Hen & Chicks

Hen and Chicks is a Succulent. A succulent, is any plant with thick fleshy tissues adapted to water storage. I have discovered where one can learn about Succulents in Philadelphia.

The Philadelphia Cactus and Succulent Society was founded in 1942 to exchange knowledge of and experience with succulents among its members. Membership is open to anyone with an interest in growing and learning more about succulents. There are more than 100 members at all levels of expertise - beginners and experts, collectors and growers.

Gardening is a lot of work. I am a lazy gardener. I like plants that are easy to grow, good to look at and fill odd spots in the garden that would be otherwise filled with pesky weeds.

Hen and Chicks meets all my qualifications. This link directs you to a Succulent Lover's gorgeous blog. I have fallen in mad love with succulent plants. 

https://su-su-su-succulents.tumblr.com/tagged/creative%20planters

This plant will grow in partial shade and not much soil - both good qualities in a city garden or on a sunny window sill in Winter. Hen and Chicks produces flowers when the Hen reaches maturity. 

Three Sisters - Corn, Squash and Beans

I have been a lazy but thinking gardener ever since I first read Ruth Stout's How to Have a Green Thumb without an Aching Back. Say the words "natural weed control" and I become interested. Add some Native American history to the mix and you have more of my attention and interest. The Three Sisters planting method is featured on the reverse of the US Sacajawea Native American dollar coin. The Three Sisters are Corn, Squash and Beans.

I went hunting in Google Land. It is amazing where a good graphic can lead you. I like things simple. Keep it simple, Sweetie is my motto.

I learned that this garden is simple to do. Except for the getting dirty and doing the digging part.

I cannot think of an activity that would be more fun for parents and children. My children loved digging in dirt and picking the flowers.

Making a Three Sisters Garden is an excellent teaching tool for science classes. There is an entire class lesson plan at the link.

Cultivating these companions in your school garden, a small patch near the building, a barrel, or even indoors, can inspire studies of Native American customs, nutrition, and folklore. As students dig in, investigations of plant growth and relationships will also flourish. - Creating a Three Sisters Garden

I learned a Three Sisters Garden is beautiful and became determined to put this planting into my own small backyard.

Paradise for Book Lover's

This illustration comes from a wonderful book entitled Apples of New York. It can be found, along with other books for your reading pleasure, at the E-Book Lending Library. You can read all their titles for FREE. Stock seems to revolve. I am fond of antique illustrations and typography. So, while the booklist is not enormous, the illustrations and typography of the original editions are rewarding and beautiful. 

I found The Varieties of Religious Experience by Wm. James in a 1917 edition. And a vintage Complete Works of Mark Twain. They have all the genres from romantic potboilers to science fiction. 

My Roma Tomato and Me

I planted two Roma tomatoes last year. I was overwhelmed by tomatoes. This Spring, because I do the Ruth Stout thing and mulch like crazy, I was blessed with about 100 volunteer tomato sprouts. I will never have to purchase seeds or plants again.

If you anticipate having too many tomatoes, you might be happy to have Ms. Mary Giblin's recipe.

Bill Giblin, Mary's son, did the technical drawings in 1938 for my Father's model airplane The Trenton Terror. People are still building the model all these years later.

Bill also played a Munchkin Soldier in the film The Wizard of Oz. He once showed me an autographed studio photograph of Margaret Hamilton he kept as a souvenir.

I used to go with my Dad to visit the Giblin's. They would make us Creamed Chicken and Waffles. Mrs. Giblin would send some Chili Sauce home with us. It is delicious with Cheese. It is savory but not hot.

Ms. Mary Giblin's Old Fashioned Sweet Chili Sauce

6 Onions
3 green Peppers
18 medium ripe Tomatoes
1 cup Brown Sugar
2 1/2 cups strong Vinegar
2 level teaspoons Salt
1 teaspoon each Cinnamon, Allspice, Nutmeg, and Mace (if you can find it)
1/2 teaspoon Cloves

Chop or grind the Onions and Peppers finely. Cut up the Tomatoes into small pieces. Cook all together slowly for 2 1/2 hours. Watch closely and stir often. Sugar makes things burn easily. Makes about 5 pints.

Cruising for Containers - Ghetto Garden Fabulous

When you garden in a small area like a city garden, the terrace of a hi-rise building or an alley, you can gain or increase planting space by using containers. We have even developed a phrase for this avocation: container gardening. Yes, you can grow potatoes in a laundry basket. Perfect use for a busted basket.

If you go to your standard garden store and price containers, you may find them costly. I mean, it is triage. What do you want more? Exotic new plants or fancy containers?

So many choices in life. How stylish do you want to be? Some people like funk. Some people like glitz or techno. Or whimsy.

So I thought I would present you, cher Readers, with some creative, varied and unusual containers I have gathered from a glorious google tour of the NET container gardening universe.

Look at junk with a creative eye. Anything you have that will hold soil is a possible container. Use industrial horse troughs. Use those capacious old aluminum pots from the thrift shop.


Do not forget that you must punch holes in the bottom of any container you plant in. Do not drown the Petunias.

The Kitchen Fairy Garden below is one woman's answer to the Fairy Garden craze. Ghetto Garden Fabulous!

I think the choice of all white flowers of different textures and heights for all these old silver containers is the work of a gardener with exquisite taste and a sense if humor.

April Showers - It is Raining Gardens in Philadelphia

I do not tire of old standards especially when they are mine. Repeating this as a public service. The PWD is moving its content. I have written to them and when I get new information, I will correct the links in this article.

The Philadelphia Water Department has some excellent information about Rain Gardens. You can make that boggy place in your front yard a thing of beauty and help clean and conserve water. Once planted, such a garden is maintained with little to no effort.

The photograph is a rain garden in Philadelphia, designed by Edgar David. Rainwater that flows from the house roof to the stone cistern is used to irrigate an intimate collection of woodland plants. You can read more HERE. 

Spring is here. I am ordering Herb Seeds. It is raining gently outside. I am getting that Happy Green Feeling. Now for some Velvet Fog. I repost this every April because I am a fan of Mel Torme, gardens, soft April rain and elegant jazz.

Eat your Greens for Good Luck in the New Year

This Gumbo works nicely in a crockpot. Serve in soup bowls with Rice and Louisiana style Hot Sauce. Easy to do and tastes fine.

Throw it together and let it simmer for hours. Yes, you can do it on the top of the stove, but why? This is more you-have-to-cook-dinner-365-days-a-year cooking.

Forgive the brevity and lack of direction - sometimes I get these recipes written down on the backs of envelopes. The Greens are the best part of this Gumbo for my taste. Green for Good Luck.  

Gumbo Verde

1 pound smoked or garlic Sausage, sliced in bite size pieces

2 cans of Navy Beans

1 can Beef Consomme with 2 cups Water

1 package frozen chopped Mustard Greens (10 ounces)

1 Onion, chopped

1 Bell Pepper, chopped

2 clove Garlic, chopped (optional)

Salt and Pepper to taste

Saute the Sausage with Onion, Bell Pepper and Garlic. Combine Sausage mixture with the Consomme and Water, Beans, Greens. Add Salt and Pepper to taste. Simmer slowly until the Beans become very soft and the Gumbo is thickened thereby.

Feel free to substitute cannellini or pink beans. You can use turnip greens or collards.

I am NOT shopping.

"Bah, humbug." - Ebenezer Scrooge

I remember when I loved shopping. My Nonna would get her shopping bag. She and I would go to Mazilli-Baptisti to buy Italian staples. There would be dried beans, chestnuts, and lentils in barrels. The smell of cheese and cured olives was overwhelming. Then we visit the Butcher. Then dish towels from the Lady-Who-Speaks-Italian-so-Fast I cannot understand her. Then the Baker where the scent of anise would make me faint with cookie anticipation. Shopping was a dignified sensual tour of the neighborhood. We got all the Chambersburg news and tangerines at Nelly's Fruit. It was the most exciting part of my week. I was about four when she started to take me shopping.

I am not shopping anymore. Shopping has lost its charm. Why? People are shooting each other in the stores. Every fricking thing for sale is made of or wrapped in plastic. You know, that stuff that is never going to biodegrade and is forming islands?  Most of the things that compose the seatrash were not even manufactured in the 50s. Somehow we lived without plastic bags. And lived well. The streets were clean even in poor neighborhoods. The beaches and the surf were pristine.

You know what happened to Mazilli-Baptisti? The last time I went there the place was dark, the door was ajar and there was almost no stock. It was dark and dank and smelled bad. Then the owners, the Grandsons, got busted for dealing cocaine in the 80s. "Mannagia America!" the old folks would say around the table.

I am not shopping. Mostly because I cannot afford to buy anything. Who is buying all this stuff? You got me. I only know one thing. As the Corpos who make everything we buy got larger and richer, the trash piles also got larger. And the jobs got smaller and meaner.

The Corpos privatize the profits and socialize the trash. You see them picking up any of this "convenient and disposable" crap? Or paying taxes for the city to do it? Plum Street is full of trash I pick up myself. Trash seems to flow down Plum Street from the Avenue like tampon applicators on the high tide.

I have had enough. I own enough. I am tired of dusting the stuff. I am not shopping. I wonder if I am alone.

http://grist.org/living/ask-umbra-what-do-i-do-with-my-worn-out-sponges/

Green Revolution - Food is Politics and Vice Versa

Poster on right by Favianna Rodriguez.

I have an ongoing interest in feeding the children and myself good food. I must be interested in the economics of farming in America to that end. I have discovered a new source for GREEN information. Meet the American Farm Bureau.

I was drawn to the site by an article Monarch Habitat Restoration Benefits Farmers and the Environment by Robert Giblin. I plan to make my garden Monarch friendly. I stayed for the informative articles about Farm Policy. No food without happy and prosperous Farmers. Photograph by C Watts.

The Monarch Butterfly is in trouble. Find out how to be a guardian of the Monarch Butterfly HERE.

'No matter who you are or where you live, you can make a difference and help conserve the monarch butterfly. From a small pot on your front steps to a backyard pollinator garden, there are many ways individuals can provide essential habitat. We provide support to local communities, NGOs and private landowners through the Partners for Fish and Wildlife program with technical assistance and funding support for improving pollinator habitats.'

Guest Author La Motocycliste - Trashcan Potatoes

Over the weekend, I tipped over the trashcan, and harvested enough French Fingerling potatoes for a good meal for two.

Growing potatoes in a trashcan is fun and easy. In case you think, "Potatoes are cheap, why do all this work?" price heirloom varieties at Whole Paycheck sometime.

A lot of communities have gone to high tech trashcans that can be emptied by an automated garbage truck. This leaves the householder with old trashcans, which can be used for low tech urban potato farming.

The first step is to locate a sunny spot. Potatoes are not really choosy, but they do like sun and water. If your sunny spot is over a patch of dirt, cut the bottom off the trashcan with a Sawzall or a hacksaw. If your sunny spot is over concrete, drill drainage holes in the bottom of the trashcan. If the trashcan is really disgusting, clean it up a bit.

Next, put your trashcan on your chosen spot and fill it with four inches of cheap potting soil with a handful of bone meal mixed in. Head off to choose your potatoes. You need about a quarter pound organic potatoes per trashcan. Look for potatoes with nice big prominent eyes. If you have potatoes that have started growing in your pantry, use those.

Cut up the potatoes so you have one or two eyes per piece. Many people leave the potatoes out overnight to skin over, but I have never bothered. Put the pieces about six inches apart on top of the dirt in the trashcan, then cover with another couple of inches of potting soil and another handful of bonemeal. Don't bother to tamp down. Water so that the dirt is as wet as a wrung out sponge. Cover the trashcan with a piece of chicken wire or an old screen to keep critters out.

Keep the dirt moist, and in 2-3 weeks you should see sprouts. Potatoes grow along the stems, so when the sprouts are 8 or nine inches tall and have nice glossy leaves, shake some more dirt along the stems. The plants will grow towards the light, so keep covering the stems as they grow. Keep them watered and the potato plants will grow for about three months. Eventually they will die down. Stop watering. When the plants are deceased, knock over the garbage can and pick out your potatoes.

Note: Reposted from dkos.For those who learn best by seeing rather than reading:

Honeybees in Trouble

Honey Bee Suite

I have a small garden in my Philadelphia backyard. I grow a few peppers, herbs, tomatoes, flowers. I have been very sad because the Bees seem to have gone away.

We need Bees, so go here for some pet Bees if you like them. Most of the really good stuff we eat needs pollination by bees. No bees means less food.

On Sunday, I saw my very first Bee of the Summer. I was out in the garden, poking around in the Dill without my glasses. I was glad to learn that my eyes still work and I am not crazy. I saw a Bee. The Bees are coming back.


Bees are smart. They know who is growing those flowers. I have been given, while gardening, an affectionate bee nudge more than once. The Bees are making a comeback in Illinois too.

Native bee species spotted for first time since ’90s

COURTESY OF WILL PETERMAN / COPYRIGHT 2013

 By Sandi Doughton 

Bee enthusiasts beat the bushes Sunday to see if the colony of rare insects is still active, and biologists are planning conservation efforts.

More information is available at www.xerces.org/bumblebees. If you would like to be involved in our citizen science project moving forward, you can sign up at www.bumblebeewatch.org.

If you think you have observed the western white tailed bumblebee, please send a photo and site information. Please note that we cannot verify sightings without a photo, so please include one with your email. 

Weighing the Grocery and Soda Tax in Philly

UPDATE: Soda tax is tanking says Philly.com.

I oppose it. You are taxing the wrong folks. Tax the Corporate Suits, not the poor and middle class. 

Tax the sugary drink and snack makers who make beaucoup money and socialize the costs of doing business. Convenient and disposable? Their detritus is on every street corner for the people and the City to clean up. Got the courage to sue Nestle Coke Frito Lay etc., Mayor Kenney? It will make you famous. Come on, Dude. This is Filthydelphia. Let us lead on this. 

I am tired of cleaning up the chip bags and drink containers that flow downhill from Frankford Avenue and clog the sewers and filthy the sidewalks. It costs our City money to collect this garbage and dispose of it. Make the Corporate Persons pay their fair share.  

Pay attention. Reality is. These folks will tell you all about what is happening to our watersheds. It is not good. 

Rain and Gardens

Spring is here. I am ordering Herb Seeds and plotting Flowers. I am planting Milkweed for the Monarch Butterflies this year. I am getting that Happy Green Feeling in spite of the cold outside.

I have learned you can make that boggy place in your yard a thing of beauty and help clean and conserve water by planting a Rain Garden. 

Once planted, such a garden is maintained with little to no effort. And that is good news. Gardening can be hard work.

The woman in the photograph is teaching a class in Rain Gardens and you can see the perfect sort of location. Find out all the particulars at the link.

"To select a location for a rain garden, begin by observing your yard during a good rainfall. Notice where water is flowing. Rain gardens should ideally be located between the source of runoff (roofs and driveways) and the runoff destination (drains, streams, low spots, etc.)."

The photograph on the right is a rain garden in Philadelphia, designed by Edgar David.

"Rainwater that flows from the house roof to the stone cistern is used to irrigate an intimate collection of woodland plants."

You can read more about this interesting garden HERE. 

The Philadelphia Water Department has some excellent information about making Rain Gardens. The PWD also has a rain barrel program for those of us who do not have a boggy spot and still want to utilize and help manage rain water runoff. And now it is time for a Spring song by The Velvet Fog.

Bug Off Container Garden

Water is the universal solvent. Chemical pest control eventually ends up in our water supply. I try never to use manmade pesticides. Those Frankenstein concoctions are killing our bees. I am always looking for natural solutions to environmental problems.

Rob Sproule of Salisbury Greenhouse writes excellent garden articles. He is doing interesting work in the community with school gardens. Teaching children gardening is one of the better things one can do with one's time. 

“Mosquitos are a fact of life in Canada, but dousing our skin in DEET doesn’t have to be. This container, though non-edible, is perfect to grow on your patio, in your gazebo or anywhere you like to sit and unwind in the evenings. You could also break it up into smaller pots to create a scented perimeter.” – Rob Sproule

World Food Day Posters 2014

Congratulations to the winners of World Food Day Poster Contest 2014 entitled ‘Family Farming’.

I present my favorite posters  because the children's art is so amazing and energizing. 

Go to the link to see all the posters in the contest and the names of the artists and their ages. You can also find out how to enter your child or your class in next year's contest. 

Black Gold and Arkansas - UPDATE Aerial View

Renewed Keystone XL legislation made me want to revisit this event. I wrote this April 1 2013. A lot has happened since then.

A woman named Jane Cleeb and a lot of Nebraska farmers have been kicking ass and taking names. I hope the recent approval of the pipeline by the House of Representatives and the Nebraska Supreme Court do not discourage them.

A ruptured oil pipeline destroys a very nice neighborhood. This tar sands stuff does not dissolve and it stinks bad. The oil is corrosive and full of chemicals so it dissolves the pipes. These folks did not know about the pipeline when they bought their houses.

Imagine this crap in the waterways and the Ogallala Aquifer. There is still a coating of oil and chemicals on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico from the BP spill.

You are looking at your future if they build this pipeline. At the time of this writing, Exxon submitted a Bill to the AK legislature that says Exxon does not have to pay you if they destroy your home and neighborhood by spill. How long are we going to allow Corporations to privatize all the profits and socialize the pollution and mistakes?

http://epaosc.org/site/image_list.aspx?site_id=8502

http://m.arkansasonline.com/galleries/16941/album/

The links above will take you to slide shows of the Mayflower Spill. As I looked at all the photographs of the cleanup, the still small voice asked me "Where are they putting the cleanup trash?" I did not like what I heard my self answer "Remember Love Canal?"

This guy has it right.

Ms. Mary Walker's Green Tomato Chutney

I know that I am not the only gardener in Pennsylvania gazing at a bumper crop of tomatoes. Ms. Walker has been kind enough to share her recipe for Green Tomato Chutney with me.

You can learn more about Ms. Walker, British expatriate HERE. 

Unconditional surrender of Europe occurred on my 11^th birthday and, in the evening my dad suggested that we ‘go for a walk’. My sister warned that we would be late for the curfew. My Dad simply answered – “It’s such a nice evening, I don’t think we’re going to worry about that tonight”. Cat’s Whisker receivers WORKED! 

Mi casa es su casa. So I am sharing with you, Cher Reader. I give it to you as she gave it to me. Stay tuned for her recipe for Garlic Jam. When Ms. Mary said Garlic Jam, I began to salivate immediately.

GREEN TOMATO CHUTNEY

5 lbs chopped green tomatoes
1 lb chopped onions
1 tsp whole peppercorns
1 tsp salt
1 lb sugar
1-1/2 cups vinegar (I use either white wine vinegar or cider vinegar)
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup sultanas

Mix tomatoes, onions and peppercorns in a large bowl and let sit overnight (covered)
Bring vinegar and sugar to a boil (until sugar is melted) 
Add sultanas and raisins and simmer for 5 minutes
Add tomatoes and onion mixture and simmer till thick (about 40 to 45 minutes).
Put into 8 oz jars - leaving about 1/4inch head-space - and can for 15 minutes.

Ghetto Garden Fabulous

My New Fig among the Daffodils

My house is a tiny HUD row house I bought as a veritable shell a decade ago. I have had to dedicate any money I had to serious repairs like putting in a heating system and erecting a front door.

I love to garden. However, my garden gets the least investment in terms of capital available. Nevertheless, I have turned it from hard packed clay with a scraggly lawn I had to mow to its present state.

I scavenged antique bricks from an old house and we made a walk. Who wants a lawn to mow? Not me. I use fallen tree branches to make garden beds. I use chunks of cement. I scavenge fallen leaves that others bag up and throw away. I compost to make soil and keep weeds down. In that way, I have raised the level of my garden 6 inches of fertile composted soil all over. Took some time.

I write a lot about garden design here. Even so, I did not realize quite what I was doing, until my Daughter suggested I get some nicer paving stones on a trip to the garden store. I recoiled. And I was not sure why. I mean, I just spent $50.00 on new fig trees.

And then the light dawned. I like the scavenging. Saves money so I can indulge in fig trees. It is a challenge. I just did not know it was a design theme. I scavenged every single one of those Iris and in another few weeks they will be glorious. I have the Herbs in and my Blueberries are doing fine.

My garden theme is Ghetto Fabulous. Example is the old ladder. It is a bean tower. I think it will be beautiful. We shall see. God bless my Daughter. Eventually she will whip me into shape. One way or another. Kind of like my garden.

Garden Dreaming in Snowy Philadelphia

Borage

SPRING will be here March 21 and I am dreaming my new garden. I have a very small back garden. Every year I do something different. Ask me "So what is new and exciting" and I will tell you more than you ever wanted to know about Bees.

You can grow Things to Eat and Flowers in the smallest space. If you are new to gardening and/or tend to be neat and like structure, you may find Square Foot Gardening of use. Or you may plant a Spiral Garden. Or grow vegetables in a pipe. 

Origanum Syriacum

I come from Farmer stock and I am of the "just throw it in there and see if it grows" school of garden thought. Nature is wild and so am I.

Even I dream and plan. You have to plan. Ever grow too many Zucchini? No? Never do that. Your neighbors will only absorb so much Zucchini before they run when they see you coming.

This year I am adding two new Herbs, lovely blue Borage to attract Bees and an exotic Oregano used to make a condiment called Zaatar to sprinkle on my Hummus. It is so worth it to grow Herbs. I thought I hated Oregano until I grew some and tasted the dried Herb I grew myself. Nothing like that dessicated stuff in the supermarket. And I sent for my Fig Tree.

Every warmish sunny day I am outside staring prayerfully at my Texas Star Hibiscus and hoping for that first shoot. I planted it last Summer. It is said to be hardy but it has been a long snowy Winter here in Philadelphia. Even in Texas they pamper it. We shall see. No room in a row house garden for sissy plants.










Last but not least, I am excited about the Three Sisters garden concept, so I am going to squeeze in one of them somewhere. Squash tends to spread. I have too much shade from neighboring back gardens. So maybe I will have to borrow a garden? And so my fevered garden dreams grow and go.

When I Get Low, I Get High

Click Me!

 “Why is marijuana against the law? It grows naturally upon our planet. Doesn’t the idea of making nature against the law seem to you a bit . . . unnatural?” ― Bill Hicks

Please notice, Ladies and Gents, that Randy Pall is now being described as "libertarian-leaning." That is because no Libertarian with integrity would propose such legislation.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has thrown his support behind legislation that Republicans could use to force President Barack Obama to crack down on legal marijuana in states like Colorado and Washington.

Speaking to Fox News on Thursday, the libertarian-leaning senator said he supported the Enforce the Law Act, which has been approved by the House. The legislation would allow Congress to sue the president for failing to faithfully execute laws. - Eric W. Dolan 

“The amount of money and of legal energy being given to prosecute hundreds of thousands of Americans who are caught with a few ounces of marijuana in their jeans simply makes no sense - the kindest way to put it. A sterner way to put it is that it is an outrage, an imposition on basic civil liberties and on the reasonable expenditure of social energy.” 
― William F. Buckley Jr.

“And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.” 
― Anonymous, Holy Bible: King James Version