Garden: Phase 2.5

Finishing the garden

Phase 2.5 started with going to a cemetery last week.

Why, you ask? Well, this cemetery has piles of rocks and dirt that you can haul away for free, so we selectively collected gravel-sized rocks to fill up the 5th, small wicking bed since I only purchased materials for 4 beds.


We also had to get more cedar fencing to complete the outside of the bed.  There's my boyfriend, doing all the work.

That's not true, I worked very hard, too. Promise.
Here's a wicking bed half finished. Underneath those pretty, decomposing leaves is...HORSE MANURE!

I picked up a few more herbs at Shoal Creek Nursey as well to fill in some of the gaps.

The five beds are now complete.



Everything looks really darn happy, gotta say. Especially the sweet potatoes!

Here's a shot of a pepper. I got a variety of hot and sweet peppers and I'm not actually sure what this will be!

I also planted some amaranth last week and LOOK! My first successful seedlings!



Here is a pretty cucumber plant. I have two of them...this one may be the Chinese cucumber. These guys like to climb, so my boyfriend and I are planning making a teepee structure using leftover cedar fencing, which cucumbers particularly like.

Pests

I have already discovered some pests (little caterpillars) that are enjoying eating through my leaves. However, they aren't doing significant enough damage to hurt the plant. Nature has all sorts of checks and balances and if I end up with too many caterpillars, their natural predators are likely to swoop in and clean up. I have only seen two caterpillars and have lovingly pulled them off and set them in the grass far away from my stuff. They seem to prefer the sweet potatoes and peppers.

Composting

I just bought Texas Organic Vegetable Gardening by Garrett and it's great...came recommended to me by Dani at Yard to Table Gardens. He has a recipe for "Garrett Juice" which is a compost tea that you spray occasionally. Not only do the plants love it, but it can be a very powerful pest repellent, also. I'm considering using the concentrated liquid that the Bokashi bin produces to make my own compost tea. The Bokashi bin is awesome...it's a Japanese design that uses microbes to break down foodstuffs much faster than they would in a compost pile, which means you can even put animal products into the bin. There's a reservoir at the bottom that collects the resulting, highly-concentrated liquid, and you drain it every 2-3 days, dilute in 1 gallon of water, and give it to your babies! There will be leftover food scraps that you can just throw into a regular compost pile, which I'm planning to build next weekend using pallets from a big box store. AND, I can get 75% of the cost of a Bokashi system reimbursed to me by the City of Austin through the Green30 Challenge. All you have to do is take a free composting class (it was super fun) and downgrade to a 30-gallon trash cart or smaller. Then you fill out out this form, include your receipt, and voila, check comes in the mail!
Note that if you have a compost that you built for a free or you lost the receipt, downgrading to a smaller trashcan is cheaper. Upgrading to a larger one costs you a fee, however, so be sure you're ready to downsize!

Garden: Phase 2

Today I started my actual garden! I am, to say the least, EXCITE.

I hired Dani from Yard to Table Gardens, who came up with an ingenius wicking bed design that utilizes kiddie pools. Wicking beds are, well, totally wicked! In short, you fill up a reservoir with water and the soil (along with the help of other materials) wicks the water up gradually.  This means I water once a week; it's very resource-efficient and low-maintenance.

We filled a kiddie pool + tumbled, broken glass from the City of Austin (free) and a pot with soil that's in contact with the bottom of the pool/reservoir. You can do this with pool liner or even a big tupperware.

We put some burlap over the glass and stuck a PVC pipe into the glass. Then we layered horse manure and leaves. "Like lasagna," Dani said. And then topsoil. Here's what it looks like all finished with sweet potatoes planted. We sprinkled a type of protective fungus on the roots before we planted them.

That's an ugly rock covering the reservoir tube but I'll find something more attractive later. If I don't cover it, mosquitos may breed in there, which is my worst nightmare.

We went down to Natural Gardener in Oak Hill for the soil as well as all my transplants. I have:

• Kefir lime tree (for Thai food)
• Lemongrass (for Thai food)
• Garlic chives (for yummies and pest control)
• Rosemary (for yummies and protecting me from pests)
• Sweet basil
• Sweet pepper varieties
• Serrano peppers
• Cucumber
• Amaranth (ancient grain, from seed)
• Sweet potatoes

I'm also going to try to plant ginger from an existing ginger root. I also get to transplant my marigold, tomato, and AngelMist, which I introduced here. I can try to plant my arugula, although it seems pretty done, but I also have some seed pods from it that I can try to plant. Who knows, it could work!

Dani is a big advocate of planting varieties together instead of monocropping, although the sweet potatoes were an exception.

Later today, Kamon and I will get more wood for the rest of the beds, and some rocks to top off on the 5th, small kiddie pool that my neighbor donated to me today. He said a friend came over last night with a kiddie pool in his backseat, took it out so they could go somewhere, and then left it in the carport. That's kind of a ridiculously awesome coincidence. Makes you believe in stuff.

Phase 2.5 will be underway shortly! Phase 3 is probably not killing them.

Interlude: Farmers market morning on 2/25/2012

On Saturday, I had the pleasure of volunteering with the Sustainable Food Center at the farmers market downtown to take some pictures. I was also pretty hungry and was there from 9-noon, so I picked up just a few items. Or 50. Here's what I got:

Ok, this isn't food, but it's stil awesome! This is a gallon o' locally-made laundry soap from the South Austin People. They suggest one to two cap-fulls per load, so this should last a long time!

I have a Go Local card, so with a $20 purchase or more, I get a free bar of soap, so I indulged in my favorite: Sandalwood Vanilla.

This delightful swiss chard came from Blackland Prairie Farm, a family operation. I already had stocked up on greens when I got to their farmstand, but it was so beautiful and I quickly engaged in conversation with Mrs. Moore. I commented on her pretty flower arrangement and she said they were arugula flowers...then gave me one to eat on my salads! I indulged in this very tender chard and have been enjoying it greatly in my salads.

BEETS!

Collards for my attempt at Gomen, an Ethiopian dish.

Buying eggs from Milagro Farm is always a fun experience. Chris always has something interesting to say, and even the shy consumer who would prefer not to ask how the chickens are raised will no doubt hear all about it, voluntarily! Chris uses an egg-mobile to move the chickens around the pasture, which not only affords them fresh forage and insects, but also helps restore the grasses. Aka, I would call Chris a grass farmer. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, pick up a copy of Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma. 

I enjoyed buying this cabbage from John of Naegelin Farms. I met a lot of farmers for the first time downtown, since it's definitely the biggest farmers market in the city. I'm going to chop this up into eighths (wedges) and steam it with my mom's honey mustard chicken recipe! Naegelin Farms is a 300-acre, sustainable, family farm.
By the way, this cabbage IS HUUUGE. It's oblong and nearly a foot long...$2!

I had wanted to get a whole chicken for the aforementioned honey mustard chicken dish, but by the time I was done volunteering, there weren't no dern chickens left. I then figured I'd get some ground bison for stuffed peppers, but that was out, too. So I was very politely guilt-tripped into buying one of Thunder Heart Bison's many, many steaks :) I don't yet know what I'm going to do with it, but I'm excited to try a bison sirloin. Thunder Heart's bison are 100% grass-fed and pastured. Yay! They also earned the Animal Welfare Approved seal.

These beautiful carrots and baby arugula were purchased directly from Cas of Animal Farm. Check out their website! He was super fun to photograph.

Next up is some delicious kale from Simmons Family Farms. I actually went over there for eggs, but without seeing any signage like "pasture-raised" or "organic," I inquired about how their chickens were raised and what they ate. This kind of thing is sort of hard for me, because if I don't like what they say, I have to leave and they know why. On the other hand, I'm using my voice to hopefully affect change. Turns out the chickens eat conventional grain from the feed store as well as forage and insects. She said they do have a lot of time to roam around but do spend a fair amount of time inside. This is of course great, but not what I was looking for. So, I bought some kale instead, which is sustainably grown. It's less curly, and very tender!

I also got to catch up with my friend Katie, who now sells cheese at Dos Lunas. The cheese is made from raw milk from pastured, happy cows, and it's amazing! I bought the black pepper cheddar. I might just break off a few pieces in a minute here to snack on! Their cheese is also sold outside of the farmers markets and used in many local restaurants, which you can read about here.

So...here's what I walked away with!

I also spent a lot of time chatting with the family behind the Swede Farm! There are no pictures, because I was too busy trying all their goat cheeses! They had at least four different kinds of chevre, a feta, and even plain kefir! I think my favorite was the smoked chevre. They mentioned that they sometimes have chocolate goat milk and also yogurt! Sign me up! Here's a picture from their website.

Chatted with Round Rock Honey also! It's delicious and completely, totally raw, wildflower honey. Not even heated! I forgot to ask this nice dude his name. Next time!

Countryside Farm raises chickens but also provides game! I bought a hog shoulder from them a few months ago and it was beyond words, so, here are two pictures of it:

Here are some photos from the rest of the day.

 This is an awesome, three-sided construction for compost, recycling, and landfill.

 These kiddos enjoyed trying new things at the tasting booth!