November in the North is one of my favorite times to garden (second, of course, to the whole of spring). The frost is come. There are still carrots to dig and greens to pluck, but things are much quieter. It is time to put the bulk of our beds to sleep, which, as a no-till gardener, means piling as much easily-decaying organic material as possible over the soil, a task I find very satisfying.
This is how I get my beds ready for bed:
1. Pull or chop down plants as their seasons pass and lay them on their sides for more soil cover. If you are converting a grassy area to a place for food-growing (a great idea!) put your bigger, tougher plants over the grass (expect a post on the topic of creating new beds soon).
2. As the leaves fall, pile them onto the sleeping parts of your garden. A layer of leaves a foot high is ideal, but less will do (you can always bulk up mulch in the spring). If you, like me, don’t have trees or a yard to gather them from, I recommend making use of the leaves your neighbors put on the side of the street for the city to pick up. Even better, offer to rake your neighbor’s yard!
3. Mark the location of any perennials you will need to keep in mind come spring planting (or skip this and suffer the consequences as I will likely do.)
4. Get a cup of warm tea and a sweater and spend part of a sunny afternoon in your fading garden before the snows come. Reflect on the things that thrived and those that didn’t, the things you were most excited to eat and what became tiresome, the benefits and drawbacks to the location of this and that. Write these things down, the greater specificity, the better. We may think our memories are indelible, but we are wrong.
Enjoy the quiet,
Lindsey
A lot of time can be spent staring at one’s own garden. At least by me. I make notes of improvements to make for next year, admire my greatest successes, and, invariably, try not to dwell on the spaces that show neglect too clearly*. Of course, my favorite places to stare are at my greatest successes. And this year my favorite place to stare is my cucumber trellis.
A cucumber trellis is an easy thing to make: cucumbers are audacious climbers (just stay away from bush varieties). As long as there is a vertical support slender enough to wrap their little tentacles around, the cucumbers will climb and climb all season long. As for us, we simply stapled chicken wire to a wooden frame and leaned it against our home (bonus: the extra shade from the leaves helps keep things just a little bit cooler). It is light, easy to move around from year to year, and, truth-be-told, I like the look of it, rustic though it might be. And as with all vertical gardening, it allows you high yields in very little space and the plant plenty of sun and good air.
Do you grow cucumbers? Do you grown them vertically? Have you ever seen vining vegetables grown in a way that took vertical gardening from practical to beautiful? Please share! I would love to hear about it.
Happy August harvests,
Lindsey
*This year it is the slumping paste tomatoes that I had intended to trellis and never did. Failures caused by laziness are the most disheartening, I think. But every year there will be failures, and important thing is to keep your chin up, to try again, and to love your garden as it is. At least you have the gumption to give it a go.
My little garden and all the parkways and yards and neglected sidewalks of my town are covered in snow, but somehow my calender says we are a third of the way through March. I think it snuck up on all of us this year.
If you live in my part of the country, March is the time to start most of your seeds for spring planting. Starting plants indoors from seed used to intimidate me (especially nightshades like eggplant, tomatoes, and peppers). A lot of the instructions I read were complicated and involved specialized equipment. And I failed. I failed often. I’m not a natural green thumb. So I gave up on growing tomatoes from seeds. Plants from the farmer’s market treated me just fine.
Last year I finally gave it another hesitant go. I bought a very modest variety of seeds to start indoors, rationalizing that if they didn’t survive, I would only be out $10. But they grew into gorgeous, fruitful plants. I was thrilled. The satisfaction of picking a tomato from a plant I grew from seed was a beautiful thing indeed.
If you haven’t bought your seeds, yet, now is the time. My two favorite sources are Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds and Seed Savers Exchange (both beautiful catalogs pictured above).
A couple seeds I’m excited about?
-I have eaten Pimiento De Padron twice before. It was a few years ago, and I never learned their name. They were unforgettable. Delicious.
-I have only recently fallen in love with yellow carrots like Amarillo, but I have fallen hard.
-And I never cease to be amazed by Baker Creek’s watermelon selection.
I’ll stop myself there, otherwise I could go on for pages about seeds. If you haven’t ordered your seeds yet, make haste and have fun! If you have, what seeds are you excited about this year?
When I first saw purslane in my home vegetable garden, I thought it was a succulent perennial that had been planted ornamentally by our house’s previous owner. It was popping up all over the place, and I thought it was rather novel, a succulent growing so eagerly in Wisconsin (clearly I am new to gardening). Impressed by the funny stuff, I showed my dad.
“Oh, that’s just a regular weed,” he said. “It grows everywhere.”
“Everywhere?”
“We’ve got tons of it in our garden at home. We can’t pull it up fast enough.”
So I pulled it up with all my other weeds.
Then, mulling around the local farmer’s market, I saw that funny weed of mine for sale. It was labeled by a piece of cardboard that said, “Purslane.” When I got home, I pulled some out of my garden and ate it. It was delicious.
My dad was right, purslane (portulaca oleracea) is a weed, and it does grow everywhere. But it is also good eating and packs a nutritional punch to boot; it contains more Omega 3- fatty acids than any other leafy vegetable! You can cook it up as you would cook spinach, add it to stir-fry, eggs, soups or salads. Or you can just munch on it as you see it (which is pretty much what I do). The taste is leafy and slightly lemony. I love it.
As a bonus, purslane is easy to identify, particularly if you live a in wet northern climate as I do where very few succulents grow naturally. I see them often in sidewalk cracks and on borders, but there favorite place seems to be home gardens!
After I heard that purslane was useful as a companion plant, I was sold- I no longer weed it in my home garden, and it has yet to obstruct the other crops in any way. It gives me something to munch on while I weed. Next year, I am even considering cultivating the plant intentionally.
Happy munching!
Lindsey
If you are in the South-Central Wisconsin area, the Allen Centennial Gardens at the University of Wisconsin, Madison are a must-see this summer. During my days at university, the gardens were a favorite retreat. They were little rooms of peace and loveliness in the midst of an always-bustling campus. I recently caught wind that they made an effort this year to incorporate edible landscaping. So, of course, I went out and saw what they were up too. And I was so glad I did!
To anyone who thinks you have to compromise beauty for the utility of edibles, the gardens will quickly show you another way. Even the “kitchen garden” (see photo at top of page) is full of lush textures and colors. Elsewhere, corn mingles with brilliant sunflowers and amaranth in the “sunny annual garden,” herbs are everywhere, and even the formal “French garden” is laden with kale.
(French Gardens)
(square-foot gardens)
(sunny annual garden)
The Allen Centennial Gardens are open from dawn to dusk. You can find them at 620 Babcock Drive in Madison, Wisconsin. Do yourself a favor and stop by. Your mind will be reeling with the possibilities!
Happy garden-walking!
Lindsey
The first thing the guerrilla gardener needs is a piece of land, specifically, a piece of land that doesn’t belong to them. That means you need to go out and find it! There is something wonderful about this first step in the process. Your town opens up to you in ways you haven’t seen it before. All of a sudden, all around you, all you see is possibility after possibility.
I spent a good deal of time this season walking the alleys and parking lots and other forgotten corners of our town, my son in the stroller, a spade in my hand. Even though my guerrilla garden is a little bit pathetic (a healthy pumpkin and a runt of a zucchini plant), it is a first step and I am proud of my start, no matter how small. Afterall, food is still being grown where it wasn’t grown before, and that is what this project is all about.
Get a map of your town and go for long walks in strange places. When you see a bit of land that stirs your gardening imagination, mark it down on your map. You will see a lot and, if you have my memory, will quickly forget where. Here are a few guidelines to get you on the right track.
Things to look for when scouting out your guerrilla plot:
- Sunshine- Most herbs, fruits, and veggies need a lot of light.
- Lush Weeds- If the weeds don’t like that soil, your tender plants certainly won’t.
- A Convenient Location- You will hopefully be back to water and weed, so be sure it isn’t to much of a bother to get there.
- Exposure to the Elements- Be sure your plot gets plenty of rain. If your garden is sheltered by a roof, you will be doing a lot of watering!
- A Place that Needs Some Love.
Bonuses:
- Chain-link fences and narrow poles are perfect for pole beans.
- South-facing walls keep things nice and warm on cold nights.
Do Not:
- Do not plant anyplace that is well-tended and loved. Your neighbor’s flowerbed is not the place for your tomatoes. The best places to start are the forlorn places. Everyone can support an overgrown patch of weeds behind a gas station being turned into an eggplant grove. Not everyone wants their pristine green parkway taken hostage by someone with a hoe and some pea seeds. You’ve got to respect that.
- Do not plant anywhere that chemicals or other toxins are sprayed.
- Do not plant anywhere that omnivores/carnivores regularly defecate. This could spread parasites. Herbivore poop is just fine (it’s manure!).
- Do not plant in areas meant to be enjoyed in their natural state. A nature parks and national forests are not good places for your garden plot.
Happy scouting, friends! I hope the guerrilla gardening wheels in your head begin turning. Please comment with any questions, ideas, or stories you might have!
Lindsey
Is it too late for me to start a home garden? is a question I’ve heard a lot this June. Spring is a notoriously busy time of year, and it is often difficult to find the time to put in a new garden. Fortunately, you can start a garden in June and still get great harvests through autumn! Experienced growers often sow seeds throughout the season to extend their harvest, but this doesn’t work for all plants.
This is a very helpful guide to planting and harvesting times from Iowa State University. The times they give are based on hardiness zones 4b/5a. If that isn’t your hardiness zone, fudge the planting periods based on what you know about your climate, look for a guide suited to your area, or, better yet, ask a knowledgeable grower in your area. Here is my own little rundown on late-season planting in the 4/5 hardiness zones.
Plant Quickly: If you plant within the next week, you should be able to get a good harvest of…
-tomatoes (try and find a larger, more well-developed plant)
- cabbage (do not directly plant seeds, but buy healthy seedlings from a grower you trust)
- lima beans (you can sow the seeds directly)
- sweet corn (the sweeter the corn, the more it likes to be planted late)
-peppers (again, buy big, healthy plants from a local grower)
-eggplants (see above)
-muskmelon and watermelon
Plant Freely: Until August, you can easily plant…
-carrots
-beets and swiss chard
-zucchini and summer squash
-beans (both pole and bush)
-cucumbers
Wait and Plant: When August rolls around, you can put seeds in for an autumn harvest of…
-radishes
-lettuce
-spinach
-turnips
-peas
-kale and collard greens
It is not to late to start a garden! Look at your calender and gauge what you and your family can take on this year. Can you set aside a few big chunks of time to get a bed ready this week? Go for it and get all those delicious “plant quickly” vegetables in (I’ve got a hunch it will be a good year for tomatoes!). Will your schedule free up in a couple of weeks? Take your time preparing your beds and opt for those dependable mid-season plants. If you have a busy summer, prepare your beds, plant some autumn lettuce, and rest easy knowing that next spring, you will be ready!
Happy gardening,
Lindsey
I don’t know why so many people go through life unaware of juneberries. My guess is that it is because they are too delicious; juneberry eaters want to keep them a secret so that there is more for them (I know this is a temptation for me)!
Juneberries (amelanchier alnifolia also called serviceberries) are relatives of roses, and in mid-spring, the small, shrub-like trees are covered with pretty, white flowers. Cities often plant them in their parkways because they are so pleasant-looking and so manageable. Come early summer, those flowers will have turned into plump berries that taste like a cross between blueberries and peaches (at least that’s how they taste to me).
To identify: look for a small shrub-like tree with leaves like these. Look in places where one might find ornamental trees. In my town, we have them in a park or two and in a hospital parking-lot.
The unripe berries begin green, then ripen from red to purple. The purple berries are the ones you want to eat. Be sure that they are plump and juicy, not at all withered looking. The withered berries are old and will taste bitter.
Here in the upper-Midwest, the juneberries are ripe and ready. So get outside and feast! You can put them into jams and pies, but, in my opinion, the best way to eat a juneberry is right off the tree.
Happy foraging,
Lindsey
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This is a picture of a juneberry tree in its entirety. The tree farther along the roadside is also a juneberry tree. Some have a single trunk as the one in the background does (if you can see it); others have multiple trunks like the tree in the foreground. My rough estimate is that this tree is probably 12 to 15 feet high.
I hope this helps!
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