Kel's Garden Journal

buying local and the Dirty Dozen

2012-02-09T09:58:00.000-05:00

The "Dirty Dozen" is a list put out annually by the Environmental Working Group that lists the top 12 produce items to buy organically based on pesticide residue found. Along with this list is a list is the items with the lowest pesticide residue, the "Clean 15." If you are trying to avoid pesticides organic is the way to go, however it can be expensive. This list helps consumers prioritize purchases of conventionally grown foods to best meet both health and budget considerations. It is better to eat conventionally grown produce rather than not eating fruits and vegetables at all.

Another great way to buy organic is to buy local. Many small farms do not use pesticides. Often these small markets cannot afford an official designation as "Organic," but if you ask the farmer you will learn about their practices and learn that they do not spray or use synthetic fertilizers.

So, what is the difference between organic and "Organic." This is actually a lesson that I teach my students and we start with the USDA organic labeling law. Food is big business and the laws are actively changing. If you are the type that likes to keep on top of the latest news and read the technical data the NOP Newsroom will keep you busy!

These days it is just as important to have a good local farmer as it is any other professional, like your banker or lawyer. Take a day and find your local markets and farms and change your buying habits. Your buying power is impacting the way producers, handlers and retailers manage your food.

glyphosate, really?

2012-02-06T10:05:00.003-05:00

I have been following the local native plant society.

Recently a question was posted about hos to handle a specific seasonal weed. Quite energetically a reply popped up recommending the application of glyphosate (RoundUp) as a first step. Wow.

Apparently the concept of IPM (both Integrated Pest Management and the Herbicide Resistance Weed Conservation Plan) have not been introduced here in Indiana yet.

I am beginning to get afraid to plant anything edible in the soil here.

I don't know about you, but I was a little pissed a couple years ago when I ended up with glyphosate contaminated "organic compost."

the tease of spring

2012-02-04T12:07:00.000-05:00

There are several plants beginning to emerge from the beneath the mulch. The unseasonably warm (so I have been told) weather has the daffodils reaching for the sun. As with any house this age, the first year...or three... will be an interesting adventure as little surprises begin to pop up around the yard. I unearthed several bulbs while prepping the ground and thinning the overgrowth.

I am not a bulb enthusiast, at least not traditional bulbs like crocus, daffodils, hyacinth and tulips. However, bulbs are an excellent accent among the perennials and add that early season splash of color much like a new throw pillow on the old sofa. They can transform the garden and signal the onset of spring. Who does not get a thrill watching the first green shoots push up through the soil and eagerly announce that Punxsutawney Phil was incorrect ;)

I found this rap of William Wordsworth's poem "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" (Daffodils) many years ago. It is a classic.

I do like Allium. My gardens traditionally intermix edible and perennial plants. The allium flowers are particularly good at attracting parasitic wasps, a beneficial insect. I also like bulbs such as the "stink lily" (Fritillaria imperialis) which deters moles.

I have more than a few times forced bulbs to the delight of students and my own children. I love that you can observe all of the plant in a shallow glass bowl in pea gravel. Bulbs make an excellent science lab also.

I did not plant bulbs last fall since we are new to the property and do not know what already exists. Once the flowers emerge I will most likely mark them and gather them to replant next fall in proper groupings in a new garden plan. Bulbs show best when grouped and yet are often spread willy-nilly detracting from their impact.

biopiracy, indigenous crops and human rights.

2012-02-03T08:15:00.001-05:00

My new favorite word is "biopiracy."

India is suing Monsanto for stealing an indigenous crop.

You can read an article about the lawsuit here.

I will be watching this one closely. This could have far reaching ramifications. One of my first thoughts was - could a Native American tribe, as a sovereign nation, pursue biopiracy claims for any of the indigenous corn grown in the US?

In other news, Monsanto won yet another lawsuit against a farmer, this one right here in Indiana.

My daughter and her teammates are exploring the concepts of human rights and terrorism for a Future Problem Solver competition. One of the areas they identified to pursue was GMO. So, 16 year olds view this issue as one of human rights verging on terrorism.

I wonder what would happen if the UN became involved in biopiracy hearings?

This wonderful image is from the Citizen's Assembly. Courtesy of Simran Sethi

Flashback to Agent Orange for Monsanto. Oh, wait, lawsuits over agent orange are still active today.

Another one to watch:

landmark organic community lawsuit OSGATA et al v. Monsanto

shadow watching and winter, Punxsutawney Phil 2012

2012-02-02T11:18:00.000-05:00

Gosh darn cuteness, even if he did predict 6 more weeks of winter.

USDA climate zones and relocation

2012-01-31T08:22:00.000-05:00

It is 46 degrees out this morning and it looks like the sun will be out. But it is January, and I am now in Indiana.

Not only is my internal gardening clock all out of sorts, but my climate beacon is failing too. I really want to go outside and start the garden, but everything I read about the area indicates that we may be in to more snow and wintery stuff. Dang.

This is tough. They never tell you how hard relocation is, they never mention the inner gardener turmoil moving from zone 8 to zone 5.

***** EDITED TO ADD

It ended up being 60 degrees yesterday. It was still 55 degrees at 6 pm. And it was beautiful and sunny.

The bulbs are coming up!

Did I mention how much I love the winter sun, bonus that it was warm too! But the forecast has snowflakes hovering over the weekend...

Monsanto and the US Farmer

2012-01-30T14:08:00.000-05:00

In light of the press release Shareholder's Resolution Would Require Chemical Giant to Study Risks of its Genetically Engineered Crops there have been a lot of discussions across Facebook and Twitter this morning.

For those wanting more background and history, please read: Monsanto vs the US Farmer .

vegetable planting calendar draft

2012-01-28T15:09:00.000-05:00

I found a great online tool today, entered my zipcode and got a vegetable planting calendar.

The writers are based in Portland, OR and Oakland, CA but provide planting calendars for locations all over by zone based on zipcode. This will be a great start for me to begin a vegetable planting spreadsheet.

I can then add in extended season options once we have cold frames and eventually that screened porch converted for plants. We talked earlier this morning over coffee about an add-on to the screened porch to double the space, which would be nice.

It is sunny again here today. If I can insulate properly we can grow in cold frames even more effectively than we did in the Northwest with all of the sun.

exotic plants and temperate climates

2012-01-26T16:46:00.000-05:00

As I have mentioned before, I have this vision of converting the screened porch into a plant filled oasis where I can go sit and have my coffee and look out on the street and passersby.

This is going to take a little work. And a little research on my part. I envision an English Conservatory, just A LOT smaller. I would like to try some Exotic Plants . This will be new to me.

Screened Porch BEFORE - check back for PROGRESS updates!

Unlike my previous plant hardiness zone, exotics will need a lot more protection here in Indiana. The Pacific Northwest was a more temperate climate, ideal for exotics in the garden. Can I create that environment here?

A little slice of home.

heirloom tomatoes and national security

2012-01-25T19:23:00.000-05:00

Confiscated.

Heirloom seeds from a friend.

Blah, blah, blah agricultural products.

I am sure Monsanto is behind this!

Because you aren't going to convince me that cherry tomatoes are a threat to national security. Somebody is taking "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" a little too far.

cat in the plants

2012-01-24T11:17:00.000-05:00

We moved to Indiana in August, and with the [over exaggerated] threat of winter upon us I did not start a garden outside.

In September and early October we cleaned the beds, removed over planting and mulched with shredded leaves. I donated hundreds of hostas to the city for planting projects and sacrificed arbor vitae to what I hope is city wide mulching and composting.

And then we had an unseasonable mild fall. I did not bring my cold frames but sure wish that I had packed them. I am in search of new cold frames now.

We moved in to the last house in Washington state during August also, and gardened until January. We had the luxury of bringing several transplants with us from the previous garden. An 18 foot trailer full of transplants and starts.

This is gonna kill me! We have three more months until I can work the soil and play outside :(

I have potted several house plants, and have a table set up in the screened porch with herb pots, but it just isn't the same. And the cat is eating them.

I have never had a cat remotely interested in plants before this one. She seems to prefer vegetable starts, specifically the cabbage family. In the last house I had a large counter with heating pads and grow lights for my early season vegetable starts and she would jump up and help herself to a salad. She is now munching houseplants. She seems to know what is poisonous to cats too, she is very particular and cautiously avoids the harmful ones..

cardinal prowess, observing habitat

2012-01-18T11:05:00.000-05:00

This guy sits on the fence across from my desk and stares me down through the window almost every day. At first it was rather unnerving, but I enjoy his company now.

He seems to be observing my actions as if to remind me that this is his habitat as I plan the garden space.

Victorian hardware details

2012-01-17T11:14:00.000-05:00

These are some of the little things that I love about this home.

Elle said she does not like it when homes look like hotels, and I agree. She said that she doesn't like everything perfect and balanced. A home should look like it is lived in, and has a history.

Life is in the details.

A little introspection and forward thinking

2012-01-01T13:26:00.001-05:00

Well, the pressure is on! A former colleague has just started a very professional looking blog over at K Tobin Video. I found myself up late last night revamping the layout, adding tabs and getting all philosophical about my gardening and green practices for this blog. It has been hard for me to let go of the Vancouver garden and think about a new space here in Indiana.

Admittedly this blog has been the red headed stepchild, spun off idle ramblings back in 2007 to save my readers from all my garden dribble and green soapbox rants. There seem to be a lot of posts dedicated to the virtues of worms, mulch and compost.

It is time to pull out the camera and get to work. ...as soon as I re-pot the new houseplants I saved from sure death at Lowe's ... and finish the primer in the kids bedrooms ...

Ah, late night blogging, I remember how this works now ;)

A New Year

2011-12-31T23:13:00.000-05:00

At this time of year many of the celebrations in our family center around food and the tradition of the meal. Food is not only necessary for human existence but also cherished and celebrated.

On Winter Solstice we began our holiday celebration with mutton stew. This is the most important celebration in our household as we acknowledge the transformation from the longest night into the longer and brighter days. In the days following we celebrate christmas eve with clam chowder, and the next day we have a bacon wrapped pork roast. Breads are handmade, and several traditional side dishes, including my husband's spiced cranberries, garnish the table. As a family we return to the kitchen together. This is often the first time we gather in the kitchen for meal preparation since the early summer harvests when we celebrate the first fruits of our labor. Often the hectic fall harvest and return to school overshadows the simple joy of preparing a meal together.

Tonight I prepared a traditional corned beef and cabbage meal, and tomorrow we will enjoy black eyed peas and collard greens. The meals between the Solstice and the New Year involved dried beans and lentils, root vegetables and a celebration of seasonal simplicity.

This is where I find the strongest connection between garden and home, in the kitchen. I began gardening for the aesthetic, I grew through my emerging understanding of the ecosystem, and I matured in the balance of garden and home that we celebrate on the table. It is from here that I will find my community.

And for the new year I will journal the whole story, not just the garden beds.

2011-12-31T15:20:00.001-05:00

It appears that we will soon be learning what the term "lake effect snow" means. The NOAA forecast has posted a Winter Storm Watch and predicts 10-14 inches.

Sedayne : Holly and the Ivy (The Wren's Heart Carol)

2011-12-22T08:02:00.001-05:00

Winter Solstice

2011-12-22T08:02:00.000-05:00

A very happy winter solstice!

I wish you bright blessings and hope for the new year!

The holly and the ivy

Now they are both full grown

Of all the trees that are in the wood,

The holly bears the crown.

The rising of the winter sun,

The running of the deer

The holy seed of the mistletoe

In the dawning of the year

In winter time I danced alone

And felt the growing cold

And lighting fires from fallen trees

I warmed my dying soul

I saw the sun reborn again

Melt through the winter snow

And drank afresh from holy streams

Swollen by the thaw

The holly bears a sharp prickle

As sharp as any thorn

The wren's heart pierced in the darkest night

Is healed before the dawn

Winter Solstice blues, er grey

2011-12-15T09:02:00.001-05:00

‎50 degrees and rain ??? why are we having a PNW winter in Indiana!? Yep, my Midwest friends, THIS is what it looks like in the PNW for 6-8months a year. I was promised snow and I am feeling a wee bit jipped.

Winter Interest

2011-12-09T08:37:00.001-05:00

Wahoo! The first "real" snow! Today I will take several photos and begin some "winter interest" planning :)

Snow?

2011-12-06T08:43:00.001-05:00

Living in the Pacific Northwest you learn the fine intricacies of rain forecasting. There is a difference between drizzle, slight chance of showers, chance of showers, slight chance of rain and rain.

Well, you can imagine my surprise when I learned that Elkhart County gets pretty much the same amount of rainfall each year as Vancouver. However, here in Indiana, when it rains, it rains. 6-7" in 3-5 days. That would take 2 months of drizzle and mist in the the PNW. Maybe that is why it rains 8 months a year.

Now snow, we did not get much snow in the Portland Metro area. Snow is kept on the mountains, real ones, like the Cascades. It is kept there for skiing and snowboarding, because when it snows in Portland the entire city shuts down. You can imagine the teens' surprise when they learned that 15" of snow here might a 2 hour late start.

The neighbors told us to be ready for snow by mid-October, and that we would have snow by Halloween. I am not sure if they were messing with us, but it is December 6th, and we do not yet have snow. The forecast says "possible flurries." I suspect this is somehow equivalent to the showers versus rain forecasting in the PNW.

It was 50 degrees on Sunday, and has been rather warm, 40-50s degrees, for this time of year. But the temps this morning have dropped to 30 and the forecast all week is dipping into the 20s. Well, I guess this is it. We are in for some snow. Although I am placing my bets on Friday's extended forecast for "snow." There seems to be a note about "measurable accumulation" and that seems important.

I pruned back the last of the roses and the beds are all mulched, so I hope I am ready for this :) I did notice that the temps in Vancouver are similar and I suspect that there is more damage to plants there than here under a protective blanket of snow.

If it snows I will take photos for winter interest planning and post them later.

Edible Michiana

2011-12-06T07:44:00.001-05:00

I am starting my morning with hot coffee and the digital copy of Edible Michiana. DH would always bring me the Edible Portland magazine, which I loved, so I was thrilled to find a Michiana version after the relocation. I "liked" the page on Facebook, so it shows up on my wall and I can see the current edition immediately online :)

I am actually scouring the ads right now trying to find local CSAs, nurseries and farms. It has been an awesome resource being new to the area.

Native Plants

2011-12-05T19:23:00.000-05:00

I spent most of the afternoon Sunday searching and reading about native plant species for Northern Indiana. I saved a few books to my Amazon "wish list" and bookmarked a few websites.

I found a garden plan that I would like to adapt for the front yard. The scene in the photo looks amazingly like the front yard here, except for the fact that I will need to have a tree removed. A big tree. The tree was going anyway, as soon as I can afford it and find a good arborist. The poor tree has been topped, suffered irreversible pruning damage and shows die back.

I would like the front yard to flow to the back side yard. The property is long and the back yard is narrow, but I can visualize this idea. Everyone seems to use the back door, entering from the alley and driveway. So. the front door is apparently just for looks... if I create a better flow between the two doors that will make the space much more usable.

I am in the process of sketching the layout, so I will update this post with a photo when I get it done.

If I am going to be snowed in...

2011-12-05T16:25:00.001-05:00

I'm not sure how we started on the topic, but we found ourselves looking for a condo in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. My husband has a good friend in Alberta, and we both love to travel Canada. Maybe it was the promise of snow and his impending travel schedule, but we found ourselves looking for Calgary apartments. And it makes sense if we map his travel and base customers.

My husband travels for work. He has traveled for most of the past 20 years, covering North America. At the moment we own two homes, one on the West Coast and one in the Midwest. The one on the West Coast is for sale, but it has been interesting having both properties. It sure has made his travel a lot easier. So, we started talking about maybe getting a rental somewhere, after the house sells, that he can use for travel and I can use to get away. Honestly, after the teens leave for college this makes a lot of sense.

We have only been here for a few short months, but I know that I will need to get away to a larger city with an established cultural center. And a city like Calgary has a lot of appeal, such as museums, restaurants and theatre...and the Calgary Horticulture Society events :)

Calcimine Paint

2011-12-03T21:47:00.001-05:00

Shortly after removing all of the wallpaper in the house we discovered that we had calcimine paint. I had never heard of the stuff before, so I took off on an internet quest for knowledge. Several of the posts that I read had me shaking in my boots for fear we had taken on a renovation way over our heads! And just after having the hardwood floors refinished and white carpet put down...

But let me back up a little. How did I discover that I had calcimine paint? Well, it started with a Google search for "primer slides off wall." This alerted me to this stuff called calcimine, a whitewash used around the turn of the century which contained limestone, glue binders and water. It came in a powder and was inexpensive to use for decoration and spring cleaning over coal soot near fireplaces (we have a coal fireplace). It could be applied to plaster walls before they were fully cured as well (we have lathe and plaster walls). And then I did the "spit test" rubbing the chalky substance off on my fingers "like chalk from a chalkboard" (yes, old enough to know this feeling immediately). AND modern paint will not adhere to calcimine paint.

I continued my research and found product names and recommended courses of action, and the name of a good local independent paint store. I found a blog documenting a similar renovation and contacted the blogger, who was immensely helpful.

And today we finally made it to the paint store and walked away with a plan of action. I have a paint fan on my desk and color chips spread across the floor. But before anything else I have some walls to wash with warm vinegar water. And then we can begin with the shellac primer.

And I thought the plaster repair was going to be the icky part!

This room, upstairs, is in the roughest shape. We removed a built-in from the wall and exposed a window from the original exterior, now covered after the addition of the screened porch. The walls are stripped down all the way to the calcimine paint. You can see the old solarium flooring, exposed after removing the old carpet.

I decided to add this adventure to my journal because my garden is not separate from my house, the garden flows in and around the home I make between these walls.