Archaeology

Archeology

April 2, 2015

What a beautiful morning, and the first one this year for sitting on the screened porch. The air is full of bird song after a freshening rain that started during the wee hours. It looks like it will rain more – thunderstorms are predicted.

I am glad I worked so hard yesterday planting seed for early above-ground crops. I also planted all of the Cabbage, Broccoli, Cauliflower and Brussels Sprouts plants that were in a tray on the porch table. From my view here of the raised beds, I can see the plants have perked up from the rain. These cool weather crops also enjoy the dip in temperature after yesterday's warmth and bright sun.

Next week, as the moon wanes, I will concentrate on the early below-ground crops: beets, carrots, radishes, etc. That's when the He-Shi-Ko Scallions and the Giant Musselborg Leek plants will be removed from their tray and planted in the ground. I love root crops, with the scent and taste of life-giving soil.

I  hope my order of purple potato starts will arrive soon. They are part of next week's plan.

 This is Raised Bed #2. The squares of sticks mark there I plan to put “potato towers” this year, instead of planting potatoes underground in hills or rows. It's a grand plan, but currently I have nothing to use for constructing four “towers” or, essentially, potato-growing bins.

A few days ago, I went down to our barn to search around for potato tower construction material possibilities. We don't use our barn much anymore, since we “retired” from raising sheep several years ago. I call our barn “The Graveyard” because it seems to be a place where items go to repose and become buried.

I did not find anything I could use for “potato towers”, but I came across various relics from our lives on this farm:

 Sheep shears

 Ye Olde Manure Spreader

 Play cookware - how did these end up in the barn?

Then I came upon a gold mine, the mother lode – well, for a gardener.

Piled on the ground between an old table and cabinet was a big pile of little clay pots.

I had forgotten about these. They were given to us by a dear neighbor who lived across the road  years ago. I considered it to be a great gift at the time, then stored them, where else, in the barn (I did not have a potting shed at that time.) Years of animals burrowing and digging around upset the pile of pots and churned up the soil underneath.

I kept picking them up and stacking as many as I could into two buckets I found nearby. After those were full, I kept digging deeper and pulling up more pots, which I piled up next to the “dig”.

I found a couple of larger ones, but the vast majority were little pots, just the right size to start seeds, nurse seedlings along, or share excess plants with other gardeners. Some were packed with dirt from the “dig”.

It was hard to believe how many I kept finding. I pulled torn-up plastic sheeting from the edge and found more. After awhile, all I found was dirt.

 

I did rather feel like an Archaeologist at a dig, gradually unearthing pottery from another era. This did seem like another era to me, a distinctly other part of my life when my generous neighbor was still alive, and when the barn was an active place where we spent a lot of time, full of conversation, sheep bleating, dogs barking, chickens clucking, and the swish of piles of hay.

I went to get my garden trowel, the closest I had to an Archeologist's tool, and returned to the “dig site”. I poked around in the dirt some more and, lo and behold …

… more finds. Was this so different from finding an exposed, curved edge of an ancient jaw or the rim of an old olla?

I had more work to do, but no more time that day to do it. The dig would have to wait until I had caught up on my garden work.

I brought my trowel and the two heavy buckets full of clay pots all the way from the barn to the well house. I plan to wash up all of the pots and stack them on a shelf in the potting shed, but they are not a high priority right now.

I have more work to do in the garden. I have yet to plant seeds for root vegetables. Someday I will pull those vegetables from the garden soil (with the help of my trowel), roots smelling of the underground, ready to be washed and put to use.

Seedlings

Through a Country Window

Seedlings

 March 27, 2015

This kitchen bay window has been my main view from the house during the winter. Through it I have watched birds at the feeding station, and a small squirrel who would enjoy fallen sunflower seed or sit hunched, almost invisible, in the branches of a pine tree.

I watched white mornings of complete snow cover, a landscape of sparkling ice, low fog rolling across the fields, and glorious, vividly-colored sunsets. I have watched groups of deep black crows leap-frogging across the brown stubble of our farm field. I have heard them cawing in the morning, and the low hooting of Great-Horned Owls from the distant trees at night.

 

 

                      

My Bird Feeder List for the Winter of 2014-15:

Red-Bellied Woodpecker            Downy Woodpecker        Hairy Woodpecker

White-Breasted Nuthatch             Mourning Dove

Blue Jay              Grackle               European Starling           Cowbird

Slate-Colored Junco           Goldfinch          House Finch

Tufted Titmouse         Carolina Chickadee              Cardinal        Eastern Towhee

American Tree Sparrow    Song Sparrow    Fox Sparrow

White-Throated Sparrow       White-Crowned Sparrow

Inside, the bay window is full of potted plants standing on the floor, on the window sill, and hanging from above the window.

Some of these readily multiply: Spider Plants,  purple Wandering Jew and, of course, Mother-of-Thousands. Of the latter, the largest one bloomed this winter for the first time in its life, and the look of the flowers surprised me. I suppose I expected more primitive flowers from such an ancient looking plant, but it is in the Stonecrop Family (Crassulaceae).

My tallest plant here is “T. J. Feeg”, a Brown Turkey plant bought from Thomas Jefferson's Monticello in September of 2013, a descendent of the fig trees there.

All of these plants will be moved to the screened porch when the weather is consistently warm enough.

On one of my small kitchen window sills are pots of herbs for the winter: Pepper Cress, Sweet Basil and Cilantro, to snip and use in add to foods. I am waiting  for the Cilantro seeds to germinate. There are two pots on the other small window sill, each with a Shallot bulb from last year's garden that started sprouting in storage. I cut some of the narrow leaves now and then to chop into salads, scrambled eggs and stir-fry.

Next to me as I sit before the bay window, other plants are growing, waiting in the wings for their time in the sun, rain and rich soil of our outdoor gardens. A wooden rack made by my husband, Richard, holds numerous trays and pots of the little hopefuls, mostly plants that will enrich our taste buds, bodies and lives this spring and summer.

 

Already the Hilton Chinese Cabbage is screaming to be put in the ground. This is a new variety for me. It is supposed to be smaller than other Chinese Cabbage varieties.

 

The Leeks and Scallions, too, are ready for life in the Big New World. I have grown He-Shi-Ko Bunching Onions (scallions) for many years, starting them by planting several seeds in each tray cell, a trick learned fro an organic gardening book (it has been so long that I don't recall which book). Obviously, it was a trick worth retaining. I love digging up a cluster of these from a raised bed, giving them a rinse, and chopping all the white and green parts into stir-fry.

Richard grows most of the hot weather crops, as I have much trouble with the heat and he, a veteran of working Knox County melon fields, has very little. His trays are sprouting tomato, eggplant and pepper plants now.

It seems hard to believe, looking at those tiny things, that they will become thick-stemmed, lush-leaved, tall plants with full-fleshed fruits. They will be filling canning jars, freezer bags, dehydrator trays and fermenting vessels, and will also be filling us with health-giving vitamins and lycopenes.

It is time to put out the earliest plants and seeds, while the moon is waxing - Cabbage, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Brussels Sprouts – and to plant out seeds of Spinach, Peas, Kale, Swiss Chard and other greens. In early April, when the moon is waning, I will plant seeds outdoors for beets, radishes and carrots, and I will put out the Leek and Scallion plants.

But, for awhile the plants will linger under the glow of shop lights. I will linger in front of the bay window, in my rocking chair, watching birds, fog and sunsets, and watching the landscape turn toward Spring.