Kathryn Wadsworth

A February Friday, unusually warm and sunny. Spring is here. Friends already lay out their soaker hoses, sow seeds indoors, and move seedlings out into their cold-frames. We’re going to miss all that this year, as we travel to talk about our book, and other topics from the greenworld. We won’t bemoan the loss too much. Surely an exciting journey lies ahead. David and I love a road trip.

The second event on our book tour is behind us. David and I gave a talk at the Port Townsend, WA public library last week. This low-key chat with our “homies” in the town where we live was a perfect send-off for the tour. Next week we’ll be in Bellingham.

At the library we talked about how we developed the book – our book – from inchoate thoughts about the questions we must ask when someone else asks us, “What’s Wrong With My Plant?” A very common question, btw.

Looking at the notes, it seems unlikely that we could corral the wayward notions and make a logical flow of questions, answers, and diagnoses, doesn’t it?  We started by recognizing that other references about plant problems require that you know the name of your plant. Lots of us don’t know this. Of course, David does, because he is a botanist whose PhD is in plant systematics – the very people who make up these names. But he doesn’t count.

What we see on our plants are symptoms, not Latin names. Symptoms – like spots, or holes, or distortions, which we see on plant parts – like the leaves, the stems, or the fruit. So, we sorted through the symptoms, the plant parts on which symptoms occur, and found tell-tale characteristics that illustrate a certain disorder, disease, or pest.

It took time, some nutrients, some nurturing, but we made it. It turned out alright.

As we prepare to travel, we’re going through a similar process. Sorting through belongings. What to take? What to put in storage? What to get rid of as a bad idea. (Whose idea was it to buy that hideous plaid jacket anyway?)

We identify the tell-tale characteristics of intrinsic value or usefulness. We store possessions that are truly useful or have sentimental value. We take those that will help us succeed on the road. We also take those that will bring joy to the journey, such as the new little teapot and cups. It’s kind of fun figuring out what we really care about, and lightening our load of extraneous possessions.  

In other words: Spring Cleaning

We invite you to share your stories of the greenworld, and welcome you to join us at one of our stops on the road. See our events page for all the details (www.ddandkw.com/events)

David Deardorff

It’s time to get started on the vegetable garden for the coming season so you can grow your own healthy, organic food again this year. Many of us have already started seedlings indoors to transplant out to the garden or the cold frames as soon as weather permits. Kathryn and I have come up with a checklist of ten things to consider before you plant. Each item on the list helps to prevent pests and diseases in your vegetable garden. All ten of them acting in concert really gives you a leg up for a successful and productive year.

1. Sanitize. If you didn’t get around to cleaning up old left-over garden debris last autumn, do it now. Pay special attention to any dead plant material from diseased or infested plants and get it out of your garden. Fungal spores, insect eggs, and bacteria lurking on old infected dead leaves lying on the ground can quickly infect your new plants and ruin your produce all summer long.

2. Right plant, right place. Be sure and read the instructions on the seed pack or the vegetable start plant label and put your plants in the best location to meet those requirements. If your plants have the right amount of light and water, the correct temperature, and the proper soil they won’t be under stress. And stress, as we all know, predisposes our plants (as well as ourselves) to attack by pests and diseases.

3. Light and air flow. Most vegetable and fruit plants want full sun and free air movement. Plants that do not get enough sunlight will be weak and spindly, and won’t be able to produce very much food for you. Free air movement helps foliage dry quickly and helps to avoid diseases and pests so don’t crowd your plants, give them space.

4. Genetic resistance. If you have a choice, choose cultivars that are genetically resistant to diseases and pests. Less disease and fewer pests means less work for you and more produce. Sounds like a win-win to me! Most all of these disease resistant cultivars have been developed through traditional plant breeding techniques.

5. Manage water. Set up your garden so that your watering practices deliver water to the root system, not to the leaves. Keeping the leaves dry goes a long way to avoiding diseases. In general, keep your plants evenly moist for best results. Allowing your plants to get extremely dry and then flooding them to get them extremely wet results in uneven growth, deformed foliage, and reduced yields. Also try to group plants according to their watering needs.

6. Proper temperature. Some vegetables like tomatoes and sweet corn, and fruits like melons are warm season crops. These are plants that flourish in hot humid weather. Other plants like cabbage, lettuce, and spinach are cool season plants that flourish in cool temperatures. If you put warm season plants in the ground in early spring while soil and air temperatures are still quite cool, they will not grow well and may be stunted. Conversely, cool season plants planted in mid-summer may simply flower and set seed while still very tiny.

7. Build soil. Creating healthy, biologically active soil is the best way to build healthy plants. Incorporating dead plant material (not diseased!) into the soil feeds micro-organisms that break it down into simple nutrients that will ultimately feed your plants. Feeding the soil results in a complex ecosystem filled with fungi, bacteria, insects, worms, and other critters that help to out-compete the ones that want to damage your plants. Compost and organic fertilizers incorporated into the soil are excellent sources of dead plant material with which to feed your soil. Mulch placed on top of the soil around your plants will also eventually break down and feed the soil.

8. Polycultures. A polyculture is where you put lots of different plants into the same location. Corn, beans, and squash, for example, is a traditional polyculture developed by the Pueblo Indians of the Southwest centuries ago. The corn, beans, and squash are all planted together in the same bed. You can mix vegetables and fruits into your flower beds and vice versa. The important benefit you get is that it makes your plants harder for pestiferous insects to find. It also makes it difficult for fungal and bacterial disease to jump from plant to plant.

9. Rotation. Don’t put a plant in the same location where you grew it last year. Move your plants around from year to year to make them moving targets. It helps to avoid the build-up of soil-borne pests and diseases. There are lots of crop rotation systems and schemes, you can choose one of these or just create your own system, one that works for you. Many people find that a three-year rotation system works well.

This hornworm caterpillar was eaten alive by a parasite.

10. Beneficial organisms. There are lots and lots of insects and other critters that are willing and able to eat the insect pests that want to eat your produce before you do. Many are predators, like lady bugs and lacewings, and some are parasites that lay their eggs inside other insects. And then there are beneficial nematodes that attack and kill insects that live in the soil. Many birds are also insectivorous and can help to get rid of insect pests for you, and so can frogs, toads, and spiders. If you manage your garden to protect these beneficial critters, they will help you manage the pests.

Kathryn Wadsworth

Well, we did it! Last week we held the first event of our book tour with a talk at the Northwest Flower and Garden Show. There may be no better place to get inspired for the road ahead.

Display gardens at big shows always have an idea or two that can be incorporated into small gardens and home landscaping. Vendors always have enough stuff to sink several container ships, yet they also make attractive displays, offering useful tools, lovely plants, and often, solid information. We visited with the folks at Seattle Tilth and the Northwest Horticultural Society. We admired some of the new, more ergonomic pruning and digging tools.

We particularly appreciated the well-executed designs of two displays: “A Family’s Little Farm in the City,” designed by Jessica and Noah Bloom. NW Bloom( www.nwbloom.com) and Seattle Tilth (www.seattletilth.org) collaborated on the installation; and “Crops for Clunkers,” designed by Colin McCrate, Brad Halm, and Noel Stout of the Seattle Urban Farm Company (www.seattleurbanfarmco.com)

Jessica Bloom’s design provided detailed views of the many creative ways for any home gardener to grow their own food in a small urban or suburban setting. Using recycled materials, one can create a raised bed out of almost anything.

Crops for Clunkers, from the Seattle Urban Farm Company displayed the most creative use of recycled material. The installation also demonstrated extremely useful techniques for any small space garden. We saw a very clear example that you can use almost virtually anything as a container. Techniques such as the vertical planting bed along the side of the truck illustrate what you can do on the side of a building, on the balcony of an apartment, or in containers indoors (if you choose the right plant material, of course).

Gardens also provide refuge, and we often venture into the greenworld to seek serenity.

Wherever we have lived – the Desert Southwest, the Pacific Northwest, and Hawaii – David and I have always grown our own food. We also experience our garden as the gateway to the natural world. We combine food, medicinal herbs, and flowers for ourselves and beneficial insect partners. We grow polycultures for both sustenance and beauty.

We invite you to share your stories of the greenworld, and welcome you to join us at one of our stops on the road. See our events page for all the details (www.ddandkw.com/events)

David Deardorff

In my blog last week I wrote about visiting the Northwest Flower and Garden Show many years ago with my mom and dad and several siblings. We all spent a lot of time viewing the fabulous orchid displays. Last week Kathryn and I spent a wonderful time at the 2010 show. We presented a seminar on Sunday afternoon, we went to hear other experts speak, and we visited the fabulous displays. I found myself enchanted by the orchids once again at an elaborate display installed by the Northwest Orchid Society and featuring a large number of Paphiopedilum orchids, warts and all.

Paphiopedilums, known as slipper orchids, have fascinating flowers featuring warts, hair, and beautiful colors. The lowermost petal is shaped like a pouch, giving rise to the common name, slipper orchids.

Some boldly flare open with their petals spread wide.

Some are attractively curvaceous, rather seductive and feminine (to me anyway).

And some have an elaborately developed lip. This might actually be a Phragmipedium hybrid, the new world counterparts to the paphs.

Almost any Paphiopedilum is an excellent choice for a companion plant in your home. In general, they prefer the low light conditions and the warm nighttime temperatures found in most of our homes.

Kathryn Wadsworth

David and I are wandering the Northwest Flower and Garden Show this week, and giving a talk on Sunday (February 7, 2010). The display gardens are beautiful, as always. Some are even spectacular.  But only two garden installations serve to truly inspire an urban gardener in these times. Since David and I are particularly interested in sustainable, organic food production for urban dwellers we found that these two gardens had the most to offer: “A Family’s Little Farm in the City” and “The Truck Farm.” (More on that in my next blog). “A Family’s Little Farm in the City” certainly lives up to its promise: to “demonstrate how a family can live sustainably in the city.” A small dwelling – actually a barn, but it could be modified – with solar panels, a quiet patio serving as a front porch, vegetable beds, an edible forest, compost bins, rain barrels, and bee hives. All thrive on this tiny plot of land.

I love this chicken tractor. The hen industriously scratches and pecks, tilling the soil for you. She can retire to her little shed to lay her eggs. Talk about a valuable partner!!  This is probably my favorite item in the display.

We’ve built cold frames from discarded windows for thirty years, but it is really treat to see one so well-built and attractive.

Rain barrels make sense no matter where you live. There are so many places in the world where water is a problem. Anywhere along the west coast of North America, the summers are dry. In the Southwest U.S. it’s dry all the time. Even the east coast of the U.S. experiences prolonged periods of drought. Catch water off any roof and storing it for later use is a great idea.

And what garden would be complete without some domestic animal companions and helpers?