August 7, 2008, 10:14 pm
Filed under: conservative, gardening, humor, links, southern

Carl Wayne’s Weekly Columns and Newsletter August 08, 2008

Welcome to the 50th issue of this usually weekly newsletter. Subscribers: 113

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Collierville Town Information C’ville Yellow&White Pages

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Memphis Area Master Gardeners website and newsletter

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Civilian Fitness BOOT CAMP! For more details and 2 free workouts, Call Sergeant Les (901) 592-7097

This week:

It’s hot but at least we had a nice rain on Thursday. All the plants in our yards and gardens need rain – more than just town water. We are gathering lots of tomatoes, not as many as my in-laws. Mimi went to see them (her parents, not the tomatoes) on Wednesday, and they sent some home by her so we can see what a basket of normal size tomatoes looks like.

Our community victory garden is making loads of tomatoes and peas and squash and peppers and zucchini and butternut squash and a few watermelons. We have big beautiful plants that have never been touched with insecticides. The good bugs and the bug busting birds keep the bad bug population in check. Our total harvest year to date is just short of 900 pounds with worlds more to pick. Our Friday morning purple hull pea bounty will be taken to Page Robbins Adult Day Care Center where the clients will shell them and interact and have a good day.

Our precious granddarlings start back to school next week. It’s good to see them happy and busy. The Olympics start Friday. And it’s supposed to be hot and dry all week. But the veggie gardens love the sun and we will water them well. I started teaching another nine week course at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University last week: Advanced MicroSoft Office.

Life is good!

Column / Short Story:

Early Morning In My Garden June 18, 2008

“I come to the garden alone, While the dew is still on the roses;”

~ from the hymn by C. Austin Miles

Early morning is my favorite time to walk about in the modest suburban yard I call my garden. My senses are sharper and my mind clearer from a good night’s rest. Plants are not folded up to avoid the hot sun, and critters are stirring about. And I am without excuse, the Good Book says, as I see His glorious handiwork.

A fat toad leapt from my thongs (the shoe type) kept on the patio for quick access. He lurks by the door to catch mosquitoes poised for the chance to dart inside whence the delicious scents of human heat and carbon dioxide emanate.

One fennel plant, a butterfly host plant, has been largely consumed by a large striped swallowtail butterfly caterpillar, having escaped so far the eyes and beaks of birds which visit my feeders daily.

The hummingbirds are back, but seldom seen until they finish nesting. My home sparrows are busy at the feeders eating and discussing current events. Mourning doves feed on the ground. They perch on rooftops and coo loudly until I put out feed. The cardinals visit at dusk, knowing I put out more blackoil sunflower seed for them after most birds have gone to roost.

Early morning is when my inlaws, Ralph and Opal Graham, do their heavy garden work. Not only do they avoid the effects of the hot sun, but they can rest for the day.

This morning I savor the delights of new blooms: rudbeckias (brown eyed susans), redhot poker plants, lilies, gladioli (Aunt Cora’s favorite), my new dwarf hollyhock, verbena, zinnias, and my veggie plants.

This mid June morning I picked a zucchini, a Rosa Bianca eggplant, a yellow squash, a bush cucumber, and my 11^th-13^th small but welcome Early Girl tomatoes.

I gave my plants a nice shower of water this early morning to help protect them from the debilitating sun and avoid creating damp places for fungi to thrive in darkness.

As Master Gardener Bill Colvard taught me to do, I shake each tomato cage to augment their gravity pollination. The last 24 hours have been ideal for tomatoes to set fruit, which only happens when daytime temps do not exceed 86 degrees and nighttime temps are below 70 degrees.

All is good! Now I can go to my job in a beautiful campus for one of the best companies in the world.

Ain’t God good!

Carl Wayne Hardeman, Master Gardener, mymaters@yahoo.com

An OLD column/newsletter:

Summer Rewards Aug 1, 2007

“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.”

~Zora Neale Hurston

We are in the hot and humid days of our beloved South. It’s humid yet dry. Much effort, mostly mental, is needed to get out of the house and into the garden.

“The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Little work is needed in the garden midsummer other than a little weeding, watering, harvesting, and enjoying the reward of the hard work earlier in the year.

The damage from the Easter Sunday freeze is evident. The hydrangeas did not bloom. There are dead ends on some of the branches on Hester, the hawthorn tree. Thornton, the pyracantha, and Finbar, one of the Japanese maples, died. I don’t know whether from the freeze, or the cumulative effect of the drought and my inattention to watering.

We’re eating tasty heirloom maters from the back yard. The Mortgage Lifter maters lived up to the seed catalog description averaging 1.5 pounds each with two to three per vine. Two late vines have two large fruit each yet to ripen. Just the right size for one of Mimi’s delicious bologna sandwiches with real Hellman’s mayonnaise.

My two tater vines in straw-filled containers yielded two tasty messes for me and Mimi. I just dumped the containers in my yard cart. That’s easier than digging taters.

Our summer flowers are in bloom, including the crape myrtles, black-eyed susans, naked ladies (surprise lilies), dahlia, hollyhocks, parsley, milkweed, hostas, zinnias,

verbena, morning glories, encore azaleas, fennel, batface cupheas, tea rose, daylilies, stock, and wave petunias. One variety of my carnivorous plants has bloom stalks.

The hummingbirds hang around the feeders most of the day with a male guarding the feeders and chasing most of the others away. Mimi keeps the feeders full and clean, just like she does me and our granddarlings.

We’ve seen few butterflies and bees this year. Usually the bee balm is covered with bees, but not this year. We’ve seen swallowtail butterfly caterpillars on the parsley and fennel, but sadly, so have the birds.

Summer will be over too soon. The granddarlings have completed their summer sports, vacations, and camps. I know I’m old fashioned, but it don’t seem right for

children to start back to school in hot weather. Youth is too short and passes too quickly.

Ain’t God good!

Carl Wayne, Master Gardener

mailto:mymaters@yahoo.com