Rainy Day Gardening

Winter garden in SoCal

2012-01-29T18:08:00.000-08:00

While most of the country is mired in rain or snow, it's gardening season here in SoCal. I finally found some time to get out in the garden this afternoon, planting garlic and shallots. I have a bunch more cool season stuff to plant , but it will have to wait for next weekend.

While I was outside, I decided to take a few pictures. Here's a winter tour of my backyard:

My peach tree is blooming! We got this tree last year, free from our favorite nursery. Yes, you read that right--free! It had some wind damage, so they were going to throw it out but gave it to us instead. Isn't it pretty all dressed up in pink and white? Too bad there aren't debutante balls for trees :-)

And here are a couple of closeups of its frilly finery:

While the peach tree is blooming, the citrus trees are bearing! Navel oranges, anyone?

Now for some more flowers. First, a sunflower planted by a helpful bird. There's something wonderful about a sunflower blooming in January!

Our house's previous owners planted this Cup of Gold Vine along a pathway in our backyard. It must be at least 20 years old, and it blooms from January to about April. The blossoms are really cool looking; see?

Last spring I planted nasturtiums in my vegetable beds, and they reseeded for some winter color. I love it when plants plant themselves!

And finally, here's another plant that reseeded itself -- borage:

This is the second generation, and there are some third-generation seedlings too (you can see some in the lower right corner of the photo). Three seasons of borage! Now if I just knew what to do with the stuff...

So there you go - winter gardening in SoCal. There's something wonderful about being able to dig in the dirt in January without needing hip waders.

New yumminess: persimmon jam

2012-01-03T22:14:00.000-08:00

While the rest of the country was watching parades and football games, I spent yesterday making jam from a big batch of persimmons given to me by a coworker. This was my first time making persimmon jam, but I think I'm in love. It's heavenly!

It also required some research. If you Google "persimmon jam recipes," you'll find lots, but nearly all of them end with, "ladle into jars and seal according to manufacturer's directions." There's nothing about processing them, and since I don't want to give my family botulism, I don't do unprocessed jams. There are a few freezer jam recipes out there too, but my freezer is full of pureed pumpkin (more on that in another post), so that wasn't high on my list either. Finally, after an hour or so of digging, I found an old article from Sunset on preserving persimmons, and the mystery was solved. Apparently, the astringent varieties can't be cooked very long, or they become bitter, so canned jams aren't an option. Fortunately for me, my giant pile o' persimmons were all Fuyu, a nonastringent variety that can be cooked. So I was back in the jam business.

I followed the recipe in the Sunset article, using powdered pectin (the recipe calls for either liquid or powdered). I had some trouble with the "skim off foam" step though. The entire pan of jam was foamy! I tried skimming off a layer, but it didn't seem to make any difference. The results were delicious, but the contents of the jars look a little foamy, and there's a clear jelly at the bottom. Next time (and, in the immortal words of Joe Elliott, there will be a next time) I'll try liquid pectin to see if that improves the consistency and appearance. I don't think anything could improve the taste, though. Persimmon jam is my new favorite jam. Yum!

Then and now

2011-05-27T19:14:00.000-07:00

Last time I posted, it was raining buckets, and I was whining (hey, it's my blog--I'll whine if I want to). Now that spring is in full flower, I'm no longer whining; I'm sneezing. But more importantly, my garden is flourishing, so in addition to sneezing, I'm bragging (hey, it's my blog--I'll brag if I want to). Here's what my backyard looked like back in November:

And here's what it looks like now:

There's been progress in the front yard too. Here's a pic from last summer:

And here's what it looks like now:

It still needs a lot of work, but at least it isn't a scruffy slab o' grass anymore.

Here are few more. This is a Japanese maple:

And here's one of the roses we got from our neighbor across the street:

And the cymbidiums we got from the neighbors across the street:

And one that I bought for way too much money from a woman that lives near here:

So, we're making progress! It's fun to watch a boring yard transform into a garden--but it takes a lot of work (and money--*sigh*) to make it happen.

Eddie Rabbit was nuts

2011-03-20T22:22:00.000-07:00

Well, I love a rainy night
It's such a beautiful sight
I love to feel the rain
On my face
Taste the rain on my lips

Eddie Rabbit was nuts.

When I moved down here to the land of sun and smog, I figured the title of this blog would be a remnant of my former life as an Oregonian. Today, though, it has been raining buckets. I think there are some ducks moving into the lake that is now my front yard, and I'm pretty sure I saw some people whitewater rafting down the side of the street.

OK, maybe I'm exaggerating... a bit. I'm just irritated at the timing. We have a visitor from up north, who is spending his spring break with us, and I'm taking this week off from work, my first week off since I started my new job last spring. So, of course, SoCal has to do its Portland impression. Really, I wasn't homesick for Oregon. So, rain, you can go back up north. Now.

In the meantime, I'm reduced to looking at my many outdoor projects through the window or in pictures. The pic in this post is of the first area I planted after we moved in last summer. I cleared a bit of lawn just outside the back door for a salad garden. As of last week, the romaine was looking great, the beets and onions were coming along nicely, the chard was attempting to take over the universe, and the parsley was starting to bloom. Now it's probably under water, but I'll hold a good thought.

Our current project is landscaping the front yard. When we bought the place, it looked like this:

It had some scruffy-looking grass, a giant bird of paradise that covered most of the front window, and that's about it. A few weeks ago we (by "we" I mean my long-suffering husband) removed the grass, and last week "we" started putting up a picket fence and arbor and mapping out paths to turn the slab o' nothing into a cottage garden. But that means that right now, the front yard is bare dirt. Well, it was bare dirt yesterday. Now it's a mud pit suitable for large trucks or bikini-clad wrestlers, with a lake where the path is supposed to go. I'd post a picture, but I'm not going out there without scuba gear or an ark.

I love being able to garden in December

2010-12-11T17:00:00.000-08:00

While winter closes in on much of the rest of the country, it's fall here in SoCal. The maples are beautiful shades of red and orange, leaves are falling, and it was sunny and 77 degrees today. So, after doing a bit of Christmas shopping in the morning, I spent all afternoon gardening. Here's today's list of accomplishments:

Scored two garbage cans full of grass clippings from my neighbor. He looked at me like I was insane when I asked if I could have them. I tried to explain that I needed them for my compost pile, and they would make my vegetables grow better. He still looked at me like I was insane. He handed over the clippings, though, so I don't care if he thinks I'm nuts. Now my compost bin is full, and I've started a new pile with one can of clippings and a pile of newly-raked leaves. Happiness is a full compost bin.
Planted some cool-season veggies:

Scallions - "Delicious duo" red and green scallion seeds from Renee's Garden Seeds
Spinach - unknown variety given to me by someone on Glendora Freecycle
Beets - "Detroit Dark Red"
Radishes - "Crimson Giant," also courtesy of a Glendora Freecycler

Cleaned up some debris left in the yard by the previous owners
Put a ring of stones around one of our orange trees

Now I'm resting a bit before date night at Disneyland with my husband. What a wonderful Saturday!

Some progress in the new garden

2010-11-28T21:51:00.000-08:00

The blank slate backyard is a little less blank now, thanks mostly to hubby. He widened a path and built four 16x4' raised beds (yay hubby!), and we filled two of the beds with soil this weekend. Here's the latest pic:

I've also planted a few cool-season veggies elsewhere in the yard--some lettuce, chard, and garlic in a small bed near the house, and some "Melting Sugar" snow peas along a trellis/fence by Mom's cottage. I planted the peas in late October, and they're coming along nicely:

It's wonderful to be able to garden this late in the year!

Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated

2010-11-17T19:35:00.000-08:00

No, I'm not dead, though moving has been the death of my blogging, at least for awhile. Last April I moved from Portland to Southern California, trading rain, mud, and slugs for sunshine, scorched earth, and more slugs, plus some snails to keep them company (and black widows, cockroaches the size of carthorses, June bugs, and who knows what else that I haven't discovered yet). Despite my many multilegged adversaries, I love the sun and warmth down here.

We were lucky to find a house with a larger than average yard, so I have room for some new gardening adventures. The yard is mostly a blank slate, lots of weedy grass with a few trees and shrubs, including 5 (!) citrus trees (yay!). Here are a few pics:

Blank slate backyard:

Northwest corner of the backyard. The tree on the right is either an orange or a tangerine (or some other citrus-y object that resembles an orange).

Now I just have to learn how to garden in this alien environment. Though I'm a native Californian, I grew up in Northern California, where it's a bit cooler, at least in the winter. And, I was a typical kid, much more interested in music, guys, cars, guys, friends, guys, sleeping late, and guys, than I was in learning how to grow stuff. Gardening was something old people like my mom and grandpa droned on about for hours while I watched MTV. Needless to say, I didn't learn much about California gardening, so I'm starting over as a novice. After 14 years in cool, wet Portland, I feel like I'm gardening on another planet. Here are a few of my observations as a stranger in a strange (but wonderfully warm and sunny) land:

Citrus trees grow in the ground here, as God intended. No more hauling potted lemon trees into the greenhouse in September and trying to keep them alive through a Portland winter.
Bougainvillea, an exotic tropical that I tried (and failed) to grow in my greenhouse in Portland, is a huge, mutant, thorny thing down here. If you turn your back on it for 5 minutes, it will eat your house.
Summer is the dead season for gardening in SoCal, as it's too hot to do much (besides watering... all the time), and new plantings are likely to shrivel in the heat. Now, though, is prime planting time, especially for cool-season stuff like lettuce and onions that I would have planted in March back in Portland.
And speaking of climate differences, I still can't get used to how warm it is here. Granted, this has been a weird weather year all over, but we had a 100-degree day in early November! Huh? My poor lettuce was so confused.
You'd think that with the hot, dry climate, people would mulch down here. But you would be wrong. Even in professionally-tended landscapes, I see bare dirt in the planting beds. Not me. I'm going to pile a few inches of fall leaves (assuming the leaves actually fall... they haven't yet) on everything, so I don't have to water every 10 minutes next summer.

Farewell for now, and to all of you readers with gardens covered in snow and ice or swampy with rain... It was sunny and 70 here today. Neener, neener, neener!

Man Eating Plants, And Lovin' It.

2010-02-22T10:55:00.001-08:00

Just to tide everybody over while I work on a much longer and FAR less entertaining post to mark my return to this blog after at least a year off (sorry about that -- I'll explain later), I wanted to share this amazing set of photographs from the March issue of National Geographic -- marking their first article ever on carnivorous plants!

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/03/carnivorous-plants/schmitz-photography

Wow, stunning! But, hey, don't be fooled; that's how they work, people. They look so pretty and nice, and so you bend over and pinch their little cheeks as you say cheerfully, "Golly, you amazing, sweet, colorful thing, how are you today?" and then the minute your head gets down close enough, CHOMP! There goes your face! I've seen Little Shop of Horrors, you're not fooling me with those classy good looks, Audrey.

After you view the photographs, don't forget to read the article itself, which is also utterly fascinating! I remember having Venus fly traps as a kid and being completely enthralled by they way they worked, but I haven't owned a carnivorous plant since. Might be time to seek some out. Are there any that grow well outside in the Pacific Northwest?

Nature, you amaze me. Keep on keepin' on with that.

Hope is on the horizon

2010-01-24T19:38:00.000-08:00

Here on the rainy side of the Pacific Northwest, January is a dark, dreary month. The days are still short, and clouds and rain are near-constants. Most of my gardening this time of year is of the armchair variety--poring over seed catalogs, reading back issues of garden magazines, and imagining the perfect garden that will, of course, never exist. We had a rare sunny winter day yesterday, though, so I was able to weed two large flowerbeds and plant some poppy seeds. I also spent a few minutes outside with my camera. My yard seems nearly barren except for the evergreen trees, shrubs, and ferns, and spring seems a long way off. If I look closer, however, I see the first signs of spring. Here--let me show you:

Hellebores are the earliest-blooming plants in my garden. It's such a delight to see some color on these dark days.

The vegetable garden isn't a complete wasteland. Here's some garlic, along with a couple of winter weeds I was too lazy to pull:

Continuing with the edibles, both the red and green rhubarb are breaking ground:

The woodland garden is beautiful even in winter, because the sword ferns look fresh and green:

I don't know what those mysterious red berries are. They grow on wild vines that I keep mostly pulled, but I let a few stay so I can enjoy the berries in winter. Here's a closeup:

And then there are the spring bulbs. Daffodils and Spanish bluebells are just starting to break ground:

And finally, filbert catkins grace the winter landscape:

It's still winter, but the days are getting longer, and the first plants of spring are pushing sleepily through the sodden soil. Hope is on the horizon...

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

2009-12-24T17:24:00.000-08:00

Wishing everyone out there a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I hope Santa brings y'all lots of cool garden-related gifts. Today I got one of the best gifts a Northwest gardener can get--sunshine! I celebrated by spending about an hour weeding my front yard. Christmas Eve was a bad day for the crabgrass.

Happy Holidays!

Armchair gardening with a little help from NPR

2009-12-17T22:17:00.000-08:00

The winter solstice is almost upon us, so it's dark, cold, and if you're here in the rainy part of the Pacific Northwest, wet. My socks get soggy if I even think of going outside, so I'm turning my thoughts to indoor pursuits--like reading. Fortunately, NPR just posted 2009's Crop of Great Gardening Books - how very timely. All of these look interesting, but my first choice is the last one on the list, Amy Stewart's Wicked Plants.

I've often thought of designing a garden containing nothing but poisonous plants, so this one is right up my alley.

Anyone else out there in blog-land have some favorite gardening books to recommend? 'Tis the season for some armchair gardening.

How to Ripen Green Tomatoes

2009-10-21T13:20:00.000-07:00

I dread the end of the growing season for many reasons, but near the top of the list is that it's the end of fresh tomato season. Unless you've a) had frost already, or b) are sufficiently ahead of the game that you have already removed your tomato plants and cleaned up your tomato garden (and if you have: stop it! - you're making the rest of us look bad), there's still hope for at least some of your remaining tomatoes. This is the time of year when people post lots of green tomato recipes--chow chow, fried green tomatoes (at the Whistlestop Cafe even), green tomato pie, green tomato ketchup, and heaven only knows what else. But I'll share a dirty little culinary secret with you: green tomatoes don't taste very good. Instead of disguising them in pies or breading and attempting to sneak them down the throats of your unsuspecting family members, I suggest you ripen your green tomatoes indoors. They won't taste as good as vine-ripened tomatoes, but they'll taste better than those mushy red abominations you find in the grocery store.

Here's what to do:

1. Pick all your green tomatoes that look remotely mature and are in good shape. They should have something close to their mature shape, be somewhat close to their mature size, and not have bruises, soft spots, insect damage, or other major yucky spots.

2. Rinse or wipe them off.

3. Put them in in a single layer in some kind of container and cover them to keep out fruit flies and other pests. I use paper shopping bags. I put a layer of tomatoes in the bottom, fold the tops down to keep out pests, and put the bags in plastic trays to keep any tomato guts from dripping onto the carpet.

4. Store them somewhere dry and warm (warm as in room temperature, not warm as in Mojave Desert in August). According to a Wikipedia article, tomatoes stop ripening when the temperature drops below 54.5 °F (12.5 °C).

5. Check them regularly, removing any that are a) ripe or b) nasty. I check mine each week.

This method has worked well for me for years. Sometimes I still have fresh tomatoes at Thanksgiving, and I don't have to coerce my defenseless family into eating green tomatoes. What's not to love?

Heirloom apples

2009-10-20T21:32:00.000-07:00

I've heard of heirloom tomatoes, heirloom melons, and heirloom squash, but until recently I'd never heard of heirloom apples. Like everyone else, I read The Botany of Desire a few years ago, but somehow I didn't think about the fact that there must be lots of old varieties of apples, since apples have been in cultivation for many centuries. Then I heard about an heirloom apple tasting in Venersborg, WA, last Saturday, and decided to do some research. According to an article on the Slow Food USA site, over 500 varieties of apples were cultivated in the US by 1850, yet only a handful are grown commercially now. Much like tomatoes, commercial varieties are often selected for appearance and durability in shipping rather than taste. Veggie Gardening Tips posted two articles on heirloom apples: Heirloom Apples and Antique Apple Varieties. The Washington State University Clark County Extension site also offers a great article on heirloom apples.

We couldn't make it to the apple tasting, but Jacqueline at Friendly Haven Rise Farm, who sponsored the tasting, invited us up to visit their farm and purchase some heirloom apple trees. The trees they sell come from an older gentleman who grows over 1000 (!!) varieties of apples, including several that even Google had never heard of. We had a lovely visit, brought home a couple of trees, and look forward to growing our own heirloom apples. If you'd like to do the same and you're within driving distance of Southwest Washington, I suggest you call the good folks at Friendly Haven Rise Farm to see if they have some trees left. You might also check out the heirloom apple tasting in Parkdale, OR, this weekend. If you're out of the area, try Trees of Antiquity, which seems to have a good selection (note: I've never done business with them, so I can't vouch for anything other than the impressive list of varieties on their web site). You too can grow your own little piece of history--a delicious little piece that will taste great in a pie.

Hmm... that last sentence should net me some interesting referral traffic. It might even compete with the infamous deer anus post on my personal blog.

Tracking climate change in your own backyard

2009-09-25T17:56:00.000-07:00

Want to help track climate change? Sign up to be a Citizen Scientist with the National Phenology Network! Choose one or more plants that a) is on their list, and b) grows in your yard (or somewhere you hang out regularly), then use their tools and instructions to report on its growth. Sounds like a fun project for homeschoolers or, really, anyone with kids. Links and more information available from a Wilderness Society blog post.

75 Things You Can Compost

2009-08-18T21:50:00.000-07:00

From Planet Green comes a great list of 75 Things You Can Compost. I've composted quite a few things on this list, though never a used condom. I'm not very squeamish, but that pushes the limits a bit. Here are the things regularly composted at our house. My list isn't as comprehensive as the one on Planet Green, in part because we recycle our clean paper waste and in part because most of our food scraps go to our chickens. We compost their manure, though, so the food scraps eventually make it to the compost pile.

yard waste, grass clippings, etc. - a/k/a the usual
vegetable food scraps that don't go to the chickens
napkins
tissue paper
newspaper used to wash windows (the extra ammonia is a good source of nitrogen, right?)
used paper plates
egg shells
dead houseplants and their soil
shredded paper (we shred anything an identity thief might find useful)
jack o'lanterns
nut shells, coconut hulls, etc.
the disgusting sludge I clean out of the sink strainer (ewwwww)
pencil shavings
dryer lint - but be sure to bury it in the pile. The first time I composted dryer lint, I felt very virtuous. About 2 days later we had a big windstorm, and I found dryer lint all over my front yard. Ugh.
cedar shavings from the bottom of the corn snake's tank. I'm not sure it's really proper to compost them, because reptile poop contains salmonella, but I figure a) people compost chicken manure, which often contains salmonella, b) the snake smell might deter the giant rats (think ROUS's from The Princess Bride) that often seek food and shelter in our compost bins, and c) we don't eat our compost.

After one of my Facebook friends commented that her husband bleeds on the compost pile when he cuts his finger (blood is a good source of nitrogen, right?), I thought maybe I should have composted my husband's bloody bandages from his last surgery. But I'm pretty sure that falls into the same category as the used condoms: compostable, yes, but it pushes the limits a bit.

Tomatoes: sex, death, and cigarettes

2009-07-26T21:18:00.000-07:00

NPR has a wonderful short piece on tomatoes at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106932330&sc=fb&cc=fp. My favorite quote:

The enigmatic tomato belongs to the same family as tobacco and the toxic, deadly nightshade, but that just adds to its glamour. Sex, death and cigarettes: Eden's forbidden fruit should have been a tomato.

And they mention a tomato-wrestling contest. Fabulous!

Son of Stinky!

2009-06-10T15:23:00.000-07:00

(photo from Flickr user whatsthatpicture)

I know this has absolutely nothing to do with gardening in the Northwest, but I just can't resist posting it here. Nicknamed "Son of Stinky," another corpse flower is about to bloom at the Huntington Library. I so want one of these in my garden! It's huge, it stinks, and it has the best botanical name I've ever heard: Amorphophallus titanum (which literally means "giant misshapen penis" -- thank you, Wikipedia!) If it were carnivorous, it would be perfect. Then I could feed my obnoxious neighbors to it. Just imagine the possibilities. This thing would make Audrey look like a wimp. Feed me, Seymour...

Hmm... maybe I've been inhaling too many compost fumes...

When Is a Weed Not a Weed?

2009-05-28T20:57:00.000-07:00

Okay, so, this flower just kind of sprung up in one of our old pots this spring. It's got to be a weed. But it's so pretty! Bright and orange and tall!

I keep feeling like the fact it is a weed means I should be yanking it out. Bad weed, bad! But at the same time, I am tempted to just enjoy it. It seems happy. I seem happy. Maybe weeds don't always have to be weeds? Anybody know what this is, by the way?

Dateline SoCal (or, No Rainy Day Gardening Here)

2009-05-25T20:28:00.001-07:00

I just got back from a weeklong trip to Southern California, mostly working with a little playtime in Disneyland thrown in. The weeds and slugs took advantage of my absence to invade my helpless garden. I've been coping with the carnage all weekend, but I'm taking a break to share some pictures from my trip. I grew up in Northern California, so I took the local flora for granted. Now that I've been gone awhile (20 years as of next month), and I'm a gardener, I notice things when I go back that were just part of the background when I was growing up. Such as...

Oleander

Oleander is everywhere, both in SoCal and where I grew up. It's often found growing alongside the freeway, or in the case of the ones in these pics, growing alongside a gas station parking lot in LA. They're kind of like rhodies are in the maritime Northwest - all-purpose, low-maintenance shrub found in just about every garden, overused to the point of being boring. Every now and then, I find them advertised for sale in catalogs of tropical plants, listed alongside orchids and other exotics (and with prices to match). I just laugh and wonder what the buyers would think if they could see their precious tropical shrub next to a California freeway.

Then there's this beauty--the Bird of Paradise:

My grandmother had one of these in front of her house in Oakland when I was a kid. Up here, like oleander, they're sold as pricey tropicals. Until this trip, I never noticed that there was more than one variety. The colorful one is the one I remember seeing all the time. The other one isn't as pretty IMHO, but it's way larger. The blooms are about twice the size of the colorful ones.

The pictures above were all taken just outside Disneyland. This one was taken inside the park, in Fantasyland to be precise. Just look at these delphiniums!

They belong in Fantasyland too. I think I'd have better luck spotting Tinkerbell in my garden than growing delphiniums that look that good. Apparently Fantasyland is not only where dreams come true; it's also where slugs don't exist.

In addition to Disneyland, we paid a visit to San Gabriel Mission, or as it's officially known, Mission San Gabriel Archangel. There's some very nice landscaping outside the mission, including this striking cactus, which really pops against the adobe wall of the mission and alongside the rounded shrubs:

The mission includes a peace garden in the courtyard, with a lovely collection of succulents and other desert plants. Here's a sampling:

Yes, those are geraniums (or pelargoniums for you horticultural purists) in that last pic. They become shrubs when left to their own devices in places with mild winters.

So there ya go--a glimpse or two of flora from the Granola State. I hope you enjoyed this bit of armchair travel with your Rainy Day Gardening correspondent. Now, back to your regularly-scheduled maritime climate...

Dramatic Discovery in Halifax, Nova Scotia's Public Garden

2009-05-19T10:27:00.000-07:00

Sorry I've been neglectful in posting my monthly to-do lists, everyone. You know what you're supposed to do in May, though, right? PLANT STUFF. Now, get hot on that!

In the meantime, I wanted to show you guys this totally cool flower I came across two weeks ago when I was in Nova Scotia exploring the Halifax Public Garden. It was one of only a few things actually in bloom (the public garden had just opened for the season), but it had a bunch of these dramatic plants and I totally fell in love with them!

When I got back from my trip, I tried to find out what this flower was -- it's super spiffy looking, eh? But my friends were of little help ("Sideshow Bob flower?" was one of their suggestions -- thanks, guys). So, I contacted the Plant Answer Line at the Elizabeth C. Miller Library at the University of Washington for help.

And here's what I learned:

This is a Fritillaria imperialis, commonly called a Crown Imperial, which is a bulbous plant that thrives in moist, free-draining, rich soil in full sun to light shade. I had asked if it was something that would grow well in the Pacific Northwest (spring in Halifax, Nova Scotia seemed a lot like spring in Seattle, as it rained most of the time I was up there!), and the answer is yes!

So, hey, guess what! I'm going to plant some. You plant them in the Fall, which is good because that gives me time to actually find the bulbs. And then they bloom in early Spring. Yay, I learned something! And then I taught it to someone else! Hooray for blogs!

Buried treasure in the garden

2009-05-19T09:34:00.001-07:00

Most of us gardeners won't dig up anything in our gardens more interesting than potatoes, carrots, worms, or rocks. But for a lucky few, tilling the soil turns up some surprising treasures. One lucky British gardener has unearthed coins, jewelry, and other Victorian treasures in her UK garden. That story reminded me of a friend of mine who bought a house in Tunnel Hill, Georgia, in the early 1990s. When he dug up his garden, he found bayonets and other relics of the Battle of Tunnel Hill.

Unfortunately, I've never found anything that interesting in my garden. We bought our house in 1996, a few months after the property had flooded. When we started working on our washed-out mud slab of a yard, we dug up all sorts of odd things that had been washed there by the floodwaters. We found lots of bottles (and broken pieces of bottles), chunks of asphalt, and my personal favorite: sand bags. Lots of sand bags. 80-lb sand bags, buried just under the surface of my tomato-patch-in-the-making. Since we have heavy clay soil, the sand made a nice soil amendment, but it was backbreaking work to dig up the half-rotted sand bags and disperse the sand. I kept hoping I'd find some cool relic deposited by the floodwaters, but debris and sandbags were it. Maybe I should move back to Georgia.

Nah.

Using up those parsnips

2009-03-22T09:15:00.000-07:00

I still have a bunch of parsnips in the garden from last season. It was the first time I'd planted them, and I had no idea how many we would eat. Apparently not as many as I planted. So I'm looking for some good recipes so I can use them up before it's time to plant this year's crop. Oh, wait... it's already time to plant this year's crop. Ah, well, I'm behind schedule as usual.

Anyway... Last night I made the best mashed potatoes I've ever made--and they weren't just mashed potatoes. They were mashed potatoes and parsnips, loaded with a bunch of unhealthy stuff like bacon and cheese. YUM. You can find the recipe for loaded mashed potatoes and parsnips at http://homecooking.about.com/od/vegetablerecipes/r/blv329.htm. I substituted chicken broth for the milk, since I don't like milk much, and they were still wonderful.

While I was searching for parsnip recipes, I found a few more that sounded good, but I haven't tried them yet.

Happy parsnip cooking!

Another Hit and Run

2009-03-21T19:25:00.000-07:00

Today's gardening adventure: another hit and run! (That's a Def Leppard reference--for those of you who weren't paying attention in the 80s--as well as an unfortunate fact.) We live on a corner. The road curves sharply, there's no streetlight to reveal the curve at night, and there's no stop sign to slow people down before they hit it. So, every few years, someone (usually drunk) misses the curve and ends up in our yard (usually in the wee hours of the morning). We must've replaced at least 10 arborvitae over the years, along with several other shrubs and innumerable landscape timbers. This morning I woke up to what sounded like really loud thunder. Instead, it was a hit and run driver crashing into the shed and running over the shrubbery. Take a look:

That's a telephone box in the foreground. The tall green shrub to the left is a mature arborvitae, fortunate enough to still be standing. The blank space to the right used to have about 5 more just like it, but they were mowed down. See them lying on their sides?

Here's a closeup of the carnage:

That big wooden thing is the bottom of our shed.

Speaking of the poor defenseless shed, here it is, just after the accident at o'dark thirty:

I think it looked much better standing upright, don't you?

The sheriff's deputy called us this afternoon to report that the vehicle had been identified -- a stolen van found abandoned by whomever took the joyride through our hedge. If they ever catch him, I'd like to bury him at the base of the remaining arborvitae. It seems only fitting.

March Madness, and I Don't Mean Basketball

2009-03-09T10:59:00.000-07:00

It’s March now in the Pacific Northwest (um, as well as everywhere else in the world, if you want to get all particular about it), but it’s certainly not very spring-like, I must say. I was actually feeling bad last week about the fact I still hadn’t pruned my roses (I’ve been nursing a shoulder injury the last few weeks and have been kind of out of commission) (AGAIN), when suddenly, wham!, we got snowed on up here again.

The downside: This just provides more fodder for the “global warming” snarkers, who tend to be melodramatically literal when it comes to that phrase.

The upside: Now I look like the smart one for not having sliced and diced the roses! Despite the freaky weather, it’s actually time to start planting some stuff outside, as wholly unappealing as THAT sounds this morning. (Current temperature: 36 degrees. Forecasted high for the day: 36 degrees. Current mood: Fine, you know what? I'm going back to bed. Forecasted mood for the day: Wake me up in April. IF YOU DARE.)

Yep, according to my expert resources, those of us who live in the Pacific Northwest can begin sowing the following seeds outside:

Many types of lettuce and other leafy greens (unless you, like me, find leafy greens wholly uncooperative)
Asparagus (shoot (ha!), I really wanted to plant asparagus this year and haven’t moved on it -- can I plant it as late as the first weekend in April, fellow PNW gardeners?)
Beets (ew)
Carrots (some year I will try them in pots)
Peas (yay! yay! yay!)
Parsnips (delicious and strange)
Potatoes (could be fun)
Radishes (overrated)
Turnips (underrated)
Chives (pretty)
Cilantro (pukey)
Parsley (munchable)

Of the things on this list, peas are the one item I have had success with in my garden in the past, which means they are a safe bet for all gardeners, rookie or pro. (The theory here being that if *I* can make them grow and produce food, so too can anyone, including your local one-armed half-blind monkey).

Chives and parsley are also two favorites of mine. I almost never eat either one, but I love letting my chives to go flower because the flowers are so pretty (see photo above), and parsley is nice to munch on when I’m out watering things in the summer. Refreshing and chompy.

Cilantro I’m allergic to (hence the description of it as "pukey"), but my husband loves it so maybe I should humor him and put some in this year.

Nah.

Early spring is also a good time to pick up new fruit trees and get them planted -- just make sure the danger of frost is past, or that you’ve got plans on how to protect your yard noobs from extremely cold nights (reminder: it snowed several inches in Seattle last April, so don’t think it’s all over just because you’ve turned another calendar page!). We planted blueberries in our yard two springs ago right about this time, and both bushes are really thriving.It's a real thrill getting to pick and eat my own blueberries, and I'm eager to see how the raspberry I planted last year will do this year as well.

Berries -- man, hurry UP, summertime!!

Also doable this March: trim back your woody herbs (lavender, rosemary, and sage, in particular), fertilize trees and shrubs (including rhodies, which I really need to do soon), start prepping your veggie beds for planting next month, and when you’re done working outside, go back inside and start sowing your tomato seeds in containers to get them ready to go outdoors in about 6-8 weeks. If you’ve never planted golden/yellow cherry tomatoes before, I urge you to give them a shot this year -- almost as delicious as berries, and just about as sweet too!!

Still having trouble getting yourself motivated to work outside in the rain, snow, sleet, and hail? Dudes, I hear you. In that case, maybe you need to spend another couple of weeks looking at seed catalogs and day-dreaming instead. To that end, allow me to present you with this list of the Top 10 Most Productive Crops for the Pacific Northwest (from Mother Earth News):

Pole snap bean
Snow/snap pea
Potato
Garlic
Cherry tomato
Summer squash
Chard
Lettuce
Onion
Carrot

It’s a list I can believe in, having had a lot of success with a number of items on this list, and very very little success with a number of items NOT on this list. I’d love to try beans and chard this year too, actually, but I’m not entirely sure what I’d do with them? You cook both before eating, right? Anybody have any good bean or chard recipes? Or bean AND chard recipes? Hit me with 'em in comments!

Spring ho!

A smaller, more practical Yard, Garden & Patio Show

2009-03-04T18:54:00.000-08:00

Your intrepid correspondent checked out the Yard, Garden & Patio Show last weekend here in Portland, but then your intrepid correspondent got sick, so she is (er, I mean *I am*) just now getting around to posting about it. Hey, if you want prompt, go to CNN. They get paid for their reporting.

The Yard, Garden & Patio show is the unofficial kickoff of gardening season here in Portland. It's held at the Oregon Convention Center and features exhibits from landscapers, nurseries, and other purveyors of fine garden-related products. Several of the landscapers create mammoth landscapes for the show, usually including waterfalls and full-scale gardens. One year they even created a small lake in the middle of the exhibit hall, complete with a canoe bobbing next to a dock. Seriously. This year, though, the show was smaller and less ostentatious. Apparently the lousy state of the economy is taking its toll.

There were still some big landscape displays, but there were fewer, smaller, and more in keeping with the current back-to-frugality movement. Several included vegetables mixed in with the usual landscape plants, a nice way to show that edibles can be attractive as well as functional. Here's an example:

Of course, most of these veggies are planted way too close together, but they do look pretty.

A couple of the landscape displays also featured chickens, which are becoming very popular here in Portland. Here's a small veggie garden display, complete with egg-y looking chicken coop (and chickens):

I especially appreciate these trends, as I think anyone who has even a little bit of sun in their yard can grow a few vegetables, even if they live in one of those we're-better-than-you subdivisions that ban sensible things like clotheslines and vegetable gardens. Go ahead... tuck that chard in between your barberries. Slip some basil under the roses. Your snooty neighbors won't recognize them as edible, since they probably think a vegetable's natural habitat is the produce section at Whole Foods. If you're lucky, they'll think you're the first on the block to discover the latest trendy bedding plant. If they ask you what it is, give 'em the Latin name, which will boost your snob factor and make them even more envious. It's so new it doesn't even have a common name yet! I must have Joe the Gardener plant 50 of them. Now.

OK, OK, I digressed again, didn't I? Maybe I should call this blog Rainy Day Digressions. Anyway... back to the Yard, Garden & Patio Show. There were some notable absences this year (besides the giant lake): Fred Meyer wasn't there, and neither was Metro or my favorite orchid vendor from Hawaii. There were others missing too, though I can't remember exactly which ones. The wine section, however, was larger than usual. About 2 rows of booths were devoted to wineries pouring (and selling) their wares. The economy sucks? Drink your troubles away! I was pleasantly surprised to see that the big displays used fewer bedding plants, which in past years have been tossed in the dumpster after the show (and in some cases removed from the dumpster by Yours Truly). I asked one of the landscapers, and he assured me that they weren't throwing any plants away this year. While that puts a crimp in my dumpster-diving, I'm glad to see the vendors being less wasteful. Maybe this bad economy will have a few side benefits. Maybe.

Finally, there were several garden artists displaying their wares, which included some wonderfully quirky things. For example, check out punk rocker propane cannister dude:

Or these seriously cool boots planted with sedums:

So what did I buy? Not much - a gold-hued sedum and a purple oxalis. I was frugal before frugal was cool.