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The Lowdown
WSU Spokane County Extension Master Gardeners March 2017 The Lowdown
Inside this issue:
Foundation News 2
Book Review 4
Plant Sale 6
Potager in Pots 8
Self-study Quiz 10
Upcoming Events 12
Extension Information
Dr. Jeremy Cowan 477-2145
Regional Horticulture Specialist
Tim Kohlhauff 477-2172
Horticulture Program Coordinator
Anna Kestell 477-2195
Food Preservation/Safety
Jackie Sykes 477-2193
Clinic Coordinator
Master Gardener County Site
http://extension.wsu.edu/spokane/
master-gardener-program
Master Gardener Foundation of Spo-
kane County
http://www.mgfsc.org/
WSU Master Gardener Site
http://mastergardener.wsu.edu/
HortSense Fact Sheets
http://hortsense.cahnrs.wsu.edu/
Home/HortsenseHome.aspx
On Line Timelog Reporting:
http://ext.wsu.edu/Volunteers/logon.aspx
OPPORTUNITIES ABOUND!
(think Continuing Education credits,
Program Support hours …)
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FOUNDATION NEWS
By Tim Stiess
We want spring!!! We want spring!!!
I guess that is why we have the Cabin Fever Gardening Symposiums for you. It is absolutely needed and just about here. March 11, 2017, from 7:30am to 4:00pm. If you aren’t signed up for the event, YOU NEED TO DO IT RIGHT NOW!!! Registration ends March 9th. Go to www.mgfsc.org to get your tickets!
GARDEN FAIR
Garden Fair 2017 is right around the corner (April 29th). Yikes!! Practically every Master Gardener plays some part in this amazing event. Is it educating the pub-lic? Yes. Is it fundraising for the program? Yes. Is it a chance for the Master Gar-dener volunteers to show what we can do when we work together? A big YES!
We used the Winter meeting of the Program as a chance to have a public forum on the Garden Fair. We will not be having another general meeting. If you are already on one of the numerous education and fundraising teams, you can get information from the leads. If you haven’t put yourself on a team, please contact me and we can find a place for you.
As we get closer to the event, look to your gardens (or your neighbors’ or friends’). Find some plants to donate to the cause. If you need pots, soil and/or labels, we will be happy to supply them. If you have so many plants that you need assistance in digging them up and potting them, either contact Matt Velasco and he can coordinate a dig gig OR call some of your MG friends and make a party out of it.
GETTING THE WORD OUT.
The success of our fundraising events depends on getting the word out to the Spokane community. Please consider sharing Facebook posts and emails on these events with friends, neighbors and others around you.
A few highlights from our first Board meeting of 2017
The board approved the budget for the 2017 Fall Banquet.
Our fabulous new board members are now part of our team and our board committees are ready
to take 2017 by storm (a nice spring rain storm, not a blizzard).
Think Spring (Tap your ruby shoes together, if you have them)
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Sorry we forgot to include a couple of February Birthdays last month.
We are so glad you are with us!
Torpie Ann 14-Feb
Klein Bill 18-Feb
Odell Geri 5-Mar
Evans Gloria 5-Mar
Adams Leann 7-Mar
Newton Carole 11-Mar
Frohnhoefer Annemarie 20-Mar
Meyer Kathleen 23-Mar
Richardson Susan 25-Mar
Stimson Patti 27-Mar
Jeremiah Peggy 29-Mar
SEE YOU
THERE!
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Book review by Susan Mulvihill
Love Letters to My Garden
by Barbara Blossom Ashmun
(2017, Easy Chair Press, 217 pp., $15.00)
I typically read garden books to learn more about the types of plants I want to grow or a skill I want to learn. But just as important as those topics, a book about a gardener’s love affair with her garden teaches us more about ourselves and why our passion for gardening is so captivating.
Enter Barbara Blossom Ashmun’s delightful new book, Love Letters to My Garden.
In it, she opens her garden to us, discusses design tips she’s learned over the years, shares infor-mation on the many plants that bring her such joy, and talks fondly of the people who have taught her about horticulture over the years.
The author lives in Portland and her colorful, skillfully-designed garden has been much photographed, visited and featured in garden publications. She has a wonderful writing style that embodies the es-sence of the joy of gardening.
This book is comprised of columns and essays she has written, along with many new stories.
As I read her book, there were so many times where I nodded in agreement or startled myself by declaring “Yes!” out loud before I could stop myself.
In her chapter on “Why I Garden,” she declares, “I garden to travel to the won-derland of sensory delights. Out there I’m a little kid digging in the dirt, aban-doning all cares. I’m back in my wild childhood, before self-consciousness set in. Gardening sets me free.”
(continued on page 5)
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(continued from page 4)
So much of what Blossom Ashmun has to say resonates with me:
“... if you really want to be my friend, share your plants with me. Gardeners don’t let their friends go home without cuttings of their favorite roses, without divisions of their choice daylilies or hostas. When you share your bounty, you live forever in your friend’s garden and heart.”
In her chapter entitled “Torn Between Two Loves: Plant Lust and Beautiful Design,” she shares several tips on successful garden design. Yes, she’s a plantaholic who frequently attempts to resist purchasing a plant that calls out to her, and yet they somehow end up coming home with her! Even so, she gives a lot of thought to the type of effect she is trying to achieve.
A reader will recognize themselves in many of her comments, such as this one about invasive plants:
“When I like a plant I have to grow it, and I refuse to learn from other people’s ex-periences. This seems to be human nature -- we have to go right ahead and make our own mistakes, learning from them, eventually.” Raise your hand if this applies to you!
In one area of Blossom Ashmun’s book, she discusses how the different seasons affect her. It appears spring is her favorite season:
“Warmed by the sun and blessed by the light, plants are coming back to life, and I’m coming back to life with them... Spring is the season of euphoria, especially on the heels of gray, wet winter.”
And yet, there are aspects of the other seasons that the author finds meaning in. But as you’ll quickly learn in this book, no matter what time of year it is, she absolutely has to be out in the garden and laments when Mother Nature prevents this.
Love Letters to My Garden is a pure delight to read. I found it to be especially so, while reading it in the dead of winter at a time when I felt the need to reflect on my garden, make plans and find a kindred spirit -- which I easily did in Barbara Blossom Ashmun.
This book is available through loveletterstomygarden.wordpress.com and Amazon.com.
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Veggies for the Plant Sale
Hello Everyone!
It is time once again to grow veggies for the plant sale. The plant sale is a three day event: two days of preparation, then the plant sale on April 29th.
We need volunteers to grow veggies and/or work one or more days during the sale. It is a fun time and volunteers will have the opportunity to educate people about gardening.
If you volunteer to grow plants, here are some things you need to know:
1) Start your seeds between March 1st and March 15th.
2) We prefer your plants in 4" pots, but not smaller than 3" pots.
3) You are responsible for planting, caring for, and delivering your plants to the clinic one to two days before the sale.
4) Water your plants two days before delivering them.
5) Send Ken the information on your veggies such as variety, days to maturity,
determinate or indeterminate, organic, disease resistant, etc.
This information should be on the back of the seed packets and will be added to the Veggie Committee book.
Ken's e-mail address is: [email protected]
6) Please include the number of each variety you are growing for the overall count.
7) Please label all your plants - i.e. Sungold Tomato, Jalapeno pepper, etc.
(continued on page 7)
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(continued from page 6)
The following is a list of plants that sold well last year:
Tomatoes: Green Zebras, Early Girls, Supersweet 100, Orange Slicers, Sungolds, Cherokee Purples, Romas, Celebrity, Gold Nugget, Italian Ice, Glacier, Stupice, Siletz, Black Cherry, Chocolate Cherry, Indigo Blue, Saladette, Juliet, and Tomatillos
Peppers: Jalapeno, Poblano, Sweet Bell, Cayenne, Habanero, Golden Bell, Early Sensation, and Anaheim
Eggplant: Black Beauty Eggplant
Artichoke: Green Globe Artichoke, Imperial Star Artichoke
We encourage you to grow these or any other plants you would enjoy.
Thank you all for your help. We look forward to working with you!
The Veggie Committee
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A Potager in Pots
by Lynn Meyers
Designing the New Kitchen Garden: An American Potager Handbook
By Bartley, Jennifer (Timber Press, 2006)
As a French teacher, I’ve had the good fortune to spend quite a bit of time in France, where some of my best gardening memories were made. I’ve stayed with a Provençal family in their restored farmhouse and classic country garden. I have visited the most famous garden in France (http://www.chateauvillandry.fr/en/). I’ve spent time with the monks who grow lavender and keep bees, and with the nuns in their converted abbey complete with espaliered apple orchard and enormous herb garden for the attached restaurant. It’s been quite awhile now since I’ve been back to France, so this year I’ve decided to bloom where I am planted and try a variation of the French potager—a French kitchen garden.
The potager has a rich history in France and dates to medieval times, but the basic idea is to have a beautiful and functional garden close to the kitchen. The name comes from having the ingredients for a potage (a hearty soup) handy enough to harvest nearby. Many resources are avail-able on this topic. I have chosen to brush up using the pictured excellent reference by Jennifer Bartley, filled with just the right information and loads of gorgeous photos.
Some of the basic principles of the potager are things I have been doing with-out really planning to, and I bet you have too, like mixing herbs and flowers in whatever way seems pleasing. Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’ provides a secret resting place for a hummingbird if you look very closely, while dill blooms for the chef, along with zinnia for the butterflies.
Other basics of a potager don’t seem to fit my space well at all since I don’t have a traditional plot of soil. This year’s experiment will be to see how close I can come to the principles of the potager on a deck with only planters, pots and a few small beds nearby.
Some of the design elements discussed in the book do happen to fit my odd space. Principle One is to consider technicalities like matters of sun and shade. My deck is on the south side of the house so it gets plenty of sun—should be fine for most vegetables. Principle Two is to maximize the kitchen-garden relationship. The deck is directly accessible from the dining room, which is open to the kitch-en. Close enough! Principle Three is to consider the bird’s eye view when planting, perhaps creating blocks of color or dividing the space into patterns or using repetition to unify the design. The deck has three levels, with blooms and cushions color-coordinated on each level but unified by using the same plants on all three levels. Principle Four is to enclose the garden in some way. While my space doesn’t look at all like the classic enclosed potager, it does have a tall fence that creates one large sanctuary style room even with its separate levels.
(continued on page 9)
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(continued from page 8)
In the past, I have focused almost exclusively on growing flowers since I had it stuck in my mind that a vegetable garden can only be a huge lot in the valley with furrows and rows and so much zucchini you have to sneak it over to the neighbor’s at night. Since then I have yanked out space-wasting shrubs, rehabbed the soil and plant-ed tomatoes for the last few years with enough success to fill the pantry with salsa. I’ve tried a few carrots in a small bed but didn’t thin ruthlessly enough to have more than a few delicious salads. Last year I tried tucking pumpkin seeds in with the flowers in my larger pots, hoping they would jump out and sprawl across the deck. The blooms were lovely and fit the color scheme. I even thought about battering & frying them using a recipe I got from an old French chef. But I let them grow to see if any might make it to task completion. I got one very tiny dollhouse version of Jack Be Little, too late a start to direct sow in pots last year.
This year I’m going to give Jack Be Little a head start in newspaper pots in my mini-greenhouse. I’ve also decided on more balance between flowers and edibles, so I’ll be trying the following and hoping for deli-cious results.
Paris Market Mix salad greens
Tonda di Parigi carrots, which are Italian but have been sold in Parisian markets since the 19th century—small, round, and bite-sized
Rolande French Filet Bush Beans
French Mascotte container Bush Beans, perfect for patio pots and small space gardens
Ronde de Nice French heirloom zucchini, another French Farmers market favorite
Petite Merveille heirloom peas
Crimson Carmelo French tomatoes (70 days, indeterminate)
Parisian Pickling Cucumbers
De 18 Jours Radishes (ready in as little as 18 days!)
Old favorites basil, dill, thyme, sage, parsley, arugula, chives, strawberries, rhubarb, lavender, and hopefully some garlic again this year, if I can remember!
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MARCH 2017
1. How many educational opportunities are available in the 2017 Spring Classes Garden series?
2. Which topic bookends the 2017 Spring Class series?
3. When does registration end for Cabin Fever tickets?
4. When is Garden Fair?
5. How many MGs are needed to make Garden Fair a success?
6. Who can you contact if you don’t have a job for Garden Fair yet?
7. If you have so many plants to donate to Garden Fair that you need a dig gig, who do you call?
8. How can you help get the word out about our fundraising events?
9. Which book teaches us about ourselves and why our passion for gardening is so captivating?
10. Who wrote this book and where is her garden?
11. Gardeners do not let their friends go home without what, according to the author named above?
12. Where can you purchase the book in Question 9?
13. The Plant Sale portion of Garden Fair is an event lasting how many days?
14. How many of those days are preparation?
15. How many of those days are sale days?
16. When should you plant your seeds to provide plants for the Plant Sale?
17. Which size pots are preferred for the sale?
18. To whom do you send the information about your donated vegetables?
19. When do you send that information?
20. Do you need to label your plants for the Plant Sale?
21. What is a potager?
22. Who will be sharing her adventures in potagers with us this year?
23. How will her potager be different than most?
24. What book does she recommend for learning more about potagers?
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FEBRUARY 2016 QUIZ
ANSWERS
1. Social media
2. Yes, yes, yes
3. Most definitely
4. March 11, 2017
5. No
6. Purchase tickets to Cabin Fever and renew MG Foundation membership
7. Baking!
8. His knowledge of birds
9. Yes
10. Drafting behind each other
11. Torpor
12. C198 Landscaping by a Lake, River or Stream
13. Roses
14. Trees
15. NO!
16. February 3, 2017. from 8am to 3pm (but we got snow-shortened!)
Extension programs and policies are consistent with federal and state laws and regulations on nondiscrimination regarding race, sex, religion, age, color, creed, national or ethnic origin; physical, mental, or sensory disability; marital status, sexual orientation, or status as a Vietnam-era or disabled veteran. Evidence of noncompliance may be reported through your local Extension office.
Calendar of Events
Thursday 2 MG Training/Hort. Class series 9 a.m. –3 p.m. (Entomology –Jan Baker)
Thursday 9 MG Training/Hort. Class series 9 a.m. –3 p.m. (Woody Plants –Tim K)
Saturday 11 CABIN FEVER 7:30 a.m.—4 p.m. Center Place Spokane Valley
Monday 13 MG Foundation Meeting 10 a.m. Extension conference room
Monday 13 MG Advisory Board Meeting 4 p.m. Extension conference room
Thursday 16 MG Training/Hort. Class series 9 a.m.—3 p.m. (Plant Nutrition—Jeremy)
Saturday 18 Food Not Lawns 9 a.m.—noon Extension classrooms
Saturday 18 Growing Vegetables in the INW 12:30 p.m.—3:30 p.m. Ext. classrooms
Monday 20 Spring begins!
Thursday 23 MG Training/Hort. Class series 9 a.m.—3 p.m. (Turf -Bob Peregoy)
Saturday 25 Raised Bed Gardening 9 a.m. – noon Extension classrooms
Saturday 25 Home Greenhouses 12:30 p.m.—3:30 p.m. Extension classrooms
Monday 27 Fruit Tree Pests 5 p.m.—8 p.m. SCC Bldg. 8, Room 104
Wednesday 29 Caring for Urban Trees 6 p.m.— 9 p.m. location TBA
Thursday 30 Pruning Woody Landscape Trees 9 a.m.—noon Extension classrooms
Fri/Sat 31/1 Pruning & Grafting Fruit Trees 6 p.m.-9 p.m. & 8 a.m.—5 p.m.
Wednesday 5 What’s That Plant ? (11 week series) 4 p.m.—7 p.m. SCC
Thursday 6 Basic Vegetable Gardening 5 p.m.—8 p.m. Northeast Community Ctr.
Saturday 8 Vegetable Grafting 9 a.m.—noon Extension Classrooms
Saturday 8 Small Fruits and Berries 12:30 p.m.—3:30 p.m. Extension Classrooms
Monday 10 MG Foundation Meeting 10 a.m. Extension conference room
Tuesday 11 MG Advisory Board Meeting 4 p.m. Extension conference room
