Garden Gift Ideas and a Few Other Things

Here are some last minute ideas for the gardener on your list.  And by the way, you can also always offer them a gift certificate to our greenhouses; nothing says "optimism" like a gift they can't use until the days are long and the soil is warm!

• I learned about this crafty gift tag site here. It's not too late to add some easy, homemade (ie extra credit) to your gift giving.
• And who wouldn't like an interesting houseplant hanging out in here?
• Or how about this fun little project for the front door?
• This is our favorite gardening glove.
• You could purchase a nice weekly calendar for the gardener in your life and write down all of these monthly tips on the appropriate pages. You could even go to our blog post on succession planting and help make them a garden plan with all the reminders they need to plant their favorite crops on the correct dates.
• Our friends at Square Deal Farm do a great job with maple syrup and pancake mix. And they will ship just about anywhere.
• One of the stores to whom we sell our plants, Woodstock Farmers Market, suffered some huge setbacks during the Hurricane Irene floods in late August. They are back up and running after a heroic effort to get the store back in shape, and they have an incredible selection of  items that they can ship anywhere.
• Healthy Living, another one of our cherished wholesale accounts, is offering discounts on gift cards between now and Dec. 20th.
• A do-it-yourself garden bench is a sweet and lovely project to work on all winter if you have a nice work space in the basement.
• If you have some fruits in the freezer from the garden or a local farm, you might want to consider making a chutney to preserve in nice, decorative jars.
• A nice basket of  squashes, garlic, onions, potatoes from the garden is thoughtful and practical. You can also make onion or garlic breads, wreaths of dried chilies, or herb swags. If not this year, it is something to keep in mind for next year.

2012 Stone Wall Workshops

Charley MacMartin, owner of Queen City Soil and Stone, and all around great guy will be continuing his popular winter workshop series in our shared greenhouse starting in January. Please read Charley's message below for more information.

Stone wall workshops. Our introductory stone wall building workshops for homeowners and tradespeople promote the beauty and integrity of stone. The one-day, hands-on workshop focuses on the basic techniques for creating dry-laid walls with a special emphasis on stone native to Vermont. Workshops are held inside warm greenhouses in Hinesburg. The first workshop date is Saturday, January 14, 2012, and workshops continue through March 2012. The one-day workshop is $100. Space is limited. For complete schedule and registration information, go to the link www.queencitysoilandstone.com/workshops.html or contact Charley MacMartin, 802-318-2411.

Herb Spiral Workshop

Our retail greenhouse is co-owned with a wonderful business also located at the same site. It is Queen City Soil and Stone, owned by Charley Macmartin of Burlington. Not only is Charley one of the nicest people you could ever meet, he is also the talent behind all of the stone work you see in our parking area and our lovely display garden. Charley uses the retail greenhouse as the home of his winter workshop series for homeowners and landscape professionals who want to learn or perfect dry wall masonry. The first workshop in this series is a perfect one for the Red Wagon Plants community since it is focusing on herb spirals. These simple and elegant structures are a great way to plant lots of herbs close to your kitchen door and in such a way that you give each herb the type of micro-climate it craves. Herb spirals provide various conditions in one small space - dry and sunny, shady and moist and everything in between.

Here is Charley's description of the upcoming workshop :

Queen City Soil & Stone’s series on garden stone features continues in November with a workshop on herb spirals. An herb spiral is a stone wall twisted in on itself creating a garden bed of varying soil depth and planting possibilities from kitchen herbs to strawberries to cut flowers. The workshop will be held at Red Wagon plants in a heated greenhouse on Saturday, November 12, from 9am to 2pm.

The cost of the workshop is $50 and space is limited. To sign up, call Charley MacMartin at (802) 318-2411.

The workshop will be hands-on:  building an herb spiral, discussing herb spiral design and learning about the plantings that a spiraling garden bed allows.

Apple Pie Beats Chores

When today rolled around, I had lots of good intentions to do a bunch of garden chores, exercise, get some office work out of the way, and lots of other tasks that good intentions depend upon. But instead, the chores, tasks and lists took a back seat to making an apple pie with my daughter.

She made her first crust, which I learned from my father, which he learned from Molly Stevens, and you can learn how to make it by reading this. Yes, that is right, 3 sticks of butter for a double crust pie. Gulp. Hope to get in that exercise.

The apples came from Boyers' Orchard in Monkton, and they were just tossed with a little lemon juice, sugar, and cinnamon. Nothing fancy. The beauty of apple pie lies in simplicity. Getting me to agree to cinnamon and a double crust is about as wild as I will go - I would rather have an apple tart, single crust, with unadorned thinly sliced apples arranged in a pretty pattern. But I suppose that is the French in me.

A little egg wash goes on the crust, and vent holes are made to let out the steam so the crust does not turn to a watery mess. The beautiful creation goes into a 475F oven for 10 minutes, then lower the heat to 425F. Check on it after 20 minutes or so, but it usually takes an additional 40 minutes or so to cook.  I often turn the heat down one more time for the last 20 minutes.

Garden Chores this Weekend

The time to get things done in the garden is shrinking. My good intentions are to get lots done this weekend. Here is what I have lined up for this weekend in the garden: Fill the new raised beds that I just put in the back yard.

Get soil ready for garlic planting.

Finish planting shrubs along the fence line between our yard and our neighbors' new barn. I am planting Ilex verticulata, or winterberry. The bright red berries are a nice contrast against the wooden building and will bring lots of birds to the yard.

Add compost to some new flower beds for next year.

Turn the compost pile.

What do you have planned?

Garden Breakfast for a Cold and Rainy Day

The weather's turning and so is my attitude towards the kitchen. In summer, I would rather be outside, just like you, and it can be hard to make time for all that garden produce to make it into anything but some quick salads and grilled dishes (at the beach, no less).  Here is a great dish that works for breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner and pretty much anything in between. I made a big batch last Sunday and it kept us happy pretty much all day.

A green bean and ham hash - take some of those older green beans from the garden (the ones that did not get killed by the frost because they were hiding under the cover of leaves) and chop them up into 1/3 inch pieces. I like Romano beans for this, the wide and flat kind that is loaded with extra flavor and can be cooked a long time if you like a slowly simmered green bean, which I do, in case you are asking.  Chop up an onion, some garlic, and a potato. Chop everything pretty small, this is hash, not stir-fry. Heat a tablespoon or so of olive oil, add the onion, garlic and potato and cook until starting to soften, about 8 minutes over medium heat to high heat. I also added pimenton, a smoked paprika, at this point. If you don't have any, a little sweet paprika and cumin might be nice. Keep stirring the onions, garlic and potatoes every minute or so, but letting it all stick a little and brown is okay - that is how you build flavor. Once the potato is softened somewhat, add the chopped or sliced green beans, some chopped ham (I bought an incredible petite ham from Bread and Butter Farm last week) and a good splash of cooking sherry, white wine, broth or water (my order of preference for the liquid). Scrape the pan so the browned bits get incorporated into the liquid, lower the heat, and put a lid on the pan. At this point, the vegetables are both sauteeing and steaming. Wait about 10 minutes hear, stirring once or so and adding another splash of liquid if it is getting very dry. Add salt and pepper to taste, after 10 minutes, and a splash of cream, half and half, or milk - the dairy helps bind all the flavors and keeps the vegetables from getting dry.  Stir and sautee another 5 mintues or so, adding another splash of dairy as needed, and that is it.  This is great served with an egg on top, over easy or over hard, or scrambled on the side. But really, it is great on its own with nothing else and will keep you going for the whole day. So you can go out and pick apples, take a hike, put the garden to bed, and all the other stuff that still keeps you outside a little longer. Winter is not here yet!

High Priority - Roasted Ratatouille for the Freezer

I have to admit that I don't love frozen vegetables for the most part. So if you have a favorite way to freeze a vegetable from your garden, please share it with me. Here is one I like and eat willingly out of the freezer come the dark days of winter. I want to share this simple thing with you in hopes you might have a similar beloved thing to pass on to me. For some reason, this year has not been a year when I put up a lot of food for winter. A few jars of tomatoes and this amazing thing I will now show you are the only things I have done. No beans, no salsa, no jams, no chutneys. Well there is still time, so maybe I will play catch up and do a plum chutney with the amazing plums passed on to us by our friend, Yvan.

This recipe starts in the spring. I basically plan part of my garden just so I can have all the right veggies to make this. You need

• onions
• garlic
• peppers
• eggplant
• tomatoes
• zucchini or summer squash

The garlic gets planted the previous fall, the onions go in in late April, and everything else goes in June 1. I like to freeze about 10 to 20 quart bags of this ratatouille, so I usually plant about 6 pepper plants (3 Ace and 3 Italia) ,  6 San Marzano tomatoes, 6 eggplants (usually a combination of Listada di Gandia, Orient Express, and Hansel), and 1 zucchini plant ( I do two plantings, one June 1 and one July 1 that way the plants are always healthy). Most households do not need more than 1 zucchini plant. Really.

Harvest all the veggies, wash them well. And start chopping. This year, I was a bit lazy and bought a few disposable pans to do the roasting. It made for easy clean up, but the veggies did not caramelize as much as they would have on metal or pyrex. Lesson learned.

So basically you just chop up all the vegetables into 1" chunks or so. The proportions are different every year, but it is usually about 1 part onions, 1 part peppers, 3 parts eggplant, 2 parts tomatoes, and 2 parts zucchini. I chop everything separately and then add it to the pans. I then drizzle olive oil over every thing. Add lots of salt, good sea salt is best, and then handfuls of chopped herbs to each pan. I like a blend of thyme, oregano, and rosemary. But other combinations work well.

Preheat the oven to 375F and slide in the pans. Turn and toss every 20 minutes, until everything is cooked and starting to caramelize. The overall cooking time really depends on the amount you are doing, the type of pan you are using, the thickness of the vegetable layer in each pan, etc. Basically, cook it until the whole house smells really good and the veggies are very soft and starting to brown. If I were making this for a meal to be eaten that night, I would do a single layer, in pyrex, and let it get golden brown. This is much harder to do in big batches in a home oven, and since freezing compromises texture and flavor anyhow, I think of these roasted veggies as additions to other recipes all winter long, not the main showcase in a meal.

Once everything is cooked, let it cool down completely, and then carefully scoop it into plastic quart-sized freezer bags. I usually use a measuring cup and one of those funnels for jars, since it makes life a little easier. Once frozen, the veggies can be used in pasta sauces, on pizza, in lasagnas, in soups and stews, as fillings in calzones, or as a topping for polenta, etc. You get the picture. It's such a nice way to have a little taste of summer in the winter and uses up so much of that amazing garden produce. Even in a summer like this one, when I have had to take some time away from gardening and preserving, I made sure to do some of these roasted veggies for the freezer.

This Week in Photos - May 15th, 2011

Here's another glimpse of the beautiful sights we see every day, the changes in the season, and the newest additions to our stock.

Ever wonder why our plants look so healthy without any spraying? The answer is: with a little help from our friends.

Our garden coming back to life...with Lily's help!

Garden Planning with Julie

Tuesday, April 26th, 7pm

At the Carpenter Carse Library in Hinesburg

Please join Red Wagon Plants' owner, Julie, for a look at simple ways to feed yourself from your garden. This is geared toward the kitchen gardener who would like to learn how to grow more of their own food in a way that is simple and not overwhelming. We will discuss how to schedule your plantings so that your vegetable harvest is spread out over the whole season and so that you can avoid the tomato jungle and the zucchini baseball bats. Simple preserving techniques will also be covered such as freezing and canning projects that you can tackle on a weeknight as part of your dinner preparation or during a couple of hours on a weekend morning. This is a free event! For more information, please contact the library at 482-2878.

The First Capstone: More on Charley's Wall

Charley and his herringbone wall in the morning light

April 8th

In rain or snow, sleet or sunshine, Charley is outside working tirelessly to finish his beautiful herringbone wall. You can read more about the wall in our previous post, "Charley MacMartin's Herringbone Wall". To find out more about Charley, you can visit Queen City Soil and Stone's website.

See Charley's progress?

April 14th

Do You Want a Little Spring in the Kitchen?

We start selling herbs in pots long before the ground is ready to work. Many of you still have snow on the ground; some of you may be lucky enough to live someplace where the snow is melted, but we all are worried more is on the way. Anyhow, when the snow first melts, the ground looks barren and dirty save for a few bulbs trying to poke through. Poor things. This has been such a cold spring, and while I don't want to complain too much, it would be nice if we had a little warm weather right about now. If you are wanting just a little reminder of what is coming down the road, you could grow a little window sill herb garden for now. All you need are a few herbs, a sunny window, and not much else. If you want to get fancy, you could pot up those herbs into pretty pots or mix them together in an indoor window box, but there is no need to really. Just some 4" pots are fine for now, and soon enough the plants can go outside, either in the ground or in bigger pots. We just started to deliver plants to a few stores, so consider picking some up for a little cheer. The scent alone is enough to lift anyone's spirit.

A group of Bhutanese farmers came to visit our greenhouses this week - it's the second group that has come by. When I saw the look on their faces when they were smelling the herbs - mint, rosemary, cilantro, lavender - I was reminded of why I do this work. It takes the edge off of those long end of winter weeks and brings hope and love into my being. It's an honor to share it all.

- Julie

Allison on Seeds

Allison Lea, our incredible seeder,  eagle-eyed pest finder, and all around special person wrote this beautiful piece on seeds. We love her writing, and hope you enjoy these thoughtful words.

I've had seeds on my mind lately. Not surprising, given the time of year, and the fact that I've been planting seeds for a living for the better part of a decade. It's easy to forget about seeds, during the long months of a Vermont winter. But then that first warm day comes, and with it the scent of damp earth, and suddenly I am visualizing thousands of seeds lying dormant in the ground, waiting and working. I consider myself lucky, because I get to experience an early spring in the greenhouses. While the outdoor seeds are still mired in mud, ice, snow and more unpleasant bits of thawing matter, I am opening crisp white packets and distributing their contents into the warm fluffy soil from Vermont Compost: onions, lettuce, kale, various greens, annual flowers, tomatoes, peppers. I love my job for its ability to provide me with an invaluable set of simple lessons for life. First: start small. Some of the seeds I plant are truly no bigger than a pinprick. Yet even the smallest one contains all the knowledge it needs to become a complete plant. Inevitably, I have moments when I feel as though I'm flailing around in my life, looking for answers outside myself, or feeling overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information literally right at my fingertips. And then I find myself standing at my seeding bench inside the greenhouse, holding a handful of seeds in my hand and realizing I have all the answers I need. I've always had them. Second: calm down a little and be still. While there are many seeds which travel for miles and miles on the wind or hitched to the back of some animal (mainly my dogs, it seems), all the seeds I've handled germinate best when they are left in peace. They're not going to be thrilled if I keep jostling the tray around, or picking them up, examining them for signs of life, and putting them back down. Likewise, when I allow myself to slow down and breathe a little, I start to get more of a grasp on the person I am becoming. Stillness is the key to sprouting, so when I feel myself flitting here and there, reluctant to make a commitment or put down roots, I go back to my seeds, peer at them thoughtfully, and then step back and let them be. Third: not all seeds are going to germinate. Some seed packets will say 60% germination rate. These seeds I sow a little thicker, in order to compensate. If all of them sprouted, I would have a very crowded plug tray, and unhappy plants. I have lots of great ideas, but they're not all going to come to fruition, so letting go of my attachments seems like a good plan. And finally (although the lessons continue indefinitely) cracking open is a good thing. I've seen thousands of little seedlings, and that first green shoot pushing up through the hull never ceases to delight and amaze me, whether it happens in the greenhouse, or out in the garden. So as I strive to make sense of a world which appears to be literally cracking apart under our collective feet, I will keep coming back to the modest little seed, looking for signs of something new and amazing coming through.

Help Wanted

WE HAVE FILLED THIS POSITION!  (3/17/11)

When people walk into our greenhouse, they are greeted by knowledgeable gardeners, like-minded fanatics,  or people who have experience as commercial vegetable growers or as landscape professionals. Whether a customer is a veteran gardener with Latin names rolling off their tongue or a first time tomato plant purchaser, our staff and our customers share a love of plants, food and flowers. We welcome all of our customers into an environment that is helpful and practical. If this description peaks your interest, we may have a good opportunity for you to work in our retail greenhouse.

Here is a little more about the job.....It would entail all aspects of working in the retail greenhouse such as

• Greeting customers
• Answering many questions graciously and knowledgeably
• Keeping displays filled and organized
• Making sure all of the plants have the correct signage
• Running a cash register
• Being on your feet all day
• Lifting 30 lbs comfortably
• Watering plants as needed
• Deadheading as needed
• Taking home lots and lots of plants!
• Having a great time all day!

If this sounds appealing to you, please send us a version of a resume that explains your gardening experience. Let me know what your favorite heirloom tomatoes are, or which annuals do best out by the mailbox at your house. Or maybe you can tell me a story about the first time you new you were addicted to gardening. Basically, we are looking for someone who is very at ease talking about gardening and who has a lot of gardening knowledge easily accessible in their brain because they live and breathe plants. We love our customers and want to continue giving them the service they deserve.

The work dates are roughly April 15th to July 3rd, and the position is for about 20 to 30 hours a week. We realize this is a short time commitment, but if you are a gardening enthusiast with years of experience, and you want a chance to be around beautiful plants and wonderful people, this might be a good opportunity for you.

Contact us with your garden stories and garden resume by email: julieATredwagonplants.com.

Thanks!

Edible Landscaping

A New Focus on Landscaping This year Red Wagon is pleased to offer a variety of new landscape plants that have been requested by our customers. We are working with Cobble Creek Nursery in Monkton to provide  a wide variety of Vermont grown edible and ornamental trees and shrubs. Our staff can help you choose the right plants for your project and give you the information you need to grow them successfully. We can also do on-site garden consultations at your home.

Ecological Landscaping: How to Make the Landscape Work for You

When it comes to landscaping, we believe in a natural, practical approach. There are a number of ways you can make your landscape more functional for you and for the ecosystem simply by choosing the right plants. One way is to plant trees and shrubs that produce edible fruit. The fruit can feed you and your family for years to come, and provide food and habitat for wildlife. Many of these plants have still other benefits, such as ornamental interest, providing shade in summer, as windbreaks, or as privacy screens. Here are some examples of edible landscape plants we are growing this year. For descriptions and growing tips for all the plants we are growing this season, click on “Our Plants”. For some great information on edible landscaping, check out Rosalind Creasy's website or see our "Resources" section.

NEW ‘Autumn Brilliance’ Apple Serviceberry – A native plant that produces white flowers in spring that provide pollen for a wide variety of insects. Flowers are followed by edible red berries that are adored by birds. Leaves turn orange and red in the fall for ornamental interest. Also a coppice species.

Apple Serviceberry

NEW ‘Darrow’ Blackberry – A very reliable, cold-hardy blackberry that bears huge sweet berries in July. 4-5' tall. Provides great habitat and food for wildlife. Produces suckers, creating a fast-growing hedgerow that works well as a privacy screen or windbreak.

‘Patriot’ Blueberry – A super-hardy half high blueberry that tolerates wet soils and produces delicious berries for birds and people. White blossoms in spring and orange leaves in fall offer year-round ornamental interest. These are underused as landscape plants, and we want to promote their use. A hedge of blueberries in the fall is absolutely stunning!

NEW ‘Red Lake’ Currants – A very hardy shrub that produces tart red berries in July. Delicious for jams, jellies, and pies. A great food and shelter plant for wildlife. Flowers that bloom from April to May have ornamental interest and provide nectar for a wide variety of insects.

‘Pixwell’ Gooseberry – Very easy to grow and low-maintenance, with round green berries that are picked like blueberries. Provides food and shelter for wildlife, and flowers provide nectar for pollinators.

gooseberrypixwell_big

NEW ‘Reliance’ Grape – Beautiful pink seedless grapes are excellent for fresh eating! These vigorous climbers can provide needed shade or a privacy screen in summer, as well as food and pollen for wildlife.

NEW ‘Parker’ Pear – A very hardy pear with medium sized reddish-brown fruit, lovely white flowers in spring, and dark purple foliage in fall for year-round ornamental interest. Requires a second variety nearby for pollination. Flowers provide nectar for pollinators, and the tree can be coppiced to produce wood for craft projects or scions.

NEW ‘Shiro’ Plum – Tree produces abundant gold fruit from July to August. Flowers provide nectar to a wide variety of insects.

NEW ‘Fall Gold’ Raspberry – An ever-bearing variety with yellow fruit that produces two crops, in June and August-October. A very hardy and tough plant with a wide variety of uses – plants provide food and shelter to wildlife and pollen to insects, brambles form a hedgerow for privacy or a windbreak, leaves can be used to make tea, and the berries are considered a super-food.

NEW ‘Black Beauty’ Elderberry – A wonderful ornamental and edible plant with year-round interest. Dark purple foliage is complemented by huge pink flowers in midsummer that provide nectar for native pollinators. Dark purple fruit appears in fall, and is great for making jam. Plant provides both food and shelter for wildlife. We will also be carrying a strain of elderberry that was bred by Lewis Hill - a Vermonter who was the authority on fruit production in the northeast. Lewis unfortunately passed a way a few years ago, but the plants he bred and propagated are his living legacy.

Highbush cranberry bush

NEW ‘Alfredo’ Highbush Cranberry – This colorful edible ornamental gives a year-round show. Foliage opens red, then turns green, yellow, and then red again in fall. Red berries appear in fall and persist all winter, providing forage for wildlife. Large white to yellow flowers appear in spring and provide nectar for native pollinators. A very hardy plant that is deer and rabbit resistant. This makes a beautiful privacy hedge, growing thick and tall and just covered in cheery red berries in the fall.

Let us know your plans for your garden this year; perhaps a few well placed edible plants can add beauty to your yard and bounty for your table.

by Sophia and Julie

Dirt

When the first delivery of potting soil comes to our greenhouses, I usually take a moment to stop what I am doing and just dig my hands in the dirt. This year, I have been a bit busier than normal, so I had to wait a few days to do it, but the feeling is the same. It means winter is winding down; that the seeds that are waiting patiently in the storage bins will have a springboard for their magical emergence; and that flowers, greenery, and fresh food will soon be in our lives again.

Winter used to be a difficult time for me, but I have learned to accept its slowness and constricting nature. I spend time outside as much as possible and try to rest; something about hitting 40 makes me understand the value of Doing Nothing more than I used to I suppose. But during those earlier years, when winter was more difficult for me, I always marked the first soil delivery on my calendar and that became the date towards which I would count all winter long. When that day finally came, Dennis, who delivers for VT Copmost Company would drive his truck into the barn and the big pile would spill out of the dump truck and I would wait politely for him to leave before taking off my boots and socks, pulling up pant legs and sleeves, and just dig into that fluffy warm pile.  A thawing takes place, a deep, deep thawing, and gratitude just settles in.

Enter at Your Own Risk: DIY Wedding Flowers. Part 1

Last summer, I must have helped at least half a dozen customers who were looking for some help in planting a garden specifically for home-grown wedding flowers. I often warn people that growing for a specific date is fairly technical and requires weekly plantings, regular harvesting all summer long to keep the plants blooming until the event, and most of all, a very flexible attitude. People who have a specific color scheme or variety in mind are not always good candidates for home grown wedding flowers since those types of flowers may be very hard to grow and getting the right color on the right day means planting about 10 times more than you think you will need in hopes that one of the plantings will be just perfect on the correct day. For those who are planning an event and are willing to look at the flowers as a fun and flexible component, then growing your own is a great option. I have listed below some varieties that are particularly well suite to a DIY flower program.  Full disclosure: I have talked about as many people out of growing their own wedding flowers as I have talked into doing it. It really is not a good fit for everyone, but for those who are willing and able, here is a little help to get you started....

ANNUALS

Verbena bonariensis - reliable and a lovely purple bloom with long wiry stems that hold up well to handling and mixing into all kinds of arrangements. Zinnias - come in all shapes and colors, are best suited for August or later. Require deadheading all summer long, but will branch out and be very productive once well established. Sunflowers - there are lots of sunflower varieties that are designed specifically for cut flowers. Some of our favorites are Giant Sungold Teddy Bear, Sunbright Supreme and Soraya. The only tricky thing is getting the timing just right. They only are perfect to harvest for about 10 days, after that their single blossoms start to drop their petals. Ageratum - blue,  can be tall if planted correctly - a little closer together. Needs deadheading all summer long if you are planning for a late summer or fall event. Very productive if well established and well taken care of. Agrostemma has a lovely, floating quality that gives a lot of life to mixed bouquets. It's airy and delicate, comes in purple or white and produces lots of good, long stems all summer long. Again, needs constant picking and deadheading to produce all summer long.

Ammi - this is a beautiful filler in mixed bouquets or in all-white arrangements. Easy to grow from transplants and produces, nice, tall stems.

Cosmos - come in a variety of textures and lengths, best suited for mid-August or later. While they are beautiful, they do take up a lot of room for not always a lot of stems.

Snapdragons - another multi-colored option or can also be grown as strains of single colors. We offer many options of snapdragons. The stems can sometimes be a little short, but with good fertility and 6" spacing, they will grow straight and tall.

Celosias - come in many shapes, sizes or colors. These are a hardy, easy to grow and more forgiving than others. And they can be dried for long-term keep sakes.

All of these annuals will give you a good place from which to start. Do-it-yourself flowers can always be supplemented with florist purchases the week of the event  if the budget allows it. We will cover more on home grown flowers in subsequent posts, so if this peaks your interest, please stay tuned. Part two will be about which perennials are easy to grow and use for cut flowers. Part Three will be about different tactics to make your cutting garden as prolific as possible.

The Year to Come

by Julie One of my favorite aspects of running a greenhouse business is the ability to create. Not only is the act of growing plants very creative - we get to choose what we grow, how we grow it, how we market it, and how to make it all look beautiful and inspiring (we hope!); but in addition to that is the fact that this is a business like any other.  Ever since I was a little girl, my favorite toys have been my graph paper and my schedules; so a greenhouse business that gives me about 6 months of planning time is really fun for someone like me. I get to think it all through, improve systems, find ways to do more in the community, and create a nice work environment for all of the amazing people at Red Wagon Plants.

Here are some projects and improvements we are hatching (germinating?) at Red Wagon Plants this winter. Our mission is to increase the bounty in our community and this year, we plan to focus on the community part of that mission. We have built up such a wonderful group of customers, both wholesale and retail, and it feels like the right time to get to know everyone a little better!

Our 2011 Goals

• Promote our community partners. Every year, we donate thousands of plants to schools, non-profits, community gardens, and civic gardening projects. We want to share information about all of these wonderful organizations with our customers.
• Create a "Grower Station" at our retail store where people can learn about some simple growing techniques that are appropriate for the home scale, back yard garden.  Many of the staff at Red Wagon have worked on commercial scale vegetable farms and there are so many time-saving and crop-improving methods applied on those farms that easily cross over to the home garden.  This can really help increase the bounty in our customers' backyards and make gardening affordable from a money and time perspective.
• Have an end of year harvest dinner with the bounty from our gardens. We can sit at the table together, share our love of gardening and enjoy the food and spirit of our efforts.
• Invite people to come relax in the greenhouses in the winter. There is no place like a warm greenhouse in winter when the snow is falling and the wind is howling and inside feels like a tropical wonderland of green. How about sharing this with the community? Sunday morning coffee and bagels? Bring your knitting! Hang out with the plants and breath in the smell of dirt and fresh green growth. It seems like every time I tell someone what I do for a living, they say "oh it must be so nice in there on a snowy day!" Well, it is. It's really nice and it takes about 1 month off of winter's length for all of us who have the honor to work here, so we want to share that opportunity and invite others to join in the pleasure!
• Visit customer gardens. We really do love hearing from our customers and want to make more of an effort to see the gardens they tell us about. It would be so fun to roam around in the van and visit all these lovely places where people grow their own food and make their homes beautiful and colorful. What more inspiration does a person need?

So those are a few thoughts, and as always, we love to hear your suggestions, so please feel free to comment.

Gratitude

I woke up today feeling grateful and recharged with a blue sky blasting through the window and a full night of sleep behind me (the first in a while.) Here are a few pictures I took with the early morning sun casting a bittersweet glow on everything. What to make of that late fall look? Winter is coming, summer has produced all it can, and it is time to settle back and enjoy the dark days ahead. The dormant days ahead work for the seeds that need it in order to crack into life come spring - it can work for us too. It is a just fine time of year for sinking into the couch, making soups, catching up on reading, and over all feeling gratitude for the cycles of the seasons, the sweetness in the people around us. While the basement is full of jars of applesauce, tomatoes, jams, chutneys and pickles, I also try to keep a few things going in the garden as long as possible.

Like these .....

The straw keeps the soil from freezing around the leeks so that I can harvest them even in deep snow. The lettuce, arugula, cilantro and dill behind them will keep going a little while longer. I can cover them up with row cover, but most likely they will be eaten before I even need to do that. I will plant 2 or 3 times more next year so that I can have enough to take us through December.

I love this close up of dill with all of its fine texture.

Dill is one of the hardiest herbs to grow in cold weather and gives such brightness to late fall salads, potatoes, eggs, and fish. I use it quite a bit this time of year after pretty much ignoring it all summer long except for using it in a pickle jar or two or three.

I always bring in a few baskets of herbs. I don't do anything to them except cut them, pile them into a basket and leave them around the house. They smell great and love to go to work by the handful when I am making soups, broths and stocks. I don't think they object to being stuffed into a poultry cavity every now and then either. There is nothing like using herbs in big bunches of branches to feel like I am living a rich and luxurious life.

I want to say thanks to compost too.

Parts of the garden are ready for spring, and parts still have a ways to go, but there is so much satisfaction in seeing the raised beds awaiting next year. Soil building organisms busy making teeming, hot life. The ones who really get some of the credit for this are these lovelies......

Enjoy your next few days of rest if that is your luck and your lot. And thank you, deeply, for being a part of all this beauty and grace, coldness, sunshine, poop, and all.

Bay Laurel in Vermont

If you ask me what my favorite plant is in my garden I would tell you about my bay laurel tree.  Many folks are excited by the plants that add beauty to their surroundings.  Personally I love the plants that I can use in the kitchen and my bay tree adds value year round.  (The fact my favorite plant is a culinary herb would be no surprise if you follow my blog, Hippo Flambe). The difference between a leaf picked off my tree seconds before using it is far removed from the dry, dusty leaves in the spice section of your supermarket.  Plus my bay laurel has the added benefit of being easy to care for. It was a rather  inauspicious start to my bay laurel tree farming. I was given the tree by a friend who had decided to "euthanize" her tree. Her tree had developed a sticky residue on the leaves and she did not want to spend the time cleaning the leaves. In addition it had clearly outgrown its 23 inch pot and she had visions of it taking over her house. I immediately jumped at the chance to own my own bay laurel tree and told her not to kill it, I would adopt it instead.  When I arrived at her house one day in the pouring rain I stared at the giant tree and I began to wonder how well this was going to work out.  The first problem was how to get it in the back of my station wagon, even with the rear seats folded down it was far to big. So we went after the tree with clippers, ruthlessly cutting back every limb. In the end the tree had lost considerably more then 50% of its branches and I remembered the advice to never prune a tree back that far. I shrugged and figured what was the worst that could happen, even if it died the tree was free to me, I had nothing to lose.

That winter we kept the tree in an upstairs South facing window and miraculously it began growing new leaves almost right away. I did not give it any artificial light or fertilizer, we just opened the blind from 7 AM until it was dark.  The room it was in only gets passive heat from the other rooms, so the room temperature is often as low as 59 degrees.  The tree was severely pot bound as even in a 23 inch pot 1 qt of water would come rushing out the bottom almost immediately.  Every week it put out tiny new shoots and leaves and I began to take more leaves to cook with.  After using the leaves a few times I began to care more about my bay tree.

That spring we began to search for a larger pot. I was told at many locations that I could get a larger ceramic pot but not plastic. It had taken 2 of us to slowly inch the tree upstairs in a plastic pot, ceramic and its extra weight was clearly out. Finally one nursery suggested I try bonsai-ing the roots. She explained bonsai tress are removed from their pots and then pie shaped wedges are removed all the way around the root ball so more soil can be packed in and the tree can stay in a smaller pot.  So I bought some high quality soil and we hacked out 4 pie shaped wedges all the way around the root ball.  When I returned the tree to its pot I was amazed at how much water it could now hold.  After a few weeks of new growth it was clear the plant was much happier.

Taking care of my Bay Laurel tree is remarkably simple, especially as I am often a house plant slayer.  In the Fall, sometime in October, we bring the tree indoors. Once indoors we water sparingly about once a week, although I know there are stretches where we just forget.  In the spring we take the tree back outside, where it does not need watering unless there is a really extended dry spell. If you prune it a little in the spring it will produce new growth.  Use well drained, fertile soil.  I just recently applied some of my favorite tomato fertilizer to the soil. The next time it becomes pot bound I will again bonsai the roots. The sticky residue that my friend found on the leaves is caused by scale insects.  If this occurs just wash the leaves with an insecticidal soap and use your nail to scrape away any insect bodies on the leaves and stems. You can also spray with alcohol.  The sticky residue is not usually deadly to your tree but it will inhibit new growth.  Try to keep it in a humid area but do not over water.  Humid in Vermont in the winter is hard, just keep it out of drafts and away from the heating vents, misting them occasionally with water if you want.

The great thing about growing a bay laurel is you only want the leaves, which are the easiest part of a plant to maintain.  If I was starting over with a smaller tree I would not allow it to become as big as mine is, this would make it easier to bring it in and out of the house every year.  When cooking with it remember the fresh leaves are much stronger and more flavorful then dried. When a recipe calls for 2 leaves I only ever use 1. If I just want a slight bay flavor I use a smaller leaf.  One of my favorite uses for the leaves is to flavor a pot of red lentils. I just add one leaf to a pot of simmering red lentils with kosher salt and cook until the lentils are tender.  To serve I simply drain the lentils, drizzle with flavorful extra virgin olive oil and sprinkle with freshly ground pepper.

Meet RWP's Allison

Allison Lea is one of the terrific staffers at RWP.  And not only is she a master of plant production here, but she's also a gardener and home herbalist in her own right. This weekend she'll be offering a workshop at which she'll share techniques for making lip balms, infused oils for health and beauty, and nourishing skin salves.   By way of introducing her, we asked her to send along some photos from her own Addison County garden.

yarrow

Yarrow

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Calendula

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Chamomile

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Hollyhock close-up

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Lemon Thyme

There are still a couple of spaces in her Saturday, June 26 "Gifts from the Garden: Herbal Body Care"  workshop.  The cost is $25 per person, and you'll leave with a selection of the the goods you'll learn to create ... and some hands-on practice making gifts from your own garden.  Give us a call at 802-482-4060 to register.