Severe Weather, DST and, Spring

 Welcome back to another episode of Lost In the Farmers Market, this episode comes in the aftermath of Daylight Savings Time and a strangely powerful storm front that has rolled through the Southern United States. Hopefully all you readers out there heeded the weather information and took appropriate precautions to protect yourself and your property from damage. That isn’t counting the mental chaos that DST tends to cause by artificially getting you out of bed an hour early than is normal. According to numerous weather-related sources, we know that the longest day light period in Raleigh is Fourteen hours and Twenty-six minutes during the Summer Solstice. The Shortest day by comparison is just Nine Hours and Thirty-Three hours long during the Winter Solstice. This means that DST isn’t actually doing anything that wasn’t going on before the invention of the clock. This year’s summer Solstice is on June 20^th, and out Winter Solstice is December 21^st which is only really useful in Agriculture, because it allows growers to predict when certain plants that bloom based on increasing or decreasing photo-periods will do so. It helps us gardeners because we know there will be a little bit more daylight when we get home from work to handle a few short chores. How you use it is up to you but for me, I say we need to abolish the pretense of DST. According to Healtheuropa.eu, and a few other sources, your body’s internal clock isn’t based on DST. It functions based on the normal cycles of night and day that our planet does, and indeed we somewhere, somehow, always know what the natural time is…unless something screws it all up. The loss of an average of 15-30 minutes of sleep is enough to throw our internal timekeeping into disorder which increases the chances of a stroke or heart attack and may cause an increase of distracted or drowsy driving which can lead to a fatal vehicle accident. Some states in the USA have abolished DST, Hawaii and Arizona specifically. Also territories such as American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands do not observe DST. It figures that the most chill tropical places don’t do it and even the one state that’s often referred to as the ‘Nursing home’ state doesn’t either.  But then, who really profits from DST anyway other than those who make timepieces, and maybe cellphone makers?

 

 

In acknowledgement of the First day of spring which is the 20^th or this Saturday, I have some spring blooms from the test gardens for your viewing pleasure. First off are these lovely Camellias (Camellia sassanqua), I do not know the specific variety, but they are always lovely and a sure sign that winter is nearing its end.

 

 

Next we have these Daffodils (Narcissus triandrus ‘Thalia’), they open sort of butter-cream colored and turn solid white. You can see all three color states in this photo.

 

 

What is a discussion of spring without a traditional yellow Daffodil (Narcissus sp)? Ths cluster of specimens punch through a ground cover of Chocolate Chip Bugleweed (Ajuga reptans ‘Chocolate Chip’)in late winter, they are the first  to bloom usually and have multiplied and done well.

 

Here we have a bunch of ‘sorbet’ series Johnny-Jump-Ups (Viola tricolor ‘Sorbet Fire’) in a pot with a Lace Kale  (Brassica oleracea var. sabellica) plant. The color contrast was intended to brighten the winter and it’s still doing that…even as we approach spring.

 

 

 

This is a common Dandelion (Taraxicum officinale) which was intentionally planted. I keep a few of these plants around to bring in the pollinators since they bloom on and off year-round.

 

More Johnny-Jump-Ups (Viola tricolor) of the sorbet series, with a Lace Kale, that is bolting. Remember how I mentioned bolting is usually bad thing? Well in this case I’m letting it happen to provide pollen and nectar for various early pollinators.

 

Yeah, I make a LOT of use of Violas, I don’t recall what variety this is but the red was so striking that I had to work it into the garden plan.

This lovely but spiny plant is Wintergreen Barberry (Berberis julinae). It is known for its very pretty yellow flowers in late winter but also for its spiny leaves and rigid and sharp spines on the stems. If you need an area blocked off by a living wall this is your plant!

 

My lone specimen of Oregon Grape (Mahonia aquifolium). This plant has somewhat spiny leathery leaves and is kind of slow-growing. When this Mahonia is in bloom though, the flowers which appear in late winter smell sort of like lemon dish soap. One plant can scent up large areas which is really nice and can help fight off the winter doldrums.

 

 

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.

 

This Week's Market List:

Soup Kit - Parsnip ($6.00)  

Soup Kit - Turnip ($6.00)

Just Onions ($3.00, 1lb)

Just Parsnips ($4.00 1lb) 

 

 

Spring Veggies: ($3.00 each)

Parris Island Romaine Lettuce

Cherokee Lettuce

Cimarron Lettuce

Lollo Rosso Lettuce

Black Magic Dinosaur Kale

Red Russian Kale

 

 March House Plant Collection (ON SALE!)
Starfish Sansevieria
Aloe 'Checkerboard'
Aloe 'Walmsley's Bronze'
Haworthia tesselata
Haworthia 'West Jogo'

The plant sale’s last week is this week.

                                          

We have a new place to share information and work on groovy sustainable stuff!  You can look for Sustainable Neighbors in our own Nextdoor.com group under the name “Sustainable Neighbors of Fayetteville”. You don’t have to live in Fayetteville to join but it is a private group so feel free to request to join us if you are signed up on the Nextdoor.com site.

 

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

 

Unfortunately, Covid-19 is still mucking up the works in terms of meeting in person. The good news is that Sustainable Neighbors does have a Discord Server. You can request access through our Meetup.com page or you can request access via our Nextdoor.com group. The meetup.com page is below for anyone looking to join us.

 

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

 

Since our meetings have an open-door policy you don’t need to buy anything or maintain any sort of attendance standard, you can come on in and join the meetings. When this Covid-19 mess calms down we may be able to resume normal in-person meetings. If not, you can always send me questions through this blog or visit the farmer’s market. This brings to a close the sixth LITFM post of 2021; stay tuned the next episode which should be posted on the 2^nd of April. 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.

And now for something completely different..april

Welcome back to another Episode of lost in the farmer’s market, today we continue the topic of last week with a few springtime photographs and a bit about suspicious individual…in your garden. But before we get to that, let us make with the spring photographs.

Obligatory Pansy bloom, because you know...

Camellias at the ranch.

From the wild flower mix I spread in the crescent garden last year this is some sort of primrose. Which brings to light one fact of using seed mixes, not everything comes up in a timely fashion.

Rabbit eye blueberries blooming, if this is not a sign of spring I don't know what is.

Stellaria Media - Chickweed

Yes you’ve probably seen this one, he’s trouble, you might commonly find him in the cooler seasons lurking. Perhaps he’s in your lawn, or in your newly tilled beds growing, spreading and looking utterly harmless, until suddenly he’s got a firm grasp on the soil and those April showers provide him the water needed to have that growth spurt and then he’s all up in your lettuce strangulating it with its enthusiasm for growing.  This is chickweed, a common garden weed known for its love of the cold season and very short life span.

Now the truth is that chickweed has an undeserved bad rap. As far as weeds go it is an effective anti-erosion plant as its fibrous roots are quite capable of holding the topsoil for a season until something else takes over. It is a fast grower and will tolerate a lot of soil types but is temperature sensitive and will not tolerate the summer’s heat. I figure in intentional cultivation its short life span may not be as much of a problem.  Now what do you use it for? Well Chickweed is 100% edible and is often trimmed with the clippings being used as a salad green. The specimen above was dug from where it was growing in bed and potted in enriched potting soil. Much like the trial a few years back to see what cultivation would do for a fire on the mountain (poinsettia relative) plant which is considered a weed. In shade with good soil and no competition it may be possible that chick weed could be a sustainable salad source. The specimen you see after transplanting wilted for a day then promptly recovered. At least I know it’s vigorous which bodes well for its adaptation perhaps as an edible houseplant. I’ll have more on this as the trial develops.

As you know the Fayetteville Farmer’s Market occurs every Saturday between the hours of 9:00 am and 1:00 pm. This week there is a special event at the market so we will be starting early with a setup time of 8:30. I believe we have a vintage automotive show going on so this week’s market will be off the hook for sure. The weather is supposed to be gorgeous so there’s plenty of reason to stop by and see the sights. The market is located on 325 Franklin Street in downtown Fayetteville and is typically located in the frontal parking lot of the Fayetteville Transportation Museum. With that said the following will be available this week.

Southward Skies: A northern guide to southern Gardening

This is the second edition of my book, which was published using data compiled from several years of test garden operations. It’s written to aid gardeners of all skill levels in successful garden methods that are targeted for the south east but had proven to be a valued resource for gardens across the eastern coast. It’s certainly a good gift for that gardener you know or for yourself if you’d like to have a reliable field guide. The book costs $25.00 and we do take checks for this item, you can even have it signed.

Black Magic Fertilizer

That’s right you’ve heard about it in trials all summer. This specially formulated liquid fertilizer was made and tested at the test gardens using natural ingredients and no chemicals. The result explosive growth, great harvests and of course no environmental side effects! We’re making batches of this stuff to order, at $6.00 per gallon of fertilizer. You can either order it at the market and pick it up the next week or have it delivered to your home in the Fayetteville area for a delivery charge of an additional $2.00.

House Plants

5x Aloe Vera ($5.00)

Garden Plants

4x Dinosaur Kale, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

4x Cabbage, Tatsoi, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

4x Mustard, India green, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Lettuce, Freedom Mix, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Lettuce, Romaine, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

4x Raddichio, Crimson, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

4x Swiss Chard, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

Herbs

4x Green Lavender-Cotton, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

3x Black Fennel, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

4x Sage, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Hyssop, White , 3.5” pot ($3.00)

3x Bloody Sorrel, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

4x Oregano, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Oregano, Bristol Cross

3x Rosemary, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

3x Horehound, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Lamb’s Ear, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

Coming Soon:

Some of the strawberry crop, All Ozark Beauty. For note they are everbearing type.

40x Ozark Beauty Strawberry, 3.5” pot ($3.00) ( April 12^th)

6x Ozark Beauty Strawberry, 5” pot ($5.00) (April 12^th)

10x Martha Washington Asparagus (April 5^th)

10x Dark Red Norland Potato (April 5^th)

Tomato, Amana Orange

Tomato, Aunt Lou's Underground Railroad

Tomato, Black Krim

Tomato, Blue Berries

Tomato, Brown Berry

Tomato, Hillbilly Potato Leaf

Tomato, Japanese Black Trifele

Tomato, Martino's Roma

Tomato, Paul Robeson

Tomato, Purple Calabash

Tomato, Rainbow Cherry Blend

Tomato, Reisetomate

Tomato, San Marzano

Tomato, Tlacolula

This is the end of the first post of April, and indeed we enter April with a precipitation of 1.5”. April showers and May flowers indeed if that rainfall is any gauge Fayetteville might become flower land in May. There is a supposed cold front coming but I figure that’s about normal; we did get of easy this week so keep an eye out for those night time temperatures. As always folks keep ‘em growing!