Shantell PowellI'm wearing my snazzy lobster flip flops to do some gardening. Time to plant some tomatoes. #gardening #lobster #fashion
Mm. Eating them now. Delicious reward for working the land.
Gonna have a bumper crop of parsnip. This planter is tricky to grow most vegetables in. It gets sun in the spring, but the trees overhead shade it too much for most veggies in the summer. After a lot of experimentation, I discovered parsnips are happy here. There is one end of the planter that does get sun, and that's where I'm growing tomatillos this year. #gardening #parsnips
Oh look! Apparently parsnip greens are good to eat. I never knew. https://cookindocs.com/parsnip-tops-recipe/ #parsnip #greens #recipes
HumToTable@Shanmonster Dang! Those are some happy, healthy parsnips.
@HumToTable yes! They've been self-seeding. They're trying to take over my yard.
Youngtounces@Shanmonster love the yard micro climate experience share. I have similar situation with that seasonal sun shift when neighbors trees leaf out, was going to give up the bed, but I’ll give parsnips a try!
@Youngtounces good luck!
👩🦯The Blind Fraggle@Shanmonster I love parsnips! Not many people I know do.
@Fragglemuppet I never liked them until I finally had them cooked a way which appeals to me. I don't like them just boiled to mush. But they're lovely roasted or made into parsnip/pear soup.
@Shanmonster Roasted is good, or in a potroast.
When I first moved here, my backyard was utterly barren. I've been inoculating the soil with mulch, soil from a nearby forest, and litter from my chinchillas. Now it's overrun with wild strawberries, false Solomon's seal, wild violets, and more. I resurrected this earth, and now it's favoured by lots of pollinators. I also have ramps, trillium, mayapples, and stinging nettle back here. There's also a patch of groundnuts (the tuber, not the peanut). Dandelions, goldenrod, beardtongue, sorrel, cleavers, and goji berry grows here, too. #gardening #rewilding
One of my proudest moments was a few years ago when fireflies lit up the backyard. I'd never seen them there before. It's possible to create habitat for native species in small areas. Planting native species instead of lawns, and not using pesticides helps native pollinators. I've seen several species of native bees in my yard since rejuvenating this little patch of earth.
One of the first things I did when I moved to this house was get rid of the front lawn. It is a wild witchy garden now. In a space about 20'x20', I have daylilies, strawberries, loganberries, Saskatoon berry, swamp milkweed, goldenrod, mullein, onions, garlic, fennel, white clover, rhubarb, plantain, gooseberries, echinacea, brown eyed susan, daisies, currants, and more I know that I'm forgetting. It looks completely different from anyone else's yard in the area.
I let the grass grow high, and then I pull it by hand and dry it into hay for my chinchillas.
The shady side of my house has sorrel, raspberries, blackberries, kiwi, and loganberry.
I made a mistake when I moved here and planted lily of the valley. I didn't realize they were invasive. Well, they're pretty and smell nice, at least. I obsessively yank any garlic mustard I see growing in my yard.
Krampus 🌰@Shanmonster my yard has a similar but different mix, have squeezed in a few fruit and nut trees, too. It's nice when the birds and bugs just come and hang out
GaiaCrisisPhilBut garlic mustard is nice
Isn't it?
I like garlic mustard
Don't I?
Oh, I see. It's invasive for you
Native for me
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliaria_petiolata
#JackByTheHedge #garlicMustard #nativePlants #invasivePlants #USA
MostlyTato@philcolbourn @Shanmonster
Looks very lush.
Garlic mustard is pretty invasive here. So are wild strawberries. A lovely plant, but they have taken over where I planted them and I can't get rid of them. Useful for wasteland areas here to out compete weeds.
Looks very lush.
Garlic mustard is pretty invasive here. So are wild strawberries. A lovely plant, but they have taken over where I planted them and I can't get rid of them. Useful for wasteland areas here to out compete weeds.
@philcolbourn yes, it's both lovely to eat and incredibly invasive here.
Ancestry Roads@Shanmonster Love the shoes!
And very interesting to see Canada #Appalachia plants their tomatoes now. I can't wait to see your garden.
@AncestryRoads oh, I'm not in Canadian Appalachia now. That's where I'm from originally. I'm in southwestern Ontario. It has a longer growing season. I do, however, have an Appalachian bean variety that I'll be planting: greasy grits beans. I've never tried those ones before.
@Shanmonster Gotcha! I still would love to see your garden and those Appalachian Beans.
We use that particular bean to make Leather Britches. Umani overload. Yum!
@AncestryRoads the beans are still puny. I've had bad luck planting them directly in the garden, so this year I'm starting them inside. Critters eat the seedlings while they're young and tender.
What is that recipe you mentioned? I'm unfamiliar.
@Shanmonster It was a depression era way of preserving beans for the winter. Extremely time consuming because you have to sew the beans and then hang them and letting them dry out. When it got cold, it flavored soups and stews.
Here is a great video:
Old Appalachian Way of Preserving Green Beans | Leather Britches | Shuck Beans
@AncestryRoads just watched it. Hopefully I'll have a good crop this year and can try it.