Poised For Planting

With our official last frost date still several weeks away, we're finishing up the winter garden and getting ready for spring planting.

Violets are blooming everywhere

We're still getting a little more lettuce and claytonia for salads, but the carrots were starting to get those little white growth roots so I pulled the last of them.

Last of the fall planted carrots

One oddball!

The garlic is just beginning to die back.

Winter wheat is doing well. It will be ready to harvest in June. We planted it with clover so it looks really happy.

Wheat with my crabapple blooming in the background.

But we didn't plant a lot this year, so I'm doubting it will be a full year's supply. Still, something is better than nothing.

Here's a closeup of that crabapple.

Crabapple blossoms

I have planted a couple of things. One was seed potatoes in pots. I've heard of this, but Mike at Living Prepared posted a really nice tutorial which got me motivated to give it a try.

Eight seed potatoes at Walmart for $3. Mike used supermarket potatoes, thoroughly washed, and his are growing just fine. I may try some of those too.

Potatoes haven't done well for me for several years, so I'm hopeful about this!

Peas are just breaking through too!

Hopefully it won't get too hot too quickly (a real possibility here). That's usually what puts an early end to my early garden. It would be nice to enjoy fresh peas in salads for awhile. Still, the chill is keeping me from jumping the gun on things that might get frostbit. Instead I've put my planting energy to spot-seeding the pastures.

I let the goats graze the paddock down first. Then I seed the areas of bare
soil and cover them with barn cleanings. This method has worked very well.

So that's it so far for planting. It's a hard time to be patient, but getting caught by a late frost wouldn't be good. So while I wait, tell me what's happening in your garden.

Poised For Planting © April 2019 by

Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com/

First of March Garden

Our coldest months are finally behind us! At least I hope so. March can be so iffy for us. But spring flowers are blooming everywhere and that's always cheerful, no matter what the weather is like.

Almond

Forsythia

Japanese magnolia

Peach

Daffodils

February went from frigid to mild and with a lot of rain, so my winter garden has been growing like crazy! We've been eating a lot of salads and sauteed greens from the garden.

Cosmic purple carrots and broccoli. We finished the broccoli
heads a while ago but the plants continue producing florets.

To top our salads, I still have plenty of feta cheese stored in herbed olive oil. That plus black olives (Dan's favorite) make for delicious fresh winter eating.

Everything we're eating from the garden was planted last fall. Some things made it, others didn't. Here's what's there now ...

Carrots, beets, multiplier onions, heading collards, & clover

Savoy cabbages with living mulch of clover

Claytonia (miners lettuce)

Mizuna mixed with chickweed. The mizuna is already trying to go to seed!

Carrots, lettuce, and chickweed.

My main garlic bed.

Resting garden beds. Some I filled with leaf mulch,
in others I grew a cover crop of annual rye & clover.

How about you? Anything happening in your garden?

 First of March Garden © March 2019

by Leigh  at http://www.5acresandadream.com/

Sunny Days & Frosty Nights

We finally got our first frost over the weekend. The first night it didn't blanket everything, but settled in pockets in the garden here and there. I had delayed garden harvest in hopes the ground would dry out a bit, because we got something like 8 inches of rain over the past month. The days are sunny now, but we're getting frost every night so I reckoned it was time to get to work. Like bringing in the last of the cushaws.

I found only a few sweet potatoes.

I had two varieties planted in two different places in the garden, but neither did well. At least there will be some for holiday dinners. It's funny how the harvest can vary so much from year to year, isn't it?

While I was digging for those I found these.

Jerusalem artichokes. Last year's harvest was kinda piddly, but it looks like we'll have plenty this year. These are heading for lacto-fermentation.

I picked the last of the green tomatoes.

Not as many as I'd did like, which makes me think I should have canned green tomatoes for frying earlier in the growing season.

I pulled our first sampling of fall carrots.

Dan had dumped the sand from the grandkids' old wading-pool-sandbox-turned-duck-pond into the bed. These are the nicest carrots we've had in this garden.

My Swiss chard made a nice come-back, and it finally seems to be pest free!

Can you see it for all the wiregrass? I transplanted some of the chard in the hoop house, to see how it fares this winter. I read it can be perennial in warmer climates. Usually it succumbs to our winters, so I'd like to see how long I can keep it going.

Raspberries are down to their last handful.

Soon I'll start pulling out the fruits I've been storing in the freezer and begin my jelly and jam making. After I finish those, I'll start in on the year's supply of bone broth.

We're working on husking the field corn,

while the goats get to feast on the leaves and stalks.

The pigs spend their days hunting acorns.

Last but not least, here is Sam guarding the firewood.

There's always something to do, isn't there? I'm reminded of Carla Emery's admonition to plant something every day. I don't necessarily do that, but when one centers their life upon the land and what it produces, then there is some related task or chore nearly every day. It the cycle of seasonal living. Where are you in that cycle?

Sunny Days & Frosty Nights © November 2015 by

Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com/

Gardening In The Mud

Volunteer calendula

Remember "rain, rain, go away"? I've felt like chanting that some days, even though I know I'll be wishing for it when our summer dry spell hits. Seems like every time I make a date with myself to work in the garden, it rains! We've had about 7 inches of rain over the past 4 weeks, which is good to ward off drought status, but nothing seems to have had a chance to dry out. So I've had to plant in the mud (sweet potato slips), and harvest in the mud (potatoes and garlic). Though gardening in the mud isn't recommended, I'm finding that with permanent beds, at least I don't have to worry so much about compacting the soil.

My garden efforts have been sporadic because we're making the kitchen a priority. I need to get it done before canning season starts. In spite of all the weeds, and with the exception of the potatoes, everything is doing well, even if it was planted late. And all my volunteers are amazing!

Volunteers: a sunflower & 4 O'clocks.

Last year, I planted 4 o'clocks as companions to my potatoes. Also known as Marvel of Peru, they are truly marvelous. And colorful. The seeds were sold as annuals, which in most parts of the country they are. Here in our milder climate though, they can grow as the perennials they really are. My plants grew back bigger than ever.

Amish Paste tomatoes & borage

My tomatoes are blooming. I planted Amish Paste directly because I didn't have time to start plants early. As you can see, not all came up. I planted two beds and have 29 tomato plants. If all goes well I'll have plenty. In the past I've planted Romas, so this is a new variety for me. The borage (at least I hope its borage; this is another new one for me), is a companion for the tomatoes. I also planted marigolds in the bed.

Amish Paste tomatoes, marigolds, and volunteer broom corn

They're coming up along with some volunteer broom corn. At first I was going to pull these, but then I decided to try them as living tomato stakes. Plus, the goats love broom corn seed as grain and the leaves.

My sweet potatoes are doing well,

Row of Vardaman sweet potatoes on the right
Parsnips flowering in the back left

I'm still trying to root the last of the slips, but hopefully it won't be too late for them. Yesterday I raked the mulch back from the aisle. This has worked pretty well to keep some of the weeds down. Actually now would be the time to mulch everything to keep the moisture in the soil. Mulching will have to wait because we've got to get the kitchen done.

The Egyptian walking onions are walking,

Egyptian Walking Onion topsets falling to the ground

All parts are edible: the little bulblets, called topsets, the greens, and the onion bulbs that grow in the ground. By either picking or letting the topsets fall to the ground, you can direct where the onions walk.

Taylor Dwarf Horticultural Beans
and Marketmore cucumbers. I think. 

Ever in search of yet another dried bean, I'm trying Taylor Dwarf Horticultural beans this year. They are a bush bean. We love Black Turtles, but I'd like some variety too. Neither of the white beans I tried did very well. I'm pretty sure that with them, are Marketmore 76 cucumbers I planted from saved seed. Yesterday though, I found tiny cucumbers growing where I thought I planted butternut squash seeds. And I can't find my garden chart in all the kitchen clutter! Well, maybe it's butternuts that are growing in that other bed.

For those of you interested in companion planting...

Companion comparison: same bean in both photos, different companions

The above comparison shot is of the Taylor Dwarfs, all growing in the same bed. On the left, the beans were planted with the remnants of my fall planted carrots. On the right, they're were planted with the cukes, and are growing where collards used to be. Pretty interesting, huh?

One last shot of more volunteers...

Volunteer amaranth & dill

I have volunteer amaranth and dill, which reseeds itself every year. The volunteers always seem to be bigger and hardier than what grows from seed I plant myself. I need to plant lots more amaranth, because I use the seed heads as feed. I've not tried harvesting any for us because it seems a lot of work to process the seed as grain.

Actually I have a lot more to plant. In some ways I feel behind, but then remind myself that something is better than nothing. Plus, our first summer here we planted a late garden, (June) and it did pretty well.

So how are all you other mud gardeners out there doing? I've been reading your blogs, so I know I'm not the only one having to wrestle with the weather! We have more rain forecast for the weekend, so I'd better get off the computer and get gardening.

Gardening In The Mud © June 2012 by Leigh at http://my5acredream.blogspot.com/

Something Odd From The Garden

This is one of my Scarlet Nantes carrots. Looks mighty fine, doesn't it?

Here's the other side. Now, there's not a tooth or bite mark on it. The core is intact, with exactly half a full length outer part to the root. The rest is hollow.

When I pulled this one, I could feel that there was only half a carrot there. The hollow inside half was filled with dirt, which I washed off for the photo.

I honestly don't think it was eaten. Besides no tooth marks, why would something eat only half like that, eating around but leaving the core? But could it really have grown that way? A mystery to ponder.

Something Odd From The Garden © March 2011 by Leigh at http://my5acredream.blogspot.com/

Garden Analysis for 2010

Christmas snow

Our Christmas snow turned out to be about 2 inches. It started around sunset, continued on through the night, and still falls gently today. This morning not a creature was stirring, nor wanted to venture out in the snow, but everybody wanted to be fed!

Snow makes the garden look decidedly tucked in for it's long winter's nap....

Snow covered garden

... so this may be a good time to publish this post, which I've been working on for awhile. These are my thoughts on what my garden taught me this year, and what I'd like to do differently next year.

Garden notes on things I want to 
remember, research, repeat, or resolve

Things that did well this year:

Amaranth, Giant Golden (or is it Golden Giant?) - did well in dry conditions.

Beets, Red Detroit - very happy with these, both for greens and roots

Black turtle beans - produced well even during our dry spell with little watering

Broccoli,

• DiCiccio though slow to start producing
• Waltham 29 - poor germination but larger heads than DiCiccio. Will save seed & try these again

Bush beans, State 1/2 Runner - ditto to what I wrote about the black turtle beans. Originally a substitute for a drying bean I ordered. Very prolific. These supplied most of my beans for canning this year. Dried seeds can be used as soup beans.

Calendula (pot marigold) - slow to get going but showy. I collected lots of seeds to plant and harvest a bunch next year.

Carrots, Scarlet Nantes - theses are the first carrots I've grown that have attained a decent size in our clay soils. Very sweet eating too.

Herbs, oragano, thyme, rosemary, sage, sweet basil, dill, yarrow, echinacea - all did very well though 1st year echinacea is just leaves. Apparently though, I have 2 different kinds of thyme plants. I noticed a distinct difference in smell.

Lettuce, Parris Cos Romaine - mine never do make a true Romaine head. Need to stagger plantings better.

Marigolds - long lasting and prolific! I've been reading though, that some varieties are better against nematodes than others (when planted as a cover crop), so I may try another variety next year.

Melons - ate our fill & had plenty to give away

• Cantaloupe, Hale's Best
• Watermelon, Small Sugar

Okra, Clemson Spineless - the only problem was aphids and ants toward the very end. Discovered the goats love the whole plant.

Potatoes, Red Pontiac - did well. My problems was planting too early. I need to plant a few in the spring for summer potatoes, but the bulk around July for winter storage

Radishes, Cherry Belle, Pink Beauty, & China Rose - The China Rose are supposed to be good winter keepers but I planted too late for much size. Need to stagger plantings for these as well.

Swiss Chard, Fordhook Giant - it took a break when it got hot, then came back. Survived several frosts.

Turnips, Purple Top White Globe - produced beautifully

Winter Squash, Buttercup - got a goodly amount for storage. Have seen them bigger in the grocery store though

Things that had problems (and what I believe them to be):

Cabbage plants - Dutch Flat and Savoy

• had to purchase because I was too late to plant my own seed
• growth seemed really slow, heads small. More compost?
• cabbage moths
• fall plants did much better than spring

Cucumbers, National Pickling

• Mosaic virus
- need to research treatment

Horseradish -

• Planted with the potatoes as an insect repellent companion
• Spread outside of its pots 
• This is a problem because it is a hybrid variety
• Needs its own bed
• Probably need to find an heirloom or OP variety

Nasturtiums

• spindly, died quickly, no flowers - they don't grow well in this part of the south. Ah well. Just thought I'd give them a try anyway. I loved growing them when I lived in Arkansas.

Onions, Ebenezer

• sets grew well, but some bulbs developed soft spots on one side. I haven't been able to identify the problem yet though
• seeds never germinated

Pole Beans, Kentucky Wonder

• The problem was that I used the popcorn as poles. Japanese Hulless just doesn't grow tall enough
• Not as prolific as the bush beans, but I do like not having to bend over to pick them.
  

Parsnips, Harris Model

• didn't sprout as in nothing grew
• probably planted too late 

Popcorn, Japanese Hulless

• corn earworm
• one success however, was no cross pollination with my sweet corn

Pumpkins, Small Sugar

• poor germination
• poor production, only got 2
• I believe lack of water was part of the problem

Rutagabas, Purple Top

• didn't germinate, nothing grew
• probably planted to late

Strawberries - both June and everbearing

• overrun with a creeping, spreading "wire" grass, even with landscape cloth & mulch

Summer Squash, Yellow Prolific Straightneck

• bacterial wilt
• squash bugs 

Sweet Corn, Stowell's Evergreen

• poor germination
• hence poor pollination
• corn earworm

Sweet potatoes, Porto Rico Bush

• grew well even in dry conditions
• Black rot (a fungal disease) noted on tubers during curing

Tomatoes (both my Romas & Rutgers)

• Blossom end rot - resolved with Enz-Rot calcium spray
• Anthracnose - initially I thought they succumbed to blight, but when the plants recovered and started producing again, I figured I was wrong. Finally identified anthracnose from this site. 
• Fusarium or verticullium wilt? 

Zucchini

• Powdery mildew
• Anthracnose? - noted dark spots on fruit 
• planted for fall crop but they didn't get enough heat

Thoughts on those things

• Most of my problems were diseases rather than pests. Seems though, that pests are easier to control than diseases. Or at least, organic pest control products are more effective than organic disease control products. I haven't had success even when used prophylactically. 
• What saved my tomato preservation was the number of plants. If these had been healthy, I would have had too many tomatoes. As it was, I got barely enough, and actually I would have liked more.
• Bush beans vs pole beans (???) I like the productivity of bush beans, but like the ease of picking pole beans. Opinions?

Things I'd like to do differently next year

• Finishing mulching before I start canning in June!
• Plant potatoes for a fall crop
• Try some new stuff:
• asparagus
• Egyptian walking onions
• and/or potato onions
• ramps
• and more
• Try different varieties of:
• lettuce - needs to be a Romaine type, or else I need to learn to grow Iceberg too, for DH (his favorite)
• sweet potatoes - or maybe just certified disease free slips, or both
• amaranth - golden giant is too giant, though produces excellently
• sunflowers - want to switch to black oil for feed
• Swiss chard - just to compare 
• potatoes - in addition to Red Pontiac, which we like
• Horseradish - try to find an heirloom or at least OP variety
• marigolds - used a grocery store seed pack but will switch to a French dwarf variety (Tagetes patula) which are reputed to be the best for nematode control
• Do more mixed companion beds à la Sally Jean Cunningham's Great Garden Companions
• Grow a patch of field corn, with pole beans and pumpkins
• Get my cabbage seeds started early enough and plant enough for a big batch of sauerkraut!
• Grow more:
• cucumbers
• pumpkins
• varieties of winter squashes
• turnips and beets
• sweet potatoes. Maybe try an additional variety too. I've gotten such good recipe ideas from you all that I want more next year.
• Watermelons grow don't ripen well once the weather turns cooler. Pull vines earlier.
• Expand herb gardens (these will be raised beds)
• Cold frames next spring, row covers next winter
• Semi-permanent irrigation for the tomatoes. I plan to put down a soaker hose when I put in my plants and leave it there. It will be covered with mulch, but will be in place for more consistent watering. I think that was part of my tomato problem.
• Get some Tattler canning lids

So much to do! The other thing I'm learning is to take both successes and failures all in stride. Our time, money, and energy have to be divided amongst many things. Not only the garden, but upgrading the house, but also in simply establishing our homestead in general. There are lots of one time jobs (like fencing and remodeling) which take resources from other projects. I'm learning to be patient and simply chip away at it as we go along.

Garden Analysis for 2010 © December 2010 by Leigh at http://my5acredream.blogspot.com/

Ginger Carrots & More on Lacto-Fermentation

When I first learned about lacto-fermentation, I immediately set about collecting more information. Everywhere I looked, two books kept cropping up. One of them was Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats by Sally Fallon, cover on the left, click to enlarge. (The second was Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods by Sandor Katz. Neither one was available through my public library, so I bought both.)

Now, I've never considered myself to be politically correct, especially in this day and age. This book however, caught me by surprise. Much of it I already knew, things like: our bodies need real food not chemicals disguised as food, processing destroys nutrition, and avoid hydrogenated fats and high-fructose corn syrup like the plague. However, I never dreamed that anyone would be so bold as to challenge the conventional dietary advice which tells us that the vegetable oils and margarines ( which we're told are good for us), aren't so good for us after all. That butter is healthier. That it's okay to eat eggs and red meat. That fats are good for us. And to back it all up with real scientific research!

Well, that's all I'm going to say on that, (you need to read the book for yourself) except that this book did answer a question that has bothered me for a long time; namely, how could our ancestors eat all the foods we're told are "bad" for us, yet rarely if ever suffer from the diseases that are common today. Have you ever wondered about that?

Anyway, it was from Sally Fallon's book that I learned that whey is a good starter for lacto-fermentation. Since I already knew how to make whey, I was eager to give this a try. The recipe I chose to start with was her "Ginger Carrots" (page 95). She says these are an exceptionally tasty introduction to lacto-fermentated foods, plus we love ginger, so this was the first recipe I tried.

The lacto-fermentation experts all say that results are best if organic ingredients are used. Who am I to argue? I always go with organics when I can afford to.

First I made 4 cups of grated carrots....

Then added 1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger.

I mixed these with 1 tablespoon sea salt and 4 tablespoons of whey (how to make that here.

One of the things I'm learning about lacto-fermenting foods is that their own juices need to be released for best results. This is done by pounding. Can you see the juices in the photo above? I didn't do this with my first batch of sauerkraut, but I'm learning and will try it with my second.

I put it all into a wide mouth quart jar and pressed the carrots and ginger firmly, until they were completely covered with the juices. This is important because anything exposed to air will decay rather than be preserved. No additional water or whey was added.

The jar sat for four days in my kitchen before being transfered to the pantry. The recipe says three days, but this time of year, my kitchen is pretty cool unless I'm cooking. The recipe doesn't say how long to wait before eating, but I will probably give it at least a couple of weeks.

Ginger Carrots & More on Lacto-Fermentation photos & text 

copyright November 2009 by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com/