Barney listens to John Christianson's radio program Sundays mornings at 9:30 on KAPS radio AM 660

"Dirty hands, iced tea, garden fragrances

thick in the air and a blanket of color before me, 

who could ask for more?"

From 'Mountain Gardening' by Bev Adams 

 

 

One of my favorite things about preparing 'Garden Notes' each month is finding the right quote to pair with the right picture. There are always so many worthy contenders in both categories that it's difficult to select just a few, and this is even harder in July, a month near and dear to my heart.   

 

Except for wrestling with my garden hose (my absolute least favorite summer task), I love July for all its simple joys. The smell of sunblock and lavender. Berry stains on my fingers. Fresh picked veggies. My cats playing in the tall grasses. Wild sweet peas growing along the road. Butterflies waltzing over flower tops on a sunny morning.  Perhaps best of all, I love July because we slow down long enough to notice these little things.

 

In my search for summer quotes that capture the essence of all that, I came across a poem by Mary Oliver called 'The Summer Day' and had to share it with you. It's a bit unconventional to include a poem in this introduction, but it just feels right to celebrate this magical first month of summer with poetry.  Enjoy!    

   

 

The Summer Day 

by Mary Oliver

 

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

  

 

Happy July!

   

  

 Eve Boe, Garden Notes Editor   

Mount Vernon Chamber of Commerce    

Ah, all you revelers in the good earth! Having waited endless months for this luscious light and warmth, suddenly solstice is come and gone, the spring flown like an explosion of Goldfinches from the dandelion heads. Having been first frustrated - but then perhaps spoiled  - by this spring's excessive moisture (have you noticed some growth more rampant than usual?), we now hazard sudden or prolonged dry spells heading into the height of summer. Pay attention!  Part the clods and the mulch and reach down 3 - 5 inches to actually feel, with your fingers, the moisture level in the soil. Do not wait for wilting before giving those roots a little drink.

All those new plants especially need extra moisture and nutrition (nitrogen!) to push roots beyond the ultra-porous and easily dehydrated potting soil they were started in. Have you ever pulled a sickly or dead plant out of the ground after a year and found its roots still in the shape of the pot you bought it in?  That is almost always the consequence of lack of water in those early weeks after transplanting into the garden.  Picture that pot-shape in the ground like a stovepipe of acute evaporation.

When watering new plants, get your hose-end going with a gentle but saturating flow (no nozzle needed) and place it right down at the base of the stem of each individual new plant and drench it thoroughly. Then move the hose out from the plant's center and generously soak the surrounding soil as well so that those tiny fragile roots find that surrounding denser soil equally as friendly and migrate into it readily. It is easy to be tricked into believing a general sprinkling of the top of the soil is adequate, when 2" down it can actually still be bone dry.  Watering plants individually by hand is the most reliable method for new plants.

Yes, we're all so busy but it is actually fun and informative to lift one or two perennials about a month or two after planting and visually observe the process of roots migrating outward from the pot-shape they were bought in. When you learn to move through your garden conscious of what your plants look like above and below the ground, the sense of your garden being an alive and on-going process will be greatly enhanced.

1. When your rambunctious hardy geraniums and catmints start looking spent and straggly, gather the stems up in your hand and whack it all at about 6" from the ground. They will throw out a whole new mound of foliage and bloom a second time. Same with all those sprawling, post-bloom oriental poppies, which can almost go dormant now for a spell, but will green up over summer and remain green all winter, preparing for next spring. 
2. Snap off all rose blooms as soon as they fade and you will be well rewarded with an extended bloom cycle. Modern shrub roses like Golden Celebration never did stop blooming for me all last summer.  
3. In the vegetable garden, mulch more and rototill less. Excessive summer rototilling dries and depletes the soil and disrupts all the intricate microbial relationships you have worked so hard to promote.        
4. Keep veggies like beans, peas, and summer squash picked even if you can't eat it all. If veggies are allowed to mature on the plant, the plant will stop making more.        
5. Thin apples before they are walnut-sized. One apple per cluster and about 6 - 8" apart.  
6. All fruit trees less than five years old should have a weed and grass-free zone of 3 feet diameter around the trunk. Those young roots are shallow and will be in direct (and losing) competition with grass roots until they find their way deeper over the years.        
7. Now that roses are in full bloom, cruise the rose selection at the nursery and take notes on your favorites, even if you can't afford to buy them all. Always good to be well informed ahead of those little windows of opportunity that come along!

Enjoy every day. Good gardening is made up of those ten million minute observations made every day in your very own yard!

Reprinted from the July 2011 issue of Garden Notes 

• Fluff it up. Keeping your soil loose and rich makes it easy to extract weeds.  Use a tool like a cultivator fork to loosen up the top layer.    Click here to read full article     

This article was written by guest writer, Catherine Boland,