Fruit Pruning Class in Provo

All photos courtesy of Troy Nuttall.

The class was a great success! I hope you join us for the next one.

Utah Sustainable Gardening and Elizabeth Ellsworth Stika are pleased to present a fruit tree pruning workshop in Provo on March 9th 2013.

Subjects covered will be:

• Where and how to make a good cut.
• How to shape a fruit tree.
• What to do to make you fruit trees more productive.

Class will be held at 12:00 on Saturday March 9th. At 365 N. 900 W. Provo, Ut. The hostess has generously offered to pay for the workshop. If you are able, please bring $20.00 to help defray the cost of the workshop. A light lunch will be provided.

Please RSVP at: 
https://www.facebook.com/events/349012245216856/
or
utahsustainablegardening@gmail.com

Pruning Lavender

Lavender before pruning.

Usually I prune my lavender shortly after it is done blooming. It is a great time to do it since it keeps the lavender looking prim and maintained. But really it doesn't need pruning until just before it starts its summer growth.

Lavender after pruning.

This last year things have been so busy that I did not get the prunning done until shortly before Christmas. But as things slowed down I grabbed the hand pruners and headed out to the back flower bed.

The main point of pruning lavender is to take off the old flower heads. As long as you do that you will be good. If you want to do more to guide the shape, snip off and inch or two of the leaves. Just remember, don't cut back so fare that there aren't living leaves left on a branch. Lavender is one of the shrubs that needs those leaves to regenerate growth. Cutting away all the leaves will lead to dead twigs.

Making a cut.

Most people use hedging shears to get their lavender pruned. Shears do a great job, and get it done much quicker that hand pruners. I like to do it the slow way because it creates more texture. And I have gotten fed up with the smooth meatball look that is so common today.

Remember, the leafy cuttings can be used either fresh or dry to create a relaxed mood or encourage sleep. 

The trimmings can be composted or used

to help relaxation.

Seed Quality

Seed racks are out at the big box stores and catalogues are arriving, it must be time to think of spring planting.

Starting seed is like anything else, good materials make for a good experience. But it is hard to tell what seeds are good and what are not. After all, you can't see through most seed packets.

The importance of quality seeds has struck me with almost an urgency after failures for the last five years. My swiss chard was a mixture of varieties, tomatoes the same, two squash varieties failed, and my beloved kohlrabi turned out to be radishes. What is a gardener to do?

First: Keep good records. If you have a record of failures and successes, you will know whether it is the seed or how you are growing it. You will also be able to see patterns for the seed companies you use. One problem is not that important, every company will make mistakes once in a while. But once you have a pattern you know that you need to look for a new suppliers.

Second: Choose seeds from a source that has a good reputation. This means talking to other gardeners and evaluating the sales materials. If a company has not put thought into quality advertising, they will not likely put the thought into quality seed production.

Third: Don't buy cheap. You don't have to pay $20 for good seed, but you have to wonder what you are getting if you pay $1.

Fourth: If you save seed, learn your business and do it right. Saving seed is more complex than just scraping the seeds out of a squash.

Fifth: Understand that you will get better quality and uniformity from hybrids. I prefer open pollinated seeds, but I know I will have different results from some of my neighbors.

For a good start look at Johnny's and Territorial. You should also look at Burpee. I don't use Burpee much now-a-days, but I never had problems.

Have a great time buying seeds!

Permaculture Values

A proper front yard.

The following is an excerpt from a letter I wrote to a young man trying to decide how his love of permaculture should effect his formal schooling:

My degree is in Urban and Landscape Horticulture. I ran into permaculture about the same time I decided to go back to school and change my degree.

I found my classes invigorating and a lot of fun. They also backed up many permacultural technics quite well. When I graduated is when the trouble started. Things are not done in the best way in many fields.
We have a tendency to want things now and buy our way out of problems. Ego usually wins out over common sense. Controlling everything and everyone around us is how we get ahead.

For a few years I tried to make things happen the way people said I should, get ahead and all that. But I found myself becoming less happy with myself and less happy with work. The more I tried to apply the principals and practices of pemaculture to my work, the less my bosses thought of me and my value.

I finally dropped out and am now trying to find a way through the world that does not create conflict with those I work with and will still pay the bills and allow me to follow my values. 

Now, if you will allow me to return to the question of my experience with permaculture. It has followed me by my side since I found it some ten years ago. I have often used it as a bag of tricks to help me in my landscape work and my own garden.

The truth is that permaculture is really a philosophy of living. Whether it be in the farm, or in the board room, it shouldn't matter. I was originally attracted to it because those philosophies closely match principals that I already believed. Even though I didn't know it at the time.

Those principals are more in need in the circles of business and economics than in the farms and gardens of today. Take what you know of permaculture, boil it down to principles, and then apply it wherever you decide to go.

It may cause you some conflict, you may not be able to work the jobs you thought you would, but you will be able to hold your head up and sit down at the end of the day and know your work is good.

Please, sit down and think about it. 

Green Buying

It just might be time to get a new mower....

Every once-in-a-while I check out the environmental blogs and articles on the web. Invariably I click away in disgust. Most of the chatter seems to be about great environmental products that are so green that you can’t live without them. When I start reading the green resume of the products I am often surprised at what constitutes ‘green’ to the bloggers. 



And then I look at the price. Even if I like the product and have a need for something like it, I don’t get the green product because I can’t afford it.

While more of us are becoming familiar with ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ I think we would be well advised to also remember an older phrase ‘use it up, wear it out, make do, or do without’ as well.

Neither of these phrases covers what to do when you finally need to buy something, but here are some tips to help: 



• Ask: do I really need it?

• Check to see if you already have something that will work for you, but you just hadn’t realized it. 


• Look for hand-me-downs, items from thrift stores, or second hand shops. 


• Don’t buy fad items. Look for colors, and designs that looked good 30 years ago and will still look good in five years.

• Decide what you will do with the product after you are done with it. My running shoes are a good example. I can only use them for running for a year or two. Then they get rotated into my work shoes. When I get done with them at work, there is little left to dispose of.

We all need a certain amount of 'things' in this world, but by thinking and planning ahead we can cut our 'things' down to a manageable level that all of us can live with.