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?

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.

Eat Your Greens

Spring greens are some of the easiest vegetables to grow. They also give me instant (well, nearly instant) gratification. I can start them early, and I can visit them when the rest of the beds remain empty and waiting out in the vegetable garden.

Greens are good for you. If your mom admonished you to "eat your greens!" she knew what she was talking about. Popeye, with his can of magical spinach that suddenly caused great, bulging muscles, knew a good thing when he found it too.

Greens are rich in:

• Protein. I'm not kidding about this. Among the plant kingdom, they're a really rich source or protein, ounce for ounce. People following a raw food diet have known this for you.
• Vitamins: Vitamin C, K, and others
• Iron
• Potassium
• Many other minerals, including trace minerals
• Fiber

Great greens that are both delicious and easy to grow include:

• Lettuce: Can it get any easier than lettuce? Grow it early, grow it often. Sprinkle seeds, water and about a month or so later, sit down to a harvest. If you don't lose it to slugs, you've got it made. Try Romaine, black seed Simpson, or one of the many salad mixes. I'm trying one especially made for southern weather this year - hopefully, I can grow it beyond the cool spring weather and into early summer. I think summertime in Virginia is going to be way too hot to grow lettuce, but my neighbors tell me they grow it almost to Thanksgiving in the fall.
• Spinach: Eat it fresh in a salad or cook it up. Either way, it's a great green.
• Kale: Some people don't like kale, but when grown at home and eaten fresh, it's sweeter than you expect.
• Swiss Chard: Green or rainbow colored, I'm in love with Chard. It's another "seed it and forget it" vegetable, too.
• Beet greens: You probably plant beets for the red root part, but beet greens are very healthy and delicious too. This year I'm growing an heirloom variety of beet called "Bulls Blood". The tops are supposed to be great for cooking. Haven't sown it yet (probably a chore for Monday), but it sounds great from the Burpee catalog.