The tomatoes have had it.  They are done. Kaput. Finished.

Okay... they aren't completely done in, but none of the red tomatoes are worth eating and I don't want to wait for the green ones to ripen. Especially since Louie, Number 2 "son", would eat them before we could.

So I yanked ‘em!

This needs something....

After I raked the soil around a bit, it looked pretty good.  And I had these bulbs of garlic just hanging around our basement…

…so I planted a bunch of them.

I used the hoe to make rows about two inches deep. I managed to get nine rows in our eight foot bed.  I took the cloves off of the garlic head and pressed them in with the flat root side down.

Pointy end up....

I placed them about five inches apart.  There are now 78 cloves of garlic planted in one of our raised beds. 

Yummy!

They will grow a little this fall and when it gets colder we will put straw on it and let it sit through the winter. When it gets warm in the spring and the plants green up again, we will take the straw off and let it go.  We cut off the flowers when they form and will dig up the new heads of delicious garlic when the leaves die back, which was in July this year.  I cleaned off the dirt and tied them together and hung them in our basement in the utility room.  They are the stiff-necked variety so I had to use twine to tie them together, but it still worked!  

We got them from one of Dwayne’s co-worker’s mom, so I don’t know exactly what variety they are, but they are delicious!  They have a nice bite to them and they are huge, so I don’t have to use quite so many in my cooking.  I usually double (at least) whatever a recipe calls for.  Still, we’ve already managed to go through half of what we grew. We didn’t count what we had this past year, so hopefully this next year we will have enough to get us through winter. 

Dig it!

Posted under Autumn, General

Hartman Reserve Nature Center in Cedar Falls is offering a Fall Family Phenology Hike on Friday, September 23 from 6:30 to 7:30.  Even if you don’t know what phenology is, you are welcome to join a naturalist to learn what changes are happening in the forest as the season transitions from Summer into Autumn.

Phenology is the study of plant and animal life cycles and how they vary from season to season.  The changing colors of the leaves would be an example.  Ground hogs fattening up getting ready for their winter hibernation, or hummingbirds drinking all the sugar water in your feeders before they head to Mexico and Central America are other examples.  You may, or may not see these on the walk at the Reserve, but I’m sure you will have a great time.

The cost is $5.00 per family and hot chocolate and snacks by a fire are a draw after the hike.

Family Phenology Hikes will become a permanent program series so if you miss this one, there will be another one on, or near the seasonal equinox and solstices.

If you have any questions, contact Chris Anderson, Program Coordinator at Harman Reserve Nature Center at chris.hrnc@gmail.com or call 319-277-2187.  You can pre-register online at BlackHawkCountyParks.com and click on the Events link and choose the Hike program.

I hope you have a great time.

Dig it!

Posted under Autumn, Event

A couple of months ago when it was so hot and dry, I headed out to the garden to do some weeding.  While the dry weather kept the weeds from growing like, well, weeds, it also made the ground as hard as cement. It was certainly interesting.  Since I was working so hard in the heat and humidity, I made sure to take plenty of breaks to cool down and drink water.   On one of the breaks I grabbed my camera and took a bunch of pictures.  I really like the macro feature on the camera.  Now I just need to have the patience to line up the shot and get that really fantastic photo.  A tripod would help, too.  These are photos from before the derecho went through Garrison, Vinton and Urbana in July.

The black petunia. It is still pretty cool. A couple even have yellow stripes, which I didn't really care for (Go 'Clones!), but they weren't blooming when I had the camera.

I think I am going to frame some of these to put on a blue wall in our house. It should look pretty cool!

Here's what the previous one looks like when I show the whole flower.

The guillardia are especially nice this year. Apparently, if you ignore it, it grows. Huh.

One of my very pretty lilies. My "lily lady" Eleanor could tell me what this is off the top of her head, but I will have to hunt down the tag and notes.

One of the asters that is already blooming. I think this is the Stokes Aster. I really like this flower.

One of my $1-get-em-before-we-toss-em specials a couple of years ago. This is a fleabane.

This is an asiatic lily that I got a year or so ago.

One of my clematis. It is hanging with the grapevine that the japanese beetles are now munching on. Hopefully they don't like clematis.

A yucca flower. We planted these a couple of years ago but this is the first year they bloomed.

This looked good before the derecho blew through.

The monarda looked great. The Joe Pye Weed got knocked down in "The Big Wind".

Pope John Paul II clematis

I don't remember the name of this one, but I love the color.

Two of my four clematis are on the same structure.

The moonbean coreopsis did well this year.

A closeup of the Moonbeam coreopsis flower.

My yellow lilyThe stamen. This is the part of the flower that leaves behind the lovely yellow pollen on my clothes when I brush past. I think the bees do a better job of the actual pollinating.

Guairdilla, or Blanket Flower. We gave up on these a couple of years ago and this year they look terrific.

Dig it!

Posted under General

Getting away from my garden for just a second…..

ASPIRE Therapeutic Horseback Riding Program is a non-profit organization that offers unique therapy to persons with physical, cognitive and emotional disabilities.

Marilyn Moore is the Executive Director at ASPIRE and I don’t think she ever sleeps.  She is always running around to make sure that there is enough money for the program to serve as many people as possible.  And the program is always in need of volunteers.  The volunteers can help with the riding program or just help out at one of the fundraising activities that Marilyn and the crew put on.

Right now, the program is in need of grass hay.  They need about six to seven hundred bales of straight grass hay to get their beautiful horses through the winter.  If you can help or know of anyone who can, please contact Marilyn at Marilyn@aspiretrp.org or info@aspiretrp.org.  Or you can call her at 319-296-0964.  She will be happy to hear from you.  For more information on the program or how you , click here.

There are other therapeutic riding programs across the state. Some in Eastern Iowa include:

ThunderRode located just north of Decorah….

Miracles in Motion in Swisher.

Each of these terrific organizations can always use your help.  Just call them up and ask. 

Thanks!

Posted under General

Ruth sent me a picture of a plant that came in with dirt that she had delivered to her place. 

She asked many people, but they didn’t know what it was, so she turned to me.  I opened the file and immediately recognized it as something I always pull up out of my garden.  I knew it was a type of hibiscus and was invasive, but I never knew the name of it.  And I had a heck of a time trying to find out.  I finally just contacted Greg Walston at the Benton County Extension office and he passed my email onto Iowa State where Horticulturist Richard Jauron gave me the answer that was just on the tip of my tongue!

The flower certainly looks like a small hibiscus flower.

This is the hibiscus trionum, also known as the Flower-of-the-hour and Venice Mallow.  It is considered a weed and has a small taproot and a fibrous root system.  They are native to Europe but can not be found from Nova Scotia to Florida.  I’m not sure of the westward stretch, but they have made it to Iowa, at least!

They are very pretty, but they will be rather invasive, so I always pull them out of my garden.

The flower buds look similar to a hibiscus, although with a bit more “hair”.

This is a baby weed!

You can leave it in the garden if you want, but it is probably better to pull it when you come across it.

Dig it!

Posted under Plant Identification

As much as I hate to admit it, Fall is coming. That means the temperatures will get cooler, the plants will start to finish their growing season and birds and Monarchs will start heading to winter grounds.  Monarchs cannot tolerate our long winters, so they spend the winter in roosting spots.  West of the Rockies they head to small groves of trees along the California coast.  On our side the Rockies, they head south.  WAY south…. into the high mountain forests of Mexico.  That is up to three thousand miles of travel!  And here is something interesting… the butterflies that head south will head north again, but they won’t make the southern trip again.  Their great-grandchildren will.

Late summer and early fall Monarchs emerging from their chrysalis are different, both in biology and behavior, than those that emerged earlier in the summer.  They won’t mate or lay eggs until the following spring when they return. Their bodies are geared toward making that long trip.  They store fat in their abdomen which is critical to their survival since it fuels their flight and helps them survive until the next spring when they begin to head back north.  As this year’s butterflies head south they stop to fuel up on nectar so make sure you don’t cut off those flowers in your yard.  

You can also help out those intrepid travelers by planting a Monarch Waystation.  These are places that provide resources necessary for monarchs to sustain their migration.  And the rest of the year, it helps them find the food and host plants needed to produce successive generations.  A Monarch Waystation needs to be at least 100 square feet but can be split into several sites on one location.  And the Waystation can be as large as you want it to be.  It needs full sun, which means at least six hours of sunlight a day.  There should be both nectar producing plants and plants that will provide food and shelter for the egg and larval stage of the insect.  You can put annuals and perennials in the Waystation.  Some annuals include lantana, pentas and salvia while some of the perennials are fennel, garden phlox, mallow and sedum.  Some shrubs are also welcome, in the form of spirea and butterfly bush, although the butterfly bush is just marginally hardy in the northern part of the state and will benefit from winter protection.

If you want more information about creating your own Monarch Waystation, click here.

And for more information on monarchs and butterfly gardens, check out the MonarchWatch website.

Many scientists wonder how Monarchs manage to find their way back to the exact same trees their great-grandparents left from the previous year.  So far they haven’t figured out the answer.  Each year scientists track monarchs that have been tagged to see where they go.  You can follow along, too by checking out Journey North’s Monarch Butterfly Migration Tracking Project.  It appears that they follow the butterflies south, too.

If you want to get involved in helping to track the insects, there will be a Monarch tagging event on Monday, September 12 from 5 to 6:30 at the Waverly Public Library’s Butterfly Garden. 

Dig it!

Posted under Event, General