Setting Up my Potting Bench

You need a place to plant seeds and transplant plants, sheltered from the wind preferably, but where you can get things a bit dirty and wet without ruining a hardwood floor. Mine is in the corner of the garage, on a really cool home-made workbench my husband could not fit into his workshop. I cleaned it up today in a break from the inclement weather. Above is the "before" picture. 

I cleaned up the bench, swept all the dirt and leaves out, and bleached and sunned the pots (we use bleach water and UV radiation on the mean lab-germs at work, so I think they should work well here, too). Here are the pots in the sun. I've saved a lot of small and intermediate ones to try to grow good seedlings this year.

Here is the "after" shot. So much better!

An Inspirational Quote from J.C. Loudon, 1838

J. C. Loudon wrote The Suburban Garden and Villa Companion, published in 1838. He published  The Suburban Horticulturalist in 1842. Suburbia has been around a BIT longer than petroleum-powered transport, I guess. Anyway, here's something good:

"All, in the way of house accomodation, that is essential to the enjoyment of life, may be obtained in a cottage of three or four rooms, as well as a palace... The objects of both of the possessors are the same: health, which is the result of temperance and exercise; enjoyment, which is the possession of something we can call our own, and on which we can set our heart and affections; and the respect of society, which is the result of their favorable opinion of our sentiments and moral conduct. No man in this world, however high may be his rank, great his wealth, powerful his genius, or extensive his acquirements, can ever attain more then health, enjoyment, and respect."

So enjoy your cottage in contentment, knowing that no mansion could give you more pleasure than what you can experience now, if you look for your blessings.

Snow Pics

We got our first "real" snow yesterday. Northerners may scoff, but this is "real snow" for us. The public schools shut down, though here in the heat-island of the city 2 hours late would have been fine.

I hear Mr. Obama was disappointed that Washington D.C. schools shut down due to the same storm system. He has never driven in a Southern city on ice- people in S.U.V.s on cell phones still driving fast and skidding off the road, enough of the huge rear end of their vehicle out of the ditch to block the lane, others like me pottering along properly, only to be cursed by someone with Four Wheel Drive who thinks that it will do any good on ice. It doesn't. We don't get Northern Snow here. We get wet, slushy stuff over a thin (or sometimes thick) layer of ice. Skating for cars. No gas, no brake, just pat, pat, pat and potter along, praying fiercely not to get creamed by an Escalade. Yesterday the sun came out early, though, and most concrete or asphalt surfaces melted nicely. That is another great thing about living here- the snow doesn't stay for months. You go out early in the AM to take pictures, because in a few precious hours you'll be back in the gray and brown world of a Tennessee winter. Winter beauty is ephemeral here.

Home Maintenance: Refrigerator Coils

Remember how we're supposed to vacuum the coils of the refrigerator every year (mine somewhat more often, for reasons you see above- that's about 5 months of dirt)? How many people actually back the thing away from the wall to do it? How efficiently can it run with that many dust bunnies?
Our refrigerator came with the house. It is a festive harvest gold that matches the orange, yellow, and green-brick faux vinyl on the floor. The coils are UNDERNEATH, which is really bad for accumulation of dust bunnies, and probably for efficiency. But the ice maker still works.

It is also easier to clean than a new one with coils on the back. I don't have to move the whole thing, just remove the bottom panel and use the long, skinny vacuum cleaner attachment to remove as much dust as possible. And repeat frequently for best results. 
Here's the "after" shot. Some dust is stuck to the insulation up top, and in places the wand didn't reach well, but it looks a lot better. Home maintenance is a good thing to do when the weather allows little else. Tomorrow: SNOW PICS!

Another Ancestral Farmer

Francis Hodge was one of the first settlers of the Nashville area to leave the safety of the forts and build his own cabins on his granted land. One still stands in a local park. There is a good essay about it at http://pages.prodigy.net/nhn.slate/nh00055.html. He and his descendants settled near an old Native path, which became a road later. They were active in the Methodist church, and often held Bible studies with people who were passing through the area.
It felt good to go to the park and see that they were restoring the cabin, even if I could not find where some of my ancestors are supposed to be buried in the park. It is very close to my grandparents' former home, which narrowly missed the land condemnation that formed the park (part was donated by a wealthy donor, and the rest was forced from the hands of much poorer small farmers, who were given a pittance for their land). I visit the park with mixed emotions- it is preserved from the development surrounding it, but many people had their livelihood permanently altered by the assembly of the park.
It is also comforting on another level to read of the Hodges and Northerns and other founding families of Nashville to whom I'm related and their faith. Faith held them together when they set out, literally into the unknown, to settle land they had never seen and farm under unknown conditions we would consider nowadays to be those of severe hardship- no grocer, no electricity, no indoor plumbing, no appliances. And still, at the end of the day, an open Bible by evening firelight.
No matter what our coming hardships, we can depend on God to help. We have depended too long on ourselves and our good credit; let us turn to the God of our fathers, who will get us over the rough places. Our own "inner light" has led us deeper into the dark; let's turn around, and go back to where we erred in order to go forward.

My Farming Genes- Dempsey Sawyer

There is an interesting story of a boy named Dempsey,  who volunteered at the young age of 16 to serve 2 short stints of duty in the Tennessee State Militia during the War of 1812: one in 1812, and one in 1814. He drew a land grant in Middle TN for his service, and settled in what became known as Sawyer's bend of the Harpeth River. He happened to draw a beautifully scenic farmstead- full of rocky hills, with  a small, winding river subject to frightening floods in the spring season. That setting does not a plantation make. He and his many descendants were self-supporting subsistence farmers, who cooperated with neighbors to start a small school, a Presbyterian church, and a general store nearby in Ash Grove(a town known now only by a historical marker, and a wooden school building slowly rotting in an overgrown field) . His wife requested (and obtained) an 8-dollar-a month pension in 1879, when she was 82 and he had been dead for 19 years. She described him at the time of enlistment as "about 5 ft 4 inches in height, black hair, gray eyes, and fair complexion". No portraits of them have survived. The above is a sketch from a bad photocopy of a faded photo of his home, taken in 1967. The family actually kept a piece of the poplar log in which he cured meat, and I have the sliver of wood (with explanatory note from my great aunt) to this day. The land is out of family hands except for the last 5 acres, but at least we have our pack-ratting ancestors to thank for the memories we can share. 

Finishing the Planning Phase

So you've tested your soil, bought the necessary amendments, ordered seeds, started saving materials for seed flats, planned for handling the bugs and weeds and watering, and procured tools and PPE. What is next?

The waiting part, which is the most difficult one for me. I want to go out and DIG and PLANT, and that bitter North wind will NOT cooperate. O.K. I know that the bitter North wind here would feel like the balmy winds of spring to a Minnesotan, but it is still too cold to plant things. 

Even starting things too soon is disastrous, as you can create a backlog when weather does not cooperate with hardening plants and setting them out. You get root-bound, leggy plants that do not perform well. Patience is a virtue. Wait until around the frost date for frost-hardy items. Wait at least 2 weeks to one month after for frost-sensitive items. Our last frosts (and first blazing-hot days) are that unpredictable. So we wait, and bake cookies to warm up the kitchen.

PPE in the Garden

This is my grandfather, feeding cattle.
PPE in my line of work is Personal Protective Equipment. The equipment is similar for gardening and cell culture (no straw hats in the lab, though), but the reasons for wear differ from one application to the other.
1. Gloves.Wear them. You may have tough hands, you may be proud of blisters and callouses, but wear them, anyway. If you fertilize or mulch or spread insecticide without them, you risk injury. Really. I prefer leather gloves for sod busting and clearing out bushes and roots, chemically-resistant disposable vinyl or rubber for chemical or fertilizer work, and softer cloth gloves for transplanting (easier to wash when muddy).
2. Other safety items needed may include goggles and masks(if you're into chemical sprays, which you almost have to be if you want to grow tree fruit), long-sleeved shirts, and brimmed hats. The increase in skin cancer from 100 years ago to today in Caucasians was not merely due to the hole in the ozone layer. Look back at your family photos, and the reason becomes painfully obvious. We don't wear CLOTHING in the summer anymore! Women get skin cancer on the shoulders, tops of the thighs, and faces from sun exposure. Men get it on top of their heads, and on the upper torso. Melanoma can happen anywhere on the body, mostly due to blistering sunburns in childhood, and sun block does not help. When the sun is high, your hat and sleeves are ON! A straw hat will keep you shaded and cool, and the sleeves of a white or pastel shirt can cool you by keeping the sun off, as well. The sleeves provide an added benefit- less mosquito bites. Note the (rolled-up) long sleeves and hat on my grandfather, above. He had straw hats as well as the baseball-type cap he is wearing here. Sleeves also protect you from irritation from okra or squash leaves, or worse from poison ivy. Drink more water and sweat a bit. Your ancestors would approve.

The Fragrance of Spring

This picture is from March of last year, our side bed with roses.

This morning, as I left the house to feed the birds staring through the window at me, I was exhilarated by an elusive scent- a moist, earthy smell wafted on surprisingly warm air. The blank, icy smell of winter was still there, but a hint- just a hint of spring was in the air. The wind is due to change tonight, with clouds and dropping temperatures, but the tease from spring has begun. It has sent me a postcard to "Get Ready. I'm coming."

Planning for Weed Control

Here is an important one if your garden is an after-work thing. Committing non-random acts of plant destruction (especially if they involve a pick and shovel, and wrenching roots from the ground) can be very cathartic, but we do have to go out and earn money to pay for taxes and cat food. The above is a nearby yard, just to illustrate our diverse weed population.

Dense planting (as I'm going to have to do for the milliacres) is one strategy. John Jeavon's classic, How to Grow More Vegetables... has great ideas about spacing plants in beds so that their leaves barely touch at maturity, shading the ground. Then less weeds can grow.

Here in the South, though, stronger measures are necessary. My husband favors dosing the front yard with Round-up as a pre-emergent herbicide, but I'm concerned about not inhibiting my cyclin-dependent kinases (Biol Sci, J Marc, et al, April 2004, 96(3), 245-9), which are critical for cell division to work properly. So it ain't touchin' the back yard. What do I do?

Mulch. Lots of it. Black mulch can help warm the soil early in the season. Light-colored mulch can help keep it cool later. Both kinds, with a hefty layer of wet newspaper underneath, block the sun and keep weeds from germinating, leaving the work-weary evening gardener to cherish a few moments to pick tomatoes and beans without dealing with the @##!!  poison ivy. A few brave dandelions and violets worked their way upward last year, but mulching helped a lot.

Planning for Insects

Some are your friends, some are your enemies. Bees, ladybugs, and praying mantises are cool, while tomato hornworms, cabbageworms, and aphids can give you nightmares. Insecticides tend to be pretty nonselective on one hand, but continually picking cabbage worms from your Swiss-cheese-looking cabbage gets old fast. What to do?
Here are some strategies common to many gardening books, old and new:
1. Judicious interplanting- the more diversity, the better. If you plant one large bed of cabbage or tomatoes, the moths flying over say "Nursery!" and lay hundreds of eggs for your pleasure. If you interplant strong-smelling herbs or flowers poisonous to their offspring, they get confused and may leave you alone. ATTRA.org has a paper about farmscaping that describes setting up hedgerows and breaks in fields at the commercial level to encourage beneficials (lots of nectaries for bees) and discourage the bad guys. We may not need huge hedgerows, but we can squeeze in some of the recommended plants.
2. Physical barriers. Something ate one of my tomato plants down to a nub year before last, twice. This past year I put tomato plants in the same place in cages. They were not touched. A cage or a bit of netting to keep the moths away at the right time could save you a lot of grief.
3. Use contact sprays for aphids and scale insects. "Organic" insecticidal soaps work on contact, so the residues won't bother your bees and predatory insects unless you actually spray them. And soaps wash off the plant easily, not harming you.
4. Spray as little as you can. Sometimes the bugs get to you, especially here in the South. People who say to just let the bugs have their share have never seen what Southern warm climates do to the insect population. Hit them if you must, but do it wisely, and only after trying other means of control. You'll be glad you did.

Irrigation Techniques- Garden Steps

Here in Tennessee, we have a drought almost every July and August- a period of 6 weeks to 2 months  (and sometimes a bit more, or less) in which we get little to no rain, unless a hurricane powers up the Mississippi river valley to us, in which case those south of us face dreadful flooding. Most summers, we need to irrigate.

In Garden Steps, Ernest Cobb condemns frequent watering from above for the same reasons modern garden advisers use:

1. Water is unlikely to penetrate the ground very far, thus creating plants with weak, shallow root systems. Then when the hurricane winds hit, you're in trouble.

2. A crust can form from the soil on top that does get wet, keeping delicate seedlings you plant late in the season for fall crops from breaking through. August is already a tough month in terms of insects and heat, so why make it harder on plants?

So what can we do instead?

I've tried spraying the garden with a hose, but some plants seem more susceptible to powdery mildew on their leaves when they are heat stressed, then hit by water. Root watering is better.

Cobb suggests sinking large food cans (like tomato cans or juice cans) into the ground with holes punched in the sides, tops open. Plant around the cans. Fill them with water that can gradually soak into the soil. Just watch out for the holes to clog, especially in clay soil. I've seen variations on this theme with half wine barrels and broken pots.

Another method is pictured above. Sink pipes with periodic holes in them about 1 ft underground. Put elbows at the end attached to buckets for reservoirs. The reservoirs pictured are said to be too high, as water exits the pipe underground with too much force, but it works OK. This is a drip irrigation method. Drip kits available now reduce the work, but might be expensive, depending on your area, your garden, and your water supply.

I'm going to use a modified drip irrigation system, with gallon milk jugs with small holes punched toward the bottom, above ground. I saw it online. We'll see how it works.

Green Milliacres

We just calculated that I'll be gardening on 6.4 milliacres of land this year. 279 square feet sounds like a lot more. An acre would be a vast expanse compared to what I actually have! Must make the best of it.

Garden Accessories On the Cheap

Gardening can be as cheap or as expensive as you want it to be. Many bags of leaves fall on us every year from the mature oaks on the western side of our neighbor's yard. This year it hit me: Hey! Free mulch! Pennies from Heaven!

Other stuff becomes available due to the continuous renovation projects in a neighborhood of older houses with gainfully-employed owners: old windows (unbroken, but unfashionable) for cold frames, scrap wood, grass clippings, etc.
I actually scavenged some stakes this past summer from someone's renovation project garbage- evidently they ordered extra narrow wooden baseboards, and they left them by the side of the road for trash pickup with the older ripped-out wood. I picked up all I could carry, because they were too long to fit in the car. They're in the garage now, waiting to be trimmed down for springtime use. If you live in an urban or suburban area, do not be ashamed to scavenge the stuff stacked by the side of the road. I get my papers for mulching from there, as well as stakes and pots (wash the pots well with bleach-water and expose to sunlight for a day or two before using to kill any disease organisms). I even found one of the Foxfire books (Appalachian Cookery) in a box by the road! I don't go digging through the trash cans, but I do casually survey the roadside the evening before pickup. Someone else's trash could be your treasure.

January Tasks

There  are several things to do while the yard is gray and the wind is chilly, besides making lots of bean soup and cornbread. Cleaning and assessing tools, ordering seeds, collecting containers for spring seedlings (I'm using toilet paper rolls instead of peat pots to start my plants. They'll be in cut-open orange juice cartons instead of plastic flats), testing soil if you need to do so, and adding amendments if your soil isn't frozen are all good. I would have that soil professionally tested the first time, especially in an urban area. Was that large, empty building down the street a paint factory, or a bakery, or both over time? Ask around. Get your soil tested if your inquiries reveal anything to be concerned about, especially if you have children. I tested ours for lead because of the large, painted garage, but we're safe. The presence of a heavily-traveled road nearby would also be cause for concern about lead from the days of leaded gasoline.

The soil test can also reveal any nutritional deficiencies of the soil, which make your plants more susceptible to disease and bugs. You may need a special fertilizer (like seaweed emulsion or a special, low phosphorus formulation), and it's good to know.

A World Without String

How can stores not sell string  anymore? I've been wanting to experiment with darning socks now for some time, having several with heel-holes that I do not want to toss. I do not want to sew the holes closed with thread and create a seam. I want to learn to darn the socks. But common stores (we have no Mart close by, and even the ones farther away have started phasing out their "craft" sections) don't stock STRING anymore. Finally found some cotton that may do (we'll see- it is an experiment) at a grocery store. So I guess people are supposed to throw anything they cannot fix with tape, glue, or cheap thread that snaps if you sew it tightly by throwing it all away. Sad, really. I could have gone to the cloth store several miles away, but I needed to fix lunch. Aargh. Could somebody please open a store in Midtown Memphis for those of us with a "homesteading" or homemaking orientation- not full of "scrapbooking" supplies and endless fake flowers and pottery, but full of useful things- bulk foods, string, work clothes, white T-shirts you can't see through, shoes meant for hard walking, etc.? Are they here? If so, where? I'd really like to know.

Seeds Came In!!

I also finally got the Baker's Rare Seeds catalog. If ever there was vegetable porn for gardeners, this is it. Large photographs of unusual tomatoes, eggplants, knobby squash, gorgeous greens you have never heard of before. The above is unrelated produce from my garden last year, photographed somewhat less artistically. I ordered online 11 days ago, and got everything today. Pretty good for a one-low-price-shipping arrangement. Go to www.RareSeeds.com for more. You could grow a rainbow of color and fantastic flavor from around the world- and confidently save seeds from each variety, knowing it would breed true. Wonderful stuff.

Caring for Tools

I am learning from my mistakes on this one. No matter how tired you are, DO NOT LEAVE TOOLS OUTDOORS, OR LEAVE MUD ON THEM!! THEY WILL RUST!! The wooden handles will warp and crack faster if left wet.
Use an old rag to wipe dirt off your tools when you bring them in for the day. Burlap would be great, but we don't get potatoes in burlap bags anymore. My husband suggests wadding up the net bags in which we buy onions and citrus and using those. After really mucky work, hose tools off and dry them. At the end of the season, or if they've gotten wet, or if the handle starts to look dry or crack, oil the handles to prevent cracking, and the blades to prevent rust. Make sure the corner where you store them does not get wet in flooding rains, or that raccoons using your cat's water bowl for food-washing do not splash the tool. I had to apply naval jelly and a lot of elbow grease to a shovel because of my neglect. Do not repeat my mistake!

Tools for Gardening

Winter is the time to clean, evaluate, and update your tool collection as necessary, before you're out there and find out the handle is splitting on your hoe in the spring. The following tools are recommended as necessary by the book, Garden Steps. I would agree with most of them, and the comments below about them are my own.
1. Wheelbarrow- helps SO MUCH in hauling compost or mulch or leaves or a whole host of other things. I have a 100-year-old newspaper article indicating that a venerable old man was wheeled around the yard in one to celebrate his 90th birthday. I might not use it for people, but otherwise it is good.
2. Shovels- a square one, and a shield-shaped one with a point at the end. In a small garden where even a tiller won't fit well, you do a lot of digging. The square one is good for double-digging, the rounder one for larger transplants, like digging a round hole for a new bush.
3. Spading fork- I need one of these. They have thick, rounded tines for loosening clay soil (the South has a lot of clay). They are also good for digging potatoes and digging in soil amendments (to make that clay good for growing more than bricks).
4. A Sickle for cutting weeds around edges and cutting down cornstalks. I do not have this, either. We have a weed-eater, but I cannot start it. I tend to use clippers, but they're hard on my hands.
5. Rakes, both leaf and garden. A leaf rake is shaped like a fan, and is useful for moving light mulches on relatively smooth ground. The garden rake is flatter with tough, pointed tines used to break up clods. Do not drop this on the ground with tines up- it is bad gardening etiquette, because someone could step on the tines and get hit by the handle.
6. Hoe and cultivator- The cultivator is a tool a bit like the rake, but with longer, fewer tines. I do not have one. THE HOE IS YOUR FRIEND. You can dig out and hook the ***&@!! poison ivy without touching it. You can break up clods after a rain-and-bake incident between close plants. You can do gentle weeding with it, without disrupting the root systems of your crops. There are lots of different kinds of hoes. Choose the size and heft that works for you.
7. Trowels- Essential for transplants and the short rows you get in a tiny garden.
8. Watering pot and hose- you need both. The watering pot is good for mixing up liquid fertilizers and watering things in pots, and delicate new plants. The hose is good for your stronger plants, and filling irrigation containers. Garden Steps has some pretty creative irrigation schemes.
9. Other- iron bar or post hole diggers for setting stakes, twine (many, many yards, for marking rows, tying up plants, etc.), pitchfork (great for mulching big plants), row markers/stakes (even in beds, mark where you planted chard and where you planted beets. You'll forget if you don't mark it).
10. Grindstone- good for sharpening things. I do not have one, but my husband may among the tools in the garage.

Gardening Success, Defined

Here's a quote from Ernest Cobb's book Garden Steps, 1917:

"Success in garden work is not a matter of a single year of study; it is a matter of long experience. Very few beginners ever get great results from the first season. If, after the first summer, with its struggles and disappointments, the amateur still looks forward to the next spring, determined to turn the mistakes of the past year into the successes of the next, he may be sure that he will not fail...So then, if weather has been unfavorable, if bugs and blights have come unexpectedly, if weeds have crowded in, if sods have been heavy and the ground hard and lumpy, if the work has been a tax on muscles unaccustomed to labor, determine that instead of giving up, you will turn to use the experience thus gained, so that next year the crops shall be increased and improved. Remember that you are helping to solve one of the greatest problems of the race, the food supply. There is no greater test of determination of character than the garden. In the long run, failure is impossible to those who apply the qualities needed in the task. Nature knows no favorites. The rain falls on all alike, but the hoe and the harrow shall say whether the rain waters weeds or fruit."

The Planning Continues

I like calendars and schedules for some things, like work. When am I expected to present data? What should I step through (as opposed to step IN ;)) by then? How will this work?

In trying to get maximal production from a small, partially-shaded space, in a heat-island part of the city with a long growing season (with a hot gap in the middle), similar questions arise. When can I expect tomatoes and corn? When will it get too hot for sugar snap peas? Some of these questions I can answer with my notebook from last year, approximately. For others, I like to consult online resources. The Internet is a PRICELESS resource for the beginning gardener. If you want to go organic, Rodale and Mother Earth News and tons of blogs are out there to advise you. For conventional stuff or organic, the state agricultural college and extension agencies will have useful publications. Neighboring states do, too. I found MP422.pdf from the University of Arkansas, Pine Bluff, which lists a month-by-month, play-by-play for the garden, from ordering seeds to planting outside- FOR MY EXACT FIRST and LAST FROST DATES!! WOOHOO! They list potential spring, summer, and fall/winter crops. There is something for every month. Good stuff.

So if you're a beginner, or in a new area and unfamiliar with local climate, check out the state agricultural college website and those of neighboring states. You'll be glad you did.

Beds versus Rows

Even 100 years ago, this was a fierce debate. Beds allow for intensive planting and less weeding, but rows can be worked with "wheeled tools" (now tillers and cultivators) or even horses or tractors, depending on the size of the garden. L.H. Bailey's Manual of Gardening has an illustration of a gardener on his knees, and the caption "Cultivating the Backache", for a raised bed, and heavily advocates row planting. Which viewpoint you get depends on the orientation of the writer. A book about "organic" or old-ways traditional intensive planting in small spaces will advocate beds, while a book oriented toward large-scale planting, automation, or market production will advocate rows. What determines your path is the amount of space you have, the kind of ground you are cultivating (if it is too polluted or stony, raised beds may be the only choice), and your ultimate goals. I'm producing for home use and limited neighbor-gifting, from a tiny, walled space with built-in beds on 2 sides. Thus I work everything by hand in beds.

L. H. Bailey, 1918

L. H. Bailey was a botanist who is credited with starting ag extension services, 4-H, and a lot of other things rural (Wikipedia). He and other authors wrote some very inspiring gardening books full of practical information for gardeners at the end of WWI, when a world-wide shortage of food was not just a threat, but a terrifying reality. Millions in destroyed European countries faced starvation, and farmers were off fighting. Enter the Victory Garden movement (you thought that originated in WWII? Nope. Earlier.) Charles Lathrop Pack, Bolton Hall, and other authors including Bailey contributed by publishing widely distributed, practical guides encouraging people to convert the "slacker land" of vacant lots, backyards, and even land around factories into fruitful gardens. According to Pack's The War Garden Victorious, millions of pounds of food were freed from American consumption to be sent overseas. These books are out of copyright (and print) and available on Google for free. If you have a ready source of horse manure for fertilizer, and are willing to do a lot by hand, they can help. Here's a quote from Bailey's Manual of Gardening a comprehensive guide to landscaping as well as vegetable gardening:

"The satisfaction of a garden does not depend on the area, nor, happily, on the cost or rarity of the plants. It depends on the temper of the person. One must first seek to love plants and nature, and then to cultivate the happy peace of mind that is satisfied with little.
In the vast majority of cases, a person will be happier if he has no rigid and arbitrary notions, for gardens are moodish, particularly with the novice. If plants grow and thrive, he should be happy; and if the plants that thrive happen not to be the ones he planted, they are plants nevertheless, and nature is satisfied with them.
We are wont to covet the things we cannot have; but we are happier when we love the things that grow because they must. A patch of lusty pigweeds, crowding and growing in luxurious abandon, may be a better and more worthy object of affection than a bed of coleuses in which every spark of life and spirit and individuality has been sheared out and suppressed... Love the things nearest at hand; and love intensely. If I were to write a motto over the gate of a garden, I should choose the remark that Socrates is said to have made as he saw the luxuries in the market,"How much there is in the world that I do not want!"

Still relevant after all these years.

The Importance of Flowers

The picture above is a rosebush in one of our beds on the neighbor's side of the house. This is from Orchard and Garden: A Guidebook for Beginners, by Benjamin Wallace Douglass (1918):

"Flowers help to make life worth the living, and anything which helps bring this condition about has what we may call a money value. Some people can understand a subject only when it is presented to them in terms of cash. They eat their food by the calorie and do not realize the wealth they miss in the beauty of life around them. And yet even such as these will pay more for a house that has some trees around it, some flowers in the door yard and a vine over the entrance, than they would for a house that stood bare and unattractive. They are paying their hard cash for beauty-for flowers- but they probably never thought of it in just that way."

An 1860 Appeal for Biodiversity

The How to Lay Out a Garden book is getting technical. It really isn't about veggies per se. This book considers your home's entire outdoor environment as "the garden". Lots of detail about landscaping, and what you should see from the dining room windows. It even tells how to use perspective to plant a small tree strategically to hide an unpleasant view from a window, where you might think a large tree would be needed. It talks about relative costs and benefits of different kinds of pathways and shapes of flower beds along those paths, and the effects you can achieve. Interesting, but I'm looking to lay out a kitchen garden MUCH smaller than a half-acre, without a 14-foot wall on the north side to espalier fruit trees. My wall is a good bit smaller.

Here is another useful quote, before I move on to another food-gardening book:

 

Most persons will be agreed, in the main, as to what is really beautiful, though almost everyone will have some kind of favoritism or prejudice. Considering the multitudinous forms of vegetable life, and the fact that all are endowed with more or less attractiveness, I have been often struck with the narrowness of affection for plants which is commonly possessed; many people have a few favorite trees or shrubs, proscribing nearly all others... But I cannot, and do not profess to comprehend, why gentlemen should impoverish their plantations, and strip their gardens of the first element of beauty, by cultivating only a few particular species of plants, and not merely harboring, but cherishing a dislike to all others. A garden or plantation denuded of half or three-fourths of its proper ornaments, is much in the same predicament as an individual with only a portion of his ordinary garments. It is imperfectly clothed, insufficiently furnished,  weak in its expression of the beautiful.

Edward Kemp's 1860 appeal for biodiversity is still pertinent.

Creating a Sanctum

I thought I had included this quote from How To Lay Out a Garden before, but I guess not:

"Few characteristics of a garden contribute more to render it agreeable than snugness and seclusion. They serve to make it appear peculiarly one's own, converting it into a sort of sanctum. A place that has neither of these properties might as well be public property. Those who love their garden often want to walk, work, ruminate, read, romp, or examine the various changes and developments of nature in it; and to do so unobserved. All that attaches us to a garden, and renders it a delightful and cherished object, seems dashed and marred if it has no privacy. It is a luxury to walk, sit, or recline at ease, on a summer's day, and drink in the sights and sounds peculiar to a garden, without fear of interruption; or of dress, or attitude, or occupation being observed and criticized."

It is a low-cost luxury, too, compared to most things these days. I look forward to working in my little sanctum this summer.

Striking Quote From Yesterday's Book

"Everything partaking of the nature of a sham, also, that is wanting in real excellence, will be discarded by persons desiring to obtain credit for correct taste. Artificial ruins, mere fronts to buildings, figures to represent animals, bridges that have no meaning, or for which there is no necessity, or any other merely artificial representations of natural or other objects, where the aim and intention is to induce the belief that they are really natural, will commonly be despised when the trick is discovered."

A gardener from almost 150 years ago makes a pertinent comment about modern culture. What if we really believed we should discard anything associated with pretense? What if we aimed to construct our lives as this man constructed his gardens, with excellence in mind? What if we really rejected artifice?

The thought of excellence in garden design means I'm doing more than just planting veggies- I'm creating the sanctum mentioned before, and adding a valuable, productive outdoor room to the home.

How to Lay Out a Garden

From the viewpoint of a professional- in 1860, in New York. Edward Kemp wrote a book of the above title, about how to lay out an estate (starting from an empty lot), from a quarter-acre to 100 acres in size. The layouts are pretty formal, but they include ALL the landscaping involved in having a stable, flower beds, vegetable gardens, nut and fruit trees, shade trees, etc. Interesting book. He spends the first 40+ pages telling what to look for, and what to avoid. Some of the things to avoid include cutting down too many mature trees, planting too much around the house (how many houses look overgrown within a few years because a bush turns into a tree?), placing Rustic Objects near the house (a rockery with old porcelain or a fancy grotto with turrets, so I guess the toilet planter is out ;)), belts of the same plant in narrow lines, Unsuitable Objects (cannons!, ponds, bridges, towers "arranged without affinity for each other"), "amusing tricks" that only amuse once, etc. He believed that all of the decorations and plantings around the home should be harmonious, and flow into each other. Since I'm laying out the garden, I'll be posting from this book for the next several days.

Only Kind of Shopping I Like- Seeds

I was looking at instructions for growing broccoli and cauliflower, and realized that I need to get my seeds ASAP for the cool weather crops to start them indoors, if they're to go in the ground a month before the last average frost date of March 23. I use an operational last frost date for sensitive items of April 12, because last frosts in spring tend to vary pretty wildly, as does all our winter weather. Like this week- One day highs near 70 F, the next 61 and falling, the next day highs around 43. Our winters are roller-coasters of temperatures, sometimes with weeks of cloudy and rainy weather. When the sun shines, we are out in it like lizards trying to warm up.

Anyway, I'll be using the porch as a greenhouse before long. Work time coming soon! Must prepare.

Plum Tuckered Out

For those of you not familiar with Southern vernacular, I'm tired. The above is a "before" shot from last spring, showing the bushes in presentable condition. Yesterday I hacked out 10 prickly bushes, which happened to have fairly shallow,brittle root systems. All the main bodies and roots of the plants are out, but plenty of smaller roots remain to be fished out when I lime, fertilize (we have odd deficiencies- plenty of phosphorus, low on potassium and some micronutrients, plenty of iron and calcium), and double-dig the new bed. Today I started clipping up the bushes for disposal. We can't just burn things like that here in the city. It has to be plastic-bagged and placed on the curb. I couldn't finish the clipping because my hands started hurting, so I went and helped my husband destroy the front yard. 

No, we are not putting in a cornfield out front. Husband yearns for grass like they have in his native Plains state of Nebraska. We're starting over. The ground is bare except where some fescue holds on under a tree. We'll lime, seed, fertilize, and see what happens. I know nothing of grass, and don't really care except to pacify any neighborhood requirements (I'd rather grow food), but I did help him rake, pull up, and bag what was out there. Tired. Below is an "after" shot of the bushes. No more blooms, but no more snagging myself on brittle stems trying to reach the tomatoes, either.

Newer Book to Recommend

I checked out The Self-Sufficient Suburban Gardener by Jeff Ball (Rodale Press, 1983, out of print, but available used) from the library a few days ago for a possible holiday read. It is more like a reference book, with all kinds of charts in the back (do beets need a lot of nitrogen? There's a chart to tell you.). He takes you through five stages (five years) to turn your backyard turf into a food-growing paradise, without irritating your urbanized neighbors with unseemly weedy dirt patches. He advises to start slowly, build skills and familiarity with your climate and soil, and grow things your family will actually eat. Good stuff. Even includes bits about chickens, rabbits, bees, and fish for the really brave. With all the gardening books out there, I think this one is really, really good if you need an all-in-one reference for growing food in your backyard.

Planning for a Happy New Year

We have eaten the black-eyed peas, collards, and cornbread, and they were good. My husband also finally agreed that I should eliminate 10 bushes in the back yard. In April they are pretty, loaded with lipstick-red blooms. The rest of the year they are fragile, brittle, half-leafless twigs that shelter poison ivy and look miserable. So sunny days between now and planting time, I'll be out there with a hacksaw and pick, whooping it up. That will give me 88 more square feet of planting space, for a total (I measured it out carefully today) of 279 square feet. Above are the tentative plans. Life is good, and I may build some bone mass hacking out the bushes and roots. Woohoo!