How's Your Garden?

BY LOIS TRIGG CHAPLIN

Gardeners who like fresh dill weed can sow dill seeds again to enjoy the green foliage until a hard freeze. As a bonus, if it grows inside a cold frame, the plant will yield all winter by adding new growth on mild, sunny days. I am working to create a permanent patch of dill by leaving the seeds to drop on the ground after they mature in late summer. Then in fall I put a small cold frame in the patch to cover and protect seedlings that come up. To start seeds from a packet now press them into the bare ground and keep moist until they develop a good tap root. Dill seed needs cool soil, so cover the spot with a board checking daily to remove it as soon as the seeds sprout. Although dill doesn’t transplant well because of the tap root, the only alternative in extreme heat is to start seeds indoors and transplant into the garden while still very young.

Planting guides suggest sowing seeds for a fall crop of lettuce about this time, but it’s really tricky to grow lettuce in the heat. Lettuce seeds do not germinate in hot weather, so it’s easier to start them indoors. Transplants don’t like the heat either. Whether grown indoors or purchased, transplants will bolt easily in the heat, thus developing a flower stalk instead of a rosette of leaves. A sign that transplants are bolting is leaves spaced along an elongated central stem instead of a low, compact plant forming a rosette of ground-hugging leaves. If your transplants start to bolt, cut off the top but leave a node or two so that new leaves might sprout from there. Repeat as necessary. I have luck planting lettuce as late as October and then covering the plants with a low tunnel of frost cloth which can be removed during a winter warm spell.

I was struck by the care that it must have taken to pick and transport these fragile squash blossoms to the farmers market in San Diego’s Little Italy one Saturday morning. The blooms of squash plants are popular in Italian and Mexican dishes, especially quesadillas, eggs, soup, or just stuffed with mozzarella or queso blanco cheeses. Luckily, we gardeners can go out and pick these expensive and delicate blossoms from our plants almost any day during the warm season. They don’t keep long, so they are best picked the day that one plans to use them. Fortunately, new squash and pumpkin blossoms appear almost every day. There is still time to plant seed of squash and pumpkin even if just for the blooms.

Although they may not bloom this season, now is the time to plant bulbs of old-fashioned spider lilies (Lycoris radiata), as later this fall their narrow straplike leaves will appear and remain through the winter and spring. The leaves are what renew the plant to bloom for many years to come, so never mow or cut them back. They will die back naturally in hot weather. If you are lucky enough to have a friend who will share a few bulbs, that’s a good way to start, otherwise they will have to be purchased. They often come in packages of 3 to 5 in garden centers, or they may be ordered from companies that specialize in bulbs. Red spider lilies are beautiful sprinkled throughout undisturbed areas, in at least partial sun in areas where they won’t be mowed. Spider lilies can be moody about blooming, occasionally skipping a year, especially in dry weather. They are also called hurricane lilies because of their habit of popping up right after a rain during hurricane season. Bright yellow sulphur butterflies sip nectar from the red blooms during fall migration, as do hummingbirds, giving gardeners another wondrous moment in God’s garden.

Yellow seems to be one of nature’s favorite colors for late summer and fall flowers in Alabama. Three groups: goldenrod (Solidago species) , black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia sp.), and perennial sunflowers (Helianthus sp.), provide great late summer and fall roadside, woodland and garden blossoms. Gardeners interested in supporting the local pollinator populations can have a big patch of these yellow-flowering species to supply both nectar and pollen at a time of year that can be lean for bees, wasps, beetles, and other insects that depend on blooms. Although goldenrod gets a bad rap for aggravating hay fever, scientists say that it is not actually the goldenrod, which has large pollen, but the ragweed and grasses that bloom about the same time that cause folks problems. Look for perennial yellow, fall-blooming species when out shopping for perennial flowers. Once planted they will return year after year and multiply to make clumps so large you can dig and share plants.