Pick Up Both Shovel and Fork!

Heavy for a gardener, but not for a 52 year-old American

Friend of Rant Christopher C of Outside Clydeis the rare exception that proves the rule: He grows beautiful vegetables, but feels inept cooking them. (Must send you some cookbooks, Christopher!) But most vegetable gardeners live for the kitchen. They grow the tomatoes because they want to make the homemade sauce. They have the basil the size of boxwoods because they want to produce the perfect pesto on a whim. The really crazy onesmeeven grow the dried peas for the hummus and the dried beans for the chili. Yes, this effort is ridiculous when even organic dried legumes cost nothing, but my own do taste better. Vegetable gardeners are ruled by their palates.

Despite this intense interest in food, however, most of the vegetable gardeners I know look pretty terrific, at least compared to the people in your average shopping mall. We get a lot of exercise. We may not have it all perfectly balanced, especially in a good tomato yearI threw a party last weekend with a total storm of food from my garden, and the first thing my mother did when she walked in the door was to ask why Im so heavybut its generally a system that hums along without a lot of artery clogging or fat accumulation. Exhaust yourself weeding and mulching, cook fabulous meal, eat what you want, exhaust yourself weeding and mulching.

So I cannot tell you how ANNOYED I have been over the years by the supposed scientific evidence that the key to longevity is near-starvation. I know a few truly skinny people, the ones who dont seem to like to eat, and they do not exhibit the glow of people who dine on sunshine and soil, or rather, on plants grown in the sun and good garden soil, where as many as a million different species of bacteria in every gram are contributing various enchantments to ones food that will soon, I am betting, be confirmed in the laboratory.

I was so delighted this week therefore to read in the New York Times about a long-awaited major study of rhesus monkeys that found that severely restricting their diets did not prolong their lives, as the surprised and disappointed researchers had expected. All it did was make the monkeys lives less joyful.

Of course, there is always something to be annoyed about in the world of science, since far too few scientists are gardeners. And I was intensely annoyed by an recent op-ed piece titled Debunking the Hunter-Gatherer Workout by anthropologist Herman Pontzer. Pontzer writes about a study he conducted with some colleagues of the Hadza people of Tanzania, one of the worlds last remaining hunter-gatherer cultures. The researchers used very precise biological markers of daily energy expenditures and found, surprisingly, that despite covering miles and miles of terrain every day, the average Hadza burned no more calories per day than the average American, even after questions of body mass were accounted for.

The theory is that the Hadza expend fewer calories on the basic processes of cell metabolism, which allows them the energy for physical activitythat across cultures, our bodies generally burn the same number of calories no matter what and just grow more efficient with greater exertion. Pontzer believes this study debunks the idea that our national obesity problem is due to inactivity. He sees fatness therefore as purely a function of dietits not that we dont move enough, its that we eat too much. Physical activity, he writes, is very important for maintaining physical and mental health, but we arent going to Jazzercise our way out of the obesity epidemic.

On the surface, that statement is ridiculous. How many fit people do you know who are obese?

But even if hes right, even if exercise wont make us slim, maybe its still better for our bodies, our minds, our appearance, our morale, our yards, our world, for the inner processes that prop us up to be conducted so sleekly and efficiently that we have energy to expend outwards. Fortunately, as a counter-balance to the depressing Pontzer, we have Andy Coghlan, whose piece in this weeks NewScientist argues that exercise is the best medicine. He writes

A plethora of recent studies shows that exercise protects us from heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, obesity, cancer, Alzheimers disease and depression. It even boosts memory. And it has the potential to prevent more premature deaths than any other single treatment, with none of the side effects of actual medication.

So, in the interest of preventing my own premature deathand the premature deaths of the people I loveI intend to continue to be heavily engaged in two activities, gardening and eating, until the day some 45 years hence that I keel over in a patch of parsnips. And I promise you, I will enjoy many, many great meals along the way.

Via: Pick Up Both Shovel and Fork!

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Horticultural Cowboys

From left: Steve Castorani, Bill Barnes and Joel Hayward at Pawnee Grasslands

Guest Post by Allen Bush

Willie Nelson warns, in his song of the same name, Mamas, dont let your babies grow up to be cowboys Then he offers a way out: Make em lawyers and doctors and such. Willie, I have a better idea. Make em gardeners and such. The pay scale wont come close to that of doctors and lawyers, but the company will be a lot better.

My mama would have liked the small group I hung out with in early June in Colorado. These day trippers gardeners and nurserymen are a little odd (think of them as horticultural cowboys) but thats half the fun. Peculiar neurological hard wiring allows them to imagine their gardens as an extension of the Colorado high plains or wherever they wander. The process seems to require an environmental trigger during childhood - backyards, wood lots and empty spaces. The take-away, when the stars are aligned, can be the endless magical realm of possibility and discovery.

There is no statistical way to analyze the love for gardens or the natural world. Precious few receive this joyful good fortune. Put my posse in a garden or on open grassland, and then watch in amazement as they poke around for plants like slow moving rats in a maze. In spite of gray hair and creaky joints, this bunch is seldom bored, still believing their best days are ahead of them. Whats up with that?

This expression of child-like curiosity at least for one day in early June can be explained in three magical words: prickly pear cactus.

Prickly Pear Cactus in Joel and Pat Haywards garden

Joel Hayward was our tour guide to the Fountain of Youth. Hayward grew-up on a ranch near Deer Trail, a small town about 70 miles due south of the Pawnee Grasslands. His grandfather homesteaded here during tough times, when the Colorado Great Plains were parched and the native prickly pear was the last option for cattle feed. His granddad, out of desperation, rigged a blowtorch and burned-off the spines. The cattle ate the spineless cactus.

Lauren Springer Ogden had told us the day before about the towering Pawnee Buttes, but it was the nearby grasslandsthat got our attention. Lauren said they were at their peak. High country flowering in the Rockies was a few weeks away. We took the hint. Hayward volunteered for the mission. Although he knew the area perfectly well, he didnt say anything about what was in store. Our trip was a surprise, planned with uncanny stagecraft.

Harlan Hamernik with horned toad

East of Fort Collins, on a windswept day, we drove past fields where rows and rows of corn had been pummeled the night before by a vicious hailstorm. Roadside cottonwoods were stripped bare of their leaves. Pellets of ice were still piled-up in drainage ditches. Past Ault, Colorado, not far off Highway 14, we turned off the main road. Stray cars and trucks passed by.

The curtain went up at the Pawnee Grasslands. The show was on. There were horned toads, burrowing owls, swift foxes, prairie dogs, antelopes and the prickly pear cactus, Opuntia polyacantha. Who the hell stops in the middle of nowhere for pricky pear cactus?

Hayward came loaded with cold drinks, binoculars, a telescope and a vast knowledge of the areas cultural and natural history. He knew where to stop lessons gleaned from dozens of visits since he was an undergraduate at the University of Colorado. Bill Barnes,Steve Castorani,Harlan Hamernikand I were along for the ride.

We pulled-over near Keota, a ghost town. The plantsmen posse scattered over the new playground, across the treeless expanse of fruited plain, where we found thousands and thousands of flowering prickly pears, in shades from cream-colored to screaming yellow to reddish purple.

An hour later, Hayward tried to herd the cats back to the car. There was more to see: Prairie clover, Geyers larkspur and Hookers sandwort. Wide-eyed gardeners, because we know what were looking for, see even more than cowboys do.

Via: Horticultural Cowboys

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Find The DataOn Plants

So heres a new thing. FindtheData.com is a new site dedicated to gathering data in such a way that allows side-by-side comparisons to be made. And theres a lot of plant stuff here. Lets have a look, shall we?

The Plants Database pulls data from USDA sources, but puts it in a format that makes it easier to search by particular characteristics or do side-by-side comparisons of plants. Searching for plants by various qualities yields some weird resultsa search for fall-blooming annuals turned up only one plant, and its a plant that sounds like it comes right out of a Monty Python movieSmallfoot Beggarticks.

Okay, moving on! You can also pull all kinds of data about botanical gardensI did a search for botanical gardens that do ethnobotanical research and operate a tram, and got a list of four institutions (Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and Hawaii, in case youre wondering.)

Theres also a list of farmers markets. I made a map of all the farmers markets within 20 miles of Iowa City:

You can also compare wine grapes or green restaurants.

I am perhaps most interested in the booze ratings, which pull scores and awards from several sources to give compiled data that can be put into side-by-side comparisons. For instance, heres gin:

Gin

OK, enough about gin. What about the plants? Given the fact that this site is really only pulling data thats already been compiled and putting it in a more user-friendly formwhat would be most useful to you, plant-wise?

I know what Id like to see: Seed and plant catalogs! Give me one place where I can search seed and plant listings, compare, and then order.

The data is not always perfect and up-to-date, by the way. I did a search for bookstores in Eureka, CA, and the bookstore I own wasnt on the listand weve owned it for almost five years, and we belong to bookstore organizations and are listed in the Yellow Pages. Oh well.

Companies and Organizations

Via: Find The DataOn Plants

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Thank you, Rant commenter, for designing my garden

When I posted photos of my new back yard and asked for suggestions I sure got em some so thoughtful I just have to share them. (Remember these?) A commenter in Vermont previously unknown to me had LOTS to say and shes already changed my garden.

For example, she wrote this about my shed: You planted one too many vines, if you research the size of each and contemplate their competitive visual busy-ness when mature. = 1 vine to relocate. Shes right, and that fix is already done.

Her ideas for the nook garden by neighbors privacy fence were really intriguing:

1. Consider this a contemplative/zen garden viewed from porch and bluestone terrace.
2. FEATURE the fence. It has great texture. Dont hide it behind (unhappy) hollies.
3. FEATURE the floor, too, to enhance the floor to ceiling view off your porch (and terrace). Consider a symmetric or Escher-esque (i.e. starts symmetric then loses its pattern) checkerboard of bluestone 1 squares starting off your new bluestone terrace into the space. You played with lawn alternatives at your former home. Play here, too. Really low moss-like Sedums work well in mine. Any ground cover that matches the conditions should be considered. I got this idea from a Kyoto teahouse garden, done in moss.
4. I suggested clearing out much of the large shrub clutter, but you still need some vertical interest for contemplation. Statue/sculpture/found art are hardscape ideas. Also Spodiopogon sibiricus is a spectacular vertical grass for partial shade with great fall color in addition to grasss usual selling points.
5. Create an end to the privacy fence to suggest that YOU installed it in your design. Extend it another section (with a more trellis-look?) and host the extra vine from your shed. OR plant a shrub feature (maybe one of the extra Blue Billows, though maybe not tall enough) that says end.

Feel free to email me if you want some checkerboard garden photos. . . Kate

So email Kate I did and got these great photos, starting with her inspirations shown above a Kyoto meditation teahouse with a moss checkerboard on one side which morphed to a larger highly pruned azalea checkerboard.

And the next photo shows her interpretation of that checkerboard effect, and it wowed me:

Heres whats in this charming space:

Prunus pumila v. depressa Catskill, which I planted on a lark 4-5 years ago. It grew lanky/long, finally lusher and I limited its limbs to the slope. Im starting to prune it this summer to try to visually achieve the angular pruned azalea contrast. And you can see Im playing with a river of Sedum album chloroticum edged by thin clusters of Sedum sexangulare (in bloom here which detracts) and some Sedum middendorfianum because it has such great color.

So we email back and forth about her ideas for my privacy screen (warning me about the long-term maintenance needs of paint, for one thing), vine options, and the shrubs Id chosen (she wasnt a fan.)

Two weeks later, heres my nook garden before and after Kates intervention. I removed some of the unhappy hollies, making room for a crossvine thatll grow quickly over the fence. Then I added 14 more flagstone pavers, some close enough together to fit a chair over them and some in the checkerboard pattern she used so effectively. The colorful metal fish on the screen wont last long; I hope to replace them with some cool metal artwork that Ill look for when Im in Mexico next month.

To Commenters
This just goes to show that amazing things can happen when you ask readers for feedback. Sure, there may be some brutally honest truths coming your way and thick skin may be required, but honesty is just what I needed in this case. A commenter Id never heard from before stepped up to the keyboard to become my long-distance design coach. A few clicks at the Google machine yielded the small-world discovery that we even went to same tiny Ohio college, though not quite at the same time.

So thanks to Kate and to generous commenters everywhere.

Via: Thank you, Rant commenter, for designing my garden

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The High Line backlash

For those of you who havent had a chance to visit the High Line yet: Im sorry to have to tell you that its over. Already. According to a New York Times op-ed by Jeremiah Ross, in which the writer condemns the West Side elevated park succinctly:

The High Line has become a tourist-clogged catwalk and a catalyst for some of the most rapid gentrification in the citys history.

Not yet four years old, the High Line has already become another stop on the must-see list for out-of-towners, another chapter in the story of New York Citys transformation into Disney World. According to the parks Web site,3.7 million peoplevisited the High Line in 2011, only half of them New Yorkers.

As an out-of-towner, therefore, my opinion shouldnt count, but I do disagree with Rosss negative conclusion while agreeing with many of his points. Its true that many tourists come to New York; they visit the Statue of Liberty, the museums, the theaters, the Empire State Building, and, eventually, some make their way to the High Line. It wont be a news flash to anyone that Manhattan is a tourist townin spite of all the money London spent to host the Olympics, the NYC tourism numbers were easily higher during the same two weeks.

The High Line is also blamed for the gentrification of the neighborhood through which it wends:

While the park began as a grass-roots endeavor albeit a well-heeled one it quickly became a tool for the Bloomberg administrations creation of a new, upscale, corporatized stretch along the West Side.

The polishing of NYCs gritty edges has been going on for some time. Areas of the lower east side that were grimy and somewhat dangerous when I lived here in the 80s are now lined with upscale restaurants, shops, and apartments. (In fact, a Low Line underground park has been proposed for an unused trolley terminal below Delancey and Essex.)

Blaming projects like High Line for gentrification is kind of like blaming the egg for the chicken. For Manhattan that ship has been in full sail for decadeswith a fresher gentrification battle going on in Brooklyn and elsewhere. Maintaining diversity in booming cities is a problem, and I suppose the High Line could be used as a symbol of that problem.

The park was not uncomfortably crowded when we walked it. The experience reminded mesomewhatof visiting the Christo/Jeanne-Claude installation in Central Park eight years ago. All were there to view the same thing, which had to be walked through to be experienced. There was a feeling of fellowship, as corny as that may sound. The fact that many others were there was expected, and not unpleasant.

I found the High Line to be a perfect combination of my two abiding interestsart and gardening. As a curated wildflower experience in the middle of a city, it presents gardening through the lens of urban existence in an entirely novel designand vice versa. Thats a triumphant accomplishment. And its enough for me.

Via: The High Line backlash

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Im Dreaming of a Black Garden

Marigold photo via Shutterstock

I never thought Id have the patience or the fortitude to plant a themed garden, but all the sudden Im thinking about a very dark garden. Ironically, dark gardens need a lot of light: my Black Lace sambucus goes green in the shade but gets very dark in the sun. Hmmmm.

Ive made a list of all the usual dark foliage plants, and I have Timbers lovely little Black Plants bookbut what are your favorites?

Via: Im Dreaming of a Black Garden

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Garden Writers Should See the World

Elizabeth introduced our new web design a few months ago by asking an interesting question that was raised at the Asheville Garden Bloggers Fling: Is garden blogging still viable?

After all, why blog if you can post on Facebook or tweet?

I have to say that as a news consumer, I love Twitter. I follow many garden writers, but ALL the significant food writers. Though they tend mostly to operate in a politically correct echo chamber led by Mark Bittman and Michael Pollan, there are some stand-out originals among this group. I really respect the hard-hitting reporting of Monica Engof the Chicago Tribune. Shes the woman out there ineptly hunting deer and eating horrible food in school cafeterias in order to reveal the truth about our food culture. And Kat Kinsman of CNNs food blog Eatocracy is provocative and funnyas is parody tweeter Ruth Bourdain, who won a James Beard Award last year.

But, look, unless you are Steve Martin and a genius of the one-liner, you cant say it all in 140 characters. It seems to me that Twitter is mostly about the links to longer pieces of writing elsewhere. It doesnt replace anything.

On the other hand, Im not so old-fashioned as to think those glossy gardening magazines do the job for people who really care about plants and food and the landscapes around them. Though some are better than others, I think they all underestimate their audiences. Too shy of controversy. Too uninterested in individual voices.After writing for one of them, I am generally grateful to be back home at Garden Rant, where there are no editors grinding off my edges. Where there are intelligent commenters, in fact, sharpening them up.

Blogs are fantastic, in that theres enough space for an opinion to be expressed, and then a volley of counter-opinions. There is nothing really like it, other than possibly talk radio.

But the truth is that its easy to opine from ones screened porch. Its another thing entirely to get in a car and drive 5 hours each way to investigate a drought or new varieties of food crops or to see some particularly inspiring gardenlet alone, get on a plane and see how farmers in theSahelare using the lowest of low-tech methods to turn back desertification. That requires a professional-sized paycheck and a budget for expenses. Are any garden bloggers earning enough from their sites to wear out shoes and suitcases in support of them? I dont think so. Alas, gardening will never attract the advertising that food and home improvement do.

The medium Id like to be venting in? The disappearing one chronicled in the fun 2011 documentary about the New York Times I watched last night, Page One. Page One makes it clear what vanishes if you lose the resources of a place like The Times: reporting. Are there any newspapers reporting on gardening any more, other than The Washington Post and The New York Times?

But gardening is worth reporting on. Are you kidding me? Given climate change, drought, storms, the challenges of feeding the earths population without destroying the planet, plus the health problems inherent in the America diet, and the sickness and ugliness of many of our landscapes, gardening may be the most significant of all beats. Were not talking ten best intersectional peonies, as fun as those are. Were talking survival of the species.

The most recent Pew report on the State of the News Media had a mixed message: While advertising revenues are dropping, the publics hunger for real news is greater than ever, thanks to portable devices that allow us to follow a story all day long. I hope this all shakes out at some point soon, in some positive way that allows more garden writers to hit the road much more often. My suitcase is already packed.

Via: Garden Writers Should See the World

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J.C. Raulston and the Green Closet

Please welcome Bobby Ward, author of Chlorophyll in His Veins: J. C. Raulston, Horticultural Ambassador.

Recently Amy Stewart commented on Clyde Phillip Wachsbergers book Into the Garden With Charles, a gardening memoir of Wachsberger and his partner, Charles Dean.

The late J. C. Raulston would have greatly appreciated Wachsbergers book and, in particular, Amys comment: The love story of gay gardeners must be told.

Raulston, founder of the NCSU Arboretum (now the JC Raulston Arboretum), realized he was gay at the age of thirty-five. Soon after, in the late 1970s, he organized an informal network of gay men and lesbians called the Lavandula Society, made up of students and professionals in botany, horticulture, landscaping, and public garden management, as well as nurserymen and serious amateur gardeners. Initially, it was a small gathering, often at members homes, garden centers, or at a bar, and usually held after hours in conjunction with regional and national professional meetings held around the U.S. The group grew and as more women began joining, he acknowledged them by renaming the group the Lavandula and Labiatae Society. The group met once or twice a year and stayed connected through sporadic newsletters and membership lists that J. C. mailed out, at his own expense, until his death in 1996, the victim of an automobile accident.

For this group, J. C. developed a slide presentation called The Green Closet that identified gay and lesbian gardeners, including couples, whom he had met in his horticultural travels, as well as historical gardeners, such as Beverley Nichols and Vita Sackville-West. This lighthearted slide lecture also included bawdy images from Greek pottery and nude Italian sculptures, as well as photos of scantily clad landscapers and gardeners, covers of male physique magazines, and plant pornography (such as Amorphophallus, cactus, and plant fruits that were suggestive of male and female human anatomy).

The Green Closet was never presented to general garden organizations, but only to gatherings of the Lavandula and Labiate Society and to gay and lesbian business and professional groups. While working on J. C.s biography (Chlorophyll in His Veins: J. C. Raulston, Horticultural Ambassador), I came to feel that his Green Closet lecture ought to be updated and presented to the general public. Perhaps with societal changes gay and lesbian couples able to marry legally in a growing number of states, it now should be called Out of the Green Closet.

J. C. introduced many new plants to the landscape, but his greatest contribution may have been the connections made among gay and lesbian gardeners in the comfortable network he created through the Lavandula and Labiatae Society. Many of those who attended the meetings became business and/or life partners and today are working as nurserymen, horticulturists, garden managers, and garden writers.

J. C. had his own love story, but it was cut short after only four years by the death of his partner. Nevertheless, J. C., a voracious reader of gay literature, would have been delighted with Wachsbergers memoir and its love story of gay gardeners.

Bobby J. Ward lives, writes, and gardens in Raleigh, North Carolina. Contact him at www.bobbyjward.com.

Via: J.C. Raulston and the Green Closet

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Speaking of TED Talks

as we were the other daywhat do you people think about window farming? Worthwhile? Silly? Is this a lot of effort for a salad or a few strawberries? Or is it revolutionary?

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Via: Speaking of TED Talks

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Start your day with Garden Photos from Fine Gardening

Townhouse garden in Albany.

I usually start my day by for checking email and news of more gaffes by clueless candidates for office but Michelle Gervais, an editor of Fine Gardening Magazine, suggested I try subscribing to her morning emails of garden photos submitted by readers. I did and Im already hooked.

Another view of that Albany garden.

Michelle got the idea in early 2010 to post garden photos that had never made it into the magazine to a blog she calls Garden Photo of the Day, but over time it morphed into something much bigger and more fun readers submitting photos of their own gardens. According to Michelle,

Its so much fun and incredibly empowering to the readers, as people lavish each other with praise and offer helpful suggestions in the comments. So far weve managed to feature gardens from 37 of the 50 states, plus gardens from far-off places like Spain, Rwanda, Japan, New Zealand, Portugal, Hungary, Sweden, India, and Antarctica.

Sure enough, check out Darryls garden in Antarctica below.

Darryls hydroponic garden in Antarctica.

I have to confess that the part of the GardenRant Manifesto that says were Bored with perfect magazine gardens doesnt speak for me at all I can never get enough garden photos, especially the real ones like these, some of which look perfect but no no means all. My only complaint is that sometimes garden photos are so dark I strain to see whats going on in them. And then there are the magazines that feature furniture and lifestyle more than actual gardens and gardening, and I abandoned those years ago.

But now I can peruse the 685 gardens displayed on Garden Photo of the Day so far, and enlarge them enough to really see whats going on (thats why Michelle asks for hi-resolution photos, not because the magazine plans to use them in print).

Seems theres lots of us garden-photo fanatics, because the blog has over 13,500 email subscribers, and over 2,000 daily click-throughs.

The photos are also arranged by topic into some scrumptious Pinterest boards. And a new featured rolled out just yesterday is the ability to search by state. Thirteen states are missing, so readers in these states Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Hawaii, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia - see what you can do about that, okay?

Some Faves

The Albany townhouse garden in the photos above inspire me as I look out onto my new, mainly bare townhouse yard. More here.

Some gardens I love for the stories, like the surgeon in India who turned to gardening after her Parkinsons Disease forced her to stop operating.

Hydroponics in Antarctica. Darryl, youre the man!

An Ontario garden that includes an old window to make a privacy screen more interesting while the plants in front of it are young. (Photo below). I want that window for my privacy screen!

A New York gardener who has submitted six batches of photos so far, including whole-garden shots and close-ups. Im not a big fan of close-ups but when theyre accompanied by wider spots theyre all to the good.

How to Follow

Heres the home page of Garden Photo of the Day blog.

Click here to sign up for daily emails.

Sign up via RSS.

Via: Start your day with Garden Photos from Fine Gardening

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Just add water

Our official status in Western New York is moderate drought. I cant really remember the last soaking rain we gotmaybe a couple times in June and a couple more in Julyand the temps have ranged into the 90s with regularity. Thats unusual here. There are no watering restrictions that Im aware of, though articles and op-eds advising people to stop watering their lawns have appeared in the paper a few times.

Thankfully, I have no lawn here, but there are 4 big maples whose roots soak up all the water they can get and a bunch of annual-filled containers with their corresponding water demands. I have luck with hostas, hakonechloa, hellebores, and other sturdy perennials in the beds, and the shrubs seem OK, but I havent really tested them. Because I water. That is how I deal with drought.

Would most of the in-ground plantings survive without regular water? I suppose. They would be stressed, for surethis is not a xeriscape. I imagine many would droop and fade, if not die. But thats all kind of beside the point, because the reason I have a garden is to be in it during the summer, and I cant enjoy a suffering garden with a lot of dead plants sitting in pots. Id go furtherduring a hot summer like this, I need the garden to look extra lush. The shade, the sound of running water, and the abundance of green foliage are essential, and all that takes attention.

Regular wateringwithin reasonis also helpful because it forces me to look at all the plants, deadhead if needed, cut back if needed, and attend to anything that needs attention. It helps me enjoy the plants. Because thats why I have them. Im not running a drought tolerance testing site here; Im maintaining a garden thats meant to give me and others pleasure. This year, supplemental wateringwith a bit more frequencyis not a heavy price to pay for that pleasure.

Via: Just add water

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Watch: A Teacher Growing Green in the South Bronx

TED calls Stephen Ritz a whirlwind of energy and ideas and boy, IS he. My notes on his TED talk include: Poorest congressional district in the U.S. First indoor edible wall in New York City. Triple bottom line. Si, se puede moments. Growing organic kids. From 40 percent attendance to 95 percent attendance. New green graffiti. and Zero miles to plate.

Click to Watch.

Via: Watch: A Teacher Growing Green in the South Bronx

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Martha Teichner gets Tangled in Weeds on CBS Sunday Morning

From CBS, via press release:

Martha Teichner with weed-eating goats.

To some, weeds are the scourge of the earth, killing precious crops along the way. To others, however, weeds are a source of food. On this weekends broadcast, CBS SUNDAY MORNING correspondent Martha Teichner gets to the root of the love-hate relationship people have with weeds, and the various ways folks have learned to live with them or try to put them out of existence.

This is an absolute enemy of the state, no question whatsoever, weed scientist Stanley Culpepper of the University of Georgia tells Teichner of Palmer amaranth, also known as pigweed. Pigweed has destroyed cotton and soybean crops in the south.

If you go to the beach and you shouldnt have, this plant will beat you, so it is war, and its a war of survival because this plant will put you out of business, Culpepper says.

Some places are using goats to keep the weeds down, while others are relying on chemicals to fight back.

On the other end of the spectrum, though, are folks like New Jerseys Tama Matsuoka Wong, who supplies edible weeds to a couple of the fanciest restaurants on the East Coast. Grabbing a weed, Matsuoka Wong says, its very nutritious and its really good as long as youre picking it the right way and cooking it.

Teichners piece will air August 19 on CBS SUNDAY MORNING WITH CHARLES OSGOOD (9:00-10:30 AM, ET).

Show spokesman Richard Huff added in an email that its a fun piece. Fun for whom Martha, the goats? Well just have to tune in to find out.

Via: Martha Teichner gets Tangled in Weeds on CBS Sunday Morning

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No Babysitting Required

A fine mess

Ive been away on vacation for most of the last few weeks, and as is typically true in August, have returned to ridiculous explosions of food, weeds, and crabgrass.

Youll notice that one of the explosions, at least, is positive: food. So many tomatoes that sauce-making is the only option. Endless eggplants and pattypan squashes. Tomatillos littering the walkway. Pole beans hanging by the hundreds from their vines like prisms off a big tacky chandelier.

I love the basic self-sufficiency of my summer vegetable garden. Unlike the lawn and the perennial beds, which currently look like hell, the vegetable garden is an attractive riot. Because I mulched heavily with leaves last fall, there arent a lot of weeds. Thanks to that mulch, which conserves soil moisture, I can trust the skies to do the watering for me when Im away. Admittedly, however, I live in the Northeast, where a week with no rain is unusual.

My personal vegetable garden is not the only one Ive neglected, either. Also receiving no care from me since late July at least are the Lake Avenue Elementary school garden and a community garden plot I took so I could grow more potatoes. But all is nonetheless well.

Vegetable gardens are really a great deal: Work hard to assemble the pieces in Maypaths, mulch, cropsand then bestir oneself for the rest of the summer only to harvest a windfall and scatter seed for the fall. Why doesnt everybody do this?

Via: No Babysitting Required

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Keep Your Garden Out of My Face

Guest Rant by Billy Goodnick

It was a dark and foggy summer night. Biff the Wonder Spaniel and I set out for our last neighborhood stroll, green poopy bag at the ready. Its a good thing I didnt have my nose buried in my iPhone, catching up on the four games of Words With Friends that Lin and I usually have running. If I had been distracted, Id probably be sporting stitches, or worse yet, a ripped cornea.

Through the mist, I realized I was one step away from facial lacerations from a thorny rose branch arching across the sidewalk at eye level. Thats what can happen when someone plants a Cecile Brunner climbing rose on a picket fence that butts up against the sidewalk.Seems to me, youd have to be either stupid or heartless to think you can plant a 25-foot climber a couple of inches from your property line and then let it run wild. Good thing poison oak isnt an ornamental.

Thorny plants are the worst-case scenario, but it seems everywhere I look, somebodys fuzzy bush is in my face. Ive got no beef with a property owner planting this stuff along their own walkways, but when half of a public sidewalk is blocked by some thoughtless, lazy gardeners weekend project, I get pissed off.

One block from my house theres a wall of ivy climbing something (its so dense I cant tell if its an old chain link fence or remnants of an ancient civilization) and taking up more than half the sidewalk. A few blocks away, crimson bougainvillea sporting inch-long spiky thorns spills out from a raised wall. Pretty? Yes. Neighborly? Hardly. Legal? No way. Arrogant and lazy? In the words of Sarah Palin, You betcha.

Assuming that the owners of these properties are aware their plants are blocking public right of way, I can only assume that they rationalize with I can get past, so why ruin my weekend doing chores?

What about a mom with a stroller? What about someone like my dad who uses a walker and is legally blind?

The image above show this weeks Two for the Price of One Special: Brazilian skyflower (Duranta species) in the parkway some varieties reach 20-feet high and wide and rosemary creeping in from the garden. Great for an Olympic slalom run, but vexing for someone with mobility problems.

Two blocks away on one of the main Santa Barbara thoroughfares, where Im sure curbside parking is at a premium, some numbnut who wont clean out their garage left their big fat tail end blocking the walk. All thats missing is a middle-finger decal over the wheel.

Bonnie Elliott is a friend who spends much of her waking days in a power wheel chair. Shes also been active on the City of Santa Barbaras Access AdvisoryCommittee, reviewing submittals that go through the Planning Commission and offering recommendations to make new projects safer and more livable for a wider cross-section of the community.

That overgrown crap shouldnt be there, Bonnie told me, as we sipped ice teas and devoured divine pistachio macarons on a warm afternoon at a local patisserie. Some hedges make it impossible for drivers to see anyone on the sidewalk when they pull out of their driveways. You cant see them and they cant see you. Theres no way you can achieve escape velocity when a car suddenly appears.

As long as were talking about public sidewalks, what about those trash/recycling/green-waste cans? This morning, I hauled one filled with brush and bamboo, plus a blue recycling bin, off the sideway, left there, no doubt, by an indifferent, hasty homeowner. Sometimes the bins are empty, meaning that an in-a-hurry trash collector picked up the load, dumped it in the truck and ignored the company policy laid out for me by Tito Escarcega, supervisor for the local service: We hammer the guys: do not leave the cans near mailboxes, near driveways, or on sidewalks. But Id be lying if I said that a few of our boys dont slip up once in a while. I know these guys are generally on top of it and do awesome, back-breaking work, but there are a few slouches who need to appreciate the bigger picture.

If youre in a wheelchair and theres no way around an obstacle, many times the alternative is a detour down a sloping driveway and out into the street. Bonnie recounted a recent incident when she was almost hit, the driver slamming on the brakes just in time.

While Im at it, what about sprinklers that go out of whack, showering passing pedestrians (and hydrophobic cocker spaniels)? Its bad enough all that water is missing its target and flowing to the gutter, but no one should need a snorkel to take their exercise stroll.

Am I getting through? I love gardens. I make my living designing, teaching, writing, and ranting about them. But your right to grow a garden ends at your property line. Any time you buy a shrub you intend to plant near public walkways or streets, it comes with a duty to know its potential size and either give it plenty of room to do its thing, or be conscious and considerate enough to keep it the hell out of everyones way. If that means giving up a few hours on the weekend, or increasing your gardeners hours, bite the bullet.

If youre as fed up as I am with this stuff, do as I do and rat out your neighbor. I dont start by calling out the big guns. In the case of the errant rose bush, I left a note on their door (including my phone number Im straight up about it) and the next day I got an apologetic phone call and the rose was pruned. Encroachments into public right of way can usually be reported to the zoning division for your town.

But Im making one exception. Around the corner from a friends house is a magnificent specimen of Australian Tea Tree (Leptospermum laevigatum) slithering across the sidewalk in all its muscular glory. Although theres no way around it, the City Arborist fought to have it preserved. So the thoughtful owners have constructed a stairway leading down to the street so neighbors can get around. Im cool with that.

Billys garden design book,Yards: Turn Any Outdoor Space Into the Garden of Your Dreams, will be published March 2013. Visit his website, billygoodnick.com, for a preview and pre-ordering links.

Via: Keep Your Garden Out of My Face

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Wildcraftedreally?

Can you eat any of the plants in this picture? Really? How do you know?

This post from the always excellent Rowleys Whiskey Forge got me thinking about this. He posts a really cool recipe for a liqueur called mistela de chimaj. I couldnt resistI had to go look up the plant. But more about that in a minute.

First, some background: So the foraging/wildcrafting movement has met the craft distilling movement and the result is that people want to go out into the wilderness, or into a vacant lot, or into the woods, and pull a plant out of the ground and drop it into some high-proof spirits and extract some flavor from it. You know, dandelion bitters, honeysuckle liqueur, whatever.

Its a nice ideamostly. There are just a couple of problems with taking plants from uncultivated spacesmeaning, spaces that arent farms or gardens. The first is that some wild plants are kind of scarce, and pulling a few out of the ground to make a batch of bitters might actually hurt the plant populationor the wildlife population that depends upon it.

And the second reason is that unless you are really, really sure about what youre doing, you might actually be extracting poisons when you infuse your plants in alcohol. Alcohol is a very good method for extracting poisons from plants. And keep in mind that plants generally dont want to be eaten, which is why they manufacture poisons in the first place. Ive heard people who are really into foraging say things like, Oh, I eat everything I pick, and Ive never been poisoned, as if not getting poisoned is all about being down with the plants, or being a true believer. Thats a foolish statement that overlooks the fact that nature is powerful, and that it is in a plants nature to manufacture poisons that punish anyone who tries to eat it. If you were a plant, isnt that what you would do?

Okay, so back to mistela de chimaj. The name chimaj refers to a number of plants in the genus Cymopterus. They are broadly called spring parsley. Theyre a member of the carrot family, Apiaceae. The long taproot is whats used to make the liqueur.

That right there should be enough to really, really slow you down. Because the carrot family is one of those nefarious plant families with lots of criminal relations. Hemlock, the plant that killed Socrates. Aconite, or monkshood, which has killed many people who mistook it for parsley. Giant hogweed, a nasty creature with vile, caustic sap. If a plant has a long taproot and finely cut, lacy foliage, its probably in the carrot family. And if its in the carrot family, you need to proceed with caution. And if it has a taproot, you need to remember that plants tend to concentrate their poisons in the taproot as a form of defense.

So what do we know about Cymopterus? We know that one species, C. watsonii, causes severe photosensitive reactions in livestock that eat it. This can include everything from mild sunburn to really nasty blisters. The always reliable Jepson manual also notes that some species are toxic to livestock. One of the few reliable papers on edible species like C. montanus notes at the end that they still need to be tested for toxicity.

Soif you go out foraging for spring parsley, which species are you planning to harvest? Can you tell them apart? Can you even tell Cymopterus from other, more distant relations in the carrot family? And given that botanists themselves dont know for sure what a toxic dose would be for humansdo you?

My vote? Skip it. Leave the spring parsley in the field. I dont dispute the notion that there is an edible variety, or that the cool recipe that Matthew Rowley turned up on his blog is in fact something that people once made and enjoyed. But I could spend a lifetime working my way through the plants that I know to be edible and safe before I ever got bored enough to start tinkering around with wild, untested, and possibly dangerous herbs.

Want to try this out with an edible substitution? How about bitter dandelion root? Ora close relationcilantro root?

What are your thoughts on wild harvesting?

Via: Wildcraftedreally?

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Melons, Squash, and Cash

Thats NPRs headline, not mine. My husband switched the radio on yesterday morning just in time for me to hear this story about Amy Goldman, who as Im sure you know is an author, artist, and heirloom seed advocate. Weve written about her incredible bronze casts of heirloom vegetables here, and a squabble over seeds here, and her recent nuptials to a person involved in said squabbles here. You may also know her beautiful books The Heirloom Tomato and The Compleat Squash. And New York gardeners know that her family has supported botanical gardensincluding NYBG and BBG.

And now shes on NPR for contributing to left-leaning superPACs, as part of a series profiling people who do such things. SowellIm glad to hear that heirloom vegetable gardeners are getting heard in the political process, somewhere, somehow.

If any other squash or tomato-related news arises during the campaign, you can be sure well stay on top of it!

Via: Melons, Squash, and Cash

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Lawns in the News, and Flower-Arranging Comes to PBS

TV Show about Lawns in Development

Weve been ranting for years now about the dearth of gardening shows on TV, so imagine my surprise to hear theres a new show about lawns coming from Country Music Television! Yeah, Id never heard of them, either, but Im told theyre the producers of Cupcake Wars. So, Lawn Wars?

Close! Heres the working title: Redneck Lawn Wars. Seriously. I couldnt possibly make that up.

This news came to me via email from a staffer looking for over-the-top creative lawns that are sort of the mouthpiece for owners and show off their obsession with their favorite sport, beer, musician, hobby, etclike a team mascot cut or spray painted into their lawn. The attached flyer gives these examples:

You love Elvisyour shrubs are shaped like Elvis.

Youre a fan of Nascaryou have a mini-Talladega shaved into your lawn, with your shrubs shaped like Kyle Buschs M&M car.

You go to every Bluegrass festival; your grass is blue, with images of fiddles, banjos & mandolins worked into it.

You consider yourself to be Hugh HefnerYou have a 10-foot Playboy bunny symbol etched into your lawn. your bushes are shaped aswell, bushes.

Its enough to make me miss even the stupidest of instant garden make-overs on HGTV.

Scotts Miracle-Gro donates to Romney

The donation itself comes as no surprise, but this article does include some tidbits about the company that I wouldnt have predicted.

• Instead of hiding behind a PAC, Scotts took the unusual step of donating in the light of day and suffering any potential blowback from customers. Sure enough, the Washington Post reporter found a few disgruntled fertilizer shoppers in D.C.
• Scotts chairman and CEO James Hagedorn has taken controversial stands before, like firing workers who refused to quit smoking. Would not have predicted that, but hey, it sure helps the bottom line to eliminate smokers from the health insurance pool.
• And Hagedorns practically a wild card politically, having supported Democrat Ted Strickland in his successful bid to be governor of Ohio.

New Flower-Arranging Show Launches

Finally, a bit of good news for us flower-lovers the launch on the new public television show Flower Empowered featuring floral designerSarah von Pollaro. Her approach is floral design for anyone, on a budget. Sounds good to me.

Via: Lawns in the News, and Flower-Arranging Comes to PBS

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