What with a crazy schedule and the crazy weather this season, I've lost the habit of my daily walk.
Finally a break came and I had opportunity to stroll the mile out our country road and back on a beautiful day. It surprised me, though it shouldn't have, to find the same plants in the same places that I've noted on previous walks over ten years.
For some reason -- perhaps the volatility of yard and garden each year -- I expect the wild woods and edges to change dramatically in a short time. They do, superficially, and most evident in the cycles of foliage. Also in what flourishes or languishes in a given year as a result of weather.
But the established trees, shrubs, wildflowers, and escaped perennials hold fast to their positions, to the point where they form signposts along the road. I almost feel like waving as I pass, as if to neighbors sunning on the porch or working in their yards. Hello, myrtle-bed in the silo ruin, and pearly-everlasting community in the clearing. How ya doin', trilliums in the shady glen, now sporting bright red berries I've not seen before, like their brethren, the jack-in-the-pulpits popping up along the way.
There's the tree stump with the very low, very large hole drilled by the local pileated woodpecker (which hole a human neighbor -- a second-homer from the city -- thought was made by a bear!). And over here in the swamp is the blanket of forget-me-nots that surprises me each summer when I think it's too late for their bloom; while over there, in the heap of road scrum alongside an open field, is the strange-looking, strangely named viper's bugloss. And under there, lurking beneath one clump of foliage, is the only wild ginger in the area.
Other plants migrate but are always present during their season: various asters, black-eyed Susans, daisy fleabane -- and myriad daisies; Queen Anne's lace, milkweed galore, Joe-pye weed, goldenrod galore, and the tall spires of mullein. It's fun each year to see where these populations will spring up next.
On it goes, becoming more interesting and familiar as I learn the names of things, and their habitats. A mere mile along a country lane contains dozens of microclimates, so that many of my plantly neighbors can grow only in the pockets where I find them. Their permanence comforts me, and makes me feel plantlike in response; i.e., more rooted in my community. Simultaneously, they make me feel lonely, for I'm the only one of my species anywhere in the area who knows these plantly neighbors and where they live.
Carolyn Haley
Author: Open Your Heart with Gardens
First-year blog archives at www.dreamtimepublishing.com
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Miracles
I am amazed -- nay, astonished -- that despite disease and pests; despite too much rain followed by too little, and too cool temperatures followed by too hot; and despite my perpetual mistakes and neglect, I can go out to my tiny garden every other day and come back with a bucket of food.
"Miracle" is the word that comes to mind whenever I think of this. But what is a miracle, really?
I looked it up in the dictionary:
1. an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs
2. an extremely outstanding or unusual event, thing, or accomplishment
3. a divinely natural phenomenon experienced humanly as the fulfillment of spiritual law
Yep, I've got it right. By any of these definitions, a vegetable garden qualifies as a miracle, indeed!
Carolyn Haley
Author: Open Your Heart with Gardens
First-year blog archives at www.dreamtimepublishing.com
"Miracle" is the word that comes to mind whenever I think of this. But what is a miracle, really?
I looked it up in the dictionary:
1. an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs
2. an extremely outstanding or unusual event, thing, or accomplishment
3. a divinely natural phenomenon experienced humanly as the fulfillment of spiritual law
Yep, I've got it right. By any of these definitions, a vegetable garden qualifies as a miracle, indeed!
Carolyn Haley
Author: Open Your Heart with Gardens
First-year blog archives at www.dreamtimepublishing.com
Sunday, August 9, 2009
What grows best where
Each growing season is an experiment. Although I cultivate the same vegetables every year, I try different varieties in different placements to find what works best for our too-short, too-cool summers.
After 10 years I've learned that certain veggies do better in the ground or in containers of different types, regardless of weather, companion plants, or season extenders. From the tilled beds, raised beds, "lasagna" beds, large deep pots, long shallow pots, self-watering containers, hanging planters, and hay bales I've employed, I've compiled a list of which vegetables are happiest (or, at least, more reliable) in which locations:
* Lettuce = long, shallow planter on the deck or terrace.
* Bush beans = doesn't seem to matter.
* Pole beans = ditto.
* Bell peppers (red) = EarthBox self-watering planters.
* Carrots = deep planter on deck or terrace.
* Broccoli = variety seems to matter more than soil.
* Peas = doesn't seem to matter.
* Zucchini = tilled bed or lasagna garden.
* Cucumbers = deep planter or lasagna garden.
* Tomatoes = results differ so widely each year that I just put them where it's convenient, and cross my fingers!
The largest, most prolific tomato I ever grew was planted in a hay bale, but I've never been able to reproduce that feat. In fact, most years whatever I've planted in hay bales has struggled or died. One zucchini did well the same year as the monster tomato, but that was it. I've decided to discontinue that experiment.
Next year I will plant according to the above list and see if I can get similar results two years in a row. That would be an accomplishment!
But every year, the garden produces food -- for better or worse -- no matter what I do. I find this deeply comforting, and rely on that annual promise to get me through the long winters.
Carolyn Haley
Author: Open Your Heart with Gardens
First-year blog archives at www.dreamtimepublishing.com
After 10 years I've learned that certain veggies do better in the ground or in containers of different types, regardless of weather, companion plants, or season extenders. From the tilled beds, raised beds, "lasagna" beds, large deep pots, long shallow pots, self-watering containers, hanging planters, and hay bales I've employed, I've compiled a list of which vegetables are happiest (or, at least, more reliable) in which locations:
* Lettuce = long, shallow planter on the deck or terrace.
* Bush beans = doesn't seem to matter.
* Pole beans = ditto.
* Bell peppers (red) = EarthBox self-watering planters.
* Carrots = deep planter on deck or terrace.
* Broccoli = variety seems to matter more than soil.
* Peas = doesn't seem to matter.
* Zucchini = tilled bed or lasagna garden.
* Cucumbers = deep planter or lasagna garden.
* Tomatoes = results differ so widely each year that I just put them where it's convenient, and cross my fingers!
The largest, most prolific tomato I ever grew was planted in a hay bale, but I've never been able to reproduce that feat. In fact, most years whatever I've planted in hay bales has struggled or died. One zucchini did well the same year as the monster tomato, but that was it. I've decided to discontinue that experiment.
Next year I will plant according to the above list and see if I can get similar results two years in a row. That would be an accomplishment!
But every year, the garden produces food -- for better or worse -- no matter what I do. I find this deeply comforting, and rely on that annual promise to get me through the long winters.
Carolyn Haley
Author: Open Your Heart with Gardens
First-year blog archives at www.dreamtimepublishing.com
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Storing produce
This summer of wacky weather has made growing food more challenging than usual. If you're lucky enough to harvest enough to need storage before you can eat or process it all, use Debbie Meyer Green Bags.
These are translucent-green plastic bags treated with oya, a mineral related to zeolite, which is used to absorb gases. In this case, the bags absorb ethylene gas from vegetables and fruits as they ripen.
The vendor claims that produce stored in these bags stays fresh up to 30 days, or up to 10 times the normal shelf life of any particular food. While I can't verify these claims, I can say for sure that my produce lasts a heck of a lot longer in the fridge when I use these bags -- a boon when the harvest comes in all at once, and when store-bought produce must remain edible for a week or more. (Particularly helpful when you're single and need to work your way through a head of lettuce before it spoils!)
There's a catch, of course. Food must be dry before inserting. Hmm . . . that's tricky with fresh pickings or items refrigerated at point of purchase. I get around it by wrapping the food in paper towels and changing the wrap daily.
Storing produce in regular plastic bags also works (if wrapped in something absorbent) but the Green Bags give extra mileage. I use them all year but especially now, when the garden and the berry patch ripen faster than we can consume their bounty. Each Green Bag can be reused many times, and you get 20 for around $10. Given that I've bought $20 worth over 3+ years and still have half of them left, I guess we can call this a great deal!
Carolyn Haley
Author: Open Your Heart with Gardens
First-year blog archives at www.dreamtimepublishing.com
These are translucent-green plastic bags treated with oya, a mineral related to zeolite, which is used to absorb gases. In this case, the bags absorb ethylene gas from vegetables and fruits as they ripen.
The vendor claims that produce stored in these bags stays fresh up to 30 days, or up to 10 times the normal shelf life of any particular food. While I can't verify these claims, I can say for sure that my produce lasts a heck of a lot longer in the fridge when I use these bags -- a boon when the harvest comes in all at once, and when store-bought produce must remain edible for a week or more. (Particularly helpful when you're single and need to work your way through a head of lettuce before it spoils!)
There's a catch, of course. Food must be dry before inserting. Hmm . . . that's tricky with fresh pickings or items refrigerated at point of purchase. I get around it by wrapping the food in paper towels and changing the wrap daily.
Storing produce in regular plastic bags also works (if wrapped in something absorbent) but the Green Bags give extra mileage. I use them all year but especially now, when the garden and the berry patch ripen faster than we can consume their bounty. Each Green Bag can be reused many times, and you get 20 for around $10. Given that I've bought $20 worth over 3+ years and still have half of them left, I guess we can call this a great deal!
Carolyn Haley
Author: Open Your Heart with Gardens
First-year blog archives at www.dreamtimepublishing.com
Friday, July 24, 2009
Revenge of the raspberries
Our place came equipped with berry patches spread around the edges of several acres. Some are wild, others were once cultivated but since have run amok. Nevertheless, we have enjoyed an annual harvest of blueberries, raspberries, black raspberries, and blackberries, for better or worse depending on weather.
For a few years we pruned out the blackberry hedge bordering the backyard in hopes of improving yield. But it seemed that the more effort we put into it, the fewer berries we got. Finally we gave up and just let it go.
Meanwhile, way in the back of the "back forty," in a scrub area we ignored for 10 years, invisible things were happening. They made themselves known two summers ago, when my spouse's eye was caught by a red spot among a sea of green. Curious, he approached, and found a massive raspberry stand sporting perfect berries the size of his thumb!
Unprepared, we went on a picking frenzy. Not enough containers for them all, not enough time available every day for 3 weeks, and too many berries for the pair of us to eat, no room in the freezer, and no equipment for preserving. So there were lots left over for the birds, and bucketloads gifted to friends and neighbors.
The next summer, knowing the bonanza was coming, we did better: ate fresh raspberries in yogurt or sherbet every day, with plenty to give away and plenty to freeze. Still not enough containers or time in a day, but we harvested the lion's share and were happy. I marked the appropriate fruiting time on the next year's calendar.
So this year, we were ready. In May, I spent two afternoons cutting access paths through the awakening patch and covering them with thick bark slabs left over from wood-splitting. Cleared out everything Not Berry, including a gigantic rambling rose that had kept half the patch inaccessible with its brutal thorns. (Note: Raspberries don't have prickers; you can wade through them waist-high in shorts, and pick with short sleeves.)
I also stashed dozens of containers recycled from the winter's berries bought from the store, cleaned out half the freezer, and stocked up on Ziploc baggies. Made time in my schedule for daily picking.
And here they come! -- despite an abnormally cool and rainy season. I started picking two days ago . . . only to discover that the pathways have completely grown over, to the point we can't even find them. So much for preparations.
Picking continues to require awkward stepping and reaching and wriggling things out of the way, twisting ankles on invisible hazards, dropping the container when your balance falters so you lose half a pint to the undergrowth. The berries themselves are sassy flirts, showing perfectly colored ripe faces that mask unripe back halves, or some inedible blemish, which you don't discover until you've wrassled your way in and plucked them. It takes better part of an hour to fill a pint container -- with quarts and quarts left to go!
Don't get me wrong: I'm not complaining. This is a wonderful problem to have! It's merely another example of how Mother Nature triumphs over gardeners and makes us work for her bounty.
Carolyn Haley
Author: Open Your Heart with Gardens
First-year blog archives at www.dreamtimepublishing.com
For a few years we pruned out the blackberry hedge bordering the backyard in hopes of improving yield. But it seemed that the more effort we put into it, the fewer berries we got. Finally we gave up and just let it go.
Meanwhile, way in the back of the "back forty," in a scrub area we ignored for 10 years, invisible things were happening. They made themselves known two summers ago, when my spouse's eye was caught by a red spot among a sea of green. Curious, he approached, and found a massive raspberry stand sporting perfect berries the size of his thumb!
Unprepared, we went on a picking frenzy. Not enough containers for them all, not enough time available every day for 3 weeks, and too many berries for the pair of us to eat, no room in the freezer, and no equipment for preserving. So there were lots left over for the birds, and bucketloads gifted to friends and neighbors.
The next summer, knowing the bonanza was coming, we did better: ate fresh raspberries in yogurt or sherbet every day, with plenty to give away and plenty to freeze. Still not enough containers or time in a day, but we harvested the lion's share and were happy. I marked the appropriate fruiting time on the next year's calendar.
So this year, we were ready. In May, I spent two afternoons cutting access paths through the awakening patch and covering them with thick bark slabs left over from wood-splitting. Cleared out everything Not Berry, including a gigantic rambling rose that had kept half the patch inaccessible with its brutal thorns. (Note: Raspberries don't have prickers; you can wade through them waist-high in shorts, and pick with short sleeves.)
I also stashed dozens of containers recycled from the winter's berries bought from the store, cleaned out half the freezer, and stocked up on Ziploc baggies. Made time in my schedule for daily picking.
And here they come! -- despite an abnormally cool and rainy season. I started picking two days ago . . . only to discover that the pathways have completely grown over, to the point we can't even find them. So much for preparations.
Picking continues to require awkward stepping and reaching and wriggling things out of the way, twisting ankles on invisible hazards, dropping the container when your balance falters so you lose half a pint to the undergrowth. The berries themselves are sassy flirts, showing perfectly colored ripe faces that mask unripe back halves, or some inedible blemish, which you don't discover until you've wrassled your way in and plucked them. It takes better part of an hour to fill a pint container -- with quarts and quarts left to go!
Don't get me wrong: I'm not complaining. This is a wonderful problem to have! It's merely another example of how Mother Nature triumphs over gardeners and makes us work for her bounty.
Carolyn Haley
Author: Open Your Heart with Gardens
First-year blog archives at www.dreamtimepublishing.com
Friday, July 10, 2009
End of a tomato era
Yesterday I took down the tomato.
Not a tomato one would expect -- a sick or infested plant in the garden, like what happened with my beans thanks to slugs. Rather, this was a tomato I planted in the living room back in April 2008.
It began as a conventional nursery seedling, and aside from the trip home it never saw the outdoors. My aim was to learn whether my hugely windowed, south-facing living room could serve as a greenhouse; and whether tomatoes really are perennials, as I'd heard was true in their native tropical lands. (Not so here in Zone 3, with its 90-day growing season!)
After 27 months, I can claim Yes, tomatoes are perennials and they will grow year-round in my living room. There's a catch, though. From the start, the plant -- like the pair of red bell peppers that accompanied it in this experiment -- was weak and brittle, and the fruit small and sparse. Yet all three specimens grew enormous, and the peppers produced gigantic leaves.
All outgrew the space allotted to them months ago, but I persevered, until it became apparent that the plants are just plain tuckered out. Though still producing, their fruits started to grow deformed and often didn't survive to maturity. The older leaves looked dreadful. Now that new tomatoes and peppers are developing in the garden, I decided that the oldsters should move along to the compost pile.
Well, not quite. At the last moment, I decided to just cut them back to stubs. Way down low, the new-growth leaves looked healthy. So now we'll go around another year and see just how perennial these plants can be!
Carolyn Haley
Author: Open Your Heart with Gardens
First-year blog archives at www.dreamtimepublishing.com
Not a tomato one would expect -- a sick or infested plant in the garden, like what happened with my beans thanks to slugs. Rather, this was a tomato I planted in the living room back in April 2008.
It began as a conventional nursery seedling, and aside from the trip home it never saw the outdoors. My aim was to learn whether my hugely windowed, south-facing living room could serve as a greenhouse; and whether tomatoes really are perennials, as I'd heard was true in their native tropical lands. (Not so here in Zone 3, with its 90-day growing season!)
After 27 months, I can claim Yes, tomatoes are perennials and they will grow year-round in my living room. There's a catch, though. From the start, the plant -- like the pair of red bell peppers that accompanied it in this experiment -- was weak and brittle, and the fruit small and sparse. Yet all three specimens grew enormous, and the peppers produced gigantic leaves.
All outgrew the space allotted to them months ago, but I persevered, until it became apparent that the plants are just plain tuckered out. Though still producing, their fruits started to grow deformed and often didn't survive to maturity. The older leaves looked dreadful. Now that new tomatoes and peppers are developing in the garden, I decided that the oldsters should move along to the compost pile.
Well, not quite. At the last moment, I decided to just cut them back to stubs. Way down low, the new-growth leaves looked healthy. So now we'll go around another year and see just how perennial these plants can be!
Carolyn Haley
Author: Open Your Heart with Gardens
First-year blog archives at www.dreamtimepublishing.com
Monday, June 29, 2009
The eternal dance
For the eleven years I've been gardening, I've never had a slug problem. For the same period, I never mulched.
This year, I finally decided to listen to the experts and mulch my vegetable garden. I used the scraggly hay left over from last year's haybale garden, laying it atop the lasagna garden last fall to let it start rotting in as the new top lasagna layer. At this spring's planting time, I merely scuffed it out of the way and tucked it back as needed.
Little did I know I was creating Slug Heaven! It took me weeks to recognize this, since the dastardly slimeballs only come out at night. I kept waking up to holey lettuce and bean leaves, and stripped marigolds -- too early for most of the leaf-chomping insects I'm aware of, and not the right damage for quadrupeds.
It remained a discouraging head-scratcher until a friend mentioned she's having a horrible time this year with slugs. Upon her advice, I laid out a saucer of beer overnight to lure them to destruction. All that happened was some nocturnal animal lapped up the treat. I switched to her exact technique -- catfood cans set into the soil so the beer was at ground level -- and again netted no slugs, only one empty tin and the other one, concealed from above by moth netting over my broccoli, disturbed in the soil (apparently a raccoon had reached through a split in the netting and tried to grab it).
So much for the beer plan. Prior to it, I had scraped all the hay out of the garden to re-expose the soil. Took somebody else's suggestion and placed collars coated with petroleum jelly around individual plants. This combination slowed things down a bit, but the slugs are still invisibly eating my veggies. I will keep trying other manual and/or nontoxic techniques to tackle this conundrum but suspect, at this point, I've already lost the war.
What steams me is the effect on This Year's Big Experiment. In previous years, the most challenging pest problem has been green worms in the broccoli -- a result, I've learned, of little white butterflies (the cabbage moth, I believe the species is commonly called) laying their eggs on broccoli and related crop leaves over the summer. I read about covering them early with a very light row-cover fabric to block access by the moths.
This created a lovely protective canopy for the slugs, who approach from below. And, as the broccoli grows, the canopy moves upward with them (I didn't buy a wide enough cloth so can't arch over the plants top to bottom, side to side), thereby allowing the moths to fly in from underneath. Yesterday I found 3 of them fluttering inside the netting. So I wrenched it off and released the slug-shredded leaves back to open air.
This morning I got out early enough to catch some slugs in action. Put that to an end with a satisfying squish. A few of the beans look like they might survive the onslaught, but half the broccoli looks awful, while the other half (still under cover) looks only lightly hit. Hopefully there will be some food left over for me at harvest time.
So . . . what's the moral of this story? I'm not sure, but it probably has something to do with balance, as well as environment: There's no sign of slug damage in my EarthBox planters, even though they sit adjacent to the garden, whereas the haybales on the other side have been breached. Birds frolic in the garden all day but apparently don't know where the slugs hide during daylight so they're not picking them off. I will remember all this next year winter when it comes time to design the season's plant layout.
In the meantime, if anyone knows a foolproof, nontoxic way to beat slugs, I'll be happy to hear it!
Carolyn Haley
Author: Open Your Heart with Gardense
First-year blog archives at www.dreamtimepublishing.com
This year, I finally decided to listen to the experts and mulch my vegetable garden. I used the scraggly hay left over from last year's haybale garden, laying it atop the lasagna garden last fall to let it start rotting in as the new top lasagna layer. At this spring's planting time, I merely scuffed it out of the way and tucked it back as needed.
Little did I know I was creating Slug Heaven! It took me weeks to recognize this, since the dastardly slimeballs only come out at night. I kept waking up to holey lettuce and bean leaves, and stripped marigolds -- too early for most of the leaf-chomping insects I'm aware of, and not the right damage for quadrupeds.
It remained a discouraging head-scratcher until a friend mentioned she's having a horrible time this year with slugs. Upon her advice, I laid out a saucer of beer overnight to lure them to destruction. All that happened was some nocturnal animal lapped up the treat. I switched to her exact technique -- catfood cans set into the soil so the beer was at ground level -- and again netted no slugs, only one empty tin and the other one, concealed from above by moth netting over my broccoli, disturbed in the soil (apparently a raccoon had reached through a split in the netting and tried to grab it).
So much for the beer plan. Prior to it, I had scraped all the hay out of the garden to re-expose the soil. Took somebody else's suggestion and placed collars coated with petroleum jelly around individual plants. This combination slowed things down a bit, but the slugs are still invisibly eating my veggies. I will keep trying other manual and/or nontoxic techniques to tackle this conundrum but suspect, at this point, I've already lost the war.
What steams me is the effect on This Year's Big Experiment. In previous years, the most challenging pest problem has been green worms in the broccoli -- a result, I've learned, of little white butterflies (the cabbage moth, I believe the species is commonly called) laying their eggs on broccoli and related crop leaves over the summer. I read about covering them early with a very light row-cover fabric to block access by the moths.
This created a lovely protective canopy for the slugs, who approach from below. And, as the broccoli grows, the canopy moves upward with them (I didn't buy a wide enough cloth so can't arch over the plants top to bottom, side to side), thereby allowing the moths to fly in from underneath. Yesterday I found 3 of them fluttering inside the netting. So I wrenched it off and released the slug-shredded leaves back to open air.
This morning I got out early enough to catch some slugs in action. Put that to an end with a satisfying squish. A few of the beans look like they might survive the onslaught, but half the broccoli looks awful, while the other half (still under cover) looks only lightly hit. Hopefully there will be some food left over for me at harvest time.
So . . . what's the moral of this story? I'm not sure, but it probably has something to do with balance, as well as environment: There's no sign of slug damage in my EarthBox planters, even though they sit adjacent to the garden, whereas the haybales on the other side have been breached. Birds frolic in the garden all day but apparently don't know where the slugs hide during daylight so they're not picking them off. I will remember all this next year winter when it comes time to design the season's plant layout.
In the meantime, if anyone knows a foolproof, nontoxic way to beat slugs, I'll be happy to hear it!
Carolyn Haley
Author: Open Your Heart with Gardense
First-year blog archives at www.dreamtimepublishing.com
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