July 4th- 4th of July Party at Farmer Brown Garden Supply in Willow Creek, CA
Celebrate the 4th of July with Farmer Brown’s Garden Supply and Black Gold!
Author: Jan Perez
June 4-5, 2011: Outdoor Expo in Renton, WA
June 4 & 5th – Outdoor Expo at McLendon Hardware in Renton, WA
Black Gold wants you to come celebrate:
- Where: McLendon Hardware, 440 Rainier Ave S, Renton, WA 98057
- Date: June 4, 2011
- Time: 10:00am–4:00pm
Great barbecue and celebrity chefs in a public-friendly cookoff will be part of our exciting Outdoor Expo this weekend.
A competitive cooking event, the Washington Spring Training, is scheduled for Saturday June 4. Experienced cooks will dust off their smokers for the start of another year of barbecue competitions hosted by the Pacific Northwest Barbecue Association, which also uses the events to pass along the finer points of barbecuing…just in time for Father’s Day.
Continue reading “June 4-5, 2011: Outdoor Expo in Renton, WA”
June 4th, Rockin' Garden Party
June 4th- Vendor Day at Growing Wild Garden Supply in Hayfork, CA
We have a CURE for the Summer Time Blues!
We appreciate our loyal customers, so we are planning another ROCKIN’ customer appreciation Garden Party! The Party will be Saturday, June 4th at 1 p.m. with fun, food, and music by Hippy Chuck and the Rusty Pipes!
Black Gold will be there to celebrate … will you?
August 13th, Eel River Hydro Booth
August 13th – Eel River Hydro Booth, Humboldt County Fair
Black Gold will be at the Eel River Hydro Booth on August 13th for the 115th Annual Humboldt County Fair. Check out The Biggest Little Fair in the West this summer and enjoy some of these exciting events:
- Live & satellite horse racing
- Mule racing
- Carnival rides & games
- Death defying stunts
- Live entertainment
- Competitive & interesting exhibits
- Livestock events
- Great fair-time foods
- & the old-fashioned fun of a county-wide “family” reunion!
Switch to Drip Irrigation
Written by Nan Sterman
With water shortages from California to South Carolina, Arizona to New York City, even rainy Pennsylvania, what’s a garden lover to do? Adapt. We need to choose plants that survive on little more than rainfall. We need to improve our soils so they absorb and hold water. And we need to make our irrigation systems more efficient. Our task is to grow great gardens using as little water possible, applied as efficiently as possible.
Improving soils can be done with the addition of worm castings (Black Gold Worm Castings) to promote fungi, bacteria, and other beneficial microbes in the soil. Compost and mulch (Black Gold Garden Compost, Black Gold Soil Conditioner or Black Gold All Purpose Potting Soil) improve soil texture and provide the organic matter that feeds the microbes.
In terms of irrigation, it is time to replace fashioned overhead sprinklers with drip irrigation. With drip, nearly 100% of the water that goes into the garden goes into the soil where plant roots are. Overhead sprinklers, on the other hand, waste half of the water they put out. Some evaporates into the air, some is lost to over spray. Much of it simply ends up running off into the gutter. With so much waste, your out of pocket cost is twice what it should be. And, keep in mind that all that water running off your property carries fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and other toxic materials into our lakes, rivers, and oceans. The cost of this pollution is enormous.
Drip just makes sense. It delivers water where plants need it at their roots, in the ground. In fact, drip is so efficient that when water agencies set watering restrictions, gardens watered by drip irrigation are excluded.
How drip works
Drip releases water drip by drip. Where overhead irrigation delivers water on the scale of gallons per minute, drip releases water on the scale of gallons per hour. Even in gardens with heavy clay soils, water absorbs into the ground rather than running off into the gutter.
There are different types of drip technologies, many of which I’ve tested in my own garden. The hands-down winner is in-line drip irrigation. In-line drip (also called “dripperline”) comes from different manufacturers, but all basically operate the same way. In-line drip irrigation consists of a flexible plastic tube, roughly a half-inch diameter, with emitters installed permanently inside the tube. When you look at the tube, you see a hole every six or twelve or eighteen inches along its length. Run your finger along the tube over the hole and you can feel the thickness of the emitter.
In-line drip is different from laser drip, which is simply a tube with holes drilled in it. In-line emitter tubing releases a set amount of water from each emitter along its entire length. Emitter technology prevents roots from creeping in.
Some brands have check valves so that when the line turns off, water stays inside rather than running out and flooding the lowest point. In-line drip fits together with simple, push-in elbows, t’s, and other fittings. In most garden beds, lines are laid out in a grid, then covered over with a layer of mulch to help hold water in the soil. Because there are so few parts and pieces, these systems are very low maintenance. There are no tiny tubes to blow apart, no heads to twist off, break off, or get stepped on. Just remember to push lines aside before you dig in a bed.
There is some cost involved in the initial installation, but with drip irrigation, worm castings, and a nice thick layer of mulch, you’ll soon recover your costs in saved water and healthier plants. 
Plant a Kaleidoscope of South African Bulbs
Written by Nan Sterman
I always caution gardeners in California and other hot, dry summer areas not to plant in summer. Plants just don’t adapt very well when it is so hot. Instead, it is better to plan in summer and plant in winter.
That said, there are a few groups of plants are best planted now, one of which is the South African bulbs. These plants adapt to their hot, dry native habitats by dropping their leaves and sleeping through summer. That means, that summer is the best time for bulb growers to dig them and ship them, whether to the store or to your door. In fact, mid-July to September is the only time you’ll find South African bulbs for sale on a large scale.
Which bulbs am I referring to? Glad you asked. There are dozens of South African bulbs that are beautiful, fantastic, easy garden plants. In frost-free climates, they can stay in the ground year-round, as long as they don’t get too much water in summer.
Their colors, shapes and sizes are fantastic. Plant them now, and you’ll have a kaleidoscope come spring. Here are a few to start with. They all prefer full sun, fairly well draining soil, are drought tolerant, and best planted now, while bulbs are dormant:
Bugle lily
Bugle lilies (Watsonia spp.) make large clumps of sword-shaped leaves, two to four feet tall. Flowers form on long, stalks, and typically in shades of orange, salmon, coral, clear pink, raspberry, or white. They make excellent cut flowers. These are wonderful pass-around plants, too. After the foliage fades in summer, dig up too large clumps and share your spares.
Harlequin flower
Harlequin flowers (Sparaxis spp.) are smaller stand about a foot tall. Flower stalks are topped in single, star-shaped, almost cupped flowers in yellow, orange, or deep cherry, with a contrasting “flare” at the base of each petal. Once established, harlequin flower spread by seed as well as by making new bulbs. So, a few bulbs soon naturalize. They are easy to thin, but don’t throw away the spares. Share with a friend or plant elsewhere in the garden. Harlequin flowers bloom earlier than bugle lilies.
Yellow Marsh Afrikaner
The yellow marsh Afrikaner (Gladiolus tristis) has narrow, almost grass-like leaves that stand about eighteen inches tall. Its yellow-ivory blooms are subtle but beautiful. They bloom as early as January in my San Diego area garden. In the late afternoon, they release a sweet scent lovelier than any perfume.
Sword lily
Sword lily (Gladiolus communis subsp. byzantinus) has a larger stature than its cousin the Afrikaner. Its broad, green blades stand nearly two feet tall. Blooms are larger and hot pink. Not so hot to send you running for sunglasses, but hot enough to be the star attraction during their bloom. Sword lily bloom begins just as yellow marsh Afrikaner fades.
How to grow
Growing these bulbs could not be easier. Plant in 3’s, 5’s, or other odd number clusters. Dig a wide hole, deep enough for the bulb to sit a few inches below soil level. Allow several inches between bulbs, more for larger bulbs. Mix a small amount of Black Gold Garden Compost Blend, a sprinkling of bone meal, and a handful of Black Gold Earthworm Castings into the hole. Place each bulb root side down. The flat end is the root end, the pointed 
end is the shoot end. Cover with soil and water to settle the dirt around the bulb.
As the days grow shorter in October you’ll notice bright green spears poking up through the ground. Those are your new bulbs reaching for the sky. They’ll keep growing until, one by one, each patch of bulbs bursts open in its amazing, colorful glory.
Once flowers fade, cut the stalks to the ground but not the foliage. While leaves are green, they make energy to store in the bulb in preparation for next year’s bloom. If you cut the leaves off before that process is done, your bulbs will likely die.
On-line Bulb Sources:
www.EasytoGrowBulbs.com
www.TelosRareBulbs.com
www.TheBulbMan.com
www.BrentandBeckysBulbs.com
Container Garden Medic to the Rescue
Written by Nan Sterman
This time of year, its pretty hot in my garden – too hot to for new plants to go into the ground and too hot for me to be out in the garden all day. Instead, I turn my attention to my container plants. I have dozens of them, so several are always in need of attention. I walk the garden looking for pots in need of help:
Problem: Potting soil disappears from the pot to the point where the pot is only half filled!
This happens with low quality potting soils as their organic matter composts in place, especially if they contain a large percentage of wood shavings. This is also one of the reasons I started using Black Gold products. Over time, I’ve repotted pots suffering from disappearing soil with Black Gold Cactus Mix and Black Gold Natural and Organic Potting Mix. These soils do settle a little – which is reasonable – but they don’t disappear.
Problem: Plants are leggy or too large for their pots.
Geraniums, for example, often grow leggy in a pot. When this happens, I simply give them a haircut. I cut the branches back to just a few leaves each. Soon, those branches will sprout new shoots and fill back in. I cut the prunings in sections, four to six inches long, including at least a few leaf nodes (nodes look like joints). I tuck these new cuttings back into the potting soil or plant them into a new pot. Most root quickly.
Larger plants, particularly woody plants like shrubs and trees, eventually outgrow their pots. Some can live in a pot for a long time – the pot keeps the root system from growing large, so the plant stays relatively small. But most shrubs and trees need to be moved to larger and larger containers, or to the ground if you want them to have a full, long life.
Problem: In mixed plantings, a few plants eventually dominate while others disappear, leaving ugly voids.
With some experience, you’ll know which plants tend to dominate and which disappear. If you plan ahead, you can put together combinations where plants are more evenly matched. Or, use weaker plants as temporary fillers while the more dominant plants put on size.
Problem: Unglazed terra cotta pots develop a nasty looking white crust.
This happens often in areas with “hard” water. Hard water is filled with minerals that stay behind as water evaporates. The minerals form the white crust on the pots. Now, just think about how much is left behind in the potting mix!
Empty out the pot, and if you can, bare root the plants. Wash the pot off with fresh water, using a stiff brush to scrub off the salts. Refill the pot with fresh potting soil, then replant.
Problem: Water runs down a gap between the potting soil and the edge of the pot.
If there is enough space between the potting soil and the pot for water to run down, shame on you! The potting soil has dried out to the point of being hydrophobic – “afraid” of water. Really, it means that it repels water instead of absorbing it. Set the pot in a basin of water and wait for the water to wick up to the top. Once the potting soil is saturated, remove the pot from the basin and let it drain.
If the pot is really large, use a trowel to break up the edges of the hardened potting soil as best you can. Then, turn the hose on to a drip – and I mean a drip, not a slow stream – and set it to drip onto the potting soil for hours. When you plunge a long screwdriver into the soil and it comes out wet all the way along the shaft, that’s enough.
Now, water often enough to keep the soil damp enough to avoid a repeat performance.
Privileged to Plant a Row for the Hungry
How many times have you passed on a gift of zucchini or fresh tomatoes because you already have dozens ripening at home? We gardeners easily become complacent when we can grow extraordinary produce every summer with enough left over to can or dry or freeze – that is if we want to. And if we don’t want to, most of us would hate to admit how much edible produce lands in the compost heap.
Every summer gardeners across America are faced with this dilemma of excess produce. It was keenly understood by columnist Jeff Lowenfels, the former president of Garden Writers Association (GWA). As a resident of Alaska, he knew Beans’ Cafe; an Anchorage soup kitchen could do so much more for the homeless if they could obtain produce. With most of its food imported to this far away state, the price of purchased fruits and veggies was simply prohibitive. But if the Anchorage gardeners could channel their summertime bounty into the Bean’s Cafe pantry, it would alleviate much of the problem.
Using the platform of his column, Jeff began appealing to gardeners to donate to Bean’s Cafe, and soon the idea spread south and east through the Lower 48. It became a national program of the GWA, a powerful organization of horticultural journalists. As the idea blossomed, journalists developed a more formal program known as Plant a Row For The Hungry (PAR) to assist communities in organizing their own local branches. The PAR guidelines became the basis of a grass roots effort by gardeners to supply food banks, soup kitchens and service organizations everywhere.
Because GWA members work in print, video and online media, this unique ability to spread the word proved highly successful. As columnists and radio hosts began to suggest that each gardener plant just one extra row in the garden, and donate that harvest to the poor, home food growers of every stripe took notice. It took five years to reach the first million pounds of donated produce. Today gardeners are donating a million pounds per year, with each pound calculated to supplement four meals. Just to manage the now thriving national organization, the GWA has created a nonprofit Garden Writers Association Foundation to administer the PAR program.
Every food gardener has an opportunity to become involved because the GWA has branches of this organization in most American communities. Plant a Row for the Hungry is an ideal way to give back in thanksgiving for the privilege of having a bit of earth to turn in this age old right of growing food that now feeds the less fortunate from a million American backyards.
Raised Bed Gardening
Written by Nan Sterman
Raised bed gardening is productive. Imagine this: a vegetable garden that produces a huge amount of food in a small space, takes a minimum amount of water, requires very little maintenance, and brings the plants to you, rather than you having to bed down all the way to the ground.
Sound impossible? Not at all if you garden in raised beds.
Raised beds are like giant, bottomless planter boxes filled with your favorite soil mixture. The best beds are four feet wide – about right for an adult to reach the middle. If you garden with children, 3 ½ feet better suits their shorter arms.
Bed length makes no difference, though the longer a bed, the more efficient use of space.
When my now teenage children were small, they each had their own four by four raised bed separated by a three-foot wide walkway. Three feet accommodates most wheelbarrows (and wheelchairs). Through childhood, they grew whatever they wanted in those boxes. One year, my son planted everything purple – eggplants, asters, purple sugar cane, purple leaf lettuce.
The plants didn’t matter, as long as they were purple.
Eventually, their interest in the garden waned, so we replaced the two little beds with one big bed, the length of the two beds plus the walkway. My new bed was eleven feet long and a more efficient use of the space.
Bed height is important. I’ve seen four inches tall beds, but I prefer them 18 to 24 inches tall with a 2” x 4” wood cap to sit on and set my tools on as I work. If you garden from a wheelchair, you might want something even taller.
While my beds are made of long-lasting redwood, in the school garden I manage, our beds are composite lumber made from recycled soda bottles and ground wooden palettes. They look just like wood but they will last absolutely forever. And we really liked the idea of using a recycled material.
Raised beds can be made of other materials as well; stone, rock, bricks, blocks, logs, broken concrete. If your budget is small, make temporary beds from 25-foot long straw-filled mesh wattle. Irrigation and landscape supply stores sell them for less than $30 each.
Coil the wattle into a circle or, if the circle is too large, coil it into a two-tiered circle. Fill with soil and start planting. The wattle will last for about a year, depending on your climate.
If you garden in gopher-ville or battle other root-loving critters, line the bottom of your beds with galvanized hardware cloth. The tiny mesh protects delicate root crowns from gnawing teeth, but doesn’t prevent fine roots from growing deep into the soil.
Have your irrigation in place before you set raised beds in the ground. Use drip irrigation to target water directly onto plants. Drip is far thriftier than overhead spray. It also keeps water off plant leaves where it can cause fungal diseases like powdery mildew.
Finally, fill beds with a soil mixture that is at least 30% organic matter. Skip the potting soil, it is great for pots but not for raised beds.
Add soil to within about four inches of the lip, then top with a two-inch thick layer of Black Gold Earthworm Castings and a healthy sprinkle of Black Gold Tomato and Vegetable Fertilizer. Use a hand trowel or small spade to turn the amendments into the soil.
After you plant, continue to apply a quality fertilizer throughout the growing season. Annual vegetables, fruits, edible flowers, and herbs are all hungry feeders.
So, for the biggest most beautiful plants and produce, don’t forget the fertilizer. Organic fertilizers and amendments are always better for your plants and your soil than synthetic products.
Mulch your raised beds with old straw and you’ll soon have a wonderful harvest.
Every year, refresh the soil in your raised beds by adding a thick layer of an organic compost such as Black Gold Soil Conditioner or Black Gold Garden Compost Blend.
Enjoy!
So Easy Seed Starting
Each spring of my childhood, I’d pester my mom for radish seeds to plant in the narrow, no-man’s land between our side yard fence and the wall outside my bedroom. I’d rough up the hardened soil, sprinkle on the seeds, and splash with water. Every day after school I’d check for green sprouts, and then for tiny, spicy red orbs. With the level of care I gave them, I got maybe a radish or two from each packet. I was thrilled.
Since then, I‘ve improved my springtime seed starting process – and my success – significantly. Rather than sprinkle a whole package of seed onto the soil, I start individual seeds in containers, then plant seedlings into the garden. Here are my basics.
Containers: Recycle six packs, four packs, yogurt containers, take out containers, etc. Use larger containers for larger seeds. Add drainage holes into the bottom if there aren’t any (always poke from the inside to outside). Disinfect containers by soaking for 30 minutes or more in a solution of nine parts water to one part bleach.
Labels: Recycle plastic labels by disinfecting them with the containers. Or, use clean popsicle sticks. Before you plant, prepare labels with the plant type, variety, and planting date. Use pencil. It doesn’t fade or wash off. Put a label into each empty container.
Soil: Seedlings are extremely susceptible to fungus so use fresh seed starting mix. Seed starting mixes, such as Black Gold Seedling Mix are finely milled so even the tiniest seeds germinate easily. Wet the seed mix to mud pie consistency, then fill each container to within ½ to 1/4″ inch of its top.
Seeds: Your plants will be only as good as your quality of seeds, so don’t scrimp. Read package labels to select the best size and variety and the best time of year to start the seeds. You wouldn’t start tomatoes, for example, in November (unless maybe you live at the equator).
With smallish seeds like tomatoes, set three seeds onto the damp soil in each container or cell. Space seeds as far from each other as possible in that area. Poke larger seeds like cucumbers or squash down into the potting mix just a bit.
Add a layer of damp seed mix to fill the container. Press it in firmly.
Top with a ¼” layer of dry perlite or construction sand (not playground sand). This critical step staves off a common fungus that develops on the surface of damp soil and kills seedlings just after they sprout.
Place containers in a shallow pan filled with several inches of water. Once the water wicks up to the surface of the perlite or sand, remove the containers and let the excess water drain away.
Set containers in a bright spot away from direct sunlight, and where nighttime temperatures stay in the mid 50s F or warmer. That’s the temperature range at which tomatoes, basil, zinnias and other summer treasures germinate. To start summer seedlings earlier in the year, you’ll need a heat mat. I’ll write about that in the future.
The trick now, is keeping the seed mix moist but not too wet. I tent containers individually with lightweight plastic bags from the vegetable bins at the supermarket, or all together with a big plastic bag from the dry cleaners A chopstick in the corners of each container keeps plastic from touching the soil. Once all the seeds sprout, remove the plastic.
The hard part: When seedlings have two sets of leaves, it is time to thin. Thinning may hurt, but you have to do it. Your goal is one healthy pant per cell in a six-pack or a four-pack; one or two plants in the larger containers. Rather than pull out the weak seedlings, cut them off at the base with a baby’s fingernail scissors that has a rounded tip.
As your seedlings grow, keep the soil damp. When it dries a bit, water by setting containers into a dishpan of water. Don’t water from the top. After the seedlings have two sets of leaves, add some dilute fish emulsion or other organic liquid fertilizer to the water.
If you live in a cool climate, your seedlings will need to adjust to the sunny outdoors bit by bit. This hardening off is a process that takes a few weeks. In warmer winter areas, seedlings adjust to garden conditions much more quickly. Either way, after six to eight weeks, seedlings are usually large enough to transplant into the garden.
Within a few months, you’ll be enjoying the fruits of your labor – literally!