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Squash Pollination
Pollinate Squash by hand with a paint brush
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It’s time to plant onions in NC
Onions are one of my favorite crops to grow, which has historically been one of my least successful crops if you are comparing my expectations to reality. The secret to growing onions is planting them correctly. I plant them incorrectly. Each year I purchase a bag of onion sets, which look like tiny little onions. Each year I expect to get large onions, but instead get large green stalks and onions that are just barely larger than the sets. Not at all like this picture from Gurney’s. This spring, as I was perusing the seed section of Logan’s, I asked Karen (she’s like the garden goddess in the seed section),…
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August Planting in NC
This weekend I started doing more preparations for fall planting. While I hate pulling plants that are still producing, I have to evaluate the quality of that produce and whether the spot would be better used for something else. Sometimes, it’s time to scrap the plant! I’m two weeks late posting this information, and there’s only two days left for a couple of the crops, but I doubt that matters too much. Here’s a quick table of crops you can plant in August in the coastal and piedmont regions of NC. We are zone 7b and our first frost is Nov 1(ish), so add or subtract days to your timing…
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July Planting in NC
Because I like to make things easy for you, here’s a quick table of crops you can plant in July in the coastal and piedmont regions of NC. If you live somewhere else, try Google. It’s pretty great. (Sorry, that was snarky. We are zone 7b and our first frost is Nov 1(ish), so add or subtract days to your timing based on your frost date.) Source: http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/hil/pdf/hil-8001.pdf Vegetables Suggested Planting Suggested Cultivars Days to Maturity Asparagus (crowns) Nov. 15–Mar. 15 Mary Washington, Jersey Giant, Jersey Gem 2 years Beets July 15–Aug. 15 Ruby Queen, Early Wonder, Red Ace, Pacemaker II 55–60 Broccoli July 15–Aug. 15 DeCicco, Packman, Premium Crop,…
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What can I still plant?
The end of June is just around the corner and you are wondering if it is too late to plant. This depends on where you live. If you live in the Northwest, your season is just getting started. If you live in the Southeast, your growing season is well underway and will just keep on going. Here in downtown Raleigh, NC, I use the weather station “Raleigh NCSU” to determine the length of my growing season. The average first frost is November 5, with a standard deviation of 13 days. I feel fairly comfortable considering my conservative first frost date to be October 23. Counting back from October 23, there…
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Chickadees!
For about a week, I thought a family of blue birds would move into one of our two next boxes, but a sweet pair of chickadees fought hard for the one in the back and quickly built a nest from the straw I’d stuffed behind their box and fresh grass clippings. I’ve been opening the door to watch the progress, but never saw any birds inside – until this weekend when I got hissed at by a mama bird incubating her eggs. Today I peeked in and she wasn’t there, but saw what looked like one whole egg, broken shells and something pink with a really long featherless neck wiggling.…
