It's Easy Being Green

Since I’m a rogue gardener, I’m also not shy about “stealing” plants.  Actually I’m pretty sure it was my wife who turned me onto the act, lasciviously telling me to uproot certain plants so she could divide, steal and replant so nobody would ever know.  Now I “steal” on my own without having to be told.

There are so many plants out there that require dividing because they multiply and sometimes at great rates.  Iris plants are just one such plant that benefit from frequent dividing.  The benefit to you is that you get more plants, so-called clones that you get to insert into your garden in another spot or give away to friends for planting in their gardens.

The other day I was working near a nicely landscaped series of garden beds and much to my surprise, noticed large, vibrant mint plants rambling throughout the bed.  Mint of course will take over anything if you let it because it sends up runners anywhere it can.  I simply plucked one of those runners from the soil, made sure to get some whispy roots on that plucking and dropped it in a glass of water at home.  It’s been sitting in a sunny window for about two weeks now and is about ready to find some soil I think.  The roots look great!  Now I’ll have my own mint plant thanks to “stealing”.

Other plants that you can “steal” and root in water include tomatoes (check out my previous writing on that), basil, avocado (the pits), pepper, willow, african violet, pothos, coleus, sweet potato vine, gardenias and spider plants.  I’m sure there are many more out there.  If you have a plant that you like to “steal” and plant or root in water, leave a comment and share with your fellow gardeners.

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When it comes to gardening, I’m like a mint plant:  rogue and rambling throughout the landscape, putting down roots wherever I see fit.  I guess that’s just how I roll and I kind of like it.  I’ve learned you can’t really be prim and proper with a vegetable garden anyway because inevitably, the darn things grow in ways you never expected and couldn’t contain even if you tried.  That’s why I go rogue.

I got my first vegetable bed planted earlier this week and two nights of soaking rain have helped to water it in good.  I planted 10 tomato plants all together: 4 roma, 4 cherry, 1 heirloom orange oxheart and 1 unknown plant that already has a tomato.  I also planted two zuchinnis and an eggplant in that tiny plot.

Last night I took advantage of the cool weather and finished my work with the pitchfork, overturning another plot of the backyard to plant in.  It’s supposed to dry out this week which will make it much easier to work the heavy Ohio Valley clay soil that I’m learning to wrestle with.  I’ve never seen soil so thick and claylike in my life, now imagine trying to figure out how to grow stuff in it!  After living in Arizona though, another poor soil condition, I’m just learning to deal with it and hopefully ramp up compost production so I can begin enriching and lightening the clay in our garden beds.

I also ended up coming upon quite the stack of free seeds from a fellow gardener who just had surgery and won’t be planting this year.   Last night I started rampling about the yard, poking seeds in just about every spot imagineable.  My thought is why not use every available inch of space or bare ground to grow some food for us.  So I followed the fence line, scratching a trench in the clay and planting Alaska peas, Henderson lima beans, Cherokee Yellow wax beans and Golden Bantam sweet corn.

The method would probably throughly confuse any “classical” vegetable gardener who likes to have everything in nice little neat rows.  That’s not me though!  I hilled up the sweet corn and planted about 6 plants to a hill and am hoping the line of bush beans and peas will just grow up against the fence at the edge of the lawn.  We’ll see how my rogue method works.  I can’t wait!

Meanwhile, I still have dozens of seed packets waiting for some bare earth and have work to get to.  My seed collection is verging on old, so I think I just need to plant everything that’s old and get it out of rotation.  I know a lot of it is already past prime and won’t germinate.  I’ve had some of these packets for at least 10 years if not more (I know, don’t judge) and most seed has a shelf life of only about 5 years.  It’s time to purge!

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It’s been a whirlwind past few weeks as we get into the final days of my wife’s pregnancy.  I can’t believe how quickly times has flown by and how much I’ve had to get done.  Admidst all that, I’m ramping up for the Summer garden season and am getting ready to get our vegetable patch going.

I probably should have started my seedlings a lot sooner but since this is my first season here in the Midwest, I’m a little behind the curve.  We’ve been saving our used cardboard egg cartons and just turned those into a seedling factory a couple of weeks ago.  They work great and don’t drain water all over the place and they save space too.  Eventually, you’re supposed to be able to just clip the individual egg cups apart and plant the whole thing just like a peat pot.

Another egg carton seedling tray with lemon cucumbers and yellow squash reaching for the sky.

I had a few loose seed packets left over from previous years so I started some lemon cucumbers, zuchinni, yellow squash, Trip-L Crop Climbing Tomato, Benchmark Tomato, Jumbo Tomato and some bush beans.  So far, the sprout factory is off to the races with with many of the squash plants winning.  Some are even ready to be potted up because they’re getting a bit leggy now.

My next task is to get the future garden plot prepared for planting.  We’ve been inundated with rain for the past three weeks or so and it seem like we’re finaly going to get a short dry spell.  That will hopefully allow me the chance to actually get out and get some soil turned over and ready to go.  The composter is set up and already on a roll.  We just cleaned out the rabbit hutches and that provided a lot of great compost material, along with our usual kitchen scraps and trimmings from the bushes and flowers around the house.

So, how does your garden grow this time of year?  Are you a Midwestern gardener with some time tested tips?  Let me know what you’re growing and what you can always rely on for a bumper crop harvest!

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Long before gasoline powered mowers, gardeners used different tools to trim up the lawn.  Whether it was a push reel, human-powered lawn mower or something as simple as a scythe, people lost the desire to use some hard work to keep up with the grass in their gardens.  Then came along the gasoline powered mower and the rest was, well history.

I remember as a kid watching a neighbor of mine struggling with his electric lawn mower.  I always thought that was quite the novelty, knowing only one person who actually plugged their mower into an extension cord as opposed to a gas pump.  It always seemed a bit of a struggle for him though, wrestling with the extension cord he was dragging behind him in the yard.

Black & Decker's new 24 Volt Cordless Mulching Mower

That’s why I got excited about Black & Decker’s new 24 Volt Cordless Mulching Mower.  It’s brand new to the market and seems like a fantastic edition to anyone’s arsenal of lawn care equipment.  The mower is Energy Star certified and plugs into the wall outlet to recharge itself.  The unit isn’t suggested for large lots as it can only cut about 1/3 of an acre per charge but for smaller lots it’s ideal.  Estimates show it will cost about $10 per year in electricity to operate their new mower.  Compare that to about $5 in gas every two mows.

Why else is it such a great idea?  Americans use 800 million gallons of gas every year just to mow our lawns.  In that process, we spill more gas than the Exxon Valdez spilled into the ocean back in 1989.  Gas-powered mowers are also responsible for about 5% of our air pollution each year.  It might be hard to believe those facts but when you consider American’s lawns take up three times more land than the corn currently grown, you can see just how big of an impact your lawn can have.

If you’re interested in entering a contest to win Black & Decker’s new 24 Volt Cordless Mulching Mower, head over to the Alternative Consumer Blog and enter yourself!  You can also win an electric sweeper there too.

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If you’re not an avid 60 Minutes watcher or missed Sunday night’s episode, you missed a great interview and profile of Alice Waters, the so-called mother of the slow food movement.  Shamefully, I have a couple of books with forwards by Alice Waters but didn’t know who she was until last night.

Alice is a staunch advocate of local farmer’s markets and stands strong in support of sustainable agriculture.  Her L.A. based restaurants, including the world reknowned Chez Panisse, utilize price fixed menus that change daily as farm fresh produce becomes available and goes out of season.  She’s also spearheaded the planting of a vegetable garden outside San Francisco’s city hall, a new classroom program that gets kids outside into a garden teaching them how to grow their own fresh and sustainable food and how to cook it and recently a call to plant a victory garden outside the White House.  You too can sign the petition to the Obamas by clicking that link.

If you didn’t get to see the story, I recommend you click this link and watch it now:

Alice Waters’ Crusade for Better Food

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If you’re like me, by this time of the year you start itching to get out of winter.  As much as I love it I also can’t wait to warm up into Spring and get back outside into the yard and the garden.  It’s a time of the year that signals plenty of produce and fresh food in the months to come.  By the time January rolls around, I anxiously await all 50 of the gardening and seed catalogs that pile into our doorside mailbox.  I’ll spend hours planning, plotting and circling seeds I want to order out of every catalog.

Before you buy enough seed to start a small farming operation though, you should carefully consider your garden plans and how much you really need to order.  First pick out the size and space that your garden will take up.  Some vegetables, like Globe Artichoke, can grow up to 4 feet tall and spread just about as wide.  Carrots however don’t take up much room because they grow down.  Make sure to pay attention to the growing requirements listed in the catalog because they’ll help you plot out the growing space.

Also, pay attention to the days it takes the vegetable to get to maturity.  When we lived in Flagstaff, Arizona, our growing season was extremely short.  It lasted just about 90 days which for most vegetables isn’t enough time to come to harvest.  We always had to pick vegetables that required short growing times.  In Indiana though, we’re now looking at a growing season that’s double that at 180 days.  That opens the door to more and more varieties of things to grow.

Lastly, don’t buy seeds for vegetables you know your family doesn’t like or doesn’t typically eat.  If only one person enjoy radishes you probably shouldn’t plant an entire section of your vegetable garden just dedicated to them.

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A sunflower left for the birds

If you live in a cold climate, you’re garden has probably seen the effects of the first major frost or snow by now.  The dead foliage and flower stalks might look terrible but you should think about leaving them just the way they are until early spring.  That’s because birds that overwinter in your areas could enjoy the dead flowers and plants throughout the harsh winter.  They’ll pick at the flower seeds and maybe even disperse them throughout the garden only to surpise you when things begin to sprout again.  When it starts to warm up and you begin to prepare your garden for the spring and summer months, chop back the dead and throw it onto your compost pile!  The birds will thank you.

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