Looking for something that indulges your shopping fix, your gardening fix, and supports a great local cause? Then check out the Boulder County Master Gardener Ginormous Plant Sale this weekend!

Each year, Boulder County Master Gardeners start flats of seeds and divide unusual perennials from their own gardens to sell in the plant sale. A selection of water-wise favorites including grasses, flowering perennials, vines, and shade-tolerant perennials is also purchased from local nurseries. In addition, Plant Select® perennials will also be available, providing sale-goers with a good combination of the unusual and local favorites. Master Gardeners will be selling perennials, Plant Select plants, xeric plants, ornamental grasses, alpine plants, and more, while Growing Gardens focuses on annuals, heirloom vegetables, and herbs.

The sale is this weekend, May 17-18, from 8:30 am to 4:00 pm in the parking lot of the Public Health building at 3450 North Broadway in Boulder.

We use the funds to sponsor scholarships for Master Gardeners to attend conferences; purchase books for the library; purchase equipment for the program; fund special projects such as the Garden to Schools, Heritage Orchard, Balfour, Jail Garden, and small fruit trials; under-write the cost of classes for MGs, so that we don’t charge Boulder County folks for participation.

So stop by this weekend, check out the spectacular selection of plants, talk to a Master Gardener, and help support this wonderful program!

I have some shocking news: I am not perfect. I’m seriously chagrined to admit that, although I’ve been nurturing my tiny seedlings since January and have dived into the minutiae of seed-warming mats, the best seed-starting mediums, light timing, and seed varieties, I have made a serious and sophomoric error: Until last week, I did not give these poor little guys even a single drop of plant food.

In the past, I used Miracle Grow seed-starting medium, and that comes with built-in plant-food. Recently, though, I’ve become uncomfortable with this product, especially with starting plants that will eventually become food. So this year, I switched to sterile seed-starting medium, but that means my plants have essentially been starving for the past three plus months.

I had noticed in the past few weeks that the tomatoes were looking a bit purplish. I wondered about whether my lights were not full-spectrum enough to be the sole source of light for the plants. Then I wondered if I was shocking them with water that was too cold. When it came time to give a Zapotec seedling to a fellow heirloom tomato junkie, it finally dawned on me (as I drove to deliver the poor little seedling) that these plants needed food.

That night, with no garden centers open for business, I rustled up some Bonsai food and fed the poor little plants. They are already perking up, and now I have a seaweed/fish emulsion cocktail to feed the seedlings going forward. Looks like they’ll need a little feeding every week and a half or so to keep the “purple” ting to the leaves (phosphorous deficiency), or a yellow cast to the leaves coupled with green veining, and/or slow growth (nitrogen deficiency).

Whew, the title of this post alone is enough to make you weary! However, my foray into espaliered fruit trees has taught me that there is not a lot of succinct, yet complete, practical information out there on growing espaliered fruit.

Espalier, as defined by Wikipedia, is “the horticultural technique of training trees through pruning and grafting in order to create formal “two-dimensional” or single plane patterns by the branches of the tree. The technique was popular in the Middle Ages in Europe to produce fruit inside the walls of a typical castle courtyard without interfering with the open space, and to decorate solid walls by such trees planted near them. Evidence exists suggesting that the technique dates back much further, perhaps even to ancient Egypt. The word espalier initially referred to the actual trellis on which the plant was trained to grow, but over time has come to be used to describe the technique.”

This technique both creates a way to produce more fruit in less space and gives the gardener a highly-decorative, but still food-producing, way to use some hard-to use spaces like, in our case, a small spot on the fence between our vegetable garden and compost bins, or a bare patch of wall next to our dog run.

So how to get started? The fruit trees typically used for espalier grow on super-dwarf rootstock. We ordered two super-dwarf apple trees when we placed our fruit tree order from Raintree Nursery this winter: a Liberty and a Striped Gravenstein.

There is quite a detailed discussion of espalier on Mother Earth News, but it’s quite long and I’m going for succinct, so I kept looking. P. Allen Smith has the most succinct step-by-step instructions for espalier. Here are some other tips for growing espaliered fruit trees:

1. Look for young (1-2 year old) stock. A whip (one single branch, i.e. a stick!) or something with very few side-branches is best.
2. Plant the whip or young tree at least 6-8 (but I’d say no more than 12) inches from the wall or structure you’re planning to use to support the tree. You need airflow and room for the trunk to widen as the tree ages, but you also don’t want to have the trunk sticking out and all the branches moving away from it in a big V…you’re going for a 2-dimensional tree here.
3. The most simple form of espalier is typically three horizontal rows of branches, each 18 inches apart with the first row starting 2-3′ off of the ground. There is a great drawing of this in the P. Allen Smith article referenced above, or photos of this simple espalier, as well as the more complex diamond-lattice pattern on SouthernAccents. You can also create a fan shape by training the branches at 45-degree angles instead of horizontal. I found a great diagram of some different espalier designs in a rather unlikely location. I’ve seen quite a range of wire gauges recommended (from 10-15) so I’ll probably shoot for something in the middle to train the branches on.
4. Rodale’s Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening has a long-winded very descriptive explanation of how and when to prune branches that I think will come in handy next year, but for this (first) year with our espaliers, I’m basically planning to choose a strong shoot on either side of the trees to train as the bottom tier of the espalier. It also goes in to what to do if you have one very strong vigorous branch and one weaker one, because of the importance of keeping the espalier balanced in order to get the full effect of the pattern. I have no idea yet to what extent this will be an issue for us, but I’ll keep you posted!
5. Don’t let it fruit the first (or second!) year. I have yet to test my ability to remove fruit from young trees. But since I’ve already been dreaming about the handful of cherries I’m going to get off of my tiny baby cherry tree this year, I’m guessing this may be the hardest part of espalier, at least for someone who is both impatient and in to food production! However, I know that the reason for pruning the fruit is sound–that tree needs to put all its energy into root and branch production, not fruiting! So we’ll see if I can do it.

I don’t want to suggest that espalier fruit trees are easy or low-maintenance, but I do want to suggest that it is possible to do without a degree in horticulture (it better be, because I don’t have one!) and without spending $200 a pop for pre-trained fruit trees. My trees just look like little sticks now, but I will snap some photos as they develop into what I hope will be beautiful and productive fruit trees.

…As I strolled through the Farmer’s Market this morning and watched people in a near-frenzy of tender plant buying, I was reminded of why I chose the title that I did for my most recent gardening article, which appeared in the Rocky Mountain News on April 17: Beware of frost till mid-May. Even I, who religiously plant my tomatoes and peppers in Wall-o-Waters each spring, am only planning to get them out today and plant in them next week. Sure, I’ve done it earlier in past years but something about our recent freak snowstorms after 80 degree days has made me cautious.

Sure, get out and enjoy the warm weather. Even plant some lettuces and some hardy perennials. But keep the tomatoes, petunias, marigolds, and other tender plants indoors where belong for at least another week or so. I know it’s hard to wait (trust me!), but it’s better than the heartbreak of replanting after the next freak storm. Oh yes, there will be at least one more, and it may, as it has in other years, bring not just snow, but hail, freezing rain, or damaging winds….Beware the Ides of May (at least, that’s what they should have said, had they known about May in Colorado).

One of the reasons I love to grow my own food is that it connects me to the Earth and affirms my commitment to environmental stewardship. Another reason is that I love the variety of foods that would otherwise not be available to my family. One thing that I’ve realized during the course of my seed-starting adventures is that I need not limit myself to food production; there are other great things we can produce in the garden besides food.

First, inspired by my pal the Crunchy Domestic Goddess, I have decided to grow some dye plants in hopes of using natural Easter Egg dye next spring. So I’ve started some marigolds (their crushed seeds produce a yellow dye) and Hopi Red Dye Amaranth in the basement, and also hope to start some Hopi Black Dye Sunflowers and bull’s-blood beets in the garden a little later in the season. If anyone else knows of some good heat & drought-tolerant dye plants, please send them my way, as I’m just beginning my research on this.

Second, I’m going to be putting in a larger-than-ever-before cut flower garden. I love having cut flowers in the house and would have them every day all year long if only I didn’t realize where cut flowers come from in the off season. You see, tulips cut in Europe or South America and shipped in refrigerated cars to my local florist just don’t pass my enviro-meter That’s why I have African violets and zygocactus for houseplants and force bulbs just about every year.

Anyhow, the local greenhouse had a 3-for-1 sale going this week and, enchanted as I was by the 80 degree temperatures yesterday, I bought the following seeds for my cut flower garden:

• Heirloom Titan & Sun Samba Sunflowers
• Virginian & Ten Week Bouquet Stock
• Bachelor buttons (both blue & multi-colored!)
• Snapdragons
• Four varieties of Zinnias (I love zinnias!)
• Quinoa (yes, the edible kind is also nice for bouquets!)
• Cleome
• Coreopsis

I also got a free packet of the “Denver Daisy” rudbeckia that Denver Botanic Gardens is giving out in honor of the 150 year anniversary of Denver’s founding. Oh, and I bought “Big Max” pumpkin seeds last week. You know, the kind that grow up to 100 pounds. I’m thinking the kids will enjoy having those growing in their secret garden out behind the sandbox.

As an aside, yesterday’s sunny spring weather was replaced today with 2 inches of snow! Happy May Day, Colorado!