Changing in a changing climate with Charlotte at Bluebird Gardens
Guess Who’s Tips for Winter Gardening
We can all help backyard birds by participating in the Great Backyard Bird count. Coordinated by Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Audubon, and Bird Studies Canada, the four-day count typically records more than 10 million observations, including mine. "When thousands of people all tell us what they're seeing, we can detect
Have leftover green tomatoes from your summer garden?
Don't worry, they won't go to waste. Remove leaves and stems. Wash and pat dry. Store loosely in a brown bag or flat basket covered in a plastic bag. Add a banana or apple. The ethylene gas from the fruit will speed up ripening. Check daily.
Use tomatoes as they ripen. They'll be a little softer than vine ripening but still more delicious than tomatoes found in grocery stores. And there's nothing quite like getting a little bag of fresh, ripe tomatos when it starts to get cold outside. These make great garden and house-warming gifts!
Charlotte
Don't toss out all of those plant markers.
If you don't need them as place holders in the garden, wash off the soil and use them as bookmarks and recipe book markers.
They're also great additions to gift gardening books.
I like to save the ones from my newest plants for at least one season; then they get a new home in a favorite book.
Charlotte
It's become a tradition to put it off until the last minute. Then hours before the gala dinner the phone rings and my best friend wants to know what I'm going to wear. There's something odd about spending a lot of money on a new dress for a charity event so I update an old favorite with a fresh flower.
Sometimes it's a tiny corsage pinned on a collar, jacket lapel or silk waist bow. Last year, it was long-lasting Peruvian red lilies with tiny roses and little cork screws woven into a loose chignon. This year I will add a lovely scented gardenia to a jacket lapel.
So many compliments; so many good memories!
Charlotte
t's rained all day; now they're calling for snow - again. At least I spent part of yesterday in the garden getting ready for spring. I plan for these days mid-summer, hunting yard sales and prowling used book stores picking up interesting vintage gardening books I challenge myself not to read until I'm snowbound and ready to go somewhere new.
That's one of the beauty of books; I can read a passage and see the scene in my mind's eye, relishing lush dialogue and paint strokes words leave in a paragraph. It's as easy to travel to 18th Century Paris in an art book or learn about 20th Century British gardening tips in color illustrations, all at my own pace. And I can easily turn a page and go back to see what I've missed instead of regretting not making that mental trip before I left.
So today was the day to take out my stash for this winter: a couple of gardening books; the story of "Rhubarb" by H.Allen Smith, a loan from a neighbor, and a charming dark brown leather-bound book I quickly tucked away in the drawer after I found it for fear I would break my promise and peek. Settled into the sofa with a cup of tea, a blanket and a couple of cats, I opened the pages of "The Friendship of Books," dated 1911. Tears came to my eyes as I thought about all the people who almost a century ago must have prized this little publication of poems and essays about books, the chapters echoing books being "friends at home, inspirers of heart, educators of the mind, teachers in life, companions in pleasure" and "silent friendly spirits." They don't have to be many; I remember my mother telling me about my grandmother'sthree prized books she had growing up, reading them so often some of the page edges were worn thin and crumbled.
Today when we're all twittering and so "connected," it's refreshing to sit back, set all troubles aside and be reminded of the wonderful, quiet friends waiting on shelves to keep us company.
Charlotte
Winter is a great time to get to know plant bugs.
Regardless of how careful I am, something inevitably hitchhikes on my deck plants wintering over inside my house. Of all bugs, scale is the most fascinating. They start out as soft, almost white flat oval spots, then turn into a brown shell. You'll find scale under leaves and at leaf joints. You can also tell if you have scale if you find honeydew, or a sticky coating, on the floor around your plant. Scale thrives in warm, dry environments, which means winter inside is perfect for them. I regularly check plants and, at the first sign of scale, I remove them with Q-tips dipped in alcohol. It's also a good idea to separate plants with scale from the rest to make sure they don't spread. I can imagine these bugs being huge in dinosaur days, can't you?
Gardening catalogs are starting to show up in my mailbox. They're a good reminder that one of the advantages of being a gardener is that you don't really have to grow up.By that I mean you're encouraged to try new seeds and plants, and to test new techniques and toys - oops tools, I meant tools. Unfortunately for gadget manufacturers, I'm not too drawn to newfangled gardening accessories, probably because gardening on a Missouri limestone hill means a pick ax is the main, and sometimes only, gardening tool that will work.
There are other things to try this year:
1. Composting. I like the tumbler-type plastic composters with a side handle for easy turning. I also have a table top Nature Mill composter in my garage. I collect compost material in a bag in my freezer, then move it outside when the bag is full. It's amazing to me how composting reduces the amount of garbage. Colleagues in my business office also have been kind enough to help save coffee grounds and fruit peelings. In return, I bring in fresh flowers for our coffee break room and amend my raised bed kitchen garden.
2. Start vegetable garden seeds a little earlier than end February. I'm still trying to decide how to protect lettuce seedlings in my deck pots, maybe plastic over the top will work.
3. Conserve water. I'm amazed at how much my rain barrels collect during rain storms; and then how happier my plants seem to be when watered with rain water.
4. Use soaker hoses to minimize water runoff; add a timer to your irrigation system so you don't forget to turn it off.
5. Make a concerted effort not to use pesticides. Encourage birds to your garden, they are natural insect predators. Take a little extra time to read labels and learn about non-traditional options like spraying plants
with hot pepper-infused water. Birdhouses and bird baths will be used by more than just birds. Being less critical of a less than perfect flower also helps!
6. Create an inviting habitat for garden visitors by providing food, water and shelter for birds, butterflies and other pollinators like bees.
7. Mow less grass; expand flower beds.
8. Add fruit-bearing shrubs and compact fruit trees. They're not only pretty when in bloom but can provide you with fresh fruit.
9. Plant more low maintenance native wildflowers. Rolla, Missouri is in USDA zone 5B. Natives require less water and will adapt faster; some have long blooming seasons like Black-Eyed Susans.
10. Don't toss out those green tomatoes you finally grew. Try ripening them by storing in a cool, dark place in a brown bag with an apple. They don't have as much flavor as vine-ripened tomatoes but they are still better than winter, store bought ones!
Which one of these have you tried already?
Charlotte
Wish you could have seen my friend Millie's collection of poinsettias. She had at least 14, all rescued from neglected corners after the holidays.
They're really easy to encourage to bloom again. Place in a sunny, warm spot with temperatures between 65 F at night to no more than 80 F during the day. Keep watering when soil feels dry and give it a good fertilizer at half the strength of the recommended dose. Around Labor Day, tuck the plant in a dark closetor cover with a empty box covered in black plastic. After about 8 weeks, the leaves would start to turn red again. It takes 2-4 months for full color.
Enjoy!
Charlotte
USDA Zone 6b
Limestone Hillside
