Joyous Southern Spring: Garden Tour May/June 2014

Peas

After the longest, coldest, loneliest winter in a long time, Spring has been truly welcome here South of Sunnybrook. I started lettuces from seed, but got most of my peas in later because of all the late freezes. Lesson learned: plant peas anyway, most of them will survive if they're mulched. Plus, pea seeds are cheap (I plan to save some this year also)!

Harvest

Spinach, basil, strawberries, and lots of lettuces (like the ones in my Teacher Appreciation bouquets) have been devoured by the family. We've been listening together in the car to the audiobook Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (which is the book that first inspired me to try cheesemaking and join a CSA), and I think it's inspired appreciation in my children. It is truly wonderful to hear them go on and on about how "nothing tastes so wonderful as a good, fresh strawberry you pick yourself."

Baby Basil

For the last two years, I've planned to start various herbs, veggies, and flowers throughout the summer, so as to have filler for bare spots as I harvest, and to have lots of sets for fall veggies (which need to be planted in September-ish). I never do it though. In January, making paper pots filled with earth and seed is like planting hope, but in July I don't want to sit at the table...there is too much to do outside. 

So I am starting things in large pots, like the basil above, and will thin them and move them to the garden. I also have some German Chamomile and chives started this way, and plan to keep things growing throughout the summer.

Garlic Hat

This is my first year planting garlic. I got some Red Russian seeds from the Seed Sharing program at my local library (how cool is that??), and a few cloves of a different hardneck variety from my father. I am going to try harvesting some seeds from the flower this year. I did cut one of these flowers and fried it up along with some stuffed squash blossoms, and it was delicious! Experiment!

Scape

Garlic is a beautiful addition to edible landscaping. The scapes (or long stalks that hold the flower) can curve around into wonderful shapes that are very pleasing to the eye. For hardneck garlic, there seems to be a difference of opinion about whether you should harvest the scapes, or keep them...so I am trying both. All of the garlic plant is edible!! The leaves have a mild garlic flavor, and I add them to pesto. The scapes are also delicious in pesto, but can be grilled/steamed like asparagus! ....or you can leave them to harvest flower seeds.

Corn - Three Sisters

My baby corn is sprouting for my Three Sisters garden!! Wanting space to plant the Three Sisters was the whole inspiration for the sheet mulch project, and it's wonderful to see the life springing from the soil. Traditionally, one plants the corn in little hills 3-4 days before the full moon. While planting, offer prayers of thanks for the elements that make the plants grow (yes, I did this).

When the corn is 4-6 inches tall, I plant the beans, then when that sprouts, I plant the pumpkins. The beans are supported by the corn stalks and replenish the soil (corn is a heavy feeder). The pumpkins shade both, crowd out weeds, and discourage predators. The three also complement each other nutritionally.

Blueberry

Blueberries are not yet blue, but I am looking forward to eating them. Even when they turn blue, we don't "pick" them -- if you touch them and they don't drop in your hand, they're not quite at their perfect sweetness.

Hyssop

In the Bible, it says "purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean" but I use my hyssop to attract pollinators, and for cut flowers. It's an excellent companion plant in the garden, and has an attractive "small shrub" shape. I do plan to try some in tea, as WebMD notes it can be helpful for everything from menstrual cramps to cough/cold.

Fig

The fig lives!! Thank goodness! This fig was propagated by my father, from the large fig tree that grew outside my bedroom window when I was a child. I was working to espalier it against the brick, but the long, cold winter caused it to die back to the ground. The current plan is to "roll with it" and use the dead branch as a trellis of sorts to train the new, flexible branches.

I know that some years it might start where it left off, and some years it might begin anew, and I am okay with that. Plus, then I can string Christmas lights on the branches either way!

Crock bread falls flat, twice

This Spring, I saw a really intriguing link on my Facebook feed that said "You can cook Bread in your Crock Pot! - It takes less time than the oven because the rising time is included in the Baking."  Despite the weird capitalization, I was intrigued!

Not my slow-cooker bread

I did a quick web search for "slow cooker bread" since that Facebook page did not include the URL from which the pictures originated (a huge peeve of mine). Thankfully, the blog was easy to find, and you can read the original post here. She uses an artisan bread, which I cook regularly, so I was ready to go.

According to the directions, you place ~1 lb. of dough in your crock pot on parchment and turn it on high. In one hour, you have delicious bread! 

That sounds so simple.....

Here is my dough, ready to go, in my 8-quart slow cooker. I added the lid and turned it to high.

One hour later: the dough flattened (instead of rising) and was gummy and raw. The lid was beginning to take on a lot of moisture, so I cracked it a bit, so as not to soak the loaf. I held out hope.

Two hours later: still not done. I finally pulled it out around the 3-hour mark, and the results were...flat. Here you can see the crock loaf (l) next to one baked in the oven (r).

Despite these bad results, I remained undeterred. Perhaps the 8-quart slow cooker was too big or too hot. I read the comments on the original blog post and decided to try my 1-quart crock instead. A crock uses a lot less energy than an oven, plus no hot kitchen in summer, right? I had to give it another go.

Dough ready to go in my 1-quart crock. Fingers crossed.

Once again, it took several hours to achieve anything approximating "done."
While it did not flatten, due to lack of room in the crock, there was no rising.
Here, the "finished loaf" at 2-ish hours is not terribly appetizing.

Second crock loaf (l) is the same height as oven-baked (r), but horridly doughy and dense
due to lack of rise.  The oven loaf spreads a bit, then rises, and has a wonderful texture. I even put the top of the crock-"baked" loaf under the broiler, so it had an even color, but it tasted awful anyway.

 After having zero rise on the second loaf, I decided this method is not for me, unless I get helpful feedback in the comments. The artisan bread takes at most one hour, and I'd rather fire up the oven for a consistent, successful result loved by the whole family than keep trying at the crock.

If you get different results, let me know. If you're only moderately interested in slow-cooker bread, because you want to try something new, I recommend trying instead the Soft 100% Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls from An Oregon Cottage. They are soft and tasty...and I made them without a stand mixer, several times, with consistent, delicious results!

Garden Tour - August 2012

"And when your back stops aching and your hands begin to harden,

You will find yourself a partner In the Glory of the Garden."

-- Rudyard Kipling

July 2012 was the all-time warmest, month in the United States since we began keeping records, but having (reliable) rain barrels this year helped us keep food/flower areas growing without racking up a huge water bill. The beautiful ed/yellow Rudbeckia (love that name) seen here in the top left part of the photo is a Tennessee Native plant. Native plants are wonderful choices for gardeners, as they are more likely to make it through extreme weather with a minimal amount of care. They also attract pollinators and other beneficial insects to your garden. This year I've truly mixed flowers, herbs and vegetables and have seen more bees and butterflies than ever before when I walk along beside the plants. It is a wondrous sight to behold!

The bushy flowers in the front are moss roses (Portulaca), and they begin to bloom well in Mid-July through frost in my garden; they also are drought tolerant and do not require a lot of water, so I can put the soaker hoses around the tomatoes you can see in the background.

I love watching lettuces going to seed! Lovely! Also in this square-foot bed I have some peppers, some flowers (of course) and a cucumber vine that has finally died thanks to the cucumber beetle. But at least I have identified the pest so I can be prepared next time.

I finally have a baby eggplant growing! The plant itself is beautiful and I hope the Rosa Bianca eggplants will be tasty.

I am sheet-mulching this area, and really want to put a Three Sisters garden here next spring. However, I am going to have to move most of my tomatoes out of the flower bed next year, as the blueberries and fig will be too large to accommodate so many plants. I am also toying with the idea of going ahead and using the front yard...if I can find a design I like. 

Here is a long shot of my front flower bed. I really love how this looks this year! In the August heat, it has exploded with color and texture. The rosemary on the left (against the wall) is a Blue Spires Rosemary, which can grow up to 5' tall; I planted it to replace a very prickly holly bush that wasn't very pretty and had grown totally out of control. Eventually, we should have a large rosemary shrub here and the fig tree at the other end that is growing nicely to bookend our blueberry "hedge." I really love how it's coming together!

Contrast that with the desperate plants in my side yard bed, which used to be almost full shade until we lost a hickory tree this year. I have been trying to keep things (at least) watered here, but as you can see, those shade plants don't enjoy the morning baking in the August sun. I am going to cluster the survivors into the shadiest areas at the end of September, but I do relish the opportunity to plant some lettuces and bulbs and maybe even some peas back here for spring. After all, there's no great loss without some small gain!

Oh, Eve she was a gardener, and God who made her sees

That half a proper gardener's work is done upon her knees,

So when your work is finished, you can wash your hands and pray

For the Glory of the Garden that it may not pass away!

(edited slightly by me!)

Give your veggies some company!

Company? for vegetables? As in "invite friends over for cocktails and talk to the tomatoes?" No, I'm talking about introducing Companion Plants to your garden, which will attract beneficial insects and deter garden pests.

Borage is beautiful and edible.

I've always planted basil and marigolds around my tomatoes. I've also always had parsley, sometimes cilantro, oregano, thyme and rosemary in the garden. But this year I picked up some borage and nasturtiums at a local herb fair. Both are gorgeous! The borage is large and covered with pollinators. The flowers are lovely and the tiny hairs on the plant sparkle in the sun. Nasturtiums grow up around the base of tomatoes and wind up the trellis with cucumbers. I have also learned that their flat leaves will attract both slugs and cabbage worms, so next time I'll plant them around my cabbages.

Look closely for the tiny caterpillars, aka hungry cabbage worms that decimate all types of brassica.

I planted cabbages fairly early and they were attacked again and again by several varieties of cabbage worms. Within a week of adding the companion plants to the garden bed, I noticed a distinct uptick in the the number of insects in the garden and was fascinated to observe a wasp attacking and eating the cabbage worms! 

Wasp eating cabbage worm.

 Besides being good for the garden, companion plants add beauty in the form of foliage and flowers. My "garden" is largely in my front flowerbed this year, and will always be in the front/side yard since that is where the sun lands. I love "edible landscaping" or "kitchen garden" approach -- functional can also be quite beautiful, and companion plants offer a cost-effective, beautiful and organic approach to building a healthy garden.

Bee pollinating cucumber.

Companion plants can also be other vegetables! Onions mix well with strawberries...chives will improve the flavor of carrots...this is important knowledge that we must not loose! I also intend to learn to use some of the medicinal herbs beyond "just" for cooking.

TN Native: Rudbeckia

Also known as black-eyed susan, brown-eyed susan, conedisk, and gloriosa daisy tall coneflower! I don't know which variety I have, but it's different from the black-eyed susans I see growing along Tennessee roadsides. Gloriously beautiful in the garden, I have another variety that has brown petals with a deep brown center. Very pretty together!

Native plants are evolved and adapted to our soils and climate. They require less water, fertilizer, attention. They attract bees, butterflies and other pollinators to our gardens.