" ALT="some text" WIDTH=32 HEIGHT=32>
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.
You may be right the stress. Chahsmere’s fig tree is doing the best right now! It is the Celestial fig which I have renamed Cashmere! Mailing a cuting that length might do well in a tube like from a roll of paper towels? I will send you a FreepMail! You are so kind to do this.
http://eurekareporter.com/article/080412-return-of-the-arcata-farmers-market
Great articles, and thanks for the ping! They just recently opened a new farmer’s market in the next town over—I don’t think it even made teh paper!
I would love to be able to find some fresh field peas.
Then I added another layer on the new compost pile and cleaned up the left over Dahlias. Also spread 3 bags of steer manure on another flower bed for Wifie Poo’s Marigolds. It never did warmup and I wore my old down jacket all afternoon
Ummmm. Is there any bad way to fix potatoes? LOL
Some fast food joints come close with their fries...
You’re right, but since I don’t eat fast food, I wasn’t even thinking about them! I don’t eat out much! LOL
I take my First Wife to Wendy’s for a baked potato with chili and cheese topping for her birthday...
Sounds yummy! And that’s so sweet! I enjoy good Japanese or Chinese food, or a good pizza or steak, but that’s about the extent of my eating out, and we very seldom do that.
Ummm—why are you dressed like a pirate? LOL
Click on my nick name at the bottom of this post and it will bring up my about page. You need to make one.
I spent a year at Cherry Point going through advanced schools and actually working on the electronics of aircraft. Then was sent to Iwakuni, Japan where I became a Red Devil. From there to Danang, Vietnam. And then back to Cherry Point.
I left the Marines (4 years), my father was career (25 years), to go to Mississippi State University. Studied Geology, BS degree.
I was hired by Texas Instrument's Science Services Div. because of my electronics back ground and Geology education ... I spent the next 20 years exploring for Oil and Gas. Retired, with a second year garden in the works. I love it.
Mornin’! You wouldn’t recognize the place now! Everything has grown up so much. They’re talking about putting in a by-pass around Havelock to ease the congestion—and so all teh tourists with MONEY can get to the beach faster. Don’t know why—they’ve torn down all the piers except one, gotten rid of anything that smacked of amusement/entertainment and there’s nothing here now but condos.
You’ve had an interesting life! Never been anywhere much—went to Cozumel for our 25th—or done anything! I like my quiet little life!
Have a great day!
Can I get on the ping list for the “GARDEN” thread...please?
Of course you can!
I try to get the weekly thread posted on Thursday -— but don’t always succeed.
I try to avoid abuse of it, but will occassionally ping to other threads of interest.
Most of my life I never knew what a real potatoe tasted like and didn’t eat much of them. Then I got to know people who grew them and discovered what good potatoes really are.
" ALT="some text" WIDTH=32 HEIGHT=32>
Portable is Good!!!!
Glad to hear they survived the frost.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.