Never too early to plan for next year - save those seeds!

Boy was it hard to get motivated this morning.  I didn’t sleep well plus the weather is just oppressive and doesn’t make you want to leave the house.  Ugh!

As I was fixing dinner the other night I found myself doing something that I bet a lot of people don’t think about any more.  When I was cutting up a green pepper I saved the seeds instead of throwing them out.  I wrapped them in a paper towel to dry, taped it shut and labeled them with what they were and the date.  After a few days drying on top of the fridge they’ll go into my seed box for planting next year.

I do the same thing with tomatoes and sometimes stone fruits too – just to try my hand at growing them from seed.

“Way back when” (which in most places was pre-WWIII) people used to do the regularly as it was the best way to get seeds for your garden.  Somewhere along the line we’ve forgotten that the seed sold by Burpee for $2.99 a packet  is the same seed we get free inside our food.

It is true that if you are eating a hybrid crop (and if it came from the supermarket most likely it is a hybrid) the pepper you get next year may not be the same as the one you ate today, but it will be a pepper for sure and the seed will be free.

It is kind of fun to put all your pepper seeds (separating hot and not hot if you like) in the same container and then plant them without knowing exactly what you will get.

Tomatoes work the same way though for those the prep is a little messier.  For them I mix the tomato seeds/pulp in a baby food jar with some water.  I let it sit for a few days, shaking to mix the stuff up when it separates.  Eventually most of the seeds will drop to the bottom and you can get them out to dry on some paper towels and then pack them away.  Sometimes the stuff in the jar ferments and smells unsavory, the seed is still OK but it is best to not soak the seeds in a plastic container since you’ll never get the smell out.

Keep all your seeds in a cool place or in the fridge crisper drawer (I have way too many for that) and next year you’ll be set.

Other seeds you can be collecting for next year are:  columbine, sunflower, marigold, thyme, oregano, chives, catnip, basil, four o’clocks and lots more.

The Perennial bed is in the front - too long to get all in the photo

Last week we had 50 or so perennial plants that needed a new home.  We’ve been having hot and humid weather so I avoided the task as long as I could, but finally I set myself to do it.

Scott knew where he wanted things but when I went to dig in the ground I couldn’t.  It was hard as rock – so…. I decided to improvise.  Fortunately for me we had all the makings for a “lasagna” garden.  It took a lot of trips in the wheelbarrow but that probably was easier than the digging I’d have had to do if I did it the normal way.

First I put down a layer of cardboard that we get from the grocery store.  These are the boxes that frozen food comes in.  Boy is that an education seeing what people eat and how much packaging is involved.  Made me swear off of frozen food.

I didn’t have enough cardboard so I finished with thick layers of newspaper.  You aren’t supposed to use color pages or glossy pages, but if your paper is like ours EVERY page has color on it now, even the classifieds.  So I did skip the glossy pages and heavily colored ones, but used the rest.

The point of this first layer is to block out all sun to the grass beneath to kill it.  Some folks say to poke holes in it for the plant roots to go through but that also means you have holes for grass and weeds to come up so I don’t.  It will break down completely over about 2 seasons here.

Next I put down a big layer of straw, probably more than a foot, in the center of the cardboard.  This straw we bought to mulch the strawberries but we had too much. It was already starting to break down.

Then I put a thick layer of compost over the straw – about 6-8 inches.  I made sure all the straw was covered.  This was the planting area for the plants.

Next came the wood chips to put on the border where you could still see the cardboard.  This is playground mulch we got to work on the yard earlier and it was left over.  I put that on thick to to make sure the cardboard was held down.

Then I planted the plants.  Tansy, yarrow, lavender, coreopsis, shasta daisy, lambs ears, purple bee balm and others I can’t remember.  These were either given to us by a neighbor we found on Freecycle who needed to clean out her garden or they were bought for .99 at our town florist who is cleaning out the plants nobody bought.  The plants from the florist were badly root bound so I had to break apart the root ball and in some cases cut it because it was too densely matted for me to pull apart with my hands.  I also cut off any blooms so the plants could put their focus on growing new roots.  Made them look pretty ugly.

Once the plants were in I watered them well and then covered them with more wood chips to help retain the moisture.

I thought the bed looked really nice for only two hours of work.  It is over 10 feet long and I still have a lot of space to put things in. The plants won’t be much to look at this year, but next year they should do better and spread.  We get nice sun in this part of the yard which will help them.

Hope that helps any of you wanting a new garden bed but not really wanting to do the heavy digging.  This method has worked for us over and over and it makes a real nice looking flower garden that grows well.

Some nice fruit on our everbearing strawberries

It’s a little after 6am here, a late start for me but it is a Saturday and I was really tired last night. The kids are all still sleeping which hopefully will last at least another hour or so.

Sometimes I think all the things we are doing to live sustainably and environmentally responsible aren’t enough. There is always so much more we could do. But as I sit here at my desk with the cool morning breeze coming in the window I realize a lot of the changes we’ve made and the way we do things do add up to a life that is more thoughtful toward saving the environment than that of most of my friends.

For instance, my Excaliber dehydrator is running in the background. I’m drying plums at the moment for use in the winter in my fruit cobbler. I pulled out kale and pickles just a few minutes ago. Not sure yet what to do with them but heard you can dry both. The pickles are like little bursts of salt (since they were are sun pickles who had a little too much salt) so I’m not sure I can use those for anything, and I didn’t try the kale yet. So we are taking farmers market produce and saving it for winter in a way that won’t require further electricity. That’s a good thing.

Also I just put in a load of diapers. We are still using cloth diapers most of the time and every one of those has saved thousands of disposables from going into a landfill.    We hang a lot of our laundry outside to dry which is probably the single biggest thing we do to save energy.  Dryers use a ton of energy and I much prefer the free sun and wind out there to do my drying.

The diapers are rinsing now but will be washed next with our homemade laundry powder. This actually is not a more environmentally friendly product than regular detergent, but it does eliminate the traveling of water over long distances. Liquid detergents are mostly water and carrying them in trucks from who knows where is a waste of energy. If we all used dried powder so much more could be transported using the same fuel – plus we wouldn’t be loading our recycle bin with plastic bottles. The containers for our homemade soap are cardboard and paper.

Then there is the fact that I have the windows open. We have a ductless AC unit here now thanks to my mother gifting it to us last year and it is very “green” but it still uses electricity. Have the windows open in the AM when it is cool costs us nothing and smells so much better.

Upstairs I’ve just turned off the crockpot which has been cooking overnight with pork and barbeque sauce. The pork was gifted from a friend so there we are building community which is so important to permaculture and the future success of our world. The sauce was homemade and contained no high fructose corn syrup or other manufactured ingredients so we are saving ourselves all those chemicals. The sauce was stored in a Ball canning jar so we didn’t use a plastic container or something else that must be thrown out.  I used the crock pot to save on the electricity of my stove both in quantity and price since I cooked in the off hours.  I’ll pull the pork when it cools and store it for a fast lunch today when we’re busy.

In the hallway upstairs are 3 bags of clothes ready to be donated to the Salvation Army. Sheridan (finally) cleaned out her closets and drawers and packed up the stuff that no longer fits. I have a bag in my room too of things that I just don’t really like – you know the things that hang in your closet that you pass by nearly every time unless you’re late with laundry? So we are allowing those items to be reused rather than going to a landfill. We’ll be dropping them off on her way to school so we are not using any extra gas to get them there. In addition we are helping support the community efforts of the Salvation Army.

Later today Scott and I will be heading into the city to hopefully pick up a new dining room table and chairs. While on our anniversary trip last week we saw it at a thrift shop. $150 is a lot for us to spend on anything but it is solid wood with 6 chairs, and it is in pretty good shape. The top needs refinished but we can do that. The table we are using now was found at a yard sale for $10 in 2001 and it wasn’t good quality to begin with but it held on pretty well. The main problem is we need a larger table to fit 5 of us so hopefully this table will still be there. If we get it we won’t get rid of the old table, it will be turning into a craft table for me in the basement and Scott will get the table I’m using now for a bigger and better desk. He’s using a drafting table as a desk that I got for a birthday present over 20 years ago. It’ll be kept to use as a drafting table for his permaculture designs.

And that is just the things that came to mind immediately, but there are plenty more. We each have choices every day which can reduce our impact on the environment and support our local economy. All these little things add up to something big.

The point is, if you are feeling overwhelmed by all the things you COULD change in your life, just pick one and make it a part of your routine. In a few months when that becomes second nature choose another. Eventually you will have found your lifestyle has changed dramatically and you barely noticed it.

Hope everyone has a great day!

2004 PA Cow in front of Farm Show in Harrisburg

Well, my family is trying to eat a local diet – more now than ever even though our budget is smaller than ever - but I’ll tell you, there isn’t a lot of organzied information out there for this area.  I’ve found a bunch of disjunct websites that are rarely, if ever, updated and not much detailed information.  That means a lot of footwork and gas miles spent to try and find local food sources.  Hopefully it’ll get better as we find out where we can get things.

If you’ve wanted to try eating local, but get confused by local, organic, sustainable etc. then I suggest you read The Locavore’s Handbook by Leda Meredith.  It is the most human book on eating local I’ve read so far.  She is a normal, busy, limited-budget, urban apartment dwelling person who wants to eat responsibly from an environmental standpoint.  She explains lots of the options and choices you have when doing this kind of lifestyle but she isn’t preachy or too scientific.

The one thing that is sad is she is in NYC and she can walk or ride public transport to tons of places to get good, local food.  Here in Central PA that isn’t so easy.  We have to drive distances to get things and that adds to the carbon footprint of the products.  She does have a similar viewpoint with “rules” for local eating to what we have but she does not mention US grown vs foreign and that is important to us.

Here is our general guideline for buying food these days:

1. Homegrown (not always practical or possible)
2. Local and Organic (not always available)
3. Local Or Organic depending on if the item is on the dirty dozen list.  Not familiar with the dirty dozen, check here for the official list for 2011.
   • Dirty Dozen items we go Organic.
   • Non-dirty dozen items we go Local.
4. Organic raised in the US.
5. Non-organic raised in the US, fair trade if possible.
6. Organic raised outside the US.
7. Non-organic raised outside the US, fair trade if possible.

This list works best for produce, mushrooms and meat.  Processed foods are another story entirely and one that we rarely deal with because we try to avoid them whenever possible.  (Gluten free baking mixes are an exception.)

At all times we try to buy in season vs out of season.  Problem is everything is in season in the supermarket – so we avoid them as much as possible and stick to local providers and markets.  Where do we shop?  You can find a listing of local providers on the Buy Fresh, Buy Local website for the South Central PA Chapter.  They don’t do much with their facebook page or blog but you can search for provides in a certain mile radius from your home.

Make your food dollars count and vote for environmentally healthy choices by what you choose to buy and eat.

Location for new bag garden

Gosh it’s been a long time since I posted anything here.  I’ve been busy over at www.amusementparkmom.com and with the kids and the garden so very little time is left over.

We’ve had a poor year in the garden this year, partially it is our fault and partially it has been the weather.  We had too much rain early in the season and then it got really hot.  And then there was the tornado, the flooding and it got hot again.

Because of the rain our suppliers were not delivering compost when we needed it most and many of our projects were abandoned due to lack of materials.  We lost a lot of started plants to heavy rain and heat.  We didn’t have a chance to get probably 50% of our seeds in the ground due to adverse weather and lack of supplies this year.  So we are looking forward to a fall crop of those things that will grow.

What has happened though is we have had wonderful success with volunteer plants from last year.  You know, dropped tomatoes and cucumbers that we missed that left seed in the ground?  THEY are doing amazing!  I didn’t plant a single cucumber seed this year due to weather but I’ve got twenty or so plants in flower and spreading.  Tomatoes are up too on their own.

I’ve always admired Matt’s Wild Cherry tomatoes for self-seeding, but some of these are other varieties we’ve grown.  The plants come up when they should and always bear fruit.  Now they aren’t the earliest plants on the block, but our indoor started and store bought plants aren’t even in flower yet and the wild ones are so they will bear first anyway.

So, this has me thinking about not planting certain things at all next year and letting nature take it’s course.  We’re going to try making seed bombs and see if we can get our garden growing by itself next year.  I have no volunteer peppers, but they  never grew well for us anyway.  Mostly it is cukes and tomatoes and some flowers.  Oh and a few squash of some kind.

We harvested garlic yesterday.  I nice crop but small bulbs this year.  Not sure if this is weather related or due to a lack of weeding.

Scott has been busy building beds and killing grass as we attempt to move to grass-free in a few years.  We’ve set up a bag garden too but have not planted it.  (Bag gardens consist of bags of compost/potting soil that you plant directly into.  At the end of the season you remove the bag and it has killed the grass underneath and you have a new bed to plant in.)

Blueberries did not do well at all probably a combination of lack of pruning and lack of winter protection.  We’ll try again next year.

Our strawberry patch is 3 years old and needs to be replaced.  We planted new everbearing plants in the side yard and they are doing very well.  Most berries this year are tasteless due to the heavy rain.  No jelly this year.

Currants are a mixed bag.  We have two plants and one is doing well the other appears dead.  Elderberries are flourishing.  Raspberries too, but no flowers so no fruit.

Poison Ivy is spreading like crazy and we have a new way to get rid of it that we are trying.  So far it is marginally successful.

We had great luck sprouting sweet potatoes but had no place to plant them at the right time so I’m not sure what’ll happen.

Peas came up slowly and we have a few but not many.

Spinach was available for only a week before we got 90F temps and it bolted.  Lettuce has been great, especially Tom Thumb, but it has bolted now too so we are out until fall.

Scott has been planting comfrey and sunflowers and the comfrey is blooming.  The sunflowers got a late start and were damaged by too much rain but hopefully they’ll hold on.

I gathered chive seeds and columbine seeds yesterday.  Hope to plant our fall perennials here soon.

Mint is going crazy as usual, but sage is suffering from overcrowding.  Have to thin some room for them.

Astilbe was pretty but short lived, butterfly bush is blooming as is bee balm.  We saw our first hummingbird last week.  We’ll see a few more of those I guess.

That’s the update for now, can’t say when we’ll post more but Scott is hoping to get back to it and we are starting a new family project to eat more local food so there should be some info and book reviews on that.

Happy Summer!

Our birdfeeder is sprouting!

Yes, it has been weeks since my last post and my excuse is only that it finally stopped raining so we could get out in the garden and get some work done.   Of course that ended 4 days ago and it started raining again so I’ve been playing catch-up to my computer.

Columbine - my favorite Spring flower

My columbines are beautiful but the lilacs were awful, next to no blooms.  We pruned last year and perhaps didn’t do it right, but I didn’t see many blooms at my neighbor’s place either so perhaps it was the weather.  We didn’t get any tulips this year either.  The leaves came up but no flowers.  So odd.  Lily of the valley is doing much better than I’d like it to – spreading like wildfire.  I love the way it smells but it is so invasive here it has choked out my flower beds.

You can see more photos of Spring around our place by checking out Scott’s website, The Permaculture Podcast.  It has a link to his photos.

We have a great crop of lettuce and spinach at the moment, radishes are doing nicely but the tomato sprouts have mostly been eaten by slugs.  <sigh>  Not sure what I’m going to do about that.

We’re trying to eliminate as much grass in our growing areas as possible (we don’t like grass – such a waste of resources) so Scott has been mulching heavily with cardboard and wood chips to kill the grass between our growing beds.  Doesn’t look so good now, but hopefully it’ll look better when we get the plants in.

Our garlic is spectacular!  What a crop we’ll have to use and share.  Such an easy crop to grow – at least it is here.  I’m sure that is not the case everywhere.

And then there is the poison ivy – growing about a foot a day.  I tried to tackle it myself and ended up with a horrible rash on my arms.  (Another reason I haven’t been typing much.)  I’m the only one in my family who gets it at the moment and I was trying to save the others the exposure since it is suspected that the more times you are exposed the higher your risk for a reaction, but, well, forget that.  Someone else can pull it next time.  We are actually looking into a weed killer to keep it from spreading.  Roundup works but kills frogs and we have lots of those so we are looking for something else.  Scott thinks he’s found something.  We have a section in the front that has been there so long it looks like a small hedge.  It is encroaching into our garden space and the area where our children play so it has got to go.  I’ll keep you posted.

Ronnie on his perch

The cats have been enjoying sunning on the deck but Ronnie has made a habit of crossing over the garage roof.  Not sure what he’s looking for – birds I guess. Hunter just likes to soak in the sun.  He’s older, about 15 or so, and seems his old bones need the warmth.

Let’s see, what else, made our first family trip to Hersheypark this year.  They’ve got pansies everywhere – I’m jealous.  But that is what happens when you own your own nursery I guess.

Scott’s been doing some talks on vermiculture.  I don’t think we’ve ever gotten around to posting about that here but we have a worm bin for composting kitchen waste.  It is underneath my craft table in the basement.  They keep me company while I’m scrapbooking.  (Yes, it is a little creepy sometimes.)

I think that is it for now.  We’ve still got tons of hours of work to do in the garden and last frost date is upon us so the blog will most likely be pretty quiet until the skeleton of our garden is complete.  I’ll check in again when I can.

Lots of water

4/16/11

It rained.  A lot.  We got over 3 inches of rain and our yard flooded again for the second time in a month.  This time though it is taking a long time to dry out.  I spent the day at Hersheypark writing a trip report for my other website and then ran errands in pouring rain and storms.  Winds were high and there were tornado watches and warnings out too.

4/17/11

Made our favorite crock pot chili for lunch today.  You can get the recipe here.  I don’t use the tomato juice, I just use a large can of crushed tomatoes instead.

Got the last of the tomato seeds into the sprouting tray and onto the heat mat tonight.  I saved seeds from all the heirloom tomatoes we got from Spiral Path CSA last year so if things go well we’ll have a lot of variety.  Also got the first seedlings in trays ready to go out to harden off.

Spinach seeds I planted in a pot on our back deck have sprouted.  Some sun would really help them grow but it isn’t in the forecast.

4/18/11

Wee little radishes

Taking a long time for the field to drain this time.  Put the lettuce and cabbage seedlings out to harden off on the porch.  Windy today but not much rain.  Radish seeds I planted a week ago are up as are some carrots.  Time to plant a second batch.  Jack found a sustainable solution to clean her drum cymbals today – lemon juice.  Worked really well.

4/19/11

More rain.  We just don’t need it at this point.  I was hoping to hang laundry but that didn’t happen so had to hang it to dry indoors.  Lots of finches in their yellow feathers at the feeders today.  We won’t be feeding birds much longer – draws bears and we don’t need THEM on the deck!

Moonflowers with seed casings attached

I planted Moonflowers this year and they are up and big.  Probably planted them too early.  One thing about them is their seed hulls get stuck on the leaves.  I wonder why that happens.  I’ve tried to pry a few off but I ripped the leaves in a few cases so I know that isn’t the answer.

Scott picked up a bunch of clean cardboard last night to continue sheet mulching part of our yard.  We’re still waiting for soil test results to come back from the lab.  We’re testing for lead due to our location.  Hopefully we’ll get good results.

I made a phone call to Kimberly Clark today to ask about their Pull-Ups brand training pants. Our youngest daughter wears them when she goes to pre-school since they don’t allow cloth (no, we don’t beat ourselves up about this; it is just a fact of how things are.)  She loves Toy Story so we get her the boy kind with Woody and Buzz on them.  Well, the last pack I bought had Woody and Buzz on the package but inside it was characters from Cars.  I thought this was mis-packaging but upon calling I was told that they are phasing out the Toy Story characters and are just using up the outside packaging until it is gone.  While I commend them for not being wasteful since this packaging is Recycle code 7 and in most places it must be thrown away, I did say they could put a sticker or something on it to note it is not as shown to avoid disappointed kids.  Since we bought this brand specifically because of the characters on them I didn’t accept the free coupons they offered and I told them we’d be switching to the store brand which are much cheaper and just as effective.  Oh well.  Luckily we’re potty training her now and the use of Pull Up type diapers will be short lived anyway.

4/20/11

Lab tests came back A-OK for lead.  Whew.  That’s a relief.

It was supposed to be 75F and sunny today but it didn’t get there until 4pm.  The kids and I made a trip to ZOOAMERICA today. You can read about our trip here.  I went outside in the late afternoon to get our strawberry plants in the ground.  We plant everbearing varieties because we like to have strawberries on our salads and cereal and we don’t want to have to deal with a glut of strawberries in June.  Usually I buy strawberries for jelly and things from the Farmer’s Market.  I planted Seascape and another one I can’t remember in our raised boxes.

I also planted out my cabbage and lettuce sprouts.  It’s supposed to be in the low 40s tonight, I hope they are going to be OK.  Also planted my largest shallots saved from last year.  They were lost temporarily in the basement but I found them under two paper bags full of sweet potatoes we want to try to grow.

Quiet Creek Columbine

Last year I visited Quiet Creek Herb Farm for a farm day and they were nice enough to send me some columbine seeds from the red and yellow plant they had in their high tunnel.  I finally got around to sending them some of my Matt’s Wild Cherry Tomato seeds today.  They are a bit colder than we are here since they are upstate and west, so they should still be able to plant them for this year if they want to.  I just planted mine yesterday.

Also planted radish and spinach seeds and some more marigold seeds.  You can never have too many marigolds.  Did a walk around the yard and saw violets growing and lots of dandelions.  I always like that color combination together.

I did some trimming to my perennials and to the butterfly bushes too.

Gee, was their anything else?  I don’t think so.

Newspaper Bags get a new life

When we start seeds indoors I usually need to cover the flats with plastic since I have a lot more flats than I do lids.  Before I’ve used plastic grocery bags for this, but I have fewer and fewer of these now that reusable bags have come onto the scened.  So I looked around and found a stash of old newspaper bags.

Most people I know with dogs use these while they are walking their dogs, but we don’t have a dog and I hadn’t found a use for them yet.  They are really too small for collecting much garbage and too thin for anything heavy. 

Flat plastic from newspaper bags

So I cut one open and ended up with an 18.5×19.5 inch piece of plastic.  These are a great size to cover my flats of seeds waiting to sprout and they are light enough that they don’t weigh down already sprouted seeds if I have multiple varieties in a flat.

What a great way to reuse these bags and get some help in the garden too.

Garlic in our Garden

Last fall we planted some garlic that we purchased from our favorite supplier, We Grow Garlic.  I was happy to see that it is doing well already this season.

We sheet mulched this section to a certain degree and weren’t sure exactly how the garlic would take to it.  Plus this placement is far forward in our yard and sometimes gets hit with snow from the snowplow during bad storms.

But as you can see the garlic is up and doing well.  It’s looking pretty happy.

If you’ve never grown garlic you really should give it a try. It’s as easy to grow as onions and the taste is a lot better than what you will find at the store.   Planting time for garlic is in the fall for most varieties so if you are interested in growing it be sure to put it on your garden planner for this year.

We won’t have to do a thing to ours until we harvest it in July.  You can see complete growing and harvesting instructions on We Grow Garlic’s website here.

Kitties enjoying the sunshine on a plant free deck

A fact sheet I picked up at this year’s Farm Show talked about the problem of pets eating poisonous plants.  I remember as a kid my mother always warning me about our cats eating the pointsettias at Christmas time.  We had one cat who would eat them and be sick repeatedly throughout the holidays – seemed he would never learn.  Well, neither did we.  We still kept bringing them into the house.

Since then I’ve tried to avoid having house plants that will make my cats sick.  Not too difficult since I can’t really grow house plants anyway – but what about garden plants? 

One year I was growing tomato plants on my deck and let my cat Puss E Cat out to get some sun.  I walked out a few minutes later to find him laying on the deck unable to move and breathing heavily – with a half eaten tomato leaf in his mouth.  I was lucky, and so was he, and he made a full recovery in a few minutes, but I was more careful with him after that.

Folks who have dogs and roaming cats may be growing things in their garden or on their decks or patios that will make their pets sick and not even realize the danger. 

Here are some common garden items that are poisonous to your pet from a list put out by the PA Veterinary Medical Association:

• apples – seeds and leaves
• apricots – pits and leaves
• azalea  (highly toxic)
• buttercups
• cherry – leaves and pits
• clematis
• coleus
• chrysanthemum
• foxglove (highly toxic)
• garlic
• geranium
• hyacinth
• hydrangea
• iris
• ivy
• kalanchoe
• lily (highly toxic)
• lily of the valley (highly toxic)
• morning glory
• narcissus
• peach – leaves and pits
• peony
• periwinkle
• plum – pit and leaves
• poppy
• portulaca
• potatoes – leaves, sprouts
• rhododendron (highly toxic)
• rhubarb – leaves (highly toxic)
• tomato – green fruit, stems, leaves
• tulips
• wisteria
• yew (highly toxic)

Signs of plant poisoning are: drooling, diarrhea, lethargy, seizures, unconsciousness, irritation of skin and mouth and vomiting.  If you suspect your pet has been poisoned call the pet poision helpline at 1-800-213-6680 for guidance.

The ASPCA has a wonderful web reference discussing plant poisoning and your pet.  It includes a comprehensive list of dangerous plants and a searchable database so you can find safe plants for your pet. Check it out here.