Flowers From my Garden

Purple and Pink Petunias

Organic Raised Bed Garden Tips

"He grows a little garden in the backyard by the fence;

he's consuming what he's growing nowadays in self-defense"

~The Belamy Brothers~

Is there any finer aroma than freshly turned Spring Earth in your hands? Oh, how I wait for the day each year:-) The time has finally come to dig in the dirt and officially begin regular postings here at the "Heart Rock Garden." This one will be an eclectic mix of tid-bits I've accumulated and our gardening progress here in Northern Michigan.

As you can see by the many pictures, I am a big fan of raised beds in all their beautiful incarnations.

Mine recently made me braggin-proud because after planting lettuce (which had sprouted:-) in a bed with an old window for a cover, the snow came (2 hefty dumpings) along with many nights of sub-zero temps and winds from every direction. But my little seedlings were happy campers under glass. Hopefully we are done with the snow now, but one never knows up here near the 45th parallel; we've had snow in May and hard freezes in mid-June! (although not in the past 10-15 years.....) We also have carrots, beets, scallions, spinach, peas and broccoli planted in various raised beds and oodles of tomatoes and peppers started indoors.

If you have visited before please check out the many new links in each section of the side-bar and also the newly created link list for "Healthy Food and Recipe Resources." Here's a sampling of what's new:

• Backed by a wealth of knowledge and nutritional education, Sunny Johnson offers amazing, tasty and easy recipes for Wild Food Plants, including gems such as the refreshing "Oxalis Cooler".
  
  
• "Naturally Grown" is "a non-profit alternative certification program tailored for small-scale, direct-market organic farmers." Or as I say, certified "Organic" without the red-tape (and increasingly sub-standard criteria) of the U.S.D.A.'s "Certified Organic" program.
  
  
• Big green "THANKS!" to Chris Baskind and the folks at Lighter Footstep for an outstanding site dedicated to sustainable living. News, Daily Tips and lots more presented in a fresh, user-friendly format that sets the bar for eco-sites.
  
  
• "Plants For A Future" is an awesome, easy-to-use database of edible, medicinal and useful plants for a healthier planet.
  

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  These are some great Garden Charts (in PDF format):

COMPANION PLANT FRIENDS & ENEMIES (2 pages) GENERAL GARDEN INFO (2 pages)
PLANT SPACING FOR RAISED BEDS (6 pages, includes blanks to design your own and a pre-planned Salsa~Lovers~Garden!)

All 3 charts are available at Frame It All, along with lots of ideas, kits and accessories for raised bed gardening.

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In the short version, Moon Planting is based on the transit of the Moon as it cycles monthly through the Astrological signs of the Zodiac. Feminine signs are considered fertile, with Watery Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces being the most fruitful. Earthy Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn are semi-fertile and moderately fruitful. The masculine signs are considered barren or sterile. However, Fiery Aries, Leo and Sagittarius; and Airy Gemini, Libra and Aquarius are good signs for working soil & destroying weeds & pests.

The period of time when the Moon is changing from a (dark) New Moon into a Full Moon is called waxing. This is a good time to work with above ground plants, especially if the moon is passing through a Water or Earth sign.

The time from Full Moon to New Moon is called the Waning period and is a good time to work with root crops or perennials (which need strong root systems).

Check out the Farmer's Almanac Moon Planting link (on the right, under the moon phase).

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The Cooperative Extension System is a nationwide educational network that offers information on topics such as nutrition, child rearing, agriculture, horticulture, husbandry, small business and personal finance. Every U.S. state and territory has an Extension office at its land-grant university. Each state has a network of local or regional offices staffed by professionals in their field.

Each office offers a wide variety of services and tools to assist local citizens, many of them free or very low cost. They can help identify plant and insect pest, test soil, provide guidance on frost dates, native plants and much more.

You can easily find your local Cooperative Extension System Office at the U.S.D.A.'s site.

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The naturally formed heart rock pictured at the top of the page is my most beloved treasure, gifted to me last year by a most wonderful friend. It measures 10 inches across and weighs several pounds.

Quick Tip: To determine how much mulch, (or sand, etc) you need for a project, multiply the length of the bed by the width then by the depth of mulch you want. Divide this total by 12 and then by 27 to obtain the amount of mulch in cubic yards. Thank goodness for calculators:-)

Free AND Useful Garden and Landscaping Tool!

This is the most useful tool a gardener could ask for and it's FREE! To find your ideal plant, simply select your criteria (in box above) and receive dozens of results with pictures and growing instructions! How easy and cool is that?!
Many thanks to Find Me Plants!

Love those raised beds!

Homesteading To Reduce Global Warming

If you think you can't become self-sufficient without acquiring a few acres, think again! The Dervaes family in California are an inspiration to urban and rural homesteaders everywhere.
"The goal is self-sufficiency and sustainability, and Jules Dervaes' family is well on its way. In a good year, they can harvest an impressive 6,000 pounds of heirloom tomatoes, broccoli, berries, peaches, red mustard, guavas and dozens of other veggies, garnishes and edible flowers — from only a tenth of an acre of usable land. On a quiet residential block where "Leave It to Beaver" lawns rule, the family can provide 80% of its food needs in the summer and about 50% in winter. At a time when large family farms are shuttering, they've managed to support themselves for 10 years from home micro-agriculture, mostly from sales of salad greens and edible flowers to local restaurants and caterers"
"Duck eggs are one of the specialty products that the Dervaes family sees as the best bet to make money with limited acreage. The high fat content of the eggs is prized by pastry chefs, which helps them fetch $6 a dozen"
"Besides growing their own food, family members have installed solar panels, an outdoor shower whose runoff irrigates plants and a commode with a sink on top that provides washing-up water"
While government officials hem and haw about what to do to help our ailing planet, we can each take steps in our lives to reduce our impact on Earth's environment, right here and now.
"Risk is the price of independence and the ticket to their larger mission, a quest part environmental, part simple living, part urban survivalist. "We think the planet's in trouble," Dervaes says. "It's our attempt to save our corner of the world...."
"He encountered his share of detours but found he didn't have to go far to live the life he'd imagined in the '60s when he scoured Mother Earth News. So if you always wanted that place in the country, it might be right under your feet.
"There's always this thing of where someplace else it could happen," Dervaes says. "I had that for a while. I needed more land. If only. If only I had more acreage … hey, wait a minute, what about what you have?"

As this picture demonstrates, raised beds are multi-functional when topped with various covers: glass or plastic when starting seeds; netting to keep birds out; or shade cloth for protection when needed. Raised beds can also easily be surrounded with chicken wire, individually or in groups, to prevent damage from pesky critters. Once they are built, raised beds are a breeze to maintain and produce higher yields than gardens with rows.

From a Special to the L.A. Times:
" Novice's Guide to an Urban Homestead
FARMING is inherently an optimistic act, a belief that you and your hands can make something happen, even if you couldn't last year. That's a good thing, because nurturing your crops to a fruitful harvest can take some trial and error as you find the right mix of soil, sun and weather exposure. Plants sensitive to cold, for instance, may grow better close to the house, where it may be warmer than in the rest of the yard.
Jules Dervaes suggests starting your micro-farm with just a few plants, hardy ones that will do well even for rookie green thumbs. Start with some herbs, such as basil, and tomatoes. And even the horticulturally challenged can triumph with squash.
You'll want to spend serious time upfront getting the soil right. "If you don't have healthy soil, you don't have healthy plants," he says. Think in terms of feeding the soil as much as the plant, with a regimen that includes mulching and compost.
As you add more plants, you have to be imaginative in maximizing space. Dervaes and his three adult children use trellises along the walls and down the center of the backyard for snow peas and flowers. In one optimizing technique traditionally used by Native American gardeners, they combine several plants in a "three sisters" bed — black Mexican/Aztec corn, cornfield beans and winter squashes with a cover crop of mustard. The family has a portable corridor of crops grown in pots they can rotate depending on the season.
Because of space limitations, home farmers need to pick their plants carefully, going for harder-to-find items that can fetch a premium price, Dervaes says. That means you need quality customers who will choose taste over price.
His family started with flowers, selling them to local stores. Building on that success, they hit the streets to see whether their salad greens could find a market. They discovered that getting their products taste-tested by the chef got them on the table. It's possible to break through to the restaurant market, Dervaes says, because owners are always looking for freshness.
Customers have to be able to adapt to your micro-supplies. The Dervaeses have had to limit sales to customers who can adjust to their crop availabilities and quantities.
Dervaes suggests that would-be urban homesteaders first try in a small way at a community garden or by selling to churches or schools. If you want some up-close advice, he holds evening classes in the warm months in everything from gardening to making your own biodiesel.
If at first you don't succeed, keep going back to the drawing board, he says. "There's failing, but when you climb to the top of the mountain, you feel pretty good." — Joe Robinson

Original here: L.A.Times
Related article at: O, Pioneers in Pasadena
More on the Dervaes Family Here