Garden Happenings! Week of April 21

Hello again,

Gardening is Happening in Skillin's Country!

In this post I will be letting you know what I am doing or what I hear is going on out there in our local gardening world. I will be updating this post with quick supplements all through the week!

So check here frequently!

If you would like to contribute just drop us a quick note at info@skillins.com OR leave a comment at the end of this post. We would love any tips OR questions from you!

April 26:

Hammon Buck from Plants Unlimited in Rockport Maine has a great store and website and with his permission we have passed on gardening ideas from his email gardening column before. Hammon has some great advice on perennial care:

"May is a good time to dig and divide later blooming perennials if needed, such as hosta, ornamental grasses, perennial geraniums, bee balm, daylilies, helen's flower, and asters. If left undivided, plants may become unproductive and overcrowded, often bare in the centers. Wait until after bloom to divide overgrown early-blooming perennials such as yarrow and evening primrose. Dig up the clump, and with a sharp spade create wedges. Then, divide the clump in half, then divide each half further. Leave large divisions if you want plants to look better, and bloom more, sooner. After replanting, water often and deeply to reduce stress on these new divisions. "

April 25:

Sometimes you get a 2-for-1: landscape plants that look good and provide you with edible landscaping, too! So it is with blueberry bushes and fruit trees.

We have a great selection of easy to plant and easy to grow blueberry bushes and fruit trees here at Skillin's. Come see our great selection and let us show you how these plants can provide great tasting and healthy food for you and your family PLUS we can explain how they add quality year round beauty and character to your landscape!

David Beaulieu at About.com Landscaping writes the following good advice about fruit trees:

"Who says that only ornamentals can be used in landscape design? Apple trees (Malus spp.) are as lovely in bloom as any strictly ornamental flowering specimen. But unlike ornamentals, apple trees will provide you with a delicious harvest of fruit. And because you’ll be able to enjoy that fruit fresh off the trees (when it tastes best), you’ll have added incentive to adhere to the old maxim about having one a day to keep the doctor away!

Nor are the aesthetic landscaping uses for apple trees limited by their blooming periods. A row of apple trees can act as an attractive privacy screen all summer and fall, while fully leafed out. Or perhaps you already have a privacy fence, but it looks too bare -– you’d like to dress it up.

Dwarf varieties of the apple can serve as the “clothing,” trained along your fence in an art form known as espalier. Dwarf varieties (5’-8’ tall) and semi-dwarf varieties (12’-16’ tall) are better plants for espalier than are standard apples (20’-30’ tall).

But don’t depend on dwarf varieties to be as hardy as semi-dwarf varieties and standards. For a homeowner living in planting zone 3, for instance, it’s probably safest to restrict your selection to standards. Those of you, however, who live in a climate suitable for dwarf varieties should take advantage: you won’t have to wait as long for a mature yield of fruit (a couple of years) after planting as with standards (five or six years). Note, however, that in addition to apple tree variety, the other factors that I discuss throughout this article have an impact on how long it will take for the branches of your new apples to start straining under the burden of a bumper crop.

Selecting Varieties of Apple Trees: Climate and Taste

Beyond the consideration of dwarf vs. standard varieties, the first thing you should do to determine the varieties of apple trees you’ll be growing is to ensure that you select the varieties that grow best in your region....(we can help you with that here at Skillin's!)

The following are examples of varieties of apple trees that are good at producing fruit for particular tastes:

For a sweet fruit: "Honeycrisp"

For pie-making: "Northern Spy," "Liberty" apple trees and "Golden Delicious"

Selecting Apple Trees – Varieties Resistant to Disease

But not all of us will want to let our taste buds make the decision for us; it’s ultimately our muscles we listen to the most -– as in avoiding sore muscles by adopting low-maintenance alternatives. In the latter case, disease-resistant varieties of apple trees may carry the day over varieties that require spraying -– regardless of nuances in taste. Four diseases commonly attack apple trees: fire blight, apple scab, cedar apple rust and powdery mildew."

Here at Skillin's we recommend Freedom and Liberty as two varieties that are very disease resistant.

We also offer some "heirloom apple" varieties including Roxbury Russett and Newtown Pippin (a favorite of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson!).

Check out our 2008 Nursery Catalog in PDF form at http://www.skillins.com/ for more descriptions of the varieties that we offer!


April 24:

Onions are so good and so easy to grow! The easiest way to grow onions is by planting onion sets. Onion sets are grown from seed one year, harvested early and stored under controlled conditions and then sold in the Spring. They are easy and foolproof and they are usually the first harvest of the season in your garden. Here is some advice on how best to plant onion sets from Jim Crockett of Crockett’s Victory Garden:

Plant the sets in mid to late April. First, work any good garden fertilizer such as Pro Gro by North Country Organics or Plant Tone by Espoma into the soil. Plant 2 rows, 2 inches apart, gently pressing the sets down into the soft soil at 2” intervals until the tips are just under the surface. This is a dense planting, but pull every other one to be eaten as sweet juicy scallions later in the Spring, leaving half the crop to mature into full-sized onions.

The deep snows of winter offer a perfect opportunity for mice, moles and voles to hide from cats and other predators. However, such rodents will often spend their winter under the snow gnawing on young tender recently planted trees. Now that the snow has mostly melted such eating can easily be noticed. Too much eating can cause girdling and be fatal to the tree. If you notice bark missing and parts of your trees gashed on the lower trunk areas we urge you to wrap your trees with a good quality tree wrap (sold here at Skillin’s). Wrap your trees to a point of 1 to 2 inches in the ground and extend at least 18 inches up the tree. Again, such eating may eventually be fatal but if your tree is to be saved, any exposed areas should be protected from sun scald or disease spores. Also always avoid using mulch within a foot of tree trunks because that mulch can be a haven for rodents. Let us know if you have any questions!

Question from customer MF: "This spring we are going to attempt to be more organic with our lawn and flower gardens. We need some advice as to the order in which to apply various products. Last weekend we bought the Organica 4 step program and also we want to put down a layer of compost. The products in question are:

compost
grass seed (to reseed some bare spots)
Organica Lawn Booster
Milky Spore
Organica Kelp Booster

Answer: "The Organica Lawn Booster is an excellent product but it consists of corn gluten meal and you should not put that down on the ground at the same time you put down the grass seed because corn gluten will stop any seed from germinating as the corn gluten breaks down into a gel and thinly covers the ground.

I just applied the Organica Lawn Booster to my lawn EXCEPT in areas where I just put down some Jonathan Green Black Beauty grass seed (which I highly recommend by the way). In that spot I would recommend putting down the Kelp (Step 2).

In early June when it is time to go to Step 2 of the Four Step Program I would put the kelp in areas that you did not seed and I would put the Lawn Booster (step 1) in areas that you did reseed and have now germinated. So after you have done all this you have put both Step 1 (Lawn Booster) and Step 2 (Kelp Booster) down just in reverse order where you seed.

Confused? Just let me know and I will try to “re explain”.

The Milky Spore can be applied anytime.

Are you putting the compost on the lawn? I would put the compost down after the grass seed is germinated and you have mowed that area once or twice. If you do this apply the compost VERY THINLY—maybe an inch. Very thin; you don’t want to strangle your grass."

Question from VB in New Jersey: A friend from Maine recommended your site for a question I have. I have a problem with cats doing their duty in my mulched gardens... any suggestions that would deter them from wanting to go in there? Any type of treatment or something?

Answer: Cats are tough because they mostly do what they want!

The key is to change the area that they do their duty in; you can do this by sprinkling animal repellents to the mulched area (most garden centers would sell Repels All by Bonide or Critter Ridder by Havahart).

Some people also put things in these areas that swing in the wind or clang a little. We also sell a device called the Scarecrow that sprays water when it detects motion in the area.

Just a few thoughts, if I get more I will pass them on!

Skillin's customers IF YOU HAVE ANY GOOD METHODS TO GET RID OF CATS PLEASE LET ME KNOW AT info@skillins.com OR DROP US A COMMENT AT THE END OF THIS POST.

April 23:

More lawn work: This morning before I came to work (good thing the sun comes up early now!) I put down Lawn Booster by Organica. Lawn Booster is the first step in Organica's All Natural Four Step Lawn Program and I am quite excited about it. Lawn Booster is corn gluten meal which naturally prevents weed seeds from germinating in your lawn. This is a good time to put it down to help prevent crabgrass seed. I love the Organica fertilizer products because through a unique patent they are able to combine their excellent organic fertilizers with natural microbes. This combination works with your soil to bring much better "biology" to your soil; the microbes help the fertilizer to break down more quickly and to bring a much healthier cell structure to your soil. The Organica Four Step Lawn Program is normally priced at $143; we are offering all six bags in the 5000 square foot program to you for $119. And then we will give you a mail-in rebate coupon worth $20 that once redeemed will bring your net price to just $99! So you can EASILY and NATURALLY treat your lawn for an entire season for just $99. That is awesome. Come to Skillin's so we can show you how! So, back to my yard: I put down Step 1 (Organica's Lawn Booster) this morning!

April 22:

Now that I have raked my lawn I put some grass seed down in some bare and hard to grow spots. I am trying some tall Fescue seed from Jonathan Green called Black Beauty that should set some nice deep roots (much deeper than typical Kentucky Bluegrass and ryegrass mixes). Tall Fescue should give off a nice green color and those deep roots should enable the grass to better withstand hot summer stretches (we have those) and cold cold winter temperatures (we have those too in case you did not know!)

April 21:

Customer BCT checks in with this great note. She took our suggestion a couple of weeks ago and planted peas in a container (while the ground was cold cold) and placed her container in the sun.

"I did plant peas two weeks ago in containers. I put them on my front steps in a pure southern exposure and they are about an inch high!!!! Great idea.......Now that I have tried it and it worked I will increase my attempt next year!!"

I just planted a second container early on a recent morning. If you have space in a sunny area for a vegetable garden NOW is a great time to plant seeds like peas, carrots, beets, radishes, and swiss chard.

We will have lettuce, cabbage, broccoli and brussel sprouts plants available for sale this weekend AND they should be planted as well.

All of these plants need lots of sun. They can be grown in the ground OR in containers.