Daffodils

Planting daffodils

Select a site that offers full sun or part shade. Most daffodils tolerate a range of soils but grow best in moderately fertile, well-drained soil that is moist during the growing season. Many of the popular species prefer neutral to acidic soils.

• Plant bulbs 1-1/2 to 5 times their own depth. Where winters are severe, make sure there is at least 3 inches of soil covering the bulb.
• Daffodils will tolerate some crowding but prefer to be spaced 3 to 6 inches apart.
• It may help to sprinkle a little bulb fertilizer in the hole during planting.
• Resist the temptation to uncover spring-flowering plants such as daffodils and tulips. You can loosen mulch, but the shoots will still benefit from protection against cold, drying winds.

What to do in the garden?

To all our fall garden enthusiasts!

Here is a list of what our garden needs in the fall to give us better results in the next flowering season!

Please pick what you'd like to do and communicate it through this blog.

This is the best time to fertilize your lawn if you only do so once a year.

Plant hardy spring-flowering bulbs such as tulip, daffodil, hyacinth bulbs, snow drops and crocus corms. Consider covering with chicken wire to deter animals. Don't be too quick to cover them with mulch or it may attract animals. Wait until the ground freeze.

Water trees, shrubs, and evergreens until the ground freezes. Apply a layer of mulch around these plants to help reduce winter injury.

Finish seeding your new lawns by the middle of the month.

Remove weeds, debris, and dead or diseased plants, as well as plants that had disease problems this year. Insects and diseases can overwinter in these plants.

Look for slug egg masses under mulch and destroy.

Cut perennials to the ground.

Be sure to remove any leaves from your lawn to help reduce lawn problems; use as mulch for plants or shred them and add to compost.

Clean up lawn and garden. Remove any dead or diseased plants, leaves, and twigs. Remove all debris and dead plants to prevent overwintering of certain garden pests.

Fall Updates

Hello,
Wanted to let people know a few developments and start thinking about the future.

We planted about 10 daffodil bulbs on the western side of bed No. 1. There's a sign on one site and fencing around the other to prevent anyone else from mistakenly digging them up. (I found some bulbs, hopefully from a previous year that never germinated in one of those locations.) We'll try some more bulbs also next time we go past a garden store. Daffodils are for part shade to full sun, so let's hope that's a good enough spot works.

We also did some weeding, composting and seeding in bed 8 a couple of weeks ago and, encouraged by how quickly the grass has sprouted there, tried the same steps on the western end of bed 9 just today. Perhaps Quixotic to think the grass will take root this late in the year, but it seem like that spot gets good sun.

Bed 13 is virtually entirely weeds. I think it is too late in the year to try to dig it all up and re-seed. Maybe something for the spring. We also should think about taking on the lawn strips out front in the spring as well.

We've begun to use part of bed 3 as an area for yard waste and cooked compost. Am willing to work with others to build a holding pen for both of those over the winter.

blooming tonight

credit: Richard Sussman

credit: Richard Sussman

Epiphyllum oxypetalum

Family: Cactaceae
Belle de Nuit, Lady of the Night, Queen of the Night, Night blooming Cereus

This special cactus grows in tropical rainforests and has large wide meaty leaves. The flower is huge, white, and nocturnal. Blooms at night hours, hence the name. 

If anyone would like a cutting of this contact A4.

tools

If you are inspired to sweep, rake, shovel, or plant something look behind the dryers for the right tool. There also are planters, pots, stakes, fertilizer, clippers and trimmers.

new fruit tree planted

Watered beds

8/24: 2, 3, 4 + 12
8/25: 8, 9, 11
8/26: 4, 5

how to use new timers

Click on: watering

Watering and compost

Watered beds 7,8,9 on 8/18

Thank you for following up with the compost, Matt. Thank you Henry for the artistic "closed" sign!
The temporary side bin looks fine.

Watering and Compost Update

I put a green plastic tub out there next to the compost tumbler where people can put their compost when the tumbler's closed, as it is now and will be for a couple more weeks. Also put a "closed" sign on the drum itself: you'll notice that inside the plastic sleeve there is also an "open" slide that whoever determines whether the tumbler is closed or open can move into place at the appropriate time.

Also watered the back yard plots, 1-5, either Saturday or Sunday and replanted a couple of plants that were in the area I think you were thinking of for compost storage. Though it rained Sunday morning, it was only for a few minutes and was dry by evening. The sprinklers are a big help as they can be modulated to fit the odd-shaped garden plots we have.

Compost Anyone?

We were away and missed the big shopping excursion but am enjoying the spoils! It has suddenly gotten much easier to water the garden. You asked me about the compost and it is almost ready the last time I checked, though some people are continuing to add new material. I would like to open the discussion up to figuring out how we can do 365-day-a-year composting, which has several advantages.

One option would be to purchase a second tumbler. Big expense ($330) A second option, suggested here, would be to get a secondary container, like a regular trash can, where we can store the kitchen waste for the two or three weeks we would want to shut the tumbler down.

In any case, I'd like to think about setting aside a small part of the garden to store the compost after it comes out of the tumbler and before it is ready to put into the soil. It would help us accumulate enough compost over the summer and winter to replenish the soil in the fall and spring. it would also be nice to put aside some space for fibrous yard waste that takes too long to break down to put into the tumbler. What do others think?

Want to be admired by neighborhood children?

Just got timers and sprinklers so watering is much easier. You too can enjoy bypassers' comments.
It's easy to participate: just look at the blog, see when watering last happened, decide if the plants are dying and go do it. For technical assistance with timers, etc., post a request on the blog or a comment on a post.

Watering

Watered 1,4,7,8,9,10,11,12
Yesterday watered 1,2,5

watering +

did ALL except beds 2 and 3

Also went to Home Depot and got 3 new, cheap sprinklers to replace the broken ones, some hose repair parts and two 50 ft hoses so we can water more than one patch at a time. We still need a couple of simple timers - Richard in F3 says he may have some. Total cost so far to the building: $65

In theory, after he returns, Kerwin will install some extra spigots to make watering easier and quicker.

Watered Beds #9, #10, and #12

Matt, thanks for watering the inside beds and for the hose link. Sam and I are going to go downstairs and make a list of what we need for the garden. We are thinking of ordering from Amazon. Any thoughts, things to add to the list? ---  How does the compost look?

watered 1-5 moderately tonight. tumbled compost. we may want to look at sprinkler hoses that would work well in our long narrow areas such as 10-12: http://www.homedepot.com/p/Apex-1-in-x-25-ft-Sprinkler-Water-Hose-2030-25/204837103?N=5yc1vZbx4eZ1z0zwqq thanks.

watered 7, 8

E18th St watering

Watered 8.

Hoping to water 10, 11, and 12, I found that the attachment from the basement hose (E18th) to the hose reel is broken - thanks to whoever turned off the water in the basement.
Sam and I will buy the appropriate parts next week and in the meantime hope it rains Sunday/Monday as predicted.

Hi, I watered 1, 2, 4, 5, 8 and 10 before running out of steam. (Leaving two sprinklers on timers overnight, hoping they work.) The four-hose splitter on the west spigot came loose, so I replaced it with two brass splitters instead, taking one from the central courtyard spigot and another one I found in back. (The timer and four-splitter are in the storage area.) Never got around to weeding the front this weekend but did tumble the compost a few times.

watering

5, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11.
Amy S. Clark watered 6 tonight.

Front west patch

It's a great idea to redo that west front patch. Yes, it is possible to seed grass in the Summer, but it requires some extra care: straw, dry grass or peat moss on top to keep the humidity and regular watering. The ideal time to seed grass is when temperature goes constantly below 80F - end of August or September. At the moment I don't know what the best type of grass would be, but we can find it out on line or at the store where we buy the seeds. 

We did 9 and 7 yesterday (Sunday night), also this evening pulled a few weeds out of the front. If we are around this weekend, I think we will tackle the front weeds and invited others to do the same. Who knows how long it will take a landscaper to come? There is one patch, to the west of the front door and between the sidewalk and the street to the west of the Cablevision box (we called it the "boulevard" growing up in Chicago but it may be called a "curb strip" or "tree lawn" here), that has all turned into weeds... Not sure whether we can/should reseed at this point or wait til the new batch of compost is ready.

Monday: watered 12

Sunday: watered beds  3, 6, 8, 10, 11

Weekend Update

Hello All,
The garden really so nice to spend time in after that massive clean-up last week. We did some watering of the back flower beds and light weeding yesterday. The hook-up for the hose reel that was out there in the main courtyard seems busted and I couldn't jam it back together enough to prevent significant leaks, so I dragged out the smaller reel from the basement and used that instead. We may try to water the front yards today as well. But if anyone's wondering what's happening out there in terms of the hoses, that's why.

We tumbled the compost a few times. It appears that someone mixed compost in with the mulch that we had put in the blue plastic tub a few weeks ago.  Can we still use this mixture to put on top of beds to keep weeds down, etc.? The bed around the tree in the center of the garden is a good candidate.

I also dragged out a large copper vessel that was behind the dryers to hold yard waste so we may try keeping the mulch separately again. As some point, I intend to cut up the bamboo laying around and place it in there. Warning: This vessel has a false bottom and will leak. But I think that also makes it a good candidate to store yard waste that we do not want to put in the compost tumbler since it will drain.

Let me know if we should do any of this differently.  

Thanks to all . . .

who came out for our garden day, for sweeping, cleaning, watering, repairing, ice tea, cookies and company.

Sunday June 22 - garden clean up day

Come look around the garden, grab a broom or a rake to help clean up, see how the composter works, bring some of your house plants out and find a good place for them.

In ground watering system?

We are exploring the idea . . . . does anyone have expertise?

Lowes DIY underground watering

2014 garden

It's another spring garden at 1710. Your help and participation of any kind are welcome. That can mean organizing, tidying, planting, watering. No one is in charge of our garden, so feel free to make it your own!

Compost open for business

The compost bin is ready for your food scraps (minus animal protein of any kind). It still needs to be tossed around about a couple of times a week, with the lid securely closed. When you see earthworms around the lid, it means they need oxygen and air. That happens by tossing the compost.

more on how to compost