Garden Interlude

As the days grow longer and the temperatures warmer, I encourage you to pause, breathe in stillness, smell the roses.  The heady perfume of these velvet red wonders caught my attention today; be present in the moment and grateful for the small miracles all around you.

Great Advice From a Garden Designer

A big thank you to Lorene Edwards Forkner who was the guest speaker this month at the Multnomah County Master Gardener meeting (open to the public and free!).  She delivered an entertaining presentation Plotting the Garden Year (or possibly alternately titled, Getting More Out of Less).

Lorene is a fellow Pacific Northwest gardener who cautions us that PNW gardens are just like a toad's metabolism - slow to get going in the cold, but really ramps up for those moments of sun and heat (about 3 months worth here).  Thus it is better to plant more plants earlier in the year when each one isn't giving you much opportunity to harvest, which you can then thin to fewer, larger plants as the season progresses and each needs more space to achieve ultimate abundance in the "space time continuum". Lorene was full of great garden sayings, three of which I have joined together for the following little gem:

"Gardeners adapt, that's what we do, we adapt - and we throw the dice, because there is always next year."

She was full of great advice too - grow up (vertically that is), chose crops that you can eat one plant all season long such as kale and chard, and save your repeat sowing for tender things such as salad greens and herbs. Forgo waiting 3 months for a "speedy" cabbage, and instead choose a fast-growing flavor mimic like kale or mustard greens.

And speaking of mustard greens, Lorene posits, "I bet you'd save enough money to buy a car by the time you're done filling your yard with heucheras, if you plant red mustard instead". Now that's a design plan I'd like to try!  I've been a big fan of red mustard for years, and I think it's about time it leapt out of the barrel and into the "ornamental" garden, not that there much of a distinction at the best of times in my yard.

She's big on herbs too - and why not! They are fantastic to eat, beautiful to look at, and great food for the bees too.  And speaking of bees, check out next month's speaker, Dr. Ramesh Sagili, delivering a talk on the importance of honey bees, and their current plight. Hint: planting a diversity of flowing plants and avoiding the use of pesticides (even organic ones), especially in the middle of the day when bees are most likely to be out foraging for nectar, are two of the many things you can do to help out.

Now you may have guessed from the numerous post I have devoted to fava beans that I am a fan. (This post has even given me the excuse to set them up with their own label). Well I am in good company in this regard - and now Lorene has turned us all on to crimson favas!  The splendor!  I am on the hunt but everywhere I go online seems to be out of stock... oh the humanity! Time for a dash to Garden Fever...

Lorene also has a really big soft spot for pole beans - she must have mentioned them at least a half-dozen times throughout the talk.  I have largely kept to bush beans, as I'm growing in containers and they can really take over, but she points out too that pole varieties fall into the "one plant, continual harvest category" and so that does make sense for small spaces. These also come in beautiful purple and magenta varieties that make them all the more becoming.  And she points out that with the darling hues they are easier to find and pick!

Other veggies that are great for the "cut back and renew" treatment, or the "continual picking from

one plant" scenario are kale, chard, and beet tops for the former, and in addition to the pole beans (I'm sure Lorene would be happier if I mentioned them again) are cherry tomatoes and tromboncino summer squash for the latter.  She enjoys these especially because they are a firmer type, and can even be eaten when large if left and treated like a winter squash.  Talk about double duty! This variety is especially fun because it can grow into all sorts of fun and twisted shapes (though probably less fun when trying to dispatch them in the kitchen with the veggie peeler...).

This double use of the vegetable that is open to the home gardener is but one of the great examples of "nose to tail eating" as Lorene puts it.  Don't fret when the radishes bolt at the first sign of heat.  Let them feed the bees, and after pollination will follow delectable juicy-spicy seed pods.  I have encountered these myself, and decided that I need to try some to pickled this year.  The radish variety 'Rat Tail', while unfortunately named, has been chosen specifically for this purpose.  Hardneck garlic scapes, nasturtium seed pods, and kale flower buds are all good eats too!  Thus, it is best to let go a little, and make room for serendipity.  For, as my friend Tricia is woe to behold, "you can't control everything in the garden" - though it probably won't keep her from trying, for a couple more years at least.

Some parting words from our engaging speaker: feed the soil, be gentle with it, because we all don't have the luxury of geological time.

Enjoy the Hopeful Signs of Spring!

Fall Planting

Light at the end of the tunnel?

Well, its been a while... renovations, reservations, vacations... they all can take their toll on the garden.  If you've had a outrageously full summer as I have, then your garden may have gone all jungle tangle on you despite all those tame spring fantasies from whence you planted.

When I remember to lift my head out of the paint bucket, or unglue myself from the back splash, I have been rewarded by the 'veggies that could' (survive neglect).  From the wild mishmash of grape vines and volunteer nasturtiums I have plucked peas, fava beans, kale, early lettuce, cherry tomatoes, and of course, zucchini.  Excavating further to the perennial herbs, I appear to still have lovage, marjoram, rosemary, sage, and Italian oregano. So with these small treasures I have maintained that small thread of connection to my garden while both worlds were enveloped in beautiful chaos.

As the seasons turn, I contemplate - can I fit in a late-September sowing of something that will have a chance to germinate in these last few fits of sun before the rains set in?  Is it too late for cover crops?

And so I turn to the Oregon Tilth Planting Calendar, and see that I might try one last hurrah with the same springtime crops I started with, as the season seemed to elapse in a blink of an eye and a cloud of sanding dust.  Those same crops that we push the envelope with in spring, because of their tolerance of lower light and cooler temperatures, are the same ones we can try to coax back into the cold season of fall.

Fall-planted fava beans, shallots and garlic will overwinter, for spring and summer crops next year.  In fact, I tried fall-planted fava beans last year, and to my delight they made it through the winter at a seemingly permanent state of 6" high, to explode with growth in spring.  In fact, they out-produced the spring-planted favas, as where they were both planted is on the North side of a large birch-bark cherry tree,

and as it leafed out in the spring, it increasingly shaded the smaller spring-planted favas while the winter-planted favas were already setting flowers and fruit.  So keep this in mind if you have a sunny spot that becomes less so as spring turns to summer.  In fact, I think I'll exclusively plant fall favas from now on. A bonus too, is that they make a good cover crop over the winter, even if they all don't make it to spring. Just turn those back into the soil, a couple weeks before you are ready to plant in spring.  For more on fava beans, check out this post.

Other veggies to sow now are peas and radishes. Choose quick-maturing varieties for greater success - indicated by the 'number of days' section on the seed package.  Use the package directions to plant, and ensure that the seeds stay moist if those fall rains aren't helping you out. If you get a cold snap during the germination period, try covering the seed with row cover to increase the microclimate around them by a couple of degrees.

If you have a cold frame or a method to cover your container (see resources below), then you could also try your hand with lettuce and mustard greens as they will need more protection to reach a mature stage. Look for lettuces with 'winter' or 'hiver' (French for winter) in their names, or anything that suggests being more cold-hardy. One tried and true variety is 'The Marvel of the Four Seasons' (or Mervielle de Quatre Saisons as its know in its native French).  I'm also going to broadcast sow some mesclun mix, as this is eaten at an earlier stage in growth.

The thing to remember is to be patient - the lower light and cooler temps will make the time from planting to germination longer, sometimes by double.  Help this along by either: 1] starting with transplants (bought or home-grown), 2] germinating seeds indoors just like in elementary by wrapping seeds in wet paper towel, 3] covering the seeds with a cloche, row cover, or cold frame to help warm the air a couple degrees.  Watch it though - if you have a cover on and get a 70 degree day, you can fry those little seedlings, so keep an eye on the forecast.

So in a nutshell the name of the fall planting game is:

• early varieties/short number of days
• cold-hardy varieties (like you would use in the spring)
• giving some cold-protection will help things along
• transplants are great if you can make/find them

RESOURCES

Some great sources for fall planting and looking towards overwintering crops are:

Oregon Tilth Planting Calendar - pdf you can download and use throughout the year to record planting times

Fall and Winter Vegetable Gardening in the Pacific Northwest - pdf from OSU Extension, includes how to make cold frames and cover beds

OSU's Growing Your Own is also a great, general resource, with a specific section on Fall & Winter Gardening, including a simple calculation you can do to determine if a variety you want to start now will make it before the average first frost date.

Mother Earth News - winter container garden article about bringing those veggies inside for longer harvest

Garden Betty has a fun picture tutorial about starting seeds on paper towel (or coffee filters, or newsprint).

And if you had a bumper crop this year, or just like to get a heaping box of late-season bounty from your neighbor, farmer or green grocer, check out these great Canning and Preserving Links at Very Good Food ~ For Goodness Sake.