All the Dirt on Gardening

The Central Ohio Home & Garden Show, Feb. 27 to March 7, has given me 10 free tickets to give away. Email me if you would like to receive some. Here is the lineup -TALENT: Shane Tallant, host of HGTV Designed to Sell,on Saturday, Feb. 27. -Amateur Cake Decorating Contest on Sunday, Feb. 28 and A Professional Cake Decorating Contest will occur Sunday, March 7. Special guest judges for the professional contest will include Food Network's Ace of Cakes stars Geof Manthorne and Mary Alice Yeskey. -GARDENS: Home & Garden show will include 14 large-sized gardens with the Art in Bloom theme, with garden themes ranging from Monet-style, French Riviera Architecture, Art Nouveau etc. -KIDS DAY, Sunday, Feb. 28: with Kids Korner activities (from 11a.m.-1 p.m. with mascot; Columbus Zoo animals from 1:30 - 2:30 p.m.

So far, we just have freezing rain but it should get worse before it gets better. Not only is the weather supposed to be such that it would be foolish to be out on the roads, the church that so generously donated the space for the event is a shelter when the electricity is down. New details (different date, same speakers, time and place) The Muskogee Wellness Committee rescheduled it's Gardening Basics Seminar to Saturday February 27 9 to 12:30 St. Paul's Methodist Church And, if you are stuck inside you might want to sing the suggested new state song SNOW klahoma Where the cold front's sweepin' down the plain An d the piles of sleet, beneath your feet Follow right behind the freezing rain. SNOW klahoma Ev ry night my honey lamb and I Travel home from work and hope some jerk Doesn't wreck our car passing by! We know we belong to the land But it could use some more salt and sand That's why we're saying WHOA! We’re sliding the other way YIKES! We...

IF WEATHER FORCES US TO CANCEL A MESSAGE WILL BE ON 918-686-7200. As part of the Muskogee City Wellness Initiative's Gardening Basics seminar on Saturday, horticulturist Sue Gray will be talking about how to grow fruit in your backyard. Gray was the host of Oklahoma Gardening on public television for over 200 episodes, is responsible for the Horticulture Industries Show, and is the point person for commercial fruit production in Oklahoma. Gray was the 2009 recipient of the Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service's Distinguished Educator award. As part of her quest to help everyone grow some of their own food, Gray started a class in Tulsa called Green Acres. Through the program, Gray teaches retirees how to turn their dream of owning 10 acres into a set of reasonable goals. (Call 918-746-3707 or see www.oces.tulsacounty.org/) If your land is ready to grow, you can add elderberries, blackberries, strawberries, peaches, pears, grapes, quince, apples or cherries. In addition to sel...

The Website Weekend Gardener's 7-Part Houseplant series is called "How to Grow Stunning Houseplants". It begins with diagrams of plant parts above and below the soil and soil structure. The author(s) explain the differences between plants outside and inside - moisture, drainage, airflow. There is a helpful list of plants suited to various light levels and room temperatures. The link above will take you directly to the article. The left side of the web page is rich with other gardener content: How to articles, pest control, etc. With the arctic blast on its way, you may find time to click around. Thanks to Muskogee gardener Jan Ward for the tip!

There's a fun January 21, read in the New York Times by Michael Tortorello, called Packets Full of Miracles Tortorello called gardeners (not people like us, but big deal people) and asked them about where they garden and what they plant. Here's a taste of the article How wrong can you go for $2.25? That's the price of a packet of 20 tomato seeds ... Some gardeners revel in chance and the absurd abundance of botanical diversity. For the last few weeks, I've been calling them, looking for advice. Specifically, I asked these growers for thumbnail descriptions of a few favorite seeds. the season for seed shopping is right about now. Last year, Fedco, the Maine catalog from which I placed my order, had sold out of some popular seed varieties by mid-February, as had other sellers. (Could boutique seeds be America's next speculative bubble?) The seeds these seasoned gardeners recommended flourished in their yards. But that doesn't mean they'll do a blessed thing in...

It was sunny today and the daffodils are up so I am placing my first seed order of 2010. Here's what I ordered from San Hill Preservation Center in Iowa Sugar Snap Peas $1.75 Armstrong Early Cucumber $2.00 Gambro (pimento) Pepper $2.00 Gill's Golden Pippin Winter Squash $2.75 Burpee Gloriana Tomato $1.75 Siberian Pink Tomato $1.75 Asters - mixed colors $1.00 Sweet Genovese Basil $1.25 Total $14.25 Shipping and handling are zero on orders over $10.00 I grew their seeds last year with really good results. If you've never looked at their catalog, check it out online. They accept orders ONLY by U.S. Mail.

Most of the popular vegetable gardening how-to books are written on the east or west coast and have to be interpreted for the Midwest, upper south and south. For example, Four Season Harvest by Eliot Coleman (east coast U.S.), Gardening When It Counts by Steve Solomon (northwest U.S. and New Zealand), and Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew (northern Utah). Gardeners in the rest of the country rely on local university extension office publications. In our area we are fortunate to have both Oklahoma State University and University of Arkansas to provide relevant instruction in print, online and through workshops. Jim Wilson, the former host of “Victory Garden” and his partner Jamie Lynn Mandel, garden in Missouri. Wilson, 83, is the author of 14 gardening books. And he still has an organic garden that is 1,000 square feet divided into mini plots to grow herbs and vegetables for their table and to donate to the hungry. Wilson’s new book, “Homegrown Vegetables, Fruits and Herbs: A B...