Sure it’s carbon based. In that sense it’s organic, but man the things I do to it… yikes. I have my reasons.
I am something of a mosquito magnet. They love me. They love to bite me. They love to land on me. They love to fly near me.
In particular, they like my southernmost points. I’m imagining myself on a butcher’s chart at a mosquito supermarket and there, well below the knee, just at the ankle bone is a large circle labeled “sweetmeat”. They pay a price for this meat and that price is blood, my hand slapping down at regular intervals like the tail of a cow, sweeping, smashing, plucking. But at times they eat deeply and survive to spread the word of my succulence.
What’s left of me there is ever decreasing. I am nipped, slowly, persistently, but by tiny, tiny incisors. A wasting away of my ankle flesh that under microscope perhaps looks like trees chewed by beavers. Will I topple? Perhaps soon.
In the meantime I spray. Deet. Anthrax. Gasoline. Napalm. DDT. VD. WMD. Whatever and however often I feel the whiff is waning. A spritz for all body parts. (ALL). A steady soaking for my sweetmeat regions. All of it only increases demand while supply remains forever fixed – two. Two ankles to serve the world’s most foodie mosquitoes.
So why is it that I won’t even say the word chemical in my garden? I would drink deet if it helped repel mosquitoes from my toes, but I won’t use Miraclegro to boost my beets? (Now, I’m not a complete doofus. I do understand that even organic fertilizers are “chemicals”, but I wouldn’t use synthetic fertilizers. There’s a difference.)
But I wonder. Would I ever, if confronted with the sweetmeat truth of something in my garden and its accompanying blood drinker, reach for the deet?
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There’s nothing wrong with wine. And I’d like to make it from weeds.
Dandelion wine requires ingredients that I have or can get, but I want a really good recipe. Something simple that doesn’t require too much equipment. Who has it? Send it to me and if I use your recipe you’ll win.. ummm.. a picture posted here of it being imbibed!
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Strange thing the sun. It came out yesterday, rays blazing, and all of us in Connecticut left our homes, stripped off our clothing and fell to our knees in joyous rapture. Hours and hours of warm genuflection, livers and kidneys freshly full of vitamin d production, skin burning, faces upturned, hands over eyes, squeals and shrieks of glee from all corners.
An early summer start with temperatures hitting 91. For us, it meant Kyle’s first tee ball game and then home to join the solar worship.
Things will cool off a bit, but we are fast approaching our no frost zone. That means it’s time to get several things in the ground to join the peas and their pleasing poking. I put in several transplants of lettuce. I really like the constant giving of leaf lettuces and this first planting includes lots of those. My wife prefers crisp options so I’ve got a few romaines in as well. I will plant more each week so that I’m hopefully retiring older plants in favor of new ones.
I also planted chard and carrots. I’d like more carrots this year so I also added some random seeds into a deep container. After that, I also plunked in some beets. I should have radishes peeking through the soil this week too.
And now, in earnest, begins the season of dirt under the fingernails. And on the face.
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I’ve been hearing so much about phenology that it took me a little while to figure out that we weren’t all talking about some crazy pseudoscience about lumps on heads.
As it turns out, what we’re really talking about is temperature. Soil temperature and its effects on plants.
When the crocus blooms? Get those peas in. When the hummingbirds hum? Get the potatoes in. When the fat pasty white guys wear shorts? Build trellises.
I’m pretty sure that phenology comes down to one simple thing: As the temps increase, the soil warms up and stuff starts to happen. Hardcore phenologists want to follow the natural signs, but it pretty much comes down to the temperature. So, if you see people wearing less, you are either at a strip club or it’s time to start planting.
So I put on shorts this weekend. And there was plenty to enjoy about the weather and my pastiness. We were all outside enjoying the warmth and I got tons done in the garden. Soaker hoses, bean teepees, pea trellises, onions in, radishes in. Kids playing, wife working, sun shining.
One of the great parts of spring is that you start to see so many things changing. The sun’s angle changes, it hits harder. Buds are popping, the sugar maples extend their fingers, cranberry red nails drying against the sky, grass pushes, gnats fly, tree frogs awaken, geese honk a rowdy good morning…
The garden is taking shape. Next weekend, more planting.
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I’m not going to win any breaking-news awards for this, but coffee grounds make great compost additions. If you drink coffee, save the grounds. If you don’t drink coffee, I’m not sure how you are reading this because you probably aren’t human. You are probably a zombie. Or some other undead abomination. Please check yourself by asking:
- Do I like to eat brains? (If yes, you are probably a zombie.)
- Do I shamble instead of running even when pursuing the living? (If yes, you are probably a zombie.)
- Does the sunlight burn me? (If yes, you are probably a vampire.)
And speaking of things that decay, even your paper filters that you use with coffee can go right into the compost pile. Just don’t use the yucky bleachy kind.
A lot of the larger coffee shops do offer their grounds to complete strangers. Shamble in and ask.
Within Your Compost Pile
Add coffee grounds for a boost of nitrogen and heat to your compost pile. The grounds actually have as much As with most things composty, don’t add too much. 20% of your ingredients as coffee grounds is pretty good. If you’ve got a bucket of coffee grounds that you save in your kitchen, it will probably mold (especially if you save the grounds hot and wet), but that’s okay. Add it to the compost anyway.
Within Your Vermicular Bin
Worms dig coffee. They are practically human in their love for it. They will thrive on the grounds added and the filters. Watch your pH because coffee adds acidity. Lime or eggshells will help balance that out.
As A Mulch
If you’ve got a crazy coffee habit or perhaps you own Starbucks or a villa in Columbia, you could mulch with the grounds. Acidity again can be a bit of a problem, but nothing that can’t be countered.
Other Compost Posts
Sea shells and egg shells in compost
Garbage can composter
Filed under: Uncategorized , coffee, compost, composting coffee grounds
My good friends Chris and Kenny are off and away on the road to improved self sufficiency. They’ve got a fearlessness that I don’t. They’ve got talents that I don’t. And now they’ve got chickens that I don’t.
I’m filled with some covetousness. I covet the chickens and their fleshy perfection, their perfect eggs. I covet too this very cool coop that’s coming together. You see, Chris can actually build things. I covet that talent. My wife covets it also on my behalf and for me.
So in addition to their chickens, they’re going to dive in and get a garden going. Kenny has been pulling away the sod and getting the soil ready. She and her daughter have a whole bunch of seeds started and they’re already soaking up sun in the windows. When all is said and done, they’ll have greens, a bit of corn, broccoli, squash, peas, tomatoes, eggplant, celery, carrots and melons. Naturally I can’t resist taking pictures!
Here’s the spot, here are the chickens, here’s the coop!
Filed under: Uncategorized , chicken coop, new garden
Last year I planted some crazy beets. Totally nuts. Pounds of them from a very small space. Tasty, sweet, pretty…
And reviled by just about everybody in my family and everybody that I know. Poor beets. They’re like the quirkily pretty chick in high school. Some people think she’s totally hot. Other people want to keep her away from their dinner plates and digestive systems.
I like them because they are:
- Good for you. As everybody who knows me can attest, I am totally a health nut. Exercise. Eat right. Yoga. Power of positive thinking. (Okay. None of that is true at all. But I do like beets and as a side benefit they are very, very good for you.)
- Greens are edible too. Plant them thicker and thin them. When thinning, eat the greens!
- Self sufficient. Try and plant for some overlap of the leaves. It will shade the soil and prevent weeds. Just don’t be too crowded.
- Like grape nuts in seed form. Their little seeds look like grape nuts and that’s delicious. Not beet seeds though. Not delicious at all.
- Sweet and earthy at the same time. They’re like very nice hippies.
Last year’s post on planting beets is here. Biggest thing is to loosen that soil up. For a very good video on planting these suckers, check here at the Cooking Up A Story blog. (Great new blog find for me…)
Here’s a small bit of the late harvest last year:
Filed under: Uncategorized , beets, planting beets
Heavy rains here in Connecticut today, but did that stop us? Did it? DID IT?
Maybe a little bit. But not totally. Because we are tough New Englanders!
My friend is a great cook and lover of local ingredients. He’s helped me install all of the hardest parts of my garden each year. And he’s cooked, canned or eaten lots of my stuff. So it’s only natural that he’s now got his own kitchen garden going.
Today we cut the sod. The rain made it easier and we found worms, grubs and mud. The mud came because there was rain and dirt. Those are the ingredients for high-quality mud.
This plot will be small, but built to produce lots to freeze (beans) and lots to eat (lettuce) and lots to store (onions). In the fall, we’ll get garlic going. Throughout this week we’ll build up the beds much like the shibaguyz. More to come!
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Garlic is kind of odd. It’s really pretty easy to grow, but some varieties require long, warm growing seasons. Others do well planted before the freeze. Here in Connecticut, the best way to grow it is to plant it in October and to use a variety that can make it happen in the spring from a winter of happy beginnings. This hits people funny, but damnit.. it’s true. October. Spring plantings can work, but they just won’t be all that bulby or bulbous or bulbened or whatever. Magical things happen to the planted clove when it sits in temperatures 40 F or so for a couple of months. In fact, spring plantings can benefit from some freezer or fridge exposure prior to planting.
Now, every climate is different, but seriously.. here in Connecticut, October. When I planted it last fall, I opted to mulch it with some straw. I removed the straw a few weeks ago because I don’t want the soil to get constantly soggy; it needs to dry a bit.
The variety that I’m using is a hardnecked type called red russian. I get it from Maine and it’s suited to my climate. I’ve got about 65 or so coming up and can’t wait for June! Prior to that I will get the good ol’ scape – the false flower that shoots up. I’ll need to remove it to allow the bulbs to bet bulbier. Scape is delicious and can be cut into pieces for eating. Most recipes use it for pesto, but there’s plenty of other stuff you can do with it.
Here we go! Some pictures. Including my dog and cat who always want to know what’s going on in the garden.
Filed under: Uncategorized , fall garlic, garlic, scape
Grey squirrels are supposed to be bushy tailed crackers of nuts between toes. They are hard working, acrobatic, clever. They plan ahead. They bury food. That’s just like canning! They build impressive nests.
The question is, do they taste good when they’ve been killed with a hucked rock?
I aim to find out. I just need to first brace myself for the killing and subsequent crying that I’ll do. I then need to learn how to huck rocks with any kind of accuracy. But then… oh boy then!
A twitter warning from my wife: Squirrels in garden alert.
We have several red squirrels who jabber angrily at me while I work. I always know my cat is skulking about when I hear them chittering at the empty forest. (They seem to be amused by my dog and barely bother to babble when he strolls loudly by.)
But it was Sunday that I saw the first grey squirrel. It used to be that grey squirrels were everywhere around my town, but I see them less and less these days. While I don’t really want there to be one less of them (I am tempted), I’d prefer that he moves to a different garden.
Time will tell. Will the vermin move on or will I snap and start lobbing cucumbers at him?
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