Seed and Seedlings

We collected a bit of seed off wild asparagus a few weeks ago that we found along a river bank. Each asparagus "berry" contains six little seeds that germinate quite readily. They can be gathered off the ferny female plants in the fall or early spring and will store for many years. Also planted were the rest of my 2007 seed that was obtained from the ancestors of my own unruly plants, they had excellent germination. It will take a few years for the plants to become established well enough to produce large spears but time passes quickly when one is patient.

We have been planting apple, pear, apricot, plum, walnut, cherry, chestnut, currant, jostaberry, gooseberry, and raspberries. I must have planted over a hundred of these little starts in our woods and field this past week, all of which were grown from seeds and rooted cuttings started last year. I am hoping that some of the trees grown from seed in previous years will start to bear fruit this summer.

A few one year old apple and pear trees in transit to a new home.

Pots of Josta berries waiting to be planted in perminant locations.

Black raspberries will root anywhere that the stem touches the ground, these ones were tip rooted last fall.

The onion seedlings are only a week or two away from being transplanted...they can't wait to be free of their confines. There are also a few leeks and chives in this bunch but the majority are Yellow of Parma and Jaune Paille des Vertus onions. Both are excellent for storage.

We purchased a few dozen ramps a while back and are happy to see that they have been growing quickly...I'm glad they like the cold as it has been pretty nasty out of late.

Potting Tomatoes and Three Courses of Kale

We started potting our tomatoes and little tomatillos in 4" pots the other day, my wife's an old pro at this, me, I'm very slow. She roughly packs them into the pots with assembly line quickness while I want each one to be just perfect and am so gentle and careful that I am best left to deal with other tasks like making sure she has all the supplies needed for the operation and telling her to be careful with the plants. She assures me that tomatoes are tough and can handle it. She is right, but still...

The root cellar is still full of everything and the garden of greens.

We celebrated kale last night with a veritable kale salad extravaganza. A kale and potato salad, a kale/chicory/celery/root veggie salad, and a warm kale and squash salad. Mmm...Mikey likes kale.

A Little Green in Amongst the Brown

While most of the garden is still covered in a veil of drab brown a few things have started to put forth new and most welcomed green growth. The chives have awoken from a long winter's nap and are now poking up through the remnants of their past, straining upwards as the afternoon sun beats down upon them. It has taken us a few years but we finally have enough of these tasty little alliums growing in various plots that they are for more than just looking at but eating as well.

French sorrel is popping up everywhere. It has the same tang as wild sorrel but the leaves get much larger. This is one of the grandson's favorite greens, I caught him sitting in a patch sharing it with the puppy the other day and had to pull him away before he turned green from eating too much of it.

Parsley, ever faithful to us, has managed the winter quite well and is now springing forth with vibrant new growth. It is so much more than just a garnish to us and one of the few foods that seems to be part of almost every single meal that we partake in.

Chicory with all of it's brilliantly colored florets has also held steadfast all year around. It has always been a treat that we are forced to share with the voles who love to pull it into their subterranean tunnels and have a little winter feast of their own. This year, however, they never showed up for the party.

Spinach that was planted late last fall is slowly but surely starting to put out a bit of new growth under our row covers. I planted some more yesterday in another row to follow this crop. Not much though as come June it will all bolt to seed anyway.

The source of nutrition we depend on the most during the winter months is kale and along with parsley and turnip greens makes up the majority of the numerous salad ingredients we attempt to grow outside 365 days each year. We froze many gallons of fresh kale last spring before the aphids showed up and have been enjoying it all winter in soups, potato salads, and it even makes a great pizza topping. I just planted a whole covered row of it for an early June harvest as the over wintered kale will quickly bolt to seed once the weather warms. I even started a small flat of it in the greenhouse just to test the germination on some of my older seed.

For a few recipes on what to do with all that kale check out this great blog I ran across today -365 Days of Kale.

Where the Wild Things Grow

My wife and I took the puppy for a long walk along the river awhile back and saw that buttercups were coming up everywhere, so very early, and me with no camera. So we went back the other day and took a few pictures and noticed that even the honey bees were out and about. Last year I didn't see any bees until June and this year they are out in early March. It must certainly be a sign of good things to come.:)

We found our first wild edibles of the season as well, a type of wild onion was growing everywhere. I brought some home to plant in the garden, my goal being to let them go to seed. We were talking about how fun it would be if I could cross them with our Red of Florence scallions. I held some of the little scallion bulbs over from last season so perhaps if they bloom at the same time? I wonder if wild onions flower annually or biannually, guess I will find out soon enough.

I also gathered a few cuttings off a willow type tree that grows along the river banks as they would seem to be a most excellent source of basket making materials. I soaked them overnight then stuck them in the garden's soil to hopefully root up and grow, we shall see.

During our wanderings we came across this little plant just emerging, it has a flavor similar to celery or lovage. Can anyone help me to identify it? Perhaps a type of wild parsley?

Onion Seedlings and Such

With the days slowly getting longer the sun is finally able to climb above the wall of trees that surround our gardens and shine down upon our greenhouse warming it up inside, 81° today...a regular hothouse. As we have little room and even less patience for seedlings in the house I am trying to get them moved into the greenhouse a tad earlier this year. I moved some of our potted plants and all of our onions and leeks that have germinated thus far into the greenhouse to make room for recently seeded tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers...and so our gardening season begins.

The onions, leeks, and scallions can handle a bit of cold weather after a few days of acclimation. As a matter of fact, the soil in their containers has partially frozen a couple times now during the night with no obvious side effects. We made the decision to make do with last year's leftover onion seed, due to a backorder on this year's seed that was slow to arrive, and seem to be having excellent germination with the Yellow of Parma and Jaune Paille des Vertus storage onions but our Borettana seed has not performed as well, perhaps a bit of patience is in order. I also planted a couple flats of Red Globe, Sweet Utah, Candy, and some scallions that are doing splendidly. As soon as our celery and celeriac have finished germinating they will also be booted into the cold to shiver with the alliums.

These former denizens of our basement dungeon are more than happy to brave the cold as fresh air and sunlight is what they really crave. The Swiss chard, sorrel, endive, and parsley are starting to green up a bit.

The first dandelions will be those that were held over from last summer, I have yet to see any outdoors but soon they will begin to appear.

Rhubarb coming up in a pot...I'm really not sure why, just because I wanted to see how it would do I suppose.

The last of our celery is starting to put out new growth as well.

Of Bark Splitting, Free Eggs, and Lessons Learned...

Last summer's heat was a bit challenging for a few of our smaller fruit trees, most being only 4-7 years old. Towards the end of the gardening season I noticed that two of our apricots and a pear tree had developed some pretty ghastly wounds in the form of bark that had split wide open in numerous places along both the trunk and limbs of the trees. This, having never happened before, was definitely a cause of concern for us and prompted me to dig up some information online that suggested perhaps the trees had suffered from sunscald...dang.

Our Chinese (Mormon) apricot tree is in pretty bad shape due to sunscald

Apparently sunscald is fairly common among younger thin-skinned fruit trees. Fortunately, it is often not fatal to the tree and I was very happy to see lots of new buds had developed on ours this winter signaling that the trees were still full of life. So from what I have been reading I will need to perform a bit of surgery on the trees and remove some of the curled bark thus helping the tree to recover and hopefully form calluses over the wounds. That and make sure that all of the trees get an adequate and steady supply of water to help prevent this issue in the future...lesson learned.

This young D'Anjou pear tree looks bad but is in better condition than the apricot


As for the free eggs, a few weeks back the grandson commented in a long forgotten conversation that the eggs he was eating were free. The free comment was not lost on me and this past weekend I shared with him a few of the secrets of life. I told the boy that now that he had grown into a strapping young five year old it was time he started earning his keep and proceeded to explain to him that the eggs he had partaken in were not really "free" at all. I shared with him the fact that caring for the chickens that laid those eggs required a bit of effort on our part and that they did not just magically appear in our refrigerator.


So, early the next morning we went out to the chicken house where I taught him how to perform his new duty, the monthly chore of cleaning the old straw out of the nesting boxes and replacing it with fresh, clean material. I explained to him one of my many theories, if the nesting boxes became too dirty the birds would begin to look for a better place in which to lay their eggs. I told him that as long as we kept the boxes cleaned at least once every month the birds did not seem to have this tendency and that the last thing we wanted was to wander around in the forest looking for stray eggs...he agreed that that would be quite a hassle. Under the hens strict supervision he did a pretty darn good job and will probably never refer to eggs as free again but might enjoy them all that much more as he now has a stake in the whole affair. Again, lesson learned.

Squawk! "Get to work boy, I'll be supervising this operation today."

"Good job, that's right, just dump the old straw on the ground. Hustle up now I've got eggs to lay."

Homegrown Puppy Chow

One of the things that we have been striving to be more self-reliant in is the ability to feed our pet's food that we can obtain or produce ourselves. After consulting with a fellow blogger whom I trust goes to great lengths to care for her own dogs and doing a lot of reading on the subject of canine nutrition we have come up with our first homemade dog food recipe. Having realized that a dogs natural diet could consist of a wide variety of different foods we started offering small samples to our puppy, Rowdy, early on so that he would develop a taste for them, and boy did he ever. He loves to eat everything we have given him...fruits, veggies, nuts, chicken poop (his idea not ours), etc...

In the wild, a wolf, coyote, or dingo's diet consists of more than just meat. Being opportunistic in nature their diet, while based on various types of meat, can also include some fruits, berries, grass, vegetables, and other plants. I've read that coyotes are even known to raid farmers melon patches upon occasion. So we came up with a cooked puppy food that is approximately 50% meat and eggs and 50% plant based. This is of course subject to change depending upon how well the dog does on this diet and any new information I might obtain.

Here is a fascinating video of wolves supposedly eating raspberries. Although they look more like rose hips to me.

Our first batch consisted of a couple pounds of good quality lean ground beef, eggs, carrots, potatoes, parsnips, peas, plain tomato sauce, berries, apples, chicory root, parsley, celery, and steel cut oats to bind it all together. All of these vegetables, and the steel cut oats, are supposed to be easily digestible for dogs unlike some of the cheap corn and soy based "filler" ingredients, full of chemical additives, that make up the bulk of some pet foods...or so I've been reading in Dr. Pitcairn's Complete Guide To Natural Health For Dogs & Cats and various other sources. For the record, while a very interesting book, I don't necessarily agree with everything in Dr. Pitcairn's book.

Anyway, this mix will last him about 25 days (keeping in mind that this is a small puppy...for a while) and is served as an addition to his constant supply of dry dog food and the occasional serving of kefir or milk, extra eggs, raw fresh veggies, fruit, berries, and any voles or mice he might catch. We measured out the daily portions and froze them for ease of use.

Grandfather tested and puppy approved homemade dog food right out of the garden.:)

He absolutely loves his new food, it was so good I even had a bite. If I have to start eating dog food in my old age this will be my brand of choice, not very tasty but pretty darn healthy.:) We will probably add a little more protein in the form of beef, fish, broth, legumes, and eggs as he continues to grow. Other possibilities include the addition of spinach (?), garlic, eggshell powder, broccoli, squash, rice, flax, and kale to the mix. He goes nuts over our kale for some reason, he was with me while I was picking it one day, probably thought I was grazing on it, and has been stealing it from under the row covers ever since. Now if I could just figure out how to make a high protein healthful dry dog food, and then there's those hopelessly lazy and finicky cats to deal with.

So far Rowdy is a very healthy, happy, and energetic puppy who loves to take walks in the wetlands. Beside harassing our cats his favorite pastimes include catching goose feathers that are floating down stream, hunting for voles, and quality time with the chickens...more on that later.

Some Unusual Frugal Potting Soil

With no snow to speak of and the ground even starting to thaw a bit I have been out and about hunting for the right soil medium in which to start my onion, leek, celery, and celeriac seedlings. Normally we try to make our own "homemade" potting soil that does differ slightly each year depending upon what type of materials we can come up with. For the most part I just try to produce a semi-fine soil that is able to retain moisture and remain pliable without hardening up. Our house is heated with a wood stove and the one drawback of this is the lack of humidity in the air, this lack of moisture tends to cause the soil in our seedling trays to harden very quickly making it difficult for the plants to germinate and grow. So when it comes to potting soil my focus is on keeping the dirt soft and arable.

This season I am using a rather interesting mixture. I am lucky in the sense that I have a massive pile of decomposed sod which will make up the bulk of my potting mix. This combination of topsoil, dead grass, and fine little roots should work well.


Also added is my own version of peat moss, in this case a common green moss that grows in great abundance around here. After I fill a tote it is dried by the fireplace before being added to the mixture in order to help with water retention.


Lastly, strange as it may seem, I incorporated a couple of vacant red ant nests to help keep the soil from hardening. I scoped these potential amendments out last summer. Every once in a while for reasons unbeknowst to me the nests are abandoned never to host ants again. Red ants in these parts build large mounds using materials gathered from their surroundings, in my case these materials are largely made up of very small twigs, pieces of dead grass, and other debris that should provide excellent soil aeration. I hold these particular ants in high regard as they are very omnivorous, thus helping to keep many of the so called "bad" insects in check as nature intended.

A wheelbarrow full of ant nest, we have lots of these nests around but only a couple that were abandoned.

Here is a closeup of the materials ants use to build their mounds.


Yes Silke, he does tend to be quite the little helper. Rowdy's job was to break up all of the clumps.:)