Getting Ready...

Today I picked up the fliers I'll be mailing out to our neighbors inviting them to the big garden festival on Sat. July 6th.  Now begins the labeling, stuffing, sealing, stamping, and sending... 

The garden is looking better than ever and I can't wait to show it off.  I've been worried these stargazer lilies, which I'll be selling, would be past their prime by the time of the festival comes around.  Now that I've moved them to the shade though they're growing slowly and should be looking and smelling incredible at the festival!

When the Phoenix canariensis (Canary Island Date Palm) I had for the past two years rotted out in the middle, I decided to replace it with something very similar but much better: Jubaea chilensis (Chilean Wine Palm).  This palm is less susceptible to disease and will eventually become a 100-foot monster.  When I saw this at Jungle Fever in Tacoma, I knew we were meant for each other.  I also picked up a Musa sikkimensis and a Cornus capitata (Evergreen dogwood).

Jubaea chilensis getting settled in its new home

Although the veggie garden exists primarily to produce food, I am trying to get it to look picture perfect for the festival.  Hopefully the peas will hang in there!

Oregon Sugar Pod II Peas, planted on Feb 15th.

Of the several varieties of peas I grew this year, by far the best were the Oregon Sugar Pod II peas from Ed Hume seeds.  Their pods are sweet, succulent and crunchy and don't seem to get the least bit stringy.  The package said they climb to 3' but mine are 7' (those packages are hardly ever right).  After the festival I'll be ripping them out and planting broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts.

My first year growing fava beans is turning out to be a success.  I can't wait to try them!

One of the best things about June is the abundance of strawberries.  If you don't grow them you're missing out.  I potted up about a dozen starts of these June-bearing strawberries and will be selling them at the festival.

Two bananas flowering at the same time!

Musa basjoo

Be sure to check out our garden festival on Sat. July 6th - it is going to be a lot of fun!  Click here for more details.

Cool Combos

Green, yellow and black can make for a pretty ugly American flag, but these three colors play really well off each other in this section the garden.  It started out as a Japanese area with no regard to color, but I soon took notice and quickly moved some plants around to enhance the continuity of this color scheme.

Hues ranging from bright yellow to dark green are represented, as is the year-round black provided by black mondo grass (Ophiopogon planiscapus 'Nigrescens').  One of my favorite Japanese maples, Acer palmatum 'Orange Dream', has reddish orange tips on its leaves but is mostly bright yellow.  There is also a tiny bit brown and white in this area, but in the same way skyscrapers are prohibited within the city limits of Paris, red, pink, blue, purple and silver are not allowed (mostly).

Another great combo: The upright racemes of the Empress tree (Paulownia tomentosa) coupled with the slightly darker purple pendulous racemes of Chinese wisteria (Wisteria sinensis).  Both plants bloom at the same time, just as their leaves are starting to emerge, their verticality connecting the sky with the earth.

An edible combo that grows incredibly well in our cool & wet springs: Peas, spinach & dill. 

And finally, mixing the living with the non-living: Stones & Soleirolia soleirolii (Baby's tears)

Winter Light

The weather in March and April in Seattle has been known to drive people crazy (well at least one person), but it has been so calm around here lately I think the only people going crazy are the meteorologists.  Long-term forecasts are for yet another cooler-than-normal spring, but who pays attention to those?  As the days and nights become ever so gradually milder, more and more plants are starting to come to life.

Hepatica nobilis

Cyclamen coum

Edgeworthia chrysantha

Asparagus starting to shoot up.  It will be ready for harvest next month.

Peas planted two weeks ago on President's Day have emerged from the ground.

Broccoli planted last July is now reaching peak-harvest

Peas

With clear blue skies and temperatures pushing 60 degrees F/15.5C, spring was definitely in the air today.  Not that it's going to last.  Next week is supposed to be 10 degrees cooler with rain.  But now that I'm officially in the gardening spirit, it is time to plant seeds!

I like Ed Hume seeds because they are a local company and specialize in cool-climate varieties.

The plan is to start off all of the seeds pictured above either in seed trays in the greenhouse or directly out in the garden in the coming week.  I will do my best to share how I germinate & grow all the seeds I plant this year, starting with the first seeds to go in the ground...PEAS!!

I have found that germinating the pea seeds in zip-lock bags has resulted in higher germination rates vs. planting them directly in the ground.  To germinate the seeds, I put each variety in a gallon-sized zip-lock bag, along with 1/2 cup of water and a paper towel to help distribute the water evenly.  I kept them in the garage but keeping them in the refrigerator can also work.  After 2 days, the seeds were already starting to germinate.  In the future, I will probably just use the smaller zip-lock bags and fold the paper towels in quarters.

Three pea varieties: Tall telephone, Oregon Sugar Pod II, and Super Sugar Snap

Because today was so warm, I decided to plant some of the seeds in the ground even though they had just barely started germinating.  I left some in the zip-lock bags for later as well.  The pea scaffolding, by the way, is not complete yet.  These are all pole varieties.  I will wait a few weeks to plant the bush varieties just to keep them separate and spread out the harvest period.

I plant seeds closer together than what the directions say, then thin out as necessary when they start to grow.

I amended the soil with some organic fertilizer & mycorrhizae before planting the slightly germinated pea seeds.  I planted them about an inch deep and firmly packed down the soil to keep them in place.  Once I finish the bamboo scaffolding (which is 8 feet tall) I won't need to do anything else except water them once the weather starts heating up (this won't be necessary if we get an unfortunate repeat of the past two springs, which featured mostly cold and rainy weather -- peas are about the only thing that enjoy that sort of torment).  They will reach their peak harvest by late June/early July, and by mid-July the dying vines will be pulled out in order to make room for winter brassicas like broccoli & Brussels sprouts.

At least something likes the rain.

I guess one redeeming thing about this cold and wet spring is it is paradise for cool season crops like lettuce, spinach, peas, potatoes, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower & carrots. Even though they are growing fairly slowly in this cool & cloudy weather, they will be at their healthiest and most flavorful when they're ready to start harvesting in 3-6 weeks from now.

Below in the still-under-construction raised bed section of the garden, I've got growing (closest to farthest) some Adriondack blue potatoes (Solanum tuberosum 'adirondack blue'), spinach, cauliflower, & Brussels sprouts. I also have some snow peas sprouting up in the bed to the right (not in the picture).


Two weeks ago (in mid-March), I started the seedlings below in the greenhouse. They include: nasturtium (on the left), sweet corn (top center), lupin (center), lots & lots of basil (front center), carrots (under the plastic lid) and mesculin (right).