In the Garden: December 2009

The arrival of the holiday season signals a shift in my garden. I love to leave my perennials standing through the fall. Their dried-up forms lend striking textures to the garden and provide a tangible reminder of the shift of seasons. Sedum 'Autumn Joy', northern sea oats and the second shoots of my globe thistle help the colors and textures of fall last into December.

After Thanksgiving, it is time to put the garden to bed. Get the pumpkins off the front porch, cut back the dead and dry twigs of your perennials and remove the last memories of summer's bounty. When cleaning up the garden, bring sprigs inside for holiday decorations. That monster holly bush in the neighbor's yard that is trying to steal the sun from your vegetable plot finally has a purpose! I love to cut sprigs of holly and conifers to make a door swag, a winter bouquet or even a centerpiece for my table.

December is also time to mulch and protect any boarder-line hardy plants in your garden. Dahlias can now be dug-up, divided and stored for the winter, or you can do what I do and leave them in the ground over the winter. It is a roll of the dice, but I always figure that if one or two don't come back, it's an excellent opportunity to try a new variety next season without expanding the number of different dahlias I grow into the hundreds.

If you haven't done it yet, right before the holidays is a great time to rework your container gardens for the winter. Pansies, dusty miller, cyclamen, ornamental sedges, cabbages and kale and a wide variety of small shrubs with winter interest make for a spot of color in the relatively bare winter garden.

I also always take the opportunity to brighten up the winter garden with a winter light display. The nights are so long and dark this time of year, and it's always nice to come home to a colorful garden. Displays range from the traditional garland and bows to hanging lighted snowflakes and orbs of light. Get creative! The more unique the better in my opinion.

Though December is is filled with short days and long cold nights, there is still a bit to keep the urban gardener busy. Get the garden to bed, enjoy the holiday season and put off thinking of next spring's projects until after the first of the new year.

Plant of the Month - December 2009: Cyclamen

On the shortest day of the year, I put forth December's plant of the month. It is a winter-blooming beauty that can be planted in the garden or displayed indoors as a house plant. Cyclamen is a genus of about 20 different species that are mainly native to the area around the Mediterranean. They grow naturally in forests, scrubland and even in alpine regions. The florists' varieties are derived from Cyclamen persicum and are prized for their large, beautiful, star-shaped flowers in white, pink, magenta and red. The green heart-shaped leaves of the plant are often marked with interesting patterns of icy white lacework. I have found that if protected from a hard freeze, these plants can be kept alive and blooming outdoors throughout the winter, but be warned, if it drops into the 20's, you might lose all the flowers. I think it is a risk worth taking. To have these winter-blooming exclaimation points of color in a special container garden or even as a drift of winter annuals in a prominent planting bed, can add some brightness to the dark winter garden.

There are other species of cyclamen that are hardier than the florists' varieties. Cyclamen coum, c. hederifolium and c. repandum are smaller leaved, have smaller flowers, and will naturalize and persist in partly shaded areas of the garden. The Krukeberg Botanical Garden in Richmond Beach, Washington has some good- sized drifts of c. hederifolium and c. repandum that can be seen flowering throughout their wooded grounds in the spring and late summer.

The vital statistics for this Genus vary greatly by species. In general, most of the species perfer partial shade and evenly moist soil while growing. Add a balanced, organic fertilizer and mulch the plants lightly in the fall to keep your hardy varieties happy and healthy for years. As an annual, you can plant them just about anywhere - just make sure to protect them if it gets too cold.

So if you're looking for a spot of color to brighten up your winter garden, try Cyclamen.

Farmers Markets: A Step in the Right Direction

Farmers Markets: A Step in the Right Direction

I picked up a DVD at my local video store a couple of weeks ago. Yes, I actually still frequent the Video Factory a few blocks from my home in north Seattle. I like supporting my local small business owners, and I like to pick out movies and go home and watch them right away. I also recently signed up for a library card for the Seattle Public Libraries. Call me old fashioned. But I guess I’m wandering off topic.

The movie I selected was Food Inc. It’s a documentary film brought to the screen by filmmaker Robert Kenner and co-produced by Eric Schlosser (of Fast Food Nation fame). The film exposes the large scale food industry of the United States. It’s an industry that creates chemically altered large-breasted chickens that reach maturity in half the time of a normal Gallus domesticus, can’t walk and never see the light of day. It’s an industry that hides the real cost of foods from the American consumer and helps fuel the epidemic of obesity in our culture. After watching this film, I determined to be a part of the solution. Even if my part is small, at least I’m not going to support a system that pinches good, honest farmers, tortures animals and harms the consumer with chemically infused products that contain significant health hazards.

In season, I produce a wide range of berries and vegetables on my small urban lot. It is a passion, and I love harvesting and cooking directly from my garden. Most urban gardeners, however, don’t grow their own food year-round. If we’re persistent throughout the season, we urban gardeners can enjoy fresh produce from our own soil from about May through November, and hopefully, we store up a few jars of preserves to help stretch the harvest into the winter. Once winter is upon us, we are forced to buy our produce. From the tiny organic section at your local mega-chain grocery to large organic sections at smaller chain high end grocers, one can find organic produce in almost every neighborhood in the city. The fact that organics are available at most stores here in the city is a drastic improvement over even a few years ago, but there are also over a dozen farmers markets sprinkled across the city from Pike Place to West Seattle to Ballard and Lake City, there’s likely a farmers market within five to ten minutes from your front door. These markets sell local, organic products, and they allow you to meet and support local growers.

Last weekend, I visited the Sunday market in Ballard. I must admit that I felt a little weird when determinedly walking up the street toward the market entrance with my clean air recyclable tote in hand, but upon arriving, I found the market full of people from apparently all walks of life. I found a wide demographic of city dwellers out dodging the rain and shopping the market. The one thing people in the market seemed to have in common was that they all appeared to be enjoying themselves. People were happy. Venders called out their wares with a smile while musicians filled the air with their particular brand of goods. Shoppers were either pulled in by the calls or smiled and shook their heads if they were just looking.

I was able to speak directly with every producer that I bought from and with quite a few that I didn’t buy from. Everyone was knowledgeable about their products and willing to chat and give me information. I bought a wide range of products – from organic garlic-herb cheese curds, to hot pepper sauce, to organic honey crisp apples (which were already out of season weeks ago in the grocery stores) and many organic vegetables. All the products that I left the market with were delicious, local, organic and supportive of small farmers in our area.

The cost of products at the farmers market has always been a question for most consumers. The markets have a reputation for quality, fresh produce, but they also have a reputation for costing you an arm and a leg. A statistics class at Seattle University conducted a study in May of 2007 that compared costs at the Broadway farmers market with costs at the Broadway QFC, the nearby Madison Market and several co-ops in the area. The class found that pound for pound, for the same products, the farmers market was actually slightly less expensive than all the other stores. The trick here is that you compare apples to apples. That is to say, sure, you can get a chemically sprayed, waxed pulpy Red Delicious apple at the local grocery for cheaper than an organic, Fuji from the farmers market, but if you compare the same quality, organic products, the farmers market can often hold its own. Once you make the decision to eat local, organic foods, you may find the best place to get them is directly from the growers.

Take the opportunity to support your local farmer, enjoy your shopping experience and maybe even save a little money. When your garden is put to bed for the winter, support those farmers that produce for us all year long. Take a step in the right direction. Shop your local farmers market; develop relationships with the people who produce your food, and support a healthier planet.

Letter from the Editor, November 2009

November 17, 2009

Welcome to The Urban Gardener Seattle. My idea for this blog is to present a wide range of articles about the urban garden, the urban gardener and the urban garden lover. I'll cover the seasons, plants and lifestyle of the garden. I hope you enjoy the articles and information presented here each month.

The first article of this blog will focus on food. As a citizen of the city, the urban gardener has at their fingertips a wide variety of sources for their food. My favorite source for fresh food is, of course, my own garden. I can sometimes be a bit insane about my vegetable garden. I have more than once caught myself wandering through the house in the summer muttering something cryptic about how,"The harvest waits for no man," but this time of year, most of us have the bulk of our vegetables harvested. Hopefully, at least a few bits of the harvest found their way into jars and are safely preserved and put away in the pantry for winter, but if you're anything like me, there isn't nearly enough put away to keep you in vegeies for the entire, long cold winter. So, as the last few fresh jalapenos and potatoes disappear from my kitchen, this month I advocate for the farmer's market.

I also present a colorful alternative to your grandma's old variety of heather with this month's plant of the month - 'Firefly' heather.

Plant of the Month - November 2009: Calluna vulgaris 'Firefly'

• Plant of the Month - November 2009:
  Calluna Vulgaris ‘Firefly’
  
  As fall settles over the city, leaves drop from the trees revealing a wide grey sky. The plant of the month for November is a flaming torch of color under the cold skies of winter. Calluna vulgaris ‘Firefly’ (Firefly Heather) is a low-growing woody shrub that has four season appeal. New foliage emerges a bright chartreuse green, and fades to oranges and red by the fall. This low-care plant needs little water once established, and I have never pruned mine in the four years that it’s been growing in my front garden. Firefly looks great paired with blue-leaved grasses such as blue oat and blue fescue. Plant it in drifts as a colorful and textural addition to a contemporary theme or use as a specimen in a rock garden. Firefly also looks great in container gardens where its spectacular foliage is a great counterpoint to spreading purple flowers like lantana.
  
  Vital information:


• Full sun


• 18” tall by 24” wide


• USDA Hardiness: zones 5 to 8


• Water: moist to dry


• Flowers in summer – light purple


• Drought tolerant


• 4 Season appeal


• Flowers in summer with bright new foliage.

'Firefly' in the foreground with blue fescue.