Rose Cottage

   This winter has been lovely for my Bo Jo Hua Chrysanthemum tea plants!  I first saw them several years back, at my friend Melissa's Van Hevlingen Herb booth at the Farmers Market. She had two varieties, which bloom in the late fall like other Mums.  Bo Ju Hua (Chrysanthemum morifolium) doesn't set reliable seed, so is only available as plants - and I got one to try in my garden! When I moved across town, I brought it with me.  Bo Jo Hua and ginkgo on the drying rack Married to a botanist for 20 years, I've enjoyed herbal tea or tissues since the 70s, and growing up,  drank green and black tea with my mama. I grow many culinary herbs, and have tended a small Edible Landscaping  tea garden  for two years.   I found several blog posts about tea chrysanthemum, which support the liver, eye health, and are good for the heart, type 2 diabetes and easing headaches!  (Sage Garden Theory)  on a Growing Tradition, Thomas recounted his ...

  This is the second year I've tended the Tea Garden bed, as part of our  Edible Landscapes of Yamhill  along project on Alpine Avenue. I love my garden box, with its well established perennials, which need little care beyond the watering. The lemon verbena came through winter, and i planted a few tended plants in spring.  Tea Garden in June Last year, our group officially 'adopted' the 8 block stretch  of Alpine Avenue, for periodic trash clean up. The city of McMinnville provides kits (vests, rubber gloves, grippers, signs and garbage bags) which make it easy for groups to tend the roadsides! I joined the cleanup last spring, and again this week, just before our Harvest Fair - Matthew and I gathered 2 1/2 bags of trash along the 6 block area! You can read about last year's harvest fair here .  Nadya and Matthew For the Harvest exchange, Members brought produce from their own gardens and boxes, gathered produce from local farmers at the end of the market, ...

 Last Saturday, our Edible Landscapes of Yamhill  group met to discuss tending our  28 garden boxes this year! It was fun to see each other and meet the newest volunteers at Mac Market - I brought my own mug for a cuppa, and got a Mexican Mocha. Edible landscaping volunteers Last year, our group officially 'adopted' the 8 block stretch  of Alpine Avenue, and this year we've received a grant to expand the garden box project to several other areas.  The board members scheduled the quarterly clean up for after our meeting, and the city of McMinnville provides kits (vests, rubber gloves, grippers, signs and garbage bags) which make it easy for groups to tend the roadsides!  Clean up crew It felt so rewarding to gather those bags of litter along Alpine - and what a great reminder to attend to the areas near and around our garden boxes!  This is the second year I'll be tending the Tea Garden which I dearly love! It is ironic that the picnic tables (one nea...

 Winter is prime time for garden planning, and savoring the bounty in seed catalogs with a warm cuppa is a cozy way to cheer up cold grey days! In a recent post, a favorite gardener and chef in Wales, Gaz Oakley, remin ds us to consider flavor, and include heritage varieties!  Black cap raspberries   In my garden journal (Poteger Devotional) from 2006, I added this quote,  "For too long vegetable gardening has been obsessed with shape and SIZE.  Better that care be lavished from tilth to table on growing tasty food whose beauty is a bi-product to be relished." Montague Don, the Sensuous gardener. In a later chapter, he comments that there was a shift to growing for size and quantity when men took on a larger role, as there's  'an inbuilt relationship between Horticulture and gastronomy when the person(s) cooking/ preparing the food is involved!' Field peas, pansy,  chickweed, broad beans still fresh and green after the freeze In traditional cultures ar...

 It's been getting colder and fall rains have begun.  Matt brought in the summer hanging baskets, and I added some of my tender perennials to the greenhouse.  First plants in the greenhouse After several rainy and blustery days, it cleared up, and I decided today was a good day to rake leaves, and cozy-up the greenhouse.  I watched several videos on using a composter in our by the greenhouse for winter warmth, and decided to give it a try! Lime, Tea tub and bistro I began by moving in the tub of tender perennials, & created a cozy nook with the Bistro table and a chair.  Leaves and compost I raked dogwood leaves - and reflected on how much I enjoyed doing that with my dad each fall. I packed some in the bottom of a 3 gallon pot, then added about a gallon of partly broken down compost from the bin (plus worms and black soldier fly larvae!) & then another layer of leaves. Compost Corner I set the compost pot into the hardware cloth cage Zander and I made ...

 Shout out to the Edible landscape gardeners who joined the work party to tuck the beds in for winter! Tea Garden - winter ready I went down to the Tea Garden after a busy morning:  Qigong at the Grange with friends  quick stop at the Farmers Market  in house choir retreat, starting rehearsing Christmas music 🎶 🎄  Most of the plants in my garden box just S of the Grain Station are hardy perennials, and will overwinter without protection - but I added a few favorite tender herbs, that need to come inside!  Tender perennials So I dug up the pineapple sage and Tulsi basil, plus taking a start from the Oregon Tea (which had several long runners).  I clipped back the mint, and took a few minutes to tidy the box. I'll add a layer of leaves, and plant some fava beans and red clover on my next visit, as cover crops (and the cover can stay for tea!)  I decided to leave the lemon Verbena on the bed, as it's in a protected position - fingers crossed that i...

 Our last Edible Landscaping event was a Garden Fair in the spring, where we passed out over 3000 seedlings to eager gardeners, young and old! I loved watching Master Gardeners, who had a booth at our fair, perusing the offerings for unusual plants! Edible Landscaping Volunteers tend 28 box gardens along Alpine Street, on the North side of McMinnville (zone 8b)  The garden boxes all look great, and there's plenty of produce available to anyone for harvest! It's fun to stroll from 6th to 13th street with your bag or basket, and see what's available! You can sample things you haven't grown, see their habit,  and consider what to grow in your own garden! Saturday, we offered fresh pressed apple cider, free produce and seeds our fall Harvest festival! I stopped to snip some herbs from the Tea Garden box I tend, and my friend Miranda snapped this picture! Nadya at the Tea Garden Board members collected produce from venders at the Thursday Farmers market, Kramers Nursery do...

 Several years ago, my friend Nikki invited me over for a  tea party , both teaching me how to process the leaves, and sharing cups of her beautiful tea and simple snacks.  After tea, went out to pick another flush from her 9 shrubs, and she sent me home with a basket of fresh leaves, which I augmented with leaves from my own tea camellia, making a batch at home the following day.  Camellia sinensis Sochi Nikki and I both grow the variety from Sochi Russia, which is on the Black Sea, and the "most Northern tea," which is very aromatic and frost Hardy. Sochi is especially suited to  our PNW zone 8b gardens.   While the flowers are small (about the size of a strawberry flower!) Sochi's leaves are about the size of those on our common ornamental Camellias.  The flowers can also be used for a light and fragrant tea, which i first tasted at the Dao of Tea in Portland.  Tea camellia in center of the Tea Garden High in antioxidants, especially catec...

 Our Edible landscape festival mid May was a lovely, well attended event, and we gave away most of the 3000+ starts we brought! It was Hot - I was so glad we had an event tent Edible Landscaping booth   A few weeks before, we weeded our beds along Alpine, and covered each with compost from EL founder, Ramsey McPhillips. He also had a booth at the festival, and was giving out coffee sacks with some of his black gold - I was tickled to take one home for my own poteger.  Garden gold - compost We volunteers took home our own curated caches of starts, and I planted some of mine in a galvanized trough I'd picked up from the feed store. I also got a Rosemary and several raspberry starts, which were donated by a local nursery.  We intend to set up a new raspberry patch in the back garden, so this gives us a start.  Salad garden and herbs in pots This week I headed back to the Tea Garden I'm tending on Alpine with a couple of watering cans - and it's growing beautifully...

 This spring I decided to join a group of volunteers who plant and tend raised bed boxes in the granery district along Alpine Avenue.   We met at Mac Market last week, and chatted about the project, what was planted in the beds last year, and chose from those available for tending and watering this year.  Alpine garden beds I'm one of 10 new volunteers, and my first bed (near the one in the photo) has raspberry, blackberry and strawberries. There's room for some Edible flowers, and perhaps a native Camas. I'd like to add an arctic raspberry, when I find some! We'll return soon for garden cleanup and spread a new layer of mulch. Many of the beds have cover crops, including a nice patch of miners lettuce!  Tea Garden Gal! There's a Tea Garden, and I was excited that one's now available, so I'll be tending it! I may ask for the herb garden next to it, and see if someone else would like the Berry bed.  The perennials don't require as much water as the annua...