Happy New Year!
I don't know about you, but I've decided not to make any resolutions this year. But, I am making some promises to myself. For one, I've promised myself that I will make the time every day to work on my edible garden landscaping passion. For my readers and friends, that means more blog postings, more Examiner articles and a website that get's regular updates again.

I have a lot of ideas and information to share with you and a stack of garden catalogs to review so I can tell you about the newest offerings to think about adding to your garden or edible landscape.

For example, Burpee has a Tie Dye tomato hybrid, that is supposed to be really sweet and flavorful, not to mention very cool to look at! I've posted photo from their website so you can take a look. Just looking at it makes me long for summer, yet here I sit looking outside where it's a balmy -14 degrees. This is definitely the time of year for northern gardeners like me to dream, plan, research and dream some more.

I'll be posting ideas, plans and findings as we steadily move toward the growing season. And, along the way, I hope you'll feel free to share your ideas and comments as well.

Here's to a fabulous 2010! I hope your dreams for this year and beyond come true.

It's Berry Time - How to Beat the Birds to the Fruit

It's time for the wonderful taste of fresh berries...strawberries are just done, or almost there in most of the country. But,raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, gooseberries and all the other wonderful berries are getting into full swing.

There's nothing more frustrating, however, than heading out to pick a few, only to find that the birds and other berry munching wildlife have beat you to them! This photo shows one berry with just a small section left after the birds were finished!

Foil them
Birds can be skittish, so if you hang strips of aluminum foil or a cut up mylar balloon in the bush or around the canes, the light that reflects off the strips will startle them and send them away. If you have fruit trees, like cherry trees for instance, hanging some foil pie tins in the tree will also help keep the birds from having a feast.

Try Tricking Them
Place a short length of old garden hose on the ground near the bushes, but in plain site. Birds arelikely to mistake the hose for a snake and stay away.

Cover Them
A slightly pricier, but more certain method of protecting the fruit in you yard, is to cover it with netting that's specifically made to keep birds from eating the berries. For less than $10 you can purchase a 7 foot x 20 foot net and there are larger mesh nets available.

Depending upon the size of your berry patch, you might be able to cut the larger size down to cover fruits in different locations in your yard. The best thing about this investment, is that it is reusable each year as long is it is carefully removed, folded and stored once the fruit is gone. I like to store these sort of items in a 2 gallon plastic zipper bag, which helps protect them from snagging on something and tearing.

Do you have other methods of keeping the birds from stealing the berries from your yard?

It's Finally Time to Plant the Garden!

As a resident of Central Minnesota in Zone 4, I've been living vicariously through other gardeners whose gardens are actually already producing and watching the cool weather crops establish themselves But, now, it's finally my time!
I started my seeds and they're all looking pretty healthy as I harden them off. I've turned the bed a couple of times and I'm finalizing my garden layout so that come Memorial Day - the day folks in these parts say it's OK to plant - I'll be able to move my plant seedlings into their new home. Here's what I'm planting:
Tomatoes - Grape, Yellow Pear, Roma, and Early Girl
Peppers - Green, Red, Jalapeno and Banana
Cantaloupe
Watermelon
Cucumber
Zuccini
Carrotts
Kholarabi
Broccoli
Green Bush Beans
Purple Pole Beans
Sunflowers (for the bees and to harvest the seed)
Edamame (soybeans - I'll roast and snack on these over the long Minnesota Winter)
Peanuts
Potatoes
Peas - Sugar Snap & Snow Peas
Radish
Lettuce
Spinach
Arugula
Corn Mache
A wide variety of herbs

In addition to these, I also have plantings within the landscape, including lettuce, Snow Peas, Strawberries, Swiss Chard, Blueberries, Raspberries, Rhubarb, Apples, Pansies and Nasturtium

I'll be adding photos to the blog as there's something more than dirt to show! The strawberries are in full bloom now and the Apple tree is ready to flower, too.

What are you growing in your garden/landscape?

Gloom & Doom for Home Gardeners? I Don't Think So.

Twitter is “all-a-twitter” about a Boston Globe article today that is one-sided and poorly researched at best. Yep, I’m fired up!

The author’s premise is that gardening is uber expensive and that people in general don’t have the skill or knowledge to grow food plants. Give me a break!

Expensive? Well I suppose it is if you’re shopping in some designer plant store and are willing to pay $5 for 1 lettuce plant as the author tells her readers she did! I can’t stop choking and sputtering on that, but I don’t want to attack anyone’s intellect or common sense. Instead, I’m going to take a factual approach to cost and knowledge needed to grow your own food plants.

The Globe article was based upon the following purchases in bold & I’ve added a reality check following each:

9 plants (tomatoes, peppers & red lettuce): $30 All of these plants can easily be grown from seed, and you can purchase seed packet for less than $1 a piece! Way less, if you’re shopping sales, etc. Even if you want to purchase plants, there’s absolutely no reason to this much money.

Tomato cage: $3 Tomato cages can be purchased for less than $1, or you can create your own supports for close to free with sturdy sticks (wind fall from trees), dowels, and even old broom handles that are driven into the soil next to the plant. Then use old cloth (pantyhose works great) to gently tie the plant to the stake. The pantyhose is stretchy and soft so it doesn’t damage the tomato stem as it grows.

Organic potting mix: $9.50 There are definitely less expensive ways to go here as well. You don’t have to purchase name brand, and that will save a few bucks right there. I’ve always had great luck with a mix of basic soil and some peat moss. Check around your area, many towns have free compost sites where residents take their leaves, lawn clippings, etc. to dispose of. After they dump the waste, they pick up fresh compost (made from last year’s yard waste) to enrich their garden (or container) soil.

Organic plant food: $12. I’ve used a slow release food that cost less than $4.99 for a container a couple of years ago. I add it to the soil when planting and it feeds the plant all season long. By the way, I’m still using the food from that $5 container 3 years later and I grow way more than 9 plants each year.

Three 16-inch terra cotta pots: $90. “Holy Moly, Andy” is all I have to say to this expense. There are much more economical pots available. And, while terra cotta looks nice, it adds a new degree of difficulty to keeping your plants happily watered. Moisture evaporates out the sides of terra cotta so the soil dries out much faster than in pots made of other materials.

Which leads me to the last expense our Boston Globe writer called out …

Water bill: $100 Yes, plants need lots of water to thrive, but it doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg. Be smart about how you water. Mel Bartholomew’s Square Foot Gardening method suggests filling a bucket with water and letting the sun warm it before using it. Then pour a cup of water on each plant at the base. The warm water does not shock the plant’s roots and you have control of how much water you use. As a general rule, using an overhead sprinkler is wasteful because it rains water down on the leaves where it evaporates and only a small portion actually makes it to the plants roots.

Knowledge and Experience? As someone’s Grandma would say, “Poppycock!”

I have a lot of respect for horticulturists, agriculture professionals, botanists and the like, but you don’t need specialized vocational training to have a successful garden as the article suggests using a quote from Bobby Wilson, president of the American Community Gardening Association. According to the article, he told CNN the Chia-pet generation isn’t ready for the Blue Ribbon Prize just yet.

“Many of the people that want to get into the gardening and greening movement right here have never gained the skills,” he said. “Many of them came up in an era where there was no vocational education, so there was no need to learn anything about horticulture or agriculture.”

I really hope that this quote was taken out of context.

Free information and help is yours for the taking…

There is a wealth of information out there. Start at the library for free books. Read the back of seed packets, which have basic growing information and directions. Ask your local extension for advise. Here’s a link to a list of each extension service in the United States. http://www.ediblegardenlandscaping.com/extensionlist

Ask other gardeners in your area what works best for them. Gardeners love to share their knowledge and help others learn from their mistakes. Even if you don’t know anyone near you who gardens, there is an amazing amount of knowledge on the Internet. In addition to the articles and information on my website http://www.ediblegardenlandscaping.com here are just a few other helpful resources:

Joe Lamp'l from the DIY Network has been blogging about how to plant a victory garden for $25 or less: http://joegardener.typepad.com/dailycompost

Mel Bartholomew’s Square Food Gardening Site at www.squarefootgardening.com/

The Growing Food Guide blog at www.growingfoodguide.com/

Great information about victory gardens and growing your own at www.redwhiteandgrew.com/

Better Homes & Gardens gardening information online at www.bhg.com/gardening/

Mother Earth News’ website: www.motherearthnews.com/Organic-Gardening.aspx

And, a blog for urban gardeners: http://urbangardencasual.com/

As always, I look forward to your comments and feedback!

A Ha! Something Does Grow Under Pine Trees

We've spent a lot of time the last couple of weeks working in clients yards, cleaning up the fall/winter debris and getting things spruced up for the 7 months that we actually love living here in Minnesota's Lake Country. I actually enjoy spring clean-up time and it's been particularly fun for me identifying what our clients already have in their yards as the plants are just poking through the soil.

Rhubarb is plentiful in this area and in all the landscapes we've worked on, rhubarb is coming back to life exactly where you'd expect... in a garden bed, against the fence, in a far corner of the back yard, etc. I have yet to see a plant that thrives under a tall pine tree like my rhubarb plants. Clearly the pine needles naturally provide the soil acidity that rhubarb plants crave (see horticultural notes below).

I love watching rhubarb come to life each spring,

when it's crinkled up leaves unfurl and colorful stems emerge.

A Ha! A great solution for a perennial landscaping conundrum ... nothing seems to grow under pine trees. In fact, the colorful stems and the large showy leaves of rhubarb make a great foundation planting, adding great interest (and flavor) beneath a tree that is known for large bare spots surrounding it.

My point in all this is that you don't have to conform to the norm when planting your edible plants. You don't have to have the perfect garden patch to grow foods you enjoy and are ultimately more nutritious than anything you can buy at the local grocery store. I'll be keeping track of the rhubarb here throughout the season and will include harvesting tips, recipes and preservation information when it's ready to be enjoyed!

A few horticultural facts about rhubarb: It is a cool weather perrenial that does not do well in warmer climates. Rhubarb tolerates most soils but grows best in fertile, well-drained soils that are high in organic matter. Rhubarb is rather tolerant of soil acidity but does best in slightly to moderately acid soil. (from rhubarbinfo.com).

Recycle & Reuse in an Edible Landscape

You really have to check this out. It's an amazingly simple idea. Reclaimed gutters to plant greens, lettuce, low growing edibles. And it looks nice, too. These would also be great mounted on a fence...a new take on the living fence. Enjoy.

Temperature Swings Are Like Mood Swings - You Never Know What You're Going to Get

Springtime in the upper midwest could mean 80 degrees and sunny, 50 degrees and threatening, or 30 degrees and a foot and a half of snow! It's so much like mood swings that you have to be ready to take cover at any time! Case in point, it was 80 degrees and absolutely gorgeous yesterday - a great day to work on the edible landscape. Today, it's in the 40s, cloudy and threatening storms. The rest of the weekend we're looking at rain and snow mixed...but hopefully not just snow.

This time of year is tough on a gardener who longs to get outside and plant things, yet knows it's just too early. To plant now is to commit herbicide, so we wait. And we tend to our seedlings started indoors. And we wait. The good news is that we're just a couple weeks away from having to worry about snow for awhile.

This is especially good because I have a couple new beds to put in this year and my Pineapple Tomatillo seeds should arrive any day. I found these in the Cook's Garden catalog and I'm dying to try them out. They're supposed to have a flavor similar to pineapple. This is just one of the many things I'll keep you posted on as my edible landscape comes back to life and is embellished with more delicious plants.

'til later
Happy Gardening!