For the love of carrots

Garden crafting has been on my mind a lot in the last month. I've watched my own garden struggle in its small space, and have been looking for other sunny areas to expand next year. Crop rotation and more diversity are on my mind. Mother Earth News had an article or two on edible landscapes/estates this year, and the concept really seems like the solution to increase the size of my kitchen garden.

I've grown onions along the driveway before, but that was just one year. That was as close as I've gotten to having an edible front yard. I replaced the veggies with perennials the next year. My perennials are taking more room, little by little, every year. When we moved here in 1999, my goal was to slowly decrease the amount of yard that needed mowing so that there would be less and less maintenance. Oh, I guess the chives count as both perennial and herb.

After I read about edible landscaping, my kids began wood carving class. While shopping for supplies at the Woodsmith Store, I HAD to walk through the garden section. I RESCUED transplants for "I" of GAIN's long-dreamed of herb garden, Thai basil,.and tomato plants from ending their lives prematurely. I had no idea where to put them, so I took only a few plants, but I had to do my part and keep them from perishing in their pots. I also noticed that the end of June meant that all of my town's HyVee Garden Centers were closing out merchandise in order to be gone in a couple weeks. I freed a couple heirloom tomatoes and 4 sweet potato transplants from their plastic pot confines for $1.50 total.

But where to put all those plants? Some of them ended up along the driveway. I'm thinking that this is a handy spot because I can walk out there and not worry about getting muddy feet. The rest were squeezed into the current kitchen garden.

I just finished Suddenly Frugal, by Leah Ingram. The section on 'lasagna gardening' looked like it would be a good way to transition into 2011's garden, while giving me a peek this year as to what the yard will look like. For a lasagna garden, you begin a season (or growing year) before you plant, by putting down damp newspaper, followed by layers of green and brown material. These layers (the lasagna) mellow and you get a nice planting bed once spring arrives. The plot is laid out before plants go in so you can visualize the space. "I" doesn't like change at all, so this is very good for us.

Here are my first photos of a small bed near her flower garden. It will be used for carrots, the only vegetable that she can stand to have there. Not that she eats carrots, but she likes the ferny leaves to play in. Yes, she is a kinesthetic/tactile child.

First, we laid newspaper on the ground, then added compost from our pile in the back yard. We didn't used to filter out sticks in the early days. We leave them out now, because they get in the way when we're retrieving compost from the pile. But we're not keeping out the pine cones. Pine cones will never be totally excluded from the pile because there are too many of them in the trees above to control their input.

I had to take a break after this layer was down. I had to visit a nearby Starbucks. Thank you, Suddenly Frugal for this tip. I knew from an area homeschool momma that businesses might give you their grounds to use in the garden, but the book put Starbucks on my radar. Starbucks recycles their coffee grounds.

This is the bag I was given. It was heavy. Yay for the double sacking.

And it's label was a nice touch.

Typically, the grounds are scooped into silver 5 pound bullet bags and deposited in a bucket near the front door. Calling a few different Starbucks locations showed me that every store handles grounds distribution differently.

"I" had fun with these coffee ground pellets.

Here is layer of coffee grounds on top of the composted material. I'll repeat as needed. Yay for an unflipped photo!

Gardening

My vegetable garden is growing at an OK pace this year. What odd weather we're having!

While I don't have many choices for plot location, I did manage to find homes for eight tomato plants. I have Roma tomatoes in the photo. I'm also growing cherry tomatoes. I thought two of my plants may have blight, but I think only one has it. The blight is not severe

My garlic looks fabulous. When I checked it a week and a half ago, it was not ready to harvest. My onions also look great. I'm not sure what is going on with the squash. The one isolated zucchini is very productive. The two plants on the other side of the house are not. I'm wondering if the bees just do not wander over to the other side because the other one is so easy to reach.

Dinner

Thought I would share part of my daily life. Here you'll see the six small loaves of yummy Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. This rockin' dough consistently gives fabulous results. My plan is to use the grill for baking tonight. I'm finding that I absolutely have to buy flour in 25 lb. bags to supply us with two or three nights of fresh bread, otherwise, I'm at the grocer's every day. And I really don't want to spend time in the store every day. I want to be with my kids outside, at home, in a park, or someplace nicer than a store.

I also spent a few minutes outside picking strawberries. You can only get the very dark ones if you want the true strawberry flavor. Resisting the urge to go nuts and take every red-tinted berry can be hard early in the season, but is a must. Unless you like tart and sour berries. It is very clear that we need to lift and move the berries this year. We cannot easily harvest the majority of the fruit. Finding a safe, protected place is the challenge. I think I have a spot, but there is also the issue of having the bed look nice with other plantings since it is in the front yard.

I hulled and cut some berries for a Rhubarb-Strawberry Crisp. My grandparents graciously supplied the rhubarb last month. Cooking Light supplied the recipe.

After I inquired a couple years ago, my grandpa got permission for the two of us to divide rhubarb from an empty lot near his place. His plants thrive in their morning light each day. Mine poke along in the shady area near my fence.

Here is this last weekend's treat, cupcakes decorated for Pentecost. The strawberry is supposed to look like a tongue of fire because I couldn't get the icing to stand up like flames. Lemonade, not lemons, my darling, lemonade.

Overall, my garden is doing well this week. We had rain for two days. My rain barrels are filled to the brim. The peas showed flowers this week and grew about a foot along the netting. Ella's squash has all come up. Her tomatoes and cukes have not. Half of my squash came up. The six tomato plants from my homeschool friend look great now that they're in the ground. Since my bush beans never had a chance against the slugs, I planted new beans among the lettuces. We'll see what happens.

One of my smaller purple coneflower plants and Ella's (my) miniature rose buds were eaten to the ground last night, but the hellebores from another homeschool friend look solid in their new pots. I am scheduled to get white swan coneflowers and white false indigo through my centraliowaplantbarter next week. I'm trying to get a few strawberry runners to take root in pots. Having small things to monitor in the yard each day has been a pleasure for me.

Wandering in the Garden

I'm very pleased to have my rain barrels full for this dry week. My new transplants and dirty van appreciate the water and washing, I appreciate the price.

My veggies are doing well. I've got peas growing up an unused return net from our softball and baseball days. (It didn't get used much then, either.) This is a new patch of ground. Mr. GAIN and I are the only ones in the house who eat peas.




My potatoes are doing well. Garlic, onion, tomatoes are also in this bed. I have more potatoes in another bed. You can see the compost heaped around the plant -- from the bottom of my cold composting heap.





I can have a lettuce salad soon. I think the unpredictable picture rotation is how blogger shows its love for me. Garlic also in this picture.

I also planted bush beans, but something (I'm thinking slugs) eats the leaves as soon as they emerge. Once the lettuce is finished, I plan to move the bunny fence to protect some pole beans. I have not had good luck with beans in that bed ever. Why did I think this year might be different?


"I" of GAIN decided yesterday in the high heat of the afternoon that she wanted a garden of her own. Tomatoes (free from Campbell Soup), yellow summer squash, and zucchini or cukes (I don't remember which -- has to be the heat). The American Girl books probably inspired her.




Strawberries. We've had one or two berries every day this week, but I expect three cups every day in a couple weeks.







Coreopsis Moonbeam. This grew a little every day this week from tiny stems to what you see here. I could really see growth every day, which was fun for me. Its pale yellow flowers will be a wonderful sight all summer long.






Irises from centraliowaplantexchange, an offshoot of the DMMetroReUseIt Network, run as a yahoo group. I have more in the back yard. I am really trying to develop my back yard and north side yard.

In the shady part of the side yard, I divided some lamium (purple flowers and silver-and-green leaves) and lily of the valley this week. The Solomon's Seal has multiplied nicely (some transplanted from the homeplace and some purchased). The Jack Frost Brunnera (I labored to find it for two years) that was lovely last year has not shown itself yet. I accidentally found its taproot while putting in the lamium -- it appears to be alive but not visible above ground. I am hoping that the plantings will fill in enough by the end of this year to make mowing the area around the window wells unnecessary.

Garden Work

We spent a good share of last week in Lake Delavan, WI at a local resort for a family reunion. I had someone lined up to pick tomatoes and eggplants while we were gone. After a week of neglect, I did some garden maintenance this evening.

First off was the rain barrel. Today was pleasant, not steamy hot. ("Send me back to Wisconsin!" was a thought I had right after we got home.) This evening, I attached the second rain barrel. I think I made three trips to the hardware store last month to get supplies. I used them all tonight, which means that I did not overbuy. Yay for me on that! My set-up looks nice. This will help when we want to do things like wash the car.

Before we left on our trip, we washed our car, the Yankee School Bus, named by "N" of GAIN right after we got it. He was 3 1/2 years old at the time. We traditionally wash the car before a trip. With only collected rainwater, we used about 25 gallons. 3 for sudsy washing water, and the rest hauled in a trash can for rinse water. I have to mention that the kids and I always neglect the roof of the van. I also have to mention that I love to see my kids work. Three of the kids decided to wash their bikes after the van was clean, but I already wrote about that. They used what was leftover from washing the van.

The garden uses at least 6 gallons each day -- 2 for the eggplants, 2 for the edamame, and 2 for the tomatoes. I don't have our third EarthBox set up for anything, otherwise it would take an additional 2 gallons daily. Weekly total water consumption for the garden comes to 36 gallons. Our barrels hold a little less than 55 gallons apiece. (36 + 25 = 61 gallons; 61 > 55) I figure that with two rain barrels, I can wash the van once a week when the barrels are full and water the perennials if I feel like it, on top of watering the garden. I guess I am saying that I have water to spare and I like that.

The next thing I did was have "N" and "I" dig up the onions. They found a couple 'twins,' or onions that looked like they shared roots (which they did). Our yellow onions are currently drying in a Little Tykes wheel barrow. They are small, so I am sure they will not last long. There more to dig, but they are also small.

The last thing I did was a time-consuming chore -- tying the tomato branches up to supports. They have grown by leaps and bounds and outgrew the old support system. "I" and I re-tied a lot of the branches and re-directed them where we could to allow for good air flow. The tomatoes that fell on the ground while we did this are in the picture above. We have three Amish Paste Roma tomato plants and one Sungold cherry tomato plant.