Apple Trees

I bought 2 apple trees on sale at a local nursery last week and planted them in a flower border. I did a little research first and learned that you need a minimum of 2 varieties that flower at the same time, planted within 100 feet of each other, for pollination. I got a Macintosh and a Crispin. I have wanted to try more fruit trees and other perennial food producers, but zone 4 choices are limited. I have raspberries, blueberries, rhubarb, and asparagus. I hope the apple trees survive and don't get eaten by deer.

Grow your own sprouts -- it's easy!

Sprouts got a bad reputation during the recent ecoli outbreak in Europe (see my previous post, "e-coli Outbreak"). It seems that sprouts are a food that can easily be contaminated with ecoli because they have a lot of surface area and are rinsed in water frequently, and that water may have been contaminated by animal waste. So even though the sprouts are innocent, being plants, they can carry ecoli bacteria (which comes from animals) on their surface. It's difficult to wash off ecoli; you only need one microscopic bacteria to survive in order to sicken someone.

Don't give up on these protein-rich, crisp and crunchy vegetables! You can easily grow your own sprouts with just a jar and a packet of seeds. Try it in the winter when nothing else is growing for the ultimate satisfaction, but it will work any time of year.

I use mung bean seeds because I like the big, hearty sprouts they produce. I ordered my sprouting seeds from a catalog -- I just added it on to my garden seed order to avoid paying extra shipping. It was $1.95 for a 4 oz. bag, which will make about 6 - 8 batches of sprouts. I think you'll pay about that much for a single container of sprouts at the supermarket, so your investment will pay off at 6 to 1! It doesn't cost anything to sprout the seeds, you just need any old recycled glass jar.

Day 1: Put 1 or 1.5 tbsp of seeds in the jar and cover with cold water. Soak overnight.


Day 2 - 4: Dump out the soaking water. Twice a day, rinse the sprouts in cold water and dump out the water. The seeds should stay damp and not dry out completely. Some directions say to use a wet paper towel or cheesecloth over the opening of the jar, but I never have.



Each day, more of the green seed coverings come off and get dumped out with the rinse water.


Day 5: Yummy sprouts waiting to adorn your salad! Refrigerate in a bag when they're ready to eat.

A Good Day for the Garden

I turned off the radio after a time this morning because I couldn't take the constant alarmist heat warnings. "It's HOT, you're all going to DIE!"
Yeah, it's warm today for the Northeast. So what? Take breaks and drink water. Don't be stupid. I hate it just as much when the announcers go crazy because it's going to snow. We live in upstate New York. We know about snow. Calm down.

Whatever you may think of this hot humid weather we're having, it's absolutely fabulous for the vegetable garden. It's early for eggplant and red peppers and large tomatoes, hooray! If all goes well, I'll be able to fill the freezer and eat well all summer.

I planted the pole beans too thickly and it's like a treasure hunt to harvest them! But at least I'll have plenty of beans and the critters didn't win this year. I'm not complaining.

I picked up an intriguing book on water bath canning last week and I'm determined to try at least one recipe at some point this summer. I'm thinking salsa or tomatoes or sauce, since they are high in acid and I'm less likely to mess up. Plus, those things are typically made later in the summer when having large boiling pots of water in the kitchen all morning won't be so silly.

I have the usual glut of summer squash. We grilled some the other night with a garlic marinade. I chopped some up into 1/2" pieces and sauteed it with onion and garlic and salsa and pinto beans and put it into whole wheat wraps another night. Oh, and the ubiquitous zucchini bread, of course.

I love summer!

Quality time with the Compost Pile

I have been putting kitchen waste into a compost bin for years (no sense in sending vegetable peels to the landfill!), but the bin was in the shade and I never turned the contents or made much of an effort to do anything with it. I used to purchase 3 or more yards of composted cow manure from a local dairy farm, and that's what I would use on the vegetable and flower beds. The farm did a great job of making sure the manure was properly "cooked." There was never any odor, and the vegetable garden thrived on the stuff.

But now I'm vegan and I realize that I can't ethically purchase composted cow manure since my money would be contributing to the farm's ability to continue as a dairy. Dairy cows are repeatedly impregnated, their calves are taken away almost immediately, to the great distress of their mothers, and the boy calves are turned into veal. When the cows are "spent" (ie: they no longer produce enough milk) they are sent to the slaughterhouse.

I needed to either find another source of vegan compost, or figure out how to make my own in a more efficient way. I was wary of other sources even before researching the subject. I checked the bags of compost at the garden center and saw that most are not vegan, containing ingredients such as "turkey meal" (what the heck?) and bat guano. I had read that some communities offered compost made from yard waste, but knowing how much chemical fertilizer and pesticides are commonly used, I really didn't want to take the chance. What's the point of trying to grow my vegetables organically if I'm going to get someone else's recycled pesticides? No thanks. The Mother Jones article I have linked to confirmed my suspicions about municipal composting programs.

As a result, I have been spending some quality time with my compost pile this spring, and so far it is working out pretty well. In the early spring, I borrowed a chipper/shredder and shredded up leaves and stems, adding them to the pile. My kitchen waste still goes in there, with vegetable peels and coffee grounds being the primary ingredients. In addition, I'm raking up the grass clippings (I don't use any chemicals on my lawn, of course) and adding them in. I have two bins side-by-side so that I can mix the pile and layer the things I put in. I have already used some of the compost I made in the spring. Those shredded leaves were great, and I'm planning to borrow the shredder again soon to shred more leaves. I also added some organic alfalfa meal to the pile the last time I turned it. I read that it is supposed to heat up the pile like manure would, and encourage microbes to do their composting thing. I'm looking forward to using my own compost, made for free, with my own sweat equity. Knowing exactly what went in there will give me greater confidence that what I'm eating is good for me!

Rodent Problem

I ran into a problem growing pole beans last year. Every time the vines would get a few leaves, some critter would eat them, leaving a bare stalk that would struggle to produce another leaf, which would then be eaten, etc. I suspected chipmunks to be the culprits, as I have rabbit fencing and there were no deer tracks. Voles could have done the damage as well. I never caught the offenders so I can't say exactly who they were!

Thanks to the rodent problem, the season was a bust as far as beans were concerned. I had to pick beans at a friend's house to freeze for the winter -- the paltry harvest I managed was barely enough for a few side dishes.

This year, in an effort to thwart the wily critters, I made cages from hardware cloth that are about 14" deep and 6" in diameter, and buried them about 7" deep in case the varmint is a digger. So far, so good! I'm keeping my fingers crossed, and I'll post an update at harvest time.

The proliferation of the progeny of the prodigious pigweed: A problem.

Years ago, as a novice gardener, I nurtured a "volunteer" that I thought might be a flower. It did so well with my tender loving care, that it took over the bed, actually growing taller than me! Not recognizing it, I eventually became concerned and asked my garden mentor what it could be. She didn't recognize the description, so I brought a piece of it to work to show her. Puzzled, she said that it looked like pigweed, but she had never heard of one so large! Alas, it had gone to seed (millions of seeds, actually) before I could get rid of it. Lo, these many years later, I am still trying to rid the gardens of pigweed, only now I get them when they are very tiny.
My take-home message: Look it up or ask a friend before it's too late! :-)

Stuff in the garden.

A re-purposed chicken feeder becomes a home for heuchera.

More Green, Less Blue

When we bought our place in '96, it came with a large above-ground pool. For several years it got a decent amount of use, but in recent years it seemed like I was maintaining it all summer for a scant few hours of swimming or floating. Unfortunately, the electric pump has to run all the time, and you have to chlorinate and clean constantly whether anyone is using it or not. I also started to resent the time I was spending opening, cleaning, and closing it.
A covered pool in the summertime is an eyesore, and tends to deteriorate quickly. So I got some volunteers to help take it down and stack all the parts, intending to sell the pool and put in a knot garden.
You know about the best laid plans, right? First problem: the bottom of the metal sides and the base were rusted to the point that they were unusable. So the plan to sell the thing and have someone else haul it away faded quickly. Second problem: the area where the pool had been, instead of being a lovely circle of sandy soil ready for planting, quickly turned into a giant swampy shallow pond. Talk about an eyesore! I ended up getting a friend to help me take the pool parts to the dump (which I had to pay for), and I had to buy four truckloads of dirt to fill in the swampy hole in the yard. My husband borrowed a friend's tractor to deal with the truckloads of dirt. Since we were digging up the yard anyway, we re-designed the shape of the new garden and did some other garden/pond work while we had a tractor. I built a big planter off the side of the deck where the access to the pool had been, and we relocated the pool's electrical outlet for future outdoor use. I decided to make the new garden, which is next to the house, into a flower and herb garden, and to move the flowers from a far-away garden which will now be used for garlic, rhubarb, and asparagus.
The whole thing turned into a summer-long project and I didn't get to plant anything until fall. But now that the snow is almost gone, I'm looking forward to seeing what comes up in the new garden, and to fussing with the layout and moving plants around! It's exciting to have a new look to the yard, and I'm very happy that I won't have to spend precious garden time maintaining an electricity-using, chemical-laden swimming pool.
More green, less blue!

The Accidental Pumpkin

I didn't mean to grow pumpkins. But I had some trouble getting my eggplant seeds to germinate this past spring, so my friend gave me some of her extra seedlings in 3" pots, along with a cute little baby squash plant that she said was a compact butternut that would hardly take up any room at all.
Now, I have limited space in my veggie beds, so I don't grow ornamentals -- only stuff I can eat -- and I don't grow large sprawling vines such as melons and big winter squashes. But when I returned from a week-long vacation midway through the summer, this supposedly well-behaved plant had turned into a monster and was taking over the world. It had a very dark green round fruit the size of a softball which looked nothing like a butternut squash to me. A mystery plant! I vowed on the spot that whatever it turned into, I would find a way to cook it and eat it. Eventually, my friend apologetically identified it as a pumpkin. Unfortunately, she also told me that these pretty orange pumpkins we buy to make jack-o-lanterns are not the best for eating, and that pumpkin pie filling is actually now made from winter squash, not the Halloween pumpkins I was inadvertently nurturing. I, however, refuse to be deterred. I found a pumpkin soup recipe in my World Vegetarian cookbook, and I'm going to salt and roast the seeds for snacking. I drastically cut back the vines to keep them from shading my other plants, and saved only 4 pumpkins, some of which I definitely intend to eat! I'll let you know how it tastes.

Cold and Rainy

Cold and rainy. That's the best description of the '09 garden season. A few of the perennials were happy -- particularly the ones in the dry shade gardens -- but most of my flowers have been leggy and floppy, sporting powdery mildew and brown spots and slug damage. Then there are the vegetables. I will first say that I have been incredibly successful with summer squash (zephyr) and swiss chard, in addition to onions, garlic, basil, oregano, cilantro, and parsley. But the losses have been devastating, including the loss of most of my large tomatoes to late blight. I have a wealth of sun sugar and sun gold tomatoes, which seem to be resistant to the blight. My first planting of pole beans drowned. The second planting is just starting to flower, so I'm hoping for a late frost to have the opportunity to freeze some beans. Peppers and eggplants were simply sluggish to produce fruit because of the lack of warm days and nights. I'm finally starting to get a few, but the yield will be disappointing.

I have had perennial gardens for much longer than I have been growing vegetables, and have attributed my success to the following philosophy: If something grows well, plant more of it. If not, 3 strikes and you're out. This approach has worked so well that I have gained somewhat of a reputation as a master gardener among my garden-minded friends. Unfortunately, this summer has taught me that vegetable gardening requires the exact opposite approach. With the fickle weather and unpredictable insect and disease patterns, it seems that the best strategy for veggies is to plant a wide variety and see what does well this year. That way I'll have SOMETHING to put in the freezer. My husband has already announced that he's getting a little tired of squash, which is a real shame since we have a freezer full of it!

Rattlesnake Pole Beans

I have to recommend Rattlesnake pole beans to all the novice vegetable gardeners out there. This is my first year trying them and they are fabulous. I direct seeded in the spring and every seed sprouted. The vines are robust and they are producing like crazy. The beans taste great, and there are so many of them that we have some to eat and some to freeze for the winter. Another perk is that they are green with purple stripes, so they're easier to find than the all-green varieties that blend in perfectly with the color of the surrounding foliage.
I also tried out some yellow pole beans this year and I am not thrilled with them. Particularly compared to the fabulous Rattlesnakes. Next year I may try a new variety for fun, but I'm definitely growing the Rattlesnakes every year from now on.

Veggies!

After a week away, I was thrilled to get home and see the vegetable garden thriving. A very little weeding was all that was necessary, and everything is progressing nicely. I have already been harvesting the swiss chard -- yum! If I take it frequently when it is small I can use the stems and all and it is tender and sweet. I should be able to harvest summer squash within a couple of days. Tomatoes and peppers are emerging and just need to ripen. The pole beans have blossoms which means that beans aren't far behind. And can you see the size of those onions? I actually don't know what I'm going to do with them all so I hope this variety stores well.

The peppers will be a bit of a surprise. I think I started three or four varieties from seed, then sent the seedlings off in 4" pots to a friend's greenhouse. Alas, the masking tape labels did not return with the mature plants. I randomly planted what I had, assuming that I would be able to figure out what is what eventually.

I have been an enthusiastic perennial flower gardener for many years. I originally didn't have much interest in growing vegetables, but a friend convinced me to try it. Because of the wet clay in my yard, I have to build raised beds for the vegetables. It's a lot of work but I'm gradually adding space each year. I have to say that I am completely hooked on the vegetable gardening now. There is very little I find as thoroughly satisfying as growing my own vegetables organically. I know exactly where each bite of food came from. And the taste! I love inviting people to dinner and telling them what parts of the meal came from my own garden. I am already planning to add more space next year, and thinking about what to grow more of (swiss chard) and what new things to grow (radishes). During the winter, I will pore over the seed catalogs to discover new varieties to try. I even got a second freezer to store the extras. Between the rise in food prices and the increasing safety concerns (salmonella, e coli, etc.) I think I'm coming out way ahead.

Bog Garden

If life gives you lemons... Well, I didn't get a lemon tree when I bought my house, but I did get a very wet back yard and heavy clay soil. There isn't much I can grow without digging out the clay and replacing it with better dirt and compost. I decided at one point that I should have a pond, so I started to dig. If you've ever dug up wet clay, you know that it sticks to the shovel. When you use your boot to scrape it off the shovel, it sticks to your boot. Soon, you are a couple of inches taller than you used to be as the clay turns your boots into platform shoes. Anyway, I dug a sort of oval shape about 6 feet by 10 feet and three to four feet deep. If anyone suggests that it's a good idea to do this with a shovel, I can disabuse them of that notion. Next time I want a big hole, I'm renting a big orange shovel with an engine! Anyway, I had this hole and I was researching what to do about a liner and a pump and all of that when it rained. The water didn't soak into the ground, it just filled up the hole and stayed there. That sort of put the kibosh on my plans to install a liner but I figured it would dry out before long. Now it's several years later, and the pond is a bog garden, filled with water lilies which I planted, and cat tails which I didn't plant. It has never been lined and has never dried completely out. I edged it with rocks and planted marginal perennials such as filipendula and water forget-me-not, which love the constant moisture. Did I mention that the frogs moved in right after it filled with water? They lay eggs each spring and sun themselves on the lily pads and rocks and eat any mosquitoes that hatch (we really don't have many mosquitoes at all -- because of the frogs?). Dragonflies swoop over the pond in the evening. I've even had a couple of visits from a great blue heron. In the early spring I've seen deer tracks in the mud under the water. So far, the deer have munched on the hosta that's way in the back of the back yard but miraculously have left the vegetable garden alone. I'm leaving the hosta there as a treat to them and a bribe to stay away from the veggies!
I will never have a formal pond with a fountain or goldfish. But I love my boggy pond and so do its residents and visitors. I don't need electricity and it pretty much takes care of itself.
By the way, can you quickly tell how many frogs are in the picture?
Five.