This is the weekend to end all weekend plant sales. There are two incredible plants sales in Seattle: the King County Master Gardener plant sale at the University of Washington and the Seattle Titlh edible plant sale in Wallingford.

We’ve volunteered at the Master Gardener plant sale in previous years, but will be out of town this weekend. The sale runs from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday, May 1 and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, May 2. You’ll find a wide selection of perennials, ornamentals, shrubs, trees, vines and edibles, including famous tomato starts, from Master Gardeners and local growers. 

The second plant sale is one that vegetable gardeners can’t miss. Seattle Tilth’s annual plant sale is one of the best in town. You can choose from over 50 varieties of tomatoes and 20 different kinds of peppers. I always leave this sale with a handful of edibles, including rare pumpkin, eggplant, cucumber and other starts that you just can’t find anywhere else.

Ecoyards’ youngest employee at the base of the red oak

We’re on at mission at Ecoyards to tour all of Seattle’s amazing Heritage Trees. The first stop last Sunday was a trip through our West Seattle neighborhood, where we found this grand oak tree at Hiawatha Park. This red oak is more than 100 feet wide and was planted in 1911 with nearby trees as part of the first playfield designed by the Olmstead Brothers (they designed New York’s Central Park). It’s native to the northeast U.S. and displays spectacular red and gold in the fall.

The Heritage Tree program was initiated in 1996 by PlantAmesty to recognize exceptional, historic or otherwise spectacular trees.

Douglas fir

There are dozens and dozens of Heritage trees around city. They’re identified by a plaque, and owners are given a tree care manual. You can nominate a tree online — whether it’s a notable collection grove or avenue of trees or landmarks of a community. You can nominate trees on public or private property, but you have to have the owner’s approval. The tree also has to be examined by an arborist and be healthy.

The second stop on our Sunday tour was halfway down the block, in one of our neighbor’s back yard. It’s a Douglas fir (pictured left).

We rounded off the morning with a stop at one of the largest Giant Sequoia that we’ve ever seen in this city. This tree near West Seattle’s Morgan Junction is about 100 feet all and about 93 inches in diameter. The trunk and branching are magnificent on this California native; and it’s one of the largest located on private property in Seattle.

1. Plant a tree in honor of National Arbor Day, which is April 30.

2. Give your lawn a face-lift by aerating, overdressing and topdressing about every two years. (Read more about how to do so in this blog post). Otherwise fertilize your lawn with a good organic slow-release fertilizer.

3. Mow weekly, removing no more than 1/3 of the blade.

4. Add compost to your vegetables, trees, landscape beds.

5. In the vegetable garden, continue to plant cool season crops, such as lettuce, beets, snap peas, chard, radish, spinach and parsnip.

6. Plant seeds for annuals such as cosmos, asters, marigolds and zinnias.

It goes without saying that trees provide a lot of benefits to the homeowner, but now there’s a way to actually calculate the actual savings in terms of real dollars.

A two-inch thick vine maple (a ubiquitous feature in the Seattle area) provides about $50 in overall benefits, with the bulk of it coming in gains in property value, according to this cool National Tree Benefit Calculator developed by Casey Trees. OK, it’s not meant to be a scientific assessment of the tree’s value, but it’s a simple way to get you to start thinking about the value of a tree planted in the parking strip, in your front yard, or along the street.

What I like about this calculator is it takes into account all the benefits of a tree. There’s the gain in property value from having trees in your front yard — a spectacular specimen tree like a Japanese maple, for example, can help you create curb appeal . Then there’s the tree’s role in curbing stormwater runoff; this calculator notes that a two-inch vine maple intercepts 52 gallons of runoff a year. How? It holds rain on leaves, branches and bark and reducing soil erosion by slowing rainfall before it hits the soil; all that means a little bit less oils, chemicals and other bad stuff washing into the local waterways.

The calculator also takes into account the benefits of air quality (trees absorb pollutants) and energy conservation (planted in the right spot around the house, it can help warm or cool your house during certain times of the year).

As you’re getting ready to plant your garden this summer, consider planting an extra row of lettuce, snap peas, broccoli, spinach or other vegetables for hungry families. The White Center Food Bank welcomes all donations of fruits and vegetables.

The food bank’s Donna Pierce says that produce can be extremely expensive for families trying to get by on very little. She says there’s no such thing as too much produce at the food bank.

The White Center Food Bank accepts food donations Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.. But it’s best to bring fresh produce in either the afternoon before or the morning of distribution days (Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and the third Saturday of each month.

The West Seattle Food Bank also takes donations of fresh produce. You can donate from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday; until 7 p.m. on Wednesdays; and by appointment.

Here are a few photos of plants currently blooming in the Ecoyards garden.

potato plant

Potatoes are one of the easiest plants to grow in the Northwest. Home-grown potatoes also taste so much better than what you buy at the grocery store. You can plant potatoes as early as March (to harvest in the summer and early fall) and typically as late as June (for harvest in late fall). You should be able find seed potatoes at most nurseries, or you can order them through Territorial Seed Co. I’ve had good success with Russian banana fingerlings, blue potatoes, French fingerlings and Yukon gold. I like seed potatoes that are small and can be planted whole; but cutting larger seed potatoes is just as easy (if you do cut, make sure each piece has at least one eye).

Plant potatoes in well-drained soil in a sunny spot in your garden. Avoid planting them in the same spot from year to year to prevent soil-borne diseases. Also try not to plant them in areas where you had planted tomatoes, strawberries or legumes such as peas and beans. When you’re ready to get your potatoes into the ground, dig the soil well. Dig a deep trench and mound the soil on either side. Put the potatoes in cut-size down (if you’ve cut the seed potatoes into pieces). Cover the potatoes with about four inches of soil.

Once your potato plant has emerged about six inches tall, hill soil up around the plants using the soil on the sides of the trench that you dug. Potatoes grow along the stem of the plant. To avoid sunburn (which greens your potatoes and makes them bitter) as well as maximize your yield, keep hilling the plant as it grows taller. Mound the soil up around the plant every two or three weeks. The higher the mound, the more potatoes you’ll likely have. Hilling also helps suppress weeds. To avoid potato scab or cracks or knobs, keep the soil moist and evenly watered throughout the growing season.

Harvest new potatoes when the plant begins to flower. Otherwise, dig up the potatoes about two weeks after the vines die. There’s nothing better than digging your hand into the ground in search of these little treasures.

One of the most frequent questions we get at Ecoyards is how to control weeds organically. The truth is, there’s no easy way to get rid of dandelions, shotweed, knotweed, and other nasties, especially if you don’t want to use herbicides. Our favorite tools are our hands and standard garden tools, like a hori hori, trowel or hoe. You also need a lot of persistence and a little knowledge about the type of weed you’re dealing with.

There are annual weeds that grow, flower, set and die each year, and perennial weeds that live and return for many years. Annual weeds spread only by seed, so the best way to kill them is to pull them before they produce even more seeds – and to continue pulling them several times. The reality is that you’re never going to completely eliminate them, but if you’re persistent you can stay on top of it. Pull them early, when they’re young and before they set seed: tackle winter annual weeds such as common chickweed when they germinate in late summer, and get spring annual weeds such as common lambsquarters when they germinate in the spring. Annual weeds tend to have short roots, so they’re easy to pull or hoe. The downside is that annual weeds produce thousands of seeds, and the seeds tend to persist for a very very long time in soil. Avoid deep hoeing or rototilling, as that can bring up seeds buried in the ground.

Canada thistle

Perennial weeds can spread by seed (dandelion) or through a creeping rooting system (such as Canada thistle or quackgrass). The best way to get rid of perennial weeds is to pull them early, typically in the first several weeks of germination. Get them before they’ve developed an extensive root system that can store energy. When you miss this window, it’s an uphill battle. In this case, you can try to exhaust them to death by depleting their energy; frequent mowing, for example, to cut the tops of dandelions can help exhaust the amount of energy stored below ground. For perennial weeds, you have to dig up the entire root system so rototilling only breaks up the plant and spread the weed; Canada thistle can produce a new plant with a root section as small as a quarter of an inch.

The best way to control weeds is to prevent them in the first place. Get them early, get them often. Try to weed, if possible, on a sunny dry day so that the weeds you pull will dry out and die. We also can’t stress enough the importance of having a good thick layer of mulch, whether bark, compost or a mixture of both, to suppress weeds. Mulches also conserve soil moisture and reduces soil erosion. A good mulch applied annually is about the easiest thing you can do to keep weeds at bay. Mulching and regular monthly maintenance are two ways we control weeds organically for our clients. Contact us to find out more about our maintenance services.