divaqs's Blog
divaqs's April 2007 Entries
Last Post 312 days, 17 hours Ago
Apr 30, 2007 | 3:39 PM PST
Tags: Asparagus , Jersey Knight , Jersey Supreme , Purple Passion
I happen to live in the state that grows the 2nd largest amount of asparagus in the U.S. So, I figured my climate would be an excellent place to grow asparagus. Personally, I find asparagus to be one of my favorite vegetables. So I wanted to make sure I had plenty of it growing in my garden.
I had a nice southern facing hill with great sun exposure that I terraced, which had an ugly rotten fence at the top. My neighbor insisted that it was their fence and they didn’t need my help replacing it or fixing it. So, I decided to hide it much of the year by growing asparagus plants in front.
I first prepared the area by clearing the planting area and digging down into the clay and rocky soil. I knew that asparagus are heavy feeders, so I laid down a layer of rich compost that I then planted about 25 Jersey Knight and 25 Jersey Supreme asparagus crowns in. A crown is a clump of asparagus roots from a single plant. I then put another 6-8 inches of compost and rich garden soil on top of that. I wanted the roots to have lots of area to spread up to, so the plants would later produce a good amount of top growth.
I chose the Jersey varieties mainly for their reputation of being disease resistant and being suitable for my region. I would hate to spend years getting a good asparagus patch going, only to watch it die away due to disease. These varieties also have the reputation of being all or mostly male plants, but I am not really sure what that implies. Do you?
When I planted the crowns, I spaced them about 12 inches from each other and was careful to spread the roots out from the crown. Then as the shoots grew that first year, I piled a couple more inches of compost up around them, never completely covering them, thereby encouraging even more root growth.
I must have done something right, since the following spring after I planted, the asparagus shoots/spears were coming up as thick as a quarter. 
In the picture you can see the asparagus plants I didn’t harvest this spring beginning to open up to their natural fern like form. They get about 5 feet tall and form a nice screen of delicate ferns.
Each crown sends up multiple shoots, which fill in more and more during the spring and summer. I tend to let some grow to full size, while still harvesting some of the later shoots.
In the winter, the asparagus ferns die back and can be removed, which I usually do since dead asparagus ferns aren’t particularly nice to look at.
In my area, asparagus can be harvested from April until June. I find that even the thick shoots have a nice crispness to them, unless they are allowed to grow more than a foot or so tall, at which time they start getting woodier. I find the taste and texture so pleasant that sometimes I will snap off a spear and eat it right in the garden. Hopefully my kids don’t learn this or my asparagus patch could be in jeopardy. When harvesting, you need to keep an eye on how thick the new shoots are that are growing, since it takes energy away from the plant each time you cut the shoots. A rule of thumb I use is that if a new shoot is smaller than the width of a pencil, then the plant as a whole needs time to gather more energy and be left alone.
I discovered in my ongoing reading on asparagus that a purple variety of asparagus has a reputation of being even tastier. I thought it would be kind of fun to have a purple fern plant in my yard. I already had an actively producing patch of green asparagus, so I decided to go with the slower route of growing asparagus from seed. Last year, on the next terraced rows down from my existing asparagus I planted about 50 purple passion asparagus plants. 
They still aren’t much to look at, but I am happy to see them growing this spring after surviving the winter. I probably have at least a couple more years before I can harvest any of these.
In long-term care, I top dress my asparagus beds with compost every year or two and weed the areas. Due to the elevated location that I planted in, I don’t see many weeds in the garden bed, so it has been fairly low maintenance. Currently, my biggest concern is my dog running through the asparagus and breaking off the spears. I had to put up some barriers to discourage her from doing that, but once the stalks become woodier, I will take the barriers down.
In landscaping, asparagus makes for a nice backdrop plant. You might want some sort of supporting structure or plant in front of it, since the ferns can droop with time.
My favorite way to prepare asparagus is to stir fry it with a little bit of soy sauce and Worchester sauce. My kids rave about it and look forward to me cooking it. I am really glad they like it, since asparagus is definitely something healthy for them to eat.
Asparagus is a rich source of vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, iron and protein. Asparagus is also packed in the naturally occurring phytochemicals of glutathione (anti-carcinogen and antioxidant), rutin, and folic acid. Rutin has been shown to be vital in its ability to increase the strength of capillaries and regulate their permeability.
Apr 29, 2007 | 9:07 PM PST
Tags: bamboo , sweetshoot , Phyllostachys Dulcis , edible
I had an area in my yard in which seemed really exposed to the view of my neighbors, not that I try to hide anything, but it is sometimes nice to have some privacy. So, some sort of privacy screen or fence made sense. I decided that a grove of bamboo would be a good option, since it would make a natural privacy screen.
As an edible landscaper, I am always asking myself, how edible is it? Most bamboo has edible shoots, which are used in Asian cooking. There are some kinds of bamboo that are considered the better tasting ones, including, but not limited to:
Phyllostachys nidularia 'Smoothsheath'
Phyllostachys flexuosa
Phyllostachys nuda
Phyllostachys vivax (vivier's bamboo)
Phyllostachys Dulcis (sweetshoot)
After doing more reading and talking with a couple of experts at bamboo nurseries, I settled on the sweetshoot variety, since it was reported to be the absolute best tasting. It is also reputed as being among the most beautiful, with its masses of large drooping leaves, thick culms and a white ring at each node. It is very quick growing and gets very thick for its height, up to 3 inches in diameter at 30 feet in height. It is hardy to minus 10 F. Plus, like all true bamboo, is evergreen.
My next problem was that the area that made sense to put the bamboo as a privacy screen was like a swamp. You couldn’t walk through that area without sinking about five inches into mud.
I resolved the swamp problem, plus the problem of how to contain the bamboo, by digging a three foot deep trench around the area I wanted the bamboo to grow. I put in drain pipe in the bottom of the trench and a thick bamboo root barrier. This was a real challenge, since the trench walls kept collapsing due to the swampiness of the area, but I persisted and after about nine hours of exhausting work, finally got everything in place. Within weeks, the swamp dried up.
The bamboo root barrier is really important, since bamboo can take over whole areas and be very difficult to remove once it is established. I really doubt my neighbor would like a grove of bamboo taking over his yard. To keep it under control, I’ve seen many people grow it in large pots, though that wouldn’t have been enough bamboo to fulfill what I was envisioning. So, I opted for a ¼ inch thick root barrier that was three feet tall. I then used wood and screws to join the two ends of the root barrier, in an attempt to eliminate the possibility of the roots being able to push through. I also left a little bit of the barrier above ground, since I've heard reports of roots sometimes getting over the top of root barriers.
I planted five culms of Phyllostachys Dulcis, spaced about 3 feet from each other, figuring that they would fill in between each other in something like 5 to 10 years.
That was 2 years ago.
Here is a current picture; 
In the picture you can see the bamboo in-between the black fence that separates my yard from my neighbor's yard and a gazebo in my yard.
I’ve heard that the first couple of years you shouldn’t expect much growth from Bamboo, but that by the third year you will see a leap of growth. Each year of the first two years my plants seemed to double in size, both in number of canes and in the height of those canes. This is the year I am expecting to really see something happen and have the chance to cut my first bamboo shoot and get a sense of what it tastes like. Young shoots are harvested, for eating, in spring before they exceed 12 inches tall, ideally just as they are about to pop above the ground.
I am also really looking forward to starting to be able to use my own bamboo canes in my garden. I think they add a really nice natural look to things made out of them, like trellises, garden towers, barriers, and more. However, this is still a ways out for me, since my grove hasn’t started yet growing canes to anything near their full size, and after that, canes take several years for the wood to achieve maximum hardness and durability.
Apr 27, 2007 | 6:37 PM PST
Tags: Marjoram , Variegated , herb
I love herbs that are both interesting to look at and good in cooking. One of my herbs like this is variegated marjoram. Most of the time with herbs you seem to get a trade-off of flavor and culinary use for visual appeal, but I haven’t found that to be case with variegated marjoram.
Marjoram is in the same family as oregano, but has its own kind of sweet and spicy flavor that is different then oregano. It is easy to grow, well-suited to containers, and very useful in the kitchen. Because its leaves are very flavorful, a few leaves go a long way.
In my location in the Pacific Northwest, my variegated marjoram is an evergreen perennial that adds a nice year round aesthetic appeal to my herb garden.
If you live in a region colder than USDA zone 9, you should probably grow marjoram in a container. That way, when the weather is mild, you can keep the plant(s) on a sunny terrace or deck. Then when temperatures get down close to freezing, you can move them to somewhere warmer. One idea is to grow it at the base of a planted bush or tree that you are already moving inside or outside, with the changing season.
In an edible landscape, I think it can be used as a nice ground cover or base level plant, so long as it can get a decent amount of light. It would probably look really good in a rock garden.
My favorite use of this herb is as putting a dash of it in omelets. I’ve heard that marjoram is suitable for all meats, fish and poultry. And can be used in egg dishes, soups, stews, potatoes, squash, marinades and in salads. I am planning on expanding my repertoire of its use in my kitchen.
I’d love to hear any ways that you like to use marjoram.
Apr 26, 2007 | 9:55 AM PST
Tags: Strawberries , garden rock , retaining walls , corsican mint , thyme
I can’t speak for other places, but in the Seattle area it is common to see a lot of retaining walls built from large basalt or granite garden rocks stacked to form walls. When visiting Japan more than a decade ago, I saw some of these same garden rock walls, but they had been designed with a wonderful selection of plants growing out of them, which turned them into a beautiful extension of the landscape, rather than a purely plain and functional aspect.
When I bought my house, I discovered that the previous owners had scattered a couple of dump truck loads of large garden rocks all over the yard, in a seemingly random pattern. I spent a couple of years moving them to form retaining walls or rock stairways. It was great exercise and kind of fun moving all those 1 to 3 man size boulders around by hand.
While I had been building the rock walls, I realized that I wanted to beautify them like I had seen done in Japan, and definitely didn’t want the great southern light exposure to go to waste. So I backfilled the rocks with good garden soil and began planting strawberries and herbs in all the nooks and crannies that I could.
While this helped limit the expansion of strawberry plants, it presented extra challenges on them getting enough water, since water tended to drain down the backside of the rocks and sometimes miss the strawberries. I experimented with different soils and had the greatest success with a richer compost based soil, since it can retain water better. I also experimented with trying to form cupping shapes around the base of the plants with compacted compost, in order to catch and hold on to the water longer, which also seemed to help. The first year was the hardest and some planting years I seemed to lose about half of my new strawberry plants, but once they get a good root system, the strawberries seemed to do okay.
While the rockery does limit the strawberries aggressive expansion, it doesn’t completely stop it. Every spring I do need to still remove or move strawberry plants that spread into the bordering planting areas before planting in them. Without the natural control of the rockery, it would be much worse.
In this below picture you can see an example of the spread of strawberries into my planting area.
While cleaning up the bordering planting areas is when I usually move strawberries to new places among the rocks, or replace ones that died or are struggling.
I don’t just have strawberries growing in rocks, but also have a variety of herbs intermingled as well, such as Corsican mint and Creeping Thyme.
I am planning on expanding to including more edible plants intermingled among the rocks, but am planning on strawberries being the foundational plant in the design.
Apr 24, 2007 | 10:12 PM PST
Tags: strawberry , alpine strawberry , musk strawberries , Strawberries , landscaping , groundcover , edging , alpine strawberries
There is hardly anything to me that can beat the incredibly wonderful flavor of a sweet ripe strawberry that has been ripened fresh on the plant. While store bought strawberries are good, they just can’t match the sweetness and flavor of a strawberry grown and ripened right on the plant. Strawberries are definitely one of my most favorite of berries. So, I knew I needed to include them in my edible landscaping. The problem is that most of the strawberry plants you find are June bearing or everbearing varieties that require full sun and quickly spread in a seasons time via runners to consume all the space they can. That isn’t exactly something you would use in your typical yard landscape.
However, there are a couple of other options, namely musk (Fragaria moschata) or alpine (Fragaria vesca) strawberries . Both types can still produce incredibly flavored berries in partial sun settings, meaning they can be grown as ground covers under larger plants. While the berries are smaller in size, they have an even stronger strawberry flavor. It is as if all that flavor and sweetness of a larger berry was compacted into a smaller size. Some alpine strawberries are grown commercially for gourmet cooking. Musk strawberries spread by runners, just like their cousins you find at most nurseries, but the alpine strawberries spread by slow expansion of roots or by seeds. I’ve tried both musk and alpine and by far prefer the alpine strawberries for landscaping.
Since Alpine strawberries don’t send out runners, you can use them as edging plants, groundcovers, and so on, without worrying about them taking over and spreading into unwanted areas.
My alpine strawberries plants have been able to grow lots and lots of berries in almost full shade, with their berry producing season starting as early as May and ending as late as December. They've even been nicknamed by some as the "perpetual strawberry". Out of the 5 different kinds of strawberries I grow, my alpines beat all the others in overall berry production. I’ve found myself growing tired of picking strawberries every few days for months of time. Though, be warned, the berries are smaller, so it will take more if considering volume.
I prefer using my alpine strawberries as flavoring in things like strawberry shakes, strawberry-rhubarb pie or cobbler, or part of a berry jam. Since the flavor is stronger it takes less berries to have a good strawberry flavor. I've found that I like to wait until the berries are soft to the touch and at their maximum sweetness before picking them and either using them in some fruity wonder, or freezing them for later use.
I am really excited; since it looks like I will start getting alpine strawberries in something like a couple of weeks. My plants are loaded with blossoms and I can see berries already forming.
I’m growing both the red and white/yellow variety of alpine strawberries. I prefer the red, since I’ve found it more difficult to tell when the white/yellow variety is ripe. The white/yellow variety has a slightly sweeter almost pineapple-ish flavor to it. If you have a problem with birds eating your strawberries, you might find better luck with the white/yellow variety, since I’ve heard that birds tend to leave it alone.
Alpine strawberry plants are very hardy. The plants like humus-rich, acid soil in a sheltered site in sun or partial shade. They are hardy to zone 4. If you want more, simply divide one of the plants and plant the divisions in the locations you would like them. You will find that if you miss picking some berries that little strawberry seedlings will grow where the berries fell the following spring. It is not difficult to grow alpine strawberries from seed if you remember to freeze the seed for 3 to 4 weeks before sowing.
The alpine strawberry plant is sometimes used as an herbal medicine, via an herbal tea made from the leaves, stems, and/or flowers, which is believed to aid in the treatment of diarrhea. I haven't tried this myself, but might try experimenting with it in the future.
Apr 23, 2007 | 4:04 PM PST
Tags: watercress , water plant , edible , creek , spring , water garden
I have a spring that starts in my next door neighbor’s yard, forms a little creek in my yard, before flowing in to and out of a pond.
Here is a picture of the top part of my creek, which has filled with watercress, below the ostrich ferns.
I planted watercress by seed in my creek a couple of years ago. I believe seed is the easiest way to plant it, due to the fragility of the plants. Since I planted it, it has been growing to such an extent that in the spring and fall time it can go from a little plant to filling my creek in about a month’s time. During the summer it seems to slowdown in growth. I have had to be pretty aggressive in controlling it, which has been easy since the plants are not deeply rooted and kind of float on the shallow water.
Watercress has a kind of mild peppery flavor to it. My primary use has been as a substitute for lettuce on sandwiches, which is pretty good. I tried adding it to stir fry, which I heard is done in China, but it didn't pass my kids taste test, so I doubt I will do that again.
Wikipedia claims that:
"Watercress contains significant amounts of iron, calcium and folic acid, in addition to vitamins A and C....Many benefits from eating watercress are claimed, such as that it acts as a mild stimulant, a source of phytochemicals and antioxidants, a diuretic, an expectorant, and a digestive aid. It also appears to have cancer-suppressing properties." Wikipedia also warns to not harvest it around farm animals, due to possible contamination from parasites, of course, this should apply to any vegetable or salad green harvested and used in its raw form.
I am looking for more great uses of this prolific plant and would love any suggestions.
Apr 22, 2007 | 6:47 PM PST
Tags: tulip , disease , bloom
My tulips are starting to bloom, though they seem to be sickly
On about a third of them, the flowers are shorter and the leaves are kind of wilted and burned looking.
Is anyone familiar with a disease or pest that could cause something like this?
These are my kids favorite edible flower and I would hate to lose them.
Apr 20, 2007 | 6:14 PM PST
Tags: Rhubarb , Spring , Flower Garden
One of the first things to grow in my yard in spring is Rhubarb.
I have it planted in the front yard, intermingled among all my edible flowers, like saffron, Echinacea, and more. Even before my flowers are appearing, my rhubarb is in full swing.
In this picture, we have already made 2 pies and some cobbler using rhubarb from this 2 year old plant, and yet it still has quite a presence.
I've been told that the rhubarb with the more green stalks, like I have, is more aggressive in its growth then the red stalked varieties, and I've heard that the flavor is better in the varieties with the red stalks. Personally I have been satisfied with the flavor of the more green stalked variety and like the aggressive growth.
My kids are sometimes apt to cut-off a stalk and dip it in sugar as an after school snack. It is one of the many things I find them grazing on in my edible yard.
I am pleased with the visual appeal of rhubarb as a plant, with its large leaves, which is one of the reasons I planted it among my flowers in the front yard. The red stalked variety would probably be more visually appealing, with its flare of color beyond green.
Apr 19, 2007 | 8:27 AM PST
Tags: onions , compantion planting , treated wood , slugs , winter garden
I've been working on creating a permanent onion patch, with the idea of the patch getting large enough that I can rely on it for all my onion needs.
Last spring I ordered and planted yellow multiplier onions, described as;
"These winter-hardy bulbs have yellow skins and white flesh tinged with purple. With proper nutrition and good conditions, you can expect a cluster of 10-12 or more mild and sweet-flavored bulbs to form from a single bulb. Multiplier onions keep for 8-12 months in good storage conditions. Plants can be used as green bunching onions if pulled in the spring."
I wasn't sure how to incorporate this into a landscape design, so I started it in a 4 foot by 8 foot garden box I built a couple of years ago.
In the above picture, you are seeing the remnants of the salad greens I over-wintered, intermingled with onions. I have a lot of miner's lettuce seedlings, which are volunteer seedlings from my experiment in trying it out last year and it re-seeding itself.
I found the flavor of miner's lettuce to be pretty uninspiring, so I will probably only let one or two of the seedlings reach full size, which can be a few feet in height.
The onions definitely multiplied, forming bunches of onions, which I spread out more evenly in the garden box during February, with the exception of one large bunch I left in the middle to see how it would fare. I figure that by next year I will have reached the point of having so many onions that I won't have to worry about running out if I use them in an unrestrained manner in my cooking.
The onions are smaller in size then the typical walla walla size onions I see in the store, so it might take more to cook with. I probably won't need a lot, since I use chives from my yard as well, as an onion substitute.
Once I get a feel for how they would look in a landscape setting, I might try intermingling some in other parts of my yard and herb beds.
I used pressure treated wood for the planter box, after I did some research to verify that the chemical treatment had been changed from the previous cancer causing compounds that include chromium and arsenic, to one based on copper. The EPA did a bunch of research on the treatment process, which prompted the change. Copper has a nice side affect of discouraging slugs, since it reacts in a way with their slime, which they seem to avoid. I haven't seen many slugs getting into this garden bed, which is a nice side benefit, and one of the reasons I have salad greens companion planted with the onions.
For most of my garden I try to use companion planting, since it seems to decrease problems with pests and disease, but for an edible landscaper like me, more importantly adds more visual appeal. I worry less about visual appeal in my garden boxes, but still try to use some of the concepts. Onions can be a great companion plant since many pests avoid them.
Apr 18, 2007 | 4:38 PM PST
Tags: rosemary , herb , fresh
My Rosemary, in my herb garden is in bloom.
I thought it was kind of pretty, so I took a picture. Though I don't think the picture does it justice. Hopefully I am a better gardener then photographer.
I've been cooking more with fresh Rosemary, which has been really fun. I've found that I like it mixed in with rice, which I do so by removing the leaves from the stalk, cutting them up into smaller pieces, and cooking them right in with the rice as it cooks. My kids and relatives seem to really like it on chicken and roasts. I'm vegetarian, so I take their word for it when it comes to the roasts.
The combination of blossoms and leaves would probably be really pretty in a flower arrangement if combined with some other flowers.
As a landscape plant, I like that Rosemary is an evergreen. It has been a really low-care plant for me, other then having to cut it back some every few years so it doesn't get too big.
Apr 17, 2007 | 9:10 AM PST
Tags: SalmonBerry , native , edible
This time of year brings back memories for me of eating bear candy as a kid with my Dad. I've passed on the tradition to my own kids as well, and this is one of the first things I sometimes see them "grazing" on in my yard in the spring.
Here in the Pacific Northwest we have a native berry bush called Salmonberries, which is related to raspberries and blackberries.
During the spring, these Salmonberry bushes blossom and put up new shoots. The shoots, when about a foot or so tall can be broken or cut-off off at the ground, the skin peeled off, and the tender stalk eaten. The flavor of the stalks, commonly called bear candy, can range between tart (when more firm) to somewhat sweet (when more tender).
The berries are some of the first berries to be available of the season. The flavor is mild, but if the berries are allowed to ripen from a yellow to a red color, can be fairly sweet.
As a landscape plant, they do well in shady areas, which is hard to find for other kinds of berry bushes. They prefer moist areas and can form a thicket of upright shrubs.
Apr 16, 2007 | 8:55 AM PST
Tags: fruit , plums , pear , flowers , apple
I just love spring. I really know it is spring when my fruit trees become covered in showy displays of blossoms. In my yard I have a spring time succession of blossoms that cover my fruit trees. First with the plums, then pears, then cherry trees, and apple trees.
My plum trees are often so covered in blossoms that they are really a sight to see.
Here is one of my cherry trees in bloom that I took a picture of yesterday.
My apple trees are not as showy, but they too are lovely
If you look carefully, you will probably notice that my fruit trees don't look that pruned. The reason being that I usually prune my fruit trees in the summer's dry season, which tends to have more of a dwarfing affect on the trees.
I am looking forward to seeing the spring time blossoms of my pear trees, asian pear trees, asian persimmon tree, and peach trees, but sadly they are still too young to put on much of a show.
For me, I see so much more beauty in a real fruit bearing tree then an ornamental tree, since I see real beauty not only in the spring time flowers but also in the wonderful color of the fruit in the fall. Maybe it is a guy thing, but I also see a whole lot more value in something that has a productive use, such as bearing fruit, then something that is all show.
I know that many people are worried about extra maintenance of fruit trees, in particular having to spray them for fungus, viruses, or bugs. My solution has been to focus on disease resistent varieties, so spraying isn't needed.
Apr 15, 2007 | 3:12 PM PST
Tags: Ostrich Fern , edible , preservation , canning , fern
I like ferns. I think they add a nice softening affect to landscapes. With my eccentric vision of only having edible plants in my tended yard, I worried that I would have to do without any ferns, that is, until I learned that Ostrich ferns are edible.
During April and May, Ostrich ferns grow new fronds, which as the frond uncurl form a shape kind of like a fiddle. Cut the tender little rolls of fern almost as soon as they appear within a couple of inches of the ground. Carefully brush out and remove the brown scales. Wash and cook the “heads” in a small amount of lightly salted boiling water for ten minutes, or steam for 20 minutes. Serve at once, the quicker they are eaten, the more delicate their flavor.
A couple of years ago, in my exuberance of discovering an edible fern, I went to a nursery and bought one. Only to then discover that I already had more than 20 large plants of them growing all over my yard. In fact I was surprised to learn that they grow all over the northern hemisphere of North America, Northern Europe, and Northern Asia. I've been told by one of my Korean co-workers that in Korea they are considered something of a delicacy. I've also heard that they are considered a delicacy in the U.S. Northeast and can be seen on the menus of some really nice restaurants. Ostrich Fern fiddleheads are the Vermont State vegetable.
Here is a picture I took today of an Ostrich fern in my yard
In the picture, note the fronds that look like they are uncurling at the top. These are the ones you want to harvest before they exceed something like a foot in height. Like asparagus, you don't want to over harvest or you will damage the plant so much that later years will have less or no fronds. This particular plant I harvested a handful of fronds from last week, though you can't really tell.
There are at least 3 look-alike varieties that have cancer-causing chemicals in them and are not recommended for consumption, so you need to be careful when identifying them to make sure you get the right ones.
Characteristics of Ostrich Ferns are:
- It grows from a completely vertical crown, favoring riverbanks and sandbars, but sends out lateral stolons to form new crowns.
(Grows in a clump, often in wet areas) - The fronds are dimorphic, with the deciduous (die back in winter) green sterile fronds being almost vertical, 100-170 cm tall and 20-35 cm broad, long-tapering to the base but short-tapering to the tip, so that they resemble ostrich plumes, hence the name. The fertile fronds are shorter, 40-60 cm long, brown when ripe, with highly modified and constricted leaf tissue curled over the sporangia; they develop in autumn, persist erect over the winter and release the spores in early spring.
(In the fall they grow some brown fronds, but are green in spring and summer. In winter the fronds die back, and then grow back in spring.) - IMPORTANT: There is a groove that goes down the middle of the stem of the frond
As a landscape plant, they do well in moist or boggy areas and seem to do well in partial shade. Their root balls can form dense colonies resistant to destruction by floodwaters. I find the ostrich ferns to be a bit more delicate then most other varieties of fern that grow wild in my yard, in that the stalks tend to break much more easily, so I wouldn't recommend putting them in high traffic areas.
I've personally found the cooked stalks to be somewhat bland in taste, but that was due to how I've attempted to prepare them before now. The stalks might be good with a sauce, but they are not the thing to eat, but rather the actual fiddlehead. I had been trying to eat the stalks and not the fiddleheads. I guess if I had ever lived on the east coast, where these are a delicacy, I would have known that. The fiddleheads may be served, like asparagus, on toast. Cooked, chilled fiddleheads can be also served as a salad with an onion and vinegar dressing.
To freeze fiddleheads, blanch a small amount at a time for two minutes. Cool and drain. Pack into moisture- and vapor-proof containers and store them in the freezer. Fiddleheads can also be pickled and canned.
Back in the 1990's a few people got sick on the east coast after eating ostrich fiddleheads that had been "under-cooked" in restaurants, so a recommendation was created that you need to boil them for at least 10 minutes. Personally, my suspicion is that they had been served look-alike ferns (i.e. cinnamon fern), since people have been eating these all over the world for a long time.
Apr 14, 2007 | 10:32 PM PST
Tags: blueberries , hedge , blueberry , evergreen , landscaping
It always surprises me when people assume edibles can't be attractively organized.
Oftentimes making edibles attractive is simply a matter of using the same principles in design with them as is done with ornamentals. An example of this are my evergreen blueberry hedges that line my drive way.
One of my very first projects after moving into my house a little more then three years ago was to rip out the horribly overgrown Junipers and replace them with about 20 evergreen blueberry bushes.
Here is a picture of the "ornamental" juniper bushes that used to line my driveway three years ago.
Personally, I thought they were anything but ornamental.
Today I took a photo of one of the hedge rows that now line my driveway.
The blueberry bushes haven't reached full size yet, but are getting close to forming a hedge. The trick to getting them to form a hedge is planting them a little closer together then is recommended. The recommendations are based on optimizing space for maximum berry production, but my experience has been that even with them spaced closer together I get way more blueberries than my family can keep up with.
This time of year the blueberry bushes have a nice splash of extra color while covered with a large amount of pinkish ribbed bell shaped flowers.
The variety of blueberries I planted for hedges were the Evergreen Sunshine Blueberries, described by my favorite nursery, Raintree Nursery, as:
"A unique evergreen selection with attractive year round foliage and hot pink spring flowers. The bush grows 3-4 feet tall and wide, and produces up to ten pounds of delicious, light blue, medium sized berries. They ripen over a very long season, from early August through early September. Hardiness to 0 degrees F, a very low chilling requirement of only 150 chilling hours and a tolerance for higher pH soils makes this a perfect choice for gardeners in the Pacific Northwest, the South or in California."
I like having a good selection of evergreen plants in the front yard, for year round affect. My blueberry hedges are a big part of that. In the fall there is a time that they shed a lot of their leaves, which shocked me the first time I saw it, since I thought they might have a disease, but after two years of observing this, have come to accept it as normal. Even when shedding leaves in the fall they have new leaves growing, so they are never completely bare.
Apr 13, 2007 | 7:56 AM PST
Tags: beans , arbor , edible , landscaping
Sometimes edible landscaping experiments don't work out, and sometimes they do. The fun is in trying something new, which adds an extra layer of excitement to gardening.
A couple of years ago, I tried something new. Something which I was so pleased with, I am planning on trying it again this year. To be specific, I planted runner beans on an arbor in my front yard.
In the picture you will notice that one side of the arbor the beans vines are much more full, while the other side, the vines are a bit more sparse. The difference was in the soil. I tried planting the left side in a rich mixture of compost and the right side in unamended, rocky, and compacted dirt. I was surprised by how well the vines on the right side did, figuring in the bad soil they were planted in.
Runner beans are described in this manner at the seed company, Territorial Seeds, that I purchase my seeds from:
"Phaseolus coccineus: Native to Mexico, runner beans tolerate cool, partially shaded areas better than other beans and make a gorgeous annual landscaping ornamental. For fresh eating pick when the beans are just starting to form in the pod. "
From another source, I learned that runner beans are not self-pollinating and that you need more then one variety for them to produce beans. So, I planted the "Scarlet Emperor" on one side of the arbor and the "Painted Lady" on the other side. 
Both produced a lovely display of flowers, which were followed by a real bounty of beans.
I found the beans to be really tasty and often enjoyed them as a daily snack when I got home from work. My dog and kids had a real fondness for them as well.
The plants are heavy producers. From this single arbor, in spite of everyone snacking on them every day straight off the vines, I still got so many beans that I froze probably half a dozen large freezer bags of them in the pods, cut to about 1 inch lengths, and canned another 20 quarts. It was a challenge to try to keep up with the amount of beans being produced every few days. I discovered that you do not want to let the bean pods get to full development, which can be a foot long in pod size, since the pods get tough and stringy, unless you are planning on shelling the beans and drying them. I think this is definitely an option, since the beans once dried look a lot like a showy dried bean with swirls of red or pink on them. I am planning on exploring this option more this year.
If you are in to edible flowers, like me, you will find that the runner bean flowers have a nice sweet bean taste to them.
Apr 12, 2007 | 8:53 AM PST
Tags: herb , herb garden , double dig , chives , chamomile , sage , rosemary , savory , artichoke , romesary
In much of my garden designs I tend towards a more Asian or Japanesque design, which includes curvy edges, varied plants intermingled among each other, and all held together in a sort of ordered chaos.
An example of this is in my herb beds.
When planting herb beds, you want them close to the house, within an easy distance of the kitchen. I really enjoy being able to walk outside in between stirring something on the stove and grab some chives, rosemary, savory, or other herb that I can include in the meal to zest things up. Fresh herbs are soooo much better than the dried ones often gotten in the store.
I kept my herb beds to a width that I could reach into all parts of it from one edge or another, so nothing more than 6 feet wide. I also wanted the edges to be organic in appearance with no straight edges, so rather than brick or wood, I used cut rock.
I dug out the herb beds to a depth of almost 2 feet and replaced the sandy, rocky, and sometimes clay soil with a special garden soil mixture of compost, sand, and loam. I dug the herb beds to this depth to optimize the growing capacity of the plants I would put there. I have not been disappointed. Everything I have later planted in these beds has done incredibly.
I planted a couple of fruit trees, a dwarf apple and a dwarf Asian pear, in the center of a couple of the garden beds in order to add even more variety.
The first year, my perennial herbs were still really small, so I planted vegetables much more heavily. Since then my herbs have filled out more and more, until I have had to start cutting them back.
There are a few things I did to minimize problems with weeds, which for me is the biggest maintenance problem to be worried about.
- I dug out the paths and put in about 12 inches of wood chips in them. So, there would not be any close weeds to spread seeds into the beds. This had the added advantage of giving me an area between the house and the herb beds that I was able to purposefully raise some Elm Oyster mushrooms in the wood chips, which are very tasty gourmet mushroom.
- Due to the beds being raised, it is harder for weed seeds to blow into them
- By not walking on the raised beds, weed roots don't become compacted, so weeds are much easier to pull out
Here is a later picture with some of the bounty of my herb beds the second year.
The woodchips need to be added to every year in the paths, especially if you have mushrooms planted in them, like I do.
I have things like artichokes, chives, chamomile, edamame beans, runner beans, sage, lettuce, carrots, savory, rosemary, radishes, and more all interwoven together.
This year, I plan on adding another level of cut rock and cementing them in to place.
Apr 11, 2007 | 10:42 AM PST
Tags: Kiwi , pergola , arbor , arctic beauty kiwi , hardy kiwi , landscaping , edible
When I set out on a landscaping project I have 3 objectives:
- It must incorporate edible plants
- It must be attractive
- It needs to be low maintenance
An example of this is when I turned an ugly side yard filled with scrubby patches of grass and weeds, and nasty Juniper bushes, into a nice gravel pathway through a series of arbors hooked together to make a pergola. I then planted Hardy Kiwi and Arctic Beauty Kiwi at the base of the arbors.
I planted Kiwi of these varieties due to their lower light requirements, which is perfect for my side yard. I put the arctic beauty kiwi to the front, where it will be visible from the road with its nice variagated foliage, and where it will be in the area of less light, which it prefers. When planting kiwi, be sure to get at least one male vine, for up to 8 female (fruit baring) vines. In this project I did 1 male to 2 female vines.
I used gravel on top of a weed barrier for ground cover since it will be a lot lower maintenance then the previous scrubby grass and weeds. I used two different kinds of gravel to give a more visually pleasing affect. And I rooted the arbors in concrete footings, since Kiwi can put a lot of stress on structures. I also connected the arbors together with metal fittings, to increase their combined strength.
As the Kiwi vines grow, they will cover the arbors, to create a green tunnel of foliage, which I expect to have something of a mysterious look to it.
I am expecting a lot of tasty kiwi fruit in the coming years.
Kiwi can also be used to cover ugly chain link fences, just like I have seen done with grape vines.
Apr 10, 2007 | 1:21 PM PST
Tag: edible landscaping
I firmly believe that having a home garden doesn't mean an ugly eye sore of trenches and rows of vegetables, but rather can be incorporated directly into a beautiful landscape design.
For me, I've taken this to the extreme. In my yard, if it is not edible, it is a weed. Yet, I have one of the most lovely yards in my neighborhood. My yard has flowers intermingled among evergreen and deciduous bushes or trees, varieties of leaves and color, all interlaced in a wonderful Japanesque style.
