Category: Gardening

growing leftovers

whbeebe

We throw away far too much in this country. It’s not enough to sort the garbage into recyclable and non-recyclable. We have to find ways to stop throwing away anything and everything. One small way we’ve started was to try to compost the vegetable matter, which to be honest hasn’t been all that successful. But that’s me learning to do it correctly.

Another way to minimize waste is to find another use for it. For about a year I’ve been taking the parts of the vegetables we eat and attempting to either save the seeds they might have, or in the case of carrots and green onions (amount others), get them to grow again. In the case of six carrot tops where I cut off of the tubers, I put them into a container with a bit of water. All of them have started to sprout green in my very simple starting container (a recycled 30 oz Temptations container). No, those carrots won’t regrow the tuber portion, but the lovely green that’s coming up will leaf out further and, given time, bloom. And if they’re in my backyard garden with all my other flowers then perhaps they’ll help to attract and feed butterflies.

In addition to green sprouting up, the carrot tops are also growing roots around their edges in the water.

One reuse that has worked out just fine are green onions. The hanging pot you see before you has five clumps growing new tops. Every time I have I cook a recipe that calls for fresh green onions I go out with my kitchen sheers and cut off about a dozen, then go in, wash them, then cut them up into small pieces for cooking or garnishing, or a bit of both. And to make it even sweeter (financially) I no longer have to rush to a grocery store and buy a new bunch when I need some. I just step outside my back door.

All of this is leading into my starting a small raised garden in the back this year for other vegetables. I’m looking to raise tomatoes, bell peppers, pole beans, and perhaps small squashes. I don’t know how the coming weather will effect our efforts to grow anything in our garden, flower of vegetable. But I have to try. Our back yard is a very small green space with a huge live oak over everything. I need to keep it all watered. In addition to the butterflies we also have a number of bird feeders for the smaller songbirds in the area. I’m always thrilled to see red cardinals flitting about, as well as a number of butterflies of all sizes and colors. And then there are the flowers blooming.

my (sort of) wild front yard

whbeebe

As my wife and I have grown older, we’ve also grown more concerned with the impact of the technology we use to the local wildlife that tries to live around our home, from insects on up. As a consequence we’re letting the front yard slowly grow more “wild,” which includes no more harsh mowing or the application of fertilizers and pesticides. We’ve given up the unnatural green and trimmed lawn of the middle class. Instead we let the natural plants grow in the front, and we’re slowly putting in more bushes and small trees. In order to keep the grass from growing too high, I now own and use a push lawn mower. It cleanly cuts the grass, is very quiet, doesn’t use fossil fuel or electricity, and provides me another exercise avenue. This slow “re-wilding” leads to some interesting sightings in our front yard.

My wife and I went out Monday morning and discovered this snake skin hanging out of a hole in a sycamore tree growing in our front yard. This is another example of letting things live to support other organisms. I know we have a number of black snakes around the yard. This sycamore used to grow straight and tall and was a classic shape and height. Over the years it’s been growing in our yard it’s lived through a number of hurricanes as well as quite a few major thunderstorms. The top of this tree was taken out a decade ago with a direct lightning strike. Rather than have the sycamore taken down we decided to let it stay. It still leafs up every spring. It’s also become home to a number of birds, one of which appears to have made a nest in the hollow bole in the tree. This is also the start of mating season, so some bird flew up into this bole with this snake skin which had been shed earlier by one of the resident black snakes. I can only surmise that when we came out front that morning we startled whatever bird was trying to incorporate this snake skin into its nest. As a consequence it hung there out of that hole long enough for me to take a few snapshots. The snake skin was gone the next morning, I assume having been pulled up to finally be incorporated into a nest up in that tree bole.

In the past I might have propped a ladder against the trunk and then gone up to peek inside. But now I’ll leave well enough alone. Let whatever is making its home up there do so without my interference. Hopefully if any new life comes to pass up there I’ll see it emerge. Then perhaps I can take some photographs of the event. But if I never see anything, I’m thrilled to have at least seen this happen.