IHM Community

Garden Newsletter

May 2016

Ready, set, go!

May is a hectic month for gardeners. It’s the time of

year when planting really starts to take off. Many

gardeners are tending radishes, lettuce, carrots

and other crops they planted in April. And in many

cases are already harvesting some of their earliest

cool season crops. Add to that the main planting

season and that equals a very full schedule.

Mother’s day weekend is always an important

milestone too. It’s the weekend that many plant

suppliers, farmer’s markets and retailers have their

first big plant sales. I’ve had more than a few

gardeners tell me that they bought their plants over

the Mother’s Day weekend and are keeping them

alive in their flats until planting time.

In our area, the 50 percent frost-free date occurs

right around May 15. That means it’s a 50/50

chance that we will, or won’t, get a spring frost. The

50 percent frost-free date is usually the time when

gardeners will plant their tomatoes and other warm

season plants. If you look out in the farm fields as

you’re driving, you’ll see that our local farmers

have already planted many acres of tomatoes.

If you have a space in the IHM Sisters’ Community

Garden, watch for an email that will give the go-

ahead for planting. We’re working on getting the

garden ready as soon as possible for you.

Bob Bob Dluzen

Community Garden Coordinator

Mulches for the IHM Community

Garden

Natural materials-based mulches such as straw, hay,

chopped leaves, etc., are the preferred mulches for

using in the Community Garden. Straw will be

available for purchase again this year.

Lawn clipping are fine if

you know the history of

the grass. Herbicides

applied to grass can

linger in the clippings for

a year or more.

This year, we will allow

plastic sheet mulch for controlling weeds and

reducing water evaporation from the soil.

Many plastic mulches are durable enough to use

more than one year. If you are careful installing,

using and removing the plastic, you’ll be able to

reuse it again next year. In my own garden, I’m

reusing plastic that has seen at least three

gardening seasons.

If you decide to use plastic mulch, please install it

carefully so it can be reused by someone next year.

There are also biodegradable paper mulches on the

market. They begin to break down after eight to 10

weeks in the garden.

Build houses and live in them; and plant

gardens and eat their produce.

- Jeremiah 29:5

Our pear trees

Unfortunately, the two pear trees in

the garden area are infected with a

disease called fire blight. It is caused

by a species of bacterium that infects

pear and apple trees. The most

common route of disease

transmission is through the blossoms. Fire blight

bacteria enter the flowers then work their way

through the rest of the tree. Fire blight can also be

spread through breaks in the bark of branches.

Trees that are heavily fertilized continue to make

new growth later in the season than is normal. As a

result, they are more prone to fire blight infection.

Fire blight symptoms include: dead twigs that bend

down at the tips; fruit that clings to the tree, even

after the branch is dead; discolored, sunken areas

of bark on branches; and dead leaves that have a

fire-scorched appearance (see images below).

Treatment of fire blight is difficult. Cutting the

infected branches several inches below the visibly

infected area is the first line of defense. Another

treatment is spraying an antibiotic next spring

during blossoming time. At this point , neither of

these treatments are practical on our two trees.

Pruning would cut away most of the tree

and antibiotics are only sold to registered

commercial orchardists.

Removal of infected trees is an accepted practice

in both non-organic and organic orchards.

Lake Erie Water Festival, May 26

Our Organic Garden will be participating in the Lake

Erie Festival again this year.

The Lake Erie Water Festival is designed to help

sixth-grade students from Monroe County learn

about our most precious natural resource – clean,

fresh water.

The IHM campus is a

perfect site to teach about

sustainability as students

will have an opportunity to

learn about solar energy,

organic farming and

habitat restoration in a

historic setting. Other

topics include Lake Erie birds, snakes of the Erie

Islands, measuring water quality, the honeybee and

beekeeping, creatures of the marsh, marvelous

macroinvertebrates, western Lake Erie prairie

plants, soil erosion and bio-accumulation in the

Great Lakes.

At our Garden area, the students

will get a chance to see practical

organic methods being used in the

garden. They’ll also learn about the

relationship between Monarch

butterflies and milkweed plants.

We’ll have a work station set up for

the students to make newspaper flower pots in

which to sow milkweed seeds.

The Festival runs from 9:30 a.m. until 2:30 p.m.

““ The real work of planetThe real work of planet--saving will saving will be small, humble, and humbling … be small, humble, and humbling … its jobs will be too many to count, its jobs will be too many to count, too many to report, too many to be too many to report, too many to be

publicly noticed or rewarded, too small publicly noticed or rewarded, too small to make anyone rich or famous.”to make anyone rich or famous.”

~Wendell Berry~Wendell Berry

Shephard’s crook-shaped tips of

branches and scorched looking leaves

Mummified fruit hanging on to the

tree is typical in fire blight.

Marygrove College Fine Arts students’ art exhibit

Marygrove College established the Institute for Arts

Infused Education (IAIE) in 2006. It’s mission is to

improve student success, create innovative

teaching models for core curriculum, and to

promote the integration of the arts into the

core curriculum.

The work of Marygrove College Art Department

students will be showcased at an exhibit in the IHM

Art Gallery May 31-July 6.

An artists’ reception is planned for June 1, 6-7:30 p.m. at the IHM Gallery. Dessert will be served.

Bedding plants donation for our

flower garden

Each year the flower garden

volunteers donate many,

many hours of their time to

tend the perennial garden

throughout the season.

Annual flowers always make

a garden more cheerful by

adding splashes of color.

If you would like to donate a

flat or more of annuals, contact the Community

Garden coordinator’s office.

Considering a gift to the IHM

Community Garden?

Donations are always

appreciated and tax-deductible.

Your contribution will go toward

local educational programs on

gardening, healthy eating and

lifestyle, environment

protection, conservation and

other programs that are part of our mission to do

God’s work by making our community a better

place to live. They may also be used to purchase

equipment, tools and to maintain garden facilities.

As a friend of IHM Community Garden, together,

we can work to expand and provide gardening

space to even more families in our area who

otherwise would not have the opportunity

to garden.

Please make your check payable to: St. Mary

Organic Farm

Thank you for your consideration.

Growing degree days

Garden plants need a certain amount of heat to

grow and develop. Generally speaking, the lower

the temperature, the slower the plant growth. The

particular temperature varies by plant species.

For example, cabbages will grow and thrive at

lower temperature than peppers. Plants also

have a high temperature threshold where they

will stop growing.

Unlike birds and mammals, insects are not able

to regulate their body temperature. Their growth

rate and development is also dependent upon

ambient temperature.

Agricultural researchers and meteorologists have

studied this and have come up with a way of

recording heat accumulation using a method called

Growing Degree Days (GDD or DD). By tracking

these accumulated heat units, scientists have

figured out how much heat is needed to bring a

plant or insect to a certain stage of development.

This is much more accurate than using the

calendar to predict when a pest will arrive. As a

result farmers – and gardeners – are better able to

plan for harvest and pest control.

From Pope Francis’ Encyclical

Laudato Si’

… Each community can take from the bounty

of the earth whatever it needs for sustenance,

but it also has the duty to protect the earth

and to ensure its fruitfulness for coming

generations. “The earth is the Lord’s” (Ps 24:1);

to him belongs “the earth with all that is within

it” (Dt 10:14). Thus God rejects every claim to

absolute ownership: “The land shall not be sold

in perpetuity, for the land is mine; for you are

strangers and sojourners with me.”

(Lev 25:23). [#67]

Garden space available

There are still a few garden

spaces available this season. For

more information contact the IHM Sisters’

Community Garden coordinator at

rdluzen@ihmsisters.org or 734-240-9720.

Bloom (cutin) is a naturally occurring powdery-white coating that protects grapes from

moisture loss and decay.

The garden area was rotary tilled on May 9.

Grapevines are pruned by Rob Peven

New growth on grapevine

Food for thought … from the IHM

Justice, Peace and Sustainability

Office

The farmworker-led Coalition of Immokalee

Workers (CIW) has launched a national boycott

of Wendy’s in response to the fast food

company’s decision to reject the Fair Food

Program; a worker-designed, proven human

rights program that is preventing violence,

wage theft, sexual assault and slavery in the

Florida tomato industry and beyond. As news

breaks that Wendy’s has moved its tomato

purchases from Florida to a supplier in Mexico,

where slavery was uncovered in 2013,

farmworkers and consumers around the

country are responding to express their deep

dismay. Go to www.allianceforfairfood.org to

read more.

110 years ago in the garden

Tomato cages have been around for a long time.

Pictured on right is an advertisement from the May

1906 issue of The Garden Magazine. These extra

sturdy supports were priced at $1.75 per dozen in

1906. That works out to be about $3.88 each in

today’s money.

In the March 1906 issue of The Garden Magazine

was an article describing a 15x30 foot vegetable

garden, which is about the size of our 15x25 foot

plots. In that garden, during the 1905 gardening

season, the author raised $12.55 worth of

vegetables. After 110 years of inflation, that would

be about $355 today.

Below is a sketch of his garden plan:

Garden yields

Knowing how much to plant can be a problem,

especially for beginning gardeners. Here’s a guide

that can help you. These are estimates, but at least

it will give you an idea of what to expect.

List of common vegetable yields.

Phases of the moon in May

New Moon - May 6

First Quarter - May 13

Full Moon - May 21

Last Quarter - May 29

May Record Temperatures

1884-present

May Normal Temperatures

1884-present

Scientifically speaking, tomatoes are a

fruit.

One medium tomato provides 40 percent of the recommended daily amount of

vitamin C!

There are at least 10,000 known varieties of tomatoes, from small cherry ones to large Ponderosa, which can weigh more

than three pounds.

May sunrise/sunset

May twilight