Garden Update

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Time is flying by. I can't believe it is already APRIL! And, with this week (5 weeks before our last frost date (I err 1 week toward the more conservative end of the last frost date window), it is time to plant out the leeks and cabbage that I started from seed back on March 6.

There is something that seems to happen to me every time, maybe you can help me with a suggestion on how to avoid this. It seems that no matter how carefully I make up and situate the tags, I always wind up getting a few of the same type (different variety) of plant mixed in together. The tags are too huge to poke directly into the seed pods I use, so they are laid next to the plants, and this can be confusing when you have a 72-slot planter with 2 Brunswick Cabbages next to 4 Early Jersey Wakefiled Cabbages next to Georgia Southern Collards and Long Island Improved Brussels Sprouts (which BOTH happen to look just like the cabbages at this stage, and BTW aren't supposed to be planted out for another 2 weeks). I can tell the two that are the Mammoth Red Rock Cabbage (they're RED!), but the two varieties of green cabbage, I have no idea which is which. Frankly, at this point I just hope I didn't grab the collards or brussels sprouts by accident.

Next year, I'm thinking popsicle sticks stuck into each plant. I had been trying to use one tag per each variety (multiple plants) because the plastic tags are "spendy" (that is so not a term I use but I've known folks who use it and I really like it in a weird sort of way). Popsicle sticks, on the other hand, are a couple bucks for 100, so I can go to town!

I've already started getting everything ready outdoors. It took me a few weeks, but all six raised beds are now weeded, and we just had some dirt delivered to top them off (each year it settles down a bit more into the bed). John took what small amount of compost we had (it wound up being only 1/2 wheelbarrow full or so) and spread it among the beds before the new dirt was added to the top. I planted a Columbine that I bought at the farmer's market this morning, as well as a Johnny Jump-Up that someone had given away at one of the Master Gardener meetings a few weeks back.

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I started the draft above Saturday morning, and BOY, was it a busy weekend! I have pics that I'll upload later.

Transplanted out:
- Cabbages and surely inadvertently some of the collards :p
- Leeks
- Garlic
- Onions

Started seeds:
- Peas
- Collards & Mustard
- Beets

Planted out (plants) - these are the ones I referred to in this earlier post:
2x Lilac (still need to find a home for the last, sad wilty looking one)
3x Knock-out roses
3x Russian Sage
3x Peony

A note about the popsicle sticks to mark plantings - Charlie thinks they are fabulous to chew on, so that isnt' going to work (at least, not out in the garden)! I should have realized this from him doing the same thing last year with the plastic tags. I need to come up with something that he's NOT interested in chewing on to mark my plants. Suggestions?

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BEE UPDATE: We were supposed to be receiving our two packages of bees tomorrow, but received news over the weekend that it's been postponed a week. I'm not super happy about that, because every week is one less week the bees will have to get settled and build up a healthy hive before winter. They need all the time they can get! So, now they're supposed to arrive on 04/19. The good news is, the Apiary are all set up and John put the mulch down around the area, so we're ready for them.

Pics to come, I promise!

Wild Mushroom and Carmelized Onion Shepherd's Pie

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

(I drafted this a couple of days ago, decided to wait to post it until I had the pics uploaded - here you go!)

Just finished assembling this recipe; it's in the oven for the final cooking step now. I didn't take any step-by-step shots, but I'll try to get a good shot once it comes out of the oven, and once we get some out to eat...


A *lot* of prep work involved in this one! The cooking itself isn't hard, just many, many steps. I think the website says you can do this in 1.5 hours, but I'm thinking you'd have to be really on it and multitasking, with a sous chef, to make that happen. I prepped the potatoes (peeled & cooked) on Monday night, which saved me 1/2 hour, and I started cooking right when I got home at 6pm - it's 8:18 now and I've been sitting down for about :15 minutes.


The verdict? Really, really delicious! And I'm not even a super big fan of mushrooms. I saw a comment (luckily after I'd already started the process, the day after I'd made the potatoes and already had all the ingredients) that the person found it slimy and not good - that was not my experience at all. I even had to subsidize with a small quantity of dried mushrooms which I rehydrated (I'd misread the quantity of mushrooms needed - it is a LOT), and it still came out really, really tasty. Also, to save some money (wild mushrooms are crazy expensive), I used a mix of 2-4 oz packages of wild mushrooms and then 6 oz of button mushrooms and some loose shitakes to make up the rest of the 1-1/2 pounds you need. I wouldn't sweat the particulars too much on which type of mushrooms, as long as you can have a variety. Good stuff! This may or may not be on the make-again list... John and I both loved it, but I rarely have hours to spend prepping and assembling a meal. Maybe next time I'll sub in some roasted root vegetables. If there is a next time... We'll see!

Land of the LOST, or, A Visit to the Virginia Tech Apiary

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

We went to the VA Tech apiary on Sunday. We had our final beekeeping class for most of the day Saturday, but it was too cold to open up hives (sleeting, snowing, high in the 40's), so they rescheduled for Sunday afternoon - which wound up being perfect and gorgeous, around 70+ degrees (welcome to Blacksburg!).


We spent Sunday morning staining our brand-new hives here at home (pics later) and then rushed to get to the apiary by 2pm. We actually arrived a bit early and so were able to poke around a bit before everyone arrived. I seriously wondered if we'd entered another dimension. I should probably note that the VA Tech Apiary is actually at a location referred to as the "Virginia Tech Research Center."

We compared it to LOST's Dharma initiative, and we were at the previously undiscovered "Hive" Station. It was as if we'd fallen off the map into someplace where reality was still reality, just with a slightly odd bent to it... I can't really explain it, I just have to show you - even then, maybe you had to be there.

Overview shot:
A little bit of some awesome art we stumbled upon between the warehouses (which I want for my yard):
Large freestanding fireplace with dome at the top of the chimney that is *just* cut off in this pic:

Stairway to... a seating area?


The apiary itself was one of the coolest things ever. Our experience there observing and handling the frames really instilled a much greater sense of confidence for us going into beekeeping. I think there were 30 apiary (apiaries?) set up there, and maybe more. We got to open up, look inside, and handle and learn about the frames of activity within 4-5 of them. After a while (after we'd opened up multiple hives), the bees were flying everywhere - they were so very docile (landing on people at most, never attacking) and it was so interesting to see all of the bees (drones, queens, workers, oh my!) and the different things they do inside the hive.

I'm scared to death (of killing them or being a bad beekeeper), but I can't wait to get our bees in the next week or so!!!

Yoda is a Buddhist

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” - Yoda

So there's a whole 'nother post that I'll work on about Yoda's belief system and how it reflects other religions near and dear to my heart. It's becoming more and more obvious to me that the source of most things hurtful is fear. I tap in to a bunch of resources about this - fear.less magazine (great), Brene Brown, Pema Chodron, and more.

But, actually, this blog post is really to talk more about faulty belief systems. I recently listened to Pema Chodron's talk, Don't Bite the Hook, on audio CD. I seem to be finding these messages all about me now - when the student is ready the teacher will appear, I suppose.

The most recent lesson I read on this was this post, courtesy of the awesome site Dumb Little Man, about taking the opportunity to shift your thinking to release yourself from frustration. The post describes how to stop and evaluate your angry thoughts as they happen. At the time that a situation came up that I could use this insight toward, I couldn't remember each of the steps it described, but the ones I remembered were to 1.) stop, 2.) evaluate whether your thought is true or not, and 3.) shift your thought to take ownership of the thing that is frustrating you or making you angry.

So I had the opportunity to practice this last night - what a great feeling! Here is the scenario: I'm going into the kitchen to make dinner, and all around the counters are coated in flour and cornmeal from John making us mini-pizzas for dinner the night before. He'd done a *lot* of work, and I must say that usually whoever cooks doesn't have to do the clean up, but he'd done all the dishes and really done 99% of the cleaning up, it was just a few areas that still had the signs of all the efforts of the prior nights' work. I was in the kitchen, getting ready to cook, and thinking "he should have cleaned up all this cornmeal! I mean, look, it is everywhere!"

I realized the faultiness and selfishness of my thoughts, seeing that he had cleaned up and done so much already. I stopped my thoughts, considered them (is this true?) and then turned it around to take ownership of it - changing "he should clean up..." to "I should clean up...", and began cleaning up. It was such a great and powerful feeling, and I knew that it was right; it is the way that I should be thinking, the right path.

I encourage you to think this way the next time you are frustrated with someone. Stop. Evaluate the thought (is this really true?). Turn it around and take ownership (from "he/she should..." to "I should..."). Free yourself from the shenpa!!

Have you encountered this? Would you try these techniques? Let me know!! I'd love to hear about others' experiences with this!

My Charlie

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Isn't he adorable?

Gardening update

Monday, March 21, 2011

Well, the seeds are sprouting beautifully. Everything sprouted except the Tropeana Round Onions, and I'm betting that's because those seeds were 2 years old (I just threw them in to fill up the last 6 grow pellets in the mini-greenhouse). Never fear, however, those grow pellets did not go to waste. I had a few extra leeks and one cayenne pepper that were thinned which got moved over to the available slots and are doing fine. It's just as well, since I'd ordered onion sets which I received recently and need to plant out.

The only problem is, onion can be toxic to dogs, and as soon as I set the box on the ground to work with the sets, Charlie was in there trying to eat them. I put several in some planters up on the table on the back porch, but I have no idea what I'm going to do with the rest! I suppose I'll have to try and rig a makeshift fence around each raised bed to keep the dogs out somehow, but I didn't have enough light to deal with it tonight.

Started the tomatoes today:

8 Amish Paste
3 Paul Robeson
3 Cherokee Purple
and 2 Arkansas Traveler (which may or may not germinate, some more 2 year old seeds)


The bees will be coming in mid-April, and so I've also been thinking a lot about the decorative gardening I want to do. I want to be sure to have plenty of flowers and plants for them to choose from for pollen within our yard. I have always coveted a cottage garden, and thinking of plantings around my apiary brings this style to the front of my mind. I've ordered a few plants to start building out the "bones" for a garden of this style, namely (so far):

Russian Sage
Mme. De Verneville Peony

Double Knock Out® Hybrid Tea Rose (red)

and Josee Reblooming Lilac

This is just the very beginning of a long way to go. I want to add foxglove, hollyhock, lupines, and other perennials, and I will need to add some evergreens (possibly holly bushes, I'm not sure what else) as well as figure out a wind break solution - it gets incredibly windy around here and I want to be sure that my apiary are protected!

Informed Hypocrisy

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Driving gives me the opportunity to do something I love doing: listening to NPR and the BBC on my Sirius satellite radio. They have got such great, thought-provoking shows! Today I listened to BBC's The Forum, which featured a discussion about "Hypocrisy, multiverses and artificial leather: mind-stretching thoughts about life." The show touched on something I think about a lot... Our relationship with food and ability to deem one thing fine while being outraged about another. As mentioned in my last post, I suffer from such hypocrisy in my relationship with bananas, coffee, and chocolate; steak, eggs and milk and the like (not to mention, I am sure, many other foods).

Oron Catts, a guest on the show, is an artist-scientist (scientist-artist?) who has been experimenting with art that evokes thought toward the ethical dilemmas and paradoxes that arise around growing flesh and living tissue. As he was talking about hypocrisy and the human brain (observations brought on by a discussion of the work of Robert Kurzban), Catts gave a great example. He spoke of talking to friends who lived in Spain that were outraged about and actively protesting bullfighting, but who spent their afternoon in a fast-food hamburger joint. When confronted with the paradox of their views, his friends were not even so much as able to grasp the hypocrisy of the situation. Catts' work of growing a "victimless leather" (which of course, was not victimless as it required fetal liquids to initiate) received some negative receptions - everything from resistance to outrage.

During the dialogue with the three men (Catts and Kurzban along with Brian Greene) and the show host Bridget Kendall, Catts brought forth another interesting concept - that of informed hypocrisy.

To arrive at the point, let me provide the context for the conversation: Kurzban's studies of human psychology indicate that humans are inherently comfortable with, if not inclined toward, multiple and often conflicting viewpoints. Greene's studies of theoretical physics indicate that our universe may simply be one in an infinite number of universes (in which we ourselves exist an infinite number of times). Catts' work brings forward the paradox of our comfort with some things via dissociation (leather coats) and relative extreme discomfort when viscerally confronted by the process (his work).

The conclusion provided by Catts is that perhaps the best we can strive for is informed hypocrisy - of at least being aware of the choices we each make. I'm still processing all of my thoughts on the show. In relation to my own conflicted views, on the whole, I think his observation may be the best conclusion I can wholeheartedly support. What do you think?