Sprouting Up in Your Garden September 21, 2009

Uggh, heat waves.....I expect they will become a "normal" part of our weather, but that doesn't mean I have to like them! Lol....We have replanted our early fall/late summer plants in the greenhouse in hopes that they will survive better this second time around. So far so good, and we are watching them like hawks! We have sprouts of Chinese cabbage, arugula, mustard greens, and all kinds of beans (and a rhyme!). We are going with the theory that we are going to be able to maintain more moisture in the pots by keeping them in the greenhouse, despite the heat, rather than remove them and have more wind moving across them, drying them out. Again, so far so good....

We have begun the first step in moving our gardens. My kids and I made a scale map of our backyard and house, and then made paper cut-outs to represent current and future greenhouses and the kids' 15 ft. diameter pool (that will go up again next spring so we better leave room for it, or I will never hear the end of it!). After the heat passes, we will begin to mark off sections for the new garden, and work on ripping out the old one. My oldest son and I are filming a short video on how and why we did the scale map and putting it up on our blog later this week.

Also, I am discovering the concept of permaculture and love its holistic approach. There is so much to the overall concept that I am trying to choose a few main ideas to start with and apply them to our new garden area. I find it so fascinating that I thought I would share some of what I have learned in this week's newsletter.

Permaculture is a fairly recently coined phrase, going back into the 1970s. It is a combination of the the words "permanent" and "agriculture", indicating that a culture must have a sustainable method of agriculture in order to survive. We have gotten far away from that method these days (don't get me wrong, global economy is a good thing). However, it seems people are beginning to look around themselves and really reconsider what counts as sustainable.

It is, at its core, aimed at using naturally occurring patterns to form systems that use energy only from within the systems. This is the ideal. The reality is that in most cases, it will need minimal input from outside the system. So where does this system start? Your home is considered the base, or Zone Zero, the place from which everything else radiates out. The next zone, Zone One, would include the things that you would access the most often, daily even. For instance, Zone One might include an herb garden, a vegetable garden, small fruit trees, compost area, clothesline, small animals, a workshop and/or a greenhouse, maybe even a small pond or water feature. Not all of these would need to be included, but this list gives you an idea of what you might do. Zone Two would contain those areas that you still access regularly, but not as often; this zone could contain things like the larger fruit trees, chickens or other poultry, or maybe even a cow or goat if you have the property size for this. Zones 3-5 get progressively farther away, needing less and less maintenance, eventually becoming "wild" systems.

Most of us in urban and suburban areas are going stay within Zones One and Two. These zones are not of any required size but more a delineation

you choose regarding your property. At our house, we have figured Zone One to be the area on the north side of our house, as this side has the doors we go through the most often; plus, the sliding door looks out over that area from the kitchen, so it would be the most ideal place for us to install the herb and vegetable gardens. I am hoping that this will remind us to maintain it as we will be looking at it every day, rather than having it around the corner were we tend to forget about it until the weekend. We are thinking of moving the current greenhouse around to this same side, leaving room for another greenhouse that we plan to install in February. But the size and shapes of the garden and the greenhouses will be the great deciding factor, and the greenhouses may be relegated to Zone Two after all.

For us, Zone Two will include the areas around the east and south sides of the house. As far as fruit trees, ours are already planted and well established so we will not move them. Any new trees will have to be carefully considered, but basically at this point we are out of room for any more trees (my husband cringed every time I went to Lowe's or Green Thumb in the fall for a few years, as I would come home with some tree he would need to dig a deep hole for! lol...poor guy). So instead, we will turn one part of that zone into the grassy area it seems to want to be. However, the grapes, asparagus and herbal hedge sections will remain as they are already established, even though these are normally placed in Zone One. Also Zone Two will contain the kids' pool in the summer, so we will make a "patio" area that will be the base for the pool while it is up and some place we can use when it is not up. I am not yet sure if we will move the composting area to Zone One (that one is still under great debate...lol). The farthest and most unseen place in our Zone Two is on the south side of the house. It is currently unused, a weed patch, and sometimes a wood pile. We are hoping in the future to turn it into an area for chickens.

Our house is sitting on only 1/4 acre, so you can see how you can pack quite a lot in this way. You can expand or shrink these ideas according to what you already have. Even with these larger zones in mind, there are ways to structure each zone that that will assist in insect control, water conservation, and energy conservation. But I will save those issues for next time, as they deserve their own newsletter.

Roasted Red Pepper Soup

Time: 30 minutes. Roasting the peppers makes this soup sweet, smoky, and irresistible.

Yield

Serves 4 (serving size: 1 1/2 cups)

Ingredients

3 large (1 1/2 lbs.) red bell peppers
3 medium thin-skinned potatoes, peeled and chopped
1 large onion, chopped
About 3 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil, divided
4 cups vegetable or chicken broth
1 teaspoon kosher salt

Preparation

1. Put peppers on a baking pan and broil 3 in. from heat, turning as needed until all sides are charred, 10 to 12 minutes. Cool; remove stems, seeds, and skin. Coarsely chop peppers.

2. In a large saucepan over medium-high heat, cook onion in 2 tbsp. oil, stirring, until lightly browned, 6 to 8 minutes. Add potatoes, peppers, broth, and salt. Cover and bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer until potatoes are tender when pierced, 10 to 15 minutes.

3. In a blender, purée soup in batches, holding lid down with a towel. Pour back into saucepan and thin to desired consistency with more broth if you like; reheat until hot. Drizzle each serving with a scant 1 tsp. oil.

Sunset, OCTOBER 2009

I will be starting to update articles on our website and our blog, as well as the list of plant varieties we have, as we go here. Make sure to check back and see what's new! Also we added a Recommended Links page, so check it out as well!

If there are any questions or subjects you would like us to cover, please email us at amity@sproutinguporganically.com and then look for them in future newsletters!