September Gardening Tip

Saturday, September 23

I could tell the freeze was coming for sure, when Pip and I were out walking at midnight, the sky clear, the stars bright, my breath condensing in front of me as he pulled his way around the block, energized by the cold and his purblind will.

Come morning, I jumped out of bed, expecting to find the lawn completely rimed with frost, a thick white coating on it, but instead found just a trace on scattered portions of the back yard. And a close-up check of the unprotected plants revealed they hadn't been nipped by it, not even the okra, native of Africa.

Carl H. Klaus, My Vegetable Love: A Journal of a Growing Season

This Week in Iowa Nature

The Harvest Moon, familiar in song and story, is the full moon closest to the autumnal equinox.

Jean C. Prior and James Sandrock, The Iowa Nature Calendar

Habitat of the Month

Western Mountain Meadow
Mountain Bluebird

In ancient times, powerful natural pressures underneath the earth's surface pushed and folded the land above. Over hundreds of years, glaciers—huge, grinding plates of ice—and rivers carved out canyons and gorges and the rugged mountain ranges we see today. Many habitats are found here, from treeless mountaintops to the thick forests and open meadows below.

The mountain bluebird, a fast-flying little songbird, lives near mountain meadows. If a flash of bright sky-blue streaks by, you've probably seen an adult male bluebird.

In the meadows, bluebirds find insects to eat. When it is time to nest, they fly to the forest edge to look for trees with holes in their trunks.

Bluebirds migrate south to warmer places for the winter at the same time that the leaves on the aspen trees turn golden.

As more people cut down trees and build houses near mountains, bluebirds find it harder to locate places to nest. If you live close to a mountain meadow, you can help by building boxes for bluebirds.


Where Do Birds Live? by Claudia McGehee

September Gardening Tip

Thursday, September 21

Staring at the sheathed tomato plants this morning, taking stock of what still needed protection, I was struck by how different they look from row-covered peppers. The ghostly white sheets of spun-bond polyester completely hide the pepper plants, so I can't see them unless I hunch over and peer through the covers. Even then I can detect only their blurred shapes and an occasional leaf or fruit close to the surface of the cloth. But the clear plastic sleeves on the tomato plants hide nothing. In fact, they reveal everything -- stems, leaves, and pendulous fruit -- like a see-through woman's sheath, an in-your-face bit of haute couture from an Italian or Parisian designer. Come to think of it, the row of tomato plants looks somewhat like a parade of avant-garde bridesmaids, each one sheathed in a billow of plastic from head to toe, from the gathering at the top of the one at the bottom. Up close, the effect is even more daring, what with all the holes punched in the plastic to keep the plants from overheating on warm sunny days. But there is no danger of overheating today. Overcast skies, light rain, temperatures in the mid-forties, and a northwest wind, like the end of October or November. Thirty degrees below normal for this final day of the traditional summer season. One of the coldest ends on record.

Carl H. Klaus, My Vegetable Love: A Journal of a Growing Season

Tree of the Week

Eastern White Pine, Pinus strobus L.

DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS: Leaves in bundles of 5, very slender, 2 to 5 (usually about 3) inches long, marked with fine white lines (seen with magnifying glass), very flexible. Cones elongate, 4 to 5 (rarely to 8) inches long; scales without prickles. Bark dark grey to nearly black with flat plates separated by shallow fissure; eventually dark and deeply furrowed with scaly, blocky plates.

SIMILAR TREES: No other pine commonly planted in Iowa has leaves in bundles of 5.

IOWA DISTRIBUTION: Native in northeastern Iowa and along Pine Creek in Muscatine County and the Iowa River in Hardin County, growing on bluffs, ridges, and wooded slopes, usually in well-drained soils. Planted throughout the state.


Forest and Shade Trees of Iowa (Third Edition), by Peter J. van der Linden and Donald R. Farrar

Rain Garden Update

In August the rain garden got a much-needed facelift. Jeremy Bril and a team of University of Iowa engineering students rebuilt the berm—using mulch provided by the university—edged the perimeter, cleaned up the outlet on the rim, added a couple of stepping stones within the garden, and cleaned up the area by the downspout by taking away the plastic and adding some limestone. Thanks to support from UI Facilities Management and the Iowa Department of Agriculture, we are getting ready to aerate the soil in the Kuhl House yard in another effort to enrich and manage our small habitat. Newly blooming in the rain garden—and also in our prairie garden—are turtlehead, goldenrod, asters, and the ever-present cup plant. All signs point to an early frost, but we will hope to enjoy our garden for at least one more month.

UI Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Gardening in September

Thursday, September 14

My old neighbor Herman. The mere thought of him yesterday, and I could see him again in his garden, as if he were still there. His wide German forehead topped by a thinning shock of white hair, his short, broad-chested body supported by a pair of wooden canes -- checking on his grapes, harvesting his red raspberries, cultivating his Chinese cabbage, watering his lettuce, or just contemplating his tree roses from the perspective of his red metal chair. His deeply lined face, his icy blue eyes, his large arthritic hands tell all. Through his lot is small -- fifty by a hundred feet -- his ambitions are large. So large that almost every bit of his land is devoted to some kind of gardening, except for a small border of grass around the front and side of his house. Annuals, perennials, flowering shrubs, fruit trees, berries, herbs, vegetables -- something of every kind. A cherry tree, a peach tree,  a plum tree, a pear tree, a five-in-one apple tree. Everything pruned just so.

Carl H. Klaus, My Vegetable Love: A Journal of a Growing Season