Seattle Tilth Edible Plant Sale – This Weekend! April 30, 2009

This is to me the most exciting plant sale of the year. It’s nearly all edibiles, mostly organic, and you can just see people quivering with excitement about bringing home their plants and looking ahead to the delicious harvest.

In past years, I have braved the mobs and gone early on the first day, the better to have a good selection, but I’m betting that this year will be a record-breaker in terms of attendance so I might go on Sunday instead and just take what’s left. They are supposed to bring in a new shipment of plants for that day, so I figure there’ll be at least something interesting as long as I don’t get my heart set on anything in particular.

Will this be the year I finally break down and buy a stevia for sweetening my summer iced teas? Or try something really unusual like Persian Cress (similar to watercress but can grow in drier soil)? Or actually attend a demo put on by a Master Composter?

Seattle Tilth Edible Plant Sale

Meridian Park,4649 Sunnyside Ave N, Seattle

Saturday, May 2 from 9am to 3pm and Sunday, May 3 from 11am to 3pm

For more info about the sale, including PDFs of what’s for sale, click here.

Do you have an all-time-favorite can’t-miss plant sale that you move mountains to get to every year?

Urban Fauna April 29, 2009

In the city of Seattle, we are pretty much accustomed to co-existing with creatures great and small, wild and tame. In the course of a single day, it’s unremarkable to see a wide variety of birds, insects, marsupials and rodents, as well as the usual variety of domestic pets.

It’s easy to get a bit jaded when there are eagles and herons close by and hummingbirds buzzing around the backyard on a daily basis. So you walk around and see these

and some of these

evidence of moles unseen

hilariously wide cat posing in front of restored door

Nothing too out of the ordinary. But then, on a drive to see friends in the southern part of town but still within city limits, something a little different:

Huh?! I know that Seattle just made it legal to own pygmy goats, but I hadn’t heard about cows! Turns out this is a family farm that has been passed down through generations and is one of two remaining designated farm plots in the city. I guess that’s one way to rid your grass of dandelions! Wonder if it makes the milk taste funky?

What’s the most unusual creature you ever saw in a city?

The Power of Pink April 28, 2009

One benefit of blogging about public spaces is that it’s making me look around a lot more this year and enjoy what’s going on in gardens other than my own. I don’t think I recall having noticed these trees in bloom before, even though they are right around the corner from my house.

My borrowed camera does not do justice to the intense purply-pink of the flowers. They are stop-in-your-tracks gorgeous.

The petals are thick and fleshy, and looking up into them they almost completely blot out the sky.

A few days after I took these pictures, I saw the owner coming out of his house and asked if he knew anything about the trees. He said he thinks they are crabapples, and that they do require a couple of rounds of spraying per year to keep them in good health and blooming so splendidly. My plant bible says that purple-flowering (and -leaved) crabapple, Malus x purpurea, is highly prone to both fireblight and apple scab. If that’s what they indeed are, then the sprays are probably for those reasons. I wonder if they’re using organic/non-harmful controls? I didn’t feel like I could ask that, already having been kind of nosy.

The petals are still hanging in there this week, although they will probably start to come down as the rains return today after a long departure. I’m going to make sure to walk underneath at least once more before their ephemeral beauty departs until next April.

SAGBUTT III: The Zombie’s Revenge April 24, 2009

A small but friendly crew gathered this past Sunday at the Good Shepherd Center in Seattle to yak about gardening, blogging, weather, weeds, seedlings and much more. Our genial hosts, Curmudgeon and Wingnut of Weed Whackin’ Wenches, brought homemade rhubarb bars from their freshly harvested fruit and provided us with a perfect space to meet and a very relevant view out the window of  Seattle Tilth’s leaf mulch bins. They have already got a lot of stuff going in their potager (they can use that word without sounding sniffy because Curmudgeon speaks fluent French), some under cloches that are keeping the cool nights and critters at bay.

We welcomed a new member, Devon, who is a fairly recent transplant to Seattle but seems to have already put her garden into high food-production gear. She is thinking of starting a blog to document her progress – I hope she does, as I’d love to hear more about her huge variety of edibles from loads of peas to plums, hardy kiwis, cherries, peaches and blueberries.

Paula from Petunia’s Garden spoke of all her happy little seed starts and brought more pumpkin seeds to share, including mine that I’d forgotten at the previous meeting. Thanks, Paula! I’m sure she will have a great time this summer when all of her broccoli, tomatoes, brussels sprouts, lettuces and other wonders are ready to harvest.

Another new member – Dakota. I completely forgot to take pictures during the meeting, so if you want to see what she looks like, you can click here. She was the quietest one of the bunch and didn’t seem to want to share her seed-starting or other garden secrets, although she is reputed to be perfectly well-behaved in the garden and also keeps it squirrel-free. I sincerely hope she recovers soon from her painful leg problem!

Every time I go to one of these get-togethers, I learn so much and also enjoy absorbing terms I’ve never heard before. This time around, it was new to me that carrot rust fly supposedly can’t fly higher than a foot off the ground, so planting carrots in tall containers might keep them pest-free. I also heard about a new potting soil that I want to try from Gardner & Bloome called Blue Ribbon. New terms: Bush Hog (turns out it’s a brand, Paula’s husband’s friend bought some kind of ground cutter off of Craigslist, super macho power mower deal), mountain beavers (large rodents who are actually not beavers at all, see this Seattle Times article for more info, they sound a little scary), and “zombie rhododendrons” (rhodie plants that are hacked down but sprout back unkillably from the stump – the inspiration for this post’s title).

It was a little hard to take that the sun was shining and it was perfect gardening weather while we were indoors, just talking about gardening… luckily, most people had time for a walk in the surrounding gardens after our mini plant swap (I brought inexpertly potted sarcococca and Devon came with a wayward strawberry and some happy little sedums which she’d pulled out of a crack in the rockery. I got to claim two of the latter, although I have yet to plant them – here’s what they look like.)

After the meeting, I went off to meet my family in the park but as we were leaving we bumped into the Wenches, who were still enjoying the Tilth gardens and soaking up some sun and photographing bees. I didn’t have a lot of time to stay and look at plants, but took a few quick snaps on the way to the car. I have a giant batch of Tilth photos from earlier in the spring, but I can’t find them at the moment. Maybe next winter, when I have nothing to do in the garden, I’ll happen upon them and put up another post.

Brush pile in a cage construction, beautiful detrius:

Mauve-flowering akebia, ready to take over the universe:

Colorful coffee bean sacks like the ones Paula brought us in February, used as a weed barrier:

Fruit tree trained into sculptural form:

Our next meeting is slated for Sunday, May 17 and we need someone to step up to plan and host. I’d volunteer, but am putting on a crazy princess birthday tea party for my daughter the day before and one gathering per weekend is about my max as far as planning goes! Is anyone up for it? Or should we try for June and just spend that day in our gardens?

Skywatch Friday – Another Tree April 23, 2009

I just can’t seem to resist putting a tree in my sky shots. I know there are plenty of great sky views with no trees in them, but I seem not to look up unless I’m examining branches, a canopy, leaves, twig-borne flower petals, or other arborific views.

Afternoon sky through unknown tree and red monkey bars at Meridian Park playground, Seattle, WA, USA in April, 2009. Head over here to see the many lovely and varied views of the sky from all over the world this week.

Worm Bin Bee April 22, 2009

My corner of the world is lucky to have a new organization, Sustainable NE Seattle, a small but growing group of neighbors working to find local and personal solutions to some of the thorny issues facing our planet. I recently joined a subset of the group, Urban Farmers, after seeing a front-lawn-to-food-crops transformation they devised and carried out in my neighborhood (blog post on that coming eventually,  I hope).

This past weekend, one of the group’s founders put out the call to everyone that she would host a tools-provided worm bin build in her backyard. She and her husband graciously allowed a bunch of us to get sawdust everywhere and take over the place to build six big-old bins for our own gardens. They also picked up all the materials, tossed in their own scrap wood to keep costs down, and kept everyone moving on the various phases of the project while graciously teaching many of us to use power tools for the first time.

Some people hammered:

Others sawed (I didn’t take a picture of anyone while they were doing it, since I have a horror of power saws and didn’t want to jinx anyone into lopping off digits!):

I was on drill duty with this kind gentleman, who has taught carpentry and was astonishingly patient with my beginner’s fumblings:

Our trusty mascot, who was happy to chase tossed fir cones whenever anyone had a break in their duties:

The other resident animals, who might not have been too happy with all the banging and sawing but were curious about all the activity anyway:

At one point I was making pilot holes for someone else to drill in the wood screws. We were a two-drill assembly line, and we did so many that I pretty much got over my fear I was going to put a hole in my finger. I liked this older Makita a lot, I can see why people get really into owning and handling wood-working tools:

These gals dubbed themselves the “Womens’ Drill Team” and they got pretty into using a human-powered drill which I neglected to photograph, which is too bad because it was very cool. It’s called a Yankee Push Drill and you can see pictures of some like it here at a vintage tools site.

After the sides, bottoms and lids were assembled separately, they were all put together and large-bore holes were drilled in the bottom for ventilation:

To keep rats from chewing through those, we stapled hardware cloth (i.e. incredibly tough screen material) over each hole. Despite various horror stories I’d heard over the years, all of the experienced worm composting folks there said that they hadn’t had trouble with rodents. So, I hope to continue that trend!

Ta-da! Two bins, finished and stacked for taking home:

Even with a lot of people and mostly pre-cut wood, it still took a long time to build the bins from scratch. I had to leave early (after coming late, bad work-party etiquette for sure but nobody made me feel bad!), so I have yet to bring home my bin. I hope to pick it up tomorrow, and then I’ll have to get going on shredding newspaper for the worms’ bedding and then getting actual worms. The ones I plan to use, Red Wigglers (Eisenia foetida), are pretty pricey – $25 for 1/2 lb. at Seattle Tilth, so I might be able to get some from my mom’s compost pile or see if there are any left over from the gal who brought some to the bee.

It might be a smart idea to invest in a copy of Worms Eat My Garbage by Mary Appelhof, the definitive classic on vermicomposting human food waste. To find out more about composting with worms, this Treehugger article has a lot of info plus links galore.

For the free plan we used, also from Seattle Tilth, click here for a 3-page PDF. With a bit of scrap wood, total costs including hardware for ours were only $23 each. I’ve seen them for sale for over $100, so if you are handy or know someone who is, that’s a pretty good savings for a few hours of work.

It was great to meet a bunch of people who are interested in stuff like this, and I am super excited to start letting the worms make me some incredible compost. Starting later this week, I will stop giving our family’s food scraps to the city to compost, except for the worm bin no-no’s (meat/dairy/fish and, according to some folks, citrus – too acidic.) This is my small attempt to do a bit more to cut down on our little family’s impact on the planet. Happy Earth(worm) Day!

Happy (Early) Earth Day April 18, 2009

To most gardeners, every day is Earth Day. We are already connected to the cycles of the seasons, the needs of the soil, and the interactions between plants, wild creatures, and humans.

But if you want to get technical about it, April 22nd has been designated Earth Day and all week there are many events, activities and actions to take part in to help celebrate and assist our planet. The Earth Day Network has a plethora of offerings, from links to local events to info about greening up schools and bringing clean water to the developing world.

I am sometimes cynical about these one-day deals but with this the idea is to educate ourselves and others to make lasting changes that will benefit us all. The City of Seattle just made some of this a lot easier by expanding its recycling and composting programs so that less garbage ends up in the landfill. My personal goal for this year is to stop being lazy about letting the city do my composting for me and then buying it back in plastic (non-recyclable) bags. To that end, I will be attending a worm-bin-building event tomorrow and hope to use the result to turn our food waste into black gold.

What are your plans for Earth Day this week? Special action or just enjoying digging in your own dirt and continuing on with your good-earth practices?

(“Twins Image” of Earth taken by Messenger spacecraft, produced by Johns Hopkins University/APL. Image courtesy of NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech. To see more images from this mind-bendingly large and free-to-use  gallery, click here.)

Aliens Have Invaded My Laundry Room April 17, 2009

Some very odd-looking creatures have landed on my dryer.

These ones only look a little scary.

The others are a bit more frightening-looking, with their purple tentacled eyes.

I hope they’re friendly!

(Yukon Gold and Peruvian Blue potatoes from Irish Eyes Garden Seeds “chitting” in advance of being planted, typically late. Still trying to figure out what to plant them in, container and soil wise, as I don’t have a bed that’s suitable. Maybe I should actually read the Potato Growers’ Guide provided by Irish Eyes, duh.)

Garden Bloggers’ Tax, Er, Bloom Day April 14, 2009

Our taxes are already done and the refund is in the bank (although much of it has gone back out the door already with a big round of bills, alas), so today is an attempt at worry-free, economy-be-danged floral abundance. Or at least what passes for that in still-early-days spring in my garden.

One of the hidden benefits of our harsh winter seems to have been that certain shrubs, bulbs and trees actually are blooming better and more bountifully now that spring has finally arrived. I also feel like my wacky attempts to protect last fall’s bulb plantings from the silly squirrels actually succeeded and I was rewarded with a higher than usual percentage of blooms come spring. I’m going to have to try my witches’ brew and paprika deal again next year and see if it really works or this was just a fluke.

Yak yak yak, what, you want to see the flowers already? Okay, nothing too unique or spectacular here, but I’m just grateful for color and as always anything that survives or volunteers in my garden (with the exception of popping weed, of which I have pulled 7 million thus far, and bindweed, whose evil little heads began popping out of the ground last week) is pretty much always welcome.

Here they are, as they say on my guiltiest of pleasures, ‘Dancing With the Stars,’ “in no particular order”:

Starting in the parking strip: Narcissus ‘Scarlet Royal’ – these are looking very bold out there, but next year I’ll have to remember to plant at least some across the sidewalk, since these ones all face the street to get the sun!

Early tulips whose variety did not make it to the computer list, alas, with my favorite little common bulb, Muscari americanum (grape hyacinth):

Volunteer pansies with I-know-it’s-a-weed-but-so-far-I-don’t-care violets:

Narcissus ‘Sir Winston Churchill’ – delicate and fragrant, just like its namesake. Um, wait, never mind.

‘Ultima Morpho’ pansy, which has been coming up from seed two times a year since my mom gave me some plants a few years ago. It is welcome to sow itself anywhere, any time. I picked one for a neighbor toddler today, and she gave it to her daddy. I love having pick-able plants on the street to share and talk about with visitors.

Moving up to the house level, the neglected and poorly sited erisimum (wallflower) in the front bed (a future post may be a please-help-me-redesign-this-sad-mess feature in this area) – still, it blooms from April to frost, with zero attention from yours truly.

Viburnum x bonantense ‘Dawn’ is still going here three or so months from its bloom onset. The original flush of blooms succumbed to frost, but a few more broke forth as its leaves are finally coming in (it usually blooms while ‘naked’):

Pulmonaria ‘Roy Davidson’ (Longleaf lungwort) – my borrowed el cheapo camera strongly disagrees with me on the color of this one’s flowers. My eyes say sky blue, the camera insists on a washed out blah instead. Trust me, this one looks great in the shade:

It’s hyacinth time! Their spicy perfume is everywhere. These are such reliable repeaters for me. I just toss a few in the ground in various spots, so that I can smell that amazing scent wherever I walk in early spring. Some of them do get a little tipsy.

This shrub was here when we moved in. It has been horribly abused, as it grows near a path and also had to be whacked almost to the ground when our house was repainted. I don’t think I recall it ever blooming before. Could it be another type of viburnum? It is lightly fragrant.

Here’s another unknown for all you good guessers out there. It has these very strongly perfumed small white blossoms in the springtime but then gets awful aphid damage the rest of the year. I think I spied this at the Portland Classical Chinese Garden, I meant to ask what it was but couldn’t find anyone who knew.

There is more but this is getting a bit long. I thought about doing a slideshow but the free WordPress doesn’t allow them, grrr. Maybe something to justify an upgrade someday.

Visit Carol’s May Dreams Gardens to see what else is popping up in plots all over the world on April 15!

It’s Not You, It’s Me

In addition to all the showy pinks and yellows of Seattle in springtime, the stunning white canopies of Clematis armandii blossoms are currently blanketing trellises and trees in town.

Well, they are except at my house.

Ouch. We inherited this plant from the previous owner, and I don’t know what’s going on with it but every year, it has this horrible late-winter dieback issue and looks like pure hell until I prune all the dead stuff out (already worked on it some, so this sad look is actually an improvement over last month) and the new leaves come in. I have wondered if it is a site issue, as it is exposed to western winds and seems to be unhappy with January cold snaps, but I have seen others with the same orientation that are doing fine. Here’s a happy west-facer just up the street:

And this one is literally two houses away, on a north fence, but climbing from the inside so maybe that helps?

Look at all those glossy green leaves for the masses of flowers to relax on! Let’s go back to mine for a horrible contrast:

You can see here that many of the flower buds on mine didn’t even open, they just literally died on the vine:

And the few that did actually open were pretty floppy and not at all fragrant, as C. armandii is supposed to be:

Enough of that hideousness! I need to either figure out what’s wrong with it and try to help it, or put something else in its place since this yearly struggle is just too depressing for words. It’s in a place where I pass by a lot every day so whatever’s there needs to be healthy and happy!

To end on a happier note, this is probably the largest vine of any type I’ve ever seen in Seattle. And it happens to be, you guessed it, another C. armandii. It’s visible from a block away, twining into its multiple hosts:

You don’t really notice it except at this time of year, when it makes the trees and hedge appear to be exploding into white bloom.

Here is the vine’s base – it was planted what must have been ages ago on the southwest side of its host’s trunk:

Now that’s a healthy vine! Maybe I should knock on the neighbors’ door and ask for their secret…