SF Garden -- Late Winter Update

We have been harvesting some beautiful and delicious carrots from the garden. My one cabbage plant is gorgeous! I suppose I could harvest it at any time, but I think I'll let it go a bit longer. The lettuce is pretty much all gone now. I left one plant for seed production. The beets are still pretty little but I pulled a few of them yesterday. And there's peas, onions, chard, and strawberries still to come.

Now for the broccoli story. Last family dinner night, I decided to pick the one big brocolli stalk and give everyone a bit of raw veggies fresh from the garden before dinner as appetizer. We all tasted it and politely declared it good. But soon it became apparent that the aftertaste left something to be desired. It was a bit bitter, maybe coppery even. A few minutes later, Erica noticed little green things on her computer keyboard. She had been working on homework when I brought the brocolli in. It turns out the brocolli was covered with camoflauged tiny bugs. Live and healthy. And coppery tasting. I learned my lesson -- always wash the veggies, even if you grew it organically yourself. I check the garden almost daily and completely missed this pest. I went out and sprayed some Safer insecticidal soap on the brocolli plants, so I hope that takes care of the little buggers! I'll be checking a little more carefully from now on.




We've had some really cold nights this year. It's gotten below freezing on four separate occasions, and once down into the teens. To protect the plants, we place wire tomato cage supports around the edges of the raised beds. Then we place clear plastic over the frames and hold it down with spare 4x6's left over from making the raised bed. This has worked really well, but would not be the best in high winds or heavy rainfall. We generally wait for the front to go thru before setting up the "greenhouse". It's cheap, easily assembled, and easily stored between bouts of cold weather. We have been toying with various ideas for a more permanent-type greenhouse, but for the number of days that we actually need cold protection here in North Florida, this works just fine.

The Grandma Garden

We started the Grandma Garden even before my mother died. She helped plan it and we moved some of the plants from her garden here after my Dad sold their house. The backbone of the garden is formed by the concrete stepping stones, which my parents cast whenever grandkids were visiting. The stones bear the imprint of all the grandkids hands, feet, and initials. All else in the garden changes with the seasons and with the years, but the path remains.

When we started the garden, it was in a very sunny part of the yard. But the wax myrtles and other surrounding trees in the yard have gotten a lot bigger and provide some welcome shade. Lately, I've been putting in various kinds of ginger because they love the shade, they are beautiful and provide a nice scent when they bloom. I've got this white butterfly ginger and some blue, purple and red varieties that bloom at different times and have very different shapes and sizes.

One year, my brother Jack drew my name in the family Christmas lottery. His very inspired gift was a statue family with five children -- one for each of my parents' five kids. They are even the correct sex and relative age for our family. The little "Sudie" character possibly was supposed to be a boy, but since she was such a tomboy, it is appropriate.

The eagle represents Dad, the clan patriarch, who keeps a stern watch over the flock. The kazoo on his shoulder is ever ready for a quick tune or an organizing call.

The sign next to the Commander came from Christy and says:

The kiss of the sun for pardon
The song of the birds for mirth
One is nearer God's heart in the garden
Than anywhere else on earth

Erica got Oreo, the cat, a month after Mom died. And Oreo seemed to sense that there was a connection there. She spent many hours in the Grandma Garden, sleeping, playing and just hanging around. Whenever I worked in the garden, Oreo was sure to show up sooner or later to see what was happening. Once she got very sick and quit eating for a few days. She disappeared and we found her in the garden. I'm convinced that she went out there to die. We forced her to come inside and fed her some healing yogurt from our local dairy. She slowly got better. We eventually lost her to the deadly neurotoxin of a coral snake bite. She is the only cat that has had the privilege to be buried in the Grandma Garden.

Cranes on Payne's Prairie

Wendell and I went out to Payne's Prarie on New Year's Day morning. We had heard that there was a much larger than normal population of sandhill cranes. And, even better, there was a pair of whooping cranes that had broken off of from their ultralight-led group and decided to join the sandhills this winter. We thought it might be pretty cool, but we were unprepared for the sight and sounds of thousands of sandhill cranes amassed near the north side of the Prairie, along La Chua trail.

The sandhills were a real treat for us. We see them frequently, but rarely in these numbers and rarely so close. But an even bigger treat was the pair of whooping cranes. This is one of the most endangered species on earth. They are making a comeback after dwindling to about 20 individuals. Now they number about 300 total. And we had never seen any before. I think it may be the first time they have visited the prairie for decades.

The cranes are very large, very noisy birds. When they fly over our house during the spring and fall migration seasons, I can't resist the impulse to run outside and spot the flock. Sometimes I can hear them so clearly, but can't find them because they are so far up or hidden behind the trees in our neighborhood. But this time, we were just 200 feet or so from a huge flock of the birds foraging on the ground. And more birds were joining them as we watched, in small groups of 2 to 10. The new birds didn't seem to care if there was enough room for them -- they would land right in the middle of the flock.

The sound of the cranes is incredible, especially when you are in the middle of a flock of several thousand. I tried to record it, but this video does not capture it well.

Note: We found out later from a park ranger that the two whooping cranes are "newlyweds". Whooping cranes mate for life and these two just paired off this year. May they live long and prosper!

Garden Update

We have been harvesting lettuce and carrots! Until today, the carrots have not made it into the house because I eat them straight from the garden. But tonight we will have a salad with lettuce and carrots, just hours old.


The beans, of course, did not survive the first freeze. I should have known. But when it's 90 degrees out and I'm planting a garden in my bathing suit so I can cool off in the pool when it gets too hot, it's hard not to think of warm weather plants.


The lettuce, carrots and beets are doing great. We also have some spinach, chard, onions, broccoli and cabbage that look good, but are not ready for harvest yet. Since the last garden update, I have planted some more lettuce and carrot seeds. And I bought some chard seedlings and transplanted them. I also bought a cabbage seedling. That's been a while, and the plant looks great.


So far everything in the garden is organically grown. I am not morally opposed to using inorganic fertilizers, if needed. Nitrogen is nitrogen, as far as the plant is concerned. But the soil is healthier if it contains enough organic matter. And the right proportions of carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus can supply all the nutrients necessary for growth.

Confessions of an Amateur GeckoStone Builder

I made a GeckoStone walkway for the entrance to a garden in my backyard. The garden is kind of a memorial garden for my mother, so it is a really special place for our family and it needed a special entrance. I have been fascinated by the artwork of M.C. Escher for a few decades and these interlocking blocks seemed to have been inspired by Escher’s geometric patterns. One of my favorite of Escher’s drawings is “Reptiles”, where the lizards crawl out of the tessellation, onto a desktop, give a little snort from the top of a book and then crawl right back into the drawing. If I can find them, I will include some 3-D geckos into the garden as if they have temporarily left the walkway to smell the flowers.

As a working mother, I don’t have much spare time. So this walkway project has been a major investment for me. I bought the molds in October 2002 and didn’t finish casting the stones for almost 2 years! I made an effort to mix a batch of stones every weekend that I was home, not working, didn’t have visitors and it was forecast to be above 55°F for the entire weekend. So, even though I only covered a relatively small area, it took a long time. I thought I might share some of my observations and insights about this project.

Acquiring the materials.
First of all – read and heed John August’s directions. He is right.

The concrete mix:
Because of the way I worked – a little at a time when I had the time, keeping enough concrete, sand and aggregate in my garage for the entire project was just not very practical. So, I used 60-pound bags of pre-mixed concrete mix, either Quikrete or Sakrete, depending on whether I shopped at Home Depot or Lowes. They are pretty much equivalent in content and quality and are interchangeable as far as the final product. A 60-pound bag will make 3 gecko stones with a little bit of concrete left over. I used the leftover to make some stones using another mold that I already had. And I occasionally made some unusual items, like the concrete hamburgers that I put on the grill to surprise my husband.

Concrete dyes:
I never did find a good local source for the concrete dyes that John August recommended, so I went with off-the-shelf products from the home improvement stores. Here’s what I learned. There is a big difference in the dyes made by Quikrete and Sakrete. The Quikrete dyes are liquid and are mixed with the water before adding it to the dry concrete mix. This is very easy except for one thing. The dyes come packaged for two 60-pound bags of concrete mix and I only made a single bag at a time, so the jar had to be divided, which is not always easy with the vile, viscous potion. The stuff gets everywhere and stains! Our driveway, my main work area, is now a multi-hued concrete palette. I kind of like it, but none of the neighbors have yet tried to copy it.

The Sakrete dye, on the other hand, is powdered and is mixed with the dry cement before adding the water. This takes a little more work than the liquid dye, but I think the colors that result from the powdered dye are richer. And each package is used for a single bag of concrete mix, so no measuring is required and it is a lot neater.

Release Agent:
The Crete-Lease stuff works great. I didn’t try any other product. Why mess with success? Here is a conversation that I had with the guy at Cresset that took my order over the phone:

Me: “Hi, I’d like to order 2 aerosol cans of your Crete-Lease VOC-20.

Cresset guy: “I’d be happy to send those to you. You must be making the Gecko Stones”.

Me: “How did you know? Are GeckoStone makers the only small-time buyers of Crete-Lease?”

Cresset guy: “Just the women, ma’am.”

Now, I’m sure that it’s not only women making the stones, but maybe we are the only ones following John August’s recommendation for release agents. But this conversation left me with the vision of a network of industrious women around the country, maybe around the world, with no knowledge of each other, but all sharing the common traits of good humor, strong backs, abundant patience and an appreciation for geometric proportion. In a time of international crisis, we could all be called to duty by John August, himself, or possibly by an authorized representative of the Cresset Company, to come to the aid of our ailing and asymmetric planet.

Preparation
Making 3 geckos at a time is a slow process. It will take many batches to get a full walkway. Keep everything you need in one place so when the opportunity arises, you can whip up a batch in 26 hours or so. (One hour for preparation, 24 hours of waiting, 1 hour for release and clean up).

The difference between too little water and too much water in a concrete mix is a very small amount – we’re talking a few ounces for a 60-pound bag of concrete. So add water slowly near the end.

I needed a lot more water than the bagged concrete mix called for. This may weaken the stones a little, but resulted in a much smoother appearance with fewer pockmarks. The directions call for 3 quarts of water for a 60-pound bag of mix. I added this much, then, a little at a time; I added more to make the mix workable. I usually end up with just short of one gallon total water added.

I tried several methods of mixing concrete, but by the end of the project I ended up just mixing the concrete manually in a plastic mortar tub made just for this kind of thing. They have them at the home improvement stores for about $6 each. I started out using a long, narrow-blade shovel to turn and mix the concrete. After a few batches, my husband suggested that I get a hoe. I told him that I didn’t exactly think those were the kind of skills that this job called for. After he regained his composure, he explained that he meant the garden implement, not the oldest profession. He was right, the hoe was very helpful and we’ve nicknamed her “Madame”. (She resides in the garage with Cindy, the loppers).

Filling the molds is the second most enjoyable part of the process (freeing the geckos from their molds is the first). Put on your heavy rubber gloves and fill the extremities by hand. Lots of patting and tamping will allow the concrete to fill all the void spaces and result in very pretty geckos. And it’s really fun.

And I requisitioned a little-used vibrator for ensuring that all the air bubbles were out of the concrete mix, so the edges of the stones would be nice and smooth. This is a mesmerizing procedure – to watch the concrete liquefy from the vibration and become a miniature, turbulent, boiling sea. Hard to explain – you’ll have to see it for yourself. Usually my husband magically appeared when this task had to be done.

Layout
We fit the stones into an area already bounded on three sides by a concrete sidewalk. The unpaved part used to be a planter bed, but it is now our unique entrance to the Grandma Garden. Cutting some of the geckos was necessary to get a straight edge at the existing concrete border. I picked three colors for the walkway itself, brown, tan and red, one color for each gecko orientation. But the border geckos that were cut were left uncolored – the ghost geckos. They kind of blend in with the adjacent sidewalk and, besides, I didn’t want to have to cut the “live” geckos!

We laid the stones out in the garage to get the correct alignment and patterns before I put them in the garden. I actually did some work on the computer using AutoCad to try to get the best layout – but ultimately, just laying them out on the smooth, level garage floor was the best way to visualize, measure and plan. I numbered each stone and diagramed the numbering system, so they could be transferred to their final spot without any decision-making during manual labor.

My husband used a hand-held, circular, right-angle saw with a masonry cutoff wheel to cut the ghost geckos. The blades don’t really cut; they grind the concrete. And the blades aren’t big enough to go all the way through the geckos, so he had to cut into both the top and the bottom. The remaining ½ to ¾ inch had to be broken, but it was pretty easy to do. The result is a nice, straight line on the top and bottom, but a bit of an uneven line where the stone had to be broken. But since the uneven part is not visible, it turned out OK.

Before placing the stones in the walkway, we dug down to about 6 inches and compacted the soil. The native soil is mostly sand, so we didn’t worry about digging much deeper and putting an underlayment of gravel, which some soils would require. Then we added about 2 inches of clean sand. We constructed a leveling tool that was the same width as the walkway with overhanging handles that would be flush with the existing sidewalk on both sides. The straight edge hanging down into the walkway area was the exact depth of the GeckoStones, so we could easily create a smooth, flat surface over the entire walk, which would match the existing grade perfectly.

Once the grade was set, it took two adults and four hungry teenagers, who were promised pizza at the completion of the job, about 1-1/2 hours to move the geckos from the garage to the walkway and place them. The last step was to sweep sand between the crevices. This part of the job was so much easier than I had imagined.

I get a lot of compliments on my gecko walkway. I wouldn’t discourage anyone from taking on this job, but just begin with patience, keep your sense of humor and be ready when called to duty by the Cresset guy.

Family Dinner Night

Once a week the family gathers. The core group is Wendell, Cheri, Nick and Erica, but usually we have family friends Crystal, Llu and Tom. And of course the four-legged family members are included: Itty Bitty, Vladimir, Moog, Alobar, and sometimes Vito.

The night of the week varies depending on schedules for classes, work, meetings, etc. Currently it's Monday nights, although tonight we have a special edition Sunday Family Dinner night.

There's always music of some sort, either homemade or as a minimum, something recorded. Sometimes both -- homemade, recorded music. This picture above is from last week when Tom was back in G'ville for a couple of weeks before his stint working at a ski resort. The highlight that night, I think, was playing hacky sack while listening to Hawaiian music by the great "Iz", Israel Kamakawiwo'ole.

The kids always pitch in and clean up after dinner. Here's Erica and Crystal happily washing dishes. (Contrary to the way it looks in these pictures, the guys do dishes as often as the girls - And the girls make music with the guys!)

Tonight we're doing something a little different with a West African theme: FuFu and peanut soup. We don't always get so creative, but I was inspired by my friend, Jesse, who I accompanied to an ethnic market last week.

Here, Nick is helping Llu restring her guitar, while Erica supervises.

Fall Garden

I hear that fall gardening is the way to go in Florida. This is the first time I've attempted it, but so far most everything looks pretty good. At least when I get a chance to see it. With the shorter days, it's getting dark by the time I get home from work. So some evenings I'm doing flashlight gardening. But there are flowers on the bean plants. The nasturtiums are getting huge. The beets that recovered from the bad rain last month look great. Carrots are looking good. Lettuce is healthy. The only things that really didn't make it are the swiss chard (something gnawed on it), one of the brocolli's (ditto) and the sorrel (never did germinate).

Days are short, the sun is low and temperatures are cooler, so the plants are growing much more slowly than in a spring/summer garden. But the biggest difference that I've noticed between this fall garden and summer gardens is the relative lack of bugs. I've had to pick some eggs and caterpillars off the bean plants, but I really haven't noticed any other bugs (other than whatever ate the chard and brocolli). We did have a fire ant infestation in one corner of the raised bed. I dug them out, taking a few of the carrot plants with them, but they seem to be gone for good now. I'm not sure if they crawled over the border wall or burrowed under.

With the sun lower in the sky now, and most of the leaves still on our trees, the hours of sunlight have really been reduced. By December we will have lost all of the sweetgum leaves and some of the hickory leaves. The live oak and laurel oak leaves will stay on all winter and drop in the spring when the new leaves emerge. I'd like to measuer the solar radiation that this garden gets. It seems very limited, but so far the plants are healthy, so I suppose it is enough.

Can't wait to start the harvest! That will be the true test!

Harvested this week from the summer garden:

Peppers (habanero, poblano and tangerine), and four acorn squashes. Some of the habeneros went into a peanut soup tonight. The squashes are for our Thanksgiving squash soup.