First day of fall 2021

 Welcome back to another episode of Lost In the Farmers Market, where finally Autumn has arrived and the season begins with cooler temperatures and discussions of a winter garden. Despite what some might tell you here in Zone 8a gardening is a year-round affair. The warm season crops go in in April around Easter, and the Cool –season stuff goes in roughly around September. Some stuff like Collards takes a little longer and thus, we start them in early-mid August if from seed but at the start of September if using plants. Every crop has its nuances that you need to keep an eye on. For instance, if you started seed indoors you need to start sowing things as early as mid-July to August to get the best results for the slower growing cool season crops.

 

Fortunately we have a great opportunity to get things rolling while the humidity is low and night time temperatures are cool. It is less physically exerting to garden when the weather is cooperative and also the bugs are less aggravating. You should not wait to get those crops in the ground though because the longer you wait the less likely they will have established and the higher chance a frost might wreck everything. Additionally, procrastinating will delay your effective harvest, and that could mess up your culinary plans for Thanksgiving, Christmas or the New Year. A lot of people ask in general if it’s too late or too soon and the simple answer is that it is somewhat complicated.  Gardening thankfully is not an exact science with a catch-all answer to all problems or quandaries. Generally speaking, you put warm-season crops like tomatoes and peppers in after Easter in spring, and start planting out the fall crops in late August or September. I personally can say that I have planted out things as late as the end of October and gotten good but delayed results. As long as you don’t wait too long you can still have that cool season low-maintenance veggie garden you have had a craving for.

 

With all that said, there are a few things you should consider starting from seed versus buying as plants. I typically start Cilantro/Coriander, Radishes, Carrots, and Snow Peas from seed in the garden because it’s so much cheaper and effective to do so. These plants do not benefit from being transplanted and their roots tend to grow quite fast and you really don’t want to disturb that. Generally you don’t want to disturb any plant’s roots if you can help it but with some they seem to experience no real loss in productivity if you do. As a general rule you never want to disturb the roots of anything producing tubers (radishes) or that has a taproot (carrots, fennel). Peas are in this group because they produce a lot of  roots fast and can rapidly out grow their containers if the container they were sprouted in is not big enough so it’s better to give them root space right off and let them do their thing. What you start by seed hinges on your spare time that you can apply to maintenance and your gardening skill level. For those of you out there who are wondering; the easiest things to start right now are Snow peas, Carrots, Cilantro and, Radishes. The latter three can have their seed tossed on any patch of dirt that’s been slightly scuffed and is moist. The former needs to be covered in about ¼” of dirt but that’s pretty easy and the seed is large and easy to handle.

Peas are a great way to get young kids involved since they are very noticeable when they germinate and emerge. More difficult and or finicky seeds like Swiss Chard, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Celery, Broccoli, Cauliflower and so on should be started indoors over a heat mat to maintain soil temperatures. Some of these seeds like the celery need to be soaked overnight just to germinate properly.

The key to getting your sown seed to come up uniformly is to gently moisten the soil where you sowed them on a daily basis (assuming no rain) for about two weeks and then as needed once the seedlings are visible. The easiest way to do this is to use something like a rain shower wand attached to a hose or a watering can so the water doesn’t wash out the seed or beat up the seedlings. You should avoid using any sort of fertilizer for about two weeks after the seedlings emerge to avoid burning but, initially use a water-soluble fertilizer at half-strength weekly for three more weeks to really get things going. After that assuming there are no freezing temperatures or rainy weather you can switch to a two-week rotation on fertilizer at normal strength. I would also advise using mulch, but not that wood mulch you can buy at the bLowes or Home Despot, what you want is quality Pine Straw because it does not float, it barely changes color and it discourages digging animals. Also it does not acidify the soil as much as some think and there’s the bonus value of it not attracting termites. Now, with all that said here are some garden photographs.

The first step to preparing the warm-season garden for cool season growing is to harvest what you can, which in this case is the carrots, basil, perilla and whatever peppers and cotton are ready.

After the bed is weeded and the soil gently moved around a bit with the hard steel rake, the collards are planted with about a foot of distance between them. I add a bit of granulated tobacco fertilizer at this point just to give them a constant boost as they grow.

The final step is to apply a decent layer of pine straw to keep the weeds down and the critters from messing with the seedlings. I watered it all with the rain wand attachment on my garden hose right after and maintained a once-a-day watering schedule for two weeks with adjustments for rain.

Bigelowia nutallii - Nutall’s Rayless Goldenrod

Nutall's Rayless Goldenrod is called that because it's flowers dont have petals or 'rays' as they tend to be called on members of the Aster family. Make no mistake this goldenrod is a member of the aster family, it's just a bit anti-social.

 

 

Acanthus ‘Summer Beauty’ – Bears Breeches

The best part of this Acanthus is that no one knows where the heck the name Bear's Breeches came from. Maybe it's tied into that old joke about a bear crapping in the woods or maybe some ancestor of this plant was used by bears as toilet paper...

 

 

 

Ruscus aculeatus ‘Wheeler’s Variety’ – Butcher’s Broom

This is a plant I've long sought, and managed to buy a few years back and boy it was not cheap. However Butcher's Brooms prefer shady areas and are like Sky Pencil Hollies minus being a holly or having any of the problems.

 

Abelmoschus manihot ‘Chief Kubo’s Prize’ – South Sea Salad Tree

 

 Ok, folks I have just found out the best information ever on this tropical cousin of Okra. Yes the leaves and stems and immature seed pods are edible and so are the flowers, but  it is apparently perennial in zone 8A. Sopme sources say 8B, but the USDA states 8A and really who are you going to believe, some random website or these folks!

https://pfaf.org/User/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Abelmoschus+manihot

https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/abelmoschus-manihot/

 

Hibiscus coccineus ‘Texas Star’ -  Scarlet Rose Mallow

 Yup, this is the plant that had a neighbor calling the police on me because she was absolutely certain it was marijuana, and the leaves do look that way, until it flowers.

 

Ricinus communis ‘Zanzibar’ – Castor Bean

 It keeps getting bigger, it's literally just a little bit shorter than the dogwood behind it and all this growth in a single growing year. Let's hope it can survive the winter.

 

 

Rosa ‘oregold’ – Oregold Rose

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I am not a fan of roses in general, and only three specimens are allowed int he test gardens because of their exceptional health and vigor. The golden yellow of this one is remarkable.

 

Hosta sp. - Hosta

This is one of the more colorful hostas that was recovered from the crescent bed earlier in the year, it has tripled in size and for the first time it's going to bloom. Not long after taking this picture it was repotted to a much larger 15 gallon pot. Oh and don't mind the feisty kitten photobomb.

 

 

So, while the temperatures and humidity have been low I decided to dig out all the Daylilies that aren’t really doing good. I replaced them with the Texas Star Hibiscus, Mekong Giant Banana, Bear’s Breeches and the South Sea Salad Tree. The lilies have been moved to the large strawberry pot after the strawberries were removed. Like the lilies the Strawberries have been progressively under performing for a while.

 

 

Would you look at that, the hot sauce made from my Fayetteville Inferno Peppers is right there on the Board at Fowler's BBQ!

 

 

Here are the latest YouTube videos for your garden entertainment:

 

Salad Tree? Not in here buddy! (100^th LITFM!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SP1r_yoXN2c

 

I’d make a meat pun here but it’d get butchered.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyYjbtziznM

 

Go for the Gold-enrod!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rus8Tz5sRlg

 

So many breeches I can’t bear it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61ubssXhFms

 

Spring will be here in a lily bit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS_h8sMMYb4

 

 

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 fruit, herbs, flowers and perennials, 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.

 

 

Fresh Produce:

Fresh Garlic: $1.00 (Available now!)

Soup Kits: $6.00 (Available in October)

 

Vegetables: ($3.00 each)

Arugula, Astro

Broccoli, Green Magic

Cauliflower, Snow Crown

Collards, Green Glaze

Endive, Benefine

Kale, Dinosaur

Kale, Red Russian

Kale, Redbor

Kale, Dwarf Blue Curled

Spinach, Green Beret

 

Herbs: ($3.00 each)

Cat Mint

Parsley

Oregano

 

Fruiting Plants:

Muscadine Grapes, Green ($4.00)

 

Ornamental Stuff: ($3.00 each)

Coneflower, Artisan Soft Orange ($3.00)

 

Coming Soon:

TBA

 

How to stay in Contact with Us!

 

Our group’s online presence has migrated to Nextdoor.com. All you need to keep up with all our activities is to have a Nextdoor account and to look for the ‘Sustainable Neighbors of Fayetteville’ group and ask to join! You don’t have to live in Fayetteville to join us! Feel free to ask all your garden questions of our knowledgeable membership and post your cool garden pictures.

 

https://nextdoor.com/g/ybvdm226x/?is=nav_bar

 

 

Meetings are back on track folks! We now meet at LeClairs General Store on the First and third Thursday of every month. Our next meeting is on October 7^th  between 5:30pm and 7:00pm. We are in the back room so come on in and join us for a fun garden chat.

 

 

If the two above methods do not work you can always contact me through this blog, PM me through Nextdoor.com and or visit the Fayetteville City Market. This brings to a close the eighteenth LITFM post of 2021; stay tuned the next episode which should be posted at some point in October. There will be more garden updates and other cool stuff.

April Showers bring...um More April Showers Apparently

Welcome back to another springtime episode of Lost in the Farmer’s Market. Originally I’d planned to post this episode on April 1^st with all sorts of comical slapstick and then well no. If the rest of the internet is pulling the same stunt it’s just not as funny. So today we have some pictures from the field, and then our main topic, the fourth and final installment of the weeds you can eat series. As with all the other episodes this week’s weed comes with a culinary recipe for making a dis that is tasty enough to serve to guests of adventurous palate.

What could be better than greeting spring with epic Pansies?

Few people realize how tough pansies are. Seriously despite the name of these little violets being considered synonymous with being wimpy, these annuals are almost perennial and may be biennial in climates with shorter cooler summers. These little guys have been frozen repeatedly, buried in snow and ice and yet this spring they bounced back to mock old man winter yet again. I planted these in early fall and they’ll have run their course in early to mid-summer. There is also a chance of them sowing seed that will mean new pansies of random colors next fall.

Wintergreen Barberry – Berberis julianae

This plant was given to me by Marty Williams as he had two but no room for both, and well, I couldn’t pass up such a unique evergreen plant in the barberry family which makes it related to Mahonia, and Nandina (Heavenly Bamboo). I was concearned it had frozen to death over the winter but it much like a mahonia, opened the early days of spring by being coated in little yellow flowers that were clearly pure pollinator crack.

Japanese Camellia - Camellia japonica

It’s not spring in Fayetteville without an obligatory camellia picture. The test gardens have both red and pink camellias but the red camellias had their buds frozen whereas the pink camellias are doing just fine.

Horehound – Marribum vulgare

Last year this plant was a single unwanted herb that no one seemed to want to purchase so it wound up in the crescent garden.  In the second half of 2014 it looked spindly and very unhappy but now it’s sort of exploded. For those not in the know, Horehound is used to soothe coughs and is commonly used in old time horehound candies you see in some pharmacies.

Plantain Lily – Hosta spp.

Ok so hostas, big deal right? Well the hostas in the picture above were part of a salvage effort. A client of mine decided that they simply no longer wanted their hostas and they had to go and my instructions were to put them in the trash. Well I nicked the newly evicted hostas and put them out in the shady rock garden. Thus far I’ve had trouble getting any good bedding plants to stick back there so I figured, “well if they fail it’s a pocket of good soil to try something else in, if they succeed then I’ve saved myself a LOT of money.” As any gardener knows hostas, even plain green ones are pretty expensive, in the catalogs you might get a plain green hosta for five bucks, but at the nursery they range from 8.00 to 20.00 per pot! So I arrived at the test gardens with the truck half full of salvaged hostas which were planted in the newly vacated borders and beds that formerly held plants that failed or were moved to the crescent garden. With the bad winter I was understandably concearned the hostas died especially after all the winter storm damage, but no, the perennials are coming back like gangbusters.

Prickly, Tall or Wild Lettuce – Lactuca Canadensis (Syn. L. scariola or serriola)

Wild lettuce is a member of the Daisy family and is thus grouped with a number of common food plants that we are very familiar with. It is generally considered to be an annual or biennial and is often found in disturbed sites such as fields, roadsides and vacant lots. Wild lettuce is not native as it was introduced from Europe but, it is not considered invasive. A good identification feature for wild lettuce is its height, as it can get to a height of 5-6’ and has a very narrow columnar overall shape. Its flowers look like tiny dandelions and are born in somewhat unruly clusters. Wild Lettuce much like dandelions spreads by producing seeds with a tiny filament that allows them to float on the wind to areas distant. In my studies however it seems the plant’s seeds seem to take root roughly ten to thirty feet away from the last know occurrence of the plant with a flowering body in the prior year.

This is wild lettuce and at mature height it is one of the tallest annual weeds you can find in your garden. Under normal circumstances just before blooming wild lettuce can reach a height of 5-6’ with a strictly columnar habit. It literally looks like a dandelion on steroids and it’s flowers look very much the part also. Its primary method of spread is through wind borne seeds thathave a filament that allows them to drift on the wind, much like dandelion and thus it is in the daisy family. Few people realize that true lettuce like we buy at the store is this plant’s heavily cultivated and hybridized cousin. Both are edible, though wild lettuce has a bit more of the latex sap much like dandelion greens.

But of course what is the discussion of an edible wild green without a recipe to eat it?  For starters I advise picking the leaves of wild lettuce when the plant is fairly young the best time is while the plants are less than 8” tall however, if you are cooking the greens you may be able to manage harvesting a taller plant. You can use the fresh greens chopped like one might do with normal lettuce in a tossed salad. As a cooked dish the greens should be boiled for 2-3 minutes in very little water, a little bit of adobo along with some butter or olive oil. Should the greens be wilted the process is a bit different as you need to pour boiling water over them and let them sit for 5 minutes. Allow to drain and then make a dressing consisting of 3 slices of crispy bacon crumbled into ¼ cup of vinegar with 1 tsp. sugar and ½ tsp. salt. Mix and pour over the lettuce. As a final note, large quantities of this edible weed in some individuals due to the latex sap can cause digestive upset.

If you are still doubtful consider the company that Wild Lettuce keeps. Wild lettuce is in the same family as Sunflowers, Jerusalem Artichokes, Echninacea, Chrysanthemums, Tarragon, Marigolds, Lettuce, Chicory, Endive, Escarole, Santolina, and, Stevia. So doubts aside it’s very unlikely wild lettuce is poisonous and since we eat so many of it’s relatives regularly it’s unlikely to cause an allergic reaction. However always taste test a little bit first to verify if or if not you will have a reaction and if included in a recipe let anyone else who might eat it know that you have included it.

Finally a image of the woodland side of the gardens after storm cleanup.

Yes as you well know in the ice storm back in February, the test gardens took a considerable amount of damage in the woodland area and our photos as posted show a tremendous logjam of branches down making certain areas inaccessible. Well after a number of fits and starts in clearing the damage, mostly due to inclement weather finally the woodlands are clear and have taken on a new character with the changed amount of sunlight now leaking into the woods. As seen in the plantain lily image above, the great gamble of 2014, paid off, every salvaged Hosta not only survived but are actively growing very vigorously. This of course bodes well for the renewal of spring.

But this wraps up another episode of Lost In The Farmer’s Market, We here at LITFM wish you all you gardeners out there a happy Easter and hope you’ll stay tuned for the first of the spring posts next week. I’ll be down at the Fayetteville Farmer’s Market tomorrow with spring veggies for sale, and next week starts the inorexible march of the Tomatoes, so check in, next week the first of the Bordeuax Regional Nursery’s GMO-free, Heirloom Organic tomato species ‘Aunt Lou’s Underground Railroad’ will be available for purchase.