George's Current Ramblings and Readlings

Keep An Eye on Those Boxwoods

October 22nd, 2024

   If you’re growing any boxwoods in your yard, you might want to make a note to check them starting next spring for the latest deadly threat facing our top-selling shrub.

Here’s a box tree moth caterpillar in action on a boxwood.
Credit: Hannah Nadel, USDA

   A new bug called the box tree moth officially entered Pennsylvania this fall.

   The state Agriculture Department confirmed reports of the bug’s find in two cemeteries in Erie County and promptly put a quarantine on boxwood sales in an effort to contain the bug to that county.

   The caterpillars of this east-Asian species are potential boxwood killers, as most of Europe has been finding out since their arrival there in 2006. They can chew leaves to the point where there’s little left but bare twigs – “see-through boxwoods” as Ohio State Extension entomologist Joe Boggs calls the remnants.

   According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the first box tree moths showed up on this side of the Atlantic in Toronto, Canada, in 2018. Sometime between August 2020 and April 2021, a nursery in St. Catharines, Ontario, inadvertently shipped infested plants to six U.S. states – Connecticut, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Ohio, and South Carolina.

   New York was the first state to confirm the moth there, followed by Michigan, Massachusetts, and Ohio. September’s Erie cemetery find was the first evidence that the moth had spread into Pennsylvania.

   So far there’s no evidence the bug has made its way into south-central Pennsylvania, but Ag Department officials are asking gardeners to be on the lookout and to report any sightings.

   If you see any caterpillars feeding on boxwoods between April and October, report it to the state’s Bad Bug program by emailing badbug@pa.gov or by calling toll-free 888-253-7189. Or sightings can be reported to any county Penn State Extension office.

   “Box tree moth caterpillars are green and yellow with white, yellow, and black stripes and black spots,” says Penn State University entomologist Dr. Michael Skvarla in an Extension Service post. “They are the only caterpillars in the region that feed on boxwood, so finding them on the host plant is distinctive.”

   The caterpillars are about an inch-and-a-half long and have shiny black heads.

   Skvarla says box tree moths likely will have two generations a year across most of Pennsylvania – possibly three in the warmer Philadelphia area.

The Mini-Meadow Flourishes… Then Flops

October 8th, 2024

   For a while there in late spring, my backyard mini-meadow looked like it was hitting the reputed third-year charm.

The mini-meadow the third week of May 2024.

   About half of this six-by-20-foot experimental plot on my sunny back bank was in color for about three weeks in late May to mid-June.

   It was splendid and by far the best performance since I seeded the bed in May 2022 with a mix of mostly native species from the American Meadows seed company.

   Then the Shasta daisies and sweet williams that were looking so good finished blooming. The blossoms and flower stalks browned and flopped over.

   Worse yet, nothing was filling in to pick up the slack from the fallen neighbors.

   With the goutweed and assorted other weeds underneath that had elbowed into the planting, it turned into a mess by early July. It stayed pretty forlorn the rest of the summer, too.

   If this garden had been out front, I probably would have got a cut-the-weeds notice from the local code enforcement officer.

   After the three weeks of spring glory, that was it for the 2024 show.

The mini-meadow the third week of June 2024.

   The cosmos that gave a fair performance in the second half of 2023 was a total no-show this year. Even though I left last year’s cosmos plants alone to reseed themselves, not a one sprouted.

   Neither did the melampodium that I planted into the bed last summer. Those reseed themselves in my front-yard and mailbox beds, but none reappeared in the mini-meadow.

   And I got no-shows from the sunflowers and butterfly milkweed seeds that I scattered this spring in an effort to beef up the original seeding.

   Granted, it was a hot, dry summer, but watering and weeding to baby things along goes against the idea of a meadow in the first place – a bed that’s supposed to care for itself.

   After three full growing seasons, I’m beginning to verify what a lot of gardeners told me from their own experiences – that most of the original seeded-in plants disappear to leave just one or two dominant species and that weeds eventually win the battle.

So How Do Those Controversial New Purple Tomatoes Grow and Taste?

September 24th, 2024

   I’ve been eating dozens of bioengineered purple-fleshed fruits of the new Purple Tomato for two months now, and so far I can report that I’m not taking on any snapdragon characteristics.

The Purple Tomato really is purple inside and out… not just purple-skinned.

   I say that facetiously because this first-year variety is controversial for being the first bioengineered or “GMO” (genetically modified organism) vegetable being directly marketed to home gardeners – one that gets its purple color from genes inserted from a purple snapdragon.

   It’s been a wild first year for the Purple Tomato, which went on sale in late winter and promptly sold out its entire 2024 seed supply in four weeks – 13,000 packets worth. That was despite a high price tag of $20 for a 10-seed pack.

   Then the company selling Purple Tomato seeds, California-based Norfolk Healthy Produce, got into a dispute with Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds over a very similar new “incredibly sweet” purple cherry tomato that Baker Creek was touting on its catalog back cover.

   Baker Creek called its Purple Galaxy introduction “the first – and the purple-est – non-GMO purple tomato in the universe,” a claim that struck a chord with the many gardeners who are roundly anti-GMO.

   However, when Norfolk pointed out that Purple Galaxy likely was its own patented Purple Tomato in disguise, Baker Creek did further testing and then yanked Purple Galaxy from its inventory before actually shipping any.

   A Baker Creek statement said the company was “unable to conclusively establish that the Purple Galaxy does not contain any genes that have been genetically modified.”

   Baker Creek said it had acquired its seeds from a hobby breeder in France – where GMO vegetables are banned – and claimed that its original testing showed none of the common markers for GMO.

Prime Time for All Things Lawn

September 10th, 2024

   Whether you’re trying to start new grass or whip a sad lawn back into some semblance of decency, the weeks between Labor Day and early October are the year’s best.

This lawn could use a little attention.

   The warm soil, cooling temperatures, and more frequent rain add up to ideal grass-seed sprouting (usually).

   It’s also the perfect time to fertilize, which helps a lawn bounce back from the punishing hot, dry summer months.

   And it’s prime time for a host of lawn-improvement jobs, including aerating, “top-dressing” with compost, and dethatching.

   Here’s a rundown on what to do in three main lawn scenarios:

If you’re starting a new lawn…

   Early fall follows late-summer sprouting with good conditions for young cool-season grasses to establish roots. Fall-started grass then has a second good growing season in spring before having to face its first main challenge of a hot, dry summer.

   Grass grows best when it’s lightly tamped into loosened soil and then kept consistently damp until the seed is up and growing.

   The five-step process:

   1.) Test the soil. This tells you what kind and how much nutrition to add (if any) and also whether you need to adjust the acidity level of the soil (a pH between 6.5 and 7 is ideal).

   Garden centers and county Extension offices have do-it-yourself Penn State soil-test kits for $10. Or get a kit online at Penn State’s soil test lab.

   2.) Invest in quality seed. You’ll pay a little more, but grass varieties are available that perform far better than cheap seed against adversities such as drought, bugs, disease, and poor soil.

   Penn State University’s findings on the best-performing grasses in Pennsylvania are posted on the National Turfgrass Evaluation Program’s website.

Read George’s article on how to pick the best grass seed

Fruition Seeds Stops Selling, Plans to Give Away Its Seed Instead

August 27th, 2024

   The upstate New York seed company, Fruition Seeds, is taking a rather radical step for any business.

Petra Page-Mann in one of the flower beds at Fruition Seeds near Naples, N.Y.

   As of today, the producer of organic, Northeast-adapted vegetable, herb, and flower seed is shutting down its online seed sales and moving to what co-owner Petra Page-Mann terms a “gift culture.”

   From now on, Fruition will give away – not sell – the seeds produced on its 20-acre farm near Naples, in New York’s Finger Lakes region. It won’t sell or ship anything else, for that matter.

   Page-Mann and co-owner Matthew Goldfarb are laying off the company’s other 10 employees by later this fall and depending on volunteer help and donations to sustain Fruition’s operation.

   Gardeners will be able to obtain free Fruition-grown seeds in one of two ways.

   One is by visiting the farm directly, primarily on days when Page-Mann and Goldfarb schedule events. Those events will be publicized on the Fruition website, which is continuing without the shopping-cart feature.

   The other give-away avenue is from a series of on-the-road events that Fruition hopes to establish – an extension of the company’s past participation in seed libraries and seed swaps.

   Page-Mann and Goldfarb also plan to give away fruit and nuts from the more than 100 trees planted on the farm.

    “We can no longer commodify our beloved kin – these seeds – or ourselves,” wrote Page-Mann in announcing the move. “The call is simple. Seeds are gifts. Gifts are shared, not sold, not hoarded, or otherwise contained by control.”

   So after 12 years of conventional business in which the company reached an annual budget of more than $1 million, Fruition plans to subsist on trust and faith.