Winter Hobbies

I get so antsy in the winter without outdoor projects, that I have to have a second hobby.  Baby knitting has been keeping me busy for a few weeks.  I love these little top-down cardigans. They’re so simple. I’ve been experimenting with different yarns and stitches, all are the same pattern though.

Detail – this is a newborn/3mo size, purl every 4th row. 

 Seed stitch, 3-6mo size

 Stockinette stitch with stripes, 12 mo size. 

None of these sweaters have been blocked yet – they’ll be a bit more neat and finished-looking once I do that.  They’re all longer, below-the-waist length.  The pattern could be easily adjusted for shorter lengths, though. 

Winter Dreaming

I’ve been absent lately from the gardening scene.  A lot changes in Minnesota between September and December!  I spend a good deal of the post-Christmas wintertime tossing around ideas for additions or changes in the garden.  We’ve just lived at this place for three summers, so the entire thing is a work in progress.

 Last summer, the kids and I got to dreaming about a project – a “Secret Garden” right off the patio.  The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, was a favorite childhood book of mine, given to me by my grandmother, who loved it as a child as well.  I just found out that you can read The Secret Garden online for free. 

Anyway I had passed the book on to my oldest, who loved it too.  I believe my middle daughter will be getting her own copy for Christmas.  We were sitting outside, brainstorming about creating a “garden room” space in the area that is partially surrounded by the side of a garage, the patio, and bordered on the north side by a grape arbor.  The yard is wide open in typical Minnesota-style, so we were wanting a space with a little more privacy, maybe surrounding the fire pit.  The kids fantasized about a tall garden hidden from all the neighbors, that they could slide into.  We have a play structure that is somewhat inconveniently located smack in the middle of things.  So, I thought, why not let the kids slide into a Secret Garden? We can always change it down the road.   We decided we’d dig garden beds in the round, surrounding the fire pit, with paths leading out, and a slide leading in. 

We had existing flowerbeds on two sides, against the garage and between a covered patio and the yard.  I spent two backbreaking days removing sod and turning the soil over by hand, and adding compost and manure mixture.  I chose the pergola for Mother’s Day, and my husband laid the flagstone paths.  I divided some perennials, but mainly we planted fast-growing tall annuals for this year, so we could create a “room” feel quickly.  This is how it all looked in June:

By September, it was like living in a lush green and flowery room.  The giant sunflowers were a “surprise” for the kids, as I knew the perennials will not come along for a year or two.  I planted a wall of Cleome (Spider Flower) and an annual Salvia, which re-seeds. 

On the walk-through pergola, we have two climbing roses.  I got the hardiest rose I could find, and I hope it does well.  It grew to the center of the arch this summer, and seems healthy.   I planted morning glory with it this year, which was a mistake-it was so vigorous in our rich soil that I had to constantly cut it back (almost daily) to keep it manageable.  Anyway, I hope it will be a shower of blooms next year.

 Here’s the view from the rooftop in September.  The sunflowers were a fun addition and were about 12 feet high! Most of the plants are bird and butterfly friendly, so we had plenty of backyard wildlife right by the house.

Winter came on with a sudden blast, and we were caught with some of the pots still out, as well as the garden bench. 

While the snow is sometimes hard to take, it’s a good thing in terms of keeping the ground nice and warm.  It’s like a good warm comforter in the winter for those roots and flowering bulbs.  Last year we got into trouble because we had a warm winter with little snow,  and bulbs sprouting quite early, followed by a deep freeze.  I’m hoping the snow stays put until it melts and warms for spring.

This year we plan to add some more tall perennials to the “Secret Garden”.  I have two matching trellises to go on either side of the pergola, to provide a privacy screen and to train the climbing roses on.  Last year’s perennials should be getting sizeable.

In October, I planted spring bulbs all around this circle, so we should have some early color.    Most projects like this are really a three or four year development.  If gardening teaches you one thing, it’s patience!

Eating Locally, Eating Well

The ultimate way to eat locally is from your own back yard!  Of course we don’t produce more than a fraction of what we need to sustain our family, but it sure is a nice supplement. 

Today, I had a chance to shop at one of my favorite stores, the People’s Food Co-Op.  It’s the largest organic supermarket in Wisconsin, and Wisconsin is now the largest producer of organic foods, especially dairy products, though there is much demand for organic vegetables as well. For the last couple of years, we’ve gradually made more and more of a concerted effort to eat locally, and eat simply. 

Finding local foods is definitely part of a learning curve; they exist in abundance, but knowing when and where to find them is key.  And part of that is simply reading the labels in the supermarket.Our conventional markets carry all sorts of local (if not organic) milk and other dairy products from local creameries.  Our favorite creamery of choice is the Westby Creamery Co-op.  The Westby Co-Op is farmer owned, and the milk comes from small family owned local dairies.  We get all the basics there, available in local stores; milk, cheeses, cottage cheese, yogurt.  What Westby doesn’t produce, many others like the Shullsburg Creamery are there to fill the gap.  There are a number of other co-operative creameries around, but we choose these because of their proximity.  It’s incredibly important, in our minds, to buy locally so these creameries, and the family dairy farms, don’t go out of existence.  For 10 or 20 cents less, I can buy a gallon of milk shipped 2000 miles from California, probably from a factory farm.  Where’s the sense in that?  We drive by these family farms often; the cows are out on pasture, and look, well, as contented as cows can look.  That’s where label-reading becomes so important.

There are a number of artisan cheese makers in the area, too, for something special.  Every time I make a trip to the People’s Food Co-Op, I pick up some amazing soft cheese called Driftless Cheese (sheep’s milk cheese) from Hidden Springs Creamery.  To die for!  Today I’m trying the cranberries and cinnamon flavor.

Melrose tomatoes are the local greenhouse tomato of choice when our outdoor season is finished.   An article about the family run business, the Tomato Patch, ran in the local paper in 2003.   They’re a bit more expensive for winter tomatoes, but you can’t beat fresh, locally grown, and we get them when our frozen tomatoes are gone or when we have a craving for a fresh tomato in winter. 

Currently, the local apples are still coming in.  It only takes a moment to check at the conventional market if you’re purchasing apples from 2000 miles away, or apples in your own back yard.  My kid’s favorite eating apples are Honeycrisp, available right down the street.  Honeycrisp don’t grow well in many areas, and don’t ship well, but the Honeycrisp site  lists some growers around the US.

Eating in season is also key to finding the best local produce.  In the summer months, we hit one of the local farmer’s and CSA markets around the area at least once a week.  The produce is unbelievable, reasonably priced, and couldn’t be fresher.  Eating in-season is a way to create family traditions – favorite apple recipes in September, corn recipes in July, pumpkin and squash in November.

Today, my lunch is a stir-fry mishmash.  Onions and carrots from our own garden (still picking carrots on November 17!).  Tomatoes from Melrose.  The last of the local red and yellow bell peppers.  Ginger (local) garlic (local) and olive oil (not local).  Bean sprouts (local – Minnesota) Most of the food didn’t travel far to get to my plate.

We feel incredibly lucky to have so many options.  It helps immensely to live in the midwest!  We can get locally grown and processed meat, as well, and the prices are reasonable, compared to what I see across the country.  My guess is, that as gas prices continue to rise and the cost of transport increases, locally-grown food will make more economic sense to the average consumer.    I see this as a time of incredible opportunity; communities with foresight could encourage local and diverse food production, and reduce reliance on foods produced through monoculture that must be transported thousands of miles to the supermarket. 

Green Roofs

Green roofs are a trend that have been around for a while now, but when I ask if someone knows what I mean, I usually get a blank stare.  Not that many people are familiar or have seen a green roof. 

A green roof, or living roof, is a roof that’s been planted! For steep roofs, it’s often done in a box grid system.  In cities, roofs are planted to help abate the heat island effect, and to minimize polluted stormwater runoff.  The plants and material on the roof help filter and clean the water that ultimately makes it to the storm drains.  As cities grow, this water issue becomes ever more important.

Sedums and grass mixes are often the plant of choice for pitched residential roofs-they don’t require much material to grow in, or watering, and after a few seasons, they form a dense root mat, discouraging weeds.  A living roof can retain upwards of 60% of rainfall, as opposed to a traditional roof at 5%. Green roofs are also longer-lasting and require less maintenance.  A green roof can last up to 40 years!

The research project at Michigan State University includes some great photographs and information. Scroll down the page to see the pictures.

Harvesting the Rain

Autumn and winter are the time to start thinking seriously about next year’s garden projects.  I spent last year dreaming of either a large compost system, or some moveable cold frames.  This is where enlisting the help of one’s spouse becomes invaluable!  I do most of the garden planning and the growing; my husband likes the building projects.  It’s a nice division of labor.  He really took the compost bin information last year and did a knockup job with that.

Lately, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to both rain gardens and rain barrels.  At some point I’ll write about rain gardens, but right now, rain barrels are what’s on my mind. I’ll admit, our $380 water bill is an incentive to think about water cachement.  I do grow a lot of native species that don’t require much water, but a few favorite flower beds don’t like to get dried out, and of course the vegetables need consistent watering.  I also keep multiple hanging baskets and barrels around the yard that need daily or twice daily dousings.  Midway through summer, we were on odd-even restrictions, making the situation really dicey. Here’s the garden that requires the most water.  It was newly dug last spring, and the perennials are just putting on growth and will need a little more-than-average watering through next year.

You can see the downspout coming off the patio roof in the background–it handles a lot of water, draining a section of the upper roof plus the patio roof.

View from above-it’s a circular “room”

Water cachement is a simple way to make use of what’s already there – rain!  It also makes sense to keep runoff from the roof from entering the storm drains, or from contributing to flooding.  Plants love the soft, warmer water, too.  Have you ever noticed how plants take off after a nice, soaking rain, as opposed to watering from your hose?  There really is no compare.

This area is always a bit troublesome with so much water coming through; it drains from both the patio roof and an upper portion of the second story of our house.   Immediately surrounding this area is where I hang numerous flowering pots, and it’s also a sunny spot in the yard.  The perfect spot for a rain barrel! 

There are many barrels sold through garden supply on the internet that are attractive looking, and while they don’t cost too much, the shipping is prohibitive. 

I think we’ve decided to build our own, and to start with this spot.  From the information I’ve gleaned so far, it looks possible to construct a barrel for about $30 in supplies.  The instructions are pretty simple; first you need a food grade storage barrel.  These can be primed and painted any color.  I think we’ll want the 55 gallon size to begin with, and the trick is finding a source for used ones locally. 

Then it’s as simple as cutting some holes and adding some hardware.  A hole is cut in the top where the downspout will come in to the barrel, and covered with a screen to keep out contaminants.  Some sites suggest a louvered circular screen with fine mesh on the back to fit on top.

You cut lower and upper drain holes; the upper hole is for overflow once the barrel is full. Or, it can be diverted into a second barrel. The lower hole is for the spigot or hose section. A 1/2 inch bit saw gets the hole just about right to hold the hose adapter pieces. 

It’s helpful to have some elevation to the rain barrel.  We plan to raise it up on a level platform, to take advantage of gravity.  The area where it sits is already higher than the rest of the yard.

There are a lot of other minor decisions to be made, so I’ll leave those to the handyman in the family.  I can’t wait to get started! If the first one goes well, we plan to catch water off the back of the garage roof,  just feet from the vegetable gardens.

WEBSITES:

Making and Installing Your Own Rainbarrel

How to Make a Rainbarrel

Rainbarrel Video

Broccoli, Sweet Broccoli

The only vegetables I’m still harvesting from the garden are broccoli and carrots.  I realized yesterday that I’ve eaten something fresh from the garden every day (excepting when I was on vacation) since mid-April, when the asparagus was up.  Usually I just head out around noon, and pick whatever’s ready, and then decide how to include it in my lunch, and our dinner that night.

I plant broccoli in the spring, and usually get a nice head ready to pick in June.  This year, though, we had a hot, dry spring, and the heads formed early and small.

Before they’re mature:

 And, forming a head, ready to pick:

Even the plants are kind of a pretty blue, near the center of the picture:

My kids love broccoli raw, preferably right off the plant.  There’s no comparison to store-bought, which to me, often tastes bitter, rubbery, and too old.   Fresh broccoli should be crisp, tender, and not too bitter at all.  If it’s barely cooked, it should be sweet.

I don’t pull the plants once we cut the heads.  If the plants are left, they produce two small flowerets on either side.  They’ll keep producing as you cut, until you’re down to bite-sized flowerets all over the plant.  I go out and snip them off, to keep the broccoli from going to seed, and we use the flowerets in stir fry, or salads, or just for eating. 

Usually I pull the plants as the weather gets too hot.  This year though, we had a strange reversal of weather – so I left them in to see what happened.  After our huge rainfall in late July, the plants really produced well. 

Now, the flowerets are really small, and not typically something I’d still be using.  I want to see how long the plants will go, though.  Yesterday I got three handfuls like this:

that I had in my lunch! 

Calabrese is the type of broccoli most people are familiar with, and that’s what this type is.  Broccoli has powerful anti-cancer compounds, as well.

Next year I want to try Romanesco broccoli; I’ve already got a source for the seeds.  The fractal patterns you can see in the photograph are amazing!  

Bees

Last weekend, I attended a seminar on beginning beekeeping put on by the Wisconsin Honey Grower’s Association.  I was hoping to get some strategies or ideas for home gardening regarding the whole pollination issues.  The last two years, I’ve noticed that some of the vegetables are not getting pollinated the way they should; cucumbers, melons, pumpkins.  This year, I counted a total of three honeybees in the garden.  Three!  Those bees were likely “kept” commercial bees, and not wild honeybees.  Bumblebees abound, but they don’t pollinate some of the vegetables the way honeybees do.

Most people have heard by now about the plight of the wild honeybee.  The disappearance of this most important insect began back in the 1980’s with the varroa mite, but I’m not sure that was common knowledge at the time amongst the everyday person.  Beekeepers were able to treat their hives, but the varroa mite is becoming resistant to the treatments–and the wild bee population was decimated.With the rise of monoculture, a particular crops may not have other blooming things available to support bees for an entire season in the area.  Commercial bees are trucked in to pollinate the crops, and then moved. 

Saving the bees is up to all of us.  We can try to plant varieties of flowers and plants in our own small habitats that support bees all season long.  My secret wish is to have a couple of my own hives, but we aren’t really situated for it; our yard is not fenced, and the neighbors might not take kindly to bees moving through their yards at chest level.  Something as simple as a solid fence can solve that problem; the bees move their flight path up.It’s possible to get by with as few as two hives, and startup costs are around $250.  Some of the honey operations are amazingly low-tech, yet that works so well. 

Urban beekeeping  is alive and well in the UK, and is even catching on in the States; people keep bees on the top of their buildings!  The city provides a dizzying array of year-round variety in blooms for the bees. I’m considering buying a small amount of bees for my own backyard.  A friend (thank you, Jennifer) turned me on to Knox Cellar Pollinators; her husband has some of these bees for his garden.  The experts I talked to said they will work quite well; the trick would be overwintering them.  I’m determined to give it a try, though.Some bee favorites in my yard include monarda, which is also a prime hummingbird attracter:

Columbine in early spring:

Honeysuckle:

Many varieties of salvia and sage:

Hollyhocks

and dozens of other varieties.

Interestingly enough, the three honeybees I saw in my yard last summer were all spotted in patches of clover in my grass.  As a child, I can remember walking along and seeing carpets of bees busily working in the clover in people’s lawns. They weren’t aggressive, just there doing their business, and it was up to us to step carefully.   It seems like the bees have gone the way of the clover–by applying herbicides and insecticides, our lawns have become sterile wastelands.  I guess I’m a bit of a rebel–my yard is full of beautiful emerald-green clover, and I like it that way. 

Butterflies

One of the most satisfying parts of gardening, for me, are the butterflies and birds that find refuge in our garden.  Monarchs are really one of the most amazing insects.  The monarch butterfly lays her eggs on one plant only, and that is milkweed. Milkweed is the only thing the larvae will eat.

I have just one red milkweed plant in the yard, but I probably will divide it next spring. 

Red milkweed looks like this when in bloom, and it’s very sweet and fragrant. 

The female butterfly will perch on the tip of a leaf, and she prefers to lay her eggs on the underside of the milkweed leaf.  Here’s one we spotted last summer:

The eggs are very tiny and white, almost invisible.  Sometimes there are 3 or 4 on a single leaf.  This one is about to hatch; you can see the tiny larvae inside as a dark squiggle.

Here’s a newly hatched larvae on our milkweed.  They’re easier to spot, because they chew patches in the milkweed leaves, but when they’re very tiny, they don’t even chew completely through the leaf, they kind of thin it out.

I can’t locate the pictures of larger larvae and the chrysalis–but everyone is familiar with those steps.  What’s really lovely is the butterfly that emerges! It’s quite a stretch from the green, yellow and black striped larvae now.

It isn’t enough to provide a host plant (milkweed, for monarchs) in your yard.  You need to include nectar plants, too.  The above monarch is getting nectar from a purple coneflower (echinacea).  They like a lot of different flowers, but they do seem to prefer coneflower and zinnias-at least in my yard.  They’re more skittish and harder to photograph than some other varieties that flit through.

It’s also important to have a water source–a flat rock with a shallow depression with water, or rocks where the butterflies can warm themselves are helpful.  I’ve seen butterfly houses, but we’ve never tried one.

One of the most incredible things about monarch butterflies are their migration.  Our last butterflies in August or September will begin a migration that takes them all the way to Mexico, where they overwinter.  They’re bedraggled and sorry looking by spring.  Then, they’ll lay eggs, and their offspring, and their offspring’s offspring (usually the fourth generation) will arrive here by mid-spring.   One of nature’s little mysteries, I suppose.  A site my kids love is Monarch Butterfly USA.

We also get a fair number of Swallowtails.  This one is perched on the milkweed.  They love hollyhocks, too.

And this lovely blue butterfly:

It’s important to JUST SAY NO to insecticides in the garden.  Nearly all insecticides will kill the butterfly larvae.  And, of course, attracting butterflies means that you have to accept that some of your host plants will be ugly and eaten a bit.  But that’s the whole point, right?

We love the Pick 4 website for butterfly identification. 

Crazy about Dahlias!

Today’s project was lifting the dahlias.  These are in my daughter’s garden; she chose them herself last May.  Kids seem to be attracted to the biggest flashiest blooms around, and dahlias definitely fit that bill!  These white ones are about 15 inches across and bloomed until the first frost.

Dahlias can’t survive the winter in our climate, if left in the ground.  I’ve never attempted to lift them before, but I spent a half hour this morning reading and making a plan of attack. We’d had the first frost, and the plants are brown, but the ground was not yet frozen.  So far, so good!  I then cut the stalks about 5″ above ground, like so:

and then loosened the soil with a fork spade in a circle all around the tuber, then started slowly removing the soil, trying not to damage any tubers or roots.  It was a bit harrowing–I had no idea whether I was being overly careful or too clumsy.Then when some of the dirt was excavated, I slid the fork spade underneath and sloowwwly prised up the entire mass.  Repeat times five.

Next step was to wash with the hose and then lay out in the sun to dry:

Each of these tubers connected to a stalk can become a dahlia if there’s one eye or more. The eyes look like little bumps on the neck (the area just above the tuber).  It was my first attempt at dividing, so I brought them inside after drying a bit and cut out the tubers with obvious eyes.  The rest, I left in their clumps.One of the eyes on the tuber on the left hand side is very visible.  A tuber with no eye will not sprout.

Final step was getting them ready for storage.  I looked around for some vermiculite and bought a bag.  I’ll reuse it for another project next spring.  I packed several tubers in gallon zip-loc bags, which were ventilated, with about 4 cups of vermiculite per bag.  Then the bags were put inside a plastic tote, and the tote will be stored in the attic.  The tubers need to remain at about 35-45 degrees, and completely in the dark.  I think the attic should be the perfect spot.  The temperature range may be a bit larger, but the vermiculite should help regulate that a bit.  At least this is what I hope!  It’s an awful lot of work just to store these dahlias, but if I have some good success, then I’ll try it again the following year, and share out the extras with friends.   Sharing cuttings, or dividing perennials, bulbs or tubers is one of the most rewarding parts of gardening.

We also mulched one of the rose beds.  We attach the boards in late fall in order to be able to pile leaf mulch about 24 inches deep.  A bit farther north, tipping roses is recommended, which is something I’ve never tried before.  The rosebush is partially dug out, a trench is dug to the opposite side, and the rose is tipped into the ground and buried!  I thank my lucky stars each fall that we don’t live farther north.  The mulching seems to do the trick for us, and we don’t have much disease, which is a positive with the cold temperatures.  We haven’t lost a rosebush in four years.

While I was working outdoors, my middle daughter ran back, excited about a woodpecker she spotted in the front yard.  We’ve had a Pileated Woodpecker in the last year, a family of Downy Woodpeckers, but this was something different.

I’d guess that this is a Hairy Woodpecker, a female or juvenile.  I haven’t seen one in our yard recently, but they’re common for the area.  The females lack the red color.  She was busy on this tree, a silver maple, in the area where a large branch broke off last year.  I hope our tree is not diseased!  We watched for a bit, and as we crept closer, she eventually flew to a higher branch, and scolded us until we left.

Carrots, please!

I dug these beauties this evening.  I read recently that the carrot originated 5000 years ago in the area around modern-day Afghanistan.  Originally, carrots were not orange, but white, purple, red, yellow, and black!  The carrot is related to Queen Anne’s Lace, which is apparent when you pull the plant and compare the roots to that of a carrot.   The orange color came about through breeding by Dutch growers, to honor the House of Orange.  Purple carrots are still available today though, and I hope to try growing some next year.

I have about two rows yet to dig.  These were planted almost as an afterthought; we got a horrific 27 inches of rain in 24 hours, and I thought they were probably drowned.  Because of the cleanup after those storms, these didn’t get thinned well, but they still taste darned good, despite the crowded growth.

It’s no contest between the storebought baby carrots and our homegrown carrots.  The sweetness and tenderness is unbelievable.  I barely had the carrots in the house and washed before the kids had devoured half of them.  I imagine those little tasteless baby carrots being turned on miniature carrot-lathes.  What exactly do they do with the trimmed off parts of the carrot, the part that is packed full of minerals and vitamins?  Perplexing.

Yesterday, I was checking out the blueberry bushes.  They’re in the third year, but have only produced once, because two years in a row, rabbits feast on last year’s new growth, just as the shoots are coming out.  We thought to foil the rabbits next spring by surrounding the bushes with tomato cages and plastic fencing, but I found the fencing had already been chewed through!

Here’s a picture of one of the fearsome little beast feasting on my pansies this last spring! There’s a pansy hanging out of his mouth–the very pansies I painstakingly grew in the dark in my basement last February!

Today’s project involved surrounding the bushes with chicken wire, and fastening it into the ground-hopefully rabbit proofed for next spring!

I think once the plants put on some size (which they  haven’t been able to attain due to the rabbit damage) that the rabbits will only be able to feast on the lower shoots, and we can remove the cages.

Blueberries make a lovely ornamental shrub, especially in the fall.  I love the bright leaves!

We have two varieties, to help pollination.  Originally we amended the soil, and I mulch with pine needles each year to help keep the soil acidic.  Right now we’re growing strawberries in the same raised bed, which will be moved if the blueberries start to thrive!  The upside is that the plants are very healthy.