Harlequins Gardens

Boulder's specialist in well-adapted plants

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Save the Date – Opening Day March 1st!

Helleborus niger

February is always an exciting time for me. The snow is melting in my south-facing front yard, revealing the first few spring blooms and rekindling my passion for gardening. In my garden, the Christmas Rose (Helleborus niger) and Crocus ‘Firefly’ and our tiny but hardy and tough native treasure Townsendia hookeri are the earliest flowers this year. And at the warmest part of the day, I’ve also seen a few honeybees visiting them. They are the unmistakable, irrepressible signs of spring!

In just a couple of weeks, there will be a lot more flowers blooming , and Harlequin’s Gardens will be open for the 2024 season! We’ll be opening through March in Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays beginning on Friday, March 1st. Classes, soil products, seeds, seed-starting supplies, tools and houseplants await you![Read More]

We Can Reuse or Recycle SOME Plastic Pots

pot recyclingAt Harlequin’s Gardens, we’ve been reusing and recycling black plastic nursery pots since day one. It is very important to us that we minimize our plastic waste. We have always encouraged our customers to bring back to us the nursery pots that came with the plants you purchased from us, and you have responded with enthusiasm, which we appreciate!

But many people have brought us pots that we cannot reuse and cannot recycle, and this has been costly for us. For us to be able to afford this pot drop-off service, we need your help! This year we would like to clarify exactly which pots we can accept and use. Following these requirements is the first way you can really help us out![Read More]

Strawberry Fields Forever!

We’re pleased to bring you a wonderful selection of Colorado-adapted strawberries with real strawberry flavor! You can choose Ogallala, Earliglow, Ft. Laramie, and Yellow Wonder Alpine. March is the perfect time to prepare your bed for planting these delicious fruits that will come back for several years. [Read More]

Soil Preparation Products

Photo Credit: Aaron Favila – AP, and The Daily Camera.

Our Soil Products for 2024 include:

Here are descriptions of many of the soil products we’ll have available at our store (sorry, we are not able to make deliveries). All of these are sold pre-packaged, and we bag many of them ourselves in refundable, reusable plastic bags. Our Compost Tea is sold in refundable, reusable 1-gallon jugs, or you can bring your own.

We currently do have straw in (not organic).

 

COMPOSTS

A1 Compost

A1 Eco-Gro: We nearly always have this premier compost in stock. A1 Eco-Gro is a Class I compost made from leaves, grass, chipped branches, and beer wastes. It contains a healthy population of microorganisms and diverse nutrients.  It is very stable and will not burn or steal nitrogen. Fine-textured, low in salts, with some woody particles. Use in vegetable and flower gardens, lawns, trees, shrubs. The pH is 8.3; the
NPK 1-1-1.

EKO Compost: Made locally from forest and recycled wood products composted with egg-farm poultry manure. Use in vegetable and flower gardens, lawns, trees, shrubs. Improves soil’s physical, chemical, and biological health.

EKO Lawn Topdressing: a finer textured sifting from Eko Compost, ideal to topdress lawns following aeration and fertilizing; gets food and water-holding capacity to roots; great on perennial beds, too.

Organic Mushroom Compost: from a local organic mushroom farm. Premium food for soil life and wonderful in vegetable gardens, helps to loosen heavy soils and improve aeration and porosity. Limited quantities.

FERTILIZERS
Harlequin’s Gardens Fertility Mix: Harlequin’s blend of certified organic fertilizer, humate, rock minerals, dry molasses, land: sourced coral calcium and mycorrhizae. Great for veggie gardens and all plants. Increases root mass, top growth, soil life, and productivity naturally. This is not just a fertilizer. The combination of ingredients and mycorrhizae act synergistically to support soil fertility.

Yum Yum Mix: 2-2-2  Vegan/Organic fertilizer for alkaline, nutrient-poor Western soils, feeds plants and soil microbes. Made from alfalfa, cottonseed meal, kelp meal, rock dust, green sand, humate. Great for native plants, Xeriscapes. Available in large and small bags.

Richlawn 5-3-2 organic: made in Platteville, CO from poultry manure and wood wastes. Excellent for shrubs and trees and is recommended for raspberries and other small fruits. Also economical and effective for fertilizing lawns.

Alpha One Fertilizer: locally made 7-2-2. An alfalfa-based product with a high organic matter content, very high humic acid value, low pH for Colorado alkaline soils, and is non-burning. It also contains blood meal, cottonseed meal and bone meal. Excellent for vegetable gardens and lawns. 20# and 40# bags.

Age-Old Liquid & Granular fertilizers: For foliar sprays and soil application. GROW formula – great, smell-free choice for houseplants, seedlings, container gardens; BLOOM formula – supports plants ready to bloom and fruit; FRUIT FINISH – perfect at fruiting phase for berries, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, squashes, cukes and zukes.

Neptune’s Harvest Organic Fertilizers: We carry several of these excellent liquid fertilizers derived from the mineral-rich North Atlantic Ocean, including Neptune’s Fish & Seaweed Blend, Neptune’s Seaweed Supplement, Neptune’s Tomato & Veg Formula.

Fish Bonemeal – A natural source of phosphorus which is responsible for root development, fruiting and flower production in plants.

Earthworm Castings – Worm castings are soil or compost that had passed through an earthworm. What comes out contains 5x more nitrogen, 2x more calcium, 7x more phosphorus and potassium and many minerals and beneficial microorganisms all in water-soluble and plant-available forms. Worm “manure” will not burn and is safe for all plants, including houseplants. Worm castings support growth, root development, and disease resistance.

Rose Fertilizer: Down to Earth Rose and Flower Mix is our substitute for Mile Hi Rose Feed, and it looks good: OMRI Certified: Fish Bone Meal, Langbeinite minerals, Blood Meal, Seabird Guano, Rock Phosphate, Humate, Kelp.

Corn Gluten – a truly safe Weed & Feed; keeps weed seeds from growing, fertilizes with 9% Nitrogen. Lasts 6 months, Apply in March/April and again Sept/Oct for good weed suppression. Perfect for lawns.

SOIL-BIOLOGY BOOSTERS
Compost Tea: In our Vortex brewer, we make compost tea with a biodynamic compost, a mineral concentrate, kelp extract, molasses, trace minerals, etc. Compost tea increases the beneficial micro-organisms in your soil, which can bring more nutrients and water to your plants and make them stronger and better able to cope with stress. It can be used full-strength as a mild organic fertilizer, or it can be diluted in water up to 3 times as a soil inoculant. It can also be used to inoculate compost piles to make materials break down faster. Available when temperatures are frost free. Bring your own jugs, or use ours for a $1 deposit (refundable upon return).

Humate
A natural trace mineral, carbon, and humic acid soil conditioner. It is not a fertilizer, but it has a significant effect on fertility by feeding soil microorganisms that make nutrients in the soil available to plants.

Humic Acid
3% humic acid derived from Leonardite. A natural liquid product with the same benefits as Humate – soil conditioning and feeding soil microorganisms that make nutrients in the soil available to plants. It is applied as a soil drench to established beds where granular materials can’t be dug in.

Big Foot Mycorrhizae
Water soluble symbiotic fungus, combining four species of mycorrhizae with biochar, worm castings, seaweed, and rock minerals to provide a strong population of plant allies to bring water and nutrients.

Endo Mycorrhizae
Water soluble symbiotic fungus, inoculate roots to bring water and nutrients. Easy to use and very effective. Good for shrubs, trees, all plants (even cacti!); dissolve in water, wet roots.

Myke Vegetable & Herb
Enhances growth, development, and production; dust the granules on wet roots or sprinkle in seed furrow to improve germination and growth.

POTTING SOILS
Fort Vee: Compost based, peat, rock dust, blood meal, kelp, bone meal, gypsum, vermiculite, biodynamic preps; Proven locally at Kilt Farm for seed germination and transplanting of seedlings and potting up house plants. Bag 20 qt (18 lb.)

Ocean Forest: FoxFarm’s top grade with sphagnum peat, kelp meal, bat guano, fish emulsion, crab and shrimp meal, nutrient rich, performs well for seedlings and gardening in containers of all sizes. Bag 1.5 cf

Coco Loco: FoxFarm potting soil uses Coconut fiber (coir) instead of sphagnum peat, perlite, worm castings, composted forest products, sandy loam, bat guano, kelp meal, granite dust, oyster shell, dolomitic lime. Looks good, performs well for seedlings and gardening in containers of all sizes. Bag 2 cf (41.7#)

CLAY-BUSTERS
Expanded Shale: a shale product that is mined and fired near Boulder to create a light-weight, porous “gravel” that holds both water and air, and creates optimal housing for microorganisms. Aids water penetration and aeration in tight clay soils (a Real ‘clay buster’).

OTHER SOIL PRODUCTS
Raised Bed Soil Mix

Azomite: 70 minerals from volcanic source, to increase health, crop yields, root development; support immune function, resistance to diseases, and overall vitality of plants; prevents deficiency problems; good for fruit trees, berry bushes

SOIL-RELATED CLASSES – Learn from Harlequin’s expert educators on topics including: building soil micro-biome, composting, soil selections for Front Range gardening, and much more. Sign up early to ensure your seat — our classes fill up fast!

 

 

What You Need to Know about Front Range Soil, by Mikl Brawner

Nobody would want to spend their winter weekends pouring over soil catalogues. To humans, soil just isn’t sexy. To plants, on the other hand, soil is very intimate, and as we humans know, intimacy can be wonderful or awful. So even though we don’t have any sexy soil pictures for you, we’d like to seduce you into looking under the covers where your plants roots are sleeping, because this is where the action will be getting warmer in a little over a month.

By now, most of us know that plants get aroused by soil, not dirt. We used to think soil was just physical; stuff to hold the plant up, so we could add a strong chemical fertilizer to make that plant, or grass, grow Fast! But we’re smarter now, because we know that soil is also biological—full of fungi, bacteria, and if it’s healthy, hundreds or even thousands of different organisms—all living and dying in a mutually supportive relationship with the plants. The plants share their carbon nutrients from photo-synthesis, and the soil life shares water, phosphorus and other riches with the plants. This is symbiosis—and symbiosis is sexy, because it supports Life.

So even though there is nothing you can do at the moment, very soon, before it’s warm enough to plant, you can start making your bed sexy. Sexy soil sprouts seeds, grows roots and leaves, builds strength, makes flowers and fruit, and defends against pests.

Why bother digging and amending? Why not just plant natives and other tough plants and skip the work? You can….some plants will do OK without much help. But Colorado soils are not Iowa soils. Colorado soils are characteristically deficient in nitrogen and organic matter, and mixing certain amendments with our tight clay allows oxygen and water to penetrate. Oxygen and water are essential to support healthy soil bacteria and other soil organisms. They encourage growth and support plant health.

So how can we support the soil life? Think how Nature does it: tree leaves fall to the earth, dead stems and leaves fall over and after years of snow and decay, a rich layer forms that feeds the soil. We humans are looking for faster results, so we can add already matured compost, healthy animal manures or organic fertilizers and rock minerals, plus, if the clay is very tight, we can add expanded shale. Too much of anything is not a good thing: add 20%-30% compost to new plantings, half the recommended organic fertilizers, a handful of rock minerals, scattered, and no more than 10%-20% expanded shale.

Let the biology do a lot of the work. It’s not hard to add more later; it’s very hard to correct too much. Keep the soil covered with mulch or living plants. Even native plants appreciate some compost to hold moisture and provide a light feeding when they are young. One more thing: avoid poisonous pesticides, fungicides and herbicides, like the plague. They kill or undermine the health of your allies—the soil life. Toxic pesticides are the opposite of sexy; they are like inviting the Grim Reaper into the bedroom. There are effective, non-toxic alternatives.

What about no-till? Not turning the soil makes sense once you’ve got the soil life in a good environment. Then you don’t want to disturb the symbiotic networks. Then you can feed from the surface; good tilth and worms will take the food down.

Harlequin’s Gardens has been guiding gardeners with soil care for many years. We source our materials mostly from local suppliers, and we’re very picky: we don’t sell feedlot manure or bio-comp with human wastes, or composts that are too hot or too raw. We don’t sell chemical fertilizers because they burn the soil life, disrupt the plant-soil relationship, limit plant nutrition and contribute to global warming. Our potting mixes are expensive because they nourish plants without chemical fertilizers. Sexy soils support the health of the plants and the health of the gardener who grows and eats those plants.

The Path to your Summer Garden Begins Here

With some deeply chilling temperatures on the near horizon, gardeners can gain a little comfort by fast-forwarding to spring in our minds as we plan for our 2024 gardens. The predictable and unpredictable consequences of climate change call upon us to observe our gardens more closely, revise our expectations of our gardens, broaden our vision of what makes a garden, and make our gardens more resilient and less dependent on uncertain resources.

We have been absorbed in seed catalogs; the past couple of nights my bedtime companion has been has the always-fascinating J.L.Hudson Seed Catalog, which is much more interesting in print than it is online. Our seed orders have been arriving and our propagators have been cleaning our precious wild-collected seeds, applying treatments to break dormancy (mostly hot water, physical scarification, and refrigeration), and making new plants from old by division and cuttings.[Read More]

Late Fall Musings

Agave seed stalk

The day before Thanksgiving in the Reshetnik-Brawer home was largely spent cleaning the house, but we also decided it was time to cut down the towering inflorescence of our Century Plant (Agave utahensis x parryi v. couesii). I held the 3”- thick stalk while Mikl cut through it with his folding hand-saw (a great tool!), then we laid it down on a ground-cloth to catch the copious seeds that fell out of the hundreds of pods. To me it felt as if we had just felled a large and noble animal or tree, and there were several quiet minutes of awe and reverence. Now that it was horizontal, we were able to get an accurate measurement of the bloom stalk’s height, 14.5 feet, and I counted 34 branches! We will be planting the hundreds (or thousands?) of seeds to produce new plants for you.

[Read More]

Our 32nd Gardening Season Begins March 1st!

As I write, the ground and rooftops are blanketed in snow, and the sun is streaming in the windows. Gotta love the Colorado winter! In less than a month, we’ll be open for our 32nd year as a nursery and garden center, and we are quite excited!

I don’t think we’ve ever had an easy year, but ‘easy’ isn’t an option in this business. So many aspects of running a nursery have never been predictable, and we’re always relating with thousands of details and challenges.

BUT we have a great crew and there are many things you can always count on finding when you visit Harlequin’s Gardens, and we hope you will appreciate the value you receive when you shop at our big little nursery.

For 31 years, we have always been committed to non-aggression, health and environmental stewardship in horticulture and all other spheres of Life. And this commitment will always continue!

We’ll never use toxic pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, or chemical fertilizers.

We are the best source for Colorado and regional Native Plants on the Front Range.

We have and will always specialize in Water-Thrifty plants, Native and Colorado-adapted plants and Pollinator-Supporting plants.

We are always broadening our plant offerings, often bringing into cultivation wonderful local wild plants that were previously unavailable in commerce. (*see below for examples)

Our staff, e-newsletters, classes, and hand-outs offer empowering, cutting-edge organic and environmental gardening advice and education gained from our 31 years of research and experience.

Our customer service team is exceptionally knowledgeable, helpful and accessible.

We grow most of our own plants and supplement with plants from other local and regional growers that never use neonicotinoids.

We grow our plants in our own carefully formulated potting soils that grow healthier, stronger, more resilient plants that will establish successfully into your garden.

Our pest management products are always non-toxic, child-safe and pollinator safe.

We compost and make our own powerful Compost Tea.

We aim to be a zero-waste business: we bag compost and mulches in returnable plastic bags that we reuse to reduce plastic in the environment. We also reuse nursery pots, and sell our compost tea in returnable/reusable jugs.

We offer superior, CO-specific resources and advice for supporting bees, butterflies, birds and other pollinators and beneficial insects.

We test and evaluate our soil products (composts, organic fertilizers, mulches and other amendments), and most of them are sourced locally.

We recycle and use recycled materials for our building projects.

Our greenhouses don’t use fossil fuels; our heat and energy come mostly from the Sun, with a little electricity from renewables. And this year we are installing a heat-pump system for our store!

We are located in unincorporated Boulder County, where sales taxes are only about half the rate of those in Front Range cities.

We support local growers, artists, artisans and musicians as well as non-profit environmental efforts.

We connect our customers with events and other educational and activist opportunities related to environmental, agricultural and horticultural issues.

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Wild Plants we are Propagating in 2024.  We have our fingers crossed that good germination and growth on the unique native plants described below will allow us to bring them to you this season.

The plants we offer will contribute to a beautiful, thriving garden that will be a joy to behold, but they can also provide so much more than a pretty picture to look at. The ecosystem services that our plants provide add much more value to your gardens.

Celtis reticulata, courtesy Oregon State University

Celtis reticulata, Netleaf Hackberry
You may be familiar with the larger Celtis occidentalis or Western Hackberry, which makes an excellent long-lived, water-wise deciduous shade tree. Netleaf Hackberry is substantially smaller, fairly slow-growing to 15’ to 25’ with a spreading canopy, interesting sculpted bark, an attractive twisting branch pattern, rough green leaves and reddish brown or purple berries. The leaves support the caterpillars of Mourning Cloak and Hackberry Emperor butterflies and a number of moths, which in turn, along with the sweet berries, attract and feed many birds. In Colorado, Netleaf Hackberry occurs in the wild in the Front Range foothills and on the western edge of the plains. It is rarely available in nurseries. We’ve seen some handsome specimens growing around Lyons. Cold hardy and highly adaptable to many soils, moisture levels and exposures, it can be grown as a small to medium-sized tree that will not require any supplemental watering after initial establishment.

Mertensia lanceolata

Mertensia lanceolata, Prairie Bluebell, Languid Lady
Dropping way down in scale, we are hoping for good germination on this lovely local spring wildflower that inhabits a wide range of Rocky Mountain habitats and elevations, from the plains to alpine habitats, in dry partial shade under deciduous shrubs and trees, on north-facing slopes, near rock outcroppings and in sunny meadows. In mid to late spring (May and June in Boulder) the delicate bell-shaped flowers nod from slender stems, opening from plum-colored buds and maturing to blue. The leaves are blue-green due to a waxy coating, with a prominent center vein. Prairie Bluebells are in the Borage family, prized for its many striking blue-flowered constituents. The plants can produce sizeable colonies, several feet across and can range from 6 ” to 14” tall. Prairie Bluebell goes dormant by early summer, dying back to its substantial roots.

Argemone hispida, courtesy Mik Kintgen

Argemone hispida, Rough Prickly Poppy
This is one of my favorite local wildflowers. It took me awhile to notice that it was different from the Prickly Poppies I had met before (Argemone polyanthemos), being more stout and shrubby, with grey-green foliage and much more dense, numerous and slender golden prickles on all parts, from stem to bud to seed-pod. The fabulous silky white flowers are just as big (4” wide) and just as stunning as the more commonly found Argemones, but the plant is more compact, up to perhaps 15” tall where I’ve seen it growing. They both grow in the same habitat, so Rough Prickly Poppy is also happy growing dry and hot, and blooms at the same time – May to August. Found in Colorado, New Mexico, Kansas, South Dakota and Wyoming.

 

Astragalus utahensis, courtesy James L. Reveal and the LadyBird Johnson Wildflower Center

Astragalus utahensis, Utah Milkvetch
Utah milkvetch is in the legume family (Fabaceae). One finds quite a few plants in this family in the arid west. They are probably making life better for themselves and the plants around them by fixing nitrogen from the air and transferring it to their roots and the soil. Native to Utah and several adjacent states, this very pretty spring-blooming milkvetch is particularly abundant in the Wasatch Mountains. Its typical habitats include rocky hillsides, sagebrush openings, and pinyon-juniper areas. A rock garden, crevice garden, or the front of a Xeriscape garden with excellent drainage will suit it well. The plant is lovely even after bloom, with its wavy silvery pinnate leaves.

 

Yours in support of abundant Life,
Eve Reshetnik Brawner & Mikl Brawner

Bulbs for every Front Range Garden!

We still have LOTS of gorgeous spring-flowering bulbs! When these ‘buried treasures’ emerge, they are among the first signs of spring and are welcomed not only for their beauty, but also for providing early pollen and nectar sources for our pollinating insect as they, too, emerge.

Customers have been inquiring about which bulbs can thrive in the particular circumstances of their gardens. Whether you have a rock garden, native garden, xeriscape, fragrance garden, traditional flower border, cutting garden, or meadow, or you are living with deer, squirrels, chipmunks, limited water, baking sun, shade, clay soil or decomposed granite, there are spring flowering bulbs you can grow successfully, and we still have plenty of them! We carefully curate our selection to provide the best of the best for our climate and all our various garden types.

[Read More]

You Never Know, with Nature!

Well, that was a false alarm!

You heard it from us (and all the weather guessers in the media) – we were going to have our first freeze, possibly a hard freeze, late last week. As my friend Elise put it, after harvesting all of her dahlia blooms, tomatoes, etc., “Huh?”.

In fact, Mikl and I did clear counter space and we did spend all day Thursday harvesting, cutting down and cleaning up much of our vegetable garden, and starting up the dehydrator to dry what seemed like thousands of tomatoes. And we hauled in all the houseplants that spent the summer outside. Our winter squash harvest was remarkable, especially considering that the bed where they were planted had been neglected most of the season, with only 3 or 4 intentional waterings.[Read More]

Protecting your Plants, Pampering Yourself!

It’s time to clear counter space in your kitchen and bring in final harvests of tomatoes, peppers, basil, ground cherry, beans, and squash for whatever processing you like to do. My dehydrator has been churning out dried tomatoes to snack on and use in soups, sauces and stews through the winter. Frost is predicted for Friday and Saturday nights (29-30 deg. F) and can be damaging or fatal to these summer crops. On the other hand, if you’re not ready to say goodbye to them this week, we have the knowledge and tools you’ll need to protect your plants! (see this article for more)

Our annual, month-long Holiday Gift Market, open through October 29th, is the perfect place to warm up and enjoy perusing the work of many local artists and artisans. Some of our offerings are available this month exclusively at Harlequin’s Gardens, and nowhere else! From art for the home to personal adornment, the best books for adults and kids, from gardening gifts to delicious treats for foodies, you’ll find unique and beautiful items.[Read More]

Our 12th Annual Holiday Market is Open!

If you’ve been to Harlequin’s Gardens, you know that what Mikl and I and our wonderful staff have collaborated on these past 31 years is much more than a place to purchase plants. We believe “our primary product is knowledge”, and much of our work has been to develop and support deeply knowledgeable gardeners who value sustainability. We grow many of our own plants, but truly, thanks to you, we’ve also grown a community.

Our annual, month-long Holiday Gift Market, open through October 29th, is our yearly gift to you. For the past 12 years we have been making space for a community of artists and performers to share their talents, and it’s our great pleasure to introduce the gardening community to these members of Boulder County and Colorado’s artistic community. Please be our guests this month and come take a look at the abundance of beauty available – both from the natural world and crafted by human hands.

[Read More]

Our 2023 Holiday Market Opens Sept. 30th!

From your previous visits in the last eleven years, many of you know that our Holiday Gift Market is the most rewarding, enjoyable place to shop for your holiday gifts, relaxed and far from the madding crowd! When the Covid pandemic began, we realized that the only way we could keep our customers (and staff) safe and happy while shopping our Holiday Gift Market was to move it up to October! 

[Read More]

The Beauty of Winter Gardens

As the year is drawing toward a close and much of the garden and natural landscape is dormant, we can still appreciate the beauty and interest of plants: the silhouetted structure of our leafless trees and shrubs, the textures and colors of their bark, the berries and seedpods ornamenting their branches, and likewise the colors and textures of dry grasses, cattails and sedges. We can also admire the color and form of our evergreen trees and shrubs, and realize how many of our favorite perennial flowering plants and groundcovers provide evergreen (or red, or silver, or purple) foliage through the winter!

The Winter Solstice season is a time for celebrating the return of the light, both literally and figuratively, and as our daylight hours increase in the outer world, we will also try to keep our inner light burning for love, justice, and compassion for all life on earth. It’s a time for generosity, opening hearts, kindness, sharing, and spreading good news. Here are a couple of our suggestions for valuable gifts you can share:
[Read More]

Homemade Elderberry Syrup

This fall, two of our Elderberry’s performed especially well:  ‘Mikl’s’ and ‘Marge’.

We harvested a bounty, and are happy to share our favorite way to use them.

A healthy herbal remedy used for centuries, we love making Elderberry Syrup from berries harvested from the gorgeous elderberry shrubs and trees we can grow right here in Colorado!

This easy-to-make syrup recipe comes from Boulder wellness coach and herbalist Mitten Lowe.[Read More]

Some Good News on the Climate

Bill McKibben, environmentalist, educator and founder of 350.org recently wrote, “If the last year has been about a phase change in our planet’s climate, the next year has to be about a phase change in our planet’s politics.”

This past week we did get significant good news about climate action, and we want to share it with you.

[Read More]

Summer Garden Beet Salad Recipe

from Mitten Lowe at Journey to Wellness

I love beets and beet greens for how grounding and nutritious they are – providing folate, dietary fiber, manganese, potassium, iron, antioxidants, phytonutrients, and more! This wonderful garden beet salad is a perfect way to utilize all parts of the beet plus it’s versatile and so incredibly satisfying.

 

[Read More]

Spring Gardening Begins!

We are so happy to see you again, talk about our favorite subjects, share some hugs and some news, and to greet new customers too! Among our opening weekend’s first customers were a couple that drove up from Littleton for their first venture to Harlequin’s; their neighbor told them about our Fine Wood Chip mulch, that it knits together and stays in place, looks great, and feeds the soil, unlike the coarse wood chips and bark mulches you find elsewhere.

We had a lot to tell you about last week, soils and seeds, tools, classes and memberships, but didn’t tell you about the plants we have for sale! Yes! We’ve got native and beautifully adapted perennials and herbs that were over-wintered in an unheated but covered ‘house’. These can go home with you now, as long as you can let them ‘harden-off’ for about a week (introduce them gradually to the direct sun, wind and cold). See our instructions HERE. After hardening off, with only a few exceptions, these can be planted in March if you can work the soil.[Read More]

Pop-Up Markets for Your Bulbs and Gifts!

And now for the surprise! Just when you thought the gardening season was over, and that Harlequin’s Gardens has gone into winter hibernation until March 2024, we have a surprise for you! We will be open for 2 Saturday    Pop-Up Markets, on November 11th and 18th from 10am to 4 pm!

Our earlier fall weather was so mild and beautiful that many of you weren’t ready to think about planting bulbs for spring flowers, let alone holiday gift giving. So these pop-ups will include lots of bulbs on sale (see below), and some of the CURATED ARTISANAL GIFTS we offered at our Holiday Gift Market, now  25% to 50% off.

[Read More]

Self-Sowing Hardy Annuals

Some customers wonder why we are selling starts of self-sowing hardy annuals like Larkspur, Rocky Mt. Beeplant, California Poppy, Peony-flowered Poppy,  Sweet Alyssum and Desert Bluebell. Shouldn’t they be grown from seed sown directly in the garden? The answer is Yes, they certainly can be, and if you find a source for the seeds and sow them at the optimal time, usually in the fall, you can get great results. But some gardeners report having little or no success with direct sowing: their timing is off, the seeds are watered in and then dry up and are no longer viable, critters eat the seeds, etc.  [Read More]

Get Involved! 2023 Farm Bill

Every 5 years or so Congress has the opportunity to transform our food system by revising a piece of legislation known as the Farm Bill, which covers everything from supporting farmers to ensuring food security for all. Politicians and local and national advocacy organizations are working to determine how nearly a billion dollars a year will be spent. You can help!

 

 

[Read More]

TOMATO OFFERINGS – 2023 Spring Newsletter

A Few New & ‘New Again’ TOMATOES:  Offering 73 varieties!

BURRELL’S SPECIAL – New Again! 70-75 days, Hybrid, Determinate
A very productive and ‘picture perfect’ large red salad/slicer tomato developed by Burrell’s seed company of Rocky Ford, CO. The flattened globe fruits average 8 oz, 3” x 2.5”, and have excellent sweet, balanced flavor, plump, meaty texture and small cores, good heat tolerance, and demonstrated ability to set fruit in hot weather. Vines grow to 4’.

 

CASCADE VILLAGE BLUE – New Again!   75 days, Open-Pollinated, Indeterminate
This lovely indigo saladette type tomato holds well on and off the vine, is beautiful, and tastes great, too. Dark purple-skinned, 3 oz globes ripen to red on the bottom, with a red star shape that forms under the calyx, common to indigo tomatoes. Flesh is red, foliage has a dark purple tinge.

Dr. WYCHE’s YELLOW – New Again!   80 days, Heirloom, Indeterminate
Dr. Wyche’s has been away too long! One of the great heirloom tomatoes featured in Dr. Carolyn Male’s book ‘100 Heirloom Tomatoes’. The yellow fruits are large (up to 1 lb), slightly flattened globes, with very richly flavored flesh , fruity and complex, meaty and blemish-free. When completely ripe, they are golden-orange.

FLAMING BURST – New!    70 days, Open-pollinated, Indeterminate
These crack-resistant, 1oz, 1.25 x 1.75”, golden orange fruits look like a cross between a pear tomato and a cherry tomato, in clusters on a steadily productive plant. Meaty but not dense; juicy and sweet but tangy, not insipid, with the  flavor and nuance that so many yellow pears tomatoes lack. The high-yielding plants grow to a manageable 4′ tall.

JERSEY DEVIL– New!   85 days, Open-pollinated, Indeterminate
Jersey Devil is a brilliant red, very prolific heirloom paste-type variety shaped like a plump banana pepper. These sweet and richly flavored, 4 to 6” tomatoes are solid and very meaty, great for making into sauces and salsas, and even eating fresh, and have very few seeds. Vines grow 3’ to 5’ tall, , fruits can be colossal! They yield very heavily.

LARGE RED CHERRY – New!   75-80 days, Open-pollinated, Indeterminate
This famous 19th century cross between a smaller currant-type wild tomato and a domesticated garden tomato bears clusters of sweet, juicy, bright red 1″ to 1.25” diameter round fruits over a long season on tall, vigorous vines. Ideal for salads, stuffing, and snacking.  

MOUNTAIN DELIGHT – New!    70 days, Hybrid, Determinate
One of the Mountain series developed by NC State University and similar to Mountain Fresh and Mountain Spring, but plants are more compact with higher yields. Bright red flattened globes weigh 10 oz. and are firm and flavorful, great for salads, slicing and sandwiches. Healthy determinate vines grow to 3 to 5’ tall and are resistant to many diseases.

ORANGE KING – New Again!   65 days. Open-pollinated, Semi-Determinate
One of the earliest full-size tomatoes to ripen and one of the best producers of tennis-ball-size, very meaty, bright orange globes that can weigh up to ¾ lb. Blemish-free  fruit grow on stocky 3’ bushes that are easy to cage. An excellent short-season slicing variety, it has great low-acid, sweet, fruity flavor. This Orange King was bred by Tim Peters

PINK BUMBLE BEE – New!   65-70 days, Open-pollinated, Indeterminate
Recently bred by Artisan Seeds to perform under tough conditions, these gorgeous, streaked cherry
tomatoes hang in trusses of pinks, yellows and oranges. Vigorous, tall vines  yield loads of crack-resistant fruit over a very long season; bright, sweet flavor; tolerates cool nights and hot days.

SUNRAY – New! 75 days, Open-Pollinated, Indeterminate                                                                                                             The beautiful golden orange, blemish-free, 6 to 9oz fruits have a meaty texture and rich, sweet and tangy flavor, said to rival the best reds and perfect for salads, sandwiches, slicing or canning. Vigorous, leafy, high-yielding vines have strong resistance to Fusarium wilt. They are known to be very drought-tolerant and thrive in hot, dry climates.

Returning Varieties: ‘Anasazi’, Aunt Ruby’s German Green, Big Rainbow, Black from Tula, Black Krim, Black Prince, Black Sea Man, Cherokee Purple, Chianti Rose, Dona, Gold Medal, Italian Heirloom, Moskvitch, Pink Brandywine (Sudduth), Pruden’s Purple, Striped German, Burrell’s Special, chocolate Cherry, Isis Candy, Juliet, Large Red Cherry, Lemon Drop, Matt’s Wild Cherry, Mexico Midget, SunGold, Supersweet 100, Tommy Toe, Gold Nugget, Red Robin, Stupice, Tasmanian Chocolate, Tidy Treats, Tumbling Tom Yellow, Cuor di Bue, Martino’s Roma, Native Sun, Jaune Flamme, Principe Borghese, San Marzano Redorta, Blush, Garden Peach, Glacier, Green Zebra, Indigo Apple, Floradade, Better Boy, Bella Rosa, Bush Early Girl, Carmello, Chocolate Stripes, Cosmonaut Volkov, Orange King, Sasha’s Altai, Azoychka, Black Truffle, Paul Robeson, Pink Berkeley Tie Dye, Taxi, Thessaloniki, Super Sioux (Lakota).

Thanks, Volunteers!

Gary Meis teaching

Gary Meis teaching

Last Saturday a group of dedicated plantspeople came in from the cold to learn and volunteer with Harlequin’s Gardens’ expert propagator Gary Meis. We’re passing a few of his native plant seeding and propagation tips along to you.

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Welcome to a Whiff of Approaching Spring!

Rock Garden Iris

It’s probably safe to assume you’re as anxious as we are to get our hands in the dirt, and happily, Harlequin’s Gardens is opening for our 31st season this Thursday March 2nd. We’re so looking forward to seeing you all again!  We’ll have everything you need to get started for the season. Here’s what we’ll have available for you on March 2nd.

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A Favorite Basil Pesto Recipe

Sweet Basil

Basil can still be planted this season, and you’ll harvest enough for many recipes. This Pesto Recipe is from Mary Lou Carlson as adapted by Carol Gerlitz (originally in Fine Cooking magazine, June/July 2001)

Yields about 1½ cups

  • 3 cups packed basil leaves (about 6-7 ounces of leaves)
  • ¼ cup ice water
  • 1 clove garlic, peeled and smashed
  • ½ cup + 2 tbsp. pine nuts
  • ¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
  • ½ tsp. salt
  • 3/8 tsp. black pepper
  • ½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
  • Bring 2 quarts water seasoned with 1 tablespoon salt to a rolling boil. Prepare an ice bath by combining ice and water in a large bowl. (Be sure you freeze a lot of ice cubes ahead of time for this.)

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For Your Fall Vegetable Garden

It’s time to plant ‘cool-season’ crops! And for your tomatoes, peppers and eggplants, this is a great week to feed them with Neptune Tomato and Vegetable Fertilizer – well-fed plants provide a better harvest!

Chinese Cabbage, Tokyo bekana.  A community garden favorite last season!
Bright Lights Swiss Chard. Multi-colored mix. Not frost tolerant; row cover extends your harvest.
Shanghai Green Pak Choi. Light green leaves, mild flavor, crisp texture. Great for soup, stir-fry and salad.
Red Giant Mustard Greens. We mean giant! Give it room. Cold tolerant.
Lavewa Spinach. Open-pollinated with rich, deep color.
Piracicaba. Lots of mini-florets on this non-heading broccoli.
Yukina Savoy, Asian Greens. Mild, sweet flavor.

We also have  cool-season veggie seeds, as well discounted summer vegetable and flower seeds for a head-start next year. Consider Row Cover Fabric for frost and insect protection.  Garlic and Shallots should arrive soon!