This week’s new arrivals include arugula, Shiraz beets, Early Green broccoli, Russian Red kale, mesclun, Lisbon White Bunching onions, Pioneer Shelling peas, raddicchio, Bloomsdale spinach, more lettuces, Premium Crop broccoli, and for you herb lovers, Italain and Triple Curled parslies.  Is your mouth watering yet?

As you may notice, we are scheduling TWO classes on Saturday March 7th.   At 1 PM, Sue Berge from New Dimension Seeds will be here to share her tips for growing and cooking with her great collection of Asian vegetables.  New Dimension Seeds are carefully selected to be easy-to-grow, fast maturing, and delicious — you can’t beat that!   The seed packets are conveniently color-coded into Spring (harvested in summer and early fall) and Fall (harvested in late fall and winter).  Sue demystifies Asian vegetables and teaches gardeners how to grow and cook with Asian vegetables using mainstream American cooking methods as well as different ethnic cooking methods that she has adapted for our kitchens.   Class is free, please call to register: 503-649-4568.

The interest in mason bees continues to grow since our first class – folks just did not seem to get enough the first time around.   So, in our on-going attempt to be responsive to what you are wanting to learn about, we have scheduled an additional class for Saturday, March 7th.   Beth Rose will repeat her informative talk on how to encourage these native pollinators in your backyard.   And we promise there will be plenty of time for questions and to purchase the live larvae and/or bee houses that you might need.
As with all our classes, this one is free, but please call to register. (503) 649-4568.

Since gardener’s tend to be visual, tactile folks, big extravaganzas like the Yard, Garden and Patio show at the Oregon Convention Center this weekend provide tons of ideas and inspiration.   There are interesting seminars as well as elaborate display gardens upon which to feast your senses.    And if you go, please don’t overlook our $10 coupon in the back of the magazine.   Bring all your new ideas to us and we’ll help you make them a reality!

We’re starting to get the first glimmers of spring here – the days are a little longer, the air a little milder, with the first crocuses brightening our spirits.  Those hints always gets our thoughts focused on getting back in the garden!   Now is a good time to begin planting your early spring garden, especially with transplants, since they don’t require seed germination in our still-cold soil.   I’ve always appreciated the instant gratification of transplants, plus the quantity of plants in a traypack is just right for the smaller garden, especially when you want to plant a diverse assortment of vegetables in a successive, rotating harvest schedule.

This is what we’ve got here today, and of course, more will be coming every week:

• onion sets, 4 varieties
• strawberries, bareroot, 11 varieties
• asparagus starts, 2 varieties
• rhubarb, bareroot
• horseradish, bareroot
• shallots, organic
• garlic, organic, 4 varieties
• seed potatoes, organic, 9 varieties
• Olympia spinach, traypack
• buttercrunch lettuce, traypack
• ruby ball cabbage, traypack
• golden acre cabbage, traypack
• green comet broccoli, traypack
• snow crown cauliflower, traypack
• Oregon sugar pod peas, 4″
• sugar sprint peas, 4″
• bright lights Swiss chard, 4″

It is still too early to do much in the vegetable garden, but definitely not too early to get ready. If you have been thinking about building some raised beds for your kitchen garden, now would be a terrific time to get that project going.

As you no doubt know, raised beds in Oregon are a very good idea. With the cold, wet winters we experience, raised beds allow us to plant earlier because the soil drains better and warms up faster.   And if you can avoid stepping into the bed, you will avoid soil compaction.  Having soft, loose soil is a definite plus — better drainage, more aeration, easier weeding, straighter and more beautiful carrots!

There are two different strategies for constructing raised beds: a simple mounded row of soil is the easiest and most amenable to changes later. A more expensive but very user friendly option is to construct a hard-sided bed. You can use whatever materials you have — cedar boards work well, as does brick or stone. (Stop by to check out our demonstration vegetable garden here – it is constructed with attractive Willamette Graystone wall stones, with cap stones on top, which makes it easy to sit or kneel upon when working in the bed.)

Now, while your grape is dormant, is the time to do the annual pruning. Grapes will produce not only a tangled mess but also a poor harvest if not properly tended. But don’t worry, it is not difficult. By pruning, we help the vine to concentrate it’s energy; we also let in light and air, which helps prevent disease.  So, sharpen up your Felcos and get ‘er done.

First of all, remove any lateral canes, which grown midway up the trunk; also remove suckers, which come up from the root. I like to prune my grape back to a permanent arm or cordon, which provides structure from which the new canes will grow. Prune canes off the permanent arm back to two-bud spurs spaced about 6-12 inches apart. These buds create a renewal spur, from which this year’s fruit will come.

For a very easy to understand graphic of grape pruning, I’d recommend Sunset’s Western Garden Book – they show you exactly what to do and how it should look when you are finished.   If you are really into this in a serious way, you might prefer Lon Rombough’s 2-disc DVD, which I’ve heard is amazingly thorough.  It can be purchased at http://www.bunchgrapes.com/dvd.html

Don’t overlook the potential of using your vine prunings for grapevine wreaths, or even garden structures – when wound around a bamboo or cedar teepee, you can create a rustic vertical structure for peas or beans to climb upon.

Did you know that in addition to making great environmental sense, a rain garden makes great economic sense as well?  Many of our local municipalities offer great incentives to divert water into a rain garden.  Here are a few sites to get you started:

• Clean River Rewards is the City of Portland’s stormwater utility discount program. If you manage stormwater on your property, you can receive up to a 100% discount on your on-site stormwater management charges.
  www.cleanriverrewards.com or http://www.portlandonline.com/BES/index.cfm?c=41976

• Clean Water Services is the public utility serving the Tualatin River Watershed.  Clean Water Hero Program provides up to three hours of free on-site technical assistance to help you create a sustainable stormwater landscape
  http://www.cleanwaterservices.org/EducationAndOutreach/CleanWaterTips/CWHProgram.aspx

• Here is a place to find sample plans of rain gardens in various locations including plants
  http://www.welcometherain.org/

To learn from an expert in this field, join us for our free class February 21, 11 AM.

Call to register – 503-649-4568.

Here are some pictures of things I found blooming or looking especially great in the nursery today.  Spring is definitely on the way!

Primrose

Hellebore

Jasminum nudiflorum 'Mystique'

Nandina domestica 'Gulf Stream'

Sarcococca ruscifolia

Skimmia japonica - Male

Helleborus orientalis 'Red Lady'

Corydalis flexuosa 'Purple Leaf'

Erica darleyensis 'Kraemer's Red'

Hamamelis x intermedia 'Ruby Glow'

For those of you anxious to  bring mason bee pollinators to your garden, we have a good supply of everything you will need.  If you are just starting out, you will need some type of nesting box, with empty straws inside, in addition to some live larvae which will emerge when the weather dictates.  Here’s what we have:

• 2″ starter kit with 20 empty tubes, $9.99
• 4″ starter block with 130 empty tubes, $19.99
• Replacement straws, or liner straws $.30 each, or 35/$19.99 for combo straws
• Mason bee larvae, 2 straws (15 larvae inside) $19.99
• Mason bee larvae, 15 cocoons/$16.99

To get all the info on mason bees, don’t miss our class this Saturday at 11 AM!  Class is free, but please call to register.  (See posting last month on the class.)

Okay bees, go forth and pollinate and multiply!!

I don’t know about you, but this sunshine is making me want to dig in the dirt.  And  just what we’ve been looking forward to, a harbinger of good things to come in the garden– pea starts have arrived!   We’ve got two varieties right now:  Oregon Sugar Pod, a snow pea perfect for Asian cuisine; and Sugar Sprint, a snap pea, with 3″ long stringless edible pods.  I love these raw, on their own or dipped in a simple herbal yogurty dip.  Kids love ‘em too.   These starts are $1.49 in a 4″ pot.