Lifelong Learning Vegetable Gardening Basics

You may remember me mentioning in my last post that I would have some great new news to share with you very soon. Well I do!

The University of Utah lifelong learning program has asked me to be one of their instructors during the Spring Session and I have agreed to whole-heartedly! I will be teaching a "Vegetable Gardening Basics" class for five weeks beginning on February 5th and running through March 5th. In addition, I will be teaching another class at the end of March on "Maximizing your Garden Production" focusing on space-saving techniques, trellising and other ways to maximize your garden in small spaces. That class will run from March 26th through April 2nd.

I was flattered greatly that they thought of me for these classes and, although a little nervous, I am super excited to get to do them. I've taught vegetable gardening basics a number of times with the Master Gardener extension service program, but they have always been in relatively short one session classes. They always seem to feel rushed and I always felt like it would be great to really get to "dig" into some of the topics more deeply. This will be my chance.

If you are reading this and are in the greater Salt Lake City area and are interested in the class. Please go to the Lifelong Learning website at the University of Utah website and register. For that matter, if your in the area at all, go to the site and check out all they have to offer. From gardening, to pasta making, to photography and Chinese for travelers they have to much to offer! It's a great program and I'm so proud to be a part of it.

For those interested, I will post more details of the topics to be covered in the days to come. I look forward to seeing you there!
P~

Permaculture course Video 2

I've watched a second video in the Permaculture series and it was great! After the slow start of all the class business that needed to be covered the instructor, Dr. Hooker, really just jumped right into the thick of things. After giving an idea of why he feels permaculture, and more specifically sustainability, is important now he got into some of the big ideas.

Dr Hooker first off spent a bit of time talking about cycles and the "systems" that we live in. One of the main ideas of permaculture is learning to design systems. Understanding our part in those systems and designing accordingly. Currently most people live in a cycle that takes resources from one place, changes it (manufacturing), and then disposes of it into some sort of "sink" or landfill essentially. That isn't a cyclical system, it's a pattern of consumption. A system, at least from what I got from it, takes into account the different ways that a resource can be used, reused, then redirected into the next system that may build upon it. There is no waste in nature.

He also spent a bit of time talking about the Gaia theory. I have not done a lot of reading on this - it's on my list - but I do subscribe to it from what I understand of it. During his talk on the Gaia theory he made an interesting comment. In talking about our beliefs and how many, most actually, are of the "When I see it I'll believe it" mindset, he decided some time back that he would take the opposite path and believe it, and see what he sees. That belief changes your perspective; I liked that. Take this challenge that he gave as an assignment. This week, believe that the earth is a living, sentient being, then see what you see while walking around on this living being... It's an interesting way of looking at things.

The final part of this lecture was just sort of covering the main differences between the Basic Principles of the permaculture "founders" Bill Mollison and David Holmgrens, as well as his own "list" of permaculture principles that he's distilled on his own from what he has learned from both of these men as well as from others. I thought I'd list the principles here for our reference.

Bill Mollison's Permaculture Principles:

1. Relative location
2. Each element performs many functions
3. Each important function is supported by many elements
4. Efficient energy planning
5. Using biological resources
6. Energy cycling
7. Small scale intensive systems
8. Accelerating succession and evolution
9. Diversity
10. Edge Effects

Dvid Holmgren's Permaculture Principles:

1. Observe and interact
2. Catch and store energy
3. Obtain a yield
4. Apply self-regulation and accept feedback
5. Use and value renewable resources and services.
6. Produce no waste
7. Design from pattern to details
8. Integrate rather than segregate
9. Use small and slow solutions
10. Use and value diversity
11. Use edges and value the marginal
12. Creatively use and respond to change

Dr Hookers Permaculture Principles:

1. Observe and interact
2. Relative location or connections
3. Energy cycling
4. Each element performs many functions
5. Each function is supported by many elements
6. Efficient energy planning
7. Small scale intensive systems
8. Use edges and value the marginal
9. Accelerate succession and evolution
10. Use and value diversity
11. Using biological resources

Dr. Hookers list is, as you can see, basically a mash up of the two different ideas, but I think it's genuinely a good mash up. The last half of this lecture Dr hooker went into details of the different principles on his list. If you'd like, I can go more into those details, but honestly if permaculture is something that you're interested in implementing in your yard, homestead or garden I heartily encourage you to watch this video installment.
As I said, if you'd like me to go into more detail on the principles I'd be happy to, but I don't think I would do it justice in just a blog post, plus I don't know how much interest there is in hearing my opinions of it anyway. If you are working on implementing permaculture principles and would like to share an of your information, please do so. If you have questions or comments, I'd love to hear them. Ultimately the greater the discussion we can generate, hopefully the better we can all learn to understand this intricate and complex philosophy.
Till next installment.
Namaste
P~

Small minds just don't get it...

I refused to believe that I lived in that sort of neighborhood. That's really what it was... I just plain refused to believe it. All the signs were there - every home was, more or less, a copy of the one on either side of it. With their concrete curbing painting toothpaste like lines around very generic landscaping, a couple of decorative rocks on the grade up to the doorstep and the obligatory flowering pear trees in the mow strip. Lawns of the best turf grass that modern agricultural science can buy paint green in between the neat lines of the sidewalk, the white (don't go crazy with any of those WILD colors like beige...) vinyl fences and the obligatory side yard concrete garden for planting unused "must-haves" such as RV's and four wheelers. And yet I somehow still didn't believe that this was the type of neighborhood that could house people that would plain out just despise us for not fitting into their mould. Well, I was wrong.

Yesterday afternoon we found a neat and tidy little note left taped to our next-door neighbors bedroom window facing our house especially for us to read.
It probably should have made our mouths drop open, but it didn't. Not because we understood their position by any means, more to the fact that it didn't surprise us that these people would do something so frickin chicken shit as leave a sign up rather than to come over and talk with us.

Now, first things first, I don't necessarily mind the term hillbilly because, with a wife from the hills of West (by God) Virginia I have come to know many hillbillies rather intimately and they are among the finest people I've had the pleasure of knowing. My dear wife however does point out that she prefers the term Appalachian American particularly when Hillbilly is being used in the pejorative.

The light to which our neighbor refers is really a non-issue as well, let me explain. We have a back door to our garage that is far from any room of our house that an intruder or burglar could easily use to get access to the rest of our home. After having our car broken into right in our driveway, we made sure to have a light on above our back door as well. It's a safety issue that we are not willing to stop. We've explained to our neighbors that we are sorry, but we're not willing to risk having a secluded entry to our house unlit through the night.

The greater part of this was referencing our "white trash yard". Despite desires to expand our little "homescale farm" into our front yard we have opted to play along. By that I mean that we have maintained the "little boxes made of ticky tacky" appearance for the most part in our front yard as well.

So I could only assume it is to our backyard that they were referring. That and/or our side yard garden where we grow different crops from one year to the next. I was right.

My wife went over to talk with Neighbor "A" about this sign and was told that they just can't stand having to look at our yard. My wife was curious as to why of course and that's when we got the picture loud and clear: because we are different. Of course they didn't come out and say it in as many words, but it was damn near from what I understand. They were simply incredulous that would have the gall to grow corn in our front side yard
I really like it there honestly... and this is the worst it looked all year. We had been gone for a week and then I had surgery and was forbidden from working in the garden for another week and a half so there were some weeds, but really it is well kept up, it's just the fact that we grow food. Can you even believe that? They literally said, "Why can't you just be like everybody else? You shouldn't have moved to this neighborhood if you wanted to live this way!" By "this way" I take them to mean keeping chickens and raising 800+ pounds of food from my gardens. To them it makes me and my family white trash to use our private property to grow and support ourselves with organic fresh foods from a backyard garden. If that's the case I can live with it.

The disappointing part really, is not so much that these people don't like us, they're arrogant asses, I don't really care. What surprises and disappoints me is that apparently they've been going around and commiserating with a number of our other neighbors and it's almost unanimous that we are trashing up their neighborhood with our gardens and our crazy out of the box thinking!! I just refused to believe the stories about neighborhoods that were so close minded that a person was ridiculed for taking care of his family or daring to rely more on their own efforts.

So far the list of complaints as we understand them are our corn, our sunflowers (yes, they can't stand seeing the sunflowers in our yard and hate that they attract bees - isn't that kind of the point??), our gardens and our clothes line. All of which besides the corn are behind a 6 foot solid fence?!

It sucks to be surrounded by people that just don't get what we're all about, but then again they've never tried to get to know us either. It won't deter us though, we'll still keep on with our way of living and probably even expand it.
Say? How do you think they're going to feel about the two beehives we're planning on adding next year??

Take care all, keep growing your own and marching to your own beat!
P~

Last minute hail protection

We knew we had a storm rolling in tonight, but as it came in it had all the signs of one that might bring a bit of hail. And it did. For some last minute protection from possible damage to our still tender plants in our garden I called into use some of my stock - my wife would say overstock - of pots.

There's also some glass figurine covers that I picked up at a thrift stores for a few cents a couple of years ago.
I placed these over the plants literally as the storm blew in and was immediately glad I did.

A few minutes later the hail arrived. It wasn't a tremendous downpour but the weather forecast for the next 36 hrs is very unsettled and may include more hail and snow so I'll leave these on just to be safe.
Just some of the things that need to be taken care of in the backyard farm.

Any of you have any other creative ways you like to keep your "babies" safe in inclement weather? Share them in the comments section to help us all out and give us ideas.
P~

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Preparing to plant potatoes

Recently, I dropped by our local nursery to pick up a few additional items that we needed to have. One of those items was another five pounds of Yukon Gold potatoes.

While we were sorting through the 'taters, an older couple was there looking to get some as well and asked us if we'd ever grown them. I was actually pretty shocked, after we said "yes, many times", when they asked us, "what are tubers?" (The sign on the display referenced tubers) I guess I shouldn't be... shocked that is... but I was. I guess our disconnect from our food has been going on longer than I had imagined. We talked to then for a little while, giving them a basic primer in potato growing 101, and went our separate ways. It got me to thinking that this may be a really good time to go over some of the basics of growing potatoes. I Usually have my potatoes in the ground around St Patrick's Day, but this year it's been so rainy and wet - Locally our watershed levels are averaging around 160%-170% of our normal level - that I haven't been able to get them into the ground. I probably could have squeezed them in at some point, but I think I would have suffered from a lot of rot if I had.

First of all, the potatoes themselves are the tubers; and tubers are "...various types of modified plant structures that are enlarged to store nutrients. They are used by plants to survive the winter or dry months and provide energy and nutrients for regrowth during the next growing season..." (wikipedia). Just needed to get that straight from the start.

Potato's are plants in the solanaceae family. That makes them cousins with plants like Tomatoes, Peppers and Eggplants. If you think about the way that those plants bear fruit, you'll have a pretty good idea of the way that potatoes bear their tubers as well. Many folks think that potatoes grow from the roots of the plant, an understandable thing considering the photo above, it does look like they've grown from the roots, But take a look at this photo:

You can see the seed potato that was placed in the ground and can clearly see that the small potatoes are growing from the stem ABOVE the planted potato. Think again about tomatoes... if you pay attention to them they actually grow from a small stem that grows from the main stem. Potatoes are the same, except that they only grow on the stem that is underground. Because of that, they are planted a little differently.

This might look a lot like how you would lay out any other plant before putting it in the ground. The difference here is that I'm not going to plant them into the hills, but rather will bury them a couple of inches under the soil at the bottom of the furrows. I lay the potatoes out so I know how many I can fit in a row, then dig them in and leave them alone. Potatoes don't need to be watered in because the tuber itself is mostly water itself and is designed by mother nature to support this plant as it gets itself established. I let my potatoes grow until they are nearly a foot tall before I ever irrigate them. The spring rains take care of that for me. After the Potato plants have grown up enough to be five or six inches above the ground, I will then rake or hoe the soil from the hills over and onto the plant itself. After this, I let the plant grow further. When it's another five or six inches above ground level again, I will hoe the soil up onto the plant again leaving furrows between the plants that I will flood irrigate once or twice a week.

As the weather turns hotter and the plants are getting taller, I want to keep mounding over the plants as much as possible, and mulching to keep the moisture level steady and weeds down. Grass clippings work great for this. The reason, in case you were wondering, why I keep mounding soil and mulch over the plants is because, as I said, the actual potatoes grow from the stems above the seed potato, but only where it's covered. I want to make sure that there's as much stem underground as possible when the potatoes are growing. So, the long and the short of it is that with a little understanding about the way that potatoes grow and some of the ways that you can coax them along and get great returns for yourself.

Best of luck with your tater growing!

Paul~

This and that

Just a little bit of this and that today.

Check out the girls at the buffet...

This is a backyard lawn view of the Chicken tractor moving along the lawn. It's amazing how well they will scratch up the dead grass and thatch, and will spread their manure. Our back lawn has loved it this summer!


This years trial plant was a little different. We usually try a new veggie, but this year, a new melon made the list.
It was the "melon charentais". An heirloom french melon that gets great reviews and for good reason; this is a great cantaloupe and it's a actual cantaloupe too, not a musk melon being "called" a cantaloupe like the things we here in the US get in the market. I made sure to save a good bit of seed too. This one's a keeper!

And thought some of you out there from back east, or from abroad may enjoy a look at the fall in the Rockies.
I was out hiking this weekend, scouting for the upcoming Deer and Elk season.
These pictures are from about 2.5 to 3 miles into the back country and after climbing from about 5200' elevation to 7200 feet. It was NOT an easy hike, but I'm happy to say that I've fared alright for as bad of shape as I expected to be in.
I'm thinking that this year, I'm going to camp under stars in the back country for a couple of days during the hunt. I've never pack hunted that far in before, but I've always wanted to. Hopefully the weather will cooperate.

Hope all's well with you.
Till next time.
Paul~

Date Night at Ogden Botanical Center

I told you I was behind on things and by golly I was not lying. Waaay back in mid-June, A~ and I had a nice little date night out together at a local garden park. The Ogden Botanical Center is the sister site to the Davis Botanical Center which is our local Botanical center, the place where A~ and I did our Master Gardener training.

Of course, as with any time I get around a bunch of flowers, I took a bunch of pictures... Enjoy.

Two things A~ and I love are Gardens and Art. So of course, we had a great time.

The walking paths through the gardens were lined with booths set up by local artists. We walked through and enjoyed and thought about some time in the future when we could maybe buy the art we love... one day.

Looking out from the bridge in the "Japanese Garden" section of the center, we see the raised garden beds of the centers vegetable gardens. We walked through the garden and sat on the wide edging of the beds and determined then and there that in our next homes garden we will invest the money necessary to build this type of raised gardens. Bending was limited, the height was just right and the beds were narrow enough (I would guess 3 feet) to easily allow for reaching across them.

Just a very nice little river feature, oh and I love any kind of garden structures!

One of the local farms was out selling their local made ice creams. I think the tractor was just there for looks. It was a nice one though, old but perfectly restored.

Over in the evening shade near the rose garden was a very nice little Pavilion with a local String Ensemble playing classical music. We sat and listened for a time and just enjoyed each other.

Then, of course, we had to take time to smell the roses...



Is that not a beautiful rose?

We weren't the only ones out enjoying the garden.


As we were leaving, I noticed a little feature that I would suspect probably escapes a lot of the visitors to the Center; it was a Swale. A swale is a garden landscape feature that works in conjunction with the terrain's natural drainage tendency to help slow rain runoff and to allow the ground to receive more water.

In the Arid areas of the western United States like the one where we live, this is a great technique for capturing water that would otherwise find it's way to our rivers via the fastest way possible and the faster the water runs off the more sediment it takes and erosion that is caused. Bad all the way around.
Above you can see the way a berm was built along the contour of the lawn area. The area to the right of the lawn is a hillside that would naturally runoff a lot of rain water in our stormy seasons.
The berm make a shallow area between the hillside and the lower area that allows the water to slow and pool. During a large storm, this area will no doubt fill quite a bit and become a temporary pond area. As the pond sits, the water has a chance to percolate into the ground hyper saturating it and allowing a water plume to flow under ground where it can be used for months by the plants and trees around the gardens.

All in all we had a great time together that night. After walking through the gardens we headed down town to try out a new restaurant that we've thought of trying for some time. The food was good, deserts were great (Creme Brule for A~ and fried peaches and ice cream for me!) and we needed a walk around the block to let it sit.

Good times... Good Times!
Best to you all.
P~

Around the 'Stead

It's getting to be that time of the year around here.
Some things have been a surprise, others a little slow to get going, but over all, I've been pretty happy so far. I guess I just have to keep in mind that after all, it is only June 23rd.

I could go into more detail, but in the interest of my just getting caught up, I think I'll just give you all a little over view.
Enjoy.

These are my Hamson Tomatoes. A very good producing, heirloom, determinate canning tomato.

Peppers. Two varieties of Green Bells, some Reds, and Jalapenos.

This corner is harder to get to because of the fountain, so we filled it with Beets and Turnips.
This is the first year that we're trying out Turnips. So far they seem to be doing well!
Here's a new tomato trellising method that I'm trying. I needed to find a way to effectively trellis along my back wall. Hopefully this will hold up well. This trellis is holding 14 plants (7 heirloom San Marzanos, and 7 Roma Tomato plants that I saved seed from.). At the end of the row is some Eggplants too. The front is my spinach beds. They've been producing really well too.
One of my three cut and come again lettuce beds. These will be getting trimmed this weekend. Mmmm Salad time...
A perennial family favorite, Kohlrabi. I never seem to plant enough of these.
Early Girls setting tomatoes should be reddening soon.
Peas... filling out and nearly ready to harvest the bulk of them.
One of this years biggest surprises. Our Artichokes.
You can't see it very well from here, but there were 13 artichokes on the plants at the time I took this. I've harvested a few already too. These were the Artichokes that I over wintered in the greenhouse.

Like so many things, I sometimes have higher expectations of myself and my garden than are realistic, but it seems every year I feel behind. I can only assume that it's because the season seems so much longer as I work on my off season growing and preparing.

The biggest thing I can say was successful so far this year, is this. With the exception of the Artichokes. Every plant I just showcased for you was started from seed. This is a first for us. Some did better than others, and lessons still come with every year, but I have to admit I am proud.

Hope you enjoy the tour. More to come soon!

All the best to you all.
P~

Catching up after a long long spring

This Spring has been a bear!
Last years spring was wet. I thought it odd, but hey, it's spring in Utah. That stuff happens. This Spring however makes last years look timid.

Looking at the local weather station stats I found that the temperature was below average for 26 of the 31 days in May by an average of over 7 degrees lower. Eleven days were lower by 10 or more degrees and a few of those were nearly or even at 20 degrees below normal!!

It was wet too. having rained or snowed on 14 of the days. Nearly half the month. Now, this is the normal time of year for us to get a good bit of wetness, so that's not a big deal. The odd part is the number of rain storms this year that have hammered the crap out of everthing. The wind gusts have been far higher and nearly every storm of any kind, results in hail. That is not cool for leafy veggies!

The cool wet spring has been good for peas though. The annual favorite of the wet spring weather has not yet let us down. We planted three beds of peas this year and all are doing fairly well. Here's one of them all tied up to the "square in the air" that I like to use. And here's another in one of the few beds that doesn't yet have a trellis set up. No worries though, a few bamboo stakes a little creativity and the peas have been supported.
And here's another big surprise of the season. I never would have guessed when I over-wintered theses babies in the greenhouse that they were so cold tollerant. My first harvest of the year has been an artichoke!
And there's another on the way...
Last weekend was one of the first weekends that we've had in some time that were worth getting out and getting much done. I took advantage of that weather to get some of the plants from the G-house out and transplanted.
Here's the Meyer Lemon tree all pruned up and re-potted. Looks good eh?
And here's an experiment for this year. Potted Tomatoes. In these pots I planted the three cloned Heartland tomatoes from last year, Two Rutgers Tomatoes and a San Marzano.

And speaking of the cloned Heartland tomatoes... how about this.
They're fruiting!

One...

Two...

And yes, all three cloned tomatoes are fruiting!
The plants are a bit stunted looking, but I think they'll come along. The point is. These plants are fruiting and that means they are a success in my book!

This year I'll make it a point to also save some seed from them, but at least I'll have the opportunity.

Today I'll leave you with a picture of the summer iteration of the greenhouse. Shade cloth included.
The weather man says it's supposed to get into the 80's this week, so some adaptation was in order. We'll see how this does for me.
Hopefully the bad weather's behind us for now and we can move on into the growing season. This weekend I'll be getting beans started so it better!
P~

A little community work

I've mentioned in passing, here and there, little tid bits about community gardens. I've wanted to get my hands into a community garden in my area for sometime. This spring, I thought I was going to get that opportunity.

A nearby city, wanted to start a community garden. A co-worker of mine brought in a newspaper with an article that he had read that said they were looking for a coordinator to help provide them some vision and to bring the project to fruition as it were. A~ and I went to the first meeting that they had, as interested parties. There was one other person that showed any interest in helping and he was there as well.

As it turned out, he and I were about as far apart on the community garden front as two people could possibly be. I, to put it plainly, believe community gardens should be organic poly-cultures made up of plots that are "owned" by individual gardeners or families. I think they offer a great opportunity to learn from each other and to offer instruction to the community. The other fellow is more of a "traditionalist" shall we say. He likes to have big rows of one crop. He's big on chemical fertilizers, even to the extent of telling me that he's "planted a little late when it's been cold weather and then just really go heavy on the fertilizer for a few weeks to catch them up." and when we discussed classes for beginning gardeners his belief was that we'll tell them when they have to spray for this bug or that. Yeah, like I said, we're really diametrically opposed on the basics.

Long story short, and believe me it was a long story, I ended up not doing the community garden at all. Not so much because I'm not willing to work with others well or anything. Basically I guess I was just not willing to put the things I believe in so strongly to the side for the sake of working with what was a very very... ummm... Strong personality. Yes, that's it, a strong personality.

If I'm being honest about the whole process, I don't blame that guy at all. He was reliable, he was motivated and he was a hard worker from what I saw. He and I were just from two different schools of thought. The problem I have with the whole process was with the city and it's representatives through the whole process. From the get go, I realized that we envisioned two distinctly different visions for the garden and I put my vision together on a very clearly stated "mission statement" for lack of a better description. I sent this to the administrators and said basically "This is where I'd like to take you, if you want to go there, I'm your guy. If you don't them he's your guy. No hard feelings either way." Still, the city had no commitment to a particular vision of their own, and from what I can tell were just bulldozed into doing whatever was in front of them by a "very strong personality".

In the end, I did end up going down and helping the five families that ended up having small plots in the garden to get a few things planted. I donated some tomato plants that I had started and I felt good helping out to some degree. It was a learning process and one that pointed out a number of things to be concerned with the next time I take on a venture like this again in the future. And I will take one on again I'm sure!

Here are a few picture of the garden as is stood on the 22nd of May when we went out to plant. It had rained hard for two days prior to planting so it was a bit of a mess, but we did get get planted nonetheless.This is the whole garden. It's a really good sized area that the city decided to use. You can see some of the plots along the back and right side that have been planted already. Corn, Tomatoes, peppers and tomatillos. That's it. All planted by one guy, paid for by the city. It will go to the local food bank so that's good. But apparently the local families will have only corn and salsa?
This section. has a number of smaller plots laid out and are the plots allotted for individual families. The plots on the right side were complete soup. Very very wet!

And here were a few of the families that showed up to plant.

I hope I don't come off too whiny about the whole process. It was a great thought that the city had in wanting to have a community garden for it's citizens and I wish them all the very best of luck. I just can't help but see so many possibilities that are being missed.

One day.... Till then, best to you all.
P~