Greet's Middle Ages

Formal Potager - Layout, Spring 2008

Rather an exciting weekend at Greet's cottage.  I attacked the front garden Saturday morning with some stakes and string and this is what it looks like now, in early morning before the bake of the sun sets in:

I can't believe we did this in a total of about 12 hours.  I put in 8 on Saturday, 3 of which was me fussing with string, tape measure and stakes, and the remaining 5 we worked together at moving all of the cinder blocks necessary, a lot of dirt, and a bit of sod.  Yesterday we did a bit more dirt (removed nearly all of the Lump O' Composted Driveway from the backyard), and moved a bunch of mulch from down the street.

I have some lemon thyme to put in, as you can see along the main aisle, and more English thyme started from seed - when it gets bigger it will be a low hedge all the way around all the beds.

All this activity has been inspired by a book, Creative Vegetable Gardening.

I've been really enjoying this one, which has lots of potager examples as well as good technical info on things like pruning fruit trees to shapes (the things to be done with apples!), and making patterns with cut-come-again greens.  I had been very frustrated, as most coffee-table/design books are not on vegetable gardens, and the seed catalogs only show you a dish of edibles, not what the plant looks like.

Beware though - I set it down last weekend and determined that our 70'x40' front garden needed all its beds and paths switched around to a more formal pattern, so that I'll like it better when it's empty, er, dormant, er, when I'm THINKING.

I am so lucky to have a husband who happily totes cinder block, schleps soil, and spreads mulch.  (The sod-moving produced grumbling, but we'd never tried to do that before.)  Nobody tripped over any layout strings, and this morning we both seem to be able to walk.  (I hope it lasts.)

Of course, I'm not near done.  Gardens are never done.  I have this patch of lettuce to set out:

and this jungle to clear still:

We're thinking we'll rip out that pampas grass and replace it with a pineapple guava I just got, and march some agave down the right side of the main aisle.  All that yellowish cast iron will come out, too.  (For those of you not applying the 'IT MUST BE USEFUL/EDIBLE' rule to your landscapes, cast iron is a fantastic shade plant.  Takes everything but sun.)

After the pineapples recover a bit from the last freezes, I want to move them to that bit of triangle near the parking spot.  Also, the brand new fruit trees now clearly have to be in a perfect square...and they aren't.  Should be able to do that this week.

No idea what I'm going to put in that central rectangle.  It's a pretty hot spot, so I have to think about it.  I'll throw some basil in there immediately, because I have them coming up.  Also sprouting are sunflowers, some marigolds and zinnia, unknown curcurbits (I planted two ornamental gourds, watermelon and pumpkins in last year's compost heap, but I don't know what's where quite.)

Funny how I'm not really tired by all this work - more like exhilarated.

Vegetable Gardening Help

I am running around squealing like a fangirl.  Look who's coming tomorrow to help me garden better!

I talked to Wayne already on the phone and learned things!  I cannot wait until 8 am tomorrow!

I hope Project Nite is extra-exhausting, so I can sleep.  But I have to leave on time, because I have a Big Day tomorrow! [happy dance]

Alabama Folk School

Alabama Folk School

It's just starting up this fall, but boy howdy I hope it goes well.  And that I get to attend someday.

Go to that link and fill out their survey with what classes you'd like to see taught or teach yourself.

Anti-fungal stuff

I offer these recipes in altruism, and will not engage in any further context.  TMI.  It's all from the Yahoo SCA-Herbalist list.

Keeping his feet clean and dry will help. Wearing open toe sandals without socks should help as well as wearing socks  made of natural fibers that breathe as opposed to synthetics. Here's a recipe for a vinegar foot soak that's anti-fungal. Soak the feet in vinegar/water solution for 20 minutes.

Foot Vinegar
1-pint orgainc apple cider vinegar
1-teaspoon lavender flowers
1-teaspoon oregano
Allow it to macerate for 2 weeks. Dilute this with water for the
soak.   

Also here's a recipe for Anti-fungal foot powder
1 part cornstarch
2 parts arrowroot powder
1 part ground calendula
1/2 part ground myrrh
3-4 drops of tea tree essential oil
Allow the mixture to sit 3-4 days before using, shake once a day.Have
him test these formulas on a small area like inside his elbow to be
sure he's not allergic to them.
---------------------------------

            Toe nail fungus indicates a systemic problem which is the result of an 
imbalance of the flora and fauna of the intestines.  Oil of Oregano, taken  both
internally and applied to the area has the research behind it.  It  often takes
a long time to get rid of too much yeast in the system and would  require a
long-term commitment and dietary changes as well.  Antibiotics  often help
create this imbalance.  So, anti-biotic' s would be adding to an  existing problem,
though many doctors still pad their wallets by writing these  prescriptions.

Pro-biotics, yogurt with aphodophilus, apple cider vinegar, if tolerated,no 
sugar, no flour, no rice. barley,corn, mushrooms.  Basically, get the white 
out of the diet.  Cleanse with lots of fiber. 

Once this "sympton" has appeared, the condition has been around for a while 
and it will take a while to restore balance.  It is not over when this 
symptom recedes and the program should be followed for months if not up to 3  years.

P'au D'arco and Olive leaf have been used in this course, as well, the oil 
of oregano showing up as the biggest star helper.  Often people react 
differently to herbs, so  trying a little and watching the individual  reaction is the
way to determine which herb is their best ally.

The Rare Book Room

The Rare Book Room.  A place where you can page through Very Old Books.  Pictured below, Turner's Herbal, 1568, the contributors on the left, and the beginning of the entry on Absinthium, or Wormwood.  No wonder it's used in the Draught of Living Death. [/Potter geekness]

Thank you, whipup.

Bee boxes

[cross-posted on Front Step Design]

I bought these bee boxes the other day.

I only meant to buy two, because theoretically I believe in baby steps.  However, the universe frequently has other plans.  (See spinning, and weaving.)  They were at a junktique store, and the owner wanted them All Gone.  So I got ten bee boxes for $50.  (I would be happy to share.)  Obviously they need some work - I hope the frames are still acceptable to the bees.

So, in the manner of things, information is starting to trickle in about beekeeping.  The blogosphere provided geek.farm.life's podcasts about beekeeping.  Neil Gaiman has a couple of boxes.  Sheila, who I met via spinning at the Saturday in the Park, told me about the local beekeeping society.  Googling that, I found an online magazine.  I'll keep you posted.

In other food news, the solar oven from Path to Freedom's Peddler's Wagon offshoot came in.  I've made two peach cakes (the dump one, and a more conventional, frostable, 9x13) and zucchini chocolate chip cookies from Barbara Kingsolver's new book in the oven so far.  I like it.

Here's how the lemon tree is doing.

I am trying very hard not to count them, nor to research how to preserve lemons, because that will hex the tree.  Someone has already hexed the tree, anyway - it's infested with a white fuzzy insect that is doing strange mutilations to some of the leaves.  Yet, it blooms again, fulfilling the promise of year-round lemons that is the Meyer repulation.  I am terribly grateful.

And I planted 83 (still haven't counted, but something slightly less than 96) tomato plants on Saturday, and some eggplant, cucumber, and watermelon.  No zucchini - I like it fine, but my husband doesn't, and they're cheap enough from the farmer's market.  Besides, I'd like to do my neighbors the service of being able to happily accept extra zucchini in August.

That triangle structure is for the melons and squash.  Behind the dune daisies (dunno sci name) are two rows of EIGHT varieties of tomatoes, started from seed.

I put one each of the tomato varieties in a container, also, for scientific purposes.  (Must make more Virginia Creeper cages.)

Garden Check - May 2007

Here's what's happening in the garden - though I didn't take pictures of all my babies, stupidly.  Also missing are the new arrivals - in Tally I bought a dwarf pomegranate, a dwarf quince, and a red hardy hibiscus/rose mallow.  They go into the ground this weekend, so I'll take their portraits in situ.

This is what Virginia Creeper is meant to do.  Make tomato cages.  Well, and turn red in the fall - but it can do both.  Here's a second version.

I only need about fifty of these, which will pretty well take care of any noxious vine problems this year.  In fact, I'm designating the wire fence along one side of the driveway as 'vine crop zone' and I'm going to mark the creeper stems for protection.  (I can't believe it, either.  Turns out the baddie smilac is also befriendable - it's edible.  More on catbriar later.)

Here's some roses, while they last.

I think this is a Graham Thomas.  Don't remember what is to the right, with the lovely hip, but it was a Martha Stewart variety.

This is my most reliable - some riff on Peace - Blazing Peace, maybe?  No, it's Sunset.

And the rare ballerina - Sydonie.  I bought this in honor of Daan's niece of the same name, for her birth, and kept a sister rose here in case hers in California ever failed.  I think the one in CA is four times the size - I've learned something since about CA gardening versus Panhandle gardening.

Here's some fruit on the trees:

Our first Meyer lemons.  The other two Oscar-the-Grouch trash cans hold Persian limes, and one of them has actual limes on!  It's amazing what plants will do when you feed and water them.

And here's a few plums!  I pollinated both the plum and the lemon trees by hand, but some higher plums and definitely the limes are out of reach - so apparenly SOME flying insects were around to help me.

I'm still thinking about bees, though.

Veg Maps - Arab Diaspora

There is certainly no ambiguity in the Baghdad cookery book (the Kitab al-tabikh, 1226) about the use of eggplants and no doubt at all that the sort discussed had dark black skin (there are directions for removing it). The book also makes ample reference to fava beans, cardoons, rhubarb, leeks, the ridged cucumber (Armenian snake melon), carrots, gourds, taro, cultivated purslane, turnips, sweet fennel, and spinach. There are also references to a form of cabbage commonly translated into English as cauliflower.

Herbalism Info Dump

PROBLEM-SOLVERS

Herbalist group on Yahoo, which dispenses advice like:

Go with the primary sources, available in translation at your library,
rather than secondary sources: Galen, Dioscorides, Hildegard von Bingen,
Albertus Magnus, William Turner, etc.  These are the texts that Medieval
herbalists and apothecaries studied.  Reading modern herb books won't
give you the same information and defininitely won't give you the same
flavor.

John Gerard published his Herbal in 1593; Culpepper's Herbal did not
appear till 1660, so he's a bit late. ~Old Marian

Tisane, the quarterly newsletter of the East Kingdom Herbalists and Apothecary's Guild.

Safety with essential oils

BOOKS RECOMMENDED by others:
Leechcraft: Early English Charms, Plantlore and Healing

Get this book.  It contains, among other things, the Lacnunga
Manuscript, a section of Bald's Third Leechbook and Old English
Herbarium.  Pollington goes into several sources, translations and
the book is extremely well documented.  Its invaluable for anyone who
is trying to study early European herbal lore.

FOOD

Seedsaver's Exchange - Heirloom varieties of seeds, to bolster our food production capabilities against the fragile and exploitative monocultures advocated by the likes of Monsanto.

Bountiful Gardens  - Commercial arm of "Grow BioIntensive" research project.

Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group  - "To empower and inspire farmers, individuals, and communities in the South to create an agricultural system that is ecologically sound, economically viable, socially just, and humane."  Sounds kinda like "how the middle ages should have been."

Path to Freedom - The family DerVaes farms 1/5 of an acre in Pasadena with bio-intensive methods, and gets yields in the thousands of pounds.

Slow Food International  - "Slow Food is a non-profit, eco-gastronomic member-supported organization that was founded in 1989 to counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world.  Today, we have over 80,000 members all over the world."

Slow Food USA

Local Harvest  - Buy seeds and products (even wool!) direct from the farmer.  Southern varieties of seeds, most heirloom.

Britton-Brown listings for Northern US and Canada

Re: my query about what was historically grown where, I got this answer.  Britton-Brown.  It's not helpful for me, because I garden in the Florida Panhandle (latitude: Cairo), and I'm not sure how helpful it'll continue to be for the northern US due to climate changes and ecosystem shifts, but there it is.