My Gardening Arsenal

Garden Arsenal

Dear Reader:

There have been so many cool local goings-on I hardly know where to start: do I finally blog about my incredible Goodwill fashion finds? Or the awesome certified organic farm stand up the road? Or my trip to the Portland Museum of Art plus dinner at locally-owned restaurant, Nosh? Or the wedding shower I went to recently for my cousin’s fiance (Hi, Holly:) where the presents were either local, organic, natural, homesteady (think canning jars and cookbooks, perennials and pot-holders) or… red wine?

With so many topics, I chose the most local of all: my front yard garden.

Straw bale in May

Remember this?

Now it looks like this!

Straw Bale in July

There is a real difference between the tomato plants on the house-end of the bales and the road-end. I think the house-end plants get just a smidge more sunlight…enough to make a huge difference, not just in tomatoes but also in the pumpkin plants on the very ends as well as the corn and beans on the ground below. (I couldn’t resist a Three-Sisters planting or four!) While the Early Girls are already ripening and the two German Striped heirlooms are setting on fruit, the large brandywine in the center back bale has an issue. There have been plenty of blossoms, but then, sadly, the blossoms break off at the stem-bend just where the plant should be pumping some energy to create a band of strong material to hold a big, plump, juicy fruit.

Thinking maybe I’d either over-nitrogened the thing and underfed it some other vital nutrient, I got down to Plummer’s Hardware to pick up some organic fertilizer specifically for tomatoes and veggies. This one has nitrogen, posphate, potash, calcium and sulfer made from feathers, poultry manure, cocoa meal, bone meal, alfalfa meal, greensand, humates, sulfate of potash, and gypsum. Ask for Espoma Organic Tomato-tone at your local garden center. I noticed a big difference right away in all the ‘matoes…they all grew even taller and lusher within the week. Now I’m waiting to see if old brandywine there actually sets on some more fruits other than the two bottom ones that popped out just after getting home from Snell’s greenhouses.

Healthy Bee Balm

Now, some of you long-time readers will remember my past gardening woes including powdery mildew and Japanese Beetles. (See Of Pests and Powdery Mildew from August 2010) I am sad to report that the beetles are back, along with new friends–aphids and ants. My poor crabapple tree is an infested mess!

It’s my own fault. People gave me advice about sprinkling some kind of powder underneath to kill the beetle larvae. Instead, I planted garlic around the tree, hoping it would somehow repel the pesky pests. No such luck, though I do hope to have some green garlic soup very soon. In the meantime, I continue with my usual methods of pest control: a jar of bleach water for the beetles and a quick pinch and pull to get rid of the aphids and the ants milking them. Yes, ants “raise” aphids and milk their secretions. Gross, except, well, think about us with cows and goats. By the time I get to the aphid farms, the little stem or branch of the tree is pretty sick and generally comes right off in my fingers. Then those ants get angry and bite me! I’m serious. They are NOT happy to lose their farm at all. I say, go west, young ant!

And then there is the powdery mildew. Now, you all know my thoughts on trying to be a food producer here on my wooded, exurban, one-acre lot. It’s pretty much an exercise in futility, really. I keep trying new things, but in the end I may be defeated. I thought I’d come to terms with the pine and beech tree shade and the sunny but tragically unusable leach field. The new garden boxes were to be my saving grace, my compromise with reality. I could practice vegetable gardening in the miniature, experiment with many types of plants, and treat said veggies like highly-irregular ornamentals…that I could nibble. They do look fabulous. See how the pink & black box has grown.

On May 30th

This was Memorial Day weekend.

July 18 garden box

Now, the cucumbers are running like crazy, and by that I mean they are flowing out of the box and onto the ground like leafy snakes. Tiny cuke-spikes grow behind the pretty yellow blossoms, fatten, and lengthen until they just aren’t pickling size anymore at which point I pluck them, peel them, and serve them on salad for dinner.

Beautiful Cuke

I’ve picked six of these babies so far…and there are more to come as long as nothing happens to them. The zucchini are blossoming. The summer squash are already beginning to fruit. All looks well until…

I notice the big patch of bee balm in my front perennial bed, just beside the cuke and squash boxes, is covered in powdery mildew! Now, we’ve had so much heat and humidity that I shouldn’t have been surprised. A little more research, and I learned that overcrowded conditions also contribute to the mold problem. That bed was looking a little crowded this year. Looking back at previous photos, I see that some of the old plants in the bed had powdery mildew in previous years, so the spores were probably there in the ground just waiting to bloom.

No matter. What mattered was that if I did nothing, that mold would spread to the just-about-to-produce squash and cukes and kill all my hopes and dreams for fresh garden salads and zucchini cooked over the grill and summer squash casserole. I got out my gardening blades and chopped that darn bee balm right off and buried it in a pile of leaves in the woods far from the boxes. Now my perennial bed looks like a second-grade boy with a summer buzz-cut and I’ve pretty much decided to plant shrubs in that spot this fall (rhododendron? azalea? winterberry?).

Squash Blossoms

In the meantime, my cucurbits are in grave danger. I noticed one small summer squash had already turned brownish on the blossom end and had gone soft and limp. It was dying, if not already dead. And this was before one sign of mildew on the leaves! I did moreresearch and learned that while you can’t reverse an infestation of mold, you can prevent it with anti-fungal sprays. There are commercial products, but I was intrigued by the remedy recommended on a number of organic gardening sites: baking soda, vegetable oil, and water.

Now, the baking soda is supposed to change the pH of the leaves, making them inhospitable to the powdery mildew. The oil helps the solution cling to the leaves. I made mine with 1 tablespoon soda, 1 tablespoon Maine sunflower oil, and 1 quart of water. I mixed it in a pitcher, poured it into a plastic spray bottle, and sprayed all the leaves on top and underneath after fertilizing and watering this morning. A healthy plant is much less susceptible to any sort of pest or problem.

Why do I have powdery mildew problems, anyway? Simple. Mold likes moisture and heat. We’ve had high humidity and high temperatures. In addition, my lot is surrounded by tall trees acting very effectively as windbreaks. Nice in the winter (except when said trees fall over), but in the summer that means the tops of the trees across the road may be tossing in the wind, but in my garden the pretty little set of chimes Hubby gave me doesn’t even let out a single cling…or clang, for that matter. In other words, we get no air circulation thanks once again to the trees.

I pulled the peas up today to give the zucchini and summer squash in that box a little more breathing room. Hopefully that will help. But to be honest, I may not do veggies again. Or else, forget the cucurbits. I can buy plenty at the local farm stands and farmer’s markets.

On a happy note, an application of tomato food to the greens boxes has made a huge difference. Take a look!

Romaine and Greenleaf and Chard

Small cukes, green beans, spinach, lettuce

Out of the micro micro-greens that refused to grow, I decided to pluck up everything but the spinach which looked somehow…different, as if it had potential. My instincts appear to be correct as it is now growing nicely behind the shade of the green beans. Perhaps the greens boxes get more sun than they need? Maybe I should grow a sheltering row of flowers or something in the front squares next year? The last-ditch planting of kale seeds in all the squares where nothing grew has produced some sprouts, so perhaps a fall crop of greens will be forthcoming after all.

What I’ve learned? Fertilizer helps. I love the idea of using only home-produced or at least locally-produced compost, but I’m beginning to suspect that in order to get all the nutrients needed for a really good crop in a box, a balanced fertilizer is a necessity. In a double-dug bed, some of those nutrients would be present in the soil, and perhaps a yearly application of good, home-grown compost from the remains of plants grown in those beds would suffice. Or maybe growing a cover crop of some nitrogen-dense plant would work. But in these self-contained garden boxes? I think a little extra additive is a necessity.

Which brings me back around to my other point. Do I continue to play with vegetables? Or do I simply work with ornamentals and use my money to support the local farmers? Imagine what they could have done with the $200 plus I spent on straw bales, boxes, compost, additives, seedlings, seeds, etc. Probably fed a couple of families, while I get few handfuls of peas, some pickling-size cucumbers, thirty or forty tomatoes (please, oh please!), some basil, some squashes…

It all depends on what happens with those squashes, people! If they don’t work out, I will cast around for another direction for my one-acre “homestead.” I still have this idea about growing shiitake mushrooms…

Stay tuned for more … Outside the Box.

A Time to Sow

Pink & Black Ornamental Garden Box

Dear Reader:

There I was yesterday, crouched down next to the garden boxes, dropping miniscule seeds into warm compost, patting a covering of compost over the “babies,” and dreaming of how the boxes will look when the seedlings emerge and begin to grow.

Moth & Chive in the “sunny” perennial bed

Giant bumblebees buzzed around and into the self-propagated purple and pink columbine. Moths and monarch butterflies visited the puffy heads of chives. Birds called. My fingernails turned black, and I didn’t care. I just kept dreaming of the months to come when I could sit and watch the plants grow.

Heirloom tomatoes in straw bale

The day before, after a $100 trip through the greenhouses at Snell’s Family Farm, I had all the starter plants on my list, plus more.

First, the tomatoes. I went with three Early Girl tomatoes, one brandywine called “Mortgage Lifter,” and two green-striped German heirloom tomatoes to go in the straw bales.

Digging out spaces in the bales was tough work. My father was visiting and helped with this chore while Mom watered and carted the extra straw to the compost pile for recycling. The bales were moist and beginning to break down inside nicely, creating some heat that I hope will make for happy tomato plants. After digging into the bales, I put in a couple handfuls of compost, stuck the plant in, and filled in with more compost. Following directions from my straw-bale gardening booklet, I then pressed on a layer of potting soil along the tops of each bale and planted spinach to grow in the shade beneath the toms.

Straw Bale with Front Garden Boxes

On the ends, a circle of pumpkin seeds will hopefully produce a few orange globes come fall. To go along with the “fall harvest” theme of my bales, I took a chance and planted a few corns seeds and some beans on the ground beside the bales. This is now a Three Sisters garden: corn, beans, squash. I’m not expecting much in the way of corn, but the stalks will look festive with the bales and the pumpkins if it all works out.

Inside the Garden Box

As for the boxes, I squished as many varieties into them as I could, intermixing veggies and flowers for visual appeal and maybe to also attract beneficial insects like bees. Already the hummingbird zipped down for a look-see yesterday.

Here is a list of what I planted this weekend:

Herb Box–basil, camomile, calendula, dill, rosemary, fennel, sage, pole beans.
Pink & Black Box–red cabbage, chocolate mint, geranium, Japanese shiso, cucumber, sweet potato vine, petunias.

Salvia & Red Cabbage

Diamond Design Box–salvia, red cabbages, cucumber (and I think something else but I can’t quite remember so it will be a mystery until something comes up between the cabbages.)

Sungold cherry tomato in a pot.

Root crop Box–small onions, carrots, parsnips, radishes, eggplant, geranium.

Peas & Pepper Box–peas, chili peppers, zucchini, summer squash.

Four Greens Boxes–Green leaf, arugula, romaine, greens mix, spinach, a leftover red cabbage, a cherry tomato, a zucchini, a few small onion is a square, and green beans and leftover cukes.

Phew! I spent the better part of two days planting and then sat outside to drink a glass of tea and enjoy the view. I took a shower and went to bed.

After midnight, around 1 a.m., the light show started…a tremendous thunderstorm that ripped through the sky for four hours, dropping torrential rains and some hail. All I could think was, “What about my itty-bitty seeds? What about my tomato plants?”

Luckily, the plants seem fine this morning. Now I have to chose: dig up the soil and replant the seeds or wait for ten or twelve days to see what, if anything, emerges from the compost. I think I’ll wait.

The weather forecast is calling for more t-storms, and I have to go to work at the library today—unlike this luna moth who has been literally hanging around all over my house for a week.

Luna Moth

What is she doing, I wonder? Resting? Waiting to take the next stage in her journey? Maybe that is the lesson for today. It’s all about timing. Rest when you need to. Look forward to the next stage in your journey. Soar when the time is right.

If there ever was a time to sow the seeds of change, it is now. What kind of future do you envision for yourself, your community, the world? What can you plant now for a better tomorrow…in your garden or Outside the Box?

Straw Bale Sprouts

Straw Bale Sprouts

Dear Reader:

An update on how the straw bale garden is coming along. Following Joel Karsten’s instructions, I have been watering and fertilizing the two rows for about nine days. (Was keeping track and now realize I’ve thrown away my paper!) I’m a little concerned that all these sprouts are bursting up out of the straw, making my bales look like long, rectangular Chia Pets!

Hopefully this is a good sign that the fertilizer is doing its job; however, I’m wondering if this burgeoning hay won’t choke out tomato plants when I get them settled in to their warm and cozy home in a week or so. I’m waiting until Memorial Day Weekend–the traditional start of Maine gardening.

Up-slope in front of straw bale

Evidence is mounting that the fertilizer is also seeping through the bale and into the surrounding lawn. Above shows the decrepit state of my “lawn” on the upward side of the slight slope on which I plunked the straw bales. Pretty sparse and horrible, right?

Now, here is what the grass looks like on the downward slope where the run-off from my watering goes.

Between the Bales

These are not retouched photos! Can you believe the difference? I’m still wondering what to do about my leach-lawn. Maybe putting down some compost, some grass seeds, some fertilizer, some straw and a bunch of watering would make it look like a typical suburban plot of lawn. I could add a round “wildflower” plot perhaps, as I’ve read that wildflowers typically have more surface-loving root systems. The dandelions rioting out there certainly aren’t short-rooted, though. They are doing their very best to bring nutrients up to the surface with their long taproots. I should help them out, don’t you think? I also have some lime in my garage stash. The wouldn’t hurt either as the soil acidity if probably high from all the pine trees.

Crab Apple Tree Guild

I began planting a mini “apple tree guild” around my flowering crab as an experiment. In the inner circle, I stuck bulbs of MOFGA garlic that I will harvest as scapes, or green garlic. Then I transplanted two cuttings from a comfrey plant. Comfrey is a good “living composter.” You can cut the leaves off and compost them in place to provide nutrients to the soil. Comfrey is also known as “knit-bone” and has been used for hundreds of years to help heal bruises and bones. (As always, check with a trained herbalist before dosing yourself with anything!). I also transplanted a dandelion as they bring nutrients up from the deeper soil. In a week or so, I hope to plant some fava beans as nitrogen accumulators and some pretty nasturtiums. In the fall, I’ll put a ring of daffodils around the drip-line to discourage foraging creatures from getting into my guild.

If all goes well, I hope to plant a couple of medium-sized apple trees out front and create similar guilds. I want a good crab-apple for making jelly and maybe a regular apple for pies. I do need to research this as they should flower at the same time for cross-pollination.

Mystery Shrub

The mystery shrub on the north corner of my house is no longer a mystery. It is Kerria japonica. This is a double-flower variety I picked up as a very small perennial plant at a sidewalk sale in front of the beverage store/redemption center in Waterboro about seven years ago. It has grown to nice proportions and I can divide it easily to many spots around the yard beneath the trees. It seems to do quite well even in very sporadic dappled shade.

How is your garden journey going so far this spring? Do tell…Outside the Box.

Oh…. (the word that stands for what the leach field is used for)!

Maine Outhouse

Dear Reader:

Once upon a time in Maine (and everywhere), people used quaint little outbuildings like this one to, er, “recycle” the food and beverages they had ingested. The concept was simple: Do your business, throw down some lime and sawdust, and out you go. Of course, someone had the not enviable job of mucking out the place every so often, and I suppose trudging to the outhouse in the middle of winter probably wasn’t much fun. But here is one thing our forbears didn’t have to worry about–a leach field.

Now, a leach field shouldn’t be a problem, but when I stop and really think about the rigamarole that goes into “recycling” nowadays, I wonder if we haven’t kinda stepped off the path of reason. Older toilets use 3.3-7 gallons of water PER FLUSH! Newer, high-efficiency toilets use 1.4 gallons or so. Where does all this previously clean water go? Into the leach field. Shower water–with a few bits of dirt and skin cells and some soap–goes into the leach field. Dishwater goes into the leach field. Washing machine water. Is it really necessary for all this water to be put into a system that takes up so much space? Is this really the most efficient use of land?

Outhouse Interior

What has got me so hot and bothered this morning, you ask? Didn’t I just solve all my problems by establishing straw-bale garden beds on my septic field? What was all the crowing about yesterday, then?

Well, my librarian friend, Renee, who like all great librarians is able to find all sorts of relevant information and truly enjoys helping people by getting them said information in a timely manner, passed along a link to the Maine Cooperative Extension newsletter that just so happened to include an article about growing gardens on top of septic fields. http://umaine.edu/gardening/blog/2012/05/03/maine-home-garden-news-may-2012/ The gist of the article? Don’t do it!

So, I read the article, and since I’m easily swayed by the power of the written word, especially by university-trained soil (NOT “soiled,” the typo I just now corrected. More than a little bit funny considering the topic of conversation!) scientists, I’m now worried about my straw bales…not only my straw bales but also my five new garden boxes simply because of their close proximity to the leach bed. How close is too close?

The Extension suggests that the best thing to grow on top of a septic field is grass, i.e. a lawn. But don’t roto-till it whatever you do because you might rip the lining that is underneath the mere 3-4 inches of soil sitting on top of the lining and then the gravel bed which is where the run-off goes to vent.

Ironically, another article further down in the newsletter talked all about how pesticides and herbicides and fertilizers are ruining our environment all for the sake of pretty lawns and we should instead be replacing lawns with “yard-scaping” and plantings.

So what are you supposed to do if your lawn is your leach field?

Apparently if you have a leach field, you can only do one thing: let the weeds take over, mow it as best you can, and just shut up and be thankful you don’t have to muck out an outhouse every spring.

So, what am I going to do about my straw bales? Bottom line (haha), I’m gonna grow those tomatoes this year. Unless we get a really, really rainy, wet season that could possibly raise water levels, I won’t worry about what lies beneath. However, I won’t tempt fate again next year. I will resign myself to scraggly lawn. I could maybe put down some compost on the “lawn” and see if I can green it up a bit.

Rainboots

When I have a little more time, I’ll finally write about toilet alternatives. They are out there. Composting toilets. Gray-water recycling systems. And I’ll daydream about what it would be like to have unlimited funds and the ability to build a house incorporating all these alternative ideas–solar panels and living roofs and composting toilets and greenhouses and geothermal heating and wood cookstoves and permaculture gardening.

And I may just fill out a request form with my HOA about cutting down some trees. Just when I was starting to appreciate the way the light filtered through them in the back yard, too. Or maybe it is time to relocate. Next door to a farmer’s market, preferably. And within walking/biking distance to the library. And zoning rules that allow backyard poultry. I could live with that.

Turkey in the Straw-Bale

Straw Bale Garden Rows

Dear Reader:

Since I live in an HOA (homeowner’s association) that does not allow “livestock,” you may have already guessed that the only turkey in my straw bale garden is me.

In the future, anyone who is interested in self-sufficiency, sustainable living, growing/raising of backyard food will avoid these HOA’s like a nuclear testing field. Not that HOA’s aren’t pleasant places to live. And not that they couldn’t be designed ON PURPOSE to support sustainability and community and nice things like backyard poultry that loves to eat up nasty ticks while providing delicious, nutritious eggs with deep-gold yokes. The tragedy of my particular HOA is the squandering of so much potential for self-sufficiency, learning, discovery, and…extremely tasty eggs!

The other problem I’ve discovered is the lack of sunlight due to so many tall, skinny, 100-yr-old pine trees that have sprung up from the old, deserted pastures of a time not so long ago when we were agrarian and proud of it. Don’t talk to me about “old-growth forest.” (See the stand of pines in the background of the photo above).

Old-growth forest does not have fieldstone walls running through it, people! This is old farm land. Pasture. Probably dairy cows. Whether we like to admit it or not, our HOA is built on livestock droppings now covered over with the pines and with the hardwood saplings struggling and finding bright pockets of sunlight in which to stretch now that the pine forest is beginning to break down.

Stumped

This is the stump from a pine that fell (tipped) not 30 ft from our house. The pine forest is crumbling around us, but not quickly enough to give me adequate sunlight for a full-scale kitchen garden. The only spot with enough sunlight for things like tomatoes and peppers and other sun-loving plants is directly over the septic field–where I’m not convinced I should create a conventional garden.

Faux Homestead

Now that nine years have gone by, my house is just starting to feel settled-into. The area directly in front, past the beech trees and the remnant of stone wall is the leach field. Here, I get six to seven hours of sunlight, but I was at a loss as to how to plant on it. One day, while bopping around the cyber world of Facebook, I saw on a friend’s wall the answer to my problem: straw bale gardening.

At least I think the bales will be the answer. The Facebook page led me to a website called Introduction to Straw Bale Gardening. I ordered the pdf version of Joel Karsten’s book/let. This weekend I moseyed on down to the farm supply store for straw bales and 24-0-0 fertilizer and then over to Plummer’s Hardware for stakes and string. In a couple of hours, my garden rows were ready for “conditioning.”

The process is pretty simple. Take some straw, sprinkle on some nitrogen, soak it with water, repeat, and wait for the composting to break down the straw into a growing medium. The stakes hold the ends of the rows tight while the string (or wire) between the stakes provides a trellis for growing plants.

An unidentified flowering shrub in my back yard

Once I set these up, I observed the sunlight beaming down on these bales from 8 a.m. until almost 4 p.m. yesterday. My hope for a bumper crop of tomatoes is almost as bright as that Flower Moon the other night.

The beauty of straw bale gardening is the ability to place a garden on any surface–not unlike container gardening. Theoretically, it is cheaper as containers can be expensive. However, I will warn you that this may be a bit of a marketing ploy. Containers will last for years, while a straw bale will only be good for a year, two at most. Of course, the spent straw, now composted quite a bit, will then be perfect for creating “lasagna gardens” or for use as nutritious mulch on other garden beds. Also, the bales I bought were expensive–$5.99 each! The 50lb. bag of fertilizer was $30.00, but it should last me a good while. I’ve since discovered that the fertilizer was probably not necessary. I could have put on a layer of the $30/TRUCKLOAD of Tibbett’s compost and maybe started the process a bit earlier.

Delilah by the Woodpile

There are also organic fertilizers that could be used. Bloodmeal. Urine.

Yes, you read that right. Urine is full of nitrogen and is completely sterile. I haven’t quite become that brave yet–not brave enough or obsessed enough about sustainability to pee in a bottle for feeding the perennials, let alone the tomatoes. But there is something poetic, I think, about completing the cycle in the same way that using composted cow manure completes the cycle.

So, my little front-yard experimental garden is almost ready for planting. I have the four old boxes for greens. I have the five new boxes for peas and string beans and squashes and carrots and herbs. I have the two rows of straw bales for tomatoes and peppers and maybe some greens or something in between. My perennial beds have been divided now. I’ll be putting some more herbs in the sunny perennial bed to go along with the rudbeckia and echinacea and the lilac shrub and chives.

Partly Sunny Side

Next year I may create a big perennial flower bed on part of that leach field–the kinds of flowers for bouquets and for dying homespun skeins of yarn, perhaps. And I still want to create an apple tree guild between the beeches and the compost bins.

But this year, oh this year, I’m longing for tomatoes. Big, fat, juicy, red tomatoes.

Local Season Opener

Spring Daffodillies

Dear Reader:

You didn’t think I was writing about baseball, did you? No, this is my “Spring Season” opening day because the ground is warm enough to walk barefoot in the grass, the daffodils are bursting with golden frilliness, and the rhubarb is sprouting-leafing up through the garden dirt after a winter’s hibernation.

Rhubarb

When we were kids, my sister and I would sometimes visit the rhubarb patch and break off a pink-green stem and chew it, wincing at the tart-sour taste. I wasn’t especially fond of rhubarb pie (strawberry-rhubarb was much better), but now I’m already planning to make a pie as soon as the ‘barb is ready. I even found some REAL lard at The Cornerstone Country Market in S. Waterboro over the weekend. With the whole wheat white flour from the co-op and this lard, my rhubarb and some sugar, I will be able to create an almost totally local pie. Not sure if I could substitute maple syrup or honey for the sugar, but I will look into it.

Speaking of the Cornerstone Country Market, if you live in this neck of the woods, I highly recommend stopping in there. They have a deli counter. They have local (Lyman) beef in the freezer section. Local eggs. Lots of dry-goods. (I heard they had local milk, but I didn’t see any and didn’t ask this particular time). They also carry a dizzying amount of cake decorating products–candies and sprinkles and such for cupcakes, birthday cakes, etc. Baking mixes. Flours.

I purchased some steel-cut oats for my breakfast and a jug of Maine maple syrup since I missed Maple Sunday at Hilltop Boilers a few weeks ago. I would have grabbed some of the beef, but I had just stopped in to Kniffin’s Specialty Meats also in S. Waterboro for “steakburger” and chicken legs for this week’s menu. All of Kniffin’s meats come from Maine farmers. No pink slime here!

Compost Bins In Action

As you can see from the photo, we’ve been busy “harvesting” carbonaceous material (a.k.a. beech and oak leaves) from the lawn to compost. The bin on the far right has been composting for a year or so. The two bins on the left are full of this year’s leaves plus some table scraps thrown in. Beside the right-hand bin is a small, dark pile of nearly-ready-to-use compost that I will spread into a Lasagna Garden later this season over near the rock pile. No, this does not mean I will be growing ingredients for lasagne (eggplant, peppers, onions, oregano, tomatoes, zucchini), though that would actually be cute and fun. Lasagna gardening refers to the preparation of the garden bed through layering of carbon material, nitrogen material, manure, straw, etc.

I am also psyched about the idea of trying Straw Bale Gardening. I ordered Joel Karsten’s pdf manual (easy, easy) and now have all the info I need on a file here on my computer. Hopefully, this will allow me to grow tomatoes on the one part of my lawn that gets adequate sunlight–on the leach bed. I think the straw will lift up the plants so they won’t be in any danger from the leach field, the beds won’t take up much space on top of the field or interfere with its processes in any way, and the extra heat generated by the composting straw will be perfect for those heat-loving globes of red juiciness (heirloom tomatoes? Lead me to ’em!)

On my way back from the meat and lard shopping, I stopped into the antique store to see if I could find a ring or pin with an owl motif, as I’m still recreating my Modern Minerva outfit on the local scene. I scored the red sweater at Goodwill last week. Alas, no jewelry fit the bill, though they had mucho floral pieces I will revisit later.

Moooooo!

However, this adorable creamer pitcher just had to come home with me! Now, I need to start buying raw milk again so I can get some thick, rich, yummy cream into the pitcher . . . and then into my morning coffee.

Speaking of coffee, where oh where is the Green Mountain Island Coconut java this year? It is not to be found in any of the usual spots, not even the branch of the used-to-be-Maine-but-now-owned-by-a-multinational-conglomerate supermarket chain. I once worked for said chain and truly enjoyed the experience. So disappointing to me that it is now part of a multinational . . . and no matter what the advertisements say, shopping here is NOT like shopping “local.” When the profits travel out of town, out of county, out of state, out of COUNTRY, it is not local. Some CEO somewhere is making a hugemongous salary, and he’s not paying local property taxes (unless a Belgian businessman has bought land in south-western Maine and I didn’t hear about it.)

However, to be fair, said supermarket does employ many Maine people, and they pay good wages. The working conditions are very good. I would still work for them . . . and then spend my paycheck at Kniffin’s and Goodwill and Plummer’s Hardware. I’d call it “operation reverse money drain”…sucking money from the conglomerate and dispersing it to the local businesses via my purchasing power.

As we head into the growing season, dear reader, I wish you all the best with your gardening, harvesting, and preparing of early crops. Peas. Spinach. Rhubarb. Strawberries. Don’t forget to visit your local farmer’s markets and roadside stands and berry farms. Consider locating local meat markets in your town or state. The prices may be a little higher, but consider the greater nutritional value. Eat less but gain fewer pounds while enjoying a nutrition-dense product that suports the local foodshed. It’s a win-win . . . Outside the Box.