Lovage

In addition to writing about our experiences with plants, I like to dig deeper, yes thats a pun, and pull together more info than I alone could offer. Lovage, Levisticum officinale, for instance is a very ordinary plant for us. It’s been growing here for fifteen or so years, is a real mainstay, and I guess we kind of take it for granted. It dawned on me one day to do a post about it, and I looked it up online. The results were startling.

Lovage is uncommon. Rare is the gardener who grows it, and even though it is of European origin, it is uncommon in England. An English author muses about this, click here for the article. This author, like others, extolls virtues of the entire plant; leaves, stem, roots and seeds are edible and useful. For our own purposes we use only the leaves. They are plentiful and we pick as needed- we don't store lovage. The leaves have some similarity to celery leaves but they are are larger, thicker and a deeper green.

Lovage has a strong celery flavor, and is useful as a celery substitute either raw or cooked. The plant does not supply the shape of celery. For that you need celery. We use it for the flavor, never-minding the shape, and are generally happy about the savings. Celery is expensive and for most of the year we don’t need to buy it.

The plant is a four to six foot tall, hardy perennial and very easy to grow. A testament to the perseverance of lovage is that ours struggled in less than optimal soil conditions for years, barely surviving. The plants have improved along with the health of the soil, and they are now taller, greener, and much leafier.

It’s one of the first plants we start using right away in spring, as soon as there are several leaves and the plant can afford to lose one or two. Leaves are produced way into fall, with a heavy frost ending its growing year.

Around midsummer, when lovage goes to seed, we always hope that several new plants will get started. It’s an important plant, far from invasive, and we always want to have several to harvest from.

There are many uses for it. Finely chop a handful of leaves and add to green salad, potato or pasta salad. Chop the leaves finely or coarsely and add to stews, soups, or just about anything that is cooking in a pan on the stove. It is good with chicken, lamb, beef, eggs, potatoes, etc. And it is especially good for creating a rich soup broth. Common to us but not to many others, this is a plant we don’t want to be without. -jmm

Kitchen Classics

The Limerick, Maine Public Library has published a cookbook; Kitchen Classics: Limerick Public Library Community Cookbook, filled with recipes contributed by local residents. There are many that we can’t wait to try; Garlic Ginger Bok Choy, Braised Green Cabbage, Rhubarb Cake, and Chocolate Zucchini Cake among many others.

And ... we are ever so flattered that they have included several recipes from our blog!

The cookbook is part of a fundraiser for the library to purchase a web-based catalog system. To obtain your copy of Kitchen Classics, send $10 plus $3 for postage and packing to:

Limerick Public Library

55 Washington St.

Limerick ME 04048

Or, if you are nearby, find it at local businesses or the library. -jmm

Salad Art

This time of year is good for salad making. Our salad plants are year -round with the use of  cold frames, but right now our salads are especially full of flavors and colors. The multi-hued greens of freshly picked leafy plants beautifully set off the colors of the many other things we add.

The brilliant colors of summer salad

The leafy greens include three kinds of lettuce, and arugula, upland cress, and lovage. To this we add perennial onion, chives, cucumber, tomato, carrot, red and yellow peppers. Colorful additions to this are raddichio, purple cabbage, and chive blossoms (all purple); blueberries or raspberries; and brilliant orange and yellow nasturtium flowers.

This makes a full bodied salad that is a seasonal luxury. It seems to call for the uncorking of a bottle of rich, red bordeaux wine, and a wood-fire grilled t-bone steak as a side dish. It is edible art. G.H. and jmm

Aromatic Herbs

Now, after the roses, daylilies, and most of the perennials have bloomed, the aromatics have started to flower. Aromatic herbs are scented herbal plants.

Last year I started catnip (nepeta cataria), lemony catnip (nepeta cataria ssp. Citriodora), anise hyssop, (agastache foeniculum), and lemon balm (melissa officinalis) from seed. They are of the mint family, and are distinctly aromatic. Lemon catnip and lemon balm are lemony, and anise hyssop has a scent like licorice. Even though they have different names, they have some common characteristics.

For the most part, the flowers are unexceptional. Fuzzy looking, whitish or purplish and tending to blend in with the landscape. They are not about to compete with your daylilies, bearded iris, roses and peonies. Quite the opposite; there is not much interesting about these flowers.

Anise Hyssop with a squash vine climbing over it. 

The plants are all similar. They are green and leafy, but are not a showy specimen for your yard. They can even be a little weedy looking. Especially the catnip right now; it is squashed. We have a kitty neighbor who wanders through and it seems she likes to take a roll in it.

They are seedy. Even though perennial, they will spread seeds all over your countryside. Why the plants evolved as perennials is a mystery to me, their behavior strongly resembles reseeding annuals.  In the year after flowering, many little babies emerge. This is not a problem for us, the extras are easy to pluck out, and we are always looking for materials for compost (click here for the compost post).

So why are we entertaining these lovely specimens? Because they have some characteristics that are really positive.

I hear the catnips are a better mosquito repellent than deet. I haven’t tried it, but it is said that the effectiveness of catnip is ten times better than deet. (If you are wondering about using deet, google: "dangers of deet.") Some sources say to rub the leaves on your skin, others say to mix oil derived from them with oils of other plants that also act as repellents.

The flowers attract bees, bugs, and butterflies. Bees seem to really love them, and I’ve seen the plants completely buzzing with bees. Apparently bees are attracted to the sweetness of the nectar. We enjoy keeping the bees happy.

I use the leaves and flowers for tea, usually combining a sprig of one of them with a leaf or two of mint; they make a wonderful scented cuppah. At the end of the growing season I grab them up in bunches along with a few other plants and dry them for winter tea. The flavor seems less strong after drying, so I mix my winter tea with purchased green or white tea.

The aromatic herbs benefit our compost, our bees, butterflies and other insects, and are good for tea. My plan is to let them spread throughout perennials borders and around the veggie plants. As we establish hedgerows along the pasture, they can seed themselves there too. The aromatics are weedy, but welcome! -jmm

The Garlic Patch

Last fall I planted one of our garden plots with three rows of garlic. An earlier post with tips for growing garlic is here. This particular plot is a raised bed about twelve feet long by four feet wide.

This spring I removed the winter coat of straw, and found that the garlic had sprouted. Between the rows of garlic I then seeded two rows of spinach. Spinach is not heat tolerant, and as the garlic grew it shaded the young plants as the weather warmed. Garlic and spinach turned out to be excellent companion crops.

Garlic drying in the shed

The spinach grew, and was ready for harvest long before the garlic. In late May I picked the spinach just as it was about to go to seed. We had some for dinner and froze the rest.

Now, in July the garlic is ready to harvest. I set up our garlic-drying apparatus; an old screen door laid on top of two sawhorses. We use the garden shed for drying. It provides a combination of shade and dry heat that works well. The garlic will dry in the shed for a couple of weeks and then I will braid them and hang the braids in the cellar. Some will be saved to use for seed in the fall when it’s time to plant next year's crop.

And that's not all for this garden bed. Even in July there's time to plant another crop. After weeding and loosening the soil, I planted three rows of beets. Even though they may not become full size beets by fall, we will have beet greens and baby beets.

All of this from one 4 by 12-foot garden row. G.H.

Compost

Making compost is a fairly simple matter and is the first step in the gardening process. If you are starting a new garden, establishing a compost pile is the very first thing to do. It is good to start composting a year before you start the garden. Here, we are starting some new garden areas to start using next year, and are piling up all sorts of vegetation for these areas. There are piles of leaves, weeds, and ferns.

Compost is black gold for the garden, and is invaluable in getting new soil productive, as well as for side dressing established plants. It conditions soil, adds nutrients, and can be used as mulch.

There are myths about making compost. One is that compost requires a bin or other enclosed area. Another is that weeds shouldn't be added to a compost pile. Neither is true.

A compost pile can be started as a simple pile on the ground; a bin or enclosure is not needed. We tried a hay bale enclosure one year, but found that the hay became a breeding area for slugs. The bales were full of them and it was nasty, disgusting, and gross to say the least. We have also used one of those round black plastic bins that are commonly sold as a fundraising effort through local organizations. We are happy to have contributed to the cause, and the bin worked out better than hay. But we abandoned it after discovering several families of well-fed mice comfortably ensconced in the finished compost at the bottom.

As for weeds, they are essential composting material and should not be trashed outside of the garden. Weeds, as they grow, extract nutrients from the soil, and those should be returned. I've added large quantities of weeds, especially dandelions, to compost piles over the years, and have never had dandelion or other weed infestation as a result. Our compost piles do not grow weeds. Oddly, tomato seeds seem to survive the heat of the pile, and we often have several tomato plants sprouting. This year a potato is growing.

There are other aspects of composting that are worth paying attention to. One is that when assembling a compost heap it should be made at least three feet across and three feet deep. A new heap can be started smaller and added to, but may not be fully effective. Really big piles can be too much work to turn. Three foot piles seem to work well for both the breakdown process, and for turning.

Another fact is that a combination of browned stuff with green stuff is what gets the pile to cook. I often save a pile of last fall’s leaves to layer with freshly picked weeds. The green and brown combination creates heat and the pile, if it is evenly moist but not wet, will actually ccok on the inside. This burns out seeds, and facilitates the break down process. Water the pile if it seems to be drying out. It should be kept evenly moist, but not wet. 

In hot summer weather a pile can break down in as little as two weeks. It helps to turn the pile several times to mix it and bring the bottom stuff to the top. Turning a pile is easy. Keep an unused area next to the pile. Using a four-prong cultivator (a hand tool), pull the pile into the empty space and leave it there. At the next turning, pull the pile back onto the previous area.

Having the pile directly on the ground is essential so it can be worked by earthworms and beneficial bacteria. The pile will attract plenty of worms; there is no need to buy them. There is also no need to buy bags of worm castings for your garden. Your finished compost will have plenty already.

We never turn compost in the winter, and it stacks up and becomes anerobic. In spring it is gooky and stinky. After it is turned to let some air in, the odor disappears and the compost returns to normal. 

Finished compost is black. Any color in the pile that is lighter than black is unfinished compost. Unfinished bits can be pulled out and used in a new pile. Use the finished compost as side dressing by your plants, spread it on garden beds after fall harvest, or work it into the soil. -jmm

Forest to Farm, and Permaculture: What's Happening in the Orchard?

Our orchard is only a handful of trees, one of many ways that it is different from larger commercial ones. We are homesteaders, not farmers, and our goals are less about production than simply being able to grow some healthy trees that will eventually bear fruit. Since we are operating on a very small scale, we have the freedom to experiment with some permaculture ideas. Click here for an earlier post on this. 

A fruit tree and companion plants

A swale is one of many ideas of permaculture, and last year I dug one, click here for the post. The fill has settled in; branches, rotting logs, leaves, and raked-up forest litter, and the swale now serves as a pathway. Beneath the surface, decaying organic matter absorbs water from heavy rains and winter snowfall. The moisture then leaches gradually into the soil to benefit the fruit trees.

Last year I planted some aromatics and bee-attracting plants; lemon balm, lemon catnip, feverfew, anise hyssop, bee balm, and some comfrey and daffodils. In the berm (raised edge) of the swale I planted yarrow.

This year, I’ve added two shrubs; a highbush cranberry, and a red twig dogwood. These, along with the aromatics are intended to encourage birds, butterflies, and beneficial insects. Biodiversity is a concept of permaculture that is largely unknown in commercial orchards.

A new Red Twig Dogwood shrub

The shrubs create a new canopy layer. Canopy layers are a permaculture idea about mimicking the different heights of plants in the forest. The flowers, the shrubs, and the fruit trees create three distinct layers of vegetation due to the differing heights of the plants. The sixty foot tall oak tree in the center of the orchard is a fourth canopy layer.

The orchard was fitted into an area in the woods, and there are signs that the soil is trying to revert back to forest. Ferns are doing their best to take over, and much of the ground is becoming unworkable after all of my hard work with a grub hoe. It’s a struggle to get the forest to back off. The forest and cultivation appear to be two wildly different habitats.

The comfrey is flowering

To help condition the soil I tossed out sorghum and Canadian field pea seeds, which I had done last year also. This year I also seeded some Dutch white clover, and some going-to-seed dandelions. And planted some clumps of day lilies. I added a few food plants: chives, perennial onions, some asparagus, and some turnip seeds. Which of these will thrive is a guess.

Lime is essential for converting the acidic forest floor into an environment that is sweeter and more friendly to cultivated plants, and has been liberally applied, as well as wheel barrow loads of organic cow manure.

There’s lots going on there. Who would have thought that forest to farm is such a tough proposition? More on this as things progress... -jmm