Whenever I have a gardening question, I go straight to the Master Gardeners at WSU. And Sue and I have not-so-secretly wanted to become one of them for a while now.

Unfortunately for us, our Fridays are kind of booked. But if you're lucky enough to have some free time and you want to become a better gardener, the program might be right up your alley.

Applications will be available Aug. 1. Just contact the Pierce County Extension Office at 253-798-7170 between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. weekdays or at piercemgtraining@wsu.edu and request an application packet. The cost is $180 for volunteer track, which includes all learning texts.

Applications aren't due until Oct. 1, but you might want to spend some time on it: I hear the program is very competitive.

If you're selected, the classes will be held on Fridays January through March, 8:45 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the WSU Puyallup Research Station.

Good luck!

I know, I know. Everyone was telling me to get my tomatoes off the ground and into some sort of support.

So, last weekend I picked up five cheap looking metal girdles for the floppy plants. I think I waited too long. I felt like I was dressing a drunk. Limbs flopped out everywhere. A few branches didn't make it and some of the plants didn't look too happy the next morning.

Some folks use heavy gage woven cages. Others bypass those entirely and use fence posts and twine.

I'll let you know how these work out. But, until then...do you have any surefire way to make tomato supports that last? I'd love to hear about them.

For two weeks now I've been harvesting lettuce, green onions, arrugala and bok choy. Freak of Nature-Tacoma Garden is a success!

Things I've learned thus far in vegetable gardening:
- Food tastes better when you grow it yourself.
- Baby bok choi is delicious.
- The animals and insects I feared were all in my head (metaphorically speaking).
- Different kinds of plants mature at wildly different rates.
- It's very hard to grow tomatoes from seed.
- Ditto for blue poppies.
- Ditto for cucumbers.

Still to come: tomatoes, corn, pumpkins, beans, beets, radishes, daikon, carrots, mysterious Korean plants, shiso and flowers.

FARMERS MARKET UPDATE: Starts can still be found at various markets, both permanent and movable. Today at the downtown Tacoma market I bought starts of cilantro, squash and purple basil for $5 total. Tacoma Boys has a good variety as well.

I just got back from the farmer's market after skipping it (for deadlines) the past two weeks. I was so surprised at how much more packed it was -- both with vendors and customers.

If you're downtown and reading this, I suggest you go before it ends at 2 p.m.
If you're reading this later, mark it on your calendar for next week.

Unfortunately, I was there on a mission (to shoot video of the chef demo, which I'll post in the next few days), so I didn't get to buy anything. But I did see plenty of enticing vegetables.

Have fun!

I was watering the garden the other day and noticed there were only a few onions left.

Then I saw a small pile of dirt that had recently been pushed around.

Then I saw a place where Harriet the pug had obviously knocked down and crawled over the fence.

I was so upset! I've surrounded each garden bed with 2-foot high plastic fence. I've fortified it in one area with Harriet's metal exercise pen. I've watched her backyard adventures like a hawk ...

And yet I've seen kale trampled, strawberries squashed and, now, onions abused.

I've had it. I'm off to search for some kind of product -- whether its a fence or a personal garden guardian -- to keep the dog (or any other hungry animal) out of the produce. Suggestions welcome.

I got a Territorial Seed catalog in the mail this week. It's filled with nothing but fruits and veggies I can grow throughout the fall and winter -- both in the greenhouse and in the garden bed.

I love Territorial, so naturally I was excited ... but Fall veggies already? I don't even have any tomatoes yet! It's no help that some of the fashion magazines I read (for work, of course) are starting to sneak fall fashion previews in. Please, people! I just got over winter -- give me a few minutes to enjoy the sun burns and bug bites.

In other news, clear out your schedule this Saturday for a native plant close-out sale at the Bellarmine greenhouses. In addition to more than 100 native plants at "close-out" prices, they'll have discounted tomatoes, hanging baskets, annuals and perennials. I have a very busy weekend, but I'm going to try to make it so I can pick up some tomato plants.

Here are the details: Sat., June 16 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Bellarmine Greenhouses, 2300 S. Washington St., Tacoma. Bring checks and cash for native plants, or checks, cash and/or credit card for veggies and herbs.

I took a trip to Freak of Nature garden, Willapa edition, over the weekend. Mom has already begun to harvest the baby bok choi, lettuce and arugula.

We whipped up a great salmon stir fry Saturday with the bok choi. It's a wonderfully mild leafy green. Even you don't like cabbage give it a try.

Unfortunately, mom thought all my baby purple carrots were weeds and hoed them under. An absentee gardener has to take what he gets and not complain.

But I will complain about worms. Worms that love radishes. They particularly love watermelon radishes - the kind that are white on the outside and red inside.

The photo shows a daikon (the long white radish), a watermelon radish (cut in half) and a run-of-the-mill variety swiped from Mom's garden.

It was the watermelon variety that disappoints. They were just chock full of worms. Big worms, little worms, grey worms, white worms. Worms on the roots. Worms deep inside. I ended up pulling the whole crop and found only four or five edible (bottom photo).

They were spicier and tougher than the regular garden variety and quite pretty. But, that'll be the first and last time I grow those. Dad had a burn pile going and I sent the little wormies to a fiery death. Hey, the worms will get their revenge with me one day.

The daikons, however, are worm free. They are very mild in flavor. Japanese eat them in a variety of forms: freshly grated, pickled and even mashed. They add a nice crunch to salads.

The score so far...

Successes: Baby bok choi, red velvet lettuce, arugula, daikon radish.
Failures: Tomatoes from seed, watermelon radish.

I posted last week about combinations in the garden. This photo shows several shrubs in my garden that have the same general shape but vastly different foliage.

The top bush with the blue flowers generates lots of questions from passers-by. It’s a Ceanothus, commonly known as a California lilac. While it’s not a true lilac it does have a sweet smell and bees love it. It’s evergreen and can be trained in to a tree.

The other bushes are all shrubby dogwoods. These are grown not for their flowers (which are very tiny) but for their foliage and winter bark. This group has red, yellow and orange branches in the winter and you can see what the foliage looks like this time of year.

The variegated one in the middle of the photo is a red twig called Cornus alba 'Elegantissima' and the bottom is a dwarf called Cornus stolonifera 'Kelseyi'. Barely visible on the right is Cornus sanguinea 'Midwinter Fire'. Out of range is a yellow twig. In the summer and the winter they all combine to make a great display.

In case you haven't yet checked it out, visit the Point Defiance Flower & Garden show web site to see the winners of the displays at last weekend's show.

What was your favorite part of the show? Mine was wandering around looking at the garden displays and the nursery vendors.

These warm days have done wonders for the Freak of Nature garden. Everything I sowed - except the yellow cucumbers - germinated. Oddly, the first plants I sowed indoors, the tomatoes, are the most lackluster. They just don't seem to be doing anything. Thankfully, I have starts from the farmers market.

From the bottom up in this photo I have (still too small to be seen) shiso, edamame, striped beets, radishes, purple carrots, veronica broccoli, arrugula, bok choi, lettuce and green onions. In my side garden I have white pumpkins, tomatoes, an eggplant and ornamental corn.

Everything is doing great...except for those tomatoes and cucumbers.

So I'm looking out my back window last night and see the cherry tree behind my house swaying a bit. A closer look: it's a raccoon, and he's chomping all my cherries about 15 feet off the ground.

I grabbed the garden hose and started spraying. Nothing. He didn't even budge.

Next, I banged some pots and pans. Again, nothing.

I tried yelling, then soaked him with a high-powered super-soaker hose attachment. Nothing worked. The raccoon just kept munching my beautiful (and unripe) cherries. If I got too close, he just hid behind a branch.

Help me save my cherry pies! How do you get rid of an aggressive raccoon up in a tree?

In this morning's New York Times, I read two things that I thought you'd be interested in.

The first is an article about kudzu vine taking over the South. It was introduced in the early part of the 1900s and farmers were even paid to grow the fast-growing vine at one point. Now, it's taken over, often choking out native plants. In Chatanooga, they've resorted to using goats to mow it all down. Aside from a few laughs, it's working. It made me think of all the noxious weeds I see lining the highways here ... Read more here (registration may be required).

The next is a science piece about Rachel Carson's 1962 book, "Silent Spring," the best-seller that explored the environmental and health effects of pesticides. The article's author says the book's flaw is that it doesn't talk about the benefits of pesticides -- like killing malaria-spreading insects. After reading and mulling it over, I'm unsure of what to think, especially since I haven't read "Silent Spring" yet. If you read it (available here), please share your thoughts.

A reader asks this question:

Dear Sue,
I like to collect seeds to save money, but some of my seed saving has been disasterous ....ie. nasturtium seeds(turned moldy, and bug infested). When do I collect flower seeds, and how do I dry them, save them, etc? Any helpful hints you can send, as it gets close to Fall, with its spent flowers, would be helpful to me and others, intent on stretching their money.

Anyone have advice? What do you do when you save your seeds? Any tried-and-true methods you'd like to pass along?

I've been wondering who that woman gracing the cover of this year's Point Defiance Flower & Garden program is. The caption only identifies her as Miss Tacoma 1964.

Today I got a call that solved the mystery. The call was from the former Angie Nicholson - Miss Tacoma 1964.

Miss Nicholson, now Mrs. Angie Magruder, is a grandmother and living in Virginia.

She's out West this week to visit her parents in Lakewood. Wednesday morning her mother handed her a newspaper clipping with her picture on it.

"I assumed it was an old clipping from 43 years ago," Magruder said and asked her mother where she found it.

"In today's paper," her mother replied.

"I said, 'What? You've got to be kidding'."

Magruder went to the show today with her mother. "I was like a rock star. It was a hoot," she said. She even signed autographs.

Magruder was a PLU student in 1964 and was running out of money. She thought the scholarship money would be a big help. It turned out though that being Miss Tacoma was a lot of work.

After graduation she married her husband, Bob, who was stationed at Ft. Lewis, and spent 29 years as a military wife and an artist.

So what is Magruder doing in that photo?

"I don't have a clue. It was 43 years ago," Miss Tacoma 1964 said with a laugh.

Enjoy these pictures of the Grand Display Gardens at the Point Defiance Flower & Garden show. They're on display through Sunday. Check them out!

We've returned from blogging live at the Point Defiance Flower & Garden Show. A good time was had by all! Thanks to all of you who stopped by the booth to say hello!

The News Tribune booth will be located in the Educational Vendors area all weekend -- stop by and enter our drawing for Watson's gift certificates and other prizes.

So after spending last night and this morning at the show, I think the coolest thing at the show are the outdoor rooms displays. If you only have a certain amount of time to spend at the show, definitely head to the Grand Display Gardens and take a look.

They are amazing -- outdoor kitchens, outdoor living rooms, comfy looking courtyards and things that will make you want to immediately start renovating your back yard. I loved the courtyard designed by Sue Goetz of the Creative Gardener in Gig Harbor. It was so relaxing. I made fellow garden blogger Craig Sailor sit down while I snapped a photo. He said he looks so sad in this picture because his back yard does not look like this:

I am listening to a class on making stained glass garden art right now at the lecture stage near the Education Vendor booths. The teacher, Karen Seymour, is operating a power tool and showing how to assemble the art. Go Karen!

Other lectures today that look really interesting today:

1:30 p.m.: A class called "The Pattern Garden," by Valerie Easton at the TNT Lecture Series booth.

2 p.m.: Worm composting class at the Franciscan Garden Stage.

3:30 p.m.: A class called "Hypertufa Troughs" by the Tacoma Garden Club.

11 a.m.-2 p.m.: Rose experts will be in the rose garden all afternoon discussing rose care and answering questions about the Point Defiance rose collection.

If you are looking for colorful stones to liven up your garden, check out Just A Step Away.

This Tacoma business creates concrete stones in the shape of vintage pillows. They come in fun colors such as pink and blue and start at $20. They look real from a distance.

While Marce and I were wandering through the children's section of the Point Defiance Flower & Garden show, I found what I hope will become my new hobby: Beekeeping.

The Pierce County Beekeeping Association has a table with kid-friendly information and a real bee colony on display.

They meet the first Monday of every month at the Almendinger Center in Puyallup at 7:30 p.m., meaning their next meeting is this Monday. That also means I have three days to convince a certain someone that we need 70,000 bees in our backyard.

Ebenezer Rhys Roberts was the architect of the gardens at Point Defiance Park – he was caretaker from 1889 to 1908. From where I'm sitting now, I can see the rose garden that Roberts started from cuttings of the rose bushes of Tacoma families. You can read a very interesting story about Roberts by our columnist Kathleen Merryman.

I just ran into Jean Insel Robeson, the granddaughter of Ebenezer Rhys Roberts. She was touring the Lodge - which was built for Roberts and his family (her mother lived there) - with her daughter Sally Long and granddaughter Felicia Turner. It was the first time her daughter and granddaughter had seen the Lodge where Robeson's grandfather lived.

It's amazing who you can run into at the garden show, isn't it?

And speaking of the the Lodge, there is a fantastic floral display show spread around the grounds and inside the Lodge. Be sure to check it out if you're coming to the show.

Be sure to check out the container gardening displays near the lodge. Designers could choose from several themes. One of them is "Treasure Island" and that's resulted in more than one display featuring a skeleton. Check it out before you see the next installment of "Pirates of the Caribbean."

The photo below is one of the more unusual displays. It was made by Jody Stark and Alice Gruenwald. It's called "Enlightened Beings Protecting the Rainforest" in the Super Natural theme.

My first stop this morning was the Ravishing Rarities booth in the Plant Market. Melinda Ramage of Degro Floraculture showed me some plants that would be hard to find at most nurseries around here.

Some of my favorites:

Starlight Flower: A small perennial with white flowers. It sells for $10

Impatients Congo Cockatoo, which looks like a parrot's head. The plant, which must be overwintered indoors, sells for $5.

Black Calla Lilies sells for $14.

The Get Growing bloggers just arrived at the Point Defiance Flower & Garden Show. It's a beautiful morning, get down here! We're in the Educational Vendor area, booth 17 (on your left after the main entrance). We'll be here until 12:30ish, or until our bosses call and tell us to get back to the newsroom.

A few tips if you're headed here today:

PARKING: Avoid the traffic jam on Pearl (eek! ferry traffic!) and follow the signs for a much less congested trip to the parking lots (even if it seems you're taking a weird route, trust us, the signs will get you to the parking lot). Parking is $10 per car. Bring cash!

SUPPLIES: Bring sunblock and water. It's going to be warm today.

PORTERS: If you buy a bunch of plants and you're worried about carting them around, ask for help from a porter. They'll help you get your plants to your car. In fact, I just saw a group of porters roll by just a minute ago.

PRIZES AT THE NEWS TRIBUNE BOOTH: We've got all kinds of goodies to give away for new subscribers. You can also enter a drawing for a Watson's gift certificate.

Stick around for our next blog post. Craig, Niki and Marce are out scouting the show right now.