September 17, 2013 - Kim’s Weekly
Garden Newsletter
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
We had a
light frost in some areas on Saturday night and again last night. I hate having to cover everything but I know
some things will continue to bloom, like the dahlias, if they are covered
during light frosts. The next few days
don’t seem to be a problem for frost, although I will check on the forecast
again this evening to see if the prediction has changed. I gave up Monday and moved most of the true
houseplants inside. I had to pick all
the acorns out of the pots so I don’t start trees. I’ll wait for a while on
things like my rosemary and the geraniums because they can withstand cooler
weather better than some of the tropicals.
 |
| The garden at Suncrest, a free public garden in Lapeer, Mi. |
I hate
having to water in this chilly weather it just doesn’t seem right and my poor
arthritic hands tell me so. I am holding
off on most of the watering until tomorrow until I see how the weather shapes
up for Wednesday night and Thursday, when we are supposed to get some good rain,
especially Thursday night into Friday. I hope so as we really need it.
I still have
annuals and the shrub roses blooming as well as hibiscus and mums. I know the autumn equinox is here because the
Maximilian sunflower is getting ready to bloom. ( See below.) It’s September 22. Full moon, Harvest moon is tomorrow. It’s hard to believe September is more than
half over.
My tomatoes
have really gone downhill- they succumbed to fungal diseases. That’s ok because I am getting tired of them-
yes- I no longer want them at every meal. We have plenty on the windowsill for
a few days and lots in the freezer. Our
pumpkins are turning orange and I hope they will make it to Halloween. I promised the granddaughters they could take
them soon. We have some huge pumpkins
this year.
I am
starting to clean up the veggie garden; cabbage is about the only crop
left. Our apples are almost ripe and
then I will be very busy again. There’s
nothing better than apple pie and homemade apple butter.
I visited
the Garden on Suncrest yesterday and it is looking pretty good despite looking
a little dry. There are some nice
additions again this year; I liked the white boxes with the white metal art
behind them. If you haven’t seen the
garden this year better hurry and take a look.
If you are
ever interested in seeing pictures of some of the things I discuss in the newsletter
take a look at my blog site, where I post part of this newsletter with pictures
each week. I don’t like to post pictures
in the email addition because it makes the files too large for some people. The blog is at http://gardeninggrannysgardenpages.blogspot.com/
The Maximilian sunflower
A long time
ago I planted a wildflower mixture in a big bare area and even today I have legacies
of that mixture left. I’m actually
fighting to remove some of them before they overwhelm what I now call my
butterfly garden. The Maximilian
sunflower was one of those plants. I do
like the cheerful yellow flowers when little else is blooming and the birds
like the seeds so I always leave some plants.
While I try to keep the Maximilian population down in my garden, I haven’t
seen it spread to any other parts of my yard.
I have, however, seen some plants on the south side of Clifford in a
swamp area.
The Maximilian sunflower, (Helianthus maximilianii), is probably not
native to Michigan, it is a wildflower of the north-central prairies that has
been introduced into cultivation and then escaped and naturalized in our state.
Its cheerful small sunflower blooms may be seen along roadside ditches and in
sunny meadows in September and October.
 |
| Maximilian Sunflower |
Maximilian sunflowers are perennial plants, slowly forming clusters of
plants in a good environment. They are a favorite of birds, producing many
tiny, tasty seeds, and their late season color makes them attractive in an
informal garden setting. Maximilian sunflowers will cross with our common
annual sunflower and experiments are being done to develop a perennial crop
sunflower with larger seeds.
Maximilian sunflowers grow extremely tall when they have moisture and
full sun, easily reaching 6-7 feet. They have a tendency to fall over when
blooms begin unless propped by tall grasses or weeds around them. Unlike common
sunflowers, the leaves of Maximilian sunflowers are long and grass-like,
folding slightly in the middle and arching downward. They are dark green to
gray green. The sturdy stems of the plant have small white hairs along them.
The blooms of Maximilian sunflower are clustered at the ends of the
plant and resemble small sunflowers. Both the outer petals and center are
bright yellow. It blooms for a long period, beginning in mid- September and
continuing to a hard freeze. The flowers produce small seeds that look like the
typical sunflower seed that are relished by birds. Birds are responsible for
spreading the seeds to new locations. Animals will eagerly graze the plants
also.
It is said that Native Americans of the plains ate both the seeds and
roots of Maximilian sunflowers. If introduced to gardens for the birds or late
season color the plants can be cut back to half their length in early July and
the plants will be shorter and less likely to sprawl when blooming.
Citizen
science you can participate in
Brown
Marmorated Stink bug. If you
like contributing to the general knowledge of our planet, here are some
projects you might be interested in. The Brown
Marmorated Stink bug is a pest that many of you may have experienced trying
to hide in your home for the winter.
Besides that problem the BMS bug also feeds on small fruit, grapes,
vegetables and ornamental plants, producing a lot of damage. A group effort by researchers from USDA, the
University of Maryland, Pennsylvania State University, Rutgers University,
Virginia Tech, the Northeastern IPM Center, Oregon State University, North
Carolina State University, Cornell University, the University of Delaware and
Washington State University wants to find out how many BMS bugs are in the
country and how they behave.
The group of researchers would like citizens to report how many BMS bugs
they see gathered outside their homes and where they were found and when. The researchers want to find out how
landscape features affect BMS bug populations. While the count is focusing on the middle Atlantic
States, researchers are interested in hearing from all areas. Volunteers willing to count their stink bugs
can contact USDA-Agricultural Research Service (ARS) entomologists Tracy Leskey
(tracy.leskey@ars.usda.gov), Doo-Hyung Lee or Torri Hancock at (304) 725-3451,
at the ARS Appalachian Fruit Research Laboratory in Kearneysville, West
Virginia.
Red
Emperor tulips. The timing of spring as it unfolds across North
America is another citizen science project you can get involved in. Simply plant red Emperor tulips this fall and
report online when they bloom in the spring.
The tulips are available in many places, and they are a tulip that tends
to return each year when in the right spot.
They are bright, shiny red with a yellow center and black stamens. They are a shorter tulip and bloom very
early. You can blend them with early
white or yellow tulips or blue grape hyacinth.
You report when your red Emperor tulips bloom by registering on the
Journey North website. (It’s free.) You
can then see information on where other tulips are planted and when they begin
blooming. You can track the progress of
spring across the country. This is an activity that a lot of classrooms
participate in but anyone can participate, young or old, groups or single. Here’s the web address http://www.learner.org/jnorth/
How soil
microbes may affect your health
Science is discovering new clues to how the environment affects our
health every day. We have always known
that having good soil makes gardening much easier but now there is some
research that suggests that what type of soil is in the area where we spent our
younger years may affect our future health.
There is an area of the country called the stroke belt, where people are
more likely to have strokes than in other areas. The Blue Ridge-Piedmont area which includes
parts of South Carolina and several other states has the highest ratio of
strokes to population in the US. Even
after race, income and other things are factored in scientists were still
puzzled by the high rate of strokes and suspected an environmental cause.
Medical University of South Carolina professor Daniel Lackland and
Agricultural Research Service (ARS) research leader Patrick Hunt,
microbiologist Thomas Ducey, and soil scientist Jarrod Miller along with retired
ARS soil scientist Warren Busscher formed a team to examine South Carolina
medical records and also to analyze soil profiles. They found that the areas where the most
strokes occurred correlated with areas that had poorly drained, shallow, very
acidic soils. Areas where the soil was well drained, deep and closer to neutral
had a lower incidence of strokes, at least in South Carolina.
Soils of different types contain different microbes. Recent research has shown that human bodies
contain millions of microbes of various types and that each human probably has
a slightly different ratio and types of microbes. We are just learning what microbes affect
our health and in what way. The research
on the human “microbiome” is expanding rapidly. The same types of microbes found in our bodies
are also found in soil.
Researchers have also discovered that the type of microbes you have in
your body may depend on where you spent the early years of your life. People who were born in the stroke belt still
had a higher risk of stroke than people born in other areas even when they had
been away from the area for a long time.
This research is new, and scientists are eager to expand into other
areas of health correlating soil characteristics, including soil microbes to
disease and immune problems. We already
have research that confirms that our rise in childhood allergies correlates
with greater cleanliness and children having less exposure to the outdoors and
good old dirt. Kids may not be getting
the microbes they need to prime the immune system. You might want to feed your kids some dirt.
You can read more about the stroke research in the August, 2013 issue of
Agricultural Research magazine.
Making flies
die
In the fall just before a good hard freeze the pesky fly populations
reach their peak. I think they are a
little less than last year, but they are still bothersome. Flies carry a lot of disease organisms on
their tiny feet and everyone agrees maggots, fly babies, are just plain gross. You can spray with insecticides but that has
the potential to make you as ill as the flies, if not more so. And sticky traps and those that collect flies
in smelly solutions are also disgusting.
We spend a lot of time hitting flies with fly swatters this time of
year, but it scares our dogs for some reason.
Scientists have announced however, that a new type of safe fly control
may be on the way. They have discovered
a fly virus, salivary gland hypertrophy virus (SGHV ),that works to destroy the flies
reproductive capability. When the virus infects
the fly it uses up all the protein the fly ingests, making the female fly
unable to produce viable eggs and males refuse to mate. The flies develop huge
salivary glands instead. Infected flies
also don’t eat as much and have a shorter life span. The virus affects house flies, stable flies
and something called the black dump fly.
The biggest problem scientists at the Agricultural Research Service’s
Center for Medical, Agricultural, and Veterinary Entomology (CMAVE) in
Gainesville, Florida, are having is how to infect the flies with the
virus. In nature the infection rate is
generally low. Baits and sprays made
with the virus only infest 20-30% of the flies that contact them. However a sludgy mixture of flies that died
from the virus in water, called a homogenate, will infect more than 50% of the
flies that come in contact with it.
Researchers hope to be able to develop a fly control product from this
SGHV homogenate soon. It will be
environmentally friendly and safe for use in homes and animal areas. And studies using the virus may determine how
insect reproduction can be targeted by manipulating how their bodies use
protein. Let’s hope they succeed soon.
Fall
Webworm
 |
| The "tent" that fall webworms make is at the end of branches. |
If you are noticing those huge webs of wiggling worms on the tips of
branches on trees in your area, don’t be alarmed. The fall webworm is a native seasonal pest
that doesn’t significantly harm trees even though they look pretty ugly. In Michigan we begin seeing the “tents” of
fall webworm in late August. Even after
a hard freeze kills the worms inside, or they have become pupae, the nests may
hang in the trees until winter winds dislodge them.
Fall webworms are often confused with their spring cousins, the Eastern
Tent Caterpillar. Fall webworms enclose
leaves at the end of a branch with their white, web like tent. They feed inside the tent and enlarge it when
all the leaves inside are eaten. Eastern
tent caterpillars make their tents in the crotches of branches and they leave
the tent to feed on leaves, returning to the tent for protection from
weather. Eastern tent caterpillars
appear in late spring and early summer, fall webworms late in the summer.
The nests of fall webworms are usually on the outside branches of a
tree, where the branch extends over an open sunny area such as a road or
lawn. This makes them very visible to
concerned gardeners. Each nest contains
a colony of small caterpillars, busily feeding on tree leaves. The caterpillars are either red headed or
black headed. Black headed webworms are
greenish, with two rows of black bumps on the sides. Red headed webworms are tan with orange or
red bumps. Both are covered in long
white hairs.
The adult fall webworm is a small white moth, occasionally marked with a
few black spots. She lays her eggs on
the underside of leaves, where they hatch and begin feeding. The young feed for about 6 weeks then drop to
the ground to pupate and over-winter.
Occasionally in Michigan’s southern counties there is enough warm
weather in fall for the first generation to turn into moths and create a second
generation. Levels of the pest are
higher in some years too, with heavier populations every 5-7 years.
Fall webworms prefer to feed on trees such as wild cherry, walnut,
hickories and fruit trees but can feed on almost any tree. They seldom feed on willows and
cottonwoods. When a tent or web is
disturbed all the little caterpillars move in a peculiar synchronized jiggling
movement. This may be their attempt to
make a predator think something much larger is lurking within.
Controlling
fall webworm
Since trees are near the end of their active cycle the loss of leaves
from Fall Webworms doesn’t harm them much.
If the nests offend you, you can use your garden hose to spray them out
of the tree or use a stick to knock them down, and then smash the worms. Worms won’t crawl back up the tree when
knocked to the ground. You can trim the
tents out of the tree if doing so doesn’t harm the looks of the tree. Valuable ornamental trees can be treated with
systemic pesticides early in summer.
These go through the tree and kill the worms as they start to feed on
leaves later in the year.
Pesticide sprays are not recommended as the collateral damage to the
environment isn’t worth it, as trees are barely affected by the feeding of the
Fall Webworm. Most pesticides do not
effectively penetrate the webs; they would have to be torn open. Spraying foliage around the nests may kill
the caterpillars when they enclose more leaves into the web. And burning the tents with a blowtorch is far
more dangerous to the tree and to you than the worms.
Fall webworms have several natural enemies in Michigan including yellow
jackets and paper wasps. If you tolerate
these insects on your property then you may have fewer fall webworms. Birds also like to eat the worms, especially
if you tear the web for them.
It’s chili time, have a bowl.
Kim
Garden as though you will live forever. William Kent
No comments:
Post a Comment