First Harvest May 29, 2008

 

Today was a cool 70 degree day for the last week of May, and I took advantage of it by spending nearly five hours working in my garden.  I amended the soil in two of my long vegetable raised beds, this time using first probase and then compost in hopes of better drainage and nutrients for the vegetables.  I then edged the back line of my garden before laying down landscape fabric over two beds and mulching the sides to keep it in place.  I know this is not the typical use for landscape fabric but I didn’t want to invest in heavier black plastic.  This fabric should keep the weeds at bay and the soil a bit more moist while my solanaceae crop transplants (three kinds of tomatoes, one variety of eggplant, and one variety of sweet peppers) get accustomed to the outside world and take off.  Today I began hardening off said crops and plan to put them in the ground next Monday. 

 

 

 
After five hours of work, I was hungry.  I began eying up my lettuce.  It was very slow to start.  In fact, it was almost painful to watch as the seeds – planted on April 24th – desperately tried to push leaves up through the thick crust of clay out in my garden.  The lettuce is the only directly sown crop to succeed to date.  Carrots are the only other thing I’m direct sowing this year.  But back to the lettuce: after a month, it is just barely large enough to start cutting.  I probably shouldn’t have taken any tonight but 1) I was hungry and 2) I’m afraid a June heat wave will hit and cause it to bolt so I might as well get it while the gettin’s good. 

 

 

 
In addition to the lettuce, which amounted to a large handful, I plucked some nasturtiums and chive blossoms.  And what a refreshing salad they all made!  Gracing my dinner table was also my first harvest from my cutting garden.  I made a bouquet of dahlias, salvia, a daisy, and some hyssop leaves for filler.  Quite “cottage garden” in style, and I love it!

 
It’s really nice to see something coming to fruition in my garden already.  I feel like I’m starting to get a handle on the project.  It’s impressive to see how much the entire field has changed since the first picture I took on Garden Day.  Everyone is fleshing out their plots and adding lovely touches. 
Next up is the water container tomorrow with Joyce’s help.  I have my water lilies ready and then horsetail and a nice sized pitcher plant for a smaller bog container within the large container.  Should be interesting to assemble and see how it does as the summer progresses. 

 

 

Bees Swarmed May 27, 2008

 

I wasn’t here to witness it, but I did want to make a record of the bees swarming over this past weekend.  Apparently the supers are too full so the colony split with half leaving and half staying.  I am a bit confused about why they felt the supers were too full since Matt and I just put a new one on a week or two ago.  I guess this shows that bees have minds of their own (or at least collective phermons).  

 

Meanwhile, those of us that are beekeepers had a little meeting tonight to discuss moving forward and the hopeful arrival of new hives.  Also, it appears we need to plan for harvesting the honey from this hive that just split sooner than I had originally planned. 

 

May Inventory May 22, 2008

Page 1 of my inventory
(red highlights are crops that failed; blue is something I need to buy)
Click to make it big and readable

 

Garden work has been plentiful and productive.  However, before I got too much further, and thus got ahead of myself, I wanted to stop and take inventory of what plants I have, what’s been planted, what needs planted, what’s growing in the greenhouse, and what I still need to buy.  Oh, and also what’s already failed this year (the peas and the radishes). 

 

Page 2 of inventory

 

Inventorying took away a few hours I could have spent in the garden but I feel it was well worth it to have this updated list.  I now know that I have over 40 perennials already planted but only nine annuals, which puts me three shy of the required 12.  I never really did like annuals…   I also have three biennials in the ground now so that requirement is met.

 

Page 3 of inventory

 

In the vegetable department, I came to realize I needed to make sure my carrots went in soon so I’d have something in the ground for the root requirement (they were directly sown tonight, 5/21).  The cole/brassica requirement will have to wait until fall as I’ve decided not to even bother with those anymore.  Although, with the ridiculously rainy and cool May we’ve been having, they might have had a shot after all.   Otherwise, most of my vegetables have been started in the greenhouse and I’m please with their progress.  I’m hoping to get my last order of seeds in this week and then be done with buying for awhile.

 

Laying out plants for my cutting garden

 

Once the inventorying was done, I was free to frolic with abandon in my garden.  I planted up a storm, getting the majority of my cutting garden in the ground (save for the zinnias, cosmos and nigella that I seeded in the greenhouse) on May 15th.  Then I swung around and planted my entire tea garden on May 19th.  I am still on the hunt for one herb in particular that’s proving very difficult to find.  If anyone knows where I can get some honeydew melon sage (seeds preferred but a plant would be great too), I’m all ears!

 

Tonight I also put up posts for my garden’s facade which I plan to then string with either solar powered twinkle lights or woven branches (or maybe both).  I also hope to create some rough garden art with twigs, but that will have to wait for a rainy day. 

 

Cutting garden planted

 

Next up in the garden is putting water lilies in my container. I was able to snag a few lilies from Tim after his class last weekend.  Unfortunately I have no idea what kinds they are or how many might reasonably fit into a container.  I guess I’ll find out. 

Reprint of NY Times Article May 20, 2008

This article is a great overview of the impact and history of urban farming.  The mention about the project in Philadelphia is in reference to Weavers Way Farm where I worked last year.   I’m putting this up on my blog just to have a record of it for myself and also to provide info to any of the other staff and students at Longwood that may not know that much about urban agriculture.  

Urban Farmers’ Crops Go From Vacant Lot to Market
By TRACIE McMILLAN
New York Times, May 7, 2008

IN the shadows of the elevated tracks toward the end of the No. 3 line
in East New York, Brooklyn, with an April chill still in the air,
Denniston and Marlene Wilks gently pulled clusters of slender green
shoots from the earth, revealing a blush of tiny red shallots at the
base.

“Dennis used to keep them big, and people didn’t buy them,” Mrs. Wilks
said. “They love to buy scallions.”

Growing up in rural Jamaica, the Wilkses helped their families raise
crops like sugar cane, coffee and yams, and take them to market. Now,
in Brooklyn, they are farmers once again, catering to their neighbors’
tastes: for scallions, for bitter melons like those from the West
Indies and East Asia and for cilantro for Latin-American dinner
tables.

“We never dreamed of it,” said Mr. Wilks, nor did his relatives in
Jamaica. “They are totally astonished when you tell them that you farm
and go to the market.”

For years, New Yorkers have grown basil, tomatoes and greens in window
boxes, backyard plots and community gardens. But more and more New
Yorkers like the Wilkses are raising fruits and vegetables, and not
just to feed their families but to sell to people on their block.

This urban agriculture movement has grown even more vigorously
elsewhere. Hundreds of farmers are at work in Detroit, Milwaukee,
Oakland and other areas that, like East New York, have low-income
residents, high rates of obesity and diabetes, limited sources of
fresh produce and available, undeveloped land.

Local officials and nonprofit groups have been providing land,
training and financial encouragement. But the impetus, in almost every
case, has come from the farmers, who often till when their day jobs
are done, overcoming peculiarly urban obstacles.

The Wilkses’ return to farming began in 1990 when their daughter
planted a watermelon in their backyard. Before long, Mrs. Wilks, an
administrator in the city’s Department of Education, was digging in
the yard after work. Once their ambition outgrew their yard, she and
Mr. Wilks, a city surveyor, along with other gardening neighbors,
received permission to use a vacant lot across from a garment factory
at the end of their block.

My First Act As Bee Keeper May 15, 2008

 

I suspect bee keeping may just be my coolest hobby to date.  I’m not sure just yet if it tops the belly dancing I did in my early 20s, but it’s pretty darn close and a good bit more practical (in most settings at least).  After just one afternoon of working with the hives, I’m hooked.  All I can think about since is “BEES!”

 

Actually, my first act as bee keeper was to deconstruct a hive that had died over the winter.  I was fortunate enough to get the help of Matt Eby, nursery go-to-guy, who has some very applicable experience (as a PG, he took care of the same hives just a few years back), otherwise I wouldn’t have had a clue what to do. We started by taking apart the “supers”, which are the stack of boxes that provide the exterior framework for the hives; in other words the outside walls.  Then we wiggled out the comb frames, some of which were filled with dead bees, some that were just plain empty, and, most importantly, some that still had lots of honey in them.  

 

 

Since this hive was dead, we didn’t have to worry about getting stung for this part of the process.  Later we did add a new “super” to the living hive and checked out its status.  Working with the live bees required the classic bee keeper’s gear (netted hat) and an old-fashioned smoker to control the buzz factor.  Watching the bees when the smoke hit them was pretty interesting…as Matt described it they dive for the combs of honey, jam their heads right in there and drink themselves silly, trying to take as much honey with them since they think the hive is on fire.  However, since they drink so much honey that their bellies are literally bulging, they can’t fly straight, and thus they become much less of a threat to the bee keeper. 

 

 

The living hive was doing quite well from the looks of the inside of it: plenty of bees and plenty of honey.  We left the honey in there though since taking honey from live bees is a bit messier than taking it from the dead ones.  So back to the task of deconstructing the dead hive.  I had a lot of questions about why the hive was dead, what with the recent scourge of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) in the bee world.  As we deconstructed it, we could rule out some answers and possibly support others. 

 

 

The bees had not starved to death since there was a decent amount of honey in the combs still.  It is unlikely that there was a disease that wiped them out since the other living hive was only two feet away and it’s very healthy.  It is also unlikely that the queen abandoned ship and thus took the rest of the bees with her since there were a few dozen dead bees in the hive itself among the combs.  So, Matt’s theory at least and the one I’m going along with since I don’t know much myself and it makes sense:  the bees froze in the winter.  Normally a hive will generate enough heat to keep the temperature inside above freezing.  However, if the numbers in the hive dwindled for some reason (mites are known offenders for raiding hives), they might not have had enough body heat to keep the rest of them alive. 

 

 

I have so much research I want to do now on bee keeping and how hives thrive and how hive die.  But for the time being I had to content myself with cleaning up the combs of the dead hive (we reused some in the new “super” added to the living hive) and harvesting the honey.  Typically honey is harvested once or twice a year and in very large quantities that require a fair amount of large equipment and time.  This harvest, my very first, was not typical.  Instead of fancy equipment, I used a knife to cut off the wax cap of the combs and to scrape out the honey into a cake pan. Then I used a mesh strainer set over a soup pot to strain out the comb bits.  It was a sticky job, but a fun one!

 

 

All told, I got about a quart and one half pint of honey from five or six combs.  And what wonderfully sweet and floral honey it is!  Some of the best I’ve had, aside from that which I got in northern Portugal this past spring.  Can’t wait for the “real” harvest to get lots more and package it up! 

 

Rotation: Nursery May 12, 2008

 

I’m spending the month of May in the nursery, working with Naomi, Matt and Mike.  I have to say, I don’t think any rotation will be able to top the fun this crew has together.  Matt in particular, as a former PG, has been a fount of knowledge about both nursery work and about the PG program’s history. 

The work itself is pretty intense, considering the size of the majority of the plants there.  On the plus side, the nursery has all the big toys, including the JCB, a massive front-end loader with jaws that I got to learn how to use.  We used the JCB to rip out large trees and dump them in the compost bins.  In addition to the machines, there’s a good deal of less glamorous work to be done, including pruning, watering, potting, and acession labeling.  I enjoyed getting a few rainy days to work in the greenhouses, potting up seedlings. 

Nemours May 12, 2008

 

“Sneak Peak!” sums it all up for this field trip.  The Longwood students got the first official tour of Nemours since its closing for restorations a few years back.  I must say, it was a striking place, unlike anything I’ve seen in the States.  A very French and very formal garden, the Nemours estate is exceedlingly European, although the plant material was oddly unremarkable.  It was explained to us that the plant material was indeed rather “dull” on purpose.  It was chosen so it would be identical to that which was on the estate when Alfred I. duPont, its builder, was alive and well.  I certainly wasn’t complaining as I admired the sweeping expanses that surrounded the 47,000 sq. ft. mansion.   It was easy to lapse into daydreams about the elite upperclass savoring life in the roaring 20’s in this garden of delights.  Nemours is a garden I would highly recommend visiting for those folks that appreciate the overall impact of floral displays more than what plants in particular are used to create them.  

Beau ! Je l’aime !

 

 

 

Just Born! May 9, 2008

 

Aw, they’re so cute!  Look at my little babies!  All the seeds I put in trays last Monday have germinated, much to my relief. 

 

 

I tacked on the “much to my relief” part there because I had a few casualties in the “directly sown department” out in the garden.  Both my radishes and my sugar snap peas seemed to have failed in that 80+ degree arid weather the past two weeks.   I knew it was a long shot for the peas in particular, but I had thought the radishes would make a go of it.  Another culprit might have been the clay soil turning rock hard as it baked in the sun, keeping the little leaves from poking their heads out. 

 

 

Of all the little thrills and victories in the garden, nothing quite beats seeing the seedlings come up!  I’m now dreaming of arrangements of chartreuse green “Envy” zinnias and the beautiful blue salvia I just bought from Groft’s nursery.  Sigh….  

 

 

And about that trip to the nursery…it was quite fun.  There were little wagons to pull around that I got to fill with all manner of perennials, annuals, and biennials.  My favorite find was a new herb (to me) called stevia that I am in love with now.  I was also pleased to find some many interesting succulents to use for my sweeping bank of succulents. 

 

 

 

Seed Starting – Late April May 5, 2008

 

It rained!!  Finally!  April had been a very dry and hot month up until this week.  It might be damp outside, but with a nicely organized and supplied potting shed at hand (thanks London!), I got several seeds started on April 28th, including two varieties (‘Polar Bear’ and ‘Granny’s Bouquet’) of zinnias for my cutting garden, a mix of cherry tomatoes, a mix of heirloom tomatoes, lemon cucumbers, round zucchini, and some chamomile for my tea garden.  

 

 

I know it’s okay to direct sow the cucumbers and zucchini, but thought I’d try starting them in the greenhouse to get a headstart on these summer crops.  Frankly, I’m not wild about growing either of them in this particular garden since they take up so much space (I do like eating them though). But if I get them producing early enough, I’m hoping they’ll finish in plenty of time to pull out and make space for some of the fall crops I’m aiming to grow. 

 

 

It was nice to finally get some stuff on my bench in the greenhouse.  Since these few trays took up residence there, I’ve almost filled up the rest of the bench with found plant material (thanks Kerry Ann!) and transplants I got from the farm I’d worked on last season.  Now I just need to find time to plant them all! 

 

 

And since it was rainy outside, I also took the opportunity to take a few artsy-fartsy photos of the stuff in the potting shed.  Not all were that great, but I like these two.  Makes gardening look a little less messy, ya know? 

 

 

Brooklyn Botanical Gardens May 5, 2008

 

On May 1st, Longwood’s entire student population hopped a bus and mass migrated to NYC to visit the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens.  According to their website, BBG is a “52-acre living museum where beauty, romance, and fun blossom among world-class plant collections and specialty gardens. Admired as an urban horticultural and botanical resource, BBG inspires visitors to discover that plants are essential to life.”  I personally thought it served as a refreshing contrast to Longwood’s more affluent and display-focused philosophy, although several of our tour guides seemed rather apologetic about their garden’s lack of grandeur. 

 

 

I found the BBG’s creative pocket gardens fascinating, particularly the Fragrance Garden and the Shakespeare Garden.  The brail plates and wheelchair height beds in the Fragrance Garden were thoughtful additions.  Having the beds at hip height gave everyone, sitting or standing, a chance to really appreciate the intricate beauty and scents of the plantings there.  As for the Shakespeare Garden, I was enamored since I have long been enamored with Shakespeare and his weaving of plant lore into his plays.  I am now thinking that next year I might replace my “tea garden” with a Shakespeare garden of my very own.  What say you?