Today is Amazon Prime Day, so I thought I'd again share the garden products I use almost every day. These are the tried-and-true work tools that make my garden grow, save my back from breaking, and generally make life a little easier. Treat yourself!
BTW, they are linked to Amazon, so if you click on them and order any, Washington Gardener Magazine gets a few pennies added to the account. The full Amazon storefront is at:
This week in the community garden plot, the big news was two huge rainstorms on Monday and Thursday that dumped an inch (or more) in a half-hour. Both storms meant I didn't have to water this week, but the added water and high heat, the weeds are growing at an alarming rate. I did a bit of weeding, but really need to set aside a day to do a lot more.
The basils are all looking great and I pinched out any flowers and the top growth in order to make the plants grow bushier rather than taller.
The rest of my herbs are all doing well in a big pot and tucked in various containers around my home garden. I need to cut some this week for hanging and drying them. The lavender flowers are already cut where they were fresh and I hope they keep their color well this year.
What is growing in your edible garden this week?
About Fenton Friday: Every Friday during the growing season, I'll be giving you an update on my community garden plot at the Fenton Street Community Garden just across the street from my house in zone 7 Mid-Atlantic MD/DC border. I'm plot #16. It is a 10 ft x 20 ft space and this is our 8th year in the garden. (It opened in May 2011.) See past posts about our edible garden by putting "Fenton" into the Search box above.
Daylilies (Hemerocallis)
are versatile and easy-care perennial plants that tolerate a wide range of soil
types from clay to sand, moist to dry, and bloom in full-sun to part-shade. I
plant them in my sidewalk “hell strips” along the street, where they can take
both the wintertime salt spray and summertime baking heat.
There are more than 80,000 daylily cultivars and
collecting different ones can become an obsession. 'Stella D'Oro' is one that
is widely available and planted everywhere from gas stations to suburban
cul-de-sacs.‘Happy Returns’, ‘Ruby
Spider’, and ‘Strawberry Candy’ are three of my personal favorites for vigor
and superior performance in home gardens.
Most daylilies are clump-forming and are easy to dig and
divide every few years to increase your garden or to share them with others. A
note of caution, however, about the common “ditch lily” (Hemerocallis fulva), which is an invasive species in our area. It
is sterile, but spreads by underground stolon and has been a popular pass-along
plant. Please try to resist the urge to share it and keep it away from our
natural areas.
Daylily blooms last just one day then self-shed. If a few
hang on and this bothers you, you can easily groom them off.
Fun fact: the daylily flower is edible and you can
prepare it as you would a squash blossom. They are delicious lightly battered
and fried.
Daylilies are “deer candy.” If that is an issue in your
area, you can spray with a repellent or spread Milorganite in the flower beds
early on in the growing season, which can also act as a fertilizer.
They only care I give mine is to cut the plants back hard
in the fall. You can give them a bit of additional fertilizer in the late spring,
but I never bother and they still bloom prolifically.
Daylilies: You can grow that!
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I had been keeping a Sweet Potato in a small-ish pot in part-shade by my driveway for the last two months. Today, I finally planted it in the space where the Garlic had been pulled out of last week. It should be happier there.
The Bush Bean plants have tripled in size in the last week. There are a few holes chewed in the leaves and one one stem appears to have been chewed down by a rabbit, but otherwise, so far so good.
I lifted up the cover cloth from the Broccoli and I saw a good-sized head growing on one of the three plants. Is it good-tasting after all this heat? Will it grow bigger? Should I pick it now or let it go a bit longer? Decisions. Decisions.
Broccoli
What is growing in your edible garden this week?
About Fenton Friday: Every Friday during the growing season, I'll be giving you an update on my community garden plot at the Fenton Street Community Garden just across the street from my house in zone 7 Mid-Atlantic MD/DC border. I'm plot #16. It is a 10 ft x 20 ft space and this is our 8th year in the garden. (It opened in May 2011.) See past posts about our edible garden by putting "Fenton" into the Search box above.
Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) is an important plant for pollinators in our Mid-Atlantic region. The “weed” in its name can scare some people off, but it is important for local gardeners to add it to our landscapes.
Recent studies show that the wide-spread use of pesticides and herbicides has impacted the Asclepias and Monarch populations.
It is a perennial native to most of the eastern Unites States. The flower is also a popular nectar source for both honey bees and native bees as well as hummingbird moth and many other kinds of butterflies.
Asclepias syriaca bloom from June and continue through August. In the fall, their seed pods ripen and dry out, splitting to reveal each seed attached to a long, silky fluff that floats away in the breeze.
Milkweed needs sun and adequate moisture to get established. Once in place, it is quite hardy and drought-tolerant. Its rhizome goes straight down, forming a tap root stabilizing the single-stalked plant above ground, and providing the plant with resources hidden deep, when needed.
It can be hard to start from seed and it is difficult to transplant due to the taproot, but give it a few tries and you’ll eventually have success.
It tends to run a bit and pops up here and there, growing to about five feet tall. So, plant it in a mixed bed with other sun-loving, native perennials such as Echinacea, Rudbeckia, Solidago, Asters, and Coreopsis. This is especially important because pollinators need groups and clumps of flowers to thrive,
If some of the leaves on your plant start to look ragged and chewed on, great! The plant is doing its job providing food for the next Monarch generation.
The toxic milky latex Asclepias exudes when a stem is broken makes them inedible for deer and rabbits, while Monarch butterflies can eat the leaves at their caterpillar stage and that makes the insects in turn unpalatable to birds and other predators.
Common Milkweed: You can grow that!
The video was produced by Washington Gardener Magazine and edited by intern Alexandra Marquez.
➤ If you enjoy this video, please give it a thumbs up and subscribe to our Youtube channel (thank you!)
➤Remember to TURN ON notifications to know when our new videos are out
Insect hotels are all the rage now. We all hear about the declines in beneficial insect populations, and native bee numbers in particular are dropping quickly. It is nice to think about providing a specific place in your gardens for insects to safely occupy. However, one should be careful not to create an insect home that actually causes harm to the insects you want to help. Read this post by an entomologist thoroughly to understand the particulars of what type of hotel is best and how to avoid the pretty-but-useless ones sold in decorator stores. This insect hotel (pictured above) was given to me and fits all the criteria for a hospitable insect home. Here below is how to recreate it. This is a suitable project for doing supervised with children or your garden club.
Materials:
- a block of untreated building timber - piece of flat wood for the roof - drill set - saw - hardware cloth - staple gun and staples - hanger and nail Instructions:
Step 1- Select a piece of untreated building timber and cut it down to a block about 6-12-inches in length or have it cut to length for you at the hardware store.
Step 2 - Drill a selection of holes into the block of about .33 inches in diameter. Do not drill all the way through the back, but go as deep as your drill bit allows.
Step 3 - Make sure the holes are smooth inside and free of splinters. Sand and clear away any sawdust.
Step 4 - Tack a roof piece on to overhang the holes.
Step 5 - Cut and shape a piece of hardware cloth to protect the area over the holes. Use the staple gun to affix it on both sides.
Step 6 - Hang your insect hotel at least 3 feet off the ground facing in full sun and facing south/southeast.
TIPS:
At the end of each summer, clean it out.
Provide nearby pollinator plantings.
If you want to get creative and paint or decorate the roof or sides, you can, but do not put anything on the front.
This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a few pennies from Amazon.
This is a monthly blog series on DIY projects for the beginning home gardener. Look for the other installments in this DIY blog series by putting "DIY" in the search box here at washingtongardener.blogspot.com.
I dug up the Garlic bulbs today. They are the biggest I have ever grown. Waiting two weeks past my usual time helped! I believe they are all 'German White' (aka 'Music' or 'Porcelain' ) except for one with a bit of purple in it that I may have been given at an autumn harvest event and snuck in the ground later next to the others. The heads are on my laundry drying rack in the sunroom and Santino (pictured) couldn't resist inspect the robust harvest. He declared it "respectable."
Elsewhere in the plot, the 'Dragon's Tongue' bean seeds are growing fast and the 'Red Swan' beans have germinated and made a slow appearance. The 'Red Burgundy' okra seeds are still tiny, but the 'Rainbow' Swiss Chard is growing by leaps and bounds. More 'Sun Gold' tomatoes were ripe as well as some 'Sun Sugar' ones. The Basil varieties are holding steady -- not much new growth. I have let the lettuces bolt (go to flower and seed), in hopes of collecting some for next year's Seed Exchanges.
I think I will cut the heads on my cauliflower soon as we are experiencing several days of 90+ degree heat and even with a cover cloth I don't see them hanging on too much longer.
What is growing in your edible garden this week?
About Fenton Friday: Every Friday during the growing season, I'll be giving you an update on my community garden plot at the Fenton Street Community Garden just across the street from my house in zone 7 Mid-Atlantic MD/DC border. I'm plot #16. It is a 10 ft x 20 ft space and this is our 8th year in the garden. (It opened in May 2011.) See past posts about our edible garden by putting "Fenton" into the Search box above.
For our June 2019 Washington Gardener Magazine Reader Contest, Washington Gardener is giving away five sets of passes to the Brookside Gardens Wings of Fancy live butterfly exhibit in Wheaton, MD (each set has two passes and is a $16 value).
The exhibit runs Monday, July 1—Saturday, August 31, from 10am–1pm Monday–Friday; 10am—5 pm Saturday and Sunday, and then, Sunday, September 1—Sunday, September 22, from 10am—5pm daily.
The Brookside Gardens South Conservatory features live butterflies. Come witness the butterfly life cycle as tiny eggs hatch into crawling, chewing caterpillars, which then encase themselves in jewel-like chrysalides and emerge as sipping, flying adult butterflies. Learn about the best annual and tropical plants, and hardy shrubs, to use as nectar sources to attract butterflies to your own garden.
Note: The exhibit is in a greenhouse, which is usually 10 degrees warmer than the outside temperature and more humid. If there is a thunderstorm in the forecast or a code-red day, the exhibit may close.
See more details at https://www.montgomeryparks.org/parks-and-trails/brookside-gardens/wings-fancy-live-butterfly-caterpillar-exhibit/.
To enter to win passes, send an email to WashingtonGardener@rcn.com by 5pm on Sunday, June 30, with “Wings” in the subject line and in the body of the email. Tell us which was your favorite article in the June 2019 issue and why. Please include your full name and mailing address. The pass winners will be announced and notified on July 1.
UPDATE:
Our winners picked at random from among the submissions are -
I was away for five days in Denver for the Garden Bloggers Fling, but I flew out of Washington in a thunderstorm and returned during another one. Suffice it to say, I didn't have to worry about watering the garden plot this week. The 'Dragon's Tongue' bean seeds are all up. No sign of the 'Red Swan' ones though. One of the 'Sun Gold' tomatoes was ripe already, but that would be "cheating" to count it as under our care -- as the fruits had already formed on the seedling plants before we planted them. Elsewhere in the plot, the 'Red Burgundy' okra seeds are up. The heads on my cauliflower continue to grow larger. The 'Rainbow' Swiss Chard seedlings are growing fast. However, the 'Savor' melon seedling is not looking so hot. The garlic is past the point that I should have pulled it, but that will have to wait a few more days as I play catch-up from the time I was away touring in other's gardens.
What is growing in your edible garden this week?
bean seedlings - 'Dragon's Tongue'
okra seedlings - 'Red Burgundy'
About Fenton Friday: Every Friday during the growing season, I'll be giving you an update on my community garden plot at the FentonStreet Community Garden just across the street from my house in zone 7 Mid-Atlantic MD/DC border. I'm plot #16. It is a 10 ft x 20 ft space and this is our 8th year in the garden. (It opened in May 2011.) See past posts about our edible garden by putting "Fenton" into the Search box above.
We pulled out the last of the peas and planted two kinds of bush beans this week - 'Red Swan' from Hudson Valley Seed Company and 'Dragon's Tongue' from John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds. I have never grown either variety before so am curious to see how they do for me (barring rabbit interference) and how they taste compared to my usual 'Blue Lake' beans.
I also put in some 'Rainbow' Swiss Chard seedlings and a 'Savor' melon seedling that looks a bit weak, but I hope it recovers for me.
The cauliflower is developing nicely and I tucked into under a cover cloth in case the sun gets too intense this coming weekend.
What is growing in your edible garden this week?
About Fenton Friday: Every Friday during the growing season, I'll be giving you an update on my community garden plot at the FentonStreet Community Garden just across the street from my house in zone 7 Mid-Atlantic MD/DC border. I'm plot #16. It is a 10 ft x 20 ft space and this is our 8th year in the garden. (It opened in May 2011.) See past posts about our edible garden by putting "Fenton" into the Search box above.
