Video Wednesday: How to Winterize Your Vegetable Garden

Here is a seasonal video from the Washington Gardener Magazine/MonkeySee.com vaults on "How to Winterize Your Vegetable Garden."

Or go to view it at:
http://knowlera.vo.llnwd.net/o18/data/clip12079-How-to-Winterize-Your-Vegetable-Garden

Garden Frights: What is Lurking in Your Flower Beds?

For our October 2013 Washington Gardener Magazine Reader Contest, we asked our readers to tell us: “What is the scariest creature you have ever encountered in your garden? What made it so scarey?” Here are a few of their answers.

~ The scariest creature I've seen in my garden is pictured here. Wondering what it is? Well, I certainly was. It's actually two assassin bugs mating. As if the image of this creepy-crawly times two was not creepy enough, it's location on my daughter's swing set clinched our fear factor ten-fold. Of course, my child found this bug curiously fascinating - not scary at all. Leave it to the adult Master Gardener to be creeped out by a bug. When I looked it up, I found that the assassin bug "attacks its prey with a vicious stabbing motions, using the 'fang' at the front of its head." While I was looking it up, my daughter went back outside and gently transported it to safer ground. All I could say was, "Oh, thanks sweetie." She's none the wiser, or is she?

 ~ The scariest creature I found was a Cicada Killer. It was almost 2" long and looked like a giant yellow jacket coming out of the ground. I thought at first is was a plastic toy insect. Something one might see especially as Halloween approaches.  

~ The creepiest thing I ever found in my garden was while turning over my compost pile. I dug in with my garden fork and flipped over a large, matted section and saw a perfectly preserved bird skeleton. I quickly mixed it back in figuring the calcium was good for my plants.

~ I came face-to-face with a Black Widow Spider when cleaning out a brush pile. Shiny and aggressive -- she charged right up my shovel towards me. I'm not ashamed to say I screamed and ran.


What  scarey encounters have YOU had in your garden?

From the submitted entries we chosen one winner at random to receive a 1-quart bottle of LavaMite (http://www.lavamite.com). Congratulations to Brenda Lynn Kouyoumdjian of http://www.beehappygarden.com in Fairfax, VA! The prize retail value is $35. LavaMite is an organic spray designed specifically to kill spider mites without hurting the host plant. It can been used on many different types of plants, including fruit and vegetable bearing plants, houseplants, and more. Simply spray LavaMite onto the leaves of the affected plant and all spider mites that come into contact with the spray will be dead within 30 minutes. 

A Cutting Garden: You Can Grow That!

A home full of fresh-cut flowers is a welcoming, warm place. When those flowers come from your very own garden it is even more rewarding. It is a joy each time you look at the blooms t in your own home or at your work place to know they came from your own labor of love. A hand-cut bouquet from your own garden is always the perfect gift. When you grow a cutting garden, you’ll have plenty to gather for yourself and to share. 

The cutting garden is simply a bed of flowers and foliage plants which the gardener has grown specifically to use in flower arrangements. Often situated at the backs of vegetable beds, along the sides of houses, and skirting fence lines, the cutting garden is a practical alternative to the age-old gardener dilemma of not wanting to cut your most beautiful blooms from your carefully landscaped gardens.

When designing a cutting garden, there is no need to worry about the overall looks of the growing beds as you will be using it for continual materials for your flower arrangements. Pick a site with full sun and good drainage. Cutting gardens can be started from seed, much as you would your vegetable garden, or you can use divisions from your perennial plants. You may also purchase an assortment of potted annuals to add to the mix.

Your cutting garden can be a place for experimenting with new plants and colors that you would not have otherwise chosen in your landscaped beds. A few tips to make yours a success include planting in wide rows for easy harvesting, deadheading regularly to promote flower (nor seed) production, and choosing a variety of early, mid, and late season flowers.

When making selections of plants for a cutting garden, the plant choices are almost endless. You may want to stick to those annuals and perennials that are long-stemmed, sturdy, and do well once severed from their host plant. Here is a list of suggested cutting garden flowers and foliage plants suitable for growing the greater Washington, DC metropolitan area:

• Artemisia
• Asters
• Black-Eyed Susan
• Celosia/Cockscomb
• Cosmos
• Dianthus
• Echinacea/Coneflowers
• Gladiolus
• Goldenrod
• Lavender
• Liatris
• Lilies
• Lisianthus
• Mums
• Peony
• Sages/Salvias
• Shasta Daisy
• Sunflower
• Verbena bonariensis
• Yarrow
• Zinnia

Of course, you can always supplement your cutting garden arrangements with flowers, grasses, branches, and foliage cut from other plants in your gardens, but having a growing bed dedicated just for cutting purposes encourages you to use them more and to not worry about the old "to cut or not" debate.

All who are involved with You Can Grow That! (YCGT!) believe that plants and gardening enhance our quality of life. We want people to be successful with what they grow and to become more aware of the many gifts that horticulture brings. Find out more at http://www.youcangrowthat.com/.

Fenton Friday: Last Basil of the Season

It is time to close out my garden plot at the Fenton Community Garden. I will still be visiting it over the cold months and harvesting greens and root crops. It has really slowed down now, so this will be my last "Fenton Friday" post until early Spring.

Unlike most of the rest of the DC-metro area, our community garden got a few light frosts but not a hard freeze yet. Tonight though things may change as a low of 28 is predicted. I will pull out the remaining the tomatoes and basil plants. I am thinking one last batch of pesto for the freezer.

Then, next weekend, is our communal garden clean-up gathering where we weed and mulch the shared pathways and garden areas. My hope is that this time, it will not be an all-female gathering and that representatives from more than just 5 or so of the 44 plots at the Fenton Garden show up. What is it with all the lazy men at our garden? Sometimes one or two new people or even a few males show up and help for a bit, but they usually show up way late and have some excuse to leave early.

Sorry for generalizing, but it really is irksome to see the heavy work taken on by the same few ladies each time. What do you experience at your community garden? Do both genders take on the necessary chores equally?

Summer-Fall 2013 Washington Gardener Magazine Issue

Summer-Fall 2013 Washington Gardener Magazine Issue

Do a "little gardening" by plant a miniature world!

The Summer-Fall 2013 Washington Gardener Magazine issue is now out. To subscribe, send a check for $20.00 payable to Washington Gardener Magazine today to: Washington Gardener 826 Philadelphia Ave. Silver Spring, MD 20910 or go to www.washingtongardener.com/index_files/subscribe.htm .

Our Summer-Fall 2013 Washington Gardener Magazine issue is now mailing to all current subscribers. The cover story is on creating Magical Miniature Gardens also known as Faerie Gardens.
   You’ll also find in this issue:
• Carrot Growing Tips
• Plant Profile of Abelias
• Kudzu Bugs Threaten Beans
• Rose Rosette Disease Spreads
• Annmarie Sculpture Gardens
• Easy-to-Make Stepping Stones
• Native Nashville Breadroot
• Preventing Powdery Mildew
• And much, much more...

The Fall-Winter 2013 issue is in the works with a cover story on Fabulous Ferns!

Surprise Pumpkin Patch

UPDATED Guest Blog by Arlene Montemarano of Silver Spring, MD

Here is our surprise Pumpkin Patch! This vine popped up and took over our front lawn. We have promised the local day care around the corner that they can enjoy it. They come by and have picked out the pumpkins that they would like to have.  I fear that the pumpkins, though pretty big, will not orange up in time for Halloween. (My husband suggested Orange Rustoleum.) I am planning to help that along by removing the sun blocking leaves where the pumpkins are located, as soon as everything dries up again. We are having so much fun with this astonishing uninvited guest!

We harvested on Sunday, with the help of my seven grandchildren. The results were 26 pumpkins, with some interesting varieties mixed in. Nearly all given away now. It amounts to a lot of free food.

One pumpkin weighed in at 28.5 38.5 pounds. I neither planted or took care of any of it.

Astounding. And furthermore, my grass, buried underneath these big leaves for months, is still green, though a little shaggy.

Win a 1-quart bottle of LavaMite

For our October 2013 Washington Gardener Magazine Reader Contest, we are giving away a 1-quart bottle of LavaMite (http://www.lavamite.com). The prize retail value is $35.

   LavaMite is an organic spray designed specifically to kill spider mites without hurting the host plant. It can been used on many different types of plants, including fruit and vegetable bearing plants, houseplants, and more. Simply spray LavaMite onto the leaves of the affected plant and all spider mites that come into contact with the spray will be dead within 30 minutes.
 
   To enter to win a 1-quart bottle of LavaMite, send an email with “Mite” in the subject line to WashingtonGardener@rcn.com by 5:00pm on Wednesday, October 30. In the body of the email please include your full name, email, mailing address, and tell us: “What is the scariest creature you have ever encountered in your garden? What made it so scarey?” The winner will be announced and notified by November 1. Some of the entry responses may be used in future Washington Gardener online or print articles

Video Wednesday: Re-Dedication of the Bishop's Garden

On October 9, 2013, the All Hallows Guild hosted a Re-Dedication of the Bishop's Garden at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, DC. The garden was re-stored after being damaged when a large construction crane brought in for earthquake repairs to the cathedral two years ago fell across the garden. The massive machinery decimated many specimen trees and planting long with the stone entrance arch and wall.

Fenton Friday: Sweet Potato Harvest Time

I'm a bit behind on my working my Fenton community garden plot and am finally getting to digging up my patch of sweet potatoes. This year I only grew the tried-and-true Beauregard.

A few people on our Washington Gardener yahoo discussion list have asked about how to harvest and  cure them for storage. Proper curing makes a big difference in how sweet the potatoes are, so I'll go through the basic steps here:

1. To give yourself room and a better view for digging up your sweet potatoes, you can cut back the vines.
2. Next, use a garden fork or spade and start loosening the soil a good couple of feet back from the crown of the mound. I made the mistake last year of going in too close and stabbing a bunch of good tubers, mea culpa.
3. Work your way around the mound and gently pry up your tubers.
4. Brush off (gently!)  as much of the soil as possible.
5. Snip off with clean pruners if they are attached to a large root. Otherwise, leaves the small whiskers and such on them.
6. Lay out a layer of newspaper in a warm, humid, and dim space. I use my sun-porch with the blinds drawn. You do not want them to get cold though, so try to have the space be at least 80-degrees even at night. A greenhouse space works great for this.
7. Leave for 7-10 days.
8. Now they are cured and ready for cooking or storing.

How to Store Winter Squash, Carrots, and Beets ~ Washington Gardener Enews ~ October 2013 issue

 

 

The Washington Gardener Enews ~ October 2013 issue is now sent to all current Washington Gardener Magazine subscribers. It is also posted and archived online at:
http://issuu.com/washingtongardener/docs/wgenews-oct13.

INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

~ How to Store Winter Squash, Carrots, and Beets

~ Top Local Garden Events Calendar for October-November

~ Drink Your Garden

~ Magazine Excerpt: DayTrip to AnnMarie Sculpture Garden

~ Tulip Growing Tips and Sources

~ Mid-Atlantic Garden To-Do List for October-November

~ Ripen Green Tomatoes
~ Reader Contest: Win a 1-quart bottle of LavaMite

~ Washington Gardener's Recent Blog Post Highlights
~ New Plant Spotlight:New Rose Varieties Inspired by “Downton Abbey

~ Washington Gardener Magazine Back Issue Sale!
and much more... 

You can access it as well as all of the other Washington Gardener Enews back issues online now and anytime in the future at http://issuu.com/washingtongardener/docs/. 

 

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day: Trial Plants

It is Garden Blogger's Bloom Day again! On the 15th of each month, we gardeners with blogs share a few bloom photos from our gardens. Here is the Mid-Atlantic USA (USDA zone 7) on the DC-MD border, we had a very dry September and now a very wet October. The temps have been mild though, so most all my summer annuals and tropicals are still out and thriving.

For this month's GBBD, I thought I'd share photos of the the current blooms on three trial plants I was sent this past spring. All have done very well with pretty much total neglect on my part. The Dianthus and Lantana never stopped blooming from May to now. That is pretty darn great, IMHO.

Dianthus 'Dash Violet' Pan American Seed

Hardy Mum 'Fireworks Igloo' Blooms of Bressingham

Lantana Viva 'Chapel Hill Yellow' Monrovia

So what is blooming in YOUR garden on this bloom day?