One never knows where one might learn something – like on Sonoma’s Bike Path

Trundling along in the Sebastiani vineyard block, just west of Fourth Street East, the Jolly Green Goddess came upon Fred Burger, who has planted Valley Oak trees to both lend shade and restore native trees to the area.
Burger was snipping suckers off the trunks and bemoaning the fact that local deer chomp the sweetest young leaf morsels, especially from the trees closer to the street. His ten-year-old trees incline gradually, from tiny stump to tall tree, as you work your way toward the middle of the block and The Patch vegetable garden – thanks to the deer.
While I knew his answer because I had heard it before, I wanted to confirm and asked Burger if he waters the trees. He answered vehemently, “Absolutely not. All you have to do is plant an acorn and leave it alone. If you water it the roots will rot, which is why people should never plant oak trees in the middle of lawns.” So there!
• • • • •
Plant sales:
Wedekinds Garden Center’s “at least 25 percent off” sale runs through this weekend and includes specimen trees, fountains, bedding (plants, not sheets), and other garden goodies. Hope to pick up some pots and plants. 21095 Broadway, Sonoma. Open 9 a.m.-5:30 p.m. daily. 707-938-2727.
The Occidental Arts and Ecology Center plant sale this Friday and Saturday, August 25-26, offers tours of the gardens at 10 and 11 a.m., an Open House from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. and sales of hundreds of California Certified organically grown heirloom vegetable, flower and herb varieties. Learn from demonstration stations featuring natural building, creative carpentry, seed saving and medicinal plants and herbs. 15290 Coleman Valley Road, Occidental. For more information call 707-874-1557, ext. 201, email oaec@oaec.org or visit oaec.org.
Sonoma Mission Gardens offers wildly blooming Crepe Myrtle trees. The City of Sonoma has been planting these brilliant hot pink trees around town to slowly replace other trees that uproot sidewalks, curbs and gutters. I highly recommend them for high color and low maintenance, but not for shade and heat control.
Crepe Myrtles are also planted by the Irish in memory of family members who have passed on to another sphere. At our house we planted two of these lovelies in memory of my McKelligon mother and her brother who died close to each other in time. Both trees kept getting knocked over by wind, dogs, kids and footballs, but one just kept popping back up like an Energizer Bunny (must have been my mother’s). We have nurtured this toughie along, and it blooms occasionally, but nothing like the street version.
Sonoma Mission Garden’s Lydia Constantini recommends pruning Crepe Myrtles boldly in winter (January), because they produce blooms on the new wood.
• • • • •
Several Sonoma residents have asked me about their tomatoes not ripening on the vine yet this year. Some say they have fed their plants everything from organic Dr. Earth to Miracle Gro, all with the same green tomato result.
I say stop feeding them, only water them a couple of times a week, hope that we get some heat, or start looking up fried green tomato recipes.
The exposure and location in your garden is important to this concern as well, but you can’t very well change that now. Most of our Hill tomatoes are in the hot sun all day long facing east, west and south, and we have eaten and given away many.
In fact a couple of days ago I picked two super-ripe ones, left them outside on our black car all day, and ended up that evening with tomatoes stewed in the shell, so to speak. A rare culinary treat, I am sure.
But the Hill tomatoes that do not get late afternoon sun are wimpy and low-producing. Point made.
• • • • •
Wildwood Farm Nursery & Sculpture Gardens in Kenwood currently feature colorful tile murals by Jan Hansen and stoneware calming fountains by Gerald Arrington, both Sonoma County artists. Wildwood’s peaceful outdoor gallery also shows work by many other California artists. Wednesday-Sunday. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. 10300 Sonoma Highway, Kenwood. 707-933-1161.
• • • • •
So I went all the way over the Great Wall of Napa to submit myself to COPIA’S Edible Gardens Festival, hoping and expecting to enjoy the fruits and veggies of their, and other people’s, labor and edible gardens.
It turned out the event was in the edible gardens, not of the edible gardens. In COPIA’s “north garden,” which is just south of its Silicon Valley-looking campus, artists displayed their works and blew their glass (a hot little number to be sure).
Most of the food-related displays and music hung out in the “south garden,” which is on the south side of First Street opposite the center’s building. In the three hours we were there, Paula Wolfert – my buddy with whom I explored the festival – and I didn’t see the cooking demonstrations or find the garden lectures, but we did discover some interesting food. See next week’s Jolly Green Goddess for the garden side of the experience.
Seeds of Change, which is a fabulous source of Certified Organic seeds, served divine mango, cashew and toasted coconut chocolate squares made with 61 percent cacao. Their catalogue also includes “Lola’s Ranch stylish gardening chaps designed by women for women…(of)…wax-coated 100 percent cotton canvas,” compost tea makers, a “tall germination station,” loads of garden books and posters, greenhouses, seedlings, fluorescent grow-lights, French lettuces, planting containers and grow tubs, garden tools, compost tea makers, worm farms, salad spinners, hats and recycled rain barrels.
Check out the 50-cell seed trays and bark fiber plugs for natural rooting ($21) and germination stations that control temperature and humidity to almost guarantee germination.
Seeds of Change’s catalogue of seeds produced by organic farmers throughout the country is a valuable encyclopedia of information that includes origins of vegetables and legumes, grains, herbs and flowers and was, in itself, well worth the trip to COPIA. Get yours at seedsofchange.com.
I also picked up a catalogue for Johnny’s Selected Seeds in Maine, which offers tons of similar stuff but does not claim to sell anything organic. (johnnyseeds.com)
• • • • •
The Saturday Napa Farmers Market took up part of COPIA’s parking lot, and we found our friends from The Patch set up just as they do at Sonoma Farmers Markets. I asked if they use any fertilizer to achieve five-inch heirloom tomatoes and was told that all they use is compost from their own plants and horse manure from Castagnasso’s Clydesdale horses – makes sense since the Castagnasso family also owns the land under The Patch on Second Street East.
• • • • •
The Vintners Inn and John Ash & Co., west of Highway 101 in Santa Rosa, just established their Vintners Inn Educational Wine Garden. Vintners Inn and John Ash & Co. owner Rhonda Carano, who also owns Ferrari-Carano Winery and Reno’s El Dorado Hotel and Casino, and her staff have developed a garden of herbs and vegetables that they believe portray the flavors in wines according to varietal. The garden “is strategically designed in groupings by wine varietal….Guests may stroll through the garden smelling and exploring various plants that represent their favorite wines.”
Then John Ash & Co. chef Jeffrey Madura uses all these goodies in the restaurant and for the hotel’s room service.
Carano and friends have introduced honey bees to pollinate herbs, fruits and veggies in the garden, which then leads to their production of Vintners Inn Estate Honey. They also engage in sustainable farming including “natural, chemical-free fertilizers and planting cover crops and other species to eliminate soil erosion and to attract desirable insects, which also naturally enhance biodiversity and nutrient recycling in the garden.”
Personally, I wonder about telling visitors that certain herbs should incite specific wine-varietal taste memories, unless those herbs are actually grown among a vineyard’s rows.
• • • • •
Master Gardener aspirants can pick up applications for the 2008 Master Gardener Training Class at Master Gardener tables at either the Tuesday or Friday Farmers Markets, at the Resource Center at 19722 Eighth St. E., Sonoma, or by downloading from http://groups.ucanr.org/sonomamg/. 707-938-0127. Classes will be Mondays and Wednesdays beginning January 16-April 16, 2008.
• • • • •
Green Goddess Green Thumb Garden Kudos to both Sonoma Valley Mary’s Pizza Shacks, whose staffs have planted a few colorfully happy flowers and plants in new, limited, low-water-use planters.
Get down. Get dirty!
We welcome your feedback. For general feedback or to contact one of our columnists, please visit the Columns page at www.sonomasun.com.