Project: Terrarium Gardens

Originally posted 4/19/08

This time of year inspires all of us to want to get our hands in the dirt and get something growing. You can't even go to the grocery store anymore without passing pots, soil, & plants for sale. But for those who have little time, a tiny yard, or no yard at all - a terrarium might be the perfect fit. The kids love them and they look totally chic on your coffee table. Terrariums require little care but bring the green indoors and add a little sunshine to any space. I love looking at my terrariums imagining they are little worlds of happiness and wonder. And adding a pretty rock or garden troll increases their charm.

1. For starters you'll need a container. I had so much fun looking through some of the glass containers I had already and perusing the local thrift store for more. The containers can be tiny or large - just choose something that fits your style and your space. Mason jars, fish bowls, & potpourri containers work perfectly.2. Next you 'll need some plants. Depending on the container you choose - ground covers, succulents, and many types of moss will work and each brings a different feeling to your little world. But remember that all of the plants you put in must require the same conditions for moisture and light since they will all be sharing a small space. 3. It's time to plant! We found this great video from eHow that leads you step by step through the process of planting. Check it out:





I started with a dry climate since the succulents were so darn pretty but those instructions will work for any plant. Once I finished that I went on to make three others. They are all pictured below except my favorite which is the first image in this post. Happy planting!















~Megan

Garden Video Journal #1

We were inspired by Dales Broiler videos and we decided to do a video journal of our garden. We thought it would be fun to share our success and failures with all of you throughout the year. We live on a .11 acre lot but I think a lot of you will be surprised at how much food we get out of our little garden. This year we will attempt to grow the following plants:

Leafy Vegetables

Spinach, Arugula, Forellenschuss Lettuce, Green Oakleaf Lettuce, Sunset Lettuce

Root Vegetables

Golden Beets, St. Valery Carrots, Russet Potatoes

Squash

Waltham Butternut Squash, Black Beauty Zucchini, Anna Swartz Hubbard Squash, Summer Crookneck Squash

Tomatoes

Beam's Yellow Pear, Gold Meadow Tomato, Cherokee Purple Tomato, Mexico Midgets, Red Brandywine, Sudduths Brandywine

Other Vegetables

Orange Bell Peppers, Double Yield Cucumber, Sweet Peas

Fruits

Strawberries, Blackberries, Golden Raspberries, Charantais Melon





Michael

Heirlooms 101

This is a repost from the winter of last year but we just love heirlooms around here and thought a good amount of you might have missed it!

When my friend Meghan suggested we have a whole section dedicated to heirlooms on this blog I thought she might be placing a little too much emphasis on them. To me, an heirloom was a pretty tomato - a vegetable grown by mega-serious gardeners who wanted to impress their neighbors with rare produce. How wrong I was! After a lot of reading I am a changed (and educated) woman. I can now say that in the future I may not plant anything BUT heirlooms. Want to know why? Well first let's define what an heirloom vegetable is...

Heirlooms are:
1. Old - Usually associated with plants dating from the 1920's and older. It's hard to date them but some American heirlooms varieties are believed to be Pre-Columbian (meaning before Columbus came to America). Many heirloom seeds may have been carried by your ancestors across the ocean to America hundreds of years ago! There were reasons people held onto these seeds...

2. Open-pollinating - meaning if you gather seeds from your plants you'll get the same plant next year. You might not know this but if you tried to gather seeds from your garden center tomato plants and grow them the next year you wouldn't get the same plant from it. These plants are not able to reproduce and are often sterile. (Unless of course it's an heirloom) Over hundreds of years these seeds were gathered from the best plants of the harvest and continue to produce that same quality. Think of the savings!

3. High quality - The best of the heirlooms really are wonderful. They have it all. They taste wonderful, look beautiful, and are easy to grow. The vegetables and fruits you buy in the grocery store were not bred for flavor or quality - but for uniformity and ease of transporting. Which means that many pale in comparison when it comes to taste. Many people say that once you taste an heirloom vegetable you'll realize you have been eating the cardboard version of this veggie all your life. How exciting to taste flavors that mother nature intended you to have - unadulterated pleasure! At least as much as food can give you - which is a lot to a foodie like me!
Heirlooms were cultivated for many years to produce strong, disease fighting, climate hardy plants. In fact, some heirlooms were very locale specific - sometimes as much as a small valley with very specific weather patterns. The plants you purchase from the garden supply may tolerate your climate but they aren't complex creatures ready to thrive in your climate - but your heirlooms just may be.

Diversity and variety are good not only for our taste buds but also for our gardens. Another vital reason to maintain heirlooms is to keep their genetic traits for future use. When old varieties of food crops are not maintained, the gene pool grows smaller and smaller. This may lead to increased disease and pest problems. You may have pest or disease problems in your garden but with many different varieties the likelihood of all of your plants being affected is very low.

While this is just the tip of the iceberg(lettuce?) when it comes to heirlooms and their distinction, I hope you feel as inspired as I do to try out these treasured plants. So, this year when planning for your garden why not try some heirlooms? You may feel you are connecting to the past and sharing a heritage with your forebears in the planting of these wonderful vegetables and fruits. (There are also heirloom status livestock - animals that are better suited for the free range instead of the factory.) You can order heirloom seeds from several different companies including the Seed Savers Exchange. This company has a free seed catalog - order one even if you're not ready to plant heirlooms - just to acquaint yourself with these treasured plants!


More seed links:
Victory Heirloom Seeds
Amishland Heirloom Seeds
Heirloom Vegetable Gardener's Source


~Megan

A lot of my information came from this wonderful site and this amazing book
Images from Mike Donk & Scott Bauer

Happy Earth Day!

Growing your own garden not only helps individuals and families to be healthier but also mother earth. When we grow more of our own food we are significantly reducing the toll that huge monoculture farms take on our planet and often aiding in keeping diverse fruit and vegetable strains around. Every day we practice sustainable gardening in our local spaces we are celebrating the gift of this beautiful world we live in. So, next time you enjoy some of your tasty crops - remember the importance of these backyard farms!

Megan's Container Herb Garden - Sprouts!

Ok, so I must spend a combined total of at least 20 minutes a day just staring at my little sprouts. There is always so much satisfaction in watching things grow - even though they are barely an inch tall. In the photo above you can see some oregano - I didn't plant 20 seeds in that little pot- oregano just grows that way. And below here you can see my Basil. My mouth is already watering!My seedlings are still in the small kit I started them in but in a couple weeks I will need to transplant them to larger temporary containers. We're going to use large plastic cups with holes punched in the bottom. That way it'll be easy to transplant them to the garden as well as to let my kids sell the extras to friends and neighbors. I've seen and heard from friends who say their seedlings are getting big! How are yours doing?

Seed Reads

One of backyard farming’s greatest joys, I think, is being able to share. Hey, I’d like to share the work! I’ll settle, though, for sharing the harvest and sharing the passion.

I love literature for how it plants the seeds of ideas. Here, then, are some of my favorite gardening story books for sharing with the children in my life. I’d love to hear your recommendations, too. (Book cover images are courtesy of www.amazon.com.)

How Groundhog’s Garden Grew

By Lynne Cherry

Elementary ages. The author writes in her dedication, “In loving memory of my father, who taught me to grown my own.” So sets the tone of this delightful story about a squirrel who teaches a groundhog how to grow his own garden instead of mooching food from his neighbors. This book is highly educational about the growing process, complete with meticulously detailed illustrations of seeds, plants and insects.

Busy in the Garden

Poems by George Shannon

Pictures by Sam Williams

All ages – although children who can understand puns will enjoy it the most. These poems are a hoot! This one, called “Blue Ribbon,” demonstrates:

To grow the size

that wins a prize,

it’s always wise

to fertilize.

Ten Seeds

By Ruth Brown

For the very young. With sparse words and vivid illustrations, this book takes a mathematical look at the journey of a packet of sunflower seeds from planting to harvest, and all the surprising hazards in between.

A Garden Alphabet

By Isabel Wilner

Pictures by Ashley Wolff

Preschool and up. A dog and a frog are hard at work in their garden while sneaky rabbits lurk on nearly every page. The verse is crisp and fun. “Ff is for frog, a gardener’s friend. For unwelcome insects, his tongue snaps The End.”

We Love the Dirt

By Tony Johnston and Alexa Brandenberg

Early readers. Although not a gardening story, per se, this book cleverly describes all the relationships different objects and people have to the dirt, reinforcing its very important role on the farm.

Planting a Rainbow

By Lois Ehlert

Preschool and up. This book showcases Ehlert’s signature style in bold, solid color collage cut-outs, and is a great way for children to learn to identify different plants. Similar books by the same author are Eating the Alphabet and Growing Vegetable Soup. We cooked the soup recipe in the latter book, and it was tasty.

The Secret Garden

By Frances Hodgson Burnett

Older grades to adult -- although quite suitable and engaging to read aloud to younger children.

I absolutely love this book. I like to pull it off the bookshelf when I am just so sick of winter, I think it will never end. Mary Lennox is a cold, hardened orphan transplanted from India to England. Watching her transform as she finds and cultivates a secret garden is a tonic indeed. Consider this passage: “Where you tend a rose, my lad, a thistle cannot grow.”

Jennifer

Broilers at 4 Weeks

This past week I was reminded why I advise urban or suburban farmers against broilers – chicken s#@&! Lots of chicken s#@&! The feed conversion ratio is about 3-4 pounds of feed to one pound of meat. Where does the rest of that feed go? They metabolize a little feed in the Krebs cycle but they are very lethargic so most of the feed just ends up as s#@&! By the time I get my broilers out on pasture I have a lot of chicken s#@&! to shovel out of my chicken coop. It is wet and it stinks! Layers lay eggs and are very active so they metabolize much more efficiently producing less s#@&!

A couple of layers escaped our chicken run and have been roaming the yard for a few days. I discovered their cache when I climbed on the hay stack to get a bale of hay for the horses.