Old-fangled

I saw the first cantelope poke its head up today!

The last few weeks I've been having long, fun conversations with a friend across the street--about gardening, of course. She blogs at Me My Garden and I, and mostly she blogs about...you guessed it. Gardening. It's her favorite toy.

A month or so ago I planted kamut (a variety of ancient wheat) and hull-less oats in a test patch. That was going to be the limit of my experimentation this year (or at least my garden experimentation) but I decided to do Jerusalem Artichokes as well. I'm also trying no-till in the main garden, just to see how it works.

Next year I'll try spelt, and then white wheat the year after unless I find something else to play with.

Right now I have nineteen tomato plants in the ground and four of my potatoes are up. The melons (watermelon, cantaloupe, winter squash, cucumbers) are in the main garden, and in the boxes the peas, beets, broccoli, onions and greens are up. Greens going wild, of course. We can't eat the stuff fast enough. The garlic is growing like a weed. The zucchini won't go in until we figure out the sprinkler issues, since the sprinkler problem is right where the zucchini was SUPPOSED to go.

I planted the carrots today. Once it warms up a bit more I have two more tomatoes (both mortgage lifter) to go in the ground, as well as five bell peppers, two jalapenos, and a handful of habaneros which will be used ONLY for my first aid kit.

And one solitary lavender plant. One finally came up, although I'm probably jinxing it by saying that. :)

Everything heirloom, of course. I'm trying hard to keep the new-fangled stuff out of my garden. Everything I keep for seed is pollinated by hand so I know precisely what I'm getting. I really don't want to be accidentally eating bug killer genetically engineered into my corn because someone else decided to plant GMO's.

A rant for another time.

I guess I'm just old fashioned.

Lavender

Last year my lavender died. There's this one spot in my herb garden where nothing will grow, and I figured lavender is pretty hardy so I moved the lavender there. It promptly died.


Credit: Forest and Kim Starr - Plants of Hawaii

This winter I've been trying to start more lavender, but it never gets secondary leaves--it just dies.

So a few days ago I got four lavender plants from a neighbor who was going to throw them away. They are HUGE, and apparently haven't been thinned since they were planted. I gave them each a severe haircut and plunked them in the ground. :)

So this year I'll have lavender. Lots and lots of lavender.

Lavendula Officinalis or Lavendula augustifolia
Family: Lamiaceae (mint family)

Do not use lavender if you are allergic to anything else in the mint family. Hint: One way to tell if something is in the mint family is the square stems.

Do not use lavender (either internally or topically) if you are taking anti-depressant medications, narcotic pain relievers, or benzodiazipines (such as Atavan, Halcion, or Valium). Lavender can induce sleep, so resist using it with any medication that will cause drowsiness. Remember the usual warnings: herbs and drugs DO interact, so if you take two antidepressants together it doubles the effect and can have serious consequences. Don't do it. If you take a relaxant and a stimulant (such as coffee) together, they'll probably cancel each other out or may interact in other ways.

Lavender is generally used as an essential oil. If the plant is used the flowering tops are considered the most efficacious, but I have found that any part of the plant can be just as helpful. The flowering tops just smell prettier.



Lavender has a number of uses, from treating depression to treating burns. Used topically (meaning on the skin) it is used as a pain killer, anti-inflammatory, an anti-spasmodic and as a treatment for various skin diseases. Lavender essential oil has shown some efficacy in treating burns, much like aloe vera. Taken internally it can cause drowsiness so it is often used as a sleep aid. For some people just the smell is enough.

Taken in the other direction, lavender is used as an herbal antidepressant. It doesn't work in the same way as most pharmaceutical anti-depressants and might more accurately be termed a calmitive. It's good for nervous disorders, calming down before sleep, and so on. It goes along with the anti-spasmodic and anti-inflammatory properties--it helps muscles and mind relax.

On top of that it smells really good.

Low-cost gardening

Plants need basically three things. Water, light, heat. Anything beyond that adds to how healthy the plant will remain as it grows. A seed is self-contained food storage for the baby plant. The seed is large enough to get that plant growing and keep it healthy until it can sink its roots into the soil it assumes will be there.

So the seed won't start until the circumstances are right. Some plants need no light, or low light, or bright light for germination. Some need well drained soil, some need sand, or compost, and so on. But at the beginning they're all the same--light, water, heat.

In order to start a seed, you need to provide those three things.

Call me crazy, but I collect toilet paper rolls. Cut in half or thirds, they make perfect "peat pots" without the chemicals or the need to buy expensive specialty items. Stuffed with sphegnum moss (apx $3 per bag on sale, and a bag will last me at least two years) they create a place for the seed to rest, out of the water. The moss soaks up the water and keeps the seed evenly moist, as long as there is water in the tray.

My main tray for starting seeds is a rectangular cake tray from a grocery store. The base is black, the top is clear and it snaps on tightly enough to keep the water in. There are also no holes so bugs can't get in. A little water in the tray keeps my seedlings happy but not waterlogged. At full capacity it can hold about forty planting tubes.

The secondary seed nursery is also a cake tray, but this time slightly deeper. I can put the top on, but usually I use this one (or one like it) when the seedlings have secondary leaves and are ready to leave the sealed environment.

There they can grow until they are between four and six inches tall, depending on what I'm planting.

At that point I transplant them, into pots (saved from previous years) or into the ground. If I have two plants in each tube the tube is composted and I carefully separate the plants, keeping half the moss for each. Otherwise I plant the seedlings right in the tube. I have yet to lose any transplants this way, as the moss retains water even in the ground.

Gardening doesn't have to be expensive. It doesn't have to be difficult. By starting your own plants you know precisely what seeds are being used, whether or not fertilizer is used and what kind, and whether or not the plants are safe for your family.

Something to work on

The crazy herb lady is at it again. I'm bouncy and excited that spring! spring! spring! is here, so yesterday I spent most of the day outside--and today I'm feeling it.

It shows me how important exercise is. Honestly, I hate the treadmill. Walking outside is fine during the summer, but during the winter it's both cold and dangerous. Walking on the treadmill is boring, but the way my legs were hurting last night (after just carting some leaves around and doing a bit of digging!) tells me that I need to make this a priority.

Eating healthy is just one piece of the puzzle. I also have to make sure that I keep in decent shape, keep my brain active and maintain some semblance of a social life. If I intend to be living on my own at 80 or 110, I need to take care of what I have. Which is a really weird thought, you know? I'm halfway there.

I don't feel like it. I don't notice that I feel that much different than I did at 20. Just happier. And I want to keep it that way, which is going to require some effort on my part.

OK. So treadmill walking or neighborhood walking (I won't run on a regular basis because I want to keep my knees and hips, thank you very much) every day. Targeted exercise...the problem is that I see these things as taking time away from my writing. I need to work on that.

I can do it myself

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Laugh, probably.

I had a discussion with my sister a week or so ago about bread. She said she uses a commercial dough enhancer.

I'm just one of those "I can do it myself" people, and if you imagined a three year old saying that you hit the idea on the nose. I listen to people who claim to be amazing gardeners, but they use purchased seeds, chemical fertilizers, weed killer, bug killer, etc. I do NOT consider that "do it yourself" gardening.

Same thing with bread. Vital wheat gluten, dough enhancers, special flavors and odd strains of yeast...if I can't do it myself, I want to find a way. Of course I have to draw the line somewhere (I can't grow my own wheat--yet) but I try to do whatever I can. I do not want to be dependent on a commercial product that may not always be available.

So on the topic of dough enhancers. Commercial dough enhancers are made up of four elements: Gluten, acid, starch and sugar. Gluten makes the bread stand up and do tricks. Acid strengthens the gluten strands. Starch also strengthens the gluten, and the yeast eats the sugar.

Gluten is a commercial product, so I'm ignoring that. Basically if you use vinegar and a bit of potato flakes or rice flour, you have your dough enhancer. I'm baking tomorrow, so I'm going to try it.

Itchy feet

I started my first seeds last week. Broccoli and Cabbage are cold weather plants so I'll set them out once they're ready. The other was the seeds from an heirloom bell pepper. I "harvested" the only fruit in November (I'd been covering it every night) and ripened it on the windowsill. I'm not sure if there are any viable seeds, so I planted some of those just to see if they germinate.

I pushed a shovel down in the dirt. The boxes are thawed inside the covers (lettuce is re-sprouting) but everything else is still frozen once you get about a foot away from the walls and fences.

You can see me pouting.

I want spring to come! Right now!

Whole wheat bread

We're trying to be healthy, so for the last few months I've been trying to make whole wheat bread.

Last year we harvested a test plot of hard red wheat (this year we're going to try kamut as well as oats) and got about a half gallon of wheat. When ground, two cups of wheat makes about 2 1/3 cups of flour.

Whole wheat bread is a little trickier than white bread, because white bread flour often has additives and extra gluten and such nonsense. So making a good loaf of bread from a white bread recipe is pretty much a no-brainer. Apparently I thought I wasn't being challenged enough.

My first attempt was a disaster, the loaf dry and small, with little visible rising. Adding additional yeast didn't make much difference.

The second attempt (after doing some research on the internet) was half whole wheat (half hard red, half kamut) rather than all whole wheat. I used it to make rolls for Thanksgiving, and while they weren't as puffy as I would have liked they were OK.

Then I tried half and half kamut and wheat, the other half white flour, and found an interesting trick on the internet.

The night before I bake, I mix all the liquid and half the flour (the wheat half) + half the sugar with a 1/2 t of yeast. I mix all that together and leave it in the refrigerator over night. If I'm making whole wheat bread I mix the rest of the flour with additional water and let that sit as well. If I'm just using white flour for the other half, the rest of the ingredients can be mixed in just before the first rise. Basically the wheat needs time to hydrate and the bran needs time to break down so it won't destroy what gluten there is. In the morning I add the recipe equivalent of 1/4 to 1/3 of the required water (so if the recipe calls for 2 cups of water I'll add 1/2 cup additional water, or a little more) and the remaining ingredients.

Everything else follows the recipe.

2 T yeast + 1/2 t yeast (yeast can be mixed in dry)
2 c water + 1/2 c water
1/2 c sugar (can replace with honey)
1/4 c shortening
1 egg
2 t salt
6 1/2 c flour

Mix 1/2 t yeast, 3 1/2 c flour, 2 c water, 1/4 c sugar, let sit overnight
Add remaining yeast, remaining water, remaining sugar, shortening, egg and salt. Mix in remaining flour as usual. Let rise until doubled in bulk (about 1 1/2 hours), then beat down, divide and let rise again. Bake at 350 for 35 minutes.

Made four loaves this morning, and the only difference between wheat and white is the flavor and the color. :)