Sounds good to me:

“I don’t have time to garden well. I garden anyway.

Gardening is one of those activities like caring for children or learning about the past that rewards you for every little effort, no matter how small. It’s an infinite game.”

You can’t lose or fail is what I’ll keep telling myself.

Like this post? Share it with your networks!

So my plans for experimenting with cold frames in the cold fell through, but I got a job doing research for a winter CSA on campus. I’ve also been trying out sprouting stuff lately. No pictures right now, but so far I’ve sprouted peanuts, lentils, garbanzo beans and the green alfalfa type sprouts you can buy at the grocery store (see www.sproutpeople.com). Its been fun and delicious though Jessi is allergic to many raw foods. Earlier tonight I planted some lettuce in a green planter we used for herbs last year. We’ll see if I can get lettuce to grow amongst the papayas. I want to get an earlier start on the garden this year and maybe have some stuff (lettuce, radishes, carrots, etc) ready for eating on my graduation party!

In my research for my on campus job I’ve found a lot of info on organic gardening including this website with lots of old, free books. I’ve been reading An Agricultural Testament by Albert Howard and Weeds: Guardians of the Soil by Joseph A. Cocannouer. Both are great, but I especially like the latter because he is advocating weeds.

Like this post? Share it with your networks!

I read Eliot Coleman’s books a few months ago (thanks for the barnes and noble gift card, dad) and we will be experimenting with fall and winter gardening this year. Here are the cold weather seeds coming our way:

Parsley, Italian Dark Green
Bull’s Blood (beets w/red leaves)
Napoli (“candy carrots”)
Evergreen Hardy White (scallions)
Belstar Super (Scorzonera – its a really long dark brown root in the Asteracea/sunflower family)
VIT (corn salad/mache – apparently the cold hardy vegetable)
Chioggia Red Preco No. 1 (Radicchio ie those little red lettuce heads)
Winterbor (Kale)
Super Sugar Snap (fall peas – who knew?)
Encore Lettuce Mix
Fall Green Manure Mix (for where we don’t plant the rest of this stuff)

Can I say it is ironic that our winter seeds were ordered during the hottest days of the summer? I don’t really understand irony. We picked everything out and ordered around noon and a few hours later it was 99. Luckily it rained a bit in the early evening. I did a little reading and learned this drought isn’t new- it’s actually been going on since the late 90s! Not only that, but it allegedly rivals the dustbowl era and the drouty 50s for, well, droughtyness (Firefox crashed on me and I’m not finding the link right now).

Our results this year haven’t matched what our hopes and projections were, but I suppose thats to be expected. Its hard to say how much is ineptitude and how much is the weather. Of course we as organic home growers aren’t as hard hit as the conventional farmers all around us. We just need to keep the hose on a bit longer. Lets hope August gives us some rain and tomatoes!

Like this post? Share it with your networks!