Summer Garden Visit: Beauport, Sleeper-McCann House 06/27/13

On a foggy day Lydia and I visited this property owned by Historic New England in Gloucester, MA. The decorated rooms inside are spectacular.

The landscape has bee recently restored and the Pennsylvania sedge is a beautiful plant for the lawn.

Garden visit: Capen Garden 06/23/13

Val and I visited Smith College to view the roses on a really hot day after breakfast at Amanouz Cafe in Northampton, MA.

President's house

The Botanic Garden of Smith College

Capen Garden rose arbor

Knot garden

Arbor

Capen Garden entrance

Dawn redwood planted in 1972.

Garden visit: George Holmes Garden 05/31/13

Master Gardener Field Trip to Northport, Maine on May 31, 2013.
More pictures here:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/116129021808559228227/albums/5887314500888020001

Magnolia Collection of over 65 magnolias

Over 100 lilacs

Black Beauty magnolia.

Apple tree collection

what happened in 2013

Old perennial beds were cleaned out and moved and some new gardens were made.

Delicata squash that were planted too late to mature, Chocolate peppers that were delicious and plenty of paste tomatoes (Hogheart, Opalka and Gilbertie) even though we got late blight. Sauce was made by cooking, food processing and then cooking some more to reduce the liquid and freezing. We did not loose the freezer stuff because our power was out only 40 hours in the Christmas ice storm.

Raised beds built in 2013 for season extension.

Alpine trough garden planted in 2013

Onion Harvest of Copra and Red Marble for 2013, As the winter progresses,  sour skin is developing so crop rotation will be crucial next year.

New Kitchen Garden established in 2013. Hoping to have a beautiful Edible Landscape in 2014.  Round Light of Tuscany, a zucchini,  is my new favorite summer squash.

Where is Spring?

Still waiting for Spring.
Finally heard peepers last night.
Red Marble and Copra onions, red romaine lettuce (from saved seed), Slobolt cilantro and basils were started on March 9. Peppers were started March 23.

Microgreens started March 25 are ready for harvest.
Ovation Greens and Premium Greens from Johnnys, High Mowing Seeds and Ferry Morse Mesclun Mixes.

Starting seeds

Best info for Maine is here,

http://www.mofga.org/Publications/ArticlesforReprinting/OrderSeeds/tabid/1056/Default.aspx

Of course this year the soil temperature is 41 degrees today in the garden. And the perennial beds still have frozen places. But the seedlings are ready!

March 1	Start indoors: celery, celeriac (3/1 to 3/15), onions and leeks (2/20 to 3/15), kale
March 14	Start indoors: leaf and head lettuce
March 21	Start indoors: peppers
April 1	Start indoors: broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, eggplant
April 14	Start indoors: tomatoesStart outdoors: beets, carrots, leaf and head lettuce, peas, parsnips (4/15 to 5/15), radishes, shallots (4/15 to 5/30), spinach, turnips, bunching onions for summer harvest (4/15 to 5/1), onions from seeds or sets Transplant out: leaf and head lettuce, onion seedlings
May 1	Start indoors: melons, squashes, cucumbersStart outdoors: beets, carrots, leaf and head lettuce, peas, radishes, spinach, Swiss chard (5/1 to 5/31), turnips Transplant out: broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower (5/1 to 5/15 when 4 to 5 weeks old), leeks (5/1 to 5/15)
May 14	Start indoors: broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower for fall cropStart outdoors: beets, leaf and head lettuce, peas, radishes, spinach, turnip
June 1	Start outdoors: bush green beans, pole beans, beets, Chinese cabbage (5/30 to 7/30), carrots, corn, leaf and head lettuce, peas, potatoes, radishes, spinach, turnip Transplant out: celery and celeriac (6/1 to 6/15), tomatoes Transplant or direct seed out: melons, squashes, cucumbers
June 14	Start outdoors: beets, corn, leaf and head lettuce, peas, radishes, rutabaga, spinach, turnip Transplant out: 4/1 sowing of eggplant, 5/15 sowing of broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower
June 21	Start outdoors: bush green beans, carrots
July 1	Start outdoors: beets, corn (short season varieties), kale, leaf and head lettuce, peas, radishes, spinach, turnip
July 14	Start outdoors: bush green beans, beets, carrots, leaf and head lettuce, peas, radishes, spinach, turnip; hardy bunching onions for fall and spring harvest (7/15 to 8/15)
August 1	Start outdoors: beets, leaf and head lettuce, peas, radishes, spinach, turnip
August 14	Start outdoors: leaf and head lettuce, radishes, spinach, turnip
September 1	Start outdoors: leaf lettuce, radishes, shallots for spring green onions, spinach (sow now for fall crop and now until ground freezes for spring crop, well mulched over winter)
October 1	Start outdoors: garlic

For more information about growing your own vegetable garden, contact the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA; 568-4142; www.mofga.org or your county Cooperative Extension Office.

Sclerotia

The MOFGA Spring Growth Conference today was about Garlic. This was the schedule;

10am David Stern, Rose Valley Farm and The Garlic Seed Foundation

1:30pm Grower Panel: Tom Vigue, Kiwihill Farm; Amy LeBlanc, Whitehill Farm; Mark Guzzi, Peacemeal Farm

Eric Sideman organized the event and gave a brief introduction on pests. One that I was not aware of is called white mold which develops from sclerotia. Using Wikipedia as the source here's what I learned

A sclerotium (plural sclerotia, fromGreek skleros - hard) is a compact mass of hardened fungal myceliumcontaining food reserves. One role of sclerotia is to survive environmental extremes. In some higher fungi such as ergot, sclerotia become detached and remain dormant until favorable growth conditions return. Sclerotia initially were mistaken for individual organisms and described as separate species until Louis René Tulasneproved in 1853 that sclerotia are only a stage in the life cycle of some fungi. Further investigation showed that this stage appears in many fungi belonging to many diverse groups. Sclerotia are important in the understanding of the life cycle and reproduction of fungi, as a food source, as medicine and in agricultural blight management.

Sclerotia are often composed of a thick, dense shell with thick and dark cells and a core of thin colorless cells. Sclerotia are rich in hyphae emergency supplies, especially oil. They contain a very small amount of water (5-10%) and can survive in a dry environment for several years without losing the ability to grow. In most cases, the sclerotium consists exclusively of fungal hyphae, whereas some may consist partly of fungal hyphae plexus and partly in between tissues of the substrate (ergot, Sclerotinia). Sclerotia sizes usually range from a few fractions of a millimeter to a few tens of centimeters. In favorable conditions, sclerotia germinate to form fruiting bodies (Basidiomycetes) or mycelium with conidia (in imperfect fungi). Sclerotia sizes can range from a fraction of a millimeter to a few tens of centimeters.

Inonotus obliquus (chaga mushroom) is a sclerotium growing mostly on birchtrees in northern climates. It has been used as a tonic and a remedy for thousands of years in Canada, Russia, Japan, etc. The tree sclerotium develops over the years as the mycelium sucks the energy of the living tree.


Sclerotinia sclerotiorum is a plant pathogenic fungus and can cause a disease called white mold if conditions are correct. S. sclerotiorum can also be known as cottony rot, watery soft rot, stem rot, drop, crown rot and blossom blight. A key characteristic of this pathogen is its ability to produce black resting structures known as sclerotia and white fuzzy growths of mycelium on the plant it infects. These sclerotia give rise to a fruiting body in the spring that produces spores in a sac which is why fungi in this class are called sac fungi (Ascomycetes). This pathogen can occur on many continents and has a wide host range of plants. 


Sclerotium cepivorum is the fungus that affects Alliums and this link explains the problem.