Seed Catalog Advice, Garden Planning, Black Squirrels and Happy Imbolc/Candlemas/Groundhogs Day

Happy Imbolc/Candlemas/Groundhogs Day! Or whatever your Religion or Lifestyle calls this Cross Quarter day. :)

It's the Celtic New Year for me; when the Light begins to return as the days start to noticeably become longer. And this is the day I've been waiting for as my personal New Year this year. I've always loved Imbolc and it seemed the right focus for me to see as the day I leave behind all the bad aspects of the last year for me. I still have some healing to do; and treatment in the next few weeks; but I'll get through it.

The work we're doing this month at Creative Awakenings is on “Presence – the Sacred Moment of NOW” (a new, small but growing group working on Spirituality in Creativity (and vice versa)). This works well with where I am at the moment in my healing. While I'm much better I'm not far enough along to just start running around and while I have my moments of frustration I see having to restrain myself and Be Here Now (to quote Ram Dass); a good way to start my new year.

That's not to say I don't have things to Do. But much time needs to be spent simply Being still.

One of the things I plan on doing this afternoon is to start planning The Garden. February is a good time to do this here in the North East USA. Even in a mild Winter as we are having now.

As always most of my seed will come from High Mowing Farm. A small family owned organic company in Vermont.

Beware many of the catalogs out there; most are no longer owned by the families that started them in the years past and are owned by huge companies. Some by the same company. If you suspect your old seed company isn't living up to it's past qualities then you might look into who their parent company is.

I know people who are having issues with older and/or bigger seed companies in recent years who are now turning to smaller family owned companies. One of the most common issues is wrong varieties in packets. Nothing like giving garden space for a eating tomato only to find you're growing nothing but sauce tomatoes.

While Vermont may be a long way from you I'd suggest you give them a try but if you want to find something nearer to you there are some guidelines I'd suggest:

* Buy certified Organic. (I no longer get seed from companies that aren't 100% organic. I've dropped some folks I've done business with for years because I noticed their organic line is getting smaller as is their open pollinated. If Organic seems like an after thought then it probably is. Better to focus and support/vote for those that are totally dedicated to organic seed production.

* Buy open Pollinated when you can.

* Buy Heritage seed when you can; keep these delicious well producing species going before the big companies kill off the varieties in the name of easy marketing and GMO promotion.

* Buy untreated seed.

* Make sure the company is really owned by a family. No parent company is involved.

* The company really is small. I'd rather do business with several small companies with small inventories then one huge one who gets their seed god knows where.

* When you call with a question a human answers the phone. A better sign is when you have to leave a message for the person who can answer you because he or she are in the fields.

* It's as local as possible. Vermont is one state up from me so HM Farm is a good choice. Check out whose closest to you that fills the above criteria.
High Mowing Farm isn't the only seed company that covers the above and more so look around.

I'll report in a few days or so on how the plan is. I'm hoping to get my order out in, at the most, two weeks.

I leave you today with a photo of Shadow. His story is a few years ago we had a black squirrel show up at our winter feeder. Turns out they are the same squirrel as our gray squirrels but have some gene pigment that shows up sometimes. I've seen the black squirrels in Toronto; where gray is the rare one. But never seen one anywhere else.

This year I have three black squirrels amongst about ½ dozen grays. So the population is growing. Since I can't tell one black squirrel from another: I call them all Shadow :)

Sorry the photo is of such poor quality but it's taken with an iphone.

11.11.11 :)

Here is a picture of my constant companion here in the office: Bee my Cockatiel. I've had her about three years or so now.. making her five. A gift from a dear friend. She's a nut, can be noisy and leaves fluff all over my keyboard but I love her. Bee.. that is, not the dear friend. :) Though I love her too.

I thought you might like to meet her.

I don't know if today should be important because of the date but it's fun. And I'd like to take the time out to thank the Veterans and members of our Armed Forces for all their sacrifices. One might not believe or support in the politics behind things but one can't deny the bravery of those that defend us. My late Father was one of them.

I've been a bit unproductive lately. I'm trying to sort through my feelings about my oncology reports. Seems I have to have at least one more surgery in the next month or so and more then likely radiation. For some reason these things more often then not happen to me during this time of year. Astrological? My late Mother, the Astrologer, would have known.

I've spent the last week indulged in watching mindless TV and reading mind candy books (my vice in life is reading paranormal suspense novels and historical mysteries. I know enough about history where they have to be good ones though. :) )

On the one hand I told myself I wouldn't hide this side of my life here (the Leiomyo Sarcoma side; not my reading habits :) ).

On the other hand I don't like focusing on it either. While I don't believe in being a “Pollyanna”: that is acting like everything is ok despite hanging off a cliff edge... I don't like to dwell on the peril either. Keeping a positive outlook is, in my opinion, one of the many reasons I'm still here. Balancing a positive outlook with a sense of reality actually.

That and Medicinal Mushrooms.

Anyway.... even though I'm still waiting to see the surgeon about one tumor (fortunately a simple extraction) and hear back from the radiation oncologist to tell me if I should have another surgery before the radiation;

I feel it's time to get off the couch, so to speak, and get back into my life.

In other words, to once again, get over myself. It really is damaging to sit around and feel sorry for one's self and dwell on the “what if's”. Better to dust one's self off and get on with what one loves to do.

And for me that's the garden and studio primarily and cooking and hanging with my family and friends. With occasionally reading books and a computer game or two :)

However, I haven't totally ignored the studio or garden.

Now for the updates:

Studio update:

Mostly I worked on framing some of the paper mache prints. I have a friend who is a former frame maker who gave me some good ideas about how to go about this. I got myself some rectangular shadowboxes to experiment with. They are plastic unfortunately but I sanded one and painted it with the iron paint. I didn't rust it though: I thought that would be too much.

I then mounted one of the Ravens on unbleached craft paper, attached that to ¼ inch foam board and put it into the frame.

It doesn't look half bad.

I'm thinking I may have to learn how to build frames. Though where I will find the room (and time?) for such a big project at this time I don't know. And I don't think I need another big project at this point.

Another issue: and your feed back would be appreciated... is the quality of the images of my work. I've been scanning them on my computer and for much of the work it works great. But I noticed many of my paintings, particularly the batch from the Raven a Day Challenge don't do the paintings justice. The colors are wrong for one thing. I'm not sure if you can pick up the textures with a camera even but I'm going to start experimenting. I'll post the results here when I get to them.

The above is the first. My main problem I think is not having the camera reflected in the glass.

I'm thinking next week I should start a small Challenge. I'll spend the weekend deciding what that will be and report back Monday.

Garden update:

The greenhouse still needs watering every other day or so. Things are coming along well. The greens probably won't be mature enough until later this Winter. As always I was a bit late seeding. I'm thinking of seeing if I can grow some lettuce mix in the growing shelves under lights in the kitchen before that.

I'm still dealing with the straw/grass seeds in the mulch.

I'm hoping the weather will cooperate and I can get the garden beds tucked in for the Winter this weekend.

Oh... and I changed the format a bit in the blog. Let me know if it doesn't work on your computer. I have a large monitor so I can't really tell. Blogger is coming up with some interesting new formats for their blogs that I will be experimenting with soon but I'm waiting to be able to put in gadgets. (all those little windows on the side bars). A feature they say is soon to be.

See you next week.

Studio and Garden Update and this weeks Art Challenge.

Studio update:

I didn't write here last week. I think I was still acclimating from the long weekend in Maine. I did work in the studio though. I've been working on rusting more of the paper mache prints (see previous posts) as well as I finished the last canvas from the previous weeks Challenge. I'd only been able to do four due to the trip and the last was still drying.

It was another experiment with crackle paste. I painted a layer of acrylic paint and collage papers first. Then I put crackle paste on part of the canvas and painted it a turquoise color. Then I copper leafed the crackled part and some of the texture from the collage. I used the adhesive lightly as I wanted the acrylic layer to show through. I finished it with a layer of acrylic faux encaustic goop I make up with matt gel and paint.

It's different and I like it. The image is to the left.

I'm sticking with 9"x10" canvas this week, as well as Ravens. I going to do a Raven a day for 5 week days. The first which I did yesterday has it's molding paste drying so I'll start a new one today. The paste should be dry on the first one tomorrow.

Garden update:

So far no "Black Frost". I still have some beans out there and if I get them in soon I'll have at least a serving. Not bad for October. I still have some in the fridge I'm eating. And carrots.

The mulch in the greenhouse has me ticked off. I've used this same companies shredded straw in the past with no weed issues: yet this time it's full of them and I'm pulling grass stems out of the entire bed.

The lettuce is up; the celery is looking very good after it's transplant; the artichokes are perking up some and hopefully survive the winter in there. No sign of carrots or spinach but then it's hard to see with all the grass.

I'll report back on Friday on the Challenge and the grass in the greenhouse issue :)

This weeks Garden, Studio and Kitchen update

I seem to be running late on everything the last couple weeks. My excuse is getting ready for the trip this weekend. And I'm sticking to it :)

The greenhouse is all planted for the Winter: Mesclun lettuce, Tyee Spinach and a mix of orange, yellow and red Carrots. I transplanted the 3 Celery and 4 of the 8 Artichokes. I left 4 of the latter in the garden as I'm told by a friend in N.VT that sometimes they will over winter outside. And the ones I transplanted didn't seem to like it much. I'm hoping they will revive.

I put a layer compost and composted manure down, seeded and then a shallow layer of chopped straw on the seeds and a couple inches around the plants.

You'll also see in the above picture that there is now a drip irrigation system which is great. I just have to remember to turn it on and off. I'll get a timer set up at some point. I'll have to remove it in a few weeks so it doesn't freeze but for now it makes life easier.

Studio update:
I got 3 8"x10" canvases finished and a fourth drying. The fourth I'm trying out crackle paste and it needs to dry a couple days in this weather. I'll post it when I'm done. Below are the two I did Tuesday and Wednesday. The first is in the previous post to this one.

Both of them I was just "messing around" with color as well as gluing duck cloth torn to fit the canvas; then painted. The first I then glued tissue paper over that and continued to paint and embellish with oil pastels and crumbled gold leaf. Then I varnished it with Satin Varnish which seems a bit shiny to me for Satin.

I'm going to try experimenting with different varnishes now to see.

The second one I like a lot. Done the same as above only I stretched and glued cheese cloth under the tissue paper and then collaged. And instead of varnish I used a faux bees wax acrylic formula over the top. This gives it a very nice, soft look. Much better then the shiny varnish.

Here are the images:

Kitchen update:
Big thing out of the kitchen this week was Coq au Vin. Chicken cooked in wine. I've tried it a few times and not been satisfied but this time it came out great, if I may say so. (others do too :) )
I'll post the recipe sometime I promise. There are a lot of recipes out there: beware the really complicated ones. It's basically chicken cooked in a wine/broth reduction. Here is an image (beans are from The Garden):

All in all a fun week. Again: I'm off until Tuesday. Back to Maine (yay!)

Happy New Year

At last! January 1st 2011! Aside from the concept of a new start that New Years brings us it's the day I allow myself to start looking at my garden catalogs.

Up here in the frozen northern mountains we can have Winter from November to sometimes late April. April being the "tease" month as you just never know if your going to have sunny warm days or 5' of snow. But even in a shorter Winter year it can seem to go on forever. I have found if I start looking at seed and plant catalogs too early it makes the Winter seem even longer so I made a rule long ago: no garden planning until after the Holidays and the new year starts.

 And today is the day!

So, tea pot at my side, the garden planner I created myself (more on that later), pens, erasers and left over Christmas Cookies (thanks Barb and Alex!) I'll sit by the woodstove and start planning and making my lists.

I get tons of catalogs. Some I've been getting for years and years; others I'm not sure how they found me. The latter are usually very commercial corporate seed companies that buy mailing lists from who knows who; the former are old friends by  now.

I have very strict criteria for my seeds though which narrows who I actually buy from. That criteria is simple; 100% Organic and as local as possible. The last few years it's been High Mowing Farms in Vermont; a family owned organic seed company. If I can't find what I'm looking for from them I'll go to Seeds of Change

This is actually one of the hardest parts of gardening. No; not digging the beds, hauling compost or weeding. All of those things are hard of course, but making sure that you stay focused and most importantly: realistic but not so realistic that you stifle your imagination and dreams, when you plan your garden year and order your seeds is very very hard.

Every year I wind up with seeds I never got to start because I didn't have time or space or as organized as I thought I'd be.

In the start of the year we have this ideal we want to live in and create. Not just in the garden but in our lives. And this is a wonderful thing and a wonderful opportunity to "clean the slate" and remake our lives and selves as we see fit. But we can also be too hard on ourselves and expect too much of ourselves. 

I'm all for recreating and reinventing one's self: it's how I have survived "terminal" cancer for these past 9 years. But one can have the opposite effect on one's life if one has given one's self too high a goal to accomplish. Finding the right balance between Dreams and Reality can be the hard part.

Let yourself Soar but not higher then you can reasonable Fly. :)
We can be those Soaring Eagles but keep ourselves from being Icarus too.

My Garden Planner:

I've bought and have been given a lot of planners over the years. Some of them very beautiful with artists paintings or photographs of famous gardens. None of them seemed to fit how I wanted to approach it so I created my own.

It's actually very simple: I drew out the four garden beds on graph paper; outlined it in felt tip pen and then copied it in "color" so the graph lines would show. At the top I write in the year and season and put them in a three ring binder.

Six pages per year: Spring, Summer and Autumn Plantings and rotations in the garden and Spring, Summer and Autumn (for Winter) Plantings for the Greenhouse. In late Summer/ early Autumn I plan the following Springs rotations in all the garden beds.

For example, If I grew Tomatoes in bed one this year I'll move the Tomatoes into bed two next year; progressively through each of the four beds until on year five I'm back in bed one again.

This by the way is essential to avoid diseases in the soil left over from the previous years growth. As well as plants all use the soil differently and some; like beans, actually improve the soil by adding nitrogen so its available for another crop in that bed the next rotation.

Each of the graph squares is a foot square.

Years ago I read Square Foot Gardening  by Mel Bartholomew; which greatly influence my spacing and planting. While a bit too rigid for me it's a wonderful book for someone starting out who might need more organization as well as even experienced gardeners relearning that most seeds can be planted closer then presented in many traditional forms of gardening.

I don't use his "grid" system totally but I do use his spacing for seeds and plants in most cases.
Here is an image of last Spring/Summer plan:

You can see all sorts of chicken scratches on there as I take notes through the season. It's all done in pencil so I can change things as I go along as I see fit... or more often Nature sees fit. :)

I also have separate pages just for each bed for more detailed information.
As I said: same thing is done for the current single bed in the greenhouse (hopefully maybe this year I'll have a second bed put in there)



This Year's Plan (so far):

I try to learn from my mistakes. Again; not just in the garden but fortunately that's the subject here and we can skip my other mistakes. :) Making sure you don't make the same mistakes as well as remember the things that worked is another reason for your planner. One always thinks one won't forget these things but one does; so having a record is a big help. This can be as elaborate or simple as you wish. Years ago my garden planner was practically a journal or diary. Now I have this blog for the details. :) and so the planner is an outline.


As soon as I'm done (this will actually take at least a week or more) I'll post here what I've decided to plant and in some cases not plant again.

In the Kitchen:

I've not done a lot of serious cooking recently; I'm still dealing with a compromised immune system due to the anti-biotics from the Lyme Disease fiasco this fall but it's getting better.

I did saute some chicken last night with basil, garlic, white wine and (drum roll) tomatoes from the freezer from last years garden. Nothing like a taste of Summer when your looking out your window looks like the above photos.

And last: Happy New Year to you and yours and may all your dreams be fulfilled and fulfilling!

December 1, 2010

Well... more then a week later again. This time I came down with The Head Cold From Hell (aka: HCFH) . I blame taking anti-biotics for the first time in 20 years blowing out my immune system. But who knows.

~ Karen linked Laughter is Medicine on her Alternative Nature site's Facebook page and I have to say that one of the things that's gotten me, not only through the recent Lyme Disease Fiasco and The HCFH, but also through  the last 9 years is I don't take myself seriously. I can't imagine getting through even a simple life without laughing; particularly at one's self. Especially one's self.

And paradoxically; I am serious about this. You have to laugh. If at nothing else yourself and whatever is going on at the moment. If we take ourselves and what we perceive as our “dignity” too seriously then we are in for a lot of unnecessary self induced grief.

~ I had dinner at Brix tonight. I wasn't sure if I was up for it but I persevered (I'm so brave :) ) and ordered a simple Onion Soup, the Pate plate and a chardonnay, whose name I forgot to write down but came from Oregon. (I blame The HCFH. I'll make a note next time I go).

I wasn't half way through the soup when I felt 100% better then I had for a week. By the time I was done I actually felt human again. Assuming that's a good thing. :)

Bringing home that old idea that food really truly is medicine. That our healing really does come from what and how we eat. It really is the first step we all need to take.

Mind you; those that don't eat meat might think pate isn't good for you and I'm not going to argue that here or anywhere. I was raised by Vegetarians and I will say the same thing I say about Religion: Each persons Path leads to The Truth. The Truth here is, of course, Health.

People thrive on all sorts of diets. It's all individual. And everything in Moderation. Everything. (I knew someone in college that got sick because all she ate for 6 months were carrots. And yes: if all you ate was pate you'd get sick too... and yes... probably sooner. Moderation is ....Moderate).

But food made on the premises from as close to local ingredients as possible, served by people that know you and are happy to see you (even if your nose is still red and you look like something the cat dropped at the door) is good for you and Healing.

Another reason to patronize your locally owned restaurants that support local farms rather then chains where who knows where it comes from.

~ Anyway.... that's from under the Random Thought heading.

As you can tell not much is going on in The Garden... mostly because I've been horizontal hugging Puff's Plus. But... the Greenhouse is moving along well and as planned though. Another couple weeks at the most and there will be salad. I truly can't wait. I used the above picture to tantalize myself as to what should be growing out there so very soon.(that picture, btw, is from last Winter)

At this point there isn't much to do out there but check it every few days and water if necessary. The "volunteers" who have gone out for me this week say everything is still damp.

Like wise, not much is going on in the kitchen aside from opening cans of (organic) canned chicken soup.

And making lots and lots of ginger and lemon tea.

Hopefully, this week I can stay vertical long enough to get some work done as well as some cooking to tell you all about. 

Not to mention it's actually December and it's now time to get things ready for Yuletide. When did that happen?

In the meantime: Stay healthy!

November 21 2010

Yes: it's been a long time since I've written. Those of you who are on Face Book know that about three weeks ago I found a tick bite with the classic Lyme Disease rash on it and had it confirmed by the doctor. It's been a long, hard three weeks and I'm just starting to feel well enough to function. Not fully mind you but some and enough to start getting about and getting some work done.

Today was the first day I've gotten back out to The Garden. A lot has happened:

~ The two tomato plants that were left in the green house died from freezing. It's still not too cold in there yet but still too cold for tomatoes. Same thing happened to the peppers and the basil. It's the basil I'll miss the most. I have a ton of tomatoes frozen but I'll miss my fresh basil.  I've never had too much luck growing it in the house. I did freeze some though: enough for a few pestos over the coming months.

~ All the leaves on the trees fell overnight all at once; not just in the yard but the whole hollow I live in. Kind of sad. It's still beautiful of course, particularly as the oak leaves are still clinging with a very nice burnt sienna color contrasting the green from the pines and furs mixed with all the gray tones of the trees.

~ So far the main vegetable beds are the same: still lots of kale, leeks and swiss chard. The french sorrel is still growing I noticed so I might actually get some before the snows come. Which btw: could be any time now. We did have our first dusting of snow but just a little but it's been a warm Autumn and that could change suddenly.

Each morning the garden plants have a covering of frost on them. Rather pretty actually in the morning light.

~ As you can see from the picture above one of the main things I did today was tuck the greenhouse bed in for the upcoming Winter.

What you see here are the tops of old garden arbors (lower sections rusted out) that work fantastically for hoops to keep the plastic up. Underneath the plastic is spun polyester cloth; folded over so there are actually two layers. I have smaller hoops near the swiss chard and a fennel plant I'm seeing if I can grow over Winter to keep the cloth from weighing them down: but it's ok for it to rest on the other smaller, emerging plants.

What this does is; the hoop house/ greenhouse brings the climate down about one zone. So instead of zone 5b (ish) I'm zone 6b inside. The plastic over the beds brings it down another zone to 6 ish and the cloth, under the pastic, brings it down hopefully further. Each layer to have over the plants brings the climate down a bit more. How far down I don't know yet and hope to be able to calculate that.

I purchased a min/max thermometer so I can monitor the temperature inside the greenhouse compared to outside throughout the winter.

But I can say that my past few Winters have proven this works very well. Thanks to Helen and Scot Nearing and Elliot Coleman for all their diligent work and books on the subject of winter gardening in New England.


~ The lettuce mix, spinach and arugula that I planted before the fateful encounter with the tick have their second set of leaves and I should have lettuce to eat in a few more weeks or even less.

Today I also planted:
More Lettuce mix
Spinach
Cosmic Purple Carrots
Nantes Carrots
Belle Isle Cress
Te You Flowering Broccoli

The bed is mostly full now so all I have to do is water it when it dries and then harvest during the warm part of the day. (if you try to harvest when it's still frozen inside you'll destroy the plants; you have to wait for the air in the greenhouse to come above freezing then it's safe to touch the plants).

~ I haven't done much cooking in the last few weeks. Something else I plan on getting back into now that I feel a bit more human. I need to get out tomorrow and harvest some more leeks I think and have plans for Cauliflower and Parmesan Soup:

Gently boil in very little water or steam a head of cauliflower; until just tender (don't over cook or it will taste like over cooked cabbage; undercooked is better then over)
Grate some Parmesan Romano cheese. About a cup to a cup and a half. More if you like.
Strain and save the water.
Puree the cauliflower in a food processor, blender or hand mill.
Put it back in the pot and add enough water so that it's thinner but not watery.
About the same consistency as potato and leek soup.
Add the cheese and stir on medium heat until melted into the soup; don't boil it.
Add more cooking water or plain water if you ran out until you get the consistency you like.
Salt and pepper to taste.

I had this the first time at Tratoria Rustica in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. If you are ever in the area you have to go there. Some of the best Tiramisu is there too.

My opinion is you can tell a really good restaurant by their side dishes. The main dish is important of course, but if you wind up raving about the side vegetables as much as the main course you know they have a good chef staff.