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How Dry I Am
Greetings!
 I have been watering like a fiend in my dry Ames garden. Yet all that expensive irrigation has done nothing more than keep my landscape on life support.
The perennials are brown and curling. The annuals are riddled with spider mite damage and I've had to pull many out. And my poor lawn is as brown as it is green.
These are the times in a gardener's evolution that you have to sit back, draw and deep breath, and be open to the vagaries and lessons of nature.
I remind myself at how lucky I am that I don't have to rely on my garden to produce much of my food (or else I'd be living this month on 3 tomatoes, 6 zucchini, a few eggplants, tons of plums and 34 butternut squash).
I remind myself that as much as I might like to delude myself that I can use clever man-made fixes, in the end, nature is usually better. This is true whether I'm swallowing a vitamin pill instead of my vegetables or if I'm watering my garden. I can apply all the water I want and it's still no replacement for a good, soaking rain from the skies.
And I try to practice gratitude. I think about how bountiful my plum tree is this year and how delicious and honey-like the plums are. I remind myself that because of the drought, I can take evening walks mosquito-free.
Which reminds me of a wonderful quote from Abraham Lincoln, a guy who truly had to discipline himself to look on the bright side of things: "We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses."
So this week, I'm focusing on the roses. Of course, I will have to find the few scrawny ones actually blooming in my dry garden (and ignore the thrip marks), but they are roses nonetheless.
Yours in thorny gardening,
Veronica Lorson Fowler
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Buy the Book: "So Much Sky"
 Friend and Country Gardens magazine columnist Karen Weir-Jimerson has a lovely book out, "So Much Sky." An accomplished gardener and wonderful writer, Karen writes about life on her acreage near Woodward. I kept it by my bedside for a week or two and read a chapter each night. It was such a pleasant break from my day, full of wise, funny observations about gardening, nature, family, and the passage of time. The book is $16.00 plus $1.95 for postage. Click here to order (scroll down to the bottom to get book signed from Karen with the inscription of your choice). Or call 515-343-9670 during business hours to put it on a card with an inscription. What a great way to get some Christmas shopping done early or a thoughtful gift for a gardening friend or family member!
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Cutting Wildflowers
 I confess that this time of year, when my garden is slumping, I love to drive out into the country and cut some wildflowers from the ditch.
Let me also say I am very careful to NOT cut anything that isn't borderline invasive, such as goldenrod, cattails, wild grasses, and the sunflowers shown here in my home. If there aren't acres and acres of it, I don't cut it. I'm also respectful of personal property and don't go into fields, empty lots, etc.
But I don't know. What do you think? We've got a conversation going on this on The Iowa Gardener Facebook page--I'd love for you to weigh in.
Click here to go to The Iowa Gardener Facebook page. If you're already signed in, it will take you straight to my page.
And If you're not a Facebook friend with me already, please ask to become one! It's also a great way to ask me, and the rest of the The Iowa Gardener readers on Facebook, garden questions.
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How Do You Like Them Apples?
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My 'Liberty' Apples
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Fruit trees tend to have alternate years: they bear heavily one year, lightly the next. This year, my apple tree is going crazy.
I used to have a 'Wealthy' apple tree--an heirloom variety with incredible flavor. But I don't spray, so the apples were small and riddled with holes and spots. When that tree didn't make it through the winter one year, I replanted with 'Liberty,' a modern tree bred for excellent disease and pest resistance.
Unfortunately, I think the flavor is bland and the texture is starchy. This year, I'm going to experiment with harvesting later than usual in hopes of their improving. (Apple trees vary by months on best harvest time. Click here to know when to harvest.)
Oh well. They're fairly good for pies (I make and freeze several at a time) and apple butter--one of my favorites.
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Pocket Hose 
My sister got one of the nifty pocket hoses you see everywhere--super-lightweight bright green hoses that crumple up when you aren't using them and expand instantly when you do. Just $20 and I was definitely tempted. (Click here for details.)
But then I read the online reviews and found that people loved the hoses at first but the cheap fittings broke within weeks, or even days. And, in fact, the same happened to my sister.
I am so hopeful the manufacturer comes up with a new model with better fittings. It's such a great idea. In the meantime, the slender coil-type hoses that have been on the market for years are more durable and a better solution.
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Monthly To-Do
 Nope, it's not time to plant bulbs just yet. Wait until October. Go ahead and buy them now, but keep them in a cool, dry, dark place. And pay a little more for nice, firm, healthy full-size bulbs. Mail order and small nurseries are ideal. The big box stores, I'm afraid, too often carry undersized bulbs that won't bloom well.
Continue to mow at the ideal height of 3 inches. With warm season grasses, such as zoysiagrass, keep mowing at about 2 inches. If you prefer a shorter look, start mowing cool-season turf, such as Kentucky bluegrass, ryes, and fescues, lower (about 2 inches) now that temperatures are cooler.
Fertilize cool season lawns, such as Kentucky bluegrass, ryes, and fescues, to encourage good root growth. Do not fertilize zoysiagrass this month.
Continue to harvest early and often for the most tender, sweetest produce and to keep plants producing well. Click here for information on a plant-by-plant breakdown on when to harvest.
Keep things watered. You'll enjoy your garden longer, and it will prevent plants from going into winter dehydrated, which can make them die out over winter.
Make the tough calls. If any annuals this late in the season are struggling, pull them up and put them in the compost heap. If a perennial is looking shot, just cut it off at ground level now and discard the foliage.
Brighten your garden with mums. Choose from either florist's mums, which aren't winter hardy but are very tidy-looking with large flowers or from hardy mums, which are more rough-looking but will come back again next year.
Florist's mums are great for pots indoors and out while garden mums are good for planting in the ground for a permanent display.
For our printable monthly to-do lists and handy garden references, click here.
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Editor's Choice
 Click on this image to see more about this terrific apple-tasting event.
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Garden Quote
"The fair-weather gardener, who will do nothing except when wind and weather and everything else are favourable, is never a master of his craft. Gardening, above all other crafts, is a matter of faith, grounded, however (if on nothing better), on his experience that somehow or other seasons go on in their right course, and bring their right results."
-- Canon Ellacombe,
"In a Glouchestershire Garden," 1895
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