I really don’t know what to make of this season. The last few days have been in the bird-song-balmy 50′s but we woke this morning to fat flakes. They have already turned to freezing rain and I would say we have finally turned the corner from a spring-like winter to a winter-like spring. It’s been really tempting to jump the gun on spring – Gail and I haven’t been able to stay out of the garden tidying up. And we’re not the only ones: the autumn blooming cherry (Prunus subhirtella ‘Autumnalis’) has a hair-trigger for spring too. Poor thing is blooming away, again, in the snow. Might not look like much in actual spring this year and it will be interesting to see if any tiny cherries develop. (The bees might have been on it in the last few days anyway.)

I know it’s springter and the official start of the garden-calendar year because we sowed the sweet peas this week, right on a President’s day schedule. (Washington’s birthday to be exact.) We haven’t gotten all of our seeds in yet so we started the ones I ordered from Unwins and a few I was offered for free from Renee’s Garden (I’m on a free-trial list through my Garden Writers Assoc. membership.) Even if we had purchased them, which we have in the past, I would have to say that Renee has some of my favorite varieties (Blue Celeste, Watermelon, Cupani’s Original) and is very generous with her seeds. I like that. The more sweet peas the better especially since they seem to be tempting to our newest greenhouse tenant. It’s been a while since we’ve had mice and I’m not sure what I’ll do if they work their way through a top and bottom barrier of appropriated row-cover cloth.

We started the sweet peas in cowpots, and rather than nick or soak the seeds (I inevitably ruin seeds and destroy my fingers by trying to snip or file the seedcoat off) we simply sow them about a 1/4″ down, put them in our coolest greenhouse, and wait. Our mouse unearthed evidence that they are already beginning to swell out of their coat. In another week or two, any that remain uneaten should begin to emerge.

Are you sowing sweet peas this year? What marks the start of your garden-calendar year?

One of our most frequently asked questions is if we have a problem with deer. I can very clearly remember being able to say cheerfully, “No – we don’t!” Even though when I said it I always crossed my fingers and knocked wood, and always had compassion for other gardeners’ woes and tried not to gloat, over the last probably 5 or so years, I’m now sorry to say that the deer have finally clued in that this is prime real estate. They have nosed around our tulips eating a few buds here and there, tromped through garden beds as if they were pathways, munched hosta like salad greens and sampled a few shrubs and vines, but nothing (yet – knock wood) has been completely demolished. I know we’re very lucky.

That said, this fall a buck moved in. He has marked his territory like a cat does, though much more destructively, by rubbing his antlered scent glands on a few young trees. And of course this doesn’t do the trees any good at all. He has scraped clear through the bark to the tender cambium, wrecking the tree’s ability to transport water from the roots to its leaves. If he had rubbed around the circumference, the trees would surely die. As it is they may not be able to fully recover and thrive and some are young enough that even a little damage is too much, sadly.

I caught the blurry Sasquatch-like shot of our fellow leaving the property around mid-day. That’s an unusual time for a sighting but I think he may have been flushed from his bed by the machinery (if not the machinations) of Fred and Dan blowing leaves near the summerhouse. I know they are worried about Blithewold’s trees and would be glad to see the backside of our buck, gone for good.

Do you have a problem with deer in your garden too?

Raise your hand if your houseplants don’t have scale. Anyone, anyone? If they don’t, I’m willing to bet that either Mother Nature loves lucky-you especially (though she may have another plague in store, beware); you have only four houseplants, all begonias; or your plants have been infested with scale insects in the past and you have somehow managed to banish it from your house. If your plants do have scale, don’t be embarrassed. You’re in good company (says me).

I freely admit to having disgusting scale on a few of my plants at home. (For Mr. McGregor’s Daughter’s houseplant census, I also admit to having upwards of 85 plants inside my approximately 1000 sq. foot house…) And I’m sorry to say that ever since we stopped using systemic pesticides, a few scale have found their way back into the greenhouse here and there. If you’re not already familiar with these sapsuckers, scale generally look like crusty brown or waxy yellowish scabs and are often found on the underside of leaves along the midrib, tucked into leaf axils or along the stem. (Mealy bug is also a type of scale which resembles sticky grey cotton goo.)

Scale life-cycle in a nutshell (ha!): Eggs hatch under the protective shell of the female and start their life out as “crawlers”. They don’t travel far or fast – but that would explain how they get from plant to plant especially in a cheek-by-jowl living arrangement. Once they’ve found their spot they lose their legs and settle in for a suck. After molting and morphing into their adult selves, male scale grow wings but lose the ability to eat (no mouth). Males use their day or two window of opportunity to search for and mate with females. Females meanwhile develop a crusty protective shell from their castoff molts.

I have never noticed any flyers, eggs or “crawlers” but I guess I haven’t paid very close attention. I do always notice a fresh crop of immature scale (the small yellowish ones), their honeydew poop and the opportunistic sooty mold that sticks to it. I periodically – probably once a week at home – put plants in the sink for a bath and I go after the individual scale with an insecticidal fingernail.

The recommended treatment (besides systemic pesticides, or introducing another insect into your house to eat the scale – which might be worth a try) is to scrape them off and give the plant a dilute soap and/or horticultural oil wash and a water rinse. But take care to test your chosen method before treating the whole plant. Ferns, for one, are notoriously sensitive to anything but a gentle fingernail and room-temp water, and citrus don’t love oil.

So, fess up now – do your houseplants have scale? What do you do?

Pretty safe to say that it’s not going to be a great tomato year. If we’re very very lucky maybe we’ll get some honker waterlogged fruit with split skins but conditions are apparently favorable for something even less delicious. Late Blight is all over the news and typical of the media we have been primed for panic and widespread tomato mayhem. Truth be told, I am generally irritated by the culture of fear promoted by the press – it’s one of my pet peeves – but the more I read about Late Blight, the more I think “eeu”.

Phytophthora infestans (- can’t you just tell that this is something disgusting?) is the same disease that wiped out potatoes during the Great Famine in Ireland and could do (has done) the same in any monoculture of tomatoes or potatoes here if we don’t keep a keen eye out. The recommendation for anyone growing tomatoes is to check for infestation daily and bag up, throw out, Do Not Compost any plants that show any signs of the disease (for pictures and info, click here). But what really scares the daylights out of me is that we’ve collectively been advised to spray fungicides with clorothalonil – a skull & crossbones carcinogenic – as a preventive measure. Now, I can understand commercial growers doing this to protect their crops and livelihoods, but homeowners? Come on. We’re not growing a monoculture in our gardens – are we? How about we just enjoy something else this year? I for one will gladly pay a ransom especially for an organically grown, disease-free tomato if I have to and would be much happier and probably healthier if my neighbors upwind choose to do the same. And it seems to be a terrific Swiss chard, cabbage and lettuce year…

So far, Blithewold’s tomatoes are clean. The fungus, which overwinters on living tissue, must not have found any errant potato tubers left in the garden. And since we grow our own tomatoes from seed, we haven’t imported it either. But the weather isn’t on our side. Cool-ish days and nights (60-80°F) coupled with humidity and rain – we’ve had plenty of that – are ideal for spreading infection from garden to garden and as long as that continues we’ll have to keep our eyes peeled. (A stretch of stupidly hot weather, if we ever get the summer blaze we’re used to, will knock the disease out of contention.)

How are your tomatoes? Have you sprayed – or will you?

Rated NC 39 for graphic bug sex, violence and strong language

In a garden as beautiful as this (the North Garden this very morning) you might not be aware at first glance of the horrors lurking within and on top. But they’re here. The first Japanese beetle was sighted (by me) on July 6th and was ceremoniously snipped in half with an invective and a flourish (also by me). Ever since that day, we’ve had cans of soapy water at the ready and homicide in our hearts.

Normally I’m a very live-and-let-live sort of person. I don’t always mind an aphid or 2 and I generally think the bunnies in the garden are wicked cute and occasionally photogenic. But when it comes to wholesale destruction of something I love – particularly any plant in one of my favorite gardens, I lose my cool. Gail and I would never ever consider spraying poisonous chemistry to kill pests – it’s just not worth the risk to the volunteers’, visitors’ and our health – or the health of bugs we need and want in the garden. But I think nothing of hand picking, squishing (if I’m wearing gloves), drowning or feeding certain pests to the birds. (That said, our resident hawk family has been hard at work on the bunny population without any help from me.)

Japanese beetles feed on upwards of 300 species of plants and nothing in this part of the world feeds on them. There’s something wrong with that picture, isn’t there? So we try to do our top-of-the-food-chain best to control the population ourselves. We actually thought we might have put a dent in the numbers when we were planting this spring – every hole we dug was full of white grubs which of course we squished on sight. But I guess we weren’t able to get them all. We also have a population of Oriental beetles which are slightly smaller and a boring striped brown rather than the metallic auto body green of the Japanese beetles. The really disgusting thing about the beetles is that they tend to feed in sort of orgiastic pig piles.  According to my favorite bug book, Garden Insects of North America by Whitney Cranshaw, “The aggregation pheromones these insects produce combined with attractive odors produced by food plants often result in large numbers feeding together.” But that does make it so much easier to knock bunches at once into the beetle juice can… I remember thinking last year that there were fewer beetles and I wonder if it’s too soon to say that there are even less so far this year. Maybe the milky spore disease that Dan spread 3 years ago now is kicking in – and maybe, just maybe hand picking isn’t just a cathartic serial killing spree for us. Maybe we are actually slowing them down. Fingers crossed. And here’s a helpful hint if happen to be looking for one: They’re sleepy early in the morning. By mid morning on a hot day they’re more likely to see you coming and fly into your hair.

Have your beetles emerged yet? Do you have homicide in your heart?