A Garden of Eden in Green Bay - published June 1, 2005

Green Bay Green Thumbs and Greenhorns Garden Club attendees went on a road trip to visit a Garden of Eden in Green Bay on Sunday, May 29. What a beautiful garden! And to think that some people think you can’t grow anything in Newfoundland!

Tucked away in Miles Cove is the beautiful garden of Denzil and Betty-Jean Reid. The garden sits on a gently sloping piece of land that overlooks the bay. The garden itself has its own natural water features of a bubbling brook and a small peaceful pond. Along the sides of the pond marsh marigolds were out in full bloom and candelabra primroses were sprouting to bloom later in the summer.

In the center of the gentle slope of the garden is an interesting wooden trellis surrounded by a flower garden that was in full spring bloom when we visited. Spring flowering bulbs of daffodils and tulips in many different colors were sprinkled throughout the flower bed and were interspersed with different perennials. Many different colors and types of primroses were in different stages of blooming. Old favorites such as forget-me-nots, snow-in-winter, and lungwort, also know as lads and lasses, were also in bloom adding to the color. In between all these plants you could see later flowering plants, such as peonies, getting ready to take over the job of adding color when the spring flowers have faded. The trellis itself had signs of old clematis from last year still clinging to it, adding to the artistic look, while new growth of clematis could be seen starting to creep up the bottom of the trellis.

Beyond the trellis is a plot for a vegetable garden that will be planted a little later. Along one side of the vegetable plot is a grape vine stretching the full side of the plot. Along the other side are a number of berry trees and bushes. The front of the plot has a bed of summer blooming flowers that were just starting to grow. Beyond the vegetable garden are a number of fruit trees.

Across the brook on the side of another gentle slope is garden plot full of rose bushes and trees that of course were not showing much sign of growth yet but will be out in full bloom later in the summer.

The house itself is surrounded by rhododendrons that will add to the color later in the season. There are also flower beds around the house and all along the edge of the garden. Beautiful trees of a number of different varieties, both flowering and not flowering, are also sprinkled throughout the garden.

I never did believe that Newfoundland is just an ugly old rock on which you can’t get anything to grow, but now I will vehemently argue with anyone that dears say such a thing in my presence.

While at the garden we met up with members of a garden club from Central Newfoundland that were also visiting this haven of beauty. Contact information was traded between the club organizers in the hopes of planning future road trips and exchange garden visits. This is one of the things that will be discussed at the our next meeting on June 5 at 2:30 at Camp Mettabesic.

Secrets to Success in Growing Corn in our Area - published May 15, 2005

Theodore Roosevelt said, “ Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” What we have where we are is a short growing season where we are guaranteed to encounter some cold. In order for any plant to succeed in our area we have to find a plant that will grow in our short growing season and be able to tolerate some cold. You may think that means that there is no way corn can be grown in our area. However, there are people that have had great success in growing corn in our area. I asked them to share some of the secrets to their success.

A very important key to having success is to pick the right kind of corn to try. There are many, many varieties of corn and each variety has it’s own unique needs and characteristics. You can find out about the needs and characteristics of the corn by checking out the information on the seed pack. Two important things to look for are the growing season for the corn (the number of days it takes to reach maturity) and whether it can tolerate some cold.

The online sites of Vesey’s (http://www.veseys.com ) and Stokes (http://www.stokeseeds.com) have a number of varieties of corn that have short growing seasons - 57-68 days - and that are tolerant of some cold. Seneca Arrowhead, Sugar Baby, Speedy Sweet and Frisky are just some of the varieties listed on these sites that meet these requirements.

Once you’ve picked the right corn it is important to take care in planting it. Be sure to start the seed in a good growing medium. Plant twice as deep as the width of the seed. If you like you can start the seeds indoors but don’t start it too soon. Corn likes warm soil so putting it outside before the last frost would not be advisable. There should be information on the seed pack about how many weeks before the last frost to start the seed indoors.

Corn is wind pollinated so when the plants are planted outside it is important that the plants be close to one another to allow successful pollination. It is a good idea to plant a block of several rows with the plants no more than 6 inches apart.

Fertilization is also important. Bottom feeding is the best and the recommended fertilizer is a 20-20-20 liquid fertilizer. It should be feed with this once every two weeks.

So, there you have it - some tips on being successful at growing corn. Give it a try and let us know what happens. If you want to learn more about the gardening possibilities in our area be sure to come out to a Green Thumbs and Greenhorns Garden Club meeting. The next meeting will be held at Camp Mettabesic on Sunday, May 22 at 2:30. For further information call Jim at 673-3213.

Remember, as Sir Winston Churchill said, “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” or as the old saying goes, if at first you don’t succeed, try try again.

Waste not, want not - published May 1, 2005

Good soil is essential to being a good gardener. If you like you can spend your hard earned money buying good soil or, with a little time and effort, you can create your own with the waste you naturally accumulate.

Composting was one of the many topics discussed at the latest meeting of the Green Thumbs and Greenhorns Garden Club. It was pointed out that tons of good soil goes to the dump every year because we don’t take the time and effort to compost. Discussion continued into the different kinds of composting containers as well as what to compost and what not to put in the pile.

This is International Compost Awareness Week (May 1-7) and if we were in St. John’s we could visit the Botanical Gardens and take advantage of workshops and demonstrations they have set up on the topic. Thanks to technology, even though we can’t visit in person we can visit through the internet and learn about composting. Type the following link in the search bar of your internet browser and you will come to page one of a leaflet all about composting - http://www.mun.ca/botgarden/plant_bio/compost/pdf/ . Continue through the leaflet by clicking on the page numbers on the right hand side of the page. You’ll soon find out the benefits of composting and the fact that it’s not as complicated as you may believe.

The next meeting of the Garden Club is scheduled for Sunday, May 15th at 2:30 p.m. at Camp Mettabesic. Be sure to come along. In the meantime, if you have pictures of your garden you wouldn’t mind sharing we would really like to be able to use them to make a display of the gardens in our area. You can email pictures to me at greenhorngardener@yahoo.ca or drop them by my house at 4 Fosters Road. I can make copies of them so that you can keep the original.

Happy gardening, and remember put that waste to good use so you won’t be in want of good soil.

Use Your Common Sense - published April 17, 2005

That’s what we were told at a recent garden club meeting. It got me a little worried because when it comes to gardening I feel like I don’t have any common sense to use. Green Thumbs in attendance, however, assured me that they were not always Green Thumbs and common sense will develop through trial and error.

While the scheduled topic of discussion at the meeting was to be how to plan your garden, the powers that be in the club decided to use their common sense and hold off on that topic as the main people that requested it were not able to make the meeting. The main topic of conversation turned once again to the importance of cold frames and planting seeds. Doc Austria showed us how to easily turn a normal cold frame into a bottom heated structure that would be good for seed germination.

This past Sunday we had a great time getting our hands in the dirt and planting some marigold and lettuce seeds. Doc Austria shared with us all the basics needed to have success in planting seeds. Some things to consider are as follows:
Preparing Growing Medium
It’s important to soak your growing medium, such as Pro-Mix, in water before you put it in your containers. We got our hands into some properly prepared growing medium so that we would know what it should feel like.
Containers
You don’t need fancy, expensive containers. Doc Austria stresses to use what you have before you buy. Egg cartons make great containers for starting seeds.
Planting Seeds
The trick to planting seeds at the right depth is to plant it about twice as deep as the thickness of the seed. We got to try some of Doc Austria’s tools he uses in planting seeds - a pointed dowel he made for picking up small seeds and tweezers for bigger seeds.
Protecting from Disease
Doc Austria highly recommends spraying newly planted seeds with No-Damp right away to protect them from disease. No-Damp is a powder that can be purchased and mixed with water.

Over the next while we are going to watch our seeds grow and learn more about how to care for them. Our common sense will be growing along with the seeds.

If you have any topics that you are interested in learning about, be sure to come along and make them known. The next meeting is May 1. If you’re unable to make the meetings but would still like to have your questions answered, drop me an email at greenhorngardener@yahoo.ca and I’ll do my best to find an answer for you. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. One comment at a meeting that stuck out to me was that it’s okay to not know something, the trouble starts when you don’t know what you don’t know. In the mean time, get out there and learn some common sense by being brave enough to fail if need be and by asking questions of green thumbs that you know.

Happy gardening!

Spring - Starting Anew!

It is spring - at least the calendar says so. It is the time when they say young men’s hearts turn toward love and gardeners’ hearts turn ever more to the garden. They are itching to get started again.

Well, as my former readers know, I’m just a beginning gardener but my mind has starting turning towards the garden again too. After a rather disappointing gardening year last year I’m ready to start anew. I’m not only ready to start my garden anew, I’m also ready to start anew with the Green Thumbs and Greenhorns newspaper column. First of all, though, I feel like I owe my former readers an apology. So many of you were so good and encouraging to me, and I just disappeared without an explanation, leaving many of you hanging, waiting for a visit. Thank you to each of you that contacted me and invited me to visit your garden. I’m sorry I disappointed you and disappeared. I offer no excuses, just apologizes. I look forward to hearing from each of you again and being able to personally apologize and hopefully take up where we left off.

I’m extra excited about gardening this year because of the newly formed Green Thumbs and Greenhorns garden club. There’s nothing like getting together with fellow gardening enthusiasts. The group meets at beautiful Camp Mettabesic on Sunday afternoons around 2:30. Green Thumb gardeners come armed with pictures of their gardens along with catalogues, books and samples of tools and equipment that they’ve found helpful. The Greenhorns come armed with questions of all sorts and the Green Thumbs are more than happy to share their knowledge. The atmosphere is very relaxed and the time together very enjoyable.

This past week Sam and Kaye shared pictures of their beautiful garden and Sam told us about a portable greenhouse he made. We’ve discovered that Sam and Kaye are experienced and successful corn growers.

Doc A. brought along a tray for starting seeds and a neat little tool he made to help in planting small seeds. He shared with us many tricks on how to have success in planting seeds - from starting with a good soil mix to the importance of using cold frames. He brought along a cold frame that he had constructed to show us how simple it was to make one.

One topic that came up was slugs and how to get rid of them. We learned one lady has earned a reputation for her late night trips to the garden armed with a flash light to capture the creatures and bring them in to a quick death in boiling water. Doc Austria brought along a slug trap he had made with a 2 litre pop bottle. Others shared tricks they had tried or heard about.

This coming week many of the gardeners are planning to start planting seeds inside. Although the last frost date is not until June 22, some plants can be put out before that. Onions, beets, carrots, and lettuce are plants that can take some cold.

Next week the main topic of discussion will be how to plan and design a garden. It’s hoped that others will bring pictures of their gardens and will share about their garden design. Whether you are a Green Thumb with a great garden that you can share with us or a Greenhorn looking for advice on how to get started be sure to come out to the next meeting, Sunday April 10, 2:30pm at