Flower Buds for Lunch
April 7 -- The daffodils are blooming in my yard, but I'm more interested in edible flower buds. Cut these in my garden for lunch yesterday: Russian Red Kale, Redbor Kale, Lacinato Kale, Purple Sprouting Broccoli, Purple Mizuna and Mustard. Made a great frittata.
Too Busy to Garden!
March 27 -- Well, almost too busy. I'm in the final stages of drafting my forthcoming book, Cool-Season Gardening, which has taken a lot of my focus this winter. Trying to practice what I preach, I've been tending (and chowing down on) my overwintered lettuce, mustard greens and kale, and last night's dinner included a beautiful big turnip straight from the garden (simmered with canned tomatoes, wine and garlic) and the first steaming buds of purple-sprouting broccoli.
My new book will focus on helping others eat as well as we do from our garden year-round.
Get Fresh (Produce) With Oxbow
March 20 -- Our friends Luke and and Adam and their crew at Oxbow Farm in the Snoqualmie Valley are spreading their CSA wings to new parts of Seattle and the suburbs this year, so more folks can enjoy the vegetable bounty from their excellent labors. It must take a lot of work to drop off at all these locations, but I guess they are just driven to spread the beets wherever they can. I hear Sarah's doing some stellar kiddie education out there too!
Fun Season of Speaking
March 12 -- Followed up my Seattle and Portland garden show talks with a trip to Sequim yesterday to speak to a bunch of great gardeners at the Soroptimist Garden Show. The event was certainly well-supported by the community and the county's Master Gardeners.
Sequim is a good garden town, being in the "rain shadow" of the Olympic mountains, so it is a lot drier and I think a bit warmer than other places in the area. After the talk we went out into the countryside and visited the new farmstand at Nash Huber's organic farm. Came home with a bag bursting with farm-fresh goodness--and a plan to get back there this summer to ride the farm roads on our bikes.
Talking Cool Edibles at the Northwest Flower & Garden Show, hot tomatoes at the Yard, Garden & Patio Show
Feb. 7 -- Tomorrow the Northwest Flower & Garden Show begins in Seattle, and I will help kick it off by giving a talk in the afternoon. If you've ever been to this big show, you know there are many seminars happening every day, but I am glad to be doing my thing the first day of the show, so I can just go out and enjoy the other seminars, amazing display gardens and hundreds of exhibit booths.
Of course, I'll also enjoy sharing my tips and images on Cool-Season Edibles, which is the topic of my next book (to be released from Skipstone this time next year). I'll talk about growing food year round, so you can be eating your own salads on holidays, braising kales when the snow flies, and serving bok choi flowers to your honey on Valentine's Day. After the talk I'll be signing books and sharing heirloom vegetable seeds too.
Next week, it's off to Portland to talk tomatoes at another amazing garden show, the Yard, Garden & Patio Show! No seeds to pass out at my talk on Friday, Feb. 17, but I will share some new research I've been doing on enhancing your microclimate and your Growing Degree Days with season extension.
Bok Choi Bounces Back
Jan. 31 -- The snow that blanketed Seattle recently weighed down all our winter vegetables, including these bok choi flowers. I was a bit concerned, because I love snipping these for a colorful and spicy addition to the salad bowl. However, they bounced right back as the snow melted (after three days of glorious urban sledding and XC skiing), along with my broccoli, kales, chard, spinach and other greens.
The lettuce and carrots remained perky under their double protection of cloche and floating row cover too.
I think everything fared pretty well because we had been experiencing cold temperatures leading up to the snow, with the mercury inching down toward freezing every night. And in an extended cold spell, the blanket of white stuff actually provides protection.
Snowy Blanket for Cloche
Jan. 16--A small cloche with overwintering lettuce, carrots and spinach got a light dusting of snow as a cold front engulfed Seattle yesterday. With temperatures predicted to drop into the 20s at night, I hope more snow will fall and give my garden an even better blanket. The seedlings under this cloche are also protected with a double layer of floating row cover right on top of them under the hoop house.
Beets Brighten Winter
Jan. 3--Pulling back the cloche to harvest some sweet Chioggia beets is a welcome task on a dry winter day. This cloche uses 9-gauge wire hoops and 6 mil plastic held down by bricks and stones. I've found beets to be pretty hardy in our winter, and they could be protected just with a nice layer of straw mulch, but I had some small ones in the bed too, so decided to give them some extra warmth to encourage baby greens.
Come to Our Holiday Book Signing on Dec. 4
Nov. 19--Would you like a copy of Edible Heirlooms for a friend this Christmas? Come to my holiday book signing at Santoro's Books in my neighborhood of Phinney Ridge on Sunday, Dec. 4, 1-3 p.m. You can get a little packet of free heirloom seeds from my garden to go with the book, AND meet the authors of the new Urban Farm Handbook, who will also be in the store, signing and revealing their farming secrets. Hope you can make it!
Ready for Winter
Oct. 22--The garlic is planted and snug for the winter under a layer of straw, fall peas (on the Rickey Cabine trellis behind the garlic) are modest but tasty, and winter lettuces have sprouted under the cloche. The garden is ready for winter weather!
Sweet Harvest
 Sept. 28--This bountiful harvest included, left to right, Toma Verde Tomatillo, Small Sugar Pumpkin, Aunt Molly's Ground Cherry (in plastic tub), Red Kuri (aka Hokkaido) winter squash (in front), Hungarian paprika peppers and Liberty apples. The leafy green looming over the left corner is red mizuna.
Fall/Winter Veggies to Start Now
Aug. 9--Last weekend I gave a talk at Christianson's Nursery outside Mt. Vernon (thank you for the nice reception!) on the topic of fall and winter vegetables. Here's the handout from the talk, which includes a list of common ones to grow and varieties to look for. You're still able to plant many of these from seed, but a few of the overwintering ones, like broccoli, cabbage and kale, should have been started a few weeks ago, so look for starts in the nurseries.
I'll be giving another talk on this topic two Saturdays from now at City People's Garden Store in Seattle (Sat., 8/20, 10 a.m.), so come if you can. We'll walk the nursery and choose plants after the talk.
Winter Garden Starts
July 24 -- My seedlings are up for the winter garden, at least the ones I wanted to start in pots. For some of these longer-season vegetables, like Purple Sprouting Broccoli and January King Cabbage, it helps to start them in pots because I generally need them to be sprouting before I have the beds prepared. So now I'm clearing spring vegetables from a couple of prime locations so that I can move these into place once they've sized up a bit.
It does feel strange to be planning for winter at the height of summer, but it pays off.
Dissing the Tomato Cage
July 14 -- OK, I admit it: I hate those wimpy round tomato cages. This month in Edible Seattle I royally dissed the cheap little wire things, but I think I more than made up for it by describing a number of ways you can cultivate wonderful tomatoes in your garden this summer. Even if the temperature gauge never breaks 70 here in Seattle. Check out my feature article in Edible Seattle's July/August issue, on newsstands now (or better yet, subscribe!). And if you want to read more about heirlooms, my article Cultivating the Past from their March/April issue is on their website.
Picked, Packed and Pickled Pods
July 5 - Got busy this holiday weekend picking and then pickling some of those plentiful radish pods. A quick hot-water bath, some white vinegar, peppercorns, mustard seed, even some parsley seed heads from the garden, and voila! I hope they taste as good as they look.
Radish Pods!
June 22 -- These overwintered Black Spanish Radish plants have been covered with tiny pink-and-white flowers for a month, and for the last couple of weeks have been delivering spicy radish seed pods off their stems for our salads. There's so many I'm going to try pickling them, and looking for other uses. Any ideas?
Jan.-June 2011 Posts
2010 Posts |
