With intense interest in our area on buying locally grown vegetables, some area residents may be thinking about growing their own produce.

But where to begin?

Tim Holcomb, owner of Holcomb Garden Center in Hixson and Fort Oglethorpe, Ga., said the key ingredients in starting a garden are good soil, good food and consistent watering.

He also suggested that first-time gardeners may want to jump-start the process by first growing their favorite vegetables in containers.

“There’s still time for a second season of gardening,” said Joan Casanova, spokeswoman for Bonnie Plants. “Many of us think of vegetable gardens as something to be started in spring for a summer harvest. Truly savvy gardeners know that mid to end of summer is a great time to plant cool-weather crops for fall harvest.

Get started now to ensure your fall harvest is healthy, hefty and fulfilling, she said. “With preparation, the right plants and some diligence, you can bet on fresh, low-cost produce well into fall.”

For more information on gardening, visit www.bonnieplants.com.

To start your first vegetable garden, Holcomb offered the following tips:

FIVE TIPS

1. The fastest and most productive way to get started is using containers. Fill 15- to 25-gallon containers with good potting mix, and you can grow just about anything.

2. If you start a bigger garden in your yard, you first need to prepare the soil, add planting mix to existing soil, as well as a good slow-release fertilizer for best results.

3. If you opt for a raised-bed garden, fill with good soil.

4. Vegetable gardens prefer full-sun exposure to grow and produce to the fullest.

5. Start your garden now so that you can plant a late crop of cucumbers, squash and/or bush beans. In September, begin planting cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, turnips, mustard, radishes and onions.

Warmer weather, more time spent outside and summer gardens in full swing must mean it’s mid-summer! It’s very important to tend to those vegetable gardens making sure your plants are happy, healthy and producing great vegetables. Warren Knox, creator and president of Scotts Valley’s Knox Garden Box shares his Summer Gardening Tips.

Planting

You can still plant some annuals, perennials and vegetables in your summer gardens. For annuals, try marigolds, portulaca, and zinnias for that hugesplash of color. Make sure to start seeds like cucumbers, carrots, and kale for fall vegetables this month! If you start your seeds indoors they will be readyfor transplant by fall.

Harvesting

Make sure you are harvesting and enjoying your summer vegetables like zucchini, green tomatoes, peppers and more. Remember you can also continue to plant veggies to extend your harvest.

Pests

Check your plants regularly for those pesty creatures that have now called home to your gardens. If you have to spray make sure the spray is organic, as you do not want to be eating chemicals. If caterpillars are abundant, try a spray containing Bt. And we can’t forget snails—try using old stale beer poured into an empty tuna can. They will drink the beer and kill themselves. Or spread crushed egg shells around your plants too! Slugs and snails will not be able to crawl over the egg shells without cutting themselves, making them leave your veggies alone.

Watering

This is your single biggest garden responsibility right now, so if you plan to take a vacation make sure you have someone to water your garden. Constantly check all plants, especially any newly planted ones, for water. Mulch helps to conserve water and stop weeds. But remember to be careful not to overwater, or plants may die of root rot.

Knox Garden Box, which builds custon, quality raised garden beds, is at 46 El Pueblo Road, Scotts Valley. For more information or to place an order, call 831-461-9430 or visit www.knoxgardenbox.com.

Posted by Carol Stocker
Thinking about joining the Friends of the Arboretum or renewing your membership? The Members’ Plant Giveaway is on on Saturday, September 15. Free plant quantities are determined by membership level, and attendees may also participate in special drawings for remarkable plants. Experts will be on hand to help you with selections and to answer your woody plant questions.

You can apply as a School Programs volunteer guide and train to lead small groups of schoolchildren through an active learning program about plants and the natural world. Prospective guides must be able to volunteer for a minimum of two seasons, and prior experience with teaching, counseling, or volunteering with children is preferred. Training sessions begin this month, focused on introducing new guides to the basics of botany, the curriculum of the Arboretum’s diverse field studies, and the Arboretum landscape as an outdoor classroom. Call Nancy Sableski, Manager of Children’s Education, at 617.384.5239 for more information.

Arboretum members enjoy reciprocal benefits at gardens and arboreta affiliated with the American Horticultural Society, though some restrictions may apply for institutions within a 90-mile radius of the Arboretum. During Massachusetts Botanic Gardens Reciprocal Membership Week, August 11-19, members of any of nine participating institutions in the Commonwealth can enjoy free admission and other benefits when visiting these sites.

Curatorial Assistant Susan Hardy Brown has prepared specimens for the Arboretum’s herbaria for a quarter century, utilizing aesthetic sensibilities cultivated in her vocation as a visual artist. Continuing this month in the Hunnewell Building, Ex Herbario is an exhibition of more than 50 pieces that evocatively incorporate some of the materials and ephemera associated with her daily work with plants collected from all over the world. Her paintings and constructions renew these found materials and offer viewers a unique perspective into the realm of preserving plants for identification and long-term study.
See current and upcoming exhibitions…

Celebrating its tenth anniversary this summer, the M. Victor and Frances Leventritt Garden holds a unique plant collection that includes a diverse selection of vines suitable for New England landscapes. The Arboretum grows more than 100 accessions of vines, which climb on modular steel trellises, grow along the fieldstone walls, and cling to the supports of the garden’s open-air pavilion. A member of the buttercup family, clematis is a vine that climbs with twining petioles and bears flowers highly prized for their showy sepals and stamens. Its pollinated pistils expand and curl to form a round, feathery seed head that extends its ornamental interest into the fall.
Enjoy plants in our Featured Collection…

Three 30-foot-tall, 23-year-old ginkgos growing near the Arboretum’s Bussey Street Gate are being studied from top to bottom as part of the first-ever effort to define the entire community of microbes found on the above-ground surfaces of a large tree. Senior Research Scientist Peter Del Tredici and Arboretum Director Ned Friedman are collaborating with Noah Fierer, Jon Leff, and Samantha Weintraub from the University of Colorado to sample and analyze the trees’ microbiome–the complete record of their microbial associates. While the microbiome of humans has been well studied, those of plants are largely unknown. This project hopes to fill this gap by identifying what species of microbes live on these trees and how they vary according to their location from top to bottom as well as from north to south.

Questions or Comments?
email: membership@arnarb.harvard.edu
phone: 617.384.5209
web: http://www.arboretum.harvard.edu

Whether you’re starting with a blank canvas or want to embellish an established garden, you’ll find plenty of inspiration at a free garden design workshop at Taranaki’s Hollard Gardens on Sunday (12 August).

We all enjoy visiting other people’s gardens but the most pleasure is often gained from working or relaxing in our own garden, or sharing it with family and friends.

The workshop will show you how to create or improve the layout of your garden that will work both practically and aesthetically. Attendees are encouraged to bring photos of their gardens for discussion on possibilities for improvement.

Sunday’s workshop will run from 2 pm to 4 pm and will be led by Greg Rine, Regional Gardens Manager. It is part of a year-round programme of free events at Hollard Gardens, Pukeiti and Tupare, the three heritage gardens owned and managed by the Taranaki Regional Council on behalf of the people of the region.

For more information, see www.hollardgardens.info, www.pukeiti.org.nz and www.tupare.info. Social media users can also follow the Regional Gardens on Facebook (TaranakiRegionalGardens) and Twitter (@TaranakiRG).

ATLANTA –

Pike Nurseries assistant manager, Melodie McDanal, stopped by Good Day Atlanta on Friday and discussed how to care for your garden during the month of August.

Have a question about taking care of your lawn, garden, or shrubbery? Send it to goodday@myfoxatlanta.com and it just might be answered on Good Day Atlanta!

 LINK : Pike Nurseries Website 

CLICK ON THE VIDEO ABOVE TO FIND OUT WHAT SHE HAD TO SAY!

In the Garden

1. Dead-Head for Continuous Blooms. Continue to remove faded blooms on annuals such as geraniums, marigolds, petunias, salvia, verbena and zinnias. Not doing so will cause the plants to stop blooming and produce seed which signals the end of the plant’s life cycle.

2. Rejuvenate Annuals. By this point in the summer, some annuals may have become spindly or leggy. It is a good time to pinch or trim them back by as much as ½ their current height. They will soon begin to leaf out, look thicker and start to bloom again.

3. Bag those Worms. Look for hungry bagworms on trees and evergreens. To control these caterpillars and prevent them from defoliating the plants, remove them by hand or use a spray like Eight; as an organic option, use Captain Jacks.

4. Water Wisely. Plants setting berries (like pyracantha or hollies) and plants setting flower buds for next year’s blooms (like azaleas and camellias) will benefit from a little extra water. Most established plants need about one inch of water per week to perform at their best. Water just until you see run off between 6-10am.

5. Mound Up the Mulch. Make sure all planting areas have a two-inch layer of mulch. Mulches help to regulate soil temperature, conserve moisture in the soil and prevent weed development.

For the Lawn

1. Eliminate Warm Weather Weeds. Now is a good time to apply Image to your lawn to kill the weeds.

2. Stop Lawn Invasion. Keep your lawn edged so grasses like bermuda don’t invade your planting sites.

3. Watch for Fire Ant Mounds. Apply a fire ant killer as soon as you spot the hill to eliminate them until winter.

For the Birds

1. Keep em Full. Keep birdbaths clean and full.

2. Squirrel’s be Gone. Keep the squirrels away from feeders by using a Cajun or hot seed mix. The birds can’t taste the heat but the squirrels won’t eat it. Also try the Droll Yankees Flipper Feeder.

In the House

1. Cut Flowers. Stroll through your garden and cut foliage and blooms to make fresh-cut flower arrangements.

2. Feeding Time. Continue feeding your houseplants monthly.

Add some low-voltage landscape lighting to enjoy your home and landscape in the evening hours. Plus, you’ll never come home to a dark, scary house again.

When using landscape lighting to enhance your gardens, there are three types to choose from:

1. Path lighting, which is used along paths. Less is more. Avoid the “airport runway” look.

2. Up lighting, which is used as an accent light on homes, trees or architectural features.

3. Down lighting, which is used to add interesting lighting in trees or to light up large areas of the landscape.

• Items you will need to buy: lights, landscape lighting wire, a transformer and connectors.

• The transformer will need to have enough wattage to power all of the light you are using. Add the total of the lights being used and then buy a transformer that is at least 100 watts bigger/stronger.

• Try the new LED low voltage lighting. They last a long time (very few bulb replacements) and are even more economical to operate.

• Solar lights require no wiring, but they must be placed in eight hours of full sun, and even then may not be all that bright.

Todd Goulding can be reached at GouldingDesignGroup@gmail.com or 345-0719.

If your thumbs are green and you are like human sunshine for your plants, why not share your flower and garden tips with Patch readers.  

In our continuing search for local bloggers to join our team, Glen Ellyn Patch is actively seeking readers who would love to write about gardening and plants!

What does blogging for Patch entail? Not much, really.

• Blogging for us is quick, easy and free.
• You can blog as much or as little as you wish. No deadlines or requirements.
• All you have to do is enjoy sharing your voice!

Interested?

Anyone may apply. 

To pitch a blog idea to Glen Ellyn Patch, email us at glenellyn@patch.com.

Or, just click here.

Patch bloggers are not paid and they own the content they produce. So if you are already blogging and want to share with our readers, too, let us know.

This is a chance to share your expertise and opinions with a wider audience!

 

Click photo to enlarge

Walnut Creek’s Ruth Bancroft is a national authority on drought-resistant gardening. Twice a month she and her staff share their knowledge with readers.

Almost everyone is familiar with Aloe, plants famous for their medicinal qualities. Less well-known are the members of the closely related genus Gasteria, almost all of which come from South Africa.

Gasteria is a much smaller group, with only about 20 species, but they make delightful horticultural subjects whether grown in the garden or in pots. They are notable for their thick tongue-like leaves and their attractive dangling flowers, much loved by hummingbirds for the clear sweet nectar within.

At the Ruth Bancroft Garden, we have an extensive collection of Gasteria species and hybrids, ranging from miniatures with leaves only an inch long to robust kinds with leaves a foot and a half long. Among these is a species named Gasteria croucheri, native to a strip along the east coast of South Africa.

Its native habitat is subtropical with no freezing weather at all, but like some of the other members of this genus it is able to withstand colder temperatures than it would ever experience in nature.

Gasteria croucheri is quite variable, with plants from the north end of its range being smaller and tending to form clumps while those in the south are larger and mostly solitary.

We have both forms in the garden, with the smaller ones flowering earlier in the year — mostly

in May and June — and our larger plant blooming in July and August.

The smaller ones are deep green while the larger one has a slight milky bluish tinge to its otherwise dark green leaves.

The leaves of the small plants are up to 6 inches long while the large one has leaves twice as long. In both cases the leaves are very thick and succulent with small pale spots sprinkled over their surface. In their juvenile stage, the leaves are two-sided and stacked one atop the other, but as the plant matures the leaves develop a keel on one side of the lower surface, making them wedge-shaped in cross-section, and at this point the leaves begin to whorl.

When the flower stalks emerge, they start out growing upward, but then curve to the side so that the part carrying the flowers extends sideways. The curved tubular flowers dangle from the stalk, and they are a little more than 1 inch long, with a slight swelling at the base. The pink color of the flower base gives way to off-white with green striping toward the tips and a slight flaring of the petals at the mouth.

Our smaller plants have single stalks while the large one has side branches.

Like most Gasterias, these plants prefer partial or filtered sun rather than full sun. With occasional water during the dry summer months, they are easy to grow.

If you have a question for the Ruth Bancroft Garden, email info@ruthbancroftgarden.org. For tour and event information, visit www.ruthbancroftgarden.org.

Purée them: Boil them with a little water, put them through a food mill and place in 1-cup amounts in zip-close bags. Label and freeze.

Roast them: Core and halve the tomatoes, place in a single layer in a roasting pan and drizzle with olive oil. Roast at 325 degrees for 90 minutes to two hours, until they’re very soft. Bag and freeze, or cover with their cooking oil and refrigerate for a week. You can also purée and freeze.

Dry them: Reader Elizabeth Burns suggests doing it outdoors.

“It’s cheap and easy and delivers colorful, flavorful tomato morsels just right for snacks, salad or casserole garnish or extra zing in nearly any meal,” she writes in an email.

Burns says to line cookie sheets with plastic wrap. Slice tomatoes crosswise, about ¼-inch thick, and lay slices on the trays, with no overlapping. Cover against bugs with a protective screen or cheesecloth and set out in full sun. After a hot day or two, they may be dry enough to turn.

“Depending on the weather, you can just leave them out 24 hours a day until they are dry (about three to four days),” she writes.

Store dried tomato slices in zip-close bags in the refrigerator to enjoy during the winter.

Modesto Bee staff writer Sharon K. Ghag can be reached at sghag@modbee.com or (209) 579-2340.

Halifax Regional Police is asking for the public’s assistance in connection with a property damage investigation.

Yesterday morning, police received a property damage complaint on Glenforest Drive in Halifax. Staff arrived at work on Monday and discovered that the community garden had been destroyed sometime overnight. It is not clear exactly when it happened; however, someone did hear some noise between 10:30 p.m. and 11 p.m on Sunday. Investigators would like to speak with anyone who might have observed any suspicious activity around that location Sunday night.

Anyone with information about this incident is asked to contact police at 490-5016. Anonymous tips can be sent to Crime Stoppers by calling toll-free 1-800-222-TIPS (8477), submitting a secure web tip at www.crimestoppers.ns.ca or texting a tip – Tip 202 + your message to 274637.