Thursday, September 3, 2009

“Edible gardens grow - Homecenternews” plus 4 more

“Edible gardens grow - Homecenternews” plus 4 more

Edible gardens grow - Homecenternews

Posted: 03 Sep 2009 03:50 PM PDT

Edible gardens grow

(Aug. 11) By Lisa Goulian

First Lady Michelle Obama isn't the only one tending to her vegetable garden this summer. Millions of Americans have turned to edible gardening as a way to save money and eat healthier, and hardware stores are trying to get their share of this increasing business.

"Edible gardening is hot. You see it all through the business," said Keith DeWolf, merchandise manager for True Value's Home & Garden Showplace. "Everything in gardening is big right now. That's the one area of the business that's very healthy."

According to a survey from the National Gardening Association (NGA), 7 million more American households planned to grow their own fruits, vegetables, herbs and berries in 2009 than in 2008 -- a 19% increase. And research from NPD Group revealed that sales of seed packets were up double digits in 2008, with the same type of increase expected this year.

To capitalize on this growth, many hardware stores are creating an edible gardening section within the lawn and garden area complete with seeds, tomato cages, twist ties, stakes and organic fertilizers. "Not only is the economy driving it, but the whole move toward organics as well," DeWolf said.

Greg Eagleburger, manager of Westlake Ace Hardware in St. Joseph, Mo., said his store is selling more vegetable seeds and plants – particularly tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers -- than ever before. He said the category started to become more popular last year, but then began to surge in the spring, with overall sales up 50% this year.

Lavender Mountain Do it Best in Rome, Ga., is reporting at least a 25% increase in edible gardening related sales, according to horticulturalist Angela Moura. In addition to vegetable and herb seeds and gardening tools sold in the hardware store, the garden center features a wide array of fruit trees and plants -- both organic and conventional.

"The increase really started last fall, and I'm sure a lot of it has to do with the economy," Moura said. "People are trying to become more self-sufficient, and being able to grow one's own food saves money. People are also more concerned about what chemicals are put on their food and where it comes from."

Orgill, the Memphis, Tenn.-based distributer, has reported the following increases this year: 20% in gardening tools; 30% in insecticides and fertilizers and 25% in soil. However, retail programs manager Denise Sullivan said that canning is where the company has seen its biggest increases -- category sales have more than doubled from last year. "Canning is where we have seen the biggest increase, as many consumers are going back to basics since the economy is so tight," she said.

Westlake Ace Hardware's corporate office confirmed that during the past 12 months, the 80-plus-store chain has experienced a 78% in sales increase in canning supplies and a 48% sales increase in pressure cookers. DeWolf also reports a noted increase in canning supply sales at True Value and Home & Garden Showplace stores -- a trend that started heating up in 2008 but saw a bigger push into the spring and summer seasons this year. In fact, the co-op is offering a four-foot end cap with jars, lids and preservatives for those stores that want to step things up in this area.

"It doesn't take a lot of space, is easy to execute and is not sku-intensive," DeWolf said. "This is the first year we're really talking about it as an event: an endcap, newspaper ads. It's a much bigger opportunity."

Winford Jones, owner of Yoder's Hardware in Shipshewana, Ind., has carried canning supplies for more than 30 years, but has seen a marked increase in consumer interest this year. The list of products he carries includes jars, pressure canners and food processors. When he saw an increased interest in seeds for potatoes, peas, beans, beets, radishes, carrots and lettuce this spring, he knew he better put his canning supply order in early and heavy.

"This year, we've tried to stay ahead of the rush," Jones said. "Canning season hasn't even started, and we've already seen the products selling really well."



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The Homebody: A modern vegetable garden - Daily Telegraph

Posted: 03 Sep 2009 11:18 AM PDT

Kate O'Donnell
Published: 3:55PM BST 03 Sep 2009

I went to the Dalmatian coast this year for the first time and, along with the sublime, untouched landscape, I was very taken by the country gardens I saw.

Instead of places in which to grow flowers, the vast majority were being used for growing vegetables: they were, literally, vegetable gardens. Clearly the need for home-grown produce lasted decades longer in Croatia than it did elsewhere in Europe.

But not only were these gardens productive, they actually looked very beautiful – some were embellished with a few (edible) flowers, such as nasturtiums, that were planted in drills just like the veg. In today's grow-your-own spirit, there's a renewed interest in having an allotment, or at least having a vegetable plot in the garden, but, as anyone who has a small garden knows, the amount of vegetables you actually get from a plot isn't that great.

What if, as in Croatia, the entire garden was turned over to fruit and vegetables – complete with aestheticallypleasing willow poles and glass cloches – instead of just a corner of it?

Vegetable gardens can work in even the most urban of city settings. The photographer Cindy Sherman and musician David Byrne have one at their Manhattan apartment overlooking the Hudson River. Designed by fashion-designerturned- plantsman Todd Oldham, the garden doesn't just feed them, it almost feeds their whole block.

Incidentally, I still remember the kitchen garden that Terence Conran exhibited at the Chelsea Flower Show back in 2004. He won a medal for it, but not gold – which I thought a travesty, as he'd got the future of urban living exactly right. Gardening trends reach their highest form of expression at Chelsea, but sometimes I wonder how the winning show-gardens translate to reality.

These days, I detect a turning away from conventional ideas about planting, in favour of something looser, freer and more romantic.

The garden designers Julian and Isabel Bannerman, favourites of the Prince of Wales, open their own garden to the public. Called Hanham Court, they have integrated planting and buildings in a way that's truly organic and enchanting, juxtaposing topiary with tumbling roses and delphinium spikes.

Upcoming plantswoman Sarah Price makes me want to sprinkle about the contents of every packet of cottage garden seeds that I can find. She, like the cult Dutch landscape designer Piet Oudolf, finds beauty in dead and dying grasses as much as in new ones, recognising that plants take on a new life even in decay.

The more urban the setting of her designs, the more romantic the resulting planting looks. This means that city dwellers get the best of all worlds: the sometimes severe lines of classical and modern architecture softened by nature at her sweetest.

Hanham Court: www.hanhamcourt.co.uk.

Sarah Price: www.sarahpricelandscapes.com.

GARDENING DELIGHTS

Terracotta pots grown green-andwhite with mosses look more chic than new ones. Buy them ready-aged from Marston & Langinger, or speed up the ageing process yourself by painting them with live yogurt or drenching them while you're watering the plants.

Marston & Langinger: www.marston-and-langinger.com

Prop or hang a mirror in your garden, as garden writer Elspeth Thompson does: it makes the space seem larger and more mysterious.

Take inspiration from Mary Wesley's novel The Camomile Lawn and grow your own next Spring. Morehaven sells the plants by mail order, but buy them at the crack of January 2010 or they'll be sold out.

Morehaven: www.camomilelawns.co.uk

Sparrow & Finch's bug, butterfly and bat houses are nature-friendly and pretty, but I also rather fancy Burford's cute bee house – designed for solitary bees: it's ideal if the thought of a big beehive scares you.

Sparrow & Finch: www.sparrowandfinch.co.uk . Burford: www.burford.co.uk

Visit Seed To Plate for tips on when to sow and when to reap.

Seed To Plate: www.seedtoplate.co.uk

Show off the fruits of your efforts inside. Outdoor plants in quirky pots are a lovely alternative to a flower vase on the dinner table.

HOME SECRETS

Check out

Late fashion great Gianfranco Ferré's sartorial signature was to combine stripes with checks in his designs – in Ferre's hands the combination never jarred I was reminded of this when I saw pictures of a checked throw on a striped sofa at Singita Castleton Camp in the Sabi Sand Game Reserve, South Africa, which shows it can be done.

A foolproof tip to combining the two? Use similar colours: black with grey, red with pink, purple with lilac and so on.

And so to bed

For some reason, Brits are very unadventurous when it comes to bedlinen – preferring bleached-out colours and sofaint- you-can-barely-see-them prints. I think it's time to throw caution to the wind and buy into the mood-lifting colours, prints and patterns that are coming onto the market. My preferred sources are:

Lulu & Nat for cheery, butterfly-printed cotton. 020 7371 8756; www.luluandnat.com

John Robshaw's vivid Indian cottons at Tissus d'Hélène. 020 7352 9977; www.tissusdhelene.co.uk

Tobias And The Angel for spectacular handblocked cloth. 020 8878 8902: www.tobiasandtheangel.com

Zara Home for all things prettily boho. 020 7432 0040; www.zarahome.com

Fragrant fancies

Good scented drawer liners are hard to find. So joy abounded on discovering vibrant patterns in a selection of delicious scents, including rose tea, mandarin and coriande at Hammocks & High Tea on a recent trip to New York.

Hammocks & High Tea: 001 347 405 75170; www.hammocksandhightea.com .

ONLINE EXCLUSIVE TIPS FROM THE HOMEBODY

Blooming marvellous

Drinkers at London's Mandarin Oriental and other top bars this summer have been dipping sugar-pink Rose de Reims biscuits into their glass of Moet & Chandon Rose Imperial; a regional French custom that's begging to be continued into autumn and beyond to Christmas.

You don't have to stick with rose: dunk a sponge finger (the type you use in trifles) into brut champagne for a couple of seconds to soften it, then enjoy. It's a bit like the Champagne version of a rum baba. Beyond delicious, I can't tell you.

Mulling it over

The second style steal? As seen at Claridge's: mulled wine served in shot glasses. And Re are selling mulled wine gift sets with herbs, spices and a jelly mould so you could have your mulled wine both ways: hot and cold. Liking it all. Mulled wine gift box, £17, by Re. (01434 634567. www.re-foundobjects.com).



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At home with Ms. Cook - Columbia Daily Herald

Posted: 03 Sep 2009 01:20 PM PDT


At home with Ms. Cook

I am drinking homemade herbal tea from a souvenir cup that I collected this past weekend. The party favor reads, "Post-College Parents Weekend — Nashville 2009." Our daughter Quinn and her sundry group of friends discovered each other after trekking to Nashville in search of new and self-reliant lives. The group has been out of various colleges long enough to know the beauty of independence, but also long enough to value the indispensable nature of family, which in the absence of their parents has been recreated in a circuitous manner of happenstance, common history and coincidence.

While the families of origin hail from Ohio, North Carolina and even Columbia, Tenn., they sought each other for companionship and group activity, comprising another sort of clan that produced audible sighs of relief from the visiting parentals. They are hard working but very social — cultural events and weekend jaunts to other cities, church attendance and dinner engagements. Planned activities have supplied the hearty material for a bond that we parents enjoyed observing among our adult children.

Everyone converged at the torchbearer's home (every group needs one) on Friday night for a cookout. Relishing the commonalities, all parents exchanged life stories — in the nest and out — and explored the wonder of how we did it all. We ate grilled tenderloin and delicious sides including an off- the-chart potato salad and privately held (by the TB) cookie recipe that was developed during childhood, by way of her American Girl subscription.

While the hostess grilled, I surveyed the patio garden that was loaded with transplants from her grandmother's yard in Mississippi. Some members of the group discussed a best first planting for a new home, one of herbs.

Next on the agenda was a Saturday afternoon outing nestled in the hills of Arrington Vineyards. Once more, a conversation of the herbal kind ensued when one young lady served up a "killer chicken salad" made with an abundance of fresh dill. Moving around, she still found a way to plant herbs in pots as her mother does to this day.

Such conversation reminded me of my first herb patch some 30 years ago. Established in a raised bed along the side of our first home, Dalton and his father created a space for favored cooking herbs of the day — basil, thyme and oregano. My devotion to such a planting has grown over time, and wherever I live it's one of the first things that I contrive.

Originally, herbs attracted me because of their laid-back approach to life. While cooking, my mother used parsley by the fist-full, and she continually scattered a new batch of seeds to keep production in full tilt. The soil never appeared to be of particular quality, although the scent produced was always clean and fresh. I deduced that for me, herbs were more worthy of my time than flowers — low maintenance in exchange for beauty and sustenance.

With the culinary in mind, you'll understand this single caveat on planting a pot or bed of herbs next spring: location, location, location. Herbs must be by the kitchen door with a basket and cutting tools close at hand. Harvest ease is mandatory because, your marinade, bread, dressing or saut/ are at stake.

A multi-purpose use of herbs is luscious herb butter. I enjoy endless combinations of these plants depending on what strikes my fancy. The small rolls are beautifully presented after freezing and can be taken to a friend as a last minute, but carefully crafted house gift.

You'll find that nothing enhances a dish like locally grown herbs …. so local in fact that they can thrive at your back door and provide a welcome home scent each and every day. After a season or two of bringing them into your life, you'll find them a necessity just like the presence of family or friends — a way to signal that you really are at home.

HERB BUTTER

Even a single herb can be used to produce memorable results.

1/2 cup Italian parsley

2 tablespoons fresh tarragon

2 tablespoons fresh basil

2 tablespoons fresh chives

8 tablespoons, (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 finely chopped clove of garlic

Tabasco to taste

Place parsley, tarragon, basil and chives in a food processor or finely chop by hand. Add the butter, lemon juice, pepper and salt and Tabasco to taste until well mixed. Cover and place in refrigerator for 30 minutes. Form into a log about 1 inch in diameter. Wrap in wax paper, twist ends of paper and chill several hours before serving on anything and everything — delicious. Refrigerate or freeze for up to six months. Slice as needed.

RESOURCES

Horizon Herbs — Seeds and Plants — www.horizonherbs.com

Hummingbird Herbs — locally grown and created herb butters and spreads — Hardin Alley Farmers Market, Spring Hill — (615) 368-7444

Tea Time at Rippavilla — fresh herbs used in all dishes — 2nd and 4th Thursdays — Carolyn Cox — (931) 540-0741

Story created Sep 03, 2009 - 16:27:46 EDT.





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Blues for Food Fest at Magnuson Park Amphitheater and P-Patch serve a ... - Seattle Times

Posted: 03 Sep 2009 04:26 PM PDT

Earnest eaters will go to great lengths — and altitudes — for the blues. Huckleberries are drawing hikers into the Cascades.

This Saturday, much closer to sea level, the 3rd Annual Blues for Food Fest at the Magnuson Park Amphitheater and P-Patch combines fine food, great music and an excellent cause.

Five Northwest blues bands and Zydeco dance lessons are the centerpiece of the all-ages, family event from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the park and community garden at 7400 Sand Point Way NE. Admission is $20 for adults and teens, and $10 for children. Proceeds will go to the P-Patch Trust, local food banks and the Washington Blues Society's musicians relief fund.

Organizer Deb Rock has coordinated a garden for nine years at the Interbay P-Patch, one of 70 community gardens in King County. Forty-eight are food-bank gardens, with volunteers growing and harvesting 24,000 pounds of organic produce for food banks, shelters and transitional housing.

Rock describes the setting along Lake Washington as a community jewel. The bands will play in a green amphitheater setting, and Saturday's schedule includes activities for kids and tours of the children's garden.

Home gardeners with backyard bounty to share are invited to bring fresh organic veggies for the "Beet Hunger" booth staffed by Solid Ground/Lettuce Link. Donations of canned food will be collected by Jam for Cans, a blues society honoree for its work to feed needy people.

A generous streak runs through the blues community. Rock says many musicians know both sides of the table at food banks, either working as volunteers or standing in line for groceries.

For those who cannot live by leafy greens alone, the festival menu includes Smokin' Pete's BBQ of Ballard, honored in June by Sunset magazine as one of the 10 best barbecue emporiums on the West coast.

Performers include Patti Allen/Kathi MacDonald and their All-Star Blues Band, and David Brewer and the Intimidators. Brewer was recently featured on Jonathan Richards' "Blues House," which airs at 10:30 p.m. Thursdays on 90.7 FM, independent public radio in Everett.

Joining Rock in presenting the Blues for Food Fest are veteran producers Billy Stoops, of the Sunbanks Rhythm & Blues Festival, and Cholo Willsin, of the Winthrop Rhythm & Blues Festival. The sound system is courtesy of True Tone Audio of Seattle.

That's a lot of professional talent, experience and fun focused on a worthy cause.

Rock estimates the proceeds from 500 adult admissions would launch a new P-Patch. A robust turnout might help another idea take root: a Seattle blues event in the spirit of Portland's Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival, presented by First Tech Credit Union and dozens of other sponsors.

The Rose City's annual blues party over the Fourth of July celebrated its 22nd run, with four-day attendance topping 96,000. Jean Kempe-Ware, of Oregon Food Bank, which owns and operates the festival, reports 120 acts played on four outdoor stages beside the Willamette River, next to the Hawthorne Bridge.

Daily admission to the nation's second-largest blues festival — only Chicago's is bigger — is a suggested $10 donation and two cans of food. For 20 regional food banks the reward was 87,577 pounds of food and gate receipts of $573,688.

Here in Seattle, the 3rd Annual Blues for Food Fest at a former naval air station has a feature Portland cannot match: cavernous Hangar 30 in case of a downpour. The weather will not be a reason for the blues.

Lance Dickie's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is ldickie@seattletimes.com



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Garage Sale And More At Christ Episcopal Church - Garden City News

Posted: 03 Sep 2009 06:49 PM PDT

Garage Sale And More At Christ Episcopal Church

Christ Church in Garden City is busy again this fall. On Saturday, September 12, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. you can find some great bargains at our Garage Sale. During this time of "belt-tightening" you can afford these household items, games, crafts, costume jewelry and more.

Friends and newcomers are invited to worship at the 10 a.m. Holy Eucharist and to enjoy the Unity Picnic on Sunday, September 13. You can register your child for Sunday School the same day.

Christ Church is home to the Garden Manor Nursery School which starts up for the year on Monday, September 14. Call head teacher Mrs. Carolyn Fernandez at (516) 775-2626 for information. Our popular in-house, open-to-everyone Lunch Bunch and Creative Crafters start up in September. Lunch Bunch, a casual mid-day gathering on the 2nd and 4th Thursday of each month is scheduled for September 24, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Creative Crafters, which produces beautiful greeting cards, meets Monday, September 28, 7 to 9 p.m.

Much is going on this month and more in October. Don't miss the annual Harvest Fair and Antique Sale on Saturday, October 17. Watch too for our family-friendly Fall Fest Dinner.

Christ Church is on the corner of Chester Avenue and Jefferson Street (three blocks west of New Hyde Park Road) in Garden City, including parishioners from neighboring communities and always welcoming new face and visitors. Please call 775-2626 for more information.



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