We’re Having a Party!!
It’s hard to believe but it’s been 2 years since the family took on transforming
the old Gardner Agway in to the Good Earth Farm and Garden Center!
There have been LOTS of changes – on almost every front!
On September 21: 10am – 3pm
We’re hosting a
Fall Festival at The Good Earth!
There will be activities, special sales, lots of seasonal color – everything needed to have a great time welcoming in the fall season! Check our Website for more details and
stop in to help us celebrate. We’d love to see you!
One of the activities is a tree walk in the afternoon– sounds strange since the space around the store is not really a fantastic piece of native woodlot, but it can teach everyone quite a bit and allows us to talk about what’s happening in the woodlots, and with trees in general. This is a free talk and everyone is welcome to tag along and ask any questions about trees that come to mind. If we can’t answer them directly, we’ll find out the answers for you! Trees are a critical part of our New England ecosystem and are worth a few minutes of time to try and understand them just a bit!! We’ll go in to details about planting for long-term health, look at pruning, managing fertilizers – all the basics plus a wider ecological look. No need to sign up – just come along on the walk!
Now let’s move on to a few thoughts about what’s happening as the season winds down…
The fall flower bulbs have arrived (but not the garlic!! – that’s early October). One different group this time around is a wide range of bearded iris. These are all reblooming and great colors but they REALLY need to be planted sooner than later!! Bearded iris are rhizomes, NOT bulbs and that means that they’re planted ON THE SURFACE AND NOT BURIED!!! I know the all caps is loud but -so many people plant them much too deep! And that’s why they need to be planted sooner than later since they have to root like a more traditional perennial and less like a bulb. Ask for specifics when you come in. We also have an interesting selection of Fritillarias as well as the more traditional bulbs.
Then on to one of the ongoing seasonal challenges – the lilacs and their overwhelming doses of powdery mildew. We’ve had quite a few people coming through in a panic about “my lilacs turned black and I need to cut them down.” DON’T!!!! They’re fine!!!! Well – not fine exactly – but in no need of being cut down!
When Hurricane Debby came north in early August, it came overland and not over water. That meant that it wasn’t much of a storm for us, but it brought a wickedly high humidity and a lot of spores and other travelers on the winds to land in our gardens and fields. There was already a decent dose of different diseases around (Septoria is this year’s fungus of choice – miserable choice that it is!!) but this additional pressure turned on the pressure in a very specific way – and disease pressures rose dramatically. This means that the powdery mildew that often attacks lilacs in August came in with a true vengeance and didn’t just coat the leaves – it wiped them out.
The cool thing about woody plant leaves is that they’ve done most of their work by the middle of August (refilling the energy used to leaf out and grow in the earlier part of the season). That means that losing a current year’s leaves anytime after the first of August is usually not a big problem for the plant. This is why you see early color on weaker trees especially if there are other stressors in the landscape. You can always tell if you have a real problem by checking a couple of the buds tight along the stem. If you flick off a couple and they’re green underneath then you (and the bush!) are fine. If they’re black then you really do have a problem…we’ll cross that bridge if you really find no green!
You do want to take the time to fertilize any weak woody plants in late fall/early winter – but more on that later when we’re closer to the right time to do the work ☺
And our final seasonal note is on cover crops.
So, what are cover crops and why do they matter?
You’ve seen and heard that you should always have mulch on gardens. Well, cover cropping is another way of protecting open soil once the gardens are put to bed for the season. As with mulch, its purpose is not to be harvested, but to help manage soil erosion, soil fertility, soil quality, water, weeds, pests, diseases, biodiversity and wildlife. Cover crops help with poor soil structure and with compaction. That’s a lot of help no matter how you look at it!
Evidence is mounting that cover crops help to improve moisture availability in the face of our increasingly erratic weather (droughts, floods often both in one year!). Is it too wet in the spring? Non-winter kill cover crops take up water and usually allow work in the garden earlier than if you did not have a cover crop growing. Alternatively, if facing drought, cover crops still help boost yields while being very efficient with water use. This is because different kinds of root systems build different kinds of soil structure (very cool to look at on line if you get curious..). If you use no-till methods, the cover crop mulch increases water infiltration and conserves moisture into the summer. Added carbon and root channels, in addition to increased soil pore space, help improve soil water-holding capacity in any garden setting. I know, I know – that’s a lot of words to say that the soil system gets easier to work with!
For an in-depth look at Cover Cropping check out in Acres USA (great magazine that I’ve subscribed to for over 30 years). For more information on using cover crops to address erratic weather events, visit this link Water Management . Also, see this link Ecosystem Services from CoverCrops for information on how cover crops protect water quality.
Here are the basics of what cover crop seeds to pick to do a job for you
COMPACTION – everyone has it! – construction misery, solid plow pan - grasses and radishesORGANIC MATTER to boost microbe populations, to add nutrients, to generally improve soil structure and for water retention - legumes, grasses/grains – this is the place for the widest mix of seeds – up to six different species makes a real difference. Much over six and the gains diminish CONTROL WEEDS - grasses/grainsGROW MULCH - annual rye/oats/barley/annual cloversPOLLINATORS - buckwheat and clovers
And there are two types of cover crops
Ones you need to kill in the spring (solarizing, herbicide, tilling)
Takes 3-5 weeks between killing off crop residue and planting the new crop. When soil microbes are in break down mode the soil is not “organized” for germination and root growth.
Ones you plant into (winter killed) or can use in garden gaps
These are planted with the goal of creating a mulch that persists through the winter but doesn’t have active green growth, cushioning the effects of weather and providing food for the microbes by consuming the old root systems.
Here at The Good Earth, we have the classic winter rye of course but also two kinds of fast growing clover, oats, radishes, several mixes and we’re happy to go through all of the options with you to help you make the best selection for your specific needs.
One last idea that might be interesting…!
We’ve tried posting these to Facebook, but I thought it might be interesting to add them here as well. We’ve had a wonderful array of insects this year and we’d love your help!! We’re pretty good with plant identification – and dogs and cats are ok – but we’re in the major learning stages of identifying who’s visiting our pollinator plants. We have a whole lot of “itty bitties” that don’t show up on screen easily. If you have some identifications, please send them to thegoodearthfgc@gmail.com I’ll let you know in the next newsletter what kind of results we got!
LOOK:
There are lots of kinds of bumble bees (but who is REALLY coming here?!?).
There’s a whole group of thread wasted wasps that love the mountain mint. Some of those are mud daubers – we think?!?
You get the drift. We’re hoping that people might know a lot more than we do and can respond with some identifications.
None of these are the white-faced hornets or yellow jackets. We also have some honeybees from someone’s local hive and of course the late butterflies.
Stop in and just watch for a few minutes – we won’t mind!! We do it ourselves!!! Or better yet, help us identify some of our visitors!!
So that’s it for now – come to the party, come to check out the insects – lots and lots is happening and we’re looking forward to the conversations!
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