A garden of verses
Discover more from The Weekly Dirt with Jessica Damiano
A garden of verses
and troubleshooting failed zucchini
Hi, guys!
Earlier this month, I asked you to participate in The Weekly Dirt garden poetry contest, and you did not disappoint! I received scores of sentimental ponderings of nature and poems about insects, trees, flowers and the joys they bring.
Gardeners and poets share an appreciation for nature and a keen sense for finding beauty in the physical world, so the high quality of your submissions makes perfect sense.
I enjoyed reading them all and selecting a winner was fun but hard!
Lynne Mahoney of East Islip, NY, takes first place with her ode to an ancient tree species. “My inspiration is a rock planting centered around a ginkgo tree in front of my house. Ginkgos have a very interesting history,” she writes.
Lynne wins a copy of “Leaning Toward Light: Poems for Gardens & The Hands That Tend Them,” edited by Tess Taylor. (You can read my interview with Taylor here).
Congratulations, Lynne, your book is on the way!
The Ginkgo Tree: A Living Fossil, by Lynn Mahoney
A brontosaurus grazed upon a golden ginkgo tree,
mercifully unaware of the extinction that would be.
Two hundred million years go by and people roam the land,
where ginkgo trees, with fan-shaped leaves, still steadfastly stand.
A hundred million years from now, wonder what we'll see?
Will the human beings thrive and ginkgos cease to be?
THE BEST OF THE REST
To Weed or Not, by Jane Shelley
Oh, the wonder of these tiny seeds.
Will they become sprawling lawns or unwanted weeds?
Some will be nurtured and carefully tended,
While others will land where the wind has intended!
Soon, emerging, a vast sea of green monotony,
Peppered, though, with a surprising yellow, flowered cacophony!
Could this be Nature's smiling nod to beauty in an otherwise unexciting tableau?
Ode to Sage, by Lucy Griffith
Your crush of herb, wild and imprudent, seasons a bath, garnishes a glass.
But it’s the showy thrust of velvet spikes in spring—purled in white and lavender
that draws visitors like a busy market. Nectar searchers hover-sip and buzz.
Hummer, moth, butterfly, bee, each with specific strategy.
A sacred hum from dawn to dusk. Honeyed bounty folded within.
Your thicket trembles, pocketed with sparrows. Sustenance, shelter,
color flash, tip to root, dear sage, you purr—a consecration of spring.
My Dad’s Garden, by Esther Neville
Learning the art of organic gardening at my father’s knee, connecting to the warm earth
The excitement of spring planting and anticipation of the fireworks yet to come
The absolute wonder at the sight of baby plants reaching for the sun
The leveling of the rows by the wild bunnies, turtles, and deer taught me patience as my dad told me all living things need to eat
The heat, weeds, watering and lifelong mosquito scars…leading to bountiful crop perfection
Time spent with my dad…him planting in me the respect for the earth, the natural world and a love of gardening…so worth it.
GRATEFUL, by Margaret Hanan
Through peace and war
and all our strife
Green plants are there
to give us life.
We harvest beauty, fragrance, and hope
so grateful we can always cope.
Untitled, by Christopher Brown
Fall cries out to me: Prune away yet
Dream of blossoms sure to come
When rebirth sprouts again
And I will witness with the earth
The miracle of budding shoots
Precursors of my garden’s rainbow
ODE TO AUTUMN, by Janette Diehlmann
Another growing season passes by
Time to plan for springtime's rise
Plant the garlic
Clear the yard
Then I spy a caterpillar on my herbs
Oh, what a joy to share my bounty
Autumn may be here, but the monarch is still gracing this earth
📬 Ask Jessica
DEAR JESSICA: I love growing zucchini due to its versatility and abundance. But my plants haven’t produced in the past two years. First, I battled squash bugs, and this year, the plants looked good, but the flowers fell off before the zucchini formed. Any help you can offer would be appreciated. —Kathy Shannon
DEAR KATHY: It’s so disappointing when we pour our blood, sweat and tears into our garden, and it doesn’t pay us back. Zucchini, although often proliferous, can also sometimes be challenging.
It sounds like your latest problem is due to poor pollination.
As you’ve probably noticed, the plants produce both male and female flowers. The male flowers are attached to the plant with ordinary stems; the females have a swollen base that, when pollinated, develops into zucchini.
If the males and the females aren’t open simultaneously, or if bees and other pollinators don’t visit, pollen won’t be transferred from one to the other, and the unfertilized blossoms will drop.
To get ahead of this, I always hand-pollinate my zucchini and other squash plants.
Here’s how: Early in the morning, when the flowers are open, transfer the pollen from the male to the female. You can do this by touching a cotton swab to the male flower’s pollen-covered anther and then to the dark part in the center of the female flower, called the stigma. Or, you can pick off a male flower, strip off its petals and touch each female stigma directly with the male anther.
I hope this helps! Let me know how next year’s plants do.
💡 If you do one thing this week…
As long as frost is looming in your area, get spring bulbs into the garden. You can continue planting them until the ground freezes — if the soil is soft enough to dig, you can still plant bulbs.
👏 Sunday shoutout
Reader Rich Sankovich of Winchester, Virginia, sends his “dirty regards” along with this photo of his lovely harvest, writing, “I picked these green and yellow string beans today along with the onions, and here it is Oct. 22 in the Northern Shenandoah Valley.”
Rich says she planted lettuce, onions and spinach in raised beds 9 months ago, on Jan. 22, and that the beans pictured, which grew in 15-foot rows, weighed in at 3 1/8 pounds. The bush beans are his 9th successive crop of the year.
"If you want to be happy,” Rich says, “plant a garden; if you want to be healthy, eat a garden!”
Send in your photo, and you could be featured next (bonus points if you’re in the picture!)
📰This week in my Associated Press gardening column
I write a weekly gardening column for the AP, so you might have seen my byline in your local paper (or news website) — wherever in the world you happen to be. In case you miss it, I’ll post the most recent here every week.
THIS WEEK: Spooky plants for goth gardens
LAST WEEK: How to grow your own cup of coffee — indoors!
BEFORE THAT: Rose hips add a pop of color to fall gardens — and flavor to teas and jams
You can read all my AP gardening columns here.
📚📺🎵 Random things I enjoyed this week
It’s been a busy week, juggling deadlines and testing out products for my upcoming holiday gift guides (stay tuned!)
I’ve also been trying — unsuccessfully — to eke out some time to clear out my vegetable beds (don’t be like me!)
I watched the latest Jane Fonda/Lily Tomlin movie, Moving On (a bit darker than I expected), Ray Romano, Laurie Metcalf and Sebastian Manascalco in Somewhere in Queens (also darker than expected. I thought these were comedies!) and a creepy one called Cobweb, all on Hulu. No, I didn’t have time to clear out my vegetable beds, but I did watch movies. 🤭
This newsletter is member-supported
This week’s newsletter was made possible by generous support from Robyn, Ellen Rubin, Andy, Kathy Burrous and readers who wished to remain anonymous. We wouldn’t be here without you — thank you so much!
I put a lot of effort into researching, writing and producing this newsletter every week, and I couldn’t do it without your support.
If you enjoy receiving The Weekly Dirt and value the information it contains, please consider “buying me a coffee!”
Let’s be friends! Follow me:
@jessicadamiano on Facebook
@JesDamiano on Threads
📧 How’m I doing?
I welcome your comments and suggestions, so please send them along — as well as any topics you’d like to see covered and questions you’d like answered in the Ask Jessica section.