The Inside Dirt at iloveplants.com - September 2005
In This Issue:
* Gardeners Rate Favorite Vegetable Varieties
* Garden Wisdom - Deer Tolerant Plants
* Garden Bargains
* From My Garden...
Greetings fellow gardeners and a warm welcome to all of our new subscribers!
It is September, and as usual I find myself wondering where the year has gone. For many of you the gardening season will begin to wind down as fall approaches, but for those in hot climates the onset of milder temps will spur on more garden activity.
Wherever your garden may be, it is my intention to feature the best garden websites and information on the Internet in this newsletter. This month I've found a very helpful website where gardeners can rate the vegetables varieties they grow. There's also a helpful guide for selecting plants for your garden that won't attract the local deer, and for those of you who love to snap pictures of your garden, be sure to check out the photography contest. And as usual, you'll find some garden bargains, website reviews, garden folklore, as well as what's new at iloveplants.com and in my zone 9 garden.
I hope you enjoy this month's newsletter and that it provides you with some beneficial gardening information. Drop me a line anytime you like with requests for future information or just to say hi and let me know what's growing in your garden.
"The more one gardens, the more one learns; and the more one learns, the more one realizes how little one knows." - Vita Sackville-West
Vegetable Varieties for Gardeners
With the vast amount of vegetable varieties available on the market today, how do you know which ones will do best? In the past, gardeners learned through trial and error but today there is an easier way. Cornell University has created a website where gardeners can rate their experience with more than 2,000 vegetable varieties. Listed on their homepage for quick reference are the 10 most popular varieties grown, as well as the top 10 rated varieties. This website is a great resource for selecting the best and most tasty vegetable varieties for your own garden.
Click here to visit Vegetable Varieties for Gardeners and rate the vegetables in your garden.
Did You Know?
"In the Civil War, the Cherokee Rose was often planted as a memorial on the graves of fallen heroes by their surviving comrades." Ernest Wilson, Aristocrats of the Garden, 1926.
Antique rose enthusiasts and history buffs should find this tidbit of plant history fascinating. The next time you're in a cemetery, take a look around and see if you can spot the white flowers blooming on the Cherokee Rose.
Garden Wisdom
Are the deer turning your garden into a fast food restaurant? If so, you'll want to take the advice of the University of Georgia Extension and replace plants deer love to eat with those less palatable to their taste buds. In their horticultural fact sheet entitled Deer-Tolerant Ornamental Plants you will find a list of plants deer love to eat, plants that they will occasionally munch on and a more extensive list of those known to have a higher degree of deer tolerance. These lists could save you a lot of time, money and frustration, while letting you appreciate the beauty of the deer who live around you. Click here to find out more about deer-resistant plants.
"Truths and roses have thorns about them." - Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854
Garden Bargains Online
Reserve your fall bulbs now from BLOOMING BULB and save 10% plus free shipping! Click here to reserve your fall bulbs at Blooming Bulb.
From my garden...
August has been a dry month for us this summer. Without our usual rainfall the weather has felt hotter than normal, but the garden is holding up well. The sycamore tree leaves are beginning to turn brown (a natural process at this time of year), and soon there will be some subtle changes in the early morning temperatures and the golden raintrees will shower us with their bright yellow blooms.
In Florida we are fortunate to have two vegetable gardening seasons. In preparation for our fall garden we planted some Seminole pumpkin squash (an heirloom variety that the Seminole Indians planted) that we started from seeds. We also planted a yellow oxheart tomato and a couple of cucumber vines. I'll soon be adding several plants of parsley and dill to the garden, some for us and some for the butterflies. This month I've included a picture looking down from a second story balcony of my shade garden. It's full of bromeliads (a/k/a hurricane plants), fern, peacock ginger, impatiens and geraniums.
The other day I was tossing out some old bread to the birds when I noticed an anxious squirrel was eyeing me cautiously. I'm sure he was wishing I would hurry up and leave so he could get to the bread before the birds. There was a soft warm breeze and the butterflies seemed to glide effortlessly on the air currents, soaking up the warmth of the sun. A cormorant was perched on a dead tree branch poking out of the lake, holding his wings out to dry while a couple of anole lizards were playfully chasing each other around the oak tree. As I turned around to go back inside, I was glad that I decided to linger for a little while and enjoy the small wonders of nature that each day provides.
I'll see you next month! Susan
posted by Susan @ 6:34 AM
