New Year, New Trends

January 3rd, 2011

One thing I like most about gardening is that there’s always something new going on and something new to learn.

Let's see you get this out of your big lawn.

This year, gardening trend-watchers are telling me that edibles will continue to be a hot topic. What’s more, I’m hearing that a new twist for 2011 will be folks looking to tuck veggies, herbs and fruits into the landscape instead of digging a dedicated food garden.

While that’s not a totally new concept, I think it’s a wonderful trend. So much of our yard space is planted in lawn, which, when you really think about it, takes up a lot of time and adds expense without giving us much in return.

Grass has its place and use, but at least some of that space could be better used to grow fresh, nutritious and inexpensive produce.

Yeah, that takes some work, some up-front cost and some know-how. But edible-gardening is a great skill to learn — and especially to teach our kids, who so often don’t realize that a potato grows in the ground and isn’t manufactured by Giant Foods.

I’ve been keeping my finger tips in gardening shape these last few weeks putting together seven new PowerPoint programs for 2011. Two of them are geared toward helping people get started with (or get better at) edible gardening.

I’ll be doing both of those on Sun., Feb. 13, in Dillsburg through Harrisburg Area Community College’s Continuing Education program.

“Grow Your Own Dinner” is a program that’ll help you go right to the best and most practical ways to grow your own veggies, herbs and fruits. It’s the techniques I’ve learned over the past 30 years and continue to use in my own yard.

I’ll follow that up with “Eat Your Yard,” a program designed to give you ideas on ways to work veggies, herbs and fruits into the existing landscape. It’ll include things such as using blueberries as a border hedge, incorporating some of the better-looking edibles into flower beds and growing herbs in pots, hanging baskets and even window boxes.

The first one starts at 1 p.m., the second one at 3 p.m. Classes are $29 each, and registration is through HACC at www.hacc.edu or by calling 780-2414.

More details on those and a slew of other talks I’m doing this winter are at http://georgeweigel.net/georges-talks-and-trips.

Another positive trend I’m hearing about for 2011 is the continued shift toward organic gardening — or at least strategies that are less toxic than what we’ve been using since World War II. Research is showing that these “lower-impact” measures are fast moving from the “hippy fringes” to mainstream.

I’m doing programs on that, too (“How to Garden With Mother Nature”) on Tuesday, Jan. 4, at Dauphin County’s Wildwood Park, and at the Pennsylvania Garden Expo (“10 Ways to Be a Greener Gardener”) on Fri., Feb. 25, at 1:30 p.m.

And a few more trends supposedly on tap for 2011: more but simpler container plantings; growing interest in native plants and meadow gardens; more rain barrels, and more interest in low-care dwarf shrubs, perennials and compact evergreens instead of higher-care annual flowers, roses and hulking, old-fashioned bushes.

I like the sound of all of those…