Useful Gardens

"Fresh" the Movie - Viewable on our Desktops!

2012-01-27T07:12:00.000-08:00

Good rainy, stormy morning! 67 balmy degrees here in Virginia Beach - with a truly nasty looking red-band storm front bearing down on us. Dashed out to feed the chickens and walk small dogs.... back in for good coffee and a hello to the blogosphere!

This is a really quick post to make sure that none of my gardening friends miss this neat chance to view the movie documentary, "Fresh", for free on your own computer. I've been very inspired by this movie - don't panic, there are factory farming scenes in there but nothing that is not real or faint-worthy (at least to someone like me who's been aware of the realities for some time). It will make you want to grow, grow, grow wonderful food and support the terrific small farms in your area. Here's the info you need:

Here at FRESH, we're always looking for ways to build the good food movement and reach a tipping point where sustainable food is the rule, not the exception. So, we'd like to continue spreading the word with an exciting new initiative: FRESH is available for viewing online for FREE! For a limited time (we do need to pay our bills after all), you can access the full-length film from your desktop. The movie will be available for one week, from Thursday, January 26th through Wednesday, February 1st, so don't wait to watch! To access the movie, simply click below.

http://action.freshthemovie.com/p/salsa/web/common/public/signup?signup_page_KEY=6608

Great Day to be inside watching an inspiring movie! - Sybil

Weeds by Any Other Name.....

2012-01-26T17:40:00.000-08:00

Winter weeds. Are they amazing?

Not a thing green in the perennial garden... but the winter weeds.

Recognize any of these?

This is a combination of Henbit, which is the rounded Lamium family member (see the rounded heavily veined leaves?) and Chickweed (Stellaria media) forming a flat, small-leaved mat of green around a central root base. It's what's taking over the garden beds right now.

In former years, I went crazy fighting these weeds.

Then I got chickens.

Chickens who needed lots of greens for their winter diet.

And, suddenly, I knew WHY the old traditional gardeners gave them

these names.

CHICKENS LOVE THEM.

Henbit gets hen bit immediately. Munch, munch.

Loved only less than Chickweed.

Which really IS the chick's weed.

Butter chicken feasting on Chickweed.

Freckles and Peacock Cuppers lining up for weeds.

Henny Penny is suspicious about the beet leaf in her weeds.

So now weeding is a lot more fun for everyone!

Who knew?

Henbit, Chickweed....

Do you suppose they'd be better layers

if I fed them Eggplant????

with a grin,

Sybil

War on the Sapsuckers! Save the Loquat!

2012-01-24T17:17:00.000-08:00


Yellow Bellied Sapsucker

Is this not a charming little birdie? Lots of stripes, perky little red head? Scrabbles up and down the sides of the tree trunks like a feathered monkey?

My Beloved Loquat Tree

Good thing this little sucker - Yellow Bellied Sapsucker, to be exact -is protected or I'd blow him right out of my Loquat tree. There has been a pair of them working on my poor Loquat tree nonstop in the mild weather. The sap is flowing in the Loquat, which is evergreen and the sapsuckers adore that sweet sap.

If they did minor damage, I'd tolerate them because they are so personable. But take a look at what they have managed in the last couple of weeks, while my back was turned:

They have girdled several of the main trunks with their drillings. The "wet" that you see in the photo is freely running tree sap - my poor Loquat is literally hemorrhaging sap from the wounds.

Notice in the closeup that there is no area with enough vertical undamaged bark left to keep the phloem moving sap. They may have already killed this tree.

In desperation, as a quick arbor triage, I've done what I could - I melted all the leftover scented holiday candles we were given that never got burned (heaven save me from Yankee Candles) and brushed the melted wax in many layers over the damaged trunk areas, filling in the holes as best I could. The watery sap kept some of the holes slightly open, but at least the major open wounds are protected from further damage - from sapsuckers, insects, fungus and worse.

It looks pretty shabby, poor beautiful tree.

I hope this is going to help it.

It reeks, too, in the most amazing fashion - part "Holiday Pine"and part "Christmas in Paris". Maybe the scent alone will drive the horrible (formerly adorable) Sapsuckers away. Heaven knows it should keep insects at bay but who knows?

Tree wrap has been ordered and is on the way.

I wonder if Sapsucker tastes like quail?

Sadly, Sybil

Imperial Star Artichoke Plants!

2012-01-21T06:06:00.000-08:00

Every spring I love to check out at least one nursery that is new to me, and to try out a product I have never ordered before.

I love fresh artichokes and I've had great luck with Imperial Star, which has produced wonderful harvest of 'chokes here in Virginia Beach, so when I saw that The Natural Gardening Company catalog included Imperial Start plants I had to have some.

Normally, I have to start the seeds early enough that they are hardy enough to go out for a chill couple of weeks before being planted out, thereby fooling the biennial genes in the artichoke into thinking it just enjoyed the world's shortest winter. Even so, I've generally had to winter them over to get a big harvest.

My plan is to get these seedlings, toughen them up a bit so that they are good and sturdy, then let them sojourn in the chilly spring sunshine before planting out into the garden bed.

Just one more step in my plan to become a wildly efficient gardener this year.

Frolic in the Chicken Coop

2012-01-19T12:55:00.000-08:00

Everyone snugged down in the ticky-tacky chicken run

to ride out this week's weather.

They have lots of fresh hay - a real treat -

along with some freshly mowed grass

(thank you warm spell).

Cuppers, the Peacock, maneuvers very carefully -

life is awkward when you are turning

with a five foot tail.

He and Cue (Q, QT, Cutie, Curlique) his snowy mate

like hanging with the chickens

and are quite calm about being in the run

for a few weeks.

But - soon... SOON he will be back in the garden

like a fabulous ornament.

A fabulous, seed bed ruining, flower stomping

ornament.

He's perfect.

And he knows it.

Butter! New chicken arrives!

2012-01-18T12:48:00.000-08:00

This is lonely Butter, my friend Colleen's last chicken.

Everyone else at their coop had been eaten.

By a raccoon, probably.

Butter was just waiting it out,

waiting her turn.

Now she's at our house, and this is her looking out at the new neighborhood, wondering.....

Butter is very lovely. She is an Auracana hen, probably one of the Americanas and every feather is decorated and beautiful. She has a striking ruff and wonderful cheek fluffs. Rumor has it that she regularly lays green eggs.

Rob is waiting for green eggs and ham.

Right now, Butter is mostly sitting on her separate perch, carefully watching the home flock and checking out who is in charge, who is friendly, who is to be feared.... We tried sneaking her in with the others but they were running her ragged and we decided to let her acclimate in her own little side "house".

Let me tell you, any time I hear some well-meaning fool chiming along about "Oh, Why can't we all get along in harmony, like in nature and the animals" I just shake my head. What I know immediately is that this la-la-land resident has never truly observed animals or raised animals. It's a chicken-peck-chicken world out there. No one cooperates - - very much. Welcome a newcomer with open arms? "Oh, hello, why don't you step over here and share our cracked corn?" Ooooooh, not likely. It's more like "Yo, bitch, step back and get outta here!"

The welcome wagon ladies? I think not.

Hick Trash Chicken Coop

2012-01-17T12:39:00.000-08:00

Yep. We are now the most disreputable chicken coop in the neighborhood. And, in my rural neighborhood, that is really saying something.

That mess back there is the chicken coop and run, now with full added winter wind protection. What a tacky mess... but (a) it works and (b) it is actually staying on in the wind! I took this photo from a ways away so y'all could appreciate that this coop, with its tiny stand of trees, is smack out in the barren fields. Wide wind country. Double plus un-good for Nor'easters that will be coming....

The peacocks were determined to roost in that pathetic stand of trees and were getting blown in the icy winds. Things didn't look good.

Now they - and the chickens - are incarcerated in that tacky, gypsy tent of a chicken run until the end of March. They will survive, getting fat on lots of hay and laying in the sunshine in the open south side.

Sigh.

It doesn't look any better from the front, does it?

Notice that it's the only place on the whole darned farm

that has shade in the summer.

Notice the far, far tree line?

That's the next state.

In winter, a gardener's thoughts turn to spring.....

2012-01-11T17:14:00.000-08:00

One of my greatest winter pleasures is sitting nestled in front of the fireplace in my favorite reading chair with an armload of new gardening catalogs, my gardening notebook and a fistful of post-it notes. I love to look through the colorful photos and lively descriptions, imagining new garden beds full of food and color. Look at those gardening gloves! And the darling cloches and parterres and sculptures! And those zinnias! (My personal total weakness - I'd seed the world with brilliant, hardy zinnias, given my druthers.) <sigh>

Zinnia hybrid "Zowie"

So I mark and scribbled and plot and plan and draw out garden designs and redesigns.

How to keep the chickens out of the seed beds?

I've lost my space for the artichokes - - now what???

I wonder if anyone else is ordering from growitalian.com? Their seed packets are so beautiful and so huge.... it'd be great to swap/share some seeds. Their peppers are fabulous.

Next I'm into the seed storage drawer, where I have to sort out what's left from past years. Then I need to test some samples to see if the seeds I've hoarded are still viable (got a couple of unhappy surprises last spring) while there's still time to order replacements.

So much to do ....
and we're not even gardening yet!
Well, yes... of course we are....
gardening is, as always, as much inspiration as perspiration.

That's why it lifts our spirits so!

Dang! I forgot the Fava Beans!

2011-12-02T17:34:00.001-08:00

Dang! I forgot the Fava Beans!

You know how when you're setting up your seasonal plantings, you try to remember what really performed well in past years (if you are wise you have a garden journal of sorts to refer to) so that you're sure to get some of those plants started for this year's production?

Well, this fall I remembered the lettuce, the pak choi, the arugula, the beets and the onions/garlic bed... but... I forgot to plant the fava beans.

I got some fava beans a few years ago from a gardening friend who claimed that these were beans you could grow through the winter here in Virginia Beach. Skeptical? Yep. But I planted them. And they came up in the fall and they struggled on in the colder months, with the occcasional blanket of an old sheet for truly nasty nights, even through the snows.

When warm weather arrived - way before I could put out anything more tender than bitter greens - I noticed the flowers on the fava beans. The leaves grew larger and the early bees were ecstatic to have the white and deep purple flowers when they came out for a little nectar on warm afternoons.

And then it got cold again and they sort of wilted down and, to tell you the truth, I didn't really pay any mind to the whole project.

And then one day, I turned over the floppy plants in the bed -

no, I hadn't staked them worth a darn - it was winter all this time... I wasn't really paying attention....

And there were all these beans!!!!

I'm not talking measley little beans, either.

Big FAT fava pods.

And I still had no idea how to cook them. I read all the recipes, which were very involved and included getting the beans out of the pod, pre-steaming, removing the inner "skin" of the beans... and THEN cooking the beans. Whew!

I did it once, we weren't wowed and I gave the entire harvest to the chickens who most definitely were wowed.

Not another thought until I mentioned it last year to a couple of chef-type friends of mind. "FRESH FAVA BEANS???" they cried in anguish. Turns out I had tossed a very expensive, fresh gourmet treat to those chickens, one that is very hard for chefs to get here. Upon duress - meaning they cried on me for an hour - I promised to plant more favas for them this year.

I forgot. Oooooh, dear. I wonder just how late it is in the fava's internal calendar. <sigh> I guess I can only hope they forgot... Just like I did. Did anyone get favas in this fall? The seeds are hard to find but Bill usually has them at the Grow Italian website.

Can You Find the Peacock?

2011-12-01T15:04:00.001-08:00

Just came in from checking on the chickens and peacocks. Bonus credit if you can find the peacock in the trees behind the chicken coop. (Extra credit - the little roundish blob to his upper right is his mate, Q, already balled up against the cold of the evening.)

See the contrails? Well, admire this:

See that tiny bright crescent in the middle? The moon! Also this evening, up above the peacocks. Can you tell our farm is on a human flyway? It's not just the waterfowl winging through this time of year.

What's really amazing is the sound of geese moving so high up you can barely see them, following the same intuitive path that our navigation can only hope to emulate.

Oh, and you get more bonus credit if you'd like to guess in which direction the Charlotte airline hub is located.... <laughing>

Anyway, back out to finish closing up - couldn't resist a couple of photos though.

Let Us Lettuce.... no?

2011-11-28T16:21:00.001-08:00

Ack. Do you see those beeeautiful lettuce plants? That view is just a cute square of my winter salad raised bed, full of tasty lettuce, arugula and greens for my "off season" salad treats.

Do they look tasty and delicious? Yes, yes.

Do they look healthy and nutritious? Yes, yes.

Do they look suitable for a salad? Yes, yes.

Do they look full of APHIDS??????
Well, they ARE.

Hissssss. Breaking out cinnamon oil and water sprays. The beneficials are long gone a few frosts ago. Wouldn't you think the little soft-bodied aphids would've kicked off, too????

If y'all have grown lettuce you know what it's going to be like cleaning itty bitty aphid bodies off those beautifully crenulated and cutleaf leaves. <sigh> The best laid plans of gardeners.......

Moments of Thankfulness at the Farm

2011-11-24T10:33:00.001-08:00

Even when it seems to me that most of my gardening energy is spent whining about how much I'm not getting done and how disreputable everything looks and how far behind I am in all my plans.... there are sudden moments when I am simply thankful to be here.

Coming out the back door to find a blaze of color in my empty winter garden - Cuppers, the peacock waiting for me to come out with treats.

Fresh Ponderosa lemons ripening on their little tree near the back door, ready to go in iced tea for our holiday feasting.

The gentle, sweet fragrance of Loquat blossoms perfuming the air all around the house with the promise of fruit in the spring.

And the beauty of a rainbow in the autumn rains.

Lawd, why do I gripe so much?

These are the moments worth being born for.

And worth being grateful for.

May your life be full of gratitude because it is full of wonderful things.

And best wishes from this little farm.

The Coop Coup

2011-10-25T17:46:00.000-07:00

One of my darling girlfriends saw fit to gift me with a ridiculous metal rooster that she hauled cross country solely for the purpose of adorning my chicken coop.

Upon seeing the rooster, I realized that my chicken coop had become much too drab to host such an artistic statement.

It was drabber than it looks in this photo - really needing a new coat of paint and some jazzy color. (You can see the larger peacock aviary that attaches to the coop in the background.)

So, to celebrate the arrival of the Metal Masterpiece, I spent the weekend scraping and painting the coop.

Alas, the photo shown doesn't include the final coat of new bright barn red paint... but you get the picture!

The color choice was dictated by whatever was in the barn - we are determinedly using up the decades of stuff accumulated out there. We call it "shopping the barn". :)

Final photos will follow - but we all agree that the bright yellow trim has cheered us up and the chickens will have a reason to be happy again! Thanks, Lesley!

R.I.P. Beloved Mr. Chicken

2011-10-24T13:52:00.000-07:00

Woe! Tragedy! Disaster!

A loose pack of dogs, roaming at will with neither collar nor tags, went through our farm on a chicken-killing rampage. Friends helped beat them off but, when the feathers settled, there were no live peacocks or chickens in sight. Among the bodies was my beloved little rooster, Mr. Chicken, whose toddler-given name stuck for life. A Cochin banty, Mr. Chicken was only 10" high but he was a terrific, brave and peaceful little rooster who gently fed and gathered his hens where ever they roamed.

The dogs were not mean or feral, four of them were 3/4 grown chocolate and golden labs with the typical happy, happy lab disposition (once we corralled them away from the chickens). The adult, a chow mix, seemed like a good dog... none were starving or sick, but all had ticks and absolutely no training. Discards? Escaped cage dogs?

Cuppers and QT, the peacocks, were saved by flying higher in the nearby trees than I could even believe. At least 35 feet into the air.

(Note: They stayed up there, alert but making no noise, until I came out the next morning. It wasn't until I let the hens out into the run that they felt safe enough to come down and join us.)

We had no way to know who had survived in hiding - the body count told us who had died in the field.

Come nightfall, Freckles, one of our "middle" hens crept out of hiding, looking for her sisters. She began calling and shortly her two daughter hens came out from another brushpile. Penny and Lackenflacken, the two oldest hens (shown right) broke cover and made a wild run for the safety of the open coop.

Freckles (show below with one of her chicks last spring) ran across the open yard to the coop. I had to walk the two daughter hens along until they got close enough to feel safe running alone to the open door.

Everyone is still skittish. Several hens were never found - either they went far enough to be beyond calling back or they were (I suspect) terminally wounded and died somewhere in the brush where we could not find them.)

It's a sad little flock of five that remain, but they are regaining their courage and roaming again - - but with much more suspicion now!
R.I.P. Mr.Chicken, tiny little rooster, you died trying to save your girls.

Finally October - and Virginia is beautiful again!

2011-10-20T18:03:00.000-07:00

The past few months have been a slow blogging (and gardening) season here at Paradise farm. I've been so worn down by the summer heat and humidity and so irritated by allergies (me! of all people!) that I simply shut down on gardening.

Luckily for me, some of the established plants continued to fight their way onward through the season, despite my neglect - like the beautiful Glory Bower (Clerodendrum trichotomum ) sparkling with seed pods right now.

Each of the determined perennials that pulled through without much aid or interest on my part are really treasured now. Brave souls. Black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta) don't get much respect these days, but what a shot of brightness they've been in my late summer/early fall garden this year. These are in that group of plants that I utterly take for granted - heck, I spend more time ripping them out than encouraging them. I am humbled by their beautiful tenacity.

Perhaps even more amazing are the annuals that pulled through almost entirely on their own. Sure, I threw down the seeds but, believe me, that was the end of it.

I know these zinnias look scraggly when examined on their own, but they brightened every spot in the garden where they sprouted. FYI, these came from free sample seed packets tossed around and discarded at a recent Garden Writers gathering. I guess zinnias are just too Plain Jane to thrill highbrow Garden Writers..... anyway, I gathered up the leftover packets and stowed them away in my bag. Mid-summer I discovered the packets and, wandering in my state of garden ennui, languidly waved them about the neglected garden. A few weeks later, I began spotting clumps of yellow, pink, purple and orange zinnias, happily blooming away in the heat, drought and humidity. Wonders!

And I still can't figure out how an area can be in a full-blown drought and be humid. How miserable is THAT?

Okay - one last cheer for an intrepid annual. When I discovered the ligustrum "trees" that I'd spent the last decade sculpting into beautiful multi-stemmed shade features for our pool garden were sending out roots penetrating the pool concrete, they had to go. The resulting bare fence was HORRIBLE. Something had to go there - asap!! It was late in the season, planting was mostly over, no perennial shrub would get there this season..... long story short, I dug a shallow trench in the root-bound soil where the trees had been and tossed in a handful of Hyacinth Beans (Dulcis lab lab). The result??? Holy mackerel!!

This clump of flowering D. lab lab vine has got to extend a full 30' down the fence. Bees, hummingbirds.... me.... we all love it. I'm saving all the seeds. I'll have tons. Let me know if you want some for next spring. I've always loved this plant - if only because it's so fun to mutter "lab-lab" at it.

Word is those gorgeous bean pods are edible. Haven't worked up the initiative to eat any. If anyone else has, send in an opinion. Edible? Delicious?

Anyway, thank heaven for fall. And thanks for all the enjoyment I've gotten gardening vicariously through all your gardening blogs when I was too out of sorts to do it myself.

- - Sybil

Yards - 18th Century or 21st?

2011-09-30T16:27:00.000-07:00

Greetings, Useful Gardeners!

Fall is coming and the lawn care companies are once-again launching their huge campaigns encouraging homeowners to spray, reseed and otherwise spend money renovating their lawns. Is this kind of lawncare really a part of useful gardening?

It is fascinating that modern day homeowners are still emulating the estates of 17th and 18th century Europe by maintaining large swaths of cropped grass around our personal "estates". In feudal Europe, those large estate lawns were the result of flocks of sheep and livestock being grazed. Rather than being a useless grass exhibit, these rolling green lawns were obvious signs of prosperity. Even today, while touring the lovely, grand English estates now maintained by the National Trust, one often encounters sheep on the grounds.

Today, however, grass lawns - be they American or otherwise - really represent an huge amount of effort for little usefulness. Families with children enjoy the play space. Adults may enjoy the space for entertaining - although I notice most cookouts and such have moved onto porches and decks as folks avoid sun and mosquito exposure. Nevertheless, we spend an amazing amount of time, money and pesticides on our grass. And grass is the only truly useless part of a natural lawn or open area. A natural lawn, even nicely mowed at a good height (4" or so), has growing within it clovers, wildflowers, herbs.... and all of these flourish and provide sustenance for honeybees and other beneficials.

Check these statistics from the Duke University Nicholas School of the Environment (interesting blog by the way) from the webpage: http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/thegreengrok/lawns

Amount of lawn in the United States: 40.5 million acres

Total amount of money spent on lawn care: $30 billion

Amount spent on pesticides in 2001 for home and garden use: almost $2.2 billion

Ratio of pesticide use per acre by the average homeowner versus the average farmer: 10 to 1

And, perhaps my favorite of their lineup of lawn statistics:

The Exxon Valdez spilled 10.8 million gallons of gas while U.S. citizens spill some 17 million gallons refilling gas mowers annually.

Not filling them, mind you, just what was spilled refilling them. Every year?! And don't tell me you've never overflowed that little hand mower tank opening.

So, for some eye-opening education, hike on over to the Duke U. Nicholas School blog, read and start thinking about useful ways you could use that space. Perhaps just as a more useful kind of lawn.

Meanwhile, I'm shopping for sheep. Don't tell my husband.

Loquat Seeds - the beautiful harvest

2011-07-29T16:24:00.000-07:00

Behold the most beautiful seeds in my personal plant kingdom!

These are Loquat seeds (Eriobotrya japonica). They represent the seed harvest from my entire crop from this June.

I don't need more Loquats, but I can never, ever resist planting these seeds. Alas, they don't stay this gorgeous as they dry out or I'd have necklaces of them to wear every day. As it is, they are tucked into a ziplock in my fridge, waiting for planting time....which will be when I get to it. Soon, I hope.

FYI, the last third of the Loquat harvest looked like this:

For whatever genetic reason, I notice that the fruits of this tree are less "fuzzy" than most Loquats. And you can see that these got bug pecked, even hidden under those hard, ridged leaves.

In previous years, I have shared my harvest - at least one or two to Rob. Not this year. Less than a dozen Loquats. I ate them all.

Catching Up with the Season

2011-07-29T16:12:00.000-07:00

This is the current status of the tomato/pepper bed - moved early this spring from back by the barn into the pool gardens. (Here's the photo from the beginning planting: spring tomato/pepper bed planting .)

Strawberry Verte fig to the left and Basjoo banana to the right. That banana - the one I wasn't sure would survive the winter unprotected, as it pathetically froze to the ground - is over 14' high. No bananas, thanks to the freezing winters but, oh, so tropical when seen from the porch.

Amazingly, this ONE small bed, only 4x8' is currently producing more tomatoes and wonderful Carmagnolo Rosso peppers than I can keep up with. It's planted too densely, I'll admit, but that seems to be keeping the soil mix a tad more moist and cool than otherwise. How amazing to have only a couple of small veggie beds!

Back After a Not-So-Short Break (or) Welcome to Mid-Summer

2011-07-24T16:59:00.000-07:00

Well, I only meant to turn my attention away from my own little blog for a bit while I worked on another web project and look what happens! Ten weeks gone. Good excuses, however, I've been devoting my online time to revamping the website for the Friends of Virginia Beach Animal Care and Adoption Center (formerly known as Animal Control). As an all-volunteer project, the site had become badly disorganized and was very difficult to use. It's my hope that I can continue to tweak it into a site that will result in better adoption rates for the shelter. If anyone hikes over to the link, please share your thoughts and suggestions with me! A real thrill was getting the okay from Robert Seymour to include his wonderful BirdBreath cartoons in the new site. He's not only a talented cartoonist but a true supporter of animal rescue. Many thanks, RS!

New Chicks Have Hatched!

2011-05-16T18:42:00.000-07:00

Great joy and commotion! The two determined banty hens successfully nested and hatched TEN baby chicks - six hatched for one mama and the other mama hatched four. Such hysterical clucking and excitement!

At this point the babies are almost a week old and are shooting around the pens, driving their harried mama hens to distraction. They cheep constantly. Healthy, happy babies!

Right before and during hatching, the hens flatten out protectively - you can tell there are little ones moving underneath.

Here is one of the first chicks checking out the new surroundings - staying very close to mama!

Sometimes it feels safer to rest under mama's protective wing and just peek out at the world.

And then, suddenly, there are SIX and they are everywhere! Mama hen scrambles to keep track of them all.....

Notice the interesting assortment of colors and patterns? This is going to be a very amusing flock of.... whatevers...... can't help but laugh. Hope most are hens.....

Poolside Raised Beds

2011-05-16T18:24:00.000-07:00

As part of my continuing effort to make our gardening as ruthlessly efficient as possible, making large allowances for our declining interest in sweating "in the field" for hours all summer, I've been moving some of our raised beds into the pool gardens - - previously the only slightly formal gardens we kept. So far I'm quite pleased with the results!

As you can see, I left a few of the Rainbow Chard just for color accents amid the Romaine lettuce and Pak Choi. Because this bed is well protected from sun, it was wonderful for salad greens but I shall have to find something very shade tolerant for the summer. Some herbs, like Tarragon, are already thriving in the sunny corners.

I love having my garden chair right there in the shade!

We also made a super sunny bed next to the porch for tomatoes and peppers, our summertime favorites. Fun to see them growing up towards the porch all summer, flanked by the Strawberry Verte Fig and the Basjoo Bananas. Fig brings on huge fruit crops... no such love from the bananas, but they lend such a great tropical air that I can't resist them.

My sister supplies me with the wacky, colorful Talaveres pottery frogs. I love them!

Nice to finally be getting around to the gardens..... we've had BEAUTIFUL weather for it most of the month. Yep, my allergies are murder - but even that can't deter my enthusiasm at this point. I may sound froggier than my frog planters, but that's just the price! :D

Princess Curlique Arrives!

2011-04-26T15:46:00.000-07:00

Well, after months of waiting and weeks of forlorn calling (for an idea of what this is like, either ask our neighbors or click here: Peacock Calls on YouTube ), Cuppers the Peacock finally has a girlfriend!

The same darling girl, Cindy, who gave us Cupcake, aka Cuppers, has now gifted him with a girl of his own. Like Cindy's mama peacock, Lady Curlique (that's "Curly Q" for the country minded among us) is a beautiful creamy white with gold, green and black accents. If only my El Cheapo camera would do her justice....

She's a bit disheveled in this photo after riding in the carrier and is now inspecting the compost area of the run. Note the delicate turn of foot..... what a princess!

Next was the introductory inspection of each other (see below)... note her polite head turn as she ignores his direct stare...

Followed by the intoductory waltz...... heads up, heads down, heads up, heads down.....

And ending, so far, with both seeming quite shy but companionable.

Cuppers is much the awkward teenaged boy-on-a-first-date, ducking his head shyly and dashing in every few minutes to check his reflection in the coop mirror. He fluffs, ducks down shyly and sidles around Lady Q. as she slowly and quietly strolls around the run, checking out the new digs. She's kept up a low but constand patter of nervous clicks and he occasionally clicks back, but so far he hasn't done much other than looking like a nervous guy on prom night.

Waiting to see how they sort out roosting this evening..... we are SO thrilled with her arrival.

Let me tell you, from backyard chicken country... THIS is the Royal Wedding!!

Confetti for everyone! Champagne!
Sybil

What could occupy a gardener in the spring???

2011-04-08T07:36:00.000-07:00

Okay, I admit it... my gardens are leaving out, growing and blooming with almost no input from my end. The chickens showed up in the perennial beds and did the weeding - tossing mulch in all directions but, hey, the chickweed, henbit and dandelion sprouts are gone! The trees and shrubs have simply gone on, following their own muse, while I was totally preoccupied. With what, you say? With this....

"Play with me!" the baby says. "Put down that trowel and play with ME!"
And so I do. Puppyhood is short lived and this little foster will -- soon, I hope, for his sake -- be on his way to a loving "forever" home. Time to enjoy Baby Maverick while he is here.

Cabbage Thief!!!

2011-03-13T08:22:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I've been growling about the @#$ rabbits getting into the raised bed of cabbage. Haven't seen any rabbits, mind you - but I assumed they were about since something had eaten fully half a head of beautiful, ready-to-pick savoy cabbage.

And then I happened to see someone sneaking, sneaking up on the cabbage bed.

And, now I have proof of what one scavenging peacock can do to a head of cabbage!

Sigh. So now I'm keeping an eye out to see where and when he gets into the raised beds. (Below, he's checking out the garlic in one of the old beds.)

But his real joy is just dustbathing with the chickens in the loose, dry dirt where we've been taking out old raised beds. It looks like it just feel sooooo good to be in the warm, itch-stopping dirt. They really do love it!

More spring joy for all of us.
And, yes, I promptly began harvesting cabbage - before it was all gone!!!

Sybil

More "No Impact" - what about those newspaper bags?

2011-03-06T09:02:00.000-08:00

Trust me - this looks like a dull post, but the creative stuff is down at the end. Don't miss it!

Despite all of the effort I've been making to reduce and eliminate waste and trash at our house, there are still some problem areas. One bit of "trash" that arrives daily is the plastic wrap the carriers now put on our Virginian-Pilot newspaper. I've been including these with my few plastic grocery bags, packing it all into one plastic grocery bag and taking them to my usual store's plastic recycling bin, which is generally located just outside one of the entry doors.

I've been a bit concerned whether this was a legitimate thing to do, so today I actually went to the website that's listed on the bag itself. Turns out that combining newspaper bags with grocery bags is just fine.

Here's the link that says exactly what you can include in this kind of recycling and where you can take the result: http://www.plasticbagrecycling.org/01.0/s01.1.php.

In a nutshell, here's what the site says you can recycle together at Bloom, Farm Fresh, Food Lion, Harris Teeter (and the site lists more grocery stores in our area):

DO recycle:

•Grocery bags

•Retail bags (hard plastic and string handles removed)

•Paper towel and toilet paper plastic wrap

•Plastic newspaper bags

•Plastic dry cleaning bags

•All clean, clear bags labeled with a #2 or #4

Note: Please recycle only plastic bags that are clean and dry. Please remove receipts.

And here's the DON'T list:

Do NOT include the following.
The following are considered contaminants and could jeopardize recycling programs:

NO food or cling wrap

NO prepackaged food bags including frozen food bags

(e.g., prewashed salad bags)

NO film that has been painted or has excessive glue

NO other bags or films

NO bio-based or compostable plastic bags

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

OR, if you know how to crochet, well... you can crochet some plastic bag garden hats!!! Check this out:

http://familycrafts.about.com/od/plasticbagcrafts/ss/Crocheted-Plastic-Bag-Hat-Pattern.htm

And, yes, there is a blog dedicated to nothing but the things you can crochet out of plastic bags....

http://cristencrochet.blogspot.com/. More proof that there is more crazy, creative stuff going on in this world than I ever suspect!!

I'm going to have to find crochet hooks... and a tutor!

Sybil

"... in the weeds"

2011-03-05T08:05:00.000-08:00

When one of my young friends was working as a waitress, she told me that the code phrase they used in the restaurant business for being hopelessly behind was to say that they were "in the weeds". Ha! I am, figuratively and literally, in the weeds, let me tell you. And, if only the early spring weeds weren't so lovely. I hate to pull them - but I also know what they will become in my garden beds if left to my admiration. Remember the movie about the little cuddly aliens that turn into horrible monsters if you feed them? Well.....

But, meanwhile, have you seen the stunning fields of purple Henbit (a weed, yes) gracing all of the roadways out here in Princess Anne County (south Virginia Beach)? If these were on a photo calendar of Provence, we would all be saying, "oh, my - I must go there and visit on vacation". Right now we have the insanely beautiful combination of purple fields graced with thousands of white snow geese. It is Grace just to look at it. I wish I had a camera that would do it justice.

And already the big agricultural herbicide sprayers are already in action and the beautiful drifts of purple Henbit will all be dead soon, as farmers are getting ready for the first Monsanto bred seed crop. I'm not saying it's not necessary, just that it makes me feel sad and empty somehow.

Is a Puppy a Garden Ornament? NOT!

2011-02-18T10:43:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm not as far into my spring pruning and gardening as I had hoped. There was this DISTRACTION.

Puppy in rare almost quiet moment.....

Behold THE PUPPY! This is our foster puppy - a six-month old Shih Tzu boy, happy and healthy and full of bounce. Loving life on the farm while waiting for someone loving to adopt him with a "forever home".

Meanwhile, he has tried out eating the bark mulch (threw that up), pulled out some winter weeds (got pets for that one), pulled out some winter bulbs (foster mom realized that praising his "weeding" abilities was going to have repercussions), dragged around garden tools, carried gardening gloves all around the yard, and slept in the Muck Boots.

A PUPPY. What on earth was I THINKING?????

What a difference a Day Makes!

2011-02-10T11:59:00.000-08:00

Who can resist photos on a gloriously brilliant, snow-shining day like this?

Yesterday, my gardening pal, Holly, and I cleaned out the greenhouse, getting ready for spring lettuce and early spring vegetable seedlings. The ground was damp but green and sprouting daffodils and tulips made it seem like spring was on the way.

Today, the gardens are buried under 4" of fresh, new snow that arrived overnight. No plant flats in the GardenWay cart now -- just snow!

The view out back, toward the barn and greenhouse, was so pristinely blue and white that it was irresistable. There was nothing for it but to hike out through that winter landscape.

Although the coop stays warm and dry, the chickens and Cuppers, the Peacock, were out marching uncomfortably through the heavy, damp snow. They didn't seem quite sure what to make of it, although this winter they've had a lot of experience in wading through shin deep snows - if chickens have shins, that is.

One - count 'em - Spring Day!

2011-02-07T17:28:00.000-08:00

Just a few of this year's catalog offerings!

Okay! One spring-like day and I'm insanely flipping through seed catalogs to find my new experiments for this year. I have so many seeds left from the last three years that there's not much to order - I need to use these saved seeds up first. Am I the only one who finds way too many seeds in a packet? For example, I get these fabulous packets from http://www.growitalian.com/ that have HUNDREDS of seeds in them. How many pepper plants do I need? We need a neighborhood seed swap where each gardener could bring their excess seeds and get some seeds from various packets others have selected. It would be fun to see what varieties someone else was excited about!

Accounting for that Harvest

2011-02-01T17:13:00.000-08:00

Ever wonder how much a backyard garden might be worth? How about $3,415.18 worth of fresh produce?

Click over to Back Yard Organic Vegetables, Veggie-Pak's delightful gardening blog and check out the startling totals from one garden this past season. And the equally impressive effort to track, weigh and account for those harvests. Notice that we're talking To The Penny here. Beat that!

I always start out with good intentions, but then my spouse wanders through and EATS some of the goodies, hands them to others (as do I) and, presto, we have no idea how many tomatoes we really had. Et cetera. We consume all sugar pod peas on the spot, in the garden. Munch, gulp. Not ONE counted or weighed. So I'm reading Veggie-Pak's careful accounting with real pleasure because I know I will never, ever, accomplish anything like it.

Veggie says that the incentive for tracking all of this comes from Mark's Veg Plot Blog in Britain, and Mark's VSR (Value for Space Rating) concept - a great way to determine what crops are really worth your time, space and effort. Mark says he bases his gardening decisions on three main questions:

1. The availability of the vegetable in Winter, or other times of scarcity.

2. Whether or not the homegrown item provides significantly better quality than a similar one bought in a shop.

3.Whether the vegetable is difficult and/or expensive to buy.

I would add to that second question whether or not friends, neighbors and my local farm stands (mostly run by friends of ours) are already growing that particular vegetable so that I can buy it fresh from them and support their farm as well.

I also take in account specific varieties, so that I'll grow certain lettuces, peppers and beans - even potatoes and onions! - that I can't get anywhere else - even if other varieties are readily available and cheap in season.

And I shall be growing it all in ruthlessly less space! More value! Less work!
Let the challenge begin!
Sybil

Ruthlessly Efficient, Self-Sufficient Gardening

2011-02-01T07:59:00.000-08:00

It's February 1st - the touch point that lands half way between the first day of winter and the first day of spring, between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. It is the day when I ponder the gardens to come and decide what, if anything, my commitment will be for this year's gardens.

For my first commitment: I have decided to devote this season to seeing just how much food I can grow in the smallest, most efficient spaces. I can't sprawl over five acres any more, I just don't have the time, the energy or the heat tolerance. Food gardens have been moving into the house gardens, this year my goal is to maintain all of them there, veggies mingling with the ornamentals. I'll be growing ONLY those varieties that I dearly love and that are only at their best when I stroll outside and harvest them right before eating. Larger, quantity harvests are going to come from the dedicated work of our neighboring farms, helping support those small farm families through Buy Fresh Buy Local Hampton Roads.

My second commitment, made in mind of the No Impact Project , is that I won't be buying gardening materials such as pots, seed starting trays, plant labels, etc. I've been stockpiling yogurt containers, cottage cheese containers (sorry, Colin, still buying those supermarket container plastics) and will be subbing those in. Photos to follow as greenhouse gets set up. I figure better than simply recycling quantities of plastics is to continue reusing them as long as feasible - and not buying other forms of plastic instead - before sending to recycle.

I'm still working on getting enough compost/soil made up to satisfy all the greenhouse/raised bed needs but may fall short of my goal. And it's going to be tough to sterilize my soil enough for seeds. I need a "barn microwave" - there are objections from the other half of my household if I'm microwaving dirt in the house. Wonder why???

Wind Power without Turbines, Blades or Towers?

2011-01-23T10:38:00.000-08:00

Every month, something new and exciting develops in the alternative energy field. This is my pick for this spring (to date) - wind power that doesn't require large tracts of land with big towers with spinning blades. I'll admit that I've fallen in love with every wind field I've ever seen - I love any kind of kinetic sculpture, which is how the windmills seem to me - but I appreciate the huge costs and upkeep that these wind fields require.The debate continues as to just how dangerous to wildlife the typical wind "farm" really is, but - hey! - these engineers have come up with a simple, sensible, affordable solution to ALL of it!

Check it out!
NYT - Turbine Free Wind Power

spinning my wheels,
Sybil

Seed Savers Exchange & The Love of Beans

2011-01-22T08:11:00.000-08:00

Well, it's still too cold to work outside for more than a few minutes at a time - it's enough to hike out to the chickens, check their food and water, toss them yesterday's scraps, and dash back to the warm house. I'm trying not to even think about all the "winter" chores and projects that are not being done. I haven't pruned, mulched, moved plants, cleaned up beds -- any of a few dozen jobs that would normally be finishing up about now. But spring will come on, regardless of my readiness, and the proof is in the piles of seed and plant catalogs piling up on my table.

One of my favorites is the Seed Savers Exchange. I can get lost in this beautiful book with its descriptions of heirloom and rare varieties. The names..... I can get lost in the lyrical lists of variety names. Most folks are getting hip to the heirloom tomato names but stick to the familiar varieties on the seed racks at the store for other vegetables. Not so in this selection.

Beans are my favorite. I could grow a garden of nothing but beans, just to have the labels spinning around on their bamboo sticks. I think we should all go on beyond Kentucky Wonder (Bush or Pole, both great tried-and-true varieties). Reading through the names in the Seed Savers Exchange collection, a repository saving so many varieties now on the verge of being lost forever, is like reading a history of farming and food gardening, with all the seeds that were so precious and so carefully saved only a generation or two ago. Now only a few organizations work to keep these alive and in our gardens. Just roll these old bean variety names over your tongue a few times:

Rattlesnake Snap - now, isn't that a vision?
Red Swam - a "dusty-rose" podded cross between a purple snap and a pinto bean
Sultan's Golden Crescent - rarely offered and almost extinct, the catalog says. I may have to plant these.
Lazy Housewife - enough said, obviously these are my beans.
And what about Tiger's Eye, Painted Pony, Empress, Gold of Bacau (from Romania), Good Mother Stallard or Dragon's Tongue? There is the poetic, but sadly named, Cherokee Trail of Tears? No idle ad copy here, the original stock of seeds was (quoting in full from the catalog, page 7) "given to SEE in 1977 by the late Dr. John Wyche, SSE member from Hugo, OK. Dr. Wyche's Cherokee ancestors carried this bean over the Trail of Tears, the infamous winter death march from October 1838 in the Smoky Mountains to March 26, 1839 in Oklahoma, leaving a trail of 4,000 graves." In the same era of history, the catalog also carries Lina Sisco's Bird Egg beans, originally brought to Missouri by covered wagon in the 1880's by Lina's grandmother and handed down through that family's gardens.

In case you haven't noticed, the number of small, independent seed companies has been steadily dropping. If you look at any of your catalog closely, you'll notice that many of them have the same return address. Different names, same parent corporation. They've been bought out. Burpee devoted a large effort to buying up smaller seed companies - an effort that, in turn, nearly wrecked their own balance sheets. Some of the catalogs that used to be my delight, such as Cook's Garden - which originally had pages upon pages of fabulous lettuce and sunflower varieties that I had/have never seen elsewhere - are now just additional "faces" for the Burpee Company. But at least Burpee itself is still a privately owned, family company -- and not just another offshoot of Monsanto.

Without going all political, it is well worth reading the long, but comprehensive, Vanity Fair articleabout Monsanto Corporation's Move to Dominate World Agriculture. It will make you think hard about your food supply and your garden's seed supply -- and what you can do to make sure that free-domain, open-pollinated seeds continue to be part of our gardening heritage for generations to come. (Somehow, I'm always startled at the excellent journalism that shows up in Vanity Fair, which is, to me, a high-priced ad rag. On the other hand, they cater to the rich and sophisticated, so I suppose quality is called for.)

There are a number of articles on the web covering the deep and well-founded concerns that small farmers have over the gradual buy-up of seed sources and patents by Monsanto. I suggest we all do the obvious - buy seeds from Seed Savers Exchange or - even better, since we are in the Southeast - the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange (after all, they are right here in Virginia!)
It's also neat to read their gardening blog, which has great info for our state and the mid-Atlantic.

Now, if I could only make myself go out in the cold and get those garden beds ready.......

Stay warm, friends!
Sybil

Ending The Garden Year - Starting the Garden Year

2010-12-31T06:58:00.000-08:00

Well, it's the last day of the year. I still can't SEE my garden for the snow (how amazing) but I'm diving into the entertaining process of reviewing this past year's gardens to see how I think they did overall and I'm starting the always satisfying process of deciding what to change for next year.

We are shrinking our gardens substantially this coming season and my goal will be to become the most efficient gardener I can be. I don't know about everyone else, but Rob and I really suffered in this past summer's heat. With luck, this coming year will reward us with beautiful, gentle summer months but, regardless, I find I just can't work in the heat like I used to. (How on earth we worked in hot high tunnels in the summer months when we had our plant nursery, I can not now imagine.)

So, most of the 12 4'x8' raised beds will be taken out. After ten years, the landscape timbers have gradually softened and rotted away on the bottom. Rather than rebuilding, we are removing. I've gotten good enough at timing my crop rotations that we are really using only about half of them for veggie crops - the others are "permanent" berry and asparagus plantings which can now go in ground.

I've refined my veggie gardening to those things that I really, really feel I grow better than my farmstand neighbors and those things, like fresh tomatoes and lettuce, that are simply The Best when picked from one's own garden just before eating. As for the rest of the crops, like corn, potatoes, melons and.... zucchini... neighbor-friends that I enjoy are supporting their families and putting their kids through college on those veggies and I am now happy to buy from them. And have you noticed what a new wealth of vegetables varieties the local farmstands and farmers markets now supply? It's the result of new, imaginative shoppers who are supporting our local farmers as they expand into more varied "gourmet" varieties of vegetables and fruits! How cool is that?

All annual plantings possible - well, reasonable - are moving into the gardens around the house. I'm even relocating a couple of raised beds smack into the ornamental gardens. I've been teaching and practicing this technique for several years but am finally making the full commitment.

If you haven't been inspired by reading (or looking at the pictures - we all know how gardeners are) in Rosalind Creasy's Edible Landscaping books, you'll get inspired by this short article: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/home_blog/2010/11/rosalind-creasy-edible-landscaping-1.html
This is the author who first got me planting cabbages in the flower bed.

I also love this book: Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn. What a hoot! There are so many wonderful edible gardening books - I practically force them on any newbie gardeners who come to the Pungo-Blackwater library. And if you haven't checked the local libraries in the last few years, you will be awed by the number of gardening, homesteading, chicken-raising, home power and all kinds of self-sufficiency books they now stock (or at least that the VB public libraries carry). Popular demand, once again!

Anyhow, enough rambling. What are you going to change in 2011? New varieties? New gardens?
It's all amazing fun, isn't it?
Happy, happy New Gardening Year!
Sybil

PS - And this year I really AM resolved that I WILL get my sugar pod peas in early enough but not so early that they don't start well. You can be my witnesses..... Every year it seems I'm frustrated in one direction or the other - if only our spring weather would be consistent ...... :D

Raised Beds in the Snow....

2010-12-27T14:51:00.000-08:00

Find the 14' raised beds (there should be 4 in this photo) and the nice crop of swiss chard that was under the arch....

Bonus points for noticing the hoop house high tunnel in the background.

We've never before had snow deep enough that you could not find the raised beds - and these aren't drifts!

Amazement in the garden! - Sybil

Snowstorms Finally Over in Virginia Beach....

2010-12-27T05:28:00.000-08:00

It is beautiful - hope all the farm plants are doing well down in there under the snow. Our little farm looks very pretty with its frosting of snow....

Even though the scenery looks chilly, I know that this snow is actually protecting the more tender plants and is a blessing for the Pineapple Guava (Feijoa sellowiana) -- although this shot was taken after I'd already been out TWICE yesterday, knocking about 6" off the plants each time!

This was a "third place" snow of all time - 11.4 on the books and well over my boots here at the farm. Undaunted, however, we brushed off the Christmas Flamingoes and they are once again bobbing triumphantly at the back door - snow or no snow!

Happy Winter, Everyone!

God Bless The Little Things

2010-12-26T14:34:00.000-08:00

Snow just beginning in Blackwater

"God bless the little things this Christmastide,

All the little wild things that live outside;

Little cold robins and rabbits in the snow,

Give them good faring and a warm place to go

All little young things, for his sake who died,

who was but a little thing at Christmastide."

---- Margaret Murray

A Foot of Snow and more....

2010-12-26T14:27:00.000-08:00

This truly has become a Tidewater Blizzard! I've been out twice to clean the heavy, wet snow off branches of our large-leaved "tropical" trees, like my beloved Loquats, and shaken what I could from the Feijoa and Gardenias. Everything was bent flat under the weight. The tiny sparrows and chickadees shelter under the umbrella of the Loquats near the porch, appreciating the feeders and the respite from the blowing snow.

Here is Cupcake, the Peacock (named for his favorite food), dashing for the warmth and protection of the chicken coop.

As I fuss over my chooks and Cupcake, making sure they are snug and safe, I can't help but cast admiring and pitying eyes at the valiant little sparrows and chickadees, brilliant Cardinals and voracious Mockingbirds - all of whom are cheerfully weathering this storm in the open, hopping about and gobbling up any and all seeds I make available to them. Although I don't normally "feed birds" on a regular basis, I do put some munchies out during this kind of weather - just to make sure that they have enough energy to stay warm overnight.

My thoughts go out to those who are without shelter during this storm - humans and animals alike, wishing that all of them could have happy, warm homes like ours.

Virginia Beach Blizzard!

2010-12-26T08:10:00.000-08:00

We are enjoying a day-after-Christmas whiteout here on the farm. Made it out during a lull to take treats to the chickens and to refill their regular food containers. Although a few hardy chooks were ambling about out of the cozy coop, most were content to stay inside out of the wind and snow.

The big surprise of the morning was discovering that my little cheap-o, pocket digital camera was not only taking still photos, but also videos. This was apparently because my awkward, gloved fingers were landing on a button I've never used before. Who knew???

So, here for everyone's amusement (forgive the waving camera - I had no idea what it was doing) are two unexpected videos: one of Cuppers (Cupcake) the peacock enjoying the warm coop and another of Mr. Chicken and the girls having a nosh at the in-coop feeder.

Snow on the Loquats!

2010-12-13T13:28:00.000-08:00

Although it still hasn't been enough to cover the ground underneath, the loquats look lovely with their coating of fluffy, white snow.

Sometimes it is just delightful to see the garden covered in white - a cold, peaceful respite from gardening chores. We are tucked in by the fire, reading and baking holiday cookies. No outside concerns for us today!

Alas for the poor bananas, which, once again, didn't get cut back or covered before the first hard cold. They do come back regardless but I fear it will be another year before I ever discover how to have fruit.

Lovin' Those Loquats!

2010-12-03T06:46:00.000-08:00

Every year at this time, there is a special sense of wonder in one area of our farm. Up against the south-facing side of our pool fence, the row of Loquat trees (Eriobotrya japonica) open their fat clusters of blossoms. The sweet, slightly vanilla scent fills the air on any warm afternoon. If you are standing next to or under the trees, the very air vibrates with the humming of hundreds of bees.

This is one of the few blossoming plants in my neighborhood this time of year and every honeybee for acres around arrives to take delight and sustenance. As far as I know, none of the immediate neighbors have hives - I haven't seen any on my walks - so these may be long travellers or even "wild" honeybees foraging for some hive hidden in the nearby woods. I'll bet it makes fabulous honey - I've seen Loquat Honey for sale online but never tried it.

I love Loquats. Their striking, stiff leathery leaves remain all year, similar to Magnolia foliage, and their canopy shelters many small birds during our winter storms. Loquats have an interesting shape, outstanding in a landscape, and they are truly the queens of the fall/winter ornamental/edible garden. The deep golden orange fruits will ripen from the early spring into the beginning of summer, but only if we don't have a severe frost in late April.

Best of all, to me, is the deep, heart-felt pleasure of standing under a beautiful tree, now many feet above my head, and knowing that this tree is my doing, that it was only a small stick when I brought it here and that the lovely, nodding, verdant tree I admire today is the living embodiment of love and caring, season to season, until today.

Didn't take as many years as one might think, either. I'm always saddened when folks tell me they don't want to plant trees because they don't want to "wait for results". It is not as though there is nothing to love about a tree until the day it is mature! Planting trees is like watching children grow. They develop, they change, they suffer injury and hardship and, one hopes, recover with new strength. Every tree has a personality born of the place in which it finds itself. Unable to move, unable to relocate, it adapts and maneuvers itself into the best possible form it can manage.

I can't even imagine what life is like when one is not mobile, when you can only take what life brings (or refuses to bring) to your small space in the world. And yet the brave plants live, they grow and they become more beautiful than one could hope. To be a part of that? To watch over, help and encourage such an accomplishment? Ah, that is the highest a gardener may hope for.

When you feel the need for purpose, I suggest you plant a tree.
For you, for the world, for the future. Your future. Your joy.

Don't believe me? Take a bit of time and read the inspiring story of Wangari Maathai, the woman who has been reclaiming Kenya by teaching women how to plant trees.

Namaste, Sybil

Why go Hungry?

2010-11-26T10:35:00.000-08:00

You know, when you garden - really garden, taking joy in growing flowers, fruits and food, not just hastily plonking a few shrubs and overused annuals here and there and tossing a bunch of pre-fab mulch about - you quickly discover that there is no shortage of food. Not really. And when you begin to garden seriously and your landscape becomes increasingly filled with edible plants, you realize that there are ARMLOADS of food that will grow in your yard. Yes, that yard- the one that is still mostly grass to mow. (And for the record, ours is the same way.)

Why am I on this rant? Because all fall I was inundated with fresh chestnuts. Yes, the same chestnuts that are selling online in specialty gourmet stores for prices from $7.50 (plus about $8 shipping) to $28.00 a POUND in some cities. And I've heard at least three people reminiscing tenderly about bygone holidays, wishing there were still chestnuts to roast. Well, hello! There are! I'm growing them and so can anyone else.

Yes, nut trees take time - but it becomes so worthwhile. Planting a tree is gardening on a completely different scale. We tend to become too focused on quick results, especially in a community where so many residents are military transients. Why plant a tree you may not get to see reach maturity? Hmmm....do you ever stop and wonder, what if everyone in the past had felt that way? A tree is your gift to your community, the wildlife in your habitat and to the future.

And, just a reminder, not every chestnut in the world went down with the terrible chestnut blight. When the great American chestnuts had all but disappeared in one of the great ecological disasters ever to occur in this country, two dedicated horticulturists, James Carpentar of Salem, Ohio and Dr. Robert T. Dunstan of Greensboro, N.C, discovered ONE blight resistant tree (just one!) and set about reconstructing an entire population of chestnuts. The resulting Dunstan chestnuts are wonderful trees - not as huge (yet) or as interwoven into the fabric of America, but fast growing and loaded with fabulous nuts. I can attest. I'm eating several as I type with hundreds more on the ground.

You can read this inspiring history at:

http://www.chestnuthilltreefarm.com/Chestnuts.html

Nice folks. Great place to get yourselves a few Chestnut trees of your own.

But back to my original point: At our little farm, we've spent this entire year with lots and lots (did I mention lots?) of food in our yard. Tomatoes, vegetables, blackberries, blueberries, figs, Asian persimmons and Asian pears, (so many that the poor young trees broke in places under the load). Most of these are items that are hard to find or expensive in the stores. And here they all are. For a very modest start-up investment over the past decade and not particularly much work, truth be told.

You know, if every family planted just a few edible plants - some berry bushes, a fig tree or two, a small veggie garden - I believe it would change the health of the community, increase the overall feeling of pride in the community, and change - in many subtle ways - the way we view food and economy and self-reliance. We need to plant more gardens and teach others how to plant gardens.

I'm just plain for gardens. I'm for back yard gardens, front yard gardens, community gardens, school gardens, church gardens....

I believe it's never too late for a personal Victory Garden. Or a town full of them.

Time Flies When You're Not Having Fun

2010-11-24T09:41:00.000-08:00

Wow! Where did November go? Since my darling mom-in-law fell and broke her leg, the weeks have flown by in a rush of hospital visits, doctor visits, rehab facility set-ups..... you name it. All the non-joys of getting old(er). It doesn't take much to knock my schedule sideways and this was Very Much.

Gardening? Oh, please! My gardens no longer know who I am. My beautiful To-Do List of autumn chores, carefully planned so that each garden bed would be ready for the cold winter months, will never be accomplished. Now, it's a matter of doing a bit here and there, mostly to enjoy what lovely days are left to us.

What's happening in the garden? Oh, my. We are FEASTING on pineapple guava (Feijoa sellowiana), which is our favorite fruit in the world. (And, I have to point out that since fruits have long been our specialty, that's really saying something.) It's taken five years to really get the bushes going but the rewards ..... (happy lip smacking).... This is perhaps the fruit I most recommend to SE Virginia gardeners - such a lovely evergreen bush/tree, stunning flowers and, finally, amazing fruits.

Life, even in the midst of calamity, is good.

Find the Tiny Possum

2010-11-05T14:45:00.000-07:00

Tiny possum decided to take up residence in an old bird's nest in one of our Chindo viburnums. Drove the small dogs crazy. Tender-hearted VBAC officer picked up said possum and transported it a few miles down the road.

We already know from experience that just moving them to another part of the farm does nothing.... and possums and small dogs are not at all a Good Mix. (No, the VVBAC officer didn't murder it - thank heavens that policy has been rescinded.)

This is the lovely and very kind VBAC officer admiring her "catch". Possum had an earlier injury to its tail, hopefully not from one of our pups. Despite all their shots, I really didn't want them swapping bodily fluids with a possum. Uck.

Turns out that if you hold a possum by the naked, prehensile tail, they can't muster enough "ab" muscle strength to curl up and bite you.

This, and my predisposition to napping, have made me seriously consider what portion of my ancestral gene pool contains possum. I shall be thinking of this in the next Pilates class where I'll be doing my best to Play Dead.

Tea Time!

2010-11-01T09:46:00.000-07:00

The tea Camellia is in full bloom! One of the thrills of fall! I love the contrast between the simple, white and yellow blossoms and the deep green foliage.

Most folks don't realize that tea - yes, the "real" tea (Camellia sinensis), will grow here but it will and it is a delight.

I didn't pick any leaves this spring but perhaps next spring I'll take another try at creating my own green tea. Right now, I'm happy to enjoy the beauty.

The Virginia Camellia Society has had Camellia sinensis for sale at their show in the past - in fact, I remember them being the first place I ever got tips on turning my C. sinensis bush into a cup of tea !- so if you covet a tea plant of your own, you should try the upcoming sale at the Norfolk Botanical Garden. For details, click here: VCS Fall Show and Sale.

The best info I've found online giving directions on processing your own tea is here:
About.com - Growing Your Own Tea. If anyone has more or better info, please share!

A History of Tea in America links to a really interesting article that Martha Bowes wrote for teamuse.com about 10 years ago. It traces tea from indigenous plants found in the northeast all the way through the Charleston Tea Plantation that flourished as one of the few, if not the only, independent commercial tea plantation in the United States. There were a lot of us who loved that tea and the idea that it was a sort of "family business" rather than a corporation. Alas, things went awry and the plantation was sold in 2003 to the Bigelow tea company for over a million dollars (not a bad investment, it appears). Brief synopsis of the plantation's history is here: Charleston Tea Company

Now... growing coffee? Well, that's been a lot tougher! One thing about all this self-sufficiency? I almost never grouse about the price on the products (like tea and coffee) that I love. There's nothing like trying to do it yourself to make you appreciate having others grow and process it for you!

Saving Your Mum....

2010-10-31T12:54:00.000-07:00

I went through a long period where I simply refused to buy potted chrysanthemums ("mums") in the fall because they really didn't last all that long, compared to the months of color pansies provide, and I hated chucking them out -- and I hated even worse trying to keep them alive in the pot.

Then I discovered that here in our Zone 8-ish location, I could drop the root ball into the ground when the blooms grew tired, cut it back a tad and let each mum rest over the winter while it rooted in. Yep, they died back. Yep, they don't look like much for most of the summer. But now they are in their glory. I cleared a lot of the inner garden area where the mums had been residing but missed this little gal. I realized that this valiant mum's been blooming like this every fall for at least five years. No special care. I think maybe I run pruners across it when it first takes off and I suspect legginess might be in store. After that, it kind of hangs out amid the showy summer flowers, just a green ball. Now the others are gone and there it is. I leave it with this haiku, for the chrysanthemums are a treasured part of oriental flower lore:

Before the white chrysanthemum

the scissors hesitate

a moment.

- Yosa Buson Translated by Robert Hass

Compost Cab

2010-10-29T08:36:00.000-07:00

Yes! It's a compostable scrap taxi!
I stumbled on this interesting and hilarious new business this morning and just had to share.

Compost Cab is a very special service that has debuted in Washington, DC. Yep, practically on our local doorstep - but urban enough for serious restrictions on back-to-the-land home farming efforts. So there you are, city folk - you've absorbed all of the information on conserving, recycling your recyclables, saving your compostable materials... how do you actually make the final leg of the food-to-garden recycle-cycle happen? Sure, there are city recycling bins and pickups for your paper, metal, plastic ... but compost?

Enter the Compost Cab! They give you a bin, you fill it and off it goes to a nearby organic farm to make delectable, fertile compost. You owe it to yourself to read their blog and check out how it works - not because you need it but because it's so fun to see this kind of innovation. Wait! On the other hand, if you are "in town" Norfolk, Hampton... or buried in neighborhood restrictions... maybe you DO need a Compost Cab!

From their website:

Compost Cab makes it easy to compost in the city.

We deploy a clean, convenient, and cost-effective pick-up service for your organics. Then we deliver these materials to a nearby not-for-profit urban farm, where they’re transformed into the fertile soil needed to grow good, nutritious food for the local community. Everybody wins.

As we pursue our shared goals of building a more sustainable city and living healthier lives, we’re excited to invite you to join Compost Cab. Please sign up now and you’ll be composting before you know it!

Chicken Slaw!

2010-10-25T13:19:00.000-07:00

I am frequently asked how and what we compost. We've done a lot of experimenting over the years and we've discovered several things. Good compost is an art. Starting with your fresh material, you need to chop it, mix it, turn it, keep it moist, make sure it thoroughly heats... and then you really get something that is beautiful. Otherwise, you get a large pile of sort-of-rotted plant material that hasn't really heated enough to kill weed seeds, disease pathogens, fungus or anything else. Not bad stuff, but not what you were dreaming of. Ninety percent of the time, that's what we find ourselves looking at. Oh, in time - a couple of years - it rots down into something pretty decent, but it's not what the articles have promised. In our case, we just forget to get out there and turn the pile.

Oh, and I should probably mention that when we were seriously composting food and garden scraps and cuttings, our compost heap was something we turned with a full-sized Ford 3930 tractor bucket. Not a little bin and a hand shovel type operation.

Now we've "retired" and I'm too lazy to shovel all that stuff. I grind everything outdoors that I can with our hand lawnmower, which drives Rob crazy because he feels, probably correctly, that I'm dulling the blades. Grass cuttings go into the chicken run to amuse the girls and, while they are at it, they pick out all the grass and weed seeds and turn the bits over and over until they decompose. I use the chickens to do the composting of our food scraps. Here's the deal:

Fresh veggie scraps are the very best thing.
Torn into large pieces, they fit into the processor
and chop up in an instant. The eggshells keep
our hens supplied with calcium.

(A) Food scraps get loaded into the food processor:

I rarely use meat because the doglets get the good scraps. All veggies go in, unless they are icky (remembering that you never feed your animals anything you think has gone "bad) and all eggshells are added.

(B)Then I pulse the processor to chop it all up. Whatever amount - this isn't rocket science!

Everything is chopped to bite-sized pieces.
Looks like cole slaw for chickens, doesn't it?

Everyone runs to see today's offering!

Dottie, the Spangled Hamburg, and LockenFlocken, the Lackenfelter hen, are always first and last at the snack bowl.

Eventually, what's left gets kicked into the run where the chooks gradually root through it, turning it into the straw and chips and soil to make a lovely composted mix that I shovel out periodically and finish off outside the run.

The final mixture goes into the raised beds where we will raise the veggies that will become our food and the next batch of tasty scraps for the chickens!
Full circle once again.

On the No Impact Trail

2010-10-25T12:55:00.000-07:00

Admittedly, this isn't exactly "gardening", but I can't separate what I do here on the farm with what I do in the world. And a big step, after starting the process of "cleaning up" our act here at the farm, is carrying that commitment with me out into the rest of the world.

With our setup here on the farm (bearing in mind that this is hardly a farm, just 5 acres of land with house, small barn, hoop house, chicken coop, half-hearted orchards (I'll rant about trying to grow apples in Tidewater another day) and gardens. We are the smallest of what Hobby Farms magazine targets when they say "Hobby Farm".

It's enough to give us a nice full circle, however. We recycle in about a dozen ways. Our paper, bottles, cans and all of that go to the standard city recycling system - which really doesn't accept much, given all the plastics not accepted. Yes, I use my own shopping bags (love those big insulated bags that Bloom now sells!) for our groceries and other shopping. but the corporate packaging on everything from individually wrapped muffins to "fresh" vegetables is just horrendous.

Food scraps? Those are for the chickens. They love 'em! I offer them up with their regular corn and feed and the girls munch away. What doesn't interest them gets scratched around with the grass clippings and leaves that are also tossed into the run for the chooks to play with. They scratch and hunt and scratch and hunt.... and, eventually, I get to shovel up delicious compost for the garden: turned, churned and fertilized. Now, that's a win-win!

Starting to track of all of this for the No Impact Experiment really makes you think about everything! http://usefulgardens.blogspot.com/2010/09/no-impact-project.html

Ack! My title!

2010-10-24T11:59:00.001-07:00

Wow, I just opened the blog to find superimposed title on title on graphic..... whoa. Back to Photoshop, something's amiss!

Wal-Mart to Buy Fresh and Local?

2010-10-21T16:59:00.000-07:00

Erin Barnett, Director, Local Harvest, http://www.localharvest.org/
has a email newsletter just out discussing her thoughts on the new initiative by Wal-Mart to buy local produce. Is this another attempt to move into, underprice and destroy a small cottage industry or does it represent recognition by large corporations of how important this once grassroots-only local food movement has become? I loved her take on the broad, almost intuitive meaning that local food has for most of us.

In the article Erin says, "For me, "local food" is a kind of shorthand for an entire ethic. In this ethic, food is produced under quality conditions, on a scale that feels human rather than corporate, by people whose focus is on natural resource stewardship as much as it is on the bottom line, in a business whose owners do right by their employees. On the consumer side of this ethic, the food is purchased, prepared and eaten with awareness of its true value."

I think this is what appeals to all of us: that feeling of a caring connection - what Erin describes as "kindness" - between the producer and consumer, the worker and the farmowner, the farms and their communities.

Find the Local Harvest email newsletter here: http://www.localharvest.org/newsletter/20101021/
And do consider signing up!
For the original NY Times article on Wal-Mart's new buying local initiative, go here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/15/business/15walmart.html?_r=1

I'm thinking maybe the world is changing after all?
Sybil

Bullfrog in the Pool Skimmer!

2010-10-13T17:33:00.000-07:00

It's fall and the amphibians are moving around all over the farm, scoping out good places to winter over when the cold weather comes. This is the charmer we managed to extricate from the pool skimmer basket where he had wedged himself while hunting the beetles that washed in there. I'm betting it's the same @#$ bullfrog that leaped onto my back one night this summer when I was enjoying a late night dip in the pool in the dark. I almost had a heart attack. The neighbors are still worried about the strange screaming in the night. Must weigh 5 pounds. Rob didn't believe me at the time..... NOW he does!!!

Leaf Blowers

2010-10-13T08:45:00.000-07:00

Well, the first leaves are falling and the "yard crews" are out around the subdivisions and malls. This reminded me of a post I wrote for my older VBGarden blog. My feelings haven't changed, so I just swiped it from that blog and I'm editing and reposting it here for the beginning of fall. With all of the pre-election posturing (not action, mind you, just loud rhetoric) about the unsolved environmental problems here in Virginia, the imagery still fits.

"Today I drove past a number of landscaping crews busily cleaning up business "yards" and subdivision entrances in the aftermath of a quick series of storms that brought down the last of the fall leaves. The workers were armed with safety goggles and leaf blowers, which they aimed ferociously, like weapons, at the leaves and litter, blasting them to new locations off the property they were hired to protect.

It occurs to me that the irresponsible attitudes that have weakened our society can be related to the effect of leaf blowers. (Yes, I know it sounds mad, but hear me out.)

Do you remember, years ago, how each business owner would be up and out early in the morning, diligently tidying the entrance to his/her shop, sweeping and raking the area and gathering the debris into the trash bin or compost? People swept and cleaned the sidewalks in front of their homes. Leaves were gathered and composted or burned (and I still guiltily miss that wonderful fall smell). Each resident took responsibility not only for cleaning their personal area but also for making sure the material gathered was disposed of properly. Compare this to our manic, modern work crews and residents with their noisy blowers. Sure the leaves and trash get rapidly moved out of the way, from the sidewalk or parking lot into the street - or neighboring property - but is it actually taken care of? No, it's just loudly shuffled far enough to become someone else's problem.

Too many of us, individuals and government representatives alike, have been behaving exactly like those landscape crews. Problems are never really solved, no one takes responsibility for seeing that a situation was truly "cleaned up and put away" - problems are just quickly shuffled off - with a lot of blustering! - for someone else to deal with... again.

Now when I hear someone say that they took a problem in to be solved and the representative or responsible person "just blew it off", I know exactly what image fits."

Banner Magic

2010-10-04T18:57:00.000-07:00

No, no, in answer to questions, I haven't actually changed the blog -- but I have discovered that I can do artsy things with the top banner. Well, sort of artsy things... being limited only by my limited-edition Photoshop. I've been playing with photos, large and small, to see what might make a nice heading that better represented our farm. That's little Chick Number Six in the left hand banner photos that are up right now.

I was terribly fond of her, brave little orphan, but she got et by a snake. I was not, not, not pleased. I know we are a certified wildlife backyard habitat.... and we do support the rights of natural predators and those wild things that had prior rights to this land but that's a heartbreak.

Look at that feisty step! She's on her way to get to the feed dish before the bigger chickens gobble everything up. Her mom was killed by a racoon on the one night this summer that I didn't remember to close the run after the chooks had been out free ranging in the grass. Six was a lonely little thing and would comfort herself by standing under the tall peacock and looking out from the safety of his legs. Would that I could've gotten a photo of the two of them. It was, as they say, a picture.

Raising Chickens... no, I mean RAISING chickens!

2010-10-04T14:14:00.000-07:00

Barred Rock Hen Struts Out

Wow. We've gone straight from dry, hot September to wet and chilly November. Where are the crisp, clear October days and nights? One taste and gone? I demand a rerun!

Well, I slogged out to the chickens to see how they were faring in the continuing drizzle and damp. Although their fenced outside run drains fairly well, the ground is chicken-trampled and tumbled and it tends to turn to mud, mud, mud in the wake of any storms. Eight inches of rain didn't seem to make it any worse than one or two inches of rain has done... but the continuing wet air, wet ground, wet grass was keeping all of the chooks muddy and dispirited looking.

I hauled out a bale and a half of old hay that's been staying dry in the unused half of the solar hoop house. (My next-door neighbor, Kristi, gives me any hay that gets "past" being good enough for the horses.) I swear hay bales get heavier every year. What are they baling in there? Lead? Surely the amount of effort it takes can't have anything to do with my middle-aged, out of shape muscles.

I marched around in the mud and spread the flat books (sections) of hay around on the mud. Rob was able to hand mow the yard near the house and he added a nice, tasty layer of fresh and seedy grass to the top.

Basking in the Sun - finally!

The plan was to raise the chickens up off the wet ground so that they could walk about on dry material. Well, okay, everything promptly got wet in the drizzle but at least the thick hay wasn't sodden. I think the poultry, individually and collectively, was pleased. ... were pleased? I have to think that one through.

And so, in closing, I'll wedge in a nice shot, from my el cheapo digital camera, of Mr. Chicken and Hi-Ho Silver, the Silver Leghorn hen, free-roaming the orchard in a nice bit of setting sunlight. Let's hope October returns and we all (farmers and chickens) get to enjoy the beautiful fall weather that makes Virginia famous this time of year.

NC Bans Plastic Shopping Bags

2010-10-02T05:59:00.000-07:00

Let's hear it for NC Senator Marc Basnight who proposed and fought through the new ban on plastic shopping bags! Did you miss this amazing news? http://hamptonroads.com/2010/09/ban-plastic-bags-goes-effect-outer-banks?cid=srch

I can't tell you the number of times I've driven to town from out here in Blackwater, following one of the city trash trucks as plastic bag after plastic bag blew out the top of the truck's trash container. It's not that individuals are tossing the bags out along the roads, although I frequently see bags blowing out of pick-up truck beds. Shoppers put their plastic bags in the trash - since we don't recycle them at curbside yet - but if the bags aren't knotted or put inside another container (another plastic bag!?) before being dumped into the trash, they blow out of the trash trucks and waft off into the ditches where they are carried into other waterways, into the trees where they blow in the wind for months and into all of the yards, shrubs and fields along the way.

If you read the Virginian-Pilot article, you noticed that the ACC (American Chemistry Council - a big plastics support lobby) claimed that the ban could only "force people back to paper" and cited the environmental and economic costs of paper bags. Ditto from concerned retailers who now again have to purchase more costly paper bags for their customers. Nonsense!!! Paper bags aren't the only response to the plastic shopping bag problem or to this legislation. Why is there little emphasis on reuseable shopping bags??

I love carrying my shopping bags (and I adore those big, insulated bags grocery stores sell now). The bags are bright and fun and it cheers me up immensely to see my goodies packed in colorful, bags. Fellow shoppers admire my shopping cart! More effective is the fact that I can put my groceries in about four of the strong, woven reuseable shopping bags, where it used to take almost a dozen of the flimsy plastic baggies.

It took a while to stop leaving the bags in the car when I went shopping but once I made myself GO BACK to the car and get them a few times, I started to remember. I also really do enjoy the positive comments from other shoppers and I love, love, love seeing more and more reuseable bags in other shoppers' carts. I now also carry a couple of the nylon bags that roll up to nothing in my purse so that I always have a bag handy, whether I'm grocery shopping, mall shopping - whatever.

My own friends tease me about being a fanatic. Wrong generation, I guess. Some of the most appreciative comments I hear come from the young clerks at the stores. A store clerk packing my foodstuffs held up my flower and abstract patterned grocery bag the other day, turning it to admire all sides. "Awesome!" she exclaimed.

I agree wholeheartedly.

Oh, and there are special bags for the Hokie shoppers.... how could anyone resist?

with a grin, Sybil

And the Rains Kept Coming!

2010-10-01T10:37:00.000-07:00

It rained and it rained. yesterday, the last day of September, we logged (we waterlogged) 4" in the rain gauge. There was a pause and then, in the night, the rains came through again. This morning we had 3.5" more in the gauge. All together, from the very onset of this weather system, we're up 8". Hurray for the cosy new roof!! We were snug as bugs during the storm.

There are roads closed all around us, we are actually marooned on the farm. Water has flooded the Pungo Ferry Bridge Road, Blackwater Road, Indian Creek Road and pretty much every access road out. Amazingly, none of our roadside ditches are full. Just how dry was the ground here? This has been a wind-driven, tidal flood.... the ground has little standing water.

It is the kiss of autumn, however. The air is now cool and the sky is gray. We have gone from muggy to chilly overnight. All the plants I was hanging onto colllapsed overnight. Zinnias, flat. Tomatoes, a mess. Echinacea and coneflowers? Don't ask - all those long black seed heads are flattened all over the garden. So much for the little finches who have enjoyed munching every seed remaining in those old flower heads.

Sentimentality over the end of the summer season is gone. I am now prepared to head out in the lovely fall weather promised for this weekend to tear out wet, nasty flower beds and everything else I can lay my hands on.

Let there be tidy ground!!!
Sybil

And the rains came....

2010-09-30T18:12:00.000-07:00

When the weather forecasters began babbling about 4 - 8" of rain coming this week, I knew that anything left in the garden would likely be either flattened or just wet to death. Thank heavens for raised beds! With our gawd-awful, clay soil, this kind of tropical downpour is just a disaster... the ground doesn't dry out for DAYS. Anyhoooo, I'm writing to rave about my favorite tomato variety. Yep, tomato... in September, actually October by the time you read this.

This photo shows the "second flush" of growth and fruits now on my Whopper tomato plant. It provided pounds of lovely tomatoes all summer and then flagged at the beginning of August, as tomatoes here generally do.I pruned it back severely and gave it a hearty dose of TomatoTone and a couple tablespoons of epsom salts. Bingo! Back it came with a nice batch of new growth... and some lovely fall tomatoes. Notice the ripe tomatoes and the nice, large green ones coming on fast?

If the rains don't bother it too much, we'll be enjoying fresh garden tomatoes into October. Not bad, eh?

This is the little two-tomato harvest that I picked Tuesday, September 27... and that we enjoyed in a salad this evening! Honestly, I think the fall tomatoes are meatier and tastier than some of the earlier harvests. Tomatoes do fine in our dry, sliiiiightly cooler September weather (or what was dry until today - before 5" of rain arrived at the farm). No cracking or cat-facing. Love it! Love it!

Gardeners were doing a lot of complaining that this was a "bad" year for tomatoes and that the plants gave up early. Some varieties are short-season, but I think this Whopper shows that tomato longevity and productivity are characteristics that we, as gardeners, can greatly manipulate by correctly pruning and fertilizing to re-energize the plants.

The No Impact Project

2010-09-28T17:45:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'll admit it. I consider myself to be reasonably "green" by common standards. I recycle, I compost, I grow a lot of my own fruits and vegetables, I raise chickens for my own eggs, I teach other folks how to do all these things...and I work hard to stay aware of my own impact, but how do I measure up in comparison to folks like Colin Beavan, author of No Impact Man, who changed his life to reduce his family's impact on the planet to as near to zero as possible?

To find out, I'm taking part in the The No Impact Experiment. As explained on the No Impact Project website, the experiment "is a one-week carbon cleanse. It is a chance for you to see what a difference no-impact living can have on your quality of life. It’s not about giving up creature comforts but an opportunity for you to test whether the modern “conveniences” you take for granted are actually making you happier or just eating away at your time and money."

Here is the webpage: http://noimpactproject.org/experiment/
I'm working on lessening my impact right now, but the official next start date is January 3, 2011. (Notice how thoughtfully you're allowed to get through the holidays - guaranteed to leave you wanting to clean up your life!)

Questions? Go here: http://noimpactproject.org/experiment/faqs/

C'mon ... you know it's going to be enlightening at the very least, probably entertaining, insightful and - who knows? - possibly life-changing, in a good way.

"But the question isn't whether or not I make a difference. The question is whether I want to be the type of person who tries." - Colin Beavan

Edible Landscaping - Denver Botanical Gardens

2010-09-26T17:18:00.000-07:00

Denver Botanical Garden - how had I never been there? Last month on my trip to Colorado, I finally made it to the Garden. Lots of heat (but not brutal, which was surprising for August) and a relatively nice day to stroll around. Someone at DBG has gotten the edible landscaping bug. How else can you explain what used to me a reasonably formal entrance garden morphing into a veggie patch?

We're not talking ornamental cabbages here. Just plain ol' heads o' kraut. Backed by a symphonic (or not) arrangement of chard, kale, cleome and corn. I don't think that they meant to imply cleome was edible, maybe I should check!

And there really were cabbages and cruciferous veggies in a surprising number of flower beds.

Kind of unique, you know... but I have to say, they didn't really ADD to the landscape. In some cases, like the lone kohlrabi in the petunia bed... they were just plain wierd.

Kohlrabi O'Lantern?

Okay, Okay, I'll admit. I added the face. But, really, it needed it.

Just plain ugly in that flower bed. Did the rest get eaten? Only the DBG staff knows for sure! This was not going to sell the concept of combining edibles into one's ornamental garden beds, however - I could see that from the faces of visitors strolling past this display. I should've painted the face on the actual kohlrabi in the bed.

Some things worked and combined really beautifully. Check out the mini-watermelons along walk edging this garden bed:

And perhaps my favorite of all the edible/ornamental displays was this container of "purples" featuring a beautiful, silvery cardoon for height (very delicious) and several gentle purple-leaved sage plants amid the flowers:

There were more odd combos throughout the garden beds - melons in trees and other interesting but confusing offerings. I must say, I feel quite conservative in my landscaping after this tour!

Perhaps the cabbage-mad garden designer at DBG this year is a fan of French author/statesman, Michel de Montaigne....

"I want death to find me planting my cabbages."...Montaigne, Essays Book I (1880)

Me, too! Well, if not my cabbages, perhaps something else....

Sybil

Who Could Resist This Face?

2010-09-24T07:29:00.000-07:00

I'm taking the last of the youngster roosters to the Chicken Swap at the Tractor Supply Company in Gloucester this coming Saturday (9-25-10). All three of the youngsters had to be evicted from my chicken coop and run after they ganged up and beat up my poor little golden Buff Cochin bantam rooster, Mr. Chicken. Two were eaten the first night by my resident as-yet-unseen predator. One has been clever enough to escape being on the menu for three nights. Tonight he'll go into an emergency side pen from whence he will be transported to Gloucester to (hopefullly) adoption by some kind soul at the chicken swap.

Meanwhile, I'm steeling myself -- take a look at what else is being brought to the swap by one of the members. Anyone in the mood for pot-bellied pigs????

8 week old pot-bellied piglet seeks home

Harlequin Glory Bower

2010-09-17T13:18:00.000-07:00

This is the fall seed display on our Harlequin Glory Bower (Clerodendrum trichotomum) off the front porch. Late summer the fragrance from the pinkish-white blossoms made porch sitting an out-of-body experience, then this entertaining and remarkable seed display begins.

Harlequin Glory Bower (Clerodendrum trichotomum)

We "discovered" this little tree while doing our Great Fig Tree hunt throughout Hampton Roads in 2000 (a fun frolic put on by our nursery, Paradise Nursery, and our late friend and garden writer, Bob Stiffler). Driving out to check on a fig tree entry, I spotted a Glory Bower planted out next to the curbing of a front yard. I was entranced.

It took a while to find one - they don't seem to be common in the nursery trade. Mine has been completely easy to grow.... in fact, it's one drawback is that those lovely seeds sprout very readily and I devote lots of time to talking folks into taking one home from our garden. I hate to weed and toss something with this much potential.

Which means if any of you Useful Gardens friends are looking at these photos wistfully, thinking how nice this would look in your own lovely gardens..... COME GET A SEEDLING!!!!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Sybil

The Last Garden Harvest

2010-09-17T12:59:00.000-07:00

The Last Garden Harvest of Summer

I took a quick shot of the last armload of goodies I harvested from the summer garden before I turned the beds over for fall planting.

Scallions, Desiree potatoes, mixed peppers, a couple of last-minute tomatoes and the final eggplants. Everything was cut up and grilled, then served over pasta that had been tossed with home-made basil pesto and parmesan cheese. Fresh "chiffonade" basil on top. Delish!

Making and Freezing Onions & Peppers for Winter

2010-09-11T17:06:00.000-07:00

At the end of each summer, I harvest the last peppers, chop them and combine them with chopped onions to freeze for year-long seasonging. I use onions that I have harvested from this spring's crop. (I plant onions and garlic in the fall so that I can harvest full crops by the end of May, clearing that garden space for my summer vegetables, like tomatoes and - yes - these peppers.)

These are some of the onions spread out to dry in the early summer heat last May/June. The first onions to be chopped and frozen are any that show damaged areas in this first stage, otherwise they sit here in the (relatively) dry shade, forming the papery protective out covering over the bulb as the foliage dies back.
I grow both white and yellow onions every winter. Each year I think I'll grow some red onions -- I then promptly forget to order sets or seeds! My favorite are the yellow onions but, I have to say, raised in our raised beds where there is little elemental sulfur, all of our onions are incredibly sweet.

Here's my last bowl of mixed peppers: some carmagnolo rosso, some yellow mild and a couple of bell peppers. I do think that shiny, fresh, ripe peppers may be the most beautiful things I bring in from the garden. Hard to believe that we "boomers" all spent our youth thinking that green peppers were the only way bell peppers could be. And now that we all love the bright red and orange and yellow bells and other peppers.... wow! The prices!

So, anyway, I chop and chop until I have a large bowl of chopped onions. And then I chop and chop peppers. Then I mix the two bowls together.... and spoon one cup amounts into 'zip' snack bags. Believe it or not, I whip up about 100 of these little baggies. And I'm ready all winter with amazingly fresh tasting onion/pepper mix ready to saute for omelettes, quiches, soups, pasta sauce....

Ahhhhh, life is pretty darned tasty!
Sybil

My Favorite Tool

2010-09-10T18:23:00.000-07:00

I've been tearing out old beds and prepping all the winter garden areas. Every time I do this, especially the part that involved grabbing long strands of wire and Bermuda grass and pulling them out of the mulch, I'm so happy to have this tool. I received it as a gift, labeled as a Korean Weeding Hoe. I've given it to other gardeners, all of whom loved it as much as I do. There's something about the shape of the blade and how it's cantilevered off the handle that is just so ergonometrically right ... for me, at least. Now I hear that it comes in a left and right hand version -- who knew? So, every so often I find something that richly deserves a personal recommendation. This month, this is it. On Amazon it's called th eEZ-Digger - and that's pretty much exactly what it is. Although callling it the EZ-Grass-and-Weed-Ripper-Outer would be even more accurate. The little tool in my photo is something called a Cobra Head weeder, which I find it perfect for getting into small spaces between garlic and onion rows. Several gardening compatriots have complained that they don't know where I get these things so I hunted them down online and have popped a couple of links from amazon.com into this post.

CobraHead Weeder and Cultivator

Short Handle EZ-Digger

Sept. 11 - Community Gardening Festival

2010-09-07T09:08:00.000-07:00

A couple of my new Ruby Red chard plants

I'm looking forward to being part of this year's Community Gardening Festival Saturday (Sept. 11, 2010).

Each year this fun event is put on by the Virginia Beach Master Gardeners. This year's theme: Censtible Gardening is one I can't resist. I'll be preaching edible gardening with a talk entitled "Stop Shopping - Start Growing Your Groceries!"

Okay, maybe the title's a little over the top -- but I'm so convinced that you can grow far more of your fruits and produce than you are now (or perhaps more than you can imagine growing now) that I get excited about sharing edible gardening info with other plant-minded folks. I'll be explaining how to select "best picks" for your edible gardening efforts, how and where to plant your edibles and offering some creative inspiration for creating, upgrading, and/or expanding the edible parts of your landscape.

The festival kicks off at 10:30 am. I'll be speaking at 12:30. (Hopefully everyone will not have not wandered off to finish the first silent auction or to find some lunch!) Probably not a good time to pick for my talk since lots is going on at that moment... but lots goes on throughout the day, that's what makes it fun! This is going to be a terrific event -- I hope to see many fellow gardeners and local food lovers there.

Hmmm... I don't see any food vendors on the list - WAIT! There's a bake sale - my favorite event! Well, no... that would be the Master Gardener plant sale... or the other wonderful speakers. AFTER I score a couple of bake sale brownies..... after all, I have to support our dedicated, local gardening volunteers, don't I? So grab a some terrific, inexpensive plants, a couple of baked goods for a happy snack and come over to join in on the class and discussion on "growing your groceries" !

The Summer Garden Ends - The Fall/Winter Garden Begins!

2010-09-03T14:27:00.000-07:00

Having gardened in the north for many years, I am still slightly amazed that I can plant a fall/winter garden that brings us as much delicious food as the spring/summer plantings. The faded and ragged tomatoes and peppers have been pulled - with the exception of the valiant 'Whopper" tomato, which will continue producing tomatoes until frost. With a bit of protection, the raised veggie beds are going to be producing lots of happy green vegetables all winter.

What's in the beds? Well, there are now 20 plants of Bright Lights and Ruby Red chard in the first raised bed, accompanied by 27 lettuce starts (a combination of Buttercrunch and Red Ruffles). In between those rows, I'll be sowing seeds of Little Caesar, my favorite winter-hardy romaine, which forms very compact, dense lettuce heads - each perfect for a salad for two.

The second raised bed holds 18 cabbage plants: Savoy and Early Jersey Wakefield. This is insanity, probably, but in the winter I love, love a big tureen of cole cannon -- I am an Irish girl by nature! Here's a sample recipe: Col Cannon at AllRecipes.com

The 3rd raised bed is 18 plants of broccoli. We really do eat broccoli. A lot.

For a vegetable that kids seem to universally hate -- well, I'm not sure most kids love strongly flavored green veggies much -- until they get a bit older, broccoli has certainly taken the restaurant business by storm. I suspect that, after potatoes, it's the most popular restaurant vegetable in the U.S.

And, finally, the 4th bed is already started in onions and garlic, both the strong, small Italian Red garlic and the huge, mild Elephant Garlic (which isn't really a garlic at all - but who's telling?).

Yum! - Sybil

She Rants for Ants

2010-08-11T10:31:00.000-07:00

I want to say a good word for ants. I do. You know, by August every year, it seems that folks develop a mob mentality toward ants. They want ants killed, preferably in large numbers. Ants are in the garden, in the splits of our tomatoes, all over the ripe figs. Death to ants! But, wait! I have noticed, around our farm, that the tiny ants, measurable only by dozens and hundreds, are an important clean-up committee for our environment. Where do I find ants? Well, there's a hundred of the teeny-tiny little black ants manfully carrying off that dead grasshopper from the porch I meant to sweep yesterday. I left it, the ants came to help. And there's a dozen or so brown ants, each carrying off a tiny bit of cracker from the crumbs I let fall around my lawn chair while eating lunch. They clean up, they carry off - the debris of my world becomes the food for theirs. Off it goes, out of sight, to be stored and used over the lean months to come.

There is a truly horrible radio commercial out now, promoting some national exterminating company, that has a "requiem" sung in praise of killing as many ants as possible. How miserably sad.

When we began weaning our household off poisonous chemicals, one of the hurdles we had to face was the onslaught of ants. Following them backward, we discovered tiny cracks and entrances around the farmhouse where the ants could get in. We were not successful in stopping all of them and eventually stooped to small "ant traps" (poisonous bait traps) in two locations, attempting to deter the ants without blanket spraying of everything in sight. Must have been successful, meaning we committed a pretty thorough genocide, because the interior ants disappeared. We still have lots and lots outside.... so I have hopes that perhaps "the word" went out (ants are fabulous communicators as entomologists have observed) that the inside of the house was bad news. And I now clean the counter tops carefully with a good herbal cleaning wipe - not water, which only dilutes the sugar molecules and spreads the invitation.

Meanwhile, do they adore and crave the sugar of my ripe tomatoes and figs? Yes, well, of course they do. So do I. They move in on any garden goodies that I've missed or allowed to get overripe or damaged. It is always interesting to note that those species most hated by humans are the ones that either we fear or that compete with us for food. Or that are icky looking. Or that aren't where we want them to be. Or.......

The Ant by Ogden Nash

The ant has made himself illustrious

Through constant industry industrious.

So what? Would you be calm and placid

If you were full of formic acid?

Munch, munch -- Sybil

PS - Yes, I really did find a determined crew of little black ants trying to carry off this dead Hercules beetle..... a bit like me trying to cart off a 747 airliner.

Let the Fig Harvest Begin!

2010-08-02T13:50:00.000-07:00

As the hot, humid days of August move in, the fig trees all over the farm are bending with the weight of figs - green figs, gold figs, black figs, brown figs....

I'm in my usual race against the ants and wasps, dashing out to pick all the ripest ones before the rains split them or a mockingbird ruins their perfection with a well-placed, greedy couple of pecks. You should hear the resident "Mocker" grousing as I move through the bushes picking figs. I feel like the interloper and perhaps - certainly in his eyes - I am.

Not all of the figs ripen at the same time. The small, brown Celeste came on early this summer, in July, along with the Italian Golden Honey. Now some Alma Gold are fattening up and the dark Natalina, Chicago Hardy, and San Piero all are ripening. The true greens, like the Strawberry Verte, and the beautiful striped Panache are still pretty hard. I'm grateful to have an extended harvest. The trusty Almas will continue to set and ripen figs, more and more brown and golden, well into October. Even so, right now we are overwhelmed and so the dehydrator (best $5 I've ever spent at a garage sale) is on the counter top loaded with drying figs. Deeeee-lish!

Rob makes this Chicken Marbella recipe using the dried figs in place of the pitted prunes. We always demand that more dried figs be added because they are soooo delicious and figs hold up much, much better than prunes during the cooking. Although I no longer eat chicken much, if at all, I can put the sauce for this dish on anything and adore it. You could probably eat shoe leather made this way.

It's fascinating, isn't it, how we wait and wait in anticipation of each kind of harvest... and then feel almost overwhelmed when all of the fresh foods suddenly ripen. I am not my grandmother's woman, I find it difficult to station myself in front of a hot stove canning and preserving all these figs and tomatoes and peppers and beans.... but I do try to dry many fruits and vegetables and freeze some of the others. We are not sugary jam/jelly/preserve eaters, so our harvest must be stored in more practical ways. My biggest regret is that the figs tolerate so little handling - it's very difficult to bring them in for the Food Bank or any other venue where they have to be packed as fresh fruit. Ah, well. At least we and our friends and family are eating very well. We'll pine for this abundance of fresh produce next winter... but I"ll be ready with my plump, sweet dried figs to make the holiday Figgy Pudding! ( I should save this for December, I know, but who can resist this recipe? Think cold thoughts and start humming "We Wish You A Merry Christmas"!)

"Oh, Give us Some Figgy Pudding......."
Sybil

Chick Pix!

2010-07-26T18:33:00.000-07:00

The Three Musketeers

What're YOU looking at???

Lots of babies perking around the chicken run this past month as the last batch of eggs hatched and the little ones hopped out into the world. Banty chicks enter the world about the size of a quarter, some smaller. How can anything so small be so inquisitive and brave? They dash about pecking and peeping and fluttering in amazement. We are mesmerized by their courage and their joy in everything around them.

Finally got our friend, David Fox, to bring his SLR camera back to the coop to catch the hatchlings in action. (My old digital is nowhere nearly fast enough to stop baby chick action -- all I get is blurs and butts.)

Now - ahem! Should anyone be thinking of taking up chickens and a steady supply of fresh eggs... I do have some banty pairs to give away..... just so you know. Can't resist letting the dedicated moms set their eggs occasionally, they are so passionately determined to give life to these little ones. And the joy of chicks first setting out in the world is contagious - would that we could always see the world as so new!

Peep!
Sybil

Local Farmers Markets

2010-07-23T17:08:00.000-07:00

Oh, the joy of local farmers markets! All the stands are just bursting with wonderful, fragrant fruits and fresh-picked veggies. It makes me wonder why I garden at all -- the offerings I find already grown, picked, cleaned and ready-to-cook are so amazing. It's not just corn and tomatoes, either. The changing palates of local consumers have encouraged the farms I know to really expand their offerings... unusual, creamy melons, heirloom tomatoes, peppers of all sorts, wild eggplants... wow!

It's wonderful to see all the new local markets that have appeared in the last couple of years. Once the Virginia Beach Farmers Market was the only freshly grown food outlet, save for a few backyard growers with hand-lettered signs in the front yard. Now there are active, fun, well-supported markets flourishing in almost every community area - I find new ones every week.

Want a quick way to locate all the markets available in your area? Click here for the Market Locator provided by the Virginia Farm Bureau. At the Buy Fresh Buy Local Hampton Roads website I can also find a great listing of local Farm Markets, family farms - with produce, poultry, cheese, eggs and meats, fish and seafood vendors.... everything a bountiful summer table needs - or, if I don't feel like cooking, I can find local restaurants to cook and serve the food to me, far better than I can do it myself. Now that's summer living!

Yum!
Sybil

Brandywine is a Champion Tomato

2010-07-12T09:28:00.000-07:00

Each season I grow a combination of tomatoes that includes both beloved heirlooms and newer varieties that have been bred for either disease resistance or a specific trait, such as determinate (limited) growth (Better Bush) , higher lycopene and lower acid (Health Kick) or fewer seeds -- just to see, you know? In the past, I've had serious problems with wilt and disease in the old varieties that were popular before Early Blight and Southern Blight became more common.

I learned some great tomato tricks from our friend, Gil Gillespie - one of the best gardeners in Hampton Roads. His suggestions include being very strict about watering, keeping to a very close regimen with the same amount of water each day and week. That, and adding Cal-Mag (calcium-magnesium) supplements, made a huge difference in the number of cracked tomatoes we harvest. In addition, I've begun removing all sprouts and foliage below the first blossom cluster. This gives the plant a clean bottom stem and keeps leaves up and away from drops splashing from the ground to the leaves as you water (the main transfer of diseases in tomatoes). In addition, we mulched the raised beds well, both to keep the ground evenly moist and to prevent soil-borne bacteria from splashing up onto the plants. We eliminated the wave-the-wand watering habits of my loving spouse... all watering is done carefully at the base of the plants unless we are deliberately power-spraying aphids or other intruders. Well pruned and well-staked, my little tomato patch is starting to crank out some seriously impressive tomatoes!

HOW GOOD is it doing?? Check out the 1 pound 11 ounce Brandywine tomato harvested yesterday - one of several huge tomatoes on the same plant! In past years, Brandywine (an heirloom available from http://www.seedsofchange.com/ ) was one of the old varieties that didn't make it past June in our raised beds. Looks like the new tomato care regimen is working well!

FYI - A lot of gardeners ask about all those letters you read on the back of the tomato seed packets, at least on the new hybrids. These are disease resistance identification codes and here are the diseases the plant should be able to resist:

V - Verticillium Wilt
F - Fusarium Wilt
N - Nematodes
T - Tobacco Mosaic Virus
A - Alternaria Stem Canker
St - Stemphylium Gray Leaf Spot
TSWV - Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus

Time for making gazpacho and some BLTs!
Happy harvesting!
Sybil

Oh, Good Grief - Meet the Sprout Robot!

2010-06-17T15:31:00.000-07:00

The Sprout Robot Website

This is apparently IT, the site for everyone you know who assures you that they would LOVE to grow their own food but have no idea what to do: how/where to buy seeds, when to plant, what to do next. Enter the Sprout Robot! It does all the thinking, planning, sends you the seeds, emails you instructions, you do the .... well, I guess you can call it gardening......
I couldn't resist signing up (for the free end of the service) just to see what it sent out!
LOL,
Sybil

Peas, Please!

2010-05-30T08:42:00.000-07:00

Oh, the joy of fresh sugar pod peas! Cook them? Never! (almost) But when I do eat them on a plate, rather than snatching them directly from the vine into my mouth -- this is the recipe:
Fresh May Peas and Sugar Snap Peas in Sesame Dressing from epicurious.com

The Garden Song

2010-05-27T18:33:00.000-07:00

Although it's been done many times, most notably by Arlo Guthrie, this old song is the tune I hum when I'm digging away out in the garden. It's time to post it again for this year....

Inch by Inch, written by David Mallet in Maine (I believe) and done, as no one else can do it -- by Pete Seeger.
Hit the link and start humming -
The Garden Song

(Enjoy the tune and forget the video quality - it's 40 years old....And yes, that's Arlo harmonizing in the background. And thanks to Banjostead, whomever you are, for posting it for the rest of us!)

The last of the beautiful month of May....

2010-05-23T18:13:00.000-07:00

These last days of May are ones I cherish. Right now all of the plants in the gardens look so green, so vibrant and healthy. No Japanese beetles have arrived to shred them, nothing is sun scorched or parched from summer and the general wear-and-tear of the season is all in the future. Right now everything in the landscape is budding up, beginning to bloom, beginning to fruit and life is good!

The rabbiteye blueberries (Vaccinium ashei) are setting a really great crop of fruit this year, probably encouraged by the copious rains and relatively cool weather we've had. We finally got out to give them each a nice dose of Holly Tone fertilizer (about a cup each at this size) It's amazing to watch the plants deepen in color and "perk up" with gentle applications of the right fertilizer. In our soil, it's a fight to keep the pH low enough (< 5) to keep blueberries healthy. Rabbiteye blueberries are about the most adaptable, uncomplaining of all the fruit plants we grow. This fertilizer should have gone on two months ago, but better-late-than-never will have to do. At least the berry plants each got a so-so bit of pine needle mulch to help keep the roots cool but the wire grass has moved right into it. Now that we restrict our use of Roundup, it's a battle to keep the weeds away from the plants. A battle I lose every summer.

Well, whatever our garden frustrations, let's go out and admire how perfect the leaves and plants look right now, before the real summer begins! We've worked for this beauty, let's enjoy it. - Sybil

Leaping into Spring....

2010-05-16T12:23:00.000-07:00

The jump from April into May is one of those fast leapfrog transitions that always catches me by surprise. The weather gradually begins to warm into genuine spring, the peas curl and climb upward, the lettuces form into their lovely, distinct heads and I begin gardening in earnest. Each April, I think I may be on top of it this year, if I really get to it and stick to a plan. Then, whap! The thermometer hits 90, the warming soil springs up in new summer weeds and suddenly I'm behind, behinder and I wonder if I will ever catch up. The transplants must go in NOW. The compost should have been worked in three weeks ago! The grass is over my ankles and why won't the push mower start? Some things never change...... Weeding away, Sybil

Happy 40th Earth Day!

2010-04-22T01:00:00.000-07:00

Last Call for Planting Peas, Lettuce and Cool Season Goodies

2010-04-21T11:55:00.000-07:00

Asparagus! I always forget just how sweet and tender the first homegrown fresh asparagus is. Happy to see it coming up again.

It's coming down to the now-or-never point on the veggies that thrive in cool spring weather. Even though these gentle spring days seem as though they might last for weeks, it is not to be and in three weeks we will be heading into warmer - and very warmer - weather. I got in a late planting of peas but plan to keep them well watered and as cool as possible. Lettuces are transplanted in - I've been using them for cut greens in the unheated greenhouse and have now set the plants out into the garden where they will form last heads and become late spring salads. Then they'll come out to be replaced with the heat-loving babes: tomatoes, peppers, basil and beans. Whooo-hooo.

As always, I'll be pushing a few late summer lettuces into shaded production (have to keep them cut, and I don't try for heads of lettuce or they will just bolt) so that once again I can ALMOST have my own BLTs from the garden. Well, okay, I don't grow the bacon. But I must admit that although I eat meat rarely, I do keep bacon on the menu if only for summer BLTs. More and more, we've been having BBT's (bacon, basil and tomato sandwiches) which are really delicious as long as the basil isn't overwhelming. I'm determined to have lettuce in July... somehow. Will keep you posted.
Plant and be happy, Sybil

Kale and Roasted Vegetable Soup

2010-03-29T08:03:00.000-07:00

Speaking of curly kale - I am going to be cheering up this very rainy, lazy day by using some of the lovely kale from the garden before the peacocks get their chance at it. I'll be making this wonderful soup from the website simplyrecipes.com. Great recipes and enough veggie fare to keep us vegetarians and flexitarians happy. I've added the photo and link to their recipe page. Kale and Roasted Vegetable Soup

Delicious! Enjoy the day, Sybil

PS Every time I think of this newly minted term "flexitarian" for those of us who have moved to a mostly veggie diet with a few indulgences (although my wobbles off course are generally more due to laziness than indulgence), I have to chuckle over George Carlin's invention of the religion Frizbeetarianism - the belief that when you die, your soul flies up on top of the roof and gets stuck. It also reminds me that there is a wealth of cookbooks featuring mostly meatless recipes at the Virginia Beach Public Library - well worth browsing for!

Defending the Garden!

2010-03-29T07:34:00.000-07:00

I enjoyed a talk by darling friend Marie Butler (horticultural diva for the Virginia Zoo) at the Pungo library this Saturday - a talk which featured not only her fabulous plant combinations for containers and beds but a variety of tales of defending the plantings against the zoo peacocks. My favorite was the story of the zoo gardeners planting kale into the stunning front containers of the zoo while the peacocks (who apparently love kale more than cake) not only ate the plants out of the large pots (reaching up from the ground) but were snatching the seedlings out of the six-pack containers sitting next to the gardeners while they transplanted. So much for my beautiful curly kale. This weekend promises to be in the 80's and the peacocks shall be freed. I plan to have covers over the raised beds - photos to follow. Wish us all luck. If they munch down everything in site, they may reappear at Wren House - who knows? We'll just tell folks they are very, very, very large egrets.

My Peacock Pals

2010-03-27T18:39:00.000-07:00

Oh, they are so entertaining! Yes, I know that as soon as they begin free ranging the gardens are probably history. It's such a hilarious decision but I truly do get a huge kick out of them. And I agree, Iona - I love the calls. They don't bother me - or at least they didn't until I actually moved peacocks smack under my nose. Right now these little ones (little meaning heads at hip level on me) mostly CLICK with concern - not a cluck but a very clear, loud CLICK. They have sort of honked and fluffed the adolescent half-tails in a very charming manner.

The chickens are right next to them in their own pen and fully prepared to bully the young peacocks whenever possible. The chickens pop through the separating fence and snatch peacock treats if any land near their side. Much outrage! Clicking! Posturing! It's my hope that the peacocks will sort of "bond" with the chicken flock and follow them back to the poultry area at night. Beats having them roost on the minivan. Want to place early bets on where they opt to perch????

The Peacocks are Here!

2010-03-26T13:37:00.000-07:00

The young peacocks have arrived and are settling down in their pen. These are about half grown. The long, elegant tails are just beginning to show and will develop over the next eighteen months. Once the boys are acclimated to their new surroundings here at our farm, they will be let loose to free range the farm - undoubtably bringing havoc in their wake. Let the entertainment begin!

Welcome to the new Easy-to-Read format

2010-03-17T17:34:00.001-07:00

By request (make that plural) I'm trialing a new Blogger template that utilizes the full width of the most popular monitor screens to provide for easier reading. Your thoughts?

Spring - Salad Greens are Underway!

2010-03-17T17:01:00.000-07:00

The salad greens are well underway. If a severe frost/freeze comes up in the next few weeks, I'll toss some Remay row cover fabric over them - and I do expect that freeze to occur, as it does so almost every year.

The hardiest lettuces are always the Romaine and Oakleaf varieties. Not surprisingly, the tender leaves of the butterhead types are the first to suffer from inclement weather. My favorite varieties are Little Caesar romaine, which forms small, dense heads perfect for a salad, just cut in half and lay on a salad plate for a marvelous Caesar presentation. There is only one way to eat Caesar salad and that is with genuine, fresh homemade Caesar dressing and yes, dears, you really do need anchovies for it. I keep a tube of anchovy paste in the fridge - bless whomever invented this wierd stuff! - and my ever-suspicious husband is none the wiser. Check the following for a marvelous recipe and dinner idea: Cooks.com Caesar Salad Dinner

But that's only the start of it. For a startlingly beautiful salad, I always plant several of the multicolored lettuce varieties and the engaging, frilly looseleafs. Now that's something you seldom, if ever, see in a supermarket. Tedious to clean garden dirt out of (mulch well with straw or paper!!) but wonderful. One of the most adaptable romaine types is also the most striking - Forellenschuss. (see photo below)

Forellenschuss is only available, as far as I've seen, from http://www.seedsavers.org/ , an organization dedicated to saving, sharing and preserving seed from as wide a collection of heirloom and current unpatented varieties as possible. This photo is from their 2010 catalog. You can download the Adobe .pdf of their color catalog at the website. More fabulous varieties than you can imagine.

Seed Savers Exchange is also a great cause. Protect the varieties you would like to have available before a giant corporation continues seizing them under bogus patents.

Spring Peas and Peepers

2010-03-11T15:39:00.000-08:00

The balmy spring weather brings out the optimist in all of us. I spent this evening planting sugar pod peas - Sugar Snap and Super Sugar Snap. (Has anyone else noticed that some of the newer hybrids don't seem to be around this year?) The small vines yield an almost overwhelming supply of sweet, edible-podded peas in April. Last year we planted sugar peas in late February, figuring that if they went in during April on the Great Lakes, surely they could go in earlier here. No luck. The peas decayed in the cold, wet soil. Replanted in March, they went on to flourish.

One problem I've noticed this year - there seems to be a shortage of bean and pea innoculant. All the legumes, including beans, peas and clovers, fix nitrogen into the soil. Because of this, my peas will not only be providing me with a delicious early veggie snack supply but they will also be making the bed where they are planted richer in nitrogen - fertilizing it, in essence - which will make it even better for the crops to follow when the peas are done and the hot weather veggies go in. The innoculant is a beneficial bacteria. Rhizobial bacteria form a symbiotic relationship with the roots of the legumes and "fix" nitrogen from the air into nodules on the roots... from there the nodules feed the plants and add to the nutrients in the soil. Folks debate whether it's worthwhile or not and if you are replanting peas or beans where you've had them before, it's likely the rhizobia are already present in the soil. But I like to add it -- and now I've visited four garden departments or stores where the employees had No Clue what I was talking about! Bah!

Last note: Although we are always colder out here than in town, we did reach 70 degrees yesterday (holding at 68 today) and HERE THEY ARE! While I sit here on the back porch blogging, I can hear the first Spring Peepers (Pseudacris crucifer) chiming on the edge of the wetlands like delicate bells. If you would like to hear what Spring Peepers sound like for your own ID, go here: U.of Wisconsin - Spring Peepers .

The country folklore where I grew up said that the Peepers had to freeze three times before spring would arrive. It's as good a way as any other to count down to the Average Last Frost Date (a myth if I've ever read one). So, if you are counting.... one for the Peepers!

It's Time to Grow Your Own

2010-03-08T11:15:00.000-08:00

I don't think there has ever been a better time to learn to grow your own fresh food - or to commit to growing more of it, if you are already gardening. Times are tight and the last thing we need is more expensive groceries -- especially if those foods are lower quality -- and that is a problem folks may be facing this season.

This week CNN news reported that over 70% of the tomato crop in Florida was killed by cold weather -- along with green beans, early "summer" squash varieties and early sweet corn. Those are just the obvious veggies. Citrus has been damaged, strawberries froze, avocado harvests will be affected.... in short, you can expect very expensive veggies all the way around this spring. Restaurants are already making tomatoes a "by request only" option on sandwiches. The same harvest problems extend to some of the southwestern agriculture states as well.

Herald Tribune, Florida Freeze Spikes Costs

Florida Ledger, Strawberry Blues

"The average wholesale price for a 25-pound box of tomatoes is now $30, up from $6.50 a year ago. Florida's growers would normally ship about 25 million pounds of tomatoes a week; right now, they're shipping less than a quarter of that, according to Reggie Brown of the Florida Tomato Grower's Exchange, a tomato farmer cooperative in Maitland." TDS News

Meanwhile, the earthquakes have decimated many of the wineries and vineyards in Chile and, in case you've been reading those little labels on your fruits and veggies, Chile is one of our major produce import sources.

What does this mean? Well, at least briefly, Americans may have to recognize that produce is real, living stuff and its supply can't be guaranteed. A majority of the fruits and vegetables we eat are not actually in season anywhere near us -- and the steady availability of things like strawberries, tomatoes and zucchini is the result of a very complex system of growers, distributors and transportation that may cover thousands of miles. And it can all be stopped cold by a severe freeze.

But you can Grow Your Own - the best, the freshest, the most delightful food possible. I am determinedly dedicated to the belief that most people, regardless of location and space (or lack of it) can have the fun and satisfaction of growing at least some of their fruits and vegetables themselves. Not convinced? Join me next Saturday, March 13, 10:30 am at the Pungo/Blackwater library for a free presentation on Edible Gardening - re-create your yard and gardens with beautiful, ornamental and health-giving fruits and vegetables. Get creative, get healthy... and grow some of your own groceries! http://www.usefulgardens.com/id10.html

A New Gardening Season Begins!

2010-03-02T13:02:00.000-08:00

We're back! After a short break, it's time to start blogging through the 2010 gardening season.

March has arrived and gifted us with a sunny, mild day after weeks of February's frigid desolation. March, to me, is the start of the spring gardening season in Tidewater. Although some hardy plants have bravely carried on in the winter garden, notably the Edgeworthia crysantha blooms and the early green shoots of the daffodils, the continuous cold of this year's February weather has blessed the perennials and shrubs with a solid, hibernating dormancy. Much easier on plants than our usual early roller-coaster temperatures of 60's daytime and 20's at night. The sap should only now begin rising on most of the farm plants.

Most gratifying to me is the discovery that my oakleaf lettuce varieties continued growing all winter - with temperature reaching below 10 degrees - with only a light floating row cover for protection. The leaves were freeze "burned" but the plants are fine. This will give us a nice jump on spring salads while the newly seeded lettuces and mescluns get started in the unheated greenhouse.

For those of you who are working to stay within our region for your food choices, I recommend planning for some fall salad beds that you can carry through the winter. Fresh lettuce, kale, mustards - even young collard leaves - make delicious, spicy winter salads full of good vitamins. Forget the old notions that winter greens must be types you boil into a soggy "mess of greens". Skeptical about raw greens? Check out this delicious recipe from the epicurious.com website: Kale Salad with Pinenuts, Currants and Parmesan .

Looking Ahead - A New Kind of CSA

2010-02-03T13:47:00.000-08:00

Although I grow a majority of the fruits and vegetables we enjoy throughout the year, there are always some things that I just don't bother with in our relatively small garden - often because they are things better grown by the wonderful farm families that surround us here in rural Virginia Beach. I buy these fresh fruits and vegetables from the farm stands that run from Stoney's Produce, right on First Colonial Road all the way down Princess Anne Road to our neighborhood. Two of my favorites are strawberries and sweet corn, both fabulous fresh eats that are grown abundantly by our local farms. This brings me to the concept of joining a CSA for the season.

CSA represents Community Supported Agriculture. In a CSA program, families and individuals can purchase up front a "share" of a farm's production for the season. You sign on to support your chosen farm whether it is a good season or a bad season, sharing whatever is being harvested in a given week. Luckily, our local farmers are excellent and, barring hurricanes, they seem to always have abundant harvests for their customers. A CSA program provides funding up front in the early spring when farmers have to purchase supplies to get the farm into gear for the season. It also provides great local fresh food to you at a substantial discount - CSAs are always a good buy for your budget!

In the past, I've held off on joining a CSA because I wasn't sure how much produce a two-person household, especially one with vegetable and fruit production of its own, could really use. I didn't want to waste a basket of beautifully grown produce! Now one of our local farms has come up with a program tailor made for us smaller households. In addition to their regular "basket a week" CSA program, Vaughan Farms has started a new Credit CSA Program. Vaughan Farms 2010 CSA Programs

With this program, I'm signing up in advance to get $10 worth of credit at Vaughan's farm each week for 16 weeks. Cost to me: $109.60. Savings? Wow! I can use my "credit" for anything that's in season at the farm that week - strawberries, spring and summer vegetables, fresh eggs.... what a feast!!! And if I'm out of town or don't get over to spend my all of my weekly credit, they will provide fresh produce from the farm to a local charity in whatever amount has not been spent. Everyone wins!

Word to the wise - as with all CSA programs in our area - sign up FAST. The openings are limited and there is always more demand than the farms can supply.

Che in Snow

2010-01-31T15:45:00.000-08:00

Cudrania tricuspidata as snow begins falling....

Frozen Blueberries

2010-01-31T15:38:00.000-08:00

Freezing in Virginia Beach

2010-01-31T15:28:00.000-08:00

Okay, it's cold out here. 18 degrees F by the recording barn thermometer with about 8" of frozen, crusted snow on the ground. Too cold for me to hike around and take photos, although it is lovely.

The frozen snow will insulate the garden plants, although the higher palms are looking a tad miserable and flat. We declared an abdication on wrapping plants a few years ago and now only those hardy enough for our area survive. Amazingly, even the bananas tend to reappear no matter how determinedly we ignore them each winter.

Tiny, delicate sparrows and juncos are cheerfully pecking at the crumbs I scattered about on the top of the snow after feeding the chickens. The fat, indulgent laying hens refused to set a toe outside the coop and had to be fed inside. Hefty birds with thick feather coats, they're an interesting contrast to the tiny wildlings gathered where ever I have scattered a bit of food. How brave these tiny residents are and how happily they chirp and peck at the treasure they have found in my wake.

Each year we've planted more plants that carry seeds and berries into the winter - my choice rather than feeding commercial food. And each winter I leave more plants adorned with their seed heads, looking leggy and unkempt, rather than tidily cutting them down and discarding all those bits of wild food. What we lack is good cover, out here in the open fields. Our pines are planted - may they grow quickly! - and we leave more high weed stands but it's no comparison to the wealth of birds in friend Holly's protected woods. Out of the winds, birds of all kinds and sized congregate at her feeders. We settle for the small, hardy adventurers who brave the open to snatch a few precious mouthfuls of food.

Goodbye, Bob Stiffler - We will miss you!

2010-01-20T15:59:00.000-08:00

One of my longest gardening friendships has ended with the passing of Bob (Robert J.) Stiffler this morning. From the time I met Bob, while creating education programs for Norfolk Botanical Garden, I enjoyed his laughter and his gardening companionship. He and his beautiful wife, Dottie, were the "cupids" who campaigned for the marriage that my darling partner, Rob and I have enjoyed for what now seems like only a brief moment in time.

Bob was always determined to keep gardening realistic and practical and, although he and I disagreed on the merits of some plants and on the use of garden chemicals, we both supported common sense gardening methods over fancy theory. Both Bob and Dottie loved the Norfolk Botanical Garden and were true supporters of community and private gardens throughout Hampton Roads. He loved coming out to our nursery to see what new fruit plants Rob and I were growing - and was suitably amazed when varieties he swore would not be worth growing here flourished and bore fruit. He would shake his head at my folly and determination and we would both laugh - at ourselves and at how amazing plants can be. I don't think he ever quite forgave me for having no vole and no deer problems!

Safe passage, old friend - you will be very missed at this farm.
Longtime Pilot Gardening Columnist Dies - PilotOnline

2010-01-04T06:14:00.000-08:00

I know I'm not the only person who harbors a daydream of having my own bees happily making honey in the backyard. We get lots of bees here at the farm since we began encouraging large swaths of clover (rather than mowing that flat golf course lawn everywhere) but we don't have hives of our own. With all the bad news about bee illnesses and failures, I've gotten discouraged about keeping a hive healthy. But beekeeping friends tell me that it's not the "home hives" that are so desperately precarious, just the ones that get trucked all over to pollinate commercial plantings. Spring is coming....and I'm thinking of bees again. I may have to scramble some schedules to see if I can't get to this course - even if it's just for the experience and information to be stored "for later".

Beekeeping Class for Beginners - The Beekeepers Guild of Southeast Virginia and the Wesleyan Beekeepers Association present a three day Short Course for Beginning Beekeepers. The course will be held on three consecutive Saturday mornings, February 20, 27, and March 06, 2010 from 8:30 AM to 12:30 PM at Virginia Wesleyan College in Norfolk, Virginia. The course consists of lectures and hands-on demonstrations. Details are online at the Beekeepers Guild website.

January is National Mail Order Gardening Month!

2010-01-03T19:27:00.000-08:00

Welcome to January - officially National Mail Order Gardening Month! We all should have guessed as much, if your mailbox is as full of seed and plant catalogs as mine is. Every year I say, "No more! I will use up the seed I have saved and THAT'S IT." And then I begin thumbing through the catalogs, you know - just to see what's new and to remember the names of varieties I fell in love with over past seasons and can no longer name..... and, oh my, look at this new zinnia... and that new lettuce... and, heavens, what a fabulous sunflower....

And it all starts up again. The annual, visionary meditation of spring. I can't plant in this cold, bitter weather but I can jump on my computer, catalog in hand and order seeds! And, oh, the joy of those little packages that will arrive in the mail next month, full of brightly illustrated seed packets. Then the garden designing begins.... what to plant in the raised beds, what along the fence? Which to start in the greenhouse? Which to sow in place?

I'm big on conserving paper and I'm pretty rabid about junk mail but I do, I truly do, love gardening catalogs. I read them all year. I make notes in their margins. I have my favorites with unique tips and recipes - -even favorite illustrators. I will always miss the wonderful Mary Azarian woodcut catalog illustrations from back when Cooks Garden was an independent business.

So, I will pour a nice, hot cup of tea and find a cozy, sunny spot where I can sit for comfortably to browse through all the seed catalogs that arrived this week. And for an hour or two it will be spring, even in January.

Blue Moon

2010-01-01T19:30:00.000-08:00

What a beautiful Blue Moon we all enjoyed this week. Since each month is basically one lunar (moon) cycle and normally contains one full moon, a standard "blue moon" is any second full moon within one month. In this case, we have had a truly blue moon - both the second full moon in December and also the 13th moon in the year (where normally there would be twelve, just as there are twelve months). So, whatever you have put off into "once in a blue moon".... well, here's your chance. More on Blue Moons at Obliquity.com

Usually in the winter months, the clear calm skies that allow for inspired full moon viewing also indicate severe freezing temperatures but this last moon appeared in an interestingly warm week (relatively speaking) here in coastal Virginia. We mustn't be fooled, however, the cold Canadian air is falling quickly down the continent and will be here very, very soon.

Broccoli Going Strong through the Freezes...

2009-12-30T18:42:00.000-08:00

Wow. Despite repeated temperatures in the teens and an unreliable row cover material that continually blew off, leaving the plants completely exposed to the freezing night air, the broccoli plants continue to bear lovely crowns of broccoli florets! I am wowed. Spring planting has never yielded this kind of broccoli harvest.

Here in coastal Virginia, the rollercoaster spring weather, with leaps into the 70's and even 80's during the early spring months, invariably starts my broccoli plants bolting while they are still quite small and my best harvest has only been a few modest mini-crowns of broccoli florets. But fall planting, with the plants amiably growing along well into the winter... this is fabulous. I don't know how long they can keep it up. We've picked the large center heads and now have side shoots forming heads but it remains to be seen if those can develop far enough to make keeping the plants going worthwhile.

By contrast the cold weather lettuces, chard and spinach have all shown substantial damage from the freezes, even under light cover. Collards, cabbage and curly kale just shrug it off, of course.

One of the loveliest things in the garden right now is the rainbow chard with it's brilliant red stems and colorful leaves. Some stalks are deep burgundy and purple, others orange and green. When the sun hits the row, they light up the garden. What a rewarding plant to grow - talk about your ornamental edibles!

Thanksgiving Feasting

2009-11-26T08:57:00.000-08:00

Feast! Thanks to the unusually mild weather, we have lots of lettuces and greens from our raised beds for our Thanksgiving feast. It was wonderful to stop at Culliphers' Farm Market yesterday to pick up a HUGE basket full of red skinned potatoes, butternut squash, some kind of delightful little acorn-type squash and THREE kinds of sweet potatoes: red, white and purple. Go figure. I think I'm going to try my own sweet potato chips with this medley - like those ones we buy for outrageous prices. And, on top of it all, a monster-sized bag of collards and another equally generous bad of curly kale. Fresh broccoli.... it's all good.

After recently reading reports that there are NO supermarkets in inner Detroit - nowhere at all for families to buy groceries or fresh food, I am deeply grateful that we have such wonderful small farms around us. I am also grateful to be able to grow fresh food of my own, enough to have and also to share. The news articles about Detroit indicated that grants had been set up to help a businessman start up new small groceries in some of these inner city neighborhoods. At the same time, dedicated volunteers are working to establish community gardens to teach folks how to grow simple vegetables: in plots, in yards, in containers.

It's really not hard to grow food. Sometimes we make things so over-complicated with useless rules: you have to plant a certain way, you must look for certain varieties, you must test your soil, you must water and fertilize "just so"..... Folks, we were growing food when there was nothing available but a little dirt, a little water, some seeds and a stick to dig with. More than half the individual farmers in the world are still growing exactly that way.

Dig in! Plan to plant a little more this coming spring. Plan to share a little more of what you plant. And give a special word of thanks this holiday for the hard-working men and women - small farmers, ranchers and fishing folks, market owners and workers, migrant workers in the fields, even that generous gardener down the street who gifts you with squash and tomatoes every summer......to all of them we say Namaste' and Thanks for all the food!

Hark! The First Catalog Arrives!

2009-11-21T08:01:00.000-08:00

Like everything else, I swear it gets earlier every year. This year the award for First in My Mailbox goes to Pinetree Garden Seeds with their 2010 Seed Catalog. Looks like their website, however, is a step behind - when I hiked over to their webiste: http://www.superseeds.com/ (the domain www.pinetreegardenseeds.com was apparently coopted before they could get it - a lesson for all aspiring web businesses) it didn't seem to be ready. Images were missing and looks like they are "in process" for spring.

No-Impact Man by Colin Beaven

2009-11-17T10:10:00.000-08:00

Just finished reading a little book that I must recommend to all those interested in self-sufficiency, improving and/or protecting the environment, the local food movement and all other Good For the Earth endeavors. Colin Beaven, an apartment-dwelling Manhattan resident, makes the commitment to try, over the course of a year, to reduce the environmental impact of his family of three.... to zero. Mind you, he goes to lengths most of us wouldn't consider unless the world was already past crisis and we had no other options, but his writing is thoughtful and entertaining. After reading his book, I was much more aware of things I could be doing but hadn't bothered -- and I had been feeling quite self satisfied. Whether you consider yourself correctly labeled by "liberal" or not, Beaven's opening premises are well stated and very self aware:

"It's true that I had occasionally tried to make a difference in the world, but I was coming to think my political views had too often been about changing other people - and too seldom about changing myself."

"I made this mistake of thinking that condemning other people's misdeeds somehow made me virtuous. I'd become, I realized, a member of that class of liberals who allowed themselves to glide by on way too few political gestures and lifestyle concessions and then spent the rest of their energy feeling superior to other people who supposedly didn't do as much."

So, he snaps! and becomes No Impact Man. The book is hilarious, touching and very thought provoking. Beaven doesn't leave all the blame at the doorstep of the individual - he discusses the ways that the individual guilt movement has kept us self-absorbed and self-castigating rather than focused on changing industrial waste and pollution standards, something industry is well aware of and works to support.

The book began as Colin's blog on his progress and the blog is still active. Hop over to No Impact Man - The Blog to peruse the day-to-day. I understand that this may all turn into a movie (a la Julie and Julia) but please do read the book before Hollywood makes it into some comedy.