Nature and Gardening

Hey people! I'm located in western Slovakia (Central Europe) and would like to start a wildflower meadow sometime during the end of March or even the start of April. It is going to replace the lawn in the middle of our plot. It is in a sunny place and no chemicals have been used for ~3 years, although the ground is not super ideal for it (not nutrient-poor). My question is: will the seeds be able to germinate if I just go over the space with a verticutter? Should I try to remove the lawn fully (i. e. using a hoe)? Cover it with cardboard to let the lawn die? I have read the excellent Wild Your Garden book by The Butterfly Brothers, and they recommend rotovating. But that seems like a lot of work. What was your experience or what species would be suitable? I'm all ears!

[Image description: A picture of plants being hand watered with a caption that reads I make them planties wet. Mark this NSFWSP - Not safe for water sensitive plants

I just need to add one more layer of good soil, fix the last few stones, and it'll be ready for some lovely herbs. Any tips or feedback welcome!

[Image description: a photo of Lacinato kale seedlings germinating together in a pot]

I have more space to start plants this year, but it's still very worth it for us to conserve space where we can. To that end, we're starting several species in a "mob grow" style with many many seedlings in each pot rather than individual smaller cell trays. Once they're of a size for transplanting we'll be able to tease them all apart either for planting in the gardens or repotting for sales or donation.

h/t to Bobby over at Small Scale Permaculture (yt link) for convincing me to try this out with more species.

We live in a Northern Climate so we are just getting started in the unheated high tunnel for our first plant of the spring season. We use all no till methods and no motorized equipment aside from a quad and a truck to help us move heavy stuff in our gardens.

Since we load the pathways with lots of straw for mulch they make compost just from use. We also drop a lot of healthy plant trimmings and smaller weeds onto the straw. This helps them dry out in the sun and eventually compost down as well adding nutrients back to our soil. Every couple of years we broadfork the entire thing and shovel up the compost from between the rows to help feed the plants. This works so well we often have to remove soil from inside the greenhouse because it makes too much.

Another good use for your bigger and well rooted "weeds" is to use them in a Korean natural farming way and add them to water to slowly decompose and release their nutrients. These weeds all grow well in whatever type of soil you have, meaning they can extract nutrients easily.from that soil. Exactly what you are aiming to do with your garden plants. Therefore they have high nutrient content you can use that otherwise may be unavailable to your plants. They compost quickly when placed in water and leave behind all the nutrients they have used to grow from your soil. Strain out the solids for your compost pile and use the liquid as a fertilizer. Be careful to avoid invasive species and plants in seed.

Gardening has become a huge part of our lives. We love it. We provide a lot of our own veg for the entire year. Even though winter shuts us down from growing for 5 months or so.

It's been pretty warm the past few days, so patches of gardens and the lawn are finally starting to emerge from the snow. That said, it's still a little cool outside for anything but plants that require cold stratification so we've set up some folding tables in one of the sunnier rooms to get the more sensitive plants started.

It's bittersweet, starting so many plants in the open - our cat Maeko, who passed away last year, was an unapologetic seedling murderer so while I love getting to start more plants it's kind of reopened the wound. I'll probably end up killing a few seedlings in her name.

The other new wrinkle to our early season work is Juniper, our six month old who is very interested in everything I'm doing, so we're involving her with skills-appropriate tasks.

What's growing on with you all?

After many weeks of low key worry, the state finally got back to us and confirmed that we're licensed to sell plants for another year! This time around there are additional compliance agreements (and fees) that are required but I'm very hopeful about this season. Next step is getting accepted to some new markets we're looking to attend, maybe a festival or two. Now I just need to have the weather play nice so I can be on time for spring shipping and inspections.

Someone gave us a setup for doing puree storage for our almost six month old, so we're looking to add more veggies to the plots for making our own baby food - I would love some suggestions for some veg with interesting colors for her to experience. I've got a carrot medley waiting for the snow to melt, and some awesome purple potatoes, but would love some more ideas!

What's growing on with you all?

This is the entrance to the "wild" part of our garden. I'm lucky to have access to woodland close by that the council haven't maintained, so there were lots of branches from past storms this winter. The plan is to grow honeysuckle either side and hope it covers most of it, providing food and shelter along with the hedgerow I've planted on the left behind the ladder. The pond I posted earlier last year is made out of an old water tank someone was throwing out.

About a year ago I rescued a native Earina autimnalis orchid that had fallen on to the road. I placed it on a tree with some sphagnum moss behind and watered it occasionally.

I was worried it wasn't happy, but then new shoots started growing, and before I knew it, flower spikes emerged!

A conservation friend of mine, who has cared for native orchids, said she's never seen them flower in captivity. So I wasn't expecting much from the spikes.

Then today when I checked how the orchid was doing, It was flowering with some of the most beautiful flowers I have ever seen :).

Here's my current record for most ferns growing on top of each other!

A tree fern called a ponga (Alsophila tricolor) forms the base, growing on this tree ferns trunk is a hen and chicken fern (Asplenium bulbiferum).

Hen and chicken ferns grows little bulbils (baby ferns) on its fronds, when the bulbils are old enouph, they drop off to become a new hen and chicken fern.

These bulbils make up the final layer of ferns of my fern stack, making it a magnificent 3 layers of fern.

Dendrobium cunninghamii, in Puketi Forest, New Zealand. In full bloom :). Its indigenous Maori name is Winika and a Maori canoe (Waka) is named after it

"In the fork of the tree grew a type of orchid known as ‘te winika’ which blooms with masses of white and green star-shaped flowers, evoking the huia feathers worn by high ranking rangatira (chiefs). This led to the auspicious name being given to the waka taua, that served Maaori royalty for many purposes, from transport to ceremonial duties."

-50 years of majestic waka at Waikato Museum Source

Image by me

I found this while walking through the Bush it was on the track with its exuviae right next to it. They are bloody deafening at this time of year but I still love to see them. Unfortunately I couldn't get any photos with the eyes properly in focus (as well as the exuviae) and my dog was desperate to carry on walking so this is the best I got.

Edit: spelling

The movement to restore Black agricultural heritage has boomed alongside urban agricultural (UA) research, as Black communities in urban areas become litmus tests and basecamps for UA projects. This is often due to a combination of the higher rates of food apartheid and environmental racism experienced by Black communities and the ways that community green spaces have become creative resistance efforts. Efforts to reclaim Black land are also efforts to reclaim Black belonging and expertise in tackling agricultural issues. While there are now many stories across the mediasphere focused on the empowerment, agency, and resistance of Black communities fighting inadequate urban food systems, Black Americans’ cultural roots in agriculture descended from the South and did not vanish as part of the Great Migration. It is common for Black American descendents from the South to have seen their elders garden with whatever space they had, which is why collard greens and tomatoes are still commonly grown in Los Angeles backyards.

On its own, Turtle Island can feed 85 families consistently over 12 months. Those 85 families average one adult with 2.5 children, which, by his metrics, comes out to about 250 to 300 people who rely on food from the farm each year. Once the greenhouse is up and running, his yield should be threefold.

A partnership between Turtle Island and Serenity Urban Wellness allowed Serenity Urban Wellness to apply for grants to purchase meat and other food. They’ve also become authorized Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) retailers, but for the most part, the food they offer is free, and they’ve never asked the community they serve for donations.

This past Tuesday I took our daughter to help organize the seed library, and she was floored by the opportunity to pull apart the seeds from a giant sunflower (she's 4.5 months old). We swapped and categorized a bunch of plants, from annual flowers to veggies and native perennials. I took home some loofah seeds and won't lie - I'm pretty excited to grow them this year.

We're getting snow today so I've been continuing to split and store seeds for our own purposes, with an extra envelope of each to bring to the library. There's a grow tent in the garage that's probably going to be the overflow space for some of our hardier indoor plants so I can devote the grow closet in our hallway to seedlings and starts in the next week.

What's growing on with you all?

We have a bunch of these ceramic pots which often come as gifts when people give us plants.

No drainage holes. What use are they? They’re so small I think only succulents would be an option, but wouldn’t they just rot in water?

A nice day for a hike to around the craters and to the top. Snow shoes required!

Looking out over (from left to right) Bifröst (town), Hreðavatn (lake), Grábrókarfell (crater), Hraunsnefsöxl (mountain peak). The mountain range in the background has been seeing increased seismic activity over the last couple of months.

We moved into this house about a year ago. I've been making an effort to have a mix of wild and cottage vibes for the garden, as this was our first winter I've been able to get some decent designing down. Last year was a bit of a panic as we didn't know how the sun would lay and with moving in, our planting was done really late. But this year is the year I establish hedges as even though we're in a wood no one has anything in their front gardens and not much in the rear including mine.

I put a pond in last summer after liberating a water tank out of a skip which lives in the wild part of the garden. So the plan is for the native hedging to run the length of the garden, with intermittent decorative ones like the sweet briar for the parts closer to the house.

The front of the garden is going to be the nepeta as it'll be easy to control it from spilling onto the path. It also allows people to see the front garden while giving us a bit more of an established boundary that grass alone doesn't really do.

Are there any tips or suggestions for anything I might be missing?

Now independently run, the MnSeed Project continues to create a free, locally adapted native seed economy through collecting, saving and preserving seeds. The group are so passionate about this that all the seeds they collect are given away for free at workshops they host and events they attend, such as seed swaps.

For Tchida, seed saving is a natural outcropping of her lifelong exploration of finding ways to support the environment. “This is such an obvious and easy way,” she says. “The connection you make intrinsically with the plants throughout their whole growth process is so much fun.”

Are you planning big changes, or minor tweaks to a working system? Are there new-to-you plants you're excited to try your hand at? Let's share our dreams and goals and inspire each other!

Stepping on @LallyLuckFarm's toes because I like these posts

It's been a frigid and gusty week here in New England, I needed two pairs of gloves for my bike ride to work yesterday! Just a couple of kale plants hanging on in my garden outside, but inside my potted camellia sinensis recently flowered for the first time! I'm currently battling a spider mite infestation and it did not enjoy lack of watering while I was away for Thanksgiving, but hopefully it'll bounce back in the spring.

What's growing on for you all? I hope all you southern hemisphere folks are enjoying the peak of the season!