Showcase - Iceland Poppy

I'm not really a flower guy, unless you can eat them, but I don't snub my nose at pretty flowers that grow with a minimum of fuss. Iceland poppies fit that bill here at zone 4-5. Some do survive the winter, but they are biennials, meaning they live two years at most. However, they propagate themselves through seeding.

We started by planting mostly red poppies, with a smattering of white and orange. It seems the latter two do best here; we no longer have any red ones. Over the years, poppies have popped up all over the yard through their seeds blowing around. They tend to gather at the eastern end of the yard; the direction the wind tends to blow.

The white ones are particularly interesting because they remind me of eggs. The individual blooms don't last more than a couple days, but if the plant is healthy, it will send up flower stalks continuously all summer long.

Once the flower disappears and the bulb dries up, you can open it up and harvest the seeds. Or you can let Mother Nature do it. They grow quite well in rock mulch as well as in wood mulch as you see in the next photo.

The orange poppies are quite brilliant, more so than my crappy camera can capture. Here you can also see the flower buds dangling on the stalks, waiting for their moment to explode.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that all parts of the plant are considered poisonous. Luckily the dog has shown no interest in them.

So next time you're walking through the nursery and see some Iceland Poppies, or seeds for same, give them a try. They require little watering or attention, spread themselves readily without being a nuisance, and are quite pretty to look at.

Gardening in Prescott, AZ

Today I welcome a guest writer and dear friend for several years, Paul Curry. Paul and his wife Kris bounce back and forth between homes in Phoenix and Prescott. Prescott qualifies in every sense as high country living: it's high, dry, windy, and gardening there is anything but easy!

New High Country Gardener

Part one: Preparation

Do you have a vegetable garden? This year I am a "first-timer" gardening in Prescott. More people may be getting back to "basics" since the economy has taken a bad fall. In early April, I recall an article in the Wall Street Journal where the author illustrated the challenges of keeping the "cost of vegetables" within reason. This is not at all an easy task. Then there is the effort, most know producing vegetables requires some real effort. For me, it connects me with the land and my grandparents who had to produce food. They had not the luxury of our supermarkets filled with so much produce.

Consider our climate here in Prescott, you may have noticed but it's a bit windy. Actually, this could be Prescott's own little secret, as is the smog of Phoenix. More Prescott secrets: we have a community blessed by dogs with excellent vocal cords and skunks that remind us who owns the night in summertime. At least a little wind won't kill you. But then again, it makes gardening let's say, more challenging. Coupled with very low spring humidity, a stiff breeze will dry out tender vegetables.

So if you are undertaking a garden here in Prescott and you are up near or on a ridge- make use of wind blocks when you place your garden. My new garden here has no effective blocks, so I set up some farm fence stakes and wire-tied some sun shade material to it - now I have at least some wind protection. Then right after that was accomplished, my neighbor suggested I plant a big rose bush to block her view of my new project. Looks like I'll have to win her heart with some summer squash, or some of the 258 zucchini that will come out of that one zucchini plant I have?

Think about sun and shading. The earth tilts on its axis as we change seasons. At least I can recall that from high school physics. So perhaps you have noted where in your yard you have enough sun throughout the growing season to support a vegetable garden- according to a Watter's Garden Center handout that is five to seven hours of sun per day. You can always provide shade, but most folks cannot manufacture sunlight- if you can, please contact the U.S. Dept. of Energy, as they have a job for you.

Let's talk dirt. No, not about the neighbors, but the stuff you need to actually grow things. Unless you live on the bottom lands near a stream bed, your soil likely does not look like good thick loamy black soil that my Aunt Margaret had back in Blackhawk County Iowa- that's where the soil is some seven feet deep and grows corn seven feet high. Yes, I do recall actually hearing the corn grow back there in summer. At the age of five, that was more than a little creepy for a city kid. Either buy some good garden soil or work like crazy with your roto-tiller along with mulch and other products to amend the soil you have. For me, I live near the top of a ridge with compacted fill…I opted to build containers and fill them with soil I bought from Mortimer's Nursery.

One benefit of small containers is that you can move them. I would need the linemen from the Prescott High football team to move the 4 ft x 8ft x 2 ft high wooden planters I built and filled in- all without the blessing of a big yard-bucket loader. They are not going anywhere. But if you get some black plastic buckets from a nursery (cheap) or pricey clay pots then you can use a two-wheel moving dolly to make adjustments as the seasons change and as your squash plant grows into a monster, which it should.

Well, as May 16^th is the date of the average last frost according to the National Weather Service and since we are now 10 degrees above normal temperatures- I'd say if you haven't already got your garden going, well, now is definitely the time. Next article I'll fill you in on my planting from seedlings I grew in April. I'll also find out how many hungry rodents I have in my yard and if they made it past some defenses. Remember, a successful garden is one where you had the produce for dinner.

Paul Curry

An Indoor Greenhouse

In a previous article, I talked about indoor gardening. One of the challenges I faced to growing produce indoors was providing my plants with enough light. In wintertime, the sun is sporadic and short-lived, and not many windows provide southern exposure. In spring and summer, the sun is too high to even shine in. And I have another problem: the dog gets into my plants, as potting soil is a tasty delicacy for her.

So I have come up with an idea for an indoor "greenhouse", or in my case, a blackhouse:

The neighbors who can see this contraption through the window must surely think we're up to something very strange. What this is one of those portable closets that zip shut. I got it at Target for $40. It has a steel frame with a zippered cover completely enclosing it. There are two hanging racks from which I suspended two 20-inch plant lights I purchased at Lowes. With a shelf rigged up in the middle, I can get two levels of plants going in this little plant house.

Here it is open and loaded:

The lights are suspended via a crude pulley system that will allow me to raise them as the plants grow. Both lights are plugged into a 3-plug extension cord, which sneaks out the back of the closet and into a outlet timer. I have the timer set to come on for 15 hours a day so I don't have to worry about turning the lights on and off manually.

With it zipped up, this closet retains what little heat that is given off by the lamps. Moisture can gather in there, too, and the dog cannot get into it. It can literally go anywhere in the house, since the lighting is all artificial. The whole setup cost about $80.

The photo above was several weeks ago. Here are those same two plastic containers as of now. The one in the front is watercress, and the one in back is various salad greens:

One change I would like to make is to double the lights. It seems that one bulb is not enough per shelf, and the plants are bending as much as they can to reach the bulb. Early results also indicate that scallions do not thrive in this environment. Full report to follow once the experiment is complete.