Insane Plant Haul at the Tilth May Edible Plant Sale!

Join me shopping an epic edible plant sale! I’m stocking up for the growing season ahead with herbs, tons of basil, peppers, squash, tomatoes and more. And just when you think I’ve bought too many, I discovered HEIRLOOM CHRYSANTHEMUMS. ☠️ I am absolutely obsessed with my new collection and can’t wait to share it all with you!

Happy gardening, friends!
Kate

Tilth Alliance
https://tilthalliance.org/

Evergreen Chrysanthemum Association

Evergreen Chrysanthemum Association

The Korean Vegan Cookbook: Reflections and Recipes from Omma’s Kitchen
https://a.co/d/b2Sbsb4

good morning friends it is a great day we are going to the Seattle tilth May edible plant sale and I come here because there’s just good stuff there’s interesting things that I’m not going to find in my local Nursery these are specialty items I like to be adventurous in my garden and I like to grow things that just Peak the imagination Peak the Curiosity already I’m spying some amazing interesting things uh for example this guy behind me I don’t know if we can see this he is selling mum like chrysanthemum cuttings of some just really unusual varieties and this is just the little vendor area outside of the actual sale the other thing that I have purchased here before is um back in my April uh Garden Tour I showed you my beauty of Moscow lilac never seen it in a traditional Nursery but I found one here so I’m going to take you around and I’m going to show you some just unusual special things that you may not see every day and and some things that you may not find at your Home Depot your big box store um even if you’re at a smaller Nursery let’s go these are some really incredible mum varieties I want to show you a couple that caught my Peak my interest here first light it’s Jill Anderson or anderton that polar anderton that is super cool too and I love that they have so many special varieties in here oh man look at that thing okay mocha all right that is super interesting to me I might see if I can grab that that honey is so cool okay we are going to be coming back to hit this up after the sale look at this these World pedals are Sensational Mount Rainer okay you guys more look at this Peach Fairweather are you kidding me Judith Baker are you kidding me okay this is really good stuff this is super special and this is the ever green crysanthemum Association we’ve got Puget s Beekeepers Association here my aunt is a [Music] beekeeper okay whenever a vendor has this many blueberries I’m looking to see what they’re growing because they’ve got some really interesting ones they got one called ra they’ve got one called Elliot there’s another one down here called bonus so when you see a vendor who has masses of a singular type of plant this is where you want to dive deep because it’s like the chrysanthemum folks they’re diving into like a genre of plant and they’re going to be pretty particular what they’re bringing forth so I feel like of this vendor the blueberries I think are the most special it’s time when you first come into the sale it’s a lot of like Herby things flowers there’s only a couple things that I want to take a look at um they also have a basil tent it’s still a little bit we’ve got some really hot days some really cold snaps but I am stocking up on basil all right it says cented derium’s mixed varieties I love a scented duranium these are phenomenal in a cut flour Arrangement they’re incredible in the garden I’m interested to see what they have I have grown lemon before and what else more lemon this one is interesting lady Plymouth this is not one that I ever see so I am going to pop on that guy quatri Folia okay that’s gorgeous you really don’t see this deep veining this deep colored veining on a lot of these so I’m getting this one for sure there’s also another one um orange Fizz that one is really great there’s another one that I’m looking for that’s called cinnamon and I haven’t seen it in a while I saw it once and I should have gotten it oh atar of roses this is the one that I showed at the flower and garden show this one is [Music] fabulous all right this is actually something that I’m going to be getting for a client of mine this is lemongrass turn this around this is lemongrass now I have have a couple of clients that I do edible containers for and I like to include this because this will shoot out and it becomes just almost like a phenomenal centerpiece so I am going to pop on a couple of these for clients as well okay if any of you children of the’80s grew up with hippie relatives this is a Puli plant and I’m kind of interested what it’s going to smell like oh actually kind of love it it’s like bizarrely nostalgic oh my God okay it’s kind of awesome do I get it I know I think I shouldn’t get Puli what am I going to do with it all right we keep moving so this is actually this is the stevia plant actually going to choose a different one um but I think I’m going to get this because I want to play with kids Garden and I also want to put it in some iced tea just to see what this is like so we’re going to we’re going to pop on this one another thing that I’ve seen this um at a couple different spots but I like to grab it here is I’ve gotten super into Korean cooking I have like the most incredible Korean vegan cookbook and I I’ll post it below the recipes have been fantastic but I want to play with growing my own shiso not that it’s like super expensive we’ve got really good access to amazing uh plants here in Seattle but I love the idea that I can grow both because that to me I mean my goodness okay look at I I always I’m always thinking of containers look at this imagine growing the lemongrass for texture we’ve got two different colors of shiso this is becoming like in and of itself a really sculptural edible container okay once again I’m like 30 ft into a sale and I almost have a full tray so uh it’s going to be fun I feel like I’m about ready to buy one of everything okay we’re going to exercise some self-control we’re going to exercise some self-control all right there’s a couple things um I can get I believe I can get amethyst at my Nursery but this African blue basil this one seemed kind of interesting to me okay so this is on my radar this one dark opal look at that leaf Edge that is super interesting okay this one is definitely on my radar okay I’m for sure going to get some holy basil um I’m going to get one for a client of mine and one for the trial Garden okay Secret Squirrel something that I said last year that I thought was going to cause a curfuffle is I was like ooh bonus plants and someone was like where and I was like oh like in the pot so this is what I refer to as a bonus plant I did a short about the roll technique that I use and this is a perfect example I will actually get in here and I will separate these two because they’re two separate completely healthy plants and I would never plant these two this close together because I want to cut this right above a leaf pairing so it bushes out so this is like bonus plant territory so I’m going to buy this and I’m going to separate it when I was doing my preview shopping last night on my phone CU they published the list a couple days before this one came up this one is called oan it says this is the fastest growing dark maroon purple basil developed in Switzerland this is super interesting to me so I’m actually going to grab this too and it has this kind of like cool interesting leaf and then this is another one where I have three in here so I’m going to try to separate these out and see if I can get three plants out of it and this is where you need to bring a friend or a cart this is the official babysitting Zone waiting station for all of us who have already filled up an entire tray and we still have half of this sale to go so stuff like this is exactly why you come to a sale like this because you’re just going to get some super super funky things okay this is actually one that you see frequently but I love it and honestly this when you’re planting some of these squashes this is all you need do not unless you have a farm plan more than two this is this is such a sweet one okay I’m going to get these so these are Jimmy nardell and these are so awesome I was down visiting um my little brother in San Francisco and we went to this restaurant and we literally had just like the most amazing like fire roasted Jamie nardell they were so so so good okay in my region we do not have a very long growing season I mean we do and we don’t but when we’re talking about hot peppers I it is a gamble when you do something that has like an 80-day maturity rate 65 though and then there’s one over here that’s 60 this is something that now I’m like I feel like we can we can gamble with this if I get up like 80 90 I just don’t think we get enough heat to really get something going here I love atao and what’s so funny is I thought the first year there was something wrong with me because I bought one that is a fatal mistake that’s a rookie maneuver so I’m going to grab a couple of each you really need multiple tomatillos for that cross pollination um I haven’t grown the purples before I usually grow just the veres I think I want to get both though okay and when you’re at these sales and you pick one of these guys up you want to kind of give it a little bit of a shake you don’t want something that’s like Loosey Goosey all down in there you want something that has like a nice firm stamp so just Insider tip Insider tip all right there’s like 8,000 people gathered around this one Tom me over here and I’m like what gives but also I like looking for the ones that are super picked over um because usually the people who shop early have pre- shopped they know what they’re doing oh interesting so it’s a determinant which means it like all ripens at once which is great if you’re canning you’re doing like masses of things so yeah canning tomato ideal for sauce and paste hair shaped Scarlet fruits thick and Meaty with few seeds sets heavy do we want a heavy set tomato I’m moving on I don’t know I just don’t know if I’m going to can a bunch of tomato sauce this year yeah the 10 fingers of [Music] Naples huge fat fingers of fruit okay this is hilarious and then also look at this tomato get what you get feeling spontaneous I love this because this happens to all of us every year like something gets mislabeled and I love that they’re just like you get a tomato I’m literally only buying this because I think it has the Fool’s name dancing with Smurfs but also I love having colorful fruit in the garden and so that ticks a box check this out okay the two that I just picked up so I picked up a dancing with Smurfs and then I picked up um a peace Vine cuz I thought that would be really fun cuz it’s a um anyways it’s a little snacker but look it is um these ones are Ry Ranch it’s the rineer beach youth stewards how awesome is that so it’s the Rainer Beach you stewards very cool you know what if these are kids running this they did a really good job with their starts that’s awesome okay I have an idea look at this geranium kiss 68 days open pollinated semi- indeterminant dwarf and bushy two foot Beauties do well and look great in a container should we do this in the small space container garden okay this is one of my son’s favorites he loves a sweet million and a sweet 100 both are fantastic they are indeed two different Tomatoes he loves a sweet million okay perfect I I find this offensive there’s no way okay for the record my favorite tomato of all time is a Cherokee purple it doesn’t produce a lot but it is freaking delicious look at this blasphemy Okay pink boar already love the name uh striped with green and metallic gray striping and the flesh Rivals the Beloved Taste of Cherokee purple tomatoes okay I feel like a taste test coming on I feel like a side by side Head to [Music] Head do we by seven oh my god do we get more than one we get more oh no okay okay okay okay so these are the Cherokee purples these are obviously my favorite and so I’m going to grab two of these the other thing though is I was just chatting with one of the volunteers and the um the Rainer Beach youth they actually start all of those and all of the proceeds go to that program so feeling I might have to go through again and I there she said they’re a dollar more but at the end of the day I don’t really care because if we’re supporting a youth program that is getting this next generation of gardeners up and running I’m like just all in all in okay I do have to show you one other thing okay this tomato is called carbon and this has actually been on my radar for a couple of years um and I’m really interested so I’m going to pull one of these and we’re going to have just like the biggest tomato taste test of All Time and Eternity also you will notice I thought two tra would be enough yeah okay insatiable appetite over here Brandy Fred dwarf indeterminant part of the dwarf tomato project it’s a cross between a brandy wine and a wild dwarf tomato what does well in pots and still yields large fruit can grow to 4 feet in height but stays compa act okay this is really fascinating friends this was a phenomenal sale I got a little bit of everything came with two trays leaving with three I want to just go over a couple quick hits that I really thought were unusual and are something that maybe you can find in a local shop where you are first is the African blue African blue basil I thought it was so beautiful the other one is the osmen basil I hope I’m pronouncing that right this one is just delicate really great little serated leaves um L that it was developed in an interesting part of the world that you don’t normally associate with basil this was a good one this is the trombon Cino summer squash and I picked through and I I found one with four little starts in it this one seemed really really interesting giant cork screw summer squash very excited about this one really excited about my shiso great little St there oh this one this one is the Apple mint and I haven’t grown Apple mint before but I thought this one would be really really fun to put in drinks that kind of stuff this is from the rineer beach youth stewards and I’m really excited to support this organization uh this one is peaceville and then I got this one this is the dancing with Smurfs which I just the names are awesome I got this too this one is so cute this one is an onion it’s called purplette and you can grow this as a bunching or you can Harvest it as like a little golf ball apparently if you let them go in the garden they will develop a skin like a traditional onion but I found that I used so many onions last year in cooking and having a little fresh onion like this I think it’s just perfect I was really excited about this scented geranium this one is kolum anyways I thought that was so beautiful and you know what it’s funny scented geraniums can get really in your face this one has almost like an Herby hint to it yeah it has almost like a parsley Herby hint very excited about that one what you’re going to notice about the plants that I’m purchasing is they almost fall into categories we have herbs we have tomatoes we have peppers and then we have a smattering of really unusual things like this summer squash that I’ve never seen before the reason behind this is because I know that I have more bang for my buck when I buy seed and there are certain things that simply do better directly sewn as opposed to as a transplant so in this category um you know I maybe I’ll pop a little list up on the screen but there’s beets carrots uh scallions radishes lettuce arugula spinach many of the summer squashes pumpkins these are all things that you can direct sew with such great success oh do we say peas and beans okay peas and beans like that should be like at the top of the list these are all things that are grown with such great success and actually prefer to be direct sewn so we aren’t disturbing root systems something like a tomato for example let’s just take this sweet million this is something that takes so beautifully to transplanting and in fact I can bury this sucker right up to here and it’s going to be even more robust in my garden all that having been said I think I have really gone for the Gusto here so I’m want to run these back to my car but then I need to double back because I can’t pass up some of those mums that I saw out there they are fantastic and it’s something like three for 10 bucks like get out of here awesome awesome so that’s our next [Music] stop okay so when we first got here these were some of the ones that first caught my eye cuz they are just like look at this it is so interesting and look at the little curl that’s at the end of each petal this one I love I mean Coral Leaf coral reef that’s like the perfect name for that one okay look at this Shaggy monster Birmingham that is wild that is wild man oh man you know what I almost there’s so many here freaking cool [Music] Dam lakelander that is so crazy it’s almost like we have to like just choose one and then okay so I want to hear I want to hear the I want to hear the story about this so should we start from crusty old bastards 75 years ago a bunch of crusty old basers split off from the Seattle chrysanthemum Club because it was too much of a gardening club and they and they established a men’s only Evergreen croan Association and it was just to grow grow English exhibition crysanthemum and it was primarily the large exhibition and in curves and what are called late decoratives what’s an incurve an incurve is the one that like the pedals it’s a very very tight ball around the size of a baseball or a softball but it’s distinguished as a class in that the top is supposed to be like this it’s literally closed at the top interesting okay and round and then late decoratives that are kind of in between size of the in curves but not as big as the medium exhibitions and it continued that way for about 50 years and then finally things evolved and it’s not a men’s only Club anymore uh in fact our president for the last 5 years has been a woman who’s kept the whole thing going frankly uh the daughter of one of our former Growers and um so we have uh we have this we’ve had a public plant sale every year to uh just keep the club funded yeah and uh this is the first year we’ve been at at the uh edible plant sale this is this is so perfect for for it yeah cuz it’s a lot of very intense gardeners um we all like to grow something a little bit different like I like we don’t want to go to a garden center and find the same old same old I like they don’t show up at the gardening centers they don’t they don’t there used to be a company that you could do like mail order Kings cth Kings where are they do they they Ted King used to come up Ted king would get some of his stuff from us oh really so I’m about ready to head home for the day it started Ed raining I ended up visiting the chrysanthemum people which is just by the way an incredible organization I will link to them below they have a show in October which I’m very excited about and I literally couldn’t make up my mind so I have 18 cranum and they were so fantastic they were showing me how I can pinch out the center of these taller ones and root them so I’m going to try that as well any I hope you have thoroughly enjoyed today’s adventure it has been such a treat to share one of my personal favorite things to do every single year as a gardener in the Northwest we’ll see you in the next one and the meantime say hello to your garden for me