Everyone has been telling me...

What I already knew...victory gardens are coming back. And despite my best attempt to be cynical, I can't help but jump for joy. Especially when I read this...

...A White House carpenter who is a beekeeper will tend two hives for honey.

...Ladybugs and praying mantises will help control harmful bugs.


“First of all,” Mrs. Obama said, “there’s nothing really cooler than coming to the White House and harvesting some of the vegetables and being in the kitchen with Cris and Sam and Bill, and cutting and cooking and actually experiencing the joys of your work.”

“I wanted to be able to bring what I learned to a broader base of people. And what better way to do it than to plant a vegetable garden in the South Lawn of the White House.”

I couldn't agree more. In fact my new mission for the season is to get 5 friends to start a garden. Also from the looks of the layout that was posted, they are putting in some of my go-to flowers in border areas. Lets hear it for beneficials! Check out the article here. Now to convince the Obamas to join FreedomGardens and start blogging!

and by the way...the first of the lettuce seedlings just popped up to say hi

winter again

and the seedlings are getting bigger. This will be the second year of starting perennials waaay early indoors and letting them essentially become potbound by the time the soil is right for transplanting. I had fantastic results last year with this technique, once in the ground they all seemed to just explode and fill in the area early, eliminating the need to weed around them. In fact, some transplants got downright huge the first season. The wormwood ended up as big around as a beach ball as did the valerian and fennel.

But I still need more. Right now there are about 20 different species of plants that inhabit the area by the pond. Per my motto of "throw diversity at the problem" that simply wont do. I need more variety to attract more insects, birds, etc who hopefully on their way to this spot, will stop over in the garden and eat a few pests or pollinate a few flowers.

Here is what is in there right now

wormwood (standard and sweet annie), asiatic lillies, north american water lilly, calla lilly, valerian, fennel, roman chamomile, echinacea, feverfew, lavender, rosemary, common sage, creeping thyme, wild ginger, ginseng, garlic chive, Lamb's ear, mint, lemon balm, bee balm, borage, st. John's wort, hyssop, valerian, and a pair of pawpaw trees.

I've started sorrel, soapwort and skullcap, I'd appreciate suggestions of perennials or easily self sowing annuals to add to this. Even better, if anyone wants to trade some seed I have leftovers of pretty much everything on the list that should still be good, most is only a year old and has
been kept dry and dark.

I'm particularly interested if any of your suggestions can be made into tea, chamomile is nice, but I am kind of tiring of it, which is fine because I'm starting to run low.

Answers!

Thanks to Steve at balhoghblog I have the answer to the bug question, it is in fact a milkweed longhorn. I had never seen one before now because I never had any milkweed growing on the property...until this year, I planted butterfly milkweed, about 8 feet from where this picture was taken. Unfortunately this is not one of those bugs that would be considered beneficial to either its host or neighbors from what I understand. Grrrrr.

So it just goes to show you that increasing the diversity of your plantings will increase beneficials, but also attract a few shall we say....less than desirable bugs as well.

If you are interested in a really seedy picture of buglove by all means, follow the link. When you're done, go check out Steve's blog as well as groovygreen.com, of which he is a contributor.

pooly lit and out of focus

I thought you'd never ask

An heirloom cherry tomato plant which seems to be doing rather well. (and my first attempt at container gardening btw.)


As you can see the little bitty buds have turned into some serious pawpaw leaves.


..
The coneflower (echinacea) getting ready to flower




The valerian you may remember from my office pictures in its permanent home, after some initial dieback it is doing rather well near the weeping cherry.



It appears I will have a bumper crop of swiss chard seed, anyone want to trade?

This is the caribe potatoes flowering. Soon my pretties, soon you will make creamy delicious tubers, and then...then we feast! muahahahahah



the kiwi vine after I headed back all but the strongest shoot. Now the plant will be putting all of its energy into making this one climb. And if the current rate of growth is any indication, It ought to reach the top before fall. This one is the female vine, the male vine is being lazy right now, only about 3 inches of growth.



My wife loves petunias, practically to the exclusion of all other plant life...kidding. Anywho I cant take credit for this one, its her work. There are petunias in there, a vinca I think, and some kind of ornamental grass. Bottom line, I can't eat it...Looks nice though doesn't it?



STAY AWAY FROM MY SQUASH! This here is the ultimate in IPM, although with a massive carbon footprint...actually a massive footprint period.

Absinthe anyone? In a matter of about a week this little wormwood plant went from being barely able to fill a one gallon pot to tripling in size. Looks great, the foliage filled in nicely.



And lastly, my attempt to suppress weeds with a rapidly growing, tight planting appears to be moderately successful. That is flax, and you can see where the grass stops right at its edge. A few strays have crept in, but the spot (which is larger than this little corner) has stayed pretty clear. And yes I need to do something about where the cedar chip path meets the edge, we just havent decided what to do with it.

Answers and more questions

Well I figured out what is eating the lettuce and cabbage, slugs. No sweat, I'll just set out a beer and let them drink themselves to death. (A duck is out of the question right now). Something else has been far more destructive though, chewing the tops off of the bottle gourd seedlings, sunflower stalks, defoliating the amaranth, cutting the pea vines. There have been frequent cat sightings, so I'm inclined to believe thats the culprit. Some of the victims have been up in the walled in island in the middle of the yard. Its about a 2 foot climb, I doubt rabbits could do it. I may camp outside some night, and if its the one I think it is, it will get leashed to my neighbor's front porch with a stay out of my garden note. Or I'll just call animal control and put signs up in the neighborhood telling them where to find it.

vigorous indeed

hot and wet are the only two words I would use to describe the weather right now. When the temps hit 95 and it rains daily over the weekend you tend to stay inside. But my morning trip yielded a peek at the hidden world of cucumber beetle copulation. Sorry to be a coitus interruptus but "Not in my backyard." I shoulda got a picture before I eradicated, but I didn't want to miss a chance to kill.

The weather really helped growth, the bolting chard is taller than me (6') now GO TO SEED ALREADY!

Chamomile is rockin like a hurricane.

Anybody got any good tea recipes?

Foreground:potatoes, midground: peas, background: raspberry primocanes


And now for the reason for the title Back on the 27th of my I planted the kiwi vines as of this morning, new growth is over 8 inches.



The pawpaw which budded not long ago is doing well too.



obviously the purple coneflower growing around it is doing well too (of course that is almost unkillable)

now we're rolling!

The first pea flower has arrived!

of course it appears that something has been munching on various things in the garden, mainly pea tendrils and broccoli leaves. And I'm not talking on a bug scale, I think its either a cat or rabbit. And unfortunately, being next to the dog run is not a deterrent.

Hmmmm. Apparently I need to look at further deterrence. And if that was not forboding enough, I think our front lawn has been infested with grubs (japanese beetle larvae). Normally I wouldn't care about the lawn, but japanese beetles are supposed to be a minor pest to kiwi, which by the way...


The Kiwi which has been in the ground for little more than a week is already sprouting!



All in all very exciting, lets just hope the squash and tomato transplants will take hold.

after a few days away

prompted by generally rainy mucky conditions I returned to the garden to find.

Weeds, tons of them, and the same goes for the yard in general.

And evidence that someone had nibbled on a little bit of lettuce and most prominentlyas shown below, chinese cabbage.

grrrr. I checked under the leaves and along the edge of the garden, and no signs of any bugs, so I'm not sure what did this, but it didn't mind the chilly wet weather. Hopefully this is not a crucible to test my new, do nothing approach. I was originally planning to utilize biological diveristy to encourage a natural homeostatic state of predators and "pests." It would seem I'm about to put my money where my mouth is.

Theory and Practice Part 3: Throw diversity at the problem

I found the second chapter of Gaia’s Garden particularly inspiring. The author retells a story about a group of permaculturists who were working with a relatively ingenious self watering bed setup adjacent to a wetland. Unsurprisingly they ran into roadblocks along the way in the form of local wildlife who found their garden particularly tasty. After giving up on trying to thwart the varmints, they found that the next year predatory species and other forms of competition were keeping the offenders in check. In other words, nature will balance the scales if given the opportunity. In theory then all we gardeners have to do is sit back and things will eventually take care of themselves right? Right?

The difference between myself and the above intrepid horticulturalists is one of diversity. Quite simply, there is no way I (nor most on a suburban lot) ever hope to approach the level of biological diversity present in the wetland example, nor even the average field/ forest boundary. Nor can most of us living on an 1/8th of an acre city lot afford the space to spare for the “wild” zones prescribed in permaculture landscaping. The only thing that comes close to being a zone five on my lot is the space behind the shed. So how do I cram the necessary number of species into my lot to never concern myself with pests again? Well, unfortunately I don’t believe that is an option, however I believe I can come close.

Anyone who has picked up a gardening book has heard of companion plants. I’m not going to go into adjacent plants providing enhancement to the soil, what I want to focus on is the ability certain crops have to attract certain animals, be they the “trap crops” which divert the attention of garden freeloaders, or nursery crops to shelter and attract beneficial predators. While it is impossible for the average enthusiast to know what every plant attracts or repels, I don’t think that is a problem. Simply increasing the number of plant species in any given area increases the chances of reducing the size of the bulls eye on your favorite vegetables. It’s a game of sheer statistical chance. If you plant it, they will come. So what do I plant?

Taking a cue from every permaculture reference out there, perennials, you cant beat the maintenance factor, and self seeding annuals aren’t far behind. I don’t need to plant borage near my tomato plants anymore, I did it once, and each year it comes back in such numbers that I continually thin it for weeks. The nice thing is, a lot of common herbs are perennial and hardy to most zones in the US. So I got seeds for all my favorite kitchen herbs, tea herbs, flowers, and some I hadn’t heard of and started growing them right around Christmas.

To date I have started
Hyssop, Lavender, St. John’s Wort, Valerian, mint, Creeping thyme, feverfew, chamomile, lemon balm, bee balm, wormwood, 3 kinds of basil, anise, angelica, bee balm, coneflower, red leaf plantain, black cohosh, garlic chives, common sage, rosemary, hollyhock, zinnias, morning glory, nasturtiums and I’m probably forgetting something. That’s 27 by my count. 26 Extra species this year who are doing nothing but looking nice, attracting bugs, and providing the occasional leaf for seasoning or tea. Ideally I’d like to have 2 species of non harvested plant for each one that is harvested. All of these are going in a section of the yard adjacent to the small pond we put in last year. Before the end of this year hopefully I will have some kind of cattails or lilies for even more diversity.

Over the centuries humanity has bred into our agricultural stocks desirable traits for our own consumption. This does not necessarily make them ideally suited to grow in the wild, but I believe by simply adding a touch of the wild in an area near our prized plants, we reintroduce the biological support systems which in turn reduce our dependency on “imported controls” to pest populations. Permaculture design does this by progressively wilder zones, but ultimately I think the real benefit there is diversity. I do not believe it is necessary to target specific pest populations if one has enough diversity present in the local flora. After 3 years of disappointing curcurbit experiences due to cucumber beetles I am going to try to not try this year. I’m not going to bother trying the “plant X to control Y” method, especially in light of its questionable effectiveness thus far. I’m going to throw a whole bundle of stuff at the wall and hope that something sticks, and if not, add even more next year.

Growing Challenge: preparations

I'd like to add a couple of seed sources I have done business with in the past who have been excellent.

First, (and where I get the majority) Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. I think every item is open pollinated, heirloom, and grows well in NYS despite the fact that they are a Virginia operation.

I have done well with Victory Seed Co. and Garden Medicinals and Culinary as well.

Being a part of the Growing Challenge was easy, I have sooo many new additions that only one seems like cheating.

Really for me this year involves two major goals:

1.) Implement a succession and intensive planting strategy based on the FANTASTIC "How to grow more vegetables..." book by John Jeavons.

2.) Turn the northwest corner of the backyard by the pond into a lush sanctuary of herbs (mostly perennial).

As it stands I have 3 lavender bushes, purple and white coneflower, rosemary (which might not survive the winter), garlic chives, and common sage. The north side of the pond has a dwarf ornamental cherry that was transplanted last year.

I have seed either here or in the mail for
Red Plantago, Fennel, Anise, Wormwood, Angelica, Basil (Genovese, Purple, and multicolor holy basil), German Chamomile, Valerian, Feverfew, St John's Wort, Black Cohosh, Mint, Creeping Thyme, and Lemon Balm.

I am looking for a good Butterflyweed to add as well. I understand that in addition to butterflies it attracts soldier beetles as well. I need the hired guns in a bad way. Every spring the hordes of cuccumber beetles descend upon my poor beds and lay waste to everything and anything curcurbit. I refuse to resort to insecticide, and I have seen the occasional soldier beetle near my sunflowers, so I am hoping the poor garden residents can hire some badass warriors to come and defend the crops a la The Seven Samurai. If that doesn't work I have some Amaranth I am going to plant too, I hear they like that.

And since I first wrote about the Aerogarden I have realized a major mistake...planting so early. I had terrible luck starting perrenials from seed historically and now they are growing too fast. I am going to need to move the Mint, Valerian and Lavender to small pots very soon as their roots are getting dangerously close to tangling. I will certainly update on how they take the move from hydroponic to soil.