Bubbling brain

My brain is bubbling over with researches related to: Straw Bale Construction, a home built round house, Celtic Round Houses, willows that I would like to grow, and nut trees to buy and plant. I also sewed up some heat pads from flannel, about 8" x 15", and filled their pockets with beans, and stitched them shut. Microwaved, or heated in the oven while baking, and they make WONDERFUL foot warmers, hand warmers, or backwarmers.

The sidewalk garden needs some attention, but the kale, chives, comfrey, and Rose Campion all made it through the cold (as did I).

Gotta love youtube. Fix-it videos gave me what I needed for myself and my daughter to fix my clothes dryer together. When you've never seen it's guts, it is rather scary to contemplate surgery.

Garden One

The chives originate from ones I got from a friend of mine, who was/is a master gardener in Mason County. They have a darker red flower, and grow more robust leaves than chives commonly do. The salad burnet is coming back, just a thread of it, but the white alpine strawberry has one flower on it! The white-flowered rose campion is doing fine. The elephant garlic got crunched over, but will probably come back. I've planted more small ones near it. My preference is to simply cut the elephant garlic stalk off at the ground, and use it like a leek. That leaves the bulb to regrow (hopefully). I think that the Jostaberry is going to do fine. My parent Jostaberry fruited two years ago, for the first time, and I really like the complex flavor. I am not watering the garden very much, as I want the plants to send their roots VERY DEEP, to keep themselves watered. I also planted comfrey in the hole next to the nearby telephone pole, to bring up deep nutrients, and provide mulch for Garden One. Or chicken food for urban chickens. Or poultices for people. Just don't eat or brew the comfrey for yourself! One swiss chard, and one kale plant are doing ok. When they get bigger, people can harvest them, for eating raw (please wash in the artisan well) or taking home and cooking.

Tuesday food thoughts

When I got home, I made the most wonderful salad! Lettuce from a local organic farm, kale leaves from volunteers in my garden, Indian Plum growing tip leaves, dandelion greens. Added chive blossoms, curly marjoram tips, lemon balm tips, and sweet cicely seeds.  Vinagrette from the store. Lettuce was grown 15 miles away, harvested by me about 12 hours ago. Other bits grown on my property, harvested by me about 10 minutes ago. Dressing was the only thing to travel. I am definitley going to manage the Indian Plum in the orchard more, to provide more tasty tips. This was from one that I had simply cut to ground level about 6 weeks ago. I may cut more of them down, while the rains are still here. Indian Plum and dandelions are bitter flavors, which I like. The Indian Plum has undertones of cucumber. The Sweet Cicely seeds are at the green and chewy stage, and taste like licorice.

Guerilla Gardening

May 2010 Why am I guerilla gardening? What is my aim? I really can’t bear to see bits of land in an urban setting growing nothing but weeds. I want to see something attractive/useful growing in those settings. Urban areas need more plant life, to mitigate rain, pollution, provide wildlife habitat, and encourage the spirit. I also love the idea of having food available to all who want to harvest it. I first thought about this years ago, when being aggravated about all the double-flowering plums/cherries planted in town for their flowers. If they were the single-flowering varieties, they would be producing massive amounts of FOOD. Why can’t public spaces be planted to food-bearing plants, and volunteer gleaning groups founded to harvest the fruit for the food bank? Why can’t churches grow fruit trees, berry bushes, strawberries for ground-cover, fruiting vines on trellises, and have the congregation help harvest it? The food could go first to anyone in the congregation who wants it, and then to the food bank. And if anybody else wants to harvest some for their own use-offer it freely. Why is there not an article in guidelines to urban forestry, that encourages nut and fruit bearing trees, fruit-bearing shrubs, food-bearing groundcovers? I want to establish plant guilds that provide food, and that produce seed for annuals, that can be then dropped into the next hole over. By the next telephone pole. In the next abandoned street planter. At the base of the next chain-link security fence. There are many plants that will establish themselves, be harvestable, and produce seed at the appropriate time for replanting, if given the chance. I have noticed flowers in several places in town, that are second-year salsify plants going to seed. Knowing that it is established in several locations, a person could look for the first year plants in the same locations, and harvest them to cook.