pests: problem solving in the garden

Like many other gardeners I know, I love kale. The last 2 years in a row, I've had a lot of trouble with what seemed to be root maggots, eating the roots and main stalks of my kale and broccoli to the point of their death. Kale is one of my favorite garden vegetables, so I haven't been able to give up on it, but it's been super frustrating.

Last spring, when I found maggot infestations in the roots of my first planting of cucumbers, I decided to investigate a little bit further (this would not be a typical plant for root maggots). I started to notice that where ever I found little white larvae, I would also find tiny white organisms with legs (millipede babies), and small millipedes (closer example here). Are there two problems, or are they all related? Still slightly unsure on this but I am thinking two.

Millipedes feeding on a decaying artichoke flower. If you look closely you can see babies as well.

After some research on millipedes, it seems pretty likely we have an issue with overpopulation. The garden provides nearly ideal millipede conditions, with lots of decaying matter in the form of mulch and woody compost, and steady moisture. Millipedes aren't usually problematic in a garden, but they will eat what ever is at the site of their hatching, including the roots of young seedlings. So in the event of an overpopulation, seedlings may start to become a more likely food source.

Lacinato kale, interplanted with arugula

This year I'd been holding my breath a bit. It's been drier and warmer than usual this spring, and my kale has been growing strong. We had the first rain in quite a while this week, and when the sky started to clear I went to check on the garden. Seeing the kale all flopped over from breezy rain reminded me of past issues, so I started poking around. I found that nearly every single one of them had many millipede babies in their roots, and at least one with maggots burrowing in the main stalk. I also found quite a lot of mature millipedes. I cleared out all offenders that I could, and then moped off feeling pretty grumpy and defeated. But yes I know, moping doesn't accomplish anything... 

I tried to feel out the situation to see if a solution would come to me. I thought of all the usual things I knew of... insecticidal soap, neem oil, wood ash, coffee grounds... but none of them really felt quite right, and then coffee came to mind. Brewed coffee. The feeling was to brew some coffee and pour a bit at the base of each plant - enough to saturate the immediate root supply. I haven't heard of doing this, but it just had that feeling of effectiveness, you know? Do you ever try that? To just feel for a solution? Sometimes I have come up with amazing solutions this way. I don't know if this one will work, but I'll be watching closely.

Later, I looked online to see if I could find any literature on using coffee as a pesticide, and actually found a few mentions of using brewed coffee as a spray on plants to deter slugs. Apparently the caffeine is toxic to them. I have to say, it was satisfying to find some backing to my less than scientific vision.

I used the grounds too.

If anyone has encountered issues with root maggots or millipedes and has found an organic way to deal with them, you have my full attention. This has probably been my biggest gardening frustration (lucky? maybe). It's hard to see beautiful plants you have grown up from seed just suddenly waste away.

While life will surely go on if I lose all my kale, I like to try to tackle these challenges and not give up. I've become a more patient and more enduring person in my day to day life by sticking it out with these kinds of perplexing challenges in the garden.

a little of this and a little of that

 as i was going through some old photos last week, i found the one above of our backyard when we first bought the house almost 15 years ago. as you can see i had a clean slate to work with-not one plant was to be found! there was just grass which over the years i have eliminated all of, except for one little strip along the sidewalk where we can get out in and out of the car (which soon will be flagstone:)
 
  i thought it would be fun to show you the before and after.

 this week we have been direct seeding several different vegetables including cukes and watermelon right on the front lawn. and i have been popping all sorts of beans in to little empty pockets here and there. bush beans don't take up too much room and can be tucked in between your perrenial flowers. there are many beautiful purple and yellow varieties which look lovely along a perennial border.
i also planted a few different types of pole beans to climb up the chicken run fence and some bamboo tepees. i am growing my friend tim's heirloom beans.

 i also wanted to share with you a little series which i have fallen deep in love with. i have a little crush on gardener, alys fowler who's gardening style is very similar to mine. she lives in the city of birmingham, england and has a small backyard where she incorporates edibles in with her perennials and ornamentals. she has written several books, many of which i have on my wish list. and recently i stumbled upon a bbc series called the edible garden where alys focuses on living off her own home grown produce straight from her little city garden.

not only is her garden charming and her style whimsical but i could listen to her say compost and basil all day long in her beautiful english accent. and i love how she refers to zucchini as courgettes.

you can watch all six episodes of the edible garden here.

both of my daughters are also quite smitten with this delightful little show and want to try all of alys's recipes. i especially have been keeping my eye out for purple sprouting broccoli.

 even though alys lives many miles away i feel as if her garden and mine are distant cousins.

strawberry jam recipe

hello! i am here today to share with you my favorite strawberry jam recipe. this is by no means a recipe that is healthy, but my mom & i have made this strawberry jam since i was in high school so it holds dear memories for me. i also don't eat this jam everyday. i gift it to my family during the holidays (my aunt requests it!) & use it as a delicious topping on waffles during our special sunday brunches.

my mom came into town this past weekend & brought along a box of strawberries from my hometown! i've never had a better strawberry. they are truly melt-in-your-mouth amazing. so, with my mom in town & a box of strawberries, there was really not much else to do but can! that we did & i am happy to share with you our recipe. enjoy! 

supplies needed

- canning jars with screw tops & new lids (i prefer smaller jars for jam)

- water bath canner or extra large pot with lid

- large pot

- saucepan

- ladle

-funnel

- clean towels

ingredients

makes about eight 8-ounce jars

- 6 cups granulated sugar

- 8 cups whole strawberries, capped & crushed

- 4 tablespoons lemon juice 

- 1 package (1.75 oz) regular powdered fruit pectin

1. place clean mason jars without lids or screw tops in water bath canner. add cool water to canner until it reaches the rim of the jars. place canner on the stovetop & bring to a simmer. simmer until you are ready to use your jars.

2. place new lids (the flat part of the top) to a saucepan. add about an inch of water. place on stove top over low heat & allow the lids to heat until you are ready to use them.

3. measure exact amount of sugar into a large bowl & set aside.

4. measure exact amount of crushed strawberries & add to large pot. add lemon juice & mix. add pectin & mix until the pectin is dissolved. 

5. bring to a full rolling boil (a boil that does not stop boiling when stirred) on high heat. all at once, add your measured sugar to the large pot. bring your strawberry mixture to a rolling boil once more, stirring constantly.

6. once your strawberry mixture is at a full rolling boil, boil hard, stirring constantly, for 1 minute.

7. remove the pot from heat immediately. skim off foam.

8. remove your jars from the canner, making sure to dump the water back into the canner from the inside of the jar. place warm, empty jars on towel. remove lids from saucepan & place on the towel.

9. carefully fill one jar at a time using your funnel. make sure to fill jar leaving 1/4 in. headspace. wipe off the rim with a clean towel & screw on lid & top to fingertip-tight. place jar in canner & repeat.

10. once all of your jars are in the canner, fill the canner with water until the water is 1 in. above the tallest jar. cover canner & bring to a full rolling boil over high heat. process jars for 10 minutes. 

11. once jars have been processed, wait five minutes. then, remove jars from canner & place on towel for 24 hours. after 24 hours, make sure your jars are sealed.

12. label jars & gift to family or friends! enjoy atop waffles or on a delicious pb&j!

happy canning!

garden herbs for healthy skin

My natural inclination is to work with bare hands in the garden, free of the encumbrance of gloves, but my hands can really take a beating. Soil can be drying and abrasive, leaving my skin feeling pretty parched.

This week I felt inspired to finally try making my own healing lotion with home grown herbs. It was a little bit experimental, and I didn't have any particular expectations, but in the end I am beyond happy with the outcome!

I chose fresh calendula, lavender we harvested and dried last summer and fresh elder flowers.

Calendula is supportive to the treatment of almost any kind of skin irritation. It can be used to disinfect and treat minor wounds, conjunctivitis, cuts, scrapes, chapped or chafed  skin, bruises, burns, athlete’s foot, acne, yeast infections, bee stings, diaper rashes, and other minor irritations and infections of the skin.

Lavender has antiseptic, antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory properties. It is both soothing and stimulating, and is a great tonic for all skin types.

Elderflower has anti-inflammatory and antiviral properties, and is also a soothing, supportive tonic for all skin types, particularly mature skin.

I combined the herbs and added organic olive oil to them. I slowly heated the herb and oil mixture over the course of a few hours, to infuse the oil with the healing properties of the herbs.

I then added a bit of beeswax, a calendula infusion, witch hazel and essential oil, and blended the ingredients together until I reached my desired consistency.

It was a rather long, yet very simple process, and in the end it felt a bit like magic. I have been rubbing this cream into my dry skin for the last few days and have been enjoying it so much. It feels like such a luxury! There is something especially satisfying knowing exactly where everything came from, and having harvested the herbs right from our gardens.

My excitement over this project prompted Steven to plant a huge row of calendula, echinacea and sage this weekend, and over dinner tonight we read up on medicinal herbs we would like to start adding to our landscape.

(For anyone interested, I have provided more detailed steps of my process on my blog.)

As you know, it is so rewarding to feed ourselves from our gardens. For me, to also heal and nurture the body in more deliberate, medicinal ways creates a satisfaction on an even deeper level.

Do you grow any herbs for specific, healing purposes? I'd love to know! 

A few links

I hope you'll forgive me, but I just came home from Charleston and don't really have a post ready. Instead, I thought I'd share a few links that have been catching my eye lately.

Bee Week at Modern Farmer magazine

Influence by Danielle Charles

Leaf magazine

Warm Potato Salad with Spring Greens by Sarah at The Yellow House

Adding herbal color to the garden over at Organic Gardening

The Garden Conservancy's Open Days schedule (look for one near you!)

Saving the Season by Kevin West (eagerly awaiting this one)



Hope everyone has a great week.

a bit of spring

after all that snow and endless winter (it is snowing again now, ahem), we had a few glorious spring days this past weekend and i did not squander that time. saturday afternoon, we held our annual community garden spring clean up. even though there wasn't much to clean up (we usually use this time to weed the paths between plots and, well, there just aren't any weeds yet!), it was great to be outside and reconnect with my gardening neighbors. one of the new gardeners even gifted me some of his excess kale starts when i mentioned that i never got around to starting my kale seeds indoors. i wrote a few years ago (a very long post) about why i love community gardening so much and continue to participate even though i now have enough space at my home for my gardens.

monday evening, i began clearing off the leaf mulch blankets that had been keeping my gardens warm and protected from the cold and snow over the winter. since i knew there was more cold weather in the forecast for this week, i didn't get very far, but it felt good to get my hands in the dirt. i also prepared one of my raised beds for planting by adding about 10 gallons of homemade compost and turning the soil. i got those kale starts right in the ground (although, some hungry squirrel seems to have been snacking on the leaves this week!).

even though spring is still just beginning here, i'm so glad i snagged the chance to get my hands dirty and be outside. such a necessary reprieve from this very long winter. hope you all get some planting or at least time outside this weekend!

planting asparagus

On our way out of the nursery this week, we noticed asparagus crowns in a cooler behind the counter. On a whim, we purchased 10 of them and a little book on how to grow them. This is definitely one of the more unusual impulse buys I have ever made. We didn't have a clue what we were getting ourselves into! Asparagus is one of those rare vegetables that I have never seen growing and have never known anything about - except that it's delicious and often hard to come by.

A few things I learned, once I did a little research... Asparagus is a member of the lily family. It is recommended that asparagus be grown in a dedicated bed that is free of weeds and any other competition, and undisturbed by usual annual garden activities. Asparagus does not do well with competition and one should plan to have it around for a long while. A healthy asparagus patch can live up to 30 years. Amazing! Also surprising to me was that it grows tall, feathery, frond-like foliage in the summer - 4-7 feet tall - and the females will produce red berries (though they are toxic). It's a beautiful plant.

Well, we didn't have an empty bed available for them, and they weren't going into the veggie garden, so we had to get with it. The crowns didn't look all that happy to me (though I don't really know what they are supposed to look like), but I felt like we shouldn't let them sit around any longer than absolutely necessary.
 
We chose a spot beside the hoop house, where there still remains a pile of soil left over from the hoop house project last year. We have been wanting to move that pile of soil, and would need some of it for the asparagus bed. We have also intended that the area around the hoop house become the beginnings of more garden space, so it made the most sense to put our asparagus bed there. This location would also be relatively easy to fence from deer, and during this whirlwind project we also installed the first few fence posts.

 While Steven located and cut the lumber for our planter box, I moved dirt,  gathered cardboard and removed all the tape from it.

We sheet mulched the area with the cardboard. This creates an effective weed barrier that will eventually biodegrade. Grass (at least our grass) has an amazing ability to grow through anything, no matter how deep, so a barrier is necessary until it and other perennial weeds have completely died off.

Once our box was built, we filled it with a mix of soil and compost.

 

I dug a trench down the center, mounded a mix of compost and organic fertilizer in the middle of it, and set the crowns on the mounds, draping their rhizomes down the sides. There are a few methods people use for planting asparagus, but this is the one I chose.

We then backfilled with a mix of soil and compost, covering the crowns just a couple inches, and watered well. We should see asparagus shoots in a week or so, but won't be able to start a small amount of harvesting until next year. This will be a practice of patience! In the meantime, we will get to enjoy their fern-like foliage, and anticipate the years ahead of our simple, rewarding investment.

In hindsight, I would have made the box a little bigger, and had this decision been pre-planned, I would have made sure of the health and freshness of our crowns. This was so spontaneous! I am pretty pleased with how quickly we were able to pull this together, and all with materials we had on hand

Have you grown asparagus? Any tips? Did you see any blatant errors? Do deer eat it? :)

A few resources:
http://www.flowersgrowing.com/growing-asparagus-in-home-gardens/
http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/1000/1603.html
http://organicgardening.com/learn-and-grow/asparagus-growing-guide