a farm
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Joyce Bapp ‘‘■“/jl^jjj
-And other
hazards
When it comes to being
cheerful-looking, few things can
beat the sunflower.
Over the years, plant breeders
have developed mammoth sun
flowers that stretch eight feet tall,
grow heads a foot across, and
in our garden, anyway act like
radar beams for every finch in the
neighborhood.
Hybridists have also bred sun
flowers in the more-decorative
direction, which develop a much
more bushy style of lots of small
er, cutting-type flowers. We’ll list
that as a possible experiment on
next year’s list already started of
“garden - ’94.”
Then there are sunflowers that
just do their own thing. Thanks to
the messy eating habits of our
birdfeeder regulars, volunteer sun
flower plants pop up in all sorts of
interesting spots around the farm
the garden, the flower beds, the
road bank, the middle of the dirt
lane to the meadow.
This year’s Sunflower Volun
teer of the Year award goes to a
determined little seed that some
how wedged itself into a tiny
crack between the concrete-block
outside wall of the dairy bam and
the asphalt pavement that runs
against the edge of the wall at the
front entrance. How it ever got
there is a mystery, though some
bird may have poked it in the
crack for storage.
Not only did it germinate there,
this feisty plant has grown a slen
der stem about 18 inches tall,
which does a sort of curve out
toward the sunlight from the shade
of the barn wall. And then it
opened a three-inch flower head
with a row of single, brilliant yel
low petals around the outside of
the small seed-producing center.
It just looks like a bright-yellow
Smiley Face growing outside the
dairy bam. I may take to watering
■BBBBBOBBBBBBBB
it because its cheerful sunniness in
such an unlikely spot is such an
“upper.”
Ten feet or so away, in the
flower border, a small army of
plant volunteers were comman
deered several weeks ago and
marched into a row along the bor
der way on the opposite side of the
lawn. Though I haven’t started
calendula seed for several years,
bright yellow and orange descen
dants of the originals reseed each
season.
This year’s crop of calendula
volunteers was a bumper one; I
transplanted nearly 80 seedlings to
edge the rose bed. A soaking rain
for a few days set’em off on a
growth spurt and nearly every see
dling “took.” Though there was no
way to tell which were yellow and
which were orange, random plant
ing spaced the colors fairly well.
Now full, bushy and covered with
continuous blooms, the bright
“accidental” border is as colorful
than any I’ve ever purposely
planned.
Sometimes even, the planned
plantings turn into surprises.
Though I’ve not grown lima
beans for about 10 years, it
seemed a good way to utilize a
spare, empty row left when most
of the vegetable garden had been
planted. Stopping by a local gar
den center, I picked up a pack of
the only variety of lima bean seed
had on hand. Fordhood 242
sounded like a winner when I
looked it up in the Burpee catalog,
a heavy yielder, bush lima.
“Are these what I think they
are?” I asked The Farmer recently,
pointing out the lima beans, unex
pected growth pattern. His conclu
sion agreed with mine about the
long, vining tendrils these bean
plants were sending out.
Pole lima beans were not on the
planned garden agenda. Then I
remembered the metal fence
stakes and recycled plastic net
wrap from hay bales that our son
had erected in the garden last year
for the climbing Sugar Snap peas.
Central Region Fashion
(Conllnued from Pag* B 2)
and sharpening decision-making,
and testing their knowledge of
equipment and notions.” She said,
“The most important knowledge is
how to purchase things,” adding
“what it is made from determines
how you will take care of it.”
Jesse Kocglcr, 14, from Centre
Hall, Centre Co., was the only
male winner with his flannel-lin
ed, oversized, drawstring jacket.
Made from dockclolh and cordu
gon. /dais at the Altoona Ramada Inn’s large meeting room is the group
of junior winners in the central-region 4-H Fashion Revue. Eleven counties of the 17,
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Those posts were stored,only a
few feet from the garden, and two
lengths of net wrap which had dis
couraged the robins from stealing
all our strawberries were currently
unused. With The Farmer’s help
g MILK. IT DOES A BODY GOOD.
ItaaM MIDDLE ATLANTIC MILK MARKETING ASSOCIATION, INC.
nour, Bedford, Co.; Doris Krum
enacker, Blair Co., the rcgisiralion
chairman; Melissa Zimmerman,
extension summer assistant in Elk
Co.; Beth Van Horn, Centre Co.,
assistant to the regional director
and chairman of the judging com
mittee, and Sandy Hall, Centre
Co.; Norma Lash, Fulton Co.; De
bra Gregory, Huntingdon Co.;
Jane Bcightol, Mifflin Co., tally
chairman and Jane Mecum, Perry
to pound in the stakes, the pole
Ipna trellis was in place in just a
few minutes.
If you planted pole limas that
aren’t, guess where your seed got
t 0....
roy, with big patch pockets, the
jacket was of level 7 construction.
Koeglcr said that last year he
couldn’t go to states because he
was a junior. He very much want
ed a chance to go to the state fash
ion revue. Koeglcr says he plans
to become a corporate lawyer one
day.
Besides Kieffer and Covert,
other extension agents working to
make the central 4-H Fashion Re
vue a success were Janice Stoud-
JgL/ 7 CLOSED SUNDAYS, NEW YEAR,
' EASTER MONDAY, ASCENSION DAY,
WHY MONDAY, OCT. 11, THANKSGIVING,
FHIiniMIIE CHRISTMAS A DECEMBER 26TH.
FISHER’S FURNITURE, INC.
NEW AND USED FURNITURE
USED COAL A WOOD HEATERS
COUNTRY FURNITURE A ANTIQUES
BUS. HRS: BOX 57
MON.-THURS. AS 1129 GEORGETOWN RO.
FRI. 8-8, SAT. 8-12 BART, PA 17503