Garden Preparation: September

A tired, end of summer garden scene.

It has been a glorious year for my blueberries - just 4 bushes and 26+ quarts! But alas, August ends, September begins and the end of the season pathogens are clearly taking over. Tomatoes and other veggies now  rapidly are losing their resistances and showing their age. 

Although experienced backyard gardeners know the drills for this time of year, here are just a few reminders for those of us who cannot quite remember everything to do:

• Prune the vines on your indeterminant tomatoes. If you don't, they will continue to grow and set new fruit at the expense of ripening the green fruits now on the vine.

• And while we are on the tomato kick, refrain from removing foliage to let more sunlight onto the green tomatoes or the ones showing "yellow shoulders" around the stem. It will not promote ripening, but will increase the risk of sun scorch and possibly even larger yellow shoulders if the temperatures stay hot.  Although tomato vines like to grow in warm conditions, the fruit needs  moderate temperatures to stimulate the production carotene to turn the fruit red. Yellow shoulders indicate that although green chlorophyll production is reduced, carotene generation has been limited.

• Start removing tired looking plants now. If the old veggies look ill -- e.g. dead shoots, spots on the leaves, etc. -- bag them, don't add them to your compost pile. You will not eleminate recontainmination of your garden soil, but you will reduce the concentation of pathogens in your soil a little.

• If you have cleared your garden, now is the time to start to plant cover crops. Check this link for previous posts about cover crops or you can start spreading your compost onto your garden.

• On a closing note, take a break and   watch the heightened activity levels of the pollinators in your late summer garden. And maybe take even a little more time to notice how many different pollinators there are, large and small.  All are very focused on finding the nectar offered by  your late blooming plants. In my vegetable garden most of the activity seems to center around the kitchen herbs. The blooms of thyme, winter savory and basil also bring the pollinators to the my nearby beans, cucumbers and peppers. 

Source: U. of Wisconsin @ Milwaukee

Among the   most noticeable of insects that you probably will see  is Sphex pensylvanicus,   usually just called the Great Black Wasp (GBW) in the vernacular. Although you might first perceive it to be a huge beast, it actually ranges in size only between 1" and 1 1/2".   

GBWs are beneficial in two ways. First, the wasps nourish themselves  on nectar and so pollinate plants; but secondly, the females also hunt various grasshoppers, katydids and other larger insects for their young to eat when they hatch.  GBWs are solitary wasps burying into loose soils to establish  nests for their broods. They are not aggressive, but will sting if provoked.  

Be glad too see them and thankful that you have them in your garden.

Voles & Holes

Recently a friend contacted me about how her second planting of bush beans just disappearing over night.  Her plants were small and had just opened their first pair of permanent leaves. At first we suspected that deer were to be blamed because they might have been able to reach over the fencing as they had earlier to nibbble on several tomatoes.  

A closer inspection revealed several small holes where her beans had been, and then it was discovered a few holes at the base of her raised garden beds that matched the size of the holes at the bean site.  

Conclusion: the culprit(s) is probably Microtus pennsylvanicus, more commonly referred to as a meadow mouse or meadow vole.  There is also a slightly smaller vole,   Microtus pinetorum, called the woodland or pine vole present in the Northeast that prefers to live in and around pine forests. Both voles include tender green plants in their diets, but the size of the holes implied that the villain in this instance was the slightly larger meadow vole. Both types also  spend much of their lives in burrows to avoid being eaten by all your favorite predators, but will emerge at night to dine on  salads from your garden. 

Usually, when I think about voles, I think about their girdling fruit trees and shrubs during the winter, and not  their feasting on veggies during the summer. Although both are guilty of girdling, the pine vole  may be the  worse offender in this regard.  

Meadow vole. Source: Cornell U.

An interesting and probably naive aspect to me  of my friend's misfortune is that her raised beds are filled with soil rising 36"  above her yard, and this, I suspect,  has created an ideal vole condo.  The critters gained access at the ground (lawn) level and tunneled upward to the top of the soil in her raised bed. 

For a thorough dicussion about control options take a look at this U. of Maryland's Extension Service Fact Sheet.  By the way, household mousetraps are effective against voles when baited with peanut butter. 



And remember...

"Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites to lay our eye level

with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain." - Henry David Thoreau