Plant Talk

Last Chance for Free Sweet Pea Seeds from Renee's Garden

This is the last week of the sweet pea seed giveaway, and the perfect time to plant. We've teamed up with Renee's Garden Seeds in a contest you can't lose. Just send a comment telling us what's new in your garden this year. What's your latest garden enthusiasm/inspiration/plant?? After all, right now is when we're not only planning, but working to create our 2013 gardens...tell us about what's new, large or small, in your garden this spring, and Renee will send you some free sweet pea seeds. Comment here on the blog, include your name and address, and sweet pea seeds will be in the mail to you...

You have peace of mind with Renee's Seeds, for the company works hard to find sustainable and organic growers that produce high-quality, high germinating seeds. Renee buys from growers she knows and trusts in the  USA, Holland, Italy, England, France, Germany, Hungary, Canada, Mexico, Chile, Thailand, Japan, China and New Zealand.  "All our seeds are carefully trialed and evaluated in our test gardens in different climate zones," says Renee. And check out Renee's delicious recipes here.

New offerings from Renee's Garden this spring include these beautiful organic Chioggia beets -

 

Crispy 'Jade Gem' lettuce sized to grow in pots or windowboxes...

And these showy heirloom 'Royalty Purple Pod' bush beans, as beautiful in the dish as in the garden..

Share your newest garden inspiration/plant/idea/plan with us, and you'll be planting sweet peas in time for June bloom....I look forward to hearing from you....

Vee Garden Kickstarter - Help Fund Del Webber's Ingenious Edible Gardening System

Artist and dedicated food gardener Del Webber calls his Vee Garden "the greenest garden system ever." His Kirkland garden, where he produces a truly astounding amount of food, certainly supports that claim.  Del has nurtured this idea of self-sustaining, recycled pots, he's ready to start manufacturing them...and he needs your help.

Del's kickstarter program "Dances With Vegetables" runs through December 21. Learn more about this elegant system on his website  Vee-Garden.com; view Del's persuasively beautiful video and help fund the future of high-productive vegetable gardening here.

Here's how Del explains his quest: "Four years ago, the Vee Garden Project started as a public sculpture installation. I wanted to initiate a discussion about FOOD.  I wanted to engage the viewer to examine their relationship with food; to reflect on its history and its future; to consider the role of food in the urban environment and in their lifestyle, health, economy, community, and culture. What is likely to change about our food system with the shifting forces of population, climate, science, and geopolitics? Can we, as individuals, still have a place to participate in the food system, or have we surrendered all of our power?

During the exhibition, I had two frequently asked questions:

• “Why hasn’t somebody done this before?”
  and
• “Where can I get one of these gardens?” 

These questions became the launching point for the Vee Garden system."

Read my Seattle Times story about Del's garden here - it's such an impressively productive garden, where Del uses every inch of space, including his garage roof, to grow herbs, fruit and vegetables in 3-D pots...the plants are healthy and the potted system he's created is so clever...welll, take a look...

 

Beyond Carrots and Corn - How About an Early-Ripening Fig and a Petite Eggplant?

If the daffodils are pushing up out of the ground and the grocery stores are selling primroses, it must be time to start thinking about new plants....our acquisitive instincts rise with the sap...and no wonder with all the tempting new plants introduced every spring.

In late winter I have the welcome chore of sorting through hundreds of fresh, new kinds of plants for a series of columns in Pacific Northwest magazine. I try to figure out which ones might be worth growing - are they especially fragrant, dwarf, more variegated, bloom earlier or later, stay compact, or more likely to ripen in our cool summers? All these questions come into play. Sure, my choices are subjective, I'm influenced by the visuals and a bit by the marketing hype...but I hope mostly by more years of gardening experience than I prefer to claim.  

The series runs in the magazine starting in early April....in the meantime, here are a couple of flashy new edibles that didn't make it into the column on food plants. Not because they aren't exciting, and perhaps well suited to our climate, but when writing for the old media (on paper) it's always a question of space...how I wish I could have squeezed these two beauties into the mix....

Eggplant ‘Pot Black’ (Solanum melongena) produces glossy black fruit that weigh only 2-3 oz, so they're smaller than Japanese eggplant. The plants fit into a container, so are perfect for the sunniest spot on your deck, preferably where they'll get reflected sunshine. Expect each plant to produce about 30 eggplant, 58-62 days to harvest. Grown by wholesaler Log House Plants in Eugene, Oregon, these covetable little eggplants should be available in most area nurseries later this spring.

This 'Celestial' fig tree (Ficus caricus) is new from Monrovia, even though figs are some of the oldest plants cultivated by humans. 'Celestial' sounds like a smart pick for our climate and smaller gardens, for it stays fairly compact, and requires less heat and time to ripen. The splayed leaves are handsome, the tree grows vigorously to 5-10 feet, and it's reliably hardy to zone 7. The fruit is small and sweet, with purplish-brown skin and white flesh...and they supposedly ripen by mid-June...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Giveaway Greens - from Renee's Garden Seeds To You for Sending in Your 2012 Dream Plants

Plant Talk is teaming up with Renee's Garden Seeds for our first giveaway of 2012 - please comment here on the blog with a short list, plus descriptions, of a few plants you're excited to add to your gardent his spring, and Renee will send you a packet or two of her company's brand new greens seeds.

Take a look at the previous post here on the blog for more information about the giveaway and to read about my own dream list for 2012.....can't wait to read your list and share it with readers.

Renee is concentrating this year on full-flavored, multi-colored greens - aren't we lucky? Brand new for 2012 and unique to Renee's Garden, here are a few of the seeds targeted for giveaways here on Plant Talk:

 

Beet and Chard Braising Mix - a blend of some of the most succulent greens in the garden, with Ruby Queen and Bulls Blood beets with Silverado and Eldorado chard. Snip for salads as the greens grow in..Tasty and tender eaten raw or braised...

Edible Landscape Lettuce 'Stardom Mix' is as gorgeous in the garden as it is delicious in the salad bowl, for it includes crispy-sweet, ruffled oakleaf varieties that are deeply red and blazingly green. Fast growing and heat tolerant, 'Stardom Mix' may well be the new gold standard for edible gardening.

Portugese Kale 'Tronchuda Beira' is tender, sweet and more heat resistant than any other kale. It's blue green leaves are lovely in the garden, and the flabor is mild but rich. Easy to grow.

 

 

 

From Food to Fire-Pits: Local Authors' New Gardening Books for the New Year

Happy New Year - 2012! Really??? Disbelief or not, what better way to start the year than by hanging out in a local bookshop? While you're lazing around at Elliott Bay Books, University Bookstore or your own neighborhood shop, check out these brand new books by local gardening authors.

It's a relief to read books produced by gardeners expert in our own unique Northwest soil and weather conditions - so much of our gardening information comes from England or the East coast, which means the specifics don't apply to our own gardens. I hope to review all these books for the Seattle Times in the coming months - but here's a preview:

Willi Galloway shares recipes as well as gardening know-how in her first book, Grow Cook Eat: A Food Lover's Guide to Vegetable Gardening. (Sasquatch Books, $29.95). The photos are dreamy, the recipes tantalizing (Lemony Broccoli Rabe, Strawberry Basil Ice Cream...), with plenty of tips on harvesting, storing, and how to successfully grow what you eat.

 

 Former P.I. garden columnist Marty Wingate's new book from Timber Press is Landscaping for Privacy: Innovative Ways to Turn Your Outdoor Space into a Peaceful Retreat. ($19.95). You'll probably recognize some of the gardens and locations in the book, as well as find great visuals for fences and hedges.

Lorene Edwards Forkner has a creative new book out from Timber Press filled with ideas and instructions with DIY ideas from fountains to fire pits. Handmade Garden Projects: Step-by-Step Instructions for Creative Garden Features, Containers, Lighting and More ($19.95).

Then there's Jessi Bloom's fun new book Free-Range Chicken Gardens: How to Create a Beautiful, Chicken-Friendly Yard (Timber Press, $19.95). Jessi is a garden designer, expert in using recycled and repurposed materials, and she writes engagingly in her first book about all she's learned about giving chickens the run of the garden.

Sleeping Lady Resort - Beautiful Spot for Art, Hiking, & Organic Food Fresh From the Garden

Sleeping Lady is a dreamy place, an art-filled resort deep in the piney woods a few miles outside of Leavenworth. Set into a Cascades canyon, surrounded by steep peaks, alongside rushing Icicle Creek, this is a beautiful, quiet place to relax, take a hike, or just hang out and relax.  Dogs are welcome, the place is loaded with kids, and everyone is invited to tour the vegetable garden to see where the fresh, organic food served at meals comes from.

I drove over to Sleeping Lady last week to interview the gardener Eron about the four acre organic garden she tends there, at an elevation so high she's preparing for first frost as early as mid-September. (Gate into the garden, draped in puffs of spent clematis, in the photo at left). This is extreme gardening. The vegetable and herb garden at Sleeping Lady supplies  as much produce as possible for the restaurant and events at the resort. I'm writing a column for Pacific Northwest magazine about the clever ways Eron thwarts the harsh climate to extend the gardening season at both ends...in the meantime (the column will run later this fall) here's a look at a few of the delights at Sleeping Lady....

A stunning piece by Dale Chihuly, set high upon a rock outside the dining room and lit at night to great effect -

Then there's Elvis....

My favorite piece of art, besides the Chihuly, is this huge pair of dark, glossy ravens near the office...

And Bridget, resting up from a hike in the heat...

 

 

 

P-Patch Harvest Already - Even Ripe Tomatoes Before the End of July

My daughter was so excited by her July 30 harvest she sent me a photo, saying "we're going to eat all of this tonight for dinner." She's a talented and creative cook, which inspires and informs her Squire Park P-Patch plot...last year she had a dismal experience, with an explosion of weeds and not enough time to keep it all up. Obviously this year is going better, and I'm so impressed she's already harvesting ripe tomatoes! Even after our record cold spring and a non-starter of a summer, she has a table full of chard, beans, pea pods, zucchini, carrots, and two kinds of tomatoes. The little orange cherry tomatoes are 'Sun Sugar', and the larger red ones are the Czechoslovakian heirloom 'Stupice'.....

which is early-ripening (obviously) delicious, and the plant is compact so perfect for a P-patch gardening...she sent me proof - here's 'Surplice' ripening in Katie's plot....

Whidbey Island Vegissimo Tour Celebrates the Island's Gorgeous Vegetable Gardens

Five pretty and productive  food gardens will open their gates to visitors for the third annual Vegissimo tour on Whidbey Island on Saturday, August 6 from 10 am. to 4 p.m. From a sheep dairy with a stylish root cellar and greenhouse to a vast garden planted to support the local food bank, these gardens are as filled with good ideas as vegetables and fruit. Garden owners will be on hand to answer questions and talk shop 

Cost for the five-stop tour is $20 a person, children under 18 free. A $10 sandwich-salad-and-sweet boxed lunch will be available at each tour stop.

Don't even think of leaving the island without taking advantage of the chance not only to visit but to eat dinner at Fox Hollow Farm (see my Seattle Times' story about this spectacular garden here; it was also published last year in Organic Gardening magazine). Enjoy entertainment and an al fresco dinner  from 5-10 p.m. at this European-inspired South Whidbey farmstead....The whole, delicious day is a benefit for WIN, Whidbey Island Nourishes, a community group that helps feed hungry people, especially youth, on South Whidbey.

Tickets for the dinner and tour are $75 a person; there's also a special $100 patron package. On the island, you can buy tickets at Cultus Bay Nursery, Clinton; Bayview Farm and Garden at Bayview , In the Country in Langley, and Rob Schouten Gallery in Greenbank. Tickets are also available at Ravenna Gardens, University Village in Seattle and Park Place, Kirkland.

 

        

The Challenge to See What's Gone Right In Our Gardens, Instead of All That's Gone Wrong...

It is such a satisfaction to find an absorbing book written so well that you read passages over and over just to hear them in your head....I'm loving a memoir by Oregon State University Creative Writing Professor Marjorie Sandor called The Late Interiors: A Life Under Construction (the link is to amazon, but I got the book quite quickly from the public library...can't resist a plug for libraries....). It's the story of Sandor's remarriage, the purchase and care of a very old house, a fight for historic preservation in her Corvallis neighborhood...through it all runs the strong thread of her garden journal.

As in all the best chronicles of dailiness (M.F.K. Fisher and May Sarton come to mind), Sandor's garden journal is about the immediacy of life; she writes about the details of weather, bloom, digging in the dirt, changes of season. Her garden renews her, ties her to nature's rhythms, and at times discourages her.

Like with her list of all that's going wrong with her garden at the moment. Isn't that just like a gardener??? After such a lousy spring, along with the latest explosion of weeds, slugs and snails, it's so much easier to focus on how our gardens don't match our expectations. Take this slug-riddled hosta leaf - I promised myself I wouldn't let it happen this year, but here's proof the mollusks are winning yet again.

Sunshine magnifies what's going well out there, so I took my camera out into the garden last weekend in search of joyful incidents......wishing you happy moments in your own garden this week as we draw closer to the longest day of the year....

Busy honey bees on the allium....

The intrigue, mystery and pure potential of beautiful buds, like this poppy I can't remember planting (I think it's a poppy....)

The first salads of the year fresh from the garden...

And even though my sweet peas are lagging in this cold spring, the edible peas are blooming....

Turn of Season Snapshot

Even though the autumnal equinox is more than two weeks away (Sept. 23 this year), it feels like we're already in seasonal free fall. Is it the kids going back to school, the vine maples coloring up, the dew that seems to grow heavier each morning? Viscerally autumn has arrived, even though it'll take two more weeks for the sun to cross the equator and signal the official change of season in our Northern hemisphere.

So to cheer me up about how dark it is in the mornings, let alone how chilly, I went out with my camera to capture what is still going strong in my Langley garden. From raspberries to dahlias, it's still summer in the garden if not in our bones....

The daisies of late summer....

Sungold tomatoes ripening (finally!)

Little ghost pumpkin climbing the hogwire screen

Dahlia slow to open in the less-than-warm weather

Purple-leafed grapes bearing fruit as ornamental as the leaves