Shirts To Dye For

Posted on May 13, 2014 by Dave @ HappyAcres

Let me begin by saying I am no slave to fashion. I’m a casual dresser, and my wardrobe mostly consists of t-shirts, jeans and shorts. Make that lots of t-shirts, since they are my favorite kind of shirt. I’ve got them in all different colors, short sleeves and long, but lately I have been stocking up on plain white t-shirts. And why is that, you might ask?

snow-dyed t-shirt

snow-dyed t-shirt

Let me explain by saying that I’m married to a talented and artistic woman whose current passion is dyeing. You name it, and she has dyed it. If there’s a technique, she has probably tried it. She has taught classes, and had her work displayed in exhibits. But lately she has taken on a new “patron” – me!

me outside Coffee Shack

me outside Coffee Shack

The first shirt she made for me was snow-dyed. She dyed the shirt during one of our snows we had back last December. You can read about how she did it here. I took it with me on vacation earlier this year, and wore it on several occasions. One day was when we had lunch at the Coffee Shack near Captain Cook, HI. My wife took a couple of photos of me wearing it that day.

closeup shot of me and my snow-dyed shirt

closeup shot of me and my snow-dyed shirt

The next t-shirt she dyed for me was ice-dyed. Blue is pretty much my favorite color, and I love this shirt!

icedyedtshirt

Lately Lynda has been experimenting with primary colors. One of my original requests was to have a shirt with rainbow colors, and one of her recent dying sessions produced the effect I was looking for. So I commissioned her to make me another shirt.

rainbow colors t-shirt

rainbow colors t-shirt

I love this shirt too! It’s going to be hard to decide which one I like best. Actually, I don’t have to decide, because I love them all. And there will be more to come, including some with surface embellishments, stamping, and so on. I’m not even limited to my own imagination, because hers is way more creative than mine. I hope you’ve enjoyed a look at what I am wearing these days, thanks to the work of my super-creative and artistic wife.

 

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Obsessed With Lawns, Or Not

Posted on May 10, 2014 by Dave @ HappyAcres

Many Americans have a love affair with their lawns. That’s not news, of course. It’s been true for as long as I can remember. My father spread lime and fertilizer every year in an effort to get the ‘perfect’ lawn, and I can recall him trying (in vain) to get rid of dandelions in the lawn by digging them up. He even had a special forked weeder for that very purpose he kept hanging in the garage. Apparently I was obsessed too when I was younger, if the below photo is any indication. Thank goodness I grew out of it!

me and my first mower

me and my first mower

I guess we can blame it on our first president, George Washington. His house in Mt. Vernon has an impressive expanse of grassy lawn out front. So does the White House in Washington, D.C. In 1943, FDR and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt planted a Victory Garden on the White House grounds, and our current First Lady planted a vegetable garden on the south lawn, but so far no one has made the iconic front lawn go away. It’s an American institution, some say, and a necessity for the formal look of the grounds.

front lawn at George Washington’s house, Mount Vernon (from Wikimedia Commons)

front lawn at George Washington’s house, Mount Vernon (from Wikimedia Commons)

I’m not a big fan of lawns, and neither is my wife. To me, a lawn is a boring monoculture that requires too much maintenance and offers little in return. As soon as we moved into Happy Acres, we started making ours go away. We put up a greenhouse, planted a vegetable garden and all different kinds of fruits, and created other gardens for flowers and herbs. Slowly we have made our lawn disappear, while at the same time adding some biodiversity. We love it that way, and so do the birds, bees and butterflies. We’ve still got more lawn than I would like, but there is probably half what there was when we bought the place. That’s a big step in the right direction as far as I am concerned.

shade garden with hostas, Toad Lily, Astilbe and Bleeding Heart

shade garden with hostas, Toad Lily, Astilbe and Bleeding Heart

Several years ago my wife and I traveled to Italy. Europeans don’t seem to share the American obsession with lawns. Most houses in Italy had small front yards with little grass planted. But almost every house with any kind of land had a garden planted. I could tell that even while riding on the tour bus. The vegetable gardens were easy to spot, with the dark greens of Cavolo nero (Lacinato kale), the lighter colors of salad greens, and the spiky leaves of artichokes. Out in the country, the more spacious homes were likely to have olive trees or grape vines planted out front. It was hard to get photos from a bus zipping down the road, but the images are indelibly etched in my mind.

Lacinato kale (aka Cavolo nero)

Lacinato kale (aka Cavolo nero) in the vegetable garden

What lawn we do have here is not exactly a monoculture. We have lots of dandelions, dead nettle, henbit and my favorite, white clover. It’s a favorite for honeybees too, so I do nothing to encourage the grass or discourage the other plants, especially the clover. We also don’t spray any toxic chemicals out there. I know the wildlife appreciates it, and for that matter, so do my wife and I.

honeybee on white clover

honeybee on white clover

Speaking of bees, ours are due to arrive next week. I am really looking forward to having them buzzing around Happy Acres again. The clover is just now starting to bloom, so they are right on time to enjoy it!

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Clean or Dirty?

Posted on May 7, 2014 by Dave @ HappyAcres

The latest list of ‘dirty’ and ‘clean’ vegetables is out, compiled by the Environmental Working Group. At the top of the dirty list are apples, strawberries, grapes and celery. The fruits make sense, especially strawberries. If you’ve ever grown them yourself, you know they are highly perishable. To get them to market, conventional growers spray them with a cocktail of insecticides and fungicides. Yum, just what I want to eat…NOT!

To come up with the list, scientists tested 48 popular fruits and vegetables for pesticide residues. It’s not all bad news though. Avocados, sweet corn and pineapples are some of the cleanest fruits and veggies on the list. Knowing what’s likely to be full of chemicals can help consumers make wiser choices about when to choose organic. And for gardeners, it can help in the decision of what to grow.

Growing your own food is a great way to know exactly what chemicals have been used on them, if any. I’m happy to be having some of our organically grown, never sprayed blueberries for breakfast this morning. They are from our 2013 crop, carefully harvested and frozen for our later use.

frozen blueberries from last year

frozen blueberries from last year

You can read the entire article here at Rodale News.

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Monday Recap: May Harvest Time

Posted on May 5, 2014 by Dave @ HappyAcres

I have to admit, I am happy to see April behind us. If April showers truly bring May flowers, then we ought to be up to our ears in flowers this May, because we got a whopping 12.73 inches of rain in April here at Happy Acres. While folks in California are dealing with historic drought conditions, the weather pattern here in the eastern and southern U.S. has been wet and soggy lately to say the least. With all that moisture the shade garden is especially lovely right about now, with azaleas and brunnera blooming and the ferns and hostas emerging with lush new growth.

Brunnera macrophyla

Brunnera macrophyla ‘Jack Frost’

Of course, April showers also make the asparagus grow, especially when the weather warms up a bit. My wife is in charge of asparagus, and she has been harvesting it almost daily. The spears can grow several inches between morning and evening, so she sometimes checks it more than once every day. It’s been coming on faster than we can eat it, and we have already frozen some.

asparagus on the grill

asparagus on the grill

One of my favorite ways to cook it is to grill it. Sometimes we eat it that way as a side dish, and sometimes it makes its way onto a pizza. Grilling really brings out the flavor of asparagus, and other vegetables too for that matter. We’ve been enjoying lettuce as well. I cut some Simpson lettuce that we made into a wilted lettuce salad. We enjoyed Radichetta and Red Sails in other salads.

wilted lettuce salad

wilted lettuce salad

Spinach is still growing strong too. Most of the over-wintered plants have bolted, but the ones planted in spring are just now ready for harvest. I’ve been freezing a lot of it too for later use. It has wound up in salads, pizza and frittatas.

fresh spinach for a salad

fresh spinach for a salad

I cut some of the Asian greens last week for a stir fry. There’s mizuna, Yukina Savoy and komatsuna in the below photo. I’ve got more plants growing for succession planting. Spring planted kale is almost ready to start harvesting.

harvest of mizuna, Yukina Savoy and komatsuna

harvest of mizuna, Yukina Savoy and komatsuna

The potatoes I planted a little over three weeks ago are finally coming up. The weeds have come up even faster! I need to do some weeding in the bed before they take over. All that rain has compacted the soil too. You can see cracks where the potatoes have broken through.

potato foliage emerging from soil

potato foliage emerging from soil

It’s about time to set out cucumber plants in the greenhouse bed. I’m growing my usual favorites, Tasty Jade and Manny, plus trying Corinto this year. Last year the greenhouse cukes kept on producing well into summer. Hopefully it won’t get too hot too quick as things can also burn up in there in summer. That happened in 2012 and the cukes did not do well under those conditions.

Manny cucumber seedlings ready for planting

Manny cucumber seedlings ready for planting

The greenhouse shelves are loaded with plants right about now. Hopefully I will be planting some tomatoes this week, which will make a few of them disappear. I believe the soil will be dry enough by them.

plants on greenhouse shelf

plants on greenhouse shelf

Chives are getting ready to bloom. It looks like I will be making chive blossom vinegar soon. It’s always nice to have this seasonal treat.

chive blossoms ready to open

chive blossoms ready to open

I hope you have enjoyed seeing a few things going on here in early May. I’ll be back soon with more happenings from HA!

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Saturday Spotlight: Radichetta Lettuce

Posted on May 3, 2014 by Dave @ HappyAcres

I have to say I love growing lettuce. It is quick to mature, and not too fussy about growing conditions, though it does prefer cooler temperatures. And there is such a diversity in sizes, colors, shapes and textures, that there is surely a lettuce to please everyone. In fact, lettuce is such an attractive plant that it could easily be grown for looks alone. Radichetta is one of my personal favorite varieties that I’ve been growing now for several years and today I want to share a little information about it.

Radichetta lettuce

Radichetta lettuce

Radichetta is an heirloom Italian loose leaf lettuce. It is often described as being a ‘rustic country’ lettuce, though I am not sure exactly what that means. Is it perhaps considered less refined than its city cousin lettuces? I do not know! What I do know is that it has deeply toothed leaves with crunchy ribs and a mild, delicate flavor. It is also reasonably cold-tolerant and slow to bolt to flower in spring. The plants are upright in growth habit, which makes them great for intensive plantings. Mine generally grow to about a foot tall, though some catalog listings have them growing even taller. Of course they can be harvested at a smaller size for a baby lettuce, and the individual leaves can be harvested at any time.

Radichetta growing

Radichetta growing

In some catalogs (including Fedco) it is listed as “Della Catalogna Radichetta Lettuce”, or even just “Catalogna Lettuce” in others. I do not speak Italian, but a quick look in an online dictionary tells me that ‘della catalogna” translates to “Catalonian”, or “coming from Catalonia”. Since Catalonia is a region in Spain, that would imply that Radichetta is an Italian heirloom lettuce that comes from Spain. If anyone can shed more light on its origins I would be interested in hearing about it.

head of Radichetta lettuce

head of Radichetta lettuce

Regardless of its heritage, Radichetta is a dependable performer here for me. The leaves are much like Oakleaf lettuce in form and texture, though it is larger and more upright growing. Seed is widely available, and in the past I have gotten seeds from both Fedco and Seeds from Italy.

leaves of Radichetta lettuce

leaves of Radichetta lettuce

I hope you’ve enjoyed this Saturday Spotlight on a tasty and somewhat unusual lettuce, and I’ll be back soon with another variety. Until then, as always, Happy Growing from Happy Acres!

To see my other Saturday Spotlights, visit the Variety Spotlights page.

 

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