Eye Candy

Delicious autumn! 
My very soul is wedded to it,

and if I were a bird, 
I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.

- George Eliot

The pyracantha berries are at their peak now in my garden. They are beautiful, bright, and full of goodness that the birds and squirrels are feasting on.

Plant pyracantha in full sun and prune before flowering in late winter or early, early spring and you and the birds will be rewarded year after year.

In bloom in my garden today: Cuphea vermillionaire, Double white daisy, Fuchsia, Hardy Geranium “Lily Lovell”, Knifophia, Lavender, Himalayan honeysuckle (Leycesteria Formosa), Pachysandra axillaris 'Windcliff Fragrant', Salvia, Solanum crispum

Author’s photo

The Making of a Garden

As the garden grows, so grows the gardener."
- Unknown

It all began with a tree. A maple to be specific. A maple from a seed my husband picked up on a walk one day and planted in a pot when he got home. After about 10 years of growth, we liberated the small tree from its pot and planted it in the grass parking strip in front of our house.

Initially I was only going to have a small circular patch cleared of grass around the trunk. Mowing and edging grass too near a tree’s trunk can cause detrimental damage to the bark layer and shorten the life of the tree so it’s always good to have a safe zone of ground cleared of grass all the way around a tree’s trunk. To create the safe zone, I did the cover-to-smother* method since I refuse to dig out turf and I didn’t want to cause damage to the tree’s surface roots by trying to remove the existing turf.

So, in 2010 I laid cardboard over the grass around the tree trunk, covered it with a thin layer of mulch and let nature (moisture, worms and soil life) do its thing, decomposing the turf, cardboard and mulch into nice aerated soil.

Sometime later in 2011(below), I decided to enlarge the area around the tree and fill it with perennials thereby reducing the amount of grass overall and so a new garden began to take shape. The bricks you see were holding down some wire panels from an old compost bin, intended to keep neighborhood animals from digging into the mulch and exposing the cardboard.

Small in its infancy, as gardens often do, it expanded over the years to come. By 2013 (below) my plants needed more room. So, I gathered more cardboard and widened the edges,

…and covered the cardboard with more mulch.

In the next photo you can see those same bricks used from the first photo to hold down the edge of the cardboard and give a neater looking delineation between the mulch and grass.

Then that same winter, I decide we need a walkway from the side walk across to the street. Yep, I lay more cardboard and topped it with 18-inch square pavers and side dressed the balance with more mulch and left it alone for the winter. It really couldn’t be easier. I didn’t try to level the pavers at this point. The next summer, once it was all decomposed underneath them, I did any leveling adjustments as needed, which were few.

In 2014 I needed more room again. As the plants grow or I add more plants, I just expand the edges to accommodate. It may be slow, but I think this is the easiest way to carve away grass footage and gain garden space and beauty. It does take some months for it to become a plant-able soil, so think in advance of buying the plants or making divisions of your own holdings. Do the smothering 6 months or more before you want to plant. Your microclimate and weather conditions will determine how fast the decomposition takes to become plant-able.

This time I used more bricks to hold down an edge. It looked better and once it was all decomposed, I removed them.

Now it’s Autumn of 2019 and I decide to get rid of this last remaining strip of grass between the garden and the sidewalk seen below. It is a nuisance to trim and the plants need more room. I could of course cut back the plants but I’d rather have less grass.

When working against a concrete edge like this sidewalk, it is important to get the cardboard tucked down an inch or so between the concrete and soil. Use a flat blade from a spade or edger to pry the turf away from the concrete edge to make it easier to tuck the cardboard in.

The goal is to completely cover the grass. If it has any light peeking through any edge it will find it and keep growing.

It is also important to overlap each piece by a few inches for the same reason. Every bit of grass must be covered so no light can get through.

I marked the locations of our underground sprinkler heads with rocks, so in the summer when it’s time to start watering again I can easily find them and carefully dig to expose them. By then the grass and cardboard should be completely or mostly decomposed and easy to poke around in.

In some of the earlier photos above you will notice the cardboard is dry. I soaked it after laying it, but before covering it with mulch. Now I prefer to soak it before laying. I soak it in a big plastic tub, but if you can’t, then you can let a sprinkler spray it for a while to wet it. I think wet card board is easier to lay and conform to the ground undulations. Wind doesn’t tend to shift wet cardboard around either before you can get a heavy mulch on top of it. But be careful not to get it too wet. Sopping wet cardboard tears easily and can be harder to get it from the tub to where you want it.

That is a large size concrete mixing tub. It held all the cardboard I needed to do this strip. I let it soak for about an hour while I gathered the tools I needed for the project. A wheelbarrow would be a great choice too.

I like to put mulch over wet cardboard rather than dry. I don’t want the dry cardboard to pull moisture from the mulch. The key here is everything needs to stay completely covered and moist, so your rainy season is good to take advantage of when timing your project.

The mulch you use can be bag-bought or your own home-made compost. I have used both, whichever I have on hand. It just needs a fairly thick layer on the cardboard so it all stays wet. You could also use wood chip. Mulch, compost, wood chip…it doesn’t really matter. Just use whatever you want the end result to be.

That thin edge of cardboard will remain showing for the winter and possibly into late winter/spring, until it falls apart. It may not look completed or beautiful for those months but it’s a tradeoff I am willing to take rather than dig turf. I could try to cover it with mulch but it will just roll off onto the sidewalk and I don’t want to have to keep sweeping it, and if I still had all those bricks, I would use them to make a nicer looking edge until it is all decomposed.

When my tree leaves begin to fall, I will cover it with them too, adding to the layers, keeping it all moist underneath.

 This is my version of working smarter not harder.

So if you’ve got grass you want to replace with a garden, consider rummaging around in cardboard recycling bins or saving your home delivery boxes. A new garden is only limited by the imagination.

*Cover-to-smother…a super important side note:

When creating a garden close to existing trees, it is critical to use compost or mulch NOT dirt or bagged soil. Dirt and soil will build up the ground level and suffocate the surface roots. Surface roots breath and absorb moisture from the ground surface. When they get buried deeply, they try to regain surface. They can circle the tree trunk and as the trunk continues to grow in circumference, it will be strangled by the root that is circling it. That is called girdling. Girdling will kill any tree. As the trunk is girdled the bark gets compressed closer and tighter to the heartwood. The cells between the heartwood and bark are how nutrients and water get transported up to the canopy and leaves. Once the bark is compressed so tightly to the heartwood, nutrients and sap cannot flow. A thin layer of cardboard, compost or mulch will decompose, keeping the soil level that the tree is used to constant. Additionally, never pile more than an inch of compost/mulch over the top of the cardboard. I see folks all around my local neighborhoods piling up bark mulch or wood chip or compost or soil in huge deep piles way high up against the trunks of their trees. See the two examples following below. This will eventually kill the tree. 

 Please never do this (see above) to any tree. Ever. When planting a potted tree, always plant it at the soil level it is in the pot. Dig your planting hole 3 times the width of the pot but no deeper than the soil level in the pot. When adding mulch never pile up more than an inch deep close to the trunk or within the drip zone. A drip zone is the circumference below the tree’s canopy marked by rain dripping off the edges of the branches, straight down.

Tree trunks have a natural flair at the base. Tree flair must be maintained for a healthy tree (above). Some trees exhibit more flair than others.

I know this is a longer post than is my usual and I am grateful you read it to the end. A few of my previous posts in this blog touch on this method of grass removal, but I have been photo-documenting the making of this garden over the years to make a more complete account. I hope this is understandable and encouraging for you to create more garden space easily. No grub hoe needed.

Any questions? Please comment below.

Thanks for reading. Cheers!

In Bloom in my Garden Today: Alyssum, Aster, Coreopsis ‘moonbeam’, Crocus, Cuphea vermillionaire, Cyclamen hederifolium, Daisy, Eupatorium rugosum ‘Chocolate’ (joe pye weed), Fuchsia, Geum, Heuchera, Kirengeshoma palmata, Kniphofia ‘Echo Mango’, Lavender, Nepeta ‘six hills giant’ (catmint), Phygelius, Salvia garanitica ‘black and blue’, Solanum crispum

Author’s photos

Raking for Gold

Earth knows no desolation. She smells regeneration in the moist breath of decay.

– George Meredith, 1828-1909, English novelist and poet

Happy fall day!

 

Fall season in the Pacific Northwest is synonymous with alternating bouts of soft rain showers, hard rain, rain deluge, wind, hail, warm-wet storms from the south Pacific competing with frigid northerly winds and more rain. But then the sun will come out and warm and dry us once again. We revel in the beauty of this season as we venture out for our fall walks and absorb the amazingly gorgeous leaf colors that this time of year brings to our little corner of the world.

It’s October. The tree’s leaves reveal their true colors that lie hidden under the chlorophyll as it dissipates with the ebbing sunlight, only to drop as bounty to blanket the ground in glorious color. I love the fall for its beautiful sunny days and the beauty and systematic purpose of creation as it gears down for a long winter’s nap. It also brings the promise of a time of rest for me from what can at times be the rigors of tending the summer garden.

To the savvy and frugal gardener it also means time to rake in the gold!

The gold I refer to are all those deciduous tree and perennial leaves that are beginning to drop. Beautiful, wonderful, nutritious, weed blocking, soil feeding leaves blowing around that land on your lawn and garden beds. If you are like me you purposely planted deciduous trees with small leaves like Katsura and Japanese maple varietals. Small leaves or leaf pieces are faster to decay without smothering and are easy to rake and distribute over your garden beds like a snuggly winter blanket that will become food for your soil by spring time. Food for your soil means food for your plants, which means free fertilizer!

I cannot help but shake my head when I see homeowners and hired groundskeepers blowing leaves away (and into the street only to clog storm drains and cause minor localized flooding…but that’s a rant for another post) or neighbors grumbling as they mow up or rake then dump their leaves into yard waste bins for the city to pick up and haul away. Those leaves go to a compost facility only to be treated like the gold that they are for some months before the compost they become is bagged and sold back to the gardener who then spreads it over their garden. Save your time and money friend. You’ve already done the job of raking it off your lawn, now instead of giving it away, just deposit it over your garden beds and let it do the work of natural decay.

Honestly, can anyone really say they prefer the deafening drone of a gas powered leaf blower over the soft scritch-scritch of a leaf rake? Ever been on a walk, reveling in the beauty of color and sun on a quiet fall day only to round the corner and encounter, well…which would you rather hear? Not to mention the cloud of dust, debris and pollen that blower stirs up…well hello seasonal allergies!

Now that the leaf blower has done its job, the soil is bare once again and awaiting any and all airborne weed seeds to come in for a landing and call your garden home.

Have you ever considered the normal order of the seasons in nature? Rarely if ever, do you see bare soil. The forests annually cover their feet and floor with leaf drop and the meadows clothe themselves with leafy ground-covering perennials. Mostly, where you see a weedy mess is where the ground is regularly swept bare and weeds are allowed to multiply because there isn’t someone or something to constantly monitor or stir up the area.

My entire back and side yard are garden and the only places I have to do regular weeding is along portions of the walkways where foot traffic and breezes push away my annually laid leafy mulch.

My leaf corralling tools are inexpensive and easy to acquire.

1. A garbage can of a size easy for you to handle when full. Dry leaves are very light weight so a full can is not terribly heavy, but if you have to rake leaves between rain showers like I did today, wet leaves can be much heavier so it’s a good idea for your container to be of a size that accommodates your abilities.

2. A spring rake or leaf rake. This is not a heavy plastic rake. This rake has metal tines that are thin, light and springy. They reduce the amount of effort by half (if not more) and actually flip the leaves up rather than dragging them across. Believe me, when you experience the difference you will see the value of this rake.

3. Snow shovel. Don’t you just love the value of a thing that has more than one purpose? I do! It sure saves room in the tool shed. Once you get your leaves into a pile with your beloved spring rake, your trusty aluminum light weight snow shovel is the perfect tool to scoop them and (tilted at just the right angle) pour them easily into your can. With the snow shovel you will get through that pile in no time!

  

That’s it! One rake, one snow shovel and one can. No gas that needs to be mixed with oil. No running to the gas station because the blasted thing is out of gas. No ear plugs. No straps to keep a heavy gas powered-smoke-belching-engine-way-too-close-to-my-head strapped to my back. No machine that needs to drained of the gas/oil (now-what-do-I-do-with-it) before it gets stored for winter. No electrical cords to trip over or curse at because you just. can’t. quite. reach. Ok…maybe just one little rant. Thanks for indulging me.

So now that my can is full, I pull it (mine has wheels 😊) to where I want and proceed to pour out and spread an even layer over the soil, thus putting it to bed for the winter. Initially those fluffy leaves can be a nice 6-12 inch layer. It will quickly settle to less than half. Care must be taken not to cover plant tops with all these leaves. The leaves (leaf mulch only) can be spread up to the stems of plants and it is ok to cover bare crowns of herbaceous perennials like Asparagus or Hostas once their leaves have died back. 

This should be an enjoyable exercise, not a chore. Consider getting out to rake every other day or so depending on your leaf drop (and the weather of course). You can get smaller amounts raked quickly with a modest amount of effort, equating to regular exercise not to mention the de-stress-after-work benefit. If you leave it all to the end when your trees have dropped all their leaves, much of them will have blown away, losing a valuable resource and the job will be more time consuming all at once making it possibly an arduous task that you don’t enjoy. The goal is not to end up with a five foot pile to deal with!

The benefits of this pleasurable activity are numerous…

1.  Weed control  so your plants aren’t competing for nutrients with weeds. Weed seeds that blow around from neighboring yards can’t find purchase on bare soil because yours is now not bare and it prevents seeds already on the ground from germinating. And who wants to spend time weeding anyway?
2. Protective layer for plants root systems that may otherwise succumb to freezing temps.
3.  Fertilizer. Compost and leaf mulch is well documented for its nutritious benefit to the garden.
4. Soil tilth. Soil microbes and worms and bugs seek out this decaying matter and turn it into food for your plants.
5.   Soil health and plant health. See 1-4 above.
6. Gardener health. Cardio, muscle building (hello abs!)and mental health as it’s so good to get outdoors.

It's WIN-WIN! Fall exercise for your body equates to winter protection becoming spring nutrition for your garden. Does it get any better than that?

Fall time in the garden should be enjoyable, savoring the last days of gardening for the year, putting your garden to bed for the winter and putting potted plants where winter’s freezing temperatures won’t harm the plants or break the pots. If you don’t already, please also consider leaving seed heads on certain plants to feed the birds that winter over in your region. Already I am enjoying watching the juncos feed on the seed heads of Liatris and Echinacea. If you need more convincing, please enjoy my previous post for benefit to less fall cleanup and more time to go on lovely fall day walks and take advantage of the mental healing time spent outdoors can provide.

Cheers!

Side note: If your trees have big leaves that does mean an extra step, because big leaves mat down like plates over one another and can smother neighboring plants and shed the rain off that you want to seep in to the soil. Big leaves need to be chopped smaller then corralled by a method of your choosing. A quick search online can give many options but I think the easiest is running your lawn mower over them with the catcher in place, then spread over your garden beds.

  

In Bloom in my Garden Today: Ajuga, Aster, Caryopteris ‘Longwood Blue’ (bluebeard), crocus speciosus (blue fall crocus), Cyclamen hederifolium, Daisy (white double), Eupatorium rugosum ‘Chocolate’ (joe pye weed), Fuchsia, Geranium ‘Mavis Simpson’, Heuchera, Hyssop, Kirengeshoma palmata, Lavender, Nepeta ‘Six Hills Giant’ (catmint), Oregano vulgare compactum ‘humile’ (compact oregano), Phygelius (cape fushia), Rose ‘Shropshire Lad’, Rose ‘Reine de Violette’, Rosemary, Salvia garanitica ‘Black and Blue’, Solanum crispum

Authors photos

Collards - A New Favorite

The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, not to worry about the future, not to anticipate troubles, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly.” ~Siddhartha Gautamav


First and foremost I want to thank all of you who still have my blog feed coming to you. I’ve been absent for many months and so appreciate you for hanging in there, waiting for me to get my stuff together and resume writing. Thank you so much.

It has been an interesting year since my last post; filled with sorrow and emotional soul searching while settling dad’s estate and clearing my parents’ house to prepare it for sale. However, peppered amongst all that was much joy and new beginnings for me.

I went back to work, this time at a nursery, doing what I love most…working with plants, helping people with their gardens and spending lots of time with people who love gardening like me. Thus far it’s the most rewarding job I think I’ve ever had.

In late August, one of my customers came in specifically to buy collard seeds. I remembered her as I’d helped her a few times throughout the summer but hadn’t really got to know who she is as a gardener. Turns out she is a weight trainer, and we got to talking about growing greens for a healthy diet. I’d sold lots of collard plant starts in the spring and knew it was very popular in Southern USA cooking. Now, I love greens… kale, beets, mustards, chard, etc but many greens contain oxalic acid which is fine for some folks but not for those concerned with calcium issues. I had never eaten collard greens nor paid much attention to them. So as she was extolling all the virtues of collard greens I asked her if she knew if it was high or low in oxalic acid. She didn’t know so I made a mental note to do research on it when I got home. Then she gave me one tidbit that sold me on growing collards myself. That it grows all winter in our climate, which means you can have fresh greens all winter and even snowfall doesn’t faze it. She said you simply knock off the snow, pick the leaves and cook them up. Wow, I want to grow some of that! I did some research and found them to be low in oxalic acid. Then I bought a bunch from my green grocer to try them. Yum! So I bought some seeds and got a few starts going. Today I have about 8 plants in various sunny places around the perennial garden to see which locations are best. 

Collards are cool weather plants. They are best grown in spring and fall, like spinach and some kales. I say some kales because I grew a new (new to me) variety of kale this year that wasn’t fazed by hot days in the 90’s F (32+C). But that’s fodder for another post. Today we’re talking collards. Collards can grow between 40-75F (5-23C) with optimum growing temps of 60-65F (16-19C) degrees, and as with many fall weather crops they taste sweeter after a frost. They are packed full of vitamins and minerals and rich in carotenoids. Naturally, as with many greens, they are high in vitamin K so if you have blood disorders they may not be right for you.

Collards are from the Brassica family therefore the cabbage moth is something to guard against. The minute mine were in the ground that little white rascal of a moth was flitting around laying her eggs on the undersides of the leaves. We still had warm, sunny days at planting time and the moths were persistent, so I mixed up some BT (Bacillus Thuringiensis) in my 1 gallon sprayer. BT is an organic pesticide that is used to kill leaf eating larvae and caterpillars. It degrades in the sunlight so spray it in the evening hours and re-apply every few days or once weekly, depending on your level of pest control needed. That’s why I mix it up in a gallon sprayer. I just keep it mixed and use the gallon over a period of several weeks. It makes it easy to do a quick spray when I get home from work or after dinner. Frankly the cabbage moths were making a mess of my kale too so every few days I’d spray the whole lot, concentrating on the underneath of the leaves.  And I’ll say this about the collards…the cabbage moths seemed to like the kale more than the collards. Way more egg laying going on with the kale. Now that the weather has turned cold and wet, the moths are gone, so the spray isn’t needed any more.

Fertilize with a high nitrogen fertilizer like seaweed extract organic liquid or a fish fertilizer since it’s the leaves you want and not flowers. I’m excited to see the plants getting bigger. And it is interesting to see which locations are growing bigger plants. Do you ever do that? Plant veggies in more than one location throughout your perennial garden areas? I’ve often done that when my veggie space fills up and am surprised to see some grow better where I least expected them to.

As far as cooking collards, I’ve seen many recipes and only a few ways to cook them. Thus far I have only chopped the de-stemmed leaves and sautéed them in olive oil and spices, just like I do kale greens. Quite delicious I must say. The flavor is hard to describe but for sure nothing like kale. Collard greens have an earthy flavor to me.

Our winter is forecasted to be warmer and drier than normal so I may not get the fun of knocking off the snow before I harvest them but I can’t wait to cook my fresh winter harvest.

Since I’m new to this beautiful green I’d love any and all thoughts on cooking and even your favorite recipe if you care to share.

Thanks ever so much for reading!

In Bloom In My Garden Today: Agastache foeniculum (anise hyssop),

Alyssum, Cyclamen hederifolium (fall),Daisy(white double,) Daphne caucasica, Echinacea, Eupatorium rugosum ‘chocolate’ (joe pye weed),
Fuchsia, Heath (Erica carnea ‘springwood white’), Kirengeshoma palmata, Nepeta, Rose, old English ‘reine des violettes’, Salvia

 
Author’s photo

Apiary Update

For bees, the flower is the fountain of life. For flowers, the bee is the messenger of love.

~Kahlil Gibran
 

I am sad to report that my bees have all died this year. We did our utmost to keep the hive alive this spring. I could see that it was failing and that the queen had disappeared so we inserted a few frames with new eggs and some brood from a strong hive so they could make their own queen, which they did, but within a few months it had completely died. Not sure why but such is the way of beekeeping in these difficult and troubling times for the bees.

Happily there are several beekeepers within blocks of my urban home and their bees are going to town these sunny days on my Silver Vein Creeper (Parthenocissus henryana), packing full the pollen sacks on their legs.

 

I planted this vine years ago to camouflage an otherwise boring fence and I’ve been so happy with it. It grows to 10 feet long (3 meters) so it nicely covers a 6 foot (1.8m) fence, draping gracefully over the other side as seen above.

 

The leaves are a silver-veined green turning a lovely apricot in the fall. A perfect backdrop to the fall blooming and fragrant Gladiolus callianthus (formerly Acidanthera). While in the photo above the background of these leaves is in fuzzy focus, you can get an idea of the colors.

 

The vine's flowers are considered ‘insignificant’ in the gardening world, which just means they are so small they are hardly visible, but for the bees they pack a wallop in the pollen department. In the above photo is an opened flower, pollen exposed. Below you can see the vines are covered with flower buds, just a tad bigger than a pinhead.

 

This is neither a messy vine nor a thug by any means. It is deciduous, so the leaves drop off for the winter, making great mulch and providing easy access to the vines to prune and control as you please in late winter, early spring. This is when I thin it out and corral its growth. It can take sun to part shade and is hardy to USDA zone 4. It is self attaching, meaning it puts out little tendrils which find a flat surface then stick to it with little round pads, like frogs ‘toes’, if you will. These tendrils will also curl around a wire support if you choose to use a trellis.

Overall a very easy and versatile vine. I highly recommend it, especially for the bees!

In Bloom In My Garden Today: Alyssum, Begonia ‘bonfire’, Caryopteris ‘longwood blue’ (bluebeard), Cimicifuga simplex ‘brunette’, Coreopsis ‘moonbeam’, Cyclamen, Daisy(white double), Daphne caucasica ‘Eternal Fragrance’, Echinacea pallida, Echinacea purpurea magnus, Fuchsia, Gaillardia (blanket flower), Gladiolus callianthus (formerly Acidanthera), Kirengeshoma palmata, Kniphofia ‘echo mango’Mullen chaixii ‘Album’, Nepeta ‘six hills giant’ (catmint), Perovskia ‘little spire’, Phygelius ‘new sensation’ (cape fushia), Rose, Salvia, Star Jasmine (trachelospermum jasminoides), Tomato

Authors photos

Grilling from the Garden

And remember that monotonous work – weeding the garden, sorting beans – allows the brain time to contemplate, question, and be in awe.

~ David Bradshaw

Meals just don’t get much better in the summer and fall than those of grilled just-picked vegetables.

Our weather here has gone from a long wet and cool spring to hot and dry almost overnight which means an abrupt end to a long and delicious snap pea crop.

 

Normally I grow ‘Cascadia’ snap peas which are an edible pod pea meaning you eat the whole thing, no shelling. If you do shell the peas you lose the sweetest part. These peas are best if left on the vine long enough to make a fat, juicy pod. My favorite way to eat them is to toss the freshly picked peas in some olive oil and spices and put them right into my preheated grill basket with other veggies.

 

Last year I discovered this grilling basket.  It is made of stainless steel without non-stick coating and the sides are high enough so when stirring and turning the veggies don’t jump out over the sides. I find it best to toss the raw veggies in a bowl with olive oil and spices while the basket is heating up on the grill rather than oiling the basket directly. Tossing the oiled veggies into the hot basket is less messy and I don’t have any problem with food sticking. I use this basket for quick cooking veggies like zucchini, snap peas, asparagus, chopped kale leaves, mushrooms, and chopped tomato. Toss on a few oiled, raw, shelled and cleaned prawns in the last minutes…ummm delish!

I buy a dark green olive oil and cook on low temps. Even on med/low I haven’t had any problem with the oil burning and I do get a good sizzle. My go to spice mixture has been freshly ground fenugreek seed, garlic powder, dried rosemary, dried basil, dried thyme, sea salt and pepper but lately I’ve been adding anise seed. I love the aroma and flavor anise gives. I tried chopping fresh garlic but it falls through the holes of this basket and burns on the flame so garlic powder is best. Whole garlic cloves don’t cook enough for my tastes by the time these quick cooking veggies are done.

Hot weather stops the pea plants from flowering so with this onset of summer heat the plants are pretty much done for. When it’s time to remove the vines, don’t pull them out. Cut them off at the soil level as the roots have nitrogen rich nodules attached. Leaving them in the ground is enriching for both the soil and crops to follow. In my case I’ll be planting my kale seedlings in that spot soon. It is generally not recommended to compost your pea vines in your own compost pile unless you know it gets really hot. There could be undetected viruses or fungi on the old vines. I just cut all the vines off and toss the whole tangled lot into the city pick up bin.

For a few years I grew purple potatoes and paired them with carrots for a beautiful dish, steaming them on the grill in parchment/foil packets. I just can’t get over how gorgeous the two colors are together, the color in the photo doesn’t do justice. I drizzle olive oil over the top then for the spices here I used freshly ground fenugreek seed, whole garlic cloves and freshly ground rosemary. It all cooks in about 30 minutes on low. Looks like I was out of parchment paper that day as I usually I put it between the food and the foil.

 

Next carrots are paired with red chard stems and my fresh garden leeks.

 

I was having problems with the bottom burning so I now put loosely crumpled foil ‘pillows’ under the food/foil packets. Problem solved.

And then there is our corn steamed in its jacket. Follow this link to a previous post. Yum, can’t wait for this year’s corn to be ready for the picking. I’ve got 6 stalks growing, one of which is just beginning to tassel!

 

 

What have you got growing in your garden for grilling season?

In Bloom in My Garden Today: Alyssum, Asiatic lily, Astilbe,  Begonia ‘bonfire’, blueberries, Daisy(white double), Daphne caucasica, Digitalis grandiflora, Echinacea, Fuchsia, Gaillardia (blanket flower), Green Beans, Hardy Geranium, Heuchera, Hosta, Kniphofia, Lavender, Lobelia, Mullen chaixii ‘Album’, Nepeta ‘six hills giant’ (catmint), Phygelius ‘new sensation’ (cape fushia), Purple poppies, Rose, Salvia, Sedum, Star Jasmine (trachelospermum jasminoides), Thyme, Tomato, Veronica ‘royal candles’, Zucchini

Authors photos

 

Tomato Willamette - A New Favorite

August, for me, was the beginning of three months of intensive harvesting and food processing. Kettles of salsa, tomato sauce, and corn dominated the kitchen in endless relays through the fall. Three large freezer chests were packed with cider, berries, and meat.

At the time, I believe this was referred to as returning to the simple life. Good for a laugh.
~ Ani Gurnee

I’ve talked to people here in the Pacific Northwest that have given up trying to grow tomatoes in their gardens, saying we just don’t have the hot weather for it.  Or do we?  We actually have a long growing season but is considered cool till August.  Forget Beefsteak or Brandywine here unless you have a greenhouse.  They need a long, hot growing season to reach their size, you’d be lucky to get one to ripen before frost.  So cool and iffy is our growing season for tomatoes, many gardeners stick with the cherry tomatoes. Such a small tomato doesn’t need a long, hot summer to give ample produce.  But read on and I hope to convince you to try growing larger varieties that prefer our cooler summers.

I’ve also talked with shoppers in the grocery store.  One man saw me choosing organic tomatoes and he complained that “tomatoes here (in the Northwest) have no flavor”.  He was from the east coast.  I told him he might try growing his own, so they would be fully ripened on the plant yielding more nutrition and flavor when he picked them.  The tomatoes in the grocery stores have been picked for transport so they are green, firmer so as not to bruise or crack and will ripen during transit or in the store.  Because they are picked green they never fully develop the nutrients and flavor of an on-the-plant ripened tomato.  Also the growers who supply grocery stores use those varieties that have been developed for more disease resistance and to have a sturdier fortitude for shipment.  The commercial world calls these “shipping tomatoes”. Flavor wasn’t necessarily the goal for hybridizers.

I have mentioned a few times on this blog that after trying several tomato varieties that Stupice, a roma type, became my favorite for its early production in my climate, meaty not too seedy, prolific harvest and reliability.  It’s the perfect tomato for growing in our cool, cloudy, unpredictable spring weather.  A Czechoslovakian heirloom, cold doesn’t set it back like most hot weather tomatoes.  Stupice has a 65 day maturity rate and is an indeterminate type, meaning it is more sprawling with vines that will need support and will produce longer into the season giving you a lengthy harvest. 

My new favorite is Willamette.  It is a determinate type, with a 70 day maturation after transplanting your seedling into your garden.  Determinate tomato varieties tend to be more compact, shorter and bush like that may not need staking and will give you more fruits all at once…great for canning, when you want to do batches.  However my experience with Willamette is that I wanted a trellis to support the vines, the tomato is so heavy it pulled them down.  The tomatoes are GEORGEOUS!  And double the size of Stupice with a beautiful multi-lobe shape like the beautiful heirlooms.  Willamette was developed at Oregon State University for our short growing season.  I will mention that while their maturity rates are registered at only 5 days difference, I think Stupice gave me ripe tomatoes much sooner than a 5 day difference.  Both last summer (Stupice) and this summer (Willamette) were cool, and wet well into July.  I had tomatoes way earlier last summer (Stupice) than this summer.

 

Like Stupice, Willamette is more meaty than seedy.  I don’t like tomatoes that ooze out half their weight in goopy seed stuffs before you actually get it onto your plate.

 

Both Stupice and Willamette fit well into the small garden but in my experience Stupice is a bigger plant which may need some pruning to keep it in its allotted space.

To have the best tomato variety to meet your specific needs and for your location I suggest you forgo the plant starts at the nursery or garden center and study seed catalogs for your region.  Then choose one or two varieties that have the characteristics you want, buy the seed and start your own.  That said most reputable nurseries do carry the most popular varieties that will grow in your region but you are limited to what they choose to sell.  I rarely find Stupice and haven’t seen Willamette for sale as plant starts.

I start my tomato seeds pretty early by most standards.  I start them indoors in February mostly because I’m antsy to get going in the garden again but it’s still way too cold.  As they grow I pot them up so they don’t get root bound so by the time mid May rolls around I’ve got a gallon size plant to transplant.  Now is when you start your countdown.  If the seed packet says 70 days to maturity, begin counting when you’ve transplanted your plant into the garden. Not when you sowed the seed.  So 70 days from my May planting date will be sometime in August for harvest.  Poor weather shouldn’t be a factor since I’ve chosen varieties that perform well in my climate, which can be cool and wet well into June.  Frost however is another issue.  My last frost date is April 15 so again it shouldn’t be a factor but be prepared to cover your plants if a late frost is predicted.

I don’t do canning, and I only cook for 2 so I don’t need a super prolific plant.  Even though one is a determinate and the other an indeterminate, both these varieties yield an easy amount, spaced out just right so I can share a few with neighbors and enjoy them on our plates without feeling overwhelmed by tomatoes!

Stupice is an heirloom, meaning its been grown for many years and the seed has been saved because of certain qualities of the plant/fruit and has been passed down through the generations.  Seed Savers is a company committed to preserving that tradition.  Willamette is a hybrid tomato, meaning a tomato that was recently (40 years ago) cross bred with other tomatoes for certain desired tomato qualities.  Make no mistake…hybrid is not GMO.  Genetic modification (GMO) is the controversial science and practice of taking genes from one species and inserting them into another, ie: animal genes inserted into plant genes. I do not use GMO seed or purchase GMO foods at market.  Never.

So, to recap. 

Stupice: indeterminate, a bigger plant (may want to prune it to keep it in check for a small garden), medium size roma type tomatoes, needs staking, harvest over a long extended period, cool weather friendly.

 Willamette: determinate, a compact plant, large meaty tomatoes, minimal staking but still recommended, harvest over a more concentrated timeframe, cool weather friendly.

In Bloom In My Garden Today: Alyssum, Begonia ‘bonfire’, Borage, Caryopteris ‘longwood blue’ (bluebeard), Cimicifuga simplex ‘brunette’, Colchicum, Coreopsis ‘moonbeam’, Cyclamen coum, Daphne aucasica, Echinacea, Fuchsia magellanica ‘hawkhead’, Gaillardia (blanket flower), Hardy Geranium, Heather(Erica carnea ‘springwood white’), Hosta, Kirengeshoma palmata, Kniphofia ‘echo mango’Lobelia, Nepeta ‘six hills giant’ (catmint), Oregano vulgare compactum ‘humile’ (compact oregano), Perovskia ‘little spire’, Phygelius ‘new sensation’ (cape fushia), Rose, Salvia, Schizostylus, Star Jasmine (trachelospermum jasminoides), Tomato, Veronica ‘royal candles’,

Author’s photos