Thanks to our leadership team at the Demonstration Garden and the Garden-to-Table group for this handy information. Â Know that if we are doing it in the Demo Garden, you can be doing it in your garden!
This week in the Master Gardeners’ Demonstration garden at Ida Lee Park in Leesburg, the Master Gardeners have been harvesting summer vegetables including tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, squash, beans, chard, and herbs. They also planted Brassica (cabbage, etc.)Â transplants (look for these at your local nursery) and kale seeds for fall harvest. These have been mulched and covered with “row cover” ( a light weight polyester material that can be ordered from gardening supply web sites and catalogues) to keep cabbage moths from laying their eggs in the plants (their larvae are small green worms that tunnel into the plants). Also lettuces, arugula, spinach and radish seeds are being planted for fall harvest.
The cucumber beds have been cleared of cucumber plants, as these have succumbed to diseases and the beds have been amended with compost and this has been turned in and watered. Fall vegetables will be planted in these in the near future.
The strawberry beds have been thinned of extra runners so the plants won’t be too crowded. If you don’t have strawberry plants in your garden and think you don’t have room for them this is one of the plants that does well in containers. You can plant them now or wait until spring. It is a lot of fun to go out and pick strawberries to put on your cereal in the mornings or just to eat out of hand.
If you get a chance to come by the garden, check out the watermelons that are growing vertically (on supports). Very fun way to grow them if you are short on space but love watermelons.
In the ornamental gardens our giant pampas grass (Cortaderia selloana) is “blooming” as is the Ruby grass. the Golden Rod (Solidago) is just beginning to show its color (although the wild Golden Rod has been blooming for a week or so).
Be sure and weed your garden beds and keep cutting back the spent flowers to keep the plants blooming and to keep your garden looking neat.
Happy Gardening and if you have any questions about this information, or any gardening questions, please contact the Master Gardeners at the Master Gardener “Help Desk” at 703-771-5150 or email us at ex107mg@vt.edu .
The Fall edition of the Trumpet Vine newsletter is in the works. Â If you are interested in subscribing, send a note containing your email to the Help Desk email, and we’ll add you to the list! Â Due to budget constraints, we only send out this publication via email. Â You will also receive the above gardening advice as well.