Last week, we celebrated the vernal or spring equinox, when the Earth leans neither towards (summer) nor away (winter) from the sun. On that day, the hours of daylight and darkness were exactly equal.

What does that mean for us gardeners? Time to get out there and dig in the dirt – summer’s coming!

If you’re like me (impatient and congenitally unable to follow rules or even “guidelines”), you’ve already been playing out there for weeks now. Especially if you live in a region like the mid-Atlantic, where winter hardly showed up this year and the spring weather started sometime in February.

So what’s happened in the barefoot garden so far?

Asparagus!

After two years of waiting (I can be patient when necessary) we harvested the first tender spears of our own asparagus. Delicious! Asparagus is one of the few common vegetables that are perennial, meaning that a little patience up front will be rewarded for years to come.

If you’re so inclined, now is the time to plant the crowns (small rooted plants). Pick a sunny spot that you are willing to dedicate to asparagus forever; the plants can last produce for 15-20 years! For the first two years you must force yourself to let the tender, tempting shoots grow into tall fern-like fronds, allowing the roots to develop fully. Then in year two you can snip the first two weeks of shoots, in year three: three weeks, etc.

We harvested three or four meals worth. Now we’ll let the spears grow into tall fern-like fronds, to feed the roots developing below ground. They’re quite beautiful, so I don’t mind giving up the tasty spears.

Fall Winter Spring Greens

I’m a big fan of fall and winter gardening. When temperatures and light levels drop, plants grow more slowly but that doesn’t mean the growing season is over. Eliot Coleman, garden guru extraordinaire runs a CSA in Maine that produces greens and other tasties year-round! If he can do it, so can we.

Here’s the plot that I planted back sometime in October. It’s been producing all winter long and with the advent of warmer weather it’s taken off! Last week I harvested these two baskets of greens and that’s probably only ten percent of what we’ve eaten from this plot so far.

I’ve scattered some lettuce and spinach seeds in there to fill out the spots where we were over-zealous in our harvesting and expect this bed to continue to produce until June. Then I’ll clear it out and plant sweet potatoes.

What Can I Plant Now?

Even if freezing temperatures are threatening your area tonight (I’m looking at you, mid-Atlantic!), there are still many seeds you can sow now to get  a jump on the growing season.  In fact many of my favorite veggies prefer the cooler temperatures of spring to the roast ‘em and toast ‘em summer. These include:

• most leafy veggies: lettuce, spinach, corn salad and all of the lovely cabbage-family greens like collards, kale, mizuna, arugula and mustard.
• cabbage-family root and “head” veggies: radishes, turnips, cabbage broccoli, cauliflower
• peas – snow and sweet
• white potatoes.

All of the above can be sown directly into the garden. Red radishes and lettuce are are super fast; plant them today and you’ll be eating them by Mother’s Day!

For great info on four-season gardening check out Eliot Coleman’s book, Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Garden All Year Long. You can find links to more of my favorite gardening books on the Gardening Authors and Experts Page.
Happy growing and eating!  — Danielle

The temperature hit 102 degrees today – too hot to even think about gardening. But with the A/C and the ceiling fan working hard, I can blog about it.  At least a short post.

Wilting pumpkin vines I know how they feel.

I watered yesterday but these poor pumpkins are still wilting. I know how they feel. (Don’t worry, the water is on as we speak. They obviously need some more).

The good news is the wilting allowed me to find a few more pumpkins amid all that foliage – there were seven, including a cool green and orange-striped one that I harvested this afternoon.

Why do plants wilt?

Herbaceous plants – those without woody stems – rely on water pressure to keep them upright. Like a hose, they can only stand straight when their cells have sufficient water. Not enough H2O and they flop over or wilt.

The cure? Give ‘em a drink!

However, not all leaf-curling is wilting. Plants lose water from their leaves through a evaporation – a process known as transpiration. When it’s really hot, transpiration increases. To avoid losing too much water some plants curl their leaves, thereby reducing the amount of surface exposed to the sun.

So, if your tomato plants are otherwise healthy and well-watered, but their leaves are curling up, they’re just protecting themselves from the heat.

The Seventh-Month Slump

It’s official: I’ve hit the mid-summer gardening slump. Veggies are ripening, beds need watering and the temperature is climbing. And yet, while summer is still going strong, now is the time to start planning for fall veggie gardening.

Yes, now is the time to start those long-growing veggies, the cabbage family crops that 4-EVER to ripen. Every year I have great plans to start them as seedlings indoors in July. And every year I hit the slump.

This year I will embrace my laziness and decide upfront (instead of accepting the inevitable later) that there will be no broccoli, Brussels sprouts or other time-hogs in my garden come fall.

Instead I will enjoy the lazy days of tomatoes and cukes and plant lettuce, spinach and other quick and easy crops in September and October – when the beans have come up and my energy has returned.

The return will still be great. I’ll be harvesting THOSE greens all winter – and into the spring, too! More on that in a future post

BONUS: July Poster Giveaway

This month’s special giveaway is this fabulous out-of-print NOAA poster, Marine Mammals of the Western Hemisphere. Everyone who leaves a comment between now and the end of July gets one entry in the drawing. Link to this site on your blog and get two entries. Get your comments in now!

Danielle Meitiv is a writer, marine science geek, gardener and mother who goes barefoot whenever possible. She’s currently writing a series of short erotic romances. Danielle is also a huge fan and sales affiliate for Holly Lisle’s online courses: How to Think Sideways: Career Survival School for Writers, and How to Revise Your Novel. Follow @Danielle_Meitiv on Twitter, and on Facebook: Danielle Meitiv’s Barefoot Blog, and Danielle Meitiv.

Things are growing steadily in the barefoot garden. I’m also embarrassed to admit that I haven’t done much out there in the last couple of weeks. Not even watering, as Mother Nature has taken care of that with a trio of well-timed thunderstorms.

We’ve harvested the last of the in-ground potatoes and will see if the potato bin experiment was a success when I return home from my business trip next week.  The cucumbers are ripening nicely, as are the cherry tomatoes.

The Great Pumpkin

The cucumber patch. We've already harvested a half-dozen "Boothby Blond" yellow cukes.

The pumpkins are completely insane and one is ready to harvest. My brother suggested pinching off all the other flowers and seeing how big it could grow, but I think this variety is bred to produce smallish pumpkin. (I have no idea because all of the pumpkins were volunteers – more on that in this post).

I’ve been reminded that The Great Pumpkin will only visit a sincere pumpkin patch  – I think an enthusiastic, all-volunteer patch qualifies, don’t you?

The first tiny Asian eggplant. A few more weeks and yum!

Eggplants, Pole Beans, and Bamboo – Oh My!

The eggplants are starting to grow, although only two of the four plants have fruit. I can’t eat Italian or globe eggplants (allergic reaction) but have no problem with Asian eggplants, so I grow them every year.

Well, now I do, since I live in a warm enough climate for them. Boston’s summers just weren’t long enough but Maryland is just right!

We planted pole beans in the patch where the garlic had been and they’re coming up nicely.  Strangely, the vines haven’t been winding themselves up the poles. Instead they’ve been winding around each other and trailing on the ground so I have to untangle them and coax them up the poles.

As you can see in the cuke photo above, bamboo is my favorite pole and trellis material. We just cut in from vacant lots or friends’ backyards. In the DC-area is grows like a weed!

Asparagus is desperate need of weeding. Planted last year - ready to eat NEXT year.

The Value of Patience

This fuzzy patch is one of two asparagus beds planted last summer. Asparagus is a hardy perennial that is very easy to grow, but it requires patience!  You plant the crowns in the early spring and then leave them alone – no harvesting, no nibbling – for the next TWO summers. After that, however, you can have fresh asparagus for a decade or TWO!

Now there’s a plant that personifies (botanifies?) the barefoot gardening approach. You give it a little care up front and it pays you back in spades for YEARS to come. More on using perennials in the vegetable garden in a future post.

Feeling Fruity – Berries and Figs

It’s not all veggies around here. A few weeks ago I blogged about strawberries. In the berry realm, we also have raspberries, blackberries, and currants. I planted two goji berry bushes but one died and the other’s not looking too hot- I may try to transplant it to a better spot.

We're gonna have an awesome fig harvest come September!

But those aren’t the only fruit we have. One of the reasons I LOVED our house on sight – or I should say four of the reasons – were the mature fig trees growing on both sides of the house. Until then I had assumed that figs needed a Mediterranean climate, like olive and apricots. But they grow wonderfully here.

Oooo – Pretty! (And Yum!)

I’m not big into planting flowers – I want food for my efforts – but the woman who lived her before me did such an amazing job planting bulbs and perennials that I still benefit from her labors. In the spring we eagerly anticipate the emergence of the crocuses and daffodils followed by the tulips and irises.

But nothing pleases me more than the hibiscus that pop up amidst all the lilies across from my office window. And did you know hibiscus flowers are good in herbal teas?  In fact, if you’ve ever had one of Celestial Seasonings “zinger” teas, you’ve tasted it. The citrusy taste is from hibiscus.

Hibiscus flowers: beautiful, huge (dinner-plate sized), and yummy in herbal tea.

My son loves it so this year we’re going to harvest and dry some of he flowers ourselves.

…in an Itsy Bitsy Gardening Space

I have to clear up a common misconception.  I don’t live on a farm. I don’t live on a huge lot in a distant exurb. I don’t have a huge community garden plot or allotment (to use the English term).

I live on a normal-sized lot with grass, flowers, shrubs and a driveway. All the veggies and fruit bushes and trees that I’ve described to you grow in small patches. The biggest is maybe 8 x 10 feet.

In a future post (yes, I know I promise that a lot – I mean it!) I’ll focus on how to garden in tiny places – like balconies and containers – as well as where to garden when you have absolutely no space of your own.

In the meantime, grow green – and barefoot!

How does YOUR garden grow?

How are your tomatoes, cukes or pumpkins? Got any bean coming up – or veggies ready to harvest?  Have bugs got you down or is drought drying you up?

Share, kvetch or commiserate – in the comments below!

BONUS: July Poster Giveaway

This month’s special giveaway is this fabulous out-of-print NOAA poster, Marine Mammals of the Western Hemisphere. Everyone who leaves a comment between now and the end of July gets one entry in the drawing. Link to this site on your blog and get two entries. Get your comments in now!

Danielle Meitiv is a writer, marine science geek, gardener and mother who goes barefoot whenever possible. She’s currently writing a series of short erotic romances. Danielle is also a huge fan and sales affiliate for Holly Lisle’s online courses: How to Think Sideways: Career Survival School for Writers, and How to Revise Your Novel. Follow @Danielle_Meitiv on Twitter, and on Facebook: Danielle Meitiv’s Barefoot Blog, and Danielle Meitiv.

As any home veggie gardener knows, when squash happens, it REALLY happens. That is to say, unlike eggplants or bell peppers, which produce in modest amounts, when you plant squash you almost always get more that you bargained for.

Pumpkin plants spilling onto the path and the first orange pumpkin of the year.

Now, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Barefoot gardening is all about getting the most food and fun out of the least amount of effort. Squash definitely fits the bill, especially summer squash. They’re easy to grow from seed and have relatively few pests.

(I’ve had problems with squash vine borers wiping out my plants in August, but I got a good harvest before then).

Squash are members of the cucurbit family, which includes cucumbers, cantelopes and melons. There are two basic types of squash: summer and winter. They’re named not for when they grow – both types need warm summer weather to grow and ripen – but for when you eat them.

Summertime – and the squash is prolific

Summer squash include the “soft” squashes like zucchini, patty pan and yellow crookneck. These kinds don’t store well unless you freeze them. They are super easy to grow and VERY prolific.

Let me repeat that for those of you who are tempted to rush out and plant two or more plants: they are VERY prolific.  Even a family of dedicated veggie-eaters couldn’t eat the number of zucchinis that 3+ plants would provide. Ratatouille, zucchini bread, stir fries and the like are nice – but everyday???

The really large leaves closest to the hose and rain barrel are summer squash plants. (The rest are sweet potato vines).

Also, they grow so fast that the cute 2″ long zucchini you admired last week will be a 18″ long club as thick as your calf if you so much as look away. So whatever you do, don’t blink!

(Bonus points to the geeks who can ID that reference).

That said, I planted some in my garden this year, after swearing that I wouldn’t because I get dozens from our two CSA shares every summer. They grow so fast and produce so much they make you feel like a freaking gardening genius!

(More on CSAs or community-supported agriculture in a future post. Summary: They’re AMAZING!)

Squash for fair weather OR foul

Winter squash are the hard-skinned varieties, which can be stored for months. There are dozens of varieties including : butternut, acorn, delicata, spaghetti and of course pumpkins.

Can you spot the four pumpkins in this picture?

These guys take a lot longer to grow and are usually not as prolific as their summer cousins, but their still pretty easy and totally worth it if you have the space – they’re vines tend to spread out, unless you plant a variety that is specifically bred to stay contained.

Come Halloween, what could be more fun than decorating a pumpkin you grew yourself?!

I did not plant ANY pumpkins this year.  I planted a few butternut and delicata seeds, but I knowing that pumpkins took up more room than I was willing to give them, I held off.

This morning I counted seven soccerball-sized pumpkins in various shades of green and orange and at least half-dozen tiny ones. They’re growing beneath platter-sized leaves on vines a half-dozen feet long or more in two different beds.

Clearly, it was not up to me.

On the right: volunteer squash (and tomatoes) taking over the potato beds. Luckily the last spuds are ready for harvest.

No, my family did not sneak out in the middle of the night and sprinkle pumpkins seeds liberally throughout the garden.  They’re ALL volunteers – plants that came up on their own because their seeds were dropped on the ground sometime between last fall and this summer.

These particular seeds came from a pumpkin that my son brought home from a school trip to a you-pick farm last fall.  We kept it on the porch until it started to get soft, then tossed it in the compost pile.

Now its progeny are taking over my yard. I even found one climbing up a weigela bush and it’s already set a little pumpkin

A pumpkin plant growing up a bush! Note the little pumpkin already forming at the base of the flower.

The vine won’t be able to support a full-sized pumpkin, but I’ve read about fashioning a sling from an onion bag or an old pair of stockings. (I’ll let you know how that goes).

I’m not really a big fan of pumpkin pie, so what am I going to do with all these pumpkins?

The ones that are babies now will be perfect size for carving come October.

The others? We’ll eat them, of course, but since they store well, we can do so over a number of months. Whew!

When they think “pumpkin”, most people think of only sweet dishes. But pumpkin and other winter squash because a favored part of my diet when I had an Afghani dish that features pumpkin cooked in olive oil, garlic and salt.

My husband also makes a great millet and pumpkin dish.

Basically, pumpkin can be used in any recipe that calls for squash. Try it in a pureed curried squash soup. Delish!

How does your garden grow?

Confession time: have you ever gone crazy with the squash? Had so many you were dropping them on your neighbors porches in the dead of night, slipping them into open car windows? Or maybe you’ve had the opposite problem: vine borers or some other pest doing away with your crop before the first zucchini could make an appearance.

Let us know – in the comments below!

I’m also open to any all and garden questions. If I don’t know the answer I’ll try to find someone who does. Those also go in the comments below.

A hardy thanks to all the folks who have piped up so far – keep those questions and blog topic suggestions coming!

BONUS: July Poster Giveaway

This month’s special giveaway is this fabulous out-of-print NOAA poster, Marine Mammals of the Western Hemisphere. Everyone who leaves a comment between now and the middle of July gets one entry in the drawing. Link to this site on your blog and get two entries. Get your comments in now!

Danielle Meitiv is a writer, marine science geek, gardener and mother who goes barefoot whenever possible. Danielle is also a huge fan and sales affiliate for Holly Lisle’s online courses: How to Think Sideways: Career Survival School for Writers, and How to Revise Your Novel. Follow @Danielle_Meitiv on Twitter, and on Facebook: Danielle Meitiv’s Barefoot Blog, and Danielle Meitiv.

Filmmaker and alternative-energy proponent James Cameron and marine ecologist  Enric Sala have been chosen as the National Geographic Society’s newest Explorers-in-Residence. This select group includes some of the world’s preeminent explorers and scientists and represents a broad range of science and exploration.

A Titanic Passion for the Abyss

James Cameron working on a underwater shot. Photo courtesy James Cameron.

James Cameron has brought together two of his passions — filmmaking and scuba diving — in his work on movies such as “The Abyss” and “Titanic.” The latter took him on 12 manned-submersible dives to the famed shipwreck in the North Atlantic.

Since then he has investigated the sinking of the German battleship Bismarck; organized expeditions to deep hydrothermal vent sites along the mid-Atlantic Ridge, the East Pacific Rise and the Guaymas Basin in the Sea of Cortez; and led seven deep-ocean expeditions with a combined total of seventy-two submersible dives!

Cameron is currently leading a team building a unique manned sub capable of diving to the ocean’s greatest depths. Next year he plans to pilot the sub to the deepest point in the ocean, the Pacific’s Mariana Trench. It will be the first in a series of dives to some of the  world’s deepest places, including the Mariana, Kermadec and Tonga trenches.

Avatar Inspires a New Passion

Filmmaker James Cameron tests a 3-D camera while on a helicopter. Photo courtesy James Cameron

Work on “Avatar” inspired a new mission for Cameron — illuminating the plight of indigenous peoples, especially those involved in struggles over energy issues. Since the film’s release, Cameron has spent  18 months in energy battlegrounds — in the Alberta, Canada tar sands and the Amazon — meeting with indigenous peoples whose environments and way of life are threatened.

Cameron has also organized a task force of deep-ocean experts to address offshore oil production and ocean engineering issues raised by the 2010 Gulf oil spill. He continues to work in the arena of alternative energy.

Marine Ecologist Enric Sala

Witnessing the harm people do to the ocean led marine ecologist  Enric Sala to dedicate his career to working to conserve marine life. Sala is one of a rare breed of scientist who combines research with effective communication to inspire people to protect the ocean.

Enric Sala diving with a green turtle off Cocos Island, Costa Rica. Photo by Octavio Aburto

One of his goals is to help protect the last pristine marine ecosystems worldwide, using scientific expeditions, the media, partnerships with local conservation organizations and high-level discussions with leaders in countries around the world.

Sala fell in love with the sea while growing up on the Mediterranean coast of Spain. After obtaining a Ph.D. in ecology in 1996 from the University of Aix-Marseille, France, he worked in California for 10 years as a professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California.

In 2006 he moved back to Spain to take the first position in marine conservation ecology at Spain’s National Council for Scientific Research, and in 2008 he became a Fellow at the National Geographic Society, where he leads the Pristine Seas project.

Pristine Seas Successes

The Pristine Seas team recently worked with Oceana-Chile and the Chilean government to establish the 15,000-square-kilometer Motu Motiro Hiva Marine Park around Salas y Gómez, a small, uninhabited Chilean island in the Pacific Ocean.

Working with local and international non-governmental organizations, Sala’s Pristine Seas project also inspired the Costa Rican government to create the new 10,000-square-kilometer Seamounts Marine Managed Area around Cocos Island.

Cameron and Sala join 13 other National Geographic Explorers-in-Residence: oceanographer Robert Ballard, anthropologist/ethnobotanist Wade Davis, geographer Jared Diamond, marine biologist Sylvia Earle, conservationist J. Michael Fay, archaeologist Zahi Hawass, filmmakers/conservationists Dereck and Beverly Joubert, paleontologists Meave and Louise Leakey, anthropologist Johan Reinhard, paleontologist Paul Sereno and geneticist Spencer Wells.

For more information on the Explorer-in-Residence program and other fabulous National Geographic projects, including the ever-exciting monthly magazine, visit www.nationalgeographic.com.

Round of Words in 80 Days

Rond two of the #ROW80 challenge. I petered out on the first one because I gave myself too many goals and stopped checking in regularly. Round two went well, as I was writng A LOT, but then forgot to post my successes!  this time I’m going to try to be more deliberate about both goal-setting and checking-in.

Round three started this weekend and goes until September 22. I’m not sure I want a wordcount goal – I think that contributed to my demise in Round One.  Instead, I have two completion goals.

Writing goals: finish AND submit two short stories, one this month and the second by the end of August.

Blogging goals: Twice weekly – “Wonderful Waterful Wednesday” and “I’m Diggin’ Friday.” I keep threatening to add another day, and keep psyching myself out, so I’m NOT going to put that down.  We’ll see if I end up doing it anyway…

Social Media Goals (I got this from a fellow WANA alum): leave at least a half-dozen comments a week on other folks’ blogs.  It’s great to RT something (and I do, often), but nothing makes a blogger feel warm and fuzzy like comments (hint, hint!)

BONUS: July Poster Giveaway

This month’s special giveaway is this fabulous out-of-print NOAA poster, Marine Mammals of the Western Hemisphere. Everyone who leaves a comment between now and the middle of July gets one entry in the drawing. Link to this site on your blog and get two entries. Get your comments in now!

Danielle Meitiv is a writer, marine science geek, gardener and mother who goes barefoot whenever possible. Danielle is also a huge fan and sales affiliate for Holly Lisle’s online courses: How to Think Sideways: Career Survival School for Writers, and How to Revise Your Novel. Follow @Danielle_Meitiv on Twitter, and on Facebook: Danielle Meitiv’s Barefoot Blog, and Danielle Meitiv.

Annual herbs fall into the first category, perennials into the second. And if you like to cook, few things will save you money like fresh herbs, which are so much cheaper to grow than to buy.

Not all herbs will seed themselves or survive year after year in your garden – but many will.  Here are a few of my favorites:

Annuals gone wild

Some of my  favorite herbs are annuals. That means that the plants don’t overwinter, but have to grow from seed each year. However that doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to plant them each year. Many of them will plant themselves!

What happens when dill goes wild - it plants itself in cracks in the path!

Dill is one such herb. I love it in cucumber salad, or with garlic, butter and new potatoes (see this post for more on that fabulous dish). It also goes well with cucumbers, fresh or when making pickles, and is delicious in soup.

If you do decide to use it in a hot dish, be sure to add it in the last few minutes of cooking or afterwards – its taste will be lost if it’s cooked to long. Fresh dill can help sooth the stomach after meals.

You say cilantro - I say coriander. These plants are going to seed - and re-seed!

Another wonderful annual is cilantro. If you like salsa or gazpacho, this herb is for you! Funny thing about cilantro – either you love it or you think it tastes like soap. (I believe it’s genetic, depending on how your taste receptors respond to the herb’s aromatic compounds).

Even if you don’t like the taste of the fresh leaves, don’t dismiss this plant so quickly. Any fan of Chinese, Indian, or Thai food will want to use its dried seeds, also known as coriander. (Yes, a twofer herb!)

Cilantro has self-seeded itself EVERYWHERE I planted it, giving me enough fresh and dried spice to feed much of Central and South America, not to mention Southeast Asia…

I love you again and again and again…dependable perennials

I planted mint in this concrete planter to keep it from taking over the lawn - and the neighborhood.

Many of my favorite herbs are perennials – meaning that a portion of the plant survives from year to year.

Mint is a classic and somewhat invasive example. When I first started gardening, I planted peppermint in my parents’ backyard. For years the yard smelled minty everytime they mowed.  Yes, it had spread itself all across the yard, growing in little aromatic tufts here and there…

Unlike some of the other herbs I’m discussing, mint doesn’t reseed itself. It grows roots in every direction and sends up young plants every so often.  I still love mint, but I’ve learned to confine it to a planter or container. It’s great for cooking and tea. I also like to toss a few handfuls into a pitcher of water in the fridge for a great fresh taste. Mint is also good for soothing the stomach and the rest of the digestive system.

Lemon balm has seeded itself into the cracks between the path and the wall. The parent plant is visible on the left.

Another yummy tea herb is lemon balm. It’s a combo herb – a perennial that self seeds like crazy.  Here you can see where it’s taken root all along the path. I often toss a handful of lemon balm into the water with the mint, or put both in hot water for a wonderful herbal tea (or tissane, if you’re French ).

Parsley is a biennial, meaning that it grows for two years. however, the edible part  – the leaves – only grow in the first year, so I treat it as a annual. It is not great about self-seeding, but I have found it scattered here and there, including on the ground next to the compost pile.

Parsley is widely used all over the world, both as a fresh garnish and added to cooked dishes. It holds up better than dill, but not by much, so only add it in the last thirty minutes or so of cooking.

It is used to freshen the breath after meals, is very health, high in antioxidants and may have cancer-fighting properties. The Italian or flat-leaf form is tastier (IMHO) than the curly form, which is often used as a garnish.

Are you going to Scarborough Fair?

Simon and Garfunkel were onto something: sage, rosemary AND thyme are perennials. (We dealt with parsley above). All three four of these herbs grow in my garden.

Sage and thyme are easy and some varieties are even evergreen. Rosemary grows really well in my area (Zone 7A/ the DC area for those who are wondering) but will not survive the winters further north.

Perennial herbs: rosemary, lavender, tarragon, lemon balm and echinacea.

One possibility is to let it grow outside in a container (a BIG one if you can) and bring it in for the winter. All of these herbs have an earthy taste (which my husband hates) are are used a lot in southern European (Italian, Greek, French) cooking.

Rosemary is wonderful on foccacia, is high in anti-oxidants, and may have significant cancer-fighting properties. (In this photo, rosemary is the plant with the pine-looking leaves in the middle/foreground).

Thyme is good with soups and meat, is used a lot in Mediterranean food, and is the primary ingredient/flavor in zatar, a spice mix popular in Lebanon, Syria and Palestine. It has antiseptic properties and its primary aromatic compound, thymol, is the active ingredient in Listerine.

Sage is good with beans and fatty meats like lamb, and it is traditionally used in Thanksgiving stuffing.

Sage’s scientific name is Salvia, which means to heal in Latin, an indication of how highly regarded this herb has been for it’s medicinal properties. It has been used as a astringent, anti-fungal and antibiotic among other things and one well-regarded study found that sage extracts were helpful in treating mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease.

I love you again and again and again – More wonderful perennials

Lavender takes a while to get established but once it does, you will never be at a loss for potpourri.  It is also used in cooking in the south of France in the relatively new spice mix known as Herbes de Provence. Lavender is also used to flavor cheese and the honey made from lavender flowers is exquisite!

Lavender has antiseptic and anti-inflammatory properties an the scent is said to be calming. I like to spray a little of the essential oil on my pillow at night.(Tiny lavender flowers can be seen on the right side in the photo above. The flowers next to them are purple coneflowers, otherwise known as Echinacea, good for cold and general immunity-strengthening).

Tarragon is used a lot in French cooking. It is considered one of the four herbes fines which are used fresh. (The others are parsley, chives and chervil – of course I looked them up!)  It goes well with chicken, eggs and fish. (Tarragon is the tall bushy plant that dominates the background in the photo).

Honorable mention

No discussion of herbs would be complete without the #1 favorite of gardeners everywhere: basil. I don’t mean to slight this wonderful plant, which is easy to grow and one of my all-time favorites. It’s just not repeat performer. As an annual it must be planted every year, but it doesn’t self-seed. (Why? My guess is that the seeds of this tropical plant – it’s originally from India – can’t survive even mild winters. If you live in the south, however, it might be worth a shot). Let some plants flower and go to seed  – and let me know what happens!)

However it is SUPER easy to grow.  In my area the seeds germinate very easily outdoors when the weather gets hot and the leaves are ready just in time for the tomato harvest!

If you want  some earlier, get a plant from the nursery or start it indoors. I have heard that it’s easy to keep basil growing in a pot indoors year-round, but have never succeeded myself. (My green thumb stops at the door – I kill houseplants regularly!)

Basil is used in Italian cuisine (duh!) as well as Southeast and Northeast Asian cuisine. (I love it in Thai food!) Basil is important in Ayurvedic medicine and has been found to have antioxidant, antimicrobial, and antiviral properties and may fight cancer (as if you needed anther reason to love pesto!)

How does your garden grow?

Any favorite herbs? Self-seeders or perennials I haven’t mentioned here?  Others you’d like to know more about?  Fabulous recipes or medicinal uses for any of the above that I haven;t listed?  Let us know in the comments below!

BONUS

This month’s special giveaway is this fabulous out-of-print NOAA poster, Marine Mammals of the Western Hemisphere. Everyone who leaves a comment between now and the middle of July gets one entry in the drawing. Link to this site on your blog and get two entries. Get your comments in now!

Danielle Meitiv is a writer, marine science geek, gardener and mother who goes barefoot whenever possible. Danielle is also a huge fan and sales affiliate for Holly Lisle’s online courses: How to Think Sideways: Career Survival School for Writers, and How to Revise Your Novel. Follow @Danielle_Meitiv on Twitter, and on Facebook: Danielle Meitiv’s Barefoot Blog, and Danielle Meitiv.

The first potato harvest came up this week! I didn’t intend to dig them up, although there were signs some of the plants were ready (past flowering and starting to brown).

I was reweaving the soaker hose through the bed when I saw a smooth purplish thing sticking out of the dirt. At first I thought it was a kid’s toy.

Some digging brought up more than two buckets full of purple, red and golden tomatoes!  I was only planning to dig up one bucketful but when the kids saw them, they insisted on digging some, too.

My daughter enjoying new potatoes with dill and garlic - all grown in our garden!

We’ll be eating potatoes for weeks to come. (Months if we don’t eat them all ASAP. When their skins are intact – that is when you don’t have a 3- and 6-and-a-half year old helping you dig them up – they store very well).

This is my first successful year growing spuds.  Tried last year but put them into the ground way too late (late April through early June). The temperature was too much for them in the steamy DC region: the plants wilted and the seed potatoes turned into gooey gummy blobs – gross!

White potatoes like to have “cold feet” – they need cool soil temperatures to develop well. This year I started putting them out the week of St. Patrick’s Day and finished by the end of March. Even my latest potatoes will be ready by mid-July.

Multiplying Tomatoes

Planting potatoes early also means that their beds will be available next month for more plants. I confessed to my husband that I didn’t know what to plant there and he looked at me with an indulgent smile, shook his head and said: “tomatoes, of course.”

A new tomato sucker - soon to be a new plant!

Of course and not just because we love tomatoes.  From years of experience he knows that regardless of how many tomato plants I start with, dozens will be producing fruit by summer’s end. So how do these amazing plants multiple across the yard?

Suckers! (no that’s not an insult).

A sucker is the little plant that starts from notch between a leaf and the main stem. I’m a  big fan of removing these and trimming my plants  down to one or two stems, for ease of harvesting, to keep them upright, and to prevent them from becoming too bushy.

(This is true only for indeterminate tomatoes, the kind that will grow long rambling vines all summer. Check your seed packet or plant label or ask at the nursery or garden center if you’re not sure which kind you have).

Summer in my area can be very humid. Trimming the tomatoes helps air circulate around the vines, reducing mold and generally keeping the plants healthy. Trimming also results in lots of suckers that can be sprouted and planted to produce lots more tomatoes!

These tomato plants are sprouting new roots after a week in water.

You can remove the suckers with clippers or pinch the small ones off with your fingers. Put them in some water. I prefer a glass jar so I can see the roots develop.

Some folks say that you don’t need to do this, they’ll just develop roots in the ground.  I tried that last year with only limited success.

Suckers are an important part of the barefoot garden – super easy to propagate easy and free! So pinch off those suckers and grow yourself some new plants.

A devilish party

This coming Tuesday, June 21st, YOU are invited to a devilish celebration, a worldwide party to celebrate the launch of the latest SIGMA Force novel, The Devil Colony, by fantabulous New York Times bestselling author James Rollins.

The Devil Colony is #7 in the SIGMA Force series, which revolves around a division of highly trained operatives and  expert scientists whose primary focus is fighting terrorism and protecting sensitive and confidential information.

The SIGMA series includes Map of Bones (May, 2005), Black Order (June, 2006), The Judas Strain (July, 2007), The Last Oracle (June, 2008), and The Doomsday Key (June, 2009).

So where’s the party? Online! Rollin fans everywhere will gather for twenty-four hours on Twitter under the hashtag #DevilColony. What’s the party’s theme?  You guessed it – Devil!

Dress fancy or put on your tails and horn,s and post pictures  of your devilishness online. Eat deviled eggs, create devilish cocktails for you and yours, and let us know!

James will stop by throughout the day (and night!) to chat with fans. He’ll check out the pictures, selecting favorites to post on his site’s Wall of Fame.  The best pictures will win a big mystery prize!

Never attended a cyber-party? Here’s your chance! Head on over to #DevilColony on Tuesday to see what it’s all about.

To get into the party spirit, follow @jamesrollins on Twitter. and check out this great interview between social media maven Kristen Lamb and Rollins right here.

See you on Tuesday!

BONUS

This month’s special giveaway is this fabulous out-of-print NOAA poster, Marine Mammals of the Western Hemisphere. Everyone who leaves a comment between now and the middle of July gets one entry in the drawing. Link to this site on your blog and get two entries. Get your comments in now!

Danielle Meitiv is a writer, marine science geek, gardener and mother who goes barefoot whenever possible. Danielle is also a huge fan and sales affiliate for Holly Lisle’s online courses: How to Think Sideways: Career Survival School for Writers, and How to Revise Your Novel. Follow @Danielle_Meitiv on Twitter, and on Facebook: Danielle Meitiv’s Barefoot Blog, and Danielle Meitiv.

Selkies – from the Scot word for seal, selch/selk – are mythological seals who can shed their skin and become human. The selkie legend originated in the Orkney and Shetland Islands and spread around the NE Atlantic, from Iceland to the Faroe Islands, Scotland and Ireland. Selkie stories are often romantic tragedies featuring humans who unwittingly all in love with the shapeshifters, only to lose them to the lure of the turning tide. (Rest assured, Virginia’s romances are anything but tragic!)

Real seals are no less fascinating their their magical namesakes. Seals are part of the group Pinnipedia or fin-foots, which includes true seals, eared or walking seals (sea lions and fur seals) and walruses.

Under the sea

Pinnipeds are well-adapted to their aquatic lifestyle. Their bodies are sleek and bullet-shaped, with wide flat fins to propel them through the water. They have fully collapsible lungs, which allows some species to dive as deep as 7,800 feet (a record held by the elephant seal) and reinflate their lungs afterwards. A layer of blubber keeps them warm, allowing them to spend hours in the water even as far north and south as the poles.

Pinniped eyes are adapted to see above and below the water’s surface, including a clear membrane or lid that protects their eyes underwater. And when the lights go out? Seals use their super sensitive whiskers to detect water movements and identify prey.

A study released last month found that seals can even use their whiskers to determine the size and shape of objects, a useful skill when hunting for prey in dark or murky waters. All pinnipeds are carnivorous.

Who you calling a seal?

The names of two of the groups of seals point to the characteristics that distinguish them from each other. “True seals” (Phocidae) lack external ears, although they do have ears and excellent hearing. Their two rear flippers are partially fused into a tail-like appendage that makes moving on land awkward but aids them greatly in the water.

While not as adept in the water as their cousins, eared seals (Otariidae) such as the sea lion can rotate their rear flippers, giving them some (relative) degree of maneuverability on land. And as their name suggests, they have external ear flaps. The ‘seals’ often seen circuses or aquaria are usually sea lions rather than true seals.

Walruses are easily recognizable by the long tusks and immensity, with an average adult weight of 1,900 (female) to 2,700 (male) lbs! They live exclusively in the Arctic, the last remnant of a the once widespread family Odobenidae.

Walruses are not the largest pinnipeds, however. Adult elephant seals can weigh up 6,700 lbs and reach 16 feet long!

Elephant seals, members of the family of true seals (Phocidae) are also the most aquatic for the pinnipeds, spending 80% of their time in the water. They can hold their breath up to 100 minutes – longer than any other non-cetacean (whale) marine mammal.

Elephant seals get their name, not from their size (although it is impressive!) but from their long trunk-like noses and the trumpeting sound the males make when startled, defending territory or fighting for mates.

From land to sea

Like whales, seals evolved from terrestrial mammals that returned to the sea. (You can read more about whales and their evolution in this post). They descending form a bear-like ancestor and took the the water around 23 million years ago.

In 2007, scientists in Canadian uncovered a fossil that helped explain how seals evolved from walking ancestors. The creature Puijila darwini, also know as the ‘walking seal’ is not believed to have been a direct ancestor of modern pinnipeds. Rather, it illustrates a possible intermediate step between living primarily on land versus largely in the sea.

P. darwini lived in the Arctic between 20 and 24 million years ago, when the region was forested and much warmer than today.

And you?

I am always looking for authors who can transport me under the waves from my inshore home – how about you?

Love seals and selkies?  Check out Virginia Kantra‘s Children of the Sea series!  Know of any other good marine fantasies? Mermaids and mermen? Sirens and sailors? Ghost ships, kraken or creatures of the deep? Let us know in the comments below!

BONUS

This month's giveaway: an out-of-print NOAA poster marine mammals. Start your entries today!

In honor of Virginia’s book, this post and marine mammals everywhere, I am giving away a copy of this fabulous out-of-print NOAA poster, Marine Mammals of the Western Hemisphere. All of the critters mentioned above are featured and more! Everyone who leaves a comment between now and the middle of July gets one entry in the drawing. Link to this site on your blog and get two entries. Get your comments in now!

Danielle Meitiv is a writer, marine science geek, gardener and mother who goes barefoot whenever possible. Danielle is also a huge fan and sales affiliate for Holly Lisle’s online courses: How to Think Sideways: Career Survival School for Writers, and How to Revise Your Novel. Follow @Danielle_Meitiv on Twitter, and on Facebook: Danielle Meitiv’s Barefoot Blog, and Danielle Meitiv.

My goal was to prepare a bed for my four new strawberry plants. We already have a strawberry bed on the other side of the house, started last summer with just four little plants from a friend’s garden. (Well, six originally but two died). Those plants produced tiny, very sweet strawberries that were best right off the vine – so that’s how we ate them! They’re just now reaching the end of their harvest, but man, was it a good one.

In addition to those yummy beauties, we wanted some larger strawberries that we could freeze or make into jam. (As if they would last in my house without being eaten! But one can always hope.) Since I was already at the farmer’s market for some pepper, tomato and eggplant plants – you can read this post about my poor seedlings to learn why – I picked up some strawberry plants as well.

A big thank you to the wonderful folks at Waterpenny Farm in Virginia for hooking me up with some great plants this year. (Check out their website to find out what a waterpenny is and why they chose that name for their farm).

It took me a week of wandering around my yard to find the perfect spot for my new strawberry venture.  No, not because my property is that big but rather because it is so small.

Strawberries are perennials – whatever real estate I gave over to them would be out of the annual rotation for good. And since they like sun, that meant giving up prime garden space.

Or creating it.

The perfect spot

I found the perfect spot. It was a weedy patch between the sweet potatoes and a shrub that now has lots of sun under it, thanks to the large branch that Mother Nature took off during a storm last winter. It’s too small and inconvenient to use as a regular part of the garden rotation, but perfect for establishing a nice patch of strawberries.

I started by loosening the soil with a garden fork, one of my favorite garden tools. This part isn’t totally necessary but I wanted to be sure to get out the roots of some vines that liked to climb up the shrub. They’d been annoying me for a while and I didn’t want them bugging my new strawberries.

Next, I wet the ground thoroughly. (See the rain barrel in the back – convenient, eh?) Over the damp soil I laid a thick layer of newspapers (6-10 sheets) to smother weeds and create some great habitat for earthworms. Some folks suggest wetting the pages first so they’re easier to handle and don’t blow away, but I didn’t bother. (Translation: I forgot).

I covered the newsprint with some rich yummy soil and…wait, you’re wondering where the rich yummy came from? Ah, so you noticed the baked clay in the early photos. Yeah, it’s true. In Maryland you either hand sand or clay and I’m stuck with the latter. But that hasn’t stopped me from getting lots of great produce through cheap barefoot gardening (a redundant phrase, BTW – barefoot gardening is all about being cheap. And lazy ).

Getting good soil

If you don’t have good soil – import it! Many towns and counties sell compost and mulch dirt cheap. What did you think they did with all the leaves they collect from your curb every year?

I get mine from neighboring Prince George’s for $20/cubic yard plus delivery – last year that amounted to $75 and a HUGE pile in my driveway that I’m only now using up. Even if you don’t want that much, local garden shops will often carry the local stuff in bags.

It’s wonderful rich sifted compost that’s broken down so far that it’s basically soil. And that’s how I use it. So, as I was saying, I hauled a wheelbarrow of the stuff over and raked it over the paper. How thick? 4-6″ for small plants, up to 12″ for big guys with deep roots, like cabbages.

I used about 4″ because that’s how much there was when I spread the wheelbarrows’ contents. (Did I mention that I’m a lazy gardener?) Then I put the plants in, spaced about 12″ from one another. Over the summer, they’ll send out little runners and fill in the space between them with new plants!

Transplanting

A note about transplanting: when I pop the pants out of their little black plastic pots, I like to loosen the soil a bit before putting it into the ground – just to give the roots a little space. Then I fill in the hole and make a little well around it to catch the water. This is especially important in this spot, which is on a bit of an incline.

Finally, I got a bucketful of wood mulch and covered the whole patch, so it wouldn’t dry out. Many counties also sell leaf mulch, but we make our own. Given the amount of shrubs and trees we trim, my husband decided to invest in a second-hand chipper we found on Craigslist.  It’s definitely not a requirement in the barefoot garden – rather one of those fun little extras.

The whole process, from garden fork to mulch took less than an hour, including filling the wheelbarrow and pausing to turn the drip hose on the potato bins.

While I was working, this robin kept stopping by to check on my progress. Clever bird knew that digging humans and freshly-turned soil meant yummy worms and grubs coming to the surface. Help yourself!

Sheet mulching

Sheet mulching is a wonderful technique that is a mainstay of every barefoot garden. You don’t even have to dig up the grass or weeds! My husband laid whole sections of newspaper right on top of a section of lawn last year and now it’s growing peppers and tomatoes! Only use the black and white pages (remember this is for food plants – the black ink is soy based and safe. who knows what’s in the colored ink).

I learned about sheet mulching and other wonderfully lazy gardening techniques from Ruth Stout, the grandmother of barefoot gardening. Her classic book, “Gardening Without Work,” is out of print, but Mother Earth News published an excerpt, which you can read here.

(Ruth took barefoot gardening to a whole new level, having tended her yard au natural – a technique I would not recommend without a lot of sunscreen and very tolerant neighbors). Ruth died in 1980 at the ripe old age of 96, so maybe she knew something we didn’t, eh?

How does YOUR garden grow?

Setting out plants? Establishing a new bed? Gardening in the buff?  Let us know in the comments below!

Danielle Meitiv is a writer, marine science geek, gardener and mother who goes barefoot whenever possible. Danielle is also a huge fan and sales affiliate for Holly Lisle’s online courses: How to Think Sideways: Career Survival School for Writers, and How to Revise Your Novel. Follow @Danielle_Meitiv on Twitter, and on Facebook: Danielle Meitiv’s Barefoot Blog, and Danielle Meitiv.

Types of garlic

There are two main types of garlic – hardneck and softneck, which describes the stiffness of the stalk. I prefer softneck. It’s a bit easier to grow/less fussy and it grows larger heads, although the cloves are smaller than hard-neck garlic.

Also you can braid softneck garlic into long twists and hang them on your kitchen wall, for decoration AND convenience all winter long. (OK, until January or so, when we run out). Softneck garlic is the kind you usually see in the supermarket.

What’s not to like?

Well…there’s one big trade-off. Garlic demands a good sunny spot and takes a long time to grow. In many cases, cloves planted in October aren’t ready until July. that means tying up prime garden real estate for six whole months, including the critical early summer.

Or so I thought.

This is my third year growing garlic. On the recommendation of my favorite gardening company, Southern Exposure Seed Exchange I decided to a sampler of Asiatic and Turban Garlic, “a must-try for Southern gardeners.”  Their flavor is described as “strong and hot raw but smooth and mellow when baked.” Who could resist?

The garlic came up in the fall as usual and seemed to weather the winter just fine. Early spring came and went and everything looked good. Then the stalks started to wilt.

What happened???

In my experience, garlic plants will send up scapes, curly flowerheads that you cut off to use in salads and stir-frys, to encourage the plant to put more energy into bulb formation. That never happened. Instead the stalks started to brown and flop over.

Earlier this week, I decided to cut my losses and harvest whatever heads were there.  I dug my fingers gently around beneath he stalk – and was shocked to discover a large, full-formed head! Under stalk after stalk I dug and was delighted to discover a whole patch full of garlic heads, ready to come out!

They knew it all along

Looking back at the SESE website I see the note: “These will be the earliest garlics ready to harvest in your garden. They grow big and mature early all at once.”

Yes, I’d forgotten that. But even if I hadn’t, I never would have expected to have my garlic patch harvested and ready for the next crop in early June. In fact, for the condition of some of the heads (paper cracking, cloves starting to split apart) I could have harvested them two weeks ago!

Asiatic and turban garlics will now have a permanent place in my garden. They’re a little fussier than the types I tried before, and I lost about 10% of the heads to rot or some other such problem. But they’re delicious. And did I mention EARLY?

My favorite garden blogger

No discussion of garlic in my garden would be complete without giving credit and kudos to my all-time favorite garden blogger, Kenny Point of Veggie Gardening Tips. Kenny’s blog was the first I went to when I was learning to garden, and where I still go for ideas, inspiration or advice.

Kenny was the one who convinced me to try garlic in the first place, as well as fall & winter gardening, goji berries, and many other gardening adventures. Whether you’re new to gardening or an experienced gardener looking for a few tips, check out Kenny’s free eBook, The Veggie Garden Primer.

The greens are going…going…

The summer heat has hit DC. Although today is cool, the temperatures over last weekend and  the early part of the week climbed to the HIGH 90′s! At the end of May!

Aside from soaring A/C bills and new summer dresses, that also means and end to spring greens. I’ve enjoyed greens all winter and through the spring, so I have no reason to complain. (Will that stop me? Nooo.)

The greens I planted in August and October stayed green and fed us throughout the snowy months and all the way through April. Again, credit to Kenny Point for teaching me about fall and winter gardening.  (More on that in a future post).

Then they bolted (sent up seed stalks and stopped putting energy into their leaves).

That was fine, because by then the seeds I’d put in with the peas took over feeding duty. They’re still going and will likely stick around for a few more weeks before they bolt. (The arugula has already started, as you can see in the photos above).

Greening the summer garden

In hot humid DC, it’s nearly impossible to grow lettuce or spinach in the summer so I’ve been forced to look for alternatives. Not for salads, but at least for cooking.

Last year I tried Malabar spinach a slightly gummy succulent that works just like spinach when cooked. It grows as beautiful magenta and green vines that covered our fence and prompted comments and compliments from all the neighbors!

I haven’t sown any yet (I’ll put them behind the tomatoes when I pull out the peas), but you can there’s a photo above of some self-sown plants already coming up.

Sweet n’ green

Another yummy summer green comes from one of my all-time garden favorites: sweet potatoes. It may be hard to believe form the photo above, but those little plants will produce a sea of foliage, enough to cover the ground (no need for mulch!), beautify the garden, AND fill the cookpot.

And don’t forget the dozens of potatoes you’ll get some the fall. The sweets will definitely have their own post, once the foliage really begins to grow.

What else do I dig about gardening? Showing my son and daughter where food really comes from – and no, it’s NOT the grocery store.

How does YOUR garden grow?

Ever tried to grow garlic? Gotta get some summer greens? Crazy about homegrown sweets?  Let us know in the comments below!

Danielle Meitiv is a writer, marine science geek, gardener and mother who goes barefoot whenever possible. Danielle is also a huge fan and sales affiliate for Holly Lisle’s online courses: How to Think Sideways: Career Survival School for Writers, and How to Revise Your Novel. Follow @Danielle_Meitiv on Twitter, and on Facebook: Danielle Meitiv’s Barefoot Blog, and Danielle Meitiv.

 
Follow @danielle_meitiv