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Podcast: WOWDY Gardens with Weed and Wack

WOWDY Gardens with Weed and Wack

  • Herbal Teas

    WOWDY Gardens with Weed and Wack
    WOWDY Gardens with Weed and Wack
    Herbal Teas
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    This is Weed and this is Wack with WOWDY Gardens. We’re an organic gardening show Focusing on doing it yourself in the garden to save money right and I’ve been Drinking way too much coffee. I’ve managed to cut back to one cup a day. I’m now down to one cup of real coffee and decaf the rest of the day and I’ve been drinking these delicious herbal teas and I started reading the ingredients on these herbal teas
    And as I go down the list. I’m like, oh my goodness. I could grow that I grow I do grow that and you know, so I I do make teas out out of herbs in the backyard, but Not as much as I could so you’re thinking about doing it to save myself money because I’m I love to drink drink coffee all day and now I drink decaf all day and it’s getting a little expensive so I’ve always loved making sun teas and things like that
    I’m going to experiment with making more hot and cold teas from herbs I grow and You know more about herbs than I do I’d like to read off a few of the ingredients I see on the back of my tea bags And let me tell and you just pipe in about whether you think we can grow it Yaro, I’m not familiar with that. Yeah, you can grow that easy
    Daisy we I have that right back there. No, I’ve never used it in teas I see it in a lot of ingredients particular medicine Camamille we’ve grown that I’ve never grown up, but I’m going to look in a little white like Daisy with the right Lavender it’s like I’ve got never used it for a minute all kinds of varieties of men I’ve got that now now to be fair meant I do add to my Tees my my home
    Brutees a lemongrass. I do want to grow that now you grow lemon balm That’s on the list. I have a quaker tea. I have lemon balm and it spreads like mint spreads everywhere. So I have that now this one anis is I have anis and this one anis yeah, and his sock yeah, I love the licorice flavored herbal teas
    I’ve never grown it, but that stevia. Yeah, that’s what sweetens and lemon balm of course Stevia boron borage borage is another hops. I’m noticing we grow that you grow that rose hips and rose petals now I have roses, but I It’s not going to kill you from what I’ve read, but it is a certain type of road that that’s sweeter than others So you could do that
    I’ve seen rose hips as grown at the shore that were really big poppy that might be one that’s sweet because of all the rosemary sage I always mispronounce the nasturtium nasturtium abysses ginger ginger’s on my list I make a I slice my own ginger and put it in hot water and drink that every day So I already do that, but the list goes on and on I’m only halfway through you got B bomb. I mean it just goes
    Pineapple’s aged sandwich uranium’s It goes on and on and on so I’m taking over I’m making a pledge that I’m going to drink I’m going to buy less expensive decaf and drink more Stuff either fresh or dried that I’ve grown in my own backyard and grow those plants on that list Yeah, so my takeaways would be Look at your tea your herbal tea
    I mean the list goes on and on like if you were to walk into an herbal Med shop, I mean the walls are just covered in a
    with all kinds of things now there are a lot of these are bitter and not going to be taste good So I’m after things that actually sort of taste good because a chicory is a substitute for coffee because I’m an addict to having a mug in my hand all day long that mug used to be filled with coffee now I want it filled with with stuff like bro Thanks for indulging me folks grow our own teas about my own little less money pet project of trying to
    Drink more teas and stuff that I grow myself because you can’t grow we can’t grow coffee I would if you could. Oh, I was down and visiting my daughter in New Orleans. I walked into her backyard There’s a lemon tree going there. I’m my yeah lemon trees I’d like to experiment
    Lemon every morning. Yeah, anyway, we’re blabbing here. Thanks for listening to our our yak and about an herbal tea garden Yeah, this is a tease this is about it. This is weed signing off This is whack from where any garden is join us next week and we’ll be back

  • Hardening Off Plants

    WOWDY Gardens with Weed and Wack
    WOWDY Gardens with Weed and Wack
    Hardening Off Plants
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    This is Weed and this is Wack with WOWDY Gardens. We are an organic gardening show focusing on, do it yourself in the garden and save money while you’re doing it. What’s today’s topic? Well, it’s springtime and we’re going to talk about how to harden off those plants that you’ve worked a week or two on, starting from seedlings in your window seal. And now you’re thinking about moving these little seeds seedlings outdoors and it’s still early spring and you want to acclimate them slowly. And I think we call the process hardening, hardening off. Yes, yes, yes. We did have a couple of warm days here last week. I think it reached almost 80 degrees here in DC. And that prompted us all to think, well, it’s time to get out there and get our gardens moving. And I myself moved all, well, not all, but I’d say you have
    of all the tomato seedlings that I’ve started out to my flimsy hotbox that I was now held together with tape and rope. And it’s certainly not airtight at all. But well, let’s go over a few things that you should consider. First, you have to have a good location picked one that’s protected from too much direct sun and definitely protected from too much wind.
    You want to start gradually. You might want to put some of your seedlings out for a few hours and then bring them back in. So you want to increase your exposure slowly and you got to monitor and adjust. You got to pay attention to the weather report. Yeah, exactly. You know, open the tops of the thing and when it’s hot and they can get, they can get some rain that way and they can get some sunlight.
    And then you close the thing, of course the sun goes through the thing. And you don’t want to do it too early. You want the seedlings to… They should be at least six inches tall before you bring them outside. My tomato plants are currently, I’ve outgrown their windowsill home. So I moved them outside and we had a frost. So I had to cover them with floating rows of plants.
    And we did have an episode on how to build cold frames. And when you did that, you made sure that the fabric or the cloth was not touching the plant, right? In a few cases they are touching, but the plants are big and healthy enough to survive some loss of leaf.
    There’s a good location in your yard and start gradually and gradually increase the exposure to being outdoors and monitor and adjust accordingly. You know, if there’s going to be a freeze and you can’t cover some of your sensitive plants, you might want to bring them in. Right, right. And be patient. That’s my problem. I always move things outside too early.
    But you know, if they’ve gotten as big as my tomato plants, they’ll be okay just as you cover them up. That’s right. There are certain things you can get that kind of insulate the plants when you plant them and different gadgets I’ve tried over the years. But frankly, the best thing to do is just to let them grow in the hot box. Now your hot box, my hot box is about a foot tall in the back, maybe 16 inches tall in the back.
    And a foot tall in the front. And so I can have things in there and in small pots and they can grow up to just about the roof of the thing. So I can have them there probably all of April. And actually after this cold spell we have that’s happening just right this this minute here in DC, we had a last night temperature was 34 degrees. Now that that’s passed and I will be able
    to give these things away. And I live a few blocks away and we had a real frost in my neck of the woods. I had a little dish of water left outside and there was ice on it this morning. But everything that I covered with with plastic or cloth did just fine. I’ve left the plastic on because that’s translucent. But things I did cover with other protective things that that don’t let sun
    light in I did I did remove this morning. So you take the the covers off during the day and then you put them back on at night. Depending depending on the plastic I’ve left on today because it’s a cold day. And for my hot box I would lift the lid up and have the lids open all day and then close them at night. Right. So basically this requires a lot of monitoring and you have to have time on your hands to do this.
    So this is a weed signing off and this is whack from Wowdy Gardens. Join us next week. We’ll be back.

  • Growing Zone Changes

    WOWDY Gardens with Weed and Wack
    WOWDY Gardens with Weed and Wack
    Growing Zone Changes
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    This is Weed and this is Wack with WOWDY Gardens. We are an organic gardening show coming to you from Little Hamlet of Tacoma Park. Yes, which has just been reclassified as far as the growing zone we’re in. What growing zone do we get changed to? That’s right. We used to be in 7A here in the suburbs of DC. Now we are officially in 7B. And downtown DC would be 8A.
    And we’d like to talk about 8A. That is true with all the tall buildings holding that heat in. Yeah, and all the infrastructure below the streets. I want to look up what you can grow with in 8A. Yeah, downtown. If you got a little townhouse down there in downtown DC, let us know what you’re growing. Right. But we’ve all noticed that spring is coming earlier. And winters aren’t quite as cold as they used to be.
    That’s right. My cherries and my figs have ripened earlier every year by a few days, it seems. And one of my best buddies grew up in Frederick and he has a little farm out there that he still manages. And he says definitely a week or two earlier. So what can you grow now that we are zoned in 7B as opposed to 7A?
    We are previously zoned at. We are going to find out, aren’t we? I think as much of the same things, it just means we can grow them earlier and longer. Yes, that’s right. Possibly a pecan, possibly an almond. Definitely an apricot. Right. It would be good to have a small apricot tree. Right. And I think the sweet cherry tree succumbs to a heavy frost quite easily. I love those. We are going to try a couple sweet cherry bushes.
    I have to look into that. I haven’t tried that. But I definitely noticed that with my arugula crop the last few years, normally to get my winter arugula to survive, I have to be prepared to cover it and protect it from a really intense frost. And I have not had to cover that arugula at all the last couple of years. And that’s just more than that. That’s evidence right there that our
    zone has changed because it was not like that 10 years ago. Yes. They base these readings on the lowest temperature that happens during the year. And in previous years, about a decade ago, our lowest temperature was around zero. Right. And now it seems like our lowest temperature is 20 degrees, maybe. We’ve really had no snow per se to speak of in the last, say, five years. It makes me wish I had taken no
    notes on all my, better notes on all my gardening over the years is to when things sprouted and all of that. So you can go back and look at it. But I’m not there. Have a spreadsheet. No, I wouldn’t do that. So folks, be venturous, grow your veggies, grow your greens all year long. Yeah. Start early and try to take advantage of this climate change and hold on, be prepared for
    growing things, maybe a little bit differently than you used to. That’s right. So this is weed. This is wack. Goodbye from Wowdy Gardens. Join us next week because we’ll be back.

  • Groundhog Day

    WOWDY Gardens with Weed and Wack
    WOWDY Gardens with Weed and Wack
    Groundhog Day
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    This is Weed and this is Wack with WOWDY Gardens, and today we’re going to talk about ground hogs and ground hog day. Take it away, weed. Right. I was interested in how this tradition started, and you know, I just wanted those things. I don’t think anyone really knows other than probably goes back to pagan and Celtic traditions that were carried on, and like many traditions just adopted in the modern, like many old traditions that were
    based around agricultural societies just were adopted by us, and we’re happy to have them because it’s a joyful celebration. It’s celebrating the coming of planting your seeds. That’s right. We love to throw a party, so this is another excuse to throw a party. Right. What’s your prediction on ground hog day? My prediction is that it was not going to see a shadow, and we’re going to expect an early spring. Really early? I’m hoping for the opposite. I love snow. I love skiing and all that kind of stuff, and I love looking out at my beds covered in snow right now, and the little tiny garlic sprouts, just little heads above, and I can see my, anyway, I like the snow. So I’m hoping for the opposite. Yeah. Well, tell me what a ground hog day means to you as a gardener. Ground hog day to me means it’s time to think about cleaning out my trays and getting my seeds in order, figuring out exactly what seeds I’m going to use for my garden this year, and getting some in the mail if I don’t have what I need. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, I used to love, but I like to save all my seeds. Right. This time of year reminds me of us getting my seed catalogs, and I can spend hours. That’s right. We can spend too much money on those seed catalogs as well. That’s why we really advocate for you to save your seeds from all the things that you grow. Right. Right.
    It is. Even though online uses energy. So what’s your favorite gopher movie? Well, I’m kind of partial to Ground Hog Day. We part ways on this one again. In yours is. I’m a caddy check person. I thought that was the most hysterical movie. It was a robotic animated gopher. Right.
    And Chevy Chase. And, you know, I think gophers should win in the long run. Myself, you know, they have a rough time at it these days. Everyone’s after them. They’re formidable creatures, though. I did work on a farm. They do dig holes in the fields, and they can hurt a dog in a fight. They’re strong. Yeah. And I can see why some people don’t want them in their fields, but I like
    Gophers. For sure. I imagine they could break some of the damage. Yeah. Bringing the gophers back. Do some serious damage to the farming. I think they also, some people call them ground beavers as well, I’ve heard. Ground hogs. Ground beavers. Ground beavers. Yeah. Yeah. Different than a badger. Right. Right. But I can’t remember what family, and all I think is a wonderful holiday. I think it’s great that people celebrate the midwinter and looking forward
    to spring. Okay. Happy, happy time. All right, folks. So get ready to check out whether that ground hog sees its shadow or not. And I say keep that Parker out. You’ll need it all. You’ll need it well into April this year. When we tend not to have really cold winters, we tend to have prolonged winters. Right. Cool, prolonged seasons. It was nice to see our first snow in a long time. I must say I’ve enjoyed that. Well, this, this is a
    weed signing off and enjoy ground hog day. And it’s whack signing off. We’ll see you next week. Take care. We’ll be back.

  • Forsythia

    WOWDY Gardens with Weed and Wack
    WOWDY Gardens with Weed and Wack
    Forsythia
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    This is Weed and this is Wack with WOWDY Gardens. We are an organic gardening show focusing on keeping beauty in the garden year round if you can. Right. We basically love gardening and love talking about gardenings and figuring out things on our own without having to spend a whole lot of money. And when we sit around and chat over a cup of tea or a cup of coffee, the conversation always veers towards something
    in the garden. That’s right. And a very easy plant to propagate that would save you money so you don’t really have to go go buy a bunch of these things. And actually they are fairly inexpensive at the nurseries and the garden stores is the forsythia. You never have to go buy forsythia. Forsythia, excuse me. It’s so easy to propagate by cuttings. That’s right. Now, this is an arching shrub that has yellow flowers that are that that are
    born all along the stems and their profuse in the springtime. It’s amazing how many flowers come out of this thing. It’s a real yellow. Yeah, true yellow. And if you like yellow and you don’t and you like a a an arching a shrub with an arching habit, that’s what you want to go with is the forsythia, especially if you want to be generally blooms in March. Right. And it’s interesting because it is an intergeneric hybrid or the types that grow around here, which is forsythia.
    Frase area is an intergeneric hybrid. And that in the Latin terms, the X that specifies hybrid is before the word instead of before the first word, instead of after the first word. So a regular hybrid would have the X in the after the first word. But this has the X before the first word. So it’s X forsythia, Frase area. And like so many of our gardening shrubs,
    were found by Europeans, mostly wealthy Europeans, botanists and surgeons and so on traveling in Asia and discovering. And this is how this particular shrub was discovered. Brought over, believe it was a Scottish guy. Brought it back and it became very popular in the 1800s in European and American gardens. And that’s right. I suppose why we have them. Yeah.
    No edible value and no usage for structures or anything. You can’t really build anything out of it. You can’t make baskets out of it. It really has no value other than its beauty and it sure is beautiful. My wife taught me a nice trick with it. Around January, you can go out and cut a branch and bring it inside and put it in a jar of water and no time at all.
    You’ll have a yellow, beautiful, yellow flower arrangement. Now the way to propagate this plant is to strip off the leaves and whatever’s coming off the tip of the cane and shove that in the ground. And sure enough, probably six months later, it’s going to sprout on its own and then you’ll be able to cut that cane. You’ll have a new plant. So my only bummer about the plant is the flowering is so short.
    And the rest of the season, it’s sort of hard to recognize what it is. It becomes a shrub. You just need to cut back because it grows over the pathway in distinguishing qualifications. Now the flowers are sterile. You will not be able to find any seeds in this plant. But like I said, if you want to propagate it, you just bend the cane over and shove it in the ground. If you don’t have any, ask somebody for a cane.
    I have a bunch in my front yard. I’m happy to give away some. All right. And you’ll find it growing in parks and places where you can just clip a few branches. Really, no one’s going to say anything. Well, it’s always good to get permission, folks. You go out there and do a little guerrilla gardening. Yeah. Well, this this this species is hard to kill. Yeah. Well, for sure. So, folks, planta facetia.
    You have a facetia in your yard and you can enjoy that nice yellow flower early in spring. Really? Yeah. You know, they’ve been coming earlier and earlier, it seems to me. But of course, that’s another topic. So goodbye from Weed and Wack. We’ll be back. Join us next week.

  • Finding Seeds at Local Markets

    WOWDY Gardens with Weed and Wack
    WOWDY Gardens with Weed and Wack
    Finding Seeds at Local Markets
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    This is Weed and this is Wack with WOWDY Gardens. We’re an organic gardening show focusing on doing it yourself in the garden and a lot of times that means Venturing out into your local farmers market or a place where there is produce that is sold Asking asking to find out to make sure it’s grown organically and then trying a bunch of new stuff and I was telling
    weed a minute ago here that I we’ve gone to the Tacoma farmers market I went out the other day a couple weeks ago, and I saw a couple new types of squash and I bought one Called honey nut and this is a miniature butternut squash. It’s only about the size shaped like an hourglass It’s only about I’d say six inches long and maybe three or four inches wide Just like an hourglass. So I bought four of them cut them brought them home
    Cut them in half took the seeds out to save the seeds and then bake them up and boy They were delicious. They’re just the most tasty little squash. I’ve ever had so I wanted to make sure I Grow I want to I’m basically I’m gonna try and grow these next year So then the next week I went back to the farmers market went back to the same stand or I thought it was the same stand and I said boy I don’t see any more of these Honey Nut squash and the guy said to me what we’ve never had bows
    I thought I was in the twilight zone because I was sure I was in the same stand So anyway, I bought two other squash one was a called butterkin Which is like Which like a big crust between a butternut and a pumpkin and the other was a blue winter sweet squash and took them home cut them up saved the seeds baked them tried them both and Found that I didn’t really like them all that
    much So I ended up throwing those seeds out. There’s no point in saving seeds of plants that I’m not intending to eat I would that was a rule I made a long time ago only grow only grow what I’m gonna eat and That narrows things down. I end up running out of space anyway, so So I encourage you to go to your local market pick out of interesting looking fruit Because it’s most likely grown locally so you will be able to grow it in your own
    Yard and then cut it up save those seeds let them dry really well put them on a paper plate someplace let them dry really well and put them in a paper bag and Next year plant those seeds absolutely and this doesn’t only apply to our our Tacoma Park Farmers Market anytime you’re traveling and hit a hit a farmers market say, you know and yeah anywhere anywhere. Yeah. Yeah, you know It could be an heirloom variety save a seed or two, you know
    Or ask if it’s an heirloom when I’m out and about in visiting strange towns I like to walk around and check out everyone’s gardens and And if the gardeners out there, they’re always willing to chat and you know what possibly give you some seeds exactly That has happened to me
    And you stop to chat next thing, you know, you have some bulbs that’s been in their family forever, right? And they’re now they’re spreading to my backyard. So So yeah, go to your farmers market try your favorite thing my favorite thing recently was a melon And I don’t remember the name of it, but I planted the seed unfortunately I didn’t nurse it well enough and it got taken over by as we mentioned earlier green beans out maneuvered it for sunlight so
    That that was that but I I’m definitely gonna experiment with that melon again if The next sweet tasting it was like an oranges It was sort of a cross between one of those Japanese melons And a cantaloupe and it was it was just it was it was a cool weird cross and I deserves its own space. Yeah, so I’m gonna look for that variety again and and They like you say all kinds of crazy squashes you can get nowadays
    I was at a farmer’s market up in Brooklyn and I saw some weird shit Not that I want to grow any but they were like some artists had sculpted some of these squashes. They weren’t you know like charm on scene Yeah, it was just unbelievable and some of the the Christmas like cauliflower’s you know with all you know that the farmers are grounds just some really cool stuff I don’t know how you propagate cauliflower. You couldn’t do that now from that new seeds, but you need something with seeds. Yeah
    So folks go and experiment. Oh, hey, hey, yeah experiment. I take that back You don’t need only seeds take a clipping. You know if you buy some delicious a Mentor parsley or something like that at the out of stem and put it in water still green and there’s a stamp put it in water It might root. Okay. I wanted that cut the stem then put it in water might root Okay, folks, I’m dig on rooting things absolutely
    For you We’re rooting for you. We’re rooting for you. All right. This is weed and this is whack. Join us next week. We’ll be back

  • Figs

    WOWDY Gardens with Weed and Wack
    WOWDY Gardens with Weed and Wack
    Figs
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    This is Weed and this is Wack with WOWDY Gardens. We’re an organic gardening show Focusing on do it yourself in the garden and growing things that we like to eat and one exactly the things we like to eat and one of the things that’s sort of easy to do is Take a clipping from a fig tree. We have lots of fig trees growing in our neighborhood first thing you need to do is make friends with someone who has a fig tree and and then make a clipping and
    Cutting foot off the tip of the branch and route that and put in some water put on the windowsill Right it sounds simple, but it literally is that simple Take a cutting and put it in a jar of water and leave it on the windowsill and keep on changing the water is needed and Do a couple just to be safe, but eventually it will root and
    Windowsill transplant it to a pot when the weather is When the when the weather is what about 70 degrees easily well and and the thing has lots of roots You don’t want to transplant unless it has lots of lots of roots right when you transplant trying try not to upset those roots Yeah, or you can go to the nursery and buy a fig as well and follow the instructions on on how to prune it
    My wife Jenny about our fig tree a Turkish fig that We’ve had for 25 years now. Did she get it locally? No, she bought it. I I’m pretty sure she bought it on her way back from Virginia and at a nursery at a nursery and Brought it home and planted it and it’s been prolific. It’s a matter of fact
    my wife took a Creative writing class and one of she wrote an essay that was published on on this very fig tree and Are you gonna give us a little excerpt? Well, let me just read the last sentence of the first paragraph during this season meaning the season of ripe figs It is true. I love figs more than I love my husband. Anyway, she really writes well about
    Growing this fig tree and say I love is true. I love figs more than I love you But it’s a great essay look it up Jenny Apostle And you’ll and figs and you’ll find her essay But yeah that fig tree I just love it I loved my favorite time to eat from the fig tree is before I play tennis and
    An hour or so before I play tennis I go out and I pick a couple off the vine vine excuse me shrub shrub and Vine is a figure speech And I swear I feel like I play better tennis and have more energy. It’s anti-inflammatory. It’s a very good anti-inflammatory fruit and I like to eat it fresh off the off the plant and my wife D likes to dehydrate
    Well, she’s an excellent cook she can do anything and then put them in a jar and eat them later on But yeah, do not waste your figs folks. Do not and I’ve always been fascinated by the fig in literature, you know, Adam Covered with his little fig leaf and Eve that’s right here first bikini the fig leaf bikini going there Right, I sort of think of that when I when I look at my fig tree in the big leaf
    That I sprout on that thing. That’s right And if you wanted to plant a biblical plant in your yard if big is a great 100 plant other than that in season I like to just chop them up and add them to a whatever salad garden salad I’m making and oh It’s great with a little bit of goat cheese and you know when Jenny planted our fig tree. I don’t think she added much as far as You’re right and it’s
    Real clay is all clay around here, but this particular area. They’re fairly hardy and one more thing before we finish about The fig tree it’s been around for a long time. So it’s seen my kids grow and everything That’s right It the fig roots found its way into my garden beds and became a real problem and So every season I would have to chop the roots off a little root pruning root pruning to
    Keep them out of my garden bed, but they’re the roots are so gross so fast I gave up and I raised my one of the reasons I have raised beds is because the fig tree Was was getting all my nutrients out of my my beds and if you find that your fig patch does not is not putting off enough fruit for you a good way to increase fruit production is to give it a root pruning which would be to do exactly what we did is is take a
    And go around on the outside of the shrub Whether it’s a single trunk shrub or a patch of of woody ground cover shrub like Plants as I’ve seen both types of figs out there just slice those roots all the way around and that’ll increase fruit Okay, and after a couple years you’ll have a mature tree that will need to be pruned What’s the rule of thumb on pruning?
    How much of the plant? Well, if it’s really large like yours and mine and it has multiple trunks Then you want to take out one third of the largest growth Each year for three years in a row and that that will encourage new growth to come up from the base of the plant right you can do that with lilacs as well right well folks prune your fig tree because what happened to me is it got so tall
    that all the fruit became it was all of a sudden out of reach for me food yeah, and the Tree would rattle between the squirrels and the birds and yeah, no one likes that Yeah, so I’m I’m and I really need to do some work on pruning on my tree Okay, this what do we talk about here? Of course my wife saw article about a 20 year old fig tree. She planted which is just great reading I suggest it things you very well
    in this area, right They’re easy to clone so you really don’t need to you can be cheap like we like to be you don’t need to go to the nursery you can Take some cuttings and put them in water and once you have a mature tree You have to trim the roots and prune the roots and prune the top. Yeah, they keep keep it so it doesn’t grow too big
    Much for listening and again, we’d like to thank Eric and wowd for having 4.3 LP yes To come up to come radio.org. Okay folks are signing off. This is whack from where the gardens. This is weed See you next week. We’ll be back!

  • Feng Shui Zen Garden

    WOWDY Gardens with Weed and Wack
    WOWDY Gardens with Weed and Wack
    Feng Shui Zen Garden
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    This is Weed and this is Wack with WOWDY Gardens. We’re an organic gardening show focusing on doing things on the cheap which means doing them ourselves and today we’re going to talk about Zen gardening or the Chinese term is feng shui feng shui and I before we get going on this I’d like to say I think this concept applies to almost all of our Episodes and all aspects of our gardening
    I don’t have as much experience in this that you are a professional landscaper and done a bit of this but we’ve narrowed down six talking points on creating this Zen garden. What are they? Picking your auspicious spot, curve pathways, that’s number two, three balance with yin and yang elements, dark light, I don’t know if that can go into all kinds of things. You plant with intention, plant plants you love and like, incorporate
    those, five water features and six a good place to sit and meditate. So this start with number one how do you go about picking the spot? Well like you said yin and yang you want to have a spot that’s in the sun and then a spot that’s in the shade and you want to have sitting areas in both of those locations and plants that will be inviting and make you comfortable as you
    as you’re enjoying yourself in these two spots. Absolutely. And yin and yang we want to have a wet spot and a dry spot. We want to have a water feature where there’s preferably running water that can be heard in the garden and then a nice sunny spot where you have some big tall perennials. I agree. To me to me this the space you almost know it when you see it. You know to me that’s Zen garden.
    You know, you get that feeling you get that feeling. So you look at you see a little bit of moss and you’re like, Oh my God, that’s beautiful. To me, my favorite inner city Zen gardens are where you can put yourself in an area and almost feel like you’re you’re in a garden in the countryside and not in a city. That’s right. Close your eyes and lose yourself. Yeah. Now that was number one, you know, picking your space. So number two, curve pathways.
    In a way that always bothered me. It’s like, what if, what if your house has a straight path from the street to the sidewalk? Does that mean your energy is all messed up forever and you can’t correct it? What’s this white, white curve pathways? Well, the idea is they want energy to flow through any area. You do not want it to be stagnant. And in a straight line, I read energy flows too quickly. Right. Straight lines and corners make straight lines.
    Make energy flow too fast and corners make energy stagnant. So you want a slightly curving line on every edge of a bed and the bed would separate the plants from the grass. Somewhere and I’ve always instinctively incorporated this myself with pathways is that let people do the walking first before you create, make your pathway. And in other words, let people create the path and you often notice that.
    And then where the grass is worn that, that often is your pathway. Right. You can certainly make a wider walkway that has curved edgings with plants on both sides of it to break up the space. In other words, you want to have plants at different heights in your Zen garden. Right. And I agree. Curved beds are slightly more attractive.
    A curved line is more attractive to the eye. It’s a line of beauty as it curves around hillsides. Nature is curvy. It’s not good there. Balance your number three. Balance yin and yang elements. Boy, that applies to all of these topics we’re going over for this Zen garden. Yes. So when we’re talking functionally in the garden, we’re talking for yin and yang, we’re talking about having a plant
    that would signify eternity. That would be an evergreen or bamboo, which tends to be evergreen and have green, you know, stems. And then a plant that signifies renewal. That would be a generally speaking, they use weeping Japanese maples. The way I think of it is that you have your high energy plants, which are your often your annuals, your brightly colored full sunflowers.
    And then you have your more subtle greens, hostas and stuff that hide off on the annuals and perennials. We’re also talking woody plants. And you know, this move on to number four since yin and yang applies to everything you do in this Zen garden. You plant with intention. When we say that, we mean, I think plant things you love the best and that might harmonize with, you know, the rest of the
    writers in your yard, hummingbirds, like a tube shaped flower. So if you love hummingbirds, plant lots of that. I’d say plant some edible plants that humans can eat, some edible plants that animals can eat and some ornamental plants that humans can enjoy. That’s right. When we say plant with intention, let’s not forget about our, our friends, the deer. Yeah. Why, let’s just say wildlife, you know, whether it’s birds, squirrels or deer.
    They plant something that they want to eat too, because you know, they’re hungry. They’re just as hungry as we are. Right. Right. Squirrels love, love your bulbs. Now, water features critters need water. Your birds need water. And something about, to me, the water feature needs to be where you’re going to sit and meditate. Oh, absolutely. Have a waterfall there and have a bench. So two people can sit there or a couple of seats. So two people can sit there and enjoy it. And then,
    you know, plants around your water feature, lots of lush plants, definitely a place in the shade. Beyond water features, a lot of articles, a lot. I didn’t read that much. I mentioned metal in your garden. Usually chimes are things that you want to put near your window as, as a way to create, create good energy in your garden too. Metal chimes, metal sculpture. Right. So, and you know, you can do this on a balcony. You can do this. You can do this.
    And then a window garden and an atrium and all kinds of things. So basically everything we’ve talked about in our previous episodes, I think include Zen gardening in one way or another, because you want your garden to be the kind of place when you’re showing it off to someone, their mouth drops open and they just want to sit in and go, I love it here. I’ve forgotten about all my stress. Let’s just sit here for a while and forget about the, the daily
    toil. And in fact, when someone does that in your garden, that’s the greatest compliment they can pay to a gardener. Absolutely. Anyway, enough on this. Just go over what we chatted about, auspicious spaces. Pick a really cool spot. A couple of them. A couple of them. Curve pathways. Yeah. That’s just a line of beauty. Curves are beautiful. Balance your yin and yang. That’s important in all aspects of life. You know, plant with intention. What you love.
    You think will be a yellow will be good here. Red will be good there. Mix up your colors. They do say that you’re better off using it, making a bench of natural material, not metal for Feng Shui, but if the metal is all you got, well, by all means, use it. I’m not going to get rid of that nice metal outdoor table your your cousin gave me. I think it fits in well. It’s purple. So, you know, plant with intention and water features are
    always great if you can incorporate them and a cool place to sit with friends or alone in meditate. That’s right. All right, folks. Thanks for listening. So goodbye from weed and wack. Join us next week. We’ll be back.

  • Spring Ephemerals

    WOWDY Gardens with Weed and Wack
    WOWDY Gardens with Weed and Wack
    Spring Ephemerals
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    This is Weed and this is Wack with WOWDY Gardens and today we’re going to talk about spring ephemeral Now they need to be planted in the fall. Are these bulbs or these? Can they be both bulbs ands. seeds? Generally speaking we’re talking about bulbs, but you know the the term ephemeral and the term spring ephemeral means that it completes its life
    cycle in the springtime early in the springtime before the tree canopy leaves out and Before you need to cut your grass, right? So in this instance, I’m mainly talking about two plants one is the crocus and as we know in Tacoma before the big monstrosity went up out the street here a Willow and Maple that field was filled with light purple crocuses and they were very
    Beneficial to the insects as well because you know, they’re they’re the earliest ones that come up in the spring I suppose that’s earliest flower First flower and also So it’s good to grow this Well, it’s yes, it’s good to grow it’s good to plant them in your yard and you can plant them in your yard and though they will bloom and complete their life cycle before you need to cut your grass
    for the first time wonderful and the mower blade will be cutting above the mature height of the plant so the mower does not hurt the plant at all and it’s just beautiful my neighbor has these and It looks like a little carpet of flowers Coming up Yeah, and as well before you’d have to cut the grass so the in crocuses the different colored flowers are the light purple type That’s extremely invasive. There’s a dark purple type. There’s a yellow
    There is a white and I believe there’s a white with a little bit of a purple streak to it And that’s those are the main colors. I was worried you might say invasive in there Probably were just to my knowledge just the light purple type are now the other thing that I I planted quite a bit when I was landscaping is the ice folly daffodil and that’s a daffodil that blooms
    in early February and so it can be planted in deciduous woods where you have basically very deciduous trees because they are they the this plant will finish its life cycle before the canopy leaves out so you can plant one in different spots and they will go ahead and multiply because daffodils is the Latin name is Narcissus and it is poisonous to the wildlife so they do not eat them hmm
    So no wonder they make it The wildlife will eat tulips but not daffodils, right? So if you’d like to have a little color the it’s the color of the ice folly is white on the outside and yellow on the inside Hmm, and it’s a very easy daffodil to to have in your in your garden So I just cleared off the snow on my giant pot of grass
    Arugula and it looks just like it hadn’t snowed at all. I’m extremely happy with that I’m letting mine my snow melt on my arugula bed, but the part that’s melted off already is looking I haven’t tasted it yet, but it looks good to go Radishes look good to go. I’ve been eating my radish leaves. They’re supposed to be really nutritious by the way. Yeah That’s another episode and you have anything in the hot in your hot box. No, no, not right now
    Everything’s outside. I don’t have a hot box. I usually just put a plant I have wiring right so you didn’t have I was going to and I thought you know what this this is gonna be a short Cold blast. It was colder than I thought it but the snow insulated everything so everything’s cool All right, folks. So next fall go out there and plant a bunch of crocuses in your yard and if you have a thermal spring ephemeral ephemeral excuse me springy
    Femurals and some crocuses in your yard and then you can enjoy them the next year and they’ll come up every year from that on and Think about some ice follies in your landscape. Absolutely Well, thanks for that. This is a species. I really don’t know much about I’ve always admired All right, folks until next time take care

  • Daffodils and Tulips

    WOWDY Gardens with Weed and Wack
    WOWDY Gardens with Weed and Wack
    Daffodils and Tulips
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    This is Weed. And this is Wack with WOWDY Gardens. We’re an organic gardening show focusing on keeping beauty in the garden year-round when we can. Right. And it’s springtime and we’re going to talk daffodils and tulips. Cool. Now, we picked the two of them. First, we’re going to do daffodils, but we decided we’d throw tulips in because they come up at around the same time and they’re bulbs, etc. And they’re planted together quite often.
    Yeah. Well, why don’t you give us some background on the Latin name and a little bit about planting the thing and what you’ve learned over the years, working with this species. And then I’ll talk about the history of the plant. Okay. So the Latin name for daffodil is actually narcissus. That’s a genus, right? That is, yeah, that’s a genus. And they’re different species of narcissus.
    And so daffodil is one of them. That feels a common name and daffodils are native and they spread and they will come true to color year after year. So that if you plant one in one spot, you know, it’s going to come back the same year and be the same color and put off some offsets. So more, more daffodils will pop up as the years go by and they can be planted in
    deciduous forests as long as they bloom before the canopy leaves out. And I planted quite a few of this one type called ice folly, which does bloom really early. There’s a bunch of my yard right now. And so that completes its life cycle before the canopy leaves out. It’s considered a spring ephemeral. Since daffodils are poisonous, farmers tend to plant them underneath fruit trees, trying to deter the wildlife from going over to the fruit tree and eating the fruit.
    Let’s see, what else? Because they’re poisonous, they don’t need to be have any special things done while planting. While I can say tulips are definitely eaten by the squirrels and the deer. And I believe the tulip Latin name is tulipa. Like the tulip poplar.
    The tulip poplar is Leriodendron tulipaphera. So we’re going to have to look that one up. I’m just going to escape my Latin memory at this point in time. Well, it’s a beautiful spring flower symbolizing resurrection in Easter and all that kind of stuff. But it has a fascinating history. I’m talking about the daffodil now.
    The name Narcissus. You can picture some Greek gods staring at himself. And the flower is sort of that beautiful. You want to stare at it all the time. They’re from the Middle East and Europe. The Romans introduced them to the British islands around 300 BC. So this flower has been domesticated for a very long time.
    You know, when you’re walking in the woods and all of a sudden, you know, out in a state game land or something like that. And you come across a bunch of daffodils in the spring. You can be pretty sure that that was a homestead.
    At one time or another because they planted daffodils around there. And if you do some digging around, you’ll probably find signs, other signs of human activity in that in that area. But, you know, the modern ones were bred in the 1800s and in Britain. And where I grew up in Western Pennsylvania, we call them junk junk junk. And that is the
    It’s the genus Narcissus junk old species is a variety. But we used it as a common name growing up in Western Pennsylvania to cover, you know, any of them you saw. You saw growing around. But that, you know, that’s about all I want to say about the history of them and tulips. I really didn’t do my research on tulips. But all I remember about tulips was economics class and Dutch tulip mania bubble that burst in on

    1. But it was often considered our first speculative bubble because tulips became such a sign of wealth and prestige that people invested. But the reason that the bubble burst is because the tulips did not come true to color the next year. They had ones that were almost black. They were the most valuable ones. They were almost completely black. And actually,
      this apparently this one guy traded his house and his business for one bulb. And when he got it, he dropped it on the ground and smashed it because he had the only other one. Right. So instead of having the only two, he had the only one and that was supposed to be so much more valuable. You know, as a collector, I don’t I don’t see that logic. But at any rate, it because it did not come true to color that in successive years, that’s why the whole thing fell
      through. Now that color can actually be found very easily these days. It’s the dark, dark purple. Right. And I’ve seen them. Well, real quick, before we sign off, this go over, you plant these things in what October, November, the bulbs, you get the ball from, you know, find them at the hardware store or go to the culture club. Right. I most of mine, I’ve been really lucky in my in my neighborhood,
      gardeners like to, when they thin out their bulbs and stuff, they’ll put them in a little box in front of their house with the sign saying free. And that’s where I end up getting most of my dad. Yeah. And Tacoma Horticultural Club has a stand at the fairs and they always sell their bulbs very inexpensively. And so it’s good to get it from those guys. They do like full sun. They like to be well watered.
      And you can’t put them in a place that’s too wet or else they’ll rot. Full sun. But otherwise, they’re pretty easy. And as we said, daffodils are the go-to because you don’t have to worry about the squirrel and the deer going after them. That’s right. I have planted tulips in cages back when I was landscaping and that’s a royal pain in the neck. One thing that when we decide to talk about daffodils, my favorite daffodil sighting in the area is on Rock Creek Parkway.
      It’s awesome. We biked down there. We biked down to the Cherry Blossoms. Actually, my wife’s going down there today and checking out. Yeah. Cool. Yeah, daffodil hill is not to be missed in DC folks. All right. Let’s do our sign off. One more thing. You want to plant your bulbs three times the diameter of the bulb is the depth. Okay. So with that note, goodbye from Weed & Wack. Join us next week. We’ll be back.
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