Lovely Luffa

This is a view from inside the house of the luffa vines I grew this summer. I can't find the outdoor pictures, but they would show a tangle of vines growing over the fence, up the side of the house (hence this view from indoors and shelter for the praying mantis), and over the fence to crape myrtles down the way. They produced five-lobed, bright yellow, bee-attracting flowers, and about 30 gourds that look like large, lumpy cucumbers. When young, they can be eaten like zucchini, though my variety was rather tasteless. When the gourds are yellowish brown, it is time to process them. First, you peel off the skin. Hopefully the inside is white or pale tan and moist, smelling of cucumbers. You wash the inner skeleton with a hose or hot water to get rid of inner plant residue (squeeze and you get suds). Then bleach, especially the ones with dark or moldy spots. Allow to dry naturally, then shake out the seeds. Do not flatten the luffa before getting the seeds out! They'll get stuck. They are good for any kind of scrubbing, from pans (use as dry as possible for really stuck on stuff) to skin (let soak in water for a bit to soften the fibers). Compostable, degradable, scrubbable, expensive in the store, and practically free from the yard. Strange vegetable, but useful. This was a fun one to try.

Amending the Soil

We have a soil composed of a thin layer of topsoil over clay you could use for making pots. It is red. It holds together and can be molded when wet. It is the color of a flower pot. 

I tried growing carrots, radishes, and beets in the spring. The beets and radishes grew on top of the ground, and were small. The carrots came out deformed, even though I grew a stubby variety adapted to clay soil and dug the area extensively. 

I have finally broken down and asked my husband to acquire some sand. He brought home a few buckets-full for me, and has even offered to dig it into a bed. This entire area was once under a shallow sea, and is still well-watered, so everything under the topsoil is layered sand and clay.The layers can be many feet deep, though, so I can't just dig down to sand and mix to solve the problem. Hopefully adding sand now and organic material when I put the bed to rest in late November will help. I'm trying to save as much organic material as possible, to build soil so we can grow more stuff next year. We shall see.

Hostafarian!

We have way too many hostas. All of them grew from one half-dead bunch I split when we moved into the house. It does not take a lot of talent or horticultural expertise to do this. These plants are survivors. Here's how I split them:

1. Dig up a gigantic mass o'plant. That is my foot (one foot long) for reference down there.

2. Use the Fearsome Hacking Implement to hack a piece of the plant with a sizeable root base off the main group. Usually in a large clump you'll find at least 2 or 3 smaller clumps that can be split fairly easily from each other.

3. Plant 

the newly-severed mini-plants and water generously. They'll need a bit of extra water the next few days, but they'll be fine, though some badly-hacked parts may wilt and die. It will come back next year bushier than ever. You will need to do this again. Praise God for manual labor on Labor Day!

Where to Go When You Need Info

The cooperative extension agencies located at colleges and universities around the US are gold mines for the home gardener. They have publications about planting schedules, recommended varieties for your region, plant diseases, insects, harvesting and preserving your crops, etc. If you need to know something, they have an expert available. Google them sometime. It'll save you time looking for a book on the subject, when the extension office has a free or low-cost publication.

My Garden View-Corn

The corn is growing, along with the squash (planned and volunteer) and a tiny volunteer tomato. Up front, the broccoli has not headed yet. The cauliflower made buttons. The chard is adding nutrients too my weekly lunch soups. In the very back bed, the herbs seem to be enjoying the heat. One of the sunflowers is strangely afflicted, as are the amaranth plants (no way to eat those scarred leaves), but I can find no bug, and nearby beet and herb and okra plants are fine, as are other sunflower plants. I'll discuss the tomatoes tomorrow. Live, observe, and learn. 

Sometimes Ugly Plants have Beautiful Flowers

Borage is not a pretty plant. It has large, hairy leaves. It looks a bit like a weed. But the flowers grow in clusters, and they look great, and except for the hairy parts, they are edible! They're also supposed to confer disease resistance to neighboring plants, and deter some pests. I'm growing it. Slugs will eat the lowest leaves, but they eat anything decaying. We'll see how it grows and lives.

Balance

In physiology, everything is about balance. Maintaining homeostasis is very important; despite the changes in the environment outside your body, the inside needs to be tightly regulated for you to survive. For example, you have more bacterial cells in your large intestine than there are human cells in your body. We can characterize them by type, but a lot is unknown about what is happening in there. You need some of those bacteria to help you absorb certain vitamins. Others actually communicate with your colon cells (some for good, some for ill), and we're just starting to be able to listen in on the conversation- mostly in rats and mice. We know some of the meanest bacteria out there (e. coli, c. difficile, etc.) live in almost everyone's colon without making them sick, as long as things stay in balance. Throw it off with an antibiotic for a sinus infection, and the good guys are actually more susceptible to the antibiotic than the bad guys, leaving room for the bad ones to multiply and make you ill. Viva yogurt! The kind with live and active cultures, especially the kind with multiple species listed, can help, as can other fermented food (like kefir) with live (good) bacteria. The moldy stuff at the back of the fridge will NOT help.

It's true for plants, too. Too much nitrogen, and you'll get a lot of leaves, but not much flowering and fruiting. Too much water and they rot, too little and they wilt. Oy! Learning curves are steep sometimes.

The Corn Is Planted

Here is some of this evening's work: putting in corn seedlings from the germination test and planting corn in the ground to try again, this time in the bed that gets the most sun, in the middle. It's starting to look like a garden.

Interesting thing tonight- the slugs started climbing the garage and flowerpots before it started raining. Do even SLUGS have instincts we have lost to climate-controlled life? Just a thought, though I do like air conditioning in July more than I like predicting the rain. My bursitis lets me predict storm systems a lot of the time anyway, especially in winter. 

I'll be posting pictures from the garden over the next few days, for my records, weeds and all. Let's keep 'em growing.

First Fruits

I picked my first sugar snap pea pod today. I gave it to my husband to eat, and he did. He said it was good. I did not get a picture of it- this is a blossom from last year, in a different part of the garden. They're growing well in the sheltered nook where I planted some, and in the more exposed area where I planted others. 2 plants that got eaten down to nubs by the slugs are coming back, as are some of the carrots I had given up on. Good News! God is merciful to us, even when we do plant carrots in clay.

Fat of the Land, Continued

The man in the book did not set out to become a regular farmer of his day. He wanted to set up a "factory farm" complete with animal confinement, but his confinement practices were pretty liberal in terms of space per animal compared to today's CAFOs. His 55 dairy cows were free to wander a 20-acre field during good weather, in addition to their barn and 3 meals a day. He did not raise more animals than he could feed from grains and hay grown on his own property, supplemented only with specific items to increase dairy yields and egg quality. He wanted to hire good men and specialists in hens or cows or pigs to do the work, and that makes sense if you want profits. I guess I like the soil itself too much to be satisfied paying someone else to grow my garden. 

While we were out walking today, we saw some subsoil in a deep hole in the road MLGW dug for work on the gas lines. It was like modeling clay! It was amazing. In some places, the topsoil is only a few inches thick, with feet of the clay underneath. It would take a lot of work and time to build really good, deep soil here, but with proper tillage and addition of amendments, garden soil can become more fruitful and productive every year. I'm learning about this.

Growing Gardens in The City

It is very possible. A friend in an apartment has several pots, taking advantage of every bit of sunlight entering her little abode. We have a tiny backyard with formal bricked flower beds, but those beds can grow food, too. Why do it, when there are several grocery stores, including ethnic ones, within easy driving distance, and the food is cheap in season? Why continue to battle the slugs (I have picked 4,798 as of last night), and the cold, and the heat, and rain storms and drought?

It is fun. It is a way to get out in the sunshine and get a little dirty after a long day in front of a computer or an experimental bench at work. The exercise does not require a gym or expensive equipment. You don't have to endure MTV or ESPN while exercising- the birds overhead in the flowering trees are far better entertainment. The quietness and stillness seep into your mind to calm the fretting of a difficult day. Gardening can be an inexpensive hobby (without the "eco-friendly"gear and endless gadgets) that actually results in short-term gratification, after a few months: food. Good stuff.

Repotting Tomato Plants

I'm a week ahead of schedule on the tomato plants, but they were getting a bit crowded in their beginning container. I selected 4 of the strongest plants (tallest, best looking leaves, not spindly, stood up when watered instead of falling over) of each type and transplanted to larger pots. They're in the windows of the sun porch, where they will continue to grow until they are moved outdoors for acclimation before planting in their cages. Only two will actually be planted per cage, with one going to maturity if they grow like they did last year. I like tomato cages made of fencing wire because they support the plant without using yards and yards of twine to try to tie it up, and you can get your hand through the holes in the fencing (choose a roll with large enough holes) to harvest the tomatoes. We had 4-ft fencing last year, and the tomato plants spilled over onto the ground eventually. We may make taller cages this year. Cages keep even indeterminate plants relatively compact and stable. And they do well, if deeply staked, even in really windy conditions.

The seed I saved from last year germinated quite well. It is exciting to save seed and see the next generation grow. Life is good.

Herbs

I am going to try to grow more herbs this year. I had success last year with basil (still lots of it in the freezer) and rosemary, and some oregano volunteered from the year before. This year I'm adding borage.  It is pictured germinating here. If you look closely, you can see the hairs on the leaves. It is supposed to have cucumber-tasting edible blue flowers, and be good for tomatoes, and be attractive to bees while repelling hornworms and cabbage worms. Sounds like a winner to me. I'm also planting thyme as a front border (and oregano, if it comes up, and some mint, with a buried pot around the roots) in my amaranth-sunflower-red okra bed. I want it to be so decorative that people do not recognize it readily as a food garden. We shall see. Gardening is a fun experiment.

Winter Strikes Back

We have a 100% chance of wintry mix tomorrow, 70% chance freezing rain tonight. I had another long day at work, so Husband kindly covered all my baby plants with buckets and tarps, and put the top on my rudimentary cold frame. The temperature is due to hover around freezing for about 36 hours. Hope those little guys can take the dark for that long. 

It is currently 43 degrees F out there- could one hope for it to stay that warm with winds from the Northeast? Dare we hope for local tree fruit this year? I pray for the trees tonight. Let's all pray hard.

And We're Off! (but just by a little bit)

The broccoli, cauliflower, marigolds to hopefully protect them from the *@@!!%! cabbage bugs, and some chard are pictured. They went in the ground today.

The green onions and beets went in a rudimentary cold frame, with the lid off for most of this week. The carrots, lettuce, and radishes also went in the side bed. The sugar snap peas are already there. Now to see what survives transplanting... it is all experimental.

Snap Peas are Finally Planted!

Six of the eight seeds germinated. They were getting tall, and I was getting nervous that it might not warm up enough to plant them. Never fear, Tennessee weather is here! I planted them today because we have a sequence of several upcoming days of mild weather, and they won't suffer. The toilet-paper-roll pots start to decay early- these were seriously moldy when I took them out of the OJ carton to put them in the ground. I ripped them up one side to allow the plant roots to escape more easily (though the root of one plant was growing through the wet cardboard), then stuck them in a hole dug with a long, narrow hand trowel. After the January digging and the snow, I barely had to dig. The supports for the plants (to get them to the wooden fence) pushed easily into the soft soil. First plants in, about a month earlier than last year! Maybe they'll have time to mature before it gets too hot this year.

More From Bulletin 32

This is a flower from my backyard, as of this morning. We usually have at least one more cold snap after the flowers bloom like this.

Here is the section from Bulletin 32 that caught my eye, and would be just as relevant today in a magazine article as it was in 1916:

There is probably no other section of the country where farmers can live more cheaply, healthily, and happily than here in the South, where choice vegetables of some kind can be had every day in the year, fresh from the garden. It is however, noticeable as a rule that the farmer is the most poorly fed of all classes of individuals, when he should be the best, for the reasons given below. 

1. He can have the choicest beef, pork, mutton, milk, butter, eggs, poultry, etc., raised on his farm; and, handling it himself, he is sure it is clean, healthy, and wholesome. 

2. He can supply his table bountifully with every fruit and vegetable that will grow in a temperate or sub-tropical climate (the list is too long to mention here), and all from his own garden, field, and orchard.

3. Fresh fruits and vegetables have a medicinal value, and when wisely prepared and eaten every day will go a long way toward keeping us strong, vigorous, happy, and healthy, which means greater efficiency and the prolonging of our lives.

I take back what I said yesterday about Carver not stressing veggies enough. His advice is timely. As Solomon said, there is nothing new under the sun.

A Garden as Health Insurance

This is a small head of broccoli from last year's garden.

Could raising some of your own food qualify as health insurance? If you raise the right stuff, and don't hurt yourself, probably. Most of the really early stuff is cruciferous (broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kale), and the whole cole family is really good for you. Sulfurophanes (from broccoli) have anti-cancer properties.

 I read today that " health care" takes up 16.7% of our national budget- not government spending, but GDP. It is due to take up more than 20% by 2018. Are we really THAT sick? Is that much medication really necessary? I knew a woman who lived well into her 80s, who said that she never went to a doctor, except to have a baby delivered, for most of her adult life. I daresay most of my ancestors, living on farms many miles from large cities, could say something similar. They raised food for themselves, and worked physically hard all their lives. Maybe we should do more of the same.

An Afternoon Spent Mending

Is a good afternoon indeed. Seams tend to rip loose easily in shirts these days. Upon close examination, I could probably make one as well (or better) as the ones in the stores are made, so I'll try. They don't leave much in the way of a seam allowance, though, which makes repair difficult.

In other news. the robins have NOT taken over the berry-producing world. They haven't shown up today at all, so they must have gotten what they wanted yesterday. The picture above is on the neighbor's roof, yesterday. 

I have so much stuff planted now that some of it has to go on the sun porch, to make room under the light downstairs. The garden is getting ready to go outside and grow. I hope it does.

Cabbage is starting to Grow

I saved these cabbage seeds totally incorrectly. I planted some, then folded over the packet, put it in a plastic zipper bag, and placed it in a brown mailing envelope on a shelf through the hot, humid summer, near the kitchen. I did not store them near the back of the fridge with a dessicator as I know now to do. But guess what? They're germinating anyway! Slower, and with less efficiency than seeds bought this year, but growing.

I read a story in one of my old gardening texts (I think it was from the 1700s) of a gardener who threw a bunch of seeds that had been on a shelf for years (he didn't think any of them would still be viable) into a fire, then had to put the fire out. Imagine his surprise when several of the seeds germinated, producing robust plants! He said that most garden failures occur because we do not LET plants do what God designed them to do. We intervene too much. Maybe he is right. I'll try to be less fussy and just let things grow. Though I will pick off the cabbage worms if the mint and marigolds don't repel them.