Tales from the Garden: Orange Thing

So while poking around my garden searching for a already established good low groundcover to fill the garden paths of my large garden beds, I contemplated the woodland/Indian strawberry (edible, but no flavor, best for the birds) that's taken over the main shrubbery/azalea bed (which I'm fine w/ because that means no mulching, woohoo!)

I started pulling up some that was invading a pebbly portion  of a path adjacent to this bed when I noticed this:

Thereupon I flipped out and screaming in my head, "WHAT THE HECK?!" and many frightening things such as strawberry blight or rust or whatnot flitted through my brain.

ALL of the woodland strawberry runners that I pulled had this weird orange-y spotted stuff on it, as did a lot of the stuff at the edge of the bed I was pulling from too.

Off to Google I went and my racing heart was able to slow down after I have concluded that all is well. Well, mostly.

(

(another closeup of the horror)

What I think my woodland strawberry has here is some orange slime mold.  Innocuous from what I have been reading unless the slime mold decides to totally smother the plants, but as I have so many I am not worried.  The slime mold probably cropped up due to the wet weather we've had as of late and has been partying right beneath my nose.

I'll keep an eye on it and see if it makes any moves I don't like, but for now, it's some additional color to the garden?

This slime mold scare made me rethink my idea of using the woodland strawberry as a good path groundcover (it's invasiveness is frightening and I shuddered if my husband was to mow over it and it were to get into the big compost pile we chuck our grass clipping into).

So, I've pulled up a bunch of the oregano I allowed to spread as ground cover underneath some other bushes  and have placed them in the garden paths.  I'm hoping that they'll spread nicely and I'll get a good oregano scent when I stomp around on it in the garden and supposedly oregano oil keeps the mosquitoes away (HOPE).  Either way, probably more pleasant than the strawberry in the long run.   In addition, I had some straggling roman chamomile and stomped it down into the path as well in hopes that I'll get some green apple-y scented goodness too this spring/summer AND also popped some pennyroyal that was running around in the back of the beds in hope that the sun sheltered area will allow them to flourish.

May there be scented deliciousness this summer by my garden beds!
 

Gardening, gardening, diddly dee. So much to learn....

I admittedly have been sort of lazy around the garden these past couple of weeks lately, not wanting to fuddle around there because of all the rain, bugs and having gotten myself caught up in a million things. Which is a pity as I like how productive I feel getting up early, walking the dog and then nearly first thing I do is check out the garden and make sure all is right in it at the morning and finding that it's still well before noon is when I feel it's a good start to the day.

I hadn't felt like that until today morning when I severely pruned back some hedges (hate 'em but they're part of the "bones" of the property and then I don't have to plant other things there). Massive prunage occurred as some branches were way out and wonky, preventing light from getting to the branches below and I also noticed that the bushes were afflicted by soft pink scale, also called strawberry scale, which took out one of the otto luyken's in my backyard last year. So, neem spraying will probably have to occur.

(thanks, www.yale.com)

I have a problem of neglecting the inedible plants at the house (unless their the groundcover ones that prevent me from having to mulch):
(love it! strawberry begonia, golden turkey vine, shade sedum and creeping jenny mix)

because I figure if they can't make it, they weren't meant to be there and if I have to put forth all this effort for something I can't eat or isn't that cool then I sort of don't care for the plant.

Example, I think my irises in the front are being affected by iris rot either the bacterial or fungal kind. The bacterial one, Erwinia carotovora, can be caused by iris borers that attach the base of the rhizome and the bacteria enter into it causing a soft nasty smell rot. This is a bacteria that is common to decomposition as compared to the fungal rot which is major problem apparently and is a dry rot officially called Sclerotium crown rot (so rotten it has 'rot' in its Latin name!), caused by Sclerotium rolfsii. The dry rot is actually brown and crumbly looking in the rhizomes and I don't think I've been messing with that because if it is there supposedly I need to do some major quarantining. (http://hyg.ipm.illinois.edu/pastpest/200507b.html)

More things I learned! How to identify ragweed:
http://www.minnesotawildflowers.info/

I planted a lot of marigolds last year and scattered their seeds around too, so if you were to see this plant, without say, the flowers in this picture... you would think it was a marigold too right???? Other than the fact too that these plants get giant, about as tall as 4 feet, which tips me off that no, it's not a marigold. Wheee... This may explain some sneezing here.

And the fun doesn't stop here!!!! Because of the rain (I've been saying that phrase so much lately) I tossed around baking soda on my damp plants, versus making a baking soda solution to spray on the plants to prevent/treat fungus because I figured it would become a solution when the baking soda landed on the damp plants, why make them more wet?

Yeah, I totally burned my tomato and bean plants... but I think the tomatoes will make it. The beans could go for a second sowing anyways I noticed, so no huge loss. So, if you ever are tempted as I was to do something incredibly stupid like that, don't.

On a happier note, I has a harvest!

The butternut squash vine was showing signs of kicking it from borer damage, so I put it out of its misery and pulled it and kept the small squash fruits. ah well. I plan to make that area a flower garden of sorts to attract pollinators as I will be moving some black eyed susans there in the fall once they have gone to seed as well as some clearance gallon salvia's from Lowe's (about a buck apiece! Go get!)

I figure at this point, the vegetable garden is mostly established, and now I need to work on making it look goooood. Other than this guy:
(Ugly siamese Brandywine tomato says hi)