Helping Friends I Don't Know and Other Updates

The other day, Caela helped me make a connection between my self proclaimed "friend supported agriculture" and my most recent efforts to organize people here to help others. She is doing her anthropology field work in St. Lucia where Hurricane Tomas recently caused significant damage to the island. People there are currently searching for water and working to figure out when they will have sources of income again.

One of the supplies they expressed a need for was seeds. This way they can plant gardens to feed their families in the upcoming months as they get back on their feet, replant farms, and excavate their houses after landslides.

In response, I went down to a and asked for their help. Not only were their seed packets marked down to half off but they generously offered to help me find any seeds I needed. To say the least, I was happy to see my many hours and dollars spent there result in their willingness to help me help others. And as a gardener, I feel very strongly in empowering and enabling otheres to grow their own. That's why I started this blog after all!



As an update on my garden, it is now put "to bed" for the winter. Based on my observations this morning, it looks like last night was the first killing frost of the year. Considering that it's late November, that is pretty remarkable. Luckily I pulled out the rest of my tomato and basil plants yesterday so nothing went to waste. Now I just need to do something with the green tomatoes and basil on my counter...

Fall is for planting (from October)

Or at least the botanical garden likes to tell people that the fall is the best time to plant native wildflowers and other plants. So, as my summer vegetables are limping along and still producing a little bit, I'm working today on the flower garden. I've been gradually turning the "grass" in our front yard into a native plant area to attract pollinators and to just plain look pretty. Today, while David is at work (I'm working this weekend so I'm off during the week) I can work on messing up his grass mowing patterns :)




There are many methods out there for making this transition. One of the easiest is to cover the grass and kill it and then plant things on top of it (keeps the nutrients there from the grass). But that takes a while and I want to get plants in the ground today. The solution is that I'm stripping off the layer of grass, digging out the yummy Carolina clay, putting in topsoil/compost and then adding the plants and mulch. There is something strangely satisfying about swinging a pickaxe at the ridiculous clay that is my yard.






Then the hard part of digging holes in a clay and gravel soil begins. After a day's worth of labor (or at least a few hours), I had a hole about a foot deep covering the ground I wanted for this part of the garden addition. I even found the remains of an old pipe or culvert that was made out of clay.


In case you're wondering, all of the grass and clay stay here at the Cranford casa. I use the grass to try and establish grass in other parts of the yard and the dirt goes to even out other spots in the yard. We try to not throw "away" anything- that whole sustainability, low impact thing. Unfortunately we don't produce enough mulch and compost here to keep up with the growing garden so I have to bring that in to supplement the home grown stuff.

At the moment, my garden is mostly successful. The tomatoes are coming off a few a day, eggplants are producing really well, the cucumbers are small but plentiful, and we're having trouble keeping up with okra. And the melons continue to slowly produce yummy fruits. I even have 1 pot of lettuce still producing.






Today's harvest and the largest of my watermelons.























I need to plant my fall crops sooner than later so that they'll be ready "on time". So far I think that I'll be growing acorn squash, pie pumpkins, broccoli, and kale. And of course I'll be putting in garlic again.
In the meantime I've turned some of my focus to my wildflowers that I sprouted this spring. They've become super root bound so I'm putting them into larger pots so that they can get a bit more established before I put them in the ground this fall. I'll have extras I'm sure so let me know if you'd like to trade native wildflowers for anything else.
Growing up, my Mom never put up any fruit or vegetables that I remember. So I've been working the whole canning thing with a healthy dose of apprehension about doing everything the right way. The most recent achievement in my kitchen was canning tomatoes.

Berrytastic Times

As the summer draws on, the challenges are high temperatures and figuring out what to do with the produce. For me, the latter gets accelerated when I make trips over to David's parents' house.


For blueberries (from the in-laws), I've been making sorbet for a few years. My newest experiment is these blueberry cupcakes. Both turned out great and are disappearing fast!

Give me a shout if you want hot peppers!

A bloomin' good time

I've had quite a few questions lately about the various flowers of vegetables (and fruits) in my garden. So you can either guess which plants the flowers below belong to or just scroll down the page to see a list of answers.

You choice are:
eggplant
tomato
tomatillo
cucumber
canteloupe
watermelon
bean


a-

b-

c-

d-

e-

f-









And the answers are:
a- cucumber, b- tomatillo, c-cantaloupe, d-eggplant, e-watermelon, f-tomato

Early Summer Transitions

The main garden area.




I also have some pretty flowers blooming. It's really nice to have the different flowers take turns making the garden pretty.















At this point in the growing season, some things are ending and others are ready to take off. The garlic came out a couple of weeks ago, the snap peas are done, and the kale will be ending soon. And the asparagus is long over. I've also had some lettuce fizzle out on me but since I staggered my lettuce planting, I still have plenty.

On the upswing are tomatoes (they're as big around as quarters now), we have kiwi sized melons (full size will be grapefruit size), and the okra, beans, watermelons, cucumbers, and eggplant are looking good. I'm also still thinking about starting more tomatillos.




Eggplants & Tomatillos on the left, melons/watermelons in the middle.

And if any of you remember my fridge with a whole shelf dedicated to wildflower seeds, those have worked out too. I have quite a few different types of native wildflower seedlings that I need to transition into the ground. The really good news there is that I will start getting flowers on most of the next year and I didn't buy any new flowering plants this spring! David- did you read that- I didn't buy any vegetable seedlings either for that matter. They've all come from seed. (Disclaimer: I did spend a good amount of money on seeds and soil- but not nearly as much as if I'd bought plants).

If any local folks reading this need any seeds or eggplant seedlings, let me know. I have leftovers of both. And we're already getting veggies from the Cranfords' (David's folks) garden so we'll be sharing that around soon as well. On a similar note, have I forgotten anything? Omission of squash and peppers was intentional in case you were wondering.

May Progress

Gardening this spring has been sporadic for me with hopes of things doing OK in between work days. But this weekend, the extra day (along with not working this weekend) is helping me feel on top of things. And David is around to help out, which is nice.

General updates:
The snap peas have been producing for about a week.
The tomato plants are starting to flower.
My kale is happy (I've been eating a lot of kale chips lately).
I have 3 different kinds of lettuce that I've been eating.
We harvested garlic this weekend (pictures below) and will hopefully not need to buy any for the next year.

David's love for things unplanned won out over my need for order and we have 2 volunteer melon plants in the garden. They look like the midget melon plants we had in that area last year- so we'll see what happens. They're flowering and have some female flowers now so it should only be a matter of time before we get some fruit.

Trees growing outside have reduced the amount of sun coming in my windows over the last month or so. This is great for keeping the house cool but doesn't give seedlings much light. So I have now given up on starting any more seeds inside and am only planting things directly outside. In the list of failed starts are tomatillos, okra, watermelons, and melons (sorry- I'm not posting pictures of the evidence). One of my goals for this weekend has been to plant more of these things outside so that I don't miss out on their yumminess.

Because it's already kinda hot and humid since it rained a ton on Friday, I have to take breaks and cool off inside. One of my distractions this weekend was making whoopie pies. If you haven't experienced these lovely treats, think cupcake tops with icing in the middle. They have them up in the northeast and my recent trip to Maine inspired me to try my hand at making them. So with some of the last strawberries of the season, I made fresh strawberry whoopie pies. They turned out pretty good. The next challenge will be making pumpkin ones, which were requested by Caela.

The garden is blooming

So this one isn't blooming (I'm not sure if it will this year or not) but it is a woodland favorite of mine called a May Apple. In their natural habitat, they colonize entire hillsides near woodland streams. I have mine planted in one of my shade gardens.Nearby the May Apple, you'll find some of my columbine that is in full bloom. It is taking off and spreading throughout both shady and sunny areas. It reminds me of high meadows in Colorado where it is everywhere. This is another woodland plant but a small tree called viburnum. I think of it as a scaled back hydrangea.
Here are 2 of my current favorites: smoky indigo on the left and solomon's seal on the right. They're both in the front "sun" garden and doing well this year. The indigo was disappointing last year but looks like the one in the arboretum on campus this year (the standard to which I compare my wildflowers).

























This one (Dianthis) is a gift from David's folks. Their plants are well established so they consistently have to thin them out and either find new places for them or give them away. So I like going "shopping" when we visit them.
My herbs are even taking part of the spring blooming in the garden. These are chive flowers, one of the prettier herb flowers that I've seen.
In the meantime, we've moved past the last average frost date and as soon as I have time, I'll be planting tomatoes. The eggplants, okra, cucumbers, and tomatillos are working their way towards being planted. Next up for being started are more wildflowers, watermelons, and cantaloupes.

Pollen isn't the only thing happening around here.

One of the first signs of spring in the garden is asparagus. Ours has now sprouted and we'll have the first spear of it tonight with dinner! It is really exciting for me since last year (it's first year in the ground) we had to watch it sprout and not eat any of it. The good news is that it should do increasingly well for the next 10 or so years now.








I've also enlisted the help of my gardening sidekick to build a super cool trellis that I found in Organic Gardening magazine. After I get the snap peas in the ground, we'll add more twine so that they have lines to climb up.


In other parts of the yard the wildflowers are taking turns being pretty. Here are phlox and wild bleeding heart. Before much longer the columbine and indigo will be blooming.

The Seed Starting Process

Lately I've been getting questions about what I do to "start" my seeds for the garden. So, since the Morehead Afterschool kids are starting seeds this week, I've gone ahead and documented my process.

I use the disc shaped peat plugs because they're small and cheap. You put them in water for about 5 minutes and they swell to be cylinder shaped.





Once the peat is thoroughly wet, you can then put a single seed into the top of each plug.




If the seeds are really small or white like these tomatillos, I usually put them on a flat surface with a lip around it (this is a lid to a food container) so that I don't lose them. Then you carefully put one in each peat plug and cover it with dirt. Usually the seed packets have directions on how deep to plant the seeds.




I've found that if you then put the seeds on a tray and cover them right away with a clear "greenhouse" top, they might stay too wet. So I let them sit out uncovered for a day and then put the clear dome on top to help keep the seeds warm. Ideal germination temperatures are usually 60-70 degrees (you can find this on the seed packets too). You can see a picture of my mini greenhouse in the tomato post below.

springing into action (or at least trying to)

The tomatoes now have their first true leaves which means that I'll be putting them into pots this weekend. That means there is space in the window for eggplants (started the seeds yesterday) and tomatillos (hopefully started today or tomorrow) and then my snap peas before too much longer.

Outside, most of my herbs are coming back so I'm ready for cooking up some yummy stuff here soon. I also have some extra tarragon so let me know if you want it (it's currently in the small green pot in the back of the picture and could get transplanted most anywhere with decent sun). The daffodils and hyacinths are also coming up and being the first blooms (other than weeds) in my yard.



















I'm also working to get my native wildflowers ready from the NC Botanical garden www.ncbg.unc.edu , which means that part of my fridge is being invaded by plants. Because the seeds are used to a cold winter before sprouting, you have to put them through stratification, or 1-2 months in the fridge, before they'll germinate. I just took a workshop on plant propiigation so hopefully the tips that I picked up there from the pros will lead to a higher success rate.


I also need to share my first mistake of the year. I've heard about plants like lettuce and spinach "bolting" when the get too hot. That means that leafy plants send up flowering shoots which also means that the yummy veggies get bitter. So I have recently experienced that broccoli bolts too! I got all excited that my broccoli finally started growing again and even flowering- but then I tasted the broccoli and found out that flower do not equal tasty. Oh well- the moral of the story is to pick your broccoli before it shoots up/bolts.

tomatoes: check

While I felt utterly ridiculous starting seeds with snow on the ground outside, I know that if the tomatoes don't get started now, I won't get any before the 4th of July. And according to Brett, "if you aren't eating fresh tomatoes before the 4th, you're not worth much as a gardener". So, while I squeaked by with my tomato harvest last year (picked my first one right at the 4th), my goal is to be pickin in June this year.


With that in mind, my lovely brandywine tomato seeds are now tucked away in their peat pods. They'll start inside under a plastic "greenhouse" tray and then gradually work their way into the ground in late April/early May.


If you're wondering why I'm putting all of my effort into this not so spectacular type of tomato (as I tend to go for varieties that are unique to funny looking), I'd say you have a good question. I don't particularly enjoy fresh tomatoes so they're not the first garden crop that I get excited about. But the first year that I had a garden, my Mom asked about tomatoes and was highly disappointed when I told her that I had none. So I went out and bought a couple of plants- they didn't grow more than 2 feet high and were a total flop. Then last year I started tomatoes from seed and shared them with her. But as her daughter, I knew she was thinking "what's going on with these burgundy tomatoes". Fast forward to this winter and I asked her what type of tomato I should plant. To prepare her for answering, I opened 3 different seed catalogues to the tomato section, giving her over 100 heirloom varieties of to choose from. After flipping through a little bit, her response was "what about better boys?" (not very exciting or heirloom). And there you have another example of why David asks if I really came from my family. The compromise is that I chose brandywines- they're normal looking, good producers, and have a long history of being grown on small farms & gardens.

Now all I have to do is wait for 4ish months, keep them watered & fertilized, and hope that the cats don't decide to attack the seedlings. I'll keep you posted.