My Green Ambitions

After the recent rains, I went out to work in the yard to try and get the weeds a bit under control. It's amazing how fast stuff starts to grow with just a bit of extra moisture! I noticed that in one section of the yard, there are these somewhat impressive stalks growing. I think they might be sunflowers. This spot is close to where we had a bird feeder for a while, and the mix we used in the feeder had lots of sunflower seeds. If they're not sunflowers, they're some of the sturdiest weeds I've ever seen. They've grown really tall, really fast. Here's a closer look:Those are sunflowers, right? If they are, I'm delighted. As I mentioned in my flower post a few days ago, sunflowers make me think of my dad. I plan to plant a few different types. So if some want to volunteer themselves, I welcome it. I just hope they'll survive the frost. The coldest weather is still to come. Of course, if they aren't sunflowers I'll feel like a fool.

This is a photo of the spot where I plan to plant my herb garden. This little strip of earth, which is just around the corner from my kitchen window, was where a hedge used to be. The hedge wasn't very pretty to look at, and was ridiculously tall. I didn't like having something that thick and unruly so close to the house. Thick foliage means bugs, and I don't want them in my house. I feel like when we're outside, we're sort of in the insects' domain. We have to learn to live together. But my house is MINE. Bugs will go squish if they come inside. That is the way of things. Anyway, back to the herb garden. I figured this little strip sees plenty of sun, and it's close to the kitchen. Seems like as good an area as any. Of course, right now it has assorted weeds growing in it, so I need to do some work to get it ready. There are also those red tiles on either end, covering sections of the dirt. I'll get those out of the way to maximize the space. So, there's still plenty to do. But it shouldn't take long. In theory.

The herbs I particularly want to grow are rosemary, basil, and cilantro. Though I probably should expand that to include some dill and chives. I'm trying not to bite off more than I can chew as I start out. What other herbs would you have in your ideal kitchen garden? What do you cook with the most?

This is one of our two orange trees. As you can see, there's lots of fruit this year! And the oranges are enormous. Most are the size of softballs. I notice that these oranges have a really thick peel, though. So even though they might look gigantic, the actual fruit part is closer to average. They're delicious and sweet, though. We've had lots of fresh squeezed juice, and oranges to snack on. And, as you can see from the photo, there's still plenty of oranges to enjoy!

But my tree is suffering. We still have problems with white fly. I have some insecticidal soap to use, but I'm hesitant to bother with it now since we've (gasp!) actually had some rain around here lately. I don't want to spray the whole tree only to have the wonders of nature rinse it all off. So I'm waiting until we've harvested the fruit. Then I'll prune the tree, and I'll spray it to help with bugs. White fly isn't the only thing "bugging" this tree, though. In the photo to the left you can see how the leaves are curling and brown, and have kind of a squiggly pattern on some of them. These, according to The Internet, are classic signs of citrus tree miners. It's a moth larvae that burrow between the layers of the leaves. Stupid moths! Go have your babies somewhere else! I'm pretty sure the same insecticidal soap I need to use for the white fly will also take care of the citrus miners.

I guess I should get a book on caring for citrus trees. I bought some special citrus fertilizer, and I'm hoping that with a little extra TLC and maintenance, our two orange trees (and one lemon tree) will flourish. I guess the late winter & early spring are a good time to do maintenance on trees, because it's after the harvest and just before the new buds appear. Here's hoping I get the timing right. I'd hate to further injure or harm the poor thing.

As I start down this gardening path, I'm saying silent prayers that I will have inherited my dad's green thumb. My dad really was pretty amazing with plants - though he never really exercised that talent until the later years of his life. It was when he became a grandfather that he really took an interest in landscaping. He wanted to make the yard and beautiful and safe place where his grandchild could play. He reshaped the whole yard. But the one thing that stands out in my mind the most was how he took little clippings of geranium ivy from a neighbor's plant, and somehow managed to grow them into dozens of plants. He only got a few leaves from the neighbor, and within a year or so, the entire side bank was covered with gorgeous lavender geraniums. There are only a couple patches left, since my mom hasn't really had the time or patience to maintain the flowers since Dad's been gone. Maybe I should take a clipping or two and see if I have a little bit of the same magic within me.

I am, admittedly, kind of foolish when it comes to bottled water. But I'm trying to make some changes. As all those Brita commercials proclaim, thousands of plastic bottles end up in our landfills every year. And even though I'm sure thousands upon thousands of plastic bottles are also recycled, it's better for our planet to cut back on plastics in general. Especially the plastic containers that are not made for continued use. There's also increasing evidence that nasty chemicals can leach into your water from the bottle. So, I went out and bought myself a trusty sports bottle type thing to replace the disposable plastic bottles I'd used before:I've been using bottles like this one for several months now, and I love them. We also have a couple stainless steel water bottles, and other sports bottles around the house. So we've cut back on bottled water in that respect. We still used a lot of bottles during soccer season, though. But I'm hoping to only use sports bottles and reusable bottles in the future.

I feel good about this change, but I'm still a fool. Know why? Because even though we don't buy individual bottles of water, we still buy big 2.5 gallon jugs of Arrowhead water at Costco. We keep them in our fridge. I guess our fear of tap water runs deep. So, we might not have a ton of individual bottles, but we still have these big plastic jugs that we use. Yes, we recycle them. But they're pretty much the least "green" thing about our household. Know why? Not only is it wasteful in terms of the plastic, but it's wasteful in terms of energy. Because they're the kind of jugs that have a little spigot on the end. We keep them in the fridge. When people want a glass of water, or to fill a water bottle, they stand there with the refrigerator door wide open while they do so.

The worst part? When we bought our house, it came with a water softening system AND one of those fancy reverse osmosis water filters:That's right. I have a very expensive filtering system right there under my kitchen sink, and it basically doesn't get used. I need to have people come out to replace the filter on that thing, but otherwise it's perfectly serviceable. And, really, it's an invaluable piece of equipment! WHY are we not taking advantage of it?

So, that's one of my "green" goals: ditch the bottles and use the filter we have!

A few weeks ago, as I know I briefly mentioned in a previous post, a friend and I watched Food, Inc. This movie gave me a lot to think about. I'm sure that's the main objective of these Shock and Awe type movies - give you something that disturbs you enough to think about things in a new way. Watching Food, Inc. made me feel almost the same way I felt when watching An Inconvenient Truth: that while I was not unaware of the problems at hand, the problems were much, much larger and more complex than I realized. In fact, both movies made me feel a sense of helplessness, if I'm being honest. The problems are so big, and I'm just one small person. What can I do? At least each movie had some suggestions at the end. That made you feel a glimmer of hope after the message of DOOM. Maybe I can't do that much to impact the whole problem of massive commercial agriculture and food culture, but eventually a bucket will fill even if it's only a drop at a time. I can do little things. I can be a little more conscientious. I can educate myself and my family. I can try to get the word out. I can make little changes.

But I doubt that I'll get the image of a fistulated cow out of my head. It was one of the most horrible sights I've ever seen. A fistulated cow basically has a hole cut in its side to access one or more of its stomachs so the farmer can assess how it's digesting food. Or something like that. But it's a hole in the side of a cow. The hole is typically ringed with a plastic or rubber collar. But it's a hole straight into their stomach! And there are lots of photos in Google Images showing people who are reaching inside the fistula all the way up to their shoulder. Shoulder deep inside a cow! Disgusting! I'm sure the fistula doesn't really bother the cow that much, after it's initially put in. It's sort of like any stoma. Just keep it clean and it will heal and be fine. But...still. That's a pretty extreme way to monitor your livestock. And then we end up eating said livestock. Bleh.

Anyway, I highly recommend checking out the movie. Just to get you thinking about food and where it comes from. Be part of the change!

Purple carrots. Tell me that's not awesome. I completely love varieties of fruits and vegetables that defy convention. Like these carrots, or purple string beans. Or orange and yellow watermelon! It's just a testament to how amazing and vivid the plant world can be. And it's also a sad reminder of how many varieties of plants fall by the wayside in the wake of commercial agriculture. Most people I know, when I mention purple carrots, are amazed that they even exist. And I admit I was one of those people until I took up an interest in gardening a couple years ago (not that I've done much actual gardening!). I thought for sure my kids would love the idea of purple carrots, too. But they were NOT enthusiastic about it. And since these Dragon Carrots are described as having an "almost spicy" flavor, I was a little nervous about actually enjoying eating them. So, I wimped out and got seeds for regular, orange carrots. But sometime in the future I'll try out the purple ones.

Going through the seed catalogs, there were tons of different vegetables I was interested in trying to grow myself but I felt like I should limit myself since this will basically be my very first garden. I managed to keep 3 cherry tomato plants alive last year, but that's the extent of my gardening thus far. I don't want to take on too much and then end up overwhelmed and failing! So I thought about the items I really wanted. I wanted some Brandywine tomatoes, for sure. My friend Cassie grows them in her garden, and they are DIVINE! I don't even like tomatoes, really. I usually request them off sandwiches and things because I don't like them. But there's something so delicious and downright magical about a homegrown, fresh tomato. Last summer we had a BBQ at my house and Cassie brought her tomatoes. I normally have no tomatoes, but at that BBQ I had two thick slices. There was more tomato on my burger than anything else - bread and meat included! And it was scrumptious. I want that from my garden, too. So I plan to grow some of those. And I got the carrot seeds I mentioned in the last paragraph. I also plan to grown a zucchini or two, but I didn't buy seeds for those. What I did buy seeds for were these:

These are called Boothby's Blonde cucumbers. They on the small side, and supposedly have a thin skin and great flavor. I adore cucumbers. They are by far my favorite vegetable. I don't know what drew me to this particular type. They just looked interesting. I hope they're as delicious and crunchy as I picture them being! This year I'm also hoping to try my hand at pickle making for the first time. The catalog said these cucumbers are good for Bread & Butter Pickles. I usually only like dill pickles. I wonder if these would be okay as dills as well. Guess we'll see! But even if they're just cucumbers for munching on as-is, I look forward to it!

I bought this variety of cucumber especially for pickling. These are called Snow's Fancy Pickling cucumbers. The name says it all! They only get about five or six inches long, and are about an inch across. They're short and chubby, but are supposed to be really good as pickles. Here's hoping that's true! I'm quite excited to try making pickles at home. When I was a kid Grandma Effie used to make pickles at home all the time. She had a big crock that she kept in her pantry. I think she only made sweet pickles. You'd think with all those homemade sweet pickles around that I would have learned to like them, but I certainly did not. Sweet pickles are just wrong. Why have a sweet pickle when you can have a dill? DILL PICKLES 4EVAH!!

This last item isn't a vegetable, but it was still listed along with the vegetables in the seed catalog. So why not? This is a Blacktail Mountain watermelon. I chose this particular heirloom, organic variety of watermelon because it's described as having a reliable crop of melons with seedless, crunchy flesh. Watermelon is pretty much my favorite food, but it needs to be good watermelon. It's a tragedy when you cut into a watermelon and it's mushy or mealy. I like crisp melon. I also don't like fussing with seeds so much when I'm eating them. So this Blacktail watermelon sounded perfect. Cassie tried growing watermelon a couple years ago and said that it was too difficult and she didn't want to do it again. She said it was too hard to know when they're ripe. Too often she'd pick one, only to find it was green inside. Or it would be overripe and moldy. She never knew how to find the perfectly ripe ones. Despite her warnings, I really want to try to grow these. They were raised by a farmer in Idaho, where temps get down into the 40's even in the summer. Supposedly these still do well in hot climates, too. Here's hoping!

So, the seeds are on their way. Now to get the garden into shape so I can plant stuff there! We've been having some crazy wet weather, so the weeds are growing happily! At least with all the rain the ground will be nice and soft so we can pull out the last few stumps of things. I'll post some pictures of the progress!

I put in an order for some stuff from Seed Savers Exchange yesterday! I received several different seed catalogs, but I decided to go with Seed Savers because I want to support their mission of passing along heirloom seeds. Also, they're in Decorah, Iowa which is where my grandmother was born. Chances are good that I'm related to the fine folks running the main farm there. Not that it should make a difference in the grand scheme of things. But I still felt some affection for them, seeing they were in Decorah. So...yeah. Moving on.

I bought seeds for a few different varieties of flowers. I love flowers and our yard is sorely lacking in the color department, especially since my beloved Paraguay Nightshade (aka Potato Vine) was taken out by my in-laws during the Extreme Yard Makeover. So here are a few of the flower packets I purchased:

First, these Valentine sunflowers. My oldest son has wanted to grow sunflowers ever since we moved into our house. I think it's because at the end of my father's life, he always wanted a vase of fresh flowers in the house and sunflowers were some of his favorites. In fact, at the luncheon after his funeral my mom had sunflowers as the centerpieces. Anyway, sunflowers make us all think of my dad, so we'd like to grow some. I really liked this variety because of the pale, lemony yellow petals and also because they're on the smaller side. Valentine sunflowers are supposed to be really good for cutting and putting in a vase.

Next are these Seashell Cosmos. Daisies are my favorite flower, and cosmos, being so tall and colorful are one of my favorite varieties. Wait...cosmos are a variety of daisy, right? I'm actually not sure about that. Well, whatever, they look enough like daisies to me! These Seashell ones really appeal to me because I love the tubular petals! These flowers grow to be four or five feet tall, so I'm expecting them to be really impressive in the garden. The description in the seed catalog says they're really easy to grow from seed, so I'm really hoping that's true!

I also bought a packet of these Benary's Giant zinnias. When I was growing up, my babysitter Effie used to grow zinnias in a flower bed near her front door. They were a really tall flower. Probably just as tall as the cosmos I talked about in the last paragraph. They're beautiful and very colorful, and they make me think of Effie. They're also drought tolerant and resilient, which will be good for our climate. These are also supposed to be really good as cut flowers in a vase. Pretty!

These flowers are called Sweet Alyssum. I didn't even realize these flowers were cultivated until I was an adult. I thought they were a wildflower, because bunches of them volunteer and grow every year in my parents' backyard. I also thought they were always white, until a few purple ones sprouted one year. I was delighted to see this mix, with all different colors of flowers. I think they're lovely and sweet looking, and they remind me of childhood. So I bought some. In fact, I bought a package of 1000 seeds. I know, I know - it's a lot. But I plan to grow some at home, and then plant some at my parents' house, too.

Finally, I bought seeds for these Johnny-Jump-Ups. This is what I thought violets look like, but apparently these are violas. (Don't ask me the difference). Violas, according to the seed catalog, can be used as an edible garnish. That's a fun fact I'll tuck away. These flowers are tiny, but really colorful and pretty. They make me happy. I'm planning to grow these in containers, most likely. Maybe in a big hanging basket by my front door. I'm not sure.

So, those are my flower garden plans for this year! Tomorrow: vegetables!