Thyme Traveler
Archives
Articles
About Marcia

Traveler in Thyme

Blanco, Texas : Thyme Traveler : May 2007

Too Much or Not Enough
May 2, 2007 06:21

Theoretically, there can never be Too Much beauty or good food in a garden, but try telling that to the 2 zillion and one baby Beauties in fierce competition for the limited deer-proof space in the Veggie Jungle. A time to kill.....also known as thinning the herd or dedicated weeding.

Of course, Theoretically, you can't have too many weeds, they are just the mulch and compost for next season, nor can you have too many caterpillars, for they are next season's butterflies.

I have too many lambs quarters, greedy little devils will take over the world if you don't rigourously discipline them. Ditto all the lovely wildflowers that roam wild all over the place, crowding themselves to death.

My job as gardener is to hack paths thru the jungle and serve up for supper what doesn't go in the compost. Lots of bend overs and squat thrusts for morning workouts. Those stretches for the snow peas can be long!

The spring weather is so fine, I spent the afternoon playing in the shade of the new space we cleared of cedar last winter. Such a lovely breeze under the remaining oaks and black cherry trees, now that all the cedars are not blocking the air. Rampant grapevines and yaupons sprouting up everywhere.

After a brief siesta, I dragged some of the new-cut cedar limbs around to terrace the slopes against erosion. That last big rain really showed where the water flows. There is an amazing pile of gorgeous soil against the east fenceline, now if we can only get some sun back there we could fence out the deer and have a meadow
with a pony and a goat. When I'm 64, I want a pony, one of those little Caspian beauties. Can't have too much beauty.....

Recipe of the Week - Lazy Stew
(serves 4, from garden to table in 20 minutes)

Brown one pound hamburger or tofu in cast iron kettle, add choppedbaby garlic and all the other Weeds & Roots you gathered this fine spring day.

Add one can crushed tomatoes, plus 1/2 cup water, simmer until weeds are tender and sauce is slightly thickened, about 10 minutes, stirring often.

Top with grated cheese.

Serve with a baby lettuce salad and fancy chips or crackers.

To reference this entry please copy the url in this link (Permalink)

Eat Yer Weeds
May 21, 2007 14:06

I love my "wild" garden.

Besides being no-work, the weeds in your yard are probably all of some medicinal value, and it has been my experience in 40 years of weed gardening, that whatever is blooming will just happen to be the cure for whatever is going around. If you get a good herbal and a wildflower book, you can cross-reference the Latin names and learn all sorts of useful information.

My only definition of "weed" is something that either poisons me or makes stickers, or just something that needs thinning, because Nature always plants 10,000 seeds where a dozen would do. The thinnings get eaten, brewed into tea, or composted.

I move my rock walls around depending on what comes up where, so the garden is not well organized along formal plans, but rather flows down the hill in cup shaped sections. You have to go hunting the wily veggies at the height
of summer, when the squash covers the entire lawn and the beans are tall enough to reach the giant's house! Oh, look, is that an onion under there?

You can hardly see the barn from the driveway behind the Elephant Garlic Guardians.....where did they all come from? You'd think it was too dry up there for garlic!

Last year we had Killer Lambs Quarters everywhere, but this is shaping up the be the Year of Oregano..........hope we get lots of tomatoes to go with the weeds (LOL)

It's been 7 years since we started this garden with nothing but rocks and cedar scrub, and 5 years with a deer proof fence, but I'm still building soil and imposing order on chaos.

Slowly, as the soil builds up and we see what grows best where, we have re-designed the slopes and terraces to
catch every bit of water and light possible. It's beginning to look like those pictures of rice paddy terraces on the side of Japanese mountains, though the terraces are all filled with wild grasses and flowers. I am so proud of us!

Moon and Sun Flowers meet briefly at dawn - photo by Traveler in Thyme

This year the verbenas were AMAZING, considering we've had 2 years of drought, and all the perennials that we've started over the years are finally filling in their places, though there is still much thinning of woody tangles to do next winter. We found several black cherry trees, and 50 big post oaks we didn't even know we had.

I do not cut trees and bushes in summer, because birds are nesting. We have counted 42 different species
of birds here, including the endangered golden cheeked warblers that come right down to sit on the fence and talk, which only live in old growth, undisturbed Ashe juniper thickets.

We have a nice "east meadow" shaping up along the lower terrace, along the back fence. All you have to do is
clear the cedars, thin out the live oaks, turn these trees into charcoal, and fence out the deer. Oh, and throw in 10 years hard labour, then you'll have a place that will feed you and provide all your meds for the rest of your life.
Whether it's a wild or formal garden is entirely up to you.

We humans love an orderly landscape, we just can't help ourselves, so that makes a lot of physical labour for gardeners, whether we like it or not.

As the old saying goes: wheelbarrows were invented to teach people to walk on their hind legs.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Recipe of the Week: Pasta with Baby Greens
serves 4

Wash and trim a 1-gallon baggie full of fresh baby greens, snips of herbs, and a green onion or two. Cook 1 pound pasta for 3 minutes less than the instructions direct, drain all but 1 inch of water from the pasta pot, stir in the greens, cover tightly, and reduce heat to very low.

Simmer 1 minute, remove from heat, stir 1/2 cup grated cheese, cover and let stand 5 minutes while you make the garlic toast.

This week's variation from my garden will be: chinese cabbage, brocolli, a sprig of cilantro, and a dash of soy
sauce. And we are still eating lots of sugar snap peas, come over and get some?

To reference this entry please copy the url in this link (Permalink)

April 2007 « » June 2007