Tag Archives: gardening

Committing to a Garden

Posted on May 29, 2015 by AnnieRie

While up at my community garden today, and dealing with the almost daily weeding task, I thought about those who have attempted to garden only to be discouraged by the amount of work it takes.

Yes, gardening is fun for some of us. But, we have to have patience, to wait for those plants to mature. We also have to have dedication. To go out there in the heat or the rain or the cold, to weed and water.

We had a few changes at our community gardens already this year. It is a daunting task when you begin. Before you figure out the rhythm necessary to keep it going. To keep it weed free. To keep it pest free.

To harvest during the peak season. To protect it from the elements.

Still it is rewarding when you get that bumper crop. When the tomatoes start to go nuts.

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When the zucchini are out of control.

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I find it therapeutic to weed. To spend the time nurturing those plants.

And right now it’s fun to watch those baby killdeer running everywhere.

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You too can have a garden. Start small. Maybe some herbs to add to dinner. Maybe a small salad table. Maybe just a tomato plant in a pot.

Nothing like fresh, home grown treats that you made yourself.

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#grow100

Posted on May 20, 2015 by AnnieRie

The 100 square foot garden challenge. Over on the University of Maryland Grow It Eat It page.

I was asked last year if I would participate this year. With my big garden, I had to think about how to carve out 100 square feet and show what I am growing in that contained area.

I think I have it all configured, and I will be blogging about what you can do in only 100 square feet.

Like grow potatoes.

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In six sq ft in a container in my backyard.

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You start with this. Put them about one foot deep in a bucket or trash can (with holes drilled in the bottom for drainage). Keep adding soil as they grow. Dump them out when you are ready to harvest (once the foliage starts to die back). I put in about half a dozen potato pieces. Some are fingerlings. A couple are Yukon gold. I use CSA potatoes because they aren’t treated and they will sprout.

Then there’s the lettuce.

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I bought a six plant market pack of butterhead lettuce. Put it inside a bunny fence. I have harvested six heads of lettuce, and they keep regenerating if you cut them just above the soil. Don’t pull them out. I should get at least another half dozen heads of lettuce. This circle is another six square feet.

Only twelve feet used.

I then marked off a 5×6 section of my community garden. Put in tromboncini, Thelma Sanders pumpkin and a handful of tomato plants. A couple of San Marzano. Supersweet 100s. Cherry. A nice mix.

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It doesn’t look like much yet, but it should give me lots of salad tomatoes and some canning tomatoes. The tromboncini are a heirloom squash. Just wait til you see what they produce.

I marked off a 3×15 foot section with cucumbers, zucchini, leeks, onions and arugula.

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This is part of it, and then I went perpendicular for 3 feet by 3 feet to bring in the shallots and my lone pepper plant.

All together I am up to 96 square feet. I have a two by two option left, so I added the herbs.

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Some sage, thyme, chives and dill are bunched up there. I already made chive blossom vinegar using a cup of chive blossoms and 12 ounces of white wine vinegar.

I will keep track of what this 100 square feet produces.

So far, the lettuce, onions and herbs are being harvested. I did find my first zucchini blossom today.

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Here’s to fresh vegetables in a small amount of real estate.

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Tea ‘N Scones

Posted on May 7, 2015 by AnnieRie

For Mother’s Day. This Saturday. A trip through the gardens surrounding the Conservancy Farm, with all the gardeners to show off their handiwork.

It may not be a proper cuppa, but still. This event, in its third year, keeps getting bigger.

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The flowers are in full bloom all over the gardens. Master gardeners will be there, helping you with your questions and selling some plants. The community gardeners will be there, talking about what we grow, and how.

Those clubs that maintain all the other lovely gardens surrounding the historic farm will also be there.

Come with mom. With friends. With your friend’s mom.

Here’s all the sites that are open.

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You can preregister online here.

I am baking scones. Two kinds. I am also hosting up at the community gardens. Talking mostly about our food bank plots.

The event starts at 10 am. If you are lucky you can watch the baby killdeer chase after momma and poppa.

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They hatched Tuesday and are now running all over the place.

See you maybe?

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The 4F Club

Posted on May 3, 2015 by AnnieRie

Friends. Farms. Families. Foraging. The theme for today’s post. Much of today centered around these words. Like foraging.

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Those wild asparagus that live out by my driveway. I harvested five of them so far this week. Just enough to add to dinner. Which began from my Friends and Farms basket.

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There was a very nice brisket in the basket. As well as some Baby Bella mushrooms. Both showed up in dinner. We did slow cook the brisket on Thursday, but the leftovers became dinner tonight.

As for families. Part of the dinner came from Jennys. Subject of yesterday’s post. New red potatoes. Snap peas.

Part of dinner came from my garden.

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The first spring onions.

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A little sauté. Then an addition of sour cream. The leftover brisket.

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All served with a Friends and Family wine from RdV Vineyards.

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You could call it Beef Stroganoff from another mother. Since it really didn’t follow any Stroganoff recipe.

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It still tasted great, even without the pedigree.

Loving these days with all the markets, farms and my garden kicking into high gear.

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The Winter That Won’t Quit

Posted on April 25, 2015 by AnnieRie

It may be April 25th, but winter hasn’t given up yet.

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If you look closely, you will see the sleet coming down. It later turned to big fat snowflakes but I was driving when it did that. Not the best time to celebrate Earth Day with outdoor activities, but we made it work up at the Conservancy. I went up to buy some heirlooms from the Master Gardeners and to put my shallots and rainbow chard into my newly tilled garden. I got a couple of my favorite tomatoes.

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Those two teeny plants on the bottom left are Purple Calabash. I bought my first seeds of this heirloom at the shop at Monticello.

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I won my first ribbon at the Howard County Fair with this variety. Haven’t won an heirloom ribbon since. Maybe they will make me lucky again this August.

As for the tomatoes, they are overtaking my kitchen, along with all the other seedlings I have.

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We need it to warm up. To get these plants in the ground. We still have two weeks before we can safely plant tomatoes. They need soil temperatures greater than 50 degrees, and we aren’t there yet.

I will be planting on Mother’s Day weekend, when I am one of the volunteers for our Mother’s Day garden party. Saturday, May 9th at 10 am. Tea, scones, gardens in bloom. Come visit us. There are numerous garden clubs who maintain areas out at Mt. Pleasant. You can talk with garden club members, and learn a few “tricks of the trade” while enjoying freshly baked scones.

Check out the web page for details. In the meantime, cross your fingers that we will get warmer weather.

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Blue Bird Visits

Posted on April 24, 2015 by AnnieRie

We tilled our community garden today. Time to get more vegetables in the ground. Tilling turns up bugs. That attracts the blue birds.

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First, they check everything out by perching on adjacent poles. This is the male. The female was too flighty to stay still long enough for me to photograph her. I didn’t have my good lens on the camera either, so no close ups.

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I also caught him on the ground grabbing whatever little critters he could.

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He had lots of territory that he could check out. When we left the two of them were flitting around and looking for more.

Tomorrow is the Earth Day celebration at the Howard County Conservancy. I will be up there with many of our gardeners. Finishing the early plantings. Buying some plants from the Master Gardener plant sale. Doing some basic maintenance on our pathways.

If you attend, even if you miss the 8 am bird walk, you are bound to see the blue birds. The hawks. The killdeer. And much more.

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Rites of Spring

Posted on April 21, 2015 by AnnieRie

Opening Day at Sharps Farm.

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They even have a new sign. The road wasn’t as bad as it sometimes is. There was a field trip there when I arrived. Ran into four people right off the bat that I know from gardening and farming. The greenhouse is the place to start.

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There were strawberries out front. And lots of plugs and pots inside.

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Plugs are 65 cents each, five cents less once you reach 24. Many pots as well.

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I came home with 36 plugs and a dozen pots. Mostly tomatoes. A few zucchini. Plus a new one. Mini-white cucumbers.

Many heirlooms. Like Goliath. Black Prince. Purple Cherokee. Yellow Brandywine. Sugar Lump. Box Car Willie. Pineapple.

A few standbys. Like yellow plum, plum dandy, supersweet 100s, sungold and Carolina gold.

The farm is open Tuesdays through Saturday, 9-6, and Sundays noon til 4. They also sell row cover and hoops at very good prices for those who want to protect plants from bugs or frost.

As I said, it is definitely spring when Sharps opens.

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Garden Plann(t)ing 2015

Posted on April 4, 2015 by AnnieRie

Today was the real beginning of the gardening season up at our community garden plots.

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All of our plots are full again this year. Eighteen new gardeners joined us. We had our row cover sale today, and a work session cleaning out and preparing our 900 square foot food bank plots.

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Sharps Farm provides us with row cover to sell to our gardeners. We pay the bulk prices to buy the cover then sell it at a very small markup to pay for our seedlings and seeds for the food bank plots. In other words, we round up the per foot price slightly. Still, 12 food wide row cover for 70 cents a foot is a tremendous bargain. They were doing a brisk business. We also held a “barn” sale on those items the food bank plots have accumulated as donations over the years from past gardeners. Mesh screens. Tomato cages. Trellis pieces. The extra “Surround” we bought last year. All told, it will help us finance our efforts to provide fresh vegetables to the Howard County Food Bank.

Today the food bank plots looked like this.

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Weeding. Moving the hoops and changing where we will plant tomatoes. In July, it should look like this again.

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We now train the tomatoes to grow between the rebar rows, as the cages just aren’t heavy enough to hold them. We plant vegetables that produce well, and that are easily prepared by those with limited resources. We have learned that rare and exotic vegetables don’t lend themselves to simple preparations. We grow huge amounts of carrots, beets, collards, kale, spinach, lettuces, garlic, tomatoes, zucchini and peppers. Last year we donated 1679 pounds of vegetables to the food bank. We were lucky to have an extra plot when someone had to give up theirs. This year, we are back to the original 900 square feet.

It’s good to see the weather changing, and to see all our gardening friends out there today. Here’s to another great harvest year.

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Time Flies

Posted on April 1, 2015 by AnnieRie

Five years now. Since I turned in my badge and retired from working. Still having fun. Still hoping I make a difference.

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You get that flag. It sits on the mantle. You wonder if there’s enough to keep you busy. In my world these days, there certainly is. Take today.

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Planting a couple of hundred onion bulbs in my community garden plot. Thank you, Southern States Ellicott City for having affordable loose onion bulbs for sale. We got red, white and yellow onions. All in the ground this morning. Covered and ready to grow.

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Picked up both CSAs after that.

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My Lancaster Farm Fresh winter share. Only two more weeks to go. Then a break until the summer CSA starts.

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Then, over to Friends and Farms to get my small share. This week, mahi mahi is a highlight. Home to unpack and store this week’s food.

Get all gussied up to go meet Colonel Gateway. A fun get together thanks to Aida Bistro, COPT, ADG Creative, and Jessie Newburn. At least 60 0f us, local businesses and bloggers, out to support the Columbia Gateway businesses, like Aida.

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Picked up a few buttons. Watched the festivities. Checked out Twitter when we got home, to see if anything interesting was posted.

Work? Me? No thank you. I am having too much fun doing “nothing”.

If you love it here in Howard County, like me, and want to support local businesses. Check out Aida Bistro. Our hosts tonight. Family owned. Great Italian restaurant. We had some great wines tonight, from their “wine taps”. Including one from a local winery. Old Westminster.

Tomorrow? That five year anniversary of my first day of retirement? I think I will be looking for plants to buy. And, prepping food for Easter. What should I do with that awesome basket cheese in my Friends and Farms basket?

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Spring Cleaning

Posted on March 23, 2015 by AnnieRie

Inside and outside. Finally we feel we have turned the corner and spring really is coming. We paid a bit of attention to sprucing up the outdoors today. Pruning and raking.

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We have these lovely kousa dogwoods that bloom every spring. Today I spent the time to clean out those vertical shoots. It’s a bit late to prune but they haven’t started to bud yet, and it is still cold enough to take off those small shoots that shouldn’t remain.

I also did a quick inspection of the rhododendron.

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I love these rhododendron and they did quite a bit of drooping this winter. I am crossing my fingers to see if they recover once the weather warms up.

As for my final inventory today. I wondered whether this will be another winter where the herbs get devastated. It looks like most of the rosemary didn’t make it. The sage up at the community garden may still be alive but that has me worried also. The thyme is still alive. As is some of the lavender. This was a brutal winter.

Coming up this weekend. The massive clean up and the new mulch laying in. We have a two day clean up scheduled with a local landscaping company. There will be large amounts of mulch put down. Pond clean up. Some final pruning.

All in all, this property takes a bit of time to maintain. The living things that surround us here are important and make this yard a real oasis all summer. I don’t mind getting out there and cleaning it up. Makes us ready for those lovely spring cook outs. And scenes like this.

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