Summer Days in the Blueberry Patch

My nieces think they are just hilarious -- when I ask them to demonstrate picking blueberries for the camera, they stuff them instead in their mouths. As you can see, not much ends up in the buckets. I still came home with enough to make two berry cobblers and have enough leftovers for snacking and blueberry shakes for the next few days.

Parading Ponds

This morning I go to visit 5 of the 35+ properties on the Parade of Ponds tour. Pictured here is one I saw - a stream bed with a series of ponds cascading down a front lawn -- a very unusual set-up and down impeccably well. The tour continues this afternoon and all day tomorrow. Best of all - ALL proceeds benefit Shepherd's Table. Go here to buy your tickets last minute.

More Staycation Ideas

Here is the online link to this week's The List: Top Gardening Events for the week ahead on page 34 of today's print edition in the Washington Examiner. You can find the Examiner in the many red street-boxes around town. I saved a screen capture of the listing as a JPG and posted it here at left -- you can click on it to read at 100%.

I plan to spend the weekend touring ponds and farms in the local area. I will pretend though that I'm in Tuscany or the south of France, cause this is as close as I'm getting to any of those in the foreseeable future.

My other "staycation" plans are to borrow more DVDs from the DC library. I just found out they have a very liberal three-week loan period for them and a pretty darn good collection of new stuff and old classics. I go to on average of 2-3 movies a week through the DC Film Society and other film preview groups I belong to so there is not much I have not seen. And if I haven't yet, it's probably because I have no desire to do so. Still a few good films always lip through the cracks. Never did get to Disney's Cars nor Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story and I'm in the mood now for some lighter, fluffier summer fare now.

Staycation Plans

Last Saturday while at the Kenilworth Water Lily Fest I did a call-in segment to a live radio show, Travel'n-On. I met co-host Tonya Fitzpatrick at a Silver Spring Marketing Team meeting awhile back and we finally had this chance to work together. We talk about the beauty of Kenilworth and the great idea of a "staycation" or playing tourist in our own hometowns. You can listen to it online here - I'm in the first segment. We plan to do another show together later on this year about regional gardening daytrips and maybe more gardens worth traveling to around the world.

Soil Nerds

First off, it is soil not dirt. Got that? Dirt is what you track in on your shoes, soil is a living universe of microorganisms that supports all life on this planet.

Last week I attended the pre-opening press conference for "Dig It! The Secrets of Soil" exhibit at the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum. Sounds thrilling right? While the subject is pretty *ahem* dry and musty. I did learn a few new things like just how little we know about our soils. Like air and water, we are not making more of this essential element and once we've stripped off the top soil and poisoned the layers below we are basically screwed.

An off-hand comment at the press conference led me to the NRSC web site, which I'd never heard of before and here I thought I had traveled all over the USDA's various sites! While there, I have hit the mother-lode for soil nerds. This page tells you everything you want to know about testing your soil quality yourself. True DIY. Since Maryland and DC do not offer free soil tests for their citizens, we have to take it upon ourselves to find out what toxins we have underfoot or what nutrients our soils lack. The earthworm assessment test caught my eye. Basically, you dig up a square-foot of earth than flush out the earthworms with a noxious mustard-water mix, then count them up. Of course, you rinse off the poor things before returning them back with the soil. The interpretative guide states: "About 10 earthworms per square foot of soil (100 worms/m2) is generally considered a good population in agricultural systems." And if you just read that and thought to yourself, "Huh, I wonder how many earthworms per square foot are in my yard?" Congratulations, you are a soil nerd.

The Dig It! exhibit runs until January and there are plans to have it travel across the country. Pictured here are soil samples from 54 US states and territory. No surprise to see DC, VA, MD, and DE are basically red-orange-yellow clay.

Parade of Ponds Makes Big Splash for Shepherd's Table

Washington Gardener Magazine is proud to sponsor the first annual PARADE OF PONDS. The event takes place on the weekend of July 26 -27 from 9:00am-5:00pm daily. It is a self-guided tour of water gardens, ponds, and water features in the Washington DC Metro area -- from Falls Church, VA to Frederick, MD. There over 35 locations featured on the tour. They include mainly residential properties with a few commercial entities as well.

All ticket sales benefit Shepherd's Table, which provides food and services to the needy in our local community. Shepherd's Table is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year and is hosting events all year long culminating in its Gala Celebration with an American Acoustic Concert at the Kennedy Center. More on Shepherd's Table here.

Tickets may be purchased in advance at Sun Nursery in Woodbine, MD, Johnson Nursery in Laytonsville, MD, and Seibel's Restaurant in Burtonsville, MD. They may also be purchased online here.

This event was organized and is hosted by Premier Ponds. Premier Ponds installs, maintains and renovates a wide range of natural water features throughout the region.

Washington Gardener magazine (http://www.washingtongardener.com/) is the gardening publication specifically for the local metro area — zones 6-7 — Washington DC and its suburbs. Washington Gardener magazine’s basic mission is to help DC area gardens grow better. The magazine is written entirely by local area gardeners. The content of the magazine gives real examples that residents of the greater DC region can use immediately in your own garden.

Washington Gardener is a local, independent, and woman-owned business based in Silver Spring, MD. The publication is dedicated to promoting the best practices for area gardening.

The Smoking Fire Pit

Over on the left coast at Sunset's blog there is a two-part post on fire pits in gardens and their impact on those with asthma:
http://freshdirt.sunset.com/2008/07/all-fired-up-th.html
http://freshdirt.sunset.com/2008/07/its-just-smoke.html

I have to say those fire pit bowls sold at Target are mighty tempting and I have a big circle of concrete out back so I can easily see plopping one in there. Then I'll be sitting next to it in my Adirondack chairs on a chilly Autumn eve, sipping hot cider, and roasting marshmallows. But for $50-100, I have never felt that big an urge to get one. After the Chimenea craze of a few years ago, these fire bowls just seem like one more fad that will fade fast. They go along with the Beadazzler and Crimping Irons -- seemed cool at the time, but really more bother than they are worth. You use them once or twice and then they just take up valuable real estate. And really, how could I enjoy those marshmallows knowing I might be sending one of my asthmatic neighbors to the hospital.

Kenilworth Waterlily Festival

Here is the online link to this week's The List: Top Gardening Events for the week ahead on page 30 of today's print edition in the Washington Examiner. You can find the Examiner in the many red street-boxes around town. I saved a screen capture of the listing as a JPG and posted it here at left -- you can click on it to read at 100%.

We'll have a table signing up new subscribers at this Saturday's Kenilworth Waterlily Festival. The last 2 years I've done it have been hot as Hades, but with a nice dash of DC humidity to make even my straight hair curl. For four hours I can handle it and actually enjoy the cleansing sauna effect. The fun part is watching the tourists and AC-dwellers rough it for their short time visiting out there. The sweating is worth it though to see those 1000s of waterlilies and lotuses in bloom. Nothing like it. I haven't meant anyone who visits and isn't instantly smitten. Best kept secret in the city -- and because it is a national park property, it is absolutely free to attend. Arrive early as the blooms close up in the heat of the afternoon.

Edible Chesapeake Reprints Tomato Story

The Summer 2008 edition of Edible Chesapeake has a reprint of the cover story from our May/June 2008 tomato-theme issue. You can pick up Edible Chesapeake for free at area Whole Foods or farmers' markets. See the full list of pick-up spots here.

BTW our tomato-theme issue is a practical sell-out -- just one case left. For the first time ever I'm having to figure out how to handle back issue orders for it. Should I get down to the very last few copies of this issue, I'll probably take it off the order lists and reserve it only for those buying full-sets of all our back issues. Being a "completist" myself, I think that is the fairest way. So with that I announce our new ALL BACK ISSUE SPECIAL. Buy all 20 back issues from March/April 2005-May/June 2008 for just $90 including postage. A $120 value. Send a check for $90.00 payable to “Washington Gardener” magazine to: Washington Gardener, 826 Philadelphia Ave., Silver Spring, MD 20910.

July 15 '08 Washington Gardener Enews Out

Washington Gardener Enews

Vol. 4, No. 7 — July 15, 2008

In This Issue:
~ Creating Easy Water Features

~ Magazine Excerpt: Grasses to Graze Upon

~ July To-Do List

~ Spotlight Special: Begonia ‘Metallic Mist’

~ Reader Contest: Parade of Ponds Passes

~ Local Gardening Events

The issue was sent out yesterday and is stored now here.

Nursery Pot Recycling Collection

Below are the details on the new nursery pot recycling program in Montgomery County, MD. This new program was announced on July 1, but it took awhile for us to get clarifiaction on what "flower pots" were acceptable for recycling and what was not.

For those Washington Gardener Magazine readers in nearby jurisdictions that do not have pot recycling yet, I've set out a tall blue recycle bin in my back driveway* starting today. It will be labeled "nursery pots" so you can drop off your extra pots. (Please single plastic pots only. No film 2-, 4-, or 6-packs!) I will set them out for pick-up every Thursday morning. Feel free to drop off your pots anytime in the bin.

*The driveway entrance faces the Public Storage at 7800 Fenton Street - near the corner of Philadelphia Ave (Rt 410) in downtown Silver Spring, MD. You can walk over from either the Takoma and Silver Spring metro stations, bike over on the nearby path, or take the bus (#17, #18, F4/F6 all stop by within a block).

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> Can you please offer more guidance on "flower pots" –
> do you take ALL kinds of plastic pots?

We’ve discovered that the term “flower pot” is limiting – yes, all colors of pots are accepted. And, perhaps “plant pot” or “nursery pot” would be more descriptive? (What do you think? What do *you* call them?)

I'm going with "nursery pot"

> Are film-plastic 4- and 6-packs okay?

No, these are not accepted. A rule of thumb is that if the container is flimsy/crinkly, then it is not accepted.

> Please also share how they are being recylced precisely.

The pots will be recycled just like the other plastics we accept. The plastic items are chopped up into small pieces, rinsed, and then formed into plastic pellets. Those pellets are then used to make new plastic items.

> What is a “garden product” by your definition? Do you mean pesticide and herbicide? Fertilizers as well?

Yes, the products include pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers. If you have specific ones, we can check on them.

This applies even when the containers are rinsed, because the workers on the sorting line have no way to know whether or not a hazardous product container has been rinsed, or whether any liquid in them is the actual product. So, to avoid shutting down the sorting line because of a hazardous product cleanup situation, our program does not accept this container type.

Please let me know how we can continue to make the plastic information more useful. I’ll be updating our how-to page as we refine our guidance, and using our blog to discuss specific containers.

Happy gardening!
--Susanne Wiggins
IT Specialist
Montgomery County Division of Solid Waste Services
susanne.wiggins@montgomerycountymd.gov
240-777-6461

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Thanks, Susanne, for getting back to us with the full details. I've already gone through my garden shed stacks and loaded up my bin with round plastic pots that I know cannot be re-used for plant exchanges or club plant sales because they have plant breeder name-branding printed on them such as Proven Winners and Gardener's Confidence. Great to know they will get a new life at some point.