First the Chickens… Now Bees.

Another project I’ve toyed with over the years, but only from a distance, has been bee-keeping. I have a great-aunt who is a seasoned practicioner of the craft. Yet life in the over-built ‘burbs (along with an instinctive fear of the sting, perhaps) has kept me from giving it a try. So I was happily surprised today to find an article on urban bee-keeping in today’s Washington Post.  I never would have thought this a possibility, always assuming the hives had to be kept by folks living near country fields beyond the rapidly paved ex-burbs… But like the increasing amount of green space being reclaimed in the urban realm it seems there may also be room for beekeeping on the roofs of our city blocks and houses. Nice to see, especially amidst the growing concern over vanishing bees.

Image credit: SacredSights

 

Different Flowers – A Guest Post by Nae

Today, our good friend Nae, who is now five-and-a-half, returns to write a new entry for our site. She writes,

We looked at lots of kinds of flowers, and we couldn’t figure out what one was. We smelled three kinds and they all smelled very good. We smelled some herbs named Rosemary and Lavender.

Susan returns here to comment that these herbs, grown by Nae and her mother, do indeed have a wonderful scent.

Nae notes that she had a peat pot but she lost it. There was a sunflower in it. It had already started growing. She looked for it and knows that it is still in her house somewhere, unless her mom planted it, but Nae doesn’t think she did as she did not know where it was.

Susan returns to note that there are some wonderful flowers growing in Nae’s garden, especially a set of orange flowers that are blooming ever so colorfully with the warm weather in May. Nae likes all the flowers.

The End

Image credit: **Mary**

 

Green Frenzy

Finally made it out to one of my favorite local (or not so local) garden centers, a fair drive away but well worth it for their good selection of herbs and vegetables.  As always, I overbought and some will go to friends…

Here’s the list of today’s haul:

Rosemary (Blue Spire)

Basil

Sage

Lavender

Eggplant (Ichiban)

French Thyme

Hot Pepper Plant (Kung Pao for me, Garden Salsa for a friend)

and tomatoes, including Matt’s Wild Cherry, Better Boy, New Girl, and Yellow Ping Pong…

 

Urban Hens

Growing up in a suburban space meant that most animals kept were of certain varieties: dogs, cats, guinea pigs (owned by family or by the third grade class), gerbils and hamsters, goldfish, parakeets, and, perhaps, indoor hermit crabs.  For some, all of the the above. But chickens were only kept by one neighbor, an elderly couple, who kept their own yard as a long garden (no lawn here, not even in the front), and, at the top of a small hill behind it, kept a chicken coop. This yard seemed an anachronism already in the 1970s and has been long since converted into the usual over-stacked crowd of McMansions on a lot.  At the time though, for a young child as a visitor, it was a glorious place to visit — a perfect combination of the novel (chickens in a backyard!) and the practical (eggs!).

The Washington Post recently offered coverage of the more recent trend, or return to a trend, of keeping chickens in urban and suburban spaces.  See here for Adrian Higgins’ article as well as his own narration of a photo essay on the topic. A run-down of the local regulations for the greater DC area can be also found here for anyone who’s thinking of getting started…  See also Henbogle for an excellent blog on hen-keeping and gardening, live from the great state of Maine.

Image credit: ilja

 

Spring Gardening at WAMU

Kojo Nnamdi hosted an interesting discussion of gardening on his WAMU radio show today with guests Adrian Higgins (Washington Post) and Holly Shimizu (U.S. Botanical Gardens). I only caught part of it, but there seemed to be some very good discussion of the ever-rising number of vegetable gardens going these days, the ways in which lawns are giving way to alternate (and healthier) kinds of growing spaces, and more… A link to the show is available here.

 

Loose Ends

The back garden has been evolving into a wilderness all its own these past few weeks as the spring rains have fallen (and as my spouse has embarked upon a novice venture in tree-pruning, the results of which resemble the after-effects of a Creature Double Feature monster attack.)  I have been engaged in my own attacks on creeping, ill-minded ivy while also scattering nasturtium seeds in casual spite. In other words, its a messy scene out there at the moment.

The rainfall invites other diversions, however.  The discovery of a new farmer’s market in Lorton, VA, has been the weekend’s highlight. Running on Sundays, 9am-1pm,  at the VRE Parking lot (8990 Lorton Station Blvd), the market offers farm produce and goods all produced by folks within 125 miles of the county.

Messy days also inspire trips to the local coffee shop and the merry chatter that accompanies them. Today’s conversation returned (where else?) to good things to eat and recent modifications to a favorite recipe (posted originally at A Chicken in Every Granny Cart) for a simple and healthy dinner.  This version takes the simplification a step further, mostly out of my own weeknight laziness…

Pasta, Veggies, and Beans

1 large onion, sliced broadly

6-8 cloves of garlic, chopped

dried chili flakes

olive oil

1 can garbanzo beans, rinsed

1 can cannellini beans, rinsed

1 large tomato, sliced

chard, green beans, or other similar vegetable… (parboiled)

salt and pepper

pasta (any of the short spirals works well…)

Start the water boiling for pasta. Add a few tablespoons of olive oil to a large, wide saucepan and fry onion slices until they are turning golden and brown around the edges. Clear a spot in the middle of the pan, add another drop of olive oil, and, when hot, add garlic and chili flakes (I usually use about 1/4-1/2 tsp, as I recall, but definitely do it to taste…) Let the garlic cook until it just begins to color, then stir to mix. Add the beans and tomato, seasoning with salt and pepper. Cook this mixture for a short while, then toss in the greens.  Add just a bit of the pasta water (a few spoonfuls) to the pan to make a light sauce. Stir, double-check the seasonings, and then serve over pasta.

For an image of the mix, see my photo at last summer’s post…

 

Hacking away…

This weekend’s free time in the garden has been devoted to the cathartic task of attacking an inflow of ivy that seems to be taking over the winter’s empty beds. Not nearly as aesthetically pleasing as the decor to the left, the ivy here at home seems to be literally taking apart  my back garden’s brick wall as well as the cement foundation of the shed. Bad news.

Not a fan of chemicals (and not finding them very effective in previous experience), I decided to simply dig in and dig up as much of the ivy and its roots as I could. The hard work felt good, even if it’s left me aching a bit today, though I’m also not holding out hopes that the problem is solved. It looks like it’ll be a steady battle for the summer and probably for subsequent seasons. I also decided against committing the bed I cleared yesterday to vegetables as I’m expecting the ivy will do again what it did last season and take over. I did spread some random flower  seeds that I happened to have on hand though (Nasturtium and even a few Black-Eyed Susan seeds), mostly out of spite.

Meanwhile, plans for spring are rolling. I’m going to get more tomatoes into the ground rather than in containers this season. I also have to work on a slightly better design for my containers that I will be using for other vegetables. It seems that drainage issues may have caused some problems last season, especially for my tomatoes. I’ve heard that gravel isn’t necessary in the bottoms of containers, so I skipped it last year. But I’m either going to add it or drill more and bigger holes into my container barrels this season.

Eggplants are still well in the plan, probably in containers. I’m also adding more Asian vegetables, including baby bok choy and choy sum (油菜), along with more scallions, lots of herbs, and at least one kind of chili pepper…

My other question of late is how far to trust the potting soil that’s left over from last season. As mentioned, the tomatoes had some issues last year, so there is reason to consider dumping the stuff and starting fresh. On the other hand, potting soil is not inexpensive. I’m wondering whether to give it a gamble, mix the leftover soil with new materials and try it out…

Image Credit: Splityarn

 

The History of School Gardens

The Library of Congress has recently established its own channel on YouTube. Their online video collection is growing with the inclusion of historical footage (including some interesting footage of women at work in the Westinghouse factories, apparently ca. 1904) as well as videos of more recent academic talks at the LOC.

One video item stood out immediately as a sequel (or sequel link) to my last post on children and gardening – namely Constance Carter’s own discussion of the history of the school garden movement: