Wordless Wednesday 8.12.2015

eggplant: Japanese Long

Best Bouquet Ever?

While we wait for the rains to abate and the return of sunshine and warmth to our gardens, we can scheme and dream about what we'll be cooking up with our harvest. How about a fabulous edible bouquet like this one which was the featured centerpiece at a recent graduation party for my lovely niece, Alex.  It was crafted by Kelle Lambert of Lincoln, Nebraska, and featured a huge array of fresh veggies including turnips, beets, fennel and leeks, to name a few. Sharpen your knives and start practicing now!

Wordless Wednesday 4.22.2015

Admelanchier x grandiflora 'Autumn Brilliance'

Despite last week's winter-like weather, the serviceberry blooms on. Looking forward to plenty of delicious fruit this summer!

You Can't Beat Beets

Roasted, pickled, stewed, or raw; hot beets, cold beets, I love them all! The greens are also a tasty treat and super nutritious — high in vitamins A and C, iron and potassium (An heirloom variety, Early Wonder, is considered the best beet for greens).

Beets are a cool season vegetable that can be sewn and harvested early in the season. They're a great choice for garden spaces that don't get full sun, as they'll tolerate part shade. For growing tips check out this article.

For heirloom and /or organic seeds, check out Botanical Interests, and Seeds or Change.

Monday Mash-up 2.09.2015

snowdrops blooming in my garden today

News you can use from the world of gardening:

• Hot off the press, the Plant of the Year for 2015 is a wonderful addition to any high plains garden.
• Thinking about adding chickens to your household? This one day class on backyard chicken keeping may help you decide. And for inspiration, here's my review of the Wheat Ridge chicken tour.
• Before we know it we'll be spending a lot of time gardening (can't wait!). Here are three simple exercises to help keep injuries and pain at bay.
• Pruning trees and shrubs can be tackled in February, as well as a few other gardening activities.

Have a great week!

Wordless Wednesday 10.08.2014

Stocking up on fresh roasted chile peppers from the market - a favorite fall tradition!

Monday Mash-Up 9/8/2014

September is continuing the summer weather trend of cool temps and rainy afternoons. If and when you need to add some supplemental water to your lawn, Denver Water's recommendation this month — based on three applications per week — is 11 minutes per zone for fixed spray heads and 28 minutes per zone for rotary nozzles.

Denver Botanic Gardens is hosting it's annual fall plant and bulb sale on September 19th and 20th. Standard admission costs apply, but you'll find unusual plants for timely installation. And if you haven't seen the Chihuly glass exhibit yet, you're in for a treat!

If your fall planting plans include incorporating more plants to attract butterflies, here is a resource that matches native butterflies to their preferred nectar providers.

Got tomatoes? Like pie? Herd your tomato harvest into this yummy recipe.

Harvest Time!

It's been a long time since Jim and I have had a "real" vegetable garden.  For many years now, we've been making do by growing a few tomatoes and herbs in large pots, but the urge to spread out and go with some larger crops could not be denied. Our friend, Jerry, came to the rescue and offered us some of his garden space — including this lovely raised bed — for the summer.

a raised bed filled with nice soil and drip irrigation is a garden'er's dream

A bit of weeding and a lot of waiting are starting to pay off. The past week we've been in harvest mode for corn and green beans,

"Silver Queen" is always a winner

nothing says Summer! like fresh sweet corn

French green beans are prolific, tender and sweet

and looking forward to tomatoes, and potatoes. One of Jim's clients gave him an wild assortment of heirloom tomatoes that we can't wait to taste.

some are just now flowering,

while others are almost ripe

Eating our fresh veggies has been a treat, and fired up our cooking mojo.  Thanks for the land loan, Jerry — we're diggin it!

Wordless Wednesday 7.23.2014

dill!

Wordless Wednesday 7.16.2014

Community Gardens — Santa Clarita Style

This stunning, flowering artichoke is very California! No?

I  recently took a whirlwind trip to Santa Clarita, California, and made a brief visit to their community gardens in Central Park. The one acre-plus garden area  features an attractive tool shed and a large, pergola shaded gathering space. Pathways were heavily mulched, and the entire space was neat, well tended and obviously appreciated by the member gardeners.

I was struck by two things: The garden area was open and welcoming to the public, but each plot (maybe 8'x12' in size) was enclosed in a knee-high fence of hardware cloth. A great idea to keep the bunnies at bay.

I was also impressed at the diversity of the gardens. Some were very utilitarian veggie production sites, but most of them showed individual character and featured both edibles and flowers.

hollyhocks already in full bloom

A fun take on "square foot" gardening.

And some plots looked like miniature backyard or patio gardens with paths, seating, and ornaments.

Three cheers for the gardeners of Santa Clarita for making the most of their community gardens.

Happy Autumn!

Here are just a few scenes from my garden today, the first day of fall:

my all-time favorite combo: blue oat grass and Autumn Joy sedum

what bees want: sedum and more sedum

Miscanthus strictus in its prime

despite some recent hail damage, the grapes are ripe and sweet

Here's wishing you a beautiful, bountiful fall!

Garden Tour with a Twist

I love me a good garden tour, so when I heard about the Chicks on the Ridge tour in my own little city/suburb of Wheat Ridge, Colorado, I was pretty excited. I have a couple of neighbors that live close enough that I can occasionally hear the buck-buck-buck of their small flocks, but I was curious to see what the trends were — if any — in the new era of chicken owners. (As a kid, I spent many enjoyable hours feeding, chasing, gathering eggs etc., of chickens, ducks, and other fowl on my grandmother's farm. So, I do "get" it.)

She's a classy classic --- Rhode Island Red

A total of eight homeowners opened their backyards for the tour and were excited to share their chickeny passion.  Most of them had built their own chicken coops and chicken runs, many choosing to repurpose materials, including this headed-for-the-dump armoire:

Ta-daaaa!

the rectangular door in the back slides open for access to the enclosed run area during the day

Most of the owners view their chickens as family pets, and chicken-keeping as a good activity to share with their children.  They enjoy owning a variety of different chicken breeds, like this fancy, feather-footed dame:

Who needs a feather boa when you can have feathered feet?

With a couple of exceptions, egg production to supplement the family food cupboard was the goal, not sales.

these "Easter eggs" are from Amerucanas

My favorite chicken abode was this one; an all-in-one, covered and enclosed unit for coop and run.  It's nicely finished — not too big, and not too small:

It features easy access to the nesting boxes, and a large back door for airing the coop and cleaning.

All of the chicken owners that I visited understand the connection between chickens and gardens; they're actively raising veggies and putting their chicken waste to good use as part of their compost/soil improvement regime.

Isn't this Barnevelder a beauty?

I was surprised to hear most of the tour participants say that they consider their chickens to be low maintenance and easier to care for than they'd anticipated.  But I suppose if one is chasing around after young children all day, taking care of a few birds would be a piece of cake!

Thanks, again, to all the chicken wranglers who welcomed us to their coops, and Wheat Ridge 2020/Live Local  for their sponsorship.

Design Trend 2013

I'm a bit behind the curve in writing about garden trends for 2013.  Probably because I'm not a trendy kinda person.  I'm more about quality classics; things worth investing in that I can enjoy for the long haul. So I just have two words for you today regarding "trends" because I think this idea is a culmination of current gardening passions, low-stress lifestyles, and low-water realities: edible natives.

Forget about boiled aspen bark and cattail roots. I'm talking about easily accessible berries, nuts, and foliage that you can toss in with your breakfast cereal or dinner salad, cook up into a sweet pie or jam, or decoct into a refreshing beverage. These are plants that are available at better nurseries / garden centers along Colorado's Front Range and are already being used in gardens and landscapes of all sizes.  My list focuses on woody plants — those that form the structure of the garden and are your greatest investment.

Nuts
Gambel oak, Quercus gambelii (nuts ground into a flour or meal)
Pinyon pine, Pinus edulis

Berries, best sweetened and cooked
Boulder raspberry, Rubus deliciosus
Golden currant, Ribes aureum

Chokecherry, Prunus virginiana

Sand cherry, Prunus bessei

'Pawnee Buttes' dwarf form of Prunus besseyi

Buffaloberry, Shepherdia argentea

Berries, sweetened for a lemonade-like beverage
Three-leaf sumac, Rhus triloba

Smooth sumac, Rhus glabra

Berries, fresh or dried
Serviceberry, Amelanchier utahensis is the native variety, A. canadensis is available commercially

Are there more choices? You bet. Native grape (Vitus riparia) hawthorns, thimbleberry and elderberry, not to mention all the perennials and herbs (often considered weeds) like horehound (Marrubium vulgare), mint, and chicory. These plants aren't as readily available for purchase, but might be fun to plan a foraging trip around.

Designing a landscape with edible natives means understanding the growing conditions necessary to keep the plants healthy, and combining them in ways to best show off their growth habits, foliage textures and  colors.
Have you been growing edible native plants in your yard?  I'd love to hear about it!

Wordless Wednesday 8.15.2012

Dill-icious!!!