Slooow….
I’m continuing to make progress putting things back together in between normal (and late) high garden season preparations.
The blackberry trellis & netting scheme is done. Painting everything a dark color makes it invisible from the house and this pleases Mrs cohutt. There are hundreds of green berries safely ripening now. (A good thing.)
Also, I have one of the sheds almost back together; I had to remove the roof and repair the top (main) sill. It had split and amazingly I was able to pull it back together and clamp it and screw it back into one piece without removing it.
A view from above after the sill was repaired (you can see where it split to the left of my hand):
Done, or at least as done as it is going to be for now:
This Fava Thing
The ganglion fava beans plants have been providing us with a modest but steady supply of beans for the last 3 or so weeks. Given that we had not knowingly consumed them before, we weren’t sure what to expect and planting them was a modest leap of faith that we would like them.
Verdict: We do like them.
We’ve mostly been eating them steamed with a little salt on salads; they complemented the chopped raw “green” garlic also added to make for an interesting variant of spring greens.
This evening I picked a handful and tried something different:
The bean pods:
Inside, the beans in their sleeping bags:
“Sleeping bags” is a sort of lame description but basically the beans themselves are double wrapped; they are encased individually and then collectively share the larger pod.
The get to the tasty part, 2 or 3 minutes steamed softens and splits the cases to allow for removal:
Now what?
Tonight I decided they would taste good sauteed with green garlic and a small shallot in olive oil:
After a few minutes over very low heat they seemed ready to top the pasta and with a little fresh Parmesan became dinner:
Good stuff.
Function Over Form Over Function
Maybe.
Or maybe not.
When any new brainchild of a garden “structure” is unveiled to mrs cohutt, there is some legitimate concern with the reception it will receive. She actually is quite supportive and hasn’t yet vetoed any of my “great ideas” after the fact, but one never knows.
So here are so-so smartphone pictures of the latest, the prototype bird netting frame for the blackberries (although it will be stained a dark grey/black help it blend in a bit better.)
I’ve had plenty of time to daydream up this design lately while watching the rain fall and the river rise.
1/2′ galvanized electric conduit is about half the price of 1″ PVC pipe these days (used for the hoop house) and obviously has half the profile as well. Conveniently 1/2″ conduit fits nicely into 3/4″ pvc pipe so I used that for the joints with a set screw applied to hold individual sections into their “sleeves”. Another convenience is that 1/2″ conduit slides snugly over 3/8″ re-bar, which I’ve driven into the soft ground as “anchors” for the vertical sections.
Overall dimensions:
22′ long to cover the 16′ bed and new trellis posts
5′ wide
7- 7 1/2 feet tall
BTW, mrs cohutt granted her approval without hesitation so it stays for now.
Damn Mockingbirds……
Random
This large piece of ceramic power line insulator was in the frog pond hidden by a clump of filamentous algae.
This blackberry plant has an enormous mutant leaf on it.
This leek scape is 6′ tall and still growing
This catwalk serves a purpose.
In a close up pictures of “soya” soybean sprouts breaking the surface, my soil looks like someone mixed gravel with wood chips.
I thought this was radicchio when I transplanted it to this spot; now I admit that I have no idea what it is.
This parsley really is quite tall, even if I am squatting low while taking this picture to make it look taller.
This peppermint is planning an escape from this bed. I just know it.
mrs cohutt approves of this picture.
SOS….Save our Seeds.
Wow.
And I thought the EU was only clueless about economics.
There are so many reasons why this is criminally stupid that I had to re-blog it. Don’t think we are shielded from such asshattedness here in the U.S.; we already have the FDA sending SWAT teams into small Amish farms for producing raw milk for consumption (google FDA SWAT TEAM if you don’t believe me).We humanoids cannot control such complex systems and what influence we are capable of exerting has a way of coming back to bite us hard. This isn’t petty meddling like regulating whether I can have a chicken in my yard in Rome, GA; it is arrogantly corrupt and dangerous. Fight it when Congress tries it here then ignore it when they pass it anyway. 😦
cohutt
Last night as I was perusing through Facebook, as one does, I came across a post on pending EU legislation that would make it illegal for seed to be sold that wasn’t  on an approved list. It would also be illegal to grow or swap seeds not on the list. Not always believing what I read on Facebook I did a bit of frantic follow up research and sadly I have to report that it’s true.
“EU is preparing legislation that will make it illegal to grow crops that are not on a list of approved seeds. A list that currently is 60% dominated by big corporations like Monsanto, AsrtraZenecar and others. The pros list are basically only hybrids, which means you can not take next year’s seed from this crop. Furthermore, it will not only be forbidden to sell other seeds than those already mentioned but also to grow, “File…
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More Spring Blooms…
I’m trying to add more color to the garden for mrs cohutt.
Even if I can’t remember the names of everything that is blooming these days, I thought I’d offer up some proof of progress in this area.
Spiderwort
Carolina Jasmine:
Japanese Roof Iris
onions (scallions)
Sage
Thyme’s micro flowers:
I forget, but it is tough, prolific and even grows in the cracks between patio bricks:
Uh, forgot this one’s name too
And this one too
To prove I haven’t forgotten the names of all of the flowers around my patio:
“FoxGlove”
And blackberry flowers, a little past their prime lol
That’s all for now.
Micro to Maxi via Procrastination
As I’ve noted before, procrastination in gardening sometimes has its rewards.
Last fall I broadcast the remnants of a “Micro-Greens, Spicy Mix” and a plain micro-greens mix of some sort into the same general area of one of my back beds. Germination was so-so for these and some lettuces cast nearby, but a few things did come up.
But since the bed never really reached critical mass, the micro-greens weren’t grazed upon as they normally would have been (“cut and come again” style.) Soon the survivors weren’t micro at all and as winter set in the large plants slowed their growth to near dormancy. The main survivors were primarily arugula, a pretty red Chinese mustard and something I later figured out was mizuna.
The plants stood the mild winter well and seemed to enjoy getting hit with some frost. We grazed a bit (the mizuna was a pleasant surprise) from them but barely made a dent, and as spring arrived they started to bolt.
By the time I got around to prepping this particular beds for summer tomatoes, I couldn’t take it upon myself to pull and compost a couple of these with bees now on their flowers after surviving winter. So, as I am prone to do, I changed my story: these plants now were purposely cultivated until spring so that I might harvest and save seed for next fall. Yeah, ha, that’s what I’ll claim anyway.
The mustard still has a way to go yet before the seed is ready, but is an oddly attractive addition to the otherwise sterile tomato patch:
The mizuna on the other had is done blooming and is covered with green seed pods; when these start to brown I’ll pull the plant and let it dry in a bag or bucket. Once dry and shaken out a bit, I should have a mere 10,000 mizuna seeds for next year. 😉 It seemed to transform from a mass of leaves to a mass of seeds overnight.
As I stated, this was a pleasant surprise; the mild taste raw makes for a great salad base and I understand that in Japan it is used in stir fry in as well. It is chock full of nutrition (I’ve yet to find a brassica that isn’t) and while the leaves appear to be somewhat “stemish”, the stems and veins are actually quite tender.
Heat tolerant, cold tolerant, easy to grow- why haven’t I grown this before?
More on Mizuna here.
And just in case anyone was wondering, I’m on my third generation of “wild” arugula. Actually I suppose it would be more “feral”, since it started as a domesticated planting but for 3 seasons volunteers have sprouted almost continuously. I let the volunteers grow out wherever they root; like mizuna the plants are covered with seed pods after flowering:
And that’s about it for this rainy day…..
Down The Dragon’s Throat
Or maybe ….
a bearded iris?
(Click through the picture a couple of times to get full resolution.)
Where The Dust Settles
Each season’s final planting schemes are usually a combination of careful planning and haphazard shoe-horning into invented space; this year is no different.
“Careful planning”…… oh really?
OK, maybe not careful, but there is some planning that goes into it each year.
Evidence lies below, click for detail:
Always a work in progress here….
I’ll lean heavily on the damage and delays caused by the storm as my excuse for 2013’s shortcomings even if my usual procrastination and miscalculations are the true causes. While reviewing the format of the pictures I already see a handful of omissions, but somehow most all of it will grow and produce. Again.
The good news is that finally, going into in our 5th successive season of adding beds, we have sufficient space to grow all we want/need and then some without perfect planning and execution.
Behind cohutt's fence 