The garden -- under glass

My summer garden so far! Right now it's just a collection of black plastic pots and youthful, if rather exuberant, seedlings, but this weekend they'll be coming home to spend some time in the cold frame before going out into the garden.

I started these back in March, when everything was cold and blowy, long before tomatoes and melons and squash and peppers should be out in the garden. I my climate, the highly variable Pacific Northwest, such neotropicals pretty much have to be started indoors if you want them to bear fruit. To succeed, plants started indoors need plenty of light. The average window won't do, even if it's south-facing.

A climate-controlled greenhouse is ideal, but rather over-budget for my garden. So now, shall I confess? I borrowed a greenhouse:


Over on the right are the glass shelves my plants are on. This is the greenhouse on the roof of the building where I teach. Nice, huh? I figure I should use the resources that are at hand, and that was one resource very much at hand!

Earth Day Arugulence

Dahlings, haven't you heard? All this digging in the dirt... er, soil, mixing in manur... er, quality organic plant enhancements, and growing vegetab... er, hoity-toity organic produce, is so terribly faddish these days that it's only for Hollywood celebs and something us ordinary mortals can safely ignore?

Yeah, I didn't get that memo, either.

Maureen Dowd, however, in an editorial about Alice Waters, comments on a growing backlash coming from certain segments of our society against the rising popularity of backyard vegetable gardens. They're fads, you see. People falling for this silly organic stuff. The realm of both chic, elitist yuppies in search of fashionable greens and aging hippies who can't forget the 60's still piddling around in their among the weeds and the weed in their back yards.

Mere arugulence, y'see.

Strange. I grew up in a family where gardens were for saving money and for growing fresh, healthy produce that produced healthy (and sometimes fresh) kids. My parents were born during the Depression, and my grandparents gardened their way through those hard years as a means of getting by.

To dismiss gardening as a mere elitist fad, as arugulence, is a slap in the face of every frugal family that managed to feed itself by getting a little dirt under their nails.

What ever happened to the American kitchen garden? It was crushed under the oncoming steamroller of Consumerism of the 50s, which was driven by a distaste for the scrimping, saving, and doing without of the Depression and the war years. Back alleys disappeared in the new suburbs, front yards were given over to driveways and a tidy facade, and the back yard became not a service entrance and a place for the kitchen garden, but the new outdoor living area.

In recent years, several forces have contributed to the rise in vegetable gardening. One is a growing movement against lawns for ecological reasons: lawns are expensive to maintain both economically and ecologically. Another is a slight but increasing recognition that suburbs can only grow so much and farmlands shrink so much, as suburbs sprawl out over rich farmland, before there isn't enough farmland to feed all the people in those houses. It only makes sense to let some of the farmland that is now suburb give back. Another factor is the recession that we've been falling into for the last couple of years, the full brunt of which we're finally feeling.

As we hunker down for the worst, people are more and more interested in learning survival skills: gardening, spinning, knitting, and the like. Whether we need these skills for survival now isn't the issue. It's about knowing you could grow your food, raise some hens, and knit your own sweater from wool you've spun if you had to that brings a little comfort. And for some people clutching their pink slips and wondering how they'll get through until the next job turns up, that backyard veggie garden may be the means of feeding the kids and giving them something interesting to do all summer.

Arugulence? I think not.

Oh, noes! Organic gardening threatens the American Way!

Or so the Mid America Croplife Association would have it. As you've probably heard by now, Michelle Obama has taken a page out of the life story of First Families of a century ago and is having fresh produce grown on the White House grounds in an organic vegetable garden. Backyard gardeners nationwide are grinning. Vegetable gardens are back in fashion again for multiple reasons, including economics, health, environmental awareness, an interest in a locavore lifestyle, or simply because they want tomatoes that taste like tomatoes, not the flabby imitations we're greeted with all winter at the supermarket.

But wait! Not so fast! According to a letter sent from MACA to Mrs. Obama, the White House veggie garden could be the beginning of a dangerous trend! If people farm all their own food individually, well, it could be the downfall of our society! Better to let the professionals take care of the farming with their superior technology. Or something like that.

Like the only choices are "grow it all yourself on a small farm" or "grow nothing?" Let's take some of their claims apart and see what they're made of. I already posted most of this response on one of the forums on Ravelry, so a few readers may have seen this.

Many people, especially children, don't realize the extent to which their daily lives depend on America's agricultural industry. For instance, children are unaware the jeans they put on in the morning, the three meals eaten daily, the baseball with which they play and even the biofuels that power the school bus are available because of America's farmers and ranchers.

Yes! True! Absolutely true! And exactly the reason why kids should be in the backyard happily digging in their own gardens! If I had my way, the prerequisite for my biology class would be to spend a summer growing an organic garden and observing the microwildlife that inhabits it. Then we'd all have a concrete, common point to start with when we have discussions of ecology, diversity, and the like. As it is, we have students like the one who, when asked, "So why don't the cells in the onion have chloroplasts? Where does the bulb part of the onion grow?" replied, "I don't know. I've never seen an onion tree." This is a college course, mind you. We as Americans are so far removed from our food sources that the resulting ignorance about our food is appalling. Even my biology majors, when shown a stalk of broccoli and asked what part of the plant it was, couldn't recognize flower buds when they saw them -- except a couple of them who had grown broccoli in their own gardens and knew what happened if they didn't cut the head before the buds burst.

Agriculture is the largest industry in America generating 20% of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product. Individuals, family partnerships or family corporations operate almost 99% of U.S. farms.

And they're threatened if people grow a few tomatoes and some fresh lettuce on the back porch? Really? Wow. I think this letter says more about the industrial food complex than all of Michael Pollan's books put together.

Today, an average farmer produces enough food to feed 144 Americans who are living longer lives than many of their ancestors.

Are we hinting here that it's because of chemical-based agriculture that people are living longer? Because one doesn't necessarily follow the other -- little factors like, oh, indoor plumbing, clean municipal water supplies, and advances in medicine just might have something more to do with that.

Technology in agriculture has allowed for the development of much of what we know and use in our lives today. If Americans were still required to farm to support their family's basic food and fiber needs, would the U.S. have been leaders in the advancement of science, communication, education, medicine, transportation and the arts?

The rise in influence of American culture in these areas began well before chemical-based agriculture, when many more people were living on family farms. So what are we saying here? Pesticides make us better artists and engineers? Farmers are ignorant slobs who don't contribute to the arts and sciences so let's have fewer of them doing more with bigger tractors and more chemicals? Huh? This statement really needs to be thought through, because it doesn't flatter our American farmers at all.

We live in a very different world than that of our grandparents. Americans are juggling jobs with the needs of children and aging parents. The time needed to tend a garden is not there for the majority of our citizens, certainly not a garden of sufficient productivity to supply much of a family's year-round food needs.

Well, heavens to Betsy, so few of us can grow a garden large enough to supply all the produce we need to feed us for a year, so let's not garden at all! What a pitiful argument! It's not an either-or situation by any means. Our choices aren't limited to "grow all your own food" and "grow none of your own food." You can grow veggies in a tub on your apartment balcony and devote just a few minutes a day to the operation if you want to.

Much of the food considered not wholesome or tasty is the result of how it is stored or prepared rather than how it is grown.

This, after the whole tomato recall hysteria? And the spinach recall affair? Food handling begins in the field and does affect produce quality. This is true of both organic (what used to be "traditional") farming and "conventional" (or "chemical") farming.

There's one other factor that's not being considered here: the variety that is grown. Most commercial varieties are selected for their shipping and storing qualities, not for their flavor and "wholesomeness." Since most Americans have been raised on plastic strawberries grown out of season in Chile and shipped to the U.S., too few of us have known what a real, warm-from-the-sun, fresh-from-the-vine, peak-of-ripeness strawberry even tastes like. Waxy, flabby tomatoes in the produce section can't hold a candle to a fresh-picked (but tender-skinned) Brandywine or Cherokee Purple, but who is going to know if they don't grow their own? The heirloom varieties aren't sold in the produce section. Lucky are those with a farmer's market nearby where heirloom veggies can still be found. And as for asparagus, if it's not fresh-cut from my own garden, don't even offer it to me. I'm spoiled that way.

Fresh foods grown conventionally are wholesome and flavorful yet more economical.

More economical than what? Be specific. I hope they're not hinting that it's more expensive to grow a vegetable garden. Of course it all depends on how you go about vegetable gardening. We don't all have to grow The $64 Tomato as one book title proclaims. Some of us can exercise more sense.

Local and conventional farming is not mutually exclusive. However, a Midwest mother whose child loves strawberries, a good source of Vitamin C, appreciates the ability to offer California strawberries in March a few months before the official Mid-west season.

I won't comment twice on the quality and flavor of those berries, not when I have much better varieties in my own yard. I won't even begin the argument about eating with the season, and that there are other sources of Vitamin C besides strawberries shipped from afar and stored so long that their vitamins have already begun to degrade. All I'll say is that this is still no argument against growing a backyard garden. Think of how much more Junior would appreciate those berries if he grew them himself in a big pot on the back porch -- and how much more he would learn about where his food comes from.

Look, if putting a veggie garden in behind the White House and encouraging people to grow a little food themselves is a huge gigantic threat to the farming industry, the industry has bigger troubles than anyone realized. Nor are its issues going to be solved by discouraging people from encouraging others to garden and depend totally on supermarket produce. Michelle Obama isn't saying, "Hey, everyone should grow all their own food instead of buying food from the store." We can't all raise chickens, milk cows, and orchards, not in the fringe of grass and shrubs around your average McMansion. But for much of my life I've seen good farmland bulldozed and covered with housing developments, because as every builder knows, building on nice, flat land is easier than building on unfarmed slopes. We've lost acres and acres of prime farmland to suburban sprawl. Isn't it only fitting that at least a little of that land should give back in the form of a home vegetable garden?

One Million Gardens project

How many vegetable gardens are there in the U.S.? The One Million Gardens campaign is trying to find out! Their goal is to register one million vegetable gardens -- home gardens, community gardens, even container gardens on apartment balconies -- by the end of 2009. Check it out, register if you like, and find other gardeners on the site.

What the &*#%$*????

At one time I had a beautiful glass ball ornament in my garden:

Today, I do not:

There's no trace of broken glass. Someone walked into my garden and took it.

What is the matter with some people?!?!?!? Do I have to have a razor-wire fence and a locked gate just to have something nice outdoors?

Garden fever relapse -- the planting begins!

Here we have lettuces, kale, chard, and indigo, all labeled and lined up in their neat little pots under the grow lights. Another set of pots -- the tomatoes, peppers, melons, broccoli, and cauliflower -- are set aside to go to school with me. There's a little corner of the greenhouse I've asked to use, where I can grow a few things out of everyone's way.

With the peas in the ground and more seeds in the pots, this year's garden is underway! The ennui of winter vanishes in a cloud of seed catalog fumes. Sniiiiiffff... aaaahhh! The sweet aroma of potting soil in the morning!

February Snow

Washington's Birthday just went by which, according to my grandmother, is time to plant the peas. Accordingly, I planted them, two packs of peas all soaked and planted and most of them tucked in under some Reemay cloth. I'm not sure if the reason I've seen so few pea seedlings coming up in the last couple of years is cold springs, or if I need to hold off on planting, or if the crows and squirrels are after them. With the Reemay to protect some of the peas, I'll find out!

But lookee here -- no sooner did I get my peas all nestled down in the sweet earth than last Thursday we woke up to this:

Ah, that's the old twisty Hobbit Tree that finally broke in the last ice storm and just got shorn of its branches, which will now suport a climbing rose. And that's Toast, mother of the kittens we took in two summers ago, sporting about in the fluffy white stuff.

And that's snow! More snow!

Licorice, outdoorsman that he is, doesn't think too much of this and decided maybe he could stand to be inside for a while:



My garden was all aslumber under its blanket of white, and the coverlet of snow on top of the cold frame actually kept the last of the lettuces underneath from freezing:


Snowdrops in the snow, looking a little bedraggled in spite of being all covered with their namesake:


Within the snow, a souvenir of summer:

And was there more to come? Hmmm... looking at this sky, what do YOU think?


Ah, but the main roads were navigable and all had melted away by evening.

Happy 2009!

Wow, 2008 ended with a bang. I went into finals well (at least as a profess or I give the finals instead of taking them) with a 101 degree fever and a vile cough, which turned into pneumonia. Then, just as school let out, the snow began and lasted a week and a half. In the middle of the snow we had an ice storm, which dealt the final blow to the dying Hobbit Tree. Check out all the ice covering the branches -- the broken branches now sprawling across the garden. A tree service is suppose to come soon and give an estimate for cutting the thing down and hauling off some of the other broken limbs and debris. I'm going to leave about 6 feet of trunk for the Lincoln Constance rose to scramble over.

Then the power went out on the Solstice, the longest night of the year. For three nights we were without heat and light. We have a gas furnace, but of course it requires electricity to run the thermostat that kicks it on and the fan that distributes heat. We do have a gas water heater that's independent of the power source so we could at least get a hot shower, and we filled the tub with hot water and put the birds in the bathroom to keep them warm.

On Christmas Eve morning, just as we were despairing of having power for Christmas, the lights and the furnace came on. My son was still stuck up in icy, snowy Portland were most of the buses weren't running, but his girlfriend came to the rescue when she borrowed her mother's car with studded snow tires and drove him down Christmas morning. Best two Christmas presents ever!

It was a little more end-of-year excitement than I really wanted, and all told, 2008 has been a good year to come to an speedy close.

So may 2009 bring us many good things. May good fortune cling like cockleburrs and ill luck be as rare as fern seeds. May our gardens grow happiness and may the only things we lose be our debts. Happy New Year, everyone.

An off-topic political message: VOTE!

Dearest U.S. readers, consider all those who have struggled, fought, and suffered for your right to cast a private ballot in any election, from the Revolutionary War to the Suffragettes to the volunteers right now who oversee elections to make certain they are conducted fairly. Honor them by casting your vote on or before November 4. (For those in Virginia and other places were the dumb flyer went out telling people of a particular political party to vote on November 5th -- ignore it. It's a stupid, desperate attempt by some to negate the votes of others.)

But when you vote, vote informed!

Rumors are flying at the speed of electrons around the internet about both presidential candidates. Make abundant use of Snopes.com, obamafactcheck.org, and mccainfactcheck.org, and factcheck.org to check your facts. Here is just a sampling of the many false rumors about both candidates that need to be trashed:

Rumors about John McCain:

"McCain admitted to being a war criminal who intentionally bombed women and children." Fact: It was only when he was coerced by torture in a Vietnam prison that McCain wrote this "confession." In a 60 Minutes interview, McCain admitted that he cracked under the pressure.

"McCain fathered an illegitimate black child." Fact: John McCain and his wife, Cindy, have an adopted daughter named Bridget. Cindy McCain had found Bridget, who has dark skin, at Mother Theresa's orphanage in Bangladesh.

"McCain wasn’t born in the United States so he’s not a citizen." Fact: McCain was born on a U.S. military base in Panama to U.S. military personnel who are U.S. citizens.

Rumors about Barak Obama:

"Obama’s career started in Bill Ayres’ living room. Ayres is a known terrorist." Fact: Ayres was a radical in the 60s and did commit illegal acts – when Obama was 8 years old. Later as adults they were both hired by William Annenberg to serve on the Woods board. They do not “pal around” as rumors claim.

"Obama is a Muslim" Fact: Obama is a Christian. And even if he weren’t, the U.S. Constitution grants everyone freedom of religion. There is no religious requirement for the presidency.

"Obama wasn’t born in the United States so he’s not a citizen." Fact: Obama was born in Hawaii two years after Hawaii became a state. The birth certificate can be found in the public records in Hawaii, and a birth announcement appears in the archives of the local newspaper.

"Obama plans to raise taxes for 95% of U.S. citizens." Fact: Obama’s plan actually lowers taxes for people making $200,000 or less – the majority of U.S. citizens.

"Obama suspended his campaign and went to Hawaii to [fill in unfounded rumor of your choice]." Fact: Obama's grandmother is dying and he suspended his campaign to be with her, as any good grandchild ought.

Vote informed! Look up the facts, read your voter's pamphlet, think, question, reason -- and most importantly, VOTE!

ETA: Comments will be screened. Nutjobs from both ends of the political spectrum need not waste their time trying to post rants.

Blog Action Day: And the Garden Shall Feed Us

This is a world of action, and not for moping and groaning in. ~ Charles Dickens

It's Blog Action Day, and the theme this year is poverty. This got me pondering the connection between gardening and poverty. In a world where increasingly "gardening" is something the professionals do while the homeowner is a way, and in some posh districts, the nurseries refrain from referring to their customers as "gardeners," where is the connection between the garden and the poor and hungry of this world?

The obvious connection is via the kitchen garden. Ever since the first creative person poked a seed in the earth in the understanding that a useful plant would emerge from it -- I picture women who had been observing waste middens and the food plants that grew from them, or children playing with their food as children will do -- people have been gardening as a means of staving off hunger. The coleworts grown alongside peasant cottages in Europe, kitchen gardens of the great estates, maize fields of the native people of the Americas, rice paddies in Asia, wheat and barley fields and date palms of the Middle East, all yielded food in concentrations that could be stored, sometimes for years, to fend off starvation in times of famine.

Here in the U.S., the kitchen garden long held prominence in farms and later in suburban back yards. In Colonial times, the old-style square bed gardening learned from England was favored as a means of growing useful potherbs and medicinal herbs in a small space. As European settlers moved westward into the wide open spaces, the kitchen gardens expanded into plowed plots with the now-familiar long, straight rows that the young 'uns had to hoe between to keep the weeds down.

As people moved to the suburbs, they often gave up their rural habits, but the habit of frugality still held sway. While the front yard was more often than not a showpiece, with manicured lawns and flowering shrubs, the back yard was entirely utilitarian. Deliveries of milk, ice, and groceries came to the back door via the back alley. Clotheslines spanned the back yard, and the kitchen garden held court in a sunny corner.

The Great Depression led to a surge in gardening, even among apartment dwellers. Railroads looked the other way as people plowed up strips of land alongside the tracks to grow vegetables. Golf courses gave way to the plow to allow community gardens. Food production increased as more and more people found ways to feed themselves through gardening, and production continued with Victory gardens during the second World War.

The post-war years introduced new ideas about disposability, pre-packaged covenience foods, and consumerism as a way of life. "Citizens" became "consumers." The frontyard-backyard arrangment was turned around as new housing developments eliminated alleys to cram more ranch-style houses into smaller spaces. Backyards became the living space, groomed and pampered, with a lawn for kids to play on and maybe a pool to frolic in. The front of the house now held the garage entrance and became the place to set out the garbage cans and receive deliveries. In a new era of luxury and convenience, the backyard garden began its decline.

By the 1980's, gardening was at an all-time low. But along with economic, ecological, and energy crises of the 90's and the "aughts" came a resurgence in gardening -- and not just decorative gardening, either. Vegetable gardens are making a comeback. Community gardens are bringing fresh produce to inner cities. And with the generous nature that so many gardeners exhibit, food banks are also benefitting.

With the current economic crisis, food banks are feeling the pinch, and gardeners are pitching in by supplying surplus produce. While the ubiquitous zucchini may get looks of askance, there's plenty of produce that gardeners can contribute from their bounty.

The Garden Writers Association started the Plant a Row for the Hungry program, encouraging gardeners to do just that -- plant an extra row to help feed the hungry. Currently, about 25 million people in the U.S. are in danger of going hungry or seek emergency food. There are over 70 million gardeners in the U.S. Do the math -- if all 70 million planted an extra row of corn, an extra tomato plant, an extra squash vine, imagine all that produce arriving at the food backs, ready to feed people in need.

Even better are programs that teach impoverished people to garden for themselves. The working poor may be fortunate enough to own houses, where backyards can be converted into gardens. Renters and apartment dwellers may have access to community gardens -- or may organize to begin one. The American Community Gardening Association has resources to assist the development and maintenance of community gardens and to develop sustainable communities.

Because really it comes down to that -- sustainability. It's not just about feeding the people we have. It's about making sure that we can continue to feed and house people in the future. Teaching people to garden can teach them about how the ecosystem works and how to value the earth as a provider of resources. It can also teach everyone valuable lessons about the work required to feed us, lest we sit back in our comfortable middle-class homes, munching Crunchy Munchies from a box while watching the television, and forget the labor and ecological impact involved in bringing those Crunchy Munchies to us.

Garden ennui

We've reached that time of the year, the time when the summer has so parched the soil that even the weeds look ratty and lackluster:



When we've left off with diligence and mildew overtakes the vines:

When the aphids have finished slaughering the nasturtiums, and the lettuce has all gone to seed:

And yet the tomatoes remain stubbornly green:


And the watermelon, smaller than a tennis ball, may never come to the sweet glory we expected last spring when we lovingly put the little plant into the cold earth:


Yet not all is autumnal sorrow and despair. The everbearing raspberries are living up to their name, still producing enough for each morning's yogurt:


And the everbearing Tristar strawberries are contributing their share, too, and will probably keep going well into October:


A surprise vine popped up in the front garden, and I'm still not sure what we have. Mini-pumpkin? Gourd? Gourds seem likely, since some went into the compost last year, so there could be seeds.

The cranberry beans kept getting mowed down by slugs and bugs earlier, but enough survived to yield a small crop:


Shelled, they'll produce at least one good beany meal, and still have some left for planting next year. I'll make a point to save those very red ones for planting:


In spite of the load of work and the drag of autumn's ennui, I got the beds in the new garden cleared of everything that had gone to seed and all the leggy, tired pansies, emptied the compost bins of all good compost and spread it on the beds, and tucked everything in for the winter. I had lettuce and kale seedlings under grow lights indoors (about the only place I can get anything to germinate this year -- what's up with the soil, I wonder?), and put those out into the garden for winter crops. The lettuce went under the cold frame, and the kale out in front of it.


With any luck, I'll have fresh greens for the holidays. By then the plants may be finishing and I can start a fresh set of seedlings for the cold frame. January and February will bring cold weather that will slow them quite a bit, but I can usually get new lettuce by April.

Young Death carries a what?

Mythtickle is a relatively new comic on GoComics.com, with a cast of young deities and mythical figures at school with Ms. Nature as their teacher: Boody the last dragon, Karma, Thor, Merlin, and many more. In last Friday's strip, Dziva, African creatrix, has a conversation with Death. Maybe I've been out in the garden too long, but there's just something hysterical about young Death, not yet old enough to have a scythe, trotting around with a weed whacker:

Tia Carmen solves another gardening problem

From today's Baldo comic strip on GoComics:

Sometimes you just do what works, right?

Lettuce save...

These tiny dandelion tufts are seed heads of Specked Trout's Back lettuce. Can you tell that lettuce belongs to the Aster family, along with dandelions, thistles, and Bachelor's buttons?



And this is a cute little seed saving kit I got for Christmas:

That's where the Flashy Trout's Back lettuce seeds are going, along with Tom Thumb, a small butterhead lettuce that was sooo delicious when it was in its prime, and other seeds that I plan to save this year.

You don't really have to have a fancy seed saving kit to save seed. Paper coin envelopes from the office supply store -- or fashioned out of used paper -- will do just fine. But if this little kit strikes your fancy, it came from Territorial Seed Company.

Like sewing, knitting, spinning, canning, and growing your own food, there's something basic and satisfying about saving seed from year to year. It's not that we have to any more in these days of global marketing, malls, and shiny seed catalogs. It's knowing that we could if some sci-fi-novel-style disaster struck. Kind of like the Scout who earns a First Aid badge and secretly hopes there will be an accident just so said Scout can dash over and take charge with a confident, "I know what to do!"

With seed saving, there's also the satisfaction of preserving heirloom varieties of seeds that the big seed companies overlook. Maybe it's something that's been in the family for years, or maybe it's something you just ordered this year from a seed exchange. No matter. You're still taking part in an ancient ritual of saving for next year's harvest.

Learning to save seed, grow and preserve food, and manufacture clothing from the sheep or cotton plants on up also makes one a repository of basic survival skills that have kept humans alive for millennia. It is the anniversary of 9/11 after all, and at such a time people's minds sometimes turn to "what if?" scenarios. Too many of my college students think of "cooking" as taking something out of a box and microwaving it. Too few understand where their food comes from. Far too few know that onions have leaves, that potatoes grow in the earth, that someone must actually raise cows -- or that lettuce plants make flowers.

If you want to know more about seed saving, two good books to look for are:


Seed to Seed: Seed Saving and Growing Techniques for Vegetable Gardeners by Suzanne Ashworth, Kent Whealy

This book contains very detailed information for people who are serious about saving seeds. It stresses the importance of population size for genetic diversity, and discusses techniques for preventing cross-pollination between varieties to keep the seed stock pure. It may be more than the casual home gardener wants to get into, but it's still a useful book, especially the sections on cleaning and storing seeds.


Saving Seeds: The Gardener's Guide to Growing and Storing Vegetable and Flower Seeds by Marc Rogers.

Less detailed than Seed to Seed, this is a good book for the beginning seed saver. Like Seed to Seed, its focus is mainly on food plants, but it does include some flowers as well.

August in the Garden

Late summer has been a busy time. I spent a week out of town for a grant project, and then for the last several weeks we've had workers here on a special project (more pictures of that later). About all I've been doing in the garden is watering and some routine maintenance. The garden is showing its usual late-summer "it's too hot/rainy/weird weather-ish to get out and work today" rattiness, so here's for some close-ups:

This is something new this year -- a pomegranate blossom on my dwarf pomegranate bush:


And even better, a pomegranate! Compare it to the pansy in the background -- it's a bit smaller than a quarter:



Coreopsis has been putting on a good show this summer, though it hasn't attracted as many bees and butterflies as I'd hoped:


Rudbeckia is just starting to put on a show:


The seeds for fancy ornamental sunflowers that I planted in the spring all came to nothing. My best sunflower is one that came up under the bird feeder from seeds that the birds scattered:


Fall-blooming cyclamen are popping up, a veritable miniature forest of cyclamen marching through the parched soil:


A white cyclamen popped up, a sport that I've not seen before. I hope I get more:


The Tristar strawberries got off to a late start, but they're still producing well. I've had strawberries and yogurt with breakfast every morning for many weeks now:


My lilies have all petered out, except this big white one:


The late spring set everything back. I'm only now seeing the first blush on my tomatoes:


This pink picotee penstemon is just luscious:


My pink and blue border is pretty, but a lot messier than I imagined it:


The blue asters are just starting to bloom to the delight of the honeybees:


Honeybees also like my Chelone (turtle heads). There's a bee crawling into the lowest blossom in front:


Bumblebees seem to like them, too:


One of three small corn patches around the yard. This patch hasn't tassled yet, but the other two have:


And that's where we are at the end of August.