Posted on 04/11/2008 11:49:46 AM PDT by Gabz
April is a debutante’s ball for green and growing things! Young foliage garbs the trees in gauzy, pastel gowns of gold and green and russet, like a watercolor by an old master. Their subtle color is a poignant reminder and a future foretaste of the fall’s bold leaves of orange and yellow and rust. The wild azaleas will be blooming soon, their delicate apple blossom pink petals shining through here and there and their honey sweet fragrance filling the air. The violets, from the large purple ones with heart shaped leaves to the tiny, almost invisible white ones with lance shaped leaves, will be peeping through last year’s grass and fallen leaves. Miniature wild iris will be popping up in patches, ankle high splashes of lavender to bright blue marked with splotches of orange and white. The pine trees will be candling and shedding pollen everywhere, coating everything in yellow dust- as if some disgruntled fairy godmother, fed up with tedious sprinkling, pitched a giant hissy fit and upended her entire bag of magic dust all at once.
Easter falls during the middle of April this year. Things like potatoes and peas and cabbage should have already been planted and hopefully are doing well. While corn can usually be planted around the first of April, mid-April is time to plant the mid season stuff-tomatoes, peppers, cukes, squash, green beans. Keep a close eye on the weather, but there isn’t supposed to be any frost after Easter. Hopefully, the weather will be much better for gardening this year than it has been for the last several years.
Speaking of better, there are some new varieties of tomatoes on the market that are resistant to Tomato Spotted Wilt. Resistant is not the same thing as immune! TSW is the virus that causes tomato plants (along with many other vegetables and flowers) to die or be stunted. If the tomato plants survive, the tomatoes are small, mottled in color, and the taste is off. Christa is one of the new varieties-a nice round, red, juicy tomato that looks and tastes very good. When buying tomato plants, look for the letters after the variety name. Just like the letters after a doctor’s name, they all mean something. The more letters after a tomato name, the more diseases that variety is resistant to. F means the plant is resistant to fusarium wilt, V is for verticullum, N is for root knot nematode disease, T is for tobacco mosaic virus. TSW is for tomato spotted wilt. Most older varieties don’t have many letters, but generally the newer hybrids have lots. When buying tomato plants, also keep in mind that determinate means that variety has one big crop and it’s mostly done. Indeterminate means the plant will bear over a long season.
Fertilizing is an important part of having a great garden. Everyone used to open up their rows, put the fertilizer in, cover the rows back up, and plant on top of the fertilizer. That method doesn’t work anymore. Whether the composition of the fertilizer has changed, or whether it’s due to the weather being so hot and cold back and forth, or a combination of the two, who knows? The fertilizer rises to the top now, and it will burn the roots off your plants. It seems the best way to fertilize now is to go ahead and plant your plants, then come back and side dress. Side dress simply means to come out about eight inches away from your plants and spread fertilizer down the row. It needs to be worked in a little with your hoe.
Tunnels in your yard driving you crazy? The simple answer used to be moles. Moles eat crickets and grubs, so you could put out chemicals to kill the insects and the moles would go away because they didn’t have anything to eat. Back up just a minute. Moles eat crickets and grubs. We all know what crickets are, but did you ever think about what a grub is—besides an ugly piece of fish bait? Most grubs are the larval (immature) stage of some kind of beetle. Japanese beetles, for instance. Why do we expend so much effort to get rid of one of the few things that can control Japanese beetles? The answer, of course, is because we like smooth, flat lawns. Nice lawns look much better and are definitely easier to mow. There aren’t many moles anymore. So, why, you ask, are there still tunnels in my beautiful yard and garden?
The answer is voles. Sounds like a mole, tunnels like a mole. So, what is the difference? Moles are little, gray, blind creatures with webbed feet that seldom come out of their tunnels. Voles look more like hamsters. Light brown, they have eyes, clawed feet, and a short little tail. Oh, and voles eat plant roots and bulbs. Ever notice a tunnel right down the middle of one of your garden rows? Thank a vole. Southern Pine Voles like to live around the base or stump of—you guessed it—pine trees. Unlike moles, voles will come out of their tunnels and run around. They’re usually active at night or in the early morning, and they’re about the size of a mouse, so even if you saw one you’d probably think it was just a mouse. If you’ve noticed little volcano looking eruptions of dirt somewhere along the length of the tunnels in your yard, chances are you have a vole instead of a mole. Voles are a nuisance here, but farther toward the mountains, they can be serious pests because they can destroy an orchard in a hurry. They like to eat the bark off fruit trees at ground level, and can girdle and kill a tree in no time. They tend to live in colonies, so they can become major pests very quickly. Voles are hard to trap, but the state has okayed a rat poison called Rozol to kill them.
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I wonder how this short cold snap will affect my newly planted pear trees? Both are about 6 ft. high and have wonderful full tender new leaf structure.
It is so weird. I’m only 90 miles north of you, but the Bay makes such a difference in your weather compared to mine.
The difference a body of water can make never ceases to amaze me. When school was cancelled yesterday morning because of fog I couldn’t see 1/10th of a mile out the back door, yet my husband was over on Chincoteague Island (15 miles from here) and the sky was blue and there was no fog. Of course within an hour after they cancelled school most of the fog was gone.
We’ve had a couple of nasty cold snaps since our across the road neighbor planted his pear trees (about a dozen) and they seem none the worse for wear.
Well, you tell him not to plant anymore until next month.
OOPS, I missed that part of the article, I guess.
We’ll have to hope GG or Diana get a break from their greenhouse work to respond to your concern because I have NO idea!!!!
I am guessing you will not have a problem if it was aged composted manure.
LOL!!!!
Telling that man to stop planting is like telling the sun not to rise!
Just a note to all when buying what you might think is aged composted manure in a bag from the big chain stores. Read how it is labled. I bought some that said "Compost & Manure" which I assumed meant composted manure. What was in the bag was a mix of compost and manure and it was not meant to be used like an "aged composted" manure. I mixed it with some of my natural soil and a little sand and used it to plant a cherry tomato plant in a container ... the plant died.
I mixed the rest into my compost pile.
Thank you so much! I just printed this and will post the results.
If you used a product like “Black Kow” this is a composted manure mixed with sand and it clearly states that it is “composted manure”. This stuff is good.
Is anyone else doing container tomatoe plant gardening?
I use Miracle-Gro (approx 8 Ounces) once per week... How does one check for adequate fertilizer?
software guys should never develop a gardening habit...
Help!
First, I have to brag about my kids -- well actually my daughter and her best friend -- and their science fair project which was based upon the old stand by lemon battery experiment.
Their conclusion read in part:
Using crops can and does produce a certain amount of energy.
But too much has to be used to make enough energy to be useful. Using too much food crops means wasting food.
The lemons and potatoes we have been using for this project can no longer be used to eat, but we are not going to be wasting them. When we are finished with the project we will put them in the compost pile. The compost will later be used as food for the garden for growing more crops, like the potatoes we used.
They won 2nd place for their school's 4th & 5th grade division and now go to the district level. We're really proud of them.
Now that I've finished my bragging, on to my second thing. No bragging in this, but rather I wish to issue a public thank you to Diana in Wisconsin. I rarely go out to the mailbox because even at almost 10 our daughter still considers it a "big girl" thing to go to the mailbox and then sort it out and 'deliver' it.
In today's mail was a package addressed to Gabz and Jax (last name) from Diana. After getting over her initial excitement of the package and that I told her she could open it she commented, "Miss Diana really likes packing tape. Daddy can I have your pocket knife?"
I've met a lot of my FReeper friends in person over the years, alas I can not include Diana in that list, yet I consider her a true friend.
Thank you Diana, your package truly lifted my spirits today!!!!!
My hyacinths and daffodils are just coming up now.
You can’t do that! We are all wanting to know what was in the package? LOL
Thank you, Gabz! I have so much fun writing it! I thought I deleted the line about Easter being in the middle of April this year! Guess not! LOL
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