Edible Garden: All About Tomatoes
Emily Moore of Sproutabl, a lawn and garden blog, shares her best tips and practices for growing tomatoes. Check out her helpful infographic below:
And if you’re thinking of using containers, here are some great container garden pot options from our Italian terracotta Classic line and Contemporary terracotta collection.
Photo Credit: Emily Moore, Sproutabl
Change in the Garden: What To Plant in the Fall Garden
It’s that time of year where the weather gets a little cooler, we get some rain (maybe less in California), and changes are made in the garden. Eye of the Day interviews some plant experts on their Fall favorite plantings and best tips for the garden.
Alison Walker, a Texas native who recently moved to California, has worked with plants and nurseries for over six years. She is excited to be living in a cooler climate and to get to plant all her recommendations below.
What to Plant:
Herbs:
Veggies:
Edible Blooms:
Evergreens:
Regular Garden Maintenance:
Mimi Richardson is our resident succulent expert but grew up around all types of plants. She has worked at nurseries across the central coast. These are here tips for your Fall garden.
What to Plant:
Grasses:
Blooming Plants
Other Recommendations:
Adrian Nunez is a Nurseryman at Seaside Gardens in Carpinteria, CA. He has focused on the retail side at Seaside for the last five years but has worked with wholesale nurseries for 17 years. He gives his best recommendations and tips for the Fall season.
No. 1 Tip for the Fall: The most important and fundamental thing is to prepare your soil. Get rid of weeds. Know your soil health, does it have enough nutrients? Use a soil tester that you can get at any garden store. Does it need nitrogen, phosphorus, or potassium? Dig at least six inches into the soil, loosen it up a bit, and add organic components. Before you plant anything, know your soil.
What to plant?
What to look for in buying plants?
What to consider for water?
Any other common FAQs for Fall gardens
Photo Credits:
Creative Commons, mint by yoppy is licensed under CC by 2.0
Creative Commons, brussel sprouts on stalks by Nick Saltmarsh is licensed under CC by 2.0
Creative Commons, sage by Isaac Wedin is licensed under CC by 2.0
Creative Commons, starr-120403-4187-Carex_buchananii-habit-Kula-Maui by Forest and Kim Starr is licensed under CC by 2.0
Creative Commons, Protea. by Mark Freeth is licensed under CC by 2.0
Creative Commons, farmersmarket09095 by Kel and Val is licensed under CC by 2.0
Creative Commons, Kale by Clyde Robinson is licensed under CC by 2.0
Creative Commons, Red Hot Pokers by Ian Parkes is licensed under CC by 2.0
Tips for Successful Edible Gardening by The Conscious Garden
In Southern California we love to eat healthy food and there is no fresher, tastier or more nutrient dense foods than those that you pick from your own garden or that you buy from the farmers market. It is important to know that your food is free of chemicals, organic and full of nutrients, so what better way to know what is in your plants than growing it yourself? I want to share with you some of the main things to remember when setting up an edible garden, and whether you have a yard or not, it IS possible!
I have been growing food since I was a kid, and one of the things I have learned, is that plants will grow in anything. So, what ever you have to grow food in, whether it is a raised bed, beautiful container or just a simple plastic drum, you too can have edible vegetables right at your home.
Soil
The key to having good nutrients in your food is in the soil and that is also the advantage of growing at home: you can truly know if it is organic and what’s in it as you plant. Use a premium potting soil to begin with. If you have a large garden, use a mixture of different composts such as manure and worm castings. The soil provides the nutrients to the plants and allows them to be strong.
Water
Edible plants require a little bit of water often and if you add a drip system, it will ensure the plants are getting water directly to their roots where it is required and it makes the garden more water efficient. This is especially important in container gardening, and it will make life SO much easier.
Plants
When you decide to plant, choose seedlings from a good organic local supplier, providing bio-dynamic organic seedlings. This will ensure that the roots are strong and will stand up to transplanting and our current drought conditions, giving the plants a good start to their edible nutrient supplying journey. It is also time efficient.
Pest Control
Be ready for providing pest control – and keep it organic, non-toxic. Sluggo for snails, Organocide for bugs and Serenade for diseases. I find that if you notice bugs attacking a particular plant, leave one of those plants free of pest control and the bugs will eat that one plant and leave the rest alone. (Periodically remove the bug-plant and destroy it removing the bugs and disease).
Feeding
Remember plants need food too! Fish and kelp as the master formula is great. Or you can use an organic food with mycorrhizae. The numbers on the pack of organic fertilizer should not be higher than 5-5-5, which are nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium in a low balanced form.
Just remember, take care of your edibles and they will take care of you. Don’t be afraid to try your hand at an edible garden. If you see something you would like to plant, try a handful of plants and see how it goes. Plants are sustaining and will grow for you if you just give them a chance.
I am available for consultations or garden support to fulfill your edible garden desires.
Happy Planting!
Sagar Faucheaux
The Conscious Garden
Phone: (805) 745 5555
consciousgarden@
IT’S NOT A DARK, DRY BOOK!
Apparently, figuring out what to plant in an area of your garden that has shade, but no moisture, is a problem that stymies gardeners everywhere. We have been focused like a laser beam on our lack of water and how to logically use what little we have and Planting the Dry Shade Garden: the Best Spot for the Toughest Spot in Your Garden, by Graham Rice, Timber press 2011, provides practical ideas and solutions for these problem places in the garden.
Read through and find out how to prune to allow more light and how to work with the soil to condition it to hold more water. Mr. Rice offers 130 plants that do fine with reduced light and moisture levels —long-blooming woodland gems like epimediums and hellebores, and even lush foliage plants like evergreen ferns and bear’s breeches (my personal favorite, of course). Shrubs, climbers, perennials, ground covers, bulbs, annuals, and perennials — an entire palette to help you transform challenging spaces into rich, rewarding gardens.
The book’s 125 beautiful color plates are mainly the work of award-winning photographer Judy White, so not only is the book packed with good advice, but the pictures reveal the beauty of the plants you can grow in the garden’s heart of darkness.
Photo Credit: Bear’s Breeches, Acanthus Mollis by Kristen Paulus is licensed under C.C. 2.0
Brent’s Rogue Garden
People often ask me what my garden at home looks like. I laugh and reply it looks like a psychedelic trip to a botanic garden gone rogue with cracked pots. Then they laugh, not sure if I’m being honest or just outrageous, and they’re right, my garden is outrageous and honestly, it is a trip. While we sell volumes of the best and most authentic pottery and garden statuary around, we get our share of damage. Handling heavy pottery, moving it, merchandising it and delivering it involves some mistakes. So I have plenty of opportunities to take beautiful Italian terracotta pots home, albeit with chips and cracks (we epoxy the cracks so they will last just as long as the first quality ones). The problem is what to do with over twenty years’ worth of damaged pots.
Welcome to my test kitchen where I try different plants in different pots to learn what works. Just like a cook’s test kitchen, I have learned what works when potting different plants, hence my belief that the first thing to growing healthy container plants is the drainage. No matter the plant, it must have freedom to drain continuously.
Second is the soil. If you match the plant’s root system with the proper soil mixture you will have a healthy plant growing in a beautiful pot. I am a strong believer that perlite added to any soil mixture helps to grow healthy container plants. Why do I spend more on organic soil amendments? Because I’ve learned that chemical fertilizers work fast and make container plants grow and look healthy initially, but down the road, your container plants will suffer the toxicity of chemical salts which build up in the soil. Using products like “SuperThrive”, soap, Epsom salts, wood ash from my pizza oven and most of all, composted soils amendments from the great composter I got from .
I have pots everywhere, hence the “garden gone rogue.” I have created patio areas on all sides of my house to accommodate all of the pots and plants. If a planted pot at Eye of the Day begins to look shabby, I’ll will take the plant home and perform triage by restarting it in an appropriate looking pot. I learn from doing this what looks good from a design point of view and I can share what works in containers that clients may not have considered before. I have been able to grow and pair plants with our products to help market Eye of the Day while making my “test garden” a realistic place to prove that container gardening is the best way to create “Paradise at Home”!
Baby, it’s cold outside! Now is the time for snuggling up, hunkering down and staying in. The garden may be a little drab to look at with deciduous trees going bare and flowers and grasses fading into muted tones. It‘s a good time to put a little warmth and brightness back into the landscape.
One way to do that is with plants whose foliage is aflame with gold, yellow, orange and red. Here are a few eye-catching plants to add pop to a dreary corner. For an accent, or even a hedge alternative, there are several bright selections of mirror bush, Coprosma to choose from. In this case, their cultivar name often says it all. ‘Inferno’, ‘Pina Colada’, and ‘Tequila Sunrise’ give you an idea of what their creators were seeing in the variegated foliage they sport. All are medium-sized shrubs, about four feet by three feet and require only moderate water and partial shade, or as the garden guide calls it “cool sun”. There is also a low, spreading version called ‘Evening Glow’ that can act as a groundcover.
The ever-popular flax plants also have some dazzling variegations: ‘Cream Delight’ is striped with creamy yellow, ‘Jester’ has a bright pinkish-range mid-rib and green leaf margins, ‘Sunset’ sports shades of apricot, pink and green, and ‘Yellow ‘Wave’ has a sunny yellow center stripe.
For really low water use areas there are a number of succulents that will provide that sunset glow. One is a selection of euphorbia (Euphorbia tirucalli) called ‘Sticks on Fire”. As you can imagine, it is flaming yellow and orange. Keep it as a container specimen or put it in the background where it could grow into a sizeable shrub (remember that its sap is irritating!). Most everybody knows the jellybean plant, Sedum rubrotinctum, which can eventually provide unbroken cover in the planting bed or add interest at the edge of a mixed container garden. Just as colorful is Crassula capitella ‘Campfire’ whose pointed little leaves look like flames racing across the ground.
One last group to consider for winter color includes those shrubs that produce red or orange fruits at the end of the season. Most will hold the berries for months (if the birds don’t get them all first). Cotoneaster horizontalis ‘Perpusillus’ grows only one or two feet high, but spreads to seven feet wide and is covered with bright red berries. Larger shrubs in the firethorn genus of Pyracantha include P. koidzumii ‘Victory’ and P. coccinea ‘Kasan’. Both may be left in a natural fountain shape, but take well to espaliering on fences or against walls. And lastly, don’t forget our native Christmas berry, Toyon heteromeles for handsome dark green foliage festooned with cheery red fruits.
Image licenses: Christmas Berry, Sticks on Fire