Wouldnt it be great if all your neighbors were expert gardeners? With them around, youd never again be troubled by temperamental tomatoes, bothered by begonia-lovin bugs or confused about your compost./pp OK, so youre not surrounded by green thumbs. But a new book might help. Untangled: Straight Talk From Passionate Gardeners collects tips and stories from dozens of Johnson County Extension master gardeners. Proceeds will be plowed back into the community gardens, demonstration gardens and other good work the volunteer master gardeners do, project coordinator Sherry Humphrey says./pp As Untangleds introduction explains, the spiral-bound paperback is not a comprehensive how-to guide but rather a mixed bouquet of best practices, personal heritage and homespun folklore. /pp Heck, from page to page the master gardeners tips might even disagree. But thats the nature of gardening. What works for someone else might not work for you. /pp If youll be digging in the dirt its Mothers Day weekend, a busy time for gardeners you might welcome a little advice. Heres a sampler of sagacity from Untangled:/ppbull;nbsp; span class=”bold”Keep a garden journal./span You can enter bloom times, water needs, weather trends, photos, to-do lists, pleasing plant combinations and anything else you especially love or cant stand about your garden./ppbull;nbsp; span class=”bold”Dont buy plain topsoil./span Get the kind with compost in it. Itll save you time and money in the end./ppbull;nbsp; span class=”bold”Add organic matter to your beds every year./span Horse manure, if you can get it, makes everything grow better. /ppbull;nbsp; span class=”bold”Plant the right way/span span class=”bold”./span Dig your hole, fill it with water and let the water drain through. Then place your flower, vegetable, tree or shrub in the hole, and fill it with dirt./ppbull;nbsp; span class=”bold”Know when to water./span The best time is the morning. Afternoons, youll lose H2O to evaporation; watering after sundown might lead to fungus growth./ppbull;nbsp; span class=”bold”Know how to water./span Less frequent, thorough watering is better than frequent light sprinklings. A soaker hose or sprinkler covering an entire bed trumps hand-watering plants./ppbull;nbsp; span class=”bold”Keep your grass green./span The best defense against summer heat and drought stress is to mow high. A bluegrass and tall fescue lawn mowed at 3 inches will remain green longer into the stressful summer than a lawn mowed at 2 inches./ppbull;nbsp; span class=”bold”Fertilize your roses./span A great natural compost to sprinkle around your roses: chopped-up banana and potato peels. /ppbull;nbsp; span class=”bold”Dont forget where you planted spring-blooming bulbs./span Get some tongue depressors or craft sticks, paint the tips different colors to represent particular types or colors of bulbs, and place them in your garden before the leaves of the bulbs fade. /ppbull;nbsp; span class=”bold”Plan for flowers all season long./span Here are six easy-to-grow perennials: peonies and irises for spring blooms, tall phlox and daylilies for summer, chrysanthemums and asters for fall./ppbull;nbsp; span class=”bold”After planting annual flowers, pinch off any blooms, even those not yet open./span Its not easy, but these small plants need to put energy into root production, not flower production, to help strengthen them for the long, hot growing season ahead./ppbull;nbsp; span class=”bold”Grab tomatoes before the squirrels do./span Pick them once they begin to turn pink and let them ripen on the countertop. Its best not to refrigerate tomatoes./ppbull;nbsp; span class=”bold”Cage tomatoes the right way./span Collapsible four-sided wire cages offer more support than traditional round cages./pp Finally, some wisdom that should make a lot of us feel better: Although everyone plants tomatoes and peppers, the truth is theyre fussy and can be hard to grow, the masters say. Novices might consider underground vegetables such as potatoes, carrots and onions. Even if you end up ignoring your garden, youre likely to grow something. Just clear out the weeds and start digging./ppspan class=”factbox_head”THE BOOK/pp/spanGet a copy of Untangled for $14 at the Johnson County K-State Extension office at 11811 S. Sunset Drive, Suite 1500, Olathe. /ppTo order online or by mail ($19.50, which includes shipping), go to a href =”http://johnson.ksu.edu/” target=”_blank”johnson.ksu.edu/a. /ppOr get the book for $12 during the Extension Master Gardeners Public Garden Tour on May 18 and 19 (details on the website).
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