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THE EARTH : One Person Can Make a Difference
Last November I had a rare opportunity to be in Rome for the United Nation’s World Food Summit as a delegate for the World Sustainable Agriculture Association. An unusual thing happened at the Summit. People from all parts of the world were really talking about food security, what it meant, how to eliminate hunger, and what they can do about it back home. For the first time I felt there was an agreement among diverse people, organizations, and governments to look at the problems in-depth relating to the security of food.
THE EARTH :Back To Basics: Growing Food
Every year at this time I turn to the upcoming season with much anticipation.With the seed catalogs arriving, I spend time finding new varieties and old favorites that I want to grow.My thoughts also turn to the needs of the garden and preparations for the new season.This gives me the opportunity to review some of the basic elements that are needed in gardening.For those of you who are old hands at gardening as well as those who are new gardeners, I would like to briefly share with you a few important items that are essential for a successful garden.
Location of the Garden Site:
Feeding in February is ‘For the Birds’
February is National Wild Bird Feeding Month, the seventh observance since the event was established by the National Bird-Feeding Society.
The reason, of course, is that February is one of the most difficult times in much of the U.S. and Canada for birds to survive in the wild. For example, consider that:
* A typical backyard bird doesn’t weigh as much as two nickels
* They spend most of their waking hours searching for food — without the help of “hands” and “fingers”
* They may consume 20% of their body weight overnight just keeping warm enough to survive
February Home and Garden Tips
Many gardeners like to start their own vegetable and flower transplants. This is a good way to obtain unusual varieties found only in catalogs. To get started you will need to have a suitable growing medium and plenty of light to produce strong healthy transplants. Growing mixes made of peat moss, perlite or vermiculite are ideal. Unless you have a south facing window with strong sunlight, trying to germinate and grow seedlings on a window sill is usually not very successful. To overcome a low light problem you can grow transplants under fluorescent lights to supplement or replace natural light. Cool white tubes work very well. Suspend the light fixture about six inches above the seedlings. Leave the light on for about 14 - 16 hours per day. Sow the seeds indoors approximately 5-6 weeks before the last frost date. In Central Maryland the last frost date is May 10th and in warmer areas of the state this date is April 25th. Transplants need to be conditioned for the outdoor environment before planted. Do this by placing their flats outdoors on nice days in a semi-shaded location for a week before transplanting them to their permanent location.
Some Unusual Rose Conditions
This year the rose problems have been a bit different from other years. I thought it might be useful to list some of these to assist Master Gardeners when clients present problems with roses.
1. Symptoms of the first problem: In early June blossoms failed to open up normally This is referred to as “balling” of the blossoms. The edges of the petals were brown. The symptoms are more likely to occur on light colored roses. There are two possible causes listed in the textbooks. The first is botrytis, which occurs when we have periods of damp cool weather, so that’s hardly the cause this year. The second possible cause is an invasion of thrips. To check this, I opened the blossom and examined the petal base areas. There I found small, (1.0 nun) tan insects running around. Thrips do their damage by sucking juices from the petals. The trails for their successive penetrations shows a rasping pattern.
Your Garden’s Flowers : In Consideration of Why They Bloom
I will admit that I love flowers. I also love gardening. I am not the most proficient or the neatest of gardeners, and I have a taste for the less than manicured bed.
Why do most of us garden? I think there is a combination of an appreciation for the plants themselves and their attributes of beauty such as foliage, shape, stem color and, of course, their flowers. We wish to surround ourselves with the beauty of plants. We do so by in a sense, playing God on our little acre (or 1 /3 of an acre in my case). This is not altogether bad. But any time we pretend to be omnipotent, a little bit of humility is a good thing.
There are two aspects of our obsession with flowers that we have to think about: 1) do they bloom just for us, and 2) do the plants in our gardens exist in a vacuum separate from the surrounding environment? The answer to both questions is no.
