At the garden today, Jeff Raska will demonstrate orchard pruning. We have begun the task, but now it is time to hear from our expert. Our garden is bursting with energy, seedlings are sprouting, and things once dormant are alive again.
We hope you will also come out to work with us or take a spring stroll through the garden. Thank you to Starla for these pictures. Information will be coming about our spring plant sale on May 19th.
Ann Lamb
Pictures by Starla Willis
Tickets for the Dallas County Master Gardener Association (DCMGA) 2022 Spring Garden Tour are now on sale! They can be purchased for $15 through 6:00 pm on Friday, April 29th on the DCMGA website or online for $20 on the days of the Tour or at any of the gardens. Your ticket is good for either or both days, Saturday, April 30 from 10 am to 4 pm and Sunday, May 1 from 1 to 5 pm. There are six residential gardens and one school garden on the Tour, all located north of I-635 between Carrollton/Farmers Branch and Richardson. New this year, all the gardens will be PlantTAGG® -enabled, allowing tour visitors to access the most current, research-based horticultural information about featured plants using their cell phones. There will also be a variety of educational programs presented in the gardens.
You can preview all of the Tour’s stunning gardens on the DCMGA website: https://dallascountymastergardeners.org/first-peek-at-our-spring-garden-tour
Click here to buy your tickets: https://form.jotform.com/220395346419156
Valentine’s Day this year is on a Monday and we are staying home for a warm, cozy dinner by the fire. Our menu isn’t going to be fancy. Instead, we’ve chosen to flavor it with a touch of nostalgia. To start our meal, the salad course is a revisit of an iconic 60’s dish known as “Southern Wilted Lettuce Salad with Hot Bacon Dressing”. Wilted lettuce is also known as “killed lettuce” or “kilt lettuce” because the greens soften under the hot, tangy dressing. It was my late father-in-law’s favorite salad. Grandmother prepared it for him at least a few times a month.
Wilted lettuce salad likely came from Eastern Europe with versions of it appearing in Poland and other countries. After the dish traveled to America with immigrants, Southerners began putting their spin on this wonderfully delectable salad. And, in true southern style, it was enjoyed with freshly baked cornbread or cornbread muffins.
Outdoor spring seed starting season for lettuce is typically sometime between February 1st and March 15th so now is a good time to consider your options. A sturdy, spring lettuce such as romaine, spinach or red leaf works well for this salad. Look for other varieties that will keep some of their “crunch” when tossed with the hot bacon dressing.
Botanical Interests features a Chef’s Gourmet Spicy Mix with over six different texture-filled greens to excite your taste buds. Guerney’s offers a Premium Lettuce Seed Blend with a colorful combination of various textures and shapes. Have fun planning your spring salad garden.
Southern Wilted Lettuce with Hot Bacon Dressing
Linda Alexander, Dallas County Master Gardener Class of 2008
Don’t believe it when garden writers say winter is a time to relax. Here in the north garden vegetable area we are speeding up to get everything done in time for spring.
The cooler temperatures make it great time to take on hardscaping projects. We made an 80 foot long blackberry trellis from cattle panels and T-posts. The cattle panels are inexpensive, sturdy, and versatile but their 16 foot length requires some planning for how to transport them.
The vertically trained blackberry canes will get more sun and the berries will be much easier (and less hazardous) to harvest. Fortunately we pruned the second year floricanes after they fruited last summer making the task of training the remaining canes much easier.
The vegetable team has been hard at work sheet mulching to create four new in ground beds. We are also amending the soil in the Donation Garden and former watermelon patch with mycorrhizal fungi, dried molasses, and compost to enhance nutrient uptake. We have planted fava beans in the central in ground bed to fix nitrogen for the next crop.
January is the time to plant short day and intermediate day onion slips in Dallas. The day length refers to the amount of sunlight needed for the onions to bulb. We have planted the sunniest side of the Donation Garden with two short day varieties, the TAMU developed Texas Super Sweet Onion which is on the Texas Superstar list; and a disease resistant hybrid called Southern Belle Red Onion.
It is also a very busy time for seed starting. Buttercrunch lettuce started indoors on December 23 was ready to plant but the unusually warm December weather turned into a wave of freezes after New Year’s Day. We ended up harvesting the outer leaves in a “cut and come again” fashion and adding them to a food bank donation of salad greens and the last of the fall tomatoes. The lettuce seedlings can still be transplanted outdoors and will tolerate light frost (28 to 33 degrees Fahrenheit).
We are cutting it a little bit close but can still start our tomato seeds before the end of January. This year we are sticking mainly with small and medium size tomatoes. Why? There is less time for things to go wrong before they mature! Our varieties will include Super Sweet 100, Sweetie, Sun Gold, Early Girl, Roma, and Berkeley Tie Dye Pink, which was submitted as a favorite by area gardeners to The Dallas Garden School.
The Atlantis F1 Hybrid Mini Broccoli produced very well but we lost several plants during the worst of the early January freezes. Because it requires only a few weeks to mature we will able to have a second crop along with another fast maturing mini broccoli called Sweet Stem F1.
We tried several varieties of peppers last year and were pleased with how productive and easy to grow they were. Also, our preschool visitors were delighted when they were each allowed to pick one. This year we will be growing Jimmy Nardello, Gypsy, North Star, Marconi Rossi, Tajin, and Aji Dulce peppers. They can be started indoors by seed now and throughout February.
Radishes require only about a month to mature so we have a habit of planting the seeds anywhere we have a bit of extra space during the cooler months. Spinach takes 40 – 60 days but can be planted outdoors now through early March. It has been another easy to grow crop.
Garden writers, take note, winter is a time to get a lot done that will make spring and summer more productive.
Beverly Allen, Dallas County Master Gardener Class of 2018
Dallas Garden Buzz readers, save this for next year’s ideas or refresh your arrangements now from your garden. We wish you a Merry Christmas and thank you, Linda!
You may be thinking of a Bowl Game or the ever popular football playoffs occurring this month. As with many spouses, mine included, sports seem to dominate the evening and weekend television options. My time has been spent unpacking boxes and deciding how to repurpose over 50 years of collected Christmas treasures. But this year I’m going to approach it differently and with a more natural touch. I’ve made the decision to go green for Christmas 2021.
For me, there is no better way to breathe the spirit of Christmas into my home than decorating with greenery from the garden. Boxwood, holly and magnolia are ‘the big three’ growing abundantly in our yard. Most of them are over 40 years old and have plenty of foliage to share.
Let’s discover a few simple ways to allow freshly gathered greenery to invigorate our senses and fill our homes with the fragrance of nature. May the warmth of the holiday season bring you joy and peace this year.
Linda Alexander, Dallas County Master Gardener Class of 2008
Poinsettias are so pretty at Christmas. Click here for an article to help you care for them. It was written in 2005 but it is still pertinent. After reading it, I realized my poinsettias would rather not be on my front porch. They are now indoors getting indirect, natural light.
For information about recycling your amaryllis bulbs after Christmas, read here.
Merry Christmas to all our readers. We plan to have at least one more article this year and loads more gardening advice in 2022.
Ann Lamb, Dallas County Master Gardener Class of 2005
From our Herb Garden to you…
Thanksgiving Blessings!
With appreciation from The Raincatcher’s Team!
Join Linda Alexander and Beverly Allen for a “Pop Up” Presentation
Friday, November 5th, 1:00pm
Shade Pavilion, Raincatcher’s Garden of Midway Hills
11001 Midway Road
Limited to 30 * Please RSVP
Master Gardeners Earn 1 Hour CEU
Sit back, relax and enjoy a refreshing cup of Roselle Hibiscus tea along with a taste of lightly sauteed hibiscus leaves, cookies and jam.
The season for growing Roselle Hibiscus is ending. Let’s bid farewell to a garden favorite with a closer look at this amazing plant. In this class you will learn some of the following:
*Why everyone should be growing Roselle Hibiscus
*When and where to plant
*Growing characteristics
*Using the plant from leaves to flowers and seeds
Class concludes with a tour of our Roselle Hibiscus plants where you will be given an opportunity to harvest some seed pods for next year’s crop.
Sign up today here. Class RSVP open until noon on Thursday, November 4th.
After waiting for over a year and a half to resume monthly meetings, The Pierian Club of Dallas chose Raincatcher’s Garden of Midway Hills for their first event. The much anticipated gathering was filled with hugs, laughter and smiles of happiness on the faces of those who attended. We were thrilled to welcome them to learn about our approach to gardening in North Texas and to enjoy a garden-themed lunch prepared by our “Friends of the Garden” volunteer culinary team.
The story of The Pierian Club is very fascinating. It began in 1888 and has continued to evolve for over 133 years. The purpose of the club is to increase knowledge. Their motto states, “A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep or taste not the Pierian Spring. Their shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again.” In Greek Mythology, it was believed that drinking from the Pierian Spring would bring you knowledge and inspiration.
With a focus on seasonally fresh herbs and vegetables from our edible gardens, we treated them to a flavor-filled menu that stirred the senses. A brief explanation of how the menu was developed includes comments about several carefully chosen items.
The Pierian Study Club
Wednesday, September 15, 2021
Lunch Menu
“Finger Sandwich Trio”
Pimento Cheese topped with a Raincatcher’s Pickle
Cranberry Curry Chicken Salad with Orange Blossom Honey
Sliced Radishes on Salad Burnet Spread Dusted with Fresh Fennel Pollen
Marinated Vegetables with French Tarragon and Anise Hyssop Blossoms
Grilled Figs topped with a Dollop of Mascarpone Cheese, Drizzled with Orange Blossom Honey and Fresh Thyme
Iced Tea Flavored with Garden Fresh Lemon Verbena
Our finger sandwich trio included the following:
1. A tribute to Martha Stewart’s favorite sandwich…buttered white bread topped with thinly sliced radishes sprinkled with salt. Taking inspiration from herbs growing in our garden, we substituted a spread made with whipped cream cheese, freshly snipped salad burnet leaves and onion chives. Radishes were added next, sprinkled with sea salt and then lightly dusted with delicate fennel fronds. Each sandwich was topped with a thinly sliced Armenian cucumber brought in from the garden.
2. Pimento Cheese. This recipe is a favorite from a recently closed restaurant in Fredericksburg, Texas…The Peach Tree Tea Room. While the original recipe calls for jalapeno juice, we omitted it, as requested, for this event. Each sandwich was topped with a pickle made by one of our volunteers. Pickles were made from the variety, ‘Homemade Pickles,’ currently growing in our garden.
3. Cranberry Curry Chicken Salad with Orange Blossom Honey. We love using this special honey from Savannah Bee and available locally at Central Market. It adds just the right amount of sweetness to the earthy flavor of curry.
Marinated Vegetables were embellished with fresh-picked French tarragon from our edible landscape. Served in individual clear glass flowerpots, they made a colorful addition to the menu with pretty purple anise hyssop blossoms scattered over the top.
Dessert was on the lighter side. Fig leaves from the garden cradled two figs halves that were lightly grilled and topped with a dollop of mascarpone cheese and a drizzle of Orange Blossom Honey. Tiny lemon-flavored thyme leaves added that fresh from the garden effect that rounded out the meal.
Following lunch, a short program introducing the Raincatcher’s Garden of Midway Hills was presented by Dallas County Master Gardener, Lisa Centala. Master Gardener volunteers then joined Lisa and our guests for a delightful tour of the demonstration gardens. With their newly acquired horticultural knowledge, members of the study group left inspired and feeling as if they had been refreshed by drinking from the Pierian Spring.
Linda Alexander, Dallas County Master Gardener Class of 2008
As each new season approaches gardeners are on the receiving end of a barrage of enticing offers and promises of easy-to-grow lush plantings for our gardens. The results are not usually as promised. However, this article from a seed company has some useful information about growing peas. It includes descriptions of three types of peas; snow, shelling, and snap. It also has a helpful explanation of how to use the days to maturity and average first freeze dates to calculate ideal dates for planting.
In the Edible Landscape we are interested in comparing seeds sown in the fall with spring peas.
Happy gardening.
Beverly Allen, Dallas County Master Gardener Class of 2018
Photo courtesy of John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seed
DALLAS GARDEN BUZZ 