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.
I'm off to the races on ESPN2 and the Nascar thread...
“Miss Diana really likes packing tape. Daddy can I have your pocket knife?”
LOL! That cracked me up. You are SO welcome, Gabz!! You have made me laugh so many times over the years here and we are SO on the same page on so many political issues; I’ve learned a lot from you, and always want you ‘ridin’ shotgun’ with me. ;)
Enjoy your seeds and other goodies. Glad I could bring a smile to your face today. :)
See, Everyone? Cyber-Friends aren’t just a bunch of weirdo-s that have no lives other than hanging out in chat forums, LOL!
thanks for the ping gabz!
wow! too cool for jax and becky! give ‘em both
a big ol’ congratualtions hugs from me and kels!
oh i agree! diana is truly one great gal! :)
It was soooooooo funny, Diana. She was really over all the tape - she wanted IN that package!!!!
As long as you’re driving I’ll be doin’ the shotgun (I hate driving)..........but I totally understand your comment, and the MAJOR compliment you are paying me. Thank you.
Thanks very much for the offer and it sounds like a wonderful plan. How big a cutting are you talking about? If it is about the size of a pencil or pen, mailing it should be no problem.
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That's wonderful! They sound like great kids.
YEA!!! The weather has finally turned nice and I got my peas and lettuce in.
I had trouble with something digging them up the first night, but not eating them. So I figured I needed to cover them somehow to keep the varmits off. I wanted something tall enough to cover them and allow room for growth.
I came up with old laundry baskets with broken handles. Mr. mm cut the baskets down to just below where the handles are and I place them upside down over the plants and put a brick or two on the top to keep them in place. They’re big enough to cover a fair number of plants.
It’s worked so far. No more problems. And if I don’t get around to uncovering them right away in the morning, it’s no problem as light and air can still get in.
That’s a great idea.
Sure beats spending money on buying fancy covers for your plants from a pricey gardening catalog.
I can feel so good about myself. I’m saving resources, reusing something I’d throw out. I’m being so GREEN. *gag*
I do figure I can get YEARS worth of use out of them.
Yippee!!!!!
Good for you on the laundry basket idea!!!
Poor hubby, he went out earlier in an attempt to finish butting the grass before the rains return — and the riding mower decided to give up in the middle of the east field. He is hopig it is something fairly simple that he can fix, because right at the moment we can afford neither major engine work on it or a new one. Jax thought it was really cool that he had her steer it when he towed it back to the barn.
Yep, it’s supposed to freeze here this weekend as well. Of course, I’m in zone 6, so that’s more expected. I wouldn’t think you’d be having any more freezes at this point.
I have spinach, snap peas, kohlrabi, and lettuce out so far. I have a few tiny tomato plants in a covered container outside. I may bring them in this weekend.
Hope your plants make it through the freeze.
My DH is in IT as well. However, he has NO interest in gardening or cutting grass. He cuts the grass anyway, but is always threatening to hire someone :) It’s probably just as well, because then I can run with my own gardening ideas. For the most part, he doesn’t advise me on the “better way” to garden. He tends to over-analyze on other things. He did help me put in my raised bed, and may help put in a couple more, so I was pretty excited about that.
Sounds like mine! He figures the more timbered in garden spaces he sets up for me means that much less grass for him to cut!!!
The forecast has been updated for Sun. thru Tue. Lows in mid 30's with below freezing only on Mon. (29).
My in ground garden area is not that big and I have a couple of small raised beds and a watermelon patch. I should not have a very big problem protecting all of them.
That’s funny, my husband said the same thing. He wondered if it would be bad to fill the whole backyard with raised beds so I could garden and he wouldn’t have to mow grass! As much as this tempts me, I figure we should leave some grass for the kids to play :)
Hey y’all! I’m not much on driving, but I’ll ride shotgun anytime! LOL
**can I have your pocket knife**
My kids know to ask ME for the pocket knife! If I have my jeans on, I have my pocketknife. My oldest boy says—you might be a redneck if your momma carries a pocketknife. Went to school to volunteer for something, and this was years ago. One of the then kindergardeners had a know in his shoelace. I didn’t even think about it—I whipped out my pocketknife, pryed the knot loose. The baby looked at me and said—Ms Heidi, you can’t have a knife at school! LOL Wonder I didn’t get locked up! We’re not talking about a Crocodile Dundee here—it’s all of 3” long! That knife has been a lot of places with me. I think I’ve had it about 15 years!
**How big a cutting are you talking about?**
How big do you want? Seriously, let me know and I’ll figure out somethin! Thanks for finding the other gardening article! I have very little free time this time of year, and I do well to answer my pings. Definitely don’t have time to read through the posts!
Peas and lettuce I put in haven’t done much, dug down in the trench and at least the peas were germinating. Have gotten a couple of pickings of greens from the hoop tunnel and have more jerusalem artichokes than I can find things to make with.
I just hate that one of the three I planted did not make it. All were planted on the same day, same soil and same care taken. Except one was pulled up by Cashmere, but it is one of the ones doing great! Go figure.
You got to understand I did not even like to thin out the radishes I planted that were on top of each other. Now I will have to do the same with my carrots. They look like a line of grass popping up right now.
Just picking! No prob to send a cutting, and don’t worry abut paying for it. :) We try to make sure ours are at least a foot in length and about the thickness of your thumb-—that’s the size that seems to do best.
As for why two lived and one didn’t—who knows? Altho sometimes a little stress is good for a plant! Maybe Cashmere did you a favor! We take all our cuttings at the same time, stick them in the same soil, water tehm all the same, etc. About 85% make it. Why not the other 15%? The cuttings are all taken off the same parent plants? Go figure!
I hate throwing plants away too! It seems like such a waste.
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