West is the Sun and East is the Moon

In my yard, anyway.... I have a bed of sunflower "weeds," meaning I haven't weeded the bed to have it look the way I want it to. You know, tomatoes, dill, lettuce.

And on the other side of the porch, I have moonflowers.

It only occurred to me last week that I have Sun and Moon. Does that make me nice and balanced?

The moonflowers smell so heavenly (pun intended), simply delicious. Perfumy in a totally non-petro-chemical way. The first few weeks there was a blossom every few nights, then there was one or two every night, then several.

Last night there were SEVENTEEN. *sigh*

I'm in heaven.

My First Online Article!

I offered to write about weeds as medicinal herbs and she actually let me!

Check it out.

first official garden harvest!

Two heads harvested 2 days ago, 2 more yesterday. Eight plants with large heads left, plus all the offshoots we can get until it gets impractical! I love broccoli.

Vermiculture, otherwise known as

"Raising worms for their poop."

I was going to link to some educational sites, so those of you not already acquainted with vermiculture, or worm composting, could decide for yourselves if I was cracked or not. You can google it. I have gotten most of my information at redwormcomposting.com, but there are a surprising number of places online to learn about worms as pets!

OK, they're not exactly pets. I don't hold them or pet them. But I do talk to them. :) Basically, you give them some kitchen waste (veggie only, no animal stuff, except egg shells are ok, and they don't like citrus, either) and they magically turn it into the best, absolute most nutrient-packed black gold plant food there is.

But how do you separate worms from their poop? You pour the gook onto some newspaper in the shape of a cone, and they naturally burrow to the center, where it's darkest. They hate light. Then you slowly take off the edges and top, and they keep going to the center. They you put the worms back into their house, with some new bedding (moist newspaper or such), and some more food. And you put the worm poop, or compost, onto your favorite vegetabel plants in the garden.

Viola.

Garden's first harvest!

I know there are folks who can harvest all year long, with planting things at the right time and using "season extenders," but I'm not one.

We cut some rhubarb today and made a strawberry, rhubarb and apple cobbler. The color is this picture is true, no artificial coloring added! It is delish. And I'll probably have it for breakfast.

Heirloom Veggies "aka" my favorite book

I know my "currently-reading" list is always way long. That means, simply, that all those books are floating around the house, and I pick them up as I choose. The book I've been reading every day for a while is not even a book. It's a catalog.

Go ahead and snicker. It's not for clothes or gadgets or even books. It's for heirloom seeds.

I didn't even know what heirloom seeds were a few years ago. Once you see some of these pictures and read the descriptions, a packet of Bush Blue Lake green bean seeds is never gonna do you again.

There are myriad places to get heirloom seeds these days. I ordered from Heirloom Acres last year, because their prices agreed with me. Seed Savers deserves much credit for organizing the saving and sharing of rare heirloom seeds on a large scale for decades now. But for sheer reading pleasure, I love Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds catalog. It's simply bursting with photos and mouth-watering descriptions. What is it about good catalog descriptions that will make me crave a vegetable I don't even like!?

Let's begin with the cover.
For the last several (of the company's 10 years) the covers have been these dear paintings by the owner's mother. They sell a set of notecards.

They sell amaranth seeds. I didn't know I could grow obscure grains in my backyard! How cool is that? They offer 25 varieties of (green) beans. They're not all green, though. They have Purple Podded, Henderson's Black Valentine and Ram's Horn. Did you know carrots come in white, yellow, orange, red and purple? Potatoes also come in all those colors. Who wants to settle for orange carrots and white potatoes now? Not me.

The melons just about defy the imagination. There's snake melon:

Plum Granny:
and Prescott Fond Blanc, which is described as having a rich flavor and heavenly fragrance. I mean, have you ever thought of a melon as "rich?"
Did you know about Asian long beans, which are like green beans, but get 12" to 36" long? How about Blue Pumpkins, or Yugoslavian Finger Fruit, Strawberry Spinach or the Jaune Dickfleischige cucumber, which is yellow and gets to be 5 pounds? Watermelons called Moons and Stars, and Cream of Saskatchewan....

Phrases like "large, thorn-like projections," and "covered in attractive warts" make me rethink what makes up a beautiful garden. Also, "used by the Pilgrims," "ancient vegetable from Togo, West Africa," and "the Andes' Nectar of the Gods" absolutely make me want to have an international garden. There's also lots of the expected, like "tender when cooked," "highly productive," "tastey flesh," and "fabulous flavor."

I'm not finding very many good online images because many of these items are that rare. Also, Jere Gettle, the young-un behind this wonderful venture (he's not even 30, and started this company from his bedroom 10 years ago) is quite a photographer. And while there are many good images on his photo website, I get the impression that the bulk are saved for the catalog. The website pales significantly compared to the print catalog.

What are you waiting for? Head on over and request your own copy. You'll be carrying it around with the same fondness you once had for ... whatever your other favorite books are.

Long time, no....

Let's... see....

sick the first half of May... check
3 birthdays in our family... check
including the all-important Sweet 16 of my oldest... check
and a party with his friends... check
where they played Rock Band in the back yard on a projected tv... check
and the neighbors complained about the noise... check
and they played fireball hacky sack in the middle of the street... check
and no parked cars were exploded... check
3 birthdays in our extended family... check
Cub Scout Pack Meeting... check
church party where a Very Important Guest from church headquarters came to our humble congregation to recognize generous humanitarian donations... check
and we pulled off an amazing celebration with 4 days' planning... check
Cub Scout fundraiser spaghetti dinner... check
where the green salad turned up frozen by the church fridge at the last minute... check
homeschool end-of-year parent night for the class I taught... check
2 batches of out of town company... check
chickens moved out to the shed because they were living in daughter's room, which doubles as the guest room... check
started basil, chamomile, moons and stars watermelon, boothbys blonde cucumber, and sensitive plant seeds... check
finished knitting the Firecracker's Christmas stocking... that I've been working on for over 2 years... check
began to weave in the million ends... check

I'm kind of glad that May is over. How 'bout you?

Is your garden worth anything?

Over the years, I've had mixed success with gardening. My failures mostly involve forgetting to water, and letting the weeds get out of control, but once, there were the deer that ate my broccoli to the ground.

I've spent money on seedlings and seed that did not mature into food for the plate. I've even let that discourage me. But I've never thought about actual harvest in terms of monetary value. I mean, I probably wouldn't have bought as many tomatoes as we get from a few plants, so can I say I "saved" that much money by growing it?

Last year was by far the most productive year, probably because a dear friend brought over a steam canner and jars, AND her kids helped clean off the pear and apple trees, and I actually preserved food for the first time. Salsa, red and green, pears, and apple pie filling. It totally whet my appetite for more canning. I'm planning on doubling the amount of tomato plants, because we use a lot of canned tomatoes from the store.

I'd like to double the amount of green beans we grew (a 6' row rather than a 3' row), for fresh eating, not canning. Sauteed with garlic and butter, tender crisp... mmm.

I might even wrangle the kids into cleaning up the strawberry bed, which admittedly is an extension of the lawn now, with a couple dozen strawberry survivors.

And broccoli. Don't let the inevitability of bugs discourage you. I've never used pesticides in my garden, and eaten plenty of broccoli anyway. I learned from a friend to soak the broccoli in salt water for a few minutes and the bugs come right on out. How's that for organic? I don't mind sharing a little bit of my garden with the bugs, but I don't want to eat them. ewww

This article I just read has made me even more excited for this year's garden. What's a Home Garden Worth? gives the answer for one Maine family: $2149.15.

I know, that's a lot of money! They calculated that the average family garden, after expenses, would yield about $1.50 a square foot. Definitely food for thought. But I love these closing words:

Instead of saying "Honey, I'm going out to the garden to turn the compost pile", perhaps we should say "Honey, I'm going outside to do a 'green job' and work on our 'organic stimulus package.'”