The inaugural day of September brought with it some lovely rainfall; nothing pelting, just a gentle watering. Even with this rain, most of Southern New Hampshire is still considered abnormally dry, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. The rainfall is most welcome at my house, though I will still be keeping an eye on watering–especially in areas of the lawn that have been newly seeded. If you are doing any turf seeding or renovation, remember to keep that soil moist until your seed has germinated. If the seed dries out, it will die. That being said, it’s still the ideal time to plant grass and clover! Get on it while the getting’s good, as it will set you up better for the spring.
In the garden, the harvesting continues. We are making tomato sauce now–already enjoyed with spaghetti and sausage–such a treat! We’re also in the midst of making jams and jellies (with a little help from our local farmers and my generous aunt). So far, it’s been beach plum grape jelly, and our most coveted: raspberry jam! The kitchen air is heavy with the smell of crushed raspberries, and I adore it.
A quick note on our tomato plants: blight has continued to proliferate and has become quite obvious on some plants. As I mentioned, we’re still harvesting, but I expect plants with such infections to slow down in production quite soon. If your plants are also suffering from blight, once you have finished harvest for the year and are pulling out the plants, throw the infected plants away or destroy them. Do not put them in your compost pile as it can spread into your valuable soil amendment. Also, be sure to pick up any fallen leaves or fruit out of the garden bed and throw them out.
Moving on to some very unfortunate news, the invasive Spotted Lantern Fly has finally landed in New Hampshire. The Concord Monitor confirmed this story last week, indicating that their numbers are still small. These pests can do huge damage to plant life for the agricultural industry, as well as the home gardener. Please be on the lookout for the Spotted Lantern Fly, and report any sighting to NHBugs. For more information on the Spotted Lantern Fly, please visit the UMASS Extension Service’s reference page.
This news, though long expected, has me quite worried, but I’m going to table it for now and move on to what’s blooming in the flower garden. In happier news, I found two monarch caterpillars munching away on the milkweed (ascelpias tuberosa) that I started from seed. And! I’ve seen a couple of monarch butterflies gliding around the yard–one even sampled some nectar from my okra’s flowers! My strawflowers and celosia are still in bloom. I’ve been deadheading the strawflower to encourage more buds. Finally, my New York asters are starting to blossom, as are my sedums (a favorite Fall flower of mine that pollinators just love).
Some final notes on this week’s report: we’ve had a number of inquiries at Nashua Farmers’ about Fall garlic. It hasn’t arrived yet because growers are still processing their harvests, but we expect to have five varieties of hardneck garlic; typically they arrive the last week of September/beginning of October. I recommend waiting to plant until at least mid-October. You can download our Nashua Farmers’ planting instructions here. Lastly, if you are hoping to plant tulips, daffodils, hyacinth, or other Fall flower bulbs, Mid-October or later is also the time to plant. We have shipments of bulbs on the way to the store, but if you need a great planting guide, download my aunt’s step-by-step instructions here.
Until next week, take a stroll through the garden and see if you can spy any monarch caterpillars!
Kate Ratta is the manager of the local feed store Nashua Farmers' Exchange, Inc. She has more than 10 years of experience working in the business owned by her aunt and uncle, Judy Ratta-Harrington and Gene Harrington, and will be contributing weekly garden reports. The store is located at 38½ Bridge Street in Nashua in the converted Boston & Maine and Concord Railroad stati
