Farm & Garden - Building Sustainable Lives

Shrubs that Produce Great Flowers for Bouquets

Mon, 18 Jun 2007 03:00:27 -0600

When we think of flower arrangements and bouquets, we too often think of just perennial or annual flowers. There are, however, shrubs that can make great contributions to your bouquet or arrangement.

One such shrub is the hydrangea. Many different hydrangeas are on the market, but they all tend to have similar qualities. Whether the bloom is flat such as in the mop head hydrangeas (Hydreangea macrophylla), or elongated as in the oak leaf hydrangea (H. quercifolia), they are composed of many smaller flowers. Groups of individual flowers can be clipped apart, in a similar fashion to dividing a cauliflower head into florets. Additionally the flowers, when they dry, hold the same as color when picked, be that pink or blue in the case of the common hydrangeas, white in the oak leaf, and a dusty pink/beige color when the bloom has matured. So these flowers can be used from summer all the way through to fall, and the dried material throughout the winter too. This feature makes them a bonus for dried arrangements as well as fresh ones.

Localvores

Mon, 11 Jun 2007 03:00:01 -0600

Localvore: A localvore (local = place, vore = to swallow or devour) is a person who is committed to eating foods grown within the local area (foodshed) often defined as within a 100-mile radius.

Last year I attended a marketing workshop at the annual NOFA summer conference. The presenter geared his talk to small local farmers. He drew a standard Bell Curve graph on the board to illustrate what has happened in the organic foods movement in the past 30 years or so. Those of you familiar with Bell Curves and also old enough to remember 30 years ago will know that the starting point of this Curve dates to approximately the late 60's when organic food began to get some attention from consumers. Decades pass and organic sales begin an upward climb towards the peak of the curve. The peak we are told is the point at which we have both a very successful and lucrative product as well as increasing amounts of competitors looking for their slice of this profitable market niche. In the presenter's estimation, “organic” as a lucrative brand name is at peak or even slightly past peak. Keep in mind, he told us this does not mean the product is no longer worthy or viable, it simply means that from a marketing standpoint it maybe time to find a “new” product.

Fresh Cut Flowers for the Farm Market

Mon, 28 May 2007 02:00:27 -0600

At almost every farm market across the nation there is a long line waiting for the fresh vegetable merchant, but there is also an equally long line waiting for fresh cut flowers and bouquets. This relatively new addition to farm markets comes as a response to a busy lifestyle, smaller gardens to grow flowers and increase disposable income that allows pretty bouquets to be purchased rather than grown. Serving this market requires both knowledge of plants and a decent amount of space. However, large amounts of space are not necessarily required. In Virginia, Robin Seeterlin and Elaine Wood run a market stall called Bloomers where they sell fresh cut flowers that are grown on just one third of an acre.

Dappled Light

Mon, 21 May 2007 03:00:13 -0600

For a professional landscape designer -- say that guy on PBS, P. Allen Smith -- choosing the site for a vegetable garden on a small property or urban lot is a carefully calculated decision. Enough sunlight is weighed against traffic patterns, buildings and existing trees, water and utility lines, drainage and other aspects of the landscape. We took a different route.

Here in northeastern Pennsylvania in 1987 – long before every outdoorsman owned a personal GPS, we calculated latitude, longitude and elevation to find sun angle, but not for a garden plot. Using this information blueprints were drawn for the optimum location of a passive solar home.

The Merry Month

Mon, 21 May 2007 02:00:45 -0600

Childhood memories. There is nothing stronger. Remember the red and white decorated Valentine Box in your classroom with your name on it? Remember breaking and wishing on the turkey wishbone after Thanksgiving Dinner? Remember making May Baskets? Each spring, as I grew up, our class made May Baskets. When school was out for the afternoon during that first week of May, we carried our baskets home, trying to hide them from parents or siblings. Then we spent fun hours hanging them on neighborhood front doors. We would knock or ring the bell, then run and hide. It was so much fun to see the door open and our neighbor or family member find the little hand-done basket of flowers left just for them.

Branching Out

Mon, 14 May 2007 01:00:30 -0600

In a previous article about preparing a CSA to take an increasingly important place in the local food economy, I resolved to add more perennial plants to our product mix. And so I sit here with a print catalog and two open windows to online catalogs trying to decide which of the hundreds of choices would be best for our farm. It's been 11 years since I've felt such trepidation, bewilderment, excitement and anticipation in preparing a product order for the upcoming season. I think selecting fruit trees, berry bushes and other perennial plants maybe just as much fun as my annual seed order. Just as with seed orders I best not let my eyes be bigger than my stomach. So what to start with first?

Saving Seeds

Mon, 07 May 2007 04:00:15 -0600

The robins have arrived. The soil is warming. Green is bursting from shrubs and trees. Flowers are popping up everywhere. The exuberance and joy of another cycle of growth and life is spreading wildly.

And you’ve caught the excitement. It’s planting time!

One of the satisfactions of gardening and farming is saving your own seeds. You can keep treasured heirloom varieties, hardworking performers and your favorite colors and tastes to use year after year. You can experiment with breeding and crossing difference varieties to create something entirely new. The possibilities are endless.

Touring the Ridder Ranch

Mon, 07 May 2007 01:00:25 -0600

At Ridder Ranch in Callaway, Nebraska, even the dreariest, coldest weather can charm. Despite the fact that their visit occurred during one of the most aesthetically challenging months of the year (we all know what mud season is like), a pair of ranch visitors (a New York literary agent and her California author client) were won over by the beautiful landscape at the Ridders’ Hereford ranch.

Two years ago, Mary Ridder realized that instead of writing about agritourism, she and her family should give it a try. Through her many years working as a freelance writer reporting about the lives of her fellow Nebraskans, Mary watched farmers and ranchers develop new ways to add income to their agricultural enterprises; she spoke with consumers eager for connection with the growers and producers of their food and clothing; she met people eager to experience the novelty of rural culture, and she discovered how the needs of both rural and urban residents were mutually satisfied through agritourism.

The Market Hog

Mon, 23 Apr 2007 03:00:45 -0600

Sooner or later, almost every homesteader and many market farmers considers keeping or breeding hogs. They are excellent meat producers, great garden tillers and they make superb garbage disposals. They are also friendly, smart, unbelievably strong and subsequently tough to contain!

The most common route for small farmers is to buy one or two “feeder” pigs. These are pigs that are recently weaned and weigh 40-60 pounds. The pigs are kept until they reach butcher weight of 250 pounds (or more). This generally takes about eight months, depending on feeding practices. Free-range, mostly grass-fed hogs take longer to reach butcher weight, but the meat is much leaner. Corn fed hogs gain very quickly, but much of it is fat.

A Visit to Corn Fun Family Farm

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 03:01:08 -0600

Sue Coppens and Jim Ewald of Corn Fun Family Farm in Casco, Michigan, were city folks with no farm experience when they bought their 40 acre farm 45 minutes north of Detroit, MI. They’d initially invested in the farm thinking to subdivide it for sale as building lots. However, Sue became enamored of alpacas, so they began to consider how they could keep the farm whole and make it profitable while they saved toward their entry in the alpaca industry. One possibility was a cornfield maze. After attending a seminar on cornfield mazes in WI, they decided to give it a try.

Because agritourism is newly recognized as a viable agricultural activity in Michigan, it took a year of negotiations with their township for Sue and Jim to get a special use permit to operate an agritourist attraction on their farm.

The Beauty of The Lilies

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 03:00:26 -0600

As our society grows further and further from daily communion with nature, it comforts me to see how words and phrases in our language still contain evidence of a time when we lived closer to the earth. They are proof positive that we, in large number, used to know plants, animals and weather like the back of our hands (hmmmm, have to look that one up next). What does this train of thought have to do with lilies? The other day, while thinking about this article, I ran across this phrase - "her reputation was lily white."

On the Table

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 03:00:07 -0600

Most gardeners will tell you that N, P and K are the initials of three plant nutrients or simply, “fertilizer.” They are much more than that; they are three elements on the periodic table (PT). How many can list the rest?

For those like me, who may have passed his tenth-grade PT pop-quiz but would now fail miserably, you can find hundreds of examples on the internet. I downloaded a small free program from Custom Fit Software. Find one if your memory is as bad as mine.

The Increasing Importance of Local Food

Mon, 09 Apr 2007 03:00:07 -0600

Winter, and I have time to read. My readings this winter have taken me down an unexpected path; a path that indicates that food production may in the next decade move increasingly away from big business and more towards local farms and perhaps even to suburban backyards and urban lots.

My interest was peaked (pun soon to be revealed) this past August at this summer’s Northeast Organic Farming Association conference. Concurrent workshops are held throughout the conference. Pete and I try to pick workshops we each find interesting without attending the same ones so as to collectively gain more knowledge and insight. It so happens, however, that we both chose workshops relating to fossil fuels use, both in agriculture and daily living. We both viewed the documentary “The End of Suburbia.” I learned in one of my classes that on average it takes ten calories of fossil fuel to get one calorie of food into my house. These ten calories excludes the energy used to store (refrigeration or freezing) and cook it. In the article by Norman Church, Why Our Food is So Dependant on Oil, Mr. Church points out that food that travels internationally bumps the ratio even higher. For example, when iceberg lettuce is exported to the UK from the USA by plane, 127 calories of energy (aviation fuel) are needed to transport 1 calorie of lettuce across the Atlantic. Similarly, 97 calories of transport energy are needed to import 1 calorie of asparagus by plane from Chile.

Introduction to Livestock

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 02:00:01 -0600

I walked out of the city and into livestock thanks to a pony and my friend Deb. Steve’s dad bought our oldest daughter a pony for Christmas when she was 10. We didn’t have a barn, a pasture or much of a clue about taking care of a pony beyond proper grooming. Deb boarded the pony on her farm for us. She was willing to teach me all that she knew about goats, sheep, pigs and cattle while my daughter tended to her pony. Deb gave me a great start. The most important lesson I’ve learned is one I pass along as often as possible: Raising livestock can be as complicated as you want to make it.

Raising livestock can also be reasonably uncomplicated. Something is going to go wrong some where along the way. That’s just the way it is. I’ve learned to move unborn goat kids around without giving it a second thought. I’ve retrieved Belted Galloway cattle from a corn field a half mile up the road using farmcollies I bred and trained. The kid couldn’t have been prevented. It’s just one of those things. The cattle incident could have been avoided. That shouldn‘t have happened, especially not two mornings in a row... I’ve since learned more and put it to good use.

Lamb's Ears

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 01:00:14 -0600

Stachys byzantina 'Lamb's Ear'
Photo Credit: Tish King

Intro and History

Family: Lamiaceae (lay-mee-AY-see-ay)
Genus: Stachys (STAK-iss)

Common Names: Lamb's Ears, Wooly Betony, Wooly Hedgenettle