Fall Planting

Fall is here, it's time to plant Garlic and Onions. This year I'm planting Walla Walla onions, which are better planted in the fall if you want them to reach maximum size and sweetness in July. These onions are large, white, and sweet...you can chop them without crying. Below, we have Chesnok Red garlic, also called Shvelisi after it's originating place in Russian Georgia.It is just the perfect garlic. The cloves are large and easy to peel and the garlic has true garlic depth without getting nasty about it. I'm also planting Elephant Garlic, which isn't a garlic at all but a leek. This doesn't have the true garlic taste, adding it to a dish which requires garlic is a waste of time. But it is exceptionally easy to peel and adds character to dishes which would be overwhelmed by garlic, such as scallops, or a bean cassoulet. The other onion I'm planting this fall is the Egyptian Walking Onion, also known as the Multiplier Onion. This onion is usually used year round for green onions, or shallots, although it can also be let grow into bulbs. The trick is to never, never let it go to seed. Once established this onion will continue to multiply itself in the bed by rooting along the length of the green stems. If you haven't ordered your garlic and onions yet, it's probably too late.
You can still find some at Peaceful Valley Farm Supply, although their supply is limited. One Stop Poppy Shoppe still has sets of the Egyptian Walking Onion.

I've been yanking down my pole beans. Then I'll plant fava beans 3" down and thrown some aged chicken manure on top. The chicken manure will water down in the fall rains. The fava beans will pop up in March and be ready to harvest by late spring. After they're harvested it'll be time to plant the same bed again, this time with tomatoes. I had 30 tomato plants this year because it was my year to dry tomatoes. I do that every other year, as dried tomatoes keep for two seasons. This coming summer will be a smaller tomato planting, probably just a dozen for summer use.

I'm trying an experiment with some of my fava beans this year. We have a swampy field where a seasonal stream ends and empties out. By midsummer the field is gorgeous, filled with wild sweet peas. I can appreciate the view, but I did try picking sweet peas this year to see if we were missing anything. They took forever to shell and the result was dry and tasteless, not sweet at all. So this year I'm going to pull up some of the sweet peas (it's a large field, there will still be plenty to look at) and put down some fava beans, about 5 pounds worth. It would be great if they naturalize there...no weeding, no watering. A gardener's dream come true.

Sustainable Vs. Unsustainable Living

I have to say (just to have it on record) that DH Matt and I are not eco-nuts. Which, again for the record, is like "Co-Co for co-nuts" in reverse. Yes, I know that that doesn't make immediate sense, which is why I said it. One statement, "eco-nuts", is a consumerist denial of a genuine movement which mocks "consumerist" values. The other statement is consumerist advertising. Truth always lies somewhere in the middle.

DH Matt and I are logical, reasonable people. Logical, reasonable people look at the "consumerist" culture and realize that it doesn't work. A cycle of continuous unplanned growth is not an economy; it's cancer. It's not logical that a middle class consumer can/does constantly purchase designer label goods (cars, clothes, shoes, accessories, electronics, travel) to, what, aggrandize their ego? Allow them to feel that they've arrived? Nor does it make much more sense, except in the sense that they can actually afford it without credit, for even the wealthy to purchase these same items, again to aggrandize their ego. The non-gap between rich and poor had reached such a crescendo that the rich were going into hock to pay for leather tile on their walls or custom tile patterns so that they could demonstrate their wealth. Since the upper middle class already had all of the previous emblems of wealth. The standard was pushed higher and higher.

Someone has to pay for the lifestyle when the middle class are aping the wealthy. And, again for the record, historically the wealthy who have to demonstrate their wealth don''t remain wealthy. But, for the wealthy, demonstrating their wealth is at least half of the fun. This period in American history distinctly reminds me of the pre-French Revolution era.

"Much like the bourgeoisie, the nobility utilized gardens to display their wealth. The difference, of course, was that the nobility displayed their wealth not in the garden, but through the garden. By building large and interesting gardens on his property nobles were able to gain notoriety. The size and the various elements of the garden, such as aviaries, menageries, and fountains were all components of a garden that could speak of a noble's status."


Every gardener knows that when you reach for fountains and statues then things get expensive, fast. Well, of course I would put all of the excess in recent years into gardener's terms...replace "house" for every garden reference...or better yet, "McMansion" and you have the real state of things (or, pardon my pun, the real estate of things). Where has all of this faux wealth come from? Again, to put it into historical terms we should look this time at "Empire England" in the colonial days. The fashion after the French Revolution was for faux austerity, modeled in women's fashion by Indian cottons printed in new patterns. And tea, coffee, spices and chocolate. Eventually England built up such a trade imbalance that the British Empire collapsed. Sounds uncomfortably close to today, doesn't it? Fact is, all of our "comfort" has come upon the backs of Chinese and Indian laborers who were desperate for jobs. Not so they could purchase garden statues, just so that they could eat. Today these same people aspire to a standard of living that we enjoyed in the 1950's. Some meat on the table each week...a dishwasher...a washer and dryer.... a car per family...and some privacy.

DS Matt and I are "faux impoverished". Sure, small house...limited resources. Big land. All 160 acres of it. This, for the record, is a retirement investment in timber. We're not stupid enough to attempt to establish an estate on middle class currency. We have convinced ourselves that we are "environmental stewards of the land".It's just a pure coincidence that we also have the true wealth currency of the era...privacy...and paid for. So, we have despoiled a previous wilderness. Logged previously, more than once, of course. Surrounded by other timber/ranch parcels, of course. In other words, virgin land is rather a myth.

The point I'm trying to make in all of this is that there is no "righteousness" in choosing sustainability as a lifestyle. We chose it because the alternative is death. We as a culture drown in both debt and excess....and waste. Someone has to be on the next wave to model a lifestyle that consumes as little as is reasonable. That consumes as little as the person in India or China so that they can have their place in the sun. We don't have a "post consumer" ego about that, it's simple logic. Do I really for one minute think that by recycling and purchasing used instead of new that I can "lift up another culture and the guy in India can buy a motorbike? No, that too is bogus reasoning. But I and others like me might mitigate the post-empire collapse this country is about to endure. We're just pioneers, sign posts on the road. What we're doing on our land is actually much easier on a smaller parcel...much easier in communal living, or much easier in a planned suburbia.

Borage in the Garden

Borage is, to me, a garden essential. The flowers are beautiful, especially when grown near comfrey. The flowers are edible...I love serving guests tea made from mint grown in my garden with wonderful blue borage flowers floating in the ice cubes. It's an old country belief that growing borage next to tomatoes makes the tomatoes taste better. I don't know if that is true, everyone tastes foods a little differently....but I do know that borage near tomatoes gives you more tomatoes. And cucumbers, melons, and beans...because bees love borage and it brings them into the garden. I just love the happy feeling of borage in the garden, and then again when the blossoms are used as a bedtime tea. Happy dreams.

Comfrey in the Garden

It's recently been pointed out to me that my garden approach is different from that of many people, and that some of my plants are uncommon to a garden. I think that this is first because the focus of this garden is on sustainability, and second because I consider many garden plants to be a first product, a starting place to process the plant into another useful form. If there is a third reason, it would be that I love to try new things.

One of my favorite plants in the garden is Comfry. In past years that I've grown Comfrey, it has self- seeded throughout my garden. I have never thought that this is a bad thing, comfrey and borage (another vigorous self-seeder) look beautiful together and are medicinally extremely useful. If one patch is good then more are simply bonus. This time, though, I decided to try the varietal Russian Comfrey because it is sterile. A gardener can take root cuttings from the comfrey but the plant will not send seeds out into the garden. Furthermore, since the plant does spread through its' root system I am growing my comfrey in a half wine barrel. I also have true comfrey seeds in case I miss the joyful profusion spreading through my garden.

I consider Comfrey to be an indepensible item in any home medine cabinet. Dried comfrey leaves are crushed into powder and then used in a poultice for any skin irritation..poison oak, an allergic reaction to topical irritants (men who react to spermicide shoul take particulat note of this, it relieves pain and irritation in seconds), and any irritation caused by many garden plants. The comfrey leaves are always wrapped, never put into contact with the skin because of numerous fine hairs on the leaves. The other folk name for comfrey is boneset and comfrey is the first herb I reach for to treat a broken bone or sprained joint, again used as a poultice. Comfrey is rarely taken internally...only in the first three days of a broken bone and then in small amounts; it can be toxic to the liver. Never give comfrey internally to a child or a pregnant woman.

If you're not ordinarily a poultice user then comfrey is a great place to start. An undyed paper towel is slightly saturated with hot water...the comfrey powder is sprinkled on, about a tablespoon. The paper towel is folder over, sprinkled with a bit more hot water, then the poultice is wrapped around the injury and left there for five minutes for skin irritation...wrapped under a bandage and left for sprains or breaks, such as a broken foot bone which would not ordinarily be set. Comfrey poultices can be used on a broken bone to bring the swelling and discomfort down sooner.

Comfrey is also used in the garden as a good source of potassium. I grown comfrey near my potatoes. When the potatoes plants are six inches high I clip comfrey leaves and mulch the potatoes with them. I then cover the potatoes with a thin layer of straw, as the comfrey turns into a green slime that i'd rather not view every day. Extra comfrey would be a terrific addition to the compost pile, although I wouldn't know about that. "Extra" comfrey to me is like "extra" money. It's a nice concept but it's so useful that there's never enough to go around.

Sustainable Gardening

A sustainable garden has to produce an entire cycle, making the loop from fertilizer to plant to production, back to compost while introducing as little outside energy as possible. The same concept applies to sustainable living, although in both cases it is currently impossible to reproduce our current standard of living without introducing outside energy. Even our pioneer ancestors had a lot of help from the Indians and had European imports.

In my garden the two most critical issues are carbon and nitrogen. Currently I'm importing many, many rice straw bales into the garden for the carbon. I'm planning on introducing chickens to the garden (chickens, meet garden) this spring when we have the time to build a chicken coop. This is more challenging than it sounds in bear and snow country; the coop must be built like a fort, an insulated fort. This will give me manure the following spring, two years from now. It will still be raw, not aged manure, so realistically I won't have the manure cycle down for three years. In the meantime, chickens need to be fed, another importation of energy. We have forest with a few sunny cleared patches, little water, no summer rain, and many wild critters to eat corn. We also have gluten allergies, which rules out growing wheat, barley and oats for chicken/human food and the necessary carbon.Entering the picture: millet (pictured above right, proso millet) and buckwheat (pictured above left, mancan buckwheat).
Millet will provide seed heads for both chickens and people to eat, and the stalks should provide the needed carbon. Millet is similar to wheat in it's protein profile, 11%. Perfect for chickens. Millet is also good for the kidneys of the humans who eat it; good clean kidneys keep us energetic and looking youthful. Millet and buckwheat are excellent choices for the small homestead gardener because they don't require a lot of water, tilling, or fertilizer and they are relatively easy to harvest with a hand sickle. You can throw the entire seed head to the chickens or put a sheave into an old pillowcase to thresh it for human porridge. A standard blender will turn buckwheat groats into buckwheat flour for pancakes. We plan to till these into a fenced clearing and use a rain bird on them once a week. Both millet and buckwheat will produce two crops a season even at our altitude. The buckwheat can be re tilled for "green manure" to enrich the soil. Buckwheat is also the only grain which provides the essential amino acid lysine.
I purchased my seeds at Seedland, a site which sells seed for hunters (hunters are terrific at creating wildlife refuges...at least, a refuge before and after hunting season). The shipping cost for 100 pounds of seed added a third of the price, but the seed price was low enough that it was still a good deal. They had mancan buckwheat, which is a bit more productive than common buckwheat, and they also had proso millet rather than the more standard pearl millet. Proso give more distinct grains and is easier to thresh; pearl millet is a bit more productive and is usually thrown straight to the chickens.

European Vegetables

I've had some production issues this year in my garden, nothing major when compared to anyone else's but not what I expected in my garden. Plants usually love to show off for me..."Look Ma, see what I can do!" At 3500' elevation, in a timber forest, I had some new challenges. The core issue is that my seeds are adapted to valley gardening. After all, most people do live and garden in valleys. More importantly, the seed producers are located in valleys with a different climate from my own. By selecting only one variety of each plant and saving the seeds I could have adapted plants in 3 years. That is, after about 3 years of experimenting with the different seed strains. So, 6 years until the garden produces the way I want it to.


I keep a picture on my desk of Bell Rock in Sedona Arizona because of what it represents to me. A female friend and I traveled to Sedona more than a decade ago. We wanted to climb Bell Rock , we were hikers and rock climbers in those B.C. (before child) years. Try as we might, we couldn't even get onto the wide skirt of the rock...every path ended in a drop off or rubble. Yet we could see other people far above us, people who weren't even wearing good rock boots, who were managing to climb the rock. For two days we tried, and for two days we failed. The third day I suggested that we start with a meditation. When we finished opening ourselves to higher energy...we could see stairways in the rock. We easily danced up all the way to the very top where most people never climb, and down again in just two hours, half the normal climbing time. We felt such a feeling of accomplishment. A man stopped us, and asked if we had been the two women he had seen up there. He said that he lived in Sedona, had in fact moved there so that he could hike and climb the rock every day. But he had never seen anyone go where we had gone..he wondered how we had done it. We looked at each other and laughed, then told him that "we took the stairs". And so I keep the picture where I can see it, both to remind myself to ask for help, but also as a reminder to always look for the stairs.

So faced with a six year cycle I "looked for the stairs". I remembered that I had read in "The Four-Season Garden" that the first European settlers had a tough time with their gardens. The light was stronger in the new world and the nights were warmer. They had to adapt their seeds over a decade to the new climate. The same was true for the settlers in Virginia, one of the reasons that Jefferson's work at Monticello developing new plant strains and experimenting with new crops was so important. So it stood to reason that European strains would be adapted to lower light levels and cooler nights. Indeed, my best winter squash this year is the French 'Cinderella" pumpkin. It's a bit amusing, similar to the Jerusalem artichokes that I could only find in the U.K., that the pumpkin had to travel "over the pond" and back again to be locally adapted. Taking this trend a step further, I have purchased European seeds for my next garden. I purchase seeds all year around, because I'm more likely to get the strains that I want to experiment with.

At Cook's Garden I found the seeds I was searching for. They really have a terrific European selection. I purchased Violetta Lunga Precoce , an Italian eggplant....what a great name, huh?
I also bought Teton spinach, tromboncino summer
squash,pictured at the right (with, I guess, a serving suggestion), Blue Solaise Leeks and Filet Triumphe de Farcey bush beans. I also bought Melon Charentais, a french heirloom melon which is not related to the musk melon varieties that we typically grow in the States. I did not by any means purchase all of the European varieties featured at Cook's. For instance, I don't care for arugula. Silly I know, but as I recently found myself wondering why I had planted cabbage when my family would have preferred a double spacing of carrots...well. I'm not planting arugula. Or cabbage again. And the summer squash Ronde de Nice looked appetizing but small. I tried to picture grilling a zucchini shaped like an egg and failed.

Purslane

Purslane is an edible weed. In previous years I've had to yank it out of my garden because the deer love it so much they'd jump my fence and eat the purslane and my roses. I had always wondered what was so appealing about purslane that the deer would brave a large jump over a high fence for this weed but not brave it
on a daily basis for the roses. I had tasted a bit of it because I did know that Europeans ate it. It was okay, tart and crunchy, but nothing special. I threw it away. I was recently searching for garden plants with large amounts of Omega-3 fatty acids and the winner was- Purslane. Here's a Wikipedia entry about purslane:
"Purslane contains more Omega-3 fatty acids (alpha-linolenic acid in particular^[4]) than any other leafy vegetable plant. Simopoulos states that Purslane has .01 mg/g of Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA). This is an extraordinary amount of EPA for land based vegetable sources. EPA is an Omega-3 fatty acid normally found mostly in fish, some algae and flax seeds. ^[5] It also contains vitamins (mainly vitamin A, vitamin C, and some vitamin B and carotenoids), as well as dietary minerals, such as magnesium, calcium, potassium and iron. Also present are two types of betalain alkaloid pigments, the reddish betacyanins (visible in the coloration of the stems) and the yellow betaxanthins (noticeable in the flowers and in the slight yellowish cast of the leaves). Both of these pigment types are potent antioxidants and have been found to have antimutagenic properties in laboratory studies."

Wow, who knew? The deer, of course. Purslane can be rather invasive...and it doesn't need much water. Which makes it a perfect container plant. It is absent at my new garden, possibly due to the altitude. I found seeds for it (yes, I laughed at buying them) at Cook's Garden . The seeds are for a "Golden Purslane" which should be quite pretty. If the dark wild kind shows up then I'll interplant them.

The building Continues

Look at that, the first floor is finished. Maybe we'll meet our October deadline to have the building weather-proofed. Because then the rains come, and perhaps snow by Halloween. I can remember many Halloween trick-or-treat nights when DS was smaller where it snowed. The first snow of the year. No amount of candy was worth wading through a blizzard to him, although I was always game.

I remember that DS and I had a lot of pre-Halloween arguments about snow friendly costumes. It seems that we always fought about footwear and outerwear. I was so relieved that Harry Potter came along; wizards wear shoes and warm capes. I made him wear a wizard costume (not the same one) five years straight. It was so much better than a ninja (black clothing on a dark night- ugh!) and wizards carried sparkeling, lit up easy-to-see in the dark wands.

So, hopefully the house will be zipped up by Halloween...or the trick is on us.

Sad Video

I'm sharing this video with a heavy heart. I've never been a fan of conspiracy theories. The idea that a group of people could plan and execute a diabolically clever plan over a period of two hundred years does not compute. Especially if measured against the yardstick of stupidity and greed... yeah, S and G work for me in most cases. But, I've seen disturbing trends toward fascism in the USA and the Obama administration which promised to reverse that trend is perpetuating and accelerating it instead. Hence, this alarming video makes just too much sense.

It's made by the loud guy, Aleks...when he starts grandstanding you'll be better served by fast forwarding. His mind is good but his ego adds too much whipped topping. I'm going to stress here that the video is non-partisan...they hated Bush also...but if you're a fan of the President and you don't want to be disillusioned then don't watch this video.

I'm a person who takes a leaf from the Missouri "Show Me" book, I have to see something to believe it. If this video hadn't juxtaposed President Obama's campaign promises with demonstrations of his actions once in office I wouldn't have given this video any credence. The claim that the Federal reserve is behind the government...well, it's not in this video but President Kennedy made the same claim just days before he was assassinated. Clinton,early in his administration, said that he had no idea where the real flow of power in the government was until he took office.
There was no link available to insert it into this blog. The video is titled "The Obama Deception HQ Full length version".

When you finish the video, you'd do best to skip the comments section below it at the youtube site. I don't know why they allow that caliber of obscene language, I'm not vehemently opposed to a slightly crude word but the top comment definitely matches the Supreme Court definition of obscenity; "I know it when I see it".

Gogi Berries

This year I've grown some Gogi Berry plants; also known as the Favorite Food of Herbivores. I bought three as plants, since growing Goji Berries from seed is rather challenging. Little did I know that every kind of plant eating creature...rats, rabbits, deer, gophers, moles, voles...find the Goji Berry leaves immensely delectable.
The plants have all always been inside a fence. They have been the only item eaten inside that eight foot, chicken wire reinforced at the bottom, EVERY-RABBIT-REPELLENT-KNOWN-TO-THIS-WOMAN fence. First elevating the plants, then wrapping them in a second layer of wire have not been a deterrent to the determined hebivores. I have one plant left, which despite being sheared three times is determinedly chugging along.

The herbivores have excellent taste. The fruit of the Gogi Berry plant, when dried and eaten like fruit candy (yum!), has amazing anti-oxidant and longevity promoting properties. It is possible to consume too much, so please limit yourself to a handful a day if you want to try the dried berries. They are available at any health food store.

You can attempt to grow your own plant from the health food store dried berries. The seeds must be left in the dried berries until you are ready to start them. I suggest early spring. Place the berries in a damp paper towel for three days, then separate out the seeds, they are tiny. Your sprout rate will be low, about 25-30%. Damping off of the seeds is a real possibility, make certain that your sanitation is immaculate. The starts like shade, filtered light; too much light will kill them.
When they are 4" tall with strong stems transplant to pots and place outside in dappled light. I suggest that if you want three plants, start with twelve. Protect from every creature that grazes. The plant will overwinter in zone 7, possible zone 6 if protected, and will produce the coveted berries in the second the third year. Eventually you will have a six foot bush, so allow plenty of room.

Late Nights, Early Mornings

Apologies for not posting recently.
I have been plagued recently by an outbreak of rabbits in the garden. Large, succulent melon eating rabbits. I don't eat meat that's not born of egg (a religious observance) but DH Matt has recently been talking about shooting rabbit for his dinner. I can see his point, but the image is rather horrifying.

I haven't posted recently because the harvest is upon us. I am up to ears in onions, cabbage, tomatoes, and green beans. Every night is processing night. I'm dehydrating the green beans and some of the tomatoes. The cabbage is a dismaying disappointment, my ball head cabbage is lose and billowy. Exactly what will not store in a root cellar. So I'm puzzling over it...we don't like saurkraut.What else can one do with cabbage? I like it in stews in the winter. I'm going to experiment by cutting it into strips and dehydrating it. Why not.
Here's a delicious youtube video which I couldn't make paste or pasta out of. It's about health care reform, titled "One Single Payer System". Enjoy.