Tag Archives: midwest gardening

Up in Smoke

The native plants have been exploding with color and life this month. These swamp milkweed, coreopsis, oakleaf hydrangea, speedwell, blanketflowers, and penstemon have been a favorite of the bees.

It’s been a minute since I checked in, and what an auspicious time we’ve had in the garden this year. May was filled with some of the worst drought conditions we’ve ever seen in Central Ohio, followed by such toxic air pollution from wildfires this month, that everyone is being advised to stay indoors. Hoping the areas in desperate need of rain see some soon. We’re expecting storms over the next few days, and then, hopefully, I can get outside to play in the garden some more.

The late spring is usually filled with a flurry of activity in the garden, but I’ve been spending most of my time indoors. The cottonwood trees spent, what felt like an eternity enacting warfare against everyone’s allergies. Then, we had a pretty big heat wave, with the aforementioned drought. We installed a rain barrel this year, right before the skies dried up. Then, rain did hit, and we had a few days with 2+ inches of rain. The weather can’t decide what extreme feat it’s going to dish out, it seems.

I think we’ve all become armchair climate scientists lately. I know I’ve learned more about air quality than I ever expected to. The skies have smelled like burning plastic, and it’s been very hazy. Can’t wait to get out in the garden again when it’s safe!

Despite this, I did manage to get everything I wanted in the ground this spring. The raised beds are full of crops again this year. I harvested a bumper crop of garlic scapes, and then bulbs. The lettuce, spinach, asparagus, and strawberries also did well, before the heat really set in. Right now, there’s: potatoes, peas, loofahs, watermelon, cantaloupe, pumpkins, squash, tomatillos, leeks, two types of tomatoes, three types of peppers, onions, two types of beans, dill, two varieties of basil, parsley, oregano, fennel, three kinds of mint, nasturtiums, pineapples, lemon, bay laurel, rosemary, five kinds of thyme, chamomile, and beets growing (and a partridge in a pear tree). The beets bolted in the heat, but everything else is looking well. I should be harvesting the onions quite soon, and all the herbs have been enjoyable in various dinners.

I tried to focus on expanding the native plantings this year, and so far, all of those plants are looking quite happy as well. They truly are built to withstand everything we experience here, from our clay soil, to our scorching summers, and freezing winters. A few of the plants I put in several seasons ago have bloomed for the first time, and watching the pollinators out enjoying it all feels like a true accomplishment.

The strawberries were quite tasty this year, and we’ve enjoyed lots of daisies, elderberry flowers, coreopsis, and fresh basil.

Aside from all the moths, bees, and other pollen-lovers, it’s been very interesting watching the ecosystems in the garden at work. Our weather recently has been pretty wet and hot, and most gardeners I talk to have been spotting huge groups of aphids. But, with the aphids, come insects higher up the food chain who like to dine on them. In the morning, I’d walk around, and see tiny red aphids covering the fennel and goldenrod plants. But, by the afternoon, they would all be hoovered up from the resident ladybug and firefly populations. We don’t use any pesticides in our yard, and just don’t see many problems from unwanted insects. It’s hard to believe the answer is really so simple, but letting nature do its thing truly works.

A majority of the plants in the garden are native, and this is absolutely the bedrock of a healthy yard. I don’t mean to sound preachy, but I can’t say enough about the importance of planting things that are meant to live in your yard. That’s not saying there isn’t room room some of our beloved plants from other areas around the globe (so long as they aren’t invasive), but making space for plants that are designed to thrive and support local food webs keeps things much healthier. It’s exhausting and expensive trying to maintain plants that aren’t meant for your soil conditions, weather, precipitation levels, or geographic location. I’ll always have crops, and a handful of other non-native plants on hand. However, I’ve seen, first hand, the benefits of natives. I’ve fallen in love with their beauty, and have experienced so many amazing wildlife encounters because they are in our yard.

So, that’s what’s been going on around these parts so far this gardening season. Who knows what’s on the horizon for these next few summer months. Hope you are all staying safe and that your gardens are also bringing some needed joy this season. Happy gardening!

The Aphid Patrol are back on the job! There’s been quite of few aphids out and about in the garden, much to the delight of the resident lady bug population. Lady bugs are able to eat between 50 and 60 aphids per day. I’ll check plants in the morning, and by the evening, all the aphids are completely gone. Just another great reminder to let nature do it’s thing. If I sprayed pesticides, all the ladybugs would be wiped out. And the birds, insects, and frogs that depend on eating ladybugs would be gone, too.

Old Man Winter (ish)

Large, cream-colored flowers with five petals and deep-green spiky leaves
The hellebores started blooming last month, and are really in their prime now.

After a January that felt about seven years long, somehow, it’s already almost the end of February. The sun stays out just a little later in the evenings, and the garden is waking back up. The hellebores and crocuses have been blooming, and there’s a few other bulbs and perennials springing up out of the ground, like the peonies and tulips. Many of the trees around the house have buds already, and it would not surprise me to see daffodils blooming shortly.

Springtime doesn’t officially start for another month, and our last frost likely won’t be until early May, but our weather hasn’t really felt terribly wintery lately. We’ve had a fair amount of rain so far this year, and very little snowfall. The temperatures have been bouncing around a lot, from the 60s and 70s, to the 20s and 30s, and back again. We’ve had a few thunderstorms, and lots of very windy days, with the threat of severe weather looming. For Central Ohio, where my garden grows, these changing weather patterns are a little alarming.

A few weeks ago, I attended a conference, which included a presentation by Dr. Aaron Wilson, an atmospheric scientist and the Principal Investigator at the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center. Dr. Wilson spoke to our group of Master Gardeners about the weather, and the shifts we’re experiencing in our climate. Did you know that, if you were born after February of 1985, you have never experienced a cooler than average month on our planet? The climate is heating up, and it’s having a huge impact on our weather.

A woman hugging a large sycamore tree in the winter
Making new sycamore friends at a local park.

While these changes are different depending on ones location, in my area, our changing climate mean more extremes. Our temperatures in the winter and spring will continue to bounce around a lot. Just this week, we went from 73 degrees to a high of 32 the next day. (The average high temperature is 41 at this time of year). This January was the third warmest in Ohio since 1880, when such records began being kept in a standardized fashion.

Another way to look at things is our number of growing degree days. GDD are a way to measure the development of plants and insects during the growing season. Basically, plants and insects won’t grow unless it’s a certain temperature outside. Plenty of different conditions factor in, but until it’s 50 degrees out, for the most part, things aren’t growing. Scientists know how many GDD it takes for different plants and trees to start blooming, and for insects to appear. This info is available in what’s called a phenology calendar. Anyway, at this point last year, we’d had 17 GDD. The year before, we’d had 2. Makes sense. Winter is typically cold, and there’s not too many signs of life outdoors in February. However, this year, we’re up to 64 GDD. Forsythia, maples, and dogwoods are all starting to bloom, which usually doesn’t happen for another month.

Just a few last note: this February will be the first on record for my area without measurable snowfall. The ground has not frozen yet this year, and we’re having higher than average rainfall totals.

So, a lot is changing, and we know things are only going to continue to warm up. Summers in Central Ohio will soon feel like they do now in Arkansas, and winter will be more like it is now in North Carolina. It’s overwhelming to think about- after all, the climate impacts everything we do, and in the garden, everything we are able to grow. It impacts which insects and animals reside here, the success of our farmers, our health and safety… it’s a lot to reckon with.

I’m trying to focus on what I can actually impact, and in my garden, that’s my allocation of resources and focus on native planting. Native plants require a lot less resources, and help out the food web. They often have deeper roots than their non-native counterparts, which helps with soil conditions and water runoff. By not using any pesticides in my garden, I’m not harming any of the pollinators or birds. And, just by growing plants, I’m helping to sequester carbon (really, I have little to do with that process- the plants do all of the work there). But, once again, native plants outshine their non-native counterparts, capturing more carbon since they have a better chance at thriving in the conditions.

This year, I plant to add a rain barrel, so the majority of my watering will utilize the rainfall. And I hope to add some drip irrigation in the raised beds. This will have a huge impact on how much watering I typically do during the summertime. I want to use the resources I do have in smarter and more sustainable ways. I know not everyone has access to these options, but since I do, I had better consider them.

So, that’s what’s been on my brain lately. I’ve started growing a few seeds indoors, and will likely be setting up the cold frame again soon to start the next batch of salad fixings. Hopefully, the sun is out where you are, and you’ve been able to start planning for the growing season ahead. Happy gardening!

Recycled milk jugs lined up outside on a deck
Once again this year, I did some winter sowing. Many native plants require at least 30 days of freezing temps to grow, and these recycled bottles house seeds and soil quite well out on our deck. The bottles help keep the seeds moist and allow in needed sunlight.

Waning Moon, Waxing Autumn Love

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“Life starts over again when it gets crisp in the fall.” -F. Scott Fitzgerald

It’s finally fall! We’ve had a deliciously cool start to the season, and I’ve been spending much more time outdoors to enjoy all the colors, sounds, and scents of fall. It’s been nice to just sit on the deck and watch the golden cottonwood leaves glitter and dance in the wind.

There’s still a lot going on in the garden, and I’ve seen more birds around this week. A group of blue jays have been playing in the back yard each morning. I watched them bury peanuts from the neighbors feeders in our raised beds, and they’ve been chasing each other around the fenceposts. The warblers have returned to the yard as well, driving the cats wild as they set up camp on the deck furniture, yelling and digging through the remaining potted plants for treats.

In the fall, our bay window becomes a little jungle, with space for the cats to nap under the tropical leaves.

Out in the yard, I cleaned out most of the raised beds. The druzba tomatoes had caught blight, a fungus that attacks during very damp conditions and causes leaves to brown and then rot. We had a summer full of pouring rains and humidity, and the tomatoes just couldn’t cope with it. I know that next year, I’ll be excited to grow them again, but I am feeling a little salty about the tomatoes at the moment. Not that it’s their fault, but they are just so particular about their growing conditions… it’s hard to get the formula right with climate change making our weather more extreme every year. Too little, or uneven watering? They catch blossom end rot (which I dealt with last year). Too much water (which is so often out of our control), they catch blight. Ugh.

Blight is pretty easy to spot on tomato leaves, starting with dark brown spots that eventually take over the entire leaf, killing the plant.

So, the blighted plants have been removed, and I made sure not to add them to the compost pile with everything else, as blight can overwinter in the soil and attack again. For the bed that was hit this year, I’ve made a note in my planner to plant something else there next year (not tomatoes), which should help the problem to disappear. We’ll see. I planted out some hairy vetch seeds in the beds. I have no expectations for them what-so-ever, but hopefully, the vetch will grow because it helps replace nutrients like nitrogen back into the soil.

I have marigolds growing next to where the tomatoes lived, and I’m letting them stay put over winter to give the birds and insects some food and housing material. I may harvest some of their seeds to grow again next year. In the final raised beds, the asparagus stays put, but I removed the bush beans. The last bed still has pole beans in it, that I’m letting dry so I can harvest the seeds to use next year. There’s still parsley growing in that bed, which is pretty tolerant of cold weather. I plan to let it stay there until next season.

I brought in our loofah vine to overwinter and found a cute little loofah, starting to grow!

Out in the rest of the beds, I’m letting things stay as is for now. The only clean up I’ll do will be to remove the slimy hosta leaves after we get a few hard frosts. All the rest of the perennials I’ll let be until the spring, when they will be cut back to the ground to regrow. And, on the deck, I’ve brought in all the tender plants, like my pineapples. A few plants, like the dahlias and cannas, I cut back to the soil level, and brought the entire pot inside to live in the garage this winter. Plants like this will die off in the cold, but they will be protected in the garage, where it stays a bit warmer and dark. Why plants like this are fine with these conditions is something I don’t understand yet, but next spring, I’ll haul the pots back outside and watch them start growing like nothing happened.

After removing the flowers, gently dig up the geraniums, shake out the dirt from the roots, and store them in a cool, dark spot where they will have a bit of air to keep from rotting, like in an open box.

Another plant that I’m over-wintering are my geraniums. I used to bring the entire pot in each fall, but they take up a lot of room. The other night, I saw a video from gardening guru, Susan Mulvihill, of Susan’s in the Garden on a different way to overwinter the plants. She is a master gardener out in Washington, and one of my go to resources for gardening advice. Anyway, Susan explained that to save your geraniums, you can cut off all the flowers, gently remove the plants from the dirt (with leaves still on), shake as much dirt off the roots as possible, and then store them in a box with some airflow in a garage or basement. I’m putting mine in a paper bag in the basement. Check on them about once a month to make sure nothing is rotting. The plants will look like they die off, but in the spring, you’ll see leaves start growing again. Plant magic! I’m hoping this not only saves me some space in the house, but also helps these geraniums to be less leggy-looking when they grow again next spring. I’ve had them for years now and they are getting a wee bit scraggly.

That’s all I have for the week. I may do some clean up in the pond and unplug the fountain this week, but that’s really about the last of the clean up I have to do until the springtime. Now it’s just sitting back, watching the leaves change color and fall, and enjoying these sunny, cool days. Happy gardening!

This mantis was so big, I spotted her from my perch on the couch. She was making her way around the lemon tree, perhaps in search of a snack.