Gardening In Winter

     Welcome back to another episode of Lost In the Farmers Market, where we were going to continue our discussion of pruning things in the winter. Unfortunately that post is delayed because as it turns out I have to order a piece of equipment online as it is out of stock in the store. Go figure that this happened and it seems to be the theme of the last few months complete with a sad “waa-waa” sound effect. Now this means I will have to cover something else for this slightly delayed post and that will be some garden photographs. I’ve said it before and I’m going to say it again, just because it is winter does not mean no gardening can be done. The first day of spring this year is on March 20th. The last frost date for zone 8A which is most of Fayetteville is April 21st-30th, so with that in mind we know how much time we have for winter operations before the weather warms and the mosquito brigade starts being a problem again. The catch here is that our winter weather has been colder than prior years and there is no reason to suspect this will change for 2021 if all of January is any indicator. He have 95 nearly-guaranteed cold weather days left in the winter to early-spring season to work with and now is the time to do those effort-heavy labor projects.

The Winter garden at the test gardens is proof that you can have something going on in the winter.

    For today’s post there is a topic substitution while I wait for the new powered tool to arrive * Tim Allen Grunting noises intensify!*. If you planned your garden well then you should have something to harvest right now in the dead of winter. So let me show you what is in my garden at the headquarters right now.

    Those of you who hit up the market in fall of 2020 know that for the first time in several years I offered spinach plants for sale. They were not a good seller, which seems par for the course from prior experiences. I don’t know why folks don’t like spinach much but the surplus did not go to waste. These four plants were planted in a 14” pot and placed out with no expectations. They weathered frost and rain and all the cold temperatures and they are finally starting to get some size. I imagine with a bit of fertilizer in the next two months I might have something harvestable later. Maybe this is the big secret to growing spinach in zone 8A, plant in October, and let them be until late winter/early spring.

    Now this is a surprise, I never got any Rainbow Lacinato Kale to the market in 2020 and the undersized seedlings were thinned for the largest and best looking plants and stuck in the veggie garden in a big block. They look nothing like Dinosaur kale, the seed packets for them said they were variable in color and shape but, I didn’t see this coming. The picture does them no justice as they are this deep purple-green color that is quite fetching. A win for weird food plants for sure!

    The Swiss Chard I planted is showing some strange mutations as well. I planted the green type almost exclusively as a spinach substitute for when I make Henbit curry in the spring to add bulk greens to it. Well some look normal and some have these beautiful more spinach looking leaves and I am not upset about this at all. Could this be the next big variety or just a happy little accident in the seed packaging process of my supplier? Either way this just more healthy greens for me to harvest.

    Here is another biennial I sold at the market, ‘Ruby Perfection’ Cabbage. It wasn’t a great seller but then the seedlings were not very dramatically red. This more mature specimen and the other three in its row are fantastically red-purple, everything a red cabbage should be and also they indicate by color the soil is definitely acidic in pH. 

    Red Russian Kale is another variety I sold at the market; it is also known as ragged jack. It comes in a green form and some other variants but none get the extravagant purple color that this one does. It also seems to make for the best kale-bean soup base as the leaves have more chew and crunch despite cooking. Red Russian isn’t as crunchy as Dinosaur Kale but a delight nonetheless.

Accipiter cooperii

    Here is our last picture, this is a Cooper’s Hawk spotted just beyond the train tracks behind the Transportation Museum during the market on Saturday the 23rd of January. It isn’t the best picture I’ve ever taken, but still, everyone should know there are several species of Hawks in our region and they are beneficial in that they eliminate certain animal pests that might damage crops or livestock.


    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.


Fresh Produce:
Soup Kit: Parsnip: $6.00
Soup Kit: Turnip: $6.00
Garlic Bulbs: $1.00
Seasoning Packets: $2.00
Shallots: $2.00
Parsnips, 1lb: $4.00
Turnips, 1lb: $3.00
Onions, 1lb: $3.00


January House Plant Collection:
Haworthia 'Fat Albert': $8.00
Haworthia 'West Jogo': $7.00
Devil's Backbone: $7.00
Sausage Spurge: $4.00
Starfish Sansevaria: $7.00
Aloe 'Sunset': $8.00
Aloe 'Checkerboard': $8.00
Rhipsalis, Slender: $7.00
Rhipsalis 'Drunkards Dream': $7.00


House Plant Spotlight!



Aloe deltoideodonta ' Sparkler' - Checkerboard Aloe

    That scientific name is quite the mouthful of Latin!  These members of the Aloe family get their name from the almost square spots on the leaves which in contrast to the grey-green leaves. This unique aloe is fairly easy to grow and does not ask for much other than occasional water and mild fertilizer (monthly) during the growing months (May-Sept). It is unclear if this particular aloe yields any medicinal gel, but it certainly is a unique addition to your collection. The two things you should never do with a succulent or this aloe is to allow the plant to sit in a puddle of water or to keep its soil constantly wet. The second thing is to never expose this plant to temperatures below 35 degrees as it can suffer frost damage which may introduce disease and cause the aloe to decline. As a final note, Checker Board aloes do best when potted in clay pots and only require repotting every 2-5 years or as needed. Pot-bound aloes will produce offsets more frequently than aloes that have ample room for their roots.


    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 is the second LITFM post of 2021; stay tuned for our next post on or about the 5th of February. Don’t forget to check out of YouTube videos at LITFM-Garden Shorts.

Wake me up when election season ends

 Welcome back to another episode of Lost In the Farmers Market, and sorry for the bad mangling of Green Day’s song ‘Wake me up when September Ends’ but let’s be real the elections have been brutal. Fortunately for all of you this isn’t a political blog, well not in the normal sense so I’m not even going to talk about the elections any more than you’ve just seen. Nope, though I do have to comment that we have officially had more tropical storms and hurricanes than in any prior year; below is a link to a CNN article that lists all of them.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/11/us/2020-atlantic-hurricane-season-fast-facts/index.html

Now, that is pretty insane and we still have about a month and half to go in the year. By my fast count that’s twenty-nine storms in total. I don’t recall us ever running out of names and having to go into the Greek alphabet for names but we’re up to Theta, all the while Eta is still slapping around as we speak. I don’t know about all of you out there but if we get close to Omega, I’m building an Ark. Joke aside the reality is that the storms, the pandemic and other events are a direct result of climate change. It was predicted that as we mess with the global temperature via things like deforestation and pollution, we would have more storms, the seal level would rise and of course more pathogens would go full-on pandemic. We as individual can make small decisions to lessen our impact and in our own way that helps slow down the damage being done by the masses. For every square foot of garden you plant you trap some carbon and extract some C02 from the atmosphere and possibly other harmful pollutants in the air, soil and water. If anything given the horror side-show that 2020 has been planting a plot of garden can act as a means of shoring up your mental health, this year’s veggie patch is bigger and better than it’s ever been. In fact here’s a picture of the finished task;

To start this picture-heavy discussion I have to answer a simple question. Why did I add extra area onto an existing and productive vegetable bed? Well, I didn’t do it because I wanted more veggies, I did it to solve a yearly problem with cold-season crops for sale at the market. Every year I produce more plants for sale than I could ever sell. This is done for two reasons, firstly I do need some for my own growing operations, but also I need some to counter losses that will inevitably happen. Some plants just aren’t vigorous or get eaten by bugs or simply die for reasons unknown. Other plants are so vigorous that they out grow their existing pot and this catches my eye and they end up as a specimen or something I propagate to obtain the seed or cuttings. More often than not some plants don’t sell and I wind up with too many using up resources in a pot too small for them to really reach full potential. So to remedy some of that I added 2’ 3” to the width of my veggie bed to utilize some of those plants that are the most numerous on the growing trays. Either way it’s a win in general, I mean look at it! All you gardeners out there know that feeling you get when you set something like this up and then look at it maybe, right after, and then a week after and then a month or so after and there’s this intense feeling of contentment. You built that and it’s successful because you wanted it to be. Ironically that is why we are here today; I wanted to show you how the above garden was expanded because it demonstrates how I actually start new garden beds.

It all starts with peeling back the lawn.  For those of you who are regular readers of this blog you know my stance on lawns. For those who don’t the TL;DR version is that lawns are mostly worthless. They don’t produce food, they don’t enrich the soil, they attempt to compete with crops, and they require extra maintenance to look their best. So with that said out with the lawn and in with the vegetable bed. My favorite tool for this is a stirrup hoe which as you can see in the picture has a truncated triangular head that allows it to get under the lawn (or weeds) and separate the fine roots from the greenery. It’s pretty much a guillotine for plants when you really think about it; and it’s not too far of a step to think of lawn grass like an un-elected monarchy. Another advantage to using a Stirrup how in comparison to other types is that it cuts relatively straight lines and you really don’t work as hard to get the same effect. Before anyone jumps on me and says ‘Hey I thought this blog didn’t advertise!’ we don’t but tools and materials do come from wherever they come from and you can’t always cover over the brand logos. So in the wheelbarrow I have several bags of Black Kow composted cow manure. I use this because its consistency is uniform and its price for a 32lb bag is about $5.00 which is fairly economical. The product quality is very reliable and there is a bit of clay and sand so it’s weighty enough to not readily erode in the rain. Black Kow also is also 0.5-0.5-0.5 (NPK) in terms of nutrient so it cannot burn unless you concentrate it artificially somehow. For the record; from the actual bag of Black Kow, it also adds 1.0 in chlorine, now that part is interesting. As it turns out plants need Chlorine since it is important in the function of plant stomata opening and closing. Now for those of you who don’t study plant biology, this means that Chlorine is critical to a plants ability to exchange gasses which improves their impact on reducing carbon foot prints.

So the next step is to remove the cut bits of grass and weeds and then do a double check for any survivors and remove them too. Inevitably at this stage I find bits of wild Bermuda grass, and a few stolons of Centipede grass. As much soil as is possible is returned to the area and the edges are trimmed a little more.

To cover an area of 2’ 3” by 10’ at a rate of roughly 2.5 inches deep on average it takes all of three out of four bags of composted manure. The fine ridges along the sides that you see in the composted manure are where I tamped down the sides with a hard rake just to firm up the outer boundaries of the soil so they don’t erode as much if it rains. At the center of the bed expansion the composted manure is 2.5” deep at least but this tapers in the border to add more resistance to erosion.

    Now we move onto the fun part, the planting. Those eagle-eyed readers out there might notice I planted a LOT of green Swiss chard, Marrowstem Kale and some smaller hard to identify plants. This selection of cold-season food plants was not due to my own preferences. As some of you know I sell food plants at the downtown market, and inevitably I produce more than I sell most of the time so surplus has to go somewhere and waste not, want not. I had an overabundance of Swiss Chard this fall, and so to reduce inventory about a quarter of it went into this project, the same is true for the Marrowstem Kale. The Kale though is a bit of an oddity, it was a new introduction and folks didn’t seem to want to take a chance on it, which is a shame. As they say, you can lead a gardener to the kale patch but you can’t make him or her eat it.  Seven 3” potted Marrowstem Kale plants went into this project. The little plants in the top third of the new bed are another item that I trialed this year, Rainbow Lacinato Kale. Those seedlings are the best of the third attempt to sow a full tray of the stuff. The first two trays failed and the third was so slow-developing I realized I would not have saleable plants before the frost. So the best of that tray went into the garden, twelve individual growing cells that hopefully will show me what the Rainbow Kale looks like. Supposedly Rainbow Lacinato Kale is called that because it’s stems and by extension it’s foliage develops a variety of colors ranging from shades of green, to yellow, red, purple pink and supposedly blue, but we’ll see. You can bet that when they develop there will be pictures posted up here for your viewing delight.

    Although it’s a given that the soil I used has a decent amount of nutrients for the crops planted. It is for the best that nothing is left to chance and a slow release mineral-based fertilizer with micro nutrients is applied. This fertilizer should be effective for a few months which is more than long enough for this crop.

 

    The cleanup of assorted shrapnel is one of the last steps but is also an important stage in getting things done. All this dead lawn will be dumped in the hedgerow and either it will contribute to the hedgerow by growing or become soil for other things.

The next step is the application of Long Leaf pine straw by way of pitchfork. Pine straw is an effective mulch because it has so much surface area to resist erosion. Quality pine straw can last up to two years as an effective barrier. Also it is very good at stopping weeds and even encroaching grass has to struggle to go over or under it. When pine straw breaks down it becomes organic matter which helps the soil, but it does not block rain from getting through to the soil so unlike weed block it isn’t going to be a long term problem. While Pine straw does slow down the movement of water it is not enough to cause water-logging or soil loss under normal conditions. It is also inexpensive; the local rate per bale of pine straw is $3.88 to $4.75 roughly speaking. It only took two bales to do the entire perimeter of the veggie patch. For the record two bales shored up 41 feet of garden border at an average depth of 1”.  

The last step of course is watering it all in because by planting these plants I’ve caused a bit of trauma. I tear up the peat pots before I plant to make it easier for my crops to grow beyond their boundaries. I know that the advantage to peat pots is that you don’t have to do that, but when it comes to food crops for use at home, I don’t leave that to chance.

As a final thought for this post before we move on to the advertisement part of this post, I know some of you are wondering why I just used composted cow manure instead of potting soil or something lighter. Well erosion is a thing, but the compost makes for the sub-soil in the first year, I cap it in the second year with spent potting soil which then better mimics an enriched soil profile. In the long-run the soil ends up blending due to the actions of my own maintenance of the bed and the actions of soil-borne organisms. It also the best remedy in the long run for the solid sand soil on my property and a good way to recycle resources.



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.

Fresh Produce:*
Soup Kit: Parsnip: $6.00
Soup Kit: Turnip: $6.00
Seasoning Packet: $2.00
Garlic Bulbs: $1.00

Food Plants: (3” Peat Pots) (ALL ON SALE!!!)
Arugula: $2.00
Cardoon, Artichoke: $2.00
Carrot, Chantennay Red-Core: $2.00
Collards, Carolina: $2.00
Kale, Lace: $2.00
Kale, Marrow Stem: $2.00
Kale, Scotch Blue Curled: $2.00
Kale, Winterbor: $2.00
Kohlrabi, Cossack: $2.00
Swiss Chard, Green: $2.00
Swiss Chard, Red: $2.00
Spinach, Avon: $2.00

Coming Soon:
Ginger


*You can special order a specific vegetable by the pound if you want anything specific that is in the soup kits or any specific herb contained in the seasoning packets. Vegetables are sold by the pound and seasonings are sold by the ounce when sold individually.

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 twenty-first LITFM post of 2020; stay tuned the next episode which should be posted on the 13th of November. There will be more garden updates and other cool stuff.

DST Anyone? No? Me neither!

Welcome back to another episode of Lost In The Farmer’s Market,  As you may well know daylight savings time went into effect at 2:00am on Sunday and it is a source of considerable irritation to pretty much everyone. What you don’t know is that it is a myth that it helped farmers use more daylight to perform their tasks. This myth comes from the idea that by getting up earlier somehow you’re getting extra daytime when in fact the number of hours in a given day is give or take the same with adjustments for winter/summer seasons. It’s clearly as much a myth as the old world war two myth that carrots help your eyesight. For note the carrots myth was created by the British military as misinformation to fool the axis powers into not noticing that the British were using radar to find targets. I’ll go out on a limb and say that daylight savings time should be dumped as it literally serves no purpose and any real energy use savings are so tiny that it can’t even be touted as an ecologically useful yearly habit.

But of course this LITFM episode is not about the uselessness of DST, but rather we have a continuing topic of edible weeds, and a rare picture and as if that were not enough we also have a picture of what will be coming to market soon.  But first the main topic, todays subject is a weed that I would imagine everyone who reads this has seen and is very familiar with. It only emerges in the spring and fall once the temperatures tend to top off at about 50-60 degrees and can survive frosts, and winter weather with ease. If you go out and look at any recently disturbed patch of soil or in your planters it is surely growing there.  “Ok so what is this edible weed?” you no doubt want to ask. Well look below for a example

Stellaria media – Common Chickweed

This common garden plant is considered an annual, as it only persists in the cold season but falls apart rapidly during the warm seasons.  There are a few species of chickweed out there with varied edibility standards so this information only pertains to common chickweed.  Common chickweed can be eaten simply by picking the small leaves for use in salad in any amount. The foliage is mild in taste and can be used to effectively counter-balance more pungent leaf greens.  As a pot herb, you would want to cook this one more gently then something like spinach, usually 2-5 minutes at a full boil will suffice and common flavoring additives it needs are butter, a bit of your preferred spices and salt and some chopped onion. Fortunately chickweed has no known poisonous lookalikes, and the entire grouping of true chickweed plants. For note the chickweeds are in the Caryophyllaceae family which is best known for its most famous species the Carnations.

Asarum virginicum - Heartleaf Wild Ginger

This leads to the current photograph of note the flower pictured above is from a perennial cutting of a Wild Ginger plant. Wild gingers are a true wild flower that you plant in a partial-to almost full shade area with decent moisture and forget about. But before you say it, it is not the flower that makes this species special but the evergreen variegated leaves. The leaves are an intense deep green with a silvery-white heart-shaped variegation. Overall a group of these plants forms a nice ground cover that is both exotic looking and well-behaved. It should be said that the wild gingers resemble hardy cyclamen until the bloom and for several months I had the pictures specimen mislabeled until it bloomed just this week. I know the bloom isn’t exactly a show-stopper but it is interesting, and it serves as a biology lesson because you have to ask just what sort of pollinator this flower is intended to attract. My bet is on a beetle or ants as the flowers are very low to the ground and may resemble carrion.

 I get that the angle of this shot is odd but you can see all the current spring crops at once.

We at LITFM are pleased to announce the first spring crops for the market; some of them will be familiar to you, Parris Island Cos Romaine Lettuce, Rouge D’hiver Romaine, Lacinato/Dinosaur Kale, Rosso Di Chioggia Radicchio and, Northern Lights Swiss Chard. In the background you can see the seed starting kits and in them is some good stuff, exotic salad greens and snow peas so sit tight, more of the good stuff is yet to come. Barring bad weather this weekend I plan to bring some of the above listed cold-season crops to market due to your requests. For note most of them were moved up from the cell packs I started them in roughly a week ago.

For those who have not heard, the Fayetteville City Market occurs on Saturdays between the hours of 9:00 AM and 1:00 PM, in all but the absolute worst weather. The market is located on 325 Franklin Street in the front and rear parking lot of the Fayetteville Transportation Museum. The market is a year-round affair unofficially but our official season kicks off in April so stay tuned for the announcement of the market’s big spring celebration. Either way we’re open for business.

Spring hath Sprung; Onward to Shovel Duty!

Greetings and Salutations, the first day of spring has sprung (Wednesday March 20^th ) and here we are with a larger then average episode of Lost in the Farmer’s Market. For those of you who were wondering there were no episodes posted in the last two weeks due to midterms in college and a sudden glut of landscaping work for BL2. In short  I was pretty busy (in a good way) and honestly, there was little to cover since march is one of those months where you want to think about the outdoors more but the weather is so bizarre that it’s hard to write about certain things. With that said I think I have a rather good article for you with some cool stuff in it.

The Dessert Kiwis are back!

The first thing I must remind you of is an upcoming date, next Sunday is March the 31^st, and that is Easter. For us gardeners in the sand hills region it’s the last likely date of frost which means you can begin planting your warm season plants in the garden if they are large enough. Given the relative lack of stable temperatures during March however a few of my warm seasonal- plants are delayed by a week or so I won’t be planting anything until Mid-April at the latest. The spring last frost date is suggested and each yard will be different, but generally the Easter date is used as it’s easily found on most calendars and most cant miss it. For you gardeners up north, the last frost date in the New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania areas tends to be about Mother’s Day or May 12^th. Personally I used to wait until the 15^th just to be sure however.

 One of the sure signs it's spring is that birds of all sorts return, and int he Fayetteville area that is usually marked by entire flocks of Robins. However see the hanging pansy basket? This basket has been hanging in that spot since last year when I put the pansies in. That stick like stuff jutting out isn't part of the coco-fiber liner it's a bird's nest. Some house sparrows decided to set up shop in the basket by building a nest between the pansies using mostly pine straw and bits of asparagus stalk. The big twig you can see above is part of a flowering top of asparagus plant, it used to even have little dried asparagus berries on it too. Wild birds serve an important role in pest control and are totally worth encouraging by providing bird seed in the winter months. Speaking of pest control.....

For note, if you look in the lower right corner...the neighbor's dog Photo-bombed this shot..that is one scary guard dog. check the zoomed photo for why.

Yes, the Neighbor's guard dog sees all...she does not judge..all shall fall by the power of her laser eyes! Moments after this image was taken my camera mysteriously caught fire.

One critical annoyance of our region and climate is the damage that fire ants can do to even the best strawberry bed. If you factor in squirrels and other critters you might have a hard time growing your own strawberries in general. On the heels of the successful growing of strawberries last year I've decided to grow them in hanging baskets this year in lieu of annuals. This is one of the better ways to avoid ant damage however... I may have to find ways to prevent bird damage. Even so, I don't mind sharing with the birds since they're already helping the Clark ranch by eating pests and of course singing.

 Despite the weather temperatures and the mayhem of March it self some of our winter crops are doing just fine. Both of these pots were started back in September, and were nursed along through winter. Now my cilantro (on right) is rapidly approaching harvesting size. The Swiss Chard (on left) has almost tripled in size and may make for a decent salad green in a month or so. This just goes to show that you can grow nice looking and edible potted crops to save space. Anyone who's been to the ranch lately knows the front porch is lined with stuff like this the mother load of non-lettuce salad fixings!

Out of tragedy comes Triumph!

 The spring report isn't all good news, as the Yam bed which is used to grow cabbages in the winter was hit by a vehicle and utterly destroyed just a few days ago. The cabbage was mostly salvageable as a mini-harvest but otherwise it was not worth it to rebuild the bed...yet. The bricks along with the surplus bricks from the combining of HP1, HP2 and the main asparagus bed  were used to raise HP3 to a height unmatched by any garden bed in the ranch to date, Two feet above ground, with six inches below ground. This makes HP3 the tallest bed on the property with a soil column of 2-3 feet one foot of which is below ground. This works out really well for me as I was planning to grow Armenian Cukes or Kiwano Melons in this bed. The soil mix is composed of the original bed soil a 8" layer of organic composted turkey manure, a layer of the yam bed's soil and then a final 4-6" of composted turkey manure. In short I figure this bed will be growing stuff like gang busters!

Garden bed enhancement and recovery aside there is something else I need to give props to, and thats the first LITFM book recommendation  that isn't one of our own books (southward skies). Since spring is a time of growth and renewal I want to take as moment to recommend some spring reading.  If you check Amazon.com, you can find a series of books by a very talented author named Amy Stewart. Her past books include “Wicked Plants: The weed that killed Lincoln’s Mother and other Botanical Atrocities” and “Wicked Bugs: The louse that Conquered Napoleon’s Army & Other Diabolical Insects”. For note I have both and they are incredibly good reads and are informative for new gardeners and skilled land managers alike. The book I am referring to today however is her new book “The Drunken Botanist: The plants that create the world’s great drinks” which was released about the 20^th of March. Mrs. Stewart honestly handles this topic, with the same skill and attention to detail as she did her prior two books and yet keeps it’s down to earth so every reader can understand. Needless to say I’m currently reading the book myself but in one sitting I plowed through 107 pages out of 362 pages which is pretty much the mark of a good book when you can put it down. Simply put if you are a gardener and want a good read or need to get a gift for a gardener you know this one or the other two books mentioned are good options. For note here is a direct link to her page on Amazon.com’s site so you can find the books I’m referencing.

http://www.amazon.com/Amy-Stewart/e/B001HO17M8/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1364151775&sr=1-2-ent

 

Books Aside I’d like to show you a plant feature. As some of you know, inevitably whenever I go about doing my usual business as a Landscaper at the various nurseries I encounter plants that are weird and strange but more so I often find things that I inevitably have to add to the array of botanical I keep as house plants. This week was no different and of course again I have to give bLowes props again, as I was there to buy a cell-pack of annual vegetables for use in the first of the 2013 plant experiment and saw the plant in question in passing.

This may be tiny Pachypodium Geayi or Madagascar Palm.

I have to admit, I think this is a Madagascar Palm however it is so small and so nondescript it could also be a Euphorbia milli or Crown of Thorns.  The thorn arrangement says it's Madagascar Palm and the lack of leaf development makes it's identification a bit tricky. Either way I see it as a win as I like both plants. Now before you ask, this plant and the others with it were unlabeled which I consider an pretty irresponsible act of negligence by the grower. For note, Costa Farms produces these and they have had some bad press about the poor quality of their orchids. According to the Costa Farms site they neither sell Crown of thorns or Madagascar Palm so...needless to say I'm not exactly fond of the grower but then again if bLowes would settle on a single supplier like Angel Plants I would not be writing this paragraph.

At the store I looked for a larger specimen and failed to find one so this little guy is now in the living room next to the desert rose. Both Crown of  Thorns and Madagascar Palms are nice plants because they require little int eh way of care except good light and occasional watering. Both have a coating of large and visible thorns coating their stems which make them pet and child resistant and neither is poisonous. Both are rather terrible tasting and the Euphorbia produces milky latex sap, which can cause skin irritations for some. Both are candidates for Interior defence-scaping, if you can imagine this growing under or beside the window when a burglar climbs in and grabs a handful you get the idea.

For note there are two types of Madagascar Palm in the trade, Pachypodium lameri (the most common) and Pachypodium geayi (less common), they are difficult to tell apart and honestly it may be better to just tag them as Pachypodium species. But enough of the plant-geek action let me tell you a bit about the year’s first experiment.

Well it’s spring, and of course with it comes the various yearly experiments that I operate as part of the skye project. Our first experiment was suggested by the talented Marsha Howe, as we were discussing soil test reports and soil amendments for the MLK highway Bridge/ coffee Klatch.  The conversation ended up about Bio-Char which is wood that has been charred to a point it becomes ultra-crumbly charcoal. Bio-char is currently undergoing trials as a soil nutrient anchor and as a major soil amendment for depleted and otherwise unsuitable soils. Marsha proposed a test using a small sample of Bio-char using worm castings as an activator to see how it compares to other soil media. Amazingly Marsha had some and some worm castings to go with and the experiment was officially started on the 21^st. 

The first experiment of 2013 is a simple one, the goal is to determine if or if not bio-char can improve plant growth noticeably. To that end I have selected four test plants all of which are Red Chicory (Raddicio) each plant will be potted in a 4” round plastic pot for the duration of the test which is six weeks. In five day intervals the group will be photographed to photo-document growth. The soil mixture of each will be proportioned to demonstrate the qualities of the various soil media.

From right to left: plants 1-4 spaced in a zigzag to increase space between plants.

Plant 1: 0.5oz Bio-Char + 1.5oz Earthworm castings + 4.0 oz Sterilized Compost.

Plant 2: 3.0 oz Earthworm Castings + 3.0 oz Sterilized Compost

Plant 3: 6.0 oz Sterilized Compost

Plant 4: 6.0 oz Coir-Based Potting Mix.

All the above plants will be placed outside in an eastern facing to receive morning and midday sun in a wire-tray and tagged numerically. The test plants will receive only rain water for irrigation and no additional fertilizer. The stage is set to see what happens, let’s see how this turns out in six weeks through 9 photographs with any luck the report on this, due in the first week of May will be useful. 

Whew, that was a long post, but as spring heats up there will be less gaps in posts and more information. Some upcoming projects include the Berm project which will be the subject of a Sustainable Neighbors Crop mob, the Voyage to Big Bloomers (early summer) and the Fall Drainage Project which will also probably be a crop mob event and be roughly in October. Beyond that in our next episode expect info on how the seedlings are doing.

As always folks keep 'em growin!