Archive for July, 2009
The Penny in Each Vase May Be Working!
U.S. Mint Image
Yesterday I made three bouquets of flowers and herbs from the yard. I put a couple of tablespoons of Sprite in all three. In two of them I put a penny. Today I noticed that the jar without the penny had clouded up. By the end of the day I could not stand it so when I was changing the water I added a penny to that one, too. We’ll see what happens tomorrow. I suppose this has something to do with the copper in the penny?
Garden Watering is SO Complex …
I am never quite sure how effective my watering strategies are. I like the screwdriver soil testing idea, though. I’ve tried the soaker hose watering strategy, but people keep tripping over them. Here’s the beginning of an excellent blog article on the ins and outs of watering by Michael Tortorello of the NY Times. Click on the links above or below the blog excerpt to read his whole post.
New York Times Gardening Blog, July 8, 2009, 1:17 pm
Secrets of Watering By Michael Tortorello
Watering a vegetable garden, I figured, couldn’t be much harder. There is the tricky matter of attaching the hose to a bold new technology called a “sprinkler.” I may be an early adapter, but I managed.
The Rain Gods, I’m given to understand, have been summering in New York this year — showering a few ball games at the new Citi Field, drowning the odd picnic on the Great Lawn in Central Park. Wherever the Rain Gods have been, rain has not been falling on my yard. Minneapolis is on the verge of drought conditions and my lawn has been wearing an unfashionable beige for most of the season.
Further, the soil in my extra lot — also known as the sand box — drains more quickly than the kitchen sink. My Starter Garden hydration strategy, then, has been straightforward. Each night after the sun has done its disappearing act, I’ve watered the garden for 15 to 20 minutes. The idea is to keep the vegetables moist and refreshed, as if I were running a spa for turnip greens…. continued at http://topics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/08/secrets-of-watering/
Sitting on the Porch Watching the Garden
Twenty-five years ago I knew we would purchase our house as soon as I saw the front porch with its old, beat-up swing. The house had a back porch, too. I could not wait to buy it. After 25 years the porches are like an extra rooms. When I sit on our porches I am always reminded of an old NPR radio series, Sitting on a Porch, Not a Place but a State of Mind.
Today, with the garden and shrubs more orderly, and good furniture on each porch, it’s easy to spend a few hours, enjoying flowers, reading the paper, sewing, or just watching to see who walks by. Over the years we’ve added pots and a rocking chair in front and turned the back into a sun porch. The sun porch is intentionally plant-spare in the spring, fall and winter so the view huge windows focuses us on the back yard (we’ve even seen a fox out there this year). Sometimes we sip tea or even take trays out to the front porch, enjoying ourselves amid flowering impatiens and ferns.
A few porch thoughts from others …
Sitting on the Front Porch- Porch Sitting and Sewing
- Sitting on the Front Porch Swing — Dolly Parton
- The Summer Rite of Porch Sitting
- Times Not Forgotton — Sitting on the Old Porch
Sprite as a Peservative for Cut Flowers
I tried the Sprite as a preservative and it’s working. A couple of cuttings that were leaning over perked right up! I used 25% sprite and 75 percent water.
At eHow, I found a suggestion that a vase have an asprin for preservation and a penny for prevent fungus growth. ( I am testing the penny idea now.)
Also from eHow, a suggestion for preservative formula that you can make at home.
A few more cut flower preservation tips.
- From the PlanTea site
http://www.plantea.com/cutflowers.htm
- National Gardening Association
http://www.garden.org/howtos/index.php?q=show&id=1318
Summer Flowers
It’s summer and the flowers are blooming.
An amusing situation for me — I have two sets of gardens, one set in Virginia and the other in upstate New York — is how to use, enjoy, and give away flowers. Each location features an herb garden an
d lots of flowers. This means that a lot of my time at each location is spent weeding, but it also means there are wonderful bouquets of flowers at each location and also herb seas
oned meals. A few flower pictures from Virginia. On the left are two large pots that were purchased for my daughter’s wedding — mostly petunias — but they are still going strong. On the right is a bouquet of hydrangea, cornflower, gayfeather.
The biggest problem with cut flowers is preserving them. I’ve tried the preservative that comes with grocery store flowers, and also sugar. I try to cut the flowers under running water. Check out the half sprite, half water suggestion and others at the Suite 101 web site. Hydrangeas seem to be the most fussy about lasting more than a couple of days. Gayfeather (the long purple spike on the right) seems to last forever.
