The Problem with Food

Found this during my visit to the local grocery store today. I think it sums things up pretty well. (Be sure to read the fine print.)

Cuke, I am Your Father

Tuesday silliness with a message; compliments of plenticulture.com.

The Garden After Rain

Weed Pullers

Under the concrete benches,
Hacking at black hairy roots,--
Those lewd monkey-tails hanging from drainholes,--
Digging into the soft rubble underneath,
Webs and weeds,
Grubs and snails and sharp sticks,
Or yanking tough fern-shapes,
Coiled green and thick, like dripping smilax,
Tugging all day at preverse life:
The indignity of it!--
With everything blooming above me,
Lilies, pale-pink cyclamen, roses,
Whole fields lovely and inviolate,--
Me down in that fetor of weeds,
Crawling on all fours,
Alive, in a slippery grave.
-- "Weed Puller" by Theodore Roethke

Last week I got out the push mower and attached the bag to it, determined to capture every last dandelion seed and commit it to the compost bin before it propagated to the remainder of the lawn and gardens--carbon footprint be damned! With teeth gritted and eyes stinging with sweat, I raced across the lawn decapitating thousands of the white fluffy horde. After several minutes I was surprised to find that the mower bag remained empty. I stopped the mower, removed the bag, and peered into its darkness. Nothing. Only then did I recall that I had not put in place the other attachment required to block the normal output for the clippings on the side of the mower. After a cursory search for said attachment in the garage, I resigned myself to the fact that the dandelions had won again. I had, in the end, merely assisted them in their evil plot to take over the ChemLawn-free lawns and gardens of the world. [Insert comically insane Dr. Evil laugh here].


In the annals of gardening and horticulture (and literature and religion), there is much discourse concerning the nature, relevance, and extermination of weeds. A search for weed quotes resulted in a cursory education on child-rearing, personal cleanliness, the nature of the Tao, mental health, morality, politics, Hallmark moments, Roundup, edible plants, and Theodore Roethke's poetry. The literature of Western culture is indeed thicker with weeds than my yard is with dandelions, yet I have to wonder whether that is any sort of consolation. How are we affected by being immersed in a culture obsessed with the elimination of potentially beneficial plants whose presence in certain locations we humans deem inappropriate, unsightly or downright evil?

I have known for sometime that dandelions are quite edible and that the young greens are a piquant complement to a salad. Moreover, I learned last week that one of my most prevalent garden "weeds," Plantago Major, is valued in many parts of the world for it's medicinal properties, as it has been proven to be a powerful coagulant and aids in abating infection and healing wounds. Perhaps there is a reason the weeds keep winning. I guess I'll withhold judgment at least until the dandelions show up again next spring.

Meanwhile, the Yugoslavian Red lettuce and Siberian Kale seem to have made amends. I think that's a young Lamb's Quarters hiding beneath the lettuce. Some quick research indicates that it too is edible and is in fact more nutritious than spinach, though it contains much more sodium.


We've eaten our first head of broccoli, and here's another one just beginning to form.


It looks to be a good year for strawberries if we keep them in water. This is a June-bearing variety, but if I were to do it over again, I'd definitely switch to ever-bearing just to give the chidren a few more weeks of grazing.


Maybe I'll come back to the "weed" question in the future, but I've run out of intellectual steam and need to get back to crawling on all fours in the fetor of work. Til next time...

A Weekend at Home, A Day at the Farm

What do I know of man's destiny?
I could tell you more about radishes.
--Samuel Beckett

A wonderful, long weekend with family, friends, and, of course, gardening. It was great to start things off Friday with an appetizer of asparagus and Cherry Belle radishes from the garden (below). Unfortunately, the accompanying caprese was made from bland grocery store tomatoes, which motivated me more than ever to get the real tomatoes in the ground.


I planted about 10 heirloom tomato plants in one of my gardens and got a number of peppers and some eggplants in as well. The real work took place at the family garden on Monday though. There, we've had the seed in for sometime, but we've had very little rain. Time for irrigation. Here's a shot of my brother-in-law running the sprinkler lines. We're pumping the water from a nearby pond rather than a well, so the plants benefit from the warmer temperature and added nutrients. The stakes in the foreground are for the beets, beans, carrots and onions. The beets and beans are up, the onion sets are doing well. (By clicking to enlarge the photo, you can get a better view of the plants.)


While the others worked on the sprinkler system, I put down the soaker hoses and transplanted 20 tomatoes and 25 peppers. We have a heavy, semi-permeable landscape fabric below the tomatoes which will be covered with a straw mulch, but still have to get in the support for the plants. We spent quite a bit of time hauling the rocks we had removed from the garden back in to hold down the fabric until the stakes are in place.


Below is a view of the length of the garden with the sweet corn coming up in the foreground. We've broken the plot up into approximately 60-by-60 foot sections. Beyond the sweet corn are the tomatoes, peppers, carrots, onions, beans and beets, then another plot of sweet corn followed by squash, cucumbers and zucchini. Beyond that is one more sweet corn plot and a pumpkin patch. Not quite an acre, but definitely enough to keep us busy and, one can hope, well fed.

On Axe Handles and Planting Peas with My Son

There I begin to shape the old handle
With the hatchet, and the phrase
First learned from Ezra Pound
Rings in my ears!
"When making an axe handle
the pattern is not far off."
And I say this to Kai
"Look: We'll shape the handle
By checking the handle
Of the axe we cut with--"
And he sees...

-- from "Axe Handles", by Gary Snyder

Ahhhhsparagus

Pray how does your asparagus perform?
-- John Adams, in a letter to his wife Abigail

Yes, the first asparagus spears showed up this week. Always cause for celebration in these parts. Typically the first bounty of the spring garden and there's no comparing it to the supermarket variety that is usually so stringy after its extended travels that it might double as dental floss. This bed is about four years old and seems to be doing quite well so long as I keep the neighboring strawberries at bay.


As promised, here's a shot of one of the two fledgling potato towers. Following the link will take you to the details, but essentially one adds boards and soil or mulch as the potatoes grow, compelling the plant to continue to produce potatoes along its height. I've heard it can be done with old tires as well, but I prefer to keep the petroleum products on the road and out of our food.


A pepper update. The peppers, egg plants and tomatoes are still inside under the lights. Peppers are doing very well. I had some curling of the top leaves and what I would describe as a red rash (still visible on some of the leaves in the photo) before they were transplanted, which was probably due to a trace mineral deficiency, but once they were transplanted to the larger pots, they rebounded and seem to be flourishing. Depending on nighttime temperatures, I'll probably start transitioning them to the coldframe outside in the next week or so.


And here's a shot of one of the four gardens. This was the first and is a brick terrace with two levels. In the front from left to right are onions, garlic, the asparagus bed, and the strawberries. In the background there is a mixture of early spring plants such as radishes, spinach, lettuces, swiss chard, broccoli, parsley, and kohlrabi (which I seem to have a hard time growing successfully).


We spent six hours today putting in a victory/family garden at my in-laws. That is where all the things go that require more space than I have here. The highlight, if successful, will be the half acre of sweet corn (Bantam and a peaches and cream variety). We also put in beets, peas, beans, onion sets, carrots, squash and zucchini. Pumpkins will go in soon, as will the tomatoes and peppers. The battle there will be keeping the rabbits, deer and raccoons away from the salad bar.

Happy Mother's Day.

A Good Day's Work

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

-- Wendell Berry

Sunday was a good day on the suburban farmstead. A beautiful spring day offering sun burns all around and a steady wind up here on the hill that helps one better understand the sometimes fatal bouts of ancraophobia suffered by the early prairie pioneers. As much as I wanted to get some carrots in the ground, there was simply no way to do it without planting them in the rest of the county. So I resigned myself to moving heavier things like soil for the kids' gardens. I built two of these side by side with just enough room to mow between them (I won't be truly happy until there's no grass left to mow at all). I assembled them using recycled plastic TuffTimbers^TM from Landscape Structures. Oddly, without plants in them they end up resembling fishing junks more than raised gardens.




So, the boy wants to grow melons in his, but I'm getting concerned about the odds of that happening. The other day he said, "Dad, is that all you think about is gardening, gardening, gardening?" There's hope for my daughter's peas and carrots I think, but I'll be happy to utilize any space they are unwilling or unable to fill. Still looking for room for more tomatoes.

In the meantime, the Sugar Ann Snap Peas are popping up at the base of the trellis. (Sorry about that shot--I start to feel dizzy looking at it too.)

The broccoli continues to flourish in the cooler weather and do its part advertising for Food Club Sour Cream.

Rhubarb, the old faithful of bread and muffin perennials, seems to be enjoying the weather just fine.


And, finally, I'm looking forward to savoring the first French Breakfast Radishes with my Café au lait and croissant here in a few weeks.

I spent this evening putting in two potato towers for the Desiree and Purple Viking potatoes I ordered from Seed Savers Exchange. Rumors of rain over the next couple days (and the fact that potatoes should have been in a couple of weeks ago) motivated me to get that done. So scavenging some old redwood decking, building the first tier of the boxes, and getting the potatoes in took me right up to sundown and left barely enough time for this post and a shower. Picture of the towers will have to wait until the next installment.

Something Fishy: A Quick Photo Update

To know someone with whom you feel there is understanding in spite of distances or thoughts unexpressed -- that can make of this earth a garden.

--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The Forellenschluss lettuce has gained its spots and is beginning to live up to its name, which is commonly translated "speckled like a trout," but more literally means "trout tail."

The fall garlic is coming up through the straw and compost mulch. So far, so good. No sign of the neighboring asparagus yet though.


The first transplants went in beneath the pole bean trellis (as did the pole beans), this weekend. Here are a Belstar and Packman broccoli in front and, behind them, Speckled, Yugoslavian Red, and Forellenschluss lettuce.

Most of the seedlings still remain safely ensconced in the cold frame awaiting a little more consistent nighttime temps.

Brassicasaurus

Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.

-- Henry David Thoreau

Getting a little behind on the crop updates here due to the fact that I've got a new work project going that's taking up quite a bit of my time. One of those good-thing, bad-thing scenarios, I suppose. The seedlings don't seem to be suffering for lack of attention though. As you can see, the Brassicae are coming along nicely. This and the next photo are of the Belstar Broccoli, which have grown faster and appear healthier than the Packman. There was a minor mishap along the way, however. A couple of weeks ago the nights were staying above freezing, so I had moved the onions, cabbage, broccoli, and parsley out into the cold frame on the south side of the house. Despite warm water in jugs and a cloth covering, one of the nights got a little too chilly for the young plants and some of them suffered some frost damage. Most have recovered, but it slowed down growth a bit. The onions, persevered just fine, but I brought them in as well when the temps dipped again (the cruelest month and all that). Due to the minor loss, I seeded another tray, so in the worst case I'll have a nice second crop.

I also planted a variety tray of hot and bell peppers, including Orion and Sunray Bell, Serrano del Sol, Padrone, El Jefe Jalapeno (namesake), and Habanero--about nine of each. I planted two seeds per cell and the germination was excellent. The next photo shows the peppers, most of which are a little over an inch high at this point. I truly hope that it will actually warm up at some point here in Minnesota now that we've entered April. I need the grow light space for the tomatoes, which should probably be seeded this weekend.

Oh, I also received my Desiree and Purple Viking seed potatoes from Seed Savers Exchange yesterday. The box plainly said, "Perishable. Do not heat or freeze!" Or something to that effect. So the delivery was left on the front porch by the driver and sat there for a few hours at temperatures hovering around freezing. Not a big deal I guess. They seem fine. This literacy problem we have in this country on the other hand... Well, that's a new topic. Maybe I can address that when I tell you the story of the customer who showed up at the nursery and requested carrot seedlings.

April March is the Cruelest Month

APRIL is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
-- T. S. Eliot, from "The Wasteland"

I hereby challenge Eliot's assertion that April is the cruelest month. Early March's false promise of spring followed by several inches of snow and sub-polar windchills reaffirms its legendary leonine qualities and taxes the human spirit to a point nearly beyond recovery. On separate occasions within the last 24 hours, both my wife and daughter have commented that it feels like December, and we are all verifiably stir-crazy as we persist in trying to predict the next of the many bi-polar mood swings that the month will invariably throw at us. The cruelest month indeed, as the view from the front porch below demonstrates. (Click photos to enlarge.)


On the other hand, the "Giant from Italy Parsley" is coming along nicely and doing its part to help me retain some sanity. Germination has been good. There are a few empty cells yet, but there is still hope for those.


And the onions are already in need of a haircut. Best practices dictate keeping them no taller than 3-4 inches up until transplant time in order to encourage root and bulb development. They seem to have no problem flourishing under the grow lights thus far.


The broccoli has been thinned and some of the seedlings are beginning to develop sets of true leaves. They've been given their first foliar spraying of kelp fertilizer and I'll be adding a little liquid fish emulsion in the next watering.


So all of the seedlings are doing well and I'm just waiting for the weather to warm up enough so that I can harden them off and move them to the cold frame outside within the next couple of weeks. Then I can start another round of plants under the lights and at least begin dreaming of heirloom tomatoes.

HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME*

*Also from "The Wasteland"

Broccoli & Cabbage Up in 3 Days

Wow! The broccoli and cabbage popped up in less than three days. I have parsley in the same flat but nothing is showing up there yet. I had to take the moisture cover off, so am hoping the parsley isn't far behind.

More Seeding

Removed the first flat of onions from the heat mat and seeded a new 72-cell flat with Early Jersey Wakefield Cabbage(18), Packman(18) and Belstar(18) Broccolli, and Giant from Italy Parsley(18) yesterday. I should have verified that they will all germinate at about the same time, but, alas, I did not.

Today the first of the Copra (F1) onions are sprouting as well, so with decent germination rates I should have about 600 onion transplants altogether.

The Onions are Up

I have my temporary seeding room with grow lights set up in the basement. I seeded about 250 Ailsa Craig and 250 Yellow of Parma onions on February 17th and started to see the first shoots today. A little slow to germinate, but the soil temperature in the trays has probably been a bit lower than optimum. As soon as I take the onion trays off the heating mat, I'll be seeding some parsley, broccoli, and cabbage next.