A beautiful cover and progress in the gardens

Organic Methods for Vegetable Gardening in Florida

Big news! The front cover of my new book.

I think it looks fantastic, don't you? I love the way the designer at University Press of Florida used the purple color from the eggplants in the top photo to edge the tomato-colored title box.

Thanks to Nell Foster for permission to use her photo of that wonderfully chaotic farmers market display. I'm mostly done with proofing the galleys and am now working on the index.

It's due to be released in Feb. 2013. I can hardy wait.

I'll be on America's Home Grown Veggies radio

Kate Copsey, the host of this weekly web radio show, contacted me to see if I'd be interested in appearing on her show. Well, of course--I am always ready to talk about gardening. We had a lovely conversation about what it's like growing edibles in Florida, which will be broadcast on Saturday 9/29/12 at 10am. Later, it will be available in the archives.


The last okra harvest of the season.

 In the edible gardens...

The okra has done very well this year. We've enjoyed jambalayas, okra/cabbage soup, fried okra, okra in stir fries and more, but they were at the end of their useful lives. Time to yank them out and make room for some cool weather crops.



Root-knot nematode damage on okra roots.




Since they'd been so prolific, I was quite surprised to see that the roots were totally encrusted with root-knot nematode damage. I'm planting a lot of marigolds this fall to turn into the soil and will make sure that these beds have a cover crop of marigolds next summer.

Fall tomatoes are setting fruit.

Back in August I purchased three solar heat tomato seedlings from Home Depot with the hope that we could have fresh tomatoes for Thanksgiving and maybe even Christmas dinners. One of the three plants didn't make it but the other two look pretty good and have begun setting fruit. So as gardeners say, "We'll see what happens..."

The carrots, radishes, sugar snap peas and other cool weather crops have sprouted.

And in the front meadow...

Progress on the de-lawning. I finished removing the rest of the turfgrass and I'll be planting an assortment of native wildflowers in this area. I also created a spur of the cart path to provide good access to the left side of the meadow area. My husband and I pulled a lot of tree saplings that were growing under the overhanging branches here, which opens up the whole area. See my last post Changes... for more details on this project. More to come...

For a broader view of how the front meadow fits into the landscape...



Beautyberry seedlings need to be relocated.


Located between the pollinators' garden and the newly de-lawned area in the above photo, a medium sized beautyberry (Callicarpa americana ) has produced some seedlings that were growing too close the the mother plant. I guess there were a few berries that the birds missed last year. I transplanted them while they were small to locations in the area that will give them more room to grow.

The string lilies will also need to be transplanted away from the expanding beautyberry. I may get to that this fall, but maybe it will be a spring project.

I just love the beautyberries. The berries are so unbelievably purple and the birds love them. Some people make jelly from the berries, but I prefer feeding the birds. The graceful vase shape of this shrub is pretty any time of the year. Plus, they are hardy, easy-to-grow plants. What more could you want?



Fall asters

Another purple note in the garden is this lovely fall aster. It's a native, but I don't remember which one. When I go to the Wings and Wildflower Festival on Friday down in Lake County, I'll be looking for some more of these. I'll also be signing my books at the evening social at the Lakeside Inn.

I'm looking forward to see how this event plays out. It's a combination birder & native plant enthusiast gathering. Doesn't that sound like a good idea?

Loblolly bay (Gordonia lasianthus)

And speaking of native plant functions, I was on location of the May 2013 Florida Native Plant Society convention at University of North Florida. The campus is landscaped with many native plants and the loblolly bays were blooming at the edge of the wooded areas.  This is a beautiful narrow evergreen tree may look like a relative of the magnolias, but it's in the tea family along with the camellias.

I trust that your fall gardening is keeping you happy. Remember, gardening is a form of functional fitness.

Green Gardening Matters,
Ginny Stibolt

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Hermannshof

This is a totally amazing garden - what they've done with our North American natives in naturalistic plantings is remarkable. (Click on the images for a larger view).

Perennial bed, Hermannhof

another view

Here are just a few images. The Blogsy/Photogene/Blogspot interface on an iPad isn't as easy as blogging at home at my desktop or my laptop!

Prairie-inspired perennial planting

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Technical difficulties

Blogsy and Blogspot didn't let me (completely) edit my last post, but I was finally able to change a few things.  I hope you get the idea! Who knows where the formatting came from... It was a spectacular garden.

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First thoughts about Piet and Anja Oudolf's garden

I knew I'd like this garden, but I was overwhelmed. It was extraordinary. I couldn't believe how creative the juxtaposition of textures, shapes, and colors were, and the way senescing plants were part of it- amazing.

The Joe-Pye and Vernonia were in full flower and all of the grasses were in their glory, either golden or on their way.

I visited on a perfect morning, cool and fresh, with a bright clear light, and I'm glad that I hadn't made it late yesterday, so I was able to experience the garden with fresh eyes.

Anja was there to greet visitors, and when I said I was American, replied that Piet was currently at the High Line (it's on my list to visit).

The gardens encompass an old farm site with a modern house, with the former nursery area converted to a spectacular created/artistic meadow planting. The older garden in the front of their property had amazing complexity with texture and colors, confined by the formality of beech hedge and clipped yews, and the structure of the garden paths.

Needless to say, looking at my photos on an iPad just confirm what a wonderful garden that this is, but don't give me much scope to really look at the images I managed to capture. Sorting will need to wait until I'm at home again.

I'm so glad that I was able to experience a visit in person. The way that Oudolf designs with plants (a great many of them eastern and central North American natives, but not exclusively at all) definitely honors their qualities as plants going through their life cycle. I'm going to read his book on that subject again, written with Noel Kingsbury, when I get back home.

2-yr old planting on old nursery site

Grasses and Forbes with house in background

Joe-pye and other in front garden

Textural contrasts

There will be more thoughts as I reflect on this garden. What a great gift for them to open their private garden to visitors on weekends from August through fall, and in early summer.

Posted with Blogsy

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Mien Ruys garden

The collection of small gardens created by the influential Dutch garden designer at her family's nursery now make up the public garden open to visitors. Some of the gardens are truly remarkable, all are interesting.

It was well worth the trek (long drive, really) through countryside that seemed an odd mix of agriculture and industry, at least to my eyes, and wasn't as "pretty" as the countryside around Munster and Osnabruck.

'Corner garden'

Another angle of the same garden

This was the Corner Garden (one of about 27 in total, I think, I lost count). It was totally amazing, and I've not seen anything quite like it in my many years of garden visiting. The way that the layers were constructed with the Verbena bonariensis rising above the layers, with the sedum and Thalictrum in the corners- quite magical.

These photos aren't even close to evoking what it really felt like. Magical.

Her gardens were filled with our North American natives - I'm sure this will become a pattern.

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Botanical gardens and natural plant communities

A primary incentive to visit gardens in Germany and the Netherlands was to see the gardens inspired by nature, created in public spaces.

But an unexpected pleasure (on my first garden visiting day) has been the wonderful collections of native plants in naturalistic plant community plantings in two University botanical gardens. The first I visited was in Osnabruck, where I was a post doc almost thirty years ago.

The Professor in my lab group had come from Munster (~ 45 minutes away), where a venerable botanical garden is also part of the university. Part of his job was to establish a botanical garden in the old quarry adjoining the relatively new University in Osnabruck. I didn't ever see the site, so it was a revelation to visit today and enjoy the 25+ years of plantings. I guess I should have expected the careful curation and attention to detail, but the wonderful "recreation" of habitats was amazing.

It's late now, and having experiences is the point of traveling (not sitting in your hotel room writing and trying to upload photos), so there will be more later. (I'm traveling light with an iPad, a camera connector, and a wireless keyboard!) So the photo interface is clunky (uh, I took 140 photos today, including quite a few of signs and cool created pollinator habitats and bat refuges).

I've been mulling over how remarkable these natural habitat-based plant collections are. Similar collections were in Munster, the second garden I visited. A much older garden, the moor habitat was my favorite, although their alpine collections, and meadow plantings were amazing, too. It was so interesting how the garden editing (think weeding and maintenance) differed even in their herb garden plantings. The plant community gardens were a joy to visit -- I just wish I had time to find and visit some of the real-life examples (probably not that common now).

My lab director was a plant ecologist, so it's not surprising in retrospect that these gardens have such a strong plant ecological bent, and German botanical studies have had a focus on plants in their communities for a long time.

Tomorrow, I'm off to Piet and Anya Oudolf's private garden. I'm really looking forward to seeing what's in their personal landscape, especially post-closing their nursery.

Also, I haven't yet gone into one, but some of the "garden centers" here in Northern Germany are the size of a Home Depot. They're usually in the neighborhood of IKEA stores and car dealerships (eg. outskirts of town). I don't know what's in them yet, but I'm planning to check one out. Pots? Decorations? Fields of plants for your garden? Potting mix? Stayed tuned.

Osnabruck botanical garden:

alpine garden in Osnabruck

Moor garden (Munster botanical garden)

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Views out the front door

Female goldfinch gleaning seed

I spent the morning cleaning up the last of the beans and squash from my vegetable beds in the mountains.

I won't be back for several weeks, although my gardening companion will be as well as the folks who keep an eye on things, etc., so I wanted to tidy up the garden.

Echinacea fruits

view through the front door

The joy of the morning, aside from satisfaction in getting the beds cleaned up, was how fun the pocket meadow was!  Talk about lively.

First, a female goldfinch was gleaning seeds from Echinacea fruits that are already looking scruffy.

Then, a monarch dropped by to visit Aster flowers.

monarch on Aster 'October Skies'

And in between, a hummingbird whizzed by on her way to a Salvia flower.  What fun!

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