A New Year 2021

 

It is a new year at Shepard Lane Garden.  It is cold, but the sun is shining.  I worry about so many things. But the garden is a place that holds hope and potential.  I have been going through my seeds, thinking about what can be grown this year, and what kind of commitment of time and energy I can put into it.  

Challenges and Goals :

A challenge:

Honestly, my energy output is not as high as it used to be.  My hEDS, basically a collagen disorder, has taken a toll, some days worse than others.  I can still lift a 75 lb object one day and be fine - until almost exactly the same time the next day when I am in pain for several hours.  There really doesn't seem to be any explanation for it - but it is constant and has been this way for several years now.  Mostly, I just deal with the pain (because whole classes of painkillers are basically noneffective on me, I hypermetabolize, joy!)  

And it is the little things that are so puzzling.  I am often sitting there wondering 'what in the world could I have done to cause this?'  I rolled the window on my truck up and down about fifteen times (likely more) during a postal route shift.  The next day about 10 am, my thumb throbbed and ached in the muscle there for about four hours straight.  It took more than an hour of it just for me to remember what I could have possibly done.  And then after a bit, it went away.  Luckily another constant about the condition is that good food helps enormously to give the body what it needs to 'rebuild'.  I can cook and include the spices and anti-inflammatory foods that I need to recover.  I am ravenous at times directly after these long hours of work, and then again after the muscle aches begin.  So, the garden is another boon in that I can grow good food and have it at hand.

So, this year's goals : 

The sorrel (pictured above) I planted last year has returned and will be a good addition in bean and leek soups.  I planted it in March and it produced some over the year.  It is January and the leaves are already beginning to show again.  I planted the red-veined sorrel so it would be unmistakable when it came up.  Sorrel is supposed to be a wonderful anti-inflammatory and especially helpful for the lungs.  It is very bitter / acidic in large amounts but great as a spice type addition to salads and in soups.

Kale and mustard are great antioxidants, and they were a large amount of the produce that came out of the garden last year.  I planted these cement brick raised beds full of greens, including also kohlrabi and arugula, and ate off them nearly all season long.  There is still some of the kale growing in the gardens right now, but so little I just give a leaf to the goat or chickens once in a while.

Basils - I grew purple, Italian green and cinnamon flavored basils last year.  I have several of the varieties left this year to plant again when it becomes warmer.  Basil is a wonderful addition to all sorts of meals.  The lemon scented 'basil' is actually something else in the mint family, but for ease it is called 'lemon basil' by many companiies.  It has grown and went wild over the garden.  Wherever it pops up and does not interfere with what is there - I let it grow and eventually go to seed.

Lemon balm is another 'wilded' plant in the garden, originally planted with our mints.  It goes as much as to show up halfway across the garden.  The leaves are nicely lemon scented and can be used to make a tea drank like lemonade.

Other perennials and reseeders in the garden are some perennial lettuces, spring bunching onions and purslane.  I try to keep those areas undisturbed and watch for those seedlings to show themselves.

Carrots and parsley - there are still carrots and 'rooted hamburg parsley' growing in last year's new raised bed up by our house.  There had been kale and komatsuna and cinnamon basil there, too.  The cinnamon basil was a new attempt, and it was so successful we have a huge jar of it dried up in our pantry to add to rice dishes.

Beans : Dry, green, shelly and cowpeas - beans are the biggest thing in our garden.  I love to save the varieties and perpetuate them as well.  I have a few varieties that are local heirlooms that we are trying to grow a bit every year to keep the seed fresh and the variety alive.  I also eat quite a bit of the produce when the plants are healthy and productive.  Last year I had a few meals of two types, but mostly the weather was so poor I was glad to get some for seed.  I got another handful of landrace beans last year to plant and grow out again.  

 I admit also though, last year I did a very minimal garden, just spade dig and fence as well as a few containers and cement brick raised beds.

Tomatoes: We always grow a small collection of tomatoes.  Last year I had only started a few inside, but this year I hope to do a few more.  I have ordered one of my favorite varieties to start in trays.  Some years we have canned jars and jars of tomato sauce.  Other years, we eat some of the produce, give some away, and let the rest go to the chickens.

The pole garden.  I grow morning glory, moonflower, hollyhocks, lilies and more here.  Every year we have added a little bit here and there.  There is a native plant (shown in the left of this picture) called woods iris that never really flowers, but it is pretty and comes back every year.  Last year we had moonflowers nearly as large as my hand in a few places on the fence.  There is also a rose bush and a viburnum (snowball) bush that we have started. 

Squash : I intend this year to grow at least one type of pumpkin.  Most of the times we have had pumpkins were not years I intended to 'focus' on them... they just took over and did their thing.  One year we had more than 20 pumpkins from a vine out of the chicken yard.  I have ordered a few heirloom varieties of French pumpkin and hope to start a batch of them inside.  Last year the 'unexpected' producer was the yellow crookneck squash.  I had a cheap packet (20 cents) from a supermarket that I put in the ground along with my 'zephyr' squash that I like (although it is a hybrid) and the crookneck took off and was bringing in pounds of produce for my vegetable meals all year.  I like to plant the squashes in hills in groupings.. so we'll see what happens this year.

 

I ordered this type of pumpkin 'Fairytale french heirloom' and another flat heirloom variety this year.  We also have some Howden field pumpkin from the co op, will see how all the germination goes.  Pumpkins take up so much space in the garden, and I don't want to do too much and get nothing at all.

Corn : We have ordered 'Jimmy Red' sweet corn this year that is an heirloom.  Most years we grow Peaches and Cream.  We didn't get much corn at all last year, but again I tilled only that area and it wasn't great.  Then I didn't put as much effort into the garden because I was training for the post office and doing other things.

We have Cinnamon Queen Chickens, and they are some four years old now, and still some of them are laying eggs.  We have been discussing raising some more younger birds this year.

 

This is our new Nani goat.  Our elderly goat, Kitty, died this last fall.  Then we saw an ad saying Nani needed a new home as her owners were moving.  So, we're seeing if she can adapt to the life as a 'leaf hound' running among our dogs and eating all of the green food she can reach.  She was with a small herd that included a llama before, though, and does seem to miss her other hooved mammals.  We'll look to see if she gets happier when the greens really start to come in - right now there is a lot of adjusting to do.  She is so much different than Kitty.  Where Kitty would climb a tree to eat a single leaf and didn't care whether the dogs were there or not - Nani seems to want to be handfed or given a bucket of food several times a day and really likes having company 'around' just not anywhere near enough to butt.

Here's to 2021.

I have a tray of sweet peas in the window, and lettuce and kale seed out in the garden.  We'll see if it was too cold for them, but with the temperatures warming up they might just start popping up.