The All-garden Salad Challenge

     One of my favorite things to do is to have an all-garden salad.  The salad ingredients change throughout the season, so it's always fun to see what kind of salads I can create. It is a thrill to grow my own food, but the real joy comes in cooking and eating it. The first all-garden salad this year consisted of lettuces and arugula that had overwintered with chopped chives and violets. With the mild winter and lovely spring that we had, I think that first salad was in early April.

April 27 Salad: Second cuttings of overwintered lettuces and arugula, 'D'avignon' and 'Cherriette' radishes, dill, and chive flowers.

Time to Plant Tomatoes?

     I started tomatoes a little earlier than usual this year-- about 2 weeks earlier. (And they are indoors under lights.) I am trying to get ahead in planting so that I will be ready when spring comes. HAHA. Today is the first day of spring and although it was overcast and rained, it is really Springy out! It's been hot in Iowa the past week, like mid 80s, which is pretty unusual. The crocuses bloomed and were done in a day, but right now the grass is greening up, lots of perennials are popping out of the ground, forsythia are blooming along with daffodils, Magnolias, a few tulips, maples, etc. This is typically the scene in mid-April. So I am not feeling like I am all that ahead of things. But really should we be taking chances to plant things so early?

     I grow tomato plants (and other plants) to sell at farmer's market and a local specialty grocery store. I have been growing heirloom varieties for about 15 years. The first heirloom tomato I tried was 'Brandywine'. My friend Sara and I had a garden together at her house. It was my first real garden and I was a horticulture student at Iowa State. We had a lot of fun growing whatever caught our eye, while our little children played around us. So I had read about heirlooms and their superior flavor and the generational seed-sharing stories and thought we should give it a try. The only heirloom that I could find at that time was Brandywine. I like Brandywines okay, but they aren't very productive. After that I started seeking out other heirloom tomato varieties and have grown and tried quite a few.

     I wish I could grow them all, I really do. They all have different subtle flavors and lovely colors, shapes, and sizes. Since I am limited by space and pocketbook, I had to stop somewhere. Perusing catalogs a couple months ago, I finally whittled down my list to 23 varieties that I am growing this year. Some are old favorites, some are recommended favorites of friends that I thought I should try, and some are totally new to me. They aren't all heirlooms.

Here's what I am growing:
Cherokee Purple
Paul Robeson
Green Zebra
Cosmonaut Volkov
Abraham Lincoln
Eva Purple Ball
Mortgage Lifter
Arkansas Traveler
Oregon Spring
Johnny's BHN-1021 (Not an heirloom, but I figured I should check out the current hybrid scene too- who doesn't like disease resistance?)
Rutgers
Pineapple
Orange Blossom
Juane Flamme
Juliet
Indigo Rose
Roma
The Blush
Speckled Roman Sun Gold
Supersweet 100
Black Cherry
Snow White cherry

Supersweet 100, Snow White, Sun Gold, Black Cherry, Juliet

Roma and Speckled Roman

Arkansas Traveler

Green Zebra

    

Cosmonaut Volkov

     Today, I transplanted from the seeding tray in the basement to singles and packs in the greenhouse. I am going to do an experiment too. 'Oregon Spring' was developed by Dr. James Baggett at Oregon State where tomatoes don't typically grow so well. So they developed this tomato that you can plant outside a month early and just cover it if there is predicted frost. With this whackadoo weather, I thought I would try planting it out now and see what happens. If it works, we could have tomatoes in the middle of June!? Now that would be a feat.

     At this rate, the tomato plants will be ready for sale and to be transplanted into the garden in a month or so. I guess we will just have to see how the weather goes.

Oh yeah, it's winter

This has been a particularly mild winter in Iowa so far, all 3 weeks of it. It's been the topic of much conversation and rightfully so. We have had some record-breaking high temperatures and barely a dusting or two of snow. Global warming? El Nino? Oh, just one of those years. Maybe it's the direct connect farmers have to the weather or not much else unexpected goes on in Iowa, but the weather is oft discussed. My MIL (who is not a farmer) always mentions the forecast in email or phone conversations. It's kind of folksy and sweet, I suppose.

Two days this week I worked outside in 50+ degree sunny days. Wearing a sweatshirt and going about in the backyard armed with pruners, I cut back tattered perennials and broken sunflowers that I hadn't had a chance to get to in the fall. It was great! I had to keep reminding myself that it was January and not March. I do like to leave grasses like Miscanthus, switch grass, and Northern sea oats through the winter to give us something to look at, and it's also nice for the backyard critters to have seed heads to nibble on and cover from the winds and whatnot. In the early spring, I like to watch starlings pull at old daylily leaves and carry them off for their nests. It was nice to work in the yard and I have enjoyed the break so far from hellacious winters like we've had in recent years.

Well it snowed last night and the temps dropped and the wind is howling, reminding us that it is indeed winter. I didn't work in the garden today. Instead, I did indoor things that you put off on nice days for days like this. I went to a friend's house and we worked on a seed craft that we are going to try to market to some local shops. It's going to be how we make our millions for sure.

The reluctant blogger

This is my first blog post ever and I have some mixed feelings about it. I am a published garden writer, but for some reason I have been wary of blogging. It's actually been more of an aversion. Too shy? Too humble? I'm not really sure, but today is the day that I decided to embark on this new adventure.

I am a horticulturist, and I have done a lot of different things throughout my career. The one mainstay has been my personal garden, where I have created a business (that also has its own evolutions) growing produce, herbs, and flowers. I have lived on this half-acre homestead in the middle of Des Moines with my husband and 2 children for almost 13 years. Over those years, we have taken the wide open space dotted with lilac bushes, an ever-growing buckeye tree, and a dividing line of peonies, and turned it into a little farm in the city.

When we bought our house, the term "urban farm" was not yet coined, at least not to my knowledge. We wanted to buy an acreage in the country where I could start my business and raise our kids. Alas, we couldn't afford anything that didn't require A LOT of work or take too long for Mr. Red Rooster to drive to work everyday. Then we found this house and it's expanse of lawn. It would make do. Little by little, we have tilled gardens, planted trees and berry bushes, flowers, and grasses, moved rocks and plants, and built a greenhouse. It looks like a lot of work, and I suppose it is, but I agree with that old saying that "it's not work if you love what you do".

My intention is to write about what's going on in my garden, but I also want to include recipes, organic gardening tips, craft ideas, and whatever else may come along.