The Yard at the End of June

The heat of summer has come on with a vengeance. Normally, it doesn’t get really hot until July. But for the last two weeks of June, the daytime temperatures have been in the mid 90’s.

The tomato that I planted in a pot on our patio continues to bear tomatoes, however, they are rather watery – not very good for eating raw, but work well when cooked.

The plant in the front flowerbed bore three tomatoes and seemed to stop. There are several green ones on it, but they just aren’t turning color.

The eggplant that just sat there with the same four little leaves for weeks on end suddenly began growing as if trying to make up for lost time.

I planted two hills of beans, but the slugs got most of them. There are only two shoots left out of the original 6-8 seeds.

Next time, I should try a copper barrier. They sell copper tape, but it’s expensive and all I need is a little bit.

I want to try a trick I saw earlier this spring on another website. Take a roll of masking tape and pull off a length. Turn it sticky side  up on a table and lay pennies end-to-end down the length. Lay the tape penny-side-up around the plants you want to protect. (I’d love to give credit to the web site, but I can’t remember where I saw it.)

Backyard Greenhouse

As I frequently say, a condo is not the ideal place to do serious gardening.

But, if you are serious (and have a bit of room), you might consider a coldframe or simple greenhouse. A small greenhouse for starting seeds early or carrying plants over the winter can greatly extend your growing season.

David LaFerney has some great ideas for both on his Door Garden site.

Greenhouse from recycled materials

Coldframe

His site is also a good resource for backyard organic gardening.

Turning a Flower Bed Into a Vegetable Garden

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been reluctant to grow anything but flowers in my front bed. Condo’s have rules about appearance (like, all front doors have to be the same color (black) and all windows have to have mini-blinds). It can sound silly, I know. I also know that there are reasons for the rules. They are trying to preserve the appearance of the complex and its property values.

I’m not sure if they have any rules about what I can grow in my front bed, but I bet that if I put in wooden stakes for tomatoes or a trellis for beans and peas, I’d get complaints.

So…how do you go about turning a flower bed into a long, skinny vegetable garden??

Three Requirements

The first consideration is location, more specifically, light. Of all the requirements for gardening, this is the most important. You need a bed that gets at least 5-6 hours of direct sunlight a day. There are ways to work around problems with the other requirements, but if you don’t have enough light, then you probably shouldn’t be trying to grow vegetables. In my case, the front of our condo faces east and the bed gets sun from early morning until just past noon. After that, the building casts solid shade for the rest of the day.

If you live in the South and have a choice between morning sun and afternoon sun, choose a site that gets sun in the morning. Our afternoon sun is very intense and plants don’t do well going from solid shade to full afternoon sun.

The second consideration is drainage, if the bed is constantly wet,the plant’s roots will rot.

The third consideration is good soil. Clay or hardpan will be difficult for the plant’s roots to penetrate and water will run off rather than soaking in.

So, what do you do if you have poor drainage or poor soil?
Fortunately, these can be worked around. If the soil is good, but the drainage is poor, you can amend the soil by adding sand to improve the drainage. If the soil is poor, it can be improved by adding compost or manure.

Manure? Ewwwww….

Well, this isn’t straight out of the pasture. Products like Black Kow and other commercially available manures are well composted and have no odor. They add much needed organic material and nutrients.

Preparing the Bed

Every few years, I would buy some bags of topsoil and put a layer about an inch thick over the entire bed. Since soil settles over time, it would have been better if I had done it every year. In fact, ideally, I should create a raised bed by building up some kind of edging – bricks, boards, or railroad ties – to a depth of about 6-8 inches and fill it with either topsoil or a mix of soil and compost. That would create a deep rich bed to grow in. Still, my inch of soil every few years has raised the bed by a few inches above the surrounding soil, so that’s some help.

So, what if you don’t have a prepared bed?

If you have an existing flower bed, you can add compost and manure to improve the soil.

If you don’t have a bed – choices are, grow in containers, create a new in-ground bed, or create raised beds.

Planting

After coming back from the nursery with some plants, I laid them out in the bed where I wanted them to go so that they didn’t crowd or shade each other. Setting them out like this helps you space them correctly. Be sure to check the labels to see how far apart to plant them, because they’ll spread.

I have an old bulb planter that I use to dig holes with, though a trowel would work as well. You want the plant each plant deep enough so that the top of the soil around the roots comes to the same level as the surrounding soil. (Hint: some plants, like tomatoes, will root all up and down the stem. If you have a tall spindly tomato plant, you could plant it deep, leaving just a couple of sets of leaves above the ground.)

Fertilizer

Fertilizer – if you’re using compost and manure, you’ve got plenty of fertilizer. The great thing about using these is that you not only get good nutrients, you improve the quality of your soil.

If you buy chemical fertilizer, look for the formulation, three numbers separated by dashes, for example: 5-10-15 or 10-10-10. (The three numbers tell you what percent of the three main nutrient’s are in each mix. The three are Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and soluble Potash.) I usually go with a “balanced” fertilizer of 10-10-10. Chemical fertilizers are more concentrated and can be harsh. Be sure to follow the instructions on the package. Too much fertilizer and you will burn the roots of your plants.

Aftercare

Mulch is a covering, like straw or wood chips, that you spread over the surface of the bed. Mulch can make a gardener’s life much easier. It serves several purposes. It helps prevent the bed from drying out too quickly, holding moisture in the soil for your plants. This keeps you from having to water as often since bare dirt will dry more quickly causing your plants to go through cycles of wet and dry, alternating between adequate levels of water and being stressed by lack of water. A mulch also helps prevent weeds, and it shades and cools the soil (very important in the South).

Any organic mulch breaks down over time. In our condo complex, they put pine straw on the beds at least once a year. By the next year, it has flattened and decomposed to the point that it’s less than an inch thick. The decomposing mulch helps feed your soil and add organic matter. You should try to keep at least 3-4 inches of mulch on your garden.

Watering – Most gardener’s recommend that gardens get an inch to an inch and a half of water a week. If it rains, you may not have to water at all; if it’s bright and sunny, you almost certainly will need to water.

So, how much is an inch when spread over your garden? If you are using a sprinkler, you can put out a rain-gage and let it run until it reads one inch.

Note: If you’re like me and don’t want to have to go out and BUY another garden gadget, you can set a short wide can with the lid cut off (I use a tuna fish or cat-food can with the label removed) in your flower bed/vegetable garden before watering. Tuna cans are steel and will rust, cat-food are aluminium. Remember to dump the water out after watering.

Lookin’ out my back door…

I complain a lot in this blog about the limited space and growing conditions I have. It’s largely a reaction to having moved from a house with a yard into a condominium.

Of course, we’ve been here for 18 years, you’d think I’d be over it by now.

It could be worse. Our condo is a two-story unit that’s basically a townhouse. However, next door to us, the upstairs and downstairs are separate units. The woman in the upstairs condo has no access at all to the back yard – not even a balcony. She might as well be living in an apartment. I have to remind myself that many people prefer living that way. They are attracted to condos because they don’t have to worry about building or yard maintenance.

Sitting on our patio, I have to admit that, despite its small size, it’s a very appealing space. The trees and bushes have been growing for a number of years and are lush and green. Despite the preceding three years of near-record drought, it looks cool and green back here, even in the increasing heat of our summer.

Our backyard from the patio

In the upper center of the photograph, you can see the trunk of a redbud tree, to the left is a redtip (photinia) that is taller than the redbud. Together, these two are the immediate causes of the lack of sunlight in the yard. I say ‘immediate’ because beyond them is the row of condos parallel to ours. If the trees were not there, we would only get another hour of sunlight before the shadow of the building cut it off. (BTW, if you look closely at the picture, you can see a chipmunk climbing the pole to get at the bird feeders. I suppose I should do something about him, but he’s so darn cute!)

Below the redbud and redtip, there is a retaining wall made of railroad ties that stands about shoulder high and acts as a rustic backdrop to the yard. In front of the wall are azaleas flanking our hydrangea. Out of the frame to the left is a bed of siberian irises (in serious need of dividing, my wife reminds me).

To the right is a nice vista of grass and trees as the land slopes downhill between the rows of units.

Even with all my complaining, even with the limited space and growing conditions, I have to admit that it is a beautiful place.

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Invasive ivy

Like a slow-motion tsunami, the ivy is out to get us…

Ivy is overrunning our neighbor's yard

It lurks just over the retaining wall across the back of our yard, waiting for us to drop our guard. It has already taken over most of the yards in the units across the wall from us.  It has flowed down the wall of the other units in our building, trying to drown their yards as well.

Trying to keep the ivy cut back

Like a lot of things, it probably seemed like a good idea at the time. Maybe someone had beds of ivy in a previous home and wanted it again. I don’t know, it was here when we moved in. But within a few years, it had spread all across the backyards of the row of condos behind us and was spilling over the retaining wall into our yards. It soon smothered the yards of many of the condos in our building. My wife and I kept cutting it back, keeping our yard clear of it.

Getting Gardening Advice for Your Part of the Country

Getting Advice

When I started gardening, back before the internet, it wasn’t easy to get gardening advice for my part of the country. I had several good garden books that covered almost everything you might want to know about gardening. However, these books were usually written with the north-eastern states in mind, like Ohio and New York. The times for the average first and last frost were way off from what I was used to, as were the timing for planting seeds, planting and pruning roses, etc.. At that time, I was living in south Georgia where it was too cold for tropical (Florida) growing advice and too warm for many plants that grew comfortably in the northern part of our state.

Since the advent of the internet, things have gotten easier. Over the years, one of the most constant, reliable sources of local gardening information has been the state Cooperative Extension Service, often known as the county agent. Every state has one. Recently, I came across the website Extension.org.  It’s a portal for access to state Extension services across the country. Though the Extension service is primarily aimed at farmers, it includes a lot of valuable information about local growing conditions.

In Georgia, we are also fortunate to have a retired Cooperative Extension Service employee, Walter Reeves, who writes a garden advice column for the Atlanta Journal, has a call-in garden talk show on the radio, and a couple of television shows on public broadcasting. All that in addition to writing books about gardening in Georgia. Recently, I’ve been consulting his gardening calendar for the times for various tasks in the yard; pruning hydrangeas, dividing iris’, and when to think about planting seeds for a fall garden. He also has advice about which varieties do well in our state. While his advice is aimed at Georgia, much of it will apply to the rest of the southeastern states (Florida, you’re on your own).

Many states will have people like Mr. Reeves whose reliable local gardening advice can be just a web search away. ( I started to say, just a Google search away, but I’m also finding Bing to be a useful tool – your mileage may vary.)

Hydrangea Problems – Update

As I mentioned before, I’ve been having problems with my single hydrangea bush. Well, not with the plant itself, but with the care of it. The plant, a hydrangea macrophyla ‘Nikko Blue’, is a healthy and a vigorous grower. The problem is, it blooms on old wood. Between clueless yard maintenance workers and unpredictable late frosts, I currently have a total of two flower heads when I should have dozens.

It’s enough to make a gardener look longingly at repeat blooming hydrangeas like ‘Endless Summer.’ Since it blooms on both old and new growth, a late freeze or overzealous pruning won’t halt blooming.

I’m reluctant to replace this hydrangea. I guess I feel a certain loyalty to it, it having grown and bloomed in the yard for years. But when you don’t have much space, having a large plant that doesn’t bloom seems like a waste of space.

Roses in the South

A lot of the gardening advice out there seems to be written for the northern states. Gardening in the South is a little different.

Take roses for example. While the All-America selections are supposed to do well in all parts of the country, (that’s the All-America part) they often suffer from mildew and black spot in the South. It may be because of the heat and humidity down here.

Just because a rose is prominently featured in a plant catalog or is an All-America selection doesn’t mean it will do well for you, in your yard and your climate. I’ve seen plants that were straggly or had poor leaf coverage, but absolutely beautiful blooms. That may be alright if you’re growing them for cut flowers, but it isn’t very attractive in the yard.

If you want good advice, the American Rose Society (ars.org) has recommendations based on member’s ratings over many years of the plants they’ve grown; the higher the score, the better the rose. This is a good start, but it still does not address the problems of growing roses in my climate. Here are a few tidbits I’ve picked up.

In the early 1980’s, a group that came to call themselves the Rose Rustlers were collecting cuttings of roses that they found growing along back roads in Texas. These plants were often growing on the sites of abandoned homesteads or cemeteries and were flourishing with no care. No one to feed, prune, water, or spray them! The rustlers would take cuttings and pictures and attempt to identify what they had found. Many of the plants were what would be considered ‘antique’ roses, some had not been commercially available since 1900!

If you are trying to grow roses in the south, you could do a lot worse than researching these antique roses. One source is the Antique Rose Emporium (www.antiqueroseemporium.com) in Texas, but there are many others.

Note: While researching this topic, I came across the Earth-Kind program from Texas A&M. They are identifying landscape plants that grow well in southern gardens with little care or watering. Here is a link to their rose recommendations: http://earthkindroses.tamu.edu/EKroses.html.

Irises

Mystery Irises

I mentioned before that I have two beds of irises; a dwarf iris on the walkway and a bed of a different kind of iris on the border between our unit and the next one. They have both been planted and have grown for many years undisturbed. I have enjoyed them both, though they only bloom for a short time. However, the time has come that I need to divide them. It was at this point that I came up against the basic problem; what, exactly, do I have?

Dwarf iris
I had seen dwarf iris in bloom when hiking at DeSoto Falls Campground in north Georgia, and at the Walasi-yi Center up on Blood Mountain…

Digression

It’s called DeSoto Falls because, according to local legend, a piece of metal armor was found near there and the speculation was that Hernando DeSoto and his party had passed through the area. The armor was later lost, so they cannot confirm or deny the story.

The Walasi-yi center is a stone building on US 19 at Neels Gap. The Appalachian Trail actually crosses a covered walkway of the building. I understand that  walkway is the only place on the 2000+ miles of the Trail that is under shelter.

…when I came across pots of dwarf iris at a nursery, I just had to have them. I planted them along the edge of our walkway and tried to keep them watered. It was not easy during the past three years when our area was under drought conditions. I guess my persistence has paid off since the patch has grown until it nearly blocks the walkway.

I need to trim it back, to divide patch down the middle and move half so the walkway remains passable. The problem was, I wasn’t sure when they should be divided. The problem was made worse because I didn’t really know what variety of iris they were considered to be. Fortunately, a little Internet searching on “dwarf iris” turned up a description of the two most common types of dwarf iris. I believe what I have is iris cristata – crested iris. With that information in hand, I could then search for growing guidelines.

What I’ve found is a little conflicting. One source says to divide them once they finish blooming. I like that advice, since they are beginning to bloom now and will be finished within a week or so. However, the other source says to divide them in mid-October, a long while from now.

My other iris is a tall, grass-like plant. They had been given to my wife by a friend of hers.  All I knew about them was that they weren’t bearded iris. My first task was to find what other kinds of irises there were…

I think what I have are Siberian Irises.

If anybody out there has a better identification, please let me know.