Posts Tagged ‘garden’

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In like a lamb.

Saturday, March 6th, 2010

Today was a March afternoon disguised as a June morning. Beautiful blue sky, 50 degree temperatures and just the slightest breeze to give the balmy calm air some variety every once in a while. I had to do errands all morning, but after 1:00 I changed shoes, found my safety googles and hauled the pump sprayer out of the cellar. I used All Season dormant oil today – it is petroleum based and not organic-rated, but it is a remarkably passive way to deal with all the various pests that over-winter on fruit trees. I add a few tablespoons of Crocker’s Golden Fish Oil (don’t open it in the house) every time – it adds “stickiness”, is a terrific foliar feed, and repels deer. Perfect. Both these substances are fairly innocuous as pesticides go, but you won’t like them in your eyes, hair, clothing – wear goggles and rubber gloves, please.

Then I went to check on the bees, and found them boiling over like an unwatched pot. I had to reach into the mass at the front of the hive and open the gate-stick a little farther. Fortunately they’re very accommodating even when just waking up, and all that happened was that I had to brush them off my hair, and the back of my neck, with a pine b0ugh.

Soon the fruit trees will wake up, too, and there will be honey in the comb!

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Jumping the gun.

Thursday, March 4th, 2010

“Jumping the gun” refers to a contestant in a race surging ahead of the starter’s pistol. If there was a “ready, set, go” for spring, I’d be penalized for getting seriously ahead the game.

Last Tuesday I stayed home from work to bring my mother to her doctor for a complicated consultation. After the bad news and instructions we had soup at the Morninglory Bakery to strategize and get a little closure. Then I brought her to her house for a much-needed nap and took myself home for an unscheduled afternoon.

The weather was lovely Tuesday afternoon. A side effect of the long February stretch of rain is that the temperature has held steady at around 38 degrees, night and day, for a week. On my way in to the house I noticed that the garden beds by the front door had thawed, and that a few parsley and lettuce plants from last fall were green and sprouting. It wasn’t much of a stretch to consider planting out some of those seedlings from down cellar, so I raced upstairs, changed into garden-ready-wear and had at it.

I roughed the soil with a hand fork, removed dead foliage, protected a few surviving lettuce seedlings (they look pretty good!) with straw and planted:

3252TZ Toraziroh (45 days) Open-pollinated. Brassica alboglabra A robust performer with just the right kind of mustardy zest. Rapidly develops prolific yields of very dark green large leaves distinctively but not overwhelmingly pungent. In two years of trials won many favorable reviews from brassica lovers. Stems, also edible, have a flavor somewhat like pac choy. Relatively slow to bolt.
3221TS Tatsoi (45 days) Open-pollinated. Brassica rapa (narinosa group) What grows quickly, can be seeded as late as August and withstands frost? Yes, Tatsoi, also known as Tah Tsai. Anne Elder picked it all fall into December even after a snow melt-off. In winter it was still not burnt by cold and remained sweet. “A dream come true for snow-dwelling beings craving greens.” Survived Roberta’s overwintering trial. Spoon-shaped thick dark green leaves make beautiful compact rosettes with mild brassica flavor. Good stir-fried and in soups. Will come back when cut. Since our purchaser Nikos Kavanya first brought it to our attention, it has become an essential ingredient in our salads and mesclun.
3218SP Senposai (40 days) F-1 hybrid. This exciting green, developed in Japan, is a cross between Japanese Mustard Spinach (Komatsuna Brassica rapa) and regular cabbage. Round medium-green leaves are wonderful in okonamiyaki or for braising. A spring sowing will stand the entire summer (even through drought) and well into fall before bolting. Can be overwintered in warmer climes or used for spring greenhouse salad production because it grows so rapidly. Open plant habit requires 12–18″ spacing.
3223YN Yokatta-Na (21 days baby; 45 days mature) Brassica rapa (narinosa group) F-1 hybrid. Quick-growing and versatile, this is the same cultivar we formerly sold as Yukosai Bitamin-Na. Tolerating both heat and cold, it can extend your season at either end, while simultaneously broadening your culinary range. Use it either raw in salad mixes or cooked in stir fries. The deep green tender leaves, though flavorful, lack the mustard “bite” found in so many Asian greens and can be harvested as a cut-and-come-again crop or at maturity.
Then I watered everything in and covered the bed with Agribon. Salad in 21 days! Maybe.
All seeds and descriptions courtesy of Fedco.  And the next tool in the garden is going to be a sickle from Maine Scythe Supply.

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Beautiful nuisance

Monday, February 15th, 2010

This afternoon I walked up the road to the neighbors to buy a dozen eggs. It is a lovely day even now that the sun is low; well above freezing with little wind and enough dirt showing through the ice that the road is passable even without my cleats. I was on my way down Rat’s long drive with the eggs tucked securely under my arm when a very pregnant doe burst out from a spruce thicket and nearly gave us both heart attacks. We both made very girly screams, too – deer actually make a lot of noise when they’re not being stealthy.

She was awkward running, her legs splayed out and not neatly tucked under her body as they might have been in another season. Lean everywhere except her abdomen,  she was close enough that I could see lumps of head and rump under her hide when she stretched out to run. I walked home looking at the tracks that in the snowbanks that line the road, wondering if I could pick her’s out from all the rest by their peculiar spacing. There were certainly a lot of hoof prints, and she’ll probably make two more tiny sets in a few weeks.

I’ve been thinking about how to protect the new garden space created when we cut down the trees between the house and the road last fall. There are no real barriers there – no hedges or fence – but the local deer haven’t yet changed their habitual route that skirts where the forest used to be. It would be a good idea to enclose the space with a fence before they notice the shortcut.

The easiest and cheapest way to enclose a random space against most of our local predators is an electric fence. We don’t have woodchucks – not enough cleared land with soil to allow burrows – and rabbits are picked off by raptors before there are enough of them to cause a problem, so this fence will be geared toward deer. A one-wire fence with an A/C energizer should do the trick. Conventional wisdom used to be that baiting the fence worked best – the deer came forward and touched the green apple scented bait cap (and the charged wire) with its nose and learned not to go there. Recent tests show that it is actually more efficient to use repellent on cloth flags hanging from the wire. The deer tend to check the strange item and then to associate the repellent with the shock – making the repellent more useful on unfenced areas too. There have been stories about bears being attracted to the green apple and peanut butter lures, so there’s another reason to go with repellent rather than bait. This fence won’t do anything to a bear.

I use Premiere 1 Supplies for my fencing needs. I’m very happy with the Quick-Net and solar powered battery Kube that protects the lower garden. For this application, though, I’m going with an A/C Kube because I’m close enough to an outlet in the house to run conduit out to the fence. Add in some Intellirope, a variety of insulators for t-posts, trees and stakes, some rope connectors, a few spring gates  and a bag of 20 fiber rods and I’ll have a good chance of bringing lettuce seedlings to maturity. I am enclosing approximately 300 (linear) feet at a cost of @ $200.00. Factoring in the fairly long life expectancy of the equipment (10 years) over the amount of deer repellent, labor and lost productivity and I think this works out to a good deal.  Here’s the work sheet. More pictures to follow as the equipment arrives and is installed!

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Spring comes slowly to the north

Monday, February 8th, 2010

But in a month or so we will be able to follow Jeremiah, 29:5 – Build ye houses, and dwell in them; and plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them. A look back to late May, 2009:

Lettuce and purple Dame's Rocket

Black salix withy and crane's bill "Londinium"

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Signs and portents

Saturday, January 30th, 2010

This afternoon the thermometer read 36 F in the afternoon sun so I ventured out to the greenhouse and brought in seed trays and ProMix. The lights have been set up down cellar for two months while the earth turned on its axis toward spring, ever closer to the time a sane person might start seedlings.  Today I find I can’t wait any longer – even though the temperature right now is 8.6 F and the ground is hard as iron.

Tomorrow I’ll start:

Blue Vervain – Stratify, needs light to germinate; can take up to a month

Mautitanean Malva (Mallow) – start early, thin to 3′

Queen of the Meadow – surface sow in moist area, stratify/chill in fridge 1 week, slow to germinate

Southern Charm Verbascum – takes 2 – 3 weeks to germinate

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Seed Order 2010

Saturday, January 16th, 2010

pine cone bits seeds 007My Fedco seeds order arrived today, and I spent the morning clearing off the work table down cellar. Tomorrow I’ll fill some seedling trays with ProMix and check the bulbs in the bank of shop lights. Not that I’ll actually start seeds tomorrow – although I used to plant flats just after Christmas and have hedges of tomato plants by the time they could safely go out (around these parts) in late May. That way lies madness and I’ve reformed. I can stop any time I want. Really.

Here’s a list of the packages in the box. I have new acreage to plant this year, but not a lot of soil to be distributed. I went heavy on greens and other categories that won’t mind dirt on the poor and skimpy side, not a lot of things with taproots or a need for deep humus.

Every year I plant out at least 50 seedlings of a particular perennial (or generously self-seeding annual). My original thought was that, at a projected 50 more years of gardening (that was 10 years ago), I would have an abundance of a few beautiful plants that I otherwise would not be able to purchase in such quantity. Some years the experiment is a success and the Elecampne is a striking and vigorous presence in the garden every year. Sometimes not so much, and the boneset – a lovely plant much favored by the bees – disappears completely after a few years. The “100 specimen” plant for 2010 is Blue Vervain:

Blue Vervain OG Verbena hastata This 5–6′ perennial grows naturally in the moist soils of thickets and meadows and will do well in similar garden conditions, sending up many terminal spikes of bristly blue-violet flower clusters the entire season. Although scraggly, it blends very well with many kinds of flowers by stretching its spikes amongst them. Herbalist Gail Edwards finds it “a powerful spiritual presence” and nervous system tonic. Similar to V. officinalis, but more alterative, vervain acts mainly on the liver and lungs. Also used for menstrual disorders. Its roots are more active than its leaves. Likes light well-drained moist soil. Zone 3. OT-certified. ~2,500 seeds/g.

Wish me luck!

238BB-Bush Blue Lake 274 Green Bean (A=2oz) 1 x $1.30= $1.30
297MP-Multicolored Pole Bean Mix (A=1/2oz) 1 x $1.30= $1.30
658SQ-Silver Queen White Sweet Corn (A=2oz) 2 x $2.00= $4.00
798LG-Legume Inoculant (A=treats 8lb) 1 x $4.00= $4.00
818GT-Oregon Giant Snow Pea (A=2oz) 1 x $1.30= $1.30
974DO-Sweet Dakota Rose Watermelon OG (A=1/16oz) 1 x $1.80= $1.80
1311BO-Boothbys Blonde Slicing Cucumber OG (A=0.5g) 1 x $0.80= $0.80
1409RV-Raven Zucchini (A=1/8oz) 1 x $1.70= $1.70
1504SF-Saffron Summer Squash (A=1/8oz) 1 x $0.90= $0.90
1655BH-Blue Hubbard New England strain Winter Squash (A=1/4oz) 1 x $1.10= $1.10
1719NE-New England Pie Pumpkin (A=1/4oz) 1 x $0.80= $0.80
2018TP-Tonda di Parigi Carrot (A=1/8oz) 1 x $1.20= $1.20
2073SK-Shin Kuroda 5" Carrot (A=1/8oz) 1 x $0.80= $0.80
2079KO-Scarlet Keeper Carrot OG (A=1g) 1 x $1.10= $1.10
2186BB-Bulls Blood Beet (A=1/8oz) 1 x $1.00= $1.00
2376GB-Gold Ball Turnip (A=1/8oz) 1 x $0.70= $0.70
2411SO-King Sieg Leek OG (A=1/16oz) 1 x $1.60= $1.60
2510SP-Space Spinach (A=1/4oz) 1 x $1.00= $1.00
2775FO-New Red Fire Lettuce OG (A=1g) 1 x $1.10= $1.10
2784FO-Flashy Green Butter Oak Lettuce OG (A=1g) 1 x $1.30= $1.30
2859MR-Majestic Red Lettuce (A=1g) 1 x $1.00= $1.00
2992ME-Mesclun (A=1g) 1 x $1.00= $1.00
3158GI-Gigante dItalia Parsley (A=1/16oz) 1 x $0.70= $0.70
3218SP-Senposai (A=1/16oz) 1 x $1.20= $1.20
3221TS-Tatsoi (A=1/16oz) 1 x $1.10= $1.10
3223YN-Yokatta-Na (A=1/16oz) 1 x $1.20= $1.20
3252TZ-Toraziroh (A=1/16oz) 1 x $1.20= $1.20
3326BB-Broccoli Blend (A=0.5g) 1 x $1.50= $1.50
3339GU-Gustus Brussels Sprouts (A=0.5g) 1 x $2.50= $2.50
3469KM-Kale Mix (A=2g) 1 x $1.50= $1.50
3885KS-Krimson Spice Hot Pepper (A=0.1g) 1 x $1.90= $1.90
4117PO-Principe Borghese Cherry Tomato OG (A=0.2g) 1 x $1.20= $1.20
4207JT-Juliet Tomato (A=0.2g) 1 x $1.80= $1.80
4233JS-Jet Star Tomato (A=0.2g) 1 x $1.90= $1.90
4418GB-Genovese Basil (A=2g) 1 x $0.90= $0.90
4517RO-Caribe Cilantro OG (A=1g) 1 x $1.00= $1.00
4542MM-Mammoth Dill (A=4g) 1 x $0.90= $0.90
4692BO-Blue Vervain OG (A=0.1g) 1 x $1.30= $1.30
4698SW-Sweet Woodruff (A=0.2g) 1 x $1.20= $1.20
5094CC-Canary Creeper (A=1g) 1 x $1.10= $1.10
5141SM-Sensation Mix Cosmos (A=1.4g) 1 x $0.90= $0.90
5224HM-Mauritanean Malva (A=0.15g) 1 x $0.90= $0.90
5275KO-Kniolas Purple Morning Glory OG (A=0.25g) 1 x $2.30= $2.30
5282EI-Empress of India Nasturtium (A=3g) 1 x $1.00= $1.00
5296TC-Tall Climbing Mix Nasturtium (A=4g) 1 x $0.90= $0.90
5357GD-Gloriosa Daisy (A=2g) 1 x $1.00= $1.00
5442CU-Cupani Sweet Pea (A=2g) 1 x $0.90= $0.90
5500WD-Weld (A=0.2g) 1 x $1.20= $1.20
5774JO-Jobs Tears OG (A=2g) 1 x $1.10= $1.10
5963SO-Northern Sea Oats OG (A=0.2g) 1 x $1.20= $1.20
6120BF-Blue Flax (A=1g) 1 x $0.90= $0.90
6266QO-Queen of the Meadow OG (A=0.02g) 1 x $1.20= $1.20
6322VH-Southern Charm Verbascum (A=0.02g) 1 x $2.50= $2.50
6333BM-Beneficials Mix (B=7g) 1 x $7.50= $7.50

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The ones that got away. . .

Sunday, January 10th, 2010

This another post about a lost painting. Parts of it are quite lovely, but the situation has been lost and “the center cannot hold”. For some odd reason I feel better about these failed efforts if they can make one last blog post on their way out. I grow zinnias, french marigolds and cosmos every summer; perhaps I’ll even find the green globe vase and try again.

bad painting

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Antisthenes says…

Friday, January 8th, 2010

… that in a certain faraway land the cold is so intense that words freeze as soon as they are uttered, and after some time then thaw and become audible, so that words spoken in winter go unheard until the next summer.  ~Plutarch, Moralia

The forecast is for temperatures in the single digits over the weekend. We knew it was coming – we’ve had a very mild season so far and we knew it wouldn’t last. But now the snow that fell in fluffy drifts last week and blew everywhere like dust has been rained on a frozen, sculpted into odd patterns and compacted into concrete. This weekend we will be that faraway land where winter is silent and sounds thaw in spring.  I need a reminder of what is under that featureless layer of white, all over the garden.

Campenula and PinksCampenula  growing between seedum and dianthus in the alpine bed.

midwinter astilble and gunneraAstilbe and gunnera growing in the lower garden, near the swamp.

elecampne tree peonyElecampne growing on the stairs, over a tree peony.

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The sun that brief December day

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
Rose cheerless over hills of gray,
And, darkly circled, gave at noon
A sadder light than waning moon.
Snow-bound, John Greenleaf Whittier 1866

bees in snow

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Winter’s green – Parsley Butter

Sunday, November 15th, 2009

If pesto is August – Genovese basil ground with green olive oil and pine nuts – then November is parsley butter. We have had an unusually warm fall here in the Northeast as tropical storms in the Gulf of Mexico push warm air and tepid ocean water up the coast, changing our Maine November to a balmy May – complete with heavy fog and mosquitoes. It won’t last. When the 20 degree nights return, the Gigante d’Italia Parsley will still be growing  glossy and dark green in the raised bed near the front door.

parsley butter 1I don’t really have a recipe for parsley butter – it’s more of a kitchen staple. Try this on a bowl of hot pasta, in an omelet, or as we did yesterday, on tea sandwiches.

Put a cup (2 sticks) of salted butter, cut into 1″ slices,  in your food processor. One stick will work too, but it isn’t enough mass for a regular (8 cup?) bowl and you’ll spend  a lot of time stopping the machine and using a spatula to force the lump of butter back into circulation. Trust me, I know.

Add a huge amount of parsley. (See, I told you this wasn’t really a recipe.) A close gripped handful of leaves or about a cup chopped loosely, should do it. Use the small leaves close to the center of the plant for this, if you have a plant. I have been known to use two cups on occasion – like right before the final freeze in January, when I know it will be July before I do this again.

Add some oregano (2 tsp dry, 1/4 C fresh), 1 tsp garlic powder, 1/2 tsp sea salt. Pulse until the mixture is bright green and looks like you could spread it without chunks of plant material getting in the way.

Now dry some cucumber slices in a clean dish towel, get out your Pepperidge Farm thin white slices, and make some tea sandwiches. It’s a good thing.

parsley butter 007

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