Gardening in September

Friday, September 1

Nothing like the farm forecast to start one's day. "Above-average temperature with limited precipitation expected during the first ten days of September in the corn belt. The overall effect will be continued degeneration of crop conditions and some crop withering." Some hope withering, too. At this rate, I won't be able to transplant the broccoli, cauliflower, and lettuce seedlings until it's almost mid-September, so they won't have a chance of coming to maturity until November, even with the polyester row covers in place. I also noticed this morning that the spinach seedlings I was bragging about several days ago were actually weed spouts. In fact, only one seedling is up in the entire fifteen-foot row. Spinach, after all, is a cool-weather crop from start to finish, preferring to germinate at temperature between forty and fifty degrees. So, if I hope to get it going this fall, I'll have to pregerminate the seeds in wet paper towels in the icebox, or seed up some flats in the house and try to transplant them later on. I'll also have to reseed the beets, because most of the sprouts burned our the last few days of the heat wave, despite my daily waterings. But there's no point in trying to redo the beets or start the radishes until the upcoming heat wave is past.

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

August Gardening Tip

Cure onions, squash, pumpkins, potatoes, and other garden vegetables before storing. Spread on newspapers in a shady, well-ventilated area protected from rain, such as a porch. Store onions and potatoes in mesh bags or old, clean panty hose in a cool, dry location. Store squash and pumpkins at room temperature.

-- Veronica Lorson Fowler, Gardening in Iowa and Surrounding Areas

Gardening in August

Sunday, August 20

Just this morning when I was watering the peppers again, I stopped to look at the Ichiban eggplant bushes, their dark purple stems branching upward and outward, their light purple blossoms and dark purple fruits hanging downward -- every part of them so colorfully coordinated and balanced they seemed like studies in purple. The eggplant, of course, is one of the most ornamental bushes in the world of vegetables. But even the lowly cucumber vines have a visible appeal. Even now when they're stressed out from the heat and from a month of pumping out a dozen fruit a day, their dark green leaves still float above their bright yellow blossoms and dark green fruit below, somewhat like waterlilies.


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

August Gardening Tip

In mid to late August, pinch off all the blossoms and new growth from your tomatoes. It will force the plants to put their energy into ripening the remaining green tomatoes before the last frost. Also, to encourage ripening in vining-type tomatoes, prune the top by several inches once they reach six feet.

-- Veronica Lorson Fowler, Gardening in Iowa and Surrounding Areas

Prairie of the Week

Little Missouri State Park
5,900 acres, NDPRD, (701) 794-3731

Mixed-grass prairie amid dramatically eroded landscape surrounding confluence of Little Missouri and Missouri Rivers, which is now submerged in Sakakawea Reservoir. Best interior access is by horseback.
From Killdeer, go 16 miles north on Highway 22, then east 3 miles on gravel road.

Suzanne Winckler, Prairie: A North American Guide

Gardening in August

Sunday, August 13

So, yesterday morning, I dug the buried treasure, eager to see if they actually looked like giant buried Peanut Fingerlings, three to four inches long. I shoved my garden fork in the ground, at a distance from the dried tops, not wanting to spear any of the fingerlings with a tine. The soil turned over easily, still a bit moist from the recent rain, and there they all were -- peanut-shaped all right. But so small they looked like midget peanuts, no more than an inch or an inch and a half long. Not to worry, I thought, just a result of being a bit shaded by the pin oak tree. So I moved to the next spot and eagerly turned over the soil, only to find another handful of midgets. And another, and another. And so few potatoes, the whole batch of eight plants yielded no more than two or three meals' worth. The six red potato plants produced a somewhat better yield. Still, I felt as if the Irish potato famine had been replayed right in my own back yard.


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

Habitat of the Month

Tallgrass Prairie
Bobolink

Look out over a tallgrass prairie on a breezy summer day. The gently waving grasses and wildflowers that make up the prairie move like ocean waves. There are very few trees, but some prairie plants grow more than eight feet high. Rich soil and the right amount of rain and sunshine give tallgrass prairies all they need to thrive. This wide-open grassland is an ideal habitat for a songbird like the bobolink.
If you spy a small bird with a white back, an all-black underbelly, and a cream-colored cap on its head, it's a male bobolink.
Bobolinks eat the seed and insects found in the open prairie spaces. They build grassy nests on the ground. The bobolink's nest and egg color blend well with its surrounding to keep the young birds hidden.
Because prairies don't have many trees to perch on, a number of prairie birds sing as they fly. Boblinks pour out lovely liquid songs as they soar above the grasses.
Tallgrass prairies once grew across a large area in the middle of North America. Now, most have been plowed under and replaced by farms and cities. Fortunately, many people are preserving the tallgrass prairies that remain, and in some places, they are planting new prairies. You can visit some of these prairies. Where there are prairies, there will be homes for bobolinks.


Claudia McGehee, Where Do Birds Live?