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Curated News

Connecticut Garden Journal: Ground Cherries | Connecticut Public Radio

Here's an excerpt:

“Some vegetables are just fun. We've been growing ground cherries for years. This tomato-family vegetable looks like a mini version of a tomatillo. It's a sprawling 2-foot tall plant that produces an abundance of green turning to brown papery husks. Inside the husk is the fun part. Small, cherry-sized fruits mature from green to golden. Unwrap the husk, harvest, and snack on the fruits. They taste like a cross between a tomato and pineapple. They are sweet and delicious and something kids really love."

Last week was one of Turmoil in my Garden.

We decided to put new windows and siding on the house.

Then we decided to enjoy the ravages of a hailstorm, which dumped ping-pong-ball-sized hail on the garden for about five minutes - the entire storm lasted 30 minutes.

I always remind new gardeners that we never garden alone. We garden in partnership with Mother Nature, and in this partnership, Mother Nature still has her way. Sometimes we may feel like we've won, but I think it's similar to the first time you play Go Fish or some other game with your child; they think they've won.

In any case, I am using this as an opportunity to address some crowding in my garden beds. In some places, everything is just gone, and I suppose I could see it as an early start on fall cleanup.

The one thing I'm grateful for is the replacement of this large 14 x 20 'Arbor on the side of our house. I had started growing several rows of it over the years, and then settled on golden hops during my hops phase.

Over the past few years, I've come to realize that I'm not a fan of hops. The vines are aggressive and sticky, and the sap can be irritating to the skin. And I wasn't a massive fan of the color.

My student gardeners will help me cover the area with landscape fabric to prevent it from coming back, and then I think a climbing hydrangea would be lovely.

Botanical History On This Day

1775 Karl Franz Anton Ritter von Schreibers, director of Vienna’s Natural History Museum who grew the herbarium (founded 1807) and later saw his library and home destroyed in the 1848 revolution.

1794 Elias Magnus Fries, the Swedish mycologist who devised the first major system for classifying fungi and worked happily at his science to life’s end.

1796 John Torrey, pioneering American botanist of New York’s flora, keeper of a meticulous bloom “Calendarian,” and namesake of Colorado’s Torreys Peak.

1845 Walter Crane, illustrator of A Floral Fantasy in an Old English Garden (1899), a beloved, flower-peopled tale with 46 enchanting plates.

1914 Robert Earl Bickelhaupt, who with his wife Frances built Iowa’s Bickelhaupt Arboretum—now 2,000+ taxa strong and famed for its conifers—recently tested by the August 10 derecho.

Unearthed Words

It’s National Relaxation Day—let Tennyson’s water music do the soothing. “The Brook” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Grow That Garden Library™

Read The Daily Gardener review of It’s the Little Things by Susanna Salk

Buy the book on Amazon: It’s the Little Things by Susanna Salk

Today's Botanic Spark

1871 Sir Arthur George Tansley, founder of New Phytologist and the botanist who gave us the word “ecosystem,” urging us to see gardens as interlocking wholes.

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And remember: For a happy, healthy life, garden every day.