By Sharon Cohooon, Sunset senior garden writer

iPhone users lover their phones and their apps.  So Botanical Interests decision to put all the good information they have on their seeds packets in an application was probably a great idea.  (I say probably because I don't have an iPhone and my husband, who does have one, and who, in fact, now also has this app, won't part with his phone long enough for me to test drive it.)

Their new app allows you to search Botanical Interests seed catalog for information about 300 different varieties.  You can also create a "favorites" list to help you with garden planning.  And organize your search based on more than one variable, such as harvest time and lighting conditions.  You can't order seeds directly from the app yet, but you do get a 5% discount from your first order placed on their website.

Let me know how you like it, iPhone devotees.  Maybe it's the excuse I've been needing to spring for an iPphone of my own. I am obviously never going to be able to borrow hubbie's.

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

I loved Jim's recent post about Kevin and Marty Hauser's quest for better apples for mild climates, which lead to their backyard business, Kuffel Creek Apple Nursery.  It is thrilling to know I may have more choices in my mild beach climate than `Anna' -- a reliable but pretty dull apple, I've always thought.  Below are the three from Kuffel Creek I find most intriguing -- that's `Enterprise' on the left; `Williams Pride' in the middle; and `Terry Winter' on the right. 

Anyone tried any of these yet in Sunset zone 24?

Surfing garden blogs, I see that many home gardeners are stretching the boundaries re apple varieties.  Tom at Tall Clover Farm on Vashon Island in Washington, for instance, is growing `Espopus Spitzenberg', said to be Thomas Jefferson's favorite apple, and `Belle de Boshoop', which, as he says, is almost worth growing for the name alone.

And, if I'm not mistaken, the apples his bulldogs Boz and Gracie are eyeing in the photo below are `Bradley's Seedling.'   Read Tom's post to see what he has to say about how all these varieties and more are doing in his climate.

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

The Japanese persimmon (Diospyros kaki) is worthy growing for its beauty alone even if you don't think you like the fruit.  Our Western Garden Book summarizes its virtues this way:

"It reaches 30 ft. tall (or more) and at at least as wide.  Has a handsome branch pattern and is one of the best fruit trees for ornamental use; makes a good small shade tree and is suitable for espalier.  Leaves are light green when new, maturing to dark green, leathery ovals 6-7 in. long.  Foliage turns vivid yellow, orange or red in fall (even in mild climates).  After leaves drop, brilliant orange-scarlet, 3-4-in. fruits brighten the tree for weeks and persist until winter unless harvest."

If you live in Orange County or close by, you can find out more about persimmons at the annual Persimmon Party held in Pitcher Park in Old Towne section of the city of Orange.  It will be held this coming Sunday, November 15th, noon to 3 p.m.  There will be fruit and baked goods for sale and other persimmon products -- persimmon salsa sounds intriguing.

Pitcher Park, if you've never been there, is pretty charming all by itself actually.  It's a small park in the middle of a residential area that shows evidence of its original rural origins.  When Henry and Grace Pitcher gifted the property to the city of Orange, the city decided to maintain the barn -- it is now the Orange County Fire Museum.  They also retained Henry's original honey house, where the Orange County Beekeepers have an exhibit and store gear.  Here's a hint of what Pitcher Park looks like.

If you can't come to the Persimmon Party, but I've made you hungry for persimmons, try some of Sunset's persimmon recipes.  Or try this Persimmon and Cinammon Oatmeal recipe I found on the White on Rice Couple blog while browsing for a full image of a persimmon tree. (The top left photo is their image.  So are the two below.)

    
By Julie Chai, Sunset associate garden editor

At the recent Late Show garden show, we were thrilled by all the inventive displays. There were so many amazing creations that it's hard to narrow them down, but here are a few of our favorites. Above, garden designers Suzanne Biaggi and Patrick Picard created the Future Feast with edibles planted right into a tabletop. Produce doesn't get any fresher than that!

We also loved the way designer Beth Mullins turned tires inside out and used them as planters in her display:

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

Here's another good idea I picked up from Teena Spindler and Kay Evans's talk on "Creating A Beautiful, Edible Garden" at the  Annual Garden Seminar of the Master Gardeners of Orange County:

Plant a blueberry bush in a large pot.  Then underplant it with strawberries.  (I'm inclined towards Alpine strawberries because they don't develop runners and stay in nice neat mounds.)

Since blueberries like acidic soil and much of the West has alkaline soil, growing them in containers is the only realistic option.  (You can tell yourself you'll keep amending the soil, but it's so much easier to control pH in a pot.)

But even if I had acidic soil, I think I might grow blueberries this way just for the pretty factor.  And the strawberries, especially, would be much easier to harvest.

Dave Wilson Nursery's recipe for a soil mix for blueberries in containers

More info on growing blueberries from Sunset

Blueberry recipes to try when your crop exceeds your cereal needs

The recipe I'm hoping I'll have enough berries to try out this summer -- Blueberries in black pepper-Syrah syrup

By Jim McCausland, Sunset Magazine

Walking through a friend's entry garden yesterday evening, I was enveloped in a cloud of fragrance that made me pause and breathe it in again and again. The scent, which spreads far even on damp autumn nights, was from the fruit on a gnarled old quince tree, which I'm sure many people take for a late pear.

Not many gardeners grow it any more, probably because this astringent fruit is only edible (and really very good) after it's been cooked into pies or preserves. Fruiting quince (Cydonia oblonga) is often confused with spring-flowering quince (Chaenomeles), a shrubby relation always grown for its early spring flowers, and sometimes also grown for its ornamental fruit.

Every year my quince-growing friend gives me one of these woolly yellow fruits that I put on my desk to perfume the room. But this year I'm thinking it makes more sense to get myself a tree. Then I can perfume not just a room, but much of the garden with one of the most evocative fall fragrances I know.

By Julie Chai, Sunset associate garden editor

If you love Michael Pollan’s work as much as we do, you’ll want to see The Botany of Desire, a TV special based on Pollan’s book of the same name.

Focusing on four crops—apples, tulips, cannabis, and potatoes—the show explores how the plants may very well be exploiting us instead of the other way around. And it’s packed with interesting factoids. Some of my favorites (that won’t spoil anything for you if you’ve not read the book):

• Most apples in the wild aren’t sweet, and are basically inedible. (And Johnny Appleseed isn't quite the person you thought he was...)
• During the Dutch “tulip mania” in the 1600s, tulips were valuable commodities that signified wealth—bulbs of one variety cost $10 to 15 million each in today’s dollars.
• Cannabis extract was found in many over-the-counter medicines and was basically available anywhere before states starting outlawing it in the early 1900s.
• We might think we have a lot of choices between Idaho russet, Yukon gold, fingerling, and red potatoes. But in Peru, where spuds were first domesticated, people still cultivate more than 5,000 varieties.

The Botany of Desire airs on Wednesday, October 28 at 8 p.m. on PBS.

I love it when people take matters into their own hands. So I was really excited to meet Amie Frisch, project director for Veggielution community farm, who’s intent on evolving the local food movement in the San Jose area.

Amie and cofounder Mark Anthony Medeiros met a couple years ago while they were apartment-dwelling students at San Jose State University. They both wanted space to grow fresh veggies, so Mark posted fliers in a nearby neighborhood asking residents if they’d share some growing ground in exchange for homegrown produce. They got more responses than expected and, along with other student volunteers, they tended several gardens but soon wanted a centralized place where people in the community could get involved. One thing led to another and, last spring, they were offered a quarter acre plot in Emma Prusch Farm Park in San Jose. And Veggielution was born.

Situated below the intersection of the 101 and 280/680 freeways in the middle of suburban San Jose, it might seem like an unlikely place for a farm. But the land was once a working dairy farm in what was nicknamed "the Valley of Hearts Delight," and Veggielution is thriving there. With guidance from master gardeners and experts, along with a team of eager volunteers, they're producing bushels of crops—150 pounds of which goes to local food banks every week.

“Once the city saw how we transformed it, they started taking us seriously,” Amie says. A few months ago, they were granted use of an additional acre, and a hundred people helped break ground on June 20. Draft horses plowed and dished, and volunteers planted a third of the acre (shown above) that day.

Amie wants Veggielution to be a community resource where people can learn about agriculture and the related issues of health, the environment, and social justice. "Access to healthy food should be a right," she says.

Anyone can take part in the farm's weekly volunteer days, and go to regularly-held classes on a range of topics—this Sunday you can learn about mushroom cultivation. "In cities, you don’t see farms," Amie says. "We want to give people that experience and to dig into it."

And if you’re free Saturday evening, you can attend the Bounty of Heart's Delight fundraiser which starts with appetizers at the farm, followed by dinnner at Eulipia—all made with local, sustainably-grown food, of course. The event supports Veggielution’s new program  for local high schoolers who’ll learn not only about farming, but also about leadership, communication, and community issues.

"By making something happen, we're hoping that others see it's possible," Amie says. "We want to be the hub of local food in the South Bay. And we want to grow awesome food."

By Jim McCausland, Sunset Magazine

The connection is not accidental, since endorphins produced by your brain are responsible for both. (Endorphins are hormones that activate your body’s opiate receptors, reduce pain, and generally make you feel good. So when people mention hot-pepper addiction, they are not far wrong.)

Here’s how researchers proved the connection. First they fed their happy volunteers potent hot peppers, noting the burning lips and mouths that immediately followed. Then, after a little time passed and the pepper eaters’ lips didn’t burn any more, the guys in white coats administered endorphin blockers. Soon the volunteers were in an agony of unrelieved burning from capsaicin, which is the peppers’ active principle, and science was served.

So have some hot chile peppers—but stay away from those endorphin blockers.

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

Honey bees get all the press , but they don't do all the work.  There are dozens of species of native bees equally willing to pollinate your plants.  One of them, the bumble bee, we all know and love.  But the smaller ones -- Anthidium, Xylocopa, Osmia, Halictid, Andrenid, Megachillid, Mlissodes, Anthophorid, -- you likely don't even notice.  The guy seen here--a Halictid, I'm guessing--is an example.

It's not hard to attract more of these hard workers to your garden.  All it takes is providing the right nectar plants.  Emerson Commmunity Garden in San Luis Obispo is proving just how quickly you can get results. 

The gardeners using the twenty nine plots in the Garden began an experiment with entomologist Dr. Gordon Frankie of the University of California Berkeley in 2007.  They began adding flowers known to attract these bees to their individual plots.  (The gardeners were primarily interested in growing edibles, and there were few ornamentals in the Garden when the experiment began.)

It didn't take long to see an increase in the number and type of bees showing up. What's more, says Barbara Smith, one of the plot holders and the local coordinator of the project -- it's her space you see below -- everyone in the community garden has seen improvements in their crop yields. And yields get a little better each season as the gardeners learn more about bee gardening and the number and variety of bees keeps improving.

You don't have to grow anything exotic either as you can see.  Toadflax (Linaria purpurea) gallardia, catmint, asters, rudbeckia, and salvias -- all common garden ornamentals -- are doing a great job luring in native bees at Emerson Community Garden.  There is no shortage of honey bees here either. 

If you're in San Luis Obispo drop by and take a look.  Emerson is at the corner of Nipomo and Pismo Streets.  Look for plants with markers like this to see what they're luring in.  Or visit the U.C. Berkeley  Urban Bee Gardens website to find out what to plant.

Sunset's garden staff is so enthused about the success of the Emerson example, we're going to add some of the plants from Dr. Frankie's list in our own test garden.  Can you have the same success in a small garden about the size as a typical backyard as you can in a community garden?  We'll let you know.

Or, if you're doing it already, please tell us about your successes.