Posts tagged ‘gardening’

This is the second year I’ve gone to the organic plant sale at Crown Point Ecology Center (in Bath, Ohio)  I love their unique varieties of plants, which some are heirloom and others hybrids.  Plus they have plant-related demonstrations, food, and a kids play area.  Sorry I didn’t mention it last week, but you can mark the calendar for May of next year.

I was really interested in their CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program, but there’s a minimum one-year waiting list.  I like the idea of being a part of the farm I get my food from.  Members help anywhere from 1-10 mornings per year with farm work, and they can pick up food weekly or bi-weekly.  They invest in the farm & experience the risk of a good or poor growing season.  Plus a portion of the produce is donated to the local food bank.

Since this CSA has a waiting list, does anyone recommend other ones in the area?  Or are there interesting aspects of your local CSA?  I want to join one mainly to experience the community aspect of it, but also to get more gardening experience.

I originally bought & planted asparagus on a whim.  I didn’t research it a bit besides reading instructions on the package.  I wish I’d considered how little food it produces for the space it requires.  But now, my little asparagus patch is in its third season, and we’ve savored 12 spears this year.  And I’ve become attached.  I couldn’t possibly part with them for the sake of better using my space.  I figure I’m learning how to grow them better, plus my family has a greater appreciation for how food grows.  And that’s worth it.

By the way, here’s my favorite asparagus recipe:  Citrus Asparagus Salad (I prefer to saute the asparagus instead of boiling it.)

I love gardening. I often say to friends and family that if the lottery ever found it’s way over to my bank account I’d pack up my life and move out to the country to devote myself to puttering around in the garden all day.

Alas, until that day, I continue to look for things that are easy to grow. Cool climates, short growing seasons and all the demands of a busy life makes it a waste to spend time growing slow, finicky plants. In terms of finding success in the garden I can’t think of anything more satisfying and foolproof that growing your own salad greens. Salad mix is so easy to grow and so fast to grow! Plant seeds now and you’ll be eating tender, delicious homegrown greens in only a few weeks. Spring is the perfect time to sow a single variety of lettuce or to be more creative and plant a mixture of your favorite greens. On my list for planting this year are:

• Butter lettuce: This is your regular lettuce – leafy, green, tender and tasty.
• Red leaf lettuce: I love red leaf lettuce for the colour and contrast it adds to your garden plot and to the salad plate. It’s just as easy to grow as regular lettuce and has a bit more punch taste-wise.
• Beet greens: Beets themselves are wonderful to grow, but I enjoy baby beet greens just as much. Plant beet seeds in containers or the salad section of your garden the same as you would any leafy green and harvest the tender leaves in the first month or two of the plant’s life. After that you may want to thin them out a bit or just have the odd beet growing among your salad plants.
• Spinach: so healthy, so tasty, so versatile. In addition to clipping baby greens for salads, I also harvest spinach from the garden and freeze it in baggies for use during the winter (much better for you and your grocery bill than store bought!).
• Nasturtium: along with violets these are my favorite plants to grow if you want to add colorful edible flowers to your salad. They have a lovely peppery taste and the flowers are bright yellow, orange and red.

The planting method is very easy. Start with a clear patch of dirt in the garden or a container filled with potting soil. The size of the plot or vessel is up to you – even a small pot will work, so don’t let the lack of garden stop you. Sprinkle seeds over the dirt and then place a thin layer of dirt on top. The general rule of thumb is that the layer of dirt on top of seeds should be about the same height as the seeds themselves. If you do plant nasturtiums their seeds are bigger than the others so poke them in about an inch.

I mix all my seeds together and wait for the beautiful mishmash of color that comes up; you might also prefer a more orderly planting style like rows or patches of specific varieties. Another thing I don’t worry about is spacing. While you don’t want to be wasteful and use too many seeds, it is also really easy to thin out your salad patch if it’s getting too dense by just eating more salad!

The best way to ensure a steady supply of fresh greens all summer long is to keep harvesting the leaves as they’re ready. It’s easy for salad greens to get parched and dry in the hot sun, so definitely don’t wait for a grocery-store style head of lettuce to emerge. Baby greens and micro-greens are all the rage in fancy restaurants and for good reason: they’re delicious! Eat and enjoy!

Read more about guest blogger Erica of Nest and Sparkle.

Our second guest blogger for April is Erica of Nest and Sparkle.   She writes about her home, garden, and cooking endeavors.  For Clever Nesting, she’ll be writing about growing salad greens, a rhubarb coffee cake recipe, refashioning a vintage brooch and more.  I really connect with Erica’s resourcefulness and how she’s working toward sustainable living & buying local, seasonal, unprocessed, and organic.  And I want to have a meal at her house because all her recipes & beautiful food pictures look amazing.  Plus we have commonality with our blog names (a fellow “nester” of sorts).  Here are a few great posts & ideas from Nest and Sparkle: Chard & Asiago Strata, Seed Harvesting, and Chives.

More About Nest and Sparkle:
Nest and Sparkle began as a way of sharing things from Erica’s home life with family and friends. It’s a modern day version of passing along good recipes on scraps of paper after dinner or announcing the wonderful fact of something beautiful blooming in the garden. People who know her know that it’s the very simple things in life that delight her the most, and Nest and Sparkle has become a way of recording and sharing those bits of inspiration.

If your green thumb is itching, it might be time to put some seeds in the ground. The first day the sun came out this year gave me the garden itch, and I didn’t want to start my seeds indoors. We’ve gotten a spell of unseasonably warm weather this week so I got out there and started planting. But our last frost day is way out in May so I have to plant carefully.

If you want to make a green house/ cold frame for just your potted plants this trick will work for you. After the tutorial I’ll show you some other cold frames I’m using this year.

Read more »

There have been a million times I have driven past a nasty run down lot in Akron and thought, “We should tear down that yucky house and build a garden here.” Well, the Akron Cooperative is doing just that! I was so excited to find them at the Akron Home and Garden show talking about keeping bees and Urban Chicken raising. They were even holding a raffle to give away a chicken coop (which I entered but did not win). I went to their website to find out more about them and found this:

Our Mission: to build a local food system that improves the health and economy of our community. Our approach is to use the valuable resources and productive traditions within our community by engaging youth and families to improve the conditions of our neighborhoods.

Our Goals: Focus on sustainable agriculture, nutrition education, entrepreneurship, and youth development to create change in our community. With that in mind, our five primary goals are to:

1. Educate residents about food systems, sustainable agriculture and healthy cooking. 

2. Provide access to appropriate and affordable locally-grown, healthy, nutritional and culturally-focused food.

3. Engage and train youth as leaders in the food system and their community.

4. Build self-reliance through employment, training and local business development.

5. Building the capacity to produce food locally through sustainable agriculture. 

How exciting! Find out more, if you are interested in helping out. I don’t know how helpful I can be to them this year with my little kiddos under foot, but next year I would love to put in some man hours in a community garden!  For more information you can follow this link to subscribe to their newsletter.

I’ve slowly been revitalizing my landscaping for Fall.  I trimmed down spent plants & removed the sad-looking annuals from my pots.  Originally I thought I’d come home with colorful mums for the pots, but instead put together a pretty leafy combo of perennials (which were all 50% off at my favorite local garden center, Donzell’s!).  I used Siberian Iris in the back (it’ll have white flowers in the spring), Japanese Painted Fern on the left, and Beard Tongue on the right (more white flowers in spring).

Today I harvested some German Chamomile flowers, and I’ll be drying them to make loose-leaf Chamomile tea.  This is my first year growing Chamomile, and I only got one plant to survive from seed.  I drink a lot of tea, so I’ll surely plant more next year.

I did some research before harvesting my flowers.  The basic idea is pick the flowers, dry them, then use them in your tea.  Here are a few tips I learned:

-Pick flowers early in the morning, but after the dew has dried.  Pinch the flowers off just below the flower head to stimulate the plant to continue producing flowers.

-Dry the flowers in a warm, yet dry & dark location on a screen.  The quicker the flowers dry out, the more essential oils are held in the dried flower.  When the flowers are completely dry, store them in an airtight container in a dark, dry location.

-The flower head & petals are both used in the tea.  Don’t break the dried flower apart until you’re ready to make your tea (this keeps it freshest).  To make tea add 2 tsp dried flowers to 1 cup boiling water, steep covered for 10 minutes (covering your tea keeps the valuable oils from escaping).

*I didn’t find one particularly great reference website about Chamomile.  But here are a few I learned from: here, here, and here.

I love waiting for sales.  Not because I like waiting, but because I want my money to go a little further.  The other day I got some major bargains at Lowe’s on perennial flowers.  Most of the flowers were done blooming for the season, and some I think were just the last of their types (because they hadn’t bloomed yet).  Either way, all the flowers I purchased were $1 or $2 each, and I got more than double the flowers I would at regular price.  Even though many won’t do anything pretty this season, I have next year to look forward to.

I bought a Ball Zucchini plant last year from a farm.  I saved the seeds and replanted them this year.  Ball Zucchini isn’t different than regular zucchini except in shape, but I like unusual plants so had to try this one.

Yesterday I made my first zucchini bread of the season.  I needed a new recipe because my old one called for shortening which I don’t use anymore.  I found one on Allrecipes, made a few experimental changes, and was super-pleased with the results.  I appreciate reader comments for each recipe on Allrecipes which helps me make worthy changes to the recipe even as I make it for the first time.

Some changes I made are: used 1/2 cup applesauce & 1/2 cup vegetable oil instead of 1 cup vegetable oil; used 1/4 cup less sugar, and I used oatmeal instead of wheat germ.  The bread was nicely dense, not too sweet, and tasty.  It’s a keeper.