Deerfield Flower Show

After my local Independence Day parade, I went to the flower show. The show is a fairly informal event. Contestants bring over their flowers, plants and such in the morning and the room is closed for judging. I made it after the winners were announced.

The Best in Show winner was long-time Deerfield resident, Bob Fincutter. Fincutter won for his amazing Asiatic Lily,a perinnial that grows from a bulb. His looks like it's of the Tango Passion variety.

Bob Fincutter's Asiatic Lily

I was there when Mr. Fincutter was awarded his certificate. He told me about the days in Deerfield when an open field was used for a community garden. Now, the lot is occupied by homes.

The Flower show is a bit of a misnomer as there were some plant and herb entries. One of the Best in Class winners was a branch from a cherry tree. The volunteer running the show told me that my vegetables would be welcome next year.

Here are more images from the Deerfield flower show:

Some of the winners in the flower class

Planter combinations

Close-up of Fincutter's Winning Lily

Famine, Drought and PestilencePart II

This time it's damping off. I lost several seedlings, spinach, Italian flat leaf parsley, fernleaf dill and basil, to damping off.

Basically, "damping off" describes a few different types of seedling root rot, often caused by fungus. In my case, it caused the roots to curl and grow above the soil and the plants to be stunted. I didn't take too many pictures of my damped off seedlings, but here's my unhappy dill which I have since re-seeded:

Dirty little garden secret is that many seedlings
damped off during our terrible spring weather

You can find several more pictures of damped-off seedlings here and here.

In my case, I believe the contributing causes were cool, damp and dark conditions from our cool, damp and dark spring. I believe another contributing factor was that I started my seedlings too early and inside and in some cases, in too close conditions. They never got to feel the warm sun and wind through their leaves. Only the Blue Lake Bush Beans survived the same conditions without problem, but they got powdery mildew.

I dumped my sick spinach, parsley and basil. I had a couple of extra basil seedies that thrived more due to my ignoring them than anything else. They're still doing great and I recently replanted them in a new container:

Surviving Basil

I simply started over with the parsley. Whole Foods had an herb seedling sale this week, and I picked one up for $1.80 including tax:

New Italian flat leaf parsley (and shhh, but
I added a few spinach and lettuce
seeds to see what happens)

As a precaution, before I replanted in the same pots in which the seedlings became ill, I washed the pots and soaked them in diluted bleach for 10 minutes or so.

The English Lavender looked like it was going to die, but I staked it on a couple of chopsticks and it's thriving now. They say not to grow lavender from seed, that it will either not come up or will produce what they call a "mongrel plant", but mine looks pretty good now and whatever kind of plant it is, it sure smells like lavender:

English Lavender, mongrel? Whatever it is,
it sure smells wonderfully like lavender.

Hibiscus

I received a Starry Wind hibiscus plant from a friend last week. This plant needs a container about 10-14 inches and a lot of light and temperatures higher than 55 degrees farenheit. It cannot be allowed to dry out.

I replanted it and lost four buds in the process, but got a wonderful surprise this morning, a bloom:

The hibiscus should last several years if I bring it outside this summer and prune and de-insect with a Neem oil, water and castile soap mixture. it before bringing in for the winter.

My bloom should close at night. Then, I can harvest and dry it for tea or fry like a zucchini blossom.** Although my red hibiscus petals are supposed to be the sweetest for tea, I'm too enamoured with this particular bloom to cut it off and eat.

If you want to harvest your hibiscus, you can buy a dehydrator to dry out the flower petals (and use it for herbs too), but you can also use the good old fashioned heavy book method. That should take about 3-4 days. You can also dry them out in a brown paper bag and that will take about a week. Since I have a lot of old law and computer books, the book method works for me.

**be sure to only use the petals as the green part will be bitter. I'm not sure what the middle would taste like, but you're not supposed to eat that either.

Storm!

Tuesday night we had a strong storm, thunder, lightening and high winds with gusts around 15 mph. We had a lot of branches down in the development where I live. Our professional gardeners spent much of yesterday cutting down broken branches and collecting debris which now sits in large piles near the road for pickup.

I brought the plants on my balcony as close to my building as possible to shield them from wind and strong rain and predicted hail. The hail never happened, but we had strong rain and winds. Everybody made it through very well, except the tomato which broke free from it's stake and cage and bent over. In the dark and rain, I thought the main stem had snapped, but on closer examination I saw that it was only bent. I went out after the wind danger ended and tied it up against the balcony.

The Leaning Tower of Tomato

You'll notice that I've planted marigolds with the tomato. I did that on Sunday. Marigolds are supposed to keep insects away from the plant. They also add color. According to sources, I could have also planted broccoli with the tomato, but I don't really like broccoli.

In other garden news, I planted a couple of new Black Beauty zucchini plants:

Black Beauty Zucchini

I had bad luck with zucchini last year, but I attribute the failure to too small a container. I'm trying again with a 3 gallon container that my dad previously used for flowers on his patio.

The rest of the garden seems pretty happy post storm:

Peppers, lemon tree and lettuce survived the storm

There is a lettuce down..............I ate it.

Red Sails Lettuce Regrowing After a Yummy Salad

Local Farmers Market Right Now! A Strawberry Plant Lesson Learned.

This morning I hopped out of bed happy to see that it wasn't pouring rain as predicted and went to my local farmer's market. It's in Deerfield at the corner of Deerfield and Waukegan Roads in the train station east parking lot. If you have time this moring, give the local Girl Scouts some business.

Local Girl Scouts Out Bright and Early
with a Bake Sale

This early in the season, and will all the bad weather that we've had, it's a wonder they had much to sell at all. I saw mostly strawberries, asparagus, rhubarb, onions and fresh herbs in planters for you to start your own garden.

I learned something from the nice guy from one of the garden centers in Lake Zurich**.  I have a couple of strawberry runners. I want to replant them and wasn't so sure how to do that. He called his partner and gave me his phone. I found out that you should put another container with soil under the runner. It will root itself into the new container and when it takes and the stem from the original plant starts to wilt and die, you cut it off.

**and now I'm kicking myself because I don't remember which one exactly, but I think it's the Atrium Garden Center on Rand Road.

Our Farmers Market always has some entertainment. Today, they have a sr. citizen band playing old time tunes like You Are My Sunshine.

Seniors Getting the Kids Singing
the Old Favorites

I'll leave you today with a few more pictures from the Farmers Market:

The Farmers Market Always
Goes to the Dogs

Lots of Plants and Flowers for Sale

Plants and Herbs for Sale

Container Bullies

Last month, the Blue Lake bush beans beat up on the English peas. The latter started out well and then withered and died as the bean plants took over and bore fruit.

This week, the chocolate mint and peppermint beat up on the Purple Ruffles basil. I found the trio at Pasquesi Home and Gardens in Lake Bluff last weekend and all of the plants were healthy when I bought them. I thought the color combination of the green peppermint, the brownish tinged green chocolate mint and the purple of the basil was attractive. The plants didn't care. It took only 5 days for the basil to start wilting and turning brown.

While it's fun to mix up plants for color and size, some just don't like to share same container. In the case of the beans and peas, I think the large and numerous bean plant leaves crowded out the small pea leaves. With the basil and mint, it was the roots. I just learned that mint roots like to take over.

When you're choosing plants to put together it's a good idea to find a resource to tell you which plants make good roomates. I found a list of companion vegetables in a book, Movable Harvests by Chuck and Barbara Crandall.

For example the Crandalls say you can put beans with corn, cucumbers, egglants, petunias, potatoes, radishes, roses, sage and summer savory. These have similar water and sun needs and their roots don't interfere. If I wanted to put my peppermint with something else, I would have done better to put it with cabbage.

I didn't find a list for herb groupings, but the book The Bountiful Container by Rose Marie Nichols McGee and Maggie Stuckey puts together some herbs and vegetables "theme gardens".

I'm attempting to rescue the sick Purple Ruffles basil. I put it in its own pot and gave it a premier spot in the sun:

And now the mints are sharing their digs with a conch shell:

Now that their victim is gone, I hope they don't go after each other.

The Cure for Powdery Mildew: A Haircut

Last week, I found my bush beans had a powdery mildew problem. It was probably the result of planting too close and the plants being indoors for so long. I started them too early and the weather in Chicago did not cooperate.

After reading up on powdery mildew, I decided to cut off all the affected leaves. In this case, that meant cutting off just about all of the leaves. I thought I might lose everyone, but it appears that leaves are already growing back:

Blue Lake Bush Beans with New Leaves

New bean buds are forming as well, so it looks like I might be on my way to healthy beans.

What I learned: Don't be afraid to take radical action to save a plant.

Next time: New additions to the garden, inside and out.