Breathe deep

I caught my first whiff of soil on my way home last night. There's been enough snow meltage so that the ground has been visible for a couple weeks, but last night was the first time this year I've smelled earth - that marvelous, rich, intoxicating smell that's as alluring as chocolate.

And then today there was two inches of snow. More to come next week.

But community garden assignments are announced late next week. Knowing where I'll be will be awesome. I'm hoping for a corner of the fence, the better to create privacy and insta-trellises. I'm so not looking forward to the construction phase of trellising, especially since I want to create them strong enough to trellis my tomatoes and cucumbers and (maybe) winter squash. I haven't quite figured out how that will work, but apparently leaving indeterminate tomatoes on the ground (even clean straw) is Not Okay. I'm inclined to go with conventional wisdom on this one.

Of course the trellis I really want is expensive, difficult to haul, and impossible to store - my back-up plan is giant bamboo canes. Environmentally sustainable (and how) and sturdy, and even potentially pretty. Binding them together is an issue - I don't really believe that twine is going to cut it as a support. Zip ties? Wire? Nails? I think it would probably be best to avoid things I could get embedded in my flesh - I'm already accident-prone.

Until then, I will dream - and keeping smelling the dirt every now and then.

Poinsettia

I've never liked poinsettia. Not ever. But while I can summon some appreciation for the normal colored varieties, these are wrong on some fundamental level. (Sorry, but it is.) Most wrong? The pale blue.
I'm not a big fan of weird concoctions in general, but these look especially freakish. Yes, Wisconsin can be boring in the winter. But that's no excuse for the cotton-candy leaf colors. Ewwww.

Counting Down

Gardeners in warmer climes are already planting, but we're in that frustrating cusp where spring is coming (really), but you know there's going to be a little more weather. To be precise, five more inches of winter arrived this weekend, covering the skeletons of icicles fallen off the roof. It looks all clean and pristine again. There is some leaves and mud visible, but not as much as I hoped. Then again, the icebergs punctuating the city where the plows dumped the majority of the snow have been briefly covered. (They're hideous, since they're layered with road filth and the markings of various dogs throughout the winter. Think of them as a grosser form of tree trunk - you can tell the history of the ice flow throughout the winter if you cut straight through it, with varying rings of filth and ice.)
Community gardens will release plot names April 5th. I'm assured everyone who applied to my garden got a piece, so I'm busy dreaming. I'm not sure about planting right now anyway, considering that the land is probably relatively clayey, and working clayey soil before it's ready is a bad idea. Also, it may be traditional to plant potatoes around St. Patrick's Day, but it's hard to envision them doing anything other than rotting right now. A slow, cold rot at that. Still, there's rows to mark, rototilling to feel angsty about, and what's going to go wrong if I plant a few rows of turnips and lettuce and they don't come up? It's not like I don't have thousands more seeds to plant later if they don't.

Butterflies

This year, my emphasis is definitely on edibles. I realized last year that I had no idea what many of the plants I ate looked like. Tomatos and squash, yes. But recognizing turnip sprouts was an impossibility. And I'm pretty sure that I ate a few weeds while nibbling on my intentionally planted greens and pea shoots. (Note: Grazing is not a recommended practice unless you're gardening in organic and pesticide free spot.)

So the goal this year is to figure out what things look like. A secondary goal is to grow some things simply because they're pretty. And this guy here would be my official mascot. (Thanks, bugguide.net!) He is the caterpillar version of a black swallowtailed butterfly. The caterpillars eat fennel and wild carrots. The sites don't say anything about parsnips, which is too bad, because I'm planting many more parsnips than fennel.

So a few extra fennel plants are going in, just in case we do get some butterflies. Ironically, the black swallowtail is much more common in Arizona and New Mexico. I've never seen wild carrots or fennel in New Mexico, so I can't figure that one out, but maybe I was in the wrong backyard. Still, perhaps a few stragglers will make their way to Wisconsin.

How do you store your seeds?

How you save your seeds is supposed to be tremendously important - temperature, humidity, and light all affect whether seeds sprout, die, or stay safely dormant. People have schemes of varying elaborateness to store their seeds - from envelopes in the closet to carefully mixed silicon crystals, sealed jars, and temperature controlled fridges.
Today, Norway opened the ultimate seed bank near the north pole. If your seed vault doesn't look like this, you're doing it wrong:As soon as I heard about this, I immediately envisioned my dream job: alone, in the Arctic, with high speed internet and the responsibility to thaw out and replant seeds as they became at risk of going dormant. I mean, how fun would that be? (There would need to be free coffee. But it's Norway - isn't that one of those worker's rights things those Scandinavian countries spring for, along with 36-hour work weeks and months of maternity leave?) Unfortunately, there will be no staff on-site, so my dreams of being the next Gregor Mendel - Mr. Freeze hybrid will have to wait.
The seed bank isn't open to the public; it's intended to be a last resort in case plague or fire or floods threaten our food sources. I think the logistics of this scenario need work, since there cannot possibly be enough of every kind of seed to renew world resources. But I'm sure they have a really good plan - after all, these are scientists we're talking about, right?

Down the Garden Path

I sat down with Coleman's book last night. It's about market gardening, but at some point, the difference between "ordinary" vegetable gardening and organic, sustainable market vegetable gardening is pretty subtle. He offers suggestions for the size of rows: 42" or 60" of vegetables. I went for 42" - although that garden soil looks fluffy and comfortable, I have no desire to have to lean on it to reach the middle of the plot. (There lurk nettles and goatheads and stickers, not to mention the cutest little milipedes known to man.) Unfortunately, he recommends paths designed for your walking tractor (preferably Italian, and blue). Nothing for the person who doesn't have a walking tractor. Bizarrely, this seems to be a topic neglected by those other OCD gardeners out there. 12"? 18"? 24"? How to combine the most comfortable space with as much growing ground as possible?
The math works out nicely in a 25'x25' plot with 42" rows and 18" paths, so I guess I'll plan for that for now.

Pesky Pests

With all the bad press about Japanese beetles, it's often easy to assume that we're in an all-new pest high. New varieties, growing numbers - Orem, Utah spraying the entire community (!) with pesticides that will prevent gardeners "from harvesting vegetables or fruit from their gardens for the next three years." (!!!) (http://ag.utah.gov/plantind/JB-MayorLetter.pdf)
According to the mayor, this is necessary so that the beetles do not destroy agriculture in the state of Utah. He also implies that this, along with the heavy spraying, will eradicate the Japanese beetle.
So it's in this context that I'm reading Jeffrey Lockwood's book, Locust: The Devastating Rise and Mysterious Disappearance of the Insect that Shapes the American Frontier.
After reading about the ravages of the locusts, which weren't confined to the American frontier at all, but in the Middle East and Europe and parts of Africa, I feel confident in saying that we really should be more appreciative of our pest problems. The Rocky Mountain locust (Melanoplus spretus) formed tremendous swarms - in one recorded case, at least 110 miles across - that decimated everything in their path, eating not just plants but dead animals and inanimate objects (tool handles, for instance, and the clothes of the farmers who tried to kill them). They left between 100 and 150 eggs per square inch of land, consequently hatching millions upon millions of offspring. And the hotter and drier the weather, the more likely they were to devastate the land.
Reports from Salt Lake indicated that the insects would drown in the lake and then wash ashore, forming 6-foot walls of rotting insects around the lake.
So I have a suggestion for Orem: how about holding a Japanese beetle appreciation day, to acknowledge that, as voracious and invasive as the beetles are, things could always be much, much worse?

Retooling the community plan

So the land-owner who offered me space in his yard to garden apparently doesn't want to offer me much space in his yard to garden. So I'm sending in my community garden applications again - this time in several places, with the hope that waiting lists will turn into ground at some point.

I have options: the closest garden offers plots that are only 6x4 (maybe). The middle garden has slightly more space (10x8), and the farthest garden has plots between 20x20 and 25x25. Guess which one I really want?

I may still ask around the neighborhood for little pieces of ground to plant melons or winter squash - I sort of envision little bits of food plants scattered across the city. There are plenty of spaces that aren't being utilized well. It's certainly more convenient to have a garden of my own, though, and the community gardens are nice because you don't have to talk to people.

I still think that borrowing a non-gardener's land isn't a bad idea. The advantage for the owner is fresh food, a nicer looking yard (hopefully), improved soil, not having to mow . . . kind of like having a hired gardener, except some of your produce goes missing. (For most harvests, this is No Big Deal - just plop a few extra plants out.)

Calendula

Calendula, or pot marigolds, were one of the first plants suggested to me when I started my garden last summer. I didn't buy any, mostly because I couldn't find seed and couldn't be bothered going to look for plants, but they're going in the earth this year.

They are Wisconsin's Herb of the Year, a title bestowed by the Master Gardeners, who have apparently run out of "real" herbs recently. (2005 was the Year of the Scented Geranium - ack.) There's lots of cultivars, but they're almost all orange-yellow and cheerful looking. The flowers are also edible; Monsoon Wedding has marvelous scenes full of (what might be) calendula, including a rapturous devouring.

They're also supposed to be good for cuts, scrapes, bites, and burns. With the possible exception of the last, the garden is precisely the place where all that happens. Most of the sources are mysteriously vague about whether the leaves or flowers or roots should be rubbed on the skin (or made into ointment, or boiled into tea), but it's worth a try. I am Tasty Meat as far as biting bugs are concerned. I'm not sure about the USDA's stance on organic producers that slather themselves in DDT (perhaps I should email them?) but I prefer to stay as pain-free as possible.

The other interesting thing I found is the shape of the seed pods. Check this out. They're sort of cashew-shaped. (Much thanks to the Wisconsin Master Gardener's Program, from whom I yoinked the pictures.) Why a cashew-shaped pod would be a reproductive advantage, I can't quite figure out. Would they catch more wind like that? Protect the seeds better from slugs and snails? Stay more intact? Perhaps it's all just an interesting coincidence - one random mutation that didn't hurt, and gradually became a feature.

Go, NOG, Go!

Ok, perhaps NOG isn't the best acronym. New Orleans Gardeners are rebuilding. Actually, I bet this isn't completely new, as I bet many people who were able and chose to return did something with the yard. The article discusses several aspects, including the decomposition of plants introduced by the hurricane - perhaps compost in disguise? - but not, surprisingly, erosion. Surely those masses of water removed or rearranged the top soil?

My favorite gardener in the profiles returned to his garden to remove all his rocks. Sure, plants can be replaced, even if you may not live to see them in their full glory, but if you have good rocks, you have to hold onto them.

2008 Variety Possibilities

One of the interesting things about planting so many heirloom varieties is that you get a lot more climbing things. Almost all modern tomatoes found in the catalogs are determinate. They grow to a certain height, set fruit at once, and die. Lovely for farmers, but not so lovely for most gardeners, who may not want to spend harvest weekend putting up a garden’s worth of tomatoes. Many of the older varieties are vining tomatoes. They grow and make fruit and flowers until frost (or disease or pests) strike them dead. The same is true with beans – almost all the beans in the catalogs are “bush” beans. Hmmm. I love climbing plants – there’s something satisfying about watching plants cover a trellis or fence (or fellow plant). Last year, bindweed or morning glory nearly consumed the community garden, swarming up and over everything in its way. It took near-daily vigilance to keep the vines from covering the garden in a blaze of blue and white flowers and brilliant green leaves. Where there was no fence, it clambered up tomatoes and sunflowers just as happily. I like to imagine it dormant under the ice, plotting to vault from the mass of dead oat grass over the tender seedlings yet to be planted.

I am planting vines this year, then. All my tomato varieties are indeterminate – partly luck, but also because they’re from Seed Savers, and the urge to grow and set fruit at will has not been bred out for the convenience of the commercial grower. Most of my beans are bush habit, which is actually sort of a good thing, considering how much fun it is to make trellises. The limas and (shockingly) the Climbing French Beans climb. And, of course, my peas. Last year I bought Dwarf Grey Sugar Peas. They were neither dwarf nor grey, and there weren’t very many peas. Instead of being the 2.5-3’ advertised, my plants hit the top of the 5’5” fence and kept going. This year I have naturally taller varieties (Golden Sweet and Mammoth) and one short variety (British Wonder). We’ll see what we see.

So here are the variety choices for 2008. Even I realize that there's no way that all of these can be fully planted out, so I've got a lot of reading to do to figure out how much of what to plant. These are just the seeds broken out into categories.

I pretty much plan on planting all the peas. I’m especially excited about the Golden Sweet, which is supposedly one of the varieties Mendel used in his experiments. And beans are marvelous, and supposedly easy to save for seed. Other than that, I want to plant a variety of things and try saving seeds. Squash and melons are among the easiest things to give away - no washing, no packaging, just the handing over of pre-packaged flesh. I'm sitting down with Eliot Coleman's graphs tonight to see when I should expect to plant and harvest the other sorts of bounty. Hopefully I can work out something.

Beans
Arikara Yellow
Climbing French Bean
Jacob's Cattle Gasless
Lina Cisco's Bird Egg
Shirofuma(Shirofumi?)
Sieva Lima Bean
Vermont Cranberry Bean
Windsor Fava Bean

Beet
Albino
Bull's Blood

Broccoli
Romanesco Broccoli

Cabbage
Copenhagen Market Cabbage
Mammoth Red Rock Cabbage
Des Vertus Cabbage

Chard
Five Color Silverbeet

Corn
Country Gentleman
Golden Bantam

Cucumber
Armenian Cucumber
Double Yield Cucumber
Jelly Melon Cucumber
White Wonder Cucumber

Eggplant
Goyo Kumba
Lao Purple Stripe
Red Ruffled Eggplant
Turkish Orange Eggplant

Grains
Copperhead Amaranth

Herbs
Sweet Basil Genova strain.
Thai Basil
Garlic Chives Allium tuberosum
Zefa Fino Fennel
Lavender Lavandula angustifolia
Lemon Balm Melissa officinalis
Lovage "Magnus"
Sweet Marjoram Origanum majorana
Common Mint Mentha spicata
Triple-curled parsley
Rosemary Rosmarinus officinalis
Broadleaf Sage Salvia officinalis
Spearmint
Thyme
German Thyme Thymus vulgaris

Lettuce and Greens
Amish Deer Tongue Lettuce
Red Leprechaun Lettuce
Arugula (“wild”)
Curly Cress
Green Wave Mustard
Hon Tsai Tai
Red Shiso Perilla frutescens
Reine des Glaces Lettuce - (a.k.a. Ice Queen)

Melons
Amarillo Oro
Minnesota Midget Melon
Eden's Gem Melon Emerald Gem Melon
Jenny Lind Melon
Pride of Wisconsin
Schoon's Hard Shell
Small Shining Light Watermelon

Okra
Clemson Spineless Okra

Onion
White Wing Onion

Parsnip
Harris Model Parsnip

Pea
British Wonder Pea
Golden Sweet Pea
Mammoth Melting Sugar Pea

Pepper
Balloon Pepper
Candlelight Pepper
Georgia Flame Pepper
Thai Hot Pepper
Tobago Seasoning Pepper
Wenk's Yellow Hots

Squash
Anna Swartz Hubbard Squash
Chirimen Squash
Fordhook Acorn Squash
Galeux d'Eysines
Jaune et Verte Squash
Sweet Meat Winter Squash

Tomatillo
Purple Tomatillo

Tomatoes
Amish Paste
Bloody Butcher
Giant Syrian Tomato
Gourmet Yellow Stuffer Tomato
Plum Lemon Tomato
Purple Russian Tomato
Roman Candle Tomato

Turnip
Purple Top White Globe Turnip

Flowers
Flashback Calendula
Painted Tongue - Salpiglossis sinuata
King-size Strawflower Mixture - Helichrysum bracteatum
Mahogany Midget - Coreopsis tinctoria.
Sacred datura - Datura wrightii
Black Peony Poppy
Wildflower Mix - Dame’s Rocket, Black-Eyed Susan, Shirley Poppy, Blazing Star and Bachelor’s Button.

Nasturtium
Ladybird Nasturtium
Tall Climbing Mix
Tip Top Nasturtium Mix

Sunflower
Rostov Sunflower
Autumn Beauty Mix Sunflower

Seed Savers Love

So a month or two ago, I appealed to several seed companies for support with my seed project. Since I do plan on distributing the food free, it seemed like they might be able to kick in a couple packets of older seed - I don't need 95% germination rates, after all. Since the yard I'm planning on sharing is big, I can't really afford to fill it all on my own. I never heard anything back, so went ahead with my plan to plant what I could, with the budget I had, and work up from there.
Yesterday, I got home to find an envelope from Seed Savers on my doorstep. How nice, I thought - they sent me a few things. I tore it open, and the thing practically exploded with the force of the packets within. It was seriously like Christmas. And New Years. And maybe a birthday. I'll try to dig out my camera tonight and take a picture of the bounty.

As a result, some of the things I forgot to order are now in plentiful supply. So is pretty much everything else. Beans, arugula, lettuce, broccoli, beets, cabbage, chard, corn, cucumbers, eggplants, lovage, spearmint, thyme, melons, nasturtiums, okra, peas, peppers, squash, tomatoes, sunflowers, turnips, and more flowers for the flower patch, including my only seriously poisonous plant, Sacred Datura. I'll compile a list for my records and put it up at some point soon. Many, many thanks to Seed Savers for their support.

It's also interesting that all this bounty - what could turn into hundreds of pounds of squash alone (even a packet of 25 seeds could produce upwards of 300 lbs.) can all be fit into a padded envelope now. Also, it's sort of amazing that there's no overlap between varieties I ordered from Fedco and received from Seed Savers (although there were several packets of the same variety of a couple different things). So support Seed Savers if you can - they are awesome, generous people.

Seed Order

So last night, I placed my order for seeds. I’m sure I got too much, violating the “think small, and start smaller” principle. I want diversity, though – turnips alone is not going to cut it. I ordered from Fedco. I like their co-opness (co-opisity? Co-opism? Co-opship?) and their variety of heirloom varieties. Even nicer is that they’re in Maine, so they understand northern climates and will usually warn people if something won’t finish before the season ends. Also, although the catalog descriptions are upbeat, they do note negative characteristics – tomatoes that crack, spinach that bolts early, potatoes that give it up at the first sign of beetles.

I didn’t order near as much as I wanted to order. I wanted pretty much the whole damn catalog. And most of Kitazawa’s catalog. (I refrained from ordering from them before I really knew what I wanted for Korean cooking, but I would love to do a Korean corner next year, with the stuff for kimchi, veggies for banchan, and those little 1-serving melons.)

Windsor Fava Beans – called broad beans in Britain. These I got because of a newly awakened crush on British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, and his totally cool gardener. Broad beans aren’t given much attention or space in American catalogs and gardens, but according to the Brits, the tender tops are edible. Also, I think I’ve been conflating fava beans with lima beans. I have a terrible aversion to limas, but they’re not really the same thing at all.

Vermont Cranberry Beans – for eating dry. I like the idea of dry beans. I’m used to pintos, but I’m having trouble finding them in northern catalogs, and suspect they need a long hot summer. If this goes well, I want to try a black bean next summer.

Golden Bantam Yellow Sweet Corn – an heirloom, open-pollinated sweet corn. I keep hearing that sweet corn is not sweet corn unless it’s picked from the garden and rushed inside to be boiled, salted, and eaten. I’ve never done this, so I don’t know. Seems like time to find out, doesn’t it? Also, I want to experiment with growing beans up the corn stalks.

Mammoth Melting Sugar Snow Pea – In general, I try to avoid descriptors like “mammoth” in my variety names. Size is not really what I’m looking for. But Mammoth is supposed to be prolific, easy, and sweet. And I never get enough snow peas.

Jenny Lind Muskmelon – small, heirloom muskmelon (green, not orange like cantelope). I love good melons. Bad melons are awful, but a perfectly ripe sweet juicy melon on the porch in July (or August) is heaven. I’m not really in prime melon territory – you need to be farther south for that. But that’s not going to stop me trying. I like that these are serving-size melons, small enough to carry away and eat alone.

Sweet Meat Winter Squash – a blue-grey, hubbard-style winter squash that keeps well. The squash tend to be big (8-10+ lbs), but a good compromise between taste and storage (supposedly – I’ve never eaten one). And they’re blue.

Harris Model Parsnip – I’m going to put myself out there and say: I love, love, love parsnips. Roasted. In soup. Baked. And, uh, raw, when they have a sort of licorice-y, tweaky tang that is low-calorie goodness. I’m guessing my soil is not going to be the deeply aerated, organic mattered loam necessary for prime production, but how can I not try?

White Wing Onion – Onions are something I feel okay buying – I love them, but they’re cheap, and the seed goes away eventually. These I got because I pushed a wrong button on the order form. Oh, well.

Des Vertus Savoy Cabbage – Gene Logsdon swears by savoy-type cabbage. I like cabbage fine – it’s not my first-choice veggie, but it’s good – and savoy-type cabbage cost an arm and a leg in market if you find them. Des Vertus is not special, except it’s open pollinated.

Hon Tsai Tai – if this is the vegetable I think it is, it’s a favorite from Korea (it’s not advertised as that, but many, many vegetables come from and go to China and Japan, so it’s not outrageous to expect some carry-over.) Slightly bitter, but fantastic in stir-fries.

Green Wave Mustard – part of my ongoing quest to eat more leafy green things. Also, mustard is pretty tasty.

Curly Garden Cress – love watercress, but don’t love how quickly it goes bad. This is supposed to be a good substitute from the same family. May grow indoors, with the rest of my herbs, and eat the baby leaves.

Turkish Orange Eggplant – I like it when vegetables are small. These eggplants are supposed to be about egg-sized, and used in stir-fried while young and green. They turn orange when mature. Also, the seed was cheap.

Thai Hot Pepper – I eyed these plants at the market all last year. Small bushes bear loads (no, really, loads) of tiny, brightly colored peppers that are quite decently hot, and can be harvested at almost any stage. I like them red, but I like spicy food. The plants are very pretty, and the peppers are pretty good. The flavor is not as excellent as some peppers, but the size, convenience, and heat makes a good case for them.

Zefa Fino Fennel – another variety courtesy of Jamie Oliver. I’ve had fennel seeds, but can’t remember having fennel root. An experiment, since I don’t think it’ll do well, but Fedco didn’t warn northern gardeners against it, so worth the 90 cents to plant a few. Highly recommended by several catalogs.

Red Shiso – I really wanted Korean shiso (tulkae). This is Japanese shiso, and tastes quite different to me, but I’m not placing a separate order for one plant. It’s a relative of mint, so it’s supposed to spread readily. It’s fantastic in stir-fry, raw, on meat, with tofu.

Copperhead Amaranth – My “feed the birds” project, and an experiment. Amaranth is one of those old, old grains, native to this part of the country (not in the woods – maybe in the prairie?) It’s got good essential amino acids, and doesn’t need to be hulled. I probably won’t eat very much, if any, but I would like to offer the seeds to the bird population next winter.

Herbs – mostly for growing inside, but I’ll probably start a few outside too, for the variety and fun of it. Sweet basil, thai basil, garlic chives, lavender, lemon balm, sweet marjoram, mint, rosemary, broadleaf sage, German thyme

Solar Flashback Calendula Mix – I haven’t been a huge fan of marigolds, but these are pot marigolds, which of course in the world of gardening is something completely different. Bright, easy to grow, and supposedly pest discouraging, I’m growing these simply because I like the gold and orange flowers.

Tall Climbing Nasturtiums – The plan is to let these climb the sunflowers. I’m such a fan of climbing plants, it’s not even funny. I just like them. Also, I like the idea of eating flowers. And they’re pretty. My neighbor’s nasturtiums did really well last year – not quite morning glory well, but smother-the-tomatoes well.

Black Peony Poppies – fluffy balls of gorgeous rich maroon-black color. Real peonies are expensive perennials, so these are sort of the annual version of “hey, I like this shape – how does it look in the garden?”. Will be planted behind the calendulas. I wish I had the hollyhocks of the same color, but the seed-buying has to stop somewhere this year. Also want California poppies, but I’ve heard that they choke in heavy soil.

Autumn Beauty Mix Sunflowers – Tall, multi-stemmed sunflowers for the flower-patch and bird-feeding attempts. Yellow to gold to red to maroon.

Wildflower Mix – the bulk of the flower patch, augmented by more poppies, sunflowers, nasturtiums, and calendulas. Dame’s rocket, shirley poppies, black-eyed susans, blazing stars (which look an awful lot like gayfeather), bachelor’s buttons.