Kim's weekly garden newsletter August 6, 2013

August 6, 2013 - Kim’s Weekly Garden Newsletter

http://www.examiner.com/gardening-in-detroit/kimberley-willis

http://www.examiner.com/country-living-in-detroit/kimberley-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

Well August started out pretty wet, very unlike last August if I remember right.  I got a total of 2 ¼ inches of rain in total last week.  It’s nice not to have to water the garden but it’s hard to keep up with the mowing- which normally slacks off this time of year.  It does look like it will be fairly decent weather for the fair this week. 

Darn nice sweet corn

We have been eating sweet corn from the garden since Friday and it’s some of the best sweet corn I have ever grown, worth all the work.  The variety we are eating is called Sugar Pearl, an early white and it just melts in your mouth. Miracle and Ambrosia are next; they are a yellow and a bi-color.  We are still sampling potatoes and we are getting a few tomatoes, the main crop is just around the corner. 

I actually have mums beginning to bloom, that seems a bit early.  The daylilies are still blooming although it won’t be long before they are gone.  My large oriental lilies are gorgeous this year.  I planted a sunflower mixture and they are starting to bloom with some interesting shapes and colors.  I made a mistake there though.  I planted them in the back of the new veggie garden along the fence but I had planted some zinnia seed there too, that I didn’t think was coming up but eventually did.  Now the pretty zinnias are being over grown by huge sunflowers.

Our pumpkins are threatening to take over the yard.  You can almost see them growing before your eyes a week ago we had a softball sized pumpkin this week it will easily weigh 20 pounds and is at least as big as a beach ball.  The vines are loaded with pumpkins.  We also have the largest melons we have ever had. They love this weather I guess.

 Another thing that has gotten really large this year is the jewel weed.  I always leave some growing in the front for the hummingbirds, which love its tiny dangling flowers but this year the jewel weed is threatening to take over the front bed.  Last year the plants were maybe 3 feet tall with lots of flowers.  This year they are more like 5 feet tall and the flowers are smaller and fewer.  They are very sturdy looking with stems almost as large as my wrist.  I have thinned them out twice and I am thinking about just yanking them all out.  They overpower everything else. The hummingbirds can have the Firecracker plant.

Firecracker plant

I bought a small Firecracker plant (Cuphea ignea ) this spring and planted it in an old cinder block with large openings.  It sits in full sun and really loves the heat and moisture it is getting and it has turned into a beautiful plant.  Firecracker plants, also called Cigar plants, are named because their red flowers are a long tube with a white lip and two tiny purple petals at the tip which suggests to some a lit firecracker or cigar.  The hummingbirds aren’t afraid of them however; they are quite fond of them.

The Firecracker plant is native to Mexico and the West Indies, where it is considered a broad leaved evergreen.  Here in the North it is grown as an annual although it can be overwintered inside in a sunny window.  It gets about 30 inches tall and the narrow, dark green leaves and bushy shape makes it attractive even when not in bloom.    

Firecracker plant.

There are orange varieties of Firecracker plant and there are some other Cuphea species on the market.  Firecracker plant makes a good container plant, especially if it is put in a spot where you can watch the hummingbirds visit it.  It is said to tolerate partial shade, although it won’t bloom quite as well.  In the garden or in a container outside they need to be kept well watered, inside in the winter it is best to let them dry out a bit and go somewhat dormant.   Just don’t let them get too dry and keep the humidity around them moderately high.

In Florida and even in some parts of zone 7b or higher Firecracker plants will overwinter in the ground and may even reseed themselves. Firecracker plants are said to be easy to start from seed or tip cuttings and I intend to try and start some cuttings soon.  You can see a picture of my Firecracker plant on my blog site where I also post this newsletter. http://gardeninggrannysgardenpages.blogspot.com/

Dividing iris

August is a good month to divide your bearded iris.  As Iris grow they make huge clumps of plants and as they get crowded your blooms will get less.  Iris should be divided every 3-5 years to improve blooming and keep the spot from getting too crowded. You may also want to divide iris to give some to friends or make another garden bed.  If you need to move iris to another location in the garden August is also a good time to do it. It’s pretty easy to divide iris and any gardener should feel competent to do it.  You’ll need a good sharp knife to help divide rhizomes, some scissors to cut the iris leaves and something to put your divided rhizomes in.  You may also want some common household bleach for disinfesting rhizomes.

Start by deciding what you will do with the divided plants.  If you need to prepare a new site you should get that done.  Iris will “hold” outside of the soil for a few weeks but it’s best to get them planted as quickly as possible.  Next dig the whole clump of iris up.  Irises have shallow roots and this is easy to do.  If the clumps are packed together in a bed you may cut through some with your spade as you lift them but you will generally have plenty of good rhizomes left.

Put the clump of iris on a tarp, a board, or on cement and gently wash all the soil off the rhizomes with a garden hose so you can see what you have.  Cut the iris leaves back to about 3-4 inches; it doesn’t matter if they are cut on a slant or straight across.  Rhizomes are actually underground stems and you will see joints or nodes along the rhizome with leaves (or fans in iris terms), popping up along each node. Rhizomes are tan, knotty looking and can branch off in unusual ways.  There should be roots on the bottom of younger rhizomes.

After a rhizome section blooms it will never bloom again.  To determine which rhizomes sections are old you can look for the flower stem.  Old rhizomes may also be devoid of roots and have tiny holes on the underside where the roots fell off.  In a clump old rhizomes are generally in the center.  Examine the clump you lifted carefully.  You’ll want to divide iris between joints, leaving each section with one or two sets of leaves and a healthy section of rhizome consisting of 2 or more joints.  You can start new plants from a single node or section, but they will be smaller and may not bloom for 2 years.  Sometimes you can snap the joints apart with your fingers but cutting is more precise.

If the old rhizomes have new sections of rhizomes with no leaves or very small leaves on them you can save the old rhizome and replant it with the young daughter plants. It will provide food for them until they grow more leaves.  Otherwise discard old rhizomes that have bloomed.  Examine the rhizomes you are keeping looking for mushy areas or large holes in the top side of the rhizome.  Large holes may indicate iris borers and there may be a large pink worm inside the hole.  Those pieces should be discarded in the trash, not the compost pile.  Soft, mushy areas indicate bacterial rot and should also be discarded.

Next add one cup of common household bleach, without scent added, to a gallon of water and soak the good rhizomes for 10 minutes.  Remove and allow them to dry in a sunny place for a few hours.  This removes disease organisms.   You can re-use the bleach solution for several batches on the same day. If you know the name or color of the iris you are dividing you can write that on the leaves of the divided pieces with a marker or add a label held on with a rubber band to the piece.

Replant the divided sections of rhizome shallowly, root side down, leaves up, with the surface of the rhizome just under the soil.  Plant 1 foot apart.   Iris bloom best in full sun positions.  If the weather is dry water the replanted rhizomes once a week.  Larger rhizomes sections will probably bloom in the spring.  Smaller sections may take two years to bloom. 

If you buy iris to plant try to get them into the ground by mid-September.  This will make it more likely that they will grow well for you and bloom the first spring.

Losing the scent

If you think that the flowers smelled better in “older days” you may be right and not just because we have bred the scent out from some flowers.  Research has shown that pollution in the air destroys flower scent molecules by breaking them apart, and changes the smell of flowers or diminishes it.  Bees find many flowers through scent so diminishing floral scents may also decrease efficient pollination.

Jose Fuentes, Ph.D., atmospheric scientist at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Va. found that in heavily polluted areas flower scents traveled about one third of the distance that they travel in less polluted areas.  And research done at the University of Arizona in Tucson found that moths identify specific chemicals within complex floral scents in order to find flowers and pollinate them.  The moths that pollinate datura flowers hone in on 9 specific chemicals in the 60 some chemicals the datura scent is composed of and all of those 9 chemicals have to be there for the moth to find the flower and seek nectar from it.  So if some of the chemicals waft away or are destroyed the moths won’t find the flowers.

Jeffrey A. Riffell and his team of researchers at the University of Arizona believe humans detect smell by recognizing key chemical molecules in a scent also, although we are not as good at recognizing the individual chemicals in a scent as insects and other animals are.  So as pollution affects our atmosphere we may not smell flowers the way we used to – or the way our parents or grandparents did.   

Happy gardeners

Are you happy when you garden?  Even when you are grumbling about pulling weeds, crying over flattened corn, or sweating in the sun deep inside you are you still happy that you garden?  Researchers divide happiness into two “sides” eudaimonic and hedonic.  Eudaimonic happiness comes from doing good deeds, having a sense of purpose in life, finding meaning and inner peace in your life, basically happiness that anyone can have, rich or poor.  Hedonic happiness comes from power, popularity, being able to buy what you want or obtain everything you desire.   

Most people who enjoy gardening are experiencing eudaimonic  happiness.  Maybe a little bit of hedonic happiness sneaks in there every so often when you get to buy a plant you really want but generally gardening fulfills a deeper happiness.  You garden to make something beautiful, to grow healthy food, to get out your frustrations and anxiety by chopping weeds and purposeful digging.  Most of you do not garden for profit, or to make yourself famous.   You get dirty and wear old comfortable clothes when you garden, you are not thinking of “self”.   Some of you garden so that others can experience something beautiful.

Morning Glories

Keep on gardening because even your genes respond to eudaimonic happiness according to Barbara L. Fredrickson, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  We all carry many genes that can be turned “on” or expressed by what our bodies and minds are experiencing.  We still don’t know how exactly the brain or body triggers gene expression but we can now measure gene expressions that influence health and mental wellbeing. People who are eudaimonically happy have low levels of inflammatory gene expression and strong expression of antiviral and antibody genes. 

While people that are famous and powerful and that can buy anything they want may say they feel happy, their genes don’t feel it.  They usually have higher levels of inflammation and lower immune system responses than the person who feels happy because they have peace and purpose in life and get to do something they love.  That doesn’t mean happy gardeners can’t get sick, but being a happy gardener can give you an advantage over the rich person that hires someone to garden for them. And by the way, August is National Admit Your Happy month so tell someone how happy gardening makes you. You could change a life.

August almanac

Native Americans called the August full moon the sturgeon moon or green corn moon.  Tonight we have a new moon and the full moon in August occurs on the 20^th .   The Perseid meteor showers occur on the nights of the 11^th and 12^th .  There should be good viewing conditions after midnight if skies are clear.

Lapeer Farmers Market

It’s National Peach month and also National Catfish month.  Think of a meal with fried catfish and peach cobbler, pure August eating. The birthstone for August is the peridot, the flower is poppies or gladiolus. (I don’t understand poppies, where do they bloom in August?)  There are no US holidays in August; maybe we need to dream up one.  In Europe August is the traditional holiday month, with most workers getting time off in the month.

August starts on a day of the week that no other month starts on, unless its leap year (Thursday this year).  In leap year February will start on the same week day as August.   Every year August will end on the same week day as November.  This week, August 4-10  is Farmers Market week- it’s a great time to stop and get local produce. 

I hope to see some happy gardeners at the Eastern Michigan State Fair.

Kim

Garden as though you will live forever. William Kent