It's Easy Being Green

If you have a backyard bird enthusiast roosting somewhere in your family tree you might be thinking about getting them a new feeder as a Christmas present.  Not all bird feeders are created equal though, especially those that look rich and come with a hefty price tag like the Copper Sip and Seed Bird Feeder.

The Copper Sip and Seed Bird Feeder looks great, especially right out of the box. After two years of review though, I can tell you the feeder has some major design flaws and doesn't weather well at all.

I received one of these feeders about two years ago and I watched it closely.  It took the birds awhile to discover it but once they did, they swarmed the two feeders and seemed to be getting their fill of seed.  I was worried that they wouldn’t have much room to maneuver or perch on the base of the feeders but it seems to work out for them.  The squirrels did unfortunately find the feeders and scaled the shepherds pole to show off their acrobatics and steal some seed.  They have not figured out how to raid the whole feeder and dump it on the ground yet so for now, they’re sort of foiled.

I have encountered what I think is one major design flaw with the feeders though.  The base where the seed pours out of the glass container does not have any drainage holes in it.  During rain or snow storms the base fills up with water and has nowhere to go.  That in turn soaks the seed which then clogs up the area where the seed pours out into the base.  I now have this little routine after the rain where I go out and tip over the feeders to dump out the water.  I then unscrew the base and break up the soggy seed and get it out of the feeder so it doesn’t mold or rot the rest of the feed.  A couple of times the rain has frozen over night and then I have to chip out the ice before the birds can get to their feast.  I’m hoping future versions of the feeder might include a drainage hold of some sort to let the water out. That would compete with the idea to use one to dispense water but their must be a solution.  Perhaps just a small covering on top of the feeder to direct rain away from the base.

Despite that problem, I think the Copper Sip & Seed Bird Feeder looks great out in front of our house.  The copper look adds a nice touch to the landscape.  I like being able to see the seed level and by the way it’s constructed from metal and glass, I’m hoping this bird feeder will last a lot longer than some of the cheap plastic ones I’ve used over the years.

UPDATE:

I’m now down to just one glass feeder tube because one of the tubes froze and shattered in the middle of  a bitterly cold night.  Also, I began using one of the tubes as a water dispenser as the manufacturer recommends but that also has some problems.  The process of filling the tube is a pain and you always lose half your water when you flip it back over after filling.  A filler hole in the top could easily fix this problem.  Also, after just two years outside the copper finish on the plastic is discoloring and rubbing off, making the feeder look dirty and beat up.  While it looks beautiful in the package and when you first put it up, the frustrations associated with filling and maintaining the look of this feeder gives me reason to recommend that you don’t buy it.

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Headed into late-October, our tomato plants here at the half-acre homestead are still happily trucking along.  I’m proud to report that the more than two dozen that we started with are all still here.  Granted some of them not as excitedly as others but they are still here nonetheless.  That is despite what the local cooperative extension considered a terrible year for backyard tomatoes.

Here in southwestern Indiana a cool, very wet spring was followed by an extremely long and oppressive heatwave.  Temperatures and humidity collided to keep us in the triple digit temp index for much of the Summer and it certainly wasn’t pretty for us humans or the fauna we so desperately try to control.  There were also reports of widespread early blight mainly due to the soggy wet spring weather.  Luckily blight didn’t make it into our brand new square foot garden or the extra tomato patch planted out back.

Tomatoes of all shapes and sizes were affected by splitting this year. From top left Cherokee Purple, Amish Salad, Brandywine (pink with green shoulders), Chocolate Cherry, Ultimate Opener, Thessaloniki (yellow)

We did have an insane amount of tomatoes that split for no apparent reason this year.  Tomatoes tend to crack when over-watered or after a heavy rainfall because the fruit goes through a rapid growth spurt afterward, causing the tomato’s skin to stretch and split.  Wide fluctuations in fruit temperature can also be a cause, especially if your tomato plant has lost a large amount of leaves.  The fruit will expand as it heats up during the day when the sun shines on it.  After sunset, the fruit rapidly cools and contracts.  That cycle over and over again stresses the tomatoes skin and can also cause splits or cracks.

Our Brandywine tomatoes (first year grown) would split even while green and we lost at least half of our potential harvest throughout the summer to the splitting.  Once they split, cucumber beetles would burrow into the tomato and create a home and eat until they rotted the entire fruit.  The cucumber beetles were one of the worst pests we encountered this year and they attacked just about everything they could get their little legs on.  Cherokee Purple tomatoes were also hit hard by splitting.  Chocolate Cherry, Ultimate Opener and Amish Salad tomatoes proved to be very split resistant.

The biggest producers in our square foot garden this year proved to be the Chocolate Cherry, Ultimate Opener, Amish Salad and Brandywine.  This plants had the most success with setting fruit and growing an abundant crop.  While we lost a lot of the Brandywine tomatoes to splitting, both the Chocolate Cherry and Ultimate Opener persevered through the long, hot and dry summer with little guff.  Our one Chocolate Cherry tomato plant produced at least a quart basket of tomatoes each week, more than enough to top our salads throughout the week.  We found the Chocolate Cherry to be more acidic than we like but would definitely grow them again based on how prolific it was.

Ultimate Opener put on a huge flush of growth after getting established in the square foot garden and at its height, reached about 8 feet tall.  This tomato flowered profusely and set fruit easily during the first half of the summer growing season.  The fruit is rather small, not good for slicing, but was really tasty.  Like the Chocolate Cherry, Ultimate Opener produced a quart basket or two of fruit each week.  In the triple digit heat wave the plant had obvious problems getting tomatoes to ripen so most were picked while showing a slight hint of red.  They colored up on the kitchen counter just fine though.  As we headed deeper into the heatwave there was a noticeable drop in blossom production and there was even some leaf loss.  The Ultimate Opener is looking bare but still alive and ripening a few golf-ball sized tomatoes each week.

Amish Salad produces a large, oblong cherry tomato perfect for salads of course.  This tomato plant grew rapidly and produced a half to full quart of ripe red tomatoes each week.  The heat didn’t seem to impact fruit set or ripening at all.  Unfortunately I planted this tomato too close to two others, Cherokee Purple and Tloculula Ribbed.  They grew into each other and just crowded each other out with growth later in the season.  This created a remarkable decrease in fruit.

The Brandywine tomatoes that made it to harvest were huge, weighing in at close to a pound each.

Brandywine tomatoes with their big, potato-like leaves, grew rapidly and didn’t let the oppressive heat stunt them.  Fruit set was great and during the first half of the summer these plants produced tomatoes that I would gather weighed about a pound.  They were huge…at least the ones that didn’t split and get attacked by cucumber beetles.  Their pink, purple and green colors inside made a feast for the eyes.  The Brandywine flavor was also superb especially with a dash of Pink Himalayan Salt across the fresh slices.

For every success there were also some duds this year.  I wasn’t impressed with Oregon Spring, touted to be one of the first producers of ripe tomatoes.  This plant struggled most of the year and blossom set was slow at best.  It has produced less than five tomatoes the entire season, none of which did well trying to ripen in the heat.  Yesterday though, in the cool of fall, I noticed the most beautiful deep-red and ripe tomato awaiting our morning garden walk.  I guess Oregon Spring redeemed itself and left me with a good memory.  Last impressions count, right?

Thessaloniki was another heirloom variety I was excited to try but ended up disappointed by the results.   The tomatoes are said to get to baseball size but in triple digit heat, most of mine only reached the size of a golf ball.  Fruit set was also pretty poor.

Tlocolula Ribbed heirloom tomato was a dud for most of the season but now is turning into a winner.  The plant was slow to grow but later bushed out and blossomed frequently but was slow to set.  I think being planted too close to another tomato plant also caused some problems for this one.  It didn’t set fruit well in the heat and has just recently produced a flush of fruit.  Their texture is wild to look at in the garden with all sorts of different, deeply wrinkled shapes.  I’m inclined to try it again next year to see what happens.

I think this Cherokee Purple tomato was smiling that it never did split and was off to our table

Another dud that I plan to give another shot is Cherokee Purple.  This tomato was quickly crowded out by others growing next to it and that seemed to be a major detriment.  It produced a few fruit early in the season but proved to be very susceptible to splitting.  The extreme heat seemed to bring fruit production to an all out halt.  Now that it is cool, Cherokee Purple has produced another tomato or two as we sprint deep into fall.

Just this afternoon we picked another basket full of green tomatoes, trying to beat a heavy rainfall expected for our region tonight.  Some of the tomatoes were showing signs of splitting (probably due to the cool overnight temps) and we wanted to stop them before they went bad in the rain.  Even though there is less than a week before we hit the month of November, our still producing tomato plants would make you think it’s still summer.

What is your favorite tomato variety to grow and why?  Share your experience below and maybe we’ll discover a new tomato variety together!

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Tomato plants stripped nearly naked thanks to a marauding band of Horn Worms

This year’s garden is now in a major lull with the exception of the cacophony of Tomato Horn Worms chewing their way though our plants.  It’s true, if you stand still long enough during the warm daylight hours, you won’t hear a bird’s song or the wind rustling through the reeds next to our frog pond.  You will literally hear the mandibles of dozens of green striped Horn Worms chewing tomato plants into leafless totems hearkening for another shot at life.

We’ve done well this year with our garden crop and have seemingly trumped the output of other backyard vegetable patches in our area.  More than a dozen tomato plants spread throughout our square foot garden fared decently but hit a noticeable slowdown once a triple digit heat index took hold for several long weeks.

Recently cool temperatures both at night and during the day have spurred some rejuvenation in those warm weather plants that seemed all but tapped out for the season.  A new flush of tomatoes have set and are increasing in size with each passing day.  It’s as if the tomatoes, falling out of stride, know the season is marching on without them.  They’re giving it one last push to make their masters happy before the frost settles and brings an end to their six month-long efflorescent parade.

While we wait for the last gifts of the season to ripen on the vine, we’re involved in a twice daily fight to the death with those devilish Tomato Horn Worms.  I’ve started giving the tomatoes a caffeinated jolt, spraying with diluted coffee when the air is still.  According to some discussion in an issue of Organic Gardening magazine, the coffee’s acidity makes the tomato leaves unpalatable to the marauding Horn Worms and there does seem to be some truth to the claim.  Meanwhile you could almost make a twice daily trip to the garden and fatten your own gullet eating a meal of horn worms.  If only they tasted like the very tomatoes they nefariously eat.

While it is still cool in the mornings, you can often catch Horn Worms while they are very groggy. That is where they climb to the tip of the tomato plant to catch some rays.

While the morning air is still cool you can easily bust the curled caterpillars trying to catch the sun’s first warm rays of the day while clamped firmly to the ends of the tomato branches.  It’s there my nimble fingers navigate between the leaves to pull and finally pluck the caterpillar from its tomato buffet and firmly plant it in a bucket with its recently harvested brethren.  Then again by sunset, Homestead Hottie and I tread through the garden once more searching for the “ones that got away”.

A bucket of Tomato Horn Worms freshly picked and destined to become fish food

Once my bucket is full and before the sun totally slips below the horizon line, I toss the day’s pickings out into the middle of the frog pond.  That’s where, lying just below the still and stagnant water’s surface, a group of fish await the writhing tender green gooey morsels looking to fatten their bellies on my future meal. Standing alongside the reeds on the pond’s bank, I watch the Horn Worms disappear one by one into a boil of frenzied fish mouths.  Once the last one disappears beneath the water’s surface, I understand why revenge truly is as sweet as some say it is.

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This past week we had a brief taste of Autumn here in southwest Indiana.  We fell out of our 90 degree temperatures and sticky humidity to land in a string of a few days that left us topping off right around 80 degree during the day and dipped us well into the 50’s at night.  It summoned the first opening of the doors and windows of the season, bringing a halt to the endless whine of the air conditioner for the first time in about three months.

Admittedly the delightfully cool temperatures were a bit of a shock to the system.  My Homestead Hottie bundled up in her fuzzy housecoat and flip-flop slippers morning and night, only breaking free during the afternoon warmth.  I, attentively watching marinated chicken grilling over red hot coals out on the deck, found myself standing as close to the grill as I could get without climbing right in and singeing myself to a crisp.  Darling Daughter has taken to pulling pairs of sweat pants from her dresser and waving them about until we get the message and put them on.

While we were grateful for the change in temperatures and the flirt with Autumn, we’ve found ourselves back in the upper 80’s this week.  The air conditioner has come back on and the windows and doors have found themselves sealed tight, waiting for the next opportunity to let the outdoors in.  The Indian Summer is a good reminder of what is to come and a spur to kick us into gear and hopefully get a good fall crop of vegetables sown before our first frost of the season.

For the past week we’ve been pulling plants ravaged by the long Summer season and sending them to the composter, the beginning of  a re-birth that will find them once again turned back into the soil but in a completely different form than the started.  The open space feels weird.  Sure the garden beds are beginning to look much more clean and tidy but I begin to feel  like I lost a good friend.  I’m missing a plant that produced so much and yet it feels like I just didn’t have enough time together.  The counter tops here at the Half-Acre Homestead tell me otherwise though, filled to the brim with fresh produce and at least two-dozen red, yellow and green hued canning jars preserving the Summer’s bounty.

Some have told us we’re about four weeks away from our first frost.  The long, warm Summer would tell me otherwise and thanks to a quick glance at the Farmer’s Almanac Frost Predictions this week, the good people there predict we’re about 60 days away from our first brush with Old Man Winter.  That means there is plenty of time to reap more goodness from the garden beds before we have to put it away.  Homestead Hottie and I have been busily sowing lettuce, spinach, peas, snow peas, carrots, potatoes, green onions, swiss chard, turnips, beets and radishes.  All are cool-season crops that, in theory, should grant our dinner plates with some more wholesome goodness before we begin dipping into storage.  I’m also experimenting, planting some Butternut squash to see if by chance we can eek out a supply of sweet winter treats.

It is also time for me to dig out a large stack of old, wood-framed windows I picked up thanks to Freecycle.  They will form at least one new cold frame in the square foot garden, hopefully keeping one of the beds warm enough to extend the season for some produce into Winter.  My to-do list once again begins to grow making me feel a bit like the local squirrels beginning their seasonal acrobatics, hop-scotching around to build their nest and food cache before a long Winter’s rest.

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Welcome to our SFG

My square foot garden (I’m going to resort to calling it an SFG from here on out to save space) has reached an important milestone in it’s development this week. It’s 6 weeks old *tear, sniffle, sniffle* and my how it’s grown!

At this point every square is filled in with the exception of several dud strawberry plants that did not grow. I ended up purchasing these boxes of plant crowns grown by Van Zyverden at Sam’s Club this spring. I ended up with 80 strawberry crowns and not a one of them sprouted. While being disappointed, I’m not surprised. This green thumb hasn’t had a very good track record with Van Zyverden products and have had to write to them on several occasions to get replacement plants. A simple internet search shows the web awash with similar experiences. I have a letter off to them even as we speak and have resorted to giving up after 6 weeks of no life and have started planting over the top of the dud strawberries.

Peering over the gate at the SFG. Notice the rain water barrel against the house. It usually is full with only one storm.

Looking to the west in our SFG. The tepee in the center used for the snap peas and snow peas is made from the giant sunflower stalks I saved from last years garden. They're strong and light!

In the meantime, everything else is off to the races. We’ve been unseasonably cooler than normal around here in southwestern Indiana the past few weeks with a plethora of rain. Snow peas and snap peas are still doing wonderfully, climbing their sunflower stalk tepee and producing a handful of new pods every few days. It’s enough to whip together shrimp and snow pea stir-fry which is currently on the menu.

Snow peas and snap peas climb the sunflower stalk tepee, reaching toward the sky. The tepee would work great for any type of light, climbing plant like a flower, peas or beans. I saved and dried the stalks from my giant sunflowers last year and tied them together to form a tepee.

A half dozen mustard greens have produced non-stop this Spring and are still going as we race toward Memorial Day

Mustard greens will also find their way into this stir-fry having put on a new flush of growth every couple of days. It’s enough to fill up a colander and they’re delicious any way we’ve prepared them.

The broccoli plants are beginning to form their heads this week and the brussel sprouts look like they’re about ready to grow their hardy stalks too. Our summer veggies are beginning to take hold as our temps edged into the 80’s the past couple of days. The tomatoes are getting a good flush of first flowers while also putting on good top growth. The peppers, while still small, are flowering too. Sweet corn is about 3-4 inches already. Squash plants and melons are beginning to stretch out and ramble around. Potatoes look like bushes already. We got to pick our first two strawberries of the summer on our homegrown plants and they were delicious.

Little E and I picked up these great strawberry plants from the Southwest Indiana Master Gardeners plant sale. There are three different varieties growing. We're going to see who does the best!

Weeding the SFG is an amazing experience. The soil mix makes it so easy to pull out the weeds and grass. In fact, T and I can blitz the weeding chore every few days and it only takes about 15 minutes to get the whole garden done. I’ve never met an easier garden to weed other than the one that doesn’t exist! I can’t wait for the bounty to come and am so pleased with how well the SFG is growing. So how does your garden grow?

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Imagine the joy of this past Saturday.  The sun was shining.  The sky was a vibrant blue.  Birds were chirping.  It warmed up to a positively balmy 50 degrees.  The snow had completely disappeared.  Now imagine today’s disappointment when I awoke to see another dusting of snow outside!

Mentally, we are definitely done with Winter.  I’m not sure what has all the sudden pushed us past the tipping point here in our household.  Maybe it’s the cabin fever talking but regardless of the reason, we want to see an end to our current season.

My "pile" of seed catalogs. It's one of my many piles that endlessly frustrates my poor wifey.

I’ve been trying to make myself feel better by burying myself with a pile of colorful and always enticing seed catalogs.  It makes me not only feel better but provides a little glimmer of hope that I will one day be back outside, enjoying the warmth and sunshine while laboring or simply enjoying our garden.

As you probably remember from previous posts, I’ve been toiling with my vegetable gardening “method” for the year.  Historically, our little family of three has moved just about every year, going from one rental to the next.  That won’t happen this year since we’ve actually solidified our existence and purchased a house.  Now we can put down some more permanent roots in our garden as well.

Last Fall, I took some time and read Lasagna Gardening.  I’ve known for awhile that no-till gardens are much more environmentally friendly and figured Patricia Lanza’s book might be enough to spur me in the no-till direction when planning our permanent veggie garden.  About halfway through her book though, I was frustrated.  What I needed to know, the way to lasagna garden, was literally two paragraphs worth of material in the beginning of the book.  Lay down a thick layer of newspaper to smother weeds and grass and then simply pile up loose, friable, organically supreme soil for your garden beds was the basic gist.  I’m glad I only checked the book out at the library and didn’t waste the money buying her book.  It was perfect for a beginning gardener who might be discovering this new found hobby but not for me.

I felt like I didn’t have many other options though and tried to mentally design how this lasagna garden would look in my backyard.  Our yard is already small and so I was really only looking to expand my vegetable space to about 19 feet by 12 feet, a little more than 200 square feet.  I started looking for cast-offs from everyone’s front yard, Fall decorations: straw bales.  Lanza’s soil mix suggests straw as a good component to help build your raised beds up above the original soil surface.  The idea is that the straw will compost with your other organics and produce a top-notch soil.

As Winter pushed deeper into the calendar, my straw bales sat untouched, well at least by me.  Dixie, our doofy but lovable dog, has been smart enough to use the straw bales as a warming perch this winter.  Every morning she sits with a yoga-like patience atop those bales, warms herself in the early morning sun and keeps watch for the mouser cat Haley to wander back from her early walk to eat breakfast.  The more Dixie sits, the more the straw bales break down making it easier to spread into future garden beds but frankly she seemed to be getting more use out of it as a makeshift sundeck.

Dixie sits atop her straw bale sundeck. It's a product of my procrastination and her keen, dog-like ingenuity. To the right you can see our composter, poorly visited bird feeder (which will be moved) and a torn up piece of trellis used to keep Dixie off of what was left of the collard greens.

Knowing my yearning to pick something, my wife gently nudged me in one direction with a little Valentine’s Day present.  It was Mel Bartholomew’s All New Square Foot Gardening:  Grow More in Less Space.  His concept, ditching the inefficient practice of gardening in long single rows, made much more sense for our tiny backyard.  I haven’t blogged a bit lately, in part because I’ve spent the past seven days reading Bartholomew’s book from cover to cover and embarked on the design process of our own square foot garden.  Check back tomorrow for more on how I designed our 2010 vegetable garden and what I’ve been able to get done so far.  Hopefully it will trigger you to start planning your own and make the most of your garden space and your wallet!

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Agricultural conglomerate Monsanto is at it again with another big threat to organic agriculture and we all need to speak out against it.  The USDA is currently taking public comment on Monsanto’s request to approve Genetically Engineered (GE) alfalfa that will be Roundup ready.

This is similar to their Roundup ready soybeans currently on the market.  The GE seeds produced by Monsanto allow farmers to spray their crops with Roundup chemical herbicides, protecting the soybeans or alfalfa but killing everything else herbaceous, like weeds, growing around it.

The USDA itself predicts that by approving GE alfalfa, it would damage family farms and organic meat and dairy markets but doesn’t propose any way to protect them.  The main concern revolves around cross-contamination of organically grown non-GE alfalfa and the fact that organic foods can be sold without having to identify that the animals were fed GE livestock feed.

Public comment is open until February 16th, so time is ticking.  Head to the True Food Network to send a form letter to the USDA as part of the public comment record.  You can also submit a direct response at the regulations.gov website.  Our friends over at Organic Valley have also provided these talking points and suggestions for writing your own letter and mailing it over, which in some cases, seems to have more of an impact than an electronic statement.

By Mail: A written letter is very powerful. Mail your comments to:

Docket No. APHIS-2007-0044
Regulatory Analysis and Development, PPD, APHIS, Station 3A-03.8
4700 River Road Unit 118
Riverdale, MD 20737-1238

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