We've been talking about planting vegetable gardens in raised beds here on Garden Variety and I guess I thought you would build them of wood.
Maybe not.
Gardener's Supply catalog has, new this year, raised beds made from strips of galvanized sheet metal.
Since farmers use the material for watering troughs and outbuildings, it makes sense to use it to form the sides of raised beds.
Photo courtesy of Gardener's Supply
In my garden column in The Baltimore Sun, I am helping rookies jump on the vegetable gardening bandwagon in 2010.
Last week, I talked about siting your vegetable garden for maximum sun, access to water and some protection from wind. And I concluded that a raised bed might be the best idea: it limits the size of your garden, so you don't bite off more than you can mulch; and because you will fill it will bagged compost, you don't have to worry about the quality of your soil.
In today's column, I talk about what you might like to plant in the garden. Not the whole produce aisle -- just what you are likely to eat and cook with, including your favorite herbs. And I talk about some of the sources for vegetable seeds.
To make it easy for you, I am including here the links to some of my favorite seed catalogs. Just click and order.
But control yourself. Nobody needs that many tomato plants.
(Note to the vegetable gardeners out there: What are your go-to catalogs for vegetable seeds?)
The Plant Delights Nursery catalog is the gardening equivalent of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue: It arrives in the mailbox and everybody starts howling.
Plant Delights Nursery, located near Raleigh, N.C., is owned by Tony Avent, a bomb-throwing plant guy if ever there was one. And his catalog covers reflect that.
No pretty pictures of flowers for Avent. His covers are sort of political cartoons, complete with caricatures of political figures and names in the news that have no business in a garden catalog.
His spring edition just arrived, and tempers are rising, even if the temperature isn't.
Continue reading "Politics and plants: the Plant Delights Nursery catalog" »
A collection of heirloom seeds used by African-Americans and brought to this country from Africa and the Carribean is featured in the D. Landreth Seed Company's stunning 2010 catalog.
The collection is the result of food research by culinary historian Michael Twitty, who did much of his work on Maryland's Eastern shore.
It includes brown crowder, a cow pea from West Africa, Louisiana eggplant, grown in the gardens of slaves, peanuts, okra, hot peppers, and lots of greens and squashes.
These vegetables and herbs were culinary staples in the African-American family, but no doubt made it into the meals they prepared for their owners, and later, their employers.
Barbara Melera chose this painting to illustrate the collection in her lustrous catalog. It is from an oil painting commissioned by the seed company in 1909, and it has its own interesting history.
(The catalog is the subject of my garden column in The Baltimore Sun.)
"We had a really bad dream," they write in their newsletter. "'Mary Copeland' and 'Lady Derby' were standing by the exit ramp holding signs that read 'Homeless' and 'Will Bloom for Compost'"
"We woke up knowing that we had to have a sale. So we've pruned our prices on dozens of awesome bulbs by 25 to 40 percent."
Old House Gardens has added bulbs to some of its samplers and added a new daffodil sampler, too.
"Don't Leave 'Mary' and her friends to face winter alone!"
Now, that's a pitch.
Also, in its October newsletter, Old House Gardens also has some wonderful old drawings of pattern beds.
From 1850 to 1920, gardeners would plant bulb beds in the middle of their yards in elaborate patterns that required hundreds and hundreds of bulbs. Those of us gardeners who dot their beds with clusters of a few bulbs here and a few bulbs there will be overwhelmed by the detail.
The newsletter also has charts to help us less creative types decide how many bulbs we need per square footTake a look.
Gardeners love their catalogs.
The splash of color in the mailbox is always an invitation to daydream. And a reminder to place your order.
However, Randy Schultz, a spokesman for the Mailorder Gardening Association, says most of us don't place our order through the catalog's 800 number. And we certainly don't mail them in.
We go to the company's Web site instead.
A survey by the group in 2006 showed that consumers who buy plants, seeds, bulbs, tools and other gardening products from mailorder catalogs were increasingly going on line for information AND to place their orders.
At that time, about 34 percent of customers placed their order by phone, 33 percent by mail or fax. In 2006, 14 percent were "pure" web shoppers and 18 percent looked at a catalog and then placed their orders on line. That was a total of 32 percent of orders placed on line.
"To give you an idea of how fast things are changing," said Shultz. "I did a straw poll of MGA members last spring and found out that 2008 was the first year that a majority of orders (over 50 percent) placed with member companies came in via the Web sites."
Even so, printed catalogs are not going away, Shultz said. "They are still what drives most on line buyers to the Web sites where they place their orders."
The catalogs are just a reminder to do so.
The garden is no escape from the bad economic news, and everyone in the industry is worried that the first place homeowners will cut back is on plant material and supplies.
My friends at Old House Gardens, a Michigan mail-order company which specializes in heirloom flower bulbs, have found a clever way to address this. Their spring marketing campaign went like this:
"This isn't the first DEPRESSION our bulbs have faced," the ad says, referring to the age of some of their antique flowers.
"They'll make your yard so beautiful you'll say, 'Staying HOME is the most fun of all!'"
I hate to ask the question, because this could be a downer of a conversation, but are you cutting back in the garden this year? How?
You can grow ‘em. Or you can get Brent and Becky to do it for you.
Brent and Becky of bulb fame also produce bouquets.
From March 15 to Oct. 15, you can order fresh, farm-raised (sounds like beef) mixed bouquets. (I am guessing that this is Becky with the bouquet. And I am also guessing you don't get that many flowers.)
You never know what will be in bloom when your order, but let them know whether you like pastels, hot colors or patriotic colors. “If there is a color you just can’t abide, we’d like to know that, too,” says the catalog.
These aren’t greenhouse flowers and that means the weather can be a problem, but either Brent or Becky will call you.
In any case, the flowers are shipped overnight, so give an address where someone will be available to bring them inside.
You can order the flowers witha vase or without for $60 and $75, respectively. Check out their Web site and go to item numbers 103-01 and 103-02.
Photo credit: Brent and Becky's Bulbs.
Susan Reimer has spent 16 years writing about raising kids - among other topics - in her column for The Baltimore Sun. And every time son Joseph or daughter Jessie passed another milestone - driver's license, college, wedding or a move to a new military duty station - she has planted another garden. Now she will be writing about those gardens - and yours - here on Garden Variety. 
