Feeding frenzy

We were out working in the garden this last week and couldn’t believe all the activity at the Ribes sanguineum. It is covered with mason bees, hummingbirds (sorry, I couldn’t get a picture of them) and other beneficial bugs. The funny thing about this plant… it is a volunteer. We think a bird did a little seed dropping, and voila, we have a new plant in the garden! Another great benefit of bringing birds to your backyard!

Check out the happy mason bee in our bee block. They have been busy with the ribes and all of the dwarf fruit trees we have in our garden.

Jeff
Garden time
Producer

Spring Break Part 2

This weekend is the real Spring Break!
The false Spring Break is a distant, sad memory, if you were hoping to have fun in the garden. Even as kids, we hoped for a warm Spring Break just to ride our bikes or run around with our friends. Our hopes of warm weather hasn't changed, just our activities.
My 'To-Do List' has gotten a bit long for this weekend. Does this sound like yours?
Buy Compost
Buy Tomatoes
Buy Lettuce & Onion Starts
Plant the above starts
Make a 'To-Do List' for next week

I have been ready to get the veggies started for a long time.
I have a new plan to containerize the tomatoes this year.
The big buzz is veggie gardening & container gardening had been popular for the last several years. I am going to combine the two.
Each year I am a bit disappointed with my tomato crop. The sprinkler system in the garden beds waters them all Summer long & they taste weak. There is not that robust tomato flavor I had when I gardened in Chicago. The intense heat in Summer sears flavor into the tomatoes. Many nights, it is still 90 degrees at 10PM. The tomatoes are fantastic.
In Oregon, our beautiful, cool evenings are great for sitting out of doors without mosquitoes & sweating to death, but not for ripening tomatoes.
I want my Chicago tomatoes, so I'm going to try tomatoes in pots. The theory is that the smaller soil volume, the solar radiation on the pot and control of water will make a more flavorful tomato. I can almost taste them now.
The lettuce is for early satisfaction for fresh from the garden produce. I love walking out the door & picking lettuce for my dinner salad. It's easy. Plant it just like planting petunias & let it grow. The onions are easy too. I plant them in a row and harvest
every 3rd or 4th for green onions. I leave the rest spaced & let them mature to be big onions later in the Summer.

When all the planting is done, maybe I'll get my bike out too. Hello Sunshine!

Take care,
Judy

A Garden ‘Fusion’

Time is tight around the home of Garden Time. We are not only busy with the Garden Time show. We also just finished the hugely successful Gardenpalooza event. The Garden Time On-line magazine is receiving rave reviews (you can sign up for your free copy on our website http://www.gardentime.tv/). I’m also working on the new Fusion (http://www.fusionnw.com/) show. This new show deals with Home Improvement, Home Design and Cooking. You can find it on KOIN-6 at 7am on Saturdays and at 10am in Hood River on CGN-7. It features Ken Ackerman and Robin Burke as hosts.

I will be looking for ‘garden’ type ideas that we can do on the Fusion show. In fact, this weekend on Fusion we will be doing a story on indoor plants from Al’s Garden Center. Give it a look and let me know if you have any garden ideas that we can tie into our new ‘home’ show.

Jeff
Garden Time and Fusion producer

Gardenpalooza is here!

Well it is that time of year again. Gardenpalooza has arrived. People get really excited about this event. It seems to be the place a lot of people come to get their plants for their summer gardens. Gardenpalooza started 7 years ago at KPTV when I was producing the Good Day Lifestyles garden segments. There were a lot of smaller nurseries that couldn’t afford to advertise on the TV show. I was looking for a way to get them some exposure and to get people excited about the TV show (and about gardening). This event seemed to fill a need. Boy, did it ever! The first year we held it at the OSU Research Station near Charboneau and we overwhelmed the property. We had people parking nearly a half mile away and walking to the event. It also was a foreshadowing of future events. It was COLD and wet. We had the Millstone coffee cruiser there and they ran out of hot coffee, one of the few times that had ever happened to them. The OSU people loved us, but asked us to leave. It was hard to control all the people and keep them from wandering through some of the research plots!
The next year we moved to Hoffman Dairy Garden near Canby. It was a great location with lots of permanent covered areas in the barn. The only drawbacks were muddy parking and vendor space. The event really started to grow! After a couple of years Hoffman’s moved most of their activities to Hillsboro. I decided that we needed to stay south of Portland and near the Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival, more activities in the same direction and we had become good partners in promoting each others events.
So we moved to Fir Point Farms! We have had the great pleasure of working with 3 different groups of managers at the farm and are excited to be working with the Femrite family for the first time this year. The Gardenpalooza event is now the property of Gustin Creative Group and the Garden Time show. It has become a labor of love for the Garden Time crew. We are still bringing smaller nurseries and other garden vendors to you. They have the latest in unique plants and cool tools, and in the past few years we have started to include garden artists too. Some estimate that we have been getting between 7,000 to 9,000 people every year and most of those years have been in the rain! We always hold out hope for dry weather, but local gardeners have shown us that they love their plants no matter what weather we have.
If you have visited in the past, we hope that you have had a good time. If you haven’t been out to see us, give us a try this year.

Jeff and Therese
Garden Time owners/producers

Gardening made Easy?

At Garden Time TV, you might often hear us say how easy gardening is in some aspect or another. Having a far too open mind and being way too honest, I sometimes cringe when we say that.
Bottom line is...sometimes gardening is, plain and simply put, HARD WORK!
I would never want to scare someone off from the delight of spending time in their gardens or starting a new one up but I would be remiss if I didn't say that sometimes you just have to roll up your sleeves and get down and dirty.
I just came in from working in my yard. Now remember, I worked at store, Portland Nursery on Divison St., from 7:00 am until 4:45 pm, so I had already put in a good days work. I had decided this year in an attempt to save some money to try to do my yard alone. Whoa...what was I thinking? I tackled a Choyisa Ternata that was 9-10 foot tall and a Viburnum Davidi that was just totally out of control. They whupped me...and good! But, after a couple of hours and some language I won't repeat here, they are pristinely pruned.
What I am not able to explain to people is this. Even though the work is very hard (I really was rolling around on the ground, covered in dirt and thinking things that made ME blush I was so frustrated) when it was all said and done...perfection!
Seeing my yard to the level I demand it to be is a reward I am not sure many people can even understand. It fills me with pride and excitement and a sense of communion with nature that is almost spiritual.
After I was done, while showering and trying to remove dirt where dirt should never be on a human, it dawned on me that this extra hard work was actually my own fault. You see, gardens need constant attention. I have found that only when I delay or ignore a part of my yard does it demand increased care and maintenance. Both of these plants tend to root in very easily when a branch lays on the ground. And as I had not pruned them well in several years it cost me an extra amount of effort to get them back to where they needed to be. In truth, gardening is usually difficult only when we allow things to get out of control. Consistency and maintenance are key.
Always an optimist me, I can tell you that the blooming Daphne Oderata fragrance would waft thru the air and right when I thought I was going to implode with frustration while pruning, that indescribable smell would invade my olfactory and honestly would calm me like a drug.
So I guess my moral to the story is IF you don't keep up with your yearly pruning and IF your a perfectionist as I am, and IF you find that you have to tackle something in the yard you really don't want to...make sure you do it when the Daphnes are blooming!
And always remember that the best things in life may be free but the cost of a exquisit garden is...ocasionally...some hard work!
Happy Gardening!
William

Herbs in the Kitchen

Herbs in the kitchen, what a concept! I don't mean the dried kind of herbs you have stored in zip-lock bags or the Herb Bouquets you've purchased at the market.
I mean containers of live herbs growing in your kitchen or inside the house. This idea may or may not be new to you. Sometimes an idea needs to resurface & be tried again.

Most people like to cook with fresh herbs or like the idea of cooking with fresh herbs. We see it in all the magazines & on all the cooking shows. It's a healthy way to get flavor in our meals.
It's also a budget minded practice. Growing herbs inside, on our patios or in our gardens is a renewable resource. Most herbs are perennial plants. They live for a long time. The annual-type herbs like basil* & cilantro* are worth their flavor in gold while they are growing. Enjoy them when they are in their warm weather growing season.

Easy tips for growing herbs indoors

Select containers with drain holes & saucers
Use good quality potting soil like Black Gold All Organic Soil
Select herbs that grow easily indoors
Rosemary
Thyme
Parsley
Chives
Sage
Bay Leaf
'Boxwood' Basil (New small leaf Basil - Ideal for indoors)

Place containers in a window with bright light like an Eastern exposure.
Western or Southern Exposures may get a bit too much sun in the Summer.
You make need to move the container a few feet away to prevent leaf damage.

Water containers thoroughly as needed. Let the water go through the whole pot, but don't let water stay in the saucer. This may damage the herb's roots.
Herbs need to dry out just a bit between waterings.
Harvest the leaves as needed for recipes. By harvesting, you are actually pruning the foliage to keep the plant compact.
Pick off Herb flowers to add to salads or use as a garnish.

*Large leaf Basils are best grown outdoors
*Cilantro is best grown outdoors

Enjoy your new indoor herb pots. I'm sure you have recipes in your collection to try them out.

Take care,
Judy

Full speed ahead…

Well, we are in our 4th season of the Garden Time show! It has been crazy as we get back up to speed on gathering stories for the show. We usually put 100+ miles on the car every week as we visit nurseries, garden centers and different locations. We try to get out and show you different garden places around the area, which feature plants that will work in your garden. So even if we don’t make it to your neighborhood you can be sure the plants we show will grow here. I have also received a request for a home make over. Unfortunately we can’t do make-overs. It is very expensive and tough for growers, retailers and landscapers to give up the resources to get it done. Landscaping is very subjective. What you may find attractive, others may not like so much. We recommend that you work with a designer or garden center and do your own makeover. Many garden centers have design people on staff or they can recommend one to you. Most will work with you on a budget and a timeline for any size project. Plus, half the fun of gardening is getting your own hands in the soil. To get ideas for a landscape, take one of the local garden tours in your area. There are more and more tours as the season progresses. Take notes of what you like. Watch for shade and sunny areas and which plants are used in those places. Most of all look for something that fits your personality and lifestyle. Keep watching the show and we will give you more tips from the experts!

Jeff
Garden Time Producer