Last year was the first year we saw the cottony psyllid insect, which is infecting the leaves of black ash (Fall Gold Ash). This year this insect is even more prevalent, especially on drought-stressed trees. In the spring the young psyllids, which resemble aphids, hatch and suck sap from the new leaves which shrivel and discolor. They produce a white, cottony material as protection. If not controlled, they can severely weaken the tree.

Insecticidal soap is an organic control that will kill the cottony psyllid on contact. Malathion insecticide, also a contact killer, is an effective chemical control. There are a couple of systemic insecticides which make the plant poisonous to the insect and also kill on contact. Bayer Tree and Shrub Insect Control (active ingredient:Imidacloprid) is a systemic insecticide that is mixed with water and poured under the tree so the roots take it up. The systemic insecticide spray, acephate, once called Isotox, also works on the cottony psyllid.

An abundance of aphids emerged earlier than usual this year, right after the warm spell we had in May, even on plants that don’t normally get aphids. Aphids are small (1/16”) soft-bodied insects that cause new leaves on a plant to yellow, curl and distort. They reproduce quickly and weaken the plant by sucking its juices, excrete a sticky “honeydew”, and can spread viruses. The controls for aphids are much the same as for the cottony psyllid above but do not use acephate systemic insecticides on any plant with edible parts or fruit. Environmentally friendly lady bugs can be released to eat aphids.

Spider mites continue to be a problem during our hot summers, especially on junipers, arborvitae, spruce, potentilla, and raspberries. This tiny insect sucks the sap from the needles or leaves of the plant, giving them a dull appearance. To detect the almost microscopic spider mites, look for grayish, pale needles, small webs, or shake a branch over a piece of white paper and look closely for movement of the tiny mites. Malathion or isotox spray should eliminate spider mites. More than one application may be necessary.

Scale is a large group of insects that harm many ornamental plants. Hard (armored) scale on the branches looks like brown bumps. Soft pine needle scale looks like small white specks on the needles. A severe infestation of scale can kill the branch. The dense branches of cotoneaster hedges are a place we see scale. If your hedge is severely infected, you might need to cut it down to the ground, destroy the infected branches, and let it grow back. Because of the waxy covering surrounding them, contact insecticides do not kill scale. Dormant oil spray is effective in early spring before the tree leafs out to smother the scales. Or use a systemic insecticide.

If you have spent any time in our national forests recently, you may have seen the spruce budworm outbreak on Douglas fir. Budworms, really not a worm but a caterpillar, will also eat the new needles of spruce in your yard. While still in the caterpillar stage, they can be killed with BT (Bacillus thuringiensis), a specific bacterial spray toxic to caterpillars but not other insects. Spruce budworm is often confused with white pine weevil, which kills the leaders of spruce in this area. They are different insects.

Tent caterpillars, which eat the leaves of our trees, are back this year. Pick the tents off and destroy them when the caterpillars are still contained. BT works on tent caterpillars, also.

Other insects which damage trees in this area include the aspen borer, bronze birch borer, and leaf miners. The last couple of years, windblown poplar budgall mites have damaged Canadian poplars. Harmful fungi such as Verticillium wilt, cedar apple rust, black knot, and black spot, can cause tree problems, some severe.

Fireblight is a serious bacterial disease that primarily strikes apples, but also can afflict mountain ash, cotoneaster, pears, and hawthorn. Prune out infected branches and plant varieties resistant to fireblight. Pseudomonas is another bacterial blight that produces similar symptoms in lilacs. Prune it out and allow adequate space between plants for air circulation.

Soil deficiencies can be the cause of tree problems. In this part of Montana, we see yellowing of leaves between the veins of mountain ash, plums, shrub roses, ginnala maples and even aspens because of iron deficiency (iron chlorosis). The plants are unable to absorb enough iron and other trace elements from our alkaline soils. Either acidify your soil or add chelated iron. If your soil has an extremely high pH, do not plant hydrangea, mountain ash, or other plants that need acid soil.

Too much TLC – by overwatering or overfertiziling – could be the cause of trees’ problems. The symptoms of overwatering often mimic those of underwatering—small, yellow leaves that wilt or drop. Roots can become waterlogged when trees are planted within a sprinkler system in heavy clay soils. Even wetter conditions are created when the tree is surrounded by weed barrier fabric and mulch. Be observant and use common sense when watering trees and shrubs in your yard. After a deep watering, let the roots dry out so air can reach them. Probe the soil to check moisture levels. You may need to reset your sprinkler system and/or remove the fabric.

Most of the time, trees should get all the nutrients they need from your soil. We advise against fertilizing young trees because of the danger of overdoing it. If you choose to use fertilizer spikes on your trees in the spring, they should be pounded into the ground at least 2 feet from the trunk of the tree. Never use more than the recommended dosage, and never fertilize trees after July 1.

Some tree maladies have been around for years, some are new to our area. Some need treatments, some are just cosmetic. Regardless, remember: insects and diseases prey on weak trees. Your best defense against insects and diseases is to keep your trees healthy.

Related Information:

• Tree Trouble in Town
• What You Need to Know About the Mountain Pine Beetle

Zucchini Bucks

How they work: From July 29 through August 20, Cashman Nursery will give you one Zucchini Buck for every $10 you spend. Then, on August 21, during our Zucchini Festival, you can redeem them here for plants or any items in the store.

FREE SEMINARS!

Watch for seminars on grasses, flowers, and cooking with zucchini.

CONTESTS

Bring your entries in by 11:00 A.M.

BIGGEST ZUCCHINI

• 1st Prize $100 Gift Certificate
• 2nd Prize Felco #2 Pruner
• 3rd Prize Gardening Book

BEST RECIPE CATEGORY

• 1st Prize $100 Gift Certificate
• 2nd Prize Pretty Pottery
• 3rd Prize 6″ Perennial Flower

CHILDREN’S ACTIVITIES

10:30-12:30 • ART • PRIZES • BOHOHO THE CLOWN

BEST DECORATED ZUCCHINI

For ages 4 – 14 years • Enter by 11:00 A.M.

• 1st Prize Gift Basket containing a t shirt, gloves, seeds, and gardening tools
• 2nd Prize Zucchini T-shirt
• 3rd Prize Children’s Gardening Gloves

2009 Zucchini Festival Photos

Click any photo to see an enlarged version

There are many reasons to conserve water in your landscape. It makes sense not to waste a precious resource. And financially, it saves money, especially if you are paying for city water.

Some ways to save water in your landscape

1. Reduce the size of your irrigated lawn area or plant grass which needs less water. The commonly used Kentucky bluegrass needs about 1 ½” of water a week to stay green. „Water Saver‟, a blend of tall fescue grasses, stays green with less water and still looks like a traditional lawn. Some people choose to plant native grasses which can survive with little or no irrigation after they are established; these bunch grasses do not look like a traditional bluegrass lawn.

   If water rationing or water limitations force you to water your bluegrass lawn less in the heat of the summer, the grass will not die, but will go dormant until spring or a time when it again gets enough water.

2. Group plants with similar water requirements in beds so they can be watered together rather than scattering them. Plant those requiring the most water together near the house. Farthest from the house could be your „no water‟ zone. Plant natives and drought tolerant species there.
3. Build retaining walls rather than planting on slopes where the water will run off.
4. Improve your soil for the best water retention and plant health. Much of our soil in this area is clay. Because the small particles in clay soils hold a great deal of water, poor drainage results and the roots are deprived of oxygen. Generously incorporate organic matter (compost, well-rotted manure, or peatmoss) into your soil to improve soil consistency and drainage.
5. Keep areas around trees and shrubs weed and grass free. Clean cultivation in a ring around trees and in shrub beds allows water to be used by the trees and shrubs, not by weeds and grass.
6. Mulch shrub and perennial beds with 2 to 4 inches of bark chips, cedar mulch, or fine bark dust; mulch holds moisture in the ground and keeps the soil cool. Homeowners often want low-maintenance landscape fabric or underlayment to totally block weeds from growing in their mulched beds, but this can create a too-wet environment for the roots of trees and shrubs. Organic mulches without an underlayment of landscape fabric or poly let the roots breath but cut down on evaporation.
7. Irrigate smartly. Drip systems or soaker hoses allow for less evaporation than overhead sprinklers for watering trees, shrubs, and gardens. Water deeply when you water; make sure the water soaks down to the root system. Let your hose trickle onto the roots of trees until they are deeply moistened. Apply at least ½ “ of moisture to your lawn during each sprinkling. For most people, that means longer sets for each zone of your sprinkler system, but less often. Water during the early morning when there will be less evaporation. Of course, when we do receive rain, turn your sprinkler system off until it is needed again.
8. Choose plants which are native or which require less water. Many beautiful landscape plants are drought tolerant.

Trees

Green ash, one of the best shade trees for this area, survive with little water after they are established. The only oak known to thrive here, Burr oak, is drought tolerant. Boxelder, although not a prized landscape tree, is a good hardy shade tree for dry areas. We can‟t forget Russian Olive, an extremely drought tolerant tree with attractive gray-green leaves. And chokecherries including the decorative red leafed Canada red cherry don‟t need a lot of water either.

Other trees that survive without a lot of water once established include Ohio buckeye, amur maple, and even quaking aspen and cottonwoods.

Evergreens

Many of the evergreens we commonly use in our landscapes are drought tolerant. Ponderosa pines and junipers come to mind right away. But Scotch pine, Colorado spruce, Black Hills spruce, and limber pine all will grow without a lot of water.

Shrubs

We all know that the native potentilla, buffaloberry, yucca, and sagebrush are drought tolerant. But other attractive ornamental shrubs such as honeysuckle, sumacs, lilacs, and, of course, caragana will survive with minimum water.

Perennials and Ground Covers

Your perennial beds can also be filled with drought tolerant plants. The native yarrows flourish in low water areas. Dianthus, lamb‟s ear, purple coneflower, hens and chicks, and Russian sage don‟t like much water. You have probably seen blue flax blooming along the roadsides with no irrigation. And the native baby‟s breath is all over vacant lots in the Butte area. Ground covers such as sedum and snow-in-summer thrive in hot, dry areas. Although some of the ornamental grasses can be planted in boggy areas, others such as blue fescue and blue oat grass are very drought tolerant. Many herbs, such as lavender, thrive in drier conditions.
Whether you plant a yard with yucca, sagebrush and native grasses, or just choose drought tolerant plants in certain areas of your yard, you can conserve water by choosing the right plant for the right place.

Greens

Plant successive crops of lettuce, spinach, and other greens, starting early in the spring, to extend their season. Harvest greens before they go to seed for mildest flavor. Wash and dry them well and refrigerate in a closed container to crisp.

Peas and Beans

Harvest peas and beans when they are young and tender. Freeze peas or beans by washing them, blanch in boiling water, cool in ice water, and freeze in freezer bags or plastic containers.

Sweet Corn

Old-timers say they don’t pick their sweet corn until their cooking water is boiling for the sweetest flavor. But newer varieties of ‘sugar enhanced’ corn are sweeter, even after storage. To preserve corn, I blanch the cobs, cool in ice water, and cut kernels off, then freeze it. To us, corn frozen on the cob doesn’t taste as good as fresh corn-on-the-cob.

Tomatoes

Indeterminate tomatoes (vining tomatoes that continue to grow) should be pruned when the plants get too big, to put the plant’s energy into ripening the green tomatoes before frost. Store tomatoes at room temperature for the best flavor. In the fall, when we are tired of covering our tomato plants every time a frost is forecast, we pull the whole plant and hang it in a cool place. The tomatoes will continue to ripen. For use in soups or stews all winter, I simply wash the tomatoes, cut out the stem end and any imperfections, plop them into freezer bags, and freeze.

Root Crops

Carrots are ready to harvest when they turn orange. Barb Paugh told me she always digs her carrots at World Series time, but before the ground freezes. If you have quit watering your garden, give the carrots a good soaking a day or two before you harvest them. There is more than one method to storing carrots from your garden. I have talked to gardeners who store them in a barrel of sand in a cool place. I think it’s easier to wash them, cut off the green tops (I don’t cut into the meat of the carrot.), and lay them out to dry. Then, I store them in plastic bags with holes—mesh bags would probably work, too—in my refrigerator drawer. They keep for months this way.

Red potatoes mature earlier than white potatoes. You can dig potatoes when the tops cease growing and turn brown and the skins are brown and thickening. Don’t wash potatoes; brush them off and store them in a refrigerator drawer or root cellar where air can circulate around them.

You can thin your onions by pulling the smaller ones and using them for green onions. The rest are ready to harvest when the tops tip over. Sweet onions, such as Visalia and Walla Wallas, do not store for long. Others can be stored in a mesh bag in a cool place or braid the tops and hang.

The same procedure is used to harvest and store garlic as for onions. Wait till the tops tip over and the leaves are withered to harvest garlic, but don’t wait too long. Do not wash garlic; dry before storing.

Brassicas

Pull the leaves over heads of cauliflower as they ripen to keep the heads from yellowing. Don’t let it get overripe or it will discolor. Keep the outer leaves on to store cauliflower heads in your refrigerator.

Don’t pick broccoli, or any other fruits or vegetables, for that matter, in the heat of the day. Early morning is better. Harvest the middle bunch of broccoli first, before the flower buds open, so side shoots will develop. Blanch broccoli before freezing. You may freeze the flowerets on a cookie sheet to retain their shape and then move them to a freezer bag.

Late maturing cabbage keeps best. Heads can be harvested at any size. Store cabbage in the refrigerator.

Brussels sprouts mature late in the fall, so be patient. They can be frozen or the whole stem can be pulled and hung in a cool place.

Squash

Zucchini and other summer squashes should be harvested when they are 6 to 8”. Pick them often and you will increase your yields. If they get too big before you get around to picking them, use them for zucchini bread or cake. (Or enter them in Cashman Nursery’s Zucchini Festival contest for the biggest zucchini!) Summer squash doesn’t store very long.

Harvest winter squash and pumpkins after the vines die. The flavor of squash is improved after a light frost. The rind should be hard and a deep solid color. If the temperature is going to fall below 25 degrees, pick them or cover them. Store in a cool, dry place.

Herbs

Harvest herbs before they flower for a milder flavor. I hang herbs with string or rubber bands in my cool, dry basement. Or you can use a dehydrator. Annual herbs can be dug up, potted, and brought inside for use during the winter.

Fruits

Pick only the sweetest, dark red, ripe raspberries and strawberries. You can tell if they are ripe if they pull off the plant easily. I wash strawberries, but not raspberries. If you want to maintain their shape, freeze the berries on a cookie sheet first, and then transfer them to plastic bags with or without sugar.

Wait until pie cherries are very dark red for the greatest sweetness. I wash them, pit them, and freeze in plastic bags—each enough for one pie, with the sugar added. Sugar acts as a preservative. (Our meteor pie cherries need a lot of sugar.) Open up a small paper clip for a handy cherry pitter!

Our prune-type Mount Royal plums mature later than other plums—around October 1. They make wonderful fruit leather without adding any sugar—or we just pit them and dry in our dehydrator.

Apples ripen from mid-August to mid-October here, depending on the variety. Taste your apples to tell if they are ripe. The seeds should be dark brown. If outside temperatures are going to drop below 25 degrees, you may have to pick your apples, even if they are not ripe, to keep the fruit from freezing. The later in the season an apple ripens, the longer it will store. We store ours in our cool root cellar with good air circulation around them. Long-time customers Jan and Bob Remer use their not-so-perfect apples to make applesauce. They don’t peel them, but quarter them, cut out the stem, cook them till they’re soft, put them through a sieve, and freeze the sauce in plastic freezer containers. They don’t even add sugar!

There may be other methods to preserve your produce which will work well. Whatever method of preserving your garden vegetables and fruits you prefer, use only freshly picked, ripe, but not overripe, flawless produce. And enjoy this healthy, delicious food all winter long!

Although we don’t know for sure what happened to these trees, we blame it on last fall’s weather.  In late September, 2009, we had 5 days in a row over 80 degrees, some of them over 90.  Then, in October it turned bitter cold, down to 9 degrees on October 12, setting a record low.  The ground froze quickly, leaving acres of potatoes frozen in the ground and unusable in the Churchill area.  Similar weather conditions occurred in 1983, with similar potato and tree damage, mostly of green ash trees.   Because of the fast temperature drop in October, the trees were not “hardened off” gradually, as they would be most years.  The leaves didn’t go through the normal process of changing color to yellow and orange and reds, but turned brown and hung on the branches.

This tree loss is frustrating because many of the damaged trees were reaching mature sizes with trunks from 3 to 6 inches in diameter.  It is also frustrating that green ash was the tree that was injured the most.  Why were green ash hurt so badly when it has always been touted as one of our hardiest shade trees, tolerant of cold, drought and alkaline soils?  When asked this question, Gary Strobel, doctor of plant pathology, said it is difficult to answer because we are dealing with complex biochemistry and plant physiology, dictated by the environmental factors.

So, there are no simple answers to how we can keep this from happening again, but here are a few suggestions:

1. Don’t give up on your trees too soon. If the branches or buds show any life at all, there still might be a chance they will leaf out and survive.  The telling factor will be if they are strong enough to make it through next winter.
2. After the 1983 tree injury in Bozeman, Orville McCarver, long-time MSU extension horticulturalist, suggested that the trees hurt the worst were overwatered in the late summer and fall.  Starting in July, to prepare trees for dormancy, (harden off), decrease watering.  This is not always easy to do if your trees are planted in a lawn area where you want the grass to stay green into September.   If possible, plant shade trees on the perimeter of your yard where they are not under your sprinkler system.  Or, at least, decrease the amount and frequency of water to your grass in mid to late summer.  Grass does not need as much water in late summer and fall when the nights are cooler and the days shorter.
3. To discourage late summer growth, don’t fertilize trees after July 1.
4. Planting only native trees is not the answer; even some quaking aspens around our area show damage this spring.  New varieties of trees are not always the answer either.   Newly introduced trees are not necessarily bred for their winter hardiness, but for other desirable characteristics like denseness, shape, or leaf color, therefore, the new selection may not be as winter hardy as the original tree.  But, the green ash cultivar called ‘Prairie Spire’, discovered in Rugby, North Dakota, appears to be a hardier green ash than the Patmore.  And, we recently heard about a new, disease resistant elm, called ‘Lewis and Clark’, discovered in cold, windy, Cooperstown, North Dakota.  When it is released to the public, ‘Lewis and Clark’ elm hopefully will prove to be a hardy shade tree for our area.
5. City foresters know the danger of planting too many of one type of tree; 40 to 50 years ago, Dutch elm disease almost wiped out the most common shade tree in the Midwest, the American elm.  For a uniform look along its streets, many subdivisions in Belgrade and Bozeman required Patmore green ash to be planted on homeowners’ boulevards.  No one could predict that so many of these trees, some of them mature, would be injured or killed.

So the answer is to plant a diversity of trees, to prevent death of one kind tree from a specific disease, insect, or bad winter.  Depending on where you live, chose from elms, lindens, honeylocust, maples, oaks, cottonless cottonwoods, mountain ash, or Ohio buckeye, and don’t discount hardy green ash selections like ‘Prairie Spire’, for a variety of beautiful shade trees in your yard

A friend and customer came in our nursery yesterday and announced, “I need some color!”  This last winter was long and snowy.  Spring has been cold and rainy, and slow in arriving.  We’re all sick of the white, brown, and gray tones of winter and ready for color—blue sky, green grass, and colorful flowers!

The colors we use, whether in our landscape design, our home’s interior, clothing, or a painting, create a mood.  Warm, bright colors—red, yellow, orange—advance and are cheerful.  Blues and lavenders recede and are restful.   In our summer landscapes, the green of grass and leaves becomes our background color.  We then add other colors with flowering bulbs, annual and perennial flowers, ornamental grasses, vines, trees and shrubs with flowers and colorful leaves and twigs, and evergreens.

Flowering bulbs like tulips and daffodils, available in many colors, provide first color in the spring, but must be planted in the fall.  Don’t forget, next September or October, to plant some colorful bulbs.

It’s easy to create your favorite color scheme with annual flowers that come in a rainbow of colors and bloom all summer.  But, many gardeners are planting perennials instead of annual flowers so they won’t have to replant every year.  This makes sense, but, since most perennial flowers bloom for only a few weeks, plan for perennials that bloom at different times throughout the summer.  Tuck a few colorful annuals like zinnias or petunias into your perennial bed for added color.

May and June are the glory months for colorful, flowering trees and shrubs.  Starting with the pale pink blossoms of the plum family, we move into the stunning flowering crabapples with blossoms from white to pink to almost red in late May.  Then, come the lilacs.  Lilac varieties can give you fragrant blooms for over a month, starting with the early and common lilacs and ending with white Japanese tree lilacs, which bloom here in late June or early July.  Some lilacs have pink (Montaigne) or blue (President Grevy) flowers.  Finally, colorful shrub roses start blooming in June and many continue to bloom all summer.  One favorite is hardy, cherry-pink Winnipeg Parks Rose.

Plants with gold, red, or variegated leaves can add spark to your landscape.  Heuchera (Coral Bells) is a favorite perennial for shade, with leaves ranging from golden yellow to variegated to chocolate brown.  There is a even new bleeding heart with golden leaves.  Succulent, sun-loving sedums, both short and tall varieties, have leaves in colors from gold to gray-green to red.  Some ornamental grasses have golden, variegated, deep red, or bluish leaves.

‘Darts Gold’ ninebark is a popular shrub with yellow leaves; taller ‘Diablo’ ninebark’s leaves are reddish-purple.  One of our best selling trees is Canada red cherry.  Gardeners like this small, hardy tree for its deep burgundy leaves that contrast with green grass; it also has fragrant white flowers in the spring and red chokecherries in the fall.  Many flowering crabs have colorful leaves; radiant crabapple has green leaves tinged with bronze; thunderchild has deep purple leaves.  The bright orange berries of mountain ash are showy in late summer.

Maples and burning bush are only two of the many plants whose leaves become a blaze of color in the fall.  Plants like Autumn brilliance serviceberry, which has white flowers in the spring, followed by showy, purplish-black fruit, and brilliant red-orange fall leaves, provide three seasons of color.   ‘Miss Kim’ is the only lilac whose leaves turn burgundy-red in the fall.  Winter landscapes would be pretty drab without evergreens, so don’t forget them in your landscape planning.  The steel blue of globe blue spruce makes a statement in a shrub bed, summer and winter.

The color of your pottery, or the color of your house, even the color of the mulch you are using, all are part of your landscape’s color scheme.  Terra cotta containers provide a neutral background for flowers.  But be daring and plant a cobalt blue container with contrasting orange flowers!  (Mix in a few blue flowers to echo the color of the container.)  Or paint a shed door or Adirondack chairs bright red, yellow, or blue.   Natural, neutral wood mulches, like shredded cedar and soil pep (ground up bark), blend into the landscape.   Pinkish scoria rock or dark red lava rock mulches can provide colorful accents.

For continuity, repeat colors throughout your landscape and flower beds.  Mix and layer plants with colorful flowers, leaves, and fruit for color in your yard year round!

We enjoy all the vegetables in our garden, but we especially love the sweet corn and tomatoes we grow.  In August we gorge ourselves on BLT’s with sweet corn, a meal we eat every day we can when the corn and tomatoes are ripe.  Those who live in Iowa might say we don’t have the climate for either corn or tomatoes, but most of us Montana gardeners know we can grow these warm season crops here.

There are a few tricks to successfully grow sweet corn and tomatoes in our climate.   First, plant early varieties.  Plant 60 to 70 day sweet corn. Tomatoes are most likely to ripen if they are less than 70 days to maturity.

Sweet corn varieties can be confusing.  In the past, early sweet corn hybrids like Earlivee and Early Sunglow were all we had to choose from.   Today, more tender sweet corn hybrids have been developed that retain their sugar for a longer time after they are picked.   There are several sugar enhanced (se) hybrids that ripen early and do not have to be isolated like the supersweet (sh2) varieties.  We have grown and enjoyed Kandy Kwik (68 days) and the bicolor, Quickie (64 days).   Trinity bicolor (68 days), Precocious (66 days) are other sugar enhanced corns with cool soil vigor.  ‘Cool soil vigor’ is an important trait to look for in sweet corn seed for our area.  If you want to save your corn seed for next year, you’ll need to plant an open-pollinated variety like Golden Bantam.  Open-pollinated sweet corn will need to be isolated or it will cross with other varieties.

In the past, gardeners here planted mainly Early Girl and Fantastic tomatoes.  Today, there are many tomato varieties-cherry, grape, paste, small, large, yellow, orange, new and improved that are early and sweet.  Tomato plants fall into two general categories: determinate plants which quit growing, then the fruit ripens all once, and indeterminate plants which keep growing, need support, and pinching back in mid-summer so the fruits set instead of growing more vines.  In our informal taste tests on tomatoes, the cherry types were usually chosen as the sweetest; the yellow cherry Sunsugar was as sweet as candy.  Small, potato-leaf Stupice from Czechoslovakia, and medium-sized Celebrity did well in our taste tests.  Small Northern Delight and large Park’s Whopper have produced well in our garden.

Sweet corn and tomatoes should be planted into warm soils—at least 60 to 65 degrees.  In our garden,  we wait till the end of May to direct sow sweet corn and set out tomato plants.   Experience will tell you when your soils have warmed enough to plant corn and tomatoes—or invest in a soil thermometer.  Remember to pinch off the lower leaves of your tomato plants and plant them deeply—new roots will form on the buried stem.

John Austin, from the Gallatin Gardeners Club, an extraordinary gardener who has produced ripe  tomatoes here in early July, warms the ground where he is going to plant his tomatoes by digging the hole for them and laying down red mulch film.  When he is ready to plant, he cuts a hole in the film for the tomato plant.  This red film also reflects far-red light wavelengths up into your tomato to stimulate growth, and helps control weeds and keeps the soil from drying out.

‘Walls-o-Waters’ extend the season on tomatoes. These green tubes of water protect your tomatoes from frost and provide a greenhouse effect for the new plants.  (We use a small tomato cage inside the Wall-o-Water to support it.)  The water in the tubes warms up during the day and continues to warm your tomato plants at night.  The directions recommend setting them up in your garden about a week before you plant, to warm your soil.    You can leave the Walls-o-water on all summer but we usually take ours off in late June.

Sweet corn and tomatoes need different fertilizers.  Sweet corn needs nitrogen.  When I switched from a well-balanced fertilizer to one higher in nitrogen, my corn did better.  Tomato plants, on the other hand, grow many leaves and little fruit if your fertilizer is too high in nitrogen.  For tomatoes, use a fertilizer which has less nitrogen and more phosphorus.

Tomatoes can develop ‘blossom end rot,’ a disease where the blossom end of the tomato turns black and leathery because the roots are not taking up enough water and calcium.  A sudden period of drought can cause blossom end rot.   Watering evenly is important—don’t let your plants get too dry.  And, wait to plant your tomatoes till the soils have warmed so the root systems develop properly.   Also, be careful not to damage the root system by cultivating too close to it.  Some varieties of tomatoes are more susceptible than others to blossom end rot.

If you think a meal of BLT’s made with fresh tomatoes along with home-grown sweet corn sounds good, plant sweet corn and tomatoes and enjoy the fruits of your labor next August.

For new vegetable gardeners or those who need to know what varieties grow best here, I’ve compiled some recommendations and planting dates:

Early May

Once your soil is tilled, around May 1, you can plant greens like spinach, chard, and lettuce. Plant spinach early so it will ripen early and not ‘bolt’ in hot weather. Try the spinach variety Bloomsdale Longstanding; it has been used for years with good success. Tyee spinach, which resists bolting, is recommended by Don Mathre from the Gallatin Gardeners Club. Most any of the leaf lettuces and greens will do well and mature here but some head lettuces need a longer growing season than we have. Buttercrunch lettuce has ripened into small but delicious heads in our garden. Or try Ithaca, a 70-day head lettuce.

Short season radishes and peas can be planted early in late April or early May. Green Arrow shelling pea is an old favorite in Northern climates because of its heavy yield, good flavor, and long pods. Sugar Ann snap peas have an edible pod with excellent flavor. Oregon Giant and Oregon Sugar Pod are good snow peas to use in stir fry. Plant your onions in early May, too, so they are ready to harvest in time to stir fry with the snow peas. (Add some mushrooms you buy at the grocery store–yum).

Mid-May

Mid-May, is the time to plant potatoes in your garden. Purchase only local seed potatoes because the seed-potato growers in Churchill and Manhattan want to keep any potato diseases from entering the valley. Potato varieties raised locally include Norland, an early red , Norkotah, an improved white potato, and Yukon Gold, a potato with yellow flesh popularized by gourmets. Carrots and beets can be direct-seeded in mid-May. I had great luck with Scarlet Nantes carrots last summer, but many other varieties of carrots will grow just as well. Try Detroit Red or Early Wonder beets.

Greenhouse-grown transplants in the nutritious brassica group of vegetables which includes broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, and cabbage, should be planted in the middle of May. Brassicas prefer cooler temperatures and have some frost tolerance. Try Green Goliath broccoli, bred for extended harvest and Snow Crown cauliflower which has large, pure white heads. You might have the best luck with the earlier varieties of cabbage such as Stonehead.

Direct sow zucchini seeds and summer squash, beans, and sweet corn around Memorial Day. Black Beauty zucchini is a standard, but all summer squash are easy to grow. Children might enjoy the interesting shapes and colors of various summer squash like Crookneck or Flying Saucer.

We switched from growing bush beans to pole beans once we discovered how easy it was to pick them when they are up off the ground. Blue Lake and Topcrop are two types of beans that have been grown in area gardens for years. Slenderette is an improved Blue Lake bean that is less stringy. We like Roma and Romano beans which have a flat pod that is tasty and freezes well.

Fresh sweet corn from the garden can’t be beat. Those who live south of town or at a higher elevation than Bozeman might have trouble ripening their corn and should plant only the earliest varieties. Make sure your soils have warmed up before you plant sweet corn. We plant 4 or 5 varieties with a succession of ripening times so we are eating ripe corn for over a month. We still recommend Earlivee sweet corn, a reliable 60-day hybrid, but make sure you pick Earlivee right before you are going to cook it; the sugar in the kernels will turn to starch if the corn is stored for any length of time.

Some of the new hybrids, called sugar-enhanced, have improved sweetness, tenderness, and keeping quality. A few of the sugar-enhanced varieties ripen early enough for our climate. Fleet, a new bicolor, sugar-enhanced corn is sweet and tender. Fleet ripened as early as any sweet corn in our garden. Precocious corn was also sweet and early, about a week later than the Fleet and Earlivee.

Late May to Early June

Wait to plant tomato, pepper, and other frost-tender vegetable starts until the danger of frost is past—or use the handy Wall-of-Water protectors which give these plants a boost in our cold spring weather. Nancy, our greenhouse grower, did some tomato taste tests last summer and found Glacier, Northern Delight, and Fireworks varieties were the favorites of our staff. Many of our customers who grew Park’s Whopper tomato commented on how big and sweet it was. Northern Gardener magazine listed Juliet, a newer grape tomato, as the best in trials at the University of Minnesota.

If you want a more colorful vegetable garden, interplant edible flowers such as pansies, nasturtium, sunflowers, calendula, or batchelor buttons. Then, use them on your plate as a garnish. Marigolds or fragrant herbs planted next to vegetables will detract insects and pests.

More Information

To learn more about vegetable gardening, consider joining the Gallatin Gardener’s Club, where the members share their vegetable gardening expertise at every meeting.

Good luck and enjoy!

The ball and burlap method of digging trees, often abbreviated B&B, is most often used for trees whose trunk diameter is over 2”. The larger the tree, the more difficult it is to transplant; the B&B method does not expose the roots to the air and keeps the root system intact. Evergreens are often balled and burlapped; their roots should not be exposed when transplanting because evergreens do not go into full dormancy like deciduous trees who drop their leaves do.

During the dormant season, trees to be balled and burlapped are dug by hand or with a tree spade and the root ball is placed in a cone-shaped wire basket lined with burlap. The burlap is secured at the top and tied with twine around the trunk of the tree. When planting balled and burlapped trees, we recommend leaving the wire basket on the root ball to keep it from falling apart. Keep the top of the root ball at ground level. Don’t dig your hole too deep—the heavy ball might sink in the loose soil. Remove any twine from around the trunk and pull back or cut off the burlap from the top of the root ball.

A relatively new method of raising large trees is called “pot-in-a-pot”. Big plastic pots are sunk into the ground; another pot fits snugly inside where the tree is planted. The soil around the pots insulates the roots in the winter and cools them in the summer. Trees growing in these pots can be lifted and sold at any time of the year, not just when the tree is dormant, because no roots have to be cut. The inside pot is simply lifted out.

Many nurseries grow junipers, dwarf evergreens, roses, and shrubs in containers, starting from a small seedling or cutting. Because the pots sit above ground, this method works well in the cool, damp, ideal growing climates of the west coasts of Oregon and Washington. In harsher, colder climates, pots must be protected by mulch or covered in the winter so the roots of the plants in containers are not damaged. Container grown plants are easy to plant; they slide right out of the pot. Transplant shock is less because no roots are cut, although they can become root-bound if grown in the pot too long. Break up or loosen roots that are bound or circling before you plant them. Containerized plants grown in a light soil mix can dry out quickly after transplanting, especially in the heat and low humidity of our summers. Check soil moisture level daily until the plants are established in their new site.

Many of the deciduous trees and shrubs you purchase at garden centers have been dug out of the growers’ rows bare root in the fall after they go dormant, stored in refrigerated buildings all winter where they are sorted, graded, and bundled, and then shipped to garden centers in the spring. Because there is no dirt on the roots, bare root plants are light and easy to handle but the roots must be kept cool, but not freezing, and never allowed to dry out.

Most garden centers sell strawberry, raspberry, and hedge plants bare root. Some nurseries have large spaces of refrigerated, humidified storage space that allows them to hold quantities of bare root deciduous trees and shrubs dormant until they are purchased by the customer in the spring or planted into pots for later sale. Because it easier to raise, dig, and transport large quantities of bare root plants, they are less expensive than balled and burlapped or container grown. Bare root plants are light and can be bundled for easy transport, even in the trunk of a car. The roots of bare root plants should be wrapped with damp material so they don’t dry out when transporting. It is important that these bare root plants be planted soon after leaving the cool, humid storage. Letting the roots dry out could harm the plants.

Most garden centers sell strawberry, raspberry, and hedge plants bare root. Some nurseries have large spaces of refrigerated, humidified storage space that allows them to hold quantities of bare root deciduous trees and shrubs dormant until they are purchased by the customer in the spring or planted into pots for later sale. Because it easier to raise, dig, and transport large quantities of bare root plants, they are less expensive than balled and burlapped or container grown. Bare root plants are light and can be bundled for easy transport, even in the trunk of a car. The roots of bare root plants should be wrapped with damp material so they don’t dry out when transporting. It is important that these bare root plants be planted soon after leaving the cool, humid storage. Letting the roots dry out could harm the plants.

Because bare root plants need to start growing, the bare root planting season ends at the beginning of June. During the summer months, potted plants can be purchased. Care should be taken when planting potted trees and shrubs to keep dirt on the roots and not expose root hairs to the air. Cut the pots and peal them off once the plant has been placed in its hole.

Potted, bare root, container grown, or balled and burlapped plants—you can have success planting any of these if you use the correct planting methods.