Warm Weather for Garden Clean Up

Pride of Burma Ginger - a new plant for us.

The Pineapple Sage blooms with the short days of October.
The garlic patch planting -plant now for a next summer harvest.


The finished bed.
A late planting of lettuce in a season extender cold frame
the cardoon tied up for blanching.
I harvested "babies" from this mother plant for wintering over under lights.
Here are the newly planted starts.
The Red Italian Dandelion is a chicory that I hope will winter over.
Look at those thorns on the Purple Devil.

Nothing on this plant is edible.

The return of warm weather helps make fall clean up easier but also makes one wish for more growing days. I finally got some late lettuce planted in one of the cold frames. I also was surprised when I looked in the seed box for spinach seed - seems there is not too much. Spinach is a great last crop to sow in the fall as the seed will germinate in the cool nights and then just hold through the winter for spring growth. So I will have to go on the search for some more seed as the three packets that I have just will not do as I planted one in the cold frame with the lettuce.

I also got the garlic planted. Hardneck garlic is a fall planted crop that will be harvested next summer. The pictures show that I am only planting one bed instead of two like last year. I had more garlic of one kind than another so I figured that I would just mix the cloves and not bother to worry about two separate beds. The garlic all ends up eaten or planted anyway. I used my dibble to punch the holes and planted the cloves about 2 - 2 1/2 inches deep and talking with some other gardeners I think next spring I will give the plants a good shot of blood meal to help push them along. They seem to think that garlic is a heavy feeder and needs fertilization so I will try. I sure would like bulbs as large as the ones I saw again at the Door County Fair in August.

Along with the planting I took out all the cucumber vines, melon vines, tomato plants and peppers and sent them all to the city compost pile. Just as matter of practice I don't compost any of those plants. I want to move the tomato planting so I will pull out all the "T" posts this fall and reposition them next season in the new patch. I removed all the potato vines too and sent them off as well. The egg plants, when I pulled them, had huge root systems as did a few of the tomato plants. The 'Red Peach' along with the 'Green Doctors', 'Tomatoberry', and I think 'Red Alert' all had substantial root systems this late in the season. While the other tomatoes in the rows were easy to pull out as they had few roots holding them in the ground. The grafted plants were not as heavy on the roots as they should have been. A few of the cherry types also had the very last tomatoes of the season. The 'Green Doctors' and 'Red Alert' had the most and a yellow variety also had fruits but I just can't remember the name of that yellow variety, as the plants were in the rows that got replanted and the records don't show exactly what they are - too bad because they were good.

I also tied up all the cardoon plants in order to blanch the centers before I harvest some of them. Hopefully they will be on the menu for Thanksgiving or maybe sooner. Some of the plants might winter over and then next season they will grow flower shoots and make what look and taste very much like mini-artichokes. What fun.

We are having beef stew tonight. The base is tomato juice frozen from last years tomatoes; with onions, potatoes, carrots, and celeriac from this years garden.

Last week I started a new batch of 'Spider Plants (Chlorophytum conosum) for the house and for next years outdoor plants. I like to have 'Spider Plants' in the house all winter. They will take the low light and help clean the air, and next spring, the plantlets will be a supply of new adult plants. I have been making new plants this way for a number of years. These plants are day length sensitive and that is what makes the off shoots appear in the fall and spring. Get one from your local grower and next spring make some more.

Also last week we got a new house plant - a 'Pride of Burma' ginger (Curcum roscoeana) from the Plant People Floral here in Green Bay. Sheila Hansen is the floral manager and she has a very nice variety of green and blooming plants. This ginger is tall, as the pictures show, and the orange flower is bright and really a great plant for this Halloween season of orange. I hope to keep the ginger growing upstairs as long as possible then move it to the lights in the basement and then see how it fares.

Two other plants from this summer need some up dates. The Italian red dandelions are a "YES" - a chicory as their scientific name says -Cichorium intybus - so that explains the blue flowers and now the hope is that they will also be perennial and come up next year too.
The 'Purple Devil' (Solanum atropupurean) is truly a devil to get rid of as the thorns show. I scraped off the bottom six inches of thorns before I cut them off and threw them to the trash. The other name for this beast is 'Five Minute Plant' and I agree one does spend at least that much time marveling at the downward facing thorns that can go through leather work gloves easily. Nothing edible on it and I think that this one is not going to reappear in the seed list again unless I want a spite fence.

As guest speaker for the Introduction to Horticulture class at Fox Valley Technical School last Wednesday, I had an involved group of students and really had an excellent time. I can't stress to them too much what a good career path I think they have chosen. We talked about how much everybody likes" pretty" and everyone eats food, and that horticulture seems to work at satisfying both of those needs - "Good Luck" students - hope you stick with it. Thanks for getting the 'mystery plant' correct too.


Happy Gardening.

A Living Roof in Green Bay

St Mary's Hospital Living Roof. A 22,000 sq.ft space with 16,000 sq.ft of living plants.
This roof has both aesthetic and environmental benefits.
The area is open to anyone - drop by for a visit.
The sedums and alums are grown in trays in a very porous soil mix and are thriving.

At home, this eggplant was a little too bitter for a second trial.
This is a little pepper but it packs a lot of heat units.
This was last weeks ending pepper harvest.
The potato harvest out in the sun to dry before storage.
On a recent Door County bike ride we saw this amazing mushroom tree.

This weeks mystery plants - grown from germinated seeds in a fruit.

Recently my garden club visited the "Living Roof" at St. Mary's Hospital Medical Center at 1726 Shawano Ave. in Green Bay. This is the largest living roof north of Chicago covering apx. 22,000 square feet. This roof is in part of the mission of this hospital to respect "not only people but the environment we live in." I was really delighted to see this structure. Corrine Vercauteren spoke to the group about the reasons and benefits of this roof. She is the person in charge of the Environmental Service for St. Mary's. The Sedum and Alum species that grow on the roof are well suited to the zone 4 conditions they endure. Additionally the roof collects 99 percent of the rain that falls on the roof and diverts the water to two cisterns for later use and use in the other gardens that surround this hospital.
The roof was planted in trays and notably, should the hospital decide to build on this site, the roof can be removed and reused atop any future construction. This was truly a well thought out project and has many advantages as compared to a conventional asphalt roof; especially in that this roof will outlast an asphalt roof. St Mary's Hospital is working hard to fulfill its environmental stewardship role and definitely demonstrates "Reverence for the Earth".
If you are ever in the area stop by and take a look at this structure - it is well worth your time.
We are possibly looking at frost soon so the last of crops have been harvested. Potatoes were dug yesterday and the last of the egg plants were harvested and eaten tonight. The fig tree is in the green house and will probably go from there to the basement for its winter sleep. Today there were 8 rip figs - what a great treat. The apples are going to stay on the trees as long as possible. Last year I picked them all and was not happy that some of them were not as mature as another week or two would have produced. This year I am resisting the urge to harvest at the threat of frost and will wait till really dangerous low temperatures threaten. That should allow the late fruit to mature and store better. Besides the fruit seems to just taste better when it comes right off the tree.

Happy Gardening

Kansas City, Mo Adventures and More

Orchids grow on the palm trees in the Kauffman Memorial Gardens.
The great produce at City Market, Kansas City MO
How about these for the grill?
Black Eyed Peas - Real southern food.
Fresh ginger - something new in a farm stall for me.
Boy! were these beautiful.
Roasted peppers - they looked real good and smelled great.
One of the three aisles of farm produce.
Part of the Kauffman Legacy Park.
Blues are so hard to get good pictures of.
Butterflies on the milkweed - this shot took some waiting.
This is the official garden cat sunning in the greenhouse with palms and orchids.
The University of Missouri Extension service is located in this complex.


Ash flower gall mites are quite cosmopolitan and these trees have the galls bad.
These apples will be harvested and stay in the bags for the best storage.
Nice apple in a footie but as you see the bag is starting to tear and so it is not usable again.
These are part of the row of "All Red" potatoes and a few "Inca Gold".
Chipmunk damage to my melon.
I just cant say enough about the success of these "Earth Box" planters.
The biggest banana tree I have ever grown.


We went for a visit with our son in Kansas City, Missouri recently. We got to see more of the city than in our last visit as this time we were able to visit City Market with all the growers in for the Saturday sales. We saw great garden products - got some seedless watermelon, some fresh ginger, and best of all wonderful fresh figs. This is a great market with three double rows for the local growers and various markets of ethnic origin on the perimeter. The Italian deli was tempting and the spices for sale at the Middle Eastern market gave off wonderful smells. We got some Iranian watermelon seeds for a snack and some great tea. This week's pictures will show the market, our visit to the Kauffman Memorial Gardens in downtown KC and some of the harvest that we are doing here in Wisconsin. Should you like another perspective of Kansas City try my son's blog at: http://awiscoboyinkcmo.blogspot.com/
While in KC I got to make a call on the University of Missouri Extension and speak at length with Marlin Bates, Horticulture Specialist about the tomato grafting programs that have been offered by Missouri Extension.UM Extension is very fortunate to have specialists on staff who are knowledgeable about Asian high tunnel growing and vegetable grafting. The information Marlin shared with me about grafting programs that they have presented to regional growers gave me good insight as to the specialized focus of this type of vegetable production. Marlin and I also talked about Viburnum borers and Ash flower Gall mites. A very big "Thank you" to him for sharing his time.
Just a brief note abut the Kauffman Gardens. Although they are a small garden, and notably the final resting sight of the Kauffman's themselves, this garden is a gem - well maintained, colorful even this late in the season, and well identified. The gardens are an oasis of peace in a busy city scene.

Back here in Wisconsin, fall is upon us. The apple harvest is going nicely. I pick a few ripe fruits each day. The bagging results on the footies are not good. I do not see them as protecting the apples as effectively as the plastic bags. They have allowed some coddling moths into fruit and they will not be usable for a second season as they seem to deteriorate in one season - I would guess its UV deterioration. Plus they are not as readily available as plastic, are a bit more time consuming to apply, and I have some signs of apple scab on footie fruits that I do not have with plastic bags. I really don't know for sure why. So as a result I don't think I will be searching for a good deal on 'footies' this spring.
Potatoes are still green and growing but I have dug some anyway. The "French Fingerlings" we had the other night oven roasted were nice. Today we are having some Inca Gold and All Red quickly cooked in the microwave. We are not big potato eaters much anymore but having fresh spuds from the garden is hard to resist.
The melons are a real bust. Most of the vines were hit hard by fast-moving powdery mildew and then cool weather brought growth to a halt. Also I have rodent damage on some fruit as the pictures show. If I get the new hoop house built this fall maybe we can use that structure in the summer for melons and see if that helps hurry them along.
The fig tree is giving us one or two ripe figs each day and the peppers growing in the "Earth Boxes" are an amazing success. I think I will get another one of these planters and put all of next years pepper plants in these and none in the garden. Finally, the banana tree is just huge! Take a look at the pictures of this great plant with the yard stick to help you get some idea of just how happy this plant has been this year - too bad frost will make short work of it soon. We will hope for such a happy plant next year.
Happy Gardening

One of the many fountains in KC, MO. ( PS if you go back to the Canada fishing entry; I just got that wilderness waterfalls to post too....)

Tomato Blight for me too

Ripe figs from our tree are a treat.
Probably the worst tomato patch I have ever had.
We had NO beans this season - good thing I did not plant all my seeds.
These red dandelion flowers look exactly like blue chicory flowers.
You can see that the ones in the lower right are really blue.

After my return from the Canadian fishing trip the tomato patch looked pretty sad. What looked like a late blight had hit the plants hard and it took some time to clean up the plants. I removed all dead leaves and any green leaves that looked really infected and any old or damaged fruits. They look pretty poor but we are still picking fruits and maybe we will still have tomatoes for a few weeks to come. I sure will miss them when they are gone.

Most of the melons are still green. The Minnesota midgets were over ripe when I got home and so no taste test there. The vines growing on the trellis seem to be less infected with powdery mildew than the plants on the ground. With our cool weather for the last few days ripening will be slow. I sure hope we get some soon. However, Stinky - our Chicago Brown Turkey fig - is producing several rip fruits each day. What a treat to come home from Canada to ripe figs. As the weather gets cooler the fig tree will retreat back to the greenhouse and then later into the house as we do not heat the greenhouse except for one month in the seed starting season.

My son and I spent most of the day painting the inside of the house so tomorrow I want to start some fall lettuce and get some radishes planted in a cold frame plus get some more clean up in the garden done. We are going to take down the old hoop house and hopefully put up a new one this fall. Initially I was going to try one made of metal poles but I think I am going to try one made of plastic tubing mainly as a cost factor. half inch to one inch PVC honed in the middle and anchored to the ground with plastic stretched over the top and some sort of permanent ends seems to be the plan. I will again search the web for some plans I know I saw once before.

The Italian red dandelions have some flowers on them and they look exactly like chicory flowers - blue petaled. I was expecting a yellow composite but that's not what one plant that is blooming has so I need to go back to the seed package or the catalog and see if their is a scientific name to check the genus and species.
Happy Gardening