Now I’m excited. I just purchased a new home and it comes with a large enough lot (about an acre) that I’ll be able to turn it into a serious trial garden again. There are a few trees on the property and some older lilac hedges and Tawny Daylily (the orange H. fulva) common to older farmhouses in Eastern Ontario. Having closed the deal this past week, I’m now dreaming of how to start my kitchen vegetable/herb garden and where the greenhouse is going to go and where the perennial beds will be and…

There’s a lot of dreams going on in the next few months before spring gets here.

New Articles for You

Morning glories and why some don’t flower until late

http://www.beginner-gardening.com/morninggloryvine.html

The three season garden

http://www.simplegiftsfarm.com/threeseasongarden.html

How to start and grow calla lily seeds

http://www.flower-garden-bulbs.com/callalilyseeds.html

Spider mites on roses

http://www.learn-rose-gardening.com/spidermites.html

My take on compost starter

http://www.organic-gardening-tips.com/compoststarter.html

Aster flowers in the rock garden

http://www.gardening-tips-perennials.com/asterflowers.html

The kitchen herb garden

http://www.vegetable-gardening-tips.com/kitchenherbgardening.html

UV pond filter for getting rid of algae in the pond

http://www.water-gardens-information.com/uvpondfilter.html

Want to ask a question? Click here to ask a gardening question.www.gardening-tips-perennials.com/askagardeningquestion.html

Your Questions Answered

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Love your articles. I am ahead of the season here but want to find out what the problem is and how to fix it. My delphinium and sun flower leaves, almost from the time they start growing, get all brown and dry. The flowers are OK but the stems, which are long in both cases look awful. Is this a fungus? I don't want to use chemical sprays. Thanks for your help. Suzanne

A: This sounds like a leaf spot fungus or botrytis – both of these plants will succumb to these problems. If you do a search for botrytis on the www.simplegiftsfarm.com website, you’ll come up with the recommended organic technique for controlling these problems.

Controlling fungal problems or suspected fungal problems involves a variety of techniques.

You have your basic cultural things like not watering leaves. Making sure the plant is in the full sunshine (or where it is the happiest) so the leaves dry out quickly. Adding compost and compost tea to the soils so the beneficial bacteria outcompete the parasitic bacteria – some gardeners even spray compost tea onto plant leaves and claim there’s a protective result.

Then you have the spraying regime of lime sulphur, baking soda, soaps, milk, neem, and some spices that are used in a wide variety of organic control methods. Most of these will be described on the www.organic-gardening-tips.com website before next spring and next spring’s problems erupt.

The absolute “BEST” system is cultural with a hint of spray to control specific outbreaks. Spray and pray systems of gardening are the least effective. Get that garden and the soil healthy and problems tend to disappear nicely.

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my rose of sharon still has lots of buds on it and it is october,now. should i remove them or just leave it?. or wait for the spring? i have read some of your info on the rose of sharon but never relly saw anthing to do with these new buds. thanks for your help ons this. i look for new blurbs all the time.

A: Just leave any unopened buds – if they open, great! If not, then the winter will kill them off and you can prune early in the spring for shape. The only reason you’d remove them now is if you don’t like the look of them.

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my lawn grass is really long. Can i mow it at this time of year? I seem to remember reading or hearing that it isnt good to mow your lawn in autumn. thanks geraldine

A: Sure you can mow it after a frost. No problem at all. Just leave it 2 inches long.

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I live in central Illinois and constructed a HOT BOX yesterday from scrap. It is 5 X 5 ft and about 16 inches deep. Is there anyway to steralize the gound w/o chemicals for early spring planting of seeds or grow herbs over winter

A: For those of you who don’t recognize the term “hot box” it means a cold frame that has been sunk into the ground and usually filled with 12-18” of fresh manure to compost and add heat to the system. Close the lid on a hot box and you have a warmish environment.

The box is usually sunk into the ground at least a foot so the composting manure level starts at the 24-30” mark down.

The expensive alternative is to lay an electric heating cable at the 16 inch mark in this case and grow on top of this cable.

To begin with, this size box may indeed NOT freeze during the winter months in the centre of the box. You don’t say whether you’ve insulated the exterior surface or not or how much cabling you have. But the winter in your area is going to be a challenge to keep this box thawed out all winter. (the edges will freeze for sure) You can insulate the roof at night (this is what the Chinese do to ensure their frames don’t freeze) and remove the insulation during the day to keep the contents from freezing.

*If* you can keep it from freezing, then the other problem you have is light levels. Frankly, the light levels in the northern hemisphere are not enough to keep vegetables growing strongly for the winter. If you planted some of the cole crops now – I doubt you could get them big enough before the really hard freezes came but if you could get them to grow fast enough, you could have harvests all winter long – although a late August or September planting is much better. Herbs are an iffy thing although you’d likely be able to harvest basil on a regular basis – it will grow slowly – if you can keep it from freezing. Other perennial herbs such as thyme and oregano will want their dormancy. Move parsley into the frame and you’ll have leaves all winter or until it freezes.

Sterilizing the ground for next year’s sowing is as simple as pouring boiling water onto the area when the ground is thawed. This will kill most weed seeds. You’ll likely find that there aren’t too many seeds at the 16-inch level.

Using sterilized soil for your seed starting pots/trays next spring will work well and if you really want to start seeds in the ground, then you’ll have to make a seedling bed with good soil in the top inch so the seeds start and grow well until they are in the four-leaf stage.

Hope that helps a little. Good luck – I’d look forward to hearing if you stopped it from freezing.

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Tomato Problem:- I believe that my problem this year was Fusarium Wilt as opposed to Verticillium Wilt because the brown withering and dying of the leaves that started mid to late Aug., affected all but the very uppermost leaves, (or any new shoot)and started from the bottom up! My plants are always staked right from the start.I have found some Internet info. of these soil fungii, but it seems to indicate there is no solution other than fumigation of the soil?!! Two of the three varieties I planted turned out to be listed as 'Resistant' types, but it affected them all!! I had both Green and Reg bell peppers in the same garden area within 3ft of the tomatoes, and they largest, and best producers I have ever grown! Surely there must be a Fungicide that I can till into the soil to correct this condition! I do not have a large enough garden area to keep moving them to a 'distant' location all the time! Your advise and comments would be greatly appreciated.

A: Well, actually I was reading the other day that worm compost when made into compost tea is a very good innoculant and preventative spray/drench for a wide variety of plant problems. This is only one lab and one set of data.

But the data is becoming clearer and clearer that compost when added in large quantities acts very strongly as a disease preventative “system” in the garden. Compost tea is a way to extend the range when you have limited amounts of compost and it also makes an excellent spray for some problems.

Will it work on your tomato problem? Darned if I know but given the only other solution you have is to move the plants (and I’d move them as much as possible every year) then that’s the only option I know of.

Having said that, it occurs to me that if you solarize your soil with clear plastic (I’ll have an article up on the www.organic-gardening-tips.com website shortly about this) you’ll likely reduce pathogens and problems. You’d have to do a small section every year and plant your tomatoes into that section the following year.

And “resistant” doesn’t mean they don’t get it – it only means they are going to get it less than a plant that doesn’t resist. “resistant” and not “immune”.

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Here: thanks for the compost tea making instructions (pail method) QUESTION: can the bacteria from the tea survive muni watering after application? Muni water with chloramines? Using sprinkler?

A: Compost tea will not survive or can be made in municipal water that contains chlorine has not been dechlorinated. Most chlorine will disappear from water if it is left to sit for 24 hours (you can smell or taste the difference). I let my water sit for 24-48 hours in the pail before making compost tea here in town.

And applying it through a sprinkler should not be a problem given water pressures of less than 200psi (most town pressure systems are far less than that).

From My Garden To Yours

One of the things I’ve often suggested in the past is that you always try something new in your garden every year. After all, you can be either a gardener with one year’s experience repeated thirty times or a gardener with thirty years experience. In case you want to try something a little bit on the wild side (for gardeners anyway) let me suggest you search out a few of each of these bulbs for your fall planting. Don’t stop with the same-old, same-old tulips and daffodils but press onward to the exciting world of these smaller and lesser-known bulbs.

Tritelia laxa or Brodiaea is a member of the lily family and is sometimes found for sale under the names Ipheion, or Dicholostemma and even Bloomeria. Any bulb with this many common names can’t be all bad. You might want to grow one of the other 300 species of Tritelia but unfortunately, you’re going to have to join a specialist bulb society to find the seeds so stick with this charming blue and white flowering bulb. It flowers in the late spring or early summer with its 12-16 inch tall flowers and is a real charmer. Plant the bulbs 3 inches down (to the base of the bulb) and approximately 8 inches apart. This bulb will take part shade as well as its preferred full sunshine so it is a useful little bulb for that odd part shade spot. If you can stand to take this plant as a cut flower, I note that it does an excellent job and you won’t be sorry you sacrificed your garden view for the vase of these lovely blooms on the dining room table. This plant, rated a zone 5-6, is not entirely winter hardy in our USDA zone 4/5 area but if you give it a spot with perfect drainage, you might be very surprised to see it pop up in the spring. Just don’t plant a lot of them the first trial year. ‘Queen Fabiola’ has huge intensely blue-mauve flowers and is the most commonly available plant.

I’ve been growing a hardy Oxalis for two years now and its ever-flowering nature is starting to appeal to me. I divided it after the first year and now grow one of the plants in a sunny windowsill to bloom all winter. It gets quite leggy but I whack it to the ground every few months to thicken it up. I also have one in the pile of perennials to move this year to see how it makes a little winter stress. I confess I’m not optimistic about its chances but this kind of experimentation is what makes gardening interesting. One Oxalis that is reasonably hardy is O. adenophylla and this mountainous inhabitant of Chilean mountain ranges is hardy enough for us to grow comfortably if the drainage is excellent.

This Oxalis has pink flowers and the main flush of bloom is early summer in June through July. Plant the base of the bulbs 3-inches deep and 6-10 inches apart. This is a delicate little plant only reaching 4-inches tall so plant it in your rock garden for best effect. The main perennial border plants will eat this little guy for lunch.

If you use a well-drained soil, you can also grow this plant in a container year round as I do. I generally leave it outside until nights get really cold and then shear it to the ground and move it indoors. I mostly do the shearing to get rid of the spider mites that seem to be attracted to the clover-like leaves but the added bonus is the shearing thickens up the plant. Two weeks after the shearing, my plant is starting to bloom again on its Southern windowsill.

Many of you want to grow the gorgeous blue Corydalis that have been a bit elusive in their winter hardiness. You might want to start with this easily grown bulb, Corydalis solida. The flower that emerges in mid spring is a pinkish-purplish bloom that resembles the summer flowering perennial varieties but this one is easy. It blooms reliably in the shade; plant it under shrubs or deciduous trees and you’ll be very pleased with its spring performance before the leaves come out to shade the blue-green leaves.

Plant the base of the bulb 2 to 3 inches deep and individual bulbs 3 inches apart for a great show. The flower itself will reach up to 7 inches, as it is a delicate little thing. If happy in your garden with a rich, woodland type of soil and good drainage, it will self sow and you’ll quickly have a colony.

A bulb that I personally like is Puschkinia scilloides var. libanotica, which I agree is a bit of a mouthful to say. But if you look for Puschkinia in your favourite garden shop in the specialist bulb section, you’ll find it. Its blue-white blooms are early in the spring and with its 5-inch tall blooms, it is a perfect little rock garden bulb. Or, because it loves part shade and will happily naturalize there in good soil, you can plant it under deciduous shrubs and trees to make dual use of that space. To make it even nicer, this is a native of Western Asia and you won’t have any problems with winter hardiness in this plant.

Put the base of the bulb approximately 3 inches deep and plant them 2 – 3 inches apart in the part shade. This plant likes a little summer moisture so do not worry about watering your shrubs or nearby flowers if this one is planted in clumps among your smaller perennials. It will self sow or you can collect the seed and sow it where you’d like to see new bulbs start.

So walk on the wild side this fall. Get a different gardening experience next spring with these smaller bulbs.