The Pleasures of the Table - Organic Vegetable Gardening

Asparagus in my garden

Last night as we sat down to dinner, I realized that everything on the plate, with the exception of the thinly sliced and broiled pork loin, was grown in my garden. Organic asparagus...mashed potatoes and turnips...even the water I sipped came from the well outside my door.

What a difference in taste, texture, pleasure. A feast for the eyes and the senses.

The asparagus is growing quite nicely, so we tentatively snapped a few spears last night to steam for supper. The turnips and potatoes were harvested last year and kept in cold storage. I peel them, cube them, boil and mash them with a bit of butter. And that's it.

No artificial anything...no waxes on the turnips, no sprays or irradiation on the potatoes, no pesticides on the asparagus.

Food. Real food.

Potatoes in storage.

Sometimes I feel like we've forgotten the pleasures of the table. The slow food movement, the organic movement, the this or that movement. It's really just about food. Plain old, healthy, close to the earth food.  This is what I ate growing up. My mother made a meat, a potato and a vegetable. We couldn't grow potatoes, but if we could, we grew the vegetables and in the summer there was always a salad of home-grown lettuce and tomatoes. Considering I grew up not far from Queens, New York, and our backyard was around 10 feet by 20 feet, I think my parents did quite well growing what they could.

Beautiful home-grown turnips.

But our grandparents generation did even better. They knew how to grow, and can, and preserve food. I'm learning all of that slowly but surely. For the past five years, I've experimented with this or that. I taught myself how to can using the water bath canner from my husband's great-grandmother and the new steam canner he bought me for Christmas. I've had miserable failures (the pickled carrots are still slow-going, and the dried beans are still sitting in the pantry waiting a recipe) but I've also had successes. Pickled peppers and beets are delicious. My canned green beans rival any store bought cans.

I've taught myself how to grow potatoes, onions, sweet potatoes and garlic. I've had spectacular garden failures - terrible watermelons and cantaloupes, and if another cucumber beetle invasion gets my squashes, I have to just give up and buy them at the farmer's market.

But on nights like last night, when I stopped, fork poised over my plate, looking down at fresh vegetables grown not 20 feet from the kitchen, I am truly thankful for the gift of plants. For the ability to garden. For fresh air, and soil, and water, and the miraculous alchemy of sun that transforms seed into dinner.

The pickled carrots aren't great, but the beets? Wonderful.

Strawberries in October and Other Tales and Tails

Photo by Jeanne Grunert

 It's almost Halloween, and here I am, picking strawberries in October! I planted everbearing strawberries, and they sure do live up to their name. I actually get two substantial crops from the organic strawberry patch. The first crop in May is the largest. One 4' x 8' bed of strawberries produced several quarters of berries.  In the fall, we probably pick two pints at most. But it's a lovely sweet treat while you're busy pulling weeds or pulling up spent plants to reach over to the strawberry bed and pop a berry in your mouth. I just have to be careful of hornets, wasps and yellow jackets. In the spring, they aren't too bad, but at this time of year they swarm over any berry they can.  I've been stung picking strawberries in the fall and it's not fun at all!

We're still picking green beans, and I have enough to tackle another round of canning tomorrow. I've canned about 20 pints of green beans this fall. They are a bit time consuming to clean and chop, but very easy to complete once they're in the pressure canner.

As for tomatoes, I think these were the last of the garden tomatoes. The plants are mostly dead, or so straggly they aren't producing.  I picked two large tomatoes today and will enjoy every last, savory drop on a tomato sandwich tomorrow.

Tomatoes and green beans. Photo by Jeanne.

Turnips...beautiful and delicious. Photo by Jeanne.

The turnips were ready, so we harvested about half of them. Some people really dislike their strong taste, but to me, they're a taste of fall. Here's a hint if you dislike the taste of turnips:  boil an equal ratio of turnip and potato, then mash it with butter and a bit of milk. Serve with a pat of butter on top and a sprinkle of pepper. The potato gives it a better consistency and takes some of the bitterness out.

We've cleaned the sweet potatoes and packed them into baskets in the cellar. Any that were split down the skin I packed into bags for the refrigerator. We have about a third of the yield we achieved in 2010, much smaller by comparison. I think the heat and drought in June and July, followed by moderate temperatures and more rainfall in August and September, caused the low yield and high rate of cracks, but I could be wrong. It's another thing for me to investigate.

My garden "helpers" today.

What a gorgeous fall day it is today.  The new kittens helped me garden.  We found three more kittens in the woods in September and adopted them as our barn cats.  So we've added to the menageries Shy Boy (gray and white tabby), Groucho (black and white tabby with a Groucho Marx-style marking, like a moustache, under his nose) and Whitey, who is - surprise! - white with a gray tail.  Whitey has blue eyes, which are unusual in older cats.  All three are healthy and love to garden with me.  Here they are, "helping" me with the sweet potatoes.

I'm looking forward to the winter, though.  It's sad at this time of year. My father in law passed away about two weeks ago, and I miss him in the garden. At this time of year, Jack would help me by picking all the marigold seeds he could. We'd pack them into clean coffee cans to store for the winter. Jack liked to garden. I will always remember him thanks to the iris that smell like grape soda pop.  Jack carried them from New York to Virginia in a plastic grocery bag on his lap just for me.  The marigolds are descendants from seeds from his mother's garden, and he will forever be known for his marigolds. And I will keep up the tradition of planting sunflowers along the southern side of the house. They will always remind me of him.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

The Tenacity of Broccoli

Yes, broccoli.

I went out to the compost pile this morning to throw the remains of breakfast - grapefruit rinds, pear cores, and a really awful orange that tasted like dry carpet fibers - into the pile. I discovered that the broccoli plants we'd composted over a month ago had continued to grow.  Mind you, the roots are waving in the air, there's no soil on the roots, and we chopped the main crown of florets off.  Oh, but broccoli doesn't care.  It produced a whole new crop of broccoli crowns along the thick trunk-like stem.  Despite several hard frosts, despite the fact that the compost pile sits under a dense stand of pine trees, despite no soil....I'm not quite sure how the darned thing did it, but it did it. It produced another crop for me.  And I picked it, and it's sitting soaking in cold water until I can eat it for lunch.

Have you ever met anything more generous in the natural world than plants?  Anything more amazing?

Even a broccoli can awe you if you look at it a certain way.

Beneficial Insects and Organic Gardening

Part of the fun of organic gardening is getting to know your neighbors - beneficial insects. Because organic gardening practices include the use of natural methods to control problems and boosting soil fertility, insects love organic gardens. Most of the time, beneficial insects visit my garden.  Today I took some beneficial insects pictures out in the vegetable garden and in the little cottage garden next to the shed. The praying mantis has been frightening me on the porch every day.  He lurks on the door frame or right over your head as you step onto the porch. Then he turns his head and fixes you with a beady eye, moving his 'praying' hands as if clapping. I don't know whether he's cheering me on or being sarcastic that I'm out walking the dog again.  I give him a wider berth.

Let me introduce you to the beneficial insects I met in my organic garden and around Seven Oaks....

Argiope aurantia

Meet Argiope aurantia...the black and yellow garden spider. (She is also referred to as a St. Andrews Cross spider because of the black markings on her body.) She is HUGE. I made her acquaintance while reaching for some ripe tomatoes in the garden. I stuck my hand into the tomato bed, leaned forward...and my face was about six inches away from good old Argiope aurantia. I let out a squeak, slowly closed my hand around the tomato, and backed out.  The web was torn and she seemed agitated, possibly thinking she had some good, juicy prey.  After that, I picked tomatoes all around the center of the bed. She made her large web between several plants in the center of the bed. She can have those tomatoes.  Yes, my dear, you can have all the room you want....

She is about four inches long and hangs upside down in her web. My tomatoes have been amazingly bug-free this year. So thank you, Argiope.

The other day my husband grabbed the basket we use to collect garden veggies and headed out to the garden to pick tomatoes. I said to him, "Watch out for the bed of beefsteak tomatoes; we've got a really big spider there." He sort of made a face at me. He knows I'm a little afraid of spiders. I think he thought I was exaggerating. I smiled to myself and kept working in the kitchen. A few minutes later, I heard a muffled exclamation float in through the kitchen windows, "Holy cow!"  I looked out and my hubby was circling the tomato bed, peering at the spider, gently touching the web, just as fascinated as I was by her large yellow and black striped self.

She's so big, she's become like a pet.  She's a great beneficial insect!

 

This spider is tricky. I found him or her this morning on the zinnias in front of the garden shed. I wanted to snap photos of the big zinnias since the flowers are really beautiful right now.  As I looked through the camera's view finder, I realized there was a big white spider with a large round abdomen hiding among the petals.  I took two pictures, and then moved on to another zinnia. Imagine my surprise when I found several tiny yet similar spiders on that zinnia. I won't be picking flowers from that garden bed any time soon to bring into the house, that's for sure. There were baby spiders jumping all over the zinnia flowers.

Does anyone know what kind of spider this is? There were no webs near the zinnias.

Praying mantis or Preying mantis

This guy thinks he's moved into my house. Every fall, we get at least one praying mantis on either the front or the back porch who hangs out in a place where we can watch him quite easily.  This year, it's the front porch. You're looking up at the ceiling of my porch where the praying mantis decided to perch today. He's about four inches long with a beautifully mottled green and brown body.  When I walk near him in the mornings, he moves his front legs up as if clapping, and swivels his head around, fixing me with those frightening insectile eyes they have. 

Among all the beneficial insects in the garden, I'm fascinated the most by the praying mantis.  They seem both graceful and deadly, moving with precision and speed that often surprises me. I know why this particular beneficial insects has chosen my front porch for his hunting grounds. We have one of the doorbells that glows at night, and it attracts moths. By hanging over the doorbell area, he snags many flying insects each night.

Don't be afraid of the bugs in the garden. When my little nephew was here, all he wanted to do was kill bugs. His parents had taught him "all bugs are bad" and Billy the Exterminator is one of his favorite shows.  When we walked around the garden, I had to stop him from stomping bees, spiders, praying mantis and lady bugs.  I hope he remembered that some bugs are his friends, and not all bugs are bad.

A Full Pantry of Fresh Organic Vegetables

Let me see a show of hands. (Peering out at my reading audience...).

How many people feel a great sense of satisfaction when the pantry is full of fresh, home-grown organic vegetables? When you see rows of canning jars neatly lined up and labeled, or a freezer full of labeled bags of fresh produce? A kitchen table groaning under the weight of garden produce?

Isn't it a great feeling to know where your food is coming from?

Not everyone agrees with me. I've met people who think it's stupid to grow your own food. They think, "Why would I want to do that when I can just run to the supermarket and buy whatever I want when I want it?"

They have a point. Right now we are picking pounds of tomatoes a day, peppers, eggplants...and some green beans.  The onions and potatoes are harvested, dried and stored in the cool dark basement. I've got 16 pints of canned beets and another two dozen or more beets still in the garden. Today I'm stopping off to buy some freezer containers for carrots because I have a huge garden bed full of them, and I plan to plant more seeds today to try to get another crop in this fall.

I've been eating tomato sandwiches and tomato salads for lunch every day, followed by squash and eggplant at dinner.  So I can see their point.

Yet I still feel quite a sense of accomplishment when I walk into the kitchen and see my giant metal chef's mixing bowl, pictured here, filled with vegetables.  I actually have two big bowls now on the kitchen counter filled with organic vegetables from the garden. In the pantry, the current tally is 16 pints of pickled beets, 8 half pints of dill pickles, and 6 pints of pickled peppers. Today I will add more peppers to the mix, since they don't freeze well for me. In the basement, I have over 30 pounds of potatoes stored, enough onions for the winter, and garlic from the crop almost two years ago, plus sweet potatoes leftover and still keeping nicely from last fall's harvest.

Last year, I calculated that the sweet potatoes alone saved me a bundle of money. I spent $16 on the sweet potato "slips" or plants and the harvest was well over 70-80 pounds of sweet potatoes; at $1 a pound, the very cheapest you'll find them, that's still considerable savings.  This year, the potatoes alone are making me sit up and notice the money-saving benefits.  I spent $2.50 on the seed potatoes and got a bag of Yukon Gold seed potatoes from our friends, Mel and Joan. I have about 30 pounds of potatoes now stored in the basement. How much would that cost me? Well right now potatoes are going for $5.99 for a 10 pound sack. You can do the math...

Beets are $1 a can, and a can is less than a pint.  My 16 pints of pickled beets are probably worth $16 - $32, yet I spent $1.79 on the seed package.

So there you have it.  Oh and another benefit? The other day I was wearing a sleeveless top for the first time in years. It was really hot and I was wearing a tank top and shorts. I was sitting in the living room reading a book, and the television screen was off. It caught my reflection and I realized that I had actually developed some muscles in my arms! I have definition in my upper arms now thanks to lifting, digging, pushing a wheelbarrow and a lawn mower and carrying those heavy pails of gravel.  I have also lost a little weight since May, thanks to the extra walks I have been taking as well as all the gardening. Oh, and those tomatoes for lunch every day!

Truly, can you beat gardening? The benefits are amazing.  And every time I walk into my kitchen and see the fresh vegetables, I feel all happy inside.

Organic Gardening for Lazy Gardeners

One of the funniest reactions I get from people when they learn I use organic gardening methods is a wide-eyed, incredulous state.  "But," they ask, "Doesn't that take more time?  Isn't it harder to do?"

I've actually found it to be the opposite - the few times I've resorted to conventional gardening methods, whether it's pesticides or fertilizers, I get so mixed up with chemical names, numbers, warnings and cautions that I end up one big befuddled mess and I give up and go back to nature's way.

Nature makes things easy. Look at this way; if plants have survived over the thousands and thousands of years since the Earth was formed, don't you think they're tough enough to get along without mankind's chemistry set?  Add manure, add compost, and you're done.  Plant stuff that grows well together. Water it.  Done.  Insects? A little trickier, but there are things you can do without dumping stuff that will eventually kill you along with the insects onto the soil.

Yes, it's true that you might get an apple with a worm in it, or a lettuce leaf nibbled by slugs. One organic gardener I know just shrugs and says, "Well, what do I do about that? I plant a bit more for them, you see."

Now that's what I love about organic gardening!

Here is my latest article on organic gardening.  It offers very basic tips. Someone said I gave her courage this week to plant a little herb garden and boy did that comment make me feel good, like I was accomplishing part of the reason why God put me on this Earth with an obsession for plants.  I want everyone who wants to garden but who is afraid to do it or uncertain to know it and love it and just feel joyful and happy about it.  So read my little essay, try a few things, and let me know how you're doing.  Have fun and get your hands dirty!

New article: The Lazy Gardener's Guide to Organic Gardening

A New Use for Kale

I like kale.  I really do. Which made it all the worse when I found a large package of it at a super low price at Kroger, the local supermarket, and brought it home in January.  And then it sat in my crisper drawer...and sat...and I forgot it was there. Until the smell began.  Faint at first. Then growing ever more persistent until I was forced to open the crisper drawer and discovered..."adventures in indoor composting."

So my latest use for kale; direct composting!

My tomatoes each year so far in the Virginia garden have blossom end rot.  That's usually a signal that calcium and other trace minerals are lacking from the soil.  Well, kale is high in calcium, right?

So I dug a big trench down the center of the raised bed, held my nose, opened the huge bag of now inedible kale, and poured that whole mess right into the vegetable bed.  A quick scoop of soil later and the kale was buried in an unmarked grave.  And I, hopefully, have discovered a new use for kale - food for my tomatoes!

Organic Weed and Pest Control Through Soil Sterilization

Please enjoy my latest organic gardening article -

Organic Weed and Pest Control Through Soil Sterilization

I'm actually using big sheets of newspaper on the garden paths in the flower garden to the same effect. While not sterilizing the soil, it is starving the weeds of light, and preventing germination until we can get the landscape fabric, pebbles and stepping stones to that particular potion of the pathway. I plan to try solar sterilization next year on sections that right now are lost to weeds.

Weeds, weeds, weeds....seems like I'm always in a battle with them!

My Blaze Climbing Rose

My Blaze climbing rose has finally begun blooming! Last year, I had one sickly looking blossom. My makeshift pine tree branch support tee pee has done its job beautifully. In March I hammered branches into the ground and then used twine to gently train the Blaze to grow against the support. The result is an interesting pyramid form in the garden and nodding scarlet blossoms. The scent is just lovely, a soft rose perfume that was a delight as we worked today in the flower garden, finishing the cement work on the walkways.  The walls around the butterfly garden, the rose garden, and the main pathway are finished, as is the rock wall that will now keep the hillside in place. One short wall and one long wall to finish and my long-awaited pathways can be finished. I tell you, laying down weed barrier fabric beats laying down a red carpet anyday!

When I was little, my mom had two Blaze roses climbing a trellis next to the garage. I loved those roses but they were sacrificed when my dad used the garage wall as the fourth wall of his greenhouse.  I have heard the rose hails from the 1930's, but a quick look online didn't turn up anything more than sales pages.

If you look very carefully, you can see more red peeking up from the miniature rose bush at Blaze's feet.  I bought these Valentine's Day leftovers at Lowe's.  They weren't in flower and were missing tags, but for $2 who's going to argue?  They started blooming this weekend - all red.  Now I will have a shower of red roses in that corner of the garden!

Random Bits & 20 Pounds of Carrots

Random bits of what I've been up to this weekend.

Picked the rest of the organic carrots. We've grown about 20 pounds or more from a 99 cent package of seeds from Lowe's. The carrots are amazing...sweet, straight (for the most part) and just yummy. I planted the seeds and did nothing else the entire growing season. Just let the carrots alone. I did plant catnip heavily in the area, which may have helped keep the bugs at bay. The carrot patch was 4' x 4' and we grew over 20 pounds without one single pesticide, chemical fertilizer, or special anything. I will do another post on the specifics of growing these yummy organic carrots later this week.




Loved this carrot. It's perfectly braided. It just grew that way. Leave it to a gardener to take pictures of a crazy carrot!







Now what to DO with all those carrots? Five pounds are in the fridge. Later today I will blanch and freeze more. To blanch the carrots, cut off the ends, peel, and slice into coins. Boil water and make sure it is in a good rolling boil. Fill a metal pan with ice cold water and ice. Place the carrots into the boiling hot water and boil for 2-3 minutes. Drain and quickly immerse them into the ice water. I leave them there a few minutes, drain, pat with paper towels, and pour into zip-lock freezer bags. Label, date and DONE - they pop right into the chest freezer in the pantry.


I went around the garden and checked on all the volunteer seedlings. There are over a dozen buddleia (Butterfly Bush) babies. A few I will dig up and move, and some will be potted up as gifts for my gardening neighbors. I took these photos in anticipation of another blog post this week on Garden Volunteers, Part 2. This silly white petunia is growing in the gravel in my driveway. What's astonishing is that I didn't plant ANY white petunias this year - this is a seed from last year's bed of petunias, grown about five feet further down the driveway, that somehow blew upwind, found its way into the driveway gravel, and decided over a year later to sprout. Amazing!




What else did I do this weekend? Let's see...


I cleaned the house top to bottom. No photos of that, I'm afraid. But we snapped this picture of Pierre examing Hubby's new 3-volume set of Tolstoy. I guess he thinks Russian literature is a "must-read" for cats.

• I took photos of the herb garden...hoping to do a new series on the herbs I am growing, particularly GROWING STEVIA. Yes, I grow my own, dry it and voila - natural sweetener. More on this one coming soon!
  
• We went shopping, stocked up on groceries and I checked out the new fabric store at Miller's Country store. And joy oh joy - they have quilting supplies, cross stitch kits, AND the ladies will do alterations to your clothes. Thank you ladies for opening a real old-fashioned sewing store!
• And now I am off to church to sing with the choir at 10:30. Today is the church picnic and I may stop by. Sometimes I feel funny because everyone else is with family and it's just me, but I will play it by ear and just see how I feel....
• ...and later today, blanching more carrots, green beans, and baking CARROT MUFFINS. Recipe will go up when it turns out good; I downloaded this one from Cooks.com, and I want to try it before I recommend it.

Enjoy your day, everyone!

My New Organic Gardening Column!

I will now be contributing a weekly column about organic gardening to RawPeople. The column will appear on their website and in their monthly newsletter. I am so excited!

I've got a logo and everything! Check it out - this means I've finally arrived, right?







Hubby says my head is going to get so big I won't be able to fit through the garden gate anymore. Which is impossible living with him. He keeps my feet on the ground when excitement threatens to float me out the door like a helium balloon.

Lest you think I am getting too big for my Wellies....my gardening disasters are legion:

• The coreopsis that are slowly taking over everywhere....
• The Crepe Myrtle seeds that grew into the coreopsis that are taking over everywhere...
• Watching all my squash get wiped out by squash beetles
• Planting WAY too many turnips. Good gracious, how many can one family actually eat? I can't even give them away.
• The shade garden that wasn't in shade. Oops.

There are probably many more that I can't think of right now. I'm sure, however, that nature will continue to keep me humble.

I'll post links to my column here, so you can pop over and comment. Please feel free to email me at jeanne grunert at dishmail dot net with suggestions for topics. The focus will be on growing organic edibles, but I'll probably talk a bit about flowers. Got to feed your soul along with your body with some beauty, you know what I mean?

The Vegetables are Coming

The vegetables are coming! Thick and fast and organic and wonderful. I've frozen three gallons of chard and spinach and just dried a pint's worth of oregano. I have been cooking up vegetarian dinners of chard, garlic and olive oil topped pasta that are so heavenly I crave more. Raw salads are the order of the day for lunch.





Here's an update:

• The corn is knee high. Our friends the Hertzlers tell us that crows ate so many of their corn seed that they had to replant it and they lost a lot, but although I've seen crows studying the corn they didn't touch ours yet. (hope I didn't jinx myself here) (but I don't believe in jinxes!)
  
• The cauliflower has actually started producing heads! I had huge leaves and no cauliflower, but I've never grown it before and I thought I was doing something wrong. Nope. It just takes a long time to develop.
• The tomatoes are all about 10 inches tall. Peppers are thriving. The eggplants look terrible! Something is eating the leaves, plus the cold snap in May really stunted them. Cucumbers have revived.
  
• The basils, rosemary, parsley, dill, chamomile, sage, chives, thyme, peppermint, stevia and sweet woodruff are growing like weeds! I have another tray of oregano sun drying on the porch.
• Onions are almost ready!
• The blueberry bush that died LIVES! It came back to life and now sports four jaunty leaves.
• Watermelons, cantalopes, squashes...they have lovely little leaves. Did you know that Moon & Stars Watermelon has green leaves with yellow specks, just like the fruits do? I didn't know that. I thought mine was sick until a gardening friend reminded me that the fruit looks like that too!
• Beets are beeting...they're about the size of golf balls now! The Bulls Blood beets, a Victorian heirloom, is much more robust than the Golden Beets.
• Turnips are turniping...they're also about the size of marbles right now.
  
• We planted green bean seeds...not up yet.

Yes, I'll get out and take pictures this week. I'm late on my flower garden progress report too! But I've been swamped with work....trying to find more freelance work takes time too.

Happy Wednesday!

May Showers Also Bring Flowers

Thanks to all who sent me such kind notes. My readers are the best on the planet. Really. So are all my buddies on Facebook who actually read this stuff when it feeds over onto my notes page. I really appreciate your kind wishes and I know the people on my prayer list appreciate the prayers.

After 10 days without rain, we were SO happy to see those dark clouds piling up this weekend. It's been an intermittent, rain-like-crazy cloud burst followed by humid gloom few days, but the garden plants grew inches overnight. John and I walked the orchard today. He measures the baby trees against himself to see how they grew. Two pear tree shot up another few inches, and the apricot tree is over the top of its protective cage. Best of all, the tiny plums are growing bigger! I can almost taste them...yum...fresh plums!

I've been picking strawberries like mad and today noticed that all the plants have set runners. I hope I left enough room for them. Jack (John's dad who lives with us) made strawberry jello, which I hate, which is good because then I won't be tempted by the sugar. But he added sliced strawberries to it and there was enough left over (sans disgusting Jello) for a nice fresh snack for me.

The broccoli rabe has set seed for good, so I've got to pull it out. I've tried cutting it way down, hoping to get another crop of the stems and leaves. It's so delicious when you saute it with some butter and garlic. But it just grows flower stalks and sets seed. The spinach came roaring back after I froze about two gallons of the stuff last weekend, so I have a feeling I'll be back in the kitchen putting up more vegetables in the freezer.

The flower garden...oh I cannot stop looking at it. We planted wisteria against the woods and I can see them from my office. There will be a wall of purple flowers some day. Snapdragons hiding from last year are now peeking up over the evening primrose and along the pathway. In the butterfly garden, the Butterfly Weed and Monarda just burst into bloom. We've had brilliant yellow and blue butterflies when the rain stops, and lots of brown ones too. I squeezed in a lantana and hope it soars up into the giant bush I had last year; boy did the butterflies love it!

Today's photo is actually from the butterfly garden and shows off some beautiful nepeta (Cat Mint) and Salvia.

Garden Update

The rains finally came, and the garden is watered. It's a good gardening rain too - the kind that stops and starts, giving the earth time to soak up the rainfall, pause, then take another drink.

Because of the rains, we haven't worked outside since Saturday. The first draft of my gardening book for beginners went to two writer friends yesterday to critique, and also to one of my former editors who's agreed to edit it. I am very thankful for everyone's time and feedback before it is published later this month!

All of the tomato plants are in and most of the peppers. I was hoping to hide from hubby how many pepper seedlings I had (I admit, I went a little nuts this year planting them and I have yet another flat sort of hidden in the basement, if you can hide something under grow lights) but he immediately saw how many there were. I reassured him we can freeze the peppers and he looked relieved. Actually, there's nothing that conjures memories of the garden like taking a bag of homegrown peppers out of the freezer on a cold January night to make pepper steak or stir fry.

So the tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, acorn squash, spaghetti squash and cucumber plants are in. I planted sweet corn seeds and watermelon seeds. I've also put in two cantaloupe plants. The herbs too are all in, except for the peppermint, which needs a bit more time in the house. I've got tons of basil, cinnamon basil, dill, chives, oregano, rosemary, sage, parsley, lavender, thyme, and calendula all over the garden. I like to plant herbs all around the vegetables.

And lastly, the big news from the weekend working in the vegetable garden: the blueberry bushes LIVE! I was going to pull them out of the fruit garden to make room for more cantaloupes, but suddenly I spied new leaves growing from the brown stem. Hurray! I left both bushes in the fruit bed, hoping they will both make a return.

The carrots, turnips, and beets are all thriving, and yesterday I harvested my first fresh salad right from the garden. Lettuce, spinach, and rashes went right from the garden to the sink to my salad bowl. The spinach was melt-in-your mouth good, not a hint of bitterness like store bought spinach.

I'd better start eating more salads. Yesterday we took both pets to the vet for their annual checkups. And while both got clean bills of health and we got some nice praise from Dr. Gates for our well cared for pets, little Pierre is no longer little Pierre. That darn cat is now 15 pounds! So he's on a diet, and Shadow has to watch her waistline too. Now it's me, Shadow AND Pierre all on diets.

So more salad and bike riding for me...and a little cutback in the crunchies for kitty....and no more cookies for Shadow.

The Radishes are Here

It's official. Today I harvested our first-ever-crop! Ta-da! 100% organic, with some insect bites out of the leaves to prove it.

I planted the radish seeds on March 23. At the left are the red globe radishes called "Cherry Bomb." On the right, the elongated white and red radishes are a variety called "French Breakfast" radishes.

Here ya go. Please pass the salt. Dig in!

Organic Rose Care

I was on the hunt for some new roses this weekend, but couldn't find either a Peace, Tropicana, or a nice yellow to add to my little rose garden. I have five roses (if you don't count the rosa rugosa twig that lived - I stuck in the ground on the edge of the woods - it leafed out!). I have two climbing red "Blaze" roses, two gorgeous salmon pink "Sonia" roses (today's picture is my Sonia from last summer), and one tiny pink "Fairy" rose.

Many people warned me not to grow roses in the country. I heard horror stories galore from local gardeners. I'd always wanted to grow roses, so I bought some roses at the local discount store (aptly named Roses - not kidding here) and off I was into rose gardening.

My roses are thriving. The leaves are glossy and green, except for Blaze, which has the ruby bronze leaves I love. They turn green later. I've got buds galore on the Sonia. The Fairy rose has doubled in size.

So what's my secret? Organic rose care.

My roses are planted in the flower garden directly over our water well. Because they're all so close to my drinking water supply, I will not use any chemicals.

So here's how I cope with all that nature throws at my beauties - my organic rose care regimen.

• Rose Defense neem oil spray: I bought this at Lowe's and it is my defense against block spot, Japanese beetles, and all sorts of problems. It is made from neem oil, an oil derived from a tree in India. It is like magic. Although you have to reapply it every time it rains, it is well worth it. It keeps away black spot, mildew and fungus diseases, bacterial diseases, and insects. And it lives up to its promises!
  
• Japanese beetle traps: I've heard so many people say not to use them, but if I didn't use them my garden would be gone. Some say they attract the beetles. I hang mine on the trellis and change the bags frequently and it does seem to draw the beetles away from the roses.
  
• Hand picking the beetles off the plants: If you're squeamish about bugs, skip this. I take an old spaghetti sauce jar and fill it halfway with a teaspoon of liquid dish soap and water. I walk among the roses and just flick the beetles into the soap. They can't get out of the jar. I empty the jar in the woods. This wouldn't make enough of a dent in the beetle damage without both the neem oil spray and the traps, but it does help a bit.
  
• Compost: Lots of compost applied to the soil helps keep my roses well fertilized without chemicals.
• Mulch: I put a very thick layer of mulch around the plants. Not only does it suppress weeds, but it also keeps moisture in the soil. Works like a charm. I use coarse shredded pine bark mulch.
• Companion planting: I use a lot of companion planting for insect control. Some say it's an old wives tale, but since there is no harm in it, and it seems to do something good, I do it. I plant marigolds around my roses and lavender. Lots of heavy scents going on there, but the results are few insect pests other than the omnipresent Japanese beetle.

The Japanese beetles are not out yet - they will make their appearance in late May or early June. In the meantime, I am enjoying the glossy, healthy foliage on my roses, and continue the hunt for some yellow ones to add to my collection.

Organic Eggs and Vegetable Garden Planning

My neighbors here in Virginia who read my blog are going to think I'm nuts for posting this picture, but I was so excited when Patty, my friend who owns and runs Shady Acres Farm here in Prospect, gave me two dozen free range eggs! Talk about fresh and organic. This photo shows the beautiful colors of the eggs. She said she got an Aracuna rooster who crossed with some of her regular hens. The results are these beautiful eggs, all shades of green, pink and peach. They are like works of art. The colors are just amazing. The second set of eggs are strangely shaped, small and pointy. She thinks one of her hens crossed with guinea hens that guard the farm and flock. Whatever the unusual love affair produced, it definitely produce delicious eggs. Her hens roam about the farm, free range, and enjoy their days as chickens were meant to do. The guinea hens afford great protection and guard the flock. If predators arrive on the scene, the guineas cluck and chuckle and shoo everyone back into the safety of the coop. Even her goats alert to the sounds from the guineas, and any cry of distress alerts all the farm critters that a hawk, vulture, fox or other predator is nearby.

We finished the last of the raised vegetable garden beds yesterday, screwing together the frame and laying down the landscape fabric. I hauled wheel barrow after wheel barrow of cow manure from the major pile the Hertzlers contributed, and then John and I both hauled more compost into the beds. I think I ran wheel barrows back and forth for two hours. Talk about tired last night. I dropped off to sleep around 9 amd slept like a rock until Shadow and Pierre work me up around 6 for breakfast. It was so beautiful yesterday, I worked outside in just my t shirt and jeans. My workboots got all muddy and my heavy work gloves too. The sunshine was warm, the air smelled soft and of good earth, and a breeze stirred the pines.

Someone asked me how to plan a vegetable garden. One of the tricks I learned along the way, this one from my old neighbor in Floral Park, Mr. Hoffman, was companion planting. Mr. Hoffman was a retired high school chemistry teacher, but more importantly, he was of the Rottkamp family, one of the respected old farming families that used to farm Long Island, and he was like my adopted grandfather. I used to hop over the hedge separating our properties and as a little girl, I tagged along at his heels as he worked his backyard farm. When he'd purchased the land in the 1940's, he'd bought his house lot and extra for a mini farm. It was an oddity in Floral Park but I loved it. He grew long rows of sweet corn, spinach, rhubarb, and many other vegetables. He taught my how to blanch celery with big boards and why leeks are hard to grow. When he'd plan his garden, he showed me that planting marigolds keeps away many bugs, and basil and tomatoes together not only taste great, but also work as natural insect repellants. This is organic gardening at its finest, using plants to ward off plants that trouble other plants. Marigolds saved the day for us here in Virginia last summer when my tomato plants were attacked by those hideous green tomato hornworms. Ugly, nasty things, but as soon as the marigolds went around the tomatoes they all skeedaddled back to wherever they come from.

Enjoy your day today! This is the last warm day for a bit, and tomorrow we are expecting more winter slush and rain, so I'll be heading out to deadhead and clean up the perennial garden.