Author Archives: Patsy Bell

Try these seed or plants in the late season or second season garden.

What to Plant – Aromatic herb seeds that have enough time to grow are: dill, chervil, cilantro, arugula.

Late season vegetables include: Bulbing Fennel, Kale, Pak Choi, Beets, Bush beans, Lettuce or Mesclun Mixes, Spinach and Carrots. Later sown carrots will mature in fall and become sweeter when they are touched by the first frost. And, one of my fall favorites: turnips.

When to Plant – Bill McKelvey from the Department of Rural Sociology and Program associate with the Community Food Systems and Sustainable Agriculture Program gives this example: Let’s say you would like to grow green beans in the fall. Green beans take approximately 60 days to mature and are relatively sensitive to frost. This means that to ensure an adequate harvest, you would need to plant your green beans at least 60 days before the average first frost date for your area. In mid-Missouri, October 15 is the average first frost date. So, by counting back 60 days from October 15, you would arrive at August 15. To provide a measure of comfort, you might decide to plant your green beans a little earlier, say around August 1.

“In addition to producing great-tasting food”, McKelvey said “fall gardening extends the growing season, provides extra leisurely time in the garden and helps us to better appreciate our place within nature.”

One of my fall favorites: turnips.

Turnip seeds should be planted ¼-½ inch deep and thinned when plants have 3-4 true leaves. Crusting soils will limit seedling emergence and affect plant stands.

Turnips do not compete well with weeds. So, it is easier for me to keep the turnip patch weeded if I plant in rows in stead of broadcast the seeds. High summer temperatures reduce growth, decrease quality, and cause a bitter flavor to develop if plants are not watered properly. This bitterness is why turnips are not a popular vegetable.

Don’t judge a vegetable by your grocery store purchases. The smaller, less pithy turnips that have been well watered, grow fast and are not bitter. Really.

Turnips tolerate light frosts. Gradually thin the seedlings to 4 inches apart, and wait until a light frost sweetens the leaves before eating them. They can be harvested any time after they reach 2″ in diameter. The pride of uncle Will’s garden are giant vegetables. He grows turnips that are as big as a soccer ball. I prefer base ball sized turnips, and will not buy turnips that are bigger than a softball. Those 2″ diameter turnips can be cleaned and coked whole like new potatoes.

As Ruth Stout, the celebrated proponent of no-till mulch gardening put it, “If you plant a good turnip seed properly a turnip is what you will get every single time.”

Turnip greens – Turnip tops are nutritious and often eaten as cooked greens. Certain cultivars – such as ‘Shogoin’ – are grown exclusively for greens. Other cultivars provide both greens and roots, such as ‘Purple Top,’ ‘White Globe,’ ‘Just Right’ and ‘Tokyo’. Turnip greens are rich in vitamins A and C, as well as folic acid. Pick them and eat the greens when they are small, say, about the size of your hand. Again, you may say you hate turnip greens, only because you have been subjected to those huge, hairy, bitter leaves sold at supermarkets. Fix greens the same way you prepare spinach, or mix turnip greens with spinach in any recipe.

Try small, fresh from the garden turnip greens and turnips. You may change your mind about this vegetable that has fed mankind since prehistoric times.

July 26, 1948
“Turnip Day” Session

President Harry Truman was desperate. With fewer than four months remaining before election day, his public approval rating stood at only 36 percent. Two years earlier, Congress had come under Republican control for the first time in a quarter century. His opponent, New York Governor Thomas Dewey, seemed already to be planning his own move to the White House. In search of a bold political gesture, the president turned to the provision in the Constitution that allows the president “on extraordinary occasions” to convene one or both Houses of Congress.

On 27 occasions, presidents have called both houses into extraordinary session to deal with urgent matters of war and economic crisis. The most recent of these extraordinary sessions convened in July 1948.

On July 15, several weeks after the Republican-controlled Congress had adjourned for the year leaving much business unfinished, Truman took the unprecedented step of using his presidential nomination acceptance speech to call both houses back into session. He delivered that speech under particularly trying circumstances. Without air conditioning, delegates sweltered in the Philadelphia convention hall’s oven-like atmosphere. By the time the president finally stepped before the cameras in this first televised Democratic convention, organizers had lost all hope of controlling the schedule.

At 1:45 in the morning, speaking only from an outline, Truman quickly electrified the soggy delegates. In announcing the special session, he challenged the Republican majority to live up to the pledges of their own recently concluded convention to pass laws to ensure civil rights, extend Social Security coverage, and establish a national health-care program. “They can do this job in 15 days, if they want to do it.” he challenged. That two-week session would begin on “what we in Missouri call ‘Turnip Day,'” taken from the old Missouri saying, “On the twenty-fifth of July, sow your turnips, wet or dry.”

Republican senators reacted scornfully. To Michigan’s Arthur Vandenberg, it sounded like “a last hysterical gasp of an expiring administration.” Yet, Vandenberg and other senior Senate Republicans urged action on a few measures to solidify certain vital voting blocs. “No!” exclaimed Republican Policy Committee chairman Robert Taft of Ohio. “We’re not going to give that fellow anything.” Charging Truman with abuse of a presidential prerogative, Taft blocked all legislative action during the futile session. By doing this, Taft amplified Truman’s case against the “Do-nothing Eightieth Congress” and contributed to his astounding November come-from-behind victory.
Reference Items:
Hamby, Alonzo L. Man of the People: A Life of Harry S. Truman. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

I am going to the moon!
Finally, I’m going to the moon. Ever since President Kennedy issued the challenge for America to go to the moon, I’ve been ready to go. I am in going 2020 aboard the LRO spacecraft.

Sign up to send your name to the moon. Names will be collected and placed on board the LRO spacecraft for its historic mission bringing NASA back to the moon. You will also receive a certificate showcasing your support of the mission.

The deadline is July 25, 2008 for the submission of names.

LRO’s objectives are to find safe landing sites, locate potential resources, characterize the radiation environment, and demonstrate new technology.

Two Moon flowers, Ipomoea alba
In the mean time, enjoy these lovely moon flowers. A member of the morning glory family, this plant is where the phase, “may be invasive” originated. But, it is a beautiful flower. The white flowers are pollinated by night flying moths. So, stay up late or get up early to view moon flowers in full bloom.

Cloudy, rainy days can fool these flowers into staying open during the day, sometimes. Once the sun comes out, the flowers are gone.

The huge flower is gorgeous and fragrant, the plants can grow twenty feet in one season then suddenly die at the first frost. Golf ball sized seed pods are sharp thorny pods with as many as 100 seeds. Plants will easily reseed in southern gardens.

Several plants are called moon flowers. Mature seeds from some plants have been associated with hallucinations when ingested. The plants associated with moon flower seed ingestion appear to be one of two species, Datura inoxia or Ipomoea muricata. Symptoms such as increased heart rate, agitation, confusion, dilated pupils, dry mouth, and urinary retention have been reported. The seeds are contained in pods that can contain 100 or more seeds.

The giant flowers grow about 7 inches across on thick green vines with heart shaped leaves, 4 to 6 inches across.

Good News and Bad News. I’ve been gardening every chance I get in May. Lots of rain in SE Missouri has made the grass grow, but the ground is too wet for the weight of the mower.

This spring, I’m gardening smarter. I’m not going to garden the way I always have and grow what I’ve always grown. There are a couple of garden products that are making my gardening chores a lot easier this spring and will mean less work throughout the summer.

About a third of all gardeners will use the Internet to research plant or product information this season. I am one of the one in ten consumers who uses the Internet to purchase plant, seed and garden supplies. I like shopping on the Internet. New and rare perennials are delivered to my home from the reputable growers whom I’ve been doing business for years. An added bonus is that I don’t have to load and haul these products home in the car.

I start annuals and vegetables from seed or buy plants at the local farmers market and my favorite local garden center. It is not too late to plant tomato plants, by the way.

You may remember that I really like container gardening. Here is how I am preparing my plants and containers for the summer. First, I am not filling the bottom of the pot with heavy rocks or broken clay pot shards. I am using a product called Better Than Rocks in the bottom of containers. Rocks, empty plastic containers, packing peanuts, broken clay pot pieces – are a hassle compared to the simplicity of Better than Rocks. This product is a non-woven plastic mesh made from 100% recycled plastic. It allows optimal drainage throughout the growing season and the planter is significantly lighter. Line the bottom of containers with light weight Better than Rocks, roots that require the space will grow down through the mesh. The result is healthier plants and lighter planters.

This is the spring that several large tropical plants need repotting. After picking through the roots, rocks and pot shards at the bottom of the plants, I immediately appreciated the Better Than Rocks cushy mesh that will not clog the drainage holes in pots, keeps the soil from washing out and is easy to hose off and reuse when you repot in a couple of years.
Right now, this new product is available in our area only by internet. http://www.betterthanrocks.com/

The folks that developed those famous super easy Jobe’s plant food spikes have another product that makes growing plants in hanging baskets even easier. I’m also using Jobe’s Crystals in my containers and hanging baskets. Add the crystals into the potting soil as you plant to reduce watering and fertilizing chores all summer. I especially like the water retaining crystals in hanging baskets, because our brutal summers can sap the water out of a small hanging basket in a day. You can buy the Jobe’s Crystals at most any garden center. These little crystals feed plants all summer. Each crystal absorbs up to 400 times its own weight in water and is infused with essential nutrients.

While some folks drag their feet at these garden innovations, Jules is happy to see them. My gardening supplies are delivered to the front door by a big brown truck. Damp potting soil and plants never see the trunk or back seat of Jules’ spotless Lexus. Since I’m not dragging out garden hoses on a daily basis, Jules will be cutting up a lot fewer of them with his new ZTR (zero turning radius) lawnmower. Now, when he cuts the grass, or the garden hoses, he can do it a lot faster and with more precision.

We are safe. Many of the small towns surrounding Cape Girardeau are under water. Schools have been canceled in many areas. Folks have been killed trying to cross the flood waters. Some people have lost everything.

Fortunately, last year we added a metal roof and new guttering to our home. My rain barrels are overflowing. We are high and dry. The schools are closed and some streets are flooded. Just as in Katrina New Orleans, the media photographs the worst, most graphic portions of a disaster.
There are people in surrounding communities that are flooded and have lost everything. I worked to help folks in the flood of ’93. Flood water and the damage is a nasty, depressing clean up. I thank god I am safe and dry.

So, we are fine for now. As a gardener, I want it to get into the garden and plant stuff, but it will be a week after the rain stops before I can do that.

The rain has stopped and the water in town is going down. Very noticeable from yesterday.

Record Breaking Rain

On March 18, 2008, at the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport, 11.48″ of rain fell. It is the heaviest one day rainfall total for Cape Girardeau.

The previous record was 6.73″ on March 27, 1977.