Gardening
(From https://extension.illinois.edu/veggies/planting.cfm)
When to Plant
The old saying that patience is a virtue
applies to gardeners who get the itch to garden when temperatures warm up in the spring. One of the ways to determine when to plant veggies is based on their hardiness or their ability to withstand frost and cold temperatures.
Very hardy vegetables can be planted four to six weeks before the frost-free date in the spring. Potato tubers and onion sets can be planted. Asparagus, broccoli and cabbage can be planted as transplants. Collards, spinach, peas, lettuce and turnips can be planted from seed.
Frost tolerant vegetables can be planted two to three weeks before the frost-free date. Cauliflower can be planted as a transplant. Carrots, mustard, parsnip, beets and radishes can be planted from seed.
Tender vegetables can be planted on or after the frost-free date. Beans, sweet corn and summer squash can be planted from seed. Tomatoes transplants can be planted.
Warm-loving vegetables can be planted one to two weeks after the frost-free date. Warm loving vegetables need warm temperatures and warm soil before planting.
What To Plant
Don't go overboard with your seed ordering after viewing all the colorful garden catalogs with their beautiful pictures of veggies or you may be the gardener in your neighborhood trying to give away zucchini. Grow what your family likes to eat. As a first time gardener, stay away from exotic
veggies like kohlrabi or hard to grow veggies like cauliflower or head lettuce.
Grow hybrid vegetables. Hybrid vegetables are usually stronger and healthier than other vegetables. They often have higher yields. Many have a built-in disease resistance and they are more likely to recover from bad weather. Hybrids may cost a little bit more than other types of vegetables, but the cost is worth it. If you save seeds, remember that hybrids do not reproduce true to type, meaning the new plant will be inferior to the mother plant.
Choose disease resistant varieties of vegetables. Just because a vegetable has built-in resistance to a specific disease doesn't mean that that vegetable will not get the disease, but it will fare better than a vegetable that has no resistance to the disease. Verticillium and fusarium wilt attack tomatoes. The tomato variety 'Celebrity' is resistant to both wilt diseases. The letters VF by the variety's name in a garden catalog or on a plant label indicates that the plant is resistant to both wilts.
How To Plant
After digging your soil to a depth of 6-10 inches, break up any large clods with a rake. Use the rake to prepare a smooth seedbed. Spread 1 1/2 pounds of a vegetable garden fertilizer over every 100 square feet of your vegetable garden. A one pound coffee can hold 1 1/2 pounds of fertilizer. Rake the fertilizer into the top 2-4 inches of soil.
If you plan to use an organic fertilizer, add a two to four inch layer of organic matter over the vegetable garden and dig it into the soil. Organic matter will improve your soil structure besides adding nutrients to the soil.
Seeding
Before seeding, be sure you have created a smooth seedbed. To avoid compacting the soil, try to avoid walking over areas you will be seeding and planting. Be sure to follow the directions on the seed packet for planting depth of seeds. As a general rule seeds should be planted to a depth 2 to 4 times their diameter or largest width. Cover the seed with soil and tamp it down with the back of your hoe. Water lightly and keep moist until germination occurs.
Transplants
Vegetables like tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, broccoli, eggplants and collards are planted as transplants.
When you purchase transplants, choose transplants with the following characteristics:
- Choose plants with healthy green leaves. Avoid plants with yellowing or browning leaves. These plants may be diseased.
- Avoid plants in pots with roots growing out of the drainage hole. This usually indicates the plant may be root bound. Tap the plant out of the pot and check the roots. Healthy roots will be white. Roots that have browned are dead. Avoid purchasing these plants.
- Check the plants for insects. Shake the plant. If you see tiny white flying insects, they may be whiteflies. Check the undersides of the leaves for aphids. Aphids are tiny, oval shaped insects that cluster on the undersides of leaves. Both of these insects are sucking insects that will cause browning and curling of leaves. Do not buy insect infested plants.
Before planting your transplants, harden off your plants. Hardening off is a process of slowly introducing transplants to cooler temperatures and brighter light conditions outdoors. Gradually increase the time your transplants spend outdoors over a week to ten days before planting.
Try to plant on a cloudy day or in the late afternoon to avoid planting in high temperatures. Planting in high temperatures will put your plants under a lot of stress. Dig a hole big enough for the plant's root ball. Try not to damage the root system as you remove the plant from its pot. Space the transplants at recommended distances.
Water your transplants in with a cup of a starter fertilizer. Mix one to two tablespoons of a soluble starter fertilizer with a gallon of water. A starter fertilizer is high in phosphorus. Phosphorus helps to promote root development. Promoting root development will get your plant off to a good start.
Be sure to label all the plants in your garden. It is very difficult to identify plants, especially just after germination.
Planting Tips
Save orange juice and tuna fish cans to use as barriers around newly transplanted plants to protect them from the cutworm. Cutworms will chew through the stems at soil level. Cut both ends from the cans and push cans about an inch into the soil around the plants. After two to three weeks, the cans can be removed because the stems will have thickened enough to withstand any cutworm damage.
Water vegetable transplants with a starter fertilizer. This should be water soluble, high phosphorus (N-P-K) mixed fertilizer. Phosphorus helps to promote root growth.
Protect cucurbit crops (cucumbers, melons, squash, pumpkins) from cucumber beetles and the cucumber wilt that they spread as they feed with floating row covers after planting. Make sure to remove the row cover after the plants have begun flowering, so that they can be pollinated.
Tomatoes are subject to a few diseases...
Carrots can be planted as early as the end of March/first of April. To get long straight carrots the soil should be loose, worked deeply, well drained and have no clods or rocks in the soil.
Plant onion sets in April. Buy sets early before they start sprouting in garden centers. Divide the sets up into those that are larger than a dime in diameter and those smaller. The bigger sets are best grown for green onions. The smaller sets make the best large onions for storage. Torpedo-shaped onions will produce round onions while the round sets will produce flat onions. For green onions, plant the bigger sets one inch deep and touching each other. For large, dry onions plant the small sets one inch deep and two to four inches apart.
Buy healthy vegetable transplants. Leaves and stems should be green and healthy without any signs of yellowing or browning. Yellowing or browning leaves may indicate an insect or disease problem. Gently remove transplants from their tray and check the root system. Roots should be white with visible soil. Transplants with brown dead roots should not be purchased. Check for insects such as whiteflies or aphids. Be sure to gradually introduce your transplants to the outdoor environment over a period of days, especially plants grown and purchased in a greenhouse. When you do plant, water your transplants in with a starter fertilizer that is high in phosphorus which helps to promote root development.
Plant flowers in your vegetable garden. Many flowers will attract the beneficial insects, parasites and predators that help control pests. Good choices are sweet alyssum, dill, fennel, tansy, cosmos, yarrow, coneflower and sunflower.
Choose disease resistant varieties. Provide good air circulation to help control disease. Stake or cage plants and allow proper spacing.
Time plantings to avoid insect problems. For instance, to avoid the worst time for squash vine borer and corn earworm, plant squash and corn so it can be harvested by July.
Sow radish, lettuce, spinach, beet and turnip seed late in August. These vegetables will mature in the cooler fall weather.
Ashes
Should I Put Ashes in My Garden? The short answer to if you should use wood ash as a fertilizer is yes.
That being said, you need to be careful about how and where you use wood ash in the garden, and composting ashes is a good idea.
Wood ash is an excellent source of lime and potassium for your garden. Just as it does in humans, potassium regulates plants' water balance (so tissue is firm and juicy), and has a part in transporting food within the plant and creating sugars and starches. Without enough, vegetables are more vulnerable to drought, frost, pests and diseases.Not only that, using ashes in the garden also provides many of the trace elements that plants need to thrive.
But wood ash fertilizer is best used either lightly scattered or by first being composted along with the rest of your compost. This is because wood ash will produce lye and salts if it gets wet. In small quantities, the lye and salt will not cause problems, but in larger amounts, the lye and salt may burn your plants. Composting fireplace ashes allows the lye and salt to be leached away.
Not all wood ash fertilizers are the same. If the fireplace ashes in your compost are made primarily from hardwoods, like oak and maple, the nutrients and minerals in your wood ash will be much higher. If the fireplace ashes in your compost are made mostly by burning softwoods like pine or firs, there will be fewer nutrients and minerals in the ash.
Add Ash to the Compost Heap
Wood ashes make a great addition to the compost heap, where they'll aid fertility (most of the nutrients needed by plants are contained in them to some degree). If you have a lot, don't add them all at once as they are alkaline and raising the pH too much will affect the bacteria and worms at work. It's better to keep the ash in a nearby container and sprinkle on a layer every so often.
If you tend to compost a lot of acidic material, such as fruit waste, the ashes will help to keep the compost at a lower pH and reduce the need to lime the vegetable plots at a later date.
Wood Ash as a Substitute for Lime
Speaking of liming, because ashes are alkaline, it is possible to substitute them for the usual ground limestone. However, home-produced ash isn't a standardized product, which means its content will vary.
Like the potash content, the calcium carbonate content will also vary (although it's unlikely to contain more than half that of ground limestone), so it's a good idea to test the pH of your soil before adding the ash and three to six months after, to check on its effect. It wouldn't hurt to check up on the potassium content while you're at it. There's no point in adding potash to a soil that's already high in potassium, as too much can affect the plants' take-up of other nutrients.
Where Not to Use Wood Ash in the Garden
Being alkaline, wood ash obviously isn't an ideal addition if your soil already has a pH of 7.5 or greater. There's no point in spreading it around acid-loving plants such as blueberries. Nor is it recommended for areas where you intend to grow potatoes (much though they enjoy potassium) as increased alkalinity can encourage the fungus, potato scab.
It's also worth remembering that potash is extremely soluble, so keep it absolutely dry before you use it (this includes before adding it to the compost heap). Leave your ashes out in the rain and all the potash will wash out and you'll be left with a sticky and fairly useless sludge. If you pile a large amount of ash in one area, you also risk over-liming that area and damaging nearby plants.
Adding Ash Direct to the Soil
The foregoing may sound rather alarming, but I don't mean it to. Those of us who have the occasional bonfire won't be damaging the soil with the small amount of resulting ash but rather adding a little of one of the nutrients that plants use most.
Sprinkling ash straight onto the soil also deters slugs and snails (the moment it gets wet, this effect unfortunately vanishes). I haven't tried it myself, but some recommend sprinkling ash in the drills when you sow carrots, and dusting it on turnips to keep carrot and turnip fly away.
I generally add ash to the soil in spring and autumn, but it can be spread it around at other times whenever it's available and you might as well if you know you can't keep it bone-dry. Root vegetables such as carrots, parsnips, peas and beans (pods are a better weight and colour) and fruit all appreciate potash.
If possible, till the wood ashes into the soil. This will speed their acid-neutralizing effects. Don't apply wood ashes to newly planted seeds or recently sprouted seedlings. The high nutrient level in the ash will inhibit sprouting and burn emerging seedlings. Because wood ashes are alkaline, don't apply them near acid-loving plants such as blueberries, hollies or rhododendrons.
Vegetables grow best in soil with a pH of 6.5, so testing the level before adding the compost is recommended so as not to raise the pH too much (greater than pH7.0). However, where club root is present, wood ash can be used to raise the pH to as much as 7.5 to inhibit this disease.
Regarding fruit, if you have only a little potash, it should go to dessert apples, redcurrants and gooseberries first, then to cooking apples, pears, raspberries, blackberries and strawberries. Plums, apricots, cherries and blackcurrants appreciate a regular sprinkle, but don't need it so much.
In summary:
- Keep ash dry before use.
- Test your soil before spreading large amounts around.
- Use it in particular around root vegetables, peas and beans, apple trees and soft fruit bushes. Avoid using wood ash on areas where potatoes are to be grown the following spring, as the alkaline conditions can encourage potato scab.
Plants That Like Wood Ash
Wood ash is not suitable for use on all plants...
Plants require potassium for healthy flowering and fruiting. Use wood ashes as a soil amendment for plants suffering from potassium deficiencies. Potassium deficiencies appear in plants as a browning or discoloration of leaf edges. It is important to test the soil and rule out any other possible diseases, but if potassium is lacking, wood ashes add it to the soil. In addition to potassium, wood ashes contain other essential nutrients like calcium, magnesium and phosphorus.
Consider using young hardwood ashes when treating a severe potassium deficiency. Young hardwoods like oak or maple contain up to 7 percent potassium, while softwood ashes and older hardwood ashes may contain as little as 3 percent potassium.
Some plants thrive in neutral to alkaline soils, as opposed to overly acidic soils. For example, garden plants like artichokes, tomatillos, greens like collards and arugula, and brassicas like broccoli require alkaline soil for optimal health.
Use wood ash on alkaline-loving plants to keep various pests at bay. Cooled, untreated wood ashes directly from a fire and applied as mulch, or wood ashes mixed into compost, are useful around cabbage and onion plants to keep away root maggots. Wood ash mulch or compost also keeps slugs and snails from overrunning alkaline-loving flowers and ornamental plants.
Other Wood Ash Uses in the Garden
Wood ash is also useful for pest control. The salt in the wood ash will kill bothersome pests like snails, slugs and some kinds of soft bodied invertebrates. To use wood ash for pest control, simply sprinkle it around the base of plants being attacked by soft bodied pests. If the ash gets wet, you'll need to refresh the wood ashes as the water will leach away the salt that makes wood ashes an effective pest control.
Another use for ashes in the garden is to change the pH of the soil. Wood ashes will raise the pH and lower the acid in soil. Because of this, you should also be careful not to use wood ashes as fertilizer on acid loving plants like azaleas, gardenias and blueberries.
Ancient Africa
Living in abundant natural environments 20,000 years ago, during the last Ice Age, our indigenous African ancestors gathered their food from the land near their home. When the food supply lessened, they moved to a new location where the land could again provide food. Highly developed skills of observation and intuitive powers were required for survival. They learned to integrate their spiritual life with daily living. With a deep acknowledgement of the oneness and sacredness of all life, our African indigenous ancestors recognized that the earth was a living being; all creation was sacred, interconnected and had consciousness with intelligence. The wind became the breath of the earth, the rivers her blood, the trees her hair, and the rocks were her bones.
To maintain a harmonious relationship with the balance of nature, they created community ritual, songs, dances, and art to express their honor and gratitude. Traditional priests and medicine people led special ceremonies for successful crops and created sacred spaces—shrines by the rivers, around sacred trees and to mark special large rocks that held powerful presence.
Around 10,000 B.C.E. there was a gradual shift toward living and farming in one location in order to provide food for larger populations. Certain wild plants were chosen to cultivate into crops that would provide high yields, be easy to harvest and to distribute. They practiced water conservation by selecting areas along rivers, such as the Nile River in northern Africa, where people began to develop technologies to direct rainwater into underground reservoirs and into more complicated irrigation systems. Farmers learned to expand the reach of the river by pulling the water into their fields, and collecting the water where it was needed. When the fields had dried sufficiently, they were plowed and seeded.
These yearly additions of rich composted material from the river made a major difference in the crop yields. The crops they chose were nutritious and used in a variety of medicinal ways, such as pressed castor bean oil, olive oil, and a variety of herbs which supplied remedies and tinctures, flavored their food, and were used in spiritual and shamanic ceremonies. They grew the moringa tree, pterygosperm, a highly nutritious tree that is used today in many places such as Africa, India, and Haiti, to heal the sick as it strengthens the body.
Ancient China
The foundation of ancient Chinese gardening methods was to live in harmony with the environment, to cultivate the quality of chi or vital force of energy, and to harness the flow of energy. A meandering energy flow was considered the most auspicious. The Chinese examined how the wind and water moved through the landscape using a system called feng shui, literally translated as wind and water.
With a feng shui land assessment a sense of balance is achieved in the garden through energy adjustment, placement of objects or plants, color, and use of natural elements.
Chi relates to the quality of the surrounding air and the type of energies that are in the air. An example is the difference between a house with no garden surrounding it and one that is surrounded by strong healthy trees and a beautiful garden filled with edibles, herbs and flowers. The energies from the garden fill the air with good chi. If you cultivate chi around your house, you can open a door or window to bring it into your interior space.
Another ancient Chinese system was yin and yang, which related to bringing harmonious balance in the garden by assessing and adjusting the interplay between the earth's natural elements.
China was also an important example of sustainable farming practices. Eighteenth-century Chinese families customarily installed backyard gardens for growing fruits and vegetables. The soil was rejuvenated by sustainable methods: people harvested mineral-rich mud from the bottom of canals and lakes. This compost was spread over the garden; excess was stored in tall piles in the back corners of their yards.
Families who lived near mountains created terraced gardens on the slopes. These gardens were usually 10 to 20 feet wide. Each side and the front of these gardens were secured with stone walls that lasted for many years. In the fruit orchard, pear tree limbs were pruned and trained to grow across low arbors that allowed the ground to be shaded and the pears to be easily picked. The shaded ground was kept free of weeds by a covering of rice straw and cut grass harvested from the grass that grew at the side of canals.
An important crop for food and for composting was seaweed. Chinese farmers used an ingenious method of growing seaweed in shallow seabeds. Small shrubs and tree limbs were pushed into the sand on which strands of seaweed were hung. As the seaweed matured, the leaves were easily gathered by hand to be used for food, dried and sold in markets, or added to the compost pile.
Composting in Ancient China
Another method of composting was digging a pit six feet deep and six feet wide that was filled with waste from the fields and harvesting crops, manure from farm animals, soil from the fields, and ashes from the kitchen and home-heating fires. The pit was kept watered to just below the top of the compost pile to give it a consistency similar to wet mortar.
Before using it in their gardens, orchards or fields, the compost was spread out on a flat surface to dry. Then new soil and ashes were added with mixing, turning and stirring the material to create a new compost for the next crop. These piles of compost were covered with muddy mortar and placed near homes, nearby gardens, or out in the fields to be ready for spreading on the ground.
Ancient Japan
Rooted in intuitive and spiritual concepts, Japanese garden designers held a deep reverence for nature and believed that rocks and plants have a consciousness. The natural world was seen as art. Their gardens were marked by a refined sense of harmony as they instinctively represented the minute details of beauty and balance seen in nature. With a high degree of intuitive skills and sensitivity to nature, the Japanese designers created gardens where people could be quiet, slow down, commune with nature, and meditate.
An example of this Japanese approach is the custom of collecting suiseki, or natural stones that were admired for their beauty and spiritual symbolism. Stones traditionally are placed where they serve a purpose—at the front entrance, a stone path to a bench, walking stones through a gate, or placement of a viewing stone that can be easily seen from a favorite seat.
Shamanic gardening is intuitive gardening. It is going beyond a sensory experience with your garden toward a relationship with the earth energies of the garden. Although intuition includes sensitivity to sound, sight, taste, scent, and touch, adding emotion and instinctual awareness deepens that relationship. Gardening with your intuition expands sensitivity, heightens awareness and can shift your consciousness. There is something profound yet mystical that happens when you connect with something bigger than yourself—connecting to the natural world allows the feeling of oneness with all life. It opens a path to your own inner truth and wisdom.
Shamanic gardening is an organic approach governed by the sustainable practices that are needed to uphold the vitality and health of the earth for future generations. We need shamanic gardeners that understand how to conserve water and amend soil, to sustain and nourish the land. A sustainable emphasis that considers the needs of both people and wildlife is critical today. The earth's power and beauty is available to everyone, but it does not belong to anyone. When you take the time to design a garden environment that takes into consideration all life living near the space, then a magical sacredness shines through.
The age of technology with all its great ways to make our lives easier in some ways might have taken us farther away from ourselves. Our brain's thoughts affect our physical, mental and emotional well-being. Modern researchers in psychology have seen a direct link between our thoughts and the chemical changes that occur in our brain. Certainly my search for pure, wholesome food has helped to sustain my good health. The movement to bring gardens into backyards and schoolyards is helping to support the brainpower of children.
In his book A significant part of the pleasure of eating is in one's accurate consciousness of the lives and the world from which food comes.
Memories can be characterized by our physical surroundings. Basic features in a garden can be thoughtfully designed in a way that nurtures a sense of our deepest selves. Gardening in this type of environment is a daily confirmation of empowerment. A garden is ripe with opportunities to surround yourself with symbols that connect to your sense of well-being and the manifestation of personal goals. The garden can be used as a tool for your life to flourish. Your garden can offer the opportunity to create a paradise that literally and figuratively can feed, protect and heal.
When studying with Morrnah Simeona, a kahuna from Hawaii, she taught that all life has a consciousness. She recommended taking the time to ask a new plant where it would like to live in the garden. To do this, simply place the plant in front of you; while sitting still and quiet, observe the plant's size, color, leaf texture, or any other unique qualities. Ask the plant where it would like to be placed in your garden. Then place the plant still in its container in that location to remain for a day or two. Before actually putting the plant into the ground, ask again if this is where the plant wants to live in your garden. Each day visit the plant, pampering it until you feel it is happy and adjusted to your garden.
If you are not familiar with this type of shamanic exercise, just take your time. Most people are surprised by the intuitive insight that is received. I have done so many times, especially making an intuitive change when a plant is not growing very well. When all new plants are placed in my chosen location for at least two days before actually installing it in the garden, I receive a deeper understanding of the needs of the new plant and will know when it is ready to be put into the garden.
Gardening with Intent
Living in an attitude of awareness and expectation of subtle, poignant moments is the serendipitous and joyous pleasure of Shambhalla. The word Shambhalla, or paradise,
means any place of supreme beauty, be it on earth or found in the deepest level of your own heart. The Greeks defined it as a garden, paradeisos. From sacred writings of ancient Persians, pairidaeza meant an enclosed park or garden.
Your garden is your personal Shambhalla
To transform your sense of empowerment, set up interior or garden spaces using color, textures, imagery, and design concepts that provoke a personalized sense of inspiration and motivation. When developing your space, try to concentrate on memories from childhood that evoke positive emotional responses. This phenomenon, which allows memories from the past to influence the behavior of the present, is called morphic resonance. Rupert Sheldrake, Ph.D., a contemporary scientist, gives this explanation: Memory in its various forms, both conscious and unconscious, is due to morphic resonance. Mental activity—conscious, unconscious—takes place within and through mental fields, which, like other kinds of morphic fields, contain a kind of built-in memory.
Throughout the ages, in different cultures, garden designs have been inspired by an interplay of memory, morphic resonance, and emotions. The planning of a traditional Balinese garden begins with the belief that every piece of land has a spirit—which is to be honored with plants, temple art and other ideas, in order to create enlightened beauty.
Behavioral patterns and belief systems culled from cultural or personal experiences can be physically manifested in your surroundings. In the same way a space can reflect your emotional and mental issues, your thoughts and emotions are affected by what is experienced while strolling through your garden.
Consider composing the design of your garden areas with a specific intention in mind. Adding symbolism to a garden can also heighten a garden's emotional effect. In addition, verbally repeating a specific affirmation that expresses your intent will amplify results.
Your life can express your thoughts, emotions, and intentions in a very subconscious way. Past memories can influence our lives, and can also be directly reflected in the design of the garden. Adding to a garden space details that are inspired by gardens we played in as a child can ignite a sense of freedom, imagination, and comfort. We might associate a special flower with a particular accomplishment or loved one. In creating our own gardens, we have the opportunity to use design features such as specific plants, flowers, statues, or water treatments that are visual reminders of our past.
You can personalize your approach for the transformation of a space or garden by first seeking to understand your own specific goals, personality and innate sense of self. These basic principles of self-knowledge can be directly applied to your own garden design.
An ongoing motivation for my own garden plans is the morphic resonance held from my childhood memories. For me, remembering the farm where I grew up, there is a sense of the wholeness which came from the land. There are visual memories of birds, butterflies, grasses, flower gardens, blossoming trees, our guesthouse across the creek, and the spring from which we received our water. There are the memories of scent, the smell of the creek, and of the wet earth in the cow pasture. There are the aural memories: listening to the bees, birds, and the sound I still love the most, the low mooing of cows. And there are the vivid taste memories, the incredible flavors of fresh cream, and newly churned butter, or fresh tomatoes and corn, of the Thanksgiving dinners created with food harvested from our own herb, vegetable and fruit gardens.
Today, my garden is getting closer to that feeling of the land of my childhood. Walking outside, I can sense the birds and soft breezes, the tall trees, and a lazy sort of beauty. Eating outside in our lanai reminds me of long-ago picnics on the grass and those memories of Sunday walks through the woods, fields, and pastures. It feels incredibly special to know that the birds and butterflies are coming to our garden each day because the land feels safe and peaceful to them. Today my home and gardens feel like my childhood farm. I know now, more than ever, how important that is for my own spiritual well-being.
The first step in creating this special landscape in our Florida home was to walk the land, choosing areas to install the gardens. It was important for me to know the alignment of the property, to be aware of the directions and the movement of the sun and moon over the land. I needed to observe during various times of the day in order to define the presence or absence of shade and any areas of excessive dryness or moisture.
The next step was to research the native plants of the area and make a list of plants to include throughout the landscape. For me the most important types of plants were those that supported butterflies, birds, and hummingbirds. My focus was to create a garden that could provide sustenance for people and also the wildlife, that would have healthy soil, would conserve water, and be fertilized with only natural ingredients, without the use of chemicals.
Holding memories of moonlit dinner parties with my family, years of full moon ceremonies in various parks and private gardens around my former home in Philadelphia, and walking a moonlit labyrinth through years of changing seasons in my past gardens made me realize that a private spot to sit with the moon would be important for my spiritual well-being.
Because the moon could be seen hovering over the front entrance during the night, I decided to install a bench where one could sit and view it easily. Our bathroom window also faces the front, so this gave the wonderful opportunity to design a tropical garden that could satisfy both a view of evergreen and blooming shrubs, and a protected bench on which I could enjoy the moonlight.
Plants that bloom with highly fragrant flowers were also installed on both sides of the front walkway. The garden bench is now surrounded and protected by tall palm trees of varying heights, a large chaya or spinach tree, a rose geranium, other herbs, a silvery-leaved Texas olive tree, a delicate-leaved chaste tree with beautiful blooms and a large milkweed grande.
Several Chickasaw plum trees and tall native cassia trees block the light from street lamps. The presence of bird nests in the palms, monarch caterpillars turning into butterflies, the buzzing of many species of bees, a resident hummingbird, rabbits, toads and tiny tree frogs, allows my childhood memories to blend together with my life now in the present—and for that, I am grateful.
Planting for High-Nutrition Food
Learning and implementing so many new sustainable agricultural technologies, with a long list of exceptionally nutritious plants from around the world, has added important ingredients to my daily meals and good health.
My understanding of gardening perennial vegetables was dramatically expanded by a tour of ECHO, a Florida-based organization that provides education and seeds for the world's poor. The story of an African doctor saving the life of a mother and her baby by just providing moringa powder in a glass of water for 10 days amazed me.
The Moringa Tree
The moringa tree is one of the most nutritious trees on the planet. It is easy to grow, with all parts edible. Although not yet found in many American nurseries, it is very easy to grow from seed in your backyard and the leaves can easily be pulled off the branches to dry, for eating and sharing with others. Moringa grows best in subtropical and tropical climates, but it also does very well in warm, dry, semi-desert conditions.
It will die down during a freeze but will reappear when warm weather arrives. Because of its incredible ability to energize, metabolize, and even purify water, I feel the moringa tree should be added to every garden.
Gram for gram, moringa leaves are said to contain:
- 7 times the vitamin C in oranges
- 4 times the calcium in milk
- 4 times the vitamin A in carrots
- 2 times the protein in milk
- 3 times the potassium in bananas
Very young pods can be cooked and eaten like asparagus. Tender growing tips, stems, and leaves can be eaten raw, or sprinkled over salads and sandwiches. Blossoms are edible and taste similar to a radish. Leaves can be juiced with carrots, added to soups, omelets, and rice, or added to the morning teapot for a delicious, nutritious tea. When moringa trees are about three to four feet tall, they can be pulled out of the ground, their grated roots tasting similar to horseradish.
Today moringa is also used as an energizer. It is an ingredient in diabetes medicine, high-end shampoos, and many different types of cosmetics. Leaves are used as a remedy for diarrhea, dysentery, colitis, and anemia. It can reduce fever and treat bronchitis as well as eye and ear infections and inflammation of the mucus membrane in the ear, nose, and throat. Some people rub the leaves on the temples to reduce headache.
Some use it as a topical treatment for minor skin infections, cuts, scrapes, and rashes.
Egyptian Foodstuffs
Dating back to 2000 B.C., Egyptians picked their produce from private, enclosed gardens placed next to their homes. Grapevines were grown along with various fruit trees such as date, fig, pomegranate and tamarisk. Pharaoh Ramses III preserved raisins and dried dates in large earthen jars. Coconut trees were reserved only for the wealthy.
During their famous expedition, Lewis and Clark sent Thomas Jefferson prairie turnip (Psoralea esculenta) seeds. The explorers' French boatman called them white apples; others called them breadfruit. The Lakota called them timpsila, an important staple food and form of money for centuries. According to Ansel Wooden Knife, well known for his fry bread mix, their month of June is named Timpsila Wi or moon of timpsila. Using it in their sacred ceremonies, only women were allowed to harvest timpsila. The plant produces a spindle-shaped tuber about four inches below ground. A coarse brown husk must be removed to expose the white, edible portion. Lakota women discovered that if the thin portion of the root is left attached and the tubers woven together, they can be stored indefinitely. The Lakota women also created a children's game related to picking timpsila. The children were taught to observe the direction the timpsila branches were pointing, and to run off in this direction to find more. The tubers can be eaten raw or cut into chunks for stir-fry or stew, or ground into a fine flour to make hot cereal or to bake small berry cakes for trail snacks and fry bread.
In the Egyptian vegetable garden, garlic was highly valued. Ramses III was said to have large supplies of it stored in temples, to pay slaves and other debts. Onions were commonly eaten, but forbidden to celibate priests because of their supposed aphrodisiac qualities.
Crops Imported to America (by President Thomas Jefferson)
In early America, personal gardening included an abundance of variety. Thomas Jefferson kept extensive notes in his personal journal. He documented names of plants purchased and planted, the varieties of seeds germinated, and many unsuccessful plant experiments. He searched constantly for new crops that could adapt to the soil conditions, climate and lack of water at Monticello.
While serving as ambassador to France, he accumulated a vast knowledge of plants from his frequent visits to gardens in Europe. He also received many gifts from diplomats and private citizens who knew he was interested in gathering plants for Monticello and for his new nation.
As a result, Jefferson is credited with introducing a variety of vegetables to America, among them Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli and tomatoes. He became the first American to grow white and purple eggplants, both gifts from an Italian diplomat. He imported pomegranate, almond and olive trees. He brought to the eastern United States the stands of pecan trees that grew in colonial times near the Wabash, Ohio and Mississippi rivers. The harvested nuts were distributed throughout Virginia. At Monticello, various species of figs were cultivated; one variety, the brown fig (Ficus carica), is still grown in many American gardens today.
Fostering Diversity
Committed to the strength of diversity, Jefferson harvested seeds from every strong species of various grasses, acorns of the cork oak, olive plants and innumerable fruits and vegetable seeds. Once harvested, he saved some for Monticello, and the rest were sent to agricultural societies, farmers and botanists. At Monticello, he experimented with 23 varieties of peas and 20 species of lettuce, which were sown every two weeks during the growing season. In total, he had 70 species of vegetables and 250 varieties.
Italian rice, which he smuggled out of Italy, allowed the rice plantations of South Carolina to produce the best rice in the world. He loved the flavors of American apples, pecans, cranberries, squash, pumpkins, Indian corn, cantaloupe, watermelon and sweet potatoes, and he grew them all in his Paris garden from Monticello seeds.
To further expand the nation's variety of cultivated plants, in 1804, Jefferson, with financial help from Congress, sponsored the Lewis and Clark botanical expedition. Its purpose was to discover new plants from across the continent. The seeds received were sent to different nurseries and also sown at Monticello. Three plants found and mentioned in this chapter were Jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus tuberosis), prairie turnip (Psoralea esculenta) and narrow-leaved coneflower (Echinacea angustifolia).