Clean Up the Garden & Start Cool Weather Crops

July is coming to a close. There are plenty of weeds and spent plants that can be cleaned up. This is where I usually get tired and lazy and loose the garden maintenance battle. This year I am going to try and stay up on it.

Over the first two weeks of August, you can start planting you cool weather crops like lettuces, radishes, spinach and kales. The kales may not mature but they often make it through winter and you can harvest it in the spring. It our area September and October is usually great for greens and radishes as long as you get them in the ground in August.

Another round of beans can go in this week as well as fast growing vine crops. I plan to clean up the garden this week and figure out what  I will plant over the next two weeks. I think I, as well as others, really under-utilize the garden toward the end of the season.  I know I do.  I might even dabble with a cold frame for winter long greens.

Powdery Mildew Has Arrived!

It is on my cucumbers. They got sprayed with my standard sulfur spray this evening. I also sprayed my zukes and squash. When it arrives it arrives. The garden is over grown again with weeds and falling over stems. I was only gone 4 days from tending.

Powder mildew is very treatable. If you notice signs, treat immediately. This is one fungus, you can win the battle against.

Garden Poetry: Francis Kilvert's Diary

Francis Kilvert's Diary: May 1876

Bluebells

He wrote this 3 years before his death: 1840-1879. He was only 39. I edited the prose entry and changed the format into stanzas. I hope the things he saw, stayed with him. His ability to see, inspired me. The beauty of a garden is found by simply looking with your soul. To look upon life in this manner is to be alive.

Through the gate of a meadow,

I saw a cherry tree,

snowy with blossoms,

that scented the air.

Along the wild broken bank,

among the stems of the hawthorn hedge,

there grew a profusion of bluebells,

I never saw bluebells more beautiful.

They grew tall and stately,

singularly and in groups,

and sometimes in such a crowd,

that they filled the hallow places,

and deep shadows of the overarching hedge,

with a sweet  blue gloom and tender azure mist,

that floated among the young bright ferns.

Here or there a sunbeam found its way,

through a little window in the thick leafage over head,

singling out one bluebell amongst the crowd,

tipping the rich and heavily hanging clusters of bells,

Tipping it with a brilliant gleam and blue glory,

crowning the flower a queen,

among her ladies and handmaidens,

who stood in the background of green shade.

Used Gardening Books: A Victorian Posy: Poetry

When we go the the eastershore, there is a used book store I always visit. I look in three book sections; poetry, history and gardening. I found a book of poetry, A Victorian Posy: Penhaligon's Scented Treasury of Verse and Prose. A great book for $5. The poems and prose are garden themed. Full of color illustrations. A nice source of inspiration. No need to bore you with the history. I found some biographies.

The garden section is loaded with books from the last 75 years. Sometimes you find old magazines. I found my share of garden books and one interesting thing that occured was a flyer from Ortho was in one of the books. It was a garden tips/advertisement booklet. It is from the 70's and it was introducing a new vegetable to grow. KOHLRABI!, which I highlighted a few weeks back. I guess it caught on. Gardening doesn't change much over the years. The old books are filled with great timeless information and very cool photos. They are worth buying and even collecting.

Tomato Update: Waves 1, 2 and 3

I was away for the weekend. Dozen of tomatoes are ripe. Nice! The determinate plants are producing nicely and dying back. The indeterminates are growing with little strain from diseases and have lots of fruit. I hope to keep them going into the third week of August. The 2nd wave of tomatoes, planted in June, are 2 to 3 feet tall. Many of them have green tomatoes. I hope they last into September. The seedlings for the third wave are only an inch tall. I am hoping for a growth spurt. I may have started them too late. I may have found a tomato method for my area to keep tomatoes going till a hard frost. We will see.