OG's Test Gardeners

March 23

Planting Day!
Test seeds arrived while I was in San Francisco and today is planting day!  I am using Rootrainers (www.rootrainers.org) seed trays that I picked up at the Chelsea Flower Show last year. They are modular trays of corrugated plastic that lie flat when not in use. Each tray is creased along the bottom, so they fold up and hook together to form cells about 1.5 inches across, some 4 inches deep, others 6 inches deep. I fill each one with seed starting mix and set in the seeds. The beauty is, when the seedlings are ready for planting out, I just unhook the trays to lift out each seedling with its associated soil intact. No pulling seedlings apart, no digging them out of their six packs or cutting them out of trays. And, no apparent transplant shock.  It is a great system for small seeds. 
Here’s what I have to plant:
2 kinds of cucumbers
4 kinds of melons
4 kinds of eggplant
6 kinds of tomatoes
5 kinds of peppers
2 kinds of cabbage
2 kinds of squash
1 kind of potato
Lots of flowers
Wish I could tell you which varieties I am testing, but I am sworn to secrecy! You’ll read about the results in the January ‘09 issue of Organic Gardening Magazine.

March 14

Just back from the San Francisco Flower Show where I spoke on low water gardening (very important here in the arid west) and on wonderful garden plants from Mexico and the Southwest deserts. The flower show had about 20 interesting and innovative display gardens.

Two other highlights of my trip: A visit to Western Hills Nursery in Occidental, California (www.westerhillsnursery.com, a nursery/botanic garden was planted in the 1950s and 60s. The current owners toured a gaggle of garden writers (five of us) through the 3-acre garden, a landscape where the Pacific Northwest meets California Mediterranean. There were dogwoods and forsythia in bloom along with enormous old Australian Grevillea and Echium, also known as “pride of Madeira” (both very low water Mediterranean climate plants). I of course brought home some gems from the nursery.

The other highlight was an early morning garden tour of Alcatraz Island. “The Rock” sits in the San Francisco Bay. It’s as difficult to garden there as it was to escape—there’s a constant, cold wind, no fresh water, and thin soil.  Still, it has a long and colorful history.  Prisoners and employees created gardens on the island’s sloping hillsides and terraces. The entire island is just 12 acres, and the gardens were (and are) extensive.
The prison and its gardens were abandoned in 1963. Today, it is part of the National Park Service and the Garden Conservancy (www.gardenconservancy.org) has stepped in to reclaim the gardens. Head gardener Shelagh Fritz and a crew of volunteers are recreating the look and feel of Alcatraz gardens in the mid 1900s. I was amazed to see what has survived with no care and no irrigation. The island is covered in feral bear’s breech (Acanthus mollis), calla, geraniums, fuchsias, Chasmanthe, aeoniums, a giant New Zealand Christmas Tree (Metrosideros) and more.

March 8

The Seed Testers are all abuzz as we wait for our spring seeds to arrive in the mail. OG’s Pam Ruch let us know last week that she was divvying them up to send out. Michelle Zettel in Challis, Idaho can hardly contain her enthusiasm, “HOORAY!” she wrote, “I am so looking forward to getting in the dirt!”

While we wait, several of us have been involved in garden construction projects. The new patio that replaces half of my old lawn is nearly done. It is made of broken concrete and matches all the other hardscape in our garden. Broken concrete is cost-free and nearly limitless. Our supply came from a neighbor who replaced her patio. She’d seen our garden walkways and retaining walls made of concrete so she knocked on the door one day, asking if we wanted hers.That was the impetus for the patio project we had been putting off for so long!

I’m not the only OG test gardener with construction plans. Leslie (“The Tomato Lady”) Doyle in Las Vegas (who, by the way, starts Meyer lemon trees from seed!) has been working on a new “social and workshop area” of decomposed granite, all surrounded by new planting beds.