Garden Essentials

The other day I tweeted that I was planting lavender and, furthermore, no garden should be without lavender. I have just moved and my new house has a landscaping garden that is quite nice, was designed in order to correspond to principles of feng shui (so they say), and is indeed well laid out, functional, and pretty low maintenance. Of course, I want to get in a mess it all up and add clutter and bits and bobs. But I sold most of those in my garage sale
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I thought I might content myself with keeping things pruned and mulched and mown, but it took about 3 days before I realized I had to plant something, namely an 'Abraham Darby' rose. For that I cannot live without. Then some tomatoes and lettuce in pots. Herbs--basil, rosemary, parsley, rosemary, etc. And then I needed a sedge or three. Plus I saw a flowering jasmine that would add some scent to a large blue pot outside the front door, and a 'Fiona Sunrise' jasmine to add to the mix.

You see, it doesn't take long. So this led me to thinking, what can NO garden do without? Considering climate, space, etc. Well here's my short list

-a rose or two
-lavender
-herbs: basil, rosemary, marjoram, parsley, cilantro, thymes, sage, oregano, lovage
-tomatoes (nothing beats the taste)
-lettuce (eat it every day)
-arugula (same)
-something fragrant (jasmine, sarcococca, gardenia, lilac--whatever your climate permits)
-grasses, esp. Mexican feather grass (for stroking) and sedges
-bamboo, for the rustling sound, screening, and sculptural properties
-succulents in pots
-ART
-WATER

Okay, that's the short list; under a dozen. Next list is two dozen.

Oh geez, forgot peas. The kids can't live without them.

Bit of an Unpleasant Topic

I was speaking the other day with one of my favourite gardening friends—the gravelly-voiced divorcée with a fabulous garden—and asked her where her compost was located.

"Oh, I can't have compost. I have rats."

If you aren't keen on rats, stop right here.

I've been fighting a battle with rats since I moved to my current garden. They obviously have an extensive underground community, a series of tunnels that run along the side of the house, underneath the house next door (although they have two dogs and a cat) and up into the compost bins here. At first I thought, gosh the compost here turns itself over and goes down very quickly! Then I realized that it was not due to my diligence and the felicity of my healthy blend of microorganisms, but rather due to the creatures digging through it every night and eating the larger scraps. The result is actually a very nicely aerated compost, but the situation clearly couldn't continue because a) the tunnelling and digging does make a mess and b) they're rats.


This rat likes avocado.

Whether one could actually get a disease—such as, say, bubonic plague or Rat Catcher's Yellows—from having rats in one's compost is unclear. But, I'll say it again...they're RATS.

So I decided to use the compost bins only for garden waste (leaves, grass, small clippings) and use the worm compost for kitchen scraps. It seemed to be going well. Got my worms in, started putting in the potato peelings and limp arugula, and the compost was progressed at a great rate. Then, the other evening, took a bucket of scraps out to the compost, lifted the lid, and out jumped a rat. Fast. How did it get into the wormery (actually 4 stacked compartments)? See photo below.


Just chomp right through the plastic.

So now the worm composter is basically up on stilts and has bricks on top and hardware cloth (similar to chicken wire) lining the inside of the handles. It's like a Fort Knox Compost. Will it keep them out? Probably not. I may have to move. Or join my divorcée friend and become a non-composter.

Easy Veg

Well, the peas, lettuce, broad beans, and arugula are either in the ground or going in soon. Should I stop there? Truth is, I don't have a lot of time for my edible garden this spring AND I'm moving in the summer. So what can I plant that is going to be a) easy to grow and b) quick to mature? There are a lot of 'Easy Top Ten' veg lists around and some of them are a bit fanciful. Tomatoes? Yes, easy, if you have lots of sun. Zucchini? You need room. Carrots? You must have friable soil and protection from carrot root fly. So what can even the most time-constrained gardeners manage in the Pacific Northwest?

#1 on my list is arugula. It's tasty, it grows super-fast from seed (I've seen it germinate in 4 days), and tastes fantastic--peppery--and most pests seem to leave it alone.

#2 Probably other salad greens, though they do need cool weather and the slugs tend to like them. I love the Asian veg, too, like those from West Coast Seeds--mizuna, gai lan, mustards.

#3 Peas. They often get mildew up here, but only after the peas have ripened. I've grown them in containers outside the front door so the kids can just pick them as they pass by.

#4 Kale (see below, the 2009 spring crop). Grows through the winter and is my new favorite veg. I stir fry it with ginger and a bit of soy sauce.



#5 Swiss chard. Tasty, easy, and pretty, too!

#6 Fava beans, also known as broad beans. Stick the big old seeds in the ground in later winter and sit back. Two caveats: they do get aphids (see photo)--blast off these pests with water from the hose. And they are a bit of work to prepare. You have to boil, shell, then use them (the beans, not the aphids). But so yummy!



#7 Herbs. This really could be #1 because nothing is easier than perennial herbs: oregano, sage, rosemary, thyme. Annuals herbs can sometimes be a bit trickier--like tomatoes, basil just sulks until it gets hot--but coriander, parsley (it often comes back the next year), and lovage are pest- and trouble-free.

#8 Beans, especially scarlet runner beans. These aren't grown as often in North America as in England, but they are pretty popular here in the Northwest. Striking, and fun for children. The beans are big and meaty.

#9 Radishes. A good crop for 'intercropping' between rows of other plants; they can be ready for harvest in less than a month. Try eating the leaves as well as the root. Spicy!

I think I'll stop at 9, in order to feel that I'm being perfectly honest. Unless there's something I've forgotten?

Worm Tales

I might have spent money I didn't need to spend. Well, I did spend money I didn't need to spend. So many gardening items can be free, or at least cheap. Plants from seeds or from fellow-gardeners. Tools from garage sales. Mulch from fallen leaves. Oversized shirts from ex-boyfriends. Containers from old tyres. You get the picture.

And yet, when I was looking for compost worms, do you think I could find any? To explain, I need the worms because I am moving house (& garden) and won't be able to have a full-sized compost area any longer. So in preparation for this event, I wanted to get my worm composter working again. For those who don't know, worm composting is simple and space-saving. It's also amazingly efficient, especially for kitchen scraps. The composter I have is about 10 years old and consists of 4 stacked compartments, similar to this model. The bottom compartment has a solid 'floor' where the worms concentrate until the compost there is complete; they then move up to the upper compartments through their meshed 'floors'. I've found the process to be very clean and fast, requiring only some redistribution of worms and materials from one compartment to another.

So, for about three weeks I looked for worms. You can't use any old worms, you need red wigglers--read some fascinating facts about them here. (They have 5 hearts! They have no bones!) The Compost Education Centre in Victoria has plenty of information, but they are always looking for worms themselves. (Why? It seems like they could make some money from suckers like me.) Finally I ordered some worms from a local source, Salt Spring Global Worming. They duly arrived after two days in very good shape but as I didn't realize they were going to be COD, they did spend one night at the post office. I put them in my composter, added some existing compost from my big pile (full of lovely microorganisms), some kitchen scraps, some grass clippings, and that was it.



Needless to say, three days later I went to visit my friend and fellow gardener, Christy. I told her about moving, and the kerfuffle over the COD package. She said, "Oh, I've got masses of worms!" We went out to her back garden, took a fork to her wonderful compost pile constructed of used wooden pallets, and promptly filled a used yogurt pot with free worms.



Now all the worms are thriving and generating compost at an amazing rate. It will be easy to move and as I can't bear to throw kitchen scraps in the garbage, I'll be happy. But I'm too embarrassed to say how much I spent. Next time I'll look a little harder.

Wisley Children's Garden

The Royal Horticultural Society garden at Wisley is very kid-friendly, with a spacious glasshouse, an interactive 'Root Zone' worthy of a commerical science centre, and a teaching garden that offers "hand's on experience to gardeners of all abilities and ages."

The garden was designed by Cleve West and features an "environmentally sustainable garden shed" with a sedum roof. (I think it's the sedum roof that makes it environmentally sustainable.) I visited the garden on a chilly and raw December day, but the garden was looking quite pretty and the sedums, of course, were holding their own.

Wavy Roof

The living roof at the California Academy of Sciences is nearly 200,000 square feet that dramatically dips and mounds atop the completely renovated 85-year old building. The building was designed by Italian Architect Renzo Piano. (Nice slideshow here).

Rana Creek Nursery planted the roof with a proprietary system they designed specifically for the building. Called the BioTray, the biodegradable trays are made from tree sap and coconut husks.

A few dozen plants were trialled to see if they could survive on the roof. The Academy of Sciences is in Golden Gate Park, which is subject not only to sun, but also to wind, fog, and salt spray from the nearby ocean. (I spent many cold summer days in that park.) The final planting consists of a blend of annuals and perennials, all natives, including

Strawberry (Fragaria chiloensis)
Self Heal (Prunella vulgaris)
Sea Pink (Armeria maritima ssp. californica)
Stonecrop (Sedum spathulifolium)
Tidy Tips (Layia platyglossa)
Goldfield (Lasthenia californica)
Miniature Lupine (Lupinus nanus)
California Poppy (Eschscholzia californica)
California Plantain (Plantago erecta)

Blanc/Herzog and deMeuron 1

The CaixaForum Madrid, a venue for visual and performing arts, sports on of Patrick Blanc's tapestry-like living walls. Overlooking a public plaza, the wall covers nearly 500 square metres and holds 15,000 plants. The building was a former power station, built originally in 1899 and redesigned by the Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron.

M. Blanc's Vertical Gardens are protected by copyright, as explained here.