You say Toe-MAY-toe; I say Toe-MAH-Toe

April 9th, 2009

A cause for celebration: Hundreds of Heirloom Tomato Starts

Does anyone really NEED 21 tomato plants? The answer is: OF COURSE!

If you are obsessed with having dee-lish heirloom tomatoes at your fingertips, you will want to track down Tomatomania, the largest spring sale of tomato seedlings around. It is a grassroots endeavor; the brainchild of landscape designer and Tomato addict Scott Daigre.

Shopping for the very best of heirloom tomato starts with Tomatomania founder Scott Daigre

I remember meeting Scott in 2006 at the Northwest Flower & Garden Showin Seattle. I’m not really sure why a California boy was up in Seattle, but it was certainly a treat to meet him at one of my book signings. Little did I know ( I find I am saying that a lot these days ) that I would soon be Scott’s neighbor in Ventura Co., and moreover, a customer of one of his Tomatomania events.

A couple of folks, fellow Garden Writers, have kept Tomatomania on my radar. Kate Karem, formerly Cottage Living’s gardening editor and also a former LA resident, told me she used to be involved in Scott’s annual plant sales. While reading Orange Co.-based garden writer Cindy McNatt’s new “Dirt du Jour” blog, I was recently reminded to check out Scott’s event. In fact, it was a link on Cindy’s blog that pointed me to the very first Ventura County “Tomatomania” event at Otto & Sons’ nursery in the agricultural town of Fillmore, about 20 miles north of my place.

My buddy Alex, tomato fan extraordinaire

Since ours is a household of foodies, including children who have very definite opinions on all things culinary, I was psyched to again grow heirloom tomatoes (I haven’t planted any since leaving Seattle – and that’s a pretty tough tomato-growing climate). Whether someone needs as many as Alex and I acquired last Saturday is a matter of opinion.

We have room in our raised beds, so we’re going to go for it. Scott advises that backyard gardeners space tomato plants at 2-foot intervals. We can make it work, I’m sure.

The nursery sale was organized with a logical A to Z display. The only problem is that every single tomato looked healthy and vigorous; the fruit photos and descriptions made our mouths water (or at least piqued our curiosity).

Pick it, Slice it, Salt it, Eat it - Simple!

The wagon Alex pulled for me up quickly. We loved running into Scott, he of the bright red hat, lime green shirt, and turquoise Tomatomania T-shirt. The ambassador of tomatoes is on a roll. His sales now crisscross the US and he has plans to add a few more states in 2010 (even in Texas, he says).

Here is a list of the plants we brought home in 4-inch pots. For $4 each, ours was a good investment. The neighbors are already putting in their requests for our “extras” come harvest-time:

• Cherokee Chocolate: Mahogany-colored variety; excellent flavor, large fruit
• Black Krim: Originally from Krim on the Black Sea of Russia; slightly flattened shape, dark-reddish mahogany color
• Aunt Ruby’s German Green: Pink-blushed interior; green pleated exterior; handed down from Aunt Ruby Arnold, Greenville, Tennessee
• Copia: Named in honor of the American Center for Food, Wine and Arts in Napa, California; a stabilized cross of ‘Green Zebra’ and ‘Mauve Stripe’; fine-lined golden yellow and red striped fruit
• Beam’s Yellow Pear; Pomodoro; La Roma; Sungold Cherry
• Sugary: Sweet, cherry-sized, oval-shaped
• Berkeley Tie-Die: no description necessary! The name alone demanded that we plant this one
• Black Zebra: Perfectly round, 1-1/2-2 inch fruits with deep, dark red to caramel-colored skin beneath dark green-mahogany streaks; smoky-sweet flavor
• Pink Accordian
• Kellogg’s Breakfast: Round, yellow-orange fruit
• Hillbilly Potato-Leaf: From West Virginia (natch); mild flavored beefsteak fruit that weights up to 2 lbs; orange-yellow streaked and mottled shades
• Omar’s Lebanese: 1-2 pound pink beefsteak
• Banana Legs: 4-inch mini banana-shaped, brilliant yellow fruit; fun for kids

Posted in Gardening, General, Plants | 8 Comments »

Peace by Design: a preview

April 6th, 2009

The filming and editing are finished and we’ve posted a short excerpt from “Peace by Design,” my new outdoor lifestyle television show produced by Robert Schauf and Tisha Fein of Branch BR3.  

We developed “Peace by Design” to bring a new level of inspiring and informative garden and home stories to the consumer. With the theme of “creating your own peaceful place – indoors and outdoors,” the show will feature my visits to and interviews with top celebrities in film, television, music and sports. We will single out stars who are passionate about their own environmental activities, sustainable practices and related themes such as living in harmony with the natural world. Each program will be supported by ideas, tips and other takeaways for the viewer who yearns to turn their own backyard into a harmonious and serene environment.

Click here for Peace by Design’s web site and to view an excerpt of the show. Now the fun begins, as we share the show with potential presenting sponsors who view Peace by Design as a multi-platform marketing opportunity. I think the visuals, the celebrity component and the varied topics come together to create an exciting new show. I welcome your response and reaction to this project. I hope you love it as much as I do!

Posted in Creativity, Entertainment, Gardening, General, Landscape Design, Plants, Playfulness, Sheds & Havens, Spiritual Practices, Writing | 5 Comments »

Ides of March . . . April Fools Day . . . and more!

April 5th, 2009

March 30 to April 3, 2009 

Los Angeles to Seattle to Yakima. Back to Los Angeles, via Seattle. Two snowstorms and lots of rain. Heavy doses of friendship.

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The perky roofline of Michelle and Rob Wyles's hedge-enclosed gardenhouse is seen in relief against an expansive eastern Washington sky, photographed by William Wright

Spring may have arrived on March 20th, but it still feels like winter in the Pacific Northwest and there I was, loving it! But to the person, my gardening pals on both sides of the (Washington State) Cascades are sick of this unfriendly weather (unfriendly, at least, to gardens, plants and gardeners).

I flew out of LAX on Monday, arriving in Seattle around 3 p.m. Not wanting to bug any of my hardworking friends, I hopped an express Metro bus from the airport to downtown’s new transit center. That $2.50 bus pass, which even included a transfer to the Number 14 city bus, got me all the way to Mt. Baker neighborhood, where I walked a few short blocks to my friend Jan’s.

She graciously lent me a bed and use of a car – not for the first time – and it felt like coming home to a place I know so well. I walked these sidewalks with my newborn son Benjamin during the summer of 1992. I feel like I have every front yard, every border, memorized. I love the perspective of the often cloud-streaked sky looming above Lake Washington. I love the tall Douglas firs and the western red cedars, the old, overgrown rhododendrons, the Craftsman architecture. This place holds good remembrances.

But it is cold here this week, colder than when my sons and I visited for the Northwest Flower & Garden Show in February. That week – Presidents’ Week – was sunny and blue-skied, with temperature in the mid 40s. Picture perfect and perfect for one’s mood.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSy75jcIgFA

On Tuesday morning, Lorene Edwards Forkner arrived in her trusty All-Wheel Drive Subaru and we began our 3-hour drive east to Yakima – over the Snoqualmie Pass and into Eastern Washington.

It was raining lightly; the air was cold and damp, for what is supposed to be springtime already. As we passed through North Bend and started climbing up toward the summit, the scene on either side of the freeway was cloaked in white. Beautiful, if you like a Christmas card image of dark blue-green conifers frosted with dollops of snow. But brutal for the driver. We slowed down to a snail’s pace at the peak- where truckers literally stopped in the middle of a lane to put on their chains and the little people (the cars, and their drivers, that is), skulked over to a single lane and crept through the pass at single-digit speeds.

 A DIFFERENT LANDSCAPE ALTOGETHER

Linda Knutson and Ron Sell's magnificent Yakima landscape, photographed on our October 2005 tour

With the snow behind us, our arrival in Yakima was cause for celebration. We stopped at Linda Knutson’s and Ron Sell’s, fellow Northwest Horticultural Society members who have always generously shared their four-acre, arboretum-like landscape with visitors. They participate each year in the Northwest Perennial Alliance Open Garden schedule (if you really want a treat, plan a day’s trip to Yakima to see it!)

Linda and Ron focus on texture, color, form using mostly conifers, ornamental grasses, woody ornamental shrubs, stone and artwork. Lorene and I remember with fondness our visit there in October 2005 when I led the NHS weekend tour to Yakima.

A delicious autumn scene at Linda and Ron's, which to me perfectly illustrates an analagous color scheme in plants and art

The weather was pretty unforgiving (brisk and very windy), but after a delicious spanakopita lunch, we bundled up and took a spin around the place. We stayed mostly on the pathways, but we stooped down to observe new crocuses, species tulips, galanthus, chionodoxa and (possibly) pushkinia bulbs poking their heads out of the soil. “These plants are a month behind my Seattle garden,” Lorene observed. “And my Seattle garden is a month behind its usual bloom time.” That tells you a lot about the vagaries of the Pacific Northwest winter of 2008-2009, but Linda and Ron insist that Yakima has been spared much of the snow-dump that hit Spokane and other parts of Eastern Washington (even still, we woke up to snowfall Wednesday morning, April 1^st!).

Later, we met up with shedista Michelle Wyles at Garden Dance, her adorable “fashion and frou-frou” clothing emporium in downtown Yakima. She has one of the best pair of eyes for spotting innovative apparel and interior styling I’ve ever seen.

All you have to do is see how Michelle has created and adorned her charming “shed,” photographed by William Wright for our book, Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways, to know what I mean.

Michelle has had a wide and varied career, including raising alpacas (Right now, the attention-getting creatures at Michelle and Rob’s home/farm are the Guinea hens. What funny poultry!)

Bill Wright's photo of Rob and Michelle Wyles, with Chester (July 2006)

Her garden antiques and retail business has morphed into fashion: Garden Dance is housed in Yakima’s turn-of-the-last-century train station. For about an hour, Lorene and I browsed and oohed and aahed to our heart’s content, while Michelle and her girlfriend/sales associate Stephanie helped guests and handled customers. For some delicious (virtual) retail therapy, read Michelle’s lighthearted blog, linked to her web site.

After they closed shop, we walked across the street to Gilbert Cellars, a cool wine-and-cheese bar that you might expect to find in Seattle’s Belltown district or in Santa Monica. A sampling of artisan cheeses and a sip of wine fortified us for delaying dinner until after my 7 p.m. lecture finished!

My lecture, “the Ultimate Garden Hideaway,” was the final of a four-part lecture series hosted by the Yakima Co. Master Gardeners. Held at the beautiful Yakima Area Arboretum, the lecture series was the brainchild of several incredible volunteers and MG staff, including our fellow GWA member Jim Black. The “Outdoor Room”-themed lecture series included Michelle Wyles and Linda Knutson as prior speakers.

We had a great, sell-out gathering of enthusiastic folks, from shed owners who treated me to stories of their own backyard hideaways, to shed wanna-be’s who had big dreams for their future PODs (Personal Outdoor Dwelling).

As always, I feel so at home with these “peeps,” the Master Gardeners of the world who are truly citizen-volunteers, generous, pay-it-forward folks concerned with educating and inspiring everyone to embrace the traditions and skills of growing edible and ornamental plants.

Mastern Gardener Bill Woolman snapped this photo during my talk, "The Ultimate Garden Hideaway."

Thank you to the Yakima Master Gardeners and the Yakima Area Arboretum for hosting me, and to Michelle and Rob Wyles for housing (and feeding) Lorene and me on Tuesday night. By the way, we woke up to more snow and had fun watching the Wyles poultry population racing around in the cold weather. What a hoot! (Sorry, Lorene, about locking you out of the guesthouse while I was showering away to my heart’s content. I’m glad you’ve thawed out!)

Lorene and I made it back to Seattle pretty quickly. Well, that is AFTER we spent close to an hour searching for a hard-to-find address of a Yakima trailer park (North Acres) to track down the good Samaritan (?) who called me on my cell phone with news that he had found my camera in the parking lot of Gasperetti’s Restaurant in the wee hours of April 1st. I will let Lorene have the honor of blogging about THAT experience. I just checked her terrific blog, Plantedathome.com, and I’m surprised (and a bit relieved) that to date, the photos of that “doo dad” decorated residential trailer have not been posted. Given the blackmail potential, that may be good news. I’ll await Lorene’s decision!

Debra, pontificating about Stylish Sheds (photographed by Bill Woolman)

All in all, this was a good trip. I felt like the Energizer Bunny, squeezing in more friends and networking encounters than anyone could imagine. I had a wonderful evening with the Woodinville Garden Club (thank you to Susan Latter for the invitation to speak), and several excellent encounters with creative people (the subject of future blog posts).

I’ve been home in Southern California for about 36 hours and I can’t wait to stay here for a while. I can’t imagine leaving my family or my garden for one more moment. It’s hard to believe, but I have traveled on seven adventures since I went to Orlando in mid-January. As inspiring and exciting and stimulating as these lecture venues, flower shows, press junkets and garden tours can be, I know they just delay me from sinking my roots deeper in the patch of earth for which I’m responsible. So it’s time to stay put for a while.

It’s Palm Sunday and time to celebrate the gift of life, the gift of love and the gift of nature.

Posted in Creativity, Gardening, General, Landscape Design, Plants, Playfulness, Shed Glossary, Sheds & Havens, Writing | 4 Comments »

Peace by Design: My TV show

March 27th, 2009

Filming the pilot episode of "Peace by Design"

My friends know I am a PRINT person – I love magazines, newspapers and books. I’m kind of okay with the Internet, because blog posts and web sites still involve using letters to compose words and words to create sentences . . . all of which are ultimately read as the printed word.

So this week has been one of those out-of-the-comfort-zone experiences as I “played” at being a television host. Robert Schauf, my amazing and intuitive producer, keeps telling me that talking to the camera is just like talking to a friend (a conversation!). . . and I’m starting to believe him. I just have to imagine all my friends hiding behind the HUGE black lens held by the cute camera guy, John. And then, just talk. Naturally.

Okay, I need to back up. I met Robert Schauf in 2006. It was one of those Kismet moments. It will sound so cliche, but we met on an airplane flying on business class from Burbank to Newark (a Jet Blue flight). I’m pretty unfamiliar with business class, but somehow I was bumped up to that rarefied section because it was the last seat on an overbooked flight. I was on my way to speak to a garden club in New Jersey and absolutely had to make that flight or I would miss the lecture entirely.

Robert, who hops comfortably back and forth between NYC and LA, was returning from a business trip. How do I describe him? He’s tall and slender, he wears the kind of clothing that my teenage son might wear (hip jeans, long-sleeved t-shirts, lace-up Keds) and his shocking white-platinum hair kind of sticks out all over his head. Robert has that Rocker-dude look and frankly I didn’t know what to think of him at first. But we talked nonstop for something like 5-1/2 hours. I was so fascinated with his stories of producing television specials and working on the Grammys. I told him about my new project – about garden sheds! – and described my plans to scout sheds in the Hamptons and NYC after I finished my New Jersey lecture. We exchanged business cards and subsequently swapped a few emails. That was it.

READ MORE…

Posted in Creativity, Entertainment, Landscape Design, Playfulness, Writing | 26 Comments »

It’s official: Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways is “Award-Winning”

March 23rd, 2009

The tan envelope arrives in today’s mail. I open it up, hardly able to focus on the letter from Denise Cowie, chair of the 2009 Garden Writers Association Media Awards program.

But, yes, it seems I read this right. “Your entry has received a Silver Award of Achievement,” the letter explains.

The work: Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways

The category: Writing, book

After whooping it up with my husband, Bruce, I call Jennifer Gilbert at the GWA headquarters to ask whether a letter was sent to Clarkson Potter regarding the “Overall Product” category (which encompasses writing, photography, design and production).

Yes, she assures me, Stylish Sheds has also won a Silver Award for Overall Product. The letter went to our editor, Doris Cooper.

Then I call Bill Wright in Seattle. “Did you open your mail yet?” I ask. “Do you mean my e-mail?” he replies.

“No, your regular mail.”

“It hasn’t come yet today.”

“Oh, well, guess what? We won a Silver Award from Garden Writers for Overall Book Product and I won a Silver for Writing.”

His reply? “Yeah, I got the letter on Saturday saying I won a Silver for Photography.”

What? How could he not be as excited as I am?! He’s known for two days and he didn’t call to tell me!!!

Maybe I’m putting too much emphasis on this, but I love to win – and I love accolades. (Sorry, I know that statement reveals my desire for human affirmation. It often puts me in a bad position because sometimes my motivation to write is more for the accolades than a paycheck!)

Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways, this labor of love, has been positively recognized by many reviewers, purchased by book buyers, and supported by our patient family and friends. That should be reward enough.

But just this once, it’s nice to win something. Even if it’s merely a “certificate” that you can take home and frame.

P.S. We’re eligible in all three categories (Writing, Photography and Overall Product) to be judged for a Gold Award. But we have to wait until the 2009 annual symposium in Raleigh, North Carolina (in September) to know the results.

Posted in Book reviews, Writing | 19 Comments »