By Tori Lee Jackson, Extension Educator, University of Maine Cooperative Extension, Androscoggin & Sagadahoc Counties, tori.jackson@maine.edu
National Pollinator Week is June 20-26, 2011
By Katheryn Hopkins, Extension Professor, University of Maine Cooperative Extension, Somerset County, khopkins@maine.edu
National Pollinator Week is celebrating its fifth year of publicizing the value and benefits that pollinators like bees, birds, butterflies, bats, and beetles provide. Governor LePage has also proclaimed the same week as Maine Pollinator Week. By supporting wildlife, providing healthy watersheds, pollinating food crops and more, pollinators enrich our lives. About 1,000 plants grown for food, beverages, fibers, spices, and medicines need to be pollinated by animals in order to produce the resources on which we depend. Do you enjoy apples, strawberries, blueberries, chocolate, melons, peaches, figs, tomatoes, pumpkins, and almonds? Thanks to pollinators we can harvest and cook with these foods. In the US, insects pollinate about $20 billion worth of food each year.
Pollinators are in decline in recent years and threats to pollinators also mean threats to the benefits they provide for us. We can work in partnership with these pollinators by designing our gardens to include pollinator friendly plants and resources.
All life needs a source of food to survive. Pollinators’ food of choice is nectar and pollen. Designing your garden spaces to include tree, shrub, annual, and perennial sources of food from early spring to late fall makes life easier for pollinators. Plant choices should include easy-to-access, single flowers in a variety of sizes and shapes. Vibrant colors like blue, red, yellow, and purple attract pollinators. Use native plants when possible because, often, plants and animals have developed mutually beneficial relationships. Only specific local insects pollinate some plants and some animals only feed on specific native plants. We can enhance these local ecosystems with our plant choices. Some plants that are useful for pollinators include: butterfly weed, milkweed, Jack-in-the Pulpit, creeping phlox, Cardinal flower, wood asters, and goldenrod. Remember that the larval form of some pollinators also require specific food.
Water is another critical basic need for pollinators. If you do not live near a stream or pond that can serve as a water source, you can add a birdbath with a perching rock in it, or water garden. Be sure to clean out any standing source of water two or three times a week to avoid the development of mosquito populations.
Shelter is a third essential requirement for any life form. Pollinators need nesting sites and overwintering sites. Some bees nest in the ground or in tree branches or twigs. There are also directions for building bee, bat, and bird nesting boxes on the web. See Bulletin #7117, Birdhouse Basics for plans. Some pollinators can find shelter in dead wood or in rock walls.
Preserving a well thought out, pollinator-friendly garden also may mean removing non-native plants like Japanese Barberry (Berberis thunbergii); Burning Bush (Euonymus alatus); Autumn Olive (Elaeagnus umbellata). Reducing or eliminating pesticide use also benefits pollinators. If you feel that a pesticide is necessary, be sure that you have identified the specific pest and that you have chosen to use the least toxic pesticide that is appropriate for control such as insecticidal soap or horticultural oil. Do not use pesticides when pollinators are active or when plants are in full bloom.
For more information on National Pollinator Week, visit the Pollinator Partnership website. For information on bees and pollinator friendly gardening, see Bulletin #7153, Understanding Native Bees, the Great Pollinators: Enhancing Their Habitat in Maine.
Nine Steps to a Successful Garden
By Tori Lee Jackson, Extension Educator, University of Maine Cooperative Extension, Androscoggin & Sagadahoc Counties, tori.jackson@maine.edu
You’d like to plant a vegetable garden, but you have no idea where to begin. We understand. Gardens can provide food, add beauty to the landscape, provide exercise, save us money, and allow us to connect with family, friends, and community. However, vegetable gardening in Maine, especially for the beginner, can be quite challenging. You probably have a million questions: Is my soil any good? How do I fertilize, and which one should I use? What should I grow? What bug is this?
University of Maine Cooperative Extension is here to help with a quick overview of suggestions, and to remind you of the great resources available, such as Maine Home Garden News, which comes out monthly during the gardening season to guide you with timely tips written by Extension experts and Master Gardener Volunteers. Be sure to check out our archived issues.
1. Choose an appropriate location or consider container gardening.
When choosing a site for your garden, consider locations that have full sun and well-drained soil. If you are lacking space, or your soil is less than ideal, consider creating raised beds or planting in containers. For a step by step guide to raised bed construction, including video clips, see Bulletin #2761, Gardening in Small Spaces. For best results, be careful to also choose a location that you are likely to see every day so you don’t forget to water or weed.
2. Test your soil.
You should have a soil test in your garden every two years, and prior to putting in a new garden. The results of your soil test, particularly from a new location, will tell you if your soil has lead (typical near old buildings in Maine) and what amendments you may need for optimum plant growth. Information on soil testing is available in Bulletin #2286, Testing Your Soil. Soil test boxes and forms are available from your local UMaine Extension county office, or from the Maine Soil Testing Lab. Each standard test costs $15.
Be cautious before tilling your soil. Tilling wet soils destroys soil structure and causes clumps of soil to form, which makes some gardening practices hard to perform (seeding, hoeing, etc.). Once you have tilled your garden, some of the first vegetables that can be planted include peas, lettuce, and spinach.
3. Make a plan and consider documenting the process.
If you have never had a garden before, sit down as a family and talk about what everyone likes to eat. It can help to start small (no more than 10 vegetables) so that you don’t become overwhelmed. Map it out, making sure you have enough space for the plants you want to grow and your shorter plants (carrots) won’t be shaded by taller ones (sweet corn). Other design factors to think about:
Be sure to choose varieties that have been tested to thrive in Maine. For beginners, another strategy is to choose hybrid varieties with some built-in disease resistance. What are the best varieties? See the Extension approved list in Bulletin #2190, Vegetable Varieties for Maine Gardens.
Keep your ideas in one place and chart your progress through the season with a garden journal. Seek out other gardeners to compare notes and share observations. Your notes can come in very handy when preparing next year’s garden.
4. Water when needed.
The garden needs one to two inches of water each week during the growing season. A 10′ x 10′ garden will need over 60 gallons of water a week! With temperatures soaring into the upper 80s and 90s in July and August, keeping the garden well-watered is critical. Plants lose a lot of water through small openings on the undersides of their leaves called stomates. On hot, breezy days, water loss can exceed the water taken in by the plant’s roots, resulting in wilting. If the situation goes on uncorrected too long, the plant will die.
Here are some tips that will help you water effectively, while not wasting it:
Save your back from lugging all that water—see Bulletin #2160, Trickle Irrigation: Using and Conserving Water in the Home Garden.
5. Manage your weeds.
Use the “Early Detection/Rapid Response” method to manage invasive plants by staying ahead of weeds in your garden. Use organic mulches to control weeds and maintain soil moisture. Straw is excellent mulch if you can find it. Hay will work, but often contains weed seeds that can cause problems later in the garden season or next year. Consider using four layers of newspaper as a mulch and anchor it down with soil, stones or pins. Small weeds are much easier to control than large ones! Small weeds can easily be pulled or hoed and left to dry on the soil surface. Learn to identify invasive plants as young seedlings, and remove them promptly. Multiflora rose, shrub honeysuckle, and sweet autumn olive plants are easy to pull out when they’re young seedlings. If you wait until they’re large plants, the process is more time-consuming and causes more disruption to your plantings. Larger weeds and some problem weeds like hairy galinsoga can easily “re-root” themselves if pulled and left on the soil surface. Make sure you keep weeds from going to seed to prevent problems next year! There is a lot of good information on cultural control of weeds available. Check out the favorites below of Extension Educator Mark Hutchinson, Knox-Lincoln Counties:
6. Managing insects.
There are many insect pests that like to eat the vegetables and fruits you are growing as much as you do! Before knowing how to manage a particular insect pest, you must correctly identify it. There are many resources available to help you identify insects, including your local UMaine Extension county office. A local staff member or an expert in the UMaine Extension pest management office in Orono can help you if you provide a sample. An online ID guide as well as submission guidelines for insects may be found at Pest Identification and Management for Maine Homeowners.
7. Managing plant diseases.
Regularly check your plants for both insects and diseases. Watch UMaine Extension reports to see if late blight might be in your area and prepare for protective measures. Become a friend of UMaine Extension on Facebook for updates and pest reports! For info on many common plant diseases, check out our plant disease fact sheets.
8. Harvest/preserve/donate.
Make succession plantings of crops like beans to maintain your harvest of fresh vegetables throughout the summer. Plant small amounts to keep harvesting enough for fresh meals throughout the summer. Become familiar with the state-wide initiative that encourages gardeners to donate excess produce to food pantries — Maine Harvest for Hunger — formerly known as Plant-A-Row for the Hungry. Launched in 2000 as a volunteer opportunity for UMaine Extension Master Gardener Volunteers, the program is now active in 15 counties, and is open to all interested gardeners. A beginner’s mistake of growing too much can be a good thing! Learn more about the many facets of this program through the website. The site includes food pantry donation resources as well as a guide to choosing, storing, and using your fresh produce. Limited seed donations, including flower incentives, are even available to get you started if you enroll!
9. Put your garden to bed in the fall.
Remove all dead plants in your garden at the end of the season to prevent diseases and insects from over-wintering. It is best to plant a cover crop to prevent erosion of your garden soil by wind and water. Oats make a decent cover crop. Purchase a 50 lb. bag of whole oats (horse feed) for about $10.00 from your local farm/feed dealer. Sow the oats at a heavier rate as the month progresses. The oats will sprout and grow this fall and die at the first freeze, making a nice brown mat of dead stems and leaves. These will hold your top soil in place over the winter and can be easily tilled in next spring. If you run out of time to germinate a cover crop, mulching with straw can provide protection as well.
University of Maine Cooperative Extension is available to support to all Maine gardeners. Visit our gardening website or call your local UMaine Extension county office with questions. Have a great growing season!
University of Maine Cooperative Extension’s Maine Home Garden News is designed to equip home gardeners with practical, timely information.
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Maine Home Garden News was created in response to a continued increase in requests for information on gardening and includes timely and seasonal tips, as well as research-based articles on all aspects of gardening. Articles are written by UMaine Extension specialists, educators, and horticulture professionals, as well as Master Gardener Volunteers from around Maine, with Professor Richard Brzozowski serving as editor.
Information in this publication is provided purely for educational purposes. No responsibility is assumed for any problems associated with the use of products or services mentioned. No endorsement of products or companies is intended, nor is criticism of unnamed products or companies implied.
© 2011
Published and distributed in furtherance of Acts of Congress of May 8 and June 30, 1914, by the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, the Land Grant University of the state of Maine and the U.S. Department of Agriculture cooperating. Cooperative Extension and other agencies of the U.S.D.A. provide equal opportunities in programs and employment.
Call 800-287-0274 or TDD 800-287-8957 (in Maine), or 207-581-3188, for information on publications and program offerings from University of Maine Cooperative Extension, or visit extension.umaine.edu.
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Image Description: Garden Angel volunteer helps elders plant a container garden
Image Description: bee on flower
Image Description: lily
Image Description: raised garden bed
Image Description: man weeding his vegetable garden
Image Description: Maine Harvest for Hunger volunteer prepares to donate fresh produce