A Larrapin Garden

If I had to be shipwrecked on a desert island with only three garden books on edibles, what would they be??  OK, so gardening on this rocky Ozark hilltop isn’t *exactly* like a desert island, but it can feel close at times! My #1 favorite would be Sally Jean Cunningham’s book Great Garden Companions.

From the title, you might think this is just about combining plants in a vegetable garden. But it’s much, much more. She covers all the basic information you need for beginning an organic vegetable garden, composting, plants to help beneficial insects, plants to deter pests, and even some wildlife gardening tips and some garden plans. I love this book and this author.

Now do note, she is gardening somewhere in the midwest where the soil is deep and dark, judging from the pictures. And she has a horse to contribute to her composting efforts. Those unfair advantages aside, she gives you everything you need to know to grow a handsome batch of veggies organically.

There’s a guide towards the back with most of the common things you will want to grow with tips and the when/how planting info you need. She has the best, most simple plan for rotating crops I’ve ever seen and it’s the one I use. She groups the vegetables up into plant “families” and then you just relocate the whole family to the next bed in your garden every year. There’s a great illustration about this. There are also great drawings of garden bugs: the friendlies and the foes.

For the vegetable gardener, whether you’re in Ozark rocks or South Arkansas clay or something else entirely, this is the best organic vegetable garden book you can buy. And it’s the one I refer back to most often even after all these years. You can click the image above to find an independent bookstore near you to get this book. If you want to see inner pages to view it in Google Preview click here.

I’ll continue with the garden book posts for two more great books. (I post most wednesdays & weekends…) You can share this post with the green “share” button below… or if you are on Facebook, please become a “follower” with the gadget to the right! Thanks for stopping by Larrapin Garden.

Immature Yellow-Bellied Sap Sucker or Hairy Woodpecker? And ideas?

We’re having beautiful weather, so of course I’m spending the weekend out DIGGING!! But I wanted to share some fun links and stories I ran across while online during the not so nice weather recently…

Pam’s visit to amazing Austin Garden Art shop: Solstice
Pam’s blog is a frequent award-winner and visiting it is like taking a quick trip to Austin! Trips to Austin are highly recommended, in my book anyway… Next time I’m there, I’ll sure visit this garden shop:
http://www.penick.net/digging/?p=5265

Discontent with heirloom tomatoes
Hmmm, we’ll, the pendulum swings both ways I guess…
http://features.csmonitor.com/gardening/2009/08/13/a-quiet-revolt-against-heirloom-tomatoes/

Kathryn meets some CUTE donkeys!
I love donkeys. Had one as a kid and have been under their spell ever since. If I win the Arkansas lottery and buy that huge farm I’d love, there will be donkeys!
http://plantwhateverbringsyoujoy.com/?p=3237

Yes, Do!
Eat close to home, that is…
http://eatclosetohome.wordpress.com/

Update on the new garden spot: In one pretty afternoon of tough field-hand work, we managed to fully prep one 4 x 25 garden bed in Larrapin’s new fenced veggie area. (See previous post.) That is, remove rocks (sweep number two of two), dig more deeply, shape bed to a perfect 100 square feet*, and layer with lovely soil from the previous veggie bed area, and take the time to stand back and admire!

*The 100 square feet beds are handy. Most amendment suggestions for soil are given in “per 1000 square feet” units. My 100 foot bed allows this math-challenged gardener to just move the decimal point to do the translation down to the ‘how many coffee-cans full for this bed’ level. Love it!

Thanks for stopping by!

Sometimes even a wild and crazy gardener can feel daunted when seeing the task before them. As many regular readers know, veggie gardening 2009 at Larrapin was a turning point. The deer won. After the death of our old farm dog Shug, the deer, rabbit and raccoon moved in on our never-fenced garden like the proverbial chickens to the junebugs. Destruction, some subtle, some catastrophic, followed. We did get some great stuff (see photo above) out of the garden despite the intruders, nevertheless we began planning a fence. A big fence. On paper. But a tall deer fence in the front yard was too much for even a practicality-wins farmer type like myself.

The vegetables came to be in the ‘front yard’ because when we moved here, that was the only full-sun and level spot on the whole three acres. That was before the ice-storm (let’s put a positive spin on it) gave me additional options…  After fighting, and losing, to bambi and her friends for an entire summer, I made the decision. The Larrapin veggie garden had to move. Yes, I’m taking the fantastic soil in the raised beds I’ve worked on for four years and moving it downhill by about a hundred yards. Why?  Because that’s where the fence is!!

The former owner of this property raised emus—those tall dinosaur-like birds I find very scary. He jokingly offered to leave us one. No thanks! But I happily took the six-foot tall fenced paddock out back that he left behind!  It’s divided into three smaller areas, each about 30 x 70 feet or so. When we moved here it was all in deep shade. The ice-storm changed all that. Up till now this has been the territory of the happy Larrapin hens. And they are acting very territorial in giving up the center paddock for the future site of the veggie beds!  The girls, however, can be persuaded with oats, cracked corn and a locking gate though. So the spot is mine, for better or worse.

Now I’m no faint-of-heart gardener. After all we’d started with just canopy trees and bermuda grass on a scant 1-2 inches of topsoil over pallid, rocky clay, and in just three short years had loads of flowers and shrubs and young trees and lots of delicious vegetables. (You can see that transformation here.) Still, to look out on a cold winter day at the task before me, see below, can give even a braveheart pause…

Under those logs, that's the spot...

The funny part is that I can envision, in perfect detail, a lush raised-bed garden filled with green beans dripping off the vines, corn rustling in the wind, a glowing red tomato peeking out here and there. And soil! I can imagine pushing back the straw mulch and seeing dark, well-drained garden loam brimming with earthworms and organic matter…. Such is the power of my imagination!

My eyes and hands, however, are more realistic. I’m starting (over) with a hilltop slab of abysmal soil, chock full o’rocks. How many rocks?  From the 4 x 20 section I’ve started digging, I’ve toted away 50 gallons of rocks, one five-gallon bucket at a time. And oh yeah, there’s apparently a logging operation going on there. Nah, not really on the last part. That’s just an enormous wild cherry that was broken to bits in the ice storm and was taken down over the winter along with one other ice-storm ruined tree. I did have to sacrifice a smaller oak to get this spot fully in sun. And for that, I’ll do my oak-planting penance times three…

So this is my mission, should I choose to accept it. And I have!! Hopefully, a year from now, I’ll be posting pictures of the beginnings of that wonderful vegetable garden I can see in my mind. For now, a blank slate. One that looks better covered in snow, I must admit. But have faith, dear readers. Let’s see what gals with shovels and an old red tiller can do! Check back in a year!

Partially cleared of logs, with snow in early January

Thanks for dropping by Larrapin Garden. If you drop by in person, you might be put to work!

I’m so ready to see scenes like this one above rather than snow and rain and dull winter skies…. I did hear PEEPERS last night though, so Spring really is gathering strength under all the cold mud…  So to get in the spirit, if you are in NWA please join me for any of the three classes I’m teaching at the Botanical Gardens this year.  Homegrown Veggies on 3/6/10 or 4/15/10  and Edible Landscaping (i.e. The Larrapin Landscape!)  on 3/27.  More info below and hope to see you there!

HOMEGROWN! Organic Veggie Gardening For Beginners

Saturday, March 6, 2010 from 10 a.m.-Noon  OR Thursday, April 15 from 5:30 p.m.-7

Botanical Garden of the Ozarks (BGO), Crossover Road, Fayetteville

Join gardener Leigh Wilkerson for an edible adventure! Find inspiration and information on beginner organic growing in any amount of space—from you balcony to a big yard to a plot in a community garden. Interested in gardening with the help of nature?  Think: beautiful AND bountiful! Class is for beginners.  Come meet others who share your interest in getting started at veggie gardening.

Class is $10 for BGO members and $15 non-members. FREE admission to class with the purchase of a first-time new BGO membership at the door. Pre-registration requested so we’ll have plenty of handouts. Email  ozarksalive [at] gmail [dot] com for more information or to reserve your space and pay at the door. To buy your ticket today, go to www.bgozarks.org/events   Email ozarksalive [at] gmail [dot] com to get on a mailing list of this and more edible/eco NWA garden announcements. (Class will repeat on Thursday, April 15 from 5:30 p.m.-7)

EDIBLE LANDSCAPING with the Larrapin Gardener

Saturday, March 27, 10 a.m.-Noon

Botanical Garden of the Ozarks (BGO), Crossover Road, Fayetteville.

Eat Your Yard & Beyond! Join gardener Leigh Wilkerson for an exploration of edible landscaping inspired by permaculture. Why stop with a veggie garden? Why mow a yard when you can eat it? Edibles can go everywhere. There are dozens of ways to make your entire landscape yummy (larrapin!) for songbirds, butterflies, your pet chickens, pollinators, and you too! Make your space, whether large or small, beautiful, bountiful and alive. Class is for gardeners of all levels.  Come meet others who share your interest in edible landscaping.

Class is $10 for BGO members and $15 non-members. FREE admission to class with the purchase of a first-time new BGO membership at the door. Pre-registration requested so we’ll have plenty of handouts. Email  ozarksalive [at] gmail [dot] com for more information or to reserve your space and pay at the door. To buy your ticket today, go to www.bgozarks.org/events Email ozarksalive [at] gmail [dot] com to get on a mailing list of this and more edible/eco NWA garden announcements.

Fayetteville has been aflutter with gardening and chicken energy this weekend. I used up my usual entire month’s worth of off-the-farm socializing attending local events on chix and planting!  First there was a screening of the film about  Mad City Chickens, a funny show documenting the adventures of wanna-be urban chicken wranglers in Madison, WI. Great fun! Then there was Fayetteville’s first community seed swap at the public library. WOW! The place was mobbed with folks!  It is so thrilling to see people so eager to learn or continue learning about growing their own food and exploring the farm animals that hold such a place in our heritage. Watch out Fayetteville, it seems that goats come next!

Anyway, the chicken film made me nostalgic, thinking about the day-old-chicks to big laying hen journey I made with this current batch of Buckeyes & Australorps. So below are links to three posts documenting some of that adventure. I get excited thinking that later this year there will be another cheeping box of babies to pick up at the post office….

Below is the little video shot when the chix were just a day or so old. They are so cute at that stage they don’t even look real. (If you are reading via email, click the blue title of this post at the top to go to the blog and see the video and other pics.)

They grow up fast though! The post below is about the babies first big day out in the big-chicken world. (There was an intermediate sized pen involved obviously!)

Buckeyes explore their big bird digs! Click to read that post and see more “teenage” pics over at the old blog.

Here are the gals turning into lovely pullets. Click to read that post.

And finally, some pics above of the girls all grown up into fat laying hens. (Click on pics to enlarge.) Here they are exploring one of the many recent snowfalls. They are not fans of the white stuff. In fact it seems to make them a bit grumpy. But Spring is coming, I tell them…and myself! Thanks for stopping by A Larrapin Garden.