HOME

I watched the film HOME on You Tube the other day and I must say its message is powerful and its cinematography is stunning. It is the work of Yann Arthus-Bertrand. Whatever your level of commitment is to living and eating sustainably, this movie will offer new insights, not just through its narrative, but through the power of its images. Yann takes us above our home planet just high enough for us to see it in a new way ... to love it in a new way ... to commit to it with renewed focus. And in the process you fall in love all over again.

Check it out here:

An hour and a half is a big chunk out of your day ... so take it in 30 minute chunks ... oh and don't forget to watch the credits ... they are beautiful visuals of the countries of the world. Here is the image for the Netherlands.And here is the link to the follow-up website http://www.goodplanet.org/en/

Hey Hey

Up 30 degrees in one day !!! Not bad. Just for fun I took the thermometer over to the pile of fresh grass clippings.Now THIS is cooking !!! I am tempted to wrap a fish in aluminum foil and cook it in here !!

Compost ~ OR~ POST.com

I used this morning to energize my compost operation that takes kitchen scraps.I began by turning out a wheelbarrow full half-digested garbage.Next I sprinkled some compost activator and wetted down the pile with a hose. I repeated that process as I returned the contents of the wheelbarrow to the bin stopping to sprinkle more magic dust and wet it down along the way.Finally I stuck my new compost thermometer in the pile to get a baseline temperature reading. A measly 72 degrees. Let's see what tomorrow brings

The beanstalk

I hauled the two rustic bean trellises I had made out of the cellar and went to work planting climbing beans. One trellis will be sporting Vermont Cranberry Beans and the other a mixture of Scarlet Runner Beans and Lynch Speckled Butter Beans."Ah! You don't know what these beans are," said the man. "If you plant them overnight, by morning they grow right up to the sky."

"Really?" said Jack. "You don't say so."

Learning from Friends

My friend Marianne expanded her garden this year. It is filled with rich composted soil and a large part of it is dedicated to growing pumpkins for the grandkids big pumpkin carving party next fall. The fence is adequately tall to keep out the deer. She is using little collars on all of her tender seedlings to protect from cutworm, she has light row cover on her carrots and her greens, and the tomatoes are toasty cozy in their wall-o-waters.She is going to try to harvest corn from this garden. That is its only flaw in my opinion. Sure she can grow corn. We can all grow corn. She can grow it right up to harvest ... but I guarantee the raccoons are going to use that fence like a ladder once the corn is ripe and human harvest will remain illusive.

But what a miracle to share with grandkids ... who cares if the raccoons get there first.

Garlic and Sweet Potatoes

My garlic crop is coming along nicely. The hardnecks are putting up scapes and all the plants look green and healthy. It is hard to believe that NOW is the time to order for next year ... but it is. In fact, Filaree Farm is already out of Montana Giant and Youghiogheny Purple for planting this fall.

I have a little plan for maximizing garden space this summer.Inside my softnecked garlic bed I have interplanted sweet potato slips. The theory is that the garlic will be harvested BEFORE any growth would have taken place below ground. Then I leave the bed to the sweet potato vines, drown them regularly in Bobbex to keep the deer away and harvest my sweet potatoes just before I need to plant next year's garlic crop.

Tomatoes

Because I will be gone for a big chunk of July, I have given over more of the garden to root crops this year. This has cut down on the space for tomatoes. Nonetheless, I do have 24 plants in the ground. Here in no particular order:

Better Boy (8) - These plants always are reliable producers.

Costolutto Genovese (4) - These are wonderful looking tomatoes and often produce early fruit

Costolutto Genovese (2007)

Red Brandywine (4) - These are probably the most finicky of the plants I have chosen this year. I hope the calcium I added to their compost will help me avoid blossom drop.

Big Zac (4) - These are taste wonderful and at least two of the plants I will dedicate to producing a "biggest tomato" contestant for the Fair.

Sweet Millions (4) - I didn't grow cherry tomatoes last year, and I MISSED them. THey are already showing fruit.

Apples

I have not had a very good track record as an orchard keeper. The winter moth infestation of a few years ago set my little trees back considerably. But I have always been intrigued by apples especially after reading Michael Pollan's Botany of Desire. I wish that I could indulge in those mysterious apple varieties that you read about in the Fedco Tree Catalogue, but I am in a region FILLED with red cedars and must draw my varieties from those few varieties resistant to cedar apple rust.

So I decided this year I would get some help with my trees. I turned to a little kit provided by Garden's Alive designed to help renovate lagging apple trees. It is on the pricey side, but I bought it on one of their dead of winter "25% off today" offers. It consists of all the organic fertilizer and pest treatments I will need for at least two seasons. I began in late April with weeding and fertilizing. Then I followed the little sheet that came with the kit. The results have been pretty stunning. God bless the bees ... they found me during blossom time and rewarded me with copious fruit which I have thinned back considerably.

And we have FRUIT !!!

Once a Day Challenge

OK I am trying to get back in the blogging saddle here. But as we all well know this time of year there is LOTS to say and no time to write it. BUT I will commit to a post a day for the next week. And I will start with an update on the artichokes. They did NOT successfully overwinter in the Wall-o-Waters. It was a particularly brutal winter here.

When I dug up the bed to plant this years seedlings I pulled out a HUGE root system that was dead a doornail. Here it is posing on the top of my gate.

And here are this year's seedlings in their new bed. I planted the annual variety of Green Globe this year BECAUSE I waited too long to order and couldn't get he perennial varieties.

Aromas

I'm sure it has happened to you . You are walking through your yard, or standing in your garden and the breeze carries a wonderful aroma up your nose. FOr me it is like hearing a twig snap. I turn quickly to see where the smell is coming from . THis was happening many times last week. I would survey the landscape and see NOTHING nearby that could carry such a wonderful fragrance. It is too early for wild roses ... too early for autumn olives ... the apple trees are too far away ...

After about the third day of this I went investigating the perimeter of the garden and found the source of this wonderful aroma.

BLUEBERRIES in flower. Who would have thought?

(scratch and sniff?)

Decisions, Decisions

It happens every year. The tomato plants under lights are WAY too leggy and the weather is just not ready for putting them out. I TRIED to exercise restraint this year on the tomatoes ... I only have 24 ... but that still requires a large portion of the garden. So as I look at the beds remaining after potatoes and tomatoes go in and I am left with 7 beds ... mostly the smaller 4x4s . I have shallots that have to go in, and there are sweet potato slips yet to come in the mail. And there are the pole beans ... Vermont Cranberry, Lynch Speckled Butter Beans, and I have to have SOME green beans. And how about the Raven Zucchini and Butternut Squash I have started?My friend Chris said to me once that she had heard a good piece of advice about such dilemmas ... maybe from Martha Stewart ... and it was to only plant in your garden things that were expensive in the grocery store .... or in a summer market ... or only plant things you could not GET at market or at a grocery store.

Well if I went by THAT theory then I would FILL my garden with French Melons. And, actually, I am considering that. I have about 8 healthy starter plants, and I COULD start some more from my magic seed jar. They brought me such joy last summer.

Happy Mother's Day

...they have eyes but they do not have faces ...

The potato problem

I over ordered potatoes this year. Somehow I FORGOT that I had ordered from FEDCO ... 2 pounds of Yellow Finns. Then one Sunday morning I found potatogarden.com and as if in a trance I ordered pounds more of Bison, German Butter Ball, Adora and more Yellow Finns. And I don't even really LIKE potatoes. I mean they are fun to to harvest, but it is after all a white carb.

So I decided I would relegate the majority of the potatoes to what is becoming the darkest bed in my garden AND I would resurrect the "potato bin." Held together by screws and wing nuts the potato bin is designed to use vertical space to grow this crop. I have had varying degrees of success with it over the years. One year I pulled out over 100 potatoes. Another year, I used soil that was too rich and got hardly any potatoes at all.

... and I only have eyes for you

Signs of Spring

an abundance of wild watercress

a trellis waiting for peas

daffodils

and an asparagus eye view of the world

The Annual Seedlings Pilgrimage

This year's trip to Bath County took me to Milmont Nursery in Stuar's Draft, VA. There were ample selections of some of my favorites including Big Zac and Boxcar Willie. But in the end I opted for more reliable types like Better Boy. And last year I did not plant any cherry tomoatoes and quite frankly I missed them. So I put some Sweet 100's into the pile along with some French Sorrrel and some pineapple sage.

Since it rained most of the time during my stay at the Farm we ended up going for lunch at the Greenbriar Hotel. Here are a few of the scenes from inside this remarkably grand hotel.On my return trip home I wended my way through the back roads of Augusta County in search of Joel Salatin's Polyface Farm. The countryside is rolling and the roads get narrower and narrower the deeper in you travel. But through some bit of luck and helpful directions I came upon the sign for Polyface Farm. I clattered about for some time encountering nothing but the animals. Just when I was about to give up on the chance to buy a chicken or two, I spied two of the apprentices. "Hi there. I was beginning to think the animals ran this farm all by themselves" I said. "That's how we like to think it works," replied one of the young men.I was then taken into the room outfitted with various freezers. I bought two chickens and a skirt steak and while they were writing me up I asked about their marketing operation. They have given up on the Farmer's Markets and work through a direct drop arrangement with buying clubs. You place your order online a week in advance and then arrive with your cooler and a check at the appointed drop point on the appointed day.It was a real treat to be on the farm that has served as a compass for so many enlightened farmers.
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Earthday: An April Project

I have decided to make it a point to shift to electronic communications whenever possible from now on, and in honor of Earth Day I am choosing April as my turnaround month. If I had thought ahead I would have weighed all the bills, stock annual reports, and quarterly statements that came piling in through the mail slot this month and then done another weigh in next April.

The corporate world is trying to help us do this. If you own any of these stocks, you can sign up through eTree and get a tree planted at the same time you sign up to eliminate paper correspondence.

Nearly any bill you receive will have an offer to sign up for electronic notification. If you pay your bills online like I do, this makes perfects sense. Take a closer look at it this month. Oh, and don't forget, you can file your income tax electronically as well.

These are choice WE can make.

Growing Artichokes

I had an excellent germination rate on these "Green Globe Improved" artichokes from Reimer Seeds. These were planted a month ago and just now are showing true leaves. I transplanted them to 4 inch pots and am keeping them in a sunny window.

In past years my artichoke seedlings have succumbed to some kind of wilt, so I was very careful to keep them mostly dry and to let them get their moisture from the bottom of their APS trays. But I think this "improved" variety might also be responsible.

Last year I started two northern climate hardy varieties "Emerald" and "Northern Star". I acquired them from Peter's Seeds which is currently out of the "Northern Star".

Stay tuned for reports on how last year's attempt at over wintering went. Estimated date of arrival at my garden gate .... April 19.

Plant stands

I have been looking for a tiered plant stand arrangement. I finally decided on this set of nested stands from Gardener's Supply. Easy to assemble, handsome and sturdy.