Author Archive

The War On Front Yard Gardening

Front Yard GardenThe press is fascinated with stories about communities that go after front yard gardeners. Some areas have covenants or (worse) laws making gardening in one’s front yard a no-no. These often are affluent enclaves where investment-minded owners are nervous about protecting their property values. But not all. Sometimes regular communities, in a freedom-quashing pursuit of conformity, will take up the cause; as if front yard gardens might hurt the price of real estate.

The most recent article is this long look from The New York Times. Time magazine got in on the action last year. According to them, it’s all about “meddling local officials gone off the deep end” and the relative value of all that, care-intensive grass (vs. something you can eat) grown for the questionable purpose of keeping up appearances.

Of course, this isn’t an issue in every community. While living long ago in anything-goes Venice, California, we grew tomatoes, peppers, basil and squash in hardly-raised beds as well as lettuce and other greens along the path that led to our front door. This was on a walk street, a lane where the houses didn’t face a street but only a sidewalk, and we weren’t the only ones growing vegetables out our front door. (more…)

January 8th, 2013 2 comments

Last Minute Local Shopping

Bozeman, MontanaOnce again your friendly but prone-to-procrastination Planet Natural Blogger has left his holiday shopping until the last weekend. This is not the overwhelming problem for us last-minute shoppers that it appears to be. There’s an easy solution. Shop local! Your locally-based retailers probably have just the thing to delight those on you gift list. In fact, when you’re looking for unique, thoughtful gifts that show you had the recipient in mind — as well as in your heart — local business often have that one-of-a-kind item that stand apart from the same ol’, same thing that everyone is buying at the big box store. Better yet! It may have been produced locally, too!

Now, we’ve written on the advantages of shopping locally before. But all the pluses — supporting the local economy and your neighbors who work at locally-owned business (ie, profits stay in town rather than being shipped to Arkansas or some place) — are magnified this time of year. Especially this time of year, it’s great to shop in a cozy place with helpful, present-and-available clerks who have the time to help and make suggestions. Considering the size of your town, you might even know these people. In our humble estimation, that’s what makes a great shopping experience. (more…)

December 19th, 2012 No comments

Poinsettias Past Christmas

Christmas PoinsettiaWho hasn’t received a velvety, red-leafed poinsettia as a gift or purchased one or more for their home during the holiday season? And how many of those poinsettias survive the year to flower again next holiday season? Hmmm…

Long ago and far away when I was a school teacher, I was given a beautiful poinsettia by one of my darling, young students. It had obvious problems, planted in a small plastic pot filled with a dry concoction dominated by Styrofoam chips. Obviously, its grower didn’t intend for it to last into the new year. Ignorant of growing poinsettias but generally knowledgeable about what plants needed, we repotted it on the solstice, thereby saving the plant but loosing its blossoms.

With its rootball in a big new home filled with nourishing, compost-laden soil mix, our poinsettia thrived, though it never again blossomed. It seemed to grow best during fall and winter and over the years became something of a twisted bonsai with its circling branches decorated with spare green leaves. (more…)

December 17th, 2012 No comments

The Many Benefits of Kale

KaleOkay, beets may have won the “Vegetable of the Year” honor in 2012 — at least, in Duluth — but in our book, er, garden journal, the benefits of kale make it the repeat winner. Why? It’s one of the easiest vegetables to grow and it’s packed with nutrition. We stir-fry it with pancetta to make a fancy pasta, with bacon when we’re not being so fancy, and with grated cheese (and sometimes an egg) when we’re cooking vegetarian. But we like it best simple, lightly steamed and drizzled with a little olive oil or lemon juice.

We’ve grown kale in various seasons and places: near the cold Pacific on the wet and cloudy Olympic Peninsula where harvests came year-round with the help of a cold frame, in the middle of winter near the beach in Southern California (no cold frame required), and summers in Montana where we were able to pick it early in spring from well-mulched plants held over from the previous season as well as late (late!)  into December with the help of a little plastic and — sometimes — a snow shovel. With kale, it seems the more difficult the growing conditions, the better it tastes. (more…)

December 14th, 2012 No comments

Phosphorus Apocalypse

Phosphorus MineWorried that we’re facing the end of the world on December 21st as supposedly predicted by the Mayan Calendar and supported by mass marketers of survival gear?  Your timid and easily-frightened Planet Natural Blogger says don’t bother. We have bigger, more reality-based problems to face. Of course, I’m talking about the exhaustion of the world’s supply of phosphorous fertilizer.

Every gardener worth her or his compost knows what phosphorus is. It’s the “P” in the N-P-K ratio. Plants need phosphorus for photosynthesis. It helps plants develop strong root systems, increases resistance and helps plants utilize CO2. It stimulates growth in the first part of a plants life and helps increase yields in their last stage. Its use over the last century is credited with fueling the so-called “green” revolution, the ability of commercial farming to feed the world’s exploding population. It’s also important to humans, necessary for respiration, metabolism and building strong bones. We get phosphorus from the fruits and vegetables we eat. (more…)

December 12th, 2012 One comment

Plant A Live Christmas Tree

Christmas TreeWhat’s not to like about a live Christmas tree? After serving as the center of holiday celebrations, they come to anchor family memories in an honored place in your yard. They’re less a fire hazard when inside the home and once out they provide all the beauty and CO2 reducing benefits, no matter how tiny, to the environment. Planting a living tree, the one your kids were around when they opened their gifts, is a great family activity.

But how many times have you heard this? “We bought a living tree for the holidays but it died after we planted it.” Otherwise successful arborists find getting a living Christmas tree to take a risky proposition. Why? The planting of living Christmas trees happen under two special circumstances. The trees spend a period of time indoors under warm conditions that replicate spring thaw. This signals the tree — prematurely — that it’s time to start the growing season. The second circumstance is winter planting. The middle of winter isn’t the ideal time for putting trees in the ground.

Having a living tree in your home surrounded by presents on Christmas morning and then having it transferred to an honored place in your landscape — for years! — is not an impossibility. But it does take extra special care. Basically, after buying the tree, you store it cold, recreate the conditions of a short winter thaw when you bring it inside, then recondition it to cold and outdoor planting. The other problem is digging the hole. If the ground is solidly frozen, well, even your ice fishing auger won’t be much help. (more…)

December 10th, 2012 3 comments

December Gardening Tasks

Winter SeasonWhat chores are gardening blogs suggesting for December? Here’s an extension service that recommends knocking the snow off your low-growing evergreen shrubs. Really? I’ve lived in some places where that would be an endless task — not to mention unnecessary.  If you live in the mountainous West, or along the Canadian border, or where the lake effect really has an effect you probably just consider any snow damage your evergreens suffer “natural pruning.” That same web site suggests — tell this to your kids — you “minimize traffic on frozen lawn to prevent damage,” unless of course, it’s packed with snow. Then you can park your car on it (just kidding… actually foot traffic on frozen, and we mean hard-frozen, grass will damage it.). Another website suggests you spend December concentrating on you houseplants. Sure, this is a good time of year to give them a leaf cleaning and to make sure they don’t dry out in the low-humidity of furnace heat. But let’s face it. You have houseplants? You’re caring for them all year long. Another blog suggests now’s the time to start saving kitty litter. We won’t even supply the link to that one. But remember that safely composting your pet’s waste requires temperatures higher than the home compost bin or heap achieve. (more…)

December 7th, 2012 One comment

Cooking With Heirlooms

Baker Creek HeirloomsAsked why he loves gardening, your friendly Planet Natural Blogger always tried to come up with something profound, poetic, and meaningful. That’s all well and good, but the get-to-it truth is simple: he likes to eat. The act of gardening has its material and spiritual rewards but taking the harvest in to the kitchen and breaking out the knives, the cooking oils, and the cast iron is where it’s at. Planting that first seed in the spring (or before) is aimed at one future reward: forking up something delicious.

That’s why we’ve always enjoyed those “kitchen-garden” category cookbooks, the ones that relate growing your own food to preparing it for the table. Jere and Emilee Gettle’s The Baker Creek Vegan Cookbook: Traditional Ways to Cook, Preserve, and Eat the Harvest is focused on cooking with heirlooms that are snipped, picked, or dug up from your own garden.

The Gettle’s are the masterminds behind the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company, a growing organization that champions heirloom gardening from a down-home, old-timey perspective. Their previous book, The Heirloom Life Gardener, was a compendium of heirloom vegetables and how to grow them. The new book delivers delicious-sounding ways to serve up the harvest (or what’s been foraged from the natural landscape) to your friends and family. (more…)

December 5th, 2012 No comments

Mighty Mycorrhiza

Mycorrhizal FungiOne of the great things about gardening — in addition to creating beautiful landscapes and delicious, healthy food — is its educational opportunities. Your friendly Planet Natural blogger has gardened on and off since my childhood some (garbled) years ago and I learn something new almost every time I pick up a how-to book, talk to a companion gardener, or get my hands in the dirt. Best are the things that I once knew nothing about and, as I explore them further, result in deepening levels of understanding and wonder. Current example? Mycorrhiza.

Mycorrhizal fungi are beneficial soil organisms that attach themselves to the roots of plants — almost 95% of the world’s growing things have a symbiotic reationship with mycorrhiza  –  and help them facilitate the uptake of water and nutrients. I first came aware of mycorrhizal fungi when pursuing hydroponic gardening a few years back. Hydroponic gardeners add mycorrhizal fungi innoculants to their growing solutions to encourage quick and vibrant growth. Some soil boosters also contain them. That’s good as far as it goes. (more…)

December 3rd, 2012 No comments

Tool Time: Caring for Garden Tools

Heirloom Garden ToolsWe’re a little lost this time of year when it comes to gardening. Sure there’s plenty else to do and our indoor plants provide just enough green contact to keep us in touch with growing things. But looking out over a mulch or snow-covered garden gets us a bit anxious to get outside and start gardening again. What to do in the meantime?

Take care of our garden tools. Grandma’s maxim — “It’s not what you have but how you take care of what you have” — applies to garden tools, especially the ones we inherited from her. How did they last that long? See Grandma’s maxim.

By now, of course, you’ve drained the hoses and brought them inside for winter storage, unless your climate is such that you are able to water all year ’round. But have you taken a wire brush to your shovel, turning fork, and hoe to clean away all traces of dirt and rust? Have you taken special care to clean debris away from where the head of the tool meets the handle to avoid hidden rot and decay? Did you treat those wooden handles with linseed oil to assure that they won’t turn brittle and crack… or worse? (more…)

November 28th, 2012 No comments
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