Juli Lawrence – Rakish Gardening

July 29th, 2007

Cool weather crops: blonde romaine, a kind of romaine I’ve forgotten but that was supposed to have reddish on the leaves, snow peas and sugar peas. Oh, and spinach and collard greens and another type of greens called Georgia.

I planted hairy vetch last fall after I’d pulled up the garden for winter. I had hoped to get it growing before winter hit, but I planted too late. However, in spring, it popped up all over the place and was the most beautiful stuff, light and airy with tiny purple flowers. And best of all, the lady beetles loved it. It was just crawling with them and made me crazy happy. I can’t imagine how these little critters have made me happy, but they have. I love them. LOVE THEM!

I didn’t want to lose the hairy vetch, but I did decide I wanted to till. I’m torn on the issue of tilling. There’s a school of thought in organic gardening that tilling really isn’t necessary, particularly on the home gardening level. And some organic farmers are getting into no-till farming. That’s cool, but has got to be so labor intensive.

Organic gardening IS more labor intensive than the old way. I describe the old way as my uncle’s advice: drown it in Sevin. That’ll kill em.

Unfortunately that kills everything, including the many good bugs that do so many wonderful things.

So I tilled, but first I pulled up clumps of hairy vetch, put them in a bucket and then replanted them. A little of it survived, but this fall I’ll plant it again and then do no till next spring. In fact my plan next spring is to plant IN the hairy vetch. It is to be a natural mulch. That may work.

I planted my cool weather crops in March. My uncle, a lifelong farmer, says plant them around Valentine’s Day. Our zones are similar.

The spinach did well, but the romaine was all eaten by birds. Next year I guess I either have to string foil around the lettuce or put that horribly vinyl mesh over it. That stuff is like trying to work in spider webs. Awful. But it does keep the birds out. I have tried old CDs with eyes drawn in Sharpie, but I get these robins that are fearless. Didn’t scare them a bit, and based on reviews, the fake owls and snakes don’t work that well on robins either.

I forgot to put markers in for the greens, so I don’t know what was what. They all tasted like crap, but I didn’t grow up on greens and probably didn’t know how to prepare them. I tried eating them in a salad and they were bitter and nasty.

But one of the greens (Georgia??) grew tall and flowered with these beautiful yellow flowers. The little good wasps just LOVED them, as did some other beneficial bugs. And it was pretty. So even if it doesn’t taste good, I’d like to grow that again.

One of my uncles, very into health because he’s an eye doctor, stresses eating greens for your eyes. Helps prevent macular degeneration.

The snow peas were fantastic, but you have to pick them at the right time or they’re not so good. First time I ever grew peas and I’ll do those again. They’re like candy, fresh off the vines. And they’re pretty too.

My neighbor said what on earth are you feeding your tomatoes? Um, those were snow peas.

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