April is coming! Join us at the OAEC Nursery!
Spring Crops Plant Sale Event
April 1-2 & April 8-9, 10am-5pm
Friends of the Nursery* preview March 31, 4-6pm
Summer Crops Plant Sale Event
April 22-23 & April 29-30, 10am-5pm
Friends of the Nursery* preview April 21, 4-6pm
Tours on Sundays (April 2, 9, 23 & 30) at 1pm. See mature plants thriving in our 43-year-old organic gardens, the testing grounds for everything we sell in the Nursery.
Get involved! Volunteer at the Plant Sale and get a 20% discount on your purchases. Contact Mary Zovich at mary@oaec.org
Whether this surprising balmy weather continues to surge us toward a glorious Spring or we settle back into the chill of a sodden winter, it is that time again to think about planting your early cool weather tolerant crops. Our first Plant Sale is only days away, so our greenhouses are pregnant with thousands of eager seedlings about ready to jump off the tables into your arms!
We will offer our usual wide menu of cool season crops, from Chinese cutting celery to red Sylvetta perennial arugula, and are as always excited to feature our favorite saute greens, Tronchuda Portuguese Cabbage, the silvery feather-leaved Italian Spigariello sprouting broccoli/kale and Doug Gosling’s own kale creation, Shiny Diney, as well as new discoveries such as the most-tender-of-all greens Yellow Cabbage Collard and Umpqua broccoli, especially bred for the Northwest and northern California by our friend Tim Peters. Also a customer favorite from last year: the profusely productive Thousand-headed kale.
The Nursery tables are crowded with perennial sauté greens as well, the widest selection you’ll find anywhere! Turkish rocket, Caucausus Mountain vining spinach (all the rage with Permaculturists in Europe), the fabled British cottage garden green, Good King Henry, the succulent Okinawan and Malabar spinaches and three perennial collard varieties: variegated collards, the signature Permie-plant, Tree Collards, and the heretofore impossible-to-find Daubenton “Kale”, commonly grown back in the Middle Ages! We have countless culinary herbs -think Vietnamese cilantro, the ancient pre-parsley “parsley” of Roman times, Alexanders, and authentic Mexican oregano- as well as medicinals such as the longevity herb Jiaogulan, the wintergreen scented Bible Leaf costmary and the intoxicating Balm of Gilead or Cedronella.
We have added two new Salvias to our collection of over forty species, the all-summer-long pink-blooming Meadow Clary (Salvia pratensis) and the rare yellow-flowered Himalayan Cloud Sage (Salvia nubicola). Both of them will encourage ever more happy pollinators in your garden!
*Become a Friend of the Nursery! Donate $50 or more annually to OAEC and receive a 20% discount on your purchases. Friends of the Nursery are invited to exclusive previews on Friday afternoons before the sale – a small, intimate opportunity to mingle with staff and to get first pick of our selection! Donate on-line before hand or at the door.
