pygmy

I never thought I'd end up living here, but I like Tennessee.

Saturday I helped plant something like 1800 trees. Yay trees! I got to ride around in one of these:



Sunday we drove to a farm to pick up some eggs. The land's been in the farmer's family since the civil war. The original landowner left it to his slaves in his will, but the state supreme court wouldn't transfer the title until after the war. His name is Freddy, and he's about the nicest guy you could hope to meet. We had to be careful closing all the gates because his burros like to rub up against the side of his house. There were piglets and goats running around, and turkeys up in trees!

I made shelves for starting seeds:



The basil was the first to pop up



Here are my plans for the garden, complete with water spill from the seed trays

spring-summer


late summer-fall


I'm experimenting with straw-bale gardening this year. This gives you an idea what it'll look like:



In effect, It's a mix between intensive raised-bed gardening and hydroponics, and it'll make the soil much better for next year.

clicky to learn more.

One things those plans don't show is the potato tower on the side of the house. It's a way of growing potatoes vertically, basically, in a small space. I'll post pictures as that progresses. It also doesn't show the herb bed. Rosemary, lavender, oregano, parsley, cilantro, sage, dill, tarragon, mint, three different types of leaf celery (one's called "zwosche krul"... i love that name), thyme, chives, caraway, anise hyssop, chamomile... Sunflowers in the front yard, nasturtiums, nicotania, purple millet, marigolds, calendula...

Some of the more exotic things I'm going to try to grow are cassabanana, and naranjilla.. Also "pineapple" ground cherries. And you can be sure I'm not going to grow regular ol' tomatoes: One type is deep purple, and the other's white. also red noodle beans. One of the melons is described as:" When ripe it reminds one of a large, overgrown banana... It smells like one, having a remarkably powerful and delicious fragrance" and another "...tastes like heavenly orange sherbet," .. Oh, and cucumbers that look like lemons.

non sequitur:
the other day we went to the art supply store, I came back with several packages of googly-eyes. I'm still not exactly sure what I'm going to do with them, but we were brainstorming conceptual art ideas... My favorite idea is to glue them to an epileptic head to toe, turn on a camera, and wait.

It's nice out today. I'm going to sit out on my patio, read mr. palomar and eat stickybuns for lunch.