State of the Garden June 2016

Front View of Vegetable Garden - Garden Lady Blog

Back View of Vegetable Garden - Garden Lady Blog

Vegetables
Garden planting started much earlier this year. In March I planted snow peas and Brussels sprout seeds. In April we started a bed of blueberry plants. Later that month I planted squash and sunflower seeds. Bush Blue Lake and Harvester beans followed a few days later. The snow peas have been abundant and tasty while ripe blueberries are scarce.

Snow Peas - Garden Lady Blog

Plantings purchased from a nursery included green peppers, jalapeno peppers, tomatoes, and eggplants. Flowering is well underway and peppers and tomatoes are developing. The eggplant has been ravaged by flea beetles so it may be a bad year for them.

Zucchini Squash and Tomatoes - Garden Lady Blog

Green Beans and Tomatoes - Garden Lady Blog

Spaghetti squash was started indoors and transplanted in March. Since it grew over tomato cages one year, I'm training it to climb a trellis. In this way I hope to contain this plant that tends to run all over the garden. It is flowering and small fruit is visible.

Spaghetti Squash Climbing Trellis - Garden Lady Blog

By the way, you may recognize recycled material in use for the 3 trellises. I used railings from old cribs and toddler beds. ( Hey the kids are in college now so why not?)

Sunflower Hybrid Mix - Garden Lady Blog

Flowers

This year's garden includes a wide row of sunflowers: hybrid mix and Mammoths. Another row has seeds from pollinator packets and harvested sunflower seeds from last year. The squirrels had their way with some of the latter, but a whole bunch are sprouting.

Sunflower from Hybrid Mix - Garden Lady Blog

As an experiment, I started Loofah seeds indoors. The transplants are frail so I've lowered my expectations. I think it's good to experiment on one thing in the garden every year, don't you agree? Speaking of experiments, a friend gave me a seed pod from Red Okra. I'm not an okra-lover, but I've heard the flowers are Hibiscus-like and gorgeous so I've have 8 of these seedlings struggling at various locations.

Well that's a summary of activities in the vegetable garden. It hard to believe that I've been writing these State of the Garden articles for 3 years. Last year's can be found here.

With weekly grass cutting and vegetable harvesting, it's going to be a busy summer. I would be interested in hearing about your vegetable gardens. Please comment below!

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4 Favorite Plants that became Invasive

When we first built our home on a 3 acre lot, my gardening goal was to fill up the many bare spots in the landscape with favorite plants. Fast forward 20 years and some of these plants have become invasive. Below I'll describe the plants and how they've worn out their horticultural welcome.

Area Overgrown with Liriope

1 - Liriope

Liriope is also known as Monkey Grass and Creeping Lilyturf. When I first started gardening 30 years ago (at a different property), this was the plant everyone used along sidewalks and driveways as a border. I had no idea that this border plant can morph into a ground cover.

Recent research reveals there is a clumping form(Liriope muscari) and a ground cover(Liriope spicata) species. The ground cover form spreads through underground stems with rhizomes. These rhizomes have the appearance of little bulbs on the roots and are hard to completely remove.

Overgrown liriope is one of the most difficult areas to reclaim. While I was busy raising children, our front yard garden along the house became overrun with it . It provided a hiding place for snakes, rodents, and insects. In the summers, I would mow a path through it to get to the water faucet.

To reclaim this area, we treated the liriope with glycosphate (Roundup) 3 times. Caution was taken to avoid peony and butterfly bushes in the same area. Once the die-off was complete, I covered the area with barrier fabric and topped with mulch. As individual plants sprout through, they are sprayed.

I'm happy with the reclamation. Now I can walk around this area and tend to other plants. Unfortunately, this is not the only area I planted with Monkey Grass...

English Ivy Growing Up a Tree

2 - English Ivy

I admired a friend's groundcover of English Ivy. I couldn't wait to start my own. The ivy has taken over many flat areas as well as climbing trees and the side of our house. It can be killed with glycosphate - a single treatment will do. Once it dies on a brick wall, the vines need to be removed by hand. For ivy growing up a tree trunk, cut the vine at the base of the tree, and pull off what you can.

Periwinkle Vines as Ground Cover

3 - Periwinkle

I'm seeing a pattern here as Periwinkle is another plant that I admired in another yard. It has beautiful lavender flowers even on sunny winter days and attractive variegated leaves. It can create a ground cover and choke out smaller plants. Fortunately, Periwinkle vines are easy to pull up roots and all.

Periwinkle Vines with Flower

"City Block" Forsythia

4 - Forsythia

I have what I call "city block" Forsythia. This is a bush that has expanded over the years to a tremendous size covering up neighbor plants.  Forsythia spreads by sending shoots downward where they attached to the ground and become an independent plant. Severe pruning can get the bush back down to size. Unless roots are dug up, chemical treatment of sprouts will be necessary.

Blooming Forsythia-Woodpecker in Foreground

What about you? What plants have grown out of control in your yard? I would love to hear about it in the comments below.

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