Diana Elizabeth in her Phoenix garden that features the CedarLast Obelisk. Text and photos by Diana Elizabeth Steffen, www.dianaelizabethblog.com.

Hello from Phoenix! While most of the country is enjoying a beautiful winter wonderland right now, those of us in Zone 9 are enjoying our extended gardening season. I wanted to share some photos from my garden, and a few products I’ve added to my raised garden beds from Gardener’s Supply Company. I’d also love to share what we’re growing out here.

During my visit to Switzerland last year I was enchanted by their gardens, and I knew that I wanted to add height to my own garden with an obelisk. I’ve had my eye on the CedarLast Obelisk that stands at 7’6″ (another option is the Pyramid Trellis) and I wanted to stain it a dark color. (Read about my visit to Switzerland here.)

Staining the CedarLast Obelisk.

Gardener’s has a new exterior wood stain and I loved the graphite gray. It took my husband and I maybe a little over an hour to stain it together and less than an hour to assemble and position it — total time, 2 hours.

Non-toxic Gardener’s Exterior Wood Stain protects wood from water, mildew, and UV damage. It’s made from whey — a byproduct of cheesemaking.

You can see that the CedarLast Obelisk is very tall! Our home is currently undergoing an expansion so that’s what’s going on in the background.

I decided that this bed needed some white, purple and green accents so we headed to our local nursery and bought lavender, rosemary, stevia (white flowers), and when it came to deciding what type of climbing plant I wanted, instead of peas — which would be great — I went for the Dutchman’s Pipe also known as a pipevine. This particular bed doesn’t get the best water and these plants prefer well-drained soil so I think it will be pretty happy here.

Dutchman’s pipe climbs the obelisk, at left. One of the plants at the base is lavender, shown right.

If the raised garden beds looks familiar, they should – they are the raised bed corners, and in-line connectors – height is 10”. I recommend these corners to all my friends who start their gardening journey. Our boards are redwood that I attempted painted with diluted milk paint. While ideally it would be best for us to plant in the ground given the extreme summer heats we have, a problem I have is bermuda grass and nut grass.

So without having to add concrete divider in the ground, we’ve been fine so far with the raised beds — and every fall to control any massive nut grass take overs from summer I layer newspaper, new soil and mulch which helps reset my beds before I plant seeds and starters.

The raised beds are made with Gardener’s Supply’s Lifetime Raised Bed Corners.

My basil is still happy and thriving — it will be happy until January or February when temps really drop here and freeze. Some parts of Phoenix however, basil survives the frost, I’ve seen it myself when I visited a friend who lives downtown and I was shocked!

Jardin Half-Round Supports keep exuberant basil plants in bounds.

Summertime my basil goes crazy (I used Jardin Half-Round Plant Supports to keep them from toppling over and blocking my other flowers) and something I recall learning when I first started gardening seven years ago was to pinch off the flowers. It was a friend’s mother who told me when I showed her the garden, it was just something I didn’t know and had wondered why my basil leaves looked different than when I originally bought them. It shows how we can teach one another at all stages — and I’m still eagerly learning.

Right now I’m growing artichoke (from starters and some came back and I split them), peppers, nasturtium, green onion, and lots of flowers — I have to space them accordingly knowing by spring the beds will be full.

I mix florals with my vegetables for color, and while it seems odd to have a rose tree in the middle of your raised bed, I love the visual height and color it brings to the beds. I am heavily influenced by French gardens and I collect roses as much as I seem to collect citrus trees.

Ladder-style supports keep plants upright.

Since we added peppers this season to the beds, I used these Pepper and Eggplant Stakes (set of 3). They are so helpful to keep them from toppling over. In Phoenix our peppers don’t get incredibly large, maybe fist size but our eggplants do very well!

I can’t live without my pink Tubtrug to collect all my clippings.

So that’s what’s going on in Zone 9 here in Phoenix! We loving our weather and time to be outside pruning and gardening. Hope you enjoyed my little tour, thank you so much for reading!

—

Diana Elizabeth Steffen is a lifestyle blogger and photographer. She and her husband live in a 1952 brick home on a former citrus grove in Central Phoenix. She regularly blogs about home, garden, style and shares efficient living products and solutions – with camera in hand. Read about her latest projects and discoveries on her blog: www.dianaelizabethblog.com.

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Garden designer Sara Gasbarra, right, designed this urban garden oasis filled with herbs and edible flowers for pastry chef Leigh Omilinsky, left. A sweet collaboration!

By Sara Gasbarra

Acclaimed Chicago pastry chef Leigh Omilinsky and I have been close friends for many years, our work and lives intersecting via Chicago’s restaurant industry where Leigh crafts beautiful (and delicious!) Italian-inspired pastries and desserts for Nico Osteria, and I build and tend culinary gardens for chefs and other hospitality clients with my full-service garden design business.

Up until this spring, there had been many, many conversations between the two of us about how we could combine efforts and talents to collaborate on a project one day. As often happens, our busy schedules got in the way of our grand plans and we never saw this idea take root. That is, up until this spring….

My company Verdura has been curating garden programs for seven years in Chicago, and most recently I’ve expanded my work into Nashville. I’ve been a longtime fan of Gardener’s Supply’s self-watering planters (I have Terrazza Troughs, raised beds and square boxes installed on lots and lots of rooftops in Chicago!) and some of my favorite garden tools that I’ve kept in rotation for years can still be found in the Gardener’s catalog.

I was thrilled when Gardener’s Supply approached me in the spring to test-run some product and I knew immediately that this plan we had for creating a garden for Leigh would be the perfect opportunity to finally the get ball rolling! As most of my gardens are site-specific to restaurants, our plans for this one would be slightly different. Leigh wanted her garden to be at her home. Sure, everything we’d be cultivating would supplement her pastry program, but she wanted the added benefit of enjoying the beauty of the garden in her backyard and not tucked away on a raw roof space above the restaurant.

I personally was excited about the idea for this project as it was finally a way to combine a residential garden with a restaurant kitchen garden, and given that Leigh lives in the historic Chicago neighborhood of Logan Square, we’d be creating and building a garden in a very typical (and often challenging!) urban backyard setting.

Herbs and edible flowers thrive in self-watering Standing Gardens.

We selected Gardener’s Standing Gardens specially as they are elevated; narrow for the tight, compact space on Leigh’s back deck; and also self-watering — we want Leigh to focus on making her award-winning desserts and not spending hours each day with a garden hose in hand! We also loved the Standing Gardens as we felt they were still large enough to really maximize growing potential and yield and would keep her back deck looking nice and tidy — the elevation helps considerably with that! It’s nice to see everything off the ground and at waist-level, especially when these gardens get wild and crazy in August.

Staining the Standing Gardens prior to assembly — a paintbrush in one hand, a glass of rosé in the other.

Installation was a breeze! A drill is really all you need. (Well, a drill and maybe a glass of rosé! Isn’t everything better and easier with a glass of rosé? We think so!) When we were in the planning stages with Gardener’s incredible team, it was suggested we stain the wood with their eco-friendy, whey-based stain, which we think makes the planters look extra sharp and sophisticated and coordinates quite well with the decking!

We were admittedly a bit nervous about the staining process. Would it be messy? Would it take hours? But it took one short hour for four standing planters! Actually, the entire building and installation of the boxes took another couple hours. This was the quickest, most streamlined installation I’ve ever completed. The end result transformed Leigh’s back deck into a lush, defined, and organized green space. (Her neighbors are quite envious!)

Each of our four standing planters was planted with 4 to 5 kinds of herbs and edible flowers for Nico’s pastry program, including rosemary, bachelor buttons, citrus gem marigold, oxalis, bay laurel, lemon verbena, Genovese basil, Mrs. Burns’ lemon basil, African blue basil, Red Rubin basil, Purple Ruffles basil (we’re growing a TON of basil!), lemon thyme, nasturtium, flowering verbena and begonias. (Did you know begonia flowers are edible? They are the single flower I grow for every restaurant client I work with as they are tart, citrusy, a bit succulent and prolific. So so delicious!)

The handsome urban garden on Leigh’s back deck is overflowing with thriving plants. The planters stained with nontoxic, whey-based Gardener’s Exterior Wood Stain in Graphite Gray.

Leigh began harvesting from the garden about two weeks after we installed in June and was immediately incorporating the vegetation into her desserts, which change seasonally. Her boyfriend Scott Stroemer (who is the bar manager at Nico’s sister restaurant, Pacific Standard Time) also picks flowers daily for his beverage program. The pair can barely keep up with the edible flower production from this garden. It’s incredible!

This light and refreshing boccone dolce includes herbs and flowers from our garden.

The real excitement from any of my restaurant gardens is when the entire process comes full circle and the vegetation, leaves, flowers, and our aromatics hit the plate. Here are a couple examples of how Leigh is incorporating her herbs and flowers into Nico’s desserts.

This budino di pane uses Leigh’s croissants. It’s served with plum-lemon verbena sorbet and garnished with garden flowers.

Boccone dolce. All the summer berries, toasted bay leaf mousse, lime-gin granita, lemon thyme, and bay leaf gelato in a sweet bite, which is why it’s called a boccone dolce. This dessert was meant to highlight the amazing berries available in Chicago during the summer months. The bay leaf has a beautiful flavor that really gets enhanced when it’s toasted. The dessert is light and refreshing and just screams summer! (The bay laurel, lemon thyme, and white begonia flowers are from our garden.)

Budino di pane. One of Leigh’s prized recipes is her croissant recipe and the budino di pane (also known as bread pudding) uses Leigh’s croissants! It is served with a plum-lemon verbena jam, olive oil honey, cardamom creme fraiche, fresh plums, and plum-lemon verbena sorbet, and it’s garnished with garden flowers, of course. Leigh loves using lemon verbena and fresh lemon verbena is so much more fragrant and beautiful than dried. But she often has a hard time sourcing it from vendors, so she was very excited to grow her own! (Did you know that lemon verbena can also withstand lots of intense summer heat? It’s my best-growing herb down in Nashville, still looking lush and green even when the temperatures hit upwards of 100 degrees!)

Stay tuned for our second post where we will share some ideas and recipes for preserving your herb harvest and incorporating herbs and flowers into a couple of late-summer cocktails!

— Sara

Sara Gasbarra (photo by Eva Deitch)

Sara Gasbarra owns Verdura Culinary Garden Design, a full-service garden design company that curates and tends on-site culinary gardens for chefs, restaurants, and bar programs in Nashville and Chicago. You can also find Sara on Instagram.

Photos by Mara Faye Photography.

Read How To Create a Fool Proof Herb Garden, by Sara Gasbarra and Jordan Farrell.

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Cody shows the height of the sorghum in the planter.

I feel lucky that I get to grow things as part of my job as testing coordinator.
Last year, I was asked to grow a variety of plants in the Gardener’s Revolution® Classic Tomato Planter. We wanted to grow something that would get very tall, to make sure our new tie-downs would keep the planter upright.

Cody, our Product Designer, suggested we try sorghum. We grew it from seed, right in the planter. In less than three months it shot up to about 8′ tall and, yes, the new tie-downs successfully prevented the planter from tipping over.

In fall, it was beautiful to see the color of the canes become mottled with reds and oranges.

We harvested them in the hopes of extracting the syrup to make molasses, as we heard they do down south, but we never figured out how to do that. As Vermonters, we know how to make maple syrup, but sorghum syrup is an unknown to us!

Because of their beauty, I didn’t have the heart to compost the canes, and kept them all winter. Come spring, we brought them back out to the test garden and made a trellis out of them for peas, not knowing if they would be strong enough.

The harvested canes in fall — loves those colors! — and the teepee trellis we made in early spring.

As you can see in the photo, the sorghum teepee trellis worked and the peas are growing up the canes beautifully!

Peas have grown mid-way up the trellis. Will it work? Yes! Fully grown peas reaching the top — the perfect height!

It’s always fun to try new crops, isn’t it?

Deborah Miuccio is our Product Testing and Research Coordinator.

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When you have chickens, there’s no need for commercial fertilizers. [Photo courtesy of Gardening with Chickens/Voyageur Press]

There are three main ways chickens can help with composting in the garden. You can integrate your chickens with a compost pile, let chickens act as a go-between when it comes to food waste and the garden, and help them along to create compost right inside the coop over winter.

Integrating Chickens with Your Compost Pile

Chickens were born to scratch and turn over soil. They can’t stand to see anything piled up. Thus, chickens are the master compost spreaders. Let them at your compost pile whenever it needs turning, and they will turn it for you. As a bonus, they provide plenty of nitrogen-rich green material in the form of poop as they work the soil with their feet, searching for seeds, bugs, and other goodies to eat.

Let Chickens Compost in the Garden

If you rotate your gardens, planting some in the spring and some in the fall, why not let the chickens into the resting garden? They can help keep the bugs and weeds in check and also deposit their droppings.

As part of this plan, use the chickens as your conduit when composting. Normally, you’re taking your garden trimmings and kitchen scraps and depositing them into the compost pile to decompose slowly. Try this instead: Eliminate the compost pile altogether by letting your chickens process your kitchen waste for you. Feed any appropriate scraps to your chickens; they will digest the food and turn it into manure and then deposit it in the garden. You saved yourself several steps and provide your chickens a more healthy, varied diet.

Just let the garden and soil rest for 3 months after you have rotated your chickens off before you plant your crops.

Compost Inside Your Coop

The coop combines brown matter and green matter just as you’d want in composting. The carbon-containing coop litter, whether it be shavings, straw, hay, or even pine needles or dried leaves, is the brown matter. And the nitrogen-rich manure that your chickens provide on a regular basis is the green matter. Thus, you have your compost ingredients right there in the same place. I have to say, it’s brilliant!

Allow the manure and bedding in the coop to accumulate and decompose inside the coop all winter, then in the spring you clean the whole thing out and have beautiful compost for your garden. [Editor’s note: This is sometimes called “the deep litter method.” Lisa explains the step-by-step process in detail in her Gardening with Chickens book.]

Manure tea is a convenient way to give plants a boost of nutrients. [Photo courtesy of Gardening with Chickens/Voyageur Press]

Make Chicken Manure Tea

Chicken poop tea adds nutrients, enzymes, microorganisms, and other good things to your garden soils as compost does, but the liquid form makes it convenient to give a drink of tea to new transplants or plants that need a bit of a boost.

Lisa Steele’s book is called Gardening with Chickens: Plans and Plants for You and Your Hens [Photo courtesy of Gardening with Chickens/Voyageur Press]

Make a “tea bag” for the manure — such as an old pillowcase. Fill it about 1/3 full with aged chicken manure and partially decomposed straw from the bottom of the coop litter. Tie a piece of twine or clothesline around the top of the pillowcase and then set it in a large plastic pail, barrel or trashcan that leaves some room for water. Add water — about twice as much volume as the pillowcase contents — making sure you cover the pillowcase and its contents completely. Leave the ends of the twine or clothesline hanging over the side of the pail. Then set it uncovered in a sunny location. Dunk the pillowcase up and down a few times a day to agitate the water and introduce oxygen to the solution. After about 2 weeks, remove the pillowcase and discard the solid contents into your compost pile. To use the tea, dilute it (1 part tea to 4 parts water) and it’s ready to give plants a boost.

A note of caution: Fresh chicken manure is extremely high in nitrogen, which can burn young seedlings or plant roots, so you will definitely want to let the manure age for at least 3 months, and preferably 6 months or even a year, before using it on your garden. Also, using fresh chicken manure in your garden increases the chance of spreading diseases such as salmonella and E. coli, so be sure to let it age before you use it on edibles.

About Lisa Steele: Lisa is a lifelong gardener and chicken keeper. On her popular Fresh Eggs Daily website and Facebook page she shares tips on keeping chickens, as well as gardening advice, DIY projects, and  recipes.

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[Photo courtesy of Gardening with Chickens/Voyageur Press]

As you’d expect, my first recommendation for controlling insect pests in your garden is using your flock of chickens. Now, it’s important to realize that chickens don’t discriminate between the good and bad bugs. They’ll eat the heroes and the villains. But in the long run, chickens tend to be an effective, safe, and inexpensive way to keep your garden’s bug population in check. Here’s a season-by-season rundown of how your flock can help control garden pests.

Spring

When you let your chickens into the garden in the spring, you’ll find they naturally work the soil, turning it over, aerating it, and preparing the ground for planting as they scratch and peck looking for weeds, bugs, and other goodies in the dirt. Chickens have keen eyesight, which allows them to easily spot worms and bugs.

Hopefully, you will find that your chickens have eaten many of the soil-dwelling garden pests, bug larvae, and weed seeds before they have the chance to cause problems in your garden.

Some of the “bad” bugs — those that harm plants — that my chickens help control are cabbageworms, grasshoppers, Japanese beetles, and June bugs. [Photo courtesy of Gardening with Chickens/Voyageur Press]

Summer

Lisa Steele’s book is called Gardening with Chickens: Plans and Plants for You and Your Hens [Photo courtesy of Gardening with Chickens/Voyageur Press]

Chickens are a bit picky as to which bugs they will eat, but unfortunately their preferences probably don’t align with yours. They won’t differentiate between “good” bugs (such as worms, praying mantises, and ants) and “bad” bugs (such as Japanese beetles and stinkbugs), so you might want to safely relocate any of the good bugs you spot before the chickens can gobble them up. Chickens will also eat toads, which are extremely beneficial to gardens, so keep an eye out for them as well so you can move any you find to safety.

Even if you don’t let your chickens into your garden throughout the growing season, be sure to share any bug-eaten produce with your chickens. Not only do they not mind if a tomato is half-eaten, they consider the offending bug a tasty treat as well! Same goes for any vegetables nibbled by rabbits or deer — your chickens will love to eat them.

Fall

Fall is the perfect time to let your chickens wander freely in your garden. Once you have harvested your crops, you can let your chickens in to clean up the remaining stalks, vines, and stems. The chickens will not only collect their fair share of insects, they’ll also make quick work of any bug-eaten leaves or produce that wasn’t fit for harvest. Is there a bug or worm inside a tomato? You might think it’s gross, but to a chicken it’s just free protein!

A cautionary note: Some garden plants are toxic to chickens, especially if eaten in large quantities; these include asparagus, rhubarb, and members of the nightshade family, such as white potatoes, tomatoes and eggplant. Lisa’s Gardening with Chickens book includes a more comprehensive list.

About Lisa Steele: Lisa is a lifelong gardener and chicken keeper. On her popular Fresh Eggs Daily website and Facebook page she shares tips on keeping chickens, as well as gardening advice, DIY projects, and  recipes.

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Preparing the space was the hardest part of our garden conversion, but worth all the effort. We moved more than 30 wheelbarrow loads of soil to level the area — whew! I kept telling myself it was a one-time job that would not have to be repeated once done right. An enthusiastic husband is not to be underrated!

The CedarLast Raised Beds and Obelisk arrived in separate, easy-to-move boxes, with everything included except the drill. Most of the work was already done for me. Holes were predrilled and the directions were easy to follow. The instructions said that two people were needed to assemble the obelisk but I was able to do it by myself easily. The assembly of the components turned out to be a breeze and ALL the beds and obelisk were put together in less than two hours — amazing!

We had made a plan prior to choosing the components. On the installation day we altered that plan slightly. Once the final positioning was decided we went to work filling the beds and installing irrigation. We put down a weed barrier on top of the whole space before placing the beds. A 10-minute job worth doing.

We included planting space under and around the obelisk. Our intention was to have different-colored tomatoes growing up each of the sides. Until the tomato plants took off we would grow peas and use the underneath space for shade-loving plants. California is so warm that lettuce really needs a little extra shade to be successful. We also put companion herbs of basil and chives around the tomatoes.

Planting has been a treat.The height of the raised beds makes it comfortable and easy to access the whole bed. I can’t imagine going back to all in-ground planting. I guess I am spoiled now!

The original plantings leaned toward cooler weather choices. These plants would come in fast and then be harvested to make room for summer planting. Initially, we planted lettuces, radishes, kale, chards, herbs, edible flowers, and artichokes. We are keeping with the spirit of a true kitchen garden by making sure each plant has an edible part.

The plants love the new space and thrived right off the bat. We began eating salads by picking the outer leaves within a couple of weeks.

Peas love the obelisk, too. Not only is it a showstopper but it functions — all the tall plants are on the exterior, making harvesting easy. Ultimately our peas grew to the height of the obelisk.

We added areas of in-ground planting in the corners of the beds. This provided a space for perennials and made the beds look more grounded. Flowers were an important part of our planting. We are always thinking about attracting the pollinators.

I love greens! If I could grow just one thing, it would probably be greens, but don’t make me choose. Kale, chard, and mustard make great additions to salads and also work in a stir-fry.

Salad! Do I need to say more? Our salads include mixed greens, herbs and edible flowers. Every day it is like making a little painting on a plate — joy!

Did I mention strawberries? They are perfect in a raised bed. We chose a variety that would hang over the edges and produce all summer, making little spots of red. Considering the edges of a bed and what would fall over the sides adds depth and interest to the garden. Plus, can you have too many strawberries?

— Carrie

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