Pick a Peck of Peppers

Have you ever looked at those lists of the Top Ten to Buy Organic? – the things that are the most heavily sprayed with pesticides, and/or are genetically modified? Peppers are usually right near the top of that list. Now I love peppers, and use them in lots of my cooking – sauces, chili, stir-fries – and love ‘em raw in season. But the price of organic peppers in the market is often beyond my sense of “yeah, that sounds reasonable.” It’s just more than my budget can bear.

So why not grow them? Well, it’s a little tricky this far north … after multiple attempts at growing them out in the field with the rest of the veggies, it became clear that method wasn’t going to produce the nice, large, abundant peppers of my dreams. So I began growing them indoors.

By indoors I mean in the greenhouse. And no worries if you don’t have a greenhouse – you can, if you crave home-grown organic peppers, create your own little hoophouse that will provide the warmth that these puppies need to grow large and luscious. Do a quick search for “hoophouse” or “low tunnel,” and you’ll come up with an abundance of ideas and directions for low-cost ways to grow peppers, eggplant, and other crops that struggle in our northern climate. You don’t need to buy a kit; if you’re at all handy, you can put one together with low-cost PVC pipe and plastic sheeting. For a small investment of time and money, you can be rich in peppers.

So this year I grew sixteen pepper plants in large pots – five-gallon size – of six different varieties. Sixteen plants, you’re thinking – isn’t that a bit much? But here’s the coolest thing: peppers are the easiest veggie to freeze for future use. No blanching, no ice baths, just slice ‘em or chop them, pop them in freezer bags, and there you are. They’re perfect for stir-fries, pizzas, scrambled eggs, whatever; and during the harvesting season, you will have such wonderful, fresh peppers for eating raw, for stuffing, for red pepper pesto and relish, for salads, for luxurious sharing with friends. What’s not to love?

At the moment, we’re swimming in ripe peppers, and so my day started with a little pepper breakfast pizza. Being a gluten-free person, I’ve found that Food for Life’s GF brown rice tortillas are a godsend … I asked my local Hannaford to stock them a few years ago and they did (yay Hannaford!), but they can usually be found at your local natural foods store as well. This recipe can be used with most any sort of produce that you’ve got; earlier in the summer it was spinach, chives, Parmesan, & feta, then broccoli & cheddar, then it became tomato, basil, & mozzarella – you get the idea. And obviously, it’s an any-time-of-day meal.

Fresh Veggie Breakfast Pizza – Gluten-Free
Simple – fast – yummy – and you start your day with a serving of veggies!

1 brown rice flour tortilla
1 t olive oil
Garlic powder, if desired
1 small or ½ large bell pepper, sliced
1 t dried basil or sm handful fresh basil leaves, torn, or any other herb(s) you prefer
Cheese of your choice – cheddar, mozzarella, havarti, etc
(note: if you are GF, you might want to be wary of pre-shredded cheeses. Various anti-clumping agents are used and not always indicated on the label … I generally cut slices from a block of cheese just in case.)

Spread the olive oil across the top of the tortilla; sprinkle the garlic powder, then the pepper slices, then the basil. Top with cheese.

Slide under broiler until cheese melts; watch carefully! – I use a toaster oven at 10 minutes, but ovens vary.
After removing from oven, let sit for a minute or two before slicing.

Enjoy!

Report from Freezer Camp

At twelve weeks, our meat birds were ready to go … large, healthy, and full of spizzerinctum, half of them roosters learning to crow in that funny multi-tone adolescent way. And so we set a date with our farmer friend Bruce, master of dispatch, with many years behind him of raising and processing all sorts of poultry and livestock.

Although we had given some small thought to it ahead of time, we found ourselves yesterday morning trying to piece together some sort of adequate transport at the last minute. It turned out to be relatively simple – Joohn cobbled together a frame of found lumber screwed to the top edges of the back of the pickup, a length of chicken wire attached all around at the top. Austin was my hired wrangler, rounding up all 24 quite birds efficiently and loading them into the truck. He is fearless with roosters in ways I am not.

So off we went, a 20-minute drive made longer as I drove more slowly and carefully, mindful of my cargo. When we arrived, Bruce and Tom had already begun their work, with another family’s birds already in process. Ours cooled their heels in the shade until it was their turn.

Did I screw up my courage enough to help? Well, not really … I did stay for the whole thing, observed and asked questions and learned, and at the end did the bagging of the other family’s birds and our own. I had hoped I’d come away from this with the feeling yes, I can do this myself next time – but, well, no. It seemed just too gruesome and unpleasant for me. And that’s absolutely no criticism of Bruce and Tom; they handled the birds professionally and well, the end came swiftly … it’s just the nature of the procedure. I’m too squeamish.

But, unsettling as it all may be, we now have 24 home-grown chickens in the freezer, with an average weight of 5 ½ pounds (and the largest nearly 7 pounds – a “company” bird, for sure!). As best I can figure the cost, between purchasing chicks and grain and paying for processing, these carcasses come at a $3 per pound cost – not bad, I’d say, for organic free-ranged chicken that also feasted on grass, bugs, hornworms, clover, leftover tomatoes and lettuce and cabbage and turnips. (Take a look at the supermarket price of “all-natural” chicken breasts sometime!)

There are ways to lower that final cost, for sure: Bruce clued me in yesterday on a feed store that sells organic grains 20% cheaper than where I’ve been buying them. There are articles online about purchasing your own food-grade grain ingredients and mixing them yourself, for even greater savings. Some folks are growing some of their own feed grains; flint corn, for example, is as easy to grow as sweet corn. Letting the birds forage for all or most of their food lowers the feed costs considerably, but you need to have enough proper fencing and to keep moving them around your pasture, unless you are able to let them roam completely freely (Tom does this with his birds, but says they end up smaller). And, of course, you can process them yourself; that saves nearly a third of the final cost.

But as far as I’m concerned, if we should choose to raise another meat flock next year, I’ll willingly pay these guys to dispatch them for me. For now, I’ve got to go make some chicken leg broth …

A-maize-ing Corn

Did you plant sweet corn this year? Here in the Shire, weather conditions were better than usual this summer, and our corn has been the best we’ve ever seen. Long before my vegetable garden grew to such proportions, I kept hearing how difficult it was to grow corn organically; tales of corn borers, having to inject oil into the tip of each ear at particular times, the sorts of things that kept me from growing it at all. No thanks, I thought.

This is perhaps the fifth or sixth year that we’ve grown corn now, and I have to say that it’s been much easier than I previously was led to believe. The first year we were overly ambitious: four types of sweet corn and a large stand of flint corn, sown in a field that had been grass and weeds just the year before … the weeding was a challenge to keep up with. Nonetheless, we had a decent crop, enough to eventually grow tired of eating it on the cob and to put up plenty in the freezer.

This year I grew a variety called “Luscious,” from Fedco, and indeed it has been living up to its name. More realistic now in my planting, this was the smallest patch ever, easier to keep up with -- 10 rows with about 12 cornstalks in each. Lots of fresh eating and lots more for the freezer! Each of these stalks produces two large, full ears of delicious sweet corn (which, even with my primitive math skills, comes to more than 200 ears). And so far (knock on wood) we’ve not been troubled by borers.

Here’s what we’ve found works well for us:
1. Corn is a “heavy feeder,” so it needs to be sown in rich soil. Add plenty of compost first, or grow a cover crop the year before and till it in. Fertilize twice during its growing season – once when the shoots are 4-6” high, again when it’s knee-high or above – using a good organic fertilizer (this year I used North Country Organics ProGro 5-3-4, and couldn’t have been more pleased with the results).
2. Water regularly, if rainfall doesn’t oblige. We use irrigation tape, but soaker hoses or sprinklers work just fine too.
3.And weed! Having a smaller patch this year made it possible to keep up with the weeding. Fewer weeds = more nutrients and moisture available for the corn = better yields.
4. Rotate your crops – do not plant corn where it grew last year. That’s good practice in general for all vegetable growing.
5. Plant enough corn to insure proper pollination ... no fewer than 4 rows. If you end up with more than you can eat, your friends and relatives will be happy to take the surplus off your hands.
6. Plant your corn in a sunny spot! A semi-shaded garden will not serve corn well.

Up until now, all GMO corn has been the field type, grown for cattle feed, ethanol, high-fructose corn syrup, corn chips, and the like. Monsanto is now introducing GMO sweet corn, starting this fall. This is a great time to start growing your own organic corn, if you haven’t been doing it already. You’ve heard those stories about having the water boiling before you pick the ears, and getting them into the pot as fast as possible for the best flavor? It’s true! Try it!

Keep the Green While You Clean

The lates and the rebloomers are still gracing the garden, much to our delight. Storm Surf (pictured) has sent up as many new scapes lately as it did earlier in the season. But, of course, the majority of the daylilies have gone by, and the cleanup has begun.

It seems there are plenty of differing opinions as to the best way to deal with post-bloom daylilies. I’ve come across a variety of articles and blogs and posts with instructions that varying from “mow them all down” (yikes!) to “leave them alone.” Being such a resilient perennial, our favorite flower seems to be able to withstand almost anything, it seems!

That said, some practices make more sense to me than others. Throughout the season, as some of those bottom leaves turn yellow and begin to dry out, I regularly pull them; it doesn’t hurt the plant, and it keeps the garden looking fresher and neater. The overriding principle to keep in mind is this: green foliage is feeding the roots and helping the plant to grow larger and stronger next year; dried, yellow foliage is no longer performing that function.

This is why I don’t cut all the leaves down at this time of year. You do see some gardeners doing just that, and no doubt they have their reasons; but there’s still a lot of green foliage, and cutting it this early means that those plants will send up new green shoots, using up some of their stored root energy for no good reason. (Take note: cutting foliage does NOT stimulate new fan divisions!) I like to wait until later in the season, as we experience a few frosts, to trim down whatever foliage is left.

Now is the time to gather seed pods, if you wish, pull the spent brown scapes and older foliage, and discover the weeds that have flourished under cover – but none of this is necessary, really. It keeps the garden looking neater, but there will be more to do later. Personally, I think that pulling those weeds now is the best idea. Why bother?, you ask, now that the blossoms have gone by and the garden is nearly done? Well, most of the weeds are sending out their seeds, and getting rid of them now will cut way down on next year’s weeding.

Later, before winter sets in, it’s best to remove the remainder of the dead daylily foliage. This cuts down on overwintering fungi and mites, and eliminates a potential source of moist rot in the spring. If you want to mulch – and I certainly do mulch my evergreen daylilies, this far north – it should be done AFTER a good hard frost.

But truly, whatever course of action (or inaction) you take in the fall, your daylilies will likely come through just fine. Putter around and clean up if it pleases you, leave it alone if you don’t have the time … it’ll all be okay!

As the Season Winds Down ...

It’s that transitional time again, one season sliding into the next, where the usual daily routine is changing as well and leaving me feeling as if I’m in a sort of no-man’s-land. Or no-woman’s, as the case may be.

In the summer, the sun is up early and so am I, full of energy and ready to go; even sitting with a cup of coffee can leave me itchy to get up the hill to see what’s blooming. But now, it’s all different. I woke at 5:25 to darkness, feeling somewhat disoriented even though the change has been coming gradually. My day starts much more slowly. There’s nothing new in bloom; there’s very little left in bloom, in terms of daylilies, and it’s often chilly as the sun comes up over the hill. I linger over a second cup, wearing a fleece jacket in the cool kitchen, thinking of all the veggies to be harvested, the sauces and soups and blanching and freezing that lie ahead. There are still plenty of daylilies to be lifted, divided, and transplanted, but I realized at some point with dismay that I simply won’t be able to get to all of them before it becomes too late in the season. At least the old potato patch is now planted with new daylily varieties.

Weeds and tall grasses, of course, are rampant at this time of year; yellow jackets have made underground nests throughout the planted areas, painfully discovered as we pull weeds. This weekend we’ll take the brush hog to the upper field, start in on the hillside, and eventually change over to the tiller to prep areas for next year’s cover crops, garlic, and new daylily beds.

Putting the gardens to bed, taking down trellises and posts, picking up row cover and plastic mulch – these tasks are not anywhere near as exciting or inspiring as setting them all up in the spring, when the pleasure and warmth and bounty of summer still lie ahead. And the weariness that comes from a season full of work begins to take its toll; it becomes increasingly challenging to find the energy to tackle these chores.

Each season I have good intentions of starting fall crops in August; this year, the plan was to build some raised beds for the center of the greenhouse, to extend the growing season for salad greens. A terrific idea … but once again, it will not come to pass in this calendar year. There’s simply not enough time or energy. And that’s okay. We’ll patronize our friends who sell their late-season greens at farmers market, do what we can here to clean up and prepare for next year, and look forward to that long winter’s rest.

Before that first hard frost, though, there is still so much to appreciate: a bumper crop of pie pumpkins (pumpkin soup! sautéed spiced pumpkin! pumpkin pancakes!) and winter squash still ripening, kale and collards that keep on going, a lush crop of parsnips that will be left in the ground to sweeten until early spring; bunches of fresh herbs hung to dry; white phlox that decided to wait until now to blossom. Wonderful suppers, straight from the garden, and the freezer filling more and more each day. Think back to the beginnings of all of this … just a few handfuls of tiny seeds; isn’t it a miracle?

The View From Here

As someone who occasionally dips her toe into Buddhist teachings, I understand that desiring more than what you have is an endless game that cannot be won. But it’s such a common human tendency that someone long ago had to come up with a commandment about not coveting, right? Aren’t we all striving for something more/better? – whether it’s a promotion, a kitchen renovation, a new car/truck/tractor, the latest version of the i-whatever, those great boots you saw last week, or even more daylilies? How many people can truly say they’re absolutely content with what they have, and mean it for more than a day?

“View envy” is one of my bugaboos. When I was a small child in central Massachusetts, my family lived in a tiny house atop a hill. Our little living room had two picture windows. Out the front window was a vista of rooftops, trees, and chimneys, sending up plumes of white smoke on cold winter days. I used to stand on the sofa and look out that window, imagining all the people inside those houses and what they were doing. And out the large side window, way off in the hazy distance, was Mount Monadnock. It loomed in my imagination as some faraway, magical place.

Nowadays, in my fantasy world, I look out my imaginary window across fields and foothills to a magnificent up-close panorama of Mount Monadnock. Last week a friend told me that she’s thinking of selling her house, and described a view like that as hers. Of course my brain started whirring … but selling and moving, just for a view, is so ludicrous that even I can see it (no pun intended), and set those thoughts aside. For now.

And just a few days ago, a friend in Washington State posted photos of her family’s latest hiking trip … with incredibly tall, majestic, snow-capped peaks in the background. This is the kind of view that makes our Monadnock seem, well, rather less incredible. It’s that round-and-round thing … there’ll always be something better out there.

Real estate appraisers say that the most desirable views are from up high, and the more panoramic, the better. How about a hilltop with an ocean view? – and mountains on the other side? Not even close to possible for most of us!

A few years ago I read Diane Ackerman’s book, Cultivating Delight: A Natural History of My Garden. One aspect of her approach (which was a new-to-me idea but might be a “duh!” for you) is that she carefully plans and plants particular vistas that she will enjoy from different windows of her home. Now, this particularly makes sense for one whose profession is writing, who spends great stretches of time in her home office; but the more I thought about it, it seemed that creating your own view is a brilliant idea for any of us. Even if you have a small suburban lot, you can create something pleasing in your line of vision – a perfectly-placed garden, statuary, a flowering bush or tree, perhaps a flowering vine climbing up a fence or wall.

Mind you, Ms. Ackerman has a pair of gardeners to carry out her creative plans, not to mention the wherewithal to install lovely trees and bushes of good size, an astonishing variety of perennials in various gardens, and ideal habitats to attract a variety of birds and other wildlife that she enjoys. It sounds delightful, impressive, expensive, and like something that takes years to establish. But as we plan our gardens, or ponder where to install a little pond complete with waterfall, we usually make our considerations from various vantage points around our yards, outside of the house; adding the view from indoors adds a new dimension.

As I look out my kitchen and office windows, I see some of my flower gardens, one with a birdhouse that was occupied by chickadees in the spring; this summer, I’ve been able to watch hummingbirds visit the bee balm as I sit at my computer. There’s a huge old willow, more than fifty years old, that gives us much-needed summer shade. Beyond the gardens, our hillside, with tall green grasses waving in the springtime, and now with swaths of goldenrod in late summer, and needing a fall mowing. And beyond that, the Pinnacle, not really a mountain but a forested hill so large and high that we were surprised at how long it takes to climb to the top. In spite of my Monadnock desires, I’ve come to cherish this particular vista, and how it changes with the seasons. And of course I’d like to add a few things … one or two spring-flowering shrubs or trees; maybe a few maples along the edge of the hillside.

My daughter, who lives in a third-floor apartment, looks out her kitchen windows into the tops of maple trees, a lush forest of green leaves that turn various shades in autumn; it’s like being in a tree house. A friend has a beautiful Japanese red maple outside her kitchen window, and another fills her little kitchen porch with tall potted herbs and flowers, visible through the door and windows. And another looks out from her table to a rustic arbor, covered with vines. So many different ways to delight the senses!

What’s your ideal view? What do you like the best when you look out your window? What would you like to create?

Divide and Conquer: the Step-by-Step

Do you have some daylilies that have been in your garden for years, and now they’ve increased into a large clump? That’s all well and good until it becomes TOO big, and needs dividing. How do you know if it’s time? – well, how did your clump bloom this year? If it sent up plenty of scapes and buds, and you were delighted, all’s well (for now). But did you wonder why there weren’t as many flowers as before? Did that clump seem a bit stingy with its buds and scapes? That tells you that it’s too big, overgrown, choking itself. Time to remedy the situation!

Dividing your daylilies will not only rejuvenate them, but allows you to either expand your daylily plantings, or share your excess with gardening friends. Maybe even both. And really, you don’t want to wait until that clump is so big you’ll need a backhoe to dig it out, or a week’s worth of chiropractic appointments to deal with the aftermath.

And now is the time to do it. Find out when your Average First Frost date is (here in Zone 5 it’s September 22), and count backwards by six weeks; that should (ideally) be your deadline for dividing your plants, to give them time to settle in and send out new root growth before the earth freezes.

(Let me go off on a wee tangent here: of course there’s a difference between light frosts and hard frosts; most perennials are not troubled by light frosts, and they don’t freeze the ground. So I will admit that I tend to keep transplanting later than the gardening books recommend. But in general, perennials divided in the spring will be bigger and stronger the following year than ones divided in the fall; seems logical, doesn’t it? – and it follows that the earlier in latesummer that you divide, the better. That said, if you find that you can’t get to all your dividing as early as you’d like, mulching will help to retain some warmth in the soil, thereby giving those plants a little more time to settle in.)

So, here we go:

A digging fork is the best tool for getting a clump out of the ground, with the least amount of root damage; but if you don’t have one, use a shovel, and dig a wide circle around your clump to try to preserve as many of the roots as possible.

Trimming the foliage back to about 8”-10” makes the clump easier to work with. In this case, I’ve got a good-sized dandelion growing in the middle of the clump … I want those leaves intact so that I can locate that dandelion and pull the whole thing out as I divide.

If you’re lucky, the dirt will fairly easily shake off the root clump. More often, though, a good soaking and swishing in a bucket of water will do the trick, or laying the root clump on the ground and hosing the dirt off.

Now comes the fun part: dividing that tangled ball of roots! Have a game plan in mind: are you simply dividing this clump into two or three smaller clumps? Are you hoping to end up with a smaller clump for yourself, and some single or double fans to give away? Keep your plan somewhat flexible, though, to accommodate the realities of what comes next.

Some daylilies divide so easily, while others are like a diabolical giant hairball. Your goal, of course, is to keep crown and roots intact while disentangling; hold at the base of the plants and try to gently work them back and forth repeatedly to loosen. Sometimes I use a digging fork, or my fingers, to gently pry them apart to start the process. Back and forth, up and down, round and round … sometimes this process becomes less gentle and a little more forceful. Keep in mind that the more force you use, though, the more likely it is that a crown can snap off. Not the end of the world, for sure, but not what you’re shooting for here.

And once in a while, a root ball is just so impenetrable that it seems to be held together with super glue. In that case, you can take a sharp knife to divide. As long as a plant still has roots attached, it should be okay. Some folks prefer to bypass the untangling method and go straight to cutting – you can too, if you wish, but you’re losing some roots that way, and I always think it’s better to leave them intact whenever possible.

So here are ten divisions from this one clump; in all, there are 17 fans. You can see that some of these divisions have more than one fan. I've divided them out this way because I'm "lining them out," typical of a nursery -- hopefully each of these divisions will increase by next summer. The largest division, though, will go into one of my gardens in my yard.

Once you’ve divided as much as you’d like, place the divisions in a bucket of water until they’re replanted, or given away. And when replanting, I like to add some rock phosphate to the soil to encourage root growth, or some organic fertilizer that’s strong in phosphorus (the middle of the three numbers you’ll find on fertilizer packages … as in “4-10-4;” this is NOT the time to use a high-nitrogen fertilizer, as that boosts foliage production).

How long can you keep them in that bucket of water before you put them into the ground? I’m embarrassed to tell you how long I sometimes wait! Suffice it to say that several days of soaking won’t harm your plants, as long as you keep that bucket in the shade; but logically, the sooner you plant them, the better. Yes, there are many tales in the gardening world of daylilies ripped out and thrown onto the compost pile that bloom the next summer, bare roots and all, but you may not want to take those kinds of chances!

Once the ground has truly frozen, it’s not a bad idea to put some mulch around your divided daylilies; anything organic, like bark mulch, chopped leaves, straw, substances that will eventually break down and decompose and enrich the soil. And then pray for a good blanket of snow – exactly the protection our daylilies like best!

Sow Your Own! -- Part One

Are green pods appearing on top of some of your daylily scapes, once the blossoms have dried and dropped away (or, if you’re a properly fastidious gardener, after you’ve deadheaded)? These pods contain seeds; if you’re feeling adventurous, why not try planting a few? Following some simple directions should produce some surprise-package new daylilies, and with a little luck, you might have a few that you greatly admire.

Here in Part One, we’ll go over the basic realities of how these seeds came to be, and how to gather and save the seeds. Part Two will give step-by-step directions for sowing and growing.

Without getting into Botany 101 too deeply, basically you need a “pollen parent” and a “pod parent” to make daylily seeds; or, if you like, a papa and a mama ;-). The pollen from one must fertilize the other, resulting in a seed pod. Just like human babies, or puppies, or kittens, each fertilized seed will produce something new – NOT a carbon copy of either parent, but a combination of their genes. If you want a carbon copy of a daylily, you must divide it at the roots.

Now if you have only two kinds of daylilies, it’s pretty easy to figure out who the “parents” are! But the more daylily types you have, the more the possibilities for combinations. When you leave pollination up to chance – meaning wind or bees carrying the pollen from one plant to another – you only know who the pod parent is. Deliberate hybridizing allows you to control both variables, but that’s another blog post, sometime down the road. Today we’re talking about the “surprise package” seed pods.

First of all, wait until the pods dry and turn brown. Once a small crack appears, usually at the top, you can remove the pods and empty the seeds out – but make sure that it’s a dry day, and that the pods are dry. A sunny afternoon is perfect. Place the seeds in a saucer, or on a piece of paper, in a dry airy room out of direct sunlight; leave them there for a few days to make sure all external moisture is gone.

Personally, I like to know which pod parent has produced which seedlings, and so I label little envelopes with the pod parent’s name, and place the dried seeds inside. (You may not be so picky, or may not be planting as many seeds, and so this step might not matter to you.) Either way, place the envelopes, or just the seeds themselves, into a plastic zip-lock bag, seal it, and put it in the refrigerator. It’s going to stay in the fridge for weeks, to mimic the effect of winter cold on seeds that would have otherwise dropped onto the ground.

More to come.

What's in a Name?

Have you ever purchased a daylily just because of its name? Or maybe the name was just enough to sway you into a “yes” or “no” decision? With nearly 70,000 registered daylilies out there, and many more unregistered (or “garden names,” as they’re often called), the names range from funny to ethereal to well, downright uninspiring.

Folks have named their hybrid daylily creations after books and authors (“Moby Dick,” “Gulliver’s Travels”), movies and movie stars (“Star Wars,” “Lion King”), musicians and other celebrities (“Tupak Amaru”), politicians and their spouses (“Abraham Lincoln,” “Betty Ford”), places (“Baffin Bay Beauty,” “African Midnight”), desserts (“Caramel Fudge,” “Peach Pudding”), and drinks (“Pina Colada,” “Mulberry Wine”).

Then there is the always-popular and yummy-sounding category of pie names: 73 of ‘em registered – from “Apple Peaches Pumpkin Pie” at one end to “Windham Cherry Pie” at the other. Not sure why daylilies and pie seem to go hand-in-hand, but there you are.

In another common category, daylilies are often named after people unknown to the rest of us – someone’s mother, father, grandparent, child, grandchild – you get the picture. While this certainly has great meaning to the person thus honored, these names usually don’t inspire us one way or the other. At least they don’t do it for me, except for the ones named after great hybridizers.

There’s also the names that, to my mind, are sort of generic and formal; I have some of these – “Crown Royal,” “Royal Heritage,” “Benchmark.” These sound to me like names of dinnerware or flatware sets, but they are attached to very beautiful blossoms.

And if you search for a name beginning or ending with any of the daylily colors, of course you will find plenty: 619 names that begin with “Pink,” and 334 that end that way. At least those names give you some clue about the flower itself.

My favorite category is the unusual/humorous/downright odd names (and if you know me personally, you’re probably thinking, well, THAT figures!). “Auntie’s Lipstick Kisses.” “Big Boy Bubba.” “Oliver Dragon Tooth.” “Cathy Cute Legs.” And the first truly odd daylily name I ever ran across: “Nekkid Woman on a Tractor.”

But would you buy that last one? Or the one called “Varicose Veins?” Or “Butt Ugly?” Or "Weber's Litterbox?" Yes, those are registered daylilies too! … I have to admit those names would stop me in my purchasing tracks. They'd have to be mighty beautiful to overcome those names.

This fall we’ll be dividing and lining out some of our three-year-old seedlings and putting names to them. It’s fun to come up with new names, but surprisingly difficult at the same time. It’s got to feel like it fits the flower. So far we’ve decided on these: “Berried Treasure,” “Dulcimer Music,” “Voodoo Science,” “Santoshi,” and the best one – “Princess Zippy,” for my favorite 5-year-old. See? – I’m doing it too! (And yes, that's it at the top of the post! She picked it out herself!)

If You Are What You Eat, I'm Feeling Chicken

If you’re a vegetarian for moral reasons, you may as well stop here; this won't be to your liking. I used to be one of those, but even after nearly two meat-free years, I still craved meat desperately … and eventually came to the conclusion that it was what I needed.

Yet I still wrestle with the whole idea that another being’s life is ended so that I may eat it. And I’ve always wondered if I could actually do the deed myself, honestly facing the reality of my choices. Too many people think of meat as something that simply appears on a Styrofoam shrink-wrapped tray at the supermarket, unaware of the issues that swirl around the cruel and inhumane practices of factory farming, the medicated and GMO-derived animal feeds served up, the growth-enhancing hormones injected, all of which, of course, eventually affect our health as well. Not to mention the environmental damage that results.

Anyway, we’ve kept laying hens for years, and have had some of them butchered for us by a farmer friend when they got old. So easy, shipping them off and getting them backed all nicely plucked, bagged, and ready for the freezer; but of course, old hens are really only good for the stewpot.

This time, we’ve got meat birds. Twenty-four of ‘em, all eating like little pigs, so much so that you can nearly sit and watch them grow bigger. It only takes twelve weeks until they’re ready for Freezer Camp – they’re bred to be voracious eaters. Freedom Rangers, they’re called, and although that sounds like they are card-carrying members of the Tea Party, they are a French breed. Vive la Liberte.

It’s a weird experience for me. I have a sort of affection for my laying hens, my “girls.” They’re greeted with, “Hello, ladies!” in the morning; some run up and squat to get patted; they get “treats” of watermelon rinds and cabbage and all manner of good scraps. I always thank them when I collect their eggs, which may sound a bit woo-woo, but I’m expressing my gratitude to the Universe in general for the goodness of these fresh eggs for our table. But these meat chicks … well, I’m keeping my distance, in a way. Just a general “Hey, kids,” when I approach to give them more food and water. Of course, I don’t want to get attached to them, or find them too cute or endearing … and truly, they are helping in this regard, being a mob of semi-crazed fowl who rush any human in a frenzied manner and try to peck your hands and gobble your feet (even though they have plenty to eat in their feeder). It’s just their nature, single-minded eating machines that they are.

So they are enjoying the sun, the fresh air, the grass and bugs, the space to run around ... for another six weeks or so.

And so the question looms, unanswered so far: will I be brave/honest enough to help with the butchering this time? I think of the generations of women all over the world, stretching way back in time, who have very matter-of-factly killed a bird for the dinner table more times than they could count. I’ve cleaned and plucked before; it’s the actual taking of life that, well, I don’t know if I can do. I can’t even watch a needle going into an arm for a blood test. It’s going to be one of those Face Your Fear and Do It Anyway experiences, I think. We’ll see. Six more weeks …

Another week, and they'll be ready ...

Choosing when to open to the public for the season, when it’s mainly about one kind of plant, is at best an educated guess. Sure, we also have a nice variety of potted perennials that are good companions for daylilies (and the blue veronicas are starting to bloom, the echinaceas not far behind), but really, most folks come for the main show. And the whims of Mother Nature determine when that show starts.

The planned opening date for this year was, well, today. By this time last year, there were 29 cultivars in bloom, not a huge number but showing enough variety to get started. This year’s different; although the spring rains have encouraged the growth of so many scapes and buds that we know the show will be spectacular, the cool temperatures have delayed the opening of those buds, and at present there are only 12 registered cultivars in bloom, most of them showing only one blossom so far.

So all week we’ve been on the fence; to open, or not? Imagine seeing a sign for daylilies, stopping in, and finding only a sea of foliage! Today’s forecast of thunderstorms finally tipped the scales; next Sunday will be the first official Open Day, and we’re sure to have a sea of blossoms by then.

BTW, that's a group of "Bubbly" at the top; the first one just opened this morning. (so yes, the photo's from last year!)

Welcoming the Earlies

If you love a particular kind of flower, you often wish that its season would last longer so that you can enjoy it all summer. Daylilies are most often a July flower, and so we fans wait patiently through the parade of the beautiful spring and early summer blossoms, the tulips and peonies and irises and all the others, keeping track of the progress of our scapes and buds.

More and more hybridizers are focusing on season extension, both on the front and back ends; some nurseries specialize in these types of cultivars. We’ve been trying to acquire more of these Earlies and Lates, ultimately hoping for a June-to-September daylily garden.

This year, an unexpected delight: two of our first 2010 seedlings opened as Earlies, one of them the first post-Stella daylily and a red-purple one to boot. Most early daylilies seem to be in the yellow-orange range, so this was doubly pleasing. To add to our pleasure, both of these seedlings are keepers: nice form, good increase, branching and bud counts (especially for first-year seedlings), and opened very well. Neither of them breaks new ground in the daylily world in terms of color and pattern, but that’s fine; we’re just trying to grow new hardy daylilies with beautiful faces that will thrive in Northern gardens.

The first one pictured, red-violet, is a cross between Intelligent Design and Sailing at Dawn; the second, buttery gold with the cranberry eye, is the offspring of Hold Your Horses and Brown Lasso. After they’re done blooming, they’ll be moved out of the seedling bed and into a “keeper” bed, where they’ll be evaluated for another year, to see how they handle being moved and how well they continue to increase. Then, if all goes well, they’ll be available the following spring. It’s a long process, one that forces me to be patient. But the rewards of seeing these beautiful new blossoms for the first time makes it all worthwhile!

Simple Spring Salads

A change in the weather back to cool temperatures here may not be good for newly-planted tomatoes and melons, but it’s been just right for extending the spring salad season. Lettuce grows really well for us here, and so we plant many types, staggering the sowing so there’s always something ready. After growing up in an iceberg-only home (was there any other kind available in the grocery stores back then?), the seemingly-infinite number of varieties available is amazing … and of course I end up buying way more seeds than I can ever use. Some favorites: Blushed Butter Cos, Red Sails, Buttercrunch, and Olga Romaine.

Nonetheless, lettuce is just the start. At this time of year we’re still adding sorrel (but we’re getting to the end of that now, as it sends up its seed stalks), dandelion greens, salad burnet, spinach, violet leaves, chives, baby kale, and tossing in bits of oregano, thyme, lemon balm, whatever appeals at the moment. There’s lots more out there that could be used, of course, but a quick run through the garden in the morning provides plenty for the supper salad. With all those interesting flavors, there seems no need for anything beyond a tasty homemade dressing.

Looking ahead, as the weather gets back to summery steam, I’m now sowing more heat-resistant Batavian varieties of lettuce. They’ll go in a section of the veggie patch that gets some afternoon shade, and maybe we’ll put some row cover over them as well to help mitigate the heat. Batavians have thicker leaves and a different texture than the spring lettuces, and while I prefer the spring greens, we’re happy to have fresh-picked lettuce all summer long.

Trees

Trees always seemed to me to be outside of the world of gardening … at least, my world, I guess. Oh, they’re all around, and particularly beautiful in spring bloom or fall colors, but mostly I thought of them – when I thought of them at all – as either 1) something to keep my sun-loving plants away from, or 2) creating shade gardens that seemed particularly challenging. Oh, and 3) expensive to purchase, and therefore out of my budget range.

Now I’m becoming increasingly entranced by trees. There are the utilitarian ones I’ve planted over the years – apples, for instance; the more I learn about them, and the whole subject of grafting onto root stock, the more intrigued I am. We inherited a number of ancient apples with this farm, totally neglected for years; they look like venerable elders to me. One in particular, way out in the back field, is so battered, scarred, and split open that it’s hard to believe it’s still alive … but not only is it alive, but still blossoming and bearing fruit.

This tree makes me think of several people I know who are in their 90s, still vital and engaged with life … as if they’re all saying, hey! I’m not done yet!

Several years ago I joined the National Arbor Day Foundation, after getting one of those offers in the mail … I think it was $15 to join, and they’d send a dozen or so young trees. Twigs, was more like it; a small bundle of the most unimpressive little sticks with bare roots, which seemed utterly ridiculous to me at the time. But I followed the directions and planted them in a nursery bed.

It’s been perhaps five years now, maybe six; nearly all have grown, and have been moved to various parts of the yard. And a few of them have done astoundingly well. Here, for example, is an Eastern Redbud that I transplanted two years ago into one of my gardens… and I left the mower in the photo for perspective.

I love to wander through garden centers and nurseries, looking at the trees; but the price tags are still prohibitive to me. Wouldn’t it be great if we could purchase a much smaller version, and then nurture it ourselves? My heart’s desire is to plant two maples in our yard, knowing that our 50+-year-old willow is past its prime, and not wanting a totally empty expanse when it goes. But at $150-200 each, maples are mighty pricey! So this spring, I’ve been digging and potting some of the little maple seedlings I find around the edges here; nothing to lose, and if they grow even half as well as those little twigs that came in the mail, I’ll have some nice small trees in a few years.

Still Learning

When I was a kid, my folks seemed so boringly typical of most of the adults I knew: my dad went to work, my mom stayed at home. They each had a few simple interests outside of their daily routines, but nothing they seemed to pursue with any great vigor. It seemed a simple, slow, and humdrum existence to my young eyes.

Now, it seems, nearly everyone I know has nearly more irons in the fire than they can count. Especially among urban homesteaders who farm on a small scale, or growers who have horticultural pursuits beyond a simple garden, it’s an almost-universal necessity to have an “outside” job or two. I’m squarely in that camp with two part-time outside jobs, and sharing some of the duties of the family coffee roasting business. Of course, the farm and gardens are where my heart lies, along with spending time with my family and friends. The saying “there aren’t enough hours in the day!” pretty accurately describes life for me.

All too often, I feel like I am trying to do too much and not doing anything very well – that’s a familiar feeling for many people, but especially for us ADD folks. Life for us is SO full of fascinating pursuits! SO many interesting things to experience! It’s easy to feel swamped in no time at all, to find that you've eagerly bitten off perhaps more than you can chew.

Of late, I’ve been pondering the role of efficiency. Most particularly, it was on my mind this morning as I was once again shoveling a path to the chicken coop. Uphill. About two hundred feet. A path situated on the north side of a hill, a path that turns into an icy luge run about this time of year that’ll pull your feet right out from under you before you realize what’s happening.

Why, I wondered, did we build the coop up there? Each winter I spend an inordinate amount of time shoveling up a hill too steep for our snow blower, hauling food and water up to the hens, then gingerly creeping back down. We dug into the side of another hill to build our greenhouse, creating drainage problems and difficulties in clearing the snow that slides off the roof into great piles. It’s partially due to the layout of our property, seemingly situated for maximum inefficiency, and partially because of our own inexperience and lack of foresight.

When I began farming eight years ago, it surprised me to find that successful (read: profitable) farming demanded a much higher level of efficiency than I possessed. It’s not a trait that comes naturally to me (which will not be news to anyone who has been in my home), but it’s something that I’ve come to admire in those who are wired that way. Recently I discovered Organizing Solutions for People with ADD by Susan C. Pinsky – and it really did feel like a capital-d Discovery. Here was someone who seems to understand why this stuff is so challenging for some of us, and her ability to work with ADD tendencies is brilliant. Geared to the household, her book lays out strategies and solutions to streamline and simplify some aspects of life and to make them more efficient. Easier. Less time-consuming. Did I say brilliant?

I wish I could say that it totally changed my life … but it has made a difference. There are parts of the house, at least, that have been purged and made more efficient and pleasing. And I can look at things differently now. As spring draws closer, I’m thinking about bringing these new approaches to the greenhouse, barn, nursery, and growing fields. But I think I’ll need to reread that book – at least once or twice a year.

All Cooped Up

There seems to be nothing a Bernese Mountain Dog likes better than snow, and so our two beasts are in their element this winter. They roll in it, eat it, lie down in it, stick their faces as far as they can into snowbanks; lethargic in summer, our male is now running and romping and acting like a puppy. A two-foot snowfall doesn’t faze him in the least; he just pushes through it, chest-first, like a snowplow, leaving long winding trails all over the yard.

But the rest of us? – not loving it so much. Even the cats are grumpy from being indoors all the time, hissing and swatting at each other a few times a day before skulking off to their respective corners.

And then there’s the chickens. Yes, cabin fever strikes them as well – coop fever, maybe? – as they are as reluctant as the cats to stick their feet into snow, and stay (mostly) indoors for months at a time, by their own choice. Fortunately, our little flock of 18 doesn’t come close to filling the coop, so they have plenty of scratching room. But they get bored, and bored chickens get, well, peckish. And with nothing to peck but each other, some will eventually look a little worse for the wear.

So at this time of year, a weekly cabbage tetherball game is just the ticket. Keeps ‘em occupied and happy for a day or so, and adds more greens to their diet. Given these weekly snowstorms, though, we may have to start buying cabbage by the case.
___________________________________________

In the Hindsight Department: next time we build a greenhouse, we will make sure that there is room to run a snowblower all around the sides -- as opposed to having one side tucked up against a steep hill, and piles of rocks along the far end. Repeated heavy snowstorms mean that snow piles up and up and up along the sides as it slides off the roof; eventually it can't slide any more, and starts weighing down the entire structure. Shoveling it out the old-fashioned way is decidedly tedious and time-consuming, but necessary, in our case. Live and learn ...

Cool Chicks

We’ve finally come into winter now, the latest round of snow layering so thickly that our big dogs push through it with their chests like furry plows. The hens will only take a few steps outside, where the coop overhang shields a small border and left the ground semi-bare; they like to peck at the snow, and indeed it helps to supplement their water rations, which freeze up quickly and need to be replenished daily.

Lately I’ve been following a discussion online about animal feed. Although my flock is very small – only 18 birds at present – like many other homesteaders and farmers, I am alarmed at the great increase in feed costs over the last few years. Organic feed has more than doubled in that time; conventional has increased by 50%. While the reasons are likely many, I would imagine that the increase in fuel costs – to power the tractors, harvesters, and other farm equipment, and the transport the product to warehouses and markets – is a major factor.

It’s made many folks rethink their farm operations. Some have had to raise their egg prices as high as the market will bear, and they are still losing money. Some have reduced their flocks; some have simply given up on that aspect of their farm operation. The average person might find it hard to figure out why local free-range eggs are $4+ per dozen, when the local drugstore chain sells eggs for .99; factory-farmed, of course, and not fresh or anywhere near as nutritious, but still. Feed for cattle, sheep, pigs, and other farm animals has become more costly as well.

Nowadays there’s a lot of talk of growing your own feed grains. It’s an intriguing thought, for sure, but to do this on a scale that will provide enough feed to last through the winter requires equipment that we don’t have here – a tractor and harvesting equipment. People who have tried doing it with less report that it’s incredibly time-consuming and laborious, and simply not worth it.

An alternative is finding local farmers who are raising feed grains and purchasing from them. As it is, we buy our feed from a Vermont company, and our hens have done very well on it; during the winter they get a cabbage and some greens weekly, and flaxseed added to their feed. Of course it’s cold and dark at this time of year, and so their egg output reflects that: about 2 eggs a day right now. They’re not even close to earning their keep! Come spring, though, we’ll have higher expectations. One winter we boosted their output with a light and timer, and ended up with some prolapses; now we prefer to give them their natural winter break. Pampered girls, they are.