2007 Lessons Learned in the Demonstration Garden                                    BACK

• Overall Garden

• Drought impacts

• Thwarted the growth and establishment of some plants and seeds in butterfly garden, Heritage garden as well as container bed

• Lessened impact of Japanese beetles

• Donated straw turned out to be hay and when used, seeds dropped and sprouted.  Need to assure only straw is used.

• Vegetables

• Beets – Poor germination of heirloom beets because of a cold April meant that the beets were replanted 3 times. Even then germination was spotty and harvest was not as expected.

• Broccoli – The heirloom brand “Di-Ciccio” plants all died within two weeks after transplanting but the heirloom “Calabrese” variety grew strong and gave a good harvest once the row cover was removed.  Soil was not drying out with row cover on meaning damping off probably killed the “Di-Ciccio” transplants.

• Carrots – The heirlooms “Oxheart” and “Kuttiger” are better cooked than eaten raw.  The harvest was bountiful.

• Snow Peas – The heirloom variety “Mammoth Melting Sugar” were the best producing vegetable pound for pound and will be a repeat performer next year.

• Cotton – An early variety selected by VT for Northern VA did well with most cotton balls bursting in Early – Mid October.

•  Squash – Heirloom varieties “Cocezelle”, “Golden Crookneck” and “Early Bush White Scallop” were awesome performers and even though they were not hybrids performed much better than past hybrids grown. Leaves were sprayed with Surround before blooming started so this may have helped with pest and diseases issues early on.

• Cucumbers – Heirloom cucumbers “Early Russian” and “White Wonder” gave excellent harvests once again beating out many hybrids used in the past.  “Early Russian” was the longest producer while the “White Wonder” produced huge fruits literally overnight.

• Tomatoes – Heirlooms “Red Calabash”, “Yellow Giant Belgium” & “Watermelon Beefsteak” were planted.  Disappointing results! Red Calabash was first to go down in August followed by the others.  The hot weather and an overly ambitious irrigation line contributed to the poor results.

• Peppers – Heirloom sweet varieties “Golden Summit” and “Jimmy Nardello’s” did well. Heirloom hot pepper varieties “Long Red Cayenne” and “Fish” also did very well although plants were extremely brittle and extraordinary care had to be taken when harvesting.  Bio-degradable planter’s paper was laid down for mulch and weeds when transplanting and did an excellent job.

• Pole Beans – Heirloom varieties “Cherokee Trail of Tears”, “Kentucky Wonder” & “Blue Coco” were planted and all performed well. The best testing bean was the Blue Coco with a slighter sweeter pronounced green bean flavor.  A runner bean, “Painted Lady” was a great ornamental addition to the garden with the red and white flowers. Pole beans were also sprayed 3 times with Surround during growing season to prevent Japanese beetle and Mexican bean beetle infestations. Appeared to be successful as hungry deer seemed to do the only damage to the plants.

• Notes on other plants in main Vegetable area

• Heirloom “Elephant Head” amaranth was also a great ornamental addition producing a brilliant display in September and October.  Stems are brittle and must be tied up. (Caution most people will pull early on before flowering as it looks like a weed.)

• Heirloom “Bi-color Broom Corn” gets very tall. Beware of planting location.  Also tassels for broom making must be harvested before tassels become too stiff and start to bend over, otherwise excellent fall color.

• The America’s Anniversary Garden of white petunias, blue salvia and red zinnia bloomed well during the first part of August but because of the hot and dry weather (even with irrigation), the white petunias died off early. The red zinnias, because of drought stress too, were attacked hard by powdery mildew and died off early as well.

• Sq. Ft./Container Bed

• Good soil made a difference.  The compost only containers probably performed the best of all.

• Companion planting was an important element.

• The self-watering containers, which didn’t produce well last year, over–exceeded all of our expectations this year.

• The hanging tomato planter, which had received rave reviews by other growers, dried too quickly and required more regular watering. The bag got too hot even with watering thus retarding the performance of the plant and when the deer discovered the “treats” on a hook, it was all over with

• Compost

• Temperature of the compost bin up to 140+ degrees during the month of July which killed the majority of any weed seeds

• Use of shredder vastly improved the decomposition of new green and brown materials added to the bins during the growing season

• Fruit Trees

• Six applications of Surround were sprayed during the growing season with good results for preventing insect damage.  There was some coddling moth damage even with the application of Surround

• The apple and pear trees did not produce as much as the 2006 season, in part due to the warm late winter weather and then a very dry cold spell in late spring.

• Shade Garden

• Three bags of planting medium were scored on one side for drainage, then flipped over and scored with seven x’s and white impatiens were planted.  They thrived in the shade garden as the pine tree roots didn’t steal their moisture but the bags still required a lot of watering

• The ginger lies flat on the ground and does not perform well, while the Lungwort grows extremely slowly and after having been in the garden several years, looks to be the same size as when planted.

• Shade garden required 3 hours of a sprinkler 2-3 times a week during drought.  We are planning to install drip irrigation to ease the man power.

• Grasses

• Easier to identify grasses after they have produced their inflorescence

• No significant impact of drought on growth of grasses.  Pampas looked to be slightly shorter than last year and zebra grass didn’t flop over as in past years so drought may have had a slight impacted growth.

• Herbs

• Fig tree growth shaded majority of medicinal herb bed causing plants to stretch toward sun and thwarted growth of some.  Will have to adjust plants for next year based on growth of figs.

• Cocoa mulch was used in kitchen garden.  The salvia seemed to react poorly to it so next year we’ll try pea gravel.

• Wedding Garden

• Deer repellant spray was also human repellant but worked well.  Spray when no one is gong to be visiting as the smell is repulsive!

• We lost a few lavender plants from either too much gravel mulch at base of plant, sun issues from trees or poor drainage/planting. 

• Native Serviceberry trees bloomed nicely in spring, suffered a bit in drought and contracted lace bugs.  Sprayed with insecticidal soap to deter over wintering of insects.

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