New England Gardener

We may have several feet of snow left on the mountains, but down low.. spring has suddenly arrived. Time to start season two of NewEnglandGardener.com.
Mark Brown of Andover Massachusetts reports tulips growing rapidly. This photo is from Tuesday March 9, 2010.
Same at my house, tulips grew 5″ this week, catching up with daffodils. The daffodils will bloom first.. April First that is
Mark also reports way too many pine cones raining from our sunny sky.. left over from last year’s excellent White Pine growing season.
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We finally have some nice dahlias in the garden and I wanted to share some pictures with you! They are beautiful…but overall the season has been a disappointment. Several of our plants have no buds on them….it looks like a bug has been eating them. I have sprayed them with no success. And, I have yet to see an actual bug on the plants. I am stumped. I have included a photo of one of the distressed dahlias at the bottom of this post.

I estimate that only about a third of the dahlias we planted have bloomed. In past years, I have always had a vase full of flowers on my desk at work in August. Not this year! It has definitely been a difficult summer with all of the rain and the lack of sunshine. I’ve also been dealing with rotting rosebuds and rose bushes that have black spots.

I hold out hope that more of the dahlias will bloom in the next month or so. They usually last through October. I don’t know about you, but I’m hoping for some dry, hot days. I’ll continue to give them lots of tender loving care!

Master Gardener, John Yule of Newport Rhode Island taught me how to prune roses at the URI County Extension Garden in New Port Rhode Island in 1990. Since then, I have been a big fan of the rose blossom. He taught me how to prune them for more budding throughout summer, thank goodness, because this early summer bloom is a bummer in my town. The were doing well a couple weeks ago, but now.. well.. look at this.

So Sad. And that’s not all.. This cold, gray, windy & wet June has left many gardens way behind on growth.

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As you may have noticed, there is a new section on the sidebar of the site called “Your Photos.” We know there is a ton of great gardening going on all over New England and we would love to showcase it on this site.

Uploading your gardening photos is a breeze if you have an account with the photo site Flickr. Even if you don’t, you can sign up for one for free and have your pictures up in a matter of minutes. Click on “Upload Your Photos” in the sidebar to get started. We can’t wait to see your great photos!

Another chilly wet Tuesday here in New England. Heaviest rain today is 1″-2″ in southwestern Connecticut. This is the same area that had the most rain last week. The amount of rain in New Haven CT today, June 9, 2009, is 1.45″, most falling in an hour between 9 and 10 AM. Contrast with .08″ in the gauge here at NECN, where we have only .51″ from May 25 to June 9. On May 24, we measured 1.1″, our last soaker of a day. For New England as a whole, we are behind by 3″-6″ of rainfall for the year. The exceptions are northern Vermont to Aroostook County Maine, where rainfall is near normal for ‘09. But, in Aroostook County, we can not shake the cold. This morning 28° in Clayton Lake Maine, makes life tough for gardener’s. Do you have anything to report from Northern Maine? Please leave us a comment. As Amy Sinclair pointed out, our season is off to a slow start. And so am I.

I just got my tiny vegetable garden in this past Sunday, June 7, 09. Better late than never.

It is funny, for my entire life I have enjoyed working outdoors, much more than I enjoy working indoors.

But now my (paying) job is indoors, and with the advance of the World Wide Web, we are now enabled (required) to write (blog) about what we do outdoors. That leaves even less time to work (play) outdoors. This is why my garden is late, and I have not posted here in a while.
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Turning the Soil

Here’s where you can get some exercise, if you sit at a desk all week. And you can renew a New England Memorial Day weekend tradition: planting your vegetable garden!
OK after my last post you’ve either built and filled a new raised bed, or, if you’ve got an existing bed, you’ve pulled any spring weeds. You’ve also removed any pine needles and other debris from the winter.
Now it’s time to turn the soil. I use a standard four tined spading fork. I just saw them at Lowe’s for $24.98. Starting in one corner of the garden, turn the soil down to a depth of 8-10 inches. I only loosen the soil as much as necessary. Break up any big chunks. You’ll undoubtedly find a good crop of New England potatoes — rocks pushed up by frost over the winter. Remove them. Small stones are OK, and inevitable in most New England soil. Read more »