New England Gardener

Keep An Eye Out For Late Blight In Your Garden

In order to keep your plants safe, the experts say it’s ESSENTIAL to apply fungicide PRIOR to infestation. That means now is the time to treat your plants. The Maine Organic Farmers and Growers Association offers some organic options. The Cooperative Extension Services also provide good fact sheets Here’s another helpful link from the UMass Extension Office.

–Amy

Edible landscaping certainly isn’t a new idea, but I’ve always considered it to be a backyard pursuit, quietly tucking strawberry plants, herbs and pea structures into my ornamental beds. What exactly was I trying to hide? The fact that my family likes homegrown fresh food? Finally, this spring a light went on as I was lamenting the state of a diseased row(leaf spot) of red twig dogwood shrubs along my front fence.

My local YMCA branch in Freeport, Maine has a lovely hedge of mature high bush blueberries right next to the parking lot and I thought…I can do this at home.

I chose three high bush (cultivated) plants, 2 Bluecrop and 1 Patriot, and 5 low bush (wild) blueberries. I went with Brunswick on the low bush because they’re supposed to provide a dense ground cover. I think blueberries are a great bet in New England because they’re extremely hardy, provide delicious kid-friendly fruits, require little maintenance, and hold their own in the looks department. The leaves turn bright red in the fall which should look just great against our white fence.

The key to happy blueberries is acidic soil…requiring a ph of 4. to 5.5. A more dilgent gardener would have tested the soil before planting, but I decided the blueberries would be ok because they’re planted in the same stretch of soil as my acid loving Rhododendrons. I did, however, augment the soil with an organic compost that’s well suited for berries.

Other great options for front yard foundation plants might be gooseberries and currants. Or, if you’re hoping to keep animals (or neighbors) at bay, you might try growing a thorny hedge of blackberries or rasberries.

This latest adventure reminded me to question my preconceived ideas about gardens. Somewhere along the garden path, I decided food plants belonged in the back yard. Nonsense. Another advantage to front yard edibles…the deer are less likely to go there.

Is it possible, soon we will get 4 pints of Blueberries (per day!) from these seedlings? That’s what the TV ad says. Latoyia and I are doing the experment, “Does it Grow?” we will let you know. See the sales pitch online at BlueBerryGiant.com.
ONE WEEK IN UPDATE
The blueberries, about 30 of them, are all planted. Mostly be me, a few by friends, including Latoyia and her family. My blueberries doubled in size the first week, from 3″ to 6″!
LOOKING GOOD, but a long way from 4 pints a day..

The Season's First Peas-Germinated indoors in a moist paper towel

If you are new to vegetable gardening, I encourage you to check out The Just Add Water layout and seed list on the New England Gardener homepage.
It’s a variation on the 10′ by 10′ plot I grew last year in my local community garden in Yarmouth, Maine. You can copy it seed by seed or improve on it with your own great ideas.
I’ll offer a few simple suggestions for those of you who are growing food for the first time. Start small. Draw a simple plan and stick to it. Leave space (at least 18″) for rows. Work some compost into the soil. Weed and water.
As for what to grow, it’s entirely up to you. I grow food my family will eat and emphasize produce that is expensive or bland at the grocery store. You’ll always find plenty of herbs and tomatoes in my garden.
Other “easy to grow” suggestions include lettuces, carrots, peas, bush beans, tomatoes (from purchased seedlings) and spinach.

The Just Add Water design is similar to last years with a few notable exceptions. I’m growing lettuce, spinach, chard, radishes, tomatoes, cukes and beans again, although in different spots for crop rotation.
For fun, I’m trying melons in the squash patch. I’ve never grown them successfully because of the short season in Maine, but spring is early and I plan to break out some black plastic to heat things up. I also waited much too long to start carrots last year, planting them as a replacement crop after the peas were finished. This year I’m planting carrots early and often.

My first planting of peas, both snap and shell, went in the ground last week. (April 18th) If you haven’t started yours yet, I highly recommend germinating them indoors first in a wet paper towel.
This will save you a few days and ensure better production. My carrots and spinach went in the ground before supper tonight. (April 25th.) I hope to get some lettuce, radishes and chard in, in between the raindrops later this week.

One quick word about the dreaded Late Blight that took out so many tomato and potato crops last year.
The disease does NOT winter over in New England EXCEPT on potato tubers. Check out this fact sheet for details.

Salad days are ahead.

Earth Day is time to get dirty, in order to get clean. Cleaning the earth includes the soil, the water, and the air. April 22, 2010 is our 40th annual day of action toward a cleaner planet. We have come a long way since April of 1970. Would we swim in Boston Harbor or Lake Erie 40 years ago? Could we breath clean air in Los Angeles or Denver 40 years ago? The answer is no. But today we have substantially cleaner air and water.
I believe the spirit of Earth Day is one of a succession of United States Citizen’s efforts to live on a cleaner planet, much more healthy for life.

Read more »

Just Add Water Garden Early September

As you know, I started the season with seed suggestions and a 10′ by 10′ layout from the great gardeners at Johnny’s Selected Seeds here in Maine. For the most part, their varieties and succession planting ideas worked well, but I will make a few changes next year based mostly on personal preferences. (Click on layout to the right if you’re curious about what I grew.)

A Bouquet of Carrots, Red Lettuce and Chard.

I had bad luck with some transplants. Neither my cuke or basil seedlings fared as well as the plants that were sowed from seed into the garden. Next year, I won’t bother starting those indoors.

The peas, beans, lettuces and spinach have all been delicious. All will be invited back.

Thanks to the confines of the 10′ by 10′ space, I found I was much more disciplined about succession plantings. In the past I tucked veggies all over my garden beds and sometimes forgot about them. Not this year. Even in mid-September, every inch of the Just Add Water garden is still producing. Beans are coming up in the tomato graveyard. New rows of lettuce and spinach are launched next to the beans. I tucked in some discounted celery and cauliflower seedlings where the peas once grew. Those will be harvested in the coming weeks. The buds on my brussel sprouts are starting to swell. And the chard, carrots cucumbers and squashes are growing like gangbusters.

Cauliflower On The Way

What lessons does your garden have to share? If you’re like me, you won’t remember them in February and by then your garden won’t be in the mood for conversation.