Leaves of potatoes burst through the surface of the soil revealing robust growth and hope for a crop.
During last night’s inspection I realized why many of us garden — we are born of the soil and all it produces.
Recent rain boosted everything.
I’ve been seasoning seedlings outside and am ready to plant them all. The question is weather and availability. There is slight chance of rain today so the soil should be dry enough to work. I have a couple of hours of daylight when I finish at the home, farm and auto supply store. If all goes well, another plot can be planted with kale, cucumbers and beans tonight.
Suffice it that under my Carhartt overalls, Oracle T-shirt, Dickies socks, Calvin Klein underwear, University Square Industries cap, Rugged Wear ventilated gloves and government-issued army boots my nakedness kept its own sensible and properly hidden vigil.
I worked our small plot of land the whole day. By the end of the shift I was drained with no energy left to drive 30 minutes each way to a political event in Coralville.
Onions Between the Compost and Daylillies
Contrary to the advertisements, I don’t think “nature” intended anything regarding humans wearing clothing to garden. In fact, there is not much “natural” about gardening. We have specific intent as to what will happen in each plot we plant. We cultivate things the same way we do with any aspect of human culture. “Gardening” is a human creation. The idea of taking off clothing to weed thistles borders masochism. The idea of turning soil with a spade and without shoes would be nutty.
Row of Peas
A lot of gardening got done despite the clothing.
Except for driving my car from the garage to an impromptu parking spot on the lawn, and collecting grass clippings for the garden, my direct use of internal combustion engines yesterday was minimal.
I worry a bit about the nuclear reactor generated electricity stored in the batteries for my trimmer, but other than that, it was a low impact day.
The lettuce planted March 2 is ready to harvest. Too closely planted turnip seeds are producing leaves an inch long. They are tender and require thinning if I want any turnip roots from the row. There are some carrots in my sunken containers, but not as many germinated as expected. There is plenty of lettuce for salads and tacos, and the prospect of turnip greens both for salads and a batch of soup stock. Those things are going well in the garden.
Belgian Lettuce
What’s going less well is the spring garlic. After producing in abundance for many years, this year’s crop will be less. I’m not sure why. Too, the extra warm weather is slowing growth of radishes. Hopefully the first row will mature in the next week or so. Both of these crops will be donated for charity sales planned for next weekend — that is, if they produce by then.
Thinking horizontally, and having great hope, I planted broccoli in two rows. Last year brassica oleracea cultivar didn’t produce, despite many efforts to protect the plants. Using a batch of old tomato cages as support, I buried chicken wire about an inch deep in the soil around each seedling. The cages are tall enough to keep deer away while the plants are young, and hopefully the rodents and rabbits won’t find their way through the chicken wire. Once the plants take off, I’ll high-fence the rows. Fingers crossed, since home-grown broccoli is the best and we missed out on it last year.
It took the usual two plus hours for the spring harvest of grass clippings. I cut the lawn short, collect the clippings using the bagging attachment, and piled them up for use in the next week or so. For one of the few time during the growing season, my lawn is shorter than the neighbors — not that I’m paying attention to that. Mulch is critical to minimizing well water use, and grass clippings are free but for the labor of collecting them. Today’s plan is to spread them around.
Garden Viewed from the North
Determined to capture new images, I took some photographs before going inside for the day. Our 0.62 acre lot is not big, but there is a diversity of habitat here. The rodents are free to leave any time they wish, and I attempt symbiosis with deer who have been traveling through our lot for much longer than our home has been here. Here’s a short gallery of some favorite new photos from Saturday.
New Growth on the Blue SpruceBird’s Nest in the Golden Delicious Apple Tree StumpApple Tree After Subzero Weather Pruning
Tomorrow’s 142nd running of the Kentucky Derby serves notice the race is on to finish spring garden planting.
Planting is never completely done.
What I mean is putting seeds in the ground and moving the 10 trays of seedlings from our bedroom to the garden soil by Memorial Day.
The coming weekend will be prime time for planting.
Our warehouse club sent a notice of a fruit and vegetable recall yesterday. Here’s the scary first paragraph the company posted on their web site:
As a precaution, CRF Frozen Foods of Pasco, Washington is expanding its voluntary recall of frozen organic and traditional fruits and vegetables. We are performing this voluntary recall in cooperation with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) because these products have the potential to be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes. The organism can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. Although healthy individuals may suffer only short-term symptoms such as high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain, and diarrhea, Listeria infection can cause miscarriages and stillbirths among pregnant women.
We checked all of the noted items in our freezer and there were no recalled items. The recall renewed interest in growing as much of our own food as we can and knowing the farmer on the rest. It is hard to avoid consumer products produced in large quantities, but the Listeria hysteria is a reason to minimize their use. The perfect attitude adjustment going into the garden work weekend.
There is a lot of work to do during the next three weeks. I’ve been reviewing weather forecasts since Monday and it looks like a chance of rain Saturday afternoon, but otherwise, clear.
It will be a rush of digging, raking, planting and mulching. A pivot point toward summer.
Yesterday was a spring day as good as it gets. I took advantage of it and worked outside.
The kale seedlings have been slow-developing, so I put them in direct sunlight. The day’s growth was noticeable. I transplanted the scarlet variety into bigger pots to give them room to grow. They were laggards of the three varieties and best liked in my distribution network. Indoor bedroom germination has never been optimal, but a few hours in sunlight made a difference. More seedling sunning is planned today.
Yesterday’s garden work included planting three kinds of onions, basil seeds, Easter egg radishes, leaf spinach and arugula. I’m moving on to conditioning the soil for everything else.
A sign of the times, I planted the last seeds in pots: zucchini to get a head start for early May transplanting. It won’t be long before the danger of frost is past and everything can go into the ground.
Something is growing in the carrot planters, but I’m not sure it is carrots. Will wait until the leaves show what they are.
The first cut of lawn is the best. The unevenness of early growth gets smoothed over to produce a transient, semi-manicured look. There is a lot of trim work to do, with minor clean-up. The clippings fell where they may providing mulch for the expected long and dry spell. I’m first to admit I don’t care for lawn mowing. The restrictive covenants require me to do it about twice a month.
The apple trees won’t have a good year. Two of them have zero blooms and the Red Delicious has only a couple dozen. The pear tree should bear fruit based on the abundance of blooms. There were plenty of pollinators flying around, including a bumblebee trying to fly up my pants leg.
I gave some excess onion sets to a neighbor and she reciprocated with some “walking onions.” They were ready to eat, but I stuck them in the ground next to one of the composters.
There is always more to do in a garden. We are thankful for each day of clement weather and sunlight.
Farming is more than putting plow to furrow. It is a multitude of experiences, evaluations and decisions made over time.
The same is true for gardeners. Each garden, each plot, has its own micro environment and climate. Not only sun and rain, but wind, topography and history play a role.
This year a friend changed rented land for her community supported agriculture project and stories about her struggles are going around the local food community. The new soil hasn’t been worked for organic vegetables, and is recovering from row cropping. I believe — everyone is confident — she will persevere through the change. Yet it will be a setback in a business that operates on thin margins and more physical labor than mechanization. It’s when the going gets tough that farmers get going.
Over the last 23 years my Big Grove garden expanded from a single plot to six, and I’m looking at adding more. That doesn’t count the five fruit trees which have been a source of produce for a number of years. Yesterday the pear tree burst out in full bloom.
I mistakenly planted a locust tree in one of the garden plots. It has grow to maturity, providing shade for two plots at the same time the frequency and severity of drought has increased. Shade serves to protect cucumbers, herbs and greens from constant, intense sunlight in the absence of precipitation. It took me a while to realize what’s going on and leverage it. Now I couldn’t imaging growing without it.
There are a hundred small things like the benefits of a locust tree that converge in the plots of my garden. When I think of retirement — more often now than previously — I can’t imaging life far from a garden and the diverse intricacies of what sustains me and enables vegetables to grow.
My garden and I are the same warp and weft of life that sustains us all.
The sounds of children playing, dogs barking and yard equipment running dominated the air waves of an unseasonably warm and dry Saturday and Sunday. I heard hardly any of it as I dug in the soil, cleaned out the garden composter and planted.
Yesterday’s average temperature was 16 degrees above the historical average, and we’re running two inches of precipitation behind historical averages. At 80 degrees, the high temperature was well below the record of 93 degrees set in 1896. It was warm nonetheless.
In predawn darkness I watered the seedling trays and noted the peppers are beginning to sprout. It took about two weeks in our bedroom. I planted a tray of seeds for extras, including scarlet kale, tomatoes and Swiss chard. I think I’m done with seed planting, with the next step being transplanting selected seedlings into larger containers.
I prepared and installed containers of Yukon Gold and Kennebec potatoes behind the compost bins. I planted Cherry Belle and Rudolf round radishes and purple top white globe turnips in nearby rows. The small bag of red onion sets from the home farm and auto supply store went into the ground between the composter and the day lilies. I harvested about three cubic yards of compost which is piled up and ready to use. Things are shaping up nicely in the Locust tree plot.
It seems late for pea planting, yet I used up the remainder of my Sugar Ann Snap Peas in last year’s kale bed. Even if they don’t produce, if they sprout they will fix some nitrogen in the soil planned for tomatoes in about a month.
On Sunday I worked at the community supported agriculture project, soil blocking 30 trays for new seeds. There was a crew to plant seeds, tend the greenhouse and plant a number of trays of seedlings in the second high tunnel. I worked until my shoulders ached and will return tonight after my shift to finish the trays I couldn’t get done.
I was tired at the end of each day and glad to be alive in the garden.
That yesterday was opening day in Major League Baseball, and day after tomorrow begins the Masters Golf Tournament in Augusta, were inescapable sports facts on social media.
Spring is about Derby Day for me. It’s a race to get the early garden work done by then so once the risk of frost is minimal the main seedling crops of tomatoes, peppers and the like can go into the ground.
Most years I have been able to take a break from gardening to watch the two-minute Kentucky Derby, taking in just enough of the pageantry to feel a bit queasy. The old saw is horse racing is the sport of kings and who wants or needs it? It’s just there.
Iowa political class member Jerry Crawford asserted last year he had two goals: delivering Iowa for Hillary Clinton and winning the Kentucky Derby. Hillary won the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses, just barely, and his team Donegal Racing’s 2015 entry in the Kentucky Derby placed fifth. That’s about as close as my life gets to so-called kingmakers.
I’ve been hobbled in gardening by my hand injury. Yesterday I limited my work to planting seeds in trays and transplanting those grown — celery, broccoli and basil — into larger pots. No digging for me… yet.
It was 71 degrees in Alaska in late March, almost 80 degrees in Iowa yesterday. The Alaska temperature was highest in recorded history and not a good sign for the thawing tundra and its release of long banked methane gas.
While sports distracts many, for those of us listening to a different narrative such distraction puts many more at risk of stopping Earth’s engine of sustainability.
That matters even on this small plot in Iowa removed from much of the turbulence in society.
Chives, lettuce and garlic are up in the garden, beckoning my presence.
On yesterday’s last day of winter I spent a couple of hours burying four large plastic tubs for an experiment in carrot growing. 18-inches deep, I filled them with compost. After settling overnight, they will be re-filled and planted with four varieties of carrot seeds from Johnny’s Selected Seeds: Yaya F1 OG (hybrid early carrots) Bolero F1 (hybrid storage carrots); Purple 68 F1 (hybrid specialty carrots); and Laguna F1 OG (hybrid main crop carrots).
I have enough seeds to plant a spring and fall crop.
Carrot Container
Anyone who has planted carrots is familiar with the main challenge: providing deep, loose soil for the roots to grow. Last year’s crop was a moderate success in the ground, but I didn’t dig the bed deep and it showed. Over the winter I read about growing carrots in containers. Since I had the tubs, there wasn’t much additional work to cut drainage holes and place them in line 10-12 inches deep.
With rainfall, the new soil may settle. Judging from the locust tree roots I cut to make the holes, there is plenty of soil moisture, although a higher percentage of clay a foot deep. It’s an experiment. We’ll see how it goes.
Raised Beds Next to Compost Bins
Today’s garden task is to consolidate and blend the remaining compost. There are two bins and a pile of decomposed apple pomace and horse manure. There is plenty to build soil in most of the garden plots.
The first spadeful of earth was waterlogged. There was no frost more than a foot deep, so I’ll be ready to plant lettuce March 2.
My maternal grandmother called this planting “Belgian lettuce.” I follow the tradition whenever conditions permit. Reserving some lettuce seeds to plant in trays, the rest will be broadcast in a small plot. I will also plant some turnips — mostly for the greens.
The calendar shows it is winter, but spring is everywhere.
Hope of spring arrived with warm ambient temperatures last weekend. It prompted me to clean the garage, roll up the garden fencing left out after making the burn pile, consider locations to plant Belgian lettuce, and inspect the compost piles and bins.
It won’t be long before gardening begins. It has begun.
In the meanwhile, we continue to cook and eat the stores from gardens and shopping trips past.
A jar of dried chick peas had been sitting on the counter.
I hydrated and boiled them, making enough to fill two plastic tubs — normally that many would last a couple of months. The idea was to use them up.
First I baked falafel. It was a lot of food with the second tub of chick peas leftover. Breakfast has been four or five falafel ever since, making a different sauce for each small batch. There were too many falafel.
Next came veggie burgers. I used chick peas, black beans, oatmeal and a mixture of cooked garlic, onion and bell pepper. Seasoned with parsley, celery salt and herbs from the pantry, with an egg as a binder, there were three extra patties which I froze for future use.
I also made a big batch of flavored iced tea. Using tea bags found in a canning jar in the cupboard, I put four in a teapot and poured boiling water over them to steep. In the back of the ice box I found a quart jar of simple syrup and a bottle of organic lemon juice.
On the bottom of three-cup canning jars I measured a quarter cup each of lemon juice and simple syrup. I poured hot tea on top, screwed on the lid and put them in the ice box. The cost was much lower than the Arnold Palmer – Arizona Iced Tea brand iced tea – lemonade drinks sold in convenience stores everywhere. It tasted much better too.
This weekend was of rest, reading, cooking and a bit of garage and garden work. Brief respite before returning to the farm next Sunday for my first session of soil blocking. Homelife in a busy life that generates too little income but rewards our labor in other ways.
Journey Home 
You must be logged in to post a comment.