Welcome to Fall GardenPalooza weekend. We are excited to have our annual fall event back at Fir Point Farms again. Once again we have a full slate of garden vendors offering some of the coolest plants and garden art for your garden. We also have 2 great vendors serving beer and wine. In addition, we have a couple of vendors that have some great projects for the kids. Sedum Chicks will have a sedum starting kit and Black Gold will be doing their Dirt Babies. If you stop and see William and Judy you can register to win a couple of $25 Al’s Garden Center gift cards. There are going to be lots of different vendors and tons of fun to be had, no matter what the weather does. Remember, it is free admission and free parking so stop on by!

This week we featured...

Country Grains GardenPalooza

GardenPalooza has had a great partner for the last couple of years. Country Grains, with Fir Point Farms (503-678-2455) owners Jack and Jessica Romaine, have allowed us to invade their property twice a year for the GardenPalooza event. Jack and Jessica are like the GardenPalooza crew, we are always looking for ways to make things new and exciting without forgetting what people want to see every time they come. This year they will be providing everyone with some really great food (including some of those incredibly sweet cinnamon rolls, but they will also have their pumpkin spice rolls available too! Jessica took us into the kitchen to show us how they make these tasty treat… let’s just say they have a little bit of butter in them!

Then we took a trip to another part of the store to see something really special. In a special room that they built they now have a mill for grinding their own grain! They planted some grain on the farm this year and now they are using their own grain to make all their baked goods, it doesn’t get any more ‘local’ than that! While you are at GardenPalooza stop by the bakery and gift shop and check out some of the wonderful food they have available.

One of our favorite vendors at GardenPalooza is Fry Road Nursery (541-928-7038). Mark and his crew down in Albany grow some of the coolest plants! We stopped by to get a preview of some of the plants he will have at GardenPalooza today. Most of the plants he will be bringing will be tender for outdoors but with the winter coming it would be great stuff for brightening up the inside of your home, and then in the spring you can bring it outdoors to enjoy on your patio and deck. Some of the cool things he will have include some Australian tree ferns, some great hardy fuchsias, some papyrus, some cool cacao trees (where chocolate comes from), a fruiting dwarf papaya, the amazing ‘musical note’ cherodendrom and some pretty large angels trumpets! If you are looking for some plants that can add a pop to your garden, inside and out, stop by and see them at their booth on the 21st!

If you have never been to Dancing Oaks Nursery (503-838-6058) near Monmouth, you really should make the effort. But if you would like to get a taste of the nursery you can just come to GardenPalooza this weekend. Earlier this week we stopped by to visit with Leonard and to see what he will be featuring in his booth at GardenPalooza. He had some great fall blooming bulbs, one was a tiny fall snowflake and the other was a much larger fall blooming crocus! The next plant was something pretty outstanding called Gaulnettya wisleyensis 'Wisley Pearl'. It starts with white flowers, but right now it is showing off some very unique purple berries! Then we saw two different types of Amsonia, which have great flowers in the spring and this very striking fall color that really makes it stand out in the garden. Finally we looked at a barberry that really takes your breath away with huge clusters of yellow/green and salmon berries. It looks like a beaded curtain of color in the sunlight! These are only a few of the plants that Leonard will be bringing to GardenPalooza. Stop by and check out all his great plants!

The seasons are changing and that means it is getting cooler. Cooler weather means it is time to get back into the garden again. We stopped by Jan McNeilan’s house to see what we should be doing this time of year to get our gardens ready for the winter, and possibly the spring and summer of next year. We found Jan out in the lawn area of her garden with a rake and some seed. She recently had a wedding in her garden and the lawn took a beating. She told us that now is the time to think about reseeding your lawn. The soil is warm and the rains have returned and those are perfect conditions for starting some grass seed for next year. Just rough up the soil with a rake and then sprinkle the seed around the area, be sure to sprinkle it beyond the bare patch so it blends better with the existing lawn. Then sprinkle some garden mulch or peat moss lightly over the area to help the seed stay moist and germinate. Avoid mowing it until it is about 3-4 inches high.

We than talked about cover crops. Cover crop is seed and plants that help your soil ‘rest’ over the winter. It also helps replace the nutrients in your soil by returning nitrogen to the earth as ‘green compost’. You just sprinkle the seed mixture over the soil and work it into the garden, and let it go. It will grow over the winter and come spring time you just rototill it back into the soil to add the nutrients back to the earth. Jan is focusing on one area in her garden, last year she added too many apple peels to one part of her garden and they fermented and made vinegar. That stunted the growth of her tomatoes. This cover crop will help bring that area back to normal for next season. For more garden tips you can always check out the OSU extension website.