Seven Oaks, Home and Garden Joy

New Blog Posts on Our New Gardening Site

2014-08-18T08:04:00.003-07:00

Monsieur Pierre would like to remind you that our blog has moved!
New articles on gardening, cooking, homemaking and more are available on: Home Garden Joy
Please "like" and follow us there!

Starting a Home Orchard

2014-07-31T07:43:00.001-07:00

Peach harvest last year. This year, we didn't get any, but that's the way it goes.

When I lived on Long Island, New York, I dreamed about owning a farm. In my dreams, I owned an old farm, one that had been settled long ago. It had a dusty old barn filled with mysterious shadows and a beloved farmhouse with creaky floorboards. Always, always in my dreams, there were two things: animals in the farmyard and an orchard producing abundant fruit from gnarled old apple trees.
Dreams are one thing, but reality is another. Hubby and I are, above all else, realists. We dream big but plan carefully to make our dreams come true. When our dreams and reality collide, and it becomes apparent that a dream will cost more than it's worth to us to make come true, we shift gears, adjust our plans, and find another way. It's a good partnership for that reason among many others.
I don't think I've ever shared the stories of how we found Seven Oaks, our farm in Virginia. Unlike my dream farm, it didn't have any buildings on it. We've learned since purchasing the property that it was once part of a much, much larger farm settled sometimes around 1865. The old farmhouse still stands on the property behind ours, but the roof and second floor are long since gone. You can see that it had electricity and telephone service, but the switching box and meter on the outside of the house look like it was last installed around 1940-50 or so. That's our best guess as to when this land was last actively farmed. According to some neighbors, the cash crop grown here was tobacco - the most common crop grown in south central Virginia until recently.
We know that after it was divided into parcels, the parcels were sold off, and most of our lot was transformed into hay fields and cattle fields. As I walk through the woods, I have to be very careful, because rusted barbed wire fences lurk under fallen leaves and brush. I find them occasionally embedded in tree trunks that have grown up around the old fence lines, and once or twice, we've found a decayed fence post in the middle of the woods.
Around 1985 or so, the land was planted with the loblolly pines you see here today. When we bought the property about 10 years ago, we cleared three acres for the home, the garden, and the orchard.
Although I had dreamed of an old farm, reality soon set in as we accompanied our Virginia real estate agent to look at properties. Most of the older farms didn't have quaint farm houses. The old farm houses lay in ruins next to a single wide or double wide trailer that the family now called home. Barns were tobacco barns, and unless I wanted to buy a horse farm with hundreds of acres, my dreams of an old farm would have to adjust. None of that was for us, so we shifted gears again. Reality dictated that newcomers to the country like us would do better with a smaller farm; too much land felt overwhelming. And I knew I wanted to travel frequently back to New York City to visit family, friends and clients, so too many animals would place too large a burden on Hubby's shoulders. It seems like I raise cats now instead of chickens and horses, but that's the way it happened. Shadow, my dog, found the cats. Maybe she can find me a horse some day....
We bought the land instead and built our own dreams from the ground up. We cleared about three acres for the house, the gardens, and the orchard. It's the orchard I want to share with you today, and then a series of how-to articles for home gardeners looking to plant their own orchards. It's a fun, useful hobby that produces edible fruit. What more could you ask for from a hobby?

Apples ripening on our trees today. The dark marks on the leaves are rust, a common apple tree disease.

Planning a Home Orchard: Our Orchard at Seven Oaks
Before planting a single tree, I read a lot of books about planting a fruit tree orchard. Books are a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they provide a great deal of useful information for a novice like me. On the other hand, there are chapters devoted to nothing but problems, which makes me feel like everything is going to grow wrong! Of course not everything will go wrong. Authors include problems because you never know what will come up with your plants. But it can be scary reading about the zillions of insects and diseases that can kill off your beloved fruit trees.
I gleaned several important facts from the books I read:

Some fruit trees need a particular species of tree to pollinate their blossoms. Pollinating trees must be planted in proximity to others. We chose Lodi and Golden Delicious as our apple pollinators, and planted them at the corners of the apple section of the orchard so that the central Jonathan and Winesap trees would receive the benefits of cross pollination.
Fruit trees take years to mature to the point where they can bear fruit, but if you start with mature trees, you can greatly shorten the time to benefit from your work.
Trees are grown in three sizes: dwarf, semi-dwarf, and standard. The sizes refer to the height of the tree, not to the fruit. A dwarf tree produces full-sized fruit and is easier to care for because you can more easily reach the branches to spray, prune or harvest fruit.

We ended up planting standard-sized trees. I'm not so sure that was a good idea. I have a feeling that 10 years from now, we are going to have monster trees and so much fruit I'll be begging the deer to stop by for a snack.

Right now, our trees are at a manageable stage. We planted whips, or small sticks with a tiny bit of root that we bought from the Arbor Day Society. We have replaced one cherry tree and one plum tree that didn't make it. One peach tree looked sickly, so we moved it to another spot, where it thrived.

Our orchard contains apple, peach, pear, cherry, plum and apricot trees. We planted most of the original trees in 2007-2008. To date, we have harvested peaches, a few pears, and apples.

Here is our orchard, photographed today, July 31, 2014 by me:

We have about half an acre to an acre planted with our orchard trees, but you can grow one or two fruit trees in the average suburban yard. My grandmother's house was located in Bellerose, Queens, a borough of New York City, and she grew abundant apples and pears in her little backyard. Drive around Brooklyn or Queens and you'll see fig trees, apple and pear trees in the front yards - many immigrant families planted them as a sign of prosperity and to recall to mind their homelands. If these folks could grow abundant fruit in an urban yard, you can, too!
More information on starting a home orchard to follow. I hope you enjoy the series. Let me know what questions you may have about home orchards, and I will try to answer them in future posts.

Fresh Food Wednesday: Beets

2014-07-30T07:32:00.001-07:00

I was all set to blog about this amazing low calorie sandwich I came up with after watching Bar Rescue over the weekend when word came to me that a very close friend passed away last night. In your charity, please keep Denise in your prayers, and her family, too. Denise and I were friends for over 30 years, and although distance separated us, we never really lost touch. She will be missed by her family, her friends, and the many 5th graders she taught who loved her like a second mother.
Okay, so I can't really blog today...the computer screen gets furry when my glasses get fogged up by tears...so I am sharing a link to a wonderful resource: Mennonite Girls Can Cook. These ladies post the mot amazing recipes, and today they focus on my favorite garden vegetable, beets.
So, for all of you hankering for some new beet recipes, please visit Mennonite Girls Can Cook.
And I promise to share that sandwich recipe another time. Because oh my, it really was good. And low calorie. And good. Did I mention - good?
Another time, friends -

Free Online Vegetable Garden Planning Tool

2014-07-28T12:49:00.001-07:00

Virginia Gardener magazine, and indeed all of the state-by-state gardening magazines, provide many useful articles and inspiring images each month to encourage amateur and experienced gardeners alike to play in the dirt and grow a beautiful garden. I noticed while perusing my issue of Virginia Gardener this month an advertisement for the Garden Planner tool. It's a good tool that offers a lot for a free 30-day trial and a $25 annual subscription.
Online Garden Planning Tool The tool itself is web-enabled, so you just click a button on your browser to access it. It works with most browsers and I had no trouble opening it. You have to set up an account first, and then you can start your garden plan. The website offers shapes for the beds that are just click and drop, and you can then plan which vegetables you want to plant in each area. You can create detailed plans, adjust the plans easily, organize crop rotation and spacing of various plants, and print out your masterpiece to bring it into the garden. You may want to slip the print out into a clear plastic sleeve to keep it from getting wet or dirty - I don't know about you, but I'm always stooping to pull a weed or pick a strawberry when I visit the garden, and inevitably I get dirt on my hands, berry juice or water.
The tool also offers great information on when to plant each crop in your part of the country, so you can use it as a helpful reminder. I can easily see myself printing out my plan and posting it near my gardening tools so I remember what to do during each season.
For more information on the garden planning tool, visit the website.

Local Farm Producers, Your Input Is Needed

2014-07-23T05:20:00.001-07:00

I received this notice from my county Cooperative Extension this morning, so I thought I would share it. Local farm producers, they are seeking your input for the "buy fresh, buy local" promotion. See below.

Here is the message:

"The Heart of Virginia Buy Fresh Buy Local Chapter, created by the Old Dominion RC&D Council, has only one goal in mind. That goal is to be your regional support in assisting you in selling your products to purchasers. We want to provide technical and marketing assistance and essentially be your Farmer’s Chamber of Commerce. Now we need your help.

This organization is currently in need of the producers themselves to serve on the board. Without the producer’s input we cannot provide the tools you need to effectively market your product. We hope you have enjoyed the Heart of Virginia Buy Fresh Buy Local Food Guides. We have worked hard to develop this “FREE” marketing tool. The organization is currently working on other means of support for local producers. Your input is vital to the ongoing growth and success of this organization which in turn promotes your products.

We need producers from each county in our network (Amelia, Appomattox, Brunswick, Buckingham, Charlotte, Cumberland, Halifax, Lunenburg, Mecklenburg, Nottoway, and Prince Edward). We realize you are very busy “producing” but this organization wants to help you sell and cannot do it alone. We are asking if you are interested in continuing this organization that you provide dates and times that would work best for you to attend meetings. You may not be able to attend every meeting due to harvest responsibilities but any time you can give would help. We look forward to hearing from you. Please call the Old Dominion RC&D Council at (434) 547-0540.

Our next BFBL Steering Committee Meeting is scheduled for Monday, August 11, 2014, at 10:00 a.m. at the Heartland Business Park, 200 Heartland Drive, Keysville, Virginia. We would really appreciate your presence at the meeting or verbal/written commitment of your involvement interest. Your attention to our request is sincerely appreciated!"

For more information, visit Buy Fresh Buy Local

Is Rain Water Better for Plants Than Ground Water?

2014-07-22T07:18:00.000-07:00

Have you ever noticed how the garden looks better after a rainy day or a good shower during a thunderstorm? I thought it was just my imagination. As I look out my office windows this morning at the flower garden, the plants look greener, perkier. The blooms look more robust. The leaves seem stronger and more upright. No, it has to be my imagination....right?
I peer out the back windows down into the vegetable garden and I'm struck by the same thought. The chard looks greener, and I know that's not my imagination, because I'm picking chard every three or four days for my lunch. The tomatoes are also ripening today; on Sunday, I picked one red tomato that tasted like cardboard. It wasn't quite ripe yet. There weren't any other tomatoes even close to ripe on Sunday. Today I counted two that looked promising, with more starting to flush pink and red on their smooth green cheeks. That happened overnight.
My vegetable garden receives plenty of well water through the soaker hoses. So what gives? Yesterday the garden received 7/10th of an inch of rain, according to my trust rain gauge. Is it just more water, or is the quality of the water itself different when it falls from the sky?
As usual, my curiosity was piqued, so I did a little informal online research today. I uncovered the following facts about rainwater versus ground water for the garden:

Rain water, especially rain during thunderstorms, contains more nitrogen than ground water. Nitrogen is the first number in a fertilizer listing - 5-10-5, for example, is 5% nitrogen, 10% phosphorous, and 5% potash (potassium). Nitrogen greens leaves. The first number helps leaves, the middle number boosts flowers, the last number boosts roots. Nitrogen is a macro nutrient that plants need.
Ground water doesn't lack nitrogen, but the soil tends to add various organic salts to the water as it percolates through the soil particles. These salts interfere with a plant's ability to absorb nitrogen. It's not that ground water lacks nitrogen, it's that it contains other chemicals which may hinder a plant's ability to absorb nitrogen.
Thunderstorm rain contains the most nitrogen because of lightning.
Other particles in the air from pollution, including nitrogen, descends in the dirt particles attached to rain. These also feed plants!

On the whole, then, rain water IS better for the garden than ground water. It's not my imagination. I can't control rain, and I can only hope and watch the weather forecasts. This summer we actually have too much moisture. Look at my miniature rose, below:

Can you see the yellowed leaves and black spot on the leaves? Black spot is a fungal disease, and all of my roses are typically attacked by black spot during Virginia's humid summers. However, this year, even the rose relatives like the wild blackberries exhibit black spot, and rust, another fungal disease, appeared on the native sweet bush growing on the forest edges. It's unusual to see that on wild plants. Most exhibit better disease resistant than the tender hybrids like my miniature tea rose, above.
I'm not complaining, though. The more rain, the better for the garden and for my water well. Rain replenishes the soil and nurtures the plants. Rain, rain go away? Not for a gardener!

Growing a Lemon Tree from Seeds, the Update

2014-07-17T08:21:00.000-07:00

Lemon tree - very pretty! Okay, so now that I've planted THAT particular song in your head, take a look at my baby lemon trees, above. In May, I planted several seeds from lemons purchased at the supermarket. The results, above, speak for themselves. Yes, you can grow lemon trees from lemon seeds. My husband keeps looking at them and asking me, "Yes, but what will you do with them?" It's a great question. Lemon trees can't grow outdoors year 'round here in Virginia. They really do need a tropical climate. I saw them growing on people's front lawns, along with orange and grapefruit trees, in San Diego when I was there on a business trip many years ago, and I know they grow freely in Florida, too. But the cold winters here in Virginia will kill them. And I don't think these are dwarf varieties! For now, my plan is to keep them growing as long as possible outdoors, then I will move them to the bright, warm, sunny spot in my office. How to keep the cats from investigating them will be another challenge. The cats have now been banished from the plant room because Genghis Khan kitty keeps knocking my cactus plant over. I finally figured out what he's doing - he's rubbing his chin along the spines. Now why, of all the places he could scent mark in this house, he has to choose my cactus, I'll never know. But I'm tired of repotting my cactus and I bet the cactus is darned tired of it, too. I love my little lemon trees. I feel like a mad scientist trying all these experiments. We now have some cherry pits cooling in the refrigerator, in the hopes of planting more cherry trees here on the farm next year. I'll let you know how that experiment goes, too!

The Benefits of Succession Planting Seeds

2014-07-13T10:59:00.002-07:00

Sunflowers in my garden. Photo by Jeanne Grunert.

Do you use succession planting in your garden? Succession planting means to plant a group of seeds, wait a week or two, then plant more seeds. It's useful when planting lettuce and radishes, for example, so that you aren't stuck with an onslaught of both vegetables at once. Succession planting means that there's always a continuous crop of lettuce or radishes to harvest and you aren't stuck with so much you can't enjoy it.
But I'm a very forgetful gardener. I never remember to plant seeds in succession! This year, I vowed, would be different. So okay, I forgot to do succession planting for my lettuce and radishes. I did, however, remember it for the sunflowers.

My sunflower garden grows among the foundation plantings on the south side of the house, facing the fruit orchard. Some of the sunflowers self-seed from the year before; the heavy heads flop forward, spilling seeds on the mulch. We always get a few early sunflowers this way.
I start planting sunflowers as early as I can. They're my passion, now that my father-in-law has passed away. He used to be the sunflower gardener. In his 80s, he could still plant sunflowers close to the house, even if the best of his gardening days were over. Since his death two years ago, cultivating the sunflowers has become my little hobby.

I buy some seeds from Burpee, usually the large bronze and Russian Giant sunflowers. Some are seeds we've saved from last year; we also cut a few sunflower heads and let the seeds dry in the garage over the winter. The cats take care of any mouse bold enough to wander inside in search of seeds.
I don't do much to grow sunflowers. I usually just did a shallow hole in the mulch, drop in a seed, and move on. That's it. Sunflowers are some of the toughest plants. Nature provides the water, and as long as they get plenty of sun, they're fine. (For more about growing sunflowers, see About Sunflowers-Growing Sunflowers).
I plant the first row of sunflowers in late April, then another in May. I forgot to plant more in June, but this week, I'll add more seeds to the garden for a late fall bloom. I love sunflowers in the autumn, and a bouquet of them on the table when the weather turns crisp and cool sounds lovely.
The best part of growing sunflowers, however, is the birds. The goldfinches and other small birds adore the seeds, and will fly right up to the house where the sunflowers grow, perch on the stalks, and eat seeds just inches away from the windows. Genghis Khan, our house cat, could spend hours gazing adoringly up at the birds, licking his chops, and batting at the window glass...but of course, the birds are quite safe. We love getting that close to the birds, too, and watching their antics from the windows.
Succession planting of sunflowers, like lettuce and radishes, ensures beautiful flowers for many weeks instead of just one big blast of color. If you haven't tried growing sunflowers, try this idea. Your garden, the birds, and if you have one, your cat, will thank you!

My sunflower garden this week

Fresh Food Wednesday: Wild Blackberry Jam

2014-07-09T06:00:00.000-07:00

Last week, I wrote about picking wild blackberries on our farm. I ate the first batch of blackberries, but the plants have been very generous this year, and I was able to pick another quart and a half of berries this past weekend. I decided to try my hand once again at making jam.
Do you remember my last jam-making event? It was a fiasco, which we refer to as the "lemon-flavored-gasoline-tasting curd" because frankly, that's what it tasted like. Hmn, sounds appetizing, doesn't it? It was actually supposed to be persimmon jam. Persimmons, however, are very finicky fruits. If they aren't ripened properly, the tannins make the fruit taste incredibly bitter, and the bitter aftertaste lasts a long time. I used a bag of persimmons from my friend Patty's yard, and some unripe ones must have gotten into the batch. I used too much pectin in the recipe, hence the curd-like consistency. And don't forget the lemon taste layered over the 'gasoline' taste of the tannins from the unripe persimmons - that was too much lemon juice added to the receipt. I threw out the entire batch, jars and everything.
Now you understand why I was so reluctant to try my hand at making jam again. Yet here I was with all these fresh, free blackberries, I had my hot water bath canner out to can beets on Saturday, and I really wanted to make jam. So I sat down at the computer and searched for 'blackberry jam recipes.'
The Ball Canning & Recipe website is AMAZING. It is a great website filled with wonderful tips. It's easy to navigate, easy to convert recipe ingredients to make more or less of what you have, and overall, a user-friendly, fun website. It's there that I found the basic recipe for blackberry jam. If you have more berries, use their Ball Pectin Calculator to convert the recipe.
Recipe: Wild Blackberry Jam You will need a hot water bath canner, half pint jars, new lids, and screw band lids. A jar lifter, magnetic lid lifter, and funnel are all useful tools too. I have a set made by Ball. You will also need measuring cups, measuring spoons, and paper towels to clean up any spills. Lastly, you will need a large bowl and a potato masher to prepare the berries.
Fill your water bath canner so that the jars, when immersed in the bath, will have at least an inch of water over the top. Heat. While the water heats, prepare the jars - wash them, wash the screw bands in hot, soapy water. Place the lids in a pot of warm water on the stove.
Prepare the blackberry jam...you will need:

1 quart and 1 pint of fresh wild blackberries (mashed down to 2 2/3 cups with liquid for about five, half-pint jars)
3 tablespoons of Ball Real Fruit Pectin
3 1/3 cups of sugar

Mash the berries with your potato masher until everything is smashed. Pour into a large saucepan and heat. As the berries heat, add the pectin a little at a time, stirring. Bring the mixture to a full, rolling boil - turn the heat up, wear an oven mitt on your hand to stir it if it gets too hot! When the mix is boiling completely, over high heat, start adding the sugar a little at a time. Stir constantly to dissolve the sugar. Boil it HARD for one full minute - make sure it's boiling, boiling, boiling! After a minute, turn off the heat. Ladle it into the jars, wipe the rims with the paper towel, and use the magnetic lid lifter to place lids on jars. Add the screw bands and tighten just to finger tight. Place in the hot water bath canner and cover the canner with the lid. Get the water good and boiling and then start timing. Process jars for 10 minutes, then remove canner lid and wait 5 minutes. Remove jars using jar lifter and set on a board or towel to cool. Allow to cool 12 hours before moving. Tighten screw band lids, label, and done!

I never thought I'd make jam, but not only did I complete this recipe, but it tastes FANTASTIC! I had a little jam left over, so I poured it into a Pyrex dish (the kind I use to make jello or pudding) and refrigerated it. This morning I had it on homemade cornbread. What a breakfast.

Done! The completed jam jars.

Yum...breakfast...homemade cornbread and wild blackberry jam.

Fresh Food Wednesday: Chilled Cucumber Soup

2014-07-02T07:00:00.000-07:00

Chilled cucumber soup is a healthy, light and refreshing lunch during the hot summer days. It's perfect at this time of year when the garden's abundance of cucumbers and dill begs for cool, refreshing recipes. I made this soup on Sunday and it made two yummy services. It's not "soup" per se in that it's not a hot dish; you serve this soup chilled, like gazpacho. My Sunday lunch this past weekend was a cup of this chilled cucumber soup and a vegetarian sandwich of avocado, Greek hummus and sprouts on a slice of crusty Italian bread, followed by a bowl of freshly picked wild blackberries and a store-bought peach. Heaven!
To make chilled cucumber soup, you will need a blender with "puree" setting.
You will also need:

One large cucumber, peeled and diced
1 1/2 cups low-fat plain yogurt
1/2 cup low fat sour cream
sprigs of dill
sprigs of chives (optional)
dash of salt
dash of pepper

Place all ingredients in the blender starting with the yogurt and sour cream. Puree until smooth for one minute. If the ingredients won't blend, shut the blender off, open the top, and use a spatula to move the liquids to the bottom. Then replace the cover tightly and try again.
Pour into a cup, garnish with the chives and more dill, and enjoy!
I've had this soup in Manhattan and they garnished it with golden raisins. Try it!

Picking Wild Blackberries

2014-06-30T07:35:00.004-07:00

This is the time of year when the wild blackberries are ready to pick at Seven Oaks. Blackberries on our farm are both a blessing and a curse. They're a blessing because they produce abundant free fruit that's both tasty and nutritious. I love eating fresh blackberries, and the birds, bears and foxes also love it. We find a lot of fox scat along the driveway at this time of year, and the blackberries near the bottom of the bushes disappear overnight. We saw the red fox run through the yard about two weeks ago, crossing over the lawn and up the farm lane, and I hope he or she is visiting those blackberry bushes for a tasty snack.
But the blackberries are a curse when they invade the garden - which is always. They have to be the most opportunistic, sharp-thorned, impossible to get rid of plants God ever made. I'm forever pulling blackberry vines from the garden beds. They send out long runners underground and produce a single stem. At first, the stem looks like an innocuous, almost pretty little weeds. If you grasp it with bare hands, however, you'll be sorry. Large, sharp thorns are interspersed with thorny fuzz along the stems that leaves small, itchy welts. At least they itch on my hands.
When you pull out the blackberries, you have to pull the entire root. If you only get a partial root out of the ground, it grows back with a vengeance. Blackberry plants are like the hydra of ancient mythology. Cut off one stem, 10 more develop along the cane.
Yesterday, I grabbed my plastic pail and headed out to the stand of blackberry bushes along the driveway. The berries are about one-third ripe, with two-thirds remaining the color of raspberries. The trick with wild blackberries is to wait until the fruit is a deep, dark purple. The duller the color, the better, for that means the berries have sweetened, although you can eat them when the shine is on the dark purple berries. Don't eat the ones that look like raspberries; they are bitter as bitter can be.

Doesn't look like much, does it? These are the blackberry bushes along our driveway. They are loaded with fruit.

On closer inspection, you can see the berries on the bushes. These are unripe.

The ripe berries are dark, dull purple, and mixed with the unripe. Watch the thorns. Ouch!

Picking wild blackberries can be challenging. No matter how careful I am, always manage to get scratched and bloodied. I look like I've done battle with a monster. My hands drip with purple juice, palms and fingertips stained by the fruit; bloodied scratch cross my arms. Last night, my right hand swelled a little with myriad scratches and tiny thorns embedded in the skin. Luckily, it cleared up this morning.

Wild blackberries.

The results are worth it. I picked at least a pound of wild, organic fresh blackberries. At the supermarket they would have cost at least $5.98, perhaps more.
This morning, I enjoyed fresh blackberries picked along the farm lane and fresh strawberries from my garden for breakfast. This is the time of year I cherish.

It's not gardening unless I'm accompanied by a cat. Whitey came to the blackberry patch to help.

A word of caution if you're new to foraging. Blackberries are one of the easiest wild berries to identify in the wild, but please do not randomly pick berries and start munching. Learn how to distinguish healthy wild edibles from poisonous ones. Take a class, visit your local Cooperative Extension office, or find a good field guide before you forage for wild edibles.

Growing Sunflowers

2014-06-27T12:11:00.001-07:00

Growing sunflowers isn't hard to do, but you do need to outwit the local wildlife intent upon eating your sunflower seeds!
When I lived in Huntington, Long Island, my father-in-law loved to plant sunflowers along the brick border by the back patio. He wondered why few of them germinated, and fewer still made it to maturity.
One day, my husband and I were sitting on the back patio, enjoying a lovely summer day. A flurry of rust-brown fur near the downspout from the rainwater gutters made me do a double take. Something scurried out of the drainpipe, ran to the newly planted sunflower seeds, and started to dig. We moved slowly so as not to scare the critter. Peering over the edge of the brick, we saw a chipmunk furiously digging in the moist soil. As soon as he found the sunflower seeds, he popped them into his mouth, scurried back to the drain pipe, deposited the seed, and hastened back to his treasure-trove of seeds.
No wonder my father-in-law's sunflowers never sprouted!
We had THE fattest chipmunk I've ever seen by the end of the summer.

Growing Sunflowers in the Home Garden

Sunflower in my garden today.

Assuming you don't have a hungry chipmunk, you can grow sunflowers in the home garden. You can grow them for their beauty, to use them as cut flowers, or to save the seeds for your own consumption or to fill your bird feeder. I save the seeds to plant them again the following spring. I also use some in the bird feeder during the harshest winter months. I find that the birds seem to relish the fresh sunflower seeds. My guess is that the oils are more plentiful in the fresh seeds, or maybe they taste better. Can birds taste???
Sunflowers can be sown as soon as the last danger of frost for your region has passed. It's best to plant the seeds directly into the ground where you want the plants to grow; they dislike being moved. Make sure you plant them in an area where they have room to grow. Most sunflowers are quite tall, towering over your head at six, seven feet or taller! The Russian Giant sunflowers are exceptionally tall with huge flower heads. The heads are heavy once the seeds mature, so planting sunflowers near a fence or wall is also advised. They can lean on the support once the seeds mature and weigh down the flower head.
Use a trowel and dig a little hole in the ground about an inch deep. Just pop the seed in, cover, and water. That's it. Space them about four to six inches apart or more.
Sunflowers absolutely require full, bright, direct sunlight, so make sure you plant them in a sunny area. They can withstand drought and seem to prefer long, hot summers.
Deer, squirrels, chipmunks and birds love the seeds. If you plant a lot of sunflowers, some seeds will remain to save. I find that Japanese beetles also eat the petals, which is a shame, but if you stagger your seed planting you can have a continuous field of sunflowers and outwit the beetles. Plant seeds at two to four week intervals until the 4th of July or a little later for the southern areas of the country. New flowers will emerge after the old ones are spent, and hopefully you can have some flowers in the garden after the pesky beetles are done devouring everything.
I don't bother fertilizing or water the sunflowers once they're up. Mine are growing along the hottest side of our house. It's a stucco wall facing the south - and I live in Virginia. The soil is very poor too in that area but the sunflowers don't seem to care. They do get some added water because I've planted them near the spigot where we attach the hose, and we drain the hose in that area, which waters them a bit. They also have mulch to help the soil retain water.

Drying Sunflower Seeds

To dry sunflower seeds to use in the garden, the bird feeder or for human consumption, wait until the sunflowers become dry and the petals turn brown or fall off. The heads will droop on the stalks. If you look closely at the inflorescence, each seed will be noticeably fat and striped. It's time to harvest them.
Cut off the seed heads and spread them out on top of newspapers in a hot, dry location. I use my garage. I've done this two ways. Sometimes I just place the sunflowers in a cardboard box. The box catches any seeds that fall out of the flower; they will start falling out when they dry out.
Another way is to leave a portion of the stem in place and hang it upside down to dry out. Put a pail or a box underneath, as some seeds do drop. You can also slip a paper bag over the sunflowers before hanging them upside down to catch the seeds. Tape the top of the bag shut over the seed head.
When the entire flower is dry, use your fingers to break apart the dried sunflower head. Most seeds will fall out on their own, but you may need to pick some out. You can shell them and eat the kernels, or place the new seeds in jars to plant next year. You can also pour them into your bird feeder for a treat for your feathered friends. But don't put them on the ground. Not unless you want a big, fat chipmunk in the yard....

Interesting Facts About Sunflowers

Did you know that each seed, each dot on the big old seed head of a sunflower is actually a flower in and of itself? What we call the "flower" on a sunflower is actually a huge cluster of tiny flowers. The group is called an inflorescence.
Sunflower inflorescence is arranged with natural, mathematical precision in a Fibbonachi sequence. (Lovers of The Big Bang Theory, ask Sheldon what that means).
Scientists who make solar panels study sunflowers to learn the most efficient method of arranging panels to capture the sun. They've found that by far the most efficient method of panel arrangement is how nature made the sunflower.
Sunflowers do follow the sun through a process called heliotropism. The stems, leaves and flower turn slowly to follow the sun throughout the growing period to maximize photosynthesis. Because of heliotropism, they actually achieve 10-15% more photosynthesis than if they sat still. Once the seeds mature, the plant halts in place in the best location to sunbathe.
Sunflower plants can actually clean pollutants from soil and water. Tests have shown they can clean lead, radioactive materials and possibly other pollutants from the ground.

The most beautiful sight I have ever seen was South Dakota in early August. We were driving along the highway through the sunflower fields. Miles upon miles, hour after hour, nothing but blooming sunflowers. It was stunning. That night, we ate in a tiny truck stop diner in South Dakota, and every man there talked about the price of sunflower seeds and oil. We often forget that flowers grown for their beauty in the home garden also serve practical needs. Sunflowers are one of the most beautiful, useful plants around.

Signs of Summer in the Garden

2014-06-25T12:22:00.001-07:00

A few photos taken today in my garden...signs of summer.

The entrance to my perennial garden today...

And a close up of several plants: yellow daisies, yellow daylilies, purple monarda, orange gaillardia.

Soon and very soon! Cherry tomatoes in the vegetable garden.

The raised bed vegetable garden with soaker hoses.

The "island" bed with the blue bird house we added this spring.

Ox-eye daisies growing wild in the perennial garden. The pink flowers behind it are yarrow.

Fresh Food Wednesday: Pork Chops, Cabbage and Sweet Potato Dinner

2014-06-25T09:22:00.000-07:00

Image by Royal Holiday, Morguefile.com license

I made this recipe last night and it was a hit! I combined several dishes that I know my husband likes, and ended up with a tasty, garden-inspired dinner. If I had raised the pig, I could claim to have grown the entire dinner myself, but alas, the pork chops were store bought. Everything else was, however, grown right in my backyard. There's nothing I love more than starting to cook, realizing I don't have an ingredient, and heading out to my garden to pick it fresh.
Dinner: Pork Chops with Cabbage and a Side of Maple Baked Sweet Potatoes
This meal makes enough for two, but just multiply the ingredients by the number of people and you can easily determine how much to make. You do need to leave plenty of time to get dinner started, but once it's in the oven, you can relax for the hour it takes to cook.
You will need:

Bone-in pork chops
1/2 cup of flour
Dash of salt, pepper, garlic and parsley
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/4 head of cabbage with core and outer leaves removed
1 onion, peeled and diced
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and diced into coins
1 tablespoon maple syrup
2 teaspoons butter
Dash of shortening to grease large baking dish
Drizzle of apple cider vinegar and honey (for cabbage)

Equipment:

One large 13 x 9 Pyrex baking dish
One small 8 x 8 baking dish with lid
One large frying pan
Heavy duty bag (to coat pork chops)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. While the oven pre-heats, use a little shortening to grease the 13 x 9 baking dish. There's no need to grease the smaller dish.
Prepare the pork chops: Place the flour, salt, pepper, garlic and parsley in the heavy duty bag. Rinse the pork chops in cool water, then place them in the bag. Close the top of the bag and shake it until the chops are coated.
Heat the vegetable oil in the frying pan. Fry the chops, about 3 minutes on each side, until browned. You don't have to cook them all the way through - just make sure they are browned outside.
While the pork chops fry, peel and slice the cabbage into strips. Slice the onion. Place onion and cabbage mixture in the bottom of the 13 x 9 dish. When the pork chops are done, lay them over the vegetables. Drizzle vegetables only with extra virgin olive oil. Bake for 45 - 60 minutes, stirring the vegetables only at about the halfway mark.
Prepare the sweet potatoes: Peel the sweet potatoes and slice into quarter inch coins. Place them in the small baking dish. Pour syrup over them, then add pats of butter. Bake, covered, for 30-45 minutes with the pork chops.
Serve all when done. Drizzle a little apple cider vinegar and honey over the cabbage for extra flavor.
Enjoy!

Growing Monarda or Bee Balm

2014-06-23T13:11:00.003-07:00

Monarda, Bee Balm, Oswego Tea...this beautiful plant is known by many names. It attract pollinators to the garden and offers an attractive flowering plant for the summer garden.

Yellow daisies in the front, monarda in the back in my garden today.

Monarda needs full sun, or about six to eight hours of bright, direct sunlight daily. You can start it from seeds inside the house during the winter. Just be sure to baby the transplants during their first season. Keep them well-watered until they establish deep roots, and add mulch to keep moisture near the roots. They aren't particularly heat tolerant, so if you live in the deep south, some afternoon shade will keep them happy. My own plants are in the shade starting around 4 p.m., which seems to make them happy!
Monarda needs about an inch of rainfall a week, so if you live in an area prone to summer droughts like I do, be prepared to water it. The rewards of all that work hauling water out to the garden or dragging the hose out to the garden will be well worth it.
You really don't need to do much to care for the herbaceous perennial form of monarda. I cut mine back in the fall just to keep it neat, and mulch it in the spring. That's it.
Historically, monarda was used by Native Americans to season turkeys and other wild game. I don't know exactly which variety they grew, so don't go out picking leaves from your monarda and trying it in the Thanksgiving stuffing! Monarda leaves contain thymol, a compound known to have some antiseptic qualities. "Oswego Tea" is an old folk-remedy for sore throats, mouth, throat and dental infections. Teas or tisanes brewed from monarda were used by American settlers as an antiseptic.
I don't grow monarda for its medicinal qualities. I grow it because it supports the pollinators in my garden, and because it's beautiful. Today the patch of monarda on the side of the path seemed to be alive with bees, humming and buzzing as they enjoyed the sweet nectar on the purple flowers. And while I haven't seen a hummingbird on my patch of monarda, I'm told the diminutive birds love the flowers almost as much as the bees.
You can order monarda seeds from Seedville.

Savor the Taste of Summer Event and Give Away!

2014-06-22T05:00:00.000-07:00

Savor the taste of summer...and enter to win a change for $100, cash! My friends at DC Healthy Bites are hosting a really neat event showcasing their favorite bloggers, including yours truly. Visit their web page and enter to win a chance for $100. A random drawing will be held on July 5, 2014. Visit the Savor the Taste of Summer Event and please visit the wonderful blogs pictured at the bottom of the page. Seven Oaks is numbers 5 and 6, but there are other wonderful blogs featuring tasty, summer-inspired foods, recipes and more.

Savor the Taste of Summer: How to Dry Fresh Herbs without Special Equipment

2014-06-19T12:54:00.000-07:00

Basil in my garden today.

Nothing says 'savor the taste of summer' like fresh herbs...or herbs dried at the peak of freshness. I love growing herbs and have basil, sage, lavender, lemon balm, mint, dill and chives growing in the garden. Mint and oregano were taking over the raised beds, so I moved those to the edge of the woods. Now whenever I need herbs to make a meal delicious, I just snip off a few leaves and voila - instant flavor.

Yet in a few short months, the herbs will be gone. Now's the time to dry them when they're at the peak of freshness. Drying herbs is easy, and you don't need any special equipment. Sure, a dehydrator would be a wonderful piece of kitchen equipment to make drying herbs a snap, but I don't have on yet. And while I'd love an old-fashioned drying rack, a special cabinet just to dry herbs, I haven't had time to make one yet.

So it's back to the old-fashioned methods:

Tie up a bundle of herbs and hang them in a hot, dry location;
Place herbs in a metal dry and let them dry out on their own.

Air-Drying Herbs

I used dill as an example of how to air-dry herbs.

Here's the fresh dill in the garden. Isn't it pretty? I just let mine seed wherever it wants to...it started in another garden bed several years ago, and now it just grows wherever it wants to. But that's fine, because it makes few demands, and doesn't bother the other plants, so I just let it be. This dill grows among my onions and beets.

Herbs such as dill and rosemary are easy to dry using this method. Snip several long stems and tie or rubber-band the ends together. Hang them upside-down in a warm area. Some instructions call for the herbs to be placed inside a paper bag; the bag allows air to circulate to dry the herbs, but keeps dust off of them. I don't bother with that. I just hang them up near a window in my garage.

Dill drying in the garage.

When the herbs are dry, bring them into the house. Spread paper towels on the table. Wash and dry your hands so that they're clean. Then use your fingers to gently pull off the dried herbs. I form the paper towel into a little funnel and tap the dried herbs into a container. I've used cleaned and dried bouillon cube containers, recycled small glass containers, and herb containers purchased from the dollar store. The herb containers look like salt or pepper shakers but the lids snap on tightly. It doesn't matter what kind of container you use to store your dried herbs, as long as you can label it with the type of herb you've dried and the date, and it has a lid that locks into place to seal in the freshness.

This method works best for low-moisture herbs such as chives, dill, and rosemary.

Solar-Drying Herbs

Herbs with large leaves, such as the basil in the first picture or the catnip I'm using here as an example, contain more moisture in their leaves and are a little harder to hang-dry like dill. I've tried drying basil the way I dried the dill and it just ends up getting mushy. Instead, snip the leaves and lay them on an old metal tray. I use a large roasting pan like this one. Place it in the sun to allow the herbs to dry out. You should bring it inside at night so that they dew doesn't re-hydrate the herbs or cause mildew. When the herbs are dry, simply crumple them up with your hands and tap them into a container.

Catnip in the garden...

Catnip drying in my garage.

One word of advice: if you're drying catnip, keep it away from the felines! That's why mine is in the garage. If it's outside, they'll find it. My cats are nip fiends.

Oven-Dry Herbs

Lastly, you can oven-dry herbs. Turn the oven on to a very low temperature - 150 to 180 degrees F should do it. Place the herbs on a cookie sheet and let them sit in the warm oven for two to four hours. I like to use an old cookie sheet because the herbs can stick and I have to scrap at them with a spatula! I also like to use the oven after I've made a roast, so that the oven is already warm and I don't have to waste electricity (I'm pretty frugal about stuff like this). I rarely dry herbs in this way, but the technique is similar to solar drying. You're just speeding up the process by using the oven's heat to desiccate or dry out the leaves.

Savor the Taste of Summer!

Dealing with Colorado Potato Beetle Infestation

2014-06-12T07:50:00.001-07:00

Colorado potato beetle enjoying the leaves of my potato plants.

Meet public enemy #1, at least around here this month...the Colorado potato beetle. The picture I took above doesn't give you an idea of the full extent of the damage these awful pests have done to my potatoes. Not only do they infest potatoes, they're working their way back in the garden towards the tomatoes. I'm afraid to plant my eggplant seedlings; they're still in small pots on my front porch, well away from the infested areas, and last year my eggplants were eaten down to skeletons in one night.
Here is what I've learned from researching the Cooperative Extension websites: these beetles are native to the United States, possibly from Colorado and New Mexico. The young emerge in spring when the soil warms and can fly great distances to find their favorite plants - anything in the nightshade family. They like weeds in the nightshade family, as well as potatoes, eggplant and to some extent, tomatoes. They lay clusters of eggs on the underside of leaves. The larvae hatch and devour the leaves, leaving nothing but a skeleton.
Okay, so far, so good. Know your enemy, I like to say. But here's the problem: there are no known insecticides to kill these suckers. The Colorado Cooperative Extension office warns that they've developed resistance to most known insecticides. Great (cue sarcasm). Just great.
So the old-fashion method of organic control that my Uncle Louie taught me on his farm when I was six years old still works:

Find an old jar, like a spaghetti sauce jar that's empty, or an old coffee can;
Squire a tablespoon of dish washing liquid in the bottom;
Fill a quarter of the container with hot water;
Walk around your plants and flick the adults and larvae into the water, where they drown.
Place lid on the jar.
Repeat daily.

This weekend I also did the old-fashioned squash 'em technique. I walked around the potato patch with two rocks and yes, squashed them between the rocks. You have to have a strong stomach for that activity. (Don't read the rest of this paragraph if you're squeamish). Some of them squirt on your when they squash. I was lucky I was wearing glasses. I had to take a shower afterwards and throw all my clothes into the wash. But the potatoes were saved...for another day, at least.
Crop rotation helps, such as planting potatoes only every other year or so. The beetles fly elsewhere and there are fewer larvae in the soil. My plan for next year is to plant melons again in the areas where I have potatoes this year, and grow only sweet potatoes. They leave those alone, which is great news.
BT, an organic bacterial insecticide, and neem oil both are promising organic treatments, so I will try neem this weekend as I have it in the garage. The only known predators for these Colorado potato beetle are the lady beetle, also known as the lady bug, and the stink bug. God has a sense of humor, because those two insects are the ones that manage somehow to get INTO my house each year and plague my upstairs rooms.

A stink bug in my kitchen. Hey, you - there's plenty of food outside!

Bugs. Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em.
It's really one of the worst infestations of Colorado potato beetle I've seen in years. Do you have them in your garden?
Source: Colorado Potato Beetle

How to Use a Soaker Hose

2014-06-09T07:50:00.001-07:00

Soaker hoses are a great way to water your vegetable garden. What is a soaker hose? It's a hose that has tiny holes or pores along its length. Water drips or squirts out from the holes directly onto the soil near the plant's roots. You can use soaker hoses with annuals, perennials, vegetables, trees - anywhere you need irrigation for your garden. I use soaker hoses exclusively in the vegetable garden, and they're both a time and water-saver to help me grow health vegetables.

How to Use a Soaker Hose

First thing first: don't try to convert an existing hose into a soaker hose. You'll make yourself crazy, ruin a good hose, and probably make a lousy soaker hose. Purchase a good-quality soaker hose at your local garden center. They're not too expensive, and they last for years with proper care.
Soaker hoses come with an end cap, which keeps the water from running back out into the garden. You'll want to purchase snap-on hose connectors. These gadgets are a life saver for me! I probably wouldn't water my garden as frequently if I didn't have these little gadgets on the ends of the hoses. One tip: buy metal ones. The plastic ones are a lot less expensive, but never last for more than a season. The snap-on gadgets screw onto each end of the hose. Then, instead of fussing with screwing the hose on each time you want to water the gadget, you just pull back the ring, insert the end of the hose, and push the ring back into place. Instant connection.

Snap-on coupling on the end of my soaker hose makes it easy to move the main hose to each vegetable bed.

You will need landscape fabric pins to help hold the soaker hose in place. I make my own from metal coat hangers that seems to multiply like rabbits in the dark recesses of my closet. Actually, they're coat hangers from the dry cleaners; I always have too many lurking about. Instead of throwing them out, I use wire cutters and snip off the loop at the top. Then I cut them into about 6 to 8 inch lengths and bend them into U-shaped pins. They're fine to hold soaker hoses in place. You just place the bend of the U over the hose and gently push it into the ground to hold the hose near the plants.
Wind your soaker hose around the plants at the drip line, as you can see in my photo here. This is my raised bed vegetable garden, and the hose is around the tomato plants:

Tomato plants with soaker hose.

I had a little bit of hose left over at the end, so the lucky tomato plant in the lower left corner will get extra water. I wind the hose around the plants. It would better to loop it at the drip line, like the last plant, but my method works just fine. The drip line is the area around the plant where the leaves extend. Imagine the canopy of the plant like an umbrella. Think of how water drips off the ends of an umbrella; that's the drip line. The plants' roots generally extend under the canopy of leaves to the edge of the drip line, so you want the water concentrated underneath that imaginary umbrella. Now of course, these tomato plants will grow, and as they grow, so does their drip line. I'll adjust the hose in a month or two if it needs it.
I usually attach the main hose to each soaker hose and run it for half an hour into the garden bed. I use the kitchen timer so that I can work, read or cook dinner (as long as I don't need the timer for dinner, that is!) while the water is running.

Benefits of Using Soaker Hoses

What are the benefits of using soaker hoses?

Conserve water! I have a well on my property, and water conservation is important. I don't want to drain my well dry just to grow plants. The soaker hose uses less water to irrigate the garden more efficient than other systems.
You're watering your vegetables, not the weeds. When you run a sprinkler or the hose, you always water the soil between the plants as well as the plants themselves. So basically, you're irrigating weed seeds along with your plants. The soaker hose concentrates water near the roots while the remaining soil stays dry. Starve those weeds!
Less water evaporates during your irrigation time than with a sprinkler. We use to run a sprinkler that covered half of the vegetable garden, then move it to the other half. Not only did we lose a lot of water to evaporation on a hot day, but we watered the leaves (unnecessary) and the grass paths (yay! more to mow - NOT). The soaker hose keeps the water where it's beneficial; near the roots of thirsty plants.

No matter how much you try to water plants directly with the hose, it can be difficult to make sure that all of your plants get enough water. With a soaker hose, you've got an easy and efficient system to water all of the garden.

You can buy soaker hoses at your local garden center, hardware store, Wal-Mart, Lowe's or Home Depot.

Raised Bed Gardening Book Now Available!

2014-06-05T07:00:00.000-07:00

It's here, lovely gardening peeps! By YOUR request - that's right, by reader request - I've compiled my spring 2014 blog post series on raised bed gardening into one convenient, illustrated book. It is now available for purchase as a full-color paperback printed book, an Adobe Acrobat eBook or an iPad ebook from Blurb.com. You can see a preview and order it here: Raised Bed Vegetable Gardening by Jeanne Grunert.
Now you have a few choices. I'm fine if you just want to go back into my blog archives and print or save PDFs of the original posts on your own and save a little cash...as long as they are for your own personal enjoyment and use (not to post anywhere else - that's a no-no). Look in my archives for March 2014 for the original series.
A few folks, however, prefer to have the booklet printed for them, or to have the whole thing organized for them, and for you guys, I've made it as easy and inexpensive as I possibly could.
I hope you enjoy it. And yes, that's my baby Razzlebear on the cover. The cover makes me sad and happy at the same time. As you may recall, Raz died this February. I took that photo last June. He was so happy and healthy then. He loved to garden with me and I took a ton of pictures of him last year. I'm grateful I have the pictures of him, but sad that he went downhill so fast. That's the risk of loving and caring for a feline leukemia positive cat...they are sick, even when they look healthy. Raz is buried in the little pet cemetery we made behind the forsythia hedge. The current cadre of cats sleeps under the cool green boughs of the forsythia during the day, and I like to think that Raz's spirit is back there with them, hanging out and enjoying the warm summer days like he always did.
And before I forget - just so you know that I know what I'm talking about with raised bed gardens - here is this year's garden! It looks empty in some of the beds, but I've got leeks coming up and they look like grass sprouts, so thin and delicate you can't even see them. The orchard is in the background before the pine trees start again.

Extending the Lettuce Harvest

2014-06-02T09:28:00.001-07:00

This is the time of year when I wish the lettuce harvest would go on forever. Every day, I step outside my patio doors, walk a short distance to the garden, and pick a variety of colorful leaves. The picture above shows my lettuce garden. It consists of just two rows of lettuce. I bought a packet of 20 cent - yes 20 cent! - seeds at Wal-Mart in the spring and sowed just HALF the package. For a 20 cent investment and about five minutes a day watering my lettuce patch, I enjoy a huge fresh lunch each day.
This is why I absolutely love gardening.
Lettuce, however, is a cool-season crop. Here in south central Virginia, that means I can grow lettuce April through June, but in a week or two when the hot weather returns, the lettuce will bolt. Bolting lettuce means it goes to seed. When lettuce goes to seed, it sends up a tall, thick central stalk with flowers on it. The lettuce plant's shape changes from a loose, round form to a tall, conical form. When that happens, the lettuce begins to turn bitter and tough. You'll quickly discover that it's nearly impossible to eat once it gets to that stage. Time to pull it out and compost it.
Before that happens, however, you've got several weeks of blissful lettuce-picking days ahead of you. If you're a fan of a good salad like me, then here are some suggestions for extending the lettuce harvest no matter where you live.

As soon as the soil can be worked in the spring, plant one row of seeds. Water and wait two weeks.
Every two weeks after your first planting, plant another row of lettuce, until you have three or four rows.
Once your first row is mature enough to pick, pick only the large outer leaves. Don't pick it all at once and don't pull up the plants. I use either my kitchen scissors to snip off leaves or I just pinch them off with my finger tips.
Once you see the lettuce bolting, pull up the whole plant. Remove as many leaves as you can and compost the rest of the plant.
Try some of the so-called hot-weather varieties of lettuce for summer salads. "Red Sails" is a red-leaf or bronze leaf variety (the red one in the photo above) that tastes great, adds a pop of color to your salads, and is fairly heat-tolerant. Any loose-leaf varieties do a little better in the heat than Romaine or Buttercrunch, which really don't like heat at all. "Ithaca" is a green-leaf variety that is also slow to bolt.

Another salad green tip: grow spinach just for salads. I find that you need a lot of room to grow enough spinach for a meal when you like cooked spinach. I added a few rows of spinach to my garden just for the greens. They also make tasty salads, especially when you pick the tender baby spinach leaves.

Growing Lemon Trees from Seeds

2014-05-30T10:19:00.004-07:00

Licensed by Morguefile.com. Photo by Limaeo

I've heard women say that they catch themselves sounding or acting like their mothers, especially when they're around their children. As for me, I find myself channeling my father these days. My dad was an avid gardener who always had an experiment or two growing around the house. One year, he decided to try to grow ferns from spores. We had moist bricks lined up inside the greenhouse - yes, we had a greenhouse in our tiny urban yard! - and carefully tried to propagate the ferns. It took him several tries, but he managed it. He'd grab cuttings from the shrubs around the office park where he worked and try to grow new shrubs from the cuttings. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't, but we always had something weird going on in the greenhouse. At the time it just seemed peculiar, but now when I look back, I'm grateful to have grown up with a parent who had an inquisitive, scientific mind.
Today I found myself channeling Dad. I was brewing up a pot of Jillian Michaels' detox tea to sip while I worked. I like to put slices of fresh lemons in the cooled concoction; it adds sweetness without calories. I sliced up the lemon I had in the fridge, and squirted out a few seeds. Hmmn, I found myself thinking, what if I planted these?
And so today starts my new experiment: growing lemon trees from seeds.

How to Grow a Lemon Tree from Seeds

First off, understand that lemon trees won't grow outside in my gardening zone in Virginia. Whatever I grow will live in my office. I imagine a jungle-like canopy spangled with bright lemons growing near the bookcase. My office is the warmest room in the house; it's in the tower of our Victorian style home, and has windows facing east, south and west, which should be perfect for a lemon tree.

But...the Cooperative Extension websites I consulted for instructions on how to grow my seeds all indicate it can take up to 15 years to until the tree produces lemons. Fifteen years! I might be retired by then! Oh well. When life hands you lemons...plant 'em. It's a fairly simple process to plant lemon seeds.

Remove the seeds from the lemon and rinse them well. If pulp adheres to them, it might rot, which can kill the seedling.
Don't let the seeds dry out! Plant them immediately.
Find a small pot and fill it with sterile potting soil. Moisten the soil.
Plant the seeds individually, one to a pot, about 1/2" below the soil line.
Water well and cover the pot with a plastic bag or plastic wrap.
Place in the warmest spot you can find in the house.
Keep the soil moist until the seeds sprout.

While they don't need light to germinate (just moisture and darkness), once the leaves emerge, they need bright sunlight.

I have no idea if they'll grow, but I planted two seeds. They're in pots in my office as I type this. My husband asked me what I'll do with them once they grow big. I told him I hope my office fills up with a canopy of lemons and leaves. He just looked at me, shook his head, and laughed.

He knows me too well.

Strawberry Season

2014-05-28T11:23:00.001-07:00

It's strawberry season here at Seven Oaks, and the fresh strawberries have just started ripening this past week. I love nothing more than fresh strawberries picked from the plants, swiped on a shirttail to remove the dirt, and consumed immediately. There's nothing sweeter than a fresh strawberry. Even the WORST fresh strawberry makes store ones pale by comparison. To say I'm an enthusiast is an understatement.
My own strawberry patch is in a raised bed approximately 8 feet by 4 feet. I planted "Everybearing" strawberry plants purchased six years ago. The mother plants have successfully sent out runners and rooted daughter plants, which I move every few years during the spring so that the bed can expand.
The soil consists of a mixture of compost from the local sawmill, manure and compost, some potting soil and as much additional compost as I can layer on. I find that strawberries are heavy feeders, and the more compost I can add, the better.
The three pests that plague my strawberries are, in order: Japanese beetles, crows, and squirrels. The Japanese beetles eat the leaves, and they do plenty of damage, but I've chosen not to use pesticides on my berries. The bed looks awful during June, but by August most of the damage to the leaves done by the chewing insects is overcome.
The birds are another matter entirely. They're tough to outwit. Netting might help, but I haven't invested in it yet. As soon as the berries are the perfect shade of ripeness, crows bite the ends off. I try to hide the berries under leaves, which seems to work. If they can't see it, they don't eat it.
As for the squirrels, well...the only squirrel smart enough to find my strawberry patch last year also found the ripening peaches on the tree near the vegetable garden. Alas, he met his maker when Whitey, one of our outdoor cats, pretended to be a white panther, stalked him and dispatched him to the after life. So far, my strawberries have been fine.
I don't have any of my own original strawberry recipes to share today, so I thought I'd be an archivist and instead share three links I've found to a ton of great recipes to use your fresh strawberries.

Southern Living shares 51 recipes for fresh strawberries. Their magazine is usually great when it comes to recipes. Some look absolutely mouth-watering!
Cooking Light is always one of my favorite recipe sources. Here they've listed 20 recipes for fresh strawberries.
Taste of Home is another magazine which published great recipes. Here is the link to their collection of strawberry recipes.

How to Plant Tomatoes

2014-05-23T11:08:00.000-07:00

Yup, it's that time of year again - time to plant tomatoes! Tomatoes are one of the most popular vegetables to grow in the backyard garden, and with good reason. Have you ever bit into a store-bought tomato and thought you accidentally ate the cardboard packaging? Most grocery store tomatoes taste awful for the simple reason that they're grown to be hard as a rock. Growers want them to withstand shipping conditions without bruising, and grocery stores want them to stay fresh for a long time. Hence the cardboard tomato. But in the backyard...well, you can walk outside, pick a ripe tomato, and bite into it with the juice dripping down your chin. Not that I've ever done that. Er, no, of course not.... The secret to growing great tomatoes begins by preparing the garden soil and planting them properly.

Soil Conditions for Tomatoes Tomatoes prefer a neutral soil pH, so have your soil tested and try to get it to around 6.5 - 7.0. If the pH is too low, tomatoes are more prone to blossom end rot because the pH prevents them from absorbing the proper amount of calcium from the soil. That's why getting your soil tested is a must; a soil test and the accompanying information really helps prevent a lot of problems before they start.
They'll grow just fine in containers, raised bed gardens, or garden beds. Add plenty of compost and well-aged manure to the soil and mix it in before planting tomatoes.

Do not plant tomatoes outside until all danger of frost is past. If a frost does threaten, cover tomato plants with blankets, sheets or newspapers overnight. How to Plant Tomatoes
Once you've chosen your location (full sun, right?) and the varieties to grow in your home garden, it's time to plant tomatoes.
Dig the planting hole so that when you set the plant's roots into the hole, some of the stem is covered. I know that this is going to go against everything you've ever learned about planting vegetables and flowers, but hear me out. Tomatoes are unusual in that new roots develop off of the stem portion that's underground. I like to pinch off the lower set of leaves and place those at ground level to encourage additional root formation.
Remove the tomato plant from the pot or container by gently tapping the pot and using your hand to cup or catch the plant as you remove it. Set it into the planting hole, and replace the soil.
Plant tomatoes at least 24 inches apart or more. Most of the Cooperative Extension websites recommend 24-36 inches or more apart. You need good air circulation around the plants to prevent diseases, and tomatoes can grow very tall and wide.
Fertilize with a water-soluble fertilizer when you first plant tomatoes. Missouri's Cooperative Extension site recommends 10-52-17 fertilizer, but to be honest, I've never seen one with those numbers. It's clear they're recommending a fertilizer with a high phosphorous (middle number), so if you can't find a special tomato fertilizer, look for one with a higher middle number.
Staking tomato plants keeps them from sprawling all over the place. You can either use wooden stakes with cloth ties, or tomato cages. I prefer the cages for big tomatoes like Beefstake or Early Girl. Buy them early, because they tend to sell out from the garden centers once summer arrives! Organic Pest Control for Tomato Plants
Cut worms seem to love tomato plants. Cut worms snip the tender stem right in half. To prevent cut worm damage, take a paper or Styrofoam cup and cut it in half. Place the ring with both ends open over the plant to make a little collar. This keeps the cut worm from crawling towards the stem. They hit the collar and give up. You can also fold newspaper sheets into a thick collar about an inch tall and use masking tape to close the collar off. Place it around the stem, leaving a few inches between the paper collar and the stem.
Another pest on tomato plants is the tomato horn worm. If you've never seen one, they're ugly nasty things. Here's a picture of one I took in my garden a few years ago. The white things on it are the offspring of a parasitic wasp. This is disgusting, so if you have a weak stomach, move on. The parasitic wasp stings the horn worm and lays its eggs on it. They hatch and eat the worm from the inside out. Nature can be downright NASTY.

Parasitic wasps are, however, nature's answer to the ugly horn worm. Another organic method to repel tomato horn worms are marigolds. I've had success with this method. Plant marigold seeds or plants around your tomato bed. I grow my tomatoes in a raised bed, and simply set marigolds out every foot or so on the edges of the bed. Not only do they keep the horn worm away, they also add color and attract pollinators. That's a win-win in my book! I'm growing Beefsteak, Early Girl and Sweet 100 tomatoes this year. My neighbor grows many heirloom varieties, and I hope to buy some tomatoes from her to try them out. Last year she had Black Crimson, which was delicious. I enjoyed it in salads. Are you growing tomatoes this year? If not, try it - if you have a sunny area, all you need is a large one gallon container, soil and a tomato plant. And a marigold or two. And then it's on to tomatoes this summer!

Are Ants on a Peony Bush Bad?

2014-05-20T12:45:00.004-07:00

Poor ants. They get such a bum rap every spring!
May is the month for gardeners in many temperature zones to enjoy peonies. I love peonies and have four different bushes here at Seven Oaks, along with a tree peony that seems to come back every year but never grows much larger than it did the first year we planted it.
The flower above is a peony in my garden, as is the one below.

With the spring peony blossoms, however, come the ants. When I was a child, there were so many ants crawling on my mother's "Festiva Maxima" peony in our Long Island garden that I nicknamed peonies "ant bushes". Ants swarmed the buds and flowers each spring, making it impossible to cut the boughs and bring them indoors - unless I wanted an ant farm, which I can assure you, I did not.
So what gives with all those ants on peony bushes? Let's get one thing straight: ANTS DO NOT HARM PEONY FLOWERS! They don't eat the leaves, the buds or the flowers. They won't hurt the plants. They're totally harmless.
What they are seeking is the sweet, rich nectar that flows from peony buds and flowers. They sip the nectar. And that's it.
They're just going about their job, folks. Nothing to see here.
Want to bring your peony flowers indoors without a bunch of hitchhiking ants? Here's a simply trick I learned from an organic gardener friend. Use your garden hose with a sprayer nozzle attached and squirt the buds and leaves with water. Then shake them upside down to shake off as many ants as you can. Sometimes the spray will damage the flower heads, but most of the time you can simple knock off the ants. If you're really concerned about ants coming indoors, then enjoy peony flowers outside and don't use them as a cut flower. Or buy a silk one. That's what I have gracing my dining room table today...an arrangement of silk peony flowers. This way, the ants stay outside and I enjoy beautiful peonies indoors and out.
A win all around, I'd say.

My garden this week purple iris, white peonies. A favorite combination.