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Saturday, 10 October 2009 13:48 |
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by Bob Smith
Hi there.
This was not a good gardening year! Our first cucumber seeds didn’t germinate, but we replanted, and those did (cold spring). We didn’t plant as many tomatoes as usual, because we had 58 unopened canned quarts in our basement (thank the Lord). We just planted Brandywines, which is our current favorite, and the fruit (or vegetables) contained great amounts of water, maybe because whenever we felt we should water them and did, it would then rain. We know next year will be lots better.
Our dairy farming neighbors had a lousy year, because the price they are paid for their milk is terribly low. Why then, is Ice Cream at the grocery store not only much higher in price, but packed in a smaller container, for which they ask the higher price? I used to get upset when I opened the same sized container, and found it less full, less heavy, but the same price. Are the people who are attacking Obama’s efforts (apparently without always reading the bills they are attacking) not buying their own food? We hope next year will be better for everybody, except the complainers and certain politicians.
I really enjoyed, learned a lot, and respected the officials of the State and County Extension officers who maintain the Master Gardener program. Take it, if you can find the time! There is an annual dinner, with good speakers – we used to bring a dish to pass and, for a while, had to provide our recipe for anyone who wanted to copy it. The organization grew larger, now the meals are prepared and served cafeteria style, I guess, so if anyone gets sick, they will know who to sue – although no one has ever gotten sick to my knowledge.
A few years ago, we had a couple from nearby who had a successful “Satek Winery,” in northern Indiana, near Michigan, and near Pokagon, a beautiful Indiana State Park on Lake James. They started growing grapes in 1992, and opened the Winery in 2001. She was a school teacher, he was a business executive. They brought a computerized slide presentation, which he operated while she talked. She said she hoped to explain grape growing, and wine making, and he showed pictures of some of their vines and bottles, while she talked about what we were seeing. She said she would tell us about which grapes made which wine, and the next picture was of a bottle of raspberry wine. I felt I had to ask if they would take questions, and she said “yes,” and I did, and she answered, to our satisfaction! Take the course!
We only grow Concord grapes, (coons ate our recent plantings) and Judy had an old recipe for Concord grape pie, which we would be happy to send you if you write the editor of this paper, and the messages reach our home. It is unbelievably good. For my 82nd birthday, Judy promised to make me a pie every month this year – and we have only one frozen grape pie left in our freezer – but frozen ingredients for a few more! My first taste of wine was bottled and sold by Mogen David, and it is still our favorite dinner wine.
Well, now that you know how old and decrepit I am, you know how much I appreciate Judy doing all the flower and vegetable weeding that requires getting down on one’s knees. I can get DOWN, I just can’t always get back up! She puts the weeds, after shaking all the dirt off the roots, into plastic pails, which I take down to my burning area where we are still allowed to burn prunings of shrubs, trees, and plants. We have a steel burning barrel, where we can burn paper scraps, but when we put the large amounts of plastic containers into the barrel, they burn at such a high temperature that the heavy steel barrels melt.
We were really glad when our county started a recycling service, collecting clean cans, paper, and recyclable plastic containers! We used to use the newspapers to start our winter wood stove fires, but we now have a propane look alike, and Judy still reads three (3) papers! Unfortunately, one of her papers said, my Whitley County officials have terminated the recycling contract. I WOULD PAY MORE! I LOVE RECYCLING! If you do, and your County says it is cancelling the contract, do SOMETHING! !. . . . . Good Gardening by Bob Smith Hi there. This was not a good gardening year! Our first cucumber seeds didn’t germinate, but we replanted, and those did (cold spring). We didn’t plant as many tomatoes as usual, because we had 58 unopened canned quarts in our basement (thank the Lord).
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Saturday, 10 October 2009 13:47 |
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Good Gardening
by Bob Smith
Hi there.
Have I mentioned how weird the weather has been this year? I don’t think weird is over yet! I’ve never been exposed to a RAINY AUGUST before – well, maybe on Guam when I was a young Marine – I remember digging a trench around the perimeter of our tent so the water would run around our living quarters, instead of through our living area, taking our shoes and other floating stuff with it! Is this a part of ‘Global Warming’? Our elected officials can’t or won’t agree on hardly anything, except to disagree about EVERYTHING, and how to fix it!
I just reviewed my recent columns to see if I admitted the serious gardening errors I have made – usually I try to find some one else or the weird weather to blame for the problems that develop, while I try to accurately analyze the real reason so I can attempt to prevent that from happening again. Since I am rich, old, and have a bad heart and other necessary organs, why haven’t gorgeous ladies thrown themselves at my feet lately? And I think it is because I accurately mention that Judy, who has nearly the same number of replacement joints and parts as I, still does most of the weeding, harvesting, and other bending and standing-back-up jobs that I have grown to FEAR AND HATE, maybe they do too!
Maybe they don’t think that I appreciate her strenuous labors! I do! I DO! I planned to leave things and money to her and my descendants when I died, but then the recession bomb dropped! I hope the world’s economy recovers, and it seems to be happening. Then I realized I don’t have my affairs totally in order – like when I bought each stock, property, or other investment, and how much I paid. I do know that if I leave some stuff as a result of my death, its cost to them will be the value on that date. If I give them the same stuff now, the cost goes back to what I paid, way back then – and the taxes they will have to pay will be a whole lot more, because the rules have changed! We need to talk to an expert and plan how to best give stuff to people we love, as tax free as possible to them. Maybe you should, too!
The best time to prune trees and shrubs, or divide perennials, is when they are dormant. Now we are harvesting good garden stuff, picking grapes, and soon pears and apples. I have just finished the first correction of, in my opinion, my worst gardening mistake. I admire vine covered outside walls, but didn’t want vines growing into my house or barn’s 1890 wooden walls. My shop had steel walls, so I planted vines along its sunny side. They had nothing to support their climbing, so I thought CHICKEN FENCE!, which I fastened with up nails and washers. Birds loved it! – But! they dropped wild grape and other wild vine seeds, and all grew thickly entwined.
Last year, I noticed frass (bug poop) in my wood shop. I called the same exterminator company I called when I noticed the frass of post pole beetles under the barn beams in the early 1980’s when I bought my farmstead. His son answered the phone, came out, looked at the frass, and said it came from carpenter ants! I asked why he thought that, and he told me he saw carpenter ant parts in the frass, not beetle parts. He went outside, told me I should remove the vines against the outside walls, since it gave carpenter ants a way to climb up to the roof, searching for entry to the wood inside, and pointed to where there had been leaks. Carpenter ants will tunnel through dry wood, but they will live, multiply, and thrive, in wet wood!
He distributed carpenter ant poison, and told me to remove the vines, vacuum up the frass, and if I saw any new frass, to call him. I have never worked harder - kneeling down to cut all the vines at ground level, then climbing up a sixteen foot ladder to remove the nails holding the chicken fence tight to the walls to support the vines would have been a lot easier 20 years ago – at least I remember no pain installing them, and it only took one day to put them up – it took weeks to weakly and painfully get them down!
I hope neither you nor I find any new frass in the future of our. . . good gardening
by Bob Smith Hi there. Have I mentioned how weird the weather has been this year? I don’t think weird is over yet! I’ve never been exposed to a RAINY AUGUST before – well, maybe on Guam when I was a young Marine – I remember digging a trench around the perimeter of our tent so the water would run around our living quarters, instead of through our living area, taking our shoes and other floating stuff with it!
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Saturday, 10 October 2009 13:46 |
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cn 8/19
Good Gardening
by Bob Smith
Hi there,
We really feel like a failure as a tomato grower when we don’t get the first vine ripened tomato from our garden until August 10. In good past years, we were eating fresh tomato sandwiches the second week in July! Furthermore, our early tomatoes suffered from blossom end rot!! Blossom end rot is mostly caused by fluctuations in soil moisture, from very wet to very dry. The first fruits are the most severely damaged. The disorder starts at the blossom end, and it may enlarge to affect up to 1/2 of the tomato. Moldy growths on the affected area are from fungi or bacteria that invade the damaged tissue.
THE UN-ROTTED RED PART OF THE TOMATO IS EDIBLE! From last fall until now, this year has been a weird weather year, and we hope it doesn’t repeat. In our area, when rain was predicted, it often occurred north or south of us, east or west of us, and we were not blessed. We planned to water the vegetables several times, but gave in to predicted incoming rains, thinking too much water would be a problem in our clay soil. We just cut off the horrible looking blossom end, and eat the good red part. We think (and pray) that later tomatoes will be perfect.
Did you know that tomatoes originated in South America, traveled to Europe, and were discovered in France by Thomas Jefferson? A Spanish Conquistador (tired of plundering gold from the Aztecs in 1520) took some tomatoes back to Spain. The tomato then travelled to Italy to flavor pasta dishes, and back to Europe. Tomatoes were not popular in Europe, because some idiots thought them to be poisonous. Thomas J. was thought to be plum loco for growing the “love fruit” in his garden. Early Americans did not eat tomatoes until 1880, when a Colonel Robert Johnson, the Tomato folk hero of America, ate a basket of tomatoes at a courthouse gathering in 1820. When Jonson did not fall down dead screaming and foaming at the mouth, he convinced us that tomatoes were really O.K. to eat. by Bob Smith Hi there, We really feel like a failure as a tomato grower when we don’t get the first vine ripened tomato from our garden until August 10. In good past years, we were eating fresh tomato sandwiches the second week in July!
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Saturday, 10 October 2009 13:44 |
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Good Gardening
by Bob Smith
Hi there,
We are, I believe, in for a very hot, dry August. Lawn grasses, especially those with Kentucky Bluegrass in the mixture, will tend to go dormant when that occurs. I notice several homes I pass on my travels water their lawns heavily when this happens. I do not, because I know that the weeds that I hate in my lawn are the only ones that welcome the water, and they really appreciate it – but the good grass mixture that I had planted to make a nice lawn hates being hot, and just wants to lay dormant until this ridiculous August heat passes, then, fully rested, I know that my lawn will again display the verdant beauty I appreciate.
I recommend that everybody who hasn’t gotten a soil test before, get one for each of the uses you ask of your soil. Gather samples from a six – eight inch depth from four to six locations you want tested. You need at least a cup of soil for a soil test. We sample each major lawn area, the vegetable garden, and the larger flower gardens. Your extension may have bags for you to use, and they or the better gardening centers may even take your bagged samples to the lab. You should get your results in about a week.
The most important things to look for are: soil pH, organic content, and general fertility. The optimal pH value for most soils and plants is 6.5 to 7.0. Lower is more acidic, higher is more alkaline. Soil organic matter between five and 10 percent would be nice. The general fertility part of the test shows the amount of nutrients, such as phosphorus, potassium, and magnesium. We know that the unique quality plants brag about is that they produce their own food, but these nutrients to them are more like vitamins to people.
Most soil tests will then offer a recommendation of how much of each fertilizer should be added for the type of use you ask of that area. We try to test our soil areas about every three to five years, to see if there is any change in their vitamin needs. Of course, if you keep the paperwork and your nutrient additions, you will learn a lot more, and I believe your plants will be happier.
We are happy that we have seen no Japanese beetles eating our roses or anything else this year, and I am not sure why we are so lucky, but we are happy. We did seem to have a lot of other leaf eating bugs! Another thing we unhappily missed were the Monarch butterflies that used to be so numerous. They are beautiful, smart, and truly unusual – they start their year in a small mountainous forest in Mexico, hatch out as pretty caterpillars, eventually turn into butterflies, flitter towards the north, enroute stop and lay eggs and die. The next generation then moves farther north, lays eggs and dies.
This continues until the Monarch reaches its annual destination in the Northern United States and the weather cools off, when they fly all the way back to the Mexican mountains where they started this year’s enormous travel – actually, they live through five generations of Monarch each year, and the fifth generation is able to find the same mountain and tree that the first generation hatched out in – unless that tree has been harvested. Maybe we should plead to stop harvesting those particular trees!
We have seen only one Monarch butterfly this year. Milkweed leaves are what they lay their eggs on, and what the larvae eat until they pupate and change into Monarch butterflies. Milkweed is a weed to farmers, but we have always grown a few. They spread seeds by letting the wind carry them by parachute-like tops, and by root extensions. Their blossoms smell beautiful! Monarchs are beautiful! Get Obama to save the Monarchs too! ! . . . Good gardening
by Bob Smith Hi there, We are, I believe, in for a very hot, dry August. Lawn grasses, especially those with Kentucky Bluegrass in the mixture, will tend to go dormant when that occurs. I notice several homes I pass on my travels water their lawns heavily when this happens.
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Saturday, 10 October 2009 13:41 |
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Good Gardening
by Bob Smith
Hi there,
Well, I fully intended to retire completely, but I want you to know that last lousy winter, this lousy cold, practically non-existent spring, and this hot, dry summer are not my fault! ! We have more shrub and tree damage – more weeds in our lawn – more weeds in our slow developing dry vegetable and flower gardens than ever before! I just hope it wasn’t caused by my retirement!
Last fall I wasn’t able to do the last weeding of our gardens. Judy has done most of that work, and nearly all of the gardening this year. I had a severe pain problem, solved by getting an epidural every two months (that is a shot in the spine, containing an anesthetic to combat the pain, and a steroid to control swelling). Patients needing this medication, given while being x-rayed to assure no damage was done, are limited to six a year, and after five or six weeks, I started being unable to function due to pain.
It has now been three months since my last epidural, and to test it, I decided to weed our asparagus plot, on my hands and knees, under six foot tall, living asparagus plants, in a bed four feet wide and 40 feet long. We load pulled weeds on a trailer, eight feet long, four feet wide,and sides three feet tall. I filled the trailer twice (well, Judy added many pails of pulled weeds from our vegetable garden during the many hours I slaved under the one un-weeded asparagus!). But I was able to complete my assignment, and days later, I have suffered no back pain! Thankfully, in our rural county, we are allowed to burn weeds and tree prunings – and this year, because of the strange weather, there have been a plethora!
Life is much better for me. Many MDs and PhDs. are still trying to decide if I am bonkers, but I am a much happier camper than I have been for years! I don’t know about global warming, but it is surely hot this summer! I surely don’t know about Obama and his advisors, but I pray they know what they are doing! The value of my retirement stock dropped shockingly, but seems to be recovering slowly and consecutively, and we hope it continues.
I plan to use the 12 gallon sprayer I pull with my five foot motorized mower, loaded with broad-leaved weed killers when I mow in the fall, when everything green is trying to recover from the summer drought. We will have a good sized piece of cardboard carried along beside the gardens to prevent the broad-leaved poison from reaching any broad-leaved desirous plants.
There were an enormous amount of maple seeds produced this year, and we plan to use our leaf blower as a vacuum to collect them and burn them up. We haven’t seen any Japanese beetles dining on our roses this year, and we are happy about that, but there are plenty of leaf eaters chewing on leaves in our garden. Judy is dusting our squash vines with Dipel, where they come out of the ground, to keep the borers from invading and killing the vines that produce the lovely squashes.
I think this year hasn’t produced as many slugs as normal moister years do, but when I walked by the planting in front of my shop, I noticed an opened empty beer can planted so the top, with the opening tab removed was even with the soil. When slugs invade your garden, I want you to know that slugs LOVE beer! ! If you have, or have an acquaintance, who has parties where cans of beer are provided, I will guarantee that a few guests will leave partially filled, open beer cans standing on the chair arms or tables. COLLECT THEM and BURY them where you have seen slugs! I don’t think slugs have a favorite kind of beer, any kind will work!
If you worry about neighbors finding beer cans in your garden – relax! The tops of the cans look just like pop cans! Who would suspect? And if they are against drinking beer, tell them a partying friend gave you some leftover cans! I hate slimy slugs! Of course, there are things with names like Slug-getta that good garden centers have, but my Father was Scotch, and I love gardening, but the recession is here, and I don’t know how long it will last, nor how long my freedom from pain, nor my memory will last. . . . Good Gardening
by Bob Smith Hi there, Well, I fully intended to retire completely, but I want you to know that last lousy winter, this lousy cold, practically non-existent spring, and this hot, dry summer are not my fault! !
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