July 30, 2013
- Kim’s Weekly Garden Newsletter
From Kim Willis
These weekly garden notes are
written by Kim Willis, unless another author is noted, and the opinions
expressed in these notes are her opinions and do not represent any other
individual, group or organizations opinions.
Hi Gardeners
I had some nice rain over the last few days, about 9/10
of an inch. It was needed but I am glad
the sun is out today. I love the cooler
weather and I hope it lasts the rest of the summer. Just the few days of rain, plus the week or
two of weather too hot and humid to garden in gave the weeds around my place a
big boost and I am working to catch up.
 |
| The lily Silk Road. |
We have had lots of new potatoes from the garden,
sampling different types at each meal. I
love to put washed new potatoes in a microwave safe bowl with a pat of real
butter and a tablespoon or so of margarine,( to lower the fat a little) and
sprinkle on some garlic and onion powder.
Then I cover with plastic wrap and cook them for about 20 minutes. They are so delicious.
I am getting excited about my sweet corn. The ears look great and we should be eating
it by the end of the week. Even though I
planted early, mid and late varieties of corn and planted the early corn two
weeks before the rest, it looks like it will all be getting ready at once. We’ll be freezing it I guess. I heard that there is a “new method” of
freezing sweet corn, right in the husk.
If any of you have tried this and it works well let me know.
A man stopped by the other day and asked if we wanted
some zucchini. He was carrying around a
big bunch on his truck seat, asking people if they wanted it. I have to laugh whenever I see people doing
this. I don’t like zucchini and don’t
grow it. But so many people grow way too
many plants,( which is always more than one).
It does make good bread and cakes but I guess people had to come up with
some way to use all the excess.
I had a few raspberries from my new plants and they were
very good. Looking forward to a bigger
harvest nest year.
.jpg) |
| Cardinal Climber vine |
The flowers are beautiful right now too. I have a cardinal vine (see a link to an
article below under more information) that has gone wild this summer; it is
covering a great deal of fence and its very pretty. It’s another example of common names that get
plant species mixed up, I bought it labeled Cypress vine, which is actually a
relative.
The phlox and lilies are making the garden smell really
good right now and everywhere I go I see beautiful hydrangeas and Rose of Sharon
plants in bloom. The beebalm seems to be
having a spectacular year too and that is one flower the hummingbirds really
seem to love. I sit out in the evening
and watch them fighting over it.
The $15,000 vegetable garden
I read an article in
Sunday’s Detroit Free Press that made me mad and laugh at the same time. The article in the Section titled House Envy was about a woman’s new “raised
bed” vegetable garden in Grosse Pointe Farms.
I sure didn’t envy it. This mediocre
looking 18 x13 foot garden cost her $15,000 dollars to build! Of course a landscaper built it for her. The picture shows one big box, like a giant
sandbox, and a weird arbor like structure at the entrance. There was a single rail, maybe some wire fence
around it.
The woman bragged that
she saved thousands of dollars by using green wood incased in composite, whatever
that is. And now she could grow 5 kinds
of tomatoes with all of this room! Plus lots of basil and other things. Of course each tomato she gets from that
garden will cost a hundred dollars at least, but what the heck- she went
green! I just wonder if the $15,000
includes a gardener’s salary, although she brags about family time in the
garden too.
I just hope that people reading
the article don’t think you have to be rich to afford a vegetable garden,
especially a raised bed garden, which this really didn’t qualify as. A really nice raised bed garden shouldn’t
cost you more than a few hundred dollars.
It could be much less. If you’d like to read the article go here;
Food
safety at the farmers market
When you buy produce at the farmers market make sure you wash
it before eating it. This is particularly
true of produce you don’t peel or cook before eating. Even if it is labeled organic it should be
washed. Think of how many people handle
produce at the farmers market- where have their hands been? It’s tempting to eat a few berries or a peach
on the way home but it’s probably better to resist the urge.
And in the summer heat eggs you buy at the farmers market
should have been kept in a cooler. While
eggs don’t spoil right away they can develop unhealthy quantities of salmonella,
especially because some sellers think people are more likely to buy their eggs
if they are unwashed, in warm weather.
Even washed eggs can have salmonella inside them and that’s why we cook
all eggs until they are not “runny.”
Farm markets are loaded with produce right now. You’ll find tomatoes small and slicing, peppers,
summer squash, early cabbage, new potatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, greens of many
types, carrots, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, green beans and even some early sweet corn. Summer raspberries are pretty much done but
blueberries and peaches are on the market.
You may even find some summer ripening apples, such as Lodi, on the
market soon. Melons and grapes are still
not ripe locally.
By the way there’s a new Farmers Market on Wednesdays in
Clifford, at the old grain elevator on the north side of town.
August
is check your trees month
 |
| Asian Longhorn Beetle- US Forest Service photo |
The USDA is asking everyone to get out and check the
trees in your yard, along the roads, in parks and fields this August. You’ll be looking for signs of the Asian
Longhorn beetle but it’s a good time to look for other problems too.
The Asian Longhorn beetle, Anoplophora glabripennis, is not a new pest; it’s been in the US
since an infestation was discovered in New York in 1998. It’s thought to have
arrived in shipping pallets from Asia. So far infestations have been found in 5
states over the years, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Illinois and Ohio. When it’s found the USDA goes all out to
eradicate the pest. But the fact that it
continues to pop up from time to time is worrisome. All states east of the Rockies are at risk
with states close to infected states, such as Michigan, at increased risk.
Unlike the Emerald Ash Borer, the Asian Longhorn Beetle
attacks many species of native and non-native deciduous trees including maples,(and
box elders), ash, horse chestnut, willow, elm, birch, sycamore, hackberry,
mimosa, poplar, katsura, mountain ash, apple, cherry, plums, pears, mulberry, Rose
of Sharon, oaks, black locust and basswood.
In Asia Russian Olive is heavily attacked but no Russian Olive trees
have yet been found to have the beetle in the US. If the
beetle were to get established it would wipe out most of our forest and
landscape trees.
The Asian Longhorn beetle, (ALB), is a long, ¾ to 1 ¼ inch
long beetle with long black and white banded antennae. The antennae are curved and longer than the
beetles body. The body (back) is black with irregular white spotting and has a
glossy look. The neck is solid black. The legs have a blue look. The beetles can fly but don’t like to and can
be seen feeding on host trees from spring to a hard fall frost.
Many native wood borers look similar to ALB which can be
a problem. While these pests are
damaging they do have natural controls.
The most common beetle look alike turned in to me when I was at
Extension was the cottonwood borer, which has all black antennae and white
areas on the neck.
The beetles prefer trees with more than a 4 inch diameter
but have been found on smaller trees. They
leave scars on trees when they deposit eggs. Like the Emerald borer ALB larvae feed in the
trees cambium layer, disrupting food and water flow, eventually killing the
tree. They live for about nine months inside the tree, and then emerge as
adults. The hole they leave behind is dime sized and perfectly round, as if
someone used a drill on the tree.
When inspecting trees look for raised, brown or yellow
scarred areas on trunks and branches, the dime sized exit holes, piles of
sawdust like material on the ground or in the crotches of branches and the
adult beetles. Trees infested will
likely have dead branches, especially near the top, look unhealthy, and many
will have sprouts appearing at the base of the tree.
Michigan’s efforts to control the Emerald Ash borer were
largely ineffectual because we decided not to cut down and destroy infected
trees early in the game. Quarantines were slow in coming and not enforced well
enough. However all the states that have
found ALB have rapidly destroyed trees and quarantined large areas around
them. This has already eliminated them
in 3 state originally affected. Canada
also had ALB but they instituted a strict removal and quarantine policy that
allowed them to declare the pest eradicated this year.
Like EAB, saving a tree involves expensive systemic insecticide
injections and from my reading, it isn’t quite as effective with ALB. Therefore prevention is the key. And like EAB, this beetle is primarily
transported to new areas by humans, usually in firewood. Don’t transport firewood; buy firewood where
you intend to have a fire. Fire will
destroy the larvae, but some wood always seems to be left unburned at
campsites.
If you think you have spotted ALB in Michigan here is the
person to contact, Robin R. Rosenbaum, Plant Industry Section Manager, Pesticide
and Plant Pest Mgmt. Division Michigan Department of Agriculture, P. O. Box
30017, Lansing, MI 48909. Phone 517-335-6542
or email rosenbaumr@michigan.go
If you capture a beetle you can put it in a jar with
rubbing alcohol or freeze it and send it to MSU Diagnostic Center. Call your local Extension office to see if
they can help, but if they can’t or won’t, call 517-355-4536 or go to http://www.pestid.msu.edu/ for more information. Be advised they will probably charge you for
the ID so it might be better to call MDA
first.
Fungicides
and bees
We may need to start thinking differently about the way plant
fungicides affect insects especially bees.
The traditional thinking is that fungicides kill fungi, and they don’t
harm insects. The use of insecticides on
crops while bees are pollinating is often banned, but there is no restriction
on using fungicides. It’s true that
fungicides don’t kill insects outright but new research suggests that being
exposed to fungicides does impact bees and other pollinators.
When bees are exposed to the common fungicide chlorothalonil,
( Daconil) they are three times more likely to have Nosema
ceranae, a bee parasite linked to colony collapse disorder, according to Jeff
Pettis, research leader of the USDA's Bee Research Laboratory. It’s thought that fungicide exposure lowers
the bee’s immune system and it also affects the brains of bees.
Bees continue to live and function in the
hive but not as well as the bees not exposed.
Some researchers report that bees exposed to fungicides often “get lost”
or have other memory impairment. The miticide bee keepers use to control Varroa
mites also affects bee health in many of the same ways.
Some crops, such as tomatoes, are rarely pollinated by
insects and it is probably safer to use fungicides on those crops. However, using
any pesticides, including organic ones and homemade remedies always needs to be
carefully thought out on the part of the gardener. Nothing, even soap and water, is totally
harmless, if it was why are you using it?
Revolutionizing
modern agriculture
Nitrogen is a nutrient all plants need and it is used up
rapidly or lost from the soil so it is often supplied to plants by gardeners
and farmers by using various types of fertilizers from manure to synthetic
fertilizers. However nitrogen is a major
pollutant in our environment. It
converts to nitrates in the environment which are a major health issue in
ground water and cause dead areas of surface water. It converts to ammonia and oxides which
pollute the atmosphere.
Some plants are able to supply their own needs for
nitrogen by pulling nitrogen from the air.
This includes alfalfa, beans, peas and even the pesky Autumn Olive. But most major crops require heavy nitrogen
fertilization, especially corn, a major world crop. What if we could eliminate nitrogen
applications to crops in a simple, environmentally safe way?
A research professor, Professor Edward Cocking, Director
of The University of Nottingham's Centre for Crop Nitrogen Fixation( in the UK)
may have found a way to revolutionize agriculture and vastly reduce the need
for nitrogen fertilizers. The
researchers at the facility found a naturally occurring bacteria on sugar cane,
that when applied to seeds of any crop, will penetrate the seed and allow every
cell the new plant makes to get nitrogen from the air.
The new product has been named N-Fix and is
patented. Research in closed facilities
has been very successful in all major crop plants and field trials are
beginning. The process of extracting the
bacteria and coating seeds is relatively cheap, environmentally safe and doesn’t
affect food safety, flavor or quality of plants grown from coated seeds. This
is not genetic engineering, genes of the plant are not changed, they just form
a symbiotic (mutually beneficial) relationship with bacteria.
This product sounds almost too good to be true, but if
further trials work out this could be a major turning point in feeding the
world while reducing pollution. Current
estimates are that the product could be on the market in 3 years.
Enjoy some new potatoes with butter this week.
Kim
Garden as though you will live forever. William Kent
More Information
Here’s a new article on Examiner you
may enjoy reading
How to grow Cardinal Climber vine
If you would
like to grow a vine that is pretty, easy to grow, and attracts hummingbirds and
butterflies try the Cardinal Climber (Ipomoea sloteri.) This vine is a cross
between two plants native to the southern part of North America and Central
America, the Cypress Vine (Ipomoea quamoclit) and the Scarlet Morning glory
(Ipomoea coccinea). It’s an annual vine but in some cases it will re-seed and
return in the garden for many years, just like Morning Glories. Read more at :
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