Garden On, Vashon

I wasn’t going to blog this week—my byline is already all over this week’s Beachcomber in the “Home & Garden” section (in the March 10 issue, pages 15-27, plus a delightful musing on making dirt by Debbie Butler on page 7).

But reader, I need to commiserate with you. I need your insight, your tips, your fellow tales of woe. Because in my garden, it’s Rocky 3, Karen ZERO.

My new kitchen garden, as some of you know, has been under development for months. First went in the four triangle beds last fall. Then in went the cover crop. Then we built a new rubble wall, 30 feet long and 4 feet tall, to prop up its boundary slope . In front of that went a new flower border to edge this potager.

You can imagine my dreams of edible gorgeousness: rainbow chard and raspberries, pea towers fronted by massive purple cabbages, spiky artichokes posing like living sculpture in front of a wall painted orange.

Now imagine my dismay when, one morning, I found my dreams turned like tossed salad. The cover crops of grass, vetch, pea & clover had been pulled and flung across two of the triangle beds. Six-inch holes were pawed into the dark humus. 

I couldn’t figure out which varmint to blame, because I’ve seen both deer and raccoon tracks in the soil. But I knew that raccoons have raided my husband’s birdseed on the other side of the house: we’ve had staring contests with them through his window. And my compost pile has been dumpster-dived any number of times, even though I’ve thrown a weighted tarp over it. THAT’s not the crows.

So, I tried to net my triangle beds against the raiders (see “A much-considered mess” posted Dec. 30, 2009). When that failed, I took Ken Miller’s advice: put in a deer fence.

I bought 1″ metal conduit poles, stabbed them 30″ into the ground and spray-painted them black to make them invisible against the dark forest. I bought an endless roll of 7.5′ deer fencing—the kind with 2″ cells—and wrestled it onto the poles, holding it with zip-ties that came either from my pocket, or off the ground where they’d fallen.

And because a web site on deer fencing warned that deer could crawl, I added skirting all along the bottom, burying it under sods, wiring it to the top course of the rubble wall, or  stiffening it with a stick or heavy-gauge wire painstakingly woven in and out, in and out, of every couple 2″ cells (by then, I’d run out of zip-ties).

We made rustic gates. We made temporary gates. We closed off a breezeway we use constantly, opting instead to “go through the garage.”

And keeping in mind the raccoons, I fastened fencing to pole-tops with fragile “break-away” rubber-bands, thinking that the raccoon’s weight would break the rubber-bands and the fence would flop backwards, throwing Rocky back where he came from.

Finally, yesterday, at 4:30pm, all was finished. I had my gloat and my husband’s applause, and in a moment of hubris, I stood our empty-but-still-fragrant compost pail right in the middle of the most frequently hit triangle bed, and then thumbed my nose in Rocky’s supposed direction. Just TRY to get THIS, I was thinking.

Next morning, I woke to find the pail on its side, scraped clean, next to a new 6″ deep hole.

And I do believe, for the first time in my life, I felt MURDEROUS INTENT.

So readers: I am sure you too have your own Coon Tales to share. As Joe Yarkin, Maury island market farmer, said at the Food Summit, “There’s more raccoons on this island than people.”

I have visions that, unless something is done, when I plant my seedlings out they will end up as Scattered Remains across my garden beds, savaged by You-Know-Who. Readers, I need your War Stories. I need your BATTLE PLANS.

What I’m NOT going to do, is to relocate the food source to OUTSIDE the fence. I had a friend, once, who decided to feed the coons instead of fight them. Whenever I visited him, his basement picture window would be lined with raccoons, up on their fat haunches, scraping at the windows until he threw out more dog food. 

So readers: what’s YOUR solution to a raccoon problem? Send me your stories either as a comment here, or to karendale@centurytel.net. I’ll collect and post them sometime this spring.

This little darling is cyclamen coum (judging by the leaf shape and early spring bloom) in Julia Lakey’s backyard garden in Upper Gold Beach. A perennial that grows from a tuber, these smaller cyclamens prosper in part shade—they’re a good choice for under trees. Julia has beautiful soil, fed annually with six truckloads of horse manure in sawdust sweepings. All this, for a yard only suburban in size: no wonder the soil is so open and rich. She let me take handfuls of daylilies that were growing into a trail, and I do mean BY HAND; her soil was so friable that I was able to sink my hands in, lift and easily divide plants notorious for hanging onto the earth and each other. Another lesson learned from another gardener.

Kathy Wheaton Update:

I visited Kathy’s Corner this morning and found a few perennials on my Wish-list. And I found Kathy at the cash register, her injured arm pressed tight to her body in its brown sling. She saw me, took a step back, and said “I can’t begin to tell you how much I appreciate how supportive this community has been. Last week I was this close” (pinching her thumb and finger close together) “to calling it quits altogether. But what people having been doing for us has just filled up my heart again. I still have the surgery to pay for, the bills to pay for, and the money wasn’t there, but now…”

She said she lost “THOUSANDS” of starts: this year’s geraniums, fuchsias, and all the plants she propagates for her hanging baskets. But again, people are helping. “You see that guy? He just gave us 50 rhodies to add to our inventory. He’s just a regular customer.”

Keep the support coming, folks. The “benevolent account” that accepts funds toward her surgery payments is at Chase Bank (formally WaMu).

Seed potatoes

And if you want plants, you’ll find her nursery all spiffed up with some new stock (though the pickin’s are  still a little slim), plus about nine varieties of seed potatoes in bins to the left of the office door. Fingerlings, yukon golds, russets, something called ’satina’, and other varieties for about $1.49/lb. Just in time for March 17, St. Patrick’s Day, the temperate zone’s traditional spud-sowing day.

Buy them early so you can “chit” them before planting; that is, you expose the seed potato to cool light so that the eyes sprout a bit. This might take 1-2 weeks. By the time eyes form, the spud might be turning green—that’s okay—and you cut the spud into chunks with at least 2 eyes per chunk before you plant it.

Fish Compost

Huhh???  I’ve heard of old-fashion “fish-head fertilizer,” but I was surprised to see “Fish Compost” on Kevin Bergin’s lot sign. So I called him. “It’s Oly Mountain Fish Compost: fish waste + regular compost. Look it up on the web,” he suggested when I asked for more details. He’s selling it $50/yard—$5 more per yard than CedarGrove compost.

Online, I see that it’s made by North Mason Fiber Company, using fish from hatcheries, processing plants, and fish farms. They say they get the fish into the compost “within five minutes” and process it for two years. It’s apparently certified organic for organic agriculture. Here’s the link if you’re interested:  http://www.northmasonfiber.com/pages/olymtn_details.html. 

And does it stink? “No—not unless you stick your nose in it,” said Kevin.

Vashon Food Summit

I went to the Food Summit film festival last Saturday and enjoyed myself—this food summit is proving a great opportunity to share and compare with your fellow Island gardeners. The grapevine growers really missed a true gem: the short documentary “Portrait of a Winemaker: John Williams of Frog’s Leap” the short documentary by Deborah Koons Garcia.

The actual Food Summit starts at the high school with a 7pm talk Friday by EagleSong of RavenCroft Garden in Monroe, WA. This herbalist is also the designer and director of the kitchen garden for the new Herbfarm Restaurant in Woodinville (please bring slides!) She’ll talk about food security and (presumably, because her nonprofit RavenCroft Garden is devoted to “Community Centered Herbalism”) the interaction between food production and community.

Workshops and panels fill Sat/Sun, with a full of schedule of things like “Raising & Butchering Hogs”, “Growing for Market”, “Finding Joy in Canning, “Mushrooms for Food & Soil,” and the one I’m eyeing, “Artisan Blue & Hard Cheesemaking.” Though all the events are free, some of these desirable workshops request advance registration against limited seating. There will also be a community dinner (bring a vegetable for the soup!) and a contra dance Saturday evening with caller Larry Muir.

I’ll be there hosting the Seed Exchange, where you can bring excess seeds to exchange for others. I’m testing the existing stock right now for viability. Bring a few, take a few—or donate a few cents toward the Summit and I’ll let you just take some.

Check out the Food Summit’s full schedule of workshops, events, tables, etc at http://www.vashonfoodsummit.org

Pruning an Old Orchard

Our neighborhood has a community orchard of mixed fruit trees: english walnut, plum, italian prune, fig, cherry, and apple. They are of standard size, and with years of neglect some of them have gotten pretty darn tall, infested with mistletoe, snarled with crossed branches and winter-kill. But at our last community meeting, we realized that nearly every family had checked out the orchard this summer and had either snagged fruit or was disappointed to find they’d been beaten to it. So we voted to try to bring the orchard back into production.

That, according to Michelle Ramsden, our hired orchardist, will take a 3-year schedule of pruning. She came last Sunday to instruct and advise our work party of nine. First, she gave us a short lecture about removing only about 30% of the branches this year, removing first those suckers growing straight up out of main branches (“they’ll have a smoother texture and go straight up”), crossed branches and deadwood, and then too-long branches running parallel to the ground (“they won’t be able to hold the fruit without drooping into the reach of raccoons and deer.”) 

With three orchard ladders, a nifty little chain-saw, and some younger-than-midlife-creaky men playing monkey in the trees, I suspect we took rather more than 30% of the branches that should be removed. But after four hours of a beautifully clear end-of-February day, our dozen trees looked more open and definitely shorter than before.

And if you attend the Food Summit, you might see some of our trimmings, because Barbara Wells loaded up the back of her Mazda with pruned branches, well-budded, in hopes of forcing them into bloom for giant bouquets to decorate the high school lobby.

My "Mrs. Moon" rose

Can’t argue anymore: when croci and daffs are up, cherry trees bloom, cover crop grows, and a squeezed dirt clod breaks up when thumbed, it may be winter by the calendar but it’s spring in ground and air.

The yellow bloom of forsythia is the traditional signal that’s it’s time to prune your roses. (As if their canes breaking out in leaves weren’t signal enough.) Grab a bucket and your felco hand loppers: the bypass kind will make kinder cuts than the anvil style, where one blade smashes against a flat-edged blade. 

Then go appraise your first target bush. Mine—which we’ll call ‘Mrs. Moon’ as once labeled though none of my rose books nor the Internet can find a rose by that name—grows in habit like a floribuna tea or an English/David Austen rose. That is, it’s shrubby, taller than wide, with 3-6′ canes growing from a graft just above ground level. And as you can see from the photo above, it throws plenty of flowers per branch.

Over the summer, it threw several 6′ canes, which you can see in the “Before Pruning” image. The December freeze also left its legacy of dead wood, usually those stumps above prior year’s pruning cuts or new spurs too skinny to keep from freezing through. In fact, as I went through my roses I saw a lot of winter-kill even of the thickest, oldest branches.

All that winter-killed, dead wood has got to be pruned away. Take it down to the base of the brown, even if you have to cut right above the graft, near ground level (you might need mightier loppers for this. Try to make a cut at an angle so that rain will drain off the cut. Also cut out any crossing branches.

After that’s done, start pruning back the new, thin wood at the top of the green branches. You want to prune back to pencil-thick green limbs, down 1/3-1/2 the length of the total branch (see red lines in the “Before Pruning” photo).

Sadly, at least on this bush, that means snipping away a lot of branches that are sprouting leaves. But I am consoled, because I can “read” from prior year’s cuts that from those cuts the bush will grow new and thicker stems instead of these spindlies. All the better to support those heavy sprays of flowers to come.

Where to cut? Look carefully on the pencil-thick stem for a dark ring, not much thicker than a pen line, that goes around the whole stem. You’ll find them every 4-6″ or so. A good one will have a tiny bud knob on it. Make an angled cut 1/4″ above the ring, with the top of your cut arcing above the bud. The plant’s energy rising up that stem will push the new growth right out that bud.

Once the spindlies and deadwood are off, then you can get artistic. Now, it’s about shaping, about aiming the new growth to reach into the open spaces between limbs. For that, you find buds pointing toward those open spaces, and cut there.

When you’re done, your rose bush will look quite ungainly, all knees and knobs and knitting needles bristling with thorns as in the “After Pruning” photo above.

Dump your bucket of prunings into your brush-pile (not into compost) or burn them. Then feed your rose with aged compost, manure, or rose food, well scratched into the earth. Roses, like prima donnas of the ol’ Italian opera, are heavy feeders. Carol Arnold once told me that a scoop of epson salts helps them take up nitrogen. And David Austen, the famous breeder of those English roses, says they also love a fertilizer heavy in potash.

As for climbing roses, the only pruning you need do is prune out old dead canes and any deadwood you can reach. Feed them now, too. Rugosa roses just need to be shaped and their wizened rose hips cut off.

You can prune and shape other summer-blooming shrubs and perennials now, too, such as lavender, santolina, asters, daisies, and potentilla.

By April your roses will have leafed out and, by June, will be blooming like mad. And I’ll be sniffing them and decorating them with snippets of my True Love’s Hair to keep Bambi from loving them to death. Everything needs pruning sometime…

Sally Fox, the president of the Vashon Garden Club and and occasional contributor to the Beachcomber, has been interviewing our local nursery owners for a story to appear in the March “Home & Garden” supplement. She was so distressed by what she heard from Kathy’s Corner that she came home and immediately sent out this email “S.O.S.” to fellow Island gardeners.

Friends, this long-time anchor of our gardening Island NEEDS OUR SUPPORT—AND PRONTO.

From Sally Fox, 2/20/2010:

“I am writing to friends, Garden Club members and island gardeners who may shop at Kathy’s Corner or know Kathy Wheaton (THE “Kathy”).  I spoke with her this morning while I was doing research for a Beachcomber article on our island nurseries.  I know that the recession has been hard on all of our nurseries—and I care about them all—but what I heard  from Kathy had me in tears.

I had to do something.  I am writing because I know some of you may want to help or can spread the word.

Last year was a very tough year for the nursery business.  The recession has been hard and margins are very slim. Kathy was just hanging on.  Then, this past  December during the cold snap, Kathy and her husband suffered some disasters: one  greenhouse came apart (killing most of Lloyd’s prize jade plants), a furnace failed in another greenhouse (killing the new starts), and one of her trucks died.  All of that was very very difficult and they weren’t sure how they would make it.

Then it got worse.  Two weeks later Kathy fell, shattering her arm (a complicated break at the shoulder).  The doctors have said it may be months before she is operational and she may never recover full use of her arm.  On top of needing cash to keep her business alive, Kathy will have huge medical bills, (fortunately she has insurance, but  she will still be responsible for 20%).  

Kathy isn’t asking for help—but she needs it. I want to make sure that she can stay in business. She has to find a way to get cash in these next VERY critical weeks. 

I wanted to do something.  So I took out my checkbook and decided I could gift her some money, buy a gift certificate, and tell my friends.  

And I was hoping that some of you would want to do the same.  Please spread the word.  On Monday, I am hoping to set up a bank account for donations, but you can always drop a check off at the nursery. [This "beneficial account for Kathy Wheaton" is being set up at Washington Mutual—now Chase Bank— and will be ready for donations on Wednesday, Feb 24.]

When I asked her how she keeps going when it is so difficult, she said: “Vashon people are amazing.  The customers are amazing.  Their desire to keep us here is what keeps me working.  It is what keeps me going.”

I’ve just returned from Sacramento, California, where the temps have climbed to the mid-60s but the many of the fields north of the city are still flooded with El Nino rain. Unlike, I suppose, many a winter, our season is just as far along as theirs: the winter primroses in containers have yet to be replaced with tulips or daffodils, and the fruit trees such as pear or cherry are just starting to bloom.

Creeping rosemary seemed planted in every container, parking strip, and drainage-pond verge. I’ve never thought of it as a landscaping plant en masse, but it looked great in long swaths on a bank, blooming its ghostly blue in the late winter sun. Unlike the pencil-thin junipers and Russian Olive trees planted everywhere to evoke Tuscany and the Mediterranean, creeping rosemary does just fine in the Puget Sound, provided it has excellent drainage. I once grew it in a sand-filled trench.

Speaking of things Tuscany, the truly fun discovery of the trip were the proliferation of Olive Oil stores—at least three just in the “town centre” I was hoteling in. Sis and I were snagged in a “WeOlive” boutique, where the fat, affable proprietor thrust thimble after thimble of oils and vinegars at us. Who knew black cherries could make such a sweet balsamico? Apparently the olive growers of California have joined cooperatively and created oil boutiques modeled after wine tasting cellars. Their price of $1/ounce for their bulk oils or vinegars may SEEM cheap  (who can’t afford $1 per?), but I saw later at our local grocery that a good balsamic vinegar can be had for .50¢/ounce. But the experience of standing there guzzling and comparing the good stuff? Priceless.

Speaking of Cost Comparisons: Catalog vs. Store Rack

I was pulled yet again toward the seed racks in True Value today: the Ed Hume racks seem particularly well-stocked with new varieties, as if they hope for a repeat of last year’s run on vegie seeds. I’ve been curious to see whether the price is better from the seed catalog, or if stores mark up the prices on the seed racks. Apparently not, at least for Territorial Seed Company: prices are the same whether you buy straight from the catalog or off the seed rack. Your selection is about 100% larger in the catalog, though, and it comes with more information. So if you DO buy off the rack, do pick up a catalog if for the growing information alone.

In the Perennial Garden: Clean Up, Transplant, and Divide

Since we seem to be further along toward spring than the calendar suggests, this is a good time to clean up the garden and to divide or transplant perennials. You can trim the winter-kill of perennials back to their crowns, and with a sharp snips you can “de-dead-leaf” plants that look tatty, like lady’s mantle or bergenia. The grasses—all except the razor-sharp ones—you can comb with your fingers to pull out dead blades and bent stalks. 

I usually move shasta daisies in March, but as long as your soil is not water-logged, moving them now assures them enough spring rain to establish new roots. Other plants to divide and/or transplant include the summer bloomers like rudbeckia, echinacea, dierama (‘angel’s fishing rod’), epimedium, daylilies, catmint, sedums, agastache, alchemilla (‘lady’s mantle’), and asters. When opening the earth for these, loosen the soil with a handful of compost or aged leaf mould: this will feed the plant, as well as provide good drainage should our early spring do an about-face.

Less than a week after I placed my order, the seeds from Nichols Garden Nursery in Albany, Oregon have arrived. So many dreams in such a little package!

Not an Octopus, but a Pea

Last week, I wrote about starting a seed germination test. Some of last year’s seeds didn’t seem to sprout so readily, so I wanted to test them for viability before finalizing this year’s seed order.

I tested pac choi, two kinds of peas, carrots, beets, mesclun, and two varieties of lettuce, ‘red romaine’ and ‘prizehead.’ It’s not difficult: you sandwich 10-12 seeds between damp layers of paper towels, press together lightly to make good contact with the seed, then seal the towels in a plastic bag and park the packet in a warm, dark place. Check every couple of days until they sprout: toss the seed packet if you get less than 75% germination.

The closet with the water heater worked well: within 24 hours, the dry, wrinkled pea seeds had plumped up and within 48 hours, that long tap-root on the left had erupted out one end. One week later, you can see that the pea has developed multiple roots, plus a stem so delicate that when I opened up the paper towel sandwich, it broke.

Most of the seeds had 90% germination, with the exception of the ‘prizehead’ at 21 of 29 test seeds, and ‘red romaine’ with 12 of 16 test seeds. If I grow these at all, it will be in 2″ cells that I’ll grow as transplants so that I don’t end up planting “duds.”

A Seed Exchange at the Food Summit

In hopes of encouraging further diversity in our gardens, I’ll be handling the Seed Exchange at the Food Summit March 5-7. You may have seen this box before at the Saturday Markets: Cathy Fulton of Mariposa Gardens has charge of it during the year. Bring some seed, take some seed.

Some of the seed in the box is getting old, so I’ll test it for viability before the Food Summit. (Note that, while many seeds can last a few years if stored in a cool, dark, dry place, allium seeds are usually good for only one year.)

When you bring seed to share, the box has envelopes on which you can write the seed variety, year issued, and any notes you’d like to add—even your name & phone number if you’re open to being consulted. 

Sounds like the kids from school are also going to bring new seed they bought in bulk and divided as part of a class project. So there should be some Good Stuff to make your garden even more interesting this year.

A Classic Sign of Late Winter

Lastly, some late winter classics: these snowdrops blooming across the street from the Burton Post Office. 

First, the news:

• Cathy Fulton will be talking about the Food Summit at this week’s meeting of the Sustainable Practices Committee, Thursday, 7pm at the Land Trust building.

• Ivan Weiss wants you to know he has farm-fresh eggs available for “the going rate” ($6/dozen) at his farm in upper Burton. Call ahead: 463-HOGS.

• Seattle’s Flower & Garden Show starts Wednesday and runs through this weekend. DIG will be there in the Vendor’s section, and local garden girl Patty Campbell will give a seminar on “Flower Pot Produce” at 5pm Sunday in the Mt. Hood room.

The Sap’s Rising, making Saps of us all

Have you noticed? The weather, the croaking frogs, and the American Capitalist System are conspiring to convince us it’s spring. 

This has been the warmest January on record: 48° on average, a full seven degrees warmer than the usual low 40s. With the jet stream sending foul weather to north and south of us, our plants think they’re getting mild spring weather. My wallflowers are trying to bloom: they normally blossom in March, with tulips. Just south of town, the forsythia hedge in front of the “Holiday House” is dotting itself yellow. And near the Athletic club, a couple of cherries have sent up a soft-pink cloud of bloom.

These so-called “autumn-flowering” cherries are meant to bloom in late winter. THEY’RE on schedule, but the rest of us, humans and plants, are being led down the primrose path. Our area almost ALWAYS has what I call a “January Thaw” when the oddly-warm air fools humans and flowers alike to think we’re getting an early spring. Our sap is rising, we’re ready to open the wallets and flush out some green. And the shops are ready for us…

Seedy Temptation

As you enter Thriftway through their primrose-lined entrance, you’ll find the seed-packet racks blooming with new arrivals. 2010 Seed packets from Ed Hume, Botanical Interests, and Territorial Seed Company can be found at True Value, Thriftway, Island Lumber, and Country Store (they also carryseeds from  Abundant Life, a company supplying organic and biodynamic seeds that was bought by Territorial seven years ago.) 

Country Store told me they’ve been fielding questions about seeds from eager customers for weeks now, and they are already selling seeds to folks who say they’re planting soon.

But for hobby gardeners, it’s still too early to sow. We may have the warmth, the seed-rotting rains may be averted (for now), but what we don’t have is solar power. Stray sunbeams may have played upon my greenhouse enough to warm it to 60°, but only from 10:30 to 2:30—about two hours shy of the bare minimum for healthily growing plants.

I suspect only the most favored sites—  top-of-the-island farms with open southern exposures like Plum Forest and Island Meadow—will start seedlings this early and only in their greenhouses. As Leda Langley told me last year, “most gardeners get stuck starting way too early, then end up nursing their transplants along for way too long.” Most seedlings only want to be in their little pots for about 4 weeks, yet our earliest frost-free day, according to Ed Hume, is March 24. 

It IS a good time to plan your seed order

In any year, late January through February is THE time to order seeds. If you order now, you’ll receive your seeds by late February, which will be a safer time to sow.

I spent last Saturday buried under one laptop, two gardening books, and five seed catalogs, typing my “Seed Spreadsheet” into google-docs as fast as my eyeballs could pull info from pages. Into this spreadsheet I’ve listed the plants I want to grow, noting varieties recommended by Steve Solomon (“Gardening West of the Cascades”) and Sylvia Thompson (“The Kitchen Garden”). With that list in hand, I can quickly scan the catalogs for those varieties and enter their prices/weight for a quick cost comparison when I’m ready to order.

I hope to diversify my plantings even more by trading for other’s extra seeds through the Seed Exchange at the Food Summit, March 5-7. (More on that in a later blog.)

While you’re at it, test your old seed

Before you order, you could test your old seeds—even last year’s packets—to see whether the seed is still viable or whether you’ll need to buy replacements. Here’s how to do a germination test:

• find a dark, warm place: the closet where the water heater lives, on top of an appliance with a pilot light, near the woodstove.

• Take two sheets of paper towel, lay on over the other, and moisten the upper half on your counter or a cooky sheet. A misting bottle works great.

• Take ten seeds or so from an older packet of seed you want to test. Spread those across the moistened sheet. Fold the bottom of the towels over this layer of seed, and moisten again so the sheets are damp but not dripping.

• Place this folded sheet into a ziploc bag. Seal and place in the dark, warm spot. To keep track of what’s in the bag (in case you’re loading it with several trials), take notes on the bag’s exterior or on a separate sheet of paper, not on the towel itself—wet ink RUNS, remember.

• Open and check seeds daily for sprouting. Within the week if they’re good, they’ll begin to sprout. Your packet may show the expected minimum germination rate (Johnny’s and Territorial for sure). If you get germination much less than that—or under 75%—either sow them as transplants so you won’t plant dudes, or replace the packet.

This idea comes courtesy of today’s Thriftway temptation: a special issue magazine from Taunton Press called “Starting From Seed.”

 Hey, I’m not immune! I may not buy THAT it’s spring, but can I resist buying INTO spring? Not a chance…

Bob looked at the grocery receipt this last week and announced “our bill is running twice what it was this summer.”

So what’s making the difference? Vegetables, of course: we have to buy them now that the December freeze turned my winter garden to mush. Still, “twice what it was” doesn’t tell you much about what you saved by growing your own.

But Nancy Lewis-Williams, Master Gardener and teacher of last year’s popular vegetable-growing class, HAS kept a running tally of what her harvest has been worth to her pocketbook. From June through December first, she weighed all the produce she’d harvested and kept a running tally, in pounds, of 33 different crops, from apples to zucchini. 

“Well, maybe 75% of it—I didn’t count the stuff we ate right off the vine,” she hedged. “And it also doesn’t include all the greens we grew in early spring, before I started this count.”

Her computer went on the fritz the same week I asked for her end-of-harvest totals, so I stepped in and looked up current prices at Thriftway. So here’s another hedge: we didn’t use height-of-season prices (except for the raspberries, which I had recorded for myself in Quicken when I bought a half-flat this summer).

Given all these qualifiers, what did we find? That Nancy had harvested nearly $500′ worth 0f organic vegetables per MONTH from her 2000 s.f. garden. 

The harvest total was worth $1810, using winter Thriftway prices for non-organic produce. If compared to organic prices, the harvest would be worth $2952.

“And I’ve still got a month’s worth out there in leeks, kale, carrots, chard, turnips, rutabagas and spinach,” she said.

The Big Pay-offs

The big pay-off, both in weight and in dollars grown, was from POTATOES. With a pound of seed potatoes for “Rose Finn Apple Fingerlings” from Ronnigers in Colorado (www.ronnigers.com), her return was hundredfold: 110 pounds worth $440 smackaroos. She also planted around 10 lbs of seed potatoes for regular spuds and got 250 lbs in return, worth $250 or $500 at organic prices. 

Leda Langley told me last spring that you get the biggest bang in calories and productivity/acre with potatoes, and here Nancy’s proved her point.

Other seeds with a large return, literally, were: TOMATOES at 109 lbs, worth at least $218 and probably well over $300 organic; 95 pounds of WINTER SQUASH (delicate and butternut) worth $1 per pound; 36 pounds of CUCUMBERS worth $72 or twice that if organic; LEAFY FRY GREENS like kale, chard, and spinach that come bagged at premium prices anywhere from $4-6 per pound. “I didn’t count all the corn: I must have pared kernels off of hundreds of ears.” 

If you’re a fruit-fancier willing to pay for fresh off-season berries, you might want to invest in a few bushes and a freezer. Nancy’s 28 pints of RASPBERRIES were worth at least $65 compared to in-season local berries, or $448 compared to last week’s Chilean winter imports at a Buck an Ounce. 

Other results: HERBS: 13 handfuls worth $65; 15 lbs of LEEKS worth $45; 32 pounds of BEETS worth anywhere from $1.50/lb to $5/lb for organic; 29 pounds of CARROTS worth from $22-30; 15 lbs of CABBAGE worth 50¢ a pound but four times that organically. 

The Investment

My husband, always the skeptic, pointed out that there’s costs involved: water, fertilizer, seed trays, seed. 

“And you HAVE to have a deer-fence,” Nancy added when I asked about her costs. Deer-fencing runs about a dollar a running foot; you could fence a garden her size (2000 sf, equal to a 40′x50′) for  $100 plus the poles and gate materials.

Looking at her records, she estimated she spent $100 on seeds, $30/month on water, and $100 on organic fertilizer and amendments. Given that one doesn’t water in three of the months of her trial, that’s approximately $300 a year to install a 2000 s.f. vegie patch producing $3000 worth of food. That’s a tenfold return for your money.

Now Nancy’s put in a greenhouse last year; with such a large expense, you’re looking at costs close to what the author of “The $64 Tomato” ran up. But you don’t have to spend a lot on gear, as Steve Solomon points out in his latest book, “Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times”: you can direct seed instead of growing or buying transplants, you can start warm-season fruiting plants in a sunny window, you can blend your own fertilizer, and you can restrict your tools to a hoe, a bow rake, a good shovel, a sharp knife, and a hose. 

You may not be able to grow as large a bounty as Nancy did, but most folks DO realize some savings. In a poll done last year by the National Gardening Association, they found that “a well-maintained food garden yields a $500 average return per garden.”  

So save yourself a few or a LOT of bucks: Grow Your Own.

Stories I’m working on:

• A Seed Swap at the Food Summit Meeting: bring some, take some.

• Gates for deer-fencing

If you have ideas for stories or inputs on the above ideas, comment here or write me at karendale@centurytel.net.

Nothing like a warm winter sun-break and a bit of chain-sawing to warm a girl up. Sunday night’s wind brought down a small hemlock, already bone-dry and perfectly placed: right next to a road, its butt end still hinged to its stump, the trunk held three feet off the ground all its length. With the sunshine and a newly-sharpened chain,  it was a pleasure to work. Hope you got a chance at the sunshine, too.

The News:

I got this notice from Cathy Fulton today: she’s planning a Vashon Food Summit ”for People Who Eat” this March 5-7. Meetings for volunteers will be held later this week at the Vashon Library (see details below).

Cathy’s web site on the event (link below) says the event is “for Islanders to meet and share information and experience on most any topic regarding food and its impact on Vashon Island. Broad topics include Raising Food, Acquiring & Preparing Food, and The Food Economy.

The purpose is to encourage Islanders to become more aware of the food we eat, to eat more food closer to its source, and learn how to prepare good food more economically. Raising food and food prep will be key areas. We’ll also explore how the way we eat is ultimately a political act. There will be lectures, workshops, panels, organization tables, a “Stone Soup” dinner, and a “Food Celebration.”

The only volunteer meetings for those who would like to help with the Vashon Island Food Summit ( http://vashonfoodsummit.org/) are being held this week at the Vashon Library. The meetings will be Wednesday, January 20, 7:00 pm and Friday, January 22, 11:00 am. You only need to attend one meeting–they will be identical in subject matter.  If you cannot attend either meeting, but would like to like to be involved, let Cathy Fulton know by email or phone: cathy@MariposaGardens.org, 463-5652. 

 A preliminary list of volunteer opportunities can be found on her website at: http://vashonfoodsummit.org/index_files/Page363.htm

And also: mark your calendars for a return of last year’s popular Vegetable Growing Classes: two weekends later, on March 20 and 27, taught again Cathy Fulton and Nancy Lewis-Williams. Nancy and I are developing an article on “The Dollars You Can Save By Growing Your Own.”

Bob Dale’s Hot & Sour Noodle Soup
When the rains return, here’s a very peppy, winter soup that will cheer your bones.

Take a quart of chicken or turkey soup stock, put in kettle and on medium-high heat.

Into the pot add:
1 cup white cabbage, shredded into 1/4″ ribbons
1/3 cup shredded carrot (about 1/3 a carrot)
1 green onion, sliced thin on diagonal
1 celery rib, diced to 1/4″ pieces
Season with:
1 tbls “Sriracha” chili garlic paste (less if you like it less hot)
1 teas. soy sauce
1 teas. rice vinegar
1 teas. rice wine
Once soup comes to a boil, add a handful of wheat noodles (we like straight “Marco Polo” noodles: a hand-grab around a quarter-coin’s thickness is enough for two people).
Stir so noodles don’t clump, then reduce heat to simmer and cook for about 10 minutes, until noodles are al dente.
Thicken broth to a silky texture with 1 teas. cornstarch dissolved in 2 tbls. cold water. SERVE.

Now THIS is reading weather…

With rain predicted through the end of this week (and with credits at both Island bookstores), I decided to ask some of the Island’s best gardeners & farmers for a list of their favorite garden books. And I checked on availability of many of these through the King County Library System (more on that below).

(PS: As the rain just WON’T quit, I also got online and ordered seed catalogs. Most catalogs are bulk-mailed this month, so get on their lists now. For me, some Must-Haves are Territorial Seed Company* (which bought Abundant Life Seed Foundation of Port Townsend, another good one), Johnny’s Seed Co., and The Cook’s Garden* (*Local stores will offer their seeds in carousel racks later this winter.)

Thanks to Joanne Jewell of Plum Forest Farm, Chandler Briggs of Island Meadow, Chris Greenlee, Mark Musick, Nancy Lewis-Williams, Cathy Fulton, March Twisdale, Julia Lakey, Michelle Crawford, Colleen James, and Anita Halstead for sharing your favorites!

Favs of the Farmers

These first two are touchstones of my own library. The last book, I’ve checked out at least twice when I’ve had a good growing summer (which is about two months too late, as you’ll see).

Steve Solomon’s “Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades” and “Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times.”  Do ALL our local farmers have this book? It’s now in its sixth edition (2007); Chris Greenlee says “Much of what Steve wrote about earlier, he’s refuted in his later versions.” Hummm… might be time to retire my 1989 copy.

“The Maritime Northwest Garden Guide” by Seattle Tilth. This year-round guide to growing organically in the Seattle climate delivers a ton of information within helpful month-to-month “To-Do” chapters. Islanders Rob Peterson, Joanne Jewell, and Kathryn True all worked on the 1998 edition, and Joanne reports that a new edition is in the works. 

Binda Colebrook’s “Winter Gardening in the Pacific Northwest.” Lots of personal observations on vegetables and techniques that work for the winter garden. TIP: if there’s the chance you might want to extend your growing season, get this NOW and read by July.

More on Growing:

I was thrilled to find at Granny’s last week John Jeavons’ classic on bio-intensive gardening “How to Grow more Vegetables.” Some of my correspondents liked:

“Better Vegetables Gardens, the Chinese Way” by Peter Chan. Chris Greenlee says “I love the simplicity.”

John Seymour’s “The (New) Self-Sufficient Gardener.” Joanne Jewell: “It’s so beautiful, and it’s good for home gardeners.” Amply illustrated, like all DK publications.

“Gaia’s Garden” by Toby Hebenway. Cathy Fulton (Mariposa Gardens, the Compost Fest) says “This is a very accessible book about permaculture. I checked it out of the library three times, then gave up and bought it.”

Anything by Eliot Coleman, says Chandler Briggs: “The New Organic Grower” and “Four-Season Harvest.”  Fascinating tools and techniques of an extremely successful organic grower in New England.

Nancy Bubel’s “Seed-Starting” and “Root-Cellaring” are essential handbooks for Nancy Lewis-Williams, who will rerun her popular vegetable growing classes this March.

Michelle Crawford, tomato diva of Pacific Potager, recommends “The Art of French Vegetable Gardening” by Louisa Jones.  Beautiful photos of all seasons of the ornamental kitchen garden, with great text; I first saw this awesome book at Michelle’s “Kitchen Potager Salon” last February. She also likes “Organic Farming” by Nicolas Lampkin… an English book, but similar to our climate. ” I must have read it 7 times.  Very good explanation of soil chemistry, how nutrients are released, etc. “ 

Links to our Land

As I’ve said before, Michael Pollan’s “Omnivore’s Dilemma” pushed me to grow more of my own food, rather than depend on “industrial food.” And as one season bends toward another, I felt kinship with Carol Williams as she gardens and writes up a year in her bio-dynamically influenced backyard, in “Bringing the Garden to Life.”

For his winter inspiration, Chandler Briggs is reading Wendell Berry’s “The Unsettling of America” and Wes Jackson’s “Becoming Native to This Place.” 

Speaking of being in place, Anita Halstead loves “The Authentic Garden: Five Principles for Cultivating a Sense of Place” by Claire Sawyers: a book about seeking design inspiration not in Europe or Asia, but in the environs we live in.

Lewis-Williams is savoring “Gardening at the Dragon’s Gate” by Wendy Johnson, a Zen Buddhist who is Head Gardener at San Francisco’s Green Culch Farm Center. “It’s one of those books you read a few pages at a time to make it last.”

Eye-Candy: Ornamentals

Les this list become dominated by vegetables, I asked Master Gardener Colleen James, whose Burton perennial garden was profiled here a few weeks ago, to contribute a few. 

One of them, I had just read: “Perennials: the Gardener’s Resource” by Susan Carter, Bob Lily and Carrie Becker. “This has replaced the Sunset book as far as perennials go,” Colleen opined. This coffee-table reference is written by three local experts, covering 2700 species and cultivars, their demands, upkeep, and performance, with commentary.

“Anything by Beth Chatto: her “Drought-Resistant Planting Through the Year” on gravel gardening is what really got me going,” said Colleen. “She turned a parking lot into this big drought-tolerant planting of all these flowering, gorgeous ornamentals—and she never waters.”

James also turns to Jane Taylor’s “Plants for Dry Gardens: Beating the Drought”  (“we’re only going to see more drought in the future”), “Covering Ground” about ground covers by Barbara W. Ellis, and “Seedheads in the Garden” by Noel Kingsbury.

Another from Nancy Lewis-Williams is “Passionate Gardening” by Lauren Springer and Rob Proctor. It too “emphasizes perennials for low water and extreme climates. And it’s got great photos to drool over.”

Garden Design

When I need to design a large area, I often have a stroll through “The Book of Garden Design” by English designer John Brookes. And like Anita Halstead, I find local writers Ann Lovejoy’s “Organic Garden Design School” and Valerie Easton’s “A Pattern Garden” both full of eye-candy—much of it from around Seattle—and practical hort advice.

Postscript

I checked on many of these books in the King County Library System and found high demand for a few—Colebrooks’s on Winter Gardening and “Root Cellaring”—and Seattle Tilth’s book has 19 holds on its few copies, so you might as well buy it.

Finally, I want to thank Julia Lakey, she GAVE me one of her favorite books: “Let It Rot” by Stu Campbell. I find reading about compost wonderfully soothing: its litany “1 part browns to 1 parts greens” so comforting and familiar, I suspect this book will lull me right into that other guilty pleasure of January, a long winter’s nap.

Happy, Fruitful Reading!

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