Composting Corn Cobs

Corn cobs are wonderful in the composter but they take a very long time to break down. The smaller the materials you place in the composter the faster it will become usable for your garden. Many items like apple or melon peal can be easily chopped nice and small. Some even use an old blender to liquefy as much as possible, a good item to look for at yard sale. Cobs can be sliced but it is not easy. I take my cobs outside to an old patio stone or the stump used to chop wood, and I get a hammer. I then lay a cob down and beat the bejeeses out of it. This can be especially useful during times when you need to rid yourself of a little extra stress.

Buy corn from a farmers market and include the cobs in your composter. If you have a stressful job but you don’t have a composter it may be a beneficial time to start one.

Wind Plays Havoc on Tender Young Plants

What a lot of windy weather we have been having and the impact on plants can be disastrous. Newly planted seedlings can easily be damaged or snapped right off even in a stiff breeze. When plants are hardened off they are mainly acclimating to sun and a little breeze, when the wind starts to rise we bring the tender seedlings inside to protect them. Whenever a plant is transplanted to the garden they should always be staked. You don’t need to use big bamboo stakes even something as thin as a skewer, $1 for a pack of 100 at the dollar store or 36 really thick skewers. Even short plants need a little support while starting out and these are the ones usually overlooked. I always utilize a fan while growing seedlings to help strengthen the stem and get them used to light winds but I do stake all plants until they are established or if they need long term support the small stake is exchanged for a full bamboo stake that will last until harvest.

Protecting tender plants early will help to ensure a healthy plant and a productive harvest.

Garden Festival

They say a festival is only as good as the people organizing it. Well the Garden Festival organized by the Sudbury Horticultural Society led by Wayne and Linda Hugli to celebrate the society’s 100th anniversary was fantastic.

If you did not make it out to the Farmers Market last week-end you truly missed a great opportunity to see some wonderful gardening exhibits and outstanding speakers. Everything was garden based, no hot tubs or furniture or hair care products just great gardening items, art, magazines, tools, plants, produce, information and so much more. I was very excited to be asked to talk on organics and sustainable gardening and the interest from the audience was outstanding. Speakers on gardening with arthritis, how to garden without pesticides, perennial gardens, and so many more captivated the audience. The variety and knowledge of the speakers was so interesting the seating area filled quickly. I thank the society for the opportunity to spread my own organic sustainable message. With this great turn out I sold nearly all of my heirloom vegetable plants, now I will start to plant the rest into my own gardens.

I had a great two days and thoroughly enjoyed talking to all those who came to buy plants or just gather information. There are so many interesting gardeners in our community, some have greenhouses, some garden plots and others getting creative with container gardening. It was lovely to meet so many growers.

It was wonderful to see many people who follow my tips and gardening dilemmas on Facebook, Dave, John, Pirjo… I now have a face for many of the people on the other side of my computer.

Kudos to all those dedicated people who volunteered a lot of time and talent to present our community with such an outstanding event. Happy 100th Anniversary to the Sudbury Horticultural Society.

Pepper Tip

Peppers do well in containers and the containers can be placed in the garden beside the other plants but when it begins to cool a little they are easily brought in overnight. Peppers hate the cool and will stop growing or not fruit if they get chilled, but they can fruit through November if brought to a sunny location inside.

Water Conservation and Vegetable Plants

Watering plants that are long season varieties like tomatoes and peppers, mound up the soil in a circle around them creating a dam under the plant. This will hold the water allowing it to seep deep down instead of running away.

Another idea is to take a plastic bottle and cut the bottom off, take the cap and pierce or drill a few little holes in it and place it back on the bottle. Stick the cap end in the ground close to the plant and fill with water. This will allow the plant to slowly take in the water and let it soak deeply. I also take a bit of nylon or cheesecloth and lay a square over the open bottle end and secure it with an elastic band. This will stop bugs, dirt and leaves from getting in and plugging up the little holes.

Springtime Arrivals

Each spring I look forward to the spring peepers, little frogs that belt out a lot of noise in early spring evenings. When I hear the peepers I know spring is here at last. I like to keep track of first sightings and compare them to last year.

Each year 5 starlings arrive in my yard, in 2010 they were here March 14th and this year March 17th. The butterfly that flitted by March 15th 2010 did not appear until April 22nd this year. I looked forward to the woodcocks which called, flew up and then plummeted down in the dusky evening March 19th 2010 but were not seen until April 6th 2011. The call of the sandhill cranes can be heard long before you see this large beautiful bird gliding over, they came on March 31st last year and, April 11th this year. Juncos were 10 days later from April 10th 2010 to April 20th 2011. The Spring peepers I enjoy so much hollered their little hearts out April 3 2010 but since this year the ponds were still frozen over on April 3rd and we had 5-6” of snow on the 20th they were pretty brave to poke their noses out on April 22nd .

It seems most arrivals have been over 10 days later than last year it would be a good idea to keep a close watch on temperature forecasts before planting the garden.
It may be the end of May before we can safely place out seedlings in the ground to give them the best advantage. Especially so for pepper plants, if they get a chill they may not grow into a nice sized bush or they will bush but not fruit.

Always best to keep an eye on Mother Nature before taking a chance and just going by the calendar.

Early Weeding

The weather is finally turning and this is a great time to get a first step into the garden. I like this time of year to start weeding the beds and preparing for the upcoming season.

In the fall the ground gets damp then it freezes over expanding in the soil as ice crystals do, in the spring the ice melts and leaves air spaces in the soil that makes it nothing short of fluffy. This is the perfect time to weed. The soil is loose and a quick pull can relieve a long root from the ground quick and easy. This is my favourite weeding time, the easy weeding time. It will not take long for rains to pound the ground and the sun to dry it out until it is pretty packed in again. So take advantage of the nice weather and start some early season weeding. You won’t regret it.