Digging (or excavating?) for Black Gold

I have been bummed until recently as to my lame compost pile.  Granted it was lame because I was bad about turning it (not having those awesome sphere/side barrel ones, ok, excuses excuses...)

Anyways, so this year I was bad and didn't add compost to the garden beds early on like I usually do because the bin was looking fullish of unrotted things.

After being tired of feeling like things have been slow going for the pile I decided to investigate and thought, "Maybe if I look under the pile and poke deep in?"  (I have one of those tall box shape plastic commercial compost bins.  I know, silly early mistake when I was younger to purchase).

AND OMG.  Was there compost.  Loads of delicious crumbly beautiful stuff.  BUCKETS.  6 HEAVY FULL giant kitty litter plastic square buckets ("borrowed" from someone's recycling... who I now scope out often) of amazing compost.

It was perilous digging into it like that because I started just before dusk when I couldn't see anything very well (except filthy rich compost) and with how warm compost can get and as I've seen snakes chilling in the bin before (and how I don't like to wear gloves...) I could have probably had issues if I encountered any creepy crawlies and it may have been my imagination, but I thought I did see a small tail slither by... but there were a lot of squash seedling roots that could have tricked my eyes...  I was just so giddy about the compost I kept digging and digging, elbow deep (horizontally) into the bin until my 2 main 5 ft x 15 ft beds were both given a good layer of compost before I decided to call it a night.

(side of compost bin that I was digging into to get to compost.  There was all sorts of un-composted stuff that had packed into the side, which was the reason I thought I had no compost, but I just had to dig! And dig I did.)

(essentially this pic shows poorly how I dug into the bin, underneath the pile until there was over a full foot between the floor of the bin and the actual pile above.  I probably dug more up in the center.  It was sort of interesting because though the pile looked depleted by half from above when I was done with my 6 bucketfuls, I think it slowly sank, and filtered itself out of really large chunks of unrotted material as I dug underneath the pile)
 
The next day I took pics and tried all other side of the bin to mine for more black gold when I discovered that if I dug a little upwards too more compost was there and I hauled bunches more to fill my 7 smaller 1 ft x 4ft beds that hold vines and strawberry plants!  It was so grand to see all that scrap saving work out into such huge rewards.

Now garden, let's get growing!

Plant Haul Adventures! and Battle won on plant mislabeling!

I had the fortune of being able to attend the Botanic Garden and Lichterman Nature Center plant sale this past Friday and what great finds there were!

(I feel a little silly talking about “my haul” as this reminds me of a recent Slate.com article about people, specifically teenage girls talking about their clothing purchases online on Youtube.  Granted I’m not going through the effort to upload a video of this, so I feel better about gushing in text about “le haul.”)

The day began with a plant dropoff to a good friend’s place and then a dig n’ dash (with her permission of course!) of what I identified as an arum from her newly inherited backyard garden (she just moved there).  Though not edible, it’s somewhat rare to find (at least for me) and the cherry red berry studded spathe (ok, that sounded just a little salacious)  in the winter months will be pleasant to look at.

Then I jetted off to the awesome Lichterman Nature Center plant sale (which was awesome and lovingly laid out) where, though I didn’t get everything I wanted (stupid budgets as usual) I did get: 2 spicebushes ($10/apiece!), a good size yarrow ($4), a baby ornamental pepper ($4) by the intriguing name of “Fish,”

 
and I won a mini-mislabeling battle on the spicebush!

Explanation of won-battle:
Prior to going to the sale I was doing research on the plants I was interested in that would be at the sale.  The Center is brilliant enough to put out a preview list, which makes things very helpful when you know what to expect/pick up what you want immediately.  The spicebush was a definite draw.  There were two plants listed by the common name spicebush, but from research, Lindera benzoin is the native edible kind.  Crushed leaves make a spicy tea and the berries are like allspice.  They also have the advantage of being one of the first plants to flower in spring, so that’s pleasant.

I found the spicebushes soon after my first run through of the place and was setting some nice looking ones off to the side talking out loud about “how these are going to taste great!”  when a lady overheard me and said that the description sign on the plant stated that “all parts are poisonous.”

“WHAAAAT?!?!?”  I explained that it couldn’t be.  The internet does not lie (ha, btw on that one), but no really, I looked up the LATIN name to confirm that it was indeed edible and every source confirmed it.  I frantically whipped out my netbook in hopes that there would amazingly be wireless available in the MIDDLE OF THE HUGE LICHTERMAN LAWN, but to no avail, no connection for confirmation.  I was pretty confident that something was wrong, but worried that Lichterman’s staff knew some news that I (and the internet community) wasn’t aware of about the plant.

After confronting a very helpful volunteer about the labeling, she too was confused because she had always been told of the bush’s edibility.  During this entire time and a little prior a few people had walked by at the few available spicebushes and clucked that they had been interested but saw that the sign noted it was poisonous.  In a weird way, I think that might have helped me get the bushes I got, due to misinformation!

A half an hour of research on the Lichterman staff and confirmed with 3 other sources that yep, the sign was wrong and out of nowhere a new sign replaced it with the correct info.
Ok, so a little over-proud of myself here, but I think it was really important to fix that mistake because it’s my mission obviously to educate people that you can eat nearly everything (to me, apparently).

Though excited about the spicebushes, I got 2 because they are dioecious, meaning they need a male and female plant in order to produce berries.  Unfortunately plants are not labeled or were in flower to be able to ‘sex’ the plants (harder than chickens, I swear!)  So unless I wanted to wait and try to locate the opposite sex plant later, no berries until who know when.  So I decided to gamble and got 2 plants for that fun 50-50 thing.  Tell you how it goes and if I get berried or buried eventually.

On another note, I convinced a lady to purchase a Haight-Ashbury hibiscus because it’s awesome of course.  In addition to this note, this lady buys these hibiscus for her dog who eat the flowers.  Yep, hibiscus flower eating dogs.  AND, she gives EACH of them a hibiscus of their own to consume/destroy and they each know which hibiscus is theirs to eat.

I wonder if they pee on their respective plants to fertilize them and get them to produce more flowers (though I am sure this could stimulate more foliage growth… and um, that was a little crass thought, but if you have a dog the peeing thing shouldn’t make you blink).  I also told her that you can just keep taking cuttings of the Haight Ashbury and have forever amounts of it eventually to feed to the dogs.  I wish I had gotten her number so I could have had opportunity to witness hibiscus flower eating dogs someday.  Obviously I am easily amused.

The yarrow purchased was for potential edible reasons and also I happen to purchase plants that have the potential/are noted to repel pests because I need help avoiding getting bitten by mosquitoes/ticks/THINGS at all costs.  I have mosquitoes with apparently steel syringe mouth parts on them because they bite through thick jeans when I garden and I don’t appreciate it.  Thus, I have a nice collection of pennyroyal, citronella, lemon thyme, Artemisia, oregano and the like around the garden for pest repelling properties and not just for taste.  I literally give hugs to them all prior to gardening in hopes that their properties will linger with me as I garden.  (I also tend to tuck a sprig of  pennyroyal into my hat as a precaution too).

Obviously this is a long-ish entry so allow me to hurry it up a bit.

Next was the Memphis Botanic Garden’s Spring’s Best Plant sale which was also wonderful and huge (and crammed, lots of people and plants).  There is obvious love for hostas there, a plant that I have little fondness for (unless someone tells me the leaves make a good salad), but there is one variety called “mouse ears” that caught my attention some years back.  I wondered if the price had gone down at all, and when I was led to the plant by a volunteer, we both gushed at its cuteness and minuteness, but spending $15 for a 3 inch diameter plant I’m not that even fond of was not going to occur.

I did fantasize about how much fun and “Alice in Wonderland”-like it would be to plant a tea set with one in a tea cup, a little larger version in the pot and some small flowering plants like white violets in the creamer and sugar set (!!!)  With also maybe a tea spoon with light colored lichen in it on the tea saucer (!!!!!)  So, um, if anyone does something like that, take a picture of it for me.  OR if anyone has any money to spare I’d love to make a display like this for you.  I wouldn’t even want it, or ask for money to my time, I just want to make this happen! (<---plant design geek)

 

The ginger scented geranium was to replace one that died earlier this year.  Smells like ginger ale and I look forward to cooking with it, or making delicious drinks from the leaves!

Little pots of rue were a steal at $2/apiece if I can keep the swallowtail butterfly caterpillars from completely eating them again.  Note to self again: DO NOT place rue  right next to the other caterpillar food plants such as cilantro, dill and parsley.

So, my total haul for Friday was this:
Arum (FREE!)
Spicebush (x2) ($10 x 2 = $20)
Yarrow ($4)
Ornamental pepper “Fish” var. ($4)
Ginger Scented Geranium ($5)
Rue ($2)

TOTAL: $35

Amazing.  Lesson learned: Go to local plant sales annual for a great deal on unusual and awesome plants.

Weekends are for fruits and flowers: Part 2 (Warning: PIC HEAVY)

Though the vegetable garden is still coming along a little slow (at least in my personal time-space perspective), The flowers are have a good ol' time and continue to be breathtaking.

I received a white iris from one of my master gardener neighbors a year ago which I plunked in a very random corner of the yard because I had no idea where I wanted to put it/hadn't had time to dig up some grass for it, so there it sat for an entire year.  This spring I chopped it in half as it made some good growth and I realized that I wanted some permanent leafage in front of a fence so I transplanted one half there and kept the other half in its original location, undisturbed so that I could at least see what was up with this iris's flowers.  Here are the results! (reminder, pics are smaller than usual for easier loading, please click on them to expand them if you wish to see them in their full glory):

Love taking zoomed in detail shots!  As you might guess, I am a Georgia O'Keefe fan.  The stripes/speckles make me think of a white tiger.

It's like the iris has a fuzzy tongue!

I don't know why but this makes me think of ballet, or white sheets in the wind.

 The hellebores are still coming along!  Pods developing and looking wicked and spiky.

This hellebore innard's only have 3 pods developing, vs the 4 above.  I liked how they crossed like this.

A self seeded pansy from last year's winter.  I wonder if some mixed because this doesn't look like the plain purple I had before.  If you could only see them in real life! Huge flowers, wonder aroma and the colors are truly vibrant.  They seem to be doing well in the part shade under my tree and producing loads of flowers.

I like this fern uncurling, makes me think of an infant with its fists curled.

Mama and baby fern

I will never stop loving fluffy dandelion seed heads!  I like how this one is just barely holding on.

Have a great weekend and hope you're enjoying the little things in life.

Weekends are for fruits and flowers: Part 1 (Warning: PIC HEAVY)

vAs people have time to look at pretty pictures on the weekends (or will just ignore these posts because they have better things to do during the weekend...can't blame them!) I decided to post some recent pics of the garden as I don't think I share the prettier side often enough.

This is during a time when I had time and get my artsy pics on.  (Click to enlarge pics btw, I kept most of them at medium for easier loading, but they're obviously better when expanded)

Surprise! I left a daikon radish in the ground too long and it flowered!

 Unexpectedly pretty purple geranium-like looking flowers to me

 

 The everbearing strawberries have all been in full bloom and looking healthier than before.  Many are starting to bear fruit, but it will take a while before they go from this:

 ... to luscious and red.  This one looks like it's got a bonnet on and has fingers to its lips in thought.

 Even the mache has cute little flowers, tiny ones that I am sure hoverflies will like.

Some waxy broccoli holding onto a drop of water

Sweet, sweet sugar pea!  It's relatively hot, but I suppose for their cool steeple shaped flowers and nitrogen fixing properties even not get a good crop is fine (I started them a bit late too anyways)

Sunny mustard flowers. Look like little butterflies.

The salad burnet, which is doing AMAZINGLY well from the winter into this weather is flowering for me for the first time. Meaning: I need to cut it back hard and as I don't think I will be using this like a mad woman the flowers will probably have to go because it makes the leaves tough (like they sort of are now... probably a good idea to split this baby too.  It's big and beautiful!)

My happy columbine!  Love these unusual flowers!

 Closeup:  (each flower bud just prior to blooming looks like an alien space ship or a squid or octopus!  

A whole bunch of them together looks like a school of them swimming in an ocean!)


Finally, for this last part I leave you with a hyacinth bean just emerging:

It's not my fault! The garden just doesn't understand "no!"

So, I'm on a squash growing moratorium due to squash vine borers being full of hate and eating of my past squash crops.

APPARENTLY, the garden didn't get the memo.

Opening my compost pile, what do I see?

(Yeah, pardon the giant crumpled up newspaper, sometimes I gets lazy...)

Yep, those looks like some kombucha squash (seedlings now)  husband and I ate some time ago.  I had saved the seeds for another time when squash growing was more favorable, but apparently I missed a few/need to turn the compost pile.  Man, these guys are straining to get some light.  AND boy, do I want to let them grow out the compost pile....mmmmm Japanese squashiness.

But gah.  Can you imagine how terrible it would be to have squash vine borers lay in your compost pile?! TURN PILE! TURN!

The garden can't stop dropping hints though!

(UPDATE: apparently this photo didn't load earlier though I swear I saw it had)

Yep, them be some self seeded cucumber seedlings.  For reals Garden?  You know that the husband doesn't even like cucumber!

So... shall I "let things be?" or become Persephone, SQUASH DESTROYER?

Let us eat lettuce! Salud to the salad!

A while back my mother gave me a bunch of seeds that she thought were chard, then I realized when looking at them later they weren't and confronted her about this and she then said it was a Chinese vegetable of sorts, which after a while of talking with her I concluded that my mom is just a nut as usual. 

The seeds (sown under a raspberry plant) appeared to be lettuce like and after promising that inform readers of their fate this is what has sprung up in their place:

Looks like lettuce doesn't it? (Bleeds like lettuce too, you know that white sap that oozes when they're cut)

The only thing is, is that I have no clue what lettuce they are.  They were apparently 2 different lettuce varieties.  Obviously lettuce seeds are pretty standard tiny skinny football shaped things of varying shades of brown so if anyone is able to discern what is what here I'd appreciate it.  Both appear to be loose leaf lettuces, one I would not be surprised to be a generic black simpson and the other has light purpling about the leaves.

Here's the first type:

And now the second:

(closeup of purpling)

If you're a lettuce eater/grower/identifier, I'd appreciate any info!

On a similar note, husband and I made chirashi salad again with the plethora of greens that abounded in the garden!  In the basket is sorrel, salad burnet, siberian kale, garlic green, mache, mystery lettuces #1 and #2, mustard greens and Swiss chard.

Though not a "true" salad by some historical definitions where there are dozens of greens if not more, it was still quite delish with the pops of spicy of the mustard, the textures of the soft mache leaves/flowers (it was bolting now) to the ruffly kale, garlickiness of the... garlic and unexpected flavor of the chard.

It was my first year growing the Swiss chard and I was WEIRDED OUT by the saltiness of it.  Not unpleasant, just not expected.  I wonder if it really was as salty as I thought it was or if I simply note saltiness more than other people.  Other than dehydration, what might make chard more salty than usual I wonder? Large amounts of fertilizer (which I swear I didn't do)?

Vinegar mint!

Oh vinegar, how you are so near and dear to my heart.

You are delicious, clean the inside of my house naturally, are great for my hair, kill weeds with ease and make my plant pots bacteria and fungus free!

As I was making my yard smell like a pickle factory/fish n'chip shop earlier today I had an epiphany that I might be able to control my mint in my herb bed a little better than my current tin can border method: VINEGAR!

I'm not worried that I will decimate mint (really, really hard to do).  So in addition to the tin can border (which I like to believe will control the mint not only physically but maybe by heat that is  theoretically absorbed by the can making it inhospitable to the creeping mint underneath), on one of my tin can border, in the inside area where the mint grows I doused a line of vinegar there and between the cans.

A little later in the day and I already see a little line of mint die-off, while the inside of the border stays healthy, fresh and minty!

The mint was relegated to the lower portion of my 2 tiered raised herb bed and slopes downward so I am not too worried about causing any other herbs to die off, assuming that the vinegar doesn't travel far from the original douse point.

Cross fingers!

Potentially confused plants waking up

The hibiscuses are coming back again! Grrrr-reat! Except that if I recall... it feels a little early?  With all this mid 80 degree weather I think some of my plants have become disoriented!

First it was the really cold winter and now unseasonably warm spring, I suppose I can't blame them for being in a hurry to get up and out and enjoy the heat.

Both hibiscuses are looking spry, though the Red River one's buds are growing relatively slower than the other hibiscus's.  I suspect because the Red River's in a shadier region of the garden.

The small numerous buds makes me think of sad thoughts of an acne ridden teenager (oh will those days never end?!).  On a happier thought, though some might contend this as something to celebrate, the morning glories are coming back up around it too, self seeded all over, including under the Red River hibiscus where it will wind its way up the branches and flower among more exotic looking flowers.  Almost like congregating with angels, hmm guys?  If they start getting a little too strangle-y of the hibiscus I'll just yank some up.  It's fun though to see the 2 different flowers on one plant though.

(you can see about 4 little morning glory seedlings popping up around the hibiscus base.  I think I saw yet more popping up later today)

More confused plants include the stevia/sweetleaf.  It that came back!  Dude, it's a zone 11 I found out (not a zone 9 I thought for a while) and so my super mulching methods worked, I am still startled to see it coming back and with so many numerous and strong shoots.  I thought for certain that there was no way it could survive that winter especially as I was convinced I mulched too late.  I have suspicions that the first year I mulched (a couple of years ago) I also piled LOTS of dirt around the base of the plant and so maybe that it some good increased protection to make this zone 11 plant essentially perennial for me here?!  Just to be sure too I did a taste test and yep, it was the painfully sweet stevia I remembered it to be.

Always nice to see things persevere in the garden.  Makes me think I actually am too, though I haven't been doing much work to help them along!

B-limey!

My kaffir lime tree and I like to play a game every year.  Each year I bring it inside when it gets chilly.  It hangs out in the warm kitchen and I merrily take leaves from it for delicious ethnic dishes during the cold winter months (you're supposed to use the leaves, I've never seen it produce flowers, or obviously w/o flowers... fruit).

When it gets warm again in Memphis I attempt to acclimate it outside, in a shaded, sheltered location where invariably, a little bit of wind does this to it:

THEN, (each year) I freak out and fuss if the stupid tree will make it with no leaves, though it did retain two stubborn leaves for once this year.

AND AS USUAL, it shows sign of new leaf life again after weeks of worry:

(Yeah, I need to stop freaking out about this stuff... just my nature)

I'd like to add that I got my lemon and this lime tree at the same time on Craigslist, both for $20, with their original terracotta pots, base and pretty rocks for water to drain into.  A steal I say.  Just a plug (I'm not affiliated with them!) for the awesomeness of Craigslist for having connected me with all sorts of very interesting people and deals like these trees and my super reproductive cannas. 

(NOTE: as much as I love Craigslist... if you do use this great system, please be careful still.  Strangers are strangers, so make sure reliable friends know where you are and when you are meeting with people to purchase or exchange items!)

Secret Agent Bee: Gentlemen! (click title to "get it")

(UPDATE: Pardon the idiotic un-finished post, was going to go back before it was scheduled, but yeah...)

Popping around the garden I was charmed by a very odd looking inverted teardrop shaped be.  The head of this bee was at the pointy end of the teardrop and it was very wary, yet seemed playful at the same time alighting to pause here and there, waiting for me to get to it to get a better look before flying away again.

After LOTS of time on the internet trying to figure out what it was I've determined that it's a parasitic, potentially beneficial pollinator fly from the Bombyliidae family.  The cool feature about this fly (besides its appearance) is that it lays its eggs by its prey's den or home and the fly's larvae crawl into the den and then eat the prey!

The unfortunate part is that it seems that Bombyliidae's don't distinguish between annoying crickets/grasshoppers and wasps (which can be helpful too as pollinators) and helpful beneficial pollinators such as solitary bees and etc.

Still, nifty to see and have around!


MORE INFO:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombyliidae
http://www.cirrusimage.com/flies_bee_Bombylius_major.htm
http://thenaturalstone.blogspot.com/2006/04/studies-of-bee-fly.html