It has been so hot and dry in Cincinnati that I’ve been absolutely lethargic for weeks. But there has been a distinct chill to the air this past week that tells us fall is on its way. It is wonderful and energizing and I actually feel like gardening again!

The cooler weather means it’s time to plant chrysanthemums, fall annuals, and a few more fall-harvested vegetables. Most years, I feel like I’m tearing out perfectly good summer annual and vegetable plants to replace them with fall bloomers. This dry year, the plants just don’t look that great, so I’m saying “sayonara, baby” with no regrets.

Mums fill the benches at our local nurseries nows. They are undoubtedly the queen of the autumn garden, and deservedly so. They look great in a pot on the porch, but also in the garden. I grow some each way, every year. Who can resist arranging some mums and pumpkins on the front porch for the fall holidays?

Mums can be moved while in full bloom without any damage to the plant. They can be transplanted from a pot to the garden, or from one area of the garden to another. Just be sure to keep your potted mums or your newly transplanted mums well-watered.

Some gardeners grow their mums through the summer in sunny, out-of sight corner of the garden. Then, when the summer annuals are past their prime, they replace the faded flowers with the waiting mums. This is so the mums – which are green all summer – don’t take up prime garden space.

One mum that I’m particularly fond of is Dendranthema ‘Frosty Igloo’. Topping out at about a foot in height, this white-flowered, hardy cultivar blooms for weeks in early- to mid summer, and again in the fall. ‘Frosty Igloo’ deserves a place in the front of the garden, year ‘round.

Once your mum has finished blooming, cut off the dead blossoms leaving only a few inches of stalk above the ground level, and then pile on a foot or two of shredded leaves, right from the mower bag, to keep deep frosts from penetrating into and around the crowns.

Remove the mulch early in the spring, as soon as the mulch has thawed out, to prevent any of the new shoots from starting up through the mulch. If this happens, the shoots will be tender and susceptible to being burned off by late spring frosts.

Happy Gardening!

Sue

Many years of gardening experience in several different climates have helped me to gain mastery of the art and craft of gardening, while my Master of Science (MS) degree in horticulture – six years of study at a University – speaks for itself.

On the other hand, I am sometimes referred to as “Master Gardener Sue Trusty” – and this is not correct. Since this happened recently, I thought I should explain the difference.

“Master Gardener”, with capitol letters, is a title given to an individual who has completed a volunteer program affiliated with a state’s land-grant university and one of its Cooperative Extension Service offices. Avid gardeners are given intense home horticulture training – usually 50 hours or more – in subjects such as taxonomy, plant pathology, entomology, plant cultural requirements, nuisance wildlife management, and integrated pest management.

In return, they pay back local university extension agents through volunteerism. Master Gardener volunteers may assist with garden lectures, exhibits, demonstrations, school and community gardening, phone diagnostic service – like our local Horticulture Hotline, research, and many other projects.

To remain a Master Gardener volunteer, a certain number of continuing education credits must be earned by the volunteer each year. This ensures that the volunteers keep up with current recommendations from the local extension service and university. In our case, that would be Ohio State University.

I am a former cooperative extension horticulturist, and have been involved with teaching Master Gardener volunteers in North Carolina, Ohio and Kentucky. Master Gardeners have been indispensible in helping me to do my job. But I am not technically a Master Gardener. Which is a little sad. Who wouldn’t want to be part of a community of ardent and experienced gardeners?

While I’ve had lots more formal training in the science of horticulture than a typical Master Gardener, many of the Master Gardener volunteers have a wealth of practical experience in certain areas of gardening that I can only envy. I have great respect for these volunteers, and I never fail to learn new things when I deal with a group of Master Gardeners.

Master Gardener volunteers are active in all 50 states in the United States and a few Canadian provinces, too.

If you have a passion for plants, the time to study and a willingness to volunteer, you could become a Master Gardener volunteer. Contact your local Cooperative Extension Service for more information. The American Horticultural Society has this website that allows you to connect with a Master Gardener’s website for your state.

Happy Gardening, from your friend who is masterful at gardening, but not a Master Gardener,

Sue

I’ve been on a family vacation this past week. The weather was lovely – sunny, hot but not too humid, with no rain to put a cramp in our activities. Upon our return to Cincinnati, I found that the same hot, dry weather I loved on a lake in Tennessee, I loathe here – where we haven’t had a significant rainfall in weeks and our lawns and gardens are drying up. It all depends on your perspective!

This morning I saw a swallowtail butterfly larva munching on my carrots. Every year, I find these fellows chomping away on parsley, carrot, or fennel foliage.

As butterfly gardeners know, to get the lovely butterflies to visit your flowers for the nectar, you must put up with the larval, or caterpillar stage of the butterfly lifecycle.

I usually don’t appreciate caterpillars masticating my plant leaves. Don’t get me started on a rant about tomato hornworms or cabbage loopers, which I pick off immediately upon detection! But I love the colorful swallowtail caterpillars and just let them be. I plant extra of the crops they like to eat. The reward is the beautiful swallowtail butterfly.

There are several kinds of swallowtail butterflies that are common in Ohio. The larvae I saw are undoubtedly of the Eastern Black Swallowtail butterfly (Papilio polyxenes). This species uses virtually any cultivated or wild member of the carrot family, Apiaceae, including wild and cultivated carrot, parsley, fennel, celery, and parsnip.

Adults of the Eastern Black Swallowtail butterfly obtain nectar from alfalfa, red clover, milkweed, thistle, purple coneflower, winter cress, teasel, and ironweed.

This picture is of a Tiger Swallowtail butterfly (Papilio glaucas). Tiger Swallowtails usually have distinctive yellow and black striped markings on their wings and body, although some of the females are brown or black, mimicking the poisonous Pipevine Swallowtail. The Tiger Swallowtail butterfly has a wingspan up to six inches.

According to the Ohio Lepidopterists website, the larvae of this species have been recorded feeding on ash, tulip tree, sassafras, wild black cherry and a number of other broad-leaved trees and shrubs. We wouldn’t normally notice these guys in the landscape, unless we were looking for them.

Adults get nectar from lots of different plants, including dandelions, phlox, milkweed, butterfly-weed, Joe-Pye weed, redbud, ironweed, thistles, purple coneflower, hawthorn, lilac, impatiens, violets, and periwinkle. In the image above, the butterfly is feeding on Butterfly Bush, Buddleia davidii. And below, Zinnia angustifolia.

Since butterflies do not gather water from standing water sources, an important part of successful butterfly gardening is the addition of a damp, sandy site. An easy way to create such a site in a sunny spot is to bury a small plastic water tub and fill it with a mixture of sand and soil. The plastic tub helps retain moisture by keeping it from leeching out into surrounding soil.

Also, remember that butterflies are insects. The use of insecticides will kill many butterflies and their caterpillars.

Butterflies are like bright jewels that decorate the garden. They are passing visitors to a garden and can only be encouraged to linger by planting the appropriate plants and creating hospitable conditions.

Happy Gardening!

Sue

Last year I purchased a small fig tree in a 2-gallon container near the end of the growing season. Since fig trees are not hardy in my zone 5 garden, I kept the fig over the winter in my unheated garage. In early spring, I repotted the fig into a larger and more decorative container to use on my patio. I added an annual Euphorbia ‘Diamond Frost’ to the pot to provide a froth of tiny blooms at the feet of the fig.

Soon after that, the fig started to bear small green fruit . . .

And this week, I picked my first ripe fig! The plant is currently only two feet tall and wide, but is loaded with many green fruit in addition the this ripe one. In a container my fig tree will probably eventually reach eight feet tall and grow almost as wide.

If you are interested in growing a fig tree, local nurseries sometimes sell them (I got mine at Marvin’s Organic Gardens) and they are also available through mail order and the Internet. If you have a friend or neighbor who is growing figs, another option is to take cuttings and propagate new plants that way.

The plants are ornamental and tropical looking, making them an attractive addition to the patio, deck, or balcony. A sun room or unheated greenhouse can be a great location for your fig tree provided that there is plenty of ventilation.

Figs are not heavy feeders, so I use a slow release organic fertilizer, supplementing with a dose of fish fertilizer in mid- and late summer.

If you live in the Cincinnati area, do not leave your potted fig tree outdoors in the winter. Fig tree roots that would survive the winter if planted in the ground may not over-winter in an exposed container. Moving the plant into an unheated building or garage will help it survive the winter, and also allows you to maintain the tree’s shape and encourage earlier fruiting. Water the fig tree sparingly once every month or so during winter storage. The dormant tree does not need any light and can be stored in the dark.

Happy Gardening!

Sue

I had the pleasure of visiting a local community garden this morning – the East End Veterans Memorial Garden. There I met with my friend Cindy Schrader and some folks from Cincinnati Magazine to do a photo-shoot for an upcoming article I’ll be writing about growing a cutting garden. Cindy’s is one of several gardens I’ll visit for the article.

Cindy has too much shade to successfully grow flowers for arranging in her home garden, so she has a plot in this community garden for that purpose.

Part of the Civic Garden Center’s Neighborhood Gardens Program, the East End Veteran’s Memorial Garden has been in existence for about 10 years. Each plot has a different owner, and according to Cindy the gardeners are free to grow whatever they want in their plot, as long as it’s legal!  The gardener’s all pitch in to keep the common areas spiffed up, too. This includes watering, weeding, mowing the grass and general maintenance tasks.

There are a variety of different crops being grown there, including grapes, a fruit orchard and lots of vegetable plots. Cindy focuses on cut flowers, grown in a bountiful bed distinguished by its white picket fencing. This is a cottage garden that is a feast for the eye, bursting with zinnias and snapdragons – her favorites – plus cosmos, bachelor’s buttons and sunflowers.

You’ll have to read my article to learn more about growing and harvesting these plants, and making the arrangements . . .

This garden is located on a flood plain for the Ohio River, so the soil is rich and crumbly when compared to our typical suburban soils. Because of this, most of the garden plots are simply areas of cultivated earth surrounded by brick. This is instead of the raised beds found in most community gardens.

The seven-foot tall okra plants behind Cindy in this image are testament to the rich soil!

The garden is used for a variety of neighborhood events. For example, a local community church purchased picnic tables for the garden, and now holds a Sunday afternoon worship service in the garden. “We recently had a neighborhood block party here, too,” says Cindy. “The new East End school is right down the street, and the school kids have visited the garden. It is like a community center for the people in the East End neighborhood.”

People interested in community gardening – starting a garden, or participating in an existing garden – should contact the Civic Garden Center for information. The Neighborhood Gardens program has over 47 active gardens. Some of the gardens are full, and may require waiting for a plot.

Happy Gardening!

Sue

I’ve decided to feature annuals this month. These plants live for only one growing season, but they bloom their little hearts out during that time, adding color and interest right through the dog days of summer. By August, when many plants look fried, these annuals look fresh as a daisy.

The first few images show plants that are growing adjacent to our patio. The white color of the flowers reflects moonlight, making this garden more enjoyable at night.

This first plant is  Summer Snapdragon, Angelonia angustifolia. It loves heat and humidity, and so it blooms like crazy during our sweltering summers. It doesn’t need dead-heading, but the flowers are great in flower arrangements if you want to cut them. The the plain white version is in the foreground, but I’m also growing ‘Wedgwood Blue’, just visible in the back.

This is Madagascar Periwinkle or Vinca, Catharanthus roseus ‘Cascade White’. This is another annual that loves the heat, and must be grown on the dry side to thrive.

Lantana ‘White Gold’, a tender plant grown as an annual, blooms amidst other annuals by the side of the patio . . .

I love Snow-on-the-Mountain, Euphorbia marginata. This plant is such a bright white color, it literally glows! It is a rampant re-seeder, so I only allow a few to grow each year. It also has a milky sap that can irritate the skin. The unusual, glowing bracts never fail to generate comments, so I grow it anyway.

On the screened porch I have this little pot containing Pelargonium x hortum ‘Vancouver Centennial’. One of my favorite annual geraniums, I often  overwinter it as a houseplant.

Salvia ‘Black and Blue’ introduces my favorite blue color to the garden palette.

I Planted Cleome ‘Sparkler Blush’ a few years ago, and its offspring have been popping up here and there ever since. ‘Sparkler Blush’ was an All-America Selection in 2002, known for its  compact habit and blush pink flowers. Alas, it is a hybrid – so its offspring sport a variety of sizes, shapes and colors from white to pink to magenta.

Zinnia ‘Profusion Orange’ is the foolproof plant that I grow along my driveway each year. It flourishes despite the fact that I never water that garden except to establish the plants in the first few weeks after transplanting. Salvia ‘Victoria’ is in the background.

In August, many perennial flowers take a break from blooming. I’ve been deadheading Echinacea, phlox, butterfly bush and others in hopes of getting a new flush of flowers next month. Annuals help to bridge the gap, providing months of color from early summer till the first fall frost.

Happy Gardening!

Sue

Like many people, I sometimes suffer from the affliction known as “Writer’s Block”. This is a condition in which an author loses the ability to produce new work. The condition varies widely in intensity. In my case, it’s simply a temporary difficulty in dealing with the task at hand.

It’s usually a lack of inspiration that holds me back – or sometimes I just have a lot of things on my mind, so I lack focus or concentration. I know what needs to be said, but have trouble getting started.

I occasionally experience a similar phenomenon in the garden. From April through June I garden like a mad woman, spending all my free time – and probably time that should be spent elsewhere – on the garden. I jump out of bed in the morning eager to get started, and sometimes I’m still going at dusk.

But when the weather gets hot and dry, ambition abandons me. I still have a list of tasks to accomplish, but I can’t seem to get started. It’s “Gardener’s Block”.

I go out to pick produce or water my pots, a little begrudgingly. I take note of the deadheading that I’ve been putting off, the flopping plants that should be staked, the bare places in the vegetable bed that need to be replanted – but I’m not inspired to do anything about it.

Even when I’m having an outdoor dinner party, or a class is meeting in the garden, I don’t bother to tidy up much. “It is what it is”, I say to my husband. This, too, is a form of “Gardener’s Block”, and one that I’ve suffered from the past few weeks.

Luckily, it’s a temporary condition. Last weekend it was still hot out, but overcast and not quite as humid as in recent days. I was finally inspired to spend several hours in the vegetable garden, picking produce, pulling out expired plants, and adding compost to the beds.

This led to turning a couple of the compost piles that same evening. Monday morning, I was into the long shrub border, cutting things back and weeding until noon.

Just like with a new exercise regime, it’s hard to get started. But when you’ve been at it a while, it feels really good and you want to do more. And as with exercising, the satisfying small aches in your muscles help you to feel that you’ve accomplished a lot!

Some “blocked” writers are unable to work for years, and some have even abandoned their careers. These serious blocks may be produced by adverse circumstances in a writer’s life: illness, depression, financial pressures, or a sense of failure. Luckily, I’ve never experienced problems of this magnitude.

I hope that all of my writing and gardening “blocks” are temporary!

Happy Gardening,

Sue

Last spring, I wrote about planting potatoes, and I described how to use potato bags. They are working out wonderfully. The plants have been growing all summer. I watered them carefully from planting time through the flowering period, and then tapered off.

Since then, I’ve dug out a few potatoes to use as “new potatoes”. This can be done any time after the plants start flowering, like in the picture above. Last Sunday I decided to completely harvest a few of the bags, since the foliage has partly died back.

I pulled out the plants, and then dumped the bag into my wheel barrow. Combing through the soil and compost mix, I was easily able to retrieve all of the potatoes.  Then I added the used potato soil to my vegetable beds.

Here are some Red Pontiac, Yellow Finn and French Fingerling potatoes from the garden. I love that they are ready to pick along with the beans – I could make a whole meal out of newly dug potatoes and fresh picked green beans!

The only thing that would make it better would be to add some fresh-picked tomatoes!

The potato harvest was not huge, so I’ve decided to wait until the foliage is completely dead before harvesting the other bags. A few more weeks of growth should help the potatoes to fill out.

Happy Gardening,

Sue

But lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about reducing waste in everyday living. It all started when my husband listened to a podcast about a family in England who reduced their trash for an entire year to a single bin (trash can)!

A few weeks later an article appeared in the Cincinnati Enquirer that described how a couple in Oregon managed to go a whole year generating only a shoebox full of non-recyclable waste – about 4 pounds worth. The shoebox contained items such as used razor blades, light bulbs and other small scraps. The waste they collected in a year equaled the amount of waste that people in their area usually generate each day.

The couple managed this by purchasing thoughtfully. They only bought things that could be recycled or composted.

This article generated a lot of discussion between friends, neighbors and others in our circle of acquaintances. I hope it encourages many people to think about, and possibly reduce, the amount of waste they generate each week.

I don’t think it would take that much effort for my family to go from one garbage can a week to one a month. Then we’ll see if we can take it a step further.

Fruit and vegetable labels abound in my compost and in my gardens.

This will be challenging if we do another remodeling project. We were able to donate our old appliances and countertops on our recent kitchen update, but who will want our old shower and sinks when we update the bathroom?

Of course, you never know what people will take off your hands if you advertise on Craig’s List. We were able to give away a splintery backyard play set and the dilapidated lumber from a dismantled back deck by offering them free to anyone who would haul them away.

As for recycling my kitchen scraps – I now find that I’ve got all sorts of those little fruit and vegetable identification tags floating around in my compost, where eventually they end up in the garden. They do not break down readily, so I’ll probably be picking them out for years to come.

Happy Gardening!

Sue

My garden has a lot of gaps from where I have harvested things like lettuce, broccoli, onions and garlic. When I finish harvesting my potatoes I’ll have even more space. I plan to fill all those empty spaces with new crops, and have already planted some new radish, carrot, lettuce and green onion seeds.

Many of the same things that were planted early in spring can be planted again – this is called “second season” gardening.

August is a good time to plant lettuce for fall salads, as well as hearty greens like chard, kale, spinach, baby pak choi, and other Oriental greens. Cool-season herbs like dill, chervil, cilantro, arugula, parsley and fennel can be started in late summer. Don’t forget the root crops, including carrots, beets, leeks, green onion, radishes, and also all the cabbage family members.

It may seem strange to be starting new seeds when you are still picking beans and tomatoes, but late-planted crops have less competition from weeds and pests and grow well with less garden work. The biggest challenge is to provide plenty of water to the young plants when the temperatures are hot.

For dependable harvests once cooler weather arrives, your seedlings must have a well-established root system. You should have fully grown plants, ready to pick when the colder weather hits, so you can pick them as you need them right up to – and even after – the first frost in late October.

You can start seeds in containers or in a garden area with dappled sun or light shade, protected from the hot sun. Create shade, if necessary, using floating row covers or shade cloth.

Plant the seeds or transplants in the evening, in well-prepared moist soil. This gives the advantage of cooler night temperatures to settle the plants in and minimize shock. Shelter any newly transplanted seedlings for a few days so they can adjust heat and sun.

Once the seedlings have acclimated, be sure to supply adequate moisture to the young plants and fertilize them regularly in the early growing stages.

Keep cool, and Happy Gardening!

Sue