WEEDS, BIRDS, & PEST-FREE CURRANTS

/
0 Comments
  I Battle Weeds and Birds, but Currants are Care-free Part of my weedless gardening technique (which I thoroughly fleshed out in my book Weedless Gardening) involves -- sad to say, for some people -- weeding. After all, no garden can ever be truly weedless. Even people who spray Roundup eventually get weeds as they inadvertently “breed” for Roundup-resistant weeds, which now exist. My techniques are weed-less rather than weedless. Which brings me to hoeing. Most years my hoe rests on its designated hook in the garage. This year, it’s hardly made it back to garage, mostly just leaning…
Read more

Eerie White to Golden Flowers, with Some Fungi Helping Out

/
3 Comments
White Indian pipes, mycorrhizae, and a golden flower I do occasionally tear myself away from the farmden. So into the woods I went last Friday and as I was hiking along and glancing down at the trail, I came upon one of my favorite flowers. It’s a favorite not for its beauty but for what it hints at of goings-on beneath the soil surface. The flower was indian pipes, Monotropa uniflora, an eerily white plant that looks like a upright tobacco pipe whose stem has been poked into the ground. Yes, it’s white. All white. You might rightly wonder how the plant synthesizes carbohydrates for energy…
Read more

Plagues Come & Go, With Some Help, and Seattle-time

/
10 Comments
Meet me in St. L . . . Seattle Come hear me lecture on August 10, 2014 on "Luscious Landscaping, with Fruiting Trees, Shrubs, and Vines" at 1 pm in the Garden Room at Magnuson Park. For more information, go to http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/755459. Plague again; keep calm Every year it seems some new plague is ready to attack plants. A few years ago, late blight of tomato moved to the fore. Emerald ash borer, threatening ash trees, was first found on our shores in 2002. (Figuratively; literally, the insect, native to Asia, was first noted in Michigan.) What’s next? Perhaps a calmer…
Read more

Farmden Health Club & Basil

/
1 Comment
Rei-King, an Ancient Exercise? Among the many benefits of gardening is the opportunity it offers for enjoyable, productive exercise in the great outdoors. And now we can add an exercise called rei-king to boot camp, pilates, zumba, kick boxing, cardiofunk, and other ways modern humans build and maintain sleek, fit bodies. Or so I told my wife, Deb. As with some of those other exercise routines, equipment is needed, simple equipment in the case of rei-king. Basically, the equipment is a pole, perpendicular to and at the end of which is a length of wood or metal, attached in its middle to the…
Read more

Peas Please Me

/
1 Comment
In some gardening circles, a gardener’s worth is measured by how well he or she grows peas: how soon the first pea gets to the table, the crop’s abundance, and, of course, the flavor.  Sad to say, I haven’t been able to grow peas well for about 10 years. Peas require a humus-y, moisture retentive soil and early planting, all of which I provide. But about 10 years ago, just as the crop was coming on strong, vines began to turn yellow, leaves would flag, and plants would die. The probable cause was fusarium wilt disease (caused by Fusarium oxysporum). This soil-borne fungus invades plant…
Read more

Serendipity Strikes!! & Join Me in Seattle

/
2 Comments
Join me in Seattle on August 10, 2014 for a talk I'll be giving on “Luscious Landscaping — With Fruiting Trees, Shrubs, and Vines!”. Luscious landscaping is the way to beautify your yard and, at the same time, to put (very) local, healthful, flavorful food on the table. Following the lecture, we will explore the gardens at Magnuson Park. For more information about this event, go to http://leereich.brownpapertickets.com. Ice Cream for Poppies I first learned the word “serendipity” when I was in junior high school; it was the clever name of an ice cream shop that my parents had…
Read more

“In Lee’s Garden Now” has a New Home!

/
31 Comments
You can now find "In Lee's Garden Now" right here on my website: https://leereich.com/blog You'll find that all of the posts are still here, and new material will be coming online each week as always. If you subscribe by email, you should continue to receive notices of new blog posts. (If you don't subscribe yet, now would be a great time! Just enter your email address in the sidebar form.) While you're here on my website, be sure to check out all of the other ways that you can find information about gardening and tips for your own garden, farm or "farmden". Please be sure to bookmark my blog's…
Read more
Potted alpine strawberries

Talking Fruits & Pleasant Aromas

/
6 Comments

Alpine Strawberries, Gumi Fruit, David Austin Roses and Catalpa

Earliglo strawberries are on the wane. Time to move on to other fruits, still strawberries but very different strawberries in all respect. Alpine strawberries. The largest of them are the size of a nickel but each packs the flavor of a silver-dollar sized berry.

UPCOMING LECTURES BY LEE REICH:

August 6, 2014, “Trials, tribulations, and rewards of growing fruit” meeting of Home Orchard Society (www.homeorchardsociety.org/), North American Fruit Explorers (www.nafex.org), and California Rare Fruit Growers (www.crfg.org) Conference, Troutdale, OR.

August 9, 2014, “Uncommon Fruits for Every Garden” and espalier tour, Western Washington Fruit Research Foundation (www.nwfruit.org), Mt. Vernon, WA.

August 10, 2014, “Luscious Landscaping -- With Fruits!” sponsored by City Fruit, Bradner Gardens, Plant Amnesty, Seattle Fruit Tree Society, and the Washington Association of Landscape Professionals, http://leereich.brownpapertickets.com, Warren G. Magnuson Park, Seattle, WA.

Read more

Chickens & Gooseberries, A Bad Combination

/
2 Comments

Chickens, Gooseberries, Rose Pruning & Asparagus

Good gardening is not religion. Balancing and rebalancing is what’s needed, not the constraints of dogma. You want to garden naturally? Dogma would dictate doing nothing, in which case you wouldn’t have a garden. You want to grow only native plants? Then forget about tomatoes, apples, and tulips. And are the plants you want to grow truly native on your “back forty,” or down the road where the soil is slightly wetter in summer?

Gooseberries and chickens are what turned my thoughts to the need for balance today. I grow over a dozen varieties of gooseberries, dessert gooseberries with flavors akin to those of grape, plum, and apricot. I also “grow” seven Bantam chickens; they provide decoration, insect control, eggs, and some degree of entertainment.

On the downside, chickens’ scratching in my garden beds in search of insects and seeds messes up what could be a very neat and orderly space.

Read more