SACANDAGA GARDEN CLUB - By Barbara Henry

The Sunday Leader Herald published an interesting article in early April that was written by Dean Fosdick of the Associated Press. I thought this was well worth sharing with you all and it is entitled 10 common gardening mistakes.

Gardening is a forgiving hobby. You can always right any wrongs next growing season. The best way to prevent problems though, is with good planning. “Designing from the top of your head may work, but things most likely will work better if you write it down and do a simple drawing” said Jack McKinnon, a garden coach from San Francisco. “Think before you plant”. Most gardening failures result from simple things, he said. “like people who don’t fertilize, or if they do, put on to much. The same goes for people who don’t understand watering or add too much. Many tend to do their pruning with power tools and then overdo it”. Here are ten common gardening mistakes and ways to avoid them.

One: neglecting soil preparation. Test plant beds before you begin and again every few years to see if soil conditioners are needed. Add sand or peat moss to compacted, poorly drained ground to improve its
structure and encourage root growth.

 Two: Overplanting. Design with the size of mature plants in mind. Try succession planting in which early, cool-weather crops are harvested before later, less hardy plants reach maturity.

Tree: Flawed feeding. “mulch plants and they’ll be so much happier” said Tia Pinney, adult program coordinator at the Drumlin Farm Wildlife Sanctuary, in Lincoln Ma. “Supplement your soil, don’t just fertilize it”


Four: Improper watering. Too much water can be just as damaging as too little. Do a finger in the ground test to ensure the soil around the roots is most. Vegetables need about an inch and a half of water a week.

Five: Wrong location. Growing conditions change as trees and shrubs mature, creating different shadow patterns. Most plants need six to eight hours of sun a day to develop.

Six: Improper pest control. Don’t kill the good bugs, like pollinators, in an effort to eliminate the bad. “one thing we hear a lot is an attitude of ‘All I have to do is spray and that will cure it” said Mary Ann Ryan, master gardening coordinator with Penn State, Cooperative Extension in Adams County, Pa.

Seven: Faulty maintenance: Don’t set your cultivator (or hoe) too deep, damaging plant roots. Pull some weeds by hand.


Eight: Over pruning. As a rule, don’t remove more than 30 percent of the foliage from shrubs in one cutting. And don’t ‘top’ trees to control their height. ‘That reduces their life span rather than improves their health”, Ryan said.

Nine: Botched planting. Choose the right plant depth. “I know of one property where they put a tree with its root ball on the surface of the ground and then mulched around it up to the level of the trunk”, Ryan said. “People don’t know how to plant”.


Ten: Failing to start over. “Oftentimes, people let diseased things grow that should be pulled out, and it affects the health of the entire crop”, McKinnon said. Start with a small plot so you can correct mistakes more easily, the experts say. And look to your county extension office for support if you run into trouble. Garden coaches also can diagnose problems and suggest remedies, as can master gardeners and landscape designers.

Our next meeting is on Thursday, May 5 when Bonnie Preston will discuss what makes a good design and will talk about how to handle those small and awkward spaces that pop up in our gardens.






As always if you have questions drop us a line at POBox 675, Northville, NY 12134.

SACANDAGA GARDEN CLUB - By Barbara Henry

We had a really interesting meeting in March thanks to Jim Hoffman of Sand Flats Orchard. He talked about how to prevent many of the diseases we have in our gardens right from the start. Choosing the seed is important because many companies are providing seeds that have built in seed resistance. He discussed many aspects of vegetable growing and of course, since Sand Flats is a big orchard, he was able to help us with many questions about fruit trees. We were delighted to have him visit and share his expertise. We are also looking forward to visiting his operation both in spring when the greenhouses open in late April and again in the Fall during apple and pumpkin season. Do check out his website at http://www.sandflatsorchard.com for all their offerings.

We still need patience in the garden at this time of year, most of our area has had at least four feet of snow over our gardens and the soil will take time to warm up. Still you can take advantage of the cool weather to finish up any tree pruning that needs to be done and for using a dormant oil spray on your fruit trees to control insect infestation if you need to. Try to wait for a day above 40 degrees F and spray on a day without wind. Both these chores should be done before the buds start to swell. When the snow has gone – it will won’t it? move the winter mulch back from the crown of the plants and you can also fluff up the mulch which makes it look better and may mean you won’t have to spend money to lay down more mulch this season. As the buds begin to swell on your roses get out your clippers and prune the hybrid teas. Cut just above an outward facing bud so that new canes grow out from the center of the plant. Cut off any dead tissue, any stems less than a pencil width and any branches that cross each other.

Feed your roses with a shovel full of compost or if you prefer a granular feeding of a balanced fertilizer such as a 10-10-10. Check for any perennials that have heaved out over winter and gently push them back into the soil. Start your spring clean up and when you are cutting back your perennials take the material to your compost pile to make black gold for next year. I do compost over winter and I have a bucket that I keep outside my back door.

Unfortunately my neighbor, Chloe, a gorgeous short haired pointer also loves my compost bin and she has a fantastic sense of smell. She and I have words about whose compost it is and why she should not toss it all out of the bucket and she listens to me with her tail wagging a mile a minute and next day comes back and does it all again! So far, she is winning but then again maybe I shouldn’t encourage her with dog biscuits!

If you didn’t add any organic matter to your veggie garden in the Fall then by all means do it now. Depending on the weather and soil temperature you should be able to plant peas from seed around mid month and maybe you will be able to put in some of your cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli seedlings late in the month. Even if you buy your transplants do take the time to make sure they are hardened off before setting them in your garden. Many of the transplants are grown in greenhouses and may not be ready for our harsh climate without being introduced to the cool air a little bit at a time. Take them outside during the day and set them in a sheltered spot for about three hours. Do this for three days and then increase the time they spend outside by a couple of hours a day. Gradually move them into brighter sun until after about 10 days they can spend the whole day outside.

I’ve been hearing more birdsong in the last few weeks; I think some of the birds have started to migrate back to us. Food will be slim for them with all the snow around so keep your feeders filled. They will have nesting in mind so clean out your bird boxes; most birds prefer an empty bird box rather than using some other bird’s nest. Also take your suet feeder, clean it up and fill it full of dryer lint, pet hair, scraps of cloth and any other nest building material you can think of.



As you know Cornell Cooperative Extension moved recently and their new address is 50 East Main Street, Canajoharie, NY 13317. The phone number is 518-673-5525 and the Master Gardeners can be reached at that number.



Our next meeting is on April 7 when we are having a teaching session on flower arranging.



As always if you have questions drop us a line at POBox 675, Northville, NY 12134.

NORTHVILLE GIRL SCOUTS COMMUNITY GARDEN

As you may know a couple of years ago the Girls Scouts started a community garden behind the Bradt Building in Northville. This project came about because the Girl Scouts discovered that the local food pantries were experiencing a significant increase in families needing assistance due to the overall poor economic conditions. After talking with various local groups the girls also discovered that there was a lack of fresh vegetables available and thus the idea of a community garden was born.



The goal is to provide the opportunity for many Girl Scouts and other members of our community, to learn the essential skills of growing food, to provide for people in need, to convert the garden into a ‘sustainable garden’ and to make our community as well as the world a better place.



There are 12 beds with at least two dozen varieties of vegetables which are harvested weekly and delivered to the food pantries. To help make the garden sustainable, the girls also sell the produce at the food markets in Northville.



This year the Girl Scouts are reaching out to the community as a whole and asking for our help. The need is great and during the summer months there is a lot of produce to care for, harvest, wash and deliver every week. If we can get many volunteers to give just two hours a month then our big garden becomes easily manageable. Please come to our open meeting on April 15 at the Methodist Church in Northville at 5:30 p.m. Meet some new friends and even if you don’t know a shoot from a root you will find there are plenty of ways you can help.

SACANDAGA GARDEN CLUB - By Barbara Henry

Oh March when winter is slowly relinquishing its grasp suggesting warm days and sunny skies ahead. I have started quite a few perennial seeds for my garden. Those that take months before they can be put in the garden but now is the time to think about starting vegetable seedlings. I am sure you have had your seeds in a cool dry place over winter, sorted and catalogued so that you know which seeds performed well for you. If so you are better organized than I am! Seeds can be saved from year to year and you can germinate most seeds even if they are some years old.

Corn, onions and leeks, parsley, parsnips and peppers have a good life span of about two years. Beans and peas, the cabbage family, carrots, eggplant, the squash family and tomatoes will hold for about four years and cucumbers, lettuce, melons and spinach can last up to five to six years. If you are in any doubt test the germination percentage before you plant. Take ten seeds from your packet and spread them on a wet paper towel. Put them in a paper bag and leave it at room temperature for up to two weeks. If only one or two seeds germinate then you need to buy more seed but if six or seven germinate then you’re good to go. If you have seeds that didn’t germinate well then sow them more thickly then you would normally to make up the difference.

Our frost free date is around the end of May so if you are thinking about starting seedlings now you need to count back from the frost free date to see when to start your plants. Most seed packets give you good growing information including when to start the seeds in relation to the time to transplant. Tomatoes, for example, need about six to eight weeks of growing before transplanting outside so there is no point in starting them early unless you have very good growing conditions indoors. A small transplant will catch up very quickly to one held inside for 12 weeks so you won’t lose out on your early crop by delaying your seed starting.

Seeds from the cabbage family can be started now because they can be planted out before the frost free date. If they are sufficiently hardened of, they can withstand a light freeze and the plants grow better in the cool, bright days of spring. Parsley, onions and leeks are also good seeds to start now. Remember too, that you don’t need to start a lot of seeds at a time. Think ahead, what are you going to do when you have twenty heads of lettuce ready to pick? Can you really eat 12 heads of cabbage in a week? So plant a few seeds now, and in a couple of weeks start some more. That way you will have plants maturing over the season and your neighbors will thank you for not dumping pounds of said cabbage on their door step in the middle of the night.

As the snow finally melts away and your soil begins to dry out run a hoe over the garden to cut off the early weeds. If you do this every couple of weeks and then use a mulch over your garden during the growing season you will have far fewer weed problems than usual. You will know when the soil is ready to be worked if you pick up a clump of soil and try to crumble it in your hand. If it stays a sold wet mass then leave well alone. You want a clump of soil that separates easily. It’s a good time to get your soil tested too to see if you PH levels are within range.

As we and our pets start to spend more time outdoors remember that ticks are active on warm winter days even when we have snow on the ground. So be sure to check them and yourself when coming inside. Warm water doesn’t kill ticks effectively on your clothes but an hour in a hot clothes dryer will kill them.






Our Garden Club meets on Thursday, March 3 when Jim Hoffman of Sand Flats Orchard will talk to us about understanding the insects and diseases we get in our vegetable garden.


As always if you are interesting in joining us or have a question just drop us a line at POB 675, Northville NY 12134.

SACANDAGA GARDEN CLUB - By Barbara Henry

My house is full of the scent of hyacinths with the bulbs that I bought in September, kept in the garage for 12 weeks and brought out gradually so that during February and March I can enjoy the bulbs while waiting for the weather to warm up until I can go back in the garden. I will let the bulb foliage yellow and then plant them in the garden. They will flower again next year though they won’t be as big. I brought my amaryllis bulbs out of dormancy at the end of December and enjoyed beautiful blooms in late January into February. We have lots of opportunities for flowering plants at this time of year; in addition to the bulbs, the Christmas cactus is probably in its second or third bloom for some of you; kalanchloe is a lovely winter blooming flower, also gloxinias and poinsettias to name just a few. Don’t let the cloudy skies and snow on the ground stop you from having a house full of color at this time of year. I don’t know about you but I need it at this time of year.


There are things you can do for the garden right now: if you didn’t sharpen your tools last year now is a good time to get that chore done. It’s also a good time to organize your tools, perhaps you have too many spades or forks? Donate them to a community garden or set them aside for the village wide garage sale. You can build window boxes ready for the pansies and later for the annuals. Do you have an old window taking up space in your garage? Set it aside so that you can use it as a cold frame in the spring. It’s a great place to put lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower etc to grow on in the sunny but cool days of spring. Pruning and shaping your shrubs now will give you stronger plants and better blooms in the summer. Don’t touch your lilacs or forsythia or other spring blooming shrubs because you can cut off the flower buds for the year. They should be pruned right after bloom, cutting out one fourth of the older wood. Empty your bird feeders and clean them out with a weak solution of bleach. Let them sit for an hour to let the chlorine dissipate before refilling them. This gets rid of any wet seed at the bottom which can grow bacteria – not good for our feathered friends.

Make lists of what you want to grow, both annuals and perennials and work out where you are going to plant your vegetables, remembering that if you can rotate your crops it is much better for the soil since different plants take up different nutrients from the soil.



When you are deciding what perennials to grow in your garden take note of the cold hardiness zones that apply to the plant. This is a really useful reference and can make the difference between a plant you will have for many years and one that gives up after the first winter. The USDA created a map that divides the country into zones with the common denominator being the average minimum coldest temperature we can expect in the winter. They also show heat zones but in our area we don’t have to worry about that!

In our area we range from zones 3a through 4b: 3a is -40F to -35F; zone 3b is 35F to -25F, zone 4a is -30F to -25F and zone 4b is -25F to -20F. I live on the Great Sacandaga so I grow plants that can handle -30F, that’s a big ice cube out there sending cold weather my way. Every garden will have micro climates where you will be able to grow a plant that’s marked for zone 5 and the snow cover that we generally get also protects the plants. I have buddleia bushes that are rated as zone 5 but they survive in my garden because I usually have two feet of snow protecting them. The downside is that when we get a cold winter with no snow cover, then my buddleias will probably give up the ghost.



Our Garden Club will reconvene on Thursday, March 3 when Jim Hoffman of Sand Flats Orchard will talk to us about understanding the insects and diseases we get in our vegetable garden.



As always if you are interesting in joining us or have a question just drop us a line at POB 675, Northville NY 12134.

SACANDAGA GARDEN CLUB - By Barbara Henry

Our Garden club wrapped up the year with two very good meetings. Janice Taylor organized our wreath making workshop in early December where we made wreaths for many of the buildings in Northville and beyond Our members are very talented wreath makers. Doris Guyon led a committee to make baskets for our friends who are shut in at home over the holidays. And a few days later we enjoyed ourselves with a Christmas party which was held in the beautiful upstairs room at the Northville Library and since this more or less coincided with Michael’s birthday, we presented him with a cake and sang Happy Birthday – and we were in tune!


We will meet again in March when we will have a special presentation by Jim Hoffman of Sand Flat Orchards on the diseases and insects we are faced with in our veggie gardens.

Keep an eye on your houseplants at this time of year. You may get some yellowing and dropping of leaves. This is usually caused by too much water or insufficient light so back off on the watering and if you can, move your plant where it will get more light. Remember that the number one cause of dead houseplants is overwatering. You may see some browning of the leaves and this can be a result of low humidity now that our furnaces are cranking away. Grouping plants together can help and also putting plants on a pebble tray with a little water will be beneficial. Don’t let the roots sit in the water. Misting the plants is usually a waste of time. If you mist them and then walk back five minute later the plant and the air around them is dry. Browning leaves on a spider plant is often helped by adding calcium to the soil. When you boil an egg, let the water cool and then use that to water; it will make a difference. You can trim the leaves to improve the appearance of the plant. If you see yellow speckling on leaves, check very carefully for spider mites. These are tiny, tiny creatures that suck the life out of the leaves and you will find them on the underside of the leaf. Sometimes, if the infestation is heavy, you will see spider webbing on the plants. Take any infected plants to the shower and rinse them thoroughly and if need be use an insecticidal spray to cure the problem. A good way to use a spray is to get a large plastic bag and drape it around the plant and then spray into it. Leave the bag on the plant for half an hour or so before discarding.

An old remedy for white spots or rings on furniture left from overwatering your houseplants is to rub salt and a light weight oil into the area. It might take a lot of elbow grease if it is an old or deep stain. Another one people use is to rub the area very lightly with a drop of ammonia in water and then dry off carefully. .

You can also start some seeds at this time of year. If you start pansies now they will be happy and healthy and ready to plant out in March for a burst of spring color along with your spring flowering bulbs. They make a nice early show in containers too. Leeks, parsley, petunias and impatiens are also slow growers that you can start now. But don’t get carried away, remember that our frost free date is mid to late May.



As always if you are interested in joining us or have any gardening questions, you can reach us at POBox 675, Northville, NY 12134.

SACANDAGA GARDEN CLUB - By Barbara Henry

We had a wonderful luncheon at the Old Trail Inn in Hadley in November. The room was so festive and filled with members and guests. We’ll try and get some photos up on the visitsacandaga.com website so you can see how great it looked. The Inn put on a superb buffet and it truly was an event to be remembered. Carol Reutzel and Fran Varcoe and their committee made delightful favors for everyone and the centerpieces for the tables were raffled off at the end of the lunch. Thank you to the Old Trail Inn for making this such a great event and our thanks to Anna Johnson and Fran Varcoe for making it happen.




Our auctioneer, Linda Kessler did a magnificent job and it was a lot of fun to watch the items being bid on. Mary Hogan made a gorgeous quilt which was raffled off and we raised money for our community activities such as maintenance of the Northville Library gardens under the guidance of Margreet Monster and the Blue Star marker which was installed a couple of years ago under Michele Acquaro’s leadership. Many of our members have been involved in a landscaping project around the marker and I hope you have enjoyed it this year and watch for the bulbs to pop up next spring. Janice Taylor is leading our wreath making workshop in December to make wreaths for public buildings in Northville and members will also be making wreaths for their own use. Carol and her committee have also been making Christmas gifts for our friends who are not able to get out so much any more and Ginger Driscoll will be leading the effort to make gifts at Easter time.



We had a spell of really nice weather in mid November and I was able to get my garden tucked up for the winter. I cleaned out everything but the radish and lettuce from the veggie garden and put a two inch layer of chopped leaves on it. After the first few frosts I planted my garlic and they will get a great start in the early spring, they love the short cool, spring days. It’s always better to buy potatoes and garlic starts rather than the supermarket where they may have been treated with a growth inhibiter but I must admit that I plant potatoes I have bought at the market and the same with garlic and mine do just fine. On the perennial beds I planted this year I have also put a two inch layer of leaves down and I have spread 5-10-5 fertilizer. I haven’t cut down all my flower stalks because they add interest in the winter and shelter the small insects. My ornamental grasses are standing tall with their plumes and they will wave at me all winter long through the snow. I have two types of tall grasses, some from Margreet Monster and some from Doris Guyon. Gardeners are wonderful, generous people and I love to have these plants in my garden, they remind me of my friends all year. I have some other smaller grasses and one, Prairie Dropseed, turns a lovely red in the fall. I am growing a few of them in my front garden, the one that used to be lawn and I gave up on the lawn and am growing a cottage/wildflower garden instead. The butterflies, bees and various flying creatures have loved it and I was thrilled to see so many Swallowtail caterpillars on the parsley that I planted for them. Parsley and dill are great host plants.



My Amaryllis bulbs are now in my garage going through dormancy and I will wake them up in late December so I can enjoy the blooms in January – January and February are when I tend to get a bit itchy from the winter so I love to have the amaryllis and hyacinth blooming. I bought the hyacinth bulbs in October and put them in the garage to get a cold treatment for about 12 weeks before bringing them gradually into the light and warmth. I have even put my seeds away for the year. I should have catalogued them but didn’t so what I have will be a nice surprise next year. They are in a cool, dark, dry place for the winter.



If you have new trees you might want to put some chicken wire or hardware cloth around the trunk to protect them from the rabbits and other critters that are looking for a snack in winter. I didn’t think I had rabbits near my garden but the other day I was throwing out some old tires and – whoa, there was a rabbit nicely curled up in one of the old tires. S/he jumped out and ran away to safety. Also watch any new plantings you may have made that are sheltered under the eaves. They will probably need to be watered over winter.



Our next meeting is on December 2 with Janice Taylor leading our workshop on making wreaths. We meet at 10:00 a.m. at the Bradt Building. We also have our Christmas party on December 9 at Noon at the Northville Library.



As always if you are interested in joining us or have any gardening questions, you can reach us at POBox 675, Northville, NY 12134.