A Practical Experience

So today on our trip to the milk store we decided to stop by a rare and used book store in Kennett owned by Thomas Macaluso. Hoping we might find some cool old tome of conventional wisdom on gardening we stumbled upon a gem.


Ten Acres Enough: A Practical Experience by James Miller (7th Edition) was published in 1865. The book covers the real world experiences of a gentleman farmer making due with just 10 acres of land near Philadelphia in the mid 19th century. It's hard to think of a more fitting guide to get us started. I mean this is a pre-industrial agriculture DIY manual written about a "garden farm" less than 100 miles from home. Check out a New York Times review of the first edition from 1864. We'll be sure to share bits of advice over the next few weeks.

In other news we'll be stopping by the borrowed plot to plant our heirloom Bartels family corn later today. Fingers crossed that the critters don't ransack the seedlings this year.

Garden Heartbreak

Last Saturday was the Big Day of Planting, and all of our little veggie sprouts finally got nestled into their new garden plot. Things were looking good for a couple of days until a late and unexpected frost hit on Monday night. We knew it was going to get cold, but there was no frost warning, so we trusted everything would be ok. Tuesday afternoon I got an email from my dad - bad news. All of the tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and basil were gone - shriveled up and dead. It was a pretty heartbreaking sight.

As I was pretty sure there wouldn't be time to start from seed again, and to avoid a total loss, I went down the street to the Amish farm and purchased some replacements. No, they're not open-pollinated, organic heirlooms, but in the end, the point of the garden is to have something to eat. We're going to try direct seeding some of the tomato varieties that we were particularly looking forward to, and hope to get at least a few fruits before the fall frosts come in.

On a brighter note, our peas, spinach, and lettuce are growing strong, and our other greens, tubers, and crucifers appear to have survived as well. Yesterday we planted some carrot and beet seeds amongst the onions. Next weekend we'll be planting beans and corn, and the week after that our baby chicks arrive!

Yay for Farmers' Markets!

Farmers' market season has finally arrived! This afternoon I stopped by my local market on the way home from work to meet this year's group of farmers and see what they had to offer. New to the scene was North Creek Nurseries, specializing in native perennial plants. I asked Erin what she would recommend for attracting pollinators, and her suggestion was Nepeta, which has small blue flowers that bloom all summer long, and leaves which have a really lovely sweet and spicy fragrance. It wasn't until I got home that I realized Nepeta is catmint, but this variety (nepeta x faassenii) is more attractive to bees and butterflies than to cats. Also new this year is Long Valley Farm, selling organically raised free-range chicken meat and eggs, and Swarmbustin' Honey with their ten types of local honey including "Totally Raw", Buckwheat, and Hot Garlic. Rounding out the offerings were Jack's Jams and Jellies, R & R Teas, and and assortment of Amish produce and baked-goods stands. I came home with chicken, oyster mushrooms, and bibb lettuce for making asian lettuce wraps for dinner tonight!

All this fresh local produce has us itching to get out and plant our little veggie sprouts, which are more than ready to be liberated from their little paper pots. We've been given a generous sized plot of land to garden in my dad's backyard, which was freshly tilled yesterday afternoon, and our seedlings are being hardened-off on the back deck in preparation for the Big Day of Planting this coming Saturday!

Urban Gardening? Try Nomadic Gardening...

All is not lost, dear readers! Our sunburned tomato sprouts did indeed wither away and die, but we replanted them a few days later and our new batch is up and growing. We've decided that a cold frame or a small greenhouse is going to be a must for next year. Grow lights just can't compete with sunlight. When we compare our stringy sprouts with the ones our Amish neighbors are selling, the difference is night and day.

Last night we planted a whole bunch of peas and spinach. Digging in the real dirt, finally! This brings us to some news that we were waiting to tell, but at this point I don't think we can wait any longer. Remember, way back in January, when we told you we were dreaming big? Well, the Gardener and Gardeness have been on a quest since then to buy some land, and though we're getting closer, we're not there yet. This means that we're now facing the challenge of gardening without a garden. We can't plant in the space we're renting now, because we don't want to leave our veggies behind. The peas were planted in a corner of my father's garden, which he generously donated. Some things, like the hops waiting in the frige and the potatoes which are coming in the mail soon, we're going to try growing in portable containers. But when last frost comes in a few weeks, I honestly don't know what we're going to do with everything. If anyone out there has attempted to be a nomadic gardener and has any suggestions, we'd be glad to hear them!

In light of what we've just said you may well consider us insane when we now tell you we have just ordered chickens! Yes, we decided that we simply couldn't wait any longer. The Gardener told me that all he really wanted for his birthday was an Eglu cube, so a shiny red one is on order and due to arrive by Greyhound freight. Late in May, eight little baby chicks will be arriving - four Rhode Island Red and four Plymouth Rock hens. Oh, the excitement!

A Little Too Much Sun

On this lovely sunny spring day, we decided to try to kill all of our seedlings. We had the best of intentions. Our tomatoes, asparagus, celery, and bee's friend have been looking a bit pale and leggy, so we thought we'd give them a dose of sunshine. We left them out on the back deck while we went to an early Easter gathering, and when we got back four hours later, our poor plants were all dried up, wilted, and frizzled. We've watered them and have our fingers crossed. So I guess we've either killed them or made them stronger.

We also spent this evening planting some more veggies. Today it was cabbage, kale, broccoli, brussels sprouts, peppers, and eggplants. We now have, assuming they all survive, 252 little plants growing in little paper pots under the grow lights in our basement. I really hope we aren't biting off more than we can chew!


Also, in an unexpected jog through town we stumbled across a chicken hideout. Yesterday our Basset Hound decided to go for a tour of the neighborhood when the back door blew open. While searching for our little troublemaker, the Gardener found a rooster crowing from inside a shed type coop on the next street over. Luckily, I found Ginny cowering in some bushes at the end of our street but that's the second set of backyard chickens we've spotted in town. In related news our brochure from Omlet arrived on Friday. Keep your eyes peeled for more details on that!

Can There Ever Be Too Many Tomatoes? Or Socks?

Spring is officially here, which means it's time to plant more seeds! Today is the all-important day of tomato seed planting, and we have 9 varieties going in this year. Yes, perhaps that is going a bit overboard, but there are so many beautiful and delicious tomatoes to choose from out there that it's hard not to. Plus, we're looking forward to a bumper crop so that we can make plenty of sauce to preserve for next winter. We're also planting some onion seeds today, although we really should have done so about 3 weeks ago. Typically onions can be planted in the garden several weeks before the last frost date, but due to some factors outside of our control, there's a pretty good chance we won't be getting our spring plantings done before the middle of May anyway, so our late seed sowing shouldn't be a problem. Along with the veggie seeds, we'll also be starting some herbs and flowers - sweet Genovese basil, purple Dark Opal basil, sage, rosemary, stevia, lavender, chamomile, and bee's friend.

Also of note, our hop rhizomes have arrived!


In other homesteading news, we have completed our first scarves! They're very simple, just done in knit stitch. Mine is made from a nice thick wool yarn with a size 7 needle, so it's very warm and almost wind-proof. And green! I was so excited about how well it turned out, that I went straight out and bought more yarn to make a throw blanket. The Gardener's is in manly shades of olive drab, but is softer and squishier. He now dreams of knitting his own socks! Our dear friend Pragmatiste has given us an awesome set of interchangeable circular needles to try out. They will be perfect for making some thick, wooly socks for the next time the Gardener goes camping up in the mountains!

Well Worth Watching

The sprouts are sprouting and we're trying to keep ourselves distracted. I managed to mulch some of the beds with hay and bought a few supplies for creating a new raised bed last weekend. And though there are plenty of books on the nightstand that need finishing, we decided to watch TV instead.

I found a recent BBC series called Victorian Farm, which gave a much needed escape to someplace green and growing. The show focuses on three historians who try their hands at Victorian farming with authentic equipment and practices. The six part series covers the span of a year on the farm. The hosts grow and harvest an acre of wheat, lamb ewes over winter and raise a litter of piglets. Pretty much a dream year.

If you have access to a copy of the show I really recommend it.