Hello, friends!
Last week’s strong winds lifted our large patio umbrella straight out of the table on the back deck. Fortunately, there was no damage. We usually close it when the weather gets dicey, but I guess we forgot this time.
The storm left us another gift: a lawn full of leaves. But instead of raking up every last one, I took the advice of Anthony Marinello, a native plants expert I interviewed last spring for a Newsday cover story. In the interest of protecting our endangered beneficial insects and pollinators, he suggested cleaning up only leaves that litter pavements, lest they become slip hazards. “Keep (the rest) in your garden beds without shredding them and rake them underneath plants in beds — that’s free mulch,” he told me. “All the butterfly and moth eggs and cocoons are in the leaves. All the insects, and especially miner bees and mason bees, nest in hollow stems, so you don’t want to cut down [perennials] and throw them out. If you do, you’ll have no overwintering shelter for insects,” he warned. Likewise, “when you deadhead or remove seed heads from the flowers, you’re removing the food source for the birds.”
My umbrella mishap also was a good reminder to inspect trees, especially those near the house or other structures — or near walkways — for dead, weak or broken branches. Although fall isn’t the best time to prune, it’s necessary to selectively remove limbs that may be ripped off during winter storms. Left alone, they threaten to damage property, or worse, injure you, your family or passersby.
You know what they say about an ounce of prevention…
Photo by Seth Doyle
Question of the week
Greetings, Jessica! I enjoyed reading your first edition of The Weekly Dirt. This year especially, I have enjoyed experimenting with both vegetables and herbs in my small home garden.
After I harvested my first batch of garlic, I added buckets of fresh compost to a bed to prepare the area for next season. In my compost bin were healthy shoots of last winter’s vegetable scraps. I was curious about what they might be, so I planted four of them where I had removed the garlic. A month later, vines ran along the deck and soon I had dozens of yellow-orange flowers.
By the end of August I was still curious about what was growing so I started to research the pollination process and learned by examining them that I had too many male flowers and only two females. Since they are only open for a short time in the morning, manual pollination was recommended. So the next morning, I helped nature along and hoped for the best.
Within a few days, I could see the beginning of a butternut squash and another squash/pumpkin. It was amazing to witness and be a part of creating new vegetables from last year's kitchen scraps. I do think however, that I may have inadvertently crossbred a pumpkin and an acorn squash. Can you identify it? It doesn't look like anything I ate last year! —Janette Diehlmann
Dear Janette: Squash often do benefit from hand pollination, so you were absolutely right to be proactive with that. It likely is the reason your mostly-male plant produced any fruit. But it has nothing to do with your crossbred crop.
It’s true that plants are crossbred, or hybridized, when pollen from one plant makes it into the flowers of another. This can be done deliberately, as in your case, or naturally, when bees, for instance, visit several flowers, depositing pollen from one to the next, or when pollen is transported by wind. But this hybridization doesn’t affect the fruits or flowers of the affected plants. Instead, it produces seeds within those fruits or flowers that, when planted, will yield fruits or flowers that have characteristics of both parents.
I don’t recognize your mottled green pumpkin-squash, so I suspect it is, in fact, a spontaneous hybrid. But that hybrid was created last season, unbeknownst to you, and started growing in your compost pile.
Photo by Janette Diehlmann
If you do one thing this week…
Inspect houseplants — especially under leaves — for spider mites and scale. If you see a few, simply remove affected foliage and monitor the plant. If they are present on more than a few leaves, rinse them off with a stream of water, rubbing with your hands to aid removal if necessary (this is most easily done by placing small pots in the sink and larger ones in the shower.) For moderate to severe infestations, it might be necessary to treat with insecticidal soap, but do not apply to plants that are damaged from the infestation or it may weaken them further.
👏 Sunday shoutout
Bill Ugenti of Centereach, NY, grows several sunflower varieties every summer in his front-yard garden, where, he says, they “fill in [around] the perennials, [lending] color, height and contrast.”
They get so tall that his grandson, Michael, 5, needs a lift to look them in the eye.
Photo by Jennifer Ugenti
Victims of our own successes
Remember that time you planted mint right in the ground, and it threatened to take over your entire yard?
Or that time you sold so many calendars within 24 hours of announcing them that PayPal froze your account for “suspicious activity” and wouldn’t allow you to process any shipments for 3 days? Yeah, that happened. (Thank you for your patience.) 🤦♀️
Get your 2021 gardening calendar
This is not an ordinary calendar. It’s actually a gardening and plant-care guidebook in calendar’s clothing. Every daily box contains a little nudge from me to you: a timely chore or tip to keep your garden on track all year long. (Shipping has been restored.)
Send me your feedback!
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 Q&A section.
If you’re sending photos of your garden, please include your full name and the name of anyone depicted, your hometown, details about your plant or garden, the name of the person who took the photo, and a sentence granting permission for its use in this newsletter and archives.
Until next week, stay safe. Be well. And always keep your mind in the dirt. —Jessica