Citizen Gardener

When I started this blog I had intended to blaze a trail to a more self sufficient existence by documenting my progress as a gardener.  What I found was that while my intentions were good my concept of what this entailed was flawed.  It was, at least, poorly understood. Foremost, I mistook how much time it takes to maintain a focused and well disciplined blog.  Doing so takes time, dedication and a discipline to stay on topic and remain relevant to those who might follow you.  At this point in my life with two children at home and a career to grow, time is just in short supply.  That’s a reality not an excuse.  Furthermore, because I have so many other interests about which I’m passionate I've found it difficult to write within the narrow focus the blog’s original intent demands.  Not feeling able to write about what I want to at any given time wasn't conducive to publishing. Secondarily I mistook the impact it takes on ones time to advance yo...

Last Thursday I encountered 3 black rat snakes.  The first was a jet black animal I spotted crawling along the roots of a wind-felled tree.  He was safe but I stopped to take a closer look and say hello. The second was a newly hatched baby crossing the road.  Baby black rat snakes are patterned in varying shades for grey.  At this age they are somewhat delicate creatures and I gently lifted it off the road and placed it safely off to the side.  It seemed to view my assistance as a non event and took its time disappearing into the cover where I'd placed it.   The third snake was an attractively patterned 5 footer.  It was also crossing the road, but was less interested in my help.  The car in front of me had just passed over him and I thought he’d been hit as he was all coiled up and thrashing but he was fine; fine being a relative term.  Frankly, he was in mortal terror.  Out in the open with huge noisy metal objects hurtl...

Citizen Gardener came into existence on a lark.   Its main purpose was to share the experience of moving towards a more sustainable and localized food system but it also served as an outlet for my writing which, despite the efforts of primary education English teachers, remains enjoyable.  Still, as important as the need for a new food paradigm is to me, I found that writing about it exclusively was too limiting, hence the lack of updates.  Moving forward Citizen Gardener will be open to address and discuss a broader range of topics though most will still be related to sustainability.  In the interim, I’d like to do a little bit of quick catching up on the gardening activities. 2010 was a banner year.  A Face Book photo album of the year’s events can be viewed here .  The garden was amazingly productive and provided the lion share of our seasonal vegetables.  I even like to boast that it provided all (or nearly so) of what my second gra...

My grandfathers made it looks so easy. Vine ripe home grown tomatoes bursting with flavor and juiciness were so plentiful as a kid that I just took them for granted. Truth be told I’ve grown tomatoes before without much hassle but since moving to coastal NC it’s been pretty hit and miss. This year I decided to do the necessary reading and research to determine what was so frequently going wrong. In the end I believe I’ve learned what I need too in order to have a reliable yield next year. Perhaps my most important victory this year was to correctly identify the diseases that have been plaguing my tomatoes for several years. The first and worst of these is early blight. This is a nasty little soil fungus that tends to accumulate in gardens that routinely grow tomatoes. There is no such thing as blight resistant plant, which was my first mistake. When you see varieties listed as resistant this is generally referring to the various forms of wilt but more on that latter. The prime...

Just in time for planting warm season plants it looks like the weather will finally cooperate and allow me to work my plant beds. Actually, the weather cooperated last weekend but it was just too pretty to spend double digging the garden. Instead, I ended up heading south with the family to visit the town of Bath NC and Goose Creek State Park in Washington County. The park was a real hit for the kids who swam in the shallow, tea colored waters of the Pamlico Sound, looked for fossils along the trails and chased lizards across fallen logs. Needless to say they had a blast exploring and having some dedicated time with Mom and Dad. Gardening is great but life requires balance and this proved a very restorative day trip. But I digress... Since my last post, I've selected the location and size (30 X 45 feet)of the garden expansion but a few issues relating to its placement have ruined my motivation to have it ready for a summer planting. Number one is that the chosen site has been heav...

Not much has happened on the gardening front since my last post. Planning, reading and thinking yes, but no ground has been broken, no seeds have been purchased. The usual time vampires suck at my most precious resource and to be honest by the end of most days I’m so spent that even if I do find a little extra time, the thought of putting spade to earth isn’t appealing in the least unless, of course, we’re speaking metaphorically! I’m currently reading two books, Michael Pollen’s In Defense of Food and Gardening When it Counts, by Steve Solomon. Pollen’s book in particular tends to get me following mental tangents. One such mental tour had me mulling the relationship between how we spend our time and how we eat. Like anything else that we wish to “do well” eating well requires discipline which demands time and effort. You just don’t decide you’re going to start eating well one day and begin shopping at the "Eat Well” grocer the next. Besides the time you spend procuring and prepar...

Raising a fair portion of my food and supporting local agriculture has been something I've wanted to do for some time. Even before eating local became the new organic I was attracted to these ideals. Perhaps this goes back to my Baltimore childhood where both my grandfathers offered examples of food self-sufficiency. Pop Pop was an Italian immigrant who converted every available space of his back yard into a highly productive garden. He was composting when composting wasn't cool and turned yard waste into fruits and vegetables for his table. I remember his pickled green tomatoes being the best thing I ever tasted. Sadly his recipe for these has been lost. My maternal Grandfather operated a snow ball and produce stand in the MD countryside, which supplied local residents with summer refreshments and fresh produce. Sweet corn and garden fresh tomatoes were always in excess and these, along with steamed local blue crabs from the Chesapeake Bay, brought family together helping forg...