Raising the Bar? Nah Just the Bed!

Welcome back to another episode of Lost in the Farmers Market.  Today’s post covers a topic that was discussed last week at the online meeting of a group I am in called Sustainable Neighbors. There is a link at the end of this post that covers how you can sign up and attend these meetings online but also once this pandemic business is over with there will be a formal meeting place and time posted here on LITFM. There is a pretty big announcement this week as the 10^th Annual Botanical Test Gardens are going to have the spring tour as planned. The tour is on the 19^th of April which is just two weeks away.  The address of the tour will be provided only to those that RSVP so if you are in the Fayetteville area on that day between 2 and 6pm, you might want to add this tour to your to do list.

https://www.meetup.com/SustainableNeighbors/events/269733520/

Now, before anyone asks the tour has been extended by an hour so that anyone wishing to attend whom is practicing social distancing and can space out their visit and the tour doesn’t have more than ten people at any given time. As with every year I will special stuff on hand for sale and you are going to see some horticultural stuff you might not be used to.

Since the big event is covered let’s get onto the main topic of the day, Raised Beds. Last week in our Sustainable Neighbors meeting we discussed what a raised bed was and wasn’t and I used photos of raised beds in the test gardens to illustrate the point. In today’s blog post that will be covered but this is more of a how to post rather than a quantified post.  So to start off, what is a raised bed? Well the simplest definition is that a Raised Bed is a garden bed that uses a walling material to raise the internal soil level and or grade through artificial means above whatever the native soil level is. This means that if you create a rectangular bed and use treated lumber to elevate the soil level that is a raised bed, but also if you use railroad ties to create a terrace in the side of a hill that is also a raised bed. Stacking tires and filling them with soil or cutting the bottom out of an old wash basin or tub and filling that with soil also counts as a raised bed.  How you raise the soil level is largely open and limited by your imagination, implementation, budget and materials on hand. Those who know me and have seen the test garden have found out that I prefer brick and stone, but that’s largely because they were at varied times the cheapest alternative. So with the basis of raised beds covered, let’s move on to how to build one.

 

The original bed as seen in summer of 2019.

 

The land is first cleared and the granite rocks (walling material) is placed to establish the shape of the raised bed and work out any problems with the design early on. Newspaper weighted down by smaller rocks is applied as a weed blocking mulch on the internal areas of the raised bed to be.

The first step was to collect the materials and lay out the white granite border. As you can see there is newspaper, a large tote full of Black Kow, and I've already dug out a shallow one foot deep trench. Half the excavated soil was added to the compost bin.

The Black Kow and remaining native soil are mixed and blended so that  it can be reapplied as nutrient-dense sub-soil to feed the plants that will be planted shortly.

 

The actual top soil is a mix of native soil and potting soil to encourage strong feeder root systems. This mixture is the top two inches of  the overall soil mix.

 

The newspaper is placed and weighed down with small rocks so that it can act as a temporary weed blocking mulch. The other side will receive the newspaper covering shortly.

Building a raised bed is only as complicated as you decide it has to be.  The above series of pictures shows the expansion of an existing raised bed as part of a integrated plan to build what will eventually be a windbreak that produces edible crops and or a food source for pollinators. As of the time of this writing no additional plants have been planted in the bed, but this is going to change shortly and you can bet the pictures will be up here.

Iris spuria - Beardless Iris, This one was not easy to nail down the exact breed of, but after a few years and hitting up Iris growers with pictures, this is a yellow Spuria Iris, though their more famous name is 'Blue Iris' as most of the varieties are, you guessed it blue. I have one specimen int he gardens and it's everything my traditional Bearded Irises are not. The foliage isn't at all similar and to an untrained eye might be mistaken for a wild onion.

Rosa rugosa - Beach Rose, Beach roses are the toughest rose you can get, but their large single blooms are still something to write home about. This specimen started as a underground runner that somehow navigated thirty feet of lawn, through the root mass of a dogwood to appear in a garden bed a few years ago and I let it stay because it was so remarkable. I think the fact it's in shade most of the time is the only thing that keeps it in check.

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:

Food Plants:

Celery, Tango: $3.00

Lettuce, Buttercrunch Bibb: $3.00

Lettuce, Cherokee: $3.00

Lettuce, Reckless Fire: $3.00

Lettuce, Red Parris Island Romaine: $3.00

Rhubarb, Victoria: $3.00

Swiss Chard, Bright Lights Mix: $3.00

Tomato, Cherokee Purple: $3.00

Tomato, Chocolate Cherry: $3.00

Tomato, Pink Accordion: $3.00

Tomato, Sweet Thousands: $3.00

Herbs:

Herb, Black Fennel: $3.00

Herb, Common Sage: $3.00

Herb, Tansy: $3.00

Herb, Cuban Oregano: $3.00

Ornamental Plants:

Abutilon ‘Orange Hot Lava’: $4.00

Coming Soon:

Castor Bean, Impala

Castor Bean, Zanzibar

Chia

Cotton, Erlene’s Green

Cotton, Mississippi Brown Lint

Cotton, Red-Foliated White

Datura, Black Currant Swirl

Henna

Lemon Grass

Lupine

Pepper, Paisila Bajio

Pepper, Shishito

Pepper, Hungarian Paprika

Roselle

Tomatillo

Due to the current Covid-19 situation and the state’s requirement that all citizens are not to gather in groups of more than ten, the weekly Sustainable neighbors meeting is online. Please check the sustainable neighbors Meetup.com page for more info about how to attend our online meeting.

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

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 and join the meetings. If not, you can always send me questions through this blog or visit the farmer’s market.

This brings to a close the seventh LITFM post of 2020; stay tuned the next episode which should be posted on the 17^th of April. There will be more garden updates and other cool stuff.

Summer is that you?

Welcome back to another episode of Lost In The Farmer’s Market. So here we are on the first official LITFM episode of the summer of 2014. Imagine that, we’ve come through some very strange weather as there was that brief drought period, and now constant thunderstorms some of which featured very violent winds and hail. Personally I find this odd weather to be the result of climate change but then that’s just me. Never before have I seen such alternating flood/drought periods or for that matter hail as often as in 2014. Granted what I just said is personal opinion which isn’t science fact and thus we move on to some actual science fact; this week’s episode.

As we know it’s now summer and of course we had that bit of drought but fortunately the recent series of thunder storms finally made their way to the region of the Test gardens and the storm event on Monday delivered a 0.5” of rain with the storm on Thursday adding another 1.5” for a total of 2.0”.  Not bad for a post drought rainfall it’s certainly enough to replenish the rain barrel water supply. For this week’s post we’ve got some garden photographs that answer some of your questions at the farmer’s market booth.

Blue berries tomatoes developing note the nice purple shoulders but green underside.

A few days later the bottoms begin to turn and we have this reddish coloration.

So I had to post up two developing pictures of the same blue berries tomato plant to show to those who doubted a blue tomato exists that yes it does and it's incredibly glorious. I know it's only going to make cherry tomatoes but I still have plans to processes the little buggers and make something "purple-mato" out of it.  It's just plain fun to watch this plant develop and despite all the plants being tagged by roman numeral only to be able to pick this one out without trying because of fruit and foliage color. Will this tomato return next year more likely than not.

Chichorum intybus - Chicory

I don't precisely recall who asked me about it during the tour but chicory has wonderful blooms as you can see. They tend to last through summer and are a good feature to support pollinators in the area. Now that you see the blooms I'm sure you might think you've seen them along the highways somewhere. Typically chicory is indeed a nearly indestructible roadside weed. It's taproot is much like the one found on the dandelion it reaches deep for moisture and has no issue finding it.

Achillea millefolium - Yarrow (Medicinal)

Yarrow is one of those self-naturalizing herbs that has a lot of bloom color options and can handle heat, drought and other general environmental nastiness once established. It does also as you can see bloom and thus is good for the pollinators. However only white blooming yarrow with the scientific name above is considered medicinal. There are many yarrow varieties bred to have differing colored blooms but the white blooming types are the most durable.

Cosmos bipinnatus - Garden Cosmos

Admittedly these little cosmos were not even sprouted at the time of the tour and as soon as they emerged all these mushrooms emerged  did what they needed to do and disappeared a few days after leaving the cosmos unharmed. My best guess here is that the mycelium for these mushrooms came in with the soil I used to raise the soil level in the bed. Some would not approve of such happening however it told me that the soil was already inoculated and now there will be beneficial fungi in the soil that may aid in converting the soil I used into topsoil. This natural balance is a good thing actually you want stuff like this to happen. By the way the chicken wire screen over the seedlings was there to prevent squirrel damage.

Cucurbita ??? - Unknown volunteer squash plant

Visitors on the tour saw where I was actively training a squash plant that had volunteered up into a dogwood tree and here is a photo of it's first bloom. While not precisely the most showy bloom only squash seem to have that perfect yellow-gold mixture.

Monarda sp. "Lambada" - Lambada Bee Balm (old)

Monarda sp. "Lambada" - Lambada Bee Balm (new)

So some of the visitors to the booth had been asking what the bee balm I sold would look like in the landscape. and here are two pictures, the one up top is an older and somewhat unhappy cluster in the shady rock garden. Notice it's a tad paler and the leaves are larger while the plant is a bit shorter. The lower picture is a new cluster planted in the crescent garden it's colors are more vibrant, and it's much taller to the point I could not get the whole picture in frame. Needless to say Bee Balm is very versatile and for those of you who nabbed some of these plants your in for a treat.

The Horticultural Turret

For those who've had th chance to look through the test garden yearbook you might notice this is the second time I have constructed a circular raised bed on the property. The original was the "Figgy Turret" which contained the first fig on property a Celeste type. This time I went with making it a physical, feature that was noticeable day and night that served to grow food crops. Int his case you can see tricolor and molten fire amaranth growing within the bed. Amaranth is related to spinach for note and is cooked the same way.

Sanseveria trifaciata - Snake Plant

So in the last week or two I posted a picture of these strange stalks emerging from my snake plant. I could not tell what they were but the looked like flowers for sure. The stalks had little clear droplets of sweet nectar on them and it seemed that that was a wrap for a botanical oddity but I was wrong. I found my self walking through the lab smelling this ultra sweet hyacinth fragrance...and suddenly realized the snake plant had bloomed. the flowers are short lived wispy things that smell incredible. None of my manuals mention the bloom as if the authors have seen them so hey a first for LITFM.

Capsicum anuum - Mixed peppers

Speaking of errors and omissions, what I originally thought was a pot of sangria peppers turns out to be a pot of sangria peppers and a single black pearl pepper. That's right the sangria when solid green and some how a black pearl pepper seed got into the mix. Honestly this is the sport of volunteer/seeding incident I can live with.

Although the weather looks a bit strange this weekend I do still suggest you come on out to the Fayetteville farmer's market. It's rather wise to bring along a umbrella just in case of a shower but beyond that the Fayetteville farmer’s market occurs Wednesdays between 2 and 6 pm, and on Saturdays between 9am and 1 pm. The market is located at 325 Franklin Street in the front parking lot of the Fayetteville Transportation museum. I’m now present at both market days so you now have two opportunities per week to hit up the booth for info or plants. As you can see int he plant list for Saturday the first of the summer plants are showing up at the booth with several selections from the black eye susan (rudbeckia) and the coneflower (echniacea) groups.

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.

Vegetables

2x Eggplant, Casper , 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Eggplant, Louisiana Long Green, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Pepper, Jalapeno, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Pepper, Habenero, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Pepper, Sweet Banana , 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Pepper, Pimento, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Pepper, Carolina Wonder, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Tomato, Brown Berry, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

3x Tomato, Martino’s Roma, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Tomato, Rainbow Cherry Mix, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Tomato, Red & Yellow Currant, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Tomato, Reisotomate, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

1x Tomato, Underground Railroad, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Cucumber, Armenian, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Cucumber, Poona Kheera, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Melon, Horned/Kiwano, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

Fruits

2x Ground Cherry, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

Herbs

2x Artemesia, Wormwood, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Basil, Sweet, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Basil, Thai, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Basil, Cinnamon, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Basil, Red Rubin, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

3x Chives, Common, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Fennel, Black, 7” pot ($6.00)

2x Lavender, Hidcote, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

4x Oregano, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Parsley, Italian, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Rosemary, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Sage, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Thyme, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

Ornamental:

2x Passion Vine, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Echinacea, White Swan, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Echinacea, Magnus, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Echinacea, Cheyenne Spirit, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Rudbeckia, Irish Eyes, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Rudbeckia, Golden, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Rudbeckia, Summer Sun, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

Coming Soon:

Black Hungarian Pepper

Potatoleaf Hillbilly Tomato

Japanese Black Trifele Tomato

Grape, Bronze Muscadine

This wraps up this somewhat late episode of LITFM, I hope to see some of you at the market and well lets look at the weather in a positive light. The drought is give or take over so at least that's not a problem, keeping up with mowing the grass however might be.