The Hurricane that Couldn't

Welcome back to another episode of Lost in the Farmers Market.

This was taken on Wednesday the 12th as the weather really started to change.

            To say that September has been in interesting month is an understatement, At the beginning of this month I had a topic in mind for the first article, wrote it up and ended up disliking its tone and so it was scrapped. As I worked on its replacement, the deadline passed and then Hurricane Florence decided to pay us a visit. It was not until last Tuesday that life in Fayetteville got somewhat close to normal and finally here we are with the two September articles combined into one. As some of you avid gardeners out there may already know September (weather permitting) is the time of the year in which you shift from warm season crops to cold season crops. While I can’t speak for any other gardeners out there the hurricane’s heavy winds battered all of my tomatoes into submission so of course as soon as the post hurricane cleanup occurred they got pulled out. If you want to try for a late crop of peas now is the time. Sowing carrots, parsnips, and radishes are also viable options at this juncture. But of course, if you don’t believe it’s fall, then the below picture should be your sign.

 

I somehow think these large spiders would be more horrifying if they glowed.

            The above is a particularly massive specimen of a Hentz Weaver ( Neoscona crucifera ) and it’s female due to the extreme sexual dimorphism in the species. Males are tiny comparatively because this allows them to approach a female without being eaten most likely. The females of this species are mainly nocturnal but you encounter them in the fall when they become at least partly diurnal. They will build webs that are easily a foot or more across with attachment lines that can run for many feet to fixed objects such as structures, trees, shrubs and patches of lawn. They seem to set up their webs daily starting in the evening, then tear them down some time in the dawn. Typically, if there is a population of these spiders in an area they will set up webs within the same 30-foot area. In my case this one and another two like it set up somewhere under the dogwoods and the driveway every night starting about mid-September. The Hertz Weaver may bite if agitated but is not known to have a bite that can harm you other than localized swelling. Getting a good night time image of this specific spider was part of the delay in getting this article posted. Weather and many errors in trying to get a decent photo stalled the original post. At this time of the year if you intend to walk in areas where trees and shrubs are within close proximity, carry an LED flashlight and shine it in your walking path, spider’s webs light up even at range so you don’t walk face first into one.

If I get only one that's still better than none.

            In keeping with what I originally intended to post in both of this month’s episodes there are some garden photos that needed to be shared. First is a casualty of the Hurricane; For the first time since I planted it, my Persimmon tree ( Diospyros kaki ‘Fuyu’) was loaded with fruit. Understandably I was excited by this because I thought after six years of messing with the darn thing, finally something to show for it. Well, Hurricane Florence showed up with her 50+ mph winds and said “Ain’t nobody got time for that!” and knocked all the fruit off the tree except this one in the photo above. That might be karma, because I did joke as the hurricane approached shore that ‘Aunt Flo is coming to town’ and well maybe the hurricane heard me. There are two things you should know about Persimmons; first never eat them on a completely empty stomach. Second, Persimmons contain a soluble tannin shibuol which when it contacts stomach acids can polymerize into a sticky goo, called a phytobexoar. This mass can cause indigestion and is slow to pass into the intestine. Moderate consumption of persimmons however if you eat to many Persimmons. Surgery may be required in extreme cases, though it is said that you can drink Coca-Cola to dissolve this mass and skip the doctor’s bill. It’s noted that horses can gain a taste for the fruit and eat to many and get sick for the same reasons a human eating to many would.

 

Apparently you plant Pomegranates and leave them alone to get fruit...who knew?!

But the persimmons were not the only thing worth noticing, you see the Pomegranates were also flowering hard too and never before have I gotten on camera a really good picture of what pomegranate flowers look like so for your viewing enjoyment here is one. Seriously, they do not look like any other plant I’ve ever seen! The petals remind me of crape myrtle and the unopened buds also look like that, but the waxy calyx in an open flower stops resembling any other fruit, and that is what eventually forms the pomegranate. The scientific name of the type of Pomegrante we see in stores and grow in our region is Punica granatum and in the case of the species I have on hand I also have Punica granatum var. nana which is a dwarf Pomegranate which is typically kept as an ornamental but also produces fruit. Culturally, in several sources it is stated that until the introduction of Tomatoes, Pomegranates were the most sought-after fruit and given that they have a long shelf life and can ferment in their rinds making a low yield sort of fruit wine it’s no surprise they were popular. Pomegranates are noted to have been one of the first cultivated fruits with Figs being the oldest known fruit to be cultivated.

Shiso so....nah I wont finish that joke!

Next up are some random shots; at the end of the season it just sort of figures that the Purple Shiso (Perilla frutescens var. crispa) out did the varied types of basil. I mean look at it go where the basil scored and sputtered it’s still growing and doesn’t seem to care if it’s flowering or not. I expect to have Perilla all over the place next year.

Ginger is super-easy to grow in our climate.

This is a first, it seems this first year Ginger (Zingiber officinale) is going to bloom. I have no idea what it’s flowers will look like or smell like but I do know that photos of that will be up here for you folks to enjoy as soon as this plant starts blooming. I expect a good harvest because if you look carefully, the pot that the ginger is in is distorted from its round shape to almost an oval, there are a LOT of roots in there for sure.

The blue berries of Virginia Creeper may look like tiny grapes, but they are highly toxic.

As a final picture for this post, above is a picture of Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) with berries. This climbing vine is considered a weed of moderate persistence because it is moderately difficult to eradicate. If you only read the classifications of the herbicide companies it’s the base of all garden existence with only Greenbriar (smilax rotundifolia) being consider more difficult to kill. However, Virginia creeper does have its advantages in that it can climb structures with adhesive disks that don’t damage the structures it is climbing on unlike true ivy (Hedera helix). This feature is advantageous because it can rapidly cover masonry allowing a cooling effect because it’s leaves will shade the building in summer. Often though, Virginia creeper is mistaken for Poison Ivy (Toxicodendron radicans) because Virginia Creeper can have anywhere from three to six leaflets per petiole and those leaves can outwardly resemble that of Posion Ivy.  The key identifying feature is that Poison ivy has leaflets that are shaped like your hand if the thumb is not extended, also it has white berries and its roots look hairy like true Ivy, because they are hairy looking and may dissolve masonry and stone.

For note this is where the advertising starts because it keeps the Test Garden’s supplied and running tests so you don’t have to. 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. Barring bad weather, I’ll be there selling the following summer offerings.

Plants Available Now:

Lemon Grass – $8.00

Sage, Common - $3.00

Santolina - $3.00

Ghost Pepper - $3.00

Tabasco Pepper - $3.00

Coneflower, Cayenne Red - $4.00

Coneflower, Pow Wow Mix - $4.00

Milkweed – $3.00

Milkweed, Whorled - $3.00

Flowering Maple - $4.00

Hops, 5” pot - $8.00

Dancing Bones Cactus - $3.00

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 Sixteenth and Seventeenth LITFM post of the new year, stay tuned the next episode which should be posted on the 10th of October which is the Wednesday after next. There will be more garden updates and other cool stuff.

Et Tu August?

Ah the first of the dog days of summer, here comes August, and the first episode of the month. Welcome back to Lost In the Farmer’s Market where we foray into the facts of organic concepts and demonstrate how you can get your slice of the permaculture pie. For the first installment of LITFM in August today we are talking about some of our pet projects at the test gardens. As always you are welcome to try some of what we are trying and send in your results. Like the old saying goes it takes a village to raise a child and indeed it takes a neighborhood to prove or disprove a new gardening concept.

Last year we tested some “worm juice” to see if it could act as a liquid fertilizer. As you recall its results were that some plants experienced gigantism as a result producing massive leaves and extra growth beyond their known parameters. Heavier yields and great vigor were stopped by a lack of availability of additional doses of the fertilizer used and thus the plants started to sputter in mid-late August. For note ‘Worm Juice’ is the naturally occurring liquid byproduct of worm activity in a vermiculture bin. It looks like dirty water with bits of dirt in it and sort of smells like a stagnant pond. Despite this it’s apparently packed with nutrients as the image below demonstrates in the case of the Turkish Italian Orange Eggplant.

Literally the leaves were a foot long and 10” wide at the prime period of effect.

The issue was that it was difficult if not impossible to obtain the ‘worm Juice’ product with any regularity or in the quantities needed to maintain the growth of crops in the long term. That said the current project is the attempt to produce a similar water-borne compound minus the need for vermiculture and certainly from a chemical and mineral salt free source. By that requirement typical fertilizers were a no-go, Alaska fish fertilizer was not strong or balanced enough. What we are testing is fermented, high potency compost tea. Basically we took 12 cups of water to four cups of sifted and aged compost put them in a tightly sealed water jug, placed it in the sun for five whole days and the resulting liquid is the fertilizer if diluted by 50%. I have to warn you by the time it was done the jug was swollen from internal pressure as the microbes in side went crazy. Literally it smelled like every stagnant reeking swamp you could ever visit, and it stained the jug black but, it seems to work. Granted the test is early on and will be complete by the end of the month, the plants tested seem to have a burst in growth within 24 hours of application. All things considered, at the very least it’s an excuse to play in the dirt.

The potato pots, earlier in the year before being filled.

We are also testing some new ideas in the concepts of cover crops by over sowing our potato pots with leaf greens so that as the potatoes slow down something else can be producing food on the same spot.  As some of you might already know we have three large potato pots in the test gardens and thus the cover crops are all one of three things, Amaranth, Perilla and Basil. All are annual, the first is a leaf green, the second is a food preservative and colorant, and the third is well delicious. If this test works, it may be a way to open SPIN gardening to the container garden world and thus maximize space further then would be normally possible.

Da Berm! Da Berm boss!

The third project underway is the Anti-Erosion Berm which as of our last reference to it is finally partially active. As some of you know we had a break in at the gardens and the camera was stolen, but the picture included was the general layout of the integrated logs, all white pine which were intended to act as the anchor and a reservoir of organic matter and moisture. At the current time if you look at the photo, the side of the logs facing you is now covered over with a thick layer of compost over which a wild flower mix and generous amounts of red clover have been sown. Currently the seed are coming up and doing quite well so the ‘soiled’ side has a light patina of green.  But of course finishing the project is half the battle isn’t it?

Instead of just building a narrow berm and being done with it, the idea came to me that I should make absolute use of what was to be had there. Thus the rear side is planned to be elevated a bit more and added turning the berm into an almost crescent shape. That means more planning for planting and so what would possibly go back there and how far back, as the shady rock garden itself is the utmost rear limit of the berm. Does one extend the center of the berm to join the rock garden and create hidden paths?  Could the bern extend to a few feet off the shady rock garden? Maybe they should merge completely bringing the woods out into the open?

The answer of course is ‘Yes’ the final concept is a mix of all of those ideas. The berm will be extended rearwards to about 4 or 5 feet off the shady rock garden’s face following its precise curvature. But to bring the woods out into the open, the Rear side of the Berm will be planted with a line of blue berries and in between as many strawberry plants as will possibly fit.  Somewhere in the middle of the design some exotic nectar producers or perhaps a butterfly bush will be included. But most of all the face of the berm will overtime be planted with perennials both herbs and pseudo ornamentals such as coneflowers. No matter how it goes, the time table for the project is for it to be complete sometime in September as far as the soil is concerned. The perennialization will occur over several years and may not be noticed due to the piecemeal means one will have to use to get it done right. In the end it will be one hell of a permaculture endeavor, so please stay tuned for more updates.

With all of that project-related stuff covered I have to speak briefly about the plant list.

This weekend I will be at the Fayetteville Farmers / City Market in downtown Fayetteville. The market runs from 9:00 am through 1:00pm and is located at 325 Franklin Street and there is plenty of parking near by. As always there will be great handouts about soil conservation and wildlife management and of course copies of my book Southward Skies.  The following is this week’s plant list.

House Plants:

3x Aloe barbadensis – Medicinal Aloe

2x Peperomia verticilliata – Rotary Peperomia

Vegetables:

4x Sweet Banana Peppers

5x Habenaro Peppers (Hot!)

2x Tumbling Tom Cherry Tomatoes (yellow fruit)

6x Beefsteak Tomato (Slicing tomato, On sale!)

3x Red Burgundy Okra (Heritage variety)

1x Japanese Long Eggplant

Herbs:

10x Egyptian Onion (Allium prolificum, good stuff!)

5x Italian Parsley (garnishes your dishes and clears out bad breath!)

1x Mountain Mint

1x Greek Oregano

1x Common Sage

3x Sweet Basil

1x Cinnamon Basil

2x Horehound  (Marribum vulgare, natural cold remedy!)

-plus whatever elselooks cool and fits in the truck!-

Available Soon:

Cayenne Peppers

Carolina Wonder, Green bell pepper

Pasilia Bajio Pepper (a sweet Cayenne)

Ghost Pepper (Sweet type)

Silver Aloe

Drunkards Dream Cactus

And the posting of the plant list brings this fine episode of LITFM to a close. I hope to see some of you at the Farmer’s market this weekend. More so, I’ll be present into the fall crop season so don’t be surprised when you see all sorts of cool seasonal plants at the booth soon. As always folks Keep ‘me growing!