Oh yeah...horticulture distance learning from Cornell

I was so overcome with horticultural angst with the happenings in the garden I forgot to post a couple things. Duh.

First, Cornell University offers hands on, online classes for gardeners and green industry professionals. One of these years I should go back to "Big Red" even though it's virtual and take a couple of these. They are pretty reasonable too. This fall, they are offering Organic Gardening and plant propagation.

http://hosts.cce.cornell.edu/hortdl/index.htm

Second, photos!!!

One of my Italian sunflowers before the damn squirrels destroyed them for the seeds. That was a big note to self...no sunflowers near the fence where the squirrels have easy access to the blooms. Grrrr...if it isn't spider mite, it's the squirrels!

The "Wet Pets"

Nasturtiums sans Spider mite...they recovered nicely.

Wow...we finally got some rain...

Well, after the second driest August on record, not much has happened at Garden Consultant HQ. I think the biggest thing that has happened since I last posted was HQ got a new laptop.

Without water, I haven't been planting anything, weeding anything, doing much of anything really in the garden. I have been watering non stop though...I honestly couldn't keep things wet enough. I would water and the plants would be stressed a couple of days later. That really struck home that my sandy soil needs to be completely rehabbed and ammended with compost or some kind of organic material. I think that we are going to go to the Town of Warwick and load up Eric's truck a couple of times with their compost and just go crazy with it in the gardens. Eric's almost scheming that he will be putting in an irrigation system next spring for the gardens, turf, and drip irrigation for the edible gardens. This was definitely a learning year in my garden.

Remember those Spider Mites I mentioned in my last post...well, it wasn't just me who has been plagued with these little monsters. I recently read in UMASS' Landscape Message Spider Mite were off the charts this summer due to the lack of rain and moisture. That makes me feel better, I think. A week after Eric broke out the miteacide for the south gardens, the mites reappeared in the veggie garden and did in the peas, beans and eventually the tomatoes. We didn't want to spray the miteacide on the edibles so tried to control them by spraying the foliage to keep the humidity levels high. They won that battle and the tomatoes finally crashed and burned this week. Oh well...

Lake Larson has been keeping me busy with more thinning of the water hyacinth and water lettuce every week. I have repotted the lilies in a way that the koi should not be able to eat and damage the roots (They's already killed my yellow one!). I went with much bigger containers with no holes, used weed fabric over the cat litter for soil and then big crushed stone on top of the fabric. I would really like to see those fish get through that! I have to chuckle, we are now back yard breeders of koi and goldfish! We have 4 confirmed babies from the fish we have in the pond. It's kind of exciting but worrisome because what happens when we have too many? I hope to get some photos of the bundles of joy as soon as they get big enough.

Now that we have some soil moisture, I'm hoping to start up with the massive project of adding organic materials to the soils so the water issue won't be as much as an issue in years to come. I'll have to cruise the garden centers and see if there's anythng out there that tickles my fancy and comes home with me. I have been looking over mail order websites this summer and fall to see who has sales. So, stayed tuned as long as the raidrops keep falling!