We went out to pick tomatoes tonight and found a snake that was caught in the netting. Crows had been feasting on the first fruits, so we covered the plants last week. I’m partial to how the green netting looks, and it’s very effective at keeping the birds and small animals away from the developing tomatoes.

Unfortunately, the snake’s head went through the net but the body, which is thicker, did not. The poor thing was pretty tangled when we found it. It’s a good thing we discovered the trapped reptile tonight…we were able to cut the netting so that the snake could slither off.

Now we know that the area around the tomatoes needs to be checked twice a day to be sure our bird and animal barrier doesn’t do more harm than good. We humans are good about solving problems to our benefit, and this is fine, but whenever possible we shouldn’t do so at the expense of other creatures.

It isn’t always easy to foresee how a simple solution for situation A might end up causing more problems to someone/something else. We have a responsibility to look ahead and try, as much as we can, to predict how our actions might cause a problem for others in the future.

And after a solution is put in place, we should repeatedly be checking to make sure that no snakes are stuck in our nettings.

These tomatoes are beginning to bear fruit - a full three weeks earlier than normal for this region.

I was joking around with a friend on facebook today, and in a fit of silliness suggested a new garden product: Plantbrella. Perfect for those hydrangeas that are wilting under the hot, summer sun! In rainy areas, Plantbrella would help prevent leaf-spot fungi and it’s ideal for protecting your prize petals from bird poop!

OK, I went overboard on the alliteration in that last sentence, not to mention the idea itself. Although we gardeners occasionally want to protect our plants (floating row cover comes to mind) tiny, colorful umbrellas are probably best used in exotic drinks that are sipped in the garden, not stuck over the plants.

(And by the way, when I googled Plantbrella, a greenhouse type product trademarked as Plant-Brella came up… it’s no relation to my fanciful ramblings here.)

We humans are great at thinking up a problem so we can create products that deal with that difficulty. Unfortunately, this can lead to too many choices, and too many new products. Just go into any garden center and you’ll find at least a dozen types of fertilizer, for example. No wonder so many new gardeners get confused, or downright paralyzed when it comes to so many choices.

One of the first things we need to ask ourselves is if the situation is really a problem. Yes, we might see drooping hydrangea leaves, some leaf spot fungi, or even poop on prized petals. Does this mean we need to respond?

In our lives we’re often tempted to immediately react when a time of reflection might be wise. Is action, or a product, really needed here? Is this really a problem?

Protection for plants! Not.

In this area, some people view Memorial Day as some sort of magical gardening date…they want all their landscaping to be done by the end of May. In contrast, devoted gardeners will be planting, tweaking and weeding throughout the summer. Both approaches are perfectly valid.

Yesterday I moved three Heuchera ‘Georgia Peach’ to a shadier location, and replaced them with three Liatris microcephala in the lakeside border. At the same time I pulled crabgrass plants and other weeds, and noticed that the Profusion Zinnias that were planted in the entry garden in early July have tripled in growth and are now starting to bloom.

I don’t expect most people to be as interested in the process of constantly improving their gardens as we hortaholics are. I remember one consultation client who clearly stated to me that her idea of a good day gardening was putting the golf clubs into her trunk and heading to the course, followed by lunch. Fair enough.

What I think we can all come away with, in and out of the garden, is the notion that there is much about life that requires constant tending. What’s required is that we all acknowledge what’s most important to us, and then put the time into the planting, tweaking and weeding of that particular arena. Be it a golf game or garden, things will grow better with ongoing attention.

My entry garden is planted with annuals, perennials and shrubs that bloom in shades of blue, coral, yellow and white. The area around the birdbath on the left is a bit sparse right now because I recently took out some Carefree Celebration roses. The coral flowers on these shrubs turned pink as they aged, and more annoyingly, they all developed huge blackspot problems every year... far from carefree. So now I'm thinking of what can go in their place. Continual tweaking...

Reason To Grow Your Own Vegetables – #2

1. Get home from work, and go out to the garden… having a favorite beverage in hand is optional. Pick the summer squash that appeared in the last 24 hours. (I’m partial to the Sunburst Patty Pan and Zephyr because both are extremely productive and have great flavor.) Pick some fresh basil too.

2.  Cut the squash into slices about ¼ inch thick and toss them in a bowl with some tablespoons olive oil.

3.  Either grill the squash outside, or on a grill pan indoors, for about five minutes per side.

4.  Place cooked squash in a bowl and toss with balsamic vinegar. Add coarsely chopped basil and salt and pepper to taste.

5.  Serve with fish, chicken, pasta, or….

Summer squash appear overnight - be sure to check daily and pick them when they're small.

If you like raw garlic you can add thin slices to this dish. If you put in a bit of extra olive oil, you'll have enough flavorful juices to soak into a piece of bread. With a piece of cheese, this can be a meal in itself.

Or… Reasons to Grow Your Own Vegetables #1

Ingredients: fresh green beans, cucumber, tomatoes, basil, garlic, feta cheese (or fresh mozzarella) olive oil and bread.

• On a Sunday morning, after coffee, go into the vegetable garden and pick beans, cucumbers, tomatoes and basil.
• At lunchtime, slice a clove of garlic and put it into some warmed olive oil to sit while you prepare the salad.
• Steam the beans until just barely done, about two minutes. Dump the hot beans into a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking. Drain on a clean kitchen towel.
• Peel or don’t peel the cukes according to taste, and chop them into a bowl.
• Chop the tomatoes into the same bowl and add ¼ cup crumbled feta cheese per person.
• Add the beans and chopped basil to the bowl and pour garlic-infused olive oil over the mix. Toss well and serve with the best, freshest bread you have.
• Say thank you for such summer blessings.

The first disagreement I ever had with a publisher was over a subtitle. They wanted to put something like “Gardening Secrets You Can Use,” on one of my books, and I strongly objected. The publisher’s point was the people buy books that promise secrets will be divulged, and my position was that there is no mysterious, confidential or heretofore undisclosed gardening information.

This came to mind today when I was on Twitter and noticed a great many tweets contained links that promised to reveal the secrets of love, fundraising, composting and stock trading, to name just a few.

It’s my opinion that there is a vast pool of information, and for each individual that collection can be divided into two groups. There’s information you know, and that which you haven’t yet learned. It’s just not as compelling for subtitles and tweets to promise the latter.

The distinction is important, I think, especially for garden communicators such as myself. If I regard what I know as being secret, it makes it seem exclusive, and much grander than it really is. There is danger in thinking that information is restricted, limited or private and the word “secret” implies all of these.

Writers and speakers should be selling books or booking dates because they write well, give engaging talks, make their audiences think or feel, and spread enthusiasm about their subject… not because they’re duping people into thinking that they have are privy to a restricted supply of knowledge.

Agreed?

My yellow epiphyllums are in full bloom, and here are the "secrets" to growing them: Buy one from Logees, or have someone give you a piece. Put it in a heavy clay pot and put that pot outside in couple of hours of morning sun and afternoon shade. Squirt it with a hose every day or two. Fertilize it once a year when you think of it. Bring the pot inside in the winter and do the best you can to give it some light. Have patience, and when it blooms take photos because the flowers only last for a day.

I did a stint at the Master Garden Demonstration garden tonight at the Barnstable County Fair. The Master Gardeners staff the demo garden, answering questions and getting kids and adults interested in gardening. It’s always fun to first tour the fair looking at the animals, and then showing a child where the seeds are forming under the spent marigold flowers.

One particular exchange was especially interesting tonight. A woman came up to us, asking about a problem that she was having with hydroponic fruit production. It seemed that she and her husband had some insect damage that they have been unable, so far, to organically control. “I’ve asked everyone and so far no one has been able to help me,” she said.

I began by suggesting some people she could call. “Oh, they won’t know about this,” she responded. Since the people I was recommending were entomologists, I was pretty sure that they would at least be familiar with her problem, but I continued to propose other solutions based on the insect’s life cycle, feeding habits etc.

All suggestions of approach A, B and C were met with protestations of why these wouldn’t or couldn’t work. I knew I wasn’t offering her any quick and easy cures, but what I was suggesting were other ways to think about the problem, and different paths that might lead her to a satisfactory control.

She was having none of it. Finally, I looked her in the eye and said something about not always being able to get what we want. I’m sure that she didn’t hear this, just as she didn’t hear any of my other thoughts. I realized that she was more attached to having the problem, and continuing to do exactly what she has been doing, than she was with actually changing the situation.

This woman isn’t alone… all of us have had periods of being so identified with the difficulty that we’re reluctant to go beyond it. It’s a very seductive position to be in. The dilemma is known and so it has become comfortable. Finding a solution might mean more change than we’re happy about…it could ask us to look closely at more than just this one problem.

Note to self: When I’m tempted to list all of the reasons I can’t change something, remember this night in the Master Gardener Demonstration Garden and ask: Is there really no solution, or is remaining stuck in the predicament just more comfortable?

One of the plants in the demo garden that always draws attention is the artichokes.

I love the animals at the fair. How can you not love this pair?

It's open through Saturday - go!

Today I played hide-and-seek with a rabbit. I was in my kitchen, freezing beans from the garden, when I saw him or her scoot across the patio and into my mixed border. Naturally, I grabbed my camera…if this little bunny was going to be eating my plants, the least it could do is pose for a photo op.

As you can see by the picture below, the little guy/gal wasn’t too cooperative. I’d catch a glimpse of him/her behind the birdbath or skittering across the lawn, but it was never still enough for me to take a picture.

If I start seeing large numbers of my plants being mowed down, you can be sure that I won’t settle for a photo-op game of hide-and-seek. I’ll get out the Liquid Fence, or install the ScareCrow and drive this little one out of the garden. Until then I’m willing to share a few of my plants with Thumper.

When I spoke to members of the Orenda Wildlife Land Trust last night about Gardening for the Birds, Bees & Butterflies, one of the things I emphasized is that we need to keep in mind that there is an acceptable level of damage. We’ll always see leaves that were munched by critters and bugs. There will be some leaf-spot fungi, failure to thrive and unexplained plant death.

In every garden and every life there will certainly be destruction and failure. We should take this as a given.

Forget the messages that we get from advertisers, movies and television that show seemingly perfect people with supposedly faultless lives. They too have holes in their foliage, and their life’s gardens include dead and damaged plants surely as ours do. The key for all of us is to embrace the whole experience.

I’ve got my camera in hand, now where is that rabbit…

I'm loving this Redhead Coleus, sent to me by the folks at Simply Beautiful plants. Although Thumper went into this bed, he/she didn't eat the coleus or the Clethra behind it. So far, bunny and I are in harmony...

The daylilies are in bloom. To be more accurate, a different daylily is in bloom every 24-hour period, hence the name. The flowers on Hemerocallis open for one day, and then wilt. Some find this objectionable.

Yesterday’s flowers hang off of the stem, frequently becoming wet “mush-mummies” that are squishy to pick off, and un-slightly in the garden. After all of the buds on a stem have finished flowering, that stem won’t produce more blossoms and must be removed in order to improve the looks of the border.

Yup. That’s pretty much the truth about daylilies…or one part of it anyway. The rest of the story, as a rightwing radio personality that I was never fond of used to say, is that for four to six weeks the garden is filled with reliable, large flowers. The plants that produce such blossoms are bone-hardy and usually attractive after flowering has stopped.

I’m also thinking that the “just one day” thing that gives this plant its common name should be seen as an asset. Each flower is there in its peak. They do not get spotted, faded, or bug-chewed over a week or two. They are daylilies, full colored, in their prime and they make no excuses.

Are we always at our best? Do you and I shine in every hour? Of course not. Sometimes we humans act admirably and honorably, and other times we can be downright nasty or evil. We should celebrate when we’re our best selves, and condemn malevolence, no matter how long those behaviors last.

We would be well served to emulate the daylily: take one day at a time, and use that 24-hour period to totally bloom and shine.

This daylily, South Seas, is a sturdy plant whose color stands up to the bright summer sun and shouts back at the heat with joy. I would love this plant if the flowers opened for one hour... to have them for an entire day? A gift!

We are midway through the summer, and there are two approaches to this time of year. Some people decide that they are “done” with their garden. They enjoy what they planted in May and early June, but they don’t want to place anything else in the ground for the rest of the summer. They might even be finished with their gardening until the fall cleanup.

Others are appreciating what was put in place early in the year, but they are actively weeding, deadheading, and even planting, in anticipation of months of growth or future gardens. Shrubs and perennials that are put into the ground now will be there next year too after all.

There is no one right way, of course. We must all tailor our landscapes to suit our temperament, desires, climate, and overall schedules.

But I think that being willing to check in and plant periodically, no matter which of life’s arenas are being cultivated, is probably a good thing. If my mind was made up that July 18^th is too late to add to the garden, I won’t enjoy those perennials or shrubs next year. Similarly, if I decide that “publishers are no longer interested in gardening books”, and no longer pursue the proposals I’ve started, you can be sure that none of these ideas will grow.

If you’ve decided that it’s too late to take up painting, go to medical school, or learn how to whistle…well, you’ll never know, will you?

That’s not to say that I must put more perennials in the ground and submit book proposals to editors, or you have to pursue painting, medicine or whistling. What I’m getting at here is that we shouldn’t be limited by a self-imposed decision that it’s too late in a season, and that we should be “done” cultivating.

I happen to think that there is always cultivation to be done. In our veggie garden, we've been weeding, harvesting and planting new crops of beans, lettuce and chard. In the flower gardens I'm deadheading, and yes, planting. I want to take this same approach in my life as well. I want to continue to cultivate, plant and edit without thinking that it's too late in a season, or that something is too difficult to grow.