Sweet Pea

I found these sweet ground peas today on my property between the strawberries I planted and our compost area. I picked a bowl full.  I washed them and left them in a bowl and we have been eating them raw. They are super sweet! I may end up boiling them with sea salt them shelling them as we eat them. 

The Makings of a Solstice Garden

I read about solstice gardens and directional gardens in the Farmer’s Almanac and instantly fell in love with the solstice garden!

What is a Solstice Garden? 

Well, a calendar/rock garden that denotes a garden calendar. How it works is the shadow of a tall stationary object is cast on other small stationary objects on the solstices and equinoxes of the calendar year, also you can put rock markers on special days of the year like birthdays and anniversaries.  

Getting Started:

My 90 year old Grandmother “Nanny Jean” was woman of the year for Beta Sigma Phi. The ceremony was held at a tea room/craft and antique mall in Lindsay Oklahoma. While waiting on the program to start I did some browsing. I found a great iron trellis with a pink ball on the top of it, I had to have it, it was perfect!

I placed it around my property and watched the noontime shadows on days I was not at work and decided on a general place I wanted to put in my special garden. In December I finalized my plans I found the terraces permanent location. I also made sure the corners of my square trellis is directional noting true north at one corner, I used a compass for this step. I also decorated a temporary rock to mark the winter solstice 2012 at high noon. I hope to find something prettier in the future.

Now I know what you’re thinking and it’s not true!! Until I started reflecting on this garden this very day I did not realize that I placed the rock at high noon on the end date of the Mayan Calendar and on the day our sun is aligned with the center of our Milky Way…. but now that I do realize that it makes this whole thing so cool!

So… What’s Next:

Well the spring equinox of course.  Now that I have marked to winter solstice and my trellis has marked it’s longest shadow to be recorded I have a general idea of the area my rock garden must have. I did not lay down any landscaping material first, and I will likely need it so I will have to do that next and create the border rocks around my shadow casting area and I really would like to find a few really cute things for marking each important date of the year. I once decorated a pot for my mother and I purchased a metal garden spike with a wire and glass butterfly on it. I would love to use something like this for family birthdays.

I promise to keep this updated each calendar addition until complete!

Misty Dawn

Nature Walk: Learning to Identify Useful Wild Plants

I had an amazing opportunity to get in on a nature walk with a woman who calls herself a "wildcrafter." She knows both the medical and culinary uses for plants that are found in the wild. She is amazingly knowledgeable about plants in the wild and there uses. It was my honor to get to share in the knowledge of a elder of the Cherokee Indian tribe, I have so longed for such interaction with an elder, as we share a similar heritage. I am so thankful to have gone on this walk at all. Usually the wildcrafter is all booked up months in advance but she had three last minute cancellations and we got to go. She took a group of 30 on a walk. I was thankful that Marty and my teacher friend Denise went with me. The guide took us picking wild fruits, berries, and other useful plants. One of the best things about the walk was we walked within 5 miles of my home!

I took pictures and notes on my cell phone on the walk. I would take  a picture of the plant she was talking about open an email to send it and type notes on the pad when we moved onto another plant, I would start all over again.

The walk lasted two hours here are a few of the pictures. I am not sure I should share the notes of the walk because I don't want to encourage people to do something I have not tried myself but I will put them on here so you can "hear" what I heard on the walk. Please do not try anything listed here unless you verify the information with a specialist.

Echinacea good to harvest the root remember to ethically harvest take 5%

Yucca plant shampoo soap pounding of root flowers eatable candied flowers.

Red is good, white is bad, wild Sumac tea must be strained, break off head when ready to harvest when head turns sideways makes good spice should be strained spice good for fish seafood has a lemony taste.

Buffaloberry make good snacks and jellies!

The Chickasaw Plum is great for jellies tart in taste!

Wild soral. Sometimes florals yellow and blue eat raw.

This is a Wild Plum. There are three types of native plum trees in Oklahoma, Wild, Chickasaw, and Sand Plum Trees!

Thisle purple flower when small put ut in crock pot overnight. Good for liver good antixident use for cheese making. The dry head flowers water infusion turns brown makes a brenate for cheese making take the heads before they turn white.

It's true the brown plant you see is Wild Oats!

 Johnson grass heads drought it is toxic good to dry and put it up for goats to eat human too.

Curly Dock seed grainable for breads good on cupcakes use seeds for chicken and goat feeds. Invasive plant. Use in soups cooks it like a green puts it in a blender adds cream and spices can get and eat raw. Put a bundle of roots in 80 proof vodka added can make medicine for iron deficiancy blood loss good for treating shock. Take a pint jar fill ot full of roots then poor vodka in then keep in a cool dark place for two months then take out thr roots two tablesppons a day max.  

Prickly Lettuce prime picking when flowering. Milk as a pain killer milk it put it on a pice of glass to dry and it turns into powder form harvest in full bloom only a pain killer in dry form.

Lambs quarters very nutriciuos can eat raw or. Boiled just like spinage good for persto green drinks survival food highly recomended sometimes found through the winter months the stock doesn't tast good often found in the barn yard gets a frosted white look the frosted part is editable.

Poke the more red the more tokin eat leaves boiled like spinage its a good laxitive nutritional value hide young plants are best from the spring 8 inch high ideal

Plants not pictured Sage, Mugwart and Mint.

Thank you Jackie Dill for this wonderful journey!

Conjoined Twin Summer Squash

I just love my counjoined twin squash! I noticed it Friday after work on my afternoon stoll of my gardens.  I wish I had paid more attention to the bloom. My attention was elsewhere this week as I had to close out my classroom for the summer, and bring all my stuff home! 

Next for gardening I am going to put together some more buckets, and add a new tire to my tire patatoes!  I am so glad summer is here and I can give my garden, home, and pool the attention they deserve! Loving life right now!

Sign in at Summer School!

On a walk through our property I found an old school chair very old rusted and two bullet holes in the front.  To the delight of my son, we, or shall I say he carried it up the acreage to the front, I pondered what am I going to do with it... Why not plant something in it!

So I got started first I painted the chair with an outdoor primer in white. I did not want to spoil the rustic look of the chair but... I also wanted it to last I felt it was right so I did a partial paint job on it. Next I had a board cut to fit the book hole, I had to find someway to get the dirt to stay in. Then I filled with a potting mixture and put in some morning glory seeds. I did not Nick and soak them like I have in the past. I just decided to put them in the dirt.

One day I had a conversation with an old friend about the teacher summers. He said he said that he never takes the summer off he always teachers summer school (he is a high school teacher). I am a kindergarten teacher we typically do not have summer school for our kinders so my version of summer school is in the garden at home! What a great name for my new reuse planter "Summer School." I told my teenage daughter, a great artist to get busy making my school chair named in paint. She used paint pens and Incorporated the bullet holes into the art! I have also been making visitors to my property sign in on it as summer has begun! So far I have two signatures, both friends of my children. My dad did not sign hmmph!

I hope you enjoy the pictures and it inspires you to reuse something in a new way!

Grandma's Flowers and the flower rescue

My Grandmother's house has been lived in my my Aunt who did not want her flowers. So I dug them all up and found them a home on my property. I have many different types of plants but the Iris flowers are my favorite story. You see my Grandmother did the very same thing, she saved her Dad's Iris flowers the very same way, I have saved the same family of flowers! These Irises once belonged to my Great Grandfather.  This project deserved a special place! There where so many flowers I did end up planting many of the irises around several trees on my property as well.

I found an outcropping of rock that I knew was pretty large.

I excavated the rock and dug out the lower side for the bed.

Laid down retaining wall fit into the natural landscape...

After adding landscape material at the bottom I added a mixture of top soil and garden soil..

I added flowers in the cracks of the rock...

Then I added Grandma's Flowers!

Here are some other flowers I also saved over spring break...

Bucket Garden

Making raised beds takes a lot of money and time. An alternative we decided to try is bucket gardening. I took inspiration from many video's on the subject on YouTube.com.  I was using all the free buckets I could find but I also purchased 5 gallon buckets from home depot from under $3 a bucket. My cousin found me even larger buckets to garden in and now I am trying to plant corn, cantaloupe, watermelon and okra in some of those. A few stores willing to give me buckets for my bucket garden was Homeland deli area, and Braum's. I think this is an idea we can have a nicer garden in kindergarten, especially when teaching in the inner city, the buckets can be protected from vandalism. Problems in bucket gardening, knowing how much to water, I fear we have been over watering as we feared they would dry out all to fast. So far some of my plants do not look as good as they should it makes me sad I am hoping to find a way to pump these few plants up so they can be plentiful.  Benefits have been isolating plants with insect problems and treating them, mulch stays in place, I can move them around the yard to get them the sun/shade they need, protect them from serious storms, load them in the back of the truck and move them as a group take them out when needing to haul! So far my best plants have been one of the jalapeno plants, cherry tomato's, and two small bell pepper plants and producing bell's but are not growing tall enough so far.

My raised beds are a good investment overtime. I have two large beds one with summer squash and one for cucumbers.  I plan on adding one a month, even through the winter months as that will give me 14 by this time next year. I also have two tire potato towers started and doing well.

~Garden April 2012 Update on Projects~

the gate into my cucumber raised garden bed.

Cucumber raised bed

These are my upside down cherry tomatoes planted with my cucumber bed. I had pink tomatoes in these two years ago and I am hoping that these do much better than the pink tomatoes. We did not mail order these plants that was a better start anyway.

This is my cucumber bed. it has fence all the way around because I have to protect from critters.

a project I will be starting soon. I plan on planting morning glories or moon flowers in it and parking it next to one of my trees in front. I have already gave it a paint job, I know that takes away from the beauty of the rust but its going to get water on it often and have vines crawling everywhere anyway.

My starter plants and my milk crate onions that are planted in their for good! The rest will be transplanted into the bucket garden or into a raised bed somewhere.

My bucket garden start up. I have some starters pictured above with the onions I plan on having about 26 buckets in my bucket garden. I have found that it is easier for the buckets to be in the truck bed. When we need the truck bed we just take them out. We just move the garden around the property in the back of the bed super easy to protect plants from high winds, ect. I really like my bucket garden this is the first year we have had one!

My well house!. I got all of Grandma's front flowerbed plants transferred to my well house. I will need to find a location to prepair for the bearded irises next. Some of the plants have started blooming already I hope it will really start filling out the bed in the next few months.

This is my crooked neck squash bed. So far so good. The wood around it is scrap and the outside is cedars we have been clearing out from the property. amount the front access of the bed we have put up a removable fence so we can keep critters out. We love squash and have always had trouble with squash bugs now that we have moved maybe we wont see a squash bug again.

Spring has cleared my pocket book with these new projects!

It's that time of year, I am on a mission of beautification and function! One of the first projects of course has been to create a raised vegetable garden. This required picking out a location. I chose a cut out area of land that had a few cedar trees in it. The clearing of cedar commenced and we started building raised beds. The beds are constructed out of the cedar trees that have been cleared from the property.  We have purchased the dirt to go into the largest bed. Dirt is expensive! there is another large bed that needs only the front side put up and the purchase of dirt! I realized that the infrastructure of my property is going to take a really long time, and lots of money. to create. However, it is worth it! When we have it closer to completion I will put up some pictures!

I also started a project I deem essential as it is the focal point of the entrance of my property. I have wanted climbing roses forever. I bought two Golden Shower rose bushes, and two trellises for climbing. Three 2x4x8's painted white.  Installed them to the back of the pump house. From a previous project I had about 100 retaining wall bricks in a red/grey color. However, I had to purchase an additional 85 blocks! These required some digging and some leveling but once the first layer was complete it was just a matter of stacking! Plus  the addition of peat, compost, garden soil, and top soil and it has been a huge amount of money. Not to mention I always lay down black landscaping fabric for weed block.  In the next day or two I will be putting the dirt into the bed and preparing to plant the roses, and by the end of spring break my rescue flowers.

There are two side areas that are going to have hydrangeas planted in them. My Aunt does not want to have Grandma's flowers anymore and I just do not want to see them die. To the rescue!!! I have a home for all of them. Now I also have to find a place for the bearded irises that will also face death if I do not save them! Grandma had bearded Irises at every house we ever lived at, I will save them, I will!

From here on out soil will be my only cost this year, I will not buy any more garden borders, I sure wish we had better soil quality around here!

The picture is of the pump house's new flower beds before dirt and plants, you can see the old and new bricks at the lowest ground point the bricks are 6 layers deep, at the highest two layers! (This deep area worked out perfect for the roses!)

December Blooming Oak Tree

Taken December 24, 2011

What a perplexing tree! I discovered the new leaves on the tree and I got to work examining this tree and the two trees closest to it. I could not find another blooming tree on the property. The two trees next to it are dormant. The tree to the south still has dead leaves on it. The tree to the north has dropped all the dead leaves.  I was perplexed about the out of season bloom so I did a search for reputable articles about out of season blooming and discovered that the most likely culprit is the drought this summer. I did have a few trees go dormant during the drought, although this particular tree did not. We had a rather wet mid to late fall so the tree was “tricked” into an out of season bloom. I am going to keep an eye on this tree for the next few seasons and see exactly what will happen. I have heard some predictions by family members about what might happen to it some have said it is going to die; some have said it will always bloom out of season now. My prediction in its internal clock will reset itself at some point in the near future and it will have a lovely spring bloom and be just fine.

Plans for the future

Gardening In the Future

We will start gardening slow. I have some main house additions that must take priority. The soil quality is less desirable in the area so just to make it easier in the long run we are going to raise beds. I do have some plans already for a large essential herb garden and have started the process of planning the short and long turn fruit and vegetable garden. More about those plans in the future. I will need a few gardening buildings as well. I want a small drying room for the herb garden, a garden shed for gardening supplies and a green house for obvious reasons.  Sounds ambitious I know but I own this property and could be gardening here for the rest of my life and as it is the cornerstone of my self sufficiency plan for my family. Here is a look at my compleeted plans for Essential Herbs:

herb name	first aide garden	cold and flue garden	tea garden	kitchen garden
sage			x	x
pepermint		x	x	x
spearmint		x	x	x
oregano				x
Marjoram				x
terragon				x
Lemon balm			x	x
rosemary		x	x	x
chives				x
upright thyme				x
lemon thyme				x
burnet				x
french thyme				x
thyme		x
garlic cloves		x
cayanne pepper		x
yarrow	x	x
echinacea		x
anise hyssop			x
basil			x	x
calendula	x		x
cat nip			x
chamomile			x
lavendar			x
lemon gem marigolds			x
orange gem marigolds			x
lemon verbena			x
monarda			x
pinapple sage			x
sented geraniums			x
chick weed	x
plantain	x
aloe	x

What? No Garden?

That’s right! This year is a no garden year for me. I am so sad not to be digging in the dirt! I am in-between my two properties this year so until I get moved into my acreage I will not be gardening. I am still getting some residuals off of last years garden including strawberries and Brussels. I thought I would walk down memory lane gardens of the past…….

One of my favorite pictures of my broken leg garden, it's early so not so overgrown with veggies you can see the paths of the garden well. This is the west 1/3 of the garden

The broken leg garden was my best year in this garden. We had so much fresh produce and I had to do little of the work, mostly just fingerpointing and telling others what to do!

All in a day's harvest. Again the broken leg garden a day's harvest. In the bucket is cowpeas, the yellow pumpkin shape are spagetti squash, a favorite of the household. The round bottoms are butternut squash a yummie desert, you can see okra and tomato's too.

The west side of the house has a small herb harden. This garden even has cat nip growning in it! Love those fresh herbs!!