July 10
Cold Spring: Farm Tours. 90-minute tour of the farm and gardens. Reservations. Free. 3 p.m. Glynwood Center, Glynwood Road and Route 301.  845-265-3338.

July 18
North Salem: Conversations with Expert Gardeners. Listen to and ask questions of local gardeners. Free. Noon. Ruth Keeler Memorial Library of North Salem, 276 Titicus Road.  914-669-5161.

On Saturday, the New York Botanical Garden kicks off a summer-long celebration of great food and how to grow it.

(photos by our Matthew Brown, unless noted)

Called “The Edible Garden,” the gardenwide programming will include a dozen vegetable gardens, a flower show in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory called “Tropical Fruits, Roots and Shoots,” Thursday evening events with music and wine and beer tastings, celebrity food presentations, cooking demonstrations in a new outdoor kitchen and two festival weekends — this weekend and another in September — celebrating local, sustainable food, gardening and global cuisine.

The goal of the exhibits and programs is to focus on the role that plants play in our everyday lives and to connect people with plants and the good food they produce.

Meg Schroeder, Kristin Schleiter and Mobee Weinstein plant various edible plants, such as sweet potato vine, at the entrance to the Home Gardening Center:

Read more of this entry »

I’m finally catching up from being out for a couple-plus weeks. First-time vegetable growers: feel free to email me a couple of sized-down photos of your garden’s progress to wcary@lohud.com; just make sure they’re not too big.

An update while I was away in late May from Beth Grafman and Ryan Grafman:

“Looks like the seeds he planted were still good…and are going to sprout.”

A link to Mitch Bernstein’s blog, with updates and photos.

An update from Alison Lazarus of Harrison, with her photos (her garden looks great!):

“I’ve been busy, but thought I’d send you a garden update.

“The garden is coming along well.  We’ve been enjoying home grown lettuce, “easter egg” radishes, herbs and broccoli rabe. Several
weeks back the workers who installed my shed did not secure the back
gate properly and the next day my broccoli and beans were decimated.
I replanted and things are thriving once again.  It was something
small—not a deer, but it did a lot of damage.  We are now vigilant
about closing the gate and using multiple bungee cords.

“I’m learning as I go and continuing to read books and think about
what I might do differently next year.  Item number one: get help!
Although my son is mowing the lawn in this picture when it comes to
weeding I seem to be the only one showing up to the party.  I’m
hoping to get a student or two to lend a hand during the summer.

I got mulch, sold by the yard, delivered last year for the first time. What a pleasant change from dragging bag after bag from nurseries and home centers. You think you have plenty for a project, but you always have to go back for another bag or two.

This year, I decided to get 5 yards.

Look at the steam coming up from the pile of mulch—very fresh and composty.

A note from a colleague about a new nursery in Lewisboro, from the Lewisboro Ledger. Has anyone been, to check it out?:

“Izzo & Son Country Gardens opens in town
Monday, June 15, 2009
Izzo & Son Country Gardens has opened in Lewisboro at 475 Smith Ridge
Road (Route 123).

“The new business offers a large selection of hanging baskets, shrubs,
perennials and annuals, tropical and house plants, pottery and
complete landscape design and installation services.

“The garden center is not only open during the warm months — it
features a Halloween Haunted House in the fall and a Christmas Tree
Shop with decorations in the winter.

Information: 914-533-7400.

Ah, the lazy days of summer — afternoons by the pool, iPod and trashy mystery in hand, a crisp glass of Pinot Grigio just out of reach as you sink lower in the chaise lounge. And what are you planning for dinner? Who cares — let’s do takeout again (I know, I know, that makes three this week).

But hold on. Time’s a wastin’ if you’ve got the home-improvement blues and a honey-do list that’s already gone to two pages in the legal pad. Sure, money is tight and you and the spouse have made a pact to put off all big projects until the local real estate market shows signs of life again.

But you have to face reality, too. If you have broken windows, a wet basement, stopped-up gutters, a smoky fireplace, a cranky boiler or critter problems, June is the perfect time to start making calls to contractors and tradespeople. Don’t wait until fall when the first chilly night has everyone reaching for the yellow pages.

Maybe you can even get a better price in June or July. Chimney sweeps and furnace repairmen love to hear from new customers this month, not so much in October or November.

“A little bit of preventive maintenance can go a long way,” says Geoffrey Torrens, the owner of Building Castles in Garnerville. “It’s sort of like going to the doctor.”

“I think the No. 1 priority in these hard times is that you want to maintain the weatherproof envelope of your house,” he says. “You need to have your boiler checked every year, make sure your air conditioner is in good running order and the filters are clean.

Torrens recommends an annual “paint audit — walk around the whole exterior of your house with a painter every spring, or you can do it yourself.”

So many home-repair problems are best solved when the weather is warm.

“Summer is a good time to concentrate efforts on the structural parts of the property,” says Jon Feldman, the owner of G. Biloba Gardens, a landscape design and construction company in Nyack. Most landscapers don’t like to install large-scale plantings past early June because hot weather puts too much stress on new plants, but June, July and August are the perfect time for hardscaping projects: decks, patios, planters, stone walls and walkways. “It’s a great time to set up the bones of a garden,” he says.

Here’s Jon at work on a big project in Valley Cottage:

(Photos by Steve Schmitt) Read more of this entry »

Ask the master gardeners

Q: Someone told me that all this rain we are having is not good for cucumbers. What problems should I look for?

A: Cucumbers are a staple in virtually every well-rounded home vegetable garden. Although cucumbers will grow in any good garden soil in the pH range of 6.0 to 7.0 (typical for most vegetables), they hate wet feet so it’s important to have good drainage.

Native to the tropics, cucumbers need at least 8 hours of sunlight a day and warm, humid conditions to thrive. Plants subjected to temperatures below 60 degrees will grow less robustly and be more susceptible to disease. Because of this, it is important not to plant them too early, ideally three to four weeks after the last frost. In our area, this would mean setting seedlings out around the first two weeks of June.

There are several diseases that are common to cucumbers during damp weather including powdery mildew (leaves covered with a white powder), botrytis (gray mold), downy mildew (yellow or purple spots on leaves, which then die). Powdery mildew especially is brought on by warm, dry days and damp, cold nights: exactly the conditions we frequently see in early to late spring. Delaying planting until June will help avoid these conditions.

To further avoid disease during the growing season, use a mulch that will prevent water from splattering up from the ground during a rain or overhead watering. Consider using a soaker hose to avoid splatter and avoid watering in the evening when moisture is likely to remain on the leaves overnight. If diseased leaves do appear, remove them promptly and dispose of them away from other plants.

Composting diseased leaves can spread the problem for years to come. Avoid spreading spores between diseased and unaffected plants by cleaning contaminated pruning shears, hands and clothing.

Keep in mind that cucumbers, melons, squash and pumpkins all are susceptible to the same set of diseases. Crop rotation can prevent the spread of disease from year to year.

Growing vegetables under ideal conditions ensures the healthiest plants possible, which is the best first line of defense against diseases and pests. By planting at the appropriate time and using sound horticultural practices, many of the problems associated with disease can be eliminated.
Kim Lindner, master gardener, Cornell Cooperative Extension of Westchester

The highly destructive emerald ash borer has been found in New York state, putting the state’s 900 million ash trees — 7 percent of the state’s total trees — at risk if this invasive pest becomes established.

Since its discovery in the western suburbs of Detroit in 2002, this emerald-green beetle that’s smaller than a dime has been responsible for the destruction of more than 70 million ash trees in the United States. The beetle has now been found in 13 states and two Canadian provinces.

Here’s the full press release from NYS:

For more information contact:

DEC: Maureen Wren 518-402-8000

DAM: Jessica Chittenden 518-457-3136

“Surveys and Monitoring in Cattaraugus County Area to Help Delineate Spread of Invasive Beetle

“New York State Agriculture Commissioner Patrick Hooker and Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Pete Grannis today announced the discovery of an Emerald Ash Borer infestation (EAB) in Randolph, Cattaraugus County.

“The EAB is a small but destructive beetle that infests and kills North American ash tree species, including green, white, black and blue ash. This is the first time it has been detected in New York.

I’m a gardening mess: poison ivy up and down both arms and a huge red tick bite on my back that’s itchy and nasty looking. How can such tiny creatures wreak such havoc?

If the weather were better, I’d probably have a sunburn, too. As it is, everything I own for gardening seems to be muddy or wet.

I’m usually so careful about poison ivy because when I get it I get it bad.

It must have been during a weeding frenzy around dusk one evening this week. The blisters start on my wrist, right at the glove line, so I must have been weeding in a fairly wild area. (If I’m in a pretty cultivated area, I ditch annoying gloves.)

I’m a big fan of Technu, which you rub on your skin after exposure to break down the urushiol oils in P.I. My tree guy puts it on like sunscreen when he’s working.

Even after 24 hours, I’ve had good luck with Technu. Not this time. Then I usually try some sort of Caladryl-type anti-itch lotion for a few days.

This time, I went right for the big guns — bleach, a trick I learned from Dorothea Smith, my predecessor on the garden beat. Just dab the blisters a couple of times a day and they seem to dry up and disappear faster.

As for the ticks, I’m blaming all the rain in recent weeks. I’ve pulled off something like five ticks this season already. One even crawled across my keyboard—yuck.

Of course, I’m keeping an eye out for Lyme disease and the telltale bull’s-eye around the bite. But I’ve read that a tick needs to be on for at least 24 hours to give you Lyme.

Here’s a link to a post from last year with lots more on poison ivy.

I’ve become a big fan of the supertunias from Proven Winners in the last couple of years.

They bloom their heads off all summer and don’t need to be deadheaded or pruned. They thrive in the heat and they’re quite happy in all this rain and cool weather we’ve been having, unlike my coleus and pansies.

This spring, Proven Winners introduced a new white-flowered variety called Supertunia Vista Silverberry.

It joins Vista Bubblegum and Vista Fuchsia, which were brought out in 2007.

“If you are gardening on a dime this year, these selections are the way to go,” says Danielle Ernest, public relations and brand development coordinator for Proven Winners in Issaquah, Wash. “They cover over 2 feet of garden in a matter of weeks and perform wonderfully on a low amount of water. They look phenomenal mixed together in a container.”

These hybrid petunias have won top honors at university trials across the country. Like other petunias, they like full sun and fertilizer every two to three weeks if they’re in a container.

With its pale flowers with reddish-pink throats, Silverberry looks particularly good in the evening hours. Its soft mounding habit make it ideal for patio containers or windowboxes.

For mail-order sources, Ernest recommends gardencrossings.com or whiteflowerfarm.com. For local retailers, go to provenwinners.com/findaretailer.

Here’s mine, just a couple of weeks after planting: