Pictures

The comfrey is getting huge (notice my toe to the right for sense of scale). I am continually cutting the buds off the plants so they can put more energy into leaf production and less into flowering.


My modest blueberry crop is ripening well. I am impressed as this is only the patch's first year. Next year should more than double the harvest.


Check out this BEAUTIFUL black swallowtail caterpillar. I think it's so interesting how certain pests attack certain plants. Without fail, every time I have grown dill, whether in Knoxville, Charleston, Wadmamalaw, or even New Zealand, these guys show up for a feast. They grow so fast and eat so much but are so wonderfully nice to look at that I can't bear to kill them. The dill is sacrificed for beauty.


I planted one lime tree in the garden and it's currently putting on some strong growth and bloom production. These flowers rival star jasmine for best smell.

More Pics

Flowering buckwheat attracts beneficial insects such as parasitic wasps.


Those aren't weeds growing on either side of these tomatoes. I inter-planted the rows with a random mix of radishes, turnips, carrots, and fennel. It helps with weed control and increases the productivity of the space. I am picking about 20-30 radishes a day out of this tiny area!


Onions are doing well...except the weeds (nut grass) is also doing well in the same bed.


The pole beans are climbing!


This week has been extremely hot and humid, and it seems like I could sit and watch the tomatoes grow. They have been tied up and have started flowering. This is a shot down the biggest row...about 125 plants here.

Pictures galore

Going to have to do a few posts as Blogger will only allow five pictures at a time.

This first series is of the garden from afar. First picture is obviously the garden before I started, and I took the last picture today.

!!!!!!!!!!!!

I decided to ride my bike to Mt. Pleasant to catch a matinee movie, and when I got out, I could barely see the end of the parking lot! It was raining SOOOOO hard...I weighed my options: wait it out or enjoy the moment. Any guesses what I picked? I was reminded of one of my favorite quotes: "some people walk in the rain, and others just get wet." I mean how often do you get to ride your bike through a wall of water? Carpe diem...

As I raced up the bridge back downtown, the rain slowed to a spit, and I could see a break between storms. To the north, an orange hue blanketed the horizon and overhead the dark clouds swirled, threatening another deluge. The next wall of rain was just west of downtown, and as I feverishly pedaled to get off the highest structure in Charleston, I could literally watch it move to the east directly towards me. Lightning was striking all around, and it was one of those moments where you ask yourself, "Is this it?" I know I'm a little dramatic here, but it's amazing how raw nature can make you feel vulnerable enough to question your own permanence. I think I set a record for crossing the bridge East to West because I convinced my body that nothing was more important than getting to street level on East Bay. With only 400 yards left, the rain hit me like a ton of bees stinging my exposed skin...it was one of my most intense moments in recent memory. Then the hail started. That hurt even more, but I kept my legs pumping thinking of only the lightning overhead. Finally, I hit East Bay and rode north to Huger...the outside seating at Taco Boy was abandoned. Ahead, I saw police lights at the intersection of Huger and King where the water was literally 2 1/2 feet deep! I threw my bike into granny gear and pedaled through the newly formed lake...when I finally got home, my cheeks were hurting because I had been smiling since I left the movie theater! I was and am still completely high...probably why this post is a little intense. So much for a 4.8 inch rain deficit, I hope my veggies weren't damaged in the storm.

The pic is the front of my house...notice my recently landscaped plants swimming for air. Glad I moved my car earlier :P

Spring in Charleston

I cannot think of a better time to be in the Holy City. Riding a bike downtown in Mid-April entrances the mind in an ocean of star-jasmine blooms. It is quite possibly the world's best smelling flower...any doubters out there?

Mid-April also marks the ripening of the region's first tree fruits. Loquats (or Japanese Plums...see picture) hang like free candy-balls from evergreen branches. Looks to be a bumper crop across the city as the harsh frosts from last winter were beaten back by slightly warmer temps on the peninsula.

Black and White mulberries are also ripening away. You will know these trees because they are chock full of birds and the berries stain anything underneath a bright purple. They look like elongated black berries but are not as sweet. I think they are perfect to sprinkle on cereal in the morning. I didn't want to walk the 4 blocks to the ripest tree in my neighborhood just for a picture, so I will add one soon.

Prickly pears are also ripe. These are bright purple fruit at the end of a cactus....they are perfect to liven up a banana smoothly for some extra fiber and anti-oxidants, but be SURE to remove the spines! Will get some pics of these too.

first harvest

Today I took the first measurable harvest of spring greens and veggies.

Looks like I'm in for a spicy, spring salad tonight :)

"The beet is the most intense of vegetables. The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious...The beet is the melancholy vegetable, the one most willing to suffer. You can't squeeze blood out of a turnip...The beet is the murderer returned to the scene of the crime. The beet is what happens when the cherry finishes with the carrot. The beet is the ancient ancestor of the autumn moon, bearded, buried, all but fossilized; the dark green sails of the grounded moon-boat stitched with veins of primordial plasma; the kite string that once connected the moon to the Earth now a muddy whisker drilling desperately for rubies."
-Mr. Tom Robbins-

Couldn't have put it better myself.

Back on the farm after a much cooler and wetter weekend in Knoxville. Just over the Appalachians, Knoxville is experiencing a wet spring with a surplus of 2.27 inches of rain this year. Charleston, however, is in a deficit of 4.80 inches! We could use some of the wet stuff down here...hand watering my greens is getting to be a chore.

The first picture is the Red Russian Kale....it is growing extremely well. I am starting to harvest it's outer leaves for a quick snack in the garden.

The second picture is a snake skin I found next to my kiwi vines. I think it's from a poisonous snake as the belly scales run perpendicular the entire length of its body. I am probably wrong though because I learned about snakes in Mr. Savory's wildlife management class in high school. A lot of cob webs have formed since then!

Third picture is my trellis system for the pole beans. I finished this on Friday, and only three days later, the beans have already started climbing...I wonder which plant little Jack will decide to climb...

The fourth picture is of today's work. Staking out the tomatoes...some nice shoulder rehab pounding 100 stakes into the ground.

Oh and my potatoes finally arrived, but they were sent to Knoxville! The company accidentally sent them to my billing address instead of the shipping address. Bummer...I am kind of worried that I am planting these way to late for Charleston. It will soon be very very hot here, so we'll see what happens. Maybe I will be the only grower with late season spuds :)

Things are a growin'

Just some pics of the progress.

Wild foods speak to me. I like the idea of eating something that germinated and grew exactly where the environmental conditions were perfect for that specific seed. Wild plants seem to have an astringent quality...they are harder, more calloused than our delicate annuals. Our culture has also strayed from our ancestral, wild stock...we too have become a little less calloused, a little more delicate. The first picture is such a plant. Lambs quarters (or wild spinach) is usually categorized as a "weed," but I have learned that "weed" is just a relative term for a plant growing where you do not want it to grow. This green is one of the most nutritious vegetables you can eat. It has more vitamins than regular spinach and (for me) hasn't been sitting on a truck all the way from California! It's a great way for me to get that extra fiber and iron while I am weeding the inedible nut grass growing right next door. I am looking forward to chantrelle season in about 4 weeks. :)

The second picture is of the tomatoes. They are greening and growing so well. Will have to stake all 300 row feet sometime in the next two weeks.

Third picture is all of the lettuce, kale, flowers, chard, and collards. I know it's hard to see in all the leaf mulch, so squint your eyes!

Fourth picture is my trellis system for the pole beans. I need to get this set up soon before they start wrapping around each other for support.

Ahhhhhhh!

Take that no-see-ums! (a few determined buggers still find there way under my hat, sign a long-term lease on my scalp, and start an all-you-can scratch buffet)

Plants are growing...slowly. I will get some more pics of the veggies this week. Looks like all of my lettuce and chard is going to pull through, about half the beets germinated despite scorching, dry soil, and I planted 8 thornless blackberries and 3 kiwi vines.

More soon!

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Have to give credit to my brother Paul for the artsy shots of the farm. He came in town for the bridge race on Saturday, and of course I put him to work on Sunday out at Fiddler's (you might want to think twice about coming to visit me...you might leave with a sore back and blistered hands!). Here is his simple photography website for those that are interested.

The bridge race was an absolute ZOO...34,000 people trying to squeeze onto the bridge makes for some fun bobbing and weaving. I didn't hit my stride until the turn onto Meeting Street (just after the Krispy Kreme hand out station!), and I quickly realized that you don't run this race for a personal best...it's more for the experience. Paul and I got separated just after the first mile, but we both finished the race without any physical or emotional injury. HA! I did see that a 75 year-old ran the 10K race in 48 minutes, and a 10 year-old ran it in 38 minutes! Cheers to being as old as you feel.

I am quickly learning that the soil in the garden is sandier than I originally thought. This means that my plants will dry out quicker and the nutrients will wash away faster. It may take a few seasons to increase the organic content of the soil, so for this spring I am riding along with the weather roller coaster. I went out to the farm today to continue planting (Rita has been a saint helping me plant in the clouds of no-see-ums), to feed the tomatoes some fancy seaweed fertilizer (thanks again to Rita), and to water all of my wilted plants. I got the generator started on the second pull, but upon plugging in the pump, no water came out of the pipe. Mystery. I thought maybe the pump was bad, so I asked Seale to have a look, and she said I better check to see if the supply pipe was broken. True to form...the high pressure line that runs from the well head to the pump was accidentally and unknowingly broken by a fellow farmer installing her irrigation system (no blame....this stuff just happens). Finding something positive out of the predicament, I got a really nice shoulder work out lugging 40 pound water jugs around the garden. It's supposed to rain tonight...big time, so the garden should get a nice soak. I have more beds to finish weeding, more transplant trays to plant, and of course more leaves to spread. Fixing the well supply line now supersedes everything else. No water = no veg.