It must be spring! Sometimes affectionately cooed (by nobody ever) and sometimes disparagingly grumbled (almost always), “mud season” has rounded the proverbial corner. Dun and drab are giving way to brilliant white and violet and — as soon as the daffodils and dandelions bloom — vibrant yellow.
¡Hasta la vista, winter! Spring has sprung.
Crocus (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
Crocus & Dwarf Iris, Haiku
Crocus, dwarf iris dabbed from pigmented palette, early blooms unearthed.
Nature is the original artist, liberating all manner of magical blooms from the earth where only weeks ago it seemed unlikely that this theatre would open on time. But it does, year after year. And this is and a small part why I consider gardening to be the very fountain of optimism.
Dwarf Iris (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
Bulbs Now, Buds Soon?
Once bulbs begin to push their green shoots up out of the damp earth, it’s easy to let optimism run away with us. The daffodils and the daylilies are pushing up as well, although we’ll need to wait for a while longer before the day lilies bloom.
This exciting succession of blooms inevitably primes my Pollyanna pump for other blooms, especially bud burst in Rosslyn’s orchard. Talk about theatre!
Gardening is a bit of a balancing act. And a gambling act! So many variable: spring climate conditions, high tunnel preparation, readiness of transplants,… And the exuberance of gardening after months of winter. And so, year after year, we arrive at this point. And so, year after year, we arrive at this point. Is it time to harden off veggie plants?
Time to Harden Off Tomato Plants (Photo: Aimee Baker)
A few weeks back, my optimism got the best of me.
With temperatures improving, there’s a fairly good chance. We will begin to get things seated in the next week or two. And possibly transplants in mid/late May… Stay tuned! (Source: Transplant Soon?)
That’s what I wrote and shared here. But what I really meant, what I would’ve said if I hadn’t been hyperventilating with excitement, was that it *might* be possible to transplant in mid/late April. Actually mid/late May is our normal planting time. I was hoping to jumpstart by about a month.
Time to Harden Off Tomatillo Plants (Photo: Aimee Baker)
So where do things stand? It’s fair to say that mid April has become late April, and we’re close but not quite ready to transplant vegetable seedlings yet. But the process by which we begin to prepare plants for transplanting, bringing plants outside to begin acclimating and developing the fortitude and resilience that will improve their odds when they assume their places in the garden, this indoor/outdoor volleying, has begun.
Pam, Aimee Baker, and the Amish family are readying tender seedlings got the tougher co sitio s of outdoor living. Is it necessary to harden off veggies that will be transplanted into a high tunnel? We’re still learning the ins and outs of high tunneling, but I’m still leaning toward acclimating plants outside by day and safeguarding them inside at night.
Time to Harden Off Tomato Plants (Photo: Aimee Baker)
And it’s looking like most of our plants are just about ready to learn what it’s like to be outside. Here’s a recent update from Aimee.
The only thing I’m concerned about is the peppers. They need more time to soak up sun. I’m happy to grow them in my greenhouse for you. But the rest may be good to go… –Aimee Baker
Time to Harden Off Eggplants (Photo: Aimee Baker)
So a holding pattern for some of the peppers. But April’s not over yet. And I’m staying optimistic that our organic veggie seedlings just might make it into the garden by the end of month!
With the high tunnel prepped and heating up and a variety of organic veggie seedlings maturing, we just might be able to jumpstart garden planting by a month.
Transplant Tomatoes Soon? (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
We have been fortunate this year to have help getting our vegetable plant seedlings underway from the Amish family up the road who helps us with so many outdoor activities at Rosslyn, from Aimee Baker who started growing for us last year, and from Pam Murphy who manages projects like this for us on the property.
Transplant Peppers Soon? (Photo: Aimee Baker)
So we have all sorts of healthy young organic vegetable plants, thriving and approaching the point when they can safely be transplanted. Here’s the most recent update from Aimee.
I’ve been putting them in greenhouse during day, bringing them in at night… next week is looking fantastic temperature wise. But I have a few more to transplant. I’m the next couple weeks they’ll really take off! I figure more towards 3rd week they should be doing well enough and hardened enough to get some into ground. The peppers may take a little longer as they take a little more time to take off and harden, I’m figuring an extra week so end of April they’ll be good to go. –Aimee Baker
With temperatures improving, there’s a fairly good chance. We will begin to get things seated in the next week or two. And possibly transplants in mid/late May… Stay tuned!
The high tunnel is now officially planted for the 2023 growing season. Hurrah! And the first plants in the ground are a pair of Green Zebra tomatoes (aka “Green Zebras”), a personal favorite that boast tart flavor, unique color, exotic pattern, and a tendency to ripen early. Win, win, win, win!
Green Zebras 1st in High Tunnel (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
This will be our second season high tunneling, but it’s our first opportunity to jumpstart planting (by about two weeks). Last year we received the high tunnel shipment damaged and missing parts. It took most of the spring to receive the missing and replacement parts, so we forfeited the benefits we’re hoping for this year.
High Tunnel Almost Ready for Planting (Photo: Tony Foster)
We kept the high tunnel covered all winter which accelerated warming of the ground over the last couple of months. Tony has been pampering the soil: supplementing with composted manure and other organics, tilling, and preparing beds.
Tony has done a remarkable job of preparing the high tunnel for early season planting. And check out that solar gain on a freezing day! (Source: Synchronous Progress)
Pam has already planted the first succession of spinach and French breakfast radishes, but those are in raised beds outside the high tunnel. I’m hoping to see signs of germination soon. And the asparagus bed should be waking up any day now. But these precursors to summer invite heady hopes for a robust early bounty, especially tomatoes, the crown jewel of our vegetable garden. So we’re tempting fate by leapfrogging the typical Mother’s Day planting date, crossing our fingers, and imagining tomatoes by the 4th of July. We’ll observe these two vanguard tomato plants and — if they thrive (or at least survive) — we’ll progressively transplant more over the coming days. With luck others (eggplant, tomatillo, peppers, broccoli, cucumbers, etc.) will join them soon.
Here’s willing juicy tomatoes by (of before?!?!) Independence Day!
One of the most refreshing midsummer garden staples is the cucumber. Cuke. Cucumber. Refreshing no matter what you call it.
Cucumber Plants (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
I think we’re just about ready to start transplanting our spring-start cucumber plants into the high tunnel. But it’s a gamble. They won’t withstand frost. They will wilt and wither, and we will ring our hands, wondering why we jumpstarted them… Don’t try to trick nature!
And yet, starting tomorrow our evenings are likely yo stay above freezing, and our days are warming.
Cucumber conditions stabilizing
So we need to decide: transplant cucumbers or wait?
Imagine for a moment enduring many, many months without fresh, homegrown produce. Tragic, right? Especially for a passionate gardener who loves to prepare and share garden-to-table fare for family and friends. Now you can stop imagining because this next part requires no imagination… It’s Spargelzeit!
The word Spargel means asparagus and Zeit means time. The term Spargelzeit refers to the time of year when white asparagus is harvested in Germany (some call it Spargelsaison – “asparagus season”). (Source: GermanyinUSA.com)
Essex is a decent wander from Germany, but I certainly share their enthusiasm for the first harvest of homegrown asparagus. So whether we call it asparagus time (Spargelzeit) or asparagus season (Spargelsaison), let’s celebrate the first garden-to-table produce of the 2023 season.
Spargelzeit: Steamed Asparagus (Photo: Geo Davis)
Now, there is one little hiccup in my declaration of Spargelzeit, and that has to do with the color of the king of vegetables. But I’m getting slightly ahead of myself. Let’s return to Germany for a moment.
It’s that time of year again — the asparagus season has started in Germany! To say Germans love this seasonal vegetable would be an understatement… they absolutely adore it. Every year, the average German consumes roughly 1.5kg of the vegetable that is often referred to as the ‘king of the vegetables’.
Whilst the green variety is available all year round, Germans prefer the seasonal white variety that grows only during ‘Spargelzeit’ (asparagus season) which lasts from mid-April to mid or late June. (Source: Medium.com)
I remember discovering something similar while living in Paris in my 20s. Although the French considered white asparagus a delicacy, they looked askance at green asparagus. Too pedestrian, perhaps. Peculiar, say I. After all, the white asparagus has practically no flavor at all. But green asparagus, I’d like to suggest, is, in fact, the precise taste of the color green. Delicate, subtly bitter, and bursting with vibrance. The taste of spring… The taste of spring…
Spargelzeit: Asparagus for Dinner, May 6, 2023 (Photo: Geo Davis)
In the photo above the asparagus occupies place of honor in the middle of my plate. To the left, a simple grilled ground beef patty from Full and By Farm, and to the right some organic tomatoes I picked up in Vermont. Having spent the morning planting tomatoes in our high tunnel with Tony, I am hopeful, that soon — or at least far sooner than usual — I will be able to share photos of our earliest-ever tomatoes!
As a nod to Spargelzeit I tried to accompany my Rosslyn asparagus with other local food. Perhaps a sausage would have been more appropriate.
Traditional restaurants offer menus dedicated to this seasonal favourite, offering soups, salads and warm spears served with hollandaise sauce. It’s also served as a sort of add-on to other regional favourites, piled upon a schnitzel or a slice of saumagen (a haggis-like specialty from the Pfalz region), or stacked alongside a pair of hot, meaty bratwürste. When it comes to any plate of food in Germany, white asparagus is no exception: more is definitely more. That’s not a stereotype that will ever be crushed. (Source: The Guardian)
More is more, but I’ve decided to temper my overexuberance on this first day of Rosslyn Spargelzeit. I was tempted to serve myself a second heaping mound of asparagus, but I managed to exercise a modicum of restraint and placed them instead into the fridge for tomorrow’s lunch. Chilled asparagus with balsamic vinaigrette. Delicious.
As asparagus time begins yielding to rhubarb time (photo update soon!) I brainstorm asparagus recipes that I’ll lament overlooking once seasonality advances our homegrown ingredients. A vague recollection sends me filtering through old blog posts and then drafts of incomplete blog posts. I find notes started on May 14, 2014, and I know what my final garden-to-gullet asparagus recipe will be: green eggs and ham.
Asparagus Green Eggs
Although there are many tasty ways to concoct delicious green eggs (avocado, artichoke hearts, succulent spinach fresh from the garden,…) today I will alchemize the quintessential taste of spring — delicate asparagus spears bursting with their 100% unique tanginess — and hyperlocal, free range eggs from Full and By Farm.
Green Eggs and Ham: garden-fresh spring asparagus (Photo: Geo Davis)
Look at the brilliant yellow-orange color of the eggs! Almost too colorful to believe. And yet this is the signature of local, free range eggs. We consider ourselves fortunate indeed to enjoy a steady stream of organic eggs from Full and By Farm.
Green Eggs and Ham: farm-fresh eggs from Full and By Farm (Photo: Geo Davis)
Although at other times we might’ve been able to prepare pork from Full and By Farm (or another local farm) in this case I’ve used dulcedumbres, smoked ham from the Village Meat Market just up the road in Willsboro.
Green Eggs and Ham: deli sliced ham from Village Meat Market cut into strips (Photo: Geo Davis)
As the ingredients start to set up with a little heat, the yellow, green and pink are still distinct, three parts of a perfect medley.
Green Eggs and Ham: local ingredients and lots of love! (Photo: Geo Davis)
Cooked to perfection (overcooked, my bride would say), green eggs and ham, make the perfect breakfast, lunch, or dinner!
Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham
I imagine that many of us, perhaps even most of us.) remember the book, Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss. If you’re needing a little blast from the past, enjoy this video.
I apologize in advance for bypassing several timely updates on the icehouse rehabilitation progress. Sorry. I promise that they are coming soon. But there’s something about springtime, about gardening, about the promise of colorful blooms and produce that I’m finding too tempting to resist. And so I share with you what I’ll call a “Giebel garden flashback” from last summer, August 10, 2022 to be exact. Taken by dear friend Brian Giebel and pushed out to the world via Instagram, I revisit it now with all the enthusiasm and optimism of an almost 100% planted garden. May 2023 be as abundant as 2022!
Giebel Garden Flashback (Photo: Brian Giebel)
Thank you, Brian, for capturing this outrageous sunset (and my embarrassing posture). And thank you for reminding me what I’ve garden looks like in high season so that I may gird my angst about the two upcoming frost warnings.
I’ve learned again, and again that worrying about the weather is an unhealthy and unhelpful practice. So I won’t. Or, I will try not to worry. Nature, benevolent nature, will offer us what she considers right.
Artichokes Ready to Transplant (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
And in the meantime, we’ll postpone planting 18 newly arrived artichoke thistles. They look robust and healthy now, so we’ll try to keep them that way until the risk of frost has passed. Then, into the garden, they go!
Artichokes Ready to Transplant (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
Once those artichokes are planted, we will be almost finished. Today we offer an especial thanks to Pam for rounding up the artichokes (the last available from our supplier), and the Amish family who helps ensure that our seeds are in the freshly filled ground and the transplants are well tended. Thank you!
Giebel Garden Flashback (Photo: Brian Giebel via Instagram)
And to you, Brian, thanks for this Instagram post nine months past that fills me now with hope for our future harvest. Soon we will be feasting once again!
It’s Tanglefoot time again. Actually, we’re late — really late! — due to this rainy, soggy summer. But better late than never, especially since I’ve begun to spy the first tent caterpillars of the 2017 season.
First a quick refresher. A little over a year ago I explained how to use Tanglefoot and I explained why holistic orcharding benefits from this goopy ritual.
It’s a messy installation process, but it seems to work pretty well… Applying Tanglefoot to fruit trees a messy but relatively straightforward task. Better instructors have already explained application, so I’ll defer to their able guidance rather than overlook something important. (Source: How to Use Tanglefoot (And Why Fruit Trees Need It))
That post includes the excellent advice of “better instructors”, but I wanted to follow up with a quick visual instructional to show you how to apply Tanglefoot. Consider it a supplement. Quick tips.
How to Apply Tanglefoot (Source: Geo Davis)
How to Apply Tanglefoot
In the previous post I discuss using plastic film to wrap the tree trunk, but four years into our Tanglefoot adventure, we’re still using paper/cardboard wraps like in the photo above. It’s simple, quick, biodegradable, and it seems to work perfectly. And it’s a little less plastic to use and put into a landfill!
After securing the cardboard wrap with a piece of hemp twine, the only challenge is to sear Tanglefoot around the circumference of the tree without getting it all over your hands…
Following is a quick video / slide show intended for orchardists, fruit tree hobbyists, or basically anybody who wants quick and easy instruction for how to apply Tanglefoot on young (i.e. slender trunk) trees. Many thanks to Jacob for letting me photograph his hands during installation.
I hope you find the video helpful. We’ve been extremely satisfied with the results year-after-year, and we’re happy to recommend Tanglefoot (and confident in our recommendation) for other fruit tree growers. And if you’re looking for a little broader perspective on why we use and recommend this somewhat unconventional pest prevention solution in our organic orchard, definitely check out my post, “How to Use Tanglefoot (And Why Fruit Trees Need It)“. I’m confident you’ll be pleased with the results. Good luck!
April showers bring spring aeration. Soggy conditions May not make for the postcard perfect moments conjured by the imagination, but they certainly make for more efficient lawn maintenance. Powerful core drills sink into the supple soil pulling earthy plugs up onto the surface where they will dissolve in the coming days. And perforated ground improves air circulation which fortifies root growth, holistically invigorating the health of the turf.
In keeping with our holistic approach to gardening, orcharding, and landscaping, we’ve come to rely upon… [aeration] to ensure robust lawns. Experience has shown us that a healthy diet of organic fertilizer, zero pesticide, and aeration nurtures not only an attractive ground cover, but a resilient heterogenous sod that rebounds quickly after drought, etc. (Source: Autumn Aeration – Rosslyn Redux)
After Aerating Lawn at ADK Oasis Lakeside (Source: Tony Foster)
In the photograph above Tony Foster captured a “portrait” of the lawn aerator (DR Power) posing proudly in front of ADK Oasis Lakeside. He had just completed spring aeration of all three properties, marking another noteworthy accomplishment. Hurrah, Tony! Thank you.
Holistic Lawn Care
Upon arriving at Susan’s parents’ home in Montclair, New Jersey one afternoon about a decade ago we found the lawn perimeter marked with small “Beware poison!” flags.
A passionate but shortlived skirmish about lawn pesticides later my bride and my mother-in-law yielded in deténte. Susan reminded her mother that we’ve never once used pesticides at Rosslyn. Shirley countered, “And that’s why your lawn’s covered in weeds!” I guess that they both one?
The fact of the matter is that our holistic approach to lawn care — from fall and spring aeration to biennial organic fertilizer (mostly bat guano), from hand weeding thistles and any other especially disagreeable invaders to resisting the urge to trim grass super close to the ground — have gradually evolved our lawns into a robust heterogeneous turf that feels comfortable underfoot, appears pleasant to the eye, endures and/or rebounds from fluctuations in weather conditions, and requires no irrigation or synthetic supplements.
Yep, that was a hypoxic run-on sentence bristling with braggadocio. Apologies!
Long story short, holistic gardening works. Especially when the inimitable Tony Foster is piloting the aerator!
