The Yellow Farmhouse Garden

September 26, 2019

Cranbrook art and the potato, kids and plants do the darndest things

Filed under: Events,Related topics,Vegetables — Tags: , , , , , — bob @ 11:04 am

This past weekend my daughter Robin and I visited the Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills. We took in the show entitled “Landlord Colors”. As you would expect from Cranbrook, it was a top notch exhibit.

The museum’s setting is quite impressive too. Rolling terrain is punctuated by gardens, statuary, and water features. We were on a tight schedule but took some time to walk around the area near the museum. In addition to the gardens adjacent to the building, there are hidden surprises along walkways and trails.

This reflecting pool was built in the early 1900’s.

This reflecting pool was built in the early 1900’s.

Cranbrook also has related “Landlord Colors” art installations in Detroit and one of those was on our itinerary for the day. We drove over to a spot near the Chene Park area to see Scott Hocking’s installation “Bone Black”.

Even the building itself was part of the art installation.

Even the building itself was part of the art installation.

Hocking, a Michigan native, often creates large-scale art work, so large in fact that he uses forklifts, cranes and other pieces of industrial equipment to install them. This work, installed in one of the city’s vacated factory buildings, lived up to its promise. It’s comprised of thirty three derelict speed boats suspended from the building’s steel roof-truss structure. Other sundry, industrial cast-offs dot the floor space to complete the effect.

Industrial cast-offs like this cylindrical vent dotted the floor space.

Industrial cast-offs like this cylindrical vent dotted the floor space.

After enjoying the Cranbrook art exhibit and spectacular gardens, absorbing Scott’s oversized art statement was quite a contrast.

In amongst this huge installation, Robin spotted one humble thing that sort of resonated with me — a small potato plant. It was growing inside a five foot cylindrical, roof vent-like assembly that was resting on the factory floor. We had to look down, over the wide edge the cylinder to find the hidden plant. The potato plant had the beginnings of a well-developed root system and a six inch sprout growing from a two inch tuber. Holes in the roof had let in enough rain water for the plant to grow. A thin layer of dirt left over from the factory shut-down provided a substrate for the roots.

A potato inadvertently became part of the art installation.

A potato inadvertently became part of the art installation.

Robin and I asked Scott if the potato was one of his trademark whimsical objects that he often hides in his work. He laughed and said no, it wasn’t him that put it there. He went on to tell us a young family visited the installation a while back. The mom was carrying her baby while walking through the building. As they were leaving, the mom told Scott her baby had tossed a potato into the aforementioned structure and hoped it wouldn’t cause a problem. Scott told her not to worry since it was too far down to reach and nobody would see it there anyway. We all had a good laugh at that story.

On our drive back home Robin and I wondered out loud, what was a baby doing carrying around a potato?

Bob

May 23, 2019

Purple deadnettle in the garden

Filed under: Related topics,Vegetables,Weeds — Tags: , , , , , — bob @ 8:07 am

As I was going through my seed potatoes a I remembered something I heard long ago. It was the concept of potatoes and their companion plants or what scientists call positive allelopathy. The basic idea is that some plants grow better in the presence of other kinds of plants.

We hear more about the opposite type of allelopathy, where plants secrete chemical compounds into the soil to inhibit the growth of other plants. The most well known example of a negative allelopathic plant is probably black walnut trees. Anyone with a small yard with a black walnut growing in it can tell you it is impossible to grow certain types of plants in the root zone of the tree.

Purple deadnettle (Lamium) is a common weed in many gardens. This is the time of year when it is most noticeable with its purple flowers and almost magenta colored upper leaves. It is thought by a lot of gardeners to have positive allelopathic effects, particularly on potatoes. A few deadnettle plants growing among potato plants is supposed to enhance growth and improve flavor as well as repel potato beetles.

Purple dead nettle has distinctive purple upper leaves and flowers.

Purple dead nettle has distinctive purple upper leaves and flowers.

Farmers don’t like purple deadnettle because it is a winter annual, a plant that germinates in the fall and flowers in the spring. But the biggest drawback of deadnettle (and a few other wild plants) is that it can harbor soybean cyst nematodes (SCN) a very severe malady of soybeans that can drastically reduce crop yields. Farmers are not willing to take a chance on their crop by letting deadnettles grow in their fields.

Gardeners on the other hand, rarely grow soybeans so a little bit of deadcnettle here and there is no problem.  Since SCN  is species specific, meaning other crops can’t be infected, you probably wouldn’t find SCN in a garden anyway.

The relatively short purple deadnettle can grow quite nicely under the partial shade of other plants like potatoes. They supposedly don’t steal nutrients from the soil that potatoes need. That sounds like  pretty good qualities to have in a companion plant.

I’ve never tried this in my own garden because I don’t have any purple deadnettle. I certainly would never introduce Lamium to my property because it can overrun an area fairly quickly. The seeds are viable for years so once you get deaednettle, you’ll always have it.

Bob

April 17, 2019

No garden space? Try a community garden

Filed under: Garden Preparation,Related topics — Tags: , — bob @ 5:04 pm

Just because you are living in an apartment or in a house with no suitable gardening space, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re out of luck.

All around Michigan groups, work to provide community gardening space for folks who couldn’t otherwise garden due to a lack of space.

There’s a wide spread on the amenities community gardens provide. The most rustic community gardens provide nothing more than a sunny place to garden. At those you’ll have to do your own tilling in the spring. Also, you’ll have to haul your own water from home. Water is critical especially during the first couple of weeks until young plants become established. After that, mulches applied around the plants will drastically reduce the amount of water required compared to bare soil.

The next tier of gardens will have water on site with one or more hose bibs from which to draw water. Sometimes hoses are allowed, sometimes not. But at the very least you won’t have haul jugs of water from home.

Some community gardens loan out tools for the gardeners to use if they don’t have their own. That usually happens in the more permanent gardens where tool sheds or other storage facilities are located right on site.

A community garden plot.

A community garden plot.

Permanent raised beds are available at some garden sites. Their configuration can be anything from slightly raised beds to growing tables raised to table top height.

The rarest of community gardens are those that provide all the previously mentioned amenities plus garden irrigation. These will often have a garden expert or manager who monitors the irrigation system and is around to help gardeners with problems and to answer questions. Some even provide people to help to those who need it.

Costs ranges from free or a token amount to hundreds of dollars per season in the most desired location. Often organizations use garden fee income to improve the garden or help fund other work. In lieu of a fee, you may be asked to contribute a number of work hours helping around the garden.

If you do decide to join a community garden, be a good member. Always be mindful of the rules. For example: don’t trudge through other people’s garden; never pick produce from other plots unless given permission, even if it appears to be in danger of becoming over-ripe; park in designated areas; keep the garden a peaceful place, don’t act out personal problems at the garden such as shouting arguments. The best policy is try to be a good neighbor.

It’s fairly easy to find garden space these days. Start by contacting city recreation departments, schools, colleges, churches and other civic organizations. Private land owners or farmers may rent out plots as well.

This time of the year, just before planting season kicks off, organizations make a big push to get people to sign up. That means sign-up for garden space is going full speed ahead so don’t wait too long because space often runs out fast in some of the more popular gardens. Before committing to a garden plot, it might be a good idea to visit first so there are no surprises.

Bob

 

September 7, 2018

Gardeners disregard blemishes on home grown produce

Filed under: Related topics,Vegetables — Tags: , , , — bob @ 10:00 am

Gardeners are fortunate to have the opportunity to grow the freshest and highest quality vegetables. Even now when organic produce is widely available, it’s no match for home grown.

When it comes to their own produce, most gardeners disregard one major criterion that defines quality ; that is appearance. Even ahead of taste, nutrition or freshness, appearance is still what matters most to shoppers. You really can’t blame folks for judging produce by how it looks, how else would you know if there was anything wrong with it? You could smell it, squeeze it or knock on it to hear how it sounds I suppose. Over 30 percent of food is wasted each year and much of that waste is because something doesn’t look perfect.

Gardeners on the other know exactly how their produce was grown because they did it themselves. So generally, appearance is less likely to be a factor in judging their produce. For example, some heirloom tomatoes are very prone to cracking or splitting. Selling blemished tomatoes like that would completely out of the question in a produce department and for good reason. Cracks and splits and other kinds of blemishes provide an entry for microorganisms to enter into the fruit. But if a gardener grew it, he would know that some types of tomatoes crack and wouldn’t worry about it. Most likely it would go from the tomato vine directly to the table reducing the chance of spoilage.

Carrots are prone to cosmetic damage too. Any number of things can cause a carrot to become misshapen such as a virus disease, insects, nematodes, soil moisture, soil texture, inadequately prepared soil, a pebble in the soil, even a tiny granule of fertilizer or who knows what else. So many carrots are deformed in a typical field that farmers had to develop a new use for them. They invented baby carrots. Those bagged baby carrots are cut and shaped from crooked carrots that otherwise would end up being thrown away.

Crooked carrots are harder to peel but are still tasty.

Crooked carrots are harder to peel but are still tasty.

 

A gardener knows most of the time there is nothing wrong with a misshapen carrot, there are some exceptions. I met a new gardener the other day who was digging carrots and tossed most of his crop into the compost because they were not perfectly carrot shaped. There was no convincing this person otherwise.

I eat all kinds of damaged, deformed, blemish and bruised produce from my garden that I would never pay money for at a grocery store or farmer’s market. I trim around the unusable parts like most gardeners do. The trimmings and any produce that is too far gone gets fed to the chickens. The hens in turn use the nutrition from those garden scraps to produce eggs. With their help, my food waste percentage is close to zero.

Bob

 

December 28, 2017

Note to self: save materials for Christmas wreaths next summer

Filed under: Related topics,Weeds — bob @ 9:48 am

It’s a lot of fun seeing all of the different kinds of Christmas decoration folks have put together out of natural materials.  Wreaths have evolved way past just a simple circle of evergreen boughs with a red ribbon tied to it, although you still see plenty of those.

As gardeners we have the opportunity to grow or gather together the raw materials for unique Christmas decorations. For example around here at pruning time, we save our grapevine trimmings and roll them up into circles, that’s a common one many people do. But other materials can be used as well. Many flowers, shrubs , stalks even weeds have interesting features that can be quite decorative. Who remembers making Christmas items in elementary school out of milkweed seedpods?

Some materials, such as hydrangea stems,are easier to bend and form when they are fresh.

Some materials, such as hydrangea stems,are easier to bend and form when they are fresh.

You only have to use your imagination a little to come up with something that is really neat and one-of-a-kind. If you’re not the creative type, you can always glean ideas from Pinterest.

Right now, while you’re thinking of it, make a note in your phone’s calendar app to remind yourself next spring and summer to look for raw materials for your 2018 Christmas. Maybe you’ll even come up with something cool enough to post on Pinterst yourself.

Bob

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