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’re right, it is appalling how many kids have no clue about where food comes from. I grew up in NYC and knew better, so you better believe my child is going to grow up knowing better.
She and her friend (if you see me refer to my kidS, I’m talking about my daughter and her friend Becky) know exactly where food comes from. Jax has helped daddy and mommy butcher deer and not only does Becky’s dad work on chicken farms, her great-grandparents raise sheep and goats.
These kids truly know where food comes from.
The weather was perfect here today and I continued my digging and dividing the Dahlias in the garden . Some of the clumps must weight 20 pounds. Too bad they are not editable but maybe they can be fermented into a fuel. I have done 32 plants and have about 15 to go. My First Wife is a spading fool and the soil is perfect and she is bugging me to get the potatoes in...
It’s apalling how many adults have no clue! Good for you and the munchkins! Mine know too!
HAHAHA I thought I deleted that line—oopsie! I only do a monthly column and I’m using old ones—I believe taht one was from 06.
Weather was perfect here today too and the greenhouse was rocking! I’m whooped!
LOL! Cy........that still tells me nothing. I used a wheelbarrow when I lived in a townhouse with a 150’x35’ lot.
My veggie “garden” is currently over 10,000 square feet.
Uh, I think that was sposed to be whupped! LOL Told you it’s been a long day!
Our greenhouse heater died Monday and it is only a year old and out of warranty. I need to find someone to check it out plus the one that died last year after several years of service...
My veggie “garden” is currently over 10,000 square feet.
** :green with envy:
I grew up with my mother and grandfather using Miracle-Gro and so I used it when I finally had room for a garden, it didn’t last long. I stopped using MG products years ago because they did more harm than good, in my opinion.
I never used that many of the other Scott’s products, so I’m obviously not going to hurt their bottome line. Then again, I use little to no chems at all. Not for any other reason except I’m too danged lazy.
The munchkins are GREAT! They actually enjoy it -—— of course they’re still young enough to like playing in mud puddles!!!! And I’ve got pix to prove it. From yesterday, no less.
My friend Sue (Bcky’s mom) called me down at the Lodge yesterday to ask me to bring a change of clothes for Jax because they were playing in a mud puddle. She also told me to slow down on my way home and get a look at them. We live on the same road and I have to pass their house to get to mine. I did not recognize ny own child, her blonde hair was just as black as that of her friends.
It was hilarious! The were 4 of them in that mud puddle. 2 three year olds and 2 nine year olds.
Not a one of those kids is going to grow up thinking food comes from the back of the grocery store.
Don't be, but now you understand why I asked what you meant by huge. LOL!!!!
You can grow a lot of weeds and bugs in 10,000 sf....
LOL I still like playing in mud puddles—and mud! I spent most of my growing up years on a farm. When I wasn’t in the barn, I was in the creek!
Just this summer, we went to Cherokee. The guys went trout fishing. I went wading. They couldn’t catch any fish on the bait they were using. They wanted crawdads to use a s bait. Guess who they turned to?! Haven’t lost my touch after all these years! I had a ball!
What kind of heater do you use? We have gas, but we don’t turn it on until end of Jan and then it’s only on about 40. Just enough to keep the greenhouse from freezing.
Tube is right.......believe me :)
We use a 240 v electric heater and set it for 55 to 60...
Thanks for the article and the ping! I always enjoy the Weekly Gardening Thread.
This year my boss made me an “incubator”. A greenhouse within a greenhouse—three levels, covered with greenhouse plastic, about 8’x4’x4’. He put a piece of plywood on one of the greenhouse tables, and put the incubator on top of that. We put a $15 electric heater from Lowe’s on the bottom level, and set it to come on every so often. We put all the seeded trays in there until they came up. It worked great, and we didn’t have to turn up the heat in the whole greenhouse. He’s such a brainiac. :)
Thanks, and I’m glad you do!
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