That said, I found a site and some youtube videos talking about hugelkultur which is a style of permaculture that begins by creating raised beds by burying wood in various stages of decomposition. It’s a no-dig method where you start by piling old or new wood and covering it with soil and then let it rest for a year or two. The longer the bed rests, the more glorious the soil will become and the high level of organic matter will give it tremendous water retention so that it will not require outside irrigation. It’s a garden that you don’t have to water.

I’m going to try using hugulkultur to expand my driveway bed. The space that I’ll include is the area of my property that gets the best sun all day and is currently part of a super-wide path between the keyhole garden and the driveway. I’m creating a log border for the new perimeter and filling it in with branches, leaf litter and split logs. This process will result in a quick build of a high, probably messing looking bed at first. As the wood breaks down, it will rob nitrogen from it’s surroundings so I will cover the wood with manure/straw before I add a layer of soil on top. I don’t plan to plant the expansion this year, but we’ll see if I can resist. I may put some annuals in to see how they do.

Can You Dig It?!

Sure you can, but why do it if you don’t have to? haha!

Here’s the driveway bed expansion at the end of day 1.

All in a day’s work. Ignore the ugly area rugs at the top of my driveway. As soon as I get the dollars to pave it, that will become smooth blacktop. The fresh dirt you see in the picture above is a layered bed that goes like this: untilled ground, split 4-5 year old logs, leaf and branch litter from this past fall, straw/manure I picked up a month ago, a thin layer of dirt from a freshly dug compost pit in my back yard. Whew! As soon as I get my hands on some wood chip mulch, I’ll mulch the whole bed and leave it to rest this season. I’ll update the status of this bed as it decomposes and I eventually plant it.

This was what the bed looked like when I first dug it, April 2010. The view is from the other end of the bed and it all looked so neat and cute. I had just planted seeds, so the little sticks were marking my place. The bed is twice the size now and the grass doesn’t look nearly as nice because my lousy landscapers had spread the lousy orange subsoil all over top of a bunch of landscaping rock to cover it up. No organic matter in the soil to speak of at all. The herbs in the bed didn’t mind, and I did mix in a lot of compost when I dug the bed, but I had to do it with a pick ax and I threw out my back because it was like CONCRETE, the ground was so hard. If this hugulkultur works, it will be an answer from God. I had the wood that was rotting, I had barely penetrable ground with little organic matter and the same area gets full sun all day. Put it all together and voila! 

I need to call some local tree services and see if I can get someone to dump a load of woodchips for me. I need a lot more mulch this season. Last year’s load has broken down beautifully and I think everything could use a fresh layer.

The crocus and lilies are beginning to push up through the soil, but unlike some other NJ gardeners I’ve heard from recently, mine aren’t ready to bloom yet.

A few months ago I watched the movie Fat Sick and Nearly Dead. I had already read Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s Eat to Live: The Amazing Nutrient-Rich Program for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss, Revised Edition and was discovering the health benefits of a plant based diet and giving it my best shot when I came across this documentary on streaming on Netflix. This movie spoke volumes to me, so I bought my Breville 900 watt juicer shortly thereafter. Besides making awesome fresh vegetable and fruit juices, I’ve just found another perfect use for it!

Last week we had seen some really low temperatures but the weather had been mild just 2 days ago when I decided to dig up the horseradish I planted back in April 2010 before the ground froze. I intended to bring some to my Mom’s house and process it there (haha) but when she heard I had it with me during my visit she said, “No way, we are having company today. You do it outside another day.”

Years ago, when Mom was a little girl, she had once walked into her own Mom’s kitchen in Jersey City, NJ  when her Cioci (aunt) was visiting and making fresh horseradish. It’s so potent, SO STRONG, that it basically feels like you are being attacked by some kind of biological warfare if you walk into the room. It’s like slicing onions with a dull knife right next to your face… times 20.

So I grumbled and stomped and took my roots back home with me.

With my Mom’s warning ringing in my ears, I decided to process the horseradish in the garage. I opened the front door and the back door so I had a cross breeze going. While I was peeling the roots I scoffed and said to myself, “What’s the big deal? This isn’t bad!” but then I put the peeled pieces into the juicer and pressed down.

I had to run out of the garage! Holy COW! I knew it was coming and it still surprised me! haha. I steeled myself against it and went back in to finish the job.

When the juicing was done I had the BEST RESULT! I poured the juice into the mason jar and added 1 tablespoon of natural apple cider vinegar to it. Then I scooped the pulp from the container and added that to the jar. Maybe it was because the horseradish doesn’t have much juice, or because the roots are so naturally hard, but the pulp was PERFECT! I dare to say it’s even more fine and was even more FLUFFY than the processed kind you buy in jars at the grocery store. It looked like snow!

I added the fluffy stuff into the jar and closed it tight. I ended up adding in about 1 tbsp of water too because it just didn’t seem wet enough to me, but I wasn’t sure if more vinegar would affect the taste.

I need to find some smaller jars next time so I can freeze some because when you make it fresh it only lasts about 4 weeks in the fridge.

I added some to some quinoa today to try it and it’s my new favorite thing. It came out great. I wish my Babci and my Dad could have tried it. I LOVE making my own horseradish and it will always have a place in MyNJGarden!

Homemade Prepared Horseradish

• About 10 inches of horseradish root
• About 1 tablespoon of white vinegar (I used natural apple cider vinegar)
• Dash of salt

Juice the roots, combine juice, pulp, vinegar and salt and pack into tightly sealed jars. Refrigerate for up to 4 weeks. Freeze in smaller batches to enjoy for months to come!

ARGH. I just don’t want to spend hundreds of dollars to have the damn thing cut down professionally. Now is the TIME though, man! The leaves are gone so cutting it up will be super easy and we can keep most of it for firewood. This tree shades a big part of my garden in spring/summer, and throws stupid, annoying and spikey little seed-balls all over the yard every year. It’s huge and ugly because half of the branches are cut off because it’s way too close to the house and they hang over the roof. It’s GOT to go.

Before you comment, please remember that I’ve acknowledged that I already know that I’m Bat Shit CRAZY. Thank you.

I have a feeling that I might be one of the people who become the reasons for certain township ordinances “for the greater good”.

I’ve had a few salads from these beds already and, though I love the organic fresh lettuce, I have gotten at least one crunchy brown fall leaf shredded into my salad each time without fail. Why is it that I have no problem pulling weeds out of my garden, but removing the fall leaves is a pain in my butt?

We’ve got asparagus ferning out up there next to the greenhouse. Very exciting because in the spring, the third for those plants, I’ll be able to harvest my first asparagus from that bed. I haven’t been picking the chard from this bed in the back yard for a few weeks now because the chard from the keyhole garden has been much prettier. Some dark spots have been happening on this batch and I think I should just cut this down and put the garden to bed. Don’t know what the black spots are so I should probably trash it instead of composting it.

The broccoli raab is young and tender and delicious. I should have planted that in succession all season because I love it so much just as it is right now.

The bok choi in the little round bed has flowered so if the seed pods dry out before it freezes I’ll be able to save the seed for next year.

Speaking of the keyhole garden… it’s still looking pretty green. When should I dig out the finished compost from the middle basket to start refilling it with fresh ingredients again?

This is the driveway garden with kale, dill and some self seeded purple tansy flowers down in front. I tried companion planting those with the summer squash/zucchini in early summer to keep the squash vine borers away. I didn’t see a noticeable difference though. I think I’ll try wrapping the stems in tin foil next year. The purple tansies are pretty flowers though. As the flowers bloom they kind of unfurl like one of those New Years noise makers you blow into. As they unravel, they push out tiny bright purple blooms along the flower. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Another view of the driveway garden with lemon balm, more kale, astragalus and yarrow.

This is a piece of clean pipe I’ve staked into the ground around my tiny pomegranate seedling. I filled it with leaves and I’m hoping it will be enough insulation to help it survive the winter. My only fear? The ring will fill with snow and freeze solid. I hope it doesn’t, but I’ve never done this before, so we’ll see.

The entry garden has such a pretty kale, marjoram, magic carpet spirea and lavender.

I think my tree is confused. It did NOT bloom in spring when it’s neighboring Crimson Gala tree bloomed and I was worried because these two trees were supposed to be able to pollinate each other. This is only the third autumn it’s been planted in my backyard. Will it bloom this coming spring? Will it try to set fruit after the blooms drop during the winter? If you are reading this blog, has this ever happened to you?

When all the families arrived, we loaded up 2 wagons full of parents and kids and headed out on their hayride around the fields and greenhouses on the farm. The farmer was a nice man who spoke loudly and tried to get the kids revved up to enjoy the ride.

The farm was decorated with little scenes of recognizable characters that the preschool kids would enjoy, they had Spongebob, Mater from Cars, a Spiderman hanging in a tree and a few very slightly creepy decorations for Halloween like ghosts, fortune tellers and witches. As we passed each little scene a new, appropriate bit of music would play on the speakers attached to the wagon to go with the scene we were passing.

 
As we rode along, I was looking forward to seeing what was growing in the fields. I noticed what I thought was a cover crop growing almost everywhere and a couple of fields that had Christmas trees growing in different stages… some very small, some medium and some very large trees.

At one point, the hayride was stopped so that the kids could get out and choose a small pumpkin from a bunch that were spread around on the ground. This was not a pumpkin patch, they had been picked and placed here for the kids to choose from. For all the kids knew, this was the way pumpkins grew, they just popped up out of the ground to be “found” by the farmers.

After we chose our pumpkin and took some pictures I asked the farmer about the crop growing in the fields on either side of us. He said they were soy beans. He showed me that they weren’t quite ready to be harvested yet because some of the pods were still green and when he opened one he could still bite into a bean. Once all the leaves fell off and they are all dry, he said the combine will come through and separate the beans from the plants and pods. The plant waste will fall back on the field to be tilled in later and the beans will be tested for protein content. If it’s high enough, they will be used for human consumption (but he said they are not edemame), if it’s not high enough, they will go for animal feed or oil.

He did say that he does grow most of the pumpkins the kids pick here on the farm, but we didn’t get to see the patches where the pumpkins actually grow.

Though this was a class trip, I was disappointed to discover that they had no intention of really telling the class anything at all about the farm, the way it worked, what they grew, how things grow… nothing about any of that. I asked about all of this one-on-one and no one else heard what he had to say about it. I know the kids are only three, but I think they would have been able to get it if they threw in a little info during the hayride.

We jumped back on the wagons and headed back to the boarding area. The kids each got a bag with a dried ear of corn and a gourd in it. We were able to see a few of their animals, 2 donkeys, 2 goats, 2 sheep and 3 pigs. Pork Chop alley? Man, that’s messed up.

I was so surprised to see how hard the ground was in the corn field! If I had soil with this much clay in my own yard I would insist that not a single thing would grow in it, but these corn stalks sure did! How do the roots bust through it?! A-maiz-ing…. get it? hahaha.

Before we left we also took a walk through the corn maze. Abbie wanted to try it  and I didn’t want to let her know that these things have always kind of freaked me out, so we gave it a go. For a moment or two I did feel a twinge of doubt that made me want to tromp through the field of corn stalks back toward the house where I knew my car was parked, but instead, we followed the paths that were tied off with blue ribbon and eventually found out way out with a small group of survivors that we ran into along the way.

The fall garden is coming along, though I was too lax in July and should have done smaller, more frequent plantings of greens throughout the summer. Right now, I have a lot of lettuce, beets and broccoli raab all about the same age, but I’m afraid if I do a small planting now and waited to do another, it would be too cold to plant anymore this season before everything froze up.

The keyhole garden has been fantastic all season long. Everything I plant in there seems happy to hang around and do really well. Broccoli, chard, lettuce, volunteer melons out of the center compost basket and a volunteer tomato will probably be giving me the last tomatoes I’ve got left out of all my gardens this season. Yay for front yard food!

The greenhouse plants are recovering nicely after having to be disassembled and reassembled to make way for Hurricane Irene. It is VERY wet in there, so I’m a little worried about mildew, in fact my squash have some powdery mildew happening on the young leaves already. I need to get out there and spritz them with milk. For now, I’ve left the lettuce boxes out on the patio as they don’t need to be in the greenhouse yet. I’m using the greenhouse space to pot up some strawberry runners so I can move them to the front yard gardens. My back yard strawberry bed is getting really crowded.

The loquat tree is really becoming a pretty substantial little potted tree! I’ll be moving it into the greenhouse when it gets colder at night and I am hoping it can make it through the winter. I wonder if the leaves will fall – they are so bold! I love them! The front garden is really filling in. I’m so glad I put thyme and marjoram in there with the shrubs. There’s no reason NOT to tuck edibles into the landscape. They are beautiful and such a perfect ground cover to fill in empty space. Bok choi looks great under the garden arch where the squash were in the early summer.

The fall garden is fun, but not as fun as the spring. In spring, I had the whole winter to psych myself up to start digging and planting! We have had a lot of rain this season and the bugs are crazy out there. I can’t spend too much time in the yards without getting eaten alive. It’s damp out there most of the time lately and I’m starting to get all “girly” about sticking my hand into the plants to pull a weed or to take off fading foliage. The moisture is making everything slick and slimy. I can’t stay away completely though, how can I? Take a look at this beautiful volunteer squash and these mounds of nasturtiums have come up from only 3 or 4 plants! Pretty incredible.

I planted red tipped lettuce, romaine and beets in their place.

Right next to that bed, in the space next to the cabbage, I planted a mesclun mix.

I pulled my bush bean plants, harvested the last of them and had green beans and pasta with garlic and oil for dinner with the kids tonight. If you put the beans in the boiling water first for 5 min., then add the noodles and cook them until aldente, about 8 min, the fresh beans are the PERFECT texture. Drain them all together and add sauce. mmmmmmm.

I planted broccoli raab in place of the beans. Made sure to trim the wilted leaves and help train the cucumber plants on their trellis. I took some of the rooted runners from the strawberry patch and potted them up. I plan to move a few to the front yard beds once they get over the shock.

At least the eggplants look happy!

The kiwi (male and female) were not doing well in the pots I had them in on the front porch, so I potted them up with a better soil mix and put them in the greenhouse with the other plants I’m paying closer attention to right now. I staked a few of the volunteer tomatoes and transplanted one of them to a container in the greenhouse. I also edged the front walk, got rid of the weeds in the cracks and swept the steps and the walk. I don’t do that often enough. It makes SUCH a big difference when you look at the front of the house!

I still have a bunch of mulch in the back of the truck. I need to finish putting it down on the driveway bed and try to unify the flagpole bed with that one solid color mulch. Right now, it’s very choppy looking over there. That bed could use a nice clean edge too.

Here’s what the kids were up to while I was digging in the dirt. This was NOT a couch potato day!

A friend of mine pointed out a local landscaper who posted an ad on craigslist offering to dump a truck of grass clippings to be used in compost and as mulch. I went for it and had him bring me the grass last Saturday. I will NEVER do that again. The pile was only half as big as the huge pile of mulch I that I had dumped on the driveway in the spring but the grass was WAY more of a pain in the butt because of the SMELL.

I’ve read a lot about compost and I knew that a pile that had too much green matter could get stinky, but holy moly, there is no way I thought it would be that bad. My compost piles have always been carbon heavy because I always have WAY more leaves than kitchen and compostable garden waste. We’ve got a lot of trees. But a truck load of grass clippings is a LOT of green and that stuff got HOT and slimy and smelly real fast. I layered up my compost pile and then spread the rest as mulch, but I tell you it STILL smells like a horse stall outside my front door and the flies are just all over it. I was kind of hoping that once I spread it out it would dry out some and stop being stinky, but the rain has kept it moist ((shiver)) and oh, just gross.

 

I have to go into this much detail about it because I need to remind myself how awful dealing with it was. You see, after just a day or so I can already see a significant difference in my gardens. My dry summer gardens just LOVE the grass + rain and I’m afraid I’ll forget the nastiness for all the lovely boost my plants will receive.

Speaking of a boost – check out the morning glories! There is a flagpole under there somewhere. I never thought they would get that insane. I can’t help but wonder, how the hell am I going to get them OFF of that thing when they freeze this winter? I think I’ll have to take the flagpole down to do it.

As for the keyhole garden – I couldn’t be more thrilled with a garden project than I am with this! The greens haven’t quit the whole season and that volunteer watermelon vine that came out of the compost has 2 huge melons on it! I wish I had ANY idea when to pick them – I would hate to waste them by picking them too early. I think that after everything freezes this winter and a few weeks before I plant in spring, I’ll empty out the middle compost bin, mix it all into the rest of the soil in the keyhole and start again with a new compost mix in the center.

Here are some flowers that are blooming that are brand new to my gardens this year.

“Turtleheads” transplanted from my Cioci Kathy’s garden in Howell, NJ

Hollyhocks I started from seed I bought from a seller on ebay. Strange thing is, that plant on the left with the pink flowers came up from one of those seeds that should have been a Hollyhock. What the heck IS that thing? It’s pretty though and then stem is real sturdy, probably an inch in diameter. I don’t mind it, I just don’t have any idea what it is.

A blurry, washed out picture of some Exotica lilies that were included for free in one of my nursery orders this spring. They are lovely and had I almost forgot I put them in the ground until they started blooming.