The Profit Part of Yesterday's Quote

I thought I had read Gardening for the South before, but I'm noticing now as I reread that it is a very comprehensive manual, with charts about saving seeds (how long can you keep them? Can you plant last year's and expect good germination?) that agree pretty closely with modern ones. He does advise using a mixture of slaked lime and SALT on your soil, which moderns would avoid, but a lot of his stuff is quite interesting. He recommends the same manures, the same crop rotations, and some of the same cover crops as later writers. Here's the "profit" part of yesterday's quote:

"The product was as follows on one and one-fourth acres of land: 1100 head lettuce, large; 1400 heads cabbage, large; 700 bunches radishes; 250 bunches asparagus; 300 bunches rhubarb;14 bushel pods, marrowfat peas; 40 bushels beans; sweet corn, 3 plantings, 419 dozen;  ...; celery, 500 heads- all worth 621 dollars in the Utica market, but supplied 130 persons all they could consume. Only one man was required to do all the necessary labor."

That's what I call intensive planting. I will look again at his fertilizing plan, definitely. Wow! The ... includes a LOT of other produce I did not want to type out. Happy New Year, and may your garden grow as well as the one Mr. White described in 1857. Peace to all who truly want it.

Tomatoes-Hybrid or Heirloom?

This is the garden in late June, 2008.
I've planted both kinds of tomatoes, and I have to say that Arkansas Traveler worked out a LOT better than the Big-box-store varieties in my yard. Very little cracking, where the hybrids had deep cracks. Of course there are caveats- I corrected the soil pH in the meantime, and got better at watering, and used tomato cages instead of stakes. But the Travelers were tremendously prolific as well. 

I'm going to try to plan everything around open-pollinated or heirloom varieties this year, and try saving seeds. I can't save corn, because they say you need to have at least 50 plants to do that for cross-pollination purposes, and I simply do not have that much sunny space back there. I'm going to try a 10x5 3 sisters planting, a 5x5 tomato patch, and greens in whatever is left of the main bed, followed by sweet potatoes. The back bed will contain herbs at the front and a few sunflowers, red okra, and amaranth at the back. I'm going for a decorative edible effect.

The side bed near the neighbors will contain green beans along the fence (we eat an astonishing amount of green beans every year, and I can share them with the neighbor, who puts up with the vines climbing into her yard for more sun), and other shade-tolerant edibles (radishes and greens did well there last year) across the front.

Notebook in the Pocket

Here is an excellent quote about gardening for these dark winter days, from William H. White's Gardening for the South (1857). the book can be downloaded free in PDF from Google Books.

" 

It is difficult to acquire this knowledge by reading or simply looking on. It is easiest and most pleasantly gained with implement in hand and a notebook in the pocket. The readier way of understanding the instructions of the books, is to put them into practice. He who thus heartily enters into the performance of horticultural operations, will be fully rewarded by our good old mother earth with health, profit, and pleasure. In health, for not only does the garden yield a choice and wholesome variety of fruits and vegetables, most salutary for daily food, but the exercise afforded in moving the fresh soil, and the interest excited by the diversified operations of the garden,are still more salutary. In profit- but more of that hereafter. In pleasure- for what is more delightful than to watch the daily developments of that which our own hands have planted, cultivated, and sheltered- or to witness, as the skilled gardener will do, the constantly improving condition of his soil, or to partake of the daily succession of choice vegetables and luscious fruits brought to perfection by his skill and care, or to enjoy the more spiritual and refined pleasures of landscape and flower gardening where the eye is charmed with the greenness and breadth of lawns grouped with all rare and magnificent trees, or with parterres gay with brilliant colors and profuse with beautiful and perfect forms.

If that doesn't make you get out your notebook and plan, nothing will.

Walking Keeps Me Going

This was the last surviving tomato. We ate it week before last. It was good on the outside, but the heart was rotten. The cold must have gotten to it.

I walked to the grocery store to pick up some more brown sugar this afternoon. It is a few miles each way. Quite a walk, but well worth it. After the front passed through last night, today was 20 degrees cooler, but sunny.  Walking is quite helpful for me. My joints hurt more when I sit than they do when I walk. We walked to the pizza place after we got back from our all-day post-Christmas drive home. That worked out a lot of kinks, and so did the walk today. Doctors used to tell people to lie around when things hurt, but now the research says what my own experience indicates: we need to move in order to be able to keep moving.

The Civil War That Never Ends

Tennessee is a border state in an ongoing Civil War of Winter. The unstable weather gave us a 70+ degree Fahrenheit weather day today. Of course the windows are open for airing, and we went for a glorious wind-blown walk in the park this morning, attacked by wild buffalo herds of galloping leaves in  swirling abandon across open meadow and zoo parking lot. It'll be freezing again after the front passes and the winds shift to the north. It is a north (cold, and usually dry, but wet this year) versus south (warm and usually humid) battle every day of winter that turns our meteorologists prematurely gray. Will the moisture hold into the freezing temperatures, resulting in ice storms, closed schools, and mayhem, or will the cold, dry air mean crisp, sunny school days, and children glad to be inside out of the wind? Will the cold hold, or will it relinquish territory to the warm again? And again? And again?

This saying has been true in Tennessee for many years: "If you don't like the weather, wait a few days. It will change." Mom remembers blizzards and shirt-sleeve days for Christmas during her childhood in the 1950s. This is not recent. It's a war with no truces, but few victims. We have four seasons, and sometimes all within a week or two! I hope you enjoy the weather your dwelling-place offers. If not, consider Tennessee- you may not like the weather on a given day, but in a day or two it will change.

Christmas with Family

It's always good to get away from the computer for a few days and focus on loved ones. My presents tended to be practical as usual. Even my 4-year-old nephew gave me a recipe box, which he calls a "treasure box", painted by Himself. I'll use it for treasures, of course. 

The children grow so fast! I can only stay a few days, because if I stayed longer, I would not ever want to leave them. I learned that I would not have children pretty early (mid-20s, when the maternal instinct is as strong as it will ever be), years before I started dating or thought about marriage. So I avoided young children and poured that motherly affection on my middle school students. It worked to get me through those years. Now I can still love the children of others, but not get devastated about not having my own as some women do. With my joint condition being autosomal dominant, I'm happy not to pass it on. I helped to rear about 1000 middle schoolers, and that was enough.

Oh! They really liked the Buggabugs presents. They played with them more than once. Felt food is a good idea for a preschool gift.

All I want for Christmas

Is a pressure canner... And that's what I got! Look! I also got a really nice pair of leather work gloves that actually fit! They smell nice and feel nice. Good working presents.