Another Trip to the Discovery Garden

I know I've posted before about the Highfield Discovery Garden at the Glenwood Gardens Metropark.  We went again today.  In the rain. Again.  I love going on rainy or almost rainy days because there is hardly anyone there.  I thought I'd post some pictures for those of you not familiar with the Discovery Garden so you can see why I love it so much (almost more than the kids).

This is their garden area - it's all square ft gardening in raised beds that are near "eye-height" for young children.  It's awesome.  They are made into these funky shapes so you can walk on paths in between the beds.  They grow all kinds of things from carrots and lettuce and tomatoes to things most kids have never seen before like kohlrabi.  They give all the harvest away to visitors to the garden (which are often urban kids who don't garden).  To the right, just out of the picture, is a cottage house that houses their bunny, Lulu.  Kate ADORES Lulu.

This is Kate checking out some marigolds growing underneath the cabbage leaves. This week's "lesson" was on planting and kids that visit get to plant marigold seeds in peat pellets in a dixie cup.  Kate was happy to plant Claire's.  Claire kept trying to eat the peat out of her cup. 

Claire checking out the ambient music speaker in the middle of the raised garden beds.  That's garlic growing behind her head. To the right may be collard greens, I can't remember for sure.

The "Cottage House" that houses the lesson area, and Lulu.  They teach kids about composting (I want their bins, they're so much nicer than mine).  You can see the garden beds in the back.

The fun whimsical "tea party house" as Kate calls it.  

Inside the tea party house, getting ready to have a tea party. Or play restaurant.

Their pump and rain barrel.  The dark area under the rain barrel is covered in rubber mulch, and I think there is a large drain under it, as the pump and the "rain feature" use recycled water for the most part.  Though the kids like to water the plants with water from the pump.  A lot of watering the plants.  The plants in this area need to be tolerant of overly wet conditions, I'm sure.  The rain feature is cool because kids can push a button and the fake cloud over the roof area "rains" and then the rain goes down the gutter and into the rain barrel.

The train area - they have about 3-4 electric trains that run around multiple tracks in this area, and a little walk-through path just for kids (the overhead bridges at either end of the path make it extremely hard for adults to walk in to the middle of the trains).  There is also a station house with buttons the kids can push to make train sounds.

One of the frogs we saw in the pond today - it was a cool overcast day and they were all over the banks.  On 90 degree days they are almost impossible to find.

The new feature for this year, the Fairy Garden.  Kate loves to stare at the garden and try to find every little fairy in it.

Apart from this, I haven't done much in the garden the past couple of days.  The second planting of beans is beginning to sprout, and I got the rest of the new raised bed filled.  Now I just need to get the peppers and tomatoes in it.  And I desperately need to get out and weed.  However, I have been spending so much time in the garden recently I am in danger of falling behind on the orders I have to sew for my business.  So since it's drizzly today, I will be in the basement with Kate (who is watching Barbie Princess & the Pauper - ugh) sewing up a storm.  Hopefully I will emerge at the end of Claire's nap with two almost totally finished pillowcase dresses.

The *#%@&^ Honeysuckle

You may remember that several weeks ago (May 12th, to be exact) I mentioned cutting down a bunch of honeysuckle at the back of our property.  Well, we are finally getting it chipped up, which I'm really glad for.  I was less than thrilled, however, to see the stumps with numerous new shoots that are about a foot high.  A foot.  In three weeks!  That's more growth than my sunflowers!  Is there any wonder why this stuff is invasive?!?!  So my task this week once we get the rest of the branches chipped is to start the tedious job of digging out the stumps.  "Yay - I mean boo!"  (If there are any fans of the NewsRadio TV show out there, can you tell me who said that quote?)  Unless someone has a better organic method of getting rid of it?  The only methods I have seen involve an add for some honeysuckle remover gadget, which I can't justify buying, or painting the freshly cut stumps with Roundup, which is hardly organic.  More ideas welcome.  Pretty please!

**I also solicited ideas from friends on my facebook account, and after doing so feel the need to clarify the fact that burning the honeysuckle and any forms of fire are out of the question, due to the honeysuckle's proximity to the wooden stockade fence which does not belong to us but rather to the property behind ours.  I would like to stay out of court and avoid criminal charges.  Thank you. 

I am extremely happy by all the wood chips though, which are providing a mow-free walkway around the gardens (Mark is also very happy about not having to use the string trimmer against the raised beds any more).  I put down a layer of newspaper (2 layers thick) under most of the chips and then about 3 inches of chips, which should keep the weeds and sod from growing through.  Depending on how many wood chips we actually end up with, it may be thicker in the end.

A Gate!

I am so happy I can hardly stand it.  I now have a gate in the back part of our fence!!!  For some reason, whatever previous owners of our house that built the fence in the backyard did not put a gate in the back of it.  The fence ended just before a small hill covered with honeysuckle, etc but our property line went partially up the hill.  Well, the commercial property behind our house sold several years ago now part of that hill is gone and there is a large stockade fence separating us from the "professional offices" that were built behind us.  Well, the part of our  property between the stockade fence and our fence has been totally useless to us before this, because we had basically no way to access it.  We've been saying we were going to put a gate in our fence since we moved in over 4 years ago.  It's now finally finished!  Plus, Mark is off to borrow a wood chipper and hopefully by this evening we'll have all the honeysuckle I cut down a month or so ago chipped up before the day is done (or at least before the weekend is done).  I am planning to move both compost bins to the area behind the fence, and once we get all the honeysuckle stumps out I'll see what things look like and go from there...

My new back gate!  Yay! (All the brown brush is the honeysuckle I cut down a month or so ago, and will be gone by the end of this weekend thanks to a wood chipper we're borrowing.)

The current view from my kitchen window

The view from my kitchen window in Fall 2006.  Pre-commercial development.  However, there is a billboard visible on the left side, so it's not like we were in pristine wilderness, but I still miss it....

More 2009 Plants

Here's an update of some things I have put in the garden in the past few weeks. I will try to get some photos of everything tomorrow afternoon:

Carrots: Danvers Half Long
Leeks: Pandora
Bush Beans: Blue Lake
Tomaotes: Amish Paste (3), San Marzano (1), Cherokee Purple (1), Mr. Stripey (1), unknown volunteer plants that germinated from the compost (5)
Peppers: Jalapeno, Red Beauty
Eggplants: Black Beauty, Ichiban
Cilantro
English Thyme
Basil: Genovese
Califlower: unknown variety (I didn't record it, and I'm kicking myself for it) - this was planted at the first update, but for some reason I didn't remember to list it.

I am also considering growing a squash if I can get a trellis for it built and grow it vertically. They had spaghetti squash at Varnau's last night, and I really like spaghetti squash, so I may try it.

The Feed Barn

After playgroup this morning with the girls at Sharon Woods Metropark, I realized two things:

1. I am out of eggs
   
2. I will be going right past The Feed Barn at Gravel Knoll Farms, which sells eggs from their organically raised chickens
   

So I thankfully remembered this on the way home, instead of once we were already home like I usually do, and stopped to get a dozen eggs.  I hadn't been to The Feed Barn in a couple of months (since I bought my seed potatoes there) and I had forgotten how much I love it.  Linda, one of the owners of Gravel Knoll Farms, which is also one of our local CSAs (community supported agriculture), was working and when she opened the egg carton to check on the eggs, she determined that they were "kind of small" (they didn't look that small to me) and so she took 50 cents off the dozen.  You don't get that kind of service at the grocery store!  I am now officially vowing to buy the majority of my eggs there, rather than the grocery store.  They're $3 a dozen, which for organic, cage-free eggs is cheaper than the grocery store.  Plus, you get spontaneous discounts occasionally like I did today, and you're supporting community agriculture and organic practices.

Plus, Linda and her husband Jim are the "founders" of the West Chester Farmer's Market, which I also love.  There are going to be a lot of booths this year, which is great (28 according to the website).  Plus, it is going to be set up right in the Square at Union Center, in the road in front of another awesome business The Learning Kitchen (a great place to learn some cooking skills for those veggies you're growing).  Hopefully some new people stumble into TLK and discover it - I discovered it last year when I poked my head in on the way back to my car from the farmer's market.  They have a homemade noodles and a pastry skills class, both of which I am dying to have come around on the calendar again so I can take them!

Organic Gardening meets Industrial Farming

I almost forgot to post about this.  This weekend we went to my in-laws for the long weekend.  My father-in-law is a farmer, of the industrial type.  He has farmed and worked in a factory since graduating from high school (which was pushing 40 years ago).  I have a lot of respect for him, despite the fact our agricultural views are often opposing.  It is interesting knowing someone who is so involved in the industrial farming system.  For many farmers, like my father-in-law, it is the only thing they know; the only thing anyone they know knows.  To him, the idea of "Round-Up Ready" beans is simply a way to get more yield and therefore more income.  "An Omnivore's Dilemma" had an interesting section on how backwards the economics of industrial farming are... prices drop, so the only thing farmers can do is produce more, which simply drives prices down more, etc.  The system is so messed up, and the farmers know it too, but are pretty much helpless to do anything about it. 

He farms about 500 acres or less, his neighbors farm almost 2,000 - hence the reason he also works in the factory and they don't. My maternal grandfather was also a farmer, and he farmed 240 acres, and supported his family on it.  That is completely laughable in industrial farming in this day in age, even with the fact that my grandfather owned the land.

Kate loves riding the little yard tractor with Grandpa when we visit, and since he was still planting this weekend due to all the rain earlier in the month, she actually got to go in the big field tractor with him.  They were both in heaven.  It is really hard to tell who was more excited about it, Kate or Grandpa!  He loves it that Kate thinks it is fun to do farming things with him.

Potato Update & More

I got two bird feeders for Mother's Day, and love seeing the birds out often.  Kate absolutely loves it, and is learning bird names quickly.   Her favorites are the goldfinches, like the one I caught this morning on the feeder.  I need to get a telephoto lens for my camera very badly, as I can't zoom in much more than this without things getting blurry.  Though this was taken through my closed kitchen window, so it's not too bad!

The thing my husband dislikes the most about the sunflower feeder.  All the seedlings in the grass underneath.  I think it's funny.
People think you need special skills to be a gardener, and that it is hard to grow things.  This always makes me laugh for the most part.  The seedlings in the grass above are an example of why this makes me laugh.  Here's another one.  This is a potted zebra grass (which died, because I didn't get it planted quick enough after it came) and out of one of the bottom drainage holes of the pot is growing a tomato.  It sprouted from a seed that must have been in my compost bin.  And it has grown this far, out of a drainage hole in a pot, which absolutely no special treatment, as I didn't even know it was there until last night. I don't know what kind of tomato it is, but I'm thinking it may be a lemon drop cherry from last year.  If I can get it out of there, I may try planting it and see what I get.  It will probably be the same as the 5 other volunteer plants I saved from other areas of the garden that sprouted from the compost.

Here's an update and some photos of the potatoes.  They are coming along fine, it appears.  All I can see is the leaves, obviously, but I filled up the baskets with more dirt last night, and probably should have done it at least a week ago.  The leaves are going strong, and one of them even has a flower bud on it.  I figure that's a good sign.  The shoots are starting to grow through the sides of the basket too, which Kate thinks is fun.