Our Subsistence Pattern

In keeping with our annual tradition of yearly experimentation we have once again planted numerous "new to us" varieties of edible plants this season. Ranging from various herbs and lettuces to bushes and trees, we are looking forward to seeing how they all perform and hopefully I will be able post my thoughts on them as spring and summer begin to unfold.

Anyway, this year's salad and herb garden is starting to take shape, albeit very slowly as the weather has only recently started to moderate a bit. In this section of the garden, nestled in amongst the oregano and lettuce are a couple patches of a plant whose seeds were graciously shared with me back in 2009 or early 2010 I believe...thanks Mavis.

Perennial Wild Grazia arugula (Diplotaxis tenuifolia)

Unlike regular arugula that normally behaves as an annual, often bolting to seed much sooner than the gardener would like, perennial Grazia seems to grow somewhat slower and is apparently much more heat and cold tolerant than common arugula...leastwise that has been our limited experience with this particular variety. The plant has deeply lobed leaves and yellow flowers with a much stronger flavor than its quick growing counterpart and we are excited to continue adding this pungent green to our spring and summer salads as the new growth continues to emerge.

While I did not have much luck collecting seeds from Grazia last fall it nonetheless took matters into it's own hands and readily self-sowed. I was surprised at how long it held in the garden before finally flowering and setting seed on it's woody branches sometime in late August. Unlike lettuce and other greens the mature plants seem to have a sturdy root system and woody stems more in line with certain herbs and small bushes.

There is not a lot of information available online regarding this type of arugula but it would appear that perennial Grazia can be sourced from either Siegers Seed Company in the US or Mr. Fothergills in the UK, neither of whom I have ever purchased seed from. There is also another variety of perennial wild arugula (Diplotaxis muralis) available through Heirloom Seeds.

Anyone else have experience growing perennial arugula?

....and to think I was considering planting potatoes today.

...and this morning (April 22) looks even worse.:)

It's been a typically temperamental North Idaho spring so far...snow, rain, more rain, wind, sleet, sun, and repeat. Nonetheless our garden is alive and growing both indoors and out. We awoke to a good inch of snow on Thursday...

...but by mid-afternoon it had dissipated and the sun even managed a brief appearance.

Boy was busy inspecting the remnants of last year's corn as he cut it up into little pieces that will eventually be tilled back into the soil (a chore I didn't quite finish last fall).

These turnip greens have found their way into our salads almost every day since last November...definitely one of our hardiest greens.

Kale is finally staging a nice comeback, it was a rough winter for kale...a few too many freeze and thaw cycles.

In the greenhouse a pot of Hamburg parsley held over from last year puts on new green growth. You are supposed to eat the root but we find ourselves enjoying the greens too.

Onions seedlings are alive and well, growing oh so slowly.

With no room in the house I had to kick the just germinated basil out to the greenhouse...fingers crossed that it survives the cold, so far so good. I must admit to cheating a bit though as I have an oil heater that I turn on when necessary. Even so, I am tempting fate as the heater only graces me with a difference of 6 or 7 degrees, if it falls under 25°F outside my basil will freeze inside.

Comfrey needs to be planted out in the next day or so.

These little spinach and turnip seedlings were planted outside last night, more spinach will be direct seeded into the garden once it warms up a bit more. Normally we plant turnips in the late summer/early fall to avoid root maggots, but I thought I would take another shot at spring turnips this year.

Various other herbs, flowers, and salad greens are alive and well in the greenhouse.

Tomatoes will have to stay in the house for at least another week before we can get around to potting them up at which time the plants in our little arboretum will be set out under a covered row to make room for their less hardy brethren. Hopefully my next post will show us potting up tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants.

The majority of our tomatoes, tomatillos, ground cherries, herbs, peppers, eggplants, and other seedlings have all germinated and are growing well. The onions, celery, brassicas, lettuce, and other hardy greens have been moved outside to the greenhouse but as the nighttime temperatures are still very cold at times I will be forced to babysit the less hardy plants indoors for some time to come.

Purple Coban Tomatillos (can you see where the cat put her foot just as they were coming up?)

So today, and much to the chagrin of poor Mrs. H, I have classical music playing in the background...for the plants. I have been reading about how musical vibrations might help encourage the growth of plants. There are any number of theories on this ranging anywhere from how stimulating the leaves stomata (microscopic openings or pores found on the plant leaf) helps with the intake of CO2 and absorption of other nutrients to theories on how vibration can positively affect the growth of a plant's roots. Some say limited musical vibrations might even help a plant synthesize the hormone ethylene which in turn speeds up seed germination and helps to create stockier plants. So I figured why not give it a shot. The plants are dancing to the Northstar Chamber Orchestra's renditions of Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Mozart, and Tchaikovsky for a few hours this evening.:)

These "refashioned" milk jugs make excellent starter containers for our pepper and eggplant seedlings. Thanks for saving them for us Dorothy.:)

Last spring I wrote about some of the unusual and frugal ingredients that go into our seed starting mixture and this year's soil is very similar in that it provides our seedlings with a few important necessities. We shoot for a mix of friable soil that will not harden too much and is able to retain enough water that it does not easily dry out, a soil that also furnishes plenty of nutrition to growing seedlings. In a sense, we simply look at the natural soil around us and attempt to copy nature's already perfect medium. This time around we are using a mixture of sand, chicken dirt, and abandoned ant nest debris with a little burnt bone and shell meal thrown in for good measure.

The below ingredients make up our mixture and the percentages are totally guesstimated.

Chicken dirt - (50%) Throughout the winter months I haul wheelbarrows full of dirt that has been gathered from our sod compost pile and the forest floor to our chickens. They of course love this and reward us by removing any insects and weed seeds from the soil, fertilizing it as they work. After a week or so I remove the dirt and bring them some more, eventually ending up with a nice pile of what we call "chicken dirt"...our seedlings seem to like this.

Forest floor debris found in our back woods.

Weed seed and bug control agents hard at work.

Abandoned ant nest debris - (20%) Where we live red ants build large mounds using materials gathered from their surroundings, materials that are largely made up of very small twigs, pieces of dead grass, and other debris that seem to provide excellent soil aeration and water retention to our soil mix. We seek out these dormant ant nests during the summer months so as to be sure we are not plundering active nests, I posted more about this unusual ingredient last February.

Sand - (30%) This year I am also adding a little river sand to the mix having noticed how well wild onion, poppy, flox, and other seed seems to so easily germinate along the river banks.

So far so good as our newly emerging onion seedlings seem to like the added sand.

Shell, bones, and ash (maybe 1-2%) - A few years ago while way up in the forest gathering firewood we stumbled across a large pile of what I believe to be clam and other sea shells. How they got there so very far away from the ocean will forever remain a mystery. Anyway, we gathered the whole stinky pile up and brought it home to be used in our garden. I add the shells and any bones that we happen across to our fireplace during the winter and after removing am able to easily crush them into a fine powder. My thoughts are that adding a small amount of potassium found in the ash and bone plus shell meal for phosphorus and calcium makes for a beneficial additive.

Ta-da! The final product.

Something to keep in mind when using a non sterile soil mix, especially in cool and/or humid climates, is the issue of dampening off disease. We combat this by boiling a handful of thyme and sometimes chamomile in 2-3 gallons of water and letting set overnight or until the water turns dark. We use this thyme water mixed in a 1:3 ratio with regular water until the seedlings are well established. Thyme, chamomile, cinnamon, and a few other herbs all contain natural fungicides that can help prevent issues with dampening off....adequate airflow is also important. These herbs are a great source of calcium, magnesium, and potassium. Chamomile also contains sulfur and thyme has thymol, these being their potent anti-fungal agents.

I watched these videos linked from the Homestead Revival blog this morning and thought I would share them here as well. While I do not consider myself to be a hard core doomsdayer (well, maybe just a little:) I surely can see some dark clouds gathering on the horizon and found all of the information put forth by Marjory Wildcraft in this presentation on food storage, water supply, and gardening to be very thought provoking to say the least.

For more information on the subject of food preparedness, my friend Lynn has written numerous excellent posts on her blog about food storage of late that include many useful links.

"Let us be in a position so we are able to not only feed ourselves through home production and storage, but others as well" - Ezra Taft Benson, former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture

Three of the most important things we look for in a vegetable are, adaptability to our climate, flavor, and how easily it can be stored or processed. It is always a pleasant surprise to find a new variety that meets all of these criterion. And so it is that after over four months in storage I can now say that, what was originally grown as a novelty, the Red Crapaudine beet we seeded in early 2010 does indeed seem to easily attain all of these standards.

This is a particularly old variety of beet, possibly one of the oldest beets in existence today...from what I've read, and has rather an unusual thick bark like skin, almost black, that will reportedly help it to over winter right in the garden, even in cooler climates. The Crapaudine also manages to stay under the soil rather than popping up like so many other cylindrical shaped beets tend to do. It will be interesting to put a few to the test this year and see whether or not they really can handle our winter conditions.

Crapaudine's have green foliage and a bright red interior with an earthy sweet essence that I really enjoy both raw and cooked...a very nice all around vegetable. As far as proportion goes they are similar in stature to a medium carrot and the ones we grew last year did vary quite a bit in size, definitely not the biggest beet in town. Because of their shape they would probably grow best in a loose friable soil or anywhere a carrot or parsnip thrives. We are looking forward to growing these old world beets for many more years to come.

So... Let's Eat Some Beets