I admit, I have spent a little too much time lately thinking about what our garden(s) has NOT done for us this year. There have been moments of frustration, bugs galore, long, hot days, and rotten fruit. Despite all we have managed to get a great start on our fall/winter preserves. To date we have put away 45 lbs. of yellow onions, 8 quarts of strawberries, 4 gallons of peaches, 3 gallons of blueberries, 3 gallons of blackberries, 37 heads of lettuce (both european and buttercrunch combined), 13 quarts of bell pepper, 8 quarts of crookneck squash, 2 quarts of zuchini, 5 quarts of green beans, 11 quarts of zipper peas, 2 quarts of butter beans, 10 gallons of sweet corn (purchased from a local farmer), countless fresh herbs which we dried, ground, and put in the cupboard, 7 quarts of dill pickles, and 6 quarts of stewed tomatoes. We have also made 14 quarts of apple butter, 7 quarts of strawberry freezer jam, 1 quart of pesto, 8 quarts of blueberry jam, and 4 gallons of okra ready for frying.

WOW! Just seeing it in writing has gotten me excited. We have already exceeded last years bounty and it is only mid-July. We still have a solid month of beans, peas, potatoes, okra, etc. And that isn’t to mention the fall crops.

We also started a flock of “meat chickens” about 13 weeks ago so they are about ready to process for meat and stock which will go nicely beside our side of grass-fed beef and our portions of locally harvested pork.

None of this comes easy though. We have worked hard; both before planting and during the harvest. Not to mention the hours of peeling, chopping, stirring, and processing. It isn’t easy at all but it sure is rewarding.

My one hope though is that everyone who reads this post is experiencing their own wonderful bounty -  be it one tomato plant or 500 acres of soybean.

For flowers that bloom about our feet;
For tender grass, so fresh, so sweet;
For song of bird, and hum of bee;
For all things fair we hear or see,
Father in heaven, we thank Thee!
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Corn needs nitrogen rich soil with a neutral pH to grow. Corn is wind pollinated and does best planted in blocks rather than in rows (despite traditional methods). Corn needs a fair amount of water and does best when watered by natural, nitrogen-rich, rain.

The corn we planted this year (for the first time mind you) was planted in poorly composted and fed soil; not to mention tight, crisp, clay soil. It was planted in long rows; two varieties – North Carolina sweet and common field corn. Our corn received only 9 total days of rain since planted on April 10 and 11. The rest of the water came from sprinklers set for an hour every 3 days.

The result was less than we had hoped for.

Today I realized that several of our stalks were completely ready to be stripped; tassles were browning and cobs were rounded rather than pointed. The only problem was many of the cobs were a bit soft and showed signs of Earworms and Armyworms. I had mixed reactions for sure. I was pleased that we had, in fact, grown corn – tall stalks even. But I was not pleased that so much of our corn was useless. It was bittersweet.

After about 35 minutes or so of picking I brought the basket of husks up to Pan and presented her with the cobs of our labor; full of pride, full of appreciation, and somewhat full of apologies. I had promised her earlier in the season that this year we wouldn’t have to supplement our freezer with purchased corn from other local farmers. I told her we would have our own corn!

Without an adverse word she shucked them, cleaned them, and prepared them for dinner. As I sat down to eat I was presented – lovingly, mind you – with some of the ugliest corn I had ever laid my eyes on. Kernels were missing. Kernels were small. Kernels were swollen. And I haven’t even begun to talk about the taste…or should I say lack thereof. If it weren’t for butter my saying grace would have sounded as such: “Lord, thank you for allowing us to grow this corn and for it filling an empty spot in our stomachs. But Lord, could you place upon it a miracle; one that involves taste…please? Amen.”

So what I have I learned from all this? I have learned that field corn is best reserved for livestock and not cross-pollination experiments. I have learned that anyone can plant a seed but only a farmer with heart can patiently prepare the soil to cultivate a solid result. And I learned that my wife loves me and my Goonie corn!

The other week I received a blog post request from my friend, fellow ‘gonzo gardener,’ and blogger Kevin Gilkes. The request went something like this, “Hey Drew. Do you think you could write up a piece on composting? Home-made barrel vs. store bought vs. in-ground. Looking forward to the post. Thanks for all your tips buddy!”

I was honored. Sure I write for a few publications like GRIT, Farmers Almanac, and Small Town Living, but those all pale in comparison when a personal friend asks for advice. You can’t hide from folks that know you should you give poor advice. So after weeks of thinking and debating with myself which form of compost I prefer I went back to Kevin and simply said:

I have gone over this and over this in my mind Kevin and even started writing some things out. But what I keep coming back to is how many variables are in composting. In regards to “home made” you have hot, cold, with worm, w/o worm, kitchen scraps, yard debris, manure or not, etc. In regards to store bought you have high pH, low pH, nutrient enhanced, natural and organic, GM, etc. It is a tough question and I think the answer really is a case by case thing. For me it depending on if I was planting in a large area or a small, raised bed scenario. In the case of the former I went with home-made compost that consisted of yard debris, kitchen scraps, and chicken poo. In the raised beds I preferred Black Kow from the feed ‘n seed store as it was cheaper and easier. For our herb beds we just collect kitchen scraps in a can inside and then work it into the topsoil about once every month.

I then asked Kevin what his thoughts were and as luck would have it, it was he who offered me the advice. He responded,

“I’m wanting to compare the effectiveness of a barrel over direct burial over a simple heap. I direct bury which makes for less maintenance on my part. I do this to work on next years growing soil with very little work. However, the decomp. process is much slower and the goodness isn’t as readily available.

There is a lot of hub-bub surrounding compost boxes and barrels. Both of which require a few muscles to be used along with a few shots of water weekly. It’s almost like tending to a dead garden. However, the goodness is ready in just a few short weeks……as long as the scientific portion is tended to. This is where most folks tend to walk away and go back to the Miracles and the Peters for the juice.

I try to do what “they” did back in the yonder years with as little new day “theys” impressing upon a system that works flawlessly. The barrels and boxes are fun and neat to build but require a good amount of attention. This is indicative of humans altering Mother Natures Natural ways. When we do, we call it “science.” When we don’t………well…..we don’t. Bury it. It’s better for the scape and doesn’t emit gasses like Methane. I think composting is the best way. And others ways of getting the result will vary.
Worms are definitely a great way to go. Vermiculture – another scientific term – is great for the environment yet still require a good amount of attention from the gardener. However, if you have a good amount of worms in your soil then Direct Bury works good.

No matter what we do, at the end of the day we have tended to the earth in the best possible ways we have adopted for ourselves. Even the man-made fertilizer users. Nothing, by the way, is man-made. It all comes from the ground….even my compost.”

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You can follow Kevin and his wife Nadine at scissorsanddrumsticks.com

I have been staring at this empty block for almost a half hour now. My only company the sound of the overhead fan in my 5th wheel office. I don’t like to write depressing things. I don’t like to add too much of the world’s reality into my own life or writing. But today I can’t seem to help it.

I turn to food for comfort. These past two months I have gained probably 10-12 pounds. What could I possibly be stressed about? Beyond the transition of a new job, a growing homestead, Pan and I trying to start a family, and the influx of media I am forced to swallow each day, I guess nothing. But each day I wake up I down a cup of coffee and a little pick-me-up (usually fruit or a bowl of mueslix) and flip on the news. I am not specific in which channel or news team. Delivery is delivery no matter how much Splenda you might put in it. BP. Wall Street. A failing presidential office. War. Sex Trafficking. Terrorism. Obesity. Obsession. It is all a bit much over what should be “the best part of waking up.” After about 15 minutes though I cut it off and join the sun as it rises into the sky.

My first stop is at the herb boxes. I love to smell them and wonder just what recipe they will end up ‘completing’ or how Pan will dry them for tea or shaker spices. I then ramble on towards the corn. We try to water it every other day and when I say water I mean for a few hours. Because of the position of the field it gets pummeled with afternoon sun and needs every drop of liquid it can get. It is usually at this point that I can’t help but checking on the chickens. I can hear them so they are pretty hard to ignore. And now with the new chicks…well, who doesn’t want to see new chicks fumble around and play what looks like a game of poultry rugby?

And then it is on to the main garden. I can’t step into it without being washed over by its miracle. At the risk of sounding emotionally drippy, this garden is so much more to me than probably to most. It represents new life in its most raw form. It is my church. It is where I was baptized a second time, changing from the consumptive person I thought I deserved to be in life to the humbled man I am now. I typically reach down and poke my finger in the dirt. Most mornings it is moist with dew; a reminder that each day is a new one and everyone deserves to be cleaned and refreshed. And then? Well then I park it. I sit on a bench made of old granite curbing that we recycled from a downtown renovation project. I star at the plants thinking about how Pan and I have poured hours into it hoping for a harvest that will last us well into fall and early winter. I think about how we tithe the first of the harvest and give thanks to God for what he has blessed us with on Odom’s Idle Acres. I think about how a tiny seed turns into a huge plant that bears food. Think about that for a moment.

What starts out as a seed….well, perhaps Robert Schuller (yes, the televangelist….so sue me) said it best, “Anyone can count the seeds in an apple, but only God can count the number of apples in a seed.” How amazing is that. And as I stare at that garden – what it once was, what it is now, and what it will be in a month – I find my hunger being satiated. No, I am not talking about a twinkie I hid amongst the okra but rather a satisfying bite of relief; freedom from the very stressed that one hour ago gripped me tight like a boa constrictor on his prey. And it is at that moment that the world makes sense again. It began in a garden. A garden shall sustain us. And if I have my druthers, it will all end in a garden.

Fox and his Friends can say what they want but when the world gets extra hairy and Uncle Sam reaches out his hand one last time, I am headed to the garden. And there I will find new life, new hope, and a new understanding of what we are here for.

I don’t think it is prideful to say that Pan and I have cultivated some fine soil. In fact, our mixture of pure Georgia red clay (a light sand element) with rich, black, dirt from the county yard waste “dump,” produces an amazing bit of earth that if allowed to sit for a few seasons can bring fresh life and new beauty to even the most bitter of rag weed. But last season we had only a modest harvest of green peppers and tomatoes. Don’t get me wrong. The bushes were beautiful and healthy. They were big and full. But their produce was minimal. So this year I decided to try a product I had seen on GardenFork TV last year.

For right at $10 we picked up a liquid quart of Miracle-Gro Organic Choice All-Purpose Plant Food Concentrate to disperse on our main garden produce – tomato, pepper(s), squash, and cuke.

Immediately I realized this container must be seriously concentrated as it required only 1/2 cap for 2 gallons of water. So adding the 1/2 cap into a watering can filled with water from our rain collection barrel, I felt pretty confident that this might be the answer for us.

Now granted we only put on the first application this past weekend I am anticipating some great results. According to a friend who used such product last year, “It gave a bit of plumpness to my plants and I felt a bit more confident about using it because of the organic labeling.”

I’m pretty excited to see what it does and how it works. I have read a few things about it being dangerous for dogs due to a small fish pulp element but we don’t have dogs so I am not too concerned. I am wondering though,

Have you used this product? How did it do for your plants? Would you use it again?

Tonight we had a wonderful meal. Steak sourced to my sister’s farm in Honey Creak, Iowa. Potatoes grown right here in Georgia. And a large, beautiful, salad harvested right here at Odom’s Idle Acres. As I stared at my bowl (roughly 10 seconds before I dug in) I remembered (in paraphrase, of course) a quote by Hayakawa, U.S. Senator and prolific member of the Bohemian Club.

Ever since man began to till the soil and learned not to eat the seed grain but to plant it and wait for the harvest, the postponement of gratification has been the basis of a higher standard of living and civilization.
–S. I. Hayakawa

Here’s to a higher standard for us all!

Pan and I have been so proud of our raised onion bed this year. We planted just at 90 white onions (from the bulb) to start our gardening season off. They were the first to go into the ground and have amazed us at their growth.

• 2 weeks old here
• 6 weeks old here

But this past week a strange occurrence took place. We noticed that 7 or 8 of them began to form a bit of a blossom on top. Now we’ve heard of bloomin’ onions but this was not cool.

Come to find out, it can be a common occurrence albeit an undesirable fact about onions. It seems the flowering of onions can be caused by several things but most often from temperature fluctuation. An onion is classed as a biennial which means it normally takes 2 years to go from seed to seed. Temperature is the controlling or triggering factor in this process. If an onion plant is exposed to alternating cold and warm temperatures resulting in the onion plant going dormant, resuming growth, going dormant and then resuming growth again, the onion bulbs prematurely flower or bolt. The onion is deceived into believing it has completed two growth cycles or years of growth in its biennial life cycle so it finalizes the cycle by blooming. Flowering can be controlled by planting the right variety at the right time.

We didn’t remember reading THAT on the bulb bag label.

But since we already had a few flower stalks appear we decided to dig up the plant (even though we knew it would have little if any bulb size) so they would still be edible and even tasty. We then decided to cut off the tips and use them for faux “spring onions” or what some call scallions and then let the bulb cure for a week or so like any other onion. We DON’T believe in waste around here.

And then it got me thinking. (It’s a Sunday…all I really had to do was ponder) Aren’t we a bit like onions? I mean, we are all so quick to grow, working hard to please those waiting on us. But sometimes the circumstances in our life change so rapidly we are left confused. Many of us go on to bloom in spite and turn out quite pretty. But because we were so quick to flower much of our sophisticated taste and “largeness,” if you will, have been lost. Preservation is but a mere memory. We are forced to make the best out of what is left knowing that there is little to look forward to. It’s amazing what God has for us just by watching the plants.