Dear Readers,

Some of you will be brave enough to come and hear me speak tomorrow at the Boise Flower and Garden Show. Some of you will be brave enough more than once. The first session is titled: The Good Earth: Beautiful, Bountiful Beds and Borders. In one hour, I will have just enough time to whet your appetite for this pressing front page topic. The mission, should you chose to accept it, is to grow as many edible plants as possible on your little patch o’ land. For some of you, that patch will be five acres, complete with cows and chickens. For the rest of us, probably 1/6th of an acre -give or take a few square feet and subtracting the house from the middle of it. Some folks have already downsized and are happy chillin in their townhouse or condo. For you, patio gardens.

I am posting a partial list of resources for you, right here and now. I am hoping most of you are already inundated with a bevy of seed catalogs so I can forgo the long, long listing of those. And unless you are on the trail of the perfect red spotted Italian pole bean, you can find most anything you need locally. Support those independent nursery retailers, please.

Here’s the resource list I will hand out tomorrow:

RESOURCES FOR BOUNTIFUL BORDERS (the presentation is geared for Idaho gardeners)

PLEASE take a minute to check with our local agriculture extension office (or the one in your home town). In Boise, call 377-2107 or check it out online, great lists and comments on plants that prosper here:

http://www.extension.uidaho.edu/idahogardens/fvh/yearly.htm.

Edwards Greenhouses, extensive offering of heirloom and popular vegetables, herbs, etc. http://www.edwardsgreenhouse.com/, 4106 Sand Creek Street, Boise, ID 83703, off Hill Road

Fruitland Nursery in Fruitland ID 208-453-4204. Extremely knowledgeable, Kathy Carnefix is carrying on her family’s legend as a superior nursery owner. The carry heirloom and newer varieties of fruiting trees, nuts, raspberries, strawberries, etc. 45 minute drive, but take a sandwich and make an outing of it with some other garden-goofy friends.

Far West Nursery and Landscape has some nice cane fruits, rhubarbs, strawberry varieties and lovely blueberry shrubs.

D & B Supply: great looking strawberries in several varieties, some are in a 6 pack for $6 and some are in 4 inch pots for about $2.49 each.

Other nurseries and vendors will carry these items; these are just the ones I had time to visit in the last week.

BOOKS:

Designing the New Kitchen Garden by Jennifer Bartley
The Compleat Squash by Amy Goldman
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
Perfect: One Man, One Woman and a Year of Eating Locally
The Omnivore’s Dilemma, by Michael Pollan
In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan
Cooking Outside the Box: Easy, Seasonal, Organic: The Abel and Cole Cookbook (Hardcover), by Keith Abel
The Victory Garden Cookbook (1982) Marion Morash,mine is now a pile of loose pages.

More tomorrow. Or soon. I promise.