Posted on May 6, 2008 by Rose Marie
I’m happy to announce the fourth printing of McGee & Stuckey’s, The Bountiful Container is now available. This 432 page book is a complete guide growing container gardens of vegetables, herbs, fruits and edible flowers. We’ve included recipes for using your home grown goods. Maggie and I researched soils, containers, fertilizing and every aspect [...]
Filed under: Food, Gardening, Greetings From The Garden, Recipes, events, garden, gardens, herb gardens, herb recipes, herbs | Tagged: container gardening, container gardens, urban gardens | No Comments »
Posted on April 26, 2008 by Rose Marie
Plan now for summer water conservation. Choices include drip tape, porous leaky pipe, and drip emitter kits. Combine any of these with timers and you are delivering proper amounts of water to each area of the garden. Avoiding overhead watering reduces disease and increases yields. Less time spent on weeding is a significant advantage. Obviously, [...]
Filed under: Gardening, garden, gardens | Tagged: conservation, container gardening, drip irrigation, food gardening, growing things | 2 Comments »
Posted on April 21, 2008 by Rose Marie
April 22nd marks Earth Day, a world celebration of our beautiful planet. With so many shared world concerns let us pause and enjoy what we have. Stop for a moment, get outdoors and look around at the amazing wonder of spring. Plant seeds, set plants and soon you have a garden.
With all the discussion [...]
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Posted on April 20, 2008 by Rose Marie
Surely there is no recent holiday with a more obscure origin. The date is listed as both April 23rd and April 25th. It seems to have no presidential decree or any notable history. It reminds me to use the shredded zucchini frozen last fall. It’s almost time to plant more zucchini! Our current favorite variety [...]
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Posted on April 4, 2008 by Rose Marie
Tomorrow, Saturday April 5th, Keane and I will be at Gardenpalooza with seeds, and Yacon plants. Come to us with your gardening questions. Mention you’ve seen this note on The Gardener’s Pantry and select a free seed packet of your choice. Gardenpalooza is a yearly local event held at Fir Point Farms in Aurora, OR [...]
Filed under: Blogroll, Gardening, Greetings From The Garden, events, garden, gardens, yacon | Tagged: seeds | No Comments »
Posted on March 26, 2008 by Rose Marie
Keane and I will be at the Boise Flower & Garden Show Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Friday at 11:00 a.m. I speak on Edible Gardening in Containers & Small Spaces. Saturday, it’s Seed Starting, What a Gardener Needs to Know, at 3:00p.m. If you live in the Boise area come to the show, please stop [...]
Filed under: Blogroll, Gardening, Greetings From The Garden, events, garden, gardens | Tagged: falcons, flower shows, San Francisco | No Comments »
Posted on March 18, 2008 by Rose Marie
Baking soda and water is often all we is need to treat mildew in the garden. Trouble is it’s so easy to forget or misplace the recipe. So if that should happen to you this recipe it will be archived on this site.
Mix together:
1 tablespoon baking soda (from the kitchen cupboard) [...]
Filed under: Easy Gardening Tips, Gardening, Greetings From The Garden, Recipes, garden, herb gardens | Tagged: plant diseases | 2 Comments »
Posted on March 15, 2008 by Rose Marie
Composition roof shingles laid between raised beds keeps paths dry and weed free. We began using these last summer and through the winter have come to love them. The shingles are rough and seems to discourage slugs, the surface is never slippery or muddy. When they are no longer needed, shingles are easy to lift [...]
Filed under: Easy Gardening Tips, Gardening, Greetings From The Garden, garden, gardens | Tagged: garden paths, raised bed gardening | 1 Comment »
Posted on March 4, 2008 by Rose Marie
Today, I’m starting a series of simple gardening tips that have not been published everywhere. Random topics to be sure, the sort of tips we share back and forth with friends, your comments are welcome.
James Cassidy, soil scientist, began the Organic Gardening Club at Oregon State University. At a recent Master Gardener meeting he recommended [...]
Filed under: Easy Gardening Tips, Gardening, garden | Tagged: onions | 3 Comments »
Posted on February 20, 2008 by Rose Marie
We’re heading north to Seattle for the annual Northwest Flower & Garden Show. This year the show runs now through February 24th. http://www.gardenshow.com/ It’s showtime across the country, and it’s the best place to hear speakers, buy new plants and especially in Seattle we always find inspiration from the fabulous show gardens. I’ll be speaking [...]
Filed under: Food, Gardening, Greetings From The Garden, events, garden, gardens | Tagged: garden show, NW Flower & Garden Show, Plant A Row For the Hungry, Seattle | No Comments »
Posted on February 20, 2008 by Rose Marie
Suddenly the days are longer, the skies are brighter, and it’s a joy to be in the garden. This week I sowed Cascadia Snap Pea seeds in a straw bale. Legume inoculant will provide all the nitrogen they need. Gardeners in the Pacific Northwest once had to plant peas in January to get a crop [...]
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Posted on February 7, 2008 by Rose Marie
February 15th, 16th & 17th, you’ll find Nichols Garden Nursery at booth #1386 at the beautiful Portland Yard, Garden, & Patio Show. Sunday, at 11:00 a.m. I’ll present a seminar on “Culinary Herbs: How to Grow and Use In the Pacific Northwest”. YGP, gets us enthused about the beginning of spring. With lovely display gardens, [...]
Filed under: Blogroll, Gardening, Greetings From The Garden, events, garden, herb gardens, herbs | Tagged: Garden & Patio Show, Plant A Row For the Hungry, Portland Yard Garden & Patio Show, Yard | No Comments »
Posted on February 5, 2008 by Rose Marie
Nichols Garden Nursery, in Albany, Oregon now has a new 88 page, 2008 catalog. Our new narrower format is easy to handle and read. If you visit our website http://www.nicholsgardennursey.com you can download this catalog as a PDF. Be sure to check the “new and unusual” pages 23 & 24 for what’s new in seeds. [...]
Filed under: Blogroll, Gardening, Greetings From The Garden, garden, gardens | Tagged: catalog, seeds | No Comments »
Posted on January 15, 2008 by Rose Marie
Take a glance through these eight images by Australian photographer Carl Warner on BBC news. These imaginative foodscapes are all made of foods we eat. Amazing, creative work sure to open your eyes a bit wider and make you smile.
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Posted on November 21, 2007 by Rose Marie
The last few years I’ve noticed a flock of wild turkeys clustered on Albany, Oregon street corners like wayward youth. I half expect to see cigarettes dangling from their beaks. Local news recently filmed wild turkeys in Eugene, OR, perching on roofs, digging in gardens, and lending a touch of wildlife. In general they are [...]
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Posted on November 19, 2007 by Rose Marie
A customer from Meridian, Idaho writes to us about controlling weeds and I thought I’d share her questions and my suggestions. This layered method for weed control is effective and improves your soil. Pat Lanza wrote an excellent book a few years ago titled Lasagna Gardening.
“I am have a terrible time in my garden with [...]
Filed under: Gardening, Greetings From The Garden, garden | Tagged: organic gardening, weed control, weed management | 2 Comments »
Posted on November 11, 2007 by Rose Marie
As we move into cooler weather I see our salad garden is a bit uneven. We have lots of greens for cooking, mesclun, racdiccio and arugula but sometimes I begin to crave a crunchy salad that’s packed with flavor and color. So I broke down and purchased some lovely local Romaine lettuce. The garden pantry [...]
Filed under: Food, Recipes, garden, herb recipes | Tagged: cooking, edible flowers, salad, tarragon | No Comments »
Posted on November 6, 2007 by Rose Marie
Today I made “essence of tarragon”. To do this, cut the plants back, carefully rinse the foliage, spin or shake away excess moisture and strip leaves from the stem. Pack the leaves into a jar and cover with hot white wine vinegar or rice vinegar. I store this in a cool pantry and that’s it. [...]
Filed under: Food, Gardening, Recipes, garden, herb recipes, herbs | Tagged: beets, tarragon | No Comments »
Posted on November 5, 2007 by Rose Marie
Tarragon is one of my most easily grown herbs. I say this because it wasn’t always this way. Our home garden soil tends to be wet and cold in winter. Tarragon dies back in winter and is often the slowest plant to reappear in late spring. After a particularly cold wet winter we may not [...]
Filed under: Gardening, Greetings From The Garden, garden, herb gardens, herbs | Tagged: container gardening, herb gardening, tarragon | No Comments »
Posted on October 17, 2007 by Rose Marie
Soup with Pistou is a fragrant mixture of herbs and vegetables which originates from Provence France. In my mind it is an” end of the garden” soup, with a few basic ingredients and then a little of this and that is incorporated. It’s always served with a large dollop of Pistou. The Italians have Pesto [...]
Filed under: Food, Recipes, garden, herb recipes, herbs | Tagged: basil, soup | No Comments »
Posted on October 8, 2007 by Rose Marie
I’m trying to address the problem of deer in the garden in a constructive manner and not just rant. Our in town garden, mostly of edibles, is favorite target of the rising deer population. Because it is rather large and spread out the cost of fencing is prohibitive. So what do we do?
Two days ago, [...]
Filed under: Gardening, garden, herb gardens | Tagged: deer, deer control | 7 Comments »
Posted on October 3, 2007 by Rose Marie
Some days begin with a good chuckle. This morning I opened BBC news and read about a terrorist alert in London. You can go to this url for the full story:Burning chilli sparks terror fear. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/7025782.stm [...]
Filed under: Food, Gardening, events, garden, herb gardens, herbs | Tagged: container gardening, herb gardening, Hot Peppers | No Comments »
Posted on October 3, 2007 by Rose Marie
I’ve had several questions come to our Nichols Garden Nursery website asking what to do about aphids on broccoli, kale and other cole crops. The critters gather in the crevices and are not always removed with a stream of water. Insecticidal soap prepared according to the recipe on thecontainer works for plants growing in the [...]
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Posted on September 27, 2007 by Rose Marie
Papaloquelite, Porophyllum ruderale known as papalo or summer cilantro, is a Mexican and Central American herb. The leaves have a warm pungency like cilantro with a hint of citrus and a more powerful flavor. I recommend using about 1/3 as much papalo as cilantro when preparing salsa and then adjust flavor to your taste. In [...]
Filed under: Food, Gardening, Recipes, garden, herb gardens, herbs | Tagged: herb gardening, Mexican herbs, papalo, salsa, windowsill garden | 2 Comments »
Posted on September 24, 2007 by Rose Marie
Of all the plants in our little herb garden, the lovely and long blooming Salvia guaranitica is the one most favored by hummingbirds. Our home herb garden is primarily culinary herbs. It includes edible flowers and a few herbs attractive to pollinators, butterflies and hummingbirds. I went out in the late afternoon with a [...]
Filed under: Gardening, garden | Tagged: container gardening, edible flowers, flowers, herbs, hummingbirds | No Comments »