Literary Gardening

I'm reading an article in Computers in Libraries (trade pub for librarian computer geeks) about Hennepin County Library's BookSpace, a site designed to match readers and books (readers advisory in library jargon). Being something of a book nerd, I decided to try out the site. While browsing through their nonfiction recommendations, I found a section with the wonderful title of Literary Gardening. Is that the perfect thing for a garden-obsessed former English major or what?

Now that the weather is turning cold, and my garden is a soggy mess (I don't call this blog Rainy Day Gardening for nothin', ya know), it's the perfect time to catch up on some garden-related reading. If you feel the same way, check out their Literary Gardening list (Heh heh... "check out"... I made a library pun... get it? Yeah, OK, now you know why I have to keep my day job.)

Profitable gardening?

No, I haven't discovered a money tree that produces real money. If I had, I'd be lounging on a beach somewhere in the tropics instead of tapping out a blog post on my lunch break. But J.D. over at Get Rich Slowly has demonstrated that vegetable gardening can have some financial benefits. He just put up a post summarizing the costs and estimated value of his family's vegetable garden. Very informative and encouraging.

You can reap savings as well as produce from your garden, or it can be a hole in the ground into which you pour money. The difference lies in your gardening style (e.g. using found objects vs. buying new, uniform materials), your willingness to work more rather than spend more (e.g. doing work by hand vs. buying expensive power tools), and your shopping habits (if you are the type of person who can't walk through Best Buy without dropping a grand on a new TV/home theater/computer/whatever or walk through the mall without getting at least three new designer outfits at Nordstrom, you probably won't be able to walk through the local garden center without dropping large amounts of cash on a new tractor/tiller/designer garden art/pile o' imported stone pavers either).

Since the economy is the news story these days (apart from the election, which I'm not about to address here - don't we all get enough politics elsewhere?), I think I'll write a post or two on frugal gardening. If you have some favorite frugal gardening tips or resources, drop me a comment and let me know.

What to do with a Load of Tomatoes, Part 1: Spaghetti Sauce

The tomato harvest was late here in the Northwest, but when it came, it really came! As I mentioned in my last couple of posts, I'm inundated with tomatoes. So, let's take a look at things you can do with too many tomatoes, besides throw them at people you don't like.

Last weekend's project here at Camp Crum was spaghetti sauce--a big vat of it. I use my mother's recipe, or the closest approximation I can find. My mother, like so many old-time cooks, didn't really follow recipes for things she made frequently, and the dishes evolved as she experimented. A few years ago, after she gave up cooking from scratch, I asked her to write the recipe down so I could carry on the family tradition. Here's what she gave me:

1 cup chopped onion
1 medium bell pepper, chopped
2 large cloves garlic, finely chopped
32 oz. tomatoes, fresh or canned. If using fresh, peel them according to the instructions in my previous post. No need to chop them - just drop 'em in whole.
16 oz. tomato sauce
8 oz. tomato paste
2 tbsp fresh basil (snipped) or 2 tsp dried basil
1 tbsp fresh oregano (snipped) or 1 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
12 oz. sliced fresh mushrooms
1 lb. ground beef

Brown the ground beef, then add all ingredients to a big stock pot and simmer for at least a couple of hours.

I usually triple the recipe (which makes about 8 quarts), then can or freeze the extra. Even though it's more work, I prefer to can, because then I can make dinner super-quickly. It takes quite awhile to thaw a quart of frozen spaghetti sauce, even in a microwave.

How to Peel Fresh Tomatoes for Cooking

Keeping with the tomato theme, since I still have tons of the silly things, let's talk about how to prepare fresh tomatoes for use in recipes. First, put a large pot of water on to boil. While the water is heating, rinse your tomatoes and remove the stems. If you're going to use your tomatoes in something that will be cooked for awhile, that's all you need to do till the water is ready. If you're going to use them in a fresh sauce (i.e. you don't want them to taste cooked), cut an "X" on the bottom of each one. Cutting the "X" will make the skins separate with about 15 seconds of blanching rather than 30 or more.

Once the water is boiling, drop the tomatoes in, a few at a time. Blanch them till the skins start to separate, then fish them out with a slotted spoon and set them aside to cool. Once all tomatoes are blanched and cool enough to handle, slip off the skins and use them according to your recipe's instructions.

How to Store and Use Fresh Tomatoes

These days most people who cook with tomatoes used canned ones from the grocery store, but since this is a gardening blog, let's talk about using fresh ones instead. First, what do you do with a zillion fresh tomatoes? Soon I'll post some recipes for spaghetti sauce and tomato soup, but for now let's consider storing tomatoes till you have time to do something with them. If you'll be able to use your tomatoes within a few days, just store them on your kitchen counter, covered with a cloth or in a paper bag to avoid attracting fruit flies and hasten ripening. Do NOT store them in the refrigerator! Refrigeration destroys much of the home-grown taste, leaving you with something little better than those abominations they sell in the supermarket.

The biggest annoyance with fresh tomatoes is peeling them. Blanch them in boiling water for about 30 seconds, and the skins should slip off easily. Or, you can score a shallow "X" in the bottom of each tomato, then blanch them in boiling water for about 15 seconds.

If you have more tomatoes than you can use before they'll rot, you have two options:

1. Freeze them. Freezing is the quickest, easiest way to deal with a tomato invasion, though you'll need quite a bit of freezer space. Just rinse the tomatoes, pat them dry, put them in freezer bags, and freeze them. When you're ready to use them, thaw them partially and squeeze them out of their skins. That's the most fun part--kind of like popping a giant red zit (er, sorry... I have a gross sense of humor). Then use them as you would canned tomatoes. If you're like me and forget to thaw them till you're ready to use them, just drop them in boiling water till their skins start to peel (about 5-10 seconds), then squeeze them out of their skins.
   
   
2. Can them. Canned homegrown tomatoes are better than the canned tomatoes in the grocery store, and they'll keep indefinitely. Also, tomatoes can be canned in a boiling water bath, so you don't need a pressure canner (though processing times are much shorter with a pressure canner, so if you have one, you'll probably want to use it). There are lots of web sites with instructions for canning tomatoes, but to be safe, choose one from an extension service, so you get current, USDA-approved methods. You want to avoid botulism unless you have a large life insurance policy with me as the beneficiary. Here are a few reliable sites:
   
   
   
   • University of Minnesota Extension - includes instructions for canning tomato juice, crushed tomatoes, whole or halved tomatoes
     
   • Iowa State University Extension - includes instructions for canning and freezing a variety of tomato products
     
   • University of Kentucky - includes instructions for the usual stuff (tomatoes, tomato juice, etc.) plus spaghetti sauce and salsa
     

With these techniques, you can enjoy your tomato harvest well into winter. Have fun!

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes

No, I'm not dead. I've just been a lazy slob all summer and dealing with some family issues that drew my attention away from both gardening and this blog. But I'm getting back into the swing of things, just in time for the end of the tomato harvest.

Even if I lived in a tiny apartment with nothing but a balcony for gardening, I'd grow tomatoes. Those perfectly round, red impostors in the supermarket are unworthy to be called tomatoes--picked green, gassed with ethylene, and shipped in cold storage. Yuck. Why bother? I tend to go overboard with the tomatoes (I have about 25 plants this year), so by this time of year my kitchen resembles a scene from Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. I swear they multiply and are plotting the overthrow of the neighborhood. In future posts I'll talk about what to do with mass quantities of tomatoes, but tonight I'll give you a quick rundown on how some varieties performed in my garden.

It was a weird year here on the rainy side of the Pacific Northwest. We didn't really get warm weather till late summer, and it didn't last long. I usually have ripe tomatoes by early August, but I didn't get my first ones this year till almost September. I don't know how these varieties would have performed in a more normal summer, so don't read too much into this report. I grew about 10 or 12 different varieties of tomatoes, but some of the labels faded, so I can't identify all of them. Here's the scoop on the ones I can identify. Note: All links go to either Territorial Seed or Totally Tomatoes unless otherwise noted. With the exception of the Brandywine, I don't say much about taste, because to me all home-grown tomatoes taste great.

Willamette: Determinate variety bred for early ripening in the Northwest. For me, it produced a modest amount of medium-sized tomatoes, some of which split in the rain. They didn't last long on the vine, rotting quickly if not picked, and some had odd blemishes. Even though Willamette is a determinate variety, the vines were too heavy for standard tomato cages.

Roma: Determinate, great tomato for sauces. My Romas did really well this year! They were my heaviest producers, the fruits last well on the vine, and I had almost no trouble with blossom end rot.

Oregon Spring: Another determinate variety bred for early ripening in the Northwest. Mine produced moderately, kept well on the vine, and produced nice medium-sized fruits with good shape and color and few blemishes.

Early Girl: Well-known indeterminate hybrid. Mine produced modestly, kept well on the vine, with good shape and color and few blemishes.

Black Plum: Indeterminate. Mine produced fairly well and kept fairly well on the vine, though some had blemishes.

Brandywine: An heirloom variety famous for its taste, Brandywines are a staple of my tomato garden every year. They're huge, heavy, take forever to ripen, rot quickly, bruise easily... and are still well worth the effort for their flavor. Mine did fairly well this year considering our cool summer, but they've done much better in past years.

Taxi: Yellow determinate salad tomato. Mine produced poorly this year, but I'm not sure if the problem was the weather or the soil. Mine was planted in an area where other things didn't do well either, so I think I need to amend the soil and try again.

Juliet: Hybrid grape tomato (well... really it's bigger than a grape tomato, shaped like a Roma but smaller) on indeterminate vine. Mine produced prolifically despite minimal care, with no blossom end rot, no cracking, and no blemishes. They also kept well on the vine.

So... How did your tomatoes do?

Lettuce Rest, I'm Feeling Beet.

Remember how my "Growing Challenge" plant for the year was mesclun lettuce (or, as I prefer to call it because I'm a substance abuse librarian, "mescaline lettuce," bah ha ha!)? Remember how I was all excited because everybody said lettuce was really easy to grow and did extremely well here in the Pacific Northwest? Remember how I said I'd tried some kind of head lettuce last year and it was bitter and didn't grow very well, but that I was sure I'd figured out what I'd done wrong and that this time, THIS TIME, it was going to be great?

Remember how Albert Einstein once said the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?

Either I'm crazy, or lettuce actually HATES me. Frankly, I'm pretty sure it's the latter.

Because, LOOK AT MY LETTUCE! It bolted about three weeks ago (which is when I took the above photo), something every gardening web site I've looked at said it would only do if the weather got hot. Well, guess what else happened right about the time my lettuce bolted? The Seattle Times ran a headline that said, "Colder Than Siberia!" And not because it was HOT here, that's for sure!

Since it bolted, the leaves have pretty much stopped growing at all -- in fact, I think they are actually shrinking -- and the only part of the plant that's getting any bigger are the yellow flowers.

You know what? We're done. Me and lettuce. We are OVER. From now on, I'm sticking with the lettuce that comes prewashed in the plastic bags in the grocery store, e.coli and all. This garden ain't big enough for the both of us. Especially when one of us is totally MEAN. And SUCKS. And is a big STUPIDHEAD too. (Note: I'm referring to the lettuce.)

In happier news, my peas are utterly enormous and I'm going to have dozens and dozens of blueberries this year.

In even happier news, today's forecast predicts a high of about 88 or 90 in Seattle on Sunday. Omsk, Siberia, on the other hand, will be a chilly, wet 71. Take THAT, Former Soviet Union!

Spontaneity in the garden

I've always loved the casual, untamed look of an old-fashioned cottage garden, so I tend to let my plants kind of do what they want (OK, I let them do what they want because I'm too lazy to prune and deadhead, but I prefer to think of myself as having a "style" instead of just being a slacker). Every year, my garden brings surprises, this year moreso than usual. Let's take a look at some of the unintentional beauty bursting out of my beds:

Red poppy:

I planted some mixed poppy seeds last year, which germinated well. In my usual lazy fashion, I let them go to seed, so this spring I had poppies popping up all over the place. I meant to move them around a little so they'd be positioned more artfully, but of course that happened. But when the blooms are this beautiful, who needs artful arrangement?

Calendulas:

More benefits of not deadheading: I had tons of calendulas sprout up this spring. I did move those around, because they sprouted in my veggie beds. Last year I had calendulas in the corners of three beds. Now I have them in the corners and along the borders of almost all my beds. They're so bright and cheery, and they even last through the winter here. I guess I'll have to figure out what to do with all the seedlings next year, as I'm running out of room for them.

Peony:

A couple years ago, I forked over way too much money for a tree peony. We had one when I lived in California, and it was gorgeous. So of course I had to have one. Well... the graft lasted the one season and never came back. *Sigh* But the peony that made up the rootstock grew just fine. At first I was annoyed that my gorgeous, blood-red, double tree peony was gone, leaving this simple, single bloom in its place. But this year, I admired the elegant cups formed by the buds, and when they opened, I fell in love with the blush of pink in the petals and the purply things in the center, so the former-tree-peony is staying.

Foxgloves:

Sometime last winter, I acquired a pot of some unidentified plant. For some reason, I thought it was comfrey. Lo and behold, I trudged out to the vegetable garden, where I'd parked the mystery pot, and found these gorgeous foxgloves growing out of it! I plan to let them seed all over the place, so I'll never be without foxgloves again.

Potato blossoms:

These made the list for two reasons: 1) They are not the fancy Russian fingerling potatoes I ordered and lovingly planted. Those are doing great too, but these sprouted from where I'd dumped some homemade compost last fall. I guess the potatoes I tossed out didn't fully decompose, and here's the proof. Usually when I grow potatoes from something other than treated seed potatoes, they die of blight, so we'll see if these are still around in August. But for now, they're gorgeous--and thriving in part sun behind the compost bin. Go figure. 2) These have the prettiest flowers of any potato I've seen. I don't think anyone thinks of potatoes as ornamental, but these almost qualify.

So what's the point of all this rambling, besides my ego-driven need to show off some pretty pictures? Well, just this: For years I've beaten myself up for not keeping up with garden maintenance, not taking the time to design my beds properly, not planning, etc. I'm not going to do that anymore. These pictures prove that unintentional beauty is every bit as wonderful as the kind that requires a landscape architect. So if you can't afford a pro, and you're too lazy or busy to go to the trouble yourself, don't sweat it! Get yourself some inexpensive seeds, start a few things, and let Mother Nature take it from there. Your yard may not be featured on the next garden club tour, but it will be bursting with beautiful surprises all the same.

Garden update

I can't believe I haven't posted since April! I've been so busy gardening, I've had little time to write about it. Since it's been so long, an update is in order.

It finally feels like spring here in Portland, now that it's almost summer. Once the cold weather finally ended, my garden exploded--mostly with weeds, but there are a few nice plants in the overgrown mess too. Highlights now include:

Roses, including the red climbing rose on an arbor leading into the veggie garden:



That bare spot behind the arbor is my tomato patch. The tomatoes are just starting to take off.

Calendulas

I planted a few calendulas last year at the corners of my raised veggie beds, so I'd have a little color amid the veggies. Most of them wintered over, and they also seeded a bit. So now I have huge calendulas from last year, all in full bloom, plus some little ones that should be blooming soon. They're so bright and cheery! I highly recommend including flowers in the vegetable garden. They add beauty and attract bees. What's not to love?

Lettuce



I don't know what I was thinking, planting so much lettuce. We eat salad almost every night, but we aren't even making a dent in it. It's great to be able to wander outside and pick a salad, and I love all the different colors. We may be overrun with it now, but I'll really miss the lettuce when the summer heat makes it bolt.

Rhodies

I've never been a big fan of rhododendrons, but they are gorgeous when they bloom.

I should also mention the newest additions to our family, our chickens. We have five pullets, about 7 weeks old. Hubby is frantically trying to finish their coop before they outgrow the plastic tub they currently call home. Here's the coop as of about a week ago:


We let them out to wander around the yard for the first time last weekend. I hope to post some pictures of them foraging in the garden, probably in the next few days. We're really looking forward to a steady supply of fresh eggs and fertilizer--not to mention cheap entertainment. Chickens are hilarious.

I hope it won't take me a month to post again. There's lots happening in the garden these days, but it keeps me too busy and tired to have much left for writing. What's new in your neck of the woods?

The Bishop's Garden at the National Cathedral

Today your intrepid Washington correspondent was on assignment at the National Cathedral. This incredibly gorgeous gothic cathedral is surrounded by the incredibly gorgeous Bishop's Garden.

According to an interpretive sign, "The overall inspiration for the Bishop's Garden is a 14th century monastic garden." It features many common plants, but the layout and design make it special. The garden is divided into rooms, each of which provides a sense of seclusion that encourages reflection and prayer. According to the aforementioned sign, one of the rooms, called the Hortulus ("little garden")

"is anchored firmly in the 9th century by the medieval baptismal font at its center. The raised geometric beds encircling the font are planted with the same herbs and flowers that would have been found in monastic kitchen and infirmary gardens during the 9th century."

Here are some pictures of the Hortulus:

Baptismal font and surrounding beds


Fennel


Apothecary's Rose


Southernwood


And some pics of the rest of the Bishop's Garden:

Entrance






Statuary and spring blooms


Sundial


One of the garden rooms


A couple of lessons I learned from my visit:

1. Common (and inexpensive) plants can create impressive landscapes.
   
2. Like architecture, gardens can evoke moods and provide spiritual experiences.
   

I suppose I knew both of those things at some level, but I came away from my visit newly convinced and inspired.

Pretty pictures from Washington, DC

I haven't had much time to post lately, because I've been in Washington, DC, since Wednesday. I'm here for a library conference, because the ad revenue from this blog isn't enough to allow me to quit my day job (so start clicking on those ads! I want more time to garden). When I left Portland, it was cold and miserable, with January weather persisting into April. Here it actually looks and feels like spring. I haven't had a lot of time to explore garden-related sites, but I did take a lovely walk Sunday evening through a beautiful neighborhood that is either a) occupied by gardeners, or (more likely) b) occupied by people wealthy enough to hire gardeners. Here are a few pictures:

Lovely front garden


Does anyone know what these are? They’re really pretty, and I think I’ve seen them before, but I can’t identify them.


And here’s a closeup of the mystery flower:


That's about it for garden-related activities on this trip. When I was here last June, I visited the National Botanical Garden, so I'll share a few pics from there to round out my Dateline Washington post (or as we call it in the Northwest, The Other Washington).

Bananas!


Pineapples!


Papayas!


(hmm... I must've been hungry)

And something that would be difficult to grow in rainy Portland:

Strawberry rhubarb cobbler - yum

We had snow and hail here in Portland today! Ugh. Last night I moved 8 flats of tomato and pepper seedlings from my unheated greenhouse to my dining room to protect them from the hard freeze forecast for this weekend. On my way back from the greenhouse, I noticed the rhubarb, along with a few spears of asparagus. Desperate for something to harvest, I quickly returned with my kitchen shears. The asparagus I gave to my mother, because I can't stand the stuff. The rhubarb, on the other hand, went into the strawberry rhubarb cobbler I made using the excellent recipe posted at Simply Recipes. Try it with some vanilla ice cream -- it's enough to brighten even the coldest winter spring day.

SERIOUSLY?!

This weekend's photo essay is subtitled, "Why I Prefer the Phrase 'Climate Change' Over 'Global Warming.'"

And then it's sub-subtitled, "AW, COME ON!!!!"

Last week's lovely rhodie:




The plant formerly known as primrose:



Annnnnnd, the dogwood and front yard (by the way, the snow is STILL FALLING -- you can still see a bit of grass peeking out in the photo below, but that's been buried under at least half an inch by now):



How do you spell ridiculous?

P-A-C-I-F-I-C N-O-R-T-H-W-E-S-T.

Creative way to get your garden tilled

I just ran across this little goody while cleaning out some old e-mail messages. Enjoy!

The inmate was aware that all prison mail passes through censors. When he got a letter from his wife asking about the family garden --- "Honey, when do I plant potatoes?" --- he wrote back, "Do not, under any circumstances, dig up our old garden spot. That's where I buried all my guns." Within days his wife wrote back, "Six investigators came to the house. They dug up every square inch of the back yard." By return mail she got his answer: "Now is the time to plant potatoes."

Things I Love About Spring -- A Photo Essay

This weekend, we finally had a sunny, warm day up here in Seattle, and all of a sudden, THINGS ARE HAPPENING! Buds are budding! Blooms are blooming! Rhododendrons are rhododendroning! I filled four buckets up with dandelions and only used the f-word three times while I was pulling them all out! You see, folks? Miracles CAN happen!

Also, in my first official "Growing Challenge" update, I finally got my mesclun salad mix into the ground this weekend as well. I'm not sure if the spot I chose for it will be too sunny or not sunny enough, but I guess I'll find out!

The main reason for this post, however, is that I wanted to share with you a few of my favorite things about spring in the Pacific Northwest. After you check out my list -- with photos taken using our fancy new camera, yay! -- be sure to share your OWN list of favorite spring things in the comments! (As you can probably tell from these photos, by the way, the clouds have rolled back in here in Seattle today. Darn!)

Daffodils in the front yard












Flowering quince beginning to flower!


Blueberry buds -- so exciting! (We just planted blueberries last year, so I was really excited to see them looking really good already!)


The red rhododendron just bloomed yesterday -- so pretty!

Ooh, and one of my all-time favorite things to see in my yard: the ferns before they've unfurled! So alien looking and so totally cool!

Pink dogwood buds -- hoping we get lots of blooms this year, as we've had a couple of years now where it hasn't really bloomed normally (dogwood post coming soon!).


And, of course, the most entertaining thing in the yard every spring: Spouses With Power Tools!

Cheap geraniums

Today's frugal rainy-day gardening project: geranium cuttings! It's cheap and can be done indoors--perfect for our March-going-on-January weather. Here's what you need:

• A geranium plant that needs (or can tolerate) a trim
  
• Pots. I use old nursery pots, but you could also use yogurt cups, Dixie cups, or whatever you have around. Just remember to poke some drainage holes in the bottom.
  
• Vermiculite. The best thing I've found for rooting cuttings, vermiculite is available at your local garden center. Some people use plain ol' potting soil, but my results improved drastically when I listened to one of my horti-friends and started using vermiculite.
  
• Rooting hormone. Also available at your local garden center. It'll probably set you back about $8, but you'll have enough for hundreds of cuttings. Some gardeners have good luck without it, so feel free to skip it if you wish.
  
• Plastic bags
  
• Something to keep the plastic bag from touching your cutting--small stakes, chopsticks, plastic forks, etc.
  
• Rubber bands
  
• A waterproof tray
  
• Some kind of label
  
• A source of bottom heat. Optional but will improve your results. I put mine on top of my reef tank, where the lights keep the soil at about 80 degrees during the day. If you don't have a reef tank, don't buy one just for rooting cuttings--that would make this a distinctly unfrugal project. Try the top of your refrigerator, fork over for a heat mat (about $40 but reusable many times), scavenge an old waterbed heater, or do without the bottom heat.
  

Here's what to do:

1. Fill pot(s) with vermiculite and wet it down till it's moist throughout.
   
2. Take your cutting(s). Snip them just below a leaf bud, remove all but the top 2 or 3 leaves, and pinch off any flower buds or blossoms. You want your cutting to put its energy into roots, not flowers, and you don't want it to lose too much moisture through its leaves.
   
3. Pour some rooting hormone into a shallow dish. Wet the bottom inch or so of your cutting and roll it in the rooting powder. Tap off the excess.
   
4. Make a hole in the wet vermiculite and stick the cutting in at least an inch or two. Firm the vermiculite around the cutting. Repeat with additional cuttings if you wish to put more than one in a pot.
   
5. Put a plastic bag over the cutting securing it around the bottom of the pot with a rubber band. Poke some holes in the plastic bag to control buildup of moisture.
   
6. Put the pot on a waterproof tray, preferably one that can hold some water so you can water your cutting from the bottom when the vermiculite starts to dry out.
   
7. Put the cuttings and tray on your source of bottom heat.
   
8. Check your cuttings every few days and dispose of any that are wilted or rotting. Make sure the vermiculite is damp, watering from the bottom if it isn't.
   
9. After a couple of weeks, or if you see new growth on your cutting, tug gently on it. If you feel resistance, you have roots! Pot the cutting in potting soil and care for it as you would any young geranium.
   

For my project, shown in the photo above, I used an old pot I'd saved from a plant purchased ages ago, an old produce bag, a rubber band from the newspaper, a popsicle stick for a label, and chopsticks from a long-ago Chinese takeout night, plus a cutting from a geranium I bought for a couple dollars at an estate sale last year. The only things that cost any money were the rooting powder and the vermiculite. I love projects that are cheap and fun!

Today's bargain

I just got back from grocery shopping, and I have to brag about my latest bargain. It turns out that WinCo, our local bargain-basement grocery chain, sells bareroot perennials and bulbs. Who knew? They were on a small display near the entrance to the produce section. For $1.99 per package, I got 3 purple astilbe (1 per pkg) and a box of 10 gladiolus bulbs. The selection was pretty limited, but in addition to the glads and astilbe, they had dahlias, hosta, liatris, salvia, and a couple other things I can't remember. So if you have a WinCo in your area (check http://www.wincofoods.com/locations.htm to find out), take a look.

A gardener's survey

I found this survey in an old posting on The Garden's Gift and thought it would be fun to post here. Feel free to leave your responses as a comment if you want. Here are mine:

1. Lilies: oriental or asiatic? No preference, as I'm not a big lily grower (yet)
2. No-till or till? No till, baby! I'm way too lazy for that. I've posted a few times on mulching for lazy gardeners; see http://rainydaygardening.blogspot.com/search/label/mulching.
3. Bare hands or garden gloves? I used to be a bare-handed gardener, but I'm starting to use gloves more now. I'm tired of having big cuts on my hands from accidentally grabbing blackberry vines, not to mention the effort to get all the dirt out from under my fingernails.
4. Garden tchotchkes, no or yes? Eh... I don't have many, mostly because I'm too cheap to by them. Cheap and lazy... that's me.
5. Clay or sand? (by default) Here in the NW, we have clay. Boy, do we have clay. Forget the tiller; rent a jackhammer.
6. Shrub roses or hybrid teas? Both!
7. Hollyhocks: single or double? Again, both! I may be cheap and lazy, but in the immortal words of Freddie Mercury, I want it all, and I want it now!
8. Foliage: gray or glaucous? "Glaucous?" Cool -- I learned a new vocabulary word! In case there's someone out there as uneducated as I am, here's the definition from dictionary.com:

1. Of a pale grayish or bluish green.
2. Botany Covered with a grayish, bluish, or whitish waxy coating or bloom that is easily rubbed off: glaucous leaves.

So "gray or glaucous" sounds a bit redundant. I prefer green foliage mostly, though I like some white variegation and some reddish foliage too.

9. Hemerocallis: flava or fulva? This is why I hate plant snobs! Would it be so effing difficult to say: Daylilies: yellow or orange? C'mon people. Latin is a dead language for a reason. And again, I like both.
10. Impatiens: double or single? I like both, as you might have guessed by now, but I'm hopelessly in love with the double ones. They're like miniature roses for shade.
11. Calendula or tagetes? Here we go with the Latin again. At least I didn't have to look these up (it's pot marigold and regular ol' marigold, in case you're wondering). I grow both (big shock, that). I like calendula flowers better, because they make lovely cut flowers, but I like the growth habit of marigolds (OK, fine, "tagetes" for you horti-snobs) better. My calendulas get a bit messy and rangy, and they don't hold up to the summer heat too well. Marigolds have a tidier habit, which makes them better suited as bedding plants.
12. Arborvitae or juniper? I'm sick to death of both of them! The hedge around our corner lot is arborvitae. It makes a nice hedge, especially since drunk idiots insist on running off the road and into our yard every couple years. Usually the arborvitae slow them down a little, but the dude in the 4x4 pickup a few years ago mowed our 30-year-old arborvitae down like matchsticks. He also destroyed some huge juniper (see, I'm back on topic) on his way to almost driving through my mother's bedroom. I just replaced some of the juniper a couple weeks ago, but I think I'm going to plant some sturdy shrub roses there too. As I said at the beginning, I'm sick of arborvitae and juniper.
13. Spaded edge or "edging"? Spaded edge around lawns. It's less work and looks more relaxed. Edging is nice to separate beds from paths.
14. Asters or mums? Mums are prettier, but asters are easier.
15. Reflecting pool or coursing waterfall? I love both, but I prefer waterfalls unless I can have some fat, lazy fish in my reflecting pool.
16. Morning glory blue or forget-me-not blue? Morning glory blue. I love the things.
17. Lettuce: leaf or cos? Both! Leaf is prettier, both in the ground and in salads. Cos (romaine to normal people) is great too and stores better in the fridge than the more fragile leaf lettuces.
18. Hyacinth bean or red runner bean? I've never grown hyacinth bean (yet). I love runner beans, because they're gorgeous and edible--if you pick the pods while they're small. If you wait too long, you'll be chewing the things for three hours.
19. Orange or pink? Pink. It's funny, but I haven't been a pink person since I was a little girl. I've always been a tomboy, and lacy frilly pink stuff activates my gag reflex almost instantly--except in the garden. I love big ruffly romantic pink blossoms--peonies, roses, all that stuff. Just don't ask me to wear anything pink.
20. Garden bed shapes: formal or informal? Informal all the way. Big wide curvy beds are great. You didn't really expect "formal" from the person who thinks jeans and a Def Leppard t-shirt should be acceptable apparel for all occasions, did you?
21. Garden bed planting schemes: informal or formal? Again, informal is my style. I love the rangy cottage garden look. Tidy the border with a sharp spade, but then let the plants have free reign. It's more interesting, I can cram more stuff in the bed, and it suits my laziness.
22. Hydrangeas: lace-cap or mophead? Do I have to quote Freddie again? Both! And I grow both. And I love both. But mopheads are better for cutting.
23. Spirea japonica: dried flowerheads standing over the winter or in bloom? In bloom
24. Japanese beetle drowning medium: kerosene or dishsoap solution? No Japanese beetles here, thank goodness. But I'd vote for the dish soap. I hate the smell of kerosene.
25. Garden stroll time: dusk or dawn? It's prettier at dawn, but I'm too lazy to get up that early, so we'll make it dusk.

Seed Shopping!

Based on Janet's recent advice on online seed and plant vendors she likes, I finally sat down last weekend to do a little armchair gardening of my own, ordering seeds from the web for the first time ever (from Territorial Seed). Yay for me! And, while I'm at it, yay for Territorial Seed too -- I placed my order Sunday afternoon and my package arrived Wednesday morning. Wow, they're fast!

I'm joining Janet to take the "Growing Challenge" this season, and have decided to give mesclun salad mix a try. Last year was the first time I'd ever tried growing lettuce, and I had gone with a butter lettuce of some sort (I forget what it was now) and had no success with it at all. The plants grew pretty well, but the lettuce itself was inedibly bitter.

We tried eating the leaves when they were younger, and then when they were older. We tried harvesting the leaves more often so it would put out more of them. We tried watering more, then watering less. We tried singing Beatles songs, then punk rock songs (I swear, those leaves perked up when I was humming The Ramones, but they still didn't taste any better).

Eventually, I dug the plants up and chucked them in the yard waste bin, because I resented keeping them alive any longer if they weren't going to do anything for ME in return. Whatever, butter lettuce. You're on your own.

I've since read that getting too hot can make lettuce bitter, and am wondering now if maybe I planted it too late in the season, or if full sun wasn't the best spot for it after all. This year, I'll do some reading on the optimal conditions for that mesclun salad mix before I put it in the ground and see if I can't do a better job of it. I'll be keeping you posted! I can't promise I can actually post weekly, as the Challenge dictates, but I will certainly try my best.

While I was picking out those seeds, incidentally, I also threw in some for Cosmos, my favorite flower. Chocolate-colored Cosmos (which I have never seen for sale anywhere, alas) was my wedding flower, and I just love everything about those plants. They have gorgeous flowers that last almost all summer long, it seems, and even their foliage is pretty -- soft and fluffy-looking.

My Mom plants a lot of Cosmos in her yard every year and hers typically do extremely well -- they get really tall and look absolutely stunning (the photo at the top of this post is of my twin sister and her adorable son in front of my Mom's Cosmos, by the way -- see what I mean by stunning? And thanks for letting me include this photo here, sis!). I'm not having that same kind of luck, though, and in trying to figure out why this winter, I learned that Cosmos like to be both hot and dry. It IS both hotter and dryer at Mom's house in Salem, Oregon, and maybe that's why hers thrive and mine struggle? But I also know I'm extremely guilty about overwatering everything (being thirsty gives me a headache, and I definitely project that onto my plants) so that may be another reason why my Cosmos don't seem to do all that well.

This year, I may try them in big black pots, so I can move them around and find the optimal spot for them, as well as get them up closer to the house where they'll stay warmer. They want hot and dry? I can give them hot and dry. Or, at least, I can give them "somewhat hotter and possibly a bit on the drier side." I'll let you know if that seems to work (it sure worked last year for our tomatoes!).

This weekend, assuming I feel up to it and it's not pouring down rain (I've been down with a cold or sinus thing most of this week), I'm hoping to get both my mesclun mix AND some sugar snap peas into the ground. I can't believe it's just a few days away from March already! I'm very excited for spring gardening, and looking forward to seeing how this whole Growing Challenge thing works out. Cross your fingers for my lettuce mix! And if you have any pointers on how to make Cosmos OR mesclun grow well in Seattle, I'm all ears!

Information management for gardeners, part 2: Organizing articles, books, web sites, and more

In my previous post on this topic, I wrote about ways to manage your gardening to-do list. This time, I'll share my method for organizing all the garden-related information that comes my way.

I've tried several methods, but until recently I hadn't found one that worked well for nearly all the types of information that cross my path--magazine articles, books, pamphlets, web pages, blog posts, online discussions, etc. Paper-based systems like subject files and binders are ok for printed materials, but they don't work well for online stuff unless you want to print it out. Browser bookmarks work fairly well until that really useful page you saved is taken down or moves. Then all you get for your trouble is a 404 Not Found error. Then I decided to use a tool from my work life: Zotero.

Zotero is a free Firefox extension that's also a full-fledged bibliographic management program. What the !@#$% is a bibliographic management program? Glad you asked! It's a database for books, articles, and other information sources--kind of like the 3x5 cards we Old Farts (tm) were taught to use in high school to keep track of the stuff we used to write our term papers. Unlike those cards, however, a bibliographic management program lets you search and sort your stuff--and it won't give you paper cuts. You can buy a program like EndNote, or you can download Zotero for free. Guess which option this cheapskate gardener chose?

In the rest of this post, I'll explain how to install and use Zotero to manage your garden info. If you want to manage printed information too, you'll also need a scanner. Here we go...

Installing Firefox and Zotero
In order to use Zotero, you must have the Firefox web browser. If you're still using Internet Explorer, come on over to the good side and try out Firefox! If you aren't familiar with Firefox, check out a document I wrote for a class at work, Introducing Firefox. It'll tell you everything you need to know to get started with Firefox.

Got Firefox? Great! Now let's get Zotero. If you've never installed a Firefox extension, go to my presentation, Customizing and Extending Firefox, and read the slides on extensions. Once you're comfortable installing extensions, head over to http://www.zotero.org and grab yourself a copy of Zotero. Once you have it installed, congratulate yourself on your excellent taste in software, and move on to...

Getting started with Zotero
The Zotero site includes a quick start guide to help you get acquainted with the software. The screenshots and notes below will show you a few basic functions, but if you want a solid introduction, view the quick start guide and look at the documentation.

• Launching Zotero
  Once you install Zotero, you should see the Zotero logo in the lower righthand corner of your Firefox window. Click the logo to open Zotero. See the screenshot below for an example (click the image to enlarge):
  
  
  
• Adding an item to Zotero
  The next screenshot illustrates options for adding an item to Zotero:
  
  
  The first step is to create a new collection. I called mine "Gardening." Then add your first item. There are four ways to add items to Zotero:
  
  
  
  1. Import from an existing database. I'll assume this is your first experience with bibliographic management software, so I won't explain this one.
     
  2. Add an item manually. I enter most of my information this way, because I'm usually working with a stack of old gardening magazines, adding selected articles I want to keep.
     
  3. Add a web page while viewing that page.
     
  4. Add one or more items from a web site compatible with Zotero, e.g. Amazon or certain library catalogs.
     
  
  
  This screenshot shows you what to click to do items 2, 3, and 4:
  
  
  
• Adding items manually
  As I said, I add most of my items manually. I find an article I want to keep and scan it, saving the image as a PDF file. Then I enter information about the article in Zotero. This screenshot shows you what the input window looks like:
  
  
  In addition to the bibliographic information, you'll want to get to the actual article in the future. To do that, you can attach files to each entry in your library. Zotero can store a link to the file or the actual file. I have it store the actual file, so I don't have to worry about accidentally moving the file and breaking the link. To attach a file, click the attachments tab:
  Then tell Zotero where to find the file and whether you want it to store the file or a link.
  
  To help you find articles later, I recommend you add some tags to describe your article. Because I am a Trained Information Professional (ha!), I try to be consistent in the way I tag things. I usually add tags for the names of plants discussed (common and Latin names if possible), plus the types of plants (perennials, annuals, vegetables, fruits, shrubs, trees, etc.). Here's a screenshot illustrating tagging:
  
  
  You can also attach notes to items in your library or add a standalone note.
  
  I use standalone notes for plant lists, landscaping ideas, etc. I attach notes when I want to remind myself of something especially interesting or useful about an article.
  
  
• Adding a web page
  Zotero can create an entry from the web page you are viewing. This screenshot shows you how:
  
  The actual content of the page will be saved to Zotero's database, so even if the page goes away, you will still have a copy of the information. You can edit the information, add tags, etc., just as you can with other types of Zotero entries.
  
  
• Adding items from Amazon, etc.
  Zotero can collect items from certain web sites, like Amazon or some library catalogs, that have information about books. To try this out, do an Amazon search. See the screenshot below for details.
  Note that this method only stores bibliographic information about the item. It doesn't store the actual book, article, etc.
  

All of this may sound like a lot of work, but it's actually pretty easy. And you'll love having your gardening info at your fingertips.