My cherry tree bloomed!

Remember my cherry tree?

Well, it bloomed for the first time ever ...!

Here's a close up of the flowers ...

I'm so excited!

Will we get cherries this year? Let's wait and see ...!

How to grow chocolate in your own backyard

There ya go. ;)

My day at the 2014 Oklahoma Gardening School

I had a great time this past Saturday at the Oklahoma Gardening School, hosted by the Myriad Botanical Gardens. It was held in the beautiful Devon Auditorium and was very well attended.

There were a small number of vendors, a continental breakfast provided, and several authors were there doing book signings, including Rosalind Creasy and Dee Nash. I got to meet both of them and they were lovely people. It's so nice to meet others who know what you're talking about and are EXCITED! to discuss issues surrounding home edible gardens.

(and who don't think you're nuts for wanting to take photos of plants!)

The title of this year's event was "From Chard To Chickens: Rethinking The American Kitchen Garden".

The first speaker was Tres Fromme, Landscape Design and Planning Manager at the Atlanta Botanical Garden, whose talk was titled, "Delicious Designs: Harvesting Creativity For Your Garden".

Not only was he an engaging and funny speaker (I'm suspecting he would do quite well as a stand-up comedian!) but he showed us the most gorgeous slides of the various edible gardens that he's worked on. 

Some quotes:

"Most gardens are not one-night stands"

"Show me a garden that's finished and I'll show you a dead gardener"

"Plants don't make bad design, people make bad design"

"Most garden designs need a good editor"

"Gardening is the slowest of the performing arts"

I really liked that one, because I had never thought of gardening as a performing art. But of course it IS, especially if you've got your work in the front yard ...

Another point he made that I really liked was to look at plants and garden objects and ask yourself what their purpose is -- and also ask yourself if you can create multiple uses, especially for garden decor items. An example he used were waist-high movable garden pots with wide lips that doubled as counters for outdoor cocktail parties -- that could be pushed to the sides of the patio to use the area as a dance floor!

Wonderful talk, I really enjoyed it.

The next talk was by Brian Pirtle, Manager of Cedar Spring Farms, who talked about vegetable gardening in Oklahoma, with specifics on varieties that do well here and month to month garden care.

After that we took a lunch break, and I went over to the Park House restaurant in the Botanical Gardens, and I had the most delicious herbed rotisserie chicken I've ever tasted. If you're in Oklahoma City, I highly recommend you visit there.

The next speaker was author and garden photographer Rosalind Creasy, who if you don't know you should. ;)

The author of 14 books on home edible gardens, she talked about how she started doing edible landscaping in 1973, and shared over two dozen beautiful photos of home edible gardens.

Some quotes:

"America is the only country in the world with a lawn industry"

"Landscapers used to be for the ultra-rich, who were the only ones that could afford to waste land by planting something which wasn't useful"

A comment she got from someone in Germany: "You mean Americans have to be told to put edible plants in the front yard?"

"If you don't like your neighbors, don't put edible plants in the front yard" (because they'll be stopping by!) ... although she also said, "Most Americans wouldn't know an edible plant if they fell over one"

"Edible landscaping isn't just putting corn in the front yard -- an edible landscape pleases the eye"

(which I agree with wholeheartedly!)

She loves putting flowers in the vegetable garden for pollination and companion planting purposes. She also talked quite a bit about the variety of brightly-colored edible plants, such as "Graffiti" cauliflower (which is bright purple!), "Pesto Perpetuo" variegated basil, and "Indigo Rose" tomato (which is such a dark purple as to be almost black!)

The last speaker was Samantha Snyder, a garden talk show host, who spoke on pest management, and then there was an question and answer session with the speakers.

I had never been to one of these before but I thought it was very enjoyable and will certainly go to another of these. If you'd like a copy of the handouts, just comment below with your email and I'll send them to you.

Lots going on!

I hope all of you had a beautiful holiday.

Here, the weather has been kind of crazy: 50F weather, then an ice storm, then 60F weather the last couple of days, then it's supposed to be below freezing tomorrow. My poor plants must be so confused!

Here are some photos from the ice storm:

It was gorgeous out, especially when the sun peeked through the clouds. Then the whole landscape looked like diamonds!

We're coming up on the last few days of my introductory pricing for the Tasteful Yard Design mentorship program, which takes you from where you are now to a beautiful, tasteful yard. The price goes to $250 on January 1st, so if you're interested, click here to find out more.

We just had an impromptu pre-Christmas photo contest over on Facebook, and we got some really nice pictures. Even if you're not on Facebook, you should be able to see them here.

I do apologize for not keeping this updated. I have so many photos to show you! So I might have to do a "what I did last summer" sort of series. That should keep you with things to read as you wait for your yards to thaw out ;)

But what I'm thinking of right now is what to plant for next year. What are you planting next year? Anything interesting?

Introducing the Tasteful Yard Design class ....

The Tasteful Yard Design class is a group edible garden mentorship program, with 12 modules designed to take you from ordinary yard to edible landscaping.

Registration closes Sept. 20 and is limited to 20 students.

Click here to learn more!

My visit with Ron Finley (part 1)

I first heard about fashion designer Ron Finley through an article in the LA Times back in 2011 that described his fight with City Hall over his parkway vegetable garden. You can see some of the progression of his work over on the LA Green Grounds site, as well as on the petition at Change.org.

Well, I thought, this is really interesting.

You see, I grew up in the LA area (Pasadena, to be precise), and since my dad worked in LA and my aunt and uncle lived in Compton, we were in LA itself all the time growing up.

So when I saw Ron's TED talk, I knew I had to write him to offer encouragement -- and he invited me out to visit. A few minor things like tornadoes and two sons graduating high school delayed me a bit, but finally I drove out to meet with him in June.

If you've ever been in LA, the first thing that strikes you about the place is how gray it is. The sun always shines, and the weather is great, but the sky is gray, the buildings are gray, the signs are gray with years of smog on them. Driving down Crenshaw from the 10, I saw the assortment of grayish shop signs in every language imaginable, fast food joints, heavy traffic, and smog that you see on every other main street in LA.

Then I turned onto Exposition and I could tell where Ron's house was the minute I turned onto his street.

On a street full of older homes with postage stamp lawns, along Ron's home was a botanical garden.

 

I made my way through the gate and knocked on the door. His assistant ushered me into a small room packed full of his impressive collection of international movie posters, some almost as tall as I am.

Ron is a soft-spoken man with a big smile who greets you with a hug. He showed me all around, picking off dead leaves and snacking on herbs and carrots as we went.

I asked him about his TED talk and how he got there.

After the LA Times article, Films For Action made a short film about his work, and after that he was asked to speak TED Vancouver about his garden and the organization he's founded to help others install edible gardens.

"At the time, I didn't know it was their first contest for the big one," Ron said. 

So what was the "big" TED conference like?

"It was nirvana," Ron said. "Everyone was so positive -- a whole conference full of people who wanted you to do well."

"I had only used Power Point once before," he said about his talk that day, "I felt like it was another person speaking." 

Since then, he's had many requests to do the speech again, and he feels as if his new-found popularity is "a blessing and a curse."

"I can't get to my garden as much as I'd like to these days," he says, "but it's good to see people planting."

In part 2: Ron's gardens, inside and out

While you're waiting:  Visit Ron's website

A lot has happened since my last post ...!

A few hours after I posted last time, Moore, Oklahoma was hit with an F5 tornado (which came within two blocks of my home!).

While my home wasn't damaged and no one in my family was hurt, we've had a LOT of debris to clean up, which we've almost finished doing.

Just imagine if someone took a home, put it in a shredder, then threw it all over the place. I've never seen anything like it before -- it's been like something out of a movie.

Then, on May 31st, another tornado came to call ... it went a few miles north of us, but ended up knocking down our back fence ... on top of all my garlic and asparagus plants ...!

I had already scheduled a trip out to California to visit with edible landscape artist Ron Finley (as well as most of my family, who live in southern California) ... I almost didn't go, but my daughter (who drove out with me) persuaded me to ... and I'm glad she did! I had fun.

More to come on my adventures there.

I was out there for a couple of weeks, then of course when I got home the garden was a mess, and then the holiday, and then July is always busy as we have three birthdays and an anniversary ....

So now I've caught my breath and hopefully we can get back to business!

Oh, here's a bit of news I almost forgot to mention: Edible Landscape Design got on another list! :)

Hope you all are well. How are your gardens doing?