what's up

[songbird]

many years ago Ma planted some flowers that were supposed to repel mosquitoes. it also happens to be able to spread more than we'd like. inside the fenced gardens it was taking over six different patches. last fall we started getting it out of three of them, this spring i finished those and now we've had time to think about what next.

this week we chopped back the rest of it (with the bees still buzzing all over it -- they switched over to the many other flowering plants). Ma got it mostly out of one of the gardens and two others will need a few square yards of it either smothered or removed along their edges, but that at least halts the invasion of that flower going on in the fenced garden patches.

leaving it still having spread into the large area behind the fenced gardens which contains my second strawberry patch. as this area was along the large drainage ditch and it never was properly set up as a formal garden i did't really spend a lot of time back there to keep things under control. so the grasses have invaded from the ditch and the invasive flowering plant has gotten going in there too.

my original plan that i've been working on was to gradually get that stuff removed, smothered and to put down a deep root barrier to keep the grasses and other weeds out.

Ma decides she wants to chop all that down so we start on that and almost get done and she says she wants to either keep mowing it or we have to cover/smother it. now, if i'd know the choices before spending two previous days chopping it back i'd have just said smother it (and not waste time chopping because the stubs from chopping will come through plastic or weed barrier fabric when you step on it)... she says that she'll do anything to not have that area be strawberries again.

since i'm losing my large strawberry patch she says that we can put one inside the fenced gardens in a currently unused space (i was eventually going to do this anyways). that frees up the time i was going to be renovating the large strawberry patch - when things cool off in a few more weeks we can start on the new strawberry patch. much easier location to manage (completely surrounded by formal gardens, crushed limestone pathways, fenced, etc.). it won't be invaded by the large drainage ditch grass and horsetail...

in other news, cherry tomatoes coming in now, many cucumbers, peppers, onions, beans. hail damage in places. should be able to make some bean salad soon.

songbird

[Terry Coombs]

Care to share what that invsasive plant was ? You mentioned that bees were all over it , and I have a lot of areas here at The 12 Acre Wood where I can plant it and not care how invasive it is ...

[Steve Peek]

I'll bet it was in the mint family! Square stems?

Steve

[Terry Coombs]

I've been trying to get borage (and other stuff) started here , supposed to bloom later than most of the stuff here . I need something that blooms into the summer heat , we have a dearth of nectar sources after about mid-July , and often no nectar flow in the fall . Bees gotta eat , and feeding them sugar syrup gets expensive .

[Ecnerwal]

At the moment (but not MO) the red monarda (bee balm, but also popular with hummingbrds) is still working, the catnip is blooming & popular, and rose of sharon is popular with the buzzy gals as well. Purple coneflowers (echinacea) are out. The "everbearing" raspberries continue to flower. Sedums have not quite started yet. And, of course, clover.

Buckwheat should do well for bee forage and takes some heat; you may want to plant it after other things are finished and plow it down after the bees work it but before seed sets.

[songbird]

Terry Coombs wrote: ...

almost everything we grow here is full sun tolerant plants, so i'm not sure how well it would fare in a woodland setting.

in nosing around i can't find the tag (we kept them for everything we planted, but for some reason not this one), but it would say that it is some variety of penny royal.

i'd not put it in any place that might be grazed or used as fodder because it can be toxic. i've chewed on a few leaves over the years and kept thinking it was a wimpy oregano that somehow got in, but Ma kept calling it mosquito weed.

songbird

[T]

Kudzu?

[songbird]

Terry Coombs wrote: ...

if you don't have meadowland/open areas i'm not sure how well most flowering plants i can think of will do.

bee balm and the related bergamot are later blooming.

some asters. russian sage.

if you start it now buckwheat should be blooming in 4 - 6 weeks (needs sunlight). for next year's blooming i would mix in with that some white clover, red clover, alfafa, and birdsfoot trefoil. then you could mow this field in patches to keep some of it from flowering earlier and then it could be left after the first or second cut to bloom later. it will take a few years for the alfalfa and trefoil to really get established.

for the immediate and shorter term buckwheat is a good stopgap plant and a good nursery plant for the clovers, trefoil and alfalfa...

songbird

[Terry Coombs]

I have power line easements about 60-80 ft wide thru the woods , they get pretty good sun .

I planted some bee balm , never came up - maybe next spring .

There are some asters around , growing wild .

I'll have to check out the buckwheat , they've been saying on beesource.com that some varieties don't produce much nectar . I did scatter some sweet clover seed , didn't come up . Neither did the borage , bee balm , penstemon ,or the hollyhocks - I may have waited too late . I have reserved some of the seeds I bought , planned on scattering them this fall in hopes they'd germinate next spring . I'd love to crowd some of the grasses out with other stuff that's more bee-friendly .

[Terry Coombs]

Our woodland setting includes power line easements that are kept clear of trees . Small chance of anything but deer grazing here , I'll check out "mosquito weed" .

[Terry Coombs]

Looks like it is pennyroyal , and yes Steve , it is a member of the mint family . I'll be getting some seeds ...

[songbird]

the white smaller ones are earlier bloomers here than the later purple ones. the purple asters are about the latest flowers we'll see along the roads.

depends upon the plant, but many seem to do better when planted later in the summer and into the fall, but some need disturbed soil, others need some action to get the seeds down in far enough, others need a bit of fire or heat, others need the cold and frozen time that winter can provide. patience and watching areas you've put things to see what sprouts when...

sometimes adding some potted plants will help get a patch established.

oh, besides buckwheat, radish works well as a nursery crop as it also grows quickly. some varieties of flax are very nice to look at too, but it might be too late to plant them down there (golden flax seeds i like more than the black seeded types). radish blooms the second season (as also the purple top turnips, beets and chards).

songbird

[songbird]

Terry Coombs wrote: ...

wish you were more local, i could happily have you come over and dig up what's left of it. :)

for next season i forgot to mention the venerable sunflower as they are later season flowers.

babies breath and mums are two other garden plants we have which bloom later.

for a little earlier blooms the wallflowers are bee magnets (if you like orange). for a little later the buttefly weed (orange, yellow or reddish) are also nice to look at. the flower clusters are the same type as the milkweed, but the orange is a nice change. these have been blooming for a little while here, but it's one of my favorite wildflowers. the pods are like the milkweed too, fuzz all over blowing seeds around (the key to harvesting these seeds is to pick the pods a little before they fully split open and then you can hold the fuzz together while taking the seeds off (he says after doing several other fun things with pods, seeds and fuzz... ))...

songbird

[Ecnerwal]

find plants, if at all possible - then grow, divide, spread. Seeding is chancy at best.

Also - goldenrod, thyme, lavender.

And this stuff I call false milkweed, but don't really know what it is. Looks sorta like, but has purple flowers on top, and no pods.

The USDA suggests going out midday and having a look (hedgerows, other power line easements, weedy roadsides) at what's getting worked to find local plants/weeds that work in your area.

[Steve Peek]

You might want to check with local beekeepers, most honey from mint plants is not palatable or saleable. It's alright if you can segregate the honey a nd leave it for the bees to eat. Buckwheat is pretty much the same. It's th e darkest honey you ever saw with a medicinal aroma and taste. However it i s popular with the modern "hippie" types who use it like medicine.

Not trying to be a know-it-all here, just trying to prevent some of the mis takes I made 40 or so years ago.

Steve

[songbird]

Steve Peek wrote: ...

:)

i've never noticed anything medicinal about buckwheat based honey, tastes could vary? i'm not sure it matters anyways as what Snag asked about was feeding his bees with flowers instead of having to feed them using sugar water.

if you read back in my suggestions you may notice that i suggested other plants in the mix, the buckwheat was the gap filler for the rest of this season... the other plants would help provide food for next year and years after.

anyways, how is your blueberry season shaping up? are your beans doing well this year?

i did not plant any of the greasy beans this season as i was late and i knew they would not finish very well as compared to the many other shorter season varieties i have (which look to be doing great). also, i didn't have the back trellis set up yet for more climbing beans so i did not want to put anything back there. with the many groundhogs around i wasn't sure i'd have much of anything outside the fences actually surviving anyways...

today i went out and picked beans for making some three bean salad tomorrow and there's plenty of cucumbers ready to make some more pickles. we sampled the bread and butter pickles (made a week ago) today to see if they were edible before we started giving some away and they were deemed good.

songbird

[Steve Peek]

nts is not palatable or saleable. It's alright if you can segregate the hon ey and leave it for the bees to eat. Buckwheat is pretty much the same. It' s the darkest honey you ever saw with a medicinal aroma and taste. However it is popular with the modern "hippie" types who use it like medicine.

mistakes I made 40 or so years ago.

Apparently there are at least 2 types of buckwheat honey. The eastern varie ty is as black as can be with an aroma and flavor somewhere between old vit amins, cough syrup and strong blackstrap molasses. The local "tofu/granola" types think darker and stronger is healthy and good for you similar to dar k greens being more healthy. I agree that buckwheat is great bee fodder esp ecially at that time of year when little else is available.

Blueberries are pretty much a bust for this year. We've been hit with a fun gal disease called "mummy berry". Spores are released at blossom time and a re wind distributed to the blossoms. The affected berries grow to nearly no rmal pre-ripening size then begin to shrink and dry basically mummify. We h ave about a 90% crop loss this year. The county Ag agent has no organic mea ns of control other than picking up and burning all the affected berries. W ith over an acre of berries this is not physically possible. I've found a s ource of elemental copper that I'll try next Spring at blossom time. If tha t doesn't work I guess I'll have to give up on the blueberries or loose my organic rating.

I've started picking the Maine yellow-eyed beans, looks like a bumper crop this year. A neighbor and I disposed of 4 ground hogs last fall and aarly s pring so no damage this year. Cucumbers and squash have died and the second planting has started to bloom. Chili peppers are tall and loaded and tomat os are producing about a bushel per week so we have lots of preserving goin g on now. I grew a new (to me) crop this year called "West Indian Burr Gerk in". They have a tart cucumber flavor but are supposedly not related to cuc umber. They look like watermelon plants with dozens of little spiky green b alls on them. They don't appear to be susceptible to mildew or cucumber bee tles, so they may become my new pickle plant.

I'm preparing ground for the fall crops this week. I'll be planting daikon, beets, spinach, turnips, mustard, and maybe some kale, collard and mustard .

Steve

[songbird]

Steve Peek wrote: ...

i happen to like molasses so this description just makes me think that someday i'll have to find some and give it a try. :)

wow! that's a tough hit on a major crop. i hope it can be controlled, but i'm not familiar at all with that disease. does it stay on the plants or is it only on the fruits after they drop?

considering what it takes to get an organic certification i sure hope you can get this under control without resorting to extreme measures.

i'm wondering if some kind of ground cover planted to prevent splashing spores up from the ground might help? a large hoover to suck up things would be interesting, but burning the hooverites would be a challenge.

i plant some yellow-eyes each year because we both like them but i don't have enough space to grow a lot of them. i plant so many other bean varieties that it's hard for me to get more than a few pounds of any one variety other than the staples (pinto beans for me and lima beans for Ma). this year i made the exception to build up a stock of a cross-breed that did well last season and looks to be doing good this year too. finishes early enough, about the size of a red bean but it is black and a nice blue/purple pod when dried (and the flowers are purple).

you must have a large area if you can plant more than one round of cucumbers and squash. as much as i like cucumbers i'm also glad that they can finish early. :)

all sounds great, i hope they do well. i think the bunnies ate the diakons i planted last year -- or perhaps it was me. i found out i really liked radish sprout greens.

songbird

[Terry Coombs]

If the buckwheat I just ordered actually sprouts , I'll let you know . Not sure which variety I'm getting , but it doesn't matter much . This time of year the focus is on getting the hives up to weight to winter well and have the resources (bees + food/pollen) to build up in time to catch the spring flows . Without swarming ... it's a fine line !

[~misfit~]

[snipped]

Is this them?

Because they *are* cucurbits, in the same family as cukes.

Cheers,