Free Leaf Mulch!

One of the students in the horticulture lab I teach offered to deliver some chopped leaf mulch from his landscaping business. How could I turn that down?

I got four garbage cans full of mixed chopped leaves and grass. Although 4 cans didn't sound like much, it was enough to cover almost my entire garden in a couple inches of the stuff.

Mulch waiting to be distributed to other beds.

Now I have the majority of my garden cleared, weeded, and tucked-in for the winter!

Getting Started in Urban Agriculture

I recently came across some clips for a documentary called Growing Cities: A Film about Urban Farming in America to be released in late 2012. The clip called "Farmer D's Young Farmer Advice" is especially inspirational. If you are trying to find ways to get started in urban agriculture, he gives a long list of great ideas!

If you've got some time, why don't you putter around their website. They even made several stops in Detroit including the Eastern Market, and Earthworks Urban Farm.

Green Heart Daikon Radish

One of the few crops I planted late summer that actually amounted to anything was Green Heart Daikon.   I really like these pickles they serve at my local Korean restaurant. I have convinced myself that they are pickled strips of daikon radish. I thought I'd grow my own and try to replicate the pickle.

I hadn't checked on these things in a long time....and suddenly they're huge!

P.S. I served some of these at a party cut up into sticks and they were a big hit!

Kaleidoscope Carrots

I was finally able to grow some multi-colored carrots to (almost) full size. I think the white one in the front is the first carrot I've ever grown to reach more than 6" long!

I chopped these all up and added them to some soup made with a can of tomato-bisque soup, a can of chicken broth, a can of pinto beans, and some leftover refried beans. Yum!

Garlic Planting Time

Garlic should be planted after the first good frost. I feel like I've been waiting forever for frost this year, but we finally got some close to Halloween.

This year, instead of gambling with grocery store California grown garlic, I was smart and purchased some heads from the farmer's market. I got them for 6 heads for $5. Try to beat that price in a seed catalogue! I bought 3 heads of Spanish Roja and 3 heads of Wolfmoon. I'm excited about growing garlic that is actually supposed to be grown in Michigan. In addition, these two types will produce garlic scapes (which is a nice harvest in unto itself). My California stuff doesn't produce scapes.

I weeded what was my zucchini bed this past summer, added a random bag of manure I had laying around, and forked everything together to get ready for my garlic planting.

The heads of garlic were broken down into individual cloves. In addition to the Wolfmoon and Spanish Roja, I also planted about 10 cloves of the California-origin stuff I grew this summer and 3 cloves of "Bob" (which I got from a professor in my department who got it from his neighbor Bob). In total I had about 75 cloves to plant.

I laid out the cloves in a 4" by 4" grid (I just eye-balled it). Then I used a trowel to cut a slit about 3 to 4" deep and dropped each clove in (stubby root-side down). Then I smoothed over the surface and covered the whole bed in chopped leaf mulch. 

If these behave anything like the garlic I've grown in the last two years, they will start poking shoots out of the ground in a few weeks before winter really hits hard.

P.S. This post was shared on The Homestead Barn Hop.

Chickens Out and About

Over the last few weekends I've been letting a few chickens out of their pen to wander around the yard. At first I only let a couple out, but this past weekend I let all of them out at once. I'm happy to say that everyone was very well behaved and also very easy to return to the chicken run (using food as a bribe, of course).

My city doesn't allow urban chicken keepers to let their chickens free-range, but I doubt I'm going to get in trouble for letting them out for an hour or so.

They had a great time scratching around the garden, eating weeds (and my fall lettuce), and exploring.

Pet Protocol

I've had three of my pets die this year and I've come to the decision that I'm no longer going to get new pets unless they can be used for producing food.

I've purchased a number of small critters over the years (rats, hamsters, parakeets) with dreams of them being loads of fun to interact with. However, when it comes down to it, they are all too small, fragile, and skittish to gain much enjoyment from.

I'm also not interested in getting a dog or cat, which I assume would be more enjoyable and interactive. My family never had a dog or cat, so I have almost zero experience with them. I once babysat my brother's dog Sophie when she was a puppy for a couple weeks. She's cute, but I just didn't "get" the whole "man's best friend" thing. I don't dislike dogs, but the constant pleas for attention didn't seem like much of a friendship situation. I guess I'm just odd that way.

That said, from now on I think I'll stick to animals that can be used for, or produce, food. I've really enjoyed having the chickens. I love watching their antics, they are super low maintenance, and their eggs are delicious.

While I can't fulfill all my livestock dreams at my current home in the city (mostly due to ordinance issues, not lack of space), someday I see myself having dairy goats, meat rabbits, ducks, turkeys, geese, and bees. At the moment, I'm especially excited about the bees. I'm pretty sure they are legal in my city...more on my bee-dreams soon!