Forage from your own front yard

Foraging in both urban and rural settings has been, and seems to be again, a popular way to find food "from the wild." I haven't practiced this much (yet), but what I do do is find and eat unlikely food from my own front yard. I have two examples for you today. But first, the poultry word of the day.
Chicken or hen scratch: unreadable or ugly handwriting.

Garlic scapes

Here are the scapes still on the plant.

Garlic scapes are that curly "whip" that grows up the stem of hardneck garlic. Softneck garlic does not have this whip, and I recently learned that most commercial garlic found in the grocery store is softneck precisely because growers don't have to deal with the scape.

"Deal with?" you ask. If the scape is not removed, the plant will put lots of energy into developing a seed pod at the end, thus leaving less energy for the underground crown which is what we like to eat. Removing the scape not only helps develop a larger crown of garlic, it's also tasty.

This year I harvested at least 90 scapes. We've already started chopping them into salads and sauteing with asparagus. If I get time, I want to try to pickle a jar of them. If you haven't snapped yours off yet, it's time to get them, and then eat them!

Lambsquarters

This "weed" grows in our orchard, probably came in with the compost or the hay mulch we used last year. But I'm not complaining - we eat this early summer green raw while weeding, and cooked as a side dish. Our favorite way to prepare it is to steam with a bit of oil and vinegar. Think wilted spinach, except free, and very organic ;)

Close up of lambsquarters leaf so you can identify it. The leaf underside has an interesting white powder; it's one sure way to identify this plant in your garden.

Dinner guest

Tonight while eating on our lambsquarters and garlic scapes on our front porch, this little one hopped in and started helping itself to clover. Jay remarked that we've probably created a bunny haven; no dogs and lots of clover. But as long as they don't eat any of the shrubs, they're keeping the clover to a manageable roar.

Coop and chick photo updat

Here's a quick look at the coop's progress and the chick who are growing so fast!
Chicken word of the day: "Chicken with it's head cut off" - a lot of activity without direction; acting hysterical or brainless (well, I guess you'd be brainless if someone cut your head off)

Jay and Matt installed the roof, which they found rather difficult to get to at some points.

Rooftop selfie while insulating the coop roof.

When we removed old insulation from our house to prepare for an air sealing project last year; I saved the insulation thinking we might need it some day...

We only insulated the coop (on left) to keep them warm in the winter.

 

Matt securing a metal roof panel on the run.

Jay and Matt installing the last metal panel on the run.

The run on the right is finished, and the chickens moved in on June 8.

The coop (the insulated part where they will stay in the winter and where their nest box will be, still needs doors. The space on the bottom will be storage for food and bedding materials, and will also have doors.

Moving day!

Prissy

Betsy (brown, in front), Flora (white, in back), Mifflin (black) and Olive.

Flora explores the ramp to the coop. The door at the top is currently boarded up.

Olive.

Hugelkultur - that's not a swear word

The word Hugelkultur, literally translating to “Mound Culture”, is the gardening practice of using excess wood debris in creating giant raised beds. The woody debris (sticks, twigs, logs, etc.) is placed in the base of the raised beds, acting as a sponge, holding in moisture, creating fungal hyphae and also building soil fertility.

I learned about hugelkultur during my permaculture design course. Last year, we had several trees removed from our property along our back fenceline, including an apple, elm and several box elder trees. I asked the tree service to chip all the small branches, but to leave me all the trunks and larger branches with building a hugelkultur bed in mind.

The logs have been sitting in the yard since because I didn't have enough dirt to cover them. But after excavating for our chicken coop run, and also excavating for my raised bed paths, I have enough to create a hugelkultur bed.

I want to keep the bed moderately in place, so I'm using some of the largest logs to reinforce the sides. And I'm using some of the skinniest logs as stakes to hold it all together. This is just about the opposite of the very square, very level, very precise garden beds we are also building in the back of the yard.


Next, I added coffee grounds that I collected this winter on top of the wood. 

Last spring, I collected coffee grounds from local shops for the big orchard sheet mulching project. Then I discovered that Starbucks gives away five pound bags of espresso grounds. No five-gallon buckets and no paper filters flying around the back yard.

Finally, I added soil from a big pile onto the logs.

Hugelkultur beds are best when built tall, and having steep sides so the fungi can get enough oxygen. I don't know how much dirt I have yet, but I'll pile it as high as I'm able. I think I have a lot of excavating to do yet from the raised bed paths.

 


 






The first few years of a hugelkultur bed is its most fertile, so planting heavy feeding plants is best. My plan is to plant asparagus (a heavy feeder) into these beds. As the wood decomposes, the whole thing will sink and I'll have to add manure (again, asparagus is a heavy feeder).

This is a total experiment, we'll see what happens.

Today's poultry phrase: good egg: a regular guy, good-natured person.

Bad planning. Big mistake. Part 1

One of the biggest complaints about social media such as Facebook and, I would argue, about blogs too, is that the writer shows off his or her best side, best food, best joke, best photo, best everything. It's as if everyone except YOU and ME are having a perfect life.

But life isn't perfect, and while I don't expect you've been looking forward to a healthy infusion of schadenfreude (the pleasure derived from seeing others in suffering or trouble), I'd like to share with you a big mistake, the steps leading up to it, and my current dilemma about what to do about it.

With our front yard firmly established, last autumn Jay and I started to do some long-term planning for our back yard. Among the elements to include were shaded entertaining space, a sunny annual vegetable garden, a shed, compost piles, etc. The north side of our back yard gets a fair amount of sun and is shaded by our neighbor's red maple in the late afternoon (man, it's DARK under one of those!). So we decide there would be enough sun and I started to prepare the soil. I sheet-mulched it, covered it with a combo of wood chips and coffee grounds and let it compost over the winter.

Then late last summer we had an overgrown apple tree and a few other scraggly trees on the fence line removed, which opened up a lot of sky. Early this spring we revisited the plan and noticed a lot of sun in the back yard. So we abandoned the side of the yard spot and went to work on the back. We tilled the soil, dug paths and purchased and painted a lot of wood.

That was before all the trees were leafed out. Add to the upcoming disaster our bad judgement of where the summer sun would travel,  just how big our neighbor's red maple is, and how much of our back yard it shaded.

Weeks went by between our first work weekend and when we next got out to build the beds. We worked a few mornings on the project. We built the beds with painstaking attention to level, and had two yards - CUBIC YARDS I TELL YOU - of gravel delivered for the paths. Then all the trees got their shiny new summer leaves. One afternoon we were working on the garden when, to my horror, I saw a shadow creep up to and over the beds around three in the afternoon.

I looked up at that maple, looked down at the shadow. Between this early afternoon shadow (which I hadn't anticipated so early) and a shadow from a tree just on the other side of our back yard fence (which I had anticipated), these sun-loving annuals weren't going to get much more than four hours of full light - not enough to grow a tomato, pepper or an eggplant.

I sat down, stunned. I cursed that tree. I cursed my bad planning. I cursed changing my mind from using the side yard to the back of the yard. I cursed wasted time and effort. My only consolation was that we hadn't started to move that gravel, but we still had it, sitting in our driveway. I asked myself, "What the hell are we going to do with two yards of gravel?"

I was overwhelmed and began to weep. Jay consoled me, joking that we could take the tree down. I couldn't think...

So, more to come on this one. But before I wrap up, a poultry phrase that seems apropos for this post.

To brood: to be absorbed by negative circumstances.

Planting twigs

The clover in the front-yard orchard is now well-established and threatening to smother anything shorter than two inches. I purchased two sand cherries and two sea berries and they are not much taller than the clover. I knew it was time to plant them because I could see mosquito larvae swimming in the bucket of water the bushes were sitting in!

 
I found some spots for the bushes and dug out the clover, but after planting the small bushes, I realized they were going to get overwhelmed by the clover within a week.

That's when I thought back to sheet mulching the front yard. 

So I found a piece of cardboard (I've always got a stash of it under our back porch) and made little collars for my berry bushes.

I cut a small hole in the cardboard, and a slit to help get it over the bush's trunk. The bushes are so small, I decided to put an orange flag by each one so I don't forget to water them a bit more often.

 Here is a sea berry in it's collar, holding the clover back.

I added some wood chips and the orange flag, and hopefully this will keep the clover away until the bush gets established.

Video of coop building

Last weekend Matt, Marissa, Matt, Jay and I started to build our chicken coop. Here's two days of work in two minutes.

(be sure to select the full-screen icon in the lower right corner for a much nicer view)

Poultry word of the day:
Cackle: derogatory description of loud laughter.

Free compost until it's gone, then it's gone forever

This is a real kick in the pants, but take advantage as you're able. We've used this for years, and used a lot of it in our orchard sheet mulching project.

Loss of Leaves and Compost Material from City of Madison, Other Municipal Partners Means No Material Available for Future Years

Dane County will be giving away compost by the car and truck load for free over the next several weeks, after recently being notified that municipal partners like the City of Madison won’t be bringing compost material to county sites any longer.

The county compost sites in Verona and Waunakee will stay open until around July 1st to help backyard gardeners and growers get through another growing season. After that, those two sites will be permanently closing.

Madison has signed an agreement with a company in DeForest to process all of the leaves and yard waste picked up by the city. Material from Madison represented nearly 80% of the content that had been brought to the county’s compost sites and converted into compost and mulch.

After the compost sites close this summer, residents will still be able to drop off compost at a compost operation at the county’s Rodefeld Landfill (7102 US Highway 12 near Cottage Grove), but compost will no longer be sold. The landfill is also home to the county’s Clean Sweep program.

Beginning Friday, May 23rd, the county will offer one load of free compost for residential use per person, per day, at the Verona and Waunakee compost sites through June to exhaust its current stockpile.

The Verona and Waunakee compost sites will be open from 7am to 3pm Monday through Friday, and 7am to 11am on Saturday. The sites are closed on Sundays.

“While the situation is not ideal, we hope residents will take advantage of our compost giveaway to start this growing season,” County Executive Joe Parisi said.

For more information on the compost site closure and the free compost offer, residents are encouraged to call John Welch at 267-8815.