Busy start to the day – two radio shows to do, both live. At 10am we are discussing using locally available produce for season and holdiay recipes. Listen to Personal Chef Tony Carollo (http://mychefsite.com/globalchefservice) give some great recipes to try.
At 11am the largest poisettia farm in the country is the guest on The Master Gardener Hour. Paul Ecke III a 4th generation grower gives tips on poinsettias and the new Polar Bear Program – listen in at 10 and 11am on www.radiosandysprings.com or www.americaswebradio.com .
I am in England visiting my mother, and today we played in the garden. I raked leaves and put in bulbs, plus some gilliflowers aka wallflowers.
The soil is dark, but was not dark enough, so we put some compost onto the whole area to give some extra nutrients.
Had some great conversations with some nursery folk as well today as I have seen a stunning bright red hardy cyclamen – no one can give a cultivar name though.
Tomorrow is the big Fall Affair in the Garden at Barrington Hall. I have scheduled speakers and we will have an old fashioned plant swap. The talks will be on Southern Historic Landscapes and the Williams-Payne House, plus yours truly talking about the restoration of the Barrington Garden. The event starts at 10am and the plant swap is scheduled for about 12.30.
My contribution to the swap are some dark leaf elephant ears. I dug them about a week ago so that I could give the new sugar cane room to grow.
Fussy Plant and New Container with Sweat Peas
With the blast of cold air last week, my tender outdoor plants are coming inside for the winter, so my attention has turned toward container gardening for the winter. Apart from the large tropical plants, I have some sweet pea seeds and some lettuce that I think will work well in containers if I can get them sufficient light.
My plan right now is to sow the seeds and let them germinate inside, then in the mild weather that generally follows the first cold snap, I will put them out onto the sunny deck. I truly think that fresh breezes and natural rainfall are much better for plants than the sometimes stale air that is prevalent in many homes during the winter, so if they can stay outside for another week or two we will all keep our sanity.
The beauty of container gardening is that you can bring the container in when foul weather occurs and take it back outside when mild weather returns. Of course this can only be done if the container is not too large. To help move the larger containers around I want to buy one of those plastic crates on wheels and put the larger containers into that.
In general I have found that light is the biggest problem. Some areas where we have lived, the number of sunny days is depressingly low, so extra light was needed. Now that we are in the south, I hope to find a window that will give sufficient light without using plant lights. Growing sweet peas and salad greens will also help because neither of these need the 12-plus hours of direct sunshine that some plants need. Less than ideal conditions lead to weak plants which tend to be more susceptible to bug and health problems, so using plants that cope with low light and keeping everything outside as long as possible, should help me get some color and a few fresh salad greens throughout the winter months. Container gardening in winter is a challenge, but the results will be worth it.
I was wondering around the internet and found this video. I host Ameerica’s Home Grown Veggie Show, and this one is saved online. It was the show where I spoke with Baltimore City Parks Manager about the veggie that they put in the flower beds outside city hall. It also has one of the rare phone in questions from Pennsylvania:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/1948462
Enjoy!!
Tags: Americas Home Grown Veggie Show, baltimore city veg garden
Mowing is like clearing snow – it’s a chore where no one bugs you. My snow clearing days are over now, but the mowing is still alive and well – or at least was until some bright spark suggested that the kids should do the mowing. What clearly went past the engineer’s brain was that I liked mowing!! Alas, the kids have also taken to the ‘chore’ and will happily volunteer to go out there.
It seems that we all share the same thoughts – it’s a valid chore that has to be done, takes a while and no one bugs you. I use it for chill out time and thinking through irritations etc. they get attached to an ipod thingy and happily wander up and down the lawn ‘plugged in’.
So yesterday I actually got my chance to mow before anyone could volunteer to do it, or think of something else for me to do.
Apart from the ‘chill out’ part of sitting for 90mins atop a garden tractor, there are other advantages. One is that I get up-close and personal with all the property and become reaquainted with the bumps, hollows, drainage problems and find out how far the ivy has escaped the undergrowth at the side of the grass. Then there was a little dahlia that had just come into bloom along one side- I would have noticed that anyway, but the first sighting of a new bloom is always fun to see. I noticed where the fescue really is struggling even after a moist and mild summer, and how far the dratted loriope had spread from under one of the trees. I waved to two neighbors – one mowing, one jogging – no need to chat though as we were all ‘busy’ but not so busy that we couldn’t wave and connect.
So mowing is not so much a ‘who gets the short straw’ chore, but rather a ‘who gets there first’ , and yesterday I got there first and had a great time!
90 minutes of peace!
Today I have rose Marie Nichols McGee on the show. Rose Marie owns Nichols Nursery (www.nicholsgardennursery.com)and we will talk about sowing fall gardens, good veggies for containers, and, of course, the hop plants. The nursery has a wonderful collection of hop roots for growing your own beer garden!! Beer supplies are also available from the nursery.Listen in for how to get some free seeds!!
This morning I was helping out in Sandy Springs at the library where they are putting a labyrinth in! This is the first labyrinth that I have seen installed and was really a fun experience. Louise, the Extension agent is a labyrinth fan and will be installing these peaceful designs all over North Fulton.
We started in the morning by doing some final levelling of the ground so that the overall design would fit easily. Then the center was established. We had a rope, that was as long as the diameter, marked off at 18″ lengths. As the rope was stretched out we placed a paver at each of the markers. Moving around the circle, pavers were laid out to make the labyrinth ‘walls’. Additional pavers formed the end walls to guide the participant through the labyrinth.
For this labyrinth we had a central rock placed to form the goal of the system. Manpower was supplied by the local school so all we had to do was start the work (before they got there) and then let the students do the rest.
Alas I had to leave before the whole thing was finished but I hope to get back there tomorrow to take a picture of the it.
Measuring the outer Edge
The walls are finished
Labyrinths are used in many ways, but in essence you start at the ‘mouth’ end of the feature and follow the path inside. As you turn and twist, turn and advance, you gain a sense of peace and quiet. The return path lets your body relax until you reach the mouth again and enter the world with a sense of tranquility.
Last year we had an incident where the local thespians, who perform at the property, took it upon themselves to prune a mature fig tree because it was in the way of their entrance/hiding or whatever. My loppers where left out of place as evidence and the offensive branch had been left half way across the lawn.
And then there was the photographic group before Easter who had clearly thought the little girl with some tiny daffodils would look so cute. The daffodils were cut with scissors from around the mid 19C home. All the daffodils in the garden are recorded and dated, not to mention catalogued with source and order number. The daffodil heads were discarded across the porch.
This latest incident though left me speechless. The thespians are performing on a different side of the house. They could not understand why we would not let them prune the mature and historic camellia (C.japonica) which apparently was where their stage needed to be. When approached I made it clear that contrary to their information, camellias bloom over the winter and you do not prune them in September. So this morning I arrive and the stage is assembled, rammed up against the camelia, as close as they can get without snapping branches. It seems though that a little clump of autumn clematis was also in the way – so they severed the vine at the ground and discarded it!!!!
The severed root The sorry sight
The sad and sorry pile of debris was left alongside the location of the vine. My first thought was to call the authorities and claim property abuse/vandalism.
So yet again I am stunned at how people treat the plants and shrubs on a historic property, many are century old, and all have historic significance which seems to be lost on the population as a whole.
Note: the official word is that there was a misunderstanding – they thought that they were given permission to prune the shrubs. My view is that common sense should have prevailed and cutting down a vine at ground level is way more than ‘pruning’. A belated policy of ‘touch nothing unless it is in writing’ is now in place.
The week started last Sunday morning. I was enthusiastic after the Saturday radio show to get started on my fall vegetable garden. First though I needed to clear a few overgrown weeds from a flowerbed – how they got to be 3 ft high behind my back is a mystery. They took about 15 minutes to dig up an put into the weed bucket.
I should have stopped right there.
But no…… I pulled a piece of English Ivy from a peony that struggles, but lives quietly in that area. The ivy invaded from the edge of the property so I found myself pulling and snipping and weeding a not-to- small ivy area. Now I know there was poison ivy in there but I had gloves on and was taking that carefully and wrapping it into the ivy for carrying. At the end of the session I put all the ivy into the bucket, which was too small but when smashed down, was just overfilled. Being someone who conserves energy I placed one arm over the bucket and the other on the side to lug it over to the compost area. That was not smart as my arm oviously came into close and continued contact with the poison ivy for about 4 minutes!!!
Unaware, I proceeded to weed, compost and reseed the fall veggie garden with two lettuce types and a carrot. The drizzle had started, so I cleared away and washed up which is when I noticed the first problem.
Over the next 48 hours I also noticed that little chigger-type things had attacked my legs, as far as my knees and my arms as well. Little terrors cause merciless itching.
The week had barely started and I was an itching, uncomfortable gardener. Tuesday, I was due for a physical and the nice friendly doctor looked at the arms and we laughed at my stupidity before she announced that there was a brand new tetanus immunisation that you have 5 yrs apart (for 2 then back to 10 yrs I think). Wasn’t I lucky -it was just 5 yrs since my last tetanus and, clearly I was a gardener, so I got to have the brand new 2-instead of-1 in 10 yr shot. Now tetanus makes you arm rather stiff. By Tuesday evening I felt as though I had been in a bar brawl!
Wednesday went by reaonably quietly. My America’s Home Grown Veggie Show guest was pretaping on Friday so that we could have Labor Day weekend off. The Master Gardener show guest had gone missing. We were reluctant to rerun an old tape for the MG show because we just had a great new sponsor (Jason’s Deli), so I sent emails to everyone I know and was confident someone could help.
Thursday morning, I dropped youngest at school and noticed the water temp thingy was getting hi. This happened 10 days ago when I had forgotten to put water (and oil) into the car. Strange though as it now was topped up and the garage found no leaks. On the way back, the water light hit the top of the scale and alarms went off. Then the check engine and another light come on to scream at me, while the acceleration…. died. This in communter traffic. I found a driveway to pull into (house for sale, no one there – phew) and called the garage, then kid at home with car, then Dh who was out of town – he recommended not driving the car to the garage. I get home, drop the keys at the garage and about 3pm they phone – head gasket blown, water/oil covering the engine – needs new engine – could be 3 weeks – WHAT????!!!
Thursday pm I am still trying to find a guest to stand in for MG radio show. No one dropping into the email box, so I inform the station producer that it is him and me – I will give him the questions, we can do this – right?? BTW I am going to be on the phone and will call in to talk with the guest.
Late Thursday, Veggie guest sends me an email – got stomach bug, cannot come in. I am at the laugh or cry stage by now – so we went to the bar and I chose to laugh at the chaos.
Friday dawns and I try the radio show from home on Skype – audio turns out to be dreadful – I couldn’t hear the station and I was breaking up. We change to my cellphone. Not much better. I am sharing the kids’ car for school run. He uses it for his job with local paper.
I think tomorrow I will go down to the station and we will rerecord the show – it sounded a disaster. That means driving DH”s car – a bright red, sporty Mustang with bucket seats and manual 5-gear transmition – I am 5′ and can barely see over the top, and the gears still confound me.
Thank goodness the week is over, the rashes and bites are no longer a problem, but I think I need the long weekend to get over this week. And the little veggies are germinating already.