Penelopedia: This & That in Northfield

I'm much more a vegetable gardener than a flower gardener, but here is a bouquet of flowers from my gardens, including:

• a soft pink, huge-headed Raggedy Ann zinnia I grew from seed this season; I love these and will definitely plant them again. The mix of zinnia colors is always lovely, and I find these big, soft, shaggy heads very pleasing
  
• some yellow and orange marigolds my son grew from seed at school and presented me with on Mother's Day, contrasting nicely with blue lobelia
• hot pink yarrow, self-seeded in the lawn
• a multicolored marigold from the Lansings' new nursery store; I had several of these in a pot on my front stoop, but squirrels dug some of them up and they dried out before I realized what had happened
  
• a mix of purple coneflowers and what I assume are oxeye daisies, both of which spread and reseed themselves liberally. Oxeye daisies are actually listed as invasive and sometimes considered a weed, but tall, cheerful flowers that spring back even when mowed every season are okay with me.
  

I have eight or nine tomato plants in my larger garden and three in my container garden (see top left photo for one of these; the rest are from the other garden). The plants in the big garden get quite a bit more sun , probably have better soil quality, and the soil (as is the nature of a garden plot vs. containers) stays a more even temperature and doesn't dry out as quickly. Also, the plants in the pots are a compact container-suitable variety which just doesn't tend to be a large producer. As a result of all of these factors, tomatoes are busting out all over in the larger garden, while it looks as if it will be rather slim pickings from the pots.

I liked this view of one of my zinnias peeping out between encroaching tomato leaves.

The zinnia patch was the site today of a solemn little ceremony. My eight-year-old son discovered to his sorrow this morning that one of his two goldfish had expired and was draped limply over the ornamental hollow log at the bottom of the aquarium. Since we are moving back into the house with the larger garden in just a few weeks, we thought that would be a more suitable burial site, and we hoped that a spot under the flowers would both mark the site nicely for the next few months and perhaps lend some elegance to the end of this small fishy life. Freddi Fish (named for a kids' computer game character) was about four years old -- a large and beautiful goldfish with a lovely wafting tail. We dug a hole in the soft soil, said a few suitable words of appreciation and respect and never-forgetting, and covered her over. I told Henry about how (at least as I've heard it; I don't really know) the Indians would bury a fish head under their corn for fertilizer, and that Freddi's body would enrich the soil of our garden.

Then we went straight to Aquatic Pets to acquire a new little friend for Freddi's bereft younger tankmate, Harry James Potter. Henry picked out a handsome little black goldfish -- I had no idea they came in black -- and soon settled on the most suitable name of Sirius Black. He informed me firmly that he was still sad, but he was at least outwardly decidedly more chipper as we installed Sirius in the tank and welcomed him, or possibly her, to our family.

Container garden, July 18, 2008
Last year's garden in mid-July
Penelopedia was launched one year ago this week with the words "This is my garden" accompanying the image on the right, above. On the left is this year's container garden, doing quite well but -- thanks to our cold spring, later planting, and pleasantly cool June -- noticeably less advanced than last year's at the same time. I've got a nice thick crop of leaf lettuce, rather crowded in its pot. I've got a container pepper that's appreciated our recent warmer weather, as have the several container-size tomatoes. My neighbors picked up some rather slim, leggy pepper plants at a garage sale and have added them to my cluster of pots; only one looks as if it might become sturdy enough to bear any fruit.

In about a month I'll be leaving this duplex, but I'll carefully transport my pots to the deck of my new residence, which is actually my former residence. It's all rather confusing really, as a character on the Goon Show used to say. My other garden, which I've blogged about recently, is there already, just waiting for me to come home again. I'll be starting a new life with a new spouse in a familiar location. Our families will blend, and my two gardens will become one. I'm looking forward to the adventure.

Dave and I walked in the Upper Arb after an early dinner tonight. After yesterday's heat and humidity, today's fresh, cool breezes were exceedingly welcome and kept the mosquitoes to a minimum. It was really more like a September evening than July. We saw a goldfinch atop one evergreen and something else we weren't sure of at the time but now have identified as a bluebird silhouetted atop another. I believe the light purple flower spikes in the photo collage are lead plant (amorpha canescens). The many-lobed leaves are similar to those of crown vetch, of which we also saw plenty and which can be seen in profusion along areas of I-35W in the metro area; they are both members of the pea or bean family, as is lupine, which we saw (see the stalk of pods and the pea-like white flower stalk in two of these photos) near the bench that overlooks the playing fields and Evans Hall. Black raspberries and orange and red honeysuckle berries were also plentiful.

From this...
To this!
Three months after starting some seeds, six weeks after planting them outside, and after surviving four weeks without my camera (which went with my daughter to camp), I'm delighted to present my burgeoning, bordering on jungly, early July garden. The Raggedy Anne Zinnias which were the first seeds to germinate are coming into bloom now - tall, sturdy plants with big, showy blossoms that blend well with the day lilies behind them.
The tomato plants have seemed to grow six inches a week, and suddenly, almost before I realized they had any flowers, they already have fruit growing. A thickly planted salad mix is ready for small leaves to be harvested, a first cucumber is forming, and two pumpkin plants are developing nicely. My beans never came to anything; they succumbed to hungry rabbits, but nothing else has really been touched. My other garden, the one in pots on my patio, is also growing nicely, but it hasn't taken off the way this one has. I planted rather closely, since my space is limited, but I try to train upward anything that has a tendency to climb rather than sprawl if encouraged, like tomatoes and cucumbers. Now is a good time to add some organic fertilizer, while the plants are flowering and setting fruit.

Among the local foods I've purchased at the co-op lately are Silkey Gardens strawberries. (Check the "Local Foods Recently in My Kitchen" sidebar item for others.) They were marked as Minnesota Grown, but I wasn't familiar with the name so I checked out their website and their listing with the state department of agriculture's Minnesota Grown directory. Turns out they are about as local as you can get -- they are right down the road on 115th St., technically still in Northfield, adjacent to Dundas. Their Ag department description reads:
A family owned small fruit farm and orchard offering pick-your-own and pre-picked strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, apples and more.
Their website notes that they are just in their third year of production, and so far strawberries are the main crop, though they will have limited quantities of blueberries and raspberries and hope to expand their offerings of these and the other fruit mentioned above as their plantings mature. Pick-your-own hours are most days 6-11:30 a.m. and 6-8 p.m., but they ask pickers to call for current conditions before coming out (the number is 507-645-4158).

I've eaten my way through my first quart of Silkey Gardens strawberries the last several mornings, and bought another today. I've not had a good track record of eating enough fruit and vegetables -- especially fruit -- in recent months. I'm trying harder (and finding the food tracker at MyPyramid.gov to be a useful tool to help make sure I eat a more balanced diet). Local strawberry season makes it easy to change my ways.

Recipe for a very pleasant breakfast:

• One slice of Just Bread multigrain bread made by Brick Oven for Just Food co-op, spread with...
  
• chunky natural peanut butter (I definitely go for the with-salt kind and the chunkier the better), accompanied by...
  
• 5-10 ripe strawberries, plus...
  
• half a glass of orange juice, and
  
• tea or coffee
  

On another local-foods note, I have been invited to write an article about eating locally for the next issue of ComPost, Just Food's member publication (also, I'm sure, available at the store), which will highlight the annual summer Eat Local challenge. Watch for it in a few weeks.