How Much Should I Plant?

Every once in a while I wonder how much food I would need to plant in the garden every year if my family depended on that alone to feed us.   It's an interesting question and one I'm very glad I don't have to answer definitively.    We like the grocery store.

However, I thought you'd find it interesting and helpful to have a few of these lists handy for reference, in case you ever want to know just how much garden we're talking about.  As you read through the lists, notice the large differences.

In the end, just like everything else in life, the answer to How much should I plant? is  .....it depends.  

Note:   I don't grow nearly this amount of food and if you're just starting out, don't be overwhelmed.   Remember, two tomato plants is better than no garden at all.   Gardening is about learning growing skills just as much as it is about final yields.  

Start small and build.

Some of these sites plan for rows, but many are adaptable for square foot gardening.

• The Well Fed Homestead has a good list here.
• Here's a list from New Life on a Homestead. 
• About.com has a list that suggests significantly smaller amounts of plants. 
• Here's a site all about planning the veg garden.

Bald Eagle

Not a great pic, but you can see that white head.  This guy was flying the thermals over our area last week and I happened to have the camera when we noticed him.  It looked like he was headed toward the wetlands southwest of us.

They've come back here since the restoration of Goose Pond NWR began and I once saw one flying over the Wabash River up north.   I never thought I'd see one flying over this place though. 

Lucky day.

Rhubarb!

It's rhubarb season - Yay!!    We love rhubarb.   Last year we got a bumper crop, that we chopped and froze and we're still working on those bags while this year's stalk get bigger.  [Our last big freeze set things back some...]

Rhubarb is a perennial plant that is easy to grow as long as it gets plenty of rich soil.  It does not like clay.   It does like sand and it loves manure.    I put mine in raised beds with lots of sand and every spring I dump some chicken dirt around it.   We're well rewarded every year.

Here is a list of wonderful rhubarb recipes for you to try this year.  You'll notice we like to mix berries with rhubarb. It's a Midwestern thing. 

• Strawberry Rhubarb pie - our favorite!
• Rhubarb Flaunard - it's like a clafouti, which is like a fruit custard.  Delicious!
• Berry Rhubarb Crisp
• Rhubarb Marmalade
• Strawberry Rhubarb Jam - great with vanilla, too!
• Strawberry Rhubarb Cream Cheese Coffee Cake - also fantastic with plain rhubarb.

Check out these links, too.

• Food in Jars has a post listing 10 ways to use or preserve rhubarb.  They look fantastic!
• Here's a link to how to freeze or can rhubarb in 6 easy steps.

Trout Lilies

We have huge colonies of these around here.  They are trout lilies - Erythronium americanum. Thousands and thousands of leaves carpeting the floor of the woods - but relatively few blooms.  They are also called Dog Tooth Violets, because their bulb resembles the tooth of a dog. 

We get excited to see them flowering, and they are actually really interesting wildflowers.  

The wiki page says that they can grow in large colonies up to 300 years old.  

According to this page at ediblewildfood.com, they are both medicinal and edible.  The leaves can be eaten as a salad green, but not in large quantities.   They have a symbiotic relationship with ants.   They grow mostly from runners rather than seed dispersal. 

Here's the page from the Lady Bird Johnson wildflower site.  Note:  their picture is wrong because true trout lilies have only one pair of leaves and one flower per plant.    I don't know what variety their picture is of - unless someone picked a bouquet and photoed that. 

MREs for Bug Out Bags

So, remember  a while back when we were doing our Bug Out Bags?  

I was all set except to pack the food.  I finally remembered to order our MREs.  

I got a one week supply [21 meals]  of MREs from Emergency Essentials.   This pack did not include heaters, so I also got a dozen MRE heaters so we could have hot food if we need it.   The food choices are widely varied and random, so you don't know what you're going to get, but you can't beat the price - on sale for $84.99.

A reader got this set from Readymeal.com and her set did include the heaters. 12 meals for $69.95. 

The prices for MREs are all over the place, so shop around.  

Tick-Borne Diseases

It's tick season.    We were hoping that our winter from hell would have killed most of them, but apparently not.   They're as numerous as ever so far.

The pic shows our most common ticks on my hand.   The trick is to pay attention to your tickles and itches and to check those spots right away.  Most tick-borne diseases require the tick to be attached for a long time for transmission.   The sooner you pick them off, the better.   Don't panic if you find one attached though....it takes 48 hours for a tick to give you Lyme Disease. 

Here's a terrific publication by the CDC all about ticks and the diseases they transmit. http://www.cdc.gov/lyme/resources/TickborneDiseases.pdf

Goose Pond in April

It's no wonder the ducks and cranes and pelicans love this place.  Those open expanses of shining water and grass are enchanting.   It's pretty in the morning mist.

Pussy Willow

Willows are easy to ignore out here because they're everywhere.  But willows with these blooms are unmistakably pussy willows [Salix discolor].   

I never noticed these pussy willows before this year.  A little group of them is growing in the ditch along our road - in a wet spot, of course.   And this year they were covered with bees.









Bees!  

We're still waiting on our new ones [all three of our hives died in the cold this year], so the bees that covered these bushes belong to the swarm that absconded or to the neighbors.    We have two neighbors within a mile or so who have bees now.   

I want more of these bushes, so I cut a bunch of twigs and put them in a jar of water to root.   Now, I just have to find a good damp spot to stick them once they root....and that shouldn't be too hard around here.

The Barn down the Way

The barn down the way is beginning to crumble.   This is what it looked like last year.

It's lost a lot more of the old metal roofing and the extra snow and cold this year really took its toll.  You can still see the last load of hay that went in there.  

Last Year's Cattails

Here's a pic of some of last year's cattails [Typha sp] that reside in the swamp down the way from us.   I like cattails because they're sculptural - they give structure to a wild wetland garden.   They grow on the edges with the sedges, so it's easy to see where the water is shallow [and mucky.]

I didn't realize they had so many names.  Here's a blurb from wiki:

These plants have many common names. They may be known in British English as bulrush, or reedmace, in American English as cattail, catninetail, punks, or corn dog grass, in Australia as cumbungi or bulrush, and in New Zealand as raupo. Other taxa of plants may be known as bulrush, including some sedges in Scirpus and related genera.

I had heard that they were edible, but didn't realize the extent of their usefulness.  

Also from wiki: 
The rhizomes are edible. Evidence of preserved starch grains on grinding stones suggests they were eaten in Europe 30,000 years ago...    Many parts of the Typha plant are edible to humans. The starchy rhizomes are nutritious with a protein content comparable to that of maize or rice. They can be processed into a flour...They are most often harvested from late autumn to early spring. They are fibrous, and the starch must be scraped or sucked from the tough fibers. Plants growing in polluted water can accumulate lead and pesticide residues in their rhizomes, and these should not be eaten.  The outer portion of young plants can be peeled and the heart can be eaten raw or boiled and eaten like asparagus. This food has been popular among the Cossacks in Russia, and has been called "Cossack asparagus". The leaf bases can be eaten raw or cooked, especially in late spring when they are young and tender. In early summer the sheath can be removed from the developing green flower spike, which can then be boiled and eaten like corn on the cob. In mid-summer when the male flowers are mature, the pollen can be collected and used as a flour supplement or thickener.

Here's another interesting page all about cattails.

Happy Spring

The tulip trees - Liriodendron tulipifera - are starting to show buds.  It must really be spring.

Ode to a Country Road in Spring

A rural sonnet to celebrate an annual spring event.

We live for mud and potholes









Rural Sonnet #3

Our roads out here are covered in debris -
A winter's worth of cracks and holes and pits,
The asphalt honeycombed with fissures wee
and great. A mire in the center sits
In wait to swallow whole the car or truck
That dares to venture far into the wild
And messy reaches of the mud and muck
Unleashed by winter - by the monster child
Of spring, whose tantrums roar and wail in rain
And wind and hail, whose clutching, sucking, grasp
Refuses to let go who tries in vain
to travel here. Avoid the miring clasp
of country roads in spring. Far better yet
to wait a month or two until mud's set.


Yep.   For more rural poetry, see Sonnet #1 here  and Sonnet #2 here.   Enjoy.

In the Woods

The creeks have been completely ice free for a few weeks now.  The water is running cold and clear and the moss is greening.

Bloodroot [Sanguinaria canadensis] is coming up in the woods.    First the flowers, then the leaves.   Since our weather got hot fast, the leaves on these came out before the flowers had fully opened or faded. 

Bloodroot is one of those plants that the ancients believed was governed by the Doctrine of Signatures.  

Here is what a modern herbal says about it.   Mostly, you should remember that it is poisonous.

P.S.  They say it's good for dyeing, but you'd have to gather a whole lot of it and since it uses the root, you'd be destroying the plant.   I don't harvest it ever because the colonies are very small around here and I want it to spread. 

Pelicans at Goose Pond

Goose Pond NWR is not far from us and we like to pop over every once in a while to see what new birds we can see.      We love our water birds, so we were excited to see these guys last weekend.   They are American white pelicans.     So beautiful in flight.      Claire snapped this pic as they flew from one pond to another.

Gorgeous.

Here's another pic of some pelicans.   The day we were here, they counted a flock of 1500 pelicans.   That is the largest number of pelicans ever for Indiana.  They were first recorded in Indiana in 1887, so this isn't their first time here, but until 2004, the number stayed below 52.   Then BAM, they re-discovered the midwest and the numbers have been climbing ever since. 

We also saw some northern shovelers.   Apparently it's been a spectacular year for ducks, too, at Goose Pond.  


Here's the Friends of Goose Pond site, if you are interested in what else goes on out here.

Daffodil Field

We've been planting daffodils in this field for a long time.    This is the time of year when we're happy we did it.   

Persistence

You may have to blow the pic to fully appreciate the site these daylilies have chosen to come up in.   There's a large colony coming up right through some asphalt down the way from us.  

A testament to persistence in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

Just grow. 

Hot Cross Buns

It's Easter soon!    Yay!   I'm not a big fan of baskets of candy, or hard boiled eggs, but I love hot cross buns.  

Love them!

And they're easy to make, too, which is good because otherwise, forget it.   I'm sure you feel that way, too.  

Robin's Hot Cross Buns
www.rurification.com

• 6 ½ C flour
• 3 tsp cardamom or cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice
• 1 tsp sea or kosher salt
• 1-2 ¼ C mixed dried fruit, chopped:  cherries, citrus, currants, raisins, craisins, apricots, etc. 

Mix all of that together in a large bowl [big enough to mix all the dough in]  leaving a well in the center and put it in the oven to warm up.   Use the lowest oven setting.   

• ½ C butter
• 2 C milk
• 1 C sugar
• 5 tsp yeast

Melt butter.  Take off heat.   Add milk.   The milk should warm up to skin temp quickly in the pan.   In another bowl, mix the dry yeast and the sugar well.   Add the sugar and yeast to the milk/butter mix and stir well.   Let sit until yeast dissolves.  

• 2 large eggs lightly beaten.

When the flour mixture is good and warm and the yeast is dissolved in the milk,  pour the yeast mix and the eggs in the flour mix.  Roll to mix using a large spoon or your hands.   Roll until all the flour is incorporated into the dough.   If the dough is too sticky, add a bit more flour.   If it is too dry, add  warm [not hot] water 1 tsp at a time until it is right.     Handle the dough as little as possible for tender bread.  

Cover bowl with damp cloth.  Let rise until double.

Pull dough out on floured surface.   Divide into 24 balls.   Set balls on greased baking pan close together but not touching.   

Let rise 30-45 minutes until doubled and touching.   Pre-heat oven to 500° F.

Egg Glaze: 

• 1 large egg, beaten
• 1 Tb milk

Cut surface of rolls in cross, brush with egg glaze. 

Traditionally the cross is put on before baking.  That's what I did.  OR  you can leave the topping off and put icing crosses on after they’re baked and cooled.  

Pre-baking Topping:

• ¼ C flour
• 1 T sugar
• 3-4 T water

Mix well in bowl.   Spoon or pipe onto cross.   Put in oven and turn the temp down to 400°.   Bake 15-20 minutes until golden brown.

Post-baking-and-cooling

Icing:

• 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons milk

Muscle Tree

These trees always look very muscular to me.   It's an ironwood tree. Carpinus caroliniana - or the hop hornbeam.  They're very hard and were used to make ship parts. 

We have a lot of these in our woods.  They aren't very large, but they take a long time to grow.  I liked the moss on the bottom of this one.

Old Tires

I thought this pile of tires was rather sculptural.

It certainly brings up the question of what to do with old tires - there are a lot of old tires out here. Lots of them.    You'll be glad to know that this bunch did not get burned with the rest of the old shed that they were pulled out of. 

I don't know what the owners plan on doing with them, but I thought it might be fun to see what others do with old tires, so here is a list of links to projects using old tires.  You'll get a kick out of them.

Here is a list of images that came up in a search for 'project old tire'.  Amazing.

Here is a collection of ideas from Pinterest.  And here's another, even more fun  Pinterest board.

Check out the sculptures at the bottom of this post.

Here are some garden ideas.

This is one of the best lists of all - super creative things here.

And I loved the chairs and the climbing wall in this list.

Just a note:   From what I've seen and read, it is perfectly safe to grow food in old tires and that there is no leaching.  However, there are loads of people out there that are sure you're going to kill us all if you plant in tires.  Do your own research first, if you're nervous. 

Tree Crystals

OK, they're not really crystals, but the cellular structure of this fallen tree really reminds me of a square crystalline structure. 

It's a red oak.   Blow the pics up for a better look.

The white is a fungus - spalting - between the layers of wood.

The tree fell in a mighty wind this winter.  It had been rotting for a long time and you could see right through it at the bottom. [See top link]

It's an interesting way to see wood.  Not like looking at boards or firewood at all. 

At last

We've planted hundreds of daffs over the years.   They're finally up and blooming this year.  Such a relief.

Woodpecker Tree

Something's been working this dead tree over.   I'm guessing a woodpecker, but if you recognize that this artwork is from something else, shout it out in the comments.   I've been wrong before.

Must be something really tasty in the center of this tree. 

The Cows at the End of the Road

These are the cows at the end of the road, where we turn around and head back home on our daily walk.   There are a bunch of calves with them now and while we watched a dozen or so decided to play a game of tag.  They chased each other around for a while while the adults just watched.  

I moo-ed a loud greeting.   They ignored me. 

Owl

There is a small section of woods at our property boundary where we hear owls quite frequently and where last fall we even watched one for a while.


Last week we saw what we thought was a large owl or maybe a hawk fly down this draw and alight on a branch in the dead center of this photo.   I snapped the pics [no telephoto...] and couldn't wait to get them home to blow them up to see what this bird was.

Indeed it was a large owl.   This is a barred owl, staring straight at us.  

Owls are a very different type of bird to watch.   Other birds may be still, but they are very active in their presence.    If you know what I mean.   Owls are .....very still. 

And when they get going, they are very noisy.   Barred owls' typical call is 'Who cooks for youuuu?  Who cooks for youu-alll?'   But they can also sound like monkeys hooting and calling.  Seriously.   It's weird and creepy in the dark. 

Lily and I heard a couple of these guys calling each other in this thicket last fall at dusk and it'd make your hair stand on end.

Like coyotes, only ghostlier. 

Cornell Lab of Ornithology [allaboutbirds.org] has some recordings:  Here. Go to the Sound tab in the bottom section.

We also get other owls, like these adorable little eastern screech-owls [which don't really screech, they tremolo and whinny].    And the occasional great horned owl.  We also might get barn owls, but they hiss, so the call is difficult to hear over the other night sounds like cicadas and crickets.   It's noisy here at night.

Big Stump

I pass this stump every day on my walk.   It has been decaying for a long time and the textures are wonderful.



Blow it up and wander around the photo for a while.   Imagine you're looking at a mountainside.  The crags and crevices are something else.

More Squill

More squill.

Because it's pretty.

The world needs more pretty.

Asparagus Bed

They look sort of like a handful of dried mini-squid, but really it's a handful of dormant, bare-root asparagus plants. We got 24 plants of Martha Washington asparagus and put them in their new home last week.

[This will be a permanent spot for the asparagus.   I'll load it up on chicken dirt in the fall.] 

First I dug the bed over well to loosen the soil, then we dug three trenches longways in the bed - about 8 inches deep.    Then we opened the roots out and put the plants in.  

Then we covered the plants over lightly with about 6 inches of soil - leaving the rest in hills between the trenches.   When new growth appears, we'll cover them the rest of the way and plant some parsley, basil and some mixed flowers in there for company.   

Doesn't look like much now, but it should be gorgeous in July. 

Red Flat Bark Beetle

This guy showed up on my steps this week and that bright color caught my eye right away.    It's a Red Flat Bark Beetle - Cucujus clavipes

Turns out they are a species with extreme freezing tolerance.   Which explains why it's one of the few bugs we've seen this spring. 

Except for the flies.   And those horrible Asian ladybugs.  Both of which will survive the next global apocalypse, I'm sure. 

Anyway, this red guy survives the cold by utilizing a series of antifreeze proteins in its body.   Cool! 

or rather....Cold!

Squill

Siberian Squill.

I just love it.   

I love the color.   Blue, blue, blue with that purple tinge on the stems.  

Love. It.

Kumquats

Confession.   I think kumquats are adorable.

A. Dor. A. Ble.

So I've been wanting to preserve some for a long time.   Just 'cause they're cute.

Even though I didn't know what they actually tasted like. 

Especially when I found a few links to some kumquat jam recipes at Food in Jars. [halfway down the link list in that post.]   Seriously beautiful food. 

So, when I found these tiny ones at Trader Joe's up in Indy last weekend, I grabbed a box, then came home and preserved a very small batch - just one pint jar - with honey and vanilla.

I'm going to just come right out and say this:  Kumquats are weird. 

The peels are the sweet fruity part and the insides are sour.   Very sour.   They're sort of an inside out marmalade experience - you know, the citrus, sour, bitter mashup.   They need sugar and lots of it.

Here's how I preserved these beauties:

Kumquat Preserves
www.rurification.com

12 oz. box of kumquats, washed, with stem bits removed.
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup sugar
1 vanilla bean, sliced so the seeds are exposed

Bring to boil, then reduce heat to simmer.  Let simmer until peels are transparent - about an hour.

It made just one pint.

Notes:    I was hoping that they'd keep their shape, and they probably would have if I hadn't cooked them so long.

I cooked them so long because that's the best way to candy those peels.  The longer they cook in sugar water, the better they taste.

They're still pretty puckery.   You could leave out the water and add another 1/4 - 1/2 cup of honey and probably get a nice and very balanced preserve.  Next time I find some of these, I'm going to try that.