Not out of Winter yet

I’m so glad I put those seeds in the ground. Now they’ll be safe from the squirrels under a covering of snow and/or ice. Whoohoo!

The weather is also reminding me how much water pools up around the raised veggie bed. Maybe I should move that to the higher side of the yard. Then think about a rain garden with blueberries and cranberries! Time to pull out more graph paper.

First seeds of the season

gardenstart_031107.jpg
Originally uploaded by mr_christopher.

Alright, so I have finally started sowing seeds for the new season. I figured I’d start with early vegetables, because a) it's early in the season, and b) they should be done, by the time we figure out what we’re going to do with the yard.

I planted the 1st and 3rd rows with a mix of radishes and kale, then I added spinach to the 1st row and beets to the 3rd. The beets are a long shot since the seeds are a few years old. Heck, the whole venture is a long shot, but it gives me something to do. I also figure that since I am logging it here, I’ll see it next year and decide whether it was a good idea.

I plan to sow rows 2, 4, and 5 next week. I’ll also sow lettuce in the big bed again. Woohoo!

g'nite.
christopher

Flickr

This is a test post from , I'm not sure if this worked right...

Heat zones!

I've been doing my homework and found a useful tool called the Heat Zone map, which shows the average number of days per year above 86°F (30°C). This is different from the USDA Hardiness Zone map that gives you the average minimum temperature. I’m basically in the same zone, 7 for heat and 7a for hardiness. Both maps are fairly detailed and you can find ones that will indicate your county, if you know the shape of your county, which I’m sure we all do... ahem, yes. I like the color of the heat zone map better, 7 is a refreshing green, which I’ll call lymon after the popular soft drink flavor. 7a is a pale salmon, mmm, pale.

Now I must warn you, zones are known to shift a bit from year to year, so don’t get fond of your color. Of course, if you have read or heard about the recent climate reports you’ll know that you can soon look forward to growing plants from zones far south of your current region in the not too distant future. Woohoo! Time to order some new catalogs. You may also want to pick up some salt tolerant species if you live in low-lying areas (20-30 ft above sea-level), those of you near the coast may want to inspect your PFDs.

Alright enough talking about climate change unless I’m going to do something about it, which at 22:27, I can only accomplish by reducing consumption through powering down the computer.

cheers,
christopher

Chugging along into the New Year

We’ve finally received some snow, quickly followed by ice and blasting wind. Since we started the year with spring many of the bulbs and buds in the area began to wake up, hopefully the damage will be minimal.

I added a few links to this page, mostly sites or magazines I find useful. I’ve also revised the yard map and am memorizing the seed catalogs, WOOHOO! Miriam is not sure how so much work can be relaxing, I consider it more like exercise or pre-season warm up.

My winter was spent reading about organic farming and landscape design in hopes that I can apply some of the techniques this year. I have few (I stress FEW) delusions that I’ll be sustaining the household with the backyard’s bounty, but I am interested in how cover crops could be used to build the soil. Also trying to figure the benefits and feasibility of crop rotation coupled with companion planting in maintaining a healthy yard. So much to do, but the ground is frozen solid. Maybe I’ll try starting seeds indoors in the meantime. On that note, the Washington Seed Exchange is tomorrow and it has been moved from the National Arboretum to Montgomery College, Takoma Park campus. Maybe I’ll see you there!

Right then, I must get to work.
christopher

Carbon Neutral

I found a link to an interesting site which helps you calculate your carbon footprint. Once you’ve done that you can figure ways to reduce or offset your load. You can see by the little badge in my side bar that I am 0% carbon neutral which, according to begreennow.com, is the equivalent of planting 0.00 trees. Woohoo! We’ll see if my numbers change.

I do plant trees, 2 so far this year, but it looks like the site is geared more toward buying carbon credits. I’ll look into it.

Cheers,
christopher

Italy

I have just spent a few weeks in Italy for a wedding and vacation. We stayed in Rimini, a town on the Adriatic Sea. I saw many small kitchen gardens and some impressive farms. The trip from the airport in Bologne takes you passed orchards full of espaliered fruit trees. I may just have to try that in the back yard.

The photo shows a medium sized orchard in downtown Rimini, it has grape vines, a pomagranate tree, a nut tree or two, as well as some other trees. This garden is about 2 blocks from the beach. I did not have a chance to talk to the owner and that may be for the better since I do not speak Italian aside from “please”, “thank you” and “let’s go”. I was especially enamored of the gardens around San Leo and the small section of Tuscanny (near San Sofia). I have a photo of a particularly nice garden in a tiny town, but it is blurry and does not do the place justice.

I can see how such great food comes from Italy and why the Slow Food movement started here.

cheers,
christopher

Polyculture bed

Here is a photo of the polyculture bed in my yard. this was taken at the same time as the volunteer tomatoes, some time in June. The bed is 12' x 4' and raised about 6".

Pictured is mostly lettuce, a few remaining radishes and calendula. We also planted dill, beans, and parsnips. As of today, pretty much all of the lettuce has bolted. It looks nice towering over the garden, but it is almost too bitter for me to eat.

More than the food value, I’m amazed at the variety of insects that now inhabit my yard. It is a mix of good and bad, there seems to be a balance. Of course I still have more slugs than I would prefer, but I’ve found several species of lady bug beetle. The least familiar is a redish pink one, Coleomegilla maculata.

I must go to work.

volunteers

Pictured here is the colony of volunteer tomato plants. I believe they are either small roma or large grape tomatos which have sprung forth from my first compost pile. This photo is a month or two old, we now have a decent crop, in various states of ripeness.

I shall try to post a more recent photo, trouble is clarity. Everything in that corner of the yard is starting to grow together.

There is now an unidentitied squash colony to the left, or possibly just a sprawling plant with 3 different shapes of leaves and two types of flowers stalks. I'm guessing spaghetti squash. To the right (lower right corner of photo), I have my first attempt at a poly-culture garden based on the first “recipe” in Toby Hemenway’s Gaia’s Garden. We’ve eaten a lot of lettuce and radishes, dill and now wait for the beans. Serving as a back drop we have what I figure to be an arborvitea.

Alright enough rambling. My original goal here was to post a photo.

Good night.

Oh, so slow to start.

The title could refer to either this blog or my home. We have lived here for about a year and a half. I spent most of the first year clearing junk, rotted landscape lumber and poison ivy out of the yard, as well as observing the general lay of the land. This may sound grand, but our plot is about 33' wide by 75' deep, and a third of that is house. I guess land can not be that big if you can easily measure it in feet. Maybe I should switch to metric, the numbers may be smaller, but very few around here know the size of a meter.

I have watched sun and shadow patterns, water flow, and soil composition. Suprisingly, we have a decent orientation. Southern exposure for the front of the house with a mature oak at a reasonable distance. The back yard gets a decent amount of sun in the summer, but almost no sun at the winter solstice until the end of the day, when it peeks around the neighbor’s house.

We are at the bottom of the “hill” for our row of townhouses, so most of the rainwater makes its way down to our yard’s NW corner. There is significant pooling during a heavy rainstorm as evidenced by the recent deluges, although it quickly disperses into the nearby grove. The front yard is fairly dry, most water runs off into the parking lot. The side yard (west) also pools in a decent rain, then runs back to the NW puddle.

Our soil is almost entirely clay, though it does contain a significant amount of rocks (landscaping gravel and what I think is local quartz), landscaping plastic, and construction debris. I have not yet tried a soil test. I probably should to find out what extra “nutrients” we have, I noticed one neighbor spilled motor oil on our front lawn (fairly sure it was an accident) and there was also a discarded gas can in the alley behind our townhouse row. With all the run-off in our yard I bet we will not recieve our organic certification any time soon.

Well, those are some of the basics. I will continue with what we are doing and what we have planned for the future.

Cheers,
christopher

Starting out

The intention of this blog is to record our experiments and escapades as we nurture (or destroy) our part of the Loving Forest.