These Herbs are Waking Up

On my daily walk about the yard today, I found these herb friends just coming out of their winter sleep. To my neighbors, most of these guys are weeds but to my family they're superstars of the spring garden, providing cheap and nutritious food and remedies.  

Stinging Nettle, a vitamin and mineral powerhouse, is used in 

infusion (a strong tea infused overnight) for adrenal exhaustion and in tinctures as a 

remedy for allergies. The young tops are tasty steamed or sauteed like spinach.

Young Dandelion leaves will be ready to saute next week.  This one is growing
under greenhouse plastic, so has a head start on those outside the beds.
Rich in minerals, Dandelions give a healthy springtime boost to the liver and
kidneys after a season of rich, warming holiday foods.

Bloody Dock (Rumex sanquineus) is astringent, tonic and a rich source of iron.
Add tender young leaves to salads for a tangy flavor. Due to the
oxalic acid content, avoid Bloody Dock if you have a history of kidney stones.

The first leaf of Victoria Rhubarb unfolds under greenhouse plastic. Challenging to grow in Kansas,
Rhubarb requires adequate sun but needs protection from extreme summer heat. Rhubarb contains
antioxidants, vitamins and minerals, and can help maintain regularity and lower cholesterol.
AND - it adds an amazing springtime flavor when mixed into apple or berry crisp!

 Here's one more friend who has grown faithfully in the gardens all winter, even under snow.

Winter Chives - despised by some as a lawn weed - go dormant in the heat of summer,
then begin to grow in late fall as temperatures drop.  They produce tender,
phytonutrient-rich tops for dressings and garnish all winter long
while traditional chives lie dormant underground.

Ready for Spring

My seedlings are growing, we've had some warm days, and I'm itching to play in the dirt!  I love spring planting time; we've kept ourselves busy indoors and out as we dreamed of warmer - and longer - days.

INDOORS:

Our kitchen growing center consists of bargain rack and
shelves from Home Depot, with inexpensive grow mats
and humidity tent from Indoor Gardening Supplies.com.

On the rack, above:  collards, broccoli raab, red mustard, arugula, blue kale, Tuscan black kale, calendula, borage, and lettuces. All of these seedlings are cold-season plants that will be happy outdoors soon after Spring Equinox.

OUTDOORS:

Our perennial onions get a head start at the end of winter with greenhouse plastic
over PVC hoops.  Next week, we'll start harvesting green onions from this bed.

Onions are high in vitamins and phytonutrients for immune-boosting and detoxifying benefits.  Perennial Walking Onions are super easy to grow and multiply quickly; we started this bed 2 years ago with a single clump purchased at the farmers' market. 

Chives grow quickly in late winter weather under an overturned 

aquarium, my substitute for an expensive glass cloche.

Chives are high in vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants that promote heart and bone health and fight cancer.  Once established, perennial herbs such as chives are very easy to grow and can be long-lived.  Ours came from my mother's garden, and were started by my grandmother nearly 40 years ago.

Everlasting Kale?

The garden holds many surprises.   I'm sharing my seed-saving tips for cabbage-type plants again, with an update on one incredible "dwarf" Blue Curled Kale plant.  

Our beautiful 3-year-old kale plant - July 25, 2013.

Never did I expect that this plant would still be with us, but it's here and going strong after 3 summers and 2 cold and snowy winters.  We’ve had 2 years of seed production from this everlasting friend, and its blossoms nourished many bees and pollinating flies again this spring.  Who would have known that a member of the humble cabbage family would have such longevity programmed within.  I'm wondering if the seeds will have this characteristic, too. 

Kale Blossoms

My kale friend thrives in a well-developed food web in our garden, where Mother Nature has some built-in pest controls.  This single plant fed generations of white cabbage butterflies; I use it as both a lure and a relocation plant, saving the new crop of kales in the vegetable garden from being ravaged by waves of voracious caterpillars.  Those "pesky" butterfly larvae feed the birds - this kale is regularly visited by cardinals and house finches, who gobble up the fat worms. Predatory wasps also hang out in the kale, where they lunch on plant-eating insects.  Today, I pay tribute to one surprising plant friend and agent of biodiversity in our organic gardens. 

SAVING SEEDS MAKES GARDENING AFFORDABLE

Kale seeds are ready for  harvest - July 18, 2012.

July 18, 2012:  My organic Blue Curled Kales shared a bountiful seed crop this week. I grow out just one member of the cabbage family each spring, since they happily cross-pollinate with their cousins. Kale is a biennial which grows a stout rosette the first year, then sends up a flowering stalk the second. I started these plants from Botanical Interests Seeds back in January of 2011. When 3 of these guys lived through last winter, I knew we’d get seeds this season.  

The tall flower stalks fed countless bees and butterflies this spring while adding structural interest in the flower garden. When kale is ripe, the pods turn brittle and shatter easily, releasing the dark colored seeds. Immature pods are soft and pliable. Resist the urge to harvest before the pods are brittle; they may mold due to their higher moisture content and when planted later on, fewer seeds will germinate.  To harvest, hold a bowl under the seed pod and rub it open to release the seeds into the bowl.  Remove the bits of pod, let the seeds sit in the bowl on your counter for a day or two to make sure they’re dry, then package in paper envelopes and label with seed type and date. When properly harvested and stored in dry, dark conditions like a closet shelf, kale seeds can be kept for up to 5 years.

Kale Seeds

I harvested nearly 1 oz. of seed in about 10 minutes last night.  That’s the equivalent of 9 seed packets in the store!  At $1.60 a pkt, I have $15 worth of seed in this batch.  As we learn to close the loop to our own sustainability through activities such as seed saving, gardening becomes both affordable and empowering.  Happy Harvesting!

If seed saving isn't your thing yet, seed from this very plant is currently for sale on my Healing Garden Herbs Etsy shop.  Happy Shopping!

Lettuce in Hot Weather

Lettuce is a cool season annual. When the weather turns hot, it becomes bitter and inedible so here in Kansas lettuce season is nearly over.  Since we still have lots of lettuce in the garden, I’m keeping it tender and sweet with a couple of tricks.  

PVC hoops, attached to the beds with pipe bands, are perfect supports.

Mid-morning just before the sun hits the bed, I cover it with old white sheets, then soak the sheets with the garden hose. Evaporation and shade cover keep the lettuces cool.  In the late afternoon when our trees shade the bed, the sheets are removed. 

Our lettuce bed in cool May weather.

We're growing Forellenschluss, Slobolt, Red Sails, and Buttercrunch.  Forellenschluss is least heat tolerant so I'm using it up first.  Slobolt will be used last, to see if it lives up to its name. 

       

Slobolt lettuce under shade cover.

Buttercrunch head grown from seed saved last year.

I harvest in the early morning, when the leaves are crisp and least bitter.  All leaves are cut from the stem and plunged immediately into a bowl of cold water. They stand for 10-20 minutes to bleed out the latex, the bitter white juice. I drain the water out of the bowl, cover loosely with a plastic bag, and put immediately in the refrigerator.  Lettuce prepared this way is delicious and keeps well for about a week. 

Transplanting Veggies....Or Not

OH, BRRR…..The first day of Spring brought Winter weather this year.  Back in January when I optimistically started my cold-season crops, I thought this was the week I’d move everyone outdoors.  But here in Kansas City, we’re experiencing snow and night-time temps in the low 20’s.  Even with hoop houses over them that’s extreme for seedlings whose first 6 weeks of life have been on a heat pad under warm lights.

 

Regardless of outdoor conditions, it’s time to act:  my seedlings have simply run out of nutrients in their tiny paper pots, as evidenced by leaves that are turning yellow and red.  They need some fresh soil to sink their roots into!  

Broccoli Raab and Red Mustard ready for up-potting.

The only sensible thing to do: keep those babies indoors for a few more days - weeks, maybe? - and put them in larger pots. I spent a minor fortune on ProMix in recent years, so this year I decided to go outside the box and up-pot into compost from our backyard gardens.  YES it’s an experiment, and NO the ‘experts’ don’t recommend it; do those guys own stock in ProMix?  My raised beds contain mostly home-made compost, so in 2 or 3 weeks these babies will have their feet in it anyway. 

 I've collected further evidence that using compost as a medium for up-potting could work: last year I ‘found’ all our tomato sprouts growing in the compost pile, so I transplanted them into compost-filled starter pots where they did just fine until they grew large enough to go into Grow Boxes on the deck.  There, they flourished and provided us with a steady supply of tomatoes until frost, despite the hottest summer on record.  I’m discovering that using "sterile" potting mix for older seedlings might be more gardening myth (propaganda?) than this frugal gardener is willing to accept.  

Here’s my economical method for up-potting into your own compost:

I chose 16 oz. plastic cups as economical pots for my growing seedlings, poking drainage holes in the bottom with screwdriver and hammer.  These are sturdy, and can be washed and reused many times.

I screened my compost to remove bio-char and sticks, which go back to the compost pile since I don’t mind these healthy fillers in my raised beds.  For a screen I used the top to our burning bowl, inverted over a bucket.

Fresh compost ready to screen.

Here's what's left after screening.  I'm returning this to the compost pile.

Freshly screened compost. Beautiful!

I added ½ tsp. balanced organic fertilizer to each pot.  I used Espoma for Vegetables.  Since these transplants are greens prized for their leaves, I could have used a higher-nitrogen fertilizer, but I really didn't want the extra stem growth while they're staying indoors.

I also sprayed daily for 4 days with nettle infusion, a "secret weapon" this organic gardener wouldn’t be without!  It gives the seedlings a foliar nutrient boost while their roots adjust to the new space. After just 4 days, here are the results: truly happy transplants, growing bigger and looking stronger every day!  MYTH BUSTED!!  The important lesson here is not to be afraid to operate slightly outside of conventional ‘wisdom.’  

Broccoli raab transplants, 4 days after up-potting.

Happy and Successful Gardening, everyone!!

Saving Seeds for Food Independence

Lettuce blossoms and seeds

Lettuce is a common fresh food and very easy to grow.  It makes sense to allow a few lettuce plants to go to seed in the garden and claim your independence from purchased seed.  Saving lettuce seeds is an exercise in being present. Every few days, more golden blossoms ripen into fluffy parachutes, and a new batch of seeds is ready to fly. That’s when you have to be there!  Small-scale backyard production keeps you in touch with these big events.

Lettuce flowering stalk

Lettuce plants are beautifully contradictory beings.  They equip their seeds with parachutes to help them fly away on the wind, AND they ooze a sticky sap, latex, that temporarily glues the newly released seeds to anything that blunders through the lettuce patch, bruising leaves and stems.  These opposing traits ensure that the seeds can be carried by both wind and animals – very clever! I’ve been watching this year's seed production since late May, when it became too hot in my Kansas City garden for lettuces.  They love cool weather but grow tall and develop a very bitter flavor if the temperatures hit 90.  That single tall stem produces many tiny yellow flowers resembling mini dandelions, and the family resemblance is no coincidence since both plants are in the Asteracea family.

Lettuce seeds in bowl

Seed-saving guides describe lettuce seed harvesting as a complicated and messy process requiring bagging and various grades of mesh screen. In the sustainable backyard garden, it’s done easily and with no special equipment.  To harvest lettuce seeds, break off the fluffy-headed seed pods and keep them intact.  Back indoors, rinse the sticky latex off your fingers, then hold the seeds by the fluffy end and gently pull and twist the pod at the opposite end to release the covering from the individual seeds.  Brush the seeds into a bowl, let them sit on the counter for a day, then package in paper envelopes labeled with seed type and date. I harvested 5 grams of seed from a single lettuce plant, the equivalent of 5 seed packets in the store, for a savings of $10! Keep them in a cool, dry, dark place and your lettuce seeds will populate your garden during spring and fall for the next 3 years.  

 

When we set aside a few of our vegetable plants for seed production we’re one step closer to self-reliance through food independence. Imagine every yard with a small backyard garden and neighbors sharing produce, then trading seeds.  It seems beautifully contradictory but it makes perfect sense: true food independence achieved through neighborhood inter-dependence. I believe we can make this dream a reality, and the time is now.