New Plants

*Click on the Links for more information about the plants mentioned!*
Last post I showed you some new plants we bought from Companion Plants.  We are slowly finding homes for them and others that have been waiting for attention for a little while.
One of the homes for several plants is the finished compost pile I shared with you in an earlier post.  Here is the pile now:

It's hard to see, but there is a species (wild) rose: Rosa sancti-andreae (syn. R. villosa?) at the top of the pile.  It will get rather large: 6ft tall and spread; and have small pink flowers.  While this plant will be beautiful in its own right, we are also growing this for its hips that will emerge after the flowers fade. Rose hips are high in vitamin C among other things. Surrounding the rose are small clumps of Roman Chamomile (Chamaemelum nobile) that we are hoping will spread all around this pile. I think most people are familiar with Chamomile tea. Once the plants start blooming, you can collect the flowers and the leaves to make a soothing cup.  Ideally, when the hips on the rose form, we can collect the hips and the chamomile to make an even more nutritional tea. The final plant in this arrangement, to the left and bottom of the pile, is Sweet Woodruff (Galium odoratum) that Iz collected from my most gracious parents who have too much of it. It likes moist and shady places and we hope that the shed next to it and the Paw Paw behind it will give it enough shade in the hot summer months.
Sweet Woodruff is used medicinally for stomach ailments as well as in culinary applications such as to flavor teas and juices.  It is also used to flavor May Wine which is a punch made with Woodruff infused white wine, oranges, pineapple and sugar. This is only one example of May Wine as apparently there are other versions with different flavors. We are really looking forward to making herbal teas from the garden once again. There is nothing like gathering a bunch of fragrant herbs and making a nice iced tea with honey to drink on a hot summer evening. Perhaps that will be a blog topic in the near future!

Since the taking of this photo Iz has added more to this bed: Lemon Verbena (Aloysia citriodora) (another delicious herb in tea or putting under the skin of roast chicken); Codonopsis (Codonopsis pilosula), Meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria), and Meadowfoam (Limnanthes Douglasii)

In other plant news Iz planted the Goji Berries (Lycium chinese or barbarum). It is also known as Matrimony Vine.  The folklore attached to this plant states that one must not plant this vine near the home as it may cause "marital discord".

This is Iz planting the Goji in one of the beds at the front of the house, and with my permission, near the house! While the folklore is charming, the best place we have for the Goji is near the house. We promised to move it if we start lashing out at each other for no reason.  This is a vine and Iz added some stakes next to the plants to give them something to climb on.
I better end this now, we have more additions but I will leave that for later! I shall leave you with a little honeybee that was visiting our tulips. Bzzz Bzzz!

Changes are coming



Year One Seed Starting



Over the past three years, my husband and I have become very interested in living closer to the land, living simpler-more cretive and fullfilling lives.  This started when we moved into I's childhood home and promptly began planning a garden.  If you look back through this blog, I have a few entires where we go through starting seeds in the basement and if you check out our Flickr page you will see what we have been up to the past few years.



Year One Garden-just finished

 We are also in our third year of investing in a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) share through Hazelfield Farm in Kentucky. It has been so enjoyable to be able to pick up a bag-full of fresh produce grown locally and sustainably by the same people we interact with on a weekly basis at the farmer's market. We enjoy the challenge of using what is available, creating less waste and becoming more self-sufficient. Iz has begun to realize that horticulture, gardening, sustainable agriculture (whatever you want to call it) is indeed a passion of his. We have discussed the idea of buying property and turning it into our dream permiculture farm and have begun looking at property in ernest. Taking a step further, Iz began to look at farming interships and apprenticeships. We realized that if this was going to happen, Iz would have to leave his current job and commit 100% to his passion.  Through luck, devine intervention or whatever you want to call it, Smaller Footprint Farm contacted Iz and asked if he would be interested in applying for their internship in Yellow Springs, OH.  We thought, why not check it out? After a few agonizing weeks-debating back and forth-weighing the pros and cons, a visit to the farm and an interview, Iz was offered an apprenticeship with them.  By this time we had discussed the subject to death and were ready to take the plunge. Iz accepted the offer this weekendand turned in his letter of resignation at work today.



Some seedlings from last year

 It is still a little scary to think about living with one income, being away from home etc. but this is something that we both believe in and believe that it will all work out. The education Iz will get during this apprenticeship will be invaluable. It will indeed be an interesting year and we are looking forward to the challenges. I thought I would take this opportunity to use this blog to talk about our experiences and about sustainable agriculture, small farms, plants and beyond. I hope to visit the farm often to take lots of photographs and report back here.
We are still getting a full-share CSA with Hazelfield Farm this year and we will still have plans for a full garden at home as well. I hope to be able to talk about what we are doing with all of the beautiful produce and how to preserve the surplus.

Largest Raised Bed we made last year

This is still all very new and exciting! I hope I will have a lot of information and ideas to pass along as this spring and summer progress. Of course, I will be posting photos of our garden as it grows this year. I love to see the transition of empty beds to a profusion of flowers and vegetables! I am also going to try and reorganized our Flickr page into collections and sets that are relevant to eachother-probably one for each year for the garden at the house. Since this is the third year, we have a lot of photographs and perhaps they can be of better use if more organized.




 Stay Tuned! Izzy & Lizzy

Photo a Day

Looks like I'm going to have to try photo a week. Have some to catch up. Haven't had a moment to post until today. I was inspired by some of the amaranth growing in the garden today. xo

Phew!

Photo a Day and Garden Update

Here are a few to make up for lost time...

Check out our Flickr page for updated photos of the garden. We are starting to get more tomatoes which is exciting. The peas are there but we are waiting for more of them to grow before picking.  We have melons but they are smallish still and need to ripen. The beans have finished. We cleared out the plants and will probably plant a cover crop there. We harvested the garlic (as you can see above) and the potatoes. In their former bed we have planted cover crops: comfrey, borage, yarrow, bee's friend, fenugreek and sea kale.  Now is the time to start thinking about a second harvest so I think some more greens are going to go in as well as some carrots and maybe a few other things!

Photo a Day

Of course when I say that I am going to post a photo everyday, I leave the camera at my sister-in-law's so I'm already a little behind.  Here is today's, plus one extra.

29 June 2010  Cosmo

26 June 2010

Garden etc.

The largest raised bed is flourishing. The cosmos, amaranth, night scented stock, chamomile and poppies are all blooming.

Catching up on some favorites from the past few months.

 Carousel at St. Joe Michigan

 Domaine Berrien Cellars

 Headless Hebe's pitcher

Beach at the Outer Banks

 I'm thinking of a new project to get myself a little more focused. I'm going to try and take at least one photo a day and post it here.  I'm trying to do better at editing my work and hopefully this will help!  I'm trying to find new subject matter too and by taking the camera everywhere with me, I may find myself inspired in random moments.

Happy Summer!

The garden is well on it's way this first day of summer.  We have all but one raised bed filled with plants! We've already harvested the Royalty Purple Pod and Empress green beans, and lots of herbs (made the first pesto of the season tonight!).  The tomatoes are green, I cannot wait for them to ripen.  The cone flower, cosmos, prairie coreopsis, rubeckia, monarda, vitex and one sunflower are blooming.

Much more has been uploaded to our Flickr page.

Garden Update-way past due!

April went by way to quickly, and we are trying to keep up with the garden.  That is my excuse for not keeping current here! We are making progress but due to some family priorities and some long days at work, we don't have everything in the ground that needs to be there. It is raining today, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to catch up.

Large Raised bed about a month ago...

...and now!

It doesn't look like tooo much progress however, there are many flower seedlings about 2" tall sprouting in the middle areas. We moved some Peonies into the back right corner and lemongrass in the front right.

We have already harvested about a dozen "Cincinnati Market" Radishes. I made them into a yummy salad. On the far right are more radishes waiting for harvest, beets in the middle. In the second batch kale and mustard greens are bursting and waiting for picking. Various flowers coming up in small troughs in front.

Brussel Sprouts on the left, beets in the middle, and where the radishes were harvested, new seeds were planted and they are now sprouting.

Our first harvest of the season. Last year it was lettuce, but it isn't quite ready yet this year.

We also welcomed new family members. About two pounds of earthworms. They will live in the basement where we will feed them kitchen scraps (no dairy or meat!) on a weekly basis. In about 3 to 4 months, we will have worm castings for fertilizer in the garden. We went to a vermicomposting class at Glenwood Gardens and came home with worms in two tubs filled with leaves, newspaper and a cultivator. I will make sure to keep that process up to date.

The broccoli is getting bigger in the garden.  The melons, beans and sunflowers have sprouted. Tomatoes and peppers are in the garden, raised beds and containers.  We are moving along nicely but much more to do.
Current blooms:

Bachelor Buttons

Valerian

Sweet Rocket

And kitties! Scarlett went out on a leash. I think she liked it. We live near a busy street and lots of dogs. I wanted to see if the kitties could enjoy the outdoors with us so we are trying the harness and leash. We'll see what happens.

xo,

Yearning for Spring

As I mentioned in my last post, this Winter-especially January has been devoid of color and sun.  I'm yearning to see the little seedlings poking through the ground with promise of grand color and beauty in the Spring and Summer.  I planted some white Anemones and pink Alliums in addition to the traditional Daffodils and Tulips that all should be the first thing to bloom in our garden in late winter and early spring.  Since I can't enjoy them right now, I've been looking at catalogs for more spring bulbs to perhaps purchase for the next year. Here is what I've found most intriguing.

Anemone Lord Lieutenant
I love the color and the fact that the bloom time is in February-my birthday month and is amethyst in color-my birthstone. It would be like a little birthday present to myself!

How about some heirloom tulips? Yes, please!
 DUC VAN TOL ROSE, 1700
These only grow 6 inches tall, but would be great as a small colorful accent in a bed with taller plants blooming at the same time.
Or maybe mixed with some crocus?  NEGRO BOY, 1910
This unfortunately named Crocus is a wonderful deep indigo and would highlight the lovely pink in the small tulip.

This double tulip is very nice as well.  I really like flowers with many petals and have a different look than what a "traditional" tulip looks like. PEACH BLOSSOM, 1890

Another beautiful late winter addition to the garden are Lenten roses or hellebores.  Many of the colors have a "vintage" color to them-with muted pinks, creams, greens and purples.

 

I think that these would make lovely pressed flowers for cards or for framing like a botanical print. 

I can't wait for Spring so I can take pictures and document everything!