My Kent-Opus continues.
Here’s the fourth installment about my travels through Kent, England.
In this episode you’ll visit: Christopher Lloyd’s gardens at Great Dixter; the ancient seaside town of Rye; the melancholy expanses of Romney Marsh; Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage garden on the shingle beach at Dungeness; and the beautiful, moated Leeds Castle.
Here’s the Link:
http://nanquick.com/2014/03/28/part-four-rambling-through-the-gardens-estates-of-kent-england/
Very Best
Nan Quick
CORVALLIS, Ore. – As you pore over seed catalogs in these cold winter months, you’ll likely include tomatoes in your vegetable garden dreams.
Oregon State University’s vegetable breeding program has developed several varieties over the past 40 years that are now mainstays in many Pacific Northwest gardens. Perhaps you know of Indigo Rose, the novelty purple tomato that OSU debuted in 2012. But did you know about the other varieties that the program has created?
In the past, the whole idea behind the breeding program has been to breed seedless types that are adapted to the cooler springs we have in Oregon and tomatoes with determinate growth so that they bloom earlier and set fruit under cooler conditions,” said Jim Myers, OSU’s vegetable breeder.
Under Myers’s leadership, the program has focused on two areas in recent years – developing varieties with late blight resistance and increasing phytonutrient potential.
“We try to build on the material previously developed in the vegetable breeding program,” Myers said.
Myers suggested the following OSU varieties, many of which were developed by his predecessor, Jim Baggett.
Find these tomatoes in the seed catalogs from Territorial Seed Co., Victory Seed Co., Ed Hume Seeds, Johnny’s Selected Seeds and Nichols Garden Nursery.
Except for Indigo Rose, these tomatoes are determinate types, meaning that they are bushy in form and have fruit that sets on the bud at the tip of the stem, Myers said. They continue growth from side branches. All tomatoes from determinate type plants ripen in a concentrated period of time. Indeterminate tomatoes, on the other hand, will grow vigorously to heights of up to 12 feet and produce fruit until frost kills them.
If you’re overwhelmed by all the tomato choices and only have limited space, Myers has some advice.
“Find a few tomato varieties that work really well for you and use them as standbys, but reserve some space every year for experimental types that you want to try,” said Myers, the Baggett-Frazier Professor of Vegetable Breeding in OSU’s College of Agricultural Sciences.
By Denise Ruttan, denise.ruttan@oregonstate.edu, on Twitter at @OregonStateExt
Source: Jim Myers, myersja@hort.oregonstate.edu
This story is online at: http://bit.ly/OSU_Gardening2324
About Gardening News From the OSU Extension Service: The Extension Service provides a variety of gardening information on its website at http://extension.oregonstate.edu/community/gardening. Resources include gardening tips, videos, podcasts, monthly calendars of outdoor chores, how-to publications, information about the Master Gardener program, and a monthly emailed newsletter.
Plants for Fall Color:Click to view…
Report By Carlotta Lucas
“The Web Soil Survey (WSS) provides soil data and information produced by the National Cooperative Soil Survey. It is operated by the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and provides access to the largest natural resource information system in the world.” USDA Natural Resources Conversation Service
To find your soils on the web soil survey go to: http://websoilsurvey.sc.egov.usda.gov/App/HomePage.htm
CORVALLIS, Ore. – Not ready to hang up your gloves and spade just yet?
The fearless gardener still has a chance to plant some cold-hardy vegetables to harvest next spring, said Jim Myers, plant breeder and researcher at Oregon State University. But don’t dawdle.
“Winter gardening is a risky business,” Myers said. “It may work one year with a mild winter but not another when the weather is more severe. If you plant some cold-hardy vegetables from mid-August to early October – depending on the crop – there’s a good likelihood you will produce something on the other end in the spring. They say farming is a gamble…some years more than others.”
Cold weather doesn’t kill these hardy plants; it simply slows their growth rate. For every rise of 18 degrees, growth rate doubles, but that guideline is only applicable for an air temperature range of 40 to 98 degrees, Myers said. If you plant cold-hardy vegetables from mid-August to early October, there is a chance they can mature by next spring if they survive in a vegetative state through the winter without reproducing.
According to Myers, the hardiest vegetables that can withstand heavy frost of air temperatures below 28 include: spinach, Walla Walla sweet onion, garlic, leeks, rhubarb, rutabaga, broccoli, kohlrabi, kale, cabbage, chicory, Brussels sprouts, corn salad, arugula, fava beans, radish, mustard, Austrian winter pea and turnip.
Semi-hardy vegetables that can withstand light frost of air temperatures in the range of 28 to 32 degrees include: beets, spring market carrots, parsnip, lettuce, chard, pea, Chinese cabbage, endive, radicchio, cauliflower, parsley and celery. For beets, spring market carrots and parsnips, the tops will die but the roots will tolerate lower temperatures.
Vegetables that contain the pigment anthocyanin, which gives them a vibrant red or purple color, are more resistant to rots caused by winter rains, Myers said. They include: purple-sprouting broccoli, Rosalind broccoli and purple kale.
If you live in an area of the state that gets prolonged snow cover, the fluffy white stuff acts as insulating mulch and warms the soil for these tough plants, Myers said.
No matter where you live in Oregon, “some of the worst problems we have in the winter are with rain rather than temperature, so protecting plants from the rain is quite helpful,” Myers said.
He recommends covering vegetables with high or low tunnels made from metal hoops and clear plastic, available from greenhouse supply companies. To protect plants, you can also use row covers or cloches. To warm the soil use mulch made from yard debris, cardboard or newspaper.
Cross your fingers and by next March you could be feasting on shelled, succulent fava beans seasoned with salt and lemon juice.
For more information on extending the gardening season, see the OSU Extension guides “Fall and Winter Vegetable Gardening in the Pacific Northwest” at http://bit.ly/OSU_FallGarden, “How to build your own raised bed cloche” at http://bit.ly/OSU_Cloche and “Garlic for the Home Garden” at http://bit.ly/OSU_Garlic. For an interactive map of Oregon’s first frost dates, go to the United States Department of Agriculture’s website at http://bit.ly/USDA_FirstFrostOR.
By Denise Ruttan denise.ruttan@oregonstate.edu
Source: Jim Myers myersja@hort.oregonstate.edu
This story is online at http://bit.ly/OSU_Gardening2293
The first major change was to move the driveway to the far right of the front yard from its former location closer to the house and entry way. This gave a much broader area to reconstruct the garden. The entrance to the garage, which originally faced the street, was reoriented to create a turnaround at the end of the new driveway. Broken concrete pieces from the driveway were used to form walkways leading to the entry and around the house to the garage.
One challenge with the design involved mitigating a seepage problem located at the right rear of the front yard. This was done by lowering the grade to create a gravel and rock lined dry creekbed, directing water through the front yard to a gated front vegetable garden. As you will see, it is this creekbed that is beautifully lined with boulders and various tall grasses. Winding back through these grasses one can find a Triflora maple, Zelkova and palm along with lila
c and wild currant.
Original rhubarb, quince and raspberries were kept and moved to various locations throughout the property. Blueberries, Asian pear, persimmon and other fruit trees share the backyard with many of the original camellias.