Garden Day and Plant Sale: Worth the Drive

Karen Primble

Like many other thrifty gardeners, I am always on the hunt for a great deal.  So, I go to a lot of flea markets and yard sales.  As I search for deals, I always try to ascertain if the bargains are worth the drive.  I can honestly confirm, this sale is worth the drive!

The 2019 Garden Day and Plant Sale is just two weeks away.  You’ll want to add this event to your schedule.  The variety of vegetables for sale is impressive.  You will be able to choose from thirty varieties of tomatoes.  Looking for heirlooms?  Twenty of the thirty tomato varieties are heirlooms.    Looking for a hybrid variety?  This sale has those, too.

Several varieties have interesting back stories.  The Rutgers 250 Schermerhorn, for example, is being touted as a “new heirloom.”  The Rutgers tomato, first made famous by Campbell’s Soup Co. years ago, has come to be known as the quintessential Jersey tomato.  This seed pays homage to the original; you be the judge.

Sun Gold remains our best-selling cherry tomato year after year because of its sweet, delicious flavor.  But this year, you might want to check out the Artisan Series cherry-type tomato.  Some are round and stripy; others are blush-colored and long and pointed.  All are super cool-looking and seriously do taste as great as they look.  Artisan performs well as a container plant, too.

You might want to add a plum/paste tomato to your garden this year.  Some think plum tomatoes are used exclusively for canning.  Actually, plum tomatoes tend to be meatier and have fewer seeds than beefsteak varieties.  For this reason, they are fantastic for salsa, as well as, sauce.  Jersey Devil is a plum tomato that performs well in our area, prolifically supplying sweet, sausage-shaped tomatoes all season long. 

Try adding a little color to your garden this summer.  We have a number of uniquely-colored beefsteak varieties for sale this year.  Ranging from the enormous, yellow Pineapple (fruit can weigh up to 2 pounds) to the hybrid Chef’s Choice Green, to the bi-colored stripes of the heirloom Mr. Stripey.

Of course, you will also find herbs, lettuces, eggplant, peppers, and kale.  The Green Elephant Table promises to provide some great gardening treasures.  You can be sure to find something wonderful at the Garden Day and Plant Sale in beautiful Fairmount Park on April 28^th.  Hope to see you there.  It’s so worth the drive!    

Save the Date! Spring Plant Sale is April 28, 2019

The Penn State Extension Philadelphia Master Gardeners will hold their 6th annual Garden Day and Plant Sale on Sunday, April 28 2019 from 10am - 2pm at the Horticulture Center in Fairmount Park!

 
We will be selling a wide variety of affordable seedlings and house plants, as well as herbs, vegetables and more than 25 varieties of tomatoes.

This event is more than just a plant sale. Penn State Extension Philadelphia Master Gardeners will host workshops and demonstrations throughout the day. There’s something for the entire family!

Scheduled workshops and demos include: 

Science in the Garden (ongoing; 10:00 am - 2:00 pm): Science in the Garden features hands-on activities related to climate change, science and the superpowers of plants.


ColorWheels Make & Take (10:00 am - 1:00 pm): Get on the ColorWheels bus! Children of all ages will enjoy this arts and crafts activity that connects the world of the garden to artistic expression.



Edible and Useful Flowers (10:15 am - 10:45 am): Join the Philadelphia Orchard Project (POP) for a talk on the culinary and medicinal uses of the plants grown in their orchard. Take a guided tour at 11:00 am or 11:30 am, sample teas made from the fruit trees, and then check out the POP plant sale table.


Shake Up Your Salad! (sessions at 10:30 am and 11:15 am): Penn State Extension’s Nutrition Links Coordinator will demonstrate how easy it is to make a healthy, tasty and inexpensive salad. Taste the results yourself, and then visit the plant sale tables for ingredients to make your own.

Bugging Out! Know the Insects in Your Vegetable Garden (11:30 am - 12:15 pm): From pill bugs to mantids and butterflies to cabbage worms--share your insect pest management strategies and learn from others’ experiences too.


Indoor Plants: Beautiful, Beneficial, Sustainable (12:30 pm - 1:15 pm): Learn about the value of indoor houseplants! Have a plant you want more of? Bring it to the workshop—or purchase one at the plant sale—and learn how easy it is to propagate plants. We’ll provide the pots and soil.


Master Gardeners will also be available to answer all your gardening questions, and don’t forget to check out our Edible Landscape Garden and our Certified Pollinator Habitat Garden for inspiration when planning and designing your own home garden.

We hope to see you there! 


This event will be held rain or shine! For more information about the Penn State Extension Philadelphia Master Gardeners’ Garden Day & Plant Sale, visit https://extension.psu.edu/programs/master-gardener/counties/philadelphia/mggardendayplantsale2019

For directions and information about the Horticulture Center, visit https://myphillypark.org/explore/parks/fairmount-park-horticulture-center/

The Fairmount Organic Recycling Center

An old post but it's still valuable information for Philadelphia residents. Need compost take your buckets, ID and get some compost for your garden. 









Lauren McEwen

If you are a Philadelphia resident and a gardener, then RUN, don't walk to the the Fairmount Organic Recycling Center located at 3850 Ford Road in Fairmount Park.

It may not look like much from the entrance, but you've come to the right place!

The Organic Recycling Center is an amazing resource that many gardeners don't realize they have access to. For residential use, city residents may obtain free compost, mulch, wood chips and herbivore manure. Residents are allowed to take up to 30-gallons of material per trip, and to make up to two trips per week. Giant logs are also available for cutting into firewood at no charge. You must provide your own tools, and a chain saw and splitter are recommended for cutting logs into firewood. For the organic materials, I would suggest bringing gardening gloves, a shovel, and a tarp or plastic sheeting to protect your trunk from any spillage.

Residents that wish to obtain more than the free allotment must purchase the materials. Non-residents, landscapers, garden centers, contractors and soil dealers can also purchase materials, which can be loaded into trucks and trailers with a front end loader by Park Staff. 

The Organic Recycling Center Office is the building in the center.

Upon arrival, residents must stop in the office to provide their driver's license to Recycling Center staff to demonstrate proof of residency. Residents must also complete a daily log-in sheet and waiver form prior to loading materials onto their vehicles. There are a few shovels in the office that you may borrow, but I would suggest bringing your own. 

Today I'm here for mulch.

For those driving cars, you can pull up directly next to the huge piles of organic material to load your containers. Trucks (even non-commercial ones) are not allowed in this area. Folks driving trucks must stay parked by the office and then load their containers onto a provided cart to wheel them over.

I like to bring six 5-gallon containers because I can still lift them when full.

I'm not able to produce enough of my own compost at home to fulfill all of my gardening needs, so the Organic Recycling Center is a resource that I greatly appreciate and use often. Maybe on my next trip I'll see you there!

The Fairmount Park Organic Recycling Center is located at:
3850 Ford Road, Philadelphia, PA 19131
215-685-0108

Hours of Operation:
Monday-Friday 7:30AM-3PM

Saturday Hours:
April 1 - October 31
7:30AM-11:30AM

Orchids: A Splash of Color to Brighten a Long Winter

What can be better on a cold, grey, winter day than stepping into a greenhouse bursting with color from exotic plants? Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square has an annual Orchid Extravaganza from January through March, with hundreds of orchids on display. You will find everything from more common plants such as Phalaenopsis, to rare gems such Fredclarkeara After Dark 'SVO Black Pearl', in many colors and creative displays.

One of the many orchid "trees" on display at Longwood Gardens.

The lovely Fredclarkeara After Dark 'SVO Black Pearl' not only looks beautiful, but it also has a subtle but pleasant spicy scent.

Growing Your Own Orchids
You can also enjoy the winter beauty of orchids in your own home, and having a windowsill full of blooming orchids is easier than you may think. With proper care, blooms will return year after year. Phalaenopsis, commonly referred to as moth orchids, bloom for extended periods of time and are readily available (you can even find them at many grocery stores). Here are a few pointers to keep your plants healthy:

• Potting medium: When you purchase an orchid, it will often be in a pot full of bark. Never transplant orchids to regular potting soil, as the specialized roots need the aeration that a loose medium provides.
• Light: Most orchids do best with all day exposure to bright, indirect light. 
• Water: Careful watering is important to keep orchids hydrated, but not too wet. Watering once a week is typically sufficient, though be sure that the potting medium is dry before adding more water. To increase humidity in the winter, you can place orchid pots on a tray with pebbles covered in water. 
• Fertilizer: You can use either a regular 20-20-20 fertilizer or an orchid-specific fertilizer. Apply a weak solution monthly to your regular watering

Whether you enjoy them at a greenhouse such as Longwood, or at home, the exotic flowers of orchids are sure to add some sunshine and color to your winter day. 

Architecture and Landscape Patrick Hauck - Master Gardener Class Presentation

Architecture and Landscape
Patrick Hauck - Master Gardener Class Presentation

I’m Patrick Hauck, and like all gardeners, I like to dig in and get my hands dirty.  I’ve spent nearly forty years working in the world of historic preservation, promoting the revitalization of historic buildings and landscapes, so I’m really in my zone when these two passions intersect.

This is a brief overview about our home and garden on Rural Lane in West Mt. Airy, an ongoing effort for the last 14 plus years.  The house is one of four identical Victorian cottages built in the late 1880s along the Chestnut Hill West rail line.

This is an image of the Allen Lane station showing the four newly built houses in the distance on the far left. 

Here is another image of the rear of the houses, circa 1920, as seen from a neighboring farm.  Our house is the second from the right on the ridge.

Here is the front of the property when we purchased it in 2004. As you can see the house is more than a little tired and the landscape features one dying tree and one planted way too close to house. A project after my own heart.

Fast forward to a few years ago and you can see what a nearly a decade of sweat equity, a good paint job and the introduction of a mix of plant materials including trees, perennials and annuals has done to breathe life into the situation.

Here’s another view of the front of the property at the start of the project, including a peek down to the back yard, showing a little more of the side of the house and the lack of plant materials.

And here we see that same view with the now more established perennial bed coming unto its own, helping to anchor the architecture to the land through the introduction of color and texture. 

And you thought the front was tired, check out the back.  It was time to roll up my sleeves (and get out the checkbook) in order to restore this crumbling porch and establish a new garden.

Sleuthing out the clues as to what the original porch looked like and creating a really close match was a long process, but the results still blow me away. In this image the establishment of the perennial garden beds at the base of the porch area is beginning.

Here is a view of the same perennial bed in the spring a few years later when it has become more established and serves as a stronger visual anchor to the house.

This is the rear viewshed in the backyard before any work began. Even in its ragged condition, it offered a gentle slope with southern exposure--a blank slate and a gardener’s dream.

Here is the same view in early summer a few years back with established perennial beds. Although the entire property is less than a quarter acre, the borrowed view of the woods of the Cresheim Valley provides the illusion of a much larger space.

Looking toward the lower part of the garden is another great borrowed view – this time of the neighbors’ beautiful copper beech tree.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This little metal 1920’s garage was rough, but full of potential and function.

Here is it, all buttoned up and painted. It serves as both a storage shed and garden folly and is anchored into the landscape with bushes, perennials, flower boxes and a raised bed.

Porch/Patio/Dining Room:

I love to create rooms in a garden--separate areas each offering a different feel, such as the back porch area pictured here The views from that room include the amazing mimosa tree in July and surrounding plantings.  It is a great gathering place.

Water Garden:

Tucked away in the side yard is another room- the water garden - featuring a koi pond on one side, and on the other side, my favorite luxury, an outdoor shower.

 Lower Garden/Outdoor Library: The lower garden holds what I call the library. It is wonder shady retreat for reading on a hot summer day. A gated opening provides a view of the woods behind the house, and the room provides a vantage point to see the entire garden and rear of the house.

Putting this overview together, I mused on what gardening has taught me both through failure and success. No matter how much experience we have under our belts, we are always learning. And our gardens reward us for our hard work with a bounty of beauty and color. 

I’m primarily pollinator gardener and keep expanding each year, doing the botanical math of addition, division multiplication and subtraction of plants. If there is one thing I’ve learned, it is to just keep plugging away. If you build it, they will come.

Thanks for letting me share this brief overview of my project with you, and happy gardening!