Silver Queen

My gardens are hurting this year, too. Cool crops are doing well...come on sunshine!

Cathy

I believe this is my first encounter with the word "spleeny." We've been in Maine only about a year and a half, and I thought maybe "spleeny" was a special Maine word. I looked it up in the big dictionary and it gives several meanings, including melancholy, so I think you have used the word well to describe gardens that are under-achieving.

I take it from the "worm tea" that you are an organic gardener. I am not. I freely use such things as Miracle-Gro, as well as Peters and Schultz soluble plant foods. I do use some organic things, like make compost piles, mulch, etc. When the time is right (like not raining and in the morning with the sun shining) I will do foliar feeding with a good soluble fertilizer.

MM

P.S. Thanks, Steve, for setting up this forum.

We "gahden" organically here, too. The man of the house has taken the Master Gardener's course, and we've been members of MOFGA for years now. "Give me spots on apples, but leave me the birds and bees..."

And yes, the gardens are not what they were last year. I've noticed that virtually everything is about 2 weeks behind schedule. The annuals are really just now beginning to take off (the panseys are still thriving!), and the perennials are late (still have Astilbe arendsii in flower), and the Jap. beetles have only JUST begun to show up.

Still, though, the plants that favor cool, moist conditions have never been lovlier... Hostas, ferns, Asarum, Astilbes, even the Hydrangeas are behinning to respond and make a comeback.

Nice to see that my experience is echoed by so many. (I lost a huge portion of ornamental grasses, and some Perovskia, too... also Buddleia and Caryopteris).

Marie, the crazy lady with the brass bedpost fence

The perennials seem pretty much on schedule, maybe some a little behind.

In the vegetable garden, it has been a great year for sugar snap peas. Usually we have to rip them out by early July because it gets too hot for them. Banner year for lettuce. But others are behind schedule. Just picked my first bush beans yesterday. Have had about 3 zuchinni (it should be coming out of our ears by now). Peppers just starting to form fruit, although we did get two jalopenos this week. A couple blossoms on eggplant but no fruit, that's to be expected. But the tomatoes are pretty far behind. I grow Opalka, an heirloom paste that grows up to 7' every year. It is mid-July and the plants are only 2'. They look a little funny, as I thought I had finally found the perfect tomato supports for them that would contain them after struggling with collapsed 6' stakes last year. I got a couple of those decorative windmill pyramidical metal things 7' high from a friend who was getting rid of them, (sans windmill), spraypainted them dark blue. 7' metal support for 2' tomato plants. I hope they start growing upward soon.

I understand your displeasure with collapsing tomato supports. Last year we bought about twenty inexpensive wire tomato cages at Reny's for 99 cents each. At that price they were small with rather weak wire, but they were better than nothing at all. Many fell over even with determinate tomatoes. I noticed Reny's was selling what appeared to be the same cages this year for only 49 cents each. Last year I tried to support my larger indeterminates with wooden poles cut from the woods as prunings. That was only partly successful and labor intensive, tying nylon stocking loops around the vines and pulling those close to the poles with strings.

We got a late start this year and re-used all the wire cages despite their marginal performance last year. Even the determinate tomatoes are now way over the tops of them. When I can find time and budget I plan to buy some concrete wire mesh and fashion bigger, sturdier cages from that heavy wire mesh, especially for my taller indeterminates.

MM

I'm using cylinders made from field fencing. The're about four feet tall, and two feet in diameter. I train the seedlings with string until they can stand on their own. At this point, they're all standing up in the cages, resting their branches on the fencing. The openings in field fencing are just right for both supporting the branches, and reaching inside to retrieve your bounty. I keep them anchored to the ground with a brick on each side. Works fine for me! The only problem is finding field fencing by the yard. Maybe a really small hardware store would sell it that way.

Silver Queen

He also told me that he made the cages from rusted fencing, because the rusted ones were less obvious than fresh new wire. So I put my oldest rusty "tomato cages" in the garden closest to the road. And any newer ones in less observed gardens.

I picked up a lot of rusty cages and fence wire in the biennial May town cleanup program.

Marie the scavenger

It takes about five or ten minutes to make a cage from field fencing wire. All you need is a wire cutter and a good pair of pliers. Going to the town dump on spring or fall cleanup day is a good idea in general. Given your name, I'm sure you realize that!

Silver Queen

"I am a no-tiller, and all the beds have perennials in them so I can't till anyway."

Does that mean you won't use a spade or shovel? Actually, if you have active earthworms, they do a lot to till for you by bringing up worm castings.

"I am thinking I may have marginal drainage that is being aggravated by the plentiful rain."

Have you considered raised beds? I am contemplating them for next year.

MM

Everyone clap your hands above your head and stomp your shovel 3 times deep into the soil and yell out to the sun gods..."shine on down on Maine!" followed by the foot stomping to the chant "SUn sun SUN suN SUN sun SuN"

(hope I get enough cucumbers to pickle this year)

Cheers-

"I do use a spade, and a weasel for more sensitive areas."

I've seen TV ads for the Garden Weasels. They look quite neat. I'll have to put one of those on my wish list.

I don't usually handle earthworms except when I am fishing. I have encountered several in the last couple of days when I was moving some top soil in the wheelbarrow. I tried to be gentle with them by picking them up with the spade with some soil underneath them as a cushion. Hopefully I moved them without any serious injuries. Earthworms are no doubt beneficial in the garden.

MM