Painted ladybug rocks, set on basalt column; all photos taken by Ecoyards

As parents of a rambunctious toddler, we’re always interested in getting our son outdoors to explore and learn. So we were excited to learn about the Mercer Island Public Library Early Learning Garden from our clients on Mercer Island. (Ecoyards frequently works with Mercer Island customers on design-and-build landscape projects; we also help many Mercer Island customers maintain their lawn and landscapes). The public library garden opened last fall, thanks to sweat and labor from hundreds of community volunteers.

The Mercer Island Library worked with the Pomegranate Center to build a unique outdoor space that connects kids with nature and literacy. The landscape design does a lot with a relatively small space that surrounds the library. A short trail starts at the parking lot and wraps around the west and north sides of the public library. It connects three gathering circles: basalt columns in the smallest, granite boulders next and cedar benches and stumps to sit on in the last and largest gathering circle.

Cedar circle

The garden recognizes that literacy and life-long learning can go beyond books and reading. Young kids have a sense of wonder and imagination that can be cultivated early on, both indoors and outdoors. Alphabet tiles handmade by children and other volunteers are placed throughout the trail to help the library’s youngest patrons develop early literacy skills. The tiles illustrate animals and plants that can be found on Mercer Island, such as B for butterfly and J for jay.

M for Maple

The paths are filled with empty hazelnut shells (yes, they come from Washington), and make for a fun crunching sound under feet.

Child walks on path full of hazelnut shells.

There’s a lot for gardeners to love as well. Northwest native plants such as rhododendrons, ferns and Oregon grape.

Rhododendron

Getting water from the rain barrel

My toddler son loves to dig around in the yard, so I decided to put him to work a few weeks ago when I needed to weed our landscape beds after a winter of neglect. After watching me dig up a few weeds in our raised beds, he grabbed his little metal shovel and began copying me. He put the shovel into the ground, pushed it down with his feet, and then hauled up a few weeds — which he promptly dumped, along with a scoopful of good dirt, into the gravel walkway. Oh, well. At least he was having fun digging. I gave him an empty bucket, and he spent the next 20 minutes filling it with compost.

There are different ways, large and small, to get your toddler or older kids interested in gardening or being outside. Toddlers love to imitate, so you don’t have to have a planned activity to get them excited about gardening. If you pull weeds, ask them to help you put them in the yard waste bin. Find worms together, and show your kids how to handle the insects gently. Look for birds in your trees. Smell different plants in your garden.

Here are some other ideas to get your toddlers out in the garden:

Visit children’s gardens and let your kids explore. The Bradner Gardens Park, Magnuson Children’s Garden, and Good Shepherd Children’s Garden are some of our favorites.

Sign up for a children’s gardening class, if your school doesn’t already offer gardening in the classroom. Seattle Tilth has a 2012 Summer Garden Camp for kids 1-14 in Rainier Beach and North Seattle neighborhoods. One day sessions for young tots including “Don’t Squish that Bug” and “Wiggle, Squiggle, Giggle.” Other classes teach about ladybugs, let your toddlers plant seeds, and explore other creatures.

Keep your kids safe. Supervise young ones when they’re using tools or planting seeds that could be potential choking hazards. Keep fertilizers out of their reach. Avoid using pesticides! If you’re concerned that your soil may have lead or arsenic, get it tested; King County explains how you can do that.

Get your kids good-quality tools that fit small hands, rather than having them wrestle with adult-sized tools. Practice safe handling of those tools, and teach them how to put tools away. My son has a blue metal shovel, a yellow hoe, and a bamboo shrub rake. Each cost between $5 and $10. We bought all three at the West Seattle Junction True Value Hardware store; check your local hardware store. (You can also order it online at Small Hands).

Plant a garden, but keep it simple. Pick a few vegetables that are easy to grow, that grow fast, and are visually cool. Sugar snap peas or snow peas come to mind; the seeds are easy to handle for small hands. Radishes and lettuce also are great for the impatient toddler. Plant root vegetables that are fun to dig up, such as potatoes. Plant weird stuff, like purple carrots.

Later in the summer, let toddlers help you harvest tomatoes, carrots and snap peas, or pick raspberries and huckleberries (though teach your kids to only eat foods after asking for permission). Get a small watering can or spray bottle, and let them water your plants. My son likes to fill up the watering can at the rain barrel, and water our potted plants.

Grow seeds indoors. Kidsgardening.org has some great articles that caregivers can do with their young ones, including planting a windowsill herb garden, gardening with creative containers, or garbage-can gardening.

Read books about gardens and bugs. The National Gardening Association came up with this list of gardening books to read with your toddler: Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Ehlert; Pumpkin Pumpkin by Jeanne Titherington; Tops and Bottoms by Janet Stevens; This is the Sunflower by Lola M. Schaefer; Whose Garden Is It? by Mary Ann Hoberman; The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss; The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle; Oliver’s Vegetables by Vivian French; Stone Soup by Marcia Brown; Alison’s Zinnia by Anita Lobel.

Visit farmers markets throughout the year and talk to your kids about what’s fresh at the market and growing in gardens. Visit farms where toddlers can pick their own strawberries, blueberries, pumpkins, and so on.

Check out this National Wildlife Federation guide for other helpful tips.

Find more lessons or activities at the KidsGardening website.

Here are a few photos from projects recently completed by Ecoyards in West Seattle –

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 Title 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. Get driving directions here.

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.

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.

In this blog post, the food bank’s Donna Pierce writes 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.

For years, gardeners had to wait until late spring to get their hands on some of the most prized vegetables starts in Seattle. Now eager gardeners can get a jumpstart on an amazing selection of vegetable starts, perennials and herbs at Seattle Tilth’s Early Spring Edible Plant Sale on March 20. The sale features plants that are proven performers in the Northwest, including ‘green globe’ artichoke, pac choi, fennel, lettuce, beets, cabbage, cauliflower, chard, and eight kinds of broccoli such as the very funky-looking Romanesco (pictured below). Check out the full list of available vegetable plants here. I’ve had great success with many of the vegetable plants I’ve bought from Tilth, and count on the wide selection of Tilth tomatoes, melons and other veggies to add variety to my garden.

'Romanesco'

The event takes place Saturday, March 20 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Magnuson Park, Hangar 30, 6310 NE 74th Street (off Sandpoint Way NW).

Seattle Tilth is also looking for volunteers to help with the sale. I’ve helped out in the previous two years. If you’re interested in volunteering, sign up online. The organization will also hold its annual May sale on May 1-2 as well as an additional summer veggies sale on May 22. All proceeds go to support the group’s educational programs.

Every year, thousands of pounds of fruit fall to the ground and rot. Homeowners who grow apples, plums, cherries, pears or other fruit often find that they can’t keep up with their fruit harvest, and they can only give away so much of their bounty to neighbors and co-workers.

The Seattle Times has a good story in today’s newspaper about a volunteer group called City Fruit that helps homeowners deal with the overabundance of fruit growing on their trees. City Fruit offers an added twist — helping homeowners better care for their fruit trees, including how to deal with worms, proper pruning and other tree tips. The Times writes:

City Fruit goes beyond harvesting by offering homeowners instruction in pruning, pest control and harvesting as well as workshops in canning or jam making. The organization also hopes to create a neighborhood network so that anyone seeking harvesting help or workshop information can consult its Web site for citywide options…

There are plenty of groups in Seattle that help homeowners harvest fruit and deliver them to food banks, so there’s no excuse for letting those juicy apples or pears fall to the ground and rot. Solid Ground, a nonprofit in Fremont, for example, runs the Community Fruit Tree Harvest. The group posts a list of food banks and other programs that will accept fruit in 2009 (PDF).  You can sign up as a volunteer to scout neighborhood fruit trees that can potentially be harvested, provide storage for fruit or picking buckets or be “on call” to harvest fruit in your neighborhood.  You can also organize your own harvest party and donate your fruit by calling Seattle Tilth’s Garden hotline at 206-633-0224 or email help@gardenhotline.org).

The June pest of the month is the earwig. This is their peak time of the year. They’re ugly little suckers, and distinctive in their look: dark brown long body with light brown legs and forceps at the rear. (Those pincers are harmless to humans). They’re nocturnal pests, so they come out at night. During the day, they tend to hide in moist, cool shady spots, including under leaves, garden pots, wood or compost piles, mulch. Some feed on aphids, insect eggs and mites, which is beneficial, but they also tend to snack on seedling plants, fruit crops such as strawberries, and flowers such as dahlias, zinnias and marigolds. You’ll find tiny irregular holes in the leaves, or you’ll notice that the leaves have been chewed around the edges.

How do I get rid of them? Trap them. Set out several homemade traps in your yard. One suggestions is to fill an empty tuna can (or other shallow can) with about 1/2 inch of vegetable oil. When the earwigs fall into the oil, empty the cans, refill with oil and set it out again. Another option is to use a moistened rolled-up newspaper or short piece of rubber hose. Put them out before dark and when you get catch some earwigs, shake them out into a pail of soapy water.

Try to eliminate areas where earwigs like to hang out. That means making sure you don’t have piles of yard debris, leaves, wood or other hiding places, especially near your vegetable beds.

Growing herbs indoors or outdoors is one of the most economical benefits of having a garden. Some herbs are no-brainers, like rosemary, Italian parsley, oregano and mint, because they require very little attention and buying sprigs of those herbs can be expensive. Other herbs such as basil and cilantro are a bit more finicky, but not impossible.

oregano

Most herbs require some amount of pinching/pruning to keep them full and happy. Make it a regular part of your harvest and it won’t seem like work at all. I regularly cut back rosemary, mint, parsley and basil as I need it, but sometimes even when I don’t. I want to keep the plants full and bushy.

Rosemary, thyme, sage, oregano and savory can tolerate dry conditions. They’re also great low-maintenance plants for your landscape because they require little water. Basil, lemon balm, dill need a bit more moisture. Mint likes wet soil, and should be planted in containers to prevent them from taking over your garden.

Here are some other tips to growing herbs:

Basil: Likes sun! Pinch out stems to create side shoots, and encourage full, bushy growth. Keep the plants well picked. When flowering starts, pinch off each flowering shoot and the leaf pair directly below. This Oregonian article has a good illustration of where to cut.

Cilantro: Perfect herb for Northwest climates because it doesn’t like hot weather. Cilantro prefers cool but sunny conditions. Too hot and it bolts (flowers). The flowers produce coriander seeds, which are also used in cooking. I seeded some a few weeks after I planted my peas earlier this spring, and have periodically re-seeded it with good success. Great for that guacamole!

Parsley: This herb is easy to grow from seed, but are readily available as starts.

rosemary

Regularly prune parsley and don’t allow them to go to seed. Trim large stems every so often.

Rosemary: A must have in the northwest.  Regularly prune rosemary, cutting off about a quarter or so, to prevent the plant from growing woody. Rosemary loves full sun, and can tolerate dry conditions nicely. In my opinion, you can’t prune rosemary too hard.

One of our neighbors recently got slapped on the wrist from the city of Seattle for putting in some raised vegetables beds in her parking strip without first paying for a $225 permit. She had gotten rid of grass that filled her planting strip — that no-man’s land between the street and the sidewalk — and was getting ready to put in raised beds, when she had to take it down.

Well, there’s good news today for well-intentioned urban farmers who want to make use of their planting strips to grow edibles. Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels announced that homeowners who want to make use of the strip won’t have to pay the $225 permit fee that had previously been required for pavers, hardscapes or planting boxes. You still need to get a permit, but those are free and can be obtained online from the Seattle Department of Transportation.

“This change makes it easier to plant flowers and vegetables in the strip between the sidewalk and the street. For many gardeners, that’s prime space,” said Nickels. “It’s one of the things that makes Seattle special, and, with planting season upon us, it’s time to get those green thumbs going.”

Check out the SDOT web site for more information, including tips on how to make improvements to your parking strip. Read more from Jennifer Langston, a former P-I reporter, who wrote about urban farming in Seattle.