Weekly Gardening Thread --- Happy Mother's Day

Garden Girl's Monthly Gardening Column | May 2007 | Garden Girl

[Gabz]

Wow! What an arctic blast! Can you remember a colder Good Friday and Easter? It wouldn’t be so bad if it had been cold all along, but to be in the high eighties and then wham! Frostbite! And then, to add insult to injury, it stayed miserably cold with repeated heavy frosts until at least the tenth of April! Condolences to all of you who had your warm season gardens planted.

The weather will swing in the opposite direction like a demented weathervane soon enough and we will be miserable with the high temperatures. Sure doesn’t look like we’re going to have much of a spring this year. Looks like it’s setting up to be a dry season, too. On the other hand, the spring flowers and greening up lasted a bit longer than usual this year because of the cool weather. Some years, it seems the azaleas and other pretties are here and gone overnight. This year, with the cool spell, they’re sort of in slow motion—blooming and lasting for a bit. The trees, all russets and golds and bronzes, have kept their early spring raiment on for us to enjoy, instead of turning green right away.

Speaking of remembering—many of you are old enough to remember when summer time meant going barefoot. Except for trips to town or church, shoes were abandoned the day school let out and forgotten until school started back in the fall.

Remember how you had zigzagging paths through the yard so you could avoid the big patches of clover? Remember why you avoided those patches of clover? You went out of your way because the clover was alive and working with honey bees and you didn‘t want to get stung. First, because bee stings hurt, and second, because you knew if a bee stung you it would die. Now, can you remember the last time you saw a honey bee?

Clover is becoming scarce in our over-manicured yards, but honey bees are practically non-existent. Bees are critically important for pollination. There are bumbles, and wood bees, and other lesser bees. They all do a fine job of pollinating—but none of them have the added benefit of giving us honey.

Here’s a scary fact: something approaching 80% of the honey bees in the U. S. have disappeared this winter. Not died outright, because there are no carcasses. Disappeared. The hives are mostly empty, the honey left behind. And not just here—all over the world devastating losses of honey bees are being reported. The correct term for this disappearance of bees is Colony Collapse Disorder—a fancy name for no one knows.

Theories abound. For one, something similar happened in the forties. Some scientists think it has something to do with cyclic sun spots affecting the earth‘s magnetic field—sunspots were worse in the forties, as they are now. Bees use the earth’s magnetic field to guide them as they travel to flowers and then back to the hive. So they all got lost—at once? That’s about as plausible as all of them being abducted by aliens.

Several types of mites and various diseases also plague honey bees—but both mites and diseases leave bodies behind.

Pesticides have also been blamed, but which ones, and why aren’t all hives, especially if they’re in the same place, affected?

So, what happened to the honey bees?

A simple explanation for pollination is this: the bees move from flower to flower, picking up a little pollen here, dropping off a little there, and presto! The plants are happy, the bees are happy, and we’re happy. The plants get pollinated, the bees collect pollen to make honey with, and we get our veggies and stuff. If there aren’t any honey bees to pollinate things, several things happen. We don’t get any honey, and crop yields go down—way down. Some of this can be counter-acted by shaking the blossoms of your crops together, mimicking the action of the bees. This can be done on a small scale, such as in your garden. What happens to thousands of acres of crops?

Of course, with the early warm spell, and then the week long freeze, we may not have to worry over much about not having any bees to pollinate anything this year. The cold weather damaged the fruit crops—grapes, fruit trees, blueberries, and pecans to name a few, and all suffered in varying degrees. The extent of the damage remains to be seen, but it’s a pretty sure bet that fruit prices are going to go out of sight this summer.

Reminders for this month:

May is usually warm enough to plant the things that really crave heat—okra, lima beans, field peas. Sweet potato slips are usually available mid to end of the month.

End of May is time to spray your azaleas to head off lace bugs, and your junipers and arborvitaes and Leland’s to head off spider mites and bagworms. Spider mites are tiny, nearly invisible insects that suck the life out of plants. When they attack junipers and such, usually what you notice first is a branch or one side of your shrub turning brown. Left untreated, spider mites can eventually kill their host.

Bagworms aren’t the ones that build huge webs full of disgusting yellow striped caterpillars, the ones that began in April and are crawling all over everything right now. Technically, those are tent caterpillars, and there seems to be an overabundance of them this year. Yucky they may be, but usually the birds will take care of them. Most of the time, they’re too high for us to reach in order to spray anyway. Bagworms are caterpillars that make a nest of juniper needles and hang from the shrubs and trees like forgotten Christmas ornaments. Of course, with all the chemicals that have been banned, picking the bagworms off may be your only solution.

Big reminder: Don’t forget that Mother’s Day is this month. Flowers are always a great gift!

[Red Badger]

The distilled white vinegar I bought two gallons of at Sam’s Saturday was 5%. Where can you find 10%?..........

[gardengirl]

Sorry about your parsley! :( Rinse it off—it should be ok.

Evidently I thought you couldn’t hear since I replied twice! LOL

The wind is flat honking here. I’m afraid to go check on my garden. Everything here at the garden center is hanging on for dear life!

[Gabz]

My mistake on the white vinegar, you’re right, it is 5%.

Cider and wine vinegars have a higher %

[Gabz]

I’m sure the parsley will be fine, eventually. Maybe if it stops raining sometime overnight like they say it will the marsh that is now around it will dry out enough by Wednesday for me to get to it to cut it back!

The wind seems to have died down, for right now, but we are under high wind warnings and advisories until late tomorrow morning.

[Gabz]

Hubby just informed me that the causeway to Chincoteague Island is currently closed due to flooding, I guess even if they do switch it to indoors tonight’s softball practice will be a no-go for our daughter, because practice on the Island.

[Red Badger]

Cider and wine vinegars have a higher %

My cider and wine doesn't last that long...........

[Gabz]

Wisenheimer!!!!

[gardengirl]

Ykes! The ferries are probably shut down here. Glad we live on the mainland! All the bridges/causeways are raised enough now that they don’t go underwater. Much better than it used to be! Still have low places where you have to beware, but I’ve pretty much got them down pat!

Can’t say I’m sorry about no more softball for us—daughter aged out!

White vinegar is for scrubbing your floor! Bwahaha!

[Gabz]

The bridges are fine, but the causeway itself is practically at the water level.

This is a perfect example of why, when we first started looking to move here I said NO to any thought of living on Chincoteague or Saxis (the town in the picture I posted earlier) low lying causeway which constitute the one way on/in, one way off/out for both locales. I live halfway between both, so I enjoy the benefits of both, without the concerns of both.

[gardengirl]

We have 3—count them, 3—roads coming into our county. A few years ago the state wasted $$$$$ putting up Hurricane Evacuation signs on all the west bound lanes. If you’re too stupid to figure out how to leave, you don’t need to be here! Can you tell I hate tourists?! And wasteful spending?! Their brainstorm for this year is to take all the uturns out of the medians, no more stoplights so the people from Raleigh can get to the beach faster.

[Gabz]

I hear you. We have a similar geographic layout here with only one main road through the county. There are other north/south roads, but they are only 2 lane blacktop.

We’re actually getting 2 more stoplights up at this end of the county. One we have been begging for for years, at the elementary school, which sits right on the highway. It will finally be functional just in time for school to get out for the summer. SIGH

[nw_arizona_granny]

a friend practically begged me last night to plant rice and maybe it would finally stop raining!<<<

My first thought was “do it”, but maybe not, we do need a little rain, to keep things green and growing.

That is an impressive photo, and a lot of water to wade in.

Maybe doing a rain dance in reverse will work?

[Gabz]

Weekly Gardening PING !!!!!!!!

So Sorry that I am reviving last week’s thread, but I’m not at home. I’m using the Moose Lodge computer because there is no electric at my hours and the electric company doesn’t know what the problem is or when it will be fixed.

It is again raining here on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, but the weather is supposed to be real nice over the weekend, but then revert to rain come Monday. Oh joy!!!!!

[Red_Devil 232]

Sorry to here about the electric outage. Was it the storms?

I would like all of you to visit my Freeper Homepage I have posted a bunch of pictures of my small garden. To visit my homepage or anybodys just click on my nick name at the bottom of this post. Warning to those who have slow connections to the internet there are many many pictures.

Gardengirl here is the wonderful fig tree you sent me.

This Is My GardenGirl Fig Tree When I received it it was in great shape. After I planted it, it lost all its leaves except for the one you see that is brown on the edges. But it has revovered very well! Thanks Gardengirl.

[Gabz]

Glad to hear your fig is starting to revive!

As to my lack of electric, yes in part it is due to all the rain, everything is totally waterlogged around here. Haalf my friends don’t have phone service because of all the water...and we had more rain overnight.

[Red_Devil 232]

We had the heaviest rain of the year early morning yesterday up until about 1 pm. 4.5 inches! It almost wrecked havoc with my garden it was so heavy! Nothing severe tough.

I hope you get your electric back soon!

[tubebender]

We had a record high for the day yesterday of 80 degrees with 34% humidity but it was 88 here at the Bender Estate. Temps about the same today and I sped 3 hours at our Church doing some more drip line. The weather service instruments are on Woodley Island just across the inner channel from Eureka and 3 miles north of us.

Gabz...I just knew you had weather related problems over yonder when you didn't ping us yesterday which is OK because I have been too busy post much.

[Red_Devil 232]

It has been overcast and cool here in central Miss. Did not even make it to 70 today. Nice compaired to yesterdays rains. Truebender check out my garden:

Red Devil 232's Garden

[Gabz]

Thanks both of you!

My field is back to looking like a rice paddy.......I’m so sick of rain.

I’m posting this on borrowed time at the moment. We borrowed a generator from friends that have electric, but no phones, so they’re using our phone. At the rate things are going it looks like it will be at least Tuesday before power is restored. Thank goodness one of the freezers at the Moose Lodge was empty, it now contains the contents of my big freezer.

[gardengirl]

Whoopee! Your fig looks great! I am so glad! Thanks for the pic!

Don’t have time right now to check your homepage, but I will. Maybe I’ll hit you up for some advice on how to make one of my own! LOL

Another poster has been trying to teach me how to open powerpoint presentations but my computer won’t cooperate. Course, it could be operator error!

How’s the garden doing? Ours is pretty good, behind yours. Need any nutgrass?