Green, Green, Green!

I'm trying to get back in the swing of walking daily with the dog, now that Luna is old enough to handle it. The weather isn't always ideal yet - I could have done without all that Spring wind on Wednesday - but the world is waking up again after a long winter. There are green patches in the yards and fields, and actual flowers!




I think the white things are some sort of wild anemone, and it seems to me that the yellow is some kind of swamp mallow. In any case, they're pretty. (By the way, does anyone know why the earliest flowers seem primarily to be yellow? Daffs, crocus, forsythia . . . what's with that? There must be some science thing contributing to the preference for yellow. Inquiring minds want to know.)

In other exciting dirt-related news, we have just broken ground on a new and expanded Victory Garden at church.



It's now 300% bigger, with suitably bigger plans. With the economy doing what it is, we think we will see an increased need for fresh local produce. And let's face it: we've got the room. We've got plans swirling around about mulch and irrigation and seedlings. We have a newly enlarged and fully enthused team, and the point has been made that future weeding and harvesting will be group projects. We're even talking about a regular "Wine and Weeding" event, perhaps on Wednesday nights.

The garden had a rough start previously, with certain (former) committee members worrying about whether the garden would be attractive and pushing hard to maintain the grass status quo, but I think the garden concept proved itself beautifully last year. Also, we've done a lot of talking lately as a congregation about how we need to stop trying to be "everything for everyone" and start concentrating on what we do best. We do mission projects very well - and we've got more vacant lawn than any other church in the area. Emma suggested three years ago that our garden really ought to be in the front yard instead of the back, and we should be trumpeting this effort. Well, further on down the line, her vision is coming true. Other people are starting to talk independently about further enlargements, and a couple people are advocating that we plow up that front yard and put in potatoes! I do think we need to be careful that our ambition does not outstrip our workforce, but I love the enthusiasm.

Our Garden is Famous

Look! We got a front page feature in the local paper. Isn't that cool? The reporter called me for an interview the other day, and then they sent reporters out on Tuesday night to photograph us doing the harvest. He even had the good sense to photograph my backside from a distance (if it must be photographed at all).

I just hope I don't catch too much grief for my little comment about it taking a few years for the idea of a garden to percolate through the approval process, and how it was a shame that the girls who first came up with the idea didn't get to actually work in the garden before leaving for college. I'm sure someone will bristle over that.

And speaking of church-related activities, at the last council meeting (which I missed), the minister passed different books out to all the ministry area coordinators with a request that we read them and present a book report to council. Let's face it - I've done my time with book reports. And between projects I've adopted for the upcoming wedding, my volunteer stuff with the garden/shelter/children's sermon/Habitat for Humanity/etc., the stuff I need to keep cranking out for the farmer's market (one more pirate hat . . . ) and my commitments to my real job and my family, I just don't have an extra 20 hours for "homework." So this morning I finally gave up and e-mailed the council to say I wasn't going to do the book report - maybe next month, but certainly not by Tuesday. I'm holding my breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Meanwhile, it seems odd to say, but this morning was the first time Nora and I walked in honest-to-goodness rain. I think she would have preferred a ride.

Third Wednesday Harvest

It's the third Wednesday of the month (really. I checked.) so we met in the garden again this morning to harvest for the food bank. "We" meaning me and Tammy - I have to say that harvest is probably one of the facets of this whole program which could use a little tweaking, since often it's just me out there, frantically slashing at swiss chard before work while the clock ticks. But we have over a dozen large pumpkins starting to ripen, and I pulled a few of the largest onions. The take was rounded out by a couple of bags of squash and 3 more bags of swiss chard. Not bad.

I have to say that the swiss chard raised some eyebrows last spring. Some of the gardeners weren't sure that something so "exotic" as swiss chard would be well received at the food pantry, whose customers tend more towards basic staples. But of everything we planted the swiss chard has been the earliest and most productive by far. I'd have to go back and look at prior harvest photos to be sure, but I think one 40' row of seeds has produced at least 10 large bags of fresh, healthy vegetables to date. It's also having the good grace to continue producing through some drought, and should finish up just about when we really need the space for potato harvests and expanding squash vines.

Meanwhile, I'm technically not the person to judge when the onions are ready, but some of them looked so enormous and seemed to be crowding their siblings so I just went ahead and pulled a dozen or so. They're kind of wild and funky-looking, aren't they? I should have known better than to load them into that basket, since it's basically a glorified Easter basket and the handle wasn't nearly strong enough. It cracked, and I had to load them in the car by holding onto the bottom of the basket. It will probably still be fine for holding knitting projects and other light stuff - but don't tell Peg, okay?

We're talking more and more about how we should handle the garden next year. The food pantry is suggesting Romaine lettuce, and Tammy is sure we should have planted our corn further apart and hilled our potatoes. I know nothing about beets and am not in charge of the ones in the garden, but it seems like ours are awfully close together (and not doing anything). Same with the carrots. So, a bigger garden with more breathing room for the veggies, and maybe a designated harvest team. And maybe we'll get that irrigation system on line one of these days. But we've effectively proved the concept, and I don't think we'll have as big a battle in the future.

Gorgeous Fabric and Boring Knitting

I took the afternoon off from work yesterday to drive up to Green Bay and check out some more complete fabric stores. The Sheboygan JoAnn's had some $25 per yard shantung stuff in the decorating section which might have worked, except it was a little more rust than copper; but they were certain their Green Bay "super store" would have a wider color selection of that line. Then the seamstress suggested I look at Hancock Fabrics in Green Bay while I was in the neighborhood, and Rick volunteered to drive with me so he could look at headliner fabric, and suddenly I had an adventure of exploration on my hands. We found the perfect fabric (at $6.99 a yard!) and thread at Hancocks, and some "close enough" zippers for the skirt at JoAnns. The top calls for a separating zipper, and those don't seem to come in any sort of decent color selection, so I'm going to ask the seamstress to do a covered button placket down the back of the dress instead. I'm meeting her tomorrow to deliver the materials and measurements, and she thinks she'll have the dresses done by Labor Day, so we're on track to actually put this thing together on time!

Meanwhile, with Rick driving back and forth to Green Bay yesterday and Tasha driving back and forth to Appleton on Friday, I've made some progress on the "boring knitting" project. I wanted a cotton tank top, and cast on with an Artful Yarns shell pattern from my stash, circa 2004, which was discovered in the "free" bin of my local yarn store after the yarn was discontinued. I'm using a cone of Peaches & Creme cotton - big surprise, since that's one of my favorite yarns. It's about 7" from the bottom hem now, and I'm thinking I should have enough left on the cone to do a short-sleeved shrug to match. Or maybe I'll ditch the tank concept and do something like Klaralund from Cornelia Tuttle Hamilton. (See? This is how I get into trouble . . . )

Finally, the latest from the great outdoors: I managed to harvest the food pantry produce on the actual, real food pantry day this time around (who had the bright idea to put 5 Wednesdays in July, anyway?) and delivered 3 more bags of swiss chard and a big bucket of squash this morning. There are lots of snap peas out there still in desperate need of picking, but I just haven't had the time to do it.

And look! My Lady Baltimore is finally blooming! Love the flower, just wish it didn't take so long every summer to make its appearance.

Dingbat

Some days I feel like the dog from The Jetsons, who keeps running and running on his treadmill but can't seem to make any progress. The extra 2 miles each day with Nora is working out fine so far, but I do notice the loss of another hour in every day. And I started yesterday with a hair appointment, followed immediately by a professional portrait session for the firm, followed by a somewhat vain attempt to get a whole day's worth of work done, followed by grocery shopping, followed by running home to make dinner, all of which was bracketed on both sides by walking the dog, tending the birds, and checking on the bunny. And I still needed to run back to the church garden to do the harvest before the food pantry does their next distribution - but I finally decided to just blow that off until this morning.

Rick woke me up early at my request so I would have extra time to run over and pick whatever was ripe. I thanked him, then flopped back in bed as soon as he left. Nora is learning that it's not "time to get up" until my clock radio starts playing, so she just flopped back down too. But by 6:35 we were up, leash in hand and headed down the road. We discovered that Nora is afraid of cows, in spite of the fact that she comes from cow herding stock; but I put her in a sit to distract her, then fed her a few treats while the cows watched. She still gets nervous about them, but at least she isn't trying to hide behind me while we walk by them. I bolted some breakfast, watered the new birds (lost another chick over night. I hate that part.) and headed over to the church garden by 8:00 or so.

The swiss chard is going crazy, and I picked three full bags. I could have picked more, but was worried that I'd overload them; swiss chard seems not to be one of the default garden plants in this area, and people seem hesitant about what to do with it. But I also picked a bag of zucchini and pattypans and other squash, and if I'd had time I could have gotten another half-bag of snap peas. But I was getting hot and sweaty, my fingernails rimmed in green from the picking and (most importantly) running late for work, so I headed off to the food pantry. When I got there, the door was locked.

Now, those of you who have a calendar and know how to read it (a category which apparently does not include me) already knew that today is, in fact, not the 1st Wednesday of the month but rather the 5th. The food pantry distributes on the 1st and 3rd Wednesday of each month, and I'd just gotten into the mindset of delivering produce every other week. So there I was, late for work and sweaty whisps of hair curling into my eyes, with 4 bags of very fresh veggies and no where to take them. I ended up at the Plymouth Senior Center, where they laid everything out on a "free for the taking" table for their members. The swiss chard absolutely befuddled a few of them, especially the red-stemmed varieties that look like rhubarb. But hey, the object of the game is to put fresh local produce in the hands of local people who need it. Mission accomplished, more or less.

But while I was in the garden, I took a peek over at the pumpkin patch. We planted 6 pumpkin seedlings in the pile of sod which had been set aside to compost last fall, and the vines were really taking off last time I looked. There were blossoms everywhere, and even a couple of fruits - but these definitely don't look like pumpkins. I'm starting to think someone switched the tags at the garden center. Does anyone know what the item in the center of the picture is?

First Fruits

Last night Tammy and I went over to the church garden and picked a huge basket of Swiss Chard, as well as a couple of zucchini.

This morning I took it over to the food pantry just before they opened for business. There were about a dozen people (including some elderly and a child) sitting out front waiting for the window to open, and they called out some friendly jokes when I drove up. But they were really excited to see the produce I pulled out, and both they and the volunteers asked me to pass thanks back to all the garden volunteers at church.

In two weeks, the next time the food pantry is open for distribution, we should have a LOT more squash and some snap peas. I'm thinking I should bring along some spare eggs from home, too. I'm really starting to wish we'd planted more.

How Does Your Garden Grow

Have you heard about this?

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=747301

.

I feel for them. Apparently their neighbors and the city are fine with this church having grass and flowers in their front yard, but heaven forbid they should grown corn or beets up there to provide local, healthy food to their community. Last year (and even the year before) I was having the same type of discussions with members of our church. But I'm happy to say that the corn is now officially knee-high, the pumpkins are doing great, and the first zucchini, swiss chard and snap peas should be ready to deliver to the food pantry this week.

It's actually working!

Making Progress

I got a call from Tammy on Saturday. "Hey, are you at the church garden? Could you tell them I'm loading the tiller now and I'll be a bit late?" I managed to deduce by this that (1) we were starting the spring garden work; (2) I'd missed a message somewhere along the way about a meeting time; and (3) I was late. So I beat feet over there and arrived in plenty of time to help figure some things out and get a reasonable amount of dirt under my nails.

Discoveries and decisions:

• The north "toe" of the garden will be a block of sweet corn, cared for communally. I may add some runner beans, so they can grow up the corn stalks for a bonus crop.
• The south "toe" has been adopted by Susie and Sandy, who will garden it together.
• The middle section will be split into nice even rows, rather than being broken up into plots and paths. George wants to do pumpkins for the Bridgeway House kids, and maybe some onions; Mary wants to do carrots; I want to plant swiss chard and some winter squash to take its place later in the summer; and there are a couple of other people who may want to get into the act later.
• The purpose of the garden is to raise food for the local hungry (including the homeless women and children at Bridgeway). The food pantry only distributes twice a month, so we're talking about delivering all the produce for the "off" weeks to Bridgeway. But some church members don't have room for their own gardens and would like a tomato or two for their own table, so Deb had the excellent idea of a swap option for gardening members - for instance, take a few tomatoes, replace them with a few rolls of toilet paper.
• I asked for rain barrel donations in church on Sunday, and 45 minutes later I had two 30 gal. barrels and two 45 gal. barrels. Garage gutters were theoretically approved last year to feed such barrels - now I just have to shepherd that theory into reality without stepping on any toes.
• And most important: when you pull back on a tiller, it digs deeper into the soil and pulls back on you. I nearly went flying a couple of times before I figured out how to guide it with a gentle touch. Reminds me of raising children.

See how expertly Tammy does it? And her section looked a lot fluffier than mine . . .

Victory Garden

There used to be this show on Public TV, back when I was a kid, called "The Victory Garden." I don't remember much about it, other than this old coot who grew absolutely enormous tomatoes. It was usually a pretty clear signal that it was time to turn the dial (back in those pre-clicker days) and find something more interesting. Say, UnderDog.

Then last spring a couple of teens from the church brought me a proposal for a community garden. It was great! They'd researched possible crops, and growing techniques, and rounded up a team of their friends to share the labor, and were all ready to build this garden and do something really neat for the community. The church had been making noises for years about how great it would be do to something like this, if only we had a team of people interested in taking charge of it. So I figured, Bingo! We made plans to rent a sod cutter and buy some seeds, and I went to the church council with the plans. Council thought it was just great, too, and I told the girls that we were ready to get started. Somehow, we started to call it the Victory Garden. Aside from the guy with the huge tomatoes, I seem to remember this was something people did in World War II, planting a garden in their yard to increase production for the war effort. So now we're making war on hunger - get it?

But then human nature crept in. Council wanted the Administration Committee to bless the project too, since it did involve "buildings and grounds" and there had been some previous squabbling about who among the church committees were in charge of "buildings and grounds." Admin was worried that a garden wouldn't look nice, and then someone felt they'd been insulted, and then nothing happened at all for weeks and weeks, then someone thought the whole thing had been approved ("Didn't we tell you?"), and then someone else said that they needed to consider it for another month or so . . . . And then we were way past spring, into the drought part of summer, and the original team of teens had thrown up their hands in disgust and walked away. A completely justified move, in my opinion. But the battle lines had changed in our little war, and I thought it profoundly depressing.

But I'm stubborn. (You knew that about me, right?) So even when it became clear that 2007 was not going to be a gardening year, I hated to give up the whole thing. And when a couple of others on Council took up the banner and marched forward again, I fell into step. So two weeks ago Council and Admin sat down at the same table to work some things out, and we all agreed that we are going to do this garden. We made an announcement in church, and showed the landscaping plan off to a few people, and started to get enthusiastic responses. Scott Haefs had run a sod cutter before, and was willing to take charge of that effort. Steve Klock knows a lot about planting sustainable landscapes through his work at the DNR. Kurt K. (whose last name I solemnly pledge to learn soon) has a source for a couple of donated 100 gallon rain barrels and is designing a soaker system for the garden.

I'm still a little intimidated by the amount of work involved. I mean, I'm going to have to figure out exactly how this should all be organized - who will work each garden plot, the logistics of getting food delivered once it has been grown and harvested, etc., etc., etc. And frankly, I'm not much of a gardener.

Also, I'm starting to shy away from the "Victory Garden" name. I don't want to battle other people to make this happen. I want it to be a place of sunshine and harmony and common goals.

But doesn't it look nice, with the sun shining on the newly turned sod?