A Sista's Winter Hustle...

View of herb garden with the top Marty the Monk's head and some pots barely sticking out.

It's been quite a long time! Winter is here! And the crazy holiday season....

Those who know me know that I'm not one to sit still. In the winter this is especially so. In the past month or so I have gone from Owner/Volunteer to Owner/(part time paid) Worker at my local Organic & Natural food Cooperative. From there I have opened up new avenues of bartering trade for myself and family.

I cannot stress enough the importance of either joining or starting your own food/grocery cooperative. The past year is a prime example of the government and it's minions taking care of themselves, the stock market rendering everyone who thought they were rich suddenly poor and the FDA pretty much giving cart-blanche to food companies and agri-business to leave chemicals (or even worse add more) in food sold in your neighborhood supermarkets.

There has never been a better time to start your path on the way of self sufficiency than there is now. Most Natural/Organic food co-operatives have strict criteria of what is sold within it and what is and can be acquired in regards to fresh produce. In return you are assured that you will know where your food and products are coming from.




As you can see...we were inundated with snow. This shot of the main garden under 2.5 feet of snow with the trench made by Mr. Wuggles. Between the snow, wind, fog and subsequent fast melt, thankfully I did not need to use the generator.

With the snow comes my favorite time of the season..Seed catalog time! Time to dream and plan for the growing next season! I start getting the catalogs just in time to start seeds before the growing season.




So, in between sleeping, doll making and spending time at the co-op, I will be scouring seed catalogs and putting in orders for the many seeds that will be piling up here to winter over before spring.

I'll try not to buy too many...but you can never have enough seeds to plant in my opinion!

Until next time (which will be much sooner than the last....I promise!) may all your growing adventures be warm ones!

Gettin' Down, Gettin' Funkay!....Plant Garlic..lots of it!

Lower Rooftop view
Main garden and Mini Orchard

The end of the season is finally here. After being in deep denial about it coming for about the past few weeks I had my oldest start tearing out the spent and weedy garden and making the compose pile look like a compost pile once again. On his day off from school no less. It still took me a few days to actually get up the inclination to go out and till everything under. Once I got started though it was another story.

Participation in the end of the season clean up and planting is mandatory for the entire family. Since we all ate from the bounty that this land had given us during the growing season (and with canning we will be doing the same during the winter) we must give back to the land in order for it to provide for us the next season. Part of this entails that we provide organic matter for it to munch on during the winter. Microbial activity that that lives in the soil feeds on the tilled air and organic matter, breaking it down. If you don't add organic matter after harvest each time you till, the microorganisms will eventually consume the soil's organic reserves. Add crops taking out what they need and you will have an utterly exhausted piece of land. Without organic matter to feed on, the microorganisms die, leaving the soil utterly useless to produce anything...not even a weed.

Feed your soil. And not with synthetic fertilizers either. Organically is the (ONLY) way to do it.

One thing about having neighbors with huge trees (and a mulching mower) is that you have the means to make and provide organic matter to till under. In exchange of providing two able bodies to remove the leaves (which they did not want anyway) they provided the leaves and the mower so that I could utilize this organic gold so that the earth would have something to munch on (and the bugs that inhabit it) over the winter months.

Here leaves are slathered on rather thickly (on top of left over straw mulch too!) so that they can be ran over with the mulching mower. From there they will be tilled into the earth to provide the much needed nutrients; a smorgasbord of sorts for the land to feed on. Happy land. Happy plants. Happy people.

Now, Over the next week we will be having lows in the 20's along with some rain preceding this drop in nighttime temps. This only means one thing. The ground will begin to freeze. Time to get the garlic into the ground. I gathered up the pint of garlic cloves, a large baggie of seed and my Apprentice and we set out to put all of it into the ground before the freezing sets in.





Garlic bulbils and bulbs


We planted garlic in a few places. Here my apprentice is planting cloves in the main garden. We decided that we needed to have garlic EVERYWHERE for the upcoming season. We planted seed garlic in the mini orchard, under the grape arbor.... anywhere where we thought the seed would take. For the clove garlic, we planted about 10-12 rows in the main garden and 8 rows in the herb garden.









We also planted garlic chive seed. Here my apprentice is scattering seed at the back end of the main garden. You can never have too much garlic. I am naturalizing the homestead with seed and plants that are edible. I have never been one to be particularly picky about rows and such. where a plant is happy a plant will provide.

Sage

Back to the herb garden to harvest the last herb putting forth new growth before it goes dormant. The sage that has been prolific since spring is still sending forth tender leaves that are great for stuffing, salads and teas. The upcoming lows will pretty much make all this growth inedible and push the plant into dormancy for the rest of the year. Last year I did not move fast enough to harvest. This year I am not going to let this go to waste. Have you seen what a pod of this costs in the supermarket?! I got two good brown lunch bags full of this stuff and I will be drying it in them. I'm pretty sure this will get used up and will save me a pretty good sum of money over the winter. Every herb garden needs a sage plant in it.

Now its off to start clearing spaces in the den and greenhouse and planning to start seeds for the winter indoor season!

Until next time may all your adventures be warm ones!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Let me respectfully remind you,
Life and Death are of extreme importance.
Time passes swiftly by, and opportunity is lost.
Each of you should strive to awaken, awaken.
Take heed....do not squander your lives.
-Evening Verse for Zen Centers



The above excerpt was taken from one of my favorite books; Being Black; Zen and the art of living with Fearlessness and Grace by Angel Kyodo Williams.

I have always loved celebrating my birthday if for only one reason; the next one is not guaranteed. Not to sound fatalistic but with everything going on the world today it's not so much a matter of if as much a matter as of when. As of late it have been coming much sooner than you would think for many people.

Being able to accept, honor and nurture ourselves is an important and integral part of being, and is key in order to continue to nurture and care for others and our communities at large.

But you know.....why wait for a birthday? Celebrate yourself everyday!

I would not recommend that you buy a cake everyday though.

The River of Denial Runs Through my Garden...

My season is only 120-145 days long. Now that we are rapidly approaching the end of the season, I can't help but to look for any little sign that the season might be trying to extend itself for a little while longer. I have a greenhouse but, its' really not the same as doing a walk about and finding little gems of growth still puttering merrily along.

Wildflowers that were either started by me or by the "deposits" of birds are starting to spring up everywhere. Its always nice to see bright bits of color where you least expect it. What is even better is that you really don't need to do much of anything else other than to just enjoy. Only because I am putting off the inevitable.


Now, Around this time of the season up here gardens start looking pretty ragged. Mine is no exception. While many start tearing theirs out and wait for the fall leaf drop (for really good winter fertilizer) I wait until the last possible minute hoping that something will try to produce one more veggie morsel. That, and I really hate clearing the garden. Hell, I hate weeding during the season. We have had a few frost nights and quite a few evenings in the low 40's, just cool enough to start pretty much killing off all the warm season things. Too bad that does nothing to the weed population.

But, there will have to be a plant rescue this season for the first time ever here. In this mass of weediness there are a few plants that despite the coolness of the temps insist of pumping out a few more veggie morsels for me and my assistant.






Right- eggplant
Left- bell pepper














Eggplants and peppers have never done really well here an the homestead until this year. And, they are still going strong whereas my cucumbers and tomatoes have pretty much declared last call in the main garden. It has been a bountiful summer here. The beans and corn were plentiful and excellent eating and I have had plenty of cucumbers and tomatoes for both my family and the bugs. These plants here are not going to be dug up for protection until a freeze warning is issued. They have done extremely well with the frost warnings.

I guess in a way I'm bargaining with nature right now...I can't bring myself to call it a season. Not when you still have veggies being made.

Until next time may all your gardening adventures still be fruitful ones!

Family Appreciation......Homeland Security

Mr. Wuggles
Family Pet
Sentinel of the homestead

I know it's been a while folkses.

Since both of my sons are now in school, I am able to come and go when I need to unencumbered. I have been doing quite a bit of cleaning, meditating, volunteering at a co-op that I am an owner/member of and getting my hours in for the Master Gardener Program. I really have not been around as much as I have been during the early summer. Needless to say, coupled with some new riff-raff in the area I have had to let them know that they will be bitten...even in the day time. Unfortunately, that also means I have had to read my own meters and call the utility companies with the numbers.

Meet the little talked about but well known in the neighborhood member of my family, Mr. Wuggles. He was rescued as a 5 week old puppy a little over 3 years ago and has been very well worth his weight in dog food, large cow femur bones and dogie treats. he is 90 lbs of fur, paws and teeth and has become well acquainted with animal control and code enforcement...since same riff-raff really do not like the prospect of possibly being bitten even for provoking him and decide to anonymously call said agencies. But, since he is licensed , has current shots, and is in a completely fenced in and gated area there is not a whole lot of anything one can do.

Mr Wuggles
in his ambush position

There is nothing like hearing "holy shit!!!" screamed at two in the morning as the drunken pub crawlers decide to loiter a bit too long outside the fence line (I guess to catch their breath from lurching about or trying to decide if my tree is a great place to pee on) when Mr Wuggles (who blends in quite wonderfully with the dark shadows) decides to spring up on them with a very loud series of barks at the same time that he charges the fence. They move along quite quickly and the tree remains dry and urine free..

Sometimes he looks as if he is dead and lets you get close enough to jump up and charge you (water meter person got that surprise).

Anyway you look at it, he is a contributing member to the family homestead.

Now if I can only get him to pull a sled in the winter...we'll see....

Until next time may all your gardening adventures be fruitful ones!

Belabor Day.

Sunflower variety in the main garden

Labor day. A day in which businesses close down (or should be closed) in recognition of working their poor minions to the state of discontent and exhaustion for a mere pittance in pay. At least that is my definition.

For me it signifies the season is pretty much gone. The fall flowers- asters and chrysanthemums start their own showcase journey, the bugs pretty much have free reign in the vegetable patch, the apples, peaches, pumpkins, cranberries prepare themselves for the upcoming harvest.

Time to sit down and reflect on an all too-short-for-me season....and to see if I can squeak out anymore things to eat without feeding the bugs in the process.

Until next time may all your gardening adventures be tasty ones!

Celebrate giving Life. Pull Weeds. Pick Fruit. Plan Gangsta Birdies Demise. Laugh maniacally.

Marty the Monk
facing east at the entrance of the herb garden

Fifteen years ago this evening, the oldest of my two sons was brought forth into this world. Like most teenagers now-a-days he pretty much spent the day eating and taking long luxurious naps.
He well knows that if it was any other day he would have been outside right along with the rest of us.

Tonight is also going to one of the coolest since mid-April, around the upper 40's. With about a month left of the growing season I decided to start cleanup while I have the inclination and energy. It makes fall a whole lot easier to deal with before the first hard frost comes in to try and kill off and turn everything to mulch as much and as fast as possible.

Starting with the herb garden which was the first to come into action during the spring I pulled the garlic, trimmed the sage of its seeds and pretty much wiped out whatever weeds that did not belong there.

I let the garlic go to seed this year. I happen to love the stuff, eat copious amounts of it and spend a pretty penny every fall buying more to plant. This year I decided to let it go to seed. The bulbs and cloves are smaller as a result of doing that , since the energy goes to the flowering tops and seeds instead of the bulbs to make them bigger. They way I eat the stuff it would not matter how big they are anyway.

With these I will be planting all over the property with them just to see how they do and see them naturalize themselves to the elements and the area in which they are sowed in. And I will not run out as fast either.


























The next battle in the Mini-orchard has began. My peach tree (one of three) in the middle of the mini-orchard next to the pear tree has been hit by a particularly greedy bunch of "Gangsta Birdie" blue jays. It would not be too bad if they ate the entire fruit. But they peck and peck at one side of it. Just when you think you have a nice piece of fruit and you grab at it from a blind angle, you find that you have a half eaten mess on your hands...literally. Even the squirrels have better manners than that. At least they take the fruit off the tree and eat most of it.

I got some nice peaches off the tree though. They will go well with some ice cream that we will be having this evening after dinner. The pears still have a few more weeks to go...if they make it to then. The birds are getting to them too.

These red grapes are excellent eating and will be ready in about a week or so. On my grape arbor I have a mixture of wild grapes, domestic red grapes and bella donna (which is highly poisonous to humans) Fortunately all three stand out so that the differences are clearly visible, and tends to remind us that even in nature there is good and bad mixed into everything. The birds miss the grapes and get everything else. See? Everyone wins.












Sometimes you just have to take a picture of flowers with a child standing in front to them. My apprentice here sowed the seeds of the sunflowers in June and is so happy that they are finally starting to bloom. I bought a sunflower mixture so that they are coming up in all shapes, sizes and hues. The one he is standing in front of is his favorite if only because it bloomed first.


Until next time may all your gardening adventures continue to be fruitful ones!