Park Seed Garden Journal

Bumble Bees Are Taking Up The Pollinating Torch

About three years ago "Colony Collapse Disorder" was all over the news - honey bees were starting to disappear, and they have continued to drop in numbers every year since. Honey bees are the primary pollinators for commercial farms, but in nature there are hundreds of bugs, bats, birds buzzing from one plant to the next, keeping the ecosystem on task. One fat, fuzzy little bug is working hard to fill the gap left by the missing honey bees, the bumble bee!

Bumble bees work harder and longer than their smaller cousins, flying in weather that would keep honey bees from leaving the hive. Check out this article from the Seattle Times for more information: Native Bees Picking Up Slack.

Welcome the Bumble Bees into your garden!

• If you find a bumble bee nest, avoid moving if at all possible - these little guys are very important for your garden and other local plant life.
• To attract your own pollinators plant fruit trees and bright flowers. Here is a product list of plants that are known to attract pollinating birds and insects.

Check out Bumblebee.org to learn more about being sensitive to the tiny little workhorses in your garden.

Testing Soil Drainage: Quick & Easy

One of the most specific demands your new plants will have is soil drainage. You want soil that will hold moisture but drain quickly - soaking wet soil will lead to rotten roots. Follow these simple steps to test your soil drainage:

(You will need a stop watch)

1. Dig a small hole, just a few inches.
2. Fill it with water.
3. Start timing.

If your soil drains less than 1/2 in. per hour, your drainage is pretty bad.

If it drains more than 2 in. per hour it may be a little too fast.

You can easy regulate high or low drainage by amending your soil with some high-quality compost. It's that easy. Now all of your plants will have evenly moist, perfect soil!

If you check out Park's tools and supplies we offer plenty of things to keep your soil and your garden healthy. If you want to ensure that you have the best soil possible try using our electronic soil tester or the sturdy, efficient 90 gallon compost bin.

Water Your Garden Regularly

This sprawling, shallow carrot root system was obviously
not on a regular watering schedule.

I have mentioned it a few times this summer - if you are going to have healthy productive plants, you must keep your garden on a strict watering schedule. Water deeply to ensure that roots grow down into the ground, not sprawling along the surface like this carrot (pictured above) that I pulled out of my mother's garden (she is so afraid of wasting water.)

If you water sporadically, allowing plants to wilt and swell, they will buckle - your tomatoes will split and crack if they ever manage to ripen at all. Your gourds and melons will ripen off early, producing tiny little fruits. Your greens will wilt and scorch.

Summer Watering tips:

1. Try using a soaker or drip hose in your garden - sprinklers tend to only give a superficial watering, and they leave your foliage wet which might lead to fungus. (Sprinklers are perfect for lawns, but not for vegetables).
2. Make up a regular watering schedule, and keep it - start out with two waterings a week, and adjust with the weather. If you are getting plenty of rain, water less frequently - If it is near a hundred every day and you haven't seen a drop in weeks, you may want to water 3 or 4 times a week.
3. Use a water soluble fertilizer with every other watering to grow strong resilient plants that will be more hardy to climate changes.
4. Use mulch to regulate soil moisture levels, weeds, and temperature.
5. Pull competing weeds and grass - ensure that your garden plants are benefiting from your hard work, not mooching, unwanted interlopers.
6. Keep harvesting and dead-heading throughout the summer to keep your plants vigorous and productive.

Ground-Covers: A Smart Landscaping Decision

Perennial ground-covers can make life in the garden easier. Ground-covers offer a beautiful, organic method for handling many common garden problems. Understanding and properly applying ground-covers can significantly improve your overall landscape design.

• Most popular ground-cover plants spread vigorously - they can be used to bare spots in your yard, even hillsides and dry spots under trees.
• Deep-rooted ground-covers can help you contain an erosion proble, holding the earth solidly in place. Short-rooted ground-covers break up the ground, allowing trees and shrubs to receive moisture and nutrients more easily.
• Ground-covers regulate soil moisture and temperature, reducing the need for mulch. They also crowd out and smother weeds.
• Short, tread-able ground-covers can be used as a low-maintenance, interesting alternative to traditional lawn grass.

Browse through Park Seed's full selection of ground-cover plants to find what works best for you. Not only do they solve man practical garden problems, but lying down a nice leaf background to your beautiful blooming plants can really tie the whole garden together adding depth, creating strong finished look that you might expect in a professional botanical garden.

Extending the Life of Your Garden

There is still plenty of time left in the year for your vegetable garden. Planting is better in the fall - the days are cool, but the ground is still warm. Your plants can get all the light they need without getting burned up and dried out in the hot summer heat.

Starting seeds in the fall?

Yes you can! Peas, greens, broccoli and many more great veggies thrive in the cool fall planting season. Start them now and you can have a full crop of delicious fresh produce by September or October. You can start the seeds indoors while the weather is still hot, and move them outside in a couple weeks.

Keep your summer garden going.

You can keep your other veggies going much longer by following a few simple tips. Keep weeds, diseases, and pests out of your garden - they add stress that shortens your growing season. Stop them early and keep your garden growing longer. Water regularly - irregular watering will lead to cracked bitter fruits and lower production. And, most importantly, pick ripened fruit - if your tomatoes, peppers, or cucumbers get too ripe they will trigger the plant to end production for the season, and you will see a dramatic drop in production.

Attract Butterflies and Birds to Your Garden

Plants need little animals like hummingbirds, bees, bats, butterflies, and beetles to carry pollen between flowers. Pollination causes your trees to bear fruit and your naturalized wildflowers to seed giving you a lush productive garden.

Planting native flowering plants and shrubs is the first step to attracting your local pollinators. Feeders for birds can be another big draw. Here are a few plants that are known to be popular with birds and butterflies: Buddleia, Blanket Flower, Echinacea, and Hibiscus.

If you are trying to keep your pollinators around, don't use any pesticides. Pesticides don't just kill the bugs you don't won't - they kill all of them.

March 2009 Garden Tip Contest Winners!

Ok, we've read through your top gardening tips, and I have to tell you, it was NOT easy to pick only 10! It's obvious you are all serious about your gardening and constantly learning something new. Most of all, we appreciate your willingness to share all the knowledge you have gathered over the years. If we follow these tips, we should all have gorgeous, successful gardens!

Here are the winners and their valuable tips. Each one will be receiving a $10 Park Seed Gift Certificate! Congratulations, and thank you again to everyone who sent us their number-one gardening tips!

Submitted by Sue Harris of Belize, Central America: Whenever you are gardening with bare hands (the only way to get a real feel for the plants and soil) first scratch a bar of soap with your nails, so there is soap under each nail. Then when you wash your hands, you just use a nail brush and lo and behold, perfectly mud free nails.

Submitted by Violet Smith of Roanoke, VA: This tip is called "Not For The Faint of Heart" Having a bad case of white fly infestation on my African Violet collection which was not responding to the usual pesticides, I was about to destroy all the plants when I spotted a tiny house spider. I thought, what have I got to lose. I put the spider on one plant & waited. Lo and behold, the spider was noticeably getting bigger! The infestation cleared up. I have since sought out (small) spiders on occasion to do my "green" gardening inside and out. Note: When the house spiders job is done it is relocated to the outdoors!

Submitted by Linda Richardson of Romeoville, IL I like to garden but also like to conserve water when possible. I recycle large soda bottles to water my garden plants - like tomatoes, squash, peppers, eggplant, etc. Use a 2-liter plastic bottle, cap on. Cut the bottom off, all but an inch and a half (this creates a flap to open the bottom of the bottle). Loosen the cap enough for it to do a slow drip; then bury the bottle, upside down up to the shoulder, next to your plants. Lift the bottom; fill each one once or twice a week - depending on the rain your area receives. This gives the plants a slow, deep watering, the 'bottom flap' keeps bugs out and you recycle the bottles. If your soil is very loose, you may need to put a few small stones or a stake in the bottle to steady it. I also catch the spring rain water and bottle it for use for watering plants during the heat of July.

Sherry C. of Gastonia, NC My tip is featured to help keep those pesky varmints away when the plant seedlings have sprouted and are still young and tender tasting. I found this out by accident this past year when I had purchased a couple of the helium-filled foil balloons for an occasion, and when through with them we just tied them to the posts around the garden just for fun, watching them bob and circle when the wind blew. To our delight, we found that these balloons kept the rabbits, etc. away from our spinach, peas, beans, etc. I usually purchase a couple from the dollar store and they last for two to three weeks, enough time to get the plants up where they don't mess with them as much.

Submitted by Patti Mercks I grew up walking along side of my Grandpa in his garden. Often carrying in the bounty and then helping Grandma cook it! Those days bring back wonderful childhood memories so I want to carrry on those traditions with my grandkids. I used to worry that the kids would come along and destroy the plants that I had so tenderly watered and watched over for days. Then I realized that they enjoyed the garden, too and wouldn't cause damage if they were part of the gardening processes and learning about it, just like my grandpa did with me. So I bring the kids into my garden. I will point out weeds and ask them to pull them out and explain to them why. I bought some child size garden tools for my grandchildren to use to rake the leaves off the tulips in spring. They have helped to pick flower bouquets and green beans. They knew when we pulled the pumpkins from the garden it would soon be Halloween! "My" garden has become "Our" garden and the enjoyment from it is awesome! My tip is to share your garden with everyone possible... big or small!

Submitted by Angela Loomis of East Greenwich, RI This one is so obvious - and it's what you folks at Park do with your great blogs, books, even your catalog! The number one thing a Gardener can do is SHARE!!! Share plants, share tips, share stories, good and bad..... I share and swap plants with the people at work who also garden, and now we have better things than work to talk about when we're in the kitchen getting coffee at the office! I've shared roses and received phlox, shared vegetable seedlings and received perennials, shared stories of disaster and stories of success. I've shared my love of gardening with my three kids, and my youngest is REALLY into planning his garden, starting seeds, buying plants, and all of that. I've made "gardening buddies" by sharing plants, and we love to haunt local garden centers and nurseries together - it is so much more fun with a PAL!! And I got all of this by sharing. So, if you're a new gardener, the best thing to do is speak up, because you'll end up with a community of planters that share your enthusiasm - and you never know where you'll find them!

Submitted by Wanda Jundt of Eureka, SD I used to plant, then forget what I had where. The remedy is easy and inexpensive. Use plastic knives as markers. Write on them with indelible black marker. I do square-foot gardening, and each section now has a marker and I know exactly what to look for as the seedlings emerge. The knives are inexpensive because when I buy an assortment of knives, forks, and spoons for picnics, it is always the knives that are left over and not used.

Submitted by "Bumpa" I am a grandfather, and it was my grandfather who taught me this tip that really works for areas with frost. Always watch the lilacs before you plant. When the lilacs start to show bloom tips, you can direct plant onions, garlic, peas. When the lilac blossoms are open, plant potatoes, carrots, lettuce, all cole crops and turnips, etc. When the lilac blossoms begin to fade, only then can you set out tomatoes, peppers, etc. Now is the time to plant beans, corn, squash, watermelon, cantaloupe, and all tender vines, either from seed or setting out plants. I have done this every year and it works. I now have a balcony garden so it changes a bit because of the micro climate on the south side of the building. I hope you find this helpful, and I hope you have lilacs.

Submitted by Adrienne DeVries of Venice, FL The best gardening tip I have ever had is for tomato plants. They like a consistant moisture supply. To accomplish this, I cut the bottoms off 2-liter bottles and push the neck up the bottle into the soil a few inches from each tomato plant. Every other day I fill the bottle with water and sometimes add water-soluable fertilizer. This way the water gets all the way to the roots where it is needed. I no longer have blossom rot. I hope this will be helpful to someone.

Submitted by Michael Savich of Fredericksburg, VA Ever leave that black garden hose filled with water out in the hot summer sun? Well, a good way to ruin a valuable bush or plant is to turn on that hot hose water and immediately begin watering a valuable plant which already is wilting for lack of water. So let the hot water run out of the hose until the water is cool, then water. This will solve many a mystery in your garden about why a garden plant suddenly browned out. But an even better idea is to use that hot hose water as a very ecological and environmentally friendly way of eradicating weeds in your driveway. Utilize that hot hose water as a very effective herbicide instead, directing the hot water on annoying weeds next to lampposts, sidewalks, and inside driveway cracks. You will be surprised at how much hot water a 50-foot hose contains and how easy this weed-whacking method truly is.

Cabbage, Delicious and Easy to Grow!

Cabbage is wonderful and versatile, with many varieties eaten all over the world prepared in hundreds of different ways. And, you can grow them right in your own backyard!

This nutritious and filling biennial vegetable from the family Brassicaceae is characterize by a short stem and a dense clump of leaves or "head". The inner, immature leaves are often the most sought-after part for culinary uses. Ornamental cabbages are also very popular for adding cool-weather color to seasonally drab gardens.

Cabbage is easy to care for if given good soil, plenty of moisture, and lots of leaf building nutrients.

Soil for Cabbage:
A well-draining, sandy soil with enough organic matter to hold the necessary moisture is best. The soil must be able to wick the excess moisture from the roots and prevent the plant from becoming water-logged.

Watering Your Cabbage:
Cabbage likes moisture but will start to become unhealthy if it is kept soaking wet.
To obtain the thick luscious leaves with the perfect crunchy texture that makes cabbage such a treat in the kitchen give your cabbage plenty of water.

Feeding Your Cabbage:
Cabbage responds well to both synthetic fertilizers and natural organic fertilizer like rich compost. Since the quality of the plant depends on fast growing, thick, healthy foliage, some kind of nutrients supplement is recommended for the best results.

3 Things to Remember for Great Pepper Plants

All peppers need three things:

1. Full sun
2. Good Soil
3. Moisture

Full sunlight - Most pepper plants thrive in full sunlight. But remember, they still need protection from scorching caused by evaporation during hot or dry periods.

Soil That Drains Well - As with most garden vegetables, soaking wet roots leads to disease and rot. Use a loose, loamy soil that drains excess moisture away from the roots.

Regular Moisture - Pepper Plants suck up a lot of water, and need to be watered every 3 days or so. Use a good organic mulch to maintain moisture levels during hot or dry periods.

For more helpful pepper hints check out: How To Grow Great Peppers

Peppers are easy to grow - many first time gardeners will often choose peppers and tomatoes because the effort is minimal and the reward is abundant. Check out Park Seeds great Selection of Spicy, Mild, and Sweet Peppers for 2009.  Whether this is your first time gardening, or you're an old pro looking for some variety,  we are sure these pepper plants won't disappoint.

If you ever need any gardening tips or advice you can leave a comment or email me, and if I don't know the answer, I promise someone here does. Happy Gardening!

Park Seed Newsletter New Years Resolution Contest!

If you subscribe to our wonderful gardening newsletters, you may have participated in this particular contest. We wanted to know what you were never, ever going to do in your garden again. I was lucky enough to be among the elite few selected to judge this particular contest. I based my choices on: 1. Helpfulness to other gardeners, and 2. Quality of the submission. I am partial to funny entries.

Below, I will list a few of my personal favorites - votes won't be tallied until this weekend, and my vote is only one of many, so I can't promise that any of the ones I list will win. But, I will announce the official results next week.

Top 3 Gardening Resolutions, According to Thomas, Whatever That's Worth:
I was not given any Identifying information, only the submission.

#3
Resolve to Always Read Instructions Carefully

Many years ago I decided to apply weed and feed to the first big lawn that I had ever owned. I neglected to read the application instructions and used a rotary spreader instead of the Scott's kind. I had soon engulfed myself, my yard, and half the block in billowy clouds of powder. I didn't have any weeds in my yard that year but I didn't have any grass either. I read instructions carefully now.

#2
Resolve to Handle Small Seeds Carefully (This one just made me laugh)

My New Year Resolution for gardening is To Never Sneeze Again With Seeds In My Hands.

And My #1
I resolve to keep the bird feeder away from the flower bed (I have personal experience with this one, but I did manage to get a few nice-sized sunflowers out of it)

I'll never allow my husband to keep his bird-feeder in the middle of the perennial bed along the dry stream bed. It wreaks havoc for spring cleaning and sprouts sunflowers on a daily basis!