divaqs's Blog

Yesterday I was very surprised and honored to see Marc at GardenDesk mention my blog in his, in which he invited me to participate in a blogging activity listing 7 random things about myself.

I am relatively new to the whole gardening bloggernacle and only started writing about three months ago as part of an exercise in seeing how well the new changes at GardenGuides were and in the process I got hooked. My passion for gardening just synched with my passion for writing, and before I knew it, here I am.

Writing seven random things about myself is kind of difficult for me. My goal in blogging has been to keep things on gardening and not about all the craziness in my personal life.

Seven random things about me:

1. I have been married for almost 5 years to a wonderful woman, who I love. We’ve been separated for more than a year, though I am striving for and hoping that we will be back together.
   
   
2. I am the custodial parent of 3 kids from a previous marriage, ages 7, 10, and 12. I absolutely love and cherish them and enjoy every day I have with them.
   
   
3. I have 6 step kids and one grandson, who I hope to someday have a relationship with again.
   
   
4. I am a partial vegetarian. The only meat I eat is seafood. To not eat seafood would be like not being a member of my extended family. I got to admit that my favorite food is sushi and I even have a membership card at my favorite sushi restaurant.
   
   
5. In my work life, I am a director of quality assurance at a domain registrar, meaning I manage a team of software testers and test leads who help to make sure some parts of the Internet keep working as expected.
   
   
6. I come from a long line of farmers and gardeners, going back many generations. This summer my grandmother, who is now a step-great, great grandmother, is staying with me and my three kids for the summer. She has lived on farms almost her whole life and I am amazed by the wealth of information she knows about horticulture, gardening, and farm animals, which I am hoping to soak up as much as I can while she is staying with me and my kids.
   
   
7. My dream is to someday be able to be off the grid, meaning being able to completely provide for my family’s needs without outside services, be that food, electricity, water, heat, etc. I caught this vision after the dot-com bubble burst in 2001, my web programming business failed, and I was out of work for a year, losing my home, car, etc.

It was only a couple of weeks ago that I started looking around at some of the incredible gardening blogs that are online,  leading me to realize that I am but a beginner in comparison to people that have been doing this for years.

The rules of this blogging activity are:

Each player starts with 7 random facts/habits about themselves. People who are tagged need to then report this on their own blog with their 7 random facts as well as these rules. They then need to tag 7 others and list their names on their blog. They are also asked to leave a comment for each of the tagged, letting them know they have been tagged and to read the blog.

I fear that I have not had time to even really get too much of a sense of many of the great gardening blogs that are online, so I am doubtful I can select 7 that I am really familiar with.

My favorites, which I keep track of are:

Veggie Gardening Tips by Kenny Point 

The Garden Kitty by Sweetlebee 

I dig my own holes by Rkayne

I also keep track of many other great gardening blogs on GardenGuides

I am going to be on the lookout for other great gardening blogs!

Sugar peas are something I really enjoy growing in my garden and yard in both the spring and fall.

I like the way that the pole varieties attach themselves to just about any structure and grow up it, making it possible to use them in a landscape like many other vines, be it on trellises, arbors, fences, wire frame yard ornaments, bamboo poles, etc.

This year I chose to grow my spring time sugar peas on a bamboo structure I made, with some wire frame towers intermixed for variety. As they have grown over this structure they have formed a living fence, which has further sectioned off my herb beds into a virtual room.

If you want to be really creative you could try growing peas on other sturdy plants, like small trees, corn stalks, etc. as a companion plant.

This year I planted an open pollinated variety called Cascadia, which is described by my seed company as;

“This enation-resistant snap pea comes to us from Dr. Jim Baggett at Oregon State University. The short, 32 inch vines yield an abundance of dark green 3 1/2 inch pods that are thick, juicy, and very sweet. Also resistant to powdery mildew. Interchangeable with snow peas and also makes a fabulous snack!”

What attracted me to this variety was that I can use it both as a snow pea or sugar snap pea. Meaning, the pea pods are tasty as well, so I can start picking and eating the peas even before the peas have formed in the pods, or I can wait and shell the peas.

Since this particular variety is open pollinated, I am hoping to save some of the peas for replanting for a fall harvest. However, I seem to be having a hard time letting any of the peas get to the point of being suitable seed, since they are a favorite snack of not only everyone in my family, but also my dog. While I was out  for about half an hour picking some of the strawberries growing around base of the peas I observed my dog eat at least 4 different peas right off the vine. She will sniff around to find one she likes and then balance on her hind legs to reach up and pull the ripe pea pod right off the vine to eat.

This spring I have experimented with using pea vine tendrils in my stir fries.  Pea vine tendrils are sometimes used in Asian cooking, such as stir-fries, Asian salad, and garnishes. One day I picked some of the top 6-8 inches of pea vines (tendrils) and included them in a stir fry.  I made the mistake of not cutting them into smaller pieces, so my kids weren’t excited about finding string like things in their stir fry. I won’t make that mistake next time. The Cascadia variety I planted is reputed to have been one of the favorites in pea vine tendril trials conducted at Washington State University Extension.

Peas are usually a cool season crop, which is why I plant mine in the spring, before most other garden plants, and I then plant them again in the summer for a fall crop. Inbetween, I miss having fresh peas in the hot days of summer. They also like to be planted close to each other, so they can support and shade the other vines. A few years ago I tried growing them spread out on a chain link fence, thinking I would get a better harvest by giving them more space, however they instead did poorly and seemed to dry out and die quickly, as if the sun was burning them.

I am thinking I will need to plant more for fall than I did in this spring, since I am hoping to freeze some as snow peas for stir fry mixes. Currently I don’t seem to have enough to get past everyone, including myself and my dog, eating them as quick as they grow.

Sometimes when I tell people that I do edible landscaping I get blank stares or even worse I get a look like I am from some alien world. I really have no idea what could be going through their head, but my guess is that they are either drawing a total blank on what edible landscaping is or else picturing in their head something like a front yard filled with rows of corn instead of grass. For some I think it might be like hearing me speak a foreign language and having no clue on what is being said. It is times like that when I wish I had pictures with me of some of the incredible beauty that is possible with edible landscaping, so they could get a sense of why this topic excites me so much.

One of the pictures I wish I carried with me was of cherry trees drenched in pink or white blossoms.

My picture from this spring doesn’t do this tree justice.

When I lived in Japan I was amazed by the Japanese people’s celebration of the blossoming of the cherry trees. Every year they celebrate their sakura (cherry blossom) festival with great emotion and exuberance as a way of welcoming spring and a new year. The cherry blossom is seen as being an incredibly powerful symbol of beauty and renewal.

I see people plant various ornamental cherry trees and am really sad by it. They are missing out on the best part of edible landscaping, the fruit. At times I hear people seem to associate fruit bearing trees as being a burden or chore, as if the fruit is a nuisance. They’d much rather completely rely on the grocery store for all their food and not bother dealing with all the strange things that could fall off a tree and mess up their manicured lawn.  I have difficulty describing how frustrated I am by this way of thinking.

My dream is someday to see the best qualities of the ornamental cherry trees successfully crossed with the qualities of the best fruit bearing trees. I believe it is possible that some day we will see things like weeping cherry trees covered in delicious red or yellow cherries, it is just a matter of time before someone does it.

My cherries are enjoyed so much by my family members that they never make it far from the tree before being eaten. I feel lucky to personally get even a few each year. As soon as my kids discover that the cherries are ripe enough to eat, they tend to drag my step ladder out and pick the tree clean. The only evidence I usually see of a good harvest of cherries is a forgotten step ladder and cherry pits around the base of the tree.

Here is a picture of the unripe cherries from a few weeks ago.

Since taking this picture, those cherries have turned red and begun being consumed by eager kids and birds.

Even if you don’t want to harvest the cherries, they can be a great way to attract birds to your yard, since they love cherries. But if you are like me and want to enjoy your own cherries, you will need to find ways to discourage the birds from taking all your fruit. This time of year is when cherries are ripening, when birds are flocking to cherry trees, so steps need to be taken to safeguard your cherries.

Things I have tried or seen that has worked to discourage birds:

• Bird Netting
  There is netting sold that you can drape over your trees to block birds from being able to get in to the tree. This is probably the most effective way to protect your fruit. It is also the most work intensive, since it involves putting on and taking off a net, which depending on the size of your tree could be quite a chore. Personally, I go for the easier methods.
  
• Flashy Objects or Ribbons
  I’ve been told that flashy ribbons or flashy objects like CDs/DVDs that move about in the wind will discourage birds from going near the tree. I am not sure exactly why this works, but have heard theories that it scares them, as if the tree was on fire or had some unfamiliar threat looming on it.
• Bird Scarecrow Predators
  I’ve seen people use large balloons or balls with large eyes painted on them to scare birds away, or replicas of bird predators. I’ve also heard that for this to be effective the object needs to be moved to different locations from day to day.
• Grow Sour or Yellow Cherries
  Birds seem to prefer red sweet cherries, so if you grow the sour pie cherries or a less common yellow sweet cherry, birds will be less attracted to it.

If you are buying a new cherry tree to feed and attract birds, then you won’t mind getting a full size one, which can get something like 40 feet tall. Otherwise, I’d suggest looking for a dwarf tree that is at a much more manageable size. I’ve found that the taller trees are very difficult to pick the fruit from. There are nurseries that offer grafted cherry trees that are dwarfs and more disease resistant.  Another option is to grow bush cherries.

Some cherry trees are partially or fully self-fertile, like the named varieties Lapins, Stella, Glacier, White Gold, Black Gold, Vandalay, or  Sweatheart. If you aren't getting a self-fertile variety, you will need to get two different varieties for pollinating each other. Tart or pie cherries are self-fertile but unable to pollinate sweet cherries.

One other thing I would like to point out that cherry trees not only are a good source of fruit, but the wood is also valuable in the use of home interiors, cabinetry, and photo paper.  Before removing a cherry tree you might want to check with wood brokers to see how valuable it is.

One of my goals in gardening is to make things as easy to maintain as possible, which is a necessity for me since my whole yard of half an acre is planted as an edible botanical garden.

One of the biggest maintenance chores I have in maintaining a beautiful yard and garden is weeding. I can't foresee me ever being able to totally eliminate weeds, but I can minimize them.

Here are some of the strategies I am using to minimize weeds and to make the chore of weeding easier.

• I try to pull weeds early, especially before they go to seed and spread more. This means pretty constant vigilance on my part.
  As I walk around my yard, while admiring various plants or harvesting, I weed at the same time. I’ve come to recognize various weeds in their earliest stages, so I am able to pull them when they are still really small, when it is easier to remove them and long before they get to a stage of spreading new seeds.
  I believe that a few minutes a day of weeding things early means a whole lot of saved time later. It is much more pleasant to weed in the early spring when temperatures are cool, rather than in the heat of the summer when weeds have sunk their roots deep and are spreading their seeds for the following year.
  
  
• I try to reduce ways that new weed seeds can get into my planting beds.
  When possible, I use natural barriers to separate my plant beds from weed sources, such as gravel pathways, brick, edging, rock borders, fences, elevating the planting beds, and eliminating all weeds in nearby locations.
  
  
• I minimize soil compaction in my planting beds.
  This not only helps my plants, but also makes it a lot easier to pull weeds out. I try to keep my planting beds to a width that I can reach in to them from one side or another, or I put stepping stones in places to increase access without needing to walk on the planting bed’s soil. I’ve taught my kids to stay out of the garden beds and to use stepping stones. They still sometimes need reminders, but have been really great about respecting this.
  
  
• I try to reduce exposed dirt, where weeds can find a foothold to grow.
  In landscape beds with long-term perennials, I use wood chips or beauty bark in areas that my groundcover plants haven’t filled in yet. My goal is to have a living edible ground cover that stops weeds being able to get a foothold. In my vegetable and herb beds I try to use intensive square foot gardening, shutting out room for weeds to get in.
  
  
• I try to pull the whole weed out, in particular the root.
  Some weeds have a real knack for coming back from the roots. The ones I struggle the most with are blackberries, sorrel, and dandelions, all of which easily come back from root.
  
  
• Organic Pre-emergent Weed Control
  If I am really desperate, and I know I won’t be planting anything by seed in an area for at least a few months, I use a pre-emergent weed control that is an extract from corn. A pre-emergent works by not letting new seeds germinate in the area it is applied. I get my pre-emergent from GardensAlive, which is known as their WOW Plus or WOW Supreme products. It is considered organic, non-toxic, and completely safe for kids and pets, which is very important to me. My dog and cat have a tendency to snack on it if I am sloppy and leave any around for them to get into. My pets have had no ill affect by doing so. I guess this means I have unintentionally run this through animal testing.

Painted sage, also known as Salvia viridis, Clary Sage, or Horminum Sage is technically not an edible flower, but the vibrantly colored leaves that at first glance look like flowers are actually the edible part of the plant.

In the below picture you can hardly see the small flowers lower on the stems, but the colorful top leaves really stand out in their shades of purple, red, pink, and mauve.

I planted these last year, they reseeded, and came back even stronger this year, with no work needed on my part.

In my yard, the plants are roughly up to two feet tall and started putting on their visual display in May.

I’ve read that they are great dried and due to the nice aroma can be used as “everlasting flowers.”

Both the seeds and leaves are edible. The leaves can be cooked or used raw in soups, salads, and cooked greens.  The seeds are used as flavoring in things like liquors, which are supposed to greatly increase the potency of the brew.

The taste of the leaves is floral, so something that wouldn't be bad in a salad.

The bane of gardening in my yard is Himalayan Blackberries.

Himalayan Blackberries are a non-native and invasive blackberry that was introduced in Western Washington some time ago, and since then have spread to such a degree that they are taking over many wild spaces with giant brambles that are very difficult to deal with. They have huge thorns and at times seem to jump out and grab you in a painful embrace that is hard to extract yourself from.

As you might be able to tell, I have no love for this plant.

I do like blackberries as a berry. Every year my kids and I go to some of the many parks that have been infested and pick buckets of sweet and delicious berries for jam, cobbler, and pies. I just don’t want them in my yard.

When I moved into my house a few years ago, half my backyard was a giant blackberry bramble. It was so bad that for the first few months I didn’t even know exactly how big my yard was or that there was a spring flowing through my yard. After a month or so I got up some courage and spent over an hour to hack myself a little path through the blackberries, so I could find the fence poles that marked the edges of the yard. I then spent months fighting the blackberries in combat that left me bruised and bloodied.  To this day, the battle still rages on as the monsters refuse to die and new ones seem to pop up every day.

My neighbor gave up on the fight, so now my yard is threatened with a wave of invaders from his place of safety for them, waiting for me to lose interest so they can leap across my fence in mass force and re-take my yard.

I am a gentle man, not prone to violence, slow to anger, and abhorrent of chemical warfare, but when it comes to Himalayan Blackberries, my protector self comes out and all bets are off. I’ve tried hand to hand combat, trying desperately to wrestle them out by the roots. I’ve tried repeatedly attacking them with weapons of destruction via my brush cutter.  And now I have fallen to new lows of attacking them with chemicals.  My strategy of late is to poison them via snipping a vine and dipping the end in concentrated RoundUp, hoping that the poison will spread to the roots, killing the whole plant. So far, I haven’t seen the desired effect, but I am still giving it some time.

Yes, I am a plant murderer.  I have to be if I have any hope of protecting my vulnerable fruit trees, berry bushes, herbs, and vegetables.

With over 300 strawberry plants, over 50 raspberry vines, roughly 20 blueberry bushes, plus at least another dozen or so other kinds of berry plants in my yard, I do a whole lot of berry picking. In other words, I get a whole lot of practice and plenty of time trying to figure out how to do it well.

Of the many different things to put picked berries in, my favorite is a milk jug with the top corner cut-off.

It is cheap, light, easy to wash, and has a good handle, so is easy to keep a hold of while crawling around berry bushes. I like using the half gallon jugs for my kids and the gallon jugs are about the right size for adults. Once the berry season is over, simply recycle or dispose of the jug, so it doesn’t have to sit around the rest of the year.

These are some things I have found helpful for me:

• While picking berries from your own yard, try to weed under the berry bushes. This not only makes it easier to spot future berries, but draws your attention down low, where ripe swollen berries often hide.
  
  
• Get to know your berry plants. For example, I last counted 5 different kinds of strawberry plants in my yard, each tends to ripen berries a little differently, with some being totally ripe when a nice dark red and others being totally ripe when mostly red, but never reaching a dark red color. I even have some that are ripe when an off white color. I taste some of the berries as I pick to get a sense of how ripe they are, as a sort of quality testing. My kids seem to do the tasting naturally, while I’ve at times have gotten so caught up with getting the chore of picking done that I have forgotten to do likewise, only to discover later that the berries weren’t quite as ripe as I thought they were.
  
  
• Be sure to pick up leaves, branches, vines, and look under. In many cases ripe berries are heavy and cause things to droop, which can make them more hidden in grass, under leaves, and so on. Typically, if I see one ripe berry it is a sign that there are more in that area that are hidden.
  
  
• Wash and soak the berries in water after picking them. It is best to have someone in the family that is not squeamish do this, since it is not uncommon for previously unseen bugs to appear once the berries are submerged for awhile under water. If you don’t mind extra protein with your berries, feel free to skip this. Personally, I prefer more bug free berries.
  
  
• If freezing berries, most do best by being initially frozen on a cookie sheet before being put in freezer bags. That way they aren’t all frozen in a giant chunk of berry ice when you are ready to use them. Blueberries and huckleberries can skip this step since they naturally don’t stick together when frozen.

I’d love to hear any berry picking tips that work for you as well.

Last year I planted a mix of calendula flowers (Calendula officinalis) from seed. I don’t remember really seeing any grow last year, though last year was pretty hectic for me and I wasn’t paying that much attention. This spring I did take notice as they have burst forth either from seed that was from flowers re-seeding themselves or from left-over seed that had not yet germinated.

I saw the first one appear a couple of months ago, surprisingly hidden under one of the giant leaves of my rhubarb.

Then others appeared

Surprisingly, I’ve noticed the color change some over time. Here are the same flowers, but about a month later.

I tasted some and was surprised. The taste is floral, kind of like rose, but sweeter.  Though I’ve read that some could be bitter, so be sure to taste test yours before using them. My mouth felt a little funny afterward, kind of like it had a film of some kind of oil or soap in it. It wasn’t an unpleasant experience, just odd.  I am going to try again and see if it happens again, before adding any of the flower petals to a salad or use them as a garnish.

Calendula flowers have something of a reputation as a medicinal herb, either as a topical skin treatment or as tea. I haven’t tried any of these out myself, but am planning on experimenting some more. It would be definitely interesting to try to make some Calendula soap, leveraging the herbal medicinal benefits.

As a landscape plant, I think they are really pretty, as I think the pictures demonstrate. They are a good mid-size annual. The fragrance isn’t particularly wonderful, but that is made up for with the visual appeal.

I hope to have Calendula in my yard for many years.

You are probably wondering what in the world I am talking about. It is summer with berries and fruit waiting to be picked, why would I have any interest in thinking about winter?

For about 5 years now I have been growing a winter garden. The first year was mainly by accident when some of my garden was planted late and survived into the winter. I like to think that each year I get a little better at it. With a little knowledge, planning, and using resources available I feel I have made progress each year. One thing that I’ve come to realize is that most things are best planted in about July for winter gardens, which means I need to be planning what I want to grow and ordering seed now. In some years I have made the mistake of not thinking about my winter garden until about fall, when my summer garden is on the decline, which by then is too late to do much.

For winter gardening I love the Territorial Seed Company winter catalog, which when it comes in the mail is an obvious indicator to me that it is time to start planning. In it they have selected various salad greens and vegetables that can be planted for a winter garden. I like that they are based in Oregon, since that is a part of the Pacific Northwest, so I figure that the seeds are more acclimated to my maritime region than something coming from the Tropics, South, or Midwest. I also love the winter garden planting chart that they include in their catalog, which I haven’t been able to find anywhere else. It has been a tool I use every year, and has been very helpful letting me know if there is still hope of planting something else.

The selection of what can be planted in winter is much more limited than summer, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t a lot of options. One thing I should point out is that since growth pretty much stops during winter you do need to plant more of the things you want to use. The late summer and fall growth of those garden plants will be what will make up your garden through the cold months.

This year I plan on planting in my winter garden: 

• Chinese Pink Garlic (Sept – Oct)
  I save the best cloves each year from the past year and replant them for a late spring harvest.
  
• Elephant Garlic (Sept – Oct)
  Like the Chinese Pink Garlic I save the best cloves and replant them each year for a summer harvest the following year.
  
• Broccoli (June – July)
  I try to select varieties of broccoli that do well for either summer or winter gardens. Winter broccoli is sweeter than summer broccoli, which is true of any of the brassica family of plants, which adjust to cold by increasing sugars.
  
• Carrots (May – July)
  Winter carrots are sooooo good.
  
• Radishes (Sept – Oct)
  One of the last things I plant in the fall.
  
• Swiss Chard (June – July)
  I love the really colorful varities. They are showy enough that I sometimes plant them in my front yard and have had neighbors try to guess what the pretty plants are.
  
• Lettuce (Aug – Sept)
  A fresh salad in winter is an amazing thing. I try to get the mixes specific for winter growing since they seem to hold up the best through the cold.
  
• Kale (June - July)
  There are some really pretty Kale’s that do really well through winter. After a freeze they sweeten up more.
  
• Endive (July – Aug)
  I’ve been wanting to try endive for my winter salads
  
• Corn Salad (Aug – Sept)
  Funny name, great salad green
  
• Fava Beans (Sept – Oct)
  Another one of the last things I plant for the year.
  
• Onions (July – Aug)
  I have an established onion patch, so they replant themselves.
  
• Spinach (July – Aug)
  Another good thing for winter salads.

To many guys, flowers represent all that is feminine. For a guy to admit flowers as being anything more than a tool of courtship or romance is to invite the “ewww” factor, driven by fears of being labeled gay by themselves or by others.  There are even derogatory statements that invoke this engendering of flowers being effeminate, such as “He is such a pansy.” To get almost any guy to openly admit that he likes flowers, without any squeamishness, would be quite a feat.

Don’t get me wrong, I live in the very liberal city of Seattle, which means I work and associate with guys who are openly or privately gay. I consider them to be good friends and co-workers. I respect them and do not pass judgment on them for their orientation. At the same time, I am most definitely not gay. It is something I have never questioned about myself.

I am an edible landscaper, and as such I’ve come to accept that a good landscape design includes flowers. Without being gay and feeling able to break gender stereotypes, how did I get over the “eww” factor and grow flowers for me, rather than for a wife or girlfriend? It is really quite simple, first off I am secure in my gender and orientation, and secondly, I make it all about food. I make the topic of flowers safe to discuss, including the beauty, the wonderful fragrances, and the joy they impart, since I also include the more masculine utilitarian concepts, such as edibility, taste, medicinal herbal use, and adventures in the kitchen.

In other words, to me edible landscaping becomes a melding of both the feminine and masculine components of gardening, becoming gender neutral. It is safe for me to have a flower garden, since it is much more than flowers, it is an extension of my herb garden and vegetable garden, all intermingled.

If you struggle with your husband or boyfriend never showing interest in your flower gardening, try including some of the utilitarian concepts in your sharing about them and see if that sparks something. You might be pleasantly surprised.

I used to think that figs, latin name ficus carica, were a tropical fruit tree, which would never grow somewhere like the Pacific Northwest, with our climate’s milder temperatures and often cloudy days. I was wrong. I now have two fig trees planted in my yard and I have seen a larger one growing in my area.

My experience with the fruit of figs had largely been limited to fig newtons (cookie bars with a sweet fruity filling in the middle), which I’ve always really liked. I’ve never seen figs offered in grocery stores here. The first time I actually ate a fig was about 5 years ago, when my former in-laws gave me a bag of figs from their neighbor’s tree. I got the sense that they didn’t know how to eat them. To be honest, I didn’t know either, but the adventurer in me was willing to try.

I tried biting one and found the skin to be kind of unpalatable, so I peeled it and tried eating just the interior fruit. I was kind of weirded out by how the interior of the fig looked, since it was unlike anything I had ever seen before. I initially chose a fruit that was kind of firm, and found the inner fruit to be not that sweet, I wasn’t sure, but I figured it might be under ripe, so I put the bag in the fridge and left it there for a few days.

After maybe a week or so I remembered the figs in the fridge and checked on them. They seemed much squisher. So I tried again. By this time they were so squishy that it was difficult to peel them, and the inner fruit kind of oozed between my fingers, but when I tasted it I was amazed. The flavor I was familiar with in fig newtons was definitely there, but it seemed to be even more sweet. Squishy or not, I finished the bag of figs.

The next year, my former in-laws again bestowed their unwanted bag of figs that their neighbor had gifted them with. I tried to not show how excited I was to get them, since I feared they would stop handing them off to me. By this time I had gotten past the shock of the strange interior of how a fig fruit looked and was looking forward to the delicious sweetness. I didn’t wait for the fruit to get quite so squishy, and found the experience of eating them much better this time. My kids weren’t interested in even trying the figs, though I wasn’t going to push them to try them, since it meant more for me.

The following year, no figs were forthcoming. I resolved to get my own tree so I could get my own fruit, without relying on my former in-laws naivety on how wonderful figs are.   I was living in a rental at the time with plans on buying my own home in the next year, so I got a huge pot and planted my new “Brown Turkey fig” in it, where it stayed for the next two years. Unfortunately it didn’t produce any figs over those two years.

When I bought my new home, I was really pleased to find that the former owners had left a potted fig tree of their own, and it even had figs on it. They were past their time, but I still tried to eat them. I had missed eating them.

I later planted both fig trees in my yard and have gotten my own figs, which have wetted my cravings for more. I was surprised how far roots had grown out through the bottom of the pot I had my fig tree in. The roots seem to really spread. Perhaps the containment of the roots is what caused my fig to not produce any fruit while potted. So, from my experience I wouldn't recommend keeping figs in a pot. Once I had them planted, I saw a lot of new growth and sudden fig production.

Last year, one of my sons actually dared to try a fig, and discovered that he liked them also. Fortunately, my other kids haven’t been so daring, so I will still be able to hoard most of the fruit for myself.

I find the fig trees to have a kind of nice tropical look to them, with their large leaves. I think they are pretty neat looking.

The fruit grows directly off of the trunk and main branches. The below close-up picture is of an unripe fruit, which will sag on its stem when it is ripe. In my experience, once the fruit sags, you need to pick them soon or it will drop to the ground.

My fig trees produce fruit in both the spring and fall. So far I have seen a lot more fruit produced in the fall versus the spring. I have no other fruit trees that produce fruit twice in a year, which I got to admit makes figs pretty neat.

Some general information on growing figs is that they are there are varieties that are hardy to about 10° F. Figs can be grown in colder climates if they are pruned as a bush and covered in the winter or grown in a pot and brought inside in winter. Lower temperatures can cause the trees to freeze to the ground, but new growth resprouts from the roots. USDA 7-11.
Fig trees can withstand shade, but for best fruit production, full sun is best. Both my fig trees are growing in partial shade and still producing fruit, even in the Pacific Northwest.

A few days ago I noticed that my first purple coneflowers, latin name Echinacea purpurea, are starting to appear.

Echinacea is one of my favorite edible flowers, largely due to its herbal uses and for its beauty and versatility as a flower.

The leaves, root, and flower are edible. I’ve never tried eating the flowers, but I have used the leaves as something like a spinach substitute in lasagna when my kids were younger. As my official taste test team, it didn’t get high marks by them, largely due to the leaves having a kind of fuzzy fur like texture to them.

The roots, after being at least a couple of years old, are used by some as an herbal remedy for building ones immune system. Whether this actually works or not is largely up to which study you refer to. Some studies say it works when done correctly, using the correct amounts and taking it over the correct time periods, and some studies claim it has no perceptible affect. So it really is up to you on what you believe on this.

Personally, I would be really sad to dig up my beautiful flowers in order to harvest their roots. I guess if there was ever a plague of some sort and I was desperate for herbal methods to use to protect my family, I’d be willing to do it. But for the time being I am satisfied with enjoying these great flowers.

In previous years I have had a lot of fun using my coneflowers in flower arrangements. They work really well for this, lasting for a long time. The stiffness of the stems and blossoms keeps them looking nice longer than many other kinds of flowers. I used to make arrangements with other long lasting evergreens, like sword ferns, and the arrangement would last for a week or so.

Ever wanted to grow something different? I push the limit all the time, every year trying to expand the variety of berries and edible plants in my yard, both for the joy of trying something new and exciting, but also to try to beautify my yard more by adding more foliage variety. One of my experiments has been growing Honeyberries (Lonicera caerulea) sometimes called Blue-berried Honeysuckle or Sweetberry Honeysuckle, which came to me as a Father’s Day gift a couple years ago.

These are deciduous berry bushes that in about June produce elliptical shaped berries that are blue in color.

They aren’t heavy producers, but they are earlier then blueberries. The berries if eaten when first appearing can be kind of tart, but if allowed to ripen more, for at least a couple of weeks, will sweeten up. I remember last year the berries staying on the bush for a surprisingly long time, increasing in sweetness the longer I left them. The flavor of the berries isn't something to rave about, but if allowed to sweeten is okay.

Honeyberry bushes are really robust, being able to withstand up to minus 40 degree temperatures. I have seen no problems with disease on mine. You do need to have a pollinator in order to get berries, so be sure to get two different varieties. They are shade tolerant, as evident by the one I took a picture of, which only gets about an hour of direct sunlight a day.

Here is a picture of my other honeyberry bush, which gets more sunlight, but isn't noticeably bigger.

My raspberries have berries in the early summer and again in the fall. The first wave of raspberries are ripening on my vines.

When I bought my home I was fortunate to have with it a few rows of established raspberries already growing on a hill in the backyard. The problem I was running into was that the rows of berries were hard to maintain and pick on the steeply sloping hill, and it was somewhat unsightly.

So, I terraced a different hill and moved the raspberries to it over the winter, when they are dormant.

Rather than wire to give support to the raspberry vines I used bamboo poles, since I feel they are a bit more decorative and natural looking. I position the vines as they grow so they press against the pole in a way that holds them in a more upright position. Now that I am growing my own bamboo, I am hoping to be able to make my own bamboo poles in later years for this, though since bamboo is long lasting and rot resistant, I doubt I will need to replace the poles for quite a few years.

On every other terraced level I turned it into a deep pathway made of pea gravel. The deep pea gravel helps a lot to keep weeds almost non-existent in the paths, and reduces the chances of weed seeds making it to the raspberry rows. It also makes access to the raspberries a whole lot easier than the steep slope I used to have to try to balance on while picking.

As you can see in this picture, young vines don’t quite reach high enough for me to position them against the bamboo poles. I could probably have a lower bamboo pole to position those against if I wanted, but haven’t really felt the need for it. The young spring vines are the ones that will be growing the berries in the fall, and by that time they will be able to be positioned against the poles.

One drawback to what I did is that my rows of raspberries are below some evergreen cedar trees, which tend to turn the soil under them acidic. Raspberries aren’t fond of acidic soil, so I have been top dressing the soil during the winter with some wood ash from my fireplace. This should counter the affect of the cedars.

Have you ever experienced too much of a good thing? Where something that is normally wonderful and great is taken to such an extreme that you can’t help but start to dread it? For me, this has started happening with strawberries. There is nothing like the fresh taste of strawberries ripened and picked fresh from your own yard, where you know they haven’t been drenched with toxic chemicals, and you’ve been able to allow them to ripen to the ultimate sweetness possible. A really good thing right? The problem with obsessions is that more always seems better.  Strawberry plants make for an easy foundation plant, or just something to stick in any nook or cranny in an edible landscape, so I have them all over. I easily have 300 strawberry plants and probably have a lot more than that, with at least half of them everbearing, meaning I will have a stream of berries calling out to be picked for at least a few months. So now I find myself dreading picking all those berries.

Yesterday I spent about an hour and picked strawberries. The season is still early, so this was a light picking.

In the colander is a mix of strawberries from about 6 different kinds of strawberry plants. We’ve been getting alpine strawberries for at least 3 weeks now, and the June and Everbearing strawberries are starting their season. In the picture the yellow/white strawberries are a kind of alpine strawberry that is supposed to be that color when ripe. They have a kind of citrus-strawberry kind of flavor.

So, what do I do? Do I spend an hour or so every three days picking strawberries for the next few months? If I don’t, I feel guilty for all the great food going to waste, as if my lack of picking contributes to starvation in some unknown location in Africa. Or do I continue to pile more strawberries in freezer bags on top of the ones from last year still in my freezer? With the expectation that sometime in the fall I will thaw most of them out and make jam out of them. The thought is appealing, though surprisingly harvesting is my least favorite part of gardening. From past experience, I know that in the winter I will be kicking myself for letting strawberries go to waste.

Many of you are probably thinking I am nuts to be struggling with this. Who would let sweet red strawberries go to waste?

But I guess I’ve reached a point that I have had too much of a good thing. It might be time to call in the neighbors. Last year I “let” them pick some of the berries in my yard and scored some of the jam they made. It was a sweet arrangement.

My favorite fruit is peaches, but some in my family rave about pears. So, should I grow peaches, or pears, or something more exotic like Asian pears? Being an eccentric and borderline obsessive gardener, I can’t settle for just one, so I grow “all of the above”. I have 5 European pear trees, 2 Asian pear trees, 2 peach trees, plus many, many more. Perhaps “borderline obsessive” isn’t so borderline.

As an organic gardener and edible landscaper, I really don’t want to use chemicals of one kind or another to keep my trees and fruit beautiful. Frankly, I would rather be working on some new fun gardening project than spraying toxic stuff on things in my yard. So I searched for fruit trees that were considered “disease resistant” with the hope that I would not have to spend time messing with sprays that could poison me, or my kids, or my pets.

I’ve tried really hard to find disease resistant European pears and found 5 different ones that were claimed to be disease resistant, but still despite the claims of their disease resistance, I consistently see them having problems with scab, blights, infestations, etc. They’ve turned out looking pretty ugly. Who knows, maybe with time that will change? I haven’t totally given up hope yet.

My “disease resistant” peach trees are a little better, only getting a little leaf curl.

But what have really impressed me are my Asian pears. If I had to choose all over again, I’d have mostly gotten Asian pears. The trees are nicer to look at, seem to have no problems with disease in my yard, and have amazing fruit.

What are Asian pears? I doubt you would be alone in wondering that.  The pears that you can find in the grocery store in the U.S., like Bartlett, D’Anjou, and Bosc pears are of European origin and pretty different than Asian pears.

Asian pears don’t soften like European pears, but are best enjoyed when still crisp, like an apple. Some varieties can maintain that crispness and goodness for months after being harvested. The shape is also similar to an apple.

The flavor of Asian pears is much sweeter and juicer than apples, and even than many pears. In my experience there are two different kinds of flavor among all the different varieties, with one group having a butterscotch flavor and the other being a very sweet flavor. In some Asian countries Asian pear juice is used as a sugar substitute. Whichever ones I have had, I’ve always found them to be incredibly delicious.

Here is a picture of my Shinseiki Asian pear tree that I planted 2 years ago

I like making fresh apple cider each year. When I do so, I especially like including some Asian pears in the mix, since it makes the juice all the more sweet. My kids and friends rave about how sweet the juice is, and the secret is the Asian pears I include.

Asian pears need a pollinator. Usually it is best to have different Asian pear varieties pollinate each other, but it is possible to have European pears pollinate Asian pears if the European pears blossom really early. I have 5 European pear trees and 2 Asian pear trees, so I am not too worried about pollination.

You might be doing edible landscaping and not even know it. All over world, people are growing roses, without knowing that they are growing something that is edible. As a kid I’d heard of rose hips being full of vitamin C, but who wants to eat a packet of seeds that can be chewy and unappetizing? Not me, especially not as a kid.

Since that time I have had rose tea, seen rose butter, rose sugar, rose honey, and more. I was introduced to rose tea at a nice restaurant and found it to be pretty good. Rose petals can be used in garnishes and in salads and in cooking. They are fragrant and have a delicate floral taste that varies amongst the different varieties. I’ve found that some of the darker roses can have a yucky metallic taste to them, so try tasting some before using them.

Personally, I prefer the taste of the red and wilder rugosa roses.  The rugosa roses I have grown have had rose hips that were the size of cherry tomatoes, and had more fleshiness to them that had a taste that reminded me of sweet apple. The smaller rose petals are easier to use in salads, garnishes, and so on.  I also like that my rugosa roses seemed to be more disease resistant and require less care.

I am not saying to not use other roses with larger petals, since even the larger roses can be used to flavor butters, sugar, honey, tea, etc.  The range of color, variety, and beauty of different roses can be very appealing in a landscape.

I would not recommend tasting roses at the nursery or floral shop. Oftentimes those roses have been sprayed with toxic substances to either decrease decay or discourage disease.

I grow a few different roses in my yard. Most of them were there when I bought the house. I have pictures of some of my red ones. 

This is a larger rose

This rose bush has many smaller blossoms

There are many recipes available for using roses. I would encourage you to take the plunge and try some. Personally, I think the next recipe I am going to try is rose lemonade. I will run it past my official taste testers, my kids, and see if it passes for regular use.

A couple of months ago I wrote about asparagus, in which I mentioned that it is a fern. I’ve mentioned this to other people, which seemed to really surprise them. I think I can understand why, since I believe that in our day it is easy for us city folk to lose touch with where all the food in the grocery store comes from, and the natural order of things.

Here is a picture of some of the asparagus now growing in my yard

As you might be able to see in my less than professional picture, it is a rather nice delicate fern. This year it has reached over 6 feet in height in my yard and has as intended to some degree obscured view of my neighbor’s ugly fence.

Most growth of new shoots happens in the spring time, but it hasn’t stopped completely yet. So, I am still able to occasionally get a couple of asparagus spears from the garden.

I’ve been thinking about using some fishing line to help hold the ferns up in an upright position. On the left side of the picture you can see that some of the ferns are leaning, which can happen, partly due to the density of the asparagus ferns pushing on each other. I guess I didn’t thin them enough in the spring. I hopefully will remember that for next year and will eat more asparagus.

I’ve heard and read about companion planting for some time, though it always seems to be in the context of pest control, nutrient sharing, and disease control. While all of those things are excellent reasons, they aren’t my personal primary reason for companion planting.

Let me back up for a second and explain what companion planting is. I am not talking about gardening with your partner, companion, loved one, friend, dog, cat, or spouse, which are all wonderful things. What I am talking about is a method of organizing plants, which fits closer to how nature does things.

Oftentimes traditional American gardens and farms involve vegetables planted in nice even rows. While growing things in rows make for easier planting, watering, and harvesting, it is mainly of benefit if you are doing it via mechanical means, since tractors and machines work easier in straight lines. There is very little difference in labor if growing things through one’s own physical effort.

Companion planting breaks away from the idea of planting things in rows, and instead involves intermingling different plants together, such as flowers, herbs, and vegetables in a collage of plants co-existing with each other in a more natural way.

For me the idea of companion planting seems natural. As an edible landscaper I intuitively want to comingle edible flowers, herbs, berry plants, fruit trees, and vegetables in the same ways that ornamental plants are often grown.

Here is a current example:

To me, this looks beautiful. The only straight lines are the bamboo canes I have formed into a makeshift leaning trellis for my sugar snap peas to grow on, with the three garden towers adding variety. The peas are surrounded by chives in bloom, lavender, small ostrich ferns, and strawberries. To me, this looks much more pleasing to my eye, since it seems closer to a natural setting.

There is little wasted space as I follow intensive gardening practices, including the practices that reduce plant problems. Every year the perennials are still there, serving as companion plants to whatever vegetables or berries I choose to grow among them. My companion perennials serve as habitat for beneficial insects and deterrent to pests

Most importantly, my heart is gladdened and my stress lessened as I enjoy the beauty of my garden.

This weekend I harvested my garlic.

For about 3 years now I have been growing Chinese pink garlic, described by the seed company I got it from, territorial-seed.com, as:

“Very early season. Garlic lovers rejoice! When fall planted, this extra-early-maturing variety will put fresh garlic back into your favorite recipes a whopping 4 to 6 weeks ahead of almost all others. You will be harvesting Chinese Pink late May to early June. All your garlic-loving friends will be green with envy. This fine quality softneck has 9-15 large cloves arranged in two layers, which makes most of the cloves of usable size. It has white outer skins, pinkish-purple inner skins, and pink clove wrappers; stores for 4-5 months. Chinese Pink has a nice mellow flavor that everyone can enjoy.” 

I knew it was time to harvest since the bulbs had reached full size and the leaves were starting to brown and lay down. You know the bulbs have reached their full size when the shape of the cloves begin to bulge through the bulb wrapper. If I waited longer, the bulbs wouldn’t have gotten any bigger, but might have split or cured wrong. If you wait until all the leaves have turned brown and died, then that is too long.

I like growing very early garlic, since it leaves me a lot of growing season for other plants.

Like in previous years, I am planning on keeping the garlic in a dry, cool, shaded, and well ventilated location for a couple of weeks, so the bulbs can properly cure. I then will remove the stems and store them in a open container in the cupboard. One year we kept some in a sealed ziplock bag and they quickly degraded, so I know now to keep them ventilated for storage.

I am also planning to set aside the biggest cloves for re-planting in the fall, in about October, like I've been doing for the last few years.  My belief is that by selecting the best cloves each year and re-planting them, I will continue to improve my garlic from year to year via natural selection, so with time it will be better suited for my particular micro-climate.  I do this with some of my other garden plants as well, which is why I try to get open pollinated or heirloom seed whenever I can.

This year, since I have so much garlic, I am thinking about further drying some and powdering them for garlic powder. I’ve found garlic powder to be an easy way to use garlic on things like homemade garlic bread, and have always wanted to try making some of my own.

Gardening on hillsides has at times intrigued me. I like maximizing the use of space and sunlight, as part of turning my whole yard into an edible botanical garden. So, I consider my hills fair game for gardening space.

On a trip to Guatemala a couple of years ago, I was amazed to see the amount of farming being done on terraced hillsides. I even saw farmers on hillsides that were so steep that they had to use safety lines to avoid falling while working on crops.

In the Pacific Northwest we seem to be lacking in summer heat that can benefit growing more sun and heat loving plants. What can help is if the plants are given the most sun exposure possible and heat is radiated back on them by a wall, insulating plastic, or some structure. Terracing helps with this, especially if done on a hill that faces the sun. The different levels can increase light exposure by staggering the plants in a way that they don’t shade each other and the hill or structure itself can radiate absorbed heat back on the plants.

I’ve tried terraced gardening with brick, garden rock walls, and treated lumber. With brick I found that it gets expensive and they sometimes seemed to have problems with settling, making different terraced levels slightly off. Rock can be a real challenge to use, unless you either are really strong, have willing strong people to do the labor, and/or use heavy machinery to move and set the rocks in place.  Brick and rock have the longest lifespan and permanence. With cheaper treated lumber you need to be careful with the kind of lumber you choose, since lumber like old railroad ties can leach toxic substances like arsenic into the soil, that can then be picked up and absorbed by your plants, which isn’t a good thing if you plan on eating those plants.

When I moved into my home, there was a hill of compacted clay and rock that had some overgrown rhodendrums, English Ivy, and ferns growing on it. I hated it. Not just because of the lack of edibles and scraggy appearance, but because it was wasting some great southern light exposure on plants that weren’t even really suited for it. I felt the space could be better utilized if terraced for vegetable gardens.

Terracing with bricks would have cost more than I had budget for.  I already had some terracing done with garden rock in other areas of my yard, and I wanted some variety, so I resolved to use treated lumber. I had done some reading on changes being done to treated lumber that had changed them from using carcinogenic compounds (i.e. arsenic  and chromium) to non-carcinogenic compounds (i.e. copper). The EPA had been doing studies on this and I felt confident that if I verified which treatment process was used on the particular lumber I was buying, that it would be safe for gardening.

I created my own design, with levels being about a foot wide and a foot high, so they would form natural row guides for vegetables and reduce shading.

I built this terrace around the corner of the hill.

Both of these above pictures were taken in the late winter. So, you don't see many vegetables growing. During the summer this looks very different.

Last summer I discovered that even though I had cross-wise stepping boards every few feet, that during primary growing season the rows became so densely packed with garden plants that it was really hard to move around and work. So I sacrificed one of the middle rows to be a walkway via an overlay of treated lumber. I now include that as part of my crop rotation by moving the walkway to different levels from one year to another.

I tend to grow taller plants near the top and shorter plants near the bottom, so I can reduce shading. On the top rows I have tall asparagus ferns that block the view of my neighbor’s ugly fence. Last year I had corn growing on the some of the upper rows, which seemed to work well.  I plan on doing that again, but offsetting which rows I plant it in and moving my walk way as the offset. It has been on my mind, since I am planning on planting my corn this weekend, now that soil temperatures have reached a level that will work for corn in my area.

I am sure that those with more experience building structures could build something better than I did. For the perfectionist in me, it is hard seeing mistakes I made, but I recognize that the experience of building it was something I learned a lot from. If I did it over again, I know it would turn out better, but it is serving its needs for now so I’ve moved on to other projects.