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.

Plant Spring Now, with bulbs!

I’ve been wanting to suggest this idea to Islanders for a long time: let’s plant more daffodils along our roadways.

Several years ago while driving to the Oregon Coast, I noticed many a roadside verge was blooming with naturalized daffodils. I tell you, on a drizzly day it gladdens the heart to see them.

Since many a Vashon garden is down the driveway, much of our spring bloom is a private, out of sight affair. What a gift it would be to all of us, to see those bright splashes of springtime along our rain-gray roadways!

Siting Daffodils

Plenty of our Island roadsides are of a similar grass-n-ditch variety. On such banked-up verges, daffodils can enjoy good drainage and protection from early spring mowings.

If you plant at least eight feet from the road, your daffs will probably be out of reach of King County mowers. Or you can shelter them at the foot of your mailbox or newspaper tube, where neither the County or you are likely to mow. Daffodil foliage needs to “ripen”—that is, take in sunlight to feed the bulb, after the flower has faded. So you don’t want to cut the foliage until mid-summer, if at all.

Choose a spot with at least half-day sun. Under deciduous trees and shrubs works well: they would be lovely near Indian Plum, that apple-green native shrub with the tiny white blossoms perked up like rabbit ears. Under evergreens, they tend not to last as many years.

Consider that they are heliotropic and will turn toward that part of the sky with the strongest light exposure. You don’t want to place them so they’ve got their backs turned when you’re viewing them!

Here’s a wonderful mass planting of daffodils on 87th, that road that links Tramp Harbor and Cemetary Road (see photo, above) Most are planted in clumps of 10-12, with runs of different colors. That clump has been in place for at least ten years. 

And on Wax Orchard at the Daffodil Barn (photo, top), some flowers still poke their heads above the north meadow from a planting at least 20 years old. The website of the American Daffodil Society claims that older varieties, properly planted, can last 30-50 years.

Getting Daffodils

Country Store has bulbs on the front porch—varieties “Dutch Master” and “Giant Daffodil Mix”— for 70¢ a bulb. The grocery stores have bags in stock, as does True Value. (Kathy’s Corner isn’t carrying bulbs, and DIG is only open on the weekends these days.)

Back in the 80s, I bought my first few hundred (!!) daffodil bulbs from Roozengaarde Bulbs in Mt. Vernon. They’re now the Washington Bulb Company, website: www.tulips.com. At the time, their bulbs were HUGE, multi-nosed creatures that gave a LOT of bloom for the money.

So if your property borders one of our main roads and you’ve got a grassy bank along the road shoulder, consider crowning it with some spring sunshine—daffodils!

 I was walking down 192nd from the Athletic Club yesterday, when I discovered FREE PLANTS.

Farm Candy Nursery is trying to find new homes for a surplus of scented geraniums and pelargoniums (you know: those Martha Washington style geraniums?). So a big sign, “FREE!”, applies to all the plants on her little farm stand’s shelves. Sizes range from in 3″, 4″ and 5.5″ pots, with above-ground sizes from 5″ high to over a foot.

Now I realize that it’s not planting-out time: these geraniums are going to need over-wintering. Since not I, my husband, or my mother have ever successfully over-wintered geraniums, I decided to phone Farm Candy’s Rachel Lydecker to find out how she keeps these popular plants alive.

“The Number One thing is, don’t let their roots freeze,” she told me. “The perfect situation would be sitting at your brightest window in the house, with a little bit of watering every 2-3 weeks and a light feeding mid-winter.”

I didn’t need to press for details: she’s besotted by this plant and even likes them grown large and sculptural, more twisting stems than leaves.

So go get your summer 2010 geraniums and pelargoniums now, for free. And when you long for summer, just go rub a leaf of “True Rose” geranium and enjoy the scent of June.

For more info on Farm Candy Nursery, visit www.farmcandy.strangegarden.com

How to Overwinter Geraniums and Pelargoniums

LIGHT:  put them next to a sunny window indoors. “You can’t give them too much light in the winter.”

HEAT: “not super-warm,” Rachel says. An unheated room in your house would be okay, but not in a shed or garage that’s vulnerable to freezing.

WATER: Not bone-dry, not parched, but not real wet, either. Check the soil. Water maybe every 2-3 weeks. “I suspect that if you put the potted plants on top of a shallow pan of pebbles and water—not IN, but on TOP of—they would like the extra humidity and need less water.”

FEEDING:  After the New Year, give them a light feeding of house-plant food. They would also like a little Epson salts, about a tablespoon per gallon of water. 

PRUNING: They tend to get leggy—you can pinch off the new growth.

IN SPRING: When the temps reach the low 40s, you can start acclimatizing the plants to the outdoors during daylight hours. If they get left out on a cold night, “frost will make them pretty ugly, all the leaves will fall off, but the roots may still be alive.”

MAKING MORE:  You can take cuttings of any new growth and pot them up in sterile potting soil to increase your stock of plants. Cut below a leaf node (where the leaf emerges from the stalk) for a cutting about 2″ long. Stick in damp potting soil. (Don’t try to root in water: these roots are of a different type that aren’t adapted to taking up nutrients from soil, which is where you want your geranium eventually.) The plants will put out new growth when there’s enough light next spring.

[FarmCandy’s Care Instructions: “To keep your pelargonium happy, give it plenty of light, a light feeding every two weeks in summer and every month in winter. If they are in a greenhouse, you may need to protect them from strong light with a light shadecloth. They don’t want to dry out completely, but be careful not to overwater or let water sit in the saucer. Bring them in for the winter.

   To make sachets, cut new growth and dry in an oven set to “warm” or in the microwave at two minutes at a time, letting steam escape in between. When the leaves and stems are crisp, crush them up and put in decorative bags. They make great gifts! 

For more information on pelargoniums and for links and suggested readings, visit us at http://farmcandy.strangegarden.com/ and be sure to email any questions with the words “plant question” in the subject line. Thanks for choosing Farm Candy as your gernium enabler!

(Update 10/24: I just got the link to all the signage from the Compost Fest. These quick-info pages describe a process in words and photos, then list pros and cons, perhaps other resources. Included: hot composting, slow/cool composting, animal bedding/offal composting, chicken cultivators, bio char in trenches, hugelkulture heaps, sheet mulching (aka lasagna beds), and stinging nettle tea.

mariposagardens.org/Handouts/Composting/Compost_Festival_Displays.pdf

Bio-char

I got there just before the opening at 11am, but things were already well under way. Ken Miller, already surrounded, was busy explaining his 5-gallon bucket stoves for making bio-char. This ancient process takes bio-mass (chunks of wood, bones, or brush) and reduces them to charcoal chunks you can fold into your soil to hold water, add minerals, provide soil habitat, and sequester carbon.

I’ve invited Ken to either write or be interviewed about bio-char for this blog, so more later on that topic. My biggest hope for bio-char: it provides a garden way to dispose of chicken bones.

(note on 10/20: Ken provided a mini-stove—two 16oz fruit cans that slip together to make one combustion chamber—that you can fill with sticks and throw into your woodstove. I did that, and after one firing in my Russian Stove, I had a little pile of, basically, artist sticks of charcoal. COOL!

Why is Her Compost Hot and Mine Not?

Per the name of the event, Cathy had several types of compost piles going: hot piles, cold/passive piles, a pile to handle animal wastes, compost cones, and sheet composting (also known as lasagna beds or composting in place). I talked to her most about the hot method, which can, with a bit of work, give you compost in a month.

Her hot pile was four feet high, contained by pallets on edge, and layered with once-fresh grass clippings, horse manure, apple pomace left over from cider-pressing, and spent hay. And it was steaming warm, the thermometer showing a weed- and pathogen-killing 110°. 

Now my pile, made September 21 and turned on October 7, has almost the same ingredients, yet barely reached 90°. So we talked: Cathy thought my pile needed the firing power of fresh grass, plus another turning, to fire my compost to the desired temperature. (Later I realized she also shreds her ingredients to make them easier for the compost-critters to digest).

When I got home, of COURSE I went in search of fresh grass, and I found it on my downward slope. It was long, true, but the recent rains had fed lush new growth, so I hand-scythed the new greenery and hauled half a barrel’s worth to the compost. Turning that compost once again, periodically I grabbed a handful of that long grass, snipped it into strands and let it fall in a shallow layer on the rising pile. Hopefully this green food will fire up the compost, instead of matting within it. I’ll track temps through the week: if this works, it should climb 50° by week’s end.

(Update 10/24:  by week’s end, the heat had topped out at 80°. Rereading her pdf hand-out (see link above to “hot composting”), I see that A) she shredded her compost, and B) she used more grass clippings than manure. Since the mowing season is over, I think I’ll have to wait until spring to try this again).

The Broadfork: A Big Bite into Your Earth

This broadfork for double-digging has been teasing the edges of my gardening radar for some time, so I was happy to get a chance to try one out. Meadow Creature, which is Bob Powell and his partner Margot Boyer, have made “several dozen this year and sold half to Islanders, half in web sales to gardeners around the USA.” The steel is cut at Vashon College, using its OMAX water jet cutting machine, and painted in gaily neon colors by Bob. They go for $200 plus tax.

That’s quite a bit of dough for my small garden, so I was glad to try one out. In the photos below, you can see the basic motion: you lift this 25-lb fork and let the tines fall into your soil. Stand up on the cross-bar and wiggle the fork around to sink the tines deeper. Then, as you lean back, the leverage you’re applying on the handles make the tines in the ground pry soil upward, loosen it as deep as 16″ underground.

The idea, I think, is the tool uses the power of leverage to do the “heavy lifting” work of double-digging, which is usually done with a garden fork or shovel. Anyone who’s read “Bio-Intensive Gardening” will recognize this tool.

For my small garden, this tool is more than I need. For a large garden planted in rows or wide beds, that isn’t tilled mechanically, and HAS a person with some heft to persuade those tines down into the earth, this might be a useful, if occasional, tool.

For more: info, email Margot or Bob at sales@meadowcreature.com or visit www.meadowcreature.com.

Golden October light rakes over the grape vines. 

A breeze flutters the yellow and blue tablecloth, as our hostess sets down a tray of artisan cheeses. 

Friends yammer in French, raise glasses of ruby-red wine, toast the host.

Provence? Côtes du Rhône? No, it’s Maury Island, and we’re here to harvest Bill Riley’s Pinot Gris grapes.

Bill Riley retired from the EPA a couple years ago, determined to “finally get serious about this grape-growing/winemaking thing.” Back in the 70s, he’d come to the West Coast from New Jersey with his friend Rudy Marchesi to work in the wine business. Rudy’s efforts didn’t take immediately—he returned to Jersey for awhile—but today he owns and runs Montinore Vineyards in Forest Grove, the fifth largest vineyard in Oregon. 

Meanwhile, Bill met his wife, moved to Seattle, bought property on Maury Island—and by 1980, had planted a quarter-acre in 13 different varieties of wine grape.

In 2000, tired of “really lousy wine”, he ripped out all the vines, took a viticultural course, and replanted his acreage in Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris. Both are grapes that prefer cool weather, which is what the Island usually gets. The results have been good, and now he has plans to grow the vineyard by a half-acre a year. Maury Island Winery got its official winery license from Washington State in July, 2008.

But on this Indian Summer afternoon, October 4th, it really felt more like an afternoon in the French countryside: a day to enjoy with friends, good wine, and slow dining en plein air. 

We arrived to “bon joir!” from a tall, slim man who turned out to be Beaudoin from Belgium, an old friend of the Rileys. Soon Bill Freese the baker and his partner Bea Mann arrived, laden with a big round of cassoulet and a pan of bread molded into a grape cluster. Add Cory and Jason, Larry and Larry to fill out the crew.

Riley had his equipment set up on the sunny deck: a red steel crusher with a funnel top, a wooden-slatted press that could handle about four gallons of grapes at a time, three five-gallon glass carboys standing by to receive the juice, and a tractor loaded with shallow yellow plastic crates for we pickers. 

Around 3pm, the “crew”—some reluctant to be parted from their wine glasses—walked uphill to the top of the original vineyard, where six rows of Pinot Gris vines were planted. We stood around Bill as he handled out red felco hand pruners. “You’ll looking for grapes that have taken on red and blue tints—leave the clusters that are mostly yellow.” 

Two or three to a row, we pickers spread out, crouching next to the fan-espaliered vines to snip the crowded clusters of grapes. Unlike the trellising in a “T” that I’d seen at Monument Farm, Riley had chosen to keep his grapes closer to the ground—a technique taking advantage of ground-reflected heat. The grapes were small, tender of skin, with seeds that, if the grape was ripe, had turned brown. We were done before half an hour was up. 

Beaudoin drove the loaded-up John Deere back to the house, where the rest of us resettled around the “groaning board” of food and drink. Freese had brought a duck confit he’d made as part of the quest for a authentic cassolet: it was salty, a little chewy, edged with fat and made me thirsty. Luckily, there were several bottles and plenty of volunteers to open them. “Ooo, we’re into the Vacqueyras already,” said Cory, leaning in for a glass. 

Before the crush, somebody weighed each yellow tray of grapes on a scale and noted the weight on a clipboard. The total yield was close to 300 pounds of grapes. Then he or Beaudoin hoisted the crate over the crusher’s feed and let the grapes fall, all a bangety-clang, into the crusher’s maw.

To my surprise, the grapes came out the bottom barely cracked open, not “crushed” to a pulp like I’d imagined. The stems went through the crush as well: Bill said this was to hold the mashed grapes open within the press so that there would be channels for the juice to run out and through the press’s oaken staves. 

Beaudoin scooped the slightly-mashed grapes and coaxed them into the tiny press. When Bill knuckled down on the first grapes, the juice ran free and thick into one of the kitchen’s stew pots. As the juice ran into one kitchen kettle after another, Bill filled a small glass and held it into the sun. This is the precious “must” that will ferment: it was a milky amber, glowing apricot. 

It tasted like an unusual apple juice, and I asked him about its sugars. “The brix had reached around 20,” he said, “which is a little less than the traditional Pinot Gris. But since I want to turn much of this in to crémant—that’s a champagne-style wine—I want less sugar and more acid, more tannin, so it won’t be as explosive as a regular champagne.”

Once the first run had dribbled to a drip, round blocks were set upon the press’s wooden plate. A pipe, fed into a ratchet and turned, applied enough extra pressure to squeeze every drop of juice from the grapes.

We left in the late afternoon, after the pressing had slowed and three carboys had been filled. The juice will spend a week or two fermenting in the carboys; once the fermentation has thrown off most of the carbon dioxide gas, Bill will transfer the juice to oak barrels to age for a year. 

By next spring, he’ll sample the developing wine and decided whether to bottle it as is or re-ferment it into a sparkling crémant, which will require another year to mature.

Once he builds up an inventory of bottles, Riley hopes to open the winery occasionally (and by appointment) starting in spring 2010. A web site should be up by then. And he’ll have another half-acre of Pinot Noir ready to harvest next year, with new half-acre plantings planned.

Watch for my article on new Vashon vineyards either here or in the Beachcomber soon.

To read about an earlier bottling of Pinot Noir grapes from Monument Farm, see the May 28, 2008 article  ”In Search of the Holy Grail…” and here’s the link:  http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/vashon/vib/lifestyle/19295354.html

If however, like me, you’ve stared at your carefully-layered and wetted heap, wondering why it doesn’t heat up to weed-killing temps like the books say, this Sunday’s event might be for you. Mariposa Gardens (www.mariposagardens.org) is holding a—

Compost Fest “Let It Rot” from 11am–3pm, Sunday, October 18.

Here’s the outline of the program:

• Quick/hot composting
• Sheet composting
• Slow/Cool composting
• Animal bedding/Offal composting
• Worm bins
• Hugelkultur experiments
• Two ways to make bio char  (that starts at 11:30)
• Fall garden prep demo
• Breaking new beds demo
• Vashon Broadfork demonstrations
• Chicken-Garden partnership
• Carbon sequestration

        …and more!

I don’t see that there’s a cost, but you can feed the donation jar if you like. The event is considered a “come and go” event: you don’t have to stay the whole four hours, but instead wander around, take in whatever you want and ask questions of the demonstrators who will be doing their “thing” throughout the day.

Cathy Fulton says “it’s great to get a chance to try the broadfork. It’s an expensive tool and pretty heavy, but it’s great to open up soil for the first time. So I appreciate the chance to try it out first.”

Mariposa Gardens is off Monument road. Here’s directions: note she wants folks to park on Monument and walk in. 

Address: 9228 SW 209th Street

From the intersection of Vashon Highway and

204th Street (the Sound Food intersection), go east

(toward the high school and pool) about 1/3 mile.

Turn right (south) on Monument Road. Go about

1/3 mile to 209th Street, which is a gravel road to

your right.

209th Street is a one lane road. To avoid a traffic

jam, please park on Monument Road and walk

about 500 feet to the site. There is accessible

parking at the site for those who need it.

Though I’ve been gardening off and on for 25 years, it was the long snows of last winter that drove me absolutely MAD to garden (and maybe you, too?)

During weeks of white and cold, I kept my world green by rereading many of my gardening books. Then, for Christmas, I was given Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” which has shown countless people how much energy goes needlessly into industrial food production, how much better it is for us and for the world if we could produce our food close to home.  As I nodded “yes YES YES!” all the way through the book, I was also saying to myself:

Maybe something like this happened to you, too. Certainly my growing interest seems in sync with a national trend. Maybe it’s the economy, maybe it’s fuel/food price inflation, maybe it’s just that we want to be healhier, homey, happier. But news on farmers, slow food, the locavore movement seems everywhere, They’re even growing their own vegies at the White House!

It’s growing locally, too: when a class on starting a vegetable garden was announced last spring in the Beachcomber, 60 people showed up. The Food Bank got local funding to start its own vegetable garden. We’ve seen stories on small farms and giant-corn growers, classes on kitchen potagers and food preservation. Just last week, the Beachcomber ran a story about high school kids growing fresh produce for school lunches. Kids, eating their own vegetables!

So that’s why this blog: to learn what the Island has to teach us about planting, growing, harvesting, cooking, and caring for our pieces of the garden that is Vashon. 

We Islanders have wonderful resources for gardening. We have greater access to land than most. We can gather all kinds of natural amendments: leaves, seaweeds, barnyard poo. We can get gravel, stones and concrete cheaply, close by. We have great nurseries, wonderful garden tours, farmers and a farmers’ market, and more than our fair share of Cranks and Originals, those obsessive gardeners who show us what wonders can be produced from our land.

The articles and the blog are a natural offshoot of me tracking down Vashon experts to find out what makes Vashon gardens work. Some of that, you may already have seen in the Beachcomber: my articles on starting seeds, growing tomatoes, sowing a fall/winter garden.

I want to write about Vashon’s particular soils, its weather conditions and patterns, what plants do best in Maury gravel or in north-end blue clay. I want to walk the fields, snoop the gardens, ask the Cranks all the questions I can think of, just so I can learn to grow better vegetables and have a more wonderful garden. And if I’m writing for you as well as me, my information will become more organized, hopefully more amusing, and definitely more complete than some scattered notes scribbled for my personal use.

So watch for interviews from other gardeners, growers and experts. I’ll tell of my own goof-ups, dreams, and small victories, and I hope you will share yours via the Comments section. I’ll trial vegetable varieties in the garden and in the kitchen, and I’ll share photos of tours here and “abroad” off-island.

I hope these articles inspire you AND me to become better gardeners and to know our Island a little better.

Let’s Garden On, Vashon!