Three Sisters Garden - Part I

On the weekend, I was talking gardening with my daughter and daughter-in-law.  I told them about a long Three Sisters Garden that Jollity Farm had planted.  A Three Sisters Garden is a native indian creation.  It combines corn, beans and squash in a harmonious companion planting.  The corn is planted first and when it's about 4" tall, the climbing beans and squash are planted.  Corn provides the framework for beans to grow on and the beans provide strength to keep the corn from being blown over.  Beans add nitrogen to the soil which corn needs.  Squash covers the ground, crowding out weeds, keeping in moisture and repelling marauding raccoons with its prickly vines.  Similarly, corn and beans together are almost a perfect food.  This garden can continue in the same place for many, many years without crop rotation, maintaining its fertility with the happy blend of plants and their products composted and put back on the soil.

This got me thinking.  I'd grown corn and beans together many years ago when I was just getting started gardening. The experiment wasn't particularly successful but I think in light of some of the things I've learned about gardening and soil health over the years, I'm ready to try it again.

This kind of garden needs some room and the kind of raised bed gardening I've been doing doesn't quite fit.  I do, however, have the oldest section of my garden which has two wood framed 4x6 raised beds that are nearing their end as the wood is finally rotting.  If I take them over, I can turn this whole area into my Three Sisters Garden.  Eventually, I'll remove the wood from the beds and face the area with rocks, but for now, I'll just make do.

Before

Here's the "Before" picture.  There are still leeks growing in one bed and for the time being I'll leave them be.  This is February, after all, and I won't need the bed for a few months yet.  In the meantime, I can tidy up!

After tidy-up

Now the beds are dug over (except for the leeks).  The tires in between the beds are filled with soil and were used to grow cherry tomatoes in.  I'll take them away and fill in the area between the beds with soil as well.  This weekend, I have a yard of SeaSoil coming and some of this will be generously added to the beds.

For more information on Three Sisters Gardening, check out the Renee's Garden website, which explains it clearly, offering plans and seeds.

All that's left for this post is to show the latest signs of spring!

Salome Narcissus

Purple Hellebore planted in the forested area of our property

Seeds Are Up!

This morning was beautiful and sunny - the kind of morning that you draws you outside.  And there were certainly no end of things that needed doing! First up, check the seedlings in the potting shed.

Seedlings - some potted up and others waiting to be planted outside

All my seedlings are currently in the potting shed.  A few days ago, I potted up some of the lettuce and mescalun seedlings.  Everything is doing fine.  Even the seedlings left in the original pots aren't wilted at all.  If you do it early enough, nothing suffers.  The extras will be potted up as well and go to my daughter and daughter-in-law.

Pots of carrot seeds

Then I filled some 4" pots with soil, wetted them down and carefully placed 9 seeds in each pot.  I learned this way of growing carrots at a workshop last year and it turned out so well, I'm definitely going to continue to grow carrots this way.  In my garden wood bugs eat the carrot seedlings as soon as they come out of the ground.  By seeding in pots and then planting the whole pot outside once the seeds have germinated and gotten a bit of growth, they survive the wood bugs.  I planted 3 varieties today - Bolero, Scarlet Nantes and Mokum, a new Imperator variety. It's a bit fiddly seeding this way, but there's no thinning later on and you can pull up the whole bunch for dinner.  I will be doing more carrot pots, of course.

We also created a new bed in our deer-proof fenced area so we can transplant a much-loved rose.  Abraham Darby is a truly wonderful David Austin rose.  The big, beautiful flowers are strongly scented and the plant itself was a parting gift from fellow staff members when I moved locations.

Abraham Darby Rose

We stripped away the sod from the target area below the pond where we will be able to see the rose from the house.  My husband dug a pit about 2' deep and we built up around the new bed with rocks - of which we have an abundance on our Gulf Island property!  I filled the hole with a mixture of garden soil and compost and then the rest of the bed was completed with sieved soil from the digging mixed with more garden soil.  Another day we'll move the rose.

After a few more chores - planting radishes in the garden and putting compost on a vegetable bed which I'd spaded over, there was time to check for more spring signs.

Fordhook Swiss Chard planted last year is sending up new growth

King Edward Flowering Currant buds bursting open - Rufous Hummingbirds will soon be here!

Coral Bark Maple branches flaming in the spring sunshine

Aconite, Snowdrop - and Chicken!

I was out in the garden this morning (February 10th) picking parsley for my latest favorite recipe (to follow!) and couldn't help noticing the signs of spring popping up everywhere.  The earliest in my garden are always winter aconites and snowdrops.  I don't count the viburnum which blooms all winter long!

Galanthus nivalis - the common snowdrop

My favorite snowdrops are the little Galanthus nivalis - the common snowdrop.  There are showier ones, but none in my estimation can beat plain, old common snowdrops.  The best way to get them established in your garden, I've discovered, is to get a friend to give you a clump when they're in bloom.  I've tried many times to get them to grow from bulb without much success.

Eranthis - winter aconite

Another favorite spring flower is the winter aconite.  Like the snowdrop, it's usually in bloom in February.  In my garden, it pushes up through the dead foliage of a Japanese iris (I'm not called The Messy Gardener for nothing!)  The flowers in the picture aren't open because there's no sun today, but the hint of warmth will make them burst into full glory.

A third sign of spring is that the buds on my King Edward flowering currant are starting to open.  These are even earlier than the native currants and always bring the Rufous Hummingbirds.  This year, I won't know if I'm seeing Rufous or Anna's Hummingbirds as the females look so alike.  Today I saw my first male Anna's.  He's unmistakable with his scarlet head, very unlike the Rufous male.

But today I went out to pick parsley.  The flat Italian parsley grows all year long in my garden, so off I went to get some for Chicken with Gremolata Crust.  I count it as a recipe from my garden because it contains the parsley and garlic that I grow.  And it's absolutely delicious!

Chicken with Gremolata Crust

4 whole chicken legs with thigh attached (or any chicken pieces)
2/3 cup breadcrumbs
1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
3 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley
2 tsp finely grated lemon zest
1 to 2 large garlic cloves minced
1/2 tsp paprika
pinch cayenne pepper
2 Tbsp mayonnaise
1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
salt & freshly ground pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.  Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.

Combine the breadcrumbs, cheese, parsley, lemon zest, garlic, paprika and cayenne in a wide, shallow dish.

Combine the mayonnaise and mustard in a bowl large enough to hold the chicken.  Add the chicken and toss to coat. (I usually just smear the mayonnaise/mustard on with my hands!)

Then coat in breadcrumb mixture.  Season with salt and pepper.  Bake 50 minutes or until cooked through.

Tonight I'm serving this with rice cooked in chicken broth and cole slaw with chunks of apple and grated carrot.  Yum!

Kale, Gai Lan, Onions

It's now early February and today I planted more seeds.  It's such a lovely day, sunny and a warm February 10 degrees C, that I just couldn't resist.

The Copra Onions and Apache Scallions went out the the potting shed as they're now well up.  Their place has been taken by more Copra Onions and Bandit Leeks as well as Lacinato and a winter blend of kale.  Lettuce and mescalun seedings are also under lights in the house.

Lacinato Kale

And it might be early, but I also put in 2 short rows of Green Pearl Gai Lan, which is a Chinese broccoli.  My husband is a broccoli-hater, but likes gai lan.

Green Pearl Gai Lan

In the next couple of weeks I'll be starting my tomato seeds indoors.  To that end, I have some well-watered dry seeding mix tied up in a plastic bag.

This year, I plan on planting a lot more members of the brassica family.  I didn't have nearly enough kale to satisfy the needs of our household and the family.  Hopefully the extra plants will do the job.  In addition to seeding now, I'll also seed the winter blend kale in mid-summer for winter production.

I know this seems awfully early and I do tend to jump the gun a bit, but winters on the west coast seem to be getting milder.  I'm not worried about starting plants too early.  Cool-hardy seedlings that are in the potting shed are under plastic domes.  Tomatoes need heat to germinate, but once they're up, they can take the cool and will be similarly protected.

The buds on the King Edward Currant are swelling and a viburnum has been in bloom all winter.  Any day now, the Rufous Hummingbirds will be arriving.  They'll join the 2 female Anna's Hummingbirds who have been visiting our feeder all winter long.  It truly feels as if spring is not far away!

It's Planting Time!

Just before Christmas my seed order from West Coast Seeds arrived.  There's nothing like the arrival of a seed order to get a gardener's juices going.  However, Christmas - and winter - do have precedence.

Seeds!

Today, January 26th, I just couldn't wait any longer, so I decided to give onions and leeks a try in my little unheated potting shed.  After moving a Gartenmeister Fuchsia which I'm trying to coax through the winter and sweeping off the counter, I filled 3 round pots with a seeding soil, wetted them down thoroughly and scattered seeds on the top, covering them with a bit more soil.  I only planted about a third of the seeds just in case it's pushing the season too much.  Onions and leeks are hardy seedlings, though, so they should be just fine.  They're in a plastic tray and covered with a clear plastic dome to give them a little protection.

The First Seeding of 2013

I'm growing Bandit Leeks and Copra Onions which are mainstays in my garden.  This year I'm also trying Apache Scallions.

A word about my potting shed.  My husband made it for me using a lot of found materials.  The studs came from our own trees and the glass panels on 2 walls and on the south-facing side of the roof all came from old sliding glass doors.  I have slatted counters under each wall panel which provide lots of room for starting seedlings.  Starting seedlings and storing my gardening equipment is all it's used for.  Oh, and it provides a shelf outside for mason bee homes.  In the picture below, you can see them under the peak of the roof.  And no, your eyes aren't deceiving you - the roof is much longer on the south-facing side than the north one.  There's a vigorous rosemary bush growing at the base and on the south side is the beginning of the lined dry-stone creek which takes runoff from the shed roof to the pond.

My Handy, Indespensibile Potting Shed

At this time of the year, there's not much growing in the garden.  Most plants have been pulled out and put on the compost pile.  However, I still have Bandit Leeks which keep right through the winter.  And several plants of Fordhook Swiss Chard still provide a meal every now and then.

Bandit Leeks - the last of the 2012 planting

Spiced Cranberry Relish!

8 days until Christmas - and just to remind us about that, we woke up to a light dusting of snow this morning.  It's now early afternoon, the sun is streaming in the windows and the snow has all melted.  Not so on Vancouver Island which got considerably more than we did in the Gulf Islands.  But we have been warned!

Rose Hips - not cranberries!

There's not much to do in the garden right now - especially since I have my blinkers on so that I can't see all the things that should be tidied up!  The leeks and chard will sit happily in their beds waiting out the winter cold ready to be snapped up for dinner.  The garlic is poking up through its mulch and several beds have been cleaned out and prepared for spring.  And today I dispatched my seed order!  Spring's not that far away after all!

But today it's time to make cranberry sauce.  I have a very simple recipe I've used for years that makes a spicy, relishy sauce that goes very well with turkey.  It's simmering away right now scenting up the house with promises of meals to come.

Ingredients assembled - action!

Spiced Cranberries

2 lb fresh cranberries
1 1/3 cups vinegar
2/3 cup water
4 cups sugar
4 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp cloves

In a large dutch oven combine cranberries, vinegar, water, sugar and spices.  Bring to a boil and simmer uncovered for 20 minutes.

Continue simmering while quickly filling the hot sterilized jars to within 1/8" from the top.

Seal the jars at once.  Process in boiling water bath for 5 minutes.  Makes 4 pints.  I put it up in jars sized from a pint (for Christmas) to tiny half-cup jars for the two of us to use through the year.

Fall in the Garden

Now that Thanksgiving is done with, there's time for a little work in the garden.  Fall colours are arriving thick and fast due to the warm, dry weather we've been experiencing.  This year has exploded the record books and the Forestry Service says there's nothing left to measure the dryness in the woods. Rain is expected in a couple of days which will definitely be an event to give thanks for!  In the meantime, we'll enjoy the brilliance of Autumn.

Japanese Maple and Robinia behind the pond show off their Autumn couture

The snow pea fence experiment is proving to be a success and I'll definitely be repeating it next growing season.  The vines are scrambling up the zig zag fence which remains sturdily in place.  We've already had a couple of pickings with many more to come.

Snow peas ready for picking

The one zucchini plant is still holding its own and popping out a few babies for future stir fries.

Pick me!  Pick me!

I can't believe that it's almost mid-October and the tomatoes are still producing.  The dehydrator is running again, drying Principe Borghese tomato quarters to tuck away for winter consumption.  Stella's Altai is finally showing promise, although it's too late to have enough tomatoes to make salsa.  The mystery grape tomatoes grown from self-seeded plants are incredibly productive, although the skins are tough.  Gives you a clue why commercial growers like these tomatoes - they obviously travel well!

My tough-skinned experiment.  Pretty, though!

This year I grew Bergamot.  It's supposed to be an ingredient for making Earl Grey Tea.  More reading is required to figure this out, though.  Do I use the flower petals?  The leaves?  Research!

Bergamot flowers