Here's the container I'm talking about. You can get them just about anywhere. I think I'll need a bigger one soon, or maybe I'll just move half of them to another one.
A little about farming, a little about knitting and a whole lot about vegetable gardening.
Friday, March 27, 2009
More rain and new chicks
Here's the container I'm talking about. You can get them just about anywhere. I think I'll need a bigger one soon, or maybe I'll just move half of them to another one.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Man, I got a lot done today!
Man, did I ever get a lot done today! I started by planting some peppers and herbs in one of the raised beds by the peace sign. They all came from work, all save one were frost damaged or otherwise unfit to sell. I put a basil plant in the north end then, clockwise from that, I planted an eggplant (unknown variety), two Senorita jalapenos, a Hot Cherry, a Hot Banana, a Tabasco, an unknown pepper, a Fooled You jalapeno, another Senorita jalapeno, and another unknown eggplant. In between I put a catnip plant towards the south end and a Jim's Best oregano towards the north (that was the only plant I purchased). I'm hoping those two will spread out and act as a living mulch for the peppers.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is getting a new garden. First lady Michelle Obama is scheduled to break ground Friday on a new garden near the fountain on the South Lawn that will supply the White House kitchen. She will be joined by students from Bancroft Elementary School in the District of Columbia. The children will stay involved with the project, including planting the fruits, vegetables and herbs in the coming weeks and harvesting the crops later in the year. Mrs. Obama spent time earlier this week at an exhibit on rooftop gardening. "We're going to get a big one in our back yard, the South Lawn," she promised the volunteers.
Foodies Celebrate White House Veggie Garden ~ ABC News
Michelle Obama has said she wants to make the White House vegetable garden an opportunity to talk about America's diet.
"We want to use it as a point of education, to talk about health and how delicious it is to eat fresh food, and how you can take that food and make it part of a healthy diet," she told Oprah Winfrey in the April issue of O magazine, first reported by food writer Eddie Gehman Kohan. "You know, the tomato that's from your garden tastes very different from one that isn't. And peas -- what is it like to eat peas in season? So we want the White House to be a place of education and awareness. And, hopefully, kids will be interested because there are kids living here [in the White House]."
Obamas to Plant White House Vegetable Garden ~ New York Times
WASHINGTON — On Friday, Michelle Obama will begin digging up a patch of White House lawn to plant a vegetable garden, the first since Eleanor Roosevelt’s victory garden in World War II. There will be no beets (the president doesn’t like them) but arugula will make the cut.
While the organic garden will provide food for the first family’s meals and formal dinners, its most important role, Mrs. Obama said, will be to educate children about healthful, locally grown fruit and vegetables at time when obesity has become a national concern.
In an interview in her office, Mrs. Obama said, “My hope is that through children, they will begin to educate their families and that will, in turn, begin to educate our communities.”
Twenty-three fifth graders from Bancroft Elementary School in Washington will help her dig up the soil for the 1,100-square-foot plot in a spot visible to passers-by on E Street. (It’s just below the Obama girls’ swing set.) Students from the school, which has had a garden since 2001, will also help plant, harvest and cook the vegetables, berries and herbs.
Almost the entire Obama family, including the president, will pull weeds, “whether they like it or not,” Mrs. Obama said laughing. “Now Grandma, my mom, I don’t know.” Her mother, she said, would probably sit back and say: “Isn’t that lovely. You missed a spot.”
Yes, White House Garden Will Be Organic ~ Mother Nature Network
Michelle Obama Orders up White House Garden (no beets needed) ~ LA Times Daily Dish
Obamas Ready to Start a White House Garden ~ Chicago Tribune
Kitchen Gardeners International
Why don't you go thank them yourself? I did, and here's what I wrote:
A million thanks for yet again leading the way! As I said in my comment when I signed the EatTheView.org petition, people who grow their own food are healthier mentally and physically because of the exercise they get from doing it, the better nutrition they get from eating it and the lessening of stress from knowing they can feed themselves no matter what. This better mental and physical health will serve them well in the trying times we find ourselves in. Thank you for setting yet another good example for many more to follow. Because of your actions in starting a vegetable garden on the White House lawn, even larger numbers of Americans will be able to take advantage of the mental and physical benefits of gardening.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Rain, rain, glorious rain!
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Edible and Useful Wild Plants
I didn't know about the milkweed pods, Dragonfly! Cool! I've made jelly from those hog plums, as well as the wild grapes, prickly pear cactuses, dewberries and agarita bushes (a good trick to harvest those is spread a sheet out below the bush and use two sticks to harvest ~ pull one branch out with one stick and tap that one firmly with the other stick ~ all the ripe berries will drop onto the sheet). There are also wild persimmons ~ not the little black things, but real persimmons, yellowey-orange and everything. They don't taste very good if we don't get much rain, and still don't taste nice until after a frost. Well, they still don't taste really good unless you add a lot of sugar. LOL! And of course who could forget pecans. I make pies and pies and more pies every year from those, as well as add them to soups, salads and stir-fries.
Speaking of salads, there are wild onions, pickle plants (those light green "shamrock" sort of weeds ~ you eat the seed pods), purslane, watercress and sorrel to flesh out that salad of dandelions. And wild mint to go in your tea or mint juleps. And chicory for use as a coffee substitute. If you want a cooked dish, use those sorrel leaves with some lambs' quarters and spiderwort to add to soups and such like spinach. And you can cook young prickly pear pads after burning off all the spines. They're good in scrambled eggs and are called napolitos in Mexico. They're even sold in cans in HEB.
As for medicinals, there is mullein for chest congestion, senna for constipation, the aforementioned horehound for colds (IF you can get past the naaaasty bitterness), and tickle tongue tree (aka toothache tree) to stand in for Oragel (it really does make your mouth numb).
Euell Gibbons is a great resource! He wrote two or three books, but the most popular was the first one Dorothy mentioned. Another good book for our area is Edible and Useful Wild Plants of Texas and the Southwest by Delena Tull. I can't personally attest to it's usefulness yet since I just bought it (just a minute ago took the plastic off as a matter of fact), but three people have told me that it's a really good one. This thread's got me motivated to read through it this morning to see what it says about the things I've already been using (the things listed above). The cover says it contains recipes as well as information on natural dyes, harmful plants and textile fibers.