Author: sylvanend

Growing in the Garden: Bunnies!

Soon after the gardening season got under way in the spring, I was watering the potatoes when I heard a very loud, hysterical squeal!  What the………..I had my guesses… so I got a long stick and started poking around in the straw.  Sure enough…bunny nest!  Well, I worried over the bunnies for several days, kept poking open the nest and half hoping it would cause the mother to move them away to a safer place.  I lay awake at night thinking of this year’s garden philosophy, working WITH nature, not against it.  And then I would dream about what wonderful compost bunnies might turn into…circle of life and all that!  Finally I decided to  just deal with it and let them alone.  I had visions of the whole family setting up their dining room in our garden, but one day I picked a couple of the little guys up and held them, and they jumped out of my hand and ran away.  The others followed, and I didn’t see them again!  Now the deer…..umm, that’s another story!

What’s your favorite melon to grow in the garden?

It’s been years since I’ve tried to grow cantaloup, but this year, my motto was:  “Try everything!”  I bought some plants at Early May and wound up with a few melons that looked like this (and a few that looked oddly shaped and never made it past the golf ball size).  I can’t even begin to describe the thrill of seeing YOUR OWN MELONS growing right there before your eyes! I had to really discipline myself to wait until I thought the first one might be ripe (Who knew it would be so hard to know when the thing was ripe?).  Turns out I could have waited a few more days on that first one, but it was still sheer bliss when I cut it open and saw the orange firm flesh and tons of little seeds……a “real” melon, grown from my own fingertips (and Earl May!).

This particular variety was not very sweet (don’t remember the name and I didn’t write it down…ooops), even when it was quite ripe.  Do any of you have a favorite variety of melon you’ve grown?  What’s the sweetest musk melon you’ve ever tasted?

Double Digging is for the Birds!

I dug potatoes the other day and right now, as I write (11:09pm,) I am boiling up some of the ones that got nicked by the spade.  I’m planning a bedtime snack of mashed potatoes to calm my heartburn from the homemade pizza sauce I had for supper!

Although most of the summer we’ve had a shortage of rain bordering on drought,  a recent welcomed shower plus the fact that we did double digging in the spring made digging the potatoes pretty easy.  You’ll also see straw at the back of this photo which we used to cover seed potatoes that we planted very shallowly.  The straw was wonderful for keeping the weeds down and the moisture in, but I’m not sure it did a lot for the size of the harvest.

Double digging is part of the method for John Jeavons’ Grow More Vegetables that inspired our garden.  In the lower right of the photo you see one of the digging boards that Steven made for us.  As you double dig, you stand on the board to spread your weight and keep from compacting the soil.  It was a lot of work, and when everyone else is planting and you are “still digging”, you can be tempted to give up, but the pay off later in the gardening season is worth it.

For several days in April  as we loosened the soil to a depth of about 12 inches, a robin kept us company, enjoying the worms and grubs we exposed.  So I guess double digging is not just for the garden, it’s for the birds too!

Ok, now I am off to soothe my stomach with some mashed potatoes.  🙂

Row cover, a gardener’s best friend

At the Ames  community gardening plots, there are lots of….well…challenges.  The plots are nestled in a pretty setting between two patches of woods behind the Iowa Department of Transportation.  I loved the way the woods provided shelter on some of the windy days this summer, but woods also provide nice habitat for deer and woodchucks! I’ve heard people complain about deer in Ames, but being an apartment dweller, I’ve never had to deal with their eating habits until now.  So, garden cover to the rescue!  People often ask me, “What is all that white fabric laying around your garden?”

My first garden in Ames was at the ISU Student Organic Farm when it was located on Mortenson Road.  One of the reasons I came to Iowa State was because it had a Graduate Program in Sustainable Agriculture and I eagerly went to Borders and bought several books on organic gardening.  Row cover was suggested for solving critter problems in the garden, including mammals, birds and insects.   It’s not something you can usually find at big box stores.  This year I found mine at Earl May over on 16th street.

The photo above shows what is also called “floating row cove”r over my little patch of sweet potatoes.  I was pretty sure deer were making a salad out of this after I saw the vines snipped off and hoof prints all around!

I also covered peas and beans (I pulled the row cover aside for these photos so you could see what is underneath.)  I wanted both of these to climb, however, and after inserting some bamboo stakes, it was hard to keep the cover in place.  I finally decided the tender plants were out of danger and removed the cover all together….and…..you guessed it…….SOMEONE snipped everything off!  It doesn’t pay to get careless as a gardener….shoulda kept my best friend right there in place!

Spinach, America

Spinach?  You say you wouldn’t be caught dead eating it?  Spinach has come a long way since our mothers tried to get us to eat the stuff out of the can!  Of course, their mothers probably got to eat it fresh out of the garden, and unless you’ve tasted it fresh out of the garden, well….you haven’t REALLY tasted spinach.

It all started with Larry Cleverley’s early spring pop up market in Des Moines.  He tweeted his location, and all of a sudden, I just had to drive down there.  You know, you’ve been counting the days until the farmers market opens, and all of a sudden you have the opportunity to get a taste of one a couple of weeks before you expected!

I bought a large bag of this spinach, which Larry says had overwintered from last year.  I stir-fried it in a little oil, just until it wilted, and then added salt.  Oh man, I couldn’t even get it on the plate before I had eaten it half gone!  And do you notice how this spinach looks different from the baby spinach leaves you see in the clam shell at the store?  It turns out the term for these “wrinkled” leaves is savoyed, as in deep green savoyed leaves.  For some reason, the texture of this spinach is so much more appealing to me than the flat clam shell leaves that stick together in a blob.  Now the key to eating greens, I’ve found, is not making yourself eat too much of this good thing.  Think of your greens almost as a garnish, two or three bite fulls.  The rest of my bag of green delight went into a quiche.

And all of this finally brings me to Seed Savers Exchange and my dream of fall spinach in my own garden.  As I was wandering around the Seed Savers demonstration gardens, I saw it…..dark green savoyed leaves!  Yes…spinach!  The variety is called America.

I bought a packet of seeds and dream every night of spinach omelets and wilted spinach with salt and maybe even some crumbled bacon.  My only question now is when I should sow it for a fall crop and should I start it under my grow lights or direct sow outdoors.  Any ideas fellow gardeners?

Seed Savers Exchange


My sister said let’s plan something exciting for my birthday.  For some people that might mean a hot air balloon ride or a trip to the windy city, but I have a passion for green, and one of the first things that popped into my mind was visiting a location on my Life List: Seed Savers Exchange in Decorah, Iowa.  If you have ever had their catalog,  you’ve probably spent hours lusting over the vegetables and getting engrossed in the stories behind many of the heirloom seeds.  I wanted to see “where the magic happens”!

The first photo shows some of the demonstration gardens that are located near the visitor center and huge gift shop.  The second photo we accessed by driving back a ways into the property, where the real magic happens.  I assume this is a production field that is obviously not very far along in the first week of June.  We did not take time for the walking tour, which might have given us more information and a better idea of what really goes on, but my mission, besides just getting there, was to see what they use for trellising and to SHOP!