Fun in Arnprior and a little name dropping

Yesterday I went to give a talk to the good folks of the Arnprior Garden Club and had a fantastic time. Not only were they welcoming but interspersed my droning on about the technicalities of Season Extension, Seed Saving and Permanent Vegetables (thanks Stephen for this term) with lively commentary.


BTW: I am not in this picture and it is not of the talk. It does however capture their good times. This is a picture of a recent hypertufa planter demonstration.

If you are gardening obsessed and live in or around Arnprior, why not attend one of their meetings held at the local library so you can meet this friendly group for yourself!

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And now for the Name Dropping

During the discussion, above and beyond the resource list, I rattled off various garden guru's names. For those of you that didn't have the benefit of a pencil, or the general readership (sounds gradiose doesn't it?) is interested, here goes*:

The Extreme Gardener (not to be confused with merely Extreme Gardener)- She's a permaculturelist blogger in Vermont with lots of knowledge who (unlike this blogger) appears to carefully write and edit her posts. Well worth a look if you like growing your own edibles. I mentioned her technique of heavily mulching sugarhat chicory to extend the harvest.

Tim Peters - One of the many plant breeder extraordinaires who has flag shipped and participated in many breeding projects including the effort to create perennial grain crops. I'll sneakily use this to also reintroduce you to the most excellent and political blogger, Bifucated Carrot to give you more of the scoop. Peters Seed and Research

Tom Wagner - A plant breeder who I know as the 'potato man' because of his interest in breeding disease resistant tubers as well as distributing TPS (true potato seed). Impressive picture of his disease resistant potato stock growing alongside blighted ones. Pay close attention to the pictures shown on the bottom of this page 2 thread. Right now, he's on tour giving talks in Europe with Michelle aka The Seed Man.

Dan Jason from Salt Spring Seeds - A member mentioned that he let his wilted tomatoes grow back. Beyond his Seed Site, he also has a Seed Sanctuary which is well worth the look.

Wild Gardens seeds - Just drumming up support for orach again. Here's a good listing of varieties but you are also welcome to contact me about my seed offer in the post below this one.

The Edible Hosta Project - A regular Homegrown Goodness contributor has put together a project to rate the palatibility of different hostas which are... drumroll... edible. He calls the tasty spring shoots hostons and prepares them much in the same way as spinach. He is also the origin of my use of the term 'Permanent Vegetable' which are vegetables that have annual / biennial life habits but so dependably self seed in your garden as to be considered permanent residents. I admit to extending this definition a bit to include perrenials as well on occasion. (sorry)

Frank's Cool Site - This is on the resource list but I don't think I have made mention of it yet on this blog which is a terrible oversite of mine so if you thought you could name a goodly proportion of vegetables, then cross check with his expansive list.

*Yes, I admit that was unreasonably link heavy but remember the initial buzz of the term hyperlinked when we thought we all wanted to play labryrinth with internet pages? I just thought I'd bring some of that back to you.