Potting Up Obedients

This time of year, I struggle with priorities.  The vegetable garden is so demanding.  (I had no idea!)  I could be in the veggies every day from sun up to sunset.  But that is just not practical for us.  Another vegetable farmer, Jill Beebout from Blue Gate Farm shared some advice in an email.  Jill says that the keys to success on a small farm are diversification (products and marketing), resilience (be ready give up on things that do not work), and organization (I need a lot of work on this one.)  As for diversification, we have this one down pat - so much so that it often seems we are running in too many directions. 

Yesterday afternoon, I took a break from the veggies and spent several hours with my true passion - my native plants.  It was time to 'pot up' some of the plants that are growing in plug trays which means that they are surviving in a 2" square pot.  When they stop growing or are root bound in the bottom of the pot, they get to be potted up to the next size.  The progression that I use for these is from plug to quart and then to gallon.  The sizes are not exact and there are no standards - nursery pots are described in numbers or diameter typically - a #1 pot should be one gallon, #2 two gallons, and so forth.  We accept used pots and recycle them -   sanitizing and replanting in them.  As a result, we end up with pots in all shapes and sizes.

My project for yesterday was potting up Obedients.  No, I did not misspell the word.  I was working with Physostegia virginiana whose common name is Obedient plant or False Dragonhead.    Obedients are native to the central and southern US.  They grow three to four feet tall and can bloom most of the summer season.  Since they are native plants, they are accustomed to harsh growing conditions.  When planted in a garden and tended lovingly, they spread quickly and must be contained or divided regularly.   They got their common name because you can move a bloom and it will temporarily stay in that position.  I transplanted three dozen plugs into quarts and some gallon containers. Now, I hope to coax them to bloom encouraging their sale at the market.  Click here to learn more about this beautiful native perennial. 

My native plant nursery is located about half mile from the house in part of a huge old metal barn that was built for raising hogs.  We use the enclosed part of the barn to raise our New Zealand White meat rabbits.  The open part of the barn is where I work with the native plants. As I was out of the sun with a big fan running to keep me cool,  spending an afternoon Potting Up Obedients was pure pleasure. 

Sauerkraut - part of my heritage!

It is hot - way too hot to do anything.  However, the garden is calling us.  Summer Squash and green beans (we grow the small french variety) are ready for harvest.  The weeds require our attention as always.  The corn is tasseling - can't wait for that wonderful sweet corn.  The tomatoes are beginning to fill out and will be turning red soon.  We are picking banana peppers and expect the bell peppers to ripen soon.  And, planting is not over.  This week, we are planting sweet potatoes, sorghum, and our recently seeded malabar spinach is breaking through the ground where the snow peas have finished and wilted.  

We had the most fun this week with our cabbages and plums.  First - the cabbage.   I decided to make homemade sauerkraut!  The folks in Ackley would be proud of me.  I grew up in a little town in north central Iowa called Ackley.  You can learn more about this quaint little community at http://www.ackleyiowa.net/ .  When you enter Ackley, the welcome sign announces that you are entering the "Home of Sauerkraut Days".  When I was a kid, Sauerkraut Days was three days of bliss in the middle of a summer that otherwise was centered around the town's swimming pool, brief visits with my grandmother 'Mom',  and the little 9 hole golf course (which I would play over and over sometimes 36 holes per day).  There was nothing else to do.  After all, we had a total of three TV channels, no computers, few radio stations, and lots of corn and pigs. 

Don't get me wrong here.  It was not a bad place to grow up.  It was safe and pleasant - no drive by shootings, muggings, terrorist attacks, environmental disasters, etc.  There was something comforting about knowing everyone you met every day.    ( It was much later in my life living in LA that I learned the value and the price of anonymity.)   But - Sauerkraut Days were the most!  The whole uptown (uhm-two blocks long) was closed off to traffic.  The carnival came to town with a ferris wheel (we could see our house from the top), scrambler, some kind of freak show, and lots of  'games of chance'.  We also had a big parade, a kiddie parade,  and music programs in the band shell.  The culmination of all of the activities was free wieners and sauerkraut for everyone!  I hated sauerkraut then but might have eaten a wiener if there were no vestiges of sauerkraut near it.  So, that part was not too meaningful to me.  According to the website, they gave out free sauerkraut and wieners on Friday, June 4th this year. I missed it!

At any rate, I both grew up, and grew to like sauerkraut very much.  But - I was never around anyone who knew how to make it and never dreamed of making my own.  That is, until our cabbage matured and we wondered what to do with it all.  I came across some internet sites touting the advantage of making your own sauerkraut.  I gathered a wonderful recipe from friend Christie and another German recipe from the internet and harvested 8 heads of cabbage for processing into sauerkraut.  It took a while to shred 8 full heads of cabbage and my kitchen is a mess as a result.  However, there are now 10 quarts of cabbage sitting on our kitchen counter waiting to do their fermenting magic.   I guess they will bubble and overflow and make a gooey mess in the pans. 

The only drawback is that I neglected to read all of the recipe instructions.  This is the middle of summer in the Ozarks and,  as I said at the outset, it is hot here.  We are experiencing outside daytime temperatures in the mid 90s.  Normally, our air conditioning system would be set no lower than 78 degrees.  The recipes all require that the fermenting sauerkraut be maintained at temps ranging from 65 to 72 degrees for at least two weeks.  So much for our electric bill this month!  Needless to say the sauerkraut has taken precedence and the programmable thermostat has been adjusted to care for our sauerkraut process properly.  In the future, the making of sauerkraut will be reserved for the fall growing season.  I have soooo much to learn. 

Now - for the Plums...  Until this Spring, we did not even know that we owned a traditional plum tree.  We have lots of native plums which produce fruit for the birds and deer but not for us.  This year, we discovered that we have a wonderful traditional plum tree.  We are experiencing the perfect spring for fruit and we have apples, pears, plums, and cherries.  The plum tree is loaded.  Jerry, who is a big jam and jelly fan, is ecstatic.  He has been watching and reporting on the development of the plums for weeks.  Today, we made the first jam from the plums and tried to make leather from the fruit with our new Excalibur dehydrator.  The jam came out fine but the leathers are a little too tart.  The fruit really needs another few days; hopefully the Japanese Beetles will let us have some of the ripe ones.  

Meanwhile, we will hope that the cabbage makes its transitional voyage from leaf to kraut!  May the bubbling begin!

Missouri Native Plants at the State Fair

Grow Native! hosted a Tram Tour last Thursday of the native landscapes at the state fairgrounds. The fair is a great opportunity to view demonstration gardens filled with Native Plants.  Click on this blog posting to learn more about the event.  http://thinkoutsidethebarn.com/mda/2010/06/grownativefair.html#more

If you scroll down in the blog, you will see 2 more stories on Grow Native!

For more information on the Missouri State Fair, click on the link provided.  http://www.mostatefair.com/

What Does a Decade Look Like?

Oh!  What a decade!  Here we are all dressed up in our Tommy Bahama outfits for our perfect little Florida garden wedding on Long Boat Key.  It was a Sunday and Father's Day on June 18th, 2000.  We spent the night on our 36' Trawler Cheers in its slip on Anna Maria Island.  Then we were off to the Long Boat Key Chapel for our garden wedding attended only by us, the minister, and God.   We spent the rest of the day celebrating and communicating with friends and loved ones.  Not all were happy with our decision to make it simple and private; but I think (hope) we are forgiven by now. 

So - - what happened to the decade?   You can check out this link to read about the events in the world during this time. 3rd Millennium, 21st Century, 2010s  Some key words that come to mind are terrorist attacks, hurricanes, tsunamis, flu epidemics,  financial collapse, new wars, old wars, threats of war, the end of the space exploration, continued reliance on oil, chemically engineered food, and an unimaginable man made environmental disaster.   Oh yes - I should mention Ipods, Facebook, Twitter, Blogging - digital everything....And - you wonder why we moved to the country?  Actually, I have to admit that my one requirement before purchasing our property was that we would have a DSL connection.  Still no cell service though..... Oh, well!

Here we are in 2010 growing older, struggling with aches and pains, and wanting to do a lot more than we get done in a day.  I wonder what this picture will look like in 2020?  Will we still be blogging then?  I can't imagine how that will change over the next decade.   In spite of the state of the world, we are blessed in many ways and thankful for all of these - loved ones, friends, neighbors, good health and a beautiful place to live and enjoy life in the country. 

Here's to many more decades!

It's a Berry Good Time!

Haven't had time to write anything lately.  Late April and May is when every day is about garden work. At least that is the case when the weather permits us to be outside working.  It may also be the least satisfying  time in the garden.  It is all about tilling, preparing the soil with amendments, seeding, weeding and hoping for a bountiful crop in 2 to 3 months.  It is kind of an 'all work and no play' time.  The rest of the summer also requires tilling, weeding and seeding but that work is accompanied by a harvest.  Voila - the result of all that work!  As soon as veggies come out of the garden, our spirits rise along with the energy to keep going for the rest of the season. 

Thankfully, not all of our crops require the preparation that the veggies do.  We are fortunate to have apple, pear, cherry, peach and plum trees.  They do not require a lot of attention until harvest except for management of pests, diseases, and a winter pruning every other year or so.  We are having a perfect fruit year due to lots of winter moisture and no late freezes.  As a result, we discovered mulberry trees in some of our woods - a great find.  The mulberries are absolutely delectable;  the drawback is that the they are difficult to harvest in quantity and they grow on very large trees on our property.  The best way to enjoy them is perched in the front end loader  (for you city folk, that is an attachment to a tractor)  lifted up to the most loaded branches with time to just dine on the fruit.  I guess it may be nice to give the tractor driver a turn in the front end loader to get his share also. 

Our apple trees are loaded with young fruit as is our asian pear - my favorite.  However, Jerry's favorite is our sour cherry tree.  It is loaded also and the fruit is turning bright red in multitudes.  He is leaving town for a couple of days and is concerned that when it turns, the birds will wipe the tree clean in a day as has happened in recent years.  Today, he picked a gallon and a half of these little tiny sour cherries, pitted every one of them, and we have spent the last couple of hours making them palatable  - that is, cooking and canning cherry jam.  Can you tell that this is not my favorite? 

The weather has been very hot - near 90 degrees and we have three stove burners going full bore to cook the cherries, sanitize the canning jars, and create Jerry's ultimate favorite flavor of jam.  We now have three pints and 8 half pints of canned jam sitting on the granite island with their lids popping happily to let us know that all of the work paid off.      It's a Berry Good Time!

It can only get better!

The phone was ringing as we dragged our rain soaked bodies back to the house mid-afternoon yesterday. We had been at the Stella Spring Fling - our first market selling opportunity. (See yesterday's post for more information about our preparation and sale items.)  Our sympathetic caller was friend, Christie, an experienced market gardener who had been out of town and did not participate in this event. Our first market day was disappointing to say the least.  It was raining when we left the house and continued steadily all morning. Over an inch of rain fell during the time that we were selling our plants and sharing information about our local master gardeners program. After 5 hours of being wet and cold, we gave up and left by early afternoon.   In spite of the weather, we did generate some interest in our plants and sold a few.   While it did not meet our expectations, we are thankful that some diehard shoppers were out on such a nasty day.  The best thing that we can say is -  it was our first day of business and we took in more money than we spent.

What did Christie have to say about it?  Her comment went something like this - "Gwen, you have been through the worst; it can only get better!"  I sure hope she is right.

The Birth of a Nursery!

When I started this blog, I planned to share our progress as we develop our native plant nursery and organic produce business.  After many months of planning, talking, and spending money, it is finally time to begin bringing in some income.   The plan is to sell at local farmer's markets until we can build enough clientele to sell from our farm. 

It is 6 am and we are packed up for our first market day.  For the sale today, we have 150 native perennials in quart size pots and 100 organic tomato plants in 3" pots along with some of Jerry's wood products.  Yesterday, we practiced putting up our little 10' x 10' tent and spent all day trying to note everything that we would need today.  The event today is the Stella Spring Fling - a local music celebration with vendors selling crafts and garden plants.  There will be gospel, country, and folk music and who knows what kind of crafts.  Of course, as luck would have it, it is scheduled to rain all morning.  I guess that will not hurt us or the plants. 

Beginning May 1st, we will be at the Neosho farmers market every Saturday with plants, produce, and Jerry's wooden bowls and spoons. 

Jerry is taking care of the rabbits and I will get the chickens fed for the day so that we can leave soon.   Wish us luck!