Dayton "Dirt" - July 17, 2015

As the rain machine continues, long established trees and shrubs are suffering or even dying as soils that are normally well-drained are saturated with water depriving roots of oxygen. The latest casualty is a 25 year old Crimson King Maple that is collapsing because of the roots being water soaked. Then too will damage or death of plants in wet zones be apparent next year especially if next year is hot and dry.

The Edith Bogue Magnolia planted at the nursery in 1992 is suffering from the cold February temperatures as is evident by the top half barely sprouting growth so that it will be chopped back severely to grow again with the strongest growth coming from the former small leaves that  actually protected the entire tree from dying. On a lighter note, the various hydrangeas just keep blooming with Vanilla Strawberry and Strawberry Sundae dressed in white and soon to blush with a strawberry pink coloration on the flowers so that both pink and white will be displayed. One of my new favorites is the Hydrangea called Bobo that is compact in growing to 3-4 feet and pure white. It is so easy to grow in full sun or part shade that this beautiful plant should be in every landscape.

The grounds at the nursery are undergoing a major renovation that was last accomplished 10 years ago. New plantings and a massive planting of a new perennial garden in the lower half of the botanical display garden is now underway. These renovations require lots of time and labor but  in the long run are well worth it as some of the landscape areas appear “tired”.

The Plow to Chow dinner put on by the Summit County Farm Bureau was a rousing success so that a few thousand dollars will be donated to the Ronald McDonald House for their operations and building expansion that will greatly benefit families in which parents of children that need  long term care at Akron Children’s Hospital will be able to be housed while their children are undergoing treatment.  See pictures of the event

On Ready, Set, Grow 1590 WAKR tomorrow at 8 a.m. will be my guest Chuck Seiberling ofSeiberling Farms that basically will be a discussion of what goes on “down on the farm”. To get your questions answered call 330-370-1590.

~Tom

Dayton "Dirt" - July 10, 2015

Tomorrow is the Blueberry Fest with hayrides, children’s activities and lots of blueberries all centered around the Owl barn Market. If this were not enough, the “Plow to Chow” dinner for the Ronald McDonald House is next Thursday evening in which 120 paying guests will sit down to an  outdoor gourmet dinner sponsored by the Summit County Farm Bureau. The event will also be used as “teaching” tool that will center on talks of various agriculture activities to produce food that will be on the gourmet menu and one on water conservation and recycling as we now do at the nursery. Unfortunately only paying guests will be able to take part in the activities, hor’s d’oeurves, wine and food as the $100 each that the participants have paid will cover the expenses of the gourmet chef , waiters and other workers and yet have enough left over to benefit the  Ronald McDonald house in Akron.

In the nursery, even more trees became available for sale from our spring potting and include more Eastern Redbuds, Sweet Bay Magnolias, American Elms, Flowering Pears, White Fringe Trees, American beech, Maples and even more flowering crabapples. Sadly for us, those trees were not available for sale in May when they would have quickly sold because they were bare root trees when they were potted last March. These trees will stay out all winter long and are actually meant for next spring’s sales although they could easily be planted now.

The continuous rain has been a real “bummer” in that annual flowers are not in their prime and are even dying do to the constant wetness and limited sun. Even our greenhouse manager planted 300 plus wave petunias for her daughter’s wedding which have stopped blooming and have gone to  “sticks”!

At least some sun is supposed to be present for the Blueberry Fest tomorrow.

~Tom

P.S. Don’t forget to join me at 1590 AM WAKR at 8 a.m. on Saturday, July 18th as I interview Chuck Seiberling about everything “down on the farm”. The Seiberling farm has been growing and selling sweet corn and other produce that Chuck’s mother began selling from the front steps of  the old house beginning in the 1940's.

Dayton "Dirt" - July 2, 2015

Seems as though the “faucet” of torrential downpours is done for awhile but one inch of rain per week would be nice instead of a long, hot dry spell. Many garden plants, trees and other landscape plants are suffering from too much water especially if the soil drainage is questionable. Then if a hot dry spell ensues, the damage will show up as wilted plants or even dead ones from the damaged root system. For sure algae blooms in creeks, streams and Lake Erie will proliferate due  to thehigh amount of runoff from the fields, septic systems, leach fields and lawns. Get ready for lots of foliar disease on plants and possible problems on lawn grasses due to the constantly wet foliage and high humidity.

At the nursery the watch word for “bugs” is spider mites and then wouldn’t you know it that I found some on butterfly bush in the back stock area. Powdery mildew so far has not been a problem due to prevention spraying for mildew with a product like armicarb that is the  same product that can be sold over the shelf called Bicarb.

With the holiday of the Fourth of July tomorrow, it typically is the last day so to speak for planting heat loving vegetables such as sweet corn, beans, squash, cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes. Later on, the shorter days and cooler nights won’t allow the plants to fully develop if planted later than the July 4th date.

At the nursery, the azaleas are finally almost transplanted so that now we can change modes to potting more perennials and then finally to potting more shrubs in August.

The market is open with Marietta sweet corn and hopefully tomatoes from Marietta some time next week.  The tomatoes we have now are from Arkansas and they are big and red!. The next deal
are the ripening blueberries that will be in the market and then as always the Blueberry Festival on July 11th.

Hope to see you then.

Tom

Dayton "Dirt" - June 26, 2015

With the holiday looming, planting, weeding, trimming and propagation of various shrubs and perennials goes on and on.  A larger project of the extension of our movable roof greenhouse will have to wait another year as many smaller projects of an irrigation nature and improvements in the landscaping of the grounds still need accomplished.  Then too, the cold winter delayed construction on more ebb and flow benches (self-watering benches) in the production greenhouse so that they must be completed at least before Thanksgiving.

The market is now open for business with the introduction of sweet corn next week and tomatoes around the fourth of July from Marietta, Ohio.  A new upright cooler and the moving of the compressor of the walk-in cooler to the outside of the owl barn will enable the building to remain cooler and thus keep the produce fresher.

The blueberries in the field will be quite the challenge as turkeys, geese, robins, bluejays, blackbirds . . . are all waiting for the berries to turn blue.  The geese and the turkeys seem to be the biggest challenge as they are quite aggressive and can devour a whole branch of berries with one stroke of their beaks.  Fortunately for this year so far, water has been in good supply with the more than adequate rainfall.  The water quality in the irrigation pond has actually improved with the large addition of rainwater so that the supplemental water from Van Hyning Run, that is always of poor quality, that was pumped into the irrigation lake is now very much diluted.

As many of us look forward to this July 4th holiday, so did our third president, statesman, farmer, architect, philosopher and author of the Declaration of Independence as it seemed he waited to die on July 4, 1826 as some of his last words on that day was “Is it the fourth yet?”

Tom

Dayton "Dirt" - June 19, 2015

No shortage of rainfall here in June when normally the average for the month is just about 3-3½ inches.  For sure any gardener even with limited experience knows that in the vegetable and flower garden, powdery mildew, black spot on roses, brown rot (botrytis) and lawn disease can or will appear.  Weekly application of Bi-Carb fungicide will keep mildews and brown rots at bay especially if applied before the occurrence.

In the veggie department, squash, melons and cucumbers are all susceptible to powdery mildew so that preventive sprays make good sense.  Tomatoes are susceptible to early blight which will attack and kill them especially if nights and days are cool.  Sprays of copper and chlorothalonil (Fungonil) are effective control as long as they are applied at the first sign of disease.

At the nursery flower planting on the grounds has been delayed with the heavy rains.  Beds that were rototilled last Friday filled with water so that again they must be worked before the planting can begin.  Our new Hosta selections for this year have just become available as they were only potted early this spring and some time is needed for the plants to root in.  Even more Butterfly bushes are now done “cooking” so that Purple Haze and Blue Chip Jr. are added to the growing list of varieties.

 No doubt the sweet corn and other crops at the Seiberling Farms are growing like mad so that soon the market will be open in late June although it will start out with fresh sweet corn from Marietta, Ohio.   The farm in Marietta where the sweet corn is grown operates on a system of picking the sweet corn at night so that it is delivered to distributors by 10 to 11 a.m. that same morning to guard its freshness.  How strange that Marietta sitting at the confluence of the Ohio and Muskingum Rivers is of such as different climate that the growing season is at least 2 weeks ahead or more of our season here in the north of the state!

Tom

Dayton "Dirt" - June 12, 2015

This past week has been one of a restock of the shrub sales yard with much of the stock coming from Lake County.  Much of our spring potted stock is normally ready but with the later planting this year due to severely cold weather, availability has been slower so that much of the stock won’t be available until the week of June 21st with many trees following a week later.  Already, over 1000 hosta “plugs” have arrived from Holland, Michigan to be potted and availability on these won’t be until April of 2016 since the plants are quite small.  June is a good month to plant small hostas for our production in that they are able to become well established before another hard winter.

While stock in the annual flower house dwindles, quite a number of shade hanging baskets of non-stop begonias remain as they were initially slow to grow.  Gorgeous rose-like blossoms of iridescent red, yellow, orange, apricot, pink and white just about cover the lush foliage.

A roundup spraying in the garden has devastated the weeds including the dreaded garlic mustard that if left unchecked will choke everything in its path.  The Mountain Laurel in the garden are at peek bloom in varying shades of pink.  With the return of hot or some say warm weather, the perennial greenhouse and annual flower greenhouse have been sprayed with another coat of white wash material that blocks and reflects the sun which lowers the temperatures inside the house.

 Even though vacation time is soon, the work still has to be done.

Tom

Dayton "Dirt" - June 5, 2015

What a deluge we received last Saturday and Sunday of maybe up to 4 inches of rain for the week.  The irrigation lake is full and the lower collection pond is completely full.  With the water table replenished after the May dry spell, ground water will alone replenish the lower collection pond for at least one week so that it may be pumped up to the irrigation lake for storage to replace water used in irrigation of the nursery stock.

I just finished applying 150 lbs. of ammonium sulfate 21-0-0 to all the rhododendron, azalea and blueberries in the ground, in the field and garden before the second rain we received on Saturday afternoon.  Ammonium sulfate is a strong acidifier of the soil but must be used sparingly as the salt index is quite high compared to that of Holly-tone which has a salt index of 6 compared to 21-0-0 which is 69 for a salt index which is more likely to burn plants.

Our next batch of up to a thousand various hydrangeas will be ready in a couple of weeks and will fill our somewhat empty movable roof greenhouse called the Cravo house which is the name of the manufacturer.  While the greenhouse sales are winding down we are ever wary of keeping control of spider mites and thrip insects in the annual flower house and perennial house.  Then too are diseases such as powdery mildew that can appear out of nowhere with the high humidity.

This week and next the theme at the nursery will be flower planting and weed control!  More flowers will be planted in more areas this year for a benefit dinner on July 16th for the Ronald McDonald House.  The dinner will be sponsored by the Summit County Farm bureau and cost $100 per person for which a gourmet dinner prepared by an expert chef will be served outdoors complete with wine from Wolf Creek Winery, hordeuvres and educational talks on water conservation.  Anyone is welcome to reserve a spot and tickets may be purchased by contacting the office of the Summit County Farm Bureau at 330-456-4889 or 800-654-5158.  Hope to see you there!

Tom