Hummingbird Food

Hummingbird feeder filled and ready to welcome scout hummingbirds back to North America. (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins photo)

Homemade Hummingbird Food

It’s time in mid-Missouri to put your hummingbird feeders out to attract the scout birds returning from Central and South America, where they spend winters.

It’s very easy to make homemade hummingbird food. It used to be one part sugar to 4 parts hot water, which still works for most of the year. More accurately, though, it should be equal weight to weight so the correct formula is one part sugar to 3 parts hot water. I make the thicker syrup in spring and fall to give them a little extra boost of carbs when they can use it, when they are migrating.

The trick is to use hot water, not boiling water.

You also should allow the sugar to get incorporated into the water and cool before placing in the hummingbird feeder.

No need to add red dye. The hummingbirds will find the feeder without the added color.

Now if your hummingbird syrup starts looking cloudy after being outside, it’s time to replace the sugar syrup. I replace the sugar syrup more frequently as temperatures get hotter.

Regularly wash your hummingbird feeder either in a light mixture of Dawn dishwashing soap or one part vinegar to two parts water. Scrub all of the parts to remove mold. Don’t use other soaps or they could contaminate your feeder.

Of all of the songbirds in the garden, hummingbirds are one of my favorite. Besides being beautiful and fun to watch, hummingbirds are also pollinators, helping plants reproduce.

Welcome back!

Charlotte

Checking Mum Transplants

Mums with brown, dead tops may have growth in the center crown. (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins photo)

Checking Mum Transplants

It’s almost as exciting as opening a present.

This time of year, I go around my garden and check the new chrysanthemums I planted last fall. I watered them over winter and mulched them hoping they would get a good root start. Once established, mums can take care of themselves from year to year.

It’s easy to believe the plant is dead when you see the old plant top. Don’t be so quick to remove that; it may be harboring growth at the base of the plant.

Here’s the new growth in the center of that dead-looking mum. (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins photo)

Sometimes mums have growth off to the side, too. Check all around the plant to see where the new growth may be starting.

The growth on this mum has started under the mulch. Gently remove mulch so the plant gets some sun and can grow stronger.

That tiny bit of green will grow so keep it protected. (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins photo)

And yes, even this little spot of green will become a developed mum given a chance.

So out of 15 mums I transplanted, 13 made it. These mums will now be contributing to repelling insects as well as adding a pop of fall color.

I may split a few of these and get them settled in this spring and will definitely plant more this fall.

Charlotte

April Gardening Tasks

1. Identify places where you want to add fall bulbs for maximum enjoyment. (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins photo2

April Gardening Tasks

Missouri’s native Eastern redbuds should start their blooming after our slow spring rain earlier this week. I was hard pressed to stay out of the garden even on that rainy day. There are new flowers popping up every day.

At this time of year in USDA Hardiness zone 5 b, there are many garden tasks to tackle:

2. Clean out composters and add to flower beds and fruit trees. Leave a good bucket of finished compost as starter for the next compost batch and start adding leaves, grass clippings if you have them, kitchen scraps and water. Don’t forget to mix.

3. Put up your birdhouses if you haven’t already. Songbirds are natural pest control and add so much interest to our gardens. 60% of all bird species depend on insects for their food so if you have a lot of birds, you should naturally have less pests. Include at least one hummingbird feeder.

4. Lilacs should be blooming this month. Prune lilacs immediately after they bloom. If you wait until later in the season, you will be cutting off next year’s blooms.

5. Continue to sow lettuce, spinach and radish seeds every 10 days or so for fresh spring salads in your pot garden. Call it your garden in pots, if you prefer.

6. If you like to grow peas, this is the last month to plant sugar snap peas and snow peas, they prefer cooler weather conditions. To keep their roots happy, mulch with cardboard to keep them cool, then add a layer of wood chips.

7. Mark off areas behind other plants for fall bulb planting. (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins photo)

8. As daffodils and tulips continue to grow and bloom, sprinkle compost around them to keep the bulbs well fed. When the flowers fade, remove them by snipping off the flower heads. Leave the greenery until it turns yellow; the green leaves help the bulbs store energy for next season’s blooms. Don’t mow the leaves down with the lawn mower until they turn yellow or the bulbs will gradually become smaller and you will not have any more blooms next spring.

9. If you have a vegetable garden area, this is a good time to add cardboard to kill off any growth prior to summer planting. Don't till. The prevailing thought now is that tilling damages the soil ecosystem. Kill the plants you don’t want, make holes to plant the ones you do, or make trenches to plant seeds, and cover.

10. Start your summer plants inside in containers you can transplant outside later; tomatoes, peppers, watermelons, squash, pumpkins, cucumbers, zucchini.

11. Don’t forget companion plants to reduce crop damage; basil is a good bug deterrent for a lot of plants and grows easily from seed.

12. Plant for pollinators as well. I love zinnias and so do butterflies and bees. Native plants such as New England Asters, yarrow and purple coneflowers are good choices for pollinators because they have long blooming seasons. For another good annual, try sunflower seeds. Birds will love the seeds in the fall.

13. Plant more native trees along with compact dwarf fruit trees. Although planting native flowers is still good for pollinators, trees provide better, and more reliable, pollen sources for bees. The smaller fruit trees are good pollen sources as well and, when pollinated by bees, will also give you easily accessible fruit to pick.

Charlotte

Cocktail Tomatoes

Self-pollinating cocktail tomatoes deliver fruit all year. (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins photo)

Cocktail Tomatoes

Sounds like something one eats at a party, doesn’t it - cocktail tomatoes.

“Cocktail tomatoes” where the darlings of the COVID 2020 year. I saw them featured on blogs and home and garden centers, the perfect tomato for that apartment or small space. I picked one up at the end of the season and not for the original $18.95 retail price. I was curious to see how they would weather inside through a Missouri winter.

Cocktail Tomatoes grow 1 foot by 1 foot. They are small, semi-determinate tomatoes that provide fruit through most of the growing season without overwhelming the supply. If they like it inside, they are supposed to be constantly growing self-pollinated fruit.

Not a hybrid, they do grow true from their seeds. I used the last tomato to start some new plants I shared with friends earlier this spring.

In terms of taste, they are nicely flavored for salads and just plain straight munching.

I now have some growing in pots on my deck to see how well they make it through our Missouri summers. I planted them with compost at the bottom of the pot including crushed egg shells, and monitor for even watering.

They were back this year at a lower price point $14.95. The plant tag also had more information, confirming that this is an heirloom, not a hybrid variety.

This year’s cocktail tomatoes are less expensive. (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins Photo)

Although my fruit are still green, you can see how once they ripen Cocktail Tomatoes have a nice small size.

Ripening Cocktail tomatoes at one of our local hardware stores. (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins photo)

I have grown a number of tomatoes over the years. This one has a lot of advantages starting with its size. It’s handy for small spaces while still providing fruit for salads and other uses. Besides cooking, these plants make for nice growing gifts that will keep on giving.

For more gardening, beekeeping, cooking and easy home decor tips, subscribe to Garden Notes.

Charlotte

Keep Mums Trimmed

This mum plant is on its way to falling over once it blooms so time to trim it. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Keep Mums Trimmed

You would think I would be following my own advice but I have a good reason, I don’t always remember where I’ve planted chrysanthemums. These hardy plants are excellent bug repellants as well as pretty fall color. I tend to sneak them into corners and other areas where I have a little room.

So if you’re like one of my gardening friends who doesn’t trim chrysanthemums, you can expect your mums to grow a good 3 feet tall That is, if they don’t first fall over. Those cute round, low growing plants you see sold in the fall have been trimmed through the growing season into that size so we all need to do the same if we want mums to be low and round this fall.

Now I don’t particularly want round mums but I do want low ones that don’t fall over. So when I find one that has escaped my earlier notice, I gently remove the top, leaving about a 4-inch growing plant base. Snipping off the tops will force the plant to branch out and be bushier instead of taller.

I left the bottom about 4 inches high and removed the mum tops. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Don’t toss out those cut off top knots, you can get more mums out of those.

If the ground is soft, I use a nearby stick to make nearby holes and plant the trimmed tops into them past the lowest growing node. That way new mums will grow and make the plant looks wider.

Or I may take those trimmed tops to another part of the garden and plant them there. Once in the ground, remember to water to encourage root growth. You can also place them in a container with water and roots should appear in three weeks or so.

Gently tuck those mum tops back into soft ground, or make a hole, to grow more plants (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Either way, don’t toss out those trimmed tops, you can use them elsewhere in the garden and have more help with natural bug repelling.

I use these stainless steel plant snips to cleanly cut off the plant tops. Mark them so you don’t confuse them with the ones you use for your sewing and quilting. It’s amazing how handy thread snips can be for a variety of uses.

And who doesn’t like long-lasting flowers, mums are some of the longest so the more the better!

Charlotte

"Coral Charm" Peonies

This salmon coral color is eye-catching in all stages of bloom. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

“Coral Charm” Peonies

I finally found the name for these fascinating, color-changing peonies, “Coral Charm.”

The peonies were a gift from another garden, typical of most of the plants i have. i usually know what kind of plant it is but rarely the color.

One morning, as i was making my daily garden walk, the bud color startled me. I’m used to pink, white an burgundy peonies, not a peach-colored one.

“Coral Charm” peonies in bud form before they bloom. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

There was delicious anticipation every morning as I watched this peony open. Once it was fully open, it then made a second change. As the petals faded, so did the color.

Coral Charm peonies as their coral color starts to fade to white. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

My garden is a mix of natives and traditional garden plants. It was fun to have several plants blooming this spring for the first time, then even more fun researching to identify them.

If you’re wanting “Coral Charm” peonies in your garden, now you can shop for them by name.

Charlotte

Clam Shell Guards

My first Bing cherries getting clam shell guards to protect them from birds. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Clam Shell Guards

If you grow fruit, or try to grow fruit, you know it can be challenging to get to the ripe fruit before the birds and squirrels. There are a variety of items on the market to help, from netting to fencing if deer are an issue.

Since I can’t get netting over my trees or get fencing into my limestone hillside, I needed to find another alternative. That’s where clam shells came in.

Small clam shell protecting more growing Bing cherries. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Clam shells are those clear plastic containers that hold grocery store fruit and vegetables. They come in a variety of sizes and can be reused, which i do as guards to my growing fruit.

Reusable clam shells are those with lids that pinch together, right. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Since I buy fruit in small clam shells, I can collect a ready supply to use when fruit is growing on my dwarf fruit trees.

This year, I had my first Bing cherries ripening. One was red and consumed so I gently added clam shells around the rest of the growing cherries. I make sure not to damage leaves when I get the clam shell secured.

Clam shells now protecting some of my growing Bartlett pears. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

For the past few years, I have used clam shell guards to protect my growing Bartlett pears from resident squirrels. The clam shells worked well so now I am expanding their use on other dwarf fruit trees.

The clear clam shells allow sun to continue to ripen the fruit and protect at least a few fruits for your enjoyment.

Charlotte

June Gardening Chores

Two lovely purple clemantis are climbing my arbor, now to identify them. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

June Gardening Chores

If you don’t know what you see blooming, this is a good time to observe new plant growth so you can identify what it is later with the help of its blooms. These two lovely purple clematis came from a neighbor’s home site several years ago but they haven’t bloomed until this year. Lucky me that they are both purple and look good together!

June is also the last month when plants will benefit from spring rains to settle in so take advantage of the above average rain to plant new plants and move ones you want in other garden areas. I live in USDA Hardiness zone 5, which means we should move to hot conditions in just a few weeks. I say should because Memorial Day weekend was rainy with temperatures in the high 40s, a bit cold for this time of year.

Some other gardening chores for this month include:

1.        Keep asparagus beds weeded and let the green top ferns grow until they go brown; do not cut. Add compost.

2.        When mulching, leave 2-4 inches clear from the plant stem and the mulch ring no larger than 5 inches deep. More than that and you are smothering the plant.

3.        Leave spring bulb greenery to die off naturally. I gently remove only the yellow leaves if they bug me and plant summer annuals and perennials to cover them in the meantime. The key here is planting something on top with shallow roots so they don’t compete with the deeper-planted bulbs.

4.         Japanese beetles show up this month so hand pick and drop in a bucket of water with a few drops of dishwashing soap to drown them. Pick early in the morning when they are sluggish. Also treat your lawn with nematodes and milky spores, both will gradually help eliminate grubs. Add geraniums and tansies to your flower beds, they are natural Japanese beetle repellants.

5.         Trim lilacs immediately after they end flowering so growth the rest of this year will provide blooms next year. Same thing for iris and peonies.

6        Plant a new supply of vegetables every 2 weeks to give yourself a new crop through the season. Early spring crops are done but there is still time for tomatoes, green peppers, green beans, cucumbers, zucchini, squash, pumpkins and annual herbs.

7.  Get flower pots planted. Water the soil first, let drain, then add your flowers for better adjustment.

8.         Plant annual flower seeds such as zinnias, sunflowers, forget-me-nots, cosmos, marigolds and herbs. Some herbs can be moved inside later for winter use.

9.       When planting wildflowers, mark the beds where seeds have been added. Some wildflowers may take 2 years to germinate.

10.       For those of you with grass, don’t cut more than 1/3 of the grass down at one time.  For spots where grass doesn’t grow, plant flowers.

11.       When adding perennials, focus on native plants. Once established, they will require less water and care than non-natives and they will be food for native pollinators.

12.        Pinch mums once a week to encourage them to grow bushy for fall flowering. I take the pinched off pieces, gently push them into the ground and encourage more plants to grow.

13.        Feed roses and other plants compost to give them a good source of energy. Roses should be fed once a month. A quick pick me up is to dig your banana peels, egg shells and coffee grounds in around roses.

14.        Make sure to have a nice seating area in your garden so you can stop and smell the flowers.

15.    Take photos of your garden. Use the same photo spots you used in spring so you can see the changes from one season to the next.

Charlotte

Mark Surprise Lily Spots

This patch of surprise lily tops are starting to die off. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Mark Surprise Lily Spots

If you like surprise lilies, also called Resurrection lilies, as much as I do, you will have them planted all over your garden. The challenge is that come mid-spring, the easy to spot green leaf tops start to die back, storing energy for mid-July when the surprise lilies will bloom, pink flowers on top of naked stalks.

In Missouri, these lovely hardy Amaryllis cousins are also called “naked ladies.”

To make sure you don’t dig into the spot full of surprise lily bulbs, this is a good time to mark those spots.

You can do it with sticks at corners with twine.

You can also do what I do and wait for all of the greenery to die off, then plant annuals with shallow roots such as zinnias and cosmos. By late summer, when the surprise lilies bloom, they will pop up in the middle of the blooming annuals making for a lovely floral combination.

These are surprise lilies in bloom mid-July where I live. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

What you don’t want to do is to put a shovel, or pick ax, into that pile of resting bulbs so whatever works to remind you to leave the bulbs undisturbed, this is a good time to do it.

Charlotte

Spring Pot Gardening

Lettuce and mixed greens are an excellent spring crop to grow in pots. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Spring Pot Gardening

Besides the sheer fun of saying you have a “pot garden,” growing food in pots is an easy and practical way to get yourself fresh produce.

Growing in pots allows each plant to have its own space, allows for easy pest control and helps you provide the right soil and other unique growing conditions. In addition, you can bring some pots such as herbs inside and extend the growing season over winter. I garden in USDA Hardiness zone 5 so for about 5 months some plants need to be protected inside.

To decide what to grow, here is a list of the basic five for spring pot gardening:

1. Lettuce and mixed greens

2. Radishes

3. Peas

4. Spinach

5. Onions

All of these crops like cool spring weather.

Radishes, from the red bulbous root tot he greens, are excellent in salads. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

A note about radishes. Add the top green to a salad, they are delicious.

If you have a crop you can’t get to, don’t toss it just yet, let it “bolt” or go to seed. If it’s not a hybrid you can save the seeds for next year and local pollinators will appreciate the flowers.

This spinach is going to seed and will become bee and butterfly flood. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

If you can’t use what you grow, compost. You can start by putting the unused greens in the bottom of the next pot you are making.

Once you pot herbs, you can have them year around. I’ve had this pot of parsley for a couple of years now, wintering it over inside.

Herbs are excellent plants to grow in pots; here I have parsley that wintered over inside. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

One other crop you can grow in pots gets your ready for summer. I grow tomato starts in a pot, then move them to their individual pots to grow more before locating them in their final growing location. Because I have to start them in February, using a pot for their nursery works well.

Start new plants in pots; here cocktail tomatoes are getting an early start. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Once starting to crowd in the pot, I carefully move them to either toilet paper pots or their own pots. I give them a few hours a day outside so they get used to the change in conditions before planting them permanently in my garden or leaving them in pots outside on my deck.

There’s a strategy to this. I have squirrels and chipmunks who have developed a taste for tomatoes. If they decide to eat those in the garden I can then bring in the pots to have tomatoes growing inside.

Cats may enjoy an empty pot for naps and dust baths. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

If you have inside cats, you may find they enjoy having an empty pot of soil to curl up in and take a dust bath.

A few last tips about gardening in pots:

Include a handful of compost at the bottom to keep your soil healthy.

Don’t dig up soil from your garden; start with new potting soil.

Wet soil down before adding seeds or plants.

You may also need small gardening tools to make the process easier.

Pot gardening allows you to grow your own in small spaces and have a healthy source of fresh produce all year. What are you going to grow in pots?

Charlotte

Shop Local Plant Sales

This year’s stash from the Phelps County Master Gardener annual sale. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Shop Local Plant Sales

If you’re looking for a reliable source of local plants, try your local plant sales. Master gardeners, 4H clubs and other local groups hold them in the spring usually as fundraisers.

The advantages of buying local include that you are getting plants that will do well in your hardiness zone and you know how they were grown. Chances are the plants have not been exposed to chemicals or overuse of fertilizers to force their growth.

If you are just starting a garden, you will also get a good idea of what garden plants to add to your garden. Most of the volunteers at those sales are experienced gardeners and will be glad to answer questions.

If you are looking for bargains, circle back towards the end of the sale. Most plant sales will mark down remaining plants so they don’t have to take them home.

Charlotte

May Gardening Tasks

May is when my tropical plants move back outside to my deck. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

May Gardening Tasks

What a lovely spring we’ve had so far. I garden in USDA Hardiness zone 5b although we didn’t have much of a winter. Until mid-April, when a last gasp snow storm blanketed us for several days, a last hurrah off sorts of the cold season.

Where I live in mid-Missouri, the last frost date is usually around Mother’s Day. If your spring crops didn’t make it, try again; there still should be time for at least one sowing of lettuce, spinach and radish seeds.

And onions, it is always a good time to plant onions. I grow several crops throughout the growing season. Onion sets planted around roses make good bug deterrents and are fun to harvest as long as you remember to leave a couple on bug patrol. And can find your roses!

The forecast is that we will have a wet May so take the opportunity to get tree seedlings planted.

This is also a good time to divide and move perennials. Be careful of disturbing newly emerging, self-sowing annuals. Learn to distinguish the sprouts of bachelor buttons and other carefree annuals so they can regrow all on their own.

Mark daffodils you want to dig up and move later this fall.

May is a wonderful time to stop and enjoy lovely sunsets. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

As daffodils and tulips continue to fade, don’t mow the leaves down with the lawn mower until they turn yellow. The bulbs turn sun into sugar stored in their bulbs. If you cut down the greenery too early, they will gradually become smaller and you will not have any more blooms. If you don’t like the fading greenery, plant something to hide it like daylilies.

See ants on your blooming peonies? Gently shake them off if you want to bring cut flowers inside, otherwise leave them alone.

If you don’t compost, this is a good month to start. Place a small grocery bag in your freezer and add kitchen scraps. When full, take outside and bury in a garden corner. As you get into the habit of saving kitchen scraps, it will be easier to then make your own compost area or buy one, then start adding leaves and grass clippings to the kitchen scraps, some water, and mix. After a few weeks, you will have black compost ready to add to your flowerbeds.

Summer plants started inside in containers can start to spend a few hours a day outside on warm, sunny days before you transplant them into your outside garden.

Shop for natives to add for mid to late summer flowers. Good choices include Purple Coneflowers, Black eyed Susan, New England Asters and any plants with low water requirements.

If you don’t have grass planted, plant clover instead. If you do, consider how to minimize the golf course-look greenery and add more varieties of blooming flowers through the growing season. Better yet, start a vegetable plot in your front yard, they can look amazing. Add flowers like zinnias to encourage pollinators.

Charlotte

Coffee Pod Pots

Cocktail tomato starts in coffee pod pots getting ready to move outside. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Coffee Pod Pots

A neighbor last year gave me a little collection of her used coffee pod pots. She said she thought they would make good starter pots for plants, and she was right. To give them a test, I grew one of my favorite vegetables, tomatoes.

And not just any tomatoes, these are the pricey cocktail tomatoes, a semi-determinate variety of cherry-like tomatoes that grows only one foot tall and one foot wide. These are the perfect tomatoes to grow inside. i picked one up last year but it didn’t make it through winter so I planted the last little tomato in the mother pot to get a new start.

Once big enough, I moved the starts into the individual coffee pod pots. To ensure they were settling in, I first poured water into the potting soil, then used stick to make a hole in the center where I could easily add the tiny plants.

Now I don’t drink coffee so coffee pod pots are hard to find in my kitchen. Instead, I make planting pots out of toilet paper rolls, which gives me a similar sized planting pot for new starts. The challenge with the toilet paper ones is that they tend to fall apart before I get them in their permanent spot in the ground.

The coffee pod pots will need to be separated from the outer shell before planting.

Cocktail tomatoes are nicely growing in these repurposed coffee pods. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

You can buy a variety of planting pots but why do so if you can recycle what’s already in your kitchen.

Charlotte

Japanese Rose

Japanese Kerria, also called Japanese rose, has lovely double yellow flowers. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Japanese Rose

Of all of the plants I share online and through my blogs, this is the one I get the most questions about. Kerria japonica, commonly known as Japanese rose or Japanese kerria, is a deciduous shrub in the rose family Rosaceae. It is native to China, Japan and Korea and grows well in my USDA Hardiness zone 5 limestone hillside garden.

Just as bright and cheery as Yellow Standing Cats Quilts, Japanese kerria brighten the spring landscape with their yolk yellow flowers.

The double yellow flower are delicate but last long as a cut flower. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

This lovely, shrub with double flowers that resemble roses, is named after William Kerr, who introduced the cultivar 'Pleniflora'. It is the sole species in the genus Kerria.

Japanese rose can be trained to grow over a lattice. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Now this was given to me a couple of decades ago by a local landscaper as a vine. I do grow it over a couple of arbors and my garbage can surround but it’s a better free-standing shrub. In addition to blooming a couple of times a year, the shrub has branches that maintain their green color through winter.

The other advantage of this lovely shrub is that it’s happy to bloom in shade.

The most challenging part about this shrub is keeping the plant from expanding. Since my garden is informal, the bushiness of the plants fit right in.

Japanese rose is a shrub that can be kept small by removing the outside growth. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Japanese rose bloom about the same time as forsythia, another favorite yellow spring bloomer, and sometimes confused for each other.

Charlotte

Fence Me In

The final “new” fence from repurposed composite decking. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Fence Me In

There are a number of reasons for a fence. Some are for privacy, others are decorative. A good friend said a house is not complete without a fence but a white picket fence didn’t fit my property. My fence is for decoration but it’s more there to give my growing vines a place to grow.

This is my second fence in front of my house. The original fence was built more than a couple of decades ago out of cedar cut down as we cleared my hillside property. At that time I didn’t know cedar does not last in our humid Missouri weather so it soon started to deteriorate. All that was left this spring were the original cedar posts and a few of the fence pieces.

The old cedar fence posts from trees cut off my property a couple decades ago. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Even the cedar posts were not doing well so my handyman convinced me to replace them with treated landscaping timbers. He suggested we reuse composite decking from my old deck, already nicely weathered, and I agreed.

We also thought we could use the original cedar posts holes. It wasn’t easy for the original fence builder to get those holes into a limestone hillside so no one thought it would be any easier now.

Not all plants understand fences and fence lines! (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Now for the design. After looking through a number of fence ideas online, we decided on the basic design: simple slats allowing the plants to grow through them.

The final design concept for this new fence reusing my old deck composite. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Getting a start on the original design with slats. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

My wonderful handyman Robert got the fence started. Then the next day he showed me two options: a fence with the slats or one with a cut, wired cattle panel that opened the fence to the garden below.

I have several cattle panel arbors through my property so the cattle panels tied those into the overall landscape.

Decisions, decisions, do I want the slats or the open cattle panels. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

That was a tough call because I liked them both.

I didn’t want the feeling of being locked in that solid slats gave me from the house side but all arbor seemed to defeat the purpose of even having something to mark the property.

After talking to a friend who said “why not do both,” that’s what we did.

I decided to do both, giving my climbing plants a good place to grow. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

The slats give the fence structure; the wire sections open up the fence and give my climbing flowers good support.

The fence line itself is a little crooked because using dynamite to make the post holes seemed a little excessive but we were, after all, still trying to build a fence on a limestone hillside. Robert tried to straighten it out as much as he could and we called it good.

Didn’t have long to wait, these Japanese roses helped themselves. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

I love this fence design. It gives glimpses of my garden through the open cattle panel sections and structure to my growing vines. It’s also low maintenance using repurposed decking. And as an unexpected extra bonus, the fence top is wide enough to easily lean on for neighborly chats.

I can’t wait to see this new fence through the four seasons, it will have a different look as the various plants come and go.

Charlotte

April Gardening Task

April Gardening Tasks

It’s “daffodil land” days in my Missouri garden, the name one of my former neighbors gave to my limestone hillside garden currently populated by a number of these wonderful spring bulbs. I didn’t buy most of them; they were either rescued, with permission, from old home sites or frequent flyer bulbs, bulbs that came from family gardens in other parts of the country.

We had what-I-hope-was our last cold spell earlier this week. Eastern redbuds and native Missouri flowering dogwoods may be showing their colors once again at the same time this year. I have to confess I have gardening tasks to complete but I tend to dilly-dally and enjoy the spring weather. But when I get focused:

Clean out composters and add to flower beds and fruit trees. Mix with existing soil for now; you will mulch this later. Leave a good bucket of finished compost as starter for the next compost batch and start adding leaves, grass clippings if you have them, kitchen scraps and water. Don’t forget to mix.

Put up your birdhouses if you haven’t already. Songbirds are natural pest control and add so much interest to our gardens. 60% of all bird species depend on insects for their food so if you have a lot of birds, you should naturally have less pests.

Prune lilacs immediately after they bloom. If you wait until later in the season, you will be cutting off next year’s blooms.

Continue to sow lettuce, spinach and radish seeds every 10 days or so for fresh spring salads in your pot garden. Call it your garden in pots, if you prefer.

If you like to grow peas, this is the last month to plant sugar snap peas and snow peas, they prefer cooler weather conditions. To keep their roots happy, mulch with cardboard to keep them cool, then add a layer of wood chips.

As daffodils and tulips continue to grow and bloom, sprinkle compost around them to keep the bulbs well fed. When the flowers fade, remove them by snipping off the flower heads. Leave the greenery until it turns yellow; the green leaves help the bulbs store energy for next season’s blooms. Don’t mow the leaves down with the lawn mower until they turn yellow or the bulbs will gradually become smaller and you will not have any more blooms next spring.

If you have a vegetable garden area, this is a good time to add cardboard to kill off any growth prior to summer planting. Don't till, the prevailing thought now is that tilling damages the soil ecosystem. Kill the plants you don’t want, make holes to plant the ones you do, or make trenches to plant seeds, and cover. Easy peasy. Who doesn’t like easy gardening??

Start your summer plants inside in containers you can transplant outside later; tomatoes, peppers, watermelons, squash, pumpkins, cucumbers, zucchini.

Don’t forget companion plants to reduce crop damage; basil is a good bug deterrent for a lot of plants and grows easily from seed.

Plant for pollinators as well. I love zinnias and so do butterflies and bees. Native plants such as New England Asters, yarrow and purple coneflowers are good choices for pollinators because they have long blooming seasons. For another good annual, try sunflower seeds. Birds will love the seeds in the fall.

Plant more native trees along with compact dwarf fruit trees. Although planting native flowers is still good for pollinators, trees provide better, and more reliable, pollen sources for bees. The smaller fruit trees are good pollen sources as well and, when pollinated by bees, will also give you easily accessible fruit to pick.

Charlotte

My Latest Favorite Catalog

Baker Creek claims to be the world’s largest seed catalog: 500 pages. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

My Latest Favorite Catalog

I can’t believe this sat in my magazine basket for so long without my spending time wandering through the lovely pages. I remember when it came in, I quickly leafed through it and said to myself, well the pictures are larger than I remember.

Actually this Whole Seed Catalog 2021 from Baker Seed out of Mansfield, Missouri has added more interesting information and tidbits about their seeds including some history, a few recipes and these truly delicious photos.

I started perusing the catalog looking for a picture of Trifolium incarnatum, which is crimson clover, to show previous beekeeping students who were given seeds at earlier beginning beekeeping classes.

Red crimson clover is an excellent soil conditioner and bee food source. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

After finding what I needed, I got side tracked by the other lovely photos. From beautiful staple vegetables to unusual varieties, I got caught up in the page descriptions.

Cucumbers and pickles, who isn’t ready for a taste of summer? (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Half way through this page that included several hyssop varieties, a bee favorite, I decided it was perhaps best for my pocketbook that I had not discovered this catalog in the middle of winter.

As it is, I have a rule that I can only bring one pack of seeds home per home and garden center visit. It’s amazing now how many things need fixing around the house.

Hyssop is an excellent source of bee food. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

I may need to try one of those this year.

Not only did Baker Creek have unusual varieties but some even included interesting essays. I mean who doesn’t want to know what kind of pumpkin Cinderella ended up with for her coach?

This is the background to Cinderella’s pumpkin. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

In addition to the marvelous photos, there are recipes sprinkled throughout so if you want to try an unusual variety you have something you can do with it once you grow it.

Gardening catalogs fall in the same category as recipe books for me. I may not grow, or make, some but I sure do enjoy reading about them!

One other reason to order this catalog; it’s an excellent free reference source. Now excuse me, I need to finish the article on Cinderella’s pumpkins.

Charlotte

Grow Strawberries

My home grown everbearing strawberries almost ready to pick. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Grow Strawberries

Summer is officially here when I start seeing locally-grown strawberries, usually several weeks before the official start of summer. In USDA Hardiness zone 5B, where I live, strawberry season begins in June. Or maybe I should say strawberry shortcake season. It continues for several weeks, or months, depending on the strawberry variety.

My family goes back several generations as Hungarian strawberry farmers. That may explain why most of us siblings love strawberries just as they are. Commercially-grown, strawberries usually end up on the top 10 list of plants raised with harmful chemicals so growing them at home is an excellent option.

Types of Strawberries

There are a number of strawberry varieties. Here are the two most popular types of strawberries:

• June-bearing strawberries provide strawberries for 5-6 weeks starting in June.

• Ever-bearing strawberries bloom 3-6 months starting in June.

For example, the ever popular Quinault and Ozark strawberries are ever-bearing strawberries.

How to Plant Strawberries

Strawberries are heavy feeders, which means they take a lot of resources out of the soil. To get ready for my first strawberry plantings, I added both compost and manure to ensure the soil microbes were reinforced.

For those flower beds where I used strawberries as border plants, they also were given extra mulch and compost.

Strawberry plants can easily be used on flower borders. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Last year, I planted a good 60 or so new ever-bearing strawberry plants as flower bed borders. This way I can easily pick strawberries as I walk by.

Strawberry plants in their first year can appear small. It normally takes a year for plant roots to get established.

You should also remove the flowers in the first year. You want to concentrate the plant’s energy in getting roots established.

Here’s another border where I included strawberries. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

I also added June-bearing plants in a couple of flower beds. Those are honestly for the visiting turtles that somehow know when the berries are ripe.

Now the more traditional way to grow strawberries is to have separate planting beds. To grow strawberries in beds, they need to be rotated 3-4 years to give soil time to recover.

Separate strawberry beds are the traditional way to raise berries. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

After planting, add straw under the leaves. You don’t want the berries touching soil or they will rot.

Charlotte

Delicious Nasturtiums

Nasturtiums come in single and double varieties. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Delicious Nasturtiums

I can’t remember the first time I planted nasturtiums, they have been on my “must do” list for decades. Like zinnias, nasturtiums are easy seeds to grow and give so much back.

First, narturtiums are pretty. Their colors range from beige to a deep burgundy in both single and double varieties with several shades of yellow and gold.

They are also entirely edible, making for pretty additions to salads and to embellish dishes.

These charming flowers are also easy to grow.

• You can start the seeds indoors 4 to 6 weeks before the last spring frost. 

• Plant nasturtium seeds in moist, well-drained soil in full sun. They can grow in partial shade, but they will not bloom as well.

• Nasturtiums prefer poorer soils and they do not need fertilizers.

Soaking the seeds a good day before planting helps them to sprout. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

To get them off to a good start, soak the seeds for a good 12 hours prior to planting.

Plant the seeds about half an inch deep and 10 to 12 inches apart. Water. Plants should appear in 7 to 10 days.

I like to plant them in hanging baskets so I can move them around and enjoy the flowers before i add them to my dishes.

Nasturtiums have a fresh, nutty flavor and add a nice touch to any dish.

Charlotte

Homemade Potting Bench

Potting benches can be something simple to save your back. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Homemade Potting Bench

Several years ago, I decided I wanted a potting bench on my deck. Something simple, where I could pot plants without hurting my back. A place where I could haul my cut flowers and still enjoy the outdoors while I was getting them arranged in a flower vase. Or two.

Dozens of websites later, I saw a wide range of potting benches from cute cottage style to elaborate, professional-grade florist potting tables. They were lovely. Some were very expensive. And none of them would fit on either my small deck or in my garage, where I wanted to store it for easy access.

Enter my handyman who saw me eyeing this lovely old aged wood plank. What are you going to do with that, he asked. I don’t know, I just like it. It’s old and weathered, like me. I wonder what stories it could tell.

A few days later, I found this very simple potting table waiting for me in my garage. It’s the perfect height to pot plants without bending over. It’s also narrow enough to easily get stored in front of my garage open shelving.

The legs were made out of remnant wood. The only thing we had to buy where the metal brackets that fit underneath to hold the table legs to the top.

If I don’t want to stand, I can now use a stool when I’m working on the bench. And I doubt there is any damage I can cause to the top.

Sometimes simple is better.

Charlotte