31:00.000-05:00

They're back!

I have seen so few deer here at Meadow Glenn during the last month that I’ve had an increasingly good feeling that I won’t have anything to write in my Deer Country postings in 2012. That good feeling vanished when I looked out on our western hillside yesterday afternoon and counted 17 deer, all does and nearly grown fawns.

Perhaps hunters kept enough pressure on neighborhood deer that they avoided all humans as potential predators during daytime hours for the last six weeks. But suddenly the deer are back in numbers sufficient for me to guess that after the does give birth in the spring we’ll have our regular crop of 25 or more deer browsing through our landscape and stopping to chow down on whatever greenery meets their fancy.

Alas, it must be time to run down my deer management checklist.

Have I fixed all the deer-damaged cages?

Do I have enough Deer Out spray concentrate to get me through the summer? Have I ordered a bottle of the new Repellex Systemic Animal Repellent Tablets so I can experiment to see if they repel deer here at Meadow Glenn? Have I fixed all the cages around trees and shrubs that deer damaged last year while they were browsing or rubbing? Is it time to set some of our older tree transplants free by removing their protective cages? Should I research deer-resistant perennials or shrubs to find one that I want to add to our landscape—and then monitor it to see what our deer think?

With nearly 20 deer settling in for Gardening Year 2012, I think I’ll have more than enough to write about in Deer Country postings.

To read my previous posting about my Deer Out spray experiment, CLICK HERE.
To read my previous posting about the new Repellex Systemic Animal Repellent Tablets, CLICK HERE.

January Supermarket Surprise

2012-01-17T19:20:00.000-05:00

Surpise!

Surprise! Just beyond the stacks of bags of potatoes and onions and next to tropical houseplants and the “balloon center”—a Burpee seed rack—at our local Giant Foods store on January 6.

I don’t know what magician controls the timing of wintertime appearance of retail seed racks at our local stores, but last year seed racks appeared the first week of February.

Not quite in numbed shock, I hustled right over to the Burpee display to take a look. Hmm—a panel of standard vegetable seeds—a panel of organic vegetable seeds. I needed look no farther.

One packet caught my eye: Marketmore 76 cucumber seeds, $1.79, 3 g. Just a few days earlier I had searched the Cornell University vegetable site in an effort to find a cuke variety that is resistant to various mildew diseases and other leaf diseases too and had zeroed in on Marketmore 76 as a likely candidate. I picked a packet off the rack and turned it over: “Resistant to scab, cucumber mosaic and mildews.”

Who can resist?

Two years ago, powdery mildew wiped out my whole cuke bed. In 2011 I planted Diva, a mildew-resistant variety, but leaf-spot diseases wiped out that planting. Will the third time, with Marketmore 76, be the charm? I hope so, so I put the packet into my shopping cart.

As I walked toward the dairy section to pick up some provolone and a dozen eggs, I wondered whether Burpee or Giant has “inside information” that spring will come a month early this year. Punxsutawney Phil, shadow or not, you’re fired! Groundhogs get no respect here at Meadow Glenn, especially those that climb our hill and fence and chow down on springtime veggies.

Today (Jan. 17) I went to Home Depot in Columbia to pick up a 10-foot PVC pipe that I’ll cut into 3 1/2-foot lengths to make “underpasses” for hoses under our front and back sidewalks. Those projects have been on my to-do list for 10 years, and, hold your breath, I installed the front one—the easier one—in less than an hour before lunch.

While at Home Depot I glanced into the garden-supply room and—yes, you guessed it—two staffers were setting up seed racks. I temporarily abandoned my push-cart with the PVC pipe and took a look at the seed racks—Burpee, Ferry-Morse, and Martha. I suppressed the question of whether there’s horticultural significance that the two seed companies established by men go by their surnames while the one established by a woman goes by her given name.

Not only veggies

Since I already had looked over the Burpee rack at Giant, I looked at the Burpee racks at Home Depot first. At Home Depot, there must have been three or four times the number of vegetable and flower varieties and packets. The packets looked the same, but there were differences.

The first difference I noticed was price. Most of the veggie packets at Giant were $1.79. At Home Depot, most were $1.00 or $1.49. The second difference was that Burpee racks at Home Depot had more varieties of each vegetable—about a half dozen varieties of cuke seeds—but not Marketmore 76. Don’t assume the Burpee seed rack at Store A contains the same varieties at the same price as the Burpee seed rack at Store B.

I went to Home Depot this morning to buy PVC pipe, but I added seven packets of seeds. Herb and veggies: Lemon basil, $1.00, 200 mg.; Roma tomato, $1.00, 500 mg.; Detroit Dark Red, Medium Top beet, $1.00, 5.5 g.; Short ‘n Sweet carrot, $1.49, 2 g.; and Pic-N-Pic summer squash, $1.49, 2 g. Annual flowers: Red Velvet celosia, $1.49, 160 mg. and Exquisite zinnia, $1.49, 500 mg. This Frugal Gardener remembers that the price of most similar packets in the Burpee catalog is $3.95.

The seed racks I visited were good reminders that I’ve got to get out my seed catalogs, make selections, and order the rest of my 2012 vegetable seeds.

Beets, Carrots, Turnips: One Last Supper

2012-01-15T19:26:00.001-05:00

Last harvest from Garden 2011

When I heard the temperature was going to drop into the low 20s just after New Year’s, I took a bucket to our vegetable garden and pulled the last of our late-season root crops: a half dozen or so Cylindra beets, three Short ‘n Sweet carrots, and a dozen Golden Globe turnips. On one of those April-like days last week, I washed the veggies and that evening we savored roasted vegetables—one last supper from Veggie Garden 2011.

As I washed and pared them, the two-thirds bucket of roots, to which we added some garlic, two large onions, and five potatoes, tossed with some olive oil and sprinkled with some crushed rosemary, slimmed down considerably to two cookie sheets of chopped veggies ready for a 425°F oven for about an hour.

Last supper from Garden 2011

Ah, what a dish—so simple to put together that I can name and pronounce all the ingredients—so fragrant while the veggies are roasting—so mouth watering with earthy chunks of beets, sweet carrots, and tongue-assaulting turnips. What a soul-satisfying dish to set before a veggie gardener.
Even the potatoes that had nestled with beets blushed a bit in delight.

This feast reminded me that many root vegetables store well in place in the garden until the temperature sinks into the teens and the soil freezes deep enough to freeze the veggies. It also reminded me that I should plant more rutabagas next summer and forget about the strong-flavored turnips that are prone to slug damage, though I did get three solid turnips out of two short rows.

The only edibles left in our garden now are the three Red Sails lettuce plants in my experimental mini-greenhouse, and they may be damaged tonight (Jan. 15) if the forecast of “temperatures in the teens” is accurate.

If you missed my posting about slugs damaging my turnips, CLICK HERE.

Winter Solace in Our Raspberry Bed

2012-01-10T20:34:00.000-05:00

Raspberry bed before cutting & weeding

Yes, I did mean “solace,” not “solstice.” Solstice was last month. Solace was two hours this afternoon.

Just after noon when I looked out our kitchen window, the sunny scene beckoned me to come outside and enjoy a beautiful winter afternoon. As I looked at the scene, I noted some green in our small raspberry patch—green as in winter weeds.

Why not go out and cut back the raspberry canes and weed that bed, I thought? The sun is brilliant, the temperature 42°F and slowly rising. The brick wall of the detached garage protects the bed from the light afternoon breeze from the northwest. I can sit with my loppers and short-handled weeder in the comfort—the solace—of the January sunshine. In an hour the job will be done.

The January sunshine was comforting, even relaxing, good for a gardener’s impatient wintertime soul that already thinks about spring plantings. I filled the wheelbarrow with cut canes. As I loosened and pulled winter weeds, the six or seven I had estimated turned into 16 or 17 and then 60 or 70, and then I lost count. I filled one five-gallon bucket with weeds and leaves, then a second bucket, and then a third.

Raspberry bed after cutting & weeding

The cool breeze stiffened, and the wind-chill factor dropped slowly as the sun moved lower in the western sky. A drop of sweat formed on the tip of my nose. Hmm, that wasn’t sweat. My nose was getting cold. I soon finished and wheeled the “harvest” downhill to a crude compost pile at the edge of our woods.

But the job was done. The canes were cut to the ground. The winter weeds were history—hopefully, but I know there must be hundreds, if not thousands, of dormant weed seeds just waiting to sprout during the next warm spell. The raspberry bed looked relatively neat, even ready for spring. I’ll add a thin layer of composed leaves/horse manure when I buy a load at the composting facility at our county landfill in February or March.

Have you ever thought you’d like to grow raspberries?

Our patch is seven years old now. I bought six plants by mail order. I suppose I had beginner’s luck when I chose Heritage, a red primocane-bearing variety. I really hadn’t “read up” on raspberries before I got started, but I had learned that there are two basic kinds of red raspberries—summer-bearing and primocane-bearing (sometimes called everbearing). Primocane-bearing varieties fruit in late summer until frost on canes that grew that year. Summer-bearing varieties fruit earlier in the summer on canes that grew the previous year.

The difference was attractive to this rooky raspberry grower. With primo-cane bearing plants I would have simply cut all the canes to the ground, and, presto, the plants would grow new canes and fruit the next year. If I had bought a summer-bearing variety, I would have to keep track of which canes grew which year and remove only the “old” canes and not the “new.” Now which cane is “old” and which is “new”? Actually, it’s not too hard to tell, but, as I said, I knew less about raspberries then.

August 5, 2011, picking from our small raspberry bed

The Heritage raspberries have done us well. We pick quarts each summer from their small, 10’x10’ bed. Early on we eat them out of hand as we pick then. Then we use them on summertime cereal and in fruit salads. Some go into freezer jam. We share some with friends. Ellen spreads the “extras” on cookie sheets, freezes them for a couple of hours, and bags them for wintertime use.

When fresh raspberries sometimes cost $10 to $12 a pound at the grocery store, we just smile and wonder when other gardeners are going to start planting raspberry patches. I certainly encourage you to grow this mouth-watering, easy-to-grow fruit.

But if you decide to start a raspberry patch, I highly recommend that you to learn as much as you can about growing raspberries before you begin. A great place to spend an hour getting an unaccredited B.S.R.G. (Bachelor of Science in Raspberry Growing) is the 40-page Chapter 8, “Brambles,” in The Mid-Atlantic Berry Guide for Commercial Growers. You can access the Guide online by CLICKING HERE.

You can cross-check the Guide’s list of recommended cultivars with the much shorter University of Maryland Extension’s “Bramble Cultivar Recommendations” by CLICKING HERE.

And I add one note that most publications haven’t yet added to their text: Raspberries are a favorite food of brown marmorated stink bugs. If you have concerns about using pesticides, you should do additional investigation into what researchers are recommending to control this destructive insect.

Jim’s Row Cover Protects Kale into January

2012-01-06T16:27:00.000-05:00

Jim pulls back row cover that protects kale

After Irene M. of Columbia noticed a mention of row covers in my recent posting about my mini-greenhouse, she sent me an email note: “Jim has had a row cover on kale and it is going strong.”

Irene, a Howard County Master Gardener, wrote that note several days before temperatures dipped into the teens here in Central Maryland. Temperature was 13.3°F here at Meadow Glenn at dawn Wednesday, the day I had arranged for Ellen and me to visit Irene and Jim to check out his row cover –and to see her pesebre.

“I’ve never grown kale before, but in October I saw some plants at Frank’s Produce and Greenhouse,” Jim said. “I thought I’d buy them and see what happens. Most fell over after I planted them, but soon their leaves turned up and resumed growing. When the weather got colder, I thought I’d extend their growing season by giving them some protection with a row cover.”

Jim said the temperature Wednesday morning at their home was 17°F. He hadn’t yet checked to see how his kale had weathered the cold, but when he pulled back some of the row cover from its PVC support hoops, the kale appeared in perfect condition—ready to cut and take into the kitchen.

Jim's kale thrives under row cover even
when temperatures drop into teens

“I use the row cover in the spring also,” Jim said, “to protect my early vegetables from late frosts.”

A row cover is a very light synthetic fabric, often described as “gauze-like,” that gardeners drape over plants. The ultra-thin fabric lets in sunlight, air, and water but, when properly installed, excludes insects and other pests. In cooler weather it can create a warmer micro-climate that helps protect plants from the cold. The fabric comes in various lengths and widths and can be used in a variety of ways. Jim’s row cover forms a protective tent over his raised bed of kale and onions.

Here are two sources where you can learn more about row covers. To view the first, a short (<4 min.) University of Maryland Extension Home & Garden Information Center video, “How to Use a Row Cover in Your Vegetable Garden, CLICK HERE. For the second, a print article with more than 20 explanatory photographs, “Stink Bug Barrier for Tomato & Pepper,” in a Maryland Home & Garden newsletter, CLICK HERE.

This posting is about row covers, but I did mention Irene’s pesebre. A pesebre is a traditional Nativity Scene with roots in Spain. Irene continues a family tradition started by her father 60 years ago. To see the 2010 setup of her pesebre, CLICK HERE.

Frugal Gardener: Greenhouseperhaps Becomes Mini-Greenhouse

2012-01-02T21:59:00.000-05:00

Frosted greenhouseperhaps after
December 29 flurries

We’ve had temperatures as low as 22°F and snow flurries in late October and December. So how’s my $13.67 greenhouseperhaps doing?

My inexpensive—ok, cheap—greenhouseperhaps is a plastic storage container from which I cut the bottom. I then installed the box in our garden as an experimental greenhouse. As I wrote in a September blog, “Why not ‘build’ a very small greenhouse to see how long I can get lettuce to grow in our garden as winter approaches. I’ll call it my greenhouseperhaps until I see if it really works.”

My experiment in frugality has lasted longer than I imagined because of our extra-warm fall and early winter. Yes, we’ve had a few flurries and quite a few nights with sub-freezing temperatures. The warm weather caused my September lettuce plantings to grow rapidly. I harvested that planting and then moved the greenhouseperhaps to a more protected location and planted a second crop of three Red Sails lettuce plants that I had started in yoghurt cups inside our house.

So how are the three lettuce plants doing? Fine, thank you.

Unprotected Simpsons Curled lettuce
after December 29 flurries

When I unlatched the two click handles today and lifted the top off the box, a sheet of thin ice slipped off the top and shattered on the garden soil. Inside the box, the three Red Sails lettuce plants are growing slowly and showing no signs of freeze damage. Outside the box just 40 feet away two Simpsons Curled lettuce plants stand as slushy evidence of what sub-freezing temperatures can do to lettuce.

Why has my greenhouseperhaps worked so far? I think there are several reasons.

First, Red Sails lettuce seems slightly more cold-hardy than other lettuces, such as the Simpsons Curled.

Second, I’ve positioned the box about three feet from the south side of a brick wall, where it will benefit from winter sun and have some protection from cold north winds.

Third, the plastic container creates a slightly warmer microclimate for the three plants. The soil there is dark brown because I’ve added plenty of compost over the years, so the dark soil absorbs warmth from the sun’s radiation. The lidded box itself helps keep heat in and cold out and helps protects the plants from chilling winter breezes. Even though a sheet of ice slid off the top of the lid this morning, the inside of the lid and the walls of the box were covered with drops of condensation.

How long will the greenhouseperhaps keep the Red Sails lettuce from freezing?

Red Sails lettuce January 2
inside greenhouseperhaps

I’m a realist. I have no illusion that the lettuce will grow until spring. At some point, an Arctic blast will burn the leaf edges and then turn the Red Sails into green mush. That could be tomorrow night, when the local forecast calls for a low of 19°F. I’ll keep you informed.

At this point I’m surrendering on one point, my use of “greenhouseperhaps” as the name for my winter lettuce box. It works. From now on it’s my “mini-greenhouse.”

What has my experiment taught me?

Creating a microclimate that lets cool-weather plants grow longer through the fall and into early winter doesn’t have to be expensive or complex. A $13.64 plastic box in a semi-protected location works quite nicely, thank you. The box works on the same temperature-moderating principle as do cold frames and row covers.

I think I’ll try my mini-greenhouse again as spring approaches—perhaps as soon as there are hints in February that spring is getting ready to, well, spring. I’ll start two or three lettuce plants—perhaps Red Sail or an even shorter variety—inside our warm house and transplant them when they’re about two weeks young.

I’ve enjoyed this simple experiment. Jeanine S. of Harford County (Maryland) read my original blog and experimented too—with an even simpler mini-greenhouse. She didn’t cut out the bottom. She just turned the lidless container upside down and positioned it over young lettuce plants. In her Christmas Eve greetings, she wrote: “I will be picking lettuce from under my plastic storage tub for tonight’s dinner with the boys and their families. No, there will not be enough for a whole salad, but enough to add a touch of special flavor and color. That was such a great idea!”

Perhaps the mini-greenhouse idea is somewhat less than “great,” but it works.

Shouldn’t you try it next spring or fall?

If you want to read details of how I created the mini-greenhouse, CLICK HERE.

Of Honey Bees and Orchids

2011-12-28T19:01:00.000-05:00

Will a superbee save our honey bees and the many food crops they pollinate?

And what’s the best way to keep alive your gift moth orchid?

Here are two links to recent feature articles by Adrian Higgins, Garden columnist of the Washington Post.

For his “In search of a better bee,” which appear on the front page of this morning’s Post, CLICK HERE.

For his December 22 “How to keep a moth orchid alive,” CLICK HERE.

Gardeners, Rejoice!

2011-12-22T10:06:00.000-05:00

Gardeners, rejoice! Spring is coming!

Today, Thursday, December 22, has the shortest day and longest night of the year. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow all have nine hours and 26 minutes of daylight, but today is one second shorter than yesterday, and tomorrow will be three seconds longer than today. Soon daylight will be noticeably longer—and winter temperatures will bottom out and spring will be just a few weeks away.

Take a look around your landscape. Are daffodil leaves starting to poke through your mulch? Are buds on your maple and redbud trees beginning to swell? Does that red flag on your mailbox mean you’re mailing your veggie and flower seed order for your 2012 garden?

Gardeners are born optimists. When days are short, temperatures plunge, and ice coats and snow needs to be shoveled, gardeners smile and plan March plantings of “cool weather veggies” and salivate at the mere thought of next August’s ripe Brandywine tomato.

Yes, spring is coming to your garden—soon!

To expand your weather knowledge, CLICK HERE to read the excellent explanation of the winter solstice by Justin Grieser of the Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang. He answers questions you and I haven’t even thought to ask.

Holiday Greetings

2011-12-21T20:12:00.000-05:00

We Wish You

Merry Christmas 2011
Happy New Year 2012

Ellen & Bob

We invite you to listen to one of Ellen’s favorite Christmas carols, “I Wonder as I Wander.” The song’s roots go back to folk singers in Appalachia. Voice is that of Maureen Hegarty.

Seed Catalog: R. H. Shumway’s Illustrated Garden Guide

2011-12-21T18:31:00.000-05:00

Step right back, ladies and gentlemen, into the nineteenth century. Turn the oversize pages of Shumway’s Illustrated Garden Guide slowly or you may miss the rattlesnakes you want to add to your 2012 garden. This is the company's 142nd year of seed selling.

Unlike most seed catalogs, Shumway’s is illustrated with line drawings in the style of a hundred years and more ago. Sixteen of the catalog’s 64 pages are in color, but the rest are in stunning black and white. Most of the color pages offer flowers and herbs, and all of the black-and-white pages offer fruits and vegetables.

If your dad—like mine—often spoke of planting by the moon, don’t miss the great offer on the 2012 paperback edition of Moon Sign Book, “a popular astrological guide since … 1905 … complete tables and instructions on planting and harvesting … accurate and reliable.” Same moon, I suppose, but it now has some human footprints.

If you order the moon book, why not add a Tomato Holder? I love the description: “There are two sure ways to avoid cutting yourself when slicing tomatoes. 1. Have someone else hold the tomato. 2. Use this tomato holder. Gives you a firm, safe grip, and knife slots measure perfect slices every time. Great invention! Aluminum.” If you tend to amputate fingers while slicing tomatoes, hey, cut your losses and order a Tomato Holder.

The corn pages contain varieties I’ve seen in no other catalog—Bonus Hybrid ‘Baby Corn’ that produces those miniature ears you find in salads and exotic foods and Goliath Silo or Ensilage Seed Corn, which grows to 15 feet and yields up to 50 tons per acre. Your cows will be delighted if you cut, chop, and ferment it in your silo for their winter feedings.

And for violence-prone gardeners who are sick and tired of burrowing mammals, there’s the four-pack Revenge Rodent Smoke Bomb to toss into those burrows … “safe [for the quarterback, not the receiver] and easy-to-use … absolutely guaranteed.” Many years ago I tossed something like that into a groundhog burrow under one of our huge tulip poplars at the edge of our woods. Apparently there was an interception because the next morning I found the bomb about three feet outside the burrow entrance. Groundhog 1, Bob 0.

I haven’t ordered from Shumway’s recently, but I’m going to order a moon book, maybe some rutabaga seeds (I seldom see them on seed racks locally), and maybe a rattlesnake or two. The reptiles, of course, would be Georgia Rattlesnake Watermelon and Rattlesnake Climbing Bean. Second, thought, our little plots on our hillside don’t have room for such wide-ranging veggie critters.

Prices are reasonable: Celebrity Hybrid (30 seeds), $2.75; Juliet Hybrid, not available; Better Boy Hybrid (30), $2.45; Brandywine Pink (30), $2.10; postage/handling, $6.00 on orders up to $30.

To take a look at Shumway’s catalog, CLICK HERE. Unfortunately, veggie illustrations online are mostly color photographs, which makes the Internet edition colorless as far as I’m concerned. If you want to see the “real” Shumway’s catalog, go online and order a print copy.

Additional Recommendations from Readers

Anne posted a Comment after my last catalog review posting: “My favorite home garden seed catalog is Pinetree Garden Seeds. They sell nearly everything you might want to try, the quantities are small and prices are very reasonable. So instead of agonizing over which variety to get, I can go ahead and get several kinds, often for less than a dollar a packet and just enough seeds for a season or two.” To take a look at Pinetree Garden Seeds online, CHECK HERE.

Kent recommended Meyer Seed Co. of Baltimore: “You can find Meyer Seed on the web and order a catalog. They carry most of the varieties recommended by the University of Maryland. Their prices are pretty good compared to a lot of the mail order companies.” To check out Meyer Seed Co., CLICK HERE. Online offerings are all vegetables, but the print catalog contains flowers too.

Notes: (1) You can order a print catalog through most of the catalog websites. (2) Mention of specific products, brands, or companies is not intended as an endorsement by the University of Maryland. (3) I do not receive consideration of any kind for mentioning products, brands, or companies in my postings. The seed catalogs I review are those from sellers from which I have previously bought seeds.

Seed Catalog: Seed Savers Exchange

2011-12-20T18:38:00.002-05:00

“Most beautiful” is the phrase that pops into my mind when I think about the Seed Savers Exchange catalog.

Seed Savers Exchange is a non-profit organization with a mission—to save our diverse but endangered garden heritage by building a network of people committed to collecting, conserving, and sharing heirloom seeds and plants and educating people about the value of genetic and cultural diversity. Sales of seed packets help fund that mission.

The Exchange sells the kind of open-pollinated or heirloom vegetable and flower varieties that our grandparents and great-grandparents planted and saved because the open-pollinated varieties grew with the same characteristics from year to year.

Access to the Exchange’s catalog, both print and online editions, is free. You can also become a member (I am one) and receive an inch-thick Yearbook of thousands of open-pollinated seed varieties grown, saved, and made available by gardeners across North America.

Every year the catalog features several new varieties. Two this year are White Vienna Kohlrabi, a pre-1860 variety, and Georgia Southern Collard, which dates to about 1880. Ok, maybe they are the kinds of vegetables your great-great-great grandparents grew.

The vegetable section takes up nearly 70 of the catalog’s 100 pages and is followed by sections of heirloom herbs and flowers. Most veggie offerings take up two or three pages, but tomatoes have eight pages, from Amish Paste to Crnkovic Yugoslavian, from Green Sausage to Hillbilly Potato Leaf, and from Jaune Flamme to Speckled Roman and Wapsipinicon Peach.

I think you should get an honorary B.H.G.H. (Bachelor of Horticulture in Garden History) if you read the seed descriptions. For example, the annotation for Red Fig tomato states, “Philadelphia heirloom documented to 1805. Heavy yields of 1½” pear-shaped fruits that are great for fresh eating. Used as a substitute for figs years ago by gardeners who would pack away crates of dried tomatoes for winter use.” Maybe that information will help you in a game of Trivial Pursuit some winter evening.

Since the Exchange doesn’t sell hybrid seeds, I cannot compare most of the prices I’ve listed in other catalog reviews. The only one of the tomatoes available is Brandywine (Sudduth’s Strain) (50 seeds), $2.75. Postage/handling is $3.00 on purchases less than $10.

If you wish to check out the online catalog, CLICK HERE.

Additional Recommendations from Readers

Two readers have sent personal catalog recommendations after reading my earlier catalog postings.

“TankMan” recommended that readers interested in hot peppers should check out Pepper Joe’s website, which sells seeds for, among scores of other fiery varieties, the Ghost Pepper, also known as Bhut Jolokia or Naga, and at 970,000 Scoville Units (11 on Pepper Joe’s 10-point scale) is billed as the “hottest pepper in the word.” To check out Pepper Joe’s, CLICK HERE.

Another reader recommended that anyone seriously interested in beans should check out the 11-page bean section of the Vermont Bean Seed Company catalog, which contains more than 40 additional pages covering other vegetables, herbs, fruits, and flowers. To check out Vermont Bean, CLICK HERE.

Notes: (1) You can order a print catalog through most of the catalog websites. (2) Mention of specific products, brands, or companies is not intended as an endorsement by the University of Maryland. (3) I do not receive consideration of any kind for mentioning products, brands, or companies in my postings. The seed catalogs I review are those of sellers from which I have previously bought seeds.

Seed Catalog: Johnny's Selected Seeds

2011-12-19T14:37:00.000-05:00

Johnny’s catalog is designed for two different types of food growers—backyard and commercial or market. Because of that, this catalog contains varieties and comments that you won’t find in most other catalogs. For example, in the “Greenhouse” subsection of eight pages of tomato seeds, you’ll see “Rebelski aka DRW 7749 (F1) … The Best greenhouse tomato for fresh market.”

Johnny’s 206-page catalog—which is perfect bound like a small book—contains a wealth of information that serious gardeners can mine to improve their wisdom and skills. Before each vegetable category appears a column labeled “Growing Information.” The one about tomatoes has 16 entries: determinate and indeterminate (definitions); growing seedlings; transplanting outdoors; fertilizer; diseases; blossom end rot; insect pests; harvest; storage; days to maturity; seeds to plants ratio; average planting rate, seed specs; packet (number of seeds); and germination chart showing optimum temperature range.

Scattered through the catalog are other charts—some of primary interest to market growers but containing all sorts of information that can give a backyard gardener perspective—and appreciation of the knowledge required to successfully produce vegetables sold at farmers’ markets or grocery stores. One page gives “Seasonal Salad Ideas for Your Markets.” Another page contains “Glossary of Terms,” “Life Cycle Codes,” “Vegetable Disease Codes,” and “Hardiness Zone Chart.”

The catalog also has large sections of herbs (20 pages) and flowers (36 pages). Johnny’s encourages commercial growers to diversify to meet the changing interests of buyers—and you’ll likely see the result when you check out offerings during your next visit to your local farmers’ market.

I’m utterly fascinated—as you can tell—by all the information in this catalog but even more so by its “Tools and Supplies” section. Many of the offerings are designed for commercial growers, such as a precision seeder that holds 7.3 quarts of pea, corn, or bean seeds. If you’re hankering for a broadfork, Johnny’s has three sizes for tilling and one for harvesting. I had never heard of broadforks until I saw them here.

Finally, I want to yell, “Bingo!” because one page lists four long-handled, high-quality weeding hoes: a 4-inch wire weeder, a 3¾-inch collinear hoe, a 5-inch trapezoid hoe with replaceable blade, and a 3¼-inch stirrup hoe. Hoe, hoe, hoe, hoe—maybe you should give a hint to someone you know who is dying to give you a super-special gift.

I’ve bought seeds from this company. Prices are reasonable: Celebrity Hybrid (40 seeds), $3.45; Juliet Hybrid (15), $3.45; Better Boy Hybrid, not available; Brandywine (40), $3.45; postage/handling, $7.25 on orders from $10.01 to $30. I also like the idea that it’s an employee-owned company.

If you wish to check out the online catalog, CLICK HERE.

And while you’re spying out Johnny’s website, check out the Video section. Want to see how to use a collinear hoe? Watch the video. Want to know how to use a row cover? Watch the video. The video list is long, but, hey, it’s winter and evenings are long.

Notes: (1) You can order a print catalog through most of the catalog websites. (2) Mention of specific products, brands, or companies is not intended as an endorsement by the University of Maryland. (3) I do not receive consideration of any kind for mentioning products, brands, or companies in my postings. The seed catalogs I review are those that have arrived in our mailbox unsolicited.

Seed Catalog: Totally Tomatoes

2011-12-18T09:33:00.000-05:00

When is “totally tomatoes” not “totally tomatoes”?

When Totally Tomatoes is a seed catalog. The company’s 60-page 2012 catalog has more than 30 pages of tomato seeds followed by nearly 15 pages of pepper seeds and more on other vegetables.

The hundreds of varieties of tomato seeds are divided into categories, such as giants, large hybrids, medium to large, rainbow, mountain (especially for the Southeast and mountain areas), open-pollinated and heirloom, and cherry. If I see a trend, it’s the addition of new, “short” varieties for container gardeners.

If you’re a new gardener, you should check out your tomato-growing knowledge at the catalog’s two-page how-to-do-it guide, “These Simple Steps Yield Totally Terrific Tomatoes,” which covers seeding, growing plants, hardening off, site preparation, transplanting, culture, disease and pests, container gardening, and preserving.

I have ordered seeds from this company for several years. Prices are reasonable (I plan to compare prices as I review catalogs): Celebrity Hybrid (30 seeds), $2.75; Juliet Hybrid (20), $2.45; Better Boy Hybrid (30), $2.45; Brandywine Pink (30), $2.10; postage/handling, $4.95 on orders less than $25.

If you wish to check out the online catalog, CLICK HERE.

Notes: (1) You can order a print catalog through most of the catalog websites. (2) Mention of specific products, brands, or companies is not intended as an endorsement by the University of Maryland. (3) I do not receive consideration of any kind for mentioning products, brands, or companies in my postings. The seed catalogs I review are those that have arrived in our mailbox unsolicited.

Deer Country: What’s Blooming Mid-December?

2011-12-15T21:29:00.001-05:00

Heather, the perfect winter flower for Deer Country

Yes, it’s mid-December, we’ve had multiple killing frosts, so our gardens must be dormant—right?
Wrong! When I walk around our gardens doing winter chores—mostly cleanup and preparation for the next growing year—I see lots of flowers here and a few there.

The “lots of flowers here” is our heather shrub (Erica spp.), after six years about two feet high and five feet across. Deer don’t browse this tough shrub, which is why it’s in our front yard and unprotected by wire cage or a deer-repellent spray. The heather started blooming in mid-November and will bloom through the winter and into May. How nice to pause and admire delicate pink flowers while I’m shoveling snow.

Moss phlox in its cage

Just a few feet from the heather are two kinds of pink blooms—several on moss phlox (Phlox subulata) protected by the wire tent I described in an earlier posting—and a lone dianthus (Dianthus spp.) blossom. Across the sidewalk, a red Knockout rose (Rosa arbustiva ‘Double Knock Out’) sways gently in the December breeze above its wire cage. How many more hard frosts can these three survive?

Just around the corner of the garage, a forsythia (Forsythia x intermedia)—probably encouraged by the extra warm fall—sports 10 or so flowers. A week ago there were more than 20 flowers, so frosty nights are taking a toll.

Dianthus

And about midway between the forsythia and the heather, a weed, common groundsel (Senecio vulgaris), snubs frosty temperatures with green leaves and yellow flowers. My “weed book,” Weeds of the Northeast (by Uva, Neal, & DiTomaso), warns that groundsel “contains pyrrolizidine alkaloids that cause liver damage in horses and cattle. Small herbivores, such as sheep, rabbits, and goats are resistant to the toxic effect….”

And humans? I’m not about to experiment, and perhaps there’s a reason the bambits haven’t sampled the groundsel.

In addition to groundsel’s toxicity, there’s another reason I must trash this flowering weed. The weed book notes that “open flowers can develop fully mature seed after plants have been killed by cultivation or herbicides.” Whoa! Groundsel certainly rates a plastic bag in this gardener’s trash can.

Knockout rose

As days become short, shorter, and shortest in December, I tend to stay indoors more and overlook what’s happening in our garden. But when I go outside and take a minute to look around, I usually can find some flourishing plant—perhaps even a bloom—to add a positive note to a frigid day.

Forsythia

Groundsel

Deer Country: Don’t Cut Back Perennials?

2011-12-12T16:56:00.000-05:00

My surprise--a browsed lychnis plant

I took my pruners to one of our perennial beds to cut back the dead flower stalks of our rose campion (Lychnis spp.) and discovered something that convinced me to put my pruners away.

One of the younger lychnis plants had been deer browsed. That was significant here at Meadow Glenn because I’ve never seen a browsed lychnis plant in the four years they’ve been growing in that bed. Photo 1 clearly shows the browsed leaves—some with tough fibers still attesting to a tough, fuzzy meal attempted by a deer.

Just a foot way another lychnis plant lay unbrowsed under a protective umbrella of dead stalks (Photo 2).

Unbrowsed lychnis protected by dead stalks

Eureka—a thought! Perhaps deer are as energetic as I am and take the easy way out if they have a choice. Exposed leaves: browse. Protected leaves: pass by.

I looked around. Not far way was a Shasta daisy with tall but dead stalks. Still-green leaves of the plant hugged the ground. A couple of the outer, unprotected leaves had been browsed—but the leaves protected by the stalks were untouched.

Put the pruners away until late winter, Bob. Let the dead stalks help protect the plants over winter. Sounds like a good plan to me.

And there are other reasons not to cut back dead perennial seed stalks. Seed-eating birds—chipping sparrows and song sparrows, for example—check them out for winter food, and the stalks add character to gardenscapes when frosted or coated with ice or snow.

Seed stalks add winter character

Ah, yes, these are excellent reasons to put away my pruners until some sunny, pre-spring day in February. Meanwhile, back at my lounger….

Tomato Patch: Tomato Plants for Holiday Decorating

2011-12-09T09:40:00.001-05:00

Ready for your mantle?

Veggie growers will have to admit the University of New Hampshire has come up with a brilliant idea: Tomato plants as holiday decorations and gifts.

This tomato grower is smiling from ear to ear, and beyond, after reading today’s Associated Press story about the university’s experiment with dwarf tomato plants—deep green leaves and bright red fruit—for Christmas decorating and gift giving.

The idea has gotten rave reviews from people who’ve checked out the plants.

What fun! Just walk over to the holiday plant on the mantle, pluck a juicy fruit, and munch away. Can’t do that with the decorations on a Christmas tree!

Or a pot of this?

What next—pots of rhubarb chard?

Hoe, hoe, hoe.

Smile.

To read more—including the names of tomato varieties used in the experiment—CLICK HERE.

Cutting Lettuce in December

2011-12-08T13:47:00.001-05:00

Simpsons Curled (left) and Red Sails lettuce
cut December 2

We’ve had many hard frosts during the last few weeks. One morning the temperature was 27°F at dawn. Many mornings our lawn is frosty white. What am I harvesting from the outdoor freezer?

“Bob, we’re out of lettuce. Do you still have some in the garden?” Ellen recently asked.

I went to the garden and brought in the last of the lettuce I had planted in September in the experimental greenhouse or lettuce box—the one I called a “greenhouseperhaps” in an earlier posting—a bright-green Simpsons Curled plant and a Red Sails. After I washed both lettuces, I stored them in a large plastic bag in our refrigerator between sandwiches and salads.

Red Sails seedlings in "greenhouseperhaps"
in early December

We’ve had such a warm fall that in early November I removed the box from around the lettuce and moved it to another location to protect three just-sprouted Red Sails plants, which continue to grow slowly. This is a first-time experiment to see how long lettuce can continue growing as late-fall temperatures work their way down the thermometer. Will some super-cold night soon kill the young plants? Or will I pick lettuce at Christmas or New Year’s—or beyond?

What have I learned so far from this experiment?

First, with a little thought and care, I can pick lettuce—often called a “cool weather” vegetable—during most of the year if I plant small, successive crops every two to four weeks. If I plant seeds in mid-March, I can begin picking small leaves as I thin the plants in April. From May through November I can pick beautiful, mature plants. Photo 1 shows the two beauties I picked even later, on December 2.

Second, my small greenhouse experiment quickly taught me that “short” lettuce will grow best in the box’s limited height. Simpsons Curled and Red Sails top out at a foot or more, taller than the box. When their leaves touch the top (lid) of the box, where moisture collects and freezes on frosty nights, ice crystals sometimes encase and damage the tallest lettuce leaves. This winter I must buy a packet of seeds of some “short” head or leaf lettuce that will grow in the box without pressing against the icy top.

Third, the “greenhouseperhaps” is small, so the number of plants that can grow without overcrowding is limited. For my first crop I transplanted 10 times too many plants and seeds in the box—a row of Simpsons Curled plants and a row of Red Sails seeds. Within a few weeks the Simpsons Curled covered the Red Sails sprouts, which suffered in the deep shade. My second attempt (Photo 2) has just three Red Sails seedlings, which I started in our sunroom in yoghurt cups and then transplanted.

Will I pick lettuce at year end—or even in early 2012? I’ll let you know what happens as increasingly cold weather impacts on the three Red Sails lettuce plants growing in the mini-greenhouse.

Deer Country: New Fort Guards Our Viburnums

2011-12-05T21:27:00.001-05:00

Strike 1: Wire cage was too small & deer
browsed every leaf that grew through the grid

Several years ago I built a protective cage of iron stakes and plastic deer fencing around four viburnums, two Blue Muffin arrowwood (V. dentatum) and two Cardinal Candy (V. dilatatum), after our local deer had heavily browsed them three times in one growing year. The heavy browsing was taking its toll, and I feared the shrubs would die.

The new cage worked for a year or two, but late last year a deer discovered that if she leaned against the plastic fencing, it would give, and if she leaned far enough, the iron stakes would bend at ground level and she would have access to browse the two closest shrubs, the arrowwoods. This year deer further collapsed the plastic fencing, entered the cage, and heavily browsed all four shrubs.

Last week I created Fort Viburnum around the four shrubs. I used 5’ iron stakes every four feet and attached 3”x2”, 16 gauge, 36” galvanized wire fencing that advised on the label, “Ideal for garden enclosures.” The final cage is about 20 feet long and stands about four feet from the center of the shrubs. The fencing tops out at 4 feet, with a 1-foot gap between the ground and the bottom of the fencing.

Strike 2: Deer leaned into
plastic fencing and collapse the whole fence

I haven’t the slightest doubt the “ideal for garden enclosures” fencing will keep the viburnums in, but will it keep the deer out and permit our shrubs to flourish?

Most mature deer could stand by a 48” fence and with ease gracefully jump over, but I’m counting on several factors that deer-management books and magazine articles often mention.

First, the “cage” at most is about eight feet wide, and deer often seem reluctant to enter small spaces in which easy exit may be uncertain.

Second, I’ve laid 6”x18” red patio blocks all the way around the cage to add another uncertain element to inquisitive deer. The blocks also will help keep mulch inside the cage and create a distinct border that will speed lawn mowing. I also hope the blocks will discourage deer from trying to slip under the fence.

Third, I’m not going to let other plants, other than an older red maple tree, grow inside the fort and tempt the deer to find a way inside. I’ll keep it mulched but will not add or permit any “deer candy”--hostas or tulips or local weed favorites such as poke, violets, and white clover.

Will the new Fort Viburnum's iron stakes & wire fencing
be Strike 3?

Of course, some buck next fall may decide to use the iron stakes to rub velvet off his antlers or to polish them—as a buck did a month ago with several stakes of nearby Fort Kevin, which protects our redosier dogwoods.

After I originally planted the viburnums and they were heavily browsed and rubbed, I built small wire cages around each of the plants. That was Strike One because deer nibbled every leaf that grew through the wire. Strike Two was the cage that I just replaced—iron stakes with plastic deer fencing, which the deer ultimately pushed over and then entered to browse. If deer do breech Fort Viburnum, I’ll consider that Strike Three and most likely abandon the shrubs to the bambits.

Over five years the cost of the materials for the three kinds of cages I’ve built to protect the viburnums probably exceeds the cost of the shrubs. Another cost that I must consider is that of “age.” I’m five years older than when I first started making cages to protect these plants from the deer, and each year it’s harder for me to drive in iron stakes, unroll and cut and install wire, and handle patio blocks, which each year seem to weigh heavier. Oh, my Aching Back!

So, bambits—and that includes the 11 that watched as I built the new cage—have mercy on our four viburnums and the Ancient Gardener. Gaze and browse outside Fort Viburnum, not inside.

To see how a buck damaged iron stakes of Fort Kevin, CLICK HERE.

Deer Country: Deer of a Feather…

2011-12-05T16:43:00.001-05:00

Her snack...

Beth, a Howard County Master Gardener, puts out sunflower seeds for the birds—and a few neighborhood deer that dine on the high-quality seeds.

His snack...

“I buy black-oil sunflower seeds in 50-pound bags and we go through one in two to three weeks. I also have a feeder with thistle seed and had one with suet, until it fell last winter and disappeared. I put sunflower seeds in the feeder in the photo plus two other feeders and in a pile on a stump in the adjacent woods, which is part of a tree conservation area we share with our neighbors. It hosts many animals and I'm happy to feed them seeds. I just wish they would stay away from the stuff I plant.”

Yes, Beth, that’s the joy of living in Deer Country, where deer love to eat things we plant.

“In any case, I've not put much thought into deterring anyone as everyone has to eat.” Beth continued. “My only solution for keeping the deer out of the feeder is not to fill it completely as we would be broke from how much seed we would go through! Instead, I get the camera out and shoot them.”

Their snack...

“This summer three does and four fawns came by occasionally. I've seen them more often in the late summer and early fall, maybe as often as three or four times a week. I imagine as their food sources get leaner, I'll see them more often. Last winter I believe they even ate the sunflower shells they were so hungry.”

Thank you, Beth, for shooting your deer with your Canon (camera)—and sharing the photographs with Deer Country.

Thank you, Beth

Sherlock Gardener: Case of the Hollow Turnips

2011-12-03T19:59:00.001-05:00

First discovery: Hollow turnip

How disappointing! The leaves of my fall crop of Golden Globe turnips (Burpee Organic) were nearly picture perfect, but when I pulled some before Thanksgiving, they had underdeveloped roots. When I cut off the stems and the tips of their taproots, I made an unusual discovery: The turnips were hollow.

What gives? Bad lot of seeds? Wacky growth because of our extra foot of rain this year? Insect damage?

I searched the Internet for information about “hollow turnips” and didn’t find much. Several sites talked about a variety of pests that attack turnip leaves or roots from the outside—but I found no descriptions or photographs of huge cavities caused by disease or pests. Several sites mentioned that turnips and rutabagas sometimes have hollows because of a boron deficiency of the soil, a problem often linked to repeated turnip crops in the same area, but that wasn’t the case here.

It was time for some expert consultation. I fired off email queries to Burpee and to the Maryland University Extension Home & Garden Information Center.

My second investigation

HGIC replied first: The hollowed turnips might be caused by a boron deficiency, and I might want to water down next year’s turnip patch with a weak boron solution, but there are other possible environmental factors….

Burpee also replied quickly. Yes, boron deficiency is a possibility, but….

On Tuesday a downpour short-circuited my landscaping project, and I decided to pull more turnips and to look more closely at the problem. I pulled four. Three were underdeveloped and hollow. The fourth was almost a perfect three-inch globe.

I shook most of the soil off the four turnips, cleaned them a bit more by rolling them in puddles on our driveway asphalt, and took them to our kitchen sink, where I cut them open while giving them a final rinse.

Hey, what was that washing into the In-Sink-Erator—a piece of mulch—or a small slug? Unfortunately I didn’t react in time to grab and examine whatever it was. After taking photos of the hollow turnips, I again searched for anything online about slugs stunting and hollowing out turnips—and found nothing, even in sites from Great Britain and New Zealand, apparently slug capitals of the world because of their slug-friendly climates.

I fired off an update to HGIC with my suspicion that slugs might be the culprits, noting that in the most recent photo, which shows the three hollow turnips with their tops up in the picture, there’s sort of an entry way from the top of the turnip into the root cavity.

Traffic report: Sluggish, just inching along

Having second thoughts about a slug in our kitchen sink, I went to the kitchen to clean up a bit more. When I lifted the sink mat—there it was—a living, crawling slug. The next morning I found a second inch-long slug crawling up the side of the sink, apparently after overnighting in the In-Sink-Erator.

Mystery solved—in my opinion. Newly hatched slugs most likely ate their way from the crowns of the plants into the roots and hollowed them as they dined on the softer flesh. Maryland slugs must be super smart if they can find such nearly perfect places—inside my turnips—to live, eat, and grow.
Hindsight says I shouldn’t be surprised. I planted the turnips next to river-stone mulch along the side of our detached garage and just across the sidewalk from a large bed of sedums—both excellent slug habitats.

Next morning: Slug 2

If your turnip crop yields stunted, hollow turnips, consider the possibilities—unusual weather—a soil deficiency—insect predators—but don’t overlook the possibility that slugs have found and adopted your turnip roots as near perfect places to live. And remember to remove all slugs from the kitchen sink before U-Know-Who sees them.

If I plant turnips next year, I plan to locate them far from favored slug habitats and, for good measure, occasionally sprinkle iron sulfate slug-bait pellets, such as “Slug Magic,” “Sluggo,” and “Escar-Go!,” in the turnip patch.

Deer Country: Deer Cull Controversy

2011-12-01T21:04:00.001-05:00

Want a good discussion topic to upset your neighbors? Tired of politics or religion? Try the subject of culling neighborhood deer by shooting them.

Today’s Washington Post has an eye-grabbing photo of a stunning white-tail buck jumping a fence over this headline: “Residents divided over deer cull: The USDA plans to thin herd in bayside Maryland community,” by Avis Thomas-Lester.

Residents in Bay Ridge, Maryland, near Annapolis, are confronting “roving deer that devour vegetation and wreak havoc” in their local woods and their civic association’s decision to cull the herd, which is approximately twice the size the local forest can support.

You should read the article because it outlines the basic arguments the two sides of the “kill/don’t kill” controversy.

To read Thomas-Lester’s article, or just to sneak a peek at the fantastic photograph of the buck jumping the fence, CLICK HERE.

Winter Crop That Never Fails

2011-11-27T20:15:00.001-05:00

Rutabagas ... eaten

Thanksgiving guests have long since departed. We’ve just about liberated all leftovers from our refrigerator. It’s now time to turn my attention to our vegetable garden.

Not much that I planted remains to harvest. I pulled the last of our rutabagas for a simple Thanksgiving side dish—boiled rutabaga mashed with butter and a little salt. I didn’t have an answer when a guest asked, “Why are your rutabagas so good when the ones I buy at the store are so strong and even bitter?” I guess I could have answered, “Well, I grew them 20 feet from our kitchen door and pulled them an hour before I cooked them.”

I do have a short row or two of Cylindra beets to pull for another early-winter treat. I’ll simply boil them and anoint them with a pat or two of butter. Late-season Red Sails lettuce continues to grow in my “Cheap Greenhouse”—the experiment I’ll report on when this warm fall turns into frigid winter. Drum roll … How long will the lettuce plants grow before they surrender to the cold?

Winter weeds ... flourishing

Yes, a few vegetables that I planted still are growing. But other plants that I don’t want are growing larger every day, seemingly doubling in size when the temperatures zip into the 50s and 60s. Those plants are winter weeds.

Every garden likely has some winter weeds that sprout in late fall and grow rapidly during warm fall and winter days. I used to ignore them and turn them under on sunny February days, but some, especially chickweed, would be so thick and tangled that it was easier to roll them up like green rugs and toss them over the back fence.

But I’ve found a better way to control winter weeds. From Thanksgiving until garden soil freezes solid and when I have 15 minutes or a half hour on a sunny day, I take my weeding hoe and make mayhem on winter weeds. I decapitate them just below soil level, roll most of the soil off any roots with backstrokes of my hoe, and hope the sun dries the roots and kills the weeds.

Weeding hoe ... to the rescue

I don’t stoop and pull weeds, generally, because that gives me an Aching Back. My goal isn’t a garden without a visible weed. I hoe the biggest weeds first, especially those that are blooming—and if I miss some, I attack them the next time I hoe.

So my small, hillside veggie plots are not weed free, though some are nearly so. And each week that passes more will be browner and less green. When the sun begins to warm in February and the topsoil thaws a bit, I’ll be out there, a few minutes now and then, with my hoe.

This short, periodic hoeing helps me keep weeds under control. I no longer have to stoop and roll green mats in early spring or struggle to turn the mats under with a shovel. My Aching Back aches less, and if a few weeds still grow in March, I’ll turn them under with my shovel.

Now that you’re rested up from your Thanksgiving extravaganza, move your weeding hoe from your shed to your garage. On the next sunny day put on a light jacket or an extra shirt and grab your hoe and do a little winter weeding. Take a few deep breaths of the cool, crisp air, and hoe, hoe, hoe.

And while you’re working, think through your plans for Veggie Garden 2012—what you might plant and where. Perhaps you’ll even smile and plan the perfect answer when someone asks you what you’d really like for a holiday gift: “Well, I’d really like a high-quality, narrow-bladed weeding hoe.” That would be so much better than another necktie or box of chocolates, now wouldn’t it?

Hoe, hoe, hoe.

Extra: To read Patterson Clark’s “Urban Jungle” feature, “Wrestling with winter’s weeds,” in the Washington Post (Nov. 22), CLICK HERE.

Deer Country: Counting Our Bambit Blessings

2011-11-25T21:19:00.001-05:00

Three deer...

As Ellen and I put the finishing touches on the post-Thanksgiving cleanup on Friday, I glanced out the sunroom windows and noticed several groups of deer. To get an accurate count, I went outside and walked around the house. A herd of 19 grazed in the field to our south. Smaller groups grazed to the west and north—a total of 26. All were does and young.

But White Flag—the doe with the damaged tail that always stands straight up—and her two fawns weren’t there. Neither were the bucks—Big Buck 2011, the medium twin bucks, the small twin bucks, or the disabled young buck with the shattered front-right knee. Alas, if all the bambits were in sight I would have counted at least 35—a record number here at Meadow Glenn.

Six deer...

As I walked about slowly and took photographs, many of the deer just stood and watched and perked-up their ears, especially when I made a “kissing” noise with my lips. Their perky ears are the equivalent, perhaps, to the smiles we humans make when a photographer instructs, “Say cheese.”

With so many deer browsing 24/7 in our neighborhood, when snow and ice cover much of their wintertime food supply this winter, will hunger urge them to break through the cages of iron stakes and welded wire I’ve installed and to browse the buds that would be next spring’s leaves and flowers?

Nineteen deer

Some long-range forecasts say winter will be “about average.” Perhaps our deer will have sufficient food without our azaleas and viburnums. But perhaps we’ll have a hard winter and lots of deer-damaged shrubs and trees.

I'm hoping for a “good” winter during which our beautiful bambits will find enough food outside our landscape to satisfy their hunger. When I walk about and take their pictures, I consider them a blessing. But when I see browsed shrubs and trees in the spring, I have other thoughts.

I'm Thankful He Lifted Me over the Fence

2011-11-22T21:08:00.001-05:00

Is a child watching?

“What do you think they are?” asked Mr. Rau as he lifted me high enough to peer into his rain barrel. I must have been five or six years old, and Mr. Rau was our next-door neighbor on Main Street, Alloway, New Jersey.

My eyes focused on several living and moving things just below the waterline in the oak barrel. I had no idea what they were.

“They’re mosquito larvae,” Mr. Rau explained.

That encounter took place at least 65 years ago. Mr. and Mrs. Rau—I never would have thought to call them Carl and Mary—welcomed my daily visits. At first Mr. Rau lifted me over the fence that separated our yards. Later I learned how to climb over myself. Mr. Rau called me “Farmer.”

“Yes, sir, you’ll always be Farmer Nixon,” Mr. Rau chucked as he puffed on his pipe years later when I visited as an adult. “Mrs. Rau and I had a good laugh when we looked out the kitchen window one January day and saw you planting seeds. You were having a tough time with your gloves on, your thick Mackinow coat, your hat, the packet of seeds, and a trowel. But the next summer that bed produced the best crop of zinnias we’d ever seen..”

I’m sure I had zero skills for growing great zinnias. In fact, as I recall those early years, I realize I was the learner and Mr. Rau taught me important principles of good gardening just by practicing them and letting me watch and help.

Mr. Rau’s rain barrel: The rain barrel sat at the corner of the Rau home closest to their large garden. The rotund oak barrel sat on several bricks, and Mr. Rau bored an overflow hole near the top and built a wooden top with handle. He painted the exterior white to match their house but hadn’t thought of installing a screen at the top to keep out the infamous Jersey ‘skeeters or a spigot near the bottom. Rain water Mr. Rau used from the barrel meant he didn’t have to pump water from his well.

Mr. Rau’s drip irrigation system: Mr. Rau would be fascinated by today’s simple and inexpensive drip irrigation systems, but he made do with the simple materials he had at hand. I used to watch him dig-in clay flower pots between his tomato plants and fill them with buckets of water from the rain barrel during summer droughts. Today I place five-gallon plastic buckets with holes drilled in the bottoms in my Tomato Patch.

Mr. Rau’s pole limas: In post-World War II years when nearly every backyard in Alloway still contained a vegetable garden, Mr. Rau often commented that other gardeners—especially Mr. Bowling just a few houses closer to the center of town—were trying to see who would grow the best pole lima beans.

Beans are beans, I suppose, to most modern shoppers, but pole limas were the prized vegetable in South Jersey gardens in those days. They’re notoriously temperamental. If the weather is too wet or cold, the seeds may rot before sprouting. And when they grow, sometimes they produce a huge harvest—and sometimes little or none.

I used to watch Mr. Rau set up his two rows of bean poles in late spring. He used a heavy, pointed steel bar to make holes every four feet for the cedar poles that were all approximately the same size. He’d plant hills of lima seeds around each pole. Then he’d string binder twine across the tops of the poles and in huge Xs between them. As the plants grew, he’d guide them along the twine.

Growing limas took lots of work, time, patience, and good weather, but near the end of the growing season the rewards were mouth watering, a “mess of limer beans,” as a visitor from New York City once joked, or one of the signature dishes of South Jersey cookery, lima bean potpie. Lima bean potpie also was work intensive, but I’ll not detour there.

Planting onion sets: One early-spring day I watched over the fence as Mr. Rau worked in his khaki shirt and pants in his garden in early spring. I climbed over for a closer look.

“What are you doing, Mr. Rau?”

“Planting onions, Farmer.”

“Can I help?”

“Do you know how to plant onions?”

“No.”

“Well, watch what I do. First, take a set from the paper bag. … Put the round end down in the row I’ve made with the hoe. … Put the next set down about here. …”

Mr. Rau took my small left hand and placed it between the two sets he had placed in the row.
“See,” he said, “that’s how you do it—one set every five fingers.”

I must have finished planting the onions in a reasonably acceptable way because Mr. Rau didn’t redo them before he carefully hoed soil up around them. When he had finished, he said, “Here, Farmer,” and placed a dime into my dusty hand.

I can’t recall whether I climbed over or flew over the fence on my way home, but I remember yelling as I ran into the house, “Mom! Look! A dime! Mr. Rau gave me a dime!” Ten cents then was enough to buy two huge single-dip ice-cream cones at Ewen’s General Store or Dunham’s Market, the two small groceries at town center.

Thank you, Carl G. Rau, 1893-1971, for lifting me over the fence and letting me learn by helping in your garden.

Is a child watching as you work in your garden? Lift him or her over the fence into the fascinating world of gardening.

Deer Country: Protective Cages for Shrubs

2011-11-20T19:45:00.001-05:00

New PVC/netting cage for azalea

I planted three azaleas more than 10 years ago. The two I protected from deer browsing with iron stakes and wire fencing are about six feet tall and each spring are covered with lavender flowers. Because of deer browsing the flower buds in late winter, the unprotected plant is about 18 inches tall and each spring has few flowers. When I recently saw a doe nibbling on the short azalea’s “backside”—the side from which the deer usually approach during the day—I decided it was time to build a protective cage.

Photo 1 shows the new cage, which I built from three 10-foot, 1½-inch PVC pipes, four 90° elbow joints, and one T-joint. Since the azalea I want to protect is about 18 inches tall in most places but sprawls about four feet, I cut two 5-foot pieces from one of the pipes for the horizontal supports (the tops). For the vertical supports (or legs), I cut five equal pieces (3 feet, 4 inches each) from the two remaining pipes, leaving a sixth piece for a future project. The longer legs will give the plant room to grow.

Deer discovers new cage

I assembled this slightly more complicated structure basically the same way as I did the shorter structure I described in an earlier posting. I used the elbow-joints to connect the ends of the tops to the legs. I cut one top in half and joined the two pieces with the T-joint, with the fifth leg underneath. I installed the 3-leg piece below the 2-leg piece to support help support both pieces and tied everything together with nylon string. I hammered a 36-inch garden stake into the ground to help keep each leg in place. I then wrapped the cage in deer netting, hoping that it will be sufficient to deter wintertime browsing. If that doesn’t work, next winter I’ll add 2”x3” welded wire, which I used for the shorter cage.

Does the new cage work? Photos 2 and 3 show a deer discovering the new arrival—the cage—around the azalea. I happened to glance out a front window and saw deer moving toward our flower beds as they grazed. I grabbed my camera and watched with a smile as one deer noticed the new structure. The deer first surveyed the new cage from behind a Russian sage—looking intensely, sniffing, focusing its ears, like “radars,” on the contraption. It took a few additional, cautious steps toward the cage, again looking, sniffing, listening.

Deer trying to figure out new cage

Oh how I wished the cage could have shouted, “Boo!” But that wasn’t necessary, because after a few seconds, the curious deer turned and ran to rejoin the nearby, grazing herd.

Photo 4 shows a simpler cage I made for a miniature azalea that a friend gave us when my mother died a few years ago. It has been a late-winter favorite of browsing deer, so each fall I encircle it with fencing that sits on the mulch and is anchored by four garden stakes. For three winters it’s worked well, and each spring the small azalea has more pink flowers.

If deer browse your flowering shrubs, be creative. Protect them some way. The buds you save this winter will be next spring’s flowers.

Simpler cage for smaller azalea

To go to my earlier posting about the shorter PVC/wire cage that protects our moss phlox, CLICK HERE.

Washington Post Gardening Articles

2011-11-19T21:31:00.001-05:00

Buried treasure?

Here are links to five recent Washington Post articles on a variety of gardening and related subjects—winter vegetables, trees with good fall colors, plants for dry shade, Osage orange tree, and snowbirds:

Barbara Damrosch, “A Cook’s Garden” columnist, on “What on earth? Winter’s buried treasure”—“earth vegetables,” as she calls them, that make good winter food and can be stored in the ground, in a root cellar, or even “a garbage can or large picnic cooler sunk into the ground.” CLICK HERE.

Like a rainbow?

Adrian Higgins, “Gardening” columnist, on “Like a rainbow, so colorful and brief”—trees that have beautiful colors in the fall. CLICK HERE.

Adrian Higgins on “Beating the beast of dry shade”—with suggestions about perennials to plant in dry shade, such as under the sprawling branches of your maple tree. CLICK HERE.

Patterson Clark, “Urban Jungle” columnist, on “Rebound from the brink”—about the Osage orange tree, which your granddad may have planted as a hedgerow because it grows “horse high, bull strong and pig tight.” CLICK HERE.

Patterson Clark on “For snowbirds, it’s ‘ladies first’—about dark-eyed juncos, which probably are exploring possibilities for a snack at your under your feeder as you read this. CLICK HERE.

Deer Country: PVC & Fencing Tent Protects Small Plants

2011-11-16T21:04:00.001-05:00

Before: Deer browse moss phlox

I didn’t want to believe what I was seeing—two fawns standing in our bed of moss phlox (Phlox subulata) and chowing down on the greenery. I couldn’t believe it because for about 10 years deer had mostly ignored the stringy, semi-prickly phlox. Occasionally I’d found a stem or two that deer had pulled—and then promptly spit out.

What could I do, now that two beautiful specimens of the next deer generation had decided moss phlox belongs on their “favorite,” not “resistant,” list?

First attempt: My earlier experiments with local deer management taught me that a soft answer—deer netting, for example—would not deter the browsing if I merely covered the phlox. The deer would just step on the soft netting and browse accessible leaves and stems. I had read several recommendations, though, that deer will avoid a sheet of welded wire fencing laid on the ground, so I went to the Shop and returned with a six-foot length of 2”x3” welded wire fencing—the green, plastic-coated kind you’ve probably used—and laid it over the small bed of phlox.

First failure: The next morning I had to search for the sheet of fencing. I found it, rumpled, about 10 feet from the phlox in another perennial bed. I imagine a deer had walked on it and in surprise carried it to the iris bed. Hindsight said that a panicked deer with loose wire fencing wrapped around a leg or two wasn’t the way I want to interact with our local bambits.

Second attempt: If loose fencing doesn’t work, how about something more stationary, more resistant to hungry deer? How about a “cage” made of the wire fencing but securely tied to a simple structure made of PVC pipe?

After: Deer inspects new cage

In the “After” photo you can see the structure I designed from one 10-foot, 1½ inch, PVC pipe, two 90° elbow joints, and one T-joint. I cut the pipe into two 3½-feet pieces and three one-foot pieces and pressed the pieces together with the T-joint between the two long pieces, the two elbows at the ends of the long pieces, and the three short pieces serving as supports or legs. Total cost of the PVC pieces at Home Depot: less than $5.30, including sales tax.

To help support the structure, I cut an old 48-inch garden stake (plastic covered aluminum) in half and hammered them into the ground to support the two end legs of the PVC structure. After I installed the structure over the two stakes, I shaped the fencing over the support like a pup tent and tied it securely to the PVC support with nylon string. I had used both the stake and the fencing for earlier projects, so I add no cost for them to the project.

Lunch of phlox is
out of the question, at least
for now

Does the contraption work? The third photo shows the answer. The moss phlox is in the cage and not the bambit’s belly. I’ve watched several times from a window just 10 feet away as a deer has tried to work its nose under the fencing to grab a bite of phlox. So far the simple structure has resisted sufficiently to encourage the deer to move on to easier browsing.

Score: Bob 1, Bambits 0. That’s the exciting news from Deer Country, where plants are caged and deer run free.

If you’re thinking of creating a similar cage, continue reading for a couple of additional points that I’ve learned from building projects from PVC pipe:

(1) PVC pipe comes with a full-length strip of black printing giving manufacturing details. When I put the structure together, I position the printed strips so we don’t see them—downward on horizontal pieces and away from the most common view on vertical parts.

(2) I don’t glue the joints, which makes it easy for me to take the structure apart with a few twists or a few whacks with a rubber mallet if I want to store the structure over summer, when deer aren’t browsing heavily in our perennial beds, or until I want to use the pieces for another project.

(3) Tinker Toy 101 is the perfect training for PVC 101. If you ever played with Tinker Toys, you should find it easy, maybe even fun, to make a simple PVC cage to protect your plants.

Deer Country: Should I Surrender?

2011-11-15T18:45:00.001-05:00

The Leaning Deer Fence of Meadow Glenn

Grandson Kevin helped me build a barricade of iron fence posts and 2”x3” welded wire fencing around our redosier dogwoods (Cornus sericea) nearly two years ago to protect them from local deer that have placed them high on their browsing lists. Fort Kevin worked well—until last night.

When I drove down our driveway this morning after a visit to the fitness room at the Howard County Community Center in Glenwood, I was shocked to see the six iron fence posts bent nearly 45° at ground level and decorated with crumpled fencing that had been nearly ripped off the posts.

“I can’t believe this,” I said to myself. “Why now? The dogwood shrubs have dropped their leaves. There’s nothing there for deer to eat.”

Two bent posts with crumpled wire between

Closer inspection of the closest dogwood branches revealed no evidence of browsing at the ends of the red twigs, so I concluded that browsing wasn’t involved. The most likely cause: A buck, perhaps Big Buck 2011, decided to use the posts to polish his antlers—crumpling the in-the-way wire in the process. A less likely cause: A deer decided to show this Ancient Gardener who’s really in change of the landscape at Meadow Glenn after the sun sets.

Is it time for me to surrender to our herd of bambits?

Of course not. I’ve already straightened the bent posts as much as I could and tried to rearrange the wire a bit, and I've put "Rebuild dogwood age" on my mental list of jobs to do before next spring.

Deer Country: Big Buck 2011

2011-11-13T19:07:00.001-05:00

Big Buck 2011

Big Buck 2011 must be getting used to me, because late this afternoon he came out of hiding an hour or so earlier than usual, relaxed a bit while he was grazing near a group of eight does and half-grown fawns, and let me take some photographs while we were just about 150 feet apart at times.

Most of the photographs I take of deer are of does and fawns, which seem to tolerate my presence as long as I don’t make abrupt moves or walk directly toward them. Young, antlered bucks seem to become more leery by the month and soon move on when I begin picture taking.

Big Buck 2011

Big Bucks, however, seem to know how to make it difficult for me to take their photos. They seldom appear in “good light,” appearing usually in the evening twilight. They usually keep a greater distance between them and the guy with the little black box on his face. And some years they just don’t appear.

I’ve seen Big Buck 2011 several times during the last several weeks. I’ve seen him in the evening at twilight on the crest of the hill to our north and on the lower level at the bottom of our hill to the west. The first time it was too dark to photograph, and the second time he disappeared in the second or two it took me to look at my camera and turn it on.

Big Buck 2011

But Big Buck 2011 came out this afternoon about 4:00 and browsed in our neighbor’s field in the distant company of eight does and fawns. I say “distant” because when he eats, he permits no other deer to graze within 25 feet. If another deer doesn’t respect Big Buck’s grazing territory, he lowers his head and charges, and the offending deer flees to a safe distance and resumes grazing there.

I watched Big Buck 2011 for about a half hour, and as he grazed he gradually worked his way onto our property and among some of the native trees I had planted as part of the Howard County Stream ReLeaf Program at the bottom of our hill and along the stream.

Oh, no! He's rubbing a dogwood tree!

Then Big Buck 2011 did something I thought I’d never witness—let along get a picture of. He looked over several of our young trees and headed for a leafless flowering dogwood (Cornus florida) that I had just uncaged last week. Even though the dogwood’s inch-and-a-half trunk still was surrounded with a two-foot tall protective collar of hardware cloth, Big Buck lowered his head and ….

“No! No!” I wanted to shout. “Don’t rub your antlers on my dogwood! You’ll kill it!”

But I didn’t shout. I was too busy taking the picture. I’m hoping the hardware cloth gave the young tree some protection. I think it did because Big Buck rubbed his right antler once or twice and began grazing again.

Big Buck 2008

Not every year do I declare I’ve seen Big Buck. The last photo with this posting is of Big Buck 2008—the most magnificent Big Buck I’ve seen here at Meadow Glenn, Clarksville, Howard County, Maryland. He visited for a few minutes one evening when it was so dark I had to prop my digital camera on our gate post to be able to get a photo.

I think Big Buck 2011 is a prime specimen, but I don’t think he quite measures up to Big Buck 2008. What do you think?

P.S. When I mentioned I had recently “uncaged” the young dogwood tree, I meant that I had removed the iron stakes and welded-wire fencing that for two years had protected the young tree from deer browsing and rubbing. The tree—a younger dogwood—in front of Big Buck in the photo still is “caged.” To read my earlier posting (January 23, 2011) on “caging,” CLICK HERE.

Up Go the Bird Feeders

2011-11-03T19:05:00.001-04:00

From left, nyjer, sunflower seed, suet feeders

Today I enjoyed a beautiful autumn day by doing one of my favorite fall chores—putting up our bird feeders. In recent years I’ve tried to hang them by mid-November, but today’s sunny skies and 60°F. temperature beckoned me to “get out the feeders” now.

The left feeder has nyjer seed, commonly called “thistle,” especially for goldfinches and any of their finch cousins that care to dine. The center feeder has black-oil sunflower seeds, the favorite of many species. The right feeder contains suet that is exposed through hardware cloth on the bottom of the feeder. Woodpeckers, chickadees, titmice, and nuthatches are skilled at eating upside down, but not those suet gluttons the starlings.

I didn’t ring a bell to announce “Chow time,” but the serving line began to form in minutes. First to arrive were two chickadees and a pair of titmice that started carrying off single sunflower seeds to nearby shrubs and trees to crack and eat. I’ve also seen one female goldfinch, a male house finch, a junco, a downy woodpecker and—wait—three squirrels!

Squirrels?

Already the gray critters have shimmied up the galvanized pipes and across the loose PVC pipe I installed to keep the opportunists off balance. I shooed them twice and then did what I had forgotten to do—to coat the upright pipes with petroleum jelly. Hey, take that, sticky paws! And, Bob, remember the petroleum jelly next spring before you grab the poles to take down the feeder support for the summer.

A first responder: titmouse samples suet

I suppose we’ll have lots of warm, sunny fall weather over the next month or so, but I’m happy that the feeders are up and the birds are getting to know that they’ll have a place to grab a snack when the really bad, winter weather sets in.

If you’re thinking of building a feeding station, consider building something like what I’ve made. I bought 1” galvanized pipe at Home Depot in precut, prethreaded lengths. The top that holds the feeders has the following lengths and parts: one 36” for the center; two 24” for the ends; plus two T-joints (between center piece and the end pieces, with the support pipes going down) and two elbows and two caps for the ends. The uprights were probably 10’, but I cut off 12” or so because the contraption was too tall for me to conveniently refill the feeders. The six pieces of 2” PVC pipe are loose to discourage squirrels. They also help keep the feeders in position.

Unseen parts: Below ground are two four-gallon buckets, each with a 18” piece of 2” PVC pipe centered and sticking up and out the top of the bucket several inches and above the mulch several inches. To keep the PVC pipe in position, I put a half bag of concrete mix in each bucket and made sure the two pipes were plumb when the concrete began to set. The buckets stay in place year round, and I simply remove the feeders and lift out the support structure for summer storage in our garage.

After exposure to more than 10 winters, the structure has fewer signs of aging than I do, but then I’ve been around for more than 10 winters

Deer Country: What Causes October Madness?

2011-11-02T07:00:00.000-04:00

Fawns browsing moss phlox

What causes deer to do strange things in October—such as eating plants they’ve absolutely ignored the other 11 months of the year?

Another gardener recently commented, “What’s with the deer? They ignore certain plants all year and then clean me out—in October.”

Here are four examples of deer eating plants in October that they generally don’t browse.

One October afternoon I looked out our front window and saw two fawns grazing in our bed of moss phlox. That phlox has been growing there for at least 10 years with hardly a nibble. Yes, occasionally in mid-winter, when there’s not much green to eat, a deer has grabbed a mouthful—and usually spit it out on the nearby sidewalk. But this year the two fawns apparently decided moss phlox is the greatest new food since apple pie.

Fawn sampling goldenrod

A fawn in October also did what no other deer has done—sampled our goldenrod, a much listed "deer-resistant plant."

Deer haven’t nibbled a leaf of the lilac shrub by our driveway for at least 10 years—until this October, when they defoliated the shrub below the browse line—which is about five feet above ground. Lilac, you know if you live in Deer Country, appears on just about every list of “deer-resistant plants.”

Browsed lilac

Finally, every book and every magazine article on deer management states that deer never ever eat daffodils. Ha! I watched—on October 24, for the record—a fawn browsing on “toxic” daffodil leaves that had broken through to announce that there will be a Spring 2012. Apparently the fawn was redefining “toxic.”

What do you think is “with” deer in October? Are they bored with the same-old, same-old food they’ve been eating all summer and want to try something new and exciting? Are the fawns that eat forbidden fruit—well, resistant plants—deer delinquents deliberately showing their mothers that they indeed can eat “bad” food?

Sampling daffodils

I wish I knew the answer, but I don’t. I just know strange things happen to plants in our garden when October Madness strikes and our deer decide that our resistant plants suddenly are irresistible.

Glimmer of Hope: Bats and the Lethal White-Nose Syndrome

2011-10-31T13:21:00.001-04:00

A lethal disease is ravaging bat colonies from eastern Canada and New England to North Carolina. The disease, white-nose syndrome, is caused by a fungus that causes holes to form in the membranes that enable bats to fly. Surveys indicate that in some areas the population of little brown bats has declined 91% and that of northern bats by 98%.

The economic implications for agriculture can be dramatic because a colony of 150 bats eats about 1.3 million insects each year, according to one study. Fewer bats, of course, mean more insects and more alternative means of insect control, which generally means more pesticides. One estimate values bats at more than $3 billion a year.

There is a glimmer of hope, however. Scientists see some evidence that the disease may not be as lethal in warmer climates. Note the operative word: perhaps.

If you have any interest in bats and their relationship to the environment, or just enjoy watching a little brown bat swooping over your garden in search of insects, you’ll want to read “On the trail of a bat scourge” by Darryl Fears in today’s Washington Post. CLICK HERE.

Frosty Morning Beauty

2011-10-30T18:28:00.000-04:00

Sumac

October came in like a lamb and is going out like a polar bear. Last week we were wondering when we’d get our first freeze. This week we’re wondering if Saturday’s sleet and snow irreparably damaged our Halloween pumpkins.

We here at Meadow Glenn were on the southern and eastern edge of the white stuff. We got just enough to frost our trees, shrubs, gardens, and lawns. The Washington Post this morning said the unusual nor’easter brought bone-chilling rain, sleet, and, in western Maryland, up to nine inches of snow. All three major airports in the Washington-Baltimore set records for low temperatures for their daily highs.

But today’s the day after, and the temperature here has approached 50°F. The frosted lawn is bright green again. Early this morning I went out and took photos of garden scenes. I find frosted leaves to be fascinating portraits that exist only a few minutes before the warm rays of the rising sun kiss them goodbye forever.

Fountain grass (left) and boxwood

Grass

Sedum

Salvia

Dianthus

Weigela

Rose

Lamb's ear

Clematis

Experiment: Overwintering a Geranium

2011-10-27T09:17:00.000-04:00

Geranium to be overwintered

We’re three-quarters of the way through October, and as I look out our kitchen window, I see a geranium blooming in the cool, fall weather. In just a few days, I suppose, a hard frost will kill the geranium. But what if I overwinter it—and replant it in the garden next spring?

Overwintering geraniums isn’t something most busy gardeners take the time to do these days, but in times past gardeners often took geraniums from their gardens and stored them overwinter. I remember a neighbor, Mary Rau, moving potted geraniums into their garage to dry out and overwinter.

Why was that a fairly common fall routine? Perhaps they were Frugal Gardeners who wanted to save money, and overwintering their geraniums meant they didn’t have to buy new plants the next spring. Perhaps it was something just about everyone did before the dawn of the buy-use-discard era.

Soil shaken off, plant pruned

To find details about how to overwinter a geranium, I searched the Internet and found lots of postings. The one I liked best was “Overwintering Geraniums” by Marie Iannotti at About.com. Iannotti describes a broad view of possibilities in a paragraph or two, plus a photograph. Her seven topics: storing geraniums for the winter; growing geraniums as annuals; growing geraniums as winter houseplants; overwintering geraniums as cuttings; overwintering dormant, potted geraniums; overwintering dormant, bareroot geraniums; and reviving dormant geraniums in the spring.

I had planted our geranium in our springtime garden, so mine was not a case where I could just pick up a pot and move it into the garage. I focused on the website page that showed how to store a bareroot plant. I dug up the plant, shook off most of the soil, pruned the plant to about half its original size, and put it into a grocery bag to overwinter in our garage, where it will be in no danger of freezing this winter. I’ve already put “Check geranium” twice on my schedule, once each in December and February. If all goes well, I’ll pot it in March to start the reviving process, and plant it in the garden again in May. Iannotti’s posting details each step.

Close bag, store in our garage

Will this experiment work? Will my revived plant be vigorous and a great addition to Garden 2012? Or will I decide to buy a replacement plant? I’ll update you periodically about this experiment.

If you’re tempted to try to overwinter a geranium and want to see how to do it, Iannotti’s article will give you the basics. CLICK HERE.

And remember the obvious: You have to do this job before frost kills your geranium, and most of us are overdue for our first fall freeze.

Happy Autumn!

2011-10-23T21:42:00.002-04:00

Happy Autumn, from Ellen and Bob! The views from our sunroom are stunning this October. Bob took the photos from the deck by our sunroom just as the just-risen sun highlighted the reds and yellows of the leaves. The reddest tree is our favorite, an ancient red maple that, sadly, is now is in slow decline.

Really Cool Information for Gardeners

2011-10-23T17:59:00.000-04:00

Frosted sungold tomato (Nov. 11, 2007)

Whenever two gardeners chat these days, one almost always asks the question, “Have you had a frost yet?”

The temperature here at Meadow Glenn was 38°F. this morning. I thought there were frost crystals on the roof of our house, but there were no pockets of frosty grass in the low spots of our lawn. The leaves of the super-sensitive basil in our garden remain bright green, not the drooping black they would be if frost had kissed them good-bye.

Today is October 23, and the 10-day forecast on Weather.Com lists the lowest temperature as 42°F. Isn’t our first freeze overdue?

The short answer is, “Yes,” but other than from daily observation and recording of temperatures, which I haven’t done, where can I find out when the first freeze will be in the fall and the last freeze will be in the spring in our neighborhood?

After years of wondering, I’ve finally found a good source. My discovery started last Friday with a posting by the Capital Weather Gang on the Washington Post website: “When should the Washington, D.C., area expect to see its first freeze of the cold season?”

Frosted strawberry leaves (November 8, 2007)

I read their article with increasing interest and began following highlighted links. One spreadsheet, “List of locations included in the contour map,” contained first-freeze dates for 58 locations here in Maryland—and eight in Delaware, three in New Jersey, three in Pennsylvania, 72 in Virginia, and 18 in West Virginia.

I skimmed down the Maryland list and found Clarksville and Brighton Dam, both of which are about three miles from our home. The compilation says the average first-freeze date for both locations is October 12. Since today is October 23, yes, our first freeze is late this year.

The Capital Weather Gang explained that the first-freeze metric is “tricky … and it’s often first elevation dependent, then later (November onwards) dependent on the strength of the cold air mass, and in many cases one’s proximity to water.”

I’d like to add another complication: First-frost may come before first-freeze. How can that be? I noticed several years ago that frost often forms in our garden when the official temperature is above freezing by a degree or two. When I researched that issue, I found that the thermometers used to officially record temperatures generally are located about six feet above ground. Under certain conditions, the temperature at ground level can be freezing while the official temperature is slightly warmer just a few feet above.

If you are a curious gardener, I recommend that you read the Capital Weather Gang’s posting, and I even more strongly urge you to follow the link to “weather cooperatives through the broader region,” which takes you to the Utah State University website with historical weather information. When you arrive at the site, you’ll find “Utah” in the box where you are to select a state. Select Maryland, or another state, from the pull-down list and click Select again, and you’ll find great information for scores of locations. There are early/average/late dates for both “last spring freeze” and “first fall freeze,” plus short/average/long “freeze-free days,” which you might call the “growing season.”

Here are the dates for our town, Clarksville: “last freeze,” April 14 early, May 4 average, May 22 late. “First freeze,” Sept. 24 early, Oct. 12 average, Nov. 5 late. “Freeze-free days,” 138 short, 161 average, 188 long. I can use that information, for example, to help determine when to start seeds indoors or plant them in the garden—and for spicing up gardening chats: “Well, you know, [clear throat at this point] on the average we should have had a frost on the twelfth.”

Now it’s time for you to explore. To link to the Capital Weather Gang’s posting, CLICK HERE. To link to the Utah State University site to check out spring and fall freeze dates for your town, CLICK HERE.

Tomato Patch: Time for Green Manure?

2011-10-18T08:50:00.000-04:00

Green manure--or something else?

I’ve bought many bags of composted manure over the years, and when I opened them in our garden, the manure was dark brown. When I buy a pickup load of composted horse manure and shredded leaves at the Howard County Recycling Center, the compost is, well, dark brown.

So what’s with “green manure”?

“Green manure” is the name often given to plants that overwinter on tilled fields and then are turned under the next spring. Another term is “cover crop.” Whichever term you prefer, it has two basic purposes, to enrich the soil and protect it from erosion by winter weather.

The University of Maryland Master Gardener Handbook explains “cover crops” this way in its “Vegetables” chapter: “Cover crops are mostly small-grain species, like oats, rye, and wheat, and legumes, like clover and vetch. … These crops are typically planted as early as August 1, but no later than October 10. They should make some growth before the first hard frost. Some are killed by cold winter temperature, but most go dormant and resume growth in the spring. Cover crop roots grow deeply into the soil pulling up nutrients that might otherwise leach out of the soil. The crops are turned into the soil before going to seed, usually sometime from mid-April to early May.”

A Handbook table lists these typical cover crops with directions about when to plant seed and when to turn the plants under in the spring: alfalfa, barley, buckwheat, crimson clover, forage radish, spring oats, winter rye, hairy vetch, and winter wheat.

I began thinking about “cover crop” when I tore out the dying vines of Tomato Patch 2011. Should I plant a cover crop? Are there alternatives—especially for small, hillside plots that this gardener tills—a youth-challenged gardener, by the way, who is prone to “aching back”?

Thinking I might experiment with a cover crop, I hopped into my Tacoma and drove up to the Southern States farm supply store in Ellicott City, the one place in Howard County that I thought would stock cover-crop seed.

“Do you have seed for any cover crop?”

“Sorry, not today, but next week we’ll be getting in a mixture of rye and wheat.”

“Will it be in bulk? I only need a few ounces for my garden.”

“The smallest size will be three pounds.”

Straw mulch will work

So much for my Green Manure Experiment. Back home, I looked at the vineless Tomato Patch and decided on an alternative to a cover crop. I had mulched our tomato plants in the spring with straw which now was starting to disintegrate and become part of the garden soil, but it is still recognizable as straw. If I don’t turn it under to hasten decomposition until late winter, it can serve as a “cover crop” to protect garden soil from the ravages of winter storms.

So this winter Tomato Patch is sporting a straw “cover crop” that died in 2010 or earlier and in color is definitely beige, not green. Will this crop improve the soil? Little, if any, I suppose, but I think it will do a reasonable job of protecting the soil from the elements.

And as I rearranged the straw to cover as much of the soil as possible, I thought of a very positive outcome of my choice: the straw will continue to decompose over winter and I’ll have a relatively easy time “turning it under” with my garden shovel in late winter. Manually turning under a cover crop can be an “ache in the back,” to say nothing of muscle pain. Score one for the Ancient Gardener.

What else could I have used?

Grass clippings or shredded leaves will do too

Since I don’t have enough straw to spread on all my small hillside garden plots, I protect the soil—and enrich it to some degree—with whatever I have at hand. I’ve already spread grass clippings on two or three plots—sort of a wimpy “green manure” approach, wouldn’t you say? When leaves begin to fall, I’ll bag some with our lawn mower and spread the semi-shredded leaves like a brown blanket on other plots, where they’ll also both protect and decompose over winter.

Disappointed that I couldn’t buy a small amount of cover-crop seed locally, I checked availability on the Internet. Territorial Seed Company has a paragraph explaining cover crops with several links you may enjoy investigating, including one showing varieties of available fall-sown seed. Johnny’s Selected Seeds also lists a variety of seeds under “green manures.”

There is one green-manure cover crop I don’t want to grow—winter weeds. Alas, winter weeds are sprouting everywhere these days and growing rapidly in this extra-warm October. Today’s chickweed seedlings might protect the soil over winter, but by early spring they will have become thick mats and will have sown thousands of seeds for future crops.

To read the University of Maryland Extension's one-page fact sheet on cover crops, CLICK HERE.
If you’re a new reader, check out my earlier postings about Barbara Billek, who uses hairy vetch as a cover crop in her raised vegetable beds, and Susan Levy-Goerlich, who uses shredded leaves to protect her garlic crop over winter.

Deer Country: Not Tonight, Dear

2011-10-16T17:54:00.000-04:00

Whenever I look out a window and see the current crop of eight fawns, I think, “Wouldn’t it be great if there were an effective, cost-efficient deer birth-control pill.”

After my last “Deer Country” posting, a Howard County Master Gardener sent me an email that said in part, "I just heard that UMD has a deer contraceptive but it must be injected." I hadn’t heard that news so queried contacts who might know about such a development.

Phil Norman, Deer Project Manager with the Howard County Department of Recreation & Parks, clued me in: “GonaCon is an immunocontraceptive that has been approved for use on wild deer by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.”

The welcome news is that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Wildlife Research Center over the last few years had developed a new immunocontraceptive vaccine, GonaCon, that is both single-shot and lasts for more than one year. In controlled, multiple tests on free-ranging does one year or more of age, the vaccine prevented pregnancies 67 to 88 percent the first year and 47 to 48 percent the second year. A second injection in the same or subsequent year may increase the vaccine’s effectiveness for up to the life of the vaccinated deer.

There is one downside, which I alluded to in my opening question, the vaccine’s cost effectiveness. To date, it must be manually injected into a deer’s muscle, and that means each deer must be caught first. Depending on circumstances, that may take the effort and time of a lot of people, which means that though the vaccine itself may be inexpensive, a catch-and-vaccinate program may be expensive. Estimated costs range from $500 to $1,000 per deer.

But what if we didn’t have to catch the deer and give them a shot? The NWRC is trying to find an answer to that question by adapting the vaccine so deer can self-medicate by eating treated bait.

Will the vaccine solve our problem of deer over population? The obvious answer is that it may help keep herds from growing in size, but the infertile deer still will be chowing down on our flowers, shrubs, and vegetable gardens and on the tree seedlings and native flowers in our parks.

The USDA/APIS/NWRC has several online publications about GonaCon that cover many more questions than the two I’ve discussed here. To link to a recent NWRC fact sheet that will give you additional and more-detailed information, CLICK HERE.

Mushroom Madness: What Lurks Below?

2011-10-13T21:08:00.000-04:00

One of the byproducts of all the rain we’ve had this year—more than 13 inches above average to date in this area—is that mushrooms are popping up here, there, and just about everywhere in our gardens and lawns. The photos with this posting are some of the mushrooms growing here at Meadow Glenn.

So if I have mushrooms growing in our own yard, why did I stop by the Giant Food store to buy two handfuls of two kinds of mushrooms? You know the answer: mushrooms are notoriously difficult to identify. An edible variety may look nearly identical to its poisonous relative. A deer or squirrel may eat one, but it might kill you.

In his “Gardening” column in Thursday’s Post, Adrian Higgins took a look at some common wild mushrooms and explained why wise gardeners leave picking them to the experts.

Higgins also taught me something about the “leviathan” that lurks below the mushroom that pops up in our garden: “Here’s the thing about the mushroom. It is merely the fruiting body of a much larger and permanent organism that lives beneath the soil. It is akin to the flower of a plant, dispersing its seed. I like to think of a mushroom as the dorsal fin of some great whale that lives in the depths. It flashes, it is gone, the leviathan passes from our consciousness, but it is still there.”

If you’re curious about the mushrooms growing in your garden or lawn, take a few minutes to read Higgins’ article, “Beneath the planet of the mushrooms,” and look at the photo illustrations. CLICK HERE.

And remember to leave wild mushroom harvesting to the experts.

Tomato Patch: Last Pickings & Pulling Up the Plants

2011-10-10T22:10:00.000-04:00

Plants tell me the end is near

The diseased leaves and vines of Tomato Patch 2011 told me it was time to pick the last of this year’s tomatoes and tear out the nearly dead plants—three or four weeks before I usually do this sad job.

I describe the job as a sad one because I just plain hate to see the tomato season end. When we cut the last red fruit that we’ve harvested from the Tomato Patch, we get that nearly hopeless feeling that we’re left with those red “things” we will not be even tempted to buy at the super market until our memories of our mouth-watering home-grown tomatoes fades with our memories of this year’s autumn leaves.

I tore out the dying vines over three days, a couple of hours here, a couple of hours there. The first day I picked about 20 big-reds, mostly at breaker stage or beyond, that I thought had a reasonable chance to ripen in our garage, and I took down the cages that had supported the vines. The second day I picked a half colander of little-reds and then removed their cages too.

Big reds: Last picking

On the third day I pulled out all the plants and wheel-barrowed them to a “compost” pile near the edge of our woods. Since the vines were diseased, I had no thought other than to remove them completely from our vegetable garden. Next year I will plant tomatoes in a totally different area of our garden in order to minimize disease carry-over from this year.

My experience with ripening end-of-season tomatoes is that those with cracks around the stem are much more likely to spoil before fully ripening, so most of the fruit I moved into the garage were small Brandywines and the other varieties with few cracks—Celebrities and Juliets.

A week after moving the last tomatoes into the garage, I can report that the extra-warm temperatures of the second week of October 2011 are causing them to ripen rapidly, and I have to check them every day to make sure we eat them before they spoil.

Little reds: Last picking

Even though I picked the last of this year’s tomatoes and pulled up the vines, I’m not ready to write “The End” to Tomato Patch 2011. I have a few chores yet to do, and in future postings I’ll show you what I do.

Stink Bugs: Chainsaw 128, Peach Trees 0

2011-10-06T20:39:00.002-04:00

Stink bugs on my tomato

Stink bugs this year destroyed most of Frank Gouin’s peach crop, so Frank’s going to take his chainsaw to his 128 peach trees.

Is that an overreaction to the stink-bug invasion?

Adrian Higgins, the Washington Post’s “On Gardening” columnist, told Frank story in Thursday’s edition. Frank is a horticulturist who has tended his orchard from Day One 20 years ago, when he started rootstock from seed and the next year grafted buds of his chosen varieties onto the rootstock seedlings. He’s been a realistic peach grower who been spraying his crop every 10 to 14 days to manage all sorts of pests and diseases.

And then came the stink bugs. In 2009 Frank lost about two percent of his crop. Last year he lost 10 percent. This year he lost 60 percent.

Higgins wrote: “Scientists are working hard to find a natural predator for the bug, but for Gouin, time has run out. After a lifetime of dealing with and beating pests, he is calling it quits. This winter, he will take a chainsaw to his 128 peach trees.”

And Frank isn’t alone. Recently one of my gardening friends announced, “I’ve had it. The stink bugs have destroyed everything. I’m not going to plant a tomato next year.” Others have told me that stink bugs have taken all the enjoyment and satisfaction out of vegetable gardening.

What to do, what to do, what to do? Fruit and grain growers face huge, if not potentially catastrophic, challenges. We consumers may see higher food prices and have new questions about pesticide residues in our food.

I haven’t surrendered. My tomato yield improved significantly this year because I periodically used a commercially available garden spray that kept the stink bugs largely, but not totally, off my growing tomatoes. I’m learning to share a little and don’t mind a few “pin pricks” or “dimples” or other evidence of stink-bug feeding on my tomatoes.

Please “take five” to read Adrian Higgins’ article about Frank Gouin and its short sidebar, “Beating the stink bugs.” CLICK HERE.

Deer Country: Winter Protection for Your Plants

2011-10-05T21:04:00.000-04:00

Doe browsing columbine

“Hey, there’s a deer looking at us through the dining room window,” Ellen said this morning just before seven as we were setting up breakfast.

Of course, when I turned to look, there was no peeping deer, so I took a few steps closer to the window to get a wider view. No, there was no deer looking at me. There were three—a doe and twin fawns—and they were exploring our perennial beds within 15 feet of the window.

The doe—apparently the one Ellen had seen checking us out through the window—had turned and was nosing around under a small variegated kousa dogwood tree. The two fawns were sampling the prickly moss phlox in a bed about 10 feet from me.

When I checked later, I saw what interested the doe—three or four columbine plants, now with leafless stems reaching skyward—and an azalea, of which she had liberated a few leaves. The fawns had pruned the moss phlox to about two inches from the ground, in the process eating two or three strands of dodder that I had intended to prune out last week but hadn’t. Thank you, fawns, for a job well done.

Fawns pruning moss phlox

I tapped on the window with a knuckle and the three visitors bounded out of our flower beds and stopped about 25 feet away to see how serious was my pursuit. Sizing me up correctly, they lowered their heads and began browsing on clover.

This Deer Country mini-melodrama reminded me that the deer seem to be more interested in our garden fare in recent weeks than they have been over the summer. The pine-bark mulch on our perennial beds is regularly churned overnight by deer hooves. Sometime during the last week deer have browsed our one Knockout rose, though it’s more than half protected by welded wire. I gambled that no deer would walk down our front sidewalk to access the rose’s one open side.

I’m surprised somewhat that the fawns chowed down on our moss phlox, a springtime flower that appears on most “deer resistant” lists. Usually our local deer tear off a mouthful of moss phlox, spit it out, and move on to better chow. Perhaps I should post one of the “deer resistant” lists in the phlox bed so the fawns will learn it’s a plant they shouldn’t be eating.

Columbine had leaves yesterday

I really must figure out a way to protect the azalea this winter. I took the first step this afternoon and sprayed it liberally with Deer Out, a mint-based spray I used successfully this summer on hostas, heuchera, and a tomato plant. But when foul winter weather comes and I forget to periodically reapply the Deer Out, the deer will browse next spring’s azalea buds and leaves.

Cages do work. Although the azalea is more than 10 years old, it’s only about 15 inches tall because deer browse it every winter. It has few lavender blooms in the springtime. I bought it with two others—all three the same size, and the other two, farther down the front of our house, have been protect by a welded wire cage and are more than six feet tall and have beautiful lavender blooms every spring.

Really, Bob, it’s about time to protect that third azalea.

What should I do about the phlox? Should I design some kind of PVC structure with deer netting to keep the bambits out? Or will all the deer except the fawns ignore such lowly plants over winter? I’ll have to give that some thought, though I did give the phlox a few squirts of the Deer Out this afternoon too.

Ah, the joys of gardening in Deer Country. We’re now seeing groups of up to 14 deer at various times of the day and know they’ll be increasingly interested in our landscape plants when cold weather sets in after Thanksgiving and they have less easy browse with which to fill their stomachs.

The thinking about protecting our plants from deer over winter is important, but actually protecting the plants is what counts. I figure I have about six weeks in which to complete these small projects.

And what about your plans for protecting your perennials, shrubs, and trees from the deer this winter? Post a Comment and share your wisdom.

Beans, Apples, Grass: Links to Washington Post Gardening Articles

2011-09-28T19:38:00.000-04:00

Heirloom snap beans, 10 apple varieties, goose grass—here are links to three recent Washington Post articles about gardening:

For Barbara Damrosch’s “A Cook’s Garden” column about Italian heirloom snap beans, such as Garrafal Oro, Yellow Anellino, and Anellino di Trento, CLICK HERE.

For Tony Rosenfeld’s article about apples, “What’s to be done with you, Elstar and Matsu?” which includes a sidebar with photos of 10 “new” varieties with short descriptions of tastes, uses, and seasons, CLICK HERE.

For Patterson Clark’s “Urban Jungle” column on goose grass, the tough weed we love to hate but in a pinch could eat its seeds, CLICK HERE.

Stink Bugs: 52 More in Trap

2011-09-26T21:20:00.000-04:00

Another 52 stink bugs

In earlier postings I reported on my experiment with a Rescue Stink Bug Trap. Two weeks ago I reported that after two weeks the trap contained 106 brown marmorated stink bugs, the lures still were attracting stink bugs, and that I re-hung the trap and would report periodically.

Today was the end of the fourth week the trap has been operating with the original two-week lures, which other trap users had told me attract stink bugs much longer than two weeks. Late this afternoon I took apart the trap and counted 52 living and dead stink bugs.

The total for my one trap is 158 stink bugs over a four-week period. I have noticed over the last week or 10 days—most of which have been cloudy with periods of drizzle, showers, or rain—that the stink bugs are much less evident where I had been seeing them in significant numbers. Our two lilacs a few weeks ago (see my posting of September 1) contained hundreds of congregating stink bugs, and I could find scores any time I looked for them in the Tomato Patch.

Now I see few of them, but when I do, they’re most often on the white trim of our house and, in late afternoon, on its warmer western and northern walls.

I re-hung the trap again after I removed the stink bugs today and I’ll do another count in two weeks. The weather the next few days will be warm, near 80°F. during the day and the 60s at night, but cooler fall weather will arrive Friday. Perhaps the cooler temperatures will cause the stink bugs to seek permanent winter cover and fewer will enter the trap.

If you want to read my posting of two weeks ago about how the stink-bug trap worked during the first two weeks, CLICK HERE.

Which Has Lower Prices: Costco or BJ’s?

2011-09-25T11:45:00.000-04:00

Where do we save more $$$?

The first week of September was gray with rain, rain, and more rain. According to Weather Bureau statistics in the Washington Post, our area had 4.76 inches of precipitation that week. Average is 0.84 inches. We had so much rain for so many days in a row that I thought I should probably start calling the Tomato Patch our Watercress Patch. I imagined that even the stink bugs were wearing Scuba gear. So what to do?

Why not compare prices at the two big nearby membership “wholesale” stores, Costco and BJ’s Wholesale Club. I’ve been wanting to do that for months. We used to stock up once a month or so at BJ’s, but when Costco opened a few years ago, we switched to the new arrival for what we thought to be greater selection and slightly better prices. Since then BJ’s has renovated and changed inventory significantly. Should we consider changing allegiances again?

So exiled from lawn and garden on a rainy morning, I visited both stores and with a list of 17 items we often buy at the big boxes, I wandered the aisles and wrote down prices. Which store do you think came out being the bigger money-saver?

Costco and BJ’s had identical prices on four items: Campari tomatoes (2 lbs), Ocean Spray Original Craisins (48 oz), Dove bath soap (14 bars), and HP #75XL printer cartridges (2 pack).

BJ’s had lower prices on three items: hummus singles (12), Diet Dr. Pepper (36 pack), and Multi Vitamins Mature or 50+. If we purchased those three items at BJ’s, we would save $1.30.

Costco had lower prices on Morning Star Chipotle Black Bean Burgers (12); dried, chopped onion (large bottle); dried plums; nut clusters; multi-vitamins (500); Gillette Mach 3 razor blades; Charmin Supersoft toilet paper; HP #74 X printer cartridges (2); Cetaphil moisturizing cream(20 oz); and Loratadine tablets (300). If we purchased those 10 items at Costco, we would save $16.89.

I think both stores have their strong points. BJ’s stocks some items we always buy but Costco doesn’t sell: Pepperidge Farm Cinnamon Raisin Bread, raisin medley, and select-a-size paper towels. Many of BJ’s items come in smaller sizes that this two-person household appreciates, such as smaller clamshell boxes of fresh grapes. BJ’s accepts manufacturers’ coupons, and Costco doesn’t. I can use the credit card of my choice at BJ’s, not just those on Costco’s restricted list. Costco, however, has a greater selection of fresh fruits and vegetables, prepared foods, and electronics, and it has a gas station that saves us at least 5 cents a gallon. Our local BJ’s doesn’t sell gas.

Bottom line: Both local stores are good places to save money, but we’ll save more at Costco. We’ll keep our membership there. And we’ll shop for sale items at our local Giant Food store, where special prices often are just as attractive as those at the big box discounters.

Of course, if your shopping list is different, your savings at the two stores might be different too.

Does Your Lawn Need Some “Work”?

2011-09-23T06:00:00.000-04:00

Whose lawn needs a little "work"?

Have you made a mental note to do some much-needed work on your lawn next spring—to kill weeds, fill in some bare spots, do major renovation?

Forget about waiting until next spring. There’s a better time to get started—now.

In his “One turf battle … you can win” in the Washington Post, Adrian Higgins writes: “September and October are the best months for lawn fixing, especially for seeding preferred cool-season fescues. It may seem more intuitive to seed in the spring, when everything is growing, but spring seedlings can be too frail to handle the rigors of summer. Fall-started grass will have developed more fully before the stresses of next year’s growing season.”

Higgins’ article has several sidebars you’ll want to skim: “Infringing on your turf,” about common lawn problems; “The weed whisperer,” about—you guessed already—what to do about common turf weeds; “It’s tall fescue to the rescue,” which makes the case for using turf-type tall fescue grass seed; and “Be among the sharpest tools in the shed,” which describes essential tools for the job, such as a rake and spreader, and some you might want to rent or borrow for a major lawn rehab—such as an aerator, rototiller, and dethatcher.

To read Higgins’ article, CLICK HERE.

If Higgins’ article and sidebars tweak your interest in working on your lawn but you want in-depth information, I recommend you read the University of Maryland Extension’s Home & Garden Information Center’s 12-page free brochure, “Lawn Establishment, Renovation, and Overseeding.” Major sections include: Pre-Planting Decisions; Lawn Establishment; Renovation; Repairing Bare Spots; Care & Maintenance after Seeding; Common Lawn Problems; and “Turfgrass Maintenance Calendars.” To read, download, or print the brochure, CLICK HERE.

A Pile of 1,202 Stink Bugs

2011-09-22T07:00:00.000-04:00

Come and get 'em!

When I saw four Rescue Stink Bug Traps around our neighbors’ home and vegetable garden, I asked if I could count the brown marmorated stink bugs when they cleaned out the traps and replaced the lures. A recent email from Debbie and Jeff said to come and get four bags of stink bugs, one bag hanging on each trap. The traps had been in place for four weeks with their original “two-week” lures.

Wow, what great neighbors—they gave me their stink-bug harvest!

I made the rounds of their four traps last Thursday morning and retrieved the sealed plastic bags with mostly dead stink bugs. Each of the bags contained living stink bugs, which indicated to me that the lures were still attracting their quarry long after their advertised two weeks.

I put down the gate of my pickup, laid out old newspapers, slowly maneuvered the living stink bugs into a bottle of soapy water, and with a plastic fork began separating and counting the dead bugs.

Here’s what I found—plus a few comments:

Four bags of stink bugs to count

Trap One, with solar-powered LED light to attract stink bugs at night, is, like all four traps, located in the lawn. This one is near the detached garage and about 60 feet from the family vegetable garden. It contained 332 stink bugs of all sizes (phases or instars), including many first instars about the size of a dog tick. This number included 10 green stink bugs, another species.

Trap Two, without LED light, contained 378 stink bugs, including one green one, again in all phases. This trap is about 25 feet from the vegetable garden, where most tomatoes show pin pricks from stink bug feeding and where stink bugs still feed on the fruit. This was the largest count, so did absence of an LED light increase the catch? I don’t think so. I suspect the number is evidence of the trap’s proximity to an excellent food supply—garden vegetables.

Trap Three, with LED light, contained 305 stink bugs, including an amazing 68 live ones. What fun I had getting them out of the plastic bag and into the bottle of soapy water. Two managed flights to safety, but they are in the count. I have no idea about why there were so many live bugs in this one trap.

After the count, a pile of 1,202 stink bugs

Trap Four, with LED light, contained only 187 stink bugs. Why so few? The message on the bag said it all: “Dropped Catch.” Oops, accidents do happen, but if we don’t get a National Science Foundation mega-grant, you know why. When I looked at the collection from this trap, I noticed that all but a few were the larger phases of stink bugs, so I assume that the smaller captives got lost in the grass when they were dropped. How many were lost? I decided I’d estimate by averaging the number of bugs in the three other traps, which came to 338. That suggests that about 151 stink bugs were lost when dropped.

Bottom line: The four traps contained 1,202 stink bugs plus the estimated 151 lost for a total of about 1,353.

Were Jeff and Debbie impressed by their catch?

Debbie: “No, I thought after two weeks the traps would be overflowing, but that was not the case.”

Jeff: “No, but hope springs eternal that we will have fewer of the smelly, fair-weather bugs in the house this winter. I’ve killed more with pesticide around the flood lights by the garage at night.”

Have the traps reduced the stink bugs in your vegetable garden?

378 stink bugs in nearby trap while these
continued to damage tomatoes

Debbie: “No. In fact, most of the blooms in our vegetable and flower garden were decimated. Although the garden was green, every one of the gigantic sunflower heads was thoroughly enjoyed by the bugs.”

Jeff: “Yes, but the number of bugs in the garden was a few orders of magnitude greater than in the traps. Stink bugs increased production costs, and although one of the traps was about 25 feet from the garden, the stink bugs preferred the green, leafy vegetation over the green and yellow hard plastic of the traps.”

Do you think you’ll use them again next year?

Debbie: "First let’s see how the seven-week refills work.”

Jeff: “Next year perhaps we’ll set the four traps either under the lilacs or near the back porch light.”

The four traps, with new lures installed on September 13, are now attracting a new collection of brown marmorated stink bugs.

Tomato Patch: Beginning of an Early End

2011-09-20T21:00:00.000-04:00

Tomato Patch 2011: An Early End?

Sometimes the Tomato Patch gets too much of a good thing—rain.

Early in the season I searched the sky for signs of rain clouds as I filed my drip-irrigation buckets. In the last month we’ve had abundant rain, and then some, from Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee. Weather data for nearby BWI Marshall Airport reports seven inches of precipitation above normal to date for September and more than 12 inches above normal for the year.

The effects of all the extra moisture are evident in the Tomato Patch. Many of the plants are dying from early blight and from a variety of leaf-spot diseases. Such plant dieback is pretty much an annual event—but one that usually concerns me in October, not September.

Now chilling out in our freezer

Realizing that Tomato Patch 2011 is ending early, I picked about 20 Celebrity tomatoes at breaker stage on Sunday and took them into the garage to fully ripen and picked nearly two colanders of paste-type tomatoes—Super Marzano, Big Mama, and Juliet—and then made 16 cups of sauce, which are now in our freezer. Tuesday, as a heavy drizzle began what the forecast calls another damp week, I removed the 10 drip-irrigation buckets from the Tomato Patch and hosed them clean inside and out.

What’s left in the Tomato Patch? Not much—a few Celebrities that I’ll pick and move into the garage when they show a bit of color—and a handful or two, perhaps, of smaller varieties—Sungolds and Juliets.

And I’ve had a strange thought for September—that I should start thinking about shutting down the Tomato Patch. Some of my tomato-growing friends have told me they’ve already done that. But somehow shutting down the Tomato Patch and pulling up the spent vines is something I should do in October, not September.

Maybe I’ll think about that drastic step for 10 days.

Tomato Patch: Is It “Mealy, Mushy” Time?

2011-09-16T11:00:00.000-04:00

Celebrity tomatoes (and a stink bug)
this morningm when the temperature was in the 40s

The thermometer got me to thinking this morning. It was 43.7°F just before sunrise, the lowest temperature in the Tomato Patch since I set out the plants in May.

Most veggie gardeners know tomatoes are “warm weather” plants, not “cool weather” plants such as chard, turnips, broccoli, and cauliflower. Many articles about tomatoes warn not to put them into your refrigerator because the 40°F temperature there will turn them “mealy” or “mushy.”

That was my concern this morning I read the outdoor temperature on our digital thermometer. Will my “big reds” turn mealy at that temperature? I vaguely remembered a Washington Post article I had read on the subject years ago, and after some searching on the Internet I found it.

The article is “Chilling Thoughts,” by Robert L. Wolke, professor emeritus of chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh when he wrote this article at the beginning of the tomato season in 2005. Here’s the question he addressed: “Why is it that people say it ruins a tomato to put it in the refrigerator? How can this be?”

I’ll skip his comment about flavor chemicals, which he says do not decompose at cold temperatures. He then addresses “texture,” which gets us to “mealy” or “mushy.” Here’s the key part of Wolke’s answer: “Tomatoes can suffer … ‘chilling injury’ if held at temperatures below about 50 degrees…. The nature and extent of the injury—which mostly involves changes in the tomato’s texture rather than its flavor—depends not only on the temperature and duration of chilling but also on the fruit’s ripeness. That’s why no simple generalization can be made about the effect of refrigeration on tomatoes.”

The important factors: temperature + duration + ripeness. Temperature factor is any temperature below 50°. For duration, long-term chilling is worse than short-term. On ripeness, Wolke explains that chilling tomatoes not fully ripe stops the ripening process and prevents development of full flavor and color.

How do I apply Wolke’s refrigerator principles to what’s happening in the Tomato Patch? Nighttime temperatures are starting to dip below 50°. A few dips probably won’t do much damage to taste or texture, especially to fully ripe fruit, but as the weeks pass and low temperatures increase in length, damage potential increases, especially on tomatoes not fully ripe—the kind still growing in the Tomato Patch.

I plan to keep an eye on my tomatoes—the ones the stink bugs didn’t pinprick beyond edibility or the rains of Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee didn’t split—and at some point start picking and moving the best looking ones into the garage as protection both from late-season stink bugs and frigid nighttime temperatures.

I don’t plan to start moving them this week. I’ll monitor local weather forecasts and the condition of remaining tomatoes. If we have especially cold nights in late September or early October, perhaps I’ll some top-quality breaker-stage tomatoes into the garage. If the nights stay relatively warm, perhaps I’ll move none.

Alas, fall is coming. A killing frost will visit many of our gardens within the next month or so. The end of Tomato Patch 2011 is a sad thought, but then in a few weeks seed catalogs will start arriving to jump start our fantasies about Tomato Patch 2012.

If you’re a genuine tomato freak and wish to read Wolke’s Post column, CLICK HERE.

Did the Stink Bug Trap Work?

2011-09-14T07:00:00.000-04:00

Time to count the trapped stink bugs

Monday was Day 14 of my experiment with the Rescue Stink Bug Trap, and since the manufacturer said the attractant used in the trap was good for two weeks, I decided to take down the trap and count how many brown marmorated stink bugs it had caught.

Trap directions include a section on “Empty and Reload Trap,” but the directions are simpler than actually doing it when there are live stink bugs moving about inside the trap. To simplify matters, I put an inch of water in a bucket, added a few drops of dishwashing liquid, and then took apart the trap inside the bucket, shaking the “cone” and “trap chamber,” tapping them on the side of the bucket, and occasionally flicking a stink bug into the suds with a finger.

I was surprised at the number of stink bugs in the soapy water, but many were still practicing their best doggy paddles, so I waited for a half hour until the soapy water had taken its toll. Then I used a plastic spoon to dish out and line up the dead stink bugs on a paper towel for easy counting.

106 stink bugs

Total: 106 brown marmorated stink bugs, from mature adults to early instars (phases), plus a moth, an ant, a host of gnats, and a few other soggy insects that I didn’t recognize.

What’s my opinion of the Rescue Stink Bug Trap? My feelings are mixed.

On the positive side, the trap caught 106 stink bugs, which means those 106 stink bugs won’t be trying to get into our house when the weather cools, perhaps as early as this weekend. The trap has excellent instructions and was easy to assemble.

On the negative side, considering the number of stink bugs residing at Meadow Glenn, 106 stink bugs are about as significant as one of the commas in the text of this posting. Before I took the trap down, I looked around its target area. On the nearby Japanese maple I counted 17 stink bugs on the main trunk and major branches. Around our front door and on the gutter were another 23. In short, I think the trap made no appreciable difference in the number of stink bugs we’re dealing with.

What was the cost of stink bugs caught—always an interest of this Frugal Gardener? A trap retails for about $20.00, so the cost for each stink bug caught was about 19¢. If you hate stink bugs, that may be an acceptable cost, but if you have thousands or tens of thousands and wish to protect a large area with multiple traps, well, go figure with your calculator.

Now nine feet from
our front door

What next? I reassembled the trap and hung it nine feet from our front door, as the trap’s instructions suggest hanging it in late summer or fall “within 10 feet of house to intercept stink bugs before they enter homes to overwinter.”

Before I re-hung the trap, did I replace the two original two-week lures with new seven-week refills as the manufacturer suggests, at a cost of approximately $10? Another trap user tipped me that original lures last much longer than two weeks, so I’m using the originals still and will check occasionally to see how long they attract the critters, though by frosty mid-October, most stink bugs will have found overwintering spots.

After one day in its new location, the trap has lured seven stink bugs into its “trap chamber.”

Frugal Gardener: My $13.67 Greenhouseperhaps

2011-09-12T07:00:00.000-04:00

My $13.67 greenhouseperhaps

Finally one of my dreams has come true: I have a greenhouseperhaps. I bought it for $13.67 at Wal-Mart Saturday night. I prepared it for installation in less than an hour using one tool, a carpet knife. Installation in our garden took five minutes.

I’ve oohed and aahed at greenhouses through the years as I’ve leafed through gardening catalogs. Greenhouse kits for “serious home gardeners” range upward from about $700. But, really, I’ve told myself, a greenhouse doesn’t fit well on our hillside lot. And, Frugal Me, I’ve often thought that buying a greenhouse just isn’t too practical for someone who probably won’t be doing “a lot” of gardening 10 years from now. But, yes, I still pause and fantasize when I see a greenhouse in a catalog.

Recently I thought that maybe I should “think small.” Why not “build” a very small greenhouse to see how long I can get lettuce to grow in our garden as winter approaches. I’d call it my greenhouseperhaps until I see if it really works.

I decided to buy a large, translucent, plastic storage container to serve as my greenhouseperhaps. I’d cut out the bottom, and I could use the top to protect plants growing inside from downpours or even light frosts or snow flurries.

I cut out the bottom

At Wal-Mart I surveyed available clear or translucent storage containers of varying sizes. I paid particular attention to heights (so the plants have room to grow) and bottoms (to be cut out so I can plant directly into the garden soil). I chose a Sterilite 105-quart box that is 13 ¾” high by 19 ¾” wide by 83 1/8” long. Price: $13.67.

I bought the Sterilite box because I thought the bottom was more soft than rigid so would surrender quickly to my knife. When I began to cut I discovered the going slow because the sides are molded thicker where they meet, though the center rectangle of the bottom is thinner than its edges. I used the carpet knife to cut along the line where the thicker edges met the center of the bottom. This “five-minute job” took nearly 45. The bottom edges that remain will help anchor the greenhouseperhaps.

My new greenhouseperhaps is now installed in the garden. I’ve planted three-week young Simpsons Curled and Red Sails lettuce seedlings in one row and Red Sails seeds in another. About six hours after I planted the lettuce, dark clouds ushered in a 20-minute downpour and I rushed to put on the lid to protect the transplants. I think the “click handles” will keep the lid in place during fairly strong wind gusts.

Ready for frosty weather?

Will my greenhouseperhaps work? I’ll let you know in a month or two. If it works this fall, I think it should work next spring to grow an extra-early crop of lettuce.

I hope my greenhouseperhaps turns into just a plain greenhouse.

And to think it cost only $13.67.

Deer Country: Pawpaw, a Native, Deer-Resistant Fruit Tree

2011-09-08T21:00:00.000-04:00

Would your landscape benefit from a native, nearly pest-free, fruit tree that deer don’t eat and which produces delectable, custardy fruit and grows well in relatively small, shaded spaces—but stinks?

In her “A Cook’s Garden” column, “Return of the native? Papaws’ proponents,” in the Washington Post, Barbara Damrosch recommends the native pawpaw (Asimina trilobia) tree, which is spelled “papaw” in the story but appears in other sources as “paw paw” and “paw-paw,” in addition to “pawpaw.”

Damrosch’s suggestion sounded interesting so I surfed to Wikipedia, which supplied additional information: This native of eastern North America produces large, edible fruit that tastes something like banana custard. In addition, deer, rabbits, goats, and most insects avoid its “disagreeable smelling” leaves, twigs, and bark, which also contain a natural insect repellent. In his Manual of Woody Landscape Plants, Michael Dirr says the stems have “fetid odor when broken.”

Disagreeable smelling leaves and branches? What about its flowers? Wikipedia describes their “odor” as similar to that of “rotting meat.”

Dirr points out that pawpaw fruit attracts animals, especially raccoons. Wikipedia adds foxes, opossums, squirrels, and black bears. Wikipedia adds that the larvae of the zebra swallowtail butterfly eat the tree’s leaves, which give the butterfly lifelong protection from birds and other predators.

Perhaps the reason pawpaws grow mostly in the wild is their odor potential, but apparently the problem isn’t insurmountable because Damrosch’s article lists nurseries that sell young trees.

If you’re interested in this native, deer- and insect-resistant fruit tree, be fully informed before you invest. Read the Damrosch and Wikipedia articles, which contain photographs, and do additional research. For Damrosch, CLICK HERE. For Wikipedia, CLICK HERE.

Tomato Patch: Ginny's Thick & Quick Tomato Sauce

2011-09-05T19:33:00.000-04:00

Ready to make sauce

My tomato sauces for years were, well, unremarkable. To be honest, sometimes I thought they were more like tomato juice than sauce. I read magazine and newspaper articles and answers to Frequently Asked Questions in my quest for recipes and how-to-do-it tips that would give me a reasonable amount of thick sauce in a reasonable amount of time.

I blanched and peeled and cooked. I put raw tomatoes in the blender and then tried to separate thick from thin. I cooked tomatoes and put them through our food mill and then cooked them some more. The result usually was a sauce so thin that it barely stained the pasta through which it ran to the plate. Saucy friends winked and told us how to resolve this dilemma: add a can of store-bought tomato paste to thicken the thin when we used it.

This year, I vowed to “get it right.” I cooked, milled, cooked, and simmered two batches for more than three hours last month. One batch yielded three cups and the other four of thin sauce. I shook my head and said to myself, “They’re still too juicy. I should have simmered them another hour or two.”

Prepared tomato pieces ready to start simmering

Enough of this culinary futility, I thought. Five hours of work that yields four cups of thin sauce isn’t reasonable. The greater bargains in time, effort, and thickness seemed to sit in bottles on shelves of the pasta aisle of our local Giant Food store.

So I surrendered, and when friends visited last weekend, I gave a whole bucket plus a plastic grocery-store bag of paste tomatoes to Ginny B., who said she wanted to make sauce. A day or so later she called to thank me for the tomatoes.

“How many cups did you get?” I asked, thinking she might have gotten ten or twelve.

“Twenty-nine,” she replied, “and they’re all in the freezer.”

“Twenty-nine?” I couldn’t believe it. “Were they juicy like the sauce I make?”

“No, it was thick.”

“What’s your secret?”

This made the difference

Ginny told me how she makes her thick and quick tomato sauce, and I’ve now made three batches. I have to admit that I’m back in the tomato sauce business again. I worked on the third batch on Labor Day morning. Here’s how I did it:

I started with about a half bucket of large paste tomatoes—Big Mamas and Super Marzanos—and a quarter colander of Juliets, a small paste- or Roma-type tomato usually used for snacking. I washed them, cored them, gouged out the gel and seeds with my thumb, cut off any damaged or otherwise objectionable parts, cut the good stuff into chunks, and filled a six-quart pan nearly to the top. I brought the tomatoes to slow boil and then simmered them for about 50 minutes. Then I used a measuring cup to put two-cup batches into our blender and pressed “blend” to break down all the remaining tomato parts. The measuring cup helped keep things fairly neat and gave me an idea of how much sauce I’d made.

While I was blending the tomatoes, I sautéed an onion and four or five garlic cloves in olive oil in another large pan. As I finished blending each small batch of tomatoes, I added them to the simmering onion-garlic mix. When I had all the tomatoes in the second pot, I added some salt and simmered the sauce for another 20 minutes. Just three or four minutes from the end of the cooking time, I added a handful of thinly sliced basil from our garden.

Beautiful, thick, delicious

The sauce was beautiful, thick, and delicious. It filled three three-cup freezer containers. I spent about an hour preparing the tomatoes and another hour for the cooking. Bottom line: I had doubled the amount of thick sauce in less than half the time.

All things considered, I think I’ll call this sauce recipe “Ginny’s Thick & Quick Tomato Sauce.” Thank you, Ginny. I’ve adapted the procedure from Ginny’s explanation, and if you try to make sauce this way, adapt my outline to your taste and the way you think you want your sauce to taste.

Ginny, for example, doesn’t remove all the seeds from the tomatoes. She sautés onion and garlic at the beginning and then adds the fresh tomatoes for cooking. She adds leaves from a couple of sprigs of thyme for additional herbal kick. She adds fresh basil at the very end, just as she removes turns off the heat.

What tips do you suggest to make this thick-and-quick tomato sauce even better?

Grow It. Eat It.

Deer Country: Report on ‘Deer Out’ Repellent Experiment

2011-09-04T04:00:00.000-04:00

Deer Out protected this
tomato plant

How did my experiment with Deer Out, a mint-based deer repellent spray, turn out?

I posted on April 3 about the spray and said that I was going to use it on selected plants that were not otherwise protected from our local deer herd.

I followed directions and applied the spray multiple times over the summer. I sprayed seven hostas that previously had been browsed to stem-only status at least twice each summer; a heuchera that has been annually defoliated; one Virginia Sweets tomato plant that I planted in a front-yard flower garden solely for this experiment; and an arrowwood viburnum shrub that deer love to eat so much that they had broken through my barricade of steel posts and plastic deer fencing.

Even though Deer Out directions say it will last 90 days and will not wash off in rains, fine print indicates that it should be reapplied after especially heavy, but non-defined, downpours. On the average, I reapplied the spray about every four weeks and especially after heavy rains, such as the multiple inches we got when Hurricane Irene passed up the coast last weekend.

I had bought a 40-ounce ready-to-use spray bottle of Deer Out online ($16.99 + shipping), and it became clear early on that the bottle would empty long before the summer ended, even though I was spraying only 10 plants. So I ordered a 32-ounce bottle of concentrate ($34.99 + shipping) to complete the summer spray program. When diluted, the concentrate makes 320 ounces of ready-to-use Deer Out (11¢ per oz.), a saving of nearly 75% over the first ready-to-use bottle (43¢ per oz.).

Deer Out protected this heuchera (coral bells)

If a picture is worth a thousand words, let’s keep this report relatively short and look at photos I took last Wednesday of the plants I sprayed with Deer Out this year. Let’s look at them in the order I come to them as I walk from our garage with the Deer Out spray bottle in hand:

Deer Out totally protected the Virginia Sweets tomato plant. Deer hoof prints abound in the mulch around the tomato plant, which was browsed at least once before I first sprayed. A July thunderstorm toppled the tomato cage because the indeterminate plant had become top heavy, so I pruned the plant severely, and the deer didn’t. Score +1 for Deer Out. Brown marmorated stink bugs totally devastated the fruit on this plant so obviously they were not repulsed by Deer Out.

Deer Out totally protected the heuchera (coral bells), a volunteer that popped up the spring after I moved the parent plant to our fenced back yard because it had been browsed so often it appeared to be dying. In 2009 and 2010, deer browsed nearly every leaf of the young heuchera, leaving only stems. This year the plant grew and flowered and deer didn’t touch it, though hoof prints indicated they had explored the narrow garden by our front porch. Score +1 for Deer Out.

Deer Out protected these hostas

Deer Out totally protected our seven hostas, which for years had grown in a bed between our front sidewalk and the wall of our garage and which annually were browsed at least twice. In defeat, in 2010 I moved them 25 feet or so to the south so visitors wouldn’t ask me what kind of plants I was growing that had only leafless stems. This year, all seven plants, protected by Deer Out, grew, flowered, and went to seed, though mulch around them was churned several times by deer hoofs. Several hostas flowered twice, a truly remarkable event here in Deer Country. Score +7 for Deer Out.

And the final plant—the arrowwood viburnum shrub? I sprayed it with Deer Out every time I sprayed the other plants. Even though deer had broken my barricade of steel posts and plastic deer fencing to get to the viburnums, I left the remains of the fence in place during the experiment, which protected one side of the shrub. By late spring I was feeling the Deer Out was protecting the arrowwood. But several weeks ago, when does started bringing out their fawns to graze, I discovered twin fawns resting inside the barricade after some heavy browsing or nursing. Alas, as the photo indicates, Deer Out failed to protect the viburnum, which was browsed just as heavily as the unsprayed arrowwood to its left. Score -1 for Deer Out. And, yes, I did smile when I saw the two spotted cuties lounging inside the wrecked barricade.

Deer Out failed to protect the
arrowwood viburnum on the right

With a success rate of 9 out of 10, I’ll judge Deer Out as “very effective.” I have plenty of the concentrate left, which I plan to use on selected plants next year.

Why was this spray effective? I can think of several possible answers. Perhaps because deer don’t like to eat plants that smell like mint. Perhaps because I reapplied the spray regularly and generously, especially after downpours and didn’t wait for “90 days” to pass before re-spraying.

And why did the deer browse the arrowwood viburnum? Perhaps because the shrub was farthest from our house and more deer approached it and one of them happened to be a York Mint candy fan. Perhaps our herd loves arrowwood leaves so much that neither fence nor spray would deter them. Perhaps I’d have a more satisfying answer if I could consult with a deer psychologist.

Will Deer Out protect your plants? The only way is to try it. But deer “tastes” differ from area to area and herd to herd. A friend, Ella R., who lives just a few miles from us, sent me an email saying she used Deer Out on her hostas this year and local deer browsed them to the ground.

We’ll most likely have a frost within the next four to six weeks, so I’ve decided last week’s spray application was the last for this year. I’ve already bought a bundle of steel posts and a roll of welded wire and this winter will build a “proper cage” around the viburnums. I plan to win this battle with the browsers.

Yes, this is Meadow Glenn, in the heart of Howard County, Maryland, Deer Country, where shrubs and trees are caged and deer run free. And, yes, this is Meadow Glenn, where next year I’ll be spraying Deer Out once again.

To read my first posting (April 3) about the Deer Out experiment, CLICK HERE. To read my first update (August 3), CLICK HERE.

Tomato Patch: Do They Have More Fun in Spain?

2011-09-02T11:54:00.000-04:00

Tired of weeding your Tomato Patch? Tired of fighting the stink bugs? Tired of uprighting tomato cages tilted by a passing hurricane? Maybe you’re itching for a good tomato fight.

When I was a teenager in New Jersey and picked tomatoes, it was a big no-no to throw tomatoes at another picker, however inviting on occasion that might have been. But revelers in Buñol, Spain, during the last 70 years or so have perfected the art of throwing tomatoes at each other during their annual “Tomatina.” The juice and—dare I call it—sauce sometimes get deep enough for body surfing. Really—I kid you not.

To see photos from this year’s “Tomatina,” CLICK HERE. And don’t those red projectiles appear to be Romas or a similar paste-type variety?

Smile. And, please, no throwing tomatoes in your garden.

Stink Bugs: I’ve Found Hundreds of Them

2011-09-01T04:00:00.000-04:00

Stink bugs hiding under lilac leaf

I’ve discovered Stink-Bug Central, at least in the landscape here at Meadow Glenn.

During gardening year 2011 I’ve been alert to brown marmorated stink bug comings and goings, and I’ve posted about some of them. Early this growing season I’d find five or 10 stink bugs on each fruiting head of our developing blackberries and raspberries. Then they attacked our tomatoes, especially the larger varieties, even before they began changing from green to red. I planted squash and cucumbers in late June to avoid borer problems but found the late-growing plants were manna from Bob for the stink bugs, which attacked both foliage and fruit.

Last month I noticed stink bugs in fairly large numbers on the trunks and larger limbs of our Japanese maple trees and in lesser numbers on our native maple, oak, dogwood, and redbud trees.

Recently I realized I had ignored our spring-flowering shrubs, so when I pruned a hedge of forsythia on Tuesday, I checked the shrubs and also a nearby lilac bush. The 20-foot hedge of forsythia was stink-bug free, but the lilac shrub….

Stink bugs on lilac branch

Wow! Large numbers of stink bugs were hiding in the lilac shrub, especially on leaves shadowed by other leaves and in leaves that had curled a bit. As I looked closely, I noted major damage to the leaves and new growth. Surprised, I went to the opposite end of the house to inspect our second lilac.

As I approached the second lilac, I accidentally brushed a low-hanging branch with my right shoulder and then ducked instinctively as a horde of buzzing insects bounced off me.

Hornets? Wasps?

No, scores of buzzing, flying stink bugs from just one lilac branch.

More stink bugs on lilac branches

I took a close look at both lilacs. Many leaves hosted groups of four or five. Large groups—scores of stink bugs—gathered in multiple places on branches.

How many brown marmorated stink bugs were in our two lilacs? There must have been hundreds, if not thousands, on the two bushes.

If you had stink bugs in your landscape last year and haven’t seen many this year, and if you have a lilac plant, investigate. You may be shocked at the numbers of bugs you find, and you may know the answer to your question, “Where are the all the stink bugs this year?”

My discovery of stink-bug central may also answer a question about lilacs.

Several weeks ago, Ellen asked, “Did we have any lilac blooms this spring?”

“I can’t remember any,” I replied. “Perhaps it was the weather.”

Or perhaps in summer and fall 2010 the brown marmorated stink bugs destroyed the buds that would have been lilac blooms in spring 2011.

Seems possible to me.

What do you think?

Flour Mill Searches for Ancient Wheat

2011-08-31T09:07:00.000-04:00

Do you know that the flour we use today is different from the flour our ancestors used in the mid-Atlantic states used?

The reason is that in times past—from colonial days until the mid-20th century—local flour mills ground locally grown wheat, and that wheat was “soft,” not “hard,” wheat. Hard wheat doesn’t grow best in this climate but has a higher gluten content so baked goods using it rise higher. For bread, think “hard” wheat. For pancakes, think “soft” wheat.

Enough of wheat/flour/baking history. If you have the slightest interest in such fascinating information, you should take five minutes to read “History grows in amber waves: To save an old mill, its owners hope to re-create what once was ground there,” by Debbie Koenig, in today’s Food Section of the Washington Post.

In short, the story tells of how the owner of Annville Flouring Mill in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, has spent seven years tracking down and experimenting historic wheat varieties that were commonly grown in the mid-Atlantic and ground into flour in the 1740s, when the mill was established. The search is zeroing in, perhaps getting close, but ….

To read this fascinating story, CLICK HERE.

Stink Bug Experiment: Assembling and Hanging a Trap

2011-08-30T07:00:00.001-04:00

Basic "Stink Bug Trap"

The trap is set. The Home & Garden Information Center asked local Master Gardeners to volunteer to try out a commercial “Stink Bug Trap” that is commonly available in stores—and to report their observations about how they work.

I unwrapped a trap yesterday afternoon, assembled it, and hung it 12 feet from our front door on fencing protecting a Knockout rose. The location is strategic. Brown marmorated stink bugs last fall found multiple ways into our home via our storm door and its retracting screen. The trap also is 16 feet from a Japanese maple that seems to be home turf for scores of stink bugs, and it’s 29 feet from a tomato plant that has scores of stink bugs sipping on the sweet juice of fruits that are damaged beyond human use.

The trap I’ve hung is a “Rescue Stink Bug Trap” by Sterling International, Inc. You’ve probably seen them on sale in neighborhood stores. List prices at one online source: $19.95 each trap and a two-week supply of lure or “Stink Bug Attractant,” a pheromone designed to entice the bugs into the trap. Replacement, seven-week lures cost $9.95 each. A blue LED “Stink Bug Light” ($17.95) is offered to help lure the insects from indoor living places during fall and winter.

Strategic location

The basic kit was simple to assemble. I took 15 minutes, most of which was my reading of all instructions so I would have a good feel for this product. Assembly directions were clear. No tools are required—just fingers. There are nine parts plus several twist-ties for hanging the trap outdoors, all clearly identified in the brochure. After you read directions, assembly shouldn’t take more than two minutes.

The two-sided brochure that comes with the trap is well designed and full of good information. Major sections include: “Summer Outdoor Use Instructions” and “Indoor Use during Fall, Winter, and Spring.” Subsections include “Initial Setup,” “Reusing the Trap,” “Empty and Reload Trap,” “Trap Placement,” and “Helpful Hints.” All information also appears in Spanish.

One of the “Trap Placement” points helped me decide where to hang it. I hung it on a fence—with the trap touching the foliage of a plant, in this case a branch of the Knockout rose. The brochure explains why such “contact” is important. Only mature stink bugs fly. The juveniles have to hike into the trap—via the fence or the rose foliage.

29 feet away...

My stink-bug experiment has begun. Periodically I’ll report what’s happening.

Waiting Out Hurricane Irene

2011-08-27T17:54:00.000-04:00

Ready for Hurricane Irene

Hurricane Irene appears to be weakening a bit as she works her way up the Atlantic seaboard. Rainfall has been on-again, off-again since just after noon here at Meadow Glenn. Wind speed picks up from time to time but hasn’t yet reached the point that we’ve been concerned.
Of course we’re about as ready as we can be. We’ve operated on the theory of “better safe than sorry.”

Wednesday and Thursday were Irene Prep days in our veggie gardens. I picked a couple of buckets of Brandywine, Celebrity, Super Marzano, and Big Mama tomatoes, so their tall plants wouldn’t be top-heavy with fruit and prone to toppling in Irene’s rains and winds. I also reinforced the hills of our fall veggies, sort of a gardener’s “sandbagging” to block anticipated “surge” of water, and mowed the lawn.

And Friday afternoon late I finished up the garden work by picking a quart or so of Heritage raspberries and two colanders of small tomatoes—Sungold, Juliet, and Defiant—after Ellen and I had brought in summer-chair cushions, stacked reclining chairs, and reeled in the pool’s solar blanket off the pool and stowed it, hopefully, out of harm’s way along the split-rail fence.

Here’s my completed Hurricane Irene checklist:
1. Tomatoes and raspberries picked.
2. Veggies hilled, several tilting tomato cages reinforced, and lawn mowed.
3. Last-minute groceries bought, and lawn furniture and pool cover stowed.
4. Cell phone charged and two electric lanterns dusted and tested and extra batteries dug out of my study closet. New batteries put into FM radio.
5. Early this afternoon we drew 2½ gallons of water in three large pitchers.

TV and Internet updates show Irene continues her slow decline but is slowly working her way up the coast as a potentially dangerous storm. We don’t expect the kind of damage being forecast for homes and businesses along the coast because we’re 75 miles inland. We expect lots of rain and wind and won’t be surprised if trees somewhere topple and take out our electricity.

Our home, like many in the area, is 100% electric-powered. No electric means no lights, no heating/air-conditioning, no water from our deep-well pump, no TV and Internet. And, of course, no electric means no stove or appliances for preparing food.

But we do have a can opener and will have our pitchers of water. We’ve bought a bag of ice to keep some milk cold for a day or so in an insulated chest.

What will we eat?

I (note the first person singular) have a few ideas.

At the first flicker of the lights, I’ll first rescue the mint chocolate chip Klondike ice cream bars in the garage freezer. Then there’s one large carton of Turkey Hill Choco Mint Chip ice cream in the freezer section of the kitchen fridge. Once I’ve rescued those basic, essential dairy foods from spoilage, I’ll probably will turn to basic veggies/fruits—Brandywine and Celebrity tomatoes, which will make great sandwiches. I can always bring in a can of Bush’s Baked Beans from the storage rack in the garage if I think we need an upscale side dish. Our can opener is manual, so that won’t be a worry. Fresh-picked raspberries will make a grand dessert.

By then perhaps the lights will come back on. Irene will have passed to the northeast, the sun will shine again, and I’ll go out to see what’s happened during the storm in our gardens and landscape.

Damrosch: Are Veggie Gardeners Snobbish, Elitist, Unkind?

2011-08-26T11:32:00.001-04:00

Barbara Damrosch, the Washington Post’s “A Cook’s Garden” columnist is at her best when she’s ranting, and her latest column is a glorious rant. Three cheers—two thumbs up—for Barbara Damrosch!

Example: “I don’t care how much you earn, how fine a car you drive or what college your child attends. If you eat flavorless food, low in nutrients, grown in lifeless soil, you are poor….”

To enjoy her seven paragraphs, CLICK HERE.

Note to the Washington Post: Please tell the editor who wrote the headline for Damrosch’s column, “Jejune produce in August,” to throw away those flashcards for “1,000 Words to Dumbfound Your Readers.”

Tomato Patch: Getting Ready for Hurricane Irene

2011-08-25T07:30:00.001-04:00

Ready for Irene

Just how much trauma can the Tomato Patch take in one week—a 5.9 earthquake on Tuesday and a brush with Hurricane Irene on Friday or Saturday?

The earthquake had no visible effect on the Patch. I haven’t found one tomato that I think the quake shook from a vine. But I am concerned about the effect the passing hurricane may have this weekend.

In recent years, August has been a relatively dry month with our lawn of crabgrass reduced to stubble and me dreaming of late-afternoon showers of relief for our gardens. But this August is different. Our lawn is bright green, and the official weather data reported in the Washington Post indicates that BWI, our nearest airport, has recorded 5.30” of rain so far this month, compared to the normal 2.49”.

Now the weather news is about Hurricane Irene and what her effect may be on the mid-Atlantic states. The latest computer models indicate Irene most likely will parallel the coast as it moves north and possibly give eastern portions of our area “damaging winds” and “flooding rain.”

The Tomato Patch already has good moisture from recent summer downpours. Several more inches of “flooding rain” combined with “damaging winds” could topple some of my less-protected tomato cages, especially those with tall, indeterminate vines now top-heavy with late-season fruit. Softened soil plus top-heavy tomato plants plus wind gusts easily can topple tomato cages.

Wednesday morning I picked two buckets of break-stage tomatoes—Brandwine, Virginia Sweets, Super Marzano, and Big Mama. Moving their weight from the top of their vines to a counter in our garage should help keep my tomato cages upright if Irene’s rains and winds come our way.

And today I plan to reinforce three cages that recent summer storms have tilted a bit and, if the soil is dry enough, I’ll do a little extra hilling around my young fall vegetables—rutabagas, turnips, beets, and lettuce—to help them resist the downpours that probably will come this weekend.

Time for Multiplying by Dividing

2011-08-24T09:47:00.000-04:00

Time to divide bearded iris

August is a good time for dividing irises and daylilies, Joel M. Lerner reminds us in his Green Scene column in the Washington Post. Lerner gives practical tips for dividing daylilies and bearded and Siberian irises.

Of course, when you divide your plants, you end up with extra new plants. Sharing them with other neighbors and friends is a great way to multiply your gardening friends.

If you’re concerned about when to divide plant varieties, the University of Maryland Master Gardener Handbook gives this rule of thumb: “In Maryland, divide spring and summer bloomers after they bloom, either in late summer or fall as the foliage dies down. Fall-blooming herbaceous perennials are usually divided in early spring, giving the plants and entire growing season to recover.” Many public libraries in Maryland have a copy of the Handbook in their Reserve sections.

Lerner also suggests adding some biennials to complement your irises and lists good candidates for both partial shade and sunny gardens. To read his column, CLICK HERE.

Tomato Patch: Coping with Stink Bugs

2011-08-23T07:00:00.000-04:00

What's that on the window?

“Where are the stink bugs this year?” friends asked in May and June.

“Outside breeding so we’ll have a generous supply trying to figure out how to get into our homes in September and October,” I usually replied. It’s late August now, and the brown marmorated stink bugs have started to show up on our windows and sunning themselves on the western sides of our homes in late afternoon.

I’ve seen them all summer, of course, in our gardens. Their favorite foods at Meadow Glenn include tomatoes, raspberries, blackberries, green beans, cucumbers, and squash.

Stink bugs dining on Virginia Sweets tomato

In the Tomato Patch, the stink bugs seemed especially attracted to two large-fruited varieties, Virginia Sweets and Brandywine Red. Virginia Sweets is a large yellow tomato with reddish blush. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised that the stink bugs like the big yellow because researchers have found the bugs have some preference for that color. I haven’t figured out why the bugs preferred the Brandywine Red to the nearby Brandywine (Sudduth’s Strain) fruit.

The small Sungolds seem untouched, though I haven’t used a magnifying glass to verify that fact. The larger red Juliets showed minimal damage, though I think my picking at “breaker stage” this year helped minimize the bug attacks.

Brandywine with stink-bug "pinpricks"

In mid-June, when I saw the carnage the stink bugs were starting on our berries and tomatoes and realized my daily attempts to control the bugs by drowning them into soapy water was not going to be effective, I balanced the risks and began periodic spraying with a commonly available garden spray, Ortho Max Lawn & Garden Insect Killer (bifenthrin), which lists stink bugs among the insects it kills. I strictly followed directions and the more stringent California “days to harvest” after each spray. My decision to use a pesticide was difficult because I have had an essentially organic garden for at least 10 years.

Within 10 days the number of stink bugs went from “impossibly high” to “seldom seen.” Last year we harvested few raspberries, and those we did were usually stink-bug damaged. This year we harvested many quarts of beautiful berries. Last year we threw away many of our large tomatoes because of stink-bug damage. This year we have eaten most.

I've turned off the night light

Before dawn Sunday morning I found evidence of the stink bug hordes that soon will be seeking ways into our homes for protection from cold weather. As I stepped out of the garage to walk to our mailbox to get the Sunday Post, something caused me to glance up at the overhead night light. Scores of stink bugs swarmed around the light. Sunday night for the first time in 15 years I turned off the light.

Scientists from multiple disciplines are studying brown marmorated stink bugs and how they may be managed. I posted earlier about the EPA’s approval of pesticides for stone and pome fruits and for organic growers and about USDA experiments with tiny, parasitic wasps. An excellent overview of what’s happening is the University of Maryland Extension’s Entomology Bulletin, which details symptoms of the insect’s damage on crops and ornamentals and includes outstanding photographs. To link to the bulletin, CLICK HERE.

Defeat of the Downpour Demons

2011-08-22T07:00:00.001-04:00

Finally--fall lettuce

Our fall lettuce—at least some of it—finally is growing in our garden.

The Downpour Demons this year frustrated me twice. In mid-July I planted a row of Simpsons Curled and Red Sails lettuce seeds for fall harvest. Several days later a series of downpours either drowned the seeds or floated them from our terraced, hillside gardens toward the general direction of the Patuxent River and Montgomery and Prince George’s counties. I planted a second short row a few days later, and within 48 hours the Downpour Demons struck again.

However, the Downpour Demons didn’t win the fall lettuce battle. On July 31 I abandoned hope in starting lettuce in the garden and planted seeds in sterile starting soil in cups, kept them well watered but not floating, and protected them from downpours by rushing them onto our front porch whenever I saw a particularly ugly gray cloud approaching.

Finally—on Thursday—eighteen days after I planted the seeds in the cups, I set the six transplants out in a sunny spot in the corner of a garden near our row of Brandywine Red tomatoes. I watered them deeply, tucked some of the straw mulch around them, and will keep an eye on them and my favorite bottle of balsamic as I fantasize about the great salads they will make.

Have the Downpour Demons taught me anything? Yes, I think it’s much more efficient to start fall lettuce seeds in cups for later transplanting. I think next year I’ll start the process with cups, hopefully frustrating the Downpour Demons and saving me time, work, and disappointment.

And maybe I should start a few more cups of lettuce plants to extend our salad harvest well into October.

Grow It. Eat It.

Tomato Patch: Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down

2011-08-18T07:00:00.001-04:00

Yellow Plum tomatoes ready for preserving

This is a progress report on two of my trial tomato varieties for 2011, Yellow Plum and Super Marzano, seeds of which I bought from Tomato Growers Supply Co.

For a generation I’ve been growing small yellow tomatoes—usually Yellow Pear or Yellow Plum—for the primary purpose of making a family heirloom recipe, Yellow Tomato Preserves. I’ve learned over the years to choose Yellow Plum if I have a choice, because the Yellow Plums a slightly larger and meatier than the Yellow Pears, which means less preparation and cooking time.

This year I spotted Yellow Plum seeds in the Tomato Growers Supply catalog, and I have been delighted with the fruit. They are, on average, an inch and a quarter in diameter, meaty, about one ounce each, with little green in their cores (which tends to discolor the preserves over time), and somewhat more resistant to splitting after rain than the Yellow Pears I’ve grown in recent years.

8 ounces of heirloom gold

Monday afternoon and evening I made my annual batch of Yellow Tomato Preserves using a recipe very similar to the one my great-grandmother used. (For that story, see the link below to a posting I made last year. It includes a link to an online recipe.) That recipe calls for five pounds of tomatoes and five pounds of sugar, plus lemon (and I add pectin), and this week yielded eight eight-ounce jars and six four-ounce jars of preserves, plus a little left over for the preserve maker, of course, to enjoy on toast or English muffins the next few mornings.

The Yellow Plum tomatoes I prepared and cooked this week were the best batch that I can remember processing. For that, Yellow Plum tomato seeds from Tomato Growers Supply Co. get my “Thumbs Up.”

I intended to order San Marzano paste-tomato seeds but spotted Super Marzano VFNT hybrid seeds in the Tomato Growers catalog. Hey, why not? They have good resistance (VFNT) and the description sounded great: “average 5-inch long fruit … high in pectin, giving sauce and paste natural thickness.”

Half bucket of stunted Super Marzano tomatoes

But Super Marzano has been a disappointment. I’ve picked scores of fruit off three plants, and only three or four have been 5-inches long. Almost every fruit has been stunted because of blossom-end rot, as the photo indicates. Yes, I added some pulverized lime and water, as I do when I plant all my tomato varieties. A Big Mama plant between two Super Marzano plants has no blossom-end rot, and neither do two rows of Brandywines in front of the Super Marzanos.

I will try to salvage some of the fruit that seems least affected, but Super Marzano has been a super disappointment. I think it’s prone to blossom-end rot. For that, Super Marzano seeds from Tomato Growers Supply Co. get my “Thumbs Down.”

Comments posted earlier this growing season indicate that many tomato-growers are having major blossom-end rot problems with their paste-type tomatoes. If you’re growing a variety that has been relatively rot free, please post a Comment and tell us what it is—and add any special tip you have to prevent the problem.

To read my posting of August 2010 about why and how I make Yellow Tomato Preserves, CLICK HERE.

Tomato Patch: A dozen recipes

2011-08-17T08:28:00.000-04:00

And the winner is: Tomato Kimchi-Chi!

Today’s Food Section of the Washington Post is its annual “tomato special” and contains a dozen recipes selected as “winningly diverse” entries in its recipe contest, “Top Tomato 2011.”

I may smile and skip most of the recipes—such as Vermillion Red Beer and GreenTomato Mint Sorbet—but I just may try the Summer Spaghetti and the Cardamon-Stewed Tomatoes with Bread Bits and Cheese.

Name your poison—oops, sorry, choose a recipe. To go to the listing, CLICK HERE.

Basil Bouquet for a Friend

2011-08-10T07:34:00.000-04:00

Vivian and her basil bouquet

I posted a link on my Facebook page to my recent posting about pruning basil, and a friend added a Comment that her basil had died in the drought, the neighborhood farm stand was fresh out of the herb, and would I consider selling her a few sprigs. I also learned on Facebook that our friend had taken a spill while weeding her garden on Friday.

I gave Vivian a call Saturday night. Yes, she’s doing fine, she insisted--no bones broken. “I was lucky to tumble into some weeds and not onto the edge of the sidewalk,” she explained. “I was tugging on a clump of ‘wire grass’ when it decided to give up.” She said she was grateful that she didn’t land on the concrete on her hip that hasn’t done well since joint replacement several years ago.

“Well, Vivian,” I said. “I don’t sell my veggies. Will you be home Sunday morning so I can bring you some basil?” She said she and her husband, Curt, would be there and that she would love some to make some pesto. Sunday morning Curt welcomed me to their “down-sized bungalow,” as Vivian calls it, when I drove up in my pickup. Vivian came down the steps from the kitchen to join us in the shade of a backyard tree.

“Here, a bouquet just for you,” I said as I handed Vivian the basil I had cut that morning. She seemed so appreciative, so happy, as she admired her bouquet.

“And here’s something for Curt,” I added, handing him a bowl of red raspberries I had picked that morning. “And some Sungold and Juliet tomatoes for snacking—and several large Brandywines and a Virginia Sweets that most farm stands don’t have for sale.”

We chatted for a bit and I took my leave with many thanks—their thanks for the basil, raspberries, and tomatoes and my thanks for friends like Vivian and Curt, who are four score plus in years and continue to tend their garden of flowers and herbs and care for their lawn.

If you have extra produce, give some to a friend, a neighbor, an organization that accepts produce on behalf of those in need. If you live in Maryland or the District of Columbia, CLICK HERE for some ideas of where you might donate to an organization. If you live in another state, perhaps the link will give you an idea for sharing in your town or city.

Grow It, Eat It, Give It.

Stink Bug Update: EPA Approves Insecticides on Emergency Basis

2011-08-08T09:23:00.000-04:00

The brown marmorated stink bug invasion made page one of today’s Washington Post, where the headline proclaims: “With a stink bug boom, harvests could go bust: Entomologists weight ways to squash pest’s propagation, migration.”

The story by Darryl Fears tells of the devastation the stink bugs are doing to crops, the threat they pose as they expand across the nation, and research the USDA is conducting in Delaware on a natural predator, a minute Asian wasp that the Post describes as “not much bigger than the period at the end of a sentence.”

Those things aren’t news to those who’ve been reading Stink Bug Updates here, but buried deep in the Post series is some genuine news: “The EPA has approved two insecticides, including dinotefuran, sold under the names Venom and Scorpion, for emergency use. The poison is effective, farmers said, but has a major downside.” The downside, of course, is that the insecticide kills beneficial insects too, leaving growers dependent on expensive chemicals.

The Post article, however, did not mention several points of the EPA announcement: (1) The approval of dinotefuran covers only the states of Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, West Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. (2) The approval is for use on stone and pome fruits, such as peaches, plums, cherries, apples, and pears. (3) The EPA earlier had approved dinotefuran for use on a variety of crops, such as leafy vegetables, grapes, and potatoes.

The biggest unreported news, I think, is that when the EPA approved dinotefuran, it also approved an insecticide that organic farmers may use, a product that “contains azadirachtin and pyrethrins, which are derived from botanical ingredients.” The EPA announcement says the organic insecticide may be used in “organic production systems” and is “now approved for use on many crops where stink bug management is needed.”

The bottom line is that fruit growers in the mid-Atlantic states now have approved insecticides to combat stink bugs this growing season. If you’re buying “regular” tree fruits, they probably were sprayed with a chemical insecticide, and if you’re buying “organic” fruits or vegetables, they may have been sprayed with a “botanical” insecticide.

To read the EPA announcement, CLICK HERE.

To read the Washington Post article, CLICK HERE.