No Guff Vegetable Gardening - A Surprise Gift

Everyone loves a gift. This year, just before Christmas my little book No Guff Vegetable Gardening got a gift of its own. It was chosen by an American publisher - St. Lynn's Press - as a new title to be reprinted and added to their publications list. Yes, No Guff, my little book is going international. With a bit of repackaging it will be launched again in February 2012.

It all started a year ago when Steven and I were racing to finish the text and the artists were working through Christmas to finish the illustrations for my third book - No Guff Vegetable Gardening. I applied to speak at the annual meeting of the Garden Writer's Association (GWA) even though the book was still being built. I was asked to speak to a Mother's group on March 2cnd, 2011 and I couldn't go there empty handed. The gals who meet in the church basement with babies and preschoolers had booked me the summer before. I couldn't let them down. Working long hours, the text and illustrations and full layout were sent off to print at the end of January. Whew.

In our race against time we produced a book unlike any other self published book. We launched it first in Toronto because we were asked to speak at Canada Blooms in Toronto. From there I travelled all over the province and into B.C. to present to live audiences in a whirlwind of speaking events from Hillcrest Alberta to Gabriola, Kelowna and Vancouver B.C.(see me posing above at 32 Books a great little bookstore in North Vancouver). Finally we learned our application to GWA had been accepted and we gave our first International talk about No Guff in Indianapolis in August. We met several publishers there but still I was surprised when Paul Kelly emailed us soon after our talk to ask if he could reprint in the USA and around the world. The final papers were signed just before Christmas this year (2011) and the book will be printed and distributed everywhere except Canada in the New Year.

That isn't a mistake: we are retaining the right to distribute and sell in Canada where we have a great market thanks to CBC radio in Alberta, The Calgary Herald and all our friends in the garden writer's group. Mark Cullen, for instance mentioned us in his Christmas column in the Toronto Star just two weeks before Christmas. Thank goodness Susan Toy (Alberta Books Canada) had convinced us to put our book in Chapters. Orders started flying off the shelf and web page after that article and all the positive comments started appearing on Chapter's web page. Susan has been enthusiastic in finding reviewers and we thank her for that and look forward to working with her in the New Year as she suggests me as speaker par excellence to her many contacts. I am especially keen to speak to Master Gardener groups because the Master Gardeners I had review this book loved it and I love Master Gardeners!

With presents like this who cares about short days?

IF YOU LIKE MY APPROACH TO GARDENING, YOU’LL LOVE MY BOOK

Click the PayPal Add-to-Cart button below to purchase No Guff Vegetable Gardening through my fulfilment partner Alpine Book Peddlers.

 

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And Finally: Gardening is a Gift

My friends probably think I am weird because I garden for fun, for work and for academic interest. I never get enough of it. If you are a gardener you are probably a creative soul but also a scientifically curious person with a wide range of interests. I always say when I retire I will really garden but in fact I have been gardening my whole life. Over the years I have added writing about gardening, answering questions on radio about gardening and doing a television show about gardening. I have taught gardening at college and worked at a botanical garden looking after volunteers who loved to garden.

In other words gardening is my gift. I hope to keep sharing it with my readers for years to come. Thank-you all for sending me notes and commenting on my blog.That is your gift to me.

IF YOU LIKE MY APPROACH TO GARDENING, YOU’LL LOVE MY BOOK

Click the PayPal Add-to-Cart button below to purchase No Guff Vegetable Gardening through my fulfilment partner Alpine Book Peddlers.

 

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Gardener's Gifts for the Season

Dec 23, 2011- Script for CBC Radio: Alberta at Noon

Gardener’s Are Dreaming of …

Gifts for gardeners can be – well – gifty, or they can be practical, handy little items. They can be cheap (under a dollar) or they can be lavish (over $5,000.00). If they are too gifty, you have to really know the gardener – I think gazing balls look tacky but others like them. I prefer to get real garden gifts. I like things that make the hobby of gardening more fun.

My best-ever garden gift is still in use. All summer long and for over twenty years I’ve used it. It is a superb narrow stainless steel transplant spade; a gift from my Mother-in-law at least 25 year’s ago. Yes, I somehow survived with the wide spade most gardeners have but this little hardwood-handled beauty has made every job easier. It has been used to move plants, dig irrigation trenches and settle in bits of soil or compost around plants. I rely on it. It is visually and technically beautiful.

My worst ever gift was something I bought myself. This spring I picked up a garden time-lapse camera. I was exited about using the photos of seedlings germinating for my talks. I had lots of seeds germinating but no luck getting these images to download on my computer. Not a single time-lapse sequence has been shown at a single talk and now I don’t even remember where the camera is.

Here are some variously priced practical ideas to think about for the gardener in your life this season:

Simple- Free- $5.00
1) Gather up pebbles and put them in a shallow bowl or use an old existing birdbath or fountain. Place it outside in the spring and small birds and butterflies won’t drown while they drink. (No kidding bags of rocks are for sale at stores but moms will want the ones her kids collect.)
2) Cut small round pieces of screening to fit over a mason jar. Use the jar to grow sprouts all winter long to perk up salads and sandwiches.
3) Seeds of easy and fast growing flowers are fun to receive and reaily available at most garden centers. Simple things like bachelor’s buttons, calendula, cosmos and Tagetes marigolds can be started directly outside from seeds tucked into stockings this Christmas. If your favorite gardener prefers vegetables, buy a pack a lettuce, spinach, parsley or basil. These are easy to start and grow on indoors. (A gift certificate from McFaydens or other catalogue sales companies will also work in a pinch,)
Medium Priced Gifts – up to $100.00
1) There is nothing like a well-balanced watering can and Haws has been making nice ones for over 100 years. Now you can brighten up the garden because these traditionally built metal cans come in show stopping purple and red as well as the original forest green and copper colours.
2) It is so distracting to have a dirty plastic bucket under your sink for what looks like pig slop but is in fact your spent fruit skins and cores. This year I am pretty sure gardeners will be delighted to get a nice stainless steel bucket for compost, especially a bucket with a charcoal filter so they don’t smell or let irritating little flies in and out.
3) Grow lights are fun and give the keen gardener a chance to get things growing before it is time to work outside. Many systems use fluorescent lights and these have ballasts that gradually burn out. The simple solution, and with less energy use is the newer breed of Compact florescent lights available under the Jump Start brand from Garden Retreat here in Calgary. These little systems cost $80-$90 and are quite narrow so good for a small spot in the kitchen where you want to grow a few herbs.
4) Seedling-warmer plastic mats have been available for a while but this year Jump Start has introduced a narrow heating pad perfect for windowsills. Like the larger – tray-sized mats, these will encourage fast germination. Because it is often cold by a window these also provide the bottom heat needed to get keep things growing once they sprout.

Lavish Garden Gifts
1) I don’t know a single keen gardener who would turn down a small backyard greenhouse. Clip a photo out of a magazine, include a book on greenhouse growing and slip this idea under the tree. Expect to pay from 1,000-5,000 depending on the materials and size chosen. Better yet, offer to install it. Better than a diamond any day!

IF YOU LIKE MY APPROACH TO GARDENING, YOU’LL LOVE MY BOOK

Click the PayPal Add-to-Cart button below to purchase No Guff Vegetable Gardening through my fulfilment partner Alpine Book Peddlers.

 

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Faux is Fun: The Gift of Play in the Garden

Topiary, spray painted ornamental onion heads and fake windows painted on homes in Wales are all examples of fun in the garden. They are the furthest thing from serious pest control or work projects in the garden.

This year I fell in love with how easy it is to keep a small shrub in a topiary form and when I was in Europe I saw how this form, while reviled by some, could be a lot of fun. If you are a serious gardener with only serious pursuits in mind this isn't the style for you.

IF YOU LIKE MY APPROACH TO GARDENING, YOU’LL LOVE MY BOOK

Click the PayPal Add-to-Cart button below to purchase No Guff Vegetable Gardening through my fulfilment partner Alpine Book Peddlers.

 

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Old is New: Gift of Garden's Past

I once read the newest trend in gardening is the gravel path. I laugh about this when I give talks and tell farmer's and rural gardeners in Alberta that their driveways are now the latest thing in garden design. But there I was in rural Wales and modern London this year and guess what? It is true.

Gravel is used right up to the house in some cases and gravel mulch is used in combination with other materials in others. In other words everything old to us and even older in Britain is quite commonplace and still fresh. I want to change my city home to work in more gravel everywhere - except for those places where I have to shovel. There won't be a gravel path going into my front walk any time soon.

IF YOU LIKE MY APPROACH TO GARDENING, YOU’LL LOVE MY BOOK

Click the PayPal Add-to-Cart button below to purchase No Guff Vegetable Gardening through my fulfilment partner Alpine Book Peddlers.

 

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The long fall: Gift of Time

When I came home late September from Wales and London I expected everything to be dead from frost in the Calgary garden. It wasn't- in fact I had another batch of ripe tomatoes and a long season of purple asters. I am still eating kale salad brought in earlier from the yard and the ground cherries I picked in November on the greenhouse floor are still gradually ripening on the counter.

This year I am thankful for the long fall and all the bounty it brought!

IF YOU LIKE MY APPROACH TO GARDENING, YOU’LL LOVE MY BOOK

Click the PayPal Add-to-Cart button below to purchase No Guff Vegetable Gardening through my fulfilment partner Alpine Book Peddlers.

 

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Garden wildlife: Gift of Wonder

This summer spit became an object of fascination for my grandkids. Mali and Kale weren't interested in just any old spit. The fell in love with "spit bugs" as Kale called them. We took long walks looking for spittle bugs in the parks and pathways. They carefully collected them in their plastic tubs (with breathing holes and parts of plants of course). Getting them to head home was a tricky thing and I never did ask their mom how she handled them at her end but that's the fun of being a grandma- we can drop off kids and bugs with one happy farewell wave.

This spittle bug collecting was an extension of my grandkid's love for worms and all the worm sorting and finding we had done earlier in the summer. Yes, once a year we dump out our worm bin and the kids are excited to help sort the worms from the finished compost in my big yellow wheelbarrow. Obviously this is kind of a gross job and one of the many things I learned this year is that I can avoid all the sorting by taking the lid off the bin and shining a bright light on it to drive the worms deeper. Thanks go to Ralph Rhoads, inventor of the Worm Factory for this tidbit- Like me he started with the can-o-worms from Australia but unlike me he did something more and invented this newer studier system called the Worm Factory.

To say Ralph knows something about worms is an understatement. For more info about the Worm Factoy see http://naturesfootprintinc.com/. By the way Ralph offers many opportunities for communities and cities to buy bulk or discount worm bins - check out his web page for details.

IF YOU LIKE MY APPROACH TO GARDENING, YOU’LL LOVE MY BOOK

Click the PayPal Add-to-Cart button below to purchase No Guff Vegetable Gardening through my fulfilment partner Alpine Book Peddlers.

 

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Outdoor Living: Gift of Comfort and Joy

We knew our dinner with Peggy and Darryl would be the last in our little Calgary garden.

We planned to (and did) sell our house in the fall and with travel and conferences and trips back to the coast our mid-summer dinner really was our last chance to enjoy the little pond and warm evening air as we dined al fresco watching bats fly past while our pooch lazily laid on my rare Adonis vernalis.

Although there is always a lot of emphasis on the three W's (weeding and watering and working) in the garden there should be a few minutes set aside for special moments: some time for lazing about after your real work and garden work.

I like to keep a few minutes for play, family and friends in the garden. The grandchildren hunt for rare rocks and treasures in the (very safe) pond-less water garden and I wait for a glimpse of a bird taking a bath in the stream. I am thankful for all the times we shared with friends in our back yard and look forward to impromptu parties in both our tiny condo in Calgary and west coast home. Below: candles and colorfuly painted table add to the ambience in a garden.

IF YOU LIKE MY APPROACH TO GARDENING, YOU’LL LOVE MY BOOK

Click the PayPal Add-to-Cart button below to purchase No Guff Vegetable Gardening through my fulfilment partner Alpine Book Peddlers.

 

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Garden Books old and new: Gift of Reading

News flash! Canadian garden guru Mark Cullen wrote a book review for "No Guff Vegetable Gardening" in the Toronto Star today! Yahoo. (When the written word moves you: A guide to new books and magazines on gardening. You can view this story at: http://www.thestar.com/yourhome/outdoor living/gardening and landscaping/article/1098700--cullen-when-the-written-word-moves-you)

New books are nothing like old. Even the difference between my first black-and-white book published in 1995 and my newest full colour book published this year is like night and day. It is hard to remember books used to come without a cover and were personalized by the owner.

I took the above photo of an old private leather-bound library in Wales. I learned in Wales that the purchaser of a book used to bind it in the "style" of his own library. This is why libraries from the 17th and 18th centuries look so uniform on shelves. The owner planned it that way.

My personal highlight this year was the publication of my "No Guff" book. Several thousand have already been sold but we haven't made it to Canadian best seller status yet (which means 5,000 books sold) so of course I am hoping all of my gardening friends and garden readers will get out there and buy a copy for personal use or to give to friends for their libraries this Christmas. Check my Garden Coaches Chat web page for reviews and a sneak peak or stroll down to your favourite garden centre or book store to stock up.

Other favourite gardening/naturalist books I loved this year include:
Gardening, Naturally by Sara Williams and Hugh Skinner for its practical approach to cold climate gardening;
Honeybee Democracy by Thomas Seeley for its technical information about honeybees. More info than most of us want to know but really comprehensive;
Growing Roses in Calgary by the Calgary Rose Society for its tips on growing roses in a very cold climate. Suitable for Edmonton and other cold regions as well as Calgary;
The Edible Front Yard by Ivette Soler and Continuous Container Gardens by Sara Begg Townsend and Roanne Robins because of the beautiful and inspiring photos even though many of the plants and ideas shown won't work in my cold climate.

IF YOU LIKE MY APPROACH TO GARDENING, YOU’LL LOVE MY BOOK

Click the PayPal Add-to-Cart button below to purchase No Guff Vegetable Gardening through my fulfilment partner Alpine Book Peddlers.

 

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Meeting gardeners: The Gift of Friendship

When Dick Basset saw a photo of a nine foot lily on the front pages of the newspaper he knew he had to work in Horticulture. Dick grew up on a dairy farm, had a brief career in the airforce, and went off to UBC where he studied horticulture. Fast forward 60+ years and imagine how much fun I had meeting Kelowna's premiere lily breeder. I would have to say he is one of the happiest most creative gardeners I met this year. I can't wait to get my hands on some of the lilies he has been breeding in his "spare time" but I wouldn't have met him at all if

friend and gardener Alicja Paradzic hadn't retired to the warmer climate of Kelowna and enticed me out there to speak to her garden club.
While there in July, another gardener Linda Edser toured me around and also introduced me to Andrea McFadden of the Okanagan Lavender Farm. 3rd generation farmer, Andrea, was full of ideas for small farmers looking to maximize farm profits.

A highlight this summer was the Garden Writer's Conference in Indianapolis where dozens of garden writers came together. I sat with Jeff Lowenfels at the final banquet - he is shown here with his GWA award for his excellent book "Teaming With Microbes".

I am thrilled to be part of the bigger garden world and have the gift of friendship from so many including fellow writers Debra Prinzing and Steven Biggs, clients Evonne Selk and Peggy Proudfoot, so many book store and small shop owners where I presented or sold my new book and of course folks I met at the many lectures I gave. A garden writer can spend a lot of hours sitting alone writing. Getting out to events and conferences gives me immense pleasure.

IF YOU LIKE MY APPROACH TO GARDENING, YOU’LL LOVE MY BOOK

Click the PayPal Add-to-Cart button below to purchase No Guff Vegetable Gardening through my fulfilment partner Alpine Book Peddlers.

 

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Learning new garden things: Gift of Knowledge

Everyone knows catnip is an attractant for house cats. They go crazy for this herb.

This spring I learned about big cat behaviour when I stayed overnight with Thayer Head before I gave a talk in Hillcrest, Alberta. As Thayer and I chatted about cats and catnip she told me a friend of hers saw a wild cougar in her garden. Yes I have written books and done loads of television and radio interviews but this year I learned one very important thing about wild cougars.

I learned cougars are like any other cat. They are attracted to and will roll in catnip growing in a home garden. Note to self: Don't plant catnip on my semi-wild property in British Columbia. I don't want to wake up one morning to a cowering puppy scared by a yowl of pleasure from a cougar.

Other ingenious ideas I learned about this year include: Straw bale gardens (Indiana), Carrots grown in tubs for bringing into the greenhouse in fall (Wales) and at Kew gardens in London I saw a new way to use a garden fork. The fork's d-shaped handle is the prop and a useful third hand when staff at Kew wanted to water without holding a hose.

IF YOU LIKE MY APPROACH TO GARDENING, YOU’LL LOVE MY BOOK

Click the PayPal Add-to-Cart button below to purchase No Guff Vegetable Gardening through my fulfilment partner Alpine Book Peddlers.

 

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Texture: Garden Gift of Visual Interest

I promised to share a few of the past year's favourite garden things this month describing them in terms of the gifts I have gained. I have based this on the twelve days of Christmas (like the song) but will be stretching them out between December 1-25th. I won't be talking about Poinsettias or Christmas cactus or ways to extend the life of your holiday tree. Instead I speak from the heart and start the series with a basic design element: TEXTURE...

I always want something better in the garden and sometimes I don’t know what I want – I just know there is something wrong with the little flower bed or pot in front of me. I saw a tip once to test texture by photocoping a colour image of a garden in black and white. Because we love colour so much we can't analyze the textural interest of the garden unless colour is removed. If you like what you see even when there is no colour you are probably enjoying a garden lush with textural interest.

The two photos above show a garden in Wales with lovely colour but after doing the B&W test it is obvious the garden lacks the added drama of texture.
When I saw the garden (below) with big empty pots in Indiana this summer at the 63rd GWA conference I knew the scene would pass the B&W test.

The role of pots or any coarse element in the garden is to add texture. The contrast makes an otherwise plain jane garden fabulous.

Hurray for McFayden Seeds: Brilliant

Last week I proposed starting posts of my favourite gardening things from 2011 on this blog over the Christmas season and the snow on the ground certainly cooperated to get me in the mood sorting through photos and making a plan. Then suddenly my McFayden Seed Catalogue arrived in the mail and I had to share the exciting news: this Canadian company is featuring my newest book "No Guff Vegetable Gardening" in their catalogue.

"Brilliant...terrific information...humorous illustrations...unlike any gardening book available" according to page 24 of their new catalogue (order your book, or seeds, or free seed catalogue from McFayden.com).

I love to support the companies that support small business in Canada.