There is much to do in the September garden!  Vegetable gardeners continue to harvest tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers and beans and are busy canning, freezing and dehydrating.  Potatoes and carrots are ready to be dug and apples and pears are ready for harvest.  Just a reminder that local food banks welcome any extra produce.

            September is the time to save seeds of annuals that you want to plant next year.  Simply cut seed heads off when they become brown and spread them out on newspaper to dry for a few days.  Store them in paper bags in a cool, dry location.  Label the bags so you can identify them when it’s time to plant in spring.

            Early in the month is your last chance to move or divide perennial plants.  Dig around and under the plant, preserving as many of the roots as you can, and lift it from the ground.  Now is a good time to add compost or other soil amendments to the soil.  Cut through the crown with a knife or shovel and plant the pieces at the same level in the ground as they were previously growing.  Water the plant well and give it supplemental water over the following few weeks if rain doesn’t fall or if temperatures are high.

            Now is the time to plant trees, shrubs and grass.  Garden centers are selling nursery stock at greatly reduced prices this time of year.  Use the same care in selecting a tree or shrub at 75% off as you would a full-priced one or it’s no deal at all.  Make sure the leaves, stems and roots all look healthy before you buy.

            Don’t slack off on weeding.  The abundant rain this year has made weeding a full time job in some gardens.  Do not let late summer weeds go to seed or you will regret it next year!  Pull the weeds, making sure you get the entire root system.  Chopping perennial weeds with a hoe or tiller only makes the problem worse, as each tiny piece of root has the potential to grow into a new plant.

            Depending on the weather, we may have a month or more before annual flowers are hit with frost.  Give annuals a trim if they have gotten unruly and keep the spent flowers deadheaded so they look neat and pretty as long as possible.

            It’s too early to plant spring bulbs – that should be done around October 15 – but do start thinking about what you might plant for next spring’s bloom.  Either mail order the bulbs now or start watching for them in garden centers. 

            Take a look around your garden and make note of what you want to add or change for next year.  Don’t do any pruning now, as pruning will stimulate new growth that won’t be winter hardy, but do make a note of trees or shrubs that will need pruning during the dormant season.

            Tomatoes seem susceptible to as many bacterial, viral and fungal diseases as humans do.  Certainly the most serious is late blight, a fungal disease which has been spreading quickly across the eastern United States for the past two years.  This is the same blight that caused the Irish Potato Famine in the mid-19^th century.

            In 2009, 26 Wisconsin counties reported late blight on tomatoes.  So far this year, five counties scattered throughout the state have reported late blight. 

Most tomato and potato diseases can be avoided by mulching under the plants so that soil-borne bacteria doesn’t splash onto the foliage, and allowing space between plants so that air can freely circulate.  But late blight spores on infected plants are swept up in wind currents high into the atmosphere, where they can be carried up to 40 miles.  The spores survive up there on rainy, humid, overcast days, and then fall into gardens and farm fields when it rains.  There is really no way of preventing the spores from landing on your plants.

            Because late blight is highly contagious and destructive, it is critical that we do our best to prevent the spread.  This means inspecting plants every day as this disease spreads so quickly that it can develop overnight.

Symptoms include leaf lesions beginning as pale green or olive green areas that quickly enlarge to become brown-black, water-soaked, and oily in appearance.  Lesions on leaves produce spores which look like white-gray fuzzy growth on the undersides of the leaves.

Stems can exhibit dark brown to black lesions with spores.  Tomato fruit symptoms begin small, but quickly develop into golden to chocolate brown firm lesions or spots that can appear sunken with distinct rings within them.  You might also see the spores, which appear as white fuzzy growth on the tomatoes themselves.

The time from first infection to lesion development and spore development can be as fast as seven days depending on the weather.  High humidity, dew, wet weather and temperatures from 50 to 80°F encourage late blight.

If you find late blight on your tomatoes or potatoes, pull up and destroy the plants immediately.  Also remove the plants next to the infected plants.  Do not compost the diseased plants.  They should be double-bagged and landfilled. 

Late blight does not survive freezing in winter, but it can survive on plant parts that are kept warm in a compost pile or in storage.  It is very important to buy fresh plants or seed for next year’s tomatoes and potatoes.  Do not allow volunteer tomato plants from dropped seed or potatoes you missed digging up this year to grow next year.   Do not use potatoes you grew this year as seed for next year.

Inform your neighbors if you discover late blight on your tomatoes or potatoes so they can be on the lookout for it in their own gardens.  The only way to prevent an epidemic of late blight is if everyone does proper clean-up and disposal of their plants.

For the past few years, the leaves on the tips of the stems of my rose bush have leafed out a much lighter green than the leaves on the lower parts of the stems.  The veins of the leaves remain dark green though.  Soon those leaves  top leaves turn yellow and then the edges get brown

            I admit I have difficulty identifying plant nutrient deficiencies, especially when it comes to the micronutrients, which are those nutrients other than the big three – nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium – that are found in most commercial fertilizers.  The problem is that the symptoms of many nutrient deficiencies look alike. 

For example, interveinal chlorosis, the yellowing of tissue between leaf veins while the veins remain green, can be the result of a lack of magnesium, iron, manganese, zinc or boron. 

            There are other clues however, that can pinpoint the problem.  One of the easiest is to determine whether the problem is occurring on older, lower leaves or on younger, upper leaves.  In the list above, symptoms of magnesium and zinc deficiencies occur on older leaves and the others appear on younger leaves. 

            Say the problem is on older leaves.  Besides interveinal chlorosis, both magnesium and zinc defiencies cause stunted growth, so that doesn’t narrow the problem down any.  But zinc deficiency also causes leaves to be thickened while magnesium deficiency does not.

            Along with interveinal chlorosis on younger leaves, iron deficiency causes stunted growth.  A lack of boron produces twisted and pale green young leaves and buds may die and a plant with a deficiency of manganese will have brown spots scattered throughout the leaves.

            There is a further twist to the problem though.  After going to the trouble of determining the problem and trekking to the garden shop to buy a bag or bottle of some potion that’s going to fix it, you may be wasting your time and money if your soil pH is not at the correct level for the nutrient to be taken up by the plant. 

I determined that the problem with my rose bush was an iron deficiency, but I learned that iron deficiency is actually rare in soils, and that the problem might be that the pH of my soil was too high.  A high pH ties up the iron in soils and makes it unavailable to plants.  To lower the pH, I sprinkled a few cups of coffee grounds around the rose bush.  In a few weeks it looked a lot healthier.  With all the rain we’ve had, I’ll be adding more coffee grounds again soon and I’ll make a note on my calendar to do it again early next spring before the rose bush even begins to leaf out.

To prevent deficiencies in micro-nutrients in the first place, generous use of compost and foliar feeding with liquid seaweed or fish emulsion should do the trick.

What does your front yard say about you?  Anything at all?  Does it reflect who you are, or does it mirror every other front yard in the neighborhood?  Does what’s outside your front door have any relationship to those who live inside?

            After settling into a home, most people eventually make their living space an expression of who they are through choice of wall color, flooring, furniture and decoration.  Yet the outside of the home, particularly the front yard, often remains exactly as the former owner or the developer or landscaper designed it.  Or even as the homeowners themselves designed it – 30 years ago!

            People usually use their backyards for recreation, socializing, gardening and relaxing.  Many front yards do nothing more than take up space between the street and the house.  Sometimes the only person who spends any time out there is the one who cuts the lawn.  Add all the unused front yards together and that’s a lot of wasted space.

            What could your front yard do to earn its keep?

            Well, it could break out of its evergreen shrub-barberry-spirea-hosta-maple tree boringness to something welcoming that reflects the personality of the family inside.

            Any nature lovers in there?  Why not plant some native shrubs with berries  and perennials with nectar and seeds to attract birds and butterflies?

            Is someone a good cook?  A vegetarian?  Many vegetable and herb plants have beautiful forms and flowers and make wonderful additions to ornamental landscapes.

            Got a creative or crafty type?  Grow annual or perennial flowers and even vegetables and fruits that can be dried for floral arrangements or other art projects.  Many plants and vegetable and fruit juices can be used to die yarn for weaving or fabric for art quilts or clothing.

            A social type?  How about a semi-private seating area with a bench and a tree or a few shrubs or container plantings so that you can sit in your front yard, not quite on display, but ready to greet those who pass by?

            How about a gardener?  Several years ago my husband mentioned to a neighbor that I was a Master Gardener.  Her response was, “She must do all her gardening in the back yard.”  Embarrassing, but she was right.  I needed to give some attention to the front yard.

            Perhaps you don’t want your front yard to “do” anything.  Maybe the street’s too busy or you just aren’t comfortable being out there for some reason.  In that case, you’ll want to make the landscape as low maintenance as possible. 

            To do that, mulch around the plants and shrubs to help control weeds and conserve soil moisture and make the landscape look cared for.  Replace grass with ground covers so less time is spent mowing.  Let the grass grow to 4 1/2 inches and cut it to 3 inches.  Taller grass shades out weeds and doesn’t dry out as quickly as closely cropped turf.

            If you aren’t going to rethink your front yard, at least give it a first thought.

            I’d be willing to bet that you have one or even many invasive plants on your property.  Norway maple:  invasive.  Lily-of-the-valley:  invasive.  Orange daylily, burning bush, baby’s breath, European mountain ash, forget-me-not, white mulberry, bishop’s weed, red-twig dogwood, periwinkle, violets, boxelder, honeylocust, bush honeysuckle, creeping bellflower, shasta daisy, amur maple, common privet, Japanese barberry, yellow water-flag iris, staghorn sumac:  all invasive.

            June is invasive species awareness month in Wisconsin.  I hope that everyone has at least heard of the big three – buckthorn, purple loosestrife and garlic mustard – that are degrading our natural areas by crowding out native plants.  Some more recent invaders are dame’s rocket, a plant that resembles garden phlox except that it has 4 petals instead of 5, blooming along roadsides now in purple, pink and white; and teasel and reed canary grass.

            A drive along Hwy. 41 is like touring a living museum of invasive plants.  The ditches are lined with cattails, teasel, Canada goldenrod, purple loosestrife, dame’s rocket, reed canary grass, garlic mustard, tansy, Canada thistle and phragmites, an 8-foot tall grass topped with big fuzzy plumes in fall.

            But let’s get back to your yard.  You know that Norway maple is invasive – how many hours have you spent pulling maple seedlings that have sprung up from those pesky “helicopters” in your flowerbeds, sidewalk and driveway cracks?  If you’ve got lily-of-the-valley or violets, the joke is on you if you thought they’d stay where you put them.  What about bishop’s weed, also called snow-on-the-mountain?  Many people, and their neighbors, are sorry they ever planted it.

            If you live in the city or in a well-manicured subdivision, it may not be obvious to you why some plants considered invasive made the list.  But if you live within a mile of the edge of town, or a park, empty lot or natural area, you need to be aware and careful of what you plant.

            My neighbors planted a large area with dame’s rocket several years ago.  Now the ditches and field edges for miles in every direction are blooming with purple and pink.  Another neighbor had two teasel plants on his property four years ago.  He ignored my polite request that he cut them before they went to seed.  Now teasel populates  the open fields for two miles in every direction from his property.

            I am not suggesting that you immediately rip every potentially invasive plant from your landscape.  Unless you have buckthorn, that is, then get rid of it!  Just educate yourself as to which  plants are or have the potential to become invasive, keep them under control and replace them when possible.

            Before you plant anything new, consult a list of invasive plants to see if your selection is on the list.  You will be amazed at how long these lists are!  A great reference book is Invasive Plants of the Upper Midwest by Elizabeth Czarapta.  These two websites have comprehensive lists and good photos:  www.ipaw.org and www.dnr.state.wi.us/invasives.

The weather this spring has been a challenge for gardeners.  Temperatures in the 80s in March and April fooled some people into planting too early and the frosty temperatures over the last two weeks found them regretting their early enthusiasm.

      There is nothing we can do about the overeager fruit trees, strawberries and grape vines that leafed out or flowered too early and had their tender growth killed by frost.  The hope is that enough of the flower buds survived for at least a reduced crop, and that there is enough life in the grape vines to send out new leaves.

      Some vegetables and flowers are tough enough to take a light frost.  If you’ve already got pansies, violas or snapdragons outside, they probably did fine in the cold weather over the past couple weeks.  Likewise, potatoes, peas, kohlrabi, radishes, beets, carrots, cabbage, spinach and other greens almost certainly survived unharmed.

      There are other plants that are much more sensitive to cold temperatures.  Before planting you should be very certain that either the last frost has occurred or that you have a plan to protect tender plants if a late frost is forecast. 

      Tomatoes, peppers, beans, cucumbers, eggplant, melons, squash, pumpkins, and basil will be killed or severely set back by even a light frost.  Some bedding flowers can take temps hovering around 32° but others like impatiens and begonias will become a slimy mess when the temperature drops.  Other tender bedding plants include ageratum, celosia, dahlia, geranium, lisianthus, nicotiana, moss rose, salvia, cleome, vinca and zinna.

      What if your tender plants are in the ground and a frost is forecast?  Cover them.  Plastic tarps, old shower curtains, window curtains, blankets or sheets can be laid gently over rows or beds of plants.  Stake the covers down or put rocks or other heavy items around the edges so they don’t blow off.  If the young plants will be crushed by the weight of the cover, use wooden stakes to tent the cover a few inches above the plants, making sure the edges of the cover reach the ground.  Bushel baskets or buckets can be upended over individual plants like tomatoes and peppers.

      The worst damage from frost actually happens in plants when they warm back up the next morning.  Frost freezes the water inside the plant’s cells, which damages the cell walls.  When the warmth of the morning sun hits the plants, they defrost rapidly and the cell walls rupture.

      There is a way you can try to save the plants by preventing the rapid defrosting.  Lightly misting or spraying the foliage with water before the sun reaches it will help the plant to thaw without the shock of sudden warmth.  

      Even hardy plants that are lightly touched by frost may take awhile to recover.  Make sure they are watered regularly, but know that frozen or damaged roots don’t take up water as easily, so it’s easy to overwater and drown a recovering plant.

Spend your gardening time and money wisely

      George Washington said “Bad seed is robbery of the worst kind, for your pocket-book not only suffers by it, but your preparations are lost and a season passes away unimproved.”  He makes a good point.  Often you’ll find that those ten-packs-for-a-dollar seeds don’t germinate very well and there usually aren’t many seeds in them.  You’ll end up buying new, better quality seed if it isn’t too late in the season by the time you figure out your mistake, or else just giving up on the project.  I’d hate to think that someone thought they lacked a green thumb because they made the mistake of buying bad seed.

      The same premise holds true when you buy gardening tools.  Buy the best quality tools you can afford or you’ll be replacing them every year.  A dollar store trowel will soon bend and you’ll be back at the store for another.  If you’ve got clay soil, a cheap digging fork will look like a whirlygig after a few uses.  An even better idea than purchasing new high quality tools is to shop at yard and estate sales.  The older tools are the strongest and best.

      Another way that money and time is wasted in the garden is when the gardener is gung-ho in the spring and plants a huge vegetable garden or installs a big flowerbed full of plants that are going to need a lot of maintenance over the growing season.  Then life interferes, the garden chores fall to the wayside, and weeds overtake.  Soon the weeds are so prevalent that just thinking about beginning to clear them out is overwhelming. 

      Avoid this mess by making a commitment at the start of the season to see your plans through.  Be realistic.  You know how much time your other obligations take, and whether or not you can count on family members to help out in the garden.  Scale plans back at the start and you’ll be much happier with the entire project.  You can always add on later in the season or next year if you find that you have extra time to devote to the garden.

      If we don’t get sufficient rainfall, your garden is going to need supplemental water.  Unless you’ve installed an irrigation system, this will also take some of your time.  Don’t waste money on beautiful plants that you then allow to die for lack of water.  Even worse is buying too many plants and never getting them in the ground!

      Perhaps the worst waste of resources is the unharvested vegetable garden.  You’ve worked all season, weeding, watering, mulching, monitoring for pests, and then you’re going to let it all rot?  If you’ve lost your ambition at the end of the season and just can’t can, freeze, or dehydrate any more produce, please donate it to a local food pantry.  For most of the year, food pantries  distribute only non-perishable food items and their patrons are very happy to get fresh produce for the short time it is available in Wisconsin.

Little red buds are appearing in the rhubarb patch.  It will be another month or more until it is ready for harvest, but now is the time to divide it if you haven’t done so for several years.  Dividing rhubarb keeps it producing well.  If the stalks are getting spindly, it’s time to divide.

      Use a spade to dig all around the crown and then lift it from the soil.  Break the crown into pieces, making sure each piece has one or two buds and a root.  If you cannot identify a bud, just divide it into several good-sized clumps.  Replant the divisions so that the buds are just covered with soil, about the same depth it was before you dug it up. 

      While the rhubarb is out of the ground, take the opportunity to remove weeds and add some rotted manure or other organic fertilizer to the soil. 

      Do not harvest any rhubarb the first year after dividing.  The plants need this year to re-establish themselves.  Harvest lightly the second year, and after the third year, harvest as much as you want, never taking more than half the stalks at a time.  Fertilize after harvest is completed each year.

      To avoid the waiting period, use a sharp spade to slice down the middle of the crown while it is still in the ground and lift just half of the plant.  Continue to harvest from the original plant while the new divisions are establishing themselves.

      All that said, if your rhubarb hasn’t been divided for many years and is prolifically producing good thick stalks, don’t bother dividing it until you have to!

      Rhubarb will grow in just about any kind of soil, but does best in loose, well-drained, fertile soil. 

      To harvest rhubarb, select firm, crisp stalks and gently tug and twist them from the ground.  Cut off the leaf.  Rhubarb leaves contain oxalic acid and are toxic, so wash your hands after harvesting.

      Store fresh rhubarb stalks, unwashed, in the refrigerator up to two weeks.  Rhubarb can be rinsed, cut into inch-long pieces, and frozen in freezer bags.

      Always remove the thick flower stalks that shoot up from the center of the plant as soon as you see them.  They take energy from the plant that is put to better use in growing the stalks you will harvest.  Some rhubarb cultivars are more likely to produce flower stalks than others, and some produce them some years and not others, depending on soil conditions and weather.

      If you are planting rhubarb for the first time, there are several cultivars to choose from.   If you are buying crowns to plant rather than getting divisions from a friend, read the descriptions to help you decide which one to choose.  Some cultivars are sweeter than others, and colors range from green to pink to red.

The International Herb Association has chosen dill as its 2010 Herb of the Year.

Dill is easy to grow and beautiful to look at, and finds a place in herb, vegetable and flower gardens. 

      Dill is a cool season plant, which means it is best planted from seed in early spring.  .  It is an annual, but self-seeds prolifically, so once you plant it you probably won’t ever have to plant it again.  Don’t worry though – seedlings that pop up in unwanted places are easy to pull so it doesn’t become uncontrollable.  And those little seedlings can be used in salads, sandwiches and dips right away.

      The plants that grow on their own in subsequent years will probably be stronger and healthier than the ones that grow from your carefully placed seed.  Still, you may want to save some seed to make later plantings throughout the early part of the season to provide a continuous supply of fresh dill. 

      Dill has ferny green leaves and showy yellow flowers, and reaches a three foot height, making it a good background to tall marigolds, zinnias, blue salvia and red and green basil.         

      Plant dill seeds in full sun about ¼-inch deep early in spring after danger of frost is past, about ten inches apart in rows two feet apart.  A less formal approach is to scatter the seeds and rake them lightly into the soil.  Tamp the soil to ensure seed-to-soil contact.

      When the plants are about six inches tall, you can begin clipping the leaves close to the stem.  Do this in the late morning or in the evening for best flavor.  When the plants get a little older, the cut flowers make long lasting aromatic additions to summer bouquets.  As soon as the real heat of summer sets in, the plants will quickly set seed.

      Dry dill by hanging bunches of it upside down or spreading the stems out on newspaper for a couple of days in a warm dry place indoors.  Store the dried leaves in an airtight container.  You can also freeze freshly picked leaves in plastic freezer bags.

      Harvest seeds when they turn dark brown.  Snip the umbrella-shaped plant tops off with a scissors and let them dry for a week or two on newspaper or in a paper grocery bag in a warm room.  If the seeds do not fall off themselves, you can easily rub them off by the handful.

      The seed heads ripen just in time for making dill pickles from your garden-grown cucumbers and can also be used in breads or salad dressings.  The leaves are good in tomato dishes and potato, egg, and tuna salads, or mixed with cream cheese or butter for a tasty spread.  Remember that one tablespoon of chopped fresh dill equals one teaspoon of dried dill weed.

Have you ever bought a packet of special seeds, maybe something a little unusual or more expensive than you’d normally buy, only to plant them and find that not one seed germinated?

      Some seeds, especially those of  prairie plants, woody perennials and trees and shrubs, need help in breaking dormancy before they germinate.  This characteristic, called “innate dormancy” helps insure their survival in nature.  The seeds know to wait out the winter or a dry season before sprouting.  And if their pre-germination requirements aren’t met, they just won’t germinate.

      For some seeds, this means exposure to cold, also called stratification.  This is most easily accomplished in the refrigerator.  Mix the seeds with an equal volume of moist, clean sand, vermiculite or sawdust and place them in a sealed plastic bag.  The mixing medium should be barely wet as too much moisture will cause the seed to rot.  Most seeds need three to four weeks of refrigeration, but some need much longer.  A reputable seed company will have this information on the seed packet.  If you’ve collected the seeds yourself, some internet or library research will be necessary to determine stratification time.  Count backward on the calendar and start the cooling period so that it ends when you are ready to plant.

      Another option is to plant the seeds in fall and let winter do the stratification for you.  This may work, but realize that your valuable seeds may be subject to extreme temperature fluctuations, excessive wet or dry conditions, and damage by birds, rodents or other animals.  Also, note that some seeds, lilacs and arborvitae for example, are double dormant and require a period of cold stratification followed by a period of warm, moist stratification, so if planted outdoors, they may take a year or more to germinate. 

      Other seeds, like morning glory, sweet pea, okra and others have very hard seed coats that inhibit water absorption.  They need something to help soften or break the seed coat before they can germinate.  This is called scarification.  In nature, freezing temperatures or soil microbes soften the seed coat in winter.  Scarification can also occur as seeds pass through the digestive tracts of animals.

      There are several methods home gardeners can use to scarify seed coats.  Large seeds can be nicked with a sharp knife or cut with a razor blade.  Be careful not to damage the embryo inside the seed.  Medium and small seeds can be rubbed between two sheets of sandpaper.  To scarify large numbers of seeds quickly, slip a sheet of coarse grit sandpaper inside a jar, add the seeds, screw on the lid and shake the jar until the seed coat wears down.  The seed coats will look dull when they are sufficiently scarified.

      Even seeds with thin seed coats can be helped along.  Soaking large seeds like peas, beans or nasturtiums in lukewarm water for several hours before planting will speed germination.