Make Your Own Watering Bulb

Recently, my mom bought me several plants for my birthday.  Two of these plants are Stevia, the natural herbal sweetener.  Stevia is hardy until 10 degrees F.  Temperatures any lower than that will kill the plant.  So I potted it.  My two stevia plants are living on my front porch.  I will bring them in when the weather becomes cold.

Chances are, as Spring turns to Summer, I may forget to water these awesome herbs.  So I thought a watering bulb would be a good idea.  You fill it with water, turn it upside down and it provides your potted plants a continuous amount of water.  The set it and forget it of plant care.

While I appreciate the ingenuity of this product, I don't spend money on things like that.  I will, however, steal their general idea.  I used something we happened to have around the house: a beer bottle.  I filled the beer bottle up with water, and sunk the neck into the dirt of the Stevia's pot.

If you have bigger pots, a wine bottle would also work for this.  I'm sure you could set these up in the garden, but that seems like a lot of work and maintenance and not really worth it.

Volunteer plants

Spring is here!! and with it comes so much joy and possibility.

We've been in our house for over a year, and last year in Spring we were surprised with lovely volunteer Peach Tree:

Right now, it's beautiful. 

So we get beauty in the Spring, and delicious sweet peaches later in the Summer.  Last year, we were surprised by this sweet nutritious treat.  This is why planting fruit trees is so much better than those silly ornamental trees.  While ornamentals are beautiful in Spring, I can't add their fruits to my yogurt.

I have discovered other volunteers around our property, especially in my garden.  I threw most of my kitchen scraps directly in my garden to feed the soil and the earthworms (this was a pre-chicken time in our life).  This spring I got several wonderful surprises.  The first being celery:

This really shocked me.  I don't know if this is going to be edible, but I'm going to wait until it matures to find out.    

I also found garlic growing in my garden.  I can't wait to dig into this:

I also found some lose garlic bulbs starting to sprout in my compost pile.  I decided to plant these composting bulbs.  About 75% of the bulb wilted and died in the ground.  The other 25% are taking off.  

Taking into consideration that I paid nothing for any of this, and I thought this would be worm food, I am beyond thrilled.  All this is so exciting and one of the reasons I love spring and all of the surprises and presents mother nature has for us.

Carrots Love Tomatoes - A book review

Several years ago, when I began my backyard garden, I bought myself Carrots Love Tomatoes.  

This book outlines which veggies (and sometimes fruit) to plant together.  This is called companion planting.  The idea is that different types of plants in close proximity can benefit each other.  For example, planting your carrots near onions and leeks is beneficial for the carrots since the onions and leeks act as a repellent to the carrot fly.  

A gardener can also gain a higher yield per acre by integrating plantings instead of abiding to a mono-cultural method (i.e. rows and rows of carrots, followed by rows and rows of beets).  Planting rows which contain a kohlrabi - beet - kohlrabi pattern benefits both crops.  They both do best in the same type of soil and pull their nutrients from different levels.  Anytime you diversify your crops, you make it harder for critters to take out your entire patch.  

If there is a worm that just loves cucumbers, he and his buddies can easily demolish one plant, but if the next plant is a distance away from the one he destroyed, he must figure out how to get over to the new cucumber plant.  Chances are he won't make it the entire way, and your other plant is safe.  Or you have time to take protective measures.  But if all of your cucumber plants are close and hanging out together, it will be that much harder to save your plants.

The book also discusses which plants are detrimental to each other.  As well as the different ways to cope with certain diseases and pests and basic descriptions of each plant.  While this book is not exhaustive (and therefore NOT overwhelming), the array of plants it covers varies from vegetable and herbs to nuts and wild plants.  There are also chapters on gardening techniques, garden plans and pest control.  

This book is a wonderful resource that I have by my side when I'm planning my garden. Although of this information is easily accessible via the internet, having a small, easy to read book (that won't break if it get's wet or dirty) by your side makes life a lot easier.  I would recommend this book and have used it often and will continue to use it over the years. 

Planting Asparagus

In my package of trees I received, I got some Asparagus crowns (10).  I put them in the refrigerator until I had time to plant them.  I'm not sure if this is what I was supposed to do, but it made sense to me.  We will know in spring if I everything I did was correct.

The typical time to plant the crowns is Spring.  Well, I am not typical.  I also get excited easily.  And I like asparagus.  Put all these factors together and now I am planting them in fall.  From my understanding, it is okay to plant them Early Spring or Fall.  So here's what I did:

I grabbed the Maddox (for tranche digging) and my package of crowns:

I separated the individual crowns.  They are a year old.  Buying older Asparagus crowns instead of starting from seed will allow you to get Asparagus more quickly.   Also, Asparagus is a perennial which means we will get asparagus every year with limited extra work.

I dug a trench about 6 inches deep. I laid the crown in the trench and spread the roots out.  

Then, I sprinkled dirt over the roots.  Keeping the dirt loose, so that the asparagus can grow up easily.  If I were to plant them in Spring, I would sprinkle dirt about 3 inches deep.  Once you start to see the tops of your plant sprout through, add the remaining 3 inches of dirt.  Since it is Fall (almost Winter), I covered it up with all 6 inches of dirt.

After I planted all ten of the crowns in two rows I took a picture of the dirt for you to enjoy:

To the right of the trenches, you can see the pile of leaves.  I deep mulched the bed to feed the worms and to add nourishment to the garden during the winter.  Next year, I'm planning on using cover crops instead.

Luscious Landscaping

Chris and I moved into our home last January.  We have been here less than a year, but we are making great strides to make it our own.

The first item on which we are focusing is the landscaping outside.  We started with my garden, and we took down a tree that was too close to the house.  (I started to learn how to use an ax)

Please forgive my stance.  I am learning.  

It is important to me to plant trees, as well.  They are pretty, provide shade and help reduce erosion.  What if these trees are beautiful flowering trees that also provide food?  I would call that a bonus!

This spring I planted two pear trees and a fig tree.  We got figs, and we don't expect to get any pears for a few more years.

This fall, I added to our wannabe "Food Forest".  We planted an almond tree, two apple trees, a grape vine and two Paw-Paw Trees (a native Pennsylvania tree).  The almond, apple and Paw-Paw trees were bare-root trees.  I will describe how to plant these at another times.  The Paw-Paw trees produce an oblong fruit that reportedly has a creamy texture with a banana, vanilla, custard flavor.  I am excited to confirm this.

My husband was told that Paw-Paws attract a rare type of beautiful butterfly.

We also wanted shrubbery for the front of the house.  I wanted something pretty, and I wanted something yummy.  Blueberries are beautiful year-round and super yummy.

I went through a mail-order company.  We got all of our trees and our blueberries at once.  It took us six hours to plant everything.

The blueberry plants looked like this when we got them:

Here's the red one by itself (you can see how the beautiful red the leaves turn in the fall):

Here's one that's still green:

Now, dig a hole.  I like to dig it a little deeper and wider than the root ball.  That allows the roots to spread out and grow without having to fight through compacted soil.  Fill the hole with water, so your blueberry plant can take a long drink.

Now, tip the potted plant upside down and catch it as it slides out of it's pot.  If it feels a little stuck, massage the sides of the pot to try and loosen it.

Now you have a very compact root ball.

Break that rootball apart so that those roots can flourish and run free and be happy!!  I gently use my thumbs to break apart the ball.

It will no longer be as firm, but it will be ready to grow!

Now place the plant in the hole that you dug.  Line it up so that the soil of the top of the root ball is inline with the top of the ground.  If you plant it too deep, you may kill the plant, plant it too shallow and the erosion of the roots may get it.  The depth does not have to be perfect.  

Now fill in around with the loose dirt and push out any air pockets with your palms.

Now you have a planted blueberry bush, but we're not done yet!  Blueberries LOVE acidic conditions.  You can add supplements and peat most and sand until you get the ideal soil conditions, but that doesn't sound very simple to me.  A trick to get big juicy blueberries (as told to me to my dad who was told that from and old blueberry farmer) is to add some old rusty nails around your bush. 

 They love the iron.  As they rust down the plants eat it up.  Sounds good to me!

I don't want to disregard their love of acid altogether, so I have access to pine needles which are very acidic.

I added that beautiful mulch around my blueberries.  When it composts down, it will help to acidify my soil without me having to buy too much of anything!

Goodnight Fig Tree

I bought a fig tree in the beginning of Spring.  It is a special kind of fig tree.  This fig tree is call a Chicago Hardy.  I assumed, due to the name, that this typically warm weather tree would thrive in the zone 6 climate that I live in.  And it did during the summer.  It got leaves and even had a shoot coming off the bottom.  (as an aside, I'm trying to root it, but no luck so far)

I even got some fruit from the tree.  They are a little green because I picked them early.  I was too excited to wait for them to brown up.

They were yummy.  Barely any of us, aside from Jaxy, had any.  Jaxy and I would walk out in the morning to let the chickens out of the coop for the day, stop and check the fig tree on the way and he would eat any ripe figs in the flash of an eye.  We got about 10 figs the entire summer, which is awesome for a fruit tree's first year.

Anyway, I had to put the Fig Tree to sleep for the winter.  There are two main ways to do this.

First is the Trench method.  With this method, you dig a trench next to the tree, dig up half the tree's roots and knock the tree into the trench and cover it with dirt.  I decided not to do this method since it seemed like this may be hard on the roots.  I selected the second method.

In this method, you insulate the tree with dry organic matter.  Some use straw, some use leaves.  It's important that it's dry so that you don't end up composting your tree.  This method is simple and a lot less labor intensive.  

First, I wrapped fencing around the tree.  I was around the drip edge of the tree, so fairly wide.

Then, I filled the fencing with fluffy straw.  Easy as could be!

And now our fig tree is put to rest after an exciting first season on our patch.  I hope it has a restful off-season.

Saving Tomato Seeds

I decided to save my tomato seeds from the garden.  This is not as easy to do as the bean seed saving, but it's still easy enough.

First I selected a tomato:

What a pretty tomato.  I will miss tomatoes from my garden, 

After I selected the tomato, I cut it in half so that you have a top half and a bottom half.  This makes it easier to get the seeds out.

You are now ready to get those lovely seeds out.  I squeezed them into a glass jar.  

Once I squeezed the seeds from both halves the bottom of the jar looked like this:

I still had two yummy tomato halves to eat.  They were great.  No seeds either.

I added water to the jar.  This helps the seeds separate from the gook (in technical terms) from the seeds.

The cover the jar with cheese cloth and a rubber band, and let it sit on the window sill for a few days.  I agitated the water every so often.  I don't know if you need to, but I did.  

After a few days, you will see the seeds separating.  At that point, I drained out the liquid into the sink.  

Here's where we run out of pictures.  I took the rubber band and the cheesecloth off of the jar and dried it on a colander for a few days.  The key is to get your seeds dry before you store them.  Make sure your seeds are nice and dry and store them in an envelope to use next year.  Make sure you label it, unless you like surprises.  Oh the fun of seed saving.  So next year's sauce and salsa will come from tomatoes from my garden grown from seeds that were saved by me.  That is the ultimate in awesome!!

Saving Seeds: Beans

Saving seeds is a great way to be even more economical in your garden.  Every time you are able to provide something for yourself and therefore not purchase a product, you are closer to closer to self-sufficiency.  It's better for the planet, and it is just neat to watch the way the natural world works.

Today, I'm going to talk about saving some seeds from Dragon Tongue Beans. They were fairly tasty, and looked rather awesome when they were growing. They were purple speckled.

At the end of the bean season, I left a few beans on the vine to dry out naturally.  The area isn't the prettiest, but to me it looks like more nourishment for next year.

The unpretty patch of beans:

I pick the pods from the patch:

This is an individual pod, so you can see what it looks like all dried out:

Now, I simply split the pod open.  Please excuse the dirt under my nails as I was out in the garden playing):

These were the fruits (perhaps beans?) of that single pod of labor:

Here were the beans from the rest of my labor (I love the pretty color purple!):

There were some brown beans in the pods.  I removed those, as I thought they didn't look very fertile.  But what do I know.  I may be wrong on this one.  I may also be right.  I have no brown beans.  Experiment and see what works:

I stored the dried beans in an old glass baby food container and will plant them next year.  This task was easy, and relatively quick and really fun.  I will continue to save seeds as the sense of personal satisfaction is HUGE.