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.