The Easiest Vegetable Garden Ever, Part 3: Watering, Weeding, and Fertilizing

(Reposted from last year.)
(Read Part 1 and Part 2 here.)

So, you built (or bought) some great soil, and you chose what to grow and planted it. Now what? Maintenance! If you're looking for a good harvest, you have to care for your garden consistently. Plants are like us: they need water and food. Unlike us, though, they can't run away when another plant is invading their personal space and sucking up resources, so it's your job to give them some room by removing weeds.

The Easiest Vegetable Garden Ever, Part Two: What to Grow

Got 150+ pounds of food from the garden last year even though we did literally nothing to tend it.

(Republished from April 2020. Read Part One here.)

All the way back in November, I urged you to start thinking about a garden. It seems that these days more people than ever are considering growing their own food, and that is awesome! In addition to this series, I'm always happy to answer (or try to answer) any gardening questions you have, so feel free to drop a comment with your questions.

The Easiest Vegetable Garden Ever, Part One: Dirt

Finished compost for top-dressing the bed in our front yard

(Reposted from 2019)

Did you know that autumn in the Midwest is the perfect time to start a vegetable garden? If you've ever wanted to try growing your own tomatoes, turnips, or taco toppings, now is the best time to start!

This Week (Month? Decade? What Is Time?): Mending, Gardening, and Seed-Saving

A monarch butterfly enjoys the zinnias in our front yard 

As you may have noticed, it's been very quiet on the blog lately. Part of it has been me just utterly losing any motivation (again) to write anything— not sure what caused that, but I haven't had the will to fight it— and part of it is this mental block I get when I'm trying to write about a trip and I feel like I can't write anything else until I finish "the story." So I have a big fat draft about the Olympic Peninsula tidepools/rainforest sitting in a document on my desktop, but finishing it feels like an impossible task, and OF COURSE I can't write anything else until I publish my overly-adjectived mind-dump about the glorious riot of life among the acorn barnacles and ochre sea stars. 

So this is a blog post to let you know that I'm still here, and I'm doing okay, and to let myself know that it's okay to write things out of sequence and I will eventually get around to the tidepool blog post.

In the meantime: 

Homestead Update 5/13/20: Wave After Wave of Foliage

The April-to-May transition is one of the most stunning in St. Louis. Despite unseasonably cool weather (including two frost warnings), the garden, in the words of farmer and poet Wendell Berry, ‘Like a tide it comes in/wave after wave of foliage and fruit/the nurtured and the wild". 

Why I Garden

I'll let you in on a secret: I don't actually like gardening that much.

It's not that I actively dislike gardening, exactly. It's just that, given the choice between gardening (planting seeds, hauling trays of starts in and out to harden them off, watering on cold mornings, weeding in the wilting heat of a St. Louis summer, figuring out how to trellis squash) and doing other things (hiking, reading, cooking, drawing, playing an instrument) I would almost always pick the latter rather than the former.

Homestead Update 4/20/20: Pretzels, Pesto, and a Rain Barrel

Parsley waiting to be planted, violet simple syrup, and sweet potato slips

Yesterday (when I actually drafted this blog), I woke up early, grabbed my jacket and headed straight outside. I wandered barefoot through the backyard, listening to house sparrows twitter, watching a robin turning up earth, brushing my hands along the cool clover rustling in the breeze, and breathing in the green smell of spring. I plucked diseased leaves off our nectarine tree, pulled up a few maple seedlings, watered patches where I'd planted flowers, tore up some comfrey to scatter around some of the trees as slow-release fertilizer, and savored the beauty of the morning.

Our Yard: Late March vs. Mid April 2020

The garden is really taken off now! The last frost is past, warmer weather is here, and rain is on the way. Here's how the yard has changed over the past couple weeks (and look for a full homestead update tomorrow!).

First, the backyard:

Homestead Update 3/28/2020: Spring Is Not Quarantined

The kale is a-growin'!

I don't have to tell you it's been a crazy month. The whole global pandemic thing is not only causing death and throwing a serious wrench in everyone's plans, but stirring up a giant cloud of anxiety and helplessness and paralysis that often feels suffocating. All too often I find myself glued to social media, willing my stress and anxiety to make things better.

Nectarine blossoms— our tree was covered in all sorts of bees and wasps today!

Fortunately, though, my garden has other plans for me. More than ever, I've been struck by what an incredible privilege it is to have a bit of earth to garden. A place to grow food, a place to play in the dirt, a place to sit and watch birds picking at my compost pile and squirrels digging holes in my garden beds. Our fruit trees are green with buds, and the nectarine tree has unfurled pink blossoms. The elderberry is sending up shoots. I'm finding mint poking up several yards from where I planted it. Our stinging nettle (a tasty wild green) has propagated itself all along our side yard. Our little suburban homestead is bursting with abundance, even with very minimal tending, and I don't think I've ever been more grateful for that.

Elderberry

Yesterday I gave a snapshot of what our backyard looks like, so today I thought I'd start with a quick panorama of our front yard. We have big plans for this lovely patch of earth!

Empty garden bed (still need to figure out what to do with it) with an asparagus bed at the end. Chives are growing nicely! See next photo to hear about the very green grass...

Our bed of winter rye cover crop— it's been this color all winter! (Plus some volunteer kale.) We're hoping to plant summer crops here in May (perhaps a Three Sisters guild of corn, beans, and squash).

The northern side of our yard, with our hardy fig, lots of volunteer kale, a smattering of spring greens, and two hazels.

Our elderberry and strawberry bed

Other things we've been up to…

Digging a pond

Zach has been wanting to make a pond in our yard for multiple years now ("But where will I grow my tomaaaaaatoes?!" I've been whining), and a couple weeks ago, he finally dug one in the southeast corner of our backyard! It took him a couple hours and he hit some sort of water pipe (even though the utility guys didn't mark anything there), but we now have a pond-in-progress! We decided against using a plastic pond liner, and Zach's been experimenting with using clay to seal it off, with limited success. In the meantime, we're running rainwater from our garage roof into the pond, and will be getting some water plants soon to fill in the edges. I'm excited to see how the biodiversity in our yard will increase when this is up and running!

Spring crops!

My spring crops have sprouted, and some of them are getting tiny true leaves— maybe I'll be eating some fresh chard, spinach, carrots, and radishes soon! In the meantime, I'm making good use of the perennial greens: kale (which survived the winter), dandelion, violet leaves, clover, and henbit have all made their way into my pesto this week, and soon I'll be able to harvest plantain, stinging nettle, and (hopefully) asparagus. We're hoping to add more perennial crops to our garden this year, but they are surprisingly hard to find online, and the shipping is very expensive. So we're trying to figure out another source. (If you happen to know where I can buy sea kale, skirret, perpetual sorrel, Turkish rocket, or Good King Henry, please let me know!)

A polyculture in between the clover: some mixture of kale, radish, spinach, chards, and peas

Spearmint emerging from its slumber!

Comfrey, an important mulch/biomass plant, is coming up nicely in several places.

Stinging nettle— the cooked greens taste like spinach and are waaaay easier to grow!

Indoor summer seedlings

Our seedlings indoors have really taken off— tomatoes, peppers, flowers, valerian, lovage, St. John's Wort, tomatillos, sweet potatoes, and a few others are making good progress! Some we'll plant as soon as the last frost is over, while others (such as the tomatoes) will need to wait until early- to mid-May. I've been growing them in 4" pots— I've tried growing them in smaller cells, and I had to repot them halfway through, not to mention that they dry out and die much more easily. But growing them in the larger pots seems to be working well so far!

Propagating plants

I've been trying my hand at dividing some of my perennials to plant elsewhere/give away. So far I've tried stonecrop sedum, oregano, thyme, and mint: I just dug up some of the roots, pulled them apart, and stuck them in moist soil. We'll see if any of them survive.

What have you been up to lately?

~~~ 

Our Yard: Early March vs. Late March 2020

(To see last year's garden, check out this post!)

I thought it would be fun to post pictures of our garden in progress— thanks to mild weather and lots of rain, March has been an amazing growing season for us so far! It's wonderful to see how much the yard has grown in just a few short weeks. I'll be posting a full homestead update tomorrow, but in the meantime, enjoy!

P.S. If you're interested in learning more about any of these plants, or gardening/permaculture in general, please don't hesitate to leave a comment. I'm not an expert but I'm slowly gaining experience, so I want to be as helpful as I can!

March 1st: Our cherry, elderberry, and false indigo trees, with raspberries in the foreground and the mulberry to the far right

March 27th: Look at all that lovely clover! You can also see comfrey coming up.

March 1st: Mulberry, hazel, and pear trees. Our old chicken coop still had Jerusalem artichoke stalks in it

March 27th. We cleared and harvested the Jerusalem artichoke, and build a new two-chamber compost pile (to the left of the old coop)! You can also sort of see our new pond on the right (pics of that coming tomorrow).

March 1st: Pear trees, false indigo, apple

March 1st again

March 27th: Bulbs along the fenceline are up (not sure what they are, they never bloom), and some comfrey and mint are coming up!

Homestead Update February 2020: Maple Syrup, Seeds, and More Swapping

Another little interlude for a long-overdue Homestead Update! Here's what we've been up to lately…

Things We Learned Whilst Attempting to Make Maple Syrup: 

1. Tapping trees is super easy. It's a lot of fun to see the sap running out through the spile into the bucket!

2. But then comes the part where you have to reduce it by 40 times to make the syrup.

3. This cannot be done successfully over a campfire with a stock pot.

4. It cannot be done inside in one go because the vapor will increase the humidity in your house too much.

5. So we had to do it a tiny bit at a time, over campfires, with our rocket stove, in an open crockpot, and finally on the stove. It took for-ev-er.

6. This is on our "do not try again unless you have a better set-up" list until further notice.

7. However, we still got a lot of syrup! We thought we had half a gallon, but it's very thin so we'll have to reduce it again. But it has a complex flavor and was very tasty on buckwheat pancakes. 

Planting spring seeds

This year I swore that I would not fuss with spring crops, as I have have very little luck with them in the past due to St. Louis's weather pattern of nightly frosts, a week of "spring," and then 95 degrees from April until November. But I also had a ton of seeds picked up from the seed swap, as well as leftovers from our attempts to grow spring crops last year in Portland (they failed there, too). So on a warm day, I emptied all the seed packets into a single bowl, mixed them around, raked some soil in the back yard and front yard, and sowed the seeds, raked them in, watered them, sprinkled them with some fertilizer, and called it a day. We'll see if any of them grow!

Planting summer seeds

We also got some tomato and pepper seeds set up in the basement, on top of heating pads and underneath grow lights. Some of the tomatoes and one pepper just started sprouting last night! 

We were originally going to have a couple more varieties of tomatoes, as well as tomatillos, but the post office has continued to refuse to believe that we live here, and has sent our package from Baker Creek Seeds on a marvelous adventure to who knows where (this is the third time we've contacted them to confirm that we actually do live here). I was pretty bummed about that, but am trying to remind myself that we can buy seedlings in May when planting time comes.

Another swap n' shop

Following on the heels of the previous swap n' shop, another one, this time at my church! About 15 people showed up and filled up seven tables full of fun stuff. I came home with a dart board, some candles, a nice glass storage jar, and a ton of home goods for a friend who is currently furnishing her house. Everyone seemed to have a great time, and we've agreed that we should do this quarterly! Most people had never heard of this idea before, so I was happy that I got to share the fun (as well as the household goods).

One last sunchoke harvest

On a warm day, we put on some gardening gloves and harvested the remaining sunchoke tubers! We got two five-gallon buckets for eating, and at least that many for replanting and giving away. Sorting through the soil in search of tubers feels like a treasure hunt! 

I'm excited that spring is coming and that we'll get to see a gardening season (more or less) all the way through this year. Here's to the 2020 season!

~~~

The Greener Year Challenge: Green Your Home (October)

Can you believe that we're more than halfway through the Greener Year Challenge? Since we've been covering so many huge, heavy issues, I thought it would be nice to change it up by focusing on some tangible improvements you can make for a less wasteful and more environmentally-friendly house. Let's get to it!

BEGINNER:

Open the windows. Fresh air is a lovely way to improve the air quality in your home, and the more you blur the indoor/outdoor edge of your living space, the more attuned you'll become to the weather, the changes of the seasons, and the ways that nature influences and affects you.

Decorate with nature. Instead of relying on purchased items to decorate, go on foraging walks to find twigs, weeds, and flowers to display in your home. Again, bring the outdoors indoors to maintain your connection with the natural world.

Buy household items secondhand. This has myriad benefits, but here we can just focus on the environmental ones: by using something again, you're taking advantage of the embodied energy and keeping it out of the landfill for longer. (Plus, the item has had time to off-gas any toxic chemicals used in its production…)

Start a stash of rags. Paper towels are largely unnecessary if you have access to a washer; keep a pretty basket of rags in the kitchen and grab them instead to clean up spills. Then throw them in the laundry (or a separate hamper) when you're done.

Clean with baking soda and vinegar. Did you know that you can clean almost anything in your house with these two ingredients? Use baking soda for scrubbing (sinks, toilets, grout), and diluted vinegar for general cleaning (and hydrogen peroxide if you need something really disinfected, which is rare).

Get some cloth napkins. Paper napkins take a lot of energy to manufacture, and someone you know probably has cloth napkins lying around that they'd be happy to unload on you. Just use them like regular napkins and throw them in the laundry when you're done. (They feel a lot nicer than paper napkins, too, especially if you're a messy eater like me!)

INTERMEDIATE: 

Hang your laundry to dry. Dryers are a big energy hog in the house, so try hanging your laundry and see what you think of it. 

Check out household goods swaps. From laundry to cleaning to personal hygiene, eco-friendly swaps are here to help you choose items that are better for you and the earth. 

Choose a less-waste beauty and makeup routine. Check out Polly Barks's list of zero waste makeup brands. (Or you could be like me, who never liked wearing makeup and will gladly walk around looking like I just rolled out of bed all the time.) Check out this link for my hair care routine. 

Consider waste-free menstrual products. Those of us who have periods know that disposable pads and tampons add up over time. I've used cloth pads for years (even when hiking in the backcountry on the Pacific Crest Trail)— and I can't imagine going back to uncomfortable plastic. Menstrual cups, sponges, or even natural cotton tampons are options, too. 

Try cloth toilet paper. Eco-friendly recycled toilet paper is expensive; cloth toilet paper is free! It's not gross, and it's not as intimidating as it sounds. Check out the tutorial here. 

ADVANCED:

Research eco-friendly options for home improvement projects. Need to insulate your walls, buy a new dryer, paint the porch? Before you dive into the project, take some time to research eco-friendly (or at least less toxic) options. Here are some basic tips to get you started. 

Install a greywater system in your home. Greywater simply means water that has been used once— like the almost-clean water that spirals down the sink when you wash off a head of lettuce, or the barely-dirty water heading straight to the sewer after a load of laundry. Greywater systems aim to intercept the water and find ways to use it at least once more before the embodied energy is lost. Simple systems involve catching bathroom sink water in a five-gallon bucket, which is used to flush the toilet; digging a trench in your yard and filling it with mulch and dumping kitchen waste water on it; and of course, the quintessential rain barrel. To learn more and gain inspiration, check out The Water-Wise Home by Laura Allen, as well as free resources at Greywater Action. 

Install a composting toilet. I mentioned this in an earlier post, but it's worth saying again: this is a great way to save water and energy, as well as fertilize your plants!

Make your home a center of creation, rather than just consumption. I will be talking about this in depth in November's post, but I want to introduce the idea now. The typical western home is an energy guzzler in many ways: we eat up electricity, waste water, numb our minds with endless passive entertainment, and rarely do anything creative within our own homes. But reclaiming our homes for creation— whether that's a garden, a drawing, a dinner party, or fiber arts— is one of the best ways to ground ourselves in the habits that make for a sustainable life. We'll talk more about this next month!

Which of these challenges would you like to take on this month? What would you add to the list?

~~~

Previous posts in this series: 

Getting Started

Celebrate Biodiversity (April)

Optimize Energy (May)

Eat Your Leftovers (June)

Curb Your Trash (July)

Find Earth-Friendly Food (August)

Move Beyond Cars (September)

What I've Been Reading: "Braiding Sweetgrass" by Robin Wall Kimmerer

I read Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants on the recommendation of pretty much every sustainability blogger I follow, and I was not disappointed. This collection of essays— all loosely related to plants, but covering everything from short memoirs about Kimmerer's life as a Native American botanist to in-depth discussions of Potawatomi mythology and the value of indigenous ways of knowing— is a true treasure. She writes with grace, beauty, and a sense of wonder that is simply captivating.

With a PhD in botany and a patient history of studying Native American teachings, both from her own Potawatomi tribe and from nations across the continent, Kimmerer weaves together science and mythology, observation by microscope and by generational knowledge. 

Every essay is an invitation for the readers—and especially, I think, for white readers— to listen. Listen to the plants. Listen to the earth. Listen to the traditions, the mythology, and the indigenous wisdom of this continent that we live on. 

White people barged into North America insisting that they knew everything, and we haven't stopped since. From the European-inspired agriculture (treating everything like a bog, even the high plains) to our sensibilities about how much to harvest (we want to take everything, not let the salmon run for four days before we start fishing) to our ideas about what the Natives even believe (hint: they don't worship the sun, moon, trees, or animals), we have been clueless from the beginning. Kimmerer's writing quietly shows us what we missed by this refusal to listen, and the irreversible damage we did, and still do, by keeping our hands over our ears. Through stories and essays, through scientific explanation and myth-weaving, she invites us to sit down, close our mouths, and actually learn how we can belong to the land.

Most of all, I appreciate that she smashes the (again, extremely white-centric) notion of "untouched wilderness" vs. "human exploitation," showing that this is an unhelpful binary that we must discard. Humans are part of nature, not separate from it, and we must learn to live in nature in mutually beneficial ways: ways that have already been tested through centuries of living with the land, rather than away from it. Our presence in our habitat is not assured destruction for the wildlife, but can be a benefit; it's an invitation to learn from our elder brothers— the animals, the plants, the lichens and the mosses— how to exist.

Being "in harmony with nature" may call to mind "Colors of the Wind" from Pocahontas, but we must discard this sentimentality as well. Harmony with nature looks like hunting and fishing, chopping down trees and burning prairies. Europeans arrived in America and waxed eloquent about its "untamed wilderness"— when reality most of what they were looking at were landscapes heavily guided by human hands. And we never took the time to figure out how these "wildernesses" were deeply benefitting, and benefitting from, the people who worked them. This book beautifully describes many of these human partnerships in various scenarios. 

I could keep rambling for days about the themes that I love in this book— the common grace revealed in nature, the concept of the Creator who gave each living thing a gift and a responsibility to use it, the problem with the "native plants restoration" concept, the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address— but I'll let you read it for yourself. 

Please check out this book if you're interested in plants, the environment, nature, agriculture, climate change, beautifully-told stories, mythology, parenting, teaching, or just really well-written essays. You won't regret it!

~~~