Technical Difficulties and whatnot

Welcome back to another episode of Lost in the Farmers Market.  As you will notice this post is late, and this is getting to become a habit. The work making the YouTube videos is eating up more time than I thought it would and it’s producing longer videos of improved quality that I hope you all are enjoying. I’m going to try and keep this blog to the twice per month schedule and align its content with the video content. The next post up here which is due next Friday will align with the 30^th video LITFM Garden Shorts video. Basically the written transcript of the video will be up here and you can see more details than were available in the video. This post although a week late, is going to focus on cool stuff going on in the test gardens.

Before I get into the lavish photographs of plants you have a mighty need for in your gardens there is one more thing. As a point of obligatory social responsibility I have to state here, that we are in the grips of a pandemic. While I will not dare speak of how the rest of the world is handling it, I can say that United States has not done so well. We haven’t even finished the first wave and now states that thought bravado would suffice, and bought into the falsehood that summer heat would defeat the virus and that once you had it you are immune are ironically now being hit with the virus. The problem with Covid-19 is that it kills 1% of those it infects which is still a little over three million people if you consider the United States population of 328.2 million as of 2019. That’s a lot of dead people, but that in a full nineteen percent of the people it infects they are left with permanent lung and heart damage, circulatory issues, the damage from strokes and other maladies that may take them out of the workforce and put them on some form of disability. That’s 20% of the entire potential and or existing workforce gone, that is why this pandemic is no laughing matter. The intention of this statement is to hammer home the point that has been made by so many health professionals across the world, if you are out and about limit your trips, avoid crowds, practice social distancing and wear a facial covering that securely covers the mouth and nose. This is as much for you as it is for everyone around you. I have personally already had three close calls with Covid-19 and two of them were because of a third party’s negligence. Being required to wear a mask is not an infringement of your first amendment rights, it is not going to kill you with C02, and anyone who prints out those fake ADA cards to get around doing the right thing should feel ashamed for being so selfish. If you want to make Covid-19 and this stupid Pandemic go away and get things back to normal, wear the damn mask!

Now, that was kind of dark but, as promised I have some garden highlights that will perk you up not unlike a thunder-shower perks up wilted plants in the afternoon. Firstly as some of you might know it is pepper season. Pepper season is that magical three or so month’s right on the tail end of the Blueberry season when my wide array of pepper varieties start ripening. For years I’ve had this crazy idea that at some point I should do a composite picture with the pepper varieties marked and noted so customers could tell them apart when they buy the pepper bags at the market. Well in 2020 that idea became a reality with the first big pepper harvest of the year. I’ll do another sheet like this when other varieties are ready to harvest.

Here we have a mixture of varied Coneflower varieties that are so tall they are practically mocking your garden books! They are over three feet tall, and what’s not to love about one of the most widely known medicinal daisies?

This is Beach Rose (Rosa rugosa) in bloom, and what a lovely shade of pink. Beach rose is one of the few rose family members that can handle salt spray, sandy soils and will spread by underground runners at a somewhat slow pace. It produces the largest rosehips of the entire rose family and those hips are packed with vitamin C.

 

Oh look it’s the coneheads…but a week later. Literally a week after I noted the heights of my coneflowers in the picture above, they produces taller flower stalks that were at eye level on me, that’s six feet high folks! Remember what I always say, plants are illiterate, they don’t care what your books say.

 

How about them Hibiscuses! This is a Swamp Mallow (Hibiscus moscheutos) and it is one of the more tropical looking hibiscus that are perennial in your garden here in North Carolina. These herbaceous perennials are hardy from USDA zones 5 through 8.  But the real reward is those giant 6” super-red flowers that look like they belong in the tropics! That these plants can get to six feet tall in a growing season is a double bonus.

 

Ah yes, some of you know what this is, some of you do not know. These are the flowers of the ‘Hairy Balls’ Milkweed (Gomphocarpus physocarpus), they hang upside down and the bumble bees seem to love them. Honestly I like the white and pink coloration as it’s completely random to what you expect from Mlikweed. Once the seed pods form you can bet there will be photographs posted here.

Now this is not normal, here we have the bloom of a domesticated carrot (Daucus carrota). Its bloom resembles several poisonous lookalikes in the wild. I know it is a Luna White carrot because I grew it from seed purchased from a reputable vendor. I should note that a wild carrot is commonly known as Queen Anne’s Lace and such a plant has the same scientific name as a domesticated carrot. There are several deadly lookalikes such as wild parsnip and poison hemlock.

 

Lastly we have one hell of a prize, here is the flower of ‘Giant Mission’ Marigolds (Tagetes erecta). The seed for these annuals is only available through Burpee seeds and these marigolds can get up to three feet tall. Their flowers have a chrysanthemum style of petals and shape and if I am lucky the seed harvested will be viable enough to grow a crop next year. Even if not, just for truly giant Marigolds it was all worth it.

 

Lastly here are several of my last LITFM Videos, we're nearing 30 videos and the possibility of releasing a full-on playlist.

One about Lemon Verbena.

This one is about Lemon Grass.

Lemon Balm is in the mix too.

Of course Lemon Thyme had to be in here.

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:

Okra, Baby Bubba: $3.00

Peanuts, African Runner: $3.00

Herbs:

Herb, Basil – Eritrean: $3.00

Herb, Basil – Holy: $3.00

Herb, Cuban Oregano – Cerveza & Lime: $3.00

Herb, Horehound: $3.00

Herb, Oregano, Italian: $3.00

Herb, Roselle – Thai Red: $3.00

Herb, Thyme – English: $3.00

Herb, Horehound, 5" pot: $4.00

Herb, Oregano, 6” pot: $5.00

Herb, Italian Oregano, 5” pot: $4.00

Herb, Bristol Cross Oregano –  6” Pot: $5.00

Herb, Sage,  5" pot: $4.00

Herb, Shiso, 5" pot $5.00

Herb, English Thyme, 5" pot:$4.00

Ornamental Plants:

Cotton, Erlene’s Green: $3.00

Cotton,  Mississippi Brown Lint: $3.00

Cotton , Red Foliated White: $3.00

Marigold, Pineapple Crush: $3.00

Marigold, Signet Red: $3.00

Zinnia, Golden Star: $3.00

Milkweed, Hairy Balls: $4.00

Rudbeckia, Prarie Glow: $4.00

Coming Soon:

[TBA]

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 thirteenth LITFM post of 2020; stay tuned the next episode which should be posted on the 24^th of July. There will be more garden updates and other cool stuff.

Tropical Depressions, Not a Problem.

Welcome back to another episode of Lost in the Farmers Market.  Today we have a bunch of garden photographs taken between the rain showers that are due to the current tropical depression situation. It seems the Hurricane season started early and refuses to relent as this is three weeks almost in a row where it’s been solidly rainy enough to prevent work in the gardens. But of course a lot of work has been put into this blog’s youtube channel LITFM Garden Shorts and as of this posting we have reached our thirteenth video which you can watch below.

But with the video covered let see some garden photographs, first up is a three-piece set showing the stages of flowering, and fruit set on a prickly pear cactus (opuntia ellisiana & humfusa). Since the Thorn-less Prickly Pear and the normal thorny variety differ only in approachability they effectively produce edible fruit in the same way as each other.

 

Prickly Pear cactus flowers are such a cheery shade of yellow.

Open flower with nearly ready buds and a forming flower bud.

After the flower is spent, these  odd protrusions form into the fruit, they turn red when ready.

This variety of Daylily (Hemerocallis sp.) is called ‘Gentle Shepard’…I think, it was slated to be in the memorial garden but that didn’t happen. Now it’s a part of the compass garden and this flower is starting to fade. You can tell daylily flowers are on the way out when they start getting those translucent patches in the petals. The clear spots mean the cells are breaking down and soon it’ll go entirely mushy. The rain is not helping blooms last unfortunately.

 

Daylilies are a lovely addition to any garden, but I prefer the classic types.

Irish Eyes Rudbeckia (Rudbeckia hirta ‘Irish Eyes’) was a subject of one of my recent videos called ‘A tale of Two Asters’ and here it is in full glory, which is ironic since they are commonly called Gloriosa Daisies. If you look close you can see the individual opened flowers in the central disk which is taking on a cone shape, proving that Echinacea and Rudbeckia share traits, and are probably closely related that their species should be merged.

 

Irish eyes, named for it's bright green centers is still a Gloriosa Daisy...so Green Eye Susan?

 This is the Aster video I did for reference.

For comparison here is a shot of traditional Black Eye Susan (Rudbeckia hirta), which also has the cone shaped center. Notice how it’s actual flowers in the cone open from the outside first and work their way inside to the center? This is a biological adaptation to stagger the maturation of its seeds so that they don’t all get eaten at once increasing survival chances. Tahis feature also reduces the amount of nutrient and energy needed to mature any one set of seed at any given time, basically economy mode for plant reproduction.

 

Commonly called Black Eye Susans, the name isn't a reference to domestic abuse as some have suggested, it's a reference to an English poem, I cover that in the video above.

Remember how I was selling a select few Shirogoma Sesame seed plants under the variety (Sesamum indicum ‘Shirogoma’)? Well this is what the plants look like and their flowers are surprisingly large and showy, almost like white New Zealand Impatiens flowers.

Yeah the flowers aren't open but the plant is cool to look at, not sure what I'm going to do with the harvested seeds though.

Now here is something you don’t see every day, I suppose since it was rainy this tiny little Mason Bee (Osmia sp.) was too wet to fly or just taking a nap. Either way it picked a good place because Signet Marigolds (Tagetes tenuifolia) clearly have no shortage of flowers and pollen. Despite what the Honey industry would have you believe, there are hundreds of pollenating species that can replace the introduced European Honey bee, agriculture wont collapse if they disappear. If they did perhaps Big-Agra would finally have to seriously reconsider how they’ve been doing things and what they’ve taken for granted.

 

This variety of Marigold is called 'lemon Gem' either for it's bright happy bloom color or that it's fully edible and it may have a lemon-ish flavor.

Last on this photo list we have an image of what the Zebrina Mallow (Malva sylvestris ‘Zebrina’) looks like in full bloom. I did say that it’s perennial, it’s leaves look like old school geraniums and so do the flowers…kind of!

 

Honestly, I've grown to like this mallow,the pink/darker pink color combo is really striking and once it started blooming it seems that it does not want to stop!

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:

Amaranth – Early Splendor: $3.00

Okra – Baby Bubba: $3.00

Pepper – Assorted: $2.00 (Sale)

Tomato – Assorted: $2.00 (Sale)

Herbs:

Herb, Agastache – Golden Jubilee : $3.00

Herb, Basil – Eritrean: $3.00

Herb, Basil – Wild: $3.00

Herb, Basil – Holy: $3.00

Herb, Coneflower – Pow Wow Wild Berry: $3.00

Herb, Cuban Oregano: $3.00

Herb, Cuban Oregano – Cerveza & Lime: $3.00

Herb, Horehound  : $3.00

Herb, Italian Oregano: $3.00

Herb, Roselle – Thai Red: $4.00

Herb, Rue: $3.00

Herb, Sage: $3.00

Herb, Tansy: $3.00

Herb, Thyme – English: $3.00

Ornamental Plants:

Black Eye Susan – ‘Prairie Glow’: $3.00

Castor bean – ‘Impala’: $3.00

Cotton – Erlene’s Green: $3.00

Cotton – Mississippi Brown Lint: $3.00

Cotton – Red Foliated White: $3.00

Marigold – Pineapple Crush: $3.00

Marigold – Signet Red: $3.00

Milkweed – ‘Hairy Balls’: $3.00

Coming Soon:

[TBA]

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 eleventh LITFM post of 2020; stay tuned the next episode which should be posted on the 26^th of June. There will be more garden updates and other cool stuff.