A Magical Place

If you are fortunate enough to live in Columbus, many of you probably already know about it, but for those readers who don’t it will be new. If you visit the central Ohio area, a visit the Franklin Park Conservatory should definitely be on your itinerary!

On Memorial Day (observed), We decided to take a break in the afternoon from our garden and yard chores to visit FPC and be inspired by the truly magical place. I am in heaven everytime I walk through those doors because I know I will find inspiration, knowledge and a visually stunning experience that changes everytime I go.

We were fortunate enough to catch the last few days of a botanically ispired art exhibit. Partners in Life and Art, an exhibition featuring the work of artists Paul and Amy Hamilton, transformed the Conservatory’s Atrium gallery into a showcase of Amy’s sculptural headpieces and Paul’s still life paintings.

Paul is well known for his exquisite landscape paintings that depict the outdoors, free from contemporary landmarks. A devoted plein air painter, his work reveals his obvious delight in nature. Made with great skill and sensitivity, his representational paintings capture space, light, and atmosphere, inviting the viewer to experience an environment quite removed from the gallery wall. This exhibit continues until Sunday May 31st, so if you have a moment, check it out!

Next, we turned our attention to the outdoor grounds. I am always thrilled with the pereneal and annual plantings at Franklin Park. The formal hedges and the scattered plantings always provide a unique juxtaposition that I find thrilling.

One of the reasons for our visit was to check out the community garden space. Community gardening is catching fire in central Ohio and around the nation. Urban dwellers without proper space to have a plot garden can rent or in some instances use for free, plots of dedicated land to grow vegetables for their tables.

Franklin Park participates in Community gardening through a partnership with the Metro Parks, Scotts Miracle Gro and other sponsors to provide land and education for community gardening. This is a passion of mine so I was thrilled to check it out and bring back pictures for the blog. Check out the photo album of our visit on facebook here

There are so many benefits to Community gardening. Statistics and studies show that community gardening:

· Encourages self-sufficiency
· Contributes to the education and socialization of youth
· Creates opportunities for multicultural understanding
· Provides ecological awareness
· Fosters intergenerational opportunities
· Improves family nutrition and increases community food security
· Promotes biodiversity
· Meets social and recreational needs
· Offers gardening opportunities to people with disabilities
· Provides vocational training and work experiences
· Enhances neighborhood safety and beauty
· Builds coalitions among groups dedicated to community revitalization

Community gardens began to develop in the United States in the late 1930s and 40s. Families were asked by the federal government to plant their own community, or “victory”, gardens during and following World War II. Since the start of victory gardens, community gardens have developed into a fun, inexpensive, and healthy way for people to grow their own produce and flowers.Today, an estimated 18,000 community gardens operate in both rural and urban areas nationwide. While many grow for their families and neighbors, many gardens also donate to local food pantries and homeless shelters.Take a look at some Central Ohio Community Gardens.
For more information about community gardening please contact:

Franklin Park Conservatory
Attn: Bill Dawson,
Growing to Green Coordinator,
1777 East Broad Street,
Columbus Ohio 43203
614.645.5952

We also stopped by the last day or so of the Iris judging beds to see the new varieties of Irises. We have several in our yard, but we are looking at diversifying the colors so this was a great inspirational stop. We talked with the caretaker of the temporary bed and she explained the differences in each Iris, some growing and transplanting tips that were invaluable.

We always tour the permanent collections at the conservatory as well. The Conservatory houses 400 species of plants from a variety of global climate zones and features the historic John F. Wolfe Palm House where more than 45 species of palms are represented amongst more than 120 individual specimens. I love the different climates that are reproduced within the conservatory and all of the great information on native plants, growing habits and environmental information. I learn something new every time I go.

The Conservatory has fun and information for people of all ages and all knowledge levels. Check out the Palm House artisitic light installation and the gift shop for more fun! For more information on Franklin Park Conservatory, vist http://www.fpconservatory.org/

Happy Gardening!

Out With the Old and In With the New

Managing a potager is a constant shell game, plants get planted, mature and decline and you must move things around and replace those declining plants with the next crop. This happens all season long up to the hard frost dates when I will put most of the potager to bed for the season with a layer of compost and mulch (after a few weeks of the garlic being in the ground).

The first shift and change is with 5 squares that declined, were pilfered or failed. I originally planned two square feet for celery, one of the square feet (two plants) are beginning to grow. The other, unfortunately, failed to work at all. Another square held sweet corn which was too delicious for either the squirells or the birds to resist. Next, the declining three squares; the first crop of mesclun lettuce had grown beautifully and provided salads for us for the last three weeks. We both enjoyed salads out of the first couple of cuttings. The third cutting provided salad for a dinner party I had a few nights ago.

Alas, the mesclun has run its course. I went out this morning and cut some of the lettuce to test and the stalks were toughening and the leaves were slightly bitter. Should I let this grow and cut another salad, I believe we would be dissapointed with the results.

The solution was to dig up the lettuce, prep the bed and begin new crops. I loosened the soil and lifted the lettuce plants out of the soil and tapped the roots to ensure all the soil went back into the bed. Then, augmented the soild with additional soil mix I have. What I am left with is five square feet of well prepared soil. In addition, the spent lettuce plants will be well used in the composter!

With the four square feet, I planted four sweet potato plants, another square of mesclun (I think I can get a couple of salads out of it before the weather gets too hot), spinach, swiss chard and a couple of winter squash plants that I will thin to one and allow it to mature.

The last additions were a couple of strawberry plants tucked into a sunny corner near our house in a flag stone planter that had only had ground cover in it till now as well as a couple more pots of items; a dwarf curry bush and a very small (for now) bay tree. The bay will be brought on to the sun porch for the winter along with a couple of herb plants and returned to the garden next summer.

The potager is a busy place this year and I am so glad we decided to take this journey. This practical experience as well as the research I have been doing is entertaining, worthwhile and stress free! I urge everyone to plant a garden, a pot or something that will provide you the same experience, there is nothing like it!

Happy Gardening!

A Profusion of Peonies!

Well the Peony bushes have really provided a show this year. I had to capture their spectacular beauty as a garden plant and as a cut flower in this blog.

Many people believe that a potager is for vegetables only. I believe, as the traditional French do, that the potager should provide both food and flowers to the home. I am, however, not a firm believer in a traditional cutting garden. First, we do not have that kind of space and I prefer to have blooms in the garden and on the table so a more organic, inclusive plan was needed.

I have a border of Peonies flanking the potager and a friend recently gave me starts for native sunflowers that I hope will provide additional cut flowers in the late summer (I doubt that we will get anything this year, but they should fill in and provide more in the coming years). In addition, we have two young lilac bushes that are already providing a bouquet or two per season. I look forward to their maturity and many more luscious lavender bouquets in the future.

We have some stunning climbing lace cap hydrangeas that provide the most interesting low profile cut flowers for a silver julep cup or bow. In addition we have purple and yellow irises that provide bursts of color to the table in early spring and lilies that will give orange and yellow sparkle to our summer outdoor entertaining.

But back to the gorgeous Peony; Plant taxonomy classifies peony plants under the genus, Paeonia. Within the Paeonia genus, there are various species and cultivars. The most commonly planted species in North America is Paeonia lactiflora, sometimes referred to as "Chinese peony plants."

Peony plants bear attractive, glossy green foliage that reaches 2'-3' in height with a similar spread. But their popularity is due mainly to their flowers. The most striking peony flowers are the highly fragrant, massive doubles, usually pink, red or white. Other colors and flower types do exist, however. There's even a hybrid with yellow flowers that I would love to find and plant (Yellow is one of my favorite colors). Peony plants bloom in late spring or early summer. Peony plants are generally indigenous to and thrive in China, Europe and the Western U.S.

If you like them and plan to start your own peonies, you need to know the right growing conditions. Peony plants prefer full sun. An exception to this rule applies to growers in zones 8 and 9, where, due the summer's intense heat, peony plants may profit from partial shade. Grow peony plants in a soil that is fertile and well-drained, with a pH of 6.0 - 7.0. Even in the dreadful clay soil of central Ohio, ours do very well with a little soil augmentation (sand, peat, compost).

Since the peonies get so large and profuse after only a year or so; support peony plants with stakes or hoops, as you would tomatoes. The large blooms get heavy, especially after a rain. Trimming back and disposing of the foliage in autumn helps prevent the disease, botrytis blight. Other diseases may cause a gradual decline in peony plants. If you see one specimen is stunted while the peony plants around it are doing fine, remove and destroy that plant, lest it infect the others. Mulch (2"-3") peony plants in the fall, removing the mulch in spring.

The stunning blooms and transcendent fragrance of a peony is one of the great pleasures of the spring garden. I hope you find a spot and plant some right away so you can enjoy them too. And also look around your yard or potager to find spots to tuck in a few other cutting plants to fill your home with color and fragrance all season long!

Happy Gardening!

What a Difference a Month Makes

Well as you can see from the picture above, many things have been happening in the garden. Even after the first harvest of lettuce, we still have plenty to go! In addition, the humble seeds, bulbs and starts have taken off into full blown young plants.

While we are still a few weeks from getting any real harvests, I wanted to share the progress with you. The garden design ended up changing several times from the cold November day when I planned the layout. We eliminated the third bed and turned the remaining two 90 degrees so that we could accommodate a bench, composter, rain barrel, etc. We also eliminated the raised bed for herbs. Unfortunately after watching the light for a few days, I realized that the herb bed would not get enough light to really grow all the herbs in the ideal way. Instead, we confined the herbs to our planters on the deck. In hindsight, I am glad of the decision, now I can brush up against the fragrant herbs when I go out the door and I just have to step outside to snip them for cooking!

As you can see in the pictures, the starts, seeds and seedlings have really begun to flourish in the raised beds. All of the extra thought and preparation of the soil and beds have really paid off. One thing that I did not mention on the soil in any of the other entries is the addition of earthworm starts in both beds and in our composter. We placed leaves in the bottom of the beds and I want them to decompose slowly, but decomposing leaves tend to leach nitrogen out of the soil, so we added the earthworms to consume the leaves and provide us with nitrogen rich castings to augment the soil.

The tomato seedlings I started are really grabbing hold as well as the onions, shallots, potatos and other root crops (carrots, beets, leeks, radishes). The eggplant is coming along (not as vigorously as I thought) as well as the peppers are slow growing but steady. The plants I am most concerned about that seem to be doing the worst are the vining plants. The beans have barely broken the soil and only a couple of them have actually sprouted above the soil. The cucumbers and squash don’t seem to be as robust as I thought they would be. I need to do some research on soil conditions and those plants preferences so I know what to add to the soil and where to place them should they not perform as expected.

All in all I am thrilled with the progress of the potager. I am equally happy with the rest of the garden. The perrenial border is coming along nicely. It is a slow, multi year process to get these just right and established.

I hope these pictures inspire you to start a few seedlings in pots this year and to begin planning your own potager for next year (if you build it now or during the summer, you can plant a cover crop that can augment and return nutrients to your soil and then rest for a year). I am hooked on the idea of growing a majority of our own produce for as long as our zone allows. I am convinced that the time and effort is good for the body, mind and soul, not to mention the pocket book and environment!

Happy Gardening!

Is It Time To Stage An Intervention?

I must ask the readers of this blog that if they see me heading toward or visiting a specialty plant or garden center, they should approach with caution and gently lead me out of the store, leaving all of the vegetables and plants behind.

Hi, my name is Ken and I am a garden-a-holic.

My problem started this year with some gift plants. A dear friend bought some cayenne peppers she was not going to be able to keep. I took them and gave them a loving home in a pretty pot, sitting at the entrance to the potager (pictured above), thanks Suzanne and Aubrey!
Well that humble gift has started a series of plant purchases. First it was peppermint (which needs to grow in a pot or it will take over your garden), then it was additional summer squash plants (can you really ever have enough?). Next was four additional varieties of tomato (Roma, an unusual gourmet white grape tomato, and two heirloom varieties). Finally I have added dwarf watermelon plants to a pot just to see if the pot can act like a “mound” and have the vines trail on the pebbles and grow a small melon.

While still attractive, the pot numbers are growing and I am concerned that because of my love and clearly, my obsession with growing, I will have a cluttered and utterly unattractive garden. Furthermore, I really don’t want to have so many plants that I find it difficult to care for them…kind of like those folks with far too many cats or dogs that you hear about on the news….can you imagine the health department or my local Extension office confiscating my beloved cucumber plants while I cry on camera….appauling.

Anyway, since I obviously have no control, please be on the lookout…I will be the guy with the glassy eyes hovering over the heirloom vegetable section muttering to myself “ If I get rid of my deck chairs, I will have room for another 5 pots to put these in”.

Happy Gardening

Our First Harvest

Well I am happy to report after the money and hours spent in the garden, we had our first harvest!! I will call it harvest 1.5 because it included success and not so much success.

First the success! Our mesclun lettuce crop was outstanding (pictured above after harvesting the first time). The seeds were easy to sew, sprouted successfully and grew quickly to a cutting height for fresh baby green salad. There is enough in these two square feet to provide another first harvest salad and two to three second harvest salads before I refresh the space and let it rest for a second planting later in the season.

Now to the not so successful part. Remember a few weeks back when I was very excited about a Burpee seed starting kit with a watering mat and seemingly foolproof sprouting? Well it obviously was not foolproof enough for me. First, the peat pods do not naturally stay in the correct position, they flip to the side, so when water is added, they flip and expand in the wrong direction. This does not allow the pod to fully expand and makes it almost useless to plant in. Those that did stay upright also had the problem of being too compacted. The peat that you start seeds in should be loose and friable, these were clearly not.

Once the seeds were sewn, it took an abnormally long time for the sprouts to mature (not sure why on that one) and finally, once we tried to extract the seedlings, they broke and the peat pods would not extracate themselves from the container, leaving us with about 40 useless seedlings. Thank goodness some of the items could be directly sewn into the ground and others I had more of in different starting systems.

Now I am not one to trash a product, but I must say there is an easier and more successful way to start seeds than with this product from Burpee. I thought it would be great since their seeds and other products are so good, but I was really dissapointed.

In an effort to make lemonade from this lemon of a product, I cut the radish, leek and onion seedlings off, combined them with the radish seedlings I thinned from the garden and tossed them with the lettuce we harvested. The seedlings added a spice and flavor to the salad that was unmistakable and delcious!

So all in all, we are thrilled with the status of the garded today. The harvest of the lettuce was fun and the satisfaction in eating the salad we made with our own produce was immense. It was clean tasting, not overley processed (what they do to lettuce you buy in a bag…you shouldn’t know from) and healthful. This was the first of many harvests to come, but it was very special

Happy Gardening!

Kitchen Compost

A month or so ago when we purchased the composting system and placed it near the garden, the intent was to collect yard waste as well as kitchen scraps to decompose and add to the garden next year. The challenge then became to find a container for the kitchen that would collect the daily composting items (coffee grounds, vegetable scraps, egg shells,etc.) that would be later transported to the outdoor composter.

Kitchen composting is easy if you remember that no meat scraps go into the compost, only vegetable matter, coffee grounds, nut shells, egg shells, etc.

I looked at several options; anything from a stainless mixing bowl to a miniature version of a trash can specifically designed for kitchen compost. While the trash can was cute, it really did not go with my kitchen and I did not want to place the vessel under my counter (space is at a premium in my kitchen if you can believe it). What I settled on was a pretty enamled metal canister (pictured above)with a gasket sealed glass lid that will keep any oders down, the item is washable and easily transported. The canister came from Ikea (available in stores only). You can find similar items at your local Ikea or kitchen supply store, pick one that coordinates and looks natural in your kitchen.

Soon, you will be adding nutrient rich scraps to your ever growing compost pile; dreaming of that day next year when those simple scraps will be marvelous friable compost that you will use to ammend yoru garden soil…I can’t wait!

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http://www.realgoods.com/product/home-outdoor/kitchen/composting/white+ceramic+kitchen+compost+crock.do

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Happy Gardening!

Storing the Seeds of Love

Sorry, having a Tears for Fears moment. Anyway, as we wait patiently for progress in the garden (I will follow up very shortly with the progress and some photos) I wanted to talk about preserving the investment you make in buying and growing from seed.

While less expensive than buying seedlings, often the expense of starting seeds (peat pots, seed starting systems, etc.) can get out of hand. However, if you stick with it for more than one year, you get the return on your investment. One way to ensure a better return is to use leftover seeds for more than one year.

Seed packets purchased now will have a date stamped on the packet for the 2009 harvest. That would lead one to believe that if you do not use all the seeds in that growing season that you will have to buy more next season. This is not true. Most seeds are designed for at least three years of germination. Some heirloom and even hybrid varieties will go even longer. The key is proper storage and labeling.

For this years seeds, I used an inexpensive plastic storage container with a locking lid that I had purchased a few of for other purposes. This can be used year after year with proper marking and storage. Once you start and plant all of the seeds for the growing season, sort the seeds into categories or varieties, mark the box with a label or even just a Sharpie pen (you can either cross out or even remove the mark later and relabel).

Store the seeds in a cool dry place (in a cabinet or dry basement) for the best results. As always, conduct a germination test before direct sowing any seed into the ground by taking a sample of seeds and sprout them in a plastic bag with damp paper towel to determine how viable the seeds are. If you have older seeds, this is a must.

By properly storing your seeds, you will have to buy less for the next growing season, extending and reducing your investment and increasing your gardening satisfaction!

Happy Gardening!

Keeping your head screwed on right

In the flurry of planting your garden, it is easy to lose track of what was planted and when. This information might seem like nothing important; but when you are wondering in a few months what to harvest and what isn’t ready yet, it will become vitally important.

I spent some time this morning updating the garden planting chart I created in Excel. I like Excel, but you could use a calendar or garden journal or you could use the garden stakes and markers as your guide by adding the planting date and the number of days to expected harvest.

As you can see by the picture above, I have some additional columns on my chart, they include the actual harvest date and a section for comments about planting, the result of the harvest, etc. This will help me when I go to plant next year to determine what worked well in my soil, what didn’t, if I need ammendments to the soil for particular crops and other helpful information (disease, pest issues, etc.).

No matter what kind of log or diary you use, just make sure you keep up with it. Year over year, it will make your gardening experience less frustrating, more educational, more pleasurable and most of all more delicious!

Happy Gardening!

Transplanting Seedlings

I have a mass of seedlings that have to be transplanted into the garden this week. The squash, cucumber, radish , beet and onion seedlings are beginning to get leggy in their small peat pods and want to stretch their roots in the garden soil.

Seedlings at this stage are delicate and very tender. You will recall my last post about protecting them. The most tender seedlings are the squash and cucubmber. Beet and radish as well as onion seedlings are more root crop and not so much flower and fruit and need little protection, but for the tender seedlings, follow the same process of protecting them with a recycled plastic bottle or with a decorative cloche.

Seedlings should be dug slightly larger then their peat pot. In good friable soil, there is little cultivation needed, but if you have not cultivated the soil yet, you will want to break up hard clumps twice to three times the diameter of the seedling to ensure the roots can grow.

Seedlings should be watered in well. Since we are planting ours during a wet and rainy week, you would think that we would not need to water additionally, but this would be a mistake. The water not only helps with growth, but it also compacts the soil slightly around the roots, removing air pockets that could damage or kill seedlings.

With a little care, your seedlings will establish themselves in the garden in no time flat. In fact, the small radishes will be ready in two to three weeks! Just in time to be blanched or sliced with your green salads!

Happy Gardening!