Hoping Everyone Had A Great Holiday Weekend!

Everything seems to be in bloom since I last posted an entry.  The peonies, and other flowers, are attracting some true (?) honeybees. I seem to be seeing a few more this spring than I have for the past several years. Perhaps some hives have become big enough to split. That would be a big step in their comeback here in central PA. Or maybe I'm being fooled by some mason bee/honeybee look-alikes.

                    Peonies attract pollinators. Too much sun in the pic. Oh, well...

 Because we have a very limited garden space in our urban backyard, we try to get the most out of the containers we use. The picture below shows a cherry tomato in a 6 gallon container on the sidewalk a few feet from our kitchen. Looks like strawberries on the left and tarragon on the right. We pretty much have to optimize all the sunny spaces we have!
                                      

                    
With the exception of the rainy days we've had, we spend some time in the garden every day, often several hours.  One of the more tedious chores to be done is often referred to as "deadheading". It is also one of the first chores I was taught by my garden  mentors, Margaret and Dorothy.  To keep pollinators coming to our garden, we need to keep the flowering plants productive.  Most flowering plants produce buds which mature and become flowers. After a time they drop their petals. If left alone, the plant will then produce a pod which contains seeds. This is the primary job of the flower...producing seeds so more flowers will produce more seeds. But the process also wears the plant out to the point of early death. To keep your flowers blooming, pinch off each wilting blossom at a point just below the first leaves. This forces the plant to rush into producing even more flowers which will give your garden a lush flower filled look! Just a few days ago we deadheaded 134 older, wilting blossoms - which gives you an idea of how many flowering plants we have attracting mason bees and butterflies into our yard.

                  We'll be deadheading the purple sage in another week or so!

And, finally, the last of our spring crops, the sugar snap peas, are in blossom. we have about twenty-five feet of sugar peas! Just a few more weeks before we really begin getting garden vegetables on a regular basis. The green beans will follow along with all the other summer crops.

                                                A few feet of sugar snaps!

                                                   And first strawberries!

Thanks for stopping by. I hope to see you again next week.

Comments or questions?  email me at http://chucksgardenspot.blogspot.com

 

 Hello again,everyone!  Just an extra post in case you wanted to know how I came to love gardening.  Published by GreenPrints "The Weeders' Digest", Summer 2009....it's a quick, short read.  I would normally have posted this story by directing you to the GreenPrints site, but they now require payment to buy the issue. I will, though, recommend GreenPrints to gardeners/readers. It's inexpensive, 4 issues a year, and just a pleasure to read.

 

 

 

Margaret & Dorothy - Thanks for all the joy you have given me over these many years !

 

Charles

 

 

May 19, 2013

                           Rain, Rain Go Away...At Least For Just A While!

The past few weeks have reminded me of a Ray Bradbury short story titled "All Summer in a Day". A young girl moves to a new home planet where the sun comes out only one day for an hour every seven years. It rains the rest of the time. When the day arrives for the sun to shine, the "bad" local girls, who don't like the new girl, lock her in a closet so she can't see the sun. I feel like I've been in that closet for weeks now!  And it appears our dreary, drippy days will continue in the near future....I hope not for seven years!

And speaking of long waits, 17 year locusts (cicadas) may pay us a visit as the weather warms up in the next month or so. They have red bodies and eyes, unlike the regular black and green cicadas we see every summer. Believe it or not, there are some scientists out there who would like to know when they visit and munch on the trees and the gardens in your area. If you are interested in helping, report sightings to http://project.wnyc.org/cicadas

                                                                 Cute!                             
                       
   While I usually keep growing vegetables the subject here, it's also very important to grow a mixture of flowers in your garden area. The flowers, especially showy ones like zinnias, petunias and sunflowers, attract mason bees, and maybe even some surviving honey bees, to your plot. Their presence will greatly enhance the pollination of the not terribly showy vegetable plants you've started.

                                                        Wall Flowers

The blackberries are in full flower. The raspberries are just starting to get their smaller white buds. Although the blackberries flowered before the raspberries, the raspberries will have ripe fruit before the much larger blackberry fruit.

                                                            Blackberry

Like many gardeners, I'm sure, I go out to our garden late in the evening just to take one last look before heading off to bed for the night. Just last week, I went out at about 11:00 p.m.. The night was cloudy and our solar lights hadn't been charged due to the sheer lack of sunshine during the day. It was calm and quiet. After just a few moments, I heard a soft padding sound...a light clicking behind me. I froze! All I could think was that I was being visited by an opossum, or even worse, a skunk. And I really didn't want to take a chance on the skunk possibility. Click, click, click. I was as immobile as a stone statue.  Click, click, then plop, plop. They came closer. Then PLOP on my head.  Raindrops! What a relief that was! I'm glad no one was with me because I really felt silly!

Hope to see you again soon. Have a great garden week!

Comments or questions? Contact me at chuckscards42@hotmail.com


 

May 12, 2013  and  A Frost Alert!

                                                        Cold Weather!

Okay, who perpetrated the notion that it's SPRING in Lancaster County, PA?? Temperatures will be in the low to mid thirties tonight (Sunday) and again tomorrow night with a chance of frost, a dangerous situation for tender plants. We'll be covering all that we can with containers and blankets to make every effort to prevent possible cold or frost damage. Unfortunately, we can't blanket everything and can only hope we wont lose any of our plantings.  The buckets in the picture will be placed over the plants at sundown.

                                                    The big cover up!

In spite of the weather forecast, it must be spring. The arrival of the first possum babies is a sure sign. The little guy below was out for a stroll. Meanwhile, mom was calling one of our trash cans "home"! She chewed a hole through the side to make a very nice entryway. As much as I hated to do it, I sprinkled about a half ton of organic animal repellent in the area and they were last seen scurrying up the lane, no doubt looking for more hospitable hosts. As much as I may like them, and Lois really doesn't, they have a bad habit of going through a row of tomatoes and munching the front half of one fruit before moving on and munching the facing half of the next tomato.

                                              Is she/he cute or what???

In a break from the vegetable garden, we spent some time at Hoover's greenhouse operation somewhere north of Rothsville, PA. It was our annual splurge on hanging baskets for the courtyard area. We hung them Friday before we read the long range weather forecast. So, they are now inside the house until the weather warms up.

                                     Just waiting for the weather to warm up!

Many plants have popped up in the past week. Carrots have sprouted, green beans are up, as is the corn. The peas have exploded with growth, the asparagus continue to push up spears, the peppers are flowering, and the cucumbers, butternut and all the other squash plants are growing at a fast pace. The broccoli matured and it quickly became part of several meals. We will plant more broccoli in August for a fall picking.

                                         The sugar snap peas are thriving!

Finally, a minor warning about a semi-invasive plant. Some years ago, we decided to add some annual and perennial herbs to our garden. One we thought would be a good addition was "lemon balm". And it is very nice for many uses. However, although I think it's an annual, it seeds its area so heavily that it appears to be a perennial. If you decide to add herbs to your garden, do some research online to determine which might be more of a problem than they are worth!

Thanks for taking a look. I hope to see you again next week!

Comments or questions?  Contact me at chuckscards42@hotmail.com

Cold Weather Alert!

For all you gardeners out there, tomorrow, Sunday 5/12/13, will have unseasonably cold nightime temperatures, but a bit above freezeing. Protect your plants. The cold will continue on Monday night. Be prepared to cover up!

Tools of The Trade

              April Showers Bring May Flowers, But Cold April Nights Do Not!

Hello! Thanks for stopping by.

For much of the past 10 days beginning April 28, temperatures  have been relatively warm and sunny, but the nighttime air temperatures during the same period continually dipped into the mid-30's. Most of the plants we have in the garden are a little fussy about that kind of overnight situation. In order to keep them happy, we had to protect them from the cooler night air in spite of the fact that daily sunshine had warmed our soil to 60 degrees.  I'm thankful that we are now entering a warming period for at least the next week, but there will be little sunshine and periodic showers. Some rain is certainly welcome, however, as it's been in short supply lately.

                         Various containers kept plants a little warmer last week.

And since I mentioned soil temperatures, I have to say that I definitely found a soil thermometer to be a big help in knowing when to get plants started in the garden. The thermometer comes with a chart giving soil temperatures that are suited to starting various  plants. For instance, green bean seed likes  the soil to be at 60f when planted. Beets and many other spring plantings will tolerate and sprout with soil temperatures at 40f. It's definitely a worthwhile addition to the garden tool arsenal. Plants that are placed in soil that is too cool to meet their needs may not fare well in the long run.
 

A soil thermometer will let you know when soil temps are proper for seeds.

Pansies are one of the spring flowers that don't mind colder soil. And gnomes are always a big help in the garden!

                                              
 As you can see in the picture below, the sugar "snap peas" are coming along quite well, as did the spinach earlier. We have three 8' rows of the peas. They were quite happy getting started with a soil temp of 40f. The broccoli, beets, carrots, and radishes are thriving as well. These plants are the type suited to spring and fall plantings and have edible pods. They grow to between 25 and 30 inches tall. Eat raw or cooked/sauteed in some manner.
 

                                                      Edible pod peas.

The strawberries are thriving with many flowers showing. Lots of white blossoms tell us that we'll pick a healthy crop in early June.

Strawberries

 

We've been picking asparagus for a few weeks now. With the soil and air temperatures warming up, we can see carrots, corn, green beans, zucchinis, butternut, tomatoes, cucumbers, and bell peppers sprouting out of the soil. We also put some potato seed and gourd seeds in 5 gallon containers today.The cherries, raspberries, and blackberries are all showing buds, as well.

 

Urban gardening really works! I hope to see you again soon.

Comments? Ideas?  Contact me at chuckscards42@hotmail.com