January, when the weather doesn’t even.

Welcome back to another episode of Lost in the Farmers Market. January has been strange hasn’t it? The weather fluctuations have made it hard to enjoy nature as it’s been cold wet and then suddenly summer-like. With a keen eye however you might notice that this has not stopped cold-season weeds from emerging and greening up sections of your lawn. At the test gardens there is already a sea of purple-green thanks to Henbit (Lamium amplexicaule)which is edible. Pale greens come from spots where Chickweed (Stellaria media) has emerged and the vibrant medium-greens are from Cat’s ear dandelions (Hypochaeris radicata). All of the aforementioned are either edible (henbit and chickweed) or have a medicinal use, and yet if you believed certain parts of big-agra you’d think these little plants were committing a war crime for existing. I urge all of you out there to go look at the little details and maybe you’ll realize that it is a myth that winter is a dead three months. But clearly no one told the wildlife as I saw this little critter scurry by at the test gardens.

 

Xystodemidae family subgroup, possible Apheloria - Millipede

I know some of you might be reaching for a can of Raid, but keep in mind, millipedes are decomposers, they tend to live in places that are damp frequently like piles of leaves, compost piles and in mulch. They actually for the most part are harmless and are a sign that an area is damp but also that decomposers are working on the excess organic matter present. These creatures work unseen much like worms throughout your garden. They’re part of the big picture and sometimes you can find groups of them by moving fallen leaves in the middle of winter. I makes one think for a moment about how many moving parts there must be in a cubic foot of soil that make the soil what it is. But onward to some indoor color to make winter less drab.

 

 January is also a good moth for Holiday Cactus, as they are in full bloom and you get a reminder of why you grow such a plain looking plant most of the year.

Of course what is a mention of Holiday Cactus without a representation of the impossible pink hues one can get from the species.

White is also an option, though I've yet to obtain a pure white specimen, and this off-white one is spectacular none-the less.

 Here is another off-white specimen with a noticeably darker pink blush. In case you are wondering why the flowers are curved down, it's probably because they in their native habitat, are pollinated by moths. Also given the fact these true cacti are epiphytes and would be dangling down from tree branches it protects the pollinator a bit.

 Ah yes a true red one, with a pink center. Now this  is definitely a show-stopper. The red blooming Holiday Cactus always sell faster, even if they are physically identical to all other colors except in bloom color. It's something about how dramatically visible they are in the dead of winter after the Poinsettias have faded.

With all that garden goodness covered this is the part of the blog where I have to advertise for the Fayetteville City Market. Now I know you readers probably don’t much like advertisements, but by booth at the City Market helps to cover the costs of running the test garden and literally maintains the Research & Development budget that is used to bring you the information that has made up the backbone of this blog. Also, as of the start of 2019, my booth can now process credit or debit cards thanks to the acquisition of s a Square reader so your payment options have doubled. With that said, if you want to get some GMO-free, Organic vegetables, herbs and fruiting shrubs come on down to the Fayetteville City Market on 325 Maxwell Street in downtown Fayetteville between the Hours of 9:00 am and 1:00 pm on Saturdays. Even in bad weather the market goes on though you might have to look for me under the ‘arches’ of the Transportation Museum’s front entryway.

Plants & Stuff Available Now:

All the Stuff:

Soup Kits: $6.00

Seasoning Packets: $2.00

Ginger, 4oz Packet: $2.00

Wormwood Packets: $2.00

Lavender Packets: $2.00

Pepper Packets: $2.00

Garlic, Whole Bulb: $1.00

Coming Soon:

TBA

These days I am generally at Leclair’s General Store once a week, for the weekly Sustainable Neighbors meeting at 5:30pm through 7:00 pm. If you have questions then I will be there to answer your questions. Since our meetings have an open-door policy you don’t need to sign up for anything or join anything, you can come on in ask for us and join the meetings. If not, you can always send me questions through this blog or visit the farmer’s market or pay attention to what Sustainable Neighbors is doing at the link below.

https://www.meetup.com/SustainableNeighbors/

                        This brings to a close the second LITFM post of 2020, stay tuned the next episode which should be posted on the 7^th of February. There will be more garden updates and other cool stuff.

A New Year & New Garden Plans

Welcome back to another episode of Lost in the Farmers Market.  Before we dive into this episode of LITFM I would like to make a last call for a Sustainable Neighbors annual event. Tomorrow, which is Sunday the 12^th of January at 2:00pm at Leclair’s General Store Sustainable Neighbors will be hosting its Annual Seed Swap Event. If want seed varieties that you’ve never seen before, come on down! If you’ve got seed varieties you’d love to share, Come on down! Hell, come on down if you’ve got no seeds and want to get some groovy seeds to start your garden right in 2020! This is an open door event all are welcome and we would be glad to have all of you. Now, onto today’s topic, as per tradition at LITFM, I often like to debunk concepts that are common in the gardening and agriculture field and part of today’s post is flatly debunking the heck out of the belief that nothing blooms in the winter and a winter garden is bland and has nothing going on.

 

Viola tricolor - Johnny Jump Up

Viola tricolor - Johnny Jump Up

The above two images disprove two common gardening misconceptions at once. Firstly, that you can’t have bright colors in the garden all winter long, and that you need a fancy rain barrel so rain catchment isn’t an eyesore. Pansies and Violas both are frost proof in our climate come in a wide variety of colors and can fill almost any bland spot in the garden. As an added bonus they love cold weather, may resow themselves and will freely hybridize over time. As if that were not enough the flowers can be candied, or eaten in salads making them a winter food item. As for the rain barrels you see That the test gardens have pretty bland looking black plastic rain barrels of the type that you can buy at low cost from the Agriculture Extension’s soil and water office. However few have thought of putting those hanging plastic bag planters on the sides to break up the outline of the barrels so they can be pretty or have thought to place basket planters in the tops of the rain barrels to add extra color. I urge all you readers out there to reconsider how you use garden space in 2020 to see if you can maximize the usage of space without compromising the productivity of your garden operations.

 

Fragraria x ananassa 'Ozark Beauty' - Everbearing Strawberry

Despite what a lot of garden guides say, in our climate strawberries prefer the colder months and may stop producing in the dead heat of summer. Most strawberries have white flowers but a selection have pink and even red colored blooms and this can add some delightful color to the winter garden in the form of fruit and blooms. It is false to assume that you only have one option when it comes to strawberries and also to assume that they too cannot possibly be pretty. Of course the trick to good strong strawberry plants is ample nitrogen and good soil which is why the pictured specimen is growing in a large tree-pot. Also on the lower right hand side of the picture is a volunteer flowering tobacco plant (Nicotiana sylvestris) which is supposed to be a frost sensitive annual, and it didn’t get the memo. In the lower right are Danver’s Red-core carrots (Daucus carota subspecies sativus) which seem to do well next to the strawberries. The contrast in leaf shape is its own form of decoration plus two-thirds of what’s in there is a food plant.

 

Pisum sativum var. saccaratum 'Oregon Giant' - Oregon Giant Snow Pea

 Snow Peas are a species of pea that are given little consideration in the garden because they are often overshadowed by more famous species such as Shelling peas and other types of Sugar peas. However snow peas are the most cold tolerant of the lot and will take frosts and produce peace in the dead of winter. Their white pea blossoms are a welcome sight at a time when little else is blooming and few food crops are so massive. Batches of these guys  can be grown in 14" pots with a small tomato cage as support and they will be perfectly happy. The trick is ti get them started while it's still warm in September along side whatever Swiss chard, Carrots and Radishes. This late start time means that they don't compete for space on seedling trays with members of the cabbage family whom should be started a month earlier in August. For note there are several varieties of Snow Pea that have been tested in the botanical test gardens such as Taichung (pink flowers) and, Snowbird (White flowers with rare pink blush), so there are options out there.

Camellia sasanqua - Variety Unknown

What indeed would a southern garden be without the Camellias? Sasanqua-type camellias bloom in the dead of winter, and come in single, double and triple forms and may produce viable seed too. If you like rose blossoms, but hate that roses don’t do much in the cold months Camellias can provide your cold-seas color fix and they make nice cut flowers. The only thing they don’t seem to do is have a scent, but then that’s where other flowers like pansies come in. I should also note that Camellia sinensis is the source of black and green teas and having one of these shrubs will add function to your already stately and evergreen camellia bushes.

 

Lunaria annua - Honesty, Silver Dollar Plant, Money Plant

 

I love it when I hear gardeners say ‘Aw, but nothing grows in the winter’ because I know Money plant would love to have a word with that person. Lunaria is a biennial meaning it emerges and grows one year and then produces seed and flowers the next year. It is in the Cabbage family so parts of it are edible and when it blooms it produces bright purple flowers. The flowers are followed by the plant’s trademark papery seed capsules which are the size of Silver dollars which is how it got one of its common names. Unlike other members of the cabbage family, Lunaria isn’t nutrient intensive and will happily naturalize where aver you sow the seeds and be a nice neighbor.

 

Narcissus pseudonarcissus 'Thalia' - Thalia Daffodil

Daffodils are one of the earliest to emerge bulbs that you can plant, they are aromatic, and in the case of Thalia they also change color. Thalia emerges butter yellow, and then fades to pure white and the petals may go semi-translucent. Aside from snowbells and the next entry daffodils can add some serious early color to your garden in exchange for minimal maintenance. Narcissus are also squirrel, mole and vole proof because they are very poisonous, and their scent tells those critters to get lost. You can plant other more vulnerable bulbs in with the daffodils for protection.

 

Iris cristata - Crested Iris

You don’t see crested Iris in gardens much, and I believe this one was a ‘distressed plant rack’ rescue from bLowes. Its variety is unknown however, it emerges super-early, we’re talking late November making it earlier than Daffodils if you can imagine that. It blooms later however and it persists until late summer as foliage. In contrast to other Iris who tends to be summer oriented this is an option for earlier color and shape in the winter garden.

 

Agave americana - American Aloe

If course I had to show this plant. American Aloe isn’t actually an aloe but a member of the agave family that can live for decades and get massive over time. It’s a succulent with some pretty difficult spines that once established needs no care (much like a prickly pear) and will reward you with a unique shape that can be the center piece of a garden bed year-round. Starting with a small one (think 6” pot) yields the best reward because you get to watch this native succulent grow and develop. The blue-green new foliage and grey green foliage is interesting to look at. The best part is if you look closely, you can see that the developing leaves naturally are furled so tightly that they leave permanent marks making for odd patterns that are never exactly the same on each leaf.

Abutilon megapotamicum 'Orange Hot Lava' - Flowering Maple

I sold a number of these plants in 2019, and will have them again in 2020. But this isn’t about shilling for the market, instead if you notice this flowering maple in the dead of winter still has its leaves and shrugged off every frost we’ve had so far proving it’s hardiness in the garden. This relates to the prior topic of alternative uses because this plant mimics a Japanese maple due to its leaf shape making it a suitable alternative to an actual Japanese maple. The bright fireball orange bell shaped blooms that appear all summer long are an added bonus that liven up the garden when the plant’s foliage is overshadowed by showier options. Just to be clear, flowering maples (Abutilon) are actually in the Hibiscus family and have no relation to the Maples (Acer). Oh and as a technology fact, the Computer brand named Acer, well the word Acer means 'Sharp' which isn't surprising since the Acern company is best known for producing computer screens. I admit a slight bias to that company's products due to the clever name.

 

Brassica oleracea 'Lacinato' - Dinosaur Kale

As a final thought for this post, the above demonstrates how you harvest leaves from a cold season leaf green kind of plant. You cut the lower leaves off and use those instead of harvesting the whole head because it will result in more numerous harvests over time. It also removes the oldest leaves from the plant facilitating its natural growth pattern while opening up air spaces below the given plant to prevent disease.

With all that garden goodness covered this is the part of the blog where I have to advertise for the Fayetteville City Market. Now I know you readers probably don’t much like advertisements, but by booth at the City Market helps to cover the costs of running the test garden and literally maintains the Research & Development budget that is used to bring you the information that has made up the backbone of this blog. Also, as of the start of 2019, my booth can now process credit or debit cards thanks to the acquisition of s a Square reader so your payment options have doubled. With that said, if you want to get some GMO-free, Organic vegetables, herbs and fruiting shrubs come on down to the Fayetteville City Market on 325 Maxwell Street in downtown Fayetteville between the Hours of 9:00 am and 1:00 pm on Saturdays. Even in bad weather the market goes on though you might have to look for me under the ‘arches’ of the Transportation Museum’s front entryway.

Plants & Stuff Available Now:

All the Stuff:

Soup Kits: $6.00

Seasoning Packets: $2.00

Ginger, 4oz Packet: $2.00

Wormwood Packets: $2.00

Lavender Packets: $2.00

Pepper Packets: $2.00

Garlic, Whole Bulb: $1.00

Coming Soon:

TBA

These days I am generally at Leclair’s General Store once a week, for the weekly Sustainable Neighbors meeting at 5:30pm through 7:00 pm. If you have questions then I will be there to answer your questions. Since our meetings have an open-door policy you don’t need to sign up for anything or join anything, you can come on in ask for us and join the meetings. If not, you can always send me questions through this blog or visit the farmer’s market or pay attention to what Sustainable Neighbors is doing at the link below.

https://www.meetup.com/SustainableNeighbors/

This brings to a close the first LITFM post of 2020, stay tuned the next episode which should be posted on the 24^th of January. There will be more garden updates and other cool stuff.

Where has all the 2019 Gone?!

Welcome back to another episode of Lost in the Farmers Market.  Now this episode was supposed to be posted last Friday but thanks to holiday workday scheduling and the work it took to tally the harvest numbers for 2019, there has been a delay of literally one entire week. Don’t worry the scheduled first actual post for 2020 is still happening next Friday. But enough of the delays, lets delve into the subject matter.

For those new to what happens in the last post of each year at Lost In the Farmer’s Market, I keep a running total of everything I harvest regardless of what it’s used for. The only exception to this rule is Comfrey (Symphytum officinale) because that is grown to improve soil quality and produce fertilizer and measuring that output in the past has been elusive. All agricultural products whether consumed on site or taken to the farmer’s market are tabulated and put together for your informational benefit. The objective of keeping this data is to prove that organic methods over time do have an increasing cumulative beneficial effect thus proving that yes, growing organic is cost effective and viable. Keeping these records isn’t new, but in the last two years the means by which it is calculated has changed as I upgraded to a digital scale in late 2017 which dramatically increased the accuracy of my measurements. The first year that I tried to take any sort of weight measurements for harvest totals was 2014 and in that year the total was 112 pounds.  In six years of work I’ve doubled that amount with some productivity to spare. There are a few standard practices in use for my operation that need to be mentioned.

1.      The majority of produce is grown from seed or cuttings.

2.      All harvested produce is sold/used within a few days of harvest.

3.      To keep costs down, seed saving measures are being used.

4.      All purchased seed is from a verified organic source.

5.      Unusual plants that can’t readily be grown from seed will be sourced from a organic grower if possible.

With the terms and conditions of my operation in mind let’s take a look at what the end results of the year were.

Total amounts by type:

Assorted Herbs – 47.45 pounds

Assorted Figs – 16.36 pounds

Vegetables, other - 15.96 pounds

Peppers – 10.98 pounds (Sent to Fowler’s)

Cotton, seed & fiber – 5.67 ounces (4.06oz seed/ 1.61oz fiber)

Vegetables, Soup Kit – 145.66 pounds

Grand total: 236.764 pounds

You read that correctly, of all plant materials harvested in 2019, I produced approximately 236.76 pounds, most of which occurs in the first and last three months of the year. This is could be called a skewed result because the bulk of my produce is cold-season crops, though the summer fruit harvest has been offsetting that. Had I been more aggressive about harvesting blueberries this year it might have been even more different. Below you can see the harvest amounts in pounds listed by what month the produce was harvested.

Total amounts by Month:

January – 29.03 pounds

February – 31.11 pounds

March – 39.90 pounds

April – 17.34 pounds [crop reset]

May – 2.923 pounds

June – 7.083 pounds

July – 15.18 pounds

August – 4.12 pounds

September – 5.60 pounds [crop reset]

October – 25.60 pounds

November – 29.44 pounds

December – 29.45 pounds

As you can see, there are ups and downs, usually relating to if or if not soup kits and their associated materials are being sold at that time of year. Soup kits aren’t the only thing to spike harvest numbers, the fig harvest which goes from June to early August also adds to the harvest numbers as does the Persimmon harvest which is spread across October and November. I should note while the fig harvest was excellent; the Persimmon harvest was damaged and most were picked in a green state in the hope they would ripen off the tree thanks to storm damage. Another challenging number in contrast to the dominance of carrots, potatoes, turnips, celery and parsnips are the harvest numbers for Collards, Kale, and Mustard. I admit that in the last few years prior I had not put as much effort into growing these cold-season staples as I had in the past. The establishment of a new roughly 8’x8’ growing area has had a noticeable uptick in the non-soup kit vegetable numbers and will have a continued effect in the first half of 2020. Even with the aforementioned said; the highest monthly harvest total was in March at the end of soup kit season when all the left over vegetables were harvested for on-site consumption. One abnormality in the tally is the consideration of the cotton harvest. The collection of mature cotton bolls occurred from June through December even after a killing frost.  I didn’t bother to record when I harvested like everything else, just that I did and some relative pertinent data associated. Since it’s not a food item this isn’t a big deal but it may be interesting to some of you readers out there. Cotton is counted in the final overall total so it’s had impact on the main numbers.

To put all this in economic perspective I will use one of my most well-known items as an example. The soup kit I sell on average weighs roughly two pounds, which is comparable in weight to those sold at supermarkets. Each kit sells for $6.00, which is also about the same price as one sold at the supermarket. That same kit is GMO-free, and absolutely organic also which adds value. Now consider that the farmers who supply supermarkets often get a subsidy from the government compensating for the fact their product will be sold at half or less than its asking price normally then compare to how my vegetables are sold at a similar if not better price increment than non-organic supermarket ones. According to the numbers, the kits with parsnips are the most popular, having sold twenty-nine packs, in comparison to the turnip-kits which sold nineteen kits. Overall the kits netted a total of $288.00 in sales for the Botanical Test Garden’s operations. It is important to note that of that income about half goes back to the operations fund to recoup normalized costs for maintaining that level of output.  As I prefer to think of it, Test garden operations are not a job it’s a hobby that just so happens to pay for itself. If you all are interesting in specific harvest information on individual crops feel free to ask and I can provide the numbers. Posting all the individual harvest numbers would take up an incredible amount of space on this blog and might make it pretty boring but I do have the numbers. Here is one last set of statistics to consider for the growing operations of 2019.

Crop Diversity, by type:

Peppers, Super-Hot – 11 types.

Vegetable, Leaf greens – 12 types.

Vegetable, Root – 12 types.

Vegetable, Other – 2 type.

Vegetable, Tomato – 5 types.

Herbs, Assorted – 24 types.

Fruit, Fig – 7 types.

Fruit, Other – 7 types.

Cotton, All – 2 types.

If the above is any indicator, by existing I apparently am sticking it to the agricultural standard of monoculture. But this is just the beginning folks, 2020 is going to see new trials of plants of all sorts and types, the gardening mayhem will not stop.

With all that garden goodness covered this is the part of the blog where I have to advertise for the Fayetteville City Market. Now I know you readers probably don’t much like advertisements, but by booth at the City Market helps to cover the costs of running the test garden and literally maintains the Research & Development budget that is used to bring you the information that has made up the backbone of this blog. Also, as of the start of 2019, my booth can now process credit or debit cards thanks to the acquisition of s a Square reader so your payment options have doubled. With that said, if you want to get some GMO-free, Organic vegetables, herbs and fruiting shrubs come on down to the Fayetteville City Market on 325 Maxwell Street in downtown Fayetteville between the Hours of 9:00 am and 1:00 pm on Saturdays. Even in bad weather the market goes on though you might have to look for me under the ‘arches’ of the Transportation Museum’s front entryway.

Plants & Stuff Available Now:

All the Stuff:

Soup Kits: $6.00

Seasoning Packets: $2.00

Ginger, 4oz Packet: $2.00

Wormwood Packets: $2.00

Lavender Packets: $2.00

Pepper Packets: $2.00

Garlic, Whole Bulb: $1.00

Coming Soon:

TBA

These days I am generally at Leclair’s General Store once a week, for the weekly Sustainable Neighbors meeting at 5:30pm through 7:00 pm. If you have questions then I will be there to answer your questions. Since our meetings have an open-door policy you don’t need to sign up for anything or join anything, you can come on in ask for us and join the meetings. If not, you can always send me questions through this blog or visit the farmer’s market or pay attention to what Sustainable Neighbors is doing at the link below.

https://www.meetup.com/SustainableNeighbors/

                        This brings to a close the the last LITFM post of 2019, stay tuned the next episode which should be posted on the 10^th of January. There will be more garden updates and other cool stuff.