Recently in Signs of Winter in Missouri Category

Over the years, I have developed a gardening calendar based on holidays. Here's my calendar for 2012:

St. Patrick's Day May 17: Plant potatoes, peas, brussell sprouts and broccoli in garden; start tomato and pepper seedlings inside.

First Day of Spring March 20: Work more compost into raised garden beds. Plant more lettuce, spinach, radishes, onions. Prune roses.

Easter April 8: Plant tree seedlings and native wildflowers. Update garden diary for bulbs I need to divide and move this fall; mark locations so I can find them this fall.

Earth Day April 22: Planting last of my spinach, peas and lettuce in the garden. Time to cover the garden with tulle to keep deer out.

Mother's Day May 13: Last day of frost so everything can get moved outside. I'll leave seedlings in their containers outside for a few days before moving them permanently into the garden.

Memorial Day May 28: Last day to plant anything from seed in the garden for this year, which means pumpkins, cucumbers and zucchini go in. Compact fruit trees, bushes and perennials also get planted so they can benefit from June showers.

Father's Day June 17: Last weekend to plant perennials. Check garden centers for end of season plant sales.

Independence Day July 4: Last day for planting beans for the season. It's also the last weekend for pinching back Mums so they bloom bushy this fall. There's little planted past this point that will survive Missouri's hot summer. Update garden diary.

Labor Day Sept. 3: Harvest fall crops; check for bugs; add compost, and start getting raised garden beds ready for winter. Also time to offer sugar water to my honeybees since little pollen is available.

Columbus Day Oct. 8: Trim deck plants. Start moving them inside house for winter. Give them a good hose bath first to discourage hitch-hiking bugs. Trade plants with friends for holiday gifts.

Halloween Oct. 31; First fall hard frost. All plants that are going to winter over should be settled inside. Halloween weekend is also a good time to add compost to raised bed gardens and make sure bird feeders are mended and ready for winter.

Veterans Day Nov. 11: Clean and store pots, garden implements; toss out torn gardening gloves; mark envelopes with saved seeds; update garden diary on what worked well this year and what I want to do differently or try next year. If there's been a hard frost, good time to
mulch plant beds so soil temperature doesn't fluctuate.

Thanksgiving Nov. 22: Buy bulbs on discount. Make bulb gardens for winter gifts; store in basement refrigerator.

Winter, Dec. 21: Look for first gardening catalogs in the mail!

New Years Jan. 1:  Check inside plants for hitchhiking bugs; trim dead leaves. Check bulb gardens. Pour over garden catalogs.

Jan. 17 Martin Luther King Day: Make sure inside plants are all getting sunlight needs met. If not, move them around. Review garden diary from last year for what worked and what didn't. Trade garden catalogs with other gardening friends.

Valentine's Day February 14: A time when mid-Missouri usually has a few warmer days mid-winter and soil can be worked without using a pick ax.

Good time to check check birdhouses for repairs; clean garden implements; wash flower pots; order local shrubs and trees from George O. White Nursery. Prune fruit trees.

President's Day February 20: Plant onion sets in the garden. (I pop a few into the deck containers, too!) Plant my deck containers with lettuce, spinach, radishes...it's almost spring!











Charlotte Ekker Wiggins shares gardening and beekeeping adventures from her Missouri limestone MO hill.

Copyright 2012 all rights reserved.




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Gardening catalogs are starting to show up in my mailbox.  They're a good reminder that one of the advantages of being a gardener is that you don't really have to grow up.
By that I mean you're encouraged to try new seeds and plants, and to test new techniques and toys - oops tools, I meant tools.

Unfortunately for gadget manufacturers, I'm not too drawn to newfangled gardening accessories, probably because gardening on a Missouri limestone hill means a pick ax is the main, and sometimes only, gardening tool that will work.

The following is my list of top things to try this year:

1. Composting. I like the tumbler-type plastic composters with a side handle for easy turning. I also have a table top Nature Mill composter in my garage. I collect compost material in a bag in my freezer, then move it outside when the bag is full. It's amazing to me how composting reduces the amount of garbage. Colleagues in my business office also have been kind enough to help save coffee grounds and fruit peelings. In return, I bring in fresh flowers for our coffee break room and amend my raised bed kitchen garden.

2. Start vegetable garden seeds a little earlier than end February. I'm still trying to decide how to protect lettuce seedlings in my deck pots, maybe plastic over the top will work.

3. Conserve water. I'm amazed at how much my rain barrels collect during rain storms; and then how happier my plants seem to be when watered with
rain water.

4. Use  soaker hoses to minimize water runoff; add a timer to your irrigation system so you don't forget to turn it off.

5. Make a concerted effort not to use pesticides. Today there are more earth-friendly and safe alternatives. take a little extra time to read labels and learn about non-traditional options like spraying plants with hot pepper-infused water. Being less critical of a less than perfect
flower also helps!

6. Create an inviting habitat for garden visitors by providing food, water and shelter for birds, butterflies and other pollinators like bees. Birds are natural predators, and pollinators will help your garden have more produce.

7. Mow less grass; expand flower beds.

8. Add fruit-bearing shrubs and compact fruit trees. They're not only pretty when in bloom but can provide you with fresh fruit.

9. Plant more low maintenance native flowers. Rolla area is in USDA zone 5B. Natives require less water and will adapt faster; some have long blooming seasons like black-eyed susans.

10. Don't toss out those green tomatoes you finally grew. Try ripening them by storing in a cool, dark place in a brown bag with an apple. They don't have as much flavor as vine-ripened
tomatoes but they are still better than winter, store bought ones!


Which one of these have you tried already?







Charlotte Ekker Wiggins is a master gardener sharing gardening adventures in and around her Missouri wildlife garden. 

Copyright 2012, all rights reserved.

Do you like to make New Year's resolutions?

I don't either so I don't make traditional ones. I like to think of the new year in terms of doing something new.

I've always loved corn in the cob so 1998 was the year I tried barbecued corn and developed my own favorite corn muffin recipe. Nothing personal but even though I tried several different combinations, there's something not quite right about grits.

That was also the year I tried to grow corn in a new, sloping plot in back of my house. Actually I did grow it, only to have raccoons decimate the whole crop the first night the corn was ripe. Raccoons and deer were amazingly efficient, the little plot looked like a tornado had ripped through it. I still want to know how they knew the corn was ready for picking.

I was left with a lovely supply of corn stalks and corn husks so I used them, and dried flowers, to decorate outside wreaths around my house. That is, until the morning I opened my front door and I found two deer standing several steps up on my deck calmly having breakfast as they took my wreath apart.

Over the years, several habits have developed from having yearly themes. Not that I need another reason but having a theme gives me a place to start when shopping for books.  I also go out of my way to watch theme-related TV shows and movies, sometimes traveling to a related place or event.

Last year, for example, started out as the year of honeybees and ended up being the year of honey.

When I adopted two bee hives two years ago, the idea was to have bees pollinate my flowers and vegetables with no intention of ever harvesting honey. Beginning beekeepers are forewarned it could take several years before their honeybees produce extra honey so I was counting on at least 2-3 years before having to decide what to do with any extra.

Bees need about 70 lbs of honey per hive to make it through winter. One of my hives this past year ended up producing several hundred pounds of extra honey so I not only taught myself how to harvest honey by hand, but I bottled it to sell and for gifts.

My brother, who received my first-ever harvested honey for his birthday, gave me a coupon for Christmas for an electric honey extractor so I will be shopping for one before the next honey harvesting season, assuming my bees have another good year.

Both hives seem to be doing fine so far. With the warm weather we've been having, it's easy to spot them moving around on the white styrofoam suits I have winterizing the hives. Bees don't hibernate; they bunch up inside the hive and keep it very warm while eating honey they've stored. If the hive gets too cold, bees can't use their delicate wings and can literally die millimeters from honey.

Starting the new year with something new doesn't have to be complicated.

Take parking my car in my garage. Years ago, I installed my old kitchen cabinets around my garage, including my old kitchen sink - to make gardening storage room. It was wonderful until the motor burned out in my VW and I had to shop for a new car - couldn't be more than 17 feet long or it wouldn't fit. My Honda Fastback fits like a glove, as long as I accurately "guess" the distance between the cabinet and closing garage door, and don't place anything in front of the cabinets.

My car and I are starting the new year with a tennis ball tied to a string at the point where I have to stop the car in the garage before I take out the cabinets.

Should also stop my having to explain the dents on the side of the hive boxes, my bees are not taking their hives out for a joy ride...happy new year!


Charlotte Ekker Wiggins is a master gardener and writes about gardening in and around her Missouri wildlife garden. 

Copyright 2012, all rights reserved

Bet you can guess what my family and friends are getting for Christmas this year.

It's not just any honey - it's my first batch, successfully harvested and bottled in spite of all I didn't know about what I was doing!

According to the IRS, harvesting honey officially makes me a "bee farmer" and, be still my heart, requires that I fill out a new tax schedule.

You'd think I would be a honey farmer since what I harvest is not bees but I'm not about to argue.

It does explain one of the comments I heard a couple of years ago at a Mid-Missouri Beekeepers Association meeting. The experienced backyard beekeeper said raising bees was "just like raising cattle only the guy who spends $10,000 on a bull is not as hurt as a beekeeper loosing a queen."

Can you find the queen in this photo? She's bigger than the rest....

The queen is the only egg-layer in the colony and without her, the colony is literally lost. Whereas a worker bee lives only for 45 days, a queen bee can live 4-5 years, assuming nothing untoward happens to her, and she sets the tone for the colony's production, and success.

I lost a couple of queens this past year; no one is sure why. My well-intentioned experiment of letting the bees raise their own queen after the first one disappeared resulted only in a wax moth infestation, which I had to try to manually clean out once a week. Wax moths are sold by the pound in bird food catalogs but they look like wriggling Jabba the Huts and are amazingly destructive for being so tiny.

I didn't have much luck with the second queen, she died on the way to the hive.
 
The third one, I hope, is wintering over nicely with the rest of the all-female colony. By now worker bees have found and tossed out the male bees, or drones, to reduce colony numbers so they can bunch up in the center of the hive and survive eating their own honey stores. The boy bees are escorted out because they do nothing more than wait to mate with the queen; the colony will grow new drones when spring comes.

I didn't cook or any way alter my honey; it's the way it came out of the hive, which means it may become cloudy from pollen.

If it's kept in temperatures below 70F, it may also crystalize on the bottom - proof that it's unpasteurized, real honey but a new concept for some people used to imported, diluted and processed honey.

Cooking removes all good enzymes.

I also added honey comb to my honey bottles. There's something intriguing about seeing a piece of the perfectly-created comb bees make floating in honey - and it's a delicious treat, too.

To help my bees make it through winter, I added hive top feeders so I can easily give them sugar water, or a little honey, every few weeks. This way they can move in and out of the feeders from inside the hive, which means less chance their little delicate wings will freeze from exposure.

I also added insulation to the hives, duct-taping 2-inch wide styrofoam pieces and leaving openings at the front, and at the top, of the back of the hives.

I was feeling pretty good about the insulation until my handyman said two scrappers had been in the neighborhood asking if I had two old refrigerators I wanted hauled off.

Reminded me of the days when I was on the City Council and the city would periodically get reports I was growing grass - the green, lawn kind - over the 12-inch maximum. It only took the city one visit to my garden to see I don't believe, nor do I grow grass - but it became an early warning system that one of my votes had ticked someone off.

Well, part of me hopes word does get around that besides bees, I'm now planting old kitchen appliances. It's a great way to keep the neighborhood watch on its toes!

Here's to you having an equally sweet holiday with family and friends - Merry Christmas!












Charlotte Ekker Wiggins is a master gardener and writes about gardening in and around her Missouri wildlife garden. 

Copyright 2011, all rights reserved.

PS the queen honeybee is the upper left hand corner of the photo, darker and bigger than the rest!

With temperatures dropping, there's another garden-related chore I forgot to mention: wildlife-proofing your home.

Start with checking attics, basements, gutters and garage doors for any small openings or warm spots squirrels, mice and birds might use for shelter. If you store seeds in your garage, that's an invitation for wildlife to break in, especially if winter is challenging and their garden food sources are frozen.

Storing sunflower and other bird seeds in metal garbage cans keeps wildlife out of seeds and helps keep seeds fresh until they're consumed.

Years ago, I also learned to wait to remove birdhouses until after the first frost in case wasps have moved in. I also store birdhouses in my garage with the opening facing the wall so birds aren't encouraged to shop for real estate early in the season.

If you find a possible wildlife hiding spot but aren't sure if there's something in the spot, stuff it with wadded paper and watch it for several days. If the paper hasn't moved, then seal the area up. If the paper moved, then there's a good chance something is using the space.

Attract wildlife out of the space with food nearby in a trap so you can relocate them.

If you have Eastern Japanese beetles coming inside - they look like ladybugs but are green,  orange, yellow and rust-colored - don't squish them, they stain and have a very strong, pungent order. Use a broom or vacuum cleaner to gently knock them off walls, then move them outside away from your house.

If you're using firewood, make sure to stack it away from your house as well.

Even though I do my fall wildlife checks around the house, I generally miss some, especially after bringing deck plants inside. There's usually a lizard, praying mantis or tree frog that ends up on a curtain or door jam, or I'll spot a cat following something moving across the floor. It doesn't take much to invite the visitors back outside.

Several weeks ago, I found a little visitor in the corner of my living room. He must have come in the night before because I recall my cats hanging out in the basement and not coming when I called them, a sure sign they're up to something.

Grabbing a kitchen towel and fully expecting the mouse to jump when I approached it, I was surprised it walked into my hand and promptly fell asleep.

At first I thought maybe it was injured but there were no marks or apparent injuries. After a wift of cheese woke it up long enough to inhale the food, it curled back up to sleep so I tucked the towel under a garden bush away from the house.

Guess dodging cats for 14 hours can be exhausting!












Charlotte is a Master Gardener and writes about  her garden, honeybees and mice,  at her blog Gardening to Distraction.

Copyright 2011, all rights reserved.

I wish I could tell you how many times I tried to photograph this little guy at my bird feeder along with the rest of my Missouri winter songbirds.

At first, I thought he was a little accident-prone wren with a bent beak.

Then I noticed his coloring, so much like the tree bark he likes to climb, not to mention his penchant for suet.

Finally, my Twitter photo friend Steve Creek shared some of his wonderful brown creeper photos, and mentioned how hard they were to photograph so here's my one, and only, brown creeper photo - so far.

Brown creepers are little guys. His coloring blends so well in with the tree bark, sometimes the only sign I have he's even around is when the tree looks like it's moving!

One of the ways to easily attract some of Missouri's backyard birds, such as Red-Bellied Woodpeckers (left) and  Hairy Woodpeckers  (right) is to offer them homemade bird suet.

My bird friend Mike Doyen, former president of Missouri Audubon Society's Ozark Chapter, shared his famous homemade bird suet recipe:

"Melt 1 cup of lard, (no substitute) and

1 cup of crunchy peanut butter.

As this mixture comes to a slow boil, stir in:

2 cups quick cook oats

2 cups corn meal

1 cup of white flour

1/3 cup of sugar and 1 cup of white raisins. (Make sure to let raisins soak in water for a couple of hours)

Pour mixture into wax paper-lined square container. Allow to cool; then cut to size and store in freezer as needed.

If you double this recipe, which I often do, especially in winter, it will make eight good size cakes.

You can use any dried fruit, just make sure you soak first.

Place cake in suet cage or just lay on a plate and watch birds flock to your feeder."

Thanks, Mike!

Charlotte

Gardening to Distraction on a MO Hill

My collection of Missouri backyard birds spending winter at my bird feeders would not be complete without this very attentive species that spends mornings hanging out at my living room windows.

Now it's not always easy to spot them at first.

Luckily this Missouri wildlife species has a very marked tail.


These little guys are fast, usually taking off before they can be "caught."

This little guy, though, still had sunflower seed hulls in his mouth.

As my nephew in Virginia likes to tell his cats - "busted!"

Winter of 2010 in Missouri was a long winter.

We had more snow than usual; tornados in January, which is not normal; weeks of unrelenting gray skies and frozen noses; and little to see green and growing, although I did enjoy getting to know my Missouri backyard birds better.

One of the advantages of living in mid-Missouri is the changing seasons; locals like to say if you don't like the weather "wait, it'll change," and that applies to the seasons as well.

So here's to winter 2010, and saying a fond goodbye to what was beautiful about it.

Hi, I'm Charlotte Ekker Wiggins and I write Gardening to Distraction an online blog and weekly newspaper column.

The name comes from a local newspaper writer who wrote a profile and noticed all my many green friends.

I've been playing with plants since I was 2 yrs old and poked coffee beans into my mother's favorite orchid.

I can blame it only partly on genetics.

Our family goes back 600 yrs to farming in Hungary, then immigrated to Louisiana to grow strawberries and make strawberry wine.

It does explain why my brother once said baking a strawberry pie was a waste of a perfectly good pie crust - we inhale strawberries!

Over the years, my chemical-free, 1-acre Missouri garden has become not only inspiration for a business and a weekly newspaper column, but a sanctuary for Missouri nature.

I'll confess, I have a messy garden; vegetables planted among flowers, Missouri wildflowers allowed to take over without being invited, birds and birdhouses everywhere; several small ponds full of wildlife, including snakes.  Two honeybee hives keep my garden company, and I don't believe in grass. Nothing personal, I just prefer spending my time in the garden doing something other than mowing.

I became a Phelps County Master Gardener in 2010 so I now have more people I can share my passion for gardening and ask for help!

In this blog, I also share personal gardening experience focused on USDA Zone 5, recently-changed to zone 6; Missouri nature adventures;  occasional trips to area gardens, as well as my adventure with a Missouri traditional - I call it a toy - vegetable garden.  

Why yes, I do like to garden!

Charlotte

Gardening to Distraction on a MO Hill