Suckers

So I was heading out to prune my tomato plants of all the damage the grasshoppers caused to them. I sat down at my computer to see how it was done and instead found this article - "The Eternal Tomato" - at Backwoods Home Magazine on "suckering."

The author says that between Y-shaped branches of my tomato plants shoot out little green stalks that use up more than their fair share of nutrients. It's good for the tomato plant to snap these off, but because they contain so many nutrients, those shoots also make great starter plants. Just stick them in good soil, and in five days they start putting down roots. In a few weeks (as opposed to the eight weeks it took for my seeds to become plants), they are plants ready to start producing tomatoes themselves.

These are the ones I started yesterday. I'll post on how they progress. It's worth a try.

I wrote this post back in March. The fact that I felt like I needed to write it was what drove me to create the blog in the first place, so I figured it should find a place here somewhere.

Planting Seeds

from Tuesday, March 8, 2011 at 11:08pm

Right before I came to believe in Jesus, I went through something strange. I was in college and had been living on my own with a roommate. We had parties. We did a lot of things that I don't do anymore. I was not a believer at all. Then, for some reason, I felt a need to move home, back into the house I grew up in. I chose not to live on my own anymore. I don't know why my mom accepted me back, but she did. When I moved back, I was still going to school and working. But I left most of my old friends behind. Spent almost all of my free time alone.

I wanted to give something back to my mom, who had so graciously let me come back home without any explanation. She didn't want rent, so I bought flowers. Tons of them. I went to the nursery after work several times a week and bought more. First the front yard in a planter, and then on the side of the house, and then we were moving things out of the yard so I'd have more room to put in more flowers. I grew a few vegetables, but I needed beauty, so I covered the ground with daffodils and irises and blue grape hyacinth, the hills with daylillies and salvia and iceland poppies.

It was at that time that I started going back to church. I ran into someone who asked me to go, and so I went, just like that. For months, I would go, not sure if I believed in what I was hearing. But one thing was remarkable: the more I planted in my garden, the more what Jesus said made sense.

I've always liked these verses from Psalm 126:

Restore our fortunes, Lord,

as streams renew the desert.

5 Those who plant in tears

will harvest with shouts of joy.

6 They weep as they go to plant their seed,

but they sing as they return with the harvest.

I'm not sure why I liked them before. They don't have much to do with flowers.

But I was planting today...from the time I dropped my kids off at school to the time it was time to go pick them up again, and then again after we ate a very early dinner until the dark and the lightning and the big fat raindrops stopped me. I've always been a lazy gardener, scattering seeds wherever and seeing what comes up. But not today. I've invested quite a bit in this thing, spent more than a year collecting seeds. I want to do it the right way. I hauled manure in my wheelbarrow all over the place, working until I was out of breath. I raked until I had blisters and worked at making the rows as perfect as I could get them, on my hands and knees. I kept a log of what I planted, everything I did to make the rows and how the seeds were put into the ground. I'm working on a chart that will map the whole garden, so I don't forget what's where when things start popping up. And I'm nowhere near finished.

My body is dog tired. (My dog is also tired from running circles around me and chasing off any cows who might dare to near the fence. Never mind what happened with the crazy cat!) My back and the back of my legs hurt until I almost want to cry. But behind the pain is a sneaky sense of joy. I didn't weep as I planted my seeds, maybe because my life doesn't depend on my garden succeeding. But it hurt. It hurt in a way that tells me I did something good.

My next-door neighbor disc plowed my garden twice on his tractor. He ran the harrow through it to get the weeds out and ran another tractor with a makeshift contraption to help me get my rows laid out. Then he brought me a bucket of red potatoes to put in the ground. I have no idea why he cares enough about me or my garden to do this. My organic farmer friend came over with a truckload of manure eaaarrrrrly in the morning and got down on his knees to show me exactly how to get the most out of the manure I have. A Facebook friend wrote in today saying, "Dear God, please bless Jill's garden." I can't think of any reason anyone would care this much to help me when I didn't ask except that God is helping me along, and they will share in the harvest!

I look forward to what comes up in that field with a joy that is beyond my understanding, and Psalm 126 makes more sense than ever. The Holy Spirit used a sore back and a big ole manure pile to remind me of God's word. That makes me so happy.

Not everyone has to have a garden. People are different, and they connect with God in different ways. If you're reading this, I hope you find something that brings you as much joy as my garden brings me.

The Assassins - Meet My Army

Don't squash this bug. Don't spray this bug. Invite this bug to dinner...in your garden! I did. Meet my assassin bug. I invited him with some smelly flowers (wild carrot), and he stays for good. His favorite meal? Potato beetle larvae - a meal for my new guests, and a lifesaver for my potato plants. He also eats squash bugs, and I found one of his friends on my corn this morning, looking for a bite....

He eats no plants and doesn't transmit plant diseases. Do I want to make a pet of him? No. Another nickname for this little creature is, "kissing bug," because some people (don't ask me who) have been fascinated enough by these to put them on their faces (again - don't ask me who). The kiss those people got was none too sweet! Ouch! Turns out they also have a taste for human blood, but they're not aggressive. Lesson learned early. Don't put one on your face.

He has a long proboscis, with which he stings his prey. I watched one morning, while one of them held a squash bug in his hands. He stung and turned and stung and turned, over and over, all the time holding the thing with his front claws. My bug problem is decreasing, with the increase of these little guys.

Chalybion Californicum. So pretty, so handy and not as dangerous (to us) as she looks. This is a parasitic wasp, dirt dauber or cuckoo wasp. While she eats only nectar from my garden (and I'm always willing to share nectar), she is parasitic to worms (who take more than nectar from my garden). While she doesn't have a taste for the worms (okay - stop here or just avert your eyes for the rest of this post if you're squeamish), she uses them as a nesting place for her babies, paralyzing the worm and gluing her eggs to its wormy body. I saw one yesterday dragging a tomato hornworm somewhere, presumably for precisely this purpose. Is she pretty? Yes. Is she gross? Yes. Does she get to say? The answer is, of course, yes. Worms are now one less creature I contend with alone.

I also find toads regularly near my front door and have met two turtles while heading outside. They (for similar reasons) have also joined my ranks.

The Natives

Plants Helping Plants

If you don't find this at least a little fascinating, we probably have little to talk about. I spend far more time than I'll even admit studying this stuff every day. If I had done this in association with a university, I should probably have a degree in horticulture or botany by now.

Watermelons and Cantankerous Tillers

I would be remiss if I failed to mention that there are heroes in my garden beyond the ladybugs. I mentioned Mr. Cross in an earlier post, and I mentioned my favorite 12-year-old helper, Colin, who hauled manure and built snow pea teepees and generally kept the best attitude of any 12-year-old boy I've ever seen.

But I didn't mention Joe. Joe and his family used to come over here

Why I'm Not Organic

I love the idea of organically grown food, local food, fresh food, food that didn't ride in a truck all last week.

Nosema Locustae

I was out in the garden talking to Mr. Cross, who arrived again in the cow pasture on the side of the fence on his tractor. He said he was done planting for the season. I am still planting, so I wondered if he was just out of space. He told me that he never plants late. When I asked why, he said, "Grasshoppers'll git ya."

So I turned to Facebook.

Now, it seems like an obscure question to just throw out on my Facebook wall: "How do I get rid of grasshoppers in Texas?" But the answer turned up in no time at all - and it was unanimous. Everyone's grandfather or uncle or friend had used NoLo bait, Nosema Locustae - a biological weapon against the grasshoppers that roam my 10 acres like a plague from mid-summer to fall. I noticed their babies the day after Mr. Cross mentioned them. One footstep in the tall grass sends about 50 of them flying through the air. Tiny as they are now, they will grow up and cause major damage. I once saw a woman's entire landscaping project eaten by them. But the people who have been here a long time (except, surprisingly, my next-door neighbor) know what to do.

NoLo bait is totally organic. It's bran flakes (which I guess grasshoppers love) laced with spores that produce an infectious disease only in grasshoppers and Mormon crickets. Humans, birds, animals, even other bugs, are caused absolutely no damage from the bait (or so the package says). Babies die within days. Older grasshoppers become unable to reproduce and unable to eat. Today, days after I put it out, I'm already seeing fewer of the little guys. Hopefully their parents will take the hint and go destroy the plants somewhere else.

Salad, at last....

This is what I've been waiting for (and hopefully what I'll experience for the rest of the growing season). Today was the first day I was able to go out to the backyard and pick a full plate of salad completely of lettuces, herbs and other good things from my garden. I am proud of my own hard work and thankful for a God who makes things grow while we sleep.

I've spent recent days borrowing Joe Anderson's cantankerous tiller (thanks Joe!) to turn over another column (10-foot rows x 15) to work in, right next to the corn fort I planted by moonlight on the last day of Farmer's-Almanac- approved corn planting days. I wanted another lettuce section, since my longest row of lettuces is about to be totally overtaken by weeds. I'll have to do away with it soon, but I can eat lettuce all summer long. I now have planted in or near this section:

• Rouge d'hiver - an heirloom French lettuce that is red and very pretty
• Freckles - a green heirloom lettuce with red spots
• Strawberry cabbage - a pretty heirloom that looks lettuce growing out of a dish - red and green
  
• Gotte Jaune D'or - a beautiful light green, French lettuce (I love this one, because the heads look like big green roses. You can pick one whole head and make a small salad of it. Very mild.)
  
• Four rows of Paris Island Romaine lettuce interplanted with beets
• Mervielle de Quattre Saisons - A really pretty light green lettuce with red edges
• Half a row of iceberg - just because
• Some herbs - tarragon, basil and cilantro
• Some yarrow flowers - supposed to help the herbs and lettuces; and
• Some bunching onions

We've gotten quite a few meals out of these greens in the last week. I'm hoping the new rows will produce like crazy, so I'll have more to share.

Vertical Gardening and Transplanting Day

Last week didn't have many planting days, so I spent my time trying to figure out supports for the things that would come. I was hoping for zero-budget vertical gardening, since, if all of my tomatoes and beans and peas, etc. grow, we will need many supports. $0 x $0 = $0, and $anything else x the number of plants I could end up with = quite pricey.

I am 100 percent pleased with my snow pea teepees. I found a very nice home-schooled 12-year-old boy with a pocket knife, who preferred time in my garden to time at a baby shower. I'd say it was a win-win. He was an amazing worker and refused to take a break from making teepees until they were completely finished. (Thanks Colin!) He made many more than this picture shows. I am very pleased with the result and think my snow peas will be too. In a couple of weeks, they should be tall enough to start climbing.

I was less satisfied with my tomato cages. I paid, I think, $8 for some chicken wire and stapled it, very crudely, onto some stakes I found left over from construction on our house and a couple of tree branches. They'll hold up the tomatoes, but they're quite unattractive. And if all of the tomatoes we planted come up, there will be many, many, many more to build. I'm hoping for a better (free) solution for these. For now, it is what it is, and my couple of flourishing tomato plants are very happy.

Today is transplanting day. I'll dig in my two pomegranate trees (and not plant them too deeply, like I did to my poor loquat tree - more on that later). I'll pot my tangerine and my lemon trees. And I'll put in the ground my tomatoes, eggplants, butternut squash and dill seedlings.

I'm trusting the Farmer's Almanac this year, believing that if I plant when it says I can plant, I'll have some success. It's all an experiment, but it's working so far.

Garden Party

My garden party will look a little different from a typical garden party. No finger sandwiches or strawberry lemonade. No white gloves and pearls. Leather gloves and sunglasses will be more fitting.

Join us at my house any time between 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. if you can.

Bring your gloves, a shovel a rake or a wheelbarrow if you like, and some of your favorite seeds if you'd like to contribute.

We'll buy your lunch and give you some free vegetables if our work proves fruitful.

Oh - and I failed to mention this, but we would welcome any strong teenagers with a desire to work for food. :)

See below for a new map of the garden.

See you there!

My New Texas Home

I came to where I live now kicking and screaming. I didn't want to leave Atlanta. I didn't want to leave my friends. I didn't want to leave the little garden and especially the fig tree and blueberry bushes I had planted in my Georgia backyard. And I didn't like anyone who told me I might have to. I didn't want to move to a brown dusty state where nothing would grow. I didn't want to move at all.

But after a few months of tolerating it, turns out I love this place. I've found friends who are real, a church that is welcoming and (what this blog is all about) a piece of land 10 acres big that is as green now as God ever made green. And it brings me great joy.

Last summer, when we had just gotten here, and when it was so hot I was afraid to step outside for fear I would blister, I would come and sit in my air-conditioned car and look at the home we were building on this land. That's when I met Mr. Cross, my adorable next-door neighbor, who wears overalls and only comes to my house by tractor (which he calls a scooter). He had a Wal Mart bag full of squash he wanted me to have. So we took it back to our rent house, baked some zucchini bread and brought it back to meet Mrs. Cross. We are blessed, now, to be in our home and to have neighbors who are so neighborly.

This January, the day before our biggest snow, Mr. Cross came again and asked a question, the answer to which has changed my schedule and the amount of enjoyment I get out of life every day since: Did I want him to bring his disc plow and turn over some land for a garden for me?

Now it's April, and I read the Farmer's Almanac, I study the National Weather Service soil temperature map and spend hours (when I maybe should be working or cleaning house or something more responsible) studying how to make things grow. My next-door neighbor laughs every time he remembers my answer to his follow-up question in January: "How big a garden you want?" I said, "I will plant as much as you're willing to plow." He and his wife slap their knees and laugh a big belly laugh when they remember I said that, because I have, shall we say, bitten off more than it seems I can chew. But they never laugh when I'm working out there. They trade me seeds and give me advice, talk to me over the fence while sitting on the tractor with their mutt-dog, Nipper on the front. They are some of the best neighbors I have ever had.

And this place is good. Not much is growing yet, except potatoes, lettuces, radishes and herbs. But I am full of hope that the green I see out in the pasture will spread to the garden - hopefully not in the form of Bermuda grass and goat weed!