SHOW ARCHIVE

Episode 222 • October 1, 2011

VIDEO ARCHIVE

Can you feel it? The chill in the air has returned, fall is definitely here. If you think the warm weather during the days means that summer is still here, all you have to do is hang out for an hour or so after sunset and you can feel it. It cools off fast and the fog in the morning is just another indication of the change. Still, October is one of the best months for the gardener. Just this last week we harvested pears, cucumbers, tomatoes, raspberries, apples, zucchini, basil, peppers and carrots all from our little garden. The return to normal routines during the fall seems to rejuvenate everyone too. So much for the ‘dog days’ of summer.

Fall also marks the return of all the fall festivals, some of which we will be featuring during the coming month on the show. You can enjoy one of the best with the Giant Pumpkin weigh-off this weekend at Bauman’s. Rain and cold will be here soon, so get out and enjoy!

This week we featured...

Bulb Layering

Bulb Layering

As we enter fall we are reminded to plant our spring blooming bulbs. Donna Wright from Black Gold reminded us that bulbs are great in pots too! You can create waves of color by layering your spring blooming bulbs. She demonstrated that by using different layers of bulbs in a pot so you can have color that lasts all spring! She used daffodils, tulips and crocus in 3 different layers. Then she topped it all off with some great fall color plants. When the warm days of spring arrive she will have these bulbs blooming at different times and will have waves of color for months. Don’t worry, the bulbs will find their way up through the plants in the pot. For the best results always remember to start with a quality potting soil, like Black Gold!

Bauman’s Giant Pumpkin Weigh-off

Bauman’s Giant Pumpkin Weigh-off

The giants have returned! It is the first weekend of October and that means it is Bauman’s Giant Pumpkin Weigh-off time. This year the people at Bauman’s Farm and Garden (503-792-3524) are celebrating another year of hosting the event and have really blown the doors off the weekend! There are tons of events centered around the Weigh-off including the inclusion of other ‘giant’ vegetables like tomatoes, watermelons and sunflowers. The big event is the giant pumpkin drop at 1pm on Saturday. A 500 pound pumpkin will be dropped by a helicopter onto a giant bingo card. You can buy a square on the bingo card for as little as $5 and if the pumpkin lands on your space you will win a huge prize package that is valued at over $300. The proceeds for the pumpkin drop will benefit the Easter Seals of Oregon and help support all their programs. After the big drop you can enjoy all of the outstanding harvest activities that Bauman’s has become famous for. There are hay mazes, zip lines, petal carts, slides, a bunch of bounce houses, the jumping pillow and so much more! You can also enjoy some of their great baked goods, wonderful plants and all kinds of fresh garden produce.

Of course the stars of the show will be the giant pumpkins. These giants can get as big as 1,500 pounds and larger! The winning pumpkin will walk away with a nice prize check and that is sure to guarantee a ton (sorry for the pun) of pumpkins will be entered. Even though the weigh-off is over on Saturday, the pumpkins will be on display for the whole weekend and the winners will stay for the whole month. Come and walk among the giants!

Fry Road Vegetables

Fry Road Vegetables

Fry Road Nursery (541-928-7038) in Albany is known for the great selection of fuchsias that they carry, but most people don’t know that they carry a huge amount of other plants and shrubs for the home gardener, including some unusual edible plants. John Stewart joined Judy in the nursery to show her some of the more interesting plants they carry. The first plant he brought out was one that a lot of people have in their garden, the canna. This one was Canna edulis ‘Achria’. This one is mostly grown for the root which is starchy. The leaves and seeds can also be eaten. Some unusual peppers were next. The Rocoto is a tender perennial pepper that can live up to 10 years or more if protected and can produce a huge amount of slightly spicy peppers. Yacon (Polymnia sonchifolia) was next in line. This one is also grown for its roots which have a water chestnut flavor. The juice from the plant is even boiled down to make an agave-like type of syrup. The tubers should be harvested in the fall after a frost, which will sweeten them up. The stems and leaves are also used as a medicine in some cultures. If you have a lawn the next plant might turn you off. It is an oxalis (the clover in your lawn is also oxalis), but not the bad kind. This one is called New Zealand Yam (Oxalis Tuberosa) and was called a ‘jewel of the earth’ by the Incas. The tubers on this one are a staple in Peru. The Chinese bring us the next plant, the Chinese Artichoke, also known as Crosne (Stachys affinis). In the fall after it freezes you can harvest the tubers. They are small, white tubers that taste like Jerusalem artichoke only smaller. We then moved to another plant from the Andes, the Ullucus tuberoses ‘Ulluco Golden’. It has colorful, candy striped, tubers that form in the fall. The foliage is also edible and taste like iceberg lettuce. The final plant was another one that you might have in your garden, the colocasia, commonly called ‘elephant ear’. This one was a cultivar that is use to make poi in Hawaii and is also used as a leaf vegetable as well.

It is amazing all the different types of vegetables that are used around the world. We are just scratching the surface as vegetable gardeners if we rely on the old stand-bys. If you are looking to try something new, stop by Fry Road or give them a call.

Garland Fall Picks

Garland Fall Picks

When fall arrives a lot of people think the best of the blooms are gone from the garden. Actually there are a lot of plants that will make your fall garden pop and can even carry their color or interest into the late winter. To learn about a few of those plants we stopped by Garland Nursery (1-800-296-6601) to see some that Lee picked out of the nursery to show us. The first one he showed us was the Sweetspire ‘Little Henry’. This one is a nice little plant that colors up to a red color and will hold that leaf color until January or even February. The next one was St. John’s Wart which has become popular in recent years as a homeopathic medicine, but they have also been introducing some cool new varieties with outstanding color. The ‘mystical’ series is out now and it features bright red, orange and white berries. This one is called ‘Mystical Red Star’ and it looked great. Another favorite of Lee’s is the purple leaf grape. This one is not known for the fruit, but the wonderful fall color. If you catch this one in the sunshine the leaves look like stained glass! The anemone was next and this one is a fall favorite and has beautiful blooms that will last until the first frost. The variety we saw was “Honorine Jobert’. Grasses are another plant that looks great in fall. The seed heads can be really outstanding and the foliage looks fantastic when the wind blows through it. We looked at the Dwarf Fountain Grass ‘Hameln’ which stays compact and upright until mid winter. The Beautyberry was next and even though it is not a new plant for gardeners it is still one that every garden must have. The variety ‘profusion’ is still one of the better ones to have with its fall color leaves and the neon purple berries during the winter. It is great in cut flower arrangements during the winter. The last one we looked at was the Doublefile Viburnum. This one is more of a small tree instead of a shrub and it is just now starting to show some fall color. It gets a great rusty red color during the fall and also rewards you with soft white flowers in the spring.

If you are looking for more ideas for the fall garden, stop by Garland’s today, Saturday the 1st, and listen to William and Judy do a seminar on their favorite fall plants for containers and your garden!

 

 
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