Spring is a yearly invitation t0 new beginnings, and an annual reminder of age-old renewal. It is the time of year that I am certain Khalil Gibran wrote the words "And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet, and the winds long to play with your hair."
But sometimes, life gets in the way.
Although life has gotten in the way for much of the past 3 years, permaculture additions over that time allow me to participate in this year's rebirth.
Last fall, thornless blackberries and raspberries were added, along with the fabled pawpaw tree and dwarf peaches. The pawpaws are just beginning to green out, but the peaches are blooming the prettiest pink blossoms.
Read MoreWinter is a quiet time for the garden. The cooler temperatures and shorter days signal a change and the earth changes orientation from growth to conservation. The plants that continue to grow through the changing of the calendar year do so at a pace that resembles drowsy, hibernating animals. It is a necessary fallow season. A time to rest and restore between the endeavors of growing seasons. This is true for both garden and gardener.These were the thoughts turning over in my head yesterday as I tidied up the asparagus and herb beds, tucking them in for winter.
The herbs had overgrown in the last flush of fall so I corralled them to their respective sections with clippers and kept some nice sprigs of thyme, oregano and parsley for tonight's soup. Visually the thyme and the rosemary blend together both in person and photos so I think I will swap out the fast growing parsley and thyme next spring and let the rosemary continue to grow in the center of the bed.All that remains to close out my 2017 garden is to give the figs a much needed pruning and trim back the blueberry bushes a bit. It has been a quiet time for my garden and blog with the time normally spent growing, cooking and writing instead going to other endeavors this year. There is a little more time between now and spring temps here in the south. The last bit of the fallow season, with weeks that can be counted on hands now. My 2018 seed catalog has arrived and I am beginning to plan for the renewal.
Read MoreTo create your own permaculture summer:
Start with a good variety of fruits, berries and herbs that pretty much take care of themselves year after year.
Add to that background of growth, some tender green leaves (lettuce and spinach will do nicely) and one hungry rabbit.
Voila! You are back to your permaculture staple of fruits, berries and herbs with no pesky greens to worry about.
This, in a nutshell, is my summer.The herbs bolted and are setting seed now. The strawberries are producing well but I haven't covered the bed so the birds are beating me to many of the berries.The tower of asparagus is holding up very nicely under the accumulating mass of growth and the asparagus themselves are inexplicably sending up sporadic spears (3 in the pic below).The figs are plentiful and beginning to ripen. The birds also beat me to the first fig of the year but they don't seem to have seen the one on the other side yet.The blackberries are ripening by the handful daily and the blueberries are plentiful, but stubbornly green.The rabbit problem appears to be solved so now I am just patiently waiting for August when I can plant more greens for fall.
Read MoreAfter an early, false spring in February that fooled blueberries and peaches into blooming followed by the rest of a perfectly normal winter that felt like it lasted forever, spring finally did come and then go in a flash and we are now fully into summer in Zone 7b.My asparagus harvest was light this year, which I attribute to the early burst in February, with many spears freezing at the end of the false spring. I don't know if the freeze affected the crowns or if it was just a coincidence. An interesting side note, for each of the last two years I have had a second burst of spears in fall when nighttime temps dip into the 40s. It will be interesting to see if I do and how much it produces this year.In the meantime, each of the crowns has a few spears that have been allowed to grow tall and fern-like. Every summer I try something a little different to contain all this greenery that feeds the crown for next year's harvest and each year the greenery either slowly or not so slowly overtakes my supports. I think I may have won this year with this 4 pole support, similar to what I have used for snap peas on a larger scale. Currently the asparagus are around 5 1/2 feet tall and being easily supported.The herbs that overwintered are in full flower, some so prodigiously that I trimmed them back to allow everyone a little sun and space.While I wait for the blackberries and blue berries to ripen, my favorite summer treat this year is free-stone peaches halved and grilled for 4 minutes per side. They are a perfect addition anything you are serving up!
Read MoreThe average last frost date for this area passed on April 4th but it has been an unusual spring with early season warming trends in February that encouraged strawberries and blueberries to bloom early followed by unsurprising freezes in early March that played havoc with the plants.My strawberry blooms mostly survived the hard freezes in March and these June Bearers are already showing off green fruits.The permaculture herb garden did very well over the winter, only dill and tarragon did not survive. The thyme is already blooming and the sage is just a step behind.Several asparagus spears were harvested in February then several more killed by one of the hard freezes, but they are loving the current weather and I am harvesting 5-7 spears every 2 days right now.I lost some blueberry blooms with the freezes, but they also seem to have rebounded more or less with new blooms coming in, though I anticipate a diminished harvest this year over last.Spring seems to be here to stay at last so it is time to start planting some annuals too!
Read MoreThis post comes after more than a year of researching every way I can think of and completely failing to find anything related to the matter at hand. The matter at hand is the second growth of asparagus spears in the early fall, long after the asparagus crowns have been allowed to grow the long, bushy fronds they need in order to feed the crown for next year's growth and more specifically, whether or not a small portion of the second growth can be harvested.Unable to find any information either for or against sneaking a few of these late season spears, I have had to reason this out for myself for the past two years and while the result is probably entirely predictable (Garden fresh asparagus in fall? Yes please!), I like to think my reasoning well rooted in a layman's pseudo-botany. The rationale goes something like this: the individual asparagus crowns have been photosynthesizing since May, and of the new spears coming up in September/October I am only taking about 1 out of every 3 of the new growth spears and then only off of crowns that already have more than 3 stems that have fully grown out and are working hard to supply nourishment to the crown to take it through winter and make a stronger growth next year.With 16 crowns all together (8 Jersey Knight and 8 Purple Passion) all of which are enjoying a youthful resurgence right now, this equals out to around 4-5 spears per week that are coming indoors and leading to some interesting, not-normally-on-the-same-plate combinations. This afternoon for lunch, I sauteed some asparagus picked 30 minutes earlier along with some Italian kale harvested at the same time.But my favorite has been adding asparagus to my Whatever Is Fresh Scrambles!This one featured rehydrated morels, 4 spears of asparagus, 4 cherry tomatoes and 2 red serrano peppers - all from the garden except for the morels. I saute all ingredients except the more delicate tomatoes in butter with a little olive oil until the asparagus is just shy of done.When the asparagus has softened, add scrambled eggs to the mix then fold in the quartered cherry tomatoes.When the eggs have finished cooking, plate with a little shredded cheese of your choosing - I have used both colby-jack and mozzarella and both have worked wonderfully. Top with your choice of fresh herb (I alternate between basil and dill) and voila - delicious and nutritious meal in just a few minutes!
Read MoreSo maybe the July garden isn't classically beautiful, but it does have a quirky beauty...While bolted lettuce is a tall, straggly creature on its own, the Tom Thumb lettuce is also a bit elegant against the backdrop of collards:The glass gem corn is doing incredibly well (note, strawberry popcorn is not nearly so prolific):The blueberries are abundant this year:The figs, while still green, are also abundant this year:The asparagus is still throwing up occasional spears:And the tomatoes...all those tomatoes!But the star of the late July garden for me is my first ever harvest of California Black Eyed Peas! These cowpeas were planted to fix nitrogen for the corn they are growing next to and up, but now that I am seeing the beginning of what looks to be a good harvest I am excited about them for their own sake:
Read MoreWhile looking for a readily available, organic mulch to compliment my semi-composted pine needles, I have learned that the list of mulching styles and materials is truly endless. The list of possibilities include but is not limited to: sheet mulching, lasagna mulching (which does not actually involve pasta), plastic mulching, deep mulching, green manure mulching (which is green, but not manure), straw mulching...as I said, endless.The option I found most interesting is green mulching, using plant matter that would otherwise go into the compost bins, instead applied directly on the soil as a biodegradable mulch, effectively cutting out the middleman.I have begun this process primarily with weeds in my yard and the few volunteer plants that come up in my garden. This week the main contributor has been the Yellow Woodsorrel that has popped up in clumps all around my yard.Yellow Woodsorrel, so called for the small, yellow flowers it produces, is an edible forage green that is commonly called 'false clover' in the midwest. It has appeared this year in such abundance that I can both have my cake and eat it too by using it as a primary green mulch. Below is the result of just a few minutes worth of pulling sorrel and mulching between asparagus crowns.For my foraging friends, the other edible forage plant I have in abundance this year is Common Chickweed. It has been blooming for months so I use it as a wild edible, but not as mulch to avoid introducing new seeds into the garden.The trick with using any plant you find in your yard (weed, grass or otherwise) as green mulch is to make sure you do not include the flowers or seeds. Even when the flowers seem small and closed it is better to pluck them off before tossing them between plantings."Earth knows no desolation. She smells regeneration in the moist breath of decay." ~ George Meredith
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