2011 Garden Theme - Baby Garden

After a year of bad garden juju in 2010, we are particularly excited to greet a new year at the South Sound Garden.  Last year's weather led such garden disappointment we stopped posting altogether in disgust!  But all the time not spent in a depressing garden gave us a little time to attend to other things:

We are tickled pink to be expecting a baby girl in late February.  Since babies aren't candidates for solid food until they're about 6 months, and even then very simple veggies and grains, we're planning to plant baby-friendly produce and freeze whatever gets harvested before she can eat. The good news is many baby-friendly favorites are easy to grow (even in a crappy year!)

Baby-Friendly Veggies
Carrot
Parsnip
Peas
Pumpkin
Potato
Squash
Zucchini

Baby Friendly Fruits Already Growing in SSG
Apples
Berries
Cherries
Plums

We picked up this book from Williams Sonoma on cooking for baby and it has a lot of good tips on what/when/how.

Happy New Year!


Amanda

Keeping Dogs and Other Critters out of the Garden Beds

One of our biggest helpers in the garden is our sweet dog Annie. She's always there to supervise (as well as a nearly blind 15 year old dog can...) and lend a helping paw.  One challenging thing about a senior dog who can't hear or see very well is teaching them new ideas (what is that about old dogs and new tricks?), like please don't tramp through the onion bed.  After she played Godzilla over Tokyo a few times and broke a few onions, we decided we better make a way to keep the peace (where's Mothra when you need her?)

 

Who me?

We wanted something that was not too distracting or expensive so we put our thinking caps on and came up with rebar corner posts (we bought 4', which gave us 2' underground and 2' above, you could adjust by the size of your dog. Around the corners, we stretched some bird netting that they sell at the hardware store.  If your dog is bigger they also sell wildlife netting or even construction webbing.  We've been mulching with grass to keep the soil wet, that's what the greenish tinge is under the onions.

So far this works pretty well, sound the all clear in Tokyo.

Enjoy!

Amanda

Blue MayDay

It's May and the sun is shining, oh wait it's raining, oh hey the sun is out again!...We've been suffering the gardener's dilemma where every time we get dressed to work in the yard it rains.  As soon as we go in it's sunny again! Oh well...

The yard is full of Blue Flowers!  Well sometimes purple...But that doesn't go with the song.

From SSG Purple Money Plant - Lunaria annua - the seeds will be around soon - let me know if you want some.

From SSG Comfrey - A great composter, did you know? Apparently full of nitrogen!

From SSG Vinca Minor, though it should be called Vinca Major in our garden. We grow it under a plam and it goes nuts.

From SSG Bluebells (and cockle shells?)

From SSG Even the Asparagus is tinged with purple. This was the first crop  of the year - check out the giant! It was still tender and delicious.

I have a feeling June will be pink - ROSES!

Amanda

Where ARE those nutty South Sound Gardeners?

A postcard from the gardeners

Tuesday, April 27th - Postmark Steilacoom Chain Gang

Dear Friends,

We've been up to our dirty old tennis shoes prepping beds, putting up a fence, and chasing the dog (aka DogZilla!) out of onions.  The soil prep has developed a meditative sort of repetition (dig, sift, dig, sift, compost compost...notice me avoiding the word boredom...)  But still, it is gratifying to be outside under the big blue sky (ok sometimes grey) and to catch the chickadees and robins eyeing us curiously, wondering what treats we're going to uncover (mmmmm centipede!).  We comfort ourselves by discussing how the bed prep we're doing this year will yield dividends for years to come. Hoping to have more exciting things to report very soon.

Oh wait, the bare root raspberries we planted are definitely getting big and bushy and the bare root apple trees we planted are leafing out nicely. Plus, hey the asparagus came up, yum.  And some days we were working in the garden and I'd go in covered in cherry blossoms. 

Wish you were here! No really - we could use the help.

Amanda n Mike

Seedling Experiment - Round 2

Considering our miserably wet week, I'm thankful to have my little garden of seedlings to play with on a soggy Saturday morning.  After our first seedling experiment which pitted plastic trays against Corningware casseroles (spoiler alert, casserole won!), we switched tactics.  Hubby was pretty curious about how those little magically expanding peat pellets would perform against starter mix.  We had read in at least one pepper book that peppers don't dig peat (testing that next) so we tried it out some tomatoes.
The results were pretty drastic. Here's some seedlings that were started on March 14th.  The front row is all Oregon Spring tomatoes. See the peat one on the left is huge! I had to repot the peat seedlings this morning.  The same variety on the right is respectable and healthy, but half the size.  Yogurt anyone?

Bob in a party hat, he watched on with cool detachment

 Post repotting comparison

We have been hearing good things about Coir, which is a more sustainable medium than peat.  If we can get our hands on some we'll run another test.  A couple of interesting notes. About 1 out of every 5 seeds don't make it.  Since we're hoping to have 2 of each of the varieties of tomatoes and peppers that we start and have 2 to give away, we start 5 of each variety.

Crossing fingers for dryer days,

Amanda

Sunny Day Garden Tour

Today it POURED all day!  But yesterday, oh yesterday, was another tempting little preview tease.  Just a brief taste to remind us of summer.  When I woke up to see the sun shining in and opened the back door to hear the birds singing away (it's like they remember summer too...) I grabbed the camera and wandered out in my robe and slippers. Here are a few things I caught in the golden light.

Oregon Grape, A great northwest native

 Chinese Camelia Riot

Cherry Blossoms

New succulent bowl I put together (hanging out at the garden center is dangerous!)

Dreaming of more golden days to come,

Amanda

Side by Side Seed Tray Experiment

With the weather as warm as it has been (prior to this week!!), and with our mailbox stuffed with seeds every day it was impossible for us not to go ahead and get started on seedlings. Most of the tomatoes and peppers we ordered are under 70 days to harvest, a good way to maximize the odds for harvesting ripe fruit off the vine in our sometimes all too short maritime summers. Those did not require an early start. But we did make a few bets on some over 80 day plants, San Marzano Gigante and Japanese Black Trifle tomatoes, as well as several peppers hubby picked out.
This is our first time starting seeds for vegetables indoors, so we were choosing between recycled toilet paper rolls or a plastic seed starting tray. Loved the recycle-reuse approach of TP rolls, but also admired the high-density in a small space of the plastic tray. We decided to hold a showdown! We picked up a commercial plastic seed tray for 5 bucks at local drugstore (half the price of the local big box hardware store hmmm..), a small square "Corning" style covered casserole from Goodwill to hold the toilet paper rolls - also 5 bucks, and a good organic seed starter mix. The TP rolls were free - but we did cut them a little smaller than halves, to minimize the soil required.

We soaked the seeds overnight in warm water and it was off to the races! Our house is 100 years old and pretty drafty, but the Mr. had installed lovely heated floors in a bathroom remodel recently. This made a perfectly warm spot to park the seeds while we waited for them to germinate. The Corning/tp casserole under it's thick warm glass and the plastic tray under it's snug lid. Both stayed nicely moist under their covers.

The results!? Shocking! I admit I was expecting a bit of a tossup and maybe writing a little comment here about picking what mattered most to you, but that wasn't what happened at all! The Corning/TP seedlings germinated over a week earlier and are so much sturdier! It's shocking! The tomatoes are all up and the peppers are all uncurling today.

The plastic tray seedlings are limping along. They are germinating much more slowly and the few that did make it up already are stringier. Even where we planted the exact same variety...

TP rolls in Corningware is unequivocal the winner!!! I suspect the insulative properties of the glass may be the cause.

Happy seed starting,

Amanda

3/10 Post Script: The absorbant nature of the cardboard is nice too. When you're going to be gone a bit too long one day and can't be home to spritz as often as you like, you can spray the cardboard liberally and it wicks the moisture to the plants throughout the day.

The Cheery Girls of Spring

A little cheer for those still in the depths of winter. We've enjoyed an early spring here, though our forecast is calling for a bit of a chill this coming week. I used that excuse to pick and pic a few flowers.

I know Meg Ryan told Tom Hanks that daisies are the friendliest flower but I humbly disagree. Daffodils are clearly the friendliest flower of all, welcoming us gently back to spring.


I guess if you're going to be one of the first flowers of spring you really need to be bright and bold to ensure the pollinators find you through the gloom....


This giant Camelia lives under a few fir trees on the edge of our yard and I swear it's a monster! I am not quite sure where it begins and where it ends but it does have beautiful glossy leaves and a purely Hawaiian palate in the earliest of spring. Makes me want to tuck one behind my ear and drink a Mai Tai.

Happy Sunday,

Amanda

The Big Project

Hubby and I have been busy over the last several weekends planning and preparing our new vegetable (and fruit!) garden. We are clearing most of a 50x50 spot, excluding a corner that sports a few big cherry trees. My parents owned our house before we bought it from them, and they used to keep a garden in this location when I was a teenager. It is fun to be recovering the family garden!

We got the sketch together, marked the corners with orange paint (whee!) and got a little help taking the grass out. We've both been working long hours this spring and we figured there would be more than enough work even after the sod was gone. So far, this appears to have been a good call! We had the gardener put the piles of sod aside for composting, seems like it should compost quite quickly.

After studying up on row design, we ended up choosing 4 foot wide rows with 2 foot aisles between. These apparently have a few advantages - light soil because you don't walk on the bed surface, warm soil from the raised mound in the spring, some shading of the soil in the summer due to the dense planting without so many rows in between. Plus heck, they just look cool. We also included 4 foot paths for major thoroughfares, and plenty of area for the dog to run around the perimeter.

We staked a few beds out and started loosening the soil. It was fairly compact where it had been lawn before. First we loosened the soil with shovel and pitchfork, next we decided to sift the dirt with a sifter we'd made for the compost. That took much longer than we expected, but the soil did end up light and lovely. We had the neighbor's loyal golden retrievers for company. Sorry about the sunspot, but this one was the best angle...(We forget about the sun here in the winter, we see it so rarely!)
In addition to sifting the beds, we also sifted the compost. We plan on planting in a few of these beds quite quickly (onions next weekend!) so we didn't want too much hot/unfinished compost. The lumpy bits (on the left) get returned to the big compost pile for a little more work. 2 beds down, 6 + to go.

Should be quite an adventure! Now we're puzzling on a deer fence...

Ready, Set, Starts!

With our unseasonably warm temperatures, we're throwing caution to the wind - and a few seeds too. This weekend we cleaned out our pair of 6x8 raised beds, added aged compost from the pile (enriched heavily with free coffee grounds from Starbucks), and filled them spring veggie seeds. Summer veggies are bound for the new garden spot we're clearing, but that's another story for another day.

We direct sowed:
Veronica Hybrid Broccoli
Burpee's Golden Beets
Chiogga Beets
French Breakfast Radish (a lovely gift from a christmas elf!)
5 Color Silverbeet Swiss Chard
Dragon Carrots
French Market Carrots (oh la la it's getting French in here)
Nantes Half Long Carrots

Flat Leaf Parsley (much better than curly leaf and grows better too)
Cascade Harvest Mix Lettuce (free from Puget Sound Fresh @ NWFGS)

Note the liberal use of bamboo stakes. Later wrapped with jute twine for cat discouragement technique. So far so good.

We tried something slightly different with the Sugar and Snow Peas - we sprouted them between wet paper towels after an overnight soak in warm water. Can't say yet if this makes them come up faster - but it does have a satisfying sense of growthiness about it...observe!Since I had the camera, I snapped a few snowdrops from that day...
Have you planted yet?

Amanda

Reading List from the NWFGS

Ravenna Gardens Display Garden

I treated myself to a day off on Friday to take a spin around the Northwest Flower and Garden show. Among the amazing show gardens, plants, roots, shoots, seeds, greenhouses, coldframes, tools, trinkets, baubles, snacks and As Seen on TV fun there was a large amount of information available from garden groups and nurseries. I was so impressed by the volunteers and professionals that devoted their time and expertise to the show.

Here are a few of the gems that got me excited - a virtual "show homework list" for myself.

Local
Cascade Harvest Coalition is a nonprofit organization dedicated to connecting local farmers and consumers. Coming out with a cookbook soon.

Edible Seattle I had a lovely chat with editor Jill Lightner about growing your own and local food. Loved the articles in the free issue!

Fruit Trees
Western Washington Fruit Organization is a volunteer organization that shared lots of great information. They are holding a field day in March in Mount Vernon.

Seattle Tree Fruit Society shared a sample apple maggot barriers. They have a monthly meetings and informative website.

Plant Amnesty had informative guides for sale that had a quirky writing style. They are holding an event at Sky Nursery in Shoreline on February 20th.

Nurseries
Raintree Nursery had their experts on hand and they were ever so helpful. I got a hot tip on a good fig for our area, the Desert King. Not to mention the coupon...

Specialty Nurseries Association of Western Washington publishes an amazing list of local nurseries! There are more nearby than I ever would have guessed.

I hope you find some of it useful as well!

Amanda

Yardis Catharsis

What do you on a long holiday weekend? At our house - prune some more! After completing 2.7 Apple trees and a very small cherry tree our brush pile is the size of a Chevy Van. In spite of sore muscles, the work is cathartic and everything looks so much tidier and brighter you start to wonder why you didn't do it in the fall (you mean besides the fact that it was dark and raining?...ok true...).

Did I mention you can do cool stuff with the branches? You can force blossoms indoors and have a lovely indoor bouquet. Chunks of thicker apple and cherry branches are amazing in the bbq after they've been dried for a year. We keep our dried wood stash in the Dogloo on the right of this pic. The dog never really took to it, anyway!

This tree is a late apple of dubious origins. Perhaps a King?They're a lot smaller without all the water sprouts!
(I did mention we're hacks, right?)

You'd be amazed at the moss and other lil things you'd see....While perched on a precarious ladder in an old tree...

Fungus among us

Here's hoping you and yours enjoyed each other, as for us, we'll be sleeping well!

Sweet Dreams,

Amanda

Chorez!

Today we took advantage of the relatively warm and dry afternoon and did a wee bit o' pruning! We're no pruning experts but every spring we make an attempt to prune our 5 apple trees, 4 Cherries, 2 plums, as well as the other general spring cleanup required by the herbs and flowers. It is a lot of work!

As a teenager I asked my Dad why he spent so much time pruning them every spring. Wouldn't it be better to leave them au naturale? Apparently not! He explained fruit trees are dependent on humans and need pruning or they'll just grow themselves to death! Or something like that? (Hey, I wasn't the greatest listener at that age!) Pruning is also good because it helps you and the sun to be able to reach the fruit.

Hacker's toolkit! Dexter eat your heart out.

Today we pruned one of the two Gravenstein trees on the property. Gravensteins are delicious apples that make amazing pies! If you are looking for a good heirloom apple, they may be for you! This tree had huge water sprouts (good pruning guide) and needed shape improvement so we did a heavy pruning on it. At our house, a light pruning involves taking off the water sprouts and cleaning off dead branches. Heavy pruning more seriously altering the shape. A heavy pruning sometimes leaves you wondering if you went too far but then the leaves come out and the blossoms burst open and all is right with the world again. While we were at it we trimmed the crazy lilac (behind apple on right) behind it and the removed blown over blue spruce(? behind apple on left) that was growing up in its business.

Gravenstein Before

After - hey air and sunshine!

Afterwards it was amazing how much more light was in the yard (from the removed spruce). The greenhouse (out of view, stage right) will benefit from the additional lighting as well, I suspect.

And as if rewarding us for all the hard work, Mother Nature outdid Santa Claus and left us a little present under the apple tree. A little clump of snowdrops just breaking through the soil! Oh green, we've missed you!

Sweet Dreams,

Amanda

Jelly Jelly Bo Belly

While the normal order of things is to make jelly before Christmas, our schedule scoffed at the notion. We used the quiet weekend after Christmas to sneak in a bit of jelly making before Santa managed to deliver his final presents to all the girls n boys. We harvested our own grape juice earlier this summer, arduously hand processing it before a kind reader pointed out we were doing it the hard way. Presto-changeo we switched to an inexpensive steam juicer and the next thing we knew we'd put away over 30 quarts of the purple stuff.

Apparently canning grape juice prior to making jelly is a good thing, as it allows you to remove any crystals that may form and mar your jelly. No crystals formed in our juice, but better safe than sorry I guess. We followed the Old Fashioned juice recipe from my Kerr canning book. 4 Cups of Juice, 3 cups of sugar, boil boil boil for 25 minutes or until gel stage is hit. I picked this recipe because it had the greatest juice-to-sugar ratio and didn't use added pectin, just the natural pectin in the juice itself. Challenge: gel stage was pretty tough to judge. It wasn't a temperature per se as a state of being. The goal was to have jelly "sheeting off a cold spoon" or if you put a teaspoon of jelly on a jar lid in the freezer for 1 minute it was supposed to be fully set and wrinkle when you pushed on the edge.

Bubble bubble, toil and trouble

Bad news: this method led to a slightly candied jelly with a ribbony consistency. Maybe next time we'll have to try the pectin method. Luckily, there's more juice (har har).

Newspaper stops the stickiness

Good news: amazing on shortbread. I used Martha's basic shortbread recipe. This is a very reliable shortbread recipe - I have made the green tea variation many times for presents.

Dribble

Wish us luck on round 2!

Amanda

The Catalogs are Here!

Oh Happy Day! That day you reach into the mailbox, after months of waiting...and pull out a shiny new catalog! Catalog reading is a nice peaceful couch-sitting or bathtub soaking activity after the craziness of Christmas.

I've already made a lunch date to do some catalog geeking with a buddy at work. Dad came over to see us for Christmas and hardly talked. He was too busy pouring through all the colorful pages, wondering at the varieties available. He's been more of a Home Depot seed shopper in the past, but this year we're sharing our seed purchasing and planning to split up some of the starter duties as well.

The plan for this year is taking shape - what's got you excited? Here are a couple items that grabbed my attention right offhand:

The Apollo Broccoli at Territorial Seed company appears to be broccolini - can't wait - love this in soups.

The Paris Market Carrot at Seed Savers is super cute. I bet it is tasty too...

Enjoy!
Amanda