Garden Notes: March 2023

Rainfall 

• 2nd: 0.1"
• 3rd: 0.55" 
• 10th: 0.05"
• 12th: 1.125"
• 17th: 0.65"
• 22nd: 0.3"
• 25th: 0.2"
• 27th: 1.1"
• Total: 4.075 inches

Temperature

• range of nighttime lows: 26 to 58°F (-3 to 14°C)
• range of daytime highs: 37 to 82°F (3 to 28°C)

Weather Notes

March didn't do the lion-lamb thing this year. February's late mild temperatures continued into the first week of March, then the cold returned. This last week has been more spring-like and very welcome.

One observation I wanted to notate, was a small isolated pocket of frost on March 11th. I found it at the base of the hugelkultur, on the southwest edge. Mapping the microclimates on one's property is one of the tools of permaculture. For example, our garden is protected and warmer than other places on the property. But I haven't been very tuned into the subtleties of microclimate on our place, so this tiny pocket of frost was a curiosity.

Garden Projects

Aisle mulching and soil prep continue in anticipation of spring planting next month. Every year about this time, I tell myself that next fall, I'm going to get all of my garden beds tucked in with a thick mulch of dried leaves. Then fall comes and I make a start. And then it rains and gets cold, and I lose enthusiasm for outdoor projects and don't finish getting everything mulched. So, when warm days present themselves, the weeds all jump into action and take advantage of the bare soil. Then I have to de-weed them before I can plant. You'd think I'd learn. 

By March, the bare soil garden beds are covered
with weeds, but the mulched beds grow very few.

Another project - expanding our hugelkultur, with two more mounds. 

Dan started a base layer of rotted wood.

Our first hugelkultur is that mound in the background.

Growing

First asparagus!

Blooming

Apple tree

Cherry tree

Pear tree

Strawberries

Eating

We're not getting much from the garden, so it's mostly food from the pantry.

I canned potatoes last year. They make quick and tasty hash browns.

1st salad of the year: chickweed, wild lettuce, dandelion and collard greens,
hard-boiled egg, goat feta cheese, and my oil-preserved cherry tomatoes.

You may recall that the oil-preserved cherry tomatoes were an experiment from Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning.

Cherry tomatoes preserved in olive oil & vinegar. I made
these last September. Follow the link for the recipe.

The jars sat in my pantry all winter, but with no winter garden and no winter greens, I kinda forgot about them until I made our first salad of the year. They are preserved in olive oil and vinegar, which makes a handy instant flavored salad dressing. I forgot to take a before photo, but here's what the jar looks like after eating some.

The tomatoes wilted somewhat, I think due to the salt.

It was a lovely addition to our salad! I will definitely make more than two pints next fall and work them into our winter diet with or without salads.

Next month will be planting month, and I'm really looking forward to that. Anybody else?

Garden Notes: March 2023 © March 2023

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

Spring Planting & Growing: Early Edition

"All spring, I try to plant something every day "

Carla Emery, Encyclopedia of Country Living

I love that quote by Carla Emery, but I confess I haven't faithfully applied it this year. We've had a lot of rain, so some days it's too muddy to work in the garden. I managed to get my cool weather crops in, and now look forward to our last potential frost date. That date falls in the middle of our spring planting months, and so divides my planting season into early and late.

Planted so far:

• turnips
• kale
• carrots
• parsnips
• mangels
• sprouted pantry potatoes
• beets
• lettuce
• snow peas
• salsify
• pink dandelion
• cultivated burdock
• mizuna
• bloody dock

Of the root crops, only the mangels and burdock have emerged so far. You'll see them with the other spring garden photos below.

I only had a few plants survive winter; the rest succumbed to the cold.

These collard plants are several years old. I don't get huge
leaves from them anymore, but the small ones are tasty too.

One of just a few fall planted kale plants that made it.

Fall planted garlic, multiplier onions, and volunteer potato
plant (the sprouted pantry potatoes haven't emerged yet.)

More garlic

The one that concerns me is our wheat. It's yellowing.

Our fall planted wheat. Yellow from ???

There are a number of things that can cause this: nitrogen deficiency, iron deficiency, sulfur deficiency, fertilizer burn, herbicide injury, moisture stress, plus disease or insect damage. Apparently it's common enough that there are scores of articles written about it and speculating as to its cause. 

We don't use fertilizer, herbicides, or pesticides, so those are out as causes. Nutrient deficiency perhaps. Dan side dressed the rows with compost to see if it helps. Moisture stress is a possibility. Not from too little rain, but because we've had so much. At any rate, it looks like we'll still get a harvest.

It's still going to seed.

Saving for next year's seed will be the priority. We can always adjust our diet to whatever's left over if we need to.

Next are the early spring planted veggies.

Snow peas. No flowers yet!

Lettuce and volunteer dandelion; both salad favorites.

Mangels. These make great livestock feed (both leaves and roots).

Mizuna and violets (of which the flowers are edible)

Now that the swale is in and working well, I'm hoping my hoop house will be more useful in summer. Its raised beds dry out quickly in summer, so that I tend to plant there as a last resort. What I've decided to use them for is perennials, where the raised bordered beds can keep them under control.

Cultivated burdock and volunteer chickweed.

The other thing I planted this spring was the garden swale berm.

Swale berm planted with herbs and edibles.

I made a seed mix of all my old herb, flower, greens, and root crop seeds plus clover. Then I covered it with compost. Because the berm is sloped, much of the seed has washed down a bit, but hopefully enough has stayed put to help anchor the soil. It will be fun to see what grows.

Seed mix sprouting on the swale berm.

Then there are the perennials.

My few asparagus plants were taken over by
blackberries and daffodils, so I liberated them.

I actually gave up on asparagus a long time ago, because the wiregrass kept choking it out. But I have four or five plants that have hung in there over the years. We only get a few stalks at a time and enjoy them greatly, so I think it's time to invest in more.

Strawberries are thriving. My competition for those is slugs, birds, and chipmunks.

Red raspberries are leafing out.

Horseradish. Young leaves are good in a steamed greens mix.

Pear tree, garlic, & comfrey; swale berm in the background.

Pear blossoms. Pears seem to be our most reliable tree fruit.

Cherry blossoms. If I can beat the birds to them, I might get some!

Our last expected frost date is right around the corner. Then we can get to work planting our warm weather favorites. Like every other gardener on the planet, I'm looking forward to that.

How about you? How does your garden grow?

Spring Planting & Growing: Early Edition 

© April 2022 by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com

Planting Pawpaws & Persimmons

One of the winter projects on my list is working on my forest garden. I have a fairly good list of what I'm planting—for which a blog post is in the making—but I specifically wanted to mention the pawpaws, because they and the persimmons are the only trees I'm planting from seed. Everything else is saplings. 

The seeds were sent to me by fellow homesteaders (thank you Dino and Terri!) who have pawpaws on their place. Because the seeds lose 20% viability within three days, they sent me whole fruits.

Within the fruit, the seeds are in sacs, which must be removed. For good germination, they must be kept from drying out and need a damp cold place for 70-100 days. This winter, they would have gotten that in the ground, but I never know what kind of winters we'll get. So, I put them in a damp paper towel in a baggie in the fridge. Last week, I got them out to plant.

I got about 22 seeds from the fruits, so I chose two places to plant them. They love shade, so one spot was at the far end of my forest garden.

The other place was at the bottom of our property. 

This is the one area where few pines have dropped, so it's a very nice spot to visit.

In addition to the pawpaws, they sent me some persimmons!

These, I planted whole throughout our entire woods. Each fruit contains several seeds, so we'll see what happens!

Earlier this year, I started transplanting pecan saplings into our woods, but these are the first trees I've planted from seed. It will take years to reap the results, but even so, getting them planted feels like an priceless investment. 

Planting Pawpaws & Persimmons © Jan. 2022 

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

Propagating Fruit Trees

My winter project this year is working on my first food forest garden. Fall and winter are the best times here for planting trees and shrubs, so I'm working toward having a variety of things to plant. And not just in my designated food forest. I'm looking to plant food producing species in our woods as well. 

There are several ways to obtain these. One is to buy them. Another is to raise them from seeds, and I'll have more about that in a future blog post. Still another way, is to propagate them from cuttings. I recently found a video on how to do this and gave it a try with cuttings from one of my pear trees.

Lengths of branches are cut and stripped of existing leaves.

Live sticks are placed in a sealed jar with an inch of water.

The jar is stored in a dark place until sticks begin to grow nubs.

Close-up

These are then planted in pots.

Once they develop a good root system,
they can be transplanted into the ground.

Probably the best time to do this will be spring, since everything is going dormant now. But at least I know it works. I tried it with redbud branches, but they never sprouted, so this may be best for fruit trees. Starting with larger sticks would be better, because the plantings would be larger.

I can see this as being an ongoing project and good way to plant more food producing trees. And all for free! It doesn't get any better than that. 

Propagating Fruit Trees © November 2021

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

Taming the Wild Side

One thing I have learned over the years, is that just because I "tame" an area, doesn't mean it stays tamed. Gardens, for example. They can look neat and lovely at the beginning of the summer, but by the end of the season, the battle with the weeds has been lost, and you wonder if you can still find the tomato plants. I have the same problem with other areas, such as my herb beds, elderberries, rugosa roses, and forest garden hedgerows. Once a year these areas get tidied, and that's usually when I take pictures! After that, they seem a lost cause. 

I've often thought that if all I had to do was the garden, or my herb beds, or my hedgerows, then they'd be beautiful. They'd be perfect. As it is, I have many things to do: garden, goats, pasture, house, harvest, food preservation, and whatever projects we're working on. In reality, things gets done as best we can even though it doesn't often look like it.

Earlier this month, we were discussing where to plant some apple and quince trees that we bought. We decided on the front yard for the apple trees, but unfortunately, the best place would take quite a bit of work to conquer. There was also the question of an old pecan tree that shades both front yard and the top of the garden.

The top of the garden. There's a fence in there!

This thicket is marked "wind break" on our master plan. Here's what it looked like several years ago, when we fenced the garden.  

June 2014

For awhile I had my compost worm bed up there, and later a bed of comfrey. Occasionally, I would cut shrubs down to feed the goats, but over the years it grew into a wild mess.

March 2021

Ligustrum, seedling oaks, honeysuckle, wild roses, blackberries, saw briars, and poison ivy are part of the take over, along with things I haven't identified. And every year they creep out a little further toward the garden on one side of the fence and into the front yard on the other. 

As we discussed a plan, we had to ask what should be done about the old pecan tree. It never produces much in the way of pecans and shades part of the garden. It would shade any fruit trees we wanted to plant there too. The other thing about older trees, is that they become problematic if allowed to get too big. They need to be cut while the chain saw can manage them, and while the wood is still fairly healthy. Old rotted trees are dangerous trees, plus it's a waste of wood.

I cleared out the shrubs and undergrowth around the tree.

View from the garden.

Then, Dan took off the tree branches on the garden side of the tree. 

Felling trees can be unpredictable, so Dan removed
the weight on the side we didn't want it to fall toward.

The next day he took it down.

A good size for the chain saw and the wood is healthy.

Our front yard.

What a gap it left in the skyline! It makes us a little sad, actually.

However, it will be put to good use as firewood, and the branches will be chipped for mulch and smoker wood. We'll plant two new apple trees and a crabapple here, in the front yard. 

On the garden side, we're pulling roots to get ready to plant Chinese quince seedlings. 

Back on the garden side.

Two baby Chinese quince trees planted and mulching begun.

Chinese quince

Eventually, they will create a new treed skyline. Said to grow 15 to 20 feet in height, it will be a shorter treeline than the 50 to 60 foot pecan. For now, I'll continue covering the area with a cardboard/wood chip mulch. Either this fall or next spring, we'll sow a diverse ground cover here. Hopefully, this area won't revert back to the wild side too badly. 

Taming the Wild Side © March 2021

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