It's Easy Being Green

We’ve done it again! We took a trip to the local Rural King yesterday and it was an adventure as always. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Rural King, it’s like the everything farm and ranch store but in classic old K-Mart style (at least the K-Mart from my childhood). The buildings and parking lots aren’t inviting or attractive. Trails of dropped popcorn (a fresh popped freebie you get as you walk in the door and a true treat while shopping) on the rough, uneven concrete floor shows you where your fellow shoppers have been.

Our mission was to pick up some Shoreklear to get rid of all the reeds choking our pond at the Half-Acre Homestead. Dodging corn kernels all the way, we found what we came for and a little bit more (of course). That’s the fun part about the Rural King: you never know what odds and ends you’re going to find that you can’t imagine living without. Pushing toward the back of the store we heard the seasonal cheeps of baby chickens coming from the stock tanks turned brooding pens.

We already have three ladies who inhabit our Backyard Bodega: Bertha, Bernice and Blue-Red. We picked up the three Auracanas last year with a friend and they’ve been happily laying their quintessential pastel-colored eggs ever since. Realizing chickens aren’t that difficult to care for, we couldn’t help ourselves when we saw the price of baby chicks was dropped down to just a buck each (minimum of 6 to buy). So we bought six more little pullets. Three are Rhode Island Reds and the other three are Silver Laced Wyandottes. We quickly divided a place for them in the Triple-B Bodega and these spring chicks seem to be interested in getting to know their bigger counterparts! With time ladies…with time.

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It’s been a wild spring around the Half-Acre Homestead. The weather has been nothing but weird with our lack of winter and early warm-up. Following the tornadoes we had to dodge in March, we’ve been struck by two hail storms recently. The hail pelted our plants that emerged from their winter slumber early but luckily didn’t leave too much damage behind.

Panic set in again at the Half-Acre Homestead this week as we got a late season Frost Warning issued for southwestern Indiana. Just a week before, our normally conservative agricultural extension agent had given the all-clear signal that people could go ahead and plant their precious seedlings and begin the gardening season.

Mother Nature had a different idea though when she ushered in some colder air from our good friends up north. We literally had just replanted a wave of rogue tomato seedlings and some rogue pumpkins that have sprouted up around the yard. To make it even worse, we planted them on the hillside out by our little pond which gets a considerable amount of frost compared to the protected confines of our square foot garden.

Luckily, with a 7 month old in the house, we have a stockpile of baby food jars in the garage. We never know when these might come in handy so we always keep a basket or two of them around. We were able to turn a basket full of baby food jars into an easy, DIY cloche that would protect our seedlings from two nights of frosty temps.

If an early season frost sneaks up on newly planted seedlings, turn a baby food jar into an easy DIY cloche to protect them.

After two nights of frost, we were able to lift the jars on Friday and found all the seedlings had survived. Safely tucked away in their jar, warmth and condensation helped them through the night. Well, most of them. Our Darling Daughter Everly thought the already dead raspberry cane out by the pond needed some extra help so she loaded it up with baby food jars.

While it wasn’t useful in protecting the long-departed raspberry cane, it made for a nice rustic art installation on the Half-Acre Homestead. We shall call it “Bottle Bush”. In the meantime, try to track down a friend, neighbor or relative who has a little one and get your hands on a basket of your own, easy, do-it-yourself garden cloches. Enjoy!

Everly's art installation out by the pond was created using a dead raspberry cane and several baby food jars. I think the effect is rather rustic, almost primitive.

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Proof positive that raised bed gardening has its perks: I unearthed these gems this cold late December afternoon out in the garden here at the Half-Acre Homestead. These were planted in late spring and there are many more in line to mature behind them. For anybody who doubts you can grow your own food in the winter this should tell you otherwise!

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Frosty windows, glinting grass and foggy ponds overtly demonstrated the seasonal change this morning. Tri-Staters, if you didn’t catch the word yet, tonight we’re getting our first freeze warning of the year. That means you gardeners will have some work to do if you haven’t planned ahead.

We did and last night marked one of my favorite nights when it comes to the kitchen garden. It’s what I have affectionately dubbed the Hustle Harvest. This hurried effort is brought on once a year, every fall, when the forecast calls for the first frost of the season. When the call for frost is finally made by the National Weather Service, we bundle up and hustle through the garden harvesting every bit of tender produce that will be ruined by frost. Tomatoes, peppers, basil and other tender herbs that are still hanging on need to be picked.  Even all those green tomatoes will ripen over the next few weeks inside your home. You might even have delicious, bright red homegrown tomatoes to share at your Thanksgiving feast.

Last night was no exception. Talina and Everly had picked most of the tomato plants clean by the time I got home and had quite the wagon load waiting for me to haul in. I bundled up and with the fall nip descending as quickly as the sunset, hustled around picking a load of late season peppers and trimming down the basil plants. We ended up with abouts 30lbs. of green tomatoes that will ripen inside over the next couple of months, 2lbs. of bell and banana peppers and several bushels of fresh basil. The kitchen smells wonderful…that heady spicy scent of basil filling the air.

True, the Hustle Harvest means the end to another gardening season. This one was not quite so productive but it means the beginning to a new gardening year is just around the corner. The anticipation will last all winter.

Hustle Harvest 2011 netted about 30lbs. of green tomatoes, another large bushel of basil for drying and a handful of bell and banana peppers.

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This has certainly been a challenging gardening year, at least for us here at the Half-Acre Homestead. Not only do we have significantly less time to work in the garden (due to the impending arrival of baby girl #2 in the next few weeks) but the weather has just been a bear this year.

All varities of squash have set nicely this year but so far nothing has matured. Every plant has been attacked by squash vine borers and died.

We had an early tease of a warmup early this spring but then the weather turned cold and downright nasty. Cool, rainy weather stuck with us through the end of June but that now infamous 2011 Heat Bubble has built up and doesn’t seem to be looking to leave anytime soon.  Our garden plants were slow to start and are now battling high-heat and humidity.

As a result, this past week marked the arrival of the first ripe tomato. It’s happened significantly later this year than last. Our spring planted squash plants (pumpkins, zucchini, yellow squash) are all dead now, thanks to an outbreak of squash vine borers. The wasp-like insect lays its eggs on squash seedlings. The grub-like infants grow in the stem of the squash plant, boring out the inside of the steams as they eat. Eventually the plant can’t exchange water or nutrients and withers. We’re hoping a second planting will start producing in enough time to save our squash season.

Our popcorn patch has wasted no time shooting up toward the sky and looks to be producing quite a few ears of future popping goodness. Eggplants have also been extremely slow this year both growing and with fruiting. Etna bush beans (used for drying) have been doing very well and produce abundantly. Our pole beans on the other hand have yet to set pods even though they’re covered top to bottom in blooms.

Hopefully things will eventually catch up but if they do, we’ll probably already be gone to The Farm in Summertown, Tennessee to welcome our newest member of the family into the world. How does your garden grow this year?

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Is it truly possible that a tide of change is surging in to the fattest city in the nation? I think it might just be possible with the addition of local farm markets, a new Fresh Market boutique grocery and one of the most shocking signs of change I’ve seen yet: a vending machine with healthier snack options.

A new, healthier vending machine located at Eastland Mall

This new Fresh! vending machine is located in the eastern entrance portal to Eastland Mall, right next to the Old Navy store. It also happens to be placed right next to the new electric train that will drive you and your kids around for a pretty penny, talk about a captive audience! However, the fact that this machine contains some healthy options such as Cliff Bars for Kids, fruit juice pouches, fruit snacks and Stacys Pita Chips makes this granola dad happy.

Sure, I know what you purists are saying: this isn’t good enough and its still processed food and what about those Kettle brand potato chips! What I have to say in response to that is this is a good solid move and I hope to see more trends in this direction here in Evansville. Only then will we begin the road to recovery as the fattest city in the United States…that and eliminating the McDonalds or other fast food outlet on every corner

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The weather here in southwest Indiana has been flip-flopping faster than a group of politicians lately. May proved to be a tough one to get the garden off to a good start before the heat of summer set in and parched everything. We struggled the first half of the month with copious amounts of rain, day in and day out. The raised beds proved their worth in being able to shed the excess water and keep winter vegetables from turning into a bog.

Cooler temperatures (we’re talking 50’s some days) definitely put a cap on growth rates though and stunted warm weather crops that should normally be out around that time. Several tomato transplants just couldn’t get the early sunshine and warmth necessary for them to establish and they ended up withering away. Once two weeks of severe rain moved out, we quickly ping-ponged into the mid 90’s with full sunshine. This extreme temperature swing stressed even more transplants and left local gardeners and farmers wondering what season mother nature was going to stick with for awhile.

It looks like the heat has ended for the time being, taking us back down into the upper 70’s and low 80’s. Another stormy and wet pattern is setting up for the rest of the week. Established plants took advantage of the sun and heat though, putting on a flush of growth that caught them up nicely.

Calico Popcorn begins to stretch toward the sky while a volunteer pumpkin begins to ramble about in front of the popcorn patch.

Our patch of Calico Popcorn out near the duck pond already reaches my knee and almost swallows up our Darling Daughter when she walks in the rows. The tomato plants are also doing great, shooting up a foot or more in the past several days. We’ve even started to have some blossoms open within the last couple of days so hopefully by the 4th of July we will pick our first homegrown tomato. Potato sprouts are shooting up but who knows what they’re doing beneath the soil’s surface.

Our two black and white cats poke through the new garden space checking out the tomato patch and the potatoes in the lower right.

Cosmo Savoy Lettuce has been a big producer in the cool temperatures and only recently has started to bolt. It’s produced many dinner salads for us and by far has been the most successful lettuce growing we’ve ever done. Purple Globe Turnips have also done well this year and provided a continuous harvest. Our grapes are off to the races too. They are quickly climbing up the arbor over our garden gate and are stretching down each side of the garden fence without abandon. We even have some clusters of grapes growing and can’t wait to taste them when they’re finally ready to eat.

The grapes have started furiously crawling across the tiny arbor over our garden gate.

This is the first year we've had clusters of grapes growing and we can't wait to try one!

We’re planting more fruits and veggies every day to keep a continuous harvest cycle going this year. We can’t wait for those summer staples like tomatoes, zucchini and yellow squash to start producing. How does your garden grow? What has done great so far and what has been a disappointment?

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