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Pick Today? Pick Tomorrow? Pick Next Week?
The vegetable garden is soggy at best
We have seen more rain than usual – much more. Even a quick shower results in standing water in the walkways between my mounded raised beds. But in addition to the excess water, plants aren’t getting their usual allotment of sunshine. They need sun – strong, bright sun – to grow and produce fruits and leaves. The lack of sunshine is what is causing smaller veggies, yellowed leaves, and later ripening.
This garlic is smaller than I would expect, but the skin is strong and the others can continue to grow
Here’s what I do: I start by groping my garlic: I slip my hand into the soil and feel how big the bulbs are. I don’t pull them if they’re tiny. But to be on the safe side, I pull a few and look at the skin over the cloves. I want the skins to be strong and tight for good storage. If they are breaking down (due to all the rain), I pull my garlic. If not, I let them keep growing, but check them often.
Brussel sprouts plants should be much bigger by now
My Brussels sprouts plants are also much smaller than normal this year. Fortunately, they will continue to grow until the end of October, or even later. If we get sunshine soon, they should recover. My normal advice is to cut the tops of the plants off on Labor Day weekend so that the plants don’t keep growing taller but instead send their energy into producing big “sprouts”. This year I’ll be lucky if they have stalks at all. So I will wait and see – and I accept that my harvest might be small or non-existent.
Sal, of Blueberry Fame, Is Getting Old
Blueberries for Sal, a classic story,..
Have you ever wondered what would happen after a story ends? I have. The children’s book “Blueberries for Sal” came out in 1948 and has been a hit for 75 years. If Sal was four years old in the book, she must be pushing 80. I imagine she went to the University of Maine and got a degree in teaching. She probably married her college sweetie at age 24, and taught for six years before deciding to start a family. I bet she makes a mean blueberry pie.
Not all berries ripen at once, even in a cluster
Paul Franklin and his wife Nancy own Riverbend Farm, a self-pick orchard with apples, pears, pumpkins – and 1600 blueberry plants in Plainfield, NH. Paul once told me that there are just three things to get right if you want lots of blueberries: proper soil pH, proper soil pH, and proper soil pH. That’s right, if you don’t have very acidic soil for your berries, you can still have nice bushes, but without proper soil pH, you will only get a few.
Blueberry bushes do best in a row running east-west
What else should you do? Give your bushes room to grow. I did a single row and spaced the bushes 6 to 7 feet apart. But they are a little crowded now, 20-some years later. If were doing it again, I’d space them farther apart. It’s best to run your row east-west rather than north–south to avoid one plant shading another. Full sun is best, but six hours of sun is adequate.
Wood chips make a good mulch
If you are planting blueberries now, choose bushes that produce their fruit early in the season and avoid plants that mature later in the summer. Why? Some growers are finding that the fruit flies don’t show up early in the summer, so they are getting crops of early blueberries before the pest shows up. And buy the biggest bushes you can find – or afford. Blueberries are relatively slow-growing in our climate.
Sal had a close encounter with a bear
I bet Sal (who had a close encounter with a mother bear in that wonderful book) had three kids, two girls and a boy. By now those kids would range in age 43 to 48, so her grandkids are either teenagers or in college. But I bet they all visit her in blueberry season for her wonderful pie. Her mother’s recipe, no doubt. Pie is always a good lure for grandkids, especially blueberry pie.
Tips for picking and arranging flowers
Pick plenty of flowers so you have many to choose from when arranging them
I’ve been keeping track this year of what blooms for me, and when. So far I’ve recorded over 100 species of flowers (plus many more named varieties of the same genus) and 40 species of flowering trees and shrubs. Blooming starts with snowdrops in March and will continue on until well after frost in November with witchhazel trees blooming even after leaf drop.
This daylily will fade in a day, but the other buds will open day after day
Flowers with multiple blossoms on a stem (delphinium, foxglove, for example) should have some blossoms in full bloom, others showing color and some in tight bud. This will prolong the show. Flowers that grow on individual stems should be in full bloom, or just starting to open. Peonies, for example, will often have tight buds on the same stem as an open blossoms, but it is rare for them to bloom in the vase. Daylilies only bloom for a day, but a single scape can have up to 10 buds that will bloom in sequence for a week or more.
Astillbes have nice strong stems, good for use in a vase
Be sure to remove all leaves or flowers that would be submersed is the vase you are using. Why? The leaves will rot and ferment; the bacteria will inhibit water uptake.
Two kinds of frogs that will hold stems in place in a vase or bowl
To my eye, a 6-inch vase will look good with 9-to12-inch flowers in it, but even 18-inch stems may look fine, especially of you place shorter flowers around the outside perimeter of the arrangement. I made an arrangement recently with six stems of beebalm in an 8-inch vase. I angled the stems to create support for a 24-inch stem of delphinium in the middle, standing straight up. That looked great to me.
July Chores for the Gardener
Straw placed over newspapers keeps down weeds in my vegetable garden
I recently finished mulching my pathways and around bigger plants like tomatoes. I put down a layer of newspaper – four sheets or more – and cover it with straw. This does a good job of keeping down the weeds. Hay is cheaper, of course, but has seeds which can grow.
Wine corks placed on tips of iron rods protect me against a poke in the eye when bending over to sniff the peonies
I have lots of 4-foot and 5-foot quarter-inch diameter iron rods I had custom-made for me for holding up these fall beauties. The iron rods go deep into the soil more easily than thin bamboo stakes, and are stronger. To avoid getting poked in the eye when bending over, I put a wine cork on the top of each one. I drill a quarter inch hole into the cork and slide it on. They are a good excuse to buy a nice bottle or French red from time to time with a real cork!
This tall coreopsis was cut back by half in late June to keep it a manageable size
Not all flowers respond well to the Chelsea Chop. Do not do this with lady’s mantle, columbine, goats beard, astillbe, delphinium, gas plant (Dictamus), fox glove, geraniums, daylilies, hostas, iris, lupines or oriental poppies, among others. You can find lists of which to cut and which to leave alone in Tracy DiSabato-Aust’s fine book, “The Well-Tended Perennial Garden”s. Everyone should have a copy of it.