Garden Update!!

The garden isn't doing all that well, but I've got some cool pictures to share anyway!  I think that the square foot garden boxes are too shaded.  Next year, we're going to have to look at moving them or building additional ones, maybe out in the field or in the back yard where they won't be so shaded.  Another problem, pointed out by a friend, is the lack of bees to pollinate the squash and eggplant!  Bees are a struggling species in the southeastern US, and although that might sound at first like a blessing, it's really kind of scary!  What will happen to all the bee-pollinated plants, especially vegetables and fruits that we eat, if the bees die?

Anyway, here are some pictures of our tiny cherry tomatoes!  They are delicious!

We also have cucumbers.  I love how the little tendrils curl around things.  They are so deceptively delicate!  And they grow at a crazy rate!

We also have a few shell beans drying in their pods, but I didn't take a picture of them.  And finally, just for your viewing pleasure, a very unusual bug in extreme close up!

My Venus fly trap caught something!!

Yesterday when I came home, I checked out the garden, as usual.  When I got to the carnivorous section, I discovered this!  My little Venus fly trap caught a huge granddaddy long-legs!  After I endured a momentary shiver, I was enthralled.  All those legs sticking out everywhere!  :)  It's amazing that a *plant* can catch and eat something so much bigger than it.

Square Foot Gardening

We've got lots of pretty plants growing, both uncultivated and in our square foot gardens!  Hopefully later in the summer, we'll have some delicious fruits and veggies to enjoy!

Decades ago my grandparents grew grapes.  They were supported by wires strung between three huge pylons in the back yard.  Today, they grow in a wild tangle with blackberries (below) and brambles and other fun stuff.  I've spent a considerable amount of time out there, working to clear out things that aren't grapes or blackberries and generally make that area more accessible.  Maybe by next year, I'll have it so under control that we can restring the wires, retrain the grapes, and mow around them!

 I planted beans!  They are called Lazy Housewife beans, which made me smile.  They can be eaten young, as snaps, which are not my favorite, or they can be left to dry on the vines and eaten as shelled beans.  They've really taken over, which makes me think they'll live up to their name, as I have done absolutely nothing except plant them and give them a trellis to climb.

 The sweet peas are still small, but they are blooming!

 One of the tomato plants has blooms too!

 And our garden has a tiny guardian!

 I bought a pitcher plant and a Venus fly trap at the Farmer's Market yesterday!  The vendor said to leave them in their peat moss/sandy soil and leave them outside.  In other words, leave it alone!  :)

The Venus fly trap bloomed as soon as I got it home.  Can't wait to share these with my students next year.

The soybeans, which I will harvest while they're young and green and eat shelled as edamame, have tiny purple blooms!

Seedlings!

We have tomatoes (right) and squash (left)! The tomatilloes and eggplant (middle) haven't come up yet, but I'm sure they will. If Mom hasn't started her seeds, I'm going to help her do that tonight when we go over for dinner. It's so exciting! Maybe one night this week we can go get the stuff for the square foot gardens (my Valentine's Day gift from Matt) and put them together next weekend. I really, really hope we can be successful in gardening this year.

A convenience or an abomination?

We were shopping at Home Depot last weekend when I discovered a new tree I've never seen before! It's called a Fruit Salad tree and it produces peaches, plums, apricots, and nectarines, all on one dwarf tree!

I am 100% sure that there are people in the world who see this as a wonderful thing. How exciting, to have one tiny tree which will provide a family with a variety of fresh fruit throughout the year! What a novelty, as well!

I just can't get on board.

I think that if God had wanted us to have fruit trees in pots on our back patios, practically dumping different kinds of fruit into our hands throughout the year, He probably would have provided that. I think this particular garden innovation leans toward the abomination end of the spectrum.

More outdoor fun!

Yesterday we bought a riding lawn mower! Matt started mowing the front yard before we had to get ready for Aunt Jeep's birthday party. While he was doing that, I spread the rest of the mulch on the flower bed at the end of the driveway, cleared a few tenacious weeds, and planted some new plants at the end, where there used to be a huge peony.

I planted two daylilies called Stella de Oro. They have pretty yellow flowers and long narrow leaves. According to the tag, they'll bloom well in the summer and into the fall and they love full sun, which is what they'll get at the end of the flower bed.

(Thanks to www.gardenality.com for the image!)

Behind the daylilies, I planted three Dracaena Spikes! These look awesome and they'll get nice and tall. I can't wait to see how they do.

(Thanks to www.naturehills.com for this image.)

I'll try to post some pictures of the flower bed and the mower soon!

Garden, take 1

I've been reading. Not that that's news, but I've been devouring everything I can find about sustainable gardening, eating locally, and being a good steward of our planet. Sounds cheesy, huh? Not so much when you consider that popcorn, cookies, and gas station crackers have a preservative made from butane...or that a cow fed solely on corn wouldn't live past two years old because its liver would explode.

OK, with that preface, where can I go now? Hm...stepping down off my soap box for a bit, I suppose. After doing all this reading, the next logical step was to start a garden. I want very much to take control over what Matt and I put into our bodies. I feel that we have a responsibility to our bodies to keep them as healthy as possible by making good choices. We can also do our part to influence the food industry in a positive way by putting our money where our values are: at the Farmer's Market, with the locally grown veggies at HT, and at restaurants that support local food.

On Saturday (4-3), Matt and I spent the morning wandering around the Piedmont Triad Farmer's Market. It has been a seriously cold winter around here. Lots of snow and super-low temperatures. As a result, there was almost no locally-grow food available yet. We saw collards, kale, mustards, and spinach, as well as these awesome planters full of lettuces. There were also sweet potatoes and regular potatoes galore.

However, the most abundant items were plants. It was so lovely to spend the morning walking along rows of green growing things. :) We bought eight heirloom tomato plants (four German Johnson and four Mortgage Lifter), garlic, Moroccan peppermint, African blue basil, stevia, Greek oregano, creeping rosemary, parsley, Cuban oregano, and aloe. I potted them all in plastic pots with the cheapest topsoil I could buy from Home Depot. I went ahead and installed those cheap, ugly metal frames for the tomatoes and put multi-colored aquarium rocks on top of the soil to help retain water and keep the squirrels out. Awesome.

The same day, I planted some seeds I bought before Spring Break! I bought long rectangular planters and filled them with the same cheap topsoil (which is gross and full of clumps and sticks, but oh well). I planted organic Swiss chard, spinach, and two varieties of lettuce. I also planted an heirloom cucumber that's round and yellow, like a lemon. I covered the soil in these pots with aquarium rocks too.

I chose the heirloom and organic varieties for a very specific reason. There are a tiny handful of major corporations (six, if I remember correctly), that control 98% of the seeds distributed world-wide for food purposes. Many of the seeds and plants distributed by these corporations have been genetically modified. Possibly the scariest modification is one called a "terminator gene", which prevents plants from reproducing naturally. This requires farmers and gardeners to buy new seeds or plants every year. There's another modification which increases resistance to diseases or pests, but only with the application of a specific chemical to "turn on" the resistance. Guess who sells the chemical? Ten points to anyone who said it was the same corporations which sell the seeds. So anyway, I don't really want all those genetically modified foods in my system. Who knows how the altered DNA might affect me? I mean, a terminator gene. Scary.