end of may garden report

Let's begin with positives...

I am happy to report that my raspberry starts are doing very well. They have grown on average about a foot and have begun to shot out new canes. There are even some visible berries! I have been trying to read up about how to keep them healthy but not knowing their variety has made this a little challenging. Also it seems like there is a lot to know and that growing berries can be sort of difficult... What I have learned is that I shouldn't plant anything in the night shade family - tomatoes, eggplants, potatoes and others - near them as they spread disease, garlic is a good companion plant, they only need an inch of water a week and pruning is important to get a bountiful harvest. I keep a close eye on the patch and think I will spread some more leaf mulch this coming weekend. I have noticed several yellow leaves and I am hoping it will help with maybe a lack of nutrients in the soil. Fingers crossed is this all it is...

lots of leaves and a new cane

berries

Another win is my back pots. I used these metal buckets as my pots by just drilling five holes in each and I am really liking how they look. I planted two pots of Diamond Frost and two of Victoria Blue Saliva and so far both are looking good!

diamond frost and victoria blue saliva

Another successes include progress on clearing out over grown flower beds, successful transplanting of a peony bush (I think), starting the relocation of a patch of lily of the valley and buying an ever bearing strawberry plant that I hope will be the start of a delicious little strawberry crop. 

Unfortunately, there also has been some failures in this year's spring planting. The first is our edible garden. If you recall from this post, we planted our lettuces in our planter in sort of a risky spot for sun. Well it turned out that there was almost no sun. The plants were alive but not growing at all. So in a hail mary attempt I moved them to a patch in the ground near the raspberry starts. They haven't died or been eater by rabbits but I am not so optimistic. 

before transplant

after transplant

The other big disappointment has been the front pots. I had my doubts that the white Ageratum would bush out like I told my local "knowledgeable" gardener that I wanted and indeed it has not at all. In fact, I don't think they have grown at all and the stems just sort of gets caught in each other. I added six sort of ground coverish plants (can't remember their name) per pot to try to give it more life but its not really doing anything for me either. In addition to me just sort of not likely my selection, the front is in a lot more shade than I realized so they probably aren't getting enough sun. I think I will move them and see what happens. 

all twisted definitely not bushy

probably not enough sun

This weekend I plan to spend another good chunk of time in the garden. Cleaning and transplanting the surrounding beds is a big task and I am currently debating where, what and how much I want to actually plant for our summer edible garden. It might turn out to not be that much but we will see.

animal, vegetable, miracle: a year of food life

As I mentioned in this spring gardening post, I have been reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. I finished the book yesterday and I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in food, planting or just wants to read a well written and informative piece of non-fiction. The book begins and ends in the spring so it was the perfect time to get inspired about starting our garden, shopping at the farmer's market and gearing up to have more locally grown and harvested food sources.

To summarize, the book traces Kingsolver's family journey to eat locally for one year. Much of their food source comes from their own Virginia farm with some additional items coming from surrounding local purveyors. The book is packed with information about why they chose to set on this path, how they accomplished it and ultimately what they learned. The why covers topics like the industrialization of the US food system, the current condition of small farming and a general sentiment about food as a sort of religion. The how, which included my favorite parts of the book, gets into the specifics of what they planted, how they did it and what they made from it (recipes included). I don't want to reveal the big take aways but I will say that it left me feeling inspired and ready to make some changes in the way we eat. Below is a short list of things I am thinking about/planning on doing after reading this book. 

- Rely as much as possible on the food we can get from the farmer's market - We already sort of do this but I want to make it a priority for this season. Menu planning will start at the farmer's market instead of going in with a predetermined list.

- Become even more conscious about where our meat is coming from - Again, we already are pretty good about this in that we primarily eat organic meat and try to limit our consumption of it but there is always room for improvement. I pretty much plan on only eating meat from Live Springs Farm from here on out (see this post to learn more).

- Eat locally and seasonally - This is something I don't think about enough. I would say I do the local part pretty well during the warmer months but the seasonal thing is more of an adjustment. There is this part in the book about bananas and how the family gives them up as they are not local (nor ever seasonal) and now I can't help but look at bananas or mangoes or any tropical fruit differently. 

- Stock up for winter - Since it can be harder to eat locally in the winter (no farmers markets and no crops really) I want to stock our pantry and freezer with the items that we can enjoy and feel good about eating even when it turns cold.

Check out Kingsolver's website to learn more about the book, get recipes and to see images of her farm - I want my own flock of sheep! Have a great weekend!

our spring garden

This past weekend, I was successful in getting our spring planting done. I decided to skip on starting from seed as I am not sure we have enough light in the house. Also, I have no idea how I would keep an indoor garden safe from very mischievous Booker.

I started with clearing out the dead leaves that had settled into our 2' x 5' elevated cedar planter. Then I moved onto inspecting my strawberry and kale plants. Both are annuals so I decided to keep them in the soil through winter and see if they would make it to another grow season. I didn't take any of the helpful steps such as cutting them back or adding straw to help them survive over the long, cold months but still 50% of them made it - 3 strawberries and 1 kale. I dug out the survivors and placed them to the side so that I could turn the soil. Last year, I filled our container with a combination of local topsoil from Route 66 Organics and Back to Nature Cotton Burr (read more about our choice of soils here). This year, I just added some compost from Bluebird (another local company) to give the soil a little nutritional pick me up. 

After turning the soil, I got to planting. In addition to the 3 strawberries and 1 kale, I added 4 red leaf lettuces, 4 bibb leaf lettuces, 2 spinach and 4 kale plants. My spacing is a little tight (it is recommended that lettuces and spinach be 6" apart while kale has 12" of spacing) but I figure I can transplant if necessary. The kale plants are placed in the back row as they grow the tallest while the trailing and low growing spinach goes in front. My plan is to take from the inside, center lettuces first and work my way out. As it gets hot the lettuces will most likely die and I will replace them with tomato plants. I also did two 12" diameter pots with 2 lettuce plants each. All the plants are certified organic and were bought at our local garden shop. 

The next step is to rig netting or sheeting over the garden to keep animals out and some extra heat in. Jeff was talking to a neighbor and he recommended a set up something like the images below which we might try. Stay tuned!

via Vegetable Gardener and Grit