Gardening Granny's Gardening Pages

Tuesday, August 11, 2020

August 11, 2020 pickles and melon thumping

Hi Gardeners

Last nights rain passed us by. It’s been exactly a week since we had rain. I had to water the containers a few times, but this morning I was back out watering the rest of the garden. It doesn’t look like we have any rain coming for at least a few days.

I have been seeing monarch butterflies for the first time this week. Other butterflies have been around, but it takes the monarchs a while to get here. We have plenty of milkweed around for them and lots of flowers to visit too. One flower that all butterflies like is anise hyssop. I have lots of that, too much of that, and there are always butterflies and bees around it.

The rose of Sharon’s are in bloom and the buddleias are starting to bloom. Soon the hardy hibiscus will be blooming, and the snakeroot is getting buds too. The tropical hibiscus are blooming like crazy. Garden phlox, black eyed susan’s, echincea, mums, monarda and shasta daisies are blooming. There are still some sporadic daylily blooms, but the last oriental- Casa Blanca is almost done blooming. Dahlias, zinnias and cosmos are blooming.

My “daffodil” begonia finally bloomed. I am not impressed. It’s the first bloom, maybe others will be different. It’s much like any tuberous begonia bloom, except the inner petals are longer than the outer. Doesn’t look much like a daffodil to me though, of course it’s salmon color. I do like to try new things. The leaves of this plant are mottled, I fertilized it again and it’s looking better but I’m a bit worried about that.

The impatiens were doing well but it looks like they may have downy mildew. They are going downhill fast. It’s a shame but there’s not much one can do. I won’t be able to plant them next year though, because the fungus overwinters.

My big beautiful tomatoes are splitting- a function of all the rain we had last week. Not much to do about that either. I will say however that the Goliath tomatoes are excellent tasting and get big. Try some next year if you haven’t had this variety. The split tomatoes still taste good with bacon and toast.

My violet stemmed taro has huge leaves this year. I planted some of it in a tub of soil this year instead of the little water feature. I guess it likes drier conditions better. I left some taro in the water, but it has smaller leaves. My elephant’s ear is growing some, but the taro outshines it. I am disappointed with the cannas I have this year. They aren’t growing or blooming well, time for some new ones next year.

Tonight is the best night for the Perseid meteor shower. Before dawn is the best time, but they fly all night. Look directly up and they can be in any direction. They will still be pretty good tomorrow night too.

Knowing when to harvest melons

Melons includes cantaloupe, honeydews, watermelon and some other varieties. Melons are one of the harder things to judge when they are ready to harvest and an unripe melon just doesn’t taste very good. Melons don’t continue to ripen after they are picked. An overripe melon is equally awful. As you grow melons year after year you will get adept at recognizing ripeness but until then count on a few mistakes.

Cantaloupe doesn’t develop the netting on the surface until late in development. They may look green and smooth at an earlier stage. Other melons may also change appearance as they mature. A few melons have been developed to change color when mature so they are easier to pick at the right time. Study the descriptions of melon varieties so you know what to expect and mark the variety in the garden. Garden experts get many questions about what type of melon is growing in another gardener’s garden each year as people try to figure out what the odd-looking fruits are.

Most melons develop a yellow spot when mature where the melon rests on the ground. This will turn tan or brown as the melon continues to age- melons with deep yellow verging to tan spots should be perfect. The tendril on the end opposite the stem should be dried up or absent.

Some melons will easily slide off the vine when mature but this isn’t a reliable test as some ripe melons will need to be pulled or cut off. If a melon begins to crack its generally ripe- on the verge of over ripeness, although excessive rain may cause some unripe melons to crack too. It’s ok to eat cracked melons if insects or animals haven’t beat you to it.

You can thump the melon, but it takes experience to recognize the hollow sound of a ripe melon. Smelling muskmelon, cantaloupe and honeydew can be a good test; a ripe melon can be smelled without cutting it. That’s the way chickens and other animals recognize ripe melons and extra interest in your melon patch means the melons are ripening.

Old-timers often use the plug test on watermelon. When you think a watermelon looks ripe take a pocketknife and cut a small plug out of the melon and examine it. Cut a bit off the end and taste it. If the melon isn’t ripe you can put the plug back in and wait a few days. The same plug won’t be a reliable indicator for a second test though.

Know what interior color your ripe melon should have also. Watermelons in particular can have a wide variety of flesh colors when ripe from white to deep red. If you cut open a watermelon and the flesh is yellow, it’s not because it isn’t ripe, although it might not be, it’s because that variety has yellow flesh. Some of the rarer types of melon may have flesh colors you don’t expect. If you have cut open a melon, a taste should let you know if it’s ripe. White seeds or lots of immature looking seeds are also a sign the melon isn’t ripe.

All melons in a patch or even on the same plant will not be ripe at the same time. Each melon must be judged on its own merits.

Don’t eat melons that aren’t ripe, or you will be very sorry on the porcelain throne. Unfortunately, you’ll need to compost these. An overripe melon won’t taste good, but won’t hurt you. If you want to save seeds from a melon, you want it very ripe, maybe too ripe for good taste.

Picking a melon always involves a bit of faith. Patience is your friend. When you hit it right your reward is sweet.

Late summer daylily care

Once daylilies quit blooming they often start yellowing and looking unappealing in the garden borders. There are some things gardeners can do now to make things look neater and to improve the health of their daylily plants so they can return larger and more vigorous next year.

First remove any old flower stems and seedpods. Next remove any yellowing leaves. If much of the plant is looking yellow and droopy cut the whole plant back by half. If you are dealing with the old-fashioned “ditch” lilies you can cut or mow them right to the ground.

It’s important to remember that there are some varieties of daylilies that keep blooming through the summer until frost. These should have yellow leaves removed if they have them but be careful not to remove buds and good foliage.

After cleaning up the day lilies give them some fertilizer. This will cause them to put out some new growth and allow them to add new roots and increase the clump size. You can use any flower fertilizer or even a lawn fertilizer without weed control. Immediate use, rather than slow release formulas are preferred for this application. It’s nitrogen the plants need now, so make sure the first number on the fertilizer container is higher than the others. Follow label directions for the amount to apply.

You can use compost, but since it takes a while for it to give the plants a nitrogen boost, fertilizer works better. Don’t use coffee grounds, despite internet lore their actual nitrogen content is very low, and they actually retard the growth of many plants. Blood meal might be a good organic option.

Since many other plants don’t need the nitrogen boost now you may want to carefully apply the fertilizer right around your daylilies. Water after fertilizing if conditions are dry. Keep the daylilies watered if it’s hot and dry through late summer and fall, until frost kills them.

Your daylilies should start developing new foliage soon. This is fine and won’t harm them going into winter. Some varieties of daylilies will die back to the ground after a hard frost, but some will remain green, at least in warmer zones.

It’s not a good idea to divide daylily clumps while it’s still hot. Wait until September for zones 4-6 or October in zones 7 -8 or better, wait until early spring, just as growth starts. Remember that day lilies don’t bloom well for a year or two after division.

Daylilies vary as to how often they should be divided. Some varieties are very vigorous and need dividing every 3-4 years. Others grow more slowly and can be left alone for longer periods. When clumps get very large and blooming slows down, that’s the year (or following spring) to divide them. Don’t make your divisions too small, each division should have 4 or more “fans” or leaf sets. This will get you blooms again quickly.

Daylilies are an important part of the perennial bed for many gardeners. A little care after blooming will keep them producing for you for many years.

Deadheading- should you do it?

As we gaze out over our gardens, we often notice that many plants are setting seed in August. The art of removing dying flowers before they make seed heads is affectionately called deadheading by gardeners. But should we remove seed heads to keep plants from expending energy setting seed or leave the seeds to feed the birds and make new plants?

Annual plants, those that complete their life cycle in one year or plants that are treated as annuals because they die if left outside in a northern winter, may continue blooming longer if flowers are removed as they fade. When annual plants set too many seed pods it signals to the plant that their job - reproducing the species- is done and they can quit blooming and die.

Some annuals have been selected over the years to keep blooming even if seed pods are not removed. Examples of these are petunias and marigolds. However, they look nicer if dead blooms are removed. Many other annuals, however, will bloom better and longer if deadheaded before they begin making seed pods.

Even if you want your annual flowers to bloom for a long time you can stop deadheading in September unless you are worried about the plant reseeding around the garden. The shorter, cooler days of autumn may promote a glorious “last chance to reproduce” flush of bloom, but after September annual plants usually slow down their blooming dramatically, even if not killed by frost. Let your plants set seed, especially those whose seed is loved by songbirds. This includes cosmos, sunflowers, zinnias, tithonia, and asters. When the seed heads are gone, and frost has hit the plants pull them all out.

Some perennial plants bloom longer if the dying flowers are removed and deadheading perennials keeps energy going to the plant’s roots and shoots, instead of nurturing seeds. But some perennials are not going to re-bloom regardless of whether you deadhead them. You may want to keep some plants deadheaded to prevent them from spreading seed throughout the garden. And of course many plants look neater if dead blooms are removed.

However, many of those perennial seed heads also feed songbirds and if you like birds around the garden you may want to leave seed pods on the plants beginning late in the season. Plants that provide good snacks for birds are echinacea, coreopsis, roses, gaillardia, heliopsis, poppies, perennial rudbeckia, shasta daisy, monarda, and ornamental grasses. Once the seeds are gone the seed pods can be removed to tidy things up, or plants cut back to the ground.

You may want to consider leaving the seedpods of some plants for winter interest or to make dried arrangements. Ornamental grasses can provide both. Rose hips can look quite cheerful in the winter also. Plants like clematis and hydrangea have interesting seed heads for dried flower arrangements as do celosia, poppies, amaranth, lavender, yarrow, some sedums, strawflowers, and statice. These may also provide winter interest in the garden.

Some plants do benefit by prompt deadheading so that plant resources go to building a bigger and better plant. Unless you are trying to get seed to start new plants, tulips, iris, daylilies, hosta, Asiatic and oriental lilies and peonies are best deadheaded soon after blooms fade. Hybrid tea roses are also good candidates for deadheading while their hardier landscape rose cousins can be left to make rose hips.

If plants are not deadheaded many will spread around the garden. If having baby plants pop up everywhere doesn’t bother you then don’t deadhead. If you don’t like things out of place or feel some plants are too invasive then keep the blooms picked off those plants before they make seed. Some notorious self-seeders are hollyhocks, morning glories, larkspur, dame’s rocket, phlox, sunflowers, some poppies and yarrow.

If you want to save seed from the garden remember that seed from hybrid varieties of plants may not look anything like its parent. Also, you may need to enclose the seed pods of plants with a paper bag. (Don’t use plastic bags, it causes moldy seeds.) Otherwise the birds may beat you to them or they may be scattered and lost.

Deadheading does keep the garden looking nicer, but if a natural garden that feeds the birds and regenerates itself is the goal then let the seed pods stay on most garden plants. After August, deadheading does little to keep annuals blooming and for most perennials really doesn’t affect them one way or another. By the time most garden plants have turned brown and crispy from cold weather the seeds will be gone and they can be chopped down and composted if you must tidy up before winter.

Monarch mistakes

Raising monarchs in captivity has become a widespread hobby, with thousands of people collecting eggs from the wild or ordering butterflies or their chrysalises from commercial breeders to rear. These people are convinced they are helping the monarch population survive. But are they?

In the last few years several research studies say human interference isn’t necessarily helping monarchs as a species. And studies suggest that human rearing of the butterflies may actually harm the species as a whole. But scientists are having a hard time convincing some people that a more hands-off policy for monarchs might be better.

A study published two years ago, which found that monarchs raised inside or even in cages outside, didn’t migrate well, raised the hackles of hobby breeders. They complained that the study wasn’t a good one and that hand raised, marked (tagged) butterflies were found in Mexico. However, a new study, published this month has confirmed the conclusions, hand raised monarchs don’t migrate well and they are also less vigorous than wild raised butterflies. It’s a larger and more comprehensive study, that addressed several issues in the first study that hobby breeders objected to.

Before we go on lets briefly discuss monarch biology. Monarch butterflies feed on a variety of flowering plants in North America, but their larvae, or caterpillars, feed only on milkweed plant species. Monarch butterflies migrate- that is each year the last generation of monarchs flies south to wintering grounds in Mexico- or as we have just discovered, in Florida. If they stayed, they would die. These butterflies never come back to the north, but their offspring does, migrating north each spring.

It’s still uncertain what allows butterflies that have never flown south or north to find their way back to a suitable place. It takes 2-3 generations of butterflies to make their way to the far northern areas of their range. One butterfly does not make the whole trip. Every year fewer butterflies return north, and as a whole, monarch populations are declining, as are the populations of many insect species. But the pretty orange and black butterflies plight somehow has captured the hearts of many people and they work hard to try and save them, even if some of the methods used aren’t scientifically sound.

Back to the new research. Scientists in this study raised the monarchs in a variety of conditions, in a greenhouse exposed to natural sunlight, outdoors and in a lab. The sourced the monarchs from wild collected eggs and commercially raised butterflies. Some were tagged and released in the fall, and indeed some found their way to Mexico. But most did not. Most of the human raised butterflies simply didn’t migrate or migrated a short distance. Studies found they had lost the ability to orientate themselves with true north, as they need to do to find their way to Mexico.

The reason for the failure to migrate successfully is still unclear. Many studies are ongoing to test theories. And other differences between wild monarchs and captive bred ones that can’t be explained yet were found. Captive raised butterflies have shorter, rounder forewings. They are also paler in color. These traits were found to be associated with less vigorous flying behavior.

Some people counter that maybe raising one generation inside and then releasing them to breed a generation in the wild would help. There is some indication however that some of these traits that contribute to less vigorous butterflies could be genetically passed along. In the wild butterflies that aren’t fit usually die before reproducing. Captivity protects butterflies that should be weeded out by natural selection.

Scientists don’t want people to stop raising monarchs completely. Raising a few for children to learn about them increases interest in conservation and insects in general. But the idea that collecting monarch eggs from the wild and raising them in cages is a good idea and helping conserve the species should be discouraged. Leave the eggs where you find them. Commercially raising large numbers of them for release is also useless for species preservation.

It is a good idea to increase habitat for butterflies and if you want to help that’s what you should do. Grow milkweed and lots of flowers that bloom in the late summer and fall, when the monarchs need them to feed on before they fly south. But don’t collect eggs or caterpillars, leave them alone. Let nature do her thing. That’s the way to help monarchs.

Tuesday, August 4, 2020

August 4, 2020, Bad Balloons and weird fruits

Hi Gardeners

It’s hard to believe it’s August, but here we are. The garden is mature now, a young mature still but mature. The days have begun to shorten, today we have 14 hours and 19 minutes of daylight, by the end of the month we will have lost another hour and 9 minutes. Ah, well, maybe it’s best that this year hurries along.

We have had plenty of rain this week, it comes and goes in bursts, with the sun sneaking out here and there. The plants are loving it. There are plenty of ripe tomatoes and cucumbers in the garden and the corn has nice ears started. I’m thinking about starting a new crop of lettuce, if I can find the seeds I bought in the spring for just this purpose.

I still have some oriental lilies blooming, a few day lilies and some tiger lilies. The black-eyed Susan’s and shasta daisies are going strong. The quill mum is blooming too. Lots of hosta are in bloom. Zinnias, cosmos, nasturtium, cleome, canna and some Icelandic poppies are in bloom now. Woodland nicotiana is playing a starring role here and there. I lost the battle with morning glories and some I missed are opening their deep blue flowers.

The golden glow- (Rudbeckia laciniata) has flopped over as it usually does. It’s so cheerful when it blooms but it’s a mess. I’ve tried staking it and I’ve tried pinching it back. Nothing seems to work. I got it at a plant swap- a place where you tend to get most of those spreading, messy plants other gardeners want gone. Someone asked me the name of the plant, I didn’t know, so I took one of the many plants there home to identify it. Now I have this huge clump of it.

I got rid of my Maximilian (perennial) sunflowers for the same reason, they get so tall and then fall over and they spread like crazy. Pinching those back and staking didn’t help there either. The golden glow may meet the same fate.

I have been busy this week with indoor work and between that and the rain I haven’t been in my garden as much as I would like. I’m hoping that this week I will have some time for deep weeding and rearranging things here and there. There’s still two months of garden time, at least.

August almanac

The Great Lakes Native Americans called this month’s full moon (August 3^rd) Sturgeon moon, because that was when these large tasty fish were easily caught in the Great Lakes. In other places this month’s full moon is known as the Green Corn moon or the blueberry moon. The moon perigee is the 21^st and the apogee is the 9^th.Today is the 217^th day of the year.

If you want to see or catch a falling star this is the month to do it. The Perseid Meteor showers peak will be the nights of August 11-12^th and the 12-13^th. At the peak you should be able to see 60-75 “falling stars” an hour, about one a minute. The meteors are the dust and debris in the tail of the comet Swift-Tuttle. You won’t see the comet, but you may see Mars and Saturn. The meteor showers continue to be visible until August 26^th. Go out after midnight, look north and give your eyes a chance to adjust to the dark when watching for meteors. This year the moon will be in the last quarter, which will interfere a little, but you should be able to see the brighter meteors.

The August birth flower is the gladiolus. When glads are given to someone they signify remembrance and integrity, perhaps that is why gladiolus are frequently found in funeral arrangements. The August birthstone is the peridot- a beautiful green gem.

August is National Peach month, National Picnic month, Family Fun month and National Catfish month. The 9^th is National Book Lovers day and the 10^th is National Lazy Day. The 13^th is Left Handers day, the 14^th is Creamsicle day, the 21^st is national Seniors day, and the 26^th is National Dog day. The 29^th is More Herbs day. August 31^st is International Bacon day.

Things to do in the garden in August

Harvest and preserve those fruits and veggies. It’s prime canning, pickling and freezing time.

Divide bearded iris- see article below. Hold off on dividing other perennials until its cooler.

Remove and destroy any ragweed and giant ragweed plants before they start shedding that pollen that will make you miserable. Also remove and destroy the burdock “burrs”. Don’t leave them lying around as the “burrs” continue to ripen and make viable seeds even after cutting. Remove stick tights and bur grass too. Your pets will thank you.

Start shopping for spring bulbs. They are planted in the fall and if you shop early, you’ll get the best selection and prices. The bulbs are shipped when it’s time for you to plant them. I always avoid bulbs in big box stores. They are shipped too early to the stores and sit around in poor conditions. Plus they are generally lesser quality than you get when mail ordering from a good bulb company.

Fertilize containers and baskets of annuals.

Repot houseplants that need it. They may have grown over summer, whether inside or out. Remember not to use too large of a pot for the plant. Go 1-2 inches wider and deeper than the pot the plant is in now. You can divide houseplants at this time too, if they are a species that reproduces well by division.

Collect ripe seedpods of anything you want to save the seeds from. Let seeds ripen on the plants for as long as possible.

It’s a good time to dry flowers and seed heads for dry flower arrangements. It’s also a good time to dry herbs. Your car sitting in the sun makes a good herb/ flower dryer. Put herbs/flowers loosely in brown paper bags and let them sit them in the car until dried. It makes the car smell good too.

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, they don’t bloom as well. 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 disinfecting 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 first. 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. Cut the iris leaves back to about 3-4 inches; it doesn’t matter if they are cut on a slant or straight across.

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. Rhizomes are tan, knotty looking and can branch off in unusual ways. There should be roots on the bottom of younger rhizomes. 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.

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.

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.

If the old rhizomes have new small sections of rhizomes with 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.

What happened to this fruit?

Every year about this time people begin showing odd fruits and vegetables to others and asking what happened. It may be that the fruit looked misshaped or was a color the grower didn’t expect or maybe it didn’t look like what they thought they planted. But almost invariably someone will respond and say the odd fruit/vegetable was because of cross pollination.

Technically that may be so – but the cross pollination happened the year before and the odd plant grew from seeds resulting from plant sex last year, not this year. It did not happen in the gardeners plot this year. With one exception common garden plants do not show a change in their fruit due to cross pollination in the year the cross pollination occurs.

If two types of tomatoes are next to each other in your garden and they happen to cross pollinate, let’s say a cherry tomato and a beef steak type, the fruit the plants produce this year (the part of the tomato we eat is a fruit) will look like cherry tomatoes on one plant and beefsteak on the other, they won’t change the looks of their fruit because they had sex. But if you planted the seeds from one of those tomatoes having crazy sex this year, let’s say from the cherry tomato, the fruit that grows on those plants next year could be very different from the typical cherry tomato.

So, unless you are going to be saving seeds for planting next year it doesn’t matter if you plant various types of tomatoes, peppers, squash and so on next to each other. This year’s fruit should look exactly like the variety you planted and if it doesn’t something besides cross pollination occurred. We’ll get to that in a minute. Cross pollination does not affect leafy plant parts or roots either, in the current year plants.

The one exception to what happens in the current year from plant sex is in sweet corn. If you plant yellow kernel corn varieties next to white kernel corn varieties this year’s corn ears may have both colors of corn kernels on each cob. Cross pollination in corn may also affect the flavor of this year’s corn. Field corn, popcorn, or ornamental corn varieties pollinating sweet corn will leave the sweet corn tougher and tasting less sweet.

So what does happen when you get a deformed or odd looking fruit?

A number of things can cause changes in fruit as it develops. Sometimes weather conditions, mechanical injury, insects feeding, plant diseases, or pesticide exposure can result in fruits looking odd. There may have been a true mutation in the genes of the seed that produced the plant. There may have been undetected cross breeding the previous year, resulting in seeds that were hybrid and the fruit from plants grown from those seeds have mixed genetic traits.

Sometimes insufficient pollination will cause deformed fruit. Some plants require a certain number of pollen grains to land on the female stigma and be successful in fertilizing eggs in the ovary before fruit begins developing. When only 4 pollen grains land on the stigma instead of the optimum 5 grains as an example, fruit may sometimes begin developing but will be lopsided or not formed perfectly.

By the way it doesn’t matter if the pollen grains came from different plants or even a different variety as long as they could fertilize egg cells. All the peas in the pod could have different daddies.

In the vast majority of cases, with the exception of pesticide exposure or possibly radiation exposure, the odd fruits would be edible. (Remember anything with seeds is a fruit.) In many cases not all the fruit on a plant will be affected, and the problem is a temporary one. Enjoy the oddball, take pictures but don’t worry too much.

So how come my eggplants are white?

Most of the time when a gardener gets a fruit, he or she wasn’t expecting it’s because the seed variety or seedling wasn’t properly labeled. How many times have you seen people shopping in greenhouses removing plant tags from the cell packs seedlings are growing in? Or even switching plants from cell pack to cell pack? Sometimes the greenhouse/nursery accidentally mislabeled the plants also.

Sometimes a stray seed from one variety gets mixed in with another variety. If you saved the seed yourself, you may have mixed up the varieties, or back to cross pollination- your plants last year may have bred with other plants and the seeds have a combination of the traits.

People don’t always read the description of seeds or plants they are choosing carefully. I remember a gentleman bringing in a white colored eggplant fruit to my office and he was so excited to have found a new variety. But when I explained to him that there were varieties of white eggplant on the market and we discussed it, we figured out that he had planted a variety with white fruit, not the typical purple. He was unaware that eggplant fruits came in various colors.

It’s easy for gardeners and nursery employees to mix up plants with similar leaves, like squash, gourds, and pumpkins. Inexperienced gardeners who aren’t familiar with plants can even mix up things like beans and cucumbers or tomatoes and peppers, by forgetting where they planted what or by buying mislabeled plants and not recognizing it.

Sometimes the plant is performing exactly as the variety should, but the gardener has harvested the fruit at the wrong time. I have had many people complaining to me that their “green” pepper was actually red or purple. Bell peppers are generally picked when they are young and still green. When they mature the fruit color changes to red, yellow, orange, purple or other colors depending on variety. And if you want red bell peppers and are only seeing green, just be patient, the color will change, hopefully to red.

Generally, cucumbers turn yellow or reddish when they are completely mature, which is not when most people prefer to eat them and not what you see in the grocery. Muskmelon starts out with smooth green fruit that develops the brown netting near maturity. Pumpkins start out green and mature to orange, (or other colors).

What about flowers that are a different color this year?

When it comes to flowers, a change in color may be caused by weather conditions, soil conditions, flower age or plant age. Some plants have slightly different looking flowers the first year they bloom from what the flowers will look like in following years. Other types of plants also have flower color changes as flowers, (not plants), age. If the soil pH changed for some reason, some plants like hydrangea have flowers that are different colors with different soil pH numbers.

Usually cross pollination does not affect flowers, although in some plants any form of pollination may cause a subtle color change in the flowers. Pink apple blossoms turn very pale pink or white after pollination for example. White is less attractive to bees, keeping them focused on the pink ones that still need pollination.

Most of the time when someone thinks a flower has changed color from the previous year or even from earlier in the season it’s because the flower is from a different plant. Many plants reseed in the same location and the seeds can produce plants with different colored flowers. Gardeners often don’t realize the plant blooming this year is not the same plant that bloomed there last year.

When a rose or other grafted plant seems to have a flower color change it’s often because the grafted part has died, and the plant is producing flowers from the root portion. And then of course, there’s always memory problems of the gardener, that’s why I take pictures and keep records. There are times when I would swear a certain rose should be pink, but my pictures tell me it was actually a yellow rose there, exactly what is blooming now.

In short- the type of fruit, flowers, roots or vegetative parts a plant has this year (with the exception of corn and maybe a few other uncommon plants), has nothing to do with who it is sharing pollen with. What a plants fruit looks like this year has nothing to do with the pollination taking place this year.

Let’s talk about balloons

One of the things often mentioned for pest animal control is using mylar balloons or other helium filled balloons. Sometimes these balloons get loose and float away. And it’s the season for outside birthday parties and weddings. One of the things that’s sometimes done at these parties is to release balloons. But balloons are dangerous for wildlife and bad for the environment and should be kept indoors.

Helium filled balloons can travel miles on the wind, and end up in wilderness areas, lakes, or the ocean. They tangle in trees, float in the water, and litter the ground. They are not only ugly litter, but they endanger wildlife. Wildlife caretakers can tell you tales of birds getting their legs or necks wrapped in balloon strings and dying or birds and other animals swallowing balloons and dying from obstructed digestive systems.

Balloons are considered to be the most deadly form of plastic litter for seabirds, according to a 2019 study published in the journal Scientific Reports. A study done by University of Texas Marine Science Institute found that 5% of marine turtles found dead in the Gulf of Mexico had ingested balloons. Bighorn sheep in the mountains are known to eat balloons that land there and often die from ingesting them or from strangling on ribbons.

Wildlife protectors tell of birds tethered to trees by balloon strings until they die of starvation and animals dying of starvation because their digestive systems are full of undigestible balloon fragments. I read about a little screech owl that had one wing tangled in a balloon ribbon dangling from a tree for days, struggling to fly, until someone found it, still alive but too injured to save.

Balloons, even the so called degradable latex ones, can take years to break down and strings and ribbons even longer. For years after that birthday party your balloons could be killing wildlife. Balloon companies lobby hard to keep balloons legal using that degradable label, but it’s a false argument because of the years it takes, and the ribbons and strings often attached to them.

Balloons not only litter and kill wildlife they can harm humans. Mylar and other metallic balloons can short out powerlines, starting fires and causing power outages. Balloons have caused small planes to crash and larger planes to have to divert from their course. In 1986 the United Way released 1.5 million balloons in Cleveland Ohio. Rescue helicopters couldn’t fly through them, causing the death of 2 boaters who had capsized in Lake Michigan. Helium used to fill the average celebration balloons, is a scarce resource used in science and medicine and shouldn’t be wasted on littering.

Balloons are the only form of litter that we ignore people discarding on a routine basis. Releasing balloons should be covered under any litter laws, because that is what’s being done, littering. Balloons have been tracked thousands of miles from their release points, often ending up in wilderness areas.

Don’t use balloons to discourage animal pests in the garden. It doesn’t work well after a day or two and there’s the risk the balloons will float off. Balloons need to be kept inside and disposed of properly when the party’s over. If used outside they should be weighted down and never released.

Puncture balloons and dispose of them after use. Encourage your locality to ban releasing balloons and don’t use this form of celebration or memorial if you care about wildlife and the environment.

Balloons don’t just disappear into the atmosphere when released; they fall back to the earth somewhere. When someone releases hundreds or even thousands of balloons as a memorial, as a celebration, as a decorative background, they are throwing away hundreds or thousands of pieces of litter into the environment, litter that can maim and kill. Releasing balloons is an idiotic custom that needs to cease.

Tuesday, July 28, 2020

July 28, 2020 the Hopniss is happy

Hi Gardeners

It’s a beautiful day here today with lower humidity and temperatures. Yesterday afternoon we had a nice, soaking rain of about 7/10 inch, which keeps me from having to water for a day or two. My zinnias are finally starting to grow well and bloom. The tropical plants are happy too. The taro and elephant’s ear are getting huge leaves.

My new Joe Pye weed is in bloom and garden phlox are blooming. Some daylilies are in bloom and the lilies Casa Blanca and orientpet “Debby” are blooming. Black eyed Susan’s and the shasta daisy are still blooming. But it looks like I’m about to have that lull in bloom, just as I am expecting visitors to the garden in a week or two. Isn’t that what always happens? Of course, the annuals are still going strong, especially after the rain.

I’m starting to see lots of butterflies. The hummingbirds must have their babies out of the nest and flying because there are little hummingbird battles all around the garden. They fight so fiercely, then they come to the feeders and get chased away by bees.

I was out with the dogs in the old pasture and kept hearing a weird noise. It sounded like a hawk scream, but odd. There were a lot of blue jays flying around and I thought one of them was mimicking a hawk. Then I finally saw him, a young hawk, I think a red-tailed hawk, sitting in a tree. He was practicing his call, I guess. It was low and kind of muffled.

And after the rain the other day, which was late in the day, I saw a turkey vulture perch in a dead tree and spread his wings out, turned so that they were facing the sun. He sat there until the sun got too low to hit him, drying his wings. I love watching the birds and this time of year there are many to watch.

Oh, the weeding I need to do. And now I will need to mow again. The grass is green and growing again. But when the days are like this, I still love summer. I am hoping the hot and humid stuff has mostly passed. After all we are a month pass the equinox and the sun is sinking lower each day. We lose a few minutes of sun every day now. How time does fly.

Seeds from China

You may have heard this already, but for those who haven’t people in several US states have received packages from China that contain seeds they did not order. These come in little plastic packages that fit in your mailbox. They are often labeled jewelry or electronics, but the inner package contains seeds. The outer package may have Chinese lettering or say Chinese Post.

If you get one of these packages do not open the seeds. Save the outer packaging. Call 1-800-877-3835 or email SITC.Mail@aphis.usda.gov

Or go to this link and find your closest USDA office.

https://offices.sc.egov.usda.gov/locator/app

Contact the USDA office and they will tell you if they want the seeds and packaging or not and how to dispose of them.

Do not plant or handle these seeds. The motivation behind the seeds is unknown but packages examined contained mostly weed seeds. It is thought the seeds may simply be a cheap way to do a scheme called “brushing”. The packages are sent to people and then fake reviews are put online about a product to give it a good rating and the recipients name and other information is used in the rating. But there could be other motives.

Since the seeds were not inspected before entering the US, they could be a noxious weed, a dangerous plant or infected with plant diseases. And they are illegal to have, and certainly illegal to plant. If you don’t want to bother with the USDA at least dispose of the seeds by burning the seeds and package.

Since we are talking about Chinese seeds let me repeat a warning about buying seeds on Ebay or Amazon. There are all kinds of fake seed companies operating on these sites. They offer things like blue strawberry and rainbow rose seeds among other more common seeds. Inexperienced gardeners are often fooled by faked pictures of these plants and lured by low prices.

There are no blue strawberries or rainbow roses and they certainly wouldn’t be grown from seeds. Almost all of the seeds offered on these sites aren’t what they are represented to be. Someone emailed me pictures of strawberry seeds they received. The seeds were large, flat and light brown. I have no idea what they were from, some weed behind the seller’s house I would imagine. You can see what strawberry seeds look like if you examine a ripe strawberry, they are the tiny black specks on the outside.

Buy seeds from reputable seed companies with a US based company. Seed companies from the UK and Europe usually have US outlets. They are going to cost more and generally charge a shipping fee. But you will actually get what you order. Ebay and Amazon just aren’t good places to buy seeds. By the time you realize you have been fooled it’s too late to get a refund in most cases. The Chinese and other fake companies make a lot of money from those small, cheap packets of seeds.

Fall webworm (Tentworms)

A lot of people are getting excited and worried over fall webworms, often mistakenly called tent worms. While the “tents” look bad, the worms don’t harm the trees much. Often people damage the trees more with their control methods- like using a blow torch- than the worms damage the tree. You can safely ignore the tents.

Fall webworms make a web like structure on the ends of branches that encloses leaves inside, which the worms feed on. They occur in mid to late summer. In spring the Eastern tent worm makes tents in the branch crotches and the worms leave the tent to feed on leaves.

Insects often have years when they seem to have a boom in population, and this seems to be a boom year for fall webworms. You know, why not? It’s 2020.

For more information and removal tips read this article.

http://gardeninggrannysgardenpages.blogspot.com/p/fallwebworm-if-you-are-noticing-those.html

Side dressing sweet corn

If you are growing sweet corn and it’s starting to tassel, it’s time to apply a side dressing of a high nitrogen fertilizer. This means sprinkling the fertilizer on the ground between your plants. If you are totally organic there are organic fertilizers, but you could use blood meal, I guess.

Corn is a heavy feeder and unlike some garden plants, needs a lot of nitrogen to produce a good crop. Nitrogen is the one nutrient in the garden that disappears quickly. When you fertilize at tasseling time, you’ll have a better chance of getting lots of big ears of corn.

Male flower tassel center top, silks the female flower at the ends of the ears

Sweet Corn pollination information

Corn has two types of flowers on each plant, male and female. The male flowers are at the top of the plant and are called the tassel. Female flowers are formed in a husk at the junction of leaves and the corn stem. You probably know them as “silk”. Each strand of silk is a single female flower and produces a single kernel of corn. They’ll still be attached when you shuck the ear to eat it.

Wind shakes a cloud of pollen down on the silks to pollinate them. Wind can blow pollen to nearby corn plants too. How the wind blows can affect how well your corn ears fill out with kernels. That’s why it’s good to plant corn in blocks, rather than a single row. Pollen from a single row can just blow away and not get many silks pollinated. When you have ears of corn where only one side has kernels developed, it’s caused by poor pollination.

Corn is the one common garden plant where this year’s pollen can affect the taste or shape of this year’s harvest. That’s why it’s not a good idea to plant sweet corn close to field corn or popcorn. The kernels that develop from cross pollination won’t be as tasty or tender. And popcorn might not pop as well if sweet corn grew nearby. Separate corn types by at least 100 feet.

You can sometimes grow two types of corn near each other if you carefully plan for when they will be pollinating so that one is far ahead of the other, but that is tricky to do. Some types of sweet corn need to be isolated from other types of sweet corn for the best taste also. You’ll see these listed in catalogs with a warning about what types of corn they should be isolated from. These are usually the more expensive, super sweet varieties.

Hybrid corn is produced by planting rows of different varieties next to each other. Then the tassels are removed from one variety. The ears from the de-tasseled corn will be hybrid, since they could only have been pollinated by the other variety. This used to be a job that farmers hired high schoolers to do every summer. The hybrid ears are generally used as seed corn for next year.

When corn is pollinating avoid spraying anything on it. Pollen isn’t carried by insects, but it needs to be fluffy and light to be successfully delivered to the silks. Oily insecticides for example, might keep pollen from landing on the silks.

Sweet corn takes a lot of room in the garden but if you have ever had sweet corn just after picking it, you will immediately want to grow corn every year. There’s just nothing to compare with sweet corn picked at the right stage, brought into the home and cooked immediately and then eaten.

Hanging basket, containers and annual beds in mid- summer

If your hanging baskets, containers and annual beds are starting to look a bit straggly it might be time for two things, a fertilizer boost and a cut back. If you act now your plants could bounce back and give you many weeks of color until frost comes.

Some people use the fertilize with every watering method of caring for baskets and containers. If you tend to water with the hose though, you may not be doing this. I use a granulated, slow release fertilizer in my baskets and containers when I plant in spring. Then I don’t worry about fertilizing them until right about now. If you used this method in the spring or you haven’t been fertilizing now is the time to do it.

If you want to use a granulated slow release fertilizer simply follow label directions for the amount to use, sprinkle it on top of the planting medium and water it in. If you want to use a liquid fertilizer mix it according to label directions and apply. Most liquid fertilizers do not last long. You may not want to use them with every watering but every week or every other week would be a good idea. Those of you already using diluted fertilizer every time you water don’t need additional fertilizer.

Annuals in the ground may not require fertilization, especially if you fertilized when you planted them. If the plants look dark green and full, they may not need fertilizer. However, if they look pale, yellowed or spindly a fertilization may be in order. Granular fertilizers work best for plants in the ground.

Should you trim plants back now? Many annual plants look better and flower better if cut back around this time in summer. Petunias that are straggly and long are a good example. Older varieties are more prone to doing this, newer varieties may stay compact and blooming all season. Other plants that benefit from a pruning back are lobelia, straggly ivy geraniums, sweet potatoes that have gotten straggly, million bells, osteospermum, nemesia, bacopa, and any of those trailing plants added to containers.

When I do a pruning back, I take off about a third of the plant. They bounce back quickly from this. If you are going on vacation and don’t mind the plants not blooming for a couple weeks to a month, you could prune back the plant to about half. Prune off any dead stems, dead flowers and anything that looks really bad.

Other annuals do best with a good deadheading, cutting off dead flowers, but stems should not be cut back. This includes begonias, snapdragons, zinnias, cosmos, marigolds, salvia, most geraniums and any annual plant with a single stem. Just remove the dead flowers. Coleus is a kind of in between plant, some varieties that get long and lanky, with lots of bloom stalks might benefit from a prune back, more compact, bushy types can just have flower spikes removed.

I have pruned back plants that like cool weather, like pansies, diascia and calendula, back to an inch or so from the ground, after they have yellowed and start to look bad. In fall with good weather these may perk back up and bloom again.

The common ditch lily dies back in hot weather, if you remove the dead foliage it will probably green up again and look better in cool weather, although it will not bloom again. It is a perennial.

Oriental and Asiatic lilies, canna, dahlias and other bulbs can be trimmed back after the stalks have yellowed. They won’t bloom again this year and are perennial plants. Do leave the stalks to finish maturing and turn yellow if you want bigger, healthier bulbs the next year.

Gladiolus

Want to know about growing the gladiolus for cut flowers? You may want to read this article.

https://gardeninggrannysgardenpages.blogspot.com/p/gladiolus.html

Hopniss or Groundnut

Apios americana, Hopniss, groundnut

How would you like a vine that’s native, edible, medicinal, and has pretty chocolate colored flowers? I have some growing rampantly in my yard, but I bet most gardeners have never heard of the plant. Hopniss or groundnut, Apios americana, is an unusual plant that more gardeners should try growing. I’m going to call it hopniss because groundnut is also a common name for the peanut. It’s also called Indian Bean or Indian potato.

There is one other species of hopniss in the US called Price's Groundnut (Apios priceana). It is extremely endangered and found in one small area of Illinois. The flowers of this species are a light pink. It has one larger tuber instead of many small ones.

Hopniss was a staple in the diet of many Northeastern Native American tribes and may even have been selected for certain traits and grown as a cultivated crop. It’s native from southern Canada to deep in the southern US from the east coast to the Rockies. It is becoming rarer and is listed as endangered in some states. A few nurseries grow the plant and Louisiana State University has tried to develop hopniss into a commercial crop. Other universities have studied the plant for its medicinal qualities. There is a small commercial crop grown in Japan.

The native habitat of hopniss is at the edges of moist woodlands and along rivers and streams in moist bottom lands. Hopniss is a vine or it sprawls over the ground if it doesn’t have something to climb. It will climb to 8 feet or more in a good site. The leaves are arranged alternately, pinnately compound, consisting of 5-7 oval leaflets. They remind me somewhat of wisteria leaves.

Two butterflies use hopniss as a larval food plant, Epargyreus clarus (Silver-spotted Skipper) and Thorybes bathyllus (Southern Cloudywing). Deer feed on the foliage and small animals eat the tubers.

Hopniss flowers are intriguing. Bloom time is mid to late summer, with August being the bloom period in Michigan. The plants produce clusters of “curly” looking milk chocolate colored flowers, with a flared “hood’ consisting of two fused petals, two tiny petals near the bottom and a curious curved tube in the center that protects the pistil and stamens.

The end of the tube appears to be buried at the top of the hood but if you so much as touch the curved tube it will coil away from the hood wall and the tip will slowly split, first the pistil and then the stamens will poke out. You can watch it slowly happen. I imagine that an insect landing on the hood area or the curved tube would also provoke the reaction. After the flowers curved part has been activated the hood folds around the curved tube and is said to be “tripped”.

It's not known for sure what pollinates hopniss. Leaf cutter bees and flies do visit the plants. Leaf cutter bees have been seen to trip the “tube”. Honeybees occasionally visit the flowers, but since honeybees aren’t native, they are not the original pollinator. However, the subject of pollination may not be important, as many plants do not produce seeds.

Hopniss comes in two strains, a diploid and a triploid. This refers to sets of genes that the plant has. It’s impossible to tell whether hopniss is a diploid or triploid by looking at it. In the north most hopniss is triploid and does not produce seeds. Reproduction is from the little tubers the roots form.

Farther south and in a distinct region around the Black River in central Ontario,^]some stands of hopniss are diploid and produce narrow, bean like, slightly curved pods. The pods have maroon seeds that darken to chocolate brown when dried. The pods split when mature and “shoot” their seeds.

Flowers and seeds of hopniss are edible. The flowers are used medicinally in the treatment of diabetes. The beans were dried and ground into flour or boiled and eaten by Native Americans.

It’s the little tubers that form along the rhizomatous roots that earn hopniss the name groundnut and that are the primary food product. The tubers form along the roots like knots in a rope. They are about the size of your thumb or smaller. They are dark brown on the outside and creamy yellow inside. The texture is much like a potato.

These little tubers have about 3 times as much protein as potatoes and a different type of starch called oligosaccharides. They also have lectins, a chemical found in raw beans. They are high in iron and calcium. The tubers should always be cooked before they are eaten. Even so some people who eat the tubers will experience extreme gassiness and bloating and may have diarrhea. It is said that a sensitivity in some people may build up after consuming it about ten times, causing an allergic reaction.

Native Americans collected hopniss tubers and dried them on mats for winter storage. They were powdered and used as a flour or boiled in soups. Some tubers were sliced and fried as we do potatoes. Hopniss was boiled in maple syrup to produce a type of preserves. The taste of hopniss is said to be like a nutty potato and quite good.

Hopniss was one of the native foods that the first European settlers had to survive on the first winter after they arrived. It remained a popular winter survival food for many years. Hopniss tubers were introduced to Europe and other places. Japan embraced them as an edible crop as they were similar to another Japanese crop.

Hopniss is said to be a signal to archeologists that an Amerindian site is nearby, so maybe my yard is located on one. The plants were here when I arrived and this house is over 100 years old. Henry Thoreau is said to have eaten them when his potato crop failed.

Hopniss on old fence

Growing hopniss

Hopniss is a perennial plant and if you want to grow it you will probably start with tubers, not seeds. Just plant the tubers on their sides in about 3 inches of soil. It likes light textured, moist soil in full sun to light shade. The plants fix nitrogen in the soil like soybeans, so they need little fertilization. It can take several years for the vines to grow until there is enough tubers for a harvest. Hopniss is hardy to at least zone 4.

If you grow hopniss for the flowers or for a screening vine, remember that they spread quite quickly in spots they like. They can take over a lot of fence or cover a lot of ground. The vines die back in winter and come back from the ground. Most flowers in the north will not make seedpods.

Hopniss has few insect or disease problems. They may die back in very hot, dry weather.

Growing hopniss as a crop is tricky because of the perennial nature of the plant and the years needed for a crop. You dig up the vines in early fall after the first frost to collect the tubers. You can’t pull the vines out of the ground; they need to be dug. Save some tubers to replant, right there after harvest. Tubers are stored like potatoes, in a dark, cool but above freezing place.

Medicinal uses of hopniss

Hopness flowers are used to lower blood sugar. I believe a tea is made with them. Boiled tubers are used as a poultice on wounds. Eating the tubers is said to lower blood pressure, cholesterol and triglycerides and is being studied for those purposes.

There are chemicals in the tubers that have anticarcinogenic properties and one compound, Genistein-7-O-gentiobioside, is being studied as a treatment for breast cancer. It may also be helpful in colon and prostate cancer.

Hopniss is an interesting native vine with pretty flowers and many edible parts. You may want to include it in your garden.

Sources for tubers

https://www.nortonnaturals.com

https://oikostreecrops.com

https://wildridgeplants.com

https://www.izelplants.com

"We might think we are nurturing our garden, but of course it's our garden that is really nurturing us."

-Jenny Uglow

Kim Willis

All parts of this blog are copyrighted and may not be used without permission.

And So On….

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