Beautiful, Productive Vegetable Gardens
My first sunflower bloomed just in time for the West Seattle Garden Tour this Sunday, July 18. While my garden isn’t featured on the tour, I will be giving a talk on creating a beautiful and productive kitchen garden at 12:00. My lecture is full of pictures and I’m planning on covering a lot of do-able strategies for growing more food in a regular city lot, including vertical gardening, succession planting, and integrating ornamentals and edibles.
The best part about my lecture? It is being held at South Seattle Community College, which is home to one of Seattle’s best kept gardening secrets—a lovely arboretum! The self-guided tour features a wine tasting and eight fantastic residential gardens, including my friend and neighbor Mari Malcolm’s absolutely amazing retreat. When you enter her garden it is like stepping into another world!
Tickets and maps for the tour are available at Swanson’s Nursery, Wells-Medina Nursery, and West Seattle nursery, as well as a number of small businesses in and around West Seattle. I hope you’ll consider joining me on Sunday!
Update! My original post had a typo. My talk is at noon (not 1:00 as originally stated). I apologize for any confusion!
Looking forward to it all! Sounds like it will be a fun day and I can’t wait to see the pictures. The Edible Garden tour this past weekend was a lot of fun. I met a lot of people, got sunburned and it forced me to finish weeding! =)
July 13th, 2010 at 8:36 amI’m heading over to Mari’s later this morning to cheer her on (and perhaps dig in with her on last minute touch-ups). Sadly, I probably won’t make it to your talk. I’m sure it’ll be fantastic. Hopefully, I’ll see you at Mari’s during the tour. Cheers!
July 13th, 2010 at 8:42 am.-= gardenmentor´s last blog ..Don’t Stop the Seedin’ – a Gardener’s Midsummer Theme Song =-.
Willi’s lecture actually starts at 12:00 at SSCC so don’t miss it – plenty of tickets are still available at all our ticket outlets. The weather is supposed to be perfect so come on out and support WSGT 2010 beneficiaries and make this the best Garden Tour yet!
July 13th, 2010 at 12:59 pmSounds fun!
July 13th, 2010 at 5:11 pmI’m so excited to read on the tour website that “our” Willi is writing a book! I’m so looking forward to it! Spring ’11 will be delightful with spring blossoms and a blossom of a book by Willi.
Wish I were able to fly to Seattle for the tour, but I have other plans that can’t be changed. Just reading about the gardens on the tour wetted my appetite to start another project in one of my garden rooms.
July 13th, 2010 at 7:37 pmLovely sunflower…what cultivar is it?
July 13th, 2010 at 9:09 pmThat is one amazing sunflower. What kind?
July 13th, 2010 at 10:13 pm.-= Terri´s last blog ..no jars- just fiber =-.
Meg–Now that you’re done weeding at your house, please feel free to stop by mine!
Garden Tour–I’m so sorry about the typo! Yes indeed, I am speaking at 12:00 noon.
Mabel and Zora–Nice to meet you yesterday. I do think it will be a fun day, can’t wait to see all the gardens!
Mammaw–I’m pretty excited about the book! I’m working on it right now and am trying to hard to include all sorts of good tidbits.
Sputnik and Teri–I wish I knew! It self-sowed in my garden and I didn’t have any like it last year. So it might be a natural hybrid of flowers that I planted last year. I think I’m going to save seeds from it and see if I can get it to come true next year. I think it looks like a stuffed animal!
July 14th, 2010 at 9:27 amThe Willikins sunflower…sign me up for a few seeds.
July 14th, 2010 at 10:11 amLooking forward to your talk, Willi. I just put in my first two raised beds this year and I can use all the ideas and strategies I can get.
July 14th, 2010 at 8:41 pmI’m enjoying this blog with some nice posts, however have you ever considered a detailed post on flowering shrubs or bushes? I’d be more than happy to help you with your research if you are interested, or do you think this is a bit out of your area of expertise?
January 30th, 2011 at 3:53 pm