All the cool gardening kids are Twittering. Amanda from Kiss My Aster, Andrea from Heavy Petal, Margaret from Away to Garden.

So last week, I decided to join in on the fun. And to my complete surprise twittering actually is fun. Really fun! People twitter about websites they like, plants they want to grow in their gardens, their favorite recipes. Everything! It’s a great place to troll for ideas. For instance, just this morning Amanda posted a link to an awesome edible wall made of lettuce. Who knew?

Twitter is also another great way to discover cool people that you might never run across in your normal life. For instance, I’m following La Marquise Des Anges—a fabulous cook and crafter who blogs from the south of France (the photos in this post are her designs, which you should definitely check out on her Etsy shop). On Twitter, she shares  products she likes on Etsy, music she listens to, and posts updates from her blog.

As for me, I’m tweeting about what’s happening out in the garden, what I’m cooking in the kitchen, and passing along websites, photos, and ideas that I like (and that I think that you might like, too). So, if you’re not twittering, check it out! And if you are, you can now follow me.

My kitchen garden is small—just under 200 square feet—but I managed to cram a ton of vegetables into it by growing summer and winter squash, cucumbers, beans, tomatoes, and peas up trellises. Growing these crops up instead of out frees up a bunch of real estate in our raised beds for beets, carrots, salad greens, flowers, and herbs.

We install a lot of freestanding trellises made out of bamboo and cedar, but last summer we decided to convert our west-facing, 6-foot tall fence into a growing space by installing panels of welded wire mesh on it. The mesh is sold at hardware stores for concrete reinforcing. We bought mesh with four-inch square holes and each 4-foot by 6-foot piece cost less than five dollars. The grand total for this super functional trellis? Fifteen bucks.

Jon installed the panels on the fence by stapling them to the horizontal and vertical fence posts with sturdy ½ inch staples. It took him less than half an hour and was totally worth the time. I planted pole beans underneath each horizontalvertical wire and it was the perfect spacing. The beans filled in quickly—disguising our boring fence—and they loved soaking up all the hot afternoon sun. We also inadvertently grew a butternut squash up the trellis because it jumped off its teepee, scrambled up the wire, and eventually grew over the fence and onto our front lawn!

This weekend, I’m going to plant English peas up the fence trellis. When the peas finish producing in June, I’ll yank them out and grow ‘Satsuki Madori’ cucumbers in their place. Yum!

I cannot bear to eat canned green beans, but I think I might be able to make an exception if they came out of these cool tin can shaped planters from CB2. In the CB2 catalog they suggest planting the corrugated galvanized steel containers with grasses, but I think growing classic canned vegetables like beans, peas, tomatoes, and beets would make a big—not to mention ironic—statement on a patio or rooftop garden.

The Oscar planters come in two sizes—one is two feet tall and the other tops out close to three feet—and they cost $55.95 and $95.95 respectfully. If that’s a little too pricey, consider recycling real tin cans in your garden by planting them up with herbs or using them as cute, free flower vases.

So I’ve kept my lips sealed for a long time about something very exciting, but now I can tell you: Sunset magazine featured me and my vegetable garden in the April issue!!

They sent out the fabulous Jim Henkens to take photos of the garden way back in August of last year, and I’ve been waiting on pins and needles to see the results. The issue just hit newsstands and I am thrilled (thrilled!) with the article. It is really very fun to see me, Jon, the chickens, and our garden in the pages of one my very favorite magazines.  Jim’s photos are so gorgeous and I am extremely flattered by the very nice write up.

I’d like to thank Sunset for including me and my garden in their special gardening issue. The entire issue is just beautiful and full of tips that I want to use in my garden this summer (like hanging wire baskets full of strawberries from a fence). Thank you! Thank you!

Putting together this week’s Backyard Chickens 101 posts has been a lot of fun! For the final installment, I’ve gathered together a list of my favorite city chicken resources.

Chicken Classes
Seattle Tilth offers lots of city chickens classes, including Starting with Baby Chicks, City Chickens 101, and a coop design class. I took City Chickens 101 before we got our birds and it was awesome. They also have a lot of great information on their website, including an archive of their chicken-centric newsletter Scoop from the Coop.

Lots of other organizations around the country offer beginning chicken classes including The Garden for the Environment, Common Ground Organics and Love Apple Farm in the San Francisco Bay Area, Codman Farm in Massachusetts, Angelic Organics near Chicago, Pistils Nursery in Portland, Oregon, and Just Food in New York City. If you know of other organizations that offer city chicken classes, let me know and I’ll add them to this list.

Books
Living with Chickens: Everything You Need to Know to Raise Your Own Backyard Flock. This guide covers all the basics you need to know and is pretty readable, too.

The Fairest Fowl: Portraits of Championship Chickens. Pages and pages of pretty chicken pictures. Plus, Ira Glass wrote it. Need I say more?

Websites
FeatherSite.com: This site is a great resource if you can get past the confusing, old-school web design. They have a great section that details pretty much every breed that you can think of.

Backyardchickens.com: Another fun web-based resource. They have a great message board where you can post chicken keeping questions and an awesome database of coop designs.

I’m in San Francisco this weekend and next week. I’m going to be speaking at the Garden Show and checking out local gardens and nurseries. Stay tuned next week for a full report, plus some cool DIY projects. Have a good weekend!

I’ve got some seriously cool chicken coops to show you today, courtesy of Seattle Tilth, which hosts an annual City Chickens Coop Tour every July. This self-guided tour takes you to different neighborhoods around Seattle, where you can check out a bunch of coops, meet the chickens that live in them, and talk to the chicken keepers. This year’s tour is on July 11, so mark your calendars!

Sadly, our coop is not worthy of being on the tour. We bought it at a local feed store and have been really disappointed with its quality and how difficult it is to access for cleaning. We are considering building a new coop for our girls this fall that has the following qualities:

* A bigger run. I want a covered run that has at least 8 to 10 square feet per bird

* Doors that are raised above the ground. This makes them easier to close because they don’t get clogged with bedding that the chickens kick around.

* Easy access for cleaning. Right now I have to lean into our coop, which makes it difficult to scoop out the bedding, and getting in that close of contact with the chicken poo is kind of gross.

* Built with recycled, durable materials. Most of my favorite coops incorporate recycled windows, doors, and wood. They end up having so much character, and are easier on the environment since they minimize the use of new materials. I like the look of corrugated metals roofs, but I also love, love the green roof on the coop pictured up top. It is the coolest!!

This coop is positively palatial. I think my girls would run away from home if I showed them the photo. I like its clean, modern design and that it has both enclosed and unenclosed runs and is tall enough to stand up in.

This portable coop makes great use of recycled materials and I love the classic barn red color and shape. I think that the entire front (where the doors are) hinges open, making the inside a snap to clean up.

Our next coop will definitely feature a handy exterior nest box like this one. These nest boxes make it super easy to access the eggs, and the hens seem to prefer them, too.

If building a coop is not your forte, high quality, pre-built coops are available, but they are pricey. I am particularly fond of Wine Country Coops and Henspa. You could also hire someone to build the coop. In Seattle, Jennifer Carlson teaches a coop design class at Seattle Tilth and also offers private city chickens consultations, and Seattle Urban Farm Company also builds custom coops.

We love having chickens, but I definitely recommend carefully considering all the benefits (free eggs! great fertilizer! cute chicken antics!) and the drawbacks (cleaning the coop, feeding and watering them in the pouring, freezing rain) before your get them. So for the second installment of Backyard Chickens 101, I’ve pulled together a few things for you to consider:

Know the rules. Before we got our girls I checked out the Seattle Municipal Code that covers keeping chickens. I learned that because our 6500 square foot lot was above average size, we could legally keep four chickens (lots 5000 feet and under can only have three) and that roosters aren’t illegal. We luckily don’t live in a neighborhood with a homeowner’s association, but if you do, check the bylaws before you buy birds.

Be sure you have enough time. All in all taking care of a small flock of chickens is not a ton of work. Jon and I agree that it falls somewhere in between keeping a goldfish and a cat. But consider this: chickens wake up at first light and need to be let out of their coop soon their after. You must also tuck them into bed at dusk to protect them from predators. They need fresh food and water every morning, and clean bedding about once a week, and a couple of times a year you need to clean out their whole coop and run and give everything a good scrub. Before you get your birds, I recommend talking with your family about how you will split up the chicken care so it doesn’t become an issue later.

Make nice with your neighbors, especially if you like to travel. Before we got the chickens, I let our immediate neighbors in on the plan. I told them we were placing their coop far from their bedroom windows and would be giving them lots of free eggs. This worked like a charm, and my neighbor Elaine even told me that she loves hearing my chickens in the morning (and I thought I was the only one!). Since chickens need to be taken care of twice a day, every day it makes planning to go away for the weekend slightly more complicated. We’ve dealt with this by teaching five families on our block how to watch the girls and paying them with fresh eggs.

And finally…I will tell you something that no one told me. Chickens poo a lot. Like twenty times a day. They tend to leave their slippery deposits in inconvenient places around our yard, including on the deck and the arm of our beloved sun chair. This, um, habit of theirs certainly shouldn’t be a deal breaker, but I wanted you all to know.

Tomorrow I have a list of my favorite chicken resources and I am putting up a coop guide on Friday.

Two years ago Jon and I bought four cute little hens that we named Inky, Pinky, Blinky, and Clyde. The only problem?

Pinky and Blinky were roosters. And they made an awful lot of noise in the morning. So I called around and found a nice farmer who let us trade in the roosters for two real hens, who we called Bumble and Boo. Since springtime is just around the corner, and bunches of fluffy little chicks are showing up at feed stores and garden centers, I’ve decided to put together a series of posts called Backyard Chickens 101. I’m going to share some basic chicken advice, show off a few inspirational coops, name my favorite resources, and let you in on how we trained our 85-pound mutt to coexist peacefully with our hens.

First, let me introduce you to our girls:

Meet Clyde. She is a lovely Araucana who lays exceptionally large blue eggs. Don’t you just love her silly, feather-y sideburns? Clyde, like many Araucanas, is a little bit aloof. She looks a bit fierce in this photo, but in real life she actually has a funny, cooky personality and makes the cutest cooing noises when you pet her.

Bumble and Boo are Buff Orpingtons. If they were human, they would definitely be the bad girls who like to sneak out of the house and drive around with older boys in fast cars. They stay up later than our other girls, sleep in longer, and always manage to find a way into the vegetable garden for some unauthorized snacking. Luckily, they have very cute, downy rear ends and lovable bird-brained personalities. They also lay lots of pale brown eggs.

Inky is my favorite chicken. I know you’re not supposed to have favorites, but I can’t help it. Inky is a Black Australorp and she is crazy curious. Last summer I left the backdoor open and a few minutes later I found Inky in our kitchen checking herself out in the door of the dishwasher. She also loves to follow our dog, Domino, around the backyard and she lays beautiful almond colored eggs.

Now that you’ve seen our chickens’ glamour shots, don’t you want a few of your own? Good! Here are a few more details about Inky, Clyde, Bumble and Boo Boo:

Chicks or Pullets: Chicks are newborn chickens and they require lots of warmth, attention, and room to grow. Since we have a very small house, we bought pullets, which are 12-week-old hens. The nice thing about pullets is they can go outside into the coop immediately (no need for a brooder light) and they start laying eggs in about 3 months (instead of 6 with chicks).

Where to find chickens: We found ads for pullets on Craig’s List and bought Inky and Clyde from Barnyard Gardens–a small nursery and farm on the Kitsap Peninusla that I highly recommend. We also found the boys—Pinky and Blinky—on Craig’s List. So it is not entirely reliable. If you can’t find pullets on Craig’s List, call your local 4-H, feed stores, or look on meetup.com or Yahoo! Groups to see if there is a chicken enthusiast group in your area (I belong to Seattle’s Chicken Lovers Group).

Breeds: One Araucana, two Buff Orpingtons, and one Black Australorp

Free range vs. Cooped Up: We let them range in our backyard when we are home, which is a slight risk because some predators, especially raccoons, do prowl around during the day. But our dog does a good job patrolling our yard, so we feel pretty comfortable letting the chickens roam free when we are within earshot. When we’re away from home, we lock them into their coop and attached, covered outdoor run.

Eggs: Approximately 3 each day from February through November, their laying tapers off during the darkest months. The eggs are gorgeous and we eat them all the time. FYI, you don’t need roosters to get eggs—you only need them if you want chicks.

Food: Organic layer mash (we get it at Hayes Feed & Country Store in Burien for about $28 a bag), cracked corn, grass, worms and insects, and table scraps. Our hens’ eggs have bright orange yolks because the green grass they nibble on everyday contains healthful carotenoid pigments that contribute to the color of the yolks.

Coop Bedding: Aspen shavings. We found that straw gets slimey and smelly. The aspen bedding and chicken manure composts quickly when mixed with grass clippings or green garden waste, making it easy for us to recycle all the bedding right in our own yard.

Will We Eat Them When They Get Old? Jon is a vegetarian. Enough said.

Tomorrow I’ll give you a few pointers on getting your first flock and some advice on coops and pictures of awesome coops from The Seattle Tilth City Chickens Coop Tour (coming up this year on July 11 ).

The best part about growing arugula is you really only have to trouble yourself with planting it once. After producing loads of leaves for a month or more, this spicy little green sends up a stalk of dainty, tasty flowers, followed by crisp, edible seedpods that, if left to their own devices, conveniently drop seeds around the garden.

Self-Sown Arugula Seedlings

Last fall I dug up a bunch of self-sown arugula plants. I threw most of them into the compost bin and transplanted the remainder into one of my big, square raised beds. I forgot to mulch them, but it didn’t matter. The sturdy plants were not phased by below freezing temperatures, snow, hard rain, and the occasional nibble from our naughty chickens.

An Arugula Seedling That Is All Grown Up

For the past couple months, I’ve been harvesting big bunches of arugula and eating them in salads or stuffing them into quesadillas at lunchtime. Then, last week, I came across a recipe for arugula pesto that Jennifer Stanton, our fabulous wedding photographer (who also happens to be a big time vegetable gardener) sent me.

Jennifer’s recipe is very simple—just arugula, olive oil, sea salt, and pepper. She starts by blanching a bunch of arugula briefly in boiling water, wringing it dry, and then blending it in a food processor with 1/3 cup olive oil until smooth. I followed her recipe exactly last spring and it was delicious.

This time I was feeling lazy and decided to skip the blanching step. I also felt like adding in nuts and Parmesan cheese. Many arugula pesto recipes call for either walnuts or pine nuts. I happened to be out of both, but I did have a bunch of sunflower seeds on hand. So I threw them into the mix. I used my grandmother’s basil pesto recipe as a starting point for the ingredients’ proportions, but ended up adding in more cheese to mellow out the arugula’s spicy flavor. The result? A delicious wintertime pesto that adds a really bright, green flavor to basic recipes. The recipe makes over a cup of pesto, so here are a few ideas for using it up:

Steamed potatoes. Jennifer suggests steaming new potatoes and then tossing them with the arugula pesto.

Grilled cheese. Spread a thin layer of the pesto on a slice of good bread, top with grated Gruyere and another slice of bread. Toast it in a skillet slicked with butter until the sandwich is golden brown on both sides and the cheese is melted and gooey. Serve with tomato soup or salad. I had this three times for lunch last week because it is so fast and easy to make.

Pasta. Add some reserved pasta water to 2 or 3 tablespoons of the pesto to thin it out a bit. Then toss it with a serving of hot pasta. Top with a pinch of red pepper flakes, salt, and a dusting or Parmesan cheese.

Arugula Pesto
Leaves from younger plants work best in the pesto because arugula gets increasingly spicy, and develops a more pungent flavor, as it matures. If you only have older leaves on hand, not to worry. Just blanch them in hot water first to knock the spiciness down a level or two. To prevent the pesto from turning an unattractive greenish black color, load it into a glass or plastic container. Then, smoosh a piece of plastic wrap directly onto the surface of the pesto and cover the container with a tight fitting lid. The pesto keeps in the fridge for a week or more. It also freezes well, for freezing instructions, check out my basil pesto recipe.

You’ll need:
4 cups of arugula leaves, roughly chopped (remove any tough stems)
2 cloves garlic
½ cup sunflower seed kernels
¾ cup Parmesan cheese
½ cup olive oil
salt to taste

Instructions:
In a food processor, blend the arugula, garlic, pine nuts and Parmesan cheese into a smooth paste. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Then, with the blade running, slowly drizzle in the olive oil. Process until the olive oil is thoroughly incorporated and the pesto is smooth. Give the pesto a taste and add salt if necessary.

I saw this chicken on Design*Sponge this morning and I think I need it. Why? I have no idea. But since I already have four real chickens, why not add a green, plastic rocking hen to the mix?

Speaking of chickens, I’ve been getting a lot of emails lately about raising chickens in the city. So I’m working on a series of posts for next week on the joys of having four living creatures that like to squawk, scratch and, um, make deposits all over your yard.

Stay tuned!

I am not in love with the makeshift wire fence that protects our vegetable garden from the marauding flock of chickens that we let loose into our backyard every morning. So, I’ve decided to disguise the fence by planting a row of artichokes all along the outside of it later this spring. My hope is that the big, silvery plants will cover up the fence by mid-summer and make for a dramatic—and delicious—entrance into the garden.

My only problem is I’m a little worried my vision won’t become a reality. I grew artichokes for the first time last year and they never really took off.  I only got three small artichokes and the little buggers flowered before I had a chance to harvest. I suspect that they didn’t love the rocky, dry soil I planted them in.

My plan this year is to really loosen up the soil in the new artichoke beds and dig in an inch or so of composted chicken bedding before I plant the seedlings. I’m also considering underplanting the artichokes with nasturtiums because they are so pretty and make a great living mulch.

Have any of you had success with artichokes in the past? Should I foliar feed with fish emulsion? When is the best time to harvest? If you’ve got advice, please share. I’m all ears!

Artichoke Beginning to Flower

Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Today’s food photography feature will make you want to stop staring at your computer and start planning a dinner party.

The gorgeous photos you see here come courtesy of Seattle-based photographer John Granen, who was lucky enough to collaborate with chef Jerry Traunfeld on his cookbook The Herbal Kitchen: Cooking with Fragrance and Flavor.

Warm Figs Filled with Goat Cheese and Bacon

In the cookbook, Traunfeld (who left the acclaimed Herbfarm Restaurant to open Poppy) encourages everyone who loves to cook to grow their own herbs. It’s an invitation that Granen’s photographs make absolutely irresistible. Each recipe is accompanied with a full page photo that makes you wish you could reach in, fork in hand, to sample the food.

Top on my list of things to try? The Simpler Summer Rolls. The photo is just so fresh and green. It makes me certain that spring—and all the wonderful food that comes with it—is just around the corner.

Simpler Summer Rolls

Rosemary Mussel Skewers

Spicy Verbena Meatballs

Don’t you just love this picture? It’s from Birds N’ Such–a delightful blog managed by Virginia-based gardener and bird watcher, Alan Pulley. Since my own garden has a pathetic amount of bird habitat, I often pop over to Birds N’Such for a little vicarious bird watching. Alan takes gorgeous bird photos and has recently been sharing images (including the one above) taken with his Wingscapes BirdCam–a motion activated digital camera designed to take photos of wild birds. How cool is that?

I asked Alan, who is also a vegetable gardener, if he would mind writing a guest post on how to attract birds to the garden and the advantages birds give to a vegetable gardener (since anyone who has ever had their pea seeds plucked from the soil understands the disadvantages). He most generously agreed and I am excited to share his advice with you. Enjoy!

Tips from Birds ‘N Such

I watched one day as a male northern cardinal hopped from one tomato cage to the other, each time peeking into the tomato plants as if he were looking for something. This continued for a few minutes until he finally came out from under one of the plants with his prize – a big, fat, juicy hornworm. Those familiar with growing tomatoes know the type of damage that these worms can cause if left to run free on your tomato plants. Once the cardinal knew where the food source was, he continued to return throughout the summer, keeping my tomato plants pest free.

Having birds in and around our gardens provides a great natural benefit. Birds are willing assistants that help maintain a natural balance between plants and pests. Fortunately, they go to work for us at just the right time. In order to feed their young the protein they need, birds that eat seeds and berries in the fall and winter switch to a more protein based diet consisting of insects and other bugs in the spring and summer.

Fledglings are insatiable and need food every few minutes. So when birds nest in your yard, they consume a lot of nearby insects. Species such as swallows and flycatchers snare flying insects while others like nuthatches and thrashers eat insects from trees and at ground level. If given the right environment, you can attract a wide variety of birds to your yard and benefit from having organic pest control within the garden.

If you want birds to make their homes in your yard, it is important to provide them with a desirable environment. Birds prefer a multi-layered canopy of plants, shrubs and trees of various sizes that offer food, shelter and a place for nesting. The more diversity you have, the better. If you’re not sure where to start, check with your local extension agency for the best suited trees and shrubs in your area. I’m sure they would be glad to provide recommendations or suggest a good book as a reference for your region.

Pay special attention to native plants and trees that already grow in your area. Native species are quicker to establish and are more recognizable to birds and other wildlife. For a quick start, consider adding a basic birdfeeder filled with black-oil sunflower seeds. A birdfeeder will attract a variety of birds to your backyard in no time.

In addition, a water source can bring in even more birds. Not only will this attract the birds already coming to your feeder, but it will also lure a variety of birds, like warblers, to your yard that don’t normally eat at bird feeders. The water source doesn’t have to be elaborate; an upside down garbage can lid placed on the ground or on a table top will do. Add a stone in the center of it for the smaller birds to perch on and keep the water clean and you will have an instant, portable birdbath.

To check out more of Alan’s bird photos, please visit his blog Birds N’ Such (I’m especially partial to the post BirdCam Adventures 3 because it has some great candid shots of chickens!!).

I think I have officially crossed the line and become a total garden nerd. Why? I bought a soil thermometer. And I am addicted to checking it. Like five times a day.

You see, I have this book The New Seed-Starters Handbook. On page 33 it has a cool chart that tells you the number of days it takes for vegetable seeds to germinate at different temperatures. Peas will germinate in soil that is as cold as 40 degrees F, but it can take up to 36 days. If you wait to plant until the soil is just 10 degrees warmer (50 degrees F), the big fat seeds germinate in 13 days. And if you can hold off until the soil hits 59 degrees it only takes those babies 9 days to pop their heads out of the soil. With this information in hand, I marched out to my garden last week and stuck my finger in the nearest raised bed. My soil felt cold. How cold? I had no idea.

Enter the soil thermometer. I plunged it into the ground and it came back with a reading of a cool 42 degrees F. Then it snowed the next day and the soil temperature dropped to 35 degrees. I was pretty much tortured at the thought of having to wait days, possibly weeks, for the mercury to make the long climb up to 50 degree F.

So I caved and bought two very lovely six packs of pea starts at the nursery. I justified this unnecessary and impulsive purchase by reasoning that I would have a staggered pea harvest by planting the seedlings now and then planting my seeds when the soil warms up a bit. I mean, who can have enough peas?

When I looked out my office window today at 4:00 pm the sun was shining. The wind was still. The air temperature a very manageable 50 degrees F. I decided it was the perfect time to start my 2009 garden. (Note: The soil temperature was still 44 degrees. The same temperature as this morning, damn it).

When I planted the pea seedlings they looked lonely and small all by themselves in the garden. So I decided to pop in a few lettuce seedlings to keep them company. And sow some spinach seeds for good measure. I held myself back from sowing bok choi and carrots. I’m waiting to plant them until the soil thermometer holds steady at 45 degrees F, if I can stand it.