I never got around to blogging about it, but last fall I built a cute little cold frame. My intention was to try and have spinach growing and harvestable during the winter/early spring. I bought wood for 2 frames, made one (2.5'x2'), and put it into operation. I got the glass from old windows that I asked for on freecycle. (They turned out to be windows that were removed after the 2001 tornado damaged this person's house; they wanted all the windows in the house to match.) I bought the last spinach plants at my local nursery and what I thought was kale. It turned out to be broccoli :-) I stuck them in my cold frame which sat on top of my sheet mulched bed around the young blueberry bushes. They loved it. The broccoli pushed against the glass top until I encouraged it to do something else. The spinach (just 3 plants) was so small until a few weeks ago that I did not want to harvest it for fear of killing it.
But I did finally get brave and harvest some spinach for salads a week or two ago. I was then further inspired. I ordered spring seeds from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. This weekend I built and installed another larger (2'x5') cold frame. I plan on doing a second large one today. Yesterday I planted kale, spinach, swiss chard, and lettuce mix. I am trying to figure out how to track my efforts in the gardening arena so I can figure out what works and what needs tweaked. I'll let you know when I decide!
Showing posts with label garden. Show all posts
Showing posts with label garden. Show all posts
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Apple Trees
I am researching apple trees since I want a few at my house. I am keeping with heirloom varieties. I start my quest at Edible Landscaping in Afton, VA.
Oh but I want kiwis, persimmons, berries, grapes, blackberries, jujubas, shitake log, and much more!
- Liberty - resistant to mildew, cedar apple rust and fire blight and immune to scab, zones 4-7, self-fertile, crisp apple kind of like a McIntosh
- Enterprise -
- Honey Crisp - (had these at Westmoreland Berry Farm and my kids thought nothing was better than these apples)
Oh but I want kiwis, persimmons, berries, grapes, blackberries, jujubas, shitake log, and much more!
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Sheet Mulching
This past May, I posted about our guest and her kick in the pants to start gardening. This weekend, I am preparing more garden area for next spring. I am sheet mulching! Here's how I'm, doing it.
Today I used my flat spade to dig an edge to the garden bed. I used straight lines so it would be easy to use our riding lawn mower to follow. I removed 1/2 spade's worth of grass at the edge and put aside for later. In the morning, I will deepen this trench to about 5 inches using a small shovel and pick axe if needed. Then I will install the 5 inch plastic garden barrier edging that I purchased and use the spikes to pin it down. This point of this barrier is to help keep the grass roots from invading my garden bed. We have some nasty spreading grass and I really don't want to be pulling it out of my food plants all the time. Hopefully this will work! Now I can fill the inside.
First, a sprinkling of powdered lime to offset the acidic clay soil (although the acidity is hearsay as far as I am concerned - I have never done a soil test). The cardboard and thick newspapers get put down into a solid layer. The overlaps have to let no light in and no weeds through. This layer has to be good and soggy so liberal spraying with a hose will be needed.
Next goes fresh horse manure - just out of the stable this morning. Ideally the manure layer is a few inches thick; I'll just spread out what I have. Then a few inch thick layer of leaves. I grabbed these from a friend's house today. Her land is nothing but trees and a house. Great leaf production ;-) Then some compost, dried grass, anything else I can find which is organic. Oh I have some bone meal to sprinkle in there too. On top goes a thick layer of straw. Not hay which has seeds. This top layer has to have no seeds so you get no weeds. I might get some wood chips as well, but I'm curious how the straw does too.
That's it. Instead of composting kitchen scraps, I can just tuck the plant waste underneath the top layer and feed the worms and other organisms in my garden.
Than I'm going to go over to a friend's house and do it to her garden beds too!
For more info, here a couple sheet mulching links:
http://www.agroforestry.net/pubs/Sheet_Mulching.html
http://www.permaculture-exchange.org/sheet.html
Today I used my flat spade to dig an edge to the garden bed. I used straight lines so it would be easy to use our riding lawn mower to follow. I removed 1/2 spade's worth of grass at the edge and put aside for later. In the morning, I will deepen this trench to about 5 inches using a small shovel and pick axe if needed. Then I will install the 5 inch plastic garden barrier edging that I purchased and use the spikes to pin it down. This point of this barrier is to help keep the grass roots from invading my garden bed. We have some nasty spreading grass and I really don't want to be pulling it out of my food plants all the time. Hopefully this will work! Now I can fill the inside.
First, a sprinkling of powdered lime to offset the acidic clay soil (although the acidity is hearsay as far as I am concerned - I have never done a soil test). The cardboard and thick newspapers get put down into a solid layer. The overlaps have to let no light in and no weeds through. This layer has to be good and soggy so liberal spraying with a hose will be needed.
Next goes fresh horse manure - just out of the stable this morning. Ideally the manure layer is a few inches thick; I'll just spread out what I have. Then a few inch thick layer of leaves. I grabbed these from a friend's house today. Her land is nothing but trees and a house. Great leaf production ;-) Then some compost, dried grass, anything else I can find which is organic. Oh I have some bone meal to sprinkle in there too. On top goes a thick layer of straw. Not hay which has seeds. This top layer has to have no seeds so you get no weeds. I might get some wood chips as well, but I'm curious how the straw does too.
That's it. Instead of composting kitchen scraps, I can just tuck the plant waste underneath the top layer and feed the worms and other organisms in my garden.
Than I'm going to go over to a friend's house and do it to her garden beds too!
For more info, here a couple sheet mulching links:
http://www.agroforestry.net/pubs/Sheet_Mulching.html
http://www.permaculture-exchange.org/sheet.html
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Pickles
So this past wednesday I immersed myself in pickles. I prepared and canned 32 pints of pickles. That is way more than I have ever done before. I never even liked pickles until I made them myself last year. That's what happens when your friend offers you cucumber seconds and says make pickles!
Friday, May 22, 2009
Strawberry Jam
Yesterday morning I worked for about 4 hours on making strawberry jam. I was about up to the canning part when both kids woke up! We had already gone to a new farm (Homestead Farm in Faulkner, MD) to load up on berries for jam so I could start as soon as my eyes were open enough.
Hulling and chopping the berries comes first (along with washing if necessary). Then cooking the berries until soft. I decided I wanted a smooth consistency this time (instead of fruit chunks) so I used my blender on the whole batch. I sweetened with local honey, thickened with agar agar flakes, and popped it all in the canning jars. My recipe is not for a super sweet jam, I like the berry flavor to dominate over the sweetness. However my sweets-loving son said it was good. Here's the big-ass pot I used (thanks mom!) and the finished jars.
Here's the recipe:
Strawberry Jam
Ingredients:
8 quarts of fresh strawberries (which weighed a total of 10 lb 7 oz and measured out to be about 16 c)
1.5-2 c honey
8 T agar agar flakes (a seaweed)
Directions:
Cook strawberries until soft on medium heat (do not boil). Add honey to taste* (must cool berry mixture down for proper taste test) and stir well. Add 1/2 the agar flakes, stir, and continue on med heat for a few minutes. Do a consistency test**. Add 1 T flakes at a time until berry mixture is not quite solid enough for you. Stop there before you end up with a brick. Now get it in the jars and hide it until harvest season has passed!
Yield: about 2 cups
* The taste of hot things differs from cold things. The berries need to be cool for proper taste test. Here's how: use a small plate or bowl, chill it in the freezer for a few minutes, put a small dollop of mixture on plate, return to freezer until cool, then taste and adjust honey amount.
** Consistency Test: The agar flakes gel when they get cool/cold. Use the plate in the freezer trick again, but this time make sure the strawberry mixture really and truly gets cold. Always err on the side of not enough and too runny jam. Otherwise, you could add too much agar and end up with jam the consistency of a hockey puck.
Hulling and chopping the berries comes first (along with washing if necessary). Then cooking the berries until soft. I decided I wanted a smooth consistency this time (instead of fruit chunks) so I used my blender on the whole batch. I sweetened with local honey, thickened with agar agar flakes, and popped it all in the canning jars. My recipe is not for a super sweet jam, I like the berry flavor to dominate over the sweetness. However my sweets-loving son said it was good. Here's the big-ass pot I used (thanks mom!) and the finished jars.
Here's the recipe:
Strawberry Jam
Ingredients:
8 quarts of fresh strawberries (which weighed a total of 10 lb 7 oz and measured out to be about 16 c)
1.5-2 c honey
8 T agar agar flakes (a seaweed)
Directions:
Cook strawberries until soft on medium heat (do not boil). Add honey to taste* (must cool berry mixture down for proper taste test) and stir well. Add 1/2 the agar flakes, stir, and continue on med heat for a few minutes. Do a consistency test**. Add 1 T flakes at a time until berry mixture is not quite solid enough for you. Stop there before you end up with a brick. Now get it in the jars and hide it until harvest season has passed!
Yield: about 2 cups
* The taste of hot things differs from cold things. The berries need to be cool for proper taste test. Here's how: use a small plate or bowl, chill it in the freezer for a few minutes, put a small dollop of mixture on plate, return to freezer until cool, then taste and adjust honey amount.
** Consistency Test: The agar flakes gel when they get cool/cold. Use the plate in the freezer trick again, but this time make sure the strawberry mixture really and truly gets cold. Always err on the side of not enough and too runny jam. Otherwise, you could add too much agar and end up with jam the consistency of a hockey puck.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
A New Garden Bed
You saw the cool new trellis we made to shade our AC fans in the last post? Now there is a sheet mulched area all around it to make a new garden bed!
I thought about this new garden bed. I was worried about the soil washing right down onto the walkway. I thought about water retention in this bed. Since the best place to store water or plants is in the soil, I decided to build a short retaining wall. I used the leftover blocks from the walkway to make this short wall. Now it holds both soil and water in the garden bed instead of dumping where we walk.
Under the bricks for the wall, I laid that good ole newspaper to smother the weeds and stuck it under the blocks to anchor the paper. On top of the newspaper (in overlapping sections about 10-20 sheets thick), I put an entire truckload of manure from the farm where our neighbor's horse resides. On top of that, I put triple ground mulch (no more free from County!). Look how tall it is now!
I thought about this new garden bed. I was worried about the soil washing right down onto the walkway. I thought about water retention in this bed. Since the best place to store water or plants is in the soil, I decided to build a short retaining wall. I used the leftover blocks from the walkway to make this short wall. Now it holds both soil and water in the garden bed instead of dumping where we walk.
Under the bricks for the wall, I laid that good ole newspaper to smother the weeds and stuck it under the blocks to anchor the paper. On top of the newspaper (in overlapping sections about 10-20 sheets thick), I put an entire truckload of manure from the farm where our neighbor's horse resides. On top of that, I put triple ground mulch (no more free from County!). Look how tall it is now!
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Gazebo Turned Trellis
As part of my new gardening plan, we transformed a patch of grass with the AC fan units against the house into a food garden spot. First thing was to start sheet mulching to convert the hard red clay dirt and weedy grass into loamy garden soil. This was a half-way step since I did not have sufficient materials to really sheet mulch well. Right now it is just newspaper and the free mulch that my county gives away from residents' yard waste.
Then we took the upright posts from a damaged gazebo and turned them into a trellis system. The gazebo used to provide shade to our west facing deck but hurricane related rain and a tarp which was too impervious to water caused the gazebo roof to collapse be unusable. We kept the sides knowing that they could be reused somehow. We found the perfect project! When there is something growing on these trellises, the fan units for the air conditioning system will be shaded. Now, we only turn on our AC for about 6 weeks during our toasty Maryland summers, but we know the AC will operate more efficiently if the fans are shaded. The fans face west with southern exposure as well.
Now, to find a plant guild (language from permaculture - check out Gaia's Garden for an intro to home-scale permaculture) that will thrive in this spot. Climbing vines with a lot of leaf cover and fast growing are what I need right now!
What's the next step? To sheet mulch properly. I borrowed my friend's truck again and am going to get more horse manure and mulch tomorrow. Then plant!
Then we took the upright posts from a damaged gazebo and turned them into a trellis system. The gazebo used to provide shade to our west facing deck but hurricane related rain and a tarp which was too impervious to water caused the gazebo roof to collapse be unusable. We kept the sides knowing that they could be reused somehow. We found the perfect project! When there is something growing on these trellises, the fan units for the air conditioning system will be shaded. Now, we only turn on our AC for about 6 weeks during our toasty Maryland summers, but we know the AC will operate more efficiently if the fans are shaded. The fans face west with southern exposure as well.
Now, to find a plant guild (language from permaculture - check out Gaia's Garden for an intro to home-scale permaculture) that will thrive in this spot. Climbing vines with a lot of leaf cover and fast growing are what I need right now!
What's the next step? To sheet mulch properly. I borrowed my friend's truck again and am going to get more horse manure and mulch tomorrow. Then plant!
Monday, May 4, 2009
My Newest Adventure
Over the last month, I have started something new to me. What is it you ask? Here's the uphill climb...
Last fall, a friend asked me why, as a local food advocate, I did not have a garden to grow my own food. I didn't even have to think about it before answering. In the past, I have not had a great rapport with living things. I mean I can keep most house plants alive, but lush they are not. I have carefully avoided the common problem of overwatering by ignoring them until they droop or leaves start to turn brown. They would gladly go to another house if they had a chance. So the idea of growing my own food seemed almost comical.
The funny thing is that I make my own yogurt, bread, mozzarella cheese, and almost other kind of food we enjoy. I can sew (thanks Mom!), knit, crochet, sing, and do all sorts of other things. Why not grow some food? I talked with a farming friend; she said I could certainly grow a cherry tomato plant or two. She even volunteered to give me the plants, compost, and advice. That offer helped a lot. So I thought about the cost of various locally grown foods and decided to try the most expensive ones that were also easy to grow. Strawberries and cherry tomatoes here we go!
The more I thought about it, the more I read. The more I read, the more I realized I know a lot of gardening info already. I have a great resource book that I bought when we moved into this house in 2000. I am a Mother Earth News subscriber. I have several friends who farm for a living and several more friends who have home gardens. I am home a lot and have two sometimes willing helpers. So I thought I could handle more than 4 plants.
When it seemed like spring had sprung, I went and bought 5 everbearing strawberry plants from a local nursery (Heaven's Garden). I posted to freecycle for empty plastic cat litter buckets to serve as plant containers. I heard from a friend who offered me all her strawberry plants from last year. Alright!
Then I thought of how fabulous blueberries would be to have at home. I went and bought 4 blueberry plants (2 varieties for cross fertilization) and the leaf compost to help turn our dirt into soil. I got them into the ground and knew I needed to get them mulched soon. I was avoiding purchasing bagged mulch because of the waste of the plastic bags.
Then the Universe Provided for me.
I called my organic farming friend and shared my progress so far. That same day she sent over seedlings ready for transplant. She gave me the following seedlings: 2 cherry tomatoes, 2 heirloom tomatoes, 2 hybrid tomatoes, 2 parsley, 4 lacinato kale, and 15 lettuces. What a sweet friend! I had thought I would go with containers for all the plants because I did not want to fight the deer and rabbits for the food.
The same day a wonderful woman from Australia came to couchsurf with us. Sally is really into permaculture. She stayed with us for nearly a week and really held my hand (and trowel!) while these new transplants began their life at my house. She helped me plant, planted for me, and willingly shared lots of advice and information. Next thing I know, we are talking about the best places for more garden, borrowing a friend's pickup truck, and bringing home 1 bed full of horse manure from the farm my neighbor's kids go to ride and 3 beds full of free mulch from the county for our trees and flower beds. Now I have a whole bed around the blueberry bushes which is busy making great soil and a whole head full of ideas to keep me going! Wow Sally, Thanks so much for your physical and mental support for this new adventure!
Last fall, a friend asked me why, as a local food advocate, I did not have a garden to grow my own food. I didn't even have to think about it before answering. In the past, I have not had a great rapport with living things. I mean I can keep most house plants alive, but lush they are not. I have carefully avoided the common problem of overwatering by ignoring them until they droop or leaves start to turn brown. They would gladly go to another house if they had a chance. So the idea of growing my own food seemed almost comical.
The funny thing is that I make my own yogurt, bread, mozzarella cheese, and almost other kind of food we enjoy. I can sew (thanks Mom!), knit, crochet, sing, and do all sorts of other things. Why not grow some food? I talked with a farming friend; she said I could certainly grow a cherry tomato plant or two. She even volunteered to give me the plants, compost, and advice. That offer helped a lot. So I thought about the cost of various locally grown foods and decided to try the most expensive ones that were also easy to grow. Strawberries and cherry tomatoes here we go!
The more I thought about it, the more I read. The more I read, the more I realized I know a lot of gardening info already. I have a great resource book that I bought when we moved into this house in 2000. I am a Mother Earth News subscriber. I have several friends who farm for a living and several more friends who have home gardens. I am home a lot and have two sometimes willing helpers. So I thought I could handle more than 4 plants.
When it seemed like spring had sprung, I went and bought 5 everbearing strawberry plants from a local nursery (Heaven's Garden). I posted to freecycle for empty plastic cat litter buckets to serve as plant containers. I heard from a friend who offered me all her strawberry plants from last year. Alright!
Then I thought of how fabulous blueberries would be to have at home. I went and bought 4 blueberry plants (2 varieties for cross fertilization) and the leaf compost to help turn our dirt into soil. I got them into the ground and knew I needed to get them mulched soon. I was avoiding purchasing bagged mulch because of the waste of the plastic bags.
Then the Universe Provided for me.
I called my organic farming friend and shared my progress so far. That same day she sent over seedlings ready for transplant. She gave me the following seedlings: 2 cherry tomatoes, 2 heirloom tomatoes, 2 hybrid tomatoes, 2 parsley, 4 lacinato kale, and 15 lettuces. What a sweet friend! I had thought I would go with containers for all the plants because I did not want to fight the deer and rabbits for the food.
The same day a wonderful woman from Australia came to couchsurf with us. Sally is really into permaculture. She stayed with us for nearly a week and really held my hand (and trowel!) while these new transplants began their life at my house. She helped me plant, planted for me, and willingly shared lots of advice and information. Next thing I know, we are talking about the best places for more garden, borrowing a friend's pickup truck, and bringing home 1 bed full of horse manure from the farm my neighbor's kids go to ride and 3 beds full of free mulch from the county for our trees and flower beds. Now I have a whole bed around the blueberry bushes which is busy making great soil and a whole head full of ideas to keep me going! Wow Sally, Thanks so much for your physical and mental support for this new adventure!
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