Yay! 20% off Heirloom seeds at www.hometownseeds.com

Hello y'all. Its been awhile since I posted anything. Spring went zooming by and Summer caught me unawares. I'll be posting photos of the garden soon, with the results of the 2010 Sheet Mulch Experiment.

I wanted to take the chance to introduce you to a new supplier I've found.  Hometown Seeds sells a wide variety of Open Pollinated Garden Seeds.

Here's my favorite of all the cool stuff they sell.   Survival Seed Bank


They also have a family sized version called Survival Seeds with 16 open pollinated heirloom varieties. The best part is the packet of growing instructions included with the pack. I like having so much information about the seeds I plant and now I know just what to expect.

Right now they are offerring a 20% discount on all of their products to all of us eco geeks.  By entering the coupon code thanks, 20% will be reduced from the total cost of any order.  The code will be good through July 31, 2010.

I'm taking the opportunity to stock up while all my favorites are still available.

For the Love of Cardboard

My daughter is mortified. Its a common ailment when you're 15. But I have gone above and beyond in my parental obligation to embarrass my teenage child.

I've discovered sheet mulch. Oh, I've tried it in the past but the Bermuda Grass always overtook my heavily mulched beds. But this year I have a new ally. 

First, the photo.

This bed has potatoes planted in the first section. The middle is covered in plastic and warming up for cantaloupe. The last section is wide rows of hulless oats with mustard in between.

We cut the grass (read weeds) nice and short. Then put down a thick layer of cardboard, overlapping the edges so the grass was completely covered. Over that went a layer of straw and some compost. 

Then I cut 18 inch strips of weed barrier cloth. We tucked these strips under the edge of the cardboard, weighted it down with bricks and then rolled the outer edges of the cloth over the bricks. In the places where the cloth was too narrow I just stacked another brick on top of the first one to keep the cloth rolled up and over the bricks. Here's a bed we just finished. Once all that mulch and compost is in place, hose the whole thing down to make it nice and wet.

You can see the edge on the left doesn't have any weed cloth. That's because we'll be widening it as soon as I find more cardboard. The cardboard and straw smother out the grass. The cardboard breaks down and the plants send their roots through all that mulch and into the ground. For transplants I have to cut a hole in the mulch, but all but the smallest seeds seem to be doing just fine.

Yes, its a great way to expand the garden with a minimum of effort, but what does all this have to do with embarrassing my teenager? Well, all that cardboard has to come from somewhere (insert evil laugh). I make my rounds, the grocery, the feed store, the auto parts store, sweetly asking the manager if they have boxes to spare. I ask everywhere I go. Once I even hit up the Potato Chip delivery guy right there in the parking lot. I thought my kid was going to DIE!

But once we got home and she began screening beautiful compost she could see the beauty of all that scrounging. In two afternoons we made that really long bed in the first photo. Now we have a big, beautiful garden. Plenty of room to plant those lovely seeds in anticipation of healthy, organic food to feed our souls as well as our bodies.

We're Baaaack.

Hello everyone! I've been absent from my blog for quite some time. The winter was long and cooooold. I'm told Leos don't do well in the wintertime. Personally, I just want to curl up on the couch and hibernate until the sun is warm again. 

So I dreamed of sunny days and lovely flowers...and I digitized a new embroidery collection. Its called Bougainvillea and it has 19 designs and a full uppercase alphabet!

I have several strategies for getting through the winter. I sleep a lot. LOL, just kidding.  


I draw beautiful flowers and turn them into embroideries like the ones above. I peruse the websites of my favorite organic seed suppliers. I make garden plans on graph paper. I read my favorite gardening books, like this lovely one I got for Christmas from my awesome student and dear friend. I check my canning jars for chips and I count them, comparing how many I have with my huge (imagined) harvest. I choose a subject to research so I'm learning something new.


Then, just when I think I can't stand it anymore, something wonderful happens.

Winter Garden Update

I promised y'all an update on the winter garden.  I am a woman of my word.

So far so good. Last night got down to 20, the night before the temp was 18. Everything in the little hoop houses is still growing. This morning I found a little green caterpillar in the lettuces. If that little guy can survive then the concept is working.

Spread the Word...Ambrose Farm needs your help!

This story is shocking to say the least. Here's the scenario...a wealthy former nascar driver builds himself a home in the country. Then he decides that the farm next door is just too noisy and too messy for his liking. The farm was there when he moved in. You can't miss it, it's that big green and brown thing next door. So he files a lawsuit to shut down the farm, which is a U-Pick/CSA local food producer that's been in operation 35 years.

If you are a locavore, a foodie, or you just like to eat, please spread the word on this outrage. If Irvin wins all the farms in this area will have to cease operations. Presumably so more wealthy people can build McMansions where the U-Pick used to be.

You can see I'm upset so I apologize if my words are too harsh. Here's the Facebook group that's been formed to muster support.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=191899304699&ref=ss&v=info#/group.php?v=wall&ref=ss&gid=191899304699

Winter Garden? AKA Itching To Plant

Winter has finally arrived here in my little goober town. There was a heavy frost last night and lows in the 20s are expected through the next 3 days.
Winter is always a hard time for me. I have little extended family left. My mother, my grandmother, my only aunt and all my great aunts and uncles are gone now so the family rituals are hard to maintain with just the kid and me. Winter is also the time when I don't get to play in the dirt.
Maybe staying indoors deprives me of Vitamin D from the sun but I hate being cooped up in the house. I search the web for more seed suppliers, researching veggie varieties I have not grown yet. I make little scale drawings of the garden space trying to figure how many more raised beds I can fit before I run into the neighbor's fence (do you thing he'd let me plant stuff in his yard too?). 

These beds have been awesome. So far they've been completely free of Bermuda grass. Very few weed seeds have made it into the raised beds and I keep the stuff that doesn't need polinating covered to keep the bugs off.   I built these beds early last Spring.  Here's how. You'll need 8 cedar 1 X 12s for every three beds, one cedar 2 X 4, landscape cloth and rust proof screws. Leave 6 wide boards full length, cut the last 2 wide boards and the 2 X 4 into 30" pieces.  Dig out a hole 31" X 8'2" and 3" deep. This step really is worth the effort. Line the hole with landscape cloth, extending the cloth at least a foot beyond each end. Screw two full length 1 X 12s and two 30" 1 X 12s to make a rectangle like in the photo. Place one 2 X 4 in the center as a brace and securely screw to the frame. Lower the frame into the hole you dug and backfill around the outside edges. Fill with garden soil, humus, compost, whatever combination you like to use as a growing medium.

The hoop covers are made from black plastic irrigation pipe. I cut 6 to 7' lengths and just pushed the ends into the soil. I tied the intersection with twine for stability. This one here is covered in cheesecloth 'cause I live in the boonies and couldn't get any tulle. But polyester bridal tulle makes a great row cover. It keeps the bugs from munching on your tasty plants and eliminates the need for pesticides.

That's all well and good but what about WINTER? Here's my experiment...cover those same hoops in plastic and grow cool weather veggies. It's still at the experiment stage but here's what the same bed looks like today.

Those lettuces look pretty darned happy. The plastic also keeps them from being injured by the dry winter wind. If they survive the next few days of cold nights I'll be able to declare a success. I'll report back to let y'all know how it goes.

Molasses In My Coffee

I just had to show you all a photo of my little Asian pear tree. Cross your fingers that I planted it correctly. The 14 yr old, AKA EmoCracker, loves Asian pears and at 1.50 apiece I thought growing them would be a good thing.

I learned some new things today so I thought I'd pass them on. For a year or so I've read here and there about the 100 mile diet. For a lot of folks it is a great way to lessen their carbon footprint and raise the quality of the food they eat. I don't worry too much about it. I grow everything I can out back in the yard. But I can't grow anything that can be used as a sweetener.
I know, I know, I could start keeping bees. I don't know beans about keeping bees so I've decided that project will just have to wait.
So I decided to try putting molasses in my coffee. I have some that is produced across the river in Kentucky so that's within the 100 mile limit. I tried it and it was goooood. Then I read the label, 'cause I'm a Mom and that's what we do. Turns out molasses provides potassium, magnesium and iron.  WHO KNEW? Yes, it does have sugars but the fact that I'm getting a little nutrition from my sweetener thrills me to no end.

I do realize there is no coffee produced within 100 miles of where I live. I've decided my coffee consumption is medicinal and therefore does not count.