All Grown Up

"When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years." Mark Twain

And a less benevolent, albeit true-at-times one,

"Mothers of teenagers know why animals eat their young." Unknown author

But I digress.

Let's stick with the Twain quote. It's much more appropriate.

My eldest daughter called me today with a question I have been waiting 20 years to field: "Tell me about my heritage." My first reaction was to laugh with recognition that yours truly was about the same age when she had the wonderful opportunity to spend some months with her own grandparents, basking in their love and picking their brains for that all-too-dwindling oral history of our family.

My response was to refer her to my initial entries about our ancestry: I Finally Got One and Coming Full Circle Times Two. Not to brag, but these do seem well-written and succinct, two qualities appreciated by the young.

Her next question was just as much fun.

"What, exactly, is meant by 'organic'?" (See recent entry about said daughter's new job.)

I love it!

So, I proceeded to give her about an hour's worth of organic farming, from the global issues of sustainability and feeding the world's population to the big, bad evil Monsanto, Syngenta and Bill Gates and their monopoly on conventional farming and their interest in the Svalbard Seed Vault to the history of farming itself to the reason organic food is here to stay to the politics of it all and everything in between.

I could feel her almost taking notes over the phone.

"Wow, Mom, you know so much! Can you jot the main points down and send them to me in an email?" So, I guess I get to take the notes. Oh, well. That's OK.

I'm just glad I was ready and had learned so much in the past seven years.

Yep...Green is My Favorite Color

I have tried for many years to live by the following quotation: "To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring." (George Santayana) Sounds good, doesn't it? We love that fall foliage in New England, don't we? It gives us a reason to tolerate winters in Nebraska, right? But, as I get older, I am more interested in what is true than what should be true. I check my feelings and...

I confess this day -- I am hopelessly in love with SPRING!

Witness the dependable emergence of grass in mid-April (which has already been mown once! Ah, the wonderful smell of it!).


Witness the sprouting of lettuce, spinach, peas, turnips, and mustard greens in the garden.

Witness the blooming of flowers after a long, winter's sleep. (They're hard to see, but trust me, they're there!)

There are good reasons why we love spring so much -- the re-birth, without fail, of the world every year; the warm rains that bring life to the ground; the literal birth of the farm animals as if on a schedule; the voluptuousness of warmth, seedlings, and life all around us. No wonder there is a quotation that reprimands us for being so in love with spring! The other seasons probably got together and worked on it since they were so far behind in the race for human predilection.

I swear to keep working on discovering the beauty in each season, but I refuse to try to temper the fact that spring has it goin' on, by far, over all the other seasons!

Happy SPRING, everyone!

No Greenhouse? No Problem!

Here's a little DIY greenhouse for those of you, like myself, who just can't wait to get the vegetable garden going and who don't have the space or money for a fancy greenhouse outside.

Exhibit #1:

White plastic shelves are set up with grow lights and plastic sheeting over the whole thing. The plastic sheeting keeps the inside at a comfy, jungle-like atmosphere. (This creates nice humidity for the seedlings and cuts down on the need to water.) The peppers and eggplant love it! We happen to have two, large, south-facing windows which are perfect for this set-up. Don't be cheap, though...you still need the grow lights! The sun is not around enough hours of the day at this point in the year.

Exhibit #2:
A few trays of seeds planted in tried-and-true mixture of peat moss/vermiculite/Azomite are placed on empty boxes so that the seedlings will be as close as possible to the lights. Once they grow a bit, I remove the boxes.

Exhibit #3:


All shelves are filled with seedling trays. In addition to our regulars of tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant (all of which need the early start to do well in the summer here in Nebraska/Iowa), this year we are also doing some fancy cauliflower, trying Brussels sprouts (again), some cabbages, some leeks, and some artichokes.

Exhibit #4:

The beginnings of the artichokes!

So, let's itemize:

One four-tier shelving unit (Lowes) -- $25
Three grow lights ($10 each) (Walmart) -- $30
Plastic sheeting to cover (Lowes) -- $20
Six Seed trays with clear covers ($4 each) -- $24
Peat moss/vermiculite mix (Lowes) -- $10
12 organic seed packets (SeedsofChange.com) -- $40

Total: $149 (the first year...after that, it's just the seeds and dirt...$50/year for hundreds of dollars worth of fresh, organic, tasty food!)

Our set-up is six times the above, but we plant one to two thousand different plants for the gardens at the farm. With the single set-up described above, you can probably get about 240 plants started. That should keep the home gardener busy for the growing season!

Let me know how it goes!