{"id":4322,"date":"2012-03-15T18:49:23","date_gmt":"2012-03-15T18:49:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/loghouseplants.com\/plants\/?page_id=4322"},"modified":"2012-03-19T23:50:27","modified_gmt":"2012-03-19T23:50:27","slug":"garden-news-issue-34","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/loghouseplants.com\/plants\/library\/garden-news-issue-34\/","title":{"rendered":"Garden News Issue 34"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Garden
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\nIssue 34 \u2022 Seasonal tips and featured varieties coming to a retailer near you<\/a> \u2022 April 19, 2011<\/span>
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Signs of Spring<\/h1>\n

\"saladWelcome back to Garden News!\u00a0 All winter at Log House we\u2019ve enjoyed researching new plants and creating fresh collections for the 2011 season, but now we\u2019re glad to be getting out in the garden a little more.\u00a0 As days lengthen and temperatures warm, we\u2019re seeing signs of spring each day: daffs blooming, robins chasing worms, swallows looking for nests\u2026and things are growing \u2013 FAST!\u00a0 This means any overwintering (or early-planted) asparagus, peas, garlic, onions, and greens are taking off, but it also means weeds and grass seem to double in size every day or so.\u00a0 The same daylight that encourages the weeds, though, gives us an extra hour or so to go pull a few weeds after dinner each night, rather than waiting for one free weekend to do everything.\u00a0 We\u2019ve even had a few nice stretches of sunshine, the best motivation for getting out there to plant spring vegetables or prep beds for warm-season plants.<\/p>\n

GREENS<\/p>\n

Still too cool for peppers or melons, spring is ideal for several other vegetable families, especially greens and alliums.\u00a0 Watch your garden center for flats full of crisp, fresh greens like endive, mustard, and lettuce.\u00a0 Kale is always an easy, productive, and nutritious green, but really thrives in the cool, moist sun-and-rain of spring \u2013 grow a mix of \u2018Dwarf Blue Scotch,\u2019 \u2018Red Russian,\u2019 and \u2018Winterbor\u2019 and harvest young leaves for a colorful salad, then grow some plants to a larger size for cooking greens.\u00a0 We also have a new arugula available now: \u2018Myway\u2019 matures extra early for mild-flavored, deep green serrated leaves to add peppery flavor to spring salads.<\/p>\n

ALLIUMS<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not too late to get garlic starts in the ground for a harvest this summer.\u00a0 We\u2019ve got a garlic for everyone, from rich but mellow \u2018Georgian Crystal\u2019 to fiery hot \u2018Duganski\u2019; from the huge easy-to-peel cloves of \u2018Music\u2019 to the long-storing gourmet favorite \u2018Silver Rose\u2019; and from Northwest heirloom \u2018Oregon Blue\u2019 to spicy \u2018Carpathian\u2019 from the mountains of Poland.<\/p>\n

\"garlicOther specialty alliums now available and ready to plant include walking onions, leeks, shallots, and cipollinis.\u00a0 Walking onions (sometimes called Egyptian or topset onions) are hardy perennials that produce clusters of spicy bulbils to use like pearl onions.\u00a0 In spring and fall, harvest the greens to use like chives or scallions.\u00a0 If you leave a few bulbils unharvested, the stalks will fall over and they will root themselves for a new crop next year.\u00a0 Leeks and shallots grow well in spring, and provide mild, gourmet flavor for summer soups and salads, with shallots storing well into fall.\u00a0 Cipollinis are small, flattened gourmet onions with rich creamy flavor, especially when roasted. (Pictured above: garlic lover at the SF Flower Show shares his garlic tattoo)<\/p>\n

\"strawberries\"STRAWBERRIES & ARTICHOKES<\/p>\n

April is also a good time to plant strawberries or artichokes, both of which will reward you with early-summer delicacies for several years.\u00a0 We\u2019ve expanded our strawberry offerings this year, with a good selection of June-bearing (produces one large harvest, ideal for freezing or making jam), everbearing (one summer crop and one fall crop), day-length neutral (almost-continuous production), and alpine (continuous production of small but intensely flavored berries) varieties.\u00a0To let the plants get well-established, gardeners should pinch off blooms of everbearing and day-length neutral varieties until July 1st, and should pinch off all blooms of June-bearing varieties the entire first year.<\/p>\n

Watch for our new, specialty artichokes, including \u2018Violet de Provence,\u2019 a French heirloom with gourmet flavor and beautiful purple-tinged buds \u2013 as well as reliable favorites like \u2018Green Globe,\u2019 a productive variety with large, flavorful hearts.<\/p>\n

\"tomatoSNEAK PEEK: GRAFTED TOMATOES!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not time to plant them just yet, but we have to mention our most exciting new project.\u00a0 Our SuperNaturals grafted vegetables are big news this year!\u00a0 After rave reviews from the lucky gardeners who received them in our trial offering last season, we\u2019re expanding the program for 2011. Like grafted fruit trees or roses, grafted vegetables are created by joining the top part of a desired variety (like \u2018Brandywine\u2019 Tomato) to a special, vigorous, disease-resistant rootstock.<\/p>\n

Already popular with market growers in Asia and Europe, we\u2019re making these superproductive vegetables widely available for the first time to American home gardeners under the SuperNaturals name. \u00a0First up is SuperNaturals Mighty \u2019Mato, an extra-vigorous tomato that goes above and beyond the call of duty, defending against pests, diseases, temperature extremes, and poor soils while producing early, long and abundant harvests of beautiful fruit!\u00a0 Double grafted tomatoes even let you grow two different varieties on one plant!\u00a0 Starting soon, gardeners in Oregon, Washington, and California will be able to buy Mighty \u2019Mato Grafted Tomatoes in 4″ pots, with gallons available in June and July.<\/p>\n

For more information about grafted vegetables check out the photos, videos, and links on our grafting page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

HAPPY GARDENING!<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll send out a Garden News once or twice a month to keep you up-to-date as each new wave of our seasonal favorites are ready to ship and plant.\u00a0 Next time, we\u2019ll highlight some of our 2011 new introductions, both ornamental and edible, including grafted vegetables.\u00a0 And remember you can link from our website to Green Gardening with Ann Lovejoy<\/a>, a practical and entertaining blog with seasonal tips and musings about gardening in the Pacific Northwest.<\/p>\n

Previous issues of Garden News are in the Log House Library<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Issue 34 \u2022 Seasonal tips and featured varieties coming to a retailer near you \u2022 April 19, 2011 Signs of Spring Welcome back to Garden News!\u00a0 All winter at Log House we\u2019ve enjoyed researching new plants and creating fresh collections for the 2011 season, but now we\u2019re glad to be getting out in the garden […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":3109,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/loghouseplants.com\/plants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4322"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/loghouseplants.com\/plants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/loghouseplants.com\/plants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loghouseplants.com\/plants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loghouseplants.com\/plants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4322"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/loghouseplants.com\/plants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4599,"href":"https:\/\/loghouseplants.com\/plants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4322\/revisions\/4599"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loghouseplants.com\/plants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/loghouseplants.com\/plants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}