It's Memorial Day, what NOT to plant today

We all have heard (at least in Wisconsin) that Memorial Day is the signal of the garden season.  I have posted plenty of things that I have planted and seeded.  Contrary to popular belief, Memorial Day is not the signal for everything to go in the ground.  These are the plants that I have found cold sensitive.  They may not be hit by a frost, but a cold night can set back their growth and delay flowering and/or fruiting.

• Basil (and other tender herbs)
• Tomatoes
• Peppers
• Salvia
• Impatiens (if they haven't been hardened off, you will see them suffer)

There are also other precautions you should take with plants.  I purchased a couple plants from a local green house and should have realized that it was a bit too warm in there for a cloudy day this late in the season.  I set the plants out yesterday while working outside all day.  When I went to tuck them back in the garage for the night, one plant was especially damaged by the cool winds.  They hadn't hardened off their plants by lowering the thermostats and opening up the vents.  The leaves will recover as the plant puts on new growth, but this beautiful (and not very inexpensive) plant, now has brown spots from being outside one day.  I will live with what I have and know that the plant will recover.  I shudder to think of what kind of complaints this greenhouse will suffer when other folks come back with brown leaves on their plants.

If you have to harden things off yourself, start in an area with some shade and protected from the wind.  Put your plants out during the warmest part of the day for a few hours.  Gradually increase the time and the sun exposure until the plants can take a full day in the conditions in which you will be planting them.  Another part of hardening off plants is giving them a little less water.  When you do water, have it come through the bottom of the pot (not like a waterfall, just a bit).  Let the plants dry out a bit before watering again.  Lift up the pots.  Weight is a better indicator of dry than just looking at the soil surface.  The tops of the pots can be dry from sun and wind, but just below the surface the soil may be quite wet.  You can put your finger in it, but that is a subjective judgement of what is wet enough.

The next week will be soon enough to get the rest of the garden in.  This will give you the opportunity to not go on a gardening marathon.  Sit back with a drink and enjoy a barbecue instead.

What to plant (or not) by a black walnut tree

Type of plants	Sensitive to Juglone	Tolerant of Juglone
Vegetables	asparagus, cabbage, eggplant, pepper, potato, rhubarb, tomato	beans, beet, carrot, corn, melon, onion, parsnip, squash
Flowers	autumn crocus, chrysanthemum, forget-me-not, petunia, peonies	aster, astilbe, bee balm, begonia, black-eyed Susan, bluebell, calendula, crocus, daylily, ferns, grape hyacinth, some hosta varieties, hollyhock, impatiens, Jack-in-the-pulpit, Jacob’s ladder, marigold, morning glory, pansy, phlox, Siberian iris, squill, sweet woodruff, trillium, zinnia
Trees	alder, apple and crabapple, basswood, pine, spruce, silver maple, white birch	black locust, catalpa, Eastern redbud, hackberry, Canadian hemlock, hickory, most maples, oaks, pagoda dogwood, poplar, red cedar
Shrubs and Vines	azalea, blackberry (and most berries other than black raspberry), cotoneaster, hydrangea, lilac, mountain laurel, potentilla, privet, rhododendron, yew	arborvitae, bittersweet, black raspberry, clematis, currant, forsythia, euonymus, greenbrier, most honeysuckle, pachysandra, rose-of-Sharon, sumac, most viburnum, Virginia creeper, wild grape, wild rose, willow, witch hazel
Field Crops and Grasses	alfalfa, tobacco	fescue, Kentucky bluegrass, orchard grass, soybean, timothy, wheat, white clover

Purchased Plants 2013

Herbs (none which are hardy)

• Greek oregano
• Rosemary
• Pineapple sage
• Stevia
•  Lemon verbena
• Italian flat-leaf parsley
• Mojito mint-Mentha villosa

Annual Flowers

• Guara linhemeri 'Petite Pink' PW (Proven Winners)
• Talinum 'Limon'
• Angelonia 'Purple stripe'
• Cuphea 'Lavendar lace' Mexican heather PS (Proven Selection)
• Superbells 'Apricot Punch' PW
• Superbells 'Blackberry Punch' PW
• Spiralis Corkscrew rush PS
• Pennisetum sectaceum 'Fireworks' PW
• Agastache 'Acapulco'
• Million kisses tuberous begonia
• Polka dot plant-pink and red
• Ornamental kale:  Color up mix (6), Glamour red (6), Songbird pink (6), Peacock Red (8), Green leaf fringed (8), Osaka mix (8)
• Impatiens 'Tempo Pink Frost'

Fruits and Vegetables

• Asparagus 'Purple Passion'
• Prunus persica 'Early Elberta' peach 
• Malus 'Honeygold' apple
• Kiwi Female-September Sun, Male-Pasha
• Honeysuckle honeyberries (Lonicera) Male-Blue Velvet, Female-Blue Moon

From summer to spring again

The weather has changed again.  Our 80's are gone and we are cool and rainy today.  This is a relief to me as I was going to have to water the raised veggie beds tonight if it didn't rain.  The cool weather crops of lettuce, radicchio, cabbage, chard, spinach, and peas are sprouted from the heat but enjoying a long cool drink that has been falling most of the day.  I took a quick walk after work to find most of these crops pushing the row cover up a bit.  I like to leave the row cover on so the bug problems are minimized and weather damage is greatly reduced.  The leafy crops are so much nicer growing under a sheet of row cloth.  It is a small investment that is easily recouped with better crops and less use of bug control products.

I moved the tomatoes, peppers, impatiens, and the younger seedlings in for the night.  It is best to not chill these plants and have their growth set back.  They really like it warmer, so I won't put them in the ground for another couple weeks.  I wait until at least the first full week of June to set their roots in the soil.

The lilacs are in full bloom this week and smell wonderful.  The crab apples are on the down hill slide and had a shower of petals falling on the ground this morning.  That is always a pretty sight to watch.  

The forsythia put on a good show this year.  The park has a large hedge row of them that had grown over with weeds and brush.  A former homeowner concerned about security in his yard had the park cut everything to the ground over three years ago.  The forsythia responded to the renewal cut with a very profuse bloom this year.

My husband is getting ready to set the posts for the kiwi trellis.  We are going to use a T-bar and wire support system.  I also want to espalier and apple tree, so he will set a third post and tie into one of the kiwi post for both applications.  I am looking forward to the new challenge.

The asparagus which I just covered is now 8" over the new soil that I just added to the trench.  I should be able to completely level the bed this weekend.  The purple passion stalks are different from the usual green.

The last of the seedlings are up.  I should be able to move more of the basement plants out to the outdoors this weekend.  Lights will be going out on multiple levels.  I will probably dismantle the light and shelf system over the kitchen sink and just go outdoors with most everything at this time.  I may still start one more crop of summer lettuce to put seedlings in between pepper plants and under beans.  It is nice to have them all space out when they go into the garden.

Big planting weekend coming up with Memorial Day giving us a long weekend.  Get out to the garden center these last couple days before the mob hits the garden centers.

A little heat and things are popping

We have had a cool spring.  Nice for tulips and daffodils as the bloom extends like keeping flowers in a florist cooler.  It has kept things from coming up as quickly.  One thing that I have been watching carefully is the bed with my new purple passion asparagus crowns.  With a couple days in the 80's they went from zero to six inches in a day.  I was able to start adding a bit more soil to the trench.

The rain garden is in bloom with Pulminaria, Virginia blue bells, sweet woodruff, vinca, trilliums, bleeding heart, Trollius, blood root, and forget-me-nots.  I tucked some annual Linaria and added some purple alyssum next to the white.  I also lifted some extra sweet woodruff up to share with a friend so I have a little more space in the sunny zone for annuals.

My husband is getting the trellising material together for the kiwi vines and supports to espalier the apple tree I have to plant.  Soon there will be a new raised bed for annuals along an otherwise dreary chain link fence.  I guess we haven't gotten too old yet to get a few more big projects done.

The flowering kale saga continues

Last fall I had the most amazing flowering/ornamental kale in my garden.  I had grown the rose flowering for a couple years and love the way it looks in a pot.  At Christmas I add greens and lights and it is even more stunning.  Kale, both ornamental and edible, is an extremely cold tolerant crop.  You really have to add some of this to the garden just because it is still looking beautiful when the temps fall below freezing.
I bought additional flowering kale seed to plant more of the peacock red that was in my front garden last fall.  I only had four plants, but they were show stoppers.  I wanted more.  I picked up another more generic variety when a second choice I ordered was out of stock when my seeds came.  Then I lost track of them.  They didn't make it on my seeding list, and they weren't in my seed box.  This "change of life" has not been always kind to my brain.  I looked everywhere logical and then the illogical.  No seeds. 
I broke down and bought plants.  Millager's  Garden Center had several varieties of 3" plants in a 6 pack tray.  I bought three kinds.  Then I went to my favorite little local garden center Luxembourg Gardens and found three more varieties in the smaller 4 pack which made them really affordable.  Lots of kale for this fall.
Two days later, I am putting away some condiments in the refrigerator and a little, plastic bag falls forward.  Yep, it was the kale seeds.  Since the seeds I have are all different than the plants I bought, I put them all in trays to germinate.  They are germinating well.  If all my chickens hatch, there will be a huge flowering kale display on the dead end this fall.
Now, I don't want to put it all in the garden all summer, so my plan is to pot some of it up and hold it for the summer.  I will fill in the empty holes of fall with the pots.  I started the up-grading process tonight to reduce the water requirements on the pot bound plants I bought. It may all seem a little crazy, but it will be worth it in the end.

Direct seeding before frost

There are several things you should be putting in the ground before last frost.  Some are veggies others are flowers.  Here is my list of both which is not everything that is out there.

• soybeans
• radishes
• lettuce
• spinach
• kale
• Swiss chard
• peas
• radishes (yep, they mature in 25 days so do it again in a couple of weeks)
• green/bunching onions
• carrots
• beets
• corn

now flowers...

• love-in-the-mist
• sweet peas
• dianthus
• larkspur
• cosmos
• alyssum
• bells of Ireland
• poppies
• evening scented stock

These are all things that will take a little chill without many ill effects.  It helps to get some of them in 2-4 weeks early so you know what spaces to fill in later.  Direct seeding means that you have smaller plants and lack the instant gratification effect.  It is so much cheaper that it begs to be utilized when you are on a budget with your gardening.

I have started a few things in peat pots now that I will move outside in short order.  It is so much cheaper doing these things even if you don't have much sunny window space.  You can always move them in and out each day until you plant after the danger of frost is gone.

veggies...

• cucumbers
• pumpkins
• squash
• zucchini
• melons

flowers...

• Tithonia aka black eyed Susan vine
• sunflowers (chipmunks and bunnies eat them like candy otherwise in my yard)
• Nastutiums always in peat pots as they don't like to be transplanted

My disclaimer is that these are the things that I plant.  There are other things that would make the list, but they aren't on mine.  Save a few bucks on these items and use it to buy some specialty plants instead, or just save a few bucks.

What I don't grow myself, I buy and why

Space can really dictate what and how much you grow.  Face it, if you don't have a light set up to help things along, you will probably have leggy seedlings and few leaves.  Some plants you can clean up and bring the pots in for the winter and they will suffer a bit, but will bounce back with a little time and gentle acclimation to the outdoors in spring...if you have a sunny space to keep them in for six months or more.  

I have the light table, a heat mat (I want at least one more), and a space to keep it all where a little water on the floor doesn't matter.  Still, I choose to purchase some things in May rather than grow them myself.

1. Anything that requires 12 or more weeks to germinate and grow before going outdoors.  These plants grow too slowly, want lots of heat, and breed fungus gnats like you wouldn't believe.  So not worth my time and effort to start lisianthus from seed, but I will search it out and buy it as plants.  Heliotrope is another plant that I try but I rather buy it.  Onions are the exception because they go out early even though they are started in February.
2. Plants I only want one of.  Mint for mojitos, rosemary, lemon verbena, and other herbs that are annual fit this category.  
3. I also will buy some 4" pots of flowers such as tuberous begonias, Angelonia, Agapanthus, and various other plants that are new introductions that are just to pretty to pass up.  If it makes me look twice and take a look at the tag, I tend to try it out.
4. Impatiens I will go and buy a flat of the color that strikes my fancy for the year (usually light pinkies for the shade).  They need heat, they grow slow, they just are never that good coming from my hands in the home greenhouse.  Buying someone else's never disappoints me.
5. Things I could do from cuttings, but just got tired of growing.  Sometimes you  just want to switch things up.  After a few years away, I purchase a new plant and propagate again.  I get to try out new stuff and come back to the old reliable standbys.

There are also things like shrubs and trees which just take longer to grow from the ground up than I care to wait for.  I enjoy getting into other greenhouses and seeing what they are up to.  Going to other growers is also a time to exchange ideas and talk about the weather.  There are some small operations that I really like so I like to give them some business each year.  I also like to see who has what.  Inevitably, someone will ask me where I would go for...and I like to know where I can send them that might also be someone other than the big box stores.

Some people like to grow everything and become self-sufficient.  I am not one of those people. I enjoy my community.  I like to support the business people that are also interested in the neighborhood, not just make a buck.  Remember, we are all in this together.

The best laid plans

I was so excited about getting all my seeds.  I had great plans for what I would have in my garden.  I was really looking forward to three different kinds of flowering kale.  Well,  what did I do with them???  As it happens in my house, things go missing.  How three packages of seeds got separated from the rest is beyond me.  I looked everywhere logical and even some not.  No seeds.

One set of my asters did not germinate, at all, the other variety is fine.  I have seeded both collected and purchased black-eyed Susan vines to see how collected seed performs.  I lost some plants to neglect.  I thought the seedlings were fine only to come home from work to find some plants permanently wilted.  The Celebrity tomatoes barely made six plants because of that mistake.  Luckily I went over-board on varieties so I have other plants to fill the spaces...so far.

Other things I am happy with.  I had good luck rooting cuttings of several plants and was able to successful divide others.  I am rethinking how many plants I want to carry over from one year to the next.  I had all three tiers of lights going this last winter and that is more than I usually burn.  I would like to look at the difference in the electric bills from one year to the next.  It may not be an accurate assessment as we also had a more mild winter last year and we used less heat than the most recent one.  I also don't know if I like taking care of so much in the off season.  If I had a well lit, sunny greenhouse to retreat to rather than a basement, it might be more appealing.  Ahh, to dream...

The spring is coming in slow but sure.  I have been able to quickly move plants in and out at night with my wheeled shelf.  I need to expand operations with a set of stationary shelves for the plants already hardened off.  So far the rotation is working this year.  I have room on the shelves for the seedlings almost ready for transplant.  It is a dance of timing and space.

The vegetable garden is at the fun stage to watch.  Seedlings are popping up in my square foot garden making a patch work pattern of greens in rows and dots.  The onions are starting to show their strength in the way they stand straight.  They are still tiny, but they are strong.  The peas are sparse due to the cold weather following my eager planting.  I will get enough to keep me happy, so I can't complain.  The spinach, radicchio, lettuce and cabbages are all putting on new growth and expanding.  I just have to remember to keep them all watered.

My bare-root shrubs that I tucked into pots are sprouting new growth and I even saw some flower buds forming on the kiwi.  I stopped at the garden center for peat pots after work yesterday and left with a Goldencrisp apple and an Alberta peach.  I may have jumped the gun on these but they were 20% off.  I want to make the apple into an espalier so I have a new subject to read up on.  I want to put this in the same spot as our new patio (which is still a pile of bricks next to the garage).  The peach tree will find a spot to stand out in the yard anticipating the ultimate demise of the male mulberry that is growing on the park side of our property line.  With all the hollow spots and cracks, it is only a made of when, not if.  We had it trimmed away from the yard to try and keep it from landing on our garage and shed.  Fingers crossed...

I came up with a pretty cool trellis for my sweet autumn clematis this spring.  I used some of the old wire clothes line and dog tie down to form a frame work.  I used the plastic netting that I ran behind it last year to train it away from the rails and stairs.  The beauty comes in with the grapevine I cut and laced over the rear fence for Christmas lights.  I cut a bunch to length and fastened them to the edges of the frame.  It is functional and attractive.  I think it should hold through the summer especially after the clematis reaches the second floor and grows onto the second set of wires which have carried it to the roof line year after year.

I also got busy with setting out the praying mantis egg sacks yesterday.  The weather has been consistently warm and the timing feels right.  I put them inside upside-down 4" pots with netting over the bottom to keep out predators.  There is one hanging right next to the clematis in the picture next to the drain pipe.  A co-worker orders and sells them every year.  It is an inexpensive and fun project.  Look back to my pictures of the little guys when they hatched last year. 
http://gardeninggwen.blogspot.com/2012/06/praying-mantis-emerge.html

Praying mantis egg case

It has been a busy week in the garden, but the pace has been an enjoyable one.  I was able to mix up the heavy work with some light duty tasks.  I even had the pleasure of going up to the Milwaukee High School of the Arts for their day with the Burpee Grow Anywhere Garden Tour. http://www.burpeehomegardens.com/(S(gf2402r0mzl3vwjqb4vdltms))/Blog/2013/05/07/grow-anywhere-tour--making-milwaukee-smile.html
I came home with a Fourth of July tomato.  They are an early season plant.  I took out my wall-o-water towers and filled them up.  I planted the tomato tonight inside the warm, insulated tower.  It will be fun to see how well the tower works to push the season on the tomato plant.  More on that later.

I certainly spent enough time logging garden time in today, but I love to look back at the digital record to see what worked last year and what didn't.  Once the flowers get transplanted, I may not get back to writing for awhile.  I also have to make at least one visit to the garden centers so I can find some flowering kale plants!

Seeding, cutting back and general yard work

The pile of wood chips on the driveway is getting smaller each day.  I no longer do marathon hauling sessions, but rather like to chip away at jobs in smaller pieces.  The hardest areas have been done where I had to carry the chips in large buckets to fill the pathways of my garden (the wheel barrow does not fit through the gate).

Seedlings have been popping up like crazy, so I am spending a couple hours at a time pricking out little vegetables and flowers into larger cell packs.  As a result, more and more established plants have been added to the outdoor shelves and only moved into the garage to get them out of the cold.

Nature played a cruel trick on Wisconsin this year.  Last year we were two weeks ahead of spring's normal start.  Our friends in the northwest part of the state were dealing with up to 18" of new snow with the front that brought us cold rain.  Opening fishing season called for ice augers on some lakes as there was still 24" of ice on some of them.  Like they say, if you don't like the weather, just wait a few minutes!

I divided up my hanging basket of Mandevilla vine today.  I was just going to move it up a pot size when I noticed it had four individual stems from one pot.  It will be interesting to see how it handles the stress of dividing.  My jasmine has flowers on it already.  It amazes me that it can sit in the basement all winter and still put out a nice flush of early blooms.  Artificial light does not hinder this one.  I had done a drastic cut back on it last fall to make it easy to keep for the winter.  This also did not seems to set it back much either.

I think the tomatoes are ready for cell packs now.  I may have tried too many this year, but the seed catalogs were too tempting with the descriptions.  Only one tomatillo is going in this year though.  Four was too many.

There was some good bargains at the hardware store this morning for potting soil.  This is what made all the transplanting possible.  Mother's Day is next weekend so the stores are really gearing up for spring even if it doesn't always feel like it is here.  I also got 10-10-10 fertilizer for the asparagus bed.  Everything I read said to put 10-10-10 in the trench.  It was a pretty good day all-in-all.