Back in 1944, my grandfather offered a Victory Garden Collection that included wax, string and shell beans, beets, cabbage, carrots, sweet corn, cucumber, lettuce, onions, parsnips, peas, radish, squash, Swiss chard and tomato seeds. Twelve packets, a pound and a half of bean seed, an ounce of beet seed, half pound of sweet corn seed and a pound of pea seed for $1.60 postage paid. The history of the American garden is fascinating and incredibly important, and we're proud to encourage folks to keep it alive and growing.

 

 

  

Lately, I've been hearing a great deal about the dreaded red (scarlet) lily beetle (Lilioceris lilii - isn't that the best scientific name ever???  Well, next to Bison bison, that is).  A little longer and a little boxier than the cute, rounded lady beetle, red lily beetles are not spotted like the beneficial bugs.  We never used to have them in Alberta, but apparently they hitched a ride on some lily bulbs brought in from other regions and now we're beset with the things.  Grrrrrr.  Apparently, these nasty eating machines have no natural predators in North America, so they're pretty much free to run rampant over our gardens, taking out our lilies and Fritillaria at will.   (Don't fret about your daylilies...Hemerocallis are safe from the marauding red horde.  Not from hares, mind you, but that's a story for another day...).  I've read that certain parasitic wasps are used as controls in Europe and we may eventually see more of them here in North America, which offers hope.  

So, what can we do to prevent an infestation?  First off, if you get any lily bulbs, inspect both the bulbs and the soil they are potted up in for signs of red lily beetle - either the bright red adults, larvae or eggs.  The larvae is yellow-orange in colour and is usually covered in goopy black frass (bug poop.  Hope you're not eating anything right now), while the orange eggs are small and round.   Hand-pick anything you see that might be a red lily beetle and destroy it.  If you can help it, don't buy lilies that are potted in soil to begin with, but if you take the bulbs out and soak them in bleach, you can probably get rid of the beetles.  

Throughout the spring and summer, make sure you stay on top of things!  Watch your lilies for signs of the adults or larvae and hand pick and kill any culprits.  I've also come across suggestions to use diatomaceous earth as a means of successfully desiccating the critters.  Bear in mind that red lily beetles are excellent fliers - after they're done eating your neighbour's lilies, they may latch onto yours (even mature plantings that were safe when you put them in years ago).  Be vigilant...and good luck!!!!  

Have you had any trouble with red lily beetles in your garden?  What did you do to combat them?  

   

Let’s take a little field trip back to 1943.   Go ahead and hop in those time machines!  We’re going to explore the day and age when the world was at war and our food supply was in peril.

American Life in 1943 

Think about this: the average family in 1943 was living on $29.00 a week.  Food staples were rationed out to families in order to provide for the troops.   As you can imagine, fresh fruits and vegetables were in short supply.  In order to keep the nation from starvation, the US Government encouraged folks to help out in any way that they could.  Propaganda posters popped up in every town urging families to plant ‘Victory Gardens’ to provide their own produce. 

War Gardens for Victory 

Our Food is Fighting 

Sow the Seeds of Victory 

Over 20 million American families took up the call for ‘victory.’ They collaborated with friends and neighbors and took control of their own food supply.   Even schools got involved in the cause by planting gardens in schoolyards to provide supplemental food for school lunches.  The number of canning supplies sold more than quadrupled from 1943 to 1944.  Eleanor Roosevelt encouraged her fellow citizens by planting a Victory Garden at the White House in 1943.

The plan was a wild success across the nation. As the National WWII Museum website indicates, “By 1944, Victory Gardens were responsible for producing 40% of all vegetables grown in the United States. More than one million tons of vegetables were grown in Victory Gardens during the war.”  

FORTY PERCENT of all vegetables? Holy moly! Can you imagine if we did that today??

After the War 

After the war was over in 1945, Victory Gardens began to steadily disappear from backyards and rooftops. Grocery stores popped up across the nation and buying everything we needed from them became commonplace. Commercial foods became more widely available and Americans didn't see any reason to continue growing their own anymore.  New and different problems began to crop up in our nation’s food supply…

 

Food Today 

All right, let’s hop back in those time machines and return to the present day. 

Today we live in a very different world than that of the 1940’s. With the opening of commercial grocery stores in towns across the country, the food system has adjusted to meet the ever-increasing demands of the public. Scientists have genetically modified our food in labs.  Farmers have resorted to using industrial methods of growing food and raising livestock.  Vegetables are now coated with poisons in the fields. Animals are kept in tight quarters where they lead miserable lives. All of this happens even before the food is packed onto a truck, shipped across the country, and stocked in a supermarket. During the long journey almost half of this produce will spoil.

Producing food isn’t what it used to be, and our bodies and wallets are taking the toll.

 

The next time you’re at the grocery store, take a closer look at the produce section.  Do some investigation.  Become a food spy.  You can even wear a trench coat and a spiffy hat!

Try this: Check out the labels to see where the produce comes from. Consider the massive amount of fuel it takes to get a piece of produce all the way across the country. Consider the nutritional value of food that traveled on the road for two weeks before it arrived at your store.  Also consider how hard it is for your local farmer to compete with industrial produce from overseas.  Farm workers in other countries are paid pitiful wages and food safety practices are lax, which makes it cheap and easy to produce low quality, sometimes down right poisonous foods.

Poisonous Pesticides 

Food is our energy source; it is what we give our bodies to run on.  Food matters. And everything that is done to it before it gets to your mouth matters too.

So, what can we do about it?   

Our agricultural system is a mess, it is enough to make your head spin.  There’s a slew of information available to cover the various problems we’re facing. It’s not my goal today to depress you, it’s my goal to give you hope. If you’d like to research on your own, please check out the links at the bottom of this page. I’m here to tell you there is something that we can do about this. 

So, keep reading!

Our problems today may be different from that of 1943 but our solutions are in many ways the same.  We can take a lesson from the wisdom of the past and go back to our old ways.  We can take control of our food: where it comes from, how it’s produced, and what goes into it.  This power can be in your hands, and let me tell you, this is the most almighty of powers!

Bring back the victory garden!  

Even without food rationing and propaganda posters, people all across the nation are taking notice of the condition of our food supply and choosing to do something about it. Consumers are starting to look more closely at food labels and are refusing to buy things with unpronounceable ingredients.  Organic foods are becoming an increasingly common sight on grocery store shelves. Farmer’s markets are popping up in neighborhoods across the country.

Even Michelle Obama got into the act and planted a kitchen garden on the lawn of the White House as part of her campaign to end childhood obesity and advocate healthy eating.

Michele Obama gardens to inspire Americans 

The White House Kitchen garden 

Our collective outlook on food is changing for the better.  Once again, families are taking control of their food, and you can too!

What you have to Gain: 

Personal Gratification 

There is nothing, nothing so gratifying as walking out your back door to cut some lettuce, pick a tomato, and dig up some carrots to throw together a salad. 

You know that the food was grown in sustainable conditions.  You know that the laborer was treated fairly.  You know you're not eating poison in the form of pesticides and herbicides.  You know that it took zero energy resources (no gas and no oil are used in transport) to get your food to your plate.  Unless of course you're counting the energy you spent walking into your backyard!

More Money for your Pockets 

Skyrocketing food costs are due in part to the increase in gas and oil prices.  The vast majority of our food isn't even coming from within our states, and all that food has to get to your store somehow. The food you eat is often shipped from farms and factories all over the country, sometimes even all over the world!  New studies show that more than 40% of food is thrown away before it even gets to the consumer, much of that because of spoilage during transit.

Local food advocate Joel Salatin writes on the subject, “The average morsel of food sees more of America than the farmer who grows it, traveling fifteen hundred miles from field to fork."

Growing your own food on your property cuts out the middleman.   You can take pride in knowing that very little food is wasted when you grow it yourself.  You also don't have to pay the farmer, the truck driver, the gas company, the cashier, the produce manager, or any one else.  You only pay yourself, and you get paid in a glorious bounty of food…best paycheck ever!

Control your own destiny  

Growing your own food makes you feel powerful in a world where lack of control is commonplace.  Knowing that the food you’re eating is safe and full of nutrition is priceless.  Don’t get lost in the shuffle and leave your fate in the hands of others. You can pull yourself up by your bootstraps and take control!  Families in the 1940’s made an effort to provide for themselves, and you can too!

Be Prepared… (Cue singing hyenas and scar faced lions) 

Another reason to grow your own food is for preparedness.  Food is a necessary resource, and we can't live without it.  In times of need, be it an emergency, or getting laid off from work, it’s important to know that your family can still eat. Having the knowledge and ability to grow food will never let you down.  You'll never find yourself saying, 'Dang! What a useless skill!’  Unfortunately, the knowledge and skills for food production are getting lost more and more as each year passes.

Educate the Youngins’ 

If you talk to many children these days, you'll find that they’re quite confused about foods that don’t come in boxes and bags.  Many of them can’t tell you that a carrot is the root of a plant, or that mashed potatoes are made with a vegetable that's grown underground. 

If you plant your own victory garden, this can be your way of showing your food independence, but you can also teach your kids valuable lessons. 

This next generation is going to have to bear the burden of our current food system.  Change starts with these kids, and raising them well is the best thing you can do for our future. Your kids crave knowledge; they want to learn, so teach them! Allow them to form a connection between the earth and their plates.   Working together in the garden can strengthen your family culture. Cook together, eat together, and you will grow together.

This clip from Jaime Oliver’s Food Revolution documents this issue perfectly.  I can only hope this is a very extreme example of kids’ food knowledge.

You can do it too! 

You don’t need to be a farmer to grow a victory garden, and it’s okay if you don’t live on seven acres in the country. You too can grow a victory garden with just a little creativity and persistence.  For city dwellers, you'll need to think outside the box…or inside the box, rather.   

You can grow a lot of food in little containers- boxes, cartons, buckets, bags, even in old tires—the sky’s the limit!  My fiancée and I live in the heart of the city and we still manage to keep chickens and a garden. 

Think about how helpful it would be if you could grow even just one of the plants you regularly eat.  You could cut that right out of your grocery bill, and I guarantee it will taste much better than store bought. To read more about growing in small spaces, check out the link on city gardening at the bottom of this article.

No Garden? No Problem! 

If growing your own food is an absolute impossibility for you, but you still want to do something to make a difference, there are still several things that you can do.  Consider buying your produce from a farmer’s market, or a CSA (community supported agriculture) instead of from the grocery store.  This food is not only cheaper, it almost always comes from a local farm, and you have the opportunity to talk to the farmer first hand! 

I’m all about putting my money directly into the farmer’s hand for the food they grow, rather than paying several companies in between farm and table.  If your farmer’s market isn’t an option, start making calls to your local grocery store and ask them to carry more produce from local farms.  If they are eager to keep you as a customer, they will do what it takes to make you happy.

I truly believe that every action made to improve our food system makes a difference.  Even if that action is simply shopping at the farmer’s market once a month or starting an herb garden on your windowsill, every little bit of change helps.  These things add up, and before you know it, you may start a food revolution in your own neighborhood.  You can change the world; all you have to do is take that first step.

Be a superhero, grow a garden! 

Sowing for victory in this day and age has a different connotation than it did in the 1940's.  Growing your own food may not help in the war effort, but it will help save the environment, strengthen family bonds, save money, and increase your independence.

The time is now, so get out there! Sow some seeds! Sow for independence! Sow for knowledge! Sow for victory!

References for further education: 

On Victory Gardens: 

National WWII Museum
http://www.nationalww2museum.org/learn/education/for-students/ww2-history/at-a-glance/victory-gardens.html 

Victory Garden Foundation
http://www.victorygardenfoundation.org/victorygardenshistory.htm 

Living History Farm
http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe40s/crops_02.html 

Bring Back the Victory Garden
http://www.sfgate.com/homeandgarden/article/Bring-back-the-WWII-era-victory-garden-3288297.php#ixzz2NquYT6vt 

On Gardening and local agriculture: 

Find a CSA near you:
http://www.localharvest.org/ 

Find your local farmer’s market:
http://search.ams.usda.gov/farmersmarkets/ 

Small Space, Low Skill Gardening
http://imaginacres.com/small-space-low-skill-gardening/ 

Michelle Obama’s Kitchen Garden
http://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/white-house-garden-zm0z13amzmar.aspx#axzz2PAxw7wrf 

Gardening Basics for Beginners
http://simplehomemade.net/5-gardening-basics-for-beginners/ 

Vegetable Gardening for Beginners
http://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/vegetables/vgen/vegetable-gardening-for-beginners.htm 

On the condition of food: 

Milk: America’s Health Problem
http://www.preventcancer.com/consumers/general/milk.htm 

Joel Salatin
http://www.polyfacefarms.com/principles/ 

Food Inc.
http://www.takepart.com/foodinc 

Center for Ecoliteracy
http://www.ecoliteracy.org/discover 

Sustainable Table
http://www.gracelinks.org/940/the-issues 

The Food Trust:
http://thefoodtrust.org/ 

This is the year that I can get back to work in earnest.  After I shattered my ankle almost 5 years ago (you know you “did it up good” when your orthopedic surgeon says it was one of the worst she has ever seen), it was a long road to getting back to the garden, animals, harvesting and everything else that goes along with the homestead. Although there is still a number of problems, and I will not shed the brace 100%, I can now seriously start looking at getting some small stock again, now that I know what I can and can no longer chase (goats and chickens are still in but, alas and disappointingly, pigs are out), I can put in dwarf fruit trees so ladder work is minimal, and gardens can be raised or they can still be traditional in style. Either is doable.

So, getting a bit excited, I put a few things in a wee bit early. It looked like the good weather was going to hold, so I put in my pansies (for salads and garnishes), a Cherokee Purple Tomato, Early Girl Tomato, Key Largo Pepper and a Hot Portuguese Pepper. I did a long-term weather check, and temps seemed to be holding for the next few weeks. Now, it looks like the cold is returning. (The changeable weather and short garden time in this area really can take some of the fun out of things. It really makes one think long and hard about someplace warmer, with a much longer season and much less changeable weather.) I just hope that if we get a really late frost, that the weatherman announces the warning that day or evening, not the morning after……….

The other fun activity as the gardens start going in, is keeping the barn cats from trampling seeds and seedlings. They are usually not too bad, only about a week before they realize that they can’t sprawl out in the garden area like they do in late fall and early to mid spring. But, I can plan on having to prop up at least one or two plants. And…here they are…. 

First Two “Cat Casualties” 

Little Grey, who had a paw in the pansy trample, and JJ. 

Well, I guess this year will be a bit busier than usual. Not only am I starting over in the farming department, I am also starting over at a new farm. I moved to my grandparent’s old farm. 1840’s house, more acreage, nice pond, but, I have to reclaim some of the land from over grown Christmas trees. It should be an interesting year! Stay Tuned!

Spring is finally here and if you are a gardener like me you are itching to get your hands in the soil and get some plants in the ground.  I'm reminded of years past and my struggles to grow certain crops.  Despite my best efforts, cucumbers were always absent from my garden harvest.  Year after year, no matter how hard I tried, I could not get many cucumbers to grow.  After I became a beekeeper, the reason for my cucumber troubles became apparent, what was missing from my garden were the honeybees.  

Now I always think about how I can accommodate more bee friendly plants and flowers into my yard to make a sanctuary for honeybees and other beneficial pollinators.  This is as easy as planting a small patch of native wildflowers, herbs or even a flowering vegetable garden.  Keep it chemical free, let it continue to flower and you will be providing a vital food source for the local bee population.  As an added bonus you’ll get your vegetables well-pollinated and have an excellent harvest at the same time.  Just follow these simple guidelines.  

Provide Bee Friendly Habitat

• Choose plants that attract bees – Bees love native wildflowers, flowering herbs, berries and many flowering fruits and vegetables.  Some honeybee favorites here in Massachusetts include – mints, basil, sage, thyme,borage,oregano, lavender, chives, buckwheat, berries, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, cucumbers, tomato, winter squash, pumpkins, melons, watermelons,broccoli, crocus, snowdrops, jonquils, tulips, sunflowers, asters, dandelions, clovers, lilacs, wisteria, cosmos, black-eyed susans, gaillardia, cup plants, goldenrod, loosestrife, bachelor’s buttons,bee balm, sedum and honeysuckle.  If you have the space, planting any type of fruit tree is perfect and trees such as maple, willow, black locust and sumac are also good food sources for bees. Planting flowers like Crocus or Siberian Squill in your yard is a simple way for a suburban gardener to provide an early spring food source for bees. Click Here to see pictures of the beautiful blue pollen of the Siberian Squill flower. 

• Group the same plants together - Try to plant at least one square yard of the same plant together to make a perfect bee attractor. But if you are short on space, planting just a few wildflowers or herbs in a planter or window box is all that’s needed to provide more foraging habitat for the honeybee. 


• Pick plants with long blooming cycles - Or choose plants with successive blooms. This way the bees will keep coming back again and again.  A seed kit like this makes attracting bees to your garden easy.    

• Let your plants flower - Leave the flowers on your plants until they are dead to allow the honeybees to get the pollen and nectar they need. If you are growing herbs or vegetables such as broccoli, harvest it but leave the plant intact. When you are done let it go to flower for the pollinators and leave it in the garden until the flowers are gone. Last December, I saw firsthand how important a food source like broccoli left to flower in a backyard garden was to my honeybees at a time when nothing else was available for them to eat. 

• Provide a fresh water source - A sloping bird bath with stones for bees to stand on, a backyard waterfall, a pool, a dripping hose, almost any shallow water source will do. Cabbage and broccoli leaves full of fresh morning dew, and freshly watered potted plants are favorite destinations for my bees.  

• DO NOT use pesticides, herbicides or other chemicals in your garden – Or anywhere in your yard including your lawn, other gardens and trees.  After all, you are trying to attract bees right? Most of these chemicals are toxic to bees and have widespread effects which are detrimental to plants, beneficial insects and other native pollinators. This ban also applies to products your lawn care company uses. When in doubt leave it out. This article explains how toxic some backyard chemicals are to bees.
   
• Appreciate the beauty of weeds- Dandelions, clovers, loosestrife, milkweed, goldenrod and other flowering weeds are very important food sources for bees. In areas filled with green sprawling lawns, dandelions and clovers are vital plants for a bees survival. Let them grow and flower in your yard and you will soon have your own personal honeybee sanctuary. The next time you see a dandelion going to seed, grab it, blow those seeds around and feel good knowing you are doing your part to help save the bees. It can’t be more simple than that!  

Other Posts You May Enjoy From BeverlyBees.com:

1. Parts Of A Beehive – A Beginner Beekeeper’s Guide  
2. Blue Pollen, Honeybees and Siberian Squill  
3. Raspberry Honey Jelly  
4. A Beginner Beekeeper's Guide  
5. Top Bar Hive Honey Harvest With Sam Comfort    

[This post has been reprinted with permission from BeverlyBees.com] 

Warmer weather and the thought of spring send a gardeners imagination into overdrive.  Tomatoes in the garden are a tradition, and we tend to plant the same variety year after year.  A trip to the local nursery may have some colored varieties, but if not buy the seed and start them yourself.

Who doesn’t love a great tasting slice of tomato, picked fresh from the vine?  But why stop with one of hundreds of the red varieties?  What if you grew a rainbow array of red, white, green, pink, purple/black, striped, yellow and orange slicing tomatoes, planted side by side for a visual extravaganza?  Imagine that translating into a platter of fresh sliced tomatoes set before your dinner guests.  Perhaps with thin slices of fresh mozzarella cheese and topped with garden fresh basil and drizzled with a good olive oil.  Yum!

Let’s start with a good red variety.  While heirloom tomatoes have become the popular choice the past few years, you may prefer planting hybrids.  I would also recommend, if you have the garden space, plant an early, midseason, and late variety.  If space is limited plant for the main season.  If you live in a short season growing area, I recommend the early varieties. You can find the heirloom varieties below from Annie’s Heirloom Seeds, Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, Bountiful Gardens, Seed Savers Exchange, Terroir Seeds, and Totally Tomatoes.  For a complete list of heirloom and hybrid tomatoes and where to purchase the seed visit:
www.postagestampvegetablegardening.com 

Red slicing tomatoes 

Early varieties  

Marmande 70 days.  A French heirloom that is scarlet, lightly ribbed and full of flavor.  Medium-large size red tomato that produces even in cool weather.  Semi-determinate plant. 

Stupice (OP) 65 days.  This is a Czechoslovakia variety.  It is red with small to medium-sized, 3-6 ounce fruit.  Indeterminate plant.  This would be a good variety for short season areas.

Thessoloniki  68 days.  These are baseball-sized red tomatoes.  A Greek variety that is mild in flavor and virtually refuse to rot even when completely ripe.  Indeterminate plant.

Mid-season main crop  

Brandywine Red (OP)  85 days.  A large-lobed beefsteak-shaped tomato with, pinkish-red skin and weighs 16 ounces.  Not acidic.  The indeterminate plant is best staked, grown in cages or on a trellis. 

Costoluto Genovese (OP)  85 days.  A 19^th century Italian heirloom that is flattened and quite attractive with deep ribbing.  Determinate plant.

Costoluto Genovese tomatoes. (Photo courtesy Plant World Seeds.)  

Ponderosa Red 80-90 days.  An 1891 American heirloom.  A meaty, 10-24 ounce, flattened beefsteak with deep red color.  This variety tends to do well in humid areas.  Indeterminate plant.

Late season  

Rutgers   100 days.  Save the best of the season for canning.  A large red 8 ounce globe-shaped tomato that is a New Jersey heirloom.  Large plant.

Purple slicing tomatoes 

Early variety  

Black Prince (OP)  70 days.  An heirloom from Irkutsk, Siberia.  The 5 ounce, 2-3 inch diameter tomatoes are round and uniform in shape.  They are deep blackish-chocolate brown.  Sweet, rich flavor.  Indeterminate plant.

Mid-season main crop  

Black Krim (OP)  78 days.  A delicious Russian heirloom. 4 inch, brown-red when ripe.  Very juicy with thin skin and dark-green shoulders.  A slight saltiness enhances the taste. Indeterminate plant.

Black Krim tomatoes. (Photo courtesy Plant World Seeds.)  

Cherokee Purple  80 days.  This is a Cherokee Indian, pre 1890 heirloom.  Deep dusky purple-pink color.  Very large tomato weighs 10 to 12 ounces.  Sweet flavor.  Indeterminate plant.

Purple Russian  75 days.  Purplish 6 ounce egg-shaped tomatoes.  Ukrainian heirloom.  Fruit has no blemishes and top flavor. 

Late season 

Black Brandywine  90-100 days.  Very dark maroon color, almost black fruits.  Same flavor as the other Brandywines.  Indeterminate plant.

Green slicing tomatoes 

Early variety  

Lime Green Salad 58 days.  An heirloom 3 ounce tomato with apple-green skin that matures to yellowish, with lime-green flesh.  Sweet tangy flavor.  Short plants.  

Midseason, main crop  

Aunt Ruby’s German Green  85 days.  One of the largest green beefsteaks grown.  It can grow up to 1 pound.  Brilliant, neon-green flesh with strong, sweet, fruity flavor.  This German heirloom came by the way of Greenville, Tennessee.

Aunt Ruby’s German Green tomatoes. (Photo courtesy Totally Tomatoes.)  

Emerald Evergreen  80 days.  A medium-large heirloom.  Lime-green tomatoes that have a rich, sweet flavor.  Another green beefsteak growing on indeterminate plant.

Green Pineapple  Strange that a tomato would have a pineapple aroma, but this medium-sized fruit does.  It has smooth green flesh and olive-green skin.  An Ohio heirloom.

Pink Slicing Tomatoes 

Early variety  

Mrs. Benson’s  70 days.  A beefsteak type tomato with dark pink color.  Weighs up to 1 pound and grows on an indeterminate potato leaf plant.  This variety has few seeds and is crack resistant.

Midseason, main crop  

Arkansas Traveler  80 days.  This Arkansas heirloom can tolerate heat and humidity.  Medium-sized pink tomato with smooth rose-colored skin.  Crack-resistant and has a good flavor.  Grows on an indeterminate plant.

Brandywine (OP)  80 days.  This popular 1885 heirloom pink tomato is still going strong today.  Large fruit can grow up to 1 ½ pounds.  Grows on an indeterminate potato leaf plant.

Mortgage Lifter (OP) 79-85 days.  Large, smooth, 1 pound deep-pink fruit.  1930s heirloom has a fascinating story of a man who needed to pay off his mortgage.  Fruit is crack free and grows on an indeterminate plant.

Mortgage Lifter tomatoes. (Photo courtesy Plant World Seeds.)  

Late variety  

The Dutchman  90 days.  Large, old-fashioned pink-skinned heirloom tomato can weigh up to 3 pounds each.

Yellow Slicing Tomatoes 

Early variety  

Yellow Taxi  65-70 days.  A lemon-yellow heirloom with smooth, round, baseball-sized sweet fruit.

Midseason, main crop  

Golden Ponderosa  78 days.  A West Virginia heirloom that is a large core, yellow-gold tomato weighing over a pound.  A sub-acid tomato with mild flavor.  Indeterminate plant.

Tasmanian Blushing Yellow  85 days.  A 5-6 ounce yellow fruit with a trace of pink inside the silky flesh.  Very sweet, yet mild.

Yellow Brandywine  76 days.  An Indianan heirloom with the same flavor as the Pink Brandywine.  Large, slightly ribbed beefsteaks are sweet and tangy.  Indeterminate plant with large potato leaves.  This tomato keeps well.

Late variety  

Huge Lemon Oxheart 90 days.  Gigantic, pale-yellow, very sweet beefsteak tomato.  An Amish heirloom.

Orange Slicing Tomatoes 

Early variety  

Orange King  A large early bright-orange slicer weighing up to ¾ pound.  Sets well in high or low temperature conditions and is very prolific.

Rosalie’s Early Orange 70 days.  An indeterminate plant that produces 1-2 pound tomatoes that are heart-shaped with green shoulders and firm flesh.  Very few seeds.

Midseason, main crop  

Amana Orange 75-80 days.  Big, 1 pound glowing-orange beefsteaks.  An Iowa heirloom.  Very attractive tomato full of intense flavor.  Indeterminate plant.

Amana Orange tomatoes. (Photo courtesy Totally Tomatoes.)  

Golden Jubliee  70-80 days.  Sweet, mild flavored, good size tomato that is an old standard variety.  Indeterminate plant.

Nebraska Wedding  85-90 days.  A 4” round tomato with glowing orange skin.  Nebraska heirloom seeds were given, and still are, to brides as a wedding gift.  36” determinate plants.

Late variety  

Dad’s Sunset 90 days.  Perfect orange tomato.  10 ounce fruits are smooth, uniform and glowing orange.

White Slicing Tomatoes 

Midseason, main crop  

Duggin White  80 days.  Medium-size white beefsteak that is a very rare heirloom.

Ivory Egg  70-75 days.  A Swedish variety that has ivory-cream fruit in the shape and size of a chicken egg.  Creamy flesh is sweet and rich.

White Queen  An 1882 heirloom that is 4-8 ounces of creamy-white and intensely sweet.

Striped Slicing Tomatoes 

Midseason, main crop  

Ananas Noir (OP)  An heirloom from Belgium.  1 ½ pounds, multi-colored smooth fruit in green, yellow and purple mix.  The flesh is bright green with deep red streaks.  Superb flavor being both sweet and smoky with a hint of citrus.

Ananas Noir tomatoes. (Photo courtesy Totally Tomatoes.)  

Mr. Stripey  85 days.  A West Virginia heirloom.  A huge, beefsteak averaging 1-2 pounds.  Yellow-orange with red and pink streaks.  Mild, low acid taste.  Indeterminate plant.

William’s Striped  85-90 days.  A Kentucky heirloom.  1 pound or more, it has beautiful exterior and interior of red and yellow colors.  Indeterminate plant.

Late varieties  

Gold Medal 90 days.  1 pound bi-colored tomato.  Yellow fruits are blushed with rosy red from the blossom end.  Firm flesh is sweet and mild tasting.

Hawaiian Pineapple  90-95 days.  A 1 pound fruit with yellow and red mottled flesh.  Excellent flaor that is sweet, fruity and somewhat pineapple-like taste.

We are happy to bring you a ten week series of our favorite vegetables that we grow here at Itzy Bitzy Farm.

The first of Top Ten Veggies is Broccoli. 

Broccoli is one of the most nutritious vegetables you can eat and grow.

Broccoli is very low in Saturated Fat and Cholesterol. It is also a good source of Protein, Vitamin E Thiamin, Riboflavin, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus and Selenium, and a very good source of Dietary Fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin K, Vitamin B6, Folate, Potassium and Manganese. With only 28 calories in one half cup of cooked broccoli and 30 calories with raw, broccoli is a great veggie to enjoy if you are trying to cut down on caloric intake. 
 

Broccoli is a cold weather crop, which means it grows well in early Spring and late Fall. We start our broccoli seed in our greenhouse in January and keep it in the greenhouse for eight weeks with one week of hardening off before transplanting into the garden around late March - early April. With this early start your plants will harvest-able heads by June, depending on the variety you are growing. 

Our favorite varieties of broccoli are Waltham 29 (Heirloom), Di Cicco (Heirloom), Calabrese (Heirloom). We have grown all of these varieties and each has done very well for us.
  

DiCicco (50-70 days) is an Italian heirloom dating from 1890. It is a vigorous plant producing 3-5 inch wide main heads and seem to come to harvest at different times making a long harvest. 



Waltham 29 (75 days) was bred by the University of Massachusetts in Waltham, MA. A high yielding plant that is dwarf and compact it produces 4-8 inch main heads and gives large side shoots when main head is harvested. Waltham 29 is a good cultivar for freezing.  High cold resistance.       

Calabrese (60-90 days) broccoli  also an Italian heirloom that produces large shoots all around a main central head.  After the central head is cut Calabrese will explode with side shoots. This variety is known to continue to produce for as much as six months. 

Broccoli can be started inside 3-4 weeks before last frost or sown outside 4-6 weeks before last frost or as soon as soil can be worked. Seeds are sown 1/8-1/4 inch deep and germinates in 7-14 days. When seedlings are 4-6 inches tall transplant to 18 inches apart. When grown in raised beds you can plant staggered and about 12-15 inches apart.

Broccoli likes a good feeding of composted manure worked into the soil at planting time whether direct sowing or transplanting seedlings. After about 4 weeks but before heads start forming feed with a water soluble fish/seaweed emulsion that is given via a watering can directly over plant and around base of plant. With the manure applied at planting no other fertilizing should be needed the rest of the season.  Keep broccoli area weeded and mulch with straw for moisture control and keeping the soil cool should you get a warm snap. 

Diseases & Pests: 

The biggest problem with growing broccoli is keeping ahead of the caterpillars and cabbage worms. A good preventative is floating row covers completely sealed around area the plants are growing. Since broccoli does not need pollination to make the veggie row covers can stay on for the life of the plant. I highly recommend this during seedling stage to protect against slugs which can devour a broccoli seedling in one night, trust me, I know

Another antidote to cabbage worms is insecticidal soap or specially made organic pesticide for worms and pillars. 

Nitrogen Deficiency: 

One of the biggest health issues for broccoli can be a nitrogen deficiency. Bottom leaves will turn yellow and fall off and slowly yellow up the stem to upper leaves the plant will also get a pale green rather than a rich dark green characteristic of broccoli plants. Should this begin to happen feed a high nitrogen fertilizer. Also adding blood meal at time of planting helps greatly with this, apply according to package directions. Keep in mind low nitrogen may not be the only reason for yellow leaves, too much water can also cause this. 

Harvesting:  

When the main head is of the desired size cut off cleanly with a sharp knife. Soon after you should see side shoots begin to sprout, these will not get as big as the main head and so can be harvested when big enough to eat. 

Uses: 

Broccoli can be used in many ways. It freezes well for long use but does not can well. It can be eaten raw or cooked in a number of ways. Steamed or sauteed is our favorite way to serve broccoli. 

Recipe: 

Sauteed Broccoli Florets and Stems with Pasta Parmesan

Wash and dry broccoli shoots or head and cut head into bite size pieces. Heat 3 Tbsps olive oil in large saute pan with 2 cloves minced garlic. Add broccoli to oil and saute until firm tender. Remove from pan reserving oil in pan. Cook pasta of choice and add broccoli to pasta with 1/4 C grated Parmesan cheese, toss all together, serve with green salad. 
 

It's just about January now and I am already thinking about what I am going to get to start in the green house here in just a few weeks... oh it sends a chill of excitement up my spine! It really isn't too early for all the home gardeners to start thinking about a few things as well, that's why you are getting all those beautiful seed catalogs in the mail (see graphic). I thought today would be a great day to discuss Vermicomposting- you'll want to order your worms here in a jiffy- yes I said 'worms'!  A.K.A free fertilizer- not the worms- ugh! You should be thinking about seed orders now... lots of companies offer discounts for orders placed before the first of the year... check it out... every penny counts... plus those extra pennies might add up to a few extra packs of seeds!  Before you know it, you'll be seeing all the big box stores starting to put up the shelves of seed packs, seed starting kits and all that other good stuff! Now is also the time that you might be thinking of drawing up your garden plan... I love doing that! You will also see gobs of fertilizers in both the catalogs and store shelves.  That's where Vermicomposting is coming into play in today's post.  You will definitely want to start now, so you will have this rich, wonderful fertilizer ready for your seedlings and garden plants... read on!

Be sure to go to my blog at www.fordragonfliesandme.blogspot.com to see all the great photos that go with this post! Enjoy friends!

What's "Vermicomposting" you ask... well in layman's terms, it is simply 'worm poop' or more politely speaking 'castings'... good stuff either way, I'll testify to that! Many home gardeners spend tons of money on fertilizer, when you can be making it yourself using everyday house hold waste, especially if traditional 'composting' isn't for you.  This sounds grosser than composting, and in reality is still composting, but it is by far much less laborious, doesn't stink (really- forget that it's poop) and doesn't take near the amount of space. Many people don't know what to do with their common household organic waste material- feed it to the worms- for real, they'll eat it!  This is an excellent way to be environmentally responsible while recycling your own organic waste to a colony of worms in a worm composter.  These wonderful little gobblers devour the waste (each worm eats up to half its body weight every day) in a dark bin and produces two natural byproducts; a top quality compost that home gardeners sometimes refer to as "Black Gold," which you  use to condition the soil in your garden and in containers that you will plant in. Or a liquid often refereed to as "Black Tea," that you can dilute to make a superb tonic for your plants!
It is very simple to make your very own Worm Composter, using stackable plastic storage totes, wire mesh, a drain cock, and synthetic carpet for a lid, but the simplest way to get started is to purchase a ready made kit, complete with a supply of the same kind of worms that normally live in well rotted manure or compost heaps.  But for you do-it-yourselfers, here is a detailed how to!

The first thing to consider before you start your project is do you want it indoors or outdoors?
Worm composter's are often described as 'odor free,' but many people find that when they lift the lid off to add more scraps, a strong earthy smell wafts out.  So, it may be a better idea to keep your worm composter in a utility room, basement, garage or outside the back door. 

How to Make your own:  This info was taken in part from:   http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Your-Own-Worm-Compost-System

Material: Rubber is cheap, easy to use and durable. Galvanized tubs are somewhat costly but will last forever and plastic cracks easily, but either will do in a pinch. Five gallon plastic buckets now for sale by most hardware stores can be used - especially if you live in an apartment. Clean the 5-gallon buckets thoroughly with soap and let them sit for a day or so filled with clean water before using as a worm bin.

Ventilation: Your bin should be well-ventilated, with several 1/8 inch (3mm) holes 4 inches (100mm) from the bottom (otherwise the worms will stay at the bottom of the bin and you may drown your worms). For example, you can build a worm bin out of a large plastic tub with several dozen small holes drilled out on the bottom and sides.

Size: The larger you make the container, the more worms it can sustain. Estimate 1 pound (0.45kg) of worms for every square foot of surface area. The maximum productive depth for your bin is 24 inches (61cm) deep because composting worms will not go further down than that.

Cover: The bin should have a cover to prevent light from getting in and to prevent the compost from drying out. Choose or make a lid that can be removed if your compost is too wet. Use a canvas tarp, doubled over and bungee-corded on, or kept in place with wood. Burlap sacks also work well, and can be watered directly.

Siphon: Purchase a drain cock from any hardware store and follow instructions for installation. This is how you will siphon off the Black Tea concentrate.

Prepare the bedding for your worms.
The bedding is the natural habitat of the worm that you're trying to replicate in your compost bin. Fill your bin with thin strips of unbleached corrugated cardboard or shredded newspaper, straw, dry grass, or some similar material. This provides a source of fiber to the worms and keeps the bin well-ventilated. Sprinkle a handful of dirt on top, and thoroughly moisten. Allow the water to soak in for at least a day before adding worms. Over time, the bedding will be turned into nutrient-rich compost material by the worms. When you harvest the composted soil, you'll have to introduce new bedding into the worm bin again.

Canadian peat moss, sawdust, (rinsed) horse manure, and coconut pith fiber are also great for composting.

Avoid putting pine, redwood, bay or eucalyptus leaves into your bedding. Most brown leaves are acceptable in vermicompost, but eucalyptus leaves in particular act as an insecticide and will kill off your worms.

Choose which worms you want.
There are several varieties of worms that that are bred and sold commercially for vermicomposting; just digging up earthworms from your backyard is not recommended. The Internet or local gardening club is your best bet for finding a worm vendor near you. A pound of worms is all that is recommended.
 

• The worms most often used, Eisenia foetida (Red Wigglers), are about 4 inches long, mainly red along the body with a yellow tail. These worms have a healthy appetite and reproduce quickly. They are capable of eating more than half their own weight in food every day. 
• Another variety to consider are Eisenia hortensis, known as "European night crawlers." They do not reproduce quite as fast as the red wigglers, but grow to be larger, eat coarser paper and cardboard better, and seem to be heartier. They are also better fishing worms when they do reach full size. 
• However, as with any non-native species, it is important not to allow European night crawlers to reach the wild. Their voracious appetites and reproductive rates (especially among the red wigglers) have been known to upset the delicate balance of the hardwood forests by consuming the leaf litter too quickly. This event leaves too little leaf litter to slowly incubate the hard shelled nuts and leads to excessive erosion as well as negatively affecting the pH of the soil. So, do your best to keep them confined! 

Maintaining and Harvesting Your Compost
1. Feed your worms digestible amounts regularly. The bedding of your compost bin is a great start, but the worms need a steady diet of food scraps in order to stay healthy and produce compost. Feed your worms at least once a week in the beginning, but only a small small amount. As the worms reproduce and grow in numbers, try to feed them at least a quart of food scraps per square foot of surface area each week.
2. Worms eat fruit and vegetable scraps; bread and other grains; tea leaves and bags; coffee grounds; and egg shells. Worms eat basically what humans eat, except they are much less picky!
3. If you can process your scraps before you introduce them into the compost bin, you'll find that your worms will eat them quicker. Worms go through smaller-sized food more quickly than they can larger-sized or whole food. In this respect, they are also like humans.
4. Mix the scraps into the bedding when you feed the worms. This will cut down on fruit flies and will give the worms more opportunities to eat. Don't just leave the scraps on top of the compost heap.

Maintain your bin.
Keeping your bin elevated off the ground, using bricks, cinder blocks, or whatever is convenient will help speed composting and keep your worms happy. Worms are capable of escaping almost anything, but if you keep your worms fed and properly damp, they should not try to escape. A light in the same area will ensure your worms stay put. Sprinkle the surface with water every other day. You want your bedding to have the dampness of a wrung-out sponge.

Add more cardboard, shredded newspaper, hay, or other fibrous material once a month, or as needed. Your worms will reduce everything in your bin quickly. You will start with a full bin of compost or paper/cardboard, and soon it will be half full. This is the time to add fibrous material.

Pay attention to some composting "don'ts".
Composting bins are not difficult to maintain, but they do need to be looked after. Here are some things that you shouldn't do if you want a healthy, hearty ecosystem. Don't feed your worms too much. If your compost bin starts to smell, it could be because you are feeding your worms more than they can process. When this happens, the bedding can also heat up, killing off the worms.
*Don't feed your worms any combination of the following. These foods are difficult for the worms to digest:
*Excessive citrus — no more than 1/5 of the total worm food
*Meats or fish
*Fats or excessively oily scraps
*Dairy products (eggshells are fine)
*Cat or dog feces
*Twigs and branches

Harvest the compost once it's ready.
*After 3-6 months, you should have a fair amount of worm compost stored up in your bin. Now it's time to harvest. Keep in mind that you might not be able to save every worm when harvesting the compost. That's okay; by and large, your worms have multiplied, and there should be plenty to continue composting.
*Put on rubber gloves, and move any large un-composted vegetable matter to one side. Then, with your gloved hands, gently scoop a section of worms and compost mixture onto a brightly lit piece of newspaper or plastic wrap. Scrape off the compost in layers. Wait a while giving the worms time to burrow into the center of the mound. Eventually you will end up with a pile of compost next to a pile of worms. After harvesting, you should replace the bedding and then return the worms to the bin, do whatever you want with the compost, and repeat.
*If you prefer a hands-off technique, simply push the contents of the bin all to one side and add fresh food, water, dirt, and bedding to the empty space. The worms will slowly migrate over on their own. This requires much more patience, of course. It could take up to a few months for the worms to fully migrate to the scraps-side of the compost bin.

Siphoning off the Black Tea- Liquid Gold!
~Use rubber gloves and store the concentrated plant food in a jar with a tight lid until you need it use it.  LABEL THE JAR, so no one accidentally thinks this looks like something tasty to drink.
~Dilute it 1:10 with water and watch your plants perk up within days.

Get more great info at:
http://www.ehow.com/how_4778691_build-worm-composter.html
http://home.howstuffworks.com/vermicomposting.htm
Well now that you are super excited to get started go to it! Enjoy your homemade, free fertilizer!

...and now on to something a bit more 'digestible'...
The other day I asked Evan what he was hungry for... my little five year old sweetie looks up at me and says, "Steaks on the gill mom!"  "Ahhh," I said, "Now you're talkin' my language!"  Grilling is another thing we just refuse to think of as seasonal at our farm stead... you gotta eat year round right? So why shut this door of goodies off to the family just because of that white stuff!  We love to grill here at our home no matter what time of year it is. Neil and the boys are all quite handy with the tuner & tongs... forget that it's winter and have some fun!  Here is a fun activity to do over the next few days when the children are home from school- and be sure to give her a try!

Here is the how-to for making your own Green Barbeque!You may be asking why bother when I can just go buy a regular one... well, I guess you can, but I personally think this is super cool and aesthetically much more appealing than a metal one... to each there own though.  If you don't want it, make one for a gift to a 'green minded' friend or relative... either way, have fun!
~First you'll need a clay pot about 13 inches (33cm) in diameter to feed about 2-3 people, a larger one for more people
~Stand the pot on a couple bricks to allow air to circulate underneath the fire. Fill the pot half full with pebbles or broken clay pots, slightly more if it is tall.
~Line the top part with 4 layers of heavy tinfoil and heap the charcoal in the center. Light the coals.
~When the coals are glowing red and have started to turn gray at the edges, spread them out evenly being careful not to rip the foil; balance an oven shelf or grill pan shelf over the rim of the pot.
~Cook skewers of peppers, zucchini, and mushrooms,, or pieces of fish or meat, and throw a handful of rosemary, thyme, or lavender on the fire for a hint of herby flavor as the skewers are cooking. 
~Let coals cool, remove rack, carefully lift off the foil, put ashes in your garden by blueberry bushes or around peonies. Recycle the tin foil!
You'll have to go to my blog spot at www.fordragonfliesandme.blogspot.com to see step by step photo of this... Enjoy friends!

Thyme Grilled Vegetable
go back to my 12/18 blog post for this one

Yummy Grilled Pizza!    Oh this is soooooo good!
Last summer we fell in love with grilling pizza! The children enjoyed it both in the way of having fun because they created their own masterpieces and it was absolutely delicious.  Here is my pizza crust recipe and some of our favorite toppings! 

Crust:
2 cups warm water
1 Tbsp. yeast
1 tsp. raw organic sugar
1 tsp. sea salt
1 Tbsp. olive oil
3-4 cups flour, plus some for dusting

Toppings:
shredded cheese
fresh Portobello mushrooms
sweet peppers
onions
bacon, ham, sausage, ground beef or chicken
pizza sauce, ranch dressing
tomatoes
... these are just some ideas, use your favorite toppings

1. In a large, mixing bowl add yeast to water and stir gently; add sugar, salt and olive oil, stir in gently until dissolved.
2. Add 2 cups of flour, mix in until well blended; add 1 more cup flour, mix in well; and the rest of flour in 1/4 cups at a time until the dough is soft and doesn't stick to hands.  Add a bit more flour in until the dough feels right;  Knead dough for about 2-3 minutes until all flour is mixed in well.  Form into a ball and place in bowl, cover with kitchen towel and leave on the top of stove to rise until doubled, about 45 minutes.
3. While dough is rising get your toppings prepared.  Sauteing the veggies is best and making sure any raw meats are cooked.
4.When dough has risen, punch it down using your hands and knead a bit more into a ball again.  On a floured surface, cut the dough into 4 even sized pieces and roll out to about and 1/2 inch thick. The dough should be thicker so it doesn't fall apart on the grill.
5. Brush the dough with Olive Oil and put on heated grill; grill on one side for about 2-3 minutes, checking to be sure it doesn't burn; when the one side is done, remove from grill onto a cookie sheet, cooked side up; put your toppings on the cooked side; sauce, cheese, meat & veggies and add a bit more cheese; return to the grill to finish grilling- about 2-3 more minutes; put lid on for about the last minute to help melt the cheese.
Remove from grill and have your feast!

I included these awhile back but I thought it would be appropriate to include with this post! Enjoy friends!
Here are some BBQ Brush On Butter Recipes along with a few more canning ones from my cookbook! Enjoy friends!

To 1 stick of salted softened butter add one of the following and mix thouroughly.  Let set in fridge for at least 3 hours so flavors blend through! NOTE: The herbs are all dried. 
 
Cajun Style Poultry Brush On!
1/2 tsp. oregano, crushed
1/8 tsp. thyme, crushed
1/4 tsp. cumin, ground
dash of red pepper
1/4 tsp. sea salt
1/8 tsp. pepper

Lemon Basil Fish or Veggie Brush On!
1/2 tsp. lemon peel, finely shredded
1/2 tsp. lemon juice
1/2 tsp. lime juice
1/4 tsp. basil, crushed
1/4 tsp. sea salt

Parmesan Butter Brush On!~ great to brush on veggies or even use in pasta or spread onto bread to make garlic toast!
1 Tbsp. fresh parmesan cheese, grated
1 small clove garlic, minced
2 tsp. parsley, crushed
1/4 tsp. sea salt

Garlic Butter Brush On~ great to brush on veggies or to make garlic toast
1 small garlic clove, minced
1/4 tsp. sea salt

Chive~Tarragon Brush On~ great on red meat and veggies!
2 Tbsp. chives, finely chopped
1/2 tsp. dried tarragon, crushed
2 Tbsp. parsley, snipped

Happy Day,
Jean
www.fordragonfliesandme.blogspot.com
www.wreninthewillow.blogspot.com
 

One of my favorite Spring veggies are peas. Living and farming in North Carolina for 9 years I attempted four different years to grow peas and was unsuccessful. No matter what type or variety I planted they never amounted to much, the biggest harvest being a handful of snow peas. The reason for this was that in NC there really is no Spring, the weather goes from Winter to Spring which lasts only a few days then the heat arrives. The one thing peas do not like is heat. Peas love Massachusetts! Though we have had a couple of hot days and even a brief heat wave a couple weeks ago my peas are thriving. I planted three types this year, Sugar Snap, Snow Peas and English Peas, the latter being the type I would like to focus on in this post.
 

Green Arrow English Peas on trellis fence. 

As you can see my English Peas are very happy. My fence trellis was doing a great job until last week when the peas started plumping and then the vines starting leaning. Well, I checked them twice during the week and they were not filling in well enough to pick so I left them but thought, oh no, we are getting too hot and these are probably going to be chicken food if they don't fill in soon. Then last week we got a good 2 inches of rain and some cooler day temps and WAALAA! I went out yesterday morning at 6am to find lots of filled in pods.

Green Arrow peas ready to be shelled. 

After about 30 minutes of harvesting I sat down with some coffee and started shelling. When I was finished, I blanched the peas in salted boiling water for 1 minute then quickly drained and dumped them into a big bowl of ice water. Here is what I ended up with.

An abundant harvest of peas. 

These gave me two quarts of peas for the freezer. And there is still four times this amount left on the vines filling in. Patience is a virtue, but not easy waiting for the new potatoes to grow so we can have creamed new potatoes and peas. I want to encourage you, if you have any space at all in your yard that gets part sun in the late Winter/early Spring plant English peas. Of the three types of peas I grew this year, which all did well, I will only grow English Peas from here on out. They were abundant, delicious and store well. I personally would not can them only because I prefer my veggies on the crisp side, canning would leave them mushy. They freeze beautifully and would hold well for 3-6 months in the freezer. The variety I grew is a reliable producer called Green Arrow. Spring peas should be grown as early as you can possibly get them into the ground. They have been known to grow even peeking through a light blanket of snow on the garden. They like a ph of between 6.0-7.0 and loamy soil makes them happiest. A good 1 inch of water per week is sufficient and peas do not like to stand in water so be sure your planting place has good drainage. Most varieties take approximately 50-60 days to harvest. Plant 1 inch deep with seeds one inch apart in double sided rows or single rows 18 inches apart. I place a metal fence support at each end of my row then run welded wire fencing between the posts and plant on either side of the fencing. The fence acts as a trellis. The other step I highly recommend is a organic supplement called N-Dure Pea Inoculant. N-DURE is one of the most economical products on the market for obtaining nitrogen fixation. Packaged as a pre-mixed, humus-based product, N-DURE's high potency can yield results in a wide range of conditions. This effective inoculant provides the proper live bacteria for many legumes, helping them form nodules that take nitrogen from the air and enrich the soil. For peas, beans, lima beans and lupines. It is used as a slurry or shake method, which is what I did. I simply dropped the pea seeds in a bowl of water scooped them out with a slotted spoon let the excess water drip off and drop into the inoculant that has been placed in a ziploc bag. Gather the top and shake. Scoop the seeds out gently shaking excess powder off and plant as directed. Using this product will likely increase the plants production by double. 

Consider growing peas next Spring. I will be experimenting with a Fall/early Winter planting this year and will come back and let you know the results. See you again soon with our next harvest here on the farm.

Fall Update:
Hello Friends, it is November 5th and I am happy to announce I have flowers forming on my Fall planting of Green Arrow English Peas. Though we have had a couple of light frosts here in SE Massachusetts and this week we may have a couple nights below 32, I have been covering the trellis with a piece of shade cloth and so far so good. I hope to be picking peas for Thanksgiving dinner. 

Strategies for  Slow Moving Products at Your Local Farmers Market

Never underestimate the power of first impressions -- especially at farmers markets.  There is so much to see and decide upon, and everyone’s time --and money -- has limitations.  This is especially true with the arrival of fall.  The customer traffic is slower.  The tomatoes are about done, replaced with items that are not as popular such as winter squash and assorted greens.  

The good news is that farmers markets, especially in southern areas of the country, are remaining open longer into the year. There is still money to be  made, but it is a different game now. 

Farmers-market customers do not buy for two simple reasons.  They cannot tell what you have based on a quick, pass-by glance and are not curious enough to stop find and out.  They know what you have but do not what it.  Some tips on overcoming both.

1.Repackage and Combine.  Think about items that are similar, complimentary but do not fare well a stand-alone products.  A neighbor vendor this season sold “ornamental bouquets’’ of  herbs such basil, rosemary, perhaps dill or cilantro. Select some basil that is already flowering as this catches peoples eye.    Explain how they will stay fresh and flavorful  if the water is changed about every two days.  A trick of my own is to sell gourmet salad blends of fresh basil leaves, young radish tops, kale, even baby mustard and turnip greens with a base of leaf lettuce.     

2.  Lift the veil.  The best way to preserve the nutrition in fruits and vegetables is by wrapping or bagging them  as opposed open-air displaying.  But if people cannot tell what it is and thus do not want to eat it, you are not serving them well.  Your job is to do what the customer perceives to be in their best interest, not what you believe it to be.   Besides, people  are drawn to a full table teeming with the bounty of a harvest.  As a compromise try displaying greens in bulk, then keep some wrapped up alongside ready-for-sale.  

3. Partner Up.  Find another vendor at the market that sells either a  prepared food or grows a crop that compliments what you have and forge a symbiotic relationship.  This summer, a lady that made artisan cheeses sent her customers my way to pick up some fresh figs.  At this season, suggest how well your  broccoli, radishes or carrots would taste with dips or salad greens with flavored olive oils or vinegars which another market vendor prepares.  

4.  Document It.  Show the public what you grow and how with photos --  from planting, seedling to harvest.  Shoppers, in general, love to learn about what you do though words and images instead of listening to a long sales pitch.  Don’t you?

These are suggestions only.  You should likely tweak these as well as come up with your own. I recommend keeping  a notebook handy and jot down ideas as they come to while you are working.  Farmers markets are resources only -- not a guaranteed paycheck.  Like everything else in life, you get out what you put in. 

"I feel like I've been taking speed all day every day," I said.

Justin said, "It's called happiness."

This afternoon while hoeing the garden, I thought how good it was to be in the earth, in the air, smelling and feeling everything. It's no stretch to say that sitting in front of a screen in a dark windowless office all day isn’t natural. It's depressing at minimum. Unhealthy too. Later after covering myself in dirt, I hopped in the shower, rinsing off the evidence of my efforts, and thought maybe I should decide how much I need to make each year and shoot for that. Working for “enough” so I have freedom to do what I want.

We call our place Soggy Island Farm, a name that came to me in a dream at the Mother Earth News Fair (along with a jingle!) But it's not really a farm. It’s a tiny 1937 Sears & Roebuck kit house sitting on a half-acre lot on Hatteras Island, forty miles off the coast of North Carolina in a place called the Outer Banks. It's as remote as you can get in a lot of ways and still stay in the lower 48, aside from some sort of mountain hut. If you haven’t lived out east, you probably haven’t heard of it. Hatteras Island is a barrier island with 4,000 total year-round residents, and in hurricane alley. But, during its lifetime our house has never taken water. His grandpa built the house and it's been in the family ever since, with Justin taking over eight years ago and myself joining him this year. In the backyard his grandpa tended a massive garden, which we’ve been working on restoring, as well as a lot of little projects, both of us crazy into sustainability and simple living. Justin's a graphic artist and works from home and I'm only doing fill-in stints (as an optometrist) which leaves us a lot of freedom to do what we want.

1937 Sears & Roebuck kit house  

The two of us came from rural families. He from the Outer Banks and myself from the Midwest. My mom and dad were both farm kids and instilled in us the value of self-sufficiency. Growing up, our side yard was a massive garden that we tended ourselves. Rows, straight as an arrow marked with lines of taut string over the crops: peas, beans, potatoes, carrots. We did a lot by hand- canning, homemade clothes, and solar panels propped up behind the house looking like abandoned box springs. During the summers my sisters and I spent our days biking and climbing trees, picking a carrot or raspberry from the garden when the urge hit us. To this day, I prefer a carrot with a little dirt on it.

It's thrilling to be back in the soil. Gardening makes me acutely aware of the changing seasons. Fall is the time of year I've traditionally reserved for dark thoughts of winter to come. The leaves crumpling up and drifting to the earth, leaving barren trees. The anniversary of my dad's death. Long dark days. But this year it's been different. This year, I'm ready for colder weather and the changing of life that goes along with the seasons. On the first of November, I'll be a permanent resident on the island of Hatteras. We've been working on the house for the last ten months, but now it'll be my home.

Justin and I are homesteading the house and our relationship. We are mostly kindred souls with strong work ethic and the propensity to eat vegetables and wear old clothes forever. We're pretty cheap, and have the same child-like wonder when approaching new projects. We like music and art and documentaries. After years of complicated relationships, this is so easy. Even with all this island chaos surrounding us and the threat of high seas and hurricanes, we are solid footing together and we'll weather the tests of time.

In this blog, I plan to chronicle our projects as we take them on, as well as offer up some writing on the feeling of life on the island. I welcome advice and comments, and hope to learn by sharing.

Justin and myself on the Carolina Coast  

Thank you for reading.

It’s been an interesting few days to say the least.  There is never a dull moment around here even if the girls whine on occasion that they are bored out of their minds!!  

  

On a positive note the hens are laying like crazy. They are still obsessed with the first nesting box though.  A few of them use two and three but mostly they fight over one.  I think they are starting to take turns now that they are getting this laying thing down pat.  Henny Penny insists on laying her egg in the feed room though.  I may add Houdini to the end of her name considering that she manages to get out and back in without tearing anything down. We are up to a dozen eggs a day so far.  It seems like each day or so we add another egg to the daily count.  I even bought the girls one of the red wire baskets to collect the eggs in.  They are tickled pink and carry that basket faithfully even if they only bring in one egg during that particular egg checking run!!  Liza has become the egg warden.  She keeps track of how many eggs come in, inspects them, and then puts them in cartons and has them organized in the fridge by date.  It’s amazing that during school we struggle with math but when it comes to eggs both Eliza and Aurora can add in their heads without any hesitation.  The chickens may be of more help than just providing food!

  

So now I’ll move onto the not so positive yet enlightening happenings of the past few days.

Our beautiful garden looks like a train wreck.  I have absolutely no love for skunks or deer at the present moment.  Chad and the chickens are even in a little bit of hot water!  The skunks have been hanging around the house and have even so graciously sprayed the front door.  I would imagine Otis spooked them.  Yes, them. Plural.  Two to be exact.  For future reference you can throw fire crackers that only emit a seizure inducing light show out the door at them and they will run to the other side of the driveway while you grab the phone out of the rain that you left on the ledge…just saying.  We are going to battle out the rest of the gardening season but there will be some sort of fence put up around it next year.  We have also been battling a bit of blossom end rot.  I love the fact that we are learning so many new things that will only make our garden better next year.  Unless you have awesome, self-adjusting soil, it takes a little bit of effort to be able to grow a bountiful garden.  Calcium levels are important for preventing blossom end rot.  Too much or too little water can throw the levels off.  I have read that putting eggs shells in with the plants at planting time is a huge help.  We applied a commercial fertilizer that included calcium this year but next year the egg shells are going it.  We have also learned that while fertilizer is a good thing, it can also be a hindrance at the same time by producing huge plants with no yield.  Chad is a fertilizing maniac.  I’ve kept him at bay this year and I think it is helping a lot.  Over fertilizing can also affect the magnesium levels of pepper plants and keep them from producing.  So with those few tid bits in hand, it’s only August and I’m already planning for next spring!! 

  

Saving the worst for last, our pigs embraced the Chik-fil-A advertising campaign of Eat Mor Chikin.  Up until this past weekend the chickens have been confined to their coop and run.  Chad and I have discussed letting them out but we were concerned about Otis attacking them.  We finally said we would deal with Otis if it happened and left them out.  They were in bug eating heaven and Otis didn’t do a thing.  They were in the garden but the damage was already done.  Day 1 was awesome and we were so happy that we made the decision to let them out.  Day 2 went south.  The girls were staying with their Aunt and Uncle so Chad and I went out to do the chores and left the chickens out.  Then we headed down to the shed to change the oil in the big truck.  Chad forgot something up at the house so we ran back up.  He headed to the garage and I headed to the “barn.”  I could see two of the pigs dragging something and I thought maybe Chad had thrown in some weeds but then it hit me that he hadn’t. I ran over and sadly it was a dirt-laden barred rock.  I started screaming and ran for a stick and the pitch fork.  There was nothing that I could have done but I wanted to get it away from the pigs as quickly as possible.  I hopped the barbed wire fence and Chad came running with the shot gun.  After everything had settled down he said the way I was screaming he thought a coyote was after me!!  Needless to say, a pig will eat ANYTHING.  I did some research and they are classified as omnivores.  Under stress they will eat their young and feral hogs will eat the carcasses of dead animals.  The chicken was able to slip through the 4” x 4” squares of the pig fence.  We picked up some of the same fencing that we used on the chicken run and are going to put that around the pig fencing so that everyone can co-exist in harmony.  We stressed to the girls that it’s important not to be afraid of the pigs but at the same time they should not let their guard down.  An animal is an animal.  Same rules apply to the chickens and rabbits.

  

We’ve had some ups and downs but it’s all a learning experience.  I think that I say this in every closing but we love the choice that we made to have the animals and to get back to the basics.  The girls are learning so much about the animals, the garden, and life in general.  I had better get back to the kitchen.  There’s plenty of canning, freezing, and dehydrating to be done.  Until next time!!

  

Gardening for wildlife means growing food for the wildlife that lives and visits your garden.  Two food sources that are appreciated by all wildlife in the spring and in autumn are nuts and tree sap.  Nuts provide energy for birds migrating south and last-minute food for mammals getting ready to hibernate.  Tree sap provides an early-spring food source for nectar-loving butterflies.

Nuts 

Nut-bearing trees are an important component of a natural habitat, or wildlife garden. Oaks and hickories are necessary if you want a healthy population of deer, raccoons, fox, turkeys, mice, squirrels, and wood ducks since the nuts produced by these trees are an important food source for these animals. Depending on where you live, you may also catch a glimpse of a black bear enjoying a nutty treat. Oaks and hickories are slow to mature so it will take a few years for the trees to produce nuts, all the more reason to plant oak and hickory trees this autumn.

• White oak (Quercus alba) is a great native tree. As I'm sure you have read, oak trees support more types of bird food than any other plant in North America. So as you wait for the tree to produce acorns, enjoy the birds as they feed on the many insects that live in the white oak.
• Shagbark hickory (Carya ovata) has interesting, pealing bark. The hickory nut provides food and visual interest in the winter with its shaggy bark and tasty nuts.

Yes, many of the creatures that are attracted to nuts can be a nuisance, so keep that in mind when adding an oak or hickory to your landscape. I have gotten to the 'If you can't beat 'em, join 'em' mind set so I share my gardens with the local wildlife. I don't have the energy anymore to trap, zap, or put up barriers.

Tree Sap 

I never thought much about tree sap providing food for wildlife until this past spring. We had a long stretch of 80-degree weather in March then normal spring weather in April and May. This early summer weather caused many trees and flowering plants to flower early, before migrating birds and butterflies made it north.  So what did these birds and butterflies eat when they got here? Tree sap.

When I was looking up information on what trees provide sap for wildlife, I became more interested in how and when sap becomes available. Sap, as a spring food source, becomes available because of warming temperatures, winter storms, ants, and woodpeckers.  The availability of sap is interwoven in so many other life cycles that I discovered it is best not to interfere and let nature take its course, though there are a few things I can do and not do to keep sap available when the local wildlife needs it in the spring.

• I need to leave winter-damaged trees standing. The sap that oozes out of trees when they loose a branch in a wind or ice storm provides food to Red Admiral, Comma, Morning Cloak, and Question Mark butterflies.
• I also need to NOT use insecticide in the garden so I do not kill the ants that bite through tree bark, making the sap accessible to butterflies and bees.  Ants are also a food source for insect-eating birds, such as nuthatches.  
• Lastly, I want to look as the trees in my garden as home and food source for wildlife, not just as a piece of garden architecture.  Gardening for wildlife means that trees will get damaged by woodpeckers, such as the yellow-belled sapsucker, that drill holes in beech, popular, and willow trees to get to the sap that they and other wildlife feast on.

The more I learn about wildlife gardening, the more I realize that it is more of a mindset than a design approach.  If I want to measure my success, I can look at the number of birds and butterflies visiting the garden and my ability to fight the urge to cut down that damaged tree in the woodland. 

So I have started writing this about a hundred times over the past 4 weeks and never get past the first paragraph.  I am bound and determined to finish today.  I need to become more disciplined and write every week so that it isn’t a small novel when I do.  I feel like when the girls come home from somewhere that they have been without us and their mouths are running a mile a minute trying to tell us everything that they did or saw!!!

The weather has been interesting; it pretty much goes in hand with the winter that we just had.  Last week it was almost 100 degrees and you felt like you were going to die and this week it’s in the high 70’s.  We also experienced what we are certain was a mini tornado.  It managed to blow all of the screens out of our windows, move a pipe hay wagon through the field and into the middle of the road, push the windows out of the Allis, and blow our wood pile down through the driveway.  Amazingly it didn’t touch the coop or pig pen, the garden, or even move two little tables the girls had in the front yard.  Chad was holding on to one of our windows and said if one of the girls would have been by the window he has no doubt they would have went out.  Luckily we didn’t have any major damage.

 

 

Our building projects for the past month have been the outside runs for the chickens and pigs.  Both were well overdue and were a great addition.  My great uncle had sent Chad a care package of old nails, hinges, and so forth which we were able to put to good use during this phase of “construction.”  The chickens made short work of the grass and congregate at the fence when Chad mows the yard because they know they are going to get some of the clippings.  They still enjoy being inside when it’s incredibly hot but everyone pours out as soon as it gets cooler and like clockwork, head back in when the sun is setting.  The pigs also enjoy being outside but unfortunately they can’t handle the sun and got sunburnt on day 2 of being out.  They have since learned to stay inside during the day and go out when it’s not so hot to play and even sleep under the stars now and then.

Just as with the chickens, the pigs have also been a huge learning experience.  I went to feed one evening and it wasn’t too horribly hot but one of the smaller pigs wouldn’t get up but was breathing.  Everything stopped and all of our attention went to this guy.  Liza jumped right in and started scooped cool water on his ears and snout.  Luckily the air temperature was cooling as well and by morning he was considerably better.  We have since put in another fan and keep a portion of their floor muddy so that they can cover themselves in mud and cool down. 

All’s quiet on the rabbit and broiler front.  No baby bunnies so apparently I separated them in time or they were too young.  That’s fine with me.  In the mix of things we didn’t need bunnies to contend with.  We butchered the second group of broilers on Sunday.  We decided that we would skin them this time since we don’t eat the skin anyway.   Everything went off without a hitch and we have a nice supply of vacuum sealed chicken in the freezer now.  I will probably get another batch in September when the weather is a little cooler.  The heat added about 2 weeks onto the time that we had to feed to broilers.  The heat also seemed to wreak havoc on their poop.  I added oregano to their diet and it cleared it up.  I think that an outdoor run will be put on the list of things to do for the future broilers as well.

I am happy to report that we are now collecting eggs from the four ladies that I purchased to replace the roosters that will be departing.  There aren’t enough words to describe the excitement when we found the first egg on the floor.  We quickly constructed the nesting boxes.  Chad had plans for, frankly I’m not sure how many, but a lot of nesting boxes. Thankfully I convinced him that they would pick probably one or two and only use them.  Of the four boxes, nesting box one is their favorite.  It won’t be too much longer and the rest of the hens should start to lay.  I hope they decide to utilize the rest of the boxes because I’m not sure one will hold 30+ eggs!!

Our garden is doing very well.  We have never had tomato or pepper plants grow like these.  This year Chad took a suggestion from an older gentleman to put peat moss in with the dirt when we planted plants and seeds.  He said that the peat moss would make the soil looser and allow the roots to grow and take a better hold.  If that is what made the difference it was a cheap way to have an awesome garden.  We have been enjoying lettuce, onions, and cucumbers so far.  I didn’t realize that the girls hadn’t eaten garden lettuce before since we have only planted tomatoes and peppers the past few years.  We have had creamed lettuce & onions every evening for supper and if Chad doesn’t pay attention he usually doesn’t get any!!  I think I’m going to venture into the world of pressure canning this year.  It’s a little intimidating but I think I can handle it.  I’m not sure what kind to get so if anyone has any suggestions I would love to hear your thoughts. 

We have also been up to our ears in hay which is another reason why I’m behind on writing.  Chad and I help his cousin as much as we can during the summer.  Last time I checked we were above 5000 bales but that has been awhile so it’s hard to tell now.  I do know that there will be about 5 wagons to unload this evening!!   Luckily his bales are short so they aren’t quite as hard for me to handle.  Listening to everyone tell stories about how they used to have to make hay makes me thankful for disc bines, hay tedders, & kick balers!!

 

 

Eliza and Jorja did get to pull one time this year at a local festival.  They did a great job!  Eliza took 1^st in the kids 850 class and a 2^nd in the kids 950 class.  Jorja took 5^th and 6^th in those classes as well.  Liza also pulled in the adult 850 and 950 and took 5^th in both of those.  As much as we love pulling we are still glad that we took a break from the traveling portion this year.  There are two more local pulls that the girls will pull at this year.  Both of them are evening pulls and the girls are excited because they will be able to run the blue LED lights that I Installed under their frame rails.

 

  

  

 

 

  

 

So that's what’s been happening around here in a nut shell.  Every day there are little things that happen that make us glad that we chose to venture down this path.  It isn’t a lifestyle that is for everyone but it is for us.  I hope everyone is having a wonderful summer and successfully battling the heat.  Hopefully by my next blog I will have convinced Chad that we need to enter the Farmer Olympics being held at the  Mother Earth News Fair in Seven Springs!  I'm really excited that something is finally close to home that we can go to.  Until next time!

The worst thing about being an expat wife is splitting life between two countries. And the best thing about being an expat wife is splitting life between two countries. We have to time phone calls just right, miss one family during the holidays, and deal with expensive flights and an exchange rate wildly out of our favor. On the other hand we have the perfect excuse to visit England anytime we want, play Austin tour guides on occasion, and –my personal favorite– swap our particular food and drink traditions, whether it be the esteemed Texas barbeque or the uniquely British pub culture.

Besides the image of a pint of bitter in front of a roaring fire, we all know the quintessential English garden: think roses in full bloom and lots of other flowery things that don’t grow particularly well in Texas heat. Ya know, the old Mary, Mary, quite contrary…thanks to all that abundant rain, not only do the Brits have great flowers, they can also grow a staggering variety of fruits and vegetables. Granted we have the sunshine and heat necessary for some real treats like melons, okra, and hot peppers. But on a visit to my father-in-law’s garden allotment, I couldn’t help but be a bit green with envy. Rows of Japanese onions, trellised beans, berries, currants, gorgeous lettuces, potatoes, and who knows what else.

Dad and June’s bountiful allotment is a short walk from their home in Bidford-on-Avon. They can be found there nearly every day, turning compost, tending plants in the greenhouse, and harvesting. They know the other gardeners, from the Japanese expat who modeled her garden after those from home to the man that prefers pesticides over hand weeding. Dad and June recently planted their first plum tree and explained that while they try new potato varieties, they always put in a row of Nadine, which are reliable and consistent. They eat what they grow; only stopping at the shop for milk, the butcher for meat, and the baker for bread. To me, it looks like simple living at its best. Besides, I always say that you don’t slow down because you get old, you get old because you slow down. And what better way to stay young than growing food?

This past weekend, we canned tomatoes for the very first time. And not only that, they were tomatoes we grew ourselves, and from heirloom seeds!!

  

 

 

Aren't all those fresh veggies gorgeous?!!  (In the second picture, Two Socks is a kitty that recently adopted us.  She's a great garden helper!)

We were going to attempt this on Saturday, but after taking our three ring circus (aka the three canine furry kids) to the vet - the puppy for the first time (oy vey!) - we were too exhausted to start in the afternoon.

  

It's hard to find good help! 

So on Sunday we dove in. First I washed all the tomatoes and weighed them in batches. I’m REALLY glad I thought to do that. Since we've never done this before, I realized that would be a good way to help us track how many jars we will need in future endeavors. It’s tough to gauge that when you’re a newbie. While I had plenty of jars washed and ready to go, I didn’t want to heat more of the dome lids that we would need. Maybe they’d be fine, but I just have this thing in my head that I don’t want to repeatedly heat the lids before they actually get used in the full canning process.

We ended up with 30.5 pounds of tomatoes! And that's not counting all I’ve been eating in the last week or so. They are so gorgeous and I’d forgotten how INCREDIBLE a homegrown tomato tastes. They actually have flavor, unlike those you buy at the grocery store.

Next, we boiled a pot of water on the stove to blanch the tomatoes for about 30 seconds. The skins on these are a little thick, so sometimes it took maybe 15 seconds more. We did this in small batches.

We had a cooler of ice water ready and once the tomatoes came out of the boiling water, they went immediately into the ice bath. We discovered that if we left them in there a few minutes to really cool them down all the way through the skins really slid off very easily.

I sliced them horizontally and scooped out most of the seeds. I then cut them up into chunks.

Once they were all diced, we put about ¼ of them into our big enamel stock pot and mashed them with a potato masher while bringing them to a boil to create some good juice for the whole batch. Once they came to a boil and the juices were released, we added the rest and brought them to a boil.

Now here’s where we hit a snag. It was 103 degrees plus really high humidity outside…in other words, miserable. We thought about setting up our outdoor cooker at the end of the house covered by trees, but that would also mean carting pans, jars, etc., etc., back and forth. So we started the water bath canner on the stove inside. That just didn’t work. After about 45 minutes, the water still wasn’t boiling! We were getting frustrated. The tomatoes were ready to go and so were the jars and lids. I finally put the lid on the tomatoes and turned the heat off. I didn’t want to turn them into sauce! We gave up and quickly set up the outdoor propane cooker. I swear, in addition to the larger burner/flames, I think the 100+ temps fired that sucker right up and in 10 minutes or less the canner was at a full rolling boil (granted the water was at least very hot from its eternity on the indoor stove). We actually got two pots going and were finally in business! 

So lesson learned, you just can’t beat the little portable propane two burner outdoor cooker when it comes to canning. Someday, we plan to have a nice deck that is covered. Ideally, it would be great to have a covered carport with an outdoor kitchen set up – counters, water, etc. But honestly I’ll take any space that’s covered to keep that brutal sun off our heads.

We ended up with 15 pints of diced tomatoes (in their own juice) and two pints of just juice.

  

One of our favorite parts of canning is hearing the lids “ping” after they come out of the canner and cool down. We always joke that “another jar got its wings”.

In addition, we put 11 pounds of home-grown tomatillos into the freezer in bags of one pound each. Making verde sauce or canning those was just too much to tackle in one day and I had read you can just freeze them whole. I think what I’ll do is thaw them out as
needed and make fresh batches of verde sauce when we need it. I can even make a batch on a weekend and use it for a meal during the week.

With the next batch of tomatoes, I’m planning to make rosemary basil “sun dried” tomatoes in our dehydrator. Tomatoes are quartered (or cut into sixths or eighths, depending on the size of the tomato), then marinated in olive oil, smashed garlic, fresh basil and rosemary and salt and then dehydrated. Don’t those sound DIVINE?! Stay tuned…I’ll let you know how those turn out.

Until next time, worms rock.

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The time has finally arrived! It is time to see just how well those pigs worked all year long. As you can see, when we moved the pigs off the garden area it was completely devoid of any weed vegetation. Go pigs!

Several weeks ago, Andrew got our smallest garden and what we call Garden #1 (shown above) worked up. We set out in a whirlwind to plant before the pending thunderstorms arrived. We finished under the cover of darkness, with only a shop light hung from a pole to light our way. In our haste, I didn’t have time to sit and plan out exactly what I wanted to plant where in our four gardens this year. Last year, I spent several days with a sketch pad, ruler, and pencils mapping out where each different veggie would go. This year, with the baby and bizarre weather creating an almost impossible gardening situation for us, we are doing good just to get things in the ground!

So, in that first planting we filled up our smallest garden which we call the melon patch. Last year, we had it full of watermelon. This year it is home to shallots, garlic, horseradish, cabbage, Kennebec potatoes and red, yellow, and white onions. We then moved into Garden #1 where we planted red Pontiac potatoes. Shortly after getting these rows done, it began to rain and didn’t stop for three days!

Two weeks later, we put in a few rows of purple bush beans, sweet corn, sweet pie pumpkins, four varieties of tomatoes, three kinds of bell peppers, green bush beans, cayenne pepper, banana pepper, pickling cucumbers, and zucchini squash. This pretty much filled up that garden, with only one corner left to plant some watermelon which we saved for today since it is warmer.

This past week we found ourselves with a long stretch of pretty weather. Andrew has just recently moved Boss, Bacon, and Ellie Mae off of Garden #2 and into the woods where they will be living until garden season is over. He then took Daisy Duke out of Garden #3 and moved her in with Boss and Ellie Mae, putting Bacon in a section by herself while we wait for her to furrow. So now we had two vacant gardens, and no plan!

I pulled out all of my remaining seeds and set to work. Since we did not plan out all of our gardens before we began as we usually do, there was an issue of making sure different varieties were far enough apart to not cross. In the past, I have pretty much grown only one kind of corn, bean, and squash. With the exception of squash and zucchini, which I always put at opposite ends of the garden. We usually only grow pickling cucumbers, and ever so often try some cantaloupe. So cross pollination hasn’t really been an issue for us before. I have heard all the “old timers” talk about the year they grew those pumpkins to close to the watermelon, or when the squash tasted like pumpkin and the cucumber fruit grew colored and misshapen. Since neither of us were really sure what would cross and what wouldn’t, it was time to do a little research.

The first thing I learned was the rumors of waterloupes and pucumbers is false. It is not possible for watermelon to cross with cantaloupes, or pumpkins with cucumbers. And even if they did, you would not notice it. Or at least not this year. Instead, you would see a difference in the fruit produced from the vines grown from cross pollinated seeds from the previous year. This is true regardless of the plant type. Beans, melons, squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, they all can be cross-pollinated to produce a modified crop next season. The only vegetable that does not hold true to this is corn, if corn is cross-pollinated then it can produce crossed ears of corn the same year. Meaning, if you have a white corn that crosses with a yellow corn, you may have ears with a mixture of both white and yellow kernels in the same season.

So if you do not plan on saving seeds from your garden to use next year, breath a sigh of relief! You have no worries of cross pollination. However, if you are like us and want to save your garden seeds to use next year then here are a few pointers to ensure you can do so safely.

Know your names! Does KPCOFGS sound familiar? Think back to high school science and you may remember King Phillip Came Over For Good Spaghetti, an acronym used to remember Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family Genus, and Species. Many common vegetables share the same genus. Zucchini, squash and patty pans are all members of the Cucurbita genus, as are butternut squash and most pumpkins. However, zucchini, yellow squash, and patty pans are in a different species than butternut squash and most pumpkins. Therefore, a zucchini can not cross with a butternut squash, and a howden pumpkin can not cross with a patty pan. However, a zucchini and a yellow squash can cross since they are both members of the same species.

Now going back to the little old women talking about their bitter cucumbers… while their cucumbers may have been bitter, it was not a result of any cross with a squash or pumpkin. All slicing and pickling cucumbers are classified as Cucumis sativus. Squash is a Cucurbita pepo and pumpkins (depending on variety) fall under Cucurbita pepo and Cucurbita moschata. They are simply not compatible!

Here is a little cheat sheet to help clarify what exactly will, and will NOT cross:

1. Cucurbita pepo               Straight and Crook neck squash,zucchini, patty pans, and sugar pumpkins

2. Cucurbita moschata      Most other pumpkins, butternut squash

3. Cucumis sativus            All slicing and all pickling cucumbers

4. Cucumis melo               All muskmelons, canteloupe, honeydew melons

5. Citrullus lanatis             All watermelons 

Any two vegetables on the same line will cross, if they aren’t they won’t! Take caution to check the genus and species of your pumpkins though, as the fall into two different groups depending on variety. 

Beans are another easily crossed, and widely misunderstood vegetable. There are many different types and colors of beans ranging from the most common green beans and limas to more exotic types such as purple bush beans and speckled runners. Again, we can look at the genus and species of each type of bean and tell whither or not they will cross pollinate.

1. Phaseolus vulgaris          Kidney beans, green beans, black beans, cranberry beans, pinto beans

2. Phaseolus lunatus           Lima beans and butter beans

3. Phaseolus Coccineus     Scarlet Runner beans

Other garden vegetables such as tomatoes and peppers can also cross with other varieties, however there is no 100% sure way of keeping them from crossing with other varieties planted nearby. There are several ways though of reducing your risk of cross pollination. 

1. Plant plants of different varieties at a minimum distance of 25 foot apart. Spacing at 50 foot is recommended. Planting varieties at 25 foot or more apart reduces the chance of cross pollination to around 5%. 

2. Stagger your planting schedule so no two varieties of the same species will be flowering and fruiting at the same time. 

3. Plant barrier plants that have pollen between rows of tomatoes to lessen the chance of bees flying directly from one tomato to another. 

4. Use physical barriers (such as bagging) to enclose flowers completely. This will require hand fertilization. 

If you are determined to save seed from a precious family heirloom that is not crossed, you may want to simply grow one variety this year. Remember that cross pollination is possible (however unlikely) if any other plants of the same species are grown within a ½ mile radius!

Armed with our new found knowledge of plant species and pollination, we now have three of our gardens planted! We have watermelon, pickling cucumbers, and zucchini spread out in our first garden. Garden #2 contains patty pan squash, yellow squash, canteloupes and slicing cucumbers in various locations. Garden #1 has green bush beans and purple pole beans while Garden #2 has runner beans, Dixie speckled butter peas, and speckled lima beans. Mixed among those varieties are a wide assortment of other garden veggies. Look for further updates as gardening season progresses.

Good luck with your own garden!

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While the pastures are still brown, I look for cacti that I can transplant to my rock garden. While cacti grow wild here, it is only semi-arid, so pasture grass grows also, and somehow every few years there are cacti that appear in the grass. I usually take some small stakes that I can mark the location of the evergreen cacti among the winter dry grass. When it is warm enough to transplant, I return with a bucket, spade and heavy gloves. The cacti do not root deeply, but of course must be handled with care.

I try to locate the transplants in areas where I have rock and landscape cloth. Ever try to weed a cacti patch? I have a neighbor who likes to use native plants in her landscaping as well. She has transplanted various “weeds” that grow along the adjacent irrigation ditch to her flowerbeds.

  

Some things to keep in mind when looking for “wild” flowers to transplant; It is illegal to dig up plants and trees from public land. Likewise be sure private property owners agree to let you dig up plants. Most people don’t mind getting rid of cacti but it is good policy to ask. Transplant wild plants in the spring or fall. If you can’t get it done in the spring, don’t do it in the summer. Just like nursery stock, plants struggle greatly in the summer heat and dryness. Also many plants are in the midst of flowering or seeding and the resources that could go into growing new roots are not available. Study what you are transplanting. Is it a perennial or an annual? Is it attractive most of the year? Does it need any special care?

If you admire water lilies, for example, know what you are getting into.  They grow in water over a foot deep. You may need waders or even a small boat to get them. Once you have them you need to provide a similar habitat for them to grow. Water lilies present another challenge. While they are perennials, they need some special care for wintering over. This is a challenge for me, so I buy from the nursery every few years!

  

Another tempting transplant is wild asparagus. If you like asparagus, you may know that spring is the time to cut off the new shoots for a tasty spring dish. Since the shoots are forced to regrow repeatedly, this may not be an ideal time to transplant. I have to say that this challenge has also eluded me and I am planning on buying some from the nursery.

I notice some nurseries now sell “Dog Fennel” which was always considered a weed in my youth. If you don’t feel like searching out wild plants, nurseries are offering more and more options it appears. Whether you buy from a nursery or take a long walk with a shovel and bucket, wild species can add another dimension to your garden or landscape. If the plant grows wild in your area, it should do well when transplanted to your lawn or garden.

Think ahead where you want to place it and prepare a spot. Again, if you look at the plant and where it is thriving in the wild, you have a good idea of where it likes to grow and how big it gets. In the case of cacti and asparagus, they seem to do well in poor sandy soil…no preparation required in most cases, just planning. The water lilies are at the other end of the scale and a small pond will be required to keep them going. Woodland plants may require a shady area and lots of peat or other soil enrichments to survive transplanting.

While it takes some effort to transplant wild plants, it gives a look, or taste, of nature to your own little corner of the world and a sense of satisfaction that you can create the environment that they thrive in.

 

A new greenhouse company in Missoula, Mont., is not only designing greenhouses with new patented technology but is also using a unique manufacturing model. To fulfill its production needs, the Convertible Greenhouse Co. recently partnered with Opportunity Resources Inc., a Montana-based nonprofit organization that employs people with disabilities.

“We’ve designed the greenhouses to be the heart of the garden,” said Jeff Howard, CGC president. “And for Opportunity Resources the greenhouse manufacturing unit is becoming an integral part of its organization, providing valuable employment opportunities for its diverse workforce.”

Howard was looking for a manufacturing partner for his greenhouses when he learned of ORI losing contract work after a local paper mill closed. Now, ORI’s wood shop employees are busy cutting the shelf and bench components utilized in the greenhouses. ORI employees also assemble and ship the greenhouse kits.

“I believed in Howard’s greenhouse products and the manufacturing model from the onset,” said Jack Chambers, CEO of ORI. “It’s a very nice fit for the work we provide our employees. The product itself is high quality and very functional. I think gardeners will definitely like it.”

Howard, a lifelong gardener who as a boy started growing tomatoes with his grandfather, said that there aren’t any other greenhouses quite like CGC’s. He’s designed the greenhouses for hobby and professional gardeners at prices affordable for both.

The greenhouses are manufactured from high-performance 6-mil greenhouse film with an all-metal frame construction. Howard has patented several designs that make opening the greenhouse and accessing plants simpler than other greenhouse designs — especially important for gardeners who work alone. The greenhouses can be used in the middle of a garden or against the side of a building and are also ideal for use over a raised bed.

“I don’t know of any other design that works as well on raised beds,” Howard said. “Because you can open the entire side of each greenhouse you get full access to your entire bed.”

Whether using the greenhouse on a raised bed or another spot in the garden, CGC’s greenhouses provide for maximum space efficiency — every square foot within the greenhouse can be used for plants. The optional shelves and benches can provide even more growing space.

The greenhouses come in four different models, which start at $449 for the SouthSider Junior — the smallest model that covers a 6-by-9-foot area. It and the slightly larger SouthSider (9 by 8.5 feet) maximize space by using the side of a building as support — ideal for the urban gardener with limited space. The Arch model is 9 feet by 12 feet and opens fully from either side, providing 100 percent access to the garden bed. The GardenPro model is the largest and highest-priced model at $995. It is 9 feet by 17 feet and features an 8-foot tall interior ridge and a door for added convenience.

The greenhouses’ hinge technology makes it convenient for use year-round. Gardeners can give plants full access to the elements by simply raising the ends, and closing the greenhouse provides shelter from too much rain, hail or snow as well as protection from animals.

“Our greenhouses are extremely flexible,” added Howard, “whether you’re in the North and want to get your seeds established before spring arrives or you’re in the South and want a more controlled environment for your flowers and vegetables.”

ORI in early 2011 became a joint owner of CGC.

The greenhouses can be ordered directly from CGC’s website at http://www.convertiblegreenhouse.com.

This press release is presented without editing for your information. GRIT does not recommend, approve or endorse the products and/or services offered. You should use your own judgment and evaluate products and services carefully before deciding to purchase. 

Every year at this time, I find myself a week or so into an impossible New Years Resoution.  Some fad diet or gym program that quickly grows tiresome and falls by the wayside.  This year I resolve to do something meaningful.  Something that will not only meet a goal for myself, but benefit my family as well.  I am choosing this year to make a list of the things I have always wanted to try, but never made the time for.  In my trial and error method of achieving a more self sufficient home, I am hoping a list (especially one put out for the world to read!) will hold me more accountable, so here goes:

Resolution One:  To cook more for my family.

I do "cook" everyday, but when I am rushed that might mean boiled pasta and canned sauce.  I can do better, and with some planning (and at the least some homemade sauce!) I plan to lean a little harder on fruits and vegetables and less on staples like store bought pasta.  Goal #1: make homemade bread more than a special occasion!

Resolution Two:  To fill my pantry with home canned foods.

For a few years now I have canned a few select items that I use the most;  green beans, tomatoes, peaches,  pickles, jelly, preserves, and apple butter.  This year I hope to expand my resume to include more vegetables, whole fruits, relishes, condiments, beans, and even meats like chili and chicken soup (I have to admit that I am a little scared!).  I hope this increase in both volume and variety rewards me with a wall of full mason jars by this fall.

Resolution Three:  To expand my flock.

I have so enjoyed raising my six little hens these past few months, and I want to keep things going with the addition of heritage turkeys.  I don't have any experience with them personally, so it will take some research, but I look forward to the challenge!

My son, Brady with one of our Barred Rock Hens 

Resolution Four:  To have a bigger, more practical garden.

My name is Kristina, and I'm a seed addict.  I will attempt to grow anything, especially if it is unusual, or even just pretty.  This makes for a lovely garden, and an interesting centerpiece, but when your family only tolerates your love for eggplant do you really need three different kinds?  In that light, I am committing to grow the things we get the most out of, tomatoes and bell peppers especially. Which means I will have to plan, and not just grab packets as they catch my interest.  I will try to restrain myself!

Resolution Five:  To grow some new herbs for medicinal use.

As friends share recipes for homemade bug-bite ointments and bath salts, I am always a little sad that my ingredients come from the store and not my own garden.  This year will be different!  I am planning on hibiscus for tea, calendula for salve, and a host of others for spices as well as soaps.

Wish me luck as I work hard this year to keep things closer to home! 

 My work at the nursery is over mid-November, and my own gardens cleaned out later that month; I don’t do much garden planning until spring, don’t have a greenhouse, and have a charcoal-colored thumb when it comes to indoor plants. But despite winter’s duration, there’s still plenty of gardening to do!  It’s just “gardening” of a different sort.   

I read articles about gardening, in GRIT, of course, and in garden books; the book I’m currently reading, “The Shape of a Year” by Jean Hersey, is filled with eloquent prose about nature and gardens that is to be savored; this is not a book I’ll be breezing through. I keep up my nurseryman’s certification by attending classes and seminars; there’s a good one coming up next week presented by Michigan State University’s Horticultural Department. Titled “Confronting the Old Wives Tales of Plant Health Care,” it’s a discussion about insect and disease problems; I’ll fill you in on any juicy details in a later blog. Sometimes I write about gardening.    

One of the garden articles I wrote this winter was for our county’s Master Gardener newsletter. The topic was cannas, how they grow (from swollen rhizomes many people mistakenly call “bulbs” or “tubers”), what do they do other than growing there, looking pretty, (the rhizomes are edible, rich in starch, and are grown as an agricultural crop in some countries), and what you do with them in fall, (the rhizomes must be dug – it’s like digging potatoes - and properly stored; they’re a zone 7-10 plant and won’t survive our Michigan winters if left in the ground). When I dug mine this fall, the dozen or so I planted in late May, by early October turned into nearly three 20-gallon bins of rhizomes – way more cannas than I need. I decided to have a drawing and give a couple bags full of them away.   

    

I’ve been a Master Gardener for over 10 years, but my work schedule and family commitments don’t often allow me the opportunity to attend the organized events. From time to time I’ll recognize a Master Gardener shopping at the nursery where I work, and there’s the year-end banquet each fall. For the most part, though, I have little chance to talk at length with my fellow Master Gardeners, and was looking forward to visiting with the cannas drawing winners, Janice and Jill, at the coffee shop in town where we’d meet for them to pick up the cannas.   

The morning I was to meet Janice, she called to let me know she’d be about 15 minutes late. Perfect, I thought, I was running late too. She got caught behind a slow driver; my reason for being late was typical – I had to shuffle my morning schedule because my teenage daughter was late. When I rushed into the coffee shop to find Janice already waiting, she assured me it doesn’t end after the teenage years; not even after you pack them up and ship them off to college. (Thanks, Janice! I thought I’d be in the clear after next year!) 

Janice has been a Master Gardener since 2004. I met her probably five years ago, when she came to the nursery to pick up some donated hydrangeas for the Wine and Harvest Festival, where the Master Gardeners have a booth selling plants to raise money for upcoming projects. It’s become a yearly visit, usually with her husband sitting patiently in his truck after he’s loaded the plants, while Janice and I yik-yak on for, what must seem to him, hours.     

Our conversation soon turned to Monarch butterflies; you cannot talk to Janice without asking her how the Monarchs are doing. Playing an instrumental role in the county’s Monarch Waystation, Janice has tireless commitment, boundless energy, and is always willing to share her knowledge and concern for these beautiful creatures. We’re both excited that she and volunteers are taking their show on the road and will be giving a presentation at the nursery late this summer.   

We discussed the effects this mild winter is having on the Monarchs across the country, the local farmers here, and on our own gardens; of our opposition to the unnecessary and overuse of pesticides; about hydrangea varieties; and of the benefits of dandelions. The time flew, and before we knew it, it was time to say goodbye.     

It was just a few days later I was back at the coffee shop with Jill, a Master Gardener since 2006, and her lovely daughter, who’d recently graduated college with an Art History degree. Mentions of the cost of raising children and seeing them off to college, about the huge amounts of food they consume, the cost of Laundromats vs. doing laundry at Mom’s, and how difficult it is to start a career after college when employers are all looking for someone with experience, all reaffirmed Janice’s assertion that with children, it never ends. (Thanks, ladies!) 

We talked about the challenges of vegetable gardening in sandy soil; while I just deal with it by adding compost and limiting myself to growing things that are adaptable to sandy soil, Jill has moved to raised beds and loves them. She’s got black walnuts to cope with too, and gardening in raised beds eliminated the juglone poisoned soil problem. The raised beds do nothing to eliminate the issue of squirrels and the nuisance created by their habit of leaving the walnuts and husks everywhere - we’ve both got that problem. Surrounded by woods, Jill also has to deal with rabbits, chipmunks, deer, and plenty of mosquitoes. 

Gardening can be quite a challenge at times – even when you’re not the gardener. Jill works at a garden center about 45 minutes inland, and we commiserated over those black-thumbed customers who commit planticide on a regular basis because they don’t quite understand that plants need water. As it did with Janice, the time passed quickly. They left with a bag of cannas; I left with the pleasure of meeting them. 

So while a blanket of snow (thin as it is) covers the ground, I still get an enjoyable healthy dose of gardening in winter. What kind of “winter gardening” have you been up to? 

 

Months ago, while checking out GRIT online I ran across an article by Hank Will on plowing with pigs. At the time we didn’t have any pigs, but what we did have was one big mess of a garden!

When we purchased this property last fall one of the first things we did was pick out our “perfect” garden spot. This property was previously a third generation cattle farm. It was fertilized twice a year, and re-sown in pasture every 3 years. Which meant we had pretty fields, and one heck of a fight with a first year garden! In the beginning we were able to keep up with the grass and weeds, but after a three week period of non-stop rain many of our garden veggies drowned but those darn weeds sure didn’t! They thrived, to the point that you couldn’t see the crops for the weeds. It was a shameful site. We tried for a while to re-claim the gardens, but eventually lost the battle on all but one of them. We originally planted two 50 x 75 foot gardens, two 50 x 50 foot gardens, a 15 x 20 foot herb garden, and a 15 x 20 foot melon patch for watermelon. We harvested a tremendous amount of potatoes, a decent amount of onions, and a huge early season of zucchini. Then the rains hit again, followed by drought and extremely high temperatures. The rest of our crops were ruined. After all our efforts and expense, we ended up having to purchase produce from our local produce stands to preserve this year.

  So, my first thought when running across this article was how nice it would be to eradicate the weed threat before gardening season even began! I shared the article with my husband, who was equally impressed but for a different reason. Tractor fuel is expensive! And after all our repeated attempts to turn and till the gardens under before planting, then tilling the rows every so often to combat the grass carpets growing there, we had lost a good bit of money on fuel with nothing to show for it.  Now we had talked last year about eventually getting hogs to raise our own pork. When we mentioned it to our families though they had mixed reactions. My parents thought it was a wonderful idea, but they have never had pigs before. Andrew’s father, who was raised with pigs, was totally against the idea. He said they were difficult to keep in, smelly and ill-tempered, and just more trouble then they were worth. So we were unsure of whither pigs were a good idea for us. However, after the misery and embarrassment of our first failed gardening attempt here we thought maybe it was worth a shot.

  So Andrew got to work preparing garden #3 for pigs. We decided to use four strands of electric wire and erected a temporary summer shelter using materials already laying around the farm. This shelter was simply made, but pretty efficient. Andrew put four t-posts in the ground and then bent a 16 foot stock panel between them in the shape of a hoop house. This panel was secured to the t-posts using some extra electric fence wire and then a tarp was tightly secured on top and partially down two sides. The purpose was to create shade without creating a hot enclosed environment. This is the “Pre-Pig” garden. I told you it looked bad!

  

  That same week I was browsing a local sales site and ran across a pig breeder in the neighboring county. When we asked if they had any pigs currently available, they told us they had 40-60 to chose from! Andrew went on down to purchase two feeder pigs to grow out for slaughter. We had agreed that purchasing pigs to grow out instead of for breeding was the way to go since they would quickly grow to slaughter size and if we weren’t happy with pigs we wouldn’t have to deal with them long. We didn’t need two porkers in the freezer, but also didn’t want to keep one lonely pig so my parents agreed to purchase the second one. Pork Chop and Bacon were about 8 weeks old when they arrived. They were both Poland x Chester crosses from separate litters, and absolutely some of the cutest creatures I’ve ever seen! Pork Chop was a barrow, and Bacon a gilt. This was their first day with us.

  

  didn’t take us long to see that two little piglets were NOT going to be getting the job done quickly. So we started talking about getting a few more. We had Pork Chop and Bacon for two weeks at this point, and had absolutely no trouble at all with them so far. They quickly learned to respect the electric fence, and were actually pretty sweet little things. It took them two days to figure out when feeding time was, and they happily squealed and wagged their stubby tails when ever they saw us.

  Well my parents had made a few visits since the piggy’s came home. Mom and I soon agreed that we just couldn’t eat Bacon. Our new plan was to go back and purchase a boar for breeding her with, and another barrow to replace Bacon as a slaughter hog. So back to the “Pig Man” we go. Now, here is where I must say we have been extremely fortunate to have found a family who raises quality livestock and is not only knowledgeable about their stock but also takes the time to answer our questions and help guide us in the right direction. Kelly, Leah, and Clay Prater from Prater Show Pigs have absolutely been a God send to us! This time, Kelly sent us home with a registered Poland boar for breeding and another Poland x Chester cross for slaughter. Andrew named the boar Boss Hog as soon as he saw him. A fitting name, considering his attitude! The other little porker we named Sausage. Bacon wasn’t to sure about the new additions at first, and had herself a little stand off with Boss Hog when they first met.

  

Going into August the pigs were starting to make progress. It was very dry though, and the ground was hard. They were doing well at eating down the weeds and grass, but had not started rooting very well yet. They had become pretty efficient little garbage disposals though for all our fruit and veggie scraps! Especially during apple processing time. I’ve always hated wasting food, and we used to compost most of our scraps but I find much more pleasure in giving them to the pigs. They are always so happy and thankful about it! Here they are enjoying five gallons of apple cores and peels.

  

 When September rolled around so did some wet weather. We were lucky to have just enough showers to soften the ground and green things up a bit. After several weeks in a row of short sporadic showers, the pigs had made tremendous progress is rooting up the ground. By the last weekend in September, they were ready to be moved into another garden! Here is the final result of 11 weeks of piggy power.

  

  So now that the weather is getting cooler and the pigs are growing larger, some modifications were needed to their new space. Andrew bush hogged the five foot tall weeds off garden #1 and this time set up a two strand electric fence around the perimeter. At 50 x 75 foot, garden #1 is a good bit bigger than their previous location. Here they are a few days after moving into their larger space. As you can see, the first thing they did was find the row of potatoes we left in the ground and root them out. Within 10 days, they had completely rooted out the remaining potatoes in three rows, as well as digging up what remaining carrots were in another two rows we somehow missed.

  

The shelter also needed some re-design to accommodate our growing pigs as well as provide more shelter against wind and rain. We took our previous hoop house type design, added another stock panel and larger tarp, and spread the panel wider to make the opening shorter and the floor space larger. This time 6 t-posts were required. For insulation, we stacked hay bales around the three closed sides until the open space between the tarp and the ground was covered. Fresh hay was also laid inside the shelter for bedding. We had a friend ask us why we used hay instead of straw. Well, simply because we had an extra 100 bales harvested here on the farm and straw is currently $5.00 a bale at the Co-op! The pig's do nibble on the hay bales, but as they get eaten down we can simply replace them with more from the barn. As the weather gets cooler, we plan to raise the hay bale sides a little higher, and enclose more of the front to create a warmer space. All of this was done with materials we already had on hand, so it didn't cost us a dime!

   

  

  With the pigs settled in to their new location and a freshly “plowed” field available all that was left was to plant something in it! We headed to the co-op for winter wheat seed and Andrew sowed the entire garden in wheat. Hopefully this will grow well over the next few months and we can use it for pig feed once mature. We also broke out the tractor to plow and till garden #2 which the pigs haven’t been rotated to yet. We divided this garden into quarters. In one quarter, my parents planted a winter garden. In another quarter we sowed more wheat. The bottom quarter was sown in mangel beets, more winter food for the piggy’s. And in the remaining quarter Andrew and I planted fall crops for our family. Hopefully we will have plenty of peas, beets, radishes, turnips and greens, and carrots soon. Here part of the fall garden week number two, with the wheat sown garden behind it.

  

Now we are at the beginning of October. Guess what was scheduled for October 1, 2011? The Prater Show Pig 1st Annual Show and Breeder pig Auction! Well, of coarse we had to go. We were hoping to find another female to add for spring breeding, but really didn’t go with intentions to surely buy anything. While we were there, Macey fell in love with a little girl piglet just 6 wks old. She is a registered Poland China and has much of the same markings as Boss Hog. We won the bid on her, and stuck around to watch the last few lots in the auction before paying and heading home. Well in comes a litter of Poland x York cross piglets. In that lot was an adorable little pink female who looked like she had blue shorts on. Of coarse we had to buy her to, so the little Poland girl wouldn’t be lonely. Both girls are staying with the breeder another few weeks until they are a little bigger and the weather isn’t quit so fickle. We will take pictures of them as soon as they are home.

 So this summer we were pigless with gardens full of weeds. Now, we have the makings of a breeding program, pork that should be ready for the freezer at Christmas, a nice fall garden and winter wheat sown. Our embarrassment has turned to excitement, and we are looking forward to spring time piglets and gardening season!

 For more updates on what's going on at ANS Farms, find us on Facebook at "Ans Farms!" There are many more pictures and we try to post frequent updates on our newest adventures.

Every year I say to myself that I’m not going to let the garden get out of hand. And every year I fail. We had it whipped into shape for the 4-H club tour, that ended at our house, and one week later (after spending the intervening week at the County Fair), the garden looks like something in an abandoned lot.

How do people do it? Those marvelous people who have clean, neat, gardens? I suspect they lay down a pre-emergent herbicide. The cheaters. Maybe I’ll do that next year … I remember my little raised-bed garden in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. About six raised beds, with my six tomatoes, little strawberries, cucumbers, a few jalapenos, okra that it turned out no one wanted to eat. It was all so little and manageable. Every morning before I went to work, I’d go out and lovingly pluck off the runners from the tomatoes, tuck them up into the cages, pull a few weeds …

Here I have this huge garden space that I feel compelled to fill with 15 tomato plants, cucumbers, squash, muskmelons, onions, potatoes, lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, peas, watermelon. No okra. But it is overwhelming, particularly with a part time job and full time graduate school.

 

I was also thinking about my mother-in-law. You see, I’m married recently to a farmer, and although I never knew his mother, we live in her house. This year, none of the fruits set fruit. Last year, we had one “apricot emergency” after another, as I’d come home and the apricots had to be put up that evening. This year, due to some weather problem, most of the people around here had small or nonexistent fruit crops. I wondered what I would do if feeding my family depended upon the fruit crop, or the potato crop, which used to be a five acre site for her and her husband’s nine children, shared with acres of sweet corn. It puts a totally different spin on the garden. I garden for fun, most of the time, I think, unless I’m tired of pulling weeds, whereupon I think I’m gardening out of some sort of masochism. But what if it were literally the substance for my family, not just a desire for better tomatoes?

I’m going to ruminate on this while I take a hot bath and soak my aching back.

Since man first tilled the earth in an attempt to garden, he’s had to battle forces hell-bent on destroying the fruits of his labor.  This is the price for trying to manipulate nature and force it into submission.  Nature, not one to go down without a fight, battles back with drought, floods, and creatures that seek to destroy what we’ve created.

 

 Insecticides, herbicides, repellants, traps, and those squirrel-proof bird feeders that give the critters a spin before flinging them into the air, are just a small sampling of a vast array of products used in a vain attempt to rid our gardens of pests.  There are a myriad of folk remedies, some tried and true, and some that border on the bizarre; their only purpose being to make us feel as if we’re are doing something to prevail in the battle for the idyllic garden of picture books.  Take my neighbor:  he rigged an alarm clock into the ground that ran nonstop in an effort to drive the moles from his yard.  He went through three alarm clocks and the only thing he succeeded in doing was driving his neighbors to the brink of insanity.        

We battle these invaders with a primeval blood-lust; normal, mild mannered people become blood-thirsty hunters.  My friend is one of the kindest wouldn’t-hurt-a-thing women I know…except when it comes to her garden.  She’s been known to be seen on sleepless nights working by flashlight, scouring her honeysuckle vines for aphids, and scraping them off with a toothpick.  Japanese beetles she takes pleasure in drowning in coffee cans filled with soapy water.   My husband thought he saw a Japanese beetle on her roses, causing her to leap over the porch railing, and yell for her son to “GET THE CAN!!!” 

Working at a nursery, I hear lots of similar stories.  There’s the woman who, with Rambo-like moves, shoots the squirrels at her bird feeder with a high-powered Super-Soaker water gun.  Japanese beetles are reserved a special hatred.  “What do you have that’ll give the Japanese beetles a very slow and painful death”, one customer asks.  Another woman, like my friend, drowns them…..in gasoline.  “Don’t you think that’s perhaps overkill?” I asked – especially considering the fluctuating price of gas these days.  “Perhaps”, she replied, leaving with her purchases of deer repellant and mole bait.  But I saw that gleam in her eye when she went out the door, and knew exactly where she was headed:  to the nearest service station to fill up her gas can.

The image of the idyllic garden, I think when I look around my yard, is a myth seen only in gardening books and magazines.  Glossy photos depict women wearing long, flowing floral print dresses and wide-brimmed straw hats, serenely strolling with baskets filled with beautiful blossoms they've just cut from their lovely weed-free gardens packed with an abundance of blemish and pest-free plants.  Some of these magazines perpetuate this myth by running glossy advertisements selling product lines of long, flowing floral print dresses, wide-brimmed straw hats, and wicker baskets. 

I hope I never fall under the spell of this idyllic myth; I just don’t fit its image.  I’ve never looked good in wide-brimmed straw hats.  I labor, toil, and sweat.  I’ve got dirt under my chipped fingernails, calloused hands, blistered feet, and aching muscles.  My gardening product line would include heating pads, pain ointments, and extra-strength muscle relaxers; the Deluxe package comes with a personal masseuse.

 I work hard in my garden, and it just takes a moment with my back turned to find a plot has been hatched to undermine all my efforts.  The weeds gain stronghold, refusing to let go.  Leaf rollers, aphids, and European chafers move in.  Rabbits eat their fill of our spinach, then move on to the blueberry bushes.   The beast I call “Molezilla” and his brethren make a maze of tunnels through the yard, uprooting every blade of grass in their wake.  Japanese beetles launch a full-scale attack with their insatiable appetites for destruction.  In a frenzy, they devour nearly everything in sight, mating while doing so, like attendees at an ancient Roman orgy.

The squirrels and I came to an understanding long ago.  I gave up planting annuals in the garden because it seemed to bother them; they promptly dug up every little marigold or snapdragon I planted.  But the porch and flower boxes were my territory.  Off limits.  Last year, they crossed the line.  An entire pot full of begonias was overturned, the wilted plants strewn all about the porch.  I repotted them, sat on the porch glaring at those pesky squirrels, and noticed the earth moving.  Molezilla!  The audacity this beast has, destroying my yard right before my eyes in broad daylight!  Ready for hand-to-hand combat, I charged off the porch, grabbing the first weapon within reach:  a tripod sprinkler.  Using it as a spear, I stabbed the ground, hoping the neighbors weren’t watching.  The spearing was in vain, and thankfully, no one saw me except for the squirrels.  They laughed.  I’d say theirs was a maniacal laughter, but I might be confusing it with my own.                 

 I suppose if I was fair, I’d say that these things have a right to be there; they are just doing what Nature intended them to do.  Maybe I should just toss up my hands, letting them have it all.  Turn over my garden to both the living things I welcome there, and those termed as ‘pests’.  I’ll retreat to the front porch with my pots of begonias, settle back, prop up my feet and open a good book…..preferably one without glossy garden photos (except for GRIT, of course).  I’ll look out at the destruction before me, discovering it’s really quite pretty if I don’t look too closely.

 

Wait?!  Do I see the earth moving?  Evil rears its ugly, little head again, leaving in its wake a tell-tale trail of up-turned earth.  And me without my tripod sprinkler spear handy!  The squirrels look down on me from their perch in the maple.  They are laughing. 

 

It is definitely an early spring at Cowlick Cottage Farm. This morning, I harvested the shallots that I planted last fall … a full month early. Those beautiful, pink orbs are taking a sunbath right now, drying out a bit.  Harvesting them is fun. Just take a trusty trowel and insert it deep under the entire shallot bunch. Then pop them out. Be careful not to damage the beautiful shallots! I’m going to make a shallot and lemon thyme vinaigrette to celebrate the harvest tonight. I love shallots, and the homegrown ones are ever so much more flavorful than what is available at the market (if you can even find them). 

 
A spectacular shallot harvest! 

Before the shallot harvest, I took my customary morning stroll through the garden, camera and coffee in hand. Everything is coming up roses!  Take a look at some of my buds.

  
Baby Sungold Nectarine 

This is our one-and-only nectarine from our brand new tree. I treasure it and check on it every day. We planted lots of fruit trees this year – a whole little grove, including Sungold nectarine, Satsuma, Ponderosa lemon, Meyer lemon, Key lime, and Pummelo. We already have Shinseiki pear, Alma and Celeste figs, and Flordahome peach trees in their second year. I am not expecting too much fruit from them this year. They are an investment in the future.  As the saying goes, the best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The next best time is today!

The first tomato! 

We have planted several varieties of tomatoes, mostly heirlooms. This is a little hybrid tomato called Totem. It is already loaded with fruit and will definitely be the first of the tomato harvest this year. I’ll probably dress it simply with Balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and sea salt. And a bit of fresh goat cheese and herbs. Can’t wait! We are also growing Black Cherry, Purple Cherokee, San Marzano, Homestead, and a few others. Tomatoes are like shoes…you cannot have too many!

Squash blossom 

We also planted many varieties of squash…more than ever this year. There is butternut squash from our own saved seed, several varieties of heirloom pattypans, old-fashioned sugar pumpkins, and an heirloom lemon squash. We love them all.

Baby Huey and Ginger 

Our chickens, the Spice Girls, are always nosy and curious about what we are doing. We get beautiful eggs from them every day, and we reciprocate with fresh treats from the garden. They devour everything from cabbage to strawberries and herbs. 

 
Spice Girl Eggs - Fresh Daily! 

We had an abundance of eggs this week, so I used the gorgeous, rich yolks to make vanilla custard ice cream. With real vanilla bean and organic cream. Topped with barely whipped, rum-scented heavy cream. Because I’m just a little naughty!

Yolks for Vanilla Custard Ice Cream 

And if that is not decadent enough for you, I am also harvesting strawberries, and it’s been a fantastic season for them. Deep red, large, and juicy, they are Jacob’s favorite. I’m preserving some today by making old-fashioned strawberry sauce…to crown the homemade ice cream. Ta-da! 

Camarosa Strawberries 

On the ornamental side of things, the roses are amazing this year. Their color is incredibly vibrant. In my almost-wild side border, heaven-scented honeysuckle is clambering through the pink roses. Their sultry scents are heady and intoxicating. 

Rose and Honeysuckle 

Coral geraniums are planted in our huge patio pots, along with sweet potato vine and ornamental red grasses. They should be gorgeous in a month or two!

Coral Geranium 

  And a big pot of petunias with sweet potato vine and euphorbia greets family and friends at the back door.

 

Petunia and Euphorbia 

Gardening is rewarding in so many ways. It feeds our senses, reconnects us to nature, and makes our spirits sing!  Gardens give us hope. Are you experiencing an early spring this year? What do you dream of growing?

Back around mid-February, the GRIT corral received word that we had a verified winner for the GRIT-MOTHER EARTH NEWS Ultimate Garden Giveaway, and our sweepstakes guru, Katie Macfee, mentioned in the e-mail that it was the perfect winner.

As I read the story of Kriste Misiak and her family, I could not agree more. Kriste and her husband, Kurt, live on 34 acres in Michigan and have five children. The following were her thoughtful words as she showed us a glimpse of her family values. (From left in the image below, back row: Haley, Hannah, Kriste, Kurt; front row, Jesse and the dog, Daisy; not pictured are sons Brett Sample and Daniel Misiak)

 

“We enjoy growing as much food as we can for our family, friends and local charities. Our farm is not certified organic, but we grow without chemical pesticides. (Yes, we handpick all those bugs.) Therefore, I know our vegetables, chicken and beef are more nutritious.

“I believe everyone should have access to these types of foods. With the kids to help, we bagged one ton of potatoes to deliver to our local St. Vincent Depaul. Other vegetables and eggs we take to our local soup kitchen.

“I hope to instill empathy in my children. Hard times can fall upon anyone. It is our duty to help all as much as we are able. Good things will also come to you in your time of need.

 

“I feel winning the Garden Giveaway is God's way of saying, ‘Ok, let's see what else you can do!’”

 

Hard work, awareness, charity, responsibility, persistence and a genuine love of country life, what better qualities to hold as ideals in rural America?! These qualities embody the spirit of GRIT, and we couldn’t be happier Kriste won our Ultimate Garden Giveaway. When you set out and team with top manufacturers to equip someone with cream-of-the-crop rural equipment, that’s as good as you can hope for.

Hearing her words were one thing, but then Kriste sent us over some images of her place and her family hard at it, and the images displayed a quality that we, here in the office, like to call GRITty.

 

From growing monster cabbages (and notice the canning salt in the background), to making hay while the sun shines, these folks display an enjoyment of life out where the pavement ends.

 

One image even took me straight back to a farm in southeast Kansas, about 20 years ago, to a farm I think of often that was hidden from the world. In this case, rubber boots and all, Kurt and Kriste's son, Jesse, looks well on his way to a solid day’s work.

 

We like to emphasize the importance of stewardship to the land and countryside, and building and embracing community. It’s obvious the winners of GRIT’s Ultimate Garden Giveaway share those same values, and for that we’re as thankful for them winning as Kriste was for the contest and sponsors.

So what did they win? The list is sure to raise eyebrows: Growers Supply Premium Solar Star Greenhouse (Approximate Retail Value $3,295.00); Husqvarna Garden Tractor (Approximate Retail Value $2,599.99); Mantis 4-Cycle Gas Tiller (Approximate Retail Value $349.00); Mantis Compost-Twin (Approximate Retail Value $499.00); $500 Gift Card from Lee Valley Tools (Approximate Retail Value $500); Set of 13 Rogue Hoes (Approximate Retail Value $373.85); SonnyLight Indoor Growlight/LED Kitchen Garden (Approximate Retail Value $299.95); The Garden Patch GrowBoxTM (Approximate Retail Value $329.50); Ethel Gloves Garden Gloves (Approximate Retail Value $20.00); Mr. Soaker Hose Complete System (Approximate Retail Value $258.89); Johnny’s Selected Seeds $250 Gift Certificate (Approximate Retail Value $250); Rosie’s Workwear Ensemble (Approximate Retail Value $373.30); and a set of nine Radius Tools (Approximate Retail Value $234.91).

Get in on GRIT’s next big giveaway, the Go Solar Giveaway, and you could win a Sunward Solar Hot Water System worth more than $10,000. This bad boy requires no electricity, and provides enough hot water for a family of six; it’s everything you need to make solar hot water. Enter by clicking this Go Solar Giveaway link, or enter at www.grit.com/gosolar.

 

I was really happy this morning to find a generous handful of fresh figs ripe and ready for us to enjoy. Have you ever feasted upon a fresh fig? I must confess that I never had, until I picked the first one from our own tree. A fresh ripe fig tastes nothing like a Fig Newton, so banish that thought from your mind. Its flavor is reminiscent of strawberry and peach, with a unique and delicate texture all its own. The fruit is actually an inverted flower. Isn’t that kind of sexy and exotic? The leaves of the fig tree are quite beautiful, too, making it a lovely addition to the landscape as well as the table. They impart an almost haunting herbaceous scent to the garden air during our sultry summer evenings.

Figs in the Garden

Figs trees like to be planted with plenty of organic matter and in lots of sunshine. Make sure your fig tree gets watered regularly, especially in its first couple of seasons, and protect it from heavy frosts. Simple!

We have an Alma fig that is in its second year of production. Alma is a late variety fig that produces very high quality fruit. It is not known as the prettiest fig around, but the sweet firm fruit makes up for its lack of beauty. One of the reasons we selected Alma is because the fruit is still fairly light in color when it is ripe, which makes it a little less attractive to the fig-snatching birds that make Cowlick Cottage Farm their home.

Figs on the Table

Even though figs are sweet, they are quite nutritious. They are high in potassium, which can help to lower blood pressure. They are high in fiber and calcium, making them a satisfying treat for those of us watching our weight. Fig leaves are edible, too, and are said to have anti-diabetic qualities. Try wrapping a fresh fish fillet in a freshly washed fig leaf and put it on a hot grill for a few minutes.

I am really looking forward to experimenting with fresh figs in the kitchen, if I can stop myself from making them as wonderful little appetizers. I love them halved and topped with a little goat cheese and wrapped up in a slice of proscuitto. Warm these pretty little delights in the oven until the proscuitto is a little crispy and the goat cheese is melted. Top with a splash of balsamic fig vinegar and fresh ground pepper! I love the blend of the sweet ripe fruit, the salty proscuitto and the soft creamy goat cheese.

Once the figs ramp up and ripen in unison, I will make some fig preserves for us to enjoy during the winter. And how about a fig tart, or even fig ice cream? A Sunday evening pork loin roasted with caramelized onions, figs, red wine and fresh herbs sounds delicious. As does a salad of fresh greens, figs, walnuts and gorgonzola. And a selection of cheeses served on a fig leaf is a beautiful thing. What are your favorite ways to enjoy figs?

Our field is one big grid. It is divided into rows and columns — into numbers, and letters, and more numbers. Organized. Mathematical. Necessary. The tomatoes are in C3 beds five through ten; the first planting of broccoli is in B5 bed nine while the second planting is in C2 beds three and four. If you were looking at our log book, you would know that you could find Shiraz beets, planted on June 17th, in the first 30 feet of the of the second bed of row three in section B. They will need to be harvested on July 31st, and they should all be out of the ground by August 14th. This is all good information ... if you need to weed, water, harvest, plant or prep.

When farming five acres, it’s good to have a plan. It’s good to be organized. It’s good to be a little bit anal retentive about it all. Grid. Map key. Logbook. This keeps a farm functioning. But, there is one important food that doesn’t grow well in these conditions, and that is food for the soul. Get rid of that map, we’ve got to keep the creative spirit alive.

This is where I believe the home gardener has one up on the production farmer. Inventiveness. Imagination. Artistry. A vision free from the constraints of yield and maximum efficiency. I’m not saying it’s a free-for-all out there in the home gardening world. I know many home gardeners who are highly organized and create their garden plans months ahead of time, taking in a complex variety of considerations from companion planting to water requirements. However, there is an element of originality and freedom that is difficult to duplicate on a larger scale.

Born out of the necessity to express ourselves as individuals and creative beings, it was decided to give each participant at the GFTC a one-hundred foot long by three and half foot wide bed to do whatever our hearts desired with. Yes, this was just one long and skinny bed, but suddenly we all had options. You could almost see the visions of sugarplums dancing in our heads.

Seed catalogues were obtained. Unique and obscure growing methods were researched. Extra transplants that had been thrown into the compost weeks ago were rescued. Our creative spirits began to manifest themselves. Our personalities popped like the poppies in bloom.

We all took different approaches. Joe (above) chose to be resourceful and sporadic, only planting things that otherwise would have been turned into compost and placing them in no predictable order whatsoever. Jordan and Kelly teamed up (below), turning their twin-sized beds into a queen-size, and they built large mounds to replicate the traditional growing methods of the three sisters crops.

Mary planted flax. Taryn planted miniature sunflowers and the same variety of fava beans that her father grew when she was a child. Alan (below) planted uncommon winter storage vegetables, such as salsify, scorzonera, and celeriac.

And although there are thousands of acres of it growing across the country, I planted corn. However, this was special corn — heritage varieties of popcorn and dent corn from all over the world. I have hopes that it will store well for the upcoming winter.

All eight participants at the Greenbank Farm Training Center are proud of the plants we grow together. The carrots of A4 bed eight are well weeded. If any one of us sees a runner on a strawberry plant sprinting for dear life, we will bend down to cut its race short. We all care for the thousands of heads of lettuce, and we are sure to water the kids in the cabbage patch when they need it. But I think it is safe to say that our true babies are tucked into the soil of our personal beds.

What we have grown in the one-hundred foot strips has somehow become an expression of ourselves. To plant a seed and see it germinate. To watch it grow its first true leaves. To take in the same sunshine as our plants each day. There is a deep pleasure that blooms within this relationship. Maybe this is why gardening is so loved. It gives us a chance to nurture our whole selves — body, mind, and spirit.

The main reason my husband and I joined this program is because we envision having a farm in our future. We needed to learn how to farm, so that when we do set out on our own land, we have the knowledge and work ethic needed to run an economically viable farm and farm business. That being said, I know there will be plenty of log books, maps, and spreadsheets in our future. However, when the time comes, it will be just as important to the survivability of our farm and family that we maintain time and space for creativity so that we can sow the seeds of healing and joy. We will need to keep the pleasure beds alive.

Summer is a time of giving.

Sharing the bounty is one of my favorite things about a garden – not because of zucchini-fatigue or because I can’t possibly eat all of that watermelon – but because I have something to give. Giving from the garden is giving of oneself. When you give from a garden you give from a position of plenty. And really feeling and living in and from plenty is not always so easy to do.

How do we know when we have enough? How do we know when we have plenty?

Enough implies measurement. It suggests that you have an amount or a level in mind and that you meet that amount or level. Enough is having the right amount of dollars to pay your rent or your mortgage. Enough is rigid and non-negotiable. It contains an element of fear. You have enough – or you don’t.

But plenty suggests that you have nothing to fear. It is a bounty that is beyond measurement; with plenty, measurement is not needed.

The question occurs to me: Can you have plenty while not having enough?

I can think of at least two ways. The first one is: don’t measure things that don’t require measurement. The second one is: keep a garden.

We’ve all heard the adage, you are what you eat. But I would suggest that the truth of this statement is bigger than just food. We are what we watch. We are what we read and hear. We are the people we hang around with. There is a great machine engulfing all of us that is working very hard to get us to consume, to want more, to believe we need more, and to get more every day. The world around us is constantly trying to frighten us. It takes an effort to shut it all out. But it’s a worthwhile effort. Because the machine of commerce obscures what’s important in life.

I do not consider myself particularly religious, and yet over the course of this past year I’ve experienced a growing sense of wonder that is not without a certain spiritual content. Planting and sprouting seeds; observing the miracle of life prevailing against all reasonable expectations; visiting a nearby farm and wandering amongst animals some of whom eventually ended up on my table have all made me thankful for meals in a way that I have never been before. This is not so much because of the work that I’ve put into these meals as it is because of the extent to which things happened that I did not do. My thankfulness is not self-congratulatory but directed towards something operating above and beyond myself. Learning about the ubiquity of yeast in the air gave me a sense of wild freedom and possibility – how close it is within our power to turn a few simple ingredients into bread! The alchemy of lacto-fermentation offered me a glimpse into the creative alchemy that goes on inside of all of us. I have been constantly reminded that man is a maker; that our lives and our means of sustenance are paradoxically both inevitable and tenuous and should never be taken for granted. I have a developing understanding not only of how much planning and activity and preservation it may take to feed my family through the winter (I don't think I'm even coming close!), but also of the importance of growing and eating and enjoying today’s food today. A closer contact with nature is a constant reminder that I don’t know what may happen tomorrow or the next day. But today I am well-sheltered and well-fed, and to a great extent that makes me rich, and I am thankful.

It calls to mind a line which has been rattling around in my head a lot lately – "give us this day our daily bread". Not enough bread for the rest of the week or month; not an assurance that we’ll still have bread this time next year, but our daily bread.

Surely enough has to start with enough for today.

And if I have enough for tomorrow too – well, perhaps that means that I have plenty.

There are many advantages to having a garden. There is the exercise; the opportunity to be outdoors; the healthier food; the satisfaction of producing it oneself. There is the sense of communing with nature and with something that is bigger, and stronger and greater, and longer-lasting than us. I love all of these things, but I don’t think that any of them are the best thing about having a garden. I think that the greatest gift that a garden can give us – even a weedy, overgrown, not always well-tended or well-realized garden like mine – is that if you put in the effort – some days it seems that if you put in any effort at all – it eventually reaches a state of plenty.

Even prior to having a garden, I rarely bought tomatoes. I rarely bought green beans. I never bought zucchini or squash. Or turnips. Or rutabaga. I’ve never even seen a kohlrabi in the grocery store. But we eat these things now because we can grow them. We eat them because they are there in abundance.

A grocery list is another form of measurement. It’s a declaration that there are some things that we absolutely have to have, and if we do not have them, then there is a lack in our lives, a niggling aggravation that must be overcome. Granted there are some basic things that we have to buy, but I have found over the past few years that my grocery list has dwindled. So have my grocery bills.

A recent article in Grit by fellow blogger Paul Gardener gave a wonderful and inspiring accounting of just how much we can save by gardening. I’ve been tempted to take stock of my efforts this way. You see, for a long time I've been obsessed with measurement; I've been worried about having enough. I'm a compulsive checkbook balancer; a tireless list-maker. One eye is always so firmly fixed on the horizon that I often don't see everything that's right in front of me. I went into the present gardening season determined to do better than last year; in particular, I set some pretty hefty goals for providing certain foods for my family through the winter. Along these lines of thought, as the present garden season began to ramp up, months before I read that article in Grit, I considered buying a scale. I wanted to be able to see just how much progress I was making. I wanted to be able to demonstrate to myself that I was growing more, and preserving more, than last year. I wanted to be able to determine and document just how much would be enough. And I wanted to grow enough.

But lately I’ve decided that I’m not going to do that.

I don’t want to weigh my produce. I don’t want to keep track of what I spend in the garden – in money or in time. I would spend that money and time somewhere anyway. I think that if I start trying to frame the garden in the language of investment then I might lose the sensation of getting something for nothing. If I begin to measure, then I will inevitably begin to think in terms of enough. And why would I want to do that?

When I already have plenty.

Corn needs nitrogen rich soil with a neutral pH to grow. Corn is wind pollinated and does best planted in blocks rather than in rows (despite traditional methods). Corn needs a fair amount of water and does best when watered by natural, nitrogen-rich, rain.

The corn we planted this year (for the first time mind you) was planted in poorly composted and fed soil; not to mention tight, crisp, clay soil. It was planted in long rows; two varieties – North Carolina sweet and common field corn. Our corn received only 9 total days of rain since planted on April 10 and 11. The rest of the water came from sprinklers set for an hour every 3 days.

The result was less than we had hoped for.

Today I realized that several of our stalks were completely ready to be stripped; tassles were browning and cobs were rounded rather than pointed. The only problem was many of the cobs were a bit soft and showed signs of Earworms and Armyworms. I had mixed reactions for sure. I was pleased that we had, in fact, grown corn – tall stalks even. But I was not pleased that so much of our corn was useless. It was bittersweet.

After about 35 minutes or so of picking I brought the basket of husks up to Pan and presented her with the cobs of our labor; full of pride, full of appreciation, and somewhat full of apologies. I had promised her earlier in the season that this year we wouldn’t have to supplement our freezer with purchased corn from other local farmers. I told her we would have our own corn!

Without an adverse word she shucked them, cleaned them, and prepared them for dinner. As I sat down to eat I was presented – lovingly, mind you – with some of the ugliest corn I had ever laid my eyes on. Kernels were missing. Kernels were small. Kernels were swollen. And I haven’t even begun to talk about the taste ... or should I say lack thereof. If it weren’t for butter my saying grace would have sounded as such: “Lord, thank you for allowing us to grow this corn and for it filling an empty spot in our stomachs. But Lord, could you place upon it a miracle; one that involves taste ... please? Amen.”

So what I have I learned from all this? I have learned that field corn is best reserved for livestock and not cross-pollination experiments. I have learned that anyone can plant a seed but only a farmer with heart can patiently prepare the soil to cultivate a solid result. And I learned that my wife loves me and my Goonie corn!

GRIT Guest Blogger Brandy Ernzen hails from a small Kansas town, and is working to re-learn those wonderful country skills from her childhood. She’s also GRIT’s public relations manager.

Kind hearts are gardens,
Kind thoughts are roots,
Kind words are blossoms,
Kind deeds are fruits.

– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, adapted into a children’s nursery rhyme

What can be better than when the kind deed is a garden?

I can’t think of anything better than watching curtain-climbers go wild in the garden. Their sense of wonder at even the smallest thing – a caterpillar on a leaf, a new fruit on the vine – amazes me every time.

When TDC Learning Centers Inc, a nonprofit childcare and early education provider in Topeka, approached our company about sponsoring their school gardens, we jumped at the chance.

TDC Director Kerry Tummons wanted the kids to learn – and get excited – about growing their own healthy food. Once the kids were hooked, they’d get their families interested. The kids, ages 2 1/2 to 5, also use the garden to learn about science, math, language, nurturing and teamwork.

And get this: The older kids even journal about their experiences. Who knows? Maybe we’ll find a few budding journalists!

Ogden donated garden tools and money for materials to start gardens at the center’s four locations. Hank Will, GRIT’s editor, met with the TDC folks to figure out what to plant, when and how to prep the soil. Caleb Regan (GRIT) and Shelley Stonebrook (MOTHER EARTH NEWS) offered up seeds from their home gardens.

In addition, Rogue Hoe, one of our advertisers, pitched in hoes and heirloom seeds, and Skinner Garden Store added seeds to get the project going.

The kids are growing tomatoes, green peppers, bush beans, cucumbers, corn, carrots and cantaloupe. While it’s hard to get a read on their favorite crops, their favorite chore is clear: watering. For these guys, the messier the chore, the better!

According to Kerry, the teachers and kids are already planning to expand next year’s gardens.

NOTE: TDC seeks community support to offer a sliding-scale fee so that quality care can be affordable for all income levels.

This year's garden really started last fall when we cleaned out the barn.

as the Light Brahma Rooster and Hen watched...

All the compost went on the garden spot. Over the fall and winter seasons we put leaves on top of the compost.

Skip through to June 6th. This is how the garden looks with all that wonderful organic compost as it's only fertilizer.

The Roma green beans are now ready for picking...

and cooking...

and canning...

It will be a busy week but I hope to have at least 24 quarts of green beans in jars soon.

Silver King corn and Clemson Spineless Okra soon to follow. Next will be the Black crowder peas, Brown crowder peas, Speckled butterbeans, and  Fordhook butterbeans.

In the raised beds I had spinach, radishes, lettuce, asparagus, onions, and mustard greens. Most of the beds are ready for new plantings.

The tomatoes are in a cattle panel fence.

That is because the guineas do love to taste each tomato when they begin to turn red.

Even though they have a bad habit of sampling tomatoes, the guineas are excellent bug hunters.

They will go down each row checking the plants for insects.

I suppose I could reward them with a tomato every now and then for their serious bug hunts!

This end I have the potatoes, red onions, collards, radishes, and a couple of yellow squash.

The other end I have a some peaches and cream sweet corn (first year I have tried it) sunflowers, cantaloupe, and watermelon.

A slide show video of the garden this year from planting until now.

The big chest freezer is now cleaned out and defrosted ready for filling up again like from summers gone by.

You can see and read more about our farm here on our personal blog: Life on a Southern Farm

I hope your garden is doing well too!

Have a great gardening season.

The following picture is now off limits for me. I have been told by my hubby not to use it for awhile. Oh, I miss it. But it falls off its track at the other end, and when that happens Dave has to climb on top of the barn and then put a ladder on the roof of the barn to reach the wheel and the clothes that have gotten stuck up there. Not the most ideal situation. I don't really want my hubby breaking his neck for a few clothes.

Otis the calf went to the big pasture up the road last week. Dave actually walked him there. A friend of ours stopped and said, "Aren't you supposed to walk your dog? Not your cow?"

Dave said, "I don't have a dog, so the calf will do."

Otis found a friend in the pasture. That night we went to visit him, and he had actually made friends with a larger Holstein in the pasture. It was kinda cute, since all the rest of the cattle were what I call meat cattle and a few Jerseys. But there was only one other Holstein in the bunch and they became friends. I wonder if cattle are prejudiced? Ha ha.

Pretty soon people are going to start calling me the crazy cat lady. We have a new addition to our cat family. It's not by choice. She kinda adopted us. This pretty stray has been eating the barn cats' cat food for months now, and she's decided to become a bit friendlier. Well, really it's amazing what a determined 9 year old and a couple of bags of cat treats can accomplish. So that means we now have 5 cats. Ugh.

Dave went to the cattle sale a few weeks ago and sold the twins. Sniff, sniff ... But we cannot keep them all. I didn't get much for them either. Bummer. $66 for 2 twin goats. Not good.

But while Dave was there he thought that he'd surprise us with a treat. So please meet our 3 new ducks. Or as I call them, "Supper for the wild minks." One has a bum leg, but you can't get with 20 feet of them. They are really petrified of humans. Hmmmm ... I wonder if a few bags of cat treats and a determined 9 year old would work on them?

This past weekend was gorgeous, and J. and I did some gardening.

Well, I have so much to blog about, but it's going to have to wait for another post. I only have so much time today to write.

Have a blessed Evening,

Lisa

This year I decided to grow some veggies in containers, rather than directly in the ground. We live in central Texas, and the soil (sticky clay, really) here is very shallow. We don't have to dig very deep before we hit rock. Container planting seems to be working out great, so far!

I have several variety of tomatos growing. They are growing tall and putting on quite a bit of fruit. Soon I will top them out in hopes of encouraging even more fruit.

This is one of two containers of cucumbers (for pickling), coming along nicely. The containers allow me to easily use better soil, and allow me to organize the containers as necessary for the size of the plants. When the plants were small, it was easy to set the containers side by side. As the have plants have grown in size, I have spread them out a bit, providing each plant with plenty of "elbow room", and lots of space for good ventilation.

The containers I'm using are wooden apple baskets I picked up at the local farm supply store for only a few dollars each. Many of them were nest boxes at one point, before I installed the antique side by side nest boxes in the coop for the girls. When compared to containers of similar size at a garden shop, the apple baskets are much more affordable and so far they work just fine for me. They probably won't last more than a couple of seasons, but at least they're made of something that I can compost back into soil.

I have three large zucchini plants, and all of them seem to be doing quite well. I harvested the first zucchini today, and am excited for dinner. I think I'll saute it up with some chicken and mushrooms, and enjoy! Containers of yellow squash, cantelope, and watermelon are putting on nice growth, too.

I have some potted flowers near the veggies, and they're blooming nicely too. I do love the pretty yellow faces of Rudbekia blooms. They add a nice splash of color to the garden, and are doing a nice job of attracting bees, hummingbirds, and butterflies.

We have a couple of large sunflowers that volunteered near the chicken yard. One of them is already blooming, and the other will be blooming soon!

The mint has been delicious in my tea, and the leaves are nice and healthy. Now, if I could keep the caterpillars out of the mint, I'd be happier!

While out watering over the weekend, I noticed a couple of black swallowtail butterflies enjoying the sunshine and water on the soil. One of them sat still long enough for me to get a few photos.

I invite you to read more about life on our small farm at Sassy & Sweet: Life on the Farm.

You asked for it, and Drew delivers. Here's a video on pruning tomatoes properly.

The community garden revival: I call this the Lazarus Garden. Why you ask? Because it stinketh and I am going to bring it back from the dead!

Up until about this time last year I had never given a moment’s consideration to straw. It wasn’t until I received some gardening advice about mulching my tomato plants that I began to consider it, and even then I procrastinated for weeks. My reasons for procrastinating were various: the place where I knew I could get it (which wasn’t, in the end, where I got it) is not on any of my usual routes; I drive a small compact car; and perhaps most of all there was the sense of unease at doing something unfamiliar. But one day I said, enough of all that. I finally bucked up and got serious, and went in search of straw.

I drove out to the out-of-the-way place where I’d seen bales of it for sale, and no one was there. It was about 9:15 on a Saturday morning – too early, apparently. So I made a huge loop back towards the house, with the idea of stopping at the couple of country road nurseries not too far from my house to see if they sold straw. I’d been to the first nursery a number of times and never seen any, but on that day as I pulled into the lot, lo and behold a guy was walking out towards the parking lot carrying a big bale of it!

I asked him if he could get me some straw, and he looked at my car, and then back at me, doubtfully.

“You’re going to put it in that?”

“I can put some in the trunk,” I told him. I opened the trunk and he peered inside. “Could I get two bales in there?” I asked him.

“You might be able to get one in there.”

“I can put some in the front seat too,” I said. “And some in the back.”

“With a child in there?”

“Well just in the front seat then. One in the front and one in the trunk.”

“In your car?”

“Yes.”

“Sure, if you want to,” he said. “If you want to get mites in your car, I’ll put it in there for you. You know straw has mites it in it. You’ll get mites all over your car.”

Hmmmn. Mites???

“Well, just give me one then. Put it in the trunk.”

So he went and got the bale of straw for the dumb blond, and I picked up some slow release organic tomato food (something else I’d been avoiding doing) and a few yellow crookneck squash plants and headed home, thinking all the time about mites.

I appreciated the information, but gosh, he could told me all of that in a way that didn’t make me feel so ... um ... stupid.

Well, let me tell you something – when I got home that day with my first bale of straw and pulled that thing out of my trunk, I was astonished at the mess. Boy am I glad I didn’t fill my car up with it. I didn’t think that I would ever get all that straw out of the trunk of my car. And it didn’t do much for my sinuses either ... or maybe I just had mites up my nose.

But I did end up going back for more straw, because one bale was not enough to mulch the garden, and once that first bale was down, and temporarily covering up all of my unsightly weeds, I couldn’t wait to get another and to finish the job. Over the course of that summer and that fall I went back again and again. This spring by my third trip, the same guy who had cautioned me about mites was automatically bringing up a bale of straw when he saw me. We’ve been talking flagstone. I asked his advice about planting my tomatoes. It’s not just straw that I’m more comfortable with this year. I’m more comfortable with gardening and I’m more comfortable with myself.

This morning as I was out in the garden checking on the state of things, I crouched down to get closer to a tomato plant and I heard the straw talking to me. It was a rustling whisper; it spoke of burgeoning activity going on there invisible to the naked eye; the ongoing work of the soil, the scurry of insects, the pushing of plants past their boundaries to grow ever onwards, up and out.

All of that – or else it was dry straw being rubbed against the dry newspaper underneath of it, which had been put down (and originally wet down) to try to help cut down on the weeds. Sure enough, when the wind died for a moment, the murmur of the garden died too. And the not-quite-so-dumb-as-last-year blond had her answer.

My mom has nice soil and a nice open sunny area in her back yard with a traditional rowed garden. She's been generous enough to increase the garden each year to let me grow sun-loving crops in exchange for some seeds, plants and work. A few Wednesdays ago I went to my mom's house, and we spent a day working on garden preparation for the season. She covers her garden with a tarp over the winter to protect the soil and to keep the weed seeds out. We uncovered the garden and went to work amending the soil a bit and planting a few early crops.

Traditionally here in Ohio you plant peas and potatoes on St Patrick's day (which we missed by a few weeks). It was too cold on that holiday, and it's been pretty wet this spring, so we've been waiting for the weather to break to start planting. We spent the entire day getting the garden ready and then planting 8 rows of peas and 4 rows of potatoes and some onions. We follow a more intensive planting system so we plant wider rows of plants instead of single rows with walkways in between. In the walkways we're planning on adding stepping stones and lower-growing plants to make even better use of the space, perhaps beets, chamomile, and other low growing herbs.

We planted peas and potatoes for the freezer and the pantry. I'm hoping for a good pea harvest so I can enjoy lots of peas in our winter stews and a pantry full of potatoes to eat on all winter. What varieties did we plant?

Wando peas: 68 days, produces good yields of 3 ½-inch long sweet peas. Pods have 6 to 8 dark green peas. A remarkable high quality variety that is resistant to warm weather and drought conditions. The Wando Pea will grow a crop during the driest, hottest summer months, at a time other varieties fail. High in Vitamin A, B, and C. Excellent freezing and canning variety. Vines are 26 inches tall.

Kennebec Potatoes: A late maturing white potato variety. An excellent one for fries, chips, baking or hashbrowns.

Yukon Gold Potatoes: A favorite among gardeners, consumers and chefs. Delicious flesh is drier than most other yellow varieties, perfect for baking and mashing. Yellow flesh appears to be buttered. Bred and selected by AgCanada and the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food in 1966. Excellent yields and a great keeper. 80-90 days.

What are you planting right now?

I can also be found at Chiot's Run where I blog daily about gardening, cooking, local eating, beekeeping, and all kinds of stuff. You can also find me at Not Dabbling in Normal.

Tonight we had a wonderful homegrown meal. Steak sourced to my sister's farm in Honey Creek, Iowa. Potatoes grown right here in Georgia. And a large, beautiful, salad harvested right here at Odom's Idle Acres. As I stared at my bowl (roughly 10 seconds before I dug in) I remembered (in paraphrase, of course) a quote by Hayakawa, U.S. Senator and prolific member of the Bohemian Club.

Ever since man began to till the soil and learned not to eat the seed grain but to plant it and wait for the harvest, the postponement of gratification has been the basis of a higher standard of living and civilization.
--S. I. Hayakawa

Here's to a higher standard for us all!

Last year’s garden fundamentally changed me.

For one thing, it took the pleasure out of shopping for produce. We had such  bounty and for so many months. Potatoes freshly dug from the ground were far superior to any potato that I’d ever had before. I ate sweet potatoes from July until March. I was in constant supply of fresh greens, and my freezer stocked with green beans and squash lasted me for several months. Those big baskets burgeoning with colorful, fresh produce made me ambivalent about buying produce in a store on a good day. On bad days it made me feel downright resentful. Soon, I would tell myself. In a few more months, I’ll be able to get this stuff out of my own backyard. In the meantime, my obstinacy on this issue took its toll on my diet – and the snow and general low spirits took a toll on my exercise routine. By the time the weather started getting nice again this year I was feeling restless and impatient; sluggish and thick.

I started sticking seeds in the ground in early March – carrots, beets, spinach, peas – and I started planting flowers. I added compost and mulched. I laid down paths, a project that is still ongoing. I made teepee-shaped trellises out of bamboo stakes. By late March I had broccoli, brussels sprouts and cauliflower seedlings installed. I planted turnips and kale; strawberries and spinach transplants (my spinach seeds just did not take); onions and leeks. I harvested my first salad from the garden on April 16; my first strawberry on April 23rd.

I write this post at the beginning of May, and already I can feel a great sense of satisfaction opening up inside of me and swelling like a balloon. As yet it is only part hope and part expectation, but these things are underpinned with a few years of experience, and a lot of preparation and effort. I feel kind of – well – normal again. And perhaps that’s the biggest change of all, that over the course of the last year, what is “normal” for me has been redefined.

I do not have the ability that some people have to manipulate the physical world. Anything that I try to make with my hands inevitably falls short of my imagination, my plans, and my expectations. My garden is what I’m starting to think of as a “working garden.” It’s no showplace – but it’s the best I’ve been able to do so far – and it works.

Everyday Veggies

There are a few parts of the garden with a variety of things planted that I will be going out to harvest from time to time as I need them. They are primarily herbs, beets, lettuces, carrots, turnips, spinach and kale. These are the areas where I have the biggest problem with weeds, and things just don’t look, well, pretty. But there is food forthcoming, so I’ll just do my best.

Also in this category are cauliflower, brussels sprouts and broccoli. They’re all doing fine, and I’ve already been out plucking and smushing those little green caterpillars that can make lace out of green brassica leaves overnight.

Squash and Eggplants

I’m growing bush varieties of summer squash this year, Tromboncino and Golden Bush Scallop. I have Black Beauty and Listada de Gandia eggplants in some combination, or perhaps just one or the other. I had both varieties of seeds in the pot I started them in, and I’m not entirely sure what came up. I’ll know when it starts to fruit.

Growing Things Up – Peas, Cucumbers, Beans and Squash

“Up” is a big word around here these days. We recently saw the Pixar movie Up and it’s become a new family favorite. “Up” is also one of the first words my daughter was able to read, and now that she knows what it is, she is seeing and reading it everywhere (like in Upton Sinclair on the side of a book spine; or on the TV). For me, “up” is significant because it reflects an improvement in the orderliness of the garden.

Last year’s attempts at supporting growing plants left almost everything to be desired. Everything – tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet potatoes, melons – sprawled. This year I’ve put a little thought into it, and with the help of a willing husband wielding a drill, we have fashioned some trellises that I hope will do the trick.

The trellis closest to the bottom of the picture where my peas are. You can’t see them behind the leeks and onions. I would like to have one nice big Ziploc bag full of peas in the freezer by the time they’re done for the season. I have no idea if I have enough planted for that. My daughter and I like to have a handful from time to time, and I’ve been known to throw them into a batch of homemade Mac and cheese. My husband won’t eat them, so the one bag should do us for quite some time.

The next trellis back is the cucumbers, started indoors this winter, and they seem to have survived the transplant. I suspect they’ll have no problem climbing, with a little guidance and occasional redirection. I made some pickles with vinegar last year, but I’d like to try the lacto-fermentation method this year. Once they start coming in, I’ll be eating cucumbers for lunches and snacks.

The next two trellises back are where asparagus beans and scarlet runner beans will soon be growing. The seeds were poked into the ground on 30 April. One of my goals for this year’s garden, and a new goal for me, is to get some beans dried for storage for use through the year.

In between all these trellises I have planted a few varieties of bush beans (Jade and White Runner).

Also being trellised this year (back left of the photo below) are Winter Squash and Delicata squash. I believe it can be done to trellis them, but it will require a little more effort and attention to make sure that the growing fruit is supported in slings.

Because they promise to be so tall, I’m also going to throw the corn (organic Shoepeg) and Quinoa into this category. Both are firsts for us this year. My husband insists on the corn (I can take or leave corn – although I’m sure I’ll change my tune on that as soon as I taste my first freshly-picked ear). And the Quinoa I’m growing primarily because I want to see if it can possibly be as beautiful and as colorful as the picture of it looks on the seed-packet. Also growing up – Amaranth. I saw this in someone’s garden and it was an enormously tall and burgeoning intensely purple plant. That’s for pure entertainment value.

Tomatoes and Peppers

We are devoting a lot of space this year to tomatoes and peppers. Last year was my first foray into canning anything, and I did not put away anywhere near enough. I also successfully made BBQ sauce last year that I would like to have a dozen or so jars of by the end of the summer this year. And of course, and this is where the peppers start to come in, fresh salsa. At the end of the summer last year I used my last green tomatoes to make a green tomato and pepper relish that was good, but that I have some ideas for improving upon this year. And of course there’s the coming joy of just walking out there to pick tomatoes and peppers that will be eaten fresh for dinner.

The heirloom tomatoes are Italian Sweet Beefsteak, Brandywine, Beauty, Rose de Berne, Box Car Willie and Arkansas Traveller, and I am not familiar with any of them. I look forward to seeing how they turn out!

Most of the tomatoes I did myself from seed are on the other side of the center path, and I still have space for three more, which I will pick up this weekend from a local garden store. They are either Long Keeper, or Roma, or some combination of the two; I had the two different seeds in the same little pot so I’m not one hundred percent sure what came up.

I have 10 pepper plants this year: Orange Mandarin, Italian Yellow Bell, Sweet Banana, Anaheim, Chili de Arbol, Carmen, three Jalapeños, and one mystery pepper to be named later. Reason: I bought a mix of hot pepper seeds and managed to get one to grow into a nice looking little plant, but I have no idea what kind of pepper it is. But we love peppers around here, and we had such wonderful luck with our jalapeño plant last year, and we loved the Carmen, Anaheim and Serrano from The Tasteful Garden, so we decided to up our pepper production this year. And this year I won’t kill them off early by trying to transplant them into pots and bringing them inside.

Fruit

Adding some varieties of fruits was one of my priorities for this year’s garden, and we seem to be getting off to a good start.

I’m doing a strawberry bed this year. I also fulfilled a dream from the past year and got some blackberry and blueberry bushes in early this spring. I’m loving the blackberry bushes, partly because they bring back fond childhood memories, and I love blackberries, and partly because they look – and grow – like weeds, and if there’s one thing that we can grow around here, it’s weeds.

I also have a lot of melons set out this year, started inside from seed, four watermelon plants and five muskmelon plants. That ought to keep us in melons.

Potatoes

Last year was my first year growing my own potatoes, and boy did it ruin me for the store-bought version. I have about 40 potato plants coming up right now – Russian Banana Fingerling, Red Caribe, and Yukon Gold. I hope to get through the winter with potatoes. I did not plant any eggplants with the potatoes as a trap crop for the beetles this year, as I had thought that I might.

I am still working on getting my sweet potatoes in. I’m planting slips from last year’s crop, and I ordered some white yam slips of which unfortunately only a few look like they’re going to survive. I think I put them in to early, though it was later than last year…I’ll probably re-order and replant. I have plenty of time.

And Also in the Garden – Growing Up – the Kid

In addition to laying down paths in the garden this year, through which my daughter is now negotiating her way like a pro, we also set aside for her a special garden place of her own. This is a mom-free zone; the place where she can do, or plant, or pick or pull up, or dig or compact or mulch any doggone thing she likes. She’s got her own set of garden tools this year, and has already returned to her favorite hobby – picking the flowers. “Mom, are there that many?” Which is to say, Can I start picking with abandon? The garden is also super cool to her because of the straw. I can’t think how many “straw houses” she’s built in the last year.

The garden is our thing – an interest and an activity that we do together, and I love that. It’s a safe place for deep and difficult conversations – her fourth birthday has arrived with what seems to me to be an overly precocious consciousness of her own – and everyone else’s – inevitable mortality. It’s a place of play and a place to learn responsibility. How heartening it is to see her not stepping on plants this year; to start to open my mouth to remind her, only to become aware that she is already conscious of her footsteps and that there’s nothing to “remind” her of.

Remember that rye we put in this past October that was going to get tilled under? Well, we never quite got around to that. And while we were forgetting about it, our daughter was being a snake in the tall grass; she was being Rajah from Disney’s Aladdin; Kevin the giant bird from Pixar’s Up. She was making nests. She’s run in and out of and through it and to her great delight it’s grown up over her head. It’s going to have to come out eventually. I’m still dead against harvesting and eating it. But my husband is thinking about using it for an experimental batch of bio-diesel. And in the meantime, it’s the greatest playground that a kid could have.

I never thought it would be possible for me to be excited about a community garden. Planting a seed and watching it grow had never been high on my list. I was always looking forward to the next thing, never wanted to wait for anything. (Never my mind on where I was, what I was doing.) The theme of this year has been patience, however, and I've suddenly found that the time it takes for a seed to sprout and become viable feels much shorter than it did in my misspent youth.

I think part of my problem has been my perceived black thumb. Mountain Woman and I have things in common – not the least of which is, how did she say it? “There are those of us who know everything we touch turns brown. ... I walk into a nursery and plants shrivel as soon as I glance their way.” There was at least one incident in grade school with a plant in a Dixie cup, and probably another with a potato or an avocado seed.

And then there was the fuchsia. I still mourn the fuchsia just a little. I was living with my grandmother during graduate school, and the sweet guys I was working for part-time bought me the most gorgeous fuchsia for Secretary's Day (we still called it that back then). They knew me well enough not to hand me a bouquet of posies, but ... instead they picked out a touchy plant to give me. Lucky for the fuchsia, my grandmother took charge of it. I swear that plant had a more detailed social calendar than any human: a light misting first thing in the morning in the breakfast nook, then tea on the porch from 10 to 11:30, then back inside for cooler indirect sunlight during the midday heat – you get the idea. I swear it survived for years in a hanging basket in our living room. Then Grandma went into the hospital for about 10 days, and it was about day 6 before I remembered the fuchsia. It was brown and dead by the time I got to it. My fate as a black thumb seemed sealed.

 But somehow when the call went out to help with the Ogden Garden I thought maybe I could help. I started thinking about the gardens I remember helping with as a child.

Picking and shelling peas (mmmm, fresh peas), pulling weeds, snapping beans. I felt like I spent hours and hours snapping beans – but how I'd love to sit still for an evening of conversation and snap beans now. (I know, Mom, all I did then was complain.) I remember how beautiful the dill was, the feathers of the asparagus late in the season. Rhubarb with the dirt still on. These images called to me.

Plus, what a great opportunity, some of the people who work here are well-known for their gardening abilities (Cheryl Long, editor in chief of MOTHER EARTH NEWS, for example) – they’ll protect the plants from me, right?

The photos in this post show our progress to date. Cheryl helped me plant sunflower starts (it was crazy how worried I was about those plants). We started with the grass next to the sign out front. We removed the grass, laid out our paths, added compost, tilled the compost in, and have finally started planting. (I have a new appreciation for anyone who handles sod.) The Kansas wind is taking its toll on our first baby plants, but I'll keep you posted on how they do.

Hey folks! Glad you could come back and sit a spell. I always enjoy seeing you. I've been busy this last week with spring projects. Things are starting to bloom around the Urban Ranch. I planted tulip, daffodil, and crocus last fall and they certainly have not disappointed me. I'm not sure what the official name for these tulips are but I call them "Tulips of fire." They are absolutely the best tulips that I have ever had on the ranch.

The daffodils certainly were in competition with the tulips. I had a double row of about 60 or 70 of these guys. Their bloom cycle is winding down and I actually dead headed their little shriveled blooms today. They did put on quite the display for the neighborhood for a couple weeks. I want to interplant day lilies in this flower bed to keep the area alive as the daffodils die down in early summer.

Hey how did that picture get in there? Oh well that's just my grandson jamming on the mandolin. He doesn't know how to do much other than make noise now, but who knows maybe someday. He sure got the hang of holding and strumming the strings quick.

Here's one of those summer projects that I am working on. I finally got ambitious this week and got started. It's a 1200 gallon horse tank that I want to use as a gravity feed watering system for my raised garden beds. It seems that I'm gone a lot for a week or ten days at a time and to keep the garden alive I need to have a watering system in place.

The first thing that has to happen is of course the foundation to set the tank on. When digging in any urban ranch backyard one never knows what can be unearthed. Here you see a big chunk of concrete that apparently was used for something at one time or another and just buried in the backyard to get rid of it. Nice!!

There's another hazard when digging in the urban backyard. One must be careful to clearly determine what exactly has been found before chopping it out. Buried utilities run through yards without a whole lot of logic. One day while working on another project last year I chopped through what I thought was root and suddenly my cable TV didn't work any more. So now I'm very cautious about digging in the yard. Anyway this is clearly a tree root, and I got the axe and made short order of the pesky thing.

The next thing after the digging the trench is to pack the dirt as solid as possible. I use an 8-inch square tamper that weighs about 8 or 10 pounds.

Next comes what I call setting the anchor block. Every thing has to be straight and level off the anchor block. This is the most important block of the foundation.

The block has to be level both on the length of the block and on the width of the block. This first level of the foundation is the most time consuming of the entire project. If this level is not done right the whole project will turn out wrong. Especially since water will be in the tank and we all know that water will seek out a level surface.

There's the first four blocks of what I think will be three high. This process took about three hours with the root chopping and clearing the buried treasures that I found and about three aspirin. There was even a golf ball about a foot and a half down in the dirt. You got me how it got there. I don't even golf. It's a pretty good start for the first day.

I just rolled the tank up on the blocks to see how it was coming along. Only the front four blocks are finished. I still have to circle the entire rim of the tank with a block base. The center part will be filled with packed down dirt to support the tons of water in the tank.

Well that's about it for this week. Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful week. Oh wait one last thing.

I finished my PCV pipe and trash bag hot cap. It turned out pretty good. I know there are way more inexpensive ways to hot cap tomatoes, but when I get an idea in my head I just got to try it out. Of course there's always time to take a break and drink coffee and think about the next project for the living poor man's patio. Well it's not quite so living right now, but it will be.

See ya next time and leave a comment. I do love to hear about what you think.

Hey, I'm so glad to see you're back again. I made it back from my trek across Central America and if you really want to read about it, you can go to my personal blog.

It's time to grab a cup of coffee sit back and let me take you on a tour of the Urban Backyard Garden Bio-intensive Vertical Raised Bed Growing Experiment. These pictures were all last fall when the warm weather of November was wafting across the land, and life was good. It did abruptly end when the subzero weather of December hit. Ah but that's just a story to tell the Grandkids about some day.

So here's my Urban ranch. Over on the left you can see Old Syc the Sycamore tree. He's kind of the nuisance of the neighbor hood. He has big hand sized leaves that dribble off all fall and Winter. Because of the big leaves the slightest breeze will blow them all over the neighborhood which is good for me but everyone knows where they came from ‘cause old Syc is the only Sycamore tree for miles around. On the right with only one branch showing is Elmer the Elm Tree. He's always very nice and quiet and at the mention of frost he does a total leaf drop overnight. The Cedar Tree by the car goes by the name of CC short for Cecelia. She's been trying to take over the drive way for years and I've had to keep her in check with an annual shearing. Let's walk over to the left passed old Syc to the West side of the house. Watch your step now those leaves are a little slippery and lawn has some hidden holes.

There you can see the Iris are just about done for this year. There's a good look at my wonderful rabbit sieve chain link fence. I just can't believe that they can get through that fence without even breaking stride. On the left is my neighbor's bush that blooms positively magnificent in the spring. Way in the back you will notice the neighbor's wild Mulberry trees trying to climb over my fence and invade my yard. A branch lopping session every Spring keeps them in check. Mulberry trees grow just about where ever a bird poops in Nebraska. That's about it for here, so let's open the gate and walk around the corner and go into the back yard.

Here we have a view of the back sliding door steps. The left front we have what used to be a bird feeder pole but now only holds a rain gauge. A little farther down you will notice the patio which has become the staging area for all the projects in progress. On the right are the full sized Hostas. Way in the back by the fence is a bush of some sort that has the most glorious white little flowers with a wonderfull aroma in the spring. To the left of that is the beginning of the raised bed growing experiment area. On the right is a big 8-foot horse tank that will become a water feature someday. Oh yeah, and up the hill on the left by the fence is the composting area.

Here's a little closer look at the expansion of the raised beds. The one on the right will be entirely Yukon Gold potatoes this year. I love potatoes and eat them almost every day.

I enjoyed the warm November weather and getting the beds hammered together. This bed that I'm working on will be the tomatoes and cucumbers. I took a neighborhood poll and discovered that most everyone liked tomatoes and cucumbers. The support will be the vertical part of the growing experiment.

All right it's time to get everything squared up so the braces can be screwed on the support structure. One cordless screw driver (the best thing ever invented), a few screws, and 2-by-2s cut to dimension and by golly it ends up being a solid structure. Well, pretty solid. Would you believe a little bit solid? The next one I think I'll use 2-by-4s and maybe try to make it portable.

So here's the end product for this year. The bed over on the far left will contain the bell pepper plants and onions. Onions are one of my main ingredients in all that I cook. I think I see a lot of salsa on the horizon this fall. I can always find a community mission kitchen that loves to receive fresh vegetables when I can't give any more away and get tired of canning.

There you have it, the Urban Backyard Garden Bio-intensive Vertical Raised Bed Growing Experiment in the nut shell. It's definitely a work in progress and will get expanded again next year. I hope you all enjoyed your tour. See ya all next time, and be sure to leave a comment about what you think.

After a long week at work I was ready to get out and join Pan Saturday morning for some garden work. The weather looked to be promising and we had days ago decided to give up on the old adage about waiting till after Good Friday to plant or whatever that colloquialism is.

We started out with a trip to the Plant Emporium in Griffin, Georgia. Not too much there as they haven't fully recovered from the winter and prepared for the spring. Further down the road though we fell into the arms of our bittersweet lover, Lowe's. While we aren't a huge fan of box stores or giving our money to large, corporate entities who hire folks poorly versed in horticulture and gardening, we were growing desperate watching the sun beat down on our Buggy Town.

A little over $100 later we emerged with seed packets galore (based on our garden plot, of course) including crookneck squash, butter beans, pole beans, lettuce, beets, and onions, 8 tomato sprouts, 6 different herbs as well as herb seeds (for a nice, thick, rotating harvest), some organic plant food, a little topsoil for the herb garden and an odd or end or two.

After arriving home we realized it was almost 12pm and we hadn't done much of anything. Pan quickly made a plan of attack and we headed for the herb boxes. Now, I am a huge fan of Black Kow so we emptied our two bags of the soil into the newest bed and arranged our newly purchased herbs into what we knew would become a staple of our dinner planning routine.

Pan laid out the thyme, greek oregano, parsley, lavender, basil and other assorted tinctures. We dug our holes, put them in, salted them down with plant food, and stood back for a second to admire the box.

We then moved on to our raised beds where we took stock of the onions that were already growing rapidly. At almost 4 inches tall each they had certainly become a reminder of what we enjoyed so much last year and were anticipating this year.

I had bought a few annuals earlier in the morning as well so I could build a sort of "garden gate" for any deer or dogs that may want to take a turn at our onions and peppers. After I fished them each out of their little square packaging and laid them in I have to admit they looked rather pitiful, and I began to doubt they would do little more than blossom and die. I guess I now kind of view them as the meteors of our garden – pretty to see but quick to burn out. Oh well. At 94 cents for a 6-pack I hadn't lost much on my $4 investment.

By 3 pm the temp had risen to a warm 71 degrees and we weren’t even half done. We had 10 empty 5-gallon buckets and as many tomato plants staring at us from across the yard. Although we are cultivating some tomato seeds we did decided to get 3 plants each of varying stages (and an odd one) so we would have a better rotating harvest. We'll see how that works out

One thing I am a stickler of is our reuse of materials. I hate buying things when we have objects around the house/yard that can be used. For a few weeks now we have been scavenging and cleaning/sanitizing 5-gallon buckets for use as planters. I knew I wanted to try planting all the tomatoes in planters this year rather than a bed. To achieve our desired effect we filled the bucket with our sifted soil and drilled four drainage holes in the 'four corners' of each bucket about two inches from the bottom. No sense in rotting the roots of perfectly good plants. We then dug our holes, plugged them with beautiful tomato trunks and strengthened them with stakes made from bamboo harvested off the side of Highway 36. (It's our tax dollars, right?) They came out quite nice.

It was at this point that I asked Pan if we could take a break. We had already missed lunch, and with my neck turning even more red than it was naturally (by heritage, of course) I had to enjoy a cool one. Afterall, it was Saturday!

(…stay tuned for our 3rd part to this seemingly endless Saturday. We still have the main garden to go!)

Spring is here, and as the seasons go, it doesn’t get much better than this. This particular season has been very exciting for my fiancé and me, as we have a couple of new spring projects that have commanded our attention on top of trying to plan a December wedding.

First and foremost – at least in prioritizing our obligation and energy – we’ll be getting chickens here in a week or two. It’ll be the first time we’ve kept chickens together, and after some painless and even fun convincing, my future wife is onboard with the project.

The key was getting our little coop and run set up; after she saw the nifty GardenEggs.com Little Egg Chicken Tractor, she was excited about the prospect of keeping chickens, and even wanted to raise them from day-old chicks so that we wouldn’t miss out on that part of the process. I think I picked a good one.

Once the basic construction was finished – a perfect 2-hour Saturday project, I might add, for me and a buddy with the grill going and a cold beverage – it was time to paint the coop for waterproofing reasons.

The Little Egg really is a thing of beauty. I had friends come over – they all thought I was crazy talking about raising chickens, one even asking, “Where does it stop, Caleb? Pigs are filthy creatures. I don’t want to live by pigs.” Just keep your dirty mitts off my eggs, Ryan. – who suddenly realized it wasn't so crazy, and this thing is perfect for an urban backyard. Enter for free and win one, as part of our May/June 2010 issue’s GRIT Gear Sweepstakes. Or you can buy the plans for $16 to make one yourself at GardenEggs.com.

I knew right away as we entered the hardware store after construction that she had elaborate plans well beyond my idea of a couple of coats of basic blue/grey paint. We’d talked a little about it. As I was picking out good paint for said coats, she wandered over to the isle where all the small brushes and bottles of red, blue, yellow, and green bottles of paint were.

Heading home, her knowing how to get my goat a little bit, she started talking of flowers and peace signs adorning our coop. Nothing against flowers and peace signs, they have their place and it’s all well and good, but that place is not on my chicken coop or any other piece of property for that matter; it’s just not my taste.

The feathers she drew around the bottom of the coop, and the mother hen and chicks walking along one side, amusingly brighten the coop (I'll provide a photo of the mother hen and chicks asap). I adore it.

Now, all that’s left is to come up with something clever to write on the door that shuts the coop off from the run. I suggested, “Girls Only,” “Beware of Dog,” and a couple others, but I don’t think my suggestions had that “that’s it” ring to them. We’ll see.

The other project was putting in our first garden. I’ve gardened for most of my life, but this was the first time I’ve started one from scratch, digging up the sod by hand and working the soil into what I thought was good enough shape to plant into; it’s the first time I could say any garden was truly mine. Hopefully, this will be the final year my lady and I rent, so next time I install a garden I hope it's permanent, and out where the pavement ends.

I did it all by hand, not for any reason other than I didn’t want to spend the $40 to rent a tiller for 2 hours just to till up such a small area (about 10 feet by 5 feet). As I worked the soil and the sweat accumulated in my hat, I couldn’t help but think of my great-grandfather doing this on a much larger scale by hand. A mule and plow may have been used for the big fields, but on some homesteads, a husband and wife surely worked a little garden into shape just to feed a few hungry mouths. Cool to think about and relate to, and I think I’ll probably take more pride out of what does come up – if anything – just knowing the work that went into it.

I went pretty small with the garden only because I’m not positively sure how much room I’ll need for our two laying hens to scratch around the yard. Giving a good quality of life to the animals, obviously, takes priority.

It took me a few hours, but after digging the sod out and hoeing up the soil to where it was fairly fine, I planted corn, tomatoes, onions, and one row of lettuce, with room for another in succession after a couple weeks. We'll also grow some basil and possibly a couple of other things in containers.

Both projects are a learning experience. I know I’ll have to make adjustments, and there’s still more work to be done – predators are my current big worry – but I’ll figure it out. If something happens, I’ll have to deal with it, make adjustments, and roll on. We’ll learn, and that’s always exciting. Also exciting is the thought of catching a mess of fish this summer, coming home and filleting them, and frying them with our own sweet corn and lettuce to go with it. Or making an omelet with ingredients entirely out of our garden; our first fully self-provided meal.

So my question to all of you – what is a clever line for the outside of the coop door? Any one-liner comedians out there much more clever than I?

... one seed at a time!

HAHAHAHAHAHAH. Sometimes I even make myself laugh. How to plant a garden is a DIY that is explored in newspapers, magazines and on blogs year after year after year. I have realized that there is no tried and true way of planting a garden. Sure you need good soil, you need a bit of compost, you need seeds, you need a water source and few other things. You especially need desire and ambition. But what you DON'T need is a set of directions composed by anyone other than yourself.

As Pan and I looked over the garden this past week we compared our space with our garden plan and a few extra seeds we had gotten courtesy of Tina Wilson from Small Town Living. I remember thinking early Saturday morning as the sun was already overhead and the temperature was climbing as the Action 2 weatherman said it would, "How can anyone really tell me how to plant a garden; especially this garden. No one else has walked this part of Earth. They haven't touched this dirt. This year we're just going to do what feels right to us." And so we did.

Earlier in the week I came home to see a garden plot of the freshest, darkest, most beautiful soil I had seen in a long time. Pan had spent the whole day literally sifting the dirt we hauled home from the county landfill. Now this dirt was dumped already being beautifully composted, rich soil. But it comes with some trash and a lot of sticks and rubble. But for Pan 504 square feet of junky looking garden was not her idea of a good start. So she literally used hardware cloth to sift the dirt and leave behind nothing more than the freshest, most clean topsoil we could ask for.

Even now as I sit here writing her efforts amaze me. I could absolutely take a lesson in her dedication and her ambition. But back to Saturday ... (keep reading for the rest of our garden story).

Our first garden was an afterthought.

A few years ago the state of the economy – banks crashing, corporations folding and 401K values plummeting – had us more than a little concerned. That coupled with the possibility of continued unseasonable and unpredictable weather started us on a program of home emergency preparedness. We already owned a wood burning stove, though we’d taken it out when our daughter started toddling, and space issues had kept us from ever putting it back in the house (now we own two, and one of them IS in the house). Still, in the spring of 2008 we bought a couple cords of wood. If we needed it, we could always drag the stove back into the house, and if we had to do that, we’d have plenty of fuel for it. Recalling our four days without power after hurricane Isabel, we invested in a generator. After a number of devastating storms beginning with Katrina, FEMA and The Red Cross were advising people to have anywhere from 3 days to 2 weeks of food on hand at home at all times. So we began to research what was involved in a long term food storage program. We began to stock our cellar with canned goods and water, with grains and beans in 5 gallon buckets. And then one day, in the midst of all the frenetic and uneasy hoarding, I was standing in my cellar, looking at my number ten cans full of freeze-dried food, and I realized that we were going about this all wrong.

Real abundance lies not in accumulation but in replenishment.

So near the end of June in 2008, pretty much as an afterthought, I planted a small garden.

2008 – The Panic Garden

Using a shovel, I turned over a small rectangle of grass, about 80 square feet, right in the sunny middle of our back yard. I got four tomato plants from a big box store that I thought were Roma tomatoes but which turned out to be something more like oval-shaped cherry tomatoes. They grew to be only about thigh high, and produced pretty well all summer. I had an eggplant. It didn’t make it, of course. I have always had trouble growing eggplants. I had a Black Beauty zucchini from which I harvested a few baseball bat sized fruits before the vine borers got it. I had a small melon patch that produced quite well, and a few pumpkin plants that never got off the ground. I grew a gigantic and gangly okra plant that I could not keep up with harvesting. And that was pretty much it.

No planning went into this garden. No amendments went into the soil. I put some decorative fencing around it to keep the dogs out, and added rabbit guard to that the morning I went out there and caught the rabbits helping themselves to the buffet. I saw a few snakes come and go. That’s the first year we ever saw snakes in our yard. Was it the newly-installed woodpile? The new garden? Climate change? Who knows?

We harvested and ate what was there, and let the weeds grow wild. It was far from beautiful, but it was successful enough to be encouraging. We could do better. We could do more.

So I dug up another 80 square feet or so late that summer and planted a fall garden. It was a little more orderly. A little less crowded. A little less weedy. I had my first amazing taste of freshly picked broccoli and was in love. My cabbages didn’t make it and neither did my cauliflower, but I was harvesting and eating kale well into December.

I was inspired. I was ready to get serious.

That winter I was flipping through a Mother Earth News magazine and saw an advertisement for heirloom tomato plants that was irresistible to me. I ordered them, along with a variety of peppers. I got online and had a few seed catalogs sent to the house. I started making plans.

2009 – The Production Garden

In the spring of 2009, as soon as the weather permitted, I dug up a new garden spot – almost 800 square feet to work with – still with a shovel. I surrounded it with rabbit guard, and set objectives:

1. To produce more food than I had the year before; ideally so much that I was forced to freeze, can or dehydrate food to preserve it.

2. To not make the same mistakes I made the year before – namely overcrowding and weeds.

I planned to grow only things that I felt I had a reasonable assurance would do well, based on my past garden experiences, and the research that I had done over the winter. My plan was for beets, turnips, Daikon radish, banana fingerling potatoes, sweet potatoes, cucumbers, zucchini and yellow squash, green beans, tomatoes, peppers and eggplant.

Because over-planting (along with failure to thin) had been a big problem for me the year before, I wanted to make sure that all of my plants had enough space. So I decided to plant in a grid pattern, dividing my space into 3-foot-by-3-foot squares, with the goal of having one strong, healthy and heavily-producing plant on a mound in the center of each square; the exception being a few things like the Daikon, turnip and beets, which I knew could be a little closer together, and which ended up being anywhere from 6 to 12 plants per mound.

I had done some reading in the winter about companion planting, and decided to plant marigolds throughout the garden to attract beneficial insects.

I didn’t plant anything until about mid-April, which seems really late to me now. The first thing to go in were about a dozen Marigolds, followed by the beet, turnip and Daikon seeds, and the seed potatoes. A few days later – on an enthusiastic whim – I started some seeds inside. This was a low-tech affair, using the lights from the AeroGarden that I had gotten for Christmas that year. I learned that seeds will actually sprout if you plant them. I learned how they look rising up out of the soil. I learned the difference between first leaves and true leaves. I learned why sprouts get “leggy” and what that looks like.

I also learned to believe in miracles when a seedling pot that I tossed out the back door as a failure was found weeks later with a strong, sturdy zucchini seedling in it.

In a fit of impatience and anxiety I dug one of my seed potatoes back up to see if it was sprouting and what that looked like; then, reassured, I buried it again. I found a place to buy straw and took my first foray into mulching. I learned that eggplants and sweet potatoes bloom. Who knew? I learned to recognize a few common garden pests. By the time I hit mid-June in 2009, the point at which I’d been hastily planting the year before, a productive garden was well on its way.

And produce it did.

I bought and learned how to use a hot water bath canner. I made BBQ sauce, spaghetti sauce, stewed tomatoes, salsa, pickles and relish. By late August I was exhausted. Summer was largely over. I had lost my tomato plants prematurely due to drought. There were still sweet potatoes in the ground, and we were still harvesting peppers. I pulled up the yellow squash plants. The bush beans were spent, the nasturtium was gone, and even a few of the marigolds seemed to be heaving their last breath; victims, I suspect, of a combination of weeds, sweet potato vines, and a few very heavy late summer rains pounding the heck out of them. I was already starting to tend a fall garden – a brand new 800 square feet that we did this time with a tiller, and I’d mixed manure compost and humus into the soil where the root veggies would go.

2009 was characterized not only by the encouragement of success, but also by anxiety over empty ground, by a longing for the lushness of green, by self doubt and insecurity over the newness of it all and the hugeness of the project that I had set for myself.

But it turned out okay. And I begin the 2010 garden with a little more confidence than I had the year before; with a little more faith in the unfamiliar and in what I cannot see.

2010 – An Imperfect Peace

This year is my first experience of a garden having grown first in my mind.

This is partly a function of experience. In 2008 I did not know how a cantaloupe came to be on the vine. I did not know that my little okra seedling would grow like a weed until it towered over me on a stalk so thick and tough that I almost never got it out of there in the fall. In 2008 I had still never witnessed the elegant and sturdy beauty with which a cucurbit unfolds itself from its seed and rises towards the light. I had not yet slaughtered hundreds of beautiful insects because when it came to some particular pieces of food – well – it was them or me.

This year I have a good idea of what to expect; of how much space things will take up; of how much of a challenge any particular crop might be, and I kind of understand the character of those challenges. And among other challenges that I am prepared to meet this year, is that of gardening with a small and eager, stubborn and independent child.

In his essay, “The Garden Tour,” Michael Pollan tells us that “in a path is the beginning of a narrative, that sure and welcoming sign of human presence,” and I guess I probably shared the opening lines of our garden path story with you this past fall. With a small child in the garden, paths are a necessity. You just cannot be too clear about where a little one ought to be stepping and where she should not, and while her imagination is burgeoning and supple, what my daughter imagines is there in front of her in this very moment, and she reacts accordingly. There is little room in her reality – indeed there is little reality for her – in what else might come to be in the place where she sets her foot. For her the garden is now, while for me the garden is what I have learned from the past two years. It is both now, and later – March and June and September – it is already and simultaneously latency, growth and harvest.

But this year’s garden is also raising the stakes in a slightly metaphysical direction. Because this year, in addition to providing us with food, I also envision our garden as a place to be; a place where we will spend time not only on working to maintain it, on coaxing and on harvest, but on appreciation of it; a place to be reminded of all for which we are thankful; a place to meditate; a place for spiritual resuscitation; a place to go to be restored.

And so the paths that I am laying down this year are not only for my daughter.

I’ve used materials that we already had here on the property, and I’ve also hauled in square red stepping stones that my daughter chose herself. The paths are crooked. They buck and dip. But they are solid and they are obvious, and I can’t help but think that as things begin to grow and fill in, as we fill in spaces between the fruits and vegetables with masses of flowers – as I erect the arched trellis that I can’t seem to get out of my mind over one of those paths – that these bare and crooked stones will be transformed beyond utility into lovely surprises. I can’t help but think that what at the moment seems bare and ugly will at some point this summer strike me as beautiful, and that it will take on a life of its own.

The paths are also a gesture of permanency. We will have a garden. Not only this year but next year, and the next and the year after that. We will use the same spaces. This time next year we will not be digging and transforming; this time next year our garden will already have bones. This year we are less anxious; our intentions are less immediate. We are planting strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, most of whose fruits we may not see this year at all. And we are painstakingly putting in paths which were not in the garden that I designed on paper this winter.

That garden – still under the influence of production – was designed for yield and for storage. But as I laid down my first stone a few weeks ago I realized that maps and plans have given way to whimsy. Production has given way to a sense of plenty and an ability to find peace in the garden’s imperfection. And potential has already, this early in the spring, given way to actual joy.

I fall for it every year. We get a series of days in the upper 50s, and I start daydreaming of spring. I imagine the smell of the rain-soaked earth and the feel of moist soil on my jeans as I kneel down to prepare the garden beds that will provide so much abundance. The veggie seeds are in their packets just waiting to be planted.

I know, I know, it’s inevitable that we’ll have ice or snow again before the gardening season begins, but it’s still nice to dream. Along with dreaming comes the creation of the annual “Spring To-Do List.” Do you have a list? What types of things are on it? Here’s mine:

• Rake up the leaves/yard debris leftover from fall
• Take the mulch off the Strawberry and Asparagus beds and add to the compost bin
• Top-dress the garden beds with a layer of compost
• Start tomato plants to plant early using the wall-o-waters
• Jay to build a Chicken Tractor (this is MUCH anticipated)
• Dig new flower bed for chicken coop

• Create walkway to chicken coop
• Power wash and paint the house
• Build flower boxes for barn, shop and chicken coop
• Install gutters on chicken coop and barn for rain barrel collection
• “Spring clean” the chicken coop – change the litter and wipe everything down
• Clean the bird feeders and prepare the hummingbird feeder
• Put up the clothesline
• Pull out the raised salad greens beds and fill with soil
• Finish installing the new kitchen lighting (before the summer sun heats up the attic)

I’m sure I’ll think of plenty additional projects to add before spring arrives. By the way, regarding the photos of the sunflowers above, the third photo was the last day of enjoyment I had with them. When I came home from work the next day some little critter left nothing but stems. Hope they were delightful!

In my mind, there are vast open spaces in my home. There is fresh color on the walls. The trim around the windows and doors is freshly, crisply white. Tabletops are uncluttered. DVDs are tucked carefully in their cases. Bookcases do not hang into doorways. I can swivel back in my desk chair without catching my chair wheel on the living room rug, or bumping my husband’s recliner with my elbow. Storage is hidden beneath the lean, clean lines of benches and built-ins. In my home-to-be I will not have to stoop ten times every day with wet toilet paper in my hand to scoop up the dog-hair dust bunnies. There will be more space, therefore those dust bunnies will be fewer and farther between, which means that I ought to be able to clean that much less often. Surely this will be the case. I will not trip over shoes, or dog leashes, or – for that matter – dogs. There will be a place for everything, and everything in its place.

It seems like I am constantly trying to solve some domestic problem; constantly looking for some small-space solution; which is why we finally had to opt for the ultimate small-space solution – to get more space. But lately the livable part of my home has been made that much smaller by this week’s back-to-back “near blizzard conditions.” And the as-yet-unlivable part of my home looks like this – which is to say, not livable anytime soon.

What to do? What to do?

It seems that we had the wettest fall ever. We’ve either been up to our ankles in mud outside or, like today, up to our thighs in snow, both of which make it that much harder to keep this small house clean. When you factor in the psychological pressure that comes with knowing that this addition is NOT going to be done this winter; that in all likelihood it won’t be done until spring; that finishing it will coincide with tilling up more yard and starting a huge garden and building a chicken coop … well, I’ll just come right out and say it. I am stressed. I am restless. I am bored. I’m also out of butter. But that’s neither here nor there.

What’s the best, most positive and productive thing that I can do while shut in the house with 6 other beings (two human, four canine) who are also restless and bored?

Here’s my top five countdown:

5. Sit at dining room table in family conference, reading from the book, Good Dogs, Bad Habits. Make some firm resolutions. Be still putting some of them into practice 48 hours later. Review. Recommit.

4. Make applesauce cake. I did this a few weeks ago and it was just yummy. Warm and spicy and moist, a definite keeper.

Applesauce Cake

1 ¾ cups white spelt flour (or whatever you have on hand)
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon cloves
½ teaspoon mace
¾ cup Really Raw Honey
2 tablespoons molasses
½ cup olive oil
1 egg
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
A handful of raisins, lightly coated in flour

Nothing fancy here. Blend all the wet ingredients. Add the dry ingredients. Don’t forget to put in the raisins, like I did; I had to pull the cake pan back out two minutes after I put it in to stir them in. Pour into a pie pan or a 9 inch round cake pan and bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes. It’s awesome warm or cool.

3. Order some seeds. I completed our 2010 garden plan a few weeks ago, have estimated my planting dates and my seed starting dates, and it’s time to order some seeds. I like Southern Exposure Seed Exchange (SASE) because most of what they have is adapted specifically to the region where I live. This year I’m going to do my flowers from seed too. They’ll be spread throughout the garden as companion plants for the veggies. I’m excited about it, even though the garden looks like this today.

Can you see the garden? Me neither. I think I can discern a sliver of rabbit guard somewhere in there…

2. Place an order with Wellness Meats. I love this web site. I love it that meat I can feel good about lands on my doorstep. Especially since there’s no way I’m going to be able to get out to a local farm this week. I wish that eggs would appear on my doorstep, too. It reminds me how great it’ll be when I have my own chickens.

1. Start some seeds. I have a lot of seeds on hand already after the past two years.

I have a time schedule for getting some of these seeds started, so this week I started the broccoli and the cauliflower. If the weather ever permits me to get my mail, I’ll be starting two varieties of cabbage and celeriac next.

I have to say that out of everything, starting the seeds made me feel the best. There’s a little bit of spring happening right here in my dining room, and that’s reassuring. It reminds me that winter doesn’t last forever.

It just feels like forever.

Gardens. We all love them, but there are some of us who don’t have a green thumb. We gaze at our neighbor’s gardens in wonder. “Why don’t you give it a try?” they say. We mumble something about killing everything we grow. Yes, there are those of us who know everything we touch turns brown and shrivels. But seed catalogs are arriving daily, magazines have fantastic “how to” articles and once again, you’re tempted to try growing your own produce but you don’t. “Not me. I just can’t,” you say. Well, that’s what I said too until last year and maybe, just maybe, if I share my story you’ll be encouraged to give that garden a try.

I don’t have a green thumb. I walk into a nursery and plants shrivel as soon as I glance their way. Vegetables? Forget it. That’s advanced gardening for sure. I resigned myself to shopping for produce at the grocery store. But Mountain Man changed my life. He’s a master gardener. Fresh asparagus in the spring, fresh vegetables all summer long, not to mention canned goods in the winter. Nothing can describe the taste of just picked produce. Oh, it was wonderful, and I learned what I’d been missing all those years. But Mountain Man was so competent and knowledgeable, I was intimidated and I gladly let him handle the garden. Until last year.

“Isn’t it time to start the seeds?” I asked Mountain Man

“I don’t have time this year, too many work commitments. We’ll just have to buy our produce.”

Produce from the store? No way. A few years of garden fresh vegetables had left me spoiled. I knew if we were going to have fresh vegetables than I’d just have to take care of the garden myself. But I didn’t want to tell Mountain Man my plans. He’d feel compelled to help, and he didn’t have time. I was on my own and scared.

I ordered organic seeds from a Vermont company, High Mowing Seeds. I decided to grow traditional tomatos, peppers, and cucumbers. But I also decided if I was going to be in charge of the garden, I was going to have pumpkins (I love Halloween) and giant sunflowers, too.

When the seeds arrived, I got to work potting and then waited for them to sprout. Day after day, I’d check for any sign of life convinced there would never be any. But sprout they did, and what a feeling, kind of like giving birth without the pain. I couldn’t keep my secret any longer. I ran yelling for Mountain Man, seedlings in tow.

“I have a surprise for you.”

“Better not be another dog,” Mountain Man said. (We have seven.)

Was he surprised and pleased. And he was proud of my efforts too. He helped me clear a place for my sunflower seeds.

And he brought me bucket loads of soil for my garden but after that it was up to me.

I prepared a spot for my pumpkins.

With my whippet supervising closely.

Before I knew it, my pumpkins were growing.

My tomatoes were thriving.

My peppers were coming along.

Even the cucumbers were cooperating.

Soon, I had actual tomatoes.

And pumpkins.

And my sunflowers were reaching towards the sky.

Best of all the bees, absent in the past couple of years, returned.

Oh, I made mistakes along the way. The most serious one was when I transplanted my tomatoes too soon, they went into shock, and I almost lost them. But I learned so much along the way. Like making manure tea with fresh droppings provided by my mare. I learned about garden pests and how to use organic methods to treat them. But the most important thing I learned is that I can garden. Maybe not an award-winning garden worthy of fame, but a garden that fed us all summer and into the fall with the most wonderful produce imaginable: my produce. And I’ve been so encouraged by the joy of working in the soil that I’m expanding my garden next year. Mountain Man has already cleared an additional spot.

I have visions of growing enough vegetables to donate my produce to the local food bank and help feed others.

And if a city girl with a reputation for killing plants can successfully grow a garden, then you can too. Don’t let another year pass by. Get out there and have some fun. You’ll be glad you tried.

“Everything old is new again.” That’s what the plaque my daughter gave me for Christmas read. She thought it fit me perfectly.

In order to live the sustainable life that I strive for, I’ve been finding out that everything old is new again, and it has been helping people lead a more enriching life. It is leading to people back to the land and to trying to be homesteaders again.

Not everyone can live in the country though and achieve homesteading to that degree. Some of us cannot afford to make the move or some of us just love living in the city. Believe it or not it’s not all bad living in the city. We love our neighbors, and the convenience just can’t be beat. That’s where the term urban homesteaders come in, which basically means that we are city dwellers who try to do as much for ourselves as possible in order to live a more sustainable life.

How to achieve this though, if you live on just a half acre like we do or an even a small city lot? A garden is a great way to start. It’s amazing how much you can grow on a small plot of land. In order to get as much from my garden as possible, I plant my seeds a lot closer than recommended, and I grow vertically as much as possible. I use techniques such as bean teepees and growing pole beans in the corn. We’ve recently expanded our garden space and this year we will be using even more of our backyard, putting it to good use growing food.

Of course, after the harvest you will need to know how to preserve the food by canning, freezing or drying. If you don’t know how to can, you can usually find a canning course at your local extension service or even at the library. Just imagine going to your pantry in January and eating green beans from your garden that you harvested in August. The taste is superior and you know where they came from and just how they were grown.

Remember though, there is nothing wrong with buying local if you can not grow it yourself – we love the Flint Farmers’ Market or going to the farm that’s close by us. For instance, last year after buying peaches from the store we came home and realized that they had been grown in China. It was at that moment that we decided to go to a peach orchard not too far from us and can our own.

Then start cooking your own meals. Get some cookbooks and begin trying out some recipes, believe me there will be some meals you choose not to make again, but after a while you’ll know what ingredients you like, and you’ll be able to know which recipe is good for you. Just so you don’t become too overwhelmed with making dinner everyday consider making a double batch of that lasagna, pizza, or casserole and freeze it for a busy day.

Raise some livestock, if your local government will allow it. Raising chickens on your lot is a great place to start, and you will have your own fresh eggs. If your city’s ordinances won’t allow raising chickens you might want to consider looking into how you can change the law, like I’m trying to do now.

The last city council meeting sounded positive. Of course there were a few chicken jokes cracked here and there, but overall I believe most of the questions were answered about raising backyard chickens, thanks to one of the council members. What types of questions were raised? One of the concerns was about the odor. To put that in perspective four to five chickens equal in the amount of waste to the average sized dog. Unlike cat and dog waste though, the great thing about chicken manure is that you can put it your compost, and it makes great fertilizer. The other question raised was about noise. There will be no roosters (you don’t need a rooster for eggs) and chickens only cluck when disturbed or they lay an egg.

A couple of days after the meeting a reporter from the Flint Journal called and asked some questions. We talked at length about the trend of keeping backyard chickens and my reasons for wanting them. I expected the article to be in the local Burton News, but believe it or not the article about the backyard chicken ordinance made the front page of Sunday edition of the Flint Journal, “Backyard chicken trend on the menu in Burton.” The reporter didn’t begin to cover everything I said, but overall, after I’ve gotten over the shock of my name being on the front page, I think it was a positive article.

Now just one more city council meeting to discuss regulations and if all goes well by the first of March we will be able to have chickens and then one more old thing will become new again. Not a bad thing to happen at all.

The past year has been rough for me and the eggplant. Here’s how it broke down.

In early April I’m out looking for a good gardening time, and I buy a fine looking specimen of Ichiban eggplant from a local box store. I know, I know, you don’t always meet the best quality plants in a big box store, but this plant was different. I mean, he was big. He was robust. He was gorgeous. We had chemistry. I put him in the garden, four feet away from anything else, because a fellow needs a little privacy. Still, there was trouble on the way. There were potatoes on the block. And his neighbor was a young Black Beauty zucchini, hatched out of an AeroGarden in my very own kitchen, the little traitor. She didn’t look like much when the two first became neighbors, but she grew. She burgeoned. And trust me when I tell you, she had tentacles. Sure enough, before too long, she and Ichiban get to talking.

In the meantime, I am so excited about how well my zucchini and cucumber seedlings turned out, that I decide to try something else. I study the photo on the front of a Hansel Eggplant seed packet. The fruit is trim and svelte. I can imagine myself setting him up in his own apartment, up on the deck, far from Ichiban, and visiting him on the side. Nothing serious, you understand. Just a fling. He promises to produce fruit that is sleek and manageable. So I sign the lease on the deck pot and start the seeds.

The first week of May, Hansel’s seeds begin to curl up out of the soil. They are delicate and lovely. With their arched necks, they look like swans. I think I’m falling in love with Hansel. I didn’t see this coming at all.

A few weeks later I thin the Hansel seedlings. It is truly painful. I hate to do it. I had 3 in one pot and 4 in the other, now they are 2 and 1. It was awful, but necessary. After all, this isn’t just a fling anymore. A relationship takes work and sacrifice. It must be nurtured. It’s important that both partner’s needs be met, and there’s just not enough space and soil in these little starter pots to go around. Things are better now. Still, I cannot fathom that these slim little numbers with their tiny true leaves are ever going to look as big and strong and impressive as Ichiban.

In June I watch with anticipation as Ichiban begins to set fruit. At first it’s just a purple nub, then a knob, and then it begins to swell and expand. It’s glossy and breathtaking. It seems to gain inches a day. I’m planning our future together. The ratatouille. The parmesan. The fritters. The rollatini. I’m ambitious. I’m optimistic.

But by the end of June, the little drama that began on an April afternoon in a big box garden center between Ichiban and I has entirely played itself out. The potato beetles have been munching on his leaves. His fruit has darkened. It’s scabby and pockmarked from bugs. It didn’t make it, and it seems unlikely that there will be a second chance. There’s no meal to plan. There isn’t even an appetizer.

Ichiban himself is looking worn down. He looks a tad bit weaker. He’s somewhat less imposing, less reassuring than he once was. No one else seems to notice. But I know. I can see what’s coming. After all, we’ve only been together for a few months – and there have been my occasional dalliances with Hansel – but for a few moments Ichiban and I were soul mates. For a time, at least, I knew him so well.

I transplant my Hansel seedlings out into slightly bigger pots on the deck. They all want my attention. They bicker. They fight amongst themselves. There is weather. Eventually one of them wins my favor as the others prove themselves to be less hardy. The others make themselves scarce and Hansel takes up permanent residence. We’re picking out basil leaves and casserole dishes. I can’t believe that I got over Ichiban. I never thought that I would ratatouille with anyone else. Hansel is slim and strong. His big hands are always splayed, soaking up the sun. It turns out that he’s also something of a showoff. By mid-August there is finally a nub, a knob, an elongation – and another, and another. He is virile and tireless. Ichiban and his single, turgid and ultimately ineffectual fruit no longer comes to mind.

I’m planning to spend Thanksgiving with Hansel. I’m planning our Christmas. Everything is perfect. Everything is bliss.

And then he catches my daughter’s eye. One glimpse of that luscious and ever-lengthening aubergine and she can’t keep her hands off of him. She’s cuter than I am, too. She has curly blond hair and an infectious laugh. She’s incurably optimistic. Hansel is smitten. He drops a fruit into her little hands. She brings it to me. She is happy. She is proud. I am heartbroken.

Still, I try to make the best of it. I take the small fruit into the kitchen and cut it open. Perhaps it will be edible. It’s greenish inside, but I cube it anyway. I put it in a casserole dish, drizzle it with olive oil, grind some sea salt over it, and roast it. When it comes out it looks right, but it’s bitter. Not edible. I throw it away, without too many hard feelings. After all, Hansel is prodigious. There’s enough of him to go around. There will be other fruits. Other opportunities.

But as it turns out, the other opportunities are not for me – they’re for my daughter. Hansel is dropping his immature fruit into her eager hands at the rate of about one a day. It seems like every time I turn my back, they are together.

I can’t blame her for it. I don’t fuss. I try to explain to her that relationships take time to mature, that despite the power of anticipation, despite the lure of his beauty, that Hansel is not yet ready – I am not yet ready and neither is she – for the requirements of the kitchen.

Still, the purple ovals are piling up on my kitchen windowsill where they refuse to ripen. Each one is slimmer and smaller and harder than the last. Eventually, I have to throw them all away.

As fall comes on, my daughter loses interest in him, and Hansel and I try to patch things up. I bring him inside and set him in a southern-facing window, and he sets another fruit, but I can tell he doesn’t mean it. Occasionally I can’t help myself and I stroke his slightly fuzzy leaves and think about the way we were, but he doesn’t engage with me the way that he once did. He spends all his time hanging out with the tomato cuttings and those ne’er-do-wells Jalapeño, Serrano, Carmen and Anaheim. They’re all getting limp and dropping leaves together and their fruits are shriveling.

And then there are aphids.

And that is that.

So there you have it. The whole and ugly truth. The whole romance. I won’t lie to you. I’m frustrated. I’m bitter. I want revenge.

I still have a few Hansel seeds laying around, and I’m going to sprout them this winter. Once they have their true leaves and a little bit of weight on them, when the weather breaks and the soil begins to warm, I’m going to harden them off and I’m going to usher them reverently out into the garden to live with my potatoes – as a trap crop for the inevitable Colorado Potato Beetles – because I’ve had it with Ichiban and Hansel both. I’m over them.

It’s a harsh plan and a ruthless one, but at bottom I can’t help but think that it is sound. In fact, I know it is. Potato beetles love eggplant leaves almost as much as they love potatoes. I’ve both read about it, and I’ve seen it with my own eyes. I mean, the rampant and smothering attentions of Black Beauty aside, look what the beetles did to Ichiban.

I can’t see myself ever in another serious relationship with an eggplant. The ones I’ve known are not as productive, as hardy or as versatile as the tomato. They lack the staying power of potatoes, the zest of the jalapeño. They’re fickle and flighty and temperamental and it takes all too little to turn their heads.

Still, this past week I was flipping through a seed catalog and I have to say that there were a few fellows that caught my eye. They were unusual colors. Flashy and exotic. I’ve got my eye right now on a packet of Applegreen seeds that look like they might be both fun and easy on the eyes. I had a recent fantasy about the egg-shaped globes on Listada De Gandia.

Nothing long term, you understand. I’m not planning any menus around them. I’m just saying a date. Maybe a fling. And once I’ve gone that far I suppose there is always the possibility – the slightest possibility – of a long, drawn out affair. We’ll see.

I mean, hey. A girl’s gotta live.

I want it big. I want it beautiful. I want it NOW! I am not by nature a competitive person, or particularly greedy or selfish, at least I like to think so. But I am already beyond impatient to have the garden of my dreams: voluptuous veggies that make your mouth water at first sight, luscious herbs whose aroma penetrates the entire room, exotic flowers whose beauty could make you weep. A magical place somewhere between my two favorite childhood books: The Secret Garden, and Where the Wild Things Are. Why is it those things you most desire take the longest to realize?

In the South it’s already time to order seeds and pre-plan the spring garden. We’re not even a year here yet, and at the beginning I promised I would cut myself some slack regarding my inevitable crop failures. I said I’d be happy with whatever I managed to get, I am laughably inexperienced, after all. I gaze at the neighbors’ perfectly manicured and vole-free, rabbit-proof garden plot producing an ample surplus of my own failures: winter squash and green beans galore, pecks of perfect peppers. They have all been gardeners for decades, obviously I cannot compare my own measly efforts to theirs, but of course, I do. They are happy to offer advice, but it’s hard sometimes to listen when you are so eager to just DO.

Handy hubby must realize to what degree I am in way over my head. For reasons I am not entirely sure, he seems enthusiastic to help me along. Is it his love for fresh veggies or for me that has him losing sleep over greenhouse designs and irrigation systems? Or maybe he is afraid the famous Southern expression might otherwise apply to us: When Momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy!

I would ask him, but what if by asking, he starts to question that himself, and that line of questioning then leads him to the realization he would rather spend the time, money and effort on his future workshop. So, I’ll quietly and quite gladly take whatever help I can get. Maybe I’ll even slow down this time, learn to ask more, and maybe even try again to listen to the voices of experience.

After a super busy holiday season (visit LeAnna’s Blog) for a glimpse of what we were up to), we’ve taken the sweet lull of January to reflect on the past year. Last year was the first time we ever made anything resembling resolutions. For us, it was a list of goals and dreams for the coming year, scrawled out on a steno pad and magneted, totally ignored, to our refrigerator.

While our actual goals were varied in nature, the essence of most of them was that we wanted to learn more old-fashioned skills and move toward a greater level of sustainability for our family. The good news is that even though we never checked back in with last year’s list, we actually achieved a fair number of our goals. While not everything we did was food related, it sure was a recurring theme. So here are some highlights from our year in food:

We baked all of our family’s bread.

We started making our own yogurt.

We learned to make mozzarella, ricotta cheese, and butter.

We made pizza from scratch (crust, sauce, and cheese).

We started making our own granola.

We turned half of our backyard into a garden and ate or canned the produce.

We canned tomato sauce, apple butter, pear caramel butter, huckleberries, wild blackberries, strawberry jam, marmalade, and peaches.

We made a lot of sundried tomatoes and pesto.

We froze gallons of wild blueberries.

We made really hokey apple wine.

We made our own marzipan from fresh almonds and marshmallows from scratch.

And we failed repeatedly at making an edible bagel.

Here’s a little collage of our yumminess:

Two pounds of yeast and a bunch of canning jars later, we’ve discovered that we had been duped into believing that the homemade lifestyle is far more difficult than it actually is. Rather, we found that it was not only enjoyable but empowering to take control of our family’s food, that the end-product was far better than its processed equivalents, and that spending time in the kitchen with our children was easily the highlight of the day.

You can expect more homemade updates in the future as we continue to expand our old-fashioned, made-from-scratch lifestyle. In the meantime, if any of you have a good cracker recipe, we’d sure be grateful if you’d share it!

Did you learn or try anything new this year? What are your goals for the coming year?

Because I have never been one to keep a good idea to myself... I wanted to share what my friend, Andrew Odom, recently wrote and the photos he took of the process.  Should you find yourself wanting to read more of Andrew's adventures in homesteading and simple living then please check out his site (I am a frequent visitor): www.anotherkindofdrew.com.   While there, be certain to check out his Photoshop tutorial on making custom canning labels! 

After reading about the $50 greenhouse, I quickly decided I needed to make one of my own. The summer season was winding down, and I knew I wasn't over my newly found lettuce addiction. I need to grow well into the autumn and even winter. Time for a simple hoop house.

Part of all my homestead construction is an element of recycling and reusing. In fact, I insist on it. So, I need to assess my materials quickly and start planning. I had about 195 square feet to work with in my garden. My budget, as my wife told me, was little more than $40. If I had bought everything I probably would not have topped $100. Luckily though, I only needed to purchase plastic and some PVC connectors. All said, I spent about $29.

After looking at two local greenhouses/hoop houses and a few online I opted to use 20 feet runs of 1-inch PVC pipe. They were affordable and – more importantly – readily available in town at the local hardware. I figured that if I needed to create joints or add structural support I could hacksaw the piping and use connectors to rejoin. (You will read later where I did, in fact, have to do this.)

NOTE: Getting the 20-foot PVC home took little more than patience, a couple of feet of string and a standard 6-foot truck bed. I just put the pipes in the back of the truck, tucked them behind the side mirror of the passenger side door, tied them at both ends and drove really slowly.

When I got the pipe home I began to layout the basic design. My garden spot already had “hitching posts” in the ground so I determined that I could bore out 1-inch holes in the wood and insert an end of the PVC to create the main skeleton of the house.

Once I saw the pipes spanning from post to post I quickly realized that I was going to need some mid-support. I scrapped together four (4) 1-by-2-inch wood scraps I had that were each about 8 feet tall. I cut them to create a cradle in which the PVC could rest securely in and be supported by. This step is probably optional and mid-supports could be made out of more PVC or any other material you may have lying around. Just be careful not to have too many pointed areas which may rip the plastic or cause punctures.

The 1-by-2s  also had to be put into the ground so I ended up using post hole diggers to dig about an 18-inch hole I could bury the sticks in. This might have been the most labor-intensive part of the whole project.

At this point I moved on to making some cross-supports for the hoop house skeleton. I measured the distance between each “hoop” and decided 12 PVC “T” connectors would easily do the job. Back to the hardware where I spent about 28 cents on each connector.

Back at the garden I cut my remaining PVC to allow for the connectors and to give final support for the structure before draping the plastic. When completed I was quite please that the slope of the hoop house was quite even and would hold the 4 mil. plastic securely and allow complete drainage in case of major rains.

NOTE: Because I live in middle Georgia snow is not really a concern so I am not sure if this design would hold up well under pounds of snow.

And now, for the plastic....

The plastic is the most important part of this whole project. Because of it we are able to amplify the fall/winter sun and grow our plants in an ideal temperature throughout the in-climate weather seasons.

The plastic sheeting I chose was plain non-UV stabilized 4 mil clear plastic. I was able to get a great deal on the plastic by asking the hardware if they had any scraps or were willing to cut a much larger roll. They were willing to (perhaps a benefit of a struggling economy?) and went about cutting a 20-foot piece from a 100-by-20-foot roll. Cost? $17.50.

If you do have the resources I now recommend spending a few extra dollars and purchasing greenhouse plastic that has a much higher thermal and light transmittance rating. This will certainly be a consideration on a future (and larger) greenhouse or hoop house.

I will admit that while draping plastic sounds remarkably easy, it is anything but. Several times the wind got under the sheet and I nearly went around the world in 80 days. I quickly enlisted a few extra hands and began the effort of securing the plastic. Once it was draped I determined that staples would not only rip the plastic but just wouldn’t hold up. It was time to improvise.

I ended up using scrap plywood and a pneumatic nail gun to sandwich the plastic, so to speak. It worked beautifully and allowed for greater tightening/securing of the plastic as well.

My last real step to this point was to add some cinderblock and gravel to the bottom of the structure in case of water puddling and/or varmints.

This weekend I will be adding the door as right now I am simply slipping under the side to water and check on the lettuce I already have planted. Be sure to check back for more of this hoop house DIY!

All project images can be found on this flickr page.

Andrew Odom
drew@anotherkindofdrew.com
Skype: andrewodom
IM: dodomCHAT

Next post (written by me, Lacy): Inexpensive and durable PVC Chicken Tractor!  A full how-to with photos and hand holding. :)

I’ll admit that whenever I first encounter any kind of garden pest I go into a kind of anxiety paralysis. I think that I want so much for things to go well, and as I’m still fairly new at all of this gardening stuff, I tend to drift towards seeing everything as success or failure in the moment, rather than everything just being part of the process; as if by the very fact that I have garden pests I am a failure as a gardener.

Of course this could not be further from the truth.

Some weeks ago I found these pretty harlequin beetles on my broccoli. I looked them up. I was hoping they were beneficial bugs and not pests, because they seemed too pretty to kill.

But it turns out they had to go. I think I killed about 5, and then I never saw another one. I was feeling pretty doggone proud of myself for nipping that in the bud. Too proud, I think; since I started to let my daily inspections kind of slide.

Consequently, when I discovered this (quite beautiful, I think) creature on a broccoli leaf, the problem was already getting out of hand. Something was most definitely eating my broccoli leaves, and from the looks of some of the holes, it looked like something that was really, really hungry.

Had the Harlequin bugs left behind progeny? I think that I was stupid enough to actually not pluck him off and kill him right away – and stupid enough not to look for more. I mean, he was beautiful, and I didn’t know what he was … I grew broccoli last year and I didn’t have any significant problems with pests. But then again, I grew half a dozen plants last year. I have twice that this year, along with brussels sprouts and collards and kale and various other things. This year I’m using more garden space, I have more plants, and I’m attracting more pests. Also, I suspect that since things went so well last year, and I didn’t really have to deal with fall garden pests, that in a sense this fall I’m operating in even more ignorance than I did last year, in having the audacity to think that pests wouldn’t be a problem. Well, let me tell you something. At this point I’m pretty sure that there is no caterpillar-looking thing on earth that should be left to mind its business on any of your crops. They will eat you out of house and home.

Largely because of my blogging activities – I feel a responsibility to present as much and as accurate information as I can – I overcame my essential laissez faire attitude about the whole thing (translation: laziness) and went on an Internet hunt to find out just what this pretty boy was. Turns out he’s a cross-striped cabbage moth larvae. And these – which I discovered in several places on the underside of broccoli leaves – are the cabbage moth’s eggs.

The cross-striped cabbage moth larvae is not the first visitor against whom I’ve had to wage war this year. Back in June I started noticing these very beautiful beetles on my potato plants.

They turned out to be the (again beautiful) dreaded Colorado potato beetle (brown and yellow) and their slightly less attractive larvae (red and black). I am anti-pesticide, so after learning what they were from the Internet, I started picking them off and smashing them by hand. This is an activity that really gets you in touch with your primal side; it’s a gross task that requires a certain amount of “live and let die” determination. It also requires a certain amount of technique. My approach was to fold over the leaf they were on and to pinch them inside of it. For the most part this kept the goo off of my hands. Quite honestly, the indiscriminate massacre of insects in the garden is something that I can hardly bring myself to do without a twinge of conscience. But I want to grow my own food, so I do what I have to do. Understanding what providing for yourself really means is kind of what this whole endeavor is really all about. And even now, in my pre-chicken days, I can see that what it's all about is life and death – at every level.

For days this summer I went outside and inspected my twelve banana fingerling potato plants, and picked off every beetle and beetle larvae that I saw. And amazingly, once I took this action, the situation was corrected in a relatively short amount of time. I had read that the Colorado potato beetle can damage up to 30% of the foliage of a potato plant before it actually begins to effect the yield of the plant, and my beetle damage never approached anywhere near that amount of green. I’m hoping that I can exert some similar control in the great cross-striped cabbage moth everlasting broccoli brunch that’s going on outside in my garden right now. And so far over the course of three days I bet I’ve killed hundreds of those larvae, of varying sizes, and destroyed a couple clutches of eggs – every day there are drastically fewer of them, so I suspect this approach is working.

Expanding my knowledge of the insect world is another unexpected and useful result of my gardening efforts, but garden pests are not what this post is about – unless you count ignorance as a “garden pest” – because I’m coming to understand that what really causes me transient anxiety about any problem is not knowing exactly what the problem is, and therefore not knowing what I can do about it.

The current issue of MOTHER EARTH NEWS magazine has an article titled, “Homesteading Lessons Learned, If I Could Do It All Over Again…” In it, 20-year veteran homesteader Steve Maxwell offers his advice to anyone starting out on a homesteading adventure. Interestingly enough, one of his recommendations is to “get high speed Internet right away” – for the wealth of information that will then be at your fingertips, of course.

I haven’t been in the “homesteading” business for very long, but nonetheless I’m going to offer my first lesson learned here:

Don’t panic or get discouraged until you know exactly what your problem is and what actions you might be able to take to mitigate it. Chances are, once you have that information, you’ll be too busy solving your problem to panic about it anyway.

There is a happy ending here, too. Check it out. It looks like I’m going to have some broccoli this year after all.