Sweet Potato Patch

Our little sweet potato patch.

We have yet to succeed at growing sweet potatoes, but are giving it a go again this season. We put in a small sweet potato patch in a raised bed beside the house using plant starts from Edwards Feeds, our favorite feed mill located in downtown Lebanon. Later we added a couple of cut ends from sweet potatoes that had sprouted in the kitchen.

This afternoon when I checked the bed, the butt-ends planted a week or so ago were doing well. That is a relief, especially as the weather has been very hot and very dry of late. Many plants indeed many whole crops, are struggling just to survive these days. Thriving seems out of the question.

Already our little patch is doing better this year than in any of our previous attempts. Let's hope the weather breaks soon so that plants can return to the business of growing,

Invasion of Thistles

Thistles laying claim to the land.

 When we moved here in 2008, the front acres rolled smoothly down from the house. Although the grasses were long when we arrived to stay, I can only remember one or two thistles blooming. However, I like the bees, butterflies, and finches that thistles attract and allowed a plant or two (maybe three) to go to seed some three years back. That was a big mistake.

By last year I had taken to uprooting thistles in self-defense, and then feeding them to the livestock. Surprisingly, the horses generally like them when cut to readily-chewable lengths, and even the goats will nosh upon them when proffered. In the pasture proper, the horses nibble many of the thistles to the ground, but choose to eat around plants that they will gladly tackle when I cut them into shorter lengths.



A bucket of thistles cut to create feed.

As busy as the overabundance of invading thistles may be, I can get lost in the pastures just watching (and sometimes photographing) the myriad of winged visitors supping on the flowers. Unfortunately, this year I find the spines to be challenging. They poke through leather gloves, sift their way down boot-tops, and ultimately find ways to burrow into my skin. That can be disappointing.

Next year I'll have to be more diligent in moving fences and rotating grazers through the thistle-infested patches. I know this because the number of plants gone to seed this year has surpassed prior years, and I would prefer to return to less-prickly pastures in the future.

Tiger swallowtail butterfly feeding on thistle flower.

When I was growing up in New England, my mother always let a few thistles flourish by our back porch. With some Scottish ancestors, our family revered the lavender-tufted flowerhead. What I find strange, though, is that the plants never became invasive there. I guess the close-cropped pastures here are more conducive to seeds sprouting than the thick lawn in my mother's yard. Here in Tennessee, thistles are a highly invasive species.

Mother never needed a goat to bail her out. I expect to need all of ours for some years to come.

Visiting Barbara's Garden

Color surrounds this delightful house.

I do love visiting my not-too-distant neighbor and Wilson County Master Gardener friend, Barbara. Her multi-generational household is inspiring to visit, yes, but it's the peace and tranquility of her garden that speaks to my soul. The colors, textures, and vistas offer a sensual symphony that our farm--as enjoyable as I find it--is years from providing.



A view of Barbara's garden in early May, 2012.

True, she has many hands to help her out on her daughter's farm and the contributions of this multitude of participants yield breathtaking results. After she started lining garden beds with rock--an abundant resource throughout Wilson County--her daughter, son, and grandchildren got involved. The results speak for themselves.

Barbara's produce tastes as sweet as it looks. Yum!

On this day I was once again a recipient of Barbara's unending generosity and went home with such a bagfull of organically-raised lettuce that we'll surely be feasting for days. Thanks, friend!

Self-Watering Planters

Basil transplants in pot retrofitted with self-watering conversion kit. The float appearing at the top of the water-fill tube indicates that the water reservoir is currently full.

On Tuesday I set out to make some self-watering planters. Having purchased some very handy retro-fit conversion kits from Gardener's Supply Company last month, I have been busily setting up planters to accommodate container crops this summer. Unfortunately, I measured wrong and wound up with several wonderful one-gallon retrofit kits that will not work for the some of the planters that I had slated for the task. As such, the time for making my own retrofits had arrived.

Retro-fit insert, ready to go.

The kits I purchased are specifically designed for round planters of a certain size. Placed in the right container, they work beautifully. 

Correctly fitted inserts, ready for potting soil and plants.

The over size round planters we have will require larger collars around the inset in order to fully contain soil above the reservoir. The square and rectangular planters will require suitably shaped inserts. The kits come with enclosed water reservoirs, a fine mesh screen bottom through which roots and moisture can interact, a fill tube--with cover, and a float that indicates when the water level has dropped. They are beautifully designed. 

Planter in progress with building materials.

Planter in progress, with wicks inserted. (Base will move deeper to contain more soil before planting.)

Our homemade attempts are less aesthetically pleasing. Using materials already on hand, they reflect my haphazard style of designing on the fly as opposed to careful measuring and fitting. On Tuesday I had time to design one (very rough) rectangular planter that held water nicely. Although I had thought to use the rectangular planters for quick-pick salad crops--spinach or lettuce--what I had handy were pole bean seeds, so they got planted.

Windowsill seed starters.

Each wick masterfully transfers moisture in these.

The models for the wick theory performed better than expected. As I did not want the planters to remain wet, but rather simply moist, I limited the wicks in the large planter to just three. After all, the single wicks in the windowsill bottle models have remained quite wet. Indeed, the bottle model will wick up water quickly even without potting soil in the top portion.

Planter, completed and planted, holds water well.

Once planted, the rectangular planter filled nicely. Although I had hoped that the wicks would be enough to moisten the entire bed, a day later I discovered that they are not suite to the task. Perhaps the tight fit of the windowsill models served to assist the wicking process. I will have to rework this theory, or break down and purchase some mesh-type plastic for the insert between the soil and the water.

Tomorrow is another day. We will be revisiting this challenge in the coming days and weeks, as time allows. Unfortunately, time is ever short. Although we can allow hours and half-days for working the soil between tending the animals, studies for school, work off the farm, cooking and leisure, we can no longer give whole days to any one project of challenge.

For now we are looking forward to Saturday, when Cynthia will be facilitating a Composting class at the Gardens of Babylon nursery at the Nashville Farmers Market. Please join us at 10:00 am if you are in the neighborhood.

Tennessee State Flower

A 2011 addition, still wet from early rains.

How fortuitous that Tennessee's state flower, the iris, is also one of my favorites. Not only are iris beautiful, but also they are forgiving. No plant that requires coddling survives long in my care. Happily, iris thrive on the little attention I supply. When plants become over crowded, I notice and thin them out. Given half a chance, the plants survive the disruption and go on to flourish in their new spot. True, having the chickens continually kicking about at new transplants can be challenging for the plants, but those that make it--and most all do survive--are hardier for their trials.

Another 2011 addition.

This spring I thinned out some of the iris that were settled along the side of our driveway when we moved in. Those plants coming directly from the original plot were resettled along the driveway in chicken-kickin' territory. Those plants that had been thinned out in 2009 and were being thinned again, they got transplanted to the far side of the fence. When the gate is shut, those plants are safe. When we get lazy and leave it open, well, the chickens just love to turn the as-yet-unpestered straw.

Transplanted thinly three years ago, this bed is now congested.

As it is, most of the iris here are either dark purple or lavender. The latter have proliferated over the past few years. To jazz things up, I have added some new plants, but none that are ready to be divided again this soon.

Another 2011 addition.

In a year or two, we should have purples--light and dark--strewn for much of the length of the driveway. Then, in a few more years, I hope to intersperse those with some of the more recent additions, as they multiply and become ready to be divided. The colors of springtime will be here to greet us for many years to come. For this, I am most thankful.

TN State Iris Garden

Entrance to a Tennessee State Iris Garden in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee.

The other day I stopped to visit the Tennessee State Iris Garden out on Central Pike. When I visited a year ago, I had spent some time exploring the plantings and chatting with the owner, Katie, who—in many ways—reminds me of my mother. Although it had been a year since I stopped, and although the spot gets a myriad of visitors, Katie remembered me and welcomed me back. I was glad to be back; delighted, in fact.

As the iris I bought from Katie last year all got distributed among friends, nary a one actually planted on our farm, I made a point to buy fewer than a dozen in hopes that I would be able to tuck them all into the earth before being tempted to share. Limiting myself was an exercise in restraint, well aided by a lack of available funds, and I had tagged my limit in short order.

This year Katie gave me a roll of fluorescent tape (not sticky), and the requisite notebook and pen. The plan was to tie a bit of the tape around stems of flowers I wanted, but since she only had one color of tape handy, I added my initials to the flags I set so as not to confuse them with plants marked by others. The notebook was to track the names & descriptions of the flowers I chose. (Once our beds get full enough to make sales from—daylilies coming soon, folks!—I shall have to adopt her idea of asking customers to tag plants to be dug. So clever!)

Some of Miss Katie's iris beds.

Thanks to our recent rains the rows between the beds were boggy in places, so I promptly removed my shoes and placed them on her electric cart to follow us. With pants rolled up, I was ready to work. 

Although last year I think I was focused on pinks, blues, and maroon-colored flowers, this year I was shopping for yellows and peachy-oranges to complement the brown and rust colored flowers we recently obtained from Dirt Dawg Nursery. Even so, I walked away with a purple or two, a highly-ruffled pink, and a delightful maroon.

The newest plants tucked into a bed.

Building the bed for these beauties took longer than the last, but was accomplished within a few days. The location is temporary; the plants will get moved within a few years to more permanent locations. For now, though, all of our showy, named irises are in one area, while those without names (often with few ruffles) are set around the yard for show. Those nameless plants either came with the farm or were acquired from Master Gardener friends. As they multiply, I will dig them to share with other Master Gardener friends.

Butterfly Precursors

A milkweed plant.

Today I noticed a smattering of milkweed plants growing in a pasture. Ever since I was young, the sight of milkweed plants brings to mind tiger swallowtail butterflies because milkweed is a plant their caterpillars use for feed and onto which a butterfly-to-be will often attach its chrysalis. (Once I learned this about the plant, tiger swallowtails became my first mental association with it--and the bursting-open dried milkweed pods that release seeds floating on silky umbrellas became only a second association.)

A caterpillar-sculpted milkweed plant.

The next time I happened through that section of land, I looked more closely and noticed that one of the plants already had scoop-sculpted leaves--a telltale sign of the plant being used for food. Stepping closer, I spotted two fat and sassy caterpillars feeding voraciously upon the quickly-disappearing plant. Of course, my camera was not in my pocket--where in belonged--but somewhere else.

A caterpillar feasts on milkweed.

By the time I worked my way back to the plant with camera in hand, later in the day, I could only spot one caterpillar waiting to pose for photographs. And there he is! (Above: orange arrow points to caterpillar on the underside of a milkweed leaf.)

May 10th: Nine days later, this caterpillar prepares to metamorphose into a chrysalis.