The Arrival of The Seed Savers Exchange Yearbook

When I got home from work today I was excited to find the 2012 Seed Savers Exchange Yearbook waiting for me! This annual publication is produced by The Seed Savers Exchange out of Decorah Iowa.  This non-profit is dedicated to preserving North Americas diverse, endangered garden heritage for future generations. I am proud to say that I have been a member for over 15 years. The annual yearbook is an amazing listing of garden seeds offered by other Seed Savers members. The scope and diversity of seeds listed is amazing. For instance, there are 48 pages of Bean varieties. The total yearbook this year is 504 pages! It will be an enjoyable few weeks as I slowly work my way through the yearbook.

One of the many, many benefits of being a member of Seed Savers Exchange is you receive a random free packet of seed when you renew each year. This year I got "Red Velvet" Lettuce. It is described as "(Latuca sativa) Absolutely striking appearance. Tops of leaves are solid maroon, and the backs are green tinged with maroon. Looseleaf, slow to bolt. 55 Days. Reintroduces by SSE in 2002." I am looking forward to planting this variety this year and seeing how it grows and tastes.

A Super Sunny Sunday and a Garlic Update

Today once again dawned sunny and bright. The sky was a beautiful blue and there wasn't even any early morning fog to burn off. It was another day calling me to be outside! Last evening I dug out my book "Growing Great Garlic" by Ron Engeland. Since this year is my first attempt at growing my own garlic I wanted to do some reading and see what, if anything, I was suppose to be doing at this time of the year. Mr. Engeland suggests that when the young garlic shoots reach 3" in height, to apply a foliar spray of liquid kelp of fish fertilizer. I went to Down to Earth today and brought back a bottle of liquid Kelp with a 0-0-8 formulation. I watered down on the young plants, so the foliage did receive a drink but most of the nutrients went into the soil to be absorbed by the roots. I will repeat this every two weeks until I reach a total of 4 applications.

As you can see the young plants are doing very well under the protection of the remay tunnel. This has been such a strange first two months of the year, with so many warm days and below freezing nights. The garlic is doing just fine but I don't know if it is "normal" for my plants to already be 3-4" high the first week of February. Pictured above, plants of Silver Rose".

I also thought it was interesting how different my plants of "Chesnook Red" look as compared to the other two varieties. "Chesnook Red" is growing shorter, with the leaves growing outwards instead of upwards as compared to my "Silver Rose" and "Nootka Rose" garlic. But it should be mentioned that the "Chenook Red" is a hardneck variety and the other two are softnecks. Perhaps that explains the difference in growing habits. Stay tuned!

I hope that wherever you are, you were able to get out and enjoy today's sunny weather. Or at least, you found a patch of sun inside!

A Beautiful Saturday Walk

Another day in February - another sunny, beautiful day! There was no way that I could spend today inside, so my sister and I planned a trip to the Middle Fork Path in Springfield. This walking/bike path is less than a year old and is a real treasure for Lane County residents. The first phase of the trail celebrated its official opening ceremony April 26th 2011. The trail begins at Clearwater Park in Springfield, which abuts the middle fork of the Willamette River. Phase one of the path travels for 2.4 miles heading west. It begins next to the historical Springfield Mill Race. Recently a channel was created to connect the Mill Race to the Middle Fork, allowing young salmon a safe place to rest & grow.

The trail then veers away from the canal and enters a forested section for a while.

After walking for a bit we suddenly heard the loud roar of water and the path soon began to hug the bank of the Middle Fork of the Willamette. With the records rain of a few weeks ago, the river was still fairly high and was running very fast!

The path continued and dipped in and out of wooded areas and back to the river.

This is a pretty section where the river's course changes direction. At the base of the far hills you can see a green clearing.

It is this lovely oak savanna, far off in the distance.

This first section of the path ends at the base of Quarry Butte. Section #2 of the path will continue forward on the left side of the Butte and end up at  Dorris Ranch.

Quarry Butte so earned its name because of the old rock quarry at its base. It is now filled in with water and is a pretty pond.

But the big excitement of the day happened on our walk back. I thought that I heard the hollow thumping of a  woodpecker. We stopped and suddenly spied this handsome fellow! Normally Pileated Woodpeckers are very shy. But this guy was so intent on his work that were able to stop and take as many pictures as we wanted. Our talking didn't even seem to bother him. It is such a rare gift to see a Pileated up close and was the perfect ending to our day.                                                                                                                                                                                          

Hellebore Update

One of the first plants to bloom for us each year are the hellebores. Last year, at Northwest Garden Nursery's annual hellebore open house, we purchased 5 plants. They seem to have settled in just fine. Last month, as the new growth started pushing upward, we trimmed off all of last year's leaves. Now the new stems are starting to produce fairly mature buds and the colors are developing. I would think in 2-3 weeks we should have a bed full of lovely hellebore in full bloom.

New USDA Zone Map Unveiled

Today the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)  released the new version of its Plant Hardiness Zone Map (PHZM), updating this useful tool for gardeners for the first time since 1990 with greater accuracy and detail. The new map was jointly developed by USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and Oregon State University's (OSU) PRISM Climate Group and is available online at http://www.planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/.

Plant hardiness zone designations represent the average annual extreme minimum temperatures at a given location during a particular time period. They do not reflect the coldest it has ever been or ever will be at a specific location, but simply the average lowest winter temperature for the location over a specified time. Low temperature during the winter is a crucial factor in the survival of plants at specific locations. It allows us to catalog shop or go to the nurseries and find with some accuracy what plants will survive in our gardens and which ones will not.

For the first time the map is "Internet friendly". There is a terrific feature where you can plug in your zip code and it will automatically give you your zone and the average minimum temperature range. My garden is now in Zone 8B with a low temperature range of 15-20 F. Many gardeners will find that they are now gardening in an area one half-zone warmer than before.

Snow - Day #2

As promised, we received a fresh batch of snow last night. I would say maybe a fresh inch fell onto already frozen roads and ground. It gave everything an extra sparkle as the sun came up in the 24 degree dawn.

This poor fellow - or gal - was roosting on the front porch railing and didn't even move when I came outside. It must be awfully cold for the hummingbirds that live here year around but we quickly put out the feeder so they had something to eat for energy. We bring the feeders in every night so they don't freeze.

The forecast today calls for warming temperatures. The snow should all melt but a new storm and freezing weather is headed in for tonight. Round #3!

Finally..a little Winter Snowfall!

 After being teased about the possibility of some snowfall, we awoke to a light dusting this morning. It had snowed overnight just enough to cover everything in a blanket of white. Then the temperature rose and most everything melted by noon - sigh. But then around 3:00 it started to snow again and the world was once again white and serene. The people seem to be much happier about this change in the weather than the cats do! Poor Parvati spent the late afternoon sitting in an upstairs window glaring at the outside world.

With the temperature dropping again tonight, there is a promise of more snow overnight and tomorrow. Finally Winter has come to the Northwest!

Another Beautiful Ending

While this Winter's unseasonable warm and dry weather has many of us worried about the snow pack and Summer water shortages, it does have one amazing bonus - Spectacular Sunsets! Night after night at dusk we have been treated to a glorious show in the Western sky instead of gray skies and early darkness. Tonight's sunset might have been the prettiest yet.

A Very Productive Sunday

I awoke to yet another sunny day! While this dry mild weather is terrific for getting outdoor chores done, it is certainly confusing to both the plants and the animals. Case in point, look in this tree! Turkey Vultures! We last saw our venue of turkey vultures this Fall as they congregated and left for the big trip down south. Now suddenly today, we have six circling in our sky. I guess the question is, have they come back a few months early or did they never leave? Either way it certainly is strange having them flying high in our January sky.

The first task on my "to-do" list today was planting the various bulbs that we purchased back in October at the Hardy Pant Group meeting. Our speaker that night was Steve Vinisky, owner of Cherry Creek Daffodils. After giving a great talk Steve held court at a sales table where he offer choice bulbs for sale. Of course, we couldn't resist! We ended up buying:

• 1 bulb of "Snipe" a solid white Cyclamineus Daffodil
• 6 bulbs of "Kokopelli" a yellow Jonquilla Daffodil , floriferous with a light fragrance
• 1 bulb of "Sabrosa" a yellow Jonquilla Daffodil, small fragrant pale yellow blossoms
• 4 bulbs of "Rolf Fiedler" Ipheion Peregrinans, a star flower with striking blue blooms

Fortunately, as Fall was slipping away, we put our purchases in the bottom of the refrigerator. When I took them out today the bulbs seemed just fine. With the exception on "Snipe" all of the bulbs had small green shoots. Pictured above, a sprouting bulb of "Kokopelli". They were more than ready to be planted!

Her are the 4 small bulbs of "Rolf Fielder" . Their size and shape reminded me of grape hyacinth bulbs. I got everything planted and marked with a stake so now we can sit back and - fingers crossed - enjoy the show this Spring.

My second project of the day was attacking my kitchen garden. This past Fall I got everything cleaned up with the exception of the seven tomato plants and the two Morning Glory towers. I also planted a row of garlic in October. All late Fall and early Winter, someone/something has been digging in the kitchen garden, leaving small holes behind. By best guess is it's the chipmunks. Regardless, they have exposed some of my garlic bulbs so today I added soil to the raised row and made sure everything was properly covered with dirt. Then I covered the whole row with a tunnel covered in Remay. This should give the garlic row some added protection from both the weather and the critters.

I was truly surprised to see that almost my entire row of garlic-all three varieties- have already sprouted! Since this is my first attempt at growing my own garlic I don't know if this is normal or not. Perhaps this mild weather is playing games with the garlic too! It certainly made my clean-up task much more pleasant. After a couple hours of hard work, the kitchen garden bed was bare, ready for the 2012 garden.