The Dirt on Soil

Photo by Gayla Trail  All Rights Reserved

My most recent Globe & Mail food gardening article is up on the website. This week’s topic was on how to get good soil whether you’re growing in-ground or in containers.

It looks like the previous week’s article is also still available online. That one was on seeds that you can start late in the season.

And while I’m on the topic of published articles: if you’re in the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic United States I have an article and photograph on green gardening in the current (Summer 2009) issue of Breathe Magazine.

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Lost Email

For some inexplicable reason I have lost a BIG chunk of unanswered email. If you sent me an email between last Wed and today and have not heard back please get in touch again. Chances are your email disappeared!

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Agave americana ‘Mediopicta Alba’

Photo by Gayla Trail  All Rights Reserved

This plant was another gift from Barry, a gardener who lives just around the block. I finally got a chance to visit Barry’s garden yesterday and all I can say about that is, WOW. Literally every single inch of Barry’s garden is well considered.

One of the highlights of his garden, among many, is a collection of agaves. I have a special place in my heart for agaves — they’re incredibly interesting plants from an ethnobotanic standpoint, although I suspect they also hold a grass is greener appeal with this Northern gardener.

I have to admit that I am a little bit intimidated by this special agave gift. Now I understand why people are sometimes overwhelmed when I give them a plant. There’s pressure to do well by a gift plant, especially when it’s an unusual variety!

Must not kill the extra special agave. Gah!

More agave photos: in Cuba, in Austin, in San Francisco

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Transplant Trade 2009

transplanttrade09.jpg

I attended a transplant trade this weekend. I arrived at the trade with two trays of plants and returned home with only one. Success! I exercised a lot of restraint this time around and did not succumb to any descriptions of beautiful tomatoes I do not have the space to grow. Although, I did end up with far too many violets and a bunch of strawberries I don’t really need but can find space for in my community garden plot.

It just so happens that I returned home from the trade to discover that the starlings had clipped all of the strawberry plants in my windowbox down to the soil line. They’ve also significantly clipped off the succulents in my succulent boxes (I was going to photograph and show you this year’s boxes, too) as well as some tomatoes. They’re probably out there right now (I can hear their menacing peeps) snipping away at the seedlings I’m hardening off.

And stealing from the elderly. I also hear they eat babies.

Clockwise from top left: Lily of the valley (I ended up with two), wild strawberry, ‘Gezahnte’ tomato, violets (okay, I took home two of these), more wild strawberries, ‘Queen Anne Pocket’ melon with 2 pink fingerling potatoes on top, and unknown flower (from Sorrelina).

I’m most excited about the ‘Gezahnte’ tomato, a gift from Sorrelina who knows I am always on the look out for the most unusual tomatoes. However, in looking through catalogs, I am not sure if this is ‘Gezahnte’, a ruffled paste, or ‘Gezahnte Buhrerkeel’ a ruffled, fluted tomato similar to ‘Zapotec Pink Pleated’. Either way they both look interesting.

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