Digging For Spring
(Garden • Nature)
Lest I leave the reader with the mistaken impression that a new garden hereabouts is ready for planting merely after turning the dirt over a couple of times with a shovel, allow me an explanation:
We’re blessed here with a sandy loam, courtesy of a few hundred thousand years worth of river risings and soil deposits, which usually include just enough clay to keep raised beds intact without securing them in railroad ties or other foreign materials. I like raised beds because you can keep the dirt soft and fluffy, allowing plant roots to move freely about the cabin and thus promoting quick growth.
What I do is create raised beds by digging deep paths in between – more than 2 feet deep. I toss the dirt that was in the paths on top of the beds, thus raising them.
In the case of my new approximately 25 by 14-foot kitchen garden, I ended up modifying original plans calling for 10 6 by 4-foot beds. I decided running a path down the middle would displace too much growing space. So I dug six beds running the breadth of the garden instead. Two of them are 4 feet wide and the rest are closer to 3 feet, with 1-foot paths between them that will become wider and shallower over time.
Then I used my ancient and tiny Mantis tiller on ‘em. It has four rows of sharp teeth set at various angles, and revs up good on a two-cycle engine, absolutely pulverizing the dirt into fine seed-bed-sized particles. The Mantis only cuts a path about 6 inches wide, but it’s so fast you can till up a 4 by 14-foot bed in like 10 minutes or less. I used a shovel to scoop some of the fine dirt that fell into the paths, laying it back on top of the beds. Then I applied a good dirt rake to smooth each bed into perfection.
So now I have this new garden, dying to be planted, but all I can put in are a few cold-hardy herbs. Because the weather dudes are promising us yet another episode of cold – perhaps a night getting down to 36 on Sunday. This will not make the plumeria happy either (some of which are lining the garden perimeter as a temporary fence).
I probably am not generating much sympathy from those of you in parts north. But we needs us our early springs in semi-South Texas, because by June the temperatures will climb well past 90, and the tomatoes and peppers will become surly and stop setting fruit. In past years, I’ve had tomatoes in the ground by the end of February. Now we’re three-quarters through with March, and they’re still stuck in pots.
If you didn’t follow the weather forecast, you’d swear it’s spring. The pomegranate bushes sport bright red leaf buds, and the figs have already begun popping out little fruits.
No leaf buds on our pecans yet, though, and that’s a bad sign that the cold winter finger of fate is sure to poke us one last time.
As Joe Dirt would say, “Dang.”
→ B.Dunn, Mar 19, 2010, 10 31 am
It's Spring When Madame Says So
(Garden • )
This is Madame Dupont, a fancy-schmancy hibiscus I bought from Dupont Nursery in Plaquemine, La. It can’t stand cold below 40 degrees yet doesn’t like being inside in the dry air during the winter.
But give it a few moist spring days and it’s one of the first hibiscus to flower. When it’s really in a good mood, it pushes out these weird wing-like petals near the top of the stamen.
It’s officially spring here today, and time to assess and haul off winter’s damage.
→ B.Dunn, Mar 13, 2010, 06 18 am
Add a comment [2]
The Worm Turns
(Garden • Nature)
Few things reinvigorate your relationship with the earth more completely than digging a new garden by hand in the dawning spring. 
It took probably four or five hours spread out over the past three days – not bad, and surely would’ve gone faster were my son’s back a few years older and mine a few years younger. We also uncovered 40 or so bricks spread out about a foot down at one end of the new dig. No telling the story there, but it’s fun to imagine.
The 350-square-foot patch is just off the concrete, about 20 yards from the back door. An excellent location for a kitchen garden, but just by accident, because it represents the last remnant of summer sun in the back yard. The giant pecans have made sure of that.
It’ll be home to 10 raised beds of 4 by 7 feet each – enough to hold, say, three tomato plants with some companion dill or so-called Mexican marigold (Tagetes minuta). The latter might be more common in Peru, where they cook with it like mint. But my purpose is to see whether its reputed anti-nematode properties are real. The main point of this new garden plot is to rest the back garden dirt after moving peppers, eggplant and tomatoes through the various beds back there. They all like the same trace soil elements, and they all attract nematodes, which have proved to be a big pain in the roots for most of the past few years. The secondary point of the new plot is to serve as a proper kitchen garden where the likes of basil, oregano, Italian parsley, cilantro, mint, tarragon and chives can be had in a pinch.
This year my tomato expectations run high. The new dirt appeared to be dark and rich as I turned it over, with just enough clay content to hold raised beds together, plus it was full of earthworms (and more than a few June Beetle grubs, which I fed to the birds).
The worms attracted my 6-year-old, who’d recently received a scientific kindergarten lesson on the subject, apparently. Did I know that earthworms were good for the garden? That they had a mouth, but didn’t have any teeth? That they can stretch through the tiniest places? They can actually digest parts of some rocks? If they are attacked or mishandled and broken into two, both pieces may live? Their poop is not bad, it’s good for the dirt? They’re probably my very favorite worm, right?
I made the mistake of questioning her assertion that some earthworms reach 10 feet in length, though mostly just to interject a period into the conversation. Of course she was right.
“I’m pretty much an expert,” she explained. “If you have a question about earthworms, you can ask me.”
Then she stood there and waited for me to think of one, while I sweated and grunted and turned over shovels full of heavy dirt. I told her I couldn’t think of any at the moment.
So she checked back with me as each new moment arrived, to make sure my thirst for earthworm knowledge was sated.
→ B.Dunn, Mar 11, 2010, 07 22 am
Add a comment [2]
Storing Fat For The Winter
(Nature • Garden)
This is the time when the stars align, and we rush to set aside the year’s/decade’s surplus for the coming winter/Great Recession, in hopes we may thus sustain ourselves and carry through to another spring/middle-class bubble ecstasy time.
Thus we swim into the late-season sea to surf the cusp of death in a cycle that has always defaulted to rebirth in the past, so why worry now? These things have always been the same.
Passed deadlines, present regrets and root canals future fall out of sight, temporarily out of mind, and into the cracks of a Medeski-Scofield jazz rendition of the Beatles Julia, while all the while a semi-authentic Texas chili (less heat in deference to the children) simmers on the stove.
Three searing hot sauce species and one excellent persimmon jam batch cool their respective heals in canning jars nestled in the fridge.
Meanwhile, this year’s pecan recipe:
Oven-Roasted Brazos Pecans
Ingredients:
→ 5 pounds shelled native Texas pecans
→ 3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon Kosher salt
→ 2 tablespoons granulated garlic
→ 2 teaspoons cayenne pepper
→ 4 tablespoons brown sugar
→ Baking parchment
Method
→ Pour about 2 gallons of cold water into a large pot. Stir in 3/4 cup of salt until dissolved. Pour pecans into water and stir. Allow to soak for 5 to 10 minutes.
→ Pre-heat oven to 275 degrees. Remove pecans from pot, and drain in colanders. Spread out on cutting boards, cookie sheets or paper towels until somewhat dry.
→ Combine remaining salt, garlic, pepper and sugar in a small bowl. Place pecans in large paper bag. Sprinkle seasoning into bag. Roll top of bag shut and shake vigorously for a couple of minutes to evenly distribute ingredients.
→ Line 3 to 5 aluminum foil pans with baking parchment. Remove pecans from bag and spread in thick single layer across bottoms of the pans. Place in hot oven.
→ Roast for about 25-35 minutes until pecans have turned reddish-gold. Remove pans every 10 minutes and stir pecans, to assure they cook evenly.
→ When pecans are completely dry and “roasted” taste is apparent, they’re done. Don’t allow them to roast too long, or they’ll turn dark and bitter. Remove from heat, allow to cool in pans, and store in sterile air-tight jars in the refrigerator or freezer if you can keep them out of the hands of your children or spouse.
→ B.Dunn, Dec 06, 2009, 06 19 pm
Add a comment [4]
