Being as hot as it is in July you might not think of fall vegetables while feeling like you are under a broiler every time you step outside. However, fall vegetables need time to grow to be able to set fruit which can be harvested in the fall and winter. Get out your gardening calendar and start writing down planting dates so that you have a bounty of vegetables to harvest once the weather does start cooling off. If you plan on having your own pumpkins for Halloween plant them in early July. Most varieties need 100 days of growth for a good sized pumpkin. If you do not have much space choose a variety that is labeled “short vine” or you can train the vine up on a sturdy trellis or deck. When your tomato plants start looking sad from disease or if you have determinate varieties which have…
Perennials For Beginning Gardeners In Georgia
Perennials are nature’s miracles. Look at a perennial garden in the dead of winter and what do you see? Nothing, most likely! Then, as the days get longer and the sun begins to warm the earth, little green things begin to emerge from the soil and soon there are bursts of foliage everywhere not long after complemented by blooms in all sorts of colors. My favorite flowering perennials, in a still young garden, are Sedum “Autumn Joy”, Shasta Daisy “Crazy Daisy”, Daylilies, Gaura “Siskiyou Pink” and Joe-Pye Weed. Let me add to that Baptisia, Asters, Phlox, Bearded Irises, and well enough. In my garden, plants have to love sun. For that reason I have only a few Hostas and Lenten Roses and other perennials that are not so thrilled about growing in full sun. Thus, my experiences and advice will benefit you if you have a sunny garden: by picking…
Atlanta’s Summer Birds: Listening, Seeing, Watching, Learning
Some of the newer or more casual members of the birding community may think of summer as the ‘slow’ time for birding. And in many ways it is. Spring migration is a done deal. If you so choose, you can hang up the binoculars, put the scope away after a good cleaning, and use your photography gear to capture more land-dwelling forms of life, such as your family, whom you may have neglected during the spring migration! So at the risk of being a spoiler for the summertime you thought you had “off”, I offer a few comments of interest about our summer avifauna in the Atlanta metro area. Migration and Nesting One point in this article will be the following: it is erroneous to think that “summer” is the time “after” spring migration and “before” fall migration. It is true that spring migration moves along at a pretty good…